#and so I was drastically underprepared and I failed.

[x-ladydisdain-x]

I’ve been telling myself it’s okay to have gotten that one B last year fall semester that it was still a pretty high B and that it was an AP class but now I’m staring at my gpa and thinking about how I’ll never have a perfect unweighted 4.0 ever again

[hellishjoel]

catching flights and snowflakes

616 words / pairing: frankie morales x f!reader

← masterlist | notifications blog | seasons of life challenge masterlist

word: snow

warnings/information: established relationship, pure fluff

a/n: this is me re-writing my author's note because my queue failed me! so I'm just getting around to seeing this and properly posting my seasons of life challenge masterlist and my first post ((now a day late >:[)) - my banners are by @saradika-graphics <3 shoutout to @berryispunk and @lady-bess for putting this together on @fanfictionoverload!

“You’re going to freeze your ass off,” you warn your Florida-born and-raised boyfriend Frankie, whose half-packed suitcase consists of breezy button-ups and cargo shorts. 

His adorably confused expression glances from his open suitcase to your dubious look. “How cold can it be? Thirty degrees sounds like nothin’.” He sassily retorts, pinching your chin between his fingers and thumb as he angles your chin upward so that he can place a soft kiss on your lips. 

It’s his first Christmas visiting your side of the family. You were leaving palm trees behind for Castleton green pines, and his wardrobe was drastically underprepared. 

“Let’s see. Christmas in the Midwest will consist of thirty-degree temperatures, colder if there’s a windchill. You have no warm hat, gloves, or jeans without holes in the knees. The only type of boots you own are hiking boots, and those won’t keep you warm if we have to walk through the snow.” 

There’s a glimmer in his eyes, something mischievous and almost kid-like. “You think there’s gonna be snow? A white Christmas?” 

Frankie has always been devoted to the warmth that central Florida offers, never tempted to swap it for a colder climate. Snow is a rarity in his world—he's only experienced the occasional fleeting flurry. By the time those delicate flakes touched the ground, the warmth quickly melted them away, leaving no trace behind.

You didn’t promise him anything, especially with climate change and all, but as soon as your plane had touched down, fat white snowflakes passed by your airplane window with no agenda or intent. They were weightless, the reminder you needed to hold with you as the end of the year approached.  

“Looks like you’re getting your wish,” you whisper to Frankie, interlocking your fingers with his as he joins you in staring out at the midnight blue velvet sky where snow begins to fall steadily. 

Your heart soars as your boyfriend’s gaze lingers on every window you pass, from deboarding the plane to the grand floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the planes landing and departing on the tarmac. He couldn’t resist the excitement of his first real snowfall. 

Having grown up with snow days that shut down schools and heavy flakes piling up inches at a time, you had almost forgotten how magical snow could be.

Frankie’s smile is unwavering, a grin stretched wide across his face as you exit the airport’s main entrance, scanning the lot for your dad’s truck.

“Baby,” he murmurs, his breath swirling in the icy air, visible like a fleeting ghost in front of his face. “I can finally do it, just like in the movies.” Frankie’s excitement spills over as he drops his duffel bag on the sidewalk with a thud, stepping boldly out from the shelter of the airport canopy into the falling snow. He tugs his jacket tighter around him, the cold air making his cheeks rosy. “We had snow once,” Frankie says, staring at the flakes. “Didn’t even stick. Mom made us cocoa just to celebrate.” He grins at the memory and looks down at you. “This? This is a whole other level.”

You giggle as Frankie sticks out his tongue and dives his head from side to side in search of a flake to land on his tongue. “You’re doin’ this with me,” He holds your hands and twirls you under the night sky, both of you chasing snowflakes and cheering when they eventually melt on your warm tongue. 

“We should build a snowman tomorrow. This is perfect packing snow,” you remark casually, pressing your shoe into the thick, powdery layer already blanketing the ground.

