#wHEW THESE WERE A LOT OF HASHTAGS

[sillygoose067]

Charles’s Angel(s)

Ch.12

Charles Leclerc x Reader

Author’s Note: FYI, if you haven’t been following along closely since chapter 2, I had the OC be Indian/a brown girl— Just because I felt like we don’t get enough representation. So if you don’t like that, I guess just either live with it, or blur that piece of information out as you go. Also: did I use some random ass generator wheel for some of the super specific information? Yes. Will I change it? Probably not. Did I check if that kinda stuff was even possible? …Mayhaps.

When you finally make it into the restaurant and sit down to order, you immediately spot multiple people, mostly young women, pulling out their phones, trying to (not so) discreetly take photos and videos of the two of you. You could just imagine the headlines and hashtags trending the next day.

Charles is immune to this by now and smiles and waves at some of the phones, and ignores the majority of the others. 

Biting your lip, you scan through the menu. “Charles?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you mind recommending me something? I’ve never been here before”.

“Sure Chéri. Is there anything you don’t or can’t consume? I hate to assume, but I know that lots of Indians are vegetarian”.

“Ah, no. My family and I eat everything, so no worries”.

He orders a Tourte de Blettes for you and a Pissaladiere for himself.

“So. Tell me more about yourself.”

Not knowing how to go about this, you think for a while. “Well, I’m Indian, but I was born in Singapore, and brought up in America”. You count off a finger. “I was certified to be a music producer at a very young age, sometime in secondary school and I have a degree in forensic science. I really love singing, but usually only in my free time. I've actually been working at a producing studio here”. You scrunch your brows trying to recall any interesting details about yourself. “Um, I’m also a dance choreographer for a lot of Korean idol groups and produce music for them too, so I go over there from time to time… I don’t know. What exactly do you want to know?”

When you meet Charles’s eyes again, he’s looking at you with an adoring expression on his face. “You’re so cute, like a little angel. Mon ange” (My angel).

You blush in embarrassment. He asks you more about why you chose your major and what it’s like working with idols while you wait for your meals. “I’d love to hear you sing sometime”.

Just then, the waiter comes with your dishes. Whew, saved by the food! The aromas wafting off the delicious looking dishes are absolutely mouth watering, as if the sights weren’t enough. You begin to split your food in half, and he asks what you’re doing. “Oh- well, my family and I always split our meals equally to try everything, Sorry, I did that out of habit– I can take the piece back–”

“I think I quite like that idea. Here”, He splits his meal and gives it to you as well. 

…

After dinner, the two of you decide to split the bill, because you were unwilling to let Charles pay in full, regardless of whether or not he earned more than you. 

As you walk back home, hand-in-hand and discussing common interests, you find yourself leaning your head on his arm, and later, with his arm around your shoulder. 

When you reach the door to your apartment, he turns to you and moves a strand of hair out of your face. “I liked getting to know you tonight, and I hope you will give me the chance to take you out again”. You make a sound of agreement. Knowing that you aren’t quite ready to have your first kiss yet, you pull him down slightly and get on your tiptoes, kissing his cheek. He smiles and kisses the crown of your head in return, and then ushers you into your home. 

When he leaves, you send him a text. Thank you for the best first date ever.

[sharperthewriter]

What do you think about these rumors of a new Kim Possible series this summer? 

Ah yes, Anon, I have been posting in response to the rumors because that is what they are: rumors. And as it stands as my position, I usually take such KP rumors with MAJOR grains of NaCl (aka salt). And I will not believe anything unless Disney announces something about it (something similar to when Mr. Dan Povenmire announced that there were gonna be two more seasons-aka 40 episodes divided in half- of Phineas and Ferb .) Until that time comes, I will not believe anything from other sites. And if it were going to be announced officially, it would be through Disney TV Animation twitter. But I think, (and this is my opinion) is that there is only a slim chance of that happening because we gotta take into account several things. First off, if there were a reboot/continuation of KP, Disney needs to take into account that there would have to be a new Nana Possible, Timothy North, Jack Hench, Mama Lipsky, and Senor Senior Senior as those VAs of their respective characters (as well as both VAs of Senior) are deceased. Secondly, the timing. The most ample opportunity that Disney had in announcing a KP reboot/continuation would've been at the D23 Expo last September. And it just so happened that both Christy Carlson Romano and Will Friedle were there and it just so happens that they were holding a 20th Anniversary KP panel there (I am hoping to find a video on Youtube). So the opportunity was there for them to announce something, because if such a reboot/continuation would've been announced at the D23 Expo, the media would've been all over it. But when the expo ended, KP fans got nothing, nathan, nada . Thirdly, CCR herself is quite busy with raising a family plus she is doing three podcasts (her Vulnerable podcasts that she normally posts on her Youtube channel every Tuesday, her I Hear Voices podcasts with Will that she posts onto Apple and Spotify every Monday and her upcoming Even Stevens podcast that she is doing with the actors that played Beans and Donnie Stevens ) and she is also doing that voice-actor contest with Will for IHeartRadio as well. Fourthly, and lastly, animation is not only expensive but also takes a lot of time to make. (Simply do a Google search on how long and how expensive it is for Fox/Disney to make a single episode of Family Guy or Simpsons.)

I also tend to keep a very close eye on the KP hashtag, especially here on Tumblr and Twitter.

Then again, when I say slim chances of a reboot/continuation, I point to their (albeit brief) appearances so far on Chibiverse (so far, it has only been Kim, Ron, and Rufus) and it was mentioned back in last July from Disney TVA News that there were (maybe are) gonna be Chibi Tiny Tales of KP. So we (may) get future KP content in the form of 70-second shorts.

Whew, that was a long response. But again, thanks for your question, Anon. :)

[liinos]

Man I know I talk about her like every week but 😭 I really am grateful for the friend I go on weekly walks with like I know it's not a lot but I do feel like shes kind of keeping me sane this semester... like not that I dont talk to friends back home when I'm at school but bc I'm very isolated as a result of just being me msjdk I dont really hang out with people nor do I esp want to since I'm just constantly exhausted but idk it's different to actually be able to see her and like be in nature and just talk to someone who actually knows me. I think shes the person I've been friends with the longest (since idk where I stand with the other person I'd consider for that🥴) and shes definitely one of my closest friends and I'm just so comfortable around her... I stress a lot about what people think of me and how i come across and such when I'm with people who i havent known as long and obviously I dont tell her every single thing about me but I just dont really feel like I have to care about that around her it's just really fun and nice to talk about stuff esp since we have a lot of similar life experiences and idk this doesnt really make sense but shes just very easy to be around and I'm glad I get to see her :(

[jlf23tumble]

Hi! I haven’t been up to date with fandom drama in a few years since I haven’t been active on tumblr, but I read your tags under the ripped jeans Harry post and you got me interested! Could you tell me something about what you’re thinking? What is Olivia doing that you think people should be happy about but are instead whining? what did Robbie Sheffield write? I may have left the larry part of the internet but they still haven’t left my brain 🌼🌞 have a nice day!

anon 2: Hiii :) I saw your tags on the post about Harry wearing jeans but I don’t understand the context for your tags??? I couldn’t find the post/person you were referring to, but could you please explain what you mean regarding this fandom being babies and the whole Olivia proxy/last album being about a break up ect.? Thank you!

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

Lumping these together because they're both about my salty-ish tags from last night, a time that was so much quieter than today, weeeee! Sorry it's a bit late, *gestures toward work mail*, but it pretty much always applies, sigh. Those tags stem from some "get a load of THIS horseshit" posts that my brethren and I occasionally trade with each other, usually because we cannot BELIEVE people have the balls to post some of the most malicious, bitter posts you've ever seen, followed by something about how sad it is that fandom is so toxic these days (gotta say, eternal faves). I love these side convos (groupchats, even!) with people who similarly hate the aggressive misogyny in the 1D fandom, and because I follow just a small handful of people in that fandom who don't actively hate women (or feel the need to casually bash them along the way to celebrating their fave rich white man), I'm sometimes out of the loop when the biggies who tend to also be the worst offenders get a little frisky with it, which is why I love it when people send me posts that are the equivalent of "get a load of THIS horseshit"--the lorde provided yesterday! I'll put my unpopular opinions under the cut because it might get rant-y, and I've got tons of aes mutuals who are ????? and patient but probably ???? and patient only to a certain point.

So one of the things I find fascinating about lady-haters in the D fandom is that the vast majority of them seem to be l*rries who also seem to really love spending a lot of time and effort screaming about Eleanor, Camille, Olivia et al. about how they should act and what they should wear and how they should dance or not dance and how obnoxious they are and on and on and on AND ON, while ALSO screaming about how much they support closeted people, hashtag fuck Olivia, man, she's the real villain here! (Paraphrasing, but the #holivia tag on tumblr will give you a pretty nasty snapshot.) And the irony is that by dating Olivia or Eleanor, both these dudes get to write all these songs about a surface relationship that give a good hint about the one right below the surface through that female proxy--you know, because they aren't actually out and can't/won't. And if you're a l*rrie, I'd think you would WANT to see Eleanor around (whew, they didn't break up, even though they were "too young"!), ditto Olivia (whew, I'm ready for a lot of domestic shit about a long-term relationship!), but no, that's a transitive property dot that can't be connected because it means you gotta unclench and let a woman live. To wit: I was sent a post yesterday from one of the biggest lady-haters, saying something something about how Harry's going to have this super domestic album and THEY are taking l*arry's love and putting Olivia in Louis’s place! Outrageous! (Plus a string of tags foaming at the mouth about how awful Olivia is, don't worry, the replies/tags are even bigger yikes.) And it's like, well, YEAH. You should actually find that pretty awesome, in fact, it probably means your faves are still together--I mean, Fine Line has loads of major break-up vibes (in amongst self-discovery and acceptance), and Harry very publicly had a breakup with Louis's proxy on that one. Rob Sheffield's article promoting Fine Line basically promotes that break-up and ends on a real fucking OUCH moment where Harry and Anne are watching Fleetwood Mac singing Landslide, and he's mc-fuckin' losin' it, Anne's there comforting him, and if you're thinking that that moment is about Camille Rowe, uh, you ain't me, babe. (Clapback too for Rob being the one to write the iconic Louis is Lindsey, Harry is Stevie piece). Again, just my own onion, I tend to be okay holding more than one string in my hand (these two CAN break up and get back together, don't even get me started on babygate brainrot talk).

But I think my biggest issue with all of it is that for a lot of l*rries, you gotta be gold star or you're out (literally true in so many groupchats and discords): they've each only fucked one person, they've never broken up, never had a major fight, it's never been messy, never been open, listen, you bitch, they fought against the odds, and they won! And I don't doubt that they did, but this isn't AO3, so I also don't doubt that they might've fucked other people, broken up and gotten back together again, had some real messy stuff, most likely around being in an open relationship for a spell and dealing with unspeakable personal tragedy, in amongst regular human growth and discovery. That doesn't make them bad people, it doesn't mean they aren't back together (and it doesn't even mean I'm right, I'm just a rando who has my own opinions about people I don't personally know, just like everyone else), but there's this fandom naivety about it, big-time fingers in ears la-la-la-la, where you're a bad person for even thinking it, so any cognitive dissonance just gets transferred to the woman involved, woman = bad (I'm simplifying, maybe it's bigger than that, but it's interesting to see how some blogs can't fucking shut about it, whereas others go about their biz--blogs in larr nation, I mean). And that's totally baby behavior, well, toddler behavior. I think a lot of babies can actually go with the flow, it's toddlers who melt down if someone moves their blankie.

Anyway, I'm wandering away from my point, which is that bearding isn't a fucking crime, especially if you claim to support your fave (or for that matter, anyone in the closet--it's what it's, as Louis's chest so wisely tells us). Your guy doesn't want to be or can't be out right now, and that's fine! Makes sense! Makes a lot of fucking sense, actually, these fans are invasive, bro! I just wish that if people were so worried about the state of the larry union, they'd maybe chill out a bit about the women involved. Maybe stop being an asshole. Maybe stop giving women asinine names because you think it's cute. Maybe stop complaining that someone's a narse because they're always "flaunting" [checks notes] that they're dating the person everyone says they're dating, or thirsting or chasing clout or whatever it is that Olivia does that is so god-awful to you on a personal level that you spend your day focused on it. (My fave: people who say she's forcing her latest ig story on them, when they're the ones following her, pausin' that little story, takin' that little screenshot, adding arrows and circles and text that manages to trash her for botox [but not Harry], trash her for dancing as if she isn't aware that everyone's watching [but not Harry], then reblogging all that garbage nonstop--it ain't rocket science, bb, she's not the one putting it anyone's face, you're literally the one following her and doing all this work! Unfollow, and set yourself free!)

Ahem. Anyway, yeah, so that's me, wondering why people spend so much time hating on people who are literally giving you the proof that you seem to need, but shirts work, too, I guess! Harder to hate a shirt, or project your self-hatred onto it, maybe? Makes u think.

[kouhaiofcolor]

Whew shit it aggravates the hell outta me how much recognition non black ppl felt they were entitled to for pRoTeStInG police brutality that specifically targets black ppl — by only acting on performative upset around George Floyd's murder. Yet Makiyah Bryant was literally murdered by a white police officer as they were reading Chauvin's verdict for killing Floyd & yall haven't said too much at all. The same performative & self-proclaimed activists haven't said a word ab this fr.

The same ppl who were (& still are) walking around w/ a chip on their shoulder ab buying fucking totes, t-shirts, wristbands & face masks that say "Africa" or "Black Lives Matter" or "Say Their Names" — haven't said or so much as put any comparable energy into demanding justice for Makiyay Bryant, Breonna Taylor, or any Black Woman or underage Black Girl killed by white people for that matter. Its like yall felt like, "well all thats finally over; guess police brutality & police officers murdering black ppl isn't a thing anymore or something we should keep protesting after things cool down; we've done 'our part'. 🙄Yall make me fucking sick the way yall showed up & out in international droves for Floyd; the way yall created & pushed hashtags for that grown ass man who OPENLY shit on Black Women (the largest & most signigicant demographic who was out there demanding answers & justice for his murder itfp).

An autistic, black child was killed by the same kind of people who murdered Floyd; working in the same "profession". She was killed by a fucking police officer in the midst of being harassed by kids her age who were bullying her to a point where her hand was forced & she sought out the police to intervene. & they killed her like she didn't mean a damn thing. Yall are silent ab it like she didn't mean a damn thing. Yall literally just went back to your regular lives, obsessing over absolute billshit & living on the internet like it didn't matter at all. Like, "Well we did all that for Floyd. Dont have the energy to do it for anyone else Black; particularly Black Women/Girls."

Where is yall energy for this?? Idk if yall realize but the way this shit reflects, it looks like Americans (& ppl from other countries that participated in the protesting for Floyd) only give a fuck ab black lives if cishet black males are the focus — & that's so fucking disrespectful. Yall are seriously ok w that child being taken from her family? Her mother? Her siblings if she had any??? What ab her dreams? What ab what she wanted to do w her life in spite of all the shit she was going thru being fucked w for being autistic? Do yall give any sort of fucks? Do yall give a damn at all? Just be real ab it. Bc this didn't just happen to Makiyah. This isn't something that's happend to just one black girl before.

