#I don’t even know who I want to lose more. Matt for being a hater. bowie jane for being her and also a hater.

[mazojo]

America’s power bc she has everyone OBSESSED with her

[psycho-slytherin]

Strangers ch. 34

Yoongi finds your phone– and so does someone else...

Pairing: Yoongi x (female) Reader

Word count: 1.8k

Genre: fluff, angst

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You force a laugh. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me, y/n,” Yoongi says softly, his voice a knife in your back. “These– Jesus.” He exhales sharply as your phone buzzes again, again, again. You would’ve turned your notifications off months ago, but you need Twitter for your jobs. “How long has it been like this?”

@satanhasaholdoffrance: hey @yourname make like a tree and die

@queenynuwu: I hope y/n knows we love her!! <3 @yourname

@gummyyoongi: has anyone found @yourname‘s address yet?

“I don’t know what you mean,” you reply stubbornly. You don’t want your weight on Yoongi’s shoulders, not when you know he’ll blame himself.

“Bullshit. You said this wasn’t happening! You told me that my fans weren’t coming after you.”

“And you never checked,” you reply, your throat tight. “You know what I am. I’m a liar. And you trusted me– that’s your mistake.”

Yoongi flinches. “I know you don’t mean that.”

You begin trembling, your hands and arms and shoulders tensing against your will. “You shouldn’t trust me, Yoongi.” I’ve kept too many secrets from you.

“Well, I do trust you. I know you too well, y/n, and you don’t mean that. But this?” He taps your phone. “This is messed up.”

You take a step back, shrinking into yourself. “I-I’m sorry.”

“What? No. Why are you apologizing?” Yoongi gets up and walks towards you, his eyes intense. “My fans– the stuff they’re saying– that’s what’s messed up. And y/n, I’m so, so sorry this happened. You don’t deserve it.”

“I, uh...” you mumble, confused. Why isn’t he angry at you? You lied to him, again and again and again. “Sorry...”

Yoongi sighs, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “What are you even apologizing for?”

“I don’t know!” You cry. “I thought you’d be mad at me!”

“I’m not mad at you, y/n-ie.” Yoongi raises his arm and brushes a loose strand of hair out of your face. “I’m just worried. The comments you’re getting, the haters... they’re too much for anyone.”

Your mind drifts to the nightmares, the thoughts that your hate comments have inspired within you.

Yoongi’s gaze darkens, but he’s not looking at you– he’s staring far off, at something beyond. “I’ve seen idols, trainees– friends– that internalized those things, and they didn’t see an escape... no one is equipped to deal with this shit alone, no one.” Yoongi swallows, and his voice wavers. “So don’t try, y/n. You’re not alone, and I can’t lose you.”

You blink hard before drawing back and punching Yoongi in the arm.

“Ow!” Yoongi yelps, rubbing his arm. “What the hell?”

“That’s for being dramatic,” you say, using all your willpower to keep your voice light. “And this–” you poke him in the ribs– “is for being selfish. I don’t wanna lose me either, nerd. It’s not all about you.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Yoongi laughs. “My bad, I almost forgot that you’re a force to be reckoned with.”

“Just don’t let it happen again,” you sniff haughtily.

“I won’t, promise. Hey, do you need a lift to your next job?”

“Nah, I’ll take the bus. I’m not famous like you,” you reply. Besides, you want to be alone with your thoughts.

“Suit yourself. I have to go to the studio anyways.”

“Another BTS comeback already?” You muse, and Yoongi winks.

