#my bathrooms massive for no good reason but it means i can keep 90% of my clothes and shoes in there

[deeisace]

The task tonight is to track down where the fuck I left my oxfords, cs I figure they're fine funeral shoes and I an got anything else

Wardrobe or Bathroom Shoe Cupboard

[cellsshapedlikestars]

I'm more of a draw-er than a writer so just shooting you a prompt idea if you ever feel inclined. With all the warging I keep thinking about the idea of a Freaky Friday/Body Switch theme with Arya and Sansa. Maybe it lets Sansa get to know another side of Jon && maybe Arya gets to meet Gendry because of it, but mostly cute sister bonding which you are so so so good at. Anywho do with this what you will, I love your writing and thanks for being awesome <3

First of all, I'm so jealous of people who can draw! My mom is an artist but the drawing gene skipped me (& my sister).

Second, this was a fun prompt! I wrote it in about an hour last night before going to bed, so please ignore any grammar/continuity errors.

Third, I made it take place in the 90s for some reason? Also, as a note, "Sansa-Arya" means Sansa in Arya's body, and "Arya-Sansa" means Arya in Sansa's body. Hope it doesn't get too confusing?

read it on ao3 here: ephemera, chapter 33

.

Sansa wakes in Arya's bed.

She frowns, confused, unsure how she got here.

Last night, they'd had a massive fight about... honestly, Sansa can't even remember how it started. But then again, they'd never needed a real reason to start fighting. All it ever took was one wrong word, one wrong look, and it would start. Maybe it was about Sansa trying to make everyone go outside to see the shooting star that was supposed to happen.

What Sansa does remember is storming off, her mother following her while dad went after Arya. She remembers bursting into hysterical tears and screeching, “she has no idea what it's like to be me!” A bit overdramatic, Sansa realizes now with a wince.

But that doesn't answer why she's in Arya's room. She sits up and rubs at her eyes which are... Sansa blinks, because she can see perfectly fine. Did she sleep in her contacts? She's usually so good about not doing that.

She swings her legs off the bed and she looks down and blanches at the state of her feet. She swore she just repainted her nails, but now they aren't, they're bluntly cut, and there's callouses on her big toes that Sansa would never allow.

She's also wearing Arya's pajamas.

Well, they aren't pajamas, really. Arya sleeps in sweatpants or shorts and a tee, it's Sansa who buys pajama sets, usually with a cute pattern. Her newest is little ice cream cones in various pastel colors.

There's a slam from the direction of her room, through their shared bathroom, and Sansa frowns. Who's in her room?

She stands from the bed just as she hears the door to the bathroom open on her side, the light goes on under the door, and there's a shriek. Then the door to Arya's room bursts open and-

Sansa's mind is blank for a long time, as she stares at... herself.

…

“Stop doing that,” Sansa snaps as Arya keeps flinching away from the mascara wand.

“This is ridiculous,” Arya mutters. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

“Because I like it,” Sansa huffs, grabbing Arya's chin – her chin – and holding her head steady. “It makes me feel pretty.”

“You're pretty already,” Arya mutters again, eyes shifting to the side, and Sansa pauses. She debates telling Arya that she's pretty, too, but she doesn't think Arya would like that. She'd just say something mean, so Sansa keeps her mouth shut.

Finally, she finishes up the makeup, but she can't even tell if it's good or not. Not when she's looking at her face that isn't her face, because Arya's wearing it.

They tried to tell Robb what happened, he was the first person they found after they woke up in each other's bodies, and he'd only rolled his eyes and said, “well, at least you're getting along, but I'm not falling for that. Find someone more gullible.”

That's when they'd decided to keep this a secret – to pretend like they're normal, until they can figure out what happened. Which means they have to go to school as each other. Which means Arya-Sansa needs to wear makeup, and Sansa-Arya needs to dress in ratty old jeans and even rattier sneakers and carry around a skateboard.

Sansa prides herself on being able to handle any social situation, but going to their school as a freshman again as Arya makes her want to throw up. There's a scuffle over who should drive – Arya doesn't have her license yet – but when Sansa-Arya tries to get into the driver's seat, mom comes out shouting at them, so Arya-Sansa takes the keys with a grin and gets behind the wheel.

The drive to school nearly kills them, but Arya is cackling with glee the entire time as Sansa clings onto the door handle for dear life.

Then they have to part ways, and as Jeyne approaches, she watches Arya-Sansa's face shift into an expression of something akin to terror.

Sansa watches them go, hoping Arya doesn't tank her reputation.

…

Arya walks through the halls with Jeyne and Beth chattering in her ear. She can barely keep up with their gossip, she has no idea how Sansa handles it. When they get to their lockers, she quickly checks the numbers Sansa had written on a post-it, and puts in the code, thankful when the lock clicks open.

“I hear Joff's gonna be at the party this weekend,” Beth says, suggestion heavy in her voice.

Arya feels her lip curl, and she lets out a disgusted noise, which surprises both of Sansa's friends.

Stupid, Arya chides herself. Sansa would probably be over the moon about that.

“I know you said you weren't going to date him,” Jeyne sighs, “but why not? He's so dreamy.”

“I said that?” Arya asks, completely confused. Jeyne looks at her curiously, so Arya tries to recover. “Well, duh,” she gives what she hopes is a perfect Sansa eye-roll. “He's majorly gross.” There. That sounds like something Sansa might say. Majorly is her new favorite word.

“I can't believe you think he's gross,” Beth shakes her head. “He's gorgeous, and rich, and he's into you! I can't believe you wouldn't even go to the movies with him.”

That makes Arya pause getting her books out (trying to remember the classes Sansa wrote down. She could look, but she might have actually lost that post-it). Sansa turned down a date with Joffrey Baratheon? He rules the junior class, and Arya can already guess he'll be Junior Prom King, and next year, Senior Prom King. Being his queen seems right up Sansa's alley.

Maybe Robb talked to her, Arya muses, piling more books into her arm. Robb isn't a fan of Joffrey, maybe he made Sansa see sense.

Sansa being rational about boys, Arya scoffs to herself. There's something you don't see every day.

…

“Not skating today?” a boy asks, pulling up on his own and coming to an abrupt halt in front of where Sansa's sitting, and he steps on the edge of his skateboard so it flips up into his hand. He's massive and she has to squint up at him.

“I pulled a muscle,” Sansa says, trying to make herself sound as grumpy as Arya always sounds.

It's not hard, she's had a pretty bad day. While she was changing for gym, a couple girls had snickered behind their hands and told her she had the wrong locker room. “The boy's changing room is on the other side,” the one girl had sneered, eyeing Sansa-Arya with a disdain Sansa has never had directed at her.

Sansa had been so shocked, she hadn't known what to say, and the girls had gone out to start gym class.

And then the anger had started – does that happen often? And how dare they, she's the only one who's allowed to make fun of Arya. Well, her and their brothers. Sansa's going to find out who that girl is and ruin her social life.

“Sucks,” the boy says, bringing her back to the present, sitting next to Sansa on the bleachers. “I was hoping we could head to the skatepark today and try the new quarter pipe.”

Sansa blinks and stays silent, because she has no idea what half that sentence means. The boy's face goes a bit red and he rubs at the back of his neck with one hand.

“Or, I mean,” he says, nearly tripping over his words, “we don't have to.”

Huh, she thinks, some of her bad mood disappearing.

Sansa tilts her Arya-head at the boy and bats her eyelashes and the boy sputters even more, and Sansa has to physically keep herself from smiling.

“I've got to hang out with my dumb sister tonight,” she finally answers, making sure to put as much venom into the words as she can, though as she does, it makes her sad. She knows Arya hates her, that isn't new information. But still. If she didn't, maybe Sansa would know about this boy. Maybe she'd know his name.

Maybe she'd know about those girls in the locker room.

“Bummer,” the boy says. “Maybe some other time?”

The awkward way he's holding himself solidifies that this boy absolutely has a massive crush on her sister.

Interesting.

…

“Gendry?” Arya makes a face that Sansa does not like, because it's her face, and Arya's twisting it into something ugly.

“Is that his name?” Sansa asks innocently. “Well, whoever he is, I agreed to a date with him.”

“You what?” Arya jumps up, and it's strange to watch her own body pace the room.

It's a joke, Sansa wouldn't do that to her, but... well, Arya isn't reacting as poorly as she thought she would.

Oh.

Arya wants to go on a date with this Gendry boy.

Double interesting.

…

Arya storms down to the kitchen, and she can feel how hot her face is – Sansa's face is.

She can't believe she fell for Sansa's joke about the date with Gendry, and she's even more annoyed that Sansa thinks she'd even want to go on a date with him. He's a middling skateboarder, at best, and he's too calm all the time and he's too nice. Ugh. She'd never.

She pulls the pitcher of Kool-Aid out of the fridge and starts pouring herself a glass, when she hears the door to the basement open.

“Since when do you drink Kool-Aid?” a voice asks, and Arya-Sansa turns to see Jon standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a bemused look on his face. “You said it tastes like chemicals.”

When did Sansa say that, Arya wonders. It definitely sounds like something Sansa would say, but how in the world does Jon know that, or even remember it.

“I like the grape kind,” she makes herself shrug. To her annoyance, and surprise, Jon doesn't immediately leave at her cold tone.

“You okay?” he asks, stepping further into the kitchen and coming to stand at the counter next to her.

“I'm fine?” she says, but it comes out like a question, because Jon looks genuinely concerned.

Wait. Did Robb tell him about their body-swap? Does Jon believe it? Oh, thank god someone-

Jon looks around as if checking for anyone nearby, then he moves forward, and all of Arya's thoughts go blank as he slides his arm around her waist, and pulls her up against him. He's touching Sansa in a way he should not be touching Sansa.

“I heard Joffrey talking about some party this weekend and how he planned to...” Jon frowns, hard.

That's when Arya's brain finally kicks Sansa's body into gear, and she makes a strangled noise and places both hands on Jon's chest and pushes. “What are you doing?” she squeaks.

Jon looks confused. “Are you mad at me?” he asks, and there's that look he gets sometimes, like a kicked puppy. “What did I do?”

What is he talking about? Why would Sansa have any reason to be mad at Jon, and why would he even care?

“Is this because I didn't want to go see that Romeo and Juliet movie with you? Or is it because I said Leonardo DiCaprio is overrated? Because he is.”

Arya's brain is in full panic mode, so all she can do is squeak out, “yes,” before fleeing the kitchen, abandoning her Kool-Aid on the counter.

She runs back up to Sansa's room and slams open the door to find Sansa-Arya sitting on the bed reading a magazine, and she says, “you're dating Jon?” Her voice is too high-pitched, but she can't control herself right now.

She watches her own eyes go wide and panicked, and Sansa-Arya stands up abruptly, but she doesn't deny it.

She doesn't deny it.

…

Arya can't wrap her head around this.

Sansa had sat her down and told her some story – Joffrey trying to shove his hand up her skirt at Margaery Tyrell's party at the end of last year. Running all the way from Margaery's house to the nearest payphone. Calling home, only to have Jon answer because he was staying at their house that weekend while his mom was on a work trip. Jon coming to pick her up. Them sitting in his truck and talking late into the night. It had – in Sansa's words, which sounded utterly ridiculous coming out of Arya's mouth – turned into something more within the next few months.

The weird part is, Sansa and Jon dating isn't the thing she can't make her mind process.

It's the idea that Sansa had almost been assaulted at a party. She'd gone through this whole thing and Arya had no idea.

Because why would Sansa tell her? They don't tell each other anything.

“I'm sorry,” she says, and Sansa jerks back a bit in confusion. “About Joffrey,” she clarifies. “If I'd known, I'd...”

She doesn't know what she would have done, but she feels angry now. Probably punch him in the face.

“Oh,” Sansa says with a half shrug, and Arya recognizes that move, though usually Sansa's in her own body when it happens. It's the move, the tone of voice she uses, when someone brings up something she's embarrassed by.

The fact that Sansa's embarrassed by something Joffrey did makes Arya even angrier.

“By the way, Jon mentioned overhearing Joffrey talking about you and some party this weekend. Sounds like he's gonna try something again.”

Arya watches her own face frown. “I won't go,” she says.

“Or,” Arya counters, an idea coming to her. “You can borrow my pepper spray, and I can teach you some stuff from my Tae Kwon Do classes.”

She thinks Sansa will say no, but instead, she seems to consider it, and then a small smile appears on her lips and she says, “yeah, alright.”

…

“Are they fighting?” Rickon whispers, eyes wide as he and Bran stand paused in the hall outside their sister's door. There are noises like fighting coming from Sansa's room, except there's no shouting. In fact, Rickons' pretty sure he heard them laughing.

“Weird,” Bran says with a shrug, then continues down the hall. Rickon follows, and they've just made it to the bottom of the stairs when there's a mighty crash from upstairs.

Chaos happens then, and Rickon plasters himself against the wall as mom rushes up the stairs and lets out a noise of distress when she opens Sansa's door.

“Ned! Ned!” she shouts, which brings not just dad from his study, but also Robb and Jon from the basement. All of them rush upstairs, and Rickon and Bran look at each other, then follow.

Rickon can barely see into the room, but it looks like Sansa's massive bookshelf had toppled over. Dad and Robb and Jon are lifting it up and mom is on her knees, her shaky voice saying, “Sansa? Arya?”

Dad and Robb and Jon get the bookshelf moved away, and there's a groan from the pile of books that cover his sister's bodies.

The pile moves, and Arya sits up first, rubbing at her head. “Fucking hell,” Arya mutters, and Rickon knows something bad must have happened, because mom doesn't even yell at her for it.

“Sansa,” Jon says, kneeling down and pulling books away, face pale. Rickon doesn't think he's ever even seen Jon and Sansa speak to each other. Weird.

“I'm okay,” her voice says, small and muffled, but then she sits up, too. There's a big red mark on her forehead, like the start of a bruise, and Rickon thinks the shelf or a book must have hit her head pretty hard. Arya's still rubbing at her own head, too, like she also got hit.

“What happened?” mom cries, a hand on each of their cheeks, like she can't decide who she wants to check over first. Mom's always fussing like that.

“Arya was teaching me self defense and we knocked over...” Sansa frowns, then her eyes go wide and she says, “I mean, I was teaching Sa-” then she falters and looks over at Arya. Arya looks at her, and her eyes go big and round, too. They both look surprised to see each other.

Arya starts to laugh, she sounds really crazy, and she says, “oh man, I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but I'm so happy to see your face.”

Sansa still looks shocked, but then she says, “we're back,” and starts giggling wildly, and then both of his sisters are just sitting there, laughing.

