#and the last one is for a distant friend who just went to dallas

[parasolids]

headed to the post office today to mail out letters i wrote and never sent. didn’t mean to color match them all since i wrote them over several months

[dulceslilacwine]

black beauty

dallas winston x reader

word count: 1.9k

warnings: none! just some angst i guess?

authors note: this is sort of based on lana del rey's song black beauty :) i think i'll be basing a lot of my oneshots off of songs until i can conjure up some more plots! also, i know the grammar isn't perfect let me live!!! btw I'm not sure if I'll write a part two to this or not

years had passed since you last saw dallas, it hurt more than anything keeping away from him, but you knew you couldn't do anything about it. memories of the last night you had spent with him haunted you, kept you awake at night, and sometimes brought you to tears to the point where all you could do was lay in bed, staring at the wall wondering if you could've done anything to keep your relationship.

eventually, you learned to live with it. you didn't cry every night, you could sleep a few more hours than before, the pain was still there but you learned to numb it as much as you could. you decided to turn your heartbreak into something else, something that people would listen to, that he would possibly hear.

your friends all thought you were talented, that out of all the greasers you had something going, you would get out of tulsa and live freely, without a worry in the world. many told you to go to open mic nights, sign up for talent shows, sing in the church, anything or anywhere that someone other than just your friends would be able to listen to your voice, but you always refused. you had thought about wanting to sing but quickly snapped out of those thoughts as it would be near impossible to make it big, especially considering where you were from. the only person who ever got you to attend an open mic night was dallas, at a random bar in town.

the two of you were in your room, an elvis record played in the background while you talked, it was getting late and you were starting to get bored after being inside all day, dallas just arrived a few minutes after you decided to call it a night. he suggested going to a bar, and you agreed, wanting to spend some more time with him and he drove to the bar which had a notice on the door saying "open mic night, come sing!"

the two of you talked, and he drank a beer while you sipped on a daiquiri, not with much enjoyment but as the night went on, you and dallas judged the singers, people watched and enjoyed each other's company, and you began to like the drink. when you were on your second one, dallas suggested you go and sing a song. you said no about five times, telling him you were nervous.

"come on, doll, i've heard you sing before, you've got a pretty voice," he told you, he had heard you sing before, but that wasn't the reason behind the nervousness, you had never sung in front of a crowd of people you didn't know, the thought of them not liking how you sounded frightened you. another person went up to sing, you had just finished your second daiquiri, and once again, dallas suggested you sing.

you gave in because of the liquid courage, you put your name on the list with the song you wanted to sing, stupid cupid by connie francis. it seemed fitting as it was the beginning of february and everyone had been singing songs relating to love, whether it be about a broken heart or a love confession, you decided to be on theme.

you had your moment, up on the makeshift stage, some people sang along quietly, and you earned some claps and whistles, satisfied with yourself you went back to where dallas was sitting.

"told you, the people liked your singin','' he told you, his arm wrapping around your waist before giving you a kiss on the cheek.

that night had been just a little over two years. the night you remember the most out of all was the last night you spent together.

for two weeks before that, you had felt him getting distant. you tried not to worry so much over it, you two had been together for almost a year and you constantly heard people talking about how sometimes in long relationships there will be times one person can be distant, there isn't a spark like there was before, one or the other could get bored but it was all a matter of staying together and working through these times. you thought it was just that, so you didn't pay any mind to it.

he came over to talk to you, that was what he said when he called to check if you were home. when you opened your door and saw his face, you noticed he didn't smile at you like he usually did. with no kiss from him, he walked in and you two sat in your living room.

"I think it's the best for us to end things, doll." you saw in his face how he noticed your eyes were starting to tear up. "why, dal?'' you asked with a shaky voice, hoping you wouldn't cry in front of him. "it's for the better of us," he told you, he had an expression you couldn't read, he looked so calm but at the same time bored.

all you could do was nod, walk him to the door, and whisper an "I love you," before closing the door. the days after seemed like a blur, you couldn't sleep, you couldn't eat, and you didn't want to do anything, not read, write, listen to music, or get out of bed.

but that was months ago and today, you were going to meet with a journalist for an interview that would be going in the newspapers. you were excited, after all, you couldn't believe how far you had gotten in only a few months after the release of your first record.

"so, tell us about the song people have been most interested in, black beauty, what is it about?" the man asked. i took a moment to think about how to word everything because that was the first song i wrote and it meant a lot to me. "it's mostly about myself but a partner i had a few years back inspired it. things didn't end in the best way, i was left with a lot of questions and it left me in a horrible state for a few months, i forgot how beautiful life was because i let the sadness consume me. eventually, i started to live normally, well as best as one could after such a big heartbreak," i joked, trying to not sound too serious. "i wrote it after looking back on everything and thinking 'wow I was really in a bad place' and once again turning that into even more of a realization of me being able to enjoy life once again.”

