#and crazy and uncontrollable and arguably just bad

[tuliptiger]

Where are the positive Arcane posts brothers. My brothers. It's such a good show and gives us so much and there's SO much to explore. Even if you don't like LoL, as an enjoyer of the show and a player of the game they're really unrelated.

BUT LoL gives the base of the world and so you've got a show that's detailed and full of life and potential with this pool of basic lore and world building to draw upon.

And hey. It isn't perfect a lot of people have a lot of valid complaints and dislikes of what happened and how they happened. I definitely do too but the WAY it's written and HOW it's written lets you fill in so many gaps and make your own world for the most part.

My big hang up is it seems people fill that space with negativity. If you don't like it you can make it better? The space to fill is there without rewriting the characters or events, why let yourself ruin the show for yourself when you could enjoy it? Nobody controls how they feel and if you don't want to like it that's your choice but if you HAVE the choice? Why not take it and run with it you know?

[bitimdrake]

There’s this editorial interview from around 2009 I think by one of the writers of Battle for the Cowl that’s been going around and it supposed to prove that pit madness is a canon thing. I don’t know if you’ve seen it but it basically says that Jason came out of the Lazarus Pit with a few screws loose. However, the wording is super vague and they then go onto to say that Jason was always sorta crazy so I’m not sure if people should take it as a valid source. I’d like to hear your thoughts since you seem to know a lot and I would like to defer to your knowledge lol

I have not seen it (and would be interested to if anyone has a link), but sorta baseline thoughts here:

The popular fanon concept of 'pit madness' is more specific than the lazarus pit having any side effects. I've talked about common effects of the Lazarus Pit here, because they do exist! But, tl;dr, the "pit madness" thing of being overcome with sudden episodes of uncontrollable anger that in no way reflect your actual desires, weeks or even years after coming out of the pit, is still fanon.

Since I don't know the source here, I don't know if that fanon concept is actually what the writer in question was referring to. (a) We should not take vague wording about general effects of the pit as if they specifically refer to One particular conception of those effects, and (b) even if they were explicitly referring to that One pit madness concept:

death of the author. I will always prioritize what is actually in comics and shown on the page over what creators say outside of that. If DC writers want me to respect something as canon, it better actually be canon. As far as I'm concerned? Issue numbers and panels are citations for canon. Interviews are not and never will be.

Okay, so on Battle for the Cowl. It's. Well. First off, BtfC has some pretty extreme characterization of Jason. Red Hood Jason doing awful, amoral things was not unusual. However, BftC has him noticeably even more...unhinged, for lack of a better term, than any other story. He's at arguably his worst and has the least amount of explanation/motivation for his actions.

Therefore: I'm not surprised that BftC writers would be the ones most likely to claim "well the pit just made him crazy," since BftC Jason is the one with the least connective thread to anything before, and has the laziest writing for his motivations.

However, the thing that is weird about this claim specifically re BtfC is that it had been a long time since the pit. Jason had been in UtRH, in Teen Titans, in Outsiders, in Nightwing, in Green Arrow, in Countdown--in a number of other storylines between going into the pit and BftC. So if the pit were the explanation for his extreme behavior, you'd expect that behavior to also be in all the appearances in between and...it's not.

Don't get me wrong, as soon as he came back, Jason was Very Different from the gold-hearted kid he once was, and he was doing bad things in his very first appearances as Red Hood. But, as stated, BftC is way more than even that.

So I talked about how the pit specifically affected Jason here. It's a matter of interpretation, since we really don't know which parts (if any) of his personality change were from the pit, and which were just from trauma and dying and returning to a world that has continued to spin. But usually, it seems that the effects of Jason's return (whether pit or not) are him being colder and less compassionate. Not having magic anger issues. I really don't see anything about his behavior to indicate his anger isn't all natural, home grown. There's a pretty obvious explanation behind anything he's angry about, and it never seems to come on without warning, make his actions uncontrolled, nor to vanish suddenly and leave him instantly regretting it.

Jason in all those other storylines did what he did intentionally, of his own volition, for reasons that are completely understandable (though not necessarily justified). And whether or not his coldness and increased capacity for cruelty are pit-related is kind of a moot point, because there's no off switch and no convenient sudden change.

And Jason in Battle for Cowl had a lot less rational reasoning behind his terrible behavior. But even then, the potential explanation we're given in canon--not in a side interview--is a vague reference to a childhood trauma that was recently triggered, leading to a massive escalation of his violence. It's not a great explanation. I understand people wanting to rework it for this particular story arc, because it could really use some better and more sensible writing. But there's nothing in BftC to point to the pit as an excuse.

[stareyemoth]

(Don’t) Take Me To Church

A very short G-rated fic in which Aziraphale watches the Destiel confession and shenanigans ensue.  Featuring: crack, fluff, and VHS

There was a time when it was ‘Crowley this’ and ‘Crowley that.”  It was bad enough the angel wasn’t talking about him, but some other kind of knock-off demon Crowley?  That was insufferable.  Crowley (the real one) was thankful when it was over.  

But no, apparently, that show never actually ended and Aziraphale was watching it?  Again?  

Crowley couldn't care less.  He decided to shut himself up in the bedroom and listen to music instead.  If it was just a tad louder than it needed to be, well that was too bad.  

From above the-thankfully-not-yet-Queen music, Crowley unwittingly heard a few of the usual sound effects—screams, knocking, explosions—which he of course ignored.  What he was altogether unprepared for, however, was the high pitched screaming that suddenly drowned out his music.  

Crowley jumped out of his chair and bolted through the door barely pausing to slam it open, “ANGEL???”

The scream had evidently come from Aziraphale?  Who was crying!!! 

“Oh no angel what is it??”

Wait, he definitely was crying, but the sobbing sounded a lot closer to—

“Are you laughing? I—don’t” Crowley reached toward Aziraphale but stopped himself, then reached for him again, flapping his arms about in a bungled attempt to help, “Angel?  Are you ok?”

Aziraphale waved his hand at Crowley in between fits of laugh-sobbing but couldn’t manage to form a single intelligible word.  He gave up the struggle and gestured frantically at the television instead.

Crowley looked from Aziraphale to the TV and back again.  The stupid show was finally over, but that didn’t explain anything at all.  Crowley was worried.  Had the angel finally cracked?

Crowley waited a minute, maybe two, hoping that this fit would subside on its own.  When it didn’t, he started to pace, “Angel, what do you need?  A human doctor?  A priest?  Holy water?”

“HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!!!” the angel continued.

“I don’t understand… is it?  Is it that other Crowley?”

Aziraphale shook his head, “HA HA HA HA NO—HA HA HA… THE ANGEL….. GAY!!!” a squeal of giggles erupted again then, “HELL!!!!  WRITING!!” he waved his hands more “Bad!! SO BAD! AHAHAHAHHAA!”

“This is all because of bad writing?” Crowley was not at all following.

“NO—YES—It’s.... Hehehehe… So absurd…” he gestured to the TV again, “Destiel!! IS BACK!! It’s REAL!!! BUT ahahahahaaha, THEY SENT HIM TO HELL!”  He started laughing uncontrollably again, “OH NO I’M GOING TO HELL TOO! AHAHAHAHAHA!!”

Now this, THIS truly alarmed Crowley.  He didn’t understand much of what Aziraphale was trying to say but his angel screaming about going to hell was all wrong.  “Hang on, Angel,” Crowley said as he awkwardly scooped Aziraphale off the couch and began to carry him down to the car.

Aziraphale was on the verge of containing his giggle fit until “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” started playing on Crowley’s radio and he started laughing all over again.  Even more concerned, Crowley raced the car through the London traffic in what was an entirely unsafe display of driving skills.

With a screech, the Bentley pulled to a stop right in front of—a church?  Crowley jumped out of the car and opened Aziraphale’s door, “Come on Angel, we’re getting you help.”

“Are we,” a muffled giggle, “Crowley did you take me to church??”

“Yes, so, out you come, let’s go,” he took Aziraphale’s arm and helped him up, “I’m sure we can find someone here to help you.”

“I’m FINE, really,” Aziraphale laughed again, “It was just, you know, well you don’t know, hehehe, do you want to know? OH, You need to watch it too!!”

“Is this seriously because of that television show? You’re not possessed or crazy or something?”

Aziraphale scoffed, scandalized, “Crowley dear, I am most certainly NOT possessed, or crazy, how could you think such a thing?

Crowley simply stared at him wondering if Aziraphale had any idea just how ridiculous he was being.

Aziraphale straightened his coat, “Anyway, I’m… quite fine, quite fine, let’s go home.”

“And what about hell?”

Aziraphale snort-laughed, “SUPER hell.”

“FINE, super hell?”

Aziraphale chuckled then climbed back into the car, “Come on, just take me home.”

Crowley threw his hands up in exasperation.  Was this some kind of angel thing he didn’t understand?  Still, he did as Aziraphale asked and drove home.�� Slightly safer than the first run.  Maybe.

Aziraphale practically skipped back into the living room.  “Now, I’ve gone and recorded the whole thing on my Video Home System.”

“Right, because of course you still use VHS.”

“Yes, yes, look let me just rewind,” he pushed a button with a flourish on the remote control, “One moment.”

‘One moment,’ Crowley mimicked to himself and slumped down on the couch in resignation.

The whooshing sound of the VCR abruptly stopped, “Here we are,” Aziraphale sat down on the couch next to Crowley, “OK, I’m hitting ‘play.’”

“Mmhmm.”

The episode played as intended and Crowley vaguely faded into and out of attention.  Toward the end, Aziraphale was suddenly patting the back of his hand excitedly, “Here we are, here we are!”

Crowley undraped himself from the back of the couch and leaned forward, at least willing  to humor the angel.  

But? What? Was? This?

Castiel had said ‘I love you,’ and was promptly carried away to? Super Hell? Or something?

And it was so? Awkward?

Crowley pointed at the TV accusingly, “This?  What is this?? It’s so…?  There is NO CHEMISTRY??  And Dean says NOTHING?”

Aziraphale had already melted into a puddle of giggles next to him.

“Is Dean really THIS emotionally constipated all the time?”  He looked at the angel in disbelief, “Really??”

Aziraphale clutched at his chest to steady himself, “You don’t understand, this has been a major non-explicit romantic relationship in this narrative for years.  They’ve been leading fans on, and it’s finally real and it’s awful and,” more laughter, “HELL!”

“So they made it half-gay, killed the angel, and sent him to hell.  Well, sounds like the kind of thing my lot would do,” Crowley remarked.

“DID YOU?”

“What? NO of course not.  This is, well I would have done a much better job if I had done it.”

“HEE HEE”

“But why are you going to hell?  I mean, these writers are definitely going to hell, don’t get me wrong.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Aziraphale pointed to himself, “Angel,” he pointed to Crowley, “demon, and arguably worse than a hunter, and I love you.”