“I think we need to take them to the hospital,” dad says, and even though his sisters protest, Rickon watches from the window as mom and dad load them into the car.

Sweet, Rickon thinks. With mom and dad gone and Robb in charge, that means pizza for dinner.

“Pizza?” Rickon asks, barely bothering to wait until the car has pulled out of the drive.

Robb looks worried, and so does Jon. He still looks pretty pale, and Rickon thinks they're worrying too much. Arya and Sansa will be fine. They're both tough.

Robb and Jon ignore him, so Rickon lets out an annoyed huff and says louder, with more emphasis, “pizza?”

[kchuarts]

Flowers in Blood

A/N: PLOT TRAIN ROLLS ON CHOO CHOOOOO. This one took a bruiser on my wrist so Idk if i’ll write tomorrow. Also, the greek is “little mouse” 

Summary: The Gala takes place but alas, things go awry. 

Warnings: Slight non-con

Taglist: @lucywrites02​ *(Let me know if you want to be tagged!!)* 

Chapter 4: Red Rose 

The sun's morning light seeped through the tiny slit between the curtains. In the light's path lay two peacefully sleeping spies. Jonathan had his back facing the window and one arm wrapped around Katie’s resting form while the other was under his pillow. It was inevitable that this sort of thing would happen and although Pine did promise he wouldn’t end up in this position, the odds were against him. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open as his body had told him it was time to wake up and he inhaled sharply. He panicked a little as he realized what position he was in and carefully removed his arm from over her. Much to his sheer luck, Katie woke up with a gasp as he did so and felt an odd poking at her backside. “I-I’m so sorry.” He blushed, looking away from her and getting up from the once comfortable state he was in. “Biology. I can’t help it.” He tried to explain further, stumbling over his own words and exhaling loudly. This was humiliating. She probably thought he was a damn pervert after all that work they’d done to get her comfortable with his touch… 

“It’s ok. I uh… Actually woke up a bit before you and I forgot what it felt like to be held.” Katie’s cheeks matched Pines as she looked down at her own hands. “It was nice.” She added quietly and coyly flicked her gaze up at the dark blonde man. 

Jonathan’s blue eyes widened slightly at her confession and felt his heart beat a little faster in his chest. “Really? I mean, that’s great.” He laughed dryly, pressing his lips together and nodded his head. He continued to chastise himself internally at his sudden dumb school boy antics. This woman had him feeling all giddy and tingly inside for some reason. She was much too young of course, wasn’t she? No, she was definitely in the appropriate category of a possible hook-up. Pine mentally smacked himself for letting his hormones think for him and sighed through his nose. “How long do we have until the gala? I was kind of wanting to maybe look around for a cafe and grab a coffee.” Katie’s question brought Pine out of his internal struggle and he looked up at her. “It starts at 5 PM sharp and it’s 9 AM right now. I suppose we’ve got a bit of time for leisure, I’m going to stay up here and give Angela a call for the plan of action. If anything bothers you or you sense something suspicious, come back right away and keep your phone on you.” He watched the girl rummage through her suitcase before pulling out a nicer set of clothing. “Ok! I won’t be gone for very long as I do want to doll up… I haven’t worn makeup in a long time.” She smiled bashfully, pushing her bangs from her eyes. “Oh! Do you uh, want anything maybe?” She shook her head and raised her brows at Jonathan. “Earl Grey tea if they have it, otherwise no thanks.” 

Nodding, the young woman shut the bathroom door and changed into something more appealing. Katie figured a cute pink cardigan over a tank top and a pair of black skinny jeans was acceptable. Her sneakers were out of the question and she opted for a pair of flats. As she brushed her teeth, she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of dress Angela had picked out and prayed it would fit or at least be somewhat nice. Giving her messy hair a brush through and putting deodorant on, Katie came out of the bathroom and grabbed her phone, wallet and room card. “I shouldn’t be longer than like ten minutes. If I am, I’ll let you know.” She gave a wave to Pine as he stared at her before waving at him again. He blinked and shook his head, “Sorry, er yeah. See you then and be careful.” He cleared his throat as the door to their suite shut. Despite their short time together, Pine never took Katie for the pink type. He found that he rather liked her in that color and how her ass looked in her skinny jeans- Jonathan groaned, smacking his forehead as his morning wood thought for him just as he hoped it went away to save him some embarrassment. 

The lobby was massive to say the least, and Katie was just now taking in how grand the place truly was as she hadn’t last night. “Stunning, is it not?” A woman’s thick accented voice caught the brunette off guard. Her green eyes locked with sharp amber orbs with bright red lips to match her pale complexion. “Y-Yeah.” Katie stuttered out, blushing a little as this woman was gorgeous. “Sorry, this is my first time out of the United States.” She rubbed the back of her neck, smiling sheepishly. The woman raised her eyebrows, yet gave her a charming smile “I can see that. No offense, dear but you do look a little lost. Were you by chance looking for somewhere or someone in particular?” She inquired. Katie nodded, “I was hoping there was a cafe around here so I could grab a coffee and a tea for my f-fiance.” She blushed hard thinking about Pine and fiddled with the fake engagement ring on her finger. “Ohh how sweet!!” The woman swooped over, placing her arm gently around Katie’s shoulders. “Come, come dear. I’ve been here thousands of times and I will show you the best spot for coffee. Oh how rude of me, my name is Abbey.” She gave the brunette’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. Katie was about to reply but her brain suddenly clicked at the name and her appearance. Dark curled hair, piercing eyes and slender form. She had to assume that Abbey was short for Abbadon. 

“Oh jeeze, I’m sorry. I really need that coffee, I’m Natasha Romans.” she smiled, holding her hand out and shaking Abbeys. “You’re a funny one aren’t you.” The auburn haired woman chuckled, leading her new friend over to the cafe. She ushered Katie to sit with her and gave a genuine smile. While she did deal in the underground business and committed unsavory crimes, it was nice to have a casual and harmless conversation with the public from time to time. It reminded her of the life she had wanted over the life she lived. “So since you said you are from America, I am from Greece. I come from a large wealthy family but the status of my wealth does not compensate for who I am as a person. In fact, I prefer the little pleasures in life over the vast amount of wealth.” Abbadon picked up her menu and skimmed over the options. Katie couldn’t tell or not if this woman truly meant what she said as her appearance was saying otherwise. However, just because one is in a world of crime does not mean that they would like to continue to be in that lifestyle. “That’s really admirable of you. I like that a lot actually. Uh…” she gulped a little as she had mistakenly picked up a menu that was strictly in Russian. Her sudden panic brought Abbadon’s attention back, “Oh I apologize. Here, allow me to read the options for you as I’m fluent in speech and writing… And thank you, it humbles me so that you think alike.” She flashed the young woman a smile before translating for her. “You see, the finest gems are often the little places that no one goes to often. Unfortunately, 90% of the time these places do not have any English as it is universal, but that is exactly what I like about these corner delights.” She nodded, placing the menu down. 

For a crime lord, Abbadon was extremely smooth and charismatic with her way of words. Her accent did not pose any hindrance to her English, which made Katie feel a bit better knowing she could understand her properly. “You’ve got a point! There is a little cafe where I’m from except further up north. I come from Michigan, I can point the place out really easily seeing as I can use my hand as the map.” She chuckled, seeing no harm in a little mindless conversation. Abbadon laughed softly at her gesture and nodded, “That is extremely useful!! Mm, yes I was right. You are a funny one indeed.” She smiled and listened to Katie give details on the cafe she had mentioned. Abbadon had a rather wistful look in her eyes as she listened further. She would be lying to herself if she said she had zero envy for such a mundane life. The drinks finally arrived with Abbadon ordering something fancy while Katie stuck to a regular Caramel Macchiato. “Ah, hold on one moment, I need to text my fiance and tell him I’ll be occupied for a little longer with a new friend.” The brunette woman beamed, shooting a quick text to Pine. 

O’Connor - Soooo I think I just may or may not have made buddies with our main lady. 

Pine’s eyes widened upon seeing this and he furiously tapped away. 

Me - What do you mean by that? You’re not in trouble are you? 

O’Connor - No! I accidentally made friends with her. Don’t worry, I’m not spilling anything. She seems really genuine though. Makes me feel bad she’s on the wrong side of the law. Anyways, I’ll let you in on more later. 

“Fuck.” Jonathan bit his lip and ran a hand over his face. At first, he was going to call her on one of the worst rookie offenses she made, but this gave him an idea. He had to get on Roper's good side, and that was a rookie move he did so why not let her get on their target's good side. Perhaps, Abbadon would even slip up about her true work. 

“Sorry about that, Fiance’s worried and all. He thinks we aren’t going to make it to the gala on time tonight if I keep chatting.” She saw Abbadon smile widely and clasp her hands together. “Why my dear! I hadn’t the faintest idea you were attending, oh how exciting!! Today just got better.” she spoke truthfully, taking a sip of her coffee. “I am ever so curious as to what you will be wearing. I can see the vixen in you.” She winked and took another sip. This caused Katie to blush hard and chuckle, “Thank you! You’re stunning as well, Abbey. Honestly, you’d make anything look good.” Both women chortled at the image and carried on about the Gala. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” Abbadon lowered her voice, “Some of the artwork that is being shown tonight is fraudulent. Now, being in the business I am something like that shouldn’t bother me. Oh but it does.” She rolled her eyes, giving a huff. “You see, I have an eye for the arts and I do not care how much the fake may resemble the actual piece! I could never steal art. Not for money or for false identity. Art is meant to be admired and inspire great minds. I am a painter myself in my downtime.” She pulled her phone out and showed Katie a few pieces of hers. Either she was the best bullshitter Katie had ever met, or she was truly talented. All her doubts were proven wrong as there was a picture of Abbadon posing by a work of hers with a little boy. She smiled fondly at the picture, sighing. “My little Nikolai. He is my greatest work of art and my business trips have me missing him so. His birthday is coming up soon and it breaks my heart that I cannot be there for him.” her voice saddened. This was something Katie was sure of that Abbadon wasn’t lying about. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She placed a comforting hand on the other woman’s and smiled. “How old will he be turning?” At this question, Abbadon perked up again and smiled softly, “He will be ten! He is turning the double digits. Ohhh I remember when he was but a tiny peanut.” She wistfully reminisced fondly over her baby boy. “He was the fattest little chunk, so many rolls! But he was so precious. He will always be precious to me. I call him each night to tell him he means the world to me and we recite a tale my grandmother told me growing up. It is of love and that no matter what, the stars will shine for us.” She gave Katie’s hand a squeeze back. 

“That’s beautiful, Abbey. Truly. It makes me think if I want kids one day or not.” She bit her lip, looking to the side. What would her life be if she ever had children? Katie hadn’t ever really thought about it as Travis had ruined any sort of blossoming question leading to that reality. However, now it was a different story with Pine helping her overcome her fears and finally break the shell she had hidden behind for so long. “I keep all of his drawings too and make sure each time he draws, he sends me a picture if I am away.” She showed Katie a file of the drawings. “Well he certainly takes after his mother in regards to talent! This is incredible. I could never draw anything like this.” She saw Abbadon give a sad expression. “Why Natasha, of course you could. We all start from some place, do we not? All you have to do is just pick up a brush and let your imagination go wild. My grandfather always told me that when I was down. I tell my son the same thing and the more he draws or paints, the more his talent blooms. Do not be so hard on yourself, you are young and have plenty of time!” She gave Katie’s hand a firm pat and then released it. “Oh! I’ve had so much fun I’ve forgotten to check the time. It’s nearly noon. You simply must let me have a look at you when you arrive! Thank you so much for this, Natasha. Your heart is true.” She smiled sadly at Katie before getting up and bidding her farewell. The sad expression remained on Abbadon’s face as she made her way back to her room. How she wished she had a life like Katie’s, so mundane and relaxed. She would spend every waking moment with Nikolai painting all that they would ever dream of in the remote hills of France. There, she wouldn’t be a part of this wretched family and would start life new. No more controlling brother, abusive husband who never loved her, and cursed family lineage. 

A feeling in Katie’s gut told her that Abbadon wasn’t as evil as the papers led her out to be. She was true to her word in loving life and the artistic side of it. “I hope you get to see your son soon, Abbey.” She said under her breath before getting up and making her way back to the suite. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There wasn’t much to tell Jonathan about Abbadon, except for the fact that she didn’t seem like she even wanted to be a part of whatever organization she was in. While slightly disappointed, Jonathan went with her information and hoped they would snag a lead at the gala. 

Checking his watch, Pine tapped his foot as it was almost 4:15. He knew the building holding the event was only a ten minute drive, but it didn’t help his nerves. For his attire, Jonathan donned a simple black suit without a tie and his button down popped open, exposing a bit of his chest hair. His hair was slicked back and face freshly shaved, leaving no stubble. “Sorry! I know I’m not the best, but I had to remember how to put on makeup!!” Katie called from behind the bathroom door, feeling her cheeks heat up once she got a good look at herself in the mirror. The red mermaid shaped dress was close fit and complimented her curves in all the right ways. Her face was made up perfectly as she carefully contoured and shaped her face. She gave herself a vixen-like look as Abbadon had mentioned earlier, and didn’t turn out hooker like at all. Her brows were plucked and shaped accordingly and lashes full and long. A highlighter made her cheekbones shine and she even placed some on her collarbone. To top it off, she adorned a seductive red shade to her pouty, kissable lips. Her short hair had been straightened to a pin with some of her bangs dusting over her brow. Thankfully, she had brought a pair of gold dangling earrings that were delicate enough just to add to her look. The only thing she hated was the ampleness of her bust and how the dress seemed to make her breasts show off. 

She cracked the door open, seeing that Jonathan had his back facing her. Quietly, she slipped out of the bathroom and turned the light off. “‘Kay.” She muttered and saw Jonathan’s body turn around and come to a complete stop. Any breath that Pine had left in his lungs subsequently left upon seeing her. His lips parted and he struggled to find the words to say as he was floored by how elegant the brunette appeared. Her hair sort of reminded him a little of his past lover Jed Marshall’s, which warmed his heart. “What? Do I look bad?” Her face dropped and she grimaced, panic settling in. “No! N-No. You-” Jonathan covered his mouth, still taking her in and basking in her beautiful form. “You look amazing. Sorry- It’s just… Wow.” He nodded, shyly glancing away and chuckling to himself. “You’re not too bad yourself.” She retorted, her cheeks sporting a similar shade. After a few more awkward moments, Pine cleared his throat and could not stop himself stealing glances. She was truly more beautiful than she had initially led on when they first met. What a steal she was, such a vixen hiding underneath the cutesy shy young woman. “I don’t suggest taking phones, so we will have to find a common meeting ground should either of us get lost.” Jonathan spoke, setting his phone in his suitcase, only taking with him his wallet and fake ID. “G-Good idea.” Katie replied quietly, taking her phone out of the small clutch that came along with the dress. 