This is happening more often than most care to consider fr. In fact, the perpetual concern ppl are brainwashed to have for white women being potentially unrealistically sex-trafficked, sexually abused/assaulted, kidnapped/abducted — happens way more prevalently to black women & little Black girls all over the globe. White women have international protection since they are pushed as a forced international standard & ideal anyway. Black women are not at all a protected demographic. Anywhere in the world. And black men are # fucking 1 in our assailant normalcy — yet everyone gives them all the exclusive consideration when it comes to crimes against the Black Community by non blacks & blacks alike. Fucking tired of yall fr, on everything. Yall let that child die in vain & still ain't got off yall asses to do or say anything ab it the way yall were committed to doing it for Floyd. You should be ashamed. You should be embarrassed.

Idc what you think you did out there for Floyd if you didn't do the same for Makiyah. Or Breonna. Or any Black women among the thousands of names mentioned among the "Say Their Names" outcry. Yall didn't do a damn thing but keep a hashtag trending through the summer last year. Yall give no real fucks & im glad I wasn't giving yall too much credit for doing the bare minimum, cus looking at how "concerned" yall are now, it truly was a minimum. Fuck yall. George Floyd was a grown ass man. Did all that active disapproval of someone killing his ass & then turn yall back on black women asap.

That he spent any part of his life as a black male being & acting on misogynoir — just to cry out for his Black Mother at the peak of his suffering & death, is ironic; almost funny considering how he likely wouldn't have protested for the unreasonable murder of black women himself. Yall desperately need to get your fucking priorities together, cus a lot of yall too damn grown to be this stupid & have attention spans this short. Yall just be expecting black women's support on any & everything — even if it don't make sense or if it puts us in harm's way. Then do absolutely nothing for us when circumstances absolutely more than demand it. Im done supporting these lame ass causes for ppl who don't do shit for Black women even when we do it for yall. Most of the time the majority of you don't even open your mouth ab black women lest its to degrade or defeminize them so yea its p clear to me where the majority of you truly stand unfiltered on issues around our safety & wellbeing.

I'm good. There is no poc solidarity; there is no progression or inclusion in speaking up for races who are not black as a black person — esp not as a black woman. Im quite done w the vast majority of ppl & giving a fuck ab things i cannot — but that other races of ppl v well can — control (regarding our mistreatment). I will not be speaking on this blog ab anything that does not pertain specifically & exclusively to issues within or injustices committed against the Black community. I do not have the energy or interest; just like yall don't ab us. Fuck yall, fuck your problems (cultural & personal), & fuck you being mad ab it if at all. Do not care. Black Women & Little Black Girls do not deserve the blatant disregard & neglect yall habitually subject us to for absolutely nothing. You will not get empathy from this black woman on this shit, period.

[thenotetoselfpod-hq]

“The answer is yes if you were wondering if y’all were spoiled. Whew, Chile. Don’t ask me for NOTHIN’ else.” Zion chuckled sweetly as she dramatically cleared her throat. “Lets get into it. Welcome back to another episode of the Note to Self podcast where we talk all things self care of the body, spirit, mind, work ethic, sprinkled in with a whole lot of motivation to carry us into a new day. I am your host Zion Taylor and with me in my makeshift studio is my lil baby who listens to all of my problems, my boss friend THEEEEE Brilliant O’neal.” Zion air claps as she smiles over at Brilliant. “How are you on this lovely day, mama?”

“Hey, hey, hey! I’m so excited to speak to the note to self listeners all over, it’s been fun listening in and making my own input here and there but wheww being here feels so rewarding.” She said warmly before playfully exhaling. “I’m doing good, managing like I usually do but good nonetheless. How are you?! What jewels do you plan on dropping for the people today?”

“I’m probably doin’ a little less good than you since you’re managing but girl .. I cannot complain at all. So thankful to have you here for this episode and to just catch up. We’ll get into the tea of it all a little later. We start every episode with a brief recap and I wanted to thank everyone, again, for all of the love. I hope you all were inspired to really keep killing shit in the industry that you’re in and watch the doors open up for you. Last weeks top listeners were the beauty that is known as @royalnike who spoke about her Black Owned Mechanic business and the short term goals that she has for herself in that business. Of course you, Mrs. Brilli Dis, founder and owner of The Glamour Parlor, and the beautiful @syxrai, who I’m obsessed with on IG by the way, but who also is a film producer ALL shared your short term goals which inspired me tremendously. If you missed out on that go give it a listen and drop your own goals in the comment section.

Music is the only thing that gets me through my week sometimes. This week is on you because Channing is still pressed about Good Days so that shit rings in my head every day because of her.” Zion laughed, “What have you been listening to this week? Any new music you wanna share? Put us on.

Brilliant cracked up in laughter at the mention of Channing. “That baby got taste, because that’s my jam! But this week I’ve been on my Gangsta Brilli, I’ve been playing A Gangsta’s Pain by MoneyBagg on repeat. I think his track with Jhené is the perfect vibe, so if y’all need something to vibe to, with a nice little glass of wine, One of Dem Nights, but the whole album bops.”

“Okaaaay. Now see I haven’t always been a MoneyBaggYo fan up until his songs started getting airtime on the radio. I’ma definitely have to give that a listen once Channing is done boppin’ to her fave.

And that brings us right into the TEA for the day. I’ve known Brilliant for several years now and I feel like I’ve only known her as this amazing business women, wife and mother. We both know how crazy it can be going from Hashtag Living Single to Mommy Duties real quick once you’re married and have wifely duties, etc. How long did you know your Husband before you two decided to make it official AND tie the knot? Was marrying young something that you were open to or did it not matter? What’s that young love story you can’t wait to share with your kids?” Zion smiled as she looked over at Brilliant.

“So I always tell people that me and my husband’s love story is literally crazy, and I don’t think it could’ve happened any other way. Because were short on time, for the real how we met tea, watch our YouTube video! But..I think we dated for about a year before I got pregnant and just because of the type of man he is and how in love we were, and how happy we were when our son Justice was born, we got married when he was about 3 months. I honestly didn’t see myself marrying that young or having children..and my life did a whole 180. I just thought damn I’ll probably hate it here but when you have that person to make those defining moments with..it was a breeze and I found myself being happier with my little family than when I ran the streets. I don’t think marrying young is for everyone but when you make the right decision..man the moments you’ll create..priceless. Still a hot girl though, don’t get that twisted.” She said with a playful laugh.

“EXACTLYYY. I have to remind Lex all the time when he sees me playing dress up in my boots and coochie cutters that mama BEEN a stallion, okay?! Hot Girl Summer me, please!” She laughed, “No but seriously the feeeeels. I’m obsessed with the love you two have for each other. It’s infectious. But I’m sure it hasn’t always been cupcakes and rainbows, right. Y’all, shit gets real after the wedding and the vows and even after that honeymoon phase. I know for me and Carmelo, I’m more of the opinionated one and I really had to learn to step down and let my man LEAD our home. We were pregnant before the wedding ... liiike ya girl had her dress taken OUT 4 times before I was satisfied with how my hips looked in it.” She chuckled, “You said something so special, when you have that person to make memories with you will DEFINITELY not want to live a single day without them and expanding that love into children only makes it better. Melo was trying to get me pregnant BEFORE he proposed to me and I wasn’t having it because at the time I was dealing with fertility issues and having a baby seemed damn near impossible. I always say that he spoke the life of our son, Lexington, into existence because I didn’t think that I could physically carry.”��She stated, smiling again at the thought.

“I remember you alls last video where you announced the pregnancy of my other child, Jewel” She chuckled, “Um, what was the experience like for you? Having to go through all that you did for the blessing that is currently your literal shadow. She looks like her Daddy but has your everything else. What was that like?”

“That’s your child for sure.” She said with a laugh. “It was actually on the difficult side, she’s my rainbow baby. I suffered a miscarriage and some issues with fertility so I actually got pregnant with Jewel through IVF. I adore her, it’s scary having a mini version of myself. Someone who’s with all my hair, makeup and nail antics because my son Justice is not with it at all! He won’t even let me take his picture half the time.” She laughed momentarily. “I know it’s the same way with you and my baby Channing”

“I can imagine it being extremely difficult. When God’s mind is made up we can only pray that He’s included us in His plans and when he made Channing? He definitely had me in mind.” She laughed. “I still don’t know how we got so lucky but I don’t question anything. She’s obsessed with all of my clothes and hair and everything in between.”

“The last thing I wanted to talk to you about is what’s been going on in the media with Porsha, Falynn, and the Husband who I don’t even know his name yet. So Porsha Williams brought onto the Real Housewives of Atlanta show her friend Falynn a few years ago. Maybe like two seasons ago. This is someone who was also featured on this last season of the RHOA show that was filmed in 2020. Apparently the two are no longer friends and Porsha is now ENGAGED to Falynns’ Husband because they haven’t even gotten a divorce yet. I wan’t to know your thoughts on the whole situation. What type of friendship dynamic do you think they had for Porsha to be comfortable MARRYING this man?”

“Engaged. To. A. Former. Friend’s. Husband.” She said slowly before letting out a low sigh. “Now, the first mistake she made was being engaged or dating a man who is still married. I don’t care what the circumstances are, he is legally married! It is literally code and decency not to date or marry after your friends. If y’all are friends or have ever called each other friends, that’s just unacceptable. I would beat the breaks off anyone I called a friend for going after my husband if we ever were to divorce. That’s just grimy and I don’t think Falynn is mad enough. I do know though, one of my followers who is a hair stylist said how she married one of her old client’s ex husband and child’s father. Do you think that’s acceptable? Say I did a woman’s hair for years and nothing besides that and I went on to date her ex?”

“Absolutely not. Unacceptable and I’m the type of crazy that belongs in jail so you already know how that’s gone gooo. It’ll forever be up until they give me life.” Zion laughed and shook her head, “Period. Porsha is most definitey a fucked up individual but I would LOVE to hear y’alls thoughts on the matter so leave alll comments in the comment section below.” 

“Thank you all so much for listening to me and Brilliant catch up. Brilliant please tell my listeners where they can follow you and how they can support The Glamour Parlour. Alsooo, when’s the next brunch or giveaway?”

“It has been sooo fun talking with you! I’m glad I got the opportunity to talk with to boss friend Zion! I get this question a lot..so often.” She let out a low laugh. “All I’ll say is to stay tuned, we’ll be turning up soon and the giveaways won’t stop!”

“Ayyyy so there it is people, the beautiful Brilliant O’neal. Be sure to check her out across all social media platforms at @brillixdis​ and I’ll talk to you in the next episode. Byyyyyyyye.”

[mariahthelioness29]

Differences

pairing: Sam x Bucky 

words: 3.5k (how did I write this ?, I don’t know) 

Warning; pinning, fluff, a smidge of smut, cursing (a little), alcohol consumption and 2 idiots in love, slow burn

A look of Sam and Bucky in New Orleans, A party, and maybe feelings being resolved. A conclusion (I guess) of No Plan and Going Back. 

I was listening to Differences by Ginuwine and the tracks that follow on Youtube and I got inspired. 

A special THANK YOU to @avintagekiss24​ and @siancore​. Your comments, suggestions are gold to me. I am so grateful.

@siancore​ @xbuchananbarnes​ @avintagekiss24​ @helahades​  @euh-say-what-now​ @here-for-your-bullshit​ @rasberrylemon​ @blackmissfrizzle​ @sapphirescrolls​ @babiiface95​ @27dis​ @captainsamwlsn​

Face claim for new characters:

Nelsan Ellis- Lafayette

Rutina Wesley-Leyla 

Miroslava Morales-Miriam

Mood board for the party:

The humidity and the temperature were unbearable. Today is his no-shirt- shorts on-day. It is so hot, that his insecurities about his scars are taking a day off.

It is so peaceful, he does not want to think about the mission they just had. Missions are always blocked from his mind. They are a heat in the moment thing. He thanks his mind for blocking them, otherwise he will be a nervous wreck.

This heat reminds him of Wakanda. That paradise on earth. He goes through his bag and takes a colorful notebook with patterns. His photo album.

Looking at the polaroid pictures of him in Wakanda. Shuri had some vintage items. She loves polaroid’s pictures so she gifted him a Polaroid camera.

One of him and Shuri in the lab.

One of him with the village kids and the goats.

G’cobisa, Tabo, Tinashe, Buhle, Khanyiswa, Kholiwe, M’tobheli, Anathi, Bonghani, Fikile Gugulethu. Those children are angels on Earth. Bucky ‘s not religious but whoever is up there, be it Bast or Jesus, he will ask them this:

“Please take care of those children, the people of Wakanda, allow them to be happy and let nothing bad happen to them”

Sam, I wish I had the courage to tell you how I feel, I really love you and I want you so bad, he thought while remembering last night's dream. He bites his lip and sighs.

Last night dream and his early-morning wood were: Sam giving him a show, having the best sex ever all while he takes pictures of him with the polaroid. Him going down on Sam, while Sam records him.

“FUUUUCK !!” Sam groaned.

“Keep goin’ like that, you’re so good at that, look at me baby boy”, he said out of breath in between moans, grabbing his hair with one hand. He looks up to him, teary eyed. Sam was recording him.

He shakes those thoughts away with a chill on his spine. He does not want to go to eat with a tent on his pants so he focuses on the other pictures.

One of the rivers and one of Birnin Zana. The Royal Palace. The market. Him eating at the market. Him drinking a gallon of milk cause his mouth was on fire due to the hot sauce on his food. That hot sauce is a torture device.

One of him in all white fur, when he was in Jabari Tribe land as Shuri and T’challa’s bodyguard.

When the days were like this pure sun and barely wind, he just bathed in the river for hours. He stayed under the trees and the kids playing with his hair. He was the children's favorite pastime. Asked him all types of questions. Used him as a biology example, for the older children, when they needed to take their biology exams about genetics. As a doll, the village children and teenagers were always experimenting on his hair. They quickly realized that his hair could not withstand some of their hair-dos.  He looks at the picture of him with Bantu knots and the other with braids in rows. He guffawed with tears in his eyes.  

He remembers the Bantu knots fiasco. How hard the kid’s moms needed to detangle his hair with all types of combs and products, because the children literally caked his hair so that the knots stayed intact. He stayed with the knots because it was refreshing not having his hair loose during that heat wave until wash time arrived. It became a nightmare. Their moms taught them that Bucky’s hair is not apt for African hairstyles. The kids learned their lesson and did hairstyles that were suitable for his hair.

He was looking through the pictures until he saw his old pictures of him in the 40s. Those pictures were always weird to see . He fixated on those pictures till they became a little blurry. He closes the album

He wanted the confidence of James Buchanan Barnes. The Barnes that would steal girl’s and guy’s breath away. The same Barnes that rocked Steve’s world after they left that bar but he knew he and Steve  could never be. He chose Peggy. He does not blame him in the slightest. It was the best way. What they were was a crime back then. He and Steve could’ve end up in a psych ward or with sodomy and indecency charges and dishonorably discharged from the military. He probably would’ve settled with a woman he loved too. Living satisfied but within a lie. Hiding half of himself. Would that have been a better life than the Hydra ordeal he went through? Who knows?

One thing he is sure of is that he will be proud and loud to be Sam’s man. He will live his truth. He got a second chance so he will not waste it. Anyone who does not like it, can get fucked.

He went out of his room and went to the dining room.

“Morning”, he said.

