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amyoffline · 2 months ago

Text

It's done! The outline for—

—is below the cut. The goal of this project is to explore the following phenomena with as much context and nuance as I can manage, tracing our history over the past 15 years:

What about us, and what about Dan and Phil, drew in and continues to draw in a very specific audience. If they are a ranch metaphor, we are a pizza metaphor 🥗🍕🫶🏻

Why we were Like That™, by which I mean so parasocially invested in them that we became, at times, the most annoying people on the internet. Much of that reputation is undeserved, and the videos on the phandom to date have been strongly negative. So, uh, I guess I'm going to put my face on camera and (mostly) defend us.

Reblog, share in your Discord servers, reply, or send me messages/anon asks with feedback or resources if you have any! Especially if your experience being in this fandom community has been dramatically different from mine. There are TIT spoilers near the end of the outline, but I'm not tagging because certain individuals seem to be lurking over there. Thank you!

Chapters:

Full outline:

introduction

cold open

felt personally attacked by jonathan haidt's last press tour

showed up to the phrenaissance 11 months late

had an unexpectedly strong response to their new content, needed to find out why

what the hell are we doing here?

- phenomenology (academics are professionally insufferable) - research question 1: what drew the audience in? - research question 2: why were we Like That™?

what we're NOT doing here

- a strict content analysis or "wow we sucked" video - providing sources for things best left uncirculated, thank you

reflexivity (personal biases)

- american zillennial in public health - in the youtube audience by spring 2010 - lurking in the phandom on tumblr 2013-2015, back* since 2019 - fan behavior i did and did not engage in

(----): truly necessary background information, i swear

(pop) cultural trends, tech, and their intersection

- nerd/geek identity and the first online weirdos - broadcast tv & the music industry vs the internet - defining "emo" - blogging & vlogging - early internet comedy

broader social/economic trends

- so the U.S. economy collapsed in 2007 - a decade that sucked except for rom-coms and square enix games - the flip/slide phone + digital camera + mp3 player loadout

(05-8): early youtube and early phil

youtube: a great video uploader without a clear purpose

the content on the website

- crossposts, corporations, and creative/social outlets - omg guys it's amazing phil - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: justin bieber

the audience of "early adopters"

contemporary social media sites and forums

(2009): origin story

a wild dan appears… in the comments

the global constant that is teenagers being messy online

daring my old school district to sue me

- "one town's war on gay teens" (literal rolling stone headline!) - epidemiology 101: rates of… ugh… "unaliving" oneself - ways kids cope when it seems no adults will help them

the earliest days of dan & phil

- hello internet + pinof - a chronically overexamined timeline - file deleted ---* so how big WAS the audience at the time? ---* acceptable funny/edgy language was just different

contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: lucas cruikshank

omg it's meeeeeee

- how amy & friends were using youtube - ways i was just destined to end up here - being in social environments with peers 3-6 years older

(2010): is it "twenty-ten" or "two thousand ten?"

youtube is a platform about to explode in popularity

- the algorithm before it was The Algorithm™, lost site features - let's take a trip through the wayback machine :3c - actual dan & phil content in 2010 - the green brothers found vidcon - contemporary youtube-to-legacy success: darren criss

social media: also about to explode in popularity

- facebook was cool at the time, believe it or not - law of equivalent exchange: 2010 amy cringe compilation - the birth of instagram and pinterest - youtube slash livejournal (the first phanfics… sort of) - shockfic and its place in the overton window

the beginning of "the great rewiring" as haidt calls it

- ways social media is about to dramatically change - third spaces become online spaces - confounding variable: changing expectations of teens

(2011): the end of an era, the start of an age

a very long tangent on fandom and pop culture

cultural exchange

counterculture and teenagers as concepts

the first british invasion: the 1960s

- beatlemania and its descendents - moral panic about the virtue of tween/teen girls - tv/film/fashion trends being imported from the uk - in parallel, star trek births the modern fandom

the second british invasion: the 1980s

- synth/new pop that came out of the punk movement (hi, emo?) - confined mainly to music and fashion - cool britannia

it's harry freakin' potter

- absolute titan of pop culture influence - the rise of online fandom: examining the horrors ---* what is "wank" ---* flaming, sockpuppeting, and general cyberbullying ---* censorship: ffnet purges, boldthrough, & strikethrough ---* other fandom shenanigans of the time (yaoi paddles, anyone?)

harry potter's over. now what?

- for those who needed coming-of-age hero's journeys ---* twilight and YA dystopia waiting in the wings ---* some pretty iconic tv shows start or hit their stride ---* the mcu's phase one ---* takeaway: the rise of "geek culture" generally - for those who just wanted to go to hogwarts ---* doctor who & the wider world of bbc programming ---* british vloggers, you say? where? on youtube? brb--

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

dan & phil in the first half of 2011

- a continuation of 2010… for now - the videos - british pancakes as a case study of bad fan behavior

streaming and social media

- the birth of snapchat, twitch, and younow - netflix starts developing original programming - multi-channel networks (mcns) - digitour

dan & phil in the second half of 2011

- and they were roommates (omg they were roommates) - fantastic foursome - youtube glitches out - the super amazing project - the first proper baking video + wait, is that the bbc?

~ baking interlude 1: christmas cookies ~

the family sugar cookie (sorry, delia)

amy's 2011

(2012): why is anyone nostalgic for this

the transition from desktop to mobile

- massive growth in smartphone ownership 2011-2015 - things one might do on mobile one might not do on desktop - non-online ways smartphones changed being a youth™

what is tumblr and why is my child using it

- how the site is meant to work - fandom, memes, aesthetics, and SOME public figures - want to be anxious and depressed in peace? come to tumblr - this site seems a little……… gay ---* tumblr's very queer, very neurodiverse userbase ---* legacy media representation in 2012: bad! ---* actual academic research on tumblr users (yes, it exists) - the tumblr experience for non-native english speakers

amy becomes a vibrating mass of panic and paranoia

- in context of the above - additional rant about the american public school system

the growing dan & phil audience

- investigating the origin of the term "phannie" - more collaborations = more viewers - more video uploads = more /invested/ viewers - younow and interacting with fans - watch time replaces clicks in the algorithm

online etiquette, or lack thereof

- mid-transition from the 2000s to the 2010s - "professional internet celebrity" is still basically brand-new - lack of boundaries - various ways to be an asshole online - unsupervised kids simply do not engage in best practices

the end of 2012

- dan and phil move to london - wikipedia vandalism - tiptoeing around a top contender for the phandom's greatest sin - super amazing project DONE, now it's BBC RADIO TIME

(2013): arguably the most important year

- wait. what's that six-second video platform over there--

[amy's curated vine compilation]

- a new wave of internet comedians (read: future youtubers) - the zillennial lexicon - other platforms start emphasizing short-form video content - magcon

emo is BACK - well, sort of

- fob hiatus ends, mcr breaks up. my god. you had to be there - more open ties to nerd/geek culture than in the 2000s - these things once again intersect at dan and phil

dan and phil in the first half of 2013

- siri, what's a "sex symbol?" why are you booing me i'm right-- - d&p are everywhere - radio shows, interviewing, hosting - youtube uploads on their individual channels

rapidly changing cultural attitudes towards queerness

- gay marriage will be legal in places other than canada soon - a lot of assimilationist rhetoric though tbh - parallels to the pop feminism of the decade

hey kids, let's talk about compulsory heterosexuality!!

- what is it and why do people do it - academic, tumblr-level, and anecdotal research - the dannies, the phillies, and the phannies

amy

- the closet™ - mental health stigma - 2013 dnp posts from my main blog

dan and phil in the second half of 2013

- subscriber milestones, vidcon - joint content before the gaming channel - phandom starts having a major presence outside tumblr

(2014): achievement unlocked!

it's time to talk about rpf

- definitions (a chance to be annoyingly pedantic) - academic perspectives and fan discourse on the ethics - when the subjects clearly aren't fine with it - so… we can acknowledge "shipping phan" was different, right? ---* sometimes the subjects are fine* with it, actually ---* how dan and phil started to handle the shipping ---* obvious differences between phan and other rpf ships ---* sharing my favorite passages as a first-time phanfic reader

dan and phil in 2014

- wikipedia vandalism 2: electric boogaloo - bbc request show → internet takeover - the 7 second challenge - youtube content, subscriber milestones, rewind - cons and award shows

tumblr reaches the peak of its influence

- yahoo's attempts to monetize the userbase - buzzfeed and aggregators steal our jokes and bait our clicks - legacy media dangles carrots and uses us for free marketing - the legend of korra breaks TV precedent, almost out of nowhere - the tumblr user experience ---* on mobile, without xkit ---* on desktop, with xkit ---* 2014 dnp posts from my main blog

gamergate and its long shadow

- trolling, renewed and revamped - algorithms push increasingly extreme content - the broad conservative backlash conglomerate - increased normalization of conspiracism in general

my greatest sin [not clickbait] [very funny]

- so, circling back to comphet… - the actual story

anyway, let's talk about danandphilgames

- a star is born: dil howlter - different types of gaming content on youtube at the time - why did 17yo amy not subscribe? well…

~ baking interlude 2: chocolate cupcakes ~

make your own frosting. it freezes well

roasting myself further

(2015): it's not queerbaiting when it's real people

facebook "pivots to video"

- mark zuckerberg lied. water is wet - causes other platforms to REALLY double down on video - the birth of musical.ly - corporate-branded creators (read: future youtubers)

queerbaiting enters mainstream public consciousness

- academic origins - early fannish and acafan writing - johnlock, destiel, and sterek - statistics 101: type i error, type ii error, and queerbait

dan, phil, and the phandom

- bbc, cons, & the brits - danandphilcrafts - phan conspiracies ---* japhan ---* body language experts ---* timeline truthers ---* floor plan investigators ---* no but seriously imagine it - regular youtube uploads ---* solo content ---* joint content ---* subscriber milestones, rewind - tatinof uk and tabinof ---* on "selling out" ---* revisiting the statistics 101 lesson: now with real people! ---* never meet your heroes (unless they're dan and phil)

amy's (temporary) exit from the phandom

- it's legal adulthood with a steel chair!! - growing discomfort with some fans' behavior - 2015 dnp posts from my main blog - the closer: final fantasy vii

(2016): season finale

vine's imminent demise

- content platforms behaving badly - content creators behaving badly

youtube after "the great rewiring" (as haidt calls it)

- version 1.0 of the modern youtube algorithm ---* deep neural networks for dummies ---* what's holding creators accountable, or not - advertising and sponsorships ---* basically every child and youth™ is watching now ---* the battle for our attention ---* regulators start to crack down on undisclosed ads - the rise of drama/tea content (and later, channels) ---* youtubers are now seen as regular celebrities ---* dan and phil as the butt of other youtubers' jokes ---* baiting the phandom for engagement

tatinof us and aus

- a proven new model for live show tours - show & documentary released to youtube red (now premium) - [sigh] the tour bus

sea change in online fandom

- the newer, sometimes queerer media in korra's wake ---* better and more representation in live-action tv shows ---* voltron (i'm sorry!!!) ---* the mystic messenger craze ---* alice oseman & heartstopper - the new dynamics of #discourse ---* proship is to anti as phannie is to phanti ---* the bad behaviors of the 00s get a new coat of paint ---* new, though: fans harassing creators ---* a personal note on ace discourse

dan and phil presence off-tour

- the internet takeover ends - regular content, subscriber milestones

so. uh. current events.

- brexit - sorry the united states is a font of chaos - ripple effects

closing out the year

- amy finally gets an anxiety diagnosis and treatment! hurray! - dapgo, rewind - bbc radio awards & the boncas - gamingmas

(2017): time for a rebrand

tangent - sit down!!! buckle up!!! today's lecture is on PSIs & PSRs!!!

"parasocial" as defined by the current zeitgeist

- summing up youtubers' and laypeople's opinions (not dan's) - an unfairly negative stance overall, imo

older academic literature

- the 1956 paper (yes, 1956) - with traditional celebrities - with fictional characters

current academic literature

- with youtubers and other content creators - positive effects on the audience - negative effects on the audience - broader societal implications

fandom spaces as a parasocial experience

- parasocial and truly social interactions with each other - phandom as a supportive, welcoming space for oddballs - what research i can find about neurospicy folks, + anecdotes - me and everyone else on planet earth move to discord

inherent transactionality

- the nature of celebrity - positive effects on creators - negative effects on creators

reexamining early phandom through a parasocial lens

- the good, the bad, and the ugly - the role audience demographics played in all of this - entering, exiting, and remaining in the phandom

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

vine is well and truly dead

- some had prepared to become primarily youtubers (smart) - some move to musical.ly, insta, facebook, or snap (less so)

the sun sets on danisnotonfire

- i am very normal about dan's hobbit hair, i swear. - the last dnp content before the rebrand - new apartment, new floor plan investigations

adpocalypse now

- youtube has become the village elder of platforms ---* increased scrutiny, increased responsibility ---* some youtubers had been getting away with !#$!#@% - the scandals ---* pewdiepie + logan paul ---* elsagate and being "family- friendly" (read: ad-friendly) - censorship and monetization ---* adsense revenue goes down as advertisers pull out ---* the glory days of posting whatever and making bank are over

amazingphil and ~daniel howell~

- youtube & younow content - that week in march - vacations and conventions - conjoined baking and the concept of a "soft launch" - daniel & depression → dan as a mental health advocate - truth bombs, ii announcement, rewind

(2018): the phandom vs the hiatus they told us not to worry about

interactive introverts

- "giving the people what they want" - in hindsight… - let's talk about dnp fans from the global south

youtuber burnout

- it wasn't just dan: (more examples than header fits) - the old model was simply not sustainable - newer contributing factors - research on burnout, plus personal anecdotal experience

other dan and phil videos

- phil's solo videos - gay and not proud - hometown showdown - other joint videos - phil's #shorts (sounds normal in american english)

panini updates

- vaccines soon, uwu??? + entrenched misinformation - pros and cons of remote work - pros and cons of remote school - pros and cons of remote socializing

you will get through this night

- younger me really could have used this book too, dan - thoughts as a professional in a related field - reflecting on some of my more unique circumstances

daring my old school district to sue me (again!!)

- updates: racism and transphobia - updates: right-wing freaks take over the school board again - residents vote against improving mental health resources

(2022): dan returns (still not on fire)

hey so politics are um getting worse

- americans lose the right to reproductive freedom ---* the quickest of histories on where these freaks came from ---* this shit kills people. - trans kids become the punching bag of culture war discourse ---* fuck off! (gently) ---* fuck off! (i have a knife) ---* checking in on terf island

we're all doooooooooooooooomed

- dystopia daily my beloved - the style, the substance, the metatextual analysis-- - not everyone loved it, though. why? - the promo - dan on tour + sister daniel

amy's 2022

- i got covid - then i got long covid: brain fog, pots-like symptoms

some more news (i will work on my warmbo impression)

- dan joins tiktok + danisnotinteresting uploads - phil: uploading less, busy doing remote crisis management - twitter is acquired by an idiot jackass - heartstopper on netflix! ---* the show and what it means to people ---* drama (revisiting "real people can't queerbait") ---* why this has anything to do with the phandom

~ baking interlude 4: cinnamon rolls ~

- lovingly, recipe changes and corrections :) - if i have an opinion about anything, it's sweet yeasted breads

(2023): the phrenaissance

phil

- joins tiktok! - youtube uploads through september - what even is phannie tiktok. i've never used this app. help.

dystopia daily b-sides

- dan memes of 2022 - the 2023 dystopia daily episodes

amy: the doctoral candidacy process

- purgatory, privilege, poverty, and free pizza - checking in on what this is like outside the united states

pretending the panini is over

- complaining about post-adpocalypse censorship standards - honest take about "giving up" on covid - who gets the short end of the stick

the youtube algorithm is BAD and UNINTELLIGENT, actually,

- unhinged rant about not hearing about the gaming rephrival - because i was offline from other platforms. like, @amyoffline.

pov: you are a phannie (not me) on october 15th

- what i was doing on october 15th - saying goodbye forever, spooky week, and november - gamingmas - phil uploads through december

(2024): fifteen years of terrible, terrible influence

hey what the fuck is going on

- dan and phil ---* joint and phil videos ---* jokes they never would've made ten years ago ---* a collection of emotional posts about how far they've come ---* people want fun and silly content again. we'll get to why ---* nostalgia, hope, and other warm and fuzzy feelings - the phandom ---* ancient parasocial attachments, reactivated instantly ---* people are way more normal now. let's discuss why ---* tumblr vs twitter vs tiktok phandom

we're all doomed, youtube version

- my thoughts - thoughts on "dan should/shouldn't" do video essays - i can't objectively evaluate anything he makes bc [gunshots]

terrible influence tour

- legally phlonde - the concept: healing one's inner child / taking it back - we gotta talk about phannies in the global south again - no but seriously imagine it? ---*ogres are like onions, they have LAYERS ---* [placeholder for whatever does(n't) happen]

anglosphere current events once again

- the likely us tiktok ban - the tories get fired - [placeholder for whichever hell americans manifest] - witnessing genocide and feeling powerless

ffx full-circle moment to the intro of this video essay

- the night i found out they came back - why i am doing this, now with context - reflections on a nearly 15-year (parasocial) relationship

whatever youtube uploads we get during fall/december

AMY SEES TIT (nov 14)

