#the idea of wally will be tarnished for some | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Making this its own post because replying to the ask got so weirdly formatted I can’t even. Oh tumblr. You work so well.

@themessofthecentury asked:

jsksjf my tumblr notifs are bugging and i didnt see your post but!!! The patron Saint of Robins?? I am much intrigue!!

(This is from this ask game, just....gotten to late, lololol. And I still have more I’m getting to, no worries. Just had a rough couple days is all, laid me up a bit.)

Okay, so The Patron Saint of Robins is kinda like the situation at the end of Grayson, except also not at all. And actually this is one of my older WIPs, and according to Scrivener I started it in 2015 afhislfhalhfalf, so it really has nothing to do with that. Also, its Young Justice-verse, but for two specific reasons:

1) YJ-verse is my go-to for Good Dad Bruce Wayne, when I don’t want to actually tackle the issues I have with his and his kids’ dynamic in comic book canon. I don’t carry over things like the adoption issue or the Robin succession into YJ fics, as I don’t think there’s anything that suggests they’re ever a specific issue in YJ and I don’t feel a need to make them one. So pretty much anything and everything I write in YJ goes with the backstory that Dick’s already adopted by Season One, and he’s the one to grant each later Robin permission to use the mantle, with no conflict over that, and more of a pre-Crisis transition to Nightwing than the post-Crisis firing from Robin. And this fic inherently needs Good Dad Bruce Wayne to work, lol.

2) I needed Klarion the Witch-Boy. Who of course exists in comic book canon, but is muuuuuch different there, and I just needed him to be a little demonic evil shithead, who sets everything in motion to get payback on the heroes for thwarting the Light in Season One, and he targets Robin due to being the oft-cited ‘first of the baby brat heroes’ and the ‘heart of the cape community.’

You don’t really need to be familiar with YJ canon at all for this one, as it goes sharply AU from after Season One, and only faintly and vaguely references specific events from that season. And I use my own YJ-ized version of the Titans as much as the actual YJ Team.

So basically, the plot of this one is to take revenge on the heroes for spoiling his game in Season One, Klarion plays a new game, by putting a chaos curse on Robin. It essentially erases him from peoples’ memories, though he’s perfectly able to make new ones. If he re-introduces himself to someone ask Dick Grayson, for instance, they don’t suddenly remember who Dick Grayson is or was, but they don’t forget about him again from that point onward, its like they meet him for the first time as a stranger.

But the curse part of things is only Batman can break it and restore everyone’s memories of Dick and his actual history, and only by identifying him for who he really is. And Dick can’t be part of breaking his own curse or else it seals it and makes it permanent and unbreakable forever.

Which of course leaves Dick completely miserable at first, understandably, and Bruce (and everyone else Dick knows, to varying different degrees) feeling some kind of loss but with no idea what it is they think or feel that they’re missing. Dick makes some half-hearted attempts at starting a new life for himself in Gotham, and in the process befriends a street kid named Jason Todd, though Dick introduces himself to Jason with just the name Robin.

The way the curse operates is it restitches together peoples’ memories to cover up the gaps where memories of him would go. So for instance, even though Jason never knew Dick before the curse, he was familiar with Batman and Robin just as much as any Gothammite was.....but due to the curse, the name Robin, upon meeting Dick, had no special meaning to him or anyone else. As far as he knew, Batman had always operated on his own in Gotham, the first teen superhero was that Speedy kid in Star City, etc. So when Jason first meets Dick, he just thinks he’s some dude whose name happens to be Robin.

Eventually, because Dick’s been kinda torturing himself by spying on Bruce just to ‘keep an eye on him’ and still watch his back, and he’s recognized by now that Bruce is mourning his loss without even knowing that he’s missing something....so Dick, who has also kinda come to see Jason as a little brother figure due to watching out for him as well....decides to kill two birds with one stone, unfortunate pun not intended. (Jason doesn’t die in this one, lol). Basically, Dick puts in motion the chain of events that lead Jason to stealing Batman’s tires, because he doesn’t know EXACTLY what Bruce will do but he knows it’ll get his attention in a big way and Bruce will take it from there.

One thing leads to another, Jason ends up living with Bruce and when eventually he wants to be trained by Bruce so he can do what he does and protect kids like he used to be.....when asked to pick a name....Jason names himself after the guy who always looked out for him, and who led to him being found by Bruce in the first place. He doesn’t know that his friend ‘Robin’ steered him towards those tires deliberately, just to bring him and Bruce into contact, but he does credit him with making the suggestion that ‘inadvertently’ (as far as he knows) enabled his and Bruce’s introduction, and so he names himself in honor of the boy who helped him and who he tried to track down again to similarly help, after Bruce adopted him, but was never able to find again.

Over the years, Dick also ends up steering Tim, Cass, Duke and Damian to Bruce in different ways than comic book canon (Steph and Babs’ debuts remain their own, as family adjacent but not family specifically) and thus is integral to the forming of the Batfam and has a connection with them even before the curse ultimately ends up broken and he’s able to reclaim his full identity. And each of them end up Robin at least briefly, like Steph is never Robin in this AU, and sticks with Spoiler, whereas Cass IS briefly Robin before becoming Batgirl after Babs. I did this for a few different reasons...

One, I really like that Cass is never Robin in main continuity as it creates a different dynamic between her and Dick than most of their siblings have, BUT I’ve always been curious to play around what Cass-as-Robin might even be like, just for an AU. Two, part of the Black Bat and Batgirl but never Robin sequence of mantles for Cass in the comic book continuity is like.....although it doesn’t get explored nearly enough, Babs was as much a kind of mother figure for Cass as Bruce was a father figure, despite Babs’ young age. So it makes more sense for Cass to stick more to just Bat-mantles than to ever be a Robin in the comic books. But in YJ, Babs is even younger, and just way too young to have the specific kind of dynamic that leads to that in the comic books, so its not as unreasonable IMO for her to have a different dynamic in her early days in the family here, before becoming closer with Babs and taking up the Batgirl mantle after she moves on to become Oracle.

And then also, and this is also the primary reason for making Duke a Robin briefly, before Damian is old enough....I got hung up on the title and it just didn’t work as well if it was Robins + Cass and Duke, lololol. See, in addition to helping steer the family into the points of introduction that make them a family, over the years he also acts as like, a guardian angel figure to the various family members, looking out for them and interceding in times of extreme danger, like when Jason is almost killed by the Joker. He’s always in disguise, but the kids eventually compare notes and realize there’s a singular figure behind each of their introductions to Bruce and the guy swooping out of nowhere to save their behinds whenever they’re most in danger, and Jason eventually connects this back to the guy who apparently NOT so coincidentally suggested he go after the Batmobile’s tires that fateful night, and the kids end up jokingly/not-so-jokingly referring to this figure as the Patron Saint of Robins. (Shout-out to the occasional mentions/allusions of Jason’s Catholicism).

