#I just copy pasted the interview as it was on the website

[mihotose]

anyway basically i think an unauthorized fan treatise could have been better if all the livejournals articles tweets etc werent pasted directly into each chapter in full bc personally i preferred reading everything and clicking through the pages myself piecing together the story as an actual fan reading the blog could have done instead of gottie holding your hand and going through and explaining every fragment of it for you

[cupidbedsy]

𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁'𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁 ; 𝘵𝘻11 ୨୧

➪ summary: pictures and text messages of her and her brother's best friend leak and she stays curled up in her room, not talking to anyone. so mason calls up her best friend and soon enough, trevor is on a plane to england

➪ warnings: things being leaked, crying, reader thinks her brothers hate her, crappy friends

➪ word count: 1.3k

➪ file type: fic - reupload

➪ sunny's notes: red, white, and royal blue is 100% the inspiration to this fic and yes i did basically copy the phone call and speech but its just too cute to ignore. i literally am in love with this movie. part two will be out tomorrow i hope! this would’ve been out earlier but i took a nap (shocking i know)

© cupidbedsy (sunflower-lilac42) ; do not copy, repost, or translate my work and designs on any other website or here

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Nothing was how it should be. They were supposed to be careful, they were careful. They were only seen together when it would make sense for them to be together; when he was in town for a game, when he was supposed to be hanging out with her brothers, or when he had a game against the Devils or the Canucks. And when they were seen together, they made sure everything was strictly platonic: no hand touches, stolen glances, nothing.

However, maybe they should’ve accounted for the fact that one, her friends were journalists, and two, her friends weren’t really her friends in the first place. They had a few classes together in college, back when she was still undecided, but despite that? They only found her interesting because of her last name and who shared it.

Somehow she was too predictable, her password was as basic as it got. It was the day Trevor asked her to be his girlfriend, they’re anniversary. It was the best day of both of their lives but now it was the root of all their problems. It wasn’t the biggest scandal on the dance floor, there were things much worse going on in the NHL and the world in general. No one would care about this besides the Zegras and the Hughes families and the girls who were too obsessed with hockey players and their relationships for their own good.

She was studying abroad in England this past year and she couldn’t help but fall in love with it. She had decided to extend her stay into the fall semester, not wanting to go back home. This sort of worked in her favor, she was 3,444 miles from Jack and Luke and 4,632 miles from Quinn. She was in a different time zone, country, and continent than them. All she had to do to avoid them was not answer her phone. 

She was good at that, blocking out social media and her phone as a whole. Growing up the sister of hockey players and her mom being who she was in the hockey world, she got used to the hate and backlash she got from not wanting to do hockey. Her phone was shut off and thrown into her desk drawer. Her friends tried to comfort her but were to no avail, she was too worried about what other people thought about it.

Not only had pictures of them been put out into the world but their text messages as well. However, she couldn’t remember a time she left her phone unattended. She hadn’t spoken to Trevor in two weeks, she hadn’t spoken to anybody besides her roommates in two weeks. She had seen a couple of articles and videos that were spreading, the one of Trevor’s interviews where he was addressing the situation was not only the biggest one but the most recent one. 

It was before the game, that the reporter had asked him about how everything in the media that was speculating had impacted him and his play. To which he responded with, “Y/n and I are together and have been since the beginning of the season. And whether people choose to support or hate it, isn’t my problem nor my business. We’re happy and hope everyone can support that decision and respect our privacy. I fell in love with a girl who happens to be related to my best friend. How is this affecting my mindset? I wouldn’t say it has, I’m still playling, and Greg still thinks I’m playing as best as I can and even better. I’m worried about her, that’s for sure. She hasn’t had the best track record with the media.”

He said a few more words, none of which mattered to y/n. She wasn’t sure if she cried more because of what he said or the situation. She curled up on the chair in the corner of the room, reading a book. Her friends looked at her sadly, they hated the fact that she had gone back to her reserved nature. 

Trevor on the other hand was acting like it wasn’t bothering him, he couldn’t hide himself from the media or anything really like she could. But, it was eating him alive. He didn’t know if she was okay or if something had happened or if she was ignoring him.  He was too desperate to know if he was okay so he attempted to reach out to all three of her brothers but he got nothing back in return.

It wasn’t until Mason walked into his room with his phone in hand, “I called her friend for you.”

Trevor looked at him with wide eyes, “What?”

“Thank me later.”

Her friend had been walking up the stairs to their apartment when she got the call from Mason, they had met when y/n and Trevor took them along on a trip to ensure that no rumors would start. She had practically run the rest of the way and bolted into the apartment. She walked over to y/n and handed her the phone.

She reached out for it and held it up to her ear, “Hello?”

“Baby!” 

Her voice stuck in her throat along with the sob that had been forming for a while. “Trevor? Oh my god, are you alright?”

“I’m hanging in there. Are you okay?”

She paused, “No. No, I’m not okay.”

“You know what, I’m coming to London tonight. Just hold on until I get there.”

“Hurry please.”

And just as he promised, 8 hours later he was standing in her apartment, opening his arms for her. She ran into them once she heard him call out and buried her head into his chest. Trevor sunk to the floor with her, his back pressed up against the wall, “It’s okay. I’m here. I got you.”

He could feel her body racked with sobs and he couldn’t help but start crying himself. He had torn himself apart these past two weeks as he waited to hear from her and knowing how much she had been in pain had hurt him. He picked her up soon after and carried her to the bedroom, laying her down on the bed. He crawled in next to her and wrapped his arms around her once more.

“Have you heard from your brothers yet?”

“Not a word. Not that I have checked my phone since the article came out.”

He frowned at her, tightening his hold, “Sometimes I wonder if part of their acceptance is just to forget it ever happened in the first place.”

This made him laugh a little as he pulled back to look at her. He moved the piece of hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear. His face changed when he realized that her small smile had turned back into a frown, “I feel so lost. They used to adore me, used to protect me, but now. It feels like they just wish I never existed.”

“Hey, they still love you.” She just blinked at him, “I’m sure if you looked at your phone they would just be wondering if you were okay.”

“I liked your speech, it was very put together.”

He smiled at her, “It made me very proud to be your girlfriend.”

“Hey, I’m always proud to be your boyfriend.”

She giggled and kissed his cheek, “You know what I mean you dork.”

“Speaking of boyfriends and girlfriends. Did you know Mason and Lia were dating?”

She perked up, “No! When did that happen?”

“Apparently-”

“Hey.”

The two turned and looked at Lia, “What’s up?”

“Your brothers are here.”

𝗠𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗧𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 ୨୧

please message me if you didn't get tagged!

@toasttt11 @chiblackhawks @pucks-goals-penalties @dancerbailey3 @quinnylouhughesx43

© cupidbedsy (sunflower-lilac42) ; do not copy, repost, or translate my work and designs on any other website or here

[namelessdumbass]

Rite Here Rite Now

It was amazing and funny. Copia girlies and boys fucking won!

I expected different outcome, tbh. Tobias managed to surprise me and also made me a tiny bit sad (reasons will be explained in the spoilers below).

The film consists of like 95% of concert footage and 5% of off stage/plot stuff. The quality of sound and editing is just 🤌 I expected the live of Twenties to be good and gosh Ghost delivered. And Mummy Dust...Tobias let Mary Goore out! But i honestly prefer Terzo's version (CaD) better. Sorry not sorry haha. Ghouls/Ghoulettes footage. Everyone who loves them will be very veeeery well fed!

Dance Macabre live...i was'nt wrong when i called it a satanic gay party 😁

The movie is worth watching and i do hope Ghost releases it as soon as possible for all those who were not able to go.

The spoiler free review ends here. Don't read further if you don't want to spoil it for yourself. And please, don't copy them and paste it everywhere for the sake of ruining other people's fun! Seriously, don't fucking do that!

If you accidently clicked here, don't worry! spoilers will be below and you still have a chance to avoid them :)

Alriiiiight:

Movie starts with Saltarian who tells fans to record for the first 2 minutes, to show how happy they are etc and posted a qr code for fans to upload those recordings. I guess it will be put up on RHRN website. We'll see. There were also photos of fans who attended LA ritual. I fucking loved the person who showed up in a giant Plushia suit. I LOLed! Then fans were asked to put down the phones and enjoy the movie. The beginning was narrated Star Wars kinda style (a little bit) with the small recap of the chapters and about Copia's worries that he might die. And yes, it literally began in space lol. The movie is basically is like what we saw in small snippets Ghost posted earlier. Plot mixed with a really good show.

And the plot: -Short footage of Copia and Ghouls arriving. ALmost the whole set was the same as any other concert from Re-Imperatour + a few awesome exceptions. -Dews does that annoying thing with guitar, Rain stops him, takes his pick and throws it into the crowd and Dew...he freaking showed him YouSuck sticker on the backside of his guitar. Peak Dew moment! -Copia asked the right question about the Clery. He also does not quite understand what it does, why and where it goes. I suppose Tobias decided to thicken the Ghost lore a bit and will have more clarity in the nearest future. -Remember when Copia jumped at the end of the Watcher in the Sky? He ended up in one of those stage boxes (for equipment or something) and is taken to the stage B. While he's carried to it by Kevin he has a chat with Nihil's ghost. Nihil says he recorded not 2, but 3 songs. That probably means that we'll hear a new one. (UPD: the new song we heard during the credits, "The Future is a Foreign Land" is Nihil's 3rd song! Confirmed by Tobias himself in a new interview). He also tells Copia to breath in deep and then farts. -On the Stage B Copia sings "If You Have Ghosts". 3 Ghoulettes played piano and violins and the 4th one did the haunting ghost-like opera vocals. It was beatiful. Copia kissed her hand. -He then wore boxing robe and went next to crowd. Almost the whole scene was shown in the trailer. -Btw, remember that silly moment when Nihil's eyes were crossing? Well, Kevin was also included in that staring contest. -Twenties live. The skeletons, the performance and one of those skeletons who crawled between Dew's legs...that's hot. -Nihil calls Copia "son". Copia calls Nihil "Dad". Cardi will insult him later, don't worry. -Nihil/Seestor cartoon during MOAC. Yes, that's when Sis hit him with the car. Basically it's what happens after "Kiss the Go Goat" mv. Sister leaves and Nihil runs after her. "I'll never let you go". They end up kissing in a coffin on a graveyard , later Nihil wakes up naked in a bed in a motel and we see Sister leave. -There was a moment in a movie when we see Ashley (stage crew) bring Copia a new pair of shoes and put the on on his feet. Tobias, goddammit what the hell was that? :D -Seestor was a in wheelchair all the time -She and Nihil encouraged Copia throughout the whole movie and gave him a piece of advice. -About the baloon from the poster. Copia flies on it after finishing the set...or he imagined that because a few moments later after Nihil/Seestor flashbacks he ends up on the floor and watches Seestor die. All of the Ghouls and Ghoulettes also stood right next to her. -Copia has a twin brother -Copia didn't die and became the head the Clergy (Father Imperator or something like this). He found out about his new position from a letter Seestor left for him. -New song during credits (credits show dictators, assassinations, wars and the use of nuclear war). Years 1984 and 2024 mentioned. The song is not heavy. -Ghouls/Ghoulettes real names mentioned in the credits -Funny post credit scene with Copia. He had no piant on and had a new cool drip (with black jacket and red and black cross). Seestor is also a Ghost now. Tobia's children cameo. They're also Ghosts. -Papa V is teased the same way Copia was teased in a chapter 1. They even used the same music (Pro Memoria). No face reveal. Either he will be revealed in new Chapters or at some point during the new tour???

-aaaand my biggest disappointment: no footage of Primo, Secondo and Terzo. Literally ZERO.

I mean, Nihil is a Ghost, Seestor also became a Ghost, even Tobias' children made a cameo as Ghosts, but nothing for previous Papas? Really?! The same could have been done for them, but i guess Tobias doesn't care about them anymore :( And it hurts. I know that's my fault that i had so many expectations and hopes, but holy shit :( As a newbie who never saw previous Papas, i'm so sad i'll never get a chance to see them and there won't be any new footage of them. Being Terzo widow is so hard. Guess that's why i'm a bit salty Copia lives (sorry, guys, i like him, but i also hate him haha)

And yes, as it turned out the twins theory from Square Hammer was true...but not for Terzo 😭

I enjoyed the movie nevertheless. It's fun and kinda gives you an opportunity to see the band "live" if you've never been to a ritual before. And yes, the movies was'nt just about Papa IV and his fate, i believe it was also Tobias' message for us to enjoy the life rite here rite now! As i said, Copia's girlies and boys truly fucking won. Congrats, lads, your Papa lives and will live! I bet that feels amazing. Thanks for reading! P.S. since you know the plot, don't spoil it for the others please.