“Morning”, Sam and Sarah answered in unison.

Sam and Sarah were busy in the kitchen.

Bucky inhales the various smells coming from the kitchen, his mouth waters.

“How did you sleep?”, Sam asked

“Like a baby”, Bucky answered him with a smile.

Sam looked at him impressed and responded: “that’s wonderful, nightmares are appearing less”.

“Yeah, they are appearing less'',Bucky answered trying not to wander to last night’s dream.“Hey guys, can I help with preparing the food?”, Bucky asked. He always wants to be of service.

“Buck, no offence, but you are a white man raised in the Depression era, I don’t trust you with the kitchen but you can set the table though”, Sam answered.  Bucky rolled his eyes at that.

Sarah was pressing her lips together to stifle a laugh.

He lifted his hands in surrender and answered: “Alright, I set the table”.

Sam pointed where the kitchenware and plates were. Bucky began to set the table.

Sarah looked at Sam with wide eyes and they both looked at Bucky up and down discreetly.  Bucky was shirtless and with shorts. His shorts hang low. His v-line was showing. His abs all out and that vibranium arm shining a little.

Breakfast was a quiet thing, with Bucky’s story here and there about Depression era food and how they used to boil everything. Sam & Sarah gagged at the thought of boiling everything. Bucky laughed at them.

Bucky offered to wash the dishes. After washing the dishes, Bucky said he was going to meditate and do breathing exercises outside.

After they checked that Bucky was far enough that he could not hear their conversation.

Sarah exclaimed: “WHEW, CHILE!!”

“pipe the fuck down”, Sam whisper yelled. “He is a super soldier, he has enhanced hearing!”, Sam whispered with worry

“No wonder why you got the hots for him, shiiiiiiit if you don’t tap that ass, I will ‘cause HOT Damn,” Sarah answered in a lower voice. “He might be the first white man to get this work”.

Sam glared at her and frowned at her with a faux offence.

“Were you not with Ricardo, Ricardo was white?” Sam inquires

Sarah scoffs. “Boy Ricardo was Latino. I mean he white. But not WHITE, you know what I mean”.

Sam shoved her gently and said, “Not you, wanting my future man. Get your own shit why you riding mine”. They both snickered and had Cheshire cat grins.

“Hey, but seriously, when are you going to tell him how you feel?” Sarah asked softly, putting her hand on top of Sam’s.

Sam sucked in a breath and exhaled, dropping his head down. Sarah’s heart softens, looking at her brother.

“It is hard Sarah; I want to but what if he is repulsed by that. I know Steve and him used to be something. But there is the chance, he does not like Black guys for that. He is still a 40s guy, so I am weary.”, Sam answered. Sarah cocked her head and nodded in understanding.

“The guy was literally tortured and brainwashed for decades. He is now getting to live his second chance at a normal life. I don’t want to put more weight on him because I really, really like him a whole fucking lot.” Sam continued with a defeated tone.

“Sammy, wake your ass up, that man looks at your ugly ass mug like you hung the moon”, Sarah said with confidence. “He likes you too and a lot, just explore that feeling and let it be one step at the time”. Sarah offered. “You don’t have to marry his ass. Just give him support, like you are doing but extend that support more on the physical side of it. God knows when was the last time, you and that man were laid”. Sarah laughed and ran away from the kitchen before Sam pushed her.

Sam chuckled in disbelief at what Sarah said.

It could all be so simple, then why is it so difficult.

He has always had this predicament when it came to liking men. He is who he is.  After years of hiding his sexuality in the military, it cost him to shake that state of being. He sighs and thinks of what getting with Bucky can mean to him as a man but also as Captain America.

Since the Accords fiasco, the Captain America mantle depends a whole lot about public perception.

He can hear Fox News, already. #handtheshieldback. That was a real hashtag and it could be revived this time by him being more openly Bi. Second, not only just being with a man, but THEE world’s deadliest ex-assassin and longest POW in US history. Bucky will get outed. Then Bucky will get dragged. Though Bucky has always said he doesn’t care about the views of the people, they can all get fucked (Bucky’s words). He saves lives and calls it a day.

As a man, he would be over the moon to have Bucky as his man, however he is still weary. Interracial relationships are hard. Imagine it now with a person from the Silent Generation, whew.

“Chile, I can hear the gears grinding from across the room”, Gideon disrupts his thoughts as he sits next to him on the couch.  

“You thinking about the white boy, aren’t you?”, Gideon asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“UGHHH STOP IT”, Sam exclaimed, putting his hand on his face. “Where he at?”, Sam asked, scared that Bucky might hear.

“Chill, he outside with Sarah, Miriam and the kids”, Gideon responded. “You know what you need? A nice party with the fam and friends, some BBQ, some booze and music”.

“Hell no, I am in no party mood”, Sam responded exasperated  while laying on the couch.  

“Well too late, Sarah, Miriam and I have already made the list and we are going to go shopping, food, snacks and booze for normal folks”, Gideon responded with a Cheshire grin. “Don’t worry, I got our homeboy covered, aged Absinthe, special brewed Moonshine, Asgardian mead, y’ know, some liquid courage so that he can finally tell you how he feels and put you out of your misery”, Gideon said while rubbing his hands together.

Sam rolled his eyes and kicked Gideon. Gideon laughed at that.

Gideon stood up from the couch and went to the table, where there was a box on top. “I’m serious, I already went to the Asgardian shop for some Asgardian unleaded and some booze”. Gideon shows him the box with fancy bottles filled with an Amber liquid, fluorescent green liquid, and the other with a clear liquid.  

“Asgardian shop? Asgardians in Nola?”, Sam questioned.

“Yeah, he met Aaliyah, married her, came to live here, and put an Asgardian liquor store, ain’t that some shit”, Gideon responded.  Sam's eyes blinked in surprise at knowing Aaliyah is married, not only that but with an Asgardian. Aaliyah was Gideon’s high school sweetheart and Gideon’s heaviest heartbreak when they split because they went to different colleges. 

“See? You are thinking too hard. If ol’ girl is married with literally an alien and they fine what about you with the metal armed white boy, ya’ll gonna be okay, ai’ght”, Gideon pats Sam’s shoulder with force.

Sam smiles at his brother, “you’re right, if he will not tell me how he feels, I will.”

“That’s what the fuck I’m talkin ’bout, my brother ain’t no punk”.

It turns out that Gideon was right. What he needed was a party.

He was greeting everyone; he was the life of the party. He was dapping everyone, hugging everyone.

Sam was feeling himself with his white tank top and yellow open up shirt with white shorts. Cuban cigar on his lips and Hennessey on his hand. He took the cigar off his lips and began to sing out loud;” It’s getting’ hot in here (So hot) so take off all your clothes, I am getting so hot, I wanna take my clothes off”. He was dancing with a woman in a suggestive manner. The woman was grinding her ass against his crotch to the rhythm of the music. They were gyrating their hips in sync with each other and the music. Sam turned the woman around and talked to her ear. He was smiling. They look at each other briefly. Bucky lifts his drink up at him with a forced smile. Sam and Leyla decided to dance like this, since he saw Bucky getting cozy with Lafayette after playing domino, when Bucky won a couple of times. Needless to say, Sam’s mood sours after seeing that so he asks Leyla to dance with him to make Bucky jealous, giving him a taste of his own medicine.

Bucky was wearing tight black jeans and a blue Henley, hair in a half up and half down hair do, feeling uneasy to say the least, nursing a shot of aged absinthe.

He was feeling a myriad of emotions. He did not know if he wanted to be the girl so he can cop a feel of Sam or be Sam so that he can cop a feel of a woman. Either way it has been so long since he felt someone’s skin against his.  He thinks about having Sam that close in the privacy of his room. Moving into him like he is moving with that woman. There was a feeling eating him piece by piece. If it was a man, he'd definitely use his Winter Soldier face to scare him off. He realizes it is jealousy, he is jealous. He just stares at the tree next to them till it blurs along with the image of Sam and the woman he is dancing with. He feels his heart tight against his chest.

“You think is working?”, Sam whispered to Leyla, his high school friend

“Oh, yes, it is, the man a wreck, he was boring holes into us”, Leyla laughed and put her arms around his neck. “Believe me, you will have him in your hand, he needs to get a preview of what he is missing, otherwise he will never tell you how he feels.’ Leyla turned around and put her hands on his knees. They were about to give Bucky a heart attack with the next song.

Bucky got up and went to the table with all the liquor, wanting more absinthe.

He saw everybody rushed to the center of the makeshift dance space, as violins began to play. Bucky was confused and he concluded that the song must be quite popular.

Gideon was the DJ, he screamed: “Cash Money Records, taking over for the 99 and the 2000!!!”

Everyone either cheered or repeated that sentence in response, Bucky turned to see Sam and his eyes could not believe what he was seeing.

The woman was bent over wiggling her ass rapidly against Sam to the beat of the music. Sarah was doing the same to a guy.

He did not understand the dance or the music. He asks the Kimoyo beads to tell him what this music and this dancing are about.  The beads started explaining  what twerking was: “ twerking is a type of dance that came out of the bounce music scene of New Orleans. It originated in the 1980s. Individually-performed, chiefly but not exclusively by women, dancers move by throwing or thrusting their hips back or shaking their buttocks, often in a low squatting stance. Twerking is part of a larger set of characteristic moves that were unique to the New Orleans style of hip-hop known as "bounce". This dance move has roots in African culture and has spread to all scenes of hip-hop, current popular music and in Latin American music such as reggaetón. This is what you are seeing and hearing, Bucky”.

“God, I am such an old man”, he contemplated in defeat.

He could never be this jovial, he feels like he would hold Sam down.  In order to drown his jealousy, he began to drink that Asgardian mead, mixed with the absinthe like it was water.

He was feeling a little better with the alcohol in his system. It is refreshing to have the buzz of alcohol in him for the first time in 70 years.

He started to sway to the rhythm of the music too not knowing how to dance but he likes the music. The violins and piano remind him a little of the music back then.  

“I like this song”, “What is the name of the song and the genre?” he said to the beads.

“You don’t need to ask the beads”, he hears Sam’s voice.

Bucky stopped the bead’s explanation. Bucky chuckled at the sound of Sam’s voice and turned around.

“Who was I supposed to ask? You practically ditched me after dominos and spades” Bucky responded.

“Well, you could’ve asked your lil’ new friend Lafayette”. Where he at by the way?” Sam asked with a taunting tone looking around.

“You were pretty boo’d up with him”, Sam responded with a mean glint in his eyes.

Bucky smirked at him and said; “Ditch me too after I told him, I was interested in someone else”, looking at him while drinking the special brewed Moonshine.

“But turns out the person I like has someone to be “cozy “with, I guess.” Bucky said, while getting into Sam’s space and tracing his finger on Sam's shirt. “He even got a dance on him called ``twerk'', by the way I had to ask the beads what that was.”, Bucky responded a little hurt.

Sam’s breath hitched, feeling Bucky that close.

“So, I think, I need to mingle more, see you around Sam”, Bucky said while stepping out of Sam's space.  

He needs to act, and fast. 

Before Bucky could go, Sam grabbed Bucky’s forearm harshly and brought Bucky up to him. They look at each other with defiance for what seem ages. He then tilted his head and his lips were ghosting over Bucky.

You make the first move, I won’t, Bucky thought with Sam’s lips ghosting over his.

Sam gives him a bruising kiss.

Bucky was not prepared for that; he found support by putting his hands on his forearms. He matched Sam’s pace and brought Sam closer.

He feels so good, his lips feel so nice, Bucky thought while kissing Sam with force, all tongue.

After that kiss, they both needed to take a breath. He can see Sam not looking at him.

“Hey, let’s not”, Bucky said sternly while tilting Sam’s face up with delicacy. “If you want to regret something do it in the morning, not tonight, please”. Bucky whispered.

“I regret nothing”, Sam stated.

“That’s the spirit”, Bucky said, caressing Sam’s face, smiling and blushing.

“Ayee, this is one of my favorites, dance with me”, Sam said, taking Bucky’s hand in his and began walking with him to the dance space.

They saw Gideon and his wife, Miriam kissing and dancing to the song. Sarah and the guy she was twerking on earlier, also swayed with the song.

The song was pretty, light. They did not need to talk cause the song was doing all the talking.

“My whole life has changed

Since you came in, I knew back then

You were that special one

I'm so in love, so deep in love

You made my life complete

You are so sweet, no one competes

Glad you came into my life

You blind me with your love

With you I have no sight”, boomed through to speakers.

Sam and Bucky swayed to the rhythm, pressed against each other, Sam’s head resting against Bucky’s shoulder, both of their eyes closed savoring the moment.

They were surrounded by other couples dancing.

But no one else matters, only them exist.

Bucky’s eyes open for a moment. He saw Leyla and Lafayette lifting their glasses at him and smiling, nodding in support, then clicking their glasses together. He smiles at them back and closes his eyes continuing to savor the moment.

“They have a lot to go through if they want a relationship, but he will learn and go through it cause it is not only about him, it is about Sam and him.” Bucky contemplated. That does not matter right now, he feels fulfilled, at peace hugging Sam like this. 

Sam is still weary about how they can bond. They are such different people with different experiences, but that does not matter right now. He feels loved and protected with the way Bucky’s warmth is enveloping him.

[joanofarchetype]

A Connecticut Yankee...a kid...that's all well and good but we really don't talk enough about the werewolf in King Arthur's court

This is not a shitpost — in Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory makes mention of "Sir Marrok, the good knight that was betrayed with his wyf, for she made hym seven yere a wer-wolf". Of course, Malory lifted the tale of the werewolf knight straight outta "Bisclavret," which is one of the Twelve Lais of Marie de France. And it is...wild. There's also "Melion," an anonymous Breton lai which along with "Biclarel" is believed to have evolved from the same source as "Bisclavret". In this post we're gonna refer to the protagonist as the "knight" or the "wolf-knight" and tell a somewhat composite tale.

(A note: this takes place well before commonly established werewolf lore, which crystallized thanks to Universal's The Wolf Man. Curt Siodmak wrote all that stuff about the full moon and silver bullets in 1941 so well that our common imagination accepted it as ancient fact.)

So anyway our guy is a knight who disappears for a couple nights a week and his wife is like ?????? dude ??????? where ??? do you ???? go ??????

