#mainly because i am pissed off at season 3 so i decided to write this instead

[purrvaire]

summary:

“Are you alright?”

Luke blinks hard - he’s not gonna cry in front of a stranger, he’s not - and looks up. His seatmate is staring at him. Vaguely, Luke recognizes him from the queue at the gate. He takes a deep breath. “Not so much, but for the purpose of this conversation, I will be.”

Which, in retrospect, didn’t make him sound like a sane person, but what the hell. His day can’t get any worse. His voice comes out higher than he expects and wobbles dangerously at the end of the sentence.

The man, bless him, looks momentarily puzzled but, instead of backing off and finding himself virtually whatever seat is affordable, he just shrugs, as if saying fair enough. He sits next to him and, after a moment of deliberation, offers him a tissue.

“I won’t judge, promise”, he says quietly, as if he’s talking to a spooked animal.

Luke holds the tissue between his fingers like a precious relic and, promptly, bursts into tears.

.

.

in which luke and din get dumped on the same weekend, meet on the plane and life is not a rom-com until it really, really is

[michaels-blackhat]

thoughts on evil Forrest 😈

We are going to start out by apologizing. This is very very late. I’m sure when you sent this ask, you meant it to be in the same joking tone that I approach all of my other propaganda posts. Sadly, this is actually going to be a deep dive into a few Evil Forrest related things, including the moment I feel they changed directions, the perfect wasted build-up, and the implications of the change/how it then negatively impacted the story. As I’m sure you already know, by being on my blog at all, I don’t think the story was good to begin with, so we are going to focus on the weird hoops they made themselves jump through to make that story still work. Additionally, I am only going to mention once, right now, how much of a waste it was to not have Forrest ‘fall for his mark’ and complete one of my absolute favorite tropes. Honestly, I think “because I want it” is a completely valid reason to like Evil Forrest. But, the question was “Thoughts on Evil Forrest” and these thoughts have been developing for over a year and a half. So, I apologize in advance.

The majority of this is under a cut, with highlights in the abstract. If no one wants to read this, I understand completely. Go ahead, skip it.

Note: it pains me greatly to not actually have full sources for this essay. Just know that in my heart I am using proper APA citations, I just absolutely do not feel like digging through tweets to find sources to properly cite.

Abstract:

Previous research indicates that Roswell New Mexico has a history of repeating excuses to explain mid-season changes to plots. This essay explores how those excuses are not only loads of crap, but how they hinder the show’s ability to tell a coherent story, misuse the multiple-plot structure to enhance the themes being explored, and lead to decisions that mean the show continuously goes over budget. This also means that characters are not used to their full potential and has led to what some fans consider to be “out of character” behaviors. While these behaviors are not universally agreed on, evidence can be shown that these behaviors directly contradict emotionally important character arc/plot points in the show.

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitment because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

The concept of Evil Forrest has been with the fandom as early as New York Comic Con (NYCC) in 2019, when it was revealed that Alex had a new “blue-haired love interest”. Speculation abounded within the fandom, with some people, including the author, going “yeah, he’s evil” while others rejoiced in the concept of Alex having a loving partner. Speculation increased as fans discussed Tyler Blackburn’s seeming disinterest in his new love interest, prompting some once again to scream “EVIL” at the top of their lungs to anyone who would listen. Very little was revealed, beyond the fact that the new character would show up somewhere around episode 3 of the second season.

Episode 2.04 aired with some commenting on how he barely interacted with Alex- prompting more evil speculation- and others excited to see the characters interact more. The character appears again in 2.06, where he invites Alex to dubious spoken word poetry (which Alex attends); 2.08, where they have a paintball date and go to The Wild Pony; 2.10, where the two are seen writing together briefly at the beginning of the episode; and 2.13, where Alex performs his song at open mic night, tells Forrest his relationship with the person in the song was long over, and they kiss. Forrest was not revealed to be evil during season 2.

Amidst the season airing, Word of God via Twitter post announced that yes, Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, though not the main villain, but it was changed as filming progressed.

The Word of God Twitter post revealed that Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, but they decided that they could not make their “blue-haired gay man” a villain. This mirrors a similar situation and excuse used the previous season, where the character of Jenna Cameron was originally planned to work with Jesse Manes against the aliens, before it was changed because they just “loved Riley [the actress] too much”. Both of these examples occurred while already filming and reflect on a larger problem with the show. Though not the topic of this essay, it is important to note that both characters are white, both in the show and by virtue of being played by white actors. The fact that they couldn’t be villains for one reason or another is not a courtesy extended to the male villains who are all the most visibly brown, and thus ‘other’, members of the cast.

This also highlights the fact that, via Twitter, it has been revealed two other times that occurrences that were reported in season 1 also occurred in season 2. During the airing of episode 1.02, it was revealed that the single best build-up of tension in the show- when Alex walks to the Airstream not saying a word to Michael after a dramatic declaration- happened because one actor was sick at the time and they had to go back and film the kisses later. At the point of airing for episode 2.08, it was revealed that one of the actors were sick and unable to film a kissing scene. Allegedly, this caused the writers to retool the entire scene and deviate from the plan to make that subplot about Coming Out. The execution of this subplot will be explored later in this essay.

The last occurrence revealed via Twitter also revealed larger issues within the show: lack of planning and poor budgeting. During the airing of season 1, Tyler Blackburn was needed for an extra episode beyond his contracted 10. A full explanation was never given, but speculation about poor planning and to fill in because Heather Hemmens had to miss one of her 10 episodes due to scheduling conflicts for another project. During the airing of season 2, yet another tweet came out saying they made a mistake and Tyler would once again be in an additional episode. No explanations beyond “a mistake” were given, though once again speculation occurred. It is the opinion of the author that this was due to changing plot points over halfway through writing, while episodes were already in production. It has been speculated by some that these changes occurred during the writing of 2.08, which was being finished/pre-production was occurring roughly around the time of NYCC 2019.

Previous Literature:

A brief look at different theories of plots and subplots

Many people have written on the subject of plotting, for novels and screen alike. The author is more familiar with film writing than tv, but a lot of the concepts carry over. Largely, the B- and C- (and D- and E-… etc) plots should reinforce the theme of the A-plot. This can be through the use of a negative example, where the antithesis of the theme is explored to reinforce the theme presented by the A plot, or through other examples of the theme, generally on a small scale.

A movie example of this would be Hidden Figures (2016), where the A-plot explores how race and gender impact the main character (Katherine Johnson) in her new job. The B-plots explore the other characters navigating the same concepts in different settings and ways- learning a new skill as to not become obsolete and breaking boundaries there (Dorothy Vaugn) and being the first black woman to complete a specific degree program and the fight it took to get there (Mary Jackson). A TV example that utilizes this concept of plot and theme is the 911 shows. Each of the rescues in a given episode will directly relate to the overall theme of the episode and the overall plot for the focus character. This example is extremely blunt. It does not use any tools to hide the connection, to the point you can often guess the outcome for that A-plot fairly quickly.

This is not the only way to explore themes within visual media. Moonlight (2016) looks at three timestamps in the life of Chiron. Each timestamp has a plot even if they feel more like individual scenes or moments rather than plots as some are more used to in films. Each time stamp deals with rejection, isolation, connection, and acceptance in different ways. So while there is no clear A-, B-, or C-Plot, each time stamp works as their own A-Plot to explore the themes in a variety of ways, particularly by starting out in a place of rejection and moving to acceptance or a place of connection to isolation.

Please note that there are many ways to write multiple plots, there are just two examples.

While there are flaws within season 1 of RNM, overall the themes stayed consistent throughout the season, mainly the theme of alienation. The theme threads through the Alien’s isolation/alienation from humanity which is particularly seen through Michael’s unwillingness to participate and Isobel’s over participation. There is Rosa’s isolation from others, how her friendship with “Isobel” ended up compounding her existing alienation from her support system due to her mental illness and coping mechanisms. We see how Max and Liz couldn’t make connections. This theme presented itself over and over in season 1. While this essay is not an exploration of the breakdown of themes in season 2, it should be noted that there were some threads that followed throughout the season. The theme of mothers/motherhood was woven throughout season 2, with some elements more effective than others. Please contact the author for additional thoughts on Helena Ortecho and revenge plots.

One of the largest problems within season 2 was the sheer number of plots jammed into the season. These plot threads often ended up hindering the effectiveness of the themes and made the coherence of the season suffer. Additionally, a lot of them were convoluted and difficult to follow.

Thesis:

Essentially, season 2 was a mess. To look at it holistically is almost an exercise in futility. Either you grow angry about the dropped plots and premises, you hand wave them off, or you fill them in for yourself. Instead, this essay proposes to look at individual elements to explain why Forrest should have stayed evil.

We first meet Forrest in 2.04 when he is introduced on the Long Family Farm, which we later learn was the location where our past alien protagonists had their final standoff. He’s introduced. He’s largely just there. The audience learns he has more of a history with Michael. In 2.06, we meet him again with his dog Buffy (note: poor Buffy has not been seen again and we miss a chunky queen). There’s mild flirting, Alex is invited to an open mic night, which he attends. For the purpose of this essay, the author’s thoughts on the poetry will not be expressed. Readers can take a guess.

It is after this point that the author speculates the Decision was made. This choice to make Forrest not evil- paired with the aforementioned ‘can’t kiss, someone’s sick’- impacted the plot. We have Alex have a scene with his father- which the author believes could have been pushed to a different episode- and then have Alex go on a date and then not kiss Forrest at the end of the night. Here, the audience sees Forrest hit Alex in the leg, allegedly not knowing he had lost his leg despite ‘looking him up’, which parallels the shot to the leg that happens to Charlie. Besides wasting this ABSOLUTELY TEXTBOOK SET UP WTF, it also takes Alex away from the main plot and then forces a new plot for him. Up to this point, Alex’s plot was discovering more about the crash and his family’s involvement. Turning Alex’s date from a setup for evil Forrest to a Coming Out story adds yet another plot thread to a packed season. It is also the author’s thought that this is where the convoluted kidnapping plot comes in. With Forrest already in 2.10 for a moment, a plot where Alex is evil has Forrest attack him for Deep Sky rather than Jesse abduct him for a piece of alien glass Alex was going to give him anyway and then for Flint to abduct Alex from Jesse. It’s messy. In a bad way. Evil Forrest would have been a cleaner set up: no taking back a piece of alien glass Alex gave to Michael in a touching moment. No double abduction. Instead, there is only Forrest, who Alex trusts, breaking that trust to take him as leverage over Michael.

Implications:

Now, Alex has two plots (Tripp & Coming Out). The Coming Out plot is largely ineffective, as they are only relevant to scenes with Forrest and have the undercurrent of there only being a certain acceptable way to be out. This could have been used for Alex to discover his comfort levels, mirroring Isobel’s self discovery, but there was not enough screen time for that. Additionally, Isobel’s coming out story was about her allowing herself the freedom to explore. Alex’s story was about the freedom to… act like this dude wanted him to. Alex’s internalized homophobia played out often in the series but it was also informed by the violence he experienced at Jesse’s hands and the literal hate crime he and his high school boyfriend experienced. With that in mind, the “kissing to piss off bigots” line comes off poorly. This is a character who experienced what a pissed off bigot could do- reluctance to kiss in public is not the same as not being out. There is more to be said on this topic, but as it is not actually the focus of the essay, it will be put on hold. To surmise: Alex’s coming out is attempted to be framed as being himself, but it is actually the conformity to someone else’s ideals. It does not work as an antithetical to Isobel’s story, as the framing indicates that the conformity/right was to be out contradicts Isobel’s theme.

Further Research:

MAKE FORREST EVIL YOU COWARDS

Author Acknowledgements:

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitement because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

[sillycheysblog]

Originally this was a rant post about Legacies but I decided to just make it a super long post about my problems with Legacies which includes the writers and their writing choices, the fandom, the plots, and the characters. 

Fair Warning: There may be somethings in here that you disagree with and somethings that you don’t like. If you disagree or don’t like what I have to say that’s okay. It’s your opinion and I respect your opinion. Here’s what your not going to do, is reply with hate because you don’t agree with what I have to say. Like mentioned, it’s my opinions. Also, I am writing this from my perspective. 

Like mentioned at the very beginning of this post, this is a super long post so if you want to read what I have to say then stay tuned, if not it’s okay just keep scrolling. 

Now let’s get started!

I’m going to start with the writers, but before I start, I just want to say that I am super grateful for having his show and thankful that it got renewed for a 4th season because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. I also love the entire cast so much with the exception of Matt Davis. I am thankful for the work that the directors, producers, writers, actors, actresses, etc. put into this show but there are somethings that the writers do that really piss me off. One of the things that the writers do that pisses me off is putting in unnecessary lines. This correlates with the fan service. There wasn’t much of this in season 1, but there is some in season 2  where I am like “Did that really have to be written in there?”  and there is a recent line in 3x03 that is obviously written in there for a certain group of fans. In season 2, the line from 2x06 when Hope said “I had a crush on Josie for a week when we were 12” was unnecessary.  Like I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I am writing this from my perspective so I’m not trying to be disrespectful or biased, I’m proving my point. This line was completely out of nowhere in my opinion. We know Hope has so many other secrets. You’re telling me that this was the 2nd to 3rd thing to come to mind? The line was obviously written into the script for the Hosie stans. In addition, the line from 2x16 about the “nonconsensual kiss” was unnecessary. They knew that the next episode was going to have the same concept as 2x16. 3x01 was technically 2x17 meaning the Handon “true love kiss” was right after 2x16. If they wanted the Handon “true love kiss” they should of never put the “nonconsensual kiss” line in there because the Hosie stans would be pissed. They only put it in there to please the Hosie stans and that’s it. Now I wrote a whole post about this line, so I’m not going to spend to much time on it but if you want to read it, it’s right here. In season 3, the line from 3x03 when Josie says “You gave up on Hope twice” was so unnecessary. (1) Landon never gave up on Hope and (2) he never gave up on their relationship. So why was this line in there? It doesn’t make sense. Here’s what I’m thinking, it was only written in there for the fans that hate Landon because they knew that they would eat that up. There is no other logical explanation. If you think that Landon walking away from situations is giving up on her then your weird because that's not giving up on someone. That’s Landon walking away from situations because he doesn't know how to react to them so he walks away to have time to himself and think about how to react which isn’t surprising knowing the way he grew up. Now moving onto the writers baiting the fans. There are so many things that Julie Plec and the writers, mainly Julie Plec, has said that never ended up happening. For example, Julie Plec saying that Maya and Ethan were Hope’s love interest. Maya shows zero interest in Hope romatically. Ethan showed interest but Hope showed him no time of day because all she wanted was Landon. She also said that Hope and the twins would be in a love triangle. This for sure never happened. I don’t understand why so many people think that the writers are going to change. I stopped putting my trust in the writers a long long time ago. I especially stop putting my trust in Julie Plec after everything she did on TVD and TO. They queerbait the Hosie stans just so that they keep tuning in. Once they saw people shipping Hosie, they started adding in Hope and Josie scenes that gave them a glimmer of hope that it would happen. Julie Plec says and I quote, “I give people a glimmer of hope and then I crush them.”  I’m not understanding why people still believe a word that comes from out of her mouth. This relates with my next problem, the way the writers keep writing off love interest for Josie. I understand why Penelope was written off because Lulu had other priorities but Jade, really? They said that Jade would be around for a while and she literally was here for 1 episode. They didn’t even explore their relationship. I really liked Josie and Jade and I wanted to see more of them, but they just wrote Jade off. Don’t get me started on them writing Raf and so many other people of color off. I did make a post about how they did Raf wrong so if you want to read it, it’s here. 

My next problem with the show is the plot and the monster of the week thing. Now don’t get me wrong, I do like the monster of the week to a certain extent. I think the monster of the week made so much sense in season 1, but made no sense in season 2 and here’s why. Firstly, there was monsters who came from Malivore who’s master was Malivore but then you had monsters who came from Malivore who had different masters such as the Sphrinx. The Sphrinx only showed up to tell the school about a prophecy. He did not want Landon at all. In fact, he told Raf to take Landon far away from the school. Then there was monsters who came from Malivore who’s master was the Necromancer such as the monster from 2x10 that feed on insecurities. That monster was at the school only for  the dark magic that the Necromancer wanted. It just made no sense at all. In addition, the plot was all over the place. The first half of the season was good especially the built up of dark Josie, but after episode 4 it was a big question mark. For example, Landon knowing that he was seeing Hope every time he died, but wanted to have sex with Josie the next episode? The way it was written was like “huh?” The first half of the season was about everyone not remembering Hope. But what was the second half of the season about? Dark Josie? Dark Josie was literally there for like 1 or 2 episodes. The plot didn’t add up. Another example, the whole message in 2x16′s episode made zero sense. The message was about Josie “being strong and being able to pick your own story” but then they have Josie put her magic in a coin? I’m leaving it here because I can go on and on about the inconsistency in this show. I can’t really talk about season 3 yet because we are still on season 2 episodes. And that’s probably why people think its feels weird because it’s technically season 2 episodes and season 2′s plot just made absolutely no sense.

My next problem is that there are so many things brought up in the show that are never talked about ever again. For example, Landon drowning himself all summer long. He was killing himself all summer! He even said it started out with him killing himself just to kill himself until he realized that he was seeing Hope. The writers just glided of that like it was nothing. Did he ever tell anyone other than Raf and Josie? Did he even tell Hope? I have so many questions. Also what about Josie and Raf? They showed an interest in each other back in season 1 and they even shared a kiss. But this was never talked about again. It was like nothing happened. Anyway moving on. 

The next problem is how none of the characters have an actual storyline. Hope’s storyline is revolved around saving everyone which I hate. I hate how she is always the one that people depend on to save the day. Landon’s storyline is supposedly Malivore? But the writers decided to take 3 steps back and make him human again. I made a post about how he may get his powers back so if you want you can look at that it’s right here. Mg has no storyline, Kaleb has no storyline, Jed has no storyline, and Josie has no storyline. The only person that has a storyline that shows growth is Lizzie. Now there is new characters such as Ethan and Cleo. I’m not understanding why they don’t focus on developing the characters storyline of the characters they already have but whatever. Like mentioned before, I’m not going to talk that much about season 3 because we are technically still on season 2 content but I do know that we will get some development in the characters so I will wait. That’s all I have to say about this.