[bellaireland1981]

Special Delivery for the Birthday Boy

Summary: You enlist Phoenix’s help to surprise your husband on his birthday. You’d been living on opposite coasts since he’d been called back to Top Gun and you were ready to reunite with him just in time to celebrate his birthday. An added bonus is you also get to surprise the rest of the Daggers who have no clue that Bradley is married. 

Word Count: 3.9K

Pairings: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Female! Reader

Warnings: Fluff, mentions of birthday sex but no actual smut, mentions of pregnancy.

A/N: I do not own TGM characters, I DO NOT give permission to anyone to repost, copy or translate my work to any other platform or website. Don’t steal my work... it’s not cool. AS always thank you to @waywardodysseys and @beyondthesefourwalls for letting me bounce ideas off them and encouraging me!! Reblogs and comments always appreciated! 

Masterlist

Side note: Meant to get this posted yesterday but wanted to redo a few things on it...still not 100% sure I love how it turned out but...here you go! 

YOU: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY! I LOVE YOU! I’ll be in interviews all day but I’ll FaceTime you tonight. Fly Safe! 💋

HUBBY: Thank you, Dove. I miss you so much 🙁 Wish you were here. Love you 💗

“Are you sure he doesn’t know I’m coming?” You asked, putting your suitcase into the back and climbing into the passenger seat. “Thanks again for coming to get me!”

“Y/N, I promise, he’s absolutely clueless.” Phoenix assured you, smiling. “He’s been moping around all day because he can’t get a hold of you. And you’re welcome! I can’t wait to see his face!”

“I can’t wait to see his face either… I miss that face.” You said, leaning back in the seat. “I’ll be so happy when we’re living on the same damn coast again.”

“When will that be?” She asked, merging into the traffic leaving the San Diego International Airport. “Rooster mentioned you had some loose ends to tie up out East.”

“That’s part of his birthday present.” You said beaming, “I actually just accepted a teaching position for the fall. I had an interview over Zoom yesterday. Bradley thinks I’m in interviews all day today.”

“Y/N that’s awesome!” Phoenix exclaimed, “He’ll be so damn excited.”

“I’m excited.” You laughed, “I’ve had enough of being across the country from my husband. Especially after the last mission. How are things really going with him and Maverick?”

“Honestly?” She said, “Much better than when we got back to Top Gun. They’ve talked and are actively trying. It’s been really good for Rooster.”

“Good.” You replied, “I’ve been trying to get him to reach out for a few years. He just wasn’t ready. I’m glad he got this chance. It’ll be interesting to meet the man.”

“He’s a good guy.” She said, “Bob and I are the only ones that know about you, by the way.”

“I figured.” You laughed. “I’m kind of looking forward to that bombshell being dropped too. From everything I’ve heard about everyone, the reactions should be priceless. I’m especially looking forward to Hangman’s reaction.”

“Oh, this will be absolutely priceless.” Phoenix laughed, “For as much shit as he gives Rooster for never hitting on women at the Hard Deck and not having any game… he’s going to have to eat his words. He’ll most likely hit on you though if he meets you before knowing you’re married to Rooster.”

“Are things better between them though?” You asked, “I know Hangman wasn’t Bradley’s favorite person… and they’ve butted heads in the past. When it counted though, that man came through for my husband and it’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay.”

“They’ve formed a tentative friendship.” She said, “It’s new… but there is a strong mutual respect between them. They’ve flown better together in training since the mission…have become a pretty damn good team actually.”

“It makes me feel better knowing he’s got the best pilots in the Navy flying with him.” You said, “I always felt safer when I knew he was deployed with you.”

“Just because you know I’ll keep his ass out of trouble.” She laughed. “I get it though. You have to trust your wingman. This last mission showed us that we can really all trust one another to come through for each other.”

She pulled into the driveway of her apartment complex parking her car and the two of you got out. You grabbed your suitcase from the back and followed her up to her apartment.

“Ok I just need like a half hour to shower and get ready!” You said, “Then I’ll be ready to go!”

“Take your time.” She laughed, “I’ll grab a towel for you. While you shower, I’ll text the group. Jake is actually in charge of getting Bradley to the Hard Deck for birthday drinks.”

You opened your suitcase, pulling out a sundress you’d left on top for easy access. It was one of Bradley’s favorites on you so you made sure to pack it. You grabbed the strapless bra and matching lace panties you’d bought to wear with the dress and headed to the shower. You tied your hair up so it wouldn’t get wet and quickly jumped into the shower.

True to your word, thirty minutes later you were dressed and ready to go. You’d left your hair down, opted for light makeup and only wore a necklace Bradley had given you for your anniversary (a Dove pendant on a dainty silver chain). You slipped your feet into wedge sandals and grabbed your purse and the small gift bag with Bradley’s other birthday present in it and headed out to the living room where Phoenix was waiting.

“Ready!” You said, excited to finally be headed out to see your husband.

“Jake said he’s having a hard time getting Rooster to go to the bar. He asked him after work and he said he was just going to go home.” Phoenix said. “I can drop you off at the Hard Deck then go to the house and drag his ass out. He’ll listen to me.”

“Hold on.” You said, “He’s probably waiting for me to FaceTime him and doesn't want to miss that call… SHIT! He’ll recognize your apartment…. Ok…. no problem.. I’ve got this.”

You brought your husband’s name up on your phone, hitting the call button.

“Baby you said FaceTime.” Bradley complained, answering the phone on the second ring. “Where’s your beautiful face?”

“I know, Sweetie,” You replied, sighing, “I promise I’ll FaceTime you later tonight. I messed up the time difference and I got a call from another school to interview with. I just really want to find a job out there so I can get to you. How about you go get a birthday drink with Nix and then by the time you get home I’ll be free and we can FaceTime.”

“It’s OK, Dove.” He said, “Good luck in the interview, Baby. They’ll all want you and you’ll have your pick of jobs. I just miss you so damn much. I want to be able to come home to you at night. I love you.”

“I love you too, Bradley.” You said, your heart breaking at how sad he sounded, even knowing you were about to make him so happy. “I’ll be home there with you before you even know it and you’ll be coming home to me every single night. Promise you’ll go get a drink with your friends? Celebrate your birthday?”

“I promise.” He said, “I’ll talk to you later, Baby. Good Luck.”

“Thank you, Sweetie.” You replied, “I love you so so much.”

“Love you too.” He replied.

After hanging up you had Phoenix text the group chat again to let everyone know that drinks were happening at the Hard Deck in thirty minutes for Bradshaw’s birthday. Then she texted Bradley and let him know she wasn’t taking ‘No’ for an answer.

PHOENIX: Bradshaw, your ass better be at the Hard Deck in 30 minutes or I’ll be at your house to drag your ass out myself. 😡

ROOSTER: My  wife already texted you? Lol 😂  I’m changing out of my flight suit now. Be there in 30.

“Alright, he’s changing now!” Phoenix said, smiling, “Let’s get you to your husband!”

You pulled your suitcase back down to her car, throwing it into the back again to be transferred to your husband’s Bronco once you were at the Hard Deck. Knowing you were going to be seeing him in 30 minutes caused excitement to flood your system. You’d been married for three years, together for five and gone through much longer deployments and separations that the one you’d just been through, but never before had he flown such a dangerous mission where it had been pretty much assumed someone wasn’t coming home.

“Not long now!” Phoenix said, smiling over at you, knowing where your head was going. “An added bonus to this new assignment is the deployments won’t be as often or as long. We will actually be getting to do more instructing of the new classes of Top Gun students in between missions. You won’t have to worry about long separations anymore.”

“I’ve done ok as long as I didn’t let myself think about it too much.” You said, “The minute I let myself think about how close he came to not coming home… I lose it.”

“You’ll feel much better once you see him and have him back in your arms.” She promised, “I know he’ll feel better once he’s got you in his arms too.”

“You’re right.” You said. “Just need him in my arms.”

She pulled into the parking lot of the bar a short time later and you made your way inside.  

“Looks like everyone except Rooster is here.” Phoenix said, spotting everyone in their regular corner of the bar when they walked in. “Let’s go grab drinks from the bar and kill time until he gets here. I want him to be the one to introduce you.”

You followed her to the bar, sitting in one of the free seats.

“Hey, Phoenix.” Penny said, coming over, “What can I get for you two?”

“Hey, Penny.” She replied, “I’ll take a beer, Y/N?”

“Just a Ginger Ale or Sprite if you have it?” You asked, smiling. “I’m going to be DD tonight for my husband.”

“One of these aviators belong to you?” Penny asked, grabbing the beer for Phoenix and filling a glass with ice and pouring the amber soda for you.

“He’s not here yet.” You replied, smiling. “But yeah, I have to take claim for an aviator.”

“Penny, do you know if Mav is coming tonight?” Phoenix asked, winking at you. “Figured he might pop in for Rooster’s birthday.”

“I think he said he’s stopping in.” She replied, “I’m so glad those two are finally talking!”

“You and me both!” Phoenix replied, taking a drink of her beer.

“Phoenix, why are you sitting over here keeping your beautiful friend here from joining us?” A smooth voice sounded behind you both. You turned and smirked, knowing exactly who was standing behind you.

“Bagman, you’re not allowed to harass my friend.” Phoenix said, rolling her eyes. “She is definitely not your type.”

“I’m Hangman.” He said, flashing a megawatt smile, complete with dimples. You were sure that smile landed him plenty of ladies. You had to bite back a laugh when you glanced over at  Phoenix who was rolling her eyes. “Or Jake, whichever you prefer.”

“I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you, Hangman.” You replied, glancing behind him as the door opened and a very familiar mustached aviator walked in wearing one of his million Hawaiian shirts. Thankfully he hadn’t seen you yet so you still had the element of surprise.  “Phoenix is right though, you’re not my type. I only give my heart to 6 '1”, brown eyed,curly haired, aviators with mustaches and a penchant for Hawaiian shirts.”

“Oddly specific…” He said, confused, but turning to see where your eyes had landed. You hopped off the seat and moved past him, straight into Bradley’s line of sight.

“Lieutenant Bradshaw!” You called, catching his attention. His head shot up, his eyes locking in on you immediately, a shocked smile stretching across his face.  “Surprise, Baby! Happy Birthday!”

“Dove!” He exclaimed, finally snapping out of his shock. He closed the distance between you two quickly, meeting him in the middle, and scooped you up into his arms. Your legs wrapped around him so he was holding you koala style, your lips locking against his own in a passionate kiss, neither of you caring that you were standing in the middle of a crowded bar. “Fuck, I’ve missed you so damn much, Y/N. I can’t believe you’re really here!”

“Forgive me for not FaceTiming now?” You asked, laughing “I was at Phoenix’s apartment when I called.”

“You’re a little minx.” He laughed. “I forgive you baby.”

“Bradshaw!” Jake said, “Care you’ve got some explaining to do.”

“Give me a minute, Hangman.” Bradley replied, setting you down, but not letting you go. “I haven’t seen my wife in a couple of months. Let me say ‘hello’.”

“WIFE?” Jake exclaimed, “Phoenix, you know about this?”

“Yup.” She smirked, leading Jake away from you and Bradley. “Give them a minute. They’ll join us shortly.”

You were still wrapped in Bradley’s arms and you finally felt like you were home.

“I can’t believe you’re really here, Dove.” He said, resting his forehead against your own. “You look so beautiful, Baby.”

“I’m really here, my love.” You promised, kissing him softly. “It’s so good to see your face and kiss you and to be in your arms. I love you so much. From now on, I will go where you go whenever humanly possible.”

“I love you too, Beautiful.” He replied, “I’m hoping this will be our permanent home base. How close are we to being a one coast family?”

