#I HAVE WANTED THIS SINCE MANIA 39

[luchorgasm]

Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion Sami Zayn ❤️❤️

[teamchasezwrites]

Wrestling Rant because holy crap some people make being a fan so damn hard

I swear trying to be a fan in this day and age of wrestling is hard

As I’ve come back in the show I realized there are wrestling fans and then there are character fans as in, “I like Roman and that’s it. I don’t care about anything else. Just Roman’s segments. Everyone else sucks and can’t wipe the dirt from the bottom of his shoe.” (Now I might offend because it’s gonna be his name being used in this rant but right now, it’s what’s got me peeved.)

Roman is no different than Hogan or Austin or The Rock. Even Cena. He’s just the *it* guy. Or he was. Now Cody is the that guy. It happens. Wrestlers lose popularity. They leave. A new guy comes up. The difference between Roman fans and Austin/Rock fans? The majority of them were wrestling fans. They were invested in the programming and not just Austin and The Rock. The show as a whole. Once again, you booed when they were bad. You cheered when they were the good guy. You booed Triple H when he was bad. You cheered when he was good. (And this is a hard concept for me to fathom right now. The cheering of heels. But that’s not this rant.)

My point is directed at the comments I’ve seen on my “For You” tab that I’m on a lot because I like talking wrestling and want to chat about it with people. (But I’ve learned no one on social media actually likes to talk wrestling.)

Cody made a comment on a podcast the other day about how The Rock has 2 more matches: him and Roman and holy shit did that set off Roman fans. “It’s YOUR fault we didn’t get Rock v Roman.” “You ruined it.” “Now you think you deserve a match after ruining Roman’s for your stupid little story??”

Hate to break it to you: Cody’s story is what drove a lot of wrestling the last couple of years. Especially since he lost at 39. Roman was holding the belt hostage and it was starting to wane. (Long title holds are never good TV and I will die on that hill.) it was “when will Roman lose?” “Will Cody finally win?” “Will he finally do it?” Cody’s story is the epitome of why the chase is better than the reign.

Now for The Rock v Roman match. Sometimes I think the online fans fantasy booked and then got mad. But seriously… Cody won the royal rumble. And you guys were just okay with not only Cody not getting a title match but just placed in a random match for Mania??? (Don’t lie, I see the bitching about Jey not being the main event but at least he got the title match.) That’s the whole point of the rumble. A title match. Rock v Roman wasn’t bigger. It was Cody and his quest/climb to win the belt.

Was it a work? Was it fake and we all fell for it? Was it really real? Who knows. It all depends on who you talk to. What nuances you pick at during someone’s comments. The fact is, if you wanted The Rock v Champion Roman Reigns. Then The Rock should have been in the Rumble or the Chamber. Think of the storyline. But who are we kidding? Rock would have John Cena’d that shit. Showed up for the rumble, lost, then bounced until the Chamber. Or showed up for the Rumble won, and then still bounced until a few weeks out of Mania.

People bitch about Cody “politicking” his way to this or that. But it’s exactly what Rock did. The fans were right to revolt. This dude comes in and thinks because of who he is, he gets to wrestle the main event at Mania FOR THE TITLE??? It wouldn’t have been a good match bc you know Rock wasn’t winning. He’s not a damn wrestler anymore. And we already know his Hollywood schedule wouldn’t have allowed him to be on the show with the belt.

If The Rock v Roman was to happen, then it should have happened right after Mania. Right after Roman lost. No belt on the line. Just the “head of the table” which is what that rivalry should be about or even the Ula Fala. Not a title. But you all saw what happened. Rock disappeared. (so did Roman but that’s another rant too.) he can’t commit at all when it comes to WWE. Hollywood comes first. He can’t carve out time to even put on a good feud. (Case in point: “I want your soul” and then he bounced. Like he was never there to begin with because nobody talks about why this stupid Cena heel turn even started.)

And damn right Cody deserves a match with Rock. He made his life a living hell in the build up to Mania last year and once again he decided to play wrestler this year and do the same…. For a moment anyway. You can’t see that out of all people, Cody deserves to face the Rock???

Rock v Roman has sailed. There is no Bloodline anymore. Roman is a truly a chief without a Tribe. What’s the point of the match? Blame Roman’s inability to show up. Blame the Rock just coming in once or twice to stir things up and bounce. But Cody didn’t ruin it.

Cody is not ruining wrestling. For the love of God, Cody is not a mid-carder. When Roman leaves, wrestling won’t crash and burn. Big guys leave all the time. Wrestling is just fine. It’s not the reason numbers are low or whatever the simps use as a way to say “see! Cody’s ruining wrestling!” Many reasons can contribute to this like the move to Netflix, the lack of decent storylines, the same matches over and over, most episodes since Survivor Series feeling like fillers, the lack of fucking wrestling on TV from their top talents (but that’s another rant.)

[wrestlingisfake]

The Myth of the Casual Fans

I've seen the argument that WWE needed to switch from Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes to Roman vs. The Rock, because the latter match is more appealing to "casual fans." I don't buy it.

First of all, who the hell are "casual fans"? Pro wrestling pundits always bring them up like right-wing US politicians talking about "real America." "Casual fans" don't read dirtsheets. "Casual fans" don't argue about wrestling minutiae on social media. ""Casual fans" haven't paid much attention since the Attitude Era. You can extend this line of reasoning ad absurdum until "casual fans" can't name any wrestlers except for Andre the Giant and Haystacks Calhoun. At some point you're just describing ex-fans, or dead fans.

Second, the goal of a pro wrestling promotion is not simply to expand the fan base, and appeal to the widest possible audience. The goal of a pro wrestling promotion is to draw money. You accomplish that goal by getting people hooked on your product. Drug dealers don't chase the "casual drug users" who can quit any time they want. Shitty mobile games don't target the "casual gamers" who won't spend thousands of dollars on upgrades. Casuals are only profitable insofar as you can convert some of them into addicts, or whales.

Now, WWE has spent the past two years using Cody's return to attract new fans (and maybe lure back some lapsed fans) to turn them into diehards who spend money on tickets and Cody shirts and goofy neck tattoos. This is good for business! They nearly lost those fans by beating Cody at Mania 39, but this "Finish the Story" slogan convinced them to stick with it. Rug-pulling those fans again is going to cost WWE money. This is bad for business.

The fantasy is that cutting Cody off at the knees, to make way for The Rock, will draw so many casual fans that it will totally offset the disgruntled Cody diehards. But how do you retain some of those casuals, and get them to spend money year-round? Rock is a 52-year-old movie star and can't wrestle every week, or even be on the show every month. So this new wave of casuals will need some other big star to latch onto whenever Dwayne's not around. Your choices are to spend years making a new guy, or rehab the guys you have, like Cody. Which means it's stupid to fuck over Cody in the first place!

[buttdawg]

Dwayne

If you can believe Twitter, everyone hates The Rock now. Twitter renamed itself X eight months ago, but the URL is still "twitter.com", so you can't always trust what you hear there.

Still, the impression I get is that WWE fans are upset about this week's TV, where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returned and basically usurped Cody Rhodes' WrestleMania 40 match with Roman Reigns. I didn't see this happen, so I don't know the exact details, but the whole thing sounds like a rumor, because fans have been talking about Roman/Rock for years, and they've been talking about Cody/Roman II ever since their last match at WrestleMania 39. Now, it seems like the stars have finally aligned for both matches, so WWE has to pick one or the other.

Some guy on Twitter posted a picture of Rock and Roman staring each other down, and asked users to describe the image in three words. My caption is "business as usual".

WWE's always had trouble making big decisions. In the final years of my viewership, I quit watching Raw and Smackdown because the shows never seemed to matter. Much of the airtime was spent haggling over the PPV matches and speculating over who would fight who. So I just started watching the PPV's only, since those decisions would already be made. Then the James Khahshoggi murder happened, and WWE had to decide whether to go forward with the 2018 Crown Jewel show. It took them three weeks to figure it out, and then they just did the show anyway. I canceled my WWE Network subscription and never looked back. Those who stuck around got to see Crown Jewel 2018, which absolutely sucked, so WWE ended up pleasing no one.

After Vince McMahon stepped down in 2022, there was a renewed optimism about WWE's product, which was dampened by Vince's return in early 2023, but there still seemed to be an improvement in morale. There was a lot of frustration over Cody vs. Roman at Mania 39, because it seemed like Cody was due to "finish the story", but Roman defeated him to retain his title. But at least WWE made a decision. They didn't do some bullshit double-DQ, or a no-contest, or have Hulk Hogan come out to win the title in an impromptu match, or send Seth Rollins out to make it a three-way. They just had Roman beat Cody. The end. Cody will have to try again next time.

That might have been the wrong call, but at least WWE made a call and stuck with it. Roman's record-breaking title reign is kind of incredible for modern WWE. Back when I was watching, everyone knew WWE wanted to book Roman as a top guy, but they kept getting in their own way, spoiling all of his triumphs in a vain effort to set up some bigger triumph that they could never quite get right. Now that's he's finally been established, I can appreciate WWE's reluctance to change the status quo. Roman represents stability.

But now it's starting to look like WWE has the same problem in the opposite direction. One of these days, someone needs to upset Roman to win his title, but they can't seem to decide who that person is, or when it should happen, or how it should happen.

The way I remember it, Rock vs. Roman was something WWE wanted to do for a while now, and it seemed like WrestleMania 39 was a good time to go for it, except the Rock couldn't make it so they had to shelve those plans. So Cody got the spot instead, and fans really got behind that idea. Maybe he should have won the title then, but you could argue that it builds to an even bigger rematch at WrestleMania 40 this way. And that seemed to be the idea, since he won the Royal Rumble. Except this year the Rock seems to be available, so here we are.

The dilemma here is that fans had a whole year to get invested in Cody's quest for a rematch, while the Rock is this super-megastar who only comes around once in a great while. He's 51, so if they don't do this Rock/Roman thing soon, they may never make it happen. Cody will still be around for a while, but it strains credibility to have him chase Roman for three years. It also doesn't make much sense for him to just pass up a title shot at WrestleMania when he has first dibs on it.

Instead, Cody seems to be pivoting to a match with Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship. This leads to speculation that he might win that match and try to unify the belts or something, but it says a lot that any of this is an option. Over the past twenty-two years, WWE has established two "brands" and two world titles. Sometimes they recombine them, only just just split them off again. These days there's even two nights of WrestleMania, so it shouldn't matter that Rock and Cody are kind of occupying the same spot. There's plenty of main event space for both of them.

And yet, the fans still appear unsatisfied. Cody was going after Roman specifically. He wanted his title. That was the way the story was presented, right until the Rock showed up and then Cody graciously stepped aside.

I think it's that stepping aside that ticks the fans off. It reminds me a lot of when Batista came back in 2014, and fans booed him out of the building because they wanted Daniel Bryan to win the title, not him. And WWE did the smart thing and worked Bryan into the match, but I'm not sure that would work here. In 2014, Batista won the Royal Rumble, and Bryan defeated Triple H to get into the main event. So they each had a claim to challenge for the title. But in 2024, Cody won the Royal Rumble, and he's the guy everyone wanted. What claim does the Rock have to any of this?

I mean, he's a big celebrity, sure, but there's a lot of fans who are too young to remember his heyday. They grew up with the Rock being this guy who comes out sometimes to beat up heels and lead the crowd in silly chants like "Kung Pao Bitch" or "Tofu Anus". Cody's actually on TV every week. I think WWE may have been so starstruck by the Rock that they failed to notice that their active roster has a greater rapport with the fans.

This could all work out in the end. I think the best bet would be to do some Double-Gold Double Dash thing like they did at WrestleKingdom in 2020. Do Rock/Roman and Cody/Seth at Night 1, and then do Cody/Roman in a unification match at Night 2. That ought to please everyone, and maybe WWE's going there, but they can't reveal i yet because the story just started.

But it says a lot to me that they invented all these extra shows and extra titles and extra events just to give themselves wiggle room, but it still feels like threading a needle every time. Everything has to be done a certain, exact way, or we have to scrap everything and wait another year to get it right.

Personally, I'd just have Cody beat Roman at Summerslam and get it over with. WrestleMania is overrated, and they run a dozen other PPV's with the same roster, so just do a big moment at one of them for a change. Not everything has to happen at WrestleMania.

[whowrotethenote]

𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬

Summary: It’s been months since the most memorable night of Alana’s young life and she’s promptly become one of the Tribal Chief’s regulars. The mystery of possibly being just one of many has her second guessing the entire arrangement. Follow Alana as she balances conforming to his schedule with trying to maintain her own.

Warnings: NSFW // Smutttt // Profanity // Age gap // Adultery // Slight angst

Word Count: 11.2k

A/N: I suck at summaries. Finally! Continuation of Biggest Fan. There is a slight time jump. Not too much plot, more so just getting acquainted with the characters, but trust me i’m building up for something later to come.

I wrote 35% of this with writer's block, so I'm not very confident in it. But, with all the love I've received for the first part, I didn't want y'all to wait any longer. Happy reading!

Inspo: Good For You x One of Your Girls by Selena Gomez x Lilly Rose Depp x The Weeknd

Disclaimer // Part One // Part Three // Biggest Fan Masterlist // Roman Reigns Masterlist // Join My Taglist // Main Masterlist

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Bzzz! Bzzz!

My phone buzzes violently on the desk and I nearly jump out of my skin to see what it is. Or who it is rather. Instead of the unknown number, it’s just Demi telling me to open the front door of our apartment since she forgot her key. I release all the breath I have, placing my forehead in both palms.

“Girl, get it together,” I tell myself before rising from the computer desk.

It’s been nearly five months since that night. Wrestle-mania 39. I would call it the best night of my life, but your girl has racked up on countless better nights.

Every time he’s in the city, he asks for me. We’ve established a routine of some sort. Demi calls it an assembly line. Like clockwork, I receive the text from Paul, telling me my Tribal Chief is requesting me, followed by an unknown number. He gives me a different number to call each time. Never call on your cell, Paul advised. So I make the call from the nearest payphone off the lively streets of New York. Doesn’t matter where I am—how far a payphone is—who I'm with. I make sure I make that call.

Paul gives me the details of when, where and how long. It’s never longer than a weekend and it’s always in some five star hotel, that I otherwise wouldn’t even be able to come in and use the bathroom in, without swiping my card. Everything is always discreet, swift and business-like. He comes and goes like a UFO. Like a thief in the night, he takes what he needs and moves on. For that entirely too brief period where’s he’s right in my space, hands on, with no distractions, it feels like forever for me. 

The contrast of my life versus when I'm with him is quite literally day and night. In my world I'm just Lana, the bio major who attends Columbia and makes dean’s list every semester. Shares an apartment with her best friend and spends her weekends volunteering, doing homework, and maybe going out to a bar or four if her friends can convince her it’s better than staying in and finishing that romance novel. A little sister, a daughter, a friend. But in his world I'm like his vixen, tailored by him to fit his desires. Powerful in the way that only sex and the advantage of reducing someone larger than life, like him, to a mess of sexual exhaustion and vulnerability can bring. The look in his orbs after he releases himself, it’s like I'm a genie who’s granted his every wish. I don’t want for anything. I don’t need anything. Every need, big or small, is met when I’m with him.

I don’t see how a couple can lose the spark and watch their sex life deteriorate. Every night was different. A new position. A new angle. A new location. I didn’t need drugs. I get high enough off him. But the come down is excruciating.

He is the single most exciting aspect of my life. I feel more powerful spending a weekend with him than I do in a month of my regular day to day life. It’s just not healthy. Looking forward to something like what we have set up.

It’s the end of August now. I haven’t seen him or heard from Paul since the beginning of last month. Forty-eight consecutive days of nothing. Straight radio silence. Every time the phones buzzes, I hope it’s Paul. 

Little to no appearances on Smackdown. Only reposts and promotions on social media. I feel like I might be losing my mind. It’s like a game of Where’s Waldo gone bad. Does any of it even really exist or is it all in my head?

Worst of all? I have no one to help carry this dilemma with…except Demi. I’ve upheld the parameters of the NDA, but this is Demi we’re talking about. That girl chose nursing when she needs to be working cold homicide cases instead. Nothing gets by her. After a while of watching me routinely disappear and reappear lighter on my feet, she connected the dots. No more “study sessions” with cute boys from class. Rejecting every sexy stranger’s game in bars. She could tell I was hooked off someone else. I don’t have any space for them anymore anyway. My life has become a constant cycle of the same priorities. School, work, book club, volunteering at the children’s hospital on Broadway, and him. But he’s been M.I.A.