They never tell Bruce about this figure (at least before Bruce starts to put together clues on his own), because they all figured out that for whatever reason, this person despite wanting them all to meet Bruce seems to want to avoid Bruce himself, and they kinda want to respect that as a kind of payback for his help, and also like....Bruce, even a kinder, gentler Bruce, is still Bruce. And when Bruce is gonna Bruce, that means Batparanoia. And all of them for various reasons DO trust that this guy has nothing but good intentions towards them, and so they don’t want to like....ruin or tarnish the positivity they associate with his intercession in their lives with paranoia or treating him like a bad guy. Which ultimately is really just smoke and mirrors for saying that he’s kinda a ‘just for them’ secret. Its a Robin thing.

(Until its not).

Because meanwhile, Dick, in between meeting the various Batfam members and pulling strings and looking out for them from the shadows, at first travels the world looking for ways to break his curse. But when ultimately its clear that the only way to break it is the loophole built into it already, Bruce identifying him for who he really is, but without Dick doing anything to steer him towards the answer, Dick settles into a new hero identity as Nightwing, and forms the Teen Titans, a public group of young superheroes (minus Roy and Wally, unfortunately, but still with Donna, Garth, Raven, Kory, ignoring season 3 Vic and also Terra because AU redemption arc what what, etc). And the Teen Titans avoid both the Young Justice Team and the Justlce League with EXTREME measures, much to the other heroes’ confusion and aggravation, because in the early days of the Titans, in a moment of what he’d term weakness, on one of his ‘bad days,’ Dick tells them enough of his story that they’re able to put together a good sense of what happened and who he really is by reading between the lines and what he leaves unsaid....

BUT as a result, all end up extremely committed to not mixing and mingling casually with the rest of the cape community because they don’t want to risk dropping any hints about the guy under Nightwing’s mask, in case that might count as steering Batman towards clues and seal the curse for good. So I have a lot of fun with having the Titans just nope out of the scene the second the bad guys are defeated even when they have to team up with other heroes, leaving the other heroes confused as hell and trying not to be all ‘WHY DON’T YOU LIKE US??”

Anyway, so yeah, that’s the gist of this one, lol. With it of course following the eventual plot that like...the Batfam starts to Detect and put things together.

ANYWHO!

Snippet

Damian versus Klarion: Round One

“Aww, its adorable that you think you’re in my league,” the Witch-Boy cooed in an absolute mockery of sympathy. Damian bristled, but before he could do anything more than that, he was faced with a much more pressing matter as reality completely lost its mind.

The walls of the cavern fell away in an instant, only to be replaced with a whirling dervish of winds all around them, as if they now stood in the center of a cyclone that bled red and silver and black. It shrieked and wailed in a chorus of voices just on the other side of being comprehensible, a symphony of the damned that set every nerve in Damian’s body aflame with a primal instinct to get out, to find silence, to be anywhere but here.

He’d barely staggered a step backwards when the ground erupted beneath him, splitting apart into jagged obsidian shards that bobbed precariously in the sea of magma barely glimpsed through cracks now spiderwebbing their way across the floor. Spears of lightning burst upwards through them, stabbing impossibly at the heavens rather than raining down from them. They hissed and crackled as they flickered like forked serpent tongues of electric violet and black. The forks becoming branches, the pillars of sky-shattering light transforming into the trunks of great trees that grew upwards and outward, weaving a canopy overhead. One that wept violently red leaves that fell gently to the ground, only to hiss and bubble like acid once they did.

“See, normally this is when I’d hit someone with a little razzle-dazzle like this,” Klarion called out over the song of madness he’d created, as it crooned and careened wildly all around them. He snapped his fingers, and in the span of a second it all ceased. Reality reaffirmed itself, and all was right with the world once more…except now the two of them stood at the end of a hallway in Wayne Manor.

Damian stumbled, the sudden reappearance of firm ground paradoxically being the thing to challenge his balance. The demon boy standing beside him crooked his thumb and forefinger in the semblance of a gun, the smile pasted across his face one of wickedly gleeful malice.

“But you, kiddo, you’re special. Cuz there’s nothing I could do to you now that could top what I’ve already done, so why try when I can just savor the moment instead?”

“What are you babbling about?” Damian demanded roughly. In the wake of what the Witch-Boy had just conjured up with nothing more than a gesture, he was keenly aware of how flimsy a shield his bravado made. He just had absolutely no idea what else to fall back on.

Klarion only threw back his head and laughed though, skipping merrily down the hall as he did.

“I know something you don’t know,” he sing-songed and Damian lost what little grasp of his patience he’d managed to hang onto.

“You overestimate my need for an answer. Attempt to intimidate me all you wish, but I have no desire to indulge your little game any further.”

Klarion jerked to a stop and spun around, his face screwed into a childish pout. He stomped his foot, petulance personified. “I’m not intimidating you anymore, I’m gloating! Ugh, you’re so stupid! They’re completely different, how can you not tell?”

Every light in the hallway flickered and fizzed abruptly. The walls wavered, bubbled, momentarily molten as if made of wax.

Again Damian was reminded just how mercurial this being he was faced with was, and how dangerous. Perhaps, as Father would say, this was not the time to indulge his own instinctive inclinations. Or as Todd would put it, just because you’re already fucked, that’s no reason to fuck yourself over more than you have to.

Crude as his older brother was, there was occasional merit to his…pithiness. Not that he would be admitting that any time soon, of course.

“Fine. What is it you wish to gloat about then?” Damian grated out. The appeasement, such as it was, tried its best to stick in his throat before finally clawing its way free. But at least it proved worth the effort when the godling’s mood reverted back to impishness as readily as with the flip of a switch.

“Well. Its like this, you see.” Klarion said. He dragged it out as he folded both legs underneath him to sit cross-legged in the air, plopping his head into his hands. “I did a baaaaaaaaaaaaad, bad thing to your family, a loooooong time ago. And none of you have done anything about it, because you don’t even know! Isn’t that funny? Doesn’t matter how big a hero Daddy Bats is if he doesn’t even know what needs saving huh? Little Catch-22 there, you might say.”

“Yes. Quite hysterical,” Damian said dryly. “So what is it you claim to have done then?”

The Witch-Boy just sat there, regarding him with amusement, and the seconds marched on into minutes. Damian’s skin crawled. Prickling with impatience and possibly something…more. He wasn’t quite ready to name it anxiety or something as melodramatic as all that yet. In fact, he’d rather not put a name to it at all, but today did not appear to be a day for configuring things to his liking.