“Actually, how likely is it that you can get leave to help me pack up our Virginia house?” You asked.

“Pretty likely.” He smiled, “Do you have a timeline?”

“Whenever you’re ready.” You said, “I accepted a job out here for the fall, officially resigned at the district in Virginia Beach and cleared out my classroom two days ago.”

“FUCK YES!” He exclaimed, picking you up and swinging you around, “I’ll put in for leave tomorrow. As soon as it’s granted we’ll book a flight back and pack it all up and list the house.”

“Bradshaws!” Jake yelled, “Join the party!”

“We’re being paged.” You laughed, “Come on, Baby. Introduce me to your friends.”

You and Bradley walked over to the corner where everyone had congregated and introductions were made.

“Everyone, this is my wife Y/N.” Bradley said, happy to finally get to introduce you to everyone, “Baby, this is the squad. You’ve met Hangman. That’s Payback, Fanboy, Coyote, and you already know Bob.”

“Hey Y/N” Bob said, coming over to hug you, “It’s good to see you again!”

“Hi, Bob!” You replied smiling, hugging him back, “It’s so good to see you too!” Then looking at the rest of the group you smiled and  said, “It’s so nice to finally meet you all. Bradley’s told me all about you guys.”

“Wait a damn minute!” Jake said, turning to glare and Bradley, “Phoenix and Bob BOTH knew you had a wife? What the HELL, Rooster? I saved your life and I don’t get to be in the cool kids club knowing you have a WIFE? I thought we were friends, man.”

“Jake…”Bradley said, unsure what to say, “Come on man, it’s not like that…we are friends…”

You look over at Jake who’s doing all that he can to not smile, enjoying the fact that Bradley has no idea what to say.

“Baby, he’s playing you.” You told your husband, winking at Jake. “Jake, stop bullying my husband. It’s his birthday. Play nicely and you come over for home cooked meals.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He replied, smiling, “Sorry, Rooster. Couldn’t resist. Congrats on the beautiful wife. She’s a firecracker. Definitely keep her.”

“I plan on it, Hangman.” Bradley said, shaking his head at the blonde aviator.

The night continues with the group playing pool, swapping stories, drinking and you filling them in on how you and Bradley met and ended up married. Eventually, Phoenix made her way to the Jukebox and pulled the plug, silencing the music, causing your husband to chuckle. There was a mixed reaction from the bar to the music being cut. Some booed, upset that whatever had been playing was cut off mid song, the rest cheered, clearly knowing something was about to happen.

“That’s my cue, Baby.” Bradley said, tapping your leg to signal he needed up. You stood up to let him get off the chair, but before you could sit back down, he grabbed your hand and pulled you along with him to an upright piano.

“They clearly know your party trick.” You teased, “Come on birthday boy, serenade your fans.” Bradley sat down on the bench, pulling you down next to him. His fingers moved over the keys, playing a random melody before launching into the familiar intro chords to Great Balls of Fire. You knew he could play a million other songs, but this one in particular held the most meaning to him as it was the one his dad had played and sang when he was little before he died.

You could tell Bradley had done this before here because everyone crowded around and were singing along with him while he played. You joined in, belting out the song alongside your husband. KISS ME BABY.. (you leaned in to kiss him quickly)    OOOOO THAT FEELS GOOD,   HOLD ME BABY….. WELL,  I’LL STILL HOLD YOU LIKE A LOVER SHOULD….. YOU’RE FINE…. SO KIND… I GOT TO TELL THIS WORLD THAT YOU’RE MINE MINE MINE MINE!  

When the song finished the bar erupted into loud cheers and chants yelling “ROOSTER”. You loved seeing your husband in his element like this. You quickly took advantage of being in front of the piano and scooted your husbands fingers off the keys, replacing them with your own and started to play Happy Birthday. You were happy when everyone around you immediately joined in and soon the entire bar was signing to your husband.

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy BIRTHDAY dear ROOSTER, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!”

“Make a wish, Baby”! You said, turning towards him.

“All my wishes have come true.” He replied, leaning in to kiss you.

“Hey Rooster,” Phoenix said, gently, not wanting to interrupt the moment.  “Mav’s at the bar.”

“Ready to meet my Godfather?” He asked you.

“Definitely ready.” You replied. “Then I’ve got the rest of your birthday present.”

“Baby!” He exclaimed, “You’re here, you’re MOVING here, YOU are my present.”

“Ok, well, there’s more.” You shrugged laughing. “Introduce me to Mav.”

Bradley took your hand and led you to the bar where Mav was sitting sipping a beer. He looked up as you both approached and smiled, standing up.

“Happy Birthday, Kid.” Mav said, hugging Bradley tightly.

“Thanks, Mav.” He replied, hugging him back. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

You stepped closer, smiling softly. You were nervous to meet the man that meant so much to Bradley and who had been like a father to him growing up before everything had exploded. You wanted to help your husband to build that relationship back up, knowing how important it was to have family. Your own parents adored Bradley and had immediately welcomed him into the family when you’d brought him home the first time.

“This is my wife, Y/N.” He said, his arm around your waist, “Baby, this Mav. He helped my mom raise me after my dad died.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Y/N.” Mav said, his voice thick with emotion.

“It’s great to finally meet you too.” You replied, smiling, stepping forward to pull him into a hug. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“For the record, Y/N’s been trying to get me to reach out for a couple of years now.” Bradley admitted. “I’m just bullheaded.”

“At least he admits it.” You laughed. “We’d love to have you over for dinner though, Mav. I’d really love to get to know you.”

“I would love that, Y/N.” He replied, “I’d love to get to know the one making my Godson so happy.”

“He’s easy to love.” You said, looking over your shoulder at your husband. “He makes me pretty damn happy too.”

“I think I’m going to steal my wife now and take her home.” Bradley said, “She just flew in today and is still on East Coast time.”

“Sounds good.” Mav said, “Enjoy the rest of your birthday, Kid. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” He replied, smiling, “See you tomorrow.”

After saying goodbye to the rest of the squad, you were finally able to escape out to the Bronco. Phoenix had already transferred your suitcase while you were inside.

“Do you need me to drive?” You asked, you hadn’t kept track of your husband’s drinks tonight.

“Nope. I’m good.” He said, smiling, opening the passenger door for you,“Only had 2 beers earlier, nothing since. Hop in, Dove.”

You leaned back in the seat, enjoying the air coming in from the open windows as Bradley drove you both home. He had found an apartment not far from base that did short term leases when he’d come back to San Diego for the mission. Now that you knew it would be permanent the two of you could start to look for a house together. You made a mental note to start looking at listings tomorrow while he was at work.

The apartment wasn’t too far from The Hard Deck either, so before long, Bradley was pulling the Bronco into the parking space and shutting it off. He came around to open your door for you before pulling your suitcase from the back of the Bronco.

“Ready to see our temporary home in person?” He asked

“More than ready.” You said, “Especially the bed… I really wanna see the bed.”

“I can’t wait to get you into bed either, Baby.” He smirked, “Birthday sex is the best.”

“Lead the way, Stud.” You winked, “I still have another birthday surprise for you.”

“Is it under your dress?” He asked, taking your hand and leading you to the front door, unlocking it and ushering you inside.

“It is…” You replied, “But I need something from my suitcase first.” You unzipped the suitcase and pulled out the small gift bag inside before handing it to Bradley. “Happy Birthday, Baby.”

He smiled, reaching to take the bag, leaning down to kiss you as he did, “Thank you, Dove.”

He opened the bag, taking out the tissue paper, and pulling out two onesies. Holding them up, you could see the moment it registered in his head what he was looking at. His eyes filled with tears as he read each one.

“Future Aviator, just like my Daddy,” He read, before holding up the other one to read, “Daddy’s Wingman”

He looked up at you, “Baby, you’re….we’re…really?” He was too choked up to get the words out. You smiled, tears of your own spilling over and running down your cheeks.

“Yes” You whispered, unable to get your own voice to work. He carefully set the onesies in the bag and pulled you into his arms, your own going around his neck. His lips connected with yours in a deep kiss, desperate to convey all of his love and feelings to you in that moment.

“We’re having a baby.” He whispered, when you’d both pulled back to breathe. “How far along?”

“I just hit 11 weeks.” You said, then reached for your purse to pull out the sonogram photo you had safely tucked inside, “And actually… let’s go sit on the couch and I’ll show you the sonogram…”

He took your hand leading you to the couch, sitting down with you tucked into his side. You handed him the envelope with the copies of the sonogram from the doctor. He carefully opened it up, pulling them out to look.

“Dove…” He said, shock once again covering his face  “Are you serious right now?”

“Surprise!” You chuckled, “Turns out you're top 1% in more than just flying, Baby.”

“We’re having twins.” He smiled, looking at the sonogram, “I’m gonna be a daddy.”

“You’re gonna be the best daddy.” You confirmed, “Happy Birthday, Bradley.”

“This has been the best birthday ever, Dove.” He replied, leaning over to kiss you. “Thank you for making all of my wishes come true.”

Taglist: 

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[londonfoginacup]

Hello yes, I don’t know if this is relevant to anyone who follows me, but I have spent a week going through resumes for a job position I’m hiring for and I would just like to give a few pointers to anyone looking to get hired right now;

If you are using a template from like, Google Docs or Canva, please do not use the one that has hot pink text. Please only use, like, blue at MOST. Please. I do not want to stare at hot pink any longer. It hurts my eyes.

PLEASE BE AWARE WE CAN SEE WHAT YOU TITLED YOUR RESUME. Of the 28 (hehe) applicants, TWO put their own name in their resume title. Most of them said “resume” or “resume-15” or “resume(1)”. Please. Title it something like “Styles-Harry-Resume” or add the job you’re applying for “Tomlinson-Louis-Library-Resume”.

For the love of god do not put Fortnite under the Skills section. I love that you’re good at Fortnite. It does not help you here.

Save it as a PDF, not a word document. It’s just more professional.

I know I KNOW it’s the worst thing in the world when they have you turn in a resume and then fill out all the information again. It’s stupid and terrible. But PLEASE don’t skimp on the information when you’re filling it out a second time. The first thing we look at isn’t your resume, it’s the stuff you copied and pasted from your resume into the website. It’s easier. If you decide not to fill that out, you’re not going to get the interview.

Please don’t put a picture of yourself on your resume. I am talking to people who live in the states for this one — I know other countries do that bit differently and it’s often considered a requirement. But if you’re from another country and filling out job applications in America, know that it’s not the norm to add a photo and it makes me worried that I’m going to accidentally end up making biased decisions. As it is I’m already trying to remove the names when I read so I don’t have any internal biases.

ANYWAY JOBS SUCK BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT USE HOT PINK TITLE TEXT

[heyclickadee]

Discussion of possible Bad Batch spoilers under the cut:

Full credit to @eriexplosion for basically all of this, to begin with. They found this article from Collider with another pre-season interview, and it’s kind of interesting It’s mostly about Fives, Echo, and how the writers wanted to include a conversation about Fives between Rex and Echo, but never found a place to put it and so imagine it having happened off screen. And that’s actually all very interesting and kind of what I expected—that they’d thought about it but weren’t sure where to put it. But there is also a segment where they look forward to season three, and in that segment, we get this:

Okay, first off, full credit to @eriexplosion again for pointing out the “or is he?” because I blazed right past that.

Second, Collider has the review copies. The person who wrote this article, Arezou Amin, isn’t the same person at Collider who posted their impression of the first eight episodes on social media (Maggie Lovitt), and may not have seen the review episodes. But Maggie Lovitt, who also conducted the interview on which the write-up is based, has, and she probably involved in at least checking over the write-up, and therefore at least didn’t demand that, “Or is he?” be taken out. Meaning there’s a good chance it’s there on purpose with someone in the know not objecting to it.

Third, “Or is he?” OR IS HE? oR iS he?? Oooorrrr iiisssss hhheeeeeeeeeee I’m chewing on your drywall, Collider.