“Okay!” Demi comes in with all her personality and a handful of plastic bags. “They didn’t have any more of that mango shit you like, but the lady was nice enough to give us extra naan.” She pulls a plastic container out with a sly grin. “And all the ice cream they had left since I came so close to closing.” The spices from the Indian cuisine traveling from the bags, remind me just how hungry I am, after getting lost in an assignment. 

The semester only started a week ago, and I'm already feeling the heat. Every syllabus is an assignment on its own. Deadlines and due dates to memorize, group projects I have no interest in being a part of, and unnecessarily long essays. I cannot wait until May when it's all over with for good. Demi and I are officially seniors now. Almost unrecognizable compared to the girls we were who literally collided into one another at orientation. Time is a scary concept. 

“And!” She pulls a paper bag and slides it off to reveal a bottle of our favorite cheap wine. XXL. “The best medicine for a funk. And before you get to lying and denying, I can smell it on you. So just smile and say, thank you Demi.” I accept the unglamorous styrofoam cup from Dollar General she hands me, filled with the wine to the brim. 

“Thank you, Demi.” I flash the first genuine smile I have in over a month. She makes this little life feel bigger than it really is. I take my food back to the desk where my laptop sits, while she gets comfortable on the bed, putting on Sex and The City for us to continue binging. 

Two episodes deep, two assignments down, and empty containers covering the desk, my phone buzzes obnoxiously again. I grab it eagerly and toss it back on the desk just as fast.

“Still nothing?”

I shake my head. “Just you, my mom and Canvas.”

“I mean, he’s not even really that good looking when you think about it.” I press my lips together to keep from laughing at her feeble attempt to make me feel better. “It’s just the hair…and the beard…and the lips…and the eyes…nose…tattoos…abs…”

And the dick. “This is gonna be a shock.” I remove my glasses and turn in the swivel desk chair toward where she’s laying. “But none of that is making me feel better.”

 “I could make you feel better if I knew exactly what was going on.” She sighs dramatically.

“Demi, I already told you. I signed an NDA.”

“Ugh, fine…” Its quiet for a while. The voices of Carrie Bradshaw and my keyboard clicks replace our conversation. “You can at least tell me how big it is,” she whines.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Aight, look.” I feel her arms wrap around my shoulders and her chin rests atop my curls. “I'm pretty sure the NDA said something along the lines of not disclosing anything verbally, right?” I stay silent not breaking the flow I had on the current discussion board. “So, did it say anything about nonverbal expression?”

My fingers slow down against my will, thinking back to the NDA. “Watch out,” I instruct. She releases me and I stand up, phone in hand, pulling up the electronic copy Paul sent later that day of the agreement. I scroll until I find the line I recall previously reading. 

All information disclosed by the Disclosing Party to the Receiving Party, including but not limited to anything discussed, seen, participated in, shared, or heard is to be expressed to any other party outside of Agreement, with the exception of Legal consultation.

“It…it doesn’t say. It just uses the word expression. It's not specific to verbal or nonverbal expression.”

“So, once again, how big is it?” The dimples decorating her cheeks, pierce her deeper than I ever seen before. Fucking freak. 

A burning rises to every layer of my skin at the flashbacks I’ve survived off. I pick up the Poland Spring water bottle from the desk and hold it up. I close my eyes, squeezing it, trying to get accustomed to the girth, reliving the way he fit into my hand. Opening my eyes, I hold it up eye level to compare to my face. Demi’s eyes, wide like a fish, are right behind the bottle I have in mid air. She’s silent, watching my every move. I think I can hear her breathing.

Raising my brows up high, I hold the bottle even closer to her face for emphasis. 

“Bullshit!”

Friday, August 25, 2023

The clock on the wall reads 11:28. My professor for this film studies elective is rambling about the intricacies and storytelling surrounding Pulp Fiction, but I can’t hear a thing she’s saying. I stopped listening a good five minutes ago. The outside world around me warping into a distant memory since my phone buzzed and it read WiseMan.

Your Tribal Chief will be in the city next week. He’s asking for you. 9542849437

My left leg bounces violently under the extended lecture hall desk. Eyes shifting back and forth from the clock, to my professor, and back to the clock again. The red pointer representing the seconds, ticks and ticks. I'm up and out of my seat before it even rounds back to the number twelve. 

I wish I can say I'm not pressed, but the speed I pick up, and the effort I put into flagging the taxi down to get to the nearest payphone, says otherwise. In New York, theres no such thing as rush hour. Every hour is rush hour. The city is always alive and moving. Streets always busy and overcrowded. I know this, but the knowledge does nothing to soothe the irritation rushing through me as we sit in traffic. Horns honking redundantly, cause there is nowhere to even go. 

I pull a loose twenty dollar bill from my Coach purse and throw it aimlessly to his passenger seat before hopping out to travel on foot. Brushing past people, almost tripping twice and having to apologize countless times, I finally spot an open pay phone on the third block from where I started. A rarity, now that everything is so tech savvy. Trying to find a traditional pay phone is like SZA trying to find the right key performing live.

“Ugh.” I stick my tongue out, wiping the phone down. Only God knows whose hands it's been in. The things I’ve done for this man.

“Heyman,” his powerful voice barrels through the receiver.

“You rang?” I greet Paul with little to no enthusiasm. He’s been serving as sort of a liaison for the whole ordeal. I never communicate directly with him until I see him in person. Even then, the Wiseman and I have better conversations. The only time he and I really exchange words is when we’re naked. 

“I'm sure you’ve read the text, Lana.”

“Yeah. There were no details in it though.”

“That’s because I thought it’d be more productive to relay them in real time.”

“Haven’t heard from you in a while. Almost thought we weren’t friends anymore,” I say only half joking, my attention shifting to all the pedestrians walking by dangerously close. Damn, I should’ve chosen a quieter block. “I saw he came to the city a couple weeks ago. Thought i’d hear from you then. I guess not.” I ran a finger over my french tip, cringing at how desperate I must sound.

“Your Tribal Chief had other matters to tend to.”

“Is he okay?” I press. I know he’s had health issues in the past. Jesus, Lana. I’ve been salty for weeks and whole time the man’s health is compromised.

“He’s fine. Just a very busy man, is all.” Sympathy gone. With how vague Paul is being, I'm already knowing. Whatever other matters he has set up in the city, must’ve won the roulette for his time the last visit. I wonder if any of them are waiting by the phone like my dumbass.

“I'm sure he is.” I laugh artificially, rolling my eyes. I plant the payphone between my ear and shoulder to dig in my pockets, granting the homeless man the rest of my change.

“He’ll be around by Monday.”  

“Which hotel?”

“No hotel. You’ll be staying in his beach-house in the East Hamptons.” 

My eyebrows shoot up, prompting me to squint. “He has a a house in the Hamptons?”

“He’s renting. I'm friends with the owner.” God, I wish Demi and I could debrief about this. “Anyway, he’ll need you available for the whole week.”

“A week?” I force a smile at the lady with her two kids walking by after my outburst. Shoving the dirty payphone closer to my ear, I try to speak as low as possible without whispering.  “Look, I can’t just disappear and go off the grid for a whole week. I have a life—friends— a family. People that will be looking for me if I don’t answer the phone for an entire week.”

“You’re a smart girl, Lana. I'm sure you can have someone pose as you for a week, if needed.”

“I work. I go to school. I go to work so I can stay in school.” I scoff. “Financial aid is not as helpful as people think. I volunteer at a children’s hospital on weekends— I have a lot going on.” I muzzle myself once I realize I am rambling. Paul couldn’t care less about the day to day of a broke college student living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. 

“It’s just a week.”

“Just a week, can be the reason I don’t make rent or miss a payment for my tuition.”

“Alana—”

“I can’t do it. I'm sorry. It's not like it's such an inconvenience to him. I'm sure he can find another matter to take my place, yeah?” I don’t mean to take my frustrations out on Paul. None of it is his fault. I don’t even know where my dissatisfaction is stemming from. Jealousy? The implications of having to live check to check? The hustle just to keep up and stay afloat, which leaves little to no time for ventures of passion? The fact that he could disappear for a month, pop back up, and still expect me to drop everything and come running?

There’s a long pause on the other side.

“You attend Columbia, correct?” He finally asks.

“I do.” I raise an eyebrow trying to predict what he’s getting at, but there’s another pause. I almost call his name to make sure he’s still on the line.

“Stay by the phone. I’ll be in touch.”

“Yeah, sure.” I hang the phone and shake my head. There’s really nothing else to discuss. An uneasy pit forms in my stomach. This just might be the end. It was fun, passionate, and reckless while it lasted. An adventure I simply have to take to the grave.

Chaotically, balancing my phone between my ear and shoulder, while jogging down the steps after a swift exit from my last class before the weekend starts, I sift through my purse ensuring I didn’t leave my keys behind. A small chuckle escapes me, listening to my mom complain about the new man she’s snagged. Or should I say new boy seeing as he is only four years older than I am. Newly divorced, she’s like a sugar-deprived kid in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. As lifeless and tainted as her and my father’s marriage had become, she was better off just sitting in her dissatisfaction, and praying he found the will to bring some type of spark back. She’s learning, rather quickly, just how rotten the current dating pool is, regardless of age. 

“I told you to leave those young boys alone. At least the older ones come with money in their hand.” I add fuel to her fire for my own amusement, grin diminishing after a buzz of my phone urges me to remove it from my ear altogether. An incoming email from the company that issues refund checks through my school’s bursar’s office has me halting in the middle of the traffic on the steps.

“Ma, I'm gonna call you back.” I don’t even wait for her to respond before I end the call and click the notification to reveal the full email. “The fuck?” I mumble.

Dear Alana,

We hope this message finds you well. We are writing to inform you that a refund check has been issued for your tuition payment at Columbia University for the Fall 2023-2024 Academic School Year. Your refund should be processed within 1-2 business days…

Rereading the email twice over, I log into my student account. They must’ve emailed the wrong student. Last time I checked, with the payment rate they gave me, I’d be lucky to pay my bill off by graduation. When the financial account overview page finally loads, the background chatter from groups of students walking by me, might as well be nonexistent. I must be dreaming.

$23,442.00

($35,000.00)

—

($11,558.00)

My heartbeat picks up speed, nearly bursting out of my chest. Before I know it, my feet, motivated by my fight or flight, carries me to the other side of campus where the bursar’s office is, just ten minutes before their close.

“No, it's correct. All the information is up to date.” The lady working the desk squints, leaning into the desktop screen, despite her glasses already being thicker than a snicker.

“W-what do you mean it's correct?” I land my elbows on the counter leaning, unable to stand up straight. “It can’t be. School just started. I literally only made one payment outside of financial aid.” I need answers and I need them fast. The rate she’s clicking and mindlessly chewing the gum in her mouth, is pissing me off more than it should.

“From what I can see sweetheart, someone made a donation earlier today. A…Paul Heyman?” After gaping at her for a minute too long, I run the butt of my palms over my forehead and down my curls, growing even weaker in the knees. Am I in a twilight zone?

“Does that name sound familiar to you?” I barely hear her. Half of me is drowning in a panic attack. “Honey, people make anonymous donations to students all the time. At random even just to get tax benefits. I wouldn’t question it.” I pick my head back up, staring blankly at her face thats now painted with concern, detailed all in the wrinkles of her brows. “Even if this Paul Heyman donated to the wrong student, it's already been processed by the school, so he cant retract it.”

The door slams behind me and I waste no time calling the number. Payphone be damned.

It’s rings and rings, so I hang up and call back twice. Anxiety rising to a height that just won’t allow me stand still, so I pace in the small space of our studio apartment that we’ve forced into a two bedroom.

“I thought I told you never to call this number,” his thick accent breaks through my phone.

“Yeah, I don’t care.” I grab a fistful of my own curls. “I just left my bursar’s office because I got an email about a refund check when I still owed a balance. I get there, just for them to tell me someone made a donation?” I wait as I hear a bunch of voices on the other end of the line. All but his. “A Paul Heyman?!”

Theres more commotion in his background. I suck my teeth still pacing, still waiting for some type of explanation.

It's silent now. All the background chatter gone. “You told me you had to work to pay off your student bill. Now you don’t. Bills paid off. And I left something extra on the top. Problem solved.”

“Okay, why so much though? An eleven thousand dollar refund check?” My face screws up as if he can see me. I'm straddling the fence between bewilderment and passing out.

“That’s for rent. You mentioned before you had a roommate? I'm sure you’ll need your half of the rent after missing a week of work. Anything else you might be in need of. For preparation, as well.”

“Prepar—” I'm interrupted by the sound of Demi’s keys fooling with the golden knob of our front door.

“This fucking door, man!” She complains.

I breeze to the bathroom and lock myself in it, sitting on the closed toiled seat.

“Preparation?” I repeat in a low tone, turning the faucet to run the sink water.

A hearty laugh passes through the phone. “Do I really need to spell it out?”

“Right.” My lady parts already hurt from the wax to come. I grew up a daddy’s girl, student-athlete, with an older brother. Girl maintenance is not something I particularly look forward to. Sitting in some stylist’s chair, waiting my turn at the nail salon, or falling asleep on the lash tech’s table, is all so mundane to me. It feels more like work than maintenance. Whoever said beauty is pain must’ve been a philosophical genius.

“Lana, it's a gift. Not something to stress over. Usually people say thank you after receiving a lump-some of money.”

“Thank you?”

“Is something wrong?”

“Well— it's just, I can’t imagine you or anyone really, just donating thirty-five thousand dollars out the kindness of their heart.”

While Paul and I have spent a significant amount of time communicating, when I referred to him as a friend earlier it was as a joke. He’s more like that uncle that talks your head off at every barbecue, but you allow it cause he gives you money.

“My name was on the check, but make no mistake, it’s a gift from your Tribal Chief. He told me to take what I needed. He’ll be expecting you…”

“Lana?” I hear Demi call out.

“I gotta go.” I hang up. Opening the door, battery draining from all the emotions that I’ve went through in a matter of thirty minutes, I'm met with Demi.

“What’s wrong?” She immediately probes, doe eyes examining my face.

This weight is not something to carry alone. Non-verbal. I hold my phone out to her after finding my student account page again.

“What am I looking at?” I watch as her eyes scan over the screen and I can see the exact moment she makes sense of the numbers. “Oh my god! Did they give you another grant? Where did this money come from?”

I take one step back as we stare at each other in silence. My hands go up, opening, closing—grasping for anything. I shake my head, not knowing how to say it without saying it. The printed clauses of the NDA silencing me.

Raising one finger in the air, haughtily, I mimic the culprit.  

“Get the fuck out of here.” Her arms drop at her sides as she looks at me like she’s waiting for me to say it’s a prank. “He’s a generous Tribal Chief!” She erupts into a fit of laughter and I have to walk away.

“It’s not funny, Demi. I'm giving it back.”

“Wha—Giving it back?!” She jumps in my path, causing us both to stumble a bit.

“Demi, I can’t keep this. That’s a lot of money.”

“Girl, he’s Roman fucking Reigns. That’s probably nothing to him. Like paying off a fucking parking ticket or something!” She waves her small hand about. 

“So what?” I cross my arms. “It makes me feel so needy—”

“Girl, we need that money!” She scoffs looking at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.

“It just doesn’t feel right, you know? The whole situation is already fucked up as is. I'm sorry Demi, but I can’t accept this.” I make a step to get past her but she side steps me again. 

“Alright, alright,” two small hands come up to my chest. “Let’s just think about this for a second, okay? I’ve been watching you practically rearrange your whole life for this nigga. When he’s in town, you drop everything. This money,” she holds my phone up, “is the least he can do. I don’t understand how he’s just now thinking about compensation?”

“It’s not giving pimp-whore?” Reimbursement just makes it less intimate. Less special. It already felt transactional enough.

She grins wide placing hands on my shoulders. “You can’t think about it like that. I always tell you. Perspective is the cheat code to life. He’s not your pimp. He’s your sugar daddy…your sugar chief.” Her upper cheeks dance, with the tightening of her lips, fighting a laugh.

“You are such a geek.” I finally make a path around her, not being able to hold my own laugh in.

“He’s been getting his fair share of the deal. I think it’s time you start.”

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Need confirmation that you will be accompanying Your Tribal Chief. There’s been a slight change of plans. Car will be picking you up later today.

Hovering thumbs over the keyboard, I lock the phone and hide it in the back pocket of my snug scrub bottoms, just for it to buzz again. I don’t bother retrieving it. I already know it's Paul. 