Klarion’s wicked grin grew as if sensing his thoughts, though to the best of his knowledge (and Damian did quickly ransack the library of his memory just to be sure) there was no indication telepathy was included among the Chaos Lord’s many, many powers. And still that detestable smile stretched slowly wider all the same, in perfect synchronization with the rising tide of Damian’s unease. Perhaps the Witch-Boy’s file was in need of annotation.

“How many doors would you say are in this hallway?”

“What? Seven.” Damian snapped out his answer, annoyed by the non sequitur. Not to mention baffled. Was it too much to expect even a semblance of linear thought from the Chaos brat?

“Are you suuuuuuure?” The Witch-Boy stretched his query out obnoxiously. “Maybe you should count again. Just for kicks and giggles.”

Damian throttled back each and every retort attempting to spring to his lips, stuffing them back down and cramming a lid on everything he most dearly wished to say to this most vexing of…shitheads. Once again, it appeared as though nothing less than Todd’s preferred form of nomenclature would suffice. Wonderful. On top of everything else Damian had to deal with today, he seemed to be finding common ground with the man all over the place. Was there no end to the indignities he must suffer?

But marshaling his own formidable willpower, Damian took a deep breath and indulged the Chaos Lord, glancing his eyes down the length of the hallway and counting out each doorway one by one. There was his own room of course, with Cassandra’s to the right of his, and the room Brown used when staying over to the right of hers. That was three. Then there was Thomas directly across from his own room, with Drake to his right and Todd just beyond that, with Father’s room at the very end of the hall, his master suite staggered and with no direct opposite like the others. Seven.

Except all of a sudden there was a door directly opposite his father’s. For a total of eight.

Damian’s brow furrowed in consternation. The faint whispers of uncertainty already seeded throughout him bore fruit, ripening into poisonous stabbings of doubt.

“That’s not real,” he stated with as much conviction as he could muster.

The Witch-Boy’s smile only grew wider still. “Isn’t it, though?”

“There’s never been a door there before,” Damian persisted, striding confidently down the hall towards it. The Chaos Lord flitted ahead of him, inverting til he was upside down and skipping merrily once more, though this time from the ceiling.

“Or has it been there all along?” He sing-songed some more.

“I would think we might have noticed if it had been,” Damian growled.

“Yes, you’d think, wouldn’t you? You are all supposed to be a family of detectives, I thought. Makes you wonder…if you could miss this, what else might you have failed to notice?”

Damian snarled to himself and did his best to shut out the demon boy’s prattling. He quickened his strides, eating up the length of the hallway in his haste to reach its end. He wasn’t sure what opening the door would prove, let alone what bewilderment the godling had conjured on its other side, but it appeared the only end to this game of his was through it, so let there be an end to it already.

And yet, for all his certainty - or best facsimile of it - he couldn’t help but pause once he reached the door in question. His hand hovered within reach of its brass knob, but some instinct, some…caution, held him at bay. As much as he wanted to dismiss all this as just one more of the Chaos Lord’s inane charades, there was a tension in the air that felt too weighty to be the product of just magical conjuring. Something more was in play here. Real forces were at work. His father might disdain magic, but Damian had been around enough of it himself to know when true power had been raised. And the span of empty space between his hand and this hither-to-unseen doorknob held more of it than Damian had felt throughout all the mad warpings Klarion had made of reality thus far.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Klarion asked from somewhere overhead. His voice, usually pitched to carry, was so soft for a moment Damian mistook it for his own inner doubts. “Some doors are easier to open than to close again, you know.”

Even knowing the goading for what it was couldn’t stop Damian then, and with a simple breath to fortify himself, he reached for the knob, spun it once, and shoved the door open all in a single sharp movement.

The Witch-Boy giggled up above.

The door swung wide, a forceful arc that should have revealed anything and everything within it all at once; the better to react quickly to whatever that might be. Fine in principle, perfect in execution, but thwarted by one small detail:

There was nothing on the other side.

And not in the sense of it being just an empty room, but true nothingness. A pitch-black abyss darker than the deepest night, yawning forth from the doorway in a vast, impenetrable shroud. Nor was anything hidden in the darkness, Damian knew, even if just intuitively. He could feel it, that he stood on the edge of an impossible cliff, that there was nothing beyond this threshold but an aching chasm of emptiness and loss. The surety of it hung in the air, thick and heavy, a miasma that seeped through to his side of the doorway and clung to him like the moisture of a fog beads upon the skin.

Klarion’s head suddenly popped up alongside him, hovering just over his shoulder.

Albeit still upside down.

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” he mused, tapping at his lips with a forefinger. “What do you suppose is meant to be in there?”

The last of Damian’s brittle patience shattered.

“Enough! What is the meaning of all this, demon? Speak plainly, for once in your miserable existence!”

His self-preservation instincts and the reminder of just who it was he was shouting at kicked in too little too late, but he wouldn’t take his exasperated fury back even if he could. He was who he was after all. But fortunately, that described the Witch-Boy just as accurately, and rather take offense or perceive any actual threat from Damian’s rage, the Chaos Lord just shrieked with laughter and sprung backwards. He flipped right side up, still hovering in mid-air, and clapped his hands with glee.

“Oh, I should have done this ages ago,” Klarion sang out. “Why, you’re almost as fun as he used to be. Back before he got all droll and serious, that is. He’s no fun at all anymore, nothing like this. Never wants to play, always just running back to his tower with that little bitch of a demoness.”

His face soured like he’d just sucked on a lemon. But rather than stop there, his countenance kept morphing into an increasingly savage scowl, the longer he ranted. The hallway was suddenly sweltering, baking with unseen heat that twisted the air into shimmering ribbons. The small horns sprouting from his forehead burst into scimitars of flame that cut through those ribbons and set them similarly ablaze.

“Always putting on airs like she’s some kind of royalty, just because her Daddy Dearest put the fear into a few peasants back in the day,” the Witch-Boy snarled viciously. “As if that’s enough to put her on par with the likes of me. No one is the likes of me. NO ONE!”

Reality itself quaked with the force of his shout. White-blue flames spat forth and crescendoed down the length of the corridor, splashing against its walls and searing them to a crisp. Damian braced himself for all the good it would do, keenly aware of the void still gaping hungrily behind his back, but before the fire could become an actual danger to him as well, all was quiet once more.

Silence hung in the air much like the demon boy, poised yet motionless. Suspended. Waiting.

And then Klarion simply inhaled and brushed his hands down the front of his garments, smoothing out the wrinkles as he reclaimed his calm. The corridor restored itself to its former self, curtains of vintage reality unrolling from the ceiling to the floor as though papering over the damage. Damian felt rather than saw when the portal behind him swung shut and was replaced with the expanse of ivory paint and ornate sconces he was used to seeing in its place.