౨ৎ

"you won't believe who's on the paper!" ponyboy told johnny, walking into the living room of his house and taking a seat next to his friend.

"who?" johnny asked, taking a peek at the newspaper pony was holding. he smiled upon seeing the black-and-white picture of the girl the gang had spent so much time around before.

the pair read the newspaper, making comments here and there on the answers to the questions. when they had finished reading the last column about the song black beauty they turned to look at each other seemingly connecting some dots in their heads. "do you think she wrote it about dally?" ponyboy asked and before johnny could answer they heard the door open, revealing dallas who was smoking a cigarette.

they turned quiet, dally took notice and saw the newspaper in ponyboys hand. "anything good?" he asked, taking a seat on the couch. "see for yourself," ponyboy answered, handing him the newspaper.

dallas raised an eyebrow at him as he grabbed the paper and read it. he thought it was gonna be some boring story, but his eyes widened as he read your name and about your song.

he regretted leaving you, it was always a constant thought in his head even after two years. the guilt of it ate at him every day, especially when he heard the gang talking about how you hadn’t been doing well after the break-up, they avoided saying your name or mentioning how you were doing, but sometimes when dally would leave for a moment they took it as a chance to talk about you.

it hurt him to know he was the cause of your pain but he knew it would be for the better. he thought you deserved better, somebody who could give you more.

ponyboy and johnny watched him as he read the paper trying to grasp what was going through his mind.

“I’m glad she’s doin’ good.” dallas said, handing the paper back to pony.

“do you think it’s about you?” ponyboy asked. dally looked at him for a moment before replying. “maybe,” he said with a shrug. he knew it was about him, he knew how you wrote poems when something affected you, he thought only this time you chose to make something bigger out of the pain.

although you got where you wanted to be, there was always something missing. you thought of him every day, what he was doing, how he was feeling, if he even remembered you. in every letter you wrote to one of the guys from the gang, you asked about dallas, they all wrote back with seemingly the same response. he was alright, still causing trouble where he could and whatnot.

a few weeks after that interview, johnny received a letter from you. you updated him on the things going on in your life, you asked how he was doing, and what the gang was up to but most importantly you asked him to tell dally you said hello.

johnny kept the letter folded up in the pocket of his jean jacket, waiting for a chance to show it to dallas. the gang decided to go to the drive-in that night, johnny went over to the curtis household to show ponyboy the letter. sodapop was there when johnny got to the house and the boys read the letter.

"are you gonna tell him she said hi?" soda asked, taking a bite of his sandwich. "well she asked me to, so i have to." the boy replied. he nodded and ponyboy chimed in. "do you think he'll take it well?" "possibly, there's no hiding the fact he still cares for her. you saw his face when he read that paper about her." "i think he'll be happy, i know dally likes showing off as tough but you could tell he really loved her. do you remember his face whenever he brought her up? i still don't get why he decided to leave her." the boys agreed with soda and left the conversation at that.

"hey, i got a letter today that you might wanna read." johnny told dally nervously, taking the letter out of his pocket and unfolding it before handing it to him. dally was confused, but he took the letter from johnny and began reading it. he immediately recognized your handwriting and he was even more confused as to why johnny was making him read the letter that was clearly not for dallas, for a moment he thought johnny was taunting him. it wasn't until he got to the last few lines that he realized why johnny had him read it.

he handed the letter back without saying a word and was quiet during the whole movie, the gang quickly noticed but didn't mention it, because they knew why. at the end, when they were walking out, dallas turned to johnny.

"you think you could give me her address so i can write to her?"

[codergalsblog]

Fnaf revival au(part 3):

OK, yall, there's going to be a heavy storm ( followed by possibly a tornado) in my area. So I'm going to write this as fast as I can(and also get away from the windows), so if you're in my area or anywhere in Dallas, make sure to take shelter and stay away from the windows and turn on the news just In case.

But now that we got that outta the way, time for the main event(btw TW: heavy mentions of murder and gore, feel free to leave if you don't like it):

here are the names:

Michael(foxy mask)

Jeremy(Freddy mask)

Mark(Bonnie mask)

Jade(Chica mask)

Michael and his friends were the bestest of friends you could imagine. But after Mike got his siblings back, he started to become very distant from his friends. He would still hang out with them from time to time, but most of the time, he didn't even bother to acknowledge their presence. So soon enough, Jade, Jeremy, and Mark went their separate ways and cut contact with each other after Mike left for Chicago with his siblings.