And my dude is like "babe I love you but I can't tell you because you won't look at me the same" and she's like "I am your wIFE you better tell me right quick or otherwise have a good nose for almonds in your oatmeal" (jk she doesn't say that because if she did he might've gotten a little foreshadowing of her treachery, but alas, our man was a sucker)

So the knight tells her he's a werewolf, and on the nights he disappears he's wolfing around the countryside and his wife is like !!!!!!!!!! on the inside but makes sure her face is only 🤔 on the outside

(Mind you, Marie de France goes into how the wife is grossed out because she shared her marriage bed with a beast, which has some interesting implications but we'll get to those later)

She starts digging about his transformation until he explains how in order to return to his human shape, he *needs* to put his human clothes back on or else he'll be stuck as a wolf, at which point wifey is 👀👀👀👀

Wifey's like, "but if ur in wolf form, how do u remember where u put ur clothes lol" and the knight's like, "no no, I retain my human mind even in wolf form and besides, I always put them under this one rock outside this cave"

now bear in mind he's never been able to talk about this to anyone so he's pouring his heart out about his deepest secret which he kept even from his wife & I know we're all pretty used to medieval repression but imagine how it must have felt to share this secret at long last 😥

So to recap:

knight: 🤵🏻🛡🐾🌕🐺🤫😅😍♥️💐 wifey: 👰🏼💭🤢🤔👀🧐💡💡👔💍🔪🔪🔪

Our knight is like "yeah so I was born this way and it's just a part of who I am and whew it's kind of a relief to finally be talking about it with someone"

Wifey nods along 🤔🤔🤔 because she's had a💡moment and is 🍳 up a plan...

so the knight has unleashed (pun intended) his secret for the first time in this life and is feeling just dandy, but what he doesn't know is his wife is already plotting his downfall with her...LOVER (dun dun dunnn)

wifey & her secret lover steal the knight's clothes when he's transformed, essentially trapping him in wolf form, get him declared dead in absentia, marry each other & take over his lands

and the royal court goes for this because at this point the whole kingdom knows about the knight's habit of disappearing for days at a time (because medieval nobles are messy gossipy bitches who live for that drama) so they just assume he abandoned her

*~*ONE YEAR LATER*~* (or if you're Malory, *~*SEVEN YEARS LATER*~*)

the king & hunting party corner the wolf-knight in the woods. knight is overwhelmed at the sight of his monarch & runs up to what for all he knows might be his oblivion to kiss king's feet at which point king's like, "THAT'S NO ORDINARY WOLF. HE SHALL JOIN MY COURT IMMEDIATELY."

the wolf-knight goes to live at court where he's basically regarded as a knight (so the takeaway from this part of the lai is that a literal wild animal had a better chance of becoming a knight in ye olden days than a peasant or a woman but I digress)

anyway so there's a celebration at court and who comes to the party but the ex-wifey's new husband, now a baron. understandably, the wolf-knight does NOT react well and attacks him, and the reaction of everyone at court at this near-mauling isn't to say "whoa whoa maybe bringing a wolf to court was a bad idea" but rather "huh, this wolf has never been hostile towards a human before so obviously this guy must've personally wronged him." which is...progressive.

so the new husband/baron/co-conspirator is all "wtf keep it away from me" and the king is like "idk man, what were you wearing? maybe you smelled like royal beef jerky at the time. seems like you were asking for it"

king & the other barons take wolf-knight to the new baron's property. they just need to figure out what's going on because they're not ready to take sir wolf to his final veterinary visit, u feel? they're attached. now get ready for this next part because it's a doozy.

ex-wifey hears about the king's visit so she's waiting with gifts & cakes & shit. the wolf-knight sees her & immediately BITES OFF HER NOSE & he bites it so good her progeny can feel it & henceforth all her descendants are — I SHIT YOU NOT — born noseless. talk about losing face.

under questioning (*cough cough* torture *cough*) the wife admits to her crimes & yields the stolen clothing, which they put in front of the wolf & he just stares at them until they realize "wow yeah sorry dude our bad" and leave the room to give him privacy

when they see the wolf-knight again he's in his human form and in Marie de France's "Bisclavret" it's expressly written that the king embraces him in the bedchamber and gives him "many kisses" (hashtag heterosexual friends doing heterosexual things)

the king restores the wolf-knight's lands and ex-wifey has to live with her ex-baron in exile, forever marked for her betrayal. some real Mark of Cain shit. (obviously this lai has a lot to say about spousal dissatisfaction but that’s another day’s dissertation)

the wolf-knight (Bisclavret, or Melion, or Marrok, or Sir Wolf or whatever you fancy calling him) not only regains his good name, but also the support of a court which now knows his secret dual nature.

something to be hated or feared, only understood and accepted. no one at court shuns him once the secret's out & no one tries to change or "heal" him of his lycanthropy.

remember when I said we'd come back to the wife's reaction? in "Bisclavret" Marie de France specifically states that upon finding out his secret, the wife no longer wishes to "lie beside him." let's unpack that a bit by exploring similar themes across folklore.

the marriage bed serves as a common motif in tales of animal transformation. ex: in "Beauty and the Beast," the protagonist has to overcome her revulsion towards her suitor's ostensible monstrosity before she can accept his marriage proposal. traditionally these stories with mysterious, beastly husbands who are secretly a true catch serve as an allegory for arranged marriage, designed to help young women process their anxieties about being passed from their father's house to that of a strange new husband.

(we should differentiate these tales from those of an ostensibly appropriate groom who turns out to be a monster in disguise such as "Bluebeard," "Mr. Fox," and "The Robber-Bridegroom," as those deserve a detailed thread of their own but also provide good thematic contrast here)

more often the Beast is kind, patient & gives Beauty the time she needs to the detriment of his own freedom from the curse. once the protagonist gets over her anxiety, she ceases to perceive her groom as just a hulking hairy beast and he can take the shape of a prince at last.

circling back to wolves! in most lore both ancient and modern, werewolves represent something uncontrollable; an animalistic second nature which threatens to literally tear through our well-mannered social façade. "Bisclavret" and its various incarnations don't do that.

if you read "Bisclavret" under a queer critical lens, you can interpret the knight as bisexual; a husband has a secret duality to his nature which he is unable to express in their current social order. significantly, he is born with his lycanthropy rather than being afflicted by the sudden, violent means through which most fictional werewolves are afflicted. it's a part of who he is, and it requires no further explanation or cure.

the wolf-knight finds freedom rather than shame in his lycanthropy, and as a result maintains both honor and control while in wolf form. unlike other famous werewolves, he doesn't function as an expression of tension between the id and the superego.

considering how often wolves are used to imply sexual violence (see also: "Little Red Riding Hood" or its medieval predecessor, "The Grandmother's Tale") this would be a fairly positive portrayal of a bisexual man.

however, his wife doesn't see it that way and is repulsed at the thought of sleeping with him again, so she commits adultery and conspires against him. so really, the crimes in "Bisclavret" have a lot to do with sex, just not sexual violence.

the king's attachment to the wolf & the way he embraces the knight can easily be read as homoerotic. there's absolutely an argument to be made about the normalization of homosocial behavior & male kinship across eras but...two things can be true. either interpretation is valid.

so what we have is a werewolf protagonist — not a villain or tortured anti-hero but an honorable man who isn't made to shed his lycanthropy at the end of the tale (tail). rather, he is accepted by his contemporaries and given a place in society to live as he truly is/ROLL CREDITS

[ellsey]

Agents of Shield Rewatch 5x17 The Honeymoon

I just want it noted that this episode was way less honeymoon-y than I wanted

And probably less than Jemma and Fitz wanted too

“No trouble with the straps this time.” “We’ve come a long way” AWWWWW

They really have though what a delight

:( Poor Talbot

Well it didn’t take Ruby long to catch up with them

It also didn’t take Daisy long

Deke came back to watch over Daisy...which means he’s obviously not following orders but honestly who is at this point

Oopsie Deke got shot

Bad luck surviving an apocalyptic wasteland only to get shot here

Mack is understandably not happy 

Literally Fitz right now:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“After you better half” WHY COULDN’T I HAVE HAD THIS WITHOUT ALL THE OTHER EXCESS DRAMA

Piper and Mack are going to patch up Deke? Whew boy.

Oh yay the Russian robot again

“I should have stayed in my cell” I mean...what a mood

May seems really mad, but I think she’s more anxious

OMG SHE SAID IT OUT LOUD SHE LOVES HIM

But also that’s like the most May declaration of love ever?

That looks like the machine Phillip J. Fry froze himself in

Ruby has a lot of feelings, but are they real?

Well Hale kind of had that coming

Poor Talbot is trying to keep it all together but it’s hard to see this

Noooooooooo Elena

I’m glad she finally told someone that they need to let Coulson die though

Man nobody is having a good time today

“We have a rule.” “We never leave each other’s side anymore.”

Umm I have some bad news for you guys.

Fitzsimmons have become freaking action heroes geez

“Nonesense, I’m protecting England from evil robots with the man I love.” Hashtag honeymoon goals

Well Elena took care of that problem

Deke is soooooooooooooo high right now hahahaha

High Deke is not wrong, Daisy is very pretty and smart

Nooooo the Terrible Two are here

Fitz is going to choose Jemma every time, so I’m not surprised by this

Daisy did a very good thing here

Oh noooooooooooooooooooo 

Just when you thought you were safe from Hydra brainwashing

This kind of felt like a set-up episode, but there were still some amazing moments. First of all, PHILINDA!!!! Definitely 10000000000/10 on the Philinda scale. That was amazing. We are also rating high on the Fitzsimmons scale with 5000/10 for their cute banter. Also, while Deke was kind of a bad Lemon Boy for not following orders, I’m still giving him a 50/10 on the Good Lemon Boy scale because high Deke is my favorite Deke. Piper and Mack get my Best Instructions Followers Award for just reading and fixing Deke? 

My song for this episode is “I Don’t Wanna Lose My Love” by Echosmith dedicated to all the Shield couples out there just trying to get by.

[notawomanagod]

73 questions.

I was tagged by @halseyassthetics and @anf-stuff

I tag @feeblej0y @savemeyourfprayers @imhalseymusic @corditeandshrapnel @twinzmoon @peacelovehalseytaylor and anyone else who wants to join!

On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now?

5, i was looking forward to a lot of things that have now been cancelled :(

Describe yourself in a hashtag?

#annoyedsensitivebaby

If you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be?

probably halsey let’s be honest

If your life was a musical, what would the marquee say?

she’s trying her best!

What’s one thing people don’t know about you?

my sister and i are two years apart but we share the same bday

What’s your wakeup ritual?

i turn off my alarms one after the other + wake up 2 hours later than planned

What’s your favorite time of day?

10pm-2am because it’s my chill time with myself

Your go to for having a good laugh?

watching jenna marbles, anya, or jackie aina

Dream country to visit?

the u.k. because i was supposed to go this summer but it was cancelled :( (also japan!)

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve had?

being so sad about missing the one direction tour in 2013 but my parents surprised me with tickets :’) it was my first concert + i got to see 5sos as well

Heels or flats/sneakers?

my converse or docs

Vintage or new?

both but vintage is cooler

Who do you want to write your obituary?

no clue

Style icon?

harry mf styles

What are three things you can’t live without?

music, movies/shows, and family

What’s one ingredient you put in everything?

pepper

What 3 people living or dead would you like to make dinner for?

that is a loaded question even if i were willing to make dinner lmao

What’s your biggest fear in life?

not finding satisfaction for myself

Window or aisle seat?

window

What’s your current TV obsession?

atypical (2 out of 3 seasons done)

Favorite app?

spotify

Secret talent?

no clue

Most adventurous thing you’ve done in your life?

definitely going to concerts last minute which i’ve done a couple times

How would you define yourself in three words?

empathetic, conflicting, creative

Favourite piece of clothing you own?

probably sizzy rocket’s old jacket

Must have clothing item everyone should have?

a band t-shirt i mean c’mon

Superpower you would want?

shape shifting

What’s inspiring you in life right now?

books! i’ve picked up reading again and missed it so much. i’m also finding a lot of inspiration through music and pinterest.

Best piece of advice you’ve received?

my mom has reminded me that i need to look out for myself, even though it is my nature to please everyone else. i’m going to be with me the rest of my life, so why make myself suffer?

Best advice you’d give your teenage self?

don’t be a fucking pushover and let others make decisions for you. be ok with who you are and don’t feel bad about yourself when people don’t understand.

A book that everyone should read?

so you want to talk about race by ijeoma oluo

What would you like to be remembered for?

being kind and loving life, also my art

How do you define beauty?

embracing your true, authentic self

What do you love most about your body?

my eyes and my hair when it behaves

Best way to take a rest/decompress?

watch a show, make some tea, or read

Favourite place to view art?

in a museum/gallery

If your life were a song, what would the title be?

clementine by halsey

If you could master one instrument, what would it be?

guitar *my guitar glares at me where it’s been in the corner for months*

If you had a tattoo, where would it be?

arm

Dolphins or koalas?

dolphins but i also love koalas

What’s your spirit animal?

dragon (my chinese zodiac, my school mascot, and my fav mythical animal)

Best gift you’ve ever received?

my record player

Best gift you’ve ever given?

i’m bad at remembering these but i guess any art i made

What’s your favourite board game?

cards against humanity (i’m counting it as a board game lmao)

What’s your favourite colour?

blue

Least favourite colour?

orange

Diamonds or pearls?

diamonds

Drugstore makeup or designer?

uh designer if i could afford it

Blow-dry or air-dry?

air dry when i’m lazy but blow dry if i’m going somewhere

Pilates or yoga?

neither

Coffee or tea?

coffee but ily tea

What’s the weirdest word in the English language?

there’s too many

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

dark chocolate

Stairs or elevator?

stairs if it’s only a flight or two + elevator when i’m at my school apartment where i live on the 7th floor

Summer or winter?

summer

You are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat?

bread

A dessert you don’t like?

if it has raisins i don’t want it or any dried fruit for that matter

A skill you’re working on mastering?

working through my feelings because whew she’s a lot, she being me

Best thing to happen to you today?

i made some bomb chocolate chip cookies

Best compliment you’ve ever received?

a couple people have said i’m a good friend which i value a lot

Favourite smell?

lavender

Hugs or kisses?

hugs

If you made a documentary, what would it be about?

music

Last piece of content you consumed that made you cry?

watching atypical

Lipstick or lip gloss?

lip gloss

Sweet or savoury?

both

Girl crush?

which one??

How you know you’re in love?

idk you tell me

Song you can listen to on repeat?

my number 1 on repeat rn is forever... (is a long time) by halsey

If you could switch lives with someone for a day who would it be?

zendaya because she’s probably the coolest person alive

What are you most excited about at this time in your life?

spending time with my family and my dog, it’s all i can really do i guess

[veroticker]

Candy boys - Jo Raven

You can buy the book on the author’s website.

Summary (from Jo Raven’s website)

Joel and Jethro. Roommates. Total hunks. Inseparable friends. Hot as hell.

Meet my fantasy boyfriends. Aren’t they just the sexiest, cutest thing? I know, right? They totally are. They are hot, too hot for a quiet—and obsessed with them—girl working in a bookshop. That’d be me, by the way.

There’s also the tiny problem of Joel wanting another girl. And as for Jethro, well… he doesn’t do girls. Or maybe he doesn’t do relationships. He certainly doesn’t do boys, so he isn’t doing his best and very male friend… right? Much less his male friend and me at the same time.

So it’s fine to crush on them. And write a serial story on my blog in which we are together. All three of us.

Whew.

I mean, it’s okay. It’s perfectly safe. They’ll never even know I exist, much less find out about my blog and my secret fantasy about them. Right?

…Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.

Blurb

“CANDY

Post title: You Won’t Believe This

From Candy Boys (Blog Serial)

J-One licks his lips suggestively and pulls me onto his lap. “Ready for this, baby?”

Is this a trick question? I’m always ready for him and he knows it.

For them.

J-Two nuzzles my neck from behind, leaving a trail of goosebumps on my skin. “Just get on with it, J,” he grumbles. “You’re wasting time.”

“Use your mouth for something else, will you?” J-One slides his hands up my body, eyes heavy-lidded.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Let’s talk about bananas…”

Hm. Sure.

Why not, right?

