#of my life watching almost exclusively german TV

[dkettchen]

“I don’t even have a name in my own story”

ok but in said story’s defense: neither does Cinderella. Cinderella as a name is smth the english came up with for their translation, Aschenputtel is a (derogatory) job description, not a name

[gunpowderraven]

critical role: by someone that hasn’t seen any of it

hi so we recently got into dimension 20 and our friends have been tugging us towards critical role for a very long time at this point but we still haven’t watched any of it nor do we know all that much about anything that actually happens in it. however we do intend to actually start watching soon so we decided it was the perfect opportunity to make one of those ‘all the things i know about this thing i haven’t watched’ posts, show it to our critrole friends, and then actually get into critrole and be able to look back and laugh about it later

also the images are all sourced via friend so this is all one hundred percent no wiki no google knowledge, just from tumblr and discord convos and stuff. and some cast compilation videos that were very funny

update: we are now watching cr3! liveblog tag for silly lb -> #cr3 lb

vox machina

from left to right:

- i have literally no idea who the two halflings are. i’ve never seen them before in my life. what. uh. paladin and bard? im literally just guessing. who plays these characters. what

- grog? grug? this is travis’ pc maybe. also hypothesizing hes a half-orc barbarian or something similar? ive seen like one clip of him

- percival frederick von something something de rolo i think there’s a iii in his name as well, his name is long and very german but he does not have a german accent. or a french one. at separate times i have thought this character was german and french and then i heard him talk and was like. What. anyway i know he’s taliesin’s pc and he invented guns and is also possessed sometimes by big bird demon, and he has a nifty plague doctor mask. also tragic backstory. his entire family is dead i think. no mercy percy! he has a thing with vex? also his hair did a wilbur. the gay people on tumblr love this twink. i also think i love this twink

- vax’ildan! i think i may have actually spelled that right! half-elf? vex is his twin? and he’s... liam’s pc i think. yeah that’s it. he gives me angsty boy energy tho. not as much as percy but this boy has seen some shit. also he might be a rogue or a ranger who even knows. he looks like gay jon snow

- vex’ahlia which i definitely didn’t spell right. i think the next one is marisha’s pc so this one is... uh... laura? i think she’s the ranger actually. i think she has a bear. not like a gay bear like an actual animal bear. though it could be gay too i dunno. she has a think with percy. or everyone wants her to have a thing with percy. i genuinely can’t tell. anyway get that traumatized twink girl

- keyleth... marisha’s pc. some kind of spellcaster? maybe sorcerer? wild magic? she Also has a thing with percy maybe. or vex. or both. who even knows. everyone wants that twink. one time she threw herself off a cliff and turned into a goldfish and almost died and it was hilarious

anything else i know about this:

- there are evil bitches called the briarwoods and they might be vampires

- this is the one that got a tv show and might have also been the first critrole campaign idek

- d. ragons? chromia something. dragons. i hope i haven’t been lied to about the dragons. i hope there are actually dragons in this. there’s like a chromium something with dragon symbols tho

mighty nein

from left to right:

- mollymauk! ...tealeaf? another taliesin pc. the trans people like this one. i don’t know what their pronouns are. but theyre slaying every time i see them at any time. no idea what class but maybe a spellcaster?

- ...beau? i know her exclusively through lesbian ship art so i know her name is beau something bc that’s the ship names but i don’t know if that’s short for something. monk? no clue. also no clue who plays her either. maybe marisha?

- i have seen this character but i do not know their name. or anything else about them

- oh this is the sad wizard boy caleb widogast. he’s gay for essek thelyss (or something. i didnt spell that right) who is a npc i think. yeah. sad wizard. every time i see him he’s just being a wizard and sad. the gays love him too but he’s more of a distraught otter than a sad twink. maybe he and percy should start a club tho. also i think he’s played by liam

- i KNOW this character’s name i think it starts with s but i can’t remember for the life of me. scriv? scrat? no thats the rat from ice age. possibly a menace? i think im getting them mixed up with someone else. they look cool as hell though

- jester!! laura pc i think perhaps. i want to get drunk with her and tell her about all of my problems. yeah. i dont know anything about her actually. beaujester exists tho i know that

- YASHA. CRUSH ME HOLY FUCK. sorry im normal ? her voice makes me a little crazy insane. ive seen a few clips of her. mostly gay shit with beau. uh she’s played by ashley and she could kick my ass very easily

oh my god there’s another photo

- i think there’s only one character different here and it’s caduceus clay fun fact i hated this mfer for really dumb shitty personal reasons for a while before deciding it was very stupid to blame a fictional character for interpersonal drama and now im fine with him. wait does mollymauk die or something. wait a second. no, wait, fuck—

- ALSO WHO’S THAT FUCKER IN THE BACKGROUND I JUST NOTICED THAT

anything else i know about this:

- yeah i got nothing. no idea about the lore or the plot or anything bc i pretty much exclusively see gay ship art of these pcs. love wins i support it

bells hells

from left to right, one more time:

- look my brain is just saying gertrude from dungeons & drag queens but obviously that’s incorrect. so i don’t know who this is

- or this! but she looks very pretty and i love the little... monkey... bird? pls tell me these two characters have some kind of wild opposites dynamic they look like they do

- LITTLE ROBOT GUY . fcg? fgc? i think it was the first one. uh. liam pc? ?????? i think he gets bitches

- orym...? i know one of these characters is named orym. and i think it’s this one. i also see gay fanart of him

- i don’t know who the guy underneath him is

- or the lady with the purple hair god i really don’t know shit about this campaign sorry

- ashton greymoore, taliesin pc, my friend luna loves this guy, he’s. rocks? he’s rocks. groovy.

- someone in this campaign is named like dorian or something and im guessing its this one bc idk who they are either

anything else i know about this:

- flying.......... ship?

- this is the ongoing one i think

thank you for coming to my ted talk, i can’t wait to look back at this in a few months and laugh my ass off. hope u enjoyed this mess

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Umar Lee:

Before Mike Brown

Growing up in North St. Louis County, I remember a vibrant community full of churches, bars, VFW halls, Knights of Columbus, shopping malls, movie theatres, and all of the amenities working, and middle-class post-war Americans desired. To be a kid who loved sports, like me, North County offered Khoury League baseball, JFL football, little league wrestling, boxing gyms, soccer clubs, hockey clubs, basketball leagues, and much more. I played plenty of sports growing up in organized leagues (wrestling, baseball, and football); but I played more with kids in the street. When I wasn’t playing sports, I was listening to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon call Cardinals games on KMOX radio, sneaking up late at night to watch pro wrestling, reading wrestling and boxing magazines in the store because I couldn’t afford to buy them, also reading the St. Louis-based The Sporting News to keep track of stats, admiring the photos and articles in Sports Illustrated, of course reading the sports section in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch daily, and watching whatever sports were aired TV on the weekend for households without cable, topped off by sports news coverage from the likes of Jay Randolph, Ron Jacober, and Art Holliday on Channel 5.

Yet, while all of this was going on, which has left me with a life of fond memories, the North County, and my personal story, isn’t complete without looking at other events. The sports sections of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch discussed Whiteyball, our loss of Big Red football, almost losing the Blues to Canada, and the Steamers; but the news and businesses pages were far bleaker. St. Louis had then, and has now, one of the highest rates of violent crime in America, political dysfunction and corruption, and countless municipal fiefdoms. These pages also contained news of factory closings and job losses. Like Michigan, Pennsylvania, northeast Ohio, and other parts of the Rust Belt; working-class St. Louisans were reeling from job losses. North County was built up and populated by factory workers and those in the building trades, the small houses were built for guys like my dad who left high school and walked right onto an assembly line, and when those factories close, and the builders stop building, the economic conditions that underpin the health of families and communities erode. When Combustion Engineering in North St. Louis laid off my dad, uncle, and other relatives in the 80s, it hit like a micro version of the Great Depression. The saving grace would come years later when my dad joined my grandpa at GM, which had moved from North City to St. Charles County, skipping North County in the process, and my uncle getting rewarded for his service loading dead and wounded American bodies into helicopters in Vietnam by getting hired at the federal records center in Overland.

Beneath the changing economic conditions was the issue that defines St. Louis, and in particular, North County. Race. North County was largely farmland before World War II with a sprinkling of small towns mixed in. Old Town Florissant and Sacred Heart Parish in an example of historic North County which was a community of French and German Catholics who later welcomed and embraced Irish and Italian Catholics. Like south St. Louis City, places like Ferguson and Florissant, bonded together at church, in labor unions, and in neighborhoods. The problem is that these tended to be nearly exclusively white, and as the Black population of North City spilled into North County in large numbers beginning in the 1970s, this began to create tension. As a reference point, my dad graduated from Riverview Gardens in 1970 when the first Black student enrolled, today the school is virtually 100% Black. After splitting with my dad, my mother, who lived in North City and North County with us as small kids, took my biracial younger half-siblings to be raised in the Shaw and Dutchtown neighborhoods of South City, because she deemed the Riverview Gardens schools to be too white and racist. I stayed in Black Jack and then Florissant along with my older sisters, dad, stepmom, and grandparents.

As economic conditions became unstable in North County, white families began moving out to St. Charles County, and Black families began settling in areas that had previously been all-white, the existing white establishment relied on police departments, most of them either all-white or close to it, to act as a buffer zone. This frequently was manifested in traffic stops with places like Jennings being the worst. White residents of North County feared crime rates would soon mirror those in north city, and these fears were only heightened after high-profile crimes such as the 1982 kidnapping and murders of Gary and Donna Decker in Bellefontaine Neighbors, the stabbing death of McCluer North student and football player Dan Mckeon (brother of two professional soccer players) at a 1987 party in Florissant, the rape and murders of the Kerry sisters in 1991 at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, and the rape and murder of freshman student Christine Smetzer by a fellow student in a McCluer North bathroom in 1995.

Meanwhile, Black families arriving in north county for better schools, safer communities, and more amenities, after generations of legalized housing segregation in St. Louis City and County, often faced the brunt force of aggressive north county policing. Instead of harassing criminals and reducing crime, police departments in north county were often harassing students and law-abiding citizens coming home from work, church, or a night out. Before body cameras and smart phones these police interactions often included profane and racially abusive language and frequently beatings. This created a climate of distrust and anger in the Black community in North County. Crime was going up, but police were harassing law-abiding citizens instead of stopping criminals, and Black residents were also disproportionately victims of crimes that received far less media attention. As the racial composition of North County municipalities changed to majority-Black, voter turnout remained higher among longtime and typically older white residents. This meant that the numerous city halls and police departments in places like Ferguson remained nearly all-white even as whites became a minority in those communities.

In 2014, North County was a powder keg waiting to erupt. All it needed was a spark. That’s why I began writing about north county in my Evening-Whirl column and for the Huffington Post. No one was talking about North County and it was ready to explode. Local media focused on stories about bike lanes, hipster neighborhoods, and business as usual. Months before August 9th, I told Paul Fehler, of the Pruitt-Igoe Myth and political fame, that if there was a riot and civil unrest in St. Louis it would be in North County. A week before August 9th, with future mayoral candidate Cara Spencer watching, I had a heated argument with legislative aide Michael Powers at The Royale because he said I talked about problems in North County too much. Everything in the County is fine, I was told, all focus must be on the city.

Then it happened. Mike Brown Jr., a recent graduate of Normandy High School, walked to an immigrant-owned and ran store with a friend (most such stores in the Black communities of St. Louis are owned by Palestinian Muslims), there was an altercation, but nothing out of the ordinary for a St. Louis hood store, and as he walked through the apartments and onto Canfield at the edge of Ferguson, he met up with Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The encounter was fatal and almost certainly avoidable. Ferguson immediately handled the situation in a reckless and insensitive manner. Allowing the dead body of Mike Brown to lay in the streets for hours, and bringing out police dogs to intimidate family members, neighbors, friends, and those brought out by social media posts and discussions on Black radio. What happened that day, we’ll probably never know the entire truth. What we do know is what happened on August 9th of 2014 permanently changed St. Louis and America.

My Time in Ferguson

People have to remember that what became known as the Ferguson Uprising was not something that was instigated by academics, leftist political organizations and organizers, out of town celebrity activists, intersectional dogmatists, or people with college degrees. The anger at the death of Mike Brown came from the neighborhood. A neighborhood ranging from lower middle-class to generational poverty. People struggling and hustling just to stay above water. The community came out August 9th, but the uprising began August 10th and that was a day when an older generation of pastors, community leaders, and politicians were largely pushed aside, by a younger generation seeking an immediate redress to their grievances. It was leaderless and often without direction. Purely organic and there was a beautiful sense of community in the early days. Elders such as Anthony Bell attempted to provide direction (Bell setting up voter registration tables); but the situation was too fluid and beyond the capabilities of individual organizers.

[...]

From the beginning, I sought to use whatever platform I had to highlight the history of North County and attempt to tell a story of how we arrived at this moment. Having said that, like everyone else, I was caught up in the drama and passion of the Ferguson moment. I made videos, wrote some articles, cowrote a few pieces with Sarah Kendzior, and appeared on many local, national, and international news outlets (Al Jazeera links aren’t working). I was also arrested twice in Ferguson, threatened with arrest many more times, received numerous and graphic death threats, sparred with police supporters, lost my cool, provoked, was provoked, and finally lost my job and shortly thereafter my apartment (and in the middle of all of this, my grandma died and I was in a messy relationship). If you look at photos I didn't have grey hair before Ferguson. A few months later I was buying Just For Men.

I found a way to piss off police supporters and get under their skin, as did guys like Bassem Masri. In my estimation, the reasons for that are twofold. Firstly, we both grew-up in north county, so many of the people responsible for targeting and doxxing us were those we either grew-up with or went to school with. I saw lifelong friendships created in the Ferguson-Florissant School District end over Facebook posts during the Ferguson Unrest. This was mostly along racial lines. Secondly, unlike most activists, or those you see on Ivy League campuses today, we didn't talk and sound like spoiled brats, smart alecky rich kids who'd have to go to therapy for decades after one physical altercation. We'd been in plenty of fistfights, street brawls, and I'd been shot at and stabbed. Twitter trolls, insults, and radio talkshow hosts like Mark Reardon and Bob Romanik weren't gonna hurt my feelings.

[...]

Trump and The 2020 Sham

For the sake of time, and if anyone is still here, I'll fast forward to 2020. I've already previously stated, and Sarah Kendzior noted this in her book discussing St. Louis, that I believe Ferguson is partially responsible for electing Donald Trump as president. As in 1968, when Richard Nixon promised law and order, I knew conditions were ripe for a populist right-wing politician promising to restore law and order. No one saw COVID-19 coming, the shutdowns, the summer of massive protests after the murder of George Floyd, and the crazy presidential election. Four years later, I think we're still all trying to make sense of it.

While I fully embraced vaccines, and I'm happy I'm vaxxed, and I supported shutdowns at the time, I think it's pretty clear they did more harm than good. Most harmed were our children- particularly poor and working-class kids, who fell behind due to the virtual learning sham, and never caught up. I was at the Dallas campaign event where Biden was endorsed by multiple presidential candidates, thus virtually sealing the nomination. The South Side Ballroom was so packed, that I could barely move or breath, and couldn't get in a position to take a good photo, despite being relatively close to Biden. The next week it was too dangerous to publicly campaign, Biden stayed at home, and we elected an elderly man who was not up to the job but has generally been good in office both for American workers and our international allies. Mainstream media, so eager to defeat Trump, played along. Oh, the viable Democratic alternative was another elderly gentleman who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. It was not a year of good choices, but Biden was the best in my estimation.