“Nope.”

~~~

Once Yoongi leaves, you wriggle into another sweater and shrug your coat on over it. You can’t help but feel chilly lately, and you can’t afford to get a cold.

You leave your apartment building and quickly walk towards the bus stop. Your afternoon will be spent on a photoshoot for a new makeup line, and Lisa said you’d be able to keep some of the merchandise.

You adjust your face mask and pop in your earphones, your mind a whirling dervish of thoughts. You imagined Yoongi would be furious– after all, you’d promised no more secrets. You couldn’t help but keep your Twitter mess to yourself, because you didn’t want your friend to stress about it.

Friend... the word seems strange to you, almost wrong.

Well, we’re ‘dating’ now, you think, so I guess he’s my fake-boyfriend instead.

It’s weird; for years you were completely in love with Yoongi, besotted with his face and voice and laugh and lyrics. His shy, goofy nature. His irresistible charm. You remember when you and Lisa would scream together at every new music video, each concept photo, any hint or clue or theory. It seems so long ago now.

Speaking of Lisa... your phone begins buzzing with a call from your manager/friend.

“Y/n, darling, how are you doing? How’s the leg?”

“All healed up now,” you reply, flexing and unflexing your left leg. You lost a lot of blood, but your injury missed all the arteries and important stuff.

“Great. Hey, I lined up a job, it’s yours for the taking if you’re interested. They need an extra in a cologne commercial, it should only be a two-day shoot and we can plan around Moon Over The Sea. What do you think?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” you murmur absentmindedly. “How much does it pay?”

“Pretty well, your cut would be only a little less than you’re making on the makeup shoot today.”

“Alright, sign me up.”

“Great. And... how’s it going with Yoongi?”

You jolt. “What?”

“C’mon, y/n, you can’t expect me not to ask. You’re dating your idol!”

“I-I’m not, really...”

“Oh, shush. It’s official, isn’t it? BigHit confirmed it last week. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were together!”

You grit your teeth– you have to tell her the truth. “Lisa, seriously, it’s not real.”

“I know, I bet it totally feels like a fairy tale, huh? I’m so jealous.” Lisa’s voice gets quieter, pouty. “We have to hang out soon, it’s been ages since we’ve had a proper gossip sesh!”

“But...”

“No buts! I’m ordering you as your manager to hang out with your best friend... who is also your manager... who is also me.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Yes ma’am, just pencil me in.”

“Will do! See you soon.”

“See ya.

Humming to yourself, you continue your bus ride, arriving at the studio a few minutes early. A fashionable young man strides up to you bearing shorts and a shirt.

“Ah, you’re here. L/n y/n, right? Perfect, perfect, put these on and we’ll get you straight into hair and makeup.”

“Uhh...” you examine the outfit he gave you. “Are you sure this is for me?”

“Of course I am, what are you talking about?”

“It’s black, these shorts are made of leather, and...” you trail off, gulping. “It’s all very tight.” That’s right, clothes like these will only hug the curves you don’t have. You’re not a sex icon like some of the female idols you’ve seen Yoongi with on TV. You know as someone in the entertainment industry, you’re supposed to be fashionable– but you’re too much a fan of oversized sweaters and soft pants to let them go. “I don’t know if this outfit suits me.”

“Nonsense, you’re beautiful– you just need the confidence! Besides, you’re gonna have to get used to this type of stuff if you want to get anywhere in your career,” the man chuckles. “Changing room is over there. When you’re ready, head to hair and makeup.”

“R-right,” you mumble, taking the clothes. They look so cold, you shiver just thinking about putting them on.

Ten minutes later, you stare at yourself in the mirror. Staring back at you seems to be a child, a little girl who doesn’t belong, who can barely fill out the tight crop top or shorts. And you’re supposed to be dating Yoongi? You don’t know if you want to laugh or cry. Yoongi deserves better, someone prettier, smarter, who looks like they belong at his side. In your mind’s eye, you can see Yoongi next to you in the mirror– black-haired, a brow raised, his mouth quirking upwards in a lazy smirk. He looks like a prince, a god, and you look like you’re playing dress-up next to him. No wonder so many people are upset; you’re doing Yoongi no favors by being with him.

You sigh and shake your head. You’re cold, so cold, and you hate it. You turn away from the mirror to get your hair and makeup done.

“Okay, can you give me a little lip bite? Something cheeky? Oh, perfect! Yes, hold like that!” The camera flashes while you sit frozen in place. “Cross your legs now, hold the lipstick closer to your face... can you give me bedroom eyes?”

Face flushed, you lower your lashes and pout your lips like you’ve seen real models do, and the camera flashes again and again. The lipstick you’ve got on is a brighter red than you’ve ever dared to wear, and combined with the outfit and your bold eyeliner, you look a little edgy.

“Great, y/n, you’re doing wonderfully. We need one more photo for the spread...” the photographer looks around the photo studio, which is a rather minimalist set. “Can someone get me that chair? Y/n, sit on it backwards and try for a smirk– like an ‘I’m-better-than-you’ face.”

But I’m not. Still you try, channeling your inner Seokjin as you fix the camera with your best downward stare, and then half smiling as though you’ve got a secret– which you do, too many to count. Half a dozen shots later, you’re dismissed with the promise that the money will be wired to your account by Friday.

The next morning, you wake up to the familiar buzzing of your notifications, again and again and again. You haven’t overslept, have you? No, your clock informs you that it’s not even six AM. You groan and flip your phone over to read your new mentions.

@beautyoftheseoul: Check out our new line of matte lipsticks, modeled by #MoonOverTheSea’s @yourname!

@chimyoongles: Omg @2460sunshine did you see that @yourname liked a yoongi thirst tweet? Lmaooo I’m dying she’s rly all of us

@scarletwitchisjunghoseok: I think I love @yourname now that she’s exposed herself as an army lololol

@captainkookie21: why are ppl stanning @yourname for her fuckup lol it just goes to show what a liar and a slut she is.

You blink sleepily. You liked a tweet about Yoongi? You’ve been careful about doing that ever since you became a public figure, in case Yoongi noticed. You tap through your likes and gasp:

@slutfordionysus: rt if you want Suga to crush you between his thighs, like if you want him to use his tongue technology on you ;)

Oh, fuck. You never liked that. You’ve never even seen that tweet. Which means... you’ve been hacked?

[heatherc1212]

Story Links and Deep Thoughts

So just in case you haven’t seen it this summer, I started a new Dawsey fanfic and it’s actually going really well (UPDATE: Story is now complete!). I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback which has been so encouraging for me. That story is now completely done but I all ready have plans for another one to write in conjunction with the new CF season (if I’m not gonna get any good Dawsey on the show, then I sure as heck am gonna write some, both for myself and for the other fans) and I’m super excited about tackling that story. I’m going to post the links to both stories here and this Tumblr post will be pinned on my Twitter profile page.

You are the Reason: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12944940/1/You-Are-the-Reason-A-Dawsey-Fanfic

Luckiest Souls: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13065660/1/Luckiest-Souls

Hopefully you guys are interested in reading that second story because I cannot wait to start putting that one together! The outline for it is all ready over 3 pages long if that tells you how much thought and love is going into it, LOL ;)

I also need to post a rant about some things that have been bothering me this summer. This is gonna be long so bear with me while I try to put all my thoughts together. There are two parts to this rant and I apologize now if none of this makes any sense. I think I just need to get it all out of my system.

A.  Since when does everything happen in absolutes? This has been on my mind a lot lately as I continue to process the thought of watching CF without Gabby Dawson. There are so many people that seem to think she’s never coming back and I can’t quite figure out how they got there. I don’t live in that sort of absolute world and I know from being a fan of TV for a very long time that the TV world can be fluid and also very uncertain. This could turn out to be a rambling rant of unreadable garbage regarding CF but I need to get it all out (this is rant number one).

First off, here are just a few reasons that I came up with to completely dispute the theory that Monica is never coming back to CF (I seriously cannot figure out how people got there…)

1.    Monica didn’t leave on bad terms: We have absolutely no reason to believe that she hates the show, hates the network (heck, she’s on this big directing initiative thing with the SAME network so clearly she has no issues with them), or hates her coworkers. She’s been in touch with Derek off and on since she left and we saw her recently return to Chicago and attend a concert with some of the other One Chicago ladies. Why on earth would she not be receptive to coming back? That makes no sense to me. If she had cut everyone out of her life or something then I might believe it but she didn’t so that makes no sense.

2.    This Director’s Initiative is only for one year:  This director’s program is only for one TV season so it won’t keep her busy for longer than that and quite frankly, I feel like it could open the door more for her to come back in S8. She’s mentioned in the past how much she would love to direct an episode of CF and learning and working with another director for a solid year could give her a leg up on getting that opportunity with her old show. I’ve checked around and she doesn’t seem to have any other projects lined up during this gig either and usually when a person leaves a show for good, their project list starts filling up on IMDB and hers hasn’t done that. That’s public information that goes into that database so why wouldn’t she be lining up other things if she’s gone for good?

3.    The Storyline: Gabby and Matt are definitely in a rough place right now but I don’t see it as the final ending that other people seem to see (and honestly, I think the only people who see this as a final ending are the asshats who hate Gabby and just want her gone…they’re seeing what they want to see and not what’s actually happened). I can easily see Gabby needing time to process the news that she shouldn’t get pregnant because of the risk to her own life because that is a HUGE deal to women. She’s been yearning for a family with Matt since they lost their baby in S4 and now someone is basically taking that away from them. That is a freaking GIGANTIC blow to this little family. Heck, I’m in my early 40s right now and I’m constantly wondering if being a mom will ever be in my future (i.e. my age now makes it riskier to get pregnant, plus I’m not even dating anyone right now and I won’t have a baby without a husband). That isn’t something that’s easy for women to process and Gabby is such a strong willed and passionate person that being told she can’t or shouldn’t get pregnant is a hard pill to swallow. We saw how much she wanted to give Matt a baby, it’s the one thing he’s wanted his whole life, and how she didn’t care how risky it was….she was going to give that to him no matter what. She’s not seeing things beyond that and Matt isn’t seeing things beyond the possibility of losing her which IMO, has caused them to talk AT each other more than talk TO each other. Time apart is not a bad thing for these two to process the shock and sadness of that baby news and I would understand completely if it takes Gabby a while to come to grips with it because I haven’t come to grips with my own issues yet (and I don’t even have any female problems). If the writers thought that Monica was never going to come back, they would have killed Gabby off IMO because it would be the only way to get Matt to move on at some point. Keeping her alive, the fact that they’ve done research about long distance relationships, and having Matt still processing everything himself screams to me that they have a long term story that they still want to tell and are putting things on hold with the hope of getting her back someday to finish it right. Derek admitted recently that he knows he messed up her exit back in the spring….I can see him not wanting to give up on their story so easily and again, the fact that he’s spoken to her a few times since she left the show should give us hope that she wouldn’t be opposed to coming back to complete Dawsey’s story. And seriously, Monica is such a passionate, intelligent, and creative person herself…do you honestly think she would be okay with her character being left in such a bad place? This season will tell us more as it goes on because if they keep her and Matt together long distance for S7, then I will absolutely believe that she’s coming back sooner rather than later. We will have to wait and see on that one but she’s not dead guys…she’s just in PR. (I’ll refrain from going on my rant about how military families have to deal with long distance stuff all the time and how those couples don’t just give up on their marriages when they go through hard stuff or are apart for a while. There’s definitely a way they could tell a Dawsey story without having Monica around and I will be watching intently to see if they actually do this or not. The lazy story is to just end them and throw Matt into something else at some point but the challenging and more interesting story is to figure out this long distance thing and get Monica back at some point so my preference is for them to go that way. Again, we’ll have to wait and see though.)

4.    The fanbase is a little fragile right now: This might seem like a weird reason but bear with me for a moment. Dawsey fans are on edge because we don’t know the details of how they’re going to handle this whole story. Dawsey haters are all dancing because their most hated character isn’t there and they seem to think that Matt will just jump into another relationship like two weeks into the season. General CF fans are on edge because the writing was lazy at times in S6 and storylines are getting repetitive. The show’s ratings have been way down from what they were on Tuesday nights and now they’re the show that got sandwiched right between the other two Chicago shows for this upcoming season. I firmly believe that NBC did this on purpose because the fanbase is so fragile right now and they’re worried about ratings. You piss off the Dawsey fans and you’re gonna lose a giant chunk of your audience. You piss off the non Dawsey fans and you’re gonna lose a different chunk of your audience. If you keep telling the SAME stories in different ways over and over again, your audience is still going to shrink because the general fans that don’t really ship anyone will jump off the bandwagon and move on as well. This show cannot afford to lose more fans and I’ve seen a lot of posts on social media or online articles from both Dawsey fans and general show fans who all ready won’t be watching S7 for the two reasons I shared earlier in this paragraph. CF has to be really careful with how they tell their stories in S7 because from what all I can see, if they don’t pay attention to this sort of thing, then they’re gonna be in genuine danger of not getting a S8. BTW-The other thing I’m seeing from the fanbase is apathy which is the WORST thing that can happen to a show. When fans stop caring, they stop watching and CF is in danger of that too as people lose trust in the writers to create something worth watching. This will definitely be an interesting year for the show and as annoyed as I still am with that S6 finale, I don’t want the show to fail (I still genuinely like all the actors and people there) but I also won’t watch a show that doesn’t entertain me anymore. I’ve quit shows that were on my all-time favorites list before and I won’t hesitate to drop CF like a rock if they stop entertaining me this season.

5.    Monica’s note: “See you on the ice.” When I read the message she posted on Twitter earlier this summer, that phrase stuck out to me like a sore thumb because I had no clue what it meant. Well, it turns out it means something very interesting. From Urban Dictionary:

“Something you say when you know there is going to be a long period of time before seeing someone again however the intention is that day will come.”

Monica doesn’t just write or share things for no reason. She’s not stupid and maybe this is just my opinion, but I think that was her way of telling her fans that she doesn’t plan to be gone forever and that we will see her on the show again someday. I have no idea when that someday will come (I’m gonna be bold and predict that she comes back at the end of S7 so that Casey can actually have a good cliffhanger for once) but the proof of a possible return is right there on her note IMO and I choose to believe that she does have every intention of returning someday.

DISCLAIMER: I totally understand if there are people out there who don’t agree with all my thoughts here and that’s fine. This is all my opinion and the the last time I checked, I was allowed to have one without being ridiculed or being treated badly. This fanbase has had some bad apples out there treating people horribly simply because they don’t share the same opinion and boy does that need to stop. No one deserves to be treated badly simply because they have a different point of view than someone else. “Do undo others as you would have them do unto you.”

B. The other thing that’s been bothering me this summer is harder for me to talk about but I’m going to try to put my thoughts into words now. This will be rant number two but this is more of a confession than an actual rant.

I have been struggling hard to process this whole CF thing with Monica leaving and what that’s going to do with my OTP but that struggle has been more of a personal nature than anything else. That Dawsey fight and finding out about Monica leaving hit me deep in a place that I hadn’t felt since OUAT killed off Neal years ago. Normally I can deal with changes to my TV shows or when people come and go pretty well but this was literally my only OTP left and watching it fall apart in the finale was beyond difficult. I’m still struggling with it all these months later to be honest and that’s become a big concern for me.

Why does this affect me so much? Its a fictional TV show, with fictional people, and it just isn’t that important in the grand scheme of life. Yet I find myself thinking about it often and the emotional reaction I had to it actually woke up my creative side and now has me writing fanfic just so I can fix the mess that CF left behind (I do love writing but I hadn’t felt compelled to do it in nearly a decade so that caught me off guard even though I find myself enjoying it). It bothers me that I’m so affected by a stupid TV show and I have found myself wishing that I could turn my heart off so I can just forget about it and move on. That would make life so much easier (and I’m truly envious of people who are able to watch TV and just not care that much about anything that happens there). Unfortunately I can’t do that though and now, all these months later, I’m not sure I want to do that anymore.

Perspective is a funny thing and I’ve been getting a lot of lessons in that this summer from things that are happening to the lives in people I consider some of my best friends. One of my closest friends has basically been watching her mother die of pancreatic cancer for over five years (mom has been going through chemo and other sorts of treatments and this year has been particularly hard). Earlier this year they thought they were going to lose her and it was a scary and emotional time for all of us wondering about mom’s condition. They went on a family vacation in July and things seemed to be improving but about two weeks ago, mom ended up back in the hospital to get fluid taken off her heart again and she made the decision to stop all of her treatments. The doctors told them that she might have about two months left, if even that, so now the family has to deal with all these emotional choices and my friend is struggling because of all those decisions that they have to make now. I’m doing my best to support her but its hard because I’m such a passionate and emotional person so while trying to be strong, I’m also hurting for her and her family (I’ve known her mom for a while and she’s one of the sweetest and kindest people out there). In addition to that news, I also found out this week that another of my best friends is about to lose an uncle to cancer and not only is that hard because it’s her dad’s brother and it’s all happened so suddenly, it’s also rough on the rest of her family because of a bunch of drama going on with some other family members. Its really quite a mess and I just saw her tonight so I could see how much it’s taking out of her to be there for her dad while worrying about her uncle’s health. I also have a sister in my Christian women’s sorority who is dying of cancer (she’s in hospice right now) and that’s been emotionally breaking me since I’ve known that sweet lady since I was in college years ago. She is by far one of the most precious ladies I’ve ever known and seeing her struggle just hurts my heart along with all my other sisters hearts too. I don’t know how much longer she has but it’s very likely that we won’t see her at our national council next summer and that thought is hard for me to process since she’s been there ever since I joined the group. Real life has definitely been tough this summer and I’ve been stuck in this emotionally draining place going back and forth between processing things in my real life and in my TV fandom.

This brings me back to the CF mess and two questions that I’ve been asking myself all summer: 1. Why am I letting this fictional show mess me up so much when there are SOOOO many other more important things I should be concerned about, and 2. How do I get past this so I can truly be there for my friends and family that need me. I wish I had some answers but I don’t have any right now. I don’t think this is something I can get past in the blink of an eye. I can’t just turn off my heart because that wouldn’t allow me to be there for those who need me and I still haven’t come to grips with how the show is going to change so the struggle continues for me. As a person of faith, I know I should be lifting these things up in prayer but I find myself unable to put things into words. I know I’m not the only one trying to figure out how to move forward after getting so invested in a fictional story and that actually helps because I know it’s not just me. This probably sounds silly to those of you who are able to turn your hearts off and move forward (and I have no problem with that...more power to you) but it’s something I’ve been working through this summer and all I can hope now is that I find some peace at some point before the TV season starts.

I’m not sure what all I wanted to accomplish by posting all of this stuff but I really felt compelled to share it just in case anyone else is feeling the same way that I do. Please know you’re not alone in feeling a bit lost, emotional, confused, frustrated, and wishing for some peace and a happy ending regarding the CF mess and I hope you all know that you can reach out to me if you want to talk about anything. I’m just a message or a tweet away. Thanks as always for reading one of my epicly long posts! =)

/end rant (and more power to you if you actually read this entire post)

[panda-noosh]

1/2)) i really like your writing and id like to request some headcanons! i have an au where years later the paladins are kind of like celebrities all over the galaxy now because they saved everyone and what not, so they probably get bothered by paparazzi and they dont have much privacy when they leave the castle anymore. but would you mind writing some headcanons where the paladins and matt have an s/o with a physical disability

2/2)) where they have very limited use of one of their legs because of a previous spinal cord injury? how would they react when there out on an alien planet and they overhear some people talking bad about their s/o saying their basically useless, probably dont contribute anything, dont deserve credit for their help, and how the paladin/matt can do so much better? my boyfriend and i overheard one of our coworkers saying this about me after i was in a bus crash and it hurts.

  Here you go, lovely! x

Shiro:

This is really one way to make Shiro angry.

After the war and after he saved the galaxy and all that, Shiro really just wanted to settle down and be calm and live his life with you and let the past be in the past.

But one thing that continues to pop up, time and time again, is people discrediting you for the work you did during that time.