You know how there are people who hang out in bookshops, browsing books and secretly sniffing the musty odor of their pages? How they are often nerdy, with glasses and Star Wars hoodies, giving you that nervous sideways glance when they catch you looking? The real bookworms? The archetypal readers?

Well, the guy who just walked through the door is nothing like that.

Let’s back up a little. This day didn’t start out promising at all. Cloudy and dark, with a chilly wind, and I realized too late I had run out of coffee.

Candace Amanda Riley, I told myself sternly, you got this.

But then my car wouldn’t start. And when I arrived at the shop, it was only to find out Annie, the other girl working here, quit. Chris from the coffee shop next door says she eloped to Vegas with a guy she just met.

Let me note here that today it’s Thursday. I mean, come on. Things can’t go that bad on a Thursday. There’s Mondays for that!

So this guy walks in and the day suddenly turns better. The clouds clear, the sun comes out, and he’s standing there, backlit like an angel, a radiance forming a halo around his dark hair, lighting up his face—and his body.

I adjust my glasses for a better look and let out a shuddery breath.

Oh God, he’s tall. And those shoulders. They seem to fill the shop from side to side. Those narrow hips. Those spectacular biceps, bulging when he lifts a hand to push his hair out of his blue eyes.

Wait a minute. I know those eyes.

The beautiful stranger walks up to me, and I take a step back, because he’s not really a stranger. I know him, very well. As much as it is possible without actually sleeping with him, that is.

J-One. J the runner. J the Powerhouse.

Joel Kingsley.”

(review under the cut)

Review

(audiobook) This book is advertised as a menage romance, and I was expecting mostly sex scenes. But I found way more.

Don’t be mistaken, it’s extremely steamy. MFM, MMF, MM, MF... There’s a little bit of everything here, but every sex scenes is intended as a new step in the relationship between the characters. Because they face a lot of obstacles, inside themselves, inside their relationship, and outside, with the rest of the world. There’s a whole lot of angst here.

The characters were very interesting. We have Candy, a little nerdy, who lives in her fantasy and who’s struggling with the reality when she finally experiences what she dreamed about for years. We have Joel, the jock who’s a closet history nerd, who has trouble accepting his desire for someone of the same sex due to the bigot way he has been raised. And we have Jethro, the sentimental bisexual bad boy, who can’t believe people would care for him because of all his flaws. They’re all loveable and you can’t help but root for them to solve their problems so they can live happily together.

Yep, the story is a bit angsty. But there’s also a lot of humor and, of course, a ton of romance.

I really enjoyed it as an audiobook because the narrators were excellent. Ava Erickson gives Candy a spunky personality. Sebastian York’s Joel is calm and restrained. Joe Arden infuses Jethro’s voice with melancholia. They’re all perfect for their character.

This book was a very good surprise for me and it got me very emotional. Highly recced!

Quickie

Series: Hot Candy #1 (standalone, but the next book is a bonus epilogue)

Hashtags: #menage romance #curvy girl #jock #bad boy #bisexual #polyamorous relationship

Triggers: homophobia, gruesome murder and murder attempt

Main couple: Candace Riley & Joel Kingsley & Jethro Connors

Hotness: 5/5

Romance: 5/5

+ each sexual act is meant to show a new step in their relationship

- it’s also a romantic comedy, but sometimes, the funny parts felt out of place

  Stalker mode

You can suscribe to Jo Raven’s newsletter on her website.

You can also follow her on Facebook.

[mariantoina]

thoughts on t*sp

look. at first i told myself that i wasn’t gonna watch this show, and then the very next day it got leaked so i was like “you know what? im gonna watch it anyway!” and thats the worst decision that ive ever made in my life because this show was... bad. could it have been worse? definitely, given the fact that it was an emma frost show based on a philippa gregory book. but this was still terrible enough for me to type this post up, so here we go!

i can guarantee you that you’ll have a more fun time reading this post than you will watching TSP. this is under a read more because.. whew.. theres a lot.

THE CASTING

first and foremost: the actress playing KOA cannot act. she’s really pretty, granted, but her acting was genuinely terrible. like.. i cringed almost every time there was a scene terrible. not only was her spanish accent bad but she felt so.. stiff, i guess would be a good word, whenever she said something. and that didn’t do anything to help the fact that she has a bad case of ScarJo Fever™ (if you don’t know what that is: it’s when an actor/actress only makes the same three facial expressions) people need to stop hiring actresses and actors just because they’re attractive and actually make sure that they can act. at this point, i am Begging!

the actor playing harry was actually good though, at least in my opinion. he did his best with what he was given and i really admire that! you can tell that he was putting a lot of effort into it, even though the way that they wrote him was really out of character for that period of his life (see: this post)

h7′s actor was good in the scenes that he was in, but the way that they treated h7 was so.. weird? they didn’t make him as creepy as i thought that they were going to when i first found out they were making an adaptation of TCP, but there was still this lowkey creepy vibe that he had going on.. i honestly dont know how to explain it, but it was there. also he slapped the shit out of harry in a scene??? that was messy as HELL

the actress for margaret beaufort was good, but there were some scenes that just had me like.. oh? on god? (most notably the death scene, but i’ll get into that hot mess later) you could tell that she was trying hard, even if they made MB’s character arc terrible.

the actors that played lina and her love interest were amazing, though. they worked with what they had and i really liked what they did with them even though the writing was shit. the scene with their wedding was adorable and really well acted!

angus imrie (arthur) was good, too! but the wig that they gave him? atrocious. i’m going to see it in my nightmares. georgie henley was really good in the scenes that we saw her in as meg tudor, but most of the scenes she was in weren’t that good and that’s wack :’)

i don’t know the name of the actress that played juana of castile in the episode she was in, but i liked her acting, too.. even though the writing for her was kind of cringy.

before i end this section i should let it be known that i was more attached to juana, meg and arthur in the few episodes they were in than i was to KOA during the entire show. it’s so tragic like. how are you going to cast a lead actress that cant act?? Hello???

before i get into the issues with the writing and creative direction i have with the show, i just wanna say: the pacing of the show was terrible and really, really difficult to follow. the entirety of the second episode, which followed from their KOA/arthur marriage to arthur’s death, probably had the worst pacing. it felt like only a few weeks had passed in the show’s time, when it was supposed to be what? six months? and there was so indication of a timeskip between episode 6 and episode 7, even though juana was still in england at the end of episode 6 and h7 died about 10 minutes into episode 7? it’s so tragic.

okay, moving on!

THE CREATIVE DIRECTION

look. i get that it’s a show and of course there’s going to be historical license but... GOD this show went above and beyond.

there’s so much i want to say here, but the most important one that i have an issue with is the shit that they did with lina’s character. erasing the fact that she was a slave owned by ferdinand and isabella and then later given to KOA was absolutely terrible. and then not only did they do that AND make her KOA’s most loyal lady-in-waiting, but they erased the fact that she was forced to convert to christianity, forced to stop using her birth name and instead having to use the name of her new owner in the name of #StrongFemaleFriendships. disgusting!

EF: lina is KOA’s most faithful servant and they have a strong female friendship!! hashtag woke!! hashtag feminism!! my black ass:

honestly it gets even worse because KOA and lina’s “central female friendship” was barely even there. lina had more scenes with rosa, one of KOA’s other ladies-in-waiting, than she did with KOA. not to mention that KOA was manipulative to lina and kept saying stuff like “you owe me service” or stuff along those lines? it was so shitty. lina sweetie im so sorry that this ugly ass bitch would even try you

the next big thing that i had a problem with was the fact that they aged up harry, when in reality he was about 11 years old when KOA first came to england. like, i can’t really go that much into it because even thinking about the fact that they aged him up to make him Arthur’s Hotter, All-Around-Better Brother™ when he was fucking 11 makes me kinda sick but. ughh it was terrible.

not to mention the fact that they villainized margaret beaufort because of course they did. apparently you cant be a middle aged woman without being villainized?? especially not in an emma frost show. but the way that they villainized her was so ugly. and the fact that they attributed shit like edmund dudley’s execution to her when it happened an entire year after she died? Hello????

the way that she just took over and declared herself regent when h7 was in mourning for elizabeth of york and kicked KOA out of the palace + the way she tried to threaten margaret pole & lina into revealing that KOA wasn’t a virgin.. shgkhhgsfhgkshjbjsjb that shit was so fucking messy its like they tried to make her a fusion of mother gothel from tangled and ursula from the little mermaid

the way that they made EoY dislike KOA was so weird? and the way that both her and margaret beaufort assaulted her by kissing and groping her respectively was weird and definitely uncalled for.

this is a minor one in the gist of some of the other things but why did they make EoY’s last daughter a stillborn child? someone correct me if i’m wrong, but didn’t she live for about a week before she died? but then again, i remember that she named their daughter after KOA, so they probably did that to avoid the fact because they made EoY hate her. messy

arthur’s wig counts as a creative decision right? well whoever gave him that wig needs to be fired. PERIOD

arthur’s wig:

me:

whoever did meg tudor’s costumes also needs to be fired tbfh they were so bad. what did she ever do to yall

THE WRITING

i guess that writing can go into the creative direction category as well, but there were so many problems with the writing that it deserves its own category

KOA was so terrible in this. between her manipulating harry and lina, and the fact that she kept defending the fact that isabella abused juana because “our mother was a queen, a warrior” was ugly! “tO bE qUeEn oF eNgLaNd iS mY dEsTiNy” girl if you don’t shut ya mouth catching these hands is gonna be your destiny

they also made KOA put all of her faith in the fact that she was related to queens? like, every time juana said she couldn’t do something because her husband + ferdinand are assholes, or every time isabella was brought up she kept being like “but you’re/she’s a queen!” it was irritating

all of the predictions about the great matter/KOA not being able to give harry a son were weird. i would have been fine if it had only been like.. one time, because sometimes foreshadowing can be good, but it was brought up every 5 seconds and at the most random times. like when EoY was literally dying in childbirth?? Hello????? god are you there??

AND THE FACT THAT EOY STRAIGHT UP WENT TO HELL AND SAW HER BROTHER GETTING EXECUTED THEN CAME BACK. HELLO??

then when margaret beaufort was about to die and she saw ghosts? and jasper tudor showed up to take her to hell i guess? honestly i didnt know what the fuck was going on but that shit was so fucking messy and wild. i have to laugh

also: i mentioned this earlier but all of those scenes where harry was ranting and raging.. EF really saw the name “henry viii” and floored it with that huh

they also dumbed harry down imho.. Wack!

juana seducing harry was a hot ass mess in its own right, but honestly? juana and harry had more chemistry in that one minute scene than KOA and harry had in the entire show

we were not even 10 minutes into the pilot and they were already trying to portray isabella as a #WokeFeministQueen. how, you might ask? why, by showing her leading a group of men to kill black muslims for their faith, of course! didn’t you know that being racist and islamophobic is hip and feminist when you’re a queen?

like i get that its from KOA’s point of view but in the opening monologue of the pilot they mentioned that isabella overthrew the moors like it was a #Feminist thing to do and not a part of her orchestrating massacres and contributing to genocide? @ EF: on GOD??

tbh? shocked that KKKristopher KKKolonizer wasn’t mentioned in a positive light based on how much they tried to glorify isabella. like what catholic monarchs stan was allowed to work on this show with EF and P. Gregory?? hello????

i’m totally fine with the whole plot point about katherine lying about her virginity, since we’ll probably never know the truth about whether or not she and arthur consummated their marriage, but it was poorly executed in both the writing and in CH’s acting. i could tell that she was lying and so did.. almost everyone, really.

the scene where they were about to.. i guess lynch lina’s love interest for “stealing” made me really uncomfortable. i dont even know how to explain it

h7′s death scene.... this is all i have to say about it

margaret beaufort ordering the execution of edmund dudley was shitty for a lot of reasons but honestly him screaming “fuck you all to hell” was hilarious

the ending scene of episode 7 where they were in the chapel and henry asked KOA if she was still a virgin was bad writing and CH’s acting made it even worse. cant even lie convincingly smh

margaret pole’s plotline was so confusing.. i barely knew wtf was going on with her the entire show? it all felt so rushed and forced. it was weird

EoY and h7 had some cute scenes together though. and that was like.. one of the shows only real redeeming qualities

that’s about it for this post about TSP! my overall rating for it is a 0.5/10. it was super shitty, but i liked arthur, juana and meg tudor so it gets a 0.5 instead of a plain 0. and apparently theres one episode left too.. DREADING it. anyways: emma frost absolutely failed in her goal to be like “its not all about anne boleyn!” because if anything this show made me think about how claire foy and natalie dormer were both robbed of awards so.. if reading this post gave you hives? go watch wolf hall or the tudors for their great performances!

thanks for reading! :)

[praphit]

BP: When I think of his blackness and what he's done for me

Black Panther, baby!

I’ve been waiting for this movie for a long time! I remember the day I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was like Denzel with the one tear drop

 -          frickin beautiful. I’ve been saying that “Black Panther” is for black people what “Wonder Woman” was for women in 2017. I can remember back when WW first came out last year, I was at the coffee shop down the street, feeding my addiction. There was a girl behind the counter – I asked her for my usual.

 She replied “What so I’m just supposed to know what that is?” Praphit: “Well, I come here often, so…” Irritated Girl: “Wha, wha, what that mean? You just assume I’ve paid attention to you? Matter of fact, you just assuuuumed I’d get you some coffee this morning.” Praphit: “But, don’t you work here?” Empowered Girl who is starting to scare the Praphit: “What because I’m a woman I must be a servant huh?? Just another woman getting some man whatever he wants… that’s all I am to you?” Praphit: “…  huh” Girl who must have believed she was Wonder Woman herself: “ Did you just call me a bitch?!” Praphit: “What? No!” An angry, scary version a WW: “But I bet you thought it!”

Then, she gave me the finger, mooned me(that's right, MOONED me! - who even does that anymore??)… and then walked out. Then, came The Harvey Weinstein Storm, men scared everywhere by #MeToo, and Louis CK hiding out… possibly wherever Kevin Spacey has been hiding out. I never did see her again... I also never got my coffee.

I hope she's ok and found another job. I know Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) is her hero, but... it's not like she's gonna feed all of the inspired jobless ladies out there. Anyway, as strange as that encounter was, I get it! Empowerment will do that to a person; it feels righteous! Now, Black Panther, baby! Black people… we’re going to have a hashtag too. Maybe #bleepwhitey… that may be a lil strong, but something! It’s coming! This movie is a big deal! - so big of a deal that white executives in Hollywood were planted in critic circles in pre-screenings to stir up bad reviews.

The white people running Hollywood were like “We’ve gotta knock this movie down a few pegs before we have another ‘storm’ on our hands! Women are already rising up…. Black people rose up recently with #OscarsSoWhite, we can’t have it happen again. What’s next??! Who's gonna rise up next??! Asians?! Latinos?! Little People?! We can’t have this?!” There’s already a belief out there that you can’t have a worldwide blockbuster with the main character being black. So, how is this movie REALLY?? That’s why your Praphit is here for you:) “Black Panther” starts out right after “Civil War” (currently my fav comic book movie:) What I appreciate about Marvel movies is how well they are written; not just individually, but how they all come together. Of course (spoiler alert from “Civil War”) the king of Wakanda is dead, and now his son T’Challa (Black Panther) is heir to take over! Black Panther as we know is played by Chadwick Boseman. I love him as Black Panther!