[...]

The Aftermath: Where We Stand

Where are we today? A decade later, are we in a better place? North County is still in a state of serious decline and seems to be getting worse each year, North City is doing even worse, the population of both St. Louis City and County is declining, and many are opting for more prosperous communities, most notably Texas and Georgia suburbs (both reddish states). Violent crime spiked for a period, the decline in traffic enforcement has made driving and walking our streets far less safe and often deadly, and area police have essentially stopped policing. They don't want to be stars in a viral video or become a hashtag. For many cops, if they couldn't do things the old school way, they aren’t gonna do it at all. This has made our communities more dangerous, less livable for the most vulnerable, and places few people want to live in. This is a negative consequence from the lack of a strategic plan after Ferguson and failures on both the parts of law-enforcement and the community to hear one another.

The good news is that St. Louis now has better prosecutors (Wesley Bell and Gabe Gore) who are committed to public safety, holding those accountable who harm our community, and enacting diversion programs and other positive post-Ferguson reforms. St. Louis has a mayor in Tishaura Jones who wasn't created in a lab by white progressives; but is a genuine leader, reared and educated locally. Without Ferguson, I'm doubtful Mayor Jones would've been elected, nor a new generation of leaders such as Adam Layne and Marty Murray.

So, it must be recognized, that while there have been some unintended negative consequences from Ferguson, there are also positive developments. These aren't just political. What inspires me isn't politics. I'm inspired by faith leaders in our community who took the Ferguson moment and began having serious conversations with their congregations. Fathers and mothers who began having difficult conversations at home with their sons and daughters. Teachers who began listening to their students. Old classmates who reached out to one another to have a beer and talk across the racial divide. Our increased racially diverse families and suburbs who are defying our political discourse on both sides as progressives have adopted a rigid and dogmatic Race Science and MAGA is doubling down on Nativism and Majoritarian racial grievances. By our faithful and intact immigrant families providing needed life to a region desperately in need.

@Umar Lee wrote a solid perspective on the 10-year anniversary of the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson and North County from a North County POV. #Ferguson

Read the full story at Umar Lee's Substack.

[moodulated]

Can you tell us a little about who moodulated is? 😊

Ohh you mean like, me?

Well let's see... online I go by 217 or Two, I'm 24 (my birthday's in August), nonbinary and, most importantly, a single parent to a beautiful cat. I love my cat so much she's the best thing in my life. I'm typing with my right hand while my left is giving scritches.

I'm very face-blind, so I never got into live-action tv as I can't tell people apart, therefore I almost exclusively watch animated stuff save for a couple of exceptions. I did grow up watching KP among a lot of other things, and I actually remember seeing the finale on tv, specifically that scene where Kim teases Shego about Drakken (I think it was more direct in German?? Bc I remember sitting there and going oh shit they're a thing). Didn't actually get into the show properly until I was uhh, 17 I think? I figured I'd give it a watch and hyperfixated hard.

So now I have a bunch of OCs, as making characters is my true passion, and have read a ton of fic. You know, like a functional adult.

I haven't been active in the fandom in a couple of years but I still very much like it and may need to come back now. My current hyperfixations are the Mario movie which I've seen 10 times (oops) and Tears of the Kingdom which should be renamed to Tears of the Me (I love it but DAMN). My hyperfixations generally fluctate around every couple months bc woo AuDHD is a fun mix! My main special interest since birth has always been cats though. I'm so not normal about cats 🩷

[gra-sonas]

Tagged by my boo @blaidddrwg1982, thank you kindly, sir ❤️ Tagging everyone who’s in the mood to do this. 🙌

Name: I go by grasonas everywhere

Star sign: ♑️

Height: 1,74m/5'7

Time: 10:30 am CEST

Birthday: I’m a winter baby

Favorite band/artist: all time favorite band: a-ha, otherwise there are sooo many pop/rock artists/bands I like, it’s hard to pick one tbh. I’m also a huge fan of classical music, Bach and Mozart being among my favorites

Last movie: The Gray Man on TV, Elvis at the cinema

Last show: Hearstopper every day (yep, 3 months later and I’m still watching it on a daily basis), recently I also watched Stranger Things S4 and Virgin River S4

When did I create this blog: May 2019 iirc. My initial blog (grasonas without the hyphen) was established in 2011 tho, but I lost it in the Great Tumblr Purge 2K18 🥺😭 (still not over it tbh)

What I post: mainly RNM/Malex/Vlamburn etc, occasionally Hoechlin (❤️‍🔥). I’m waiting for RNM to be over (😔) before I post about other stuff. My Drafts are filled to the brim with Heartstopper posts, so that might be more prominent come September. 🍂

Last thing I googled: I don’t google, I DuckDuckGo (fantastic search engine that won’t track your every move, f*ck Google ☺️) and I looked up what 1,74m is in feet 🤪

Other blogs: I have the attention span of a gnat, I couldn’t handle a sideblog. We post everything on main in this house ✌️

Do I get asks: I do, and it’s one of my favorite things. Shoutout to all my lovely nonnies 💕

Following: around 60 or so

Average hours of sleep: 5-7 (7 is the goal, most nights it’s between 6-7, that’s way up from ~5 hrs I used to get for years tho, so that’s progress)

Instruments: piano and English flute (I haven’t played either in years tho)

What I’m wearing: it’s a t-shirt & sweatpants kind of day

Dream job: one that gives me purpose, makes me happy, and pays well 🤡

Dream trip: PATAGONIA 😍😍😍😍😍😍

Nationality: German (with Viking ancestry 😋)

Favorite songs: there are currently 446 songs saved in my Favorite Tracks, and that’s just favorites from the past year or so, can’t list them all 😵‍💫 My all time favorite is Take On Me (a-ha forever 💕)

Last book I read: recently re-read RWRB, so pumped for the movie!!! I mostly (almost exclusively) read fanfic otherwise

Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to live in:

1/ the one where our poor planet doesn’t burn to a crisp bc of corporate greed, and those least responsible have to suffer the most severe consequences

2/ the one where queer people are allowed to just be and don’t have to fight for equality/basic human rights on a daily basis (let alone fear for their lives if the wrong people found out)

3/ the one where people with uteruses have the bodily autonomy to decide what’s best for their life/health, and people get paid equally

Bonus universe: the one where white/rich/conservative assholes don’t ruin it for everyone else (I guess that’s just universes 1-3 combined 🙃)

(Also, the Heartstopper Universe, I’d like to find the Charlie Spring to my Nick Nelson, pls 🥺)

[mah-gah-lee]

be stuck with you - owen patrick joyner x (reader)

Word Count: 2303

Request: YES, from that sweet @idontcare011​, hope you’ll like it ! 

Summary:  you were late and a random boy comes into the elevator at the last minute. By some incredible force of fate (or pretty crappy weather) you find yourself stuck with the young man in this narrow cabin.

Warnings: panic attack and i think it’s all

disclaimer: I don't know Owen personally or what his life is like. All you will read in this "x reader" is from my imagination. My point is not to invade Owen's privacy. I don't want to offend him or offend anybody else in his life (family, potential girlfriend…I heard maybe he has one, so I don’t know but I don’t want to offend her).  All of this is not the reality

Tagged: @asdfghjkl-fanfics​ @standingtalllove​ @lukeys-giggle​ 

---

Thanks God, the quarantine was over and everyone could travel again. However, this stupid virus was not completely gone. Since the health crisis, you have adopted new habits, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator. But today, you were in a hurry, so you entered the cabin eagerly. The conference you were due to attend was starting in no less than twenty minutes, and your itinerary had said it would take you 15 to get to your planned location. But with the weather conditions creeping in out there, you were sure you would need a lot longer than advertised. The automatic door was closing when a hand stepped in the way. A young blond man appeared and slipped into the elevator. You grumbled at the action, making you fall a few more seconds behind.

 "Sorry" the boy said through his mask.

 But you didn't answer.

 You had almost ten floors to go down together. You looked in your bag for a while to make sure you had your recorder when you felt an uncontrolled jerk. Your body no longer held you in balance but you caught yourself on a side of the elevator as the young man accompanying you tended to stabilize you. The lights flashed for a while and then went out. Your eyes widened as your heart pounded.

 "oh no no no no no no no. Anything except that, please!" you said, frantically pressing a random button.

 “I think we stuck…”

  "Oh yeah, what makes you think that?" The fact that we weren't moving or that the lights went out? "

 The boy threw up his hands in defense, eyes wide with so much animosity.

 "Hey, I'm in the same situation. You don't have to be aggressive."

You groaned before leaning against one of the elevator walls, peering into the face of your elevator failure companion. He had blond hair; his tips reached the base of his neck. But his expressive blue eyes - seeming constantly anxious - reminded you of someone, but you didn't know who. You have pushed the alarm button to warn the staff that there was someone in the lift.

 “Sorry, it’s seems to be a bad day. I’m late and now I’m stuck in an elevator with a perfect stranger”

 “I’m Owen…Not a stranger anymore”

 “I’m y/n, but yes, you still are”

 Owen laughed at your outspokenness and you gave him a polite smile before you were silent for several minutes.

 After what seemed like forever - when it was only ten minutes - you looked at your phone. No networks. For no obvious reason, when everything seemed to be going well, your heart started to beat faster. The thought of being stuck here forever crossed your mind and ached in your chest. The boy in front of you seemed so calm, which made you even more anxious.

 "How the hell can you stay so calm"

 "Oh ... I'm dying inside, just trying to play it cool"

 You can help with giving him an amused smile, he had been so frank. But this little interaction did not bring you back down from your state. You were breathing harder and harder, your chest was heaving quickly, it was nearly out of control. Owen seemed to notice that and give you a concerned look.

 "Panic attack?"

 You nodded briskly and Owen approached you cautiously. You saw his hands move towards you and your gaze expressed fear but you were paralyzed to do anything.

 "I'm going to take that damn mask off you already."

 Gently, he grabbed the fabric mask and pulled a little on it to lower it, he reproduced the gesture with his own mask.

 "Look at me, just me. There's nothing around us. Take a deep breath. I'll count to 3 and then you'll breathe out. Okay?"

 you nodded and when he shook his to urge you to breathe you took a deep breath, like he told you to.

 "1..2..3"

 You sighed, keeping your gaze on him. You started once more and when the blonde asked you if it was better, you were shaking your head negatively.

 "We're starting over but… take my hands and squeeze them as much as you need. Don't worry about grinding them."

 You grabbed his hands and restarted each step over, crushing his hands. But the contact with matter, your breath and Owen's comforting eyes, help you gently. A soothing silence has settled between you. Owen had helped you through this panic attack when you didn't even know each other. But you could feel deep inside that this man was good. Things seemed to calm down for you and you thanked Owen with a genuine smile.

 “You know how to deal with it ... Thanks for that.”

 “I also suffer from anxiety and panic attack. But the elevator is big enough here that it doesn't cause me one. Although I am a little anxious ...”

 “hey, breathe Owen.” You replied with a smirk

 Owen laughed and shook his head as if to say "that's a good one!" You look at the young man again, staring at him intently. It was very rude but you couldn't put a name on his face anymore. You were sure you knew him. Was he a distant cousin? A neighbor? A guy you knew in high school? Or just a guy you saw in an ad? Maybe the ad for these new cereals!

 “Excuse me but ... I've seen you somewhere before, haven't I?”

 “In an elevator, yeah!” he joked

 You laughed he was funny

 “No, I mean ... I feel like I've seen you before but I really can't remember where.”

 he sighed, as if a little tired of the question. You were surprised at his reaction but Owen answers you anyway

 “Yeah, I don't usually talk about that when I first meet a girl, especially when I'm stuck in an elevator with her but ... I'm an actor. I played some stuff on Nickelodeon and now I'm supposed to shoot season two of Julie and the phantoms, it's a Netflix series.”

 You watched him chattering, you nodded then wide your eyes. This is where you saw it! You had been relentlessly browsing the Netflix catalog and seeing the trailer for the series he told you about, but you had avoided it, the show seemed too childish for you. You first reaction was to make fun of him

 "Again, don't forget to breath Owen. But the way, I didn’t want to bother you with that question."

 He laughed lightly then smiled politely at you. You didn't seem to be a hysteric or a weird person. He had a deep feeling that you were a good person, which is why Owen seemed to relax.

 "It's just ... for a while, I thought you were a fan and I didn't want things to be weird all suddenly "

 "Oh don't worry I haven't seen any of your shows.” you said nonchalantly

 Owen burst into laughter. Once again, it was bafflingly sincere and he was really starting to enjoy being stuck in an elevator with you. You smiled, the energy in the cabin was positive that you almost forgot you were stuck with this young man for almost half an hour. You didn't know when you were going to be able to get out of here but you didn't really care anymore for the sole reason that you wanted to get to know this man. You tilted your head back, resting it against the elevator wall before sighing loudly. Seconds later, your gaze turned to Owen again.

 “So tell me about this series that you’re filming. What is it about?”

 "It's a pretty cool show actually. It's directed by Kenny Ortega, I don't know if you see who he is."

 "Hell yeah ... he's the choreographer of Dirty Dancing"

 "Himself ... So what about the storyboard ... It's about ..."

 And then, you listened to him to tell you about the series. Something like a '90s band dying of food poisoning from a bad hotdog and returning twenty-five years later as ghosts to help a super talented young girl to make music after her mom passed away. It made you laugh; it was probably the dumbest death on TV after Marion Cotillard's in Batman. He couldn't even stop anymore so that he sometimes swapped over a few anecdotes from the set. You even got a little exclusive on season two before Owen stopped in the middle of a sentence.

 "Sorry, I got a little carried away. But when you like your job, it's pretty easy to talk about it."

 You smiled at him and Owen started asking you questions, about your work, your life, your passions and you were giving him back. The conversation was fluid, natural You learned that he was German, that his mother tongue was German until he was about four years old, that he had a sister and had lived with his parents until that year when he moved into his own apartment. Getting to know Owen was really nice and you could feel your stomach twist every time he smiled. He was a boy full of humor but also sarcasm.

 You've been stuck with Owen for an hour and a half now. You ended up sitting on the floor of the elevator. Boredom was really starting to take hold of you. You rummaged through your bag for something, anything. An idea crossed your mind when you saw the small block of post-it notes.

 "Owen"

 "hmm?"

 "How would you like to play a game?"

 "What kind of game do you want to play here?"

 "Who am I?"

 "Obviously you are y/n" he tells you with a smirk.

 You laughed before pulling out your notepad and a pencil to show it to the blonde. He claimed to have understood your intention, which made you smile even more. Of course, Owen knew the game you wanted to play. He nodded, and you'd write a celebrity's name on a sticky note before sticking it on your new friend's forehead. He did the same for you. Fortunately, your two post-its are well stuck. Owen spoke

 "I start: am I a man?"

 "Obviously" you say with a smirk, responding to the blonde's previous joke.