“I am one of a kind, after all,” Klarion finally remarked. It was a casual drawl offered forth almost off-handedly, as if more a reminder to himself than uttered for anyone else’s sake. He used one hand to spell out letters in the air. They appeared and vanished again in bursts of fireworks and fluorescent flame. “U-N-I-Q-U-E.”

“As I, apparently, am not,” Damian said, seizing upon the Chaos Lord’s restored calm and good cheer. “Who is this ‘he’ you mentioned? If I’m to be pitted against him as entertainment in your eyes, might I at least know his name?”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” the Witch-Boy scolded. He wagged his finger at Damian. “No spoilers. That’s not how the game is played.”

Keenly aware of the boy’s power once more, Damian gritted his teeth and pressed on. “Well, if there are to be rules, shouldn’t I at least know what those are?”

Klarion sucked in a deep breath, drawing himself up along with his inhalation as though preparing for some great speech…and instead just toppling backward, flopping onto an extravagant fainting couch that suddenly appeared beneath him, though similarly floating in the air.

“I can’t recall at the moment.” His now-faint voice drifted up from where he lay buried amid a mountain of pillows. “I’ve had a terribly exhausting day. But you’re supposed to be a detective, remember? Go…I don’t know. Detect things.”

He flapped an arm at Damian dismissively, and then crooked a finger into a twirling motion that set his divan to spinning in lazy circles.

“Isn’t life grand?” Klarion sighed fondly. “With all its twists and turns, its eddies and swirls. I mean, take the two of us. Scant hours ago, we were mortal enemies, and just look at us now.”

The Witch-Boy lazily rolled his head to the side as the couch drifted to bring him face-to-face with Damian. His lips spread wide in that malevolent, wicked grin of his once again, but somehow it managed to be even wider than any he’d shown off before. His eyes blazed with a hellish inner light, and his voice, when next he spoke, dropped deep into a demonic register. A bass that boomed forth and set Damian’s very bones to rattling.

“Ain’t we got fun?”

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kentonramsey · 4 years

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What The Demise Of Topshop Means To Me & Other Millennials

Topshop, once the buzziest store on the British high street, has become the latest COVID casualty – and the one that hurts the most. Last month it was announced that the beleaguered Arcadia group, which also owns Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Miss Selfridge and Burton, had gone into administration, putting 13,000 jobs at risk. Meanwhile, Twitter is ablaze with fond memories of ‘Big Topshop’ in the wake of the Oxford Street store closing for good. A decade ago, the idea that Topshop, the jewel in Arcadia’s crown, could be on the brink of collapse would have been unimaginable.

In the mid 2000s, Topshop was at the peak of its popularity, collaborating with titans of fashion and music, from Kate Moss to Beyoncé. In an effort to prove that it was creating its own authentic trends, rather than being simply another catwalk copycat, the brand had its own much-anticipated spot on the London Fashion Week schedule. The show drew the top models of the day – the likes of Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn – and Arcadia boss Philip Green sat on the front row, nestled between Anna Wintour and a bevy of contemporary It Girls.

But somewhere along the way, Topshop lost its lustre. The 90,000-square-foot Oxford Street emporium that was once the beating heart of London fashion, synonymous with cutting-edge clothes which could be worn by those within and outside the industry became just like any other fast fashion store, peddling unremarkable designs in cheap, disposable fabrics. My generation, once outfitted in head-to-toe Topshop, began to move onto fashion-forward, mid-range brands like Arket or Ganni, while younger Gen Zers flocked to online retailers like ASOS and Boohoo which had eclipsed Topshop with their ruthlessly low prices, rapid turnover and savvy influencer marketing strategies.

It also become impossible to dissociate Topshop from the tax-dodging man behind it, who has been mired in controversy in recent years. The hammer blow to Green’s reputation came in 2015, when he sold the ailing BHS for just £1, only for it to collapse a year later, resulting in the loss of 11,000 jobs and a £571 million pension deficit. In 2018, Green faced flak for cancelling a feminist pop-up curated by author Scarlett Curtis at Topshop’s flagship store after he reportedly saw the display and removed it; a few weeks later he was named in parliament as the businessman accused of multiple counts of sexual misconduct and racial abuse. Green denied the allegations but his reputation was irreparably tarnished. Soon, Beyoncé would pull her Ivy Park clothing line from stores and Topshop would be forced to cancel a launch party for its collaboration with London Fashion Week favourite Michael Halpern. By the end of 2019, Topshop had experienced losses of half a billion pounds and the value of sales had dropped by 9%. The spell had finally broken.

At the start of the pandemic, Arcadia’s cancellation of over £100 million worth of clothing orders from suppliers in some of the world’s poorest countries did nothing to cast the brand in a favourable light. In an age of more mindful consumption, it became hard to square shopping at Topshop with knowledge of Green’s tax avoidance and short-changing of pensioners while leading a champagne-soaked lifestyle of private jets and super yachts. Yet despite Topshop’s dramatic fall from grace, its collapse is tinged with sadness for millennials like me who grew up during its heyday. For those of us who came of age in the early noughties and 2010s, Topshop was our entry point into fashion, the go-to destination once we outgrew Tammy Girl’s sparkly slogan tees and through which we could envisage a life for ourselves beyond the humdrum of suburbia.

“Topshop was always on the horizon as the first place I ever wanted to buy clothes,” says Anna Loo, who works in publishing. “I feel like it was a gateway for pre-teens to discover your own style and it was where you shopped for the first time when your parents stopped buying your clothes. I used to go to the one in Cabot Circus in Bristol and that was like a classic weekend event with friends. We’d get on the train – it was only 15 minutes from Bath – and it was always so exciting to see what new stock they’d have.”

“I used to work at Café Rouge when I was 17 and I’d spend all my tips money in Topshop on the weekend,” says Jess Kerntiff, who now works in fashion PR. “I remember when I managed to get one of the Kate Moss dresses in the sale – it was a short, strapless pink dress and I was so happy about getting it. I feel like Topshop was the only affordable fashion at the time that was super on trend.”

Topshop democratised glamour and style by making catwalk trends available at accessible prices to fashion-obsessed teens like me, who spent hours poring over runway photos on the now-defunct style.com. It also gave us iconic designer collaborations which have become the stuff of fashion lore, from Christopher Kane’s grungy, grommet-studded 2009 collection to Kate Moss’ many sell-out lines, which saw scores of young women queue outside the flagship store for hours (the one-shoulder buttercup-yellow chiffon dress can still be found on eBay).

“Up until the age of 15 or 16 I thought it was just the epitome of aspirational cool,” says fashion writer Rosalind Jana. “This was the point where they’d just begun doing collaborations with young designers like Preen and the late Richard Nicoll. The Christopher Kane one is still particularly memorable. I was a big part of the fashion blogging community as a teenager and every single blogger was wearing either the studded minis or that tunic with the aggressive crocodile face.”