Lastly, my next problem is the fandom. A fandom is apart of any show so that’s why I’m including this. I have a lot to say about this. TVDU fandom is just toxic. Point. Blank. and a Period. Some people in this fandom are just hypocrites. I don’t even know where to start. I’m going to start with how people make so  many excuses for the ones that they love when they know they are in the wrong. Josie for example burned her ex’s hair, burned down Hope’s room because Hope didn’t have the same feelings for her, lied to Lizzie about who started the rumor about her, she killed Alyssa, burned down a part of the Salvatore school, broke Ethan’s arm and forced Lizzie into the merge. Now I am not coming at Josie by all means, I’m proving my point. Even though Josie did all this, you still have people who make excuses for why she did it. Just because you love a character, doesn’t mean you can’t call them out when they are wrong. This goes into Hope because people put Hope on this high pedestal as if she is never wrong, but she is. She isn’t always right. I’m not going to talk about the whole argument thing from last week between Handon because I made a post about that already so if you want you can go read it, it’s here. I think it’s in the post about 3x02, but anyways she isn’t always right. As much as I love Hope, I call her out on her bs and that goes with every other character. The fandom also uses the words such as “toxic” or “abusive” because they hate a character. For example, Landon gets the most hate out of every character for no reason. I was on twitter and I saw a tweet from someone saying “Landon is emotionally abusive because he brought up Klaus.” and “Handon is an abusive relationship” And I am like “WHAT?” are you being serious right now? (1) abuse is a serious thing and it shouldn’t be used lightly so the fact that people are using it lightly because they hate a character so much is disgusting. People go deal with abuse on a daily basis and your using the word like it’s not a serious situation. The lengths that people would go in this fandom because they aren’t getting something they want is insane. The death threats that people send to the writers, people from other ships, and the actors and actresses is rude and disgusting. Now I am about to be blatantly honest right now and if you don’t like it then oh well🤷‍♀️. There is a specific group of people in the fandom that spreads hate. I’m not going to name names because there is no need point fingers and start stuff for no reason. I’m not saying everyone from this particular group does it, there are some that are cool, but a majority of them are the ones that spread the hate. I’m not saying other people from other groups in the fandom don’t do this, but I haven’t seen that many do it. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand why this specific group is upset about the choices that the writers make but they’re still a person who has feelings. There used to be ships that I loved but now I don’t like because of the way the fans within that ship acts. For example, I used to like Hosie. I use to say if Landon wasn’t there, I would love to see Hosie, but then I saw the way the people who shipped them acted and that made me stop shipping Hosie. And I also just grew closer to Handon more but there is no need to spread hate on other people’s ships because you are mad that something isn’t happening the way you want it too. No one should be sending hate to actors and actresses because you hate their character or because you hate the what the character did in the show. The character isn’t the actor. Separate the two. The actor is portraying the character. I know that nothing is going to change within the fandom but it’s irritating. Spreading hate isn’t going to get you want you want. Attacking writers, other people in the fandom, or the actors is not going to get you want you want. This goes for everybody in the fandom, not just the one specific group. You can’t demand what you want and think its going to happen because you demanded it. So I am just going to end this here. I am not trying to bash anybody, I am just calling out what I see.

Anyways, I’m sorry for this long post. I am not trying to be rude at all, I’m just being honest. I don’t want to argue. I just wanted to talk about problems within Legacies, the writers, and the fandom. I felt like talking about how I felt about certain situations and how I view certain situations. If you didn’t like anything I said then that’s your own opinion and I respect your opinion. If you have anything else would like to say about the show, send a reply. But aside from that I hope you have a good day! ❤

[thatanimenerd101]

Hoodies

Paring: Tamaki x female reader.

Word count: 1.2k

Warnings: Just fluff and SFW

Time taken: 3 hours.

Tag list @tryna-imagine @tooloudarts @zyrielwolf @queensynderella @secondhand-trash (please tell me how my writing is, I want some feedback. Also I love all the support, and unfortunately my work isn’t being put out there. I have been shadow banned, but it won’t stop my from posting!)

“Hey Siri play love songs!”

“Now playing Perfect by Ed Sheeran.”

You and him had been dating since your third year in high school at UA. You’d had been a support course student, your main job was fixing and development of new support items. You knew about his work study with Fat Gum so you asked Miro to pass a message to him. You knew he was shy and didn’t like talking to new people.

That however, was almost five years ago.These days, he was still a bit shy around new people but he knew that all he had to do was pretend they were puppies or something cute.

It was a cool day in autumn, your favorite season of the year. You liked watching the trees change and it was a good excuse to steal Tamaki’s hoodies more often. Every time he saw you in one of his hoodies, he would blush and smile at you. You decided to wear one of his hoodies, a purple and white on with a small butterfly on it. Along with some jeans and some heeled boots. The boots made a tad taller than him but hey, you looked cute. Taking out your phone you posed in front of your mirror. *Click* And sent to Tamaki. In your phone his contact name was 🦋Butterfly babe🥰

🦋Butterfly babe🥰 has sent a message.

You look really cute today.

04:30 pm

I mean your always cute but you look

extra cute wearing my hoodie.

04:32pm

You could see the flustered expression that was on his face. You knew that when he tried to flirt through texting, his face would go all red and cute. But you decided not to tease him about it, he would still be at work for another few hours.

Thank you honey, I really love wearing this one. It’s like you're right next to me and we are cuddling. Are we still going on our walk in the park tonight?

04:40pm

*New message*

Yes we are still on for our weekly walk in the park. I have to get back to work now. I love you bunny.

04:43pm

I love you too my butterfly ❤️

04:45pm

You had about four hours to kill so you grab your purse and run some errands. You had a lot to do, food shopping, picking up clothes from the dry cleaning and trying to find a certain part you wanted for a new support item for the flame hero.

The time was finally eight o’clock, just in time because you were heading to the park and you and your boyfriend would take a walk in once a week at least. He knew you liked looking at the stars and there was almost no one else to ease drop. This is the park you had your first date at, first kiss. A lot of good memories, a few bad ones too. You remembered the one day a fan tried to ease dropping on your conversation, that ended up with you getting pissed off and almost punching them. You had a temper when it came to things like that, good thing your boyfriend calmed you down and all of you settled the matter. Good thing this didn’t get out to the media, Tamaki hated dealing with the media, they would take someone’s words and twist them making it their own.

You chucked at the thought of when the media picked up that Suneater had a girlfriend. They were shocked and some didn’t believe it until he said it himself on live tv. But he refused to give out your name or anything about you. This man didn’t want the villains knowing who you were so he just said when he was asked about it, “I’m happy with my current relationship, that is all the details I will be giving.”

You looked up and your eyes met with his. Intertwining your hands together as the two of you smiled.

“How was work?” You kissed his cheek, this made him blush. He wouldn’t give much PDA but at home he was a cuddle bug.

“Long but it was mainly just paperwork today.”

You nodded and you both walked in silence. You would occasionally point out constellations to tamaki and tell him everything you knew about them. All he could do is stare into your beautiful eyes in aw. He loved you and he was about to do something that would change everything.

He stopped walking.

“Y/n?” You almost did not hear him.

“Yes Tama?” You gave him a loving hand squeeze to assure him.

“Will you close your eyes?” You nodded and closed your eyes.

“Don’t open them until I say you can.” He whispered in your ear.

You smiled and nodded. Little did you know that there was someone hiding behind a tree with a camera. He let you to under a tree, you could hear the leaves under your feet. You couldn’t see but all you knew was that there was light coming from somewheres.

Tamaki got down on one knee after he fixed one of the fairy lights in the tree. He pulled out a small blue box.

“You can open your eyes, bunny.” You slowly opened your eyes and gasped, putting your hand over your mouth.

“Tamaki.”

“Y/n l/n we have been together since high school and I really want you to be in my life forever. It has taken me over a year to gain the courage to ask you this question, will you do me that honor of becoming my wife by marrying me and maybe someday having a family with me?” He opened the box revealing a diamond ring with a small butterfly engraved on it. You could tell he was nervous, you eyes filled up with tears. You heard a sound but decided to ignore it.

“Yes! Yes I will!” You hugged him tightly, a little bit too tight. You then heard it again. It was a camera clicking. He must’ve hired a photographer for this moment. He put the ring on your left ring finger and you two kissed.

“I was so scared you were going to say no.”

“I would never say no to you, you are my butterfly and I love you.”

The photographer came out from the tree and showed you both the pictures he took. He said that he would mail them to you once he edited them which would take a few weeks.

On the way home you remembered something. He said it took him over a year to ask you. I guess he did put a lot of thought into it. At least you two can have fun planning a wedding in the future. But for now, just live in this moment.

The rest of the night you spend cuddling and exchanging kisses.

Nothing else could be perfect, I mean he’s wearing one of your hoodies and you're wearing his to sleep. It was common for you both to sleep in each other’s clothes but now came the topic of children.

“Instead of having our own child, why don’t we consider adopting? There’s so many kids out there that don’t have a family.” You yawned and looked at the clock. It was almost one am.

“Maybe bunny, but for now let’s get some sleep.” He kissed your cheek and held you to his chest.

“Okay, I love you.” You said drifting off to sleep.

Hey everyone, it’s me, I hope this finds you well. I just wanna tell you that I’m hoping to write a shinso and Kirishima fic in the next few weeks. Then I may write a Hawks, he seems to be more popular when I write for him. My ask box is always open, I need ideas for writing. Plus I have lots of snacks to eat while I’m writing and cute animals to pet. I have two cats and a dog that keep me company when I write.

[survivormanhattanbeach]

Episode 2: “Hopefully my hunch is wrong!” -Ruthie

scratch whatever I said 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JuVOzz-xvE

I’ve been vibing with a lot of these thots and the first few days have probably been the most fun I’ve had in my Tumblr Survivor career. Sarah and I are very close and locked down a final 2 from day one and I’m feeling it but also I’m gay so I’m going to try to keep my options as open as I can while trying to use my [insert witty catchphrase here] to get people to open up to me 😊. It seems to be working so far - I seem to be generally well liked and I’ve had multiple people spill very personal things about themselves to me so it’s a wig and a half. 

So....Isaiah is gone, which sucks personally but strategically it's good. I really want Joey out but if he leaves it'll just be me Jake and Kevin and even though threesomes are hot, three tribe members are NOT. I also feel like I can work with Jake and Kevin more in the long run, and Sarah and Tom have been bonding with me on the one world calls which is great because the more numbers I have the better

I trust Keaton about as much as I trust R. Kelly.

Hello again. So first, it didn't surprise me that Isaiah was voted out first. He wasn't nearly as social as most of the cast during the first day, got picked last for his tribe and stuck out that way. GG. And now let's talk about this challenge. My tribe sucks on a social level and this challenge - a fine challenge to make some big social moves on to team up with other tribes via One World - just blows stinky fucking ass. I feel safe right now, but I don't even want to risk alienating myself by even spilling a tiny bit of information to other tribes. So essentially, we're stanning protectionism and hoping that we luck out! I haven't heard about any plans from my allies from other tribes, so it looks like this will be a boring cointoss challenge in the end. This is a big missed opportunity. IF I get played here, I have faith in Ruthie and Lucity to vote out Julian. That's all you get for now. Hugs and kisses!

yaaas bitches im finally immune! i went to the blue tribe for this challenge because Dani and Ryan were on it and i knew we could trust them to keep us safe. Dani told me that Sarah was helping their tribe and wanted to target pacific, so I went to Sarah about making a deal between our teams as well... and it worked because Pacific got crushed LOL. So I'm glad we won, and I'm really hoping that there's a tribe swap next round because I do not like small tribes. I also want to be on a tribe with Ryan or Dani. Right now I trust Ryan, Dani, Joey, & Kevin the most. I trust Madison too but, her conflict with Joey will never work out long term. I'm starting to bond with Andreas a little bit, so I do hope he stays. Mark seems nice too but Ryan told me that he stirs shit up for fun and everyone likes him so I'm not sure how much I should actually trust him. There's no one that I want out right now, and I'm hoping that my social game is decent enough right now. I'm not bothering to talk to those who don't speak to me (aka like 1/4 of the cast) but I'm hoping that the connections I do have are strong enough to keep me in a good position moving forward. 

https://youtu.be/0o7Eag7sDng Personally I think that I am at the bottom of this alliance but thats fine for now

God, I am pissed. Not actually pissed, but pissed off, you know? We lost the challenge ans I pushed our tribe a little to reach out to other tribes to pile up on either Meadows or Robinson, but BRANDAN was against it - and the result speaks for itself. I really like Brandan as a player, but I know I can't trust him too far, and oh boy, did he make himself vulnerable at this vote. If we had just lost like that, I have no doubt that JULIAN would have just been voted out, but now his name is on the plate, and I am not opposed to voting out Brandan here. LUCY seems to agree with me. It all depends on what RUTHIE is comfortable with. I hope we just go for Julian. Next question: Does Brandan have an idol, and would he use it on Julian? I am sure that Brandan is more dangerous right now, so getting him out here would be the smart move, since we might swap at 18. I'd usurp my Kuang Si heritage and a guy who might vote for me at FTC, but I honestly feel that as long as Ruthie is open for it, we should go for him. Julian will probably suck at swap too, and would be a safe and easy vote at any TC while Brandan would fight for his life in any way possible. Enough rambling, tldr: Head says "Vote Brandan", Heart says " Vote Julian". I doubt that Ruthie would blindside me, and I think Lucy would know that she's in the hot seat if she goes after me, but you never know in Survivor.

I got myself into my very first TS alliance!!! Currently Ruthie, Andreas and I are a threesome, and hopefully we can stick together this vote. I personally would've preferred voting Brandan out, since come a swap he will most likely have more social ties with people from the other tribes over Julian, who seems to not be that talkative. But then again we don't even know if a swap is coming yet. Andreas seems to want Julian out, and Ruthie agrees with him. I'm currently fine writing his name down, mainly because I don't think it's something I need to make a fuss about right at the start. I'd rather have Julian go home and be more secure about my position in the game than pushing for Brandan and possibly having this whole thing turned around against me.

I'm kind of bored. We won again. A lot of people want to work with me. Ryan wants to be my F2, Dan and Billy both said they want to go to the end. I'm in an alliance with Dani Isaac Tom and Sarah. I kind of want like a swap or something to shake the game up. But then again my goal is to get single digits at least so not going to tribal and being bored is good I guess.

It seems like we're set on Julian. My heart is telling me to go for Brandan, but I know it's not the right move right now. I think I just kind of feel for Julian since we've both been talking about how we just want to get a redemption and do any better. I just have to remind myself of how easy people were in lying to me and voting me out last season. Most of these people have had 3, 4 or even 5 chances to play. This is my shot at redemption, not theirs.

SOOOO. The alliance is going great I think. We teamed up with two other tribes (I forget their names sorry) to get the pacific (I think) tribe out. So far I really like Ryan and Mark even if Mark seems a little iffy. People are very call orientated in this game and I have to start being on calls more! I also think I’m good with joey. We called and had a good convo! I don’t really remember much of it but he kinda admitted to liking Madison ooops

Brandan and Julian have now approached me and they, or at least Brandan, knows about the vote being on Julian. I wouldn't be suprised if Andreas told him about that. They seem to want to put the vote on RUTHIE. I can't just let that happen! It does make me feel a bit more comfortable because being in this split vote position means that my chances of surviving this tribal have gone up, however I am the one who decides who goes home basically, and I'll probably get a fair amount of backlash from doing so from Brandan. Especially if Andreas let Brandan know that he's voting for Julian, all the blame would be put on me. I'm still comfortable with my vote for Julian and it should feel good knowing I'm in the middle, but I still have to pick a side and let either Ruthie or Julian go which really is a sticky situation to be in.

I've definitely shot myself in the foot by thinking too much about the vote. I doubt Ruthie will flip on me, I really don't think Lucity will flip on me, I don't expect Julian or Brandan to have an idol, but if they do, I'm gone. This is me in paranoid mode and I hate it. :D

I can't with this vote. Brandan and Julian are acting so shady and I just hope I'm not the back up plan if one of them has an idol. I KNOW I can trust Andreas and I hope I can trust Lucy but I don't know, I'm scared that the three of them are in cahoots and that it's going to be me. Hopefully my hunch is wrong! 

[wildfangz]

@liliithvatore tagged me in that simself thing thats been goin around DAYS ago but here it finally is! also thank you for the tag this was fun :-]

I tag @slythersim @thelurgoyf @seoulchii @weicyn @solitasims @daisydezem @raha-plays-the-sims if they want to do it & anyone that just wants to do it in general! message me and I’ll even @ u directly if u want. 

anyway lets DO THIS shitload of questions under the cut u’ve been warned!!!

1. what is your name?

julian

2. what is your nickname?

jewel, jules

3. birthday?

oct 26th

4. what is your favorite book series?

percy jackson and the olympians will probably always own my heart & soul

5. do you believe in aliens or ghosts?

yes & yes. tho i do think a lot of alien sightings and conspiracy theories and what not are bullshit

6. who is your favorite author?

maggie stiefvater probably? also cornelia funke but its been years since ive read anything by her so i cant be sure BUT i loved inkheart & the thief lord so much

7. what is your favorite radio station?

ummm when i listen to the radio at all i kinda just switch between two rock stations and our popular music station.

8. what is your favorite flavor of anything?

blue raspberry !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tasty and i love a blue tongue

9. what word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful?

cool. or bitchin’.  i play it simple

10. what is your current favorite song?

hands like houses - revive

11. what is your favorite word?

roulette and inhibition which i never get to use either as much as i want !

12. what was the last song you listened to?

emarosa - givin’ up ! its a bop!

13. what tv show would you recommend for everybody to watch?

the new she-ra on netflix its so good. and gay

14. what is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down?

moana. its also like the only movie i dont have trouble getting thru despite how many times ive already seen it

15. do you play video games?

16. what is your biggest fear?

idk... being inherently unlovable i guess n ending up alone? also spiders !

17. what is your best quality, in your opinion?

im fairly open-minded and laid back. Unless someones being like, purposely nasty or something I generally don’t get defensive or aggressive. also a lot of little quirks that piss others off dont bother me im very u do u as long as its not actually harming anyone and ive had people tell me this makes it easier to open up to me so thats probably my best quality....

18. what is your worst quality, in your opinion?

....at the same time though i do get very sensitive when faced w/ criticism even if its of the fair variety when its not phrased really gently for various reasons and i dont like that. especially since I have a tendency to not even talk to people about it. I’ll just immediately start distancing myself. also other than that i think overall I have a really high tolerance lvl but if you cross that line I hold a grudge like a motherfucker

9. do you like cats or dogs better?

cats! dogs are good too but cats are a lot easier for me to handle...and quieter generally but even when they’re loud cat sounds dont get to me quite as much as barks do

20. what is your favorite season?

autumn but im starting to really like summer for some reason? wack :/

21. are you in a relationship?

nope

22. what is something you miss from your childhood?

the lack of responsibility, probably. that sounds real bad lmao but for me its like...I know I’ve grown in various ways over the years but I also feel like so many of my experiences, my trauma, my mental health has held me back and I don’t think I’m mentally where I should be for my age. so all the responsibility of adulthood is just..really overwhelming for me sometimes, even though ive been given a pass from certain aspects of it and the rest is pretty simple its the idea!!!!