- the vibes at the phamily reunion - buying merch to apologize for eternal ublock origin use - how much should i document?? (not during the show) - phanspiracies confirmed - atlanta confessions - favorite bits - the alternate universe where i went to tatinof and/or ii

(2025): the horrors persist, but so do we

whatever 2025 content is out while i'm still working on this

our parasocial social club

- let me be philosophytube for a second ---* every interaction has a parasocial element ---* what are we obligated to do as a phandom, actually? ---* as people who parasocially care about these two dorks? ---* what else should we be doing socially to be at our happiest? - "they're my gay uncles" vs "i'm a little in love, even now" ---* riffing about the boundary/overlap between these camps ---* sibling reads me for filth in a single text (sister daniel...) ---* at least we're all in this together

what's going to continue to draw people in

- grown adults drawing our cat whiskers back on - updates on queer/nd kids - updates on anxiety/depression rates - updates on tech and the broader environment of content - world still feels doomed

tangent - the "hard launch" and why people want it

what are people referring to, exactly

- general definition and other examples - when it comes to dan and phil - maybe they hard launched already and we just missed the memo

the ludonarrative of phandom

- if you got here early on - if you got here in the mid-2010s - if you got here after they came out - if you got here post-hiatus - final fantasy comparison: ffvii's chokehold over first-timers

a rom-com for the ages

- the tropes in play - brief tangent on the evolution of the genre - queer romantic comedies - final fantasy comparison: ffviii's plot and squall/rinoa

phriends… or…

- wholesome influence, slice-of-life - projection - final fantasy comparison: ffxv's gameplay loop, the chocobros

humans don't like ambiguity

- from a media perspective (narrative tension) - research from the hard sciences - final fantasy comparison: fanille ---* the first gay final fantasy characters, actually ---* ffxiii's character development process ---* fang and vanille in the text. brb, clawing at the walls ---* so, if anyone is looking for a phyuri au prompt…

tl;dr: reality is not fiction. make peace with not "knowing"

end tangent, back to your regularly scheduled programming

the phuture

- phil's big solo project when??? - dapg is just the joint channel now - youtube has changed since when dan last "regularly" uploaded - nothing lasts forever, and that's okay

~ baking interlude 5: ranch + pizza ~

- ranch propaganda and ranch metaphors - showing off my dough and sauce skills

conclusions

- a lot has happened in 15 years - [placeholders: don't write your conclusions before you do your research]

Proof this project can only be done in consultation with Tumblr: no other platform we're on could accommodate a post of this length and formatting detail lol

#dan and phil #phan #dnp #daniel howell #amazingphil #this took so long to format oh my god please read it and talk to me #except it's 1am in my time zone so i'm going honk mimimimi soon enough #amy writes

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words-after-midnight · 2 years ago

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Find the Word

Thank you for the tag on my fav game @winglesswriter! My words were embrace, hoard, steam, scarred, fearless.

Tagging: @sunset-a-story, @klywrites, @lettersandinkstains, @ddbirb, @ceph-the-ghost-writer, @angelsofprey (if you have anything!), @pertinax--loculos + open tag.

Your words: rate, simple, dead, trying/try/tries, laughter.

These snippets come from a variety of places.

Embrace

From Life in Black and White, Act II:

She turns around, smiling. She gets closer, playful look in her eyes, so close I can smell the hint of strawberries and rhubarb left over from her shampoo. I let myself melt in her familiar embrace. She kisses me. I feel bad. She doesn’t notice.

Hoard

From Life in Black and White, Act II:

I smile, stroking his hair. "Don't move. I'll be right back."

I stand from the bed, heading into the bathroom. I open the cupboard under the sink, which contains absolutely nothing but clean towels and a bunch of tiny hotel shampoos and soaps he probably hoarded just for the hell of it.

I call out to him, “Where’d you hide it, the toilet?”

I can hear the eyeroll. “Medicine cabinet, duh. Were you raised in a damn barn?”

Steam

From a journal entry by Gabriel (age 27) in "Annex B" (his fall 2010-early 2011 journal) - Life in Black and White:

Mood: Okay

Slept alright last night, shockingly. Maybe it was my body finally giving out from the extensive sleep deprivation. I decided to get up a couple of hours before work this morning and take a long walk around the block with my iPod to clear my head and blow off some steam. The moon accompanied me for the first twenty minutes or so, before the day broke completely and she disappeared into the sunlight.

Scarred

From The Dotted Line:

I suppose it's protocol that she found out about it - it was, from what I can recall, a "major incident," which I guess means it was only swept about halfway under the rug - but she never brought it up to me directly after I was released. I could tell she knew about it, though - partly because she treated then twelve-year-old yours truly as though I would imminently shatter into pieces, partly because of how hard she tried to prevent me from going back to juvie after that.

And oh, man, the amount of shit I got away with for, basically, the remainder of that year. All I had to do was insinuate that I was scarred for life by the juvie days, and, to the absolute balls-to-the-wall outrage of the Wicked Wizard, I basically got away with murder in that house.

Fearless (fear)

From a journal entry in "Annex D" (Gabriel's 2002 journals) - Life in Black and White:

Obviously, I didn't go into detail, so Catricia doesn't really know how distressed I've been, nor do I expect her to. She thinks I got into a fight with a friend and now feel guilty about it - which is technically true. But she doesn't know we're talking about the most important person in my life, and that I live in fear because I would rather be thrown into a ravenous pack of wolves and left for dead than to even think about losing him. Especially when the reality is that if I lose him, I'll live with the knowledge that it's my fault.

#snippet #libaw #tdl #annexes #writing #find the word

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mercuryonparklane · 3 years ago

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I seriously debated keeping this one in the drafts...

Okay, I felt compelled to analyze the timeline of all of Taylor’s rumored/alleged boyfriends (barring any that she supposedly dated pre-fame) and why I believe they could have been fake/pr setups...

Disclaimer: this is all speculative and is just my opinion. No one has to agree... we don’t all have to agree because really the only people who know the truth are Taylor and those she has shared it with. I do have a very skeptical view of the entertainment industry and pr, so that is a bias I will own up to. I especially think Taylor, for a very long time, was willing to play along with the pr side of things, but eventually reached a breaking point (as any normal human under that amount of pressure and scrutiny likely would). Whether that means she has faked all of her public relationships or some of them or just aspects of them... I can’t really, truly know that. So, just keep in mind that this is one little, insignificant person’s view of Taylor’s public relationships and that I do not personally know any of the people involved...

Don’t take this too seriously, peeps... I’ll even tag it as crack theory...

Joe J.: June/July-September/October 2008

If nothing else this feels like a typical pr setup of two young stars. He had Camp Rock, a Jonas Bros’ album and a tour and concert film to promote. Camp Rock came out on 6/20/2008. The Jonas Bros’ third album, A Little Bit Longer, was released on 8/12/2008. In August, Taylor joined the band on stage during the filming for a concert movie that would be released in February 2009.

Taylor had an album that was released just weeks after their alleged breakup. An album which contained a few songs that would be attributed to Joe J. due to the publicity surrounding their relationship. Hmm... what a great way to drum up interest in an album that includes quite a few heartbreak songs. Not saying I know that is the case, but they both had a lot to promote between June and November 2008.

Lucas T.: March-April/May 2009

He was in the Hannah Montana movie, which was released 4/10/2009. Taylor had a cameo in that movie and also wrote a song for the soundtrack. Lucas also played Taylor’s love interest in the mv for YBWM, which premiered 5/2/2009 on CMT. He was in one of her Myspace vlogs in April 2009. IMO, this was a setup to promote the Hannah Montana movie and the YBWM mv, but it didn’t really take off. Lucas later said they dated briefly, but he realized that he just saw her as a friend...

Taylor L.: August-December 2009

They played a couple in Valentine’s Day. In September, just days after the VMAs where KW interrupted Taylor on stage as Taylor L. stood a few feet away, Taylor went to an Owl City concert at the Bowery Ballroom where she met the man who would supposedly inspire “Enchanted”. Umm... “please don’t be in love with someone else”... even though I am currently dating Taylor L. and he is my forever crush, but like, I am totally crushing on you actually. I have no clue if any Swifties have ever picked up on that discrepancy.

Oh, and Taylor L. also “dated” Selena in early 2009 and I doubt Taylor would go there, even if they ended on good terms. I mean, it’s possible, but idk it seems unlikely to me.

John M.: December 2009-February 2010

I think Taylor admired him as a musician (this seems to have been mutual with John praising her talent multiple times) and she may have seen him as a mentor at first. I do not believe that anything happened between them beyond that. I think he was so thrown off by “Dear John” because of that. He was already tweeting in the spring of 2009, hinting at wanting to collaborate with Taylor. The album their duet was on came out in November 2009, right before they started “dating”. Although it wasn’t released as a single until June 2010.

Besides, Liz (friend or otherwise) has remained a fan of John and even went to his concert a few years back. So, either she didn’t care that he screwed one of her supposed good friends over or it didn’t go down how people were led to believe it did.

Jake G.: October 2010-December/January 2011

Unless this relationship started much earlier than everyone has been led to believe, it is very unlikely that ATW is about him. It certainly seems to have been written prior to the maple latte/scarf/sister’s house articles that were abundant after that pap walk. Either Taylor used him as a scapegoat for a song that wasn’t about him or he was a willing participant in a pr scheme to make sure people thought the song was about him.

He couldn’t have been setup with his costar, Anne H., because she was already in a long term, committed relationship. At the time Taylor was still good pr since she was still known as a kind of girl next door, all American type with genuine talent.

I’m not saying I know for a fact it was fake. I’m saying there are plenty of reasons why I think it was. Everyone has different perspectives... mine is that this was purely a pr setup.

Will A.: sometime in 2010 and/or mid or fall 2011-January 2012 or May (?) 2012

They were likely just friends, but people did think they were dating back then. The songs that people think he wrote about Taylor (”White Dress” and “Kiss Me Slowly”) were recorded in 2010. So, if she started dating him in September 2011, which people think because the dress she wore to his May 2012 birthday party was the one she is wearing on the “Begin Again” cover art, then those songs aren’t about her. About the party dress... Sarah B., who took the picture, was also friends with the Parchute guys, so maybe the photoshoot that the picture on that cover art came from happened earlier that day.

He was friends with Liz’s ex Jason and one of his best friends is still to this day very close friends with Liz, so that’s probably how he met Taylor. I think Taylor hung out with that crew a bit back then. AND those times Will and Taylor were seen hanging out in late fall/early winter 2011, Jason and/or the other friend were there. Yes, I am saying that Taylor was hanging out with Jason in November/December 2011, just a few months after he and Liz supposedly broke up. She was also still hanging out with Liz a lot at that time and after, though, so I think it was all good.

Conor K.: July 2012-September/October 2012

This was Taylor’s worst pr. If it was a real relationship... it is borderline predatory. If it is fake... still a big yikes... I don’t have much to say about this one. I think it was fake and an attempt at making him the muse for “Starlight” (how cute, this song she wrote about his grandparents sort of became about them), “Begin Again” (nevermind that the copyright record say the song was written in 2011), and EHC (nevermind that the song was written in May 2012). It would have been great pr, though, if he was a couple years older. Taylor should have fired Paula after this one... (because the public should have never known about it, real or fake).

Harry S.: November 2012-January 2013

Similar to all the others before (and after), there were “random” sightings, including a birthday trip to “the lakes” and blatant pr (go on and wear that fox sweater and paper airplane necklace, Taylor...). That NYE kiss, though...

Calvin: February 2015-May/June 2016

Taylor finally dropped her old publicist and brought on Tree. First step, was to erase the “boy crazy”/“man eater” label (and possibly the “professional beard” label) and become an independent woman who just wants to have fun with her gal pals. It got a bit gayer than expected (whether Kaylor was really a thing to some degree or not is irrelevant to the point). The gay rumors were actually catching on even faster and people were like “oh, that’s why she couldn’t keep a man” (sexist/homophobic as all of this is/was, ofc).

Enter Calvin... a playboy DJ who some might deem “tall and handsome as hell” (peeps, I am not really the best judge of a man’s attractiveness, so this is just how I think people see him). He seems sooo straight. I don’t know how else to say it. All of her other supposed boyfriends had gay rumors, whether or not those rumors were just people gossiping or had some basis in reality... I think he is the only one that doesn’t have them, that I know of anyway.

I know a lot of people think they were really together, but I think this was an attempt to have her in a more serious, long term relationship to counteract both the gay rumors (not necessarily as a cover for a woman because I don’t think all of the guys have been or need to have been covers for a secret relationship with a woman, it’s about appearing straight) and the “can’t keep a man” narrative that had followed her around. Even if they were in some sort of situationship (not what I think, just theorizing here), it wouldn’t have been a steady thing and they seemed to not like each other very much when all was said and done.

I still laugh that he said Taylor was the opposite of his type (and specified that he likes brunettes) in November 2014 and then he allegedly dated her for almost a year and a half, starting literally a few months after he made that comment. If that was a real relationship, he was either playing it cool when he said that or he misjudged her or Taylor was determined to date him because it was a challenge.

Either way, it seems like her team controlled the public narrative and maybe Calvin was okay with that at first, but over time it seemed like he wasn’t a big fan of that. Maybe that visit to the strip mall massage parlor was a bit of a rebellion...

At least they both got some royalties out of it...

Joe A.: September 2016-Present

Taylor’s team absolutely has control of the public narrative and he seems okay with that. He is a literal mirrorball. He is whatever Taylor supposedly says he is in her songs/whatever Swifties want him to be.

He likes to drop fun facts like how his family jumps into a freezing pond at Christmas or that he worked at a yogurt shop as a teenager. Whether they are real or not... he seems to be playing into the pr. Dropping little bits of information that will tie him to her songs... it is very “maple latte”/“paper airplane necklace”/dark jeans and Nikes... OR Taylor is just taking the few facts people know about him and using it to pin songs on him.

If he is a beard (which imo he likely is), I think he gets along with Taylor and doesn’t mind the minimal pr of it all.

I don’t think he is WB, either way...

Again this is just my view of things. This has no bearing on which women Taylor may have dated. I could do a separate post on what I think that timeline might look like.

One point I will reiterate is that I do not think that a beard would always be a cover for a secret relationship with a woman. I think it sometimes is, but it can be more of a general cover for someone who is gay. So many people think Taylor is the straightest person who has ever lived simply because of her public dating record. I mean, heteronormativity and homophobia also play a big part in that...

Edit: I completely skipped Tom lol. I just don’t buy that one either. Maybe he thought it would be good publicity or maybe he was led on to think it was more real than it was or maybe he was just having fun. Idk. All kinds of articles written about them at the time included some caveat about how they seemed fake or were maybe filming something...

#gaylor crack theory

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creativitycache · 4 years ago

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ngl asking for people who self-identify as "antis" is already biasing your results because the term originated from fans being defensive over getting called out (eg the types who sincerely think fandom culture is ""puritan""). fair number of people started to use the term ironically and it might be evening out but overall the post calling for responses on the survey still comes off as something written in bad faith?

I wrote a rather long and involved response and then tumblr ate it. Goshdarn.

Fair warning, this is a hyperfixation and I’m coming off of a migraine so this may not be very cogent. Please read this in the over excited tones of someone infodumping about emulsifiers, with no animosity intended.

So, tl;dr and with a lot fewer links, I’m incredibly interested by your perspective that “anti” originated as a derogatory term.

As far as I am aware, the etymological history of the word “anti” being used pejoratively is coming from some very new debates.

I’m also noting that you had no feedback regarding the content of the questions themselves, which I would be interested in hearing as I am genuinely coming from a place without censure.

The term “anti” actually is a self-descriptor that arose in the Livejournal days, where you’d tag something as “Anti ___” for other like minded people to find. (For example, my cursory google search pulled up 10 Anti Amy Lee communities on LJ).

I’m a self-confessed old. I was back in fandom before Livejournal, aaaall the way back in the Angelfire days. Webrings children! We had webrings! And guest books for you to sign!

I’m going to take a swing for the fences here Anon, so if I’m wrong please let me know, but I’m going to guess you became active as a fan in the past 5-8 years based of your use of the term puritan.

There’s actually a HUGELY new debate in fandom spaces! Previously, it was assumed that:

a) All fandom spaces are created and used by adults only.

b) If you were seeing something, it’s because you dug for it.