 Owen laughed, catching the tone of your voice.

 “But how funny she is! Is my character a man?” He continued.

 You did several parts. You even teased him when he made you guess Julie and the phantoms, because the game didn't stop only with characters, celebrities but also series, movies, musicals. You were laughing when there was another shake, stronger than the first, the lights came back on and you couldn't help but be disappointed. You looked at Owen and he seemed to have the same gaze as yours. The doors barely opened and you found the hotel staff, patiently waiting to ask if you needed medical assistance, while also offering you a bottle of water. You left the elevator car, hurriedly stuffing the many post-its into your bag. You didn't really know how to act with the blond guy next to you. You had formed a little bubble in that enclosed space and now it seemed to have burst. For some strange reason, it made you sad. Now is the time to part ways with your new friend.

 “well, good-goodbye, it was nice to meet you.”

 you rushed into the hotel lobby a little more, but Owen seemed to catch up with you, his long legs only having to take a few strides.

 "wait, y/n!"

 You turned to him, you could see the embarrassment on his cheeks, asking with a frown what was the cause.

 "I think you let that go"

 "No, I don't"

 You looked at the crumpled white paper. It even looked like a piece of chewing gum. And at first glance, Owen's perfectly white teeth were chewing one.

 "I think you did."

 He handed you the paper with a determination that convinces you. You bite your lip as you look at the series of numbers on the packaging: a phone number. His telephone number. Owen swallowed hard as he looked at you. His eyes never leaving your lips.

 "It's pretty spontaneous of me but ... I won't start filming until next week. I hope you're still here the day after tomorrow ... because I would really like to ask you to come have a drink with me ... "

 Your cheeks turned red, did he really just ask you for a date? You did not know what to answer. The urge to say yes was so present but you were afraid to rush. Perhaps humor was your only defense

 "it depends"

 "about what?"

 "Does this appointment include a blocking session in an elevator? This is the only way it works"

 Owen laughed before giving you a genuine smile, showing his perfectly aligned white teeth. God, what a beautiful man.

 "I can try to fix this and find a faulty elevator."

 "So expect a text from me"

 You smiled back at him and gave him a wink before turning on your heels. Owen's heart skipped a beat and he when he arrived several hours late in the hairdressing section of the set, Charlie laughed at him saying that he had never seen him so happy to have a haircut. hair. But in reality, the blond was only waiting for one thing, and that was to receive a message from you, which arrived in a second.

 (y/n) text : "After being stuck in an elevator, here I am stuck in traffic ... Are you sure you want a date with me, you might just end up stuck with me?"

 Owen couldn't help but smile broadly.

 Owen text : "I'm sure. I'd love to even be stuck with you (again).”

(y/n) text : “Fine, ghost boy. See you soon”

[mando-lore]

"A bird... or something...": The story of Mothman and other 'flying men'

Certainly Strange: A Podcast About The Unexplainable, episode 7

Listen on: YouTube  Spotify  Castbox

"It was a bird... or something."

It was the 15th of November, 1966, and Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette were joyriding through a maze of dirt roads that connected abandoned world war two bunkers, late at night in Point Pleasant West Virginia. They had just driven past an abandoned generator plant when they saw… something. A huge figure in the darkness, just off the side of the road. And it was watching them. With huge, blood red eyes.

"I'm a hard guy to scare" Scarberry later said to the local newspaper, "but last night I was getting out of there." He slammed the gas and tried to manoeuvre his car out of the dump area as quickly as possible, away from the strange creature that watched them. And as they fled, they all saw the creature, something that looked like the hybrid between a man and a bird, standing on a hill by the side of the road.

And then, it started following them. It hoovered above the car, chasing them. “We were driving one hundred miles per hour and that bird kept right up with us. It wasn’t even flapping its wings.” The women started crying. The creature followed them until the couples reached the National Guard Armory on Route 62. They thought they had finally lost the strange man-bird, but once they turned the car around, there it was again. It seemed to be waiting on them.

The creature was over six foot tall, grey, with a wingspan of 10 feet. "It was like a man with wings," Mallette said. "It wasn't like anything you'd see on TV or in a monster movie..."

The Scarberries and the Mallettes gave a statement to the police. "If I had seen it while by myself I wouldn't have said anything," Scarberry commented, "but there were four of us who saw it."

At first, the four witnesses were the laughingstock of the town. But soon, stories started to surface, old and new. They were definitely not the only ones who had witnessed the creature that is now known as the Mothman.

On that very same day, on November the 15th 1966, the Mothman had been spotted by a farmer about 90 miles away in Salem. Newell Partridge was watching television when at 10:30pm he heard his German shepherd named Bandit howling. The farmer went out to check on his dog with a flashlight, when he was met with two large red eyes, like red reflectors, staring at him.

Bandit took off towards the creature that threatened his master, into the night. Then, the farmer could hear his dog screech and whine. And he never saw him again.

The strange thing? In their eyewitness report, The Scarberries and the Mallettes told the police that, while they were being chased by the Mothman, they had seen something, lying on the side of the road. It had been a carcass. The carcass of a dead dog.

The very next day, the Mothman was spotted by one Mr and Mrs Wamsley and their friend Mrs Bennett, who were driving through the world war two bunker area on their way to visit a friend. They parked the car in a darkened area several feet from the residence, and knocked on their friend’s door. When they found him not at home, they headed back to the car. This is where they saw it. In the darkness, a shadowy figure lurked behind the automobile.

“It rose up slowly from the ground. A big, grey thing. Bigger than a man, with terrible, glowing red eyes.” Said Bennett. According to her own statement, when Bennett saw the creature, she was so horrified she fell on her baby whom she had been holding in her arms.

There were dozens of Mothman sightings during the next several weeks. One witness, Mrs. Roy Grose, saw the creature through her kitchen window, early in the morning when her barking dog had awakened her. She say a large multicoloured object hovering over the treetop in a field across the road. That same day a local teenager encountered a huge birdlike creature with his car, and claimed that it had followed him for more than a mile.

Tom Ury, a young shoe salesman, was driving down route 62 at 7:15 in the morning on his way to work, when he spotted a towering figure standing by the road in an adjacent field. Suddenly it had spread its wings and took off straight up. The figure then started circling his car like a bird, and kept flying over the car even at the speed of seventy-five miles per hour, much like as he had done to the Scarberries and the Mallettes. Tom was apparently so frightened by this encounter, he did not get into work that day.

In total, there were around 200 sightings of the Mothman in the year 1966 to 1967. But it was not the first time something like a bird-man was spotted near Point Pleasant.

In 1961, 5 years prior, a woman was driving down route 2 along the Ohio river with her father when she spotted a winged figure. She had just passed by a park when a tall figure suddenly appeared in the road ahead of her. It was a grey figure with folded wings across its back, like how one would describe an angel. Startled by the car, the creature unfolded its wings, which “practically filled the whole road”, and then the mysterious creature took off.

However, the woman and her father were not the first to ever witness the creature that would become known as “The Mothman”. In 1948, the Army officials at McChord Field in Washington state were approached by the 61-year-old Mrs Bernice Aikowski, who claimed that she had seen a man-bird in her backyard in nearby Chehalis.

“I know most people don’t believe me, but I have talked to some people in Chehalis that tell me they say the man, too. It was about 3 PM on January 6th, and there were a lot of small children coming home from school at the time. They saw the man, too, and asked me if they could go into my backyard so they could watch him longer as he flew towards the south end of the city.”

According to her, the flying man-bird seemed to be a man equipped with long silver wings fastened over his shoulders with a strap, like one of the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci.

On April 9th, 1948, two Longview Washington state residents named Viola Jonson (a laundry worker) and James Pittman (a janitor) told journalists that they had seen several men with flying suits and goggles, flying through the air, circling the city at a hight of 250 feet. Two similar flying men were sighted near Butte in Oregon, on September 16th that same year.

In 1971, at 2AM in Norton Massachusetts, police sergeant Thomas Downy was driving home along Winter Street in Mansfield. As he approached a place known, ironically, as Bird Hill in Easton, he was confronted by a huge winged creature that was over 6 feet tall with a wingspan of eight to twelve feet. As sergeant Downy drew to a stop at the intersection, the birdman flew straight up, disappearing over the dark trees into the swamp. Downy reported the sighting to the Easton police when he arrived home and a patrol car searched the area, but the man bird was never seen again.

These birdmen are not sighted exclusively in the United States, however. Plato and Homer already wrote about a race of winged men in Ancient Greece. On July 11th, 1908, the Russian explorer VK Arsenyev sighted a winged humanbeing near the mouth of the Gobilli river. Sightings have also been reported in Portugal, England, and Vietnam.

The many sightings of the Mothman came to an end on the 25th of December in 1967, when the Silver Bridge, connecting Point Pleasant with Gallipolis collapsed. 46 people died, and it is still known as the deadliest bridge collapse in the history of the United States. Next to the Mothman sightings, the Silver Bridge collapse was the second terrible and bizarre thing to put Point Pleasant on the map in one year’s time. So it was not hard for people to seek a connection between the two.

Some eyewitnesses claimed that they had seen the Mothman at the bridge that day it collapsed, blaming the creature for the disaster that killed so many. Of course, it is a way of mourning to seek an explanation, someone to blame, for this terrible loss of life.

People did indeed think that the Mothman was a bad omen, a demonic vision that foreshadows a great disaster. The Mothman does bear the resemblance of a demon, the embodiment of fear itself.

A more realistic based explanation for the Mothman comes from Dr. Robert L. Smith, an associate professor of wildlife biology at West Virginia University, who said that the description of the Mothman all fitted the sandhill crane, the second largest American crane, which stands almost as high as a man and has a wingspan of more than seven feet. He said the “red eyes” could be the large red circles around the crane’s eyes. The appearance of the bird could have been moulded into the image of a monstrous creature through mass hysteria.

So, is the Mothman an image of the mind, the demonic embodiment of fear? Is it simply a bird, mistaken for a monster through mass hysteria? Or… is the Mothman real? Whatever he was or whatever he may be now, still, he is certainly strange.

SOURCES

All That’s Interesting. (2017, May 17). The True Story Behind The Legendary Mothman Said To Terrorize West Virginia. Retrieved from https://allthatsinteresting.com/mothman

Coleman, L. (2001). Mothman and other curious encounters. Cosimo, Inc. https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=KZlavRmNPtkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA8&dq=mothman&ots=KSz4GP-jP7&sig=-WwUOFtlxYvPePGyE-MwpPccj4s#v=onepage&q&f=false

Daly, J. (2020). Narrative Hijacking: Mothman and the Silver Bridge Collapse. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2279&context=researchweek

Gettysburg Times. (1966, December 1). Monster Bird With Red Eyes May Be Crane. p. 12. Retrieved from https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LG0mAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Rf8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=620,2790721&dq=point+pleasant+roger+scarberry&hl=en

Point Pleasant Register. (1966, November 16). Couples See Man-Sized Bird...Creature...Something. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20071011230219/http://www.westva.net/mothman/1966-11-16.htm

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #337

“if i showed you my soul, would you cover your eyes?”