Fortunately, Aziraphale was not immediately carried away to Super Hell. 

And Crowley was not emotionally constipated, either.

(Special thanks to @actuallyfeanor for Crowley reactions and @knitordeath for helping spark this idea as we both lost our minds on November 5th)

cross-posted to AO3

[unapologeticallybella]

I Don’t Look Like J-Lo but Someone is Gonna Love Me Anyway

TW: Body Dysmorphia/ E.D   

   I’m going to go ahead and say, I am so happy I am not a notably attractive person. I’m not saying I’m ugly in the slightest but you know what I’m talking about. Those people where their attractiveness is one of their defining traits. Like you mention their name and almost always someone responds with, “Oh, the pretty one.” Yeah that’s not my story and that probably won’t ever be me. What I’ve noticed about those kinds of people is that almost always their personality suffers in some way shape or form. I’m not saying notably pretty people can’t have a good personality but basically yes, it’s rare. So when you don’t get to lean into your beauty, you tend to lean on other things like humor, kindness, intelligence; Oh, did I mention humor? One of my earliest memories is being around six years old, waking up in the middle of the night in a god damn panic. I ran to my mom hysterically crying. I said, “I don’t wanna be ugly.” I couldn’t really tell you what she said because I genuinely don’t remember. Obviously it didn’t make me feel better because here we are sixteen years later and I still wake up with that panic from time to time, only now I just don’t wake anyone up to hear me cry about it (that sounds a lot darker than I intended for it to.) Anyway, what I’m saying here is that I’ve always struggled with the way I look. 

   We all have that voice in our head that tells us we look like shit, that we shouldn’t post certain pictures, and that everyone else sees what we see; I swear sometimes I’d just rather stay home. I know everyone looks back at their old pictures and thinks “Wow, why was I so insecure, I looked fucking amazing.” It’s a pretty common thing, I know. For some of us that voice inside our head is a bit louder and a lot more persistent, mine was very cruel and eventually it just kind of took me over. I’ve never really talked about what I dealt with because I did it so privately; partly out of guilt because I knew I was harming myself and secondly because it was something for me to control and I didn’t want to lose that. I think I was eleven when someone else commented on my weight for the first time, I was 115 pounds. That’s when it started. I would go through these spells of not eating, restrictive diets, the obsessive calorie counting; no one noticed. This continued on and off for years, I love food so fucking much that it eventually turned into bingeing and then starving myself for the day, then bingeing again. Eventually I gained weight because my hunger would just build up, my cravings would just get stronger and I would lose every time; I’d binge. I would eat so fucking much. I could eat entire pizzas within 15 minutes, boxes of Oreos, bowls of cereal, tubs of ice cream, blocks of cheese; it’s absurd how fast I could eat it all. I was obsessed with diets, skinny detox teas, meal replacements were my favorite, and I loved watching my fitness pal tell me how much I could lose if I maintained the low calorie intake. My junior year, I tried making myself throw up for the first time. It was such an easy way to get rid of the guilt I felt for eating that much food, it helped me maintain the weight for a while. I really wasn’t under the impression that it was a problem because I wouldn’t do it often, only when I lost control and ate enough for me to feel fucking disgusting.

   You could say it might be emotional eating but what I’ve come to learn is that sadness absorbs my ability to feel hunger; it’s kinda great if you have a fucking problem like mine. My first breakup, I couldn’t eat solid foods for a few weeks; I genuinely only ate a cup of yogurt a day and Cheez-its when I felt like passing out. I lost weight immediately. It made me feel so powerful; I loved the feeling of hearing that I looked good. What’s crazy is that the power only lasts so long before that voice inside tells you still look like a troll. I look back at these pictures where I clearly look small and tiny but in that moment I promise you; I didn’t see that in the slightest, I couldn’t. My senior year, I got better for a while. I was the biggest I had ever been, and I felt like everyone could notice; I thought my curves looked weird and the way my body just held fat in the worst places made me want to die sometimes. I did crash diets on and off that year; I was extremely self conscious and hated the way I looked. I moved to New York, and I had started taking Ritalin (prescribed okay kids.)  Three weeks in, I forgot to eat for a little over two days. I genuinely did not feel hunger in my body. I was outside a hotel during fashion week, waiting for Kylie Jenner to show up when I had a full blown paranoid delusion. I called my mom thinking a bomb was going off. “Mom, I’m looking right at this cop and he looks fucking worried, Mom. Get me on a plane I need to come home right now. Something is happening, there are loud noises.” Then she tried to calm me down, she asked when the last time I ate was and when I tried to think back I was like, “Oh shit that bagel I had was literally two full days ago.” Yeah, so I stopped taking Ritalin, I think that would have been a dangerous combo for me.

   I struggle to call it an eating disorder because I never looked sick; it didn’t ruin my life; it didn’t hurt me (I don’t think) but I definitely wasn’t healthy. I think that was my turning point; I was tired of feeling weak all the time; I was tired of obsessing; I was so burnt out from all of it and I decided I wanted to stop it all completely. I eventually gained over sixty pounds over two years, it’s been a fucking nightmare let me tell you. Every day, I struggle with my body and what goes on inside my head. I tell myself awful things; I know that it’s not good, but it doesn’t really go away. I fight so hard to not fall down that path because I don’t want that for me; I don’t know how bad I could get and that scares me. I went out of my way for the past two years to prove to myself that I didn’t have a problem anymore by constantly treating myself with food. It’s like every time I ate a shit ton and I didn’t throw up was a success but then at the same time it wasn’t. Turns out that guilt manifests in different ways and it’ll find its way to you. I’ve gotten to the point where I know the weight gain is noticeable, I feel like people think the awful things I do; So I did the only thing I knew how, laugh it off. Humor baby! Self deprecation is my middle name, sweetie. 

   I know I joke a lot about the way I look and the weight I’ve gained, it’s all light-hearted, but it actually gets pretty dark in this neck of the woods. Body dysmorphia is a mean bitch; She didn’t even allow me to enjoy my skinny days, talk about a shitty time. I used to do this thing where I would wash my hands on the right side of the sink just to avoid being in front of a mirror; “I just don’t wanna ruin my day, ” I’d always say. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve always used the same 2 inch mirror when doing my makeup because “looking at my whole face all at once is overwhelming.” You did not want to be around me when I couldn’t find that mirror, now that was a full-blown panic attack. I’m trying to be kinder to myself, now that doesn’t mean I won’t still make self-deprecating jokes but I’m trying to unlearn that shit. I go through body positive phases where I force myself to look at myself and find things I like. I unfollow Instagram models sometimes but it doesn’t matter; pretty people are everywhere baby. Every day is a god damn battle with myself; I can look at in the mirror and say “Hey you look good today” out loud but that bitch inside my head is screaming “You look like Shrek dumbass.” Having a past where men weren’t all that nice to me; I have an inherent feeling that if I was prettier, a lot of the things that happened to me maybe wouldn’t have (Come to find out even the hottest people get cheated on too, sick world we live in.) You know I’ve spent so many years comparing myself to other women because of something some asshole did to make me feel insecure; I always fall short so I’m done doing that now. Sometimes I worry that even if I lose the weight or if I cosmetically change the things I don’t like, that voice still won’t go away. Then what? What if I’m never happy with myself regardless of the ways I can change my appearance, I mean there’s a pretty good chance that could happen. So I’ve decided that I need to find a way to fall in love with myself the way I am right now. 

   People always preach “love yourself” and all that shit, but it’s so hard when it’s just you alone with your thoughts. Feeling love for yourself is arguably one of the most difficult things you’ll ever learn to do, it takes a kind of strength I’m trying to find. I will say, I do think the way I feel about myself has projected itself onto my relationships and in-turn sabotaged them. I have always required a certain amount of reassurance and affection from my partners which I’m sure can be draining but I forgive myself for that now. I have so much love for others that it just pours out of me uncontrollably and somehow I can’t find a way to feel that love for myself; it’s quite the problem to hauve. I’m learning to protect myself from that voice inside of me; I avoid things that I know will trigger me and cause me to spiral. I’ve been trying to lose the weight I gained these past two years, but for the first time I’m addressing the inner work. I acknowledge my weaknesses, I know my vices, I know myself better than ever now and that makes all the difference. Last December I forced myself to pick a form of exercise and like it, so I picked cycling. The first time I took a class, I actually catapulted out of the bike. I felt like the biggest idiot, but I tricked myself into enjoying the class. I just told myself that I would feel like one of those people who thinks spin is equivalent to a morning cup of coffee and eventually that’s how I genuinely felt.  Now it’s been almost a year since I made that choice and I’m so happy I forced myself out of bed. After the breakup, my mom really wanted me to start yoga to “soothe my anxiety” and it did surprisingly. It’s amazing what you can do for your body by just taking time to just sit there in silence and think about nothing. Sometimes when it’s that quiet, feelings come up and before you know it you’re on the beach on a yoga mat crying in the arms of your yoga instructor. These past six months, I have healed things inside of myself that I genuinely didn’t know where there. It’s been a mixture of therapy, cycling, yoga, listening to my body, forgiving myself, forgiving others and learning to love the parts of me that I don’t (oh and just not eating Chick-fil-a so fucking much.) This picture is me in my favorite pair of jeans, I bought them almost exactly a year ago and when I bought them they were snug and now this is what I’m working with. Is it sad that my favorite pair of jeans don’t fit me anymore? Hell yeah but I can finally say I can feel and see a difference in my body now. 

   So no, I probably won’t ever look like J-Lo and that’s okay. I’m probably always going to struggle with these issues and I will probably have that voice inside of me forever. But someone is gonna look at me and feel so fucking lucky; and it won’t just be because of the way I look. It’s going to be because of the way I make them laugh and the way love just pours out of me uncontrollably. Most importantly, when that love pours, it will be for me too. 

[ahkaraii]

'headcanon rant for another day' oh please when its another day tell me :DDD

HEE okay, the comparative biologist in me that I truncated when I deviated towards medicine is excited af about Naruto world genetics and how the heck chakra works in the human body.

If you look cross-sectionally at the expression of chakra in all the existing dojutsu (ex. Uchiha’s sharingan, Hyuuga’s byakugan; possibly the Yamanaka’s characteristic generation-spanning pupil-less eyes that may facilitate their mind-share technique) and genkai kekkei (Yamato and Hashirama’s Wood style release, Haku’s ice mirrors, etc), there’s definitely an emphasis on certain powers being strictly genetic, not something you can learn. Like, you literally express it uncontrollably after a certain trigger (epigenetics yo!!! gotta modify those histones to activate the genetic expression), and only then train it once its manifest.

You can, however, “transplant” body parts that contain the style -- like Kakashi with Obito’s sharingan, or Yamato being genetically modified with Hashirama’s cells as an infant -- and bypass that required pedigree. You just have to work super hard to “master” it, and it will be taxing to your body that wasn’t born to express that technique. (In fact, I like to believe these transplantees are more prone to autoimmune diseases and/or infections due to graft-versus-host disease).