23. who is your best friend?

my ex

24. what is your eye color?

25. what is your hair color?

26. who is someone you love?

my mom

27. who is someone you trust?

not really anyone rn unfortunately...would like 2 work on that

28. who is someone you think about often?

are my OCs a fair answer because i am always thinking about my babies.....

29. are you currently excited about/for something?

my favorite webcomic (that also has two of my all time favorite characters in it) just came back!! the artist disappeared back in 2015 like the day after I binge-read the whole fucking thing & i was so disappointed but its BACK and 2018 has been redeemed

30. what is your biggest obsession?

sims probably! i could talk about anything relating to it for hours

31. what was your favorite tv show as a child?

there were so damn many its hard to even think and figure out the most notable ones...i really, really liked teen titans though?

32. who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone?

my ex, again

33. are you superstitious?

not terribly so but somewhat. I take certain things as signs and I mean I do believe in astrology & such to a degree

34. do you have any unusual phobias?

i used to be afraid of mirrors but thats all i can think of and its not even a thing anymore...the only other thing is tornadoes but i dont think its unusual. but it definitely sucks for me ‘cause i live in tornado alley!

35. do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it?

behind it....like taking pretty pictures and dont like ppl capturing my image 2 film

36. what is your favorite hobby?

sims.....also singing!!! and drawing!!!! video editing!!!!!!!!! the works

37. what was the last book you read?

The Dream Thieves....havent finished it though because last time i went to read it a spider was lying in wait and im traumatized

38. what was the last movie you watched?

coco i think???

39. what musical instruments do you play, if any?

drums, various other percussion instruments, and violin mainly

40. what is your favorite animal?

ferrets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

41. what are your top 5 favorite tumblr blogs that you follow?

uhhhhh @bratsims @liliithvatore @cabsim @wildlyminiaturesandwich @keysims pls dont feel bad if i didnt include u these were just the first to pop into my head and ive been following some of them since I first made my blog!! and have kept up with their stories completely and enjoy them etc check them OUT !

42. what superpower do you wish you had?

shapeshifting!!! dysphoria? gone. ugliness? gone. want to morph into a fucked up clown and scare people when they realize all the classic clown features are a real actual part of my face? possible!

43. when and where do you feel most at peace?

chillin’ at the pool in summer during the part of the day when no ones there.... swimming is always relaxing 2 me then i love just resting under the sun and drying off afterwards especially since we have a little pond nearby and i can hear the water! its nice

44. what makes you smile?

always and without fail? interacting with anyone i have a crush on. i’ll look like a dope the whole time

45. what sports do you play, if any?

i used 2 play basketball a lot. Like not seriously but it was a thing

46. what is your favorite drink?

dr pepper and monster energy (original flavor) pumps through my veins at this point. we love a carbonated beverage

47. when was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody?

two years ago for my ex and I’s first year anniversary... I never got it mailed but I did at least take a picture of it (with included caption because my handwriting is atrocious). i was very up front about being a romantic and see heres the PROOF

48. are you afraid of heights?

nope! very excited by them actually

49. what is your biggest pet peeve?

i cant stand passive aggressive behavior. my stance is either get over it or quit acting like a bitch because otherwise im just going to ignore you thats the scorpio way (in all seriousness I really, really do recommend not putting up with it and ignoring it until they decide to be up front with you. it can be exhausting constantly reading into conversations and its not healthy for you or them. if they have something to say they need to learn to talk about it properly, and that lack of social skills is not ever on you)

50. have you ever been to a concert?

yep! i think about....six or so? i love them...which is really funny im autistic and EVERYTHING about them should freak me out and they do in other circumstances but at a show i just live for it

51. are you vegan/vegetarian?

nope! ive thought before id like to go vegetarian...but i couldnt do it with my health problems. also i love shrimp too much

52. when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

ive always wanted to do something creative! when i was rlly young I thought a lot about singing and acting and writing in particular...all things im still interested in.... also i wanted to be a dictator ages 4-7 because i told my mom i wanted to be president of the world and make people do what i say and she said “honey thats a dictator not a president”. i then made that known at school and that turned into a situation!

53. what fictional world would you like to live in?

pokemon universe or bust. 

54. what is something you worry about?

never being able to do things i want to do or catching up with others because of my disabilities

55. are you scared of the dark?

yes but a reasonable amount i think

56. do you like to sing?

yes :]

57. have you ever skipped school?

yes i used to play sick a LOT and as my parents caught onto it id even go all out to convince them. i was good at school but i hated it so much

58. what is your favorite place on the planet?

dunno! malls maybe i love shopping and looking at material objects i wish to own

59. where would you like to live?

oregon! portland in particular thats been my dream for a few years now

60. do you have any pets?

a cat! he lives with my dad & grandma though...hes grown up there and likes going outside so I felt bad about taking him with me when i moved out but anyway this is him hes fat and stupid and i love him his name is coffee

61. are you more of an early bird or a night owl?

night owl because my rhythm is all fucked up but in my heart....an early bird...if i get a good nights sleep i’ll be up early yacking your ear off and so excited for the day

62. do you like sunrises or sunsets better?

sunsets are prettier...but sunrises feel more refreshing

63. do you know how to drive?

nope ! im gay !

64. do you prefer earbuds or headphones?

headphones. better sound quality also discourages people from talking to me slightly more

65. have you ever had braces?

nope! but i need them

66. what is your favorite genre of music?

post-hardcore maybe?

67. who is your hero?

every trans person living their truth and being open and loud about who they are past present & future. the worlds not particularly kind to us and our existence alone is considered a radical act, so its always given me hope to see others refusing to pretend to be someone they’re not in this environment and I’ll always have mad respect for that

68. do you read comic books?

i read manga and webcomics...ive always wanted to get into superhero comics but the amount of issues and different versions is ridiculous and makes it inaccessible 2 me 

69. what makes you the most angry?

i mean its hard to pinpoint what makes me angry the MOST...but a contender is definitely how some people feel free to treat others with cruelty and think its their god given right to deny or attack someones existence in some way, & how acts of kindness, even the most basic are branded as liberal bullshit or whatever....it goes against everything i was taught growing up

70. do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book?

real book! electronic device can be easier but....rough on the eyes after a while and nothing beats the real thing for me

71. what was your favorite subject in school?

language arts...at least when we did creative writing stuff

72. do you have any siblings?

two older sisters & an older brother that passed away years ago but. still my brother u kno

73. what was the last thing you bought?

mocha frappe baby!!!!!

74. how tall are you?

5′4″

75. can you cook?

a little bit....not as much as id like to though but im learning

76. what are three things that you love?

storms, cheesy breadsticks, and cat purrs

77. what are three things that you hate?

unnecessary rudeness, being talked down to or generally treated like im stupid, grapefruit which is the worst thing on this list

78. do you have more female friends or more male friends?

female i think?

79. what is your sexual orientation?

im the big bad promiscuous bisexual your parents warned you about

80. where do you currently live?

oklahoma. gofundme campaign to get me out

81. who was the last person you texted?

my friend jojo! just Now!

82. when was the last time you cried?

yesterday afternoon but im a changed man now thats behind me. i will cry about different things soon

83. who is your favorite youtuber?

the mcelroy brothers. also super best friends play. matt, pat & woolie are all great tbh

84. do you like to take selfies?

depends on whether i feel ugly or terribly dysphoric that day or not

85. what is your favorite app?

ummmm....love live school idol festival ive been playin for years its an addiction

86. what is your relationship with your parent(s) like?

dad = bad mom = okay. theres some issues that strain it but its not too bad

87. what is your favorite foreign accent?

i have no idea what the fuck australians are talking about half the time but i dig it anyway 

88. what is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit?

Italy, Greece, Germany, Japan, Mexico, various other states (ive only been out of state three times. twice to texas and then once to kansas. for five minutes)

89. what is your favorite number?

6!! 26 also

90. can you juggle?

ive always wanted to but alas.... :-[

91. are you religious?

i suppose...but im rlly not into organized religion

92. do you find outer space of the deep ocean to be more interesting?

space probably theres so fucking much of it man!

93. do you consider yourself to be a daredevil?

not to brag but sometimes i eat my mcdonalds hamburgers cold from the fridge so you can figure that one out yourself B)

94. are you allergic to anything?

pecans. not deathly allergic though so catch me eating turtle pie anyway! 

95. can you curl your tongue?

nope :[

96. can you wiggle your ears?

nope :[

97. how often do you admit that you were wrong about something?

usually as soon as i realize....unless someones being real smug and annoying then i might be stubborn about it

98. do you prefer the forest or the beach?

ive never been to the beach but i love her!!!

99. what is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you?

probably that you have to look at your accomplishments differently when you’re disabled or just struggling, to not be so down on yourself because its a fact that what might be a mole hill to someone else is a mountain to you and you have to judge yourself accordingly. Like maybe you weren’t able to clean the whole house, but washing the dishes and tidying your desk doesn’t usually get done but you did it. That that should be celebrated because while it would also feel good if you did more, you still did something and thats great all things considered.

100. are you a good liar?

sometimes, really depends what im lying about and if im like....into it at all. If my guts against it for whatever reason I’ll have trouble

101. what is your hogwarts house?

i always get slytherin or hufflepuff! usually with like 1 point difference

102. do you talk to yourself?

i am talking to myself right now as i fill this out

103. are you an introvert or an extrovert?

extrovert mainly! i used to think i was more introverted but now i think a lot of exhaustion when theres any comes from me just going the extra mile and actively trying to read people and pick up on social ques.... if I just chill im fine

104. do you keep a journal/diary?

nope...ive tried but i just cant keep up with it so i do the next best thing. shouting into the void on the internet to a bunch of strangers

105. do you believe in second chances?

depends on what you did the first time. Some people just don’t deserve taking that risk imo...but i can be a little guarded so maybe thats a bit too harsh

106. if you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do?

turn it in, unless there was no identifying things in it & it was found somewhere kinda random. Then I’d maybe hold onto it unless my gut challenged that

107. do you believe that people are capable of change?

absolutely. i mean thats all we do throughout our lives is change and evolve...that being said I think extremely drastic changes are maybe not entirely impossible, but extremely rare, and the residue of the former self usually sticks around in some form

108. are you ticklish?

yes, dangerously so

109. have you ever been on a plane?

nope

110. do you have any piercings?

one day hopefully!

111. what fictional character do you wish was real?

asra from the arcana.....even if he wasn’t my boyfriend thats just a dude u could chill and eat some pomegranates with u know. Before I downloaded the app my friends kept telling me he was made for me and he really was he ticks like everything on my Favorite Characters Feature List except villain but he has that particular allure & attitude i like so much in villains so thats not a single point off hes perfect

112. do you have any tattoos?

nope...one day! hopefully!

113. what is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far?

accepting my genderqueerness and bisexuality definitely. Self Love hasn’t been perfected just yet but that was such a huge step in the right direction

114. do you believe in karma?

yes! she doesn’t get shit done as much as id like however

115. do you wear glasses or contacts?

glasses. not contacts yet because my eye doctor is a bitch

116. do you want children?

I do....just not sure if id be a good parent. Its really important to me if I had a child itd be for the right reason and I could raise them well in a healthy environment & be able to take care of all their needs yknow

117. who is the smartest person you know?

probably my friend jojo

118. what is your most embarrassing memory?

one time i looked outside and the sunset was really pretty and i wanted to get a photo of it so i walked out.....and stood like right by the street so there weren’t trees in my way...and then i realized mid-pic 1) i am not wearing pants & my shirt is full of holes 2) id been depressed for days so my hair was a tangled mess. I tailed it back inside so i didnt even get a nice pic it was blurry!

119. have you ever pulled an all-nighter?

120. what colour are most of you clothes?

black i didnt even have to think about that one

121. do you like adventures?

they are pretty swell

122. have you ever been on tv?

a few times when i was little. always photobombing the news reporters 4 what i thought would eventually lead 2 fame & fortune

123. how old are you?

21

124. what is your favorite movie quote?

this is technically lyrics to that lil song in moana at the end but

“ They have stolen the heart from inside you. But this does not define you.”

hits me hard every time! emotional impact? i know her

125. sweet or savory?

sweet!!!!!!!! gotta balance out my bitter somehow

[bloomvalyria]

I am not trying to be mean of anything, just curious. Why do you like sparxshipping? Like I just don’t understand and want to know from your POV why!

12/30/18: Hey guys! I wanted to announce that I heavily edited bits of this to more accurately convey my points (especially with the age difference part because i don’t believe i worded that as eloquently as i should have). I would also just like to add that thisparticular post mainly involves my personal opinions about Sparxshipping. Thereare plenty of other Sparxshippers out there who might share the same opinionsas me or have their own differing opinions. I was simply asked about why I liked it; therefore, I answered.

Sparxshipping is a very delicate subject infandom. In fact, I would be so bold as to say it’s the most hated non-canonship in the Winx Club fandom. Therefore, if you’re a fan of it, chances are youdon’t talk about it much because you’re going to get shit on. And, clearly, Idon’t tag most of my Sparxshipping posts in the Winx Club tag due to the nasty response I’m sure to receive. But what the hell! I have a major migraine and I’m in the mood to piss some people off. I have some time to talk about a few points.

So, let’s talk about Sparxshipping, shall we?

For me, I like Sparxshipping for many reasons but mainly because of how well their personalities complement each other. And I’m not talking the good vs. evil bullshit either. What I am talking about is how there is no ‘one is one step behind the other’ situation –they’re equal. They’re equal in their wit; their determination; their initiative; their thirst for power; I could go on. It just makes them so much fun to write, especially because they’re so similar that no one can really ignore it. Hell, at the end of season 3, Baltor even admits that they’re the same (idk if he says that in the other versions; i didn’t watch them). So, seeing and realizing those same personalities traits that Bloom and Baltor share was just something i thought was, to be frank, really cute. It’s like they’re so similar they can’t stand it; it’s great. 

That’s personallyhow I view it. I could go more in-depth with it, but I know the majority ofpeople who are reading this that criticize Sparxshipping could not care lessabout personal opinions. They’re very set in their opinions, which they havethe right to have. Therefore, I’d like to take this time to address the typicalquestions that are bound to hit this post (‘Isn’the the villain?’ ‘He’s tried to murder her and her friends countless times!’‘He helped destroy her realm!’ ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ‘Isn’t he like 20-30-40years older than her?’ ‘That’s so gross!’) and do what I’m pretty sure no one else on this website has doneand actually respond to them.

So sit back andlet your ass be educated for a minute.

Now, I know the main thing for many people as to whythey don’t like Sparxshipping is because of one very sensitive topic: the agedifference. And my response to that is this: we as a fandom know little tonothing about Baltor. People automatically jump and say ‘Oh he’s like 20 years olderthan her, that’s disgusting!’. Okay, how do youknow that? Have we been given a birth year? No, we haven’t. We don’t even knowif he was born or if he was simply created into existence looking like he doesnow (which is my best guess). We don’t know. We know nothing about his past;therefore, to try and discern his age is pretty pointless. Most(including myself) have come to the conclusion that based on physical appearance alone hecould be anywhere from his mid twenties to early thirties. However, I wasreminded by an anon that he was around when Griffin was a teenager and he looksthe exact same. So the only way I can potentially describe the age situation isthat Baltor is the Edward Cullen of the Winx Club universe (And no, that is notme comparing the couples). Bella was 17, and Edward looked 17 but he wasactually over a hundred years old. So either he was poofed into existence to eternally look the same age, or when he decided to join the Ancestresses, he was ‘born’ into Darkness and it has prevented him from aging.

Plus, to go the extra mile, for those who keepyelling about how Bloom is supposedly underage, yes: the underage issue is abig thing that’s been talked about in the Sparxshipping community for a very long time. However, I know there are fanfic writers out there who do actuallybump up Bloom’s age for the purpose of avoiding this topic because this isfanfiction and you can do that. However, I’m fairly certain that in Season 3 Bloom is actually 18, or if she’s not she’s 18 in my eyes. (I know there is also a post somewhere on tumblr that actually broke down the ages of the girls to prove that Bloom isactually 18 in Season 3 to prove the underage issue null and void, and if I canfind that post again I’ll be sure to come back in and link it.)

Let’s move on, shall we?

As I’ve said,Sparxshipping is a much hated pairing. Mostwould pinpoint the origin of this hatred to the villain-hero trope that theship displays and that some people have an aversion to such a union. However,I’d pinpoint it even further beneath the surface all the way down to the nittygritty old FanFiction days. In these days, horrible (and I mean horrible) fic tropes came out to play –avery popular one being Stockholm Syndrome. And, unfortunately, for many Sparxshipping writers who came to the archive, we were in a sense brainwashed into thinking this was okay because these malicious tropes were being praised since it was quite literally all the archive had. No one was attempting to write the ship in a more flattering light, per se. So, if you’re an outsider looking in, you’re going to see some pretty fucked up shit going on if you go to some of the older fics and instantly be turned off from the ship. Nowadays though, there are Sparxshipping fics being filtered in that do not involve these tropes and are promoting a healthier relationship between the two. And if you haven’t read any of those, I highly recommend you do. 

’OH MY GOD HOW CAN YOU MAKE IT A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP?? HE HELPED MURDER HER PLANET AND HAS ATTACKED HER AND HER FRIENDS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS! DID YOU FORGET THAT???’ Wow. Thank you. I never realized that that’s the reason why Bloom hated him so much. Thank you for opening my eyes. But, you know, there’s this magical thing about Sparxshipping that most critics seem to never have pointed out before that I’d like to ask them: When did we ever say that we’ve forgotten all the god-awful shit Baltor’s done? We’re very aware of what he did, guys. We watched the show just like all of you. We’re not excusing what he’s done, and in our writing now we don’t excuse what he’s done. There’s something in real-life relationships that many couples struggle with –it’s called forgiveness. And it’s very intricately woven into Sparxshipping. It’s so intricately woven, in fact, that when some writers attempt to write it, it doesn’t come across very well, making our ship look even worse. It’s definitely one of the more difficult aspects of writing this ship. But, as I previously stated, we’re not excusing it, and if you think we are then you couldn’t be more wrong.