 Some may say he’s not aggressive enough to be king/BP, but I think someone who’s always calm, even when they’re angry is scarier than someone who wears their emotions on their sleeves. One second, you think everything is cool, and the next you’re on your back, hurting, with Chadwick Boseman smiling at you. Wakanda is beautiful! I like what Marvel did here. Marvel is really good at creating worlds that look and feel real. I'm willing to bet that some believe Wakanda is real... probably our president.

 I'm telling you,there's a speech coming up when Trump will say something like

 " We've got to make America great in tech again. I had Mike Pence go to the movie theatre to watch this documentary called "Black Panther", I had him leave quickly in protest (there were too many black and brown people there - I only bring it up because many of them were illegals..), but we had others stay and report back to me. Wakanda, this terrorist country... possibly where Barack Obama is really from; we don't know... we don't know...  but, they turned their shithole of a country into an empire with this amazing metal called "Vibranium" (Idk if you've ever heard of it, because it's AMAZING). I'm telling you, we're going to get ahold of even more Vibranium than those savages and use it to make America #1 in tech again." - you tell me I couldn't write for the prez:) Many have described Wakanda as Zamunda (another fictional nation in Africa from “Coming to America”) in the future. I think those people have it right.

 If Eddie Murphy took Zamunda 100 years into the future, and stole all of Apple’s tech (imagine how scary Apple will be in 100 years), and then came back to the present… and used this tech to create… idk… a super tech “Eddie Land”, it’d be Wakanda. They are also the leading source of Vibranium (strongest medal around this comic book universe). The plot is layered, but they make it work. I was surprised that a product of Disney would go into such deep waters. Race is of course dealt with – not only in the movie, but simply by this movie’s existence. I can remember when I was younger, the only comic book characters to dress up as or play make believe as were Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and The X-Men. But, no black characters. I mean… I could have dressed up like Storm for Halloween, but…

or it might have looked more like this -

- maybe rock a... mankini silver top, and some dark purple eye shadow and lip stick... so there was that I guess. Picture me as a little boy dressed up like that - I'd make it work. Let’s move on:) I also love how these characters are portrayed – there are lots of different cultures of black people, but all the differences in appearance and worldviews are highlighted as positives in this movie. It truly is (on a comic book movie scale of course) a celebration of black people from different walks of life. There are no dummies or potheads or gangsters – but black people are all represented as strong, smart, and capable in this movie; even the villains! Michael B Jordan!

I probably liked him more than Black Panther. His character is smart, calculated, complex and easy to sympathize with, even though he’s the main villain. As far as portraying strong women – I think “Black Panther” does it even better than “Wonder Woman” did. Again, showing the strength of different types of women. Danai Gurira (whom I’m in love with by the way… just sayin’… if somehow you’re reading this… you can find me in Bmore:)

 She has a scene in the beginning of the movie that displays courage, strength, command, and yet also warmth and beauty. It's hard to keep a strong willed woman character balanced in a story without it going in a wrong direction, or without her becoming "one note" (idk if y'all know what I mean), but the writing and Gurira's performance are perfect with this; as well as the other female characters - I'd love to see a movie with them as the stars. They also tackle colonialism, mainly through Martin Freeman.

This motha bleeper right here stole Samuel L Jackson’s part. Where the hell is Sam L?!

How you gonna have the blackest movie of the year without Sam L?!

 Anyway, Martin Freeman does a good job, but I couldn’t watch him without getting mad. Whitey! - you just couldn’t let us have one movie to ourselves could you??! This movie even tackles politics, generational black community issues, African traditions, and culture wars in the black community (again through the filter of a comic book movie, but still). A lot of this movie is about what type of king T’Challa wants to be, what type of king his people want/need, and how (or if) a nation should use its strengths to help one other nations. Marvelous (no pun intended) how they blended all of these things together. Can I talk about the sexiness??! -cuz whew! My future wife

(I also love how her character (Okoye) is so confident and committed to what she believes. She should be running Wakanda to tell you the truth)

My other future wife

(Lupita Nyong'o here as Nakia has her arm wrapped up with T'Challa here... and I don't like the way she's gazing into his eyes, but I believe I've still got a shot. That dress made me fall out my chair.)

 And many more – tons of sexiness in this movie, but not in an exploitive manner. It’s not just the looks, but the character, the ideals, the strength, the honor that adds to everyone’s sexiness.

 And it’s the men too! Even I’ve got to admit that Michael B Jordan looks damned good.

Though I couldn't find a good picture of him... you need context for what's going on with his torso (besides being jacked)... his hair messed up, and he looks like he has marbles in his mouth right now. Let me try again (not that he doesn't make that work).

There he is - with a lil nip slip action.

He's one of those men where when he walks in and steals your girlfriend or wife, you say to yourself "I understand." Shiiii, you get some drinks in you, and YOU might be leaving with him. Ladies, forget “Fifty Shades of Bullshit”, you’ve got all of the sexiness you need in this movie right here. So, you say “John Praphit, is there anything bad about this movie?” NO! Quit looking to downgrade black movies you racists! :) Nothing “bad”, but I did have a few issues. This IS a comic book movie after all, and despite the commendation I’d give this movie for veering off the typical Marvel scripted formula, I would have liked a lil more action. The action was good, but not great. Also, I would have loved more of Michael B Jordan. His character is so good! Mikey B does an excellent job making us feel  - whether it’s sympathy, hatred, or disgust in his way of thinking; he makes it happen. I would have loved to see more of his interaction with the people of Wakanda. The ending felt rushed. Not only with characters jumping from loving one another to wanting to kill one another (and vice versa), but also in CG. It’s like they didn’t have enough in the budget to crank up the last fight scene… that money probably went to Martin Freeman

 .. you rat bastard. I'm sorry. He was good, but still #wherethehellisSamL? Besides, all of that I loved this movie! Very entertaining! It was funny. It has a lot of good talking points in it. And it’s a big deal for black people! Grade: B+++ First time ever for a “B+++”!!! Originally, a B+, but an extra plus for blackness – seriously, I think it’s a game changer for not only comic book movies, but all types of movies… another stepping stone of progress. I truly believe it’ll have a positive creative impact on our youth as well. And the last plus is for sexiness, cuz.. da

 Dammit! Not you Martin Freeman! So help me!  *deep sigh* Now I forgot what I was going to say. Anyway, good stuff! On second thought... I'm going to give this movie two grades. The B+++, but also... when I think of his blackness (The king!) - the positive progressive impact that I believe this movie has and will have are too great not to give it an A My Semi Objective Technical Grade:  B+++ Blackness Grade: A The only thing that could have made it better on that scale would be if I were in it.

Makes me wanna follow in the footsteps of that now probably homeless barista.  Quit my job and march onto righteousness!

 Can’t wait for “BP2!

[ts-akhmim]

Episode 7 “It's a Hot Mess Express “ - Scott

People are so hard to work with. I get they don't like this challenge truly I do but I just wish they wouldn't keep shutting down every idea I had. It's... annoying. I get that I'm also the problem here. Because if an entire room full of people is saying you're wrong then you're probably wrong but still. I dislike being shut down. I've just been feeling kind of isolated since my name was written down. Even in my own alliance it seems like everyone thinks less of me for being paranoid. It doesn't help that I'm not entirely pop culture savvy so a lot of their convos I'm a bit out of the loop on. Part of me wonders if it's cause I'm in a male dominated environment? I don't think they are sexist but I do think that I'm being unintentionally ignored. Like throughout the duration of this confessional I have submitted 6 ideas/comments to the group and they've either been left in the dust or dismissed. That has to mean something right? Is it my personality? Did I come on too strong with my enthusiasm? Do they think I'm bossy? Socializing doesn't exactly come naturally to me. If anyone had met me 4 years ago you'd probably be in the know. You know that ability where you can pick up what people imply, whether through body language or through hidden meanings. I don't. I literally was born with out that ability and it has done whatever the opposite of wonders are for my life. At first I thought it was fine, I thought hey no big, everything is good, people like me eventually. But then I played Malaysia... A lot of great things came out of that game, a lot of good friendships and memories but in a way it sort of haunts me. When the confessionals came out, for the first time ever I saw what people thought about me. Sure they liked me eventually but they also disliked me. Like really really didn't like me at all. It was my first real interaction with people outside of the treatment school I went to, it was my first real interaction with the rest of the world and people hated my guts. Don't get me wrong I always suspected I was disliked but... to see their actual written thoughts on paper was hard. Of course as they got to know me they started to like me but I couldn't forget that it wasn't always like that. That at one point they looked at me or their screen or whatever and saw a pest. And that's my biggest fear, that I'm the problem. That no matter where I go people see me and are filled with dread or disgust. That people are always wishing me some from of ill because I'm bad at conversation or sort of creepy. Well at least they came to their own conclusions now, maybe they pulled their heads out of their asses or because it wasn't me they were actually able to function. God this spiraled, I only wanted to complain about how shitty my tribe was being not go on this full blown existential rant. Fuck me am I right? I'm not sure what this is going to contribute to the game. There is no hashtag big moves or fun comments but like I already typed this up so I'm not going to delete it like a pussy. 

Ok now we can talk whew. UMMMM not Connor fucking up Duncan's perfect record! Now that I'm over the shock, thank you Connor because I'm 95% sure that obsession is the reason Duncan did the most to make sure Devon voted me instead of him back on Thoth https://giphy.com/gifs/mamovie-stalking-octavia-spencer-eavesdropping-j5uEVYERR0ncYlJ36e Really pleased with how the game is shaping up tbh, assuming I don't lose another music video challenge hahaha. I would LOVE a final 3 with me, Ali, and Devon but I know that's a long way off so I'm just focusing on the here and now. My biggest concern is protecting Ali. Essentially Duncan hit me up to work with him, TJ, and Jordan and I was very much like lol not sure about that. Mainly because Jordan and I don't have a strong relationship? And Duncan was like yeah but he wants to get to know you better and I'm like https://giphy.com/gifs/week-wtf-moments-QjIz1AqkGTszK If that's the case, that needs to come from Jordan and then it's between me and Jordan. Why someone else is interceding on Jordan's behalf is very dicey to me but I'm not that surprised because that continues to be a theme with Duncan: getting me to fit into plans that best suit him. Y'all know DAMN well Jordan Pines don't wanna go to the end with me and the feeling is mutual. But I HAVE to make it work with Jordan or Duncan will get pissy. He literally was like ok well who are you close with and I felt a serious feeling in my gut to not mention Ali. So I said oh I talk to Adam a lot but I wouldn't say I trust Adam. So after telling Ali all of this lmao, we decided I needed to go back to Duncan and say yes because it would keep me in the know and keep both of us safe. Also it allows me to keep an eye on Jordan and Duncan at the same time so we truly stan. And the gag is I'm not scared of Jordan Pines and I welcome the challenge of getting him out so love yall for letting me in through the front door hahaha My new issue is just timing. We'll be ok if we win this next challenge but if not, I could see that alliance targeting Ali. Obviously I have a plan and will put the vote on someone else but I really want to prolong turning on that group for as long as I can. I don't wanna spook TJ and I know killing Jordan will leave me with a pissed Duncan and I really don't need that based on how seriously he's playing. So I'm hoping I can finesse somehow? Maybe one of them gets idoled out at merge and then a blindside on the other won't be as messy. But yeah I keep feeling like the walls are closing in, in terms of allies, and I'm working HARD to make sure I have an exit strategy at all times haha cause fuck these men I'm trying to win again. I "love everyone" which means I have no problem voting out anyone

So let me just make sure i got this right, connor tried to get people to vote for me, they all told me, he "planned" with me to go for liam, then....he votes for duncan and he goes home unanimously? little did he realize when he went around and gave a feeble attempt at rallying people to vote for me, i had already rallied everyone to go for him and made sure everyone knew he was a liar and couldnt be trusted, you know im a firm believer in loose lips sink ships and i absolutely used my big mouth as my weapon to sink his ship. Even if there turns out to be some majority alliance that did this all without me then well...i guess that's another story but im still taking my hard earned credit because either way i got what i wanted one way or another so im here for it, sorry gal! i now find myself in a position i hope i can make some moves with, duncan already just made a vague to comment to me about how "it only takes 4 now" which he's right, and he mentioned autumn, himself, me, and ali. Which, that's a 4 I would love to go forward with for the time being, i like to think ive had good genuine talks with them 3 in particular, and now we can start get together maybe lock something in and if we make it to a merge or even another swap we at least have something to work with with each other, but we'll see, we gotta focus on immunity first now, id love to win just to for sure see any of the other people who lied to me go home oop so while i may be feeling ok now i just have to remember to simmer down and play smart and make the right connections with the right people i need and saying the right things to whomever needs to hear it, because that's what i do best in these type of games to stay alive, i feel like my intuition has been leading me ok so far this game so im just gonna keep basing my decisions off that and charging forward PERIOD and ill damn sure do it with or without the help of the tomb because a bitch can not get in ive tried over and OVER at this point im back to pounding on the door of it just hoping if im annoying enough yall will let me in!

i'll do a proper game confessional later but me and dan are both judges for the svalbard music video challenge and its so sad that we cant talk... its like... this could be us working on a music video if things were different kjlsdfa its missing dan and jake hours

Whew! Sorry about that what happened was I ran out of anxiety meds a few days and that rant was the commutation of being with out sanity pills for three days! Everything is fine! I am fine! People are fine! I am sorry to the future Thoth 2.0 tribe, you are all great, I just get very spirally when I am without some sort of stabilizing force! Sorry to the hosts for using this as a diary this is not a diary this is survivor... Anyway this time I have some more constructive things to add! Okay so things are fine. Dan and I continue to bond, though he had to call me out on being bad at communication in order for our relationship to progress. I get it was like a check point or whatever and frankly I appreciated it. Like I said in my rant yesterday I have massive paranoia when comes to interacting with people and whether they like me or not, so constructive feedback while annoying is always helpful. Plus through research I found that he values a good social game so the fact that he's reaching out and telling me what I'm doing wrong is probably a sign that I'm not a lost cause :D. It turns out we have a few mutual friends our lord and savior John Coffey and also Sarah,... Lynn to be specific there are like a shit ton of Sara(h)s so should probably clarify lol. I want to work with him. I know he's in the majority alliance with the brawn tribe, which also contains Jakey and Jordan. Considering the fact that the beauties are slowly but surely getting eliminated, their favor would be helpful to me and mine. However, I know for sure that one of them wrote my name down. Honestly probably both of them. I know I keep harping on this fact but I just really really don't like the idea of looking like an idiot by aligning with someone who wanted me dead or wanted to fuck with me. If we do lose this challenge we are going to have to figure out who to keep or who to eliminate, I feel like it should be between those two. Mostly because I'm not exactly comfortable with a brawn majority. Like I know how people are saying tribe lines don't matter and while they don't, advantages do. And what more advantageous than being in a majority alliance? If we get rid of a brawn that would make it 4 brains- 4 beauty - 5 brawn. Which seems a bit more fair lol. Also RIP Connor remember how I said he was a threat? Welp I guess this is why they don't ask me for cast assessments :/ and also cause I was dead for like several years.