“Katie.” Jonathan’s voice was quiet speaking her real name. 

Her green eyes, now standing out more than ever from her makeup, flitted up to his blue gaze. 

“I mean it. You’re stunning.” 

His continued compliment made the brunette feel special, wanted… Something she never thought she would ever feel again. 

She gave him a smile and took his hand as he held it out to her. “I’m glad I have such a beautiful woman on my arm… And hey, those heels made you a bit taller!” He jeered, earning an elbow to the ribs and a snort. “Jerk.” She laughed, making her way out of the suite with Pine hand in hand. 

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Just as Angela had promised, the ride was relatively short and the two were at the gala in no time. Jonathan felt Katie tense up at the sight of all the people inside and cautiously wrapped an arm around her waist. Her response to his gesture was to actually grab onto him and get closer. “It’ll be ok, I won’t let anyone touch you in ways you don’t want them to.” He whispered into her ear, giving her side a squeeze. Katie didn’t want to let go of Pine as she felt safe with him and he smelled incredibly good, even with the hint of smoke. “S-Steven?” She stuttered a bit as she was thinking of saying his actual name. Pine turned to her, raising a brow as he handed the guard their ticket and guided Katie over to their designated table. “I would like to dance with you at some point. If you’re ok with that.” Her lips were graced with a soft smile. “I’d love nothing more.” He admitted truthfully, placing a kiss to her hand. The young woman’s heart raced from his action and she wondered what his lips would feel like against her own… 

“Natasha!!” A familiar voice called. 

The two looked up to see Abbadon scuttle over while in a gorgeous black and gold gown, a man with similar features to the woman following in short. 

“Abbey!” Katie got up, going over to Abbadon and giving her a hug. 

“I was right!! I was absolutely right!! You are a catch! Just look at you! Red is your color, my dear!! Oh you look like the most beautiful rose.” Abbadon clasped her gloved hands together in delight. Her smile faded as she snapped her fingers, “How rude of me! Danny, this is my new friend Natasha. I met her in the lobby today and we had the most wonderful time over coffee. Natasha, this is my older brother Daniel.” She nodded at her with a smile, noticing Jonathan lingering close behind. Her eyes narrowed slightly as this man was handsome yet oddly familiar. Katie held out her hand to Daniel only to have him snatch it and swiftly place a kiss to the back, “The pleasure is mine. My sister has such a wonderful taste in finding the most beautiful of friends.” His amber eyes gleamed with hidden intentions. Katie swallowed hard and her nerves began to act up from the sudden gesture. “It’s an h-honor, Daniel.” She froze up as the strange man continued to hold her hand. “Please, call me Dan-” 

Jonathan cleared his throat, placing a comforting hand around Katie’s waist and smiled at Daniel. “This must be your fiance you told me about!! My, my…” Abbadon winked at Katie and batted her eyelashes at Pine. “Y-Yes! Yes this is my fiance. He proposed last m-month in my hometown.” She lied through her teeth and placed her own hand over Pine’s lacing her fingers with his out of a need of comfort. Daniel did not look the least bit amused at this and huffed, adjusting his tie when he stopped, noticing what his sister saw earlier and scratched his beard. “Sorry to cut things short, but I need to discuss something with my sister. I do hope we cross paths again, Ms. Natasha.” He gave the brunette one last wicked smirk before grabbing Abbadon’s arm and muttering angrily in their native tongue to her. Katie watched as Abbadon was yanked away rather brashly from them. “Are you alright?” Pine gently turned Katie and looked at her in worry. She nodded and gave Pine’s hand a pat, taking a deep breath and calming down. “I-I doubt we’re gonna get anything right now, so we can just enjoy ourselves yeah?” She looked hopeful and much to his dismay, Pine agreed. “Yeah. I’m a bit famished anyways so we might as well get something to eat while we’re ahead.” He relaxed a bit more and sat down at their table. Once they had placed their order, Jonathan looked at the brochure of items that were being auctioned. “She did tell me one thing.” Katie took a drink of water before continuing. “She said half of the paintings are fakes and was very adamant about how even she wouldn’t be so low as to steal a painting. She likes art a lot.” She took another drink. Pine nodded and continued to skim the items, looking for anything that could possibly stand out as suspicious. 

One thing that did stand out however, was the name of the family hosting the gala printed on the back. Pine had seen them before during his time under Roper and just passed them to be another crime involved family. Whatever the case was, they had seen Jonathan as well and now the game would be a bit more tricky. If he was spotted, he would be accused as the man that framed Roper and ruined any chance at bringing Abbadon down. His eyes scanned the crowd, searching for the faces of the family when he soon spotted them in the very back where Daniel and Abbadon were. The latter of the two actually did not seem to be having a good time and looked rather miserable. Perhaps Katie’s intuition was plausible, but he couldn’t afford to be relying on her heartfelt feelings when the supposed leader of the crimes was right within eyeshot. Making a mental note, Jonathan turned back to face a curious Katie who looked around at the surroundings, awed by some of the structure. Their food was shortly brought to their table and was obviously exquisite but also too small in proportion. This wasn’t some sort of fancy dinner party anyhow. Jonathan took a swig of his whiskey and smacked his lips before turning his attention to Katie, “Do you still want to dance?” He gave her a soft smile. The brunette gleefully nodded and took his hand as he led them both to the dancefloor. 

Naturally, the song choices were classical and slow paced for those like Katie with more restricted dresses. One of Pine’s large hands rested upon the small of the young woman’s back but looking at her to make certain she was ok with it. She gave him the go ahead and blushed as she placed her hand in his free one. Within minutes, the two became lost in each other's eyes as they danced. They moved gracefully on the floor and seemed to have a fire ignite within them both. Others looked at the pair with a certain degree of envy or admiration at how unified they seemed. Jonathan spun Katie around, pulling her close to his chest just as the song ended and gave a boyish smile. “Not bad. Of course, I assume Cameron forced you to go to military balls.” He winked and caused Katie to giggle and blush. “Yeah, he might have done that a time or two.” She bit her bottom lip, noticing that her hands were still resting upon his chest and his arm wrapped around her frame. Something inside of Pine told him to lean in and kiss the girl as he was ever so curious to how her lips felt. His blue eyes glanced down at her lips then back to her face with her eyes half lidded. Katie’s heart began to beat fast, her breaths shaky with anticipation as she wanted him to do what he was thinking. She wanted him to do it more than anything and only him. What the hell was wrong with her? One minute she hates his guts and now… Now she’s smitten. 

Before Pine can go through with his plan, the music starts up again and his face falls. This song is well known for partner exchanges and apparently Katie knows of it too. “Stay calm and breathe-” He quickly tells her before they are separated and onto the new dance. Much to his luck, Pine’s partner happens to be Abbadon who is not looking very amused. “Hm. I wonder what one of Roper’s men is doing here? It would not possibly be to rat my family out would it?” She spoke lowly, her gaze full of venom. Jonathan grit his teeth and tightened his grip on her waist, “That easy? Tsk, some agent you are.” Her words caused his grip to loosen and suddenly be pulled down so she could whisper in his ear. “It is not me you want, Birch… Or should I say, Pine? Do not play stupid with me, I know exactly who you are and what you’re here for.” She suddenly shoved something into Pine’s blazer. “It is my brother that you want. I never wanted any part of this family business! The only reason I am telling you is because he is keeping my son hostage.” Jonathan’s heartbroken to hear her words and his mind immediately thought of Jed. “He knows that I am faking my fidelity and it is only a matter of time before he kills me. Remember these names, quickly! Belladonna, Poppy, Bloodroot, Daphne and Wisteria. You already know my branch, Wolfsbane. Keep your friend close, Pine. Her heart is true.” Her grip released and tears shimmered in her eyes. “Please. Save my boy.” She whispered before moving onto the next person. 

Abbadon’s words shook him to the core and he had no idea that there were four other branches within the organization. As it turned out, he didn’t need to look for a head start at all as Abbadon was a double agent and just wanted to live a life free of crime and be with her son. Katie was right and it made him feel bad for initially judging her. 

“Mmm, we meet again, little rose.” Daniel’s accented voice sent a chill down Katie’s spine as she felt his fingers dig into her hip. She yelped softly at his touch as she was pulled to his body tightly. Her green eyes were wide with fear as she was forced to dance with Abbadon’s creep of a brother. Alarms were blaring in her mind but her past trauma would not allow her to do anything further but comply with Daniel’s touch. “What happened to the vixen my sister told me about earlier?” He whispered into her ear, his scratchy beard tickling her skin. “It seems that we have a shy little mouse instead. Mm, no matter. You are still very beautiful μικρό ποντίκι.” 

Daniel selfishly shoved the next person in line to dance with Katie. “Please.” She felt her voice fail her as tears burned her eyes, fear taking it’s hold. Daniel mock cooed to the young woman, wiping a tear from her face. “Tears do not suit you, μικρό ποντίκι. At least, not right now they do not. Perhaps they are better suited when I have you screaming, begging for your lover's life as I hold it in the palm of my hand.” He flipped her around, his hand travelling up her body and coping an unconsented feel of her breast. Katie felt lightheaded, her breathing choppy and anxiety clouding her mind. “Mmm yes. Such a beautiful rose you are, my dear Natasha~ If that is your real name of course. I wonder if you are aware of Steven’s true identity? We know why you are here.” His fingers came around her throat and his lips placed a kiss upon her bare shoulder. The young woman let out a silent sob, her body trembling hard and breathing hard. “Shh, shh, shh… Fear not. You are too pretty to waste, μικρό ποντίκι. Oh no, I will not have you be a prostitute. I’ll make you one of my wives.” He nipped at her ear, his hand grabbing a handful of her breast again. 

All Katie could think about was Jonathan and how badly she wanted him to come to her rescue. She was rendered useless by her crippling despair from this man running his hands along her body. She knew how to fight back, but not in a situation like this where old memories surfaced. Katie shut her eyes tightly and whimpered as she felt Daniel press his groin and obvious erection into her backside. “I thought you would have squealed by now. What an obedient mouse. Maybe I don’t have to kill Pine tonight but I will leave you with something to remind you of what happens if you continue your pursuit. He suddenly whipped out a pocket knife and sliced down Katie’s inner forearm, causing her to yelp. Jonathan’s head whipped around at the sound of her yelp over the loud music and he stopped dancing with his now rather upset partner. “Bastard.” He growled as he saw Daniel firmly holding Katie against his body and began to shove through the dancing crowd. 

“Aww looks like our fun here is over for the night.” He put the stem of Belladonna berries he had into his pocket before he could squeeze the juice into the wound he gave Katie. “Rest assured, I am most positive we will meet again my rose.” He chuckled darkly and slithered away into the darkness, leaving Katie stunned and having the absolute worst panic attack she has had in a long time. Everything was spinning and she couldn’t tell what the hell was happening as hands grabbed her. Just as she was about to scream, Jonathan’s familiar scent entered her nostrils and she leaned forward, hugging him tightly and sobbing on his chest. Pine stared down at the hysterical girl that clung to him tightly. He had enough evidence to present to Angela tonight, right now he needed to get Katie the hell out of here. “Hang onto me, sweetheart.” He whispered, hoisting her bridal style into his arms and rushed through the massive ballroom to get out. 

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…” Daniel pulled out a remote, pressing the button on it and setting off fire alarms. The family that had confirmed Daniel’s suspicion earlier were suddenly ambushed with the women and children’s vision being cut off with bags. Denizens of the party began to scream in terror as gunfire went off and finally, an explosion that left the men of the family dead. Abbadon glared hatefully at her brother, makeup running down her face from tears and water from the emergency sprinklers. 

Outside, Jonathan turned on his heel as he heard the awful sound of the explosion followed by horrified and gut wrenching screams. There was nothing more he could do at that point but get back to the hotel, check them out and find somewhere else to stay. It was too dangerous to be in the same vicinity as Daniel. “Fuck this-” Pine muttered and set Katie down gently, flagging a car down before pulling his gun out and threatening the driver to get out. He did not have time to continue risking his and Katie’s lives and hijacked the car. With the young woman resting in the back as she had passed out, Jonathan sped back to the Metropol as fast as the car would let him. In sheer dumb luck, he had not caught any officers attention and parked the car sloppily in the parking lot. “Shh, it’s alright. I’ve got you.” He whispered to a stirring Katie who made panicked noises. Once she realized who it was, her arms wrapped around his neck and she buried her face into his blazer. “We’re leaving here tonight.” He muttered as he entered the lobby, rushing to get to the elevator. A few people looked up from their activities and began to murmur at what could be going on. A sense of unease laced into Pine’s gut as he finally got into the elevator and anxiously waited for their floor. It felt like forever until he finally reached the room. “Jonathan-” Katie whimpered as he set her down, tears coming back and broken sobs wracking her body. The dark blonde haired man furiously packed their belongings as best as he could and turned back to the sobbing woman. His heart sank at how scared she was and how defenseless she appeared. “Kate..” He spoke her other nickname softly and walked over to her, hugging her tightly, tears of his own burning beneath his eyelids. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, I promise. We’re getting out of here right now but I need you to stand up and walk, can you do that?” He released her but kept his hands on her cold arms, gently rubbing them up and down. Pine removed his blazer and noticed the cut on her arm that Daniel had given her. He would have to deal with that later as he helped Katie put his blazer on her to give her some warmth. He took her heels off, shoving them into her bag and helped her stand. “I promise you, I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Without thinking, Jonathan pulled her forward and kissed the top of her head before giving a once over to make sure he grabbed everything. 