Frankie’s eyes damn near bulge out of his head. “We can build a fucking snowman?!”

[urban-amore]

Stede Bonnet and The Point of No Return (™)

Stede’s story is an excellent lesson in The Point of No Return (™). I’m defining this as having a new life in front of you that doesn’t feel like yours, but at the same time, your old life isn’t yours either. You’ve moved past it and, no matter how hard you try, you feel like a fish out of water whenever you go back.

Watching Stede’s flashbacks, you can clearly see he never fit in. Even as an adult, Stede felt out of place in his world, with his marriage, and with his kids. It’s no wonder Stede created an escape fantasy of being a pirate. It was adventure, it was thrills, it wasn’t sitting there watching his family enjoy a lively dinner conversation while he could only watch. After a while, Stede couldn’t handle it anymore. His fantasy wasn’t enough so he took the plunge and jumped into being a pirate wholeheartedly.

The problem is your daydream never matches reality. We only picture a utopia when we dream, because like who wants to dream about the hardships and the mundane day-to-day? No one, that’s the point of being an escapist daydream.

Escapism isn’t all bad. It can be a good coping mechanism to deal with your current situation, but Stede went one step further. He actually made the jump into that life. Since everything he knew about being a pirate was from books or his own mind, this meant he was drastically underprepared (both in skill and in expectations).

Once reality hit Stede, it hit him hard. We see this in the “I’m not a pirate, I’m an idiot” line. The reality of being a pirate is so jarringly different than the one he dreamt up. It throws Stede through a loop when he’s prepared so much for this life, only to realize he’s struggling.

One of Stede’s strengths is that he’s good at carrying on. Like yeah this isn’t an ideal situation, but he’s fought so hard to be here, to walk away would be a tragedy.

But sometimes you can’t keep going, you grow weary and tired and it all becomes too much. For Stede, this came when Chauncey, after yelling at him for bringing down Blackbeard, tripped then shot himself. This changed Stede, his incompetency is one thing, but realizing he was destructive was another. Stede is a very caring person and the thought of being responsible for bringing down someone he loves so much drove him to think, this isn’t the life for me, I’m not worth staying here.

So Stede goes home and right off the bat he acts like everything is normal and okay even though he never fit in and it never was actually normal or okay. Honestly, I think this was a coping mechanism. Like if he could go back to the way things were, he could act like the Revenge was a dream and he won’t have to remember he failed.

But there’s a slight problem with this, everything has changed.

We first see this with Mary. In Stede’s absence, she grew as a person. She found a community with other widows, she worked on her art career, she fell in love with an amazing guy. She moved on with her life after Stede left and she didn’t want to go back. Honoring the contract they made before god was the only reason she didn’t kick Stede to the curb.

Even though Mary let him stay, she continuously reminded Stede she’d moved on by telling him straight up, keeping her art show and art name of “The Widow Bonnet”, and still sleeping with Doug. Her (extremely rightful) refusal to return to the way things were was a constant reminder to Stede that time had moved on. His family went on with their lives and basically forgot about him. This was the first push into Stede’s journey into The Point of No Return.

The other two pushes came from drinking with the guys at the bar and threatening Doug with a cheese knife. When Stede first runs into the guys he expects to be mocked, instead they celebrate him and want to hear about his adventures. At first, Stede’s okay with this since he’s now part of the community, seen as someone who’s cool enough to be there.

Then he realizes that’s not the case. When asked if he’s “ever killed a man,” Stede tries to avoid the question in an attempt to put the past behind him. But when the guy pushes again, Stede says “I’ve seen death. I’ve been the cause of death. It changes you.”

Stede’s demeanor changes after this. He’s not lively telling stories to his drinking buddies, he’s now thrown back into the pirate world he’s been escaping. Stede’s drinking buddies represent where he originally came from. Only imagining the adventure and thrills of being a pirate and never of the true reality that came with it. It’s during his conversation with them that Stede realizes just how changed he is from the man who set out to the man he is now.