Canonically there are others that are explicitly stated to be learned techniques that are simply “secretly” passed down generation to generation and have little to do with your genes (the “Hiden” techniques, like the Nara shadow stitching), but we never really see any non-clan characters learning techniques from other clans, so it’s hard to say. I think there’s a specific chakra pathway you must be born with to learn specific Hiden techniques. Like, Nara are genetically predisposed to have chakra pathways that facilitate their shadow stitching. So while a random stranger could theoretically learn after years and years of practicing, some -- like our chakra-less Lee -- would simply fail no matter how hard they try because they don’t have the proper chakra setup.

This all got me thinking about the clanless/bloodline limit-lacking characters that look phenotypically similar to clans or characters possessing dojutsu and/or genkai kekkei. Folks like Anko, who has the characteristic Yamanaka pupilless eyes but instead of pale green they’re brown, suggesting she’s a Yamanaka mutt-mix that, due to a combination of a poor genetic lottery and no teacher, failed to develop the Yamanaka mind share technique entirely. She’s still a Torture and Interrogation nin tho, suggesting she was either raised around the Yamanaka (who all ultimately seem to end up doing jobs in T&I lol), or was taken pity by a Yamanaka in T&I who realized she was probably of their blood and never claimed and gave her a decent job. We all know how Konoha treats their clanless orphans, yeah? :(

I like to think certain “mixes” are unviable (else there’d already exist characters with it in canon, yanno?), or just a really bad idea (congenital defects-wise). Like Hyuuga and Uchiha. The Hyuuga academy teacher I doodled in my comic is an OC of mine whose backstory is she -- scandalously! -- had a kid with an Uchiha and their kid was born with a lot of genetic defects centering around the face and eyes (specifically holoprosencepahly).

Another character that looks Yamanaka-like and actually manifests Yamanaka-like chakra techniques is Tsunade’s old boyfriend Dan Kato. His power is the power to astrally project himself -- much like the Yamanaka! -- and possess others -- very much like the Yamanaka. Now, of course, one could butt in and say the Yamanaka mind body technique is probably a Hiden technique, not a bloodline limit, and thus Dan is entirely capable of learning it despite not belonging to the clan, but I like the chakra genetics headcanon and I’m sticking to it, so the Kato clan is an offshoot of some branch Yamanaka that specialized in the mind-body technique since the mind-share technique is probably only taught to the Main House.

Unlike the Hyuuga, whose Main and Branch houses take the toxic hierarchy to its extreme, the Yamanaka are more chill with their families expanding and marrying whoever they want, so not everyone has the Yamanaka last name. The Ino-Shika-Chou formation ensures that at least one kid is born and raised to have all their desired techniques, so the rest of the family’s kids can be born doing whatever. Presumably they gotta learn about the Yamanaka family history and all that pizzazz, but they aren’t enslaved to the family like the Hyuuga (or arguably the Uchiha).

That’s why Shizune Kato canonically uses poisons and healing techniques, and has no ability in the astral projection her uncle Dan so famously had. She just wasn’t born with the chakra pathways for it, and that’s okay. She’s not gonna get kicked out of the family for it like other characters are (like my Hyuuga OC, who never manifested the Byakugan, or her husband, who never manifested the sharingan. It’s why their baby managed to be born at all and not entirely stillborn -- neither of them were *rolls eyes* ““pureblood””).

Other clanless characters I think are probably mutts are:

- Ebisu, whose use of sunglasses suggest to me he’s a main branch Aburame bastard who was never implanted with bugs (I hc most if not all Aburame have severely impaired vision, hence the sunglasses -- they use their bugs to “see”) but was raised knowing it, so that’s why he’s a snooty asshole about Clans and gets to train the Hokage’s grandchild and other high ranking kids. He can’t inherit the title of Aburame Clan Head because he doesn’t have bugs, but he does get a cozy high ranking job without having to really work for it.

- Aoba, whose sunglasses and liberal use of fire techniques and crows could mean he’s got Aburame and/or Uchiha blood in him. 

I definitely think the Naruto world’s necessary emphasis on genetics and purity of blood for the sake of your bloodline limit expression has damaging effects on people’s health, congenital defects wise. For example: I headcanon Hayate Gekko has cystic fibrosis! It’s why he’s always coughing and sick. The Senju clan has a defect in a tumor-suppressing gene, which explains why they were of the few clans to have multiple kids (Hashirama had 3 brothers! how rare in the naruto world of being single children or having only a single sibling! lol) and yet the entire freaking clan was reduced to only Tsunade in three generations of peace. Let’s face it: Hashirama absolutely died of some form of cancer -- Hashirama cells are Naruto world’s HeLa cells, after all. Plus, it would explain why only he could do the wood release and no other person until yamato has managed it -- you HAVE to have a defect in a tumor suppressing gene, and to wood release you have to selectively induce a second insult to cause your cells to divide like crazy. But you also have to have the ability to combine earth and water release, and also chakra mold, and also a bunch of other crazy shit which made it super hard for Orochimaru to re-create it. It’s a miracle Hashirama didn’t die earlier, tbh.

I headcanon Tsunade totally got uterine cancer (she can’t have kids) and breast cancer (her breasts are so large because they are fake :V) and it’s why she’s the only Senju alive -- she has kept herself alive using her insanely OP healing skills. Its how she knows how to keep herself young-looking, too -- she was always replenishing her cells. I HC her brother Nawaki had leucemia and it was only sheer chance that a landmine got to him first before his own sickness did. That’s why Orochimaru is so knowledgeable about Hashirama’s cells in the first place, to the point where he was recruited to ROOT! Orochimaru was Nawaki’s sensei and was actively helping Tsunade find a cure for the Senju Clan’s propensity to develop cancer to save Nawaki and the Senju line as a whole. After Nawaki’s passing, Orochimaru kind of went crazy and decided instead to focus on curing death....

ANYWAY I could keep going but I’ve lost track of what I was originally answering lmfao. I have too many headcanons XD;;;;;

[spacecaced]

i don’t know why i keep thinking about it but i’m honestly desperate for steve and billy looking tragically good in those SHIELD uniforms. mainly because steve is definitely black widow and billy is hawkeye hands down.

so here’s an mcu stranger things au: 

Some days everything runs smoothly and other days he finds himself speaking firmly and clearly into the comms; telling Billy to quit dicking around Hargrove we’re on a mission only to have his partner scoff on the other end of the line. 

Always followed by some small movement from in the distance, where Billy’s set up as a sniper, no doubt giving Steve a fake salute, sure thing cap’n, and Steve swears once they’re back to HQ he’s putting in for a transfer. 

But even he knows he won’t follow through with it. It’s something he uses as a threat, even though it never works and he’s never serious. Some days though, the thought of letting himself be reassigned, letting someone else deal with Billy’s shit, it’s real tempting. 

Over the course of the last four years, Steve’s had to write up more incident reports than he’d like and deal with Billy’s seemingly constantly fluctuating attitude. Some days are almost manageable but then Billy’s elsewhere and he’s got a fire in his eyes that’s just on the wrong side of playful, dripping into dangerous territory, and it makes Steve anxious in a way not much else does. 

Plus, the whole reason Steve’s in this situation is because he’s the only field operative with the kind of clearance that makes him just a notch above Billy -- read: responsible and qualified enough to be in charge of him -- and he’s the only guy within a fifty-mile radius that doesn’t believe Billy belongs back in prison. 

It’s where he belongs a junior level field agent had said one day, all snotty and sure of themselves, and even if being around Billy was anything but a cake walk they were still partners. And to Steve, that meant everything.

So maybe he’d made sure not to hold back in training that day, not until the junior level agent who’d made the shitty remark was swept off his feet, tossed around, and pinned to the training mats about ten times in a showy effortless way that left Steve barely perspiring but the hotshot kid in a sweaty mess; tapping out.

But he’s sure the kid understood the message afterwards: no one talks shit about Billy Hargrove unless they want Steve Harrington barking up their tree.

At times Steve couldn’t even deny that -- for all his talk and empty threats, and the uncontrollable essence of Billy that sometimes worried him -- he cared about Billy. They were good together, worked well on the field and even if they weren’t best pals off mission they were still better than some and honestly, Steve wouldn’t trust anyone else to have his back. 

Because as terrible as Billy was sometimes there was no better man behind a sniper lens. He had the kind of accuracy Steve envied, never missed a shot, and he never fucked up on a mission. He did come close though every now and then, earning himself a smack to the back of the head from Steve which only made him grin wider -- it was well established though that Billy genuinely lived to piss him off -- “Aw babe, you know I love it when you’re mean.”

And of course, there was that.

The flirting – or annoying little quips and borderline inappropriate remarks – was a constant between them, completely one sided of course, but every now and then they did happen to make Steve crack a smile.

“Oh shit, it’s learning to be human, check it out Robin he’s just like a real boy.” Billy would inevitably say, nudging their friend and fellow agent in the ribs.

Sometimes Robin was on Steve’s side, shoving Billy back and telling him to knock it off good naturedly, but seven out of ten times she was playing devil’s advocate; fixing Steve with a fond little look and reaching up to pinch at his cheek, “See Harrington, doesn’t kill you to lighten up a bit.”

“It might.”

The only time Billy wasn’t busy being a thorn in his side was either late at night – when most of the facility was locked down save for several open designated gym rooms, where Steve and Billy would wind up sparring for most the night until they were sweating through their workout clothes and their concentration was shaky – or very early in the morning – everyone always assumed it was Billy who hated mornings but they had it flipped, Steve was a grouch unless he got coffee and Billy was munching on a protein bar, talking a mile a minute, and spraying crumbs everywhere most mornings as Steve contemplated drowning himself in his large thermos filled with rich Colombian roast coffee, he also briefly entertained the idea of murdering Billy with said thermos but that nifty idea was only for really terrible mornings – aside from that they were at odds most of the time.

“We’re good on the field, good partners, we don’t need to be friends.” Steve says, sitting side by side with Agent Wheeler behind a desk stacked with ridiculous reports they had to sift through.

He’d rather be doing anything else on his free day but when you’re a part of a super-secret spy agency there really was no such thing as an ‘off day’, their motto might as well have been: “we’ll take a break when we’re dead”.

Nancy, wonderfully bright and fierce, bit at the end of her pen and sighed, “Steve, you’re both adults why do you have to act like little kids around each other. All the pulling pigtails between you two is driving me crazy.”

Steve went silent.

The words on the form in front of him didn’t even make sense for a good while -- not that they did anyways, because there was nothing normal about aliens attacking New York – but he wouldn’t let her words get the best of him. Billy was just Billy, he treated everyone in the same kind of carefree way that he treated Steve.

Besides, it’s not like he liked the attention he got from the other. He didn’t. Not at all.