The pair tried to look inconspicuous while rushing out of their suite and making a detour out of the back. Too many people would be witness to seeing them rush out like that and it would only add to their woes. Finally, they reached the car Jonathan had stolen and hastily packed their belongings. With a quick hot wiring, Jonathan stepped on the gas and peeled out of the parking lot with the tires squealing. A sense of relative safeness came over them as they sped off into the night in search of a place to rest. Unfortunately, it seemed their luck ran short and would have to spend the night in the car. Jonathan’s eyes peeled out for a hidden area he could park and eventually spotted a patch of thick woods as their temporary haven for the night. “We’ll give Angela a call tomorrow and ask what to do next as I frankly don’t have a fucking clue. What matters to me right now is your safety.” Jonathan pushed Katie’s bangs out of her eyes and gave her a sympathetic expression. She nodded and proceeded to climb into the back with some difficulty due to her dress but managed. “J-Jonathan?” She spoke quietly. Pine turned his gaze to her, nodding up as a signal he heard. “Can you hold me? Like you did this morning?” her voice was shaky again as she sought comfort. Jonathan nodded and turned the car off before climbing into the back. They both knew it was a tight squeeze, but didn’t care at the moment. Katie found herself laying on Jonathan’s chest instead and she closed her eyes, nuzzling against him. “I swear to you, I will never let anything like that happen to you again. We’re in this together now and I’m not about to break my promise.” Jonathan said before wrapping his arms around the young woman and letting sleep take him.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep6: Gozaburo Kaiba Just Casually Started WWIII And Only This One Guy Cares

Welcome to November, where we celebrate writing a 50,000 word book as if I don’t do that every single time I write about an episode of Yugioh. Hello, this is my season. It’s wordy season. I’m so freakin good at doing this. I can’t say most of what I’ve made is any good, but I CAN say at least I’m prolific. Do enough content to fill that bitter pit and walk right over it, that’s been my motto for the past 5 years.

Anyway, I had an awful flu this past week. (Everyone I live with had it so every bathroom was like ground zero) It was SO bad. I still can’t eat spicy food over a week later (Which is so hard for me because usually I can keep up with my Indian friends, that’s my spicy level--max spicy, please--but since this illness, my white taste genes went into overdrive and I tried putting pepperoncini slices in my sandwich and it set my mouth on fire. Pepperoncini. It’s v embarrassing.)

I did attempt to write this post. Unfortunately I never made it past this cap because I got VERY distracted by the emblem on Alister’s face, and how it isn’t proportionally adjusted to match the angle of his face, and it was like three paragraphs of just wanting to talk about it. And then at some point I got very distracted talking about how many empty glasses I was given at my place setting at this baby shower I went to during the flu epidemic, and it mattered a whole lot to me at the time, but I think, overall, was mostly just some sort of nonsense. The things I’ve spared you. 

(bro has just informed me that the 4 gold-lipped crystal goblets I was given at this baby shower was actually very distressing and a very big deal and that I should absolutely talk to at least someone about it, but maybe he’s just saying that to make me feel better, but I have no idea. I am too sick for sarcasm at this time but my god why was I given so many glasses????)

I straight up have no memory of if I’ve made this joke before. Maybe.

(read more under the cut)

Since it feels like 8 years since the last time I could just eat chicken without feeling like I consumed an entire Thanksgiving meal, a little recap:

-Alister pretended he was Pegasus to lure Kaiba and then, off screen, murdered everyone in Pegasus’ castle

-Pegasus got murdered by I’m pretty sure Mai (which is like...OK then...)

-Yugi and Co went on vacation by driving directly through San Francisco and peeking out the window and saying “yeah that’s enough for me”

-No adults, not even Roland, bothered to come with their kids this time, so the only adult of the entire crew--Pegasus--is dead

-Rex and Weevil are luggage

-The Eye of Sauron showed up and it was the end of the world but Yugi threw a dragon at it so I guess everything is OK now

-Monsters are real but they are hard to animate so we’ll just pretend like they’re causing havoc everywhere although most of the planet seems basically unaffected by this.

-The Grim Reaper is a friendly monster that hangs out in a Japanese park and that feels fairly on brand.

And I think that was all that was happening so far.

In a weird twist of fate, Mokuba is the only one in this room that isn’t trapped which sort of...if you’re the only one NOT kidnapped wouldn’t that also be a type of being kidnapped?

And we finally get to figure out why Alister wants to Murder Kaiba so bad and, spoiler, it reaches.

???

I’m gonna get more to the obvious problems with Alister’s devotion to murdering all the Kaibas in a bit but yes, Alister is in fact going to try and Kill Kaiba on this kid’s show because of Kaiba’s Dad, who is such a horrible and abusive person that Kaiba essentially drove the bastard out of Japan and straight to the bottom of the ocean.

Just kinda feels like Alister has been living under a rock...which, I guess he has been. He has been living in some weird Atlantis structure so I guess he never got the memo that Gozaburo Kaiba is hella dead.

So that’s what they’re up to. How’s Sausalito?

Um.

Huh.

So the North Bay is a really classic scenery. It’s rolling hills. It’s NAPA. It’s like...definitely not Arizona. California has a couple of mesas but they’re no where near here and the Monument Valley style Mesas really only exist in Monument Valley.

And I know it’s because the background artist for Yugioh is all horny for horny rock structures but like...this couldn’t be farther from the Bay Area in the way that it is drawn and it is such a shock after all the work they did last episode to research that Bay Area lore. Once they crossed the Golden Gate they were like “well no one will care about this part” which is true not only of Yugioh but also of real life Californian politics.

Anyway, I have been making a map, but unfortunately my original file will not suffice. time to fix it.

There we go. Now they’re in the right place. Just smack dab in Monument Valley, Arizona, smack dab in the middle of the Navajo Nation and so hypothetically, not even in the United States anymore.

While in the car, Yugi has just been anxious as hell the entire time, and just going “y’all I have a bad feeling I’m uncomfortable I have a bad feeling” while Joey and Tea just patiently stared at him flipping out in the corner. So...kinda like a normal trip with someone who has high anxiety/possessed by a ghost. I  kinda feel like this is every girls trip to Disneyland for me. There’s always one Yugi who’s like “no one said anything about CROWDS.” and you kinda just gotta let them do their thing. Just let them get it out of their system and hide in the bathroom when they need to hide in the bathroom and don’t fight it, they’ll be fine. Just hold their spot in line when they desperately look for a secret place to medicinally vape because there’s too many freakin children at Disneyland.

And it is HILARIOUS that Yugi is able to have this type of premonition but cannot figure out that they have somehow missed San Fransisco and have wandered into a DESERT.

Back in Pegasus’ California (an island that legitimately looks more like California than actual Yugioh California) Alister has decided to go completely off the rails and it happens so fast and without any warning.

the line is actually “This doll used to be my brother’s” which is a very different meaning but both are likely from weird ass Alister and this weird ass show, so I’ll leave the cap like this (although yes, this is what I thought Alister was saying for kind of a while until I recorded it for this blog and was like “oh shoot I heard the line wrong when I had the flu huh.”)

Man, RIP Noah, he would have been excellent this episode.

Honestly seems like just yesterday when Seto and Noah were pitted against eachother by a cyberdemon Dad-head floating in the sky, Mokuba was possessed for some reason and being used as a human shield, Tristan was a robot monkey, and Yugi was just shrugging at Kaiba from across the field like “Kaiba if you don’t play good you die--oh my gods, he died. Well that was bound to happen...again.” Man.

Alister should be their best friend, this is nonsense.

So lets do the math to 7 years before 2002.

I searched Wikipedia for wars during 1995 (they do have a list of 90′s wars) and looked for any that involved heavy use of tanks and their artillery fire (on big swatches of cities like this), inner city western architecture, temperate landscapes, and western clothing that match Alister and Mikey (AKA WWII vibes) and found out:

Nothing fits that description

UNLESS Alister and Mikey are time travelers from a WWII bombing in Europe. This is Yugioh. That could happen. Probably not, but youknow...it’s not too late for Yugioh to bring in time travel.

I mean if you don’t want to get super political in your cartoon just invent a world war I guess? We’ve already clarified that Gozaburo was Big Boss, so at this point I can easily see him inventing wars just to sell ships.

(I could probably add thousands of more deaths at this point but I have no idea where they are, if they’re on a tiny island or an entire country so I’ll just...leave the count alone but just now it’s implied that a hell ton of people died during this episode)

People going off about how Sesame Street is so amazing for talking about issues like you’re Dad going to prison while Yugioh was straight up talking about the intricacy of the War Economy. Yugioh being all “don’t forget kids, your good capitalist economy survives off of the undeserved bloodshed of civilians in other countries! Eat the poor!” and it’s like hot damn this heavy commentary came out of freakin no where.

Anyways, this is stuff most kid’s shows will delicately skip over but nah, Yugioh is going to go here, and they are going to steamroll directly through it with massive tanks.

So, lets kill this kid’s entire family and talk about the terrors of the World War of 1995 and all the war orphans who get recruited to become soldiers at the ripe old age of 9. Alister was 9 when he was recruited to be a child card soldier.

This kid’s show.

Alister is...basically Raiden, right? Like as long as we’re talking about Metal Gear, this kid is just one step away from cyborg implants and weird colored blood?

Better wear bright red when you visit the war crime scene, surprised Gozaburo didn’t invite like an entire photo -op crew to incriminate him even further.

Now we did look up “where the hell is Alister from Yugioh from?” (there is no answer) and we did find out a little factoid. In the Japanese version of the show, Gozaburo had bought the land and was just forcibly evicting Alister and his family from their home with tanks.

Which is wild.

He just straight up evicted an entire metropolitan city????

Like the dub did a way better job than the sub at this one, I’ll give them that.

It’s just so weird that Gozoboro just didn’t like...raise the rent like a normal bad landlord. Instead he was like “rather than gentrify my land and save me a ton of money, I’ll just destroy everything I just bought and murder everyone here” which is like...

...Seto did the world so many favors when he kicked out his Dad, right? Like Damn. I don't understand why Alister isn’t freakin worshiping Seto right now when his whole deal is “I must kill Gozaburo” and Seto’s like “yo I already did that. Twice. I didn’t even have to literally kill him either, I just embarrassed him so bad that he killed himself. His stupid tank company sells joke games now. I literally turned the man into a joke.”

Then again, Alister is on the green magic and like I think it alters your brain chemistry somewhat.

(How ripped did Alister get in this episode, by the way? The kid is like 16 years old or something so how did this happen? ...The perpetual horny line running straight through Yugioh, man. Look at it run. That 16 year old is drawn like he’s 28 and really into Crossfit and his crop top gets smaller and smaller like every scene.)

So like this is a very gray issue that I cannot believe they brought up in a kid’s show (like can you imagine if Scrooge McDuck had to face facts that his company murdered tons of people???), but also this is Seto Kaiba. Seto grew up in the system, so like he doesn’t need to be lectured to about dirty money because he was on the losing end of that not too long ago. Seto is himself basically a upscale war orphan since he was adopted by Gozaburo to continue the machine like a freakin maniac (a Solidus Snake, if you will) so of all the people on this show I don’t get why Seto would care about this. This is just how Seto views the entire world as either losing or winning and no reason to feel bad about it because he’s been both.

Also...Seto stopped the machine. Kind of. He was unaware that cards were the same thing as weapons, but at least he stopped the sale of huge child-stealing tanks.

So they play the game for a little while and Seto does kind of poorly as usual, and just when I thought this episode couldn’t get any weirder...

And just like that, Seto peaces out. Like he does almost every single time he has ever played a card game solo except for that one time he was playing Joey Wheeler. (Which was also one of the few times Seto ever won.)

Like I just want to remind you that this segment is in the same episode as WWIII and the tonal whiplash is pretty remarkable.

That’s right, we’re back in the Unnamed Monster World, which is not the Shadow Realm, and which I thought you could only access if you were dreaming and able to search through the puzzle maze.

Apparently this can just happen at any time and all that stuff with the guiding Kuriboh and Yugi and Pharaoh trying to find this place was just...them wasting time.

Again he ditches the legendary sword so freakin fast because who needs a sword when you have a dragon? Only this anime.

And that’s how Seto, who was absolutely going to lose this game, somehow just barely came to a draw.

So just to recap, Seto has yet to win a card game that he didn’t get prophetic help for via a hallucination or Yugi telling him what to do. Unless you count Joey and grandpa.

Then, the one last adult I forgot about, the driver of Yugi’s car, decides that it’s about time that he also died and left this show as adult free as possible.

THE HELL ARE THEY?

Also...maybe it’s the angle but the writing on that gas station looks a lot like kanji.

Yo, what if this is the backgrounds for a different show and they’re just sharing? I mean I doubt it because Yugioh had a good enough budget but...what if? What if that’s why they’re in Arizona?

Anyway, next time we’ll find out if this guy just drops dead or has been a Yugioh monster this whole time, and I think maybe both?

And if you just got here, this is a link to read all my Yugioh recaps in chrono order

[singledadchronicles]

It’s an Introduction

Hello All Who May Someday Stumble across the Tumblr,

This is going to be my introduction. First and foremost if you feel like reaching out, you can call me M. I am currently 28 years old, divorced, and have a young child. I was married for just short of 9 years to someone who told me on her way out that she wished we never would have gotten married at all, it ruined her life. I am going to post a lot of stuff on this blog that I won’t even tell my family about. Real feelings I have had, do have, and day to day thoughts. I’m not usually one for introspection but I do find that I need to be to move on with my life.

I am also going to try and stay away from talking badly about my ex-wife. I loved her and even if for what ever reason she didn’t love me back I won’t speak negatively about her. I promised that to myself so that my daughter will not think anything less of her mother. So that extends to here on the off chance that someday she grows up and stumbles across this blog and begins to read about her dear ol’ dad. 

I guess I can give some more information about me. I am from the Mid-West area of the United States of America. I am a Conservative leaning Libertarian. My blog will not deal with politics or anything in that realm so please don’t hold that against me. I am a veteran, having served just 20 days shy of my five year mark with the Worlds Greatest Navy, USN. I am a proud veteran and served with many great men and women during my time.

Better background now on why this blog will go on. I am a single dad. I know there are single dads who blog, vlog, tiktok, youtube, run websites, what ever. But I think for the most part my experience is unique. I married my wife when I was 19 years old, twenty two days after she graduated high school. She was 18, I was 19, and I knew from the first moment I kissed her that I was going to marry her. Maybe that was my mistake. We moved to the town where she would go to college and I worked for a pharmacy as a shift supervisor. Around September 2012, I was only making about $500-$600 a month and we couldn’t survive, I asked for a raise or to be trained for promotion two days before the company came out and said the max salary for a hourly employee was now only going to be $.50 more than what I was already making.

I was in a recruiters office the next day. My ex-wife and I were infatuated with one another. In March of 2013 I left for bootcamp and A-School. When I got my orders to my first duty station my ex left school and moved with me. She gave up her dream because I wanted to provide for my family. Of note, I begged for her to stay and complete her degree. Two years would seem like nothing if she could come to me with her degree and then we could both really work on careers we were enthralled with. She refused and moved. I don’t blame her or hold it against her, it is just what happened. 

I will be honest about myself too. I am not an easy man to deal with. When I get angry or upset I need time to cool down so that I don’t say something I do not mean or something in a hateful way that was not meant in that vain. My ex-wife however is a get the problem over quick  and get past it type personality so we clashed a lot. We NEVER laid a finger on each other. But we were not mentally good to one another. I can take my blame in that. I was a young guy and I did not have great control over my emotions. I still at 28 struggle (Part of putting this blog out here) to control my emotions. But through it all we fought for one another more than we fought with each other. 