Here I was, feigning for his text just days ago, and now I am avoiding him like I owe him money. I never gave him  a definitive answer on Friday. Resistance stirred in me before because of my demanding schedule not being able to catch up with his, plus the slight confirmation that I am just in fact, one of many. And yeah, he’s solved the issue of missing work, but that donation has changed everything.

Every couple of hours, I check the negative balance on my student account, thinking he’ll just take it back and make it easy for me. But every time it remains. Negative eleven thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight fucking dollars. I don’t think I’ve ever had more than three thousand in my personal bank account at once. It's all so overwhelming. The money. The long periods without hearing from Paul or seeing him. The whole routine and all the precautions just to get alone with him. All of it.

So much has changed since that first night. If you would’ve told me when I walked in the entrance of that arena, that this is where I would end up, I’d tell you to put the crack pipe down. It doesn’t even matter that I've signed the NDA. Who the hell would believe any of this, anyway? 

“And then Jey—he told Jimmy to come to him. Like he was ready to hug him, b-but then—boom! He hit him with a Super-kick!” My little warrior, Jaylen, is so kind to recap the current events of the Bloodline story, since I informed him I haven’t had much time to watch Smackdown this past month. Truth is, I couldn’t deal with the possibility of seeing him. 

Based on Jaylen’s theatrical reinterpretation, it sounds like the Bloodline has officially imploded. Jey is M.I.A, at odds with his twin, and to no shock Roman is still stuck in his ways even after losing his right-hand man.

“Oh, read the room,” Demi says with a frown from where she sits on the window sill.

“What does that mean?” His innocent eyes look for answers within me.

“Don’t worry about her,” I snicker.

“Jey says he’s out the Bloodline. They’re supposed to be family. What are his kids supposed to do?” Not having the heart to tell the kid the difference in Kayfabe and real life, I just nod. 

“It gets like that with family sometimes, kid.” Demi adds, earning another wrinkle of his eyebrows to her.

I call Jaylen, like the rest of the kids here, a warrior because they never let their current circumstance dictate their attitude towards life and the people in it. A lesson and concept it seems almost impossible to grasp as an adult. Even with stage three spinal cancer, and no mobility in the lower half of his young body, he still greets me with the most radiant smile every weekend. Somehow transferring all his beaming energy to me. Regardless of what kind of day or week I had, I leave it at the door of the hospital. The energy these kids share with me has no space for strife anyway. What they’re dealing with is far worse. And if they could plant a smile on their face, then damn it, so could I.

“Oh my god—how could I forget! Jey—“ As a result of his adolescent excitement, the bed pan full of his piss in my hand, slips due to his mindless hand movements. I catch it at the last second, but my scrub top already takes a nasty soaking.

“Oh no,” I whine, shaking my hand out that entered the pan from catching it. 

“Oh! I'm so sorry, La La! I didn’t mean to.”

“Ugh, I know.” Fighting the frown that’s forcing its way through, I shoot him a counterfeit smile.

“Today is your lucky day. I left that extra pair of scrubs in the locker room.”

“You’ll be good with him?”

She hops down releasing a breath. “Of course. Jaylen and I are besties, right?” It seems Demi is always speaking a foreign language to him. Confusion washes over his small face again.

Laughing to myself I retreat to the long hallway. Following protocol, I wash and sanitize myself, dump the scrubs and change. I stop at the nursing station not too far from Jaylen’s room to report the incident. Paperwork is a pain in every healthcare worker’s ass.

In the middle of writing down how I came to have a shirt full of piss, a group of the staff merging by the elevators catch my attention. I have to do a double take because the sight unfolding before me makes my jaw go slack. What the fuck is even happening this week?

Without even thinking too hard about it, I drop down behind the nurse’s station, under the desk. “Fuck,” I mutter to myself. “Fuck—fuck, fuck!” I shriek and whisper all at once. 

The sounds of sneakers squeaking against the linoleum flooring, signaling more staff being drawn in that direction, lets me know I am in fact not seeing shit. Which is the biggest let down. Cutting my panic attack short, Jaylen rolls right by me with that beaming smile. Demi not too far behind him, unaware on her phone.

“Lana, what is going on? Bitch, did you fall?”

“Shhh,” I aggressively snap, pushing another finger against my lips. I take hold of her wrist, tugging her down behind the desk with me.

“Wh—girl!” In horror and confusion she’s eye level now. An attempt to shoot back up has me pulling her back with even more force than before.

“Shhh—shut up!” I plant a hand over her mouth, which she removes immediately. 

“Why are we whispering? And why are we on the damn floor right now?” Her face balls up.

“He’s here.”

“Who’s here?”

I bury my face in my hands, afraid to utter his name like he’ll pop up on command like Candyman. “You acting crazy—” Another uniform array of gasps and excitement draws her attention. She lifts up just enough to see about all the commotion. “Holy shi—”

“Demi, please!” In a panic, I try to yell in a hushed tone. She erupts into a fit of laughter, landing on her ass after I drag her down to the floor with me for the third time.

“Oh my god. Bitch, is he here for you?” Her mouth falls open.

I peak just enough to see over the desk, my curly fro giving me away to anyone paying close enough attention. Amidst the growing crowd, he stands in all his six foot three lure. Shaking hands with the nurses and doctors, hugging children, handing out high-fives with the most diplomatic grin spreading across his chiseled features. You would’ve thought this man was the president.

“He can’t be,” I whisper, sitting back down on my butt. “He comes to hospitals all the time. For the kids.”

“On a Sunday in New York?” Her nose crinkles. “Miss Tonia just came in the room and told us that we had a guest. Said Jaylen did not wanna miss this. Bitch, she didn’t say a Samoan sex symbol was out here!”

I peak up over the desk again. There he stands, in all black, with his hair slicked back. Permanent tan, accentuating the cuts in his arms, hugged by the short sleeved Nike tee. His smile is bright as he crouches down to talk to one of the kids. Damn, he looks so good. I look down at the dark blue scrubs and scuffed crocs on me. Day four curls. He couldn’t have shown up on a worse day. 

“Wait, why am I hiding? He didn’t have his dick in my mouth.” Without warning Demi springs up strutting towards the crowd, but not before she sticks her tongue out back at me. Fucking, bitch.

“Lana, baby whats wrong? Did you fall?” Miss Tonia’s lively voice carries above me.

“Nothing,” I express shooting up before she draws more attention to us. “Nothing, I thought I had dropped my pen. I’ll just get another one.”

“You see who’s here?” She leans in wide eyes, grin growing mischievously. “Girl, his team called the hospital an hour ago, saying he wanted to do a surprise meet and come see the kids. Y’all showed me his picture some months ago. He’s so much bigger in person. Prettier too.” 

Dumfounded, I just nod, inching behind her desk to make myself as small as possible. “La La! Look!” Jaylen’s small voice has me wincing like he pulled a strand of curly hair. Miss Tonia eyes me, like she’s searching for the source of my discomfort. 

Turning to the sound of his call, I make a silent prayer that falls on death ears. I find Jaylen, planted next to none other than the Tribal Chief, waiting for him to finish signing something. Eagerly pointing two fingers up, it catches his attention, as he follows the kid’s gaze, right on me. What seems like an eternity passes as time stills. Similar to how it did the first time our eyes ever met. Right in the arena, surrounded by the screams and elated crowd. I heard none of it. And even now, I can’t hear anything, save the sound of my own blood pumping. The manner in which he licks those lush lips, has me averting my gaze immediately, searching for the paperwork I was previously trying to fill out before the madness. 

Twenty minutes and then thirty goes by and I haven’t even attempted to move from this spot. Searching for anything to busy myself, I come to a dead end. Letting the stack of papers in my hand hit the desk a few times to straighten them out, I scan the room just to gauge where he is and see if it's possible to make an escape.

He steals another look in my direction, not even trying to hide it, as he takes his time outlining every part of me, from literally head to toe. Smoothing his mustache and nodding to whatever the father of one our patients is animatedly relaying to him.

Zeroing back in on the paperwork in my hands, I start to fuck up after making that same mistake of looking up for just a second and catching his dark eyes on me. I can’t help it. They’re like magnets. I can feel the intensity of them even with my head down. I begged Miss Tonia to let me make another rounding so I won’t have to be out here, but she insists I take on administrative work instead, since majority of the kids are out here to meet Roman, anyway.

On cue, Demi stalks over again with a goofy smile planted on her round face. “What’s wrong, Lana? You don’t wanna meet our Tribal Chief?”

I tap her on the head with the paper stack, before leaning in. “I mean, this is just one floor. How long does he plan on staying up here?”

“I don’t know but he’s getting real comfortable,” she nods to where he sits to take pictures. 

Sighing, I lean an elbow on the countertop, rubbing my head. “I actually can’t believe my life.”

“I can’t believe it either. And to think I was going to call out this morning.”

“I'm about to just fake a sickness and make a run for it. Like, why today? Look at me.” I wave two hands up and down.

“Girl, he’s seen your butthole. I'm sure he can manage the scrubs and beat up crocs.”

“Let me introduce you to some of our staff,” I freeze up hearing Miss Tonia’s jubilant voice. Both of our eyes spread like owls. Oh my god. “You’ve already met Megan, our Charge Nurse for today.” She lists off names, starting furthest from where Demi and I stand, going down the line. With every hand he shakes—every name that rolls off her cranberry gloss stained lips, my heart sinks deeper in its journey to my ass.

“And these are our college students. They volunteer with us on the weekends as part of their degree program.” His eyes flicker to me again and I have to avert my gaze to my crocs as heat ensues. “Dion,” Tonia points out.

“How you doing, man?” The proximity of the bass in his voice has my head shooting back up, to catch him bump fists with Dion, then inching down with Tonia right in front of Demi and I. 

“These are our seniors. Demi.”

I bite into my bottom lip, losing the battle with the laugh that threatens to escape, upon witnessing Demi’s tongue rest on the inside of her cheek. This shouldn’t be funny, but this is us. Always finding ourselves knee deep in the most satire and ridiculous of situations. All you can do is laugh.

“So nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to come see the kids.” I don’t miss the elevation in her voice as she says kids, and the crinkle forming between his brows through his smile, lets me know he didn’t either. I reach behind to pinch her butt.

My prayers are answered when the phone rings closest to me. I reach beyond at the speed of light to pick it up. 

Inching close to an hour since his untimely arrival and I had successfully dodged every opportunity to be in his orbit. Wherever he migrated, I slowly but surely made my way to the opposite side of the room. I think I'm in the clear as I see the few people he entered with huddle by the elevators. That is until I feel a dominating presence loom over me. His shadow is what I see first. And then I smell him. Fresh and all man. My breath catches in my throat, as swallowing feels like drinking fire. I don’t look right away, but when I do, I can say I do not regret it. How does he look good from any angle?

Licking his lips with both hands planted in his joggers, he scans the room stopping dangerously close to me. I'm right at his exceptionally large, ink printed bicep. That fresh, manly musk invading my senses. My heart picks up pace thinking of how it's all I can smell when he’s on top of me sweating and grunting.

“I’ll see you tonight?” He asks in a low tone, never even looking my way. 

I look up at him, paralyzed in place. Every time he talks to me, I have to fight the urge to point at myself to make sure he means to address me. I'm still not used to it. My mouth opens to respond, but I get distracted watching his Adam’s  apple move up and down from swallowing. 

He waves a large hand, flashing that million-dollar smile to a kid across the room. He squints down at me. “Y-yeah,” I finally confirm. Since Friday afternoon, I bounced between not taking the money and putting a stop to the whole ordeal or accepting it and packing for the week. All it took was for him to ask me directly and I’ve made a decision. Who could say no to him?

Adverting his gaze back to the room behind me, he nods. A firm but gentle hand on my mid section steals all the air from my lungs. He pats twice and steps away from me. “Thank you everybody! Be back soon.” 

Him and his entourage make a swift exit. Just like that, he’s gone, as if he didn’t just leave me leaking. One look, one question, and one touch. Thats all it took.

I lived on the east coast my entire life and never been to the Hamptons. This place is the pinnacle of wealth. A New York gem. Straight Gossip Girl, upper east side, my dad is into stocks and owns a yacht, type of luxury. Even if myself and my closest friends rubbed our pennies together, we’d probably only be able to afford a three day stay in a BNB. If that.

Ogling at every beach house we pass through the tinted window of the Suburban, I hear the hearty laugh of the driver. “Are you from the city, miss?”

“Jersey,” I answer. 

“Close enough. You’ve never been to the Hamptons?” I catch his reflection awaiting my answer in the rearview. 

“Nope.”

“I recommend Seventy-five Main before you leave. It's a little further south, but trust me it's worth the drive.” I nod back, knowing I most likely won’t be leaving whatever residence he drops me. We don’t go out in public.

“No way,” I mutter getting a clear view, and I do mean clear view of the beach house he stops at, miles away from the last one we saw. The windows are massive, giving insight to the entire house. I can see the modern set up of the dining room and the kitchen area not too far back under the grand yellow lighting. 

“Here we are,” I barely hear him, in a state of awe. Sliding out of the seat after he rounds the truck to open it, I cast about walking forward to see the beach stretching back behind the one-story estate. 

“Here you go, ma’am.” He places the suitcase by me on the steps.

“Oh! Here you go.” I reach in my back pocket for my wallet, but he stops me.

“Believe me, I’ve already been compensated well. Enjoy your stay!” He skips down the stone steps adorned with lights and trees on either side. 

The inside is even prettier. Craning my neck to analyze the black chandelier piece, I shake my head in disappointment of not being able to take a picture. I left my phone with Demi just minutes before the driver picked me up, making her promise to respond to every single text and no phone calls. 

I glide my fingertips over the marble statement piece in the corner of the living room. Two faceless figures, a man and a woman maybe, conformed into each other's embrace. My brother would love this. He’s studying historical art in some school in LA.

Jumping, I hold a hand to my heart. The loud ringing of a phone blasts through the entire house. Trying to remember where I saw a house phone, I jog to follow the source of the noise. I find it hanging in the hall by the kitchen. I hesitate. This isn’t my house, but only a select few can be calling. I unhook it anyway, holding it to my ear allowing the other person to speak first. 

“You all settled in?” A familiar deep tenor inquires. My heart skips a beat. 

“Yes.”

“I left something for you on the bed. The fridge is full. Do you need anything while I'm out?” He speaks like a parent reading off a list to their child while they’re away for the weekend. 

“No, I think I'm good.” Butterflies attack my insides. He has the sexiest voice on the phone. 

“Alright.” I hear a few voices in his background. “I probably won’t be done here until late. Take a nap if you have to.” 

I nod and screw my face up at myself. He can’t see you, dickhead. “Okay.” 

“Okay,” he says and the line goes dead. 

I mindlessly pace the halls, spinning in a circle under the grand lights of the foyer. It's only six o’clock. What the hell am I meant to do, all alone, with no phone, until he comes?

Padding deeper into the house, I find the master bedroom. Bright, modern and as pristine as the rest of the residence. The walk-in has to be the same size as our studio apartment. The connecting bathroom is no better. Bright lights, perfect for flicks. Stand in, see through shower with stone-like interior. A space fit for the elite and hard-working.

Backtracking from where I started, I exit the bathroom back into the bedroom. On the cream comforter, waiting for me is a black gift bag that looks expensive in its own right, with a pastel pink bow tied to the handle.

Pulling out pink wrapping paper, I dig inside and my eyebrows shoot up at the lace balconette bra I hook onto my index fingers by the straps. I peak in the bag to see more lace, assuming there must be matching bottoms. I never wear lingerie, let alone lace anything. Never had a reason to. The most boys get from me is the large t-shirt and panties combo. Clothes hang off me, straight Adam Sandler style, on a daily basis from and to classes. Sweatsuits and baggy cargos is what you’ll find rummaging through my closet back home.

I finger the tag thats emblemed with the D&G tag I recognize as Dolce and Gabbana, above the three figure total—

“Demi is gonna gag at this shit.” I chuckle in disbelief, prepared to bring the souvenir back just for her.

Staring back at my reflection, under the luminous lighting of the master bathroom, I experience a severe case of imposter syndrome. Here I am, on a random Monday in August, in a beach house planted in the heart of the East Hamptons. My signature, honey-highlighted, curly hair, blown out, late nineties supermodel style. Thousand dollar lingerie on, about to be accompanied by the face of WWE. I don’t recognize myself. It feels like I'm living somebody else’s life. This is what I meant when I said existing in his world versus my own is the difference in night and day. 