(Fast forwarding to where Mike became a killer and broke out of the asylum):

Mike was on a mission to find his siblings, but he had to get rid of one distraction first: his "friends."

His first target was Mark(Bonnie mask): Mark was just chilin' at home when he heard a strange noise. He went to check what the noise was only to get knocked out by Michael. When he woke up, he couldn't see literally anything, and his eyes were burning, but he soon found out that Michael had ripped both his eyes out. Mark was starting to freak out, but Michael stopped him from making too much noise by stabbing him in his side 15 times. Mark tried to crawl away, but Michael cut one of his legs off, and he had died due to blood loss. Michael buried his body somewhere far away where no one would find him.

His next target was Jade(chica mask):

Jade was walking home one night when she suddenly got the feeling that she was being followed. She turned around, and Michael was standing there, menacingly. So she decided to run but got backed up into an alley. She tried to fight back and scream for help, but Michael had cut out all her vocal cords and decided to slit the sides of her mouth because he claimed, "She should smile more."(he also cut out her tongue). After that, he buried her in the same place that he buried Mark.

His very last target was jeremy(Freddy mask):

To make it more interesting, I would like to point out that Michael and Jeremy were the most bestest of friends. They both have been friends since they were kids, so you could imagine the horror on Jeremy's face when he finds out that his best friend since kindergarten was the one who murdered him(but enough of that, let's get back into the story).

Jeremy works at a construction site, and he was "blessed" to work the night shift by his boss(he was not pleased), but little did he know that not only will this be his first night shift, but it'll also be his very last. Michael had found Jeremy because he stole his schedule from the office(he had a little "chat" with the person there). Since Jeremy was Michael's best friend since childhood, he decided to torture Jeremy a bit before he ended his life. He had chased Jeremy until he was out of breath, and he ended up falling down a steep ditch and broke both his legs on a rock. He tried to crawl away but was unsuccessful: Michael had cut off one of his hands, stabbed the other, broke his back, and smashed his head so hard that brain was showing. Before Michael could end his life, he revealed his true identity to Jeremy and told him who he really was. When I tell you that Jeremy had the most HORRID look on his face(he was crying waterfalls too), because not only was he going to die, but he's going to die by the hands of his own best childhood friend who was actually like a brother to him. Michael had dismbowel and dismembered Jeremy. He was thinking of leaving him in that Ditch, but he had a more gruesome idea: he instead hung all of Jeremy's limbs, torso, and head on a tree by some rope like a puppet.

Now, after a few months, the tormentors' souls went on to possess the glamrocks(except for Freddy), and the one and only thing they desire is revenge.

(Small edit): I was meant to post this yesterday during the storm, but I wasn't able to finish it soo... yeah.

[uomo-accattivante]

Excellent article about bringing a re-make of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage to fruition, and the twenty-year friendship that Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain share:

There were days on the shoot for “Scenes From a Marriage,” a five-episode limited series that premieres Sept. 12 on HBO, when Oscar Isaac resented the crew.

The problem wasn’t the crew members themselves, he told me on a video call in March. But the work required of him and his co-star, Jessica Chastain, was so unsparingly intimate — “And difficult!” Chastain added from a neighboring Zoom window — that every time a camera operator or a makeup artist appeared, it felt like an intrusion.

On his other projects, Isaac had felt comfortably distant from the characters and their circumstances — interplanetary intrigue, rogue A.I. But “Scenes” surveys monogamy and parenthood, familiar territory. Sometimes Isaac would film a bedtime scene with his onscreen child (Lily Jane) and then go home and tuck his own child into the same model of bed as the one used onset, accessorized with the same bunny lamp, and not know exactly where art ended and life began.

“It was just a lot,” he said.

Chastain agreed, though she put it more strongly. “I mean, I cried every day for four months,” she said.

Isaac, 42, and Chastain, 44, have known each other since their days at the Juilliard School. And they have channeled two decades of friendship, admiration and a shared and obsessional devotion to craft into what Michael Ellenberg, one of the series’s executive producers, called “five hours of naked, raw performance.” (That nudity is metaphorical, mostly.)

“For me it definitely felt incredibly personal,” Chastain said on the call in the spring, about a month after filming had ended. “That’s why I don’t know if I have another one like this in me. Yeah, I can’t decide that. I can’t even talk about it without. …” She turned away from the screen. (It was one of several times during the call that I felt as if I were intruding, too.)