These assumptions were predicated upon what spaces fandoms grew in. First you had Star Trek TOS fandom, which grew in 1970s housewives kitchens. They were all friends irl, and everyone was an adult, and you actively had to reach out to other adults to talk about things. (By the way- a woman lost custody of her children in the divorce when her ex husband brought up to the judge she kept a Kirk/Spock zine under her bed. The judge ruled this as obvious signs of moral deficiency. That was in the 80s! Everyone is still alive and the parents are younger than my coworkers!)

Time: 1967-1980s. Is Anti a term? No. Who is the term used by? N/A Is fandom space considered Puritanical? No.

Then, when the internet came about, it was almost exclusively used by adults until The Eternal September. 1993 was the year that changed the internet for good, but even years after that the internet was a majority adult space. Most kids and teens didn’t have unlimited access if their parents even had a home computer in the 90s.

This is the rise of Angelfire, which were fansites all connected to each other in “rings”. You had to hunt for content. If you found something you didn’t like, well, you clicked out and went on with your day because you’d never see it again unless you really dug. This was truly the wild west, tagging did not exist and you could go from fluff to vore in the blink of an eye with nothing warning you before hand. All fannish spaces were marked “here be dragons” and attempts were made to at least adopt the “R/NC-17″ ratings on works to some limited success, depending on webmaster.

Time: 1990-1999. Is Anti a term? No. Who is the term used by? N/A Is fandom space considered Puritanical? No.

In 1999 LiveJournal arose like a leviathan, and here is where the term Anti emerges as a self descriptor. Larger communities began to form, and with them, divisions. Now, you could reach so many fans you could reach a critical mass of them for enough of them to dislike a ship. The phrase “Anti” became a self-used tag, as people tagged their works, communities, and blogs with “anti” (NB: this is at far, far smaller rates than today). Anti was first and foremost a tagging tool used and created by the people who were vehemently against something.

You could find content more easily than in the past, but you still had to put some serious elbow grease into it.

In 2007, Livejournal bans users for art "depicting minors in explicit sexual situations”. The Livejournal community explodes in anger- towards Livejournal staff. The account holders/fans view this as corporate puritanical meddling. The outrage continues as it is revealed these bans were part of a pre-sale operation to SUP Services. SUP Services, upon taking over Livejournal in 2008, proceeds to filter the topics “bisexuality, depression, faeries, girls, boys, and fanfiction”.

The Great LiveJournal Migration begins, as fans leave the site in droves.

Time: 1999-2009. Is Anti a term? Yes. Who is the term used by? People self describing, seeking to create communities based off a dislike of something. Is fandom space considered Puritanical? No.

Where do fans go? Well, in the last decade, they migrated to Tumblr and Twitter (sorry Pillowfort- you gave it a good try!)

What’s different about all of these sites? Individuals are able to create and access content streams. These are hugely impactful in how communities are formed! Because now:

a) finding content is easier

b) finding content you dislike by accident is easier

c) content you dislike requires active curation to avoid

d) truly anonymous outreach is possible and easy (for example, you anon! Isn’t it much easier to go on anon to bring up awkward or sensitive topics? I’m happy you did by the way, and that’s why I keep my anons open. It’s an important contextual tool in the online communications world!)

Now the term Anti gets sprightly. Previously, if you didn’t like content, there was nothing you could really do about it. For example, I, at the tender age of way-too-young, opened up a page of my favorite Star Trek Deep Space 9 fansite and pixel by pixel with all the loading speed of a stoned turtle a very anatomically incorrect orgy appeared.

I backed out.

1. Who could I contact? There was no “message me here” button, no way to summon any mods on Angelfire sites.

2. If I did manage to find a contact button, I would have had to admit I went onto a site that wasn’t designed to keep me safe. I knew this was a site for adults, I knew there wasn’t a way to stop it from showing something. There was no such thing as tags. I knew all of this before going in. So the assumption was, it was on me for looking. (Some may have argued it was on my parents for not supervising me- all I can say is thank GOD no one else was in the living room and my mom was around the corner in the kitchen.)

But now? On Tumblr? On Twitter? In a decade in which tagging is so easy and ubiquitous it’s expected?

Now people who describe themselves as antis start to have actual tools and social conventions to utilize.

Which leads to immediate backlash! Content creators are confused and upset- fandom spaces have been the wild west for decades, and there’s still no sherriff in town. So the immediate go-to argument is that these people who are messaging them are “puritans”.

And that’s actually an interesting argument! A huge factor in shaping the internet’s social mores in the latest decades is cleanliness for stockbrokers. Websites can become toxic to investors and to sales if they contain sexual content. Over time, corporations perfected a mechanism for “cleaning” a site for sale.

Please note there is no personal opinion or judgement in this next list, it is simply a description of corporate strategies you can read during the minute meetings of shareholders for Tumblr, Twitter, Paypal, Venmo, Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo Answers, and Livejournal.

1. Remove sex workers. Ban any sex work of any kind, deplatform, keep any money you may have been holding.

2. Remove pedophilia. This is where the jump begins between content depicting real people vs content depicting fictional characters begins.

3. Remove all sexual image content, including artwork of fictional characters.

4. Remove all sexual content, including written works. If needed, loop back to step 2 as a justification, and claim you do not have the moderators to prevent written works depicting children.

I would like to reiterate these are actual gameplans, so much so that they’ve made their way into business textbooks. (Or at least they did for my Modern Marketing & App Design classes back in the early 2010s. Venmo, of course, wasn’t mentioned, but I did read the shareholder’s speeches when they banned sex workers from the platform so I added them in the list above because it seems they’re following the same pattern.)

So you have two groups who are actively seeking to remove NSFW content from the site.

A) Corporate shareholders

B) People are upset they’re seeing NSFW content they didn’t seek out and squicks them

Now, why does this matter for the debates using the term “puritan” as an insult?

Because the reasons corporate shareholders hate NSFW material is founded in American puritanism. It’s a really interesting conflation of private sector values! And if Wall Street were in another cultural context, it would be a completely different discussion which I find fascinating!

But here’s the rub- that second group? They're not doing this for money. If there are any puritanical drives, it’s personal, not a widespread cohesive ideology driving them. HOWEVER! The section of that group that spent the early 2010s on tumblr did pick up some of the same rhetoric as puritanical talking points (which is an entirely separate discussion involving radfems, 4chan raids, fourth wave feminism, and a huge very nuanced set of influences I would love to talk about at a later time!)

These are largely fans who have “grown up” in the modern sites- no matter how old they actually are, their fandom habits and expectations have been shaped by the algorithms of these modern sites.

Now HERE‘s the fascinating bit that’s new to me! This is the interpretation of the data I’m getting, and so I’m out on a limb but I think this is a valid premise!

The major conflict in fandom at this time is a struggle over personal space online.

Content creators are getting messages telling them to stop, degrading them, following them from platform to platform.

They say “Hey! What gives- we were here first. The cardinal rule of fandom is don’t like, don’t read. Fandom space has always been understood to be adult- it’s been this way for decades! To find our content, you had to come to us! This is our space! This is my space, this is my blog! If you don’t like it, you’re not obligated to look!”

Meanwhile, at the exact same time, antis are saying “Hey! What gives- this content is appearing on my screen! That’s my space! I didn’t agree to this, I don’t like this! I want it to be as far away from me as possible! I will actively drive it away.”

This is a major cultural shift! This is a huge change and a huge source of friction! And I directly credit it to the concept of “content stream” and algorithms driving similar-content to users despite them not wanting it!

Curating your online space used to be much simpler, because there wasn’t much of it! Now with millions of users spread out over a wide age range, all feeding in to the same 4-5 websites, we are seeing people be cramped in a technically limitless space!

Now people feel that they have to go on the offense to defend themselves against content they don’t like, which is predicated upon not only the algorithms of modern websites but ALSO talking points fed from the top down of what is and what is not acceptable on various platforms.

Time: 2010-2020. Is Anti a term? Yes. Who is the term used by? People self describing,and people using it to describe others. Is fandom space considered Puritanical? Depends!

So I, a fandom ancient, a creaky thing of old HTML codes and broken tags, am watching this transformation and am wildly curious for data.

Also...I uh....I can’t believe this is the short version. My ADHD is how you say “buckwild” tonight.

Anyways...um...if anyone has read to the bottom, give me data?

#Asks&Answers #fandom #anti #fandom discourse #gosh I've been on the internet a long time...#started at the 90s now we hear #I still sometimes think about the dudes who were HELLA salty about the eternal september #they talk about it like it was a war...you bring up Usenet and they go #I was THERE Gandalf

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improper-integral · 4 years ago

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@so-very-slytherin tagged me for this, thanks so much! I made a separate post as the original was getting pretty long. If anyone wants to do this, feel free to do so and say I tagged you! 😅

Name/nickname: My full first name is Brianna, but I go by Bri online and with friends

Gender: cis woman

Star sign: Leo, but my personality is far from the stereotypical Leo

Height: 5'11. Yes I'm tall

Time: 1:10 PM

Favorite band: Ahh this is tough, I don't really know! Some of my favorites include Florence + the Machine, Maroon 5, Panic! at the Disco, and OneRepublic

Birthday: August 12

Favorite solo artists: This is also tough. They include Hayley Kiyoko, Halsey, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, and Jason Mraz

Song stuck in my head: This song from Reunion: Sound of Providence. Zhu Yilong actually sings in it!!

Last movie: Do I even watch movies anymore? Not really. It's either the Old Guard on Netflix or Happiest Season on Hulu

Last show: S.C.I.

When did I create this blog: Early 2010. I don't remember exactly when.

What I post: A truly bewildering mixture of shit from multiple fandoms, memes/shitposts, politics, and mental illness/addiction recovery stuff. I'm grateful to all of you who choose to stick around despite my blog being so unpredictable

Other blogs: Not really. I'm hoarding a few URLs though

Why I chose this URL: "alivorte" means "in other words" in Esperanto. If you don't know, Esperanto is an artificial/created language, not a natural one. It was designed to be very easy to learn, and it is. Esperanto grammar is truly remarkable and beautiful. I focused on this particular word because of the way it breaks down: "ali" is a prefix meaning "other", "vort" is a stem meaning "word", and "-e" is a grammatical suffix that indicates an adverb. The end result is a word that is straightforward to understand, and it sounds beautiful to boot. Still, it's a strange URL to have on tumblr, so I'm considering changing it to one of the URLs I'm hoarding. We'll see.

Do I get asks: Very rarely, though I've been getting more asks and mentions in the last few months than my previous decade on tumblr, so I really appreciate that!

Last thing I googled: "esperanto dictionary" to confirm I remembered how alivorte broke down correctly lol

How many people I follow: 909 😲 Though I think most of them are dead accounts. I've been on tumblr a long time. I'll have to clean it up at some point.

Followers: 491, though I suspect the bulk of them are porn bots I never blocked lol

Average hours of sleep: 8-9 maybe? I haven't been keeping track.

Lucky number: I don't really have one

Instruments: None. I've never been interested in learning a musical instrument. The only musical thing I've had interest in is singing.

What I'm wearing: A business casual type dress (which makes up the bulk of my wardrobe nowadays) that's blue, white, beige and black in a chaotic pattern.

Dream trip: I have a few. One is a mega road trip going in a circle around the US, starting with taking the 10 in SoCal, take it all the way to the east coast, take the 95 up the east coast until I hit the 90 in Boston, then take the 90 to Seattle, then take the 5 down til I'm back home in SoCal (or take the trip in reverse). I also want to take road trips to various National Parks all over the country. Finally, recently I've been fantasizing about getting good enough at Mandarin to visit China, Taiwan, Hong Kong (I know Hong Kong uses Cantonese/Traditional and not Mandarin/Simplified but I still want to go) and Singapore.

Favorite food: Chocolate, pizza and mac and cheese

Nationality: American

Favorite song: This never stays constant, but at the moment it's the Guardian opening theme song "We Won't Be Falling" It's one of the most epic songs I've ever listened to. I've listened to it on repeat countless times over the last couple months and have yet to get sick of it.

Last book I read: A Mathematician's Lament by Paul Lockhart. It discusses the failings of how math is taught in the US

Top three fictional universes: I'll just name my current top 3 fandoms: Guardian, the Untamed and Supernatural.

#bri speaks

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dvp95 · 5 years ago

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hang on just long enough

pairing: dan howell/phil lester

rating: e

warnings: none

tags: public sex/blowjob, pwp, porn w/ feelings, that’s all this is

word count: 1,700

summary: Phil is meant to be the impatient one between them. Bingo squares: groping + public sex + 2010 (writer’s choice)

read on ao3 or here!

Phil knows he isn't going to win any awards for patience in the near future - he grazes while he waits for dinner to be ready, jumps in the shower before the water has warmed completely, gives up on games if he isn't having fun - but he's got a leg up on a bored, horny Dan.

In most situations, Dan has the type of handle on his self control that Phil could probably have, if he tried. He just doesn't see the point. Instant gratification is pretty great, and there's no reason to keep doing something that's not fun just because it might get fun later.

In this specific situation, Phil will happily take home the award for patience of a bloody saint.

"Dan," he whispers again, for the fourth time since they sat down.

"What?" Dan responds innocently, also for the fourth time. His hand stops its path up Phil's thigh once again, but it still doesn't retreat.

Phil doesn't know what to say, exactly. He's not sure if Dan is doing this to be a tease or if he's doing this to be a dick. As with most things Dan does, it's more likely some combination of the two. Phil's eyes flicker away from Dan, pointedly looking at their surroundings.

Dan had dragged Phil to the back corner of the bus, which hadn't seemed strange at the time. Now, Phil is wondering if that was calculated.

They don't have a lot of company on this bus, which is nice. It's early in the morning, still dark outside. Way earlier than Phil would have preferred to be up if there hadn't been the promise of a sleepy Dan waiting for him at the train station. There's an elderly couple behind the driver talking to each other quietly and a uni student still in club gear staring blankly out the window a few rows ahead of them.

Nobody is paying any attention to them at all.

While Phil is looking forward, Dan has decided to start moving his hand again. It's definitely intentional, whatever Dan's puppy eyes try to say, Phil just can't figure out what the endgame is here.

"Dan," he says quietly, because maybe the fifth time is the charm. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Dan asks, matching Phil’s volume. The faux innocence gives way to pure, unadulterated cheek. He's dimpling when Phil gives him a Look. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," says Phil. He's already said as much at the station and over a shoddy wifi connection for the past three weeks. He's missed Dan so much it aches in his chest, like he can't breathe properly in the time between Dan's visits.

"Yeah," Dan says. His large, warm palm creeps further up Phil's leg, fingertips brushing Phil's inseam. "But I missed you."

Phil's heart pounds in his ears. As nervous as he is, his body is still reacting to Dan the way it always does, always will. He glances at the student again, who is completely in her own world.

"Dan." It seems like that is all Phil is able to say. "This is so stupid."

"Yeah, and?" Dan huffs a laugh, brushing his lips against Phil's jaw and flexing his big hand and, yeah, now Phil's dick has definitely gotten the memo.

"There're, like, other people here," Phil whispers. He already knows that Dan doesn't care, and the little shrug he gets in response just confirms that.

"They're not looking at us."

"Yeah, but," Phil says, then falters. Dan's palm is pressing against him through his jeans now, the touch familiar and new all at the same time. "But, we'll be at mine in like half an hour. So you could just... wait til we get there."

Dan is usually very good at controlling himself, better than Phil by far. Phil will eat an entire bag of marshmallows while he waits for a pizza delivery and drink his coffee as soon as it hits his mug.

Right now, though, Dan doesn't seem interested in waiting. He's restless from the long, late-night train ride and the evident desire to be touching Phil in any way possible.

"Tell me to stop and I'll stop," says Dan. As much as he's been teasing, there's nothing but sincerity there.

Phil feels a swell of warmth for this beautiful, clingy boy. He makes a big show of sighing before he worms his arm out from between them to pull Dan closer by the waist. He noses at Dan's ear, the metal of his piercing still surprising Phil whenever it touches his skin.

"Just... make it quick," Phil murmurs directly into Dan's ear. He feels Dan shiver, try to squirm away from the feeling instinctively. "Or I'll have an anxiety attack, for sure."

"Oh, will you?" Dan snarks.

Despite the sarcasm, Dan doesn't drag out the teasing any longer. His big brown eyes flicker over the other passengers, the driver, before he folds his lanky body half onto the floor. He has to kneel sideways to fit, his stupidly big feet poking out in the aisle. Phil’s torn between amusement and arousal as Dan starts working his flies.

"Oh," Phil breathes. He didn't expect that.

Dan snorts lightly and shakes his fringe out of his eyes to give Phil a surprisingly fond look. "You'd rather get jizz on the seat? Your jeans?"

"Definitely not," Phil says on a huff of laughter. He slumps a bit lower in the seat and angles himself diagonally to make it easier for Dan to pull his cock out of his pants, and that's a goddamn weird feeling all on its own. Phil is pretty sure his dick has never been out in a public place, doctor's offices and locker rooms notwithstanding.