I spent the rest of daylight just getting acquainted with the house, seeing as I’ll be here until Sunday. I walked along  the Atlantic, that was a good distance back, as the sun set against the waves with a pinkish tint. 

After damn near an entire season of The Nanny reruns, the clock reads one fifty-six, when I hear the click of the front door. His heavy steps get louder the closer he gets, triggering me to sit up and adjust the straps and cups of the mesh bra.

I control my breathing. Useless, as he takes it away every time I see him. Our eyes lock instantly as he rounds the corner into the master. Searching for the satisfaction, I find it in the way just one dark brow raises and he folds his lips in to lick them. After his eyes bounce over my body, he reaches my eyes again. He always looks like he can see straight to my most inner thoughts. 

The lust in the air is suffocating as we both sit and bathe in it.

“Stand up. Let me see you."

I obey, dropping the matching robe, letting it fall on the bed behind me. Every second that passes, I get more antsy under his intense stare. When he stalks forward, the blood in my veins ignite. Every large step closer, I expect him to stop but he keeps coming until he’s towering over me. A cold and strong hand grips my waist flush to his hard body, generating a small gasp from me. His eyes flicker down to my titties, which I’ve picked up are his favorite part of me. 

I anticipate the hand inching up to cup one inside the bra, but he passes it, grazing my stiff nipple, until he reaches my collarbone. My eyes follow his fixation, finding my gold Lana name plate. The tips of his fingers run over it. The epiphany that this is the first time he’s probably seeing my name hits me. He probably didn’t even bother reading the other signature on the NDA.

Something foreign to me flashes across his brown eyes, but it's gone just as quick. Lust taking its rightful place back.

“Where do you want me?” I get high off the look in his brown orbs as he surveys my entire body, similar to how I inspected the sculpture in the family room earlier. Raising my confidence to an all time high. He hasn’t even laid a finger on me. Only his eyes, but my whole body is burning with the fever of lust. Fucking feral. 

“The shower,” he informs, using one hand to bring his black tee over his head. If I wasn’t already so hot and bothered, the sight of his sturdy, powerhouse of a body definitely would’ve got the job done. The flexing of his pecks. The way his fibrous arms look like they can break me in half. 

I reach behind me to unstrap the bra but he stops me. “Keep it on for me.”

Demi’s hard work is a distant memory, after he pulls me into the rainfall of the shower after him. After sharing a kiss, long anticipated since the last time I seen him, and as steamy as the shower we stand in, my face is pressing flush against the stone wall. 

Yanking the bra down, his fingers roll over and rub against the hard peak of my left nipple, while a warm thick tongue makes a trail from the base of my neck, up and up to my side burn. Nothing but heavy breaths and whimpers leave me. I squirm, tightening my hold on his wrist, while sliding his thickness around on my ass. A smile tugs at my mouth upon feeling his spread on the side of my face. His personality shines through whenever we fuck. A playful and teasing nature about him thats not captured on TV.

“Are you on anything?”

“Huh?” I break the lust-filled daze I'm in to try and comprehend what he means, but the only brain cell left is focusing on the feel of his rough hands exploring me.

“The pill? Are you taking anything?” I can hear the urgency in his husky voice.

“Um—I am. Yeah.” It's only a half truth. I never got to pick up my latest prescription since his popping up at my job and soliciting an answer. He really threw a wrench in my routine with this.

The question can only be the prelude to one thing. And before I can come to terms with it, he’s turning me to face him, wrapping my legs around his waist. The material of the lace thong, tight on my hip as he pulls it to the side to gain access.

Steadying himself and bracing for impact, a palm as large as my head plants itself to the left of me against the stone tiles, while a sturdy arm wraps around my back, pulling me as close as physically possible. Breathing in each other’s air, our lips dance around the line between touching and just hovering, until his thick tongue makes a swap over my open mouth. A bite follows, then another at the base of jaw, sending shivers through me in a steam filled shower. I don't know how he does that. He explores and awards the most insignificant parts of my body attention. A kiss to my wrist, a swift lick to the space below my belly, or a kiss to the back of my calf. 

“Put it in,” he instructs in that calm tone. Those honey brown orbs boring a hole into my soul that I know he has every intention of taking and leaving nothing left for me.

Squeezing a hand between us, never breaking our bubble, I find him. Strong, thick, and hard as a motherfucker. He captures my bottom lip in his mouth with an aggressive suck. In pursuit of finding the place he urges to be, I rub in the slickness, grazing my most sensitive spot with his. A lick of his lips followed by the flexing of his jaw lets me know that he’s not planning to exercise patience tonight. I try to fight the smirk, but I just can’t help it. This is the power I relish in when I'm with him. I bring a six foot three, Samoan giant, who for a living smashes men his size and above, to complete vulnerability. A state of almost desperateness. 

Still not used to him, a gasp slips after I finally allow his dick to sink into me. It’s now his turn to bask in my desperateness. His top lip curves into arrogance. The ego of a man who I wholeheartedly can attest to being able to back it up. It's well deserved.

“Open up for me, baby.” His slight southern drawl breaks any barriers, sending a flood straight through me. “Let me in,” he encourages beginning to move into me agonizingly slow. I can feel every inch, every curve, every muscle and every vein. 

After draping my legs over his huge forearms, he leans in to steal another kiss. It's hungry as my fingers tangle in his beard. Our noses pressing flat against each other. My body adjusts to him, the sloppy sounds of my accommodation mix heavy with his grunts and the water hitting the shower floor. I grip the back of his head, my hands full of his wet strands, as he buries his face in the crook of my neck. Head hitting the wall, I blink away tears. It’s so fucking good. Every time.

He always knows exactly where to hit and how to hit it. Knocking out orgasms like a boxer sparring. Hitting his target precisely every time, wearing his coach out. I just can’t keep up with him. His stamina, his strength, his hunger for it. He’s lightyears ahead of me, but he’s patient and willing to teach.

I’ve learned from previous experiences that he’s a traveling lover. Never satisfied with one spot. A nomadic lover, if you will. We start in one place and end up in another, and another, then another. Final destination is usually the bed. After the shower he carries me around to break in the rest of the house. 

In front of the extensive full body mirror.

Our reflections serve as our audience, as we show out and put on a performance for them. He takes me from the back, slamming repeatedly, resulting in a rhythmic slapping. I wince slightly, letting my head hang, to soak in the feeling of him fucking the shit out of me with no remorse.

“Head up, beautiful.” A forceful yank of my damp curls, stretching my neck to see us again. I gasp, following up with a giggle at the seductive smirk tugging the corner of his upper lip, but it’s cut short and replaced with a cry when he drives himself deeper. 

“Oh, fuck!”

“Yep.”

The floor.

Arching my back off the carpet, my toes point from the constant pressure building in my already sensitive core. Licking, sucking, and swirling his thick tongue in all the places it tingles the best. Every stroke of it meaning something—purposeful with the intent to drive me to fucking insanity. 

“Wait, wait— oh my— fuckkkk.” An overwhelming sensation of having to urinate, stirs in my belly, but he’s relentless. In a frenzy almost, he pulls me closer, to devour. Using his entire mouth to leave no spot untouched. 

My hearing goes. I see stars. Eyes rolling to watch my own brain as my whole body convulses in his hold. I don’t even know how much time passes before I come back down to earth, just barely hanging onto my consciousness. My fingers get tangled in my damp, curly mane, trying to find some grip on reality. Eyes popping open, I find him raising up from between my legs, beard a wet mess. Did I just? 

His devious smile is all the answer I need.

And finally the bed. 

On my toes, I slam myself down onto his lap. Bouncing as his possessive hold on my ass tightens. I don’t know how the fuck he’s still this hard after cumming three times already. 

I watch as my swinging melons hypnotize him, before he’s had enough and leans himself off the bed to catch one in his mouth.

“Mmmm,” I moan slowing down to whine my hips instead, focusing on the swipe of his warm tongue against my solid nipple. The green veins in them, more visible than usual. A testament to the adrenaline coursing through me.

Brown orbs penetrating me just as he is, he releases me from his soft lips.

“Did you miss me?” His husky, breathless voice questions. A tingle shocking my core from the inquiry. “Mm?” He pounds up into me, after laying back. I guess I didn’t answer fast enough for him. Every thrust harsher than the last, sending me to my knees, from losing control.

“Yesss.”

“I cant hear you.”

“Yes, daddy,” I purr. Urgency twisting with the whimpers I unleash even turns me on. “I missed you so much.” It isn't hardly a lie. Inching toward his big ear, I dart a tongue out to show love to the spot just beneath it. “I dream about you. About this big dick,” I pant like a bitch in heat.

“Woah—shit,” he expresses shakily like he’s lost control of the wheel and is trying to steer himself back to center. But he’s too late. I override him. Two palms planted on his tatted chest, I roll my hips, throwing my head back, feeling him get impossibly harder. 

The white in his eyes is all thats visible. Mouth agape forming an “O” shape. He yanks my body up his, missing his release by the skin of his teeth. Dragging my clit and wetness against the ridges of his abs contracting. 

“Fuck!” He exclaims, almost in frustration. His hold on me tightening, as both arms encase the circumstance of my waist. Face to the ceiling, basking in his neck kisses. Teeth sinking into my kiss-swollen, bottom lip. 

Altruistic satisfaction. Fulfillment one experiences from watching others in the state of enjoyment from their actions.

Exhausted, we now lay in the unbelievably soft sheets of this California King bed, big enough to fit three more of him and I. As spacious as it is, that doesn’t stop him from being right up on me. I can feel the air from his nostrils hitting my damp scalp. His arm is heavy, resting against my hip under the sheets. 

The whole thing is like something straight out of my dreams. And it's only night one.

I struggle to calm the anxiousness, as the waves hitting the shore do nothing to ease the butterflies in my stomach. This is always the part that makes my heart nearly boom out of my chest. The sex is a whole other thing. But this? This intimacy. The flow of his heartbeat to be felt on my back, partnered with his chest rising and falling at the same rhythm as mine, is something totally different. This is reserved for lovers. People who share something meaningful and do for each other with intent. A place I know we’ll never end up. 

Just when I ease my inner monologue long enough to drift off, the rumble of his deep voice pulls me back.

“Is that your name?” He whispers in such a low octave I think it’s my imagination. “Lana?” The sound of my nickname rolling off his tongue has my eyes wide open. I'm sure he can feel my heartbeat now. Are we really doing this?

“Alana,” I correct him softly. I'm not sure why we’re whispering. The only thing eavesdropping is the ocean. The only witness to our salacious acts. 

“Alana,” he repeats. “I'm Joe.”

A snort escapes me against my will, but I release a full laugh feeling his shoulders shake from laughter too. 

“Believe me…I know.”

“Paul did say you were a big fan.”

I recoil a bit internally. A fan. I’d think by now I would’ve upgraded from fan, to his personal fuck buddy, to maybe acquaintances at the very least. I had seen him more this year than my own father.

It’s silent again. The waves overpowering the quiet. He left the sliding glass door cracked that leads to the outside from the master bedroom. I can’t see the ocean, but she’s one whose presence is heard and felt before anything. It's too dark and the stretch of the water is too far. The moon isn’t shining bright enough for me to see at the angle I lay. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when the sun is rising, and the early morning hue of pink and orange kisses the ocean. This scenery—this space is dreamlike. It dawns on me, that none of it would even be possible without him.

“I um… I didn’t get a chance to properly thank you for the check. I really do appreciate it.”

“I think you did already.” I can hear the smile he speaks through, and I fight one of my own. We don’t talk this much. Especially not about personal matters. In fear that I might say the wrong thing and ruin it, making him retreat, I opt for silence. Allowing him to drive us into this new territory. 

I listen to his breathing patterns like it’s rain sounds, assisting my descend into slumber. It’s his turn to break the silence. “What are you in school for?”

“I'm a biology major.”

“Nice. Doctor?” I nod. “What kind?”

“Neuro-Oncologist…” I shut my eyes upon realizing the can of warms I must’ve just opened bringing that up.

Nice, Lana. While you’re at it, just tell him you already have your masters in not reading the room!

It suddenly nudges at my conscience, what other things Paul might have passed on to him about me. A sudden swirl of butterflies erupts deep, at the thought that I had been the topic of conversation. Not a complete shock, considering he has to go through Paul to get to me every time we do this. 

Neither of us speak for a while. I think he’s sleep until he uses the pad of his thumb to stroke circles on my bare hip, under the sheets. An intimate gesture I previously had to train myself to believe doesn’t mean much, so I don’t take it to heart. He’s just very touchy. Nothing to it.

“Did… did you know I was going to be at the hospital when you came?” I probe softly, not entirely sure if I want the answer. The question snagging at me since earlier.

“I did,” he reveals. “I mean, I came for the kids too, but it wasn’t originally in my plans…I needed to know if you would show. Paul told me you hadn’t answered any of his texts.”

“You go through all that trouble for the rest of them?” Before I can even stop myself, it's already out. My eyes close, an immediate rush of regret washing over me, but his amusement finds me before I can retract.

“Wha—” I feel his body shake a little, a symptom from laughter. “The rest of them?”

“You don’t have to do that.” To ease the tension I release a chuckle myself. His breathing atop my head is all I can hear for a moment. The suspense of where we go from here, too heavy.

“…Do you really wanna know?”

Either answer will stir me too far left or too far right. I can’t digest him making the idea that he has a me in every city a reality, in place of the theory that currently only exists in my mind. I can’t handle not being special, but I also can’t handle being too special. Turning in the bed to get a look into his eyes, I'm right under him. Our faces just inches apart, but neither of us attempt to create more space. A move too bold for the Lana that exists in my world.

He’s blue under the light of the moon peaking in. I can’t read him. His features hard as he stares back down at me. Chiseled cheek bones, decorated with the fuzziness of his bead. Hair tied in a quick fix of a bun, looser than his usual.

Who really gets to see him like this? To majority of the world, and myself just months ago, he was just a character. His distinguished personality in the ring, blocking me from seeing the person beyond the theatrics. But I've had the pleasure these last few months of being with Joe. The difference in them like night and day. Joe is reserved and soft-spoken, not arrogant and belittling. Joe is considerate, not selfish. Joe is touchy, not irritable. He’s playful, not cold.

“No…” I draw the line.

Demi was right. I had rearranged my entire life just to fit into his.

Every alteration was worth it. Every manhunt for a payphone was worth it. He is worth it.

I don’t care about being the one, his only one, or even his number one. I only care about being one of his girls. It’s an honor. A privilege. And for however long it lasts, i’ll be right here for the ride. 

“Live in the moment,” Demi instructed, fluffing the layers she cut of my now blown out hair. “Don’t worry about what’s going on back here, or what else could be going on with him. That shit don’t matter. Won’t matter today or tomorrow. It’ll only matter when it matters.”

He breathes in deep through his flat nose. A hand to the back of my head, pushes me to him so our lips can meet again tonight. He takes his time. Exploring my mouth all the while asserting dominance in the exchange.

“Good,” he whispers on my lips.

banner credit: @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

A/N: Lana, Lana, Lana smh! Talk about down baddd mamas stand up!

What do we think about our main character so far? Pls give my girl grace. Lets remember where we all were at 21 lol.

How do we feel about her and the Tribal Chief's current arrangement? Will it last? Is it a recipe for disaster? Or is it conducive to both of their lives?

The donation from Joe to Paul to Lana (and Demi lol)? Would you have accepted the money? What message is Alana sending by accepting it? Is it just a one time thing or the beginning of something?

Joe showing up to her job??? Messyyyy.

As always, feedback is welcomed. If you read it or even a portion, I am forever grateful.

Pt 3 All We Do will most likely not be as long. Already working on it. Possible new characters.

taglist💗 // @trippinsorrows @minsingular @luvrsluxe @vynaissance @cyberdejos2 @cuttteeee @rose-bliss @skyesthebomb @mikaylathenerd5 @li-da-savage @fearlesschimera @fame-ass-ers @imhiswifey @fairy-cores-world @brwnsugababe @reginawhorge01 @ilovejeyusoooo @keyerajackson @baybehkay @alexis2686 @destroyslonelyblog @raya-hunter01 @annfg8 @trentybenty

@ashykneee

so, a lot of these tags didn't come up. message me if you changed your name or you might've entered it wrong in the form. just lmk 💗

[labelma]

39, 44, 63 please? ❤️

Thank you! ☺️

39: What’s an idea for a fic that you’re excited about, but haven’t had the chance to write yet?

