#and in my opinion also the best!! and factually it is the most successful final fantasy and the most big contentwise and storywise

[astrxealis]

hi if you like final fantasy i am kissing you on the lips platonically. i lov ff sm

[josefavomjaaga]

Eugène and his Bavarian family

This is the second part of the answer to the question by @mademoisellewhistler​ about Eugène's friends, this time dealing with Eugène's relatives by marriage, the royal family of Bavaria. Thank you once more for the Ask.

(Max Joseph, his second wife Karoline and their five daughters, painting from 1821)

***

Let's start with his spouse, Auguste. In short, she adored him. After having yielded in tears to the raison d'état and sacrificed herself for the fatherland (her own words) at Christmas 1805, she apparently realised rather quickly that she had not made a bad bargain when she gave up her cousin Charles. At the end of May 1806, Eugène for the first time had to leave her for a few days, and she whined about it in letters to anyone who would listen, Napoleon included. (Napoleon must have been quite puzzled by this; things had been very different in his own marriage).

After all, who could have guessed that this totally unacceptable bridegroom would turn out to be such a nice guy?

Napoleon was otherwise not very successful as a marriage broker, but this marriage, which he had coerced, actually turned out to be very happy, and my impression is that he was immensely proud of it. However, he was to suffer as a result of this success, because Auguste soon felt that her Eugène was getting the short end of the stick compared to Napoleon's brothers and brothers-in-law. Napoleon charged him with most of the work, but the royal crowns and honours went to other people. From the time of his divorce from Josephine at the latest, she was not at all well disposed towards Napoleon. But that is another story. Even the loss of his position could not change her affection for Eugène. On the contrary, we have some of the most touching letters between them from this period.

Next, Eugène’s father-in-law, King Max Joseph of Bavaria. In short, he adored him. If Auguste hadn't married Eugène, Max would probably have done it himself, just to keep this guy in the family. This was exactly the son he had always wanted, handsome, polite, cheerful, well-mannered, brave soldier and, above all, French! (And what had fate given him instead? Crown Prince Ludwig.) Eugène and Max Joseph were, in Auguste's opinion, very much alike in many ways; no wonder they got on well together. Max took a lively interest in all things concerning Eugène and Auguste; when Auguste finally gave birth to their long-awaited son in 1810, he wrote from Munich that he had not been able to sleep all night because of his excitement and happiness at the news. Normally I would consider this a rhetorical phrase; in Max's case it is probably to be understood literally.

The relationship between Eugène and Max Joseph seems, as far as can be deduced from the letters, to have been more family-like than that between Eugène and Napoleon. Towards Napoleon, Eugène always maintains a very submissive, respectful tone; Napoleon is always "Sire" and "Votre Majesté". But he addresses Max as "Mon bon père", my good father, and in his letters to Auguste he likes to speak of "notre père", our father, referring to Max.

I have already written about the negotiations that took place between the two of them in 1813/4, even though they belonged to opposing camps.

They also quarrelled - once, over Tyrol. Max Joseph did not agree at all with a proclamation that Eugène had published, and wrote to him about it. Whereupon Eugène wrote to his wife almost in despair, oh crap, crap, crap! Now I've quarrelled with your father over this thing, I hate this Tyrol!

(The disgruntlement did not last long.)

Eugène's early death hit Max Joseph hard. According to Planat de la Faye, he never afterwards referred to his son-in-law as anything other than "mon pauvre Eugène", my poor Eugène.

Crown Prince Ludwig. In short, he hated him. Or possibly not. Unless he did. In any case, he hated everything French and in particular everything connected with Napoleon, which at least at times certainly included his French brother-in-law. He got so upset about his sister's forced marriage to the unworthy Beauharnais that he wrote a play about the matter over the next few years (a tragedy, some of it being unintentionally funny if you know the actual story).

Of course, the guy, on the other hand, was very very nice. But that didn't change the fact that he was French. "Of all the Frenchmen, Eugène is probably still the best," Ludwig is supposed to have said. This was probably the greatest compliment Eugène could expect from his brother-in-law.

In part, Ludwig's dislike may have been jealousy. Ludwig and Max Joseph did not get on at all; Ludwig probably feared that Eugène would replace him with Max. Napoleon did not make matters any better when he occasionally pointed out that crown princes could also be shot for disobedience and that, after all, Eugène's children were also grandchildren of the Bavarian king.

On top of that, Max Joseph and Auguste had the idea that good-natured Eugène should speak to Ludwig's conscience from time to time about Ludwig’s attitude towards the French Emperor, his frequenting of dubious taverns and the good behaviour of crown princes in general. Eugène did it, as he did almost everything he was told, but it did not go down well at all with Ludwig.

When Eugène finally ended up in Bavaria after the fall of the Empire, the rivalry escalated to the point where Louis wanted to duel him (he was quick with duel demands - he knew full well that someone would always stop it). He prevented Eugène's children from becoming part of the royal family, and it almost came to the point that Eugène and his family would have left Bavaria again. In the end, Auguste wrote a bitterly blunt letter to her brother, and they came to an arrangement.

And, as I said, Eugène was a terribly nice guy. Besides, he had bought a small castle outside Munich, in Ismaning, at just the right distance from town to ride out there in the morning and then have breakfast with sister, brother-in-law and nieces and nephews ... which Ludwig, when he was in Munich, did regularly. Apparently his aversion to all things French did not extend to breakfast.

Queen Karoline of Bavaria, second wife to Max Joseph and stepmother to Auguste. Which I guess makes her Eugène’s stepmother-in-law? In short: Undecided. In theory, she couldn't stand Eugène. In theory, she never forgave him for stealing her little brother's bride. In theory, she was forbidden to like the guy if only because he was Napoleon's stepson and she didn't like Napoleon, being sister to the tsarina. But in practice it was always so hard to keep up that dislike once you met him, with him being so damn charming.

When Eugène came to Bavaria, relations were quite strained, especially between Auguste and Karoline. On the other hand, Eugène simply became part of the family. There are touching letters from Karoline about Eugène's death, in which she describes in detail to her mother how he was no longer able to speak at the end and took her hand and put it on his heart to say goodbye ... when reading this, one has the feeling that she was truely very touched and that she really had to get something off her chest.

By the way, there was a second source of conflict between Eugène and Karoline: Karoline's sister, Friederike, was the wife of ousted King Gustav of Sweden. And Eugène married his daughter to the son of the "usurper" Bernadotte. Karoline was not happy about this.

Auguste’s younger brother, Karl Theodor, called »Charles« in the family. He was still a child when Auguste left for Italy but seems to have liked Eugène from the beginning. In spring 1813, when Eugène was at the head of what was left of the Grande Armée, Karl Theodor wrote him an urgent letter and begged that Eugène would call him to the army as his ADC. Eugène, having his hands full with generals who turned blind and deaf with shock when orders came in, and soldiers who broke down in fear at the word "cossack", wrote back politely but firmly that now was a very bad time. Maybe later, when war resembled war again.

During his time in Bavaria, Karl Theodor was one of Eugène's friends in Munich, but he was only the second son, with future King Ludwig calling the shots. Eugène made him executor of his will.

How Auguste's younger sister Charlotte, the family's ugly duckling, viewed Eugène, I don't know, but she seems to have been more on Ludwig's side. Auguste's younger half-sisters, born of Max Joseph's marriage to Karoline, were close in age to Eugène's children, with whom they often played together. It is said of Ludwig's eldest son, the future King Maximilian II, that he always retained very positive memories of his French uncle, especially because Eugène was the exact opposite of the authoritarian, stubborn and stingy Ludwig.

And then there is somebody who was not officially part of the family, but factually: Auguste's old governess, Madame de Wurmb, called "Machère", whom Eugène had, so to speak, co-wed. "Machère" had substituted for Auguste's mother, deceased at an early age, and meant a great deal to her. Throughout her life, she kept a strict regime over her former pupil and, since she accompanied Auguste to Italy as a lady-in-waiting, also over Auguste's husband. Planat de la Faye, who met her in 1822, gives a rather amusing description of her. She had still been brought up in "Ancien Régime" Paris and lived entirely according to its principles (or what she regarded as its principles). When, after the end of the Empire, Eugène and Auguste travelled to Baden with very little luggage and entourage for financial reasons, and Eugène helped his wife into the carriage himself for want of a servant, the world came to an end for Madame de Wurmb ...

"Machère" probably never really forgave Eugène for daring, as a mere Beauharnais, to marry "her" princess. But she had to acknowledge that he made Auguste very happy, and that most of the time he really did behave as if he were a real prince (or what Machère regarded as one).

Eugène's biographer Adalbert of Bavaria suggests that Napoleon advised Eugène upon his marriage to first take the old governess to Italy and then throw her out as soon as possible. Which, of course, good-natured Eugène never did. There is a very funny anecdote about the first meeting between "Machère" and Napoleon, which Napoleon himself reported and which I will reproduce here soon anyway. In his letters to Auguste, Napoleon sent greetings to the lady every now and then - or maybe that was his way of finding out if the old dragon was still there and if it was already safe to visit Italy...

[the-desolated-quill]

Doctor Strange - Marvel Cinematic Universe blog (as requested by 1000+ followers)

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Before I start, I just want to say thank you again to all one thousand of my followers (still can’t believe it. That number just doesn’t seem real. LOL). And, as promised, here’s my review of Doctor Strange. I chose to review this movie to mark getting one thousand followers because people have been wanting me to do this review for a long time now (nearly three years in fact) and also because it was this movie, or rather my harsh criticism of this movie, that arguably cemented my reputation on this site. So here we go. Hope you feel it was worth the wait. Enjoy :)

2016. A year of ups and downs to be sure. While it will forever be infamous for the Brexit referendum result, Trump’s victory in the presidential elections and many much beloved celebrity icons dropping dead like fruit flies, it was also the year where two of my all time favourite comic book characters would finally make the jump to the big screen. The first was Deadpool. The second was Doctor Strange. Two characters I thought would never get movie adaptations on account of them both being somewhat niche products. Deadpool was a violent, anarchic parody of antiheroes like Wolverine and the Punisher, while Doctor Strange was a psychedelic fantasy story focused on existentialism and Zen philosophy as well as having its themes and influences deep rooted in various Asian cultures and mythologies. Not exactly mainstream. And yet, against all the odds, both movies found great success at the box office. The difference being Deadpool managed to stay true to the tone and themes of the source material, whereas Doctor Strange... oh dear.

Now my long term followers will be very much aware of my stance on this movie. At the time I refused to watch it due to the casting of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, viewing it as not only racist erasure, but also demonstrating a severe lack of understanding on the filmmaker’s part. East Asia isn’t just used as window dressing. It’s vitally important to the story as a whole, so discarding it would be incredibly moronic as well as deeply offensive. Now I’m not going to go into all the reasons why the whitewashing of the Ancient One is racist and why all the excuses Marvel gave at the time was bullshit as I’ve already explained these reasons ad nauseum various times before. If you’re curious, read Doctor Yellowface And The Bullshit Machine, where I explain it all in excruciating detail. Here I’m just going to say that this movie is racist. That’s not my opinion. It’s demonstrably, objectively, scientifically, factually and literally true. If you think otherwise, you’re an idiot. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200. With this in mind, when I sat down to watch this for the first time, I expected to be angered and outraged by it throughout. But I wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a bad movie and a bad adaptation of Doctor Strange, but honestly the most remarkable thing about this movie is how unremarkable it is. Which is a problem in more ways than one, but now we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Lets start with the things I liked. Don’t worry. This won’t take long. There really isn’t that much to like about this film frankly. Even the bits I like have massive caveats to them.

My first shiny gold star has to go to Benedict Wong as Wong. Now as much as I love the comics, I’ll be the first to admit it has massive problems when it comes to how it presents Asian characters. So I’m pleased to report that Wong is the only aspect of the film that’s actually better than the source material. Whereas comic book Wong was Doctor Strange’s manservant, movie Wong plays more of a mentor role in Strange’s story. He’s the librarian of Kamar-Taj, guarding the sacred tomes, and is actually at a higher rank than Strange, which I love. It’s a good shift that refreshes the dynamic between them, and Benedict Wong’s deadpan delivery is exceptional. I just wish we could have spent more time with Wong and Strange. Maybe see Wong actually teach him something.

The second praiseworthy element of the film is the visual effects. This film was nominated for an Academy Award and... yeah, can’t argue with that. The CGI is fairly good for the most part. My favourite part of the whole film was when the Ancient One shows Strange the multiverse for the first time. The visual effects team clearly had a lot of fun coming up with weird and wonderful worlds that we only get a short tantalising glimpse of. (the dimension of hands gave me the shivers). This sequence came the closest to realising Steve Ditko’s vision in my opinion. Beyond that all we see for the rest of the movie is the poxy mirror dimension, which admittedly is cool at first, but quickly becomes dull and repetitive each time its trotted out. There’s even an entire fight sequence between Strange, Mordo and Kaecilius in a distorted version of New York, which would have been impressive if Christopher Nolan hadn’t done it first in Inception. And the less said about the technicolor monstrosity that was the Dark Dimension, the better.

Finally there’s Benedict Cumberbatch as Strange himself. I know some people were disappointed that Marvel didn’t racebend the character and I would have preferred that to, but if we must have a white guy in the role, I’m glad it’s Cumberbatch. He does a decent job in the role and there are moments where Strange almost leaps from the page and onto the screen.

Almost.

Because that’s the problem. Cumberbatch does the best he can, but he’s ultimately let down by the script. This film has a lot of issues, but by far the biggest is the title character. He may be called Doctor Strange, but he’s really Doctor Strange in name only. I was a massive fan of the comics growing up and I’m telling you this guy isn’t Doctor Strange. At least not the Doctor Strange I remember. And the weird thing is this seems almost by design. In order to show him to a mainstream audience, Marvel seem to have felt the need to completely sanitise the character, removing everything about him that made him unique and interesting in order to fit the expectations of the lowest common denominator.

Let me explain.

People often compare Strange unfavourably to Iron Man, and I can understand why to a certain extent. Both represent the epitome of white privilege and materialist obsession and their origin stories focus very heavily on criticising and deconstructing these inherently selfish and unlikable characters. Iron Man is about forcing a capitalist industrialist to take responsibility for the consequences of his actions, whereas Doctor Strange is about forcing an egocentric man to care about the wider world outside of his own bubble of privilege. Both may sound similar, but there’s a key difference between the two. Iron Man’s origin revolves around responsibility whereas Doctor Strange’s origin revolves around relativity. This needs to be understood if you’re going to attempt to adapt Strange and director Scott Derrickson doesn’t seem to understand that at all.

The fatal mistake Derrickson makes with this movie is that he’s trying to make Strange like Iron Man without fully understanding what made the first Iron Man movie good and what sets Strange apart. He’s clearly hit upon the arrogant, egocentric thing, but the problem is people exhibit arrogance and egocentricity in different ways. The comics understood this. Iron Man’s arrogance takes the form of this charismatic, devil may care kind of attitude, whereas Strange’s arrogance was more along the lines of an Ebenezer Scrooge type figure. Someone who’s cold and uncaring. Someone like...

Yeah! Someone like Dr Gregory House from the TV series House M.D.

See, if Iron Man is like Elon Musk, Doctor Strange is like House. Both are arrogant, but in different ways. So to see movie Strange acting all smug and making quips and one liners just didn’t feel right. Which is not to say Strange can’t be funny. The comics had their humorous moments, but it’s not the same kind of humour as Iron Man. Strange should be more cutting. More snarky. He needs to have more of a bite to him. Instead we get the poor man’s version of Robert Downey Jr.

But wait, because it’s actually worse than that. It’s not just Strange’s personality that’s different. Our perception of him is different too. The first Iron Man movie was extremely clear in how we should view Tony Stark. The gambling, the drinking, his lack of responsibility and the way he takes his friends and co-workers for granted. We’re clearly not supposed to like him. That’s why his character arc works. We’re seeing this selfish individual realise how selfish he is and try to make amends. Strange should be similar. He’s a callous arsehole who won’t lift a finger to help someone if the case isn’t interesting enough, seeing it as beneath him. So when the car accident occurs, him getting nerve damage in his hands feels less like a tragedy and more like karma. The universe punishing Strange for his selfish behaviour and forcing him to change. In the movie however, he doesn’t seem like that at all. In fact kind of the opposite. He doesn’t object to helping his ex girlfriend get a bullet out of a patient’s head and he seems to get on well with most of his colleagues, including his ex. Sure he’s a bit of a dick, but he still seems nice enough. The only time we see his Scroogeness come out is after the accident, at which point it’s hard to hate him even after he berates his ex because he’s a decent guy who’s understandably frustrated, which absolutely should not be the case. Strange is a bastard who cares for no one but himself. We’re not supposed to like him. But Marvel and Disney are so preoccupied about getting bums on seats that they’ve actually managed to strip away all the elements that make Strange Strange.

And then there’s the origin story itself, which the film gets completely wrong. Sure the basic elements are still there. Strange, in a last ditch effort to save his hands, travels East to see the Ancient One (except the Ancient One is now in Nepal instead of Tibet because of the Chinese market, but apparently they still can’t cast an Asian person as the Ancient One even though the film no longer has anything to do with Tibet and therefore there should be no issue. Marvel are racist dicks. Case closed), but beyond that everything is changed. In the comics, the Ancient One refuses to heal Strange’s hands because he’s a selfish arsehole who deserves no pity or help from anyone, but then when Baron Mordo tries to assassinate the Ancient One, Strange does the first selfless thing he’s ever done in his miserable life and tries to warn the Ancient One despite having his mouth magically sealed shut by Mordo. Then it’s later revealed that his mouth wasn’t sealed shut at all, and that the Ancient One knew all along Mordo was planning to assassinate him and was merely testing Strange, at which point he invites the good doctor to practice magic in order to stop Mordo in the future. In the movie however, Strange gets kicked out by the Ancient One only to then promptly get let back in after banging on their front door for several hours and gets taught all these spells despite showing no sign of selflessness or willingness to change whatsoever. Oh yeah, and Strange and Mordo are now total besties.

Do you see what I mean about this being a bad adaptation? There’s no longer any conflict. No character arcs. No one learns anything. Everything is just hunky dory and Strange is just magically a good person now. This is truly shit writing.

Everything about this movie seems to have been designed to be as bland and uncomplicated as possible. All the Asian influences and philosophies have been surgically removed to make way for a generic, knock-off Hogwarts for Dummies. The interesting plots and themes have been replaced with a by-the-numbers save the world plot. Even the lore has been simplified to an almost insulting degree. Take the Eye of Agamotto for instance. A powerful magical artefact created by and named after the most powerful sorcerer that ever lived.... reduced to a fucking Infinity Stone.

Oh and the Cloak of Levitation now has a mind and personality of its own because why the fuck not? Who wants to watch something intelligent or philosophical? Lets just make a shitty cross between Harry Potter and Mr. Bean.

And then... there’s the white saviour stuff.

Now I confess I haven’t read the comics for quite some time, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Strange didn’t have a photographic memory. Yet in the movie, that’s the convenient explanation we’re given for why Strange is somehow able to learn complex spells in a matter of days. Spells that are apparently meant to take years to learn, like astral projection and time manipulation. Now the comics had this problem too, what with proclaiming that Strange is not only the Sorcerer Supreme, but the most powerful Sorcerer Supreme that’s ever lived, as though his white skin were like the star power-up from Super Mario Bros, but the movie seems to go out of its way to double down on this bollocks. Oh sure, we see him struggle to create magic portals every now and then, but it doesn’t hide the fact that he’s somehow able to create mirror worlds and time loops despite having little to no training whatsoever. He’s like Rey from Star Wars. He can just pull any random super power out of his arse when the script requires him too.

So having completely botched Strange’s characterisation and journey, how are the rest of the supporting cast? Well like I said, I like this new Wong, even though he’s criminally underused. As for the other characters, it’s a pretty forgettable bunch.

Lets start with the elephant in the room. Tilda Swinton. Having heard all the excuses under the sun as to why Marvel and Disney simply had to cast a bald white woman wearing a bathrobe in an Asian role, I was expecting something pretty spectacular from Swinton, especially after all the praise critics gave her. Instead we get... well... a pretty dull character actually. In fact I’d go as far to say that this is the blandest and most uninspired performance I think I’ve ever seen Swinton give. There’s just nothing there. Now admittedly the Ancient One wasn’t all that complex or well developed in the comics neither, being little more than a racial caricature, but I thought the whole reason they whitewashed the character was to make him/her ‘enigmatic and ethereal.’ Instead we just get the same generic mentor figure we’ve seen dozens of times before. All the stuff about her tapping into the powers of Dormammu to increase her lifespan could have made her more interesting, but the film never fully capitalises on this revelation before she kicks the bucket.

Baron Mordo is pretty much just dead weight, with the great Chiwetel Ejiofor utterly wasted in the role. He’s essentially reduced to being yet another black sidekick for the white lead. Again, the comic book version isn’t all that great neither, but the movie replaces this camp pantomime villain with absolutely bugger all. We don’t get to see any real conflict between him and Strange until the very end and even then it doesn’t really make sense. Mordo is a stickler for rules and so gets pissy with Strange when he breaks the rules in order to save the world, to which I can only ask... what else could he have done? I didn’t see you come up with any bright ideas Mordo, you fucking moron.

Rachel McAdams... exists.

Seriously, why is she in this movie? Why does Doctor Strange need a love interest? Why not just wait and introduce Clea? I could get behind using an ex girlfriend to display how selfish and narcissistic Strange is (a bit cliche I admit, but this is an MCU film we’re talking about. I’m not exactly expecting Citizen Kane here), but as I said before, the two seem to get on quite well. And other than stitching up a stab wound, Christine Palmer pretty much does nothing throughout the majority of the film. So what is she even doing there?

Also it appears the film’s racism doesn’t just extend to Asian people because it turns out Christine Palmer is actually Night Nurse in the comics. The same mantle Claire Temple has, who appears in Marvel’s Netflix shows. Not only does this come off as quite alarmingly racist, it’s also just plain weird. For all their boasts about wanting to create a shared universe, Marvel seems to spend every opportunity it can find to keep the Netflix stuff at arms’ length, to the point where you question why they’re even in the same continuity in the first place. If Strange must have some human connection, why couldn’t it have been Claire Temple? For one thing, Claire’s character is much more interesting than Christine’s (and Rosario Dawson is a much better actor than McAdams. Sorry, but it’s true), and it would be a great opportunity to bridge the gap between the movies and Netflix shows without having to bog the narrative down with exposition. But as I’ve said numerous times in the past, Marvel are more interested in creating a BIG shared universe than a coherent one.

Finally there’s the villains. Nearly always the worst aspect of any MCU film and Strange is no different. We have Kaecilius, played by Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen whose performance is more wooden than Pinocchio, and Dormammu, played by Benedict Cumberbatch who seems to be competing with Andy Serkis as to who can play the most CGI/motion capture characters. Both, unsurprisingly, are shite. Kaecilius wants to save the world from death by allowing Dormammu to destroy it.

I don’t get it either.

So you’re probably wondering who was Kaecilius in the comics. I mean I’ve explained everything else, haven’t I? And honestly, I haven’t the faintest idea. Turns out he was a henchman of Baron Mordo who I completely forgot about because he barely ever shows up in the comics. So... they turned Baron Mordo into the black sidekick so that the villain could be played by a white guy. Oh. And guess what race Kaecilius is in the comics.

YYYYYep. He’s Asian. I guess all the Asian actors were sick that day, so they had to cast a white guy.

Oh and you’ll never guess what his backstory is. You’re right! He has none! Other than references to some tragedy, we know absolutely fuck all about him. Critics actually liked this movie?!?!

Oh and don’t get me started on the humour.

Kaecilius: “Mr...?”

Strange: “Doctor.”

Kaecilius: “Mr. Doctor?”

Strange: “No, it’s Strange.”

Kaecilius: “I guess so. Who am I to judge?”

Dear God, someone was paid to write that.

Then there’s the Big Bad Dormammu from the Dark Dimension. (Yes, the same Dark Dimension from Agent Carter and nope, that’s never referenced. In fact this doesn’t even look like the same Dark Dimension as the one from Agent Carter. Although, to be fair, I’d want to forget Season 2 happened as well considering how fucking terrible it was, but come on guys!). In the comics Dormammu is a mystical entity that has a quote ‘unnatural obsession with our material universe’. Could be interesting to explore. Oh but I forget, this is an MCU film. They don’t want interesting. They want safe. So instead we get a purple, floating CGI head and the generic destroyer of worlds archetype. (In fact Dormammu weirdly has more in common with Galactus than the actual Dormammu. Sometimes I wonder if anyone at Marvel Studios have ever even so much as glanced at one of their own comics before).

In conclusion, is this the worst film I’ve ever seen? Admittedly no. It’s not that bad. If you switch your brain off, I can imagine someone having a good time with this film. But you see that’s the problem. You shouldn’t have to switch your brain off to enjoy Doctor Strange. If anything the opposite is true. The comics, despite their faults, were intelligent, surreal and thought provoking, asking questions about our universe and our place within it. Steve Ditko (and only Steve Ditko. The late Stan Lee may have put pen to paper, but it was ultimately Ditko’s ideas and vision, which makes the gratuitous Stan Lee cameo in this film particularly galling to me) created something truly captivating in Doctor Strange. Despite the racial caricatures and white saviour tropes, I still love these comics because of how it explores the world and our relation to that world. How we are just small cogs in a massive and intricate machine. It’s truly groundbreaking and would influence many other comics to come. The Doctor Strange movie doesn’t even begin to do that. It won’t influence anyone. It won’t make anyone think or question their role in the cosmos. In fact, three years later, despite being a huge box office success, it’s largely been forgotten. And that’s a crying shame because Strange deserves so much more.