“I think you’re just imaging stuff now, Nance.” Steve said, brilliantly using some of the tactics his training so long ago had taught him.

Not that they would have even worked, Nancy was arguably a better agent than he was but she preferred to take cases closer to home unlike Steve who liked getting out there and seeing the world, even if he did have to deal with Billy’s awful commentary and his insistence to try every type of street food known to man when they were shipped overseas.

Nancy was amazing at what she did, but a part of Steve was also a little relieved that she never wanted to be his competition, because he knew he’d be the one losing. She stayed close to home not only because she enjoyed following up on cases and gathering intel, but because she didn’t like being away from her girlfriend Barb for extended amounts of time.

“I am not, you know exactly what I’m talking about Steve Harrington.”

God, he hated it when she used her mom voice. She’d even turned in her seat to look at him and under normal circumstances it was usually nice to be met with Nancy’s soft gaze, but this one bore right into his soul.

“It’s just Billy, Nance, he’s like that with everyone. I’m pretty sure he’ll flirt with anything that has a pulse.”

Even still, Nancy was having none of it. “You’re an idiot you know that?”

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

“Robin told me on the last op you three did together Billy was flirting, she said you guys didn’t even have the decency to switch to a private channel.”

Steve’s face colored a horrible crimson shade and he groaned, resisting the urge to drop his head down on the desk and maybe keep repeating that, “It wasn’t flirting, for fucks sake, Billy’s just like that.”

“He’s never like that with me or Robin, he doesn’t even so much as talk to anyone else Steve. Except Jonathan but that’s only because he helps Billy with surveillance. You’re the only partner that’s lasted with him longer than three months. Steve, four years you guys have been doing this and he hasn’t slipped up in that entire time, you keep him in line for some reason, ever wonder why?”

“I don’t know why,” Steve breathed, scrubbed a hand over his face and dropped his gaze back to the papers at hand, his words having just enough edge to not allow for anymore questioning, “and I don’t really care, it doesn’t matter because we work well together and Billy can keep being a dick just as long as his trigger finger still works and his eyesight’s sharp. If you’re done with the third degree we’ve still got another stack to get through.”

As soon as the last word was out of his mouth a blanket of stiff silence fell over the pair of them. Steve felt bad for a little bit but mostly he just felt exhausted. Because this was about the last thing he wanted to happen, to get into an argument with Nancy who was probably his only real friend in this whole world.

But he wasn’t about to go back on what he had said either. He meant every word. There was nothing between him and Billy, there never would be, and if all they had was a working relationship then that was good enough. Sometimes it could almost feel like friendship between them, so there was also that, Steve could be doing a lot worse.

Four days later and “a lot worse” ended up being a fresh undercover assignment for him and Billy in Hawkins, Indiana. 

“Well, this is…something.” Steve said slowly, hands shoved in his pockets as they stood outside of Indianapolis airport, snow was blanketing the ground already. There was hardly anything major to see in the distance, a big difference from even the suburbs of New York.

Plus, Billy looked about ready to die.

After being stuck on an airplane full of people – because they were supposed to be here undercover and had to take public transport instead of their government funded plane – Billy was probably wound up so tight he was going to snap any moment.

Steve really wasn’t looking forward to that.

“Come on, we’ve still got a bit of a drive to Hawkins.” Steve said, corralling Billy like a bull towards a taxi.

Billy was blissfully quiet for the whole trip actually – it gave Steve time to read through the files on his phone about the small little town of Hawkins and the apparent hell dimension that had opened up, god their job could never just be other spies, no it had to be demons too – but of course that voluntary silence only worried him more.

He would glance up every now and then just to see Billy hopefully lost in peaceful thought while he stared out the window, blue eyes looking even more crystal in these cold temperatures.

When they finally arrived, the taxi dropped them off in the middle of what could only be the town square, with all their bags in tow and pointed them to a hotel, Billy heaved a long worn-down sigh – his breath spilling out into the chilly air like a wisp of wind – and Steve tensed.

“I fucking hate this town.”

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong. 

[dawn-path]

2, 11, And 30 for the character questions. Whatever character you want to use!

You, my good and dear pal, are the one thing giving me joy today on this day where I am very sick and dying fghsgjfsh iM USING AILA LETS GO (also I’m on mobile so forgive the lack of fancy formatting)

02. What is one of your character’s biggest insecurities? Are they able to hide it easily or can others easily exploit this weakness?

>> Aila has a few, but her largest is actually probably her missing arm? The injury is arguably still pretty new to her - she lost it maybe a couple of months ago at this point in time - and her being a melee fighter who’s always been in pretty top shape meant it was a huge blow to her personal feelings of safety and ability to protect herself. She’s finding over time that a prosthetic isn’t so bad (it’s always nice to block a hit in a way that DOESN’T hurt), but she would give a lot to get her own arm back.As for other folk’s ease in exploiting it- yes and no? Aila’s a person who is very closed off in terms of expressing her feelings - and ESPECIALLY feelings of sadness, weakness, or fear, etc - so her discomfort with it is only really noticeable when she has the prosthetic off. … Whiiiich is almost never, despite her supposed to be taking it off every night. However, the weakness of HAVING a detachable arm has lowkey been a problem? She got in a fight with someone once who then managed to knock her out by literally slamming an entire paint bucket into her face…. and then proceeded to take her arm off, drop her to the nearest cop, and turn the prosthetic itself into a macaroni sculpture. Such is the adventure of roleplay

11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage?

>> Ohoho fuck uh, actually kind of a lot of things would? Aila’s had some entirely unchecked and near-entirely uncontrolled anger disorders for years now and she has a tendency to either brush something off casually or get furious - almost no inbetweens, other than occasionally just getting really obviously grumpy and sulking a bit lmao. I’d say the one thing to send her into an immediately unchecked 100% chance rage would be to injure one of her couple of friends? She may be a little shit but she’s damn loyal and would stibbity stab the fuck outta someone who even tried.

30. When it comes to the arts (music, film, theatre, etc), what does your character like?

>> Aila’s uncultured as shit lmao she’s never been to a play in her life and doesn’t have a lick of interest in them. Probably. If it had a swordplay scene she’d maybe go just so she could text her friend the entire time insulting them for not knowing how swordfighting worksAs for movies, Aila’s generally an action/horror kind of gal who has exactly zero interest in ‘dumbass romance kissy fucky shit’ aka romance movies or romance plots and really likes crazy action scenes and a probably lesssss than healthy amount of goreAnd MUSIC shit man I’ve been tryna figure out her music taste for a while and it’s been a struggle - I’d probably have to say she’s a fan of like, soft rock/edm or the cutestiest happiest shit like fuckin, Shawn Wasabi or whatever, occasionally reeeeeal chill smooth songs if she’s having another “I feel like sitting on the apartment building’s roof at 2am to stare at the moon and think for a bit” moment

[pandoricpies]

Ok yay now I have permission to rant about the parallels between these two stories. Starting off, from the minute Silco was introduced all I thought was Sands - both villains have flawed motivations, striking some form of sympathy in the viewers/players; Silco, with his whole ‘Vander betrayed me and now I have this daughter who is crazy but I’d die for her’ and Sands who has his whole backstory with Rosalinda and her death during a period of the witch trials (assuming somewhere around mid-1700s to early 1800s). Both villains are fighting against humanity who they view have betrayed them and those they care about. I’m not sure if you viewed this the same way but I honestly saw ‘Shimmer’ as the Dark Horse serum that Darko was brewing up. Injecting the serum into Nightdust basically made him completely insane and uncontrollable (yes the intent of the serum is to bring the animal under the handler’s full control, but it was apparently still in a testing phase). As we see in Arcane, Shimmer is a highly addictive substance that can destroy a person’s health, and a subset (arguably more powerful) version of Shimmer created by Singed, when injected into Jinx, was enough to make her fall off the edge into complete insanity - even so much as to turn against her ‘father’, Silco. And then of course we have my favorite parallel, Sevika and Silco to Sabine and Sands - I mean hell, even Sevika and Sabine’s character designs are similar. I say this in regards to Sevika’s relationship with Silco, and her extreme loyalty to him. Although this is more of a headcanon than anything, I really imagine Sabine being that bad-ass, right-hand woman to Sands, doing pretty much whatever he asks. How I’d love to see some kind of uprising formed by Darko (because let’s face it that bitch ain’t dead) and Sabine just kicks his ass like Sevika did to Finn when they attempted that little overthrow of Silco.

Petition for updated Sands to look like this man. Yes I’ve gotten into Arcane - the parallels are there and god I’m sorry but the Jorvik villains are so flat story-wise. Give.us.angst.and.backstories.

[baneismydragon]

EVEN MORE SECRET SANTA!

Hey @alittleluckycharm I am happy to announce that I am your back up Secret Santa gifter from @mlsecretsanta. I am so sorry for the delay, but I hope you like this gift I have prepared for you ^_^ 

You wanted some family friendly love square fluff, preferably Ladynoir or Ladrien, so that is what I have attempted to provide. 

It gets super fluffy I promise ^_~ 

What was Always There

She had never understood how it was that Chat Noir always seemed to know when she had a particularly awful day. Maybe it was because he was her partner, maybe it was just sheer dumb luck, but somehow he had this crazy habit of being around whenever she was low, ready to cheer her up.

It hadn’t always been the case. In fact, she could pinpoint it back to about 4 months ago.

A particularly troublesome akuma had caused her to be a good three hours late to school, drenched from head to toe after having to get across town. Her transformation had worn off just moments after she had managed to escape the eager attentions of the press, ducking into an ally as the glowing pink morphed her back into her usual state. Just in time for the torrential downpour to start.  

Ms. Mendeleiev, who had never been one to be particularly lenient even on her best days, had wasted no time in scolding her in front of their class, glowering and prodding as Marinette had struggled to come up with any sort of reasonable excuse. Chloe and Sabrina had snickered through the entire affair, and most of the rest of the class had watched with varying degrees of apathy and pity. Worst of all Adrien, who usually was one of the most understanding of her friends when it came to terrible attendance records, had been staring at her as though he had never seen her before.

In his defense, she had rather looked like a drown rat.

The day had not gotten better from there- a pop quiz she had almost certainly failed, her parents grounding her for her unexplained absence which had been prolonged enough that they had been notified, and to top it all off, a deliberate snub as Chloe proceeded to invite everyone in the class- save Marinette and Alya- to attend a VIP party at the hotel.

As soon as her parents had gone to bed she had transformed and hurried off to burn off some of her anger.

She had not expected Chat Noir to show up.

He hadn’t even wasted any time with small talk, simply pulling her into his arms and telling her how proud he was of her.

She had burst into tears, clinging onto the one person who could truly understand the pressures of having a double life as he showered her with affection and soothing endearments.

After that, it had become increasingly common for Chat Noir to show up whenever she had been having a bad time of it.