He’s never heard anybody genuinely talk badly about you (until now) but people seem to brush off the hard work you did to concentrate mainly on the Paladins and the Alteans, and that doesn’t sit right with Shiro.

The day he hears them people calling you useless, whispering harshly to each other that you couldn’t have been much help given your disability, Shiro loses his shit.

It’s one of those situations where you can’t even trace back to where it started - one minute he was holding your hand, walking down the street casually, and the next minute he was stampeding towards these two people with nothing but pure anger in his expression.

If you don’t manage to grab him on time, God help the two people who were talking bad about you, because Shiro will utterly and truly give them a piece of his mind before promptly knocking them flat on their asses.

Keith:

He would try so very hard to ignore it.

The first comment - fine. He can keep his cool if it’s just one comment. Everybody has haters.

Even though he feels his blood boiling, he manages to keep calm. 

Hearing people talk so badly about you - pretending like you didn’t help them save the universe - makes him more angry than he ever thought possible. He thought he could handle people discrediting him for his work - as many did due to him leaving the blade for a few months - but god forbid anyone discredit you.

You were there from day one, never left. Keith wants them to know that.

It’s whenever the comments keep coming that Keith can no longer hold back.

I feel like he wouldn’t want to go to physical violence right away. He wants to leave that side of him behind.

So he grabs for your hand to keep himself stable, startling you as he yells over his shoulder, “Shut your mouths, you idiots! You don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

And everybody just kind of stares at him in shock because holy shit the red paladin of Voltron just yelled at somebody.

Lance:

Lance would probably be more worried about you hearing what they’re saying over anything else.

The comments make him angry, of course. He would want nothing more than to draw back and punch the people who are saying such awful things about you.

But his main worry would immediately go to you.

He would hear the comments being spoken behind the both of you and he would turn his head to see if you were picking up on what they were saying.

He might even try to start up a little conversation to cover up their voices.

But if he looks at you and sees that you had heard what they said, Lance’s anger would mingle with his need to comfort you, and he would immediately be bursting into his usual, happy-go-lucky Lance that he knows always makes you laugh.

He’ll try his hardest to make you laugh and smile until he’s reassured that you’re okay, and then he’d turn his gaze on the people who were talking bad about you.

They see him and instantly close their mouths.

Lance, just with his gaze, lets them know that he’s not very pleased with them at all, and getting on the blue Paladins bad side isn’t a good idea.

Hunk:

He would see the people as such idiots. Genuinely, such jokes.

It’s not necessarily anger he feels whenever he first hears the vile words coming out of their mouths. It’s this feeling of mild disbelief, almost??

He remembers the battles you and him went in to together, and it baffles him to this day that there are some people who don’t know and who discredit the work you put in during those dark times.

Because he knows that, without you, Voltron would have never been able to do what it did.

And he’s just so confused that other people don’t know that??

The anger would of course settle in once they start insulting your disability and calling you useless. That really would be the last straw, and he’d them know.

Angry Hunk is terrifying, so as soon as he turns around and tells them to shut up in his most frustrated of voices, they’re shutting up immediately.

But again, Hunk’s main concern then and there is that there are people who don’t see you for the hero you actually are.

Pidge:

Honestly?? She takes no prisoners.

One comment made against you, and she’s losing it.

I think this protective side of her stems from the battles you and her faced together way back in the day.

She has nearly lost you on multiple occasions, and you’ve nearly lost her on multiple occasions, as well. Even though the battle is over and everything is calm again, she still holds that sense of looking out for you as if you two really are going back into battle every time you leave the house.

So the moment she hears people talking bad about your physical disability and just you in general, she doesn’t hold back her anger. She doesn’t even try.

She’s spinning around and cursing them out, asking them over and over if they know just how much you did for Team Voltron during them dark days, and the people are so shocked to see Pidge Gunderson in front of them that they don’t even have a reply.

And that makes her even angrier.

You have to grab her arm and pull her away before she can do any damage to the two gawking people.

Matt:

I think he would have a similar reaction to Lance.

His worry would definitely be immediately on you and making sure you were alright.

He has that kind of attitude where it’s like, he doesn’t even want to give them people the time of day.

He knows they’re a fan of his, so turning around and acknowledging them would simply make them excited, and he doesn’t want to make them feel that way.

So instead, he filters all of his anger and frustration into compassion and making sure you’re alright, because it’s clear you heard the comments they were making.

He’d be soft about it, too. He wouldn’t be waving his arms around and trying to make you laugh like Lance did.

He would face it head-on, no beating around the bush. Just pure, unfiltered truth as he tells you just how important you were to the group, telling you to never believe anything different. 

[myviewoftheuniverse]

The Struggle of Success

The more successful you are the more people will hate you.....You know 100 people. When you do well, 50 of them will love you and route for you, but the other 50 will be jealous and resentful....and the bigger and more popular you are the bigger the crowd gets, 50% of 1 million is 500,000 people hating on you......when you're kim kardashian or donald trump or obama....it's hundred of millions of people that hate on you, and hundreds of millions that love you.....it's always a struggle to feel like you're doing right. but you have to keep plugging forward regardless of the naysayers...that's even what happened to that kid Wolf (golfer), he let one of the haters get in his head and feared that he wasn't living up to what he should be, he panicked and he had a mental breakdown....FB showed me that the more fun you have the more people are jealous and resentful of you, even your closest friends will be resentful...it's probably the toughest part of life and why so many people struggle...Denise is right in the middle of it with her family not wanting to support her, Tami has some shit going on, Matt,,,everyone has the struggle...you can see it right in their FB posts.

So many musicians write music with the same message. Phil Collins I Don't Care Anymore. I've heard that song since it came out and I never listened to the words. But I listened just this weekend on a drive home from Port St. Lucie. He and so many other musicians have written songs about being pushed down by others, whether it be friends or family or whoever, it's just the general public these days. It's a constant struggle in life to be happy with who you are when you have shitty parents that tell you you're a loser and that's all you're gonna be in life.

On the drive home I just realized that my parents are who they are, and for me to worry about that, and lose hair and stress over it, is not "fun"? If you just want to be happy you have to let that stuff go. It's unfortunate and extremely difficult but it has to be done...for you to be happy...to be free....it has to be done...and in the end, it means nothing...it's not the end of the world...it's not...the Universe will go on

[auburnfamilynews]

Matt Bush-USA TODAY Sports

More data points leads to more confusion

Turns out you might need more than one game before making a sound judgement on a football team. Weird right?

Week 2 of the SEC schedule is in the books and it’s time to readjust some expectations and feelings for a number of teams. The top tier appears to be taking shape with Alabama, Georgia and Florida leading the way. The bottom is settling in nicely with Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Missouri all doing what they do best. Tennessee is floating in no man’s land though we will know where to place them this time next week. Then’s it’s a smorgasbord of teams who could all beat each other any day of the week.

Let’s take a look at the state of things as we enter week 3 of this bizarre 2020 SEC football season.

#1.) Alabama 2-0 (—)

SP+: 2 | FPI: 2

Last Game: 52-24 W vs Texas A&M

For just a moment there it looked like the Aggies might make the Tide sweat a bit. Then Kellen Mond did what Kellen Mond does best and Alabama buried the Aggies once again.

Per usual, this is a scary looking Alabama team with an elite offensive line, a capable QB, too many talented weapons and what might be an improved defense. This weekend we will get some answers on that defense as they take on one of the top offenses in the SEC and a former assistant who I am sure is going to have a lot of fun poking the bear this week.

Next Game: @ Ole Miss

#2.) Georgia 2-0 (—)

SP+: 4 | FPI: 4

Last Game: 27-6 W vs Auburn

Remember that one week where we thought that maybe UGA might not be good this year? That was fun right?

Georgia silenced many haters, myself included, over the weekend by lining up and bullying the Auburn Tigers. The Dawgs didn’t run anything tricky, they just trusted that rebuilt offensive line to establish a new line of scrimmage and their elite defense to suffocate the Tigers struggling offense. Both occurred and the final result doesn’t really indicate how lopsided an affair this matchup really ended up being.

Now they host another hated rival who feels they have a shot at making a statement this weekend. The Vols likely have an offensive line capable of giving their offense a chance at making some plays but I am not sure they’ve got the quarterback to get it done. We’ll see soon. I think this game will be much more competitive than the trash we saw Saturday night.

Next Game: vs Tennessee

#3.) Florida 2-0 (—)

SP+: 8 | FPI: 8

Last Game: 38-24 W vs Florida

Kyle Trask continues to put up silly numbers this year and will look to build some more Heisman hype this weekend against a reeling Aggies team. The Gators appear to have the offensive firepower to go toe to toe with anyone in the SEC. Questions linger though about this defense and its ability to get crucial stops when facing better teams. I am not sure if we get that answer or not this weekend but this should be an interesting matchup.

Next Game: @ Texas A&M

#4.) Tennessee 2-0 (+2)

SP+: 22 | FPI: 27

Last Game: 35-12 W vs Missouri

The Vols continue their climb up the rankings after quickly dismantling a likely not very good Missouri squad over the weekend. They did so mostly thanks to stout defense and a solid run game. I don’t know yet where this Tennessee team stands in the SEC but they’ve earned the right to be the top challenger to tier 1. They can legitimize that claim in Athens this weekend if they can take down the Dawgs. Jeremy Pruitt has done the exact opposite of Malzahn by building strength along BOTH lines of scrimmages. They might still be a quarterback away from truly contending but they at least have a puncher’s chance to get it done on Saturday.

Next Game: @ Georgia

#5.) Auburn 1-1 (-1)

SP+: 15 | FPI: 11

Last Game 6-27 L @ Georgia

Given that pathetic display on Saturday, I really wanted to drop the Tigers a good bit in the rankings but I couldn’t. Why? Because after you get past those first four teams, there’s a whole lot of average. Right now, the fancy algorithms appear to think Auburn is the best of that bunch.

It’s also important to remind ourselves the Tigers got whooped by a top 5 football team. Those things happen sometimes, unfortunately for Auburn fans, they tend to happen a lot in Athens.

But the Tigers don’t really get a chance to lick their wounds. A hungry Arkansas program that finally got their first SEC win in forever comes to town ready to exact revenge on two of their most hated former coaches. You better believe the Tigers will be getting their best shot.

Next Game: vs Arkansas

#6.) Texas A&M 1-1 (+1)

SP+: 19 | FPI: 19

Last Game: 24-52 L @ Alabama

So after getting blown out by the Tide this past Saturday, A&M (checks notes), uh, moves up a spot?

You see we have reached what I like to call the clusterf*** portion of the power rankings where a bunch of 1-1 teams sit with a variety of warts. I give the Aggies the nod this week only because they have played the toughest team on the schedule and I suspect quite a few other teams will have similar results against the Tide.

This will likely be temporary though with the Gators coming to town, so enjoy it while it lasts Aggie fans.

Next Game: vs Florida

#7.) Mississippi State 1-1 (-2)

SP+: 47 | FPI: 48

Last Game: 14-21 L vs Arkansas

Maybe I apologized a little too soon to State fans...

We all joked about it after the Bulldogs stunning dismantling of LSU. “It would be very Mike Leach to turn around and lose to a team that hasn’t won an SEC game in two years,” we all chuckled.

Well, only Hog fans are chuckling now and that’s a frightening thought.

The Mississippi State bandwagon is now aflame and the questions many of us had about them pre-season return. Mostly, can this offense seriously have success week in and week out in the SEC?

K.J. Costello has a frightening habit of giving the ball to the other team and an injured Kylin Hill seemed to kill the engine of this offense. They hit the road this weekend to take on a struggling Kentucky program who will do their best to play keep away. This will likely be the funniest box score of the 2020 football season

Next Game: @ Kentucky

#8.) LSU 1-1 (+1)

SP+: 20 | FPI: 13

Last Game: 41-7 W @ Vanderbilt

LSU’s climb back to the top has begun. The Tigers took care of a bad Vanderbilt team over the weekend and seemed much more settled on the defensive side of the ball with Derek Stingley Jr. back in the lineup. They looked better than the Aggies did against the Dores and the algorithms all still see this team as top 20 quality but I am going to make Ed O earn every rankings bump in penance for what was allowed two weekends ago in Death Valley.

Next Game: vs Missouri

#9.) Ole Miss 1-1 (+1)

SP+: 45 | FPI: 39

Last Game: 42-41 OT W @ Kentucky

Lane Kiffin’s Rebels are required weekly viewing as they tend to play in the most entertaining games. After losing a wild one in Gainesville, the Rebels won an even wilder one in Lexington taking down the Wildcats in overtime thanks to a missed field goal by Kentucky’s kicker.

Matt Corral has looked dangerous in this Kiffin offense and it’s clear they can put points on just about anybody. It’s also clear that defense is something this program is still very much allergic to and will ruin some chances for big time wins. Kiffin welcomes his former boss this week and I am very interested to see what this Ole Miss offense can do against a loaded Tide front. I don’t expect a Rebel victory but I wouldn’t be shocked if this game is closer than expected headed into the 4th.

Next Game: vs Alabama

#10.) Arkansas 1-1 (+4)

SP+: 68 | FPI: 59

Last Game: 21-14 W @ Mississippi State

For the first time since October 28, 2017, the Arkansas Razorbacks won an SEC football game. Not only did they end a 20 game in conference losing streak, they did it against the media darling of the prior week in Mike Leach’s Bulldogs.

Barry Odom did everything Bo Pelini didn’t and the Hogs offense were able to capitalize enough to escape with the win. They’ll take this confidence boost into Jordan-Hare Saturday hoping to embarrass their former head coach who could not accomplish in two seasons what Pittman has done in 2 games.

Next Game: @ Auburn

#11.) Kentucky 0-2 (-3)

SP+: 42 | FPI: 34

Last Game: 13-29 L @ Auburn

So uh... Is Kentucky actually bad again?

The preseason SEC East darkhorse is off to a terrible start dropping two heartbreakers to SEC West foes. For the 2nd straight weekend, Kentucky successfully drove the ball to the 1 inch line only to give it to the other team. They then went full Kentucky in overtime by missing a point after attempt. Needless to say, the ‘Cats are in need of something good happening fast.

Maybe that’s this weekend? Two completely opposite styles clash as Mike Leach’s Air Raid attack invades Kroger Field to take on Mike Stoops’s keep-away, ground & pound system. One team might not throw for more than 125 yards. The other might not rush for 20. For pure entertainment purposes this is a must watch contest Saturday.

Next Game: vs Mississippi State

#12.) South Carolina 0-1 (—)

SP+: 44 | FPI: 46

Last Game: 24-38 L @ Florida

Don’t really know what to think about this Gamecock team. They show flashes of being competent and they sure has hell fight hard till the bitter end but it’s clear they are a step below talent wise across the board right now in the SEC.

Will Muschamp is staring a 2 win season in the face right now if he can’t find some way to get either much better at scoring points or much better at preventing points from being scored. Right now, there isn’t one thing this Gamecock team does well enough that you can point to that as a reason for them to win any given Saturday. This weekend is crucial if they have any hope of getting off the mat in 2020.

Next Game: @ Vanderbilt

#13.) Missouri 0-2 (-1)

SP+: 48 | FPI: 63

Last Game: 12-35 L @ Tennessee

I didn’t really know what to expect from this Missouri team this fall. It turns out I should of expected very bad football...

The Tigers for the 2nd straight week were outclassed across the board by a superior opponent. That trend won’t change this weekend with a trip to Death Valley against an LSU team hungry to rebuild its image.

In terms of worst schedules to start the season, it’s hard to argue that Mizzou got the rawest of deals. Alabama, Tennessee & LSU is not exactly the smoothest way to break in a new head coach.

Next Game: @ LSU

#14.) Vanderbilt 0-2 (—)

SP+: 115 | FPI: 92

Last Game: 7-41 L vs LSU

Well I hope you enjoyed that week at #13 Dores because I doubt you ever return this season...

After putting up a valiant effort against the Aggies in Kyle Fied, Vanderbilt got smacked around by a pissed off LSU football team in Nashville this past Saturday. Luckily, they get one of their two best shots at winning a game this season with the Gamecocks coming to town. Arkansas got off the schnide last week, is it the Commodores turn this week?

Next Game: vs South Carolina

War Eagle!

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/10/5/21501644/sec-power-rankings-week-3

[omgsouthpark]

Blame Canada 2016; The A.V. Club says South Park is Responsible for Internet Trolls, the Alt-Right, and Donald Trump

Earlier this week, The A.V. Club published an editorial by Sean O’Neal titled, ‘South Park raised a generation of trolls’, which essentially argues that 20 years of South Park has had an immense influence on the creation of the “alt-right” and even the show’s culpability in creating a culture that elected President Donald Trump. The article has drawn a large response with thousands of comments across Disqus, Reddit, MetaFilter, NeoGAF, IGN, and of course 4chan itself. Instead of just sharing the article, I thought I’d dig in as well and defend my precious South Park which has touched me very dearly.

First of all, lets get O’Neal’s argument straight. The article admits that the “alt-right” is a product of many different things and that you shouldn’t assign too much influence to any pop culture. However, it then says “it’s not that much of a stretch to see how one might have fed the other” and uses 20 years of South Park jokes, episodes, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone interviews as evidence of this connection. And it concludes with, “Like their inspirations, South Park’s generation of trolls are tiny but loud, and they’ve had the strange effect of changing the world. It sure would be nice if South Park would grow up as well and take responsibility for them.”

Okay, let’s learn something today. South Park isn’t an ideology or a unified philosophy- as if Parker and Stone sat in a cave planning this whole thing out. It’s a television show that has evolved over two decades, reacting to trends of the time and even news of the day. It’s clearly not ideologically consistent; look at 2007's "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" which argues that the word “nigger” is so hateful that it shouldn’t be repeated. Contrast that with 2009’s “The F Word” which argues that the word “fag” can be “reclaimed” to be benign because language is ever changing. Other political topics have just aged poorly, maybe the 1999 “Rainforest Shmainforest” questioning of saving rainforests wouldn’t work today, but it did at the time. There's also the Rorschach test of identifying irony when it hits you. Did I use the above image to poke fun at “butt hurt” South Park haters or maybe to highlight how the show touches people in different ways?

In 2009, O’Neal wrote, “I believe South Park is some of the best satire on TV when it’s firing on all cylinders, and to that end I’ve seen it do ironic racism in a way that’s borderline revolutionary: Think of 2007’s ‘With Apologies To Jesse Jackson,’ for example.” With the rise of the “alt-right,” should O’Neal now eat his words and admit culpability in previously praising South Park’s ironic racism? Ironic and inflammatory comedy is now bad because Trump was elected, right?

On button-pushing, being a provocateur, trolling, you know- fucking with people. These aren’t partisan beliefs, these are tactics. These tactics work better on some targets over others, particularly those who are more sensitive and easier to cause outrage. South Park has aimed at almost every target from the political left to the right over the past 20 years and each time, profited from the free media coverage of “I can’t believe they said/did that!” So did Andy Warhol and Madonna. So did Donald Trump in the NYC tabloids of the ‘80s and ‘90s and then with the constant CNN Breaking News of 2016. Have South Park fans been baited by this very A.V. Club’s editorial as well?

However, anti-political correctness has emerged as an actual ideology embraced by the “alt-right.” Was this because of 20 years of farting cartoons or was it in response to the recent rise of concepts like Internet social justice warriors, microaggressions, white privilege, trigger warnings, safe spaces, the "problematic," and victimhood culture? If you create a culture where people are born labeled as privileged racists and can’t do anything about it, then some of them might just say, “fuck it, guess I’m a racist then.” Want to Blame Canada again?

The editorial then dives into criticizing South Park for promoting a cultural “hostile apathy” where “whoever cares, loses.” I guess all those South Park “alt-righters” used their apathetic energy to not create Trump memes, to not form communities around their beliefs, and to not vote on November 8, 2016. Congrats President Hillary!

The last section criticizes Parker and Stone’s announcement to not do Trump jokes this coming season as a cop out. O’Neal agrees with them on how redundant, boring, and “sitcom-safe” Trump comedy is, yet also thinks these reasons for bowing out are disingenuous and is even suspicious that South Park is afraid of ostracizing their supposed Trump-loving fans. First, Trump lost the youth vote 37% to Hillary’s 55% and the youth turnout was higher than 2012 (so much for apathy).

Second, they already had their Trump surrogate declare he would “fuck immigrants to death,” warn he would “fuck this country up beyond repair”, brag about sticking his “finger in some ugly bitch’s ass”, threaten to bomb random countries, and had him fucked to death (before it was cool). They don’t care about the Trump fanboy audience, Believe Me! They care about what’s funny and what’s creatively interesting to work with. At the same time, Parker and Stone have a bit of a record of saying “we’re not doing that again” and later reneging on their word, so don’t be surprised if President Garrison shows up with a nice tan.

Now go get a Giant Douche and clean that sand out of your vagina. Mine is nice & breezy and it feels super.

Online Discussions: Disqus | Reddit | MetaFilter | NeoGAF | IGN | 4chan 1 - 4chan 2

[cassandraclare]

on the rights of women to own their own work. crummy crabapple speaks!

Yes, this stuff is still going on. I was hoping it would have ended after this, but it hasn’t, and being called a bitch whore murderer gets wearing fast when it’s based on nothing.