We struggled for three years with infertility, we tried to be a if pregnancy happens it is meant to happen couple so no protection was ever used after we got married. We found out in early 2014 that my ex had PCOS. We fought that battle together. She took injections and we had to have a schedule of when the best time to have a baby was. After three failed attempts of IVF (We got pregnant once but the baby was not a “viable pregnancy” and we lost that embryo after 8 weeks) we took a break. Again we said if it was meant to happen it would happen.  So in late 2014 we told the doctor that we wanted to do an aggressive treatment, that this would be our last shot before we looked into adoption. IVF and infertitlity are much harder mentally than anything else and my ex and I were worn out. Thankfully that “Last ditch effort” paid off and my ex got pregnant. We welcomed my beautiful child into the world in 2015 and she has been the light of our lives sense.

In 2016 thought my own personal tragedy struck. On October 3rd of that year I was changing my child’s diaper at my parents house on leave from the Navy in between duty stations. I was transferring to a base close to home and was very excited. Suddenly I felt a pain in my stomach and asked my dad to take over the diaper change (he never changed grandbaby diapers) he saw something was up and jumped in as I took off for the restroom. I sat down on the toilet and next thing I knew I was on the floor of the bathroom looking up at my dad and he was asking if I needed an ambulance. My reply (according to my dad) “Yeah I think so cause I have no clue how I got down here”. I tried to get up but pain shot through my body again and next thing I knew I was surrounded by paramedics and they started to tell me to relax I was having a heart attack. To just keep breathing and that I was going to be fine. 

I waited in an emergency room for pain meds, so long that I apparently got so frustrated I snapped one of the handrails off the bed. They refused to give me pain meds because they thought I was just a junkie trying to get my fix (It’s in my charts that the refusal for medicine was because I was showing physical signs of being an addict). At the first hospital I was treated until midnight (approximately 15 hours) like I had pneumonia. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with me. I was taken to an ICU as my oxygen levels dipped and it was at midnight that the doctor on staff looked at what is called a lipase level and saw that it was over 13,000 (Normal lipase for an adult male is between 40-50) and had me medevac’d to a different hospital so that I could be taken care of. 

What I actually had was Necrotizing Pancreatitis. Basically my pancreas was revolting against my body and trying to kill itself and take others with it. A massive revolt against my body. I remember only three things that happened next. Getting to the second hospital and having them not give me pain meds again until they assessed my situation, a doctor telling me that I could die and asking if I had a living will to take care of my wife and daughter, and that same doctor coming back and asking who had permission to make any calls on my behalf. The last part I raised my head what I could and pointed at my dad (who was with me this whole time) and my wife. They video recorded that so if anything happened they had evidence. 

I spent the next 14 days in a medically induced coma. When they finally brought me out of it it took 9 nurses and two doctors to take out my breathing tube because I was fighting them so much. I can say I spent 90 percent of the next year of my life in a hospital. I missed my child’s first birthday and barely got out of a hospital in time for their second. Also during 2016 my ex-wife’s mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer. So my ex was not only dealing with me being in and out of the hospital but also her mother. 

I’ll talk about her mother more in another blog post. She was an amazing woman.

It was at this time thought that I think my world really started to spiral. I was told I would no longer be able to serve in the military (right as I had really felt I was getting the hang of it and wanted it to be my career). My medical retirement took a little over a year to process and finalize and I was retired 20 days short of my five year mark in the Navy in 2018. That was the first time I felt really lost.

My ex-wife became an esthetician around this time and I became a stay at home dad. Anyone who knows me would tell you that this is not in my nature. Not that I don’t want to spend time with my child, but I have always seen myself as the provider, the patriarch, and the “Man of the house”. You may not like it but it was how I was raised and it’s a value I still hold.  Fuck off if you don’t like it.

So I started a management job at a retail company and whenever my ex wasn’t working I was. This was probably the start of the deterioration of our relationship. We started seeing one another just long enough to argue, eat, or have sex. It was one of the three, period, the end. We went on like this for a little under a year.

In December of 2019, 7 days before Christmas, as my ex and I woke up to go to school (we had moved back to where she had started college so she could finisher her degree and I could do my degree as well) she looked me in the eyes and said “I don’t love you anymore...I want a divorce.” At that moment I felt like it was out of nowhere. I yelled, I cursed, I felt betrayed, abandonded, and hopeless... I went to class, took my child to school, and for the next three days came home to a woman who didn’t want to be with me anymore and wasn’t willing to let me try and fix anything. She had made up her mind, and had a million reasons why. Her biggest being that she didn’t love me anymore and she couldn’t put her child through to parents pretending to play house.

Now here I am, 6 months post divorce (we separated the weekend before Christmas and our divorce was finalized the first of January), trying to figure out dating as my ex wife begins her plans to move in with her new boyfriend and start her new life. I am still single, still depressed, and still not over her. I’m trying to be, and my ex and I have an exact split schedule for our child. We probably have the most legit 50/50 custody of a child ever and that’s really nice.

This blog is to help me move on, to express my feelings somewhere, where I don’t have to be afraid of telling the truth about myself and what I am going through. This was the introduction of what could be a very fun experience for me. Lots of stories and even some more background to come. 

Thanks for Reading,

M

[harryhighkey]

space

hello hi hi hi, it’s been one long ass minute but i’m back w another one shot!!! i’m v aware it’s not how you want him part 3 and that is what 90% of my messages are about, but, well this is not that at all, it’s something completely different

idk if u heard but thank u next dropped and i fucking love it!!!!!!! NASA is my favourite favourite favourite and this one shot is honestly a little inspired by it!! also, i’m kind of a little bit self-projecting bc of my own experiences lately lmao

but idk, like my last one shot i needed to write this for me right now and idk i love the idea of it and all that

it’s v angst i think, might do a part 2?????? might not???? sorry if there’s mistakes, i literally wrote it all down in one sitting bc i was just !!!!!! issa mood u know

ANYWAY LET ME KNOW WHAT U THINK!!! PLS ENJOY 

___________________________

One hundred and fourteen days is a really long time to spend away from the person you love. A really fucking long time. It’s almost a third of the year, a whole season you could spend apart. And in your case, the season was autumn.

Harry had left during the last weeks of summer and you’d spent the entirety of autumn without him. Even communicating was a little difficult with him constantly changing timezones and countries. The first few weeks were hard. Really, really hard. You and Harry were seemingly still in that honeymoon phase when he was boarding his plane, even after seven months of officially being a couple you two were inseparable and couldn’t get enough of each other. And then all of a sudden he was just gone.

It was a weird thing to feel, it was something kind of a like a break up, except not that all at the same time. Your heart was left feeling empty when he left, but it wasn’t broken in a way that you knew he was gone forever. But you did know it was going to be a long time.

On day twenty-two, you felt a little change. You were perking up again, replying to messages from friends, adding to your Instagram story again. The longing was still there but that morning you awoke early and embarked on doing a massive clean out of your apartment on your days off from work and after everything was re-organised, you felt refreshed.

Day twenty-nine was when Harry noticed that change. He often felt bad when he would call you on a high from singing in front of thousands of his fans and you were cooped up in your one bedroom place. It was never your intention for him to feel bad, you loved that he got to do what he loved. It made you happy to see him happy you just wished you could be with him to experience the same happiness. That was until you realised you’d found happiness in other places. Suddenly you realised, your life had existed before Harry, and honestly, you kind of loved your life. Your apartment only seemed small because you’d been staying in lavish penthouses on weekends away. And your apartment had kind of begun become a pit where you would disregard clothes in a hurry to pack a new suitcase for the next little trip he would take you on. Without Harry there, you began to love the things about your apartment you did before and do the things you used to do before your boyfriend was someone who could be instantly recognised by millions of people.

Harry had Facetimed you and you didn’t answer as quickly as you normally did. You weren’t just sitting and waiting for him to call. Once you answered you could barely hear him. You were out with your friends, your smile was bright but honestly, you barely paid him any attention.

It was a quick call, one that had Harry left a bit perplexed. He was happy you were happy, but he couldn’t ignore the insulted way he felt that he didn’t have the full attention off of you that he had become so accustomed to receiving.

Day forty-four. He cried. Really cried because of how much he missed you. He’d had a really hard day with the media blasting headlines everywhere about him and a model he wasn’t even sure if he had met before. You felt for him, and listened as he vented and promised you none of it was true. You told him he didn’t have to reassure you, you knew the truth. Of course you believed him, you trusted his loyalty to you. However, you’d been so distracted by the good things happening for you, you hadn’t thought to check the TMZ YouTube or even search Harry Styles on twitter to see what was going on. You didn’t even have a clue any of this was being said. It wasn’t really an issue for you at all, until Harry had brought it up, the only reason it had an affect on you was because it had an affect on him.

Day seventy-six you were both so happy. So, so, so happy. Harry had just played to his biggest crowd yet and you’d been offered a promotion at work. Both of your lives were riding high in their own rights. They just weren’t two lives together at this point.

Day one hundred and thirteen at 11:02pm, he showed up at your front door. He’d managed to find a private jet and fly home early. He surprised you. And fuck, your heart flew high. You were so in love with that boy and as he kissed you for the first time in a long time, you melted right into him again. The two of you made love all night. You called in sick to work the next day and the two of you spent the entire day together just laughing, kissing and touching each other. You couldn’t get enough of him, he couldn’t get enough of you.

Day one hundred and thirty-two, it was well and truly winter now, the days were cold and the nights were freezing but you had Harry at night to keep you warm, now. Then again, your blankets did just as good of a job, too.

What?

You weren’t that surprised, though, that wasn’t the first time you had a thought like that.

He had been home for nineteen days now, almost three full weeks. And fuck, did you love him, but fuck, did you want just a little room to breathe.

Three days ago, on day sixteen of him being home was when you really felt yourself getting annoyed. One of your favourite shows came back with a new season while Harry was away and you’d made a ritual every week of putting on a face mask and watching it in peace.

Harry thought he would watch it with you, and you didn’t mind. You were excited, at least at first you were. Then he started asking questions. From there it was a fast drop and everything he did started to annoy you. Eventually you told him to shut up and leave you alone. He went to bed, shocked.

The next day you didn’t talk about it, you woke up earlier than usual because you had an early start at work. You didn’t tell Harry.

Back to day one hundred and thirty-two, nineteen days into Harry being back and you came home from work to see him asleep on your little pink couch. Another time you would have found him so cute and endearing, but right now you felt like you couldn’t escape him. You went to your bedroom and his suitcase was opened, his clothes messily lingering around it. You went to your bathroom, he’d left the toothpaste opened. Again. Fuck you hated that.

Harry was staying with you, and when you said he could, you thought it would be fine. You thought it would be better than fine, you’d thought you would love it. He had sold his place before he left, the market was a good and his real estate agent told him he’d make a huge profit. He did, but now he was living in your little apartment with you and the place you once loved, then loathed and then loved again you were starting to loathe once more.

Or were you not loving Harry being there?

“Fuck this.” You murmured to yourself before you quickly got changed out of the clothes you wore to work and into something more comfortable before you grabbed your keys and left again.

It was 1:52am - or one hour and fifty-two minutes of day one hundred and thirty-three, twenty days of Harry being back - when you answered his call drunk.

“’lo boyfriend.”

“Oh my god, why haven’t you answered your phone?” He was relieved when you answered, after several attempts to contact you failed, he was starting to get desperate.

“I did right now?”

“You couldn’t answer any earlier?”

“Nah.” It was nice to have him on the phone, it reminded you of when he was away and when you missed him, you only thought about how much he loved you.

“Nah? What do you mean nah?” The word sounded so strange in his accent, you giggled. “What’re you laughing for?”

“You’re so pretty on the phone.”

“You’re really quite drunk. Did you drive?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, you got a ride home?”

“You still at my place?”

“Yeah, want me to get you?”

“Nah, want you gone when I get home.”

“What?” All that wine had given you liquid courage and while right now you weren’t feeling remorseful over what you had said, Harry felt that blow, he felt it hard. “Y/N?”

“You heard me. I just..give me some room to breathe.”

“Where is this coming from?”

“Don’t know.” You did know, he was crowding in on the life you had found once again while he was away.

“Do, do you want to break up?” He went quiet when he asked that, as if he was afraid to ask the question. You were being brutally honest in this moment and he wasn’t sure what other kind of swings he was going to take from you right now.

“No, fuck no.” Your reply was instant, he was relieved again. “Love you so much, Harry, really. Never wan’ end it.”

“I don’t understand, then, what’s the issue?”

“I just, like, my place is a little too small for the both of us, you know?”

“I can get us a bigger place-”

“I don’t want a bigger place, I like my place.”

“What do you want, then? I'd give you the whole world if I could.” He was on the verge of tears, his eyes were welling up and you couldn’t see him but you could imagine it pretty well.

“Baby, s’okay. I don’t want the world, just want... a little space. Space. I want space, not the world.”

“You don’t want me here?”

“Not at the moment, I want a little me time, again.” 

“We were apart for so long.”

“Yeah.. and remember how good we were those first couple’a weeks. Go away again. Give me a chance to miss you.” You really thought you couldn’t have been more clear, but when Harry didn’t respond, you felt guilt creeping in. “It’s not a bad thing, Harry. I love you and I want you forever and all that, but shit, usually I love it when you stay, I do. I just- I’m on another kind of page right now. There’s nothing wrong with some me time.”

“Okay.” His reply was so simple, so quick you couldn’t at all get a hint at what he would be doing on the other end. “Are you coming back here tonight?”

“Nah, going to stay with a friend. Be there tomorrow sometime.”

“Text me when you’re there? Wanna know you’re safe.”

“I will.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Night...I love you.” You were so sure of yourself when you’d been telling Harry exactly how you’d been feeling but now you were terrified of not hearing those words returned.

“I love you, too.” He hung up then.

Your emotions were all over the place as you stared at the picture that was your lockscreen background. Taken on day one hundred and seventeen, four days of him being home, he was laying on the couch with his arms lifted and bent and covering part of his face, but you could see his smile. His beautiful smile that made you smile, you were behind the camera and had been straddling his hips. You thought back to that moment of post lazy morning sex and he looked so gorgeous you couldn’t help but to take a photo, which he tried to avoid, but his smile was perfect. You swore that right now, you could hear the exact laugh he did on that perfect day. You wanted to feel like that again.

Fuck.

Did you make a mistake?

No, you were sure to get back to that moment, you needed the space. Right?