Sometimes it wouldn’t be in person. Instead, she would find a voicemail waiting for her on her compact phone, or the @RealChatNoir social media accounts would be blown up with cute memes and posts praising her and her accomplishments.

One time, she and Alya had gotten into a fight after she had missed yet another hang out due to Ladybug related activities. Later that same evening, Chat had shown up at the bloggers house and given her an exclusive interview that had been livestreamed to the Ladyblog. Alya had been so thrilled that her anger over their fight had been all but forgotten.

It was comforting- his miraculous ability to always know when he was needed, and how to pull her out of her own despair. She had come to find herself growing increasingly dependent on his steadfast support.

So now here she was perched on the top deck of the Eiffel tower, waiting.

“And what has My Lady so deep in her thoughts this evening?” a soft voice sounded from the shadows behind her.

Right on schedule.

Ladybug felt herself relax as Chat Noir came to sit next her. The stress and irritation of the day lessened now that she had his calming presence beside her.

“How do you always know when I’ve had a terrible day?” she asked, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Cats are very intuitive,” he said slyly, tilting his own head against hers and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Or perhaps it is a connection born of my eternal love and devotion to you.”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

“You wound me with your scorn, My Lady! I, who would cross oceans and scale mountains to be by your side,” Chat cried dramatically, his free hand going to his forehead like some overwrought Victorian damsel.

“Fine don’t tell me.” She rolled her eyes.

She already had a fairly good guess.

He chuckled a little, shifting restlessly beside her. “Let’s just say I know you better than you think,” he said at last. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She sighed, reaching up to entwine her fingers with his.

“Would it be terribly unheroic of me to just NOT save Chloe the next time there is an akuma attack?” she asked.

“Probably. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t understand the impulse. Thankfully, you will always continue to go above and beyond, and that includes saving people who don’t always seem to deserve it,” Chat said giving her shoulder a soft squeeze.

“You have so much faith in me, Chaton.”

“I am just stating the facts, My Lady,” he said cheerfully.

He didn’t ask for any details about what had happened, instead content to just sit beside her, gazing out at the darkened city below them.

For several minutes they sat in companionable silence. Just the two of them, taking comfort in each others presence, like that was how it was always meant to be.

“What do you think I am like as a civilian? You know, if you had to guess?” she asked softly.

“Why do you ask?” He tensed beside her, his voice tightening in fear and his ears and tail twitching uncontrollably.

Every suspicion that she had solidified in her mind. He knew her. He knew her true identity. Had most likely known for months now.

He always knew when Ladybug was upset because he knew when Marinette was upset. He had discovered her most closely guarded secret and had said nothing, instead, choosing to use this information to watch over her outside of battles as well as during them.

He had arguably spied on her, had definitely hidden things from her.

Somehow all she could feel was relief.

“Just indulge me?” she smiled, turning slightly to look up into his worried green eyes.

He stared at her, brow flinching in concentration as he searched her expression for any signs of anger or betrayal.

She waited, her smile gentle, trying to convey without words that she didn’t blame him. Of the two of them, it had always been she who insisted that they keep their identities secret from each other. She knew that he had on numerous occasions gone out of his way to avoid discovering who she was when it would have been quite simple for him to just give in to temptation. It was no surprise really that he would be afraid to admit that he had found her out, especially if it was an accident.

After a few tense minutes, he finally relaxed slightly, shaking his head a little in embarrassment. He took a deep breath before finally responding to her question.  

“I think you are exactly the same as you are right now, My Lady. I think you are kind, and brave, and clever. I think you make the room brighter every time you walk into it.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes and she nodded encouragingly. “I think you take too much on yourself, and I think you can be a bit ridiculous when you are stressed out. I think you are stubborn, and competitive, and the best friend I could ever want. You are everything I thought you were from the first day I met you and so much more.”

“That is high praise indeed,” Ladybug breathed, feeling her cheeks flush with gratitude and something else that she was hesitant to name.  

“Well, it is just a guess,” he teased.

“Right,” she stated dryly, raising one eyebrow and crossing her arms.

He laughed, scratching at the nape of his neck nervously.

“When did you figure it out?” she asked, giving up on the charade at last.

“A few months ago. It was an accident, I swear. You ducked into an alley and I was on the roof of the building above it. You detransformed before I had a chance to look away. When did you figure it out?”

“Don’t turn this around on me, I have no idea who you are! I mean I think it’s safe to say you go to my school, but I only put all this together tonight.”

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow.

She flushed again, this time with embarrassment.

“Ok I might have been getting suspicious for a while now, but only that you knew who I was.”

She looked at him guiltily through her lashes.

“I see,” he climbed to his feet and began pacing distractedly. His tone was mild, but he couldn’t hide the slight tinge of disappointment.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

His eyes softened and he looked at her with an expression of infinite fondness.

“Don’t be, I am not exactly as... noticeable in my civilian form,” he teased, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips.

“I doubt that’s the problem,” she said, desperate to find some way to assure him that she was the one who was too selfish and distracted to have figured him out before now, and not that there was somehow something lacking in her adorable nerd of a partner. “After all, if you go to my school then you are well aware that I have a bit of blind spot when it comes to most of the boys who go there. It’s not anything wrong with you, Chaton.”

“I don’t know what you could possibly mean, My Lady.”

“You don’t have to pretend, everyone knows about my hopeless crush,” she confessed, standing herself and turning away in embarrassment.

“Oh… right. Of course I know about that,” he let out an awkward laugh. “Because everyone knows… apparently.”

“It’s my own fault, I am not exactly subtle.”

She sighed staring out at the city and wondering if maybe it was time to move on from her hopeless crush.

“So why isn’t he dating you?”

“Because he’s just a friend, he doesn’t like me that way,” she admitted.  

“He has terrible taste, you mean,” Chat muttered, and her breath caught at the defensive jealous cadence in his voice.

“I think you are the only person in existence who would accuse Adrien Agreste of having terrible taste,” she teased, wondering if maybe it was time to really start reexamining her choices.

“Adrien…” Chat sputtered, sounding like he had started choking on something. She turned back towards him and saw him staring at her, dumbfounded.

“I take it back,” he said, his eyes gleaming with something almost hopeful, “he doesn’t have terrible taste.”

“Thank you.”

“He is an idiot.”

“Hey!” Ladybug huffed indignantly. She might be debating the pros and cons of moving on from her long time crush, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see him getting insulted.

“A blind, oblivious idiot who doesn’t know the first thing about women,” Chat said, a hesitant, shy smile lighting up his face.  

“He isn’t-”

“Who is going to murder Nino tomorrow for not once bothering to clue him into the fact that the prettiest girl in school has a crush on him, when apparently this is common knowledge.”

“But-” Ladybug stared at Chat, her brain suddenly clicking the pieces together. “Oh…you’re…”

“An idiot?” He smiled sheepishly and took a cautious step towards her.

“Oh my god…”

Ladybug was fairly sure that her heart had stopped. Or maybe it was just beating so fast that she couldn’t distinguish one frantic thump from the next. She turned her face away from him, fixing her eyes resolutely on the city skyline as she tried not to faint.

This whole time, this WHOLE TIME he had been right there. Her own precious, perfect kitten. She could feel relieved, grateful tears pooling behind her eyes as her lips spread into a jubilant grin.

“For what it’s worth, My Lady, I have a sinking suspicion that Adrien is going to have a miraculous moment of clarity sometime in the next 24 hours. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he finally decides to tell you that he has been desperately in love with you all this time and begs you to take pity on his sad oblivious state.”

“And why would you say that?” she asked, still not looking at him, but unable to disguise the happy tremor in her voice.

“I told you before, cats are very intuitive,” he said taking another step closer.

“Do you think that Adrien is going to start making terrible puns all the time now?”

She schooled her expression into a teasing smirk and finally turned towards him.

“Why do you ask?” he replied hesitantly, a hint of worry creeping back into his expression.

She fought down a laugh. As if she would actually let him go because of his love of stupid puns.

“Because I think I would like that,” she said, letting every ounce of love she had for him- her considerate friend and her ridiculous partner- color her words with warmth. “I think I would like that more than anything.”

The smile he gave her was brighter than the sun, and it took every ounce of control she had not to tackle him to the ground.

Instead, she winked and turned away again, walking towards the edge of the tower as if this was just another night. She pulled out her Yoyo, toying with it, as she waited with bated breath for his response.

“I guess we’ll see tomorrow, My Lady,” he said, so quietly she almost couldn’t make out the words over the sound of the wind.

She lasted about 5 seconds before she caved.

“What if- what if I don’t want to wait that long?” she asked coyly, hardly daring to breath.

He laughed delightedly- that same perfect, unrestrained laugh she had fallen for so long ago, and she knew that her own expression must be the most ecstatic, lovesick grin in existence.

“You never know,” he said between chuckles, “you might get lucky.”

There was a flash of green behind her and she let out a soft happy sob.

“Marinette,” he said quietly, removing any last possibility that this was some sort of dream or misunderstanding. She turned around to see Adrien smiling at her. It was as if suddenly everything was perfectly clear, like the clouds parting after a storm to reveal a brilliant sun. It really was him.  

Of course it was him. He was he best friend, her other half. Of course he was also her love.

“Marinette, I was wondering if-”

“Yes!” She ran forward and jumped into his arms, “yes, yes a million times yes!”

“You didn’t even let me say anything yet!”

“I don’t care! My answer is yes, Chaton. For as long as you will have me, my answer is always yes.”

“Even when I am oblivious?”

“Yes.”

“Even if I am making terrible puns, or flirting shamelessly with you?”

“Yes.”

He wrapped his arms around her tightly, their faces inches apart.

“Even if I told you that you will never get rid of me? That you are going to be stuck with me for the rest of my nine lives?”

“Shut up and kiss me kitty.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

See! I promised it would get fluffy! Anyways I hope you had a great holiday and that this is the start of a miraculous new year! 

[lainvalidated]

my silent battle

I suffer from anxiety and depression, which is actually common among the population. However, from my experience, when I suffer from anxiety and depression, it doesn’t seem like it’s that common. In fact, it feels quite isolating.

My anxiety is pretty broad, in the sense that I tend to worry about a lot of things. And on the other hand, it is more specific and intense with other things, such as major transitions, food, germs, social situations, and physical sensations. Some of my anxieties with food and germs can bring out OCD-like behaviors. The most prevalent somatic symptom of anxiety that I get is abdominal pain, and when it gets really bad, I have to lie down in order for the pain to go away.   My depression can be described as complicated and messy. Over the past few years, I have lost interest in many things that I used to enjoy a lot, and I deal with feelings of hopelessness and wondering if I will ever get better. Similar to my anxiety, I tend to feel more depressed during transitions. 