For many millennial women, Topshop will be entwined with adolescent milestones, from buying your first pair of Jamie jeans (or Joni, if that was your preference – both garnered cult status) to shopping for your prom dress (mine was a rather risqué slinky powder-pink slip dress which, in retrospect, looked a lot like a nightie). “I remember a pair of grey spike-heeled lace-up ankle boots I bought in the flagship Oxford Street store when I was 13. I’d come to London with my mum for a modelling shoot and the chance to go to all of these big shops still felt super thrilling, and very far removed from the small village where I lived,” says Rosalind. “I wore those boots for years and weirdly, even though my feet grew two sizes, they still fitted.”

Despite having bought nothing from Topshop in recent years, some of my favourite pieces remain from there, including a pair of Chloé lookalike cut-out leather pointed toe ankle boots which I’ve had resoled not once but twice. In fact, it’s only halfway through writing this sentence that I realise I’m wearing a Topshop blouse, bought in the sale many moons ago.

“I just think Topshop represents the kind of first foray into adult fashion for so many girls,” says Anna. “I think for a lot of people, Topshop will have been such a big part of their lives. It will be sad to see it go.”

“When I was at that age when Topshop was at its biggest, you would have thought that they would be untouchable,” says Jess. “So even though it’s probably been a long time coming, it still feels like the end of an era.”

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What The Demise Of Topshop Means To Me & Other Millennials published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

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randosmstuff · 7 years

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It’s a long RANT (you’ve been warned)

I haven’t watched last night’s episode yet, but I know who Savitar is...

...Barry is Savitar? Savitar is Barry?

We all suspected it and a lot of us didn’ want to believe it. I mean, why would the writers go there? It makes no sense to me. What is the point of turning futureBarry into a vilain? I am mad! And I’m going to tell you why I am THIS mad.

I am not (only) mad because of what Barry being Savitar means to WestAllen. I am mad because of what Barry being Savitar means to Barry.

What I’m saying is... Would you trust someone with your live, with everyone’s lives if you knew this person some time in the future and for whatever reason will/would turn into a psicho who thinks of himelsef as a god? A cold-blooded killer?

I sure wouldn’t.

If Savitar turns out to be truly “our” Barry, I think the writers made a huge mistake. And I say that because Barry, The Flash and everything he represents will be forever tarnished, broken.

I really want to believe we’re still getting a curve ball next episode and Savitar is going to turn out to be a time remanent that somehow went crazy.

Honestly, I’m still holding on to the idea of Malcom Thawne a.k.a Cobalt Blue. This theory would be a smart one, in my opinion. We all know Cobalt Blue is Barry’s twin brother and that he is obsessed and hates Barry. This would be an amazing reveal, a shocking one even more than Barry finding out He is Savitar himself.

You can question me and say that Cobalt Blue wouldn’t know what Savitar knows. We’re all forgeting that Cobalt Blue followed Barry around and even witnessed the accident that gave Barry his powers. He studied Barry and his live because Cobalt Blue believes everything Barry has was supposed to be his. This would be nice to watch. Malcom pretending to be Barry to destroy Barry’s life.

Well, even though I’m still gripping at the Cobalt Blue idea, I know it’s going to be/is Barry or (with a lot of luck) timeremnantBarry. And that’s just lazy writing. Sorry if you don’t agree with me. Team Flash will be forever broken in my eyes. Barry will never be the same character in my eyes.

And WestAllen... WestAllen is not broken in my eyes. I still see their love as pure and strong. And now more than ever I do believe that Iris is what keeps Barry from spiraling out of control. When Barry is hopeless, Iris is the one that brings him back every time. She is without a doubt what keeps him “human”. It is not Joe, it is not Wally, it is not Cisco, it will never be Caitlin, it is not Harry (HR or whoever Wells). IT IS IRIS WEST that’s why psichoSavitarBarry needs to kill her. Because as long as Barry has Iris he still has his “heart”.

Now that I got it out of my chest I think I am ready to watch this mess of an episode.

Sorry for my rant (if you made it until here).

#westallen #the flash cw #savitar #cobalt blue

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mandareeboo · 8 years

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A random assortment of KND headcanons;

Numbuh 20, 000 was rescued from an abusive home, which is why he’s so desperate to do whatever he has to. He wants to be remembered- an idol to the other kids rescued. Show that bad beginnings don’t stop you from being good people

It’s very well likely that Cree has absolutely no idea what’s going on between Abby and Nigel. Numbuh 5 refused leadership because of Numbuh 1 losing his hair, which points to her leading at the time. Cree was probably off on some solo mission that left her in charge. She wouldn’t want to incriminate her sister with hacking Numbuh 1 in, either, so she certainly doesn’t know about that.

Soopreme Leaduhs are required to spend at least most of their time at the Moon Base. Rachel sometimes isn’t seen on Earth for days.

Operatives can be implanted with a tracking device, should they so choose, in order to help be located by search teams if they fall off a hill and break a leg or something.

Likewise, the KND sports a ‘tattoo parlor’ (crayons that never wash off) for operatives to use, so long as all markers are kept out of the obvious areas. This is a way of warning future kids that they’re fully capable, even with no memories.

Medics aren’t allowed to use medical supplies on themselves in big emergencies unless it’s the only way to keep them on their feet. Numerous medics have been hospitalized from days spent on their feet with boo-boos.

It ever a situation should occur in which only certain operatives may be saved, the pecking order is as follows; fight-capable medics, 2X4 technology experts, medics, experienced operatives, Leaduhs, and jack-of-all trades operatives.

(In Sectuh v, that would mean Kuki, Hoagie, Abby, Nigel, then Wally)

Kids Next Door bases are open to adults and teenagers to protect them from extreme weather emergencies. No operative has ever been killed in a weather emergency inside their own treehouse.

Spies and other high-danger operatives are given Sleepy Time Pills- a medication that will put them into a coma- in case they get caught. They can only be awoken by a specific type of food- the vegetable you hate most.

Rachel’s only had to use her’s once. She was out for three months.

There has never once been a Head of Decommissioning flee their 13th birthday. This is because operatives are legally allowed to subdue and erase any Head at any time. They’re too dangerous to be left unseen to.

Patton is the only operative to ever survive being trapped underground for a month without any food or supplies. It permanently changed him.

Abby follows the Candy Code or whatever it is candy hunters use just as religiously as she does orders, unless the two come into conflict. She’s an operative first.

Still, technically, Stickybeard could pop up in the treehouse when Abby’s entertaining some operatives in her bar and ask for a peaceful drink and she’d be forced to oblige.

Animal operatives aren’t Decommissioned- nobody is sure how the process would affect them.

Very few every day operatives are actually aware of Numbuh 5′s candy addiction. Other candy addicts, yeah, but they don’t want to tarnish the prestige of Sectuh V.