What's your favorite brand of chips? I like Lays best. Are you a good painter? My Painting teacher when I was in college last said I did wonderfully, but I definitely beg to differ. Before buying a car, do you usually test drive it? N/A Have you ever written a poem and then read it aloud? No, but a teacher has. It was so fucking awkward; it was very pacifist, the topic being about war, and it had some depressing tones of death; there was just silence at the end of it, and I still don't know if it was shock or "what the fuck, she's messed up." There was this one guy that went, "Nobody is going to clap at that?", though, which I thought was pretty nice and reassuring. Do you like pineapple? Yeah, I do. Have you ever met your favorite author? I don't have a favorite author. Have you and your best friend ever liked the same person? No. Do you have any freckles? Not on my face (though oddly enough, I did as a kid?), but on random parts of my body. How many different languages can you say goodbye in? English, German, and then Spanish. Do you like or hate the smell of fish? I hate it. Have you ever been to Sea World? As a child, yes. I'd never go as an adult. Do you know someone who suffers from short-term memory loss? I don't know how this is actually diagnosed, but my memory is absolutely fucking nightmarish, almost exclusively in short-term situations. I can remember the most obscure events from my childhood, but not what I said to you five seconds prior. I'm rather sure my medications have made it worse over time. Have you ever read any of John Green's books? I got like, one chapter or less into The Fault in Our Stars before the book got replaced with the Wings of Fire series, so I never finished it. Are you a protective person? I'm an immensely protective person over those that matter to me. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? No, thankfully. I'm terrified of earthquakes. What's one thing that makes everything in life worthwhile? The fact that to our proven knowledge, this is the only one we'll ever experience. What type of waffles do you like? (Plain, blueberry etc..) I prefer plain, but I can eat chocolate chip ones as well as blueberry and strawberry. Have you ever seen the show Wife Swap? Yeah, I actually quite like it. Do you like chicken or beef better? Or do you not eat meat? Chicken, I think. I eat meat, but wish I didn't. What brand of dish soap do you use? Dawn, usually. Do any of your neighbors have dogs? Yes, and they never shut up. Do you believe in fortune tellers? They're money-driver bullshitters. Have you ever been to one? No, and judging by the fervor in the above question, I hope you can tell I never would do so and thus monetarily support them. Do you like regular or chocolate milk better? Chocolate, of course. But I love normal milk, too. Once again, wish I didn't, though. Forcing a cow to constantly reproduce to lactate is pretty fucking cruel. Growing up, did you listen to country music? I actually did. Do you normally wash your hands in warm or cold water? If it's just a quick wash, it's usually cold because our water takes quite a few moments to warm up. However, if I'm looking to thoroughly wash my hands, it's gotta be relatively hot. Do you believe in mediums? I see them in a worse light than I do fortune tellers, so... Like sure, manipulate grieving people for profit, sounds great. Have you ever been to one? Obviously not. Have you ever dated someone on the football team? No. Do you have a gazebo at your house? No. Do you like tomatoes? Solely when straight from a garden and on a bacon and mayonnaise sandwich. Otherwise I am noooot a fan. Are you a competitive person? Not very, but there's a tiny spark in me, really when it just comes to photography. I hate it. Google or Bing? Does literally anyone use Bing? What's your favorite brand of bottled water? Essentia. Do you have any ceramic animals in your house or outside? Ummm I don't think so. Have you ever given someone flowers? Yes. What is something you might eat with a hamburger? Fries or mac and cheese. What is a sport that you’ve always wanted to play, but never got a chance to. None. What is a fruit that you might eat in the morning? A banana. Who might you send a selfie to? I don't send selfies to anyone. About how many pages is the longest book you’ve ever read? I THINK it surpassed 1,000? At least in the high hundreds. Who would you call first after getting engaged to tell them the news? Probably Mom. Around what time do you start feeling tired enough to go to sleep? Truth be told, it's usually arouund 7-8. I rarely make it to 9:00 nowadays. What trends do you refuse to give in to? I don't even know what's trendy right now. What subjects in history interest you most? As dark as it is, I find the Holocaust interesting to learn about. Are you superstitious in any way? No. How do you get rid of anxiety? What a relevant question, being in a partial hospitalization program right now. Coping skills that help me are doing deep breathing, mindfulness exercises, and a little jerk back to reality is splashing freezing cold water on my face. It also helps to talk it out with somebody, just get my feelings into words. Then if it's a true anxiety or panic attack, I have my "emergency" anxiety prescription. Are there any items of jewelry you never/rarely take off? My lip and tragus piercings never do, and I always wear two rings. Do you find yourself correcting people’s grammar often? Not really, no. It just seems rude and snobby to me, honestly, if it's not in an educational setting, like helping someone with an essay. Correcting someone in your average conversation is just... unnecessary, imo. Now if you're talking like in surveys and stuff, I definitely do in questions and such, but I don't point it out. Gummi worms: Yay or nay? Yay, love 'em. What do you do when you have ‘me time’? I only ever have "me" time, so what I always do... Do you lack common sense sometimes? I have a horrible lack of common sense, shit's embarrassing. Have you ever poured glue on your hand just to peel it off for fun? No. How do babies make you feel? "Nervous. They’re so damn breakable." <<<< Mood. Would you/Have you milked a cow? No, and I'm not interested. What really gives you the creeps? #!: seeing a baby move inside its mother's stomach. It will actually make me scream and/or cry because it just grosses me the fuck out. Whale sharks' mouths also creep me out big time. Do you ever eat leftover pizza cold? Yeah, I love cold pizza. When you're wanting a midnight snack, what do you normally get? We normally have cashew bars that I like if I'm really hungry. Which cartoon character would you want to keep as a pet? Obviously Pikachu. My niece loves Pikachu anyway, so she'd be ecstatic to see a real one. Or well, maybe I'd go for an Eevee. Not as dangerous with electricity and all but just as cute and small. Do you like marshmallows? Yeah. If you had the opportunity to live forever, would you take it? No. It would ruin so many factors of the temporary nature of life. Things would lose meaning, get old and boring, it'd be much easier to take advantage of things... There are many reasons why I have no desire to live forever. Hell, I even wonder if I want an afterlife for those same reasons. Did you ever really believe in Santa Claus? As a little kid, yeah. Do you like quesadillas? I like cheese, chicken, and shrimp ones. What's the greatest/most influential song you've ever heard? Ozzy's "Life Won't Wait." Do you prefer to pull off band-aids slowly or quickly? I tend to do it slowly. What was the last thing someone told you that had you at a loss for words? Uhhh I feel like Sara said something, but I don't remember what. What was the last health scare you had? Ugh... I'm kind of living in one now. As my legs have been worsening, I'm becoming increasingly concerned I'm eventually going to need a wheelchair for "walking" longer distances. And mind you, "long" for me is probably short for the average person. My knees do nothing but crack incessantly and burn when I use them, and they frequently feel like they're going to give way, and in a few rare instances, have. It's my own fucking fault for not sucking it up and exercising with my mom in the room, so I'd like to move on. What is your favorite filling for a piece of chocolate? Caramel. Do you enjoy the sound of birds chirping? I do. If applicable, what’s your favorite drug, and why? I don't do drugs, so. What was the last TV show you binge-watched? Avatar: The Last Airbender with Sara. Would you rather eat burgers or tacos? Definitely burgers. I don't like tacos. Did your mother change her maiden name when/if she got marred? Yes. What was the last job you applied for? Did you get the job? Deli worker, and yes. Do you use TikTok? No. What decorations do you have in your bathroom? None. Our bathroom is pretty small. Well, the one we use, anyway. The one attached to the master's bedroom isn't cleaned up yet, but we'll use it in case of emergency. What year was your favourite band formed? (Before people think I'm smart, no, I looked the dates up, haha.) Well Ozzy was Black Sabbath's vocalist, and the band formed in 1968, but Ozzy became a solo artist in 1979. What's your favourite fruit? Strawberries. Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? No. Do you prefer gory horror films or the psychological ones? I prefer psychological. Are you easily paranoid? Yeah. Do you have a favorite obsession? Meerkats and Mark are kinda tied, haha. Are you a workaholic? No. Have you ever given a tattoo before and would you like to? No and no; that would be an awful idea, given I have bad tremors in my hands. Have you ever seen the movie Labyrinth? I actually have not. Would you rather be called pretty or hot? Pretty. Have you ever gotten a serious injury at school? What happened? No. Have you ever performed in front of my large group of people? Yes; I was a dancer for many years. Have you ever fundraised? If so, what for? You know how Facebook recommends making fundraisers for a charity of your choice for your birthday? I've done that for the Trevor Project and two charities for ovarian and pancreatic cancers. Are you wearing earrings right now? Ugh, no, even though I want to be. The first holes in my ears are just too stretched for normal earrings because I wore heavy ones too often, and I just don't have nice earrings. I still want to get very small gauges to put in the stretched holes. Name a singer whose voice makes you swoon? Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump can do that, holy shit. "America's Suitehearts" does it for me, man. Y'know, when his voice goes all deep. Do your pets follow you when you walk around the house? My cat Roman is quite literally my shadow. Where I go, he goes. What do you do online? I seem to only exist online, really, so I've got a lot on my plate to choose from, yet I'm still bored half the time, haha. I'm essentially always watching or listening to YouTube, I play World of Warcraft for varying amounts of time depending on the day, I scroll through deviantART, check KM periodically, do surveys obviously, "work" at the wikis I contribute to, wander around on Facebook... idk, that's all I really do at least semi-regularly online. Haha oh, wait, I also check Craigslist like... every day for tarantula and hognoses even though I can't currently get either. Let me dream. Do you have any scars on your face? I have a couple on my chin from when I fainted and busted it open. What countries were your grandparents born in? In the US. What was the most damaging relationship (romantic or not) that you’ve ever been a part of? Ultimately, with Jason, because of how it ended. The relationship itself wasn't at all damaging to me, but the breakup shook my entire fucking world. When in your life was your self-esteem at its lowest point? Self-esteem? Now. I'm very unhappy with my weight going back up, my body is just in poor health in general, I'm not employed, not in school... I just feel like a lowlife. Who was the last person you cut out of your life? Do you regret it? I want to say my sister's mother-in-law. Sure don't, considering she revealed her disgusting support for conversion therapy. I'm civil around her in person, but I kicked that woman off my Facebook so fucking quick when I saw that shit. Who is the most attractive person you know personally? That I know personally... I would say Alon, but I haven't seen even a picture of her in forever. Summer, though, shares selfies frequently, and by god is she gorgeous. I know a lot a lot of beautiful women, asldkjf;awe. It's funny that I'm blanking on men, at least involving people I still "know"/are somehow present in my life. Would you rather look older or younger than you are? I'm fine looking my age. Have you ever dated someone who was very vastly different from your “type”? No. What is the biggest project you’re currently working on? I suppose you can count an RP plot as a "project." I'm procrastinating so bad on it because it is going to be A LOT of writing. Is there a person from your past that you wonder about frequently? Who? Take a shot in the dark for me. Who knows you best, excluding romantic partners? My mother. What are your thoughts on human creation? I believe we evolved. How many people have you had sex with? One. Have you ever had a yard sale? Yeah. Have you ever been surfing? No.

[falconwintersoldier1x04full]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x04 Season 1 Episode 4 watch online

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x04 Season 1 Episode 4 full - https://falconwintersoldier1x04eng.blogspot.com/

At the risk of comparing two somewhat different stories, “WandaVision” used his time to delve into two characters reduced to supporting roles in the Avengers films. "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" almost seems to be doing the opposite, spreading his narrative instead of sinking further into the psyche of Sam Wilson or James Buchanan Barnes, which is a shame when there is so much for me. Although it is the dominant subplot, it would be nice to see more of Sam's thought process in relation to his abandoned Captain America mantle. Yes, there are racial motivations for choosing him and - as he made it clear to Bucky in Episode 2 - he doesn't need to explain himself further. But it seems that there is more going on. Is Sam afraid to follow in Steve's footsteps? Is he afraid of failure? Does he yearn for a more normal life on his family's boat?

The same goes for Bucky and his list of repairs. It can be argued that there is a fully formed show "My Name Is Earl" based exclusively on Bucky and his list, with each episode revolving around a name, crossing it out and throwing away part of The Winter Soldier's luggage.

And speaking of pre-existing programs, "Power Broker" almost seemed like an exercise in prestigious action and dramatic tributes, featuring scenarios that would not seem out of place in "Prison Break", "24", "Westworld", or any of the films "John Wick" (specifically the "excommunicated" bounty call of "John Wick 2"). The episode begins with a fake commercial for the aforementioned Global Repatriation Council before moving on to New Captain America (such as New Coke) and Battlestar appearing a few days late for the Flag Knights' last known location. The deal that followed in the hideout highlights the most striking differences between John Walker and Steve Rogers, with Walker worrying about the devil, needing a translator (remembering that Cap understood and responded to Batroc The Leaper in French in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier ”) and finally being spit on by enemies who neither fear nor respect him.

The rest of the episode follows our good titular policeman and policeman armed with vibranium on a worldwide mission that sees them help Baron Helmut Zemo (played with ease by Daniel Brühl) to escape from his German prison and head to Madripoor, a fictional city in the Southeast Asia, defined predominantly in the comics as a place for the very rich and the very poor, a point that was driven by the two neighborhoods: Lowtown, where the trio began to "climb a ladder of poor people" on their march to the serum of the super soldier and Hightown, where Sharon Carter, apparently doing very well as an enemy of the state, lives in a luxurious (and massive) apartment in a stolen art gallery that has become a dance club. There is also a Flag Smashers C conspiracy that again seeks to muddy the sympathetic waters for the revolutionary group, showing the good they are trying to do before undermining it in a grotesque and unnecessary display of violence.

If there is a "Power Broker" MVP, it has to be Brühl, playing Zemo with his tongue firmly on his cheek, chewing his scene with an aristocratic presumption hitherto invisible in the MCU. It is telling that Brühl's recent directorial debut is about an egocentric actor on the verge of a big audition for a comic book movie, perhaps allowing him to have more fun with Zemo. And how fun it is! Whether supporting Sam (albeit in a culturally insensitive way) on the unchanging truths of Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack or having fun pretending to control the Winter Soldier again, Brühl was a joy whenever he stepped on the screen (though perhaps never more than in this brief photo of him dancing). Also, sporting Zemo's iconic mask and not looking ridiculous is a feat in itself. [Honorable mention goes to the similarly returning VanCamp, who plays his best personification of John Wick while dispensing with the endless attack of nameless assassins in the final set piece of the episode.] In short, there is a lot to like in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”, but sometimes, especially in “Power Broker”, it seems more like a collection of good scenes (even great ones) or scenarios that do not arrive well add up to a all satisfactory. An extensive narrative structure works for venerated programs like "The Wire", where a) expansion is the point (a photo of a city in danger) and b) there is still time (five seasons) to dig a little here and there, but here it may seem, to use a metaphor for the show, like adding a new staircase (or two) to the side of a building instead of climbing a step.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x04 Season 1 Episode 4 film The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x04 Season 1 Episode 4 Series TV The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x04 Season 1 Episode 4 online The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x04 Season 1 Episode 4 stream

[hellyeahomeland]

An HYH Exclusive Interview with Dominic Mainl

[Over the last six seasons, Dominic Mainl has worked in the camera department on Homeland, working to get the shots you see in each episode onto your screens. For our “On the Record with…” series, Dom graciously answered our questions about what the Homeland experience has been like, including how he got started, what it’s like to work with cast and crew, and his most vivid memories. Thank you Dom for answering our questions! –the HYH team]

Hell Yeah Homeland: Your first Homeland episode was “Tin Man Is Down” in season three. How did the German guy become a part of the production?

Dom Mainl: Haha, pure luck? In 1998 I moved from tiny Bad Dürrheim, Germany, to Los Angeles because I wanted to work in Hollywood. I was already in the film industry in Germany and wanted to work with the best of the best and that meant moving to Los Angeles. It took a few years and a lot of hard work to “break into Hollywood” and yet another few years and even harder work to become established, but in the end it all worked out. I worked on the HBO show True Blood and met David Klein, ASC there. I really enjoy working with him and over the years we have become a good team, business partners and most importantly, very good friends. One day my phone rings and Dave said, “Hey man, I’m taking over as the Director of Photography on Homeland. Are you interested? I would love to have you on the crew” …. and I had no idea what Homeland even was! I had never heard of it! I said yes anyway because I love working with Dave and looked up the show online. So on my way out to Charlotte (where we shot season three) I started watching the first season and really, really liked it. So I was hyped about being part of the project after becoming part of the project. 

HYH: What do you remember from your first day at set? 

DM: Every project, whether it’s film, tv or commercials, I have butterflies in my stomach the night before day one. David Klein says, “if you’re not nervous before day one you are phoning it in,” and he’s right. We love what we do and there are so many things that can go wrong, so even after 20+ years I still get nervous. The first day on Homeland was really easy though because all the actors are sooo unbelievably nice. As a focus puller I am quite immersed in all technical things to make sure nothing goes wrong (especially on day one!), so Homeland was no different from other shows in that respect.

HYH: We know you can’t talk about season eight yet, but looking back at previous seasons, what scenes still stick with you? Why?

DM: This is going to explain a lot about why I love working with Dave Klein: there’s a shot in season three when Brody is brought back to the US and it's the first time Carrie and Brody meet since he was shipped off to Caracas. He’s laying on the bed and the camera is right in his face. Carrie steps into the background and has an emotional monologue directed at the sleeping Brody. Remember that? 

So, my job as a focus puller is to adjust focus during the shot. And I felt strongly about keeping Damian sharp in the foreground although the #1 star of the show just entered our shot and she was the only person talking! General rule of thumb for focus pullers: make sure the person talking is sharp. If a lot of people talk, make sure the star of the show is sharp... So here I was, new to the show, and breaking all the rules at once. But, to me, it felt so damn powerful to stay on Brody’s face to see his reaction as he slowly wakes to Carrie’s words, until he opens his eyes and (eventually) turns around. So I discussed this with Dave and he brought this idea up with director Lesli Linka Glatter and the producer/creator Alex Gansa and we ended up shooting two versions of this scene, one with the focus shifting to Carrie as she enters the frame and one that stayed with Brody. To Dave's credit he fought for my idea and in the end they used my version. That shows you how amazing it is to work with Dave Klein--you’re truly a part of the team.

HYH: Thinking of some iconic Homeland scenes (pretty much all the scenes which left us heartbroken)--like Brody‘s death scene, Quinn driving into a lethal hail of bullets--how much time did you have to prepare these scenes? How do you in the camera and photography department plan for these scenes? How many times do you shoot them before you got the material we see in the final and aired cut?

DM: Brody’s death was rather emotional for the crew as well because that was the very last shooting day of the season. We were shooting all night in Morocco and we had to bid Damian adieu after we wrapped. It was almost the same with Quinn, although we had a few days of shooting left after we killed off Rupert’s character… But Rupert served the crew champagne after the day ended, still bloodied from the scene, which was very sweet…. plus the bubbly was rather good so I didn’t mind killing him off, haha. As far as preparation for these scenes go, it's the same as for any other shot--for me, anyways. I prepare the gear the same way I would for any other scene as reliability is key. The most important part is that the equipment is functioning flawlessly because, in the end, if the camera doesn’t record what’s in front of it… why are we there?