Additionally, I feel like I can be misunderstood a lot, which makes me feel incredibly disconnected from other people, my friends, and at times, even my own family. And sometimes, I just feel really sad yet I cannot explain why. And for a long time, I have wondered why I feel so depressed at certain times of the year, or why I get depressed after certain activities that are not even that significant. This feeling of not knowing why makes my mind spiral uncontrollably.

But arguably, the biggest challenge that accompanies my anxiety and depression is that I don’t tell people about it. I mostly discuss these problems with 1 or 2 friends.  Other than that, I don’t talk about it with other people for the fear that they will judge me and not take me seriously. So, most of the time, I just keep my thoughts and feelings to myself and fight my battles silently from within. Some of my fears are rational – some people don’t know how to respond when a friend tells them they suffer from mental illness because they aren’t familiar with it, and that is understandable. Unfortunately, other people will shut you out when they find out that you have a mental illness because they will assume that you are crazy or are always in a bad mood. And with all of this, my world becomes very, very small.

[eggheadsguidetorunning]

The Worse Movies I saw in 2018 Part I

I prefer to do this list a little late to get some of the worst movies that came out in December a chance for me to see and hate them, at least that is the excuse I’m using.

10. Ready Player One

               So, I am cheating a bit here because I mainly hated the book, but the movie wasn’t any good either. I guess the best way to compare the two is by comparing the amount of pandering they do. The movie multiplies the amount pandering by ten but then you divide it by a hundred because it has a bigger audience because of this the pandering is more bearable in the movie then it is in the book.

Another good way to show the differences is to show the differences is through well the actual changes from book to movie. One of the biggest changes are the challenges. The first challenge in the book is to make it through the tomb of horrors, which the main character does by himself at level 1. Then to beat the lich at the end of the tomb in a game of arcade Joust. The movie isn’t better but instead of basing the challenge in the movie around sucking the dick of nerd culture the first challenge is just well dumb. In the movie the main character needs to drive backwards to win a race. Now consider that video games have people who test them for a living to make sure these games work there is a huge group of people who the first thing they do when they play a game is see if they can go backwards just to test the game. By the way in the movie it took someone seven years to solve this puzzle too.

               It may be silly to contain a movie on my top 10 worst movies I saw simply because the book was bad but screw it this is my list, and Ready Player One the movie is mediocre in comparison to the shitty book but it’s still a bad movie.

9. Jurassic World Lost Kingdom

               Originally, I wasn’t planning on putting this movie on the list since it’s easy to pick on movie that is designed to be a corporate sell out. Then realized there would be a bunch of movies I would have to remove from this list on that philosophy, so decide this movie deserves a spot here. Spielberg should be laughing at the fact that someone managed to make a Jurassic Park movie worse than Lost World. A Jurassic Park movie in which the good guys justify letting loose a bunch of ferocious dinosaurs on society because the dinosaurs have a right to live too. Just forget the fact that they will massacre a huge number of people who also have the right to live. How do we know the dino’s have a right to live? Well because the girl who is a genetic clone sees herself in them because the dinosaurs are also clones. Like they aren’t trying to even hide that the reason why they can’t kill the dinosaurs is because they need to make sequels.

               The bad guys are super irredeemably stupid and of course they then die in humiliating ways, and I can’t honestly believe that some of them don’t see their death coming. In what must be the dumbest black-market auction idea ever the bad guys have a bunch of villainous people come over to their mansion in which the murderous dinosaurs are stored to be sold to these people. Like hey guys come over to my mansion full of killer dinosaurs we will a party while we sell them to you. I think if they thought about it there was a safer way to do this sale of killer dinosaurs. I don’t know maybe they could have done it all online like most black-market sales do?

And who still thinks the Weyland Yutani idea of owning the most highly evolved killing machine, that is uncontrollable, is smart idea and while I’m at it who thinks Umbrella Corp ideas are any good as well. Well I invite you to go dumber than them. See, while these two evil corporations that constantly make or try to control evil and super strong next phase of evolution kill everything virus, aliens, or monster then try to make these things into weapons and somehow don’t see how this could bite them in the ass. They are at least super corporation and using that structure of a giant corporation to contain their abominations. In Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom a dude decides to make a super raptor in his mansion and sell it. This ends badly and nobody in the audience will ever be surprised by this ending badly even the kids know this is a bad idea. Don’t watch this movie you have already seen this movie done better.

8. Death Wish (2018)

               Bruce Willis is the only good part about this movie, but of course he isn’t the only part of the movie and he isn’t even always great in it. This was may be the most confusing movie I saw this year not because it was a hard plot to follow but because I don’t know why this movie exist or what it was trying to accomplish. Why did they decide to remake Death Wish? Was there supposed to be some sort of political statement was there not supposed to be political commentary? Was this supposed to be high drama or high action movie? What was the point of this movie why does it exist, I just don’t understand! It felt like the director was unsure of his own wok, but at the same time he seemed overly confidant in his poor choices in making this movie.

When you remake a movie that was beloved in its time you should be trying to improve the original concept or give it a different outlook. This movie is just a worse version of Death Wish and doesn’t really do anything interesting. In fact, I wonder why this movie had to be a Death Wish remake or even have the same title as Death Wish. I would enjoy this movie more if it was Die Hard 6 or something instead. That would be so much easier to justify and maybe even make it easier for it to be more fun and stupid. As it stands this movie was a boring mess. I really don’t have much more to say than that.

7.Truth or Dare

                I actually love this movie which is why it isn’t higher on the list. There is nothing scary about this scary movie and the attempts they make to scare you are only made funnier by their horrible filter Instagram face effects. I really want to know who saw that effect and said yeah that’s creepy make a movie about it. I want that person to make more “horror” movies.

               What’ better than the horrible effects is when this movie write itself into a corner and then tries to somehow miraculously get out of it without any though on how this miracle comprise the movie. Like how a character will be dared to kill the main character because I don’t know, no reasons given, so for the main character live some side character jumps, or stumbles, in front of the gun and gets shot instead. Then because character with a gun failed to shoot the main character she instantly gets possessed and kills herself.

Yes, she gets possessed you read that right. What, I failed to mention is that the reason any of this happens is because a demon possessed a game of truth or dare and will force people to play. Don’t play you die fail the dare or don’t tell the truth and you die. To make matters worse some genius thought the game would be more fun if there were moments when you were forced to take a dare, so now sometimes someone has to choose dare instead of truth.

To make matters worse (or from my personal view better) near the end of the movie they are about to exercise the demon, and someone choose to take a dare and then refuse to do the dare. This should mean game is over since now the demon has to kill this person and let the exorcism be completed. Thus, say the rules the demon has followed. What happens, and spoilers by the way, is the demon possess the guy who didn’t take the dare and leaps the person needed for the exorcism and then kills the mcguffin character and finally kills the person who refused the dare, thus the demon breaks his own rules. Now consider the scenario above in which a person is dared to kill the main character and fails so the demon takes over and kills the person failed the dare. Now the question is raised if the demon wanted to kill the main character then why should the demon have not just shot the main character then the person who failed the dare? There was nothing stopping the demon from doing this. In conclusion, this a really poorly written movie and its only number seven because it is a funny poorly written movie.

6. Clover Field Paradox

               I feel everyone forgot about this movie because of Bright, but I didn’t forget, and I didn’t watch Bright. So, let’s have a movie with an almost cosmic horror-set up but then do nothing with this build-up of humanity seeking for knowledge that we shouldn’t have. Then let’s have a Hadron Collider make a tear in dimensions to release a bunch of nightmarish monsters that we never get to see until the very end of the movie. Don’t worry though, to make things interesting we will have the crew just jump to a different reality through the tear, but instead of going somewhere interesting we have them simply go to an almost completely similar reality except they failed to get the Hadron Collider to work. We could have them go literally anywhere else the possibilities are endless, but no. At one point though the movie even seems to try to do something cool by doing some crazy Event Horizon shit. By having the ship seem to be attacking the crew but instead of focusing on this the movie just kind of forgets about this. Also, there is no reason for the ship attacking and killing the crew.

The main villain, in fact, ends up being a crew member from the alternate dimension not an alien or cool monster just some lady with a gun she arguably shouldn’t have. This is because this movie isn’t about cool sci-fi monster but is about a poor political subtext on the doom of humanity if we cannot work together to get a better fuel resource and we end up running out of gas. That subtext is the main conflict for the whole movie. Why are we up in space? Because gas. Why did the alternative dimension team fail? Because wars over gas. Why are there monster in Cloverfield? Because Hadron Collider.

The balls of this movie to have such freedom to do such an interesting thing with dimension hopping in space and monsters from another dimension, yet what they decide to do is the most boring thing they could have done with this set up. When they decide to through in a tie in to the Cloverfield monsters at the end of the movie and using one line at the beginning of the movie to justify this it becomes obvious that this movie is just lazy. Welcome to this list Cloverfield Paradox. Hopefully, you ended this Cloverfield movie franchise thing, so we don’t get something worse from Cloverfield later.

5.The Darkest Minds

               Hahahahahahahahahahahah. This movie is great. It’s the ultimate young adult (YA) cash grab movie of the year. It even has a sorting system like Harry Potter, but that sorting system is allegory for racism and involves mutant kids in concentration camps. You know all the things YA novels need… right? These mutant kids are like x-men mutants, but more boring because they all kind of have the same powers. One group of kids is super smart, another use electricity and a third group control’s the world. References to Harry Potter and Star Wars are also used to help the audience know that the directors/characters are hip to current pop culture. As well as there being a forced romantic relationship between a girl whose only personality trait is that she lacks self-esteem and a guy who is kind of, but not really, edgy. Fuck, this movie even has a shopping montage in it.

               We need go back a bit and tackle one of the dumber points. I earlier mentioned how you would get a house assigning thing applied to you but instead of a sorting hat this sorting method gives you a color and is supposed to be allegory to racism, thus it being a color. To explain how this system works you would be assigned a color based on your super power so if you were super smart you would be green for example. They would then sort you in the not concentration camp (but its totally a concentration camp) by your color. Allegory is ham fisted here but it at least works. Once you get outside the concentration camp everyone will call you a green or ask what your color is, and you will answer that it is green. Now this could be allegory for how racial discrimination can come to define others, and how labels that are given never truly go away. Unfortunately, that’s not how the movie handles it. The movie seems to look at it like kids would say I’m a green just like they would say I’m a Ravenclaw, I’m a member of district 9, I’m part of the Athena’s house, or I’m whatever Divergent was. So, this allegory for racism is also supposed to be like house sorting in the positive pop culture connotation. Which is idiotic because those two things don’t really mesh, and it feels like the movie wants to have its cake and eat it too.

Then again this could also be commentary on how schools label the gifted and thus limit them, but it runs it the same problem of the kids labeling themselves and embrace the labels even when they have the freedom not to.

               Not to mention all the hammy acting plot lines that disappear or go nowhere. The fact that a 17-year-old girl kills a woman in a horrifying fashion but that is fine because the woman who was killed was evil. There is also a final fight that is so over the top stupid it bounces back to being kind of cool.