Luckily, his dick isn't out for long before Dan curls forward and takes it in his big, warm mouth. Phil's eyelids flutter, but he can't close his eyes and get lost in the feeling the way he can when they're all holed up in his bedroom. He bites at his own lip and holds Dan's long hair out of his face for him. He splits his time between looking at Dan and making sure nobody is looking at them.

It's been too long, honestly. At this exact moment in time, Phil doesn't know why they don't spend all their time together with his cock in Dan's talented mouth. He likes it almost as much as Phil does - his eyes have long since fallen shut and he's making tiny muffled noises that Phil wants to care about, but he just can't bring himself to.

Nobody's listening, anyway. The noises that the bus itself is making are louder than Dan, and Phil is keeping his eye out for anyone turning around.

Dan opens his eyes as he takes Phil deeper, and Phil swallows a groan with the ease of someone who has lots of practice keeping quiet. Dan's tongue presses against the underside of Phil's cock with the soft vibration of a moan that doesn't reach Phil's ears. Phil thanks his lucky stars that he's lived in enough thin-walled places to be confident that he won't make any sounds he doesn't want to.

With anyone else, Phil might be embarrassed by how quickly he gets close, but this is Dan. Dan has brought him to the edge a hundred times since that first weekend, knows exactly how to make him fall apart. Besides, they can't exactly take their time right now.

Phil tugs lightly at Dan's hair in warning, and Dan closes his eyes again as he sinks down even further on Phil's cock. He doesn't risk taking it too deep into his throat, not with the noise that usually elicits, but Phil doesn't care. He could probably come even if Dan just sucked slowly on the head of his cock for hours, that's how wrapped around Dan's finger he is.

He tastes copper as he reaches his peak, teeth digging too sharply into his lip, and he can't quite muster up the mental capacity to care.

Dan blows him through it and then lets Phil's cock slip out of his pretty lips with a grin. He gets back into his seat with a little difficulty, the bus seats not really built for people of their height at the best of times. Phil has enough presence of mind to tuck himself back into his boxers and zip his jeans.

The sky outside the bus window is still dark. The dawn hasn't even broken yet, and Phil has already done something he never imagined he would. He wonders if Dan plans to keep this energy all week, because he's not sure his heart can handle that.

"So," Dan says, slow. He's smirking and curling close to Phil's side, so pleased with himself that it's radiating off him in waves.

Phil yawns. Only for Dan would he get out of bed in the early hours of the morning that he normally only sees when he stays up too late watching scary movies. The orgasm has made him even sleepier. "So what?"

It's a little funny how quickly Dan's expression falls into affront. "So...?" he says, pointed.

"I'll get you back at home," says Phil.

"What?" Dan squawks. For the first time, the uni student looks behind her with a perplexed expression. Phil gives her an awkward smile before he turns back to Dan.

"Not like this was my idea," Phil points out. He has to laugh at the abject horror on Dan's face as he realises that Phil really, truly, has no intention of getting him off in a public vehicle. "Don't worry, I'll make it good for you. Maybe after a nap."

Dan scowls and tangles his fingers with Phil's, the grip a bit too tight for it to be a sweet gesture. "Selfish prick."

"Impatient brat," Phil shoots back, and then they're just. Grinning stupidly at each other.

Maybe Phil's worse about waiting for things, generally, but it makes him happy to see how much Dan hates waiting for him, specifically. They don't need to live in the too-long moments between visits much longer and Phil, for one, can't wait.

#phanfic #phanfiction #dnp fic #words words words #bingo

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therealprincesszeanah · 5 years ago

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My Decade in Books

I was tagged by @the-forest-library to outline my decade in books! It will be rough because I have been very hit or miss in tracking my reading throughout the years, but I will do my best. I can't remember how to make this a read more, so I apologize in advace for mobile users. If anyone reads through this bless you.

2010: A year of great highs and some serious lows. I was still in high school so I was plagued by the books from required reading lists, such as The Alchemist, Of Mice and Men, and Lord of the Flies. I also read The Lovely Bones at the behest of a friend, which I still regret because it was so awful and weird. But 2010 was also the year I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Pride and Prejudice for the first time! If I recall though, I did not actually finish Pride and Prejudice at this time because I was reading it for a book report and there wasn't time to read the last 40 pages or so and get the assignment done. I still loved it though. A Thousand Splendid Suns was an instant favorite and if I recall was my go-to response to "What's your favorite book" for the next couple of years. I also spent a summer reading Sarah Dessen books which is an eternal mood.

2011: Still in high school and still being required to read books that just Aren't Good, like The Scarlett Letter and The Dante Club. BUT this year the required reading had some great treasures! I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time, as well as Night by Elie Wiesel. In the summer I picked up one of the more "popular" books that came out that year from the library called Heart of the Matter by Emily Griffith and it was so dumb that I was pretty much turned off of contemporary adult lit for a good bit. I read a couple more duds that summer at the recommendation of a friend (The Penny by Joyce Meyer and Love Walked In by Maria Des Los Santos). This was also the year I read The Epic of Gilgamesh out loud to my brother (his choice 🤷🏼‍♀️) on our annual roadtrip to North Carolina.

2012: The year I devoured the entirety of The Hunger Games. I remeber borrowing them all from various friends at school and reading them late into the night each time, taking like 2 or 3 days total on each. The required high school reading list this year was still terrible, with The Awakening and As I Lay Dying making an appearance. This was the year I read Macbeth though and to this day that is still my favorite Shakespeare play. We also read The Posionwood Bible which I remember having a love-hate relationship with. It's one of the few books I want to go back to and see if I'll like it more now that I'm not being forced to read it. This summer was the summer me and two of my best friends at the time read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society aloud to each other. To this day we still call one of my friends Clovis, after one the characters in that book. Another instant favorite. That summer my brother also attempted to start a book club, so we all read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (his choice again) which I shockingly remember enjoying. Another book I surprisingly liked that year was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I had to read for a group project.

2013: This was a GREAT year of reading. The required reading list had some duds as always (The Master Buidler by Henrik Isben and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett), but this year we read The Crucible which I LOVED. We also read Heda Gabler (Isben) which I actually did NOT like, but for the associated project my friends and I wrote a song about the play, then filmed and edited an entire music video in the span of like three days. So that was definitely a highlight. That summer I read a couple more duds, The Graceling by Kristin Cashore and Go Ask Alice, which I had picked up at a garage sale for a quarter. I also read Hosseini's newest book that came out the previous year, and while it wasn't on par with A Thousand Splendid Suns, it was still good. After that I really started LIVING. I read The Help (and cried), I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time (and cried), I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and then ended the year with the most beautiful book, The Book Thief. I got it for Christmas and read it every second I had on our annual trip to North Carolina. I finished it in the car ride home and sobbed, much to the concern of my dad and brother.

2014: This is where my reading takes a serious nose dive as this spans the semesters in college where I was transitioning from majoring in pre-vet science into majoring in English. I read Twelfth Night in my first English Lit class in college, as well as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, some Chaucer, and 2/3 of Evelina by Frances Burney, which I absolutely loved but time didn't permit me to finish this one until years later. That spring break I borrowed and read The Fault In Our Stars. That summer I borrowed and read The Kite Runner (still think A Thousand Splendid Suns is Hosseini's best work). I vaguely remember being in a World Literature class the fall semester of this year and reading The Tempest, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (which I LOVED), but I don't remember much else from that class. I thiiink this is also the year I reread Harry Potter during the summer, but I don't remember. I know I reread the series in college, it's just all such a blur now 🤷🏼‍♀️

2015: The Fault In Our Stars the previous year put me on a serious John Green kick in the start of 2015. I read Papertowns on my flight home from my spring break trip to NY. Later that year I borrowed An Abundance of Katherines from a friend and which pretty much turned me off of John Green forever. I took my first American Lit class in college this year and realized I just don't like much American Lit. We read Fight Club, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer by Edith Warton, Tender is the Night and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I liked approximately zero of them. This year was the BEST year though because it was also the year I took a class just about the Brontë sisters. We read Jane Eyre (my third time at this point, I think. Always a favorite), Wuthering Heights (hated it) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (an absolute DELIGHT. Became one of my all-time favorites and my go-to recommendation for a couple of years). I ended the year reading a couple of quick, fun, cozy books during the holidays: Where'd You Go Bernadette and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (my first time and I absolutely loved it).

2016: This year had a BUNCH of lows, but there were a few standout stars. After a much needed schedule change at the beginning of the year, I ended up in another American Lit class which further my disdain for the subject. We read Typee by Hermamn Melville (snoozefest), My Ántonia by Willa Cather, half of some book by Keruac I think (so boring and uninspiring I don't even remember anything besides that I hated it and it had a red cover) and Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin. We did also read a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor and that was actually enjoyable, so there's hope for me and American authors yet. This was the year I also had my absolute FAVORITE professor for a Victorian Lit class. The theme was Scandal and Outrage or something like that so we read Alice and Wonderland, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and (most unfortunately) Tess of the D'ubervilles by Thomas Hardy. To be fair, at this time I actually probably only read like half of it due to all my other course work this semester, but it just was Not Good. The only high point from my lit classes this year was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. An absolute treasure. That summer was a summer of duds. I read Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (truly cursed), Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (just didn't really connect with the characters), and the absolure WORST BOOK Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I'm not sure a book had ever made me as upset, or rage induced as this book did, but to this day I am still so mad I wasted time with it. I spent a lot of the year sloughing through a book I borrowed from the family I babysit for called The Myserious Benedict Society. I didn't finish it until the next year, but it took me forever to get through. The only other highlight of this year was reading Ender's Game aloud to my husband. That book took me by surprise in a great way. I did not expect to love it as much as I did. We also read the sequel this year, Speaker For the Dead, which although very different from Ender's Game was still good in its own rite.

2017: This year is when things really start picking up for me again. Toward the end of college, I was feeling very burnt out and uninspried by reading (probably because all of the lows the previous year). I rounded out my degree in one last lit class (another American Lit class of ALL classes), but since it was early American Lit, I actually did enjoy it a bit more. We read Native creation myths, Lousia May Alcott short stories, some Whitman and other authors from that movement and then rounded out the semester with Uncle Tom's Cabin. That summer after graduation was when I decided to work my through every book on my bookshelf, which was a pivotal turning point for me because I began to be excited about reading again. That summer I reread Little Women for the first time in years and absolutely LOVED it. I spent the rest of the year with Jane Austen, reading Persausion, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. This was also the year I started reading Harry Potter to my husband (his first time reading the series!).

2018: My bookshelf goal still continues. This year I revisited the Brontë sisters, finally read Evelina in it's entirety (LOVED IT), revisted Sarah Dessen in the summer (for the first time since high school), and revisted some childhood classics (The Tale of Despereaux and The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo, as well as the BFG by Rold Dahl). I reread the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society in preparation for the Netflix movie and finished two Harry Potter books with my husband. I ended the year with Little Men (so sweet 😭) and A Christmas Carol.

2019: I finally finished the first shelf (of three) of my bookcase. I spent almost half of my year in The Count of Monte Cristo and what a wondeful half year that was. Such a great story! I gave two haunts from required read past another chance: Scarlett Letter and Tess of the D'ubervilles. I was not a fan. I read three books by a local author from my childhood and The Outsiders. I finished the year returning to A Thousand Splendid Suns and was again taken away by how moving and beautiful it was. Also finished The Goblet of Fire with my husband during our annual trip to North Carolina.

Something I really enjoyed about this was not only seeing the ebbs and flows of my reading throughout the years, but seeing the common threads throughout the last decade. Road trips, certain books that kept coming up, friends and family I shared books with. This was a really fun thing to do for me so thank you Mable for tagging me! I don't have any one else to tag, but I highly encourage you to do it! It's so fun to see how books shaped the past 10 years. Tag me if you do. 💓

#my decade in books #book asks #me #seriously I LOVED doing this #I do apologize for the length #i got carried away in the MEMORIES

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spacejellyfish3 · 6 years ago

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My Top Ten Movies Of All Time

To elaborate on a previous reblog, I wanted to go a bit more in depth on the movies I chose.

This list will be in order.

10. The Lost Boys (1987)

This movie is pretty amazing. It’s wild and crazy and so completely and utterly 80s in all of its 80sness. It’s about a family who moves to Santa Carla (The Murder Capital Of The World) only for the eldest son to be considered for “recruitment” by a flock of hip and happening bad boy vampires led by a very young Kiefer Sutherland. This movie is great; from the comic book store employees who act with the seriousness of F.B.I agents, the oiled up musclebound saxophone player with way too much or way too little (depending on who you ask) screentime, to what may be the greatest movie dog to ever exist. Watch it, you’ll have fun.

9. Bumblebee (2018)

This movie is pretty recent, but it rules. Despite the boundless cliches, I found myself really enjoying myself while watching Bumblebee (and this is coming from someone who never really got into Transformers). There’s a lot of heart and joy in it, and so much humor AND drama. The movie is CARRIED by Hailey Steinfeld, who gives an incredible and powerful performance as Charlie Watkins. I also really loved the chemistry between her character and literally everyone she meets (most especially Bumblebee). It had some fun villains and a GREAT third act. Love it a lot.

8. Carrie (1976)

Ahhhh...this movie...

This may be the best adaptation of a Stephen King book. Ever. No really.

The eponymous Carrie White is a teenage outcast, bullied and belittled at school and abused emotionally, verbally, and physically by her religiously fanatical mother. Carrie discovers she also has telekinetic powers. Her horrible life seems to soon get better when popular girl Sue, in an attempt to make amends with Carrie, asks her boyfriend Tommy to take Carrie to the prom. This leads to a wonderful night at prom, with Carrie being crowned Prom Queen. This one truly shining moment of pure happiness is shattered to pieces by a viciously cruel prank, giving the audience one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history. A tragic take on the classic Cinderella story, this movie manages to be heartwarming and tearjerking oftentimes simultaneously.

7. Spider Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

This movie is objective perfection, fight me.

6. Mean Girls (2004)

What can I possibly say about this movie that hasn’t been said before? It’s fetch.

But seriously, this movie rules. Not only is it the most quotable movie of ALL TIME, it’s also a great cautionary tale about the dangers of popularity (thank you Musical Adaptation) that makes sure to remember to treat the “mean girls” as actual human beings who have their own hopes and feelings that drive them. It showcases high school social structures in a way that makes it relevant even now. Like its predecessors Heathers and Clueless, Mean Girls made sure to craft its own identity and how to properly approach the theme of popularity. Ironically, though, its success has led other filmmakers and producers to try and replicate it; make the next “Mean Girls” instead of crafting a movie with love and care. This is why I think we haven’t gotten an intensely quotable movie about popular girls that would define a generation like Heathers, Clueless, and, yes, Mean Girls did. This movie still rules, though.

5. The Little Mermaid (1989)

Yes.

Beautiful animation, great songs, and a terrific villain. What more could you ask for? (I could talk about the opinions some people have with this movie that makes them not like it, but that’s for another day I think)

4. Evil Dead 2 (1987)

This is a great horror movie. Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi are just pure condensed awesomeness. I would’ve put the entire Evil Dead franchise in this spot if I could have but if I had to pick just one for my list, this is the one I would pick.

3. Wonder Woman (2017)

My favorite live action comic book movie. While it took a long time to get here, it definitely made it worth the wait.

Wonder Woman tells the story of the character it’s based on so wonderfully (yeah I know, lame pun), because it takes aspects from almost every writer she’s ever had—from George Perez to Greg Rucka to way way back to William Moulton Marston, her creator—while giving it their own unique spin. It keeps true to the key traits of Diana, and makes sure to keep her in character all throughout. And while I have some issues with the third act, I love the message: no one is solely good or evil, we all have a choice to do either. And it’s not about deserving, it’s about what you believe that makes the difference.

2. Tangled (2010)

My favorite animated Disney film. Tangled is a masterpiece of storytelling (I have talked about this before), wonderful animation, and compelling characters. It adapts the classic fairytale while also making smart and interesting changes that elevate it and perfect it. The characters are all amazingly acted; Zachery Levi breathes life into dashing thief Flynn Rider (a.k.a Eugene Fitzherbert), Donna Murphy is simultaneously hilarious and frighteningly realistic in how terrifying she is, while Mandy Moore is Rapunzel. It’s ironic, actually, that this movie has such a...tangle-free story.

...I’ll show myself out.

1. Stardust (2007)

I feel like Belle put it best.

“It’s my favorite! Far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise!”

While it’s honestly amazing and terrifying how well that quote describes this movie and why I love it, there’s a lot of reasons besides that. It has an amazing cast—Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Claire Danes, Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfeiffer, a young Charlie Cox (which, fun fact: because this movie didn’t propel him into A-List status as intended, he was able to work way more on his craft which probably allowed him to nab his role as Daredevil), and not to mention Henry Cavill in a hi-larious early role. So yes...this movie has Daredevil fighting Catwoman/Wasp, Dr. Sivana, and Superman.