The original “Scenes From a Marriage,” created by Ingmar Bergman, debuted on Swedish television in 1973. Bergman’s first television series, its six episodes trace the dissolution of a middle-class marriage. Starring Liv Ullmann, Bergman’s ex, it drew on his own past relationships, though not always directly.

“When it comes to Bergman, the relationship between autobiography and fiction is extremely complicated,” said Jan Holmberg, the chief executive of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

A sensation in Sweden, it was seen by most of the adult population. And yes, sure, correlation does not imply causation, but after its debut, Swedish divorce were rumored to have doubled. Holmberg remembers watching a rerun as a 10-year-old.

“It was a rude awakening to adult life,” he said.

The writer and director Hagai Levi saw it as a teenager, on Israeli public television, during a stint on a kibbutz. “I was shocked,” he said. The series taught him that a television series could be radical, that it could be art. When he created “BeTipul,” the Israeli precursor to “In Treatment,” he used “Scenes” as proof of the concept “that two people can talk for an hour and it can work,” Levi said. (Strangely, “Scenes” also inspired the prime-time soap “Dallas.”)

So when Daniel Bergman, Ingmar Bergman’s youngest son, approached Levi about a remake, he was immediately interested.

But the project languished, in part because loving a show isn’t reason enough to adapt it. Divorce is common now — in Sweden, and elsewhere — and the relationship politics of the original series, in which the male character deserts his wife and young children for an academic post, haven’t aged particularly well.

Then about two years ago, Levi had a revelation. He would swap the gender roles. A woman who leaves her marriage and child in pursuit of freedom (with a very hot Israeli entrepreneur in place of a visiting professorship) might still provoke conversation and interest.

So the Marianne and Johan of the original became Mira and Jonathan, with a Boston suburb (re-created in a warehouse just north of New York City), stepping in for the Stockholm of the original. Jonathan remains an academic though Mira, a lawyer in the original, is now a businesswoman who out-earns him.

Casting began in early 2020. After Isaac met with Levi, he wrote to Chastain to tell her about the project. She wasn’t available. The producers cast Michelle Williams. But the pandemic reshuffled everyone’s schedules. When production was ready to resume, Williams was no longer free. Chastain was. “That was for me the most amazing miracle,” Levi said.

Isaac and Chastain met in the early 2000s at Juilliard. He was in his first year; she, in her third. He first saw her in a scene from a classical tragedy, slapping men in the face as Helen of Troy. He was friendly with her then-boyfriend, and they soon became friends themselves, bonding through the shared trauma of an acting curriculum designed to break its students down and then build them back up again. Isaac remembered her as “a real force of nature and solid, completely solid, with an incredible amount of integrity,” he said.

In the next window, Chastain blushed. “He was super talented,” she said. “But talented in a way that wasn’t expected, that’s challenging and pushing against constructs and ideas.” She introduced him to her manager, and they celebrated each other’s early successes and went to each other’s premieres. (A few of those photos are used in “Scenes From a Marriage” as set dressing.)

In 2013, Chastain was cast in J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year,”opposite Javier Bardem. When Bardem dropped out, Chastain campaigned for Isaac to have the role. Weeks before shooting, they began to meet, fleshing out the back story of their characters — a husband and wife trying to corner the heating oil market in 1981 New York — the details of the marriage, business, life.

It was their first time working together, and each felt a bond that went deeper than a parallel education and approach. “Something connects us that’s stronger than any ideas of character or story or any of that,” Isaac said. “There’s something else that’s more about like, a shared existence.”

Chandor noticed how they would support each other on set, and challenge each other, too, giving each other the freedom to take the characters’ relationship to dark and dangerous places. “They have this innate trust with each other,” Chandor said.

That trust eliminated the need for actorly tricks or shortcuts, in part because they know each other’s tricks too well. Their motto, Isaac said, was, “Let’s figure this [expletive] out together and see what’s the most honest thing we can do.”

Moni Yakim, Juilliard’s celebrated movement instructor, has followed their careers closely and he noted what he called the “magnetism and spiritual connection” that they suggested onscreen in the film.

“It’s a kind of chemistry,” Yakim said. “They can read each other’s mind and you as an audience, you can sense it.”

Telepathy takes work. When they knew that shooting “Scenes From a Marriage” could begin, Chastain bought a copy of “All About Us,” a guided journal for couples, and filled in her sections in character as Mira. Isaac brought it home and showed it to his wife, the filmmaker Elvira Lind.

“She was like, ‘You finally found your match,’” Isaac recalled. “’Someone that is as big of a nerd as you are.’”