Anyway, this post became much longer than I intended it to, and certainly not as articulate as I’d hoped. But I’m in agonizing pain, and I need sleep. Also, if anyone would like me to elaborate on any details in this, feel free to let me know! I always look in my inbox, and will answer you as soon as I possibly can!

Image: Zeta-La-Angie on VKText Added In by Me

[callie-the-snarky-geek-blog]

RvB16 Episode 3 Review: Lost Time

(Old Blog Repost)

Wasn’t last week fun everyone? I thought it was fun! But yeah, a lot of shit happened despite Grif’s attempts to not let shit happen… that we can argue caused the shit to happen. Isn’t meta humor fun kids?! But yeah scary alien woman attacked (and converted Tumblr into her own group of worshipers from what I can tell), Donut is a God, and everyone’s been separated ala Season 3. Only this time with time travel… ala Season 3 but the separation happened before that part. I just gave myself a headache. Well.. lets get on with the review while my brain is still intact.

Overview

We begin on… IDK if it’s a planet or not, but someplace with snow! This is where Grif and Doc got sent… so this is the second time a portal sent Grif off to same snowy wasteland. Man, this really is like Season 3 only he’s taking Church’s role as the grumpy one while Doc is… Doc. Well at least he didn’t get hit in the nuts immideatly after this time or thrown in a cell! Anyways, yeah snowy wasteland. Doc is freaked out about the entire thing and what it means while Grif is trying to figure out how the portal gun works so that they can get out before they freeze. He’s also grumpy. But to be fair, if I saw a perfectly good pizza parlor blow up in front of me, I would be grumpy too.

Grif is also refusing to let Doc help or even get near him. Why? Well he’s pissed off cause they got roped into bullshit again, but the biggest thing seems to be that he got stuck with Doc who… you know, is a piss poor combatant, bad at his medic job, and had betrayed them not too long ago. To be fair, Doc… completely understands Grif hating him for that. Heck, he feels guilty for what he did. I’ll get into it more int he analysis portion, but it looks like Joe may be giving Doc character development… or is leading up to a joke later. but hey he’s giving Doc attention. More than I can say for Miles’ run (sorry Miles, I love you but I’m gonna point stuff like that out). Grif ignores the sob story to work on the gun,a nd to his credit he gets the thing to work… on shuffle. Okay, why did God put a shuffle function on the gun? Then again, God has his ways and as a Christian I should know to not question it… assuming that that’s the God we’re refereeing to anyways. Lets just pretend that’s the case for now.

Meanwhile, Tucker and Sister have made the same revelation. The two of them have ended up, to my glee, in Valhalla! Since the Recolleciton Trilogy is my favorite storyline, seeing it again makes me SO happy. IDK what point this is at. It could be before the Reds and Caboose got sent there, could be after the Reds fought Wash and the Meta, I don’t know. But who cares? It’s Valhalla again! I am happy! Also we learn that Tucker is atheist and Sister, like her brother, is agnostic. Good to know!

Tucker tries to figure out Donut’s cryptic warning of ‘the key to fixing the future is to fix the past’ or something along those lines. Sister however wants to hold it off and have a little ‘fun’ with Tucker… boy going through time to bang various historical figures! And Sister is officially more sexually ambitious than Tucker could ever hope to be. Tucker, being Tucker, is unhappy that… you know, she doesn’t want to bang him and all. He also refers to them apparently having had sex in Blood Gulch that… I forgot about I guess. But Sister says it didn’t happen and it wasn’t all that memorable anyways. Ouch… you know, when binging I found Sister pointless all in all and writing her out would have changed nothing. But now that she’s back and Joe is actually giving her attention, I freakin’ LOVE her. Keep it up Joe!

So now over to Simmons and Sarge with Simmons trying to figure the gun out. Him being a nerd, he’s far more confused and nitpicky about it than the others have been. Sarge is more than happy to accept having a ‘magic gun’ though and wants to get on to the ‘fixing the past’ thing. How? Well his first thought is to go to The Battle of Broken Ridge. Apparently it was rather traumatic for Sarge and going back would reopen some old wounds, but he’s willing to face it to fix it. We’ll talk more about this later. Simmons wants to instead go to a lab to get the gun taken apart to figure out how it works since nothing else had made sense and he wants to have something explainable. But Sarge convinces him to just figure it out by actually using the gun, leading us to the Battle of Broken Ridge… so using Ancient Egypt last episode was a total copout so no mummy fights. Damn it!

So yeah, after Gus, I mean Simmons, I mean Gus (come on, you can’t tell me he WOULDN’T do the same thing cause nerds) acts like a nerd by making a log, he and Sarge see the battle in progress. Past Sarge was a lieutenant at the time and sends his men out to make a surprise attack while he covered them from behind the ridges. This ended with them all getting massacred, and present Sarge figures that this is because the went in the wrong direction. SO he goes and tells them to go the other way.. which past Sarge makes them go back and… well, you can figure out how it ends. From the afterlife, I can just see Church laughing at them cause now they know how he felt during his time travel stint (yeah it was a simulation, but still)

Finally, we have Lopez coming back online after his head came off and Caboose fixed him. Shock of all shocks, I think Caboose has understood what Lopez is saying moreso than any other character as he tries to figure out Donut’s warning. He concludes on… universal savings… okay who let Joel write on the scripts?! But yeah, Caboose wants to create savings accounts for everyone in hopes of saving the universe. Too bad that he lost the penny he had on him, but it’s okay! Cause he actually figured out how the portal gun works! Because of course he did!

So the two end up back to the opening scene. Caboose tries to find his penny and… remember when Caboose seemed to lose focus and Grif had to remind him to find Donut? Turns out that it was resent Caboose and past Caboose actually didn’t lose focus. Ah, I love it when jokes come back around like that! So Caboose goes through another portal to keep looking, Lopez resigns himself to the end of the world, and somewhere Burnie is probably wondering how even with Church dead his character somehow always gets saddled with Joel’s. I guess we’ll never know.

Review

This was shorter than last week, but BOY does it leave me plenty to talk about!

The episode seems to exist to explain how the time travel will work, some more character development setup, and just to have some comedic hijinks after last weeks more plot heavy episode. And I thought it was great! Like I said, it reminds me a lot of Season 3 when everyone was separated and the first episode with it jumping back and forth between the pairs, setting up their situations. IDK if this was an intentional callback, but I liked it nonetheless. And everyones current situations and the pair dynamics were done very well. So lets just go in order here:

Grif and Doc: This is the one I’m most interested in, and so far I’m pleased! Beginning with Grif, he’s reacting exactly how I expected him to, ala being angry at the whole thing. t makes sense. Despite his efforts, the universe decided to shit on him again and thrust him and the others into another adventure and one arguably more insane than ever before. He’s also stuck with Doc, who he’s never particularly been on good terms with. Heck when he WAS friendly to Doc back in Blood Gulch and even got validation for using CPR to cure Sarges head wound, Doc threw him under the bus when he realized that Grif was the butt monkey. That was a dick move. Of course Doc has been shit on by everyone far more at this point, but still Grif’s got a bit more of an excuse than the others. Plus again, he was’t there when Doc turned on them and he at least had the dignity to just quit an tell them that he quit before things went to shit instead of just turn his back on then in a dire moment.

But going to Doc… his reaction is good. He actually takes responsibility for his actions, feels guilty that it contributed to everything that happened (Wash getting shot), and that he ultimately couldn’t talk the Blues and Reds out of their plans. He feels that he failed both sides and that in doing so, everyone got hurt. He even completley understands Grif hating him for it since he feels the same way about it. He doesn’t try to make excuses, even when honestly he has very valid reasons to make excuses. He’s been constantly shit on, forgotten about, and even got trapped in another dimension before and everyone just forgot about it and didn’t care. But we could say that betraying the guys when he knows that the Blues and Reds have fallen off their rocker was going a tad too far, even if he did try to use it to convince them to stop and failed. But its a nice look into Doc’s current psyche and Matt did a great job expressing how disappointed in himself he is.

Now will this lead to anything? It might. Normally with Doc, it’s hard to tell. I feel there may be a point where Doc either sacrifices himself to save Grif in a pivitol moment, like shoving him through a portal when one of the villains find him, or he goes all O’Malley to make a sacrifice play so that Grif can escape. IDK, but going off the self-loathing there’s a god chance that something’s gonna happen and this time it may have more of an impact. We’ll have to wait and see, but  hey it’s something. Can’t wait to see what happens with these two next!

Tucker and Sister: Their moment is mainly for comedy but it was good! Like I said, I loved seeing Valhalla again. IDK if they’ll still be there later, but hey I appreciate the callback. It’s also nice to see Tucker being… well, Tucker again. Hes had a lot of character development since Chorus, and it was very well done. But after last season, while I personally didn’t find him OOC, I an see why the way he was written was frustrating for people. Plus after all the events in Chorus and S15, I think we needed to see him in a happier state of mind, and it looks like he is. I said before that it felt like S15 was Joe trying to put the bookend on Blue Team’s problems, and I think it shows. Tucker seems far more relaxed and comedic, like during Recollection. Hopefully he still has his newfound competence, and I assume that when things go to shit again we’ll see that. But he’s in a place where he can be comedic Tucker without him coming across as an arrogant idiot, so this is good.

Then we have Sister… OMG Sister. SO as I said above, I did not care about Sister when I was watertight Blood Gulch. She wasn’t particularly bad, her personality was strong and fitting for the cast of characters she was in. But… she didn’t really do anything. According to Burnie on the DVD commentaries, he had wanted to add her for a while and S5 was the only place he could, but still you could write he rout and very little would change. Her being gone for over half the series since then doesn’t help. But the upside to adidng her back is now they can actually do stuff with her, and so far I’m happy!

Okay so Sister’s so far only expressed wanting to bang historical figures and I kind of hope we can see her do more than make sex jokes. But hey, we can officially confirm her bi now so yay canon bisexual character! Plus the way her and Tucker’s banter was written was very well done. It was really funny and her proving to be far more ambitious with her sex life and finding Tucker not worth remembering was hilarious. Plus her just not giving a shit about Tucker’s advances are both hilarious and make me very happy. Sorry Tucker, but hey at least our probably the only guy who an claim to have had sex with an entire planet… and still paying the lawsuit for it XD

Sarge and Simmons: It was hilarious, Plain and simple. It’s been a pretty good while since these two had one-on-one time and so far I’m pleased with what we have. Simmons wanting to study the gun and have some kind of explanation he can cling to when noting else is making any kind of logical sense is perfectly IC. I’m also glad to see him actually disagreeing with Sarge and trying to get his own point across. Simmons has mostly grown out of the kissass phase, at least tot he extent he was in Blood Gulch, and I’m glad to see that sticking. He feels a lot mroe independent but still the nerd we all know and love. Character development, yay!

Then we have the Battle of Broken Ridge and all the continuity stuff it brings up. If I had to guess, it takes place early in Sarge’s military career before he became an ODST or this was before he got put into Blood Gulch. Considering we don’t completely know how these outposts operate aside form how they use the SIM troopers, I don’t find it hard to buy that Sarge has been on multiple Red Teams before getting recruited for Blood Gulch. But these guys have brown armor so… IDK. But still, it’s good to see some backstory and it was good to see Sarge try to save his men. Sure it looks like he failed, but hey he tried.

Still, it really DOES make me ponder on this whole ‘fixing the past’ thing. Like… what does Donut mean by the past? For the Reds and Blues to fix their own pasts? I’m assuming not since Sarge only inadvertently caused it. Did the villains do something in the past and damage it? Why didn’t Donut just say that though? Or is ‘God’ just using the Reds and Blues to invoke what will fulfill the prophecy mentioned in Episode 1? After all, it’s said they end the world and this may be the catalyst that cause sit, hence why Huggins (where is she BTW?) has to follow them around. But I would hope that the puppetmaster would have made a reasonable explanation about what had to be fixed to provoke that. IDK, it’s way too early to tell and this is a multi-part saga, so we’re just gonna have to see how it plays out.

And finally…

Caboose and Lopez: THIS WAS EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR. Caboose being… Caboose, but also showing that he CAN be competent in his own way. Sure he got Donut’s message wrong, but at least he was thinking about it. Plus he was able to both fix Lopez and actually understand what he said. IDK if Caboose can speak Spanish, but I absolute believe that he can just until what Lopez is saying. And unlike everyone else, except maybe Simmons unless they just used shuffle enough times until they got the right portal (which if that isn’t the case, kudos to Simmons for figuring it out on his own), Caboose is the only one who figured out how to make the gun work. So now hes on a Penny Quest as Lopez continues to regret his own existence. I love it!

I admit I wasn’t sure how this was going to work since Caboose and Lopez are the two most incomprehensible characters int he show. Caboose is random and dimwitted, and no one an understand Lopez at all. But it’s surprisingly really funny so far! Normally having characters together alone like this without someone else to keep it balanced can be annoying very quickly. But in this case, it came off as really funny and not exaggerated. I guess it helps that Caboose can understand what Lopez is saying, but still it’s just the right balance. Which is good since I assume that they’re going to be the comedy relief pair for now. But who knows?

Final Thoughts

As I said, this seems to be here to show us how the time travel will play out and I assume the next episode will either cut to Chorus or focus on one pair for the majority of it. We’ll have to see. Still, this was good! The interactions were really good and I really enjoyed seeing it play out. Everyone felt IC and leaves plenty of setup for their respective situations. It leaves the question of what happened to Donut, but I guess we’ll find out eventually. But overall, this was a fun episode that perfectly sets up what we can expect. Hopefully, we’ll be delivered just what we’re hoping for.

[calliecat93]

RvB16 Episode 3 Review: Lost Time

Wasn’t last week fun everyone? I thought it was fun! But yeah, a lot of shit happened despite Grif’s attempts to not let shit happen... that we can argue caused the shit to happen. Isn’t meta humor fun kids?! But yeah scary alien woman attacked (and converted Tumblr into her own group of worshipers from what I can tell), Donut is a God, and everyone’s been separated ala Season 3. Only this time with time travel... ala Season 3 but the separation happened before that part! I just gave myself a headache. Well.. lets get on with the review while my brain is still intact.

Overview

We begin on... IDK if it’s a planet or not, but someplace with snow! This is where Grif and Doc got sent... so this is the second time a portal sent Grif off to same snowy wasteland. Man, this really is like Season 3 only he’s taking Church’s role as the grumpy one while Doc is... Doc. Well at least he didn’t get hit in the nuts immideatly after  or thrown in a prison cell this time! Anyways, snowy wasteland! Doc is freaked out about the entire thing and what it means while Grif is trying to figure out how the portal gun works so that they can get out before they freeze. He’s also grumpy. But to be fair, if I saw a perfectly good pizza parlor blow up in front of me, I would be grumpy too.

Grif is also refusing to let Doc help or even get near him. Why? Well he’s pissed off cause they got roped into bullshit again, but the biggest thing seems to be that he got stuck with Doc who... you know, is a piss poor combatant, bad at his medic job, and had betrayed them not too long ago. To be fair, Doc... completely understands Grif hating him for that. Heck, he feels guilty for what he did. I’ll get into it more in the analysis portion, but it looks like Joe may be giving Doc character development... or is leading up to a joke later. but hey he’s giving Doc attention. More than I can say for Miles’ run (sorry Miles, I love you but I’m gonna point stuff like that out). Grif ignores the sob story to work on the gun, and to his credit he gets the thing to work... on shuffle. Okay, why did God put a shuffle function on the gun? Then again, God has his ways and as a Christian I should know to not question it... assuming that that’s the God we’re refereeing to anyways. Lets just pretend that’s the case for now.

Meanwhile, Tucker and Sister have made the same revelation. The two of them have ended up, to my glee, in Valhalla! Since the Recollection Trilogy is my favorite storyline, seeing it again makes me SO happy. IDK what point this is at. It could be before the Reds and Caboose got sent there, could be after the Reds fought Wash and the Meta, I don’t know. But who cares? It’s Valhalla again! I am happy! Also we learn that Tucker is atheist and Sister, like her brother, is agnostic. Good to know!

Tucker tries to figure out Donut’s cryptic warning of ‘the key to fixing the future is to fix the past’ or something along those lines. Sister however wants to hold it off and have a little ‘fun’ with Tucker... by going through time to bang various historical figures! And Sister is officially more sexually ambitious than Tucker could ever hope to be. Tucker, being Tucker, is unhappy that... you know, she doesn't want to bang him and all. He also refers to them apparently having had sex in Blood Gulch that... I forgot about I guess. But Sister says it didn’t happen and it wasn’t all that memorable anyways. Ouch... you know, when binging I found Sister pointless all in all and that writing her out would have changed nothing. But now that she’s back and Joe is actually giving her attention, I freakin’ LOVE her. Keep it up Joe!

So now over to Simmons and Sarge with Simmons trying to figure the gun out. Him being a nerd, he’s far more confused and nitpicky about it than the others have been. Sarge is more than happy to accept having a ‘magic gun’ though and wants to get on to the ‘fixing the past’ thing. How? Well his first thought is to go to The Battle of Broken Ridge. Apparently it was rather traumatic event for Sarge and going back would reopen some old wounds, but he’s willing to face it to fix it. We’ll talk more about this later. Simmons wants to instead go to a lab to get the gun taken apart to figure out how it works since nothing else had made sense and he wants to have something explainable. But Sarge convinces him to just figure it out by actually using the gun, leading us to the Battle of Broken Ridge... so using Ancient Egypt last episode was a total copout so no mummy fights. Damn it!

So yeah, after Gus, I mean Simmons, I mean Gus (come on, you can’t tell me he WOULDN’T do the same thing cause nerds) acts like a nerd by making a log, he and Sarge see the battle in progress. Past!Sarge was a lieutenant at the time and sends his men out to make a surprise attack while he covered them from behind the ridges. This ended with them all getting massacred, and present!Sarge figures that this is because the went in the wrong direction. So he goes and tells them to go the other way.. which past!Sarge makes them go back and... well, you can figure out how it ends. From the afterlife, I can just see Church laughing at them cause now they know how he felt during his time travel stint.

Finally, we have Lopez coming back online after his head came off and Caboose fixed him. Shock of all shocks, I think Caboose has understood what Lopez is saying moreso than any other character as he tries to figure out Donut’s warning. He concludes on... universal savings... okay who let Joel write on the scripts?! But yeah, Caboose wants to create savings accounts for everyone in hopes of saving the universe. Too bad that he lost the penny he had on him, but it’s okay! Cause he actually figured out how the portal gun works! Because of course he did!