absolutely nothing has happened in fact i was kinda in a ~mood~ today so i feel like my social game took a big L because i didnt feel like talking to anyone and i was busy so i kept being that bitch to responding once an hour ..... but in other news i finally accessed the tomb, and once i started using more than one brain cell at a time i was able to get in and it was actually about 10x easier than i was making it out to be im not sure WHY i was struggling so much but of course, to no surprise i finally get in and the pedestal is empty AGAIN. Now there's not only at least 1 idol from the last time i went in the tomb gone, but there's possibly a second too, if not an advantage that can easily be played against me. At this point all i can do is try and recover a little bit, tomorrow ill have to just try more with my conversations and hopefully one of the people i can somewhat trust is the person who has whatever was in their time time around but probably not, it's never that easy

okay so i have a video confessional from earlier uploading which is kind of a recap of the last two rounds BUTTT!! liam just finished editing our video and i love it!! he did so good and our tribe all tried our best... im just hoping the other tribe didn't go bananas all out, because if they didn't we should hopefully win... i really wanna win immunity because otherwise i feel like adam is gonna be the vote and i dont want that anymore KJASDFA. i would just be sad because idk who the alternative would even be.... so basically we better win immunity KJLSADFA

Me: Alright everyone, make sure you film horizontally!!! Devon: Fuck you

Honestly!!! I take back what i said about Kendall. I feel like we’re making some strides to work together??? Or she’s playing me? I’m hoping to stir a Devon vote this round because I think he threw the vote on Kendall to piss me off, but who knows. I wanna talk to Jakey and see what he thinks about a me/him/augusto/Amir alliance to get through this vote? Idk I trust him but who knows!!!! Maybe everyone is lying to me??? 

okay... i know i said god is a woman and her name is autumn but its time for the remix. god is a woman and her name is alyssa's mum because alyssa's mum just rescued us from defeat in that challenge JKASDF the judges were kinda unnecessarily harsh but we move on. basically for the other tribe's tribal, i hope jake/dan/devon live... hopefully another scary old school person goes but tbh who knows what is going to happen?! im just so happy to have made f13, i said i'd come 14th in my intro so we love surpassing my own expectations

the immunity challenge went well, we won, which is good because i just didnt feel like going to tribal council because im honestly unsure what the hell is going on, i wanted to feel good about the connor vote because obviously that was my plan from the start however he just made it a little too easy by not talking to a lot of people allegedly, up until right before the vote, i dont think there'd be an easy vote next time we go to tribal, unless ... it's me... am i the easy vote?? i wanna really think im not but its just always too quiet to me when we dont go to tribal there's also lots of talk and speculation about a possible merge at 13, but me and my vivid imagination aka paranoia think maybe another swap of some sort could still happen even if for just another round or 2, i never knew with you sneaky hosts!! also i know we won in the challenge but we wouldve won in the challenge by even more if liam used more footage of my video i sent in i feel like i got no screentime!!! but of course i kept my big mouth shut for once because there's no i in team so ill try not to throw too much of a diva fit but listen... i tried to give yall a DEATH DROP, and i pulled a wig ruveal by snatching off my hat, and i was giving you a whole tik tok dance i made myself..... but there was no way i was doing more than beyonce's part so he didnt have much to work with so touche .... the full version i made will just be deleted scenes for myself ill reflect on when im more mature and think to myself "what the fuck was i doing?" 

So not to my surprise, we end up losing the challenge AGAIN!! I've just accepted that I really don't have any luck in this game. I was really hoping that we'd just win every challenge until the merge because I'm over going to tribal and voting people out. I feel like going to the amount of tribal councils that I have has left a huge target on my back. But at the same time, I'm playing the game more than other are. Maybe I have that going for me, who knows. Anyways, the Thots alliance is deciding on either Devon or Dan for this vote. I basically told them I was good with either, even though I would perfer to keep Devon so that I at least have more of an opportunity to rebuild our relationship. I've made it very clear that if the group as a whole wanted to do Devon that I'd write his name down to prove that I trust this group moving forward. So we decide to go with Dan for this vote, and this doesn't really sit well with Jakey. I'm not surprised by that, since I know he's wanted Kendall out for awhile now. But he is really adamant that he doesn't want Dan to go. Which I get, he thinks that Dan would trust him moving forward. When it comes to Dan though, his social game lacks so much that it's like "I don't even know if I can trust him moving forward". And I think the fact that Jakey more so wants to target Kendall this round instead of Dan is a strong sign for me. I'm pretty positive he has an idol since the brain one has been found and he's lied to me about clues before. So this has me thinking, maybe it's a good time to get Jakey out this round? Thinking about it numbers wise for the future, we don't really need Jakey's vote for a majority this round since the four beauties and myself makes 4, and if we bring in Devon that's 5. Plus, I don't even think that Jakey's under the impression that he would... get voted out this round. He seems offly confident that he's staying, just that Dan's going. But I like to think he'd let Dan be a sinking ship and go.. Idk I'm gonna try to pitch this to Amir and see what he thinks. I kind of tried to hint around it to Augusto that Jakey wasn't cool with it, but Augusto kind of turned a blind eye at that. And I don't trust Kendall with my thoughts since she's very blunt... so I wouldn't be surprised if she leaked my plans. Similarly to what Devon did when I voted him out last week. I'm hoping that Amir will see where I'm coming from and that he might be open to that concept. For all I know, I could be voted out this round. And honestly, that'd be the smart move for them to make because my perception in the game so far has been pretty spot on. I think my self awareness this time around has been an asset for me, so I'm hoping that I can get by this vote and hopefully enter the merge soon. 

Coming back into the game, I knew I needed to open up a bit and start to Slither earlier than I would imagine. After throwing a vote onto Kendall, I broke down any chance between the Beauty and Brawn working together to knock out myself and Scott. I haven't told anyone about my vote, and don't plan to. Going into this vote, Dan should be the obvious choice. OG Brawn hasn't suffered any additional losses in numbers, and I'm just too close with Augusto/Amir/Kendall to consider flipping. In preparation of tonight NOT being a swap, I established an alliance with Amir and Augusto. They are a duo in every sense, but attaching myself to them sets up the opportunity to at least CONSIDER voting out Scott next round. It would have to be between him and Scott. 

All I got to say is oof… I genuinely thought I was on vacation after the last round like I’ve been SO bad about talking to people or at least that’s how I felt cause I was operating at 60% instead of the 110% I do when I socialize. That being said, I have my goals that I want to stick to and see happen. Dan needs to leave this tribal so I can get Jakey out next even if Dan leaving makes me really sad. Dan leaving takes a number away from the Brawn and a number away from Jakey, who I am able to get out by keeping Devon and having him/Kendall/myself/Amir vote for him if we happen to lose again. The alliance of me/Kendall/Amir/Jakey/Scott went on call last night and it was deadass an hour and a half long call where everyone was like “idk who should go but I’m fine with whatever” although… that certainly wasn’t the case. I, personally, made points that were pro-Devon such as Devon not having any clear allies to reunite with at merge and things like that and EVENTUALLY at the last 5 minutes of the call, we decided that Dan leaving is the better option. Scott and I even discussed a Brawn having to go before we even did the call so yeah. One thing I could tell though? Jakey was not having it. I understand his frustration but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I voted out AJ to prove that I am not here to play by tribal lines and you said you would do the same but here we are… Amir called me last night telling me about how Jakey was trying to strong arm him into voting Devon out because Jakey didn’t want to do Dan… like sir, I’m? I’m very happy that Amir came to me and confided in me to kinda spill out his emotions like that makes me <3 but it also made me wanna pop off at Jakey because I don’t like those approaches in games hgfjdks even if I do really like Jakey, I was just ugh gjfdks. That aside, I feel like I am doing good about getting information and building friendships out here like I’m DEADASS is almost every single alliance on the tribes I’ve been a part of and while I don’t get tons of info from direct sources (ie. Jakey), I get the information from close allies (ie. Amir) which in a way can be even better? That being said, I’ve been way too good at forming friendships that every vote makes me feel really bad? With Dan for example, I adore that man like even if he isn’t the most talkative he’s just amazing. But does Dan benefit my game as much as Devon? Not really, even if Dan wanted to align. I’m sticking to my promise of doing what I have to do and be a little bit more cutthroat than I usually am because I do genuinely want to win this game and I’ll do what it takes to get there. Honestly, I’d be SHOOK if we do not merge next round or the round after ghfjdksm but I’m just trying to plan ahead and look at my connections. My Thoth connections are Amir > Kendall > Devon > Scott > Jakey whereas my Hathor connections are Autumn > Duncan > Adam (?) > TJ > Jordan > Liam M > Ali. If we do merge, making a secret thing with Autumn would be KEY just to have another person in my corner but also I need to connect with a Brawn to be good with them yknow? It’ll definitely be interesting and I can see the merge being messier than a taco bell bathroom BUT I’m hyped at the same time?

How is it already Day 16? There seems to be something seriously wrong with that. Anywho, I've let myself take a quick step back on the social game these last few days. I think I've put in the work to cement a couple strong groups here and can put myself in a good spot, but now I can avoid being the person that probably would be seen as a huge threat in the near future. Once merge hits (which I'm hoping is this next round), I'm going to have to go back to bringing that social game to a 9 (10 is where the Alyssa threat level begins), but right now I'm hopefully putting myself in a good place. In the event we don't have a merge and have one more vote on Hathor, I really think I need to make a move on Ali. I realize I keep saying this and I'm going to feel awful when he sees this all, but he is such a HUGE threat, and I can't let him skate by to where there's no room to stop him. I made that mistake last time in letting the person I knew would win get too far without me being able to stop them. Not this time. Ain't no fucking way.

This may very well be my last confessional lmao. I’m just feeling very paranoid about this vote and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone votes for me except for Jakey. Or if he even flips to the majority against me. And honestly! I’ve come to terms with it. I really tried my best in the game and I can’t be mad about how I performed in this game specifically. I understand I’m a threat in these games and if people are worried about me end game, quite frankly they should be. I know that I’ve played Tumblr Survivor one too many times and should have quit while I was ahead. I know I’ve talked about working with Kendall and killing Devon, but honestly idk who is voting where. I think I’m going to try to just go with what I think is majority (against Kendall) and just hope to god I’m not going anywhere. I hate having this defeatist attitude, but if I get voted out I’m going to have zero hard feelings and take it in stride. I guess I’m just not cut out to win tumblr survivor ❤️

Our video was so iconic, SHOUT OUT TO ALYSSA'S MOM!!! I should really be making sure im fortifying the bonds i've made but im really just happy to be on break and not have tribal. I've only been to tribal once within a 7 day time span instead of the 4 times in 7 days the brains endured before. I will say i was positively shook to get the vote from connor, but i never thought i could play a perfect game anyways lol. I'm hoping to god that dan or jakey go, i dont want the brawns over here to have other options than autumn and i come merge. Im surprised at myself because im starting to really want to stick with all these people come a merge, i suppose we'll see how it goes and how my attitude changes moving forward. 

Sooooooo I actually felt kind of bad about voting for Dan until he was throwing my name out :/ I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I'm kind of nervous now. Like Jakey told me this and he did the same thing to AJ. Also I haven't heard anything from Scott yet... that's sketchy right? Ugh I swear if I'm voted out then Alyssa's mom, I will meet you in the Denny's Parking lot for a fight. I'm not afraid to throw hands at the elderly, ask Drew. 

We love when men listen to me an in turn we win immunity! This is now the second time that's happened lmao cause I sure did make everyone commit to a time block so we didn't play ourselves in the endurance challenge and I sure did suggest Telephone as the song choice so wooooo Not a lot has happened and I don't have a lot of time to talk to begin with but I have a strong feeling we are not merging tonight lmao. Tbh I look forward to another day on Hathor it's very chill over here, all things considered. Also I need a couple chill challenges the next two rounds cause ya girl is moving, graduating, and leading an underground movement all at the same time so don't set me up with a crazy time-consuming challenge lol

I feel vindicated. Starting off in this game, I was not doing so well gameplay wise. Flash forward, I've been a big contributor physically, and socially too! I've got big plans, and I will carry this tribe again if I have to!

(may've already submitted this but i'm worried i submitted it for day 18?)

Also...

ok let me just start by saying: im in an emotionally FRAGILE state at the moment writing this right after the winners at war finale.....SPOILERS IF YOU HAVENT SEEN BUT I HAVE TO SAY IT....NATALIE AND WINCHELE ROBBED, as inspired as i am by my aries sistren natalie and think she should've won, im even more upset for my fellow beauty sister michele because lowkey? i absolutely LOVE the way michele plays, because in my own head at least i like to think i at least play slightly similar, i like to lay low and just adapt to where i see i can fit the best, anywho thats all ill say on that, back to THIS game dan being voted out last round, was kinda meh, i had the tiniest conversation with him during one world and he did end up giving me some tea about the brawns, but i couldve easily tried working with him later on against the beauties, PLUS him leaving means that none of those false beauties left, which is bad for me because i want them all gone oop and ive worked hard over here trying to make sure everyone knows they are threats even if theyre not working together, they went against me and lied to me, which means i cant trust them or work with them, which means i need to make sure no one else does either it's very nice though duncan has approached me and asked who i was comfortable with incase we did go to tribal and he said him and jordan pines were pretty close and honestly jordan is the only one ive been on a call with this whole game which is fine because anyone who knows me knows i dont care for calls much in this game and that usually hurts me so im hoping its not hurting me this time but truly, im not sure people are approaching me way more with information and plans then they ever have so im hoping thats a good sign, espcially with duncan saying he basically wanted me to be in the know with him, i think i can trust him as of now going foward and i hope the same about jordan pines, because first of all i love his energy and him as a person my fellow stoner crackhead, and second of all let's be real i definitely want to use him as a shield later on cmon the guy has a season named after him, forget denise being the queen slayer, i want to be the king tamer also in good with ali and autumn i think?? i personally enjoy my short little convos i have with them frequently so i just hope we're on the same page, but idk the little voice in the back of my head is telling me it all seems too good to be true almost like a perfect illusion and maybe duncan is tricking me trying to talk to me about "keeping this tribe strong", so i guess we'll have to wait until the next time we go to a tribal together to find out so yeah in conclusion, sorry to dan, and plot twist of the century im rooting for jakey to not be voted out the other tribe? even though im still convinced he could be making me his number 1 target especially if he gets in kahoots with kendall, but im hoping i played them against each other enough during the one world so that didnt happen 

What do ya know....another tribal council. After only being exempt from one tribal, this has become somewhat of a routine. I am extremely confident in the numbers this round. I'm under the belief that everyone will be writing down Jake's name, and Jake will likely be writing down my/Kendall's name. Still, I believe there is a worry about idols. I would hate to be idoled out by Jake after everything I have worked towards...I can't afford to throw my vote on Kendall or Scott with the merge coming up so soon, because it fractures my game going into a potential merge...Somewhat of a "all or nothing" bet tonight.

Me @ the brawns who have been on this tribe: https://media.giphy.com/media/szPZ2NXIGCMcE/giphy.gif

So a couple new developments: 1. Jordan offered me a final two which I'm sooooo excited to see how that's going to turn out. I've really connected with Jordan this game (which admittedly I didn't think would happen before this game), but he's been the person I've confided in the most out here. So I really think this is going to be the start of something amazing. 2. With this F2 deal, Jordan told me that Amir/Jakey knew each other outside of this game. This is bad for me both because Jakey is supposed to be my other guy with Jordan, but also Amir is the person I'd want to target come merge (which should be next round). I have zero connection to him, he's proven to be good at comps, he's won this game before, and he doesn't add into my plan of having numbers on every side. So now I'm in a spot where I think I'll probably have to make a move against potentially my closest / other closest ally in this game. Being safe right before the potential merge feels amazing and opens a lot of opportunities, but is extremely scary knowing who is going to merge. Hopefully come to merge, I have a chance at the merge idol to avoid anyone else having the chance at getting it, because I need some added knowledge in this game.