The actors rehearsed, with Levi and on their own, talking their way through each long scene, helping each other through the anguished parts. When production had to halt for two weeks, they rehearsed then, too.

Watching these actors work reminded Amy Herzog, a writer and executive producer on the series, of race horses in full gallop. “These are two people who have so much training and skill,” she said. “Because it’s an athletic feat, what they were being asked to do.”

But training and skill and the “All About Us” book hadn’t really prepared them for the emotional impact of actually shooting “Scenes From a Marriage.” Both actors normally compartmentalize when they work, putting up psychic partitions between their roles and themselves. But this time, the partitions weren’t up to code.

“I knew I was in trouble the very first week,” Chastain said.

She couldn’t hide how the scripts affected her, especially from someone who knows her as well as Isaac does. “I just felt so exposed,” she said. “This to me, more than anything I’ve ever worked on, was definitely the most open I’ve ever been.”

“It felt so dangerous,” she said.

I visited the set in February (after multiple Covid-19 tests and health screenings) during a final day of filming. It was the quietest set I had ever seen: The atmosphere was subdued, reverent almost, a crew and a studio space stripped down to only what two actors would need to do the most passionate and demanding work of their careers.

Isaac didn’t know if he would watch the completed series. “It really is the first time ever, where I’ve done something where I’m totally fine never seeing this thing,” he said. “Because I’ve really lived through it. And in some ways I don’t want whatever they decide to put together to change my experience of it, which was just so intense.”

The cameras captured that intensity. Though Chastain isn’t Mira and Isaac isn’t Jonathan, each drew on personal experience — their parents’ marriages, past relationships — in ways they never had. Sometimes work on the show felt like acting, and sometimes the work wasn’t even conscious. There’s a scene in the harrowing fourth episode in which they both lie crumpled on the floor, an identical stress vein bulging in each forehead.

“It’s my go-to move, the throbbing forehead vein,” Isaac said on a follow-up video call last month. Chastain riffed on the joke: “That was our third year at Juilliard, the throb.”

By then, it had been five months since the shoot wrapped. Life had returned to something like normal. Jokes were possible again. Both of them seemed looser, more relaxed. (Isaac had already poured himself one tequila shot and was ready for another.) No one cried.

Chastain had watched the show with her husband. And Isaac, despite his initial reluctance, had watched it, too. It didn’t seem to have changed his experience.

“I’ve never done anything like it,” he said. “And I can’t imagine doing anything like it again.”

###

[theculturedmarxist]

In the third decade of the 21st century, the Social Register still exists, there are still debutante balls, polo and lacrosse are still patrician sports, and old money families still summer at Newport. But these are fossil relics of an older class system. The rising ruling class in America is found in every major city in every region. Membership in it depends on having the right diplomas—and the right beliefs. 

To observers of the American class system in the 21st century, the common conflation of social class with income is a source of amusement as well as frustration. Depending on how you slice and dice the population, you can come up with as many income classes as you like—four classes with 25%, or the 99% against the 1%, or the 99.99% against the 0.01%. In the United States, as in most advanced societies, class tends to be a compound of income, wealth, education, ethnicity, religion, and race, in various proportions. There has never been a society in which the ruling class consisted merely of a basket of random rich people.

Progressives who equate class with money naturally fall into the mistake of thinking you can reduce class differences by sending lower-income people cash—in the form of a universal basic income, for example. Meanwhile, populists on the right tend to imagine that the United States was much more egalitarian, within the white majority itself, than it really was, whether in the 1950s or the 1850s.

Both sides miss the real story of the evolution of the American class system in the last half century toward the consolidation of a national ruling class—a development which is unprecedented in U.S. history. That’s because, from the American Revolution until the late 20th century, the American elite was divided among regional oligarchies. It is only in the last generation that these regional patriciates have been absorbed into a single, increasingly homogeneous national oligarchy, with the same accent, manners, values, and educational backgrounds from Boston to Austin and San Francisco to New York and Atlanta. This is a truly epochal development.

In living memory, every major city in the United States had its own old money families with their own clubs and their own rituals and their own social and economic networks. Often the money was not very old, going back to a real estate killing or a mining fortune or an oil strike a generation or two before. Even so, the heirs and heiresses set themselves up as a local aristocracy. Like other aristocracies, these urban patricians renewed their bloodlines and bank accounts by admitting new money, once the parvenus had served probation and assimilated the values of the local patriciate.