So the two end up back to the opening scene. Caboose tries to find his penny and... remember when Caboose seemed to lose focus and Grif had to remind him to find Donut? Turns out that it was present!Caboose and past!Caboose actually didn’t lose focus. Ah, I love it when jokes come back around like that! So Caboose goes through another portal to keep looking, Lopez resigns himself to the end of the world, and somewhere Burnie is probably wondering how even with Church dead his character somehow always gets saddled with Joel’s. I guess we’ll never know.

Review

This was shorter than last week, but BOY does it leave me plenty to talk about!

The episode seems to exist to explain how the time travel will work, some more character development setup, and just to have some comedic hijinks after last weeks more plot heavy episode. And I thought it was great! Like I said, it reminds me a lot of Season 3 when everyone was separated and the first episode with it jumping back and forth between the pairs, setting up their situations. IDK if this was an intentional callback, but I liked it nonetheless. And everyone's current situations and the pair dynamics were done very well. So lets just go in order here:

Grif and Doc: This is the one I’m most interested in, and so far I’m pleased! Beginning with Grif, he’s reacting exactly how I expected him to, ala being angry at the whole thing. It makes sense. Despite his efforts, the universe decided to shit on him again and thrust him and the others into another adventure and one arguably more insane than ever before. He’s also stuck with Doc, who he’s never particularly been on good terms with. Heck when he WAS friendly to Doc back in Blood Gulch and even got validation for using CPR to cure Sarges head wound, Doc threw him under the bus when he realized that Grif was the butt monkey. That was a dick move. Of course Doc has been shit on by everyone far more at this point, but still Grif’s got a bit more of an excuse than the others. Plus again, he was’t there when Doc turned on them and he at least had the dignity to just quit and tell them that he quit before things went to shit instead of just turn his back on then in a dire moment. 

But going to Doc... his reaction is good. He actually takes responsibility for his actions, feels guilty that it contributed to everything that happened (Wash getting shot), and that he ultimately couldn’t talk the Blues and Reds out of their plans. He feels that he failed both sides and that in doing so, everyone got hurt. He even completely understands Grif hating him for it since he feels the same way about it. He doesn’t try to make excuses, even when honestly he has very valid reasons to make excuses. He’s been constantly shit on, forgotten about, and even got trapped in another dimension before and everyone just forgot about it or just didn’t care. But we could say that betraying the guys when he knows that the Blues and Reds have fallen off their rocker was going a tad too far, even if he did try to use it to convince them to stop and failed. But its a nice look into Doc’s current psyche and Matt did a great job expressing how disappointed in himself he is.

Now will this lead to anything? It might. Normally with Doc, it’s hard to tell. I feel there may be a point where Doc either sacrifices himself to save Grif in a pivotal moment, like shoving him through a portal when one of the villains find him, or he goes all O’Malley to make a sacrifice play so that Grif can escape. IDK, but going off the self-loathing there’s a good chance that something’s gonna happen, and this time it may have more of an impact. We’ll have to wait and see, but hey it’s something. Can’t wait to see what happens with these two next!

Tucker and Sister: Their moment is mainly for comedy but it was good! Like I said, I loved seeing Valhalla again. IDK if they’ll still be there later, but hey I appreciate the callback. It’s also nice to see Tucker being... well, Tucker again. Hes had a lot of character development since Chorus, and it was very well done. But after last season, while I personally didn’t find him OOC, I can see why the way he was written was frustrating for people. Plus after all the events in Chorus and S15, I think we needed to see him in a happier state of mind, and it looks like he is. I said before that it felt like S15 was Joe trying to put the bookend on Blue Team’s problems, and I think it shows. Tucker seems far more relaxed and comedic, like during Recollection. Hopefully he still has his newfound competence, and I assume that when things go to shit again we’ll see that. But he’s in a place where he can be comedic Tucker without him coming across as an arrogant idiot, so this is good.

Then we have Sister... OMG Sister. SO as I said above, I did not care about Sister when I was watching Blood Gulch. She wasn't particularly bad, her personality was strong and fitting for the cast of characters she was in. But... she didn’t really do anything. According to Burnie on the DVD commentaries, he had wanted to add her for a while and S5 was the only place he could, but still you could write her out and very little would change. Her being gone for over half the series since then doesn’t help. But the upside to adding her back is now they can actually do stuff with her, and so far I’m happy!

Okay so Sister’s so far only expressed wanting to bang historical figures and I kind of hope we can see her do more than make sex jokes. But hey, we can officially confirm her bi now so yay canon bisexual character! Plus the way her and Tucker’s banter was written was very well done. It was really funny and her proving to be far more ambitious with her sex life and finding Tucker not worth remembering was hilarious. Plus her just not giving a shit about Tucker’s advances are both hilarious and make me very happy. Sorry Tucker, but hey at least our probably the only guy who an claim to have had sex with an entire planet... and still paying the lawsuit for it XD

Sarge and Simmons: It was hilarious, Plain and simple. It’s been a pretty good while since these two had one-on-one time and so far I’m pleased with what we have. Simmons wanting to study the gun and have some kind of explanation he can cling to when nothing else is making any kind of logical sense is perfectly IC. I’m also glad to see him actually disagreeing with Sarge and trying to get his own point across. Simmons has mostly grown out of the kissass phase, at least to the extent he was in Blood Gulch, and I’m glad to see that sticking. He feels a lot more independent but is still the nerd we all know and love. Character development, yay!

Then we have the Battle of Broken Ridge and all the continuity stuff it brings up. If I had to guess, it takes place early in Sarge’s military career before he became an ODST or this was before he got put into Blood Gulch. Considering we don’t completely know how these outposts operate aside form how they use the SIM Troopers, I don’t find it hard to buy that Sarge has been on multiple Red Teams before getting recruited for Blood Gulch. But these guys have brown armor so... IDK. But still, it’s good to see some backstory and it was good to see Sarge try to save his men. Sure it looks like he failed, but hey he tried.

Still, it really DOES make me ponder on this whole ‘fixing the past’ thing. Like... what does Donut mean by the past? For the Reds and Blues to fix their own pasts? I’m assuming not since Sarge only inadvertently caused it. Did the villains do something in the past and damage it? Why didn’t Donut just say that though? Or is ‘God’ just using the Reds and Blues to invoke what will fulfill the prophecy mentioned in Episode 1? After all, it’s said they end the world and this may be the catalyst that causes it, hence why Huggins (where is she BTW?) has to follow them around. But I would hope that the puppetmaster would have made a reasonable explanation about what had to be fixed to provoke that. IDK, it’s way too early to tell and this is a multi-part saga, so we’re just gonna have to see how it plays out.

And finally...

Caboose and Lopez: THIS WAS EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR. Caboose being... Caboose, but also showing that he CAN be competent in his own way. Sure he got Donut’s message wrong, but at least he was thinking about it. Plus he was able to both fix Lopez and actually understand what he said. IDK if Caboose can speak Spanish, but I absolute believe that he can just get what Lopez is saying. And unlike everyone else, except maybe Simmons unless they just used shuffle enough times until they got the right portal (which if that isn’t the case, kudos to Simmons for figuring it out on his own), Caboose is the only one who figured out how to make the gun work. So now hes on a Penny Quest as Lopez continues to regret his own existence. I love it!

I admit I wasn’t sure how this was going to work since Caboose and Lopez are the two most incomprehensible characters in the show. Caboose is random and dimwitted, and no one an understand Lopez at all. But it’s surprisingly really funny so far! Normally having characters together alone like this without someone else to keep it balanced can be annoying very quickly. But in this case, it came off as really funny and not exaggerated. I guess it helps that Caboose can understand what Lopez is saying, but still it’s just the right balance. Which is good since I assume that they’re going to be the comedy relief pair for now. But who knows?

Final Thoughts

As I said, this seems to be here to show us how the time travel will play out and I assume the next episode will either cut to Chorus or focus on one pair for the majority of it. We’ll have to see. Still, this was good! The interactions were really good and I really enjoyed seeing it play out. Everyone felt IC and leaves plenty of setup for their respective situations. It leaves the question of what happened to Donut, but I guess we’ll find out eventually. But overall, this was a fun episode that perfectly sets up what we can expect. Hopefully, we’ll be delivered just what we’re hoping for.

[canaryatlaw]

okay, well today was fine. less hectic at work, which was nice after 3 very hectic days. court did not go exactly as planned, which is the second time this week this has happened with the judge who really likes me and I’m starting to be like....I mean I know it’s because she’s new and doesn’t really know what she’s doing yet so when I make an oral motion to withdraw because the other side filed a divorce case two days earlier (thus consolidating our case with theirs), she says she needs it to be in writing, while other judges grant oral motions to withdraw very regularly....sigh. things were a little chaotic because there was no courtroom coordinator so everyone was just in the courtroom zoom and trying to call cases, but we ended up going forward without the translator there that both parties needed, which is the second time in this case that’s happened, and to be fair it is definitely a rare language to obtain a translator for (Amharic) but like, the parties need to be able to know what’s going on. so I was somewhat frustrated, but the wait at least might overall end up being a good thing for the client and give her more time to find counsel for the divorce case. I think I talked about this yesterday, but I’m just so so pissed I have to give this case up because I am so fiercely attached to it at this point and it’s just such an awful awful situation (it involves little kids, so you know I’m going to be fiercely passionate about it, and this fucking asshat keeps trying to ask for visitation, like go die in a hole please you should never be near these children again) for all of them and they’re in such a vulnerable place right now.....I’d spoken with my supervisor about our family law division taking it on and me potentially staying on for the OP part, but when I spoke with them they just gave me like a flat out no, which I then told my supervisor and she was kind of confused because they had spoken about making exceptions for particularly serious cases, so I think she’s going to try to talk to her and see if we can maybe make it happen. I just feel so bad because I know the client is scared about it and not being able to do much to help is really just killing me and it’s so frustrating. ugh. but anyway, that was done at least. I put in a small instacart order for a few things, mainly because I needed to get broccoli. I can never remember what I post about in previous posts but tomorrow night I’m going to make dinner for my downstairs neighbors as they just lost their 4th child after she was born two months premature and passed two hours after being born. I was asking the dad if there was anything the kids particularly liked or disliked, and he said they were really into broccoli for some reason (which did make me laugh) and of course anything with cheese (which is really just a required part of being a child) and one of them was trying to avoid meat on Fridays (their Catholic, I know Lent hasn’t started yet and I don’t really know enough about that stuff to know anything else about it) so I decided Broccoli Mac and Cheese was a good choice, and I’m doubling the recipe because friend is coming over so we can have dinner too and not spend more money on ordering out, lol. So I got my instacart stuff. Things weren’t too bad busy-wise today, so around noon I snuck out for a quick run to the bank to get some damn quarters, because I very badly needed my laundry done. so I legit gor $30 in quarters because they’re not limiting them anymore haha and I had soooo much laundry to do. the afternoon was chill, we had our case acceptance weekly meeting which is always a good check in. I finished everything up for the day around 5, and started the process of doing my laundry. I had to stop dragging my hamper down to the basement for laundry with me because I’m always somewhat unsteady on the steps and dragging down an overloaded hamper with me sounds like a recipe for fucking disaster, so I have a bag instead and I took them down load by load. I ended up doing 4 loads because I was soooooo overdue haha so that took a lot of trips up and down. While I was doing that I also decided to make more Amaretti cookies because I found a recipe for the crunchy ones that I wanted to make (and they’re sooo easy to make, it’s legit just almond flour, egg white, sugar and almond extract) and those came out well so I was pleased with that. I also tried to make some rice in my instant pot but the part with the pressure release valve got messed up somehow and after cooking for a few minutes it came up with a like “burned” message, and most of the rice was cooked but some of it was overly hard, so I have to figure out what to do with that. I might do a small batch of vanilla pudding recipe tomorrow so I don’t waste the egg yolk I have left over. I also watched this week’s episode of the Resident in full, then the first 3 episodes of the new season of Chicago Med so I’m caught up to the currently airing ones. And through all of this I was folding clothing, because I knew there was no way I could just wait until it’s all done and try to fold it because that would not work lol. and yeah, at some point after 10 I switched to the news which turned into Jimmy Kimmel for a bit before shutting the tv off to shower and start getting ready for bed, and now I’m here. I don’t have court or clinic tomorrow and no other pressing obligations, so I’m sleeping in which I’m definitely looking forward to, and would like to start doing that now so I’ll end this here. Goodnight my dears. Happy Friday.

[nathanfryerwoods]

Lucky Stars - Blurb and Introduction - Nathan Fryer-Woods

Comically depressing… Lawrie is trapped in an undisclosed location in southeast Asia. It's undisclosed, as Lawrie is a real life boy, still stuck, still in danger. An illegal alien, through no fault of his own, and now a father for the first time. As a mysterious disease ravages the world outside, Lawrie is trapped on the edge of the jungle and civilization, in the most tribal part of the country with the feral in-laws he now calls family. While trying to teach and help his son to grow, he's constantly battling against the bad habits, tribal practices and the deeply embedded superstitions, passed down over the generations. No matter how futile his attempt would seem, all he can do is try… what could possibly go wrong??

www.gogetfunding.com/luckystars        www.paypal.me/whliteraryagent

Introduction.

I hope you like reading…

They say, it's all about the first line. So now that's over and done with, hi, my name's Nathan. Originally from the UK, but now (and I've always said this as a bit of a joke, but these days it has new meaning), happily trapped in south east Asia. My almost 9 month old Son is doing just great. My wife's family are certifiably crazy, which wasn't a problem till we started living with them. Unfortunately, it's rubbing off on me, and I'm stuck here between a rock, and a bit of a pickle. Not the place I intended to be, whilst raising my first and probably only child.

Thanks to the madness currently possessing the world, my options, just like most people's, are thin on the ground. But as a foreigner in this country, with no government bail out like I'd be getting back home, I expect I'm currently somewhere towards the top end of the world's poverty chart… I've chosen not to openly disclose where I am exactly, as publishers in this country need to exercise a very careful caution, and the laws here regarding slander and defamation of character, mixed up with my legal status, could end up making my situation much worse. I'm not trying to cast a negative light on this place, but it might sometimes seem that way, with how I write about it. I love this place, I just hate this situation and feel so helpless.

I realise I may also at times sound very unappreciative. That's because I am... my body doesn't appreciate white rice every meal of every day. And though I'm used to picking things out of my food, when bugs are a part of the recipe, it feels a bit rude. My lungs don't appreciate the smell of burning bottles every night, and I'm sick of moving the big piles of plastic that mount up outside the room where my son sleeps. I'm also not too keen on the kitchen knife under his pillow, this turned up there, not because of my wife's heavy hands waking him up in tears, but the bad dreams caused by the ghosts. And even though we all know the only way to scare a ghost away is with cutlery, I think I'd prefer a bad dream every once in a while, than one time having a kitchen knife lodged in my neck.

All this being said, I have chosen, for many reasons (and very few alternatives), to ride this out as long as possible for the sake of my Son. The book I am writing explains my situation, and by reading it you should be able to fill in the very odd, small gap. But if not, fire me a message and we'll have a chin-wag.

In a nutshell, I was robbed of the money for my renewal of a very important document by a tour operator. Due to my own naivety, and being busy working in a different city, it was almost 3 months before I realised there was a problem. At the time, my wife was pregnant, and the little money I had was to take care of the hospital bill. After taking some bad advice, I scraped together $500 and paid someone who's family are high up in government and the police, to sort the problem out (at the time, the standard practice was to lock people up waiting for someone back home to cough up). Now, I'm down an extra $500, and the document I need to pass through ports is nowhere to be seen. Which is a bit of a worry. I've been here long enough, seen it all before, and by now have learnt that there's nothing much I can do to sort this, without having the cash to pay the overstay. And going to my embassy wouldn't do any good either, they can't help me out of this, not if I don't have the funds.

The area we now live in is very rural, nothing but farmland for miles around. My skill set is absolutely useless out here. I've spent most of my time in this country working in tourism, mainly managing guesthouses, a skill I'm very thankful for being able to pick up. At the time the world began to fall apart, I was project managing the build of an eco-resort. I wasn't making much, but the potential was there. My manager made the right decision at the time, and cut his losses. A few months later my wife gave up and went back to her parents while I kept trying. But when she told me her and her family (that day there were 5 people not including children), were sharing 2 eggs between them, I decided to come back too. I know what these people are like, and can't let my son grow up like them.

When he was born, I was told it would be 6 weeks before we could get out and back to work. It had been 2 months when I was told the in-laws wanted us to go back to work, leaving my child here. Another month later and they finally got the message. There's no way I'm leaving my boy with a man who gives 3 year olds energy drinks at 8am, while the rest of the family spend their time beating and screaming at him as he's got too much energy, or is crashing from the sugar. This poor boy has all black stumps for teeth on the top row, no pants on all day as he rolls around in the dirt people have been pissing in, and takes worming tablets. This boy, does not need energy drinks. Grandma, loves giving the 22 month old, the dregs of her antihistamine medicine. It tastes nice, so it must be good. Ma can't read the back of packets, instructions or warnings. 

Now, the only real option I have is farm work on the family plot. I did this last time we were here when our son was born, usually earning somewhere between $3.75 & 7.50 every 2 days. This time of year, the farm is out of season. Once this years crop is ready, the total worth of the farm's produce will be around $5.00 every 2 days as the 1st month creeps by. This time around, as it looks like I'll be staying for the foreseeable future, I've got to come up with a real plan, I can't put up with this much longer. I used to be vegetarian, and though we're surrounded by farms, I haven't seen a vegetable in 10 days. Now I eat fish heads.. the cheeks, the brains, their faces. I give the eyes to my wife's brothers…I had to draw the line somewhere.

My only way of making a decent wage out here, is to work online. Ideally I'd like to teach English. But most of the day, we're in a black hole for data connection, and with the lack of a certain document, signing up as a teacher isn't possible anyway.

So what's the plan? Well, I guess I'll carry on clutching at straws, keep writing the book, prepare the land for this years harvest and raise the boy. Plenty to keep me busy, but I need way out of this, before my boy grows up like his feral cousins. I feel like I'm living in a George Orwell book, and I don't mean 1984, that's the outside world. We're still stuck on Animal Farm.

I always thought I'd be somewhere in my 50s/60s, when I finally thought about penning my first book. When I had something to write about, and my fingers couldn't handle playing music any longer... As it turns out, I have plenty to write about, and it's spilling out with ease. I've always written, but a novel seemed a little too daunting to even think about. I wouldn't like to guess just how many songs I've written since my first, 25 years ago (which was terrible, and I hate that I still remember it). But the 2 albums trapped in my head are pretty good, at least I recon so. Hopefully they will see the light of day, at some point in the future.