I am so fucking pissed at Devon. WHY ARE YOU ON THE BRAINS IF YOU HAVE NO BRAIN CELLS!!!!!!! dsfjkaafkjdaldjfjadksjads Great now I get to die!

I don't know why Jakey wants to kill me. I am not a threat. Like at all? Most of the strategies I come up with are bad and I am barely social? Sure I guess I can win like a challenge or two but not enough to be physical? I mean I'm trying to kill him but like... honestly he started it 2 rounds ago. I am a paper tiger worse I am a paper giraffe. Sure I'm tall but basically harmless and only sort of evil. At least I remember why I hated him so much. I don't hate him NOW, I'm 22 years old I have better things to do then hate some guy for trying to win a game. But I am annoyed and inconvenienced by this. Maybe a little hurt too because the only reason I can think to get voted out is because my personality sucks so much that he doesn't see a future where we can work together. Which is fair I guess? But I can't be that awful right? God this game is a constant existential crisis... Also I think people are annoyed with me for being paranoid and shit. Oh I'm sorry people who's name isn't getting written down, I'm sorry I'm not more pleasant while I'm in fear for my metaphorical life. 

It’s a MESS ITS A FUCKING MESS SCOTTIE WANTS DAN OUT DAN WANTS DEVON JAKEY WANTS DEVON DEFON WANTS DAN AUGUSTO AND KENDALL WANT JAKEY AMIR WANTS NOT JAKEY OR AUGUSTO OR KENDALL I literally don’t have number in this game and I’m going to get fucked on at the merge 

Okay so Augusto basically told him that his name was an option for this vote or the next one and Kendall told him that the brawns are bringing up his name and said that he was the throw away vote So now my gut is telling me dan did it and jakey was in on it But I don’t care, if that’s the case Everyone on this tribe wants a brawn out, EVERYONE I just have to make sure it’s not jakey Because Augusto and Kendall want jakey now and I refuse it Rn it seems they r okay doing dan It seems everyone is cool doing dan So I’m happy with that

Jakey is fucking strong arming me r u joking Ndbdjdjsns Jakey talked to scottie And got scottie to want devon So now they’re gonna try and call the alliance tmmrw and change to vote back to devon over dan And if Augusto and Kendall don’t want to Jakey wants to pull brain and brawn to vote kendall like sir I’m literally getting strong armed, and he can’t see why people want dan out I could make a move rn But should I even I probably shouldn’t If they try to get kendall I will flip it on him 

don’t know what to do I’m pleading so hard with jakey rn like hey it’s not good for me to go into merge with 6 brawn 4 beauty (dysfunctional) and 3 brain (dysfunctional) And I said I want to do dan is that okay like jakey u need to choose a side, brawns, or this tribe And he goes If u decide to do dan Then I’m gonna unite dan and Scott and Devon and vote kendall So if that’s the case, I’m sending u home theres no way around it then

Throw back to last night when I hung up on jakey to call Augusto and told jakey that I was taking a shower but literally I was gone for an hour and needed an excuse fast so I told him i shaved my ass call that strategic ass shaking 

Okay so this tribal. Everyone on my tribe thinks jakey is evil and he’s just going to go back to the brawn tribe, which is like, wtf, he literally voted in minority on purpose and gave us leverage on him. Like he literally has put himself on the line multiple times. He ratted out the brawn majority over and over. Like jakey is not loyal to the brawns on the other side at all. The people on this tribe don’t give a shit and my opinion isn’t being heard at all, Kendall won’t budge and Augusto won’t budge, and Scott wants to keep devon. Can I just say scott is a rat, he is playing every single person. Jakey trusted him soooo much . Anyway, everyone wants jakey out for literallt no reason and jakey trusts me 100% and jakey is the best way to get info from the brawns on the other side. Anyway, KDJDKSN KDNDKD we are getting dirty. Jakey has an idol. And I told him he was the vote and I made it sound like it’s all Scott’s decision cuz I’m really tight with Kendall and Augusto, so now, jakey wants to idol out Scott Basically, it’s time for a cluster fuck and it’s time for chaos So at merge jakey and I will play from Opposite sides

so jakey fking tried to flip the vote and he blew up the 5 person alliance to devon and hes fucking up my game so much nkwejfnkew god maybe i will try and get him out at merge even tho i love him, i basically had to ccreate this narrative that jakey thinks that me jakey scott and devon are voting kendall but jakey is actually voting out scott jesus christ thi round gave me a migraine i have a case of the lie-abetes

I- there's nothing else to say hahaha the boys don't even talk game. So when I know something y'all will know something

People are paranoid as hell about a merge. What is there to be paranoid about, honestly? I've just tried to come into this game and have a good time and I think I've achieved that. No one is really looking at me as a threat right now, and there's still plenty of time left to play.

okay so i filmed a video confessional earlier which i will upload but adam just woke me up to the fact that we might be merging tonight?! which is so exciting and kinda crazy.... and the days line up with montenegro for us to be merging... at merge i think all my "laying low" can finally be for something and i can transition the bonds i've been making into making stuff happen. i've also been hosting a game during these quarantine times and i've realised people that do too much making SUCH deep bonds during the early stages become the people the jury is mad at in the endgame. i feel like im the middle ground, people feel close to me (and I would like to think I've come across as likable) without everyone thinking im their soul sister closest ally. at merge i think my "close" people who i can somewhat rely on are: autumn, jake, dan(?), jordan(?) and adam? like i have a core of people with various connections, which gives me some cover. its just about then feeling out the rest and seeing who i can trust amongst the rest... particularly the unknowns of augusto/kendall/scott/amir (assuming they are all at merge). like that is going to be the most important part of the merge stage for me, is figuring out which of them i can trust (and i do think dan and/or jake's opinions can help with this, because brainstorming with autumn helped me figuring out this hathor swap tribe).

i'm excited for merge... i do think i have early juror written all over me but i am also very excited. its time to emerge from the shadows and stumble my way into the light

live fast die young merge boots do it well. i literally am a clown, i got excited by my guess going so well and now i literally am a target the size of the sun exclusively because of my own actions what was i thinking KJASDFA honestly at this point? i embrace it, i push the 'im a shield' narrative and i trot on my little trotters to being mayor of ponderosa. this season i chopped of my own head so will not be the winner and the king, but hopefully i can be a kingmaker? also if me winning the tiebreak sends jake home i literally will be so unspeakably frustrated with myself i will literally... scream. HE PROBS HATES ME. i'm praying he lives i will feel so bad if he doesnt KLASDF

i literally... can not believe i am so stupid my lack of braincells really boggles my mind

So I was really hoping that we would win this challenge today because I like everyone on this tribe. But of course with my luck in this game, we lose AGAIN. And it's a shame because I like the Thots Alliance and i feel bad voting out Devon. I know he's someone who trusts me and although I don't 100% trust him, I know that he's someone I can depend on. Plus he makes a really good goat at the end, so it'll make winning more of an obstacle for me without him there. To my surprise however, Kendall and Augusto approach me with the idea of voting out Jakey. I really like Jakey and I practically see him as my #1 here, so voting him out would be difficult for me to do as well. We've discussed the idol together, he gave me his CBS all access account info to watch the finale, and hes one of the very few smart people in this game. So on a personal level, this is a hard decision to make. However, from a game perspective, it might be the right call. Jakey's setting himself up to be a swing vote at the merge, and the fact that he campaigned for Dan to stay and was adamant on not voting him out shows that. When it comes to Devon and I, I would prefer to not vote Devon out but if I needed to in order to show that I trust an alliance moving forward I would. So the fact that Jakey doesn't see it like that is alarming to me. In addition to that, I know that Jakey has lied to me multiple times in this game. He purposefully gave me the wrong idol clue for one of the matches, and when I called him out on it he bluffed it up. On top of that, I know for a fact that he voted for Kendall during the AJ vote. And the fact that he's trying to play it off on Devon goes to show the lengths he would go to make sure he controls everything. And on top of that, he wants us all to tell Devon straight up that he's going. Like... did he not learn from my story when I tried to do that? It can't happen. From a game perspective, voting out Jakey is the more logical choice to make. He can navigate better in a group of people and is aware of whats going on. Devon on the other hand, doesn't even know where the idol is or how to look for it. Devon is someone who you can take into a merge and know what he's going to do. Jakey is more unpredictable. And I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to rally up troops to blindside me when that time came. From a personal perspective, I prefer that Devon goes just because of the lack of trust between us and the fact that I don't ever see myself fully trusting him. Sadly I have to lose this battle in order to win the war at the end. So I'm going to vote Jakey out tonight and really hope that it doesn't come to bite me in the but or that he doesn't play his idol (i know he has one, its obvious with how paranoid he's been)

Guess I’m gonna cry because we lost… by a tiebreaker… it was sad. I feel especially awful because had I not made the mistake of repeating a name on my list during my 8th guess, we could’ve very well have won… but no one needs to know that! It just blows because going into a potential merge in a 7-5 scenario is NOT it. Plus like, their only vote was a unanimous vote for Connor which like… love Connor, but a rock could vote Connor out. I wanted to see tension, I wanted to see idols played, I wanted to see hands thrown, I wanted to see lines drawn, and I wanted to see messiness but all I ended up seeing? Disappointment. I hate it here deadass (‘:

Aside from being kinda sad we lost, I do feel super secure. Last round, I wanted Dan to leave to get rid of Brawn numbers and have the best chance to get Jakey out and now I have that! I know Amir is on the fence but I know Kendall and Devon would be all for it (Scott is as well, but I didn’t really know how much he’d be about it until this round) so it needs to happen. While I adore Jakey as a person and we’ve connected a lot, our strategic games don’t align at all since he doesn’t tell me much of anything? Most of his info goes to Amir or Scott and I’m being selfish here but I want all the tea (‘: plus him playing double agent with the Brawns at merge is not what I need if we’re going into the merge with not enough numbers. Not only that but Adam is a wildcard in terms of if he’ll work with me or not but Jakey being there with us makes it so Adam wouldn’t want to so there’s that. Girl… i sound like a whole ass gamebot wtf ghfdjnms

It’s so weird like I am extremely proud of the game I am playing but I still feel inadequate as a player? I know I shouldn’t compare myself to others because I’m ME but my two closest allies (Kendall, Amir) are playing so much better? Amir is able to get all the tea in the world and form those important game connections which I don’t feel like I can yknow? With Kendall, she is just so bold (and beautiful) with her gameplay in a way I could never like she doesn’t mind being the secondary target, she talks to everyone and talks game with everyone, and stuff like that. So in a way, I’m probably not a major threat to people because those two icons are here BUT I also don’t know if that’ll make me seen like a non-factor… that’s just how I feel going into merge and it’s kinda mehhh idk ;-;

MERGE IS COMING. TOnight actually, people are speculating, but im the only one with the certainty that its tonight and im feeling wonderful. I think if I play my cards right Im gonna have a lot of options come merge. God pending Kendall does not die tonight (hopefully her beauties keep her alive) im gonna suggest we secret pair beware this shit and tsart working from opposite sides to keep each other safe. That will allow me to pick of people Im not working with, while hopefully ensure that people im not with who are with her will be detered from targeting me. Thats my plan but who knows what the true dynamics of merge will be. Ive been playing quiet so far but im about to become the star of teh show, my ego just cant take it.

i really feel like by getting a five i got jake voted out and i want to scream i literally am gonna be out for blood if he goes

[benjaminsblog]

Catch-up 

Whew, time for a bit of a recap, I’ve been quite busy;

4.11.17 (Saturday)

Sandwiched between two early work shifts, I headed home for my sister’s (unofficial) birthday; good food, company, and marshmallows were in abundance - if you want to take a guess at how many I dotted that cake with, the answer is in the hashtags! I even had time for a game of Scrabble with Hannah, which, despite what that photo may suggest, I won (eventually). My initial frustration was at Hannah’s insistence at using the triple-word-score tiles for pitiful scoring, just to prevent me using them (I know that is the whole premise of the game, but when your opponent does it, it’s just spiteful).

6.11.17 (Monday)

Off the back of my usual early-morning Sunday shift, I followed it up with another on Monday - I’d agreed a swap with Peter, in order to go to London and attend a talk I’d wanted to see; this is through having recently discovered a short series on Netflix called ‘The Kindness Diaires’, which follows a man named Leon Logothetis as he makes his way around the world, armed with nothing but his (not-so) trusty motorbike Kindness One. He is completely reliant on the kindness of complete strangers, for food, fuel, and a place to sleep; incredibly, he does succeed in his journey, but I won’t say anymore in case you decide to watch it (I don’t feel saying he gets all the way around is a spoiler, ‘cause it wouldn’t say much about the premise if he’d failed). There are some lovely twists in it, too.

Well, it turned out that Leon was going to be speaking at an event called ‘Action for Happiness’, and given the timing, I felt it my duty to go! I polished off the last six episodes the previous evening (they’re only 20 mins long), so as to be fully up-to-speed, And after a brisk power nap in the afternoon, hauled my tired body into London. 

Leon seemed in far more pensive mood for the talk; during the KD series, he was somehow able to retain an upbeat, friendly, slightly loony personality, but perhaps he was more intent on delivering an important message. I was a bit disappointed at how little KD figured into his talk; it transpired that it was more to do with Action for Happiness, which organises a number of talks and get-togethers, and Leon was a guest speaker. I had been under the wrong impression, which, I suppose if I’d done a little more research, I may have realised, but when the image you see on the projection screen is the one that was plastered across the event, I think you could be forgiven for expecting a little more talk about the series itself.

Sadly, I was a little underwhelmed with the talk, which I feel bad even admitting, given that the whole premise was one of kindness! I felt that I could have almost walked out after ten minutes and understood the talk, as it seemed Leon was repeating the same underlying point in various roundabout, lengthy ways. He gives a lot of talks to kids in schools, and at times it felt like the level of simplicity he was using to get his points across to us was the same he may be using in these situations too - I felt a little patronised at times. There were some amusing moments though, not least when he told us all to stand up and to hug the person/s standing next to us and tell them they matter! Now, I came alone, so this could have been somewhat awkward, but I was sitting next to two ladies - Lorraine and Janet, I think? - who were very pleasant (I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise if they were attending this talk). 

There was a postcard on each chair when we came in, with ‘homework’ for us to carry out; Leon wants us to write to him when we carry out an act of random kindness and make someone feel less lonely - I think that’s a great idea, and on top of that, he said he would donate a book to children for each one he gets through his letterbox. His target is reach 10,000 and apparently he’s already past halfway!

The evening was a bit hit-and-miss, but it was another adventure, something new to do, so I am definitely glad I went. Leon also said towards the end to remember to be kind to yourself, and not neglect your own wellbeing, so when I got to Waterloo and saw that my train was a little delayed, I popped into Burger King and got myself a meal. Leon’s orders!