So one thing you should know about me is I love listening to the podcast Stuff You Should Know and that I have my best fic ideas while hiking. So last October it was the first day of the year cool enough to go outside for long periods of time and I went on a lovely hike. I was listening to an SYSK podcast about bipolar disorder and I was thinking about how even though I don’t have bipolar disorder, I can relate to a lot of the symptoms because my migraines sometimes give me weird mood swings and I can’t always trust my own emotions because they might not be real, they could be a symptom of an oncoming migraine. Which got me thinking that just because Mickey doesn’t have Ian’s same disorder, he is still an empathetic person who most definitely relate’s to Ian in some ways. So I had this idea for a fic where Ian experiences a mixed episode, an episode with all the energy of mania, but all the emotions of a depressive episode which would be a new and stressful experience for him, and Mickey, his amazing husband helps him through it. Of course Ian rejects the help at first but eventually relents because he loves his husband so much, and realizes Mickey only wants to take care of him. But since I had this idea last October I CLEARLY have no idea how to actually write it. It’ll happen eventually though! It will!

44: What are some of your favorite tropes?

Y’all already know the answer to this, I absolutely lose my mind for “encounters with the ex” fics, as well as any fic written from an outsider perspective. I love these fics so much, they’re like crack to my little brain. And this is something that extends to every fandom I’ve ever been in, something about my main ship being perceived by others just scratches that itch so perfectly.

I also love mutual unrequited pining. It drives me crazy and I love it at the same time.

63: What canon Ian and Mickey moments (together or individually) do you think are under-explored?

Hmm I had to think about this one for a while. I think the fandom likes to kind of collectively ignore seasons 6-9 (except for you know, the good stuff like Ian becoming an EMT), but something about the fact that Ian and Mickey literally never stopped loving each other, even if they tried really hard to, and pushed their feelings down so deep they may have forgotten they were even there in the first place, just really gets to me. Like this is all something we know, but I think it’s a little under-explored how those feelings never disappeared. Ian and Mickey are each other’s one and only love, and I am OBSESSED with that. I have a gallavich playlist on Spotify with like 250 songs, and a good portion of them are there because they make me think of seasons 6-9 Ian and Mickey.

Also I’m not sure this is under-explored but I do like to talk about it; the fact that the reintroduction of Mickey back into Shameless gave Ian the most consistent story arc of any character on the show. With Mickey back in the picture, Ian’s story becomes about a boy learning to love, and let himself be loved even in the face of a pretty intense mental illness. We all know Shameless isn’t exactly known for its excellent story-telling, but I think it’s a little underrated just how amazing Ian and Mickey’s story is. Like it really is a great story, despite like, everything.

[untoldblisses]

20 questions

I was tagged by the ever so lovely @sielustaja, thank you as always.

1. What do you prefer to be called namewise? Anika. This is my real name. Don’t try to track me down unless you wanna hold hands.

2. When is your birthday? October 29th

3. Where do you live? Germany

4. Three things you are doing right now? I’m just filling out this questionaire. I don’t like doing multiple things simultaneously.

5. Four fandoms that have peaked your interest? Supernatural, Hannibal, Doctor Who, Good Omens

6. How has the pandemic been treating you? Occasional feelings of loneliness and annoyance put aside, not too badly actually. No one I know personally had to be hospitalised, no deaths, my super secure job was never in danger, so I guess compared to a lot of other people I can count myself really lucky.

7. A song you can’t stop listening to right now? Yesterday morning while brushing my teeth I suddenly remembered the song “...but home is nowhere” by AFI which I probably hadn’t listened to in 10 years but have listened to about 25 times since.

8. Recommend a movie.  Oh I don’t know. The Sound of Metal. Roma. The Florida Project. I haven’t really watched a lot of movies lately.

9. How old are you? 39, can you believe it? I personally can’t.

10. School, university, occupation, other? Public sector employee. Sitting at a desk all day. Boring.

11. Do you prefer heat or cold? I prefer a nice 24°C but if I had to choose between extreme heat or extreme cold, probably cold.

12. Name one fact others may not know about you. I honestly can’t think of anything interesting.

13. Are you shy? Hm. Sometimes. It very much depends on my mood or the mental state I’m in. As a child and teenager and way into my twenties I was very shy. These days I don’t really consider myself shy anymore. Quiet, sure. Socially awkward and insecure in some situations? Definitely. But shy, no, not really. However, sometimes I slip into a mindset where my “inner child” takes over and then I am convinced that I am shy and weird and unlikeable and as a result I then act as if I were shy, if that makes any sense? But when I am in a good mood or going through a more “manic” episode (it’s not really mania more like how a normal person feels I guess haha) then I’m not shy.

14. Preferred pronouns? She/her or they/them.

15. Biggest pet peeves? People walking really slowly in front of me in the middle of the sidewalk, strangers who don’t know about the concept of personal space, talking shit about/making fun of people behind their backs (even if it’s just strangers that will never know about it or even celebrities), people who think they are better than others

16. What is your favourite “dere” type? I have not the slightest idea what this means. I only know deer 🦌

17. Rate your life from 1-10. I’d say 7.

18. What’s your main blog? @speedingintonowhere

19. List your sideblogs and what they’re used for. Well, this is obviously a side blog though I wish it weren’t. Then there’s @iwanttogotoiceland where, you guessed it, I (very rarely these days) reblog pictures of Iceland. And then there’s @collectinglemons where I reblog some adult stuff that a) I don’t want to bother my regular followers with who definitely didn’t ask for that kind of content and b) I am afraid I might get flagged for. Eh. Feel free to follow me on there though if you like.

20. Is there something people need to know about you before becoming friends? Just let yourself be suprised :)))

Yeah, you know how I feel about tagging but anyway: @tenok @vintagedean @amill22 @musicheartbeat @cassandraleeds (feel free to ignore though 💙) and anyone who wants to do it (please tag me if you do)

[novantinuum]

Writer tag game

Tagged by @parallelmarvel (OMG I looked at your AO3 and realized I see you in my comments all the time and you wrote the fic with all the letters sent to Greg’s parents and aUGH hello :O)

Author Name: Novantinuum

Fandom(s) you write for: Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, Doctor Who, Tales of Arcadia

Where you post: AO3, crossposted to tumblr.

Most popular one-shot: Shattering Atlas. (SU corrupted Steven theory fic I posted back last October. Please heed those tags, ahah.)

Most popular multi-chapter: Hollowed Moon, by far. (Good lord I need to get back to that.) That fucker has over 2500 kudos, and I don’t know how, because it’s not even over 9K words. I blame September’s Spinel mania. XD

Favorite story you wrote: Oh god... in terms of writing? I’m still super fond of The Hybrid in the Hourglass. It’s a super niche ship fic for Doctor Who, so most followers here probably don’t have much interest, but I’m still super happy with a lot of the descriptive work in it.

Story you were nervous to post: Shattering Atlas, since it is incredibly dark, and I was unsure how that would be received by my audience. 

Also, I was a little hesitant at posting another Doctor Who fic, Loving the Sunset, because it contained (albeit super wrapped up in metaphoric description) the first and at the moment only love making scene I’ve ever written.

How do you choose your titles? I either pick a meaningful word straight outta the text of the work, scour through song titles/lyrics, or cry for three hours as I string phrases together until I find something that sounds good. Titling is my least favorite part of writing stories. I am currently attempting to title something as we speak, and it’s not a fun time. Rip my brain.

How many of your stories are complete? 39 on my AO3. I have an additional 18 on my ancient ff.net account that are also complete. One of them is actually a 132K word longfic! (I, however, will not be crossposting those to AO3 because the writing is far below my current standards.)

In progress: 

Crack the Paragon (my current SU longfic project)

Contact (multichap wherein Steven’s gem gets cracked, whoops.)

Hollowed Moon

Taste of Ordinary (an old SU WIP that only has one chapter out, but I’ve recently decided I want to pick it back up.)

Coming soon: 

Uhhh, I have a ficlet with Garnet and Rose and an egg? I might post that tomorrow. Everything else is at various stages of progress, but definitely not far enough along to be claimed as coming “soon.” I work slow, unfortunately. The woes of mental illness.

Upcoming story you’re most excited to write: I will always be excited to make more progress on Crack the Paragon, because I desperately want to get to a number of scenes in the chapters to come.

Now if I can only... turn that excitement... into will to write... ;D;

Do you accept prompts? Not at the moment, no. 

Top five favorite authors: 

AbelQuartz writes the most immersive stuff and uwu ;w;

hueue’s (spooksier) AUs slap

infriga’s Aid To Navigation has me g l u e d to my screen

fanfoolishness writes consistently stunning stuff a a aaaa 

loveluckylost writes the Best Lars, no question

Tagging: all y’all I cried about above, if you ever want a fun writing meme to do, @infriga, @abel-quartz, @fanfoolishness, @loveluckylost, @spooksier

[naivesilver]

31, 56, 19, 78, 20, 16, 11, 12 , 10, 4, 1, 21, 36, 39. Sorry if this is too many 😅

Guys it’s NEVER too many you’re giving me the chance to talk nonstop about Sonic it’s the best thing that’s happened to me in days

also I had planned to answer them in the order you asked for but it was driving me crazy so I sorted them out thematically sorry alfhjkhljshja

I answered 1 here!

100 Sonic Questions

21.) Tell us a funny Sonic-related story.

This one comes from the depths of my very first months as a Sonic fan. Basically, I had watched Sonic X upon its first Italian release as a very very smol bean. By the time I got obsessed again in middle school, though, I had forgotten everything about it except a few shots from the Italian opening theme and ONE scene from a season three episode, where Sonic and Knuckles played chess on a spaceship and then Sonic began running around and fell into space.

The “friend” that had introduced me to the show again (not a nice person and source of about 25% of my trauma, I’m glad to say I haven’t seen her in years) didn’t believe me and accused me of lying. Repeatedly. Unkindly. For months. How could such a stupid scene be in such an amazing cartoon? I must be trying to fuck with her.

Fast forward to the end of the year. I’m minding my business and I see a Facebook message from this friend, and another, and another. I click on it wondering what she’d be going ham over, and BAM. This girl had been watching Sonic AMVs on Youtube and had caught a glimpse of that scene at the beginning of a video and was fucking losing it over the fact that WOW, I HAD BEEN TELLING THE TRUTH ALL ALONG?!

Now, you have to understand that I wasn’t the kind of kid that swore, back then. I had been brought up to think that swear words would send you to hell straight away. And while not a delicate little flower, I was much, much cuter and more proper than I am now because I couldn’t live out my butch dreams quite yet. But I needed to express all the frustration gathered in those months.

So please imagine this baby-faced, straight A student 13yo wait for her friend in front of their school and bellow at the top of her lungs “BITCH, WHAT DID I FUCKING TELL YOU?”

I still remember that scene fondly, though.

31.) Tell us a Sonic-related story that will give us feels.

Related to the experience I just mentioned, the problem I had in my first years in this fandom was that this person who had dragged me into it was obsessed with the thought that people would mock us for it. She said it was for kids, and when she got over it she gave me shit for clinging to my passion while she’d “grown up”, and she had me enjoy Sonic in secret and yelled at me for saying anything even vaguely related out loud where other people could hear us.

It got into my head so much that for a long long time I didn’t dare share anything Sonic-adjacent on any social media, long past when I’d broke away from her. I thought no one would ever take me seriously again. I felt ashamed a lot.

It got better, though. Slowly, I broke out of my shell and started interacting with this amazing fandom, and I found lots of people who didn’t give a damn about what the world thought of their passion. And I know tons of wonderful people outside the fandom, too, friends who encourage me to talk about Sonic even though they don’t know anything about it. Chats where any mention of Sonic has someone saying “wait we must tag naivesilver into this she’ll love it”. It’s - it warms my heart every day. Tumblr is a shithole, but it helped me in feeling free to do what I love in the fandom that I love most.

Thank you. To everyone that got me through that, thank you. You have no idea how helpful you’ve been to me.

19.) Favorite soundtrack

KNOCK KNOCK IT’S FUCKING KNUCKLES

20.) Least favorite soundtrack?

None I think???? There are some I don't listen to much, either because I haven't played the game or I just don't vibe with them, but there isn't any song that I particularly dislike. Almost all of them are genuine bops.

16.) (if you read fanfic) What are some fic tropes you love? Ones you hate?

FOUND FAMILY!!! Adoptive parents, siblings, friends taking care of each other, I want a shitton of fluff in my life. And kid!fic. I could read (and write!) kid!fic every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. That's why I enjoy Chaotix and Sonic Movie fics so much. Let's raise them boys well.

As for hating...I don't like high school AUs lmao I wrote one when I was younger but I never dared touch it again and I haven't read any Sonic one since 2014 at most. And most time travel fics. Sorry, Silver, I love you a fucking lot but time travel shenanigans are only funny in the two or three specific settings my mind lets me enjoy.

11.) Top five stages.

In no particular order:

-Press Garden (Mania)

-Casinopolis (Adventure)

-Casino Forest (Forces)

-Studiopolis (Mania)

Anddddd I haven't played much else so I'll have to get back to you on this ajshfkjfahlljha

12.) Worst five stages.

-IMPERIAL TOWER

-IMPERIAL TOWER

-Jesus Christ I died 78 times in that stage alone

-I'm bad at being fast and not falling off stuff and it required me to do both at the same time

-Also the Shadow DLC levels. Fuck me up a bit more will you

56.) In your opinion, what’s the weirdest thing any character has ever said?

I'm a simple girl, I see this panel and I lose my shit

10.) What do you like best about your favorite animated adaptation?

I only finished my Sonic X rewatch yesterday and I’ve been meaning to make some final comments about it (tho it’d probably be me rambling at thin air bc I doubt I can say anything that hasn’t been already said over and over and over) but the most compelling thing for me is and always will be the music.

Don’t get me wrong, what I’ve seen of the OG Japanese version had wonderful, heartfelt music, but the upbeat themes I grew up with still have me vibing day in and day out. I can dance to the Italian opening sequence at any given moment - no, you know what, here it is. Watch it and feel the serotonin drip into your veins.

(Some people will come at me for this, but I didn’t watch this show in 2019-2020 to make an in-depth analysis about it. I did it to have a dance off while Knuckles beat up some robots.)

78.) Post a scene that always gives you feels.

Sonic 06:

13yo me about to see her first ship torn apart:

4.) The last Sonic game you played is now your life. How awesome is this adventure gonna be?

Sonic Adventure - which means it’s a pretty cool life, unless it runs like SA does on my laptop and it turns slow and glitchy and grinds on my nerves even more

36.) C’mon now. How many ships do you have? :P

A FUCKING LOT my main ones are silvaze, vecpio and sonadow but I have many medium or small ones that I enjoy finding content for, like tikaze or knouge

39.) Which game is your golden standard?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not the greatest game fan as in I’ve only been actively playing for the past 2/3 years. Before that it was just gameplays on Youtube, so you should not take my opinion into any account since it’s not very informed.

However there was something about Sonic and the Black Knight that just felt...new? Peculiar? I know jack shit about the technical side of gaming but I remember being extremely pumped every time I logged in to see more of it. I'd like to feel that again, when a new game drops.

[closetofanxiety]

Mania Madness: In Queens With Queens Quest

Wrestlemania was in New York this year (well, New Jersey, but you know what they mean), and since I live about two and a half hours away, I felt like I would be failing in my duties as a wrestling fan if I didn’t attend some of the related events. Make no mistake: I did not want to go to Wrestlemania itself, as the idea of sitting in a football stadium and squinting at a faraway shape that might be Buddy Murphy in the springtime chill is not high on my bucket list. But there were lots of other things to do, and I did very few of them! I did go to see the Stardom show in Queens and to WrestleCon in Manhattan, though, and herewith are my observations, jotted down for posterity and, hopefully, your amusement and/or edification:

FRIDAY

I think this is only the second time Stardom has run a show in the U.S., and it’s definitely the first time they’ve done it amidst the surge of popularity they’ve experienced in the GIF era. Although going to visit Hakujinjoe in Tokyo is a goal towards which I am even now socking away money, there’s no guarantee that I’ll ever actually get to see Stardom in Japan, and so this was the must-see event of the weekend for me.