But it also has a lot of cool scenes and action, great set design and lighting, and a timeless feel to it. It’s The Princess Bride of my generation. I remember when I first saw this movie I wanted to see Daddy Day Camp for some odd reason (11-year old me had horrible taste in movies), and I spent the next few years hating this movie because Michelle Pfeiffer traumatized me for such a long time. It’s only now that I’ve matured a lot more since 2007 that I’ve been able to appreciate this movie.

This movie is amazing and I love it!

Since I did NOT tag anyone else on the reblog that I’m expanding on (cause I’m an idiot), I will do it now.

The rules are simple:

10 gifs of your 10 favorite movies without the movie title. Then tag or don’t tag (it’s not mandatory to do it) others to do the same.

I’ll tag @thefingerfuckingfemalefury @lilmeier @night-gem-shit @bethanyleerose edit*@captain-shannon-becker.

#my ten favorite movies #favorite movies gif tag #personal #about me #the lost boys #bumblebee #carrie #spider man: into the spider verse #mean girls #the little mermaid #evil dead 2 #wonder woman #tangled #stardust

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downtonabbeyrevisited · 5 years ago

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Series One - Episode Four

The fair has arrived at Downton and with it another 47 minutes and 58 sections of madness. This was always going to be a tough episode, given that it follows the finest hour that British broadcasting has ever produced, but it does give us a real idea of what Downton Abbey viewing is going to be like from hereon in. Every plot point gets four lines or five minutes of total screen time (whichever comes first); the hint that Mrs Patmore is going blind gets a single line and there is a fleeting glimpse of Carson counting some wine. But there are some lovey arty shots of Downton and it’s grounds and it all goes a bit Ang Lee’s ‘figures in the landscape’.

The poster for the Downton Village Fair advertises such delights as “Find the lady” and a “helter skelter” but it’s the “and other various other amusements” in fine print at the bottom that intrigues me: what’s the betting it’s a Laser Quest? Thomas takes this as an opportunity to further string Daisy along and take shots at William along the way whilst the latter rolls out his mediocre piano playing again. Mrs Patmore tries and fails to drop the hint to Daisy that Thomas is on another bus but this falls on deaf ears. Daisy later goes on to proclaim that Thomas has “lovely teeth” and I’d never noticed it before Daisy, but he does. Throughout the episode Thomas descends to bullying William and in doing so introduces Dark!Daisy (a tag I’m heartbroken to see has not yet made it’s way onto AO3) and solidifies Mr Bates’ role as emotional supporter/defender as he rams Thomas up against a wall, bringing the ‘Body Slam’ count to two in five episodes which seems like an awfully high ratio for a show based on a very much glossed over view of the past.

Matthew, presumably taking a break from being Downton’s answer to Sarah Beeny, has also come to the fair and delights us all with a rather ineffectual tossing of balls at coconuts. Mary joins him and it turns out that they both have appalling aim. It’s a metaphor for everything and they are clearly made for each other. Later in the episode they will enjoy the world’s longest and most deliberately framed handshake but Mary’s mind is elsewhere. Kamal has remained very firmly with me for nine years having only seen a 2D rendering of his 3D form, so I can only imagine the sorts of things running around Mary’s head. But the guilt trip continues and I’m already at the stage of willing everybody just to chill. out. Given that all involved actually held it together on the night in question, the meltdowns now seem a bit late. Mary’s cry of “I’m a lost soul to you!” is a tad dramatic and I think we (Cora, the viewers, my dog that ran into the room thinking someone was being attacked) could live without it to be honest. There are plenty of fish in the sea Mary, and you’ve just go to choose one that doesn’t mind your dabbling with the vestiges of the Ottoman Empire and can adequately drive a car, in what can only be described as perfect motoring conditions, without crashing it.

Also at the fair is Mrs Hughes and her alter ego Elsie. When asked if he was going to the fair, Carson’s eyebrows shot up in horror at the thought but maybe if he knew that smooth talking man of the people Joe Burns was around, he might have had a slightly different reaction. As it is, Carson doesn’t go and Elise goes to a pub to learn just how very 100% totally available Joe Burns is. Elsie receives a rather roundabout proposal before Joe demonstrates that he is yet another Downton character with appalling hand/eye co-ordination. However he perseveres and his victory at the ring toss is declared in a truly weird voice by an out of shot character (Seriously, watch it back: it’s haunting). Upon her return to life as Mrs Hughes, Thomas remarks that she was looking “sparkly eyed” and within seconds, Bates is there to admonish him. That man can move fast when he needs to. Later in the butler’s pantry, Mrs Hughes and Carson have a heart-to-heart with Carson looking steadily more uncomfortable whilst Mrs Hughes fondles a scarecrow. As the only montage that I can remember in Downton’s history shows, Mrs Hughes turned down Joe and Chelsie fans everywhere breath a sigh of relief.

Whilst Matthew may be making his mark in the Abbey, his mother is not one to be outdone. Molseley’s hands have done something bizarre and in the twentieth century version of googling an innocuous cough to find that you have cancer, Cousin Isobel almost immediately hands him the diagnosis of erysipelas that requires some convoluted treatment that Molseley neither wants, or as it turns out, needs. Violet quickly brings the medical scores to a draw with Isobel as she makes up for the early dropsy debacle by correctly diagnosing Molseley with a Rue allergy. Clarkson, you can tell, is holding back the urge to do a little dance.

The arrival of Branson and the entire geopolitical and cultural struggles of the Irish people creates a stir both upstairs and down. On day one he’s got his eye on the Earl’s library (although I can’t imagine that Robert has all three volumes of Das Kapital) and by day two, he’s eating in the wrong place and taking digs at the charitable efforts of the Abbey. But little does anyone know that King Julian has big plans for Branson and the smile that he gives as Sybil talks about women’s rights is very much the thin end of the wedge. Branson says that he is “quite political” before handing Sybil some pamphlets that he has collected about the vote. I do love Branson but he is the sort of person that I can totally see mansplaining things on Twitter. By the end of the episode it’s already escalated to Branson looking slightly creepily through a window as Sybil cosplays as Jasmine whilst the upper echelons of society look on mystified.

Romantic declaration of the moment

I’m giving this section over to Anna and her cold. Mr Bates appearing with a tray was rather lovely but does pose some questions:

How did he go up all those stairs balancing both the tray, his presumably still quite mangled leg, the cane and the rest of his person?

Did he go out in the dark with a pair of secateurs and cut those flowers?

My only answer to those two questions is that fellow romantic Branson must have helped him: headcannon accepted.

Expressive eyebrow of the week

This award goes to the Earl this week for his reaction to Carson declaring that he would rather be put to death than work in a tea shop. The typically repressed English upper class “quite so” that escapes Robert’s lips is followed by a look of bemused alarm. If he were Fleabag, this is when he would have broken the fourth wall.

Runners up prize goes to everyone’s face at The Trousers™ and Violet v. The Swivel Chair.

Wait, what?

“One can’t go to pieces at the death of every foreigner, we’d all be in a state of collapse whenever we opened a newspaper” Yet more evidence that Violet is the love child of Nigel Farage and Ann Widdecombe.

“I have to go cap in hand to Mary Queen of Scots!” Lesley Nicol is having far too much fun playing Beryl.

“It seems unlikely, a revolutionary chauffeur” Is Sybil aware of what period drama she is in?

“If you don’t change, you die” Or you do change, Matthew, and you die anyway.

“I won’t always be a chauffeur” is stated with some confidence which seems odd given the fact that when Branson stops being a chauffeur, he hates it and will indicate at any given moment this to the nearest available character.

”I took a lover with no thought of marriage. A Turk! Think of that!” I do Mary. Quite regularly.

I’m doing this rewatch on quite a fancy TV and as such I’m being afforded all sorts of visual delights that the resolution on my 2010 screen failed to yield. Perhaps the most troubling of these is that Thomas is going slightly grey at the sideburns. I would insert some pun about using ‘Just for Men’ here but I’ll leave you all to make up one yourselves.

“If she’s got a boyfriend, I’m a giraffe” This seems like an analogy lost somewhere in translation. It has smacks of Gino D'Acampo’s grandmother.

youtube

#Downton #downton abbey #downton rewatch #Downton movie #downton abbey movie #dan stevens #Matthew Crawley #Mary Crawley #Isobel Crawley #thomas barrow #thomas branson #sybil branson #Charles Carson #elsie hughes #john bates #Joseph Molseley #allen leech #rob james collier

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coolkidstable · 6 years ago

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guess who’s back!

it’s been like a week but i am BACK BABY! as you can guess i have mixed feelings about that entire series, which were amplified by the fact that i actually went to that game - yes, game 4 - as a (slightly early) birthday present from my brother. this is truly just 2.3k words of me being emo and getting personal, but it helped me process everything. and sorry for the lack of a read more but i’m on mobile lmao

i made it clear to both family and friends that i wanted this series to be a close one, for the home team to win each game, and for it to be a hard fought series that shows just how good both of these teams are. (maybe this wasn’t as clear on tumblr, but the decision to step away was made abruptly, though i’m very glad i did it.) that, well, didn’t happen. the canes are a great team, and their success wasn’t a fluke. don’t even try to suggest that. but this series didn’t work for them, for reasons that i really don’t know but may be revealed with time. who knows. regardless, it was a fantastic run and while i wish the ending wasn’t so bitter, i’m so proud of this team and all that they accomplished this season. the future is bright, and this time “next year will be better” isn’t just a hope - it’s a promise.

i really wanted them to score a goal, though. i love tuukka, and i want him to win those two trophies so badly, but i was really hoping he’d give up a goal. obviously, the canes’ chances of coming back to win the series were slim to none, but one last goal would’ve been a way to end the season on a somewhat promising note. and it’s weird and a bit sad that i went to 3 home games this season, and didn’t even get to hear raise up in person - two shutouts and a whalers night for which brass bonanza played instead.

that’s not the main reason, though. i was at this game with my brother, whose main team is the canes, who just got back into hockey late last season, opting to root for his local team over his childhood rangers and getting to see such an incredible run. he just wanted to see a goal to ease the blow, and i was right there with him. it was expected, though, and he’s not crushed or anything. he went to some pretty special games this season, including both the first storm surge and the first playoff win, and he knows that the rest of our family is happy. and really, that’s what it all comes back to - family.

the first bruins game that i have even the vaguest of memories of watching is the 2010 winter classic against the flyers. i’m not even 100% sure if i watched any of it; i just remember asking my dad why they were playing outside and catching glimpses of the game while he watched. he and my mom, once diehard bruins fans, had become fairweather fans upon moving to north carolina in 2003. the bruins, quite frankly, sucked, and games were rarely on tv. meanwhile, the patriots were quite the opposite. the bruins soon started to improve and began to creep back into our lives. i remember the 2011 cup finals, and not knowing a single player other than zdeno chara - the Tall One - and tim thomas - the Brick Wall. i don’t remember much else, but i was there in some capacity.

then came 2013. a series against the leafs. a historical game 7 comeback from a 4-1 deficit. i remember watching bits and pieces of this game on two different TVs - first the main one downstairs, where my dad was watching, only because it was the playoffs. he didn’t watch or care about regular season hockey - i didn’t even know there’d just been a lockout. when he gave up on this game, he went upstairs to go to bed and turned on the tv for background noise while i hung around to say goodnight. we were almost done when nathan horton scored the first goal, and from there, we watched history unfold. i was losing my mind - was this what i’d been missing out on?

from there, i watched the rest of the playoffs, and i haven’t looked back since. first i watched this young undersized rookie defenseman by the name of torey krug take the rangers by storm, then i watched the bruins hand the penguins‘ asses to them in a swift 4-game sweep that began with a shutout on my birthday, and then i watched the bruins lose a hard-fought series against the chicago racistlogos in the blink of an eye. it was a rollercoaster of a postseason, and i spent most of my free time learning about the game and my new favorite player, who i must regretfully admit was seguin. every game brought me closer to my dad, as before the game 7 comeback, i’d never join him to watch sports, or anything, really. in turn, it allowed him to reconnect with the sport he’d once loved most of all.

the next season was a good one as well: my first full season, the first game i ever attended in person, and the bruins winning the president’s trophy. that season ended in disappointment, but it was a good run, and i grew an appreciation for every single member of that bruins team. (nowadays, i guess that attitude is what the kids would call my brand.)

halfway through that season, i discovered hockey tumblr. i didn’t really make content or liveblog or even talk in the tags, and i never made any lasting connections, but still, it was a community that i greatly enjoyed. it also opened my eyes to other teams, and i started to experiment with the whole having more than one team thing - yeah, those were my stars fan days, among other questionable choices that aren’t important right now. this is also where the canes first came into my life, though not as a true second team until much more recently. things were changing, and not always for the better.

the 2014-15 season was fun, though i wasn’t able to watch as many games due to not knowing about r/NHLStreams or anything of that nature. regardless, the bruins just simply weren’t very good, and the season ended in disappointment. a few months later, hockey became very disappointing for reasons i won’t get into, and this coincided with my second emo phase (see: my current url). i ended up jumping ship for bandom tumblr and the life of a panic! at the disco stan.

still, i kept up with the 2015-16 season a little. it kinda sucked, but it was fine. i still loved the team - i just wasn’t really invested anymore. and maybe it was for the best given how busy school was that year. the next season went much the same, only this time, the bruins made the playoffs, i had just about given up on using tumblr at all, and there was this new kid on the team named sean kuraly.

the 2017 playoffs were odd. i hadn’t watched many games that season, and i hadn’t watched a bruins playoff game since the last time i was truly invested in hockey. still, it wasn’t like a switch flipped and i suddenly stanned the bruins again. i spent all the games in that series playing pokémon moon while occasionally glancing at the screen to see what was happening. i wasn’t even truly playing the game; i’d already beaten it and was merely trying my hand at shiny hunting a jangmo’o by hatching dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of eggs, nicknaming them, and randomly trading them over the internet. it was mindless enough to pay attention, and pay attention i did.

it was kind of like the rangers series, on a smaller and less successful scale. much like torey krug before him, sean kuraly came out with a bang and made bruins fans love hockey again - or maybe i’m just projecting. regardless, you know he scored the 2OT winner, and you know about the kuraleap. i don’t remember how many jangmo’os named sean, kuraly, and sean kuraly i traded to the lucky people of pokémon sun and moon wondertrade, but the humber was definitely higher than 52. the bruins did lose the series, but i was interested again.

when the 2017 draft happened, i felt a special connection to it by virtue of these boys being the right age to be in the same high school graduating class as me. this draft piqued my interest in a way no other since 2014 truly had (unpopular opinion on 2015, i know, especially considering my favorite player was drafted fourteenth that year), and you know what? it had been a few months since i’d been active on tumblr, but i searched a few tags and started peaking back at hockey tumblr. i was almost convinced i should dive back in and redo my account for the second time, but i had college orientation to worry about, and by the time i returned, the motivation was lost.

until the 2017-18 home opener. you all know i love jake debrusk, and you probably know he scored his first nhl goal in that game (alongside charlie mac). you’ve seen the video and/or gifs of his dad crying. but beyond all that, it was just a damn good game. i had so much fun watching it - in boston, no less, because finally, after all those years trapped in my hometown, i was where i wanted to be - that i just had to get involved with hockey tumblr again. watching on my own wasn’t going to be enough, i knew.

and so, tumblr user @david-pastrnak returned. honestly, that season was fun, but the first half felt like a blur - likely just because it was my first semester of college. i even went to my first bruins home game in november, and though it wasn’t a good one, it was fun. they picked up the season with a win against tampa on the day i met my favorite band, and somehow, that seemed important. soon i saw my first live bruins win on td garden ice, and even went to a few more games, during which i watched as my grandma grew to love hockey and the bruins, bringing us closer together. it was around this time that i truly embraced the hurricanes, too, and having that second team that i truly care about and love has made being a hockey fan so much fun. it was also around this time that i rediscovered my love for writing. things were changing for the better, but they were only getting started. even when the bruins lost in disappointing fashion to the lightning, i knew things were going to be okay - better, even.

the off-season was mostly uneventful, but towards the end and into the beginning of the season, i ended up in a few group chats with others on here. some of these are still active while others are not, but regardless, i connected with a lot more people, got better at making conversation, and, most importantly, found some of the best friends i’ve ever had. you don’t really expect to meet a lifelong friend on the internet, never mind several, but i’ve gotten incredibly lucky!

this season has been special. i started going to games more often, grew to care about every member of this team more than i’ve probably ever cared about the entire team, and made some incredible friends who i’m blessed to know. and beyond me, this season has been incredible. you know that if you’re reading this, so i won’t get into it all. there were ups and downs, there were moments we thought we’d be golfing in april, and now we’re going to the stanley cup final. the last time this happened, i had just started watching hockey and was still learning. i was also a literal child who still thought i was straight. a lot has changed since then, and somehow, this stanley cup final feels like a culmination of everything i’ve been through with and because of this team. winning the cup isn’t just about how happy it would make jake, how much tuukka deserves it, or whether sean would hand it to danton or vice versa. it’s not about watching to see who helps wags lift it without damaging his injured hand further. it’s not even about watching the look of pure joy on pasta’s face and thinking back to his draft day and my bold, unwarranted, yet correct claim that he would be one of, if not the best player to come out of the 2014 draft. no matter how much they mean to me, winning the cup isn’t about the players.

winning the cup this season would be a celebration of all the friends i’ve made, the stories we’ve shared, and the connections we’ve made. winning the cup would be a celebration of how much closer hockey has brought me to my family. shit, winning the cup would be a celebration of kureinen and all our fun memes because why the hell not?

winning the cup isn’t about the players, or the team, or the parade, or the bragging rights for fans of boston sports. winning the cup is about the deeply meaningful and even just the fun ways in which hockey and the community on here have positively impacted our lives.

and even if we don’t, it’s okay. this season has been by far the best i’ve ever watched, and no matter what happens, it’s one i’ll always remember.

but hey, if we do, i’ll get my first tattoo to commemorate it. speaking of playoff promises, from now on, i’m going to have to talk like anders bjork on here so checkurohhhhhhhh

#now that that’s out of my system: i cannot believe ive been to two series winning games what the fuck #and i need to finish the fic i promised but once i get home it’ll be my priority!#personal #also i won’t be fully back until tomorrow in reality bc i’m busy today lmao #long post

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divagonzo · 6 years ago

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Many times I’ve seen comments about how the Harry Potter cast avoided the “child star curse” and I want your opinion on that because I don’t think those kids were being treated well and I always find it shocking how everyone thinks their childhoods in the spotlight were something magically wonderful. Also, I hate how people talk about child-stars gone wrong because the aim is always to mock or attack the kid instead of realizing their behavior is a consequence of trauma and abuse.