These regional urban patriciates were similar demographically, at a time when the racial caste system that divided whites from nonwhites was accompanied by an ethnic caste system among whites. Within the white population, Anglo American Protestants, preferably Episcopalian or Presbyterian, were at the top, followed by Anglo Americans belonging to more vulgar denominations like the Methodists and Baptists. German and Scandinavian Americans could be honorary Anglo Americans. But Irish American Catholics, Jews, and Italian and Polish Americans occupied a lower rung. Mexican Americans occupied an ambiguous position. In some areas they were discriminated against as Blacks were, in others they were treated as the equivalent of low-status whites. Black Americans and Asian Americans were excluded.

The Anglo American Protestant patricians in every region and state shared a common Anglo American and Trans-Atlantic culture—but not a common national culture. Instead, they had regional cultures separately based on a common British and European heritage. This is so peculiar that it needs to be explained.

Let us begin with what they shared: Trans-Atlantic culture. From the earliest days of the republic, the wealthy elites of even the most remote and Godforsaken parts of the South and West could afford to vacation in Europe. They would bring back the latest French and British fashions to rural Mississippi or Wyoming. Before the self-consciously regional Prairie Style of Frank Lloyd Wright, there was never any indigenous American architecture, just wave after wave of faddish European styles: Palladianism, Greek Revival, Gothic, Romanesque. The relics of these transient Europhile fads litter the United States in the form of courthouses and other old public buildings from coast to coast.

In contrast, local patriciates tried to boost their own authors at the expense of those in other American regions. My maternal grandmother, a schoolteacher for part of her career, belonged to the minor Southern gentry. She saw to it that my brother and I were introduced to the literary canon as educated white Southerners of the early 20th century conceived of it: A British substrate, consisting of Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling, overlain by Southern writers like Sidney Lanier, whose “The Marshes of Glynn” introduced me to the wonders of verse. The equivalent New England literary canon ran directly from Shakespeare and Milton and Pope and Scott and Tennyson to Emerson, Longfellow and Whittier and the other “Fireside Poets” (Whitman, Hawthorne, and Melville only acquired their present status later, thanks to mid-20th-century academics).

In short, for two centuries there was a double competition among regional American oligarchies. On the one hand, the local notables, particularly those from the newly settled regions, had to prove they were not backward bumpkins, but were just as up-to-date with regard to European fashions as the patricians in New York and Boston and Philadelphia. On the other hand, some of them dreamed that the city they ran, whether it was Atlanta or Milwaukee, would become the Athens or Renaissance Florence of North America, and favored local writers, poets, and artists, as long as their work was in fashionable styles and did not inspire seditious thoughts among the local masses. The subnational blocs of New Englanders, Southerners, and Midwesterners fought to control the federal government in order to promote their regional economic interests.

The status of Harvard and Yale as prestigious national rather than regional universities is relatively recent. A few generations ago, it was assumed that the sons of the local gentry (this was before coeducation began in the 1960s and 1970s) would remain in the area and rise to high office in local and state business, politics, and philanthropy—goals that were best served if they attended a local elite college and joined the right fraternity, rather than being educated in some other part of the country. College was about upper-class socialization, not learning, which is why parochial patricians favored regional colleges and universities. If your family was in the local social register, that was much more important than whether you went to an Ivy League college or a local college or no college at all.

American patricians of earlier generations would have been surprised that rich people, many of them celebrities, would scheme and bribe university officers to get their children into a few top universities. Scheming to get into the right local “society” club—now that would have made sense.

Upper-class women were the chief enforcers of local “society.” Anybody who thinks that women are somehow naturally more generous and egalitarian than men has never encountered a doyenne of high society. Mrs. Astor’s 400 families in New York had their counterparts throughout the United States, from the Mainline elite in Philadelphia to the Highland Park set in Dallas.

As in the novels of Jane Austen, the daughters of the local ruling class had to be married to a young man from a good family, if the dynasty was not to fall into disgrace. Until recently (and to this day, in some circles) a young woman’s debut in society was, if anything, more important than marriage itself, since the debutante ball helped to define her eligibility for a high-status marriage.

When I explain all of this to friends from other countries, they tend to be surprised, if not suspicious of my account. What about frontier egalitarianism? Wasn’t America dominated by the just-folks middle class in the 19th and 20th centuries? Isn’t America in danger now, for the first time in its history, of becoming an Old World style hierarchy?

The egalitarianism of the American frontier is greatly exaggerated. Some of the myth comes from European tourists like Alexis de Tocqueville, Harriet Martineau, and Dickens. For ideological reasons or just for entertainment, they played up how classless and vulgar Americans were for audiences back in Europe. On their trips they mostly encountered the wealthy and educated, who might have been informal by the standards of British dukes or French royalty, but who were hardly yeoman farmers. If these famous tourists had spent their time in slave cabins, immigrant tenements, miners camps, and cowboy bunkhouses, they might have gotten a different sense of how egalitarian America actually was. Elite Americans might have been more likely than elite Brits to smile politely when dealing with working-class people, but they were no more likely to welcome them into the family.