This brings us to our second Point of No Return, the Doug Cheese Knife Scene. Drunk from the bar, Stede goes to Mary’s art show. He gets angry with Mary saying she can’t be “The Widow Bonnet” if her husband (Stede himself) is not dead. Stede tells Mary that she should give up the title since he gave up his way of life. Stede is pissed (both in the British and American sense of the word) since to Stede this is yet another crack in his plan to return to his original life. Mary keeping the name “The Widow Bonnet” is her (absolutely correct) refusal to move back to the way things were.

Then Doug, being the amazing BF to Mary that he is, steps in to calm Stede down. Without thinking, without a slight hesitation, Stede sees the cheese knife and immediately pins Doug, holds it to his throat and threatens him. This was not premeditated, this was pure instinct, one you can only get from experience. His time being a pirate and his training with Blackbeard didn’t magically go away once he returned home. It’s now a core part of his being, something he defaults back into without thinking. Something he’s actually become good at during his time on the Revenge.

It’s also something that doesn’t fit with this old world. After threatening Doug, Stede looks around the room and sees the stunned looks on everyone’s faces, then realizes he has a cheese knife to poor Doug’s throat. He’s back to not fitting in this space anymore, not because he’s an outsider, but because of the experiences that have shaped him.

Stede has officially hit The Point of No Return (™). The place he left is not the place he came back to. His wife has a career and boyfriend, his son didn’t recognize him, he was erased from the family photo. Then with his drinking buddies, Stede realized he doesn’t look at pirate life through rose-colored lenses; the horror and bloodshed of what he’s seen will always be there. This brings us to the last nail in the coffin, the cheese knife. His time away has changed him on a subconscious level. Stede now has the instincts of a pirate, which is something he can’t get past. Mary was right to report Stede as dead, the old one died the day he left for the Revenge.

It’s not hitting the Point of No Return that causes Stede to leave again, it’s actually his love for Blackbeard. After realizing he no longer fits his old life, Stede doesn’t immediately leave again since what’s there to go back to? Remember, Stede faced death and bloodshed during his time as a pirate, so why jump back into that? It isn’t until Stede reflects on his relationship with Blackbeard and realizes he loves him deeply that he creates a plan to leave.

Now the puzzle is complete, he can’t return to his old life, but also there’s something better waiting for him in his new life. So that’s why Stede leaves again. Yes, being a pirate means he’ll witness horrible things, but it also means returning to his community, his people, and most importantly the love of his life, Blackbeard.

This is why I find the Point of No Return super interesting. You’re at this crossroad, like should you be living this new life or head back to the old one you knew? It’s hard because none feels right. The new one is scary and there’s so much uncertainty. What if you fail and it turns out you can’t actually do it? What then at that point? So you visit your old life but that doesn’t feel right either. Like you’re not the same person and you don’t fit in. You know it, others know it. It all just feels so… wrong. Your old home has become this strange reality of familiar yet outside of it all. That world is a liminal space; you know it very well, but the feeling you remember is gone.

But what’s the thing that ties us to one path or another? For Stede it was Ed and the crew they co-captained, the ship they ran, the life they built together. Yes that path feels dangerous and there’s still a chance it could go horribly wrong, but the ball already started rolling and there’s nothing Stede can do but to continue with it. After all, he’s already hit The Point of No Return (™).

[spurgie-cousin]

WHW Royals Edition 👑 Part 1: Anne, Queen of Great Britain

Born: February 6th, 1665 at St James's Palace, Westminster, Middlesex, England Died: August 1st, 1714 (age 49) at Kensington Palace, Middlesex Reign: March 8th, 1702 - August 1st, 1714

I thought I’d give you guys a little intro to Anne, Queen of Great Britain as a start for my series on weirdo royals. I got big into her after seeing the Yorgos Lanthimos film The Favourite (can’t recommend enough) and that resulted in endless hours of internet wormholes about her bizarre and interesting life. I’ve read about a lot of fucked up royals in my life (truly there’s many) but it was only when I was reading about Anne that I kind of had an ‘a-ha’ moment about how really drastically the monarchial system can fuck a person up. 