And fifth, joking aside, I think that this, combined with everything else, and the deleted Joel Aron tweet actually gives us a good idea of where the lines for how people in the know are allowed to talk about Tech are. People at media outlets outside Lucasfilm can say he’s dead outright (whether or not they know for sure). People in the cast and crew can’t say that outright; they can talk about it very seriously and as though he’s gone, but they have to use euphemisms that they don’t have to with other characters, and they always have to leave at least a bit (and sometimes a lot) of wiggle room in their phrasing for him to be alive. Those euphemisms have a pattern to them and a lot of the phrasing makes the most sense if Tech is coming back in a way that severely limits what he can do in the field, if he can be part of the action in the field at all. And people writing the summaries for the Star Wars website have to write the most non-committal things possible, like, “Tech fell from a tram car.”

Cast and crew also can’t outright say that he’s alive, but they can hint at it, and hint pretty directly. Like. Really directly. “Gently cupping the faces of the audience and telling them that it’s going to be okay” kind of directly. And repeatedly. What they seemingly can’t hint about, however, is how Tech might be coming back or where he might be—even IF the hints are misleading or possibly unintentional (either of which which the deleted Joel Aron tweet might have been).

Which honestly just makes me think that the how rather than the if was what the people involved thought would be the center of all the speculation.

Edit: Apparently the official Star Wars website can use the word death in the editorial part of interviews. I should, however, not that the DBB interview that went up today is the only one to have done so, and that DBB himself never said Tech died. What he actually says fits into the pattern of what he’s been saying for months.

[beggars-opera]

IRISH ACTING legend Cillian Murphy has issued a ‘would you ever fuck off’ plea to everyone trying to get selfies with him in public as he just tries to go about his daily life. In a WWN exclusive copy and pasted article from a range of websites that copy and pastes everything, this time from Rolling Stone, we have cherry picked a small section from a wide-ranging interview quoting it out of context in the hopes of causing a stir. “They’re expecting Tommy Shelby and that’s not me but they’ll fucking get a razor blade to the throat if they keep asking for photos while I’m trying to order a chicken fillet roll in my local Spar,” explained Murphy. The Oppenheimer star admitted to being mentored by fellow Corkonian Roy Keane on how to interact with over eager fans. “I fantasise about turning up to these peoples’ homes at 7am as they wearily take out the bins in their pyjamas and demanding selfies from them, how would you like that Susan! Sorry that wasn’t very Chillian Murphy of me,” added Murphy, his dreamy blue eyes doing that thing were they transform into the nightmarish blue eyes of a psychopath. It was at this point we sought to end the interview. “Don’t you want to hear more about my craft, my acting, what motivates me, why I get up in the mornings, why art is more vital then ever as the age of AI descends on us,” queried Murphy as we hurriedly packed up our things. “Nah we’re grand, we’ve got enough for a clickbait headline so we’ll be on our way,” we concluded.

[liampaynemysteriousdeath]

I know no one will probably help me and I'm basically talking to myself, but can someone construct a master witness list of all who was there that day including pics and videos and screenshots? Preferably with transcription of what they are saying as well. that way we can compare whose story contradicts each other.

edit: we need to find out if the wedding was even real the one about rebecca, naomi, and brett. Since he was married to some other lady.

edit: forgot to add the receptionist dude to witness list.

witness list

Brett wats0n

Other business dude that seemed more profeesional

DAyana on the news interview studio

Rebecca the wedding person

The maid kayana. Cathiana? I forget how you spell it.

The screenshot from the influencers in elevator seeing roger.

This new lady naomi?

we already know Bryan and Roger are lying so they won't go to jail, so technically they don't count as witnesses. But if you want to add them then that's cool.

Also a few other requests,

Someone can email atv arquitectos for full hotel floor plan of the hotel. Or check their social medias. I tried looking but I don't have social media, so it won't let me get past a few preview pics. I posted yesterday about the hotel floor plan from atv architects how they were gonna do an office extremely similar to the hotel in 2011. But they ended up doing the hotel in 2015 when it debuted, and it shows how there were 2 underground basement garage parking g space. One had 14, the other had 15.

I assume it is either down in the basement. Or maybe the meeting floor with all the chairs? Also notice how they didn't add a time of when the video took place.

Copy of court records for nores family trust. You either get it from miami Dade county courthouse. Or unicourt website.

Master timeline of all liams activity throughout the trip starting from, airport video. So we can track his whereabouts. Pics, videos included. It'll probably be a multipost because 30 pic limit per tumblr post.

Im currently working on other stuff and I'm only one person....

I mean we all want answers right?, so we should try to work together... just saying...

[hasufin]

The Hunt

90% of jobhunting is utter, meaningless bullshit.

That is...

It doesn't matter whether you're a perfect fit for the job listing - in fact, being a perfect fit may mean you absolutely cannot and should not get the job, because the listing was needlessly inflated by HR (e.g., the hiring manager wanted 3 years of experience, HR doubled that to 6 and added four other requirements which have nothing to do with the job). Or the listing may not be tied to an actual position at all, because companies want to have a large pool of applicants onhand Just In Case they decide to start hiring, and they also get some financial incentives to claim they're hiring.

It doesn't matter what you say in your cover letter, it won't be read.

It doesn't matter how you format your resume, it will be fed into a company application process and turned into plain text or your clever formatting will be broken such that you look like a moron who can't create a document. And you're going to have to copy it all manually into their website anyway.

No human is going to read past your intro anyway. If you get to the interview you'll be asked, repeatedly, specific information which is right on the resume.

You're going to sit in front of a couple dozen people for the interview, none of whom have any actual say in whether you'll be hired, and many of whom will never even be asked their opinions of the people they interview.

A thank-you for the interview will be ignored or even get you labeled as needy. Double for any subsequent follow-up.

A perfect interview may be meaningless if the interviewer is having a bad day for whatever reason.

Actual hiring decisions will be made by someone whom you never met, did not look at your information, and decided based on criteria you never learned about.

Hiring managers often like to employ "secret tests of character" by which they read deep meaning into random details of their surroundings; it's like fortune telling for people who think they're a lot more clever than they are.

Point is, in all likelihood, any given element of the jobhunting process is not going to matter. And very often closely following exactly what the employer claims they want will sabotage yourself and keep you from getting the job.

Unfortunately...

you are obliged to treat every step as being the most important part. Absolute A game on each bit. If you call out that an element is repeating something else, or that this is obviously not relevant, you're out. Pointing out it's a game means you lose the game.

You never get to know just which part is actually important. you will never, ever, be told "We saw a typo on the 7th page of your application and decided that meant you weren't detail-oriented". You'll be strung along for as long as is convenient, and then just ghosted. Even if you win and get hired, you will never be honestly told "On your 4th panel interview we were really impressed with how you tackled that off-the-wall scenario Bill made up on the spot and that's what got you the job."

I think the reality is, we've got this entire economy which supposedly revolved around hiring people who can do the work, and we've had this economy for a pretty long time, and we're really bad at it but we don't know why. So you get more and more steps in the process hoping that if you add one more round of panel interviews, feed the resumes into an AI model, and increase the requirements by 5%, This Time it will make sense and companies will Know Who To Hire. But you can't tweak parameters when you don't know what they are, and they're really just trying to predict the future.

[loveroftoomanyfandoms]

Mise en Place, Chapter 1

Pairing: Chef!Matt Murdock x F!Journalist!Reader

Rating: M

Story Summary: Follows the development of Chef!Matt & Reader's relationship after the events of Cooking Up Love.

Warnings/Tags: Hallmark levels of fluffy, cheesy goodness, no use of Y/N, Matt is not a vigilante, developing relationship, things gonna get SPICY later 🔥 (aka smut in future chapters)

Word Count: ~2250

A/N: Thank you to everyone who read, liked, reblogged, and/or commented on Cooking Up Love, and I hope y'all enjoy this continuation just as much!

If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this, please don't hesitate to ask!

Divider by the lovely @theradioactivespidergwen!

Tag List: @danzer8705

“...So then I said that I wasn't sure if I could wait until tonight to kiss her,” Matthew Murdock said over the phone to his best friend/business partner, Foggy Nelson, as he whisked together the ingredients for the chocolate mousse that he was making. “And she said she couldn't wait either, so I made my move.”

Matt had met you two weeks prior after Foggy had set him up for an exclusive interview with the New York Bulletin ’s food writer in an attempt to help their newly opened -- but already struggling -- restaurant garner some publicity.

Matt had had trust issues with reporters -- especially food-related reporters -- ever since his ex-girlfriend, Elektra, had written a completely false exposé about him in an attempt to further her career as a food critic and had admittedly been less than cooperative during your initial meeting. It wasn't until after he had refused to do the interview, told you off for being unprepared, and stormed back into his and Foggy's shared office that he learned that you weren't even the food writer, but rather the Features reporter, who had been given the assignment last-minute and hadn't actually had time to prepare beyond reading Matt's bio on the Daredevil website.

Matt had made a pan of tiramisu as an apology for his unprofessionalism then had gone to the Bulletin and asked you to reschedule, and luckily for him you had agreed. 

As he began to get to know you he had very quickly felt what he thought was mutual attraction, but had second-guessed himself after Foggy had accidentally interrupted Matt's attempt to kiss you during a blind tasting at the restaurant.

Matt had felt like he might have misread your attraction to him based on your reaction so he had gone by the Bulletin again the following day to apologize, but unfortunately not only had you not been in, but the actual (now former) food writer had filled Matt's head with doubt by telling him that your real interest was in investigative journalism and that you would stop at nothing for a good scoop -- even stooping so low as to make up details for a story if the real story wasn't juicy enough.

Needless to say, Matt had been hurt and angry after you had (mistakenly) sent him a copy of “your” article about him (which actually turned out to be a fake one full of lies and misinformation that the food writer had written and planted on your computer in an attempt to sabotage you) and accused you of using him to further your own career as a journalist before barring you from Daredevil and hanging up without letting you try to explain. Thankfully you had caught the sabotage fairly quickly and had sent Matt your real article before publication, although in his hurt he hadn’t opened your email explaining the situation until after your editor had apologized for the mix-up and sent him the correct article as well.

Matt had made another ‘apology tiramisu’ and had gone by the Bulletin that morning to apologize for being an asshole yet again only to find out from Skyler, your closest friend at the Bulletin, that you had taken a personal day after everything that had happened over the past few days. Luckily for him, however, Skyler had taken pity on him and had given him your home address so he could apologize and explain himself to you in person.

Matt had hurried over to your apartment, where he had apologized and the two of you had confirmed your mutual interest in each other before Matt had asked you over to his apartment for a date and kissed you for the first (but he definitely hoped not the last) time.

Foggy chuckled. “I take it there were no interruptions this time?”

Matt grinned to himself at the memory of your soft lips pressed against his, the way you had felt in his arms as you had melted into him, and the happy little sigh you had let out as the two of you had parted. “No, no interruptions.”

“That's great, man. I'm really happy for you.”

“Thanks, Fog.” Matt covered the chocolate mixture and set it in the fridge to cool and set.

“I guess that means that I'm forgiven for setting up that interview with the Bulletin then?” 

Matt chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, you're forgiven.”

“So what else is on the menu for tonight?” 

“Chicken parmesan with caesar salad and freshly baked garlic bread -- that is, if I have time to get everything done on top of running back to the market. I just realized that I don't have any wine here that'll pair well with dessert and it's too late to try to do a grocery delivery.”

“Want some help? I can stop by the market for you on my way there.”

Matt huffed out a breath. “Actually yeah, that'd be great if you don't mind.”

“Not at all, buddy. What do you need?”

Matt thought for a moment. “Let's see, since I used dark chocolate in the mousse and cut down on the sugar a bit, maybe a bottle of Moscato d’Asti and a bottle of Chocovine? Oh, and some decaf coffee too. I'm thinking about making some chai as a non-alcoholic alternative to go with dessert but I also want to have a decaf option just in case.”

He could hear Foggy writing everything down. “Okay, so Moscato d’Asti, Chocovine, and that canned coffee with chicory that you like, but in decaf. Got it.”

Matt chuckled. “I really appreciate it, Foggy.”

“It's no problem, dude. See you soon.”

“Okay, thanks. Bye.”

Matt tapped at his screen to hang up then began to gather his bread ingredients.

He had just gotten the dough mixed together and was in the process of kneading it when Foggy knocked on his door. “It's open!”

“I come bearing wine,” Foggy said as he entered. “And fancy decaf coffee.”