Mornin’ Nonnie. Wow. That’s a bucketful of questions this morning.

Lemme get a huge cuppa so I can put some coherent thought into this set of questions.

RE: The Child Star Curse…. you’ve hit on the enormous Pandora’s Box here with this topic. No lie there.

Triggering mentions are in the tags for those who blacklist and don’t want to read on such things on a Sunday morning.

I’m putting all of this under the cut since this got really, really long really fast.

How did the kids avoid it where so many got lost and lost their way growing into adulthood? If you notice (I will speak of Eyebrows separately because her situation is pretty different by comparison)…. most of the main kids had a terrific support net of family at home - who could be wise to keep their kids grounded (as in feet on the ground and not under discipline/punishment). Sure they all had some mis-steps - but then I’ve never known a teenager who hasn’t made a mistake or 10 while transitioning to adulthood.

Dan? Dan had a serious drinking problem ‘til he decided to sober up (and I really commend him for taking that enormous step. It’s hard as hell to choose at such a young age that you have an addictive personality and that you can’t moderate the drinking and it’s smarter/safer to do without. (And it’s much easier to walk away at the younger age than in your late 20′s 30s 40s more when more damage has been done.)

Rupert? If anyone had been the most grounded, I’d say it’s him. His parents are top bants there, with his siblings and friends keeping him from being too much of a git. (And also being so b* smart in investing his funds early into a property owner to have his wealth but also paying his taxes, too.)

Emma? I think her situation was more fishbowl than the others because of the growing objectification of her and also how rude, lude, and crass men were treating her (including the paparazzi). I also think that she took advantage of such for her benefit to try and tame it down, and while it was mostly on point, there were moments where it was painfully obvious that she was there primarily for the male gaze. O_O She did take advantage of her privilege, with the additional benefits, but considering how much she’s been under the spotlight and constant attention of media and more, she’s done pretty well. (I won’t get into the issue of tax avoidance from the Panama Papers since I disagree with the mindset that the uber-wealthy should pay out 90% to benefit everyone else when they are already shouldering much of the social support net for those who need the assistance)

As for Tom and Bonnie and Evanna and the others? I think they have done pretty darn well for avoiding the child star curse.

But I also think the biggest part of it has been that they weren’t necessarily in the California/Hollywood scene, where it’s pretty much a free-for-all with access to anything and everything you’d want to delve into - along with the really ugly dark side of the business. (Yes, I’m tip-toeing around that issue since it’s pretty nasty.)

But how they were treated? I’m sure that the trappings of their situation made it more difficult, with constant media scrutiny and having so many people involved to have them appearing…. more appealing. While I’m sure for every one person there would be 100 who would give their toes and fingers to have that opportunity, it’s truly a Gilded Cage, of all of the pretty trappings and benefits - but with the enormous loss of privacy and anonymity.

Secondly, and more importantly, you also broach a huge issue, one that is constantly overlooked and also attracted the issue of victim-blaming. The ones who have gone off the rails, the kids who got lost along the way, were put under such scrutiny and given so much opportunity with little to no parental discipline to prevent problems, that, once again, media blame falls on the kids rather than the responsibility of the adults who should be there to support, encourage, and if need be, protect the kids.

I’m gonna say it right here in plain words: Being a teenager is Bloody Fucking hard. It’s triple hard if you are in such a position of making money hand over fist and people become blinded by the greed, attention, and privilege from what they have in those moments. How many horror stories do you hear of where a young actor or actress gets into drugs/alcohol/pills and then crashes and burns spectacularly? For every one success story, there are dozens that crash and burn.

Is it a self-medicating of ones who aren’t necessarily neurotypical? Or is it the craving of the validation that comes from the attention and when not receiving it, needs the self-medication? Coping with trauma behind the scenes? Trauma before getting into acting and using the benefits to dull the pain?

I’ll bring up 3 in particular, just to make the point here.

One is Cory Haim. He was a young actor back in the 80s, in quite a few films, and was one of the teenage hearthrob pin-up boys. While he may have never been an A-lister as an adult (and reading up on his film credits, was probably B lister) he was an A-lister as a teenager. But there are plenty of speculation, especially by his friend Corey Feldman, of abuse when he was a teenager. (I won’t get into it because that’s rumor, speculation, and more) When he quit being cute his roles dried up to C-list roles, in straight to video shows, tv shows and voice-over work in video games.

From one of his interviews:

I was working on The Lost Boys (1987) when I smoked my first joint. But a year before that, I was starting to drink beer on the set of the film Lucas (1986). I lived in Los Angeles in the ‘80s, which was not the best place to be. I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack. I started on the downers which were a hell of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck. But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day - the doctors could not believe I was taking that much. And that was just the valium - I’m not talking about the other pills I went through.

Did he get into drugs to dull the pain of trauma? Did he get into it out of boredom? We’ll never really know since he died back in 2010, penniless. His star burned out fast after he quit being cute/adorable/a money-maker. Was trauma involved? I sure think so (along with former child actor River Phoenix, who was also mentioned in the dark side of Hollywood, too.)

#2 is Justin Bieber. (Yes, I know. Bear with me.)

He got his break early on doing YT videos and got signed on - and took off like a rocket. But he (now that he’s older and hopefully a little wiser) now admits that he isn’t neurotypical and is pretty darn honest about his mental health struggles. (And yes, this also includes the few years before he was participating in bad boy behaviors, mistreating his girlfriends, etc.) Now? He found some stability in his life, able to admit he has problems and is getting help (and does have some support from his family including his new wife and her family.) (Let me also broach this here in plain language: Being Christian and having Grace doesn’t mean that you have zero problems from there on out. Far from it. It means that forgiveness is there with contrition. It means having a framework to work on being better.)

Will he still make mistakes? Oh sure. Being human means making mistakes. Wisdom is learning from them.

Lastly? Miley Cyrus. (Yes, I know. I’m mentioning those who are fun to laugh at. But these three are prime examples - but also with examples of coming through it all - or not.)

She’s been under the spotlight for decades, now. She’s in a show-business family. Godmother is Dolly “I love everyone and then some” Parton. And she’s one of the Disney Kids, including some spectacular failures on her part (and I’m lumping in her on/off again with her now-husband Liam.)

Did she lose her way for a while? I sure think so. But then the media spotlight x 100 made it harder, with every mistake under intense scrutiny. (This includes some questionable choices in a presentation of herself to the world. O_O)

Was she abused as one of the Disney Kids? Frankly? I think so. Disney isn’t all bright colors and silly shows and enormous paychecks. Rumours run amuck of behind the scenes abuse and mistreatment. Even having a famous father probably didn’t shield her completely from being mishandled by adults in her sphere of acknowledgment.

It’s the utter dark side of the business - that is an open opportunity for adults to take advantage of kids when they aren’t intensely protected and shielded from predator adults - straight and gay. There’s so many quiet mentions of adults abusing girls and boys in their charge - to disasterous results mostly.

But from 2 of the three here? They are examples of hope, where you can make mistakes, get lost along the way, feel the intense grip of imposter syndrome, of mediocre achievements and still succeed - and survive mistakes. They are a hope that whatever has happened, trauma and abuse wise, that you can survive it and, with serious professional help, get through it.

As I am prone to do, especially with those I mentor, is that I won’t tell you what to think - just that you do think. But if a mistake is made (or even a really p*ss poor choice made) I’ll help you survive it.

2 of the three had their family and support net available to help them survive the choices made, leading to wisdom on what not to do - how to cope/endure/survive what has happened.

These kids were probably victims of abuse and trauma, before and during their early acting careers. But 2 of the three are examples of not living a lifetime of being a victim - but a bad-fucking-ass survivor.

To those who have survived abuse and trauma as a child?

I’m gonna tell y’all who might be reading this, including my Kiddos:

It’s not your fault you were abused. Never. Full-stop.

It’s the responsibility of the ones who hurt you. They are to blame. And G_d as my witness I better never run into them. I have zero qualms burning a bitch for hurting a child.

#TW:#Anonymous #Dragon asks #Dragon listens #Dragon speaks #Dragon talks XXX #Dragon talks Child stars and abuse #tw: csa #tw: abuse #tw: grooming #tw: drug use mentioned #tw: childhood trauma

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andallhisausterenhost · 6 years ago

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After Action Report: Aeldari Civil War

As you are all aware, last week @littlemangsofwar and I had an Eldar-on-Eldar game against each other.Unfortunately, I haven’t had the right kind of headspace to do a proper narrative report like I did the last time we played a game of 40k. It’s a real shame, as @littlemangsofwar has done a great job with his army list - every unit, every vehicle, every squad leader has a name. It’s actually really cool.

Zariah the Swift, Consort of Hesperax leads his Wyches, (alongside Lilith herself, of course), while Dalinah the Proud, Tairin Bloodsinger, and Olrai the Brutal lead bands of Kabalite falseborn atop the Raiders Silent Blade and Bringer of Sorrow.

In lieu of a proper after action report, I’ll share with you the photos I took during the game to show off @littlemangsofwar‘s moody green paint scheme (which looks fantastic). @idisimages came along about halfway, so some of hers are sprinkled in this post as well.

Next time I’ll keep track of the action a bit more carefully - maybe with some notes, or at least photographing turn dice or something, and I’ll put some actual effort in! Mangs* and I are hoping to have fortnightly wargames of some kind, so hopefully the after action report tag can get some real use on this here blog.

We each took a 1700 point list. Mine was pure Dark Eldar in three Patrols and an Auxiliary (understrength Incubi); a small band of the Coven-I-have-yet-to-name, every Cult unit I owned, and all my Kabalites. I even brought the unpainted Scourges and a squad of 3rd edition Mandrakes I intend to sell.

Mang’s band was a Battalion of mixed Dark Eldar, plus the Ynncarne in an Auxiliary Support Detachment. He therefore played his guys therefore as a Ghost Eldar army, but didn’t actually get to reap the benefits of it very much, which guiltily makes me feel like I was at an overwhelming advantage during the game.

Our mission was two-fold; Take and Hold and Kill the Courier. As Kill the Courier becomes a Sudden Death match (which is a bit boring), we decided that a courier-killer would get an extra 5VP. That meant it was enough to be seriously overwhelming in one direction or another, but not instantly end the game.

I think that next time, I’d like to play some Maelstrom game that requires constant drawing of Tactical Objectives. Some of them look really fun! Especially the insane Dark Eldar objectives like ‘hurt everyone in the other army in different ways’. Hilarious.

Deployment was the pointy ‘meet in the middle’ wedge. You can see the centre of the board (red marker, above), at the edge of an pre-Fall ruin. Most of the board was pre-Fall ruins, with the pathetic remnants of the buildings of some servitor race lying crumbling amidst the ruins.

The Ynnari and their cultist minions are seeking ancient Eldar artifacts, while the Kabal of the Sun Betrayed, ever eager to collect and preserve the past in their own brilliant, venomous way, are here to do the same. Conflict ensues.

I deployed the new Coven units on the pointy edge, with the swamp on my right forward swarming with Cult of Splintered Sight beasts. On my left flank was the rest of the Cult, as @littlemangsofwar had deployed his own Wych units there (including Lelith). I thought it was be fun to have the two gladiator gangs fight it out.

It was fun, but mostly for Mangs. I charged into the fray, firing as much darklight weaponry and as many plasma grenades as I could muster to bring down one of his Venoms, so that my Wyches could at least chew on some vulnerable flesh, but nothing worked.

Eventually, the cultists of the Wych Cult of Strife got out and, even without Cult special rules, started cutting through Wyches. My last few fled under the onslaught, only the Succubus surviving to fall back and await another opportunity.

Eventually (turn three or so), I did get revenge, as I was able to deep strike my Scourges exactly 9″ from the Succubus Zariah the Swift; she was burned alive by four heat lances. A truly murderous debut from my scourge mercenaries, who now deserve a coat paint! I’m just a bit anxious about their cool wings.

Here are @littlemangsofwar‘s Scourges from the back, so you can see the nice job he’s done.

In the centre of the board was where all the fun was. Mangs opened the game by incinerating my Clawed Fiend and summoning from his tortured corpse the Ynncarne! In colours of lavender and pale green, looking the very image of the last hopes of a tormented civilisation in decline.

His squad of jetbikes then charged the one of mine positioned nearby and, despite losing one lad on the way in, did proceed to cut into them pretty neatly. In the swamp itself, my beasts hurled themselves into the Ynncarne who... yeah, he just sliced them to bits. It did hold him up for a turn! That was nice!

Mangs also blasted the hell out of my newly painted Haemonculus and his little friends - which, to be fair, I did have them sitting on an objective for a reason. They absorbed a tremendous amount of fire, which was pretty cool. That was all they did, until I used that stratagem in the late game which allows you to bring them back, at which point they marched back to the objective and held it again. Very fun, if not very nice of me.

On my right flank, Mang’s two falseborn squads hunkered down in cover while my trueborn flew around in their venoms. I made little pew pew noises, and had a grand old time... and then my Blasterborn squad evaporated the Ynncarne.

I feel bad about that.

My Archon and his Incubi bodyguard, despite losing a couple mates to heavy fire, took care of the Ynncarne’s Reaver pals. I then advanced him to join with the Haemonculus and fight Varathi the Silencer and Varathi’s Blades. Unfortunately, those Eldar on the Path of the Warrior (however debased) fell before these two aeons-old monsters.

I want to acknowledge at this point that Mangs had some pretty rotten luck and I, uncharacteristically, was rolling pretty well. The Voidraven Bomber, despite its terrifying nature in the fluff, did something somewhere between fuck- and piss-all. I lost a few wounds off the Raider you see there on this fly-by, but not enough to take it out.

It was about this point where we were willing to call it. @littlemangsofwar‘s ghosts were all but spent. He still had a bit of a lead in terms of points, thanks to taking two objectives early while I was faffing about shooting him from gunboats. We agreed it wasn’t enough, as I was beginning to secure the objectives myself and had vaporised his courier (the Succubus).

However! I did do something for a bit of a lark which would be a terrible idea in a serious game: I decided to fight Lelith Hesperax with Me’draus the Eclipse, Archon of the Kabal of the Sun Betrayed, the Sunkiller, the Vral’wern’a, &c &c. I mean, I also had the Succubus** join in. I’m not an idiot.

So even though @littlemangsofwar had generously called the game for me, we decided to see how the brutal melee would go.

I did not go well. Me’draus had his shadowfield fail in the very first roll of the dice, of course, and so Lelith butchered him in a single round of combat. While the Splintered Sight Succubus did manage to inflict a flesh wound on the succeeding round, Lelth quickly put her down as well.

The Haemonculi would charge Me’draus a premium for such a foolish, arrogant waste of his cloned flesh!

Result: VICTORY

See below the cut for a brief summary of our respective lists.

Kabal of the Sun Betrayed: Alliance of Agony

The Kabal of the Sun Betrayed uses the Kabal of the Flayed Skull attribute. Why not the Kabal of the Black Heart? Because Vect is really bad writing and I hate him, that’s why. Anyway. List:

Archon (agoniser; soulthirst)

2 x 10 Warriors (splinter cannon; sybarites have pistols)

2 x Raiders (splinter racks, trophies)

2 x Trueborn (one with shredders, one with blasters; shredder dracon has phantasm grenades)

2x Venoms (trophies; shredder carrier has snares)

Scourges (4 x heat lances)

Incubi (x4)

These had to go in a fourth detachment (Auxiliary) because they’re below strength. Why? So that they can actually be the Archon’s bodyguard! When I finally paint a car for them, it’ll be worth it.