The Western frontier was not entirely a myth, to be sure. My great-great-grandfather proposed marriage to my great-great-grandmother by handing her a letter from horseback before riding north on a cattle drive from Texas to Kansas, and a distant uncle was murdered by outlaws on the road outside of Austin in the 1880s. But the Wild West or boomtown era everywhere was brief. The first white settlers in a region may have been trappers or small farmers or ranchers or outlaws or pirates, but once Native Americans had been removed to reservations and the railroad was in place, the area was rapidly gentrified. The rich moved in, bought up the good land, built mansions and the local opera house in the current European style and drove the frontiersmen and their families out.

White poverty in the United States today is concentrated in greater Appalachia, because the Scots Irish settlers, often illiterate squatters, were priced out of other areas and ended up in the hills of Appalachia, the Ozarks, and the Texas Hill Country. As soon as the affluent discover the scenic views in those areas, they will be forced to move once more, just as old-stock families are already being priced out of the Texas Hill Country by rich refugees from California, bringing with them their cultural heritage of trophy wineries and boutiques, New Age spirituality and organic cuisines.

Because there was no single national American elite, there was never a single Western frontier. New Englanders moved west in a band to the south of the Great Lakes, and then moved eastward and inland from ports on the Pacific Coast. While the Scots Irish followed the hills, the Southern planter class acquired cotton-friendly soil from Virginia along the Gulf of Mexico to central Texas, where the coastal plain collides with the southernmost part of the Great Plains. As the historians David Hackett Fischer and Wilbur Zelinsky have pointed out, these parallel bands of east-to-west settlement brought separate Anglo American cultures, reflected in everything from codes of honor to town layouts (town planners in greater New England laid out village greens with churches and schools, while Southern towns tended to be centered on the courthouse).

In short, a historical narrative which describes a fall from the yeoman democracy of an imagined American past to the plutocracy and technocracy of today is fundamentally wrong. While American society was not formally aristocratic it was hierarchical and class-ridden from the beginning—not to mention racist and ethnically biased. What’s new today is that these highly exclusive local urban patriciates are in the process of being absorbed into the first truly national ruling class in American history—which is a good thing in some ways, and a bad thing in others.

Compared with previous American elites, the emerging American oligarchy is open and meritocratic and free of most glaring forms of racial and ethnic bias. As recently as the 1970s, an acquaintance of mine who worked for a major Northeastern bank had to disguise the fact of his Irish ancestry from the bank’s WASP partners. No longer. Elite banks and businesses are desperate to prove their commitment to diversity. At the moment Wall Street and Silicon Valley are disproportionately white and Asian American, but this reflects the relatively low socioeconomic status of many Black and Hispanic Americans, a status shared by the Scots Irish white poor in greater Appalachia (who are left out of “diversity and inclusion” efforts because of their “white privilege”). Immigrants from Africa and South America (as opposed to Mexico and Central America) tend to be from professional class backgrounds and to be better educated and more affluent than white Americans on average—which explains why Harvard uses rich African immigrants to meet its informal Black quota, although the purpose of affirmative action was supposed to be to help the American descendants of slaves (ADOS). According to Pew, the richest groups in the United States by religion are Episcopalian, Jewish, and Hindu (wealthy “seculars” may be disproportionately East Asian American, though the data on this point is not clear).

Membership in the multiracial, post-ethnic national overclass depends chiefly on graduation with a diploma—preferably a graduate or professional degree—from an Ivy League school or a selective state university, which makes the Ivy League the new social register. But a diploma from the Ivy League or a top-ranked state university by itself is not sufficient for admission to the new national overclass. Like all ruling classes, the new American overclass uses cues like dialect, religion, and values to distinguish insiders from outsiders.

Dialect. You may have been at the top of your class in Harvard business school, but if you pronounce thirty-third “toidy-toid” or have a Southern drawl, you might consider speech therapy.

Religion. You may have edited the Yale Law Review, but if you tell interviewers that you recently accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, or fondle a rosary during the interview, don’t expect a job at a prestige firm.

Values. This is the trickiest test, because the ruling class is constantly changing its shibboleths—in order to distinguish true members of the inner circle from vulgar impostors who are trying to break into the elite. A decade ago, as a member of the American overclass you could get away with saying, along with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I strongly support civil unions for gay men and lesbians.” In 2020 you are expected to say, “I strongly support trans rights.” You will flunk the interview if you start going on about civil unions.