Despite this being a bad movie I suggest watching it with a lot of friends and a lot of alcohol.

[dr-doomsduck]

To add to my earlier answer, @thelawyerthatwaspromised I think that DC trying out something different was definitely part of the equation, at least from their end, but it also looked as though the writer/director of Joker was perfectly content to do his own thing, without the comic book layer. Because it would feel really strange to bring in a vigilante dresses as a bat into the future of Joker's set up. You'd almost have to make Bruce Wayne a politician or a prosecutor instead of batman to make it work.

Also, yeah, DC is much better off finding their own style instead of just trying to do whatever extravaganza Marvel has going on. I feel like Logan (which was Fox at the time) is the only thing that comes relatively close to what Joker is: A more grown up, introspective take on the superhero movie genre. However, the plot of Logan still requires key comic book weirdness to make it work. Cloning, mutants, cyborg upgrades, etc. It's still part of a comic book world. Whereas Joker is more grounded into reality still.

Which brings me to the fact that perhaps the joker was not the right guy for a movie like this. Again, I think the movie stands on its own just fine, no need to connect this Joker to a DC version of the Joker. But if DC had wanted to do a more grounded take on one of it's villains, then Lex Luthor or Ra'as al Ghul would've been an easier fit.

The Joker is not known for having a coherent story. He's crazy, and I don't mean mentally ill or a psychopath, I mean, cartoony batshit watch-the-world-burn kind of crazy. If you start delving to deep into the psyche of the Joker as we already knew him, the shit he does just...stops making sense. The Dark Knight movie avoided this problem by just going, 'yeah, we don't know why he's like that either'. Giving him a backstory, specifically the backstory of the Joker movie, makes him a wholly different character. And not like, this character has a new dimension, but rather, this character is in no shape or form the same guy.

Because Arthur Fleck has a legitimate motivation, he has understandable development that gets him from A to B. Even if he ends up being a 'bad guy'. With the Joker it's all YOLO and then he does this random terrible thing and then that random terrible thing. He is simply a never-ending source of crazy to make batman look more sane.

Anyway, to bring that back to your original question, yes, I think that a part (maybe even a pretty big part) of the criticism surrounding Joker is politically motivated and created in an environment that is struggling to grasp violent loners. However, I also think that DC and the creators set themselves up for it when they choose to attach those sensitive issues to a character that's arguably the best example of a needless and uncontrollable evil. People don't want to understand why the joker does what he does. They want him to be a cartoon villain, not a person with complexities.

Premise: Joker was one of the best movies of the year and most of the hate for it is completely contrived. (Aka: their criticisms have an agenda)

Agree or Disagree or is my premise off in the first place?

[newssplashy]

Banky W: 'Here's what I'll tell my kids about the Super Eagles'

Banky W in his own words justaposes his lessons from Super Eagles 1-2 loss to Argentina to the state of the world.

Many years from now when, by God’s grace, my children are old enough to understand, this is exactly what I plan on telling them about my experience while watching my very first World Cup game live: “On a bright Summer night in St Petersburg, our Super Eagles played with more heart than our leaders have shown in 50 years. And I was proud to see it.”

See, I’m kind of a faith-over-facts type of sports fan, and I suspect that to a certain measure, a lot of us are. We know the facts. We know that Argentina are by far the better team. We KNOW that Leo Messi is on almost every list of the top 5 greatest football players of all time. There’s a reason that their country is currently 5th in the FIFA world Ranking, and to find Nigeria, you’d have to scroll all the way down to 48th. On paper, we know we probably never stood a chance. Coming into that game, in every position on the pitch, the gulf in talent was, to put it mildly… significant. Case in point: we have never ever in our footballing history, EVER had a striker as lethal as Sergio Aguero. Argentina had the luxury of bringing him on as a substitute late in the second half. But I plan on teaching my kids that in this life, despite seemingly insurmountable odds, you should dare to dream anyway.

And that’s exactly what most of us want, isn’t it? The opportunity to just…dream. To dream that maybe you can punch above your weight and be successful at it. Most people aren’t lucky enough to be recipients of glory in this rat race called life, so we project that innate desire onto the teams we support. And so the Nigerian team dreamt that we could do it, and we worked our asses off to make that dream come true. What we lacked in footballing pedigree, skill, and training… we almost entirely made up for in HEART. There were over 66,000 people in that stadium; between the Argentineans in attendance, and Messi’s global fanbase of billions, it looked and felt like 99% of the people in the crowd were rooting for Argentina. You could hardly sport a green jersey, and that’s not because it’s sold out. It’s because there were only a couple hundred of us, versus tens of thousands of them. The Super Eagles were playing in an Elimination Game, against arguably the Greatest player of all time, his top 5 ranked team, and over 60,000 people screaming and heckling our every kick of the ball.

But we played and we defended, we clawed and we FOUGHT. Yes, we lost, but we went down swinging and played with all the heart we could muster. And honestly? So did Argentina. Messi and co weren’t just going to roll over and die, in what would have probably been their most embarrassing world cup outing of all time. They were going to fight. And as I said in one of my numerous social-media-crazed-fan-videos, Nigeria didn’t come just to mark the register. We came to PLAY. Both sides went at it for 90+ mins, and for 86 of them, we were even. In the end, the better team won – because at this level, the truly great ones are able to capitalize on the slimmest of moments to separate themselves and secure victory. But the losing team was equally gallant in defeat. Both sides gave it their all. One side won, but both sides played with heart.

These days, I’ve found that my wife and I spend just as much time praying for our future children, as we do worrying about the kind of world we’d be bringing them into.

 There’s so much darkness, sadness, and pain in the world, you know? Here’s a laundry list of things that have happened in the past month alone: Two globally successful celebrities hung themselves. Then a woman in Lagos allegedly also committed suicide, by jumping into the lagoon. Yesterday, an undergraduate student from Lagos State University attempted to do the same. Plateau state in Nigeria has JUST been hit with two fresh sectarian attacks…over 200 people were slaughtered in cold blood – the latest in a very long line of mass murders over the years. Add the frequency of killings in Zamfara, Benue, Taraba and you’ll find that Nigeria has started turning into the Murder Capital of World, for a country that’s not at war. There is NO justification for the mass murder of innocent human beings, and yet, it just seems to keep happening, moving from state to state. It’s happened so frequently that we’ve become completely numb to it. We don’t care anymore. It’s now just another headline. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Nigeria has just overtaken India as the Poverty Capital of the World. And with all this, all we ever do is tweet #hashtags… #prayforPlateau, #prayforBenue, #prayforNigeria… etc. We say stuff like “our hearts go out to the families of the victims”, but we actually have very little heart left. Because we’ve gotten used to hearing about the brutality, so we just adapt, tweet or retweet a picture and a prayer, and we move on.

It’s not just Nigeria, either. Most Nigerians envy the quality of life in places like the USA – but let’s take stock of where America is at right now. I have a hard time reading the news because it seems like it’s almost always bad. School shootings in the good old US of A are as frequent as Boko Haram bombings in Northern Nigeria. Reports in the media have been awash with images of sweet, innocent children of immigrants, uncontrollably crying their eyes out, because the American Government has coldheartedly separated them from their families and kept them in cages like animals; one can’t help but wonder at the kind of emotional scars and resentment that has been deposited in their hearts. And speaking of humans-being-treated-like-animals, look no further than the recent #JusticeForJunior hashtag on twitter – read about this teenager from the Bronx, whose only crime was bearing a small resemblance to someone that some gang members had a problem with. So what did they do? Five of them dragged him out of a corner store, and beat and stabbed him to death in the street. An innocent 15-year-old, who just happened to look like the person they meant to harm. The store owners saw 5 guys dragging him out of their shop, and chose to look the other way. He came back bleeding his life away and pleading for help, and they pushed him back out, locking their doors and telling him to go to the hospital. The people passing by on the street also looked the other way; the ones watching from their apartment windows, saw him being beaten and stabbed to death, and figured that it was more important to record the entire episode on their cell phones than to intervene, or at least, use the same damn phones to call for help. He died in a pool of his own blood, trying to run to a hospital in time to save his life, because no-one in the community cared enough to lift a finger. And this is all before we recount the numerous horror stories of women being sexually assaulted in the #MeToo movement, the innocent minorities being assassinated by the same American Police Officers who have sworn to serve and protect them, or by the numerous young people on the streets of Nigeria who have been brutalized, extorted, maimed and killed by barbaric members of the SARS police force.

So you know what I plan to tell my kids? I’m going to teach them to be passionate – and to have a Big, Fun-Loving, Kind HEART. It’s fun to be passionate about sports… I mean, there’s already so much evidence online showing just how CRAZY I get about my sports teams. I’ll tell them that it’s okay to be that way, and to be a faith-over-facts kind of sports fan. It’s fun, and life is too short to not have fun. But it seems like some of us are almost subconsciously waiting for our teams to mess up, just so they can hurl insults at them, tell them what a disgrace they are, and project all the anger and pain from our real lives on them; forgetting just how hard it is to break out of the dire circumstances that come with being an underprivileged Nigerian to make it into the National team. Do you know the work, the sweat, the tears, the sacrifices, the sheer determination it takes? Do you know how hard it is to even be able to make a living as an average Nigerian? I’ve got news for you. If you were blessed enough to watch the game on a flat screen TV in the comfort of your home, or at a bar somewhere… you’re not the average Nigerian. The average Nigerian lives on less than $2 a day. Some aren’t actually sure where their next meal will come from.

Some Nigerians, however, thought it was okay to go online to Ighalo’s social media to leave insult after insult, ridiculing him and other players, simply because he had a bad game. Which one of us has never had a bad day at work? Or made a series of regrettable mistakes? Luckily for us, we don’t have our bad days in front of millions of people who are actively rooting against us. And even afterwards, we get to learn from our mistakes quietly, in solitude, and resolve to do or be better. Whereas, Ighalo and co have to hear about it from thousands of comments, some of which represent the very worst of human behavior on the internet. I heard that when he turned off his comments on social media, some Nigerians went and found his WIFE to harass, threaten and bully her as well, as if she’s ever kicked a ball for the team. In what amounts to the greatest misplaced anger I’ve ever seen… we have let thieving politicians and businessmen who have made away with billions, running our economy into ruins go blame free; we have turned a blind eye to all the killings, beatings, oppression and injustice in our countries, and instead poured all our bitterness, criticism and venom out on footballers, their wives, and referees.

So I plan to teach my future kids that in sports, and in life, it’s incredibly important to try and give your absolute best in trying to win. Unfortunately, sometimes, your best will just not be good enough. But even on your worst day, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get it right… as long as you give your all, and you do it with HEART. I plan to teach my kids, that in this increasingly dark world, it’s so much harder to be an optimist, but it’s so much more fun. It’s better to actively choose to care about others. It’s better to choose happiness over hurt, and it’s better to be kind than to kill with criticism, or violence. It’s better to build up than tear down, and hard as it might be, it’s better to be a beacon of light, and to look for a silver lining on the darkest of days than to spread more darkness.