The Kids Next Door reaches all corners of the globe. Literally. Name a high-ranking government official- KND has an operative somewhere in the family. They could very literally take over the world if a Soopreme Leaduh got up the gumption to.

All operatives take a vow to put kids over everything, including their families, just in case such a day will come.

High-ranking operatives are required to have sound-proofed rooms. Wouldn’t want confidential information getting out because one of them talks in their sleep.

It’s been stated that teens have more advanced tech than kids, which means that adults are the most advanced. The fact that the KND consistently comes out on top shows that they’re the most adaptable.

There has never been a team that operate like Sectuh V, though there’ll be plenty to follow.

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briannaslist · 8 years

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Borrowing Problems from the Future

The Flash: Season 3, Episode 10 Recap

Barry has been having nightmares about Iris being murdered and his screams keep waking up real-world, alive Iris up. But he’s not sharing about what’s getting to him. Even though this is one of the few times where maybe he should say something. Not just because her life is in danger, but because everyone’s lives are. Everyone is living like the threat is gone – the threat isn’t gone, and if it comes back at any time, no one is prepared. But that’s cool.

Barry goes to the latest danger – a fire. The fire department won’t make it in time (super ineffective) and a detective ran in there for some unknown reason. He was going to put out a fire in the whole building single-handedly. You’d think he would know better. Barry runs in and Wally is already there. But the problem is that opening the door would cause an explosion and kill the detective. What is the detective’s name? He’s Matt Parkman from Heroes and he was on here before, but damned if I can remember his name. In any event he’s in behind the door trapped and yelling that he’s trapped despite the fact that they can see him. Luckily there’s two Flashes now so they’re able to counter the explosion and save the dumb detective and it’s all good.

Wally is feeling really great about being a hero and is feeling so bold that he puts his costume on Barry’s mannequin on his way out. We’ve had a month to take care of this (the show even says so). There should be two of them at this point. But we don’t have time to think about it because H.R. comes in to tell everyone that it’s going to be time to open the S.T.A.R. Labs museum soon. He wants everyone to see the progress so far, so Caitlin, Cisco, and Barry go with him into the rest of the building.

It looks pretty nice and H.R. even went so far to hire an employee. I guess he also fixed that giant hole in the building that’s been there for three years. He also designed a holographic Cisco to be the tour guide, which Cisco is not feeling at all. And the hologram keeps messing up anyway. Also he programed it to say all these praises about Harrison Wells, who has a tarnished reputation in this world because of the particle accelerator exploding and killing Barry’s mom – both things that have made the news and both things H.R. has been informed about. So they maybe want to change that too.

While that was happening, Wally went to the police station and overheard a conversation that was probably discouraging. The ungrateful detective says they don’t need that other Flash because he didn’t do anything to help him until their Flash got there. Which is pretty unfair considering the dumbass was pinned in a fire and had no idea what was happening. He shouldn’t have even been inside. He literally had no reason for that. But okay.

Meanwhile, Caitlin has been having trouble with the cuffs that Cisco designed for her. It’s becoming difficult to keep charging it. She decides to go see Julian at the CCPD to ask him if he can help. But Julian tells her that he doesn’t cure metas, he puts them in prison and he tells she’s on her own. He’s super rude for no reason, although Julian is British, so that could just be a default.

Later on, Barry is surprising Iris by showing her that he unpacked and decorated their place. She wanted to do it gradually, like a normal couple, but Barry says between their jobs that they’re never at and him being the Flash, he just figured he would do it. She loves the loft but she still wants Barry to talk to her about what’s going on with him. Because it’s an obvious distraction. Barry’s saved by a robbery in progress.

The robber is stealing some jewels; you know, typical bad guy robbing. Barry comes in, takes the bag that had the jewels, all ready to be quippy, but he’s immediately caught off guard because he recognizes the guy from the news in the future. Which gives the guy the chance to use his nifty speedster gun. So he shoots Barry and Barry is knocked down and the guy gets away.

They check out his health at S.T.A.R. Labs. He’s fine, a little beat up though. Unfortunately, seeing this guy has put Barry on super edge. H.R. is being clever and names the robber “Plunder” and Barry flashes back to his time in the future where the news report says that “Plunder was caught by the Flash earlier this year.” Wally tries to be encouraging and says next time they’ll get him and Barry is like, “Bitch you thought,” and fully shuts Wally down. So Wally leaves, disappointed, while the rest of the people left in the room (the other Wests) are looking at Barry like, “What’s wrong with you?”

Caitlin got a text from Julian, so she goes back to the CCPD to talk to him. He apologizes for how he was the day before; he can’t help but think of his time as Alchemy and he’s guilty about surviving when his colleagues got murdered. Which, again, is actually why Barry should say something, at least to him. This guy is trying to move on with his life when at a moment’s notice, he could go back to being possessed. Caitlin asks him to come work with them at S.T.A.R. Labs and he says he’ll consider it.

Barry later goes to talk to H.R. about his novels. He wants to know if H.R. ever wrote about the future and what his thoughts are on being able to change the future. H.R. tells him about the fans of his novel being divided on whether the future is fixed or if it’s malleable. H.R. personally thinks it’s fixed and tells Barry that “a man often meets his fate on the road he’s taking to avoid it.” It’s actually a great conversation that is completely unnecessary because Barry does not need verification of the future potentially changing. He already knows that it can. When they do the little plot recap they showed Barry talking to Oliver about the byline in the future newspaper changing from Iris’ name to someone else. He even said, “Something has changed with our future.” All that drama with Cisco’s brother dying – result of the ripples in the timeline when Barry changed the past. Jay telling Barry immediately after he came back from the future that what he saw was on future of many. Why did he ask the one non-scientist in the building about something he already knows?

But then Plunder is back and Barry has to stop him. Plunder has another cool gun that shoots these bullets that follow Barry. Barry gets rid of those and has Plunder disarmed, but he hesitates on stopping him because he keeps thinking of the news report. He doesn’t want to stop him. But the gun has stuff in it that is still tuned to Barry and it’s about to fire again and Barry is too distracted to realize it. So he’s fortunate in Wally running in and grabbing the gun and Plunder. There’s a bystander who caught Wally on video and asks he if he wants to say something to the camera. Wally excitedly introduces himself as Kid Flash.

They get back to S.T.A.R. Labs and everyone is congratulating Wally on his success, but Barry is super pissed. And he flips out on Wally and says all he’s supposed to do is observe and if he can’t take directions then the whole thing is done. It’s extremely uncomfortable for everyone. H.R. walks in to break the tension by saying they need to get out there to the opening.