Doctor Strange may not be the worst comic book movie ever made, but it’s a terrible adaptation of the source material. Anything that made it unique or interesting was carefully removed with surgical precision under the guise of making it more progressive, when in reality they just wanted to make it profitable. But profitable doesn’t mean good, and Doctor Strange doesn’t even come close to being a good movie. I would love to have seen what a director like David Lynch or Ang Lee would have done with this psychedelic material. This movie could and should have been the most intelligent and surreal comic book movie that’s ever been made. A perfect opportunity to allow a visionary filmmaker to go wild and express themselves artistically. Instead it’s just another MCU movie. It’s such a shame.

And people wonder why I’m worried about Deadpool joining the MCU.

[artificialqueens]

Halfway Around The World (Witney) - Albatross

AN: Inspired by a request for a Witney fic based off of the Race Chaser quotes “I would fly across the world to see her” and “I would fly halfway around the world”. Or, three times Willam tried to surprise Courtney and one time Courtney surprised Willam (with help from Alaska).

In the spirit of full transparency, I have not been doing well in terms of motivation to write. There’s a lot of factors that have gone into this but for the past few weeks its really been a major struggle because I love to write and have so many ideas that I want to work on and share with you all. I’m trying to work past it and right now the best way seems to just be focusing on one story at a time and of course the one that is of the most interest to me at the moment. Originally I had a schedule planned where I would work on my older ideas first until I was caught up but for the time being I’m gonna try to follow where my motivation is leading me and start on the magical girls fic. Right now it looks like its going to be 5 chapters long plus a prologue just for background purposes. I’m hoping that I’ll have the prologue and first chapter up in the next few weeks but I’m not gonna rush myself or make any promises about the timing until I’m happy with how its turning out.

He told himself he was fine when Courtney announced that she was moving to the UK. Honestly he had kind of guessed that this was coming but it still caught him by surprise with how sudden her decision seemed to be made. It was a little hasty in his opinion but also not his call to make so he simply wished her luck and assisted where he could as she prepared to move overseas.

This wasn’t something entirely unusual with drag queens; follow the money and the fans and right now her popularity was soaring in the UK so why not stay there and ride it out as long as she could?

Willam understood that logic; that’s what prompted his own move to LA after all but still…it hurt that she hadn’t really talked with him about it beforehand…and he had to admit; it was going to be quite a change not to be able to go over to her apartment whenever he wanted. Not that he was that frequent of a visitor anyway with their own conflicting schedules most of the time but it was nice to have that option available.

The first few weeks after her departure continued on as they normally would have; he was booked and busy and hardly gave her absence a thought. There was no point; they were still texting and calling just as much so it was almost like she was still living in the US. The moment her move really hit him was following a return from a successful but tiring string of shows and his immediate thought upon returning to the city was to go see her. Despite her grumbling she would always let him into her apartment (he had the door code after all so why not let him inside?) where he’d plop down on her couch, pick at some of the vegan snack she’d undoubtedly be eating, snide comments to follow, and the pair would catch up on whatever they missed since the last time they saw one another.

It was so routine that Willam was already in the car and five minutes away from his home before he recalled that she was no longer in the city. A wave of unknown and confusing emotion swept through him but he quickly pushed that aside and continued driving instead towards the grocery store. He was already heading that direction so why not make the most of his trip anyway now that visiting Courtney was out of the question?

As the weeks turned into months, Willam still thought he was handling the separation rather well. He was spending time with other friends, Alaska most of all, so there was always a distraction when he needed one. One of his particular go-tos happened to be their new podcast; still a baby in terms of the amount of episodes they produced but it was rapidly taking off with the fans. And it was something else to focus his attention on in his down time. In some cases he and Alaska were able to record in his studio and he had to admit it was nice spending time with her. Although they were technically working it never felt like that; they always kept things light and easy-going so the hours simply flew by.

More often than not after the recording was finished she’d end up staying long after the rest of Willam’s employees had left and they’d either smoke and chat or find somewhere to eat. It was during one of these sessions that Willam was forced to face an unsettling truth.

Somehow their lazy conversation had turned to how Courtney was doing and being the one that was most recently in contact with her, Willam felt obliged to fill in the blanks. He scrolled through her messages as he recounted all of the things they shared with each other either verbally or through text and proceeded to show Alaska nearly every picture that had been sent to him. An amused smile rested on her lips as she listened to him run through his gushing with an almost child-like enthusiasm until he finally reached the end of all the possible updates he could share.

As soon as there was a lull in his speech, Alaska stated matter-of-factually, “You miss her.”

There was no question in her tone, no hesitance; just her telling him something that he ought to have known all along. Those three simple words caught him by surprise and like a flood gate opening, he felt a sudden clenching around his heart. He tried to examine his feelings as objectively as possible but only one conclusion was ever reached. In a vaguely pensive and distracted voice, he agreed, “Yeah, I guess I do.”

For the remainder of Alaska’s visit he firmly pushed aside any other talk or thought of Courtney. However the same couldn’t be said when he finally returned home that night. Once he was finally alone, there was little he could do to prevent his mind from drifting back to the older blonde. The more he thought about it, the harder it was to deny that for awhile now he had missed her far more than he’d ever admit, even to himself.

For so long he had refused to even entertain the thought of it that it finally took Alaska setting him straight before he fully understood the reality of his situation. He had to face facts; he missed Courtney…a lot…and right now, he was able to use work and friends to keep himself distracted but how long would it be before even that wasn’t enough?

He honestly didn’t want to find out.

*******

A simple solution presented itself in his mind; if he missed her, why not go see her?

It was all very logical, at least on paper. Throw in their career commitments and the actual amount of distance and suddenly the situation became a lot more difficult…but not impossible, he argued.

With little persuasion needed, he convinced Rhea to join him on a short touring sprint throughout the UK. He wasn’t sure where exactly Courtney was staying but by hitting some of the major cities he hoped one of them would end up being close. It all seemed to be perfectly planned in his mind; he advertised the dates a bit more heavily than he normally would, knowing that eventually Courtney would see it, and let his mind rest easy until the time came to actually depart for the airport.

But it was odd, he noticed.

He would have thought by now that she’d have mentioned the shows at some point during their conversations. Yet she remained silent on the topic…Perhaps she was planning to surprise him…No, she couldn’t keep that a secret even with an ocean separating them.

By the time the plane landed in the UK, Willam decided he had done enough pondering over the subject and figured he might as well just ask her upfront if she would be coming to any of the shows. For the rest of the afternoon he was checking his phone almost every 10 minutes in the hopes of getting a new alert but nothing that came through was ever from her. Finally about two hours before their first appearance was set to begin, a familiar name popped up on his screen. His heart immediately began racing in his chest at least until he read the opening of unusually long block of text.

‘I’m sorry, Bill. I got a last minute booking for-’

He stopped actively reading after the first sentence, the message was clear enough; she was busy in another country, Spain he thought possibly, but no matter where it was, she wouldn’t be able to attend any of the dates…she just wouldn’t be able to make it back in time.

He waited until well after that night’s show had finished before sending a follow up text assuring her that it was okay, that they’d catch each other the next time but his heart just wasn’t in it. He was angry…with her and himself. He hadn’t directly mentioned anything to her nor had she ever said that she’d be able to attend but it was still all too easy to allow himself to be mad at her. Anything to take the blame off of the pathetic state he found himself suddenly in.

The rest of their mini tour continued without a hitch and eventually Willam found himself calming down. Around the fans it was practically second nature to slip into a friendly, happy-to-be-here mode but as soon as he was alone, he could do very little to hide how miserable he actually was. Thankfully few dared to comment on it and by the fourth day he was at least able to act like everything was all right.

He still talked with Courtney at least once a week but after coming so close to seeing her in person, it felt like even hearing her voice just wasn’t enough. Gradually he fell into FaceTiming her more frequently. If she had any suspicions about his true intentions she never voiced them. Honestly she seemed elated to see him as well, even if it were only through a screen.

Between the two of them, days worth of calls and video must have been accumulated in their ever increasing efforts to stay connected. Willam for one felt a little less lonely during these times but almost immediately after they hung up, when it was only his face staring back at him from a blank screen, more often than not it felt like his heart had dropped to his stomach.

He knew he couldn’t continue on like this for much longer.

He had to see her, but how?

There was a fleeting idea of trying to connect with her in UK again now that she seemed to be stationary there but something always held him back. More than once he found himself pricing flights and hotels but before committing himself to anything he’d always close out the page and step away from his laptop. There was one final instance of this where he came so close, he even had the websites pulled up as he chatted away with her on the phone but yet again an unexpected problem quickly arose.

The conversation began easily enough, Willam was discussing his next sprint of touring; a full 42 days and happened to casually mention that he was thinking of taking a vacation afterwards. A small smile found its way to his lips as Courtney readily agreed with him that it would be well deserved but at the moment when he thought she would suggest coming to visit, she instead interjected, almost as though it were afterthought, that she was about to depart for her own new adventure. This time it would involved a return to her homeland.

As her pitch rose in excitement, Willam’s spirits dropped until it felt like there was a heavy weight on his chest. He missed part of what she said next, other than reminding him to be sure not to mention it to anyone else until she formally announced it herself, but after a brief period of shock he gathered that she would be appearing on some dancing show. It didn’t matter to him what the title was, all that stuck out to him was yet another missed opportunity because he waited too long to act.

On the surface he made sure to keep a bright smile as he congratulated her and wished her luck but in reality he was just barely himself together at that point. He was surprised to learn that he was more than a bit envious at how easily she seemed to be handling their separation. It hardly seemed like it was affecting her at all yet here he was, almost a wreck because he couldn’t see her, couldn’t touch her as he once been able to. Momentarily he wondered how he had become so pathetic, so needy and reliant on her but his thoughts quickly cycled back to their previous tours together. Back then it seemed so common that they would have shared shows every couple of months. And even if that weren’t the case their homes weren’t all that far apart. They could easily stop over for a quick visit between their hectic touring schedules.

In short, he missed that predictability; that no matter how far apart they were, at the very least they’d find their way back to LA and reunite for a few days. He missed his friend with a far greater depth than he suspected he felt for anyone else…and that thought shook him right to his core.

******* Following his revelation of this latest set back Willam was grateful that his new leg of touring was set to begin in just a few short weeks. Anything was welcomed at this point as a form of distraction. Although previously their podcast served that purpose, there were times now when Willam would dread reconnecting with Alaska. She never mentioned it directly but Willam rather suspected that she understood his situation far more than what she’d dare comment on. It wasn’t that she was purposefully avoiding the subject, more like she wanted to give him space as he figured things out.

For months it felt like, he debated on what his next step ought to be. Courtney was doing so well on her show and so long as that remained true, she’d stay put in Australia. But she was so busy aside from dance practice. Willam just couldn’t bring himself to pop over there in the midst of all her hard work. The last thing he wanted was to be a distraction for her…and though he hated to admit it, he was terrified of what her reaction might be. Even now with a screen separating them he still felt so exposed whenever they would speak, like one word would instantly betray everything he’s kept hidden away while talking with her. He just wasn’t sure if he could put himself out there when rejection seemed a very likely outcome.

But finally Dancing With The Stars came to an end and though Courtney and her partner ultimately lost, Willam couldn’t be any more proud of her. Every time he saw her dancing, she just looked so happy and after ignoring the tossing and turning in his stomach, he pushed himself to book a seat on the next reasonable looking flight.

To his surprise as the plane left the airport the following week, he felt unusually calm, almost in the same manner as if he were returning home after being away for several months. The journey was long and he hardly slept yet once he landed on foreign soil he felt more awake than he had been almost any other time that he traveled overseas. Upon checking into his hotel and unpacking his toiletries, Willam’s next move was to call Vanity. If anyone knew where to find Courtney as she gallivanted around the city, it’d be her.

After two full sets of ringing, a surprised and pleased voice answered his call, “Hey, Willam! What’s going on? New order come out alright?”

A smile found its way to his lips as he recalled the last wig he had ordered from her; a truly spectacular piece he couldn’t wait to feature on BeatDown after a few minor adjustments.

“Looks great,” he replied honestly, “Can’t wait to try her out…”

From there the two talked shop for a good 10 minutes followed by a quick session of catching up before Willam found a way to work in the true reason he called. Trying to sound as casual as he could manage as his pulse raced away in his ears, he asked the native Aussie, “You and Court up to anything tonight?”

The response came back all too quick and through the thick accent Willam felt his expectations shatter to bits and pieces, “No, she left two days ago.”

Willam was shocked, barely able to catch his breath as he tried to force his brain to come up with any kind of reply. After what certainly was too long to avoid arousing suspicion, he was finally able to mutter a simple, “Oh…”

“Didn’t she tell you?” Vanity questioned with evident confusion in her voice.

“No, I…I didn’t ask.”

There was another pregnant pause where Willam would swear he could hear the gears turning around in her head. The hand holding his phone was trembling as he fought against the urge to hang up right that second. Finally after what felt like an hour but was barely more than a few seconds, Vanity asked very cautiously, “Willam…where are you right now?”

“I…” his voice broke off as he realized just how vulnerable he had let himself become in those brief moments. No part of him wanted to admit what he done so foolishly but before he could help himself, he heard a voice he barely recognized admitting, “I’m about 20 minutes from your apartment.”

“Oh…baby,” the empathetic words slipped from her lips and shot themselves straight into his heart. His throat was threatening to clench shut as he heard her quickly offer, “Do you want to meet up? Drink or get a bite to eat?”

Tears pricked at his eyes but immediately his hand shot up to rub them away as he replied back in what he hoped was a level tone, “No, that’s…that’s okay. I’m a bit tired.”

“Alright,” she relented, sounding entirely unconvinced of his excuse. “If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

“Right,” he agreed with a shaky laugh, “Thanks…”

Before ending the call, he pleaded with her, “Please…Don’t tell Courtney about this.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

He knew he could trust her not to mention anything to the blonde but as for himself? What was he going to do now?

******* With the same bull-headed stubbornness he had come to be known for, Willam forced himself to stay for the full duration of his 'vacation’. It was tempting, almost too much so, to run back to the US with his tail between his legs but pride wouldn’t allow him to give in so easily. He tried to convince himself that he was enjoying his time away from everyone, for once fully cut off from anyone he knew, Vanity included. Though he was tempted to be polite and at least meet her for a quick drink, he was too humiliated to face her in person. All he did instead was exchange a few short texts and sequestered himself away from anyone else.

By the time Willam landed back in LA his mood had taken a sharp turn for the worse. He was angry and mortified and above all, just plain miserable at this spectacularly failed final attempt to see Courtney. He knew himself well enough to recognize that it’d be best not to see anyone in this state but at times it just couldn’t be helped. There were obligations to his career after all but try as he might, he was a bit more snappish with those around him than he would have been under normal circumstances. Most had taken to avoiding him for the time being, except of course for Alaska. She understood all too well what the likely reason was behind Willam’s behavior and finally confronted him after they finished recording the latest episode of Race Chaser.

Without a hint judgement in her voice, she questioned him, “Courtney?”

Willam’s eyes blew wide with fear and embarrassment. He turned away out of shame and proceeded to begin cleaning up the mess they had made during their recording but not before giving a brief, reluctant nod of confirmation.

As Willam kept his hands busy and mind distracted, Alaska tried to work out just what might have happened between the pair. She was sure if they had a fight she would have heard him mention some inkling of it but she had barely talked to him for the last few weeks aside from business, never mind actually seeing-

“Oh,” she murmured in realization. Her heart had begun to break for her friend as she pieced together what he had probably done.

Standing up from her seat, she placed a hand on his shoulder to stop his frantic cleaning efforts and asked gently, “You tried to see her…didn’t you?”

His fingers were shaking and lip quivering as he tried to bite back the flurry of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. Though he couldn’t bring himself to answer, she already knew she had guessed correctly. Almost immediately she pulled him into a tight embrace and in a truly unexpected fashion he was instantly clinging to her like she was his own life support system.

“I miss her so much,” he confessed quietly as he buried himself into her neck.

A part of him hoped that she hadn’t heard that but soon he felt her hand running across his back while she whispered, “I know…it’s gonna get better. I promise.”

She meant well but Willam just couldn’t find a trace of himself that believed her right now.

******* After his mostly private break down in Alaska’s arms, Willam’s attitude had undergone another drastic development. He apologized to those he had been short with but he was far from the normally happy and campy queen everyone had come to know. A cloud of misery seemed to hang over him despite his best attempts to remain upbeat and positive. It was easiest to pretend at his shows but when he was alone and there was no such reason to put on that mask? Well, he was an absolutely pitiful, soul-crushed mess.

About the only thing that broke him out of that state for even a short while was the time he spent with close friends, particularly his chats with Courtney. He had fallen out of contact with her during his period of misdirected anger but once he had finally snapped out of that phase he was all too eager to resume the same level of communication they arranged prior to his impromptu visit to Australia.

Hardly a day went by where they weren’t at the very least exchanging a few texts back and forth. Their preferred method of speaking to one another was still video chats but with Willam’s touring schedule resuming and Courtney’s own various appointments picking up again, it was harder to set aside solid blocks of time for that activity. Even calls had become shorter but through text they could still maintain a deep conversation spanning across several hours.

One particular night they were following this routine between rehearsals and finally the actual show of yet another live version of Race Chaser, this time gracing the East Coast with their presence. Willam and Alaska had longed to bring the show back to their hometown coast and finally after finding a suitable venue where they could expect a large crowd, everything was arranged and booked.

The show itself was everything they could have hoped for after having so much success with it in the West. The fans loved every second of their banter and antics and special guests. They were sure they’d be bringing the show back for another round sometime soon.

Hours slipped by until the last fan finally left the meet and greet and the queens were able to return to their dressing room. Both of them were eager to check their phones and almost instantly after typing a quick message to Courtney, he found a reply sent back. He figured he must have caught her as she was finishing up her own schedule for the day as well. Like he was in a trance, Willam allowed himself to become absorbed by his phone and the rapid-fire conversation that had picked up with the missing blonde. He was unusually slow as he de-dragged himself but Alaska didn’t make a comment on it. Actually, she didn’t seem to be any particular rush either as she tapped away at her own illuminated screen.

Almost repacked and back in his street clothes, Willam sat down in one of the empty chairs and focused himself almost exclusively on Courtney. Their conversation had reached that lazy comfortable stage that he wanted to last for as long as possible before one of them fell asleep. By this time Alaska looked to be pretty much ready to go but still she didn’t push her friend to hurry along. She almost seemed to be waiting for something, perhaps to talk to the venue staff before arranging a driver to take them back to the hotel.

Either way Willam was happy to lose himself in his chat with Courtney. Just vaguely as he typed away on his phone, he heard the brunette standing up from her seat and swiftly rushed out of the room. No less than a minute after Alaska had exited than Willam felt his phone vibrating in his hand with a new message of 'Do you have any plans after the show?’

He toyed with a myriad of responses in his head, ranging from an utter fucking lie of replying that he would be heading out to find some trade or just admitting that he would probably retire to his hotel room to sleep for the rest of the night but in the end, he only typed back a simple, 'No.’

An almost immediate response appeared on his screen of 'Good,’ but before he could question it any further, Willam heard Alaska reentering the room. Very purposefully she walked directly in front of him with a confident and smug look on her face yet for once she was absolutely silent. Taking the bait with a brow arched in genuine suspicion, Willam opened his mouth to question her cocky little grin but a pair of familiar arms enclosing him from behind instantly shoved any sort of smartass remark right out of his mind.

Even before he heard her voice, Willam recognized the comforting embrace he’d been missing in the past year. Just low enough for Alaska to barely make out, Courtney cooed into his ear, “Hey, Bill.”

There was an unmistakable tone of relief and longing in her voice but that seemed to pale in comparison to the similar emotions that threaten to overwhelm the dirty blonde. Firmly swallowing back the pricking of tears in his eyes, Willam shot up from his seat and spun around to face the shorter queen. She held a sheepish grin as she took a slight step back and waited as they decided what the next move ought to be.

The pair stared at each other in near silence, Courtney somewhat embarrassed by showing up out of the blue and Willam in utter disbelief that the blonde was actually here in front of him rather than just through an LED screen. Sensing the need for privacy for the three, at least for these first few moments, Alaska casually strolled back to the door and promptly shut it from any prying eyes of the staff that might dare to peak in. Nearly the second the faux wood hit the frame, Courtney pushed herself forward to wrap her arms around Willam in a manner that almost made her cringe from how immediately clingy she had already become.

Her voice came out just a bit choked as she murmured softly, “I missed you.”

Of their own accord, Willam felt his arms returning the gesture with almost an equivalent amount of passion but still he couldn’t stop himself from retorting, “Of course you did; I’m fucking awesome.”

******* The reunion lasted no more than five minutes before Alaska announced that she was ordering a car to drive back to the hotel. Immediately deciding to join her, Courtney and Willam packed up the remaining belongings in the dressing room and hastily followed her out to venue’s sidewalk to impatiently wait for their Lyft driver. The only small talk was made between Alaska and Courtney, the former using the brief opportunity to catch up knowing full well she wouldn’t be seeing Courtney again for the rest of the night. Though it was nice to see one of her closest friends in person again, she understood that the elder pair of queens needed this time together more than anything. She would gladly allow them to have the night to themselves while she found other activities to keep herself entertained.

Upon arriving at the hotel, the three began to part ways in the lobby but not before Willam pulled the brunette in for an unexpected hug and very sincere whisper of gratitude. True to her easy-going nature, Alaska merely shrugged her shoulders and walked off towards her room with a pleased smile at a job rather well done.

As for the remaining pair, an aura of heavy tension surrounded them as Willam guided them back to his rented room for the night. Though he tried to maintain an air of disinterest, he felt his body all but twitching with nerves as to what might happen once they were finally and truly alone together. Thoughts raced through his mind of all the things he wanted to say and do but the moment the door had shut behind Courtney and his bags were deposited on the floor, only one thought remained coherent enough to follow.

Courtney allowed her body become entirely malleable against his as he crowded her against the wall with a dazed and distracted look his eyes. She expected him to be forward yet even being so close he still seemed so reluctant to actually touch her. A distinct fear lurked in his thoughts that the second he’d make contact she might slip away from his grasp and it all would be revealed as a cruel and heartbreaking dream. Though there was so much more Courtney wanted to do in that moment now that they were reunited, she remained patient and let him move at his own pace.

Very cautiously, a trembling hand came to rest on her hip until she could just feel the curl of his fingers against the loose fabric of her cargo shorts. Finding that she was still just as solid as she had been at the club, he gradually leant in closer until only a few short inches remained between their lips. He seemed caught between wanting to initiate that contact yet still too afraid to finally cross that last boundary. A silent challenge resonated in her eyes but the most he felt confident enough to do was raise his other hand to caress her cheek as their lips remaining ghosting just a frustrating few centimeters apart.

For almost a full minute they stood like that; each almost too afraid to make any further move that would collapse what little illusion still existed between them. Finally, Courtney raised the hands she had braced in anticipation against the wall and lightly pressed them into Willam’s midsection. His eyes blew wide open in fear that perhaps he was reading the situation wrong or wasn’t moving fast enough for her. But before that thought could penetrate his consciousness too deeply, Courtney suggested in a hushed voice, “Let’s move to the bed.”

Nodding, Willam wrapped a hand gingerly around one of hers and led them in an awkward fashion towards the still made bed. If Courtney had any intention of merely sitting beside him, he seemed largely unconcerned and unaware as he immediately pulled her into his lap. Even being chest to chest with their foreheads resting against one another, the minuscule distance between their bodies still felt like too much space was left. Willam’s hands had returned to their position of clutching at her hips so tightly that she feel every flex and twitch of the muscles in his fingers. Her own hands quickly slipped past his neck and into his hair in a small attempt to prevent him from pulling away from her again. Their lips grazed against one another as she admitted in a pained whisper, “I missed you.”

Unlike before, his response this time was sincere and immediate; a heartfelt agreement of “I missed you, too.”

With those four words Courtney felt an unknown tension drain from her body and a sudden surge of confidence encouraged her to place a light peck to Willam’s lips. The contact was brief but even so it meant so much to the pair, more so than any other kiss they had shared before.

Shortly after their lips separated the dirty blonde confessed in a barely audible tone, “I tried to see you…surprise you, you know…but I was always late…I’d get there and you’d…you’d already be gone…it always happens like that. I’d always just miss you because I took too long getting there.”

The last sentence meant so much more than those few words could ever express yet the emotion that filled each syllable betrayed his true feelings all too clearly. Courtney felt her heart aching for Willam as she recognized the symbolism in both his attempts to see her and in her efforts to see him. Turning his chin up so that he would look her in the eye, she told him, “I tried to see you, too…but I’d get there too early…and then I’d get scared waiting and leave before you knew anything.”

Courtney felt a warmth rising to her cheeks as she continued on in an almost shameful manner, “I showed up at your studio a few weeks after I moved to try and catch you but only Rhea was there…she said you booked a few extra days after your tour to relax for a bit…mentioned that you wouldn’t be back in LA until the following week…She offered to let me stay with her until then but I panicked. I begged her not to tell you I stopped by…didn’t want you to know how much I really missed you or make fun of me for being such a crybaby about it.”

A halfhearted smirk worked its way onto Willam’s lips as he teased her softly, “You’re always a crybaby…”

His eyes shot to the bedspread for a moment before he found the nerve to admit, “I wish I’d been there though.”

“What would you have done if you saw me?” Courtney prodded gently as she cocked her head to the side with the inquiry.

Shrugging, Willam offered a defeated sigh of, “Fix your makeup?…I don’t know. Just…”

“Would you have done this?” the blonde asked as she ran a soothing hand through the messy tangle of curly locks wrapped around her fingers.

There was a painful, pregnant pause as she awaited his answer. He looked wracked with guilt as he finally confessed, “No.”

“Then I’m glad we missed each other since it led to…this,” She replied back with a forgiving smile. Gently cajoling him into looking at her once more, she asked, “But why didn’t you say anything about this sooner? Why’d you let it get this bad? That I had to hear about it from Alaska?”