I started the novel on the night of the 21st December 2020, and as of today - 29th Dec, I'm over the 10,000 word marker (though I've been doing a daily, rough edit as I go, I've been advised to try and avoid this, but I wanted the intro to be somewhat polished for upload). I'm hoping to entice some of you in, with the first few chapters. If it's something you're into, super duper. I'm looking for 'donations', to help my family out of this situation, but all donors will receive a copy of the book when finished, and after it's final edit.

A little can go a long way out here, and anything would be much appreciated as I'm raising my little champ. The link to the funding site can be found below, or by clicking here.

If you're not able to spare anything, no worries, but do keep checking back to my blog as (and don't quote me on this), I'll probably be adding to and updating as I go, up to the point of a ghastly cliffhanger, obviously, nerr... Once I've finished writing and editing, anyone who's helped out will be sent a link to download an e-book copy, and if and when I'm lucky enough to have it published in printed form, each will receive a copy of that in time, a few things depending. All will get a mention in both copies on a dedication page as a huge thank you (unless requested otherwise). And I'd like to offer people the chance to leave an inspirational message/joke/clue to where buried treasure may be hidden, or of course, just absolute nonsense, for the outside world to read alongside their dedication. Heck, use it to promote your auntie's dog wash service, see if I care. Could be quite interesting, and sounds like fun to me.

At the rate that I'm writing, I expect to be in the final editing stage by about mid February.

The novel is written as a fiction, but at the same time, is almost completely autobiographical. Names and places have been changed to help protect our safety here, but the story, and its characters are real. I can promise that, as I'm living it.

And just before I get back to work, I must say… I know that sometimes my use of punctuation, Capitals, and commas, may be a little unorthodox,,, but just so you know, I do know most of what I'm doing wrong, I did fairly well in school (not so bad)… but, I knew better… and still think that I might. And besides, I've got some good friends back home with already published work, who are going to help with the final cut… I've not pestered them so much as of yet, and what's down currently, is me with very little coaching, but with a little help from my friends, in the end, it'll brush up alright. Any questions, comments or advice would be more than welcomed, you can find my email address below.

Oh, and no matter how important the first line of a story must be, I just couldn't help myself… A tongue-in-cheek nod to my future self, hopefully showing how far I've come. I'm sorry, you'll get over it.

Thank you for reading, you're welcome to carry on, and I hope you do.

Nathan Fryer-Woods

[The light that shines from within me, bows to the light that shines within you]

www.gogetfunding.com/luckystars

nathanfryerwoods@protonmail.com

NOTE TO POTENTIAL PUBLISHERS

I know for any publisher, having a plot outline is very important and often essential for most first time authors. Although I am a true 'pantser' in life in general and writing this whilst in the thick of it, day by day. I do have my main outline. The middle marathon (with all potential real life disasters averted), being based on one or more of the many fears I have for the future, and twists in the plot coming from actual past events which have happened to me whilst being here. But as I say, this is all providing nothing major happens as I'm writing, and with all that's happened here already, would be an unexpected, and highly unlikely surprise. I have also been writing daily outlines, more detailed and over a smaller time frame, for the following days work. I will happily provide the main plot outline, and an up-to-date manuscript upon request. Nice one.

N-F-W

[randisnotonfire-blog]

Just a bit out of my league Pt.3 Stan Uris X Reader/Henry Bowers X Reader Modern AU

 Summary: (Also I changed this btw) Drama, drama, and more drama is all that can describe the messy Tozier family right now. Y/n is still battling whether or not to leave Henry just for the sake of her safety. You and Richie’s mom is deciding if she wants to really send Richie off to a mental institution because she found out about his friend group and him trying to kill Pennywise. Even with forgiveness this will all end in tears and heartbreakers doing the usual; heartbreaking. Henry had apologized to Y/n but their relationship is at stake mainly from the fighting. Stan, oh poor Stan. Forever stuck in the friendzone Stan ends up telling Y/n the truth causing an, already, horrible triangle between Y/n, Henry, and Stan himself in Pt.4!

Song: Out of my league by Fitz and the Tantrums and DNA by Lia Marie Johnson bc these both fit the theme PERFECTLY

Warnings: Fluff, angst, depressing parts, cursing, underage drinking, not taking advantage of people, some humor, family drama

A/n:Okay so I do but I don’t have writers block atm so thats sucks (Insert dick joke bc I am a walking female version of Richie Tozier) but eh at least I get to write for a bit anyways x3 also the drama in this kind of but doesn’t remind of Stranger Things season 2 but like I am still flipping my shit bc season 2 comes out in 15 days so like ye also SO SO SO sorry if Henry and anybody else is like super oc (Original character)

    If you are sensitive to family and love drama then please don’t read,                                                        You have been warned

    (Not my photo I just found it on ye old internet but like this fits one of the scenes in Pt.3 lol)

                                           *          *         *

    You don’t even know why Henry had skipped the rest of school today but it just happened. He seemed off, ever since that fight he backed off a bit but it was still a ‘okay’ relationship. When you walked home you found your mom sitting at the dining room table with Richie talking about stuff… “Richie I really do think it would be a good idea for you to be in a mental institution sweetie” Your mom sounded off…different. She didn’t sound like the alcoholic she was. You walked up to the entry way but you were in the position of not being seen unless you moved somewhere different. “Mom seriously I am fine” “No Richie you need to leave!” she said her voice cracking from being stressed. You felt heavy tears trying to release from your soft emerald green eyes but you tried to fight it. “Just fight back the truth” you thought to yourself. “Mom! I am perfectly fine here! Remember we only moved here so Y/n would be better about everything! And to get away from fucking dad..” Richie said loudly but softly saying the last part about your dad. “Richie…-” before your mom could finish talking Richie got up and left the table. Leaving the house to just you and your mom.  “Mom..” you said walking to the seat Richie had been sitting at. “You saw everything” you nodded then took a seat at the table. “It’s going to be fine..trust me” you gave her a pain killing smile and she broke down and her flustered cheeks filled with heavy crystal blue tears. You closed your heavy lids then she got up and left the room. “Mom wait” You said somewhat softly knowingly that she wouldn’t be able to hear you. “Love you…” you spoke in a whisper tone, letting the tears flood you ran your hands through your hair and started to full on cry. 

              The next morning you woke up in your bed, which you don’t even remember getting in here. You had woken up from a nightmare but thankfully it was Saturday morning. Sitting up in bed you looked around and to your surprise you were still wearing last night’s clothes. Then you noticed Henry, he was sitting at your bay window looking out at the fall leaves. “How did you get in here…?” You said then his head quickly turned to look at you. “You called me to get here” he mumbled but you could still understand him. “And then what happened?” you said fully clueless. “As I said you called me, you said about some spare key in a bush. Then when I got here it looked like you got into some of your mom’s alcohol…So I had to carry you up here because your mom would be pissed if she saw you like that” he said as he walked over to your bed and sat down next to you. “Y/n you know it’s okay that you did that” “No it’s not” you shook your head then looked at him in the eye. “Don’t tell anyone, promise?” you said then he smiled back and said “Promise”. Then the next thing I knew, my hand was on his shoulder and my face was close to Henry’s. It was like some sort of “Kiss-me” body language. I didn’t want it to seem as if we both took advantage of the situation but he went for it. Then his cheek was against mine, I knew it was now or never actually have my first kiss like this with him. But the thought of us making out after a night of me drinking alcohol was too much, So I said the first mood-killing thing that popped in my head. “I-I think Richie might be aw-” he ignored me trying to get out of this. Henry was obviously the one to be like this but it still was mixed feelings for me. Our worlds collided as soon as we met in a different way. The door than swung open to reveal Richie complaining that he is hungry. “What the fu-!” he yelled then in a natural instinct, for when your brother walks in on you fucking making out with your boyfriend,you jumped up letting go of him.

     “Why aRE YOU HERE HENRY!” Richie yelled. The face you gave him was “Shut up and is mom home??” he nodded “Yeah she is home” just from knowing. “Get out!” you yelled back at him. “Fine!” Richie said putting his hands up then slammed the door shut and walked away. You got up and walked over to change into something different, Henry quickly went on his phone just to distract him from staring at you. 

                                              *       *      *

  “Hey Henry, how is your dad sweetie?” your mom asked when she saw you and Henry walking downstairs into the kitchen. “He is doing okay Mrs.Tozier” he smiled through the lie he told your mom then let go of your hand so you could sit down at the dinner table. Then Richie came barreling in wearing super baggy navy green jeans and a band shirt. “Are you seriously going to be wearing that today?” you said as you were putting your hair up in a high ponytail. “Yes I am Y/n” he said as he sat down next to you. “Mom is it okay if Eddie and maybe Stan comes over today?” Richie spoke up once he set down his phone so he could start eating the breakfast your mom made. Everything was weird and different. It was almost like a normal family, your mom actually made breakfast and wasn’t wasting her time drinking away her problems, Richie actually acted like the typical little brother and wasn’t cursing 24/7. But it was nice for once. You caught Henry staring at you, when you looked over at you he smiled. “what the aCTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON” you thought yourself. Am I losing my mind?? You looked around to see if there was any alcohol bottles anywhere but one was to be found in the trash, it was full. “Sorry but yes they can come over Richie” your mom said softly. She walked over to turn off the TV, walked back and placed the food on the dinner table, then sat down. “Well this is different” you mumbled. “Y/n are you okay?” Richie looked over at you. “No I am not okay Richie” “Watch the attitude” Your mom spoke up. Henry was ignoring everything and just eating everything on his plate. “Y/n?” Henry said,you gave him a soft ‘mhm’ “Mrs. Tozier, is it okay if me and Y/n go out for a bit?” “Sure just if you guys are staying out late she needs to be home by around 7pm” Henry nodded, grabbed his belongings then took you by the hand and left. 

    “I n-need to tell you something” Henry said as he took a deep sigh. When you two were holding hands he looked you in the eyes, you both ended up stopping by the bridge. “You can tell me anything Henry” he nodded. “Don’t tell anyone please.” You nodded. “I k-killed him…” you were shocked by this. “Who is him?” you said softly. “My dad” he muttered in a somewhat mad tone. “Henry I can’t hear you, please speak up baby” you said as you looked at his guilty face. “I said I killed my dad!” he said loudly. You closed your eyes, “Can you please just walk me home, the sun is setting..” you fought off any sadness you felt for his dad because his dad was a total asshole. You started walking back home but Henry stopped you, “Please Y/n don’t leave me. I’m safe to be around, you’re safe” he said the last part in a almost non audible tone. “Henry I know it’s just- I need to get home” Henry shook his head. “You can walk yourself home” he said as he went opposite directions home. You sighed and walked yourself home. 

                                                    *        *       *

  “Mom I’m home!” You called out as you closed the door. “No you need to leave Went! (According to WIKI fucking WIKI for Stephen king’s movies and books lmao it said that Richie’s dad’s name is Wentworth Tozier so like correct me if im wrong in the comments) the kids do not want to fucking see you!” Your mom shouted at the top of her lungs. Then you heard a glass bottle shatter. You flinched slightly and walked up to the kitchen walk way. You hid yourself but only you could see what was going on. “If you already have another fucking girlfriend then you need to pack your shit and leave!” Your mom screamed. You saw the broken glass bottle, it was a wine bottle, then you saw a non-broken bottle sitting on the table. “I will leave when I fucking want to leave Maggie!” Your dad screamed back at her (Maggie is Richie’s mum just to clear that up too) you hated seeing them both like this. But you couldn’t help wonder, how did it go from normal mom to your mom and dad both fighting. This hadn’t happened since Richie was in elementary school. Almost 4 years ago… You snapped back into reality when you felt a hand on your shoulder, in reaction you turned around and it was Richie. “We should go up to our rooms…” “Why?” and as if on cue: “I’m calling the fucking cops!” Your mom screamed. “That’s why” Richie said as he pointed at your mom. “Y-yeah..” You said as you both rushed upstairs.

     “Why does this all have to happen Y/n” Richie said, you had both been sitting in your room on the floor. He had his head resting on your shoulder, it felt like forever since you both had to do this. Just listening to the screams and the cop sirens felt too real, “It’s going to be fine Richie” you closed your eyes and reminded yourself not to cry since you and Richie both had already been crying over all that has happened. “No it won’t and you know it won’t too Y/n” he spoke heartbreaking words. Then Richie’s phone started going off, Bill had a request to face time. Richie quickly lifted his head up off of your shoulder then answered the facetime call. “Hey Bill” Richie said with a pain-killing smile. “Why are you in your sister’s room…” Bill said after he took a sip from his water bottle. “uh-” “It’s fine Bill, I’m up here with him” You interrupted him because you knew it made him pissed off a bit. “Shut up” Richie said. You giggled a bit causing Richie to roll his eyes. “Is that Y/n” Stan whispered to Bill but you could both hear him on the other line. “Yeah, why?” Bill said. Then Stan sent him a text saying that he liked Y/n, when Bill looked at the text he nearly choked on his drink. “OH YEAH BECAUSE OF HIS FISH” Bill said trying to not blow his cover. Then Stan appeared on the screen. “Hey Y/n, Richie” he said with a nervous laugh. “Wait why do i hear police sirens! RICHIE Y/N ARE YOU FUCKING OKAY!?” Eddie then yelled since he was having a sleepover with Bill and Stan. “Yeah it’s just ya know…local kid threw a rock…at my window…” You said and looked at Richie, “Yeah it was some psycho!” “I doubt that Richie” Stan said with a bland expression on his face. “Whatever” 

                                      To be,

                                                       Continued 

@lovertozier 

[salarta]

My Attitude/Pessimism Toward Marvel

I’m tired but can’t sleep. That means writing a post about Polaris and my general pessimism toward Marvel.

I’m putting this behind a cut because I know some people out there don’t want to see it, and I won’t push it on them when they search. Others have probably seen it over and over and are sick to death of seeing it. Here I go.

I’m extremely pessimistic about Marvel these days. I expect a mix of nothing, backhanded/sabotaged use, and empty gestures that function in the most technical sense possible but don’t actually amount to anything.

Preface: when I note a specific person, do not harass them. I am not just saying this. I mean it. Harassment is bad. It sucks. Don’t do it.

Introduction to Marvel

I learned about Polaris in 2009. I’ve been putting up with Marvel’s behavior for the past 8 years. I’m jaded and pissed off.

When I discovered her, it was at the precise moment when Marvel was shutting down the good things going for her and trying to discard her in space. I loved Jeff Parker’s Exiles run. They abruptly shut it down after six issues; Jeff Parker even had most of a script for issue #7 done when they did it. I loved Lorna’s presence in the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon. They abruptly canceled it after one season, despite the team having plans as far out as season 3.

My introduction to Marvel’s attitude toward her was already on a sour note. In spite of it, I entered into Marvel with optimism. I naively thought that perhaps with enough positivity and shows of support, things would change.

But then I got to Tom Brevoort. Presently Senior Vice President of Publishing.

Introduction to Editorial/Executive Individuals

Back around 2012, Brevoort was very openly negative toward Polaris. When the matter of Lorna’s parentage came out, he was more than happy to try to claim Lorna couldn’t possibly be Magneto’s daughter, yet somehow Siryn could be Banshee’s daughter, with some convoluted excuse about “genetics breeding true.” When someone asked about Polaris possibly being in the Avengers vs X-Men event, his response was to say that Lorna couldn’t be part of it because “events are only for A-listers and B-listers.” Meaning he blew off any potential value she could have to the story, and looked down on her as a “lesser” character.

This is in addition to Brevoort bending over backwards to exclude her from family events in things like Children’s Crusade.

My first experience with someone at Marvel in an editorial/executive role was someone who had nothing but contempt for my favorite character and looked for any excuses he could find to devalue her and exclude her from anything he could.

Handling Lorna’s Return From Space

At the time I got into her, Marvel comics had Lorna shoved into space, same with Rachel Summers and Havok. You know how important they seemed to see her? They kept her in space limbo for a year. A full year lost, because according to what I’ve read, the X-Men and space offices didn’t know who had control of the characters.

Think about that. If this was someone like Wolverine or Storm, they would’ve been on top of making sure who could use them. Instead, they cared so little that they spent a year just letting her hang with no writers able to use her.

When they did finally bring her back? They shoved her back onto X-Factor.

X-Factor

Now, a lot of people love X-Factor, and they love Peter David. I understand that. I had a volatile start here, and if I’m completely honest, I didn’t give Peter David a fair shot before judging at the time. But I need to explain why I was volatile over this.

Polaris was in X-Factor in the 90s. She had a lot of major development afterward. She joined her father Magneto and her step-siblings on Genosha, developing her powers, gaining vital skills, building a reputation. She survived the genocide and dealt with trauma afterward. She lost her powers from Scarlet Witch stripping them from her. Got them back when Apocalypse forced her to become Pestilence. She went through Hell.

... Then Marvel decided to kick her back down to where she was before all of that development. They shoved her back on her old 90s team. Forced her to remain Havok’s supporting girlfriend. The reveal cover even had her standing behind Havok to drive this point home.

To me, it felt like a symbolic “fuck you” to everything Lorna suffered through, all the growth she had, all the ways she established her own character.

This was my first experience with, in my eyes, Marvel technically fulfilling something I and other fans wanted while undermining it. Fans wanted her back from space. They brought her back from space... then put her on a book that at first glance turned back the clock on all her development, and with a writer who is deeply opposed to characters he’s writing being involved in crossovers and broader Marvel events if he can help it.

Marvel traded exile in space for exile on X-Factor. They didn’t solve the problem. They just changed where the problem existed.

But like I said. I don’t think I gave Peter David a fair shot at the time. He did do some good things.

Sabotaged Milestones

I want to note going into this that I had some major problems with some of Peter David’s writing. I was very upset when he wrote Lorna saying he could do without seeing her father for the rest of her life; giving Marvel an excuse to never use that relationship. All-New X-Factor #3-6 also treated Lorna very, very poorly. It lacked empathy in writing her “rage” moments, and undermined her leadership to make Gambit look better.

I wanted to get that out of the way for context.

X-Factor #243 told Lorna’s origin story. She’d gone over 40 years without it being told. And it was good! Much better than I expected.

All-New X-Factor let Lorna lead a team in her own right! It also took over 40 years to happen. Until then, she only got to be “replacement leader” for other characters’ absences.

All-New X-Factor in general let her interact with Quicksilver, and #14 let her interact with Scarlet Witch! It was the first time she got to spend time with her siblings in around 10 years.

... And Marvel refused to promote any of it.