Right now, you couldn’t think about it, you weren’t going to let yourself have that internal battle. Instead, you went back inside the bar with your friends to have one last glass of wine and a hungover version of you on day one hundred and thirty-three could face the consequences.

[everymovie2020]

Single White Female (1992)

Date watched:  12 October 2019

Continuing on with my Saturday afternoon 90s thriller-fest, another movie I haven't seen in a really, really long time.  Single White Female is really something.

First of all, can we talk about the apartment she lives in?  This massive apartment with hardly any furniture, in downtown Manhattan, in a heritage building, with no air-conditioning or fans or… much of anything, and it's falling apart, and she just lives there alone?  HOW?

I mean, it's 1992 so like, obviously the rent is cheaper, but fucking hell.  She is right in the middle of downtown Manhattan and it's a massive apartment. How the hell does she afford it?

And I mean, even when Jennifer Jason Leigh moves in – she's only working in retail, so… HOW DO THEY AFFORD IT?

Oh wait – it's rent controlled.  I just remembered.  I'm not sure what that means but I know from Friends and Sex and the City that it's a good thing to have in New York.  Okay, so fine, the apartment is explained.  I'll allow it.

Plot:

Bridget Fonda lives in a sprawling Manhattan apartment – SPRAWLING.  She's dating Steven Weber, and they're going to get married, but then she finds out that he fucked his ex-girlfriend.  So she drops him, but she's sad about it because she really loved him.

She puts in an ad for a roommate, interviews a bunch of options and finally settles on Jennifer Jason Leigh (who I'm now going to refer to as JJL because three names is a killer).  JJL moves in, they bond, they become friends, they get a puppy – even though Bridget did not want the puppy and JJL manipulated her into keeping it – and then Steven Weber comes back into the picture in a big, big way.

The problem is that JJL is either in love with Bridget or simply obsessed with her.  At first I thought it was straight up lesbian love, but it's more than that. You see, JJL had a twin sister who died when they were young, and she's trying to replace her with Bridget.  But then there's kissing.  So I don't know.

Look, I love my friends, but I don't kiss them, is all I'm saying.

So when Steven Weber comes back, and the relationship starts up again, suddenly JJL needs to move out.  So she kills the dog (oh, I'm sorry, it "accidentally dies"), she tries to sow the seeds of doubt into Bridget's mind about her relationship, she is just basically very unsettling and manipulative, and then one day she cuts and dyes her hair the exact same style as Bridget.

It is bananas.

And she thinks Bridget will be cool with it.

It is bananas.  The logic is bananas.

So Bridget is finally starting to cotton onto what we, the viewer, have known this entire time – bitch be crazy.  But Bridget is too fucking nice, right? Which I think is a fatal flaw a lot of women have, because… here you have this person, who you are friends with, who you've been living with, who you are bonded with, and now all of a sudden the red flags are showing but you're trying to extract yourself as gracefully as possible without resorting to acting like a total bitch, and it keeps blowing up in her face.

In order to make Steven Weber out to be a cheater and to prove to Bridget that… men can't be trusted, I guess, JJL dresses up as Bridget, goes over to Steven's hotel room and gives him a surprise blow job, and when he wakes up mid-blowie and realises it's not Bridget, he tries to get her to stop but she's on a mission and he comes anyway.  Then he's wracked with guilt, and she's like, "You liked it," and I'm like, "You just raped him," and she's like, "You're a cheater, once a cheater always a cheater," and he's like, "Fuck you," and I'm like, "You just raped him."

Then Steven Weber is like, no fuck you, I'll tell Bridget what a psycho you are, and then she stabs him in the head with a stiletto heel.

It bums me out that he died.  He really didn't deserve to die.  Yeah, he cheated on Bridget, but she'd forgiven him and they were moving on.  It was supremely shitty of JJL to stab him in the head with a high heel.  It's just rude.

So JJL goes home, tells Bridget she's moving out (spoiler alert – she has other plans) and sets about cleaning the apartment. Then while JJL is out, a very specific news bulletin tells Bridget that a man was killed in the same hotel as Steven Weber, and even reveals the room number, so when she rings the hotel she pretty much confirms that he was the one killed.

That is when JJL's evil scheme is revealed – she's planning to frame Bridget for murder and then kill her and disappear into the wind, making it look like a murder suicide.  And the reason she was frantically cleaning the apartment was to get rid of her fingerprints, though I find it laughable that she thinks that just by cleaning her room she would get rid of all of her fingerprints throughout the entire apartment after living there for a few months.  Nice try, JJL.

Anyway, they fight, and then they go up to the gay friend's apartment (JJL knocked him unconscious what seems like a few days ago and he has just been chilling in a bathtub since then?  You're led to believe he's dead but like, he's been unconscious in a bathtub for days.  No food or water.  He would not be a well man.  Also, when they show him in the bathtub, they show his very loyal ginger cat sitting on top of him and purring loudly, so it is my belief that the ginger cat was taking good care of him), where JJL ties Bridget up to a chair.  So now the plan is that Bridget has convinced her not to kill her, and they are going to run away together with new identities and brown hair, but of course Bridget's actual plan is to escape, and they fight, and then JJL is getting the upper hand when the guy everyone thought was dead (except the kitty, the very loyal ginger kitty) bursts out of the bathroom and saves the day.

But then he gets knocked out again, and JJL ties up Bridget and then goes down to the basement to get a human woman-sized suitcase to put her body in (at this point I'm like why the fuck don't you just take her back down to her apartment and kill her there like you were going to, but wtf do I know), when Stephen Tobolowsky turns up to "save the day".

Now I haven't talked about him before because I honestly forgot about him until this very moment, but here's the deal – he owns a fashion business and Bridget has provided him with fashion software. He then tried to come onto her and demand that she sleep with him (very #metoo), and she told him to fuck off. So he has been withholding her last payment, but she's a smarty who put data erasing software into her computer program if they failed to pay her.

The whole reason he goes around to "save the day" is because he was going to scream at her to stop her data erasing program even though he didn't pay her for the work done and he also sexually harassed her, and he acts like saving her is a real chore for him, and then he gets killed.  So like… sucks to be Stephen Tobolowsky?

I may have gotten this somewhat out of order, but two people intervene trying to help Bridget and both of them get taken out. She finally almost gets the upper hand and almost escapes in the elevator, but JJL forces her way in and they fight all the way down to the basement.  It's there that JJL strangles Bridget and thinks she's killed her, but in a perfect 90s horror movie twist ending, when JJL goes back to Bridget's lifeless body to drag it to the incinerator – seriously, PEOPLE WOULD'VE NOTICED IF SHE WAS MISSING, THIS PLAN IS SUPER FLAWED, AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT YOU LIVED IN A BUILDING FOR MONTHS AND DIDN'T SEE ANY OF THE OTHER TENANTS, JFC – Bridget is gone.

Anyway, they fight again and Bridget finally kills the bitch, and all's well that ends well – except for Steven Weber, the dog, Stephen Toblowsky and I'm guessing the gay friend would probably have some lingering health issues as well, and of course not to mention the trauma Bridget has gone through that will undoubtedly affect her entire life.

So that's Single White Female in all its early 90s glory – I mean, if you're looking for a snapshot of the fashion of the very early 90s in New York, this is your movie, because holy shitballs there's some interesting looks.  And I don't even know what to categorise Bridget's hair as.  It's a sassy little cut and it's super out of fashion now, but I remember that look being all the rage.

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Hi, I've decided to make Mowgli's wolf parents their own characters, named Nisha and Vihaan, with Akela as the leader and grandfatherly mentor to Mowgli. Are their any sequels you think are better than the first movie? For me, All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 is much better that the original. Are their any relationships in Trollhunters that you feel could've been explored, ie, Claire and Draal? And how would you have done Troll!Jim and the final battle with Gunmar?-The Sapphire One.

I’m happy for you, making so much progress on your fanfic.

I would prefer if, in the future, you directed any further requests for advice on your Jungle Book fic to someone who is actually in the Jungle Book fandom, though? I’ve been trying to be courteous and supportive, but it’s getting exhausting to devote so much mental and emotional energy to determining, “what can I say that is helpful but also gently conveys I am not interested in discussing this topic further?”, especially since I don’t seem to be successfully conveying the ‘polite disinterest’ part.

When I have said, repeatedly, that I am not invested in The Jungle Book, what I mean is that it’s an okay story and I have nothing in particular against it, but it is not a fandom that I am in, and therefore fanfiction for it is not fanfiction I am inclined to read or discuss. I would rather devote my time and energy to stories and fandoms in which I do have an emotional investment.

I wish you good fortune in continuing this project and hope it finds the audience it deserves on whichever platform you choose to share it.

+=+

The All Dogs Go To Heaven duo is a neat one because each movie appeals to me in different ways.

The sequel had stronger music. “Let Me Be Surprised”and “It’s Too Heavenly Here” convey the same ideas, but “It’s Too Heavenly Here” has a lot more energy, possibly because Charlie’s had more time to go stir-crazy.

I respect the first one for not shoehorning in a romantic subplot with all the other plot lines they were already working with, but I respect the second one for introducing new elements a bit more cohesively - I mean, the alligator in the first one basically showed up out of nowhere. He did eat Carface in the end, so he was plot-significant, but he was still really jarring - so jarring a whole trope got named after the Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.

The timeline between movies is a bit confusing? I think the first one is set in the 1920s, or maybe the 50s. I’m basing this on partially car designs but cutting out the 10s, 30s, and 40s due to lack of mention of the Great Depression or either World War. But the second one, based on the humans’ clothing, looks like it’s in the 1980s, maybe 90s? So, unless dogs have a natural lifespan similar to a human one in this universe, it’s weird that the second movie starts when Itchy dies. (He’s be thirty, or seventy, depending on which of my time period guesses are right.) I guess there could also be a long time-skip between “It’s Too Heavenly Here” and Carface stealing Gabriel’s horn.

Overall I’ve found movie sequels tend to be lesser than or equal to the original movie. Shrek 2, for example, was really good, but I wouldn’t say it was better than Shrek.

Cinderella 3: A Twist In Time was exceptional, with how the writer’s took advantage of the opportunity to expand on the prince’s character - although he still doesn’t get a name - and Cinderella’s character as well, along with the different specific reasons her stepfamily was jealous and vengeful. (Lady Tremaine wanted the social status, Drizella wanted wealth, and Anastasia wanted emotional security.)

TV series, on the other hand, are often a bit stronger in their second season than the first, because they don’t have to introduce how the setting’s culture or magic/high tech system works unless something new is happening, and likewise they don’t have to introduce new characters every episode or two in order to build the initial main cast, and the main themes and conflicts of the series have been set up.

+=+

Draal’s relationships with everybody could have been expanded on. We don’t really see relationship development between him and anyone else other than Jim and Kanjigar’s ghost. There are some minor scenes showing him getting closer with AAARRRGGHH and Blinky, too, but that got cut off by Draal getting brainwashed before the audience got to see much of it.

You know who else didn’t get many relationships developed? Barbara.

There is exactly one scene, a one-sided phone conversation in Season 3, which implies she has a social life. Also, what is the relationship between her and Nana Domzalski? Jim and Toby are close, and their families live across the street, and Barbara addresses her as Nana, so clearly they’ve met, and yet Barbara never spoke to Nana on-camera in Season 1 about her concerns after Jim and Toby got arrested together and Jim started ‘acting different’?

And furthermore [insert rant about how Stricklake was fumbled in Season 3].

… Not to mention Blinky! She’s friendly with him when he gets turned human and Jim passes him off as a guidance counselor, but their very limited interactions do not explain why she was willing to let Jim go off to New Jersey with the trolls and didn’t even suggest she come along, basically temporarily turning custody of Jim over to Blinky when Barbara and Blinky have had all of one on-screen conversation since she got her memories back.

+=+

Okay, final battle redo, gotta keep Jim a troll …

First of all, Troll!Jim is a klutz. He just went through a massive growth spurt and hasn’t had time to adjust yet. It is acknowledged by him and others (though probably not Merlin), “Wow, this was a really bad idea to do right before getting into a fight, Jim is nearly back to beginner skill-level. At least he’s fast and therefore better at dodging, and can take a hit better.”

Alternately, shuffle everything around so that Jim turns into a troll by S3E6, so the audience has half the season to get used to him, because I think having Jim get trolled right before the final battle is one of the reasons Troll!Jim ended up being such a controversial character.

Either way, the Trollhunters fight Gunmar as a group.

Gunmar is facing Jim. Toby, using the Warhammer to fly, sneaks up behind Gunmar and hits him over the head. Gunmar reaches for Toby, but Blinky throws a dwarkstone in Gunmar’s face, and AAARRRGGHH charges in (possibly via portal so Gunmar won’t see him coming) and punches Gunmar in the gut. The combination of explosion and punch forces Gunmar to drop his sword, and Jim grabs it.

Jim, wearing the Eclipse armour, discovers he is able to hold the Decimaar Blade. (It is implied by how Gunmar conjures it that Decimaar is magically bound to the Gumm-Gumm warlord in a similar way to how Daylight is tied to the Trollhunter, so this might surprise Jim. At the very least, AAARRRGGHH should look surprised.)

Gunmar is distracted by Claire, who portals Blinky out of the way of an attack. Gunmar has seen Claire before, when Morgana agreed to help bring about the Eternal Night. “Morgana’s child …” He is confused and suspicious to see her on the Trollhunters’ side.

Toby swoops Jim above Gunmar and Jim drops down, doing that diagonal swiping attack but with the Decimaar Blade instead of Eclipse, and striking from behind. Gunmar doesn’t turn to stone right away - he turns and starts charging at Jim, who conjures the Eclipse sword stabbed into Gunmar’s chest, like how Jim stabbed Gladys and Bular with Daylight in Season 1.

Gunmar turns to stone and crumbles. Decimaar is still there. The blade’s highlights are blue again instead of gold. Jim picks it up and his eyes glow blue. The other Trollhunters exchange worried looks.

“Jimbo?”

“Master Jim?”

Jim sends out a blast of blue lightning-looking energy from the sword, like the red stuff that happened in the show when Gunmar died, except instead of exploding the Gumm-Gumms it un-brainwashes them. He then drops the sword and collapses. His friends rush to him. (He’s fine, just exhausted. Jim isn’t used to doing magic.)

Angor Rot wasn’t there when Jim and Gunmar started fighting. He saw Strickler and went off to kill him, as revenge for the magical enslavement in the second half of Season 1. Angor changes his mind when he sees Strickler get injured fighting a Gumm-Gumm to protect some humans who haven’t gotten to shelter yet, which prompts a flashback to Angor’s time as a hero. Angor goes off again, this time to hunt down Morgana, nonchalantly killing any Gumm-Gumms who cross his path on the way. (At this point, Angor may still want Strickler dead, but he’s willing to wait to kill him until after the Gumm-Gumms are defeated.)