I’ll tell them that on a bright Summer night in St Petersburg, our Super Eagles gave so much more heart than our Government, Country, or World has displayed in years. And that to me, will ALWAYS be something to be proud of. Because if there’s anything this world desperately needs more of, at this time in our history, it’s human beings with a little more heart.

TheBankStatements

PS: I’d already finished writing this, and was editing the final draft of it, when the news hit about the tanker explosion in Lagos that has consumed 54 other vehicles. Total deaths are as yet unconfirmed. Sigh. May the souls of the dearly departed rest in Peace. May God grant their families strength to bear this loss. May God help us each play our role in changing this earth of ours for the better. May we learn that heaven helps those who help themselves.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/07/banky-w-heres-what-ill-tell-my-kids.html

[thejamesshow]

Jordan Peterson doesn't need Vice chopping up his interviews on YouTube to look bad. If he thinks that all men are just uncontrollable frothing idiots with no self control, that when they see someone looking arguably 'sexualised' in the workplace are excused of any future sexual harassment with the blame squarely placed on the victim, not anything he says is gonna come off well to any kind of audience excluding the alt-right - who are crazies who harbour gender and genetic supremacy views anyway. There are rich traditional and cultural elements that influence certain garments and make-up choices that extend beyond his 'sexualised' interpretation and, even if that was the origin of certain choices (it isn't), it's been overnormalised so much now, that you would have had to have been isolated in a cave your whole life, to suddenly be stunned by a woman's choice of clothes. If you can't handle what someone chooses to wear to work, you should not be in a workplace at all.

[newssplashy]

Banky W in his own words justaposes his lessons from Super Eagles 1-2 loss to Argentina to the state of the world.

Many years from now when, by God’s grace, my children are old enough to understand, this is exactly what I plan on telling them about my experience while watching my very first World Cup game live: “On a bright Summer night in St Petersburg, our Super Eagles played with more heart than our leaders have shown in 50 years. And I was proud to see it.”

See, I’m kind of a faith-over-facts type of sports fan, and I suspect that to a certain measure, a lot of us are. We know the facts. We know that Argentina are by far the better team. We KNOW that Leo Messi is on almost every list of the top 5 greatest football players of all time. There’s a reason that their country is currently 5th in the FIFA world Ranking, and to find Nigeria, you’d have to scroll all the way down to 48th. On paper, we know we probably never stood a chance. Coming into that game, in every position on the pitch, the gulf in talent was, to put it mildly… significant. Case in point: we have never ever in our footballing history, EVER had a striker as lethal as Sergio Aguero. Argentina had the luxury of bringing him on as a substitute late in the second half. But I plan on teaching my kids that in this life, despite seemingly insurmountable odds, you should dare to dream anyway.

And that’s exactly what most of us want, isn’t it? The opportunity to just…dream. To dream that maybe you can punch above your weight and be successful at it. Most people aren’t lucky enough to be recipients of glory in this rat race called life, so we project that innate desire onto the teams we support. And so the Nigerian team dreamt that we could do it, and we worked our asses off to make that dream come true. What we lacked in footballing pedigree, skill, and training… we almost entirely made up for in HEART. There were over 66,000 people in that stadium; between the Argentineans in attendance, and Messi’s global fanbase of billions, it looked and felt like 99% of the people in the crowd were rooting for Argentina. You could hardly sport a green jersey, and that’s not because it’s sold out. It’s because there were only a couple hundred of us, versus tens of thousands of them. The Super Eagles were playing in an Elimination Game, against arguably the Greatest player of all time, his top 5 ranked team, and over 60,000 people screaming and heckling our every kick of the ball.

But we played and we defended, we clawed and we FOUGHT. Yes, we lost, but we went down swinging and played with all the heart we could muster. And honestly? So did Argentina. Messi and co weren’t just going to roll over and die, in what would have probably been their most embarrassing world cup outing of all time. They were going to fight. And as I said in one of my numerous social-media-crazed-fan-videos, Nigeria didn’t come just to mark the register. We came to PLAY. Both sides went at it for 90+ mins, and for 86 of them, we were even. In the end, the better team won – because at this level, the truly great ones are able to capitalize on the slimmest of moments to separate themselves and secure victory. But the losing team was equally gallant in defeat. Both sides gave it their all. One side won, but both sides played with heart.

These days, I’ve found that my wife and I spend just as much time praying for our future children, as we do worrying about the kind of world we’d be bringing them into.

 There’s so much darkness, sadness, and pain in the world, you know? Here’s a laundry list of things that have happened in the past month alone: Two globally successful celebrities hung themselves. Then a woman in Lagos allegedly also committed suicide, by jumping into the lagoon. Yesterday, an undergraduate student from Lagos State University attempted to do the same. Plateau state in Nigeria has JUST been hit with two fresh sectarian attacks…over 200 people were slaughtered in cold blood – the latest in a very long line of mass murders over the years. Add the frequency of killings in Zamfara, Benue, Taraba and you’ll find that Nigeria has started turning into the Murder Capital of World, for a country that’s not at war. There is NO justification for the mass murder of innocent human beings, and yet, it just seems to keep happening, moving from state to state. It’s happened so frequently that we’ve become completely numb to it. We don’t care anymore. It’s now just another headline. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Nigeria has just overtaken India as the Poverty Capital of the World. And with all this, all we ever do is tweet #hashtags… #prayforPlateau, #prayforBenue, #prayforNigeria… etc. We say stuff like “our hearts go out to the families of the victims”, but we actually have very little heart left. Because we’ve gotten used to hearing about the brutality, so we just adapt, tweet or retweet a picture and a prayer, and we move on.

It’s not just Nigeria, either. Most Nigerians envy the quality of life in places like the USA – but let’s take stock of where America is at right now. I have a hard time reading the news because it seems like it’s almost always bad. School shootings in the good old US of A are as frequent as Boko Haram bombings in Northern Nigeria. Reports in the media have been awash with images of sweet, innocent children of immigrants, uncontrollably crying their eyes out, because the American Government has coldheartedly separated them from their families and kept them in cages like animals; one can’t help but wonder at the kind of emotional scars and resentment that has been deposited in their hearts. And speaking of humans-being-treated-like-animals, look no further than the recent #JusticeForJunior hashtag on twitter – read about this teenager from the Bronx, whose only crime was bearing a small resemblance to someone that some gang members had a problem with. So what did they do? Five of them dragged him out of a corner store, and beat and stabbed him to death in the street. An innocent 15-year-old, who just happened to look like the person they meant to harm. The store owners saw 5 guys dragging him out of their shop, and chose to look the other way. He came back bleeding his life away and pleading for help, and they pushed him back out, locking their doors and telling him to go to the hospital. The people passing by on the street also looked the other way; the ones watching from their apartment windows, saw him being beaten and stabbed to death, and figured that it was more important to record the entire episode on their cell phones than to intervene, or at least, use the same damn phones to call for help. He died in a pool of his own blood, trying to run to a hospital in time to save his life, because no-one in the community cared enough to lift a finger. And this is all before we recount the numerous horror stories of women being sexually assaulted in the #MeToo movement, the innocent minorities being assassinated by the same American Police Officers who have sworn to serve and protect them, or by the numerous young people on the streets of Nigeria who have been brutalized, extorted, maimed and killed by barbaric members of the SARS police force.

So you know what I plan to tell my kids? I’m going to teach them to be passionate – and to have a Big, Fun-Loving, Kind HEART. It’s fun to be passionate about sports… I mean, there’s already so much evidence online showing just how CRAZY I get about my sports teams. I’ll tell them that it’s okay to be that way, and to be a faith-over-facts kind of sports fan. It’s fun, and life is too short to not have fun. But it seems like some of us are almost subconsciously waiting for our teams to mess up, just so they can hurl insults at them, tell them what a disgrace they are, and project all the anger and pain from our real lives on them; forgetting just how hard it is to break out of the dire circumstances that come with being an underprivileged Nigerian to make it into the National team. Do you know the work, the sweat, the tears, the sacrifices, the sheer determination it takes? Do you know how hard it is to even be able to make a living as an average Nigerian? I’ve got news for you. If you were blessed enough to watch the game on a flat screen TV in the comfort of your home, or at a bar somewhere… you’re not the average Nigerian. The average Nigerian lives on less than $2 a day. Some aren’t actually sure where their next meal will come from.

Some Nigerians, however, thought it was okay to go online to Ighalo’s social media to leave insult after insult, ridiculing him and other players, simply because he had a bad game. Which one of us has never had a bad day at work? Or made a series of regrettable mistakes? Luckily for us, we don’t have our bad days in front of millions of people who are actively rooting against us. And even afterwards, we get to learn from our mistakes quietly, in solitude, and resolve to do or be better. Whereas, Ighalo and co have to hear about it from thousands of comments, some of which represent the very worst of human behavior on the internet. I heard that when he turned off his comments on social media, some Nigerians went and found his WIFE to harass, threaten and bully her as well, as if she’s ever kicked a ball for the team. In what amounts to the greatest misplaced anger I’ve ever seen… we have let thieving politicians and businessmen who have made away with billions, running our economy into ruins go blame free; we have turned a blind eye to all the killings, beatings, oppression and injustice in our countries, and instead poured all our bitterness, criticism and venom out on footballers, their wives, and referees.

So I plan to teach my future kids that in sports, and in life, it’s incredibly important to try and give your absolute best in trying to win. Unfortunately, sometimes, your best will just not be good enough. But even on your worst day, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get it right… as long as you give your all, and you do it with HEART. I plan to teach my kids, that in this increasingly dark world, it’s so much harder to be an optimist, but it’s so much more fun. It’s better to actively choose to care about others. It’s better to choose happiness over hurt, and it’s better to be kind than to kill with criticism, or violence. It’s better to build up than tear down, and hard as it might be, it’s better to be a beacon of light, and to look for a silver lining on the darkest of days than to spread more darkness.

I’ll tell them that on a bright Summer night in St Petersburg, our Super Eagles gave so much more heart than our Government, Country, or World has displayed in years. And that to me, will ALWAYS be something to be proud of. Because if there’s anything this world desperately needs more of, at this time in our history, it’s human beings with a little more heart.

TheBankStatements

PS: I’d already finished writing this, and was editing the final draft of it, when the news hit about the tanker explosion in Lagos that has consumed 54 other vehicles. Total deaths are as yet unconfirmed. Sigh. May the souls of the dearly departed rest in Peace. May God grant their families strength to bear this loss. May God help us each play our role in changing this earth of ours for the better. May we learn that heaven helps those who help themselves.

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