Queen Anne fits this bill for me for a lot of reason; she was a surprise Queen who was woefully underprepared for ruling, which led to people pushing their political agendas on her under the guise of genuine affection. It’s hard to know if the relationships that define her legacy and life in popular culture were genuine, or if they would’ve existed at all had she not been a royal. Her legacy is muddied by the traditional, patriarchal writers of history of course and it sometimes is hard to get a clear picture of who she really was, but here are a few tidbits about her life and rule:

Anne’s signature

1. Queen Anne was born Anne Stuart, daughter of James II and Anne Hyde and raised in the traditional way for aristocratic girls, with an education that emphasized on arts, language, and music. This eventually proved to suck dick for her big time later on in life when she became queen. Traditionally, girls were purposefully taught nothing useful about politics or history because it was assumed they would never rule (cough) and this left Anne very much lacking in the political discourse department as a monarch; all of her future speeches and even remarks made around political figures would have to be scripted by advisors. If she found herself off script and not knowing what to say, it’s said that she’d sometimes “move only her lips and make as if she said something when in truth no words were uttered.”

2. 8 year old Anne first met friend Sarah Jennings (Churchill) when she was a lady in waiting at just 5 years old. As you’ll see later on, Sarah goes on to be one of the (if not the most) influential person in the Queen’s life, becoming a trusted friend and political advisor.

3. Anne was what we would probably refer to today as a ‘hot mess express’. The poor gal had a myriad of health issues, both mentally and physically, all of which only got worse as she aged. She suffered from gout and an undefined auto-immune disorder (we think) as well as a bizarre eye-watering disorder and poor vision. It’s also pretty evident that she didn’t have the best relationship with alcohol or food and most likely developed a binge eating disorder later in her life (she was very large at the time of her death and there are a few accounts of her eating to the point of puking in front of other people).

4. Besides her relationships with Sarah and Abigail Masham, Queen Anne is also known mostly known for the tragic loss of her 17 pregnancies. Of all her births she had only 5 live babies, only one of which survived beyond infancy. Her son William was also afflicted with various illnesses all of his life and died at the age of 11.

Prince William, Anne’s longest surviving child

5. Anne became queen by accident, after her Catholic father was ousted as king by her protestant brother in-law. He and her sister ruled for a short time before dying of pneumonia and smallpox respectively with no heir in place, so Anne, who supported the protestant reformation, was crowned Queen.

6. Over the years Anne and Sarah Churchill became extremely close friends, and most accounts agree that Sarah had an incredible amount of influence over Anne’s political decisions. Sarah is said to have had a more natural affinity for politics, and to have had a completely opposite disposition than Anne. Some think that Sarah may have maintained the relationship only to keep her political control.

7. A lot of people that believe that Anne and Sarah were so close because they were lovers. The pair at one time wrote each other 4 letters a day, that included things like “I had rather live in a cottage with you than reign empress of the world without you,” “Oh come to me as soon as you can that I may cleave myself to you,” one of Queen Anne’s “I can’t go to bed without seeing you… If you knew in what condition you have made me, I am sure you would pity.” I don’t think I necessarily share that opinion, for reasons you’ll see below.

8. Sarah was the only person under Anne that was allowed to speak to her without using a title. The two often used their nicknames for each other: Mrs. Morley (Anne) and Mrs. Freeman (Sarah).

Sarah Churchill, 1702

9. A lot of scholars disagree with the notion that Anne had any gay affairs with anyone, including Sarah, for a few reasons; first because, at the time, it was just apparently normal to act hella gay with your friends, particularly for royals, so excessive touching or writing wouldn’t have raised any alarms. Most historians attribute this to the extreme separation of the sexes, particularly in upper class households. Most people spent 90% of their time exclusively with people of their own gender, so it was a means to have your emotional needs met within the confines of your station. If an aristocrat started ‘friend flirting’ with you, it was also seen as rude to not reciprocate. 