The thing with Morgana happens like it did in canon except Angor gets thrown back instead of exploded.

Draal is with Nomura and Strickler protecting the civilians from the Gumm-Gumms, or possibly he did die because Draal would have smashed down that bathroom door in negative five seconds and stopped Jim using the potion. If he did die, they revive him later with the Creeper’s Sun antidote.

[withlovefromlina-blog]

Budget and Boujee

Unless you’re my mom or dad reading this you’re most likely familiar with the 2016 hit by Migos called Bad and Boujee, and have probably heard the basic definition of the expression Bad and Boujee from Urban Dictionary. If not, take a quick pause, pull up a new browser and get acquainted. 

I started today, February 5th, being back on my own again after having spent a fun filled week in Tulum with two of my Canadian friends. I also started being back on my budget! The joke of the week with my friends was when I shared with them my ambitious goal of a 100 MXN a day budget I had been working towards up until their arrival. We thought we were on the same page over our first lunch when they also said 100, but we quickly burst into laughter when we realized I was talking Mexican pesos and they were talking Canadian dollars!

Rewind to before this last year, I’d been blessed with a career that provided me with a healthy flow of dispensable income, and never really thought twice about the small luxuries I afforded myself. Needless to say my friends and I shared this same blessing/trait/bad habit.

But things have changed, and I’ve been out of the employment world for about one year now, and I’ve had to make adjustments in my lifestyle and habits. People often ask me how I am able to afford to do what I’m doing. Now as much as I didn’t worry about money, I never got myself into debt, and was still able to save along the way. 

In addition I sold a property and many of my belongings, so I have some relative wiggle room while I gallivant the world. But I have become frugal and do my very best to get by with a lot less than I used to. I like a challenge and it’s almost become a bit of a game each day to see how well I can do. Mind you, I tend to be very good at finding great deals and yummy meals so I don’t always feel like I’m missing out!

That is until…..friends who are still in the world of employment pop into town!

Then I have a hard time keeping the boujee side under wraps.

But here’s what I’ve learnt, it’s possible to bad, boujee AND on a budget!

No doubt, money can be spent easily in Tulum. From the hippie chic boutiques, to the beach front hotels, to the endless 5 star restaurants and cocktail hideaways in the jungle, you can eat, drink and shop your way through any budget without even leaving the beach strip. We definitely tried to have a balance, and stay within our pre-determined budgets, but…you can’t win ‘em all, can ya!

That being said, I found that if I kept my fridge stocked with a few basics, and didn’t over-eat the way I so frequently did back in North Amercia..budget Mexico Lina is very achievable. My Air Bnb’s come with filtered water and coffee which get me through the morning. A salad made at home for either lunch or dinner makes sure I have a good 100 MXN a day for a meal out! 

And so far in downtown Tulum these are my fav spots that are in line with the “budget” give or take a peso or two.

Burritos from the street corner down the block from the main park..yup that’s all I got for you direction wise. He’s the only one who advertises Vegan and Vegetarian! 75 MXN

Gluten free Vegan option from Burrito Amore - 120 MXN

Pizza from Il Bacaro - 200 MXN

Thai food from Thai Tulum - great pad thai - 90 MXN, Massive veggie filled spring rolls - 80 MXN

Vegan Tacos from La Hoja Verde, huge potion with a very very generous topping of guacamole - 90 MXN

Stir Fry Veggies, Tofu and Rice Noodles from Uno Japanese Noodle - 100 MXN

From the local street vendors I got mango, avocado, cucumber, lettuce, onion, zucchini, bananas, carrots, apples, limes and hibiscus flowers for about 250 MXN and this lasted me all week!

Because I did tacos so much within the first few weeks, I actually seemed to avoid most tacos here in Tulum, but there are plenty of options near the main park on Tulum Avenida and down most side streets if you are adventurous to wander a bit.

Splurgy Eats on the beach - A bit more Boujee

Rosanegra, this place was amazing from the moment we walked in. The detail in the decor, the lighting, the artwork, the bathroom experience which ended in free champagne! And the music all created a very cool vibe. We shared appy’s of salmon coconut ceviche, spicy street corn, chargrilled calamari and burrata plate with arugula, but anything here looks amazing!

Mezzanine for Thai food, only for the money bags! Pun intended, it’s the name of an appetizer. We also shared pad thai which was delicious and served in a beautiful banana leaf.

ARCA and Hartwood are other must try’s for which we had many recommendations for but unfortunately missed out on these.

We didn’t drink much alcohol in Tulum, but there are a number of places that do happy hour and two for ones so you can try and find those if you’re feeling like having a drink!

A few of my other practices when I’m on my own that tend to keep expenses down are:

Filtered water versus still or sparkling bottled

Shared colectivo, bike or walk versus taxi

Sand versus beach chair

Re-usable water bottle

Staying away from the shops! (I have zero space for anything extra so this one hasn’t proven to be too difficult yet)

Getting out and in with the sun, for safety reasons but also I find this regulates my eating habits

Making something with the local produce that feels like a treat so you’re not tempted to grab a cold beer, I am working with hibiscus flower fresh brew tea these days!

Sticking to local shops and street food (I must admit I seem to be able to stomach almost anything on my travels and some aren’t so lucky, so be easy on this one and feel it out for you!) versus restaurants. That is until I found the pizza that dreams are made of….so I had it one last time today before I move on from Tulum tomorrow!

Doing my own laundry, as long as the weather cooperates for drying!

Self taught yoga and workouts

Food and budgets aside, we rocked our colourful beach wear, bandanas, braids and bold lips! We adventured, we biked, we swam with the fish in the cenote (after a long mental battle on the part of some as the steps into the water were swarming with the fish, and these fish were the nibble your feet and body kind of fish!), and we ate fish (not the same fish although that would have made the fear factor very ironic!). 

We called the Cenote “chay-notay” because it so easily slipped off the tongue as we longed for cold Italian sodas. We got pooped on by pigeons as the crowds around us yelled reassuringly that it was good luck! We spoiled ourselves yet kept finances top of mind, and boy oh boy did we laugh. We took turns at being the voice of sanity, reason, adventure and motivation.

What I love so much about the dynamic the three of us have together is that it’s 100% real. Wacky and fun and real. We say how we feel and what we think, even if it’s not pretty, politically correct or what the other might want to hear. It’s real and it comes from a place of love. You always know where you stand, and this creates trust. We talked business ideas, furthering education and general future plans. It made me think of how lucky we are to have the space and freedom to draft the blueprints of our futures.

We nursed sun burns and all too anxious minds. We took time out’s as needed: walks on the beach, Oprah/Eckhart Tolle podcasts, and some good old Tibetan singing bowl meditation music. Of course we took selfies, and took turns getting just the right portrait shot. Which I must admit I am grateful for as I mostly have scenery shots when I travel alone! I will miss their company to say the least. But, as the sign in the magical jungle read, KEEP GOING, and this is what I’ll do. Feeling grateful and feeling the love for my Canadian friends.

For me right now financially, it’s really a mind set. As much as I want to keep a safety net ready and waiting for the next downpayment on a home, or for whatever else might lay ahead, I know money comes and money goes but time cannot be recovered. I also know (and am kindly reminded by the cheerleaders around me), I worked very hard for the past decade, and I now have the means and time to live out a dream and to truly be alive in such beautiful places. Work, and therefore more money, is definitely in the near future but for now I know I can balance between budget and and a little boujee just fine.

So if you’re looking to do Tulum on a budget, splurge a little, or do a combination of the two, just give me a holler, I’ll give you the scoop.

Just for giggles:

Rain drop,  Drop top

We did Tulum in flip flops

Rain drop, Drop top

You aint nothin without your crop top

With All the Love From Lina #badandboujee

[writingguide003-blog]

When it comes to making TV writers' rooms better for moms, these bosses know best

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/when-it-comes-to-making-tv-writers-rooms-better-for-moms-these-bosses-know-best/

When it comes to making TV writers' rooms better for moms, these bosses know best

(CNN)This is the second and final part of a series on mothers in TV writers’ rooms. You can read the first part here.

Last year, when the writing staff reconvened to start work on the show’s third season, two writers had just given birth months before. In prior seasons, showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna recalls always having a pumping mother among them.

But with the two “little ones” among their ranks last year, Brosh McKenna knew what had to be done: They turned one of the writer’s offices into a nursery.

One mom brought in a rocker for the room. Cribs were moved in. Brosh Mckenna hung a picture that had once been on the wall of her own son’s room.

“I always want to create a comfortable environment for people where they feel safe and part of that is making sure that they feel like they’re taking care of their family obligations,” Brosh McKenna tells CNN.

Life in the writers’ room of the CW series, which is produced by CBS TV Studios, is a sort of glowing example of what life can be for the working parents who spend every day cobbling together stories in this age of Peak TV and is a stark contrast to the troubles, harassment and bullying being experienced by some working and new mothers in TV’s writers’ rooms.

The writers tend to keep reasonable working hours and parents are encouraged to be present for their families, be it at doctor’s appointments or first days of school.

“In addition to just being the nicer thing to do, it really affects how well people do their jobs,” Brosh McKenna says.

The stats on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” speak for themselves.

The show has had almost the same writing staff since the first day of its first season, a fact Brosh McKenna is proud of because it demonstrates they’ve cultivated an environment that “can accommodate their lives.”

It all sounds so simple, but is rarer than you might think — and not just for those in the entertainment industry. Working parents everywhere find themselves in search of the elusive work-life balance. But it is possible to build models for pro-family, pro-mother work environments.

In Hollywood, doing so means making space for female writers who choose to expand their families, and ultimately, see their stories reflected on screen.

One longtime TV writer believes those in her industry have an opportunity before them to call for — or, if needed, demand — better treatment and policies in support of all working women.

“We’re not talking about people making $10 an hour. Most of us have a massive amount of privilege,” she says. “We should be using that privilege to say like, ‘Hey, let’s start making change so that change can trickle down to people where they really don’t have a choice.'”

Big little changes

Erica Messer has worked on CBS’s “Criminal Minds” since the show’s start in 2005 and has been its showrunner for eight years.

In the show’s second season, she became pregnant with her second child.

When she told the then-showrunner Ed Bernero, a TV veteran who also created the series “Third Watch,” of her plans to return eight weeks after her daughter’s birth in October, about midway through the show’s season, she was surprised by his response — in the best way.

“I remember Ed saying to me, ‘Don’t come back at eight weeks. Eight weeks is our Christmas break. Come back in January,'” she tells CNN. “[He said], ‘Don’t worry about it. We’re not going anywhere. We’ll be here for you and we know you’re committed to us.'”

To her, the simple statement was everything.

“I just remember feeling so relieved that I worked with someone who respected parenting and respected the choice that I was making to continue to be a working parent,” she says. “He also understood like I probably wouldn’t be my best if I came back too soon.”

In her role as showrunner, she’s tried to return the gesture to her staff, with flexibility and understanding about the demands of parenting.

“I feel like we need to change the narrative a little bit,” she said.

For those who come back to work before they are physically or mentally ready, the challenges can be overwhelming.

One writer who was nursing says a showrunner created such a culture of fear that she would delay pumping for hours if he was around, to the point of physical sickness.

“You’re choosing between doing your job and doing the right thing for your body and your baby,” the writer says.

Not all examples of pumping problems are so severe. In many cases, however, women face frustration over the lack of a clean or truly private space to pump while at work or on set.

Employers are supposed to make a “reasonable effort” to provide a space other than a bathroom to pump and new mothers given the time they need to do so, according to California state law.

Many of the mothers who spoke to CNN say access to an on-site nursery for very young children could be a significant step toward making their workplaces more mom-friendly.

Kerry Ehrin, a drama veteran who’s currently showrunning Apple’s upcoming series about morning news, says her access to a daycare while she was working on shows for David E. Kelley Productions in the early 2000s was “life-changing.”

At the time, Ehrin lived in Calabasas and worked in Manhattan Beach, where Kelley’s productions were based. In Los Angeles speak, that’s a roughly 90-minute commute, with moderate traffic.

When Ehrin’s twin boys were six months old, she and her husband split up and she became a single mother.

The fact that she could see her children from her window at work and visit them during breaks was “a great blessing.”

“It just made all the difference in that time in my life,” she says.

Rick Silverman, former chief operating officer of David E. Kelley Productions who recently retired, tells CNN he spearheaded the daycare’s creation after he was made aware of the need by a female staffer.

To get it up and running, a feat that took “quite a while,” the company signed a contract with a daycare provider to run the operation, obtained the necessary permits and the permission of the studio at which the production offices were housed.

The daycare, which was available to the more than 400 cast, crew, and corporate staff working on the shows, ran for about four years while Kelley had multiple shows on the air, including “Ally McBeal” and “Boston Public.”

The facility had a small playground and housed roughly five or six children at a time, Silverman recalls.

As shows went off the air, the need dwindled and the daycare was shuttered, but he tells CNN via phone, “I’m glad it did some good and helped some people out at the time.”

“That does make me feel very good,” he says.

‘Give us the tools to be empowered’

Before getting pregnant herself, “Casual” showrunner Liz Tigelaar, who will soon be helming “Little Fires Everywhere” for Hulu, could not have predicted the exhaustion that would lead her to sleeping on an egg crate foam pad in the back seat of her car during lunch breaks or that by the time she was in the late stages of her pregnancy, she would have trouble fitting into the port-o-potties on set.

She gets it now, but says, “when you haven’t been pregnant before, you don’t even realize all the stuff that someone goes through.”

For that reason, she suggests her showrunner peers make an effort to listen to the needs of those around them.

“Everybody — no matter if you’ve just had a baby, if you’re pregnant, no matter where you are — you want to do a great job at your job,” she says. “So just set people up to do that by communicating.”

Sometimes, says one pregnant writer, that means listening to an expectant mother who believes she doesn’t need to be told what she’s capable of.

This writer, who works on a cable drama, says she will be nine months pregnant when shooting commences for an episode she wrote. Filming for her episode is set to end ten days before her due date, and she’s prepared for the grind.

“If I can, if I’m able to, I don’t see why not,” she says. “I don’t want to be ‘other-ized.'”

This, one comedy writer says, is one way the stigma around pregnancy can be broken.

“The only way I think I can invoke change is being there and being the badass I am,” she says.

Another mom, who once flew across the country with her baby in tow to be on set for the production of her episode, welcomes the challenge of juggling it all.

“It can be so empowering to be a working mom if they just give us the tools to be empowered,” she says.