Marvel did nothing to promote Lorna’s origin story getting told after 40 years of Marvel never telling it. They didn’t promote ANXF at all. When ANXF #14 was coming out, they went so far in trying to keep people from knowing about it that they withheld its cover until a week before release. Too late for most people to order it. Not to mention it was the second issue of a double shipping month.

But wait. It doesn’t just stop there. It also goes into Marvel trying to use attributes of Lorna while refusing to actually use Lorna herself.

“Replacing” Lorna, Not Using Her

At the same time as ANXF #14′s release, Marvel had promoted Axis with a cover months in advance of Scarlet Witch paired with Enchantress, with Wanda’s hair tinted red and Enchantress’ hair tinted green. So basically? While Marvel tried to bury ANXF #14 happening, they tried to exploit the visual of Lorna and Wanda to sell more copies of Axis.

Then, after Axis forced a retcon that made Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver suddenly not Magneto’s kids anymore, Marvel decided to do something else dickish. They created a character called Luminous, to be a “sister” to Wanda and Pietro.

That’s not one, but two times Marvel - mainly the Avengers side, meaning most likely Brevoort - tried to replace Lorna instead of actually using her. One, a character they saw as “more worthy,” and another brand new character they created for the sole purpose of occupying the role she had. That’s how much Marvel looked down on Lorna: they decided they’d rather create a character than use her.

Forced Limbo

Marvel canceled All-New X-Factor “due to low sales.” Notably, when they put out the Scarlet Witch solo, they let that book last for a year despite having sales just as low starting with issue #2.

The last time we saw Lorna in anything before her return this year was Secret Wars in 2015. At the time, I was excited. She was going to be able to interact with her father. Her broad family ties were acknowledged with Secret Wars: House of M. Various alternate reality versions of her had cameos.

I started dreading that Marvel doing so much for her all at once was a sign they planned to throw her into limbo afterward, and this was just to smooth things over before they did. I kept it to myself though because I wanted to believe Marvel intended to do better by her from that point onward.

Except I was right.

For two years, Marvel kept her in forced limbo. No appearances. No cameos. Nothing. The absolute most she got in that time was Sabretooth talking about how she smelled. Marvel looked at interest in Lorna, and for two years said “Fuck her, let’s use literally anyone else.”

Oh, but she’s back now, so it’s all fine! Right?

No. It’s not.

Beneath Men On Return (X-Men Blue)

Her first appearance this year was an alternate future in Deadpool and the Mercs for Money. There, she wore an all green costume with Magneto’s helmet and Magneto’s chest element. At the time, I made the mistake of supporting it. I should have seen and treated it as a bad omen of things to come.

When she finally got re-introduced with X-Men Blue #8 and #9, I was pretty damned jaded by Marvel. After everything I explained above, after two years of forced limbo, I expected she would briefly appear and then get thrown back into forced limbo. It turns out, how she’s been written and still being written makes me wish Bunn would stop writing her.

X-Men Blue #8 spends a ton of time building up Havok. He gets to be a threat to the teen X-Men. He gets to lead a brand new team of his own. He gets to interact with Briar Raleigh and get introduced as working with Emma Frost. He gets to establish connections. He gets all of this.

Then Polaris gets introduced. And how is she introduced? With dialogue exclusively emphasizing that Havok is her ex. And a description text box that describes as only one thing: “Daughter of Magneto.”

Think about that. Imagine Havok bursts into a room Polaris is in and all he says is “I know you were my girlfriend, but I won’t let my feelings for you hold me back.” Imagine Magneto shows up, and the only thing Marvel thinks you should know about him is “Father of Polaris.” Nothing else.

X-Men Blue #9 proceeds to reinforce this. It takes great pains to re-frame Lorna’s long-held “Mistress of Magnetism” title into looking like something she’s only allowed to have because Magneto is her father. When Lorna uses her powers to make two team members leave, one of them says it’s a sign she’s definitely Magneto’s daughter.

Because, y’know, a silly woman like Polaris couldn’t possibly want to do that of her own accord. It must be because of her daddy. Right?

Then, in a future issue (I think the next one), Bunn writes Lorna acting surprised by an attack on the team’s base - just so he can write Magneto “correcting” her about how attacks can come at any moment.

This is Polaris. A woman who’s been attacked out of nowhere repeatedly for decades. She survived a genocidal massacre that came out of nowhere and killed millions, for fuck’s sake. There’s no way in hell she’s going to not expect an attack while in a base of operations. She wasn’t safe in the heart of Genosha, she’s not going to think a piddling mansion will somehow be safer. I found this very insulting as a whole.

In the latest event, Lorna is put in the Malice costume at one point. Her reaction can be summarized as “Oh wow, this is one weird costume alright! How strange. Oh well.” While the scene is designed to heavily emphasize Mutant Massacre, the horror of dead mutants in the sewers, and Magneto’s outright about it.

Here’s the thing. Malice possessed Lorna and used her body to hurt and kill people, including those she loved. She was a passenger in her own body, forced to witness the horror of it all. For Lorna to have no kind of real reaction at all is insulting. The book plays it like it’s just for fun and thrills and doesn’t care at all about how Lorna would actually behave.

And something that doesn’t help is occasionally forcing dialogue where Lorna says ‘father’ or ‘dad’ in spots that are completely unnatural, just to remind everyone that he’s above her in that fashion. As I write this, I’m trying to remember if I saw Magneto refer to Lorna as “daughter” like this at any point.

The consistent pattern in everything Bunn’s done with Lorna so far is this: “Magneto and Havok are great, Lorna is beneath them and that’s the only value she has as a character.”

Odds and Ends

I’ve said a lot here, but there’s some pieces throughout the years that didn’t fit above.

The X-Men franchise had its anniversary in 2013. Marvel made covers meant to combine into one big image. Polaris was on none of them. Yet, Marvel included Havok alongside four of the original five X-Men on one cover.

In general, Marvel has been forcing Havok into every major development for Lorna while never raising her profile when things happen for Havok. When he went to Uncanny Avengers, the most she came up was unnamed as a “crazy girlfriend” he’s glad to be away from.

Yet, when Lorna’s origin story was told, Havok got to be involved. When Lorna led a team of her own, Havok got to be forced in as spying on her via Quicksilver with the reason being that Havok in sum thinks she’s not smart enough to avoid being taken advantage of by Harrison Snow. And then X-Men Blue, where he got to be the primary focus of what was being played up and promoted as Lorna’s big return after 2 years of forced limbo.

With regard to Avengers vs X-Men, Brevoort did technically relent to include her... as a nameless cameo. Who gets mind-controlled into submission by Emma Frost. And who Magneto completely ignores being treated that way after having gone into space to help rescue Lorna just a month prior.

When Occasional Good Isn’t Enough

As you may be picking up here, Marvel did allow some good things for Lorna during these past 8 years.

She returned from space. Magneto is her father. She got to interact with Wanda and Pietro. She got her origin story told. She got to lead a team of her own. She got her first playable appearances in video games. She got a figurine after a decade without one and lots of fan demand in top 10 lists. Arguably (cause Nix took the initiative to ask to use her), Marvel allowed her to be a star on Gifted, which is the best writing she’s had in a long time.

A person might look at the good stuff she’s managed to get in the past 8 years and think: what’s the deal? Why be pessimistic and negative about Marvel when they’ve done good things for her in that time?

Here’s the thing. Doing the occasional good thing does not undo massive heapings of bad that happen at the same time. If you burn down my house, giving me a brand new car isn’t going to bring my house back, nor is it anything close to a replacement for what I lost.

I’m not “ungrateful,” I just don’t let the rare nice thing from Marvel blind me to all the times they’ve screwed over the character I care about and keep doing it. I don’t let the occasional nice thing make me forget that Marvel’s spent most of her nearly 50 years of existence cheating her out of everything she can be.

My attitude toward Marvel is a reflection of Marvel’s attitude toward what I care about.

Some people are quick to play nice over that occasional good. I see doing so as a mistake. It’s giving Marvel permission to keep treating Lorna poorly as long as they throw a tiny breadcrumb over every so often. I think it’s part of what’s allowed Marvel to hold her back for literal decades. They don’t have to do anything more than the bare minimum if the bare minimum looks like it’s enough for Polaris fans.

Some people are afraid Marvel will at some point “punish” demanding more from Marvel after the occasional good. My stance is this: if Marvel is genuine, if they really want to do right by Lorna, then they’ll try to do right by her no matter what I say. If they try to tear down Lorna for things I’ve said, then they were lying any time they said they support her or that they said they try to be a good writer/editor. At which point they require more criticism and complaint, not less.

This post was long, but necessary for me. I needed to say all this.

[tomoyanosekai]

Solitude Through Rain ~揺れない一撃~ (Yurenai Ichigeki: Unwavering Strike)

“Let’s play! I’ll play with everyone and anyone that wants to play me! Feel free to come at me with everything you’ve got!”

It was this attitude and mindset that drove me in the past, and I’ve only recently begun to pick up again. In tennis, whether that be going in for a forehand, backhand, serve, or volley, you shouldn’t waver; you should go in without any doubts, and hit with unwavering confidence. Hitting with doubts will only either allow for under hitting, which forces the ball into the net; or allows for over hitting, which forces the ball to go out of the court. As February continues to roll on forward, and with the month coming to an end soon, the semester is beginning to pick up for me. Since the end of January, something I’ve had now more than ever is a bit more free time, and with that free time, I’ve been spending my time playing tennis again… As long as it isn’t raining, since this month has also been filled with rain. However, although I’ve been playing tennis when it hasn’t been raining, I’ve also given myself some space and time to sit down and re-focus on my life in solitude. Like the quote goes, “You can’t have a rainbow without a little bit of rain...” Or a lot of rain in this regard.

To give an update starting from the end of January, I was actually given that extension for my assignments for my Report Delays. It took a bit of arguing and negotiating with the Biola higher-ups, but as the dust settled, I was able to argue my case and have them give me the extension to finish my work. From there, I was able to finish the incomplete work in question from last semester and pass those classes. It wasn’t with the greatest of grades, but I was still able to pass nonetheless. After working like it was finals week for me, I was able to finally take a breather from the stress of the deadlines and extra work. I was finally able to take a breather, enjoy myself and do what I wanted to do. Hope Rising wasn’t a thing for me anymore, so what would I do with my free time, aside from general studying and making the most of my time in college by meeting up with friends? Something I haven’t been able to do for a while was play tennis.

If my memory serves me correctly, the last time I played tennis was about a year and a half ago, when I was able to play with friends in the early morning. Unfortunately, as most of those friends aren’t around anymore due to them graduating, I had a giant urge to play against anyone that wanted to play. To fulfill that urge, I was free to go back to the tennis coach and ask to play people randomly in her class since they had a class match roster, and even though I’ve only played against two people (as of this writing), I was able to thoroughly enjoy myself, both with one victory and one loss.  Aside from them, I was also able to grab some friends with me and have them join me on the courts and just play as well. Through all these chances to play against people both stronger and weaker than me, I still enjoyed myself just mainly because I was able to fill myself with the thrill and excitement of playing other people again. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to play as of recently, mainly due to a lot of rain in February. However, when looking back at my return to the court, through each hit and return I gave, I noticed that somewhere inside me was wavering, as I would either be hitting into the net or hitting out of the court at times.

Just as one shouldn’t be wavering within every strike they hit in tennis, I found that I was wavering in other places in my life, just like my hits. Despite various conflicts and events, as well as being caught in the middle of life happening for other people, I found that I was ultimately sort of annoyed with people, various problems I couldn’t fix, and my own circumstances because of problems. In short: I was just irritated with life. Why was I feeling this way? I didn’t want to be around people, mainly because I felt that I wasn’t satisfied with how my life was turning out, and I couldn’t help but ask,

“What the heck am I doing? Why am I trying so hard to please others before pleasing myself? Why am I trying to invest so much into people that probably either don’t care, or invest in people where I didn’t play as much of a major part in their life, as they did in mine?”

I was simply pissed off with life and with the position I was in. I hated it and really wanted to give up. It was in this position of feeling at my lowest when I decided to take a break and fast from social media, reconnect with God, and figure out how to live my life again. Through the span of five days, I removed Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Discord, Youtube, Tumblr, and LINE, and dedicated the week to my studies and education, while keeping my mornings and evenings dedicated toward morning and nighttime devotionals. Personally, I found that my overall lifestyle changed a great deal as I was more productive, went to bed earlier, woke up earlier, and most of all: saw God working in my life. Whether it be from getting various Bible Verses that applied to situations I was in, having various dreams at night that I was able to connect to situations in my life and the fact I needed to confront these situations soon, I knew that God was working in my life and listening. It was hard for the first three days, and I think it was during those days when God spoke to me the most. It’s also strange how God’s timing works, since the Thursday of that week dedicated to fasting also happened to be Valentine’s Day. As I said in the past, relationships have been a bit of a sore note for me, and I didn’t need to see any of the Valentine’s Day posts by everyone where they appreciate their significant other. (Nothing against those people and posts, but seeing a lot of similar posts all at once is a bit much.) However, that last day of my fasting experience happened to be the one that shed a lot of light on the issues in my life, but also gave me a lot of guidance.

I know I’m caught in the middle of a lot of problems around me, and those problems, each and every one of them, have been affecting me. I found that my attitude towards life was founded in a place of lonliness, jealousy, general frustration, sadness, and anger. At some point, I was just tired of trying to hold it in and act like everything in life was fine, and I needed to take some time off to figure myself out. I needed to let go and remove myself away from the things that made me worry about what others thought of me, as well as remove myself away from seeing things that would trigger these emotions. It was through this week of solitude where I was able to figure out that the season I’ll be entering soon is a season of fruitfulness. The vision of the oranges I kept seeing from last summer are finally going to come into fruition and eventually be ripe enough for people to partake in soon. Although I am excited and anxious for this season of fruitfulness, I know that I still need to be patient, since fruit needs time to ripen up and be sweet; especially oranges. I won’t be immediately ready just yet, but I know I’ll be ready soon, as long as I keep on this path.

February was a month filled with a lot of rain, and I’m pretty sure that even though this month isn’t over yet, it will still be filled with rain. Just like I said at the beginning of this post, “You can’t have a rainbow without a little bit of rain.” The rainy season is a necessity in producing fruit, and this season isn’t going to be something that lasts forever. Even if there’s rain or problems piling up in life where we end up wavering at some point, there’s a high chance that we will end up making mistakes where we crash and burn, or entirely miss the point. However, even if we make mistakes, we’ll eventually stop wavering, we’ll trust the work God is doing in our lives, and then have that unwavering strike of confidence and courage to face life, where we eventually will score, and see the glory God’s doing in our lives. There will be constant trials in life that I will ultimately need to face, but working through each and every one of these trials is necessary to my own growth and development.  As Habakkuk writes in Habakkuk 3:17-18,

“Though the fig tree does not bud    and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails    and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen    and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord,    I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

The rain will eventually lighten up, and after the rain, there will be a rainbow waiting, and along with that rainbow, there will be delicious fruit produced. I have no doubt that God will produce a fruit in me soon despite the storms and desire to grow.

“From here on out, it’s my stage!”

[survivorerinsborough]

FTC - Initial Questions part 2

question: which one of the other finalists do you think has the best chance of beating you and why. 🎶🎶🎶

Mitch: Out of the two next to me, I think Keaton has the stronger chance to win. His game was played much harder and more open than mine was,and he managed to avoid being voted out despite being targeted so often. I do think he crossed a few lines with his attitude and his deceptions, but he definitely played harder than I did for the most part. I just think my moves were just as effective, but not as pointed.

Keaton:

Chrissa: Mitch  only because I feel he had connections with other people too and I think Keaton had them but broke them as they think he is a snake, I feel Mitch has a great chance though I am not counting myself out obviously but if i have to answer this question, that’s how I feel. I love you dylan! <3

Mitch: Do you believe that changing your gameplay from previous games to make sure you're aligned with people who were flashier helped or hindered you in the end? While you made it to FTC, do you think you showcased that you did enough to be sole survivor?

Mitch: I’d like to say my strategy was playing to my strengths at the appropriate times, and coming in clutch with my power when it needed to happen. With no clear target on my back, I didn’t feel the need to play incredibly hard, and knowing me, I would’ve fucked up any plan I would’ve laid down. Taking the backseat was the best option because of how the season played out, because anyone making a case for themselves in the jury was targeted pretty much immediately. When it came to final 6 though, my alliance of 3 had the control for the most part. Then I started to emerge a little more, trying harder in challenges, being more present, and trying to play the game more knowing that it was safer to do so. Playing my legacy advantage on chrissa ensured the 3 of us made it to final 5 where we would have majority. Winning the puzzle challenge against you allowed us to have our choice of who to target. Aligning myself with Chrissa and Keaton meant that the bigger threats in the game (You, Dylan, Jones) were always top priority and not me.

Keaton: I struggle to think of a question for you mainly bc I'm pissed off by your gameplay. I'm pissed off by it because it worked so well simply because the other people sitting with you did not have great social games. I am impressed because you knew this and knew how to work that angle. You're also a snake. So I think for you, my question is this: How did you go about choosing which side you wanted to get to the end of the game with?

Keaton:

PS: After I made this video I was informed by Mitch and Chrissa they didn't talk to each other in PMS at all! The only reason they even had contact with because of alliance chats.

Chrissa: Half you speech was making excuses for why you didn't win final immunity, so really I still don't know much of what you did this game. What I would like from you is a new speech, one that details at least 2 moves that were made by you (like you came up with the idea yourself and the told others) and at least attempted to be executed even if they didn't work out.

Chrissa: So 2 moves i feel were mine was the Bryan vote out despite the fact that Maynor actually suggested bryan I worked hard enough to get bryan out, and Me aligning with Keaton, yes it wasn’t a vote out type move but no one expected it because i would call keaton a villain to others before that. My social game was my biggest strategy. Everyone I aligned with was a big move to get me to the final 3. I got rid of the people I thought would win, which was you, Dylan and  Jones. I took the people I felt I could have the best chance at winning against. I know you said just list 2 moves but i elaborated more on my strategy since winning immunities wasn’t my strong suit, Also the fact that aligning with Mitch got him to use the legacy advantage on me, was good social game on my part. Also taking out Evan cause I felt he’d be taken to the end  since you used your hidden immunity idol on him,he would have been taken to the end over me so that  was a move i decided on that being my reason even if he got voted out anyway. Also my biggest move was how many times I avoided being voted out completely. Just as i said using my social game as strategy.