Look, frank talk about this stuff on Tumblr is often discouraged — when you have a small but pretty active group of “haters,” as happens nowadays to most successful creators, especially women, the general rule of thumb is not to talk to or about them. Blocking them on twitter excites them: it’s attention. Replying is pointless, explaining is deliberately misinterpreted, the truth is a lie, lies are truth, up is down, winning is losing. You can’t win in this situation, anyway: nobody can or does, everyone loses. The creators, the fandom, those caught in the middle (actors, etc.) Everyone.

This business about me killing Alec isn’t a rumor. It’s a lie. A purposeful lie told to make a point: that I am a bad person unworthy of my creations and that if I am a bad enough person, it’s okay to say they don’t belong to me, that I didn’t create them, that there is essentially no value in the act of creation, especially when it is done by a woman.

As we all know but mostly don’t talk about because If You Speak It They Will Come, there is a small group of anti-TMI-book fans who believe the books and the show are at war.  (They are not the show’s fans. They are something else entirely. I talk to perfectly nice show fans all the time: these are less people who love Shadowhunters than people dedicated to the idea that if they scream about it long enough, the show will cease being based on this particular book series: an ultimately doomed goal that nevertheless leaves them plenty of opportunities to annoy the rest of us.) Instead of being able to accept that art is partly subjective, they are in a constant battle for an imaginary moral high ground in which they are the keepers of a version of the Mortal Instruments that has been objectively purified of all problematic elements. 

The problem there being, of course, that there is no such thing as perfect, unproblematic media. Art comes from humans and humans are flawed. If you expect perfection you will be bitterly disappointed every single time: I’ve watched it happen over and over, as the this showrunner is a gift tag turns into the This showrunner is not a gift tag,  and many of those who last year spoke glowingly of wrapping Ed Decter, their unproblematic hero (who once said to me in wonder, “You really worked a miracle with Malec, you know, people care about them as if they were a normal couple”), in cotton wool and fuzzy socks, now refer to Todd Slavkin as “Toad.”* Plenty of articles about the problematic elements of Shadowhunters have now been written and plenty of posts posted. (If Ed hadn’t been fired, he might have stuck around long enough to get called Ediot; these things are, after all, just a matter of time. (i get called “Casserole”, seriously, I am not kidding you, you cannot make this shit up.) ) 

To clarify: I am definitely NOT saying that a (potentially problematic) work should remain uncriticized to spare the feelings of the creators because they are flawed humans like everyone else. Criticism is valid; criticism is useful; criticism is important. What I am talking about in this post is not criticism. Telling a creator that her creations should be taken away from her because she “doesn’t deserve them”: not criticism. Making up funny names and mean hashtags for creators you don’t like: obviously hilarious for some, but definitely not criticism. And to some extent everyone knows this – so if it’s important to you that a creator be denied the right to claim ownership of, and pride in, her own work, it has to be because she is not just problematic but corrupt, evil, and cruel. She has to be morally bankrupt such that removing her from the narrative of her own creation is a moral good.

And so the lie that I’m planning to kill Alec (framed within the true narrative that killing off LGBT+ characters is a serious fucking problem in media) is a natural development: because wouldn’t that be awful and mean the books were morally very bad and wrong and shouldn’t creators who create bad wrong things have their creations taken away from them? Which would be just another Misogyny Tuesday on the internet except for the fact that it’s exploiting the fears of a vulnerable group of people (LGBT+ fans for whom Alec means a lot, in whatever format -- fans who have seen over and over LGBT characters die for nothing, for shitty reasons, for straight people, on TV and in movies and in comics and in books and are therefore in a place to be incredibly hurt by it happening again), to score a point in what is basically a ship war. And that is really shitty.

And yes, it’s a ship war.

There was really a “salty casserole” joke in there begging to be made. Missed opportunity!

So, why am I salty, you might ask? There is this belief that I must be Upset With The Show because people care about Malec on it more than Clace: my friends, the field where I grow my fucks is barren on this topic. I made up both couples. I don’t care which one you ship more, especially in a format where their story is not being told by me and for all I know, the showrunners don’t even want you shipping Clace at the moment. They seem into Climon and oh God, I have bored myself with this tangent.

I invented Clace and Malec. I’m writing a trilogy about Malec because I love Malec and have a story in my head about them, despite being offered three times the money to write one about Clace, as they’re “more marketable.” I do not have a favorite. Maybe writing works that way for some people but I doubt it. I’ve always said I don’t ship in my own books, and that is precisely what I meant. 

Moving on: Are there things that have upset me about the show and the way it was developed? Yes — being told my mostly-female audience wasn’t a desirable one because they’re female; the fact that the female artist of color who created the runes has never been paid or credited for their use; being told Isabelle was “tits and ass”, being told Alec being gay was “a strike against his likeability”, contractual shit you will never know about because that stuff isn’t public — but for some reason I’m supposed to give a flying fuck about who ships what canon couple on the show? For viewers, as it should be, this is a TV show: for me this is part of my brand and has real-world consequences for my life. Unsurprisingly I care about those, not some imaginary ship war.

I was thrilled Shadowhunters won a GLAAD award for Magnus and Alec.  (I was thrilled when the movie of Mortal Instruments got a GLAAD award nomination for Magnus and Alec though there was so little of them in the movie, it served to really underline the paucity of LGBT+ storylines in major film and tv.) I congratulated Matt and Harry on twitter; the comments below mine are something of a primer in why female creators are fleeing the internet in greater and greater numbers.

https://twitter.com/cassieclare/status/848497330999369729

The message is overwhelmingly: “Shut up, bitch, how dare you open your mouth and remind us that this show exists because your books do, even though you didn’t actually say that but you see, we like to pretend you’re dead and it’s inconvenient when you speak.” I’d imagine every one of those commenters would tell you they were a feminist, too. The idea that nothing is gained by shutting up women or denying that their intellectual property has worth or value is apparently one that seems good in the abstract, but falls at the first hurdle of but I don’t like her.

The abstract often does fail when it comes into conflict with the concrete. Being a feminist ally means being an ally even to women you don’t like, because being an ally only to people you like requires no effort and less thought. That doesn’t mean never criticizing women or their work. But it does require interrogating what’s going on in your own head. One of the most unpleasant haters I see on twitter, who viciously loathes me though we have never met, has read all my books; she has Malec in her username, and a quote from the books in her bio. She has Cassandra Jean’s art on her twitter page, and Valerie Freire’s rune designs in her text and background. That’s a lot of mental and artistic real estate devoted to the work of three women she refers to as 
“garbage trash.” (Though I think Cassandra Jean and Val are mostly garbage trash because they associate with me and should instead have waited ten years for the TV show to come along so they could draw pictures of it or something. I don’t really understand it: the cognitive dissonance that allows to you dedicate your life to “Malec” while crapping on the person who created both characters and their relationship is so enormous that I can only follow it so far and no farther. I understand thinking that the show version is better, but not whatever warped fantasy tells you that if the books had never been written the show (now called “Evilchasers” perhaps) would have heroically found a way to invent the  story of a gay demon-fighting warrior and his biracial warlock boyfriend anyway because that very specific story was floating around the ethereal planes waiting to be discovered by the psychic powers of Disney and it is only by great misfortune that I got to it first.) Point being: if your username is “Bubbles loves Malec” yet your twitter is dedicated to spewing venom at the person without whom the thing you love would not exist, it might be time to ask yourself some questions about cause and effect, and also, what that hate of yours is doing for you, psychologically speaking.

Look, I am going to get a lot of shit for this post, but whatever — the upside of being constantly screamed at for things you have not done (slut-shamed Isabelle, planned to murder Alec, thus contributing to the fucking awful homophobic trope of killing off gay characters, "stabbed the actors in the back”, promoted incest, poisoned the earth’s water supply) is that you no longer bother worrying about being screamed at for things you did do. I won’t do set visits or conventions since coming back from NY Comicon to stuff like this:  

I’m not going to comment on the specifics, save to say they represent a massive and almost hilarious (though probably deliberate) misinterpretation of literally everything that happened on that panel. (If the network didn’t want book fans there, asking me questions, they wouldn’t have brought me there. I was there to do promotion for the show by talking about the show and the books — I am the author, and what the literal fuck else do you think they brought me there to talk about? The history of Belgian cabinet-making? They don’t think attention paid to the books takes away from the show: only a small group of asshats think that, and it’s weird that the OP never paused to think that if they didn’t want me there talking about the books, they could simply NOT HAVE INVITED ME. Also did it seriously never occur to them that panelists are asked to speak at certain junctures or in reference to certain questions, or gestured at to do so, we don’t just randomly interject? Lord.

I will admit it was extreme of Harry not to leave me lying there on the floor or maybe drop a chair on my head while no one was looking. He should reconsider his choices.)

But that’s the thing: posts like this one are the reason I haven’t gone back to set, or gone to another convention, or promoted the show. Would you go to a convention if you knew people like this were going to be feet away from you in the audience? I’m a grown-up, I can take being called Crummy Crabapple (did the whole kindergarten class vote on that one or was it a decision by fiat…?) but the sheer hate that underpins the silliness of the post makes the idea of being near people who think like that fairly shuddery. 

I gathered a few such posts together to show to FF, and the network’s never blamed me for not wanting to go out and physically promote again. The sad part of all this is that mostly I pretend the show doesn’t exist because the downside of mentioning it is being screamed at for days by asshats (Let me be very specific what I mean by “asshats” = people who send threats, who use insulting gendered language, make anti-Semitic slurs, and repeatedly tell me I should not be allowed to own my own work — if this is not stuff you do, I’m not talking about you. Criticism of the books is fine and irrelevant.) 

We all know these asshats exist — and we are all sad about it: me, the network, the actors, the showrunners, because the net result of them existing is that I don’t talk about or promote the show, and that’s a loss for a show that could really use that outreach. Losing me, my online audience, my worldwide publishers, as potential promotional partners is bad, not good, for a show that these people theoretically love. Losing the book fans the show depended on as viewers, but who can’t stand the toxic atmosphere, is bad, not good, for the actors and writers they claim to support. Screaming “INCEST FREAK!” at every twelve year old who comes online and timidly asks when they will see Chairman Meow is not going to raise the show’s ratings. If someone is more interested in driving away the show’s potential audience because they regard them as moral degenerates than they are in getting it renewed, that’s their bliss to follow, but the reason I’m mentioning these people at all is 1) I’m disturbed by the narrative women shouldn’t be allowed to own their own work and 2) many many posts have now been made about what an awful place the Shadowhunters/TMI fandom is, and that sucks for everyone. Sadly, it doesn’t take that many people to ruin an online space.

The idea that the books and the show are at war for kibbles is a fannish one (most people, including my publisher, regard TV shows based on books as advertising for those books because from a book perspective that’s what they are) seems to come out of the fact that fans argue about which they like better, something that has happened since the dawn of adaptations. I remember it from when I was in the Harry Potter fandom: Alan Rickman understood Snape better than JKR, the movies gave Draco more depth, etc and so on. Looking back now I can see the irony of people with usernames like Lupinfan talking about how Lupin was sidelined in the books but not the movies, but distance gives infinite perspective, I suppose. If you like Malec better on the show: awesome. They still exist on the show because they were invented in the books. That statement will be interpreted as the height of arrogance, but it’s just flat fact. They matter in both formats to a lot of people. There will never be a hand of God that reaches down from the sky and declares either one better. It will always be a matter of taste and opinion. The fact that art is subjective is something we all have to live with.

This is what I mean about the “killing Alec” lie: it has become part of the justification for my unworthiness to claim to have anything to do with my own characters. Killing Alec would be a bad thing to do to Alec (and Magnus); thus I would be terribly maltreating Alec (and Magnus); thus I don’t deserve to have anything to do with Alec (or Magnus). Thus it is okay to tell me to get the fuck out – how dare I even open my bitch mouth to congratulate the actors playing my characters if I would do something so terrible to them, after all? And who cares if it’s a lie and no one can source it? (Come on now, be real — no one tried.)

Whether I deserve Alec and Magnus is somewhat beside the point: I invented them regardless, and there was a large and profoundly intense Malec fandom before the show ever aired, whose existence is in fact directly responsible for the fact that Malec are a thing on the show at all. (Initially, neither of them appeared or were even referred to in the pilot.) Reality doesn’t really intrude into the fantasy that Magnus and Alec and Isabelle and Jace descended, pre-created, from a sky cloud, though: the fan/creator ownership dichotomy has existed since before Arthur Conan Doyle was bullied into bringing Sherlock back from the dead. Fans and creators don’t always agree and creators aren’t always right. What they are, however, always, is creators.

(In case I had forgotten that I am not, in fact, a hot dude actor. ASTONISHING INFORMATION.) It is mysterious to interpret congratulating actors as taking “credit for Matt and Harry’s hard work”;  I neither need or want that anyway because I am not an actor; I am already credited on the show as the author of the source material, which is what I am. (I’ve won plenty of book awards but would be very puzzled to win, say, a Nobel prize for chemistry.) I congratulated the actors knowing I’d get a raft of shit for either doing so or not doing so: I chose to do so despite the inevitable annoyance factor because I like Matt and Harry; I wanted them hired; I like how much they love the characters, and I’ve always found them to be kind people who would loathe and despise the kind of tweets these folks are sending on their behalf.

Ironic, that.

But yeah, I also sent it because I’m proud of Malec. Deal with that. Women need to be allowed to be proud of their work sometimes without that being considered a deep evil. I don’t think the Magnus and Alec I created are perfect (by which I mean my writing of them, not their endearing flaws ;) but they represent years of work and love, and like any author would be, I’m thrilled to see the screen version of them acknowledged twice as something special. That’s very normal: for the GLAAD win, I got flowers from my publisher, congrats from the network and from my agents at CAA, because why wouldn’t you congratulate an author on something good happening to an adaptation of their books? The idea that when discussing an adaptation of their work, an author should reel back in terror screaming “I AM UNWORTHY TO BE MENTIONED IN THE SAME SENTENCES AS THE CHARACTERS I CREATED!” is so bizarre to most people that if you tried to explain to them that some women, not all women hahaha of course, but SOME WOMEN JUST DONT DESERVE TO BE ALLOWED TO TALK OR CLAIM THEY CAN “OWN” THINGS AMIRITE, they would back quietly away muttering that they had an important appointment to get their hedgehog dyed blue because they would literally think you were probably a serial killer.

This situation is not unique to these books, to me, or to this show: however, there is a special angle to this particular situation. Many commenters on all this have noted that the books are a female creation, the show a male one. Ed, Todd, Michael, Matt, McG, and Darren are all men, and in many ways, people find it much more comfortable, much easier, and much simpler to give uncritical admiration to men. They’re men, and therefore they have authority I don’t, and my continued existence as the author of the source material of Shadowhunters is seen as even more horrible because it makes it a girl thing, and “girl things” are less serious and less worthy. One of the things I often see the haters say is that the show is “older”; in fact the audience of the show is statistically younger than the book’s audience (I’ve seen the numbers) but I think it’s hard not to want to dismiss something so imbued with lady germs as being inherently inferior (and what’s more inferior than young women? It’s trendy to bash YA, which is seen as the province the young and the female – surely preferring men’s work makes you, you know, a more serious person? And surely if I had the sense God gave a weasel, I’d stop writing, give the book rights to some guy, and retire in shame? GO FORTH HARLOT AND WRITE YA NO MORE.)

Feminism does not mean you cannot criticize works by women. I’ve said that before, but I’m saying it again because it’s so easy to dismiss essays like this by saying “She’s hiding behind feminism and claiming we can’t criticize her because she’s a woman!” Nope. (Though it does mean you look for patterns. It’s kind of interesting there’s this small group of people who believe these characters/storylines really came alive when control of them was handed over to a series of ever-changing white middle-aged men. I mean, coincidence perhaps, but…?) I haven’t addressed criticism here really because it’s not the point: there is a huge gap between writing a bad review of a woman’s book and crusading for the idea that she shouldn’t be allowed to own her own intellectual property. Men taking away, literally taking away the money made from and authorship of women’s work is an ugly part of history (“Colette and [her husband] separated in 1906, although it was not until 1910 that the divorce became final. She had no access to the sizable earnings of the Claudine books [she had written]—the copyright belonged to him”) and it’s disturbing to see a group of primarily women argue that it should be repeated.

If the idea that a woman created Magnus and Alec, or any characters or world, is so horribly, terribly bothersome that you have to make up lies that, in your mind, render her unworthy of her own creation so that it’s all right to “take it from her” by discounting her role as a writer, her ownership of her own intellectual property, her right to exist as a person and to stand on the same stage at a convention as the “gem-like saint” male actors playing her characters —  maybe think about why?* What does screaming that I’d better not think Alec and Magnus have anything to do with me get you, really? Except the knowledge that if, one day, you write or create or draw something people love, you’ve helped create an environment in which it’s a veritable certainty you’ll get treated like you’re a piece of shit for doing it?

*And “bitch” is “bitch”, friends. It doesn’t matter what letters you take out, it’s still misogynist and still shitty. You know what you’re saying, and so does everyone else. Try asshat, really. I recommend it.

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/kim-rhodes-briana-buckmaster-supernatural-interview-part-2/

Kim Rhodes, Briana Buckmaster 'Supernatural' interview Part 2