10. A few other reasons Anne was probably not lesbian: she had a pretty good relationship with her husband (Prince George of Denmark), and the 17 pregnancies thing suggests that they weren’t having any problems in the bedroom department. Also, when Anne later became close friends with Sarah’s cousin Abigail, Sarah became jealous and began to spread rumors that the two were gay lovers (more on that below). This rumor probably stuck and carried over into other areas of her life. Or maybe Anne was bi and both things were true, who knows.

Anne circa 1685. All physical descriptions of Anne, especially in her later years, don’t describe her in the most glowing terms, which is insane to think about when I see portraits like this.

11. Anne began to grow distant from Sarah after her husband’s death in 1708, which all sources agree flung the queen into a huge depression. She was said to have sat by and kissed his dead body long after his death. Sarah took a tough love approach to try and snap the queen out of it, which backfired. This was when Anne began to get close to Abigail Masham, which infuriated Sarah.

12. Sarah was so mad at Anne for this that she literally wrote a song about her and Abigail being gay together, printed it out on a pamphlet, and passed it around court Mean Girls-style. The pamphlet read: “When as Queen Anne of great renown / Great Britain’s sceptre swayed / Beside the Church she dearly loved / A dirty chambermaid O Abigail that was her name / She starched and stitched full well / But how she pierced this royal heart / No mortal man can tell However for sweet service done / And causes of great weight / Her royal mistress made her, Oh! / A minister of state Her secretary she was not / Because she could not write / But had the conduct and the care / Of some dark deeds at night.” 

13. Besides Sarah, a lot of people took Anne’s relative political ignorance as an invitation to push their own political agendas. It didn’t help that her reign coincided with a rapid development of a 2 party parliamentary system, as the gap between the protestant Whigs and the Catholic Tories began to widen.

14. One of Anne’s crowning political achievements was the 1707 Act of Union uniting England and Scotland under the banner of Great Britain (she had good ideas sometimes, although it’s hard to tell if they came from her or her many influential advisors). Consequently, she was the first ruler to ever rule over united Great Britain.

15. After a series of pretty horrible strokes, poor Anne died at the age of 49 in August of 1714 with no heirs and without reconciling with Sarah Churchill. To her credit, it’s said that despite her failing health she continued to attend cabinet meetings as often as possible until her death. She is buried beside her husband and children in the Henry VII Chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey.

[say-duhnelle]

Ideal questions and responses about COVID for Biden in an interview situation

I know there's no chance of this actually happening but I really wish 1. someone would throw these hardballs and 2. we had a snowball's shot in hell of getting these kinds of answers for them. It's really a shame that our media is both designed to cater to the lowest common denominator and are the only ones who get to have both remit AND access to provide oversight on the government, because #1 often leads to them completely missing the point on #2 in pursuit of a rating

1Q. Many critics have pointed to errors in the White House response to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, before it had reached community spread status in the US, as a lost opportunity to take drastic action to control the situation. What do you think was the most critical error made during this period, and how would you have approached it differently?

1A. The number one error here was that the responsibility for handling this was left in the hands of political actors, automatically turning it into a political situation. Public health is not a spectrum for political debate or posturing; it is a matter for science and evidence-based problem solving, and the primary decision-making should have been placed in the hands of qualified doctors and epidemiology experts as early as possible. In a situation like this, the President should serve in more of a co-ordinating role, ensuring that the states and various federal departments which must work together to solve such a problem are all on the same page and mediating any conflicting interests or needs. The current administration failed abysmally in this role and there are in fact fairly substantial rumors that the White House chose to play parties against each other which should have been working together, in hopes of exacting a political gain out of the situation. That is an extremely inappropriate abuse of power in any case, but particularly when the lives and livelihoods of so many are on the line.