HYH: Homeland’s main cinematographer is David Klein, and you two have worked together on many episodes over the years. Can you describe the working relationship between the two of you? 

DM: I was asked the same questions a few years ago and I have the same answer: it’s a privilege to work with David Klein because you get to work with him and not just for him. There is a fundamental difference. Of course, he’s the boss and all departmental decisions are his to make but he actively involves the camera operators and the focus pullers in the process and that’s what makes it so much fun! Sure, it really does take a while to establish such a good rapport and a working relationship like ours, because it is 100% built on trust. The example I mentioned [earlier] shows that we have each other’s back and that’s when you can get really creative…

HYH: Speaking of the art of cinematography and photography, how would you describe Homeland’s visual/photographic DNA?

DM: That’s a question for David Klein, haha. Of course I have my 2 cents but that’s not for me to answer…

HYH: What's your secret about taking the perfect shot?

DM: Generally speaking, preparation. Hard work beats talent unless talent works hard. The perfect shot is when all the elements come together in synchronized harmony. Think of it as choreography - the actors, the frame, focus and camera platform (hand-held, dolly or Steadicam, etc.)… everything that moves, everything needs to be perfectly in sync to achieve what the director or the DP had in mind and there is a lot that can go wrong. But when it all goes right, it seems effortless. What’s my secret? Easy: Don’t fuck it up. Don’t be the one element that blows the shot.

HYH: You’ve traveled with the Homeland production all over the world -- to South Africa, Germany, Morocco, and several locations in the US. Which trip did you enjoy the most and which one was the hardest work? Why?

DM: I really enjoyed Morocco. And I really disliked Morocco. For clarification, I met my wife in Morocco while shooting the finale for season three there and I will always have fond memories of that time. And I disliked season eight in Morocco, because even though my wife had become a member of the crew by then (she is the script supervisor for season eight), shooting there the second time around was unnecessarily complicated and frustrating for reasons I will not go into detail at this point…. but it really wasn’t much fun.

We loved South Africa a lot, too. That was probably one of my favorite seasons. Not necessarily the scripts but the location.

HYH: Compared to other jobs you did before, what’s different about working on Homeland?

DM: After 7 years (well, on and off) of True Blood I was happy I didn’t have to work with vampires and at night anymore. The spy game turned out to be fun and intriguing but you pay the price for getting to see the world. The biggest challenge was the constant shifts in location. One, because we ship a lot of camera gear around the world which adds a ton of work and stress (carnets, inventory, maintenance, etc.). Two, it’s really hard to find and keep a good crew around and given we were on the road for six years we had to start over almost everywhere we went and train the team to the workflow that Dave and I have had established. I admit, I am quite demanding and finding a crew that could do the job to my expectations in all those locations was not easy. But we ended up making some life-long friends… and probably a handful of enemies too, haha.

HYH: From what we were able to follow on social media, we got the impression that filming season eight has been a long and tough journey, much harder than previous seasons. Is there anything you can share about the reasons why?

DM: Well, if you go into Africa expecting you can shoot an American TV schedule with an international crew within the same time frame and on the same budget... you have to be crazy! But there isn't just one party to blame for the exhausting Moroccan portion of season eight but rather a combination of unfortunate misunderstandings paired with inexperience and a healthy dose of negligence. As they say, “everything that could go wrong, did.”

HYH: Was there ever a scene for which you had just one take to get it right? Which one?

DM: Let’s just say there is going to be an explosion in season eight and we only had one try at it. And we nailed it.

HYH: For the tech nerds among us, what's your favorite camera and objective and which scene you shot with it comes to your mind?

DM: Hands down, the ARRI Alexa Mini. Homeland is a predominantly handheld show in order to keep the tensions high while (subconsciously) keeping the audience always on the edge of [their] seat. If the cameras are handheld the image constantly moves. You can even see/feel the breathing of the camera operators. The Alexa Mini is lightweight yet robust and the sensor is the best money can buy. We used ARRI Master Primes for added sharpness for seasons five, six, seven, and eight, but sprinkled in a few Zeiss Supreme Primes this year to take off a little bit of weight. We also like to use Canon Cinema Zooms for their high quality.

HYH: Butter bei die Fische (Now’s the time for straight talk), why is Homeland still filmed in HD?

DM: Because Showtime wants it that way. I would’ve loved to shoot 4K or with a different aspect ratio or utilize a different sensor size but the people at the helm want to keep it “the way it was.”

HYH: Homeland’s eighth and final season is wrapping up and now airing. How does it feel that the show is coming to an end soon?

DM: It’s bittersweet. I have had some of the best and some of the worst moments of my career on the set of Homeland and I know I will miss it down the road but right now I’m happy that Carrie finally gets to…. Never mind, can’t tell you that, haha. I know I’ll miss it but we’re just exhausted right now.

HYH: What other projects are you working on after Homeland? Any plans yet?

DM: Vacation. No more jobs in 2019 and hopefully a good movie with a good script in 2020. I think after six years of spy TV I want to take a break from the small screen, if possible.

[kevkesblog]

Translation: Kai Havertz portait in ZEIT newspaper (January 2019)

NOTE: Hey guys! This time I tried something new. I translated an exclusive portrait the german weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT did with Kai in January. They interviewed him as well as Kai’s family. Its very candid and has alot of details. I hope you guys like it, since DIE ZEITs writing is usually very difficult - even for germans. And I apologize for spelling errors as usual. 

The original text in German

Kai Havertz: the peace itself

 (January 23, 2019)

People praise Leverkusens national player Kai Havertz, 19, for his serenity with the ball which put him on the radar of many European top clubs. His parents start to realize that he is likely becoming world famous.

By Jörg Kramer

The most promising german football talent these days picked a table very far behind in an restaurant somewhere in Cologne to order himself some spagetti gnocchi – inconspicuous.

There is no star posturing with Kai Havertz. The 19 year old could even go through as a normal university student; with his bright hoodie and somewhat cheap and not even special occurence.

And with his voice, which has this typical regional dialect, without the typical empty phrases that young football player use to often in order to cover up their meaningless sentences. But people know his face by now. So thats why he doesnt sit right next to the entrance.

He belongs to the celebrities of the football scene. European top clubs are scouting the young men in stadiums, team mates from Bayer Leverkusen praising him and forecasting him to have the potential to become a world star.

He already scored nine goals this season, decided some games by his own and played his first games for the national team. Havertz became the centre of his clubs game by playing at the centre midfield. His role only changed slightly and the importance of his role not at all, since Peter Bosz took over as head coach. He views this very relaxed and talks in an restaurant somewhere in the Belgian Quarter of Cologne about Leverkusen being the „perfect place“ in order to develop as a young player. And thats where he wants to give his all for the last half year ahead. Ooops!

His last half year? That was a slip of the tongue of course, he meant to say the next half year. Because his contract with Bayer is still running until 2022 without an exit clause. But things now are developing in a rapid way which runs parallel to his explosive performance currently. Its just a matter of the perfect timing that someone like him will end up going to Barcelona, Manchester or at least Munich – a choice between summer 2019 or summer 2020 maybe.

Havertz walks over his misspelled sentence like nothing happend. Once in Nuremberg in the middle of a turmoil of an rainy game, it seemed as if he stopped – as if he was reconsidering the situation with him having the ball. Like if somebody pressed a ‚Stop‘-button. And he chiped to ball in an cool and unemoitional and scored.

Coaches and team mates are citizing his body language, he says. So he works on looking more aggresive. He even participates on useless discussions between his teammates and referees after controversial decisions on the pitch, in order to get a penalty for the other team or some revenge. But it doesnt really look good him when he does it, he admits – even after a though tackle or when going after the ball. „I’m a player that shines with his tranquility.“ A nice sentence that gives away his elegante style of play.

Havertz remained an artist on the pitch. Every foul is a sign of weakness. Everytime he gets the ball, which is his job as an offensive player, he never runs into his opponents – he anticipates. „I try to imagine, which options my opponent has, what he would do if I were him.“ He then runs with a planned pass way and he gets the ball.

Havertz learned in the past almost two and a half years all systems and tatics of modern football. Starting with a radical system, almost a raid-strategy under coach Roger Schmidt, by which the goal keeper kicked the ball high and it flew wide over the pitch – almost always directly aimed at Havertz‘ head – because he is 1,88 meters tall.

Then the mixed system under Heiko Herrlich. He always had to look for his team mates before he passed. Now with Bosz, a planfull offensive style with flat passing. He runs through all the chapters. The first began on October 15, 2016.

It was a Saturday. A day where the Havertz family from Mariadorf near Aachen still couldnt realize that their youngest son, will probably end up living off football and perhaps even become famous. They cant really believe it up until today, says Anne Havertz, his mother.

On that day – October 15 – Kai was a youth player, in a big house next to the woods in Mariadorf having breakfast – when suddently coach Schmidt called. Lars Bender, professional Bayer-player who was supposed to play against Werder Bremen that evening, got injured and had to quit. Kai had to come to Bremen, immidiately! His mother drove him to Leverkusen. A special shuttle took him to Bremen. His whole family was sitting in front of the TV that night.

Kai was sitting on the bench as expected. Then, during the 83th minute, the commentator saw already more than the viewes and said: now we are experiencing a debut. Kai Havertz was ready to get subbed. In the real Bundesliga. Anne Havertz said: „Oh my god!“.

(Credit: Instagram: kaihavertz29)

Kai’s mother, who worked as a lawyer until she got pregnant with her eldest son, came to the restaurant in Cologne one day after Kai to talk about life as a family of an future world star. She brought her husband – Kai’s father, and her daughter Lea, Kai’s sister. The sister is studying marketing and digital media in the city.

People can reach his father in an emergency by dailing 1-1-0. He is a police officer working at the police station 3 in Cologne-West. He says he is really impressed, about how cool and routinely his football playing son manages post-game interviews and how we stays cool when people recognize him in public and everybody is watching,

The Havertz family is still perplexed about a football world where colleagues of their son, order their own cooks to cook for them at home. And whenever he puts his legs into an special bag in order to regenerate. Almost the whole family – except his oldest brother and the dog – are having apple pie and salate and looking back at the stages of his career, which started at Alemannia Mariadorf. Kai skiped two age-groups. He then played with older players than actually intended. Then he transfered to Bayer Leverkusen. All because the scout was tough but not intrusive like the other scouts. By the age of ten, Bayer drove Kai to training sessions three times a week.

4 year old Kai Havertz (Credit: kicker tv)

He was still among the smallest players in the team by the age of 14. Then suddently - a growth spurt which resultet in issues with his knees and his back. They were responsible for Kai loosing his fixed spot on the team. This was also the hard time because he left home and moved to Leverkusen. The club doesnt have an academy so he stayed at a guest family – the family of the stadium announcer from Bayer, together with two other players. A year later he moved into an apartement with his older brother, until Jan had to move to Nuremberg – he has a marketing job at adidas now.

A lasting memory: endless discussions within the Havertz family about the overarching question: does the boy need a german high school diploma (Abitur)? Will he pass the tests when he is travelling around with his professional teammates?

Kai Havertz attended the Landrat-Lucas-Gymnasium. An elite school of sports where he could skip classes in the morning for training. But he always had to catch up school stuff from the day. Once he played with Leverkusen at the DFB-Cup at Sportfreunde Lotte. He was subbed late, it went into penalities and after the team was eliminated from the cup he arrived home late – at 3am. At 8am he had an English exam.

The family became a team. His mother and sister helped him with biology exams. One day the young football player said to his family, he has no power left anymore. „But he never said: I want to quit!“ his mother insists. This was a breaking point by which his parents thought about quitting and stop pursuing the Abitur. But suddently coach Roger Schmidt intervened and said Kai should pull through. The whole Bayer team will support him.

The Abitur became a factor of will power, a test of life. The school supervisor of Bayer, a former athlete herself, said something memorable: it will shape his whole life if Kai quits school now. Whenever something becomes difficult, if something goes beyond your pain barrier, he will always have this option to quit in his head, that you can just give up.

Kai Havertz choose the pain, the Abitur. Now he will always choose the hard way if the theory of his supervisor holds.

On this January afternoon in Cologne, he is being asked what other job he would have picked if it wasnt for football. He likes the job as a barber, for men’s hairstyle. He smiles. Some curls are hanging on his forehead from left to right. A Barber. He wouldnt have needed an Abitur for that.

He is a genius at football. He won the German junior championship with Bayer and scored 19 goals in 29 games. He got awarded as a Under-19-player as the best of his age with the Fritz-Walter-medal from the DFB. Kai made it onto second place on his position after Marco Reus from Dortmund in a list of the football magazine „kicker“ which they publish every half year – but seven spaces in front of Munich’s Thomas Müller.

Coach Heiko Herrlich says Havertz reminds him of Toni Kroos. Football critic Reiner Calmund compared him to Franz Beckenbauer. His head goals remind him of Michael Ballack. Mesut Özil was always Kai Havertz idol, because of his tranquility with the ball and his ability to read a game. Sometimes Kai misses the final conciseness in front of the goal, which was visible after the recent 0-1 loss against Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Having the ability to remain calm, even when you get tackled is the result of a deep confidence in your own strenghts: screen your surrondings – in short time if necessary – and then make the right decision. Joachim Löw praises Havertz „good orientation“, something he said about Özil years ago. What he means is a certain sense of space on the pitch – an inner compass. Something that has to do with attention and memory. Havertz, who is a master of navigation, doesn’t even need practice. Some creatures have special senses and are able to find orientation on earth through a magnetic field – like migratory birds for example.

Kai Havertz likes watching Champions League games. And while watching them, there is always a wish inside him to participate as well whenever the big games of the quarter- and semifinals are on. „I think you can only reach that level by going to a top club at some point“ he says.

Mother, father and sister Havertz say, they don’t expect things from him. Something they never did in his career. But if someone asks them, who will follow Kai in a foreign country to get used to everything – they start to think about it. They would alternate. One week his mother would visit, next week his sister and then his grandmother maybe.

Kai Havertz still has a room back home in Mariadorf. Back in the day he used to have posters from FC Barcelona. So it could happen maybe one day, that youngsters in Barcelona will have posters with Kai Havertz on them.

++END++

[anxiety-trademark]

The week in review:

Raw 11/16 NXT 11/18 NXT UK 11/19 Smackdown 11/20 Survivor Series 11/22

Raw:

Appreciate Lana providing logic to the creation of this match.

“Is this a Disney movie” lmao.

Honestly Shayna works better as a henchman than as a final boss.

Love Lana’s theme btw.

rip Mandy.

Ugly kick by Asuka. Not a compliment.

hahaha Lana tagged herself into the match while Shayna had Asuka in the clutch. hahahahah.

“You suck, get out” rofl.

Asuka you’re trash for not saving Lana. Truly.

“I’m actually really proud of you, you showed a lot of courage tonight.” Nia is funny. A bitch and a bully, sure, but funny.

There’s number 9. rip.

First of all, Dana’s shaky interview was going really well, and I wish they had let her finish it cuz god knows she needs the practice.

Second, WHY IS MIA YIM ATTACKING DANA OF ALL PEOPLE?

I’m not sorry, I shamelessly love Bray and Alexa together, goodbye.

“Your word is... jackass” lmaooo why is he even doing a spelling bee to prep for this match.

rip Rambling Rabbit for the 38th time.