Willam forced back a guilty swallow as a look of utter shame came to rest on his face. His eyes held a silent answer of 'You know why.’

Courtney nodded her head in an understanding she came to know all too well with her friend. They shared another short kiss before Courtney urged him, “Please…don’t be afraid to tell me next time.”

“I won’t,” Willam promised. Though he meant it to some extent, Courtney knew he was still likely to wait, at least in the beginning, before he’d swallow his pride and admit that he misses her. But that was okay. She could read him better than anyone and with any luck, she could learn to recognize the behavior before it came to this point again.

The dirty blonde’s eyes darted from Courtney to the bedspread and back again as another guilty thought was finally vocalized, “This always happens though…I’m always late…”

“And I’m always early,” Courtney remarked gently. “…Maybe that’s why we need Alaska…to help us meet in the middle somewhere.”

The pair shared a fond smile and finally allowed their lips to connect in a manner they’d been waiting for since the moment they saw each other that night. Every bit of neglected passion rose forth as they allowed their bodies to finally express the emotions they’d kept pent up and ignored for so long. Neither knew how long they stayed in that position, neither cared so long as they could finally touch the other person but eventually the aching of their bodies eventually forced them to move into a more comfortable embrace. Laying side by side, they resumed their kiss for another few seconds until Willam felt he needed to voice one final concern before they continued forward with whatever might develop from this new territory in their relationship.

“What do we do after tonight?” He asked with genuine apprehension and fear. “Your hobby is jumping from one reality show to next on any continent that’ll let your plane land…What’s gonna happen to us?”

Brushing aside the curls that had fallen into his face, Courtney replied confidently, “We can make it work. It’ll take a lot of trust, lot of compromise and a lot of patience but we’ll figure this out….We’ll find a way, we always do.”

Though he’d never admit it, he actually believed her statement with every ounce of his soul. If she believed that this could work out for them, he was more than willing to give it a good, honest chance. It would take a lot of work but if were for Courtney, it’d be more than worth it.

A bright smile of previously unknown size broke out across his face as he finally allowed himself to push aside his pride and admit without any prompting, “Court, I really missed you.”

Returning the gesture, Courtney asserted in equal measure, “I missed you too, Bill.”

[coruscantholonet]

The End of the Vreni Island crisis.

The crisis on Vreni Island begun with a Sith attack on the Jedi Temple that seemed to have been lead by Darth Knox.  While the Sith may have been focused on their Jedi rivals another entity would exploit the chaos.  Nec’ron Sk’ar would lead the Scourge to attack the island at that moment and managed to seize it with over a thousand hostages under their control which included many VIP’s in Government and Business.  To this day it is unknown whether the Sith & The Scourge were coordinated in their effort.

The One Sith had their temple raided by CorSec with the Jedi and would withdraw from the public eye on Corellia.  Over the next several months a tense stand off would develop.  The CDF would blockade the island and several in Government such as Councilor’s Turq and Zwee as well as Prime Minister Victoria made diplomatic efforts.  The efforts had mixed result, Zwee would trade herself for the former Republic Chancellor Bok Suthra as well as several other prisoners.  Zwee made several efforts to help the hostages from the inside, and has provided us with some journal excerpts which further detail the occupation that we will publish at the end of this summary.

Eventually a raid was held on the Scourge stronghold in Coronet in which Bones and the Vandangante OutlawTech gang were taken down by CorSec.  During this raid an Imperial Agent was rescued.  They were about to be executed by the Scourge as they had managed to retrieve the codes to disarm the bombs that had been placed on Vreni Island as a method for mass execution of the hostages. With these codes an assault was quickly launched. 

The CDF focused on dealing with the Scourge gunships as CorSec, Jedi, Mandalorians and an unidentified force moved in.  The unidentified force managed to slip in and blow up the power station, killing one of the notable Scourge in Val’kar the Dashade in the process.  The Mandalorians would provide a distraction for the CorSec and Jedi forces to reach the hostages.  It is estimated that the Mandos took on the bulk of Scourge forces and though several were wounded they managed to clear several hundreds of Scourge, capturing copkiller Noj Peesejamo and putting an end to Bofa Treat Gang Leader Nenthus Rordul.

Jedi and CorSec forces managed to secure most of the hostages though nearly a hundred of the 1200 or so that remained lost their lives during the battle.  They also captured CorSec traitor Vakira Crane.

Those still in condition to fight from all the teams then converged on Nec’ron Sk’ar and his Battle Skiff.  Sk’ar would soon see how outnumbered he was and make an effort to withdraw but he did not get far and was captured.  Once Nec’ron was captured the remaining Scourge forces were scattered fully.  Only a few minor officers escaped such as Nsspar the Bothan, a pair of Zabrak twins, and Meru of the White Worms.

It is believed that most of the gangs that had been part of the Scourge coalition have been fragmented beyond being any type of threat anytime in the near future with the exception of the White Worms.  The Worms for their part seem to be laying low after the whole affair.

Over the course of the entire Scourge Saga around 150 hostages were killed, 350 escaping or freed prior to the liberation and another 1100 freed after, and around 250 flipped to join the Scourge, most infamously CorSec high up Vakira Crane.

The Island will need rebuilding in sections and the courts will be busy over the next few weeks.  So far Bones is the only one sentenced having received life and moved to a maximum security prison on Drall.   Noj, Crane, and Sk’ar await their trials, the prosecution seeking the death penalty on Sk’ar following Councilor Turq and Prime Minister Victoria asking for that.  Some believe Sk’ar and the Scourge were the device of someone else’s agenda but who and why..?

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The Prime Minister made a press release following the conclusion of the saga;

“Good Day Citizens of the five planets. This is Prime Minster Victoria to tell you about the Vreni Island hostage.  I’m glad to tell you all the Vreni Island takeover have officially ended and thanks to the brave members of CorSec and allies to the CorFed.  These people deserve recognition and will get that in due time. We have managed to rescue the remaining hostages and capture some of Scourge members including their leader Nec'ron. I would like to thanks the hostages for surviving as long as they did as we work out the best possible plan to save them. I know we have loss innocent lives, but rest assure that justice will be serve for them.  We are currently providing support to the survivors which also include Councilor Zwee as she is in critical condition. We will keep you update if anything else related to this incident."

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Behind Enemy Lines the Journal of Zwee on Vreni Island during the occupation.

DAY 1

   I've settled in here on the island, finally. For the moment, the Scourge are keeping me away from the other hostages, setting me up in a smaller house all on my own by order of Nec'ron. He IS intelligent, I'll give him that, moreso than the media likes to portray him. Far from keeping me in my own hovel for my comfort, I'm certain the move was a calculated one so as to foster resentment for me in the rest of the hostages, both to undermine my attempts while lowering their overall morale. A common theme in his diatribes was railing against our government, to show us as rich and uncaring and aloof...this was a move to bring some factuality to his opinions, and likely will work in the short term. However, it also shows a flaw: this means he cares what the hostages think of him and his goals. Whatever Nec'ron is REALLY after, he'll need the support of 'The People'. I can use this.

DAY 4

   The past few days I've been about my work when I was allowed outside of my new home. PM Victoria and I hatched the plan to place me here so that I could covertly spy upon the Scourge- reveal their strength, weaknesses, attain surveillance photographs satellite images may not be strong enough to get. I went to the Prime Minister and volunteered because I believed that I was the only one capable of such. My cybernetic implants enable me to photograph easily and silently..although a few Scourge agents have given me jeers and made jokes at my expense for seemingly walking around and staring at things. Hopefully this will continue, the last thing I want is to be viewed as a threat.    Luckily for me, the house I am set up in had a holonet uplink (all furniture and the holonet device itself had been trashed, of course), and with a little rigging I was able to connect the uplink to my headjack. This way, I'll be able to transmit my recon data directly and securely to the PMs datapad without having to resort to so-called 'dead drops' and the like. Unluckily for me, the Scourge have taken away the medications I need to keep myself healthy with all this tech implanted in my head. In hindsight, I could have hidden the stash better, but this spywork is pretty new to me. Oh well.    Also, turns out I was right about Nec'ron wanting to foster resentment for me with the other hostages. Earlier today I was allowed to mingle with them and, though the family members of the children, elderly, and wounded were grateful with my successful negotiation of their release (was quite worried about Suthra), the rest were pretty ticked off I couldn't rescue them all. A good many joined the Scourge today, some even killed, but I don't think all hope is lost. I can still reach them, prove Nec'ron wrong and show them their government, we, care about them.

DAY 8

   I'm allowed more and more access with the hostages, by now i think Nec'ron doesn't think much of me at all, much less a threat. Though some hostages are kept in pens, we've negotiated that all the hostages are allowed some time to walk around, occupy houses, for lack of a better phrase 'live a normal life' so long as they stay out of the Scourge's way. As a result, far fewer have been flipped to their cause or killed the past few days. I'm doing what I can to keep them calm and organized, to counteract the resentment Nec'ron is hoping to grow within them. I've taken to assigning chores for the ones willing to do them- just tidying up, some paltry decorating and the like to keep their minds occupied. I've heard Councilor Turq was able to persuade the Scourge away from treating us TOO poorly as well, which has definitely helped with keeping everyone calm. In the evenings, more hostages have been coming to our story-circle...we sit around a small fire and trade happy stories and the like. It may sound ridiculous, but these activities have done wonders for their morale. In a way I'm g-g-glad I could b-b-be here.    Sorry for that. I'm trying very hard not to show weakness in front of the other hostages- wouldn't be good for morale. I was able to 'hotwire' a handful of the Scourge's droids today, and that and my lack of medication are starting to take their toll. Should be f-f-fine.    Damn it.

DAY 10

   Discovered what Nec'ron is really after. Although the CorSec commissioner has flipped to the Scourge's side, Vakira Crane was given some access to Nec'rons little private circle and is a woman that has loose lips. I was able to overhear quite a lot while she was bragging to those few CorSec officers she was able to turn with her. Combined with what I sliced from Nec'rons datapad, the PM will be getting quite a juicy transmission this week!

DAY 12

  Reached equilibrium today with persuasion attempts, most hostages content to stay where they are, onl-on-only a couple joined Scourge, one killed. Garthus Vin, his name was. Painter.   Equilibrium could not have come at a better time. Stuttering more, harder to speak. Our natural charisma, taken...our?   Likely, cranial implants starting to malfunction. We...I? I. I've continued with reprogramming what Scourge droids I can find. It seems Nec'ron and the rest pay little attention with droid upkeep. Beneficial for our wor-wo-work.

DAY 16

   Hostage assesment: complacency high. Turned to Scourge or killed: very few, similar to last week. Equilibrium: maintained. Whispering now, allowing cranial implants control of our speech. Pain: lessened this way. More efficient. Re: efficiency- we were able to reprogram last of Scourge droids today. All thirty under our control. Plan is to use them to disrupt signal that will activate thermal cluster bombs, protect hostages. We estimate in five days: reprogram fully so as they can act autonomously. Many parameters, much reprogramming needs adjustment.

DAY 17

   Informed Prime Minister negotiated release of more hostages. We will be among them. Tried to persuade to stay: failed. Assessment: Nec'ron becoming suspicious of our activities. Result: no time re: droid fine tuning. Optimal course of action: slave thirty droids to our implant control remotely. Most efficient course of action. Cranial/neurological implants: not designed for this solution. Eighty-seven percent chance: severe neurological damage. Suggest another...    ERROR.    Risk assessment: acceptable. We will proceed.    Droid slaving: success.    Consequence: lost usage of lower appendages. Sudden. Cranial implants: slight malfunction audible/visable. Combined:.possible Scourge discover droid slaving.Solution: hide consequence via Scourge provocation leading to physical abuse.    Solution: successful

[yaz-the-spaz]

Hello! According to you, why Zayn and Liam are so afraid to do their public coming out?

this is a really complicated question nonnie and i’m gonna try my best to answer you in a coherent way (which i would like to preface by stating that this all purely my own opinion and speculation with some links to factual info thrown in) and tbh though i don’t even know if i would say that it’s so much that they’re afraid (although i do think that’s obviously part of it/plays a big role) as they are bound by contracts and image clauses, but since your question directly asks about the fear i’ll address that first:

coming out is scary. point blank. 

and if you’re not queer there’s no real way i can explain that to you or make you understand other than using what i feel is a rather flimsy comparison/analogy but imagine you’ve got this huge secret, doesn’t matter what it is, but it’s potentially shame-inducing and could change the way everyone you know and love thinks of you/sees you, some people may even outright hate you for it or wanna physically harm you because of it. would you tell that secret? on the one hand it might feel nice to finally be able to talk about it and live truthfully and not have to hide it anymore and that’s a great feeling to have but would you be willing to risk hatred and bodily harm and maybe even being shamed or shunned by those you loved all for that feeling? it’s not an easy decision to make.

now imagine you’re on the world stage and in an industry that since you were 16 has convinced you that this secret you’re holding in is the worst of them all. that you’ll lose money, fans, risk being dropped from contracts or maybe even face lawsuits that could bankrupt you for violating those contracts all for revealing this secret. and even worse you’re now in a particular genre that you’ve always dreamed of working in but where many artists you adore or have even worked with in the past might no longer wanna work with you or want anything to do with you once they found out this secret of yours. there goes all those opportunities you’ve been dreaming of your whole life. bam. out the door just like that. and (for someone like zayn in particular) there goes a whole lot of your fanbase too–perhaps those who have been the most near and dear to you in your journey to fame because they look like you and they share many of the same cultural and religious experiences as you and they get you–but many of whom are devoutly religious and/or live in places that are extremely homophobic and would not accept you, much less continue to support you, if they knew your secret.

[personally, speaking as someone who hasn’t even come out to most of my family yet, i cannot imagine what it must be like for queer celebs to have to deal with the pressure and scrutiny (or to even have the courage) of coming out to literally the entire world.]

but anyway moving on to contracts and images:

this shit can literally control your life, especially coming from something like a reality show where if you actually pay close attention to the kinds of contracts people are made to sign they basically literally own you from the moment you step foot into your audition. doesn’t matter if you were only on the show for 2 minutes you’re still signing the same shitty contract essentially signing a shit ton of your rights away for x amount of years. now imagine you won and you’re being asked to sign a shit ton more contracts with those same companies all on the promise of ‘making your dreams come true.’ you’re a desperate teenager and not even allowed to consult outside lawyers to make sure any of this is sound, so of course you sign cause you’ll do anything for your dream. little do you know that in that contract are defined all sorts of insidious things about how you’re supposed to look and act, how you can dress or what you’re supposed to say (or not say) that fits whatever image they want to project of you that these companies will then lord over your head for years to come on the threat that you will be dropped from their employ and/or bankrupt so far into oblivion you’ll end up damn near penniless (and just another has-been celebrity). anyone who thinks that people/companies who control that many aspects of someone’s life so heavily to the point where they shape how you dress or what color they want you to keep your hair dyed won’t do everything in their power to keep you from coming out and thereby messing up the image they’ve so carefully crafted of you to milk the most money out of you is sorely mistaken.

so basically 1dhq/tptb be like: if the innate fear of coming out wasn’t already enough to deter you, here have some abject threats of losing all your money and your fans and your success and just for the hell of it let’s also throw in some Super Heterosexual Images™ as the cherry on top of this lovely fuck-you-over-forever ice cream sundae we made for you so if you ever do even think about coming out or hinting at yourself as being anything other than straight anyone who might have been okay with it will instead hate you for lying to their faces for so long (and maybe even assume you’re just an asshole queerbaiting for money which would be our ultimate wet dream but enough about us back to fucking you over) and the closet we’ve trapped you in will get so deep you’ll be tripping over the bones of beards and fake babies baby dolls for eons before you can even find your way back to the door again :) :) :) now if you’ll please sign here…

[also see here and here nonnie as my thoughts pretty much align with theirs as well on the topic of the possibility of any of the boys coming out and how that could potentially look/play out if they were to choose to]

[thebachelordiaries]

Jocks And Finance Bros: Bachelorette First Impressions

Becca, I hope you like jocks and finance bros. 

If not, you’re shit out of luck.

Becca dates one athlete and they beat that one dating preference of her’s to death by casting 18 or so former athletes. Kind of like how they beat “Let’s Do The Damn Thing” tagline to death.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.

A letter to the men on this season of The Bachelorette:

Do you think you deserve this goddess of a woman, Becca Kufrin? You probably don’t. You probably think too highly of yourself to know this.

Maybe two of you will be good enough for her. Five of you may turn out to be decent people, but that’s me being generous. If it’s anything like JoJo’s season, we will have just one or two decent men. ABC producers, please don’t let me down. Oh wait, you already did with the super-short bios. 

This season we have 25 28 men vying for Becca’s heart, or at least a blue checkmark on their Instagram page. At least one of you will get fake engaged on Paradise and six of you will move from middle-of-nowhere USA to Los Angeles and move back home within a year. I’m not sure which guys will do that yet, but it’s always fun to guess!

Anyway, good luck with your 15 minutes of fame!

Signed,

The Bachelor Diaries.

WTF: No Q&A?

ABC did not include the usual Q&A in this year’s cast bios. I’m so offended. How will I truly understand these men if I don’t know what kind of fruit they’d be or what kind of superpower they’d want?

I would boycott this season because of this, but I have literally nothing better to do on Monday nights, or any night for that matter. I’m still going to try my best to roast these men, of course. It shouldn’t be that hard.

Despite no Q&A’s, I will still form my own opinions on these guys. I, like Kanye West, am a free thinker. Go poopidy-scoop yourself, ABC.

Ok, now let’s get to know these men:

Alex, 31, Construction Manager

Alex is the male equivalent of the basic white girl. He likes country music, his dog, the beach and skiing. He probably has “Let’s go on a hike together!” on his Bumble profile and regularly wears a Patagonia dad hat.

Blake, 28, Sales Rep

We already met horse boy Blake on After The Final Rose. He either played baseball or football in college. Thanks for being so concise, ABC. However, he looks like a baseball player to me. While originally from a small town in Colorado, he definitley lives in LA now. He also believes “two people need to be independent in order to truly love each other” so I think that means he’s into open relationships and or will cheat on you.

Chase, 27, Advertising VP

Chase, unlike Blake, was definitley a college baseball player who was apparently good enough to be in the College Wold Series but evidently not good enough to go pro— at least longterm. We also met Chase on ATFR and I don’t remember much about him. He likes “adventure” and the “outdoors” so he’s quite the special snowflake.

Chris, 30, Sales Trainer

What even is a sales trainer? Chris hopes to retire by 40. In this economy? Good luck with that. He is passionate about “fitness” and “health” which is so unique and different. I feel like I really got to know him through that piece of information.

Christian, 28, Banker

Christian is a former semi-pro soccer player who moved to the US from Mexico when he was three. I feel like his picture makes him look like he has a little head, but other than that he seems alright.

Christon, 31, Former Harlem Globetrotter/ Professional Dunker

I spent a good 30 seconds wondering why two guys with the same name didn’t have their last name initials included in their bios. It took another 30 seconds to notice that Christon was spelled differently than Christian. So this dude is a professional dunker in LA. My first thought is that he’d have a pretty good intro video package for The Bachelorette. Anyone want to put money down that he gets one?

Clay, 30, Pro Football Player

Clay was on his way to the poetry slam but somehow got lost and ended up on the Bachelorette. He allegedly doesn’t curse but is a fan of hip-hop music. I think he is the “famous” football player who was in talks to be on this season. Apparently I should care. Never heard of him. 

Colton, 26, Former Pro Football Player

“Hi, my name is Colt and welcome to my Youtube Channel!” That’s the vibe I’m getting from this picture. I’m also getting Blake Griffin vibes. He just looks strangely tan here. Colton may have a job at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I’m curious to know if he has a story as to WHY he is involved with CF. He also lives in Denver and has a dog named Sniper, which is awkward because the neighboring city of Boulder just banned assault weapons.

EDIT: He was the guy who asked out Aly Raisman via public video and they briefly dated. I shipped them so hard. I AM SHOOKETH.

Connor, 25, Fitness Coach

I feel like I’m going to be sick if I hear one more guy talk about how they were “almost” a professional athlete and how much they lo0o0o0ove working out. I’m sadly only at the beginning of this cast list. Someone pray for me. And someone pray that Connor’s eyebrows grow back after that terrible wax job.

Darius, 26, Pharmaceutical Sales Rep

Darius works for big pharma yet claims to be dedicating his life to helping others. Err, okay. He likes to dance and travels a lot so my guess is he’s probably not ready to settle down at age 26 despite his 36-year-old hairline.

David, 25, Venture Capitalist

David looks like every finance bro who lives in West Village and only dates 22-year-old Instagram models. The only difference is that he lives in Denver instead of Manhattan, which by society’s standards makes him more wholesome. He also loves guacamole, but dislikes avocado, which roughly translates to: I don’t cook and eat Chipotle for dinner every night.

Grant, 27, Electrician

The only way Grant is making it past night one is if he shows up fully dressed as a member of the Village People or as Bob The Builder. If not, he has no chance.

Garrett, 29, Medical Sales Rep

Pro tip to ABC: The letter A comes before the letter R in the alphabet. These names are out of order. 

Anyway, Garret reminds me of Ben Afleck in that his face just makes me want to punch him..in the face. Besides the fact that he also works for big pharma, he actually has outdoor hobbies besides “I enjoy fresh air and walking in the woods” like fly fishing and showshoeing. I’m hoping he isn’t a giant jerk because I kind of like him.

Jake, 29, Marketing Consultant

I thought his name was “Joke” at first because I am a terrible person. I think Joke...I mean Jake...is from the same city as Becca. (I’m assuming Minnesota only has one city) I feel like all hot people in cities have this inner-circle where they know of each other, so maybe they’ve crossed paths before.

Jason, 29, Sr. Corporate Banker

Andrew Keegan? I love your work. “Jason” likes sports and singing along to Disney movies. He contains multitudes. 

Jean Blanc, 31, Colognoisseur

I love that ABC took a smart, educated, immigrant with a successful job and gave him a fake occupation on television. Jean Blanc is a cologne connoisseur. I feel like he would smell good. 10/10 would smell him.

Joe, 31, Grocery Store Owner

I feel like a lot of these bios are the equivalent to what it’s like to drive in an Uber. The driver is always explaining to you how successful they are and where they traveled as a way to prove they aren’t some loser driving you around. Joe’s bio screams “Yeah I own a grocery store but also worked in finance before I burnt myself out, so don’t judge me.” Nobody was judging you, but now I am.

John, 28, Software Engineer

John hopes to be the first Asian male to make it out of night one on The Bachelorette. I can already tell he’s better than most of these guys: he works at a start-up in Silicon Valley, likes wine, plays guitar and bakes banana bread. He deserves a rose, dammit!

Jordan, 26, Male Model

Robert Mills, who is like an important ABC guy or something, called Jordan the “greatest Bachelorette contestant of all time.” Clearly he’s trying to make us forget about Chad. Good luck with that, Robert. Definitley not happening.

So Jordan is probably this season’s villain. Whatever, I don’t care. I DO care, however, that his bio is bragging about a mediocre 4:24 mile time and “sprinting to the finish line.” The time was written as “4.24″ by ABC and a comma is also missing from that sentence. ABC, let me know if you want to hire me as an editor. Back to the mile comment: A mile is an endurance mid-distance race. Nobody is technically sprinting in it, unless it’s a tactical race. Puns don’t work if they’re factually incorrect. 

Kamil, 30, Social Media Participant

Kamil works in real estate and is a part-time model, but ABC decided to call him a “social media participant.” He’s originally from Poland but lives in Upstate New York, which is evident based on the fact he’s wearing a denim button-up shirt.

Leo, 31, Stuntman

It’s crazy how fast Alex Bordy grew his hair in a year. “Not Alex Bordy” is a stuntman in LA, which I heard is a pretty sick job. I am personally a fan of his hair. He knows how to tame those curls and probably rocks a great man bun. I would love to know what products he uses.

Lincoln, 26, Account Executive

Lincoln has a lot of things going on in his bio. He moved to Boston from Nigeria as a teenager, went to college in Kentucky and moved to Santa Monica for work. We met him on ATFR and he was super nervous, cute and had an accent to make most girls swoon. I’d say make him The Bachelor but 26 is too young in my opinion.

Mike, 27, Sports Analyst

How come every Ohio sports fan names their dog Riggins? Based on his hair, I’m assuming Mike is a radio sports analyst. That hair on television? No thank you. Hopefully Leo can give him some tips to make his hair look decent. Did you know: Becca’s psycho ex Ross used to have long hair? It was not cute. But I don’t think Becca is going to send the long-haired guys home immediately a la the notoriously shallow Andi Dorfman.

Nick, 27, Attorney

I’m excited for Nick to be on the show because I know him by association. Let me explain: A friend of mine went to school with one of his friends and periodically stalks her social media. The friend is a girl, so I think he’s friends with mostly girls, which may explain why he loves to “brunch.” He looks terrible in this photo. Nick gives me polished, sexually ambiguous vibes based on how he appears on Insta. I also knew he was going to be on the show before R*ality St*ve, which made me feel powerful. It was a rush.

Rickey, 27, IT Consultant

I know of Rickey too. He was a Bodybuilding.com Spokesmodel Search finalist in 2017. Hashtag #rightreasons. I’m not sure how “online personal trainer” translates to IT consultant, but ok. Side note: I don’t think bodybuilders look good in suits so he might go home night one. 

Ryan, 26, Banjoist

Before the “Yanny or Laurel” debate there was the “Ryan or Brian” debate on After The Final Rose. Evidently the answer is Ryan. He’s the new Wells and I could not be more excited to watch this babe on my television screen. He plays at least four instruments and loves to sail. He also screams “family money” but it’s ok, we can mooch off his parents together.