Matt chuckled. “Thanks, Fog. You're a lifesaver.”

“Wine in the fridge, right?”

Matt nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He heard Foggy put the bottles in the door of his refrigerator and the can of coffee by the coffee maker before moving to Matt's sink to wash his hands. “Okay, put me to work.”

Matt pointed towards his stove. “Could you get the sauce going?”

“Yeah, sure, man.”

Matt finished kneading the dough then put it back into the bowl to rest as Foggy began scoring tomatoes for the marinara sauce.

Together they managed to get everything prepped and Matt's kitchen cleaned with about an hour to spare, which gave Matt just enough time to shower and get dressed before he needed to finish everything off.

“Okay, I think you're all set for tonight,” Foggy said as Matt slid the bread into the oven to bake. “How are you feeling?”

“Kinda nervous,” Matt admitted, turning back to his stove to stir the marinara sauce he had simmering. “What if she changes her mind about me and decides that I really am an asshole and that she doesn't want to forgive me after all?”

“Oh, I highly doubt it, buddy,” Foggy said with a chuckle. “I have it on good authority that she's actually more nervous about you changing your mind about her .”

Matt's heart fluttered. “Really?”

Foggy hummed in the affirmative. “That's what Skyler said when I talked to her earlier."

Matt shook his head. “No chance of that happening.”

Foggy patted Matt on the shoulder. “I'm gonna head out so you can go shower and finish getting ready, but I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Thanks again for helping.”

“Any time, dude.”

Matt locked his door behind Foggy then went to go take a shower.

As he stepped under the hot spray, his mind drifted to you once again. You were beautiful, and honest, and kind, and caring, and Matt felt so, SO lucky to have met you.

He hurried through his shower, dried his hair, shaved, then got dressed before heading back to his kitchen to cook the pasta and finish off the chicken for the parmesan. Perfect. Everything should be done by the time she gets here.

He smiled to himself, determined to make that evening the best first date of both of your lives. 

“…So after Foggy told Matt about Kingpin getting shut down I explained that Kelsie had been dating the sous-chef over there and that's why she went after both of us personally,” you told your best friend/coworker, Skyler, as you rummaged through your closet.

Had someone told you two weeks ago that you would currently be getting ready for your first date with the very same chef you had been assigned to interview for your job as a reporter with the New York Bulletin , you would have laughed in their face, especially after your epic failure of a first meeting. But yet here you were, trying to find something to wear.

You pulled out an emerald green lace dress, then held it up to your front and briefly studied yourself in the mirror before shaking your head and putting it back in your closet. “But then Matt said that his interest had been genuine and that he wanted to keep getting to know me, so he asked me to have dinner with him at his apartment tonight.”

“Which is why you're going through everything you own in order to find the perfect outfit to wear,” Skyler said from where she sat on your bed.

You had called her after Matt had left your apartment and let her know that not only had you and Matt worked things out, but that he had also asked you on a date, then you had asked her to come by after work to help you decide what to wear, promising to give her all the details of your and Matt's earlier conversation.

You pulled out a simple mid-length black silk dress before turning towards Skyler. “Oh, and did you know Matt went by the Bulletin on Tuesday?”

Skyler’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “What? No. When did he stop by?”

You shrugged. “I'm not sure, but he said he must've talked to Kelsie because she told him that I only cared about making a name for myself as an investigative journalist and wasn't beyond falsifying information to further my career.”

Skyler scowled. “Yeah, that definitely sounds like her. So then what happened?”

“He apologized again for assuming the worst about me, then I made a joke about how he can't just make apology tiramisu for me every time he screws up, to which he joked back about just making my other favorite dishes of his instead, so I went to like, playfully swat at him, you know? But then he caught my wrist and pulled me to him.”

You smiled to yourself at the memory before continuing. “And then he said he didn't know if he could wait until tonight to kiss me for the first time, and I said that I didn't think that I could wait either, so then…” You smiled. “He kissed me.”

Skyler made a happy squeeing noise. “So… how was it?”

You sighed wistfully. “Honestly? It was the best first kiss of my life.”

You turned towards your mirror and held the dress up, briefly studying yourself before turning back towards Skyler. “What do you think?”

Skyler nodded. “That’s perfect. Can't go wrong with a LBD, especially for a super romantic first date with an incredibly hot chef who I told you was into you.”

She stood and went to your jewelry box. “Now, let's find the perfect accessories to glam up that dress.”

She pulled out a teardrop necklace with a red stone. “How about this?”

You took it and put it on, then held the dress up to yourself again as you looked in the mirror. “Yeah, that looks good.”

“Perfect.” Skyler looked at her smartwatch. “I should get going so you can finish getting ready. You don't want to be late.”

You gave Skyler a brief hug. “You're the best friend I could ever ask for, you know that?”

Skyler gave you a squeeze back. “Yeah, yeah. Just remember that when it's time to choose your maid of honor for your and Chef Hottie's wedding.”

You huffed out a laugh. “Bit soon for wedding planning, isn't it?”

Skyler shrugged with a small smirk. “Just putting it out there for when the time comes.”

You shook your head with a smile. “If and when the time comes, you know there's no one else I'd rather have by my side.”

“Tell me all about your date tomorrow?”

“Of course. Plus you still need to finish telling me how your coffee date with Foggy went on Saturday.”

Skyler grinned. “Deal. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“‘Kay. See you tomorrow.”

You let Skyler out then returned to your room, slipping into your dress before applying some light makeup and putting your shoes on.

You smiled to yourself as your mind drifted back to the way Matt had felt as he had held you in his arms, the taste of his lips as he had pressed them to your own, and the beautiful smile on his face as he had caressed your cheek with his thumb after you had parted. Hopefully we'll get to do some more of that tonight.

You grabbed your phone and purse and headed downstairs to catch a cab, hoping that your first date with Matt would be a success.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones:

Arizona’s fourth legislative district, located in the suburban heart of Maricopa County, might be the ultimate bellwether in the ultimate bellwether state. And this fall, the stakes are impossibly high, not just at the presidential level—where polls show Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in a dead heat—but all the way down the ballot. Republicans control both chambers of the legislature by just one vote. In Arizona, where each legislative district elects two representatives, control of the state house could come down to Democrats’ efforts to flip one seat and hold another in this district that includes parts of Phoenix and Scottsdale.

In their quest to hold onto the legislature, Republicans have turned to a member of a famous Arizona family—Pamela Carter, older sister of the original Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter. On the campaign trail, the candidate Carter has talked up her work as a successful entrepreneur and a record of academic accomplishment, and boasts of having “my family’s full support” for her state house run. But a review of her record and past statements tells a much different story: In contrast to the fourth district’s moderate profile, Carter is a fervently anti-abortion minister who has been “blessed with end-time revelation” and who has made confusing claims about her past. And one notable member of her family is not on board—her famous sister, an advocate for reproductive rights. “On her website, Pam claims to have her ‘family’s full support,'” Lynda Carter said in a statement to Mother Jones. “I have known Pam my entire life, which is why I sadly cannot endorse her for this or any public office.” 

Pamela Carter has offered an inconsistent accounting of her educational background. Her page at Ballotpedia states that she “earned a master’s degree in Communications and Biblical studies and attended Arizona State University,” which a spokesperson for the elections site confirmed was based on an informational survey that was “verified by the candidate.” “I was raised in Scottsdale, went right here to Arcadia High, ASU, and I just love our city,” she said on a podcast in 2022. This is technically true. Carter did attend ASU, and she does also have a master’s degree. But the reality of her resume is a bit more complicated. According to an ASU spokesperson, Carter was at one point enrolled at the university, but did not graduate. Instead, according to her LinkedIn page and other interviews, she attended an unspecified bible college in Kansas City, Missouri, and later received a master’s degree in “communications and media studies” from the Primus University of Theology, a Phoenix-based institution that affirms in its mission statement that “life begins at conception.” (One of the prerequisites for admission is that you order a copy of the founder’s book.) Primus, which aims to prepare its students “for their Ministry calling,” is not accredited by any agency recognized by the Department of Education. Instead, it cites the approval of the University Accreditation Association, which evaluates institutions on their adherence to “biblical truths.” Its degree programs are “designed for the specific and singular purpose of qualifying individuals for Christian Ministry.” But Carter has also described that degree differently in different contexts. Her campaign website during her unsuccessful 2022 campaign for Scottsdale city council said she held a “Master’s Degree in Business and Communications,” a claim she also repeated that year in an interview on a local podcast. In another video that year, she boasted of having a “master’s degree in theology, as well as in mass communications.” A current campaign biography states that “I received my master’s degree in Communications and Biblical studies.”

Carter, who did not respond to requests for comment, has leaned into her biography during her run for office, arguing that her business experiences give her an advantage in the political realm. Foremost among those ventures was Jon Cole Systems, a gym she once owned with her ex-husband, the powerlifter Jon Cole. Newspaper ads for the fitness center sometimes featured Lynda Carter, touting the benefits of Cole’s “TOTAL WOMAN” workout program. 

“It was the largest [gym] in the nation at the time,” Pamela Carter boasted in a 2022 interview, in which she suggested that working people struggling to find housing in Scottsdale needed to hustle as hard as she had when she owned two homes and was helping to run the business in the 1970s.

For a few years, the gym was a major success, with clients such as the Green Bay Packers and members of the Phoenix Suns. But it soon went downhill. The company pursued Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982, and was sold for $60,000 the next year, according to an Arizona Republic report in 1983. The couple divorced around the same time. After the gym business fell through, Carter went on to a long career as a Christian wellness influencer, pitching the gospel alongside weight-loss and nutrition tips. She moved to California and hosted a fitness show called “Get in Shape with Pamela Carter” (on the Trinity Broadcasting Network) and another program on CBN called “Fit for Life.”

[...]

Carter was not just pitching products, though. She was selling a very particular kind of theology, rooted in a desire to see the United States “united for Jesus,” and a belief that modern-day prophets—like herself—were transmitting revelations from God. A biography at the ministry stated that Carter “is very passionate about her love for the Lord and has been blessed with end-time revelation of His desire for His bride.” (The full revelation was available for purchase for $25.) She talked frequently about building influence on the “Media mountain” and said in 2011 that she was part of “God’s media army…to be raised up for such a time as this, to take possession of the arts, the entertainment media, the internet.” The term is often used by proponents of a Christian nationalist movement sometimes called the New Apostolic Reformation and a belief its adherents subscribe to known as Seven Mountains Dominionism, which aims to take gain influence over the seven spheres (or “mountains”) of government, education, media, family, entertainment, religion, and business.

In response to a candidate questionnaire from the city of Scottsdale two years ago, Carter said she had “been involved…as a volunteer” with three churches or organizations, all of which had ties to the NAR. They included Intercessors for America, a national prayer organization that warns that “there is an Enemy of our souls and our nation who orchestrates a coordinated battle plan that is discernible and beatable with spiritual weapons.”  Another group she touted her work with was the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer, whose founding pastor, Mike Bickle, was dismissed last year amid allegations of sexual abuse. The church, where worship services have run 24/7 since 1999, has “been criticized by some pastors for what they describe as unorthodox theology and a cultish atmosphere, charges that Mr. Bickle rejects,” the New York Times reported in 2011. (In response to a Kansas City Star investigation into Bickle earlier this year, the organization emphasized that his alleged abuse predated the church’s creation, while Bickle has admitted to “inappropriate behavior” but not “the more intense sexual activities that some are suggesting.”) Long before he was forced out, Bickle had courted controversy with his assertions from the pulpit that Oprah was a forerunner of the Antichrist and that God sent Hitler to kill Jewish people because they wouldn’t accept Christianity.

[...] In that interview, Carter, who served that year as an advisor to the Trump campaign in the state, said she had acted as a prayer “intercessor” while working as a paid poll worker in Arizona. “I was dancing around, I had so much joy in just praying over every person that came in, you know, it was so fun,” she said. “But there’s also a lot of corruption I saw—not at the poll where I was working but at the election facility—and we just have to really watch and pray, watch and pray, and then you can cut that off in the spirit and then report it.”