What makes him being killed so damn demented is not only the way he exhibits agony and suffering as he dies, but the way they STAND BY LAUGHING UNCONTROLLABLY. This is the definition of sociopathy.

“Bullseye!” “More like... Rabbit’s heart!” *continues laughing hysterically* jfc.

Really love how Alexa puts her hand beneath her chin and then waves. That goes along with her characteristics developed since the fairy gimmick in nxt back in 2014/2015, to the cosplaying mean girl in 2016/2017/2018, to the babyface in 2019/2020. Also adds another layer with her gloves. Love that.

Nikki’s wandering around looking for Alexa, when clearly she should be looking for the Firefly Funhouse. I suggest asking Seth or Randy.

“Friends never give up on each other,” they also don’t give each other ultimatums cuz that’s toxic af, but okay.

She keeps running her mouth about Fiend and I can already see Alexa demolishing her for it.

LOVE the cohesion in going from one segment to the other as Sarah runs around looking for an interview. Fitting since that’s obviously her job, but it went together smoothly. They really come off as tmz lol.

I appreciate how Miz doesn’t want to fuck with Bray cuz he knows Bray will just torment his family lol. I also appreciate his reasoning because he’s a true opportunist. he doesn’t want to exhaust himself with this match cuz he might cash in later.

Love Alexa’s remixed theme, it’s jarring af. Walking red flag btw.

Oh nooo Nikki what are you doinggg.

I’m not a fan of how Nikki sold this interaction. Didn’t feel natural at all.

OH SHIT the sound of that slap, oof.

Oh my god I love how Bray came out and glared at Nikki. FANTASTIC. Absolute gold. Then he just smiles at Alexa as she takes his arm to escort him to the ring.

And the way the camera focuses back on Miz and Morrison... Miz’s face... I can’t, this is tremendous tbh. What a great story to run throughout this week’s Raw.

lmfao the way Alexa stuck her head between the ropes to scare Morrison. Ugh this pairing is easily my favorite thing in wwe rn.

Interesting, so Bray protects her. A fair duo.

I will never not cringe at watching people pretend to break someone’s neck by twisting it to the side. If I was a wrestler, that’s a move I would NEVER allow to be done to me.

On the plus side, Alexa took out Morrison and he sold it really fucking well. On the negative, it seems that distracted Bray as he’s more concerned for her well being now.

Oh my god the way Alexa reappears from behind the barricade. Creepy as shit.

Love watching her “balance” on the barricade considering she was one hell of a gymnast in her day.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for watching Lacey progress in the ring, cuz I think her character work is just fantastic, but holy shit what a downgrade going from Mandy and Dana to Lacey and Peyton.

Why is she excited? Why is it exciting to fight Sasha? Maybe Asuka should’ve taken that match a bit more seriously, considering the outcome. But I’m jumping ahead of myself.

“No one is ready for Asuka,” except for Charlotte, Becky, Shayna, Alexa, Sasha...

I do appreciate how Lacey isn’t scared of anyone while Peyton is wary of literally everyone. That’s good. Nia has a point though, y’all could’ve used Mandy. I guess it doesn’t matter though, considering the outcome. Jumping ahead of myself again.

“Worst idea since Quibi” lmao shots fired.

*Bonus* Peyton/Lacey online exclusive: they vibe real well off script. Peyton made points saying she can’t wait to teach Lacey how to be on a team. That’s valid cuz Lacey is NOT much of a team player. Points to Lacey though, she’s funny as hell.

Highlight: Alexa Bliss

---

NXT:

Awesome hearing War Pigs during that Shotzi promo. Is that the official theme song for War Games? If so, baller to wwe for shelling that cash out.

I’m guessing Shotzi was fixing her tank? Was that the premise? Regardless, the setting was different and interesting.

I really like the fencing around nxt’s ringside. Fits with the grungy “indie” feel.

God I’m gonna have to watch Candice defeat Kayden and Kacy aren’t I?

Indi bought the Garganos a flat screen tv? :/ mk. What does she have to gain? Johnny was an AWFUL champion and Candice has never even held gold. What is she hoping to accomplish?

“Indi is gaining one of the best mentors in the nxt locker room” lmao WHAT.

omg Kacy and Kayden are so fucking entertaining, I feel like I say this every time I watch them. All tag teams need to TAKE. NOTES. Look at that cohesion and teamwork. Whew.

Hold on don’t try to retcon Tegan as leaving Candice’s side. I hate Tegan even more than I hate Candice, and she was a shite friend to Dakota by proxy of being a spineless dweeb, but do not try to paint Candice as the victim in her feud with Tegan.

I know nothing about the Dakota/Candice friendship but I’d go ahead and blame Dakota since she’s hella douchey lmao.

Imagine thinking Indi is an upgrade from Dakota. Commentary is super funny and distracting tonight lmao.

Was that not a flatliner? Sure looked like an intended flatliner.

So Kacy attempts to kill herself in the process of taking out Indi and none of the cameras caught it? :/ we still using interns looking for college credits in production? Is that what’s happening??

Vic is kind of an awful commentator in his actual calls. “Nice suplex, almost a brainbuster” better hope that was a brainbuster cuz if not, that was the saddest fucking suplex I’ve ever seen in my life.

So Kacy almost kills herself using offense against Indi and Indi was coherent first? Ugh anyway.

Why do we have to listen to Ember speak every week? What a terrible idea.

So now she’s gonna be nxt’s savior by getting rid of Dakota and Raquel? Oh for fuck’s sake.

Why does she have fucking soda tabs on her gear still.

Why is she teaming with Toni. I THOUGHT THEY WERE HEELS. Seriously, am I the dumb one? Am I the one who needs their hand held? Has Ember not been acting like a heel since she returned? Am I the only one confused about Toni’s alignment??

“We’ve fallen victim to the numbers game” WHEN have you fallen victim to the numbers game, Toni? WHO WROTE THIS.

I know nxt wants me to give a shit about Ember and Toni, but good luck making me care about anyone down there more than Dakota or Rhea.

I would really appreciate it if Dakota was moved up to the MR without actually showing any dissention from Raquel.

Dakota calls a lot of matches, I’ve noticed. Pro shit.

Toni’s German suplexes are amazing if she’s actually never hurt anyone, cuz MAN they look gnarly af.

Gorgeous tornado ddt by Ember. Nice speed, great handling by Raquel.

Don’t Dakota and Toni have quite the history? From UK?

Today in wrestling commentary: Vic cannot tell the difference between left and right.

Whoa I just noticed Dakota isn’t wearing her knee brace. That’s kind of monumental, right? Isn’t that a big deal? I feel like that’s a big deal.

Honestly I might like Toni more than Ember. She comes off as a lot more likable since her move to nxt.

Oh Christ I gotta see Candice again. 

Hi why isn’t this main eventing? Do Rhea fucking Ripley and Io fucking Shirai not deserve it?? For real???

Hate it when refs hold the title up crooked. Noob.

Holy shit Io’s speed is TOP. TIER. Whew.

And then slips on the turnbuckle, sad. Could’ve been worse, could’ve been a Shotzi wipeout (and that’s what I’m gonna call it from now on)

What Io has in speed, Rhea has in strength, these are the facts.

Why did Vic cut Beth off by saying exactly what she was in the middle of saying? Vic’s losing a lot of points tonight tbh.

oof gnarly German suplex off the second rope by Io.

Oh my, Rhea’s ear is covered in blood. Must have punctured her ear with an earring. Rough. I say this as someone who has her fair share of piercings: it BOGGLES MY MIND why any of these women wrestle with their piercings in lmao. No ma’am.

Brutal match, whew.

Rhea wiped her own blood on her face.

There are some aprons spots with Rhea obviously waiting around that needed some work.

Rhea can sell, certainly, but her screaming is way too dramatic at times. Most notably at wm in the empty arena, but this match is a close second. Almost borders on annoying.

Niiice Rhea adding a nice vortex spin on the tail end of her cloverleaf submission. Points. Keep that.

Oh that Riptide attempt countered into an armbar by Io. BEAUTIFUL.

I liked that. Io goes for the 619 in the middle rope, Rhea ducks. Io goes for the 619 on the lower rope, Rhea dodges. Io strikes her a couple times, Rhea falls to the opposite side of the ring and Io proceeds to hit the 619. Good stuff.

Lol Io’s smiling at Rhea kicking out of the missile dropkick.

Nice flip off of Rhea’s clothesline but I’m not a fan of Io landing her moonsault on her feet. That’s not really her M.O.

Fucking spiked Rhea with a ddt by countering the Riptide again. That’s a solid champion, has her opponent completely scouted.

Beautiful sunset flip powerbomb through the ropes with Rhea landing through a table. Would’ve been cool if Rhea had let go right away, though.

In kf, I give points to Rhea for dragging herself from the rubble just to eat a clean pin. Great match.

Highlight: Io vs Rhea

---

NXT UK:

Wow robbing me of KLR’s entrance. Guess Piper is officially the heel.

Quit calling her a “new” Piper Niven. A slight aggression is hardly “new”

BE CAREFUL WITH KLR’S SNAZZY COAT.

Y’all got tape out? Have we learned nothing from Bayley/Sasha hiac?

CHUCKED A FUCKING RING BELL INTO PIPER’S HEAD LMAO

Ugh headbutt that takes everyone out. Tsk.

Ric who? Charlotte’s dad??

Who do I gotta pay to see KLR vs Becky Lynch in an extreme match?!

KLR rolls away after that fisherman buster on the outside. Smart points.

Alright listen I’m on KLR’s side but WHY IS JINNY OUT HERE

Lol smacked Piper with a ‘no entry’ sign. Haha.

And Piper broke a sign over KLR’s head, followed by puns from the commentators.

rip random guitar.

Match doesn’t have any creative spots really, but they sure know how to utilize random objects.

BRO YOU CAN’T TAKE A STEEL PIPE TO HER KNEE ON CONCRETE, THAT’S HELLA RUDE. KLR lit a fire under Piper’s ass and Piper’s trying to retire her as thanks. Super, super rude.

Fuck her up fam, I don’t even feel bad.

??? Did KLR even land through the table or did she just land straight onto the fucking concrete? Jesus Christ man. No, she didn’t, she slid into the second table and just ate the floor. Oh my god. IS SHE OKAY??

Highlight: That vicious ending gained KLR a lot of respect in my eyes

---

Smackdown:

Imagine being surprised that Adam chose the longest reigning SD women’s champion as his team captain. Granted she’s probably despised by everyone, but she’s got the pedigree, come on now.

Look how good Bayley looks. Whew.

“You know what time it is? Bayley time.” she’s so annoying rofl.

Wow riveting stuff, I have zero comments about this 2 min match tbh.

Go stand in the ring with your damn captain, Bianca.

Lmao Bayley allergic to hugs now. Character progression.

It’s quite the team I’m ngl. I just wish we could’ve wrapped up this Sasha/Bayley shit like... months ago so we could enjoy captain Bayley for a bit longer. Gonna burn through this in one damn episode. It’s a bummer.

*Bonus* Nattie’s online exclusive: “I sailed through some rough waters [...] I’m smart, I’m sexy, I’m funny, I’m rich” She is funny, I will give her that.

We’re getting Asuka/Sasha face to face? For real? Okay.

Cute, Sasha’s smile toward Asuka actually looked genuine. I miss when Sasha seemed genuine. It’s like Bayley killed that part of her.

“Michael are you forgetting what time it is?” BAYLEY TI-- “It is boss time, baby!” welp my mistake.

I’ve played Asuka’s dialogue to Sasha 3x and I still have no idea what she was saying because of her ridiculous fucking dancing and animation. I’m tired. Bayley come take her title.

Omg now she’s doing “you can’t see me” SHE ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING I absolutely despise her being champion.

Actually she is ready for Asuka, and I’m gonna take great joy in watching her win this Sunday. Sasha is hella unlikeable until the moment that bell rings, then she’s a god. Is what it is.

Booo Sasha was actually doing good on the mic, how dare you ruin that, Carmella.

Asuka is awful. Even Becky and Ronda fought off common enemies once upon a time. Asuka helps legit N O B O D Y. Awful champion.

Highlight: Captain Bayley

---

Survivor Series:

Love Sasha’s gear.

Asuka kicked out at one, quick everyone cry about her selling. Oh wait she’s not Charlotte, my bad.

Beautiful attempt at an armbar by Sasha, whew.

Sasha is so good at this whole wrestling thing lol.

Nice pop up from that backstabber.

Right and in contrast, Asuka is an amazing striker.

Oh a codebreaker to Sasha as she dangles from the second rope. Gorgeous move.

Ahhhh the blue haired god got the job done. I knew she’d win but it’s so gratifying to see.

Not much to say about the match. The spots weren’t brutal or super creative/innovative, but it had GREAT back and forth and really showcased their chemistry in technical wrestling. Also might very well have been the best match they’ve had yet, seemed pretty short though. Still, an enjoyable watch. Good for Sasha.

Lol the disdain in Nia’s face as she looks at Lana.

Look, Bayley’s arm band says ‘captain’ so she’s the captain.

Love seeing how creative people get with their gear at Survivor Series, as opposed to just throwing a damn brand shirt on. Looking at you, 2016.

One thing I’ve learned about Bayley is if she calls you sister, she genuinely likes you behind the scenes. So glad to see Lacey is in her good graces.

Omg Lacey learned how to do a kip up, everybody clap.

Love how the light shines off of Nattie’s gear. Got rainbows popping.

Squatting while stalling a suplex, and synchronized kip ups. Bianca and Nattie are fun.

“Bayley and the great Becky Lynch,” Oh shit, peep that RESPECT we’re putting on her name now? She gets ‘the great’?? wwe finally seeing her on the same level as ‘the great’ Charlotte Flair??? I am shook. Good for her, fucking deserved (also poor Bayley rofl)

Lana tags herself in again lmao. Nia 5 seconds from killing her. Look, Lana tries. Let her try.

I can’t breathe. she been put in timeout.

(referring to a move by Peyton) “I give that a perfect 10“ PPPFFFFTTTT

What a bump by Bayley; a suplex off the top rope onto the entire roster on the outside, and what a great locker room leader to be checking on everyone IMMEDIATELY as if she didn’t just fucking take a massive bump. Also poor Lana standing over there watching the fun lol.

Now I already knew Peyton pinned Bayley cuz of the outrage by Bayley fans who deemed her “buried” afterward, but I think it was a poor decision to have Peyton get that pin. Peyton sucks, not sorry. Have Lacey get that pin before Peyton. Actually, have Lana get that pin before Peyton.

Not sure what Nattie was going for with that submission to Peyton, but she improvised real quick. So points.

Doesn’t Nattie usually wear wrist guards? Awkward seeing her without them.

Goes for a sharpshooter on a woman who’s not even active rn. I’m removing her points lmao.

I legit never get to see Bianca’s 450 splash and you know what? Fuck y’all.

Well Bianca’s a great partner to do a Spanish Fly with so, good on Lacey.

That’s an interesting elimination. Ruby would’ve pinned Shayna as she had rolled back and reversed the Clutch, but the ref was distracted by Nia. By the time he started counting, Ruby had passed out. Interesting.