This anticipation was accompanied by two apprehensions: First, my nature reluctance to drive in New York City, even in the outer boroughs. I live in the woods, and your city ways frighten and confuse me. Second, based on many of the US joshi fans I have encountered online, I worried this crowd would basically be a giant convention for creepers, perverts, rageaholic gatekeepers, scam artists peddling $300 autographed gravure DVDs, and people who seem to have only a dim understanding that the characters portrayed in the ring are not, in fact, identical with the women portraying them. Listen: I am not exactly Cary Grant when it comes to wit and charm, and just being an American who watches Japanese women’s wrestling puts me among a tiny percentage of hardcore nerds, so I hope this doesn’t come off as haughty. But there are good nerds, and then there are the nerds we encounter online way too often.

The first apprehension turned out to be baseless, as I got to Queens with plenty of time to spare and, like most joshi fans, headed over to the Rufus King Homestead on Jamaica Avenue for a tour of the mansion once owned by the fiery antislavery advocate and signatory to the Constitution. OK, so I was the only joshi fan who toured the Rufus King Homestead (in fact, I was the only person, period; Rufus does not get much love), but I still learned a lot. Rufus King used to loan money at exorbitant rates to local farmers who owned slaves, and when they couldn’t pay him back, he’d accept the enslaved people as collateral, only to immediatly free them. Rufus King, Loan Shark For Justice!

It turns out the second apprehension was also baseles, because the crowd turned out to be full of awesome people. Really friendly, outgoing, and super enthusiastic nerds, the best kind of nerd, really. The dominant attitude was not, “Oh you like Stardom? Name five of their faction drafts” but “I can’t believe we all get to see this awesome show together.” It was also, by a country mile, the most diverse indie wrestling crowd I’ve been part of, and about 35-40 percent of the people in attendance were women, which really made the whole experience better. I’m not saying everyone was awesome, but it was definitely a fun group of people to be part of for an afternoon. I am ashamed that I assumed it would be full of unbearable dweebs.

So, that out of the way, here’s the highlights of the show, in the time-honored spaghetti Western sytem of categorization:

THE GOOD

Momo Watanabe vs. Utami Hayashishita: Easily the match of the day, and one of the best matches I’ve seen all year. The Queen’s Quest teammates were batling for Momo’s Wonder of Stardom title, which she won from the departing Io Shirai last year. I don’t just like Momo, I identify with her image as the studious but introverted nerd kid who thinks hard work and playing by the rules is enough to guarantee success, only to be constantly frustrated as flashier peers take shortcuts to the top. The tension between these two has been building since Utami’s debut last year and subsequent mega-push as The Big Rookie and Utami All-the-Belts. Momo, who put in years of quiet, dedicated work as Io’s understudy, is in danger of being usurped as Queen’s Quest leader by the newcomer before her tenure has really even gotten under way. This is a great basis for a wrestling match, and these two, aware they were in front of their biggest audience outside of Japan not just in person but watching on Fite, rose to the occasion. I’m terrible at describing wrestling matches, but this was a nailbiter full of near-falls and what-will-it-take kickouts that felt earned rather than slathered on. It helped that the crowd was rabid, with Utami having a slight edge, WHICH ONLY SERVED TO MAKE ME CHEER LOUDER FOR MOMO. I honestly had no idea who was going to win: normally you’d know the champ would retain in an away match like this, but having their second most important belt change hands would also have been a great way to make a splash in their New York debut. In the end, though, Momo retained with her Peach Sunrise finisher and I LOST IT.

Stars vs. Oedo Tai: The villainous but lovable Oedo Tai were over like crazy with this crowd, and people went bananas when they came out to do their pre-match war dance. They could have basically just done that and most people would have been, but they had a fun elimination match with the Stars faction. A lot of zany action in this and a genuine surprise elimination of Kagetsu midway through. The only missing piece of the puzzle was Sumire Natsu, who didn’t come over with the company, possibly because she’s a freelancer. She made appearances at Tokyo BDSM clubs instead during Mania weekend, which is the most Sumire Natsu thing ever.

Yurie Kozakai doing the ring introductions: Stardom was really smart about the idea that they were giving fans in New York “a real Stardom show,” and having the promotion’s normal ring announcer introduce the wrestlers was a perfect touch.

Hana Kimura: The newest Stardom signing looked like a superstar and basked in the crowd’s adulation during a three-way tag match that also involved Konami and Bea Priestley (making her US debut?) and Britt Baker and Brittany Blake, who should have called themselves the Britt-ish. No? I’m - I’m [putting my finger to my ear, like I’m listening] I’m being told “No, they should not have called themselves that.” Anyway, the match was fun but insubstantial, but Hana’s charisma is off the charts.

THE BAD

IPW:UK ran a show at the venue (the NYC Arena, which is an arena only in the sense that a mid-sized nightclub is an arena) right before Stardom, using House of Glory’s ring (the compromises and arrangements of Mania Weekend!), and the bottom rope broke. The effort to fix the broken rope was mostly unsuccessful, and also delayed the opening of doors at the venue by nearly an hour, meaning 600 hearty nerds were standing in line in 39 degree weather, with sleet pelting us. The paperback I had brought to pass the time in line was USELESS. On the lemons-lemonade side of things, though, this did mean we were all in line when Stardom’s bus rolled up, and all the wrestlers disembarked to head inside. Big cheers from the crowd, which obviously delighted the wrestlers. “It’s gonna be awesome!” Hana yelled at us. It was! Once we got out of the sleet

The broken rope delay also meant they had to cut the already abbreviated (five matches) show short, and it showed. The first three matches were all obviously truncated, with the High Speed title match between Hazuki and Dust suffering the most for it. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, and I was impressed by Dust, who’s new to me, but it felt like they were just starting to get going when it ended. IPW:UK, YOU ARE NOW MY ENEMY. OR MAYBE HOUSE OF GLORY, I DON’T KNOW. SOMEONE. 

THE UGLY

Maybe half the appeal of this thing was the promised meet and greet afterward, but the meet and greet was more chaotic and less organized than Kelley Square at rush hour (sorry, this is a Worcester reference, Worcester people will know this). Nobody seemed to know where to stand, lots of fans didn’t realize they had to buy little tickets before meeting the wrestlers, and as someone whose job sometimes involves putting up signs in medical buildings, the lack of even rudimentary paper signage was APPALLING. This did not stop me from getting nerdy fan pics with Hana Kimura, Kagetsu, Momo Watanabe, Mayu Iwatani, and Konami. Hazuki left her table before I could get to her, and this failure will haunt the remainder of my days upon this earth. Possibly. The wrestlers all had pieces of paper with common American names written on them, so they’d know how to address the autographed pictures, which was sweet. Hana has great conversational English. There was no line when I went up to Konami, which is preposterous. Konami rules, fellow nerds. The whole thing was nice, and the language barrier prevented any of that thing where guys try to unburden their psyches onto female wrestlers in a bid to make some kind of emotional connection. JUST SMILE FOR THE CAMERA AND MOVE ALONG, PAL.

Also, apparently the Fite stream was choppy as hell and cut out completely right at the end of the Momo-Utami match, and only came back after it was over. Glad I went in person!

In part two, we’ll cover the gregarious Jesse Ventura, the surprising lack of merch slingers at WrestleCon, and the puzzling fame of that fan who had a cardboard sign saying “FACE FUCK ME FINN” at a Takeover a few years ago.

[transslyblue]

Also "1-99"

(1) Do You Sleep With Your Closet Doors Open Or Closed?

Haha, closed. I don't like seeing the dark void that I call a closet

(2) Do You Have Freckles?

Yea, but you can't really see them unless you're close

(3) Can You Whistle?

Yes

(4) Last Song You Listened To.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame musical, the Tavern Song

(5) What Is Your Favourite Colour?

Blue, but I also like a variety of purples and greens

(6) Relationship Status.

Single and not looking

(7) What Is The Temperature Right Now?

69º F

(8) Did You Wake Up Cranky?

Yea, unless I wake up myself

(9) How Many Followers?

118, but I need to go through and block any bots. (;w;)

(10) Zodiac Sign.

Leo

(11) What Is Your Eye Colour?

Blue/green hazel. My eyes are multi-coloured so they have blue, green, and brown with a very grey look to them.

(12) Take A Vitamin Daily?

I forget daily

(13) Do You Sing In The Shower?

Yup!

(14) What Books Are You Reading?

I really want to get back to reading some more Lovecraft, but i don't have much time to read

(15) Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 64, Give Me Line 14.

"Minutes before librarians ate him."

(16) Favourite Anime?

Uuuuhhhhhh, hm. I guess it'd have to be InuYasha, but I like a lot of anime

(17) Last Person You Cried In Front Of?

Err,,, it was a very close friend. Idk if they'd want me to say who they are tho

(18) Do You Collect Anything?

Rocks and those snowglobe musicboxes

(19) What Did You Have For Lunch?

Yogurt and a protein bar. Ik, ik real healthy and filling

(20) Do You Dance In The Car?

Depends on the song, but not really

(21) Favourite Animal?

Owls and cats

(22) Do You Watch The Olympics?

Not really, but when I do it's the diving Olympics

(23) What Time Do You Usually Go To Bed?

2am

(24) Are You Wearing Makeup Right Now?

I don't wear makeup. Though I have considered it

(25) Do You Prefer To Swim In A Pool Or The Ocean?

Either. Pool is safer though

(26) Favourite Tumblr Blog?

Oof, idk if I can pick just one, so imma name a few. @ohhimarx @mirosuikaaa @masochist-incarnate they're all really friendly and nice

(27) Bottled Water Or Tap Water?

Whichever is most convenient at the time

(28) What Makes You Happy?

The sound of rain, art, my friends talking to me, I have a list that I've posted, so I won't list out here

(29) Post A Gif Of What You’re Currently Feeling Right Now.

(30) Do You Study Better With Or Without Music?

Haha, I don't study;;;

(31) Dogs Or Cats?

Cats

(32) If You Were A Crayon What Colour Would You Be?

Blue-tiful lol, for real though probably bubble blue

(33) PlayStation Or Xbox.

Does Switch/ds count?

(34) Would You Swim In The Lake Or Ocean?

Idunknow

(35) Do You Believe In Magic?

Not really, but I won't bash on anyone who does

(36) What Colour Shirt Are You Wearing?

Black, but is a Link being a meme

(37) Can You Curl Your Tongue?

Yes

(38) Do You Save Money Or Spend It?

I save more then I spend.

(39) Is There Anything Pink Within 10 Feet Of You?

Yea, it's a pink pillow of Lion from Steven Universe and a music stand from when I was in middle school

(40) Do You Have Any Obsessions Right Now?

Kirby in general

(41) Have You Ever Caught A Butterfly?

Nope, but I have touched one before

(42) Are You Easily Influenced By Other People?

Yes and no. It really depends on how long I've been around them

(43) Do You Have Strange Dreams?

Omg yes! I remember a few and they were all lucid dreams! (I looked up the term from last time I answered this question)

(44) Do You Like Going On Airplanes?

Never been on one

(45) Name One Movie That Made You Cry.

Of Mice and Men

(46) Peanuts Or Sunflower Seeds?

Both

(47) If I Handed You A Concert Ticket Right Now, Who Would You Want The Performer To Be?

Panic!At the Disco, Fallout Boy, or The Neighborhood

(48) Are You A Picky Eater?

Not really. There are some foods I refuse to eat, but otherwise I eat pretty much anything

(49) Are You A Heavy Sleeper?

Yes

(50) Do You Fear Thunder / Lightning?

Nope! I actually like thunder

(51) Do You Like To Read / Write?

I enjoy reading. As for writing, eh. I'll write out my ideas but I'mno good at fleshing them out to be interesting

(52) Do You Like Your Music Loud?

Yes. But not too loud, just enough where I don't hear everyone around me

(53) Would You Rather Carve Pumpkins Or Wrap Presents?

Carve pumpkins! I really am bad at wrapping presents

(54) Put Your Music On Shuffle, What Is The First Song That Came Up?

Hurts - Illuminated

(55) What Season Are You In Right Now? (Weather)

Spring and dying from pollen

(56) What Are You Craving Right Now?

Idk, something salty tbh

(57) Post A Screenshot Of Your Tumblr Feed.

(58) What Is Your Gender?

I'm a transgender male, so i use he/him pronouns.

(59) Coffee Or Tea?

Both, but I like tea more

(60) Do You Have Any Homework Right Now? If So, What Is It About?

I'm not in school anymore soooo no

(61) What Is Your Sexuality?

Idk. Questioning I guess

(62) Do You Make Your Bed In The Morning?

No

(63) Favourite Pokemon?

I already answered this one, so I'll say a new pokemon that I love. Rowlet!

(64) Favourite Social Media?

Bruh I am not a fan, but Tumblrs the one I'm on most.

(65) What’s Your Opinion On Instagram Stories?

Idk. I don't have an Instagram

(66) Do You Get Homesick?

Yes

(67) Are You A Virgin?

Yes, and I plan to stay that way for awhile

(68) What Shampoo And Conditioner Are You Using Right Now?

I use Suave, but I also use TeaTree when I get really bad dandruff

(69) If You Were Far From Home And Needed To Sleep For The Night, Would You Choose To Rent A Crappy Motel Room For $60 Or Sleep In Your Car For Free?

Depends on the place. But most likely I'd risk the motel.

(70) Are Both Of Your Blood Parents Still In Your Life?

My mom yes, my biological father... It's complicated

(71)  Whats The Next Movie You Want To See In Theaters?

I don't really watch movies, so none

(72) Do You Miss Your Ex?

I don't have an ex

(73) What Is Your Favourite Quote Right Now?

Be the person you needed when you were younger. I have no clue who said it, but I live by that

(74)  What Eye Colour Do You Find Sexiest?

Eyes in general are great. Idk how anyone can not find something they like in any eye colour

(75) Did You Like Swinging As A Child? Do You Still Get Excited When You See A Swing Set?

YesYesYesYes

(76) What Was The Last Thing You Ate?

Nachos

(77) What Games Do You Have On Your Phone?

Voez and Pokémon Go

(78) Would You Give A Homeless Person CPR If They Were Dying? Why Or Why Not?

Yes, because no oen deserves to die. I'd do my best to help any homeless person

(79) Been On The Computer For 5 Hours Straight?

Haha, not today. Yet

(80) Stalked Someone On A Social Network?

Not really

(81) Do You Like Meeting New People?

Yes!

(82) Do You Wear Rings? If You Do, Take A Picture Of Them.

I don't wear jewlery much. But I would like to get my ears pierced properly

(83) Do You Sleep With Your Bedroom Door Open Or Closed?

Closed! I don't want people or my cat to walk in

(84) What Are Three Things You Did Today?

I woke up, did laundry, answered these questions

(85) What Do You Wear To Bed?

Pajama pants and a t-shirt

(86) List All Of Your Different Beauty Products You Have Right Now.

I've got none. Unless you want me to name what body wash i use. :/

(87) Are You A Day Or Night Person?

Night person

(88) List All Of Your Video Games On Your Phone, Console Etc.

Phone: Voez, Pokémon Go

Switch: Legend of Zeld: Breath of the wild, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Kirby Star Allies, Mario Kart 8, PuyoPuyo Tetris, Bayonetta 1&2, Hyrule Warriors, Just Dance 2017, Super Mario Party, Let's Go Eevee, Mario Odyssey, Undertale, Shovel Knight, Pokémon quest, Mom Hid my Game, Deemo, Sonic Mania, Detention, The Coma, Cave Story

3DS: Kirby Clash Deluxe, Kirby Triple Deluxe, Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn, Kirby Planet Robobot, Kirby Canvas Curse, Kirby Mass Attack, Kirbg Super Star Ultra, Kirby Squeak Squad, Pokémon Y, Pokémon Platinum, Pokémon Ultra Moon, Pokémon Alpha Sapphire Pokémon Heartgold, Legend of Zelda Link Between Worlds, Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D, Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks, Super Smash Bros, Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon, Wario Ware Gold, Super Princess Peach, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, Cooking Mama, Cooking Mama 2, Sonic Colors

Gameboy Color: Pokemon Blue, Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening

This is over the course of many years

(89) Tell Me About A Dream That You Had And When It Happened.

I had this dream where I was flying a red paper plane. It took forever to carry it up this tapestry, but i did it. When I finally took off this group of white paper planes were chasing me so I shook them off and landed, taking shelter in this museum. This museum held other people hiding and was actually an abandoned grocery store. Then I woke up.

I don't rememebr when this was, but I wrote it down. I have a few more if you're interested.

(90) Favourite Soda Drink?

Strawberry Ramuné

(91) What Sounds Are Your Favourite?

Rainstorms,

(92) Do You Wear Jeans Or Sweats More?