[...] The district offers a glimpse of how reproductive rights is playing at the ballot box in a highly competitive area. Christine Marsh, the district’s Democratic state senator, won her election in 2022 by a little more than 1,000 votes by relentlessly linking a Republican incumbent to the state legislature’s 15-week abortion ban. The current Republican state representative, Matt Gress, was one of three members of his party to break ranks and vote to repeal Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban, which offered no exceptions even for cases of rape. A recent Fox News survey found that supporters of an abortion-rights ballot initiative in Arizona outnumber opponents by roughly three-to-one—and 50-percent of Republicans said they approved. Carter, though, has sung a different tune. 

Pamela Carter, the sister of Lynda Carter (who played Wonder Woman on the Wonder Woman show), is running for a State House seat in Arizona. Lynda is not backing her, citing Pamela’s anti-abortion views.

Read the full story at Mother Jones.

[wildfernflower]

Tony is a Band Manager not Music Producer. Problem is that except for the major media that interviewed Cait most are crappy articles on dubious online sites that simply copy and paste wrong information from other shady sites and continue to post as clickbait. In a recent podcast with Lauren Lyle, the host clearly said that he knows Tony very well and that he is The Fratellis' band manager. HIs name is mentioned twice on the band's last album with thanks and appreciation. He doesn't need a SM to do his work. Phone calls, messaging, e-mails and in person meetings are still used to do business and obviously he does them all.

The fact that you continue to use wrong info. to push your own agenda is quite clear to anyone who is aware of both sides.

“Tony is a Band Manager not Music Producer”

Whether T is a music producer, band manager, or both, it doesn't make his persona look better, more professional, or just more "real". In numerous articles though he’s mentioned as a music producer:

According to your own words, these are “crappy articles on dubious online sites that simply copy and paste wrong information from other shady sites and continue to post as clickbait”. So these are not credible sources, as you’ve admitted, but no others exist. Nobody can verify his qualifications and find out what his real job is, because there is no mention about him to be found either in serious press or on serious websites like Linkedin – you have surely read my reply to an Anon, where I compared T’s skills and accomplishments (zero entries) to those of N. Brown, the tour manager of The Fratellis.

The difference is striking and puzzling, but you deliberately ignore it. It seems natural and beneficial for a career and recognition in any field, specifically in the music/entertainment industry, to have many skills, achievements, contracts, etc. and to make these facts public and widely known to the potential new clients. Well documented career path proves professionalism and competences of the producer/manager and encourages the clients to start successful cooperation, regardless of what your working style is. Why to harm your own career by staying anonymous and hiding that all? (Unless you have nothing to show …). T does have a phone (we saw him sitting at the table glued to the screen during the events C had dragged him to), possibly he has an e-mail address, too … Do you expect him reciting his competences each time a client calls him? E-mails and phone calls are “still used to do business and obviously he does them all” – do you know him personally to be sure what his working style is and that he “obviously” do them all? Perhaps you believe T enjoys such a broad recognition and his accomplishments are so significant that he’s in great demand and doesn’t need any publicity? So why nobody has heard about him? If he was that recognized, why - when press reported on C's wedding 4 years ago - had there never been any mention of how outstanding and talented man Caitriona had married? Usually, the journalists (especially tabloid journos) dig a lot to find out some interesting facts and details about the person with whom the celebrity is getting married to. But nothing more apart from T being a music producer had been found back then and hasn’t been so far. Isn't it a bit weird? I’ll bet many people hadn’t heard about him and his profession until then.

“His name is mentioned twice on the band's last album with thanks and appreciation”

That’s possible, maybe his name was mentioned also on one or two older albums of Fratellis, you probably know better than me. But have anybody heard about his other achievements? Is that all he did during all his professional life? One mention on the album? Almost 20 years in the industry working supposedly as a producer/manager, almost 47 year old guy and his only “success” is his contribution to one album and being acknowledged once or twice by the same band? No cooperations with other artists? No other projects? Simply these acknowledgements? That’s all? T and the members of Fratellis are surely good friends, there was a photo of them on IG, and probably that’s why he’s mentioned occasionally as a manager, and why Fratellis are his only connection with the music industry over many years.

“In a recent podcast with Lauren Lyle, the host clearly said that he knows Tony very well and that he is The Fratellis' band manager”

This was the first time anyone had spoken publicly about T in the context of his career in the music industry. How do we know what he said is credible? Perhaps, as I wrote in my comment back then, that journalist wanted to give his good pal T some publicity if he’s not doing well in the music industry? It’s a bit suspicious to mention him at all, and definitely unprofessional to suggest him managing Fratellis links OL to great music. If T is such “an amazing fella”, why does C never say a word about him and never mention his name, why isn’t she proud of him, why does she never walk red carpet with him, why does she avoid being photographed with him in front of the media wall, why is he always trailing behind her along the corridors, why does she use him as a coat hanger, why does she keep him in a background, why is she ashamed of such an “amazing fella”? It seems to me that T is much more involved in his job as Cait's paid assistant whom she drags along everywhere, even to insignificant interviews, to prove he’s her husband than he is in his alleged job as the music producer/manager.

“The fact that you continue to use wrong info to push your own agenda is quite clear to anyone who is aware of both sides”

I’m not pushing my own agenda, I don’t force anybody to adopt my point of view. I’ve explained how I see the things.

If you think I'm using wrong info, please, tell me the source of the correct one if you know. If you're “aware of another side” – perhaps you're in touch with T, or hanging around with the people who know him, or have tips from reliable friends in the know, etc. - feel free to share your knowledge and prove me wrong by evidence.

[hauntedselves]

do you have any advice for finding a competent therapist for DID? like questions to ask them, things to look for, things to avoid, etc. ?

generally, finding a therapist for DID is the same process as for any issue, except that they need to be knowledgeable - or willing to learn - about dissociation and complex trauma.

red flags for therapists specific to DID are things like not believing in it or believing its socio- / iatrogenic / therapist-induced, pushing abuse narratives onto you, pushing a specific healing goal onto you, only willing to talk to the host, pushing you to discuss details of trauma (especially if you're not ready or have only just met)...

here's some tips from this-is-not-dissociative, a PDF from Sidran Institute, a question sheet from a DID book, and some tips from @/switchcase (copy-pasting in case of mobile inaccessibility as it's a blog page, not a post):

if you’re worried you can’t afford a therapist:

ask potential therapist if they offer sliding scale and/or payment plans

check your community clinic and see if they have therapists there. community clinics are either free or low cost. many of them (not all) are trauma-informed or sometimes even knowledgeable about DID/OSDD because of the type of people commonly needing to use community clinics. my current therapist is an isstd member and has a waitlist for clients and volunteers at a clinic for the homeless/at risk for free

if you can’t find a dissociative specialist in your vicinity, search for trauma therapists. some will know about DID/OSDD or be willing to learn

if the lowest priced option is still too much for you, see if they’re willing to offer less sessions. once every 2-4 weeks is better than nothing

how to find a therapist: if you have insurance: go to your insurance website and log in. you can crosscheck names here to make sure that someone is covered by your insurance

http://isst-d.org has a directory for people that pay to be members (meaning they go to continuing education stuff or access resources ISSTD has). you can then narrow by zipcode and then crosscheck the names with your insurance page

you can also google “dissociative therapist [zipcode]”. a psychologytoday website will pop up, and basically it’s a yellowpages for therapists that claim to be dissociative specialists. keep in mind they get to put whatever they want on there, so be sure to check if they just claimed they specialize in everything and be sure to interview them

Things to Ask Your Potential Therapist:

do you offer a free initial consultation?

do you take [insert your insurance company] insurance?

do you have experience working with DID/OSDD?

how long have you been working with DID/OSDD?

what methods do you use in treatment?

how do you view clients with DID/OSDD? (this is open ended for a reason, some of their answers will set off red flags)

my goal for therapy is [goal], what would our first steps be?

i have [problem/symptom], is that something we can work on?

do you take continuing education credits, go to conferences, or research about dissociative disorders?

do you have experience with [insert specific trauma]? (OPTIONAL, useful if you have “heavy/unusual” traumas or a trauma that is very important to talk about)

[nancydrewwouldnever]

The Infamous Jenny Vulture Interview

So, I keep losing access to the infamous Jenny Vulture interview from March 2017 because of caps on access they have on their website. So, in case anyone else hits the same problem, I'm cut and pasting it here, to have an easier to access copy of it.

The Year of Living Publicly

Jenny Slate’s got two new films and a new home and, oh, by the way, she’s fresh off a breakup with Captain America. 

By Jasa Yuan

Published March 2017

Most pillows are just pillows, but for Jenny Slate, the floral-print puffs arrayed on her pristine white linen couch in her freshly rented apartment in L.A.’s Silver Lake are metaphors. For a bright future. For a new life. For freedom. The Obvious Child star and her bichon frise, Reggie, just moved into this sunny one-bedroom in February, and every time she looks at those pillows, she gets so excited because she remembers how she’d bought them while still married to editor-director Dean Fleischer-Camp, her husband for three years, but had to stow them away because she realized it felt like they were living in a box of tampons. Now she and Reggie don’t have to run their decorating decisions by anyone. “I’ve never lived on my own, because I really did go from one relationship to another my whole life, so I’ve never had a chance to go really girlie,” she says. “And I had my ex-husband over last night and he was like, ‘These flower pillows look great. But they’re just for you.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah! That’s right!’ I love them so much. I just love them for what they represent, which is that all my choices are for me.” She turns around. “I’m gonna pee really quick.”

The bathroom door doesn’t quite close — she’d warned me of this. “You can snoop around if you want,” she shouts. “It’s just a little mouse house. It’s fucking perfect for me.”

I have been in her presence for about two minutes. The first thing she did was offer to loan me a T-shirt because I mentioned I was hot. Slate used to do a stand-up routine about how her mom refused to sew her name into her shirt in elementary school, “because she was like, ‘You’re too friendly, and some stranger would just be like, Jenny! Come into the van!’ ”

There’s an obvious person missing so far from this tale of pillows versus patriarchy, but she’s not hiding anything; we just haven’t gotten to it yet. “When I moved in here, I’d been through my divorce and a breakup,” she says, returning from the bathroom and referring to the ten or so months she spent dating Chris Evans, best known as Captain America, and her much more famous co-star in Gifted an upcoming film about a family struggling with a young girl’s genius affinity for math. The internet went wild over their apples-and-oranges compatibility: a brash Jewish comedienne beloved for oversharing about her bodily functions on talk shows and voicing Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, a tiny stop-motion conch with a single eye and feet who talks about being so small he can hang-glide on a Dorito, in a series of YouTube shorts she made with Fleischer-Camp — and a world-famous Marvel superhero, who also happens to be a Massachusetts momma’s boy with one of the most insanely ripped bodies on the planet. “We used to talk about what kinds of animals we were,” says Slate. “Chris said it’s like I’m a chick riding on a St. Bernard’s head. We’re an odd match.”

Paparazzi tried to snap them, bloggers scrutinized their Instagrams, tabloids obsessively covered their one appearance together on a red carpet. Slate didn’t read the coverage, but it was extremely kind, with most articles praising Slate for taking a chance on Evans, or noting that his coolness factor had jumped several notches because of his proximity to her. Maybe this crazy thing could work out! There was something beautiful, in a year marked by division, to think of these two opposites finding common ground. He was 35; she was 34. They’d grown up half an hour from each other. They were both outspoken liberals. They’d said really adorable things about each other on Anna Faris’s podcast.

And then, a few weeks before I met Slate, news broke that it was over. In her life, though, she’d already spent several months dealing with that loss and having to find a place to live, crashing with friends in Venice Beach in January. “I watched You’ve Got Mail so many times, it was unbelievable,” she says. Was she weeping most of the time? “Yeah, I did it right.” Eventually, she found this new apartment and purged everything she owned except for a few clothes she loves, books, precious objects, and a velvet chair once belonging to her great-grandmother. “I was like, ‘You need all new things. You are a working woman. Maybe this is an indulgence, but just start over,’ ” she says. “It’s like, Fuck.”

The other night, she tells me, she was sitting at a bar by herself, reading a book about the Holocaust, and finally sent an SOS text to her friend Mae Whitman. “I was just like, ‘Can you please help me? I’m so lonely.’ And she came and we got shitbombed, and I woke up the next morning and saw my headphones on my neighbor’s yard. I have no idea how they ended up there.”