Crucifix Bomb by Liv eliminates Lacey, fucking dope.

Having Bianca as the last survivor on her team is great for Bianca. This is a compliment from management.

BEAUTIFUL catch by Shayna into the Clutch. Wow that was nice.

Ah we redoing the spot from their Takeover match, IE my introduction to Bianca. Solid.

Oh this is good. Bianca passed out from the Clutch while on the ropes so Shayna was disqualified. Nia drug Bianca out of the ring to put her through the announce table and they started brawling until they were both counted out. 

Again, I knew Lana was the sole survivor but seeing it happen is fucking hilarious. Nice protection for Bianca though, and seeing Nia this pissed off is so cathartic.

Highlight: Bianca was the real standout imo

---

*Survivor Series shined the brightest as we had both a great technical match, and a fun, entertaining multiwoman match filled with shenanigans. If that’s a cop out, then I’ll give it to NXT this week. 

[genderfluidgothwitch]

I challenge you to do the whole fruit ask list B)

Oh geez lol. I had to pull out my laptop for this one. Let’s do this thing!

peach: do you have any piercings or tattoos?

I have two piercings in each ear, just like the normal ones in the earlobe. I want to get tattoos, but they cost lots of money that I don’t have.

raspberry: favorite flower?

I have a strange fondness for tiger lilies. I think it’s because they grow wild near my house and it’s one of the few naturally orange flowers in the north east. Orange was my favorite color when I was younger.

lemon: do you have any pets? what are their names?

Oh boy oh boy oh boy I have a pit bull/ German shepherd mix rescue dog names Tsula (pronounced soo-lah), and three shorthair cats, Maya (who is exclusively mine, she’s all black, down to her nose and toe beans), Sweet Pea (Maya’s mother, calico, and a fat asshole), and Battle Cat (the skinniest little pain in the butt who loves head skritches and everyone who had ever met him)

mango: what is your trademark?

My trademark? As in what do I wear or do all of the time? Well, I’m a sarcastic little asshole, jot that down. I’m also unapologetically me. I hold my morals, I keep to myself, and I love who I love without fear.

passion fruit: how would you describe your style?

Soft Grunge Emo with a side of Whatever the Fuck is Comfortable.

pineapple: sexual orientation?

Pansexual. Or as I call it, “Everybody’s hot can I fuck you all?”

strawberry: favorite desserts?

Reese’s peanut butter cups or chocolate ice cream with crushed oreos (like half a package of crushed oreos) on top. Also my friend Glenn’s cookies and my friend Nick’s strawberry shortcake. Nothing compares. 

cherry: can you play any musical instruments or can you sing?

Hell yeah! I play guitar (not that I’ve had much time to play lately, sadly) and I sing a whole bunch. I’ll sing to myself mostly, but I also sing to my friend’s siblings and to the kids I babysit. I kind of have a thing where I “give” the kids a song that I sing for them. This two year old I babysit claimed “How Long” by the Eagles when I sang it quietly so she would nap. It was pretty cute, considering the kids only listen to classical music when their mother is around. 

grape: if you could take a vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go?

I want to visit my friend in all the corners of the world. I also want to go to Great Britain again, or camping somewhere where I could go stargazing, preferably when there’s also a meteor shower happening. 

banana: favorite horror movies?

Well, I’m not sure if this really counts, but I love Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Devil’s Carnival. I need to rewatch both. I also like Oculus. Trouble is, I haven’t watched a lot of horror movies. I love them, but I don’t like watching them alone. I also tend to point out scientific inaccuracies so people don’t want to watch them with me. It’s quite the conundrum. Also, I will NEVER see IT. Clowns creep me out. I do really enjoy American Horror Story though (I know it’s TV but still).

blackberry: is your life an action film, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or drama?

My live is a shitty B movie that no one watches, are you kidding me? 

pomegranate: when do you feel the most confident?

Ha ha ha ha what the fuck is confidence? I guess it would be when my professors make note of how good my writing is. I had this one amazing guy for creative writing last semester, so I took his studies in young adult fiction class this semester. I got an A+ on my midterm because of a really well written essay (don’t know how that happened), as well as an A on a paper I almost completely bullshitted the night before it was due. He actually read a portion out loud to the class because I worded something about maturity very well (heh, I based it on my real life experiences). He’s always complimenting me, and keeps asking how my book is going (terribly, lol). So I guess I feel most confident when people compliment my work, not me.

cantaloupe: what are your parents' names?

I feel like this is really awkward personal information and they wouldn’t want me sharing it on the interwebs... They both start with D, though. 

guava: dark & dramatic makeup or natural makeup?

Hella dark and dramatic. Remember that whole “Soft Grunge Emo” thing? Yeah. I lay that eyeliner on fierce. 

tangelo: if you could be any mythical creature, which would you be?

A merman or a centaur. I dig the freedom, and the idea of being a mermaid has always been appealing to me. But could I be a wizard? Is that a mythical creature, even if it’s also human?

plum: favorite clothing brands?

I... I buy my clothes from walmart or I get a shit ton of hand me downs... Or I go to goodwill... Like I don’t have a clue what brands I like. “Comfy”. There we go.

coconut: favorite perfume?

I don’t wear perfume so I will replace this with my favorite candle scents: woodsy or beach-y. I also like stuff that smells like that fresh rain scent.

lychee: satin or lace?

Both. Although I do lean more towards lace. 

blueberry: what do you want to dress up as for halloween?

I’m probably gonna wear my Deadpool onesie not gonna lie. I also have a Rapunzel dress I made in high school, as well as a red velvet cape. So I don’t know. I’m not big on dressing up. 

apple: what do you use more, tumblr or twitter?

Tumblr. I can’t escape the hellsite. I had a twitter for like... three months and I only tweeted like a dozen times. One of my friends from high school manages to find my account and I’m very concerned because I made sure not to talk to most of my graduating class. But anyways I stopped using it ages ago. I really only followed comedians on it.

kiwi: what's something that fascinates you?

People. I hate them, at least, most of them, but they fascinate me. However I refuse to become an anthropologist. I am hoping to be a medical type person, ideally a doctor. I’m basically Dr. House. 

watermelon: do you have a job? if so, what is your job title?

I’m a freaking cashier at a grocery store chain in the north east. That’s my job title.

papaya: what song describes your aesthetic?

I’m not really sure. My aesthetic is so jumbled, and I listen mostly to classic rock music, so the two don’t really coincide much. 

cranberry: favorite time of the day; morning, afternoon, dusk, or night?

Night, by far. It’s peaceful then.

nectarine: would you consider yourself an emotional person?

Yes and no. I feel very strongly when I do feel. Trouble is, most of the time, I don’t feel. 

orange: do you have long eyelashes?

Nope. 

apricot: what do you do when you're sad?

Cry. Listen to music. Talk to my best friend. I think he wishes I would talk to other people sometimes lol. But mostly I keep to myself. 

star fruit: favorite sea creature?

Octopi. I love their intelligent natures. 

dragonfruit: do you drink alcohol?

Yep. I go for IPAs and vodka. Probably vodka more than beer now, but I’ll take what I can get. 

Thank’s for this! It was really fun to answer. 

[sapphoesie]

11 Questions Tag - Part III

Thanks to the lovely @starzablaze @captain-timetraveldreamer @readinglikewildfire  for tagging me!

1. Favorite smell? Cinnamon 2. Music preferences, and recs, if any. I have really eclectic music tastes and like a tonne of stuff. 3. If you were a famous personality, what would your most celebrated quote be? I don’t tend to remember the memorable stuff I say 😂 4. Favorite weather and favorite season. 15-20 degrees Celsius and Spring 5. Favorite beverage? Tea! (yorkshire tea) 6. Name 5 of your hobbies. Traveling, writing, bullet journaling and regular journaling, people-watching and reading of course. 7. What do you do when you’re sad or royally pissed? I answered this question for sad in Part II so I’ll just say what I do when I’m pissed. I don’t get angry that easily but when I do I need to vent because I’m hate confrontations and I’d always rather calm myself down then start fights. 8. Ideal s/o Intelligent, kind, caring, honest, funny and thoughtful. 9. Moon or stars? Why? Stars because you can almost always seen the moon but the seeing the stars is more special. Also, there’s a meteor shower (The Perseids) every year for a few days around the time of my birthday so every single year since I was little I’ve sat and watched the shooting stars on my birthday with my friends or parents and made a bunch of additional birthday wishes so I’ve always loved the stars. 10. When did you join Tumblr and why? Ages ago! Probably 5-6 years ago I don’t even remember. I had an aesthetic blog first and then got into fandom and just tried out loads of things. I started posting on this blog in March of this year though because I had the biggest book hangover after reading ACOMAF and knew I had to delve into the depths of Tumblr for fanart and fic because I was already trash  11. Eye and hair color + nature? Eye colour - hazel; Hair colour - silvery white (but my natural hair colour is light brown)

1. Dusk or Dawn and why? Dusk! Dawn kinda creeps up on you really slowly but the sun puts on a real show at twilight and it’s pretty hard to ignore. I sit in silence and watch at least 2 minutes of the sunset almost every single day. 2. Are you a tea or coffee kind of person? Tea 3. A story of a mischief done by you in your childhood. I skipped school when I was 9, before I even knew what skipping school was. I hated English class so I convinced a bunch of my friends not to go to our English class which was our last one for the day. We told the rest of our classmates that they were giving out free toys in the school shop so we could leave without being seen and for some reason they believed us and went except for this one girl who stayed behind, saw us leave and told on us afterwards. When the parent teacher conference happened, the parents of all the other kids who had cut class knew about it but my mum was the only one who had no idea because I never told her. Needless to say she was angry 😂 4. If you were given a wish what would you wish for? To adapt to life in Australia quickly and easily and to have fun on my year abroad before I go back home. 5. What do you wish to change about yourself and the world? I wish to be less harsh and critical and demanding of myself and I wish the world was more kind and empathetic.  6. Outdoor attire preferences?(fancy) As in formal wear? Chiffon, satin or silk are my go to fabrics because they kind of flow really nicely over every curve. I like pretty classic cuts, tight at the waist, flowing down and with more of a plunging neckline.  7. Which book character do you want to be your other half and why? I think either Dorian Havilliard, Cassian or Julian Blackthorn. They are all kind, compassionate, intelligent and loyal. 8. What would you do if you were given a million dollars? I’ve answered this in part I so I’ll just skip it now 9. Favourite colour and eye colour I don’t really have a favourite colour but I’ll say blue and favourite eye colour is blue too. 10. If you had to choose between your family and boyfriend, who would you choose? Family. 11. Favourite TV show and rec Friends, Parks and Rec, the Office, Game of Thrones.

1. Do you have any piercings or tattoos, what are they? I don’t have any tattoos but I have 5 piercings: four lobe piercings, two in each ear and a helix piercing. 2. Who is your style icon? Alexa Chung. Emily Ratajkowski. Jane Birkin. Vanessa Hudgens. Orion Carloto. Kate La Vie. (do yourself a favour and look these last two up on insta because they are so fab!) 3. Are you a night shower or a morning shower person? Night shower. 4. What do you study at school if you are at school? If you’re not at school what do you do instead? I’m at university and I study (broadcast) journalism. 5. Do you speak multiple languages? What are they? I’m fluent in English and Romanian, intermediate in French, can understand a lot of Italian and know a bunch of random words and phrases in so many other languages like Spanish, German or Japanese because I love linguistics so much! 6. What do you like most about where you live? I normally live in the UK but I’ve just moved 2 days ago and I didn’t time to see much of the new country where I live now so I’m going to say what I like best about the UK which is the weather. I bitch and moan about it all the time but as someone who’s lived in places where it gets really hot or really cold, the English weather is pretty decent most of the time. 7. Favorite piece of jewellery, why? My pandora bracelet. I’ve had it for 4 years now and worn it every single day. Every charm has been a gift and it has a special meaning to me. 8.  Whats one random fact about yourself? I get pins and needles in my limbs extremely easily. 9. TOG or ACOTAR? UGH! How can I choose?! ACOTAR just because I’ve read ACOWAR last and it’s more recent and fresh in my mind. 10. Do you like fantasy books with a lot of romance or does it not really matter to you? I love romance so I prefer if the book has loads of romance in it but I don’t read books with a romance element exclusively. 11. Favorite color! I don’t really have one but blue I guess.

I tag: @wpbianca99 @cass-ian @cassianandfenrysaremyboyos @highfaenesta @highlady-casandra @ultimaterowan @ships-and-saints @azrielsiphons

1. If you could only do three of these for the rest of your life which would you choose: reading, writing, dancing, singing, watching TV/films, playing sports, travelling. 2. What’s your most prized possession? 3. What’s one thing everyone should have? 4. How do you unwind after a long day? 5. What are 3 pet peeves of yours? 6. If you don’t like a book do you stop reading it or do you persist in the hopes that it will get better? 7. What’s the most beautiful place you’ve seen? 8. What’s a name you really like that you’d use for a character or future child? 9. What’s one thing you wish you had the courage to do? 10. What’s the nicest compliment you’ve ever received? 11. Have you ever done a random act of kindness or had a stranger do one for you?

[justholdinghandsok]

Gillian's interview :)

submission by @melissascullysmessybun . Thank you so so much for translating this interview for us!

The truth is out there

I had no idea British rule in India lasted for over 300 years, and for that period of time lives of millions people were in the hand of very few people.

Berlin – I today’s world, there is something that’s been called The Scully effect. The Scully effect is a phenomenon initiated by worldwide famous fictional character Dana Scully, who inspired many young women to pursue careers in science, medicine and the law enforcement and as a result brought a perceptible increase in the number of women in those fields. Dana Scully is a character from worldwide popular TV series, The X files, and the person who brought Scully to life is a tiny (petite) woman, actress Gillian Anderson.

Scully forever changed the life and career of this actress, born (1968) and raised in Chicago (IL), who later moved to UK, where she still lives. Single mother of a three children (from two husbands), she writes, starers in theater, movies and TV series and she is actively engage in charitable and humanitarian work, especially within Neurofibromatosis network (from which her brother Aaron died) and the organization for sustainability education in South Africa.

But even after all those roles Anderson played in years after the show ended, it seems like she can’t escape the ghost of Scully. That fact was also visible at the premiere of her latest movie, The Viceroy’s House, directed by British director of Indian origin Gurinder Chadha, in which Anderson very convincingly embodied the character of Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten ofBurma, socialist and advocate for labor rights. Edwina was a wife of Louis Mountbatten, king’s relative and the last Viceroy in India, who represented the Crown when India declared independence in 1947, which divided the territory into two countries, India and Pakistan, while the violence that followed the political moves killed over 200 000 people.

Exclusively for Politica, Gillian Anderson talks about the challenges of portraying the historical character, price of being popular, Brexit and the sudden discomfort it brought to her and her family…

Press: What was it like to connect to the historical character from today’s perspective?

Gillian: It was very easy, she was very likeableperson. I was surprised how much respect I’ve grown to have for her, after I’ve read her biography, the details from her early life, her activism and how much she was involved in war, and the events that led to The Partition of India. It’s always a good thing when you fall in love with the character. It helps you to be convincing and to do your job as best as you can. Forest Whitaker did the same, when he played Idi Amin (Gillian was his partner in the movie (she was not, lady didn’t do her homework)), and Forest believed that Amin’s motivation was justice, ha, ha.