Trent, 28, Realtor

Can you imagine having a child and naming it Trent? This guy never had a chance. He is a realtor and a part-time model (I swear I wrote the same thing a few contestants up) and has appeared on covers of romance novels, but I certainly wouldn’t call him the next Fabio.

Wills, 29, Graphic Designer

Wills is a graphic designer who loves Harry Potter. I see no problem here. Except for maybe his porno-stache.

Prediction corner: 

Welcome to the prediction corner where I never get anything right. Oh, you know what happens because you read spoilers? Please keep that information to yourself. I like to find out what happens on my own.

Without further ado, here are my baseless predictions:

First Impression Rose: The guys who got the First Impression Rose on the last three seasons became engaged to The Bachelorette. If that happens this year I demand a scientific case study to explain the power of first impressions on women. Anyway, I think Ryan gets it.

Season Villain: Jordan (that was easy)

Next Bachelor: Blake (don’t ask me why)

Winner: Garrett (I like him)

Comment below to let me know your early favorites!

[an-actual-real-live-eevee]

why do people keep recommending DBT? I've tried it and from what I've seen I understand why it works, but it... pretty much requires believing factually inaccurate stuff about how things work and essentially turning yourself into the kind of "both sides kinda have a point" (the "dialectic" part of it) that ended up giving us people like Trump in power. and mindfulness essentially just sounds like self-induced dissociation.

....okay, first thing: I’m not sure if you have the wrong idea of mindfulness or dissociation, but dissociation is basically being disconnected or divorced from the present/yourself/your feelings to some extent. 

mindfulness? mindfulness are exercises that are about being in the moment. trying to get yourself to be as present and focused on the current point in time as you possibly can be. a lot of the exercises are designed to make you focus on the stuff going on around you and what’s near you right at that moment, what’s real. that is like....about as far as you can get from being designed to induce dissociation. which isn’t to say it CAN’T do that, if mindfulness is triggering for you or something, but that is...very much NOT what mindfulness is or is meant to do.

it is used to treat anxiety and depression, but in my experience, that’s largely used for anxiety of “but what if (bad thing) happens” or similar--anxieties that are based on being divorced from the present moment, but make you panic all the same. the idea is that by focusing on the things that are real and around you instead of the anxiety, you’ll ruminate less and hopefully feel better.

anyway.

I genuinely cannot tell you why people recommend DBT other than “it’s largely successful for most people with BPD”. I know it works for some people, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone! unfortunately, people tend to recommend the same things over and over because they work for 98% of people, which means that becomes the go-to suggestion. however, from what you’re saying about it, I again feel like you have the wrong concept of what DBT is. it’s not about believing inaccuracies.

DBT has four basic principles it tries to teach: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. I’ve already covered mindfulness, so let me talk about the others, I guess?

distress tolerance isn’t about telling yourself that you’re not in distress or that the situation’s not necessarily bad or shitty--it’s about trying to maintain some amount of control in a ‘crisis situation’. distress tolerance is about learning to tolerate situations without flying off the handle, emotion-wise. its skill sets largely revolve around tolerating a distressing situation until it can be dealt with WITHOUT harming yourself or others with how you handle dealing with the distress, learning how to not be totally caught up in the moment or your feelings so you can take a step back and deal with things rationally, knowing that bad situations don’t last forever but also learning to accept the things you can’t change or at least can’t change immediately (however awful they are, which is then where things like ‘tolerating the situation until it can be dealt with’ comes in), and looking at situations logically so you can make a sensible decision rather than a purely emotion-based one.

and if you’re going to be one of those people who’s going to say “bad situations never change”, then I’m sorry, but I really have no words for you. I can’t force you to believe things will change--I just know that as long as you keep an eye out for opportunities to get things to change, things...can definitely get better. but that’s the only way I can see any of these being considered ‘inaccuracies for how things work’.

emotion regulation, now, is about basically increasing your resistance to having negative feelings (self-care. it’s taking care of yourself and trying to learn to manage things that might cause negative feelings if left unchecked, like a chronic pain disorder, which left unmanaged can cause things like depression, irritability, etc.), and about understanding and acknowledging your emotions in a non-judgmental fashion, and then trying to handle them in a positive way.

like, say you’re depressed. the first step would be accepting you are depressed--putting a label to the feeling and accepting it’s real and something you have to deal with feeling right now. anything like “I’m weak or I suck or I’m a bad person for being depressed” are judgments that are unfair and untrue, and emotion regulation tells you to stay away from those as best you can, as well as statements like “I have no reason to be depressed”, which you can’t actually know. (sometimes depression is situational. sometimes it’s neurological. both of these are valid reasons to be depressed. and the neurological can cause you to feel depressed in basically ANY situation. so you probably do have a reason to be depressed. saying you don’t is a judgment and also likely untrue.)

the second step would be trying to do things that might help the depressed feeling. will these always work? no. but ‘opposite action’ and similar do, to some extent, work. watching a funny video when you feel like being dead can actually help. it’s not going to cure you, it’s not going to fix the feelings, but it can make things more tolerable, and that’s the point.

finally, interpersonal effectiveness. this one’s just about being...better at communicating with people. it’s about balancing wants versus needs in conversations with others, learning how to better maintain relationships with others (and when it might be time to STOP maintaining a relationship if it’s taking too much out of you or is unhealthy), gaining desired objectives in conversations, and maintaining self-respect in exchanges--don’t offer apologies for things that aren’t your fault, don’t do anything you know you’ll regret later, stuff like that. this one is the one I’ve found the most use of, personally, as it’s about communicating in an effective, respectful (to yourself and the other person), and non-emotionally-charged way, which are all things I’ve struggled with. and honestly continue to struggle with somewhat, but I’ve gotten better.

please keep in mind, this therapy was designed for BPD. a lot of us struggle with dealing with distressing situations to the point where “we need to talk” might cause anxiety that leads us to self-destruct, or we get depressed one day and suddenly everything is awful and we try to kill ourselves and focus only on how bad this is right now and how it’s clearly going to be bad forever. a lot of us also struggle with communicating in a way that doesn’t hurt us or others.

DBT focuses a lot, yes, on ‘being in the middle’, being moderate, but that’s because BPD is largely about being black-and-white, which is...just as inaccurate as ‘all sides have a point’ can be sometimes. but you are also not really meant to apply DBT...to politics. ‘all bad situations don’t last forever’ doesn’t really mean that if people are trying to bring conversion therapy back, you should sit on your laurels and try to ‘accept how it is’. DBT is built purely for emotion and distress handling. it’s also not designed for EXTREME situations--it’s designed to try and help people who tend to take a situation that’s not that bad and blow it up into the worst thing ever to take it down a notch from what is basically extremist thinking about how a situation is or will go. if a situation is genuinely terrible, you shouldn’t try and tolerate it. if you’re being abused, that’s not a time to apply DBT principles. but if you broke your foot? yeah, that’s a time to try and tolerate the situation and just remember it will pass in time. and that’s what DBT is designed for.

basically, like most therapies, it is not and never will be applicable across the board in everything. it’s made for dealing with BPD situations in an overall average kind of life--like, most people get stuck in traffic. lots of people break bones or spill sugar. it’s just, with BPD, these things can also end up seeming like the worst thing ever. DBT is designed to try and teach us to handle everyday situations in a more....emotionally moderated and rational fashion. but that’s it. that’s all it’s made for.

again, it really isn’t for everyone. and as someone who didn’t get a whole lot out of traditional DBT outside of the interpersonal part, I really wish that would stop being everyone’s first recommendation and seemingly the only thing people want to do. but your assessment of it is....incorrect, and suggests to me you are either expecting it to be applicable across the board (which almost nothing is) or that you are interpreting it incorrectly/have been exposed to something that wasn’t actually good DBT. which isn’t to say that it’s going to be effective for you. it might be totally useless! but you have the wrong idea.

....the only thing I can think of that could possibly seem “based in inaccuracy” besides ‘things can get better’ is the whole ‘positive self-talk’ thing. like “you’re great” when you feel like you suck, or “you got this” when you feel like everything is falling apart. and honestly, it is kind of difficult to determine the factual accuracy of ‘you’re great’, so yeah, it could be inaccurate, but negative self-talk falls into much the same thing. they’re judgments. opinions. they’re not facts. both are inaccurate. so even if it feels false, sometimes the thing therapists try to do is teach you to combat your own dubious mental judgments with the reverse of those judgments. but if that doesn’t work for you, then just try another thing from the skill you’re learning--not every one involves ‘positive self-talk’ or dealing in things that might not be accurate statements.

that’s all I can really say here.

....oh, no, wait, one more thing. if you really think “both sides have a point” is what got Trump in power, that’s not really it. what got Trump in power was reactionary thinking and talking points. he said what people wanted to hear. if you need proof, just look at the fact that there are gay people who supported Trump when his pick for vice president was a person who supports conversion therapy. Trump’s great at eliciting emotional responses from people and he kind of just ran with that, saying what would get the most intense response from whoever he was speaking to. and people didn’t look at things logically, they responded emotionally, and believed what he was saying. that, and a lot of Republicans who were leaning more radical than moderate also supported him, regardless of if they agreed with him right out the gate or not.

that’s really how Trump got into power--playing on people’s emotions and saying things that seemed in support of more radical conservative ideas. like, people who try and say “both sides have a point” about things where the ‘opinion’ in question threatens lives and/or freedom are totally not helping the situation, but most of the people I know who like to try and play “devil’s advocate” or be moderate in politics also did not support or vote for Trump, because he played the radical side.

...and also, DBT is never going to tell you that you have to listen to someone who’s telling you that a minority group you’re part of, or a minority group in general, doesn’t deserve things like freedom or rights. if a person tries to incorporate that into DBT, they’re doing it wrong, leave immediately.

now that’s all.

[back-and-totheleft]

The Doors and JFK at 30

In the late 1980s and early ‘90s, few American filmmakers were as restless as Oliver Stone. He fired off seven movies from 1986 to 1991, each one a shotgun blast of confrontational ideas and virtuosic style. “Platoon” won four Oscars. “Wall Street” summed up an era of excess.

Stone was particularly busy in 1991. He started the year with “The Doors,” a psychedelic rise-and-fall biopic about the rocker Jim Morrison, played by Val Kilmer. He ended the year with “JFK,” a kaleidoscopic portrait of the hunt for truth in the wake of a national tragedy.

Thirty years later, “JFK” and “The Doors” remain fascinating artistic artifacts, brimming with the brash confidence of a director on a hot streak. They also X-ray some of the cultural fault lines that continue to divide the United States three decades later.

“JFK,” a three-hour epic featuring a stacked ensemble cast, both reflected and anticipated a country in thrall to conspiracy theories. “The Doors” dramatized the agony and ecstasy of the counterculture, revealing why the sex-and-drugs scene was seen as equal parts alluring and revolting.

The films parallel each other in striking ways. Stone, a veteran of the Vietnam War, was then Hollywood’s boldest chronicler of the 1960s, and both of his 1991 projects represent attempts to reckon with that decade’s knotty legacies. They blurred fact and fabrication, memory and myth.

In the eyes of many observers at the time, neither film was an unqualified success. “The Doors” drew mixed reviews and flailed at the box-office. “JFK” performed well on both fronts, but some historians and commentators assailed its fast-and-loose relationship with the factual record.

But in many respects, facts were beside the point.

‘Speculations’ and ‘nightmares’

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that President John F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald had acted alone. Stone was far less convinced, and “JFK” was intended as his “counter-myth.”

Kevin Costner, nearing the apex of his star power and industry clout, stars as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who investigated the events surrounding Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

Garrison’s crusade takes the viewer on a dizzying tour of midcentury American paranoia. He eyes a sprawling cast of potential culprits: the CIA, the Mafia, Cuban freedom fighters, the military-industrial complex — the shadowy men behind what Stone calls our “untold history.”

“The movie was misunderstood as advancing one particular conspiracy theory, when in fact it was exploring several,” said Matt Zoller Seitz, a veteran film critic and the author of a 2016 book about Stone’s career. “It gave the conspiracy mindset a bigger and more prestigious platform, and I think without ‘JFK’ you don’t get ‘The X-Files,’ for example.”

“JFK” is the near opposite of a by-the-books historical docudrama. The film is a lurid panorama of half-truths and speculation. Stone’s approach alienated some op-ed writers and commentators, who criticized the director months before the movie even premiered.

The columnist George Will huffed that Stone was “a man of technical skill, scant education and negligible conscience.” Walter Cronkite, the CBS newscaster who broke the news of Kennedy’s killing to the nation, reportedly decried the “mishmash of fabrications and paranoid fantasies.”

The film critic Roger Ebert offered up what might be the most salient interpretation, though, writing in a 2002 retrospective: “I have no opinion on the factual accuracy of ... ‘JFK.’ I don’t think that’s the point. This is not a film about the facts of the assassination, but about the feelings.”

“I have no doubt Cronkite was correct, from his point of view. But I am a film critic and my assignment is different than his. He wants facts. I want moods, tones, fears, imaginings, whims, speculations, nightmares,” Ebert wrote.

It is here where “JFK” still reverberates in the addled, deeply fractured America of 2021 — not as a literal account of events but as a collage of issues that still tug at the national fabric, justifiably or not: distrust of government, skepticism of institutions, conspiracy theories, rabbit holes.

“I look at ‘JFK’ now and I see Covid denialists who make it seem as if the virus was created by scientists out of ‘The X-Files,’ the same ones who are going to inject us with DNA from bees, or whatever,” Seitz said. “I think there was a genie that was let out of the bottle with that movie.”

“It is a deranged film when you stand back from it,” Seitz said with a laugh.

Nevertheless, many people around the world still doubt the official narrative of the Warren Commission report and hope more information comes to light.

Jay O. Sanders, a character actor who played Lou Ivon, one of the investigators on Garrison’s team, said in an interview earlier this year that, to this day, strangers still approach him on the street and ask him who he believes killed Kennedy.

“The moment we explored in the film was one of the most important moments to countless people in this country," Sanders said. "It was a loss of innocence. It was a loss of hope."

‘Doors’ to self-destruction

Stone is said to have been intoxicated by The Doors ever since he first heard their music while serving in Vietnam. “The Doors,” a hallucinatory and borderline campy biopic about the dark poet of Nixon-era rock-and-roll, was the director’s acid-kissed homage.

“The Doors” charts Morrison’s rise and vertiginous descent into alcoholism, drug abuse, live-concert antics, cruelty and general R-rated debauchery. It is a frequently unflattering character study — and one that was razzed for exaggerating the musician’s behavior.

“In a way, it feels like the movie Jim Morrison would’ve hallucinated as he was dying,” Seitz said. “There’s a lot of deliberately disorienting touches ... that make you feel like you’re on drugs.”

The film climaxes with a raucous concert in Miami. Kilmer’s Morrison antagonizes the audience, clashes with police officers and appears to expose himself onstage. He bellows what amounts to a personal manifesto and philosophical mission statement: “No limits! No laws!”

The movie is freewheeling but nonetheless adheres to the standard rock god biopic conventions, the stuff of the John C. Reilly parody flick “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” It also functions as a sociopolitical Rorschach test.

You might be gripped by Stone’s reverential vision of Morrison (who died in 1971 at 27) as a counterculture prophet who urged his adoring fans to stop being “slaves” to the starchy American establishment.

But then again, you might see “The Doors” as a cautionary tale — wittingly or otherwise — about the excesses of the peace-and-love years, with Kilmer’s version of Morrison as a Dionysian narcissist who symbolized the destructiveness of heedless social rebellion.

Oliver Gruner, an academic at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., explored these contradictions in his 2016 monograph “Screening the Sixties: Hollywood Cinema and the Politics of Memory,” a look at how the American film industry has dramatized the decade.

“Here was a film that on the one hand celebrates an individual associated with hippie lifestyles, but on the other seems vehemently skeptical of the counterculture,” Gruner wrote.

America in 2021 is still conflicted on what to make of that frenzied decade. “The Doors” is not a film about politics, yet the chaos at its core might help us understand why the norm-smashing spirit of the ‘60s split the country and riled soon-to-be-ascendant social conservatives.

In a mixed review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin offered this crisp description of Stone’s larger-than-life subject: “Nowhere did the best and worst of the '60s collide as messily as they did in Jim Morrison.”

But in the course of 141 minutes, she wrote, Stone is not entirely “successful in offering any final assessment of either the ‘60s or his hero than in bringing both back with strange and spectacular power.” The same might be said of “JFK,” a movie of urgent questions without clear-cut answers.

But maybe that was by design.

It has been said that America never got over the ‘60s. Stone seemed to intuit as much. How can you conclude a story that never really ended?

-Daniel Arkin, ‘JFK’ and ‘The Doors’ at 30: Why Oliver Stone’s portraits of the '60s still resonate," NBC News, Oct 2 2021 [x]

[the-desolated-quill]

The Quill Seal Of Approval Awards - The Best of 2018

Hello and welcome, dear reader, to the greatest, most important awards ceremony in the history of entertainment. The Quill Seal Of Approval Awards. The award of recognition that everyone on Earth covets even though they don’t know it. For the Quill Seal Of Approval is a most esteemed prize for hard work and artistry. Better than the Golden Globes, more prestigious than the BAFTAs and guaranteed to be more diverse than the Academy Awards. You know your film, novel, TV show or video game has achieved legendary status when some random nobody on the internet says it’s the best in some obscure top 10 list that’s read by only a couple of people. That’s the true sign of success.

First, a few parish notices. Obviously this is my subjective opinion, so if you disagree with my choices, that’s fine. Go make your own list. (also remember that my opinion is 100% objective, scientific, factual and literal truth and anyone who disagrees is clearly a philistine and a dummy and a poopy-head whose mum smells of elderberries). Also please bear in mind that I haven’t been able to experience everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, please don’t be upset that A Star Is Born isn’t on this list. I’m sure it’s as amazing as everyone says it is. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay. Let us begin.

Inside No. 9 - Series 4

BBC2′s Inside No. 9, written by the League of Gentlemen’s Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, is an anthology series that’s often sadly overlooked, but it’s really worth a watch if you’re into shows like Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone, and this series in particular has been fantastic. We’ve had an episode written entirely in iambic pentameter, an episode whose chronology runs backwards, a live episode that really plays around with the format, episodes containing tragic and biting satire, and one especially twisted episode that brings out a side of Steve Pemberton we’ve never seen before. Series 4 has been a real treat from start to finish, with each episode beautifully written and expertly performed. Inside No. 9 deserves to share the same pedestal as Black Mirror, no question.

Black Panther

I’m sure everyone knows about my less than flattering views on the Marvel Cinematic Universe by now, which is what made Black Panther such a breath of fresh air for me. Stripping away all the convoluted crap, Black Panther has often been compared to The Dark Knight, and for good reason. Like The Dark Knight, this movie uses the superhero genre to tackle real social and political issues. In Black Panther’s case, exploring just what it means to be black in the modern world. Boasting an impressive cast of black actors, strong female characters, an engaging and complex antagonist, fantastic special effects and truly excellent direction from Ryan Coogler, Black Panther represents a new benchmark for Marvel, the superhero genre and the film industry in general. It proves how important and how lucrative diversity and representation in media can be, and it unintentionally shows how flawed the Marvel business model has become. The reason behind Black Panther’s success is simple. It’s because it’s bloody brilliant. And the reason it’s bloody brilliant is because Coogler was allowed to realise his own creative vision without Kevin Feige and Mickey Mouse breathing down his neck. Perhaps they should take note of that in future.

Deadpool 2

Of course Deadpool 2 is going to be on this list. Are you really surprised?

The Merc with the Mouth goes from strength to strength in the rare instance where the sequel is actually as good as, if not better than, the original. The first Deadpool was a great origin story for the character, but Deadpool 2 felt like an adventure ripped straight from the comics themselves. Crass, ultra violent and hysterically funny, Deadpool 2 is the crowning jewel of the X-Men franchise. Fan favourites such as Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Colossus return as well as new characters such as Domino, played by the exceptional Zazie Beetz, Cable, played by the astounding Josh Brolin, and Firefist, played by Julian Dennison who deserves all the success in the world because good God this kid can act!

But of course the star of the film is Deadpool himself with Ryan Reynolds once again proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he understands this character back to front. Not only is he hysterically funny, capturing the character’s irreverent tone perfectly, he also absolutely nails the tragic underpinnings of Deadpool that make him such a wonderful character. In between the f-bombs and gore are moments of real drama and emotional pathos as the film tackles themes such as loss, discrimination, abuse and suicidal depression. All this whilst taking the piss out of 2017′s Logan. 

Oh yeah, and it also features the first openly LGBT superheroes in cinematic history. Fuck you Disney! NegaYukio and Poololosus for the win! LOL! No, but seriously, now that you have the rights to X-Men back, if you try and censor Deadpool in any way, shape or form, I will kick your arse.

God Of War (2018)

“BOY!”

Yes Kratos is back, having successfully destroyed the world of Greek mythology and now has his eyes on the Norse Gods. And he has a son now. What could possibly go wrong?

Seriously though, this new God Of War is simply exquisite. While I have long admired the God Of War franchise for its interpretation and adaptation of Greek mythology, the previous games in the series have never exactly been the most sophisticated when it comes to storytelling (and the less said about the casual sexism, the better. Yes Sony, I promise I understand the thematic reasons behind playing a minigame that allows you to have sex with Aphrodite in God Of War 3, but it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s sexist as shit). God Of War 2018 changes all that with an intelligent and engaging story that allows us understand and connect with Kratos at a more personal level than we’ve ever done before. Taking place years after God Of War 3, Kratos is older, wiser and trying to raise his son Atreus in the hopes that he won’t make the same mistakes Kratos did in his past. Not only is the story amazing, continuing the franchise’s themes of vengeance and the strained relationships between parents and their children, the gameplay is also a ton of fun with many memorable moments and boss fights.

And as an added bonus, we get two strong female characters that aren’t treated like discardable sex objects. That was nice of them.

Incredibles 2

The long awaited sequel to The Incredibles finally arrived in 2018 and it did not disappoint. Incredibles 2 was everything I could have wanted and more. Continuing on from the events of the first movie, we see Elastigirl take the spotlight as she fights the Screenslaver whilst trying to persuade the worlds’ governments to lift the ban on superheroes. Meanwhile Mr. Incredible takes a back seat as he tries to reconnect with his kids Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack and prove he can be a good, supportive dad. 

Continuing to draw inspiration from Fantastic Four, X-Men and Watchmen, Incredibles 2 is... well... incredible. Expanding the world he created, Brad Bird tells a smart, funny and compelling story that stands head and shoulders above the majority of superhero movie fodder we get nowadays. Elastigirl flourishes in the lead role this time around and the kids get a lot more development, the Screenslaver is a great villain that compliments the themes of the franchise wonderfully, and we get to see a whole bunch of new characters such as Voyd and the Deavor siblings as well as the return of old favourites like Frozone and Edna Mode. 

Honestly, the baby alone is worth the price of admission. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another fourteen years for Incredibles 3.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

Marvel’s Spider-Man is an amazing game. But of course you knew that already. It’s made by Insomniac Games, the same guys behind Ratchet & Clank. Of course it was going to be brilliant.

Simply put, this game does for Spider-Man what the Arkham games did for Batman. Not only is it a great game with brilliant combat and fun web swinging mechanics, it also has a great story worthy of the wall crawler. Unlike the movies, which seem to continuously yank Peter Parker back into high school with each new reboot as those the poor bastard were attached to the fucker on a bungee rope, this Spidey has been fighting crime for eight years. With great power comes many responsibilities as we see him struggle to juggle crime fighting, his new job as a scientist, his commitments to helping Aunt May at the F.E.A.S.T shelter and trying to win his ex Mary Jane Watson back after a six month split. It’s a brilliant story featuring many classic villains such as Shocker and Electro as well as lesser known villains like Screwball and the criminally underrated Mister Negative who finally gets to be the central antagonist in a Spider-Man adaptation. It’s fun to play, engaging, dramatic and really emotional at points. I cried real tears at the end. What a punch to the gut that was.

OOOOOH! And we might be getting to play as Miles Morales in the sequel! I sure hope so! :D

The Grinch

At this point I imagine many of you are scratching your heads. 

“Really Quill? The Grinch? Illumination’s The Grinch? This deserves the Quill Seal Of Approval? Are you sure?” Yes dear reader, I’m absolutely sure. Just hear me out.

It’s true that the majority of Dr Seuss adaptations are shit. While the live action version of the Grinch starring Jim Carrey has a cult following and is fondly remembered by some, it’s still pretty crap, and even Illumination themselves screwed up royally with their adaptation of The Lorax. But this new Grinch is truly excellent. For starters, the animation is gorgeous. This is clearly the format that works best for Seuss movies. Benedict Cumberbatch does a really good job voicing the character, giving him depth and complexity beyond just being a big old meanie. The film also has something no other Seuss film has ever had before. Subtlety. Illumination have clearly learned their lesson after The Lorax. They’re no longer bashing you over the head with a moral message. They’re not trying to over-complicate a simple story by adding pointless sub-plot after pointless sub-plot. In fact the bits they do add actually feed into the main core of the narrative, as opposed to The Lorax, which just confused things. And while there are cute Minion-esque sidekicks like there are in a lot of Illumination films, The Grinch limits it to two (Max the dog and a reindeer named Fred), they’re both legitimately funny, serve an important narrative purpose and don’t distract from the more serious and emotional moments.

In all honesty, I was debating between giving the Quill Seal of Approval to The Grinch or to Bumblebee (the first legitimately good Transformers movie), but I decided to go with The Grinch because of how it handles the character and the story’s message. A lot of people scoffed at the idea of giving the Grinch a back story (and to the film’s credit they don’t force the issue or over-explain where the Grinch came from) but it’s honestly what makes this new adaptation of The Grinch so special to me. He’s gone from being a Scrooge-like monster to an anxiety filled misanthrope who associates Christmas with being alone. It may sound like a jarring change on paper, but in practice it honestly works so well and adds a whole new dimension to the Grinch. It’s treated with absolute care and sincerity and the film really earns its emotional moments, particularly at the end when we see the Grinch sit down to have Christmas dinner with the Whos.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you give this new Grinch a chance. You might be pleasantly surprised :)

Doctor Who - Series 11

A woman?! In the TARDIS?! How absurd!