When everyone walks in, all dressed up, they see that the place is completely empty. The two people who do come are immediately turned off at the fact that there’s a ticket price. Cisco tells H.R. how stupid the idea was and how they all let him distract them into thinking he was actually useful. Wally points out that someone else is coming, and they all see Julian. Julian tells them that he thought about it and wants to accept the offer. Which Caitlin never actually shared with everyone else.

So they discuss this. Cisco isn’t too fond of the idea since Julian is Alchemy and Iris points out that he was the one who gave Wally the powers (which Wally isn’t upset about). She tells them that they all need someone and that she thinks Julian can help her; she’s scared about becoming Killer Frost. They tell her to tell Julian that they will think about it. Everyone walks away, but Barry asks Iris to hang back because he needs to show her something.

Barry takes her to the time vault and shows her the future newspaper. He tells her the byline used to say Iris West-Allen. She says maybe she quit her job. Barry says that’s what he hoped at first too, until he got blasted into the future and saw her get murdered. He tells her that’s why he wanted to let Plunder go because he thought changing one thing could show how the future can change. She tells him that he can’t go jeopardizing the city for one person. He quite seriously asks her why not and says that Joe would make the same decision to save her too. She starts crying and asks how long before it happens. He hugs her and swears on the lives of both his parents that it won’t happen; except both of your parents are dead Barry and at the hands of speedsters no less, so your promises are meaningless.

They go to tell the others. Everyone is clearly upset by this. Wally asks if they’ve told Joe and Iris says they’re not going to be telling Joe. Wally and H.R. agree that Joe needs to know, but Iris says no because he’ll obsess with it. They all get into a debate about whether or not they can change it at all. But they think carefully changing some events, not all, could yield the desired outcome.

So everyone in the know congregates the next day to watch Cisco vibe Barry into the future. The day: May 23, 2017. And yes, that is a Tuesday. There’s our season finale. So they’re there watching Christmas Barry go through the motions. They stop at the same news broadcast that Barry first stopped at and they read off the headlines scrolling at the bottom (H.R. writes it all down): “Music Meister Gets Six-Figure Book Deal” (we could actually just end the episode there); “Joe West Gets Honored at City Hall”; “Killer Frost Still at Large”; “S.T.A.R. Labs Museum Closes”; “City Recovers After Gorilla Attack”. There you go – the major plot lines for the rest of the season. Presumably in the super back-half of this season. From March onward since the Music Meister crossover episode is in March.

They hear Barry yelling, “Don’t!” and they go over to see Savitar holding Iris. But wait! On the rooftop is H.R. holding a gun aimed at Savitar. And he wasn’t there last time. So, in case we still weren’t convinced, yes, the future can change. Barry has to see Iris still die though, so that was rough. They come out of the vibe and they have their plotlines outlined for them. Wally gives them some news – Plunder escaped.

Barry tells Wally that he was wrong before – Wally is ready and he can fight. Time to suit up. They go after Plunder and Barry lets Wally take the lead and run in. But Wally gets bested by Plunder’s motorcycle. Wally tells Barry that maybe he should do it, but Barry reminds him of the news broadcast. He says it has to be Wally because that means that the future news broadcast is wrong. They both go running after Plunder and Wally does stop him and he gets to soak in the praise of people chanting “Kid Flash”.

The present news credits the capture to Kid Flash. While Wally was doing that, Barry stole Plunders gun and he gives it to Cisco. They’re feeling pretty good about being able to fix all this. So at some point something should go horribly, tragically wrong.

That evening, Barry and Iris are having a house warming. And, like the Christmas episode, I am on edge the whole time. But no one dies or gets kidnapped or brutally attacked, so we’re good. H.R. gives them a pet turtle, making my day because The Flash now has a pet turtle. Joe decides to bring them a framed picture of them on one of their first days of school (it’s weird). Julian shows up and gets the news that they will let him join the team; he and Cisco give Caitlin a solar powered version of the cuffs to keep her powers at bay. The necklace is in the shape of a snowflake, which is kind of a messed up thing to give Killer Frost. H.R. gives a sweet toast.

The episode ends with some woman jumping out of a portal with H.R.’s face projected from her watch. Looks like someone is after him. And end episode.

#the flash #season 3 #the flash 3x10 #tv #recap

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rtirman-blog · 7 years

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25.

That awkward moment in the upstairs hallway at the Holy Cross Central School of Nursing may appear to others as part of my experience with girls. However, it was clearly an embarrassing work moment caused, and witnessed by, a nun! However, that X-rated comedy does bring to mind two persistent challenges in my life other than work and school i.e., making friends, and living with my Harriet, Wally, and my cousins.

One of the first person’s I met was Bob Ernst. I can’t say that Bob and I ever did anything together, but I will never forget the day I met him. After getting a cup of coffee-to-go at the Huddle, I walked over to the La Fortune Student Center to relax. I found a comfortable chair in the large ballroom as you enter the building. It simply was a very comfortable, quiet, place with lots of comfortable chairs of the kind in which I was sitting. I placed my books down on the coffee table, then picked up my newly purchased copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This was not a textbook, nor was it assigned reading. I spotted this paperback copy at the Notre Dame Bookstore, and it reminded me of a night at Daddy’s when my brothers and I were visiting Phyllis and him in Brooklyn

It was quite late, and we were discussing the Canterbury Tales. Really, I ought to be saying that they were discussing the Canterbury Tales while I was on the couch trying so hard to stay awake. I’d hear a bit of conversation or laughter and doze off, that would repeat and repeat itself for what seemed like all night. But all of a sudden the laughter got real loud. I awoke to see Daddy laughing so hard he was crying and giggling. I began to laugh. He took off his glasses, and tears were pouring down his cheeks. Why, in God’s earth was he laughing so uncontrollably? What was so funny? The answer - one of the Canterbury Tales. To be precise it was The Miller’s Tale. No one told me anything else, except that I should read it.

So, when I spotted the book in the book store, I snatched it up quickly; and then, in the quiet and friendly confines of the La Fortune Student Center, I read the Miller’s Tale. Chaucer does not waste a single word! Everything written is essential to the tale. Once I reached the end of the story, I couldn’t believe how masterfully, and cleverly, every written word mattered. Sitting there alone, I laughed and laughed. But I was not alone as I thought. A student, whom I did not know, sitting on the other side of the room, was laughing with me. He made his way over to me, and wanted to know what I was reading that made me laugh so hard. He was laughing because I was laughing! Just as everyone did for me, I told him what I read that made me laugh so hard, but I would not tell him anything more, so as to not spoil it for him. He and I became school friends through all my years at Notre Dame. I don’t recall doing anything with him outside the University. Actually, I had three other friends my freshman year, and I can’t remember doing anything outside the school. With any of them. As I think back, all that makes a whole lot of sense. Classes, labs, studying, and work at the hospital consumed most of my time….and energy! But Alas! I still have not talked about life with my Aunt and Uncle and my cousins.