Means I probably can’t play in tournaments with this kind of list, which is dumb (surely paying 1 CP suffices? eh) but I’m not sure I want to play in tournaments anyway.

The Cult of Splintered Sight uses Cult of the Cursed Blade, mostly because of the +1 strength. The only time the Morale bit came up, the only remaining model was the Hekatrix anyway!

Succubus (glaive, hypex, parasite’s kiss, treacherous deceiver)

totally forgot about treacherous deceiver!

hypex because she doesn’t have a car yet

10 x wyches (one of each wych weapon; adrenalight; agoniser)

Raider (trophies, chain snares [not that I used them])

Beastmaster

4 x Khymerae

Clawed Fiend

2 x Razorwing Flocks

2 x 3 Reavers (1 heat lance each, cluster caltrops)

I modelled them with caltrops, but actually think the other one would come up more often.

The Unnamed Coven used the Prophets of Flesh for this game, but I don’t know if I’ll keep using that. It is definitely useful, but I dislike things associated with the Kabal of the Black Heart (which Urien Rakarth is), and I like the madness/Morale rules associated with the Dark Creed. See how we get on.

Haemonculus (Liquifier Gun, Scissorhand, Ichor Injector)

He was a Diabolical Soothsayer which I totally forgot about.

He’s armed as the model is, but eventually I’ll convert a more modern model for him and this model will be demoted to Wrack.

6 x Wracks.

6 x Mandrakes

These did exactly nothing after I deployed them which, eh. I really like the new (well, 2010 is new to me) models, though...

Lelith’s Band: Cultists of Death

Lelith Hesperax

Zariah the Swift (Succubus)

blast pistol

3 x 10 Warriors (blaster, dark lance, blast pistol, power sword)

These guys are seriously well-equipped, but unfortunately not well equipped against other light infantry.

Lelith’s Concubines, 10 x Hekatrix Bloodbrides

Led by Elaria the Savage, Syren

Varathi’s Blades (5 x Incubi)

Varathi the Silencer

Jaik’s Band (6 x Reavers)

The Purple Rain (5 x Scourges)

Led by Naimari the Silent with a blast pistol.

1 x Haywire Blaster

They’re actually equipped with soup, but @littlemangsofwar had to shave some points for an even match-up.

Kondro’s Bane, Voidraven

Very disappointed in this unit’s effectiveness. Shatterfield missiles do a lousy 1 damage? D6 shots, 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound means you’re only going to do, like, two damage with the thing per turn. Void lances are better, sure, but you still only get two shots.

Bringer of Sorrow, Silent Blade

Raiders

Sharpstrike, Swiftkill

Venoms

The Ynncarne (1 x Greater Daemon of Ynnead)

Absolute monster, but I think I managed to get lucky on my first time facing him and do exactly what you should do against him: pin him down with chaff and then blast him with, uh, blasters.

Anyway, it was a great game, and @littlemangsofwar continues to be an absolute gentleman to play wargames against. He said he had fun, and that we might even start doing this regularly! (I think I said that above? That was like an hour of typing ago...) That would be great, right?

Our next game may be an intro game of Full Thrust because: spaceships. Otherwise, maybe some Kill Team, or potentially another game of 8th edition 40K. I haven’t actually had the time to get any painting done this week, but I wouldn’t mind trying out the new scouts. Or maybe the Kabal of the Sun Betrayed could make some slaves of his Imperial Guardsmen...

We’ll have to have a bit of a chat about it!

*Writing out his full tag each time is like calling someone by their full name in casual conversation. It’s bloody annoying.

**I really, really need to give her a name!

#after action report #wargaming #miniatures #warhammer 40k #science fiction #games workshop #citadel #dark eldar #unrestrained ravagings #there is only war

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theliterateape · 4 years ago

Text

How Free is Our Speech and Who Decides?

by Don Hall

"Donald! If you say one more word, I'm sending you to the Principal's Office! Just. SHUT. UP!"

Third grade. Mrs. McWilliams. As the resident 'new kid' I was isolated to begin with but I had ridden this roller coaster before. Two boys in class decided that I was their enemy (or rather the object of their boredom) and they had taken to stealing any toys or books or games I'd grab during in-classroom recess. This was the third time and McWilliams had had enough of my gift for non-stop verbiage.

There it was. They had ripped the CandyLand game out of my hands and aside from just marching across the room and beating them to death I had no options but to sit there and take it. McWilliams had completely cut me off at the legs. If I say one more word, I’m screwed.

Except…

I grab some construction paper and a crayon. I draw what looks like two parentheses with a line through:

( | )

Sort of like an early emoji before there even was such a thing. In my brain, it was a butt. Then I drew the same butt with lines coming out of the crack and another with several circles coming out. This was my best guess at drawing the litany of profanity I wanted to yell. My nine-year old imagination couldn’t come up with anything quick for ‘cocksucker’ or ‘motherfucker’ which, all things considered, was probably a good thing.

I walked over to the boys and flash card style, held each one up to them making a stern and angry face.

The boys ratted me out. McWilliams fished the paper out of the trash and LOST. HER. MIND.

Two hours later I’m underneath my mother’s dining room table waiting for her to come home and belt me. McWilliams was apoplectic; the Principal was horrified. They sent me home early and called my mom at work to tell her what a perverse and awful monster I was. I had drawn pornographic pictures in class!

In hindsight I get it. I was an obnoxious kid. I was smarter than most, was full of more energy than five teachers could handle, and I thought nothing of breaking the rules for the sake of breaking them.

It seems that we are at an impasse when it comes to our personal rights to free speech. Laws against hate speech are already a violation of the First Amendment (which sets out that the government cannot create and enforce laws abridging speech) but we get around it by using the old chestnut of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The idea that by uttering racial slurs is somehow in the same ballgame is tenuous but still sticks.

The other side of the debate is accountability for words spoken or written. Call it whatever you choose—cancel-culture, public shaming, mob justice—it amounts to groups of people with no individual authority but the power of populist organization to effectively shame companies into firing offending employees. It also, on a far smaller but more destructive level, harbors a revenge justification against those who err in public for any reason (Amy Cooper is a solid example).

When the religious decide you can’t do or say something, well, Holy Shit.

The Critical Race Theorists who advocate curtailment of speech offensive to minorities insist that individual instances of hate speech are never the isolated, unpopular speech of a dissident few. Rather, they are manifestations of a deeply ingrained cultural belief system, an American way of life.

Hate speech is so dangerous because it plays melodies that are so deeply rooted in the culture as to be structural parts of everyday life for large numbers of Americans—perhaps even a majority.

“Your motherfucking son spray painted my house, bitch!”

The woman was a good six inches taller than my mom and outweighed her by at least seventy pounds. Earlier that day she had decided that I and my other eleven-year old friends were too loud just outside her window.

She screamed at us through her window. We cussed her and then ran off. I had come back with some red spray paint and had tagged the side of her house with a defiant “FUCK YOU!”

“What makes you think you can accuse my son of vandalizing your fucking house?” Mom was tiny but the Irish made her think she was much bigger.

“The little dumbass signed his name.”

She was right on both counts: I had signed my name because I was a little dumbass.

When a homophobe uses an anti-gay insult, he's signing his name to it. When a misogynist says something obviously anti-feminist, he's a dumbass. Things get stickier when the racists aren't dumbasses and refuse to provide an incriminating signature.

The question that some would prefer we check off in the “Answered” box is likewise a tangly mess. Is the n-word (a word so thoroughly aggrandized that, like He Who Shall Not Be Named in the JK Rowling books, the utterance has increasing and horrifying power) “hate speech” or just hateful speech? Is it racist or merely racial? Queer used to be a slur but when GenZ kids regularly describe themselves as such, no one calls the language police.

The lack of any clarity along these lines is resulting in a quandary for everyone involved in words or merely dealing with other people and being in a position to have to communicate with them.

In the film Dangerous Liaisons The Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) plots revenge against her ex-lover by ruining his young fiancée. There’s a lot of betrayal and a duel that ends in the death of a dude who duels and all. In the end, she is boo’d a bunch and she is disgraced. Now imagine if her big sin was to call someone something on the hate speech spectrum or espouse an ideology deemed wholly immoral. Sure, booing her then seems appropriate but for her to be completely eviscerated for it? To have the booing crowd pressure her work into firing her? Putting her behavior on social media so that she can never be hired again? Seems like an overreaction.

Seems like the permanent record one receives from going to a religious school.

Seems a bit religious.

When the religious decide you can’t do or say something, well, Holy Shit. You don’t have to go all Goody Proctor and the witches beings drowned to see if they could float to see a more recent example. Operation Rescue was the anti-abortion group in Wichita, KS when I happened to be going to high school in…Kansas. Randall Terry had a unique approach. If he disagreed with you (and if you were anything but fully anti-abortion in every possible scenario, he disagreed with you) he would yell over you instead of have some sort of heated discussion.

The local broadcasters stopped putting him on television because he’d just get on there and scream people down. As if, by drowning out their ability to communicate with anyone, he was likewise obliterating the message entirely.

He and his crew were out of control. They had determined that anyone associated with abortion in any way whatsoever was EVIL. In fact, I remember a group of them screaming at passers-by in downtown Wichita on Douglas Avenue for not joining them. They had extra placards with pictures of butchered fetus parts on them and were foisting them on people. If the person demurred (you know, maybe they had an appointment or needed to go impregnate someone so they could have a reason to slaughter the baby) the group would scream at them until they basically ran away.

At the time, I was anti-abortion but a prolonged summer of being around these religious screaming whack jobs changed my mind. Truly. My ideological change from pro-life to pro-choice had more to do with disgust over these idiots than any righteous belief in the autonomy of women.

This is not to say that I didn’t come around with a more progressive view. It took some time but a woman’s right to choose which surgical procedures she employs on her body is pretty much her business. If someone can elect to tattoo 75% of her skin, decide to stick Botox in her face, and fill her tits with silicone it isn’t much of a stretch that she should without obstacle relieve herself of a tumor that will become a human tethered to her hip for life.

The idea that human life is valued in the world is perhaps a goal but certainly not a reality. An ideal to uphold but not a realistic approach. Some lives matter. Lots of lives don’t so much.

Ideals are exactly that: goals. “I disagree with what he says but would die to ensure his right to say it” is a goal but would I really die so that someone unbalanced or religious is able to say “God Hates Fags” or “All White Americans are Racists”? Probably not.

Would I expect you to die for my right to say whatever I want? Not unless I'm a sociopath or a moron.

So no one is really going to die so that someone else can insult another person or espouse an ideology that differs from his own. Established fact. Where does that leave us as we navigate the increased opportunity to show our ass's in public more frequently (considering that social media and the whole of the digital highway is now quite public)?

Self censorship is completely legit so the folks complaining about people being afraid to speak “their truth” because of repercussions are simply pussies.

Around 2010, I was working for the public radio station in Chicago. I also had a blog from before I was hired. It was entitled (with an intentional wink at the rightwing NASCAR crowd) "An Angry White Guy in Chicago". Being fairly progressive in politic, the fun in the name was that people on the stereotypical raging caucasian dudes would jump on expecting me to parrot their ideology only to have themselves smacked in the face with articles against George W., in favor of the queer nation, and railing against the tendencies of unregulated capitalism. Also, as my mom used to point out, a lot of profanity.

The meeting was called because there were concerns about employees of an NPR station with social media and blogs. The concern was that these platforms might paint the station in a bad light if a lack of objectivity presented itself. The management had come up with a policy limiting our ability to utilize these methods of communicating and asking that they be able to censor us when necessary.

I listened.

My boss came over after the meeting.

“So, Don, what are you gonna do about your blog now?”

“Wrong question, boss.”

“Wrong question? What’s the right question?”

“What are you gonna do about my blog?”

He paused. “Probably nothing.”

“Good answer.”

I had come to the conclusion that any business that decided to censor me wasn’t worth my time working for and that has held true to this day. I suppose the fact that I’m not a racist or a sexist or a religious-type saves me from being relegated to the heap of dumbasses who sign their names to their intolerance. Being far more tolerant but more discriminating (or skeptical, I guess) has likely made me less odious.

At some point I did change the name of the blog mostly because, with Donald Trump suddenly in office, the joke wasn’t as funny as it was before. Self censorship is completely legit so the folks complaining about people being afraid to speak “their truth” because of repercussions are simply pussies. If you believe it, you can prove it, you should say it but don’t blame the mob if they don’t like it. This includes college professors, linguists, journalists, activists, and those dumb shits who think they can post memes on Twitter but shouldn’t lose their jobs if it’s anti-Semitic.

On the other hand if the best you can do in the face of language you can’t abide is scream down your opposition, you’re no better than the anti-abortionists of the eighties and you should look closely at your maturity level and how cultish your beliefs are. Chances are, if you’re so impassioned by your beliefs and refusal to hear anything that may contradict them, you’re a religious nut of one stripe or another.

“You’re a racist, man!”

The guy was in the casino I was managing, trolling around, trying to bum smokes and vouchers from paying guests. When I told him he couldn’t do that, he decided to play what is commonly referred to as “the race card.” This card has now become the rosary beads to flash around as a sort of secular religious icon.

“You’re racist, man!”

“OK. You still can’t solicit cigarettes or cash on the casino floor.”

“It’s because I’m black!”

“No. It’s because it’s against the rules. It’s a colorblind rule.”

“RACIST! RACIST!” He started screaming at me in order to what? Shut me up? Scare me away? He got loud and animated. I just stood there and watched him lose his shit like the girl who lost her shit on the white professor whose wife had written that college Halloween costumes are not the height of racist demonstration. You remember the video. I was mostly surprised at how calm the professor was in the face of such unrepentant childishness.

His accusation didn’t rile me up because I had no reason to be defensive. I know who I am and he doesn’t. He might as well have accused me of being a vampire or a Scottish lord.

“You finished?”

“You gonna kick me out, racist?”

“I’m going to ask you to leave unless you put some money in a machine.”

“What if I don’t?”

“I’m gonna kick you out.”

“Because I’m black?”

“No. Because you’re an asshole and assholes can be any color under the sun.”

To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? To whom would you delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read?

— Christopher Hitchens

It seems like an awful lot of this battle for freedom of speech is a struggle for who gets to say what without living-threatening consequence and who gets to dole out those consequences when they decide it goes beyond a predetermined boundary. The idea that those who can wield the iconography of secular religious thought are somehow the disenfranchised is a fantasy in the exact same way that the idea Christians (or Muslims) are in some way marginalized by those who do not believe.

These days political thought is indistinguishable from religious rhetoric. So many looking to assert the moral ground upon which we all must stand or be banished. The mistake made is to embrace the idea that the digital space is real life or even matters that much. As someone who dumped Faceborg a while ago and whose dick didn’t fall off and life didn’t end, social media is not the sum total of free speech.

A friend who works for Netflix recently made an off media comment that the company is noticing that the social justice crowd is fighting online for more inclusive and political content but that no one is watching it. This indicates that either they’re all just a bit full of shit or there simply aren’t as many out there as the noise of deplatforming and calling out signals.

The best form of “deplatforming” is to ignore the people who can’t understand that all speech is free but if you scream in the wrong person’s face, you’re gonna get popped in the jaw.

Or at least kicked out of the casino.

#Freedom of Speech

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pwrestlingxpress · 7 years ago

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Reddit Article about Golden☆Lovers History

Found this interesting column by WrestlingisJay on reddit.com about Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi’s history in which I felt compelled to share it here on the Pro Wrestling Express. You can click here for comments on the article and if you a member, log in and make your own comment. Anyway here is what WrestlingisJay had to say about the reunion of the Golden☆Lovers that occurred back on January 28, 2018 at New Beginning in Sapporo Night Two and remember, I take no credit in this. The credit for this should go to WrestlingisJay on reddit:

Hello, I’m u/WrestlingIsJay! You may remember me from such walls of text as this post or this other post. Today I’m here to invite you to come with me on a journey… a Golden☆ journey! A lot of stuff has already been written on the greatest relationship in pro-wrestling, and I always make sure to send people looking for a quick fill-in to this excellent post from a while ago or this more recent Uproxx article, but what I really wanted to do was to create a place to also include all those little details and bump on the road that obviously often get overlooked for the sake of brevity in those kind of summaries but that I really think make up the soul of this amazing story. All the Small Things, basically (thank you Tom DeLonge). I’ll try my best and I hope people will come up with all those other things I’ll probably leave out in the comments, so to make this more and more complete. Let’s start, shall we?

2008-2012: Beginnings.