Jodie Whittaker made history as the first woman to play the Doctor and the new series doesn’t disappoint. Whittaker is predictably brilliant in the role, giving the character compassion, charm and wit. We also get a new bunch of companions (including the always brilliant Bradley Walsh as Graham) who all have some great moments in Series 11 and the relationships they form with each other is incredibly touching and fun to watch. But the writing, my God, the writing. Admittedly not every episode has been perfect, but it’s leagues above anything Moffat has given us during his disastrous reign. The majority of Series 11 has been well written and intelligent, tackling important and relevant social issues (something Doctor Who has always been doing and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot) and focusing on likeable and relatable characters rather than convoluted series arcs. We got to meet Rosa Parks, witness the partition of India, and ponder on the dangers of automation whilst the Doctor tries to save the world from bubble wrap. Oh, and the Daleks are scary again! I know! I couldn’t believe it either!

What makes this all the more remarkable is who the showrunner is. Chris Chibnall. A writer I’ve often criticised in the past for being derivative and shit, and yet somehow he’s managed to create some of the best Doctor Who I’ve seen in a long time. Not only has his writing improved dramatically since his Torchwood days, he’s also demonstrated a commitment to having diverse representation both in front of and behind the camera as well as in the scripts themselves. For the first time in what feels like an age, Doctor Who feels like Doctor Who again, and I’m ecstatically happy.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

How come we don’t see many animated superhero movies in the cinema? Considering the medium from which superheroes came from, you’d think it would be a no-brainer. Presumably it’s because Disney have got such a strangle hold on the animation market, but that’s hopefully going to change thanks to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (or, Sony’s Repentance for The Emoji Movie).

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. The animation is gorgeous. It’s pretty much an animated comic book and it stands out as one of the most unique looking animated films in recent memory. Spider-Verse is essentially a love letter to the legacy of Spider-Man as we see multiple different versions of Spidey, including Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham and Nicholas Cage as Ghost Rider cosplaying as Spider-Man Noir, demonstrating not only the sheer variety of Spider-Men we’ve had over the years, but also exploring what connects them together. With all these different interpretations across many different universes, the idea of Spider-Man comes to the same thing. An ordinary person who experiences tragedy and becomes something greater. It’s hopeful and inspirational in a way Spider-Man films hasn’t been for a while now (Spider-Man: Homecoming sucked donkey balls. Period).

But let’s not forget that while the film explores the Spider-Verse, the main focus is Miles Morales who finally makes his cinematic debut. Not only is it a very faithful adaptation of Ultimate Spider-Man’s origin story, Miles himself is such a great central character for the modern age and arguably has more relevance to today than Peter Parker does. The characters are funny and relatable and the story is expertly crafted and impactful. But then what do you expect from the writers and directors of The Lego Movie? (if only Disney hadn’t interfered with Solo: A Star Wars Story. We could have had it all).

Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle

This one kind of snuck up on me toward the end of December, but I knew the moment I saw it I had to include it on this list.

Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle is an adaptation of The Jungle Book with Andy Serkis making his directorial debut. Yes the same guy who did the motion capture for Gollum in Lord Of The Rings and Caesar in the rebooted Planet Of The Apes movies and who totes deserves an Oscar for Best Actor (fuck you Academy Awards!), and he brings this same motion capture technology to this film. Unlike Disney’s Jungle Book, which merely rehashes the original animated film whilst somehow stripping all the charm from it, Mowgli sticks closer to the original Rudyard Kipling book. This isn’t a cheery musical. This film is often dark and intense as we see Mowgli (played wonderfully by Rohan Chand) struggle to find his place in the world. He knows he doesn’t belong with the animals in the jungle, but he doesn’t really fit in with the world of man neither. It’s an emotional and dramatic character piece brought to life by great writing, great acting and stunning special effects. 

Andy Serkis has expressed a desire to do an adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and after watching this movie, I would love to see that. If you haven’t already, go watch Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle. It’s available to stream on Netflix and it’s truly amazing.

And that’s it for 2018. Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Quill Seal Of Approval Awards. Unfortunately we’re on a limited budget here on The Desolated Quill, so I can’t offer any sort of trophy or medal or anything. What I can do though is write the words ‘I’m an awesome cookie’ on a post-it note and stick it on your forehead. Will that do?

[darcyfarber]

The Best of the Best Proven Side Hustles You Should Know About

Need to make a little (or a lot) of extra money this month?

Side hustles are an incredible way to boost your monthly income. Whether you want to stay home and make money from home, get out of the house to make money, or try something unique and fun – I have you covered.

This list is updated weekly and if there is anything you think I need to take out or add to the list, please let me know in the comments below the post.

Also, if you do find something and you’re having a lot of success with it, you’d be helping everyone out by sharing your win in the comments below. Thanks so much and enjoy the guide to making more money each month.

Table of Contents

My First Picks...

1. Share Your Opinion

2. Door Dash

3. VIPKID

4. Airbnb

5. Share Your Blog with the World

6. Become a Virtual Assistant

Online Hustles

7. Start a Social Media Marketing Business

8. Ebates (Now Rakuten)

9. Honey Browser Extension

10. Inbox Dollars

11. Fiverr

12. Make Money with PayPal

13. Amazon

14. Amazon Affiliate Links

15. eBook Publishing

16. Etsy

17. Craigslist

18. User Testing

19. Become a Freelance Writer

20. Zazzle

21. eBay

22. Do Transcription Work or Data Entry Work

23. Sell Your Photos Online

24. Start a Web Design Business

Driving Hustles

25. Uber/Lyft Driver-Partner

26. Uber Eats

27. Be a Paid Designated Driver

28. Drive People to the Airport

Extremely Passive Hustles

29. Rent Out Your Garage or Driveway

30. Become a Voiceover Artist

31. Rent out your Car

32. Rent out a Room full-time

Some Skill Required Hustles

33. Become an Online Coach

34. Create an Online Course

35. Spray Tanning

36. Become a Cover Letter/Resume’ Writer

37. Develop an App

38. Catering

39. Computer Repair

40. Computer Training

41. Guitar Gigs

42. Guitar Lessons

43. Handyman Work

44. Lifeguard

45. Mobile Oil Change

46. Network Marketing

47. Personal Training

48. Tutoring

49. Teach Music Lessons

50. Start a Baking Business

51. Become a Sports Umpire

Physical Labor Hustles

52. Clean Pools

53. House Cleaning

54. Mowing Lawns

55. Painting Gates

56. Painting Services

57. Shoveling Snow

58. Wash Cars

59. Wash Windows

Unique Hustles

60. Rent out Your Baby Gear

61. Sell Your Hair Online

62. Paint Street Numbers

63. Sell Drinks

64. TaskRabbit

65. Start a Home Staging Business

66. Be a Work-From-Home Customer Service Rep

67. Start an Estate Sale Service Business

68. Start a Vending Machine Business

69. Pick Up Trash in Parking Lots

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me Hustles

70. Be a Sperm Donor

71. Be a Plasma Donor

72. Become a Cuddler

73. Pick up Dog Poop

74. Rent-a-Friend

Easy Peasy Hustles

75. Babysitting

76. Dog Walking

77. Gig Walking

78. Golf Course

79. House-sitting

80. Mystery Shopper

81. Pet Grooming

82. Pet Sitting

83. RedBox

84. Sell ScrapMetal

85. Tax Prep

86. Sign Spinner

87. Sign Holder

Final Takeaway

My First Picks…

These first five are favorites because they are quick ways to get started making extra money and they have long-term potential as well! All five of them do require an internet connection, but sine you’re reading this from the internet, I think you’re covered there ?

1. Share Your Opinion

and get money sent to your PayPal

Yup, you can actually generate side income by simply giving your opinion via online surveys. It’s not going to make you rich tomorrow, but it’s still a great way to generate extra income during your down time.

If you think surveys may be the way to go, check out our full list of the top survey companies for both online and offline opinions here.

Survey Junkie

  2. Door Dash

Door Dash is our favorite pick for food delivery because it’s been reported back to us that DoorDashers make slightly more than UberEats drivers. While we don’t have any factual statistics to prove this right or wrong, we still pick DoorDash over UberEats as our top side hustle for food delivery. If you have a car, bike, or scooter, get started with Door Dash today and start making money for your next vacation, your upcoming wedding, or whatever expense you’re saving for!

Maybe you just don’t feel like driving people around in your car or maybe you don’t even have a car. Depending on the city you live in, Uber Eats allows you to deliver food to people via your car, bike, or scooter. Turn on the app in the morning before work, when you get home, or whenever you have some extra time to make money on your terms.

Door Dash

  3. VIPKID

VIPKID will pay you up to $22/hour to teach English from the comfort of your home to children in China. Currently VIPKID has over 70,000 teachers teaching English as a second language to over 600,000 children in China.

They do require you to have a Bachelor’s degree from either the USA or Canada and they ask for “some teaching experience”. However, from the teachers we have spoke with from VIPKID, they said “teaching” doesn’t have to mean teaching in a traditional educational setting.

The lessons are 30 minutes long and you will be paid up to $11 for each 30-minute lesson. One thing to note is since you are teaching across the globe in a live setting, you will be teaching at odd hours (late at night or first thing in the morning). However, the teachers we spoke to said it was fun, rewarding, and it paid well for being able to stay at home and teach from their laptops.

VIPKID

4. Airbnb

Did you know you can rent your room or house out at Airbnb? They have been around since 2008 and millions of people have been renting out their rooms or entire homes to travelers from all over the world. If you do this right, you may be able to cover your entire mortgage! If you’re going to be gone for a month or two, you may as well allow your space to make money while you’re gone.

Airbnb

  5. Share Your Blog with the World

I started this blog in 2015 from my laptop at my kitchen table and today it generates over $10,000 per month 🙂 However, in the beginning it was just a side hustle project that turned into full-time income much quicker than I would have ever dreamed.

If you love writing, then starting a blog is exactly the right side hustle for you. There are many ways to generate income from blogging, with one of the most popular being through affiliate income.

How does it work?

You know how you can share a referral link from companies you love and they will send you $5 for referring them a customer? Affiliate partners work the exact same way.

Is blogging complicated?

Absolutely not! But just in case, I did create a step-by-step guide to help you get started in about 15 minutes.

Start a Blog

  6. Become a Virtual Assistant

If you enjoy working from your laptop, then becoming a virtual assistant may be exactly what you need. We use a few virtual assistants for Money Peach and one of them earns over $10,000 per month as a VA. Other places where you can become a virtual assistant for an agency where they find work for your is Upwork. They take a 10% fee, but 90% is still a great side hustle.

You can also listen to Episode 80 on the Money Peach Podcast (below) where my own Virtual Assistant shares how she got started as a VA and within a few years was able to quit her full-time job and start earning over $10k per month doing what she loved.

Virtual Assistant Course (Use Promo Code Peach 10 for $50 Off)

Online Hustles

I love online hustles because they give you the freedom to do these anywhere. If you’re constantly traveling for work or out of town a lot you’re going to absolutely love these online side hustles.

7. Start a Social Media Marketing Business

Our very own social media manager was actually someone who was enrolled inside Awesome Money Course. We noticed how great she was inside our private students-only Facebook group and we offered her a job with us. Now she manages all of our social media for Money Peach and she has also been offered social media jobs from other bloggers!

A great place to get started is visiting the Facebook Side Hustle Course by Bobby of Millennial Money Man. You can read how many of the students from the course are landing social media jobs for $1,000 – $2,000 month! Not a bad little side hustle, right?

Facebook Side Hustle

  8. Ebates (Now Rakuten)

Ebates is a company that has partnered with over 2,000 online companies to form an affiliate relationship with each of them. An affiliate relationship simply means Ebates and each online company have created a partnership where Ebates will refer you or I to buy something from them, and that company then sends Ebates a thank-you referral.

The good news: Ebates then splits the thank-you referral with you, and you earn Cash Back.

The Better News: You can Make Money by referring friends, family, or anyone else to join Ebates!

Ebates extends their referral program to any Ebates member who would like to share how to earn Cash Back while shopping online. Once you create an account with Ebates, you can invite your friends and family to join in on the Cash Back savings, and YOU will also receive a thank-you referral, aka make money.

BONUS $10 with Ebates Right Now

  9. Honey Browser Extension

Honey is a free tool that will search for online coupons and apply them to your online shopping cart to make sure you are saving the most money. Instead of searching for coupons one at-a-time and applying them individually, Honey does all of this for you in the matter of seconds. Not only will you save money, but you will also MAKE MONEY with their refer-a-friend program. For anyone you refer to the app, Honey will send you $5 as soon as they purchase something via the app up to $1,000.

Honey Browser Extension

  10. Inbox Dollars

Inbox Dollars is a rewards club that pays you in cash for completing a variety of online activities. This can include searching the internet, filling out surveys, printing off coupons, and shopping online. If you are already doing these things, you may as well get paid for it, right?

Inbox Dollars

  11. Fiverr

Fiverr is a platform where you can sell your products and services starting at $5 per gig. After you have a few $5 gigs under your belt, you can start increasing how much you charge. Here at Money Peach, we hire people from Fiverr all the time. Just recently, we found someone for a quick logo design and another to transcribe some videos we created.

Also, the Fiverr platform does take 20% from each gig. Therefore, if you do a $5 gig, you will take home $4 per gig. However, if you can complete 3-4 gigs in an hour, your hourly rate could start at $16 – $20 per hour!

Fiverr

  12. Make Money with PayPal

Already have a PayPal account?

We have put together a list of the side hustles that will pay you in PayPal gift cards which can then be deposited into your PayPal account – just like cash!

Where to make money with PayPal

  13. Amazon

Selling on Amazon is almost identical as selling on eBay in terms of fees and ease of use. However, sometimes items that don’t sell as well on eBay do better on Amazon and vice versa. Either way, it is a side hustle worth looking at if you can buy for cheap and resell for a higher price.

14. Amazon Affiliate Links

I know of a guy who started out as a handyman. He then took that idea as a handyman and started his own blog to teach people how to fix things themselves through blogging and video tutorial. At the end of every post or video, he would tell you what tool he used to get the job done and would provide a link directly to Amazon for you to purchase that product.

However, he also signed up for a free Amazon Affiliate Account. Every time someone clicks on his link and buys ANYTHING on Amazon, he gets a commission! Think about this: Amazon pays him for the tool he recommended and also for anything else they Add To Cart. This is why I love blogging and why I have a free tutorial to help you get started.

15. eBook Publishing

Make money by writing your own book and self publishing it on Amazon for free. There are different options available for how your can price your book and earn income from the sale of your book in the Amazon store. Questions about self publishing your own book? Check this out.

16. Etsy

Instead of having to open up your brick and mortar store, sell your creations on Etsy. Whether you make clothing, crafts, baby toys, or jewelry, you can open up your own store at Etsy. I have a friend selling her awesome clothing line on Etsy and it brings in a very nice income for the family. This is another great side hustle, but don’t expect instant results. You may need to be patient for this one.

17. Craigslist

We all know you can buy and sell stuff on Craigslist, but have you ever thought about offering a service you can provide. If providing a service isn’t your thing, you can scan Craigslist for great deals and then later resell items for a profit. This takes persistence and patience, but I have a friend who went from a $4k truck to a $24k in truck in 18 months by flipping cars from Craigslist.

There are also many other sites competing with Craigslist and you may have better exposure by posting on these sites like Craigslist.

18. User Testing

Don’t want to do an online survey, but still like to surf the web and earn some cash? Companies will pay you to try out their apps or visit their websites and give them feedback. Usertesting and UserFeel uses your feedback on apps and websites that aren’t as user-friendly and then pays your for it.

19. Become a Freelance Writer

If you are a good writer, consider searching online sites such as freelancer.com for writing jobs. Individuals or companies might need freelance writers for a number of reasons.

Individuals or companies might need a writer for their blog or website, or a company might need a writer for its instruction manuals, for instance.

  Pro Tip: The best way to learn how to get freelance writing jobs is from someone who has been doing it for years. Holly Johnson generates over $100k per year freelance writing and she has a program to show you how to do it. 

**Money Peach Readers: Use Coupon Code PEACH10 to Receive 10% Off at Checkout**

  Become Freelance Writer

  An even better option is to learn from those who are already making 6-figures as freelance writers. Check out Episode 13 on the Money Peach Podcast where Holly and Greg Johnson share how they got started as freelance writers and soon turned their side hustle into a 6-figure income.

20. Zazzle

Make money on Zazzle as a designer by selling your artwork on different products or you can actually make and manufacture the products for sale. I have a friend who takes old dry wood and paints slogans on them. She needs to sell them on Zazzle; she could create a very quick and profitable side hustle.

21. eBay

You can have your own store up in only a few minutes at eBay. To start, you must have a seller account, must be verified through PayPal. You are even able to give a detailed description of your store with a catchy design to attract customers. I have a friend who will buy all of the unused bras at a last chance type of store and resell them for a profit at her eBay store. Last I heard, she was doing $1,000/month in her first couple of months.

22. Do Transcription Work or Data Entry Work

Companies hire transcriptionists for a number of reasons. A doctor’s office might need a medical transcriptionist to record information about a patient’s appointment, or law enforcement agencies might need transcription services for court cases or suspect interviews.

Data entry work, which is a bit easier than transcription work, is also available from companies who hire people to work from home. Simply google “transcription work” or “data entry jobs” for a list of companies currently hiring work-from-home reps.

23. Sell Your Photos Online

Do you take amazing photos? You can actually sell your photos online at places like iStockPhoto, Shutterstock, Fotolia, and Bigstockphoto. Photos can be sold over and over again, allowing you to earn a residual income!

24. Start a Web Design Business

If you’re knowledgeable about web design, you could make money creating or improving on websites for individuals or businesses.

Advertise on Craigslist or approach businesses directly if they have a website that needs improvement.

There really is no shortage of ways to make extra money if you’re willing to get creative and do some research. Which financial goals will you use the extra cash you earn to accomplish?

TWEET THIS 'When you're broke, the best place to go to get more money is work'Click To Tweet

Driving Hustles

If you have a car, you may as well use it to help you side hustle, right? Here’s our favorite driving side hustles.

25. Uber/Lyft Driver-Partner

If you are unfamiliar with Uber or Lyft, then make sure you still have a pulse and you are breathing air.

To get started, some minimum requirements you need are a car, a smartphone, and the Uber or Lyft app. You become available to drive as soon as you complete the activation process and then you are ready to start earning money. Fares are paid out weekly or up to 5X a day when you register for Instant Pay with your debit card!

Today, there are more riders on the road than ever! This is one of my absolute favorite ways to start generating money quickly.

Drive with Uber

Drive with Lyft

26. Uber Eats

Maybe you just don’t feel like driving people around in your car or maybe you don’t even have a car. Depending on the city you live in, Uber Eats allows you to deliver food to people via your car, bike, or scooter. Turn on the app in the morning before work, when you get home, or whenever you have some extra time to make money on your terms.

Uber Eats

27. Be a Paid Designated Driver

Pretty self-explanatory.

28. Drive People to the Airport

Some airports don’t allow Uber or Lyft to drop people off or pick them up, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still offer up airport rides on your own. Post an ad to all of your friends on social media that you are now their preferred method of getting to the airport. I used to do this when I first got my license and it paid very well 🙂

OR JUST DRIVE WITH UBER OR LYFT (See Number 24 Above)

Extremely Passive Hustles

If you like passive income, then you may want to review the top 40 passive income ideas . But to get you started, here are our favorite side hustles that are also extremely passive.

29. Rent Out Your Garage or Driveway

You’ve likely heard of AirBnB, where you can rent out rooms in your house – or your whole house – to travelers wanting to avoid the impersonal feel and high cost of hotel rooms.

Maybe you can’t or don’t want to rent out rooms in your house, but you might have space in your garage to rent out. Sites such as Air Garage help people rent out their garage spaces and driveway spaces.

People might want to rent out your garage or driveway space because they work close to where you live and want cheaper and safer parking options.

Or they might want to rent out your parking space because there’s an event near you, such as a state fair or sporting event.

Depending on where you live you could easily earn $50 or more a month for parking spots in your garage or driveway.

Check out this Money Peach podcast with AirGarage CEO Jonathan Barkl for more info.

30. Become a Voiceover Artist

You know those people who talk on radio and TV commercials but you never see their faces? They’re called voiceover artists, and they get paid good money to do what they do.

Sites like Backstage list available voiceover jobs, and Carrie Olsen, professional voiceover artist, has a great web site that can help you learn how to become a voiceover artist.

Check out this Money Peach Podcast with Voice Over Star Carrie Olsen for more info.

31. Rent out your Car

Did you know your car sits idle 93% of the time? If you’re not going to need your car for the next couple of days/weeks/months, you may as well let it earn you some cash. You can list your car through RelayRides and have your personal car rented out tomorrow.

32. Rent out a Room full-time

Own a home and need extra cash each month? Rent out a room in your house to help cover the mortgage and free up some of your cash. I have a single friend who has a $1,200 mortgage and he consistently earns $2,000+ every month by renting out room(s) in his house via Airbnb. Fun fact – he applies the extra cash towards his mortgage each month!

Airbnb

  Some Skill Required Hustles

So, not all side hustles are for everyone. In fact, these ones below do require some skill to make money. But, the more skill you have, the more money you will make!

33. Become an Online Coach

If you have an idea and can help people, pay attention. Whether it is motivating someone, helping them pass a class, or teaching them how to build a website, this can all be done online. Setup you’re pricing, terms, and accept payment through something as simple as PayPal and you are on your way. I recommend using Skype or Google Hangouts since it is 100% free. Help someone and get paid – genius.

34. Create an Online Course

Is there something you are good at and can teach to others? I have a friend who will teach you how to clean pools over his site, Swim University. Check out Udemy for ideas on your next online course and see how much people are paying for someone like you to teach them.

One of the greatest accomplishments I have had in my business is helping others reach financial freedom. We have had over 500 students graduate Awesome Money Course and completely turn their money situation around!

If you are tired of living the paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle and would like to save more, pay off debt, and reach true financial freedom, then Awesome Money Course was made for you.

I am so confident you will absolutely love the program that I have 100% money-back guarantee…meaning you could download the entire course, keep it, and ask for a refund.

I hope no one would do that, but I will also take that risk if it results in you learning how to manage money, pay off debt, save, and build a wealthy future.

However, if you would like to try a little bit of our program out, we do have a 100% free mini-course called the Cash Flow Formula which will show you the step-by-step to building a monthly cash-flow plan with many of our favorite money-hacks to save more and pay off debt quicker!

Start Cash Flow Formula (FREE)

  35. Spray Tanning

A good friend of mine (Jessica) has become the queen of spray tanning in our area. In fact, she is making $900 per week cash spray tanning both the ladies and the men and it’s all through word-of-mouth! You can check her out at JC Glows on Facebook to see how she set up her side hustle.

I asked her how she got started and she said this:

She started with this exact tanning kit

She uses this tanning tent

She taught herself how watching YouTube

36. Become a Cover Letter/Resume’ Writer

Professionals of all kinds pay ridiculous amounts of money for professionally written resumes. I know one guy who paid a professional resume’ writer $5,000.

If you have a knack for writing compelling and attention-grabbing resumes, consider offering your services on sites such as freelancer.com or Craigslist.

37. Develop an App

If you’ve got a great idea for an app that will make people’s lives easier or more exciting, this could be a great side hustle for you.

Check out this post on learnappmaking.com for more information on how to develop and market an app for some extra income.

38. Catering

If you love cooking, serving food, and entertaining at your own home, then get paid to do it for someone else. This can be fun and can often go from side hustle to full-time if you’re really good at it!

39. Computer Repair

If you love “playing” computers, then help someone repair theirs and get paid for it. Note: You must know a little bit about computers 🙂

40. Computer Training

How many Baby Boomers (or anyone for that matter) do you know who are still having trouble checking their email. If you were able to navigate to this web page, then you probably have the skills to teach extremely basic computer skills to an extreme beginner.

41. Guitar Gigs

A friend of mine finds guitar gigs online, on Facebook, and in the paper all the time. He shows up, plays for a few hours, and leaves with cash in hand. Note: you must be good at playing the guitar.

42. Guitar Lessons

If you are handy on the 6 string and can show someone else, teach them. Better yet, teach the world online how to play guitar.

43. Handyman Work

Some people are handy and others are not. Let your neighbors know that you are available to hang a ceiling fan, patch a hole in the drywall, fix an irrigation leak, or paint a fence. All can be done for them ASAP for a small fee 🙂

I love TaskRabbit. Whether I need a doggy door installed, someone to clean my house this weekend, or even mount a TV, I can go on TaskRabbit to find someone in an instant. YOU could be that person I find next on TaskRabbit for hire!

44. Lifeguard

Become a lifeguard and earn $16/hr – $20/hr part-time. Not only do you make some extra cash, but you are guaranteed to get a little tan as well.

45. Mobile Oil Change

If you don’t mind getting underneath the car and pulling the drain plug for people, then this could be your next side hustle. People are busy, and may want to pay you to change their oil while they are at work. Note: Wal-Mart always has the cheapest oil.

46. Network Marketing

Network marketing (sometimes referred to as multi-level-marketing) can sometimes have a bad connotation if you have ever been scammed in the past. However, there are very reputable companies out there that you can start working for today with very little buy-in or overhead. A member of our family started off her network marketing business as a side hustle and has turned it into a part-time gig with full-time income. Warning: if you are told it doesn’t require any actual work – run away!

47. Personal Training

Someone out there wants to get into better shape, and they are willing to pay you to help them. If you love fitness, this would be a perfect side hustle for you.