My cousins were terrific. Whenever I had time to be around them, it was fun. But honestly, those times were few too many. My Uncle Wally, who I loved dearly, somehow felt that I should show my appreciation by doing well in school and by doing chores, such as, trimming the ten-foot-high hedges, mowing and raking the lawn, shoveling snow, etc. Occasionally, I watched the kids. Another dimension to my stay with them was that Wally turned into a hovering parent. I grew up with practically no adult supervision, yet, I adjusted. Even though Wally had always had a great sense of humor, I found him to be a pretty stern person. However, I felt like I needed to do things his way. He made a much better uncle than a parent.

I was hard to participate in anything at the University, and hard to develop friendships. I hope it makes sense when I say I made three friends, and I have no idea how I met two of them – Tony Ciambelli and Ray Sayers. Ray was studying at Notre Dame with his eye on the Priesthood. I believe he was headed for the Congregation of Holy Cross (CSC) because most of the priests there were from that Order. In fact, Father Edward Sorin, the founder of the University, was a Holy Cross priest.

(As an unimportant note of interest, up until this moment, I never put together Father Sorin and St. Edward’s Hall, in which I had the good fortune to live for a couple of semesters. I also just discovered that Father Sorin founded St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas. One more aside - It was pointed out to me, in a calculus class, how to remember the CSC after the names of Holy Cross priests. As you may know, in a right triangle, the sine and cosecant are reciprocals. Therefore, csc=1/sin, or csc equals one over sin. Clever!)

Tony was to become my roommate during my sophomore year. Besides wanting to live on my own, my Uncle thought it best that I leave. He felt, I was a bad influence on my cousins. Frankly, he either felt he put more on his plate than he could chew, or more likely, he feared that I might mess with Sari, who was mature beyond her 10 years. Just meeting that beautiful girl, you would swear she was eleven or twelve years old. The only female that was ever in their house whom I would have liked the nerve to “attack” was Mary Lou Dillon.

Mary Lou was almost two years older than me. She had to be the prettiest and nicest gal in the entire Midwest. Mary Lou worked in my Uncles offices, and was the regular sitter for my cousins. Just trying to talk with her was difficult. I needed to gulp, but I didn’t want her to see me gulp, revealing my unrequited nerves. She was very friendly, and shared a huge secret with me. As most people didn’t know, on radio and aired to only Notre Dame students, there was a nighttime program called “Letters from Home” Since I was not on campus, I never heard Notre Dame’s rendition of “Tokyo Rose”. Nonetheless, the boys (and that’s all there were at Notre Dame, boys!) would listen to the voice of a girl named Elaine. At least, that’s what I think was her name. Mary Lou’s revelation to me was that she was Elaine! All those guys drooling while listening to Elaine with her girl-from-home voice, read those breath-taking letters, and I was the Notre Dame student who knew her best- Mary Lou and I had a “secret”, or from my point of view a “secret relationship”.

(I realize I jump from topic to topic. When I am writing about one thing, another thing comes into my mind. So I start writing about it. Some people would advise me to simply jot down the new thought on another piece of paper. But I am not very organized, and I’ll lose that paper, for sure. Also, when and if I find that paper, I can’t be sure it would conjure up the thoughts I presently have in my mind. Sometimes, I think I have ADHD!)

Back to Tony. Near the end of my freshman year, Tony said, for next year, he was going to rent an upstairs suite in a private home on the west side of South Bend. He asked me to be his roommate. After visiting with the Mr. and Mrs. Komp, the owners of the home, and after viewing the upstairs rooms, I agreed to rent the suite with Tony. We became roommates during my sophomore year. However, I can’t recall actually doing anything with Tony or Ray during that freshman year. I know we had lots of conversations, but I don’t remember whether we were on campus or off campus. I’m certain, they would say I was their friend. During finals in May, Tony, Ray, and I were finally getting together to go to the movies. Due to a familiar circumstance, that get-together never happened.

I need to back up to Father Lane and my first semester chemistry performance. You might recall that I started off that class with a bang. I was teaching other students the Periodic Table. But just like many other things that I start off with a bang, my energy and interest waned, and I lost whatever enthusiasm I had for chemistry. I really think I had too much time between classes, and my penchant for not showing up to my chemistry class went into high gear. My chemistry grades declined rapidly, while my pool skills improved slightly. The end result? I failed Chemistry with a 65 average, and that isn’t a final exam score! So that meant I had to retake Chemistry. The only course available during the Spring semester was being taught by Mr. McCusker, in the Engineering School. Obsessed with the same thoughts I had about taking Trigonometry twice in high school, I was over anxious to not do lousy the second time around. So I used my Uncle’s sure fire method of study. Before a lecture, I read the chapter as if I was reading a novel. I did not to worry about remembering a thing that I read. I then would attend the chemistry class and took notes during the lecture. As immediately after the lecture as was possible, I corrected my notes using my chemistry book. My notes were always in pencil for easy correction. Then, before the next chemistry class, I memorized those notes. Then, each day I went back to the first day of notes and reviewed all of them, from that first day to through the last entry. In essence, that is a continuous recall of the notes from day one. I kept that up the entire semester. I got a 100 % on every exam and every quiz, except the last quiz before the final. I missed a question about an ice-salt mixture falling below 0 degrees Centigrade. Since I had the highest average in the class, and since I missed that question, I was right to expect that same question to show up on the final…it did!

I was seen as a real bright student. I tried to see myself in the same way, but my vision was tarnish by having failed the course before. Anyway, the night before the final, I had told Wally that I had to study for the Chemistry final. He, Harriett and the kids were off to an outdoor movie. After they left, I got cleaned up, and went out the front door to be on my way to see Tony and Ray. However, just as I was walking away from the door, pulling up into the driveway was Wally, with wife and children. He had forgotten something, and came back to the house to get it. Today, I think he came back to get me. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was going to go downtown to go to the movies with Tony and Ray. He said, no! If you are not going to study for that chemistry final, then you will go to the movies with us.

That’s exactly what occurred. I did not study for the final. I did not go out with Tony and Ray. I went to an outdoor movie with the family. Wally was certain I would learn my lesson. Well, I got a 100% on the final and a 97% for the course. The student closest to me got a course grade of 91%…I guess I learned my lesson well!

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kentonramsey · 4 years

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What The Demise Of Topshop Means To Me & Other Millennials

Topshop, once the buzziest store on the British high street, has become the latest COVID casualty – and the one that hurts the most. This week it was announced that the beleaguered Arcadia group, which also owns Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Miss Selfridge and Burton, had gone into administration, putting 13,000 jobs at risk. A decade ago, the idea that Topshop, the jewel in Arcadia’s crown, could be on the brink of collapse would have been unimaginable.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

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What The Demise Of Topshop Means To Me & Other Millennials published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

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