One thing about Lynn Zubernis; she knows how to get any interview subject to just let it all out and spill the tea all over the table and drip down on the floor. Her interview with Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster was such a huge one, we had to split it into two parts. Part one is here. Lynn's latest book, Family Don’t End With Blood: Cast and Fans on How Supernatural Has Changed Lives (You can order it here), hits today, and from the reviews, it's a must must read! If you want to attend her Los Angeles book launch check it out here. You just might meet some of your Supernatural favs there. Her latest book features With contributions by Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard, Jim Beaver, Rob Benedict, Briana Buckmaster, Osric Chau, Matt Cohen, Ruth Connell, Gil McKinney, Rachel Miner and Kim Rhodes, and a Dozen Passionate Fans! Check out her classic interview with Misha Collins and Jim Beaver. Check out when we interviewed Lynn on her own Supernatural experiences. Check out exclusive excerpts from Lynn’s upcoming book! Now for the continuation of Lynn's interview with Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster: Briana: I just sent my husband a picture that someone posted of us [Briana and Kim] on twitter – it was probably you, Kim – and he was like woah, you guys look so hot, I know why people ship you now! Lynn: I love your husband. Briana: I would actually rather Donna be with Jody than anybody. Lynn: So would many fans. Though it won’t happen. Briana: No, it won’t happen, sadly. It will happen in our heads… Lynn: And in fanworks… Kim: I’ve actually seen some really beautiful art of us, like the backs of our heads, we’re lying entwined in bed. Briana: [wide eyed] Nooooo! Kim: OMG yes, I’ll send it to you. Briana: [clapping] Oh, send them to me! Kim: But it was really so tender, so beautiful. Kim: Now I don’t talk about ships much because it’s such a dangerous mine field. Lynn: It is. Kim: People take it really personally, and the reason I don’t talk about it is twofold. One, I don’t wanna get in trouble. Like ultimately I’m a teenager inside, and I don’t want to make anyone mad and be like aaaahh they’re yelling at me. But secondly ships are so personal, I don’t wanna say anything… I mean, I am an actor. I’m also a fan, I’m one of everybody. But if I walk in a room, I carry a responsibility with me. And so if I speak to a ship, there’s a volume to my voice and I don’t wanna say anything that would get in anybody’s way of what makes them happy. Lynn: Because validating one ship can invalidate another. Kim: YES! That’s the thing. Briana: That’s why we don’t like to answer the ship questions. Lynn: But you answered it perfectly – you didn’t wig out, you didn’t refuse to answer. I love what Kim said, “frankly I ship Jody with everyone.” Kim: Mm-hmm. But that said, one of the things I love so much that only people in fandom get is that what I just said — that I’ve seen pics that are tender. Like the ships generally involve sex, but they are about relationships. Lynn: That’s why they’re called ships. Kim: And I think that’s, like no wonder people take them so seriously! No wonder people treat them so seriously, because they are tender because they’re about two people being in love Briana: Yeah. Lynn: They are. Kim: And so it’s not porn. It can be pornographic, but it comes from a place… Lynn: Of love, and relationship… Kim: Yes. It’s not like ‘Mr. Beaver Goes to Camp’ or whatever the fuck, there’s a genuineness to the ships, so that’s also why I don’t speak of it, because I’m not gonna piss in somebody else’s rose garden. I don’t know what would be stepping on toes. So it’s actually not out of – like there are some people who don’t talk about ships because of an unwillingness to acknowledge what they are, and I actually think they are something precious and important to each person. Lynn: Me too. Kim: So that’s why I don’t go in there. Lynn: I love how passionate shippers are, but I don’t care who you ship. It’s like fantasy – everyone has their own fantasy, and your fantasy is important and personal to you. Briana: And you’re invested in them, right? Frankly, it’s like religion and politics. Kim: Yeah, yeah. Briana: It’s like hey man, everyone has an opinion, and yours is not more correct than hers. Lynn: I wish there weren’t such a thing as ‘ship wars.' I understand that it can feel like a zero sum game, like if my ship ‘wins,' then yours ‘loses,' but really it’s usually not. Briana: It’s just not a sexy show! I don’t really understand the wars. That’s the first time I got in trouble on twitter, and she saved me. She was like everybody chill out; she doesn’t know… Kim: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Briana: So I now know, yeah. Lynn: The perception is that for once, fans actually had a little influence, that The Powers That Be kinda listened to what fandom wanted with Don’t You Forget About Me, an episode that was essentially Wayward Daughters – because for once, all factions of the fandom wanted it. Briana: Is it all factions? I actually have no idea. Kim: No, there are definitely haters. Lynn: Some people have problems with the Claire character but not many with Jody or Donna, I don’t think. Kim: God bless her, Kathryn Newton is a very brave actor, even if she’s being brave and doesn’t know it. She doesn’t try to soften Claire’s edges. She’s like, oh, this is a sullen, angry teenager. And you know what? Sullen angry teenagers can be shitheads. So there are people who go wow, Claire’s kinda a shithead… Briana: She’s being truthful… Kim: But you know what? You’d be a shithead too if you went through this. Lynn: The multiple traumas that girl has been through… Kim: My own mother, when we were talking about how I was at this age and at that age when we brought up the age of 16, my own mother said ‘Kimmie, I always loved you, but I didn’t like you when you were sixteen.’ Lynn: And it’s a testament to Kathryn’s acting that she’s playing what the character was intended to be. Kim: Yes. And I would like to think that the fandom influenced this episode. We always use the phrase love letter to the fans, and I think that phrase can really be offensive. Briana: I agree, I think it’s patronizing. Kim: It’s like, why do you think that? You don’t think this is just like a good episode? You know what would actually be a love letter to the fans? Listening to the fans, that would be a love letter to them. So I don’t mean this in reference to this show, let me be really clear, not in terms of Supernatural, because I thought the 200th episode was charming – I’m on record as loving that episode – I just mean the industry says oh it’s a love letter to Marvel fans and you’re like No, it’s actually not. Briana: It could’ve been. Kim: But it’s actually not, it’s got whats-her-face with her tits up to her chin and no plot line. Lynn: Sort of placating, like chew on this for a while. Briana: Like, that’ll hold you over for a while. Kim: So it’s my personal opinion, like from my own experience, that episode was as much of a love letter to the fans as I can give. Like to me, I knew the desire there; I knew the relationships that were important to the fans – and to me. And that’s the other thing, that’s why I felt so passionately about this episode, is because the same things that were important to the fans were important to me as an actor. The authenticity of the relationships, the love — the deep broken flawed love between all 5 of the people at that dinner table — the humor that comes from love and pain and fear and the love and pain and fear itself – just that phrase, that’s the scary thing about family because you have so much to lose. Briana: And I think that’s kind of the conclusion of the whole television show. Lynn: YES! That’s exactly what I said in my review – like, that’s Supernatural! Kim: Yes, yes, so when I read the script and even more so when I saw the episode, to me, I hope fans took it personally. Because I didn’t hear anything from anybody in any position of power at all. I have no idea how it was received, no idea what they meant, da da da, I did my job and went home. But for me, where I come from, that was personal to the fans. Because like you were just saying, I can’t contact every fan. When I’m in an autograph line, I can’t meet the intensity of a person’s experience; I can’t give them the time I would like to, it’s just physically impossible. Lynn: It is. Kim: So my heart for that entire episode was connected to the fans and my awareness that this was a gift to them. That they may or may not have created as a gift to me – which is fucking awesome! Briana: Like, right? Kim: So yeah, that’s my Kumbaya. Briana: That’s super true, especially about Wayward Daughters, the idea that people are like I hope that Wayward Daughters can happen for the fans, and I’m like really? Because it would be unbelievable. And like I said, Kim and I have had very little to do other than just any time Riley or Betty contact us, who are kinda running the whole campaign, they’re always like, we’re gonna do this, are you guys cool with this? And we’re like omg YES! Kim: Like the thunderclap thing, we don’t even know what that is. Briana: They are on it though. The idea that this could give something to others, while we would also benefit from it, right? Lynn: It felt that way. We had this discussion at the academic conference; there was a panel on fan/producer relationships. And a panelist said look, it’s all about money. If TPTB are listening, it’s because something will make them money. And I said, do you think there are small occasional exceptions? Because I felt like this episode might have been. Kim: It has to be a perfect storm though. They probably looked at the arc of the season, and like you create the arc of the season, you’ve got the Darkness, dealing with duh duh duh and now because Jensen and Jared are getting their asses handed to them with their schedule, they need some lighter episodes, where they get to go home and remind their kids who daddy is, and also, they’ve got Thanksgiving breaks smack dab in the middle of it, so we can’t have a high special effects episode that we split on either side, so it could also have been just technically, I don’t know, who haven’t we seen? What are the ideas we’re fucking around with? Briana: This is what I do when I’m with Kim, I’m like no no no no this is what happened. [to Kim] Because remember last season, when they dropped her off at your house, and I’m texting Kim going wtf is happening? Kim: [nodding] Briana: And then she tweeted ‘I don’t know, I’m not watching!’ Lynn: [laughing} But you’re right, they specifically set up the possibility. Briana: They did! Lynn: Like that seemingly throwaway comment that you’re a hunter now too. Kim: But if I had a dollar for everything they’ve ever set up that never came to fruition, I would not have to work this year. Lynn: True, but at least it’s a possibility. Kim: Oh, she’s totally coming back. Briana: You know what I’d love to see? I’d love to see Donna as a hunter like she doesn’t know she’s dating a werewolf… Everyone: [laughing] Lynn: So Kim, talk about that dinner scene. Kim: OMG it was the most fun thing I’ve ever shot! Lynn: I laughed so hard. Briana: It was just a good solid scene. Kim: Well, first of all, we ALL, like everybody was excited to be doing the scene because it was funny and tender and sweet and spoke to what everybody does well. So nobody was like eh, I’m not gonna look good in this scene, you know? It’s like, I definitely come into some scenes and am like, this isn’t my scene, I’m here to make you look good, and I’m happy to do it. Briana: Yeah. Kim: But this was, everybody had their moment. Lynn: And all five people just totally brought it. Kim: I can’t think of another episode that had such a quintessential Winchester family dinner. That’s what it was, that’s what a Winchester family dinner is – we’ve got monsters to kill, and please wear a condom. Lynn: [laughing] And Jensen and Jared just sort of like, What? Huh? [caption id="attachment_46042" align="aligncenter" width="600"] What?[/caption] [caption id="attachment_46043" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Huh?[/caption] Briana: OMG it was so good. Lynn: And Jody’s exasperation, everyone was identifying with Jody and her exasperation with them. Kim: It was really well written too, there wasn’t any like, oh now we’ve gotta change to – like, the transitions made sense and were earned. Lynn: True, true. Who wrote that? Kim: Nancy. Lynn: Oh, oh, Nancy Won, yes, I really like her! She did her homework. She can stay. Like, forever. ETA: [SOB!!!!!] Briana: Yeah, this episode was great. Good for her. Kim: it felt really really good. I thought that scene was so much fun. Lynn: And Jensen was busily making a fort out of his mashed potatoes? Kim: [wry smile] Again, when it’s not their coverage, you have all kinds of things happening. And we were shooting it the last night before everybody left for vacation, so people were kinda mentally already on vacation. They were like, ooh, you want real wine in your glass? And I was like, NO! Because I had to drink two bottles of it. God, it was so bad. But yeah, it was hilarious. Lynn: And there were adlibs? Kim: It wasn’t so much adlibs, but Stefan, who directed it, is always open to that – I don’t think I tweeted this but there was that moment I looked at Claire and said, ‘you were right.’ And I had told Stefan, you know what’s missing from this script? Is an acknowledgment from Jody that she was wrong. Lynn: YES. Kim: I said, I really really need for Jody to show Claire the respect of you were right. Briana: [nodding] Lynn: And that was so important, because that’s what allowed Claire at the end to heal. Otherwise, why would there have been healing? Kim: Right. And why, knowing who Claire is, why didn’t she spend the next scene going okay I told you so? Briana: Like, I’m outta here… Lynn: She would have. [caption id="attachment_46045" align="aligncenter" width="450"] Tweet @Kimrhodes4real[/caption] Kim: Yeah! So, back to the scene, what did get cut was that when I said ‘don’t pull up the drawbridge,’ Claire had an addition that we weren’t really sure, but we’re pretty sure it was a butt reference in the script, but then we all started trying to come up with euphemisms for having sex that aren’t really words for sex. Lynn: lol Kim: The ‘Sit. Stay’. That was originally supposed to be ‘No, no, you’re family too, sit down.’ And I was like, there are too many words there for the level of panic that Jody is feeling. There’s just too many words. So I said, can I try something else? And he [Stefan] said you can do whatever you want. Lynn: That’s nice, that collaboration. Briana: it is nice. Kim: And again, when I justify WHY – if I just say, I don’t think Jody would say that, can I say something else, I guarantee they’re not gonna be like oh sure go ahead, say whatever you want, we don’t care. But when I say, the level of panic does not match the intellectual capacity that Jody would have to have to say ‘no no you’re still family’ – no, this has to be a problem. No. Sit. Stay. Lynn: And the great thing is, their faces at that moment, we got that comic moment too. Kim: Yes, because the irony – the thing I love – is that I spoke to them like they were puppies, and they responded like they were puppies. Lynn: [giggling] A pure behavioral reaction! And it worked. Kim: I also try to use my mom voice with them whenever I can because they are not used to having a mom voice. Briana: And the show is all about them dealing with their mother’s death. Lynn: Yes, and longing for that mothering. Kim: And that’s another aspect of mothering. So I love to see that, their reaction, it was kind of like ohhhh, we just sat and stayed. Like the confusion of why did we do that? That is magical! So the sit stay was kinda an adlib, it was what came out of my mouth at the time. The other thing is, Alex was supposed to reach for my wine, and I was supposed to just swat it away, and they had two cameras running at the same time, so I’m glad they got it because my head was turned at the time – because Katherine Ramdeen is an exceptional actor. [caption id="attachment_46046" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Katherine Ramdeen and Katherine Newton. Tweet @kimrhodes4real[/caption] Lynn and Briana: [nodding] Kim: And she’s got enough method in her to do that. One of my favorite things – I was watching Colony last night – and one of my favorite things is when actors let their characters be good liars. I hate it when like you see an actor selling a lie that the other character buys, but they’re so bad at it, you know that it wouldn’t actually work. So Katherine is like, I’m trying to grab a glass of her wine, and I know she probably isn’t gonna roll over, so she waits until I’m not looking. Lynn: Which is exactly what a kid would do. Kim: Which is exactly what a kid would do! So I turn around, and she’s got the wine all the way up to her mouth, and I had to stop dead in my tracks with what I was saying and be like hey – and that was Kim you saw acting — like how the fuck did you get that wine? Stop, put it back! Lynn: That’s probably why it played so real. Briana: And that’s everything. Like that’s, of course, the actors, but also a director trusting their actors and also a writer giving you a scene that’s long enough that you’re like oh wow I get to ACT in this scene. Lynn: I feel like Supernatural works so well because all of you care so much about your characters and how you play them – and because it can be so collaborative. Briana: [to Kim] And you’ve worked with Stefan before. Kim: Yes, Stefan and I knew each other. But also? That’s Jared and Jensen as well. Briana: That’s very true, they set the tone. Kim: I think most directors kind of feed off of how Jared and Jensen are responding to the actors, because I’ve definitely seen some moments of ‘hey you know, I’m thinking of doing…’ and Jared will be like, yeah. And Jared would never shut another actor down because that’s not who he is as a person, but you can tell if you know him if he thinks it’s a bad fucking idea, frankly. And Jared’s like, it’s not my job to tell you it’s a bad fuckin’ idea, but that’s not gonna serve the script. Sure enough, it’s like no, let’s stick to the script. So it’s not really a free range kind of environment. Lynn: Nor should it be. Kim: Right, but I know that when I offer a note I’m not boning somebody else. I know my job. I know the stars and I know how to serve the script. Lynn: And at this point, you know this character. And Jensen has talked about directing you, so he knows. Kim: Yes, Jensen has directed me! Briana: Jensen directed you? Kim: It was awesome. Jensen gave me one of my favorite notes ever. EVER. So he comes over, and he goes, ‘this line, duh duh duh duh duh, what are you doing there?’ and I said, ‘saying it really fast because I don’t know what I’m doing.' And he goes, ‘and that’s exactly what it looks like. So can I tell you something?’ Briana: [laughing] Kim: And he was like, let me give you something to think about, and I was like OHHHHH, now I know what I’m doing there. Lynn: He knew what you would need to get it because he could put himself in your shoes. Briana: Yeah, and he also has an outside eye. Kim: And he also could tell what I was doing, that I was saying it real fast to get to the next part. Speaking of Jensen, so the scene as scripted ended as I stood up to go I said ‘I’m gonna go get some mashed potatoes, long running’ and then I swallowed the wine. Lynn: That was scripted? Kim: I wanna say yes, it was scripted. And then I’m like okay, potatoes, potatoes… that was actually in there for my sister because my sister along-runningpotato joke… Lynn and Briana: lol Kim: And then Jensen goes, ‘well this is fun.’ Lynn: Wait, so that wasn’t scripted? Kim: Oh no, the scene was done! So that long fourth shot of Kathryn going heh heh heh… Lynn: And that awkward silence? Because Katherine and Kathryn did that so well too. Kim: Oh yeah. Everybody thought the scene was over, but until we hear cut – also that’s a testament to the writing of that scene because we were having so much fun playing it – Lynn: That you just kept going… Kim: We just kept going, like until you call cut, we’re just gonna keep going! Lynn: And everyone stayed in character! Kim: Yeah. Briana: When an actor really likes to do a scene, it’s because it’s well written. It’s not necessarily that they get to do the most or because they do something that’s really rad for their character or really badass, if the writing clicks so well with the character, it’s just like this magic. Kim: It’s like being on a ride, instead of pushing something. Like, you can push the car or you can drive the car, and when a scene is well written it’s like YEAHHHh we’re cruising. Lynn: The process is so similar to writing, especially writing fiction, it will feel like that, and I’ll say it out loud sometimes, because there’s nothing like when people talk in a way that people would never ever talk. Kim: I get so angry when the writer tries to do my job. In life, when I say I’m feeling X Y and Z right now, well then something else must be going on, because nobody actually has to articulate what clearly is going on! Briana: Exactly. ‘I’m feeling?’ No. Lynn: Unless you’re in the middle of a therapy session… Kim: Oh, or the history recaps. ‘Well, you remember that one time when…’ or ‘I thought I’d never forgive you when…’ Briana: OMG yes. Kim: Like, really? Do you need to tell me that? Lynn: Occasionally Supernatural does have a problem with exposition. Kim: And well, sometimes it’s necessary. A necessary evil. Also, it is not to be equated with bad writing when you have to serve a higher purpose. Which is make sure people know what the fuck is going on, especially new viewers, right? Lynn: Right. It was so interesting when I was on set to learn about the process that a script goes through, especially notes from the studio about making sure a new viewer would know what was going on. I had never thought of it that way. Kim: Of course. Like, how we gonna know that so and so? Briana: But mostly the fans know a lot more than the producers. Kim: And frankly in this day and age, fucking google it! Lynn: Or there’s always the superwiki! Everyone: [is laughing] Lynn: So before we end, a lot of people are saying that Colony is really good, and that your character is in the bad guy uniform. Kim: I’m in disguise. I watched it last night in my hotel room. I start off really light, and in the next episodes my character manifests a lot more. You see what her purpose is, where she is in the resistance and how the other characters relate to her. It’s intense. I play a mother, with 2 sons, in the resistance. No husband. And in 10 episodes, not once did I have to emotionally justify myself. I never had a comment of where my husband was. Lynn: Wow Kim: I know. Sarah and I had a discussion about how well written the female characters were that we were so un-used to having to that – as women, as female characters, we always emotionally justify our actions through a relationship with generally a male character. Either a child, a husband, a love interest. I’m doing what I’m doing and somehow it’s because of this or that, not just doing what you’re doing because it’s the right fucking think to do. Briana: It’s a resistance movement. Kim: Unheard of. And so Sarah and I were talking about how different it was, because we’re used to rooting ourselves in an emotional relationship and need from another character. And just rooting ourselves in our own convictions and beliefs was not a place we were familiar with. Lynn: Novel Kim: It was awesome! But also last night, I was in the script a little bit and I had read it, but watching it I was actively upset by what I saw. Not as an actor, as a viewer. I knew what was coming and it still got me. And I was like, how did that just happen? And I was live tweeting and dicking around and like ‘yeah resist forever’, and then I was like I’m done, I have to go read my book now, I’m upset. And it continues to get more upsetting. Lynn: So it’s dark. Kim: And the beautiful irony of Carlton Cuse is that this is about aliens landing, but the darkness is pure humanity. And also because you know like on twitter I follow kind of a dark segment of the population. In fact a lot of the people I follow have never seen my work. They know I have a blue check mark next to my name and as far as they’re concerned they know that it means it’s open season on fucking with me sometimes, like let’s see if we can scare her off today. But because of that, the resistance, I’m like, I know this thinking. Briana: You’re familiar with it. Kim: It’s like, this is people who are familiar with how hideous humanity can be. It’s an intense show. It’s up for Season 2 already, there will be 13 next season. [Whether or not Kim will be back was up in the air at the time} Kim: I never have a problem with how a character is treated though. Briana: A character you play? Kim: Any character. As long as the level of treatment equals the level of story change that it inspires. So for instance, in Colony when shit goes down and I’m like, how could you do that? It’s equivalent to the force that was needed to drive the story in a new direction. Lynn: So it’s not gratuitous… Kim: Yes, that’s the thing! So in terms of Supernatural, I think I’m a little different. I don’t say you shouldn’t hit – like oh I have a problem with the female character being beaten up. What I say is I want to see an equal payoff for what happened. Like when Jody got the shit kicked out of her is what Claire needed to see that to go ‘OMG she would have died for me.’ So that, I don’t think that’s gratuitous. When a beloved character dies and the trajectory of the rest of the show is like running over a speed bump and it continues, then I don’t care how simple and sweet and beautiful the death may have even been. Not warranted. Briana: Tell good stories! Kim: Yes, and with Colony, it’s incredible and necessary. All the horrible moments. At that point, Kim and Briana realized they needed to go sign autographs, so I snapped a few pictures. Lynn: Awwww, you guys. Kim: We’re just honestly as delighted with each other in real life as we seem to be onstage. Briana: I was so excited to come to this con, because she and I haven’t seen each other in a while. Kim: it was like Ooooh, I get to see her in a couple days Kim: [to Briana] You actually smell really good… Briana: It’s a perfume I got in London… Kim: Mmmm nice. We will continue through the launch of Lynn’s book with some of her best Supernatural interviews. Check out Kim and Briana's chapter – along with many other cast and fan chapters – in Family Don’t End With Blood. You can pre-order it here.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

Entertainment Weekly released a spoiler saying that someone will die in the TVD finale... who do you think it will be? I'm so scared that it's going to be Stefan :( That he will sacrifice himself, so Damon can take the cure from him or something

My response is under the cut, because it’s pretty negative and I aim to keep my blog free from stuff like that. This way people don’t have to read it unless they want to. 

I have no idea who it’ll be. We have Damon, Stefan, Bonnie, Caroline, Alaric and Matt. I think that’s everyone, right? I’ve heard that it’s going to be a “major” character death, so I feel like that discounts Alaric and Matt, just because they’re not main characters to the same extent as the others. Other than that I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to who it’ll be because I haven’t been watching the show. In my experience when a character is going to die there’s usually subtle foreshadowing that’s planted a few episodes before they’re going to die, so if I was watching season 8 I might’ve possibly picked up on that, but since I haven’t I’m completely in the dark. 

So many people seem to think (or fear) the same as you, that Stefan will sacrifice himself for Damon, but I just…I still don’t see it. Maybe I’m gullible, maybe I’m in denial, I don’t know. But I cannot fathom how the writers could justify an ending where Stefan dies, after everything he’s been through and him finally being human in favour of D*lena living happily ever after. This might sound like I’m being a bitter shipper now, but they do not deserve it. I’m not saying Damon should die or be miserable, but what I am saying is that he does not deserve to get a happy ending at the expense of Stefan. Why should he get that? What the hell has Damon done to earn that? To even be worthy of it? There’s just no logic in it. And need I remind everyone that this is Stefan’s goddamn story. It’s hard not to get angry when I even think about that ending. 