Jeans, since I can't wear sweatpants to work

(93) How Do You Look Right Now?

Uhhh, probably a slob since I've been in pajamas all day

(94) Name Something That Relaxes You.

Stuffed animals

(95) What Tattoo Do You Want?

Idk. Haven't really wanted one. Maybe a connect the dots one.

(96) Favourite YouTuber?

Idk. I watch Pyrocynical and Markiplier, but other than that I listen to music, watch speedpaints, and speed plays of various videogames

[blueskyerising]

Fantasy Booking WrestleMania 39 & the 4/3/23 Monday Night RAW

Before we get to Part II of how I’d book the Fall of the Bloodline, I thought it’d be appropriate to touch over on how my version of WrestleMania 39 and the post-Mania Raw would go down like, since I only briefly mentioned the main event. It won’t be a complete wholesale change of the two nights, but the changes made will hopefully make sense.

A lot of the changes will be more evident on the post-Mania RAW, which notoriously got a 0.63 rating on Cagematch and was plagued by being changed wholesale by Vince McMahon. Again, my version of things

Night 1

- John Cena def. Austin Theory to win the US Championship: this result would set up something for Cena on the post-WM Raw (which I’ll discuss later) and push Theory into accepting the open challenge for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship that I mentioned in Part I of the Fall of the Bloodline booking.

- Street Profits def. Viking Raiders, Alpha Academy, & Ricochet/Braun Strowman: basically plays out the same as it did in real life.

- Seth F. Rollins def. Logan Paul: ditto with this match, though Seth gets the win after he does the tree of woe Stomp.

- Damage CTRL def. Becky Lynch, Lita, & Trish Stratus: The heels win here largely due to Becky accidentally hitting Trish, leading to her getting pinned. No heel turn from Trish just yet.

- We get a backstage segment with the Usos and Paul Heyman. Jimmy and Jey want to take care of the Sami & KO “problem” on their own and refuse to let Heyman or Solo Sikoa accompany them for a match.

- Dominik Mysterio def. Rey Mysterio: I love the idea of Dom winning this match, just so he can have something to brag about over his dad. Some cheating and interference from Damian Priest is how that happens. Then, after the match, Dom & Priest look to continue beating down Rey, but Bad Bunny steps in to stop the attack. 

- Rhea Ripley def. Charlotte Flair to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship: the actual match was one of my favorites of the weekend so it just pretty much stays as-is, untouched in the fantasy booking.

- Pat McAfee def. The Miz short and sweet. No changes.

- Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens def. The Usos to become the Undisputed Tag Team Champions: Again, this plays out the same way as it did in real life.

Night 2

- Brock Lesnar def. Omos: Remains the same.

- Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez win the Women’s Tag Team Showcase: Liv ends up getting the win after she counters an attempted Ronda Rousey armbar into a surprise crucifix pin.

- Backstage, Roman Reigns & Paul Heyman are with Solo Sikoa, having tasked him to accompany his Tribal Chief for the main event later. It’s briefly mentioned that the Usos haven’t arrived at the arena yet in the wake of their loss last night.

- Gunther def. Sheamus & Drew McIntyre to retain Intercontinental Championship: Another of my favorite matches in the actual WrestleMania 39, so you can’t really change things.

- Bianca Belair def. Asuka to retain Raw Women’s Championship: I was strongly tempted to change the result here, but the story about the young contortionist from Bianca’s entrance having lost her mother the day before would make things seem like bad optics if Bianca lost. That said, I’d still have Bianca win here, but in a way to help set up a rematch. She never hits the K.O.D. successfully on Asuka, and the win comes after Bianca reverses the Asuka Lock into a pinfall win.

- Instead of the whole Miz/Snoop Dogg/Shane McMahon fiasco. We instead get LA Knight appearing and talking about how he’s mad that WWE would dare have an LA WrestleMania without LA Knight. Bobby Lashley shows up and we get an impromptu match that Lashley wins.

- Finn Balor def. Edge in Hell in a Cell: It’s hard to book around an injury that happens during the match -- in this case, Finn Balor suffering a rather painful injury after a wrongly-placed ladder shot in the real match. That said, the finish here would see Damian Priest sneak in the cell as one of the “medics” as he helps Finn get the big victory.

- Cody Rhodes def. Roman Reigns: I went into great detail about how this match goes down in Part I of the Fall of the Bloodline booking, which you can read here.

RAW after WrestleMania (April 3rd)

Hour One

- The show opens with Triple H’s address, announcing that the WWE Draft will be coming next month. He then introduces the new Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, Cody Rhodes. The new champ cuts a promo about how he finished the story and how he wants to proudly represent WWE as its new top champion. That’s why he’s holding an open challenge tonight to see if anyone can beat him. It’s answered by Austin Theory and that’s your main event.

- Match 1: Asuka vs. Mia Yim: Just a fun opener match to re-establish Asuka as a threat after her Mania loss. She wins, but it’s not the end of her night yet...

- In the Bloodline’s locker room, we see Paul Heyman talking to the Usos and Solo Sikoa. This is where we first hear Roman Reigns has gone on a bit of a sabbatical and has essentially left Heyman in “charge”. Heyman says that while the weekend for the Bloodline was a nightmare, the Tribal Chief isn’t angry about it. He tells the Usos and Solo that they just need to take care of some things real soon.

- Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens bask in the celebrations of the RAW after Mania crowd cheering them on after their big championship win. Chad Gable & Otis interrupt, which Sami & KO see as a sign that they want a fight, so we get ourselves a match...

- Match 2: Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens vs. Alpha Academy: Sami & KO get the victory in a great 10 minute match, as this and Asuka/Mia Yim take advantage of hour one of RAW being commercial free. During the match, we see the Usos watching from the crowd, clearly not done with Sami & KO just yet...

Hour Two

- New U.S. Champion John Cena enters the ring and discusses how he taught Austin Theory a little bit of respect at WrestleMania and that he’s ready to take on all comers as the U.S. Champ. Enter Bron Breakker, who accepts Cena’s challenge. It should be noted that Bron is showing some heel tendencies here, which will continue on NXT the next night, when he attacks Carmelo Hayes. As for Raw...

- Match 3: Bron Breakker def. John Cena to win the U.S. Championship: I know what you’re thinking. A sudden title change seems too abrupt, but newly-turned Bron taking the U.S. Title with a dominant showing, then parlaying that into continuing his feud with Carmelo Hayes before graduating to the main roster proper would make for fun stuff.

- Match 4: Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez vs. Carmella & Chelsea Green: the first of four women’s tag team contenders qualifiers. Liv & Raquel win, setting up a match with the winner of one of the other two women’s tag matches on SmackDown.

- Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair addresses the crowd about her hard fought title retention at WrestleMania. She says she’s ready for a new challenge, but that’s when Asuka catches her by surprise and sprays her with the green mist! It’s clear that Asuka is far from done w/ Bianca and this leads to a rematch for the Raw Women’s Title at Backlash.

- Becky Lynch and Lita are being interviewed backstage as they try to brush over the little miscommunication between Becky and Trish Stratus at WrestleMania. They talk about how they’re ready to face whoever wins the women’s tag team contender’s tournament, as Trish just walks off without saying a word.

- Match 5: Damage CTRL vs. Shotzi & Natalya: The second of the four women’s tag team contenders matches. Dakota & IYO Sky win this one.

Hour Three

- Seth Rollins is out in the ring to celebrate his win over Logan Paul. He talks about how he’s the best wrestler there is and that Logan Paul now knows how it feels to be on the business end of a Stomp. That’s when he’s interrupted by Grayson Waller from NXT. Waller takes exceptions to Seth’s bragging and notes that Logan Paul was a personal friend of his. We get a tense staredown, but Waller backs off, stating that he’ll fight Rollins on his time. Seth ends the segment by getting the fans to serenade Waller with his favorite song in the entire world. Waller leaves in a huff, plugging his ears to drown out the fans singing Seth’s theme.

- Match 6: Damien Priest vs. Rey Mysterio: Rey wins with a 619, but after the match, Dominik Mysterio gets into Bad Bunny’s face at ringside, sparking an altercation. Judgment Day get the upperhand, as Priest chokeslams Bad Bunny through the announce table.

- It’s announced after this that at Backlash, Dominik & Priest will fight Rey Mysterio & Bad Bunny in a special tag team match.

- The whole Bobby Lashley/Bronson Reed/Mustafa Ali segment happens here, which leads us to...

- Match 7: Bobby Lashley vs. Mustafa Ali: Lashley wins this match, obviously. But after the match, Bronson Reed blindsides Lashley and beats him down for a bit before Lashley fights back. Bronson manages to avoid a Spear and cooly backs up the ramp, simply laughing and clearly not thinking much of his new foe.

- The Miz complains about how his weekend turned out at WrestleMania. He’s sick of the surprises, and that’s when he’s interrupted by a returning Randy Orton. He flattens Miz with an RKO. 

- Main Event: Cody Rhodes def. Austin Theory to retain the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Standard TV main event with Theory looking to make a name for himself after the biggest loss of his career at Mania night 1. Goes about 15-20 minutes (plus commercial break) w/ Cody retaining via Cross Rhodes. RAW concludes with Cody celebrating, as we can see Solo Sikoa watching the match backstage, flanked by Paul Heyman.

Conclusion

And that’s basically my version of WrestleMania 39 and the RAW After Mania to set up how things go down in the Fall of the Bloodline. Part II of that fantasy booking will be coming soon.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

It’s as if we skipped right from 2018 to 2020. On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren became the first major Democratic candidate to formally dip a toe in the water of the 2020 presidential campaign, announcing the creation of an exploratory committee. Not everyone who creates an exploratory committee ends up becoming an official candidate, but Warren is very likely to. For all intents and purposes, she is now running for president.

Warren has experienced a swift rise, if not a meteoric one, to political stardom. A celebrated consumer advocate and law professor, she oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program (better known as the post-financial crisis “bailout”) and shepherded the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during President Obama’s first term. In 2012, she ran for and won elected office for the first time, defeating Republican incumbent Scott Brown 54 percent to 46 percent in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts; she was re-elected by 24 points in 2018. Though not quite at the level of the current Beto-mania, she’s had her moments as a progressive folk hero — a viral video on fair taxation that helped clear the field for her first Senate campaign and Mitch McConnell’s swag-spawning complaint that “Nevertheless, she persisted” after she was cut off in the middle of a speech on the Senate floor.

But if you listen to conventional wisdom — and our favorite quasi-scientific tool, betting markets — Warren’s star has dimmed in recent months. President Trump’s repeated references to her as “Pocahontas” have kept alive a seven-year-old controversy over Warren’s claims that she has Native American ancestry, which potentially helped advance her career. Her release of a DNA test in October 2018 that she hoped would settle the matter was not well received. And in a party reportedly thirsty for a new generation of leadership, the 69-year-old Warren may have missed her window. For the first but certainly not the last time this year, let’s take a look at the case for and against the chances of a major 2020 Democratic candidate.

Ideologically, Warren is right where a Democratic primary candidate should want to be — it’s one of the strongest cards in her hand. According to FiveThirtyEight’s Trump Score, she votes with the president just 13.1 percent of the time, making her the third-most anti-Trump senator in the 115th Congress. Although she’s best known for her stands against income inequality and big banks, she is deeply liberal on both social and economic issues, according to an analysis of her votes and positions by OnTheIssues — although not quite as liberal as Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of Warren’s potential 2020 rivals.

Warren’s base is likely to overlap quite a bit with Sanders’s, the self-described democratic socialist who turned heads in the 2016 presidential primaries by winning 40 percent of Democratic delegates. Warren even seemed to make an explicit play for Sanders voters when she devoted a full minute (mid-personal bio, no less) of her four-and-a-half-minute announcement video to an economic-populist message. “America’s middle class is under attack. … Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie and they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice.”

In fact, at least one poll suggests that Warren and Sanders (if he runs again in 2020) will be fighting over the same pool of voters. Back in April 2018, Suffolk University conducted a poll of two versions of the 2020 Democratic primary in New Hampshire: one without Warren and one with her. In the version without her, Sanders pulled 25 percent of the vote. In the version with her, he dropped to 13 percent; Warren got 26 percent. None of the other six candidates about whom the poll asked lost as much support as Sanders did with Warren in the field.

Sanders and Warren have something else in common: the support of small donors, or those who give $200 or less to a campaign. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, as of Nov. 1, small donors were behind 56 percent of all the money raised by Warren’s re-election campaign. The only 2018 Senate candidate whose fundraising was more reliant on small donors was Sanders himself.

Small donors gave big to Warren

The five 2018 U.S. Senate candidates who raised the largest share of their donations from small donors as of Nov. 1, 2018

Candidate Party State Share of Contributions From Small Donors Bernie Sanders I Vermont 77%

–

Elizabeth Warren D Massachusetts 56

–

Corey Stewart R Virginia 50

–

Beto O’Rourke D Texas 46

–

Geoff Diehl R Massachusetts 45

–

Source: Federal Election Commission via Center for Responsive Politics

And in terms of raw dollar amounts, Warren raised $10 million more from small donors than Sanders did, even though neither one was facing a competitive race. Warren’s $19.4 million small-donor haul was second only to Beto O’Rourke’s among 2018 general-election candidates for Senate or House. Presidential campaigns are expensive affairs, and being a strong fundraiser — particularly among small donors, a well that is less likely to run dry — is a huge advantage. It can also signal high voter enthusiasm for a candidate.

Warren’s deep pockets may also be financing her apparent strategy of building up goodwill among state-level Democrats who will be instrumental in primary and caucus field organizing. According to the Washington Post, she directed at least $7.6 million to Democratic campaigns for offices like state treasurer and legislator in 2018 — more than any rumored 2020 contender not named Michael Bloomberg. As of mid-October, Warren had also made 172 post-primary congratulatory phone calls to Democratic candidates, blasted her email list on their behalf 180 times, shared policy documents with them 63 times, held 61 one-on-one meetings, hosted 41 fundraisers and shot 36 videos. That is how you develop a network.

Central to Warren’s grassroots networking strategy may be New Hampshire — less than an hour’s drive away from her home base and the second state in the country (after Iowa) to cast primary ballots. While she sent one staffer each to Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada for the 2018 election, two of her aides moved to New Hampshire despite it not hosting any particularly competitive major elections. (They assumed pretty major roles there, too — as the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s political director and communications director.)

The polls at this point aren’t very predictive, but if the primaries were held today, it looks like New Hampshire would be her strongest state. In the latest poll of the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic primary, 17 percent of Granite Staters said they would vote for Warren, putting her in third place — 2 points away from second.1 In Iowa — or at least in the three Iowa caucus polls taken since Nov. 6, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polls database — she averages 8 percent, putting her in fourth place. She fares the worst in national polls, averaging 5 percent in seven national 2020 Democratic primary polls2 conducted since Election Day.

Overall, Warren’s campaign looks like it could go either way. With some skill and luck, she could launch herself right into the thick of the nomination fight. But there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about Warren as well, starting with her stature among her own constituents. Just after Election Day, UMass Amherst released a poll of the 2020 Democratic primary in Massachusetts, and Warren garnered just 11 percent of the sample. That is not good in a state where her name recognition is already high and Democrats are as intimately familiar with her record as any 2020 voter is going to get: Most eventual nominees were already lapping the field in polls of their home states at this point in previous presidential election cycles.

Her 2018 re-election was also unimpressive in a state as blue as Massachusetts. Warren won, but only by 24 points in a state nearly 30 points more Democratic-leaning than the country as a whole.3 Add in the extremely favorable national environment to Democrats, and she “should” have won Massachusetts by more than 39 points.4 By this method, Warren had the weakest incumbency advantage across hundreds of Senate and House elections last year.

Elizabeth Warren was 2018′s weakest incumbent

The 10 Senate and House incumbents who underperformed by the most in the 2018 elections*

Incumbent Party State or District Expected Margin† Actual Margin Net Incumbency Advantage Elizabeth Warren D MA D+39 D+24 -15 Chris Collins R NY-27 R+13 R+0 -13 Sheldon Whitehouse D RI D+36 D+23 -12 Mia Love R UT-4 R+12 D+0 -12 David Cicilline D RI-1 D+45 D+34 -11 Bob Menendez D NJ D+22 D+11 -11 Jim Costa D CA-16 D+25 D+15 -10 Duncan Hunter R CA-50 R+14 R+3 -10 Steve King R IA-4 R+13 R+3 -10 Rob Woodall R GA-7 R+10 R+0 -10

*Excluding open-seat elections, elections that did not feature both a Republican and Democratic candidate, jungle primaries, elections with multiple incumbents and elections where the incumbent was an independent.