48. Tutoring

Take your education and use it to make money on the side. Tutor students and get paid handsomely.

Live in the U.S. or U.K. and hold a bachelor’s degree? You can earn up to $20/hr plus bonuses to teach kids English online from the comfort of home. Learn more here.

49. Teach Music Lessons

From singing to playing piano or any other number of instruments, parents everywhere are seeking music lessons for their kids.

If you have a gift for a musical skills, consider teaching that skill to local kids. You might be able to find jobs by looking on Craigslist or by seeking out local public school or homeschooling groups to connect with parents who have school-aged children.

50. Start a Baking Business

Do you have a gift for baking goodies such as cake, muffins or cookies? Why not use that gift to make yourself some extra cash?

Events such as birthday parties, weddings, office parties and meetings, retirement parties and more often have baked treats as a part of their celebration.

Advertise your culinary skills on Craigslist and with local event booking venues for your bakery services.

Be sure to check with state officials on what the rules are for serving and selling food in your area first.

51. Become a Sports Umpire

Are you knowledgeable about the rules and regulations of certain sports? Do you like working with kids? Recreation associations often pay good money for organized sports umpires for football, baseball, and more.

In our area, umpires earn about $30 an hour. Check with local sporting organizations for job opening details.

Physical Labor Hustles

If you don’t putting in a little sweat equity, you can do very well side hustling with some physical labor attached to it. I did #50 when I was getting out of debt and generated over $1,000 each month.

52. Clean Pools

This requires very little overhead and is simple to do. Go to Google Earth and look up which homes in your neighborhood have a pool, and offer to start today. I actually did this to get out of debt and it worked out great!

53. House Cleaning

People are busy and don’t have time to clean their homes. This is where you come in 🙂 Search your area in Craigslist to get an idea for pricing your own services.

54. Mowing Lawns

If you don’t have the funds to purchase all the equipment, then offer to your mow lawns with their equipment. I actually did this in grade school because I wasn’t old enough to drive. I just showed up, grabbed their lawnmower, and was paid.

55. Painting Gates

Gates fade and someone needs to repaint them. A kid in the neighborhood took pics of faded gates and pretty gates and posted them on the mailbox with his number and price. (I think one of the faded gate pics he took was my gate also).

56. Painting Services

Remember that movie American Pie 2 where they spend the summer in a lake house and do some side painting. No one likes painting their houses or walls, so why not help them out for a little side cash? Start out small by offering to paint a bedroom or two, and work your way up from there. Pricing rule: $1 per square ft of painting.

57. Shoveling Snow

No one likes shoveling snow and this is why you will be paid for it.

58. Wash Cars

If you can wash a car, then you can make money. People are busy and don’t have time to even take their cars to the wash anymore…this is where you come in.

59. Wash Windows

I recently paid a guy to wash my windows because he advertised $4/window. He spent about 1 hour washing a total of 20 windows and walked away with $80 cash. His entire setup was a bucket and a squeegee. Maybe I should wash my own windows and my neighbor’s windows for an affordable price of only $4 a window.

Unique Hustles

If you are unique, then you deserve some unique side hustles. Some of these are extremely cool, but a few of them…well I am still waiting for you to try.

60. Rent out Your Baby Gear

Think of it as the Airbnb of Baby Gear.

Have you ever traveled with kids and realized what a pain-in-the-butt it is to take the stroller, hi-chair, pack-n-play, and everything else that babies need? Think about dragging all of that through the airport, onto the train, or inside the Uber?

BabyQuip offers a simple solution. They provide families with a wide assortment of clean, quality baby equipment—everything they need to keep their little ones sleeping well at night and happily engaged during the day.

And guess who makes 80% commission (plus tips) renting their baby gear out?

You, the side hustler!

BabyQuip

61. Sell Your Hair Online

Thinking about a new hair style? You may want to. People are paying up to $1,000 for quality hair if you can remember to wash it more than once a month J Check out what your hair is worth at Hairsellon.

Hairsellon

62. Paint Street Numbers

A father and son rang my doorbell and pointed out to me my street numbers were faded. “For only $10, they would repaint my street numbers so my house would look better”. I paid it and it took them 37 seconds. They did 6 houses on my street alone. This is a great little side hustle.

63. Sell Drinks

where it’s hot (and where it’s cold)

I live in Phoenix where it will hover at 116°F during the summer. During the hottest weeks, there is a guy who sells snow cones and water for a premium.

I asked him how business was recently – he smiled and said “Business is gooooooood”. Buy a case of water at Costco for $0.12 a bottle and resell them for $2 wherever it is HOT. Who wouldn’t pay $2 for ice-cold water during the dog days of summer?

64. TaskRabbit

Become a task rabbit and get paid. People in your neighborhood are looking to pay you to put together furniture from Ikea, do their grocery shopping, install a ceiling fan, be a bartender at their party, or mount their TV to the wall.

65. Start a Home Staging Business

Somebody is always selling a home, and homes sell faster and for more money when they are “staged”.

As a home stager you can tailor your business to meet a variety of client needs. Creating relationships with local realtors is one way to help you find home staging clients.

66. Be a Work-From-Home Customer Service Rep

There are many legit companies that offer to hire customer service representatives who can from home. One of the more popular work-from-home companies is U-Haul, the well-known moving company.

67. Start an Estate Sale Service Business

An estate sale business buys a large majority of a client’s belongings, including furniture, vehicles and more, at a group rate and sells the stuff individually for profit.

This is a business that will take some work as you get to know the ropes but can be very lucrative in the long run.

68. Start a Vending Machine Business

Many companies want vending machines installed at their businesses for the convenience of employees and clients alike.

Although this type of side hustle would involve some costly initial cash, you may be able to make it up quickly if you install the machines in thriving businesses that service large numbers of people.

69. Pick Up Trash in Parking Lots

Brian Winch came on the podcast to share how he picks up trash around parking lots and now earns a 6-figure income by doing so. Although it may not be glorious work, it does pay well and it’s extremely affordable to get started. Before you get started, check out the Clean Lots tutorial here.

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me Hustles

Before you read on, just remember the name of these side hustles are you’ve-go-to-be-kidding-me side hustles. Some of them will actually shock you ?.

70. Be a Sperm Donor

This is straight out of the movie Road Trip when they need gas money. However, you can make substantial money donating sperm, with some places offering up $1,000/month to healthy men. Be aware, if you’re not a true thoroughbred, you won’t be paid as much!

71. Be a Plasma Donor

Since there is no way to synthetically make plasma, you will be compensated for your donation. Rates vary from state to state, but you can make on average $200/month for only a few hours of your time….and blood.

We have a full list of where you can earn $400 per month donating plasma here.

72. Become a Cuddler

Ah yes, cuddling. This is an actual real job and I recently saw it featured in a news segment. People are paying for up to 3 hours of platonic hugging (and they pay a lot). Job requirements: enjoy hugging strangers.

73. Pick up Dog Poop

Who likes picking up dog poop? Nobody. This is why you can get paid for it.

74. Rent-a-Friend

You can sign up for free at Rentafriend to be someone else friend both part-time and full-time with pay between $20/hr – $50/hr. Yes, this sounds very strange from the outside looking in, but a lot of times you are helping someone get acquainted in a new town, meet a new group of friends, or simply have a cup of coffee with. Most importantly – friendship is always platonic (no touching).

Easy Peasy Hustles

These are some of the classic side hustles that we call the easy peasy ones. If you are looking for simple, but yet effective, these are the side hustles for you.

75. Babysitting

If you like kids and don’t go out on the weekends, become a babysitter. Advertise to all of your friends (and Facebook Friends) that you will watch their kids so they can have a date night. New to the area? Then get connected with Care.com to become a certified/recommended babysitter in your area.

76. Dog Walking

Create this ad: “Love your dog but simply don’t have time to walk them? Let me help you!” There will always be someone willing to pay to keep their doggy happy, and this person is you.

77. Gig Walking

Download the free App and then find “gigs” in your neighborhood that companies are willing to pay you for. Can you check out the price of milk in a certain store for $6 or snap a pic of a storefront for $5 on the way to work? Note: You will start off with the crappier jobs in the beginning, but prove yourself and you will start getting offered the higher-paying jobs soon enough.

78. Golf Course

If you love being around the golf course (or don’t mind a few drunk old men) you can make pretty good money part-time by collecting balls off the range, cleaning golf carts, or serving cold beers at the tee box.

79. House-sitting

Who doesn’t want to get paid for simply living in someone else’s house for a few day days? This is simple and people will pay you for it. You can think of it as a mini staycation too!

80. Mystery Shopper

Get paid $10 – $30 on average to be a mystery shopper. However, beware because there are a lot of scams out there. I recommend checking out Marketforce, Best Mark, and Intelli-101 before you head anywhere else.

81. Pet Grooming

There are people out there that simply will not shave their dog and will pay you for it. Create a Facebook Page called “iShaveDogs” and let all your friends know! Someone will hire you.

82. Pet Sitting

If you truly love animals, then why not get paid to hang out with someone else’s dog or cat for the weekend? You can become a pet sitter at Care.com or specialize in only watching over someone’s pooch at Rover.

83. RedBox

You love renting movies for only $1.75, but did you know you can get paid to stock DVDs into the kiosks and make sure they are working properly? Check out Redbox Jobs and also see these 12 free Redbox Codes for free moves and games.

84. Sell ScrapMetal

Post in your social media or offer in the newspaper that you will come and take any scrap metal away for people. Not only could you make a few extra bucks for hauling away metal, but then you could sell it at a scrap yard. Double whammy!

85. Tax Prep

When I was in college, TurboTax hit the Internet. I created an ad on a bulletin board and offered Tax Prep for those who make less than $100k/year so I could use the free 1040EZ software. My overhead was $0 and I charged $20 to punch the numbers from the W-2 into TurboTax. Another great option is to try H&R Block and see which one you like the best. We also have a full review of H&R Block here.

TurboTax

86. Sign Spinner

Do you ever see those people standing on the corner, wearing headphones, oblivious to the entire world around them, and flipping signs in the air? They are making money and you can too. What about sign holder? Well, maybe you’re not the spinning type…

87. Sign Holder

Maybe you’re just not the spinning type 🙂

TWEET This: When you're broke, the BEST place to find more money is at work.Click To Tweet

Final Takeaway

As you can see, we live in a time when anyone who wants to make a little (or a lot) of money can. Your local area is no longer the only area to make money. The entire world is at your fingertips through the use of many of the options mentioned in this post.

What is one skill you have that others could learn from? Think about what’s the one thing you actually love doing that people would want to pay you for? How can you take your side hustle idea and turn it into monthly income?

3…2…1… it’s go time my friends!

  Related Posts You May Like

Best Places Locally and Online to Sell Your Old Phones

40 Ways to Get Free Amazon Gift Cards

20+ Best Places to Sell Stuff Online and Paid Quickly

The Best of the Best Proven Side Hustles You Should Know About published first on https://mysingaporepools.weebly.com/

[kennethherrerablog]

The Best of the Best Proven Side Hustles You Should Know About

Need to make a little (or a lot) of extra money this month?

Side hustles are an incredible way to boost your monthly income. Whether you want to stay home and make money from home, get out of the house to make money, or try something unique and fun – I have you covered.

This list is updated weekly and if there is anything you think I need to take out or add to the list, please let me know in the comments below the post.

Also, if you do find something and you’re having a lot of success with it, you’d be helping everyone out by sharing your win in the comments below. Thanks so much and enjoy the guide to making more money each month.

Table of Contents

My First Picks...

1. Share Your Opinion

2. Door Dash

3. VIPKID

4. Airbnb

5. Share Your Blog with the World

6. Become a Virtual Assistant

Online Hustles

7. Start a Social Media Marketing Business

8. Ebates (Now Rakuten)

9. Honey Browser Extension

10. Inbox Dollars

11. Fiverr

12. Make Money with PayPal

13. Amazon

14. Amazon Affiliate Links

15. eBook Publishing

16. Etsy

17. Craigslist

18. User Testing

19. Become a Freelance Writer

20. Zazzle

21. eBay

22. Do Transcription Work or Data Entry Work

23. Sell Your Photos Online

24. Start a Web Design Business

Driving Hustles

25. Uber/Lyft Driver-Partner

26. Uber Eats

27. Be a Paid Designated Driver

28. Drive People to the Airport

Extremely Passive Hustles

29. Rent Out Your Garage or Driveway

30. Become a Voiceover Artist

31. Rent out your Car

32. Rent out a Room full-time

Some Skill Required Hustles

33. Become an Online Coach

34. Create an Online Course

35. Spray Tanning

36. Become a Cover Letter/Resume’ Writer

37. Develop an App

38. Catering

39. Computer Repair

40. Computer Training

41. Guitar Gigs

42. Guitar Lessons

43. Handyman Work

44. Lifeguard

45. Mobile Oil Change

46. Network Marketing

47. Personal Training

48. Tutoring

49. Teach Music Lessons

50. Start a Baking Business

51. Become a Sports Umpire

Physical Labor Hustles

52. Clean Pools

53. House Cleaning

54. Mowing Lawns

55. Painting Gates

56. Painting Services

57. Shoveling Snow

58. Wash Cars

59. Wash Windows

Unique Hustles

60. Rent out Your Baby Gear

61. Sell Your Hair Online

62. Paint Street Numbers

63. Sell Drinks

64. TaskRabbit

65. Start a Home Staging Business

66. Be a Work-From-Home Customer Service Rep

67. Start an Estate Sale Service Business

68. Start a Vending Machine Business

69. Pick Up Trash in Parking Lots

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me Hustles

70. Be a Sperm Donor

71. Be a Plasma Donor

72. Become a Cuddler

73. Pick up Dog Poop

74. Rent-a-Friend

Easy Peasy Hustles

75. Babysitting

76. Dog Walking

77. Gig Walking

78. Golf Course

79. House-sitting

80. Mystery Shopper

81. Pet Grooming

82. Pet Sitting

83. RedBox

84. Sell ScrapMetal

85. Tax Prep

86. Sign Spinner

87. Sign Holder

Final Takeaway

My First Picks…

These first five are favorites because they are quick ways to get started making extra money and they have long-term potential as well! All five of them do require an internet connection, but sine you’re reading this from the internet, I think you’re covered there ?

1. Share Your Opinion

and get money sent to your PayPal

Yup, you can actually generate side income by simply giving your opinion via online surveys. It’s not going to make you rich tomorrow, but it’s still a great way to generate extra income during your down time.

If you think surveys may be the way to go, check out our full list of the top survey companies for both online and offline opinions here.

Survey Junkie

  2. Door Dash

Door Dash is our favorite pick for food delivery because it’s been reported back to us that DoorDashers make slightly more than UberEats drivers. While we don’t have any factual statistics to prove this right or wrong, we still pick DoorDash over UberEats as our top side hustle for food delivery. If you have a car, bike, or scooter, get started with Door Dash today and start making money for your next vacation, your upcoming wedding, or whatever expense you’re saving for!

Maybe you just don’t feel like driving people around in your car or maybe you don’t even have a car. Depending on the city you live in, Uber Eats allows you to deliver food to people via your car, bike, or scooter. Turn on the app in the morning before work, when you get home, or whenever you have some extra time to make money on your terms.

Door Dash

  3. VIPKID

VIPKID will pay you up to $22/hour to teach English from the comfort of your home to children in China. Currently VIPKID has over 70,000 teachers teaching English as a second language to over 600,000 children in China.

They do require you to have a Bachelor’s degree from either the USA or Canada and they ask for “some teaching experience”. However, from the teachers we have spoke with from VIPKID, they said “teaching” doesn’t have to mean teaching in a traditional educational setting.

The lessons are 30 minutes long and you will be paid up to $11 for each 30-minute lesson. One thing to note is since you are teaching across the globe in a live setting, you will be teaching at odd hours (late at night or first thing in the morning). However, the teachers we spoke to said it was fun, rewarding, and it paid well for being able to stay at home and teach from their laptops.

VIPKID

4. Airbnb

Did you know you can rent your room or house out at Airbnb? They have been around since 2008 and millions of people have been renting out their rooms or entire homes to travelers from all over the world. If you do this right, you may be able to cover your entire mortgage! If you’re going to be gone for a month or two, you may as well allow your space to make money while you’re gone.

Airbnb

  5. Share Your Blog with the World

I started this blog in 2015 from my laptop at my kitchen table and today it generates over $10,000 per month 🙂 However, in the beginning it was just a side hustle project that turned into full-time income much quicker than I would have ever dreamed.

If you love writing, then starting a blog is exactly the right side hustle for you. There are many ways to generate income from blogging, with one of the most popular being through affiliate income.

How does it work?

You know how you can share a referral link from companies you love and they will send you $5 for referring them a customer? Affiliate partners work the exact same way.

Is blogging complicated?

Absolutely not! But just in case, I did create a step-by-step guide to help you get started in about 15 minutes.

Start a Blog

  6. Become a Virtual Assistant

If you enjoy working from your laptop, then becoming a virtual assistant may be exactly what you need. We use a few virtual assistants for Money Peach and one of them earns over $10,000 per month as a VA. Other places where you can become a virtual assistant for an agency where they find work for your is Upwork. They take a 10% fee, but 90% is still a great side hustle.

You can also listen to Episode 80 on the Money Peach Podcast (below) where my own Virtual Assistant shares how she got started as a VA and within a few years was able to quit her full-time job and start earning over $10k per month doing what she loved.

Virtual Assistant Course (Use Promo Code Peach 10 for $50 Off)

Online Hustles

I love online hustles because they give you the freedom to do these anywhere. If you’re constantly traveling for work or out of town a lot you’re going to absolutely love these online side hustles.

7. Start a Social Media Marketing Business

Our very own social media manager was actually someone who was enrolled inside Awesome Money Course. We noticed how great she was inside our private students-only Facebook group and we offered her a job with us. Now she manages all of our social media for Money Peach and she has also been offered social media jobs from other bloggers!

A great place to get started is visiting the Facebook Side Hustle Course by Bobby of Millennial Money Man. You can read how many of the students from the course are landing social media jobs for $1,000 – $2,000 month! Not a bad little side hustle, right?

Facebook Side Hustle

  8. Ebates (Now Rakuten)

Ebates is a company that has partnered with over 2,000 online companies to form an affiliate relationship with each of them. An affiliate relationship simply means Ebates and each online company have created a partnership where Ebates will refer you or I to buy something from them, and that company then sends Ebates a thank-you referral.

The good news: Ebates then splits the thank-you referral with you, and you earn Cash Back.

The Better News: You can Make Money by referring friends, family, or anyone else to join Ebates!

Ebates extends their referral program to any Ebates member who would like to share how to earn Cash Back while shopping online. Once you create an account with Ebates, you can invite your friends and family to join in on the Cash Back savings, and YOU will also receive a thank-you referral, aka make money.

BONUS $10 with Ebates Right Now

  9. Honey Browser Extension

Honey is a free tool that will search for online coupons and apply them to your online shopping cart to make sure you are saving the most money. Instead of searching for coupons one at-a-time and applying them individually, Honey does all of this for you in the matter of seconds. Not only will you save money, but you will also MAKE MONEY with their refer-a-friend program. For anyone you refer to the app, Honey will send you $5 as soon as they purchase something via the app up to $1,000.

Honey Browser Extension

  10. Inbox Dollars

Inbox Dollars is a rewards club that pays you in cash for completing a variety of online activities. This can include searching the internet, filling out surveys, printing off coupons, and shopping online. If you are already doing these things, you may as well get paid for it, right?

Inbox Dollars

  11. Fiverr

Fiverr is a platform where you can sell your products and services starting at $5 per gig. After you have a few $5 gigs under your belt, you can start increasing how much you charge. Here at Money Peach, we hire people from Fiverr all the time. Just recently, we found someone for a quick logo design and another to transcribe some videos we created.

Also, the Fiverr platform does take 20% from each gig. Therefore, if you do a $5 gig, you will take home $4 per gig. However, if you can complete 3-4 gigs in an hour, your hourly rate could start at $16 – $20 per hour!

Fiverr

  12. Make Money with PayPal

Already have a PayPal account?

We have put together a list of the side hustles that will pay you in PayPal gift cards which can then be deposited into your PayPal account – just like cash!

Where to make money with PayPal

  13. Amazon

Selling on Amazon is almost identical as selling on eBay in terms of fees and ease of use. However, sometimes items that don’t sell as well on eBay do better on Amazon and vice versa. Either way, it is a side hustle worth looking at if you can buy for cheap and resell for a higher price.

14. Amazon Affiliate Links

I know of a guy who started out as a handyman. He then took that idea as a handyman and started his own blog to teach people how to fix things themselves through blogging and video tutorial. At the end of every post or video, he would tell you what tool he used to get the job done and would provide a link directly to Amazon for you to purchase that product.

However, he also signed up for a free Amazon Affiliate Account. Every time someone clicks on his link and buys ANYTHING on Amazon, he gets a commission! Think about this: Amazon pays him for the tool he recommended and also for anything else they Add To Cart. This is why I love blogging and why I have a free tutorial to help you get started.

15. eBook Publishing

Make money by writing your own book and self publishing it on Amazon for free. There are different options available for how your can price your book and earn income from the sale of your book in the Amazon store. Questions about self publishing your own book? Check this out.

16. Etsy

Instead of having to open up your brick and mortar store, sell your creations on Etsy. Whether you make clothing, crafts, baby toys, or jewelry, you can open up your own store at Etsy. I have a friend selling her awesome clothing line on Etsy and it brings in a very nice income for the family. This is another great side hustle, but don’t expect instant results. You may need to be patient for this one.

17. Craigslist

We all know you can buy and sell stuff on Craigslist, but have you ever thought about offering a service you can provide. If providing a service isn’t your thing, you can scan Craigslist for great deals and then later resell items for a profit. This takes persistence and patience, but I have a friend who went from a $4k truck to a $24k in truck in 18 months by flipping cars from Craigslist.

There are also many other sites competing with Craigslist and you may have better exposure by posting on these sites like Craigslist.

18. User Testing

Don’t want to do an online survey, but still like to surf the web and earn some cash? Companies will pay you to try out their apps or visit their websites and give them feedback. Usertesting and UserFeel uses your feedback on apps and websites that aren’t as user-friendly and then pays your for it.

19. Become a Freelance Writer

If you are a good writer, consider searching online sites such as freelancer.com for writing jobs. Individuals or companies might need freelance writers for a number of reasons.

Individuals or companies might need a writer for their blog or website, or a company might need a writer for its instruction manuals, for instance.

  Pro Tip: The best way to learn how to get freelance writing jobs is from someone who has been doing it for years. Holly Johnson generates over $100k per year freelance writing and she has a program to show you how to do it. 

**Money Peach Readers: Use Coupon Code PEACH10 to Receive 10% Off at Checkout**

  Become Freelance Writer

  An even better option is to learn from those who are already making 6-figures as freelance writers. Check out Episode 13 on the Money Peach Podcast where Holly and Greg Johnson share how they got started as freelance writers and soon turned their side hustle into a 6-figure income.

20. Zazzle

Make money on Zazzle as a designer by selling your artwork on different products or you can actually make and manufacture the products for sale. I have a friend who takes old dry wood and paints slogans on them. She needs to sell them on Zazzle; she could create a very quick and profitable side hustle.

21. eBay

You can have your own store up in only a few minutes at eBay. To start, you must have a seller account, must be verified through PayPal. You are even able to give a detailed description of your store with a catchy design to attract customers. I have a friend who will buy all of the unused bras at a last chance type of store and resell them for a profit at her eBay store. Last I heard, she was doing $1,000/month in her first couple of months.

22. Do Transcription Work or Data Entry Work

Companies hire transcriptionists for a number of reasons. A doctor’s office might need a medical transcriptionist to record information about a patient’s appointment, or law enforcement agencies might need transcription services for court cases or suspect interviews.

Data entry work, which is a bit easier than transcription work, is also available from companies who hire people to work from home. Simply google “transcription work” or “data entry jobs” for a list of companies currently hiring work-from-home reps.

23. Sell Your Photos Online

Do you take amazing photos? You can actually sell your photos online at places like iStockPhoto, Shutterstock, Fotolia, and Bigstockphoto. Photos can be sold over and over again, allowing you to earn a residual income!

24. Start a Web Design Business

If you’re knowledgeable about web design, you could make money creating or improving on websites for individuals or businesses.

Advertise on Craigslist or approach businesses directly if they have a website that needs improvement.

There really is no shortage of ways to make extra money if you’re willing to get creative and do some research. Which financial goals will you use the extra cash you earn to accomplish?

TWEET THIS 'When you're broke, the best place to go to get more money is work'Click To Tweet

Driving Hustles

If you have a car, you may as well use it to help you side hustle, right? Here’s our favorite driving side hustles.

25. Uber/Lyft Driver-Partner

If you are unfamiliar with Uber or Lyft, then make sure you still have a pulse and you are breathing air.

To get started, some minimum requirements you need are a car, a smartphone, and the Uber or Lyft app. You become available to drive as soon as you complete the activation process and then you are ready to start earning money. Fares are paid out weekly or up to 5X a day when you register for Instant Pay with your debit card!

Today, there are more riders on the road than ever! This is one of my absolute favorite ways to start generating money quickly.

Drive with Uber

Drive with Lyft

26. Uber Eats

Maybe you just don’t feel like driving people around in your car or maybe you don’t even have a car. Depending on the city you live in, Uber Eats allows you to deliver food to people via your car, bike, or scooter. Turn on the app in the morning before work, when you get home, or whenever you have some extra time to make money on your terms.

Uber Eats

27. Be a Paid Designated Driver

Pretty self-explanatory.