I’ve always said that whatever the ending is, no matter how much I might dislike it, I will force myself to make peace with it, but that is one ending I will never make peace with. I couldn’t even find the capacity to accept an ending where Stefan dies to give D*lena a happy ending. Not even because I’m against D*lena, it’s nothing to do with that. If Stefan dies, that’s okay. I’d rather he not die, but if it happens I’ll accept it, as long as it’s not for Damon or Elena or both of them. Because the idea of Stefan sacrificing himself like that for such an unworthy cause…honestly, I don’t even know what to say about it. It’s abhorrent. What does Stefan owe Damon? What does he owe Elena? Let me tell you; nothing. I am sick to death of hearing the same pitiful excuse of Stefan turning Damon into a vampire as being a reason for Stefan to die to give Damon his happy ending. What the fuck? (I’m sorry, because this isn’t usually my style, but it’s impossible for me not to get emotional and angry about this). Stefan has apologised repeatedly, he has devoted himself to being there for Damon constantly for years, he’s sacrificed himself for Damon more than once, he let go of the love of his life so Damon could have his happiness. Is Stefan really supposed to spend the rest of his life paying for one stupid thing, that let’s face it, wasn’t nearly as terrible as some people say it is. Big deal, he convinced Damon to feed and complete the transition. He was a 17 year old boy that had just been shot to death, come back, accidentally killed his father, turned into a vampire, was suffering from heightened emotions and he couldn’t stand to sit by and watch his brother - the only person in the world he loved - die. And that makes him a bad person? That means that he deserves to die? That he should give up his life to make it up to Damon? Are you serious? Anyone that thinks that is nothing more than a Stefan hater, because anyone with half a brain and logic can see that that makes no sense at all. 

I prefer Stefan over Damon, but I’m not naive enough or so blinded by hatred to say or wish for Damon to die to give Stelena their perfect happy ending. Do you know why? Because that would be stupid. Whether you think the show is about Defan, Stelena or D*lena (or any other ship), the fact remains that Stefan, Damon and Elena are all at the heart of this show. Neither of them should have to die for a pointless cause. That would be unfair to them and to use a viewers who have watched their story for 8 long years. 

A lot of stories end with tragic character deaths, it’s to be expected with any show that we’re going to lose important people towards the end, but it has to be justified. It has to be for a reason, it has to have purpose and if Stefan does die for D*lena that would not be a purpose. If D*lena want to be together, they can be together, that’s fine. Elena can wake up, he can take the cure from her and they can live their happy human life, if that’s what they want. There’s no need for Stefan to needlessly die for that. 

If Stefan does die, I really don’t think or want to believe that this is how the writers would make it happen. It would be a disgrace and a dishonor to Stefan, Paul and the fans. It just can’t happen.

[wetrumpfeed]

Afternoon MAGAthread: YOUR WEEKLY PRESIDENTIAL RECAP!

GOOOOD AFTERNOON DEPLORABLES!

Welcome to your weekly recap of all this spicy and dank from the past week! If you happened to miss any past recaps you can catch those here!

Sunday, June 16th:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Congratulations to great guy Pete Hegseth and wonderful Jenny Cunningham on their engagement. They will have a fantastic life together! @foxandfriends

Yesterday was the Radical Left Democrats big Impeachment day. They worked so hard to make it something really big and special but had one problem - almost nobody showed up. “The Media admits low turnout for anti-Trump rallies.” @FoxNews “All around the Country people are....... ... .....saying enough. Democrat voters want to hear the politicians talking about issues. This is a huge distraction and will only help Donald Trump get elected.” @JedediahBila “Greatest President since Ronald Reagan” said a counter-protester. LehighValleyLive

A poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and deceitful newspaper, the Failing New York Times or the Amazon (lobbyist) Washington Post! They are both a disgrace to our Country, the Enemy of the People, but I just can’t seem to figure out which is worse? The good..... ... .....news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!

Happy Father’s Day to all, including my worst and most vicious critics, of which there are fewer and fewer. This is a FANTASTIC time to be an American! KEEP AMERICA GREAT!

Video

Thank you PM @Netanyahu and the State of Israel for this great honor!🇺🇸🇮🇱

When will the Fake News Media start asking Democrats if they are OK with the hiring of Christopher Steele, a foreign agent, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, to dig up “dirt” and write a phony Dossier against the Presidential Candidate of the opposing party......... ... ......If Republicans ever did that to the Democrats, there would be all hell to pay. It would be a scandal like no other!

Almost 70% in new Poll say don’t impeach. So ridiculous to even be talking about this subject when all of the crimes were committed by the other side. They can’t win the election fairly!

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I think we have a very real risk of losing the Presidency to Donald Trump.” I agree, and that is the only reason they play the impeach card, which cannot be legally used!

Congratulations to Gary Woodland in winning the United States Open Golf Championship. Fantastic playing, great heart - there will be more in Gary’s future!

Thank you Mr. Prime Minister, a great honor!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Let's not forget what this piece of shit did, with the corrupted assistance of Kim Foxx and Kamala Harris.

Holy shit, boys, Hercules is on our side.

Happy Father’s Day!

This post is for the fathers who can't be with their families today.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Dad’s are the best!!!

You must be a Republican

I have no words

You son of a bitch

Monday, June 17th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Individuals to Key Administration Posts

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Big Rally tomorrow night in Orlando, Florida, looks to be setting records. We are building large movie screens outside to take care of everybody. Over 100,000 requests. Our Country is doing great, far beyond what the haters & losers thought possible - and it will only get better!

Only Fake Polls show us behind the Motley Crew. We are looking really good, but it is far too early to be focused on that. Much work to do! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

"Iran to defy Uranium Stockpile Limits”

One size doesn’t fit all - I support West Virginia Schools. Keep up the great work, @WVGovernor Big Jim Justice - I am with you!

.@FoxNews Polls are always bad for me. They were against Crooked Hillary also. Something weird going on at Fox. Our polls show us leading in all 17 Swing States. For the record, I didn’t spend 30 hours with @abcnews, but rather a tiny fraction of that. More Fake News @BretBaier

Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people....... ... ....long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement. The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress. They must vote to get rid of the loopholes, and fix asylum! If so, Border Crisis will end quickly!

Thousands of people are already lined up in Orlando, some two days before tomorrow nights big Rally. Large Screens and food trucks will be there for those that can’t get into the 25,000 capacity arena. It will be a very exciting evening! Make America Great Again!

The story in the @nytimes about the U.S. escalating attacks on Russia’s power grid is Fake News, and the Failing New York Times knows it. They should immediately release their sources which, if they exist at all, which I doubt, are phony. Times must be held fully accountable!

Wow! The State Department said it has identified 30 Security Incidents involving current or former employees and their handling of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s Emails. @FoxNews This is really big. Never admitted before. Highly Classified Material. Will the Dems investigate this?

Only a few people showed up for the so-called Impeachment rallies over the weekend. The numbers were anemic, no spirit, no hope. More importantly, No Collusion, No Obstruction!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Thug shoots someone 5 times over a car, steals car, goes on Facebook bragging about how cops aren't going to do shit about it, US Marshals get a federal warrant, he rams their cars, pulls a gun, gets shot and killed…yet liberal morons in his home town defend him, riot and injure cops.

State Department identifies 23 violations, 'multiple security incidents' concerning Clinton emails as a part of ongoing investigation

Three months after being admitted to Harvard Class of 2023, Harvard has decided to rescind Kyle Kashuv’s admission over texts and comments made nearly two years ago, months prior to the shooting.

It's going to be crazy once it's all declassified along with Hillary's frazzledrip

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Kevin Sorbo is one of us

WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM LADS?

I actually have this fetish where I'm the only one in bed with a dick and/or beard.

The official summer hat came today, and it's brighter than the sun reflecting off 5,000,000 liberal tears!

Tuesday, June 18th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Seven Nominations Sent to the Senate

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Personnel to Key Administration Posts

President Trump Delivers Remarks Upon Departure

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus could come, which immediately dropped the Euro against the Dollar, making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA. They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others.

European Markets rose on comments (unfair to U.S.) made today by Mario D!

The Fake News doesn’t report it, but Republican enthusiasm is at an all time high. Look what is going on in Orlando, Florida, right now! People have never seen anything like it (unless you play a guitar). Going to be wild - See you later!

Had a very good telephone conversation with President Xi of China. We will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan. Our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting.

“ECB officials see Rate Cut as primary tool for any new stimulus.” @business

German DAX way up due to stimulus remarks from Mario Draghi. Very unfair to the United States!

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who has done a wonderful job, has decided not to go forward with his confirmation process so that he can devote more time to his family.... ... ....I thank Pat for his outstanding service and will be naming Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, to be the new Acting Secretary of Defense. I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a fantastic job!

Departing for Orlando, Florida with @FLOTUS Melania!

Join me LIVE tonight in Orlando, Florida at 8:00 P.M. Eastern as we kickoff #Trump2020. Enjoy!

THANK YOU ORLANDO, FLORIDA!

Together, we are breaking the most sacred rule in Washington Politics: we are KEEPING our promises to the American People. Because my only special interest is YOU! #Trump2020

On no issue are Democrats more extreme – and more depraved – than when it comes to Border Security. The Democrat Agenda of open borders is morally reprehensible. It is the great betrayal of the American Middle Class and our Country as a whole! #Trump2020

In the ultimate act of moral cowardice, not one Democrat Candidate for president - not a single one - has stood up to defend the incredible men and women of ICE and Border Patrol. They don’t have the character, the virtue, or the spine! #Trump2020

Don’t ever forget - this election is about YOU. It is about YOUR family, YOUR future, & the fate of YOUR COUNTRY. We begin our campaign with the best record, the best results, the best agenda, & the only positive VISION for our Country’s future! #Trump2020

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

POTUS is here!!!

Based Japanese

I couldn't agree more Matt. Rules for thee and not for me

This is going to be epic! Trump may live-tweet first 2020 Democratic debates

Astonished: CNN cut the President's 2020 reelection rally speech after the crowd started saying CNN sucks. I have never seen anything like this in my life.

PRESS BRIEFINGS, INTERVIEWS, RALLIES:

MAGA Rally Watch Party: 2020 Campaign Launch. Orlando, FL 6/18/2019

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Man... if only...

When that 2020 vision kicks in.

"You're just a FUCKING WHITE MALE !!!" REEEEEEEEE

831am. Orland Trump Rally. They moved our line closer to front of venue. Thank goodness for our shade structure.

ah yes, the "racists", let's show these folks our love !

Wednesday, June 19th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Judicial Nominees and United States Attorney Nominee

Vice President Pence Visits the USNS Comfort

President Trump Presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Arthur Laffer

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

THANK YOU! #Trump2020🇺🇸

The Dems are very unhappy with the Mueller Report, so after almost 3 years, they want a Redo, or Do Over. This is extreme Presidential Harassment. They gave Crooked Hillary’s people complete Immunity, yet now they bring back Hope Hicks. Why aren’t the Dems looking at the..... ... ....33,000 Emails that Hillary and her lawyer deleted and acid washed AFTER GETTING A SUBPOENA FROM CONGRESS? That is real Obstruction that the Dems want no part of because their hearings are RIGGED and a disgrace to our Country!

DEMOCRAT CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ARE #RIGGED!

If I didn’t have the Phony Witch Hunt going on for 3 years, and if the Fake News Media and their partner in Crime, the Democrats, would have played it straight, I would be way up in the Polls right now - with our Economy, winning by 20 points. But I’m winning anyway!

So sad that the Democrats are putting wonderful Hope Hicks through hell, for 3 years now, after total exoneration by Robert Mueller & the Mueller Report. They were unhappy with result so they want a Do Over. Very unfair & costly to her. Will it ever end? Why aren’t they....... ... ....asking Hillary Clinton why she deleted and acid washed her Emails AFTER getting a subpoena from Congress? Anybody else would be in jail for that, yet the Dems refuse to even bring it up. Rigged House Committee

I will be interviewed LIVE tonight by @seanhannity on @FoxNews 9 P.M. Enjoy!

Just returning from Orlando and Doral (Miami), Florida, and heading to the Oval Office, where I will present the great Economist, Dr. Arthur Laffer, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Congratulations to President Lopez Obrador — Mexico voted to ratify the USMCA today by a huge margin. Time for Congress to do the same here!

Since Election Day 2016, Stocks up almost 50%, Stocks gained 9.2 Trillion Dollars in value, and more than 5,000,000 new jobs added to the Economy. @LouDobbs If our opponent had won, there would have been a market crash, plain and simple! @TuckerCarlson @seanhannity @IngrahamAngle

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

IN HONOR OF 1 YEAR WOMPIVERSARY WOMP! WOMP!

Must watch video. Democrats BTFO by Burgess Owens. “I used to be a Democrat until I did my history and found out the misery that that party brought to my race... Let's pay restitution. How about the Democratic Party pay for all the misery brought to my race".

Trump campaign rakes in stunning $25M in single day for re-election launch

I Haven't Seen POTUS This Emotional With Any Other Person in His Administration. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, SARAH!

I hope alex jones bankrupts every single one of these media Arseholes! Link in comments

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

lol

🤦 "America's Border Is Just Like A Concentration Camp!" 🤦

No brakes on this train (2020 version)

This is MAGA country

Exhibit “A” from the Trump rally last night.

Thursday, June 20th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Ivanka Trump Visits North Carolina with the American Workforce Policy Advisory Committee

President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada

President Trump Welcomes Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada to the White House

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

S&P opens at Record High!

“The President has a really good story to tell. We have unemployment lower than we’ve seen in decades. We have people who stopped looking for work coming back into the labor force. We are in a record growth period.” Michael Steel @MSNBC (do you believe?)

Iran made a very big mistake!

It was my great honor to host Canadian Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau at the @WhiteHouse today!🇺🇸🇨🇦

S&P closes at Record High!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

SHOCK: TIME Magazine finally did a normal cover of Trump.

-Jussie Smollett fabricated a story about white guys assaulting him with bad words and the Media made it the biggest story in America. -White college girl is violently raped and beaten to the point of unconsciousness in a racially motivated attack and the Media ignores it.

Letter from a Polish parliament member to ocasional Cortex

Never listen to the polls, follow the $! Vegas odds are Trump even $, Biden +425.

New York County Clerk Is Refusing To Give Driver’s Licenses To Illegals, Despite New Law

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

I don’t care who you are that’s funny

The kid makes a good point 🤔🤔

Answer: NO

SO BRAVE: Speaker Pelosi just announced that "she's going in!" and is about to read the unredacted Mueller Report, WHICH SHE HAS HAS ACCESS TO IN A CONGRESSIONAL 'SCIF' FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS—SO BRAVE, Nancy! You fraud!

If Trump debates Biden, I hope he invites all the girls Creepy Joe has sniffed to attend

Friday, June 21st:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Trump and The First Lady Participate in the Congressional Picnic

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Just revealed that the Failing and Desperate New York Times was feeding false stories about me, & those associated with me, to the FBI. This shows the kind of unprecedented hatred I have been putting up with for years with this Crooked newspaper. Is what they have done legal?... ... ....”This Russia Collusion Hoax was perpetrated in part by people inside the government, and in part by a compliant (Fake News) media.” Mollie Hemingway. @TuckerCarlson @foxandfriends The facts are starting to pour out. Stay tuned!

President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with Iran - Gave them 150 Billion Dollars plus I.8 Billion Dollars in CASH! Iran was in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to Nuclear Weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled..... ... ....Death to America. I terminated deal, which was not even ratified by Congress, and imposed strong sanctions. They are a much weakened nation today than at the beginning of my Presidency, when they were causing major problems throughout the Middle East. Now they are Bust!.... ... ....On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not.... ... ....proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!

Video

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

GOP chairwoman: If Obama called off Iran strikes he would get Nobel Peace Prize

Trump Hits Highest Approval Ever in USA Today Poll, But USA Today Doesn't Report It

IT'S HAPPENING!

Feminist HBO Writer Says It’s OK to Call Black Columnist a ‘Coon’ Because He’s Against Reparations. Daily reminder that Big Entertainment is part of the larger Culture War and hates your guts if you stand against their complete dominance over culture

BREAKING: Special Prosecutor Assigned to Investigate Entire Jussie Smollett Case

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Just wait till they read the Qura'an. If they can read at all.

That girl is extremely sexist and misogynistic

Two GOATs

💲 $25 Million In One Day! 💲

Saturday, June 22nd:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

The people that Ice will apprehend have already been ordered to be deported. This means that they have run from the law and run from the courts. These are people that are supposed to go back to their home country. They broke the law by coming into the country, & now by staying.

When people come into our Country illegally, they will be DEPORTED!

Stock Market is on track to have the best June in over 50 years! Thank you Mr. President! @WSJ

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Study Finds 92% of left-wing activists live with their parents

President Trump Nominates Army Secretary Mark Esper as Defense Secretary

Waking up and seeing this as the first story on my FB.....Damn, what a wonderful start to Summer

President Trump delivers remarks before departing for Camp David

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

“Inform the Senate that Daddy’s battlestation is fully operational.”

Found this on 9GAG

Worst Hitler ever

Damn white people are their.... shuffles deck... eating healthy!

WEEW LAD!

Without further ado, some tunes to get you jamming through all this winning:

Lone Digger

My Boy

It's Strange

you should see me in a crown

Drop The Game

MAGA ON PATRIOTS!

submitted by /u/Ivaginaryfriend [link] [comments]

[robgrayofficial]

GOOOOD AFTERNOON DEPLORABLES!Welcome to your weekly recap of all this spicy and dank from the past week! If you happened to miss any past recaps you can catch those here!Sunday, June 16th:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Congratulations to great guy Pete Hegseth and wonderful Jenny Cunningham on their engagement. They will have a fantastic life together! @foxandfriendsYesterday was the Radical Left Democrats big Impeachment day. They worked so hard to make it something really big and special but had one problem - almost nobody showed up. “The Media admits low turnout for anti-Trump rallies.” @FoxNews “All around the Country people are....... ... .....saying enough. Democrat voters want to hear the politicians talking about issues. This is a huge distraction and will only help Donald Trump get elected.” @JedediahBila “Greatest President since Ronald Reagan” said a counter-protester. LehighValleyLiveA poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and deceitful newspaper, the Failing New York Times or the Amazon (lobbyist) Washington Post! They are both a disgrace to our Country, the Enemy of the People, but I just can’t seem to figure out which is worse? The good..... ... .....news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!Happy Father’s Day to all, including my worst and most vicious critics, of which there are fewer and fewer. This is a FANTASTIC time to be an American! KEEP AMERICA GREAT!VideoThank you PM @Netanyahu and the State of Israel for this great honor!🇺🇸🇮🇱When will the Fake News Media start asking Democrats if they are OK with the hiring of Christopher Steele, a foreign agent, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, to dig up “dirt” and write a phony Dossier against the Presidential Candidate of the opposing party......... ... ......If Republicans ever did that to the Democrats, there would be all hell to pay. It would be a scandal like no other!Almost 70% in new Poll say don’t impeach. So ridiculous to even be talking about this subject when all of the crimes were committed by the other side. They can’t win the election fairly!Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I think we have a very real risk of losing the Presidency to Donald Trump.” I agree, and that is the only reason they play the impeach card, which cannot be legally used!Congratulations to Gary Woodland in winning the United States Open Golf Championship. Fantastic playing, great heart - there will be more in Gary’s future!Thank you Mr. Prime Minister, a great honor!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Let's not forget what this piece of shit did, with the corrupted assistance of Kim Foxx and Kamala Harris.Holy shit, boys, Hercules is on our side.Happy Father’s Day!This post is for the fathers who can't be with their families today.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Dad’s are the best!!!You must be a RepublicanI have no wordsYou son of a bitchMonday, June 17th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Individuals to Key Administration Posts🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Big Rally tomorrow night in Orlando, Florida, looks to be setting records. We are building large movie screens outside to take care of everybody. Over 100,000 requests. Our Country is doing great, far beyond what the haters & losers thought possible - and it will only get better!Only Fake Polls show us behind the Motley Crew. We are looking really good, but it is far too early to be focused on that. Much work to do! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"Iran to defy Uranium Stockpile Limits”One size doesn’t fit all - I support West Virginia Schools. Keep up the great work, @WVGovernor Big Jim Justice - I am with you!.