HEY F3 <3

<3

<3

congrats on making it this far!! You guys really do deserve to be where you are now - and even if I was a bit of an asshole sometimes (or at least I thought I was), I'm still proud of all of you, and I'm glad it's you 3 that are sitting here in the end. You guys played great games, and did what 15 other people couldn't do, and that says a lot. I don't really feel the need to interrogate you guys, because I'm pretty sure everyone else is gonna do that anyway, and I just wanted you to know you all did a great job. HOWEVER,,, I do want you guys to do one more thing for me: and that's to make a Rite of Passage for me. It meant a lot to me that I was able to do my first ROP during this game (you could probably tell since I literally wept on call lmao) - so I'd appreciate it if you did the same for me in return? I hope that made sense. So yeah, feel free to take this opportunity to write WHATEVER YOU LITERALLY WANT about me - compliments, hate mail, etc etc etc. AGAIN, I'm so proud of all of you guys and I'm excited to reread/watch everything back! Congratulations <3

Mitch: So one of my favorite things to do is randomly check up on TS seasons on the wiki because following blogs on tumblr is l a m e. When I clicked on Ko Chang and went to the blog, I saw they had revealed player of the season and that you had received it! Drew gave you such a glowing review, so when you were revealed to be on my tribe, I thought I was in the presence of someone really neat and WOWEE was i correct. Even though we were never really on the same page, the way you fought through the game to stay alive was so impressive. I have nothing but respect for you as a player <3

Keaton: Jones, when I saw you were in this game I really wanted to go deep into this with you, and possibly FTC together. But when we merged, you quickly showed where your priorities were, with Timmy. So, I had to change my game plan accordingly and knew I couldn’t let either of you go to the end since you were stronger players. I felt  bad about what I did at f4, but I think you would of won next to Chrissa and I (as you wanted Mitch gone). Regardless, ggs and love ya long time

Chrissa: Jones my ROP for you would be that you were a great ally when you wanted to be loyal to me lol and I knew from the first time I got votes I had to vote you out or you would have gotten to the end and won this whole thing, you are a wonderful human being and did really well in this game, so of course I had to take you out of this game, I have been shaken up because Cole has decided a game move means me and him aren't friends but  that was my favourite part of this game was even rounds after you seem to want me out you still talked to me and we still were great friends, I am glad I got to play with you throughout this whole game unlike IOS. I hope I did enough for you to see my winning potential.

Okay Jury! Your questions have been answered, but is that enough for you? I am going to give you the chance to ask any further questions you might have after reading the responses. 

Please let me know ASAP if you have any, if none of you come forward by 9pm EST tomorrow, or if you all agree to no further questions, I will start accepting your votes.

[bewitchthequeen]

Our Problems With Teen Wolf

Note: My friend, @knightedtime, and I made this a while back and I decided to release it because the world should know our feelings XD Or something meaningful like that. So here we go.

I have nothing against the actors. I have nothing against the writers. This are just my complaints. Any hostility will be exploited.

Feel free to add your own if you’d like! Just include a line break.

Jackson Whittemore. He came off as a huge asshole even when they tried to make him sympathetic and I was indifferent to him “dying” temporarily. 

No reasons for Lydia acting shallow, vapid and pretending to be dumb while she was with Jackson. It was never addressed. Never talked about why she did that and everyone just acts like it didn’t happen. Okay.

Lydia doesn’t seem to have friends. You can claim the Pack are her friends but ??? They don’t hang out much. Like hang out like normal people their age. So I think Danny was her only real friend because he showed concern and shit and talked to her outside of mystery problem stuff. 

Theo Raeken being a Peter Hale rip off. Cause that’s what he is. And trusting him about anything is bullshit. He fucked that up. Maybe had he been developed more I’d be more understanding. Nothing against Cody Christian but Theo is just another evil dude with pretty face. At least Peter had some sort of depth.

Stydia last season

Most Stydia fans

Stydia in general

Stydia being shoved down my throat.

Season 5 in general

Kira’s “ending”. It was bullshit. There was some open ended shit so her story being over was bullshit. BULLSHIT. BULLLLSHIT. and I hope Arden Cho is doing great things after that utter bullshittery.

The loss and lack of Danny. I fucking loved him and he was just gone. Another actor mistreated on this asshole show. Well, I hope Keahu Kahuanui is doing greater things than this.

Last season is about Stiles. At least 6a. I’m sorry but in NO way should the last season of the show being about the sidekick. I don’t give a shit what or who he is. STILES SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE MAIN GOAL OF 6A. I don’t give a shit about what Stiles fans and Stydia fans have to say about it. 

Scott and Stiles’ friendship is continuously on a downward spiral. Stiles has always been the dominating personality in the relationship. Check out all of season one if you don’t believe me. Scott just recently started coming into his own with being an alpha, a leader. I feel like Stiles doesn’t like that. Aside from this, I also feel like Stiles expects certain privileges with being Scott’s “best friend” but their relationship has corroded and they can’t really be “best friends” if Scott no longer trusts Stiles. And I don’t believe he does, regardless of what Jeff says.

The unrealistic relationships. Stydia. Stalia. Mainly. Because it’s kind of relationships that they just kind of pulled out of their asses and were like “meh”. Adelaide and Gage left and Stiles just needed someone. 

No explanation for what happened to Derek. Literally. I know that Tyler H. said he wasn’t coming back but the show never explained where Derek went. Yet another character that we’re suppose to just forget about.

Scott’s development from season 3 to season 5. Where is it? I mean, yes, he was kind of an asshole in season 2 when it came to Derek making more werewolves. Then it went stagnant.

The fandom/fanbase. The most vocal (I don’t want to say majority) are the Stydia people. The most vocal of the Stydia people seem to be bullying the actors and I AIN’T ABOUT THAT. Listen up, you little parasites, your show is ending due to you bitching all the time. Had it not been for that, might have gotten some more.

The shipping wars

Layden. Another rushed relationship that I don’t have the capacity to care about. Plus the “homage” to Scallison is just -.- exhausting.

Theo Raeken comes back for season 6, erasing the last thing Kira did on the show. Thanks.

Rehashing old relationship. Same as 19, but it really urked me so let’s put it up here twice.

Theo Raeken in general

Lydia and Jackson ever being a thing. It was a toxic relationship. They were both kind of hateable. Some people are just too toxic to be together. Maybe had Colton Hayes stayed the could have worked on that, but Colton deserves better so he can go ahead and do what he’s doing.

Stydia in General because it’s really cliche if you look at it. That whole popular girl gets won over by the nerd/geek is so worn out. Usually, I’m all for an underdog story, but Stiles isn’t an underdog. He’s kind of an asshole. He kind of treats everyone like garbage (even Lydia in some instances) and the two of them are usually at odds. Honestly, Stydia happening (to me) isn’t out of love, but out of Lydia paying homage to her dead best friend because Allison was the one who told Lydia to give him a chance. Make of that what you will.

Scott moving too quick. I mean… His relationships go from like 5 to 100 in a matter of episodes. It’s a bit concerning even though he’s a sweet boy. It makes me concerned for him. 

WTF HAPPENED TO LAHEY (I know he’s with Chris but wtf? No updates on him). Not even mentioned again. He doesn’t exist.

The last season being focused on Stiles when they knew beforehand that Dylan O’ Brien was going to be busy and it really should be focusing on the Titular Character given that it’s last season. (On here twice cause it’s BULLSHIT).

The way that Jeff Davis treats his actors. I’m looking at Danny’s actor and Kira’s.

Peter Hale never got a redemption arc until season 6, but Theo basically got his immediately. Theo’s redemption is bullshit at that. Using fear as a redemption tool is never successful. Scared Straight doesn’t work for murderers. If it doesn’t work for sex offenders, it’s not going to work for Theo. Sorry, not sorry.

The fact Peter is probably going to get screwed over again. Wouldn’t surprise me.

The fact that Brett and Liam would have been more believable than Layden and Brett and Liam borderline hating each other. Maybe it’s chemistry, maybe it’s the fact that Layden was so rushed. The world may never know.

There’s not any main queer relationships. I dare you to name your top three in season 6 without repeating any characters. I fucking dare you.

They bring in a Bi character and he’s not used much. *cough*BrettTalbot*cough*

I can’t be excited for season 6 because of the past seasons (mainly 5) being at least somewhat disappointing

The fact that they claimed there wasn’t room for Kira and yet they casted a bunch of people for season 6 who were new.

Not that I ship it, but They baited Sterek a lot outside of the show for views.

Scott trusts Theo more than he trusts Stiles. So much for best friends, am I right?

Stiles kinda being an ass to Scott after Scott died and expecting Scott to be everywhere at once, resulting in that one gif where Stiles attacked Scott very fucking violently. Scott is a werewolf, not a superhero.

The show focuses more on Stiles’ Trauma more than anyone else’s. Scott and Lydia dealing with the loss of Allison, a part of an episode of them crying and the occasional mention. Why did Lydia act dumb? What went on with Scott since he didn’t have a dad? How has them being what they are affected them mentally? What about Malia’s trauma? These things are merely touched upon everyone once in a while. Stiles’ trauma is probably enough to write a thesis paper on.

Having no real reason other than Allison’s death for Isaac leaving (even that relationship was WAY too fast and wasn’t love based, like, at all)

Allison and Isaac’s relationship to begin with. There’s so much with this relationship that just grates me.

Allison tried to justify torturing people who had nothing to do with her mom’s death. Like I understand, but that also made it seem like they were going to set her up as a villain in later seasons, which for her not to go that route made it pretty damn disappointing and pissed me off. (Especially when she seemingly expected Derek to be cool with her. Fun Fact: Once you start disliking someone with a passion, everything that person does pisses you off so I can’t fault Derek here).

Gerard being alive. Just… That bitch.

The fact Scott is barely ever “single” and thus making him pretty fucking unrelateable. In highschool, I only date two people, some of my friends never dated, and some of my friends dated their s.o. freshman year or earlier to senior year. Plus, we never really seen him mourn Allison much so that could be a reason.

Kira’s story arc season 5 because that was weak to the point I barely remember wtf she was doing. Basically, made her character less memorable other being “that one girl Scott dated that wasn’t Allison”

The fact that Allison died at all, when really, they could have just let her actress leave and It’s like if you look at most people who are written off the show, the majority of Females who do DIE. 

Stalia vs. Stydia. Stiles should work on his personality a bit before he should be in a relationship but whatever

Wtf happened to Lydia’s dad?

Wtf happened to Scott’s dad?

The show just gets more unrealistic and unrelatable. These kids basically have no breaks in between problems .-. In continuation to this, I’m adding the fact that this shit always happens to these kids and while it’s a tv show and everything, it’s rly unrealistic that everything happens to them.

There’s a rumor that Scott’s going to kick the bucket for the last season and I don’t like it.

Malia getting hate for dating Stiles. 

Lydia’s sudden feelings for Stiles (Fandom would claim differently, but She looks really annoyed when he talks and their “humor” sounds somewhere between “I fucking hate you” and demeaning).

Void!Stiles not being addressed much (or the results of that rather). 

Just now delving into more of Lydia’s abilities :l and they’re still pretty fucking shoddy.

Stydia getting so much fanservice. For example, the whole Stiles holding Lydia’s hand when it reasonably should have been Scott, considering they’re closer as “friends” and he can take away pain.

The Wendigo thing. Just… What the fuck man. Don’t introduce new creatures if you aren’t going to delve. Seriously.

How everything always happens in Beacon Hills (I understand the whole Nemeton drawing people there but still :l minus when they went to Mexico which can barely be counted :l)

The fact that the show treated Kira’s departure like a joke with the hashtag, but when it comes to Stiles’ Jeep, they take it seriously. You value you a character over a car. Congrats, assholes.

There’s no actual way that Stydia would work out considering the who “Try being less scared” line Stiles told Lydia while working on his Jeep (which is just one instance. This is NOT banter. This is NOT an old married couple).

Stiles is becoming more of an asshole with the more paranoid he gets which is why he shouldn’t be involved with this shit in the first place.

The whole ‘Some of us are human’ line. Like sorry, asshole. I like you most of the time, but still.  

Tbh the way Stiles used to treat Lahey. Like, motherfucker he was abused and Stiles doesn’t acknowledge that and tells him he “milking” that. Lahey has trauma, you have mommy issues. Stop valuing your trauma over everyone else’s. Your trauma is pathetic compared to most other people’s.

The way that the fandom treats Parrish when it comes to Lydia.  She’s 18 guys and not even supposed to be in high school anymore, considering she could graduate early if she wanted. When you’re 18 you can date anyone older than you without people blinking an eye. 

Kate ending up being a werejaguar where she was scratched by werewolf Peter Hale. Just the whole “the bite effects how you feel” or whatever. No. You get bit my a werewolf, you should become a werewolf. Whatever, man. I’m tired of applying logic to this show…

JD disregards his actors feelings

Fandom being Hypocrites when it comes to Posey doing something wrong, when Dylan O’Brien’s done some bad shit too. LEAVE POSEY ALONE.

We didn’t get a funeral for Allison. (But we got one for Crazy Kate -.-)

The show is more about ships than anything else. What is a story line?

The fact Allison’s mom was a bitch and Allison’s “hallucinations” show her as a bitch but she went off the deep end because of her bitchy mom was dead.

They promote Stiles so much that most people think he’s the lead main character. Before I started watching this show, I seriously thought Stiles was the main character. Imagine my surprise when Scott was the werewolf.

All their female characters are kind of shit :l or in the process of going to shit… Or they’re dead... Or gone. My feelings for Malia fluctuate, they reduced Lydia to a crying, moping mess who was willing to risk Scott’s life for Stiles Stfuckboylinski, Erica is dead, Cora is/was female Derek, Allison is dead, Kira will be remembered as “Kitsune girl who dated Scott” because their lack of using her, Hayden… wait… who is Hayden again?, Let’s not touch Krazy Kate, who’s Braedan again? Wait, where did Marin go? Oh, fuck!

Can’t say much for their male characters either at this point.

The fact that they kinda ended Kira’s story with a cliffhanger. 

How Lydia was cool with Peter and went to him for help after the whole possession and “you” thing that happened. “Yeah, I know that you were like haunting me or whatever and literally made me feel like I was losing my mind which you never really tried to make up for, but I totally and completely trust you”

Why the fuck was it necessary to kill Erica? Is that the only way this show knows how to get rid of characters?

The fact that they probably brought theo back to make Matheo a thing. He fucking shot her. If I was Malia, I’d sooner rip his head off.

People defending Stydia with “It’s only fanservice if you don’t agree with it”. No, it’s fanservice because you bitched for it and the writers want to pacify you and hope you shut up. “The Stydia moments every season is only a thing if you ship it”. Nope, it’s fanservice. Holland Roden even admitted that season 6a was fanservice. (I say all of 6a because it was Stiles centered and seemed more like fan fiction than an actual tv show).

For how old everyone was, I’m kind of shocked that Allison and Lydia were still friends after Lydia made out with Scott… Unless she never found out about that? I don’t know man.

Allison neglecting her and Lydia’s friendship and only paying attention to get help from her resulting in what happened with Peter, but no one addresses that. Which, to me, makes Allison not the best bestie.

People sending Malia and Parrish’s actors death threats over Stydia. Are you guys serious? This is why the show is garbage and this is why it’s ending and views are dropping. Kudos to Shelley Hennig and Ryan Kelley for putting up with that shit.

The fact that none of the female cast have storylines that are front and center. They all seem to be in the background more than anything. The women of this show are more like props (excluding Allison and Melissa).

Stydia fanbase freaking out over anything bad that happens to Dylan or Holland. I’m pretty sure that whole freak out of her getting pushed is enough to explain my feelings towards this.

Then antiStydia people making hashtags telling Holland to kill herself :l That’s not fair guys. It’s not Holland’s fault there’s a bunch of oversized babies shoving their ship down your throat.

The actors getting any kind of threats over a FUCKING FICTITIOUS TV SHOW! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! YOU’RE DOING THIS TO A REAL PERSON OVER A FAKE FUCKING TV SHOW. YOU PEOPLE NEED TO BE ON SO MANY FUCKING DRUGS TO THINK THAT’S AT ALL ACCEPTABLE. A FAKE RELATIONSHIP SHOULDN’T BE THE CENTER OF YOUR LIVES. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST LEAVE THIS POOR PEOPLE ALONE YOU DEMENTED ASSHOLES. GO TO YOU FUCKING FAN FICTION AND JUST FUCKING STOP. JUST FUCKING STOP PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP.

JD giving the stydia fandom what they want when they don’t deserve it and they’re just a bunch of a brats.

The fandom shipping the actors together when they are real people with lives. This is just a general pet peeve of mind. Stop shipping living, breathing functional people unless you’re shipping them with their significant other. Don’t get caught up in other people’s life and start living yours.

The fact that apparently JD hinted Stiles was Bi and never did anything with it? :l He’s the straightest person ever. Seriously, I have never seen anyone straighter than Stiles Stilinski. 

The Panic Attack kiss .-. I don’t wanna say it was OOC but it was a lot less Lydia like than everything else and the begin of Lydia acting less like herself like people do when they’re in an abusive relationship! (That was also the kind of panic attack that requires space too.)(Yeah -.- but oooo stydia)

The fact that the fandom was anti Malia (partially because she punched him once) but was totally cool shipping Sterek despite the fact that Derek p much assaults Stiles whenever Stiles steps out of line

Stiles also kinda treats Derek badly and Really? I don’t see why anyone would consider them to be ‘Friends’.

Lacrosse is somehow popular.  Don’t know how, but Beacon Hills seems about the same size as Fresno is and really? I don’t know how lacrosse got so popular when beacon hills has a football team and that’s the so called american sport.

Fandom is woo girl power one minute, then bitching about Malia and Kira (Lydia less than those two) as individual parts.

The fact that everyone’s character development is all over the place, basically all the time

Basically all the female characters getting slut shamed

People thinking that Stiles deserves Lydia, like she’s some sort of prize to be won. Lydia is a fucking person. Fucking chauvinists. 

Tbh the people who get the least amount of hate are more abusive? (examples?)(Jackson, Derek (though Derek’s “hate” is more the fandom sexualizing him?)) (I’ve seen them call Scott abusive and I’m like okay HOW.)

Ima just say this now, which prob ties to a lot of the actor stuff earlier, but the way the fandom treats Tyler Posey specifically like… I really just… :l (It’s frankly disgusting how they treat him.)(It really is :c) So much love in my heart for that boy. I just want to fucking hug him and make him feel better. 

The fact that they’re putting Parrish in a Freezer during season 6 when he could help.

Ik that Lydia wouldn’t do this because Lydia and Allison were “best friends” but tbh Lydia has more romantic and even more friendship chemistry with Scott than she does with Stiles (Yeah. I noticed that.)