28. Drive People to the Airport

Some airports don’t allow Uber or Lyft to drop people off or pick them up, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still offer up airport rides on your own. Post an ad to all of your friends on social media that you are now their preferred method of getting to the airport. I used to do this when I first got my license and it paid very well 🙂

OR JUST DRIVE WITH UBER OR LYFT (See Number 24 Above)

Extremely Passive Hustles

If you like passive income, then you may want to review the top 40 passive income ideas . But to get you started, here are our favorite side hustles that are also extremely passive.

29. Rent Out Your Garage or Driveway

You’ve likely heard of AirBnB, where you can rent out rooms in your house – or your whole house – to travelers wanting to avoid the impersonal feel and high cost of hotel rooms.

Maybe you can’t or don’t want to rent out rooms in your house, but you might have space in your garage to rent out. Sites such as Air Garage help people rent out their garage spaces and driveway spaces.

People might want to rent out your garage or driveway space because they work close to where you live and want cheaper and safer parking options.

Or they might want to rent out your parking space because there’s an event near you, such as a state fair or sporting event.

Depending on where you live you could easily earn $50 or more a month for parking spots in your garage or driveway.

Check out this Money Peach podcast with AirGarage CEO Jonathan Barkl for more info.

30. Become a Voiceover Artist

You know those people who talk on radio and TV commercials but you never see their faces? They’re called voiceover artists, and they get paid good money to do what they do.

Sites like Backstage list available voiceover jobs, and Carrie Olsen, professional voiceover artist, has a great web site that can help you learn how to become a voiceover artist.

Check out this Money Peach Podcast with Voice Over Star Carrie Olsen for more info.

31. Rent out your Car

Did you know your car sits idle 93% of the time? If you’re not going to need your car for the next couple of days/weeks/months, you may as well let it earn you some cash. You can list your car through RelayRides and have your personal car rented out tomorrow.

32. Rent out a Room full-time

Own a home and need extra cash each month? Rent out a room in your house to help cover the mortgage and free up some of your cash. I have a single friend who has a $1,200 mortgage and he consistently earns $2,000+ every month by renting out room(s) in his house via Airbnb. Fun fact – he applies the extra cash towards his mortgage each month!

Airbnb

  Some Skill Required Hustles

So, not all side hustles are for everyone. In fact, these ones below do require some skill to make money. But, the more skill you have, the more money you will make!

33. Become an Online Coach

If you have an idea and can help people, pay attention. Whether it is motivating someone, helping them pass a class, or teaching them how to build a website, this can all be done online. Setup you’re pricing, terms, and accept payment through something as simple as PayPal and you are on your way. I recommend using Skype or Google Hangouts since it is 100% free. Help someone and get paid – genius.

34. Create an Online Course

Is there something you are good at and can teach to others? I have a friend who will teach you how to clean pools over his site, Swim University. Check out Udemy for ideas on your next online course and see how much people are paying for someone like you to teach them.

One of the greatest accomplishments I have had in my business is helping others reach financial freedom. We have had over 500 students graduate Awesome Money Course and completely turn their money situation around!

If you are tired of living the paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle and would like to save more, pay off debt, and reach true financial freedom, then Awesome Money Course was made for you.

I am so confident you will absolutely love the program that I have 100% money-back guarantee…meaning you could download the entire course, keep it, and ask for a refund.

I hope no one would do that, but I will also take that risk if it results in you learning how to manage money, pay off debt, save, and build a wealthy future.

However, if you would like to try a little bit of our program out, we do have a 100% free mini-course called the Cash Flow Formula which will show you the step-by-step to building a monthly cash-flow plan with many of our favorite money-hacks to save more and pay off debt quicker!

Start Cash Flow Formula (FREE)

  35. Spray Tanning

A good friend of mine (Jessica) has become the queen of spray tanning in our area. In fact, she is making $900 per week cash spray tanning both the ladies and the men and it’s all through word-of-mouth! You can check her out at JC Glows on Facebook to see how she set up her side hustle.

I asked her how she got started and she said this:

She started with this exact tanning kit

She uses this tanning tent

She taught herself how watching YouTube

36. Become a Cover Letter/Resume’ Writer

Professionals of all kinds pay ridiculous amounts of money for professionally written resumes. I know one guy who paid a professional resume’ writer $5,000.

If you have a knack for writing compelling and attention-grabbing resumes, consider offering your services on sites such as freelancer.com or Craigslist.

37. Develop an App

If you’ve got a great idea for an app that will make people’s lives easier or more exciting, this could be a great side hustle for you.

Check out this post on learnappmaking.com for more information on how to develop and market an app for some extra income.

38. Catering

If you love cooking, serving food, and entertaining at your own home, then get paid to do it for someone else. This can be fun and can often go from side hustle to full-time if you’re really good at it!

39. Computer Repair

If you love “playing” computers, then help someone repair theirs and get paid for it. Note: You must know a little bit about computers 🙂

40. Computer Training

How many Baby Boomers (or anyone for that matter) do you know who are still having trouble checking their email. If you were able to navigate to this web page, then you probably have the skills to teach extremely basic computer skills to an extreme beginner.

41. Guitar Gigs

A friend of mine finds guitar gigs online, on Facebook, and in the paper all the time. He shows up, plays for a few hours, and leaves with cash in hand. Note: you must be good at playing the guitar.

42. Guitar Lessons

If you are handy on the 6 string and can show someone else, teach them. Better yet, teach the world online how to play guitar.

43. Handyman Work

Some people are handy and others are not. Let your neighbors know that you are available to hang a ceiling fan, patch a hole in the drywall, fix an irrigation leak, or paint a fence. All can be done for them ASAP for a small fee 🙂

I love TaskRabbit. Whether I need a doggy door installed, someone to clean my house this weekend, or even mount a TV, I can go on TaskRabbit to find someone in an instant. YOU could be that person I find next on TaskRabbit for hire!

44. Lifeguard

Become a lifeguard and earn $16/hr – $20/hr part-time. Not only do you make some extra cash, but you are guaranteed to get a little tan as well.

45. Mobile Oil Change

If you don’t mind getting underneath the car and pulling the drain plug for people, then this could be your next side hustle. People are busy, and may want to pay you to change their oil while they are at work. Note: Wal-Mart always has the cheapest oil.

46. Network Marketing

Network marketing (sometimes referred to as multi-level-marketing) can sometimes have a bad connotation if you have ever been scammed in the past. However, there are very reputable companies out there that you can start working for today with very little buy-in or overhead. A member of our family started off her network marketing business as a side hustle and has turned it into a part-time gig with full-time income. Warning: if you are told it doesn’t require any actual work – run away!

47. Personal Training

Someone out there wants to get into better shape, and they are willing to pay you to help them. If you love fitness, this would be a perfect side hustle for you.

48. Tutoring

Take your education and use it to make money on the side. Tutor students and get paid handsomely.

Live in the U.S. or U.K. and hold a bachelor’s degree? You can earn up to $20/hr plus bonuses to teach kids English online from the comfort of home. Learn more here.

49. Teach Music Lessons

From singing to playing piano or any other number of instruments, parents everywhere are seeking music lessons for their kids.

If you have a gift for a musical skills, consider teaching that skill to local kids. You might be able to find jobs by looking on Craigslist or by seeking out local public school or homeschooling groups to connect with parents who have school-aged children.

50. Start a Baking Business

Do you have a gift for baking goodies such as cake, muffins or cookies? Why not use that gift to make yourself some extra cash?

Events such as birthday parties, weddings, office parties and meetings, retirement parties and more often have baked treats as a part of their celebration.

Advertise your culinary skills on Craigslist and with local event booking venues for your bakery services.

Be sure to check with state officials on what the rules are for serving and selling food in your area first.

51. Become a Sports Umpire

Are you knowledgeable about the rules and regulations of certain sports? Do you like working with kids? Recreation associations often pay good money for organized sports umpires for football, baseball, and more.

In our area, umpires earn about $30 an hour. Check with local sporting organizations for job opening details.

Physical Labor Hustles

If you don’t putting in a little sweat equity, you can do very well side hustling with some physical labor attached to it. I did #50 when I was getting out of debt and generated over $1,000 each month.

52. Clean Pools

This requires very little overhead and is simple to do. Go to Google Earth and look up which homes in your neighborhood have a pool, and offer to start today. I actually did this to get out of debt and it worked out great!

53. House Cleaning

People are busy and don’t have time to clean their homes. This is where you come in 🙂 Search your area in Craigslist to get an idea for pricing your own services.

54. Mowing Lawns

If you don’t have the funds to purchase all the equipment, then offer to your mow lawns with their equipment. I actually did this in grade school because I wasn’t old enough to drive. I just showed up, grabbed their lawnmower, and was paid.

55. Painting Gates

Gates fade and someone needs to repaint them. A kid in the neighborhood took pics of faded gates and pretty gates and posted them on the mailbox with his number and price. (I think one of the faded gate pics he took was my gate also).

56. Painting Services

Remember that movie American Pie 2 where they spend the summer in a lake house and do some side painting. No one likes painting their houses or walls, so why not help them out for a little side cash? Start out small by offering to paint a bedroom or two, and work your way up from there. Pricing rule: $1 per square ft of painting.

57. Shoveling Snow

No one likes shoveling snow and this is why you will be paid for it.

58. Wash Cars

If you can wash a car, then you can make money. People are busy and don’t have time to even take their cars to the wash anymore…this is where you come in.

59. Wash Windows

I recently paid a guy to wash my windows because he advertised $4/window. He spent about 1 hour washing a total of 20 windows and walked away with $80 cash. His entire setup was a bucket and a squeegee. Maybe I should wash my own windows and my neighbor’s windows for an affordable price of only $4 a window.

Unique Hustles

If you are unique, then you deserve some unique side hustles. Some of these are extremely cool, but a few of them…well I am still waiting for you to try.

60. Rent out Your Baby Gear

Think of it as the Airbnb of Baby Gear.

Have you ever traveled with kids and realized what a pain-in-the-butt it is to take the stroller, hi-chair, pack-n-play, and everything else that babies need? Think about dragging all of that through the airport, onto the train, or inside the Uber?

BabyQuip offers a simple solution. They provide families with a wide assortment of clean, quality baby equipment—everything they need to keep their little ones sleeping well at night and happily engaged during the day.

And guess who makes 80% commission (plus tips) renting their baby gear out?

You, the side hustler!

BabyQuip

61. Sell Your Hair Online

Thinking about a new hair style? You may want to. People are paying up to $1,000 for quality hair if you can remember to wash it more than once a month J Check out what your hair is worth at Hairsellon.

Hairsellon

62. Paint Street Numbers

A father and son rang my doorbell and pointed out to me my street numbers were faded. “For only $10, they would repaint my street numbers so my house would look better”. I paid it and it took them 37 seconds. They did 6 houses on my street alone. This is a great little side hustle.

63. Sell Drinks

where it’s hot (and where it’s cold)

I live in Phoenix where it will hover at 116°F during the summer. During the hottest weeks, there is a guy who sells snow cones and water for a premium.

I asked him how business was recently – he smiled and said “Business is gooooooood”. Buy a case of water at Costco for $0.12 a bottle and resell them for $2 wherever it is HOT. Who wouldn’t pay $2 for ice-cold water during the dog days of summer?

64. TaskRabbit

Become a task rabbit and get paid. People in your neighborhood are looking to pay you to put together furniture from Ikea, do their grocery shopping, install a ceiling fan, be a bartender at their party, or mount their TV to the wall.

65. Start a Home Staging Business

Somebody is always selling a home, and homes sell faster and for more money when they are “staged”.

As a home stager you can tailor your business to meet a variety of client needs. Creating relationships with local realtors is one way to help you find home staging clients.

66. Be a Work-From-Home Customer Service Rep

There are many legit companies that offer to hire customer service representatives who can from home. One of the more popular work-from-home companies is U-Haul, the well-known moving company.

67. Start an Estate Sale Service Business

An estate sale business buys a large majority of a client’s belongings, including furniture, vehicles and more, at a group rate and sells the stuff individually for profit.

This is a business that will take some work as you get to know the ropes but can be very lucrative in the long run.

68. Start a Vending Machine Business

Many companies want vending machines installed at their businesses for the convenience of employees and clients alike.

Although this type of side hustle would involve some costly initial cash, you may be able to make it up quickly if you install the machines in thriving businesses that service large numbers of people.

69. Pick Up Trash in Parking Lots

Brian Winch came on the podcast to share how he picks up trash around parking lots and now earns a 6-figure income by doing so. Although it may not be glorious work, it does pay well and it’s extremely affordable to get started. Before you get started, check out the Clean Lots tutorial here.

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me Hustles

Before you read on, just remember the name of these side hustles are you’ve-go-to-be-kidding-me side hustles. Some of them will actually shock you ?.

70. Be a Sperm Donor

This is straight out of the movie Road Trip when they need gas money. However, you can make substantial money donating sperm, with some places offering up $1,000/month to healthy men. Be aware, if you’re not a true thoroughbred, you won’t be paid as much!

71. Be a Plasma Donor

Since there is no way to synthetically make plasma, you will be compensated for your donation. Rates vary from state to state, but you can make on average $200/month for only a few hours of your time….and blood.

We have a full list of where you can earn $400 per month donating plasma here.

72. Become a Cuddler

Ah yes, cuddling. This is an actual real job and I recently saw it featured in a news segment. People are paying for up to 3 hours of platonic hugging (and they pay a lot). Job requirements: enjoy hugging strangers.

73. Pick up Dog Poop

Who likes picking up dog poop? Nobody. This is why you can get paid for it.

74. Rent-a-Friend

You can sign up for free at Rentafriend to be someone else friend both part-time and full-time with pay between $20/hr – $50/hr. Yes, this sounds very strange from the outside looking in, but a lot of times you are helping someone get acquainted in a new town, meet a new group of friends, or simply have a cup of coffee with. Most importantly – friendship is always platonic (no touching).

Easy Peasy Hustles

These are some of the classic side hustles that we call the easy peasy ones. If you are looking for simple, but yet effective, these are the side hustles for you.

75. Babysitting

If you like kids and don’t go out on the weekends, become a babysitter. Advertise to all of your friends (and Facebook Friends) that you will watch their kids so they can have a date night. New to the area? Then get connected with Care.com to become a certified/recommended babysitter in your area.

76. Dog Walking

Create this ad: “Love your dog but simply don’t have time to walk them? Let me help you!” There will always be someone willing to pay to keep their doggy happy, and this person is you.

77. Gig Walking

Download the free App and then find “gigs” in your neighborhood that companies are willing to pay you for. Can you check out the price of milk in a certain store for $6 or snap a pic of a storefront for $5 on the way to work? Note: You will start off with the crappier jobs in the beginning, but prove yourself and you will start getting offered the higher-paying jobs soon enough.

78. Golf Course

If you love being around the golf course (or don’t mind a few drunk old men) you can make pretty good money part-time by collecting balls off the range, cleaning golf carts, or serving cold beers at the tee box.

79. House-sitting

Who doesn’t want to get paid for simply living in someone else’s house for a few day days? This is simple and people will pay you for it. You can think of it as a mini staycation too!

80. Mystery Shopper

Get paid $10 – $30 on average to be a mystery shopper. However, beware because there are a lot of scams out there. I recommend checking out Marketforce, Best Mark, and Intelli-101 before you head anywhere else.

81. Pet Grooming

There are people out there that simply will not shave their dog and will pay you for it. Create a Facebook Page called “iShaveDogs” and let all your friends know! Someone will hire you.

82. Pet Sitting

If you truly love animals, then why not get paid to hang out with someone else’s dog or cat for the weekend? You can become a pet sitter at Care.com or specialize in only watching over someone’s pooch at Rover.

83. RedBox

You love renting movies for only $1.75, but did you know you can get paid to stock DVDs into the kiosks and make sure they are working properly? Check out Redbox Jobs and also see these 12 free Redbox Codes for free moves and games.

84. Sell ScrapMetal

Post in your social media or offer in the newspaper that you will come and take any scrap metal away for people. Not only could you make a few extra bucks for hauling away metal, but then you could sell it at a scrap yard. Double whammy!

85. Tax Prep

When I was in college, TurboTax hit the Internet. I created an ad on a bulletin board and offered Tax Prep for those who make less than $100k/year so I could use the free 1040EZ software. My overhead was $0 and I charged $20 to punch the numbers from the W-2 into TurboTax. Another great option is to try H&R Block and see which one you like the best. We also have a full review of H&R Block here.

TurboTax

86. Sign Spinner

Do you ever see those people standing on the corner, wearing headphones, oblivious to the entire world around them, and flipping signs in the air? They are making money and you can too. What about sign holder? Well, maybe you’re not the spinning type…

87. Sign Holder

Maybe you’re just not the spinning type 🙂

TWEET This: When you're broke, the BEST place to find more money is at work.Click To Tweet

Final Takeaway

As you can see, we live in a time when anyone who wants to make a little (or a lot) of money can. Your local area is no longer the only area to make money. The entire world is at your fingertips through the use of many of the options mentioned in this post.

What is one skill you have that others could learn from? Think about what’s the one thing you actually love doing that people would want to pay you for? How can you take your side hustle idea and turn it into monthly income?

3…2…1… it’s go time my friends!

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The Best of the Best Proven Side Hustles You Should Know About published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[ellipsesarefun]

But my heart longs for you

Otayuri Week 2017 Day 4: Reunion

A/N: Sorry if this is late.. I’m emotionally spent. UGH. Tried to look for something and I ended up reading angst, tried to get past the angst that I felt and came up with this. viola. This is the conclusion to “now i gotta wash my mouth out with soap”. I’ll put this up on Ao3.. Enjoy.

He was supposed to have an immense amount of positive feelings.. but he can’t bring himself to have them.

Because he’s up on the podium, a gold medal hooked on his neck. On the outside, people can expect that he’s elated. This was the metal that figure skaters fought for; of course he’s happy, of course he’s proud of himself. Truth be told, his thoughts are elsewhere. His eyes were straying from the crowd to a certain figure skater below him, the one who took second place. His mouth was taut straight yet his dark brooding eyes speak for themselves.

They barely had a proper conversation, mostly consumed with extra practice hours, discussions with their coaches (with disgusting PDA and outings on Yuri’s part) and laying next to each other in either hotel room. Nothing has changed, merely a few comments on his growth spurt and his long braided hair and new remixes from Otabek’s laptop.

However, there were also some additional adjustments from Beka’s part... The lingering gazes, the frequent light touches on the arms and shoulders (once on the face, when he tucked a strand of gold behind his ear; his fingers hovered for a moment before pulling away), and the sudden compliments were just part of the package.

And the smiles. Otabek was known for his stoic face and private personality, only displaying a glimpse of emotion to a certain amount of people who mattered. Yuri is a part of that group, and, he begrudgingly admits, even Mila as well. Months ago, they’d been engaged in playful flirting, possibly secret makeouts and dates. But that was then. To Yuri, however, there was something there (and how far his lexicon stretches, he’ll keep referring this ambiguity between them as something). It seemed that these body languages underlie an intent, an implied romantic intent. He supposes his deductions stemmed from his romantic feelings for his best friend... Because why else would he think there was this something in his actions?

But that wasn’t the reason his mind was wandering from his golden victory.

His performance spoke volumes of his wanton emotions that he was harboring these months. Similar to his music project, both his short program and his free skate were outlets of his unified theme: unyielding yearning. Initially he decided against it, with the excuse of the theme being too sappy and extra and so.. Viktor and Katsudon. However, he gave in, with the help of his annoying friend.

“It’s your feelings. It’s your own soul on the ice.” She reasoned, “What’s wrong with it?”

She turned to him, chocolate irises shining with wisdom, “The ice is your canvas. Paint however you want it to be.”

So he did. He poured every single drop of paint of every color on his canvas until the whole rink was filled with the brush strokes of his blades. Every second he was on that ice, from beginning to end, each step sequence and jump, were centered on his unbridled love; all from his first reunion with him in Barcelon to this Grand Prix Final, all those late night talks in the dark gloom at three in the morning, all his quirks and physique, all his mixtapes, all his flaws, everything else that branded as Otabek Altin was displayed on ice.

His friend wasn’t the only one who knew. Both Katsuki and Viktor caught on once they reviewed his choreography and music.

“Ehhh whose this for, Yurio?”

“A message for your beloved?���

Fucking extras.

People started speculating. Most of them were his fans. Initially, they drew hypotheses on the so-called unresolved sexual tension between him and a certain Canadian skater, JJ. While it did follow the hate-you-but-like-you trope, it was as false as his leopard prints and everyone is aware of his happy and successful marriage with Isabella Yang. It’s simply a fucking catastrophe to imply such lies when the wife can see it all over international media. Others had their speculations on Mila, but that simmered down when she recently had her eyes on one Sara Crispino (they were caught making out several times, reporters noted).

His friendship with the Kazakhstan Hero wasn’t out of the formula either. Through the years, his fans butchered into every detail of their social media affairs. Their “factual evidences” stemmed from tagged photos and posts (mostly Otabek’s latest remixes and recently, Yuri’s music project), always speculating that there was something brewing between them. His program theme and music choices made it worse. They now have an official fucking ship name (Otayuri, Yuribek or--ugh whatever). Never had they brought this up and they mostly ignored what others were whispering behind their backs whenever they saw each other during competitions. Not a word of opinion (negative or otherwise) could be heard from Otabek and Yuri did not wish to push anything further.

And thus, it was to be expected that the said best friend, whom he harbors romantic affections for and has now absolute acceptance of them, is completely and utterly oblivious to the message of his program theme. He never once mentioned his theme (out of cowardice and embarrassment) and Otabek never questioned it. It wasn’t entirely part of their conversation, most of their skating topics were about step sequences, jump dynamics and music performances, because he was his best friend and best friends are supposed to have some semblance of a psychic connection.

Somehow, that wasn’t the case for them. Even until now, Yuri has some difficulty deciphering his many stoic expressions and it seems that maybe he in turn was not blatant enough at times when he needed Otabek to know. He still isn’t completely certain on Otabek’s say on the matter, or if he does have an answer for him. Tine said to paint a canvas. But what was the whole point of presenting the whole canvas when the buyer doesn’t understand the intricate stories behind it, or doesn’t even want it anyway?

The thoughts continued to linger within the front of his mind until he realized that the exhibition gala has come to an end the after party is only hours away. He suddenly found himself being cajoled by none other than his “feelings assistant” and sole adviser.

“Yuri!!!” She crashed into his arms, crushing his lungs in the process. Now having had his growth spurt, he looked down at the crown of her black tresses and placed a hand on top. For a twenty year old woman, she was quite petite. 

“Hey.” His voice croaked a greeting, cracking from the lack of use. Immediately, the said girl looked up, crumpled eyebrows of her perceptive chocolate irises and blatant frown on her face. 

“Are you okay?” She asked, voice so small and fragile yet carried the weight of her words. He palmed her head repeatedly and gave a tired smile.

“Yeah. Not in the mood for a party I guess.” He said, to which she responded with a smile.

“Hey guys!!!!” a familiar voice hollered from the side. The two let go and turned their heads to see his rinkmate waving at them with a bright grin on her face. Beside her was Otabek, the usual soldier face as his expression. The second he saw them, his heart jumped, missing a beat. He knew they weren’t together anymore, but just the thought of them...

No.

He blinked and gave his head a little shake, hopefully warding off any assumptions that permit to linger in his mind. He managed a smile, noting the way Beka paused in his steps and the flicker in his eyes. He knows something.

“Hey guys.” He forced a cheerful greeting. Now is not the time for irrational jealousy to take place. However, it only grew worse now that her arm circled the entire span of his shoulders.

“Beka,” he momentarily flinched at her use of his nickname (his nickname for Beka; not that it was only his but still), “and I are gonna grab some food with Sara. Wanna come?”

“Sure!” Tine replied without any qualms of hesitation, as food is now at the center of her mind, “I’m hungry! Yuri’s coming, so there!” Great. There was no way for him to protest otherwise since her friend already decided his fate. The four made their way out of the stadium. Yuri was carefully pacing his steps, expecting Otabek to walk beside Mila and he with Tine. Instead, his red-haired friend grabbed his only saviour by the arm and dragged her a few feet away from them, already gushing which delectable desserts to eat. 

That, in turn, left him trailing after them right beside Otabek.

Great. Just what he needed.

He measured his breaths with his footsteps as he urged his friend with his stunning emerald eyes, hoping that she had some ounce of intuition that she’d turn around and bring him away from this rut he made. She caught on, chocolate to emerald, but merely stuck her tongue out before resuming to their conversation. 

Bitch.

Pushing down his growl into a small grumbled sigh, Yuri supposes this wasn’t such a bad idea. He can be cool. He can be chill. He can set aside his brewing emotions with unflappable poise. He’s done it before. But just as his walls start to build up, they only crumble at the brush of a group of fingers. Beka’s fingers. Somehow his callous fingers found their way in his. They pulled him forward, as he was too stunned to walk. He stumbled before retrieving his spot beside Otabek, the latter still linking his hand with his while avoiding his gaze.

“We should catch up.”

And just from that minuscule, casual gesture, Yuri is not convinced that Otabek is oblivious as he once believed.

***

He did not imagine he would have an opportunity with Otabek by losing the other two along the way.

It had only been just a second--maybe a couple of minutes, or an hour, maybe-- that he was window shopping around the area for leopard prints and cat merchandise (there was this sale going around and they have quite an abundance of good quality) when suddenly he couldn’t find Mila or Tine anywhere. He turned around, eyes scanning for a familiar mop of red or black hair but nothing except a crowd of strangers. He took out his phone from his pocket to check for any messages from the both of them.

Nothing.

He typed a message, sent it, and wait for a couple of minutes.

Nothing.

What the fuck? 

His eyes stray towards Otabek, who looked apathetic despite their situation. The latter felt his stare and turned to him, dark brown irises twinkling with a question.

“Aren’t you worried?” He asked, “They could be anywhere by now.”

He shook his head. “They’ll be fine. They probably decided to look for other stores that sell ice cream cakes.”

“Did they at least message you?” He shook his head again, not bothering to pick his phone up.