@FoxNews Polls are always bad for me. They were against Crooked Hillary also. Something weird going on at Fox. Our polls show us leading in all 17 Swing States. For the record, I didn’t spend 30 hours with @abcnews, but rather a tiny fraction of that. More Fake News @BretBaierNext week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people....... ... ....long before they get to our Southern Border. Guatemala is getting ready to sign a Safe-Third Agreement. The only ones who won’t do anything are the Democrats in Congress. They must vote to get rid of the loopholes, and fix asylum! If so, Border Crisis will end quickly!Thousands of people are already lined up in Orlando, some two days before tomorrow nights big Rally. Large Screens and food trucks will be there for those that can’t get into the 25,000 capacity arena. It will be a very exciting evening! Make America Great Again!The story in the @nytimes about the U.S. escalating attacks on Russia’s power grid is Fake News, and the Failing New York Times knows it. They should immediately release their sources which, if they exist at all, which I doubt, are phony. Times must be held fully accountable!Wow! The State Department said it has identified 30 Security Incidents involving current or former employees and their handling of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s Emails. @FoxNews This is really big. Never admitted before. Highly Classified Material. Will the Dems investigate this?Only a few people showed up for the so-called Impeachment rallies over the weekend. The numbers were anemic, no spirit, no hope. More importantly, No Collusion, No Obstruction!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Thug shoots someone 5 times over a car, steals car, goes on Facebook bragging about how cops aren't going to do shit about it, US Marshals get a federal warrant, he rams their cars, pulls a gun, gets shot and killed…yet liberal morons in his home town defend him, riot and injure cops.State Department identifies 23 violations, 'multiple security incidents' concerning Clinton emails as a part of ongoing investigationThree months after being admitted to Harvard Class of 2023, Harvard has decided to rescind Kyle Kashuv’s admission over texts and comments made nearly two years ago, months prior to the shooting.It's going to be crazy once it's all declassified along with Hillary's frazzledrip🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Kevin Sorbo is one of usWHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM LADS?I actually have this fetish where I'm the only one in bed with a dick and/or beard.The official summer hat came today, and it's brighter than the sun reflecting off 5,000,000 liberal tears!Tuesday, June 18th:TODAY'S ACTION:Seven Nominations Sent to the SenatePresident Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Personnel to Key Administration PostsPresident Trump Delivers Remarks Upon Departure🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus could come, which immediately dropped the Euro against the Dollar, making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA. They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others.European Markets rose on comments (unfair to U.S.) made today by Mario D!The Fake News doesn’t report it, but Republican enthusiasm is at an all time high. Look what is going on in Orlando, Florida, right now! People have never seen anything like it (unless you play a guitar). Going to be wild - See you later!Had a very good telephone conversation with President Xi of China. We will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan. Our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting.“ECB officials see Rate Cut as primary tool for any new stimulus.” @businessGerman DAX way up due to stimulus remarks from Mario Draghi. Very unfair to the United States!Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who has done a wonderful job, has decided not to go forward with his confirmation process so that he can devote more time to his family.... ... ....I thank Pat for his outstanding service and will be naming Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, to be the new Acting Secretary of Defense. I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a fantastic job!Departing for Orlando, Florida with @FLOTUS Melania!Join me LIVE tonight in Orlando, Florida at 8:00 P.M. Eastern as we kickoff #Trump2020. Enjoy!THANK YOU ORLANDO, FLORIDA!Together, we are breaking the most sacred rule in Washington Politics: we are KEEPING our promises to the American People. Because my only special interest is YOU! #Trump2020On no issue are Democrats more extreme – and more depraved – than when it comes to Border Security. The Democrat Agenda of open borders is morally reprehensible. It is the great betrayal of the American Middle Class and our Country as a whole! #Trump2020In the ultimate act of moral cowardice, not one Democrat Candidate for president - not a single one - has stood up to defend the incredible men and women of ICE and Border Patrol. They don’t have the character, the virtue, or the spine! #Trump2020Don’t ever forget - this election is about YOU. It is about YOUR family, YOUR future, & the fate of YOUR COUNTRY. We begin our campaign with the best record, the best results, the best agenda, & the only positive VISION for our Country’s future! #Trump2020SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:POTUS is here!!!Based JapaneseI couldn't agree more Matt. Rules for thee and not for meThis is going to be epic! Trump may live-tweet first 2020 Democratic debatesAstonished: CNN cut the President's 2020 reelection rally speech after the crowd started saying CNN sucks. I have never seen anything like this in my life.PRESS BRIEFINGS, INTERVIEWS, RALLIES:MAGA Rally Watch Party: 2020 Campaign Launch. Orlando, FL 6/18/2019🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Man... if only...When that 2020 vision kicks in."You're just a FUCKING WHITE MALE !!!" REEEEEEEEE831am. Orland Trump Rally. They moved our line closer to front of venue. Thank goodness for our shade structure.ah yes, the "racists", let's show these folks our love !Wednesday, June 19th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Judicial Nominees and United States Attorney NomineeVice President Pence Visits the USNS ComfortPresident Trump Presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Arthur Laffer🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:THANK YOU! #Trump2020🇺🇸The Dems are very unhappy with the Mueller Report, so after almost 3 years, they want a Redo, or Do Over. This is extreme Presidential Harassment. They gave Crooked Hillary’s people complete Immunity, yet now they bring back Hope Hicks. Why aren’t the Dems looking at the..... ... ....33,000 Emails that Hillary and her lawyer deleted and acid washed AFTER GETTING A SUBPOENA FROM CONGRESS? That is real Obstruction that the Dems want no part of because their hearings are RIGGED and a disgrace to our Country!DEMOCRAT CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ARE #RIGGED!If I didn’t have the Phony Witch Hunt going on for 3 years, and if the Fake News Media and their partner in Crime, the Democrats, would have played it straight, I would be way up in the Polls right now - with our Economy, winning by 20 points. But I’m winning anyway!So sad that the Democrats are putting wonderful Hope Hicks through hell, for 3 years now, after total exoneration by Robert Mueller & the Mueller Report. They were unhappy with result so they want a Do Over. Very unfair & costly to her. Will it ever end? Why aren’t they....... ... ....asking Hillary Clinton why she deleted and acid washed her Emails AFTER getting a subpoena from Congress? Anybody else would be in jail for that, yet the Dems refuse to even bring it up. Rigged House CommitteeI will be interviewed LIVE tonight by @seanhannity on @FoxNews 9 P.M. Enjoy!Just returning from Orlando and Doral (Miami), Florida, and heading to the Oval Office, where I will present the great Economist, Dr. Arthur Laffer, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Congratulations to President Lopez Obrador — Mexico voted to ratify the USMCA today by a huge margin. Time for Congress to do the same here!Since Election Day 2016, Stocks up almost 50%, Stocks gained 9.2 Trillion Dollars in value, and more than 5,000,000 new jobs added to the Economy. @LouDobbs If our opponent had won, there would have been a market crash, plain and simple! @TuckerCarlson @seanhannity @IngrahamAngleSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:IN HONOR OF 1 YEAR WOMPIVERSARY WOMP! WOMP!Must watch video. Democrats BTFO by Burgess Owens. “I used to be a Democrat until I did my history and found out the misery that that party brought to my race... Let's pay restitution. How about the Democratic Party pay for all the misery brought to my race".Trump campaign rakes in stunning $25M in single day for re-election launchI Haven't Seen POTUS This Emotional With Any Other Person in His Administration. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, SARAH!I hope alex jones bankrupts every single one of these media Arseholes! Link in comments🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:lol🤦 "America's Border Is Just Like A Concentration Camp!" 🤦No brakes on this train (2020 version)This is MAGA countryExhibit “A” from the Trump rally last night.Thursday, June 20th:TODAY'S ACTION:Ivanka Trump Visits North Carolina with the American Workforce Policy Advisory CommitteePresident Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with the Prime Minister of CanadaPresident Trump Welcomes Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada to the White House🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:S&P opens at Record High!“The President has a really good story to tell. We have unemployment lower than we’ve seen in decades. We have people who stopped looking for work coming back into the labor force. We are in a record growth period.” Michael Steel @MSNBC (do you believe?)Iran made a very big mistake!It was my great honor to host Canadian Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau at the @WhiteHouse today!🇺🇸🇨🇦S&P closes at Record High!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:SHOCK: TIME Magazine finally did a normal cover of Trump.-Jussie Smollett fabricated a story about white guys assaulting him with bad words and the Media made it the biggest story in America. -White college girl is violently raped and beaten to the point of unconsciousness in a racially motivated attack and the Media ignores it.Letter from a Polish parliament member to ocasional CortexNever listen to the polls, follow the $! Vegas odds are Trump even $, Biden +425.New York County Clerk Is Refusing To Give Driver’s Licenses To Illegals, Despite New Law🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:I don’t care who you are that’s funnyThe kid makes a good point 🤔🤔Answer: NOSO BRAVE: Speaker Pelosi just announced that "she's going in!" and is about to read the unredacted Mueller Report, WHICH SHE HAS HAS ACCESS TO IN A CONGRESSIONAL 'SCIF' FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS—SO BRAVE, Nancy! You fraud!If Trump debates Biden, I hope he invites all the girls Creepy Joe has sniffed to attendFriday, June 21st:TODAY'S ACTION:President Trump and The First Lady Participate in the Congressional Picnic🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Just revealed that the Failing and Desperate New York Times was feeding false stories about me, & those associated with me, to the FBI. This shows the kind of unprecedented hatred I have been putting up with for years with this Crooked newspaper. Is what they have done legal?... ... ....”This Russia Collusion Hoax was perpetrated in part by people inside the government, and in part by a compliant (Fake News) media.” Mollie Hemingway. @TuckerCarlson @foxandfriends The facts are starting to pour out. Stay tuned!President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with Iran - Gave them 150 Billion Dollars plus I.8 Billion Dollars in CASH! Iran was in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to Nuclear Weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled..... ... ....Death to America. I terminated deal, which was not even ratified by Congress, and imposed strong sanctions. They are a much weakened nation today than at the beginning of my Presidency, when they were causing major problems throughout the Middle East. Now they are Bust!.... ... ....On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not.... ... ....proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!VideoSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:GOP chairwoman: If Obama called off Iran strikes he would get Nobel Peace PrizeTrump Hits Highest Approval Ever in USA Today Poll, But USA Today Doesn't Report ItIT'S HAPPENING!Feminist HBO Writer Says It’s OK to Call Black Columnist a ‘Coon’ Because He’s Against Reparations. Daily reminder that Big Entertainment is part of the larger Culture War and hates your guts if you stand against their complete dominance over cultureBREAKING: Special Prosecutor Assigned to Investigate Entire Jussie Smollett Case🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Just wait till they read the Qura'an. If they can read at all.That girl is extremely sexist and misogynisticTwo GOATs💲 $25 Million In One Day! 💲Saturday, June 22nd:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:The people that Ice will apprehend have already been ordered to be deported. This means that they have run from the law and run from the courts. These are people that are supposed to go back to their home country. They broke the law by coming into the country, & now by staying.When people come into our Country illegally, they will be DEPORTED!Stock Market is on track to have the best June in over 50 years! Thank you Mr. President! @WSJSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Study Finds 92% of left-wing activists live with their parentsPresident Trump Nominates Army Secretary Mark Esper as Defense SecretaryWaking up and seeing this as the first story on my FB.....Damn, what a wonderful start to SummerPresident Trump delivers remarks before departing for Camp David🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:“Inform the Senate that Daddy’s battlestation is fully operational.”Found this on 9GAGWorst Hitler everDamn white people are their.... shuffles deck... eating healthy!WEEW LAD!Without further ado, some tunes to get you jamming through all this winning:Lone DiggerMy BoyIt's Strangeyou should see me in a crownDrop The GameMAGA ON PATRIOTS! #robgray

[shenzhenblog]

5 Entrepreneurs Share How They've Handled Client Disasters

Client disasters don’t have to be catastrophic. When customers go from being satisfied buyers to brand haters, companies should take the opportunity to learn what inspired the change and prevent it from happening in the future — or even turn it around in the moment.

Sometimes, though, clients are bound to stay unhappy. If the company stops offering an unprofitable service that a small group of clients needs, the former buyers will be upset no matter what. Rather than bumble through changes hoping for the best, businesses facing client-related mishaps must learn to anticipate potential strife and recognize when compromise is (or isn’t) possible.

Keeping Client Disasters to a Minimum

It’s imperative to anticipate certain customer issues and train your staff to handle those issues. The more you prepare your team for what it might encounter, the better it will do when faced with a customer service issue. During my time working in the consumer products and retail business, I’ve also learned that, as an owner and manager, I can defuse most customer service situations.

If you elevate a problem to a senior person, people tend to feel more confident that you are taking them seriously and care about their problem. In addition, even if the situation calls for you stepping in, it’s crucial to empower your team to handle customer complaints and to support them in their decisions.

Keeping customers happy isn’t just nice for the company’s reputation — it has a direct effect on the bottom line. Companies that provide great experiences enjoy higher rates of retention, customer satisfaction, and opportunities to upsell. Where price used to be the biggest differentiator between companies, the customer experience has taken the throne. More than four out of five buyers are willing to pay more for exceptional experiences.

Finding Purpose While Walking The Way Of Saint James

No matter how much companies prepare, however, a few client disasters will always slip through the cracks. Someone’s unreasonable expectation will go unfulfilled, an employee will make an unforgivable blunder, or the forces of the universe will simply decide that the relationship needs some strife. When that happens, companies need to know how to handle the situation without losing face — and without letting one customer’s bad day lead to widespread displeasure.

After all, as much as companies love good clients, unhappy customers can do far more damage than happy clients can do good. One study by Dimensional Research found that 95 percent of people who experience bad customer service tell someone else about it, with 54 percent expressing their displeasure to at least five others — compared to just 33 percent who share a good experience.

Faced with these stats, I asked five entrepreneurs and business leaders to share with me what they’ve done in the face of client disasters:

1. Matt Clervi, CEO of Fresh Ideas Management

Growth is great, but it can make longtime customers feel like afterthoughts when personal service becomes less attentive. Matt Clervi knows this all too well. “We were growing fast, and one of our first clients said that our growth had robbed them of our attention,” he said. “They weren’t feeling the love anymore. They threatened to take their business elsewhere.”

Clervi believes that deep listening and hard questions are the key to salvaging damaged relationships. After that client complained, he challenged everyone within his company to slow down. They took time to listen to the challenges of their client and put timelines around a solution. Clervi said it taught his team members to be grateful for growth, but not to allow the rate of growth to lessen the experience they’re able to provide clients.

“When you appreciate the people who helped you grow and consistently listen to them, you put yourself in a position to consistently succeed,” he explained. He added that his company reviewed its culture and hiring practices and implemented techniques to better identify when a candidate is self-aware and able to slow down and ask hard questions.

2. Erik Huberman, CEO of Hawke Media

When small blunders carry massive costs, deciding who foots the bill can be a treacherous prospect. Erik Huberman shared a time when his company had a glitch occur with a client’s email system, which meant a discount email offer intended for a small subset of his client’s customers was sent to a much wider audience. When he recommended that the company retract the discount, the client declined — then decided not to pay its several outstanding bills for Huberman’s company’s services.

“They had asked me to just keep working and the bills would get handled,” he said. “They basically lied and took advantage.” After hearing that they would not be paying, Huberman said he told the company that he could get a lawyer to collect his money. The client’s founder began texting him slurs and threatening to drag his name through the mud.

That’s when Huberman said he made another mistake: “I jabbed back, threatened, sank to the same level. Then I said, ‘Good luck with marketing,’ and not to call me again. Then the other partner in the company called me apologizing and begging us to keep working together.” Huberman said his company ended up making some money back, but it was the beginning of the end for that client relationship. If Huberman could do it again, he said he wouldn’t let emotions guide the way he handled the situation. Customers can afford to get heated, but business leaders cannot.

3. Caroline Santiago, Founder and CEO of Utopia Life Consulting Inc.

Clients will be hesitant to work with a person whom someone else has selected, a phenomenon Caroline Santiago experienced firsthand. When the chief operating officer at one client company hired Santiago to work with the chief technology officer, the CTO felt saddled with an unasked-for partner and wanted nothing to do with her. Santiago arranged a daily 9 a.m. check-in meeting with the CTO, whom she described as an independent thinker and leader, but when she showed up on the first day to meet him, he didn’t show. He then ignored her attempts to meet with him the next several days.

Eager to get started on work the firm was paying her to do, Santiago met with the CTO’s technology department leadership team over the course of three days. After those three days of meetings, the CTO showed up to the scheduled daily check-in meeting with Santiago, but his reaction wasn’t what she was expecting. “The CTO proceeded to yell and scream at me, stating he didn’t want me here and asking what authority I had to schedule meetings and work with his leadership team,” she recalled.

“I told him he should interview me right now for this position, and if he did not think I was a good candidate for the role, I would not show up to work tomorrow.” The CTO’s shock at her proposal showed in his face. That on-the-spot interview went well, and Santiago received the buy-in she needed from the CTO to keep the relationship going. Santiago said that, through this experience, she learned to make sure she is able to speak with all key client stakeholders before signing a client agreement. Clients don’t always want the world. Usually, they just want to feel like they have a choice in the matter.

4. Josh Hudgins, Managing Partner and Director of US Sales at Global Ecom Partners

Every company makes mistakes. But the best ones take responsibility for them, especially when those mishaps occur early in the client relationship. Josh Hudgins learned this lesson when his company onboarded a new client but failed to walk that client through the onboarding process. That omission led to a lag in shipping time to the end customer, which was soon caught and corrected. Unfortunately, Hudgins’ company also failed to realize it had overlooked the part of the onboarding process in which the client’s in-house marketing is moved to its platform. That oversight resulted in zero marketing for all of the client’s products for a month.

“The most significant dilemma was maintaining our client’s confidence in our ability to execute what we had promised and not leave us after such a short honeymoon period,” he said. “Luckily, we had set the expectation that there would be bumps in the transition process but let them know we were committed to resolving any issues quickly.”

Hudgins reminds anyone in his situation that deals are not over at closing. They are a series of commitments, each of which requires appropriate fulfillment — a lesson he learned through this client mishap. The poor onboarding experience and transition led his company to create a new onboarding checklist. “This checklist allows complete transparency and accountability to everyone involved in the new client process, which has resulted in a better client experience,” he said.

5. Krister Ungerboeck, Strategic Planning and Leadership Consulting Expert

Krister Ungerboeck relies on what he calls “the language of license,” meaning that clients need to know when they’re getting in the way of a successful partnership. With this in mind, when one of his clients kept pushing their agreement to the bottom of the list and making his team run behind schedule on a project, Ungerboeck took action.

He and the client’s CEO engineered an agreement to give each other’s teams permission to raise red flags. That way, if a project is running behind schedule, each team feels comfortable enforcing the schedule. Ungerboeck said: “This discussion gave our teams authority to hold one another accountable. I call this move ‘the permission play,’ and it’s imperative to my leadership playbook.”

Businesses should not wait for clients to reach the brink of disaster before getting firm. Clients would much rather have a tough conversation early than missed revenue later. Ungerboeck added: “Be sure to give your team permission as a group rather than individually. Communicating this to the group will have a more powerful impact.”

Not every client relationship can be salvaged, but every business needs to know how to handle things when something goes wrong. By remaining flexible and keeping the lines of communication open, businesses can minimize client disasters and ensure every customer experience is as great as it can be.

Originally posted on Forbes.

  Rhett Power

Rhett Power is Best-Selling Author, Executive Coach, Columnist at Forbes, Inc. & Success. Rhett Power co-founded Wild Creations in 2007 and quickly built the startup toy company into the 2010 Fastest Growing Business in South Carolina. Wild Creations was named a Blue Ribbon Top 75 US Company by the US Chamber of Commerce and named as one of Inc. Magazine’s 500 Fastest Growing US Companies two years in a row. He and his team have won over 40 national awards for their innovative toys. He served in the US Peace Corps and is a graduate of the University of South Carolina. He now has a rapidly growing coaching and consulting practice based in Washington DC.