2Q. For well over a decade before the COVID-19 virus was first identified, public health experts had been saying that the US' preparedness for a pandemic response was a major weak point in our homeland security, with events such as SARS, MERS and H1N1 serving as something of a canary in the coal mine showing where major deficiencies in the system lay. What lessons would you take about emergency preparedness into your own administration, and how will you implement them?

2A. From a very young age I've been taught that a failure to plan is a plan for failure. When millions of lives are on the line, you can't just wing it. The current administration's decision to disband the already-neglected pandemic response team in 2018 was a critical point of failure, and the unqualified, partial and partisan leadership which it has appointed to various other departments has also stripped many critical structures and steering committees in those departments. We are still unprepared for another national pandemic, particularly one of significantly greater virulence or mortality, and there are many other crisis situations our nation could face for which we are equally unprepared. One of the missions of my first 100 days in office would be the appointment of new, nonpartisan, disinterested and highly qualified leadership to as many cabinet positions and executive departments as possible, and tasking these new leaders with the development of actionable contingency plans for the various emergencies for which we are currently underprepared. Having these plans in place would then allow nationally coordinated "war games" type training exercises to occur on a regular basis, making key figures' responses as rehearsed and coordinated as possible should the worst come to pass. In a situation like that, we do not need to be scrambling for our first steps; everyone should know their role and what immediate actions they should take to control the severity of the situation and mitigate it as much as possible.

3Q. What might an effective plan for pandemic response look like?

3A. Obviously I am not the best person to ask and this would be better directed to public health experts, but based on the notable areas of deficiency this situation has thrown into relief, I would say:

1. Begin by having a better social safety net in place which helps reduce the number of people in exceptionally vulnerable situations such as homelessness or being without access to affordable healthcare

2. As soon as possible upon the identification of the threat, get tests developed to diagnose it. If another country has developed an effective test and is willing to share with us, work with them and try to return the favor somehow (eg. supplying equipment).

3. Use the Defense Powers Act to ramp up manufacture of these tests, PPE, equipment and medicines needed to treat the disease, etc. ASAP. Better to be in a position where we can provide extra supplies to other nations with limited resources than stuck without any ourselves.

4. Advise US travelers in foreign countries to return home immediately if they lack resources to remain abroad indefinitely; require airlines to allow these travelers to change to earlier flights home for no fee in order to receive subsidy during the likely coming drought of flights. Initiate quarantine measures or, preferably, testing for the disease at all entry points to the US, possibly by deploying the National Guard if extra hands are needed, in hopes of containing the disease at the border. Care for affected individuals in secure locations isolated from the public, with medical professionals taking every biosecurity precaution available when entering and exiting the facility.

5. In preparation for the possibility of community spread, issue an advisory to businesses, educational institutions, etc. to prepare for the potential of a stay-home environment and perhaps begin preemptively transitioning those who are capable to a work-from-home environment. In the case of colleges issue guidance for an ideal management plan that allows students to move out of campus housing with all their belongings and doesn't strand out-of-state and international students who can't afford or arrange an immediate flight home.

6. Work with Congressional leadership to prepare succinct, bipartisan legislation protecting the American people and their livelihood for immediate action should the need arise, including stimulus checks, welfare for those out of work as a result of the disaster, hazard pay and minimum protective standards for essential workers, and rescue funding for small businesses forced to shutter during the crisis.

7. Work with state and local governments on preparing initiatives to limit community spread and protect citizens which operate better at this scale, such as stay-at-home orders and rent freezes

8. Remain in close contact with leading experts at HHS, DHS, CDC, FDA and other relevant organizations to stay abreast of further developments and draft a course of action to address them

9. Remember that in a situation like this the most valuable resource by far is TIME and early, preventative action saves a lot of heartache down the line.