Being seen

Brosh McKenna believes a best practices course for showrunners could make a difference in making all these issues known to those who are “not in that phase of their life.”

All the women CNN spoke to also believe more showrunners who are moms would have a positive impact on the culture.

“[If] you say you want to get stuff done, ask a bunch of moms,” Tigelaar says. “They will get [it] done and it will get done quickly.”

Efficiency is a key word.

Among TV writers’ rooms, the hours can be long, depending on your place of employment and your showrunner, multiple women say.

It’s not uncommon to hear of some writers’ rooms running until the early-morning hours — an approach that can be difficult to contend with for working parents.

“I just think a lot of the ways things are run are just terribly anti-family,” Brosh McKenna says. “It’s one of those subtle things that just selects out women. If we want to include women and their voices and the only way to work on these shows is to prove you’re a machismo guy, staying until midnight every night, women are going to opt out of that. Parents are going to opt out of that.”

When that happens, we all lose — viewers included.

“Family is really, when you think about it, the basis of everything,” Ehrin says. “They’re a basis of every character’s psychology — how they grew up and what family they grew up in. So family has always been very central to the way that I think about story.”

Ehrin, who has worked on shows like “Friday Night Lights” and “Parenthood,” both from executive producer Jason Katims, says there’s an added “magic” when a story is infused with experiences personal to a writer — be it something that happened with their child in the morning or something they wish they said.

“There’s scenes in ‘Parenthood’ that are directly written to my daughter, and that’s the beauty of it. It’s the truth,” she says. “You never are going to do better than the truth.”

Tigelaar says the same is true of her upcoming series. “Little Fires Everywhere,” a drama that tackles motherhood and interracial adoption, based on the Celeste Ng book of the same name.

In staffing the series, Tigelaar says it’s “a humongous priority” to hire moms for its writing staff as well as department heads and directors.

“I know we’re just gonna crush it and get s**tdone and bring so much to it because we’re moms,” she says. “We get to have complex mothers who aren’t only defined by motherhood, but who motherhood is such a central aspect of who they are at this point in their lives. And that it does, of course, inform everything they do, just like it influences everything we do. So it’s exciting.”

Exciting, too, is seeing the industry move — however slowly — toward better practices, according to Ehrin.

“I mean you can imagine a world where female writers aren’t saying, ‘Oh, I have to ovulate during hiatus,'” she says, with a laugh. “It would be nice to imagine a world where that wasn’t such a huge deal because there were things in place to help you do that while you’re doing your job, and why shouldn’t there be that for women?”

She adds: “Because who else is gonna have the babies? Someone’s got to have them. So let’s help out.”

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/

[tbalovely]

I guess I’ll tell my story

This has some pretty triggering stuff in it I guess? This is more for my own reflection than anything else, so you don’t have to read it if you don’t absolutely want to.

When I was in High school I suffered with intense binging and purging issues. I couldn’t go a meal without excusing myself either at the end or halfway through to go straight to the bathroom and puke everything up. It was an endless cycle and I still couldn’t ever get to my gw at the time. When I was 17 I was 5 feet tall and I weighed 118 lbs, but, I also naturally had double d breasts. Every time I’d look at my BMI I’d feel sick because I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I had a great body, in hindsight, but at the time I felt like a disgusting whale. And my massive tits didn’t help. I never had a boyfriend and every boy I came into contact with showed no interest in me at all. Every boy. So I would keep going back to the mirror. I was too fat. I was too wide. My breasts were too big. I was disgusting. Finally I met someone online. He said that he liked my size and that if anything I could gain a few lbs. He said he loved me for me and he acted like he was crazy about me. Eventually I moved 900 miles to live with him. He said he’d marry me, but we both lived with our parents so it seemed really inappropriate, so we decided to hold off until we could get a place of our own. I stopped purging. I stopped starving myself. But I never stopped binging. He wasn’t the healthiest person, either. In fact, his BMI classified him as obese, so it goes without saying that his diet wasn’t in the slightest healthy. But I wasn’t concerned about that because I thought that he was making an effort to lose the weight, or at least to try to lose the weight. I loved him for him, just like he said he loved me for me. So I thought we’d be okay. So, of course, I binged like my life depended on it. I ate when I wasn’t hungry. I ate when I’d just eaten. I ate just because other people were eating. I ate my feelings, because for some reason now that I was living with him he didn’t seem to care about me like he had when I was 900 miles away. He didn’t tell me he loved me as often. He didn’t want to have sex anymore. (And this was all when I was still in the range of about 120-130 lbs.) I felt disgusting again. And even more so now because I’d gained a whopping 90 lbs while living with him. Eventually I moved back home so I could go to college, and he seemed fine with it. My highest weight ever in my whole life was 210 lbs. I feel gross even typing that out. When I came home I cut down my binging, but I didn’t stop. I was now binging at night when everyone had gone to sleep. Ice cream, cookies- I’d scatter out potato chips onto a plate and then drizzle syrup or honey over top of them for that salty/sweet taste. However, I eventually got a breast reduction. In 2017 I had a doctor recommendation, and my back pain was too much for me to handle to the point of not being able to get out of bed because of the immense pain. I went from a double g back down to a double d, but my body was still huge and disgusting.They removed 15 lbs of fat from my chest and after the surgery I had no appetite, so I lost 10 lbs from being unable to eat anything other than oatmeal with my pain meds. So, I had dropped to 185 lbs. After the surgery I felt like a hideous creature. My scars hadn’t healed properly, leaving me looking like some kind of Frankenstein freak show. But at least my boyfriend still loved me. At least there was one person that still thought that I was beautiful no matter what. Right? I had encouraged him to start going to a gym or at least try to lose the weight. Make an effort, ya know? He’d been going for a few weeks when he decided that it’d be a good idea to tell me that some girl that was a regular at the gym had “hit” on him and that he thought that she was “more attractive” than me. “In a basic sense, ya know? She’s more attractive than you in a general sense. She’s just very.. I don’t know. She has a good body, I guess. I mean, she goes to the gym so of course she’s going to be hot.” On our anniversary in December 2018, he told me that he didn’t feel right being in a relationship with me. He said that he needed to fix some things about himself and so therefore he needed to not be in a relationship. With me, specifically. He said that he loved me, but that we had problems that he couldn’t look past. We’d been together for 8 years. So I guess you could call this a relapse. I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to my original weight again. I’m 26 now and it’s starting to feel like I won’t be able to get the weight off ever again, but I don’t really care. If going back to Ana can do anything at all, then I’m willing to do it. I’m just so sick of feeling disgusting and fat and worthless and unlovable. I’m sick of being lied to in order to spare my feelings. I don’t want to binge ever again. I hate myself more than I ever have in my entire life. All I want is to finish college and be skinny. I’m not asking for the world here. I started eating low cal on 1/3. My last full meal was an order of grilled nuggets from the kids menu at Chik-fil-A. I think that’s about 150 cal. Since then I haven’t eaten over 500 cal at anytime. I’ve been on a water fast since 1/11 and ketosis has kicked in for me (yay!) My last weigh in was this morning and I’ve dropped to 174 lbs. I really don’t care what anyone has to say to me. I’m going to be skinny by Summer if it kills me. I don’t want to look or feel this way ever fucking again.

[terrancedkennedy]

Cuckoo For Cocoa Futures/Commodity Catch Up/Topping Process/China From Ground Level

Long-time no post - hope everyone's been well. Was away on a 3 week+ trip to China (the 6th country I've traveled to this year!). Had some difficulties overcoming the great firewall. Good to see Shawn holding things down! A long one today, so please bear with me. Cuckoo For Cocoa This picture can sum up how I feel about Cocoa:

We've talked about grain commodities in past by looking at supply and inventory numbers to gauge risk reward and general surplus vs deficit of crops. As I have stated in the past, the growing cycle of grains is relatively shorter than that of softs. Rips are usually less sustained in grains - long bear markets and short sharp spikes - than in softs - as there are massive cycles of bull and bear markets in softs. We had a sizable rip in grains, specifically in wheat, but it was not sustained. Still too much supply out there and we might have to wait until next year before we start falling into deficit and price can sustain an up move. Moving along. Sitting here now looking for opportunities to gain diversified returns, I think there are opportunities setting up to get long softs, specifically cocoa, and to an extent sugar as well. The reasoning is similar to things I've cited in the past grains post - these are two commodities have fallen so much in price that they are bound to return from a stage of surplus to deficit as production cuts back due to low prices. In cocoa, the previous shortage from 2014-2015 has been replaced by a supply glut. There are even talks that the current levels in prices are leading South American producers to abandon cocoa for cocaine! That leads me to think the bottom is in or pretty close.

Cocoa surplus is now well telegraphed. We've experienced a notable build up in stockpiles. As these inventories start trending off the highs, we are in danger of seeing a reversion in price as well. Below is a chart of 1/x price vs ICE cocoa inventory.

The last production print for cocoa is still high but that is a slow-moving factor and should be priced in. In fact, it is slow enough for you to potentially fade it. 

Outside of the commonly documented turmoil in the Ivory Coast (the biggest cocoa producer in the world, you can see other big cocoa producers (Ghana, Indonesia, Brazil etc.) also fluctuates based on price cues. With prices declining, then bottoming over a year's time, cocoa production should start fading accordingly.

Oh yeah, and people are heavily short this thing. Squeeze, anyone?

Sugar has similar fundamentals to cocoa. 

We've had the boom back in 2011 when there were 300+ sugar mills in the South of Brazil. By the end of the bust, mills and companies were mired in debt. You basically had 90 mills left in Q4 of 2015. The thing with sugar mills is that they need to be retrofitted every few years. 

The many mills left in Brazil needed to go through this process. However, retrofitting a sugar mill is like replacing ink for those old cheap printers - the ink cartridge itself would be $20 for a printer that only costed $25. 

So it was safe to assume that a number of mills in the group remaining would shut down due to a combination of too much debt and a much-lowered sugar price. 

On Feb 22, 2016, there was huge buying interest in sugar going into the close. After markets were closed, ISO announced a surprise sugar shortage. Sugar ran up from the lows to ultimately hit 24 handle. Turns out the catalyst was El Nino. 

After the price surge, stockpiles printed the lowest they've been since 2011. Production declines in Brazil stopped and started to trend higher, although India production still didn't show a clear nadir. That was enough to send prices back down.

Turn the page to today,  The height of the price move has led to a turn of the fundamentals. Brazil production increased but Indian production is still low. If we sustain lower prices a while longer, Brazil production would be in danger of pulling back again. 

This one might be a little early - we should eventually see the sugar surplus move back into deficit and witness a surge in prices again. 

One concern here is that stockpiles have only increased modesty - which is why I think we are a little early here. And since the market is short, we could potentially see a squeeze that materializes as a fake out for longs. 

Something to keep in mind.

General Commodity Catch Up First, looking at the commodity world as a whole. Commodities have been a hugely undervalued versus stocks. This trend doesn't last forever and historically will mean revert.

This is hard to time this trade as this commodities "bucket" encompasses many things - each subcategory of commodities, and even different commodities in each subcategory can possess stark differences in the underlying supply and demand dynamics. With that said, there should be general lift off in commodities soon. There is something peculiar here to note.

The base metal index has tracked US Breakevens well. But recently, we've started to see a break. Copper supposedly has a Ph.D. in economics and I assume the other base metals are its colleagues. Copper's data is more easily procured so from this point on in the post, I'll just use that as a proxy. Copper has been drifting higher and higher after a long period of consolidation post-Trump elections win. Obviously Trump = building stuff, better economy, etc. so it made perfect sense. Breakevens also exploded higher as the above would mean inflation. However, interestingly, the break of correlation can mean a few things: either 1) Copper supply and demand dynamics are so in support of a higher price that it is meant to trade higher regardless or... 2) Ph.D. copper disagrees with Ph.D. interest rates. Funny, it's not like we ever have Ph.D.s disagreeing with each other when it comes to the economy. Combining inventory data from LME, COMEX and the Shanghai Metal Exchange, we can see that there could be some fundamental reasons why copper is getting bid.

Whether that draw inventory is driven by real economic growth requires more digging - I recall a time when Red Kite drew record amounts of inventory as a speculative ploy only to lose their shirts and possibly their kites when prices did not respond accordingly. Something is definitely fishy here. Don't have a strong inclination - need to ponder some more. Ready the bathtub. Stock MarketTopping Process Got some flak for the Nassim Taleb Vix post. The market ran up 270bps-ish against me and is now back down. Face not ripped off? Check. Shirt still on me? Well, more like a tank top but...Check. Most of you who have ample experience in the market knows that a market top and bottom is usually a "process". With a not much lower high in the Nasdaq and Spooz and clear lower highs in the Russell (read leading indicator of risk) and transports, I feel pretty good.

How good? Good enough to build on the position. I'm getting conviction that even if we haven't seen the top of the bull market, we will at least have a proper correction (at least 15% to 20%) I'm up on the trade for now - we will see how things go. Keep looking for this lower lows and lower highs. Back in the spring, I thought this bull market still had a year plus to run. Now? I am not so sure. There are some cracks there in the economy and nobody can argue whether we are at the beginning of the end of our current cycle. Trust me, as somebody still trying to land a seat at a proper macro fund - I would strongly prefer that I am wrong here and the bull market continues. But as speculators, we play the cards dealt and like I said, we will see how things go. Oh, and obviously keep an eye on the VIX. like we've detailed in the past, there are market structure reasons alone where a sustained higher VIX can lead to a selloff. China From Ground Level My trip was purely recreational so I would be selling you guys short if I was to make up intelligent sounding, yet bogus market insights. With that said, whether you find them insightful or not, some observations: - We all know China is huge in its consumption of all things. But being there. Standing amongst seas of people is awe inspiring. - The transition for China from a producer nation to a consumer nation is a massive undertaking - but it might not be as difficult as people think. The population there has been living under the monotony that comes with communism for so long, they earn for consumption. - Everywhere I went, people bought the best things, wore the best brands and drove the best cars (that they could afford) - so it's not just the foreign luxury brands, it's also the Chinese brands. The population has a much more pent up urge for things, for goods. - People take pride and enjoy their work, even it's menial. I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing or a standard of living thing. For example, a Mcdonald's employee here gives you attitude. While there, they are respectful and seems, on the surface, happy. The job in both countries is considered a minimal salary type of role. - I visited a lights factory when I was there. Although machinery and automation are starting to take over, labor is still relatively cheap for semi-automated, semi-skilled type of factory jobs. - The public bathrooms are disgusting. - The snacks are so much better. That's it, guys. As much as I love traveling, it feels pretty damn good to be back. Happy Monday.