5 Entrepreneurs Share How They’ve Handled Client Disasters was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

[junker-town]

NFL Panic Index 2017, Week 10: The Eagles are right on track to lose the Super Bowl

Will the third time be the charm for an Eagles Super Bowl?

The Philadelphia Eagles are feeling it right now. At 8-1, they’re at least two games better than every other team in the NFL. They’ve won seven games in a row. They just pounded the Broncos, lighting up a once-proud defense for 51 points. They look unstoppable.

The Eagles are pretty much guaranteed a spot in the playoffs at this point. Since 1990, every team that has started 8-1 has made it to the postseason.

But they’re setting their sights higher than just than breaking a three-year playoff drought:

The @Eagles are 8-1 for the 5th time in franchise history. The other 4 times, they went to the Super Bowl or NFL Championship game. http://pic.twitter.com/umYO8kxLSe

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 6, 2017

For Eagles fans, this is where the BUT comes in. Yes, both of their trips to the Super Bowl came in seasons when they started 8-1. BUT the Eagles also lost both Super Bowls and haven’t won a championship since 1960. That’s longer than the Browns!

Eagles fans, go watch for this a minute. This next paragraph isn’t for your eyes.

Eagles haters, hey how’s it going? So, I’ve got some bad news. If you thought drunk Eagles fans were hard to take, think about how “drunk with the power of a Super Bowl” Eagles fans would be. Like, you know your mom’s friend Cathy, who never stops bragging about her perrrrrfect daughter? Now imagine Cathy as a guard in the Stanford prison experiment. That’s Eagles fans if they are even on the verge of a Super Bowl appearance. If you even know a friend of a friend whose cousin is an Eagles fan, you may as well fake your death to avoid them for those two weeks between the NFC Championship and Super Bowl LII, because they will be that unbearable.

OK Eagles fans, you can come back now.

So, is this a trend, or will third time be the charm for the Eagles’ dreams of finally winning a Super Bowl?

Panic index: No team is punching its ticket to the NFL’s biggest game in November. Around the same time last year, we were wondering the same thing about a one-loss Cowboys team. They didn’t get a chance to lose the Super Bowl because they didn’t win a single playoff game. Just let the season play out first.

The 49ers’ playoff hopes could be over historically early

I mean, this one is obvious, right? But they could actually be eliminated in Week 10! It would make them the first team eliminated with seven weeks to go in 50 years.

TIEBREAKERS: SF will be eliminated from playoff contention w/ loss this wk (NYG); would be earliest elim (7 wks to play) since DEN in 1967!

— Joe Ferreira (@JoeNFL) November 7, 2017

The 49ers made a splash in trading for Jimmy Garoppolo, but Kyle Shanahan doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get him in there. When you see that the team is essentially eliminated from playoff contention already, it’s hard to blame him.

They’ll take their No. 1 or No. 2 overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft, prepare Garoppolo for next season, and keep things moving. Anything else would be a waste.

Panic index: Whether or not this happens this week, the 49ers can put the nails in the coffin on the 2017 season. It’s not the worst thing in the world, if you’re a fan.

Julio, are you OK man?

Julio Jones had the drop of all drops this past Sunday against the Panthers.

With the Falcons down 10, Jones dropped a dime from Matt Ryan, with nobody around Jones. It seemed like a sure thing as the ball was in the air, and he made his way to the 15-, 10-, and 5-yard lines. But it wasn’t.

Luke Kuechly thinks that a hex on Jones caused the drop.

“I think the fans had a little impact on that. They put some juju on him or something,” Kuechly said jokingly, via NFL.com. “He's a great player, and that doesn't happen a lot. So maybe the fans put a hex on him, cast a spell.”

It was a rarity for Jones:

Julio Jones dropped what would have been a 39-yard touchdown on 4th-and-7, the first time he's dropped a pass in the end zone since 2012.

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 5, 2017

Panic index: The drop was bad, and the Falcons’ offense continues to struggle. Individually, Jones will be fine. The Falcons collectively? Well ...

Bill Belichick must not be watching the 2017 Broncos

The Patriots will visit the Broncos this week, and Bill Belichick is preparing his defense for this high-powered, dynamic Denver offense. Wait, what?

Bill Belichick on the Broncos offense: "Offensively they’re very explosive."

— Nora Princiotti (@NoraPrinciotti) November 6, 2017

“Explosive” is not a word we would use to describe this offense.

Let’s loosely define an explosive play as a gain of at least 12 yards on a run and 16 yards on a pass. We wouldn’t look at the Broncos’ per-play average of 4.9 yards and think, man, that’s one explosive offense. But then again, we’re not Bill Belichick.

The Broncos do have offensive talent capable of burning defenses with big plays, particularly Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders. But they’ve got Brock Osweiler throwing them the ball right now. He’s averaging 5.4 yards per completion this season, and averages just 6 yards per catch over his career.

Panic index: Maybe Belichick is just being polite, though that’s not typically a huge priority for him. Or more likely, he doesn’t want his defense — which struggled mightily against the pass early in the season — to overlook even the Broncos offense. Any given Sunday, and all that.

Though, to be fair, “explosive” is also an adjective often paired with diarrhea, so ...

It’ll be almost impossible for the Buccaneers to get on track

It’s Week 10, and the Buccaneers are 2-6. Mike Evans sees the writing on the wall.

#Bucs WR Mike Evans: “We are very bad. We are too talented to be 2-6. We are in a bad spot and have to come together. Time is running out.”

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 5, 2017

Tampa Bay was crowned an offseason winner after adding DeSean Jackson and O.J. Howard. And fans fell in love with Gerald McCoy and Chris Godwin on Hard Knocks. This team was expected to contend for the NFC South and maybe even have a shot at a Super Bowl. That does not appear to be in the cards.

So what happened? Despite all that talent, the offense is averaging just 19.8 points per game. It’s partly because the defense can’t get off the field. They’re ranked 29th in the league after allowing opponents to convert 55 third downs this season. They can’t get any pressure on quarterbacks, and they’re ranked dead last in the league with just eight sacks on the season.

And there’s not much reason to hope the Bucs can turn it around, at least not this week. The team is sidelining Jameis Winston for at least two weeks until the sprained AC joint in his throwing shoulder fully heals. And Evans will be out this week serving a suspension for blindsiding Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore after he had a sideline altercation with Winston during the Bucs’ loss to the Saints on Sunday.

This isn’t the first time Evans has lamented the state of the Buccaneers. He said essentially the same thing after the team fell to 2-5 with a 17-3 loss to the Panthers.

“I wish I knew why we weren’t starting fast and finishing fast,” Evans said via Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times. “I don’t know what it is. Like I said before the season, on paper we are an amazing team, but we’re just not as good as we thought we were, so we’ve just got to pick it up. The good thing about it [is] we have nine games left.”

Panic index: Now the Bucs just have eight games left, and Evans will miss one of them. Winston will miss even more. And this is looking like a lost season for Tampa Bay.

Ben McAdoo might not have much time to save his job

McAdoo denied claims his team had quit in Week 9’s 51-17 home loss to the Rams, but ... c’mon. New York played disinterested defense as Los Angeles rolled all over them, playing with all the intensity of a smoking break in the second half.

After the game, he told the press no one’s position was safe from the shakeup that would mark the Giants’ second half, even Eli Manning. The only problem is there’s not enough talent on the NY roster to gain anything from benchings. The offense has been ravaged by injuries, and Orleans Darkwa has risen to the top of the team’s finest new tradition; a rotation of utterly frustrating and underwhelming tailbacks.

Things are even more grim on the defensive side, where a once-fearsome pass rush is now just Jason Pierre-Paul and a bunch of cardboard cutouts. New York’s inability to rush the passer has weakened what should be an upper-tier secondary. The Giants are allowing opposing QBs to post a 101.0 passer rating this fall; that figure was just 78.7 — second in the league — in 2016.

The wheels have fallen off, and even if McAdoo wants to take a drastic step in a Hail Mary attempt to fix things, his options look grim. Behind an ineffective Manning lies Geno Smith — a quarterback who couldn’t win a starting role with the dumpster-fire Jets — and rookie Davis Webb, who has yet to be activated for an NFL game in his pro career.

Panic index: Better start packing that hair gel and your array of mustache combs, Ben.

[auburnfamilynews]

John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

Tons of interesting outcomes yesterday, rankings get affected.

After the first weekend of the SEC season, which saw everyone in action, we learned a ton.

LSU isn’t great. Georgia has a quarterback problem. Bama is still annoyingly good. Mississippi State and Ole Miss are going to be a handful. That’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Auburn probably ended up with the second-best win of the weekend (after MSU over LSU), and the way that it happened left many Tiger fans feeling confident as Gus Malzahn gets ready to take his club into Athens this coming Saturday. Before we run through the conference, let’s check the new polls.

AP TOP 25

Clemson

Alabama

Florida

Georgia

Notre Dame

Ohio State

Auburn

Miami

Texas

Penn State

UCF

North Carolina

Texas A&M

Oregon

Cincinnati

Mississippi State

Oklahoma State

Oklahoma

Wisconsin

LSU

Tennessee

BYU

Michigan

Pittsburgh

Memphis

COACHES’ POLL

Clemson

Alabama

Florida

Georgia

Notre Dame

Ohio State

Auburn

Miami

Texas

Penn State

North Carolina

UCF

Texas A&M

Mississippi State

Cincinnati

Oklahoma

LSU

Wisconsin

Oklahoma State

Tennessee

Michigan

BYU

Virginia Tech

Memphis

Pittsburgh

As for the conference, here are some basic impressions on how everyone played, in alphabetical order. In most cases, the sample size may be too small to really understand what’s going on.

ARKANSAS: Without more of a sample size, it’s hard to tell whether their early success and halftime lead against Georgia was a function of the Bulldogs’ quarterback issues or just good hard-nosed play. Maybe Kirby wanted to take it easy on his former assistant. Either way, they didn’t look as woeful as years past before Georgia’s talent took over in the second half.

ALABAMA: Still good, Jaylen Waddle is going to be hilariously inconvenient to play against (we already know that), and anyone that thought Mac Jones would falter didn’t watch Nick Saban win championships with guys who probably wouldn’t rank in the upper quarter of quarterbacks around the country. Too much talent for a team like Missouri, but the Tide didn’t really pour anything on in the second half.

AUBURN: Adjustments and offensive growth. We saw the stars play out yesterday on both sides of the ball, particularly on the edge. Auburn’s receivers and defensive backs had hellacious ballgames, and we saw some tinkering with the lines that produced better results after a slow start. As usual, Kevin Steele’s defensive adjustments may be the unsung hero of the game, but Chad Morris’ impact on Bo NIx’s game was evident from the start. Bo’s three touchdowns tied a career high and were a fantastic sign of things to come. Huge game this week in Athens.

FLORIDA: If there’s a 2020 candidate for Joe Burrow’s vacated spot, it’s Kyle Trask. he threw for 6 touchdowns yesterday, and Florida ran up the yardage and the points against Ole Miss. Kyle Pitts is going to be a huge problem for the conference this year, since the tight end had 4 scores in the win, but the Gator defense had trouble with Lane Kiffin’s offense. They may be feeling the losses of some stars from last season.

GEORGIA: Oh boy. If you’re a Dawg Hater, yesterday was hilarious to watch even if they got it together in the second half. It’s clear that Kirby’s got some quarterback problems if J.T. Daniels doesn’t come back healthy soon. While Stetson Bennett IV did well in relief, it remains to be seen what happens when someone can take away more of his weapons. George Pickens seems to be their best option right now, and the battle between him and Roger McCreary should be great on Saturday night.

KENTUCKY: These guys will step up and beat someone they shouldn’t this year, since those lines are very good. The defense never really got run over, but Auburn’s stars took advantage when they needed to. Offensively, we may see a couple of 300-yard rushing games from the Cats this season with the maulers they’ve got up front. Terry Wilson showed some rust, and if he can find a better rhythm passing, Kentucky could be a real thorn in the SEC East.

LSU: Wow. All offseason, there was a split between the two camps of “They’re reloading” and “You don’t lose all of that talent and come back stronger than before”. The latter camp won yesterday. Myles Brennan is no Joe Burrow, and while they didn’t have Derek Stingley in the defensive backfield, his presence alone wouldn’t have stopped 600+ passing yards. Bo Pelini got outcoached and run around by Mike Leach, and that should worry LSU for when they’ve got to play other teams with functional passing games.

MISSISSIPPI STATE: Best start of the season by anyone in the SEC. They did what it’s taken Auburn more than 20 years to do, and beat LSU in Baton Rouge. Mike Leach did it in his first game. The Bulldogs have bonafide stars at receiver, and Kylin Hill seems to have found his groove in the Air Raid offense. Defensively, they’ll struggle at times, and K.J. Costello will cost them a ballgame or two with turnovers, but that was one heck of an entrance into the league. They’ll be fun to watch this season, and annoying when you have to play them.

MISSOURI: Just not enough yet. Not enough talent or depth to compete with the upper crust of the conference. They’ll improve over the course of the year, but I don’t think they’ll rise up much from the bottom of the barrel. Their game against Vanderbilt could end up being for the last spot in the East.

OLE MISS: Lane Kiffin has returned, and the SEC is way more fun when he’s part of the show. Ole Miss put up some points against Florida yesterday, and Matt Corral showed why he’s a legit SEC quarterback. As usual, Kiffin brought out the bag of tricks and the Rebels had fun playing football, even if they ended up losing. Like MSU, they’re going to be a handful whenever they pop up on your schedule.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Will Muschamp played big dumb football again. Defensively, they weren’t terrible, but the offense has to find something outside of Shi Smith or else the better defenses will bottle him up. Mistakes ended up losing this game, with a tipped pick six and the clincher gaffe on the punt return at the end. If they clean it up, they could end up challenging for as high as third in the East with Kentucky and Tennessee.

TENNESSEE: The better of two classic-looking SEC teams in the East. Power run, play-action pass, you name it. It looked like 2003 out there, and Jeremy Pruitt’s got himself a couple of guys that can make plays. Jarrett Guarantano looked as solid as he has in quite some time, and the receiving efforts of Josh Palmer and Brandon Johnson provided a little flair to the offense. Defensively, they got gashed at times by the Gamecocks’ walk-on quarterback, but overall it wasn’t a bad outing.

TEXAS A&M: Is the shine off of Jimbo yet? If they’re not going to be able to put Vanderbilt away much earlier than they did, then the Aggies may be paying out an expensive contract much earlier than they’d like to. Kellen Mond, as a senior, should be showing much more development, and the A&M offense as a whole can’t put up 17 points at home against Vandy. Again, maybe the sample size is too small, and maybe Vanderbilt is pretty solid defensively, but there’s cause for concern in Aggieland with what happened last night.

VANDERBILT: Take a bow, Derek Mason. He had his defense ready to go, and limited Texas A&M to 17 points. Vandy had chances late to take the lead and really push the Aggies, but the offense just isn’t ready for the spotlight yet. They’ll make someone else sweat this season since the defense isn’t going to get gashed based on what we saw last night, but they have to be able to score 20+ points to win and right now that isn’t a reality.

We’ll have official Power Rankings coming out tomorrow, as well as Position Grades later today on yesterday’s win over Kentucky! Auburn takes on Georgia six days from now, War Eagle!

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/9/27/21458621/new-rankings-auburn-rises

[androckb]

One Year

A year ago this week, things changed for me. The owners of the site I was working with at that point, Pixels At The Parks, were wrestling with a big decision in their lives, which ultimately resulted in the site closing up shop. It was a tough decision for them, but ultimately they had to do what was best for themselves, and while I was of course upset over losing my online home of the previous two years, I’ve never harbored any ill will over the site’s closing.

I miss it. We were a group of friends united by our passion for the parks and tourism who came together to share that with everyone in the community. We all had different styles and personalities, but that’s what made us a great team. We learned from each other, and were able to combine our strengths to bring some of the best coverage to the table for parks and other locations that many bigger sites largely ignored. 

At that point, I was faced with a decision of what to do. I’ve been writing about the Central Florida theme parks and sharing my passion for them online since I moved here in early 2012; I was on message boards sharing my passion with others for 5 years before that. I even started WDW Tour Company when I moved down here, got my travel agent license, and sold vacations (mostly to Disney) to family, friends, and a few clients. 

My first writing gig was actually with Orlando Informer, back in the site’s early days. I wrote a handful of articles on Busch Gardens and Disney, and started to learn more about the theme park blogging scene. 

In 2013, I was approached about covering Busch Gardens Tampa for the ParkFans network, which at the time was covering Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Kings Dominion in Virginia. The site owners were looking to expand to other parks, and BGT seemed like a logical place. No site at the time was covering BGT in-depth like the parks in Orlando. Being just a few miles from the park, and with a new project starting - Falcon’s Fury - it was a good fit. 

I spent the next 15 months building the site up, including the social media accounts, all from scratch. (On the content side that is - the technical side was taken care of by the site owners.) I went from not having a clue what twitter was to realizing how powerful of a tool it was, especially within the theme park community. I did it all in a volunteer capacity, spending my own money and time on it, never getting a penny for my work. Which was fine - I’ve never been in this for the money (spoiler - blogging about theme parks, except for a select few cases, doesn’t pay the bills).

Unfortunately in the Fall of 2014, issues started to arise. Promises made about revenue from YouTube videos that I produced from start to finish were not being honored. The original agreement was to be able to use those funds to reinvest in BGTFans to continue to expand coverage and increase our reach. That coupled with a lack of responsiveness from the site owners on a number of other issues led to my leaving the ParkFans network. Since the site, social media accounts, etc. all belonged to them, I had to walk away from everything I had created. Lessons were learned. Sadly, the site itself would eventually be removed when they chose to partner with another blogger, but that’s a story for another day. 

The good news is I wasn’t without a home for long. 

I met Bob from Pixels At The Parks while covering Falcon’s Fury construction at BGT. Like me, he realized there was a serious lack of coverage at the park, and while we were “competition” at the time, we got to know each other and actually worked together on another project while I was with BGTFans. It was an easy decision for me to join Pixels when the opportunity presented itself when I left BGTFans. 

From around Thanksgiving 2014 until the beginning of October 2016, I got to be part of the amazingly talented Pixels Crew. We dominated coverage at BGT, and led the way in coverage at other parks and attractions at different points in time. We tried new things, put in a lot of hard work, spent a lot of our own money, and had a ton of fun along the way. We had our haters, but those who find success usually have a few. 

I had decided at the beginning of 2016 not to renew my license, and step away from the travel agent side of things. By that point I had been back in the full time workforce for a year, and I wasn’t able to devote enough time and effort to the travel business as well as blogging. I like to keep busy, but it was all a bit too much. So I mothballed WDW Tour Company. 

And that brings me back to where I started this long, rambling thought. 

I had never wanted to build my own theme park blog. That’s why I joined Pixels At The Parks after BGTFans. Along with not having the technical know-how to build a website (thank goodness for my husband Matt who does), I didn’t want the responsibility of having a blog for which I was solely responsible for producing the content (not to mention all the other aspects). 

But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I actually dislike that saying, but it fits. 

I couldn’t really use WDW Tour Company for the new blog, as I knew at least a good portion of my focus would still be Busch Gardens. But I also didn’t want to be boxed in to only covering BGT, which is where I was with BGTFans. 

And so Touring Central Florida was born. This new site would combine what was left of my travel business with a new blog covering theme parks, attractions and more across the area (and sometimes beyond). The goal for this first year has been to establish a presence and develop content, and honestly for myself, to see if I could stick with it for a year without getting fed up with it. 

Guess what. I made it. (With a lot of help from Matt.)

I’m really proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in the last year. The site has continued being the only outlet to provide year-round in-depth coverage of Busch Gardens Tampa. With the help of Matt’s amazing photography, and him patiently teaching me how to take and edit better photos, we’ve been able to show the parks and some of the construction projects in new ways. 

On the social media front, I’m especially proud. I don’t have the biggest following, but I have some of the best results compared to others with similar follower counts and even many with much larger bases. My rate of engagement on twitter is higher than average on a consistent basis. While I hope that’s at least partly due to my understanding the medium and providing quality content, I also know it’s because I have a great set of followers, many who I’ve been lucky enough to get to know better this past year and call my friends. 

What I’m most proud of, however, is how I’ve reached this point over the last year. I’ve done it without being nasty, without causing drama, without being negative in the hopes of drawing more clicks. I haven’t had to lie about or attack others. I’ve certainly had some moments I’m less than proud of, and I’ve bitten my tongue some and complained privately to friends about issues, but I’ve done my best to stay professional online and let my work speak for itself.  I’m not perfect. I like to know if my work is appreciated. And as the above paragraphs show, I’m not above being proud of my accomplishments and bragging about them from time to time. I also despise those who steal content from others, whether intentionally or “innocently,” and I know I’ll continue to be bitter about it when it occurs. Some things I can improve on; some things I know I can’t change.  While I can’t predict the future, I look forward to continuing sharing my passion. I have some exciting plans for this next year, and look forward to seeing how they pan out. Either way, I’m going to keep doing what I love for as long as I can.