As Slate gives me the tour of her place, Reggie trails her every move. “He’s like a little soul mirror of me. We’re a lot the same,” she says. How so? “Needing closeness. Despair when left alone. But also he’s very excited to misbehave when left alone. So he doesn’t know what he wants.”

Ever since she was a pip-squeak at Camp Tapawingo in Sweden, Maine, Slate has known what she wanted to be: an actress, like Amy Irving or Gilda Radner or Madeline Kahn. That or “Jewish Felicity,” taking over Manhattan, like in the TV show. In the aughts, she came up in the alternative-stand-up-comedy scene in New York, where she garnered attention for a one-woman show as different characters eulogizing an eccentric millionaire, got cast on Saturday Night Live, and wasfired one season in after accidentally cursing on-air in her first sketch. That ego blow hurt a little less when she made the awards-circuit rounds for Obvious Child, a low-budget romantic comedy about two people navigating an abortion after a one-night stand, and she’s built a devoted fan base through her outrageous characters on the Kroll Show and Parks and Recreation, not to mention her great voice work with Marcel, Bob’s Burgers, The Secret Life of Pets (as an anxious Pomeranian), and Zootopia (as a villainous sheep). In 2012, she relocated from Brooklyn to L.A. Her relationship with Evans is easily the most Hollywood thing she’s ever done. She shows me a photo of her aura on her fridge, taken in New York’s Chinatown. There’s a thick concentration of “productive energy,” which is good, since she has a lot of work coming up, and a giant cloud of worry and overthinking, which seems to be dissipating. By the sink are potholders she made as a kid on a little loom and a drawing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that Fleischer-Camp brought her as a housewarming gift. “We’re good friends. That’s why we got divorced,” says Slate. “If we didn’t get divorced, we wouldn’t be able to be friends and we wouldn’t be able to do our work. We had just grown apart, and we love each other. It wasn’t easy, but not bad.” She pauses. “No, it was bad. But not essentially bad.”

Her mother, a ceramicist, and father, a lauded poet, are still married; she wrote a book about her childhood home in Massachusetts with her dad this year. Her younger sister, Stacey, a mental-health counselor in Brooklyn, had come over on the previous weekend and helped her put up pictures. (Her elder sister, Abby, is a nurse-practitioner in Massachusetts, and Slate is convinced her middle-child need for attention is what nudged her toward showbiz.) Covering the top of her dresser are snapshots she hasn’t figured out what to do with, such as the one of her in a revealing tank top at Columbia University, where she went from high-school valedictorian to pothead almost instantly. “This is me when I was a slutty virgin,” she explains. “A virgin but trying to act like I knew what was going on.”

Somewhere beneath a pile of half-read books is her bedside table. She hates computers so much she doesn’t keep one in the house, and she often turns to books when scrolling through Twitter on her phone stresses her out, which it always does. Current favorites include The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, and Emma, a children’s book with Barbara Cooney illustrations that she bought on Etsy and loves so much she put it on display so she could see it when she wakes up. “It’s about an old woman who doesn’t love how she’s alone, and then learns to make herself not alone through art, and draws people into her life through art. It’s the fucking best thing.”

The instinct other young actresses have to keep every interesting thing about themselves under wraps — or the toughness that female comics often give off — wouldn’t be very useful in Slate’s case. Her brand, if you can call it that, is built on vulnerability, whether she’s revealing her innermost insecurities through an animated shell or telling Seth Meyers on TV that she was so stoned in college she accidentally signed up for an astronomy class thinking she’d learn about astrology. Not to mention that she and Evans met while playing love interests in a movie that is now coming out and that she needs to promote. That’s hard to get around.

“I don’t mind talking about him at all. He’s a lovely person,” she says. “I don’t know. It feels like such a huge thing. Last year was a giant, big year for my heart. I’ve never, ever thought to keep anything private because that’s not really what I’m like, and now I’m learning those things, and they’re weird, kind of demented lessons to learn.”

She didn’t set out to have a tabloid-­fodder romance. She’d fought hard for her part in Gifted, as a teacher who falls for Evans’s character, a working-class guy trying to give his prodigy niece (Mckenna Grace) a normal childhood. Slate’s part is not huge, but it’s a big studio picture. It got her in the room with director Marc Webb and Fox Searchlight. She liked the script, but more than that, “I was just like, ‘I want viability as an American film actress. I want to find my own seat at the main dinner table, because I want to do this forever, and I want to show that it doesn’t always have to be a bikini model opposite Captain America.’ ”

Evans and Slate met at her chemistry read — the audition in which it’s determined whether two romantic leads play well together — and they instantly got along. “I remember him saying to me, ‘You’re going to be one of my closest friends.’ I was just like, ‘Man, I fucking hope this isn’t a lie, because I’m going to be devastated if this guy isn’t my friend.’ ” The first time they went out to dinner, as co-workers getting to know each other, she remembers insisting they split the bill over Evans’s strenuous objections. “If you take away my preferences, you take away my freedom,” she says she told him. “Then I was like, Oh, man, is this dude going to be like, ‘Ugh, this bra-burner.’ Instead, he was like, ‘Tell me more.’ ” They drew from that friendship for their flirting on film, but the time when they jump into bed together in the movie felt as awkward as you hear all love scenes do. “It’s one of those scenes where you bust through a door making out. I’ve never done that in my life,” says Slate. “I remember apologizing to him after. I’m pretty sure I kneed him in the balls.”

Slate was in a weird space at the time. Her marriage was dissolving, and she was working only two or three days a week, and spending her days off wandering around Savannah’s many parks and doing yoga and writing that book, About the House, with her dad. (Which, incidentally, the publisher gave away free with any donation to any charity.) Every weekend, Evans would organize a game night for the cast and crew — usually something called “running charades,” which sounds like high-speed pantomime — that she begrudgingly went to, even though all she wanted to do was hang out on the porch and drink beer and smoke cigarettes. “At first I was like, ‘What a fucking nightmare,’ ” she says. “Chris is a different speed than me — I think he really did just jump out of a plane for an interview. And so when he was like, ‘Game nights,’ I was like, ‘This is annoying. This guy’s like a sports guy. He’s the kid that likes P.E.’ ” But finally his enthusiasm won her over. “I first really liked Chris as a person because he is so unpretentious,” she says. “He is a straight-up 35-year-old man who wants to play games. That’s it. I was like, ‘I’d better not discount this, because this is purity.’ ” It also helped that she’s so competitive she constantly won.

As they got to know each other, she learned he’s still close with people from his childhood, and his best friend is a woman. “What’s the same about us is not just that we’re from Massachusetts, which was such a delight, but Chris is truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, to the point where sometimes I would look at him and it would kind of break my heart,” she says. “He’s really vulnerable, and he’s really straightforward. He’s like primary colors. He has beautiful, big, strong emotions, and he’s really sure of them. It’s just wonderful to be around. His heart is probably golden-colored, if you could paint it.”

They didn’t fall for each other on set. “To be quite honest, I didn’t think I was his type,” she says. (Evans has dated Jessica Biel and Minka Kelly). “Eventually, when it was like, Oh, you have these feelings for me?, I was looking around like, Is this a prank? I mean, I understand why I think I’m beautiful, but if you’ve had a certain lifestyle and I’m a very, very different type of person — I don’t want to be an experiment.” Evans never made her feel that way, but it was hard to get past how so many people seemed to feel some ownership of him and view her as an interloper. “If you are a woman who really cares about her freedom, her rights, her sense of being an individual, it is confusing to go out with one of the most objectified people in the entire world,” she says. Especially when she’s aware that in Hollywood, she says, “I’m considered some sort of alternative option, even though I know I’m a majorly vibrant sexual being.” And especially when random ladies would come up to her at CVS, “being like, ‘Oh my God, is that Chris Evans? He’s so hot!’ You’re like, ‘How dare you? That’s my boyfriend. But yes, he’s so hot.’ ”

Every time Slate mentions Evans, it keeps coming back to the same thing: As much as they loved being with one another, she says, “we’re really, really different,” with different social circles and different lifestyles. Slate comes from a DIY comedy scene, and most of her friends are fellow comics and gay guys. “Chris is a very, very famous person,” she says. “For him to go to a restaurant is totally different than for me to go. I sit in my window and I say ‘Hi’ to people on the street. I have more freedom because I’m not Captain America. I’m mostly a cartoon.” She kept waiting for everything to feel normal, but it never did. “This is what I needed to do to feel normal. To be alone.”

That meant day-to-day they mostly stayed home, “which was really nice,” she says. But it was also one of the most anxious years of her life. She fretted over the “psychos” on the internet who turned her relationship with Evans into a pissing contest with Fleischer-Camp. And she struggled seeing the person she was in love with deal with the side-effects of fame. “The stress that I saw him be put under, I’ve never seen that before, and he handled that really gracefully,” she says. What she wasn’t taking into account was that he’s used to it. “He’s not stressed,” she says. “I was the person that was stressed.”

She’s also aware in hindsight that she hadn’t processed her separation before she got together with Evans. It wasn’t as scandalous as tabloid reports made it sound — as with any long-term relationship that splinters, they’d been on the rocks long before it was official. But, she says, “When Chris and I started dating, my husband and I had only been separated for a couple of months.” The divorce actually went through while she was at the Sundance Film Festival, after she and Evans broke up. “Even though we had an amicable divorce, I think that’s still something that you need to mourn. When you get separated from somebody that you actually care about, it is the destruction of a belief system. That is really, really sad.” Throughout all of it, the divorce, the new love, she says, “I just didn’t have the tools. And I didn’t think very hard about that, to be honest. I wanted to step into the light. Chris is a sunny, loving, really fun person, and I didn’t really understand why I should be prudent.”

Are she and Evans on good terms? “We’re not on bad terms, but we haven’t really seen each other, spoken a lot,” she says. “I think it’s probably best. I’d love to be his friend one day, but we threw down pretty hard. No regrets, though. Ever.”

Slate introduces me to the mascots of her new home, two cute mice figurines in jaunty outfits who look like they’re off to travel the world. “The way I feel now is I’ve stepped out of the woods and I’m a forest animal and I’m standing on the lawn,” she says. “And if anybody tried to approach me right now, they’re seeing a creature that’s just trying to figure out what the lawn is like. All I’m thinking about is the lawn. I’m not thinking about whether or not they are going to be a fun person to be on the lawn with, because I am just trying to be on the lawn.” And what or where is this lawn? “It’s just where I am,” she says. “I like the lawn. It’s filled with air, freedom, sunlight, and I’m alone.”

Slate wants to step out in the sunlight now, with a walk around the Silver Lake Reservoir. She bids good-bye to Reggie and turns on the TV to keep him company. “I watch Twin Peaks, but Reggie watches Frasier,” she says. That morning, while Slate was walking him, a woman got out of her car and stopped in her tracks. “She was like, ‘Oh, are you Jenny Slate?’ And I said, ‘I am.’ And she said something nice to me and I said, ‘Thank you so much. I need a lot of encouragement,’ which is usually what I say because it’s true.”

Dating Evans actually, weirdly, spurred her to double down on her career, because, she says, “I don’t want people to ask me more about my love life because of him than they ask me about my work,” and in order to ensure that, she’d have to produce a lot of work. She does stand-up in small clubs whenever possible and had two films at Sundance this January, just as the paperwork for her divorce came through: The Polka King, the true story of a polka-world Ponzi scheme, opposite Jack Black; and Landline, a story of two Jewish-Italian sisters and their parents having life and love crises in ’90s New York City, with Obvious Child creators Gillian Robespierre and Elisabeth Holm (out July 21). Soon she’ll be heading to Vancouver for a road-trip movie with Evan Rachel Wood, Alison Pill, and Cynthia Erivo, which is also Wood’s directorial debut. She and Fleischer-Camp are also at work on a feature-length Marcel the Shell movie, which she says will be “a character portrait much like Billy the Kid or Grey Gardens.”

Today, she’s leaning in to International Women’s Day by wearing a sundress covered in red roses and made by a company, Day Space Night, that’s run by women. She even canceled her one meeting with a man, an appearance on Snoop Dogg’s podcast, so she could have an entirely penis-free day. And she’s planning on ending the day by going with her girlfriends to a 90-minute seminar on fertility and reproductive rights.