P: How much did you know about historical events that led to The Partition of India before you took the role?

G: Not much, really. Most of the things were a lessions for me. I don’t think I even knew British rule in India lasted for over 300 years, and for that period of time lives of millions people were in the hand of very few people. It wasn’t a part of my education, it wasn’t something we’ve learn at school. But all of those new information, the fact that the small amount of people had power over millions of people. It had a very big impact on me.

P: What was the greatest challenge in Edwina’s character?

G: From technical point, probably her accent. She had a very posh accent and it took a lot of time for me to learn how to move and shape my lips so I could spontaneously speak the way she did. After the premiere, mother of one of our producers congratulate me and said: Great concentration! And basically that’s what it was: a lot of concentration so you don’t make a mistake.

P: You’ve managed to achieve the physically resemblance as well?

G: That was a challenge of a different kind. She had a sort of dislocated hips, so her entire body was somehow pushed forward. That forced her back to bend and her shoulders were stiff. It was very important for me figure out the way she moved, the way she walked. Edwina was a very active woman, the hostess of this huge palace, with a lot of stairs. Plus, she was taller than me, I’ve noticed that while I was watching archival footage. It was very exciting trying to overcome that, and to make the physical

appearance credible. Long after the shooting was over, I would caught myself walking like her, with my hips forward and my back shrugged. It took awhile to get things back to normal.

P: Edwina did a lot trying to find the way to prevent the conflict between the Muslim and Hindu populations?

G: She did, yes. She was restless, she was always on the field, in the conflict zones, trying to make people realize the need of peaceful cohabitation, the value of compromise. She was strongly against discrimination of any kind. She really did a lot. She was in contact with Nehru, Gandhi, the Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, she often advised her husband…

P: Some sources say that she and Nehru had an affair, but the movie is not exploring that.

G: Yeah, I’ve read about that, but I really can’t say I’m sure it’s true. A lot of people in Britain didn’t appreciate her closeness to people from India, and, even more, they were against all the changes she made when she stepped in Viceroy’s palace. So maybe that’s where the story about their affair originated from.

P: She was very influential, the real proof of that behind every successful man stands a woman?

G: Yeah, but there is also a saying that the wives of powerful and genius men often go crazy. In real life it might be true, but not necessarily. There are examples of very influential and powerful first ladies, wives of US presidents.

P: As an American living in the UK, do you understand the fascination with the Royal Family? Or do you share it?

G: Hm, I do have a lot of respect for the challenges of neutrality, which is also part of the monarchy. And there is also a question of having strong leader as a head of the country and what happens when you don’t. So when you watch everything that’s been going on in the UK, with Brexit and everything, the existence of the crown became a basis of security and mental health.

P: Where you personally affected by Brexit?

G: The irony is: my daughter has a German passport, her father is German. She lives u UK, she goes to school there, so now the Brexit raised a questions like what does it all (the facts that she has a German passport but lived long in UK and is active student there) mean and will happen to her. It affects her, and we are all concerned. The final result of Brexit is yet to be seen, but what is certain is the this sudden insecurity at my home, in my family, which also brought a dose of worry.

P: It seems like you haven’t had much rest in past three years: you did movies, TV series, wrote a book, and you are very active in charity events.

G: Yeah, I don’t really have time just to sit and do nothing. Sometimes I think about slowing down a bit, and try to create a space for myself, so that I could be on still. But new challenges always emerge and than new choices have to be made.

P: What is your priority then: acting or activism?

G: My children are always my number one priority. Everything else shifts: sometimes it’s acting, sometimes writing and sometimes charity and activism.

P: And when do you write: during the day, or at night? Do you need a quite place for writing?

G: I definitely need a quiet room. But sometimes, there are long breaks on the set, so I use them to write in my trailer. And sometimes, I write on a airplane, because I spend a lot of time flying.

P: What was the most memorable moment from Berlinale, if there was one?

G: O yeah, it was! Freezing on the red carpet in that thin sleeveless dress!

*The questions on the side, in that almost purple box

Dana Scully is everywhere she looks

P: No matter what you did and still doing, people till identify you as Dana Scully. Is that bothering you?

G: It is how it is, no matter if that bothers me or not. I’m used to it.

P: So it isn’t annoying?

G: Oh please, don’t ask! It was so annoying, especially in that first period after the end of The X files. It took a long time and a lot of work to separate myself from her. It was very frustrating, because it was reflecting on the work, or the lack of it, because there wasn’t a lot of people who would want Dana Scully in their movies. Fortunately, I have manage to prove that I do have the acting talent. At one point I’ve stopped being angry at her existence and I’ve pushed her far enough so that now I can still play her role, without any stress and pain.

P: Many actors would be happy to have their television roles become phenomena and have such a powerful effect?

G: It’s true, but it may be true for Judy Dench or and any other actor in the UK, where, no matter how popular television role is, you will not have the problem working in the theater or on film, after the television series is done. In States is different, TV roles have been considered second-rate at the time. Now, the things have changed and all the most important television series are hiring the first-rate actors. And even here, on Berlin film festival, you can see that change: now there is a whole program dedicated to the premieres of the television series.

P: Are the people surprised when they see you on the street?

G: I’m the one who is constantly surprised, hhahah. There are days no one recognizes me: I walk the streets, go to the store, buy what I need. And there are days when every other person comes up to me. I don’t know what it is, is it the make up, the clothes, my hair, I have no idea. It’s like I am a Gillian Anderson on some days, and Dana Scully or any other character on other days.

THE END

Sorry it took so long, it was a loooooong day at the office. I’m sorry for all the mistakes, and if our grammar sucks, we did our best, and at least it’s better then the google translate shit. :)

[dancesontheedge]

An age and a half ago, @tavsancuk tagged me in a 10 characters in 10 fandoms meme.  I am finally filling it.  I have laid myself some ground rules.  I will choose and present to you, in no particular order, my ten favorite male characters.  I will also include explanations for my picks.  I am strongly considering doing a mirror post with my ten favorite female characters with explanations.  Also, some of them are coming with fic recs.  Sorry not sorry.  Most of those recs will route you to FFN.  That, I am a little sorry about.  Since this is explanation heavy, I’ll put it under a read more.

Finn (Star Wars) This fabulous man turns his back on everything he has ever been taught because he realized it was wrong.  He broke more than a decade’s worth of programming to free Poe Dameron, and then he went back for Rey despite his fear of the First Order.  That takes serious guts, and I have so much respect for his character.

have you heard by peradi Finn sparks a stormtrooper revolution.

Jess Mariano (Gilmore Girls) Jess grew so much over the course of the series.  We did not get to see most of it happening, but he went from a really messed up, angry at the world teenager to a well-adjusted and very successful adult (based on what we’ve seen).  Also, though he and Rory had their issues as a couple, he was the only one of her boyfriends who she did not feel the need to change for.

Of Books and Music by once-was-serendipity.  Instead of cutting off all contact with Rory when he left in season 3, Jess sent books with his margin-notes to Rory.  We see him deal with all of his shit. Pay the Piper by Iscah McKrae.  Immediately after Rory’s disastrous visit to Philadelphia, Shane contacts Jess to tell him they have a daughter who she wants not part of.  Jess winds up taking full custody.  Incomplete. Truths Universally Acknowledged by 12cubed.  A Jane Austen report assigned by Mr. Medina spirals out of control as Taylor announces a Jane Austen festival.  Season 2 style Rory/Jess pining. Tide and Moon by once-was-serendipity.  Jess and Rory’s relationship over seasons 2 and 3 plays out a bit differently.  Mostly, Jess get’s his shit together earlier.  Incomplete.

Zuko (Avatar the Last Airbender) Over the course of the series, Zuko realized that his father was evil and everything he had been taught (by someone not-Uncle-Iroh) was either a lie or immoral.  Once he finished being in denial about it, he took action, ultimately changing sides and working to atone for the wrong he had done when he still believed in his father.

Embers by Vathara.  At the beginning of season 2, Zuko discovers the secret of healing fire, and then things get super AU, super fast.  Lots of worldbuilding, and I swear to god this author’s a goddess.  Has been described as “Atla in the style of Game of Thrones, minus the sex” Mismatched by Kimberly T. In season 1, Zuko discovers an Earth Kingdom baby with mismatched eyes.  Because local superstition claims the baby is a witch-child and bad luck because of it, Zuko adopts him.  This speeds his realization that everything he knows is wrong by quite a bit. Incomplete. Second Nature by lazyartisan.  At the end of season 1, Zuko is captured at the North Pole.  Angst ensues.  Essentially, the author upped the stakes and ignored the “kids show” genre.  Incomplete-ish.  The author told the story she wanted to tell, but ends the story at the end of season 2 rather than resolving everything.  She may eventually update again, she may not. Another Brother by AvocadoLove.  Zuko was scarred much younger than in canon and is found by Chief Hakoda almost dead on a Fire Navy ship.  Hakoda takes him in, and he is raised in the Southern Water Tribe alongside Sokka and Katara.

Steve Rogers (MCU) Steve Rogers’ moral compass is so on point it’s honestly terrifying.  His entire morality basically boils down to “I don’t like bullies or trust the people in power not to be bullies,” and honestly that’s the kind of role model we all could use.  He is uncompromising, but he’s right with an alarming consistency.  And he’s genuine, which warms the cockles of my own way-too-honest heart.  (It should, perhaps, be noted that this is why Benjamin Tallmadge is my favorite Turn character and that these traits are reflected in one of my most formative female characters, Keladry of Mindelen.)

Serenade by CSI Clue. Happy fic.  Steve gets a girlfriend and everything is adorable. Choice is Not a Word a Bullet Knows series by bomberqueen17.  Winter Soldier followup, so much poly capfam, at least one really awesome OC. A Pretty Boy with a Bird Tattoo by Kryptaria and rayvanfox.  Steve/Bucky/Nat OT3, punk college AU.  My favorite of their collaborative works (because Nat), but their other stuff (stucky, all of it) is super awesome too.  Source Code by Closer.  Steve is tired of everyone thinking he’s a robot clone or whatever the conspiracy theory of the week is. Freezer Burn series by Domenika Marzione.  Comics/MCU mashup that follows a different Avenger in each of the major stories. Freezer Burn follows Steve, Thaw follows Clint, Revenant follows Nat.

Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) Spencer Reid gets put through such shit by the Criminal Minds writers (and the fandom, honestly.  We love to watch him suffer), but he continues to be dedicated to justice and peaceful solutions.  In addition, he is one of the biggest nerds and genius’ on TV, and is generally way less obnoxious and improbable about it than others of his type.  It should be noted that I am not up to date on this show, having missed almost every episode that aired while I was at University, and that I am refusing to watch the current Reid-in-prison-without-his-memory arc.  Because that was a bridge too far.

Foxtrot Whiskey Bravo by Kuria Dalmatia.  Reid and Elle have a friends with benefits relationship.  Very unangsty for my possible Reid picks. The Comstock King’s Daughter by TheKnittingLady.  Reid/OC.  Reid and his date get kidnapped by an Unsub, things go better than they could.  The least depressing/angsty story by this author, the story by this author requiring the fewest content/trigger warnings.  This author is *very* good, but her work is pretty messed up.  Writes almost exclusively Reid-centrics, usually Reid/OC. Liar by Addicted Archangel.  Reid is imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.  Somehow not as angsty/whumpy as the current canon storyline.  Begins with his conviction, ends with his release.

Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables) Honestly, who doesn’t love Gilbert?  Pining away for Anne and being generally adorable.  No long winded explanation here, but can we all just take a second, think of Gilbert Blythe, and smile?

Blythe Spirit and Unromantic Ideal by Morte Rouge.  The first three books of the Anne of Green Gables Series from Gilbert’s POV.  I promise it’s not repetitive.  Some grammar issues.

Christopher Perry/Halliwell (Charmed) This tortured soul happens to fall right in the middle of one of my favorite tropes: Time Travel.  Chris travels back in time to prevent his older brother, the most powerful witch to ever live, from turning evil and taking over the world.  He lost literally everyone, led the resistance, watched his brother kill his fiance, and when he went back in time was hated by the younger versions of his family for being so driven and not letting them have a life and also for breaking up his mother and father (they, of course, did not know who he was). Also, he’s a sarcastic little shit.  It’s like he’s the definition of my preferred angst-button.

A Pair of Ragged Claws by cunneware.  Wyatt’s most deadly assassin arrives from the future.  It is revealed that she has been magically enslaved by Wyatt, and when that magic is lifted, she decides to aid Chris in his mission to prevent Wyatt from turning evil.  Ultimately, it is revealed that Chris is the sisters’ son/nephew. The Last Horcrux by Stonage Woman.  Crossover with Harry Potter, AU from book 6.  Taking place in the original future where Wyatt is evil, with all the accompanying super-depressing things that come along with that.  Harry is in his 40s, still fighting Voldemort, and essentially adopts Chris.  If you would like to know where my angst-o-meter sits, this one registers at like an 8 of 10.

Edmund Pevensie (Chronicles of Narnia) Edmund is generally a shit in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Nobody will argue that point with you.  What’s important to me is how he grows.  He decides to become worthy of Aslan’s sacrifice.  He decides to live up to his sobriquet “The Just.”  He acts to atone for his selfishness and live a life of service.

Harold and Morgan: Not a Romance by rthstewart.  This is super a romance.  Edmund got married in Narnia to a banker from the Lone Islands.  It’s adorable, and I’m quite convinced she’s on the autism spectrum. The Stone Gryphon ‘verse by rthstewart.  The Pevensies deal with being back in WWII England, mostly by being ridiculously badass. Not a whole ton of Edmund yet, but it’s awesome, I love everything about it, and could hardly write Narnia recs and not include it. Letting Go by Lirenel.  Prince Caspian AU in which Edmund arrives separately from and substantially before his siblings because he wasn’t holding their hands at the train station. The Ledbury Run by Maddy Carr. Back in England, Edmund and Peter participate in a cross-country race and find in their path a downed German paratrooper.

Simon Tam (Firefly) Simon had it all.  He had money, he had his dream career, he had parents who were pleased as punch to have him as their son.  He gave it all up to rescue his sister from government experimentation and subsequently became a fugitive.  He has some trouble adjusting, as you can imagine, from golden child to desperate man on the edges of society, but he never considers going back.  Not once.  Because his sister was more important to him than all the accolades he could earn.

Alec Hardison (Leverage) Hardison is a hardened criminal.  Ish.  He takes immense pride in his hacking ability and would be offended if I said he was one of the best in the business.  Because he’s the best. But really, Hardison’s a soft touch.  He was the one most easily convinced to join the Leverage team and use his crime powers for good.  His first heist? Hacking into the Bank of Iceland to pay his Nana’s medical bills.  He decided that the Leverage crew was his family, and promptly adopted them all.  He’s the team-builder, the block they all built on.  He provided the space, he provided the nurturing eye, he paid attention to what his team members wanted and gave it to them.  Though he’s a criminal, he’s the moral center of the Leverage crew.  Also he’s a giant nerd and completely hilarious.

The Justice League Job by Eatsscissors.  Casefic about a stolen comic book. Hardison/Parker.