†Based on the state or district’s partisan lean, its elasticity and the national popular vote.

Source: ABC News

It’s unclear what’s cooling voters on Warren. The fallout from her DNA test just weeks before Election Day is a decent guess. But the controversy over her ancestry may also be a proxy for other, less socially acceptable reasons why people dislike her, such as her gender or age. “I don’t think America’s ready for another Hillary. It has to be someone young and dynamic,” one interviewee told Boston radio station WBUR-FM.

Warren has long polarized audiences and was never the world’s most beloved politician to begin with. That may be because she’s a woman with a confrontational style. It may be sexism mixed with other reasons. Whatever the cause(s), Warren isn’t in the best starting position as she enters the fray. But she’s not in the worst position either — she’ll likely find a receptive audience for her message in terms of policy and ideology. A well-run campaign would put her among the field’s top contenders. We’ll find out soon enough: Warren says she’ll announce for sure whether she’s running “early in the new year.”

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (334): Mon 13th Feb 2023

One more shift until I get three days off. I love this job but I don’t know if I could do this if it was a 9-5. I need a full three days to recover from the strain and boredom of backing hundreds if not thousands of items into boxes for 40 hours a week while shitty music is forced into my ear canals. If I only had two days to recover from this shit then I’d be in a bad mood all the time. Interestingly enough when I worked at TSB they surveyed us and asked whether we’d be interested in switching to a four day work week and I said absolutely fucking not. 10 hours (minus two 30 minute breaks) of standing in one spot and silently packing items into boxes I could definitely do but 10 hours (minus one hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks) of talking to shitheads on the phone, go fuck your Dad! Even though it would be less work the type of work in the TSB job is WAY worse than in the factory (also those fifteen minute breaks felt more like fifteen second breaks). I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since I left that shithole and frankly I’m not sure how I lasted six months there without ramming my head through a computer screen. Since I did a month of training, two weeks on holiday, a week off with COVID and ten days off the phones because their systems stopped working because the tech team are really incompetent, this means that I only really spent four months talking to dickheads on the phone but it was still way too much. I still regret not writing down the names and numbers of the arsehole callers I got so that when I go on trips away I could use public telephones to prank call them in the middle of the night to get back at them for talking to me like a piece of shit.

Six weeks until WrestleMania! Man I’m so fucking excited. For a while it seemed like I would never get there and now it’s so close. Next week I’ll go to the town and get my money changed over to dollars (or whatever currency Biden changes it to in the time between now and the trip. Hell the guy’s so senile he may pass a law ruling that people have to pay for stuff with underpants…although that would make buying underpants tricky). I might prepare for WrestleMania 39 by watching every single WrestleMania to get myself in the spirit of things. It also means that I’m going to have to start watching Raw and Smackdown again so that I’ll be up to speed on the storylines going into the show…urgh. I know that the Rumble and Mania still deliver but the stuff on Raw and Smackdown that isn’t Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn is just abysmal. Personally I think WWE are making a big mistake by going with Cody Rhodes being the guy to face Roman at Mania (unless he loses which he should in which case I’m fine with it). Rhodes did a good job last year of garnering fan support and establishing himself as a top babyface but it hasn’t been enough to warrant him being the one to dethrone Reigns. The person to take the belt off of Reigns should do so as the culmination of a lengthy storyline, not just because they won the Rumble. Sami Zayn is far and away the more logical choice to face Reigns at Mania, though I don’t think he should win either as it will be much more effective if they have him lose this year, have Reigns title run go over the 1000 day mark and then have Sami defeat him at Mania 40. Speaking of WWE pay per views I think next year I’m going to pull the trigger on the Royal Rumble too, although the location for the show hasn’t been decided yet. The great thing about my Mania trip is that i will be able to cross this item as well as visiting California and seeing the LA Lakers off my bucket list. Therefore I’m hoping that the Rumble will be located in a state that will allow me to cross off additional items. I’ve always wanted to visit New Orleans so having the Rumble there would be handy. I also want to see Edgar Allan Poe’s grave and the house he lived in which are both in Baltimore so hopefully they might announce this as the site of the show.

[cestlemoment]

some ... ‘eliott since wednesday’ content 

mecredi : 10:40 

    he literally only came to school for lucas. he wanted to see lucas, and talk to him about everything that had happened since he had to leave lucas’ on sunday.            ( things he’d done: laid in his bed and hadn’t slept sunday night because he couldn’t get comfortable. called lucille to ask her to meet him and talk. told her that they were for sure broken up and that he was sorry for disappearing without telling her he was leaving. said that he wanted to be with lucas, but that she better not tell anyone.  she said she wouldn’t. thankfully.  but she still looked at him with that look that said  are you manic?   because they both know what happened last time, and he doesn’t feel manic. at all. he feels happy and calm and safe when he’s around lucas. which he can’t say he feels calm and happy with lucille anymore. he hadn’t been at school monday, tuesday, because he... still has trouble going to school. )      but he’s at school for lucas, and grinning through lucas’ science class window, and he’s trying to mask how tired he looks, but it’s probably not working, but he’s happy to see lucas, doesn’t remember that maybe he shouldn’t kiss lucas right in front of his classroom, and he remembers at lucas’ reaction.       it’s all good until the floor fucking drops out from under him at  don’t worry, i don’t talk to her anymore  (i’m not worried... why don’t you talk to her?)  because i don’t need crazy people in my life.       and that’s it. that’s the end, he knows it is. he thinks he’s going to die because of this.  it takes all of his willpower to not give lucas the kiss he lifts his chin up for.  because he doesn’t deserve that, he doesn’t even deserve that last, goodbye kiss.     (goodbye, lucas. that’s what his brain is saying when he walks away.)  

mercredi: 11:30

      he’s back at home. alone. always alone! always!  and he’s trying to block out lucas’ words from less than an hour ago. and he feels so fucking stupid for believing that he could have anything else in his life, that he could actually have the way that lucas makes him feel permanently.  it always happens this way. he thinks he might want something different, tries to get it, puts himself out there, and then gets it all thrown back into his face. cause he’s fucking stupid. backpack dropped by the door, and he’s already changed out of his school clothes, because he’s going to sleep this feeling off. whatever, he doesn’t have to do school stuff anyway, he just has to show up to his exams, and those are months away.  hands rub over his face, forcing any upset tears to not appear, and he’s messing with his phone for a few minutes, some desperate part of him hoping that lucas noticed he said something wrong, hoping that lucas will text him, because really, that’s all he wants, despite all of this.  and ... then the phone is on his desk, and he’s just going to sleep as long as his body will let him.  he’s tired of feeling this way. 

mercredi: 18:39

     his mom would be happy that he’s cooking, that he’s not just trying to sleep away the pit of hunger in his stomach because he’s too tired to get up and make something. and he’s making it hurt more because he keeps looking at his phone. and obviously there’s no text from lucas. there’s nothing from lucille. there’s ... no one else that texts him. he feels really fucking alone. but maybe he’ll fuck around and draw something, and he ends up at his desk, half an hour later, beers on the table around him, trying to draw away the way he feels.  he’s already decided he’s not fucking going to school the rest of the week, he can’t deal with it if he’s not going to see lucas. 

jeudi 17:50

       he’s spent all day thinking. all fucking day laying in his bed just thinking about what the fuck he’s supposed to do now. he’d laid all his cards on the table. his room smells like weed, he knows that, but he’s just tired and stressed and on edge and he’s not sure what else to do to calm down.  and then lucas’ text comes in.   ( ça y est, je l’ai dit a mon coloc.)   which, he’s proud, happy for lucas to have someone he could open up to, say something about ... them.  but there can’t be a them.  because lucas doesn’t want crazy people in his life, and he’s crazy, and he’s just going to hurt lucas.  so there can’t be a them.  and his response, his text, his that’s cool, i’m happy for you, but it’s moving too fast for me, it’s my fault, i’m sorry , is meant to be the easiest way for lucas to know there can’t be a them. not if that’s the way lucas feels. it’s meant to let lucas down easily, place all the blame on himself (because it is his fault. it’s his fault that he can never, ever, ever have what he truly wants.  lucas.  it’s his fault.)  and he doesn’t want to think about how lucas might feel, he almost hopes that lucas will reply, that he’ll call, that he’ll do something. he stares too long, and lucas doesn’t, and he wants to scream at himself because he could have said something to lucas.  (but lucas doesn’t want crazy people in his life.)  it’s easier this way, it’s easier for both of them. 

vendredi 09:18 

     breakfast. he’s trying. he got a message about some party that the foyer girls are going to be at, and apparently they... at least appreciate him trying to participate in their foyer thing, even if he’s been shit at showing up.  it was a surprise to see it.  the part of him that wants to believe that he can just hide his bipolar from lucas wants to text lucas to go with him to the party. not even as ... being together... just as ... he wants to see lucas. as dumb that that is.  he can’t see lucas, he’s not allowed to, because he can’t stand any more hurt.  his fingers are flashing through the motions until he’s typing  salut, j’ai un invitation à une fête ce soir, tu veux à viens avec moi?  to lucille. he’s a bit surprised that he gets back a  ouais, bien sûr j'irai.  from her.  he’d expected radio silence on her end. she doesn’t mention lucas, nor does he expect her to.  it takes all his willpower to not swipe back to his contacts, stare at his and lucas’ message thread. it’s right there, right above lucille’s name. it would be so easy. and it would be so easy to go look at lucas’ instagram again. all these things would be so easy.  he turns his phone upside down after sending lucille,  okay. 18h, j’allerais à toi.  the phone stays there most of the rest of the day, and he in his room, trying to find some sort of care about any of this.               ( he knows why he’s going back to lucille, maybe not all the way back, he doesn’t want to really be with her, anymore, but he can’t be with lucas, and he just needs something stable. everything’s falling apart at the seems, and he can’t seem to grab onto anything that doesn’t crumble under his touch. she knew him back when this was all just a mild case of depression, a little bit of anxiety thrown in for the fun of it. when it was just something half the people he knew had, because everyone’s stressed and depressed, and she understood back then. she understood that sometimes he got a bit more down than everyone else, and so they’d hang out at her place or something. it was nice of her, and he knows he’d been in love with her.          but the mania scared her, he knows that. no one knows how to deal with that. the mania and him doing irrational, impulsive things to get the attention of his best friend, the night of him frantic and afraid and panicked and wide-eyed after he’d kissed him, and been rejected, and he started spiraling, so, so bad and it’d been so close to exams he didn’t even know they were happening and she had, has a right to be afraid for him.  the mania scared her, but she doesn’t have any idea (no one can have any idea) how afraid it made him.  during,  after.  it’s fair that she’s afraid of him doing that same thing, now. but with lucas it is --- was different. because ... lucas wanted him too (wants? him too?) and didn’t reject him. he doesn’t feel manic. but he knows that lucas won’t like him if he’s manic. that’s ... a given, he knows that.       but lucille didn’t leave, didn’t abandon him, even if she’s been more and more -- overbearing... whether or not it’s him perceiving that it’s actually what she’s doing, but -- she’s familiar. it’s familiar to talk to her and make plans with her and just -- everything is falling apart around him so he doesn’t know what else to do.)

vendredi 19:30

       they’ve been here a while, the music loud from the minute they’ve gotten here, the familiarity of them going into a party together is strangely jolting, but still something easier to deal with than a crumbling foundation. it hadn’t taken long for them to fall back into old routines, years old routines of dancing together and sharing a drink and just talking. she talks around the topic of her thinking he’s manic, around the topic of lucas.  she doesn’t talk around is he going to school? and he talks around no, i haven’t.   he doesn’t know anyone here, not really. it’s weird, and he finally tells her that he wants to go home, and he knows that she can see the tiredness in his eyes, because she knows that tiredness.  there’s a familiarity here, them laughing a bit and they end up at the side of the house, slowing a little, talking, and it’s familiar and safe and stable, and he hasn’t really felt that way in a few days, and it just -- happens.  pushing in to kiss lucille, and it’s familiar (the way her lips feel under his, the way her hands rest on his waist.)  it’s familiar. but then she pulls away, her familiar voice  ‘soit nous sommes ensemble ou nous ne sommes pas’ -- and it’s true, she’s right.  (and....)  ‘qu'en est-il de lucas?’ and he doesn’t say anything. just asks if they can leave, get on the bus.  he wants to confide in lucille, because he doesn’t have anyone else, but he’s afraid to do that, too.  he doesn’t know what she’ll say, he just doesn’t know anything anymore.  he kisses her cheek when she gets off at her stop. he doesn’t know what to do about anything anymore, and he feels like he’s going to explode. everything is too overwhelming and he doesn’t know who to ask. what to do. he most certainly can’t show up to his parents’ at ... whatever time it is. (looks at his phone, and it’s not even that late... but ...)  he can’t sleep when he gets home, tossing and turning and scribbling things in his journal, and finally gives up and sets up his laptop to watch netflix until he feels like he’s emptied his brain enough to just ... stop thinking. 

[phandomfbi]

Theory #3 of 2018: Moving 2.0

Dan and Phil... are moving.

[title coined by an old ask]

Okay, okay, calm down. I know this has been a theory since the day they refused to give us a proper apartment tour. But listen--there’s so much proof. It’s our job to lay it all out for you and it’s your job to gape in amazement as you read through our slightly obsessive list of tiny quirks and hidden messages from our favourite english muffins.

Obligatory Condescending Disclaimer Time: Dap and Phap are entitled to their privacy. We have take care not to encroach on that by supplying evidence only found through their public content. We do not endorse stalking them or showing up outside their house. Now, enjoy.

First, the obvious clue. The cornerstone that we have built the entirety of this theory upon: the apartment tour [lack-there-of].

Second clue: Phil’s bedroom. Now, we made a theory that Dan and Phil share a room a while back, and this has been a common phan theory ever since the Floor Controversy of 2017. [I would link to it but due to civil war things it has been deleted from our blog, so instead I am linking to one of Emily’s posts]. We don’t think they actually share a room. As one of Emily’s posts on pfbi showed, couples can have separate beds [i.e. Eli and their fiance have separate beds]. However, the fact that Phil has such a small room seemed to inspire this mania in us all where we were convinced it proved they sleep in the same room, not to say they don’t sometimes, but it’s more clear that they probably gave Phil the small room because, as they said at one point, Phil gave up his room for the gaming room. He wouldn’t do that permanently, so it makes more sense that he shares the big room stuff-wise with Dan, and has his smaller room for sleep/videos because this condo is ultra-temporary! 

Third clue, the one that was really a linchpin in catalyzing this frenzy was Phil’s recent liveshow, re-uploaded by phanshows, in which Phil says that he melted a chocolate ginger on his sofa, which was a huge deal because he would “lose [his] house deposit on this place” [16:39], implying that their flat came fully furnished. Why is this a big deal? What does that mean? Well, when someone is commissioning or renovating a house, or a forever home, they often will be set up in a furnished condo by the company doing the work. Eli, one of our members, was a house cleaner for 5 years, and many of their clients would be moved to furnished condos anywhere from 5 months to a year while work was done. This suggests that Dan and Phil are either building a forever home or having an affordable house renovated for a year while they stay in moon-shaped flat they currently are in.

Fourth clue, Brook pointed out that the We're Moving Out video came out April 25, 2017 (so that's around when their old lease ended/new lease started) and the tour starts April 28, 2018. This is definitely interesting!! Speaking of the tour, isn’t it interesting that Phil basically said he won’t be doing liveshows for a while? In fact, no gaming shows for the foreseeable future [due to “shit wifi] and no individual or pair Dan or Phil liveshows? Sounds like they don’t want us to see something.

Clue Six; Take a moment and look at these stills taken from gaming videos leading up to the present:

What a progressive zoom... Perhaps caused by the edgy lens and a need to get the recording closer to have clearer images? Or...maybe to hide how much of the background they’re slowly removing from their video set..! This was the final clue, the final hammer strike on the nail of conspiracy and suspicion. Finally we’re all pretty thoroughly convinced these boys are moving!

They are likely packing up and having a company move their belongings into the new place while they’re away on tour. Then, when they come home we will all see their Forever Home and they’ll adopt their pet corgi/shibe mix. After all, it does seem like this will be the last tour from their tone about it.

Strap in, kiddos, shit’s about to get frickin’ radical.

-Eli, Brook, Kiddo, Yash, Jada, Annika, MaK, Eve