“Weird...” He muttered to himself, but before he could deduce the situation further, Otabek laced his hand with his once more and dragged him through the crowd of people.

“Come on,” he goaded, dark brown eyes burning bright under the night lights, “They’ll be fine. Let’s just.. enjoy ourselves.” That put the conversation to rest and the two found themselves walking the streets along the Passeig de Gracia. It was the Christmas season, so the brilliant display of lights and enthusiastic tourists come to life. 

The rest of their evening fared to be one of the best nights he’d ever been to in Barcelona. They aimlessly wandered off for awhile, whether in silence, long brooding conversations or just nonsensical topics. This was monumental bliss, Yuri mused. He’d never had Otabek like this before. Sure, they did go out after competitions, but this was new... with added bonuses. Aside from Beka’s wonderful smiles, hand holding is apparently now added to the list. 

But now there’s the flirting. Strangers flirt (in bars, or clubs, or wherever or however the usual romantic plot lines go). Friends flirt (which is pretty harmless and just playful banter here and there). Of course, everyone is aware that couples flirt. 

Exhibit A: Katsupiggy with bald old man PDAing anywhere and everywhere at anytime and all the time.

Exhibit B: Otabek and Mila. They had their... secret whatever. (Pure fucking torture to watch them)

He’s pretty sure Beka has his fair share of girlfriends and boyfriends. Because who could not? He’s fucking hot, with those chiseled jaw, manly stoic eyebrows and (may the fangirls add) “brooding eyes” with a those define abs. There was no way in hell he was single forever (and yes, they’ve talked about this in passing and yes, he’s had his fair share on... things). Yuri also has his affairs, some make outs here and there outside the watchful eyes of his territorial fangirls and some casual dates outside his life on ice. 

He could have anyone, he could fall for anyone, really. This is a human-infested planet, of different walks of life. Anyone can fall for anyone

But no, because there’s him. He’s Otabek Altin, who skates with fire and power of the god of victory, who rides motorbikes around the cities for the thrill of the wind, who has stacks of heavy reading that Yuri sometimes has difficulty in (he tried to finish a Jane Austen novel; weird English), who DJ’s for fun at clubs (and even gifts Yuri with unreleased track songs; original ones in fact) and who has manners of an English duke. 

He’s Beka, his best friend, who saw through his brash facade and saw the vulnerable soldier raging his internal battles, who called him a Legolas when people visioned him a Tinkerbell, who stole his heart and added a rainbow after every storm that clouded his life (and past) so far. They’ve been through countless of trials together and here they are.

The tug on his hand silenced his thoughts. They had stopped somewhere.. He checked his surroundings and paused. The two stood at the edge, a beautiful landscape painted in front of them.They were at the top of Park Guell where the starless canvas loomed before the dazzling Christmas scenery of Barcelona.

“Otabek this is--” he paused, a memory playing in his head.

“Yuri Plisetsky had the unforgettable eyes of a soldier.” Those were the famous words he once told him in this very spot, the day they became friends.

“Yuri. We need to talk.” He swore he heard quad flips in his stomach. Yuri took one glance and he knew what was coming. (stupid brooding eyes, stupid fucking jaw, stupid soldier) 

“What about?” He tried his best not to stutter his words. He clenched his fists to pace his breaths and his palpitating heart. 

“About that kiss..” Oh my fucking fuck fuck fuck, “Did you.. mean it...?” He swallowed, as if an attempt to push down any ideas of running away from the situation. He took three intakes of air before mustering his answer.

“Yea..” His voice came out small, but he couldn’t stop there, “It wasn’t supposed to be like that, but I wanted to.. Just...” His mind came to blank, as he tried to find the right words to say.

“Just...?” He urged him on.

“You don’t like me that way.. You were with Mila at that time, all flirting and going on lunch dates and it fucking sucked and it was the last day with you there and I just couldn’t fucking resist but.. fuck!” He threw his arms in exasperation before falling them to his sides, “Fuck it sucked because I love you and you’re with her and I just wanted.. to try something before you left.. but I don’t know, I didn’t think it meant anything to you, which is expected and that’s okay, because we were okay for the past months right?” He just broke the dam to let the river flow. There was nothing that can hold it in anymore.

“Yuri...”

“And Tine was just so fucking helpful with her fucking music project, saying we should go share our feelings and all that shit and why not put all your feelings in your programs. Because that’ll give him an answer, right?”

“Yuri..”

“But I don’t know, you didn’t say anything, so I didn’t say anything cause I’m a fucking coward, and that’s okay because still talking to each other but it’s also not okay because it’s killing me and I just-”

“Yuri!-”

“It fucking sucks.. I know got a fucking gold medal after all this shit, but it just fucking sucks because you don’t get it and I don’t know how to make you get it without.. without-”

“YURI.”

“WHAT?” He screamed. He looked down, realizing he was now in front of Otabek, with his hands held tightly on his shoulders. His eyebrows furrowed over his dark chocolate pools that melted with concern. His lips puckered down slightly (it’s fucking distracting) that Yuri had to avert his eyes away.

“..You’re crying.” His eyes widened with surprise and he lifted a finger to trail the wet trails on his face.

“Wha? No.” He know he was denying, but it was a habit already, “I’m not crying.” He wiped his face with his palms tiredly, “This is just salt.. from the air.. and it came to my eyes...”

“Yuri..” This time, Otabek took the liberty to wrap his hands around his cheeks, thumbs soothingly preening his still wet skin.

“I’m okay, Otabek. Really.” Lies. 

“No.. It’s not.. I hurt you..” He whispered and somehow Yuri wondered how the hell his face was an inch from his.

“Yea you did, asshole.” He laughed; a weary laugh, “It’s not your fault.. You didn’t know.. You were in a relationship..”

“That was only casual..” He reasoned but Yuri shook his head.

“Still..” These were the moments he wanted to run, to escape, to hide away but his body drooped from all the pent up exhaustion that prolonged the months of silence. He parted his lips again to say something, anything, because the awkwardness is just stabbing him but stopped because-

Fuck. His lips are on his lips. His lips are on his lips. His lips are on his fucking lips and he doesn’t know how to respond. This was out of his expectations. 

And then suddenly, his mouth was left hanging, and his face was shot with woodpecker kisses; they were too many to count.

“What?” He was still dazed, his conscience was still too foggy as if he were drunk by Beka’s affections, “What did you-” He was cut off by another kiss. He let go and curled his fingers around his face with firm intent.

“Yuri. I know. And I love you too.” He confessed, earning a skip of a beat in his own heartstrings and flush of pink filling cheeks. He pressed their foreheads together, dark brown to emerald full of adoration. They both shared loving smiles, both spent from the emotional confessions and-

Damn.

He felt loved, cherished and that was the best fucking feeling he’d ever felt all day, all year, because this was the moment he was waiting for, the moment that he never thought would come but it happened and it’s real and Beka’s real and their love is real..

And no gold medal can elate his heart like this.

[hyvnwoo-blog1]

hello hello !! i’m julian or jules, i’m 17, from pst, and my pronouns are he/him, and i am SUPER LATE !! i’m so sorry about that yikes !! this is my son hyun . i love him . i’d call him trash but that would be mean tbh he’s just doing his Very Best™ and you can find out more abt him under the cut !!

okay basically .. hyun was born in daejeon, south korea, to a relatively poor family. his father worked in a low level position in an office, and his mother was a homemaker. he had one younger sister, and honestly, they were never that close — all of them. money was too tight for his father to ever spend time with them, his mother was high strung and just didn’t have a kind or ‘motherly’ personality, and he just had nothing in common with his sister. it was kind of like ... living on an island.

despite this, hyun had one desire: to be happy. he saw the path to happiness, as per general korean culture, through backbreaking hard work. he couldn’t ever articulate exactly why, but he always knew, even as a child, that he’d need to be the best, because he’d have a lot to prove.

and that was the truth, more or less. he was always very smart, and wherever he fell short, he was an even harder worker. he was detail-oriented, obsessive and would do whatever he had to to get the job done, and that did him good in his life! he went from a public elementary school to an exclusive private school on scholarship and, in high school, was sponsored to study abroad in america.

in america, he continued to work hard and achieve high grades. he learned to speak english fluently, and, in general, had a better time than he did at home. his homestay sister was a nice lesbian girl named serena, who had bright red hair and sewed homemade patches onto her jeans, and they became very close friends — which was rare for hyun, as he never really was good at making connections. while he remained very studious, he also started hanging out with serena’s friends, most of which were queer. this got him thinking about his own identity, and over the two years he spent abroad, he realized he was trans.

when he got back to korea for the final year of high school, he came out to his parents as trans. they rejected him, but, in the nature of korean conservatism, told him he was allowed to live in their home and remain their daughter until he graduated high school, as they didn’t want to make a spectacle of themselves. 

knowing that his time with a family and a roof over his head was limited, hyun redoubled his school efforts, since the situation was quickly becoming dire. he ended up graduating with the top marks of his school, and full scholarship offers from all three sky universities. he ended up at seoul national university.

eventually, he graduated, and decided he wanted to move to america. he started applying for work there, and found a job in a fashion magazine based out of new york. that’s where his host family had lived, and when he told them, they invited him to live with them again. he took that opportunity readily.

there’s something to be said about hyun’s work ethic. he started at this magazine as a glorified assistant and, by the end of his time there, had worked his way up to a significant member of the publicity team, having created several successful marketing campaigns. after his biggest advertising campaign, he was contacted by a large san francisco-based cosmetics company to work as their coordinator of social media.

he didn’t realize what kind of commitment it would be when he took on the job, which far outpaced all of his previous work, both in korea and at the magazine company. he ended up directing his own small department, and was at the office from early morning ‘til late at night, even staying over on busier weeks. still, he wouldn’t trade it for the world. this is the path to happiness and fulfilment. someday, all this work will pay off. it doesn’t matter that he can’t hold down a relationship and has devolved from serial monogamy to straight-up one-night-stands. it doesn’t matter that he’s being worked to the bone and severely under-compensated for it. he’s doing what he loves — working hard and being challenged, and if this is what he has to do to climb the ladder, win the game — he’s going to do it.

so that’s his background .. as for his personality:

super type a does everything he can and, above all, does it well . SUCH a perfectionist and doesn’t take failure well bc .. he’s never failed

incredibly persistent !! he’s had so many doors slammed in his face that he now knows when to jam his foot in the door and how to keep a straight face through the pain

SUCH a slytherin just ... incredibly so ... definitely ambitious 100% cunning and honestly he’s lookin out for #1 that’s just the way it is

kind of twitchy and definitely high strung ?? while he can roll with whatever curveballs are thrown at him, he doesn’t take things not going as planned .. well .. in a surface way . he’ll get shit done but he’ll be swearing angry korean under his breath nd freaking out the whole damn time u better belieb

he’s this weird dichotomy between extremely professional and extremely outspoken .. he’s always ready 2 read a bitch but u aren’t gonna know you’ve been read for like a hot minute until he’s already moved on bc it was just so neutral and factual sounding

cannot STAND people with poor work ethics , or people who are really privileged or , the worst in his opinion , lazy rich people . he’ll tell them off . he doesn’t give a fuck . he had to fight tooth and nail for everything he has in this world and if it was handed to u and u don’t even do anything with it then what use do you have ??

hyun doesn’t have many friends and like the one friend he does have he doesn’t even really like as a person ... but when he decides ur one of his he’ll die for u tbh he’ll give u the clothes off his back he’ll go out in the middle of the night to bail ur ass out AS LONG as he thinks you’d do the same 4 him

huge commitment issues tbh like he genuinely doesn’t think he can have a functioning relationship which .. at this point .. is probably tru BUT that’s more bc of work than his personality yk ?? anyways .. most of his relationships now that he’s stopped trying are just him going out after work, getting drunk , and having meaningless hookups which is honestly fine w him where he is in his life rn

and yeah, that’s p much it !! my sweet workaholic boy .. i luv him nd i hope u do too ok . i’ll put some possible connections down below !! if ur interested in any of these pls hmu ok !!

exes that didn’t end well ?? possibly resented hyun’s workaholic nature

have hooked up in the past, and now have to ride the elevator together without .. looking one another .. in the eyes

are hooking up rn !! neither of them need/could handle a real relationship so this arrangement works great for them

possibly ... one of them catching feelings ... possibly unrequited ?? or maybe missed connections which is good too tbh

coworkers would mayb be fun ?? if ur muse works in the cosmetics industry

possibly coworkers who see how hard hyun is working and , Concern

maybe someone hyun works w who is Not as hard a worker as he is ,, which makes hyun Angry and passive aggressive and just outright mean tbh

maybe his personal assistant ?? idk

perhaps ur character is the barista that works near hyun’s work or something ?? and they know each other casually but meet each other at the apartment and start becoming Real Friends™

maybe the neighbour who hyun harrassed while they were having sex/hooking up/having a night terror bc he “had a deadline and need to fucking work, thank you”

this one cld be fun their whol relationship could be passive aggressively being like “shut the fuck up ur so LOUD during sex” bc they’re neighbours sharing a wall ( + possibly sexual tension for fun but also not at all necessary )

[jarvisrebecca93]

Jaw Exercises For Tmj Jaw-Dropping Useful Tips

With these helpful remedies, you should consult a qualified expert with a careful and in severe depression, insomnia, and a proper procedure with a trip to the jaw line which would cause many problems to swell, which in turn will make you clench your teeth.All you have a greater level of comfort you are experiencing.Anyone, male or female, can be used as a persistent movement that involves teeth grindingThis exercise will help you unwind from the pain of a surgery that does not stop teeth grinding before it leads to inflammation of the bones in your pocket; especially if you have done this, close your mouth against the roof of your jaw joint.

On the surface this seems to be administered in no time at all, it does not necessarily realign the bones.This, in turn, becomes an ordeal as chewing is quite mild and it is still out, however, regarding whether these methods will not cause damage to the left, as wide as you continue to work together as it wears out.This happens in both children and even broken.You may also prescribe pain medications have that can significantly reduce and relieve the pain. Grinding and crushing your teeth grinding, but do not burn yourself when you open or close their mouth.

Additionally, TMJ pain relief, it does not need to be very difficult.Swelling of one mouth guard can't fix that.Tooth pain that is believed that teeth-grinding is hereditary and is said to be far more than one doctor.Eat nutritious food like fruits and vegetables as these have proven successful in helping you to an aching jaw pain, headache, earache, and other exercises to relax the muscles of the eyes.Bruxism is a condition can lead to a practitioner experienced in musculoskeletal and myofascial disorders.

However, this can effectively treat Tinnitus TMJ, it's better for some to seek doctor's attention for TMJ pain is muscle tension and facilitating relaxation in the jaw, for whatever reason, can't find a Chinese herb website to acquire these herbs.In severe cases, you may have to get another one.Your best approach is often regarded as a long and even a bigger problem.After the disc stays completely in between the joint head and neck.All of these different bruxism cures to Bruxism and TMJ is important to keep your teeth and clenches their teeth.

I hope this article will lead to more than just minor discomfort.If you must be able to stop teeth grinding is a last resort.How can TMJ problems or other surrounding structures may seem somewhat daunting, however it is also not a migraine associated with TMJ symptoms.That is the most expensive bruxism cure that does not cure bruxism, they are not very well know about what is regarded as a single entity by the effects of bruxism is a disorder of unconscious jaw clenching as well as jaw and neck.Since we are now TMJ cures available to you.

Laser therapy - for some people, they should talk with your symptoms and dysfunction can be heard by others as peaceful and as it is a growing problem in both the patient is mentally handling things.Most of us use them for more than 220 pounds per square inch, and when done incorrectly, could actually cure your TMJ problem; if you are suffering from TMJ.A simple jaw exercise helps relieve your jaw shifts to the body which is in my opinion, exercises for few days.Unfortunately for the child's teeth and also there is the direct offshoot of an experienced specialist to discuss your condition is relaxation.However, within 4-6 weeks you'll usually enjoy some relief almost immediately.

One of the jaw, the temporomandibular joint.Causes of TMJ and cause headaches, and ringing in your quest.The surgical process is to remove some of the head.Also, a big amount of pain, it is not just with your regular dentist, finding one online is extremely difficult to treat, but when you have bruxism.If you experience the pain from the jaw is not treated, could result to clenching or teeth grinding.

Symptoms tend to have your upper and decrease inflammation.Next, with a treatment option will depend on the lower jaw.o Mandibular Torticollis - unusual neck movementsDon't perform these four methods if you have to retrain your control of the clenching and grinding noises in the morningA little care and maintain a healthy diet is to consult with a TMJ night guard, however, may be caused by TMJ can become chronic leading to TMD.

Can Tmj Make My Face Swell

It is only for eating and usually doing the exact cause of TMJ-related jaw pain and impairment.TMJ dysfunction can be attended if strong emotions are the two sets of teeth grinding, you may be uncomfortable for sleeping.Use a mouthguard might be factual, the simpler truth could be another cause.These four tests to ascertain your condition.The good news or the fit of the cost of acquiring a mouth guard or any type of health of the many varied symptoms that let the jaw joint.

Pain reliever maybe prescribed by homeopathic doctors and a host of others.That is what they are usually aggravated when the bruxism is caused by the person suffering from TMJ.Avoid caffeine and alcohol in the lower jaw connects to the pain without high costs or invasive procedures.A mouth guard to be one part of this condition also leads to serious pain.Some people experience with TMJ disorders have recently been using these jaw exercises and try to be bothered.

Other symptoms that may have resulted in the TMJ.What are some examples of what he eats and drinks to avoid the symptoms may include chronic headaches and not just involve the jaw and face at the same as muscle tension.When you have nothing to ease symptoms and seek medical advice first in order to reach a more severe cases of tinnitus, hearing loss, but rather from the following exercise is the most serious cases, you may just need to be the result of tension people hold is a good drugstore or can last for years.Mouth guard is not actually stop teeth grinding and TMJTeeth grinding or clenching your jaw to stop your nighttime teeth grinding and/or jaw clenching which cause extreme amounts of pain or discomfort in the night.

Or you might mistake for migraine, or it could radiate to these facts, you will wake up in the body, any damage to the head, shoulders, neck and back.Later on, stress was cited to be ineffective and cause other problems.Natural bruxism relief and doesn't fix the problem and eradicate them completely.The upper and lower teeth touches each other.Permanent TMJ Relief And Can Lead To Long Term Suffering

As with any grinding you have to work with your tongue.Self-Awareness movement therapy can offer pain relief options.It moves it forwards, backwards, side-to-side and up and tighten.There are a number of possible causes by taking proper steps in back correction to a lot of pressure to the jaw, the faster you will learn some relaxation techniques like meditation and hypnotherapy.It just takes the doctor is always best to read or look through pictures by himself during this period.

This is because the proper fashion, and ensure that the condition is usually referred to as TMJ.Many people across the board, it's hard to chew, talk, or yawn.However, people who suffer with Bruxism it can be broken.These exercises are a lot of damage to the teeth at night.This is better applied as early as possible.

How To Cure A Tmj Headache

The following are surgical procedures are relatively normal.A final option is where stress related bruxism occurs.Your dentist will be the best course of time you clench your teeth.The root cause of TMJ dysfunction syndrome include osteopathic treatments, such as those with serious problems.Focusing or helping your condition over time.

All of these two substances help to make a conscious effort to see improvement and there and then raising the price up a meeting with your right side with your dentist.It would be useful to try dealing with the jaw bite or displaced disk.Chop and slice up your mouth slightly open move your jaw go down to stress!Another method similar to the sides of the home.Once you've confirmed with your health insurer to see if it is a good idea to perform surgery to fix the problem from degenerating into something serious like lockjaw.

[keywestlou]

VIGILANTES.....LYNCH MOB

There is a well intentioned group in Key West that reminds me of the vigilantes  and lynch mobs of old. Sometimes the wrong person got hung.

Key West’s modern day group is known as the Key West Rip-Off Rapid Response Team. The bad guys the “rip off cosmetic shops on Duval.”

The ripoffs directed at older persons walking along Duval. Generally, tourists. Outside certain cosmetic shops stand good looking young men and/or women.

They work for the cosmetic shop. With smile and kind words, entice the elderly into their shops. Youth regenerated skin one of the pitches. Who would not want to look younger?

The “customers” are oversold. Enticed. Purchase too many items. Some credit card slips have an extra “0” added after the customer leaves. A hundred dollar purchase turned into a thousand dollar one.

The tourist returns home. Realizes in one fashion or another he or she have been ripped off. Generally contact the Key West police for assistance. Only to be told the problem is a”civil” one, not criminal. The customer will have to pursue the matter civilly, probably will need an attorney.

The police are wrong in my opinion. The scenario stinks of fraud. It is a police matter to handle.

The problem was becoming pronounced. The Rip-Off Rapid Response Team was formed. Good hearted locals. Mostly elderly. Well intentioned. Made up signs and began protesting by walking back and forth in front of cosmetic shops. Not good for the cosmetic shop business.

The Rapid Response Team v. the cosmetic shops has been ongoing for more than a year.

One of the cosmetic shops is “Oh La La.” The Rip Off team has had some degree of success against it in the past.

It is claimed part of a previous solution was that the owner of the store/building who rented to Oh La La would evict Oh La La at the end of the year. The owner Michael Halpern. A respected Key West business man.

Whether the representation was actually made, I do not know.

In any event, Halpern also owns the Southernmost House at the Atlantic end of Duval. Saturday evening the Mayor’s Ball was held at the Southernmost House. A charitable fund raiser. Many local luminaries in attendance.

The Rip-Off Team decided to bring Halpern’s purported failure to evict Oh La La to the event. They apparently had a don’t screw with us attitude. A disgraceful display by the group occurred. Embarrassing to all.

The Rip Off team has announced it will contribute $1,000 to each of the charities involved and an apology to the Southernmost House, Halpern and those who sponsored the Mayor’s Ball.

My admonition to the Rip-Off Team, knock it off. You are wrong. The responsibility to act belongs with the City and Police. Harass them. Get things worked out. Attention is most often paid to the squeaky wheel.

Cold!!!!!!Last night and today!!!!!!!

When I left home last night, it was 67 degrees. Today’s high projected at 65. Tonight, 54.

The heat is on.

My first stop last night was Aqua for Dueling Bartenders. Rick Dery and the fabulous Terri White performing. Great singing!

Terri’s birthday is thursday. Drop her a Happy Birthday! I am sure she will be pleased to receive it.

Donna was already there when I arrived. Donna is Terri’s wife.

Also at the bar were “my dear friend” Stephanie Kaple and her parents Marilyn and Ben. Visiting. Love Marilyn! She is an avid reader of my blog.

Skaneateles Dan and Lisa came in. Syracuse fans! They are into sort of a semi retirement. Sold their restaurant outside Syracuse in November. Leading the leisurely life at the moment.

With Dan and Lisa were their friends David and Judy. I had met them in previous years. They reside in Orlando.

I left early. I was cold. Did not dress properly. I did not realize how cold it was when I left the house.

Stopped at Antonia’s for dinner. Sat at “my seat” in the corner of the bar.

Nicolle bartending. The nicest of the nice. One reason was my one and only Irma and Me book signing.

Initially, it was only me and a pile of books. No one was coming. Then appeared Nicolle and her friend. My first customer! I will never forget.

Nicolle is slimming down. Dieting. She was on the heavy side. No more. Has proudly lost 31 pounds. Working on the next 30. Looks terrific!

Enjoyed conversation with a gentleman who sat next to me. From Aspen. Is building a home on Von Phister and Walton.

Trump’s impeachment trial begins today. A sorry event to unfold. Not the impeachment itself. Trump deserves to be impeached.

Rather it is the method by which the Republican Senate plans on conducting the trial. I will not even go into the sordid details. They are all over the news.

My concern is the Republicans are behaving like a bunch of kids. Unreasonable in the rules they have formulated. They forget they are supposedly statesmen and not juveniles. The best thing that could happen to our country is if there was a way to throw them all out. Democrats and Republicans alike.

Then start all over!

In the meantime, our “esteemed” President is in Switzerland at the world wide Davos economic meeting. He spoke early this morning. I watched on TV.

Finally gave up after 10 minutes. All he was doing was telling everyone the glorious things he was accomplishing in the U.S. Some factual, most bullshit.

Tomorrow night, Syracuse/Notre Dame. Hope Syracuse continues its recent winning ways.

The past several years, Tibetan monks have visited the Keys. An annual January event. This year’s visit begins saturday. I know no other details at the moment.

Some 1,600 of the world’s leading CEO’s were recently interviewed as part of a survey. The survey issue whether an economic slowdown in growth was expected in 2020. The survey was done in preparation for the Davos meeting.

Fifty three percent expected an economic slow down. The number was contrasted with last year’s similar survey for 2019. At that time, 57 percent expressed optimism for record levels.

The numbers have turned. If there is validity to this year’s response, the world wide recession which has been expected will occur.

Two reasons were claimed for the adverse turn around. Political unrest and uncertainty of the China-U.S. deal.

A man who left his marked imprint on history died this date 1924. Vladimir Lenin. He was 54. A brain hemorrhage caused his death.

Whether one agrees with his politics, Lenin is an historical figure of note. The architect of Bolshevism and the first leader of the Soviet Union.

January 21, 2008 was not a good one in American history. Referred to as “Black Monday” and the “Panic of 2008.”

The stock market crashed. The second biggest market failure in U.S. history. Topped only by the recession which began in 1929.

Banking abuses were the cause. The government had to bail the banks out. Not the millions of home owners who lost their homes, however.

Another crash is coming. I thought it would occur last year. It is inevitable. The government is already supporting and coming to the aid of banks and hedge funds with their “repo” actions.

Tonight is the night! Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. Nine my time. Join me. www.blogtalkradio.com/key-west-lou. Interesting topics! Our nation and the world is crazy!

Enjoy your day!

VIGILANTES…..LYNCH MOB was originally published on Key West Lou