A vocal supporter of Planned Parenthood, Slate credits Obvious Child not just for allowing her to prove she’s a legitimate actress, but also for turning her into a women’s rights activist. Back when she signed on, she says, “I still felt embarrassed of the word feminist.” Then one day discussing a costume fitting with co-star Gaby Hoffmann, Slate jokingly apologized for showing up with “crazy bush,” she says. “And Gaby did not take it as a joke. She was really serious and she looked at me and she was like, ‘I didn’t know we were supposed to apologize for that.’ I was like, Oh, I’m being a fool. I need to learn this shit right now.”

And now that she’s got a financial cushion from Zootopia and Secret Life of Pets, she can act on what she’s learned and say “no” more often. Specifically, she’s drawing the line at any movie that, she says, “makes it okay to laugh about things like women’s bodies after birth, like when women who’ve just had babies are referring to their vaginas as all ruined. I think it’s really rude for someone to disparage a vagina in the female body after it’s just fucking created and exploded a baby into our world. It makes me furious and I will not change my opinion on that.”

Also a no-go are any roles she’s offered that “seem like a weird stereotype version of me. Like Quirky Best Friend: ‘She doesn’t have a filter! She talks about poop!’ ” She thinks it’s worth it to hold out for roles with nuance, that will allow her to lean into humor and tragedy equally, and get to the heart of the human condition. In the meantime, she has plenty of personal-growth goals. She wants to learn Norwegian this summer. She wants to spend time with her family on Martha’s Vineyard. And she wants to find a farm she can help on so she can be around animals.

Eventually, she’ll try dating again, too. “I am inclined toward partnership,” she says. “I’m like a mallard, definitely looking for my other duck. But I’ve been in love in very strong ways enough times now that there are just some compromises maybe I won’t make.” He has to know who Gloria Steinem is, for one thing. She’s thinking maybe a scientist with a sense of humor. But definitely someone who’s sure enough in who he is to accept that she’s had a past without him. “Whoever is the next person is going to have to respect that I had a husband who I loved and this boyfriend who I loved so much, and I don’t want to have to act like they weren’t important.”

We’re back at the apartment and Slate is overjoyed that Reggie hasn’t peed on anything. Speaking of pasts, she’ll also soon be hitting the press tour for Gifted with Evans. “I feel pretty relaxed about it right now,” she says, sounding not entirely convincing. “That’s because I know Chris and he’s a very nice man. And we’ve gone into our separate lives. But that doesn’t also mean that I’m going to sleep well the night before, you know?”

First, she’s taking her parents to Cabo San Lucas to celebrate her 35th birthday. I suddenly have a horror flashback to a similar trip to Cabo I took years ago and warn her not to drink the water or brush her teeth with it, or to have ice or eat anything raw, or maybe to eat anything at all.

“Oh God,” she says, laughing, “having raging diarrhea is just a real on-brand nightmare for me.”

She thinks for a second. “But, you know, it would be such an icebreaker. If I showed up with, like, a spray tan and a blowout, he’d be like, ‘What happened to Jenny?’ But if I was able to say, ‘Aw, man, I have diarrhea,’ he’d be like, ‘It’s you. I remember you.’ ”

*This article appears in the March 20, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

PHANTOM THIEVES OF HOPE - A Danganronpa X Persona 5 Story.

Coming soon...

[Additional Details below...]

//So uh...yeah...Hello Tumblr audience/Survivor audience.

//I apologize for the lack of updates today, and I guess I should let you know that I had a job interview today which took up most of my time. I didn’t want to prioritize the blog over my own wellbeing so I ducked out today.

//But in return, I’ve decided that today will be the day that I unveil my next big DR related project, being Phantom Thieves of Hope.

//Now that I’ve finalized the party for the Persona 5 X Danganronpa AU, I got inspired by the work I put out and decided that I will create an entire fanfic storyline for it.

//I considered doing this for Murder Drones too, but since Murder Drones isn’t finished and not all the secrets have been revealed yet, I need to put that on hold, but given that I love Danganronpa and love Persona 5 just as much, this was something I was super excited to do.

//This story will be where all my other storyline projects are, and will be posted on WattPad. However, depending on how people like it, I’m considering letting it be my first ever Archive Of Our Own fanfic too.

//These will be posted on the fic itself once I upload it to the website, and I will be posting regular updates for it here on the blog as well, but if you’re interested to read it for yourself, there are some guidelines and important information below that I will list for you if so desire to read it:

#1: The story takes place in it’s own original timeline focusing on Danganronpa’s characters.

//To make it easier to understand what I mean by this, this is not a crossover that features characters from the Danganronpa series ONLY. It’s not a story where the Ultimate’s meet the Phantom Thieves, or where the Phantom Thieves steal the hearts of some of the Hope’s Peak students and characters.

//Take Dreams of Acedia for example, which features Joker as well as the cast of Omori. This isn’t like that.

//Instead, the story will feature the main protagonists of the mainline Danganronpa series as Hope’s Peak Academy students, all of whom change the hearts of the rotten people around them in hopes of averting many of the tragedy’s that were displayed within the core series.

//As for the setting, it’s within the same timeline as Danganronpa 3′s Despair Arc, with a few changes. For example, to canonize the V3 characters, they are first years in Hope’s Peak, while the 78th Class are 2nd Years and the 77th Class are third years.

//As for the DR3 class, they are also students at Hope’s Peak, but part of Class 77B instead.

#2: The plot follows similar story beats to the original Persona 5.

//The story is primarily told from the perspective of Makoto, who takes Joker’s place as the protagonist in the story.

//Any and all similarities between this story and the original plot of Persona 5 are more than likely intentional, as I based the original game’s plotline and story beats off of this one.

//For example, there are 8 Palaces in the story, Mementos is relevant, the team gets acquainted with the other world after meeting a weird cartoon animal, and Makoto has his own fair share of confidants from all 5 iterations of the series that he can meet and greet and grow from.

//Obviously it’s not a copy/paste, since the characters will need to have their own conflicts and stories, but the similar progression of plot to the original game is intentional.

#3: This fic is UNNASSOCIATED with any of my other works/the works of others.

//Whether or not Survivor is the first of my stories or the only one of my stories that you’ve checked out or not, it’s important to know that DRSurvivor’s plot and characters are completely separate from PToH. The same applies to all of my other Danganronpa-related works, including ReCaptured and ReProgrammed.

//In summary, this means that Kuripa Kurafto is NOT present in this story. Nor are any of his friends or any other OC’s from this blog, like Matta or Uchui.

//And yes, I know that I made an artwork of him, but that was just because the original art was made for the followers of this blog, who would KNOW him.

//The story however, WILL feature original characters that I’ve created. For example, the third Palace ruler (who shall not be named) is 

//Of course, it also goes to say that anyone else who has made a fic like this, and any similarities between the two, are purely coincidental.

//Some of you may know of a story on AO3 by JustRookie called Danganronpa X Persona: Mirrored Selves. I will state right now that I take no influence from JustRookies’ story, and all the writing in this fic is purely mine own.

//I ain’t no Madarame.

#4: The story is based on SPECIFICALLY Persona 5, not the rest of the series.

//Which effectively means that any integral aspects of games 1 to 4 won’t be 

//Persona 5′s style specifically is what I’m going for here, with the Phantom Thieves and the masks.

#5: There will be shipping and romance elements in the story, but not as many in Survivor.

//Just to manage your expectations, much like with Survivor, there will be some personal ship and romance elements in the story, most notably Naegiri, Saimatsu and Tokomaru, but only the far latter will really come into play with the main story.

//Also, as for Hajime, this story will be more Hinanami geared than Hinazumi.

//This isn’t really important at all. I just know that I a lot of you like the pairings in this blog and I want to manage your expectations.

//That’s all the important information that comes to mind. If anything else comes to your mind and you want to ask about it, feel free to do so through the ask box.

//As things stand right now, I have currently almost finished the first Palace of the story, and I hope sincerely that you all check it out.

//I have been experiencing a bit of writers block with ReCaptured lately, so I’m taking another break from that and focusing on this and Survivor in the meantime. I will also be working on PToH during my break following the end of the current arc.

//And I would just like to say I’d appreciate it if you read the story. You’re all such an amazing audience and I really want to show you more of what I can do.

//Thank you for lending me your time, and stay tuned, fellow thieves~

-Mod

[thehorrortree]

Submission Window: November 1, 2023 - December 31, 2023 Payment: 8¢ per word Theme: Speculative flash fiction Interstellar Flight Press seeks speculative flash fiction for 2024 publication in our online magazine and yearly anthology. We will publish one piece of flash fiction a month in 2024, celebrating micro and small fictions. Submissions will be read by our team of readers and final selections will be made by flash series editor, Annika Barranti Klein.  Guidelines: Genres: as long as it’s speculative (even a little bit!), anything goes for genre. Please see below for specific content hard sells and loves.  Length: up to 1,250 words (no minimum) Payment: 8¢ per word (minimum payment $25) within 30 days of publication. 1 print contributor’s copy of our yearly anthology.  Simultaneous subs? Yes! Please let us know right away if you need to withdraw a story by emailing contact@interstellarflightpress.com. Multiple subs? Yes! Up to three stories per person; please fill out a separate form for each story.  Response times: We aim to reply to submissions in 90 days. We will try to get first round answers (rejections or holds) out as quickly as possible.  Terms: Original stories, no reprints please. First English Rights with a 3-month exclusivity period. Inclusion in our annual print anthology.  Please do not send anything generated using the large language models commonly called AI; they are built on plagiarism and we won’t publish them. Tools like spellcheck are absolutely fine.  Accepted stories will be featured on our website and Patreon, where authors will be asked to complete a short Q&A interview for our patrons. All accepted stories will also be in our yearly anthology, along with the interview.  About the Flash Series Editor Annika Barranti Klein’s flash fiction has been in Mermaids Monthly, The Future Fire, Milk Candy Review, HAD, Hallowzine, and Worlds of Possibility. Her longer fiction and poetry has been in Asimov’s, CRAFT, Fireside, Weird Horror, Fusion Fragment, Haven Spec, and Kaleidotrope. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart, recommended in Quick Sips Reviews and on Tor.com, gone viral on Twitter (just one time!), and been a finalist in the Gotham Writers 2021 A Monster Comes contest and the Cast of Wonders 2023 flash fiction contest.  Annika writes nonfiction for Interstellar Flight Magazine and Book Riot, and has also been in Paste TV, The Toast, and more. She is a freelance editor and has worked with Interstellar Flight Press, Book Riot/My TBR, and private clients on projects ranging from novels to medical articles to listicles. Prior to getting into editing, she was a reader at a film company. She’s been a nanny, a caterer, sold advertising space in USA Today, and taught people how to knit.  Thanks to a convenient nick in the space-time continuum, she somehow also finds time to write novels and have a family — they are very understanding and can all make their own sandwiches (not the novels; they are total freeloaders). Hard Sells: Graphic violence, especially sexual violence, domestic violence, or suicide — please include content warnings at the top of your story. Stream of consciousness  Super vague endings (I love ambiguity, but don’t want to be left wondering wtf I just read) Racism, sexism, homo- and transphobia are unacceptable themes, but may be all right within the story (especially if those are your margins and you’re exploring your reality in fiction) — please include content warnings at the top of your story.  Clichés  Loves: Beautiful, deliberate writing Time loops Fun use of form, including “found footage” stories Friendship, feminism, found family Endings that make me rethink the story and/or immediately read it again with new context Tropes Some flash fiction I love: The Hulder’s Husband Says Don’t by Kate Lechler  Giants by Allison Mulder  Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math by Aimee Picchi  Space-Time by Stella Lei  Silver and Shadow, Spruce and Pine by Maria Haskins 

You Called Me by Avra Margariti  A Case for De-Extinction at the End of the World by Lyndsie Manusos  Bone Deep by K.C. Mead-Brewer  From the Journal of Sawyer L. Gibbs, Hero, Aged 13 ½ by Premee Mohamed  Untitled [daycare worker at the end of the world] by bixbythemartian  Unknown Number by Blue Neustifter ​ SUBMIT A FLASH FICTION Via: Interstellar Flight Magazine.