I guess pretty much everyone knows how it started at this point, so I’ll be quick: Kenny has a unique vision for pro-wrestling that sets him apart from most of his north American colleagues, finds a clip of Kota Ibushi having DDT-style matches on YouTube and immediately thinks that this guy from across the Ocean must thinks the same way he does, so he sets on a quest to face him no matter the odds. He films himself doing a crazy DDT-styled “Anywhere match to appease to them, cuts a promo on Ibushi and manages to get himself to become the one and only gaijin in DDT for quite a while. They have the match (DDT Universe link, it’s 9$ a month, first month is free), and it’s a rough sketch of everything Omega and Ibushi have in store for pro-wrestling: a perfect blend in of comedy, crazy high spots, unique storytelling and unparalleled athleticism. It ends up winning a MOTY trophy earning Omega his stay… the rest, as they say, is history.

I think one of the best “Small Things” about this is the way Kenny Omega retells it during his appearance on “Japanophiles”, a TV Show about foreigners living in Japan which dedicated an episode to him, in a somewhat-shoot interview he did while he was still in DDT (timestamped link) which really drives home how much of real life anime characters these two are: “I felt that my destiny, if there is such a thing, was to come out here and fight Kota Ibushi”.

He will later say that his first match with Ibushi was also the first time he cried after a match during a 2016 NJPW interview but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here. They have the match and clearly immediately develop a strong friendship as early pictures and statements from Michael Nakazawa, a huge friend of both and basically the third unofficial member of their team (kind like a proto-Elite), attests. (shout out to @archaicbro by the way, who put together a most useful Twitter-sized recollections of their story). They join forces instead of facing each other again, as DDT originally had planned, and hit one homerun after the other: they even get a MOTY in New Japan in 2010 which, as Kenny recalled in the Edge & Christian Podcast, it’s something Jr. Tag Teams just “don’t do”. Their shenanigans both inside and outside the ring really depicts one hell of a great time for both of them, and Japan loves them as well.

Their peak probably comes in 2012 when, as many will already know, they main evented DDT’s most important show of the year, Peter Pan at the Nippon Budokan arena in Tokyo. There the “sketch” that was their first match together gets refined and they put up one of the greatest matches of all time (here’s another DDT Universe link) battling over the KO-D Openweight Championship, DDT’s top singles belt. One very interesting note: Kota Ibushi wins the match after having kicked out at 2 from a One Winged Angel in the center of the ring, the only wrestler to ever having done so without interferences or rope breaks.

At this point, life couldn’t be better for them, as Kenny himself will say to Meltzer in an interview in 2017 that he felt his career had peaked at that point, having gone all out at such a legendary arena, within a company he helped grow, with Ibushi. Despite that though, unfortunately trouble was brewing not so far on the horizon…

2014-2017: Paradise Lost?

2014 comes, and with it the biggest turn in Kenny Omega’s career arrives. He signs a contract of exclusivity with New Japan Pro-Wrestling and decides to stay a Jr. Heavyweight for the time being: with Kota already a Heavyweight in New Japan, this effectively breaks up their team and sends them separate ways. After an emotional (and pretty crazy) farewell match (rutube link as I couldn’t seem to find the match on DDT Universe), Kenny’s conference with NJPW is unusually cold when he talks about the fact that he will stay separated from Ibushi going forward: whether something happened behind the scenes or Kenny’s just preparing to become the evil Cleaner, we may never know, but the Golden☆Lovers are no more.

This is where turbulent times start for Kenny, and this is where the “Small Things” really shine. You’d be hard pressed to find an interview without a shout out, a quick hint or a monologue of the Cleaner towards his former tag partner, and what it all adds up to is a compelling depiction of someone clearly dealing with a lot of unwanted thoughts in his head. Kenny’s constant wandering with his mind towards Ibushi is so powerful, so humane that the lines between reality and kayfabe gets very blurred, and it’s astounding.

The first big crack in the “wall” Kenny put up to forget about his past obviously comes at Invasion Attack 2015, when in a wonderfully put-together segment wanted by all three involved, Kenny finds himself between a rock and a hard place when he has to help AJ Styles retain his IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Kota. He doesn’t go all out in helping his Bullet Club brother, but the split second hesitation he causes in Ibushi is enough for AJ to turn his Phoenix Splash into a Styles Clash for the 1, 2, 3. After the match, Omega is definitely not thrilled about the outcome and his part in it. Some say this even started (in kayfabe) his path towards the inevitable takeover of the Bullet Club against AJ Styles: even when they just graze each other, Ibushi always has a huge impact on Kenny’s psyche and career.

They will stay apart for all of 2016, the true breakthrough year for the Cleaner, and this seem to weigh in deeply on Omega. After winning the G1, he states to having finally surpassed Kota, but he’s also clearly hurt at his disappearance at such a pivotal moment for him. He will start antagonizing him more and more, building up basically a feud with Kota’s shadow that will accompany him throughout all of 2016 and shape his interactions with him when Ibushi will finally return to New Japan later (as himself, although Kenny didn’t refrain from throwing shade at him with a couple of ironic comments on Twitter about Tiger Mask W’s performances being “a little green”). One important moment comes almost six months later, in March 2017, when TV Asahi hosts a ceremony to make a list of the greatest wrestlers in history and Kenny Omega, ranking #15, ends up standing in front of Kota who is amongst the judges. The look Kenny gives Kota here speaks for himself, but he also doubles down on Twitter, truly opening up for the first time in a while.

Keep in mind what he says here, as it’s one of the greatest details of this whole thing: Kenny clearly sees standing in the ring with Kota as the only way to truly be able to communicate with him after all this time. He doesn’t know how to tell him all the things he would like to, and he doesn’t even know if he would be able to, but he knows damn well how to wrestle, so that’s how he wants to speak to Ibushi – by fighting him. He will say this again later, and he will ultimately state as much after the reunion. But once again, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

WrestleKingdom 11 comes and goes, and Omega becomes the hottest topic in the world of pro-wrestling, but he doesn’t forget Ibushi, not even after his war with Okada: in an exclusive interview he states that the WK11 main event brought him to a ”magical [state of mind] where wrestling didn’t hurt”, something he only felt one other time in his career, ”when I was still in a tag team with… an old friend of mine”. Whatever happens, Ibushi is still there, always lingering in the back of his mind. This becomes evident when the rumors get more and more loud until yes, it’s revealed that Kota Ibushi will indeed be a part of the 27th edition of the G1. Kenny doesn’t hide his intentions: he will take part in the G1 because he wants, because he needs to be in the ring with Kota again. Maybe it’s because he really wants to prove himself he can surpass him, but mostly it’s because he’s aching for that chance to talk to his old friend in the only language he would be able to – that of professional wrestling.

Countless “Small Things” are littered among the interviews, tweets and shoot Q&As Kenny did around this time, but two of the most intense statements can be easily found on New Japan World. The first happens during a Skype interview Kenny did to promote the G1 USA Special. At the 22:53 mark, he gets asked about Kota being in the G1 and cuts a short, but awesome promo. I’ll transcribe here some of the best lines for those unwilling to click the link, as I believe it’s one of Omega’s best mic work I’ve ever heard:

“Look… Ibushi. Yeah, I’ll say his name, Ibushi. It’s been a while. I was waiting… I wondered what it would take. […] after I’ve won the G1 I thought for sure, you would come back to me. After I had the greatest match of all time at the Tokyo Dome, something you could never do, I thought you’d come back. What makes you come back now? What makes you want to challenge the G1 after everything we’ve been through. Is it something that you’re doing for yourself? Are you trying to challenge me? […] Questions that are running through my head. You know… I could always call you, I could always contact you, but I wouldn’t know what to say. […] Let’s do the talking in the ring. I want you to promise me… be a man of your word, promise me Ibushi, that you would make it to the finals. It’s the only way we can meet. Show me how much you’ve grown, and I’ll show you how much I’ve grown. You’re not the man anymore… I’m so much more than what you are now, and I can’t wait to show you the difference in that power.”

This is enough to make the situation look even more like a real-life anime rivalry than already is, but Omega wasn’t finished yet. During his appearance at a NJPW World’s one-hour show called Wonderland (it’s on their streaming service but the clip itself is free, so you can watch it without having to pay the monthly fee), where he was asked to go through all his adversaries for the upcoming G1, he stated multiple times that the only reason he was joining the tournament was Ibushi. In the end, around the 55:00 mark, he addresses Kota directly and cuts another gem:

”A-Block? There’s only one… there’s only one. […] There’s only one I want to beat, there’s only one I want to meet. And It’s you Ibushi. It’s a different world, and I saw your training video. You can’t just wake up one day and say, ‘I’m going to win the G1’! It isn’t that easy… but Ibushi, somewhere in there, I know you have it in you. [If it’s] really is your time, take it. Because I never stopped after you left. After you left me all alone, to fend for myself, I never stopped training, I never stopped sacrificing, I never stopped feeling the pain. I never ran away like you did. If you can make it to the final, that’s where I’ll be waiting. And then finally I’ll make you feel the pain Ibushi, and I’ll show you through my actions everything that I felt while you were away, after you threw me away.”

After these two pieces of work, hype was through the roof, but alas, Ibushi didn’t manage to reach the G1 Finals, and the Golden☆Lovers seemed destined to stay apart… for a little longer.

2017-2018: Reunion.

The finals arrived, and after them, the unexpected happened: a beaten Omega clad in gear that was an homage to his former partner met Ibushi backstage, even if the encounter lasted only for a few, seemingly misunderstood, seconds. A failed connection if there ever was one, for sure. But despise that, things kept moving and Kenny kept going there: in an interview with Kevin Kelly (another free one!) months later, when he was about to defend his IWGP US title against Juice Robinson, he reiterated that his only regret for the G1 Finals was the opponent. He wanted Ibushi, he needed to meet him in that ring, and that need was still there, clear as day. A need that would have been answered months later, in a truly unexpected fashion, amidst the snows of Sapporo.

…and here we are, at last, at the final reunion. At that single shocking moment, ten years in the making. With some unrequested help from the villainous Cody, Omega and Ibushi are standing face to face in the same ring again. It’s nothing like Kenny had thought, there are no wrestling moves involved, no fighting. It’s just his old friend, lending a helping hand, and for him it’s his whole world coming down hard. There’s no more feigning indignation, or hatred, or masquerading the pain of having been left alone. It’s all thrown in his face and the Cleaner’s metallic exterior gets shredded by the events. Underneath, the “real” Kenny resurfaces and after some hesitation, he gives in to a liberating hug. The Golden☆Lovers are back.

Again, click on the link (or here if confused) above to comment on this very interesting article from reddit by WrestlingisJay.

#Kenny Omega #reddit #Kota Ibushi #Golden Lovers Reunion

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daleisgreat · 4 years ago

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Randy Savage Unreleased: The Unseen Matches of the Macho Man

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Freak out, freak out, oh yeahhhhh…..sorry I could not resist, but kicking off an entry with that iconic catchphrase means it is time to cover a Macho Man home video collection. In 2018 WWE gave Macho Man the ‘Unreleased’ DVD treatment, a line of several DVD match collections containing entirely never before released on home video matches. I already covered one on here several months ago dedicated to Hulk Hogan, so it would only seem appropriate to cover another one dedicated to his Mega Powers partner, Randy Savage. Like the Hogan DVD, it has a gratuitously long title in the form of Randy Savage Unreleased: The Unseen Matches of the Macho Man (trailer). If you are into these ‘Unreleased’ sets, then check back here later this year as there are two other semi-recent installments I plan on knocking out by the end of this year. Randy Savage Unreleased is jacked with content at three discs tallying up nine hours of material. There is a total of 41 (!!) matches and 9 promos spanning Macho’s career in WWF and WCW from 1985 through 1999. Also interspersed every several matches is one of 10 newly recorded panel discussion segments with Corey Graves, Bayley, Sean Mooney and Diamond Dallas Page. The panel discussions are not throwaway one-to-minute quick takes, but instead each are nearly several minutes each where all four panelists reminisce about each stage of Macho’s career with Mooney and Page both having pivotal on-hand accounts for how Savage was at that point backstage too. Page has detailed memories of his classic WCW rivalry with Randy and recounts a story I was all ears for about a voice mail he left for Macho on Thanksgiving. Hearing Bayley’s love for Randy was an interesting perspective to take in since she states she was not aware of him until his WCW years. Corey Graves’ passion for the 1993-as-hell Macho Man rap music video rubbed off on me as I never saw it before this collection and I will link to it here so you can have it forever imprinted into your mind as well.

Obviously I am not going to dissect each and every one of the 41 matches included here, but I will point out some highlights. In general, the quality of matches is fairly solid, and even though a fair amount of the first nine matches are in Macho’s early years with mostly quick, dominant encounters they were still a delight to watch his character evolve from coming out with a cape to adding in his vintage 80s bandana and ring robe and seeing his then-wife Miss Elizabeth join his side. Some early things that caught my eye were Macho’s first TV match in June of 1985 against Aldo Marino where the hype of Randy being the ‘hottest free agent’ attracted all of WWF’s managers to ringside to scout him in action. One of Jesse Ventura’s few WWF matches is here where he tags with Macho Man shortly before he succumbed to a career-ending injury not too long after signing with the WWF. I dug Savage’s first matches on here against formidable competition like former tag champ and Mark Henry manager, Tony Atlas and unearthing a high quality 1986 WWF match against the hidden gem of 80s WWF enhancement talent in one Scott McGhee. When it shifts into his Intercontinental title run, there is a good rematch included with Ricky Steamboat that had a red hot crowd and countless near falls and another good match against Steamboat where he teamed up with Honky Tonk Man against Steamboat and Hogan. His WWF Title run era features must-see WrestleMania-rematches against Ted Dibiase and Hulk Hogan.

Of all of Randy Savage’s flamboyant ring attires, the one I fondly remember the most was his over-the-top cowboy hat and full body attire complete with tassels. I had no idea until going through this collection that he started rocking that classic look midway through his two year run as the ‘Macho King’ with Queen Sherri by his side. The only notable match in this collection from that run is another WrestleMania-rematch with the mixed tag bout with Macho King and Sherri against Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire. There are nearly a dozen matches from Savage’s final few years in WWF after his reinstatement, but only three truly standout. One is a unique trios pairing that has Randy teaming with Piper and Jim Duggan against Ric Flair, Undertaker and Jake the Snake, while the other is another tag bout with Randy teaming with the Dead Man to take on Ric Flair and Berzerker. Seeing the chemistry between Savage and Undertaker was something special to say the least. Lastly, Savage has a heck of a bout with a post-Red Rooster, Terry Taylor in one of the better technical matches on the set. There are a few key WCW matches to point out in here from the eight included. One is where he is part of the teaming with the Hulkster against the Dungeon of Doom and hitting all the classic Mega Powers spots, including hitting an elbow on Hogan to wake him up after he succumbed to a sleeperhold. There is an awesome Nitro match on here against Ric Flair…which has a cruddy finish unfortunately, but everything else leading up to it is the best wrestling in this entire set. The most peculiar match on here is Savage wrestling on a C-tier weekend morning WCW show, {Pro} where he takes on Kurasawa and has Hulk Hogan by his side too in a strange twist. I am guessing Savage and Hogan must be tight with Kurasawa because these two were making huge money for limited dates in WCW and to have both of them appear in this weekend morning show match is a head scratcher…..it would be kind of like tuning in to Main Event now and seeing Brock Lesnar wrestling. The final match in the set was a surprisingly delightful schmoz of a mixed tag match with Savage and Madusa teaming up with Ric Flair and “Lil Naitch” himself, Charles Robinson! I expected the worst going in considering this was in 19990 when WCW was beginning its downward ratings spiral in its last couple years, but the four pull off a lot of entertaining spots and salvaged a heck of a performance.

Randy Savage Unreleased is a fairly strong compilation of matches and promos from Macho Man. I would say about a third of it is skippable, and there are a few teases of intriguing match-ups that wrapped up far too quick thanks to poor booking, like a WCW contest against Curt Hennig for example. I have no idea why there were two ho-hum matches against Mr. Hughes included either. That is almost to be expected of these ‘Unreleased’ collections, and seeing Savage’s character, moveset, attire and personality evolve from beginning to end is also fascinating in and of itself. I am glad we got a fair smattering of vintage Macho Man promos throughout his career, with his campaigning reinstatement speech and the aforementioned music video standing out the most of the bunch. Having a break from the 41 matches with the occasional promo and panel discussion segments are appreciated breathers from the action, and the panelists all bring a lot of classic Macho Man stories and memories to the table. This all adds up to Randy Savage Unreleased: The Unseen Matches of the Macho Man being a must-see for any Randy Savage aficionado.

Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Hulk Hogans Unreleased Collectors Series Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT: From Secret to Sensation NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge Shawn Michaels: My Journey Sting: Into the Light Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division TLC 2017 TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania III: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

#Wrestling #WWE #wwf #wcw #Randy Savage #miss elizabeth #sensational sherri #hulk hogan #ric flair #scott mcghee #Ricky Steamboat #corey graves #diamond dallas page #bayley #sean mooney #charles robinson

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