More and more Americans are figuring out that “wokeness” functions in the new, centralized American elite as a device to exclude working-class Americans of all races, along with backward remnants of the old regional elites. In effect, the new national oligarchy changes the codes and the passwords every six months or so, and notifies its members through the universities and the prestige media and Twitter. America’s working-class majority of all races pays far less attention than the elite to the media, and is highly unlikely to have a kid at Harvard or Yale to clue them in. And non-college-educated Americans spend very little time on Facebook and Twitter, the latter of which they are unlikely to be able to identify—which, among other things, proves the idiocy of the “Russiagate” theory that Vladimir Putin brainwashed white working-class Americans into voting for Trump by memes in social media which they are the least likely American voters to see.

Constantly replacing old terms with new terms known only to the oligarchs is a brilliant strategy of social exclusion. The rationale is supposed to be that this shows greater respect for particular groups. But there was no grassroots working-class movement among Black Americans demanding the use of “enslaved persons” instead of “slaves” and the overwhelming majority of Americans of Latin American descent—a wildly homogenizing category created by the U.S. Census Bureau—reject the weird term “Latinx.” Woke speech is simply a ruling-class dialect, which must be updated frequently to keep the lower orders from breaking the code and successfully imitating their betters.

Mrs. Astor would approve.

[jawritter]

The Arrangement

Part 7

Summery: You are a young girl that was raised in a small church in Dallas, TX. One of the only churches left in the state that still practices arranged marriages. When your betrothed ran off to California you thought you'd escape the fate you were trained for ever since a small child. Now upon the death your parents your fate seemed to be inescapable as he's returned, and is ready to take you as his bride.

Book Warnings: Arranged marriage, loss of virginity, smut, unprotected sex, angst, language, suicide attempt, battles with anxiety, struggles with mental illness, age gap (about 11 years), I think that’s it, chapters will have warnings of their own!

Chapter Warnings: Hints of anxiety on the readers part, getting settled in, I think that’s pretty much it, this one is pretty mild.

Word Count: 1541

A/N: This book is a book about Christian and church based arranged marriages, I would like to take this moment to say that I DO NOT have ANYTHING against the Chirstian faith, and mean absolutely no harm to anyone! Especially Jensen’s family! This is a complete work of fiction, and should be treated as such!

Beta’d by the amazing @deanwanddamons who was awesome enough to do all this for me! It was a lot of work, and she deserves all the praise for it!!

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Want More? Check Out My Masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***SERIES MASTERLIST***

You and Jensen  had been at the B&B for two days. The day after your wedding Jensen spent the day pampering, and cuddling you, not letting you cook, not letting you do much of anything, except lay there in each other's arms and watch TV.

Well, what little bit of time he didn't have you otherwise preoccupied with his lips. Which if you were being completely honest you didn't mind even a little bit.

He hadn’t left you alone for even one minute, even took a shower with you this morning. You thought you had successfully beaten him awake, but he slipped right in behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist, and continued to pamper you. Showing you things about yourself you didn’t even know. 

It was almost amazing, the way he could play your body like a fine tuned instrument, and you didn’t think you’d ever get tired of the feeling you got everytime he touched you.

Last night, before you'd gone to bed Jensen had told you that today you were going to go back to Austin to the home that he had there.

You were grateful that you weren't being dragged to California, but you were also grateful to get away from Dallas.

You wanted to leave all the hurt that the memories of your hometown brought behind. You wanted to start over with Jensen, to create the real marriage he was talking about, maybe have a little family of your own, even if he didn't want to have children, as long as you had him, that was all you needed.

You'd been up for a few hours, and had packed everything and placed it by the door, everything that you could anyway, leaving Jensen out a change of clothes and his bathroom bag so that he could get dressed when he got up.

You had, had two days off of being a wife, which was now your main duty and concern, and it was time to start doing what you knew you were supposed to do. Provide a comfortable living environment for your husband.

Watching the pile of covers move up and down with each of Jensen's deep breaths, you couldn't help but smile as you watched him sleep through the door you had left open.Sitting at the small bar in the middle of the kitchen you could hear the distant, soft sounds of his snoring filtering into the kitchen from the bedroom.

In just two days, he’d managed to make you fall in love with him. You don't know when exactly you'd fallen head over hills for him, though you knew that it was too late for you, you were in love with him. Now you just had to make sure he was happy and allowed you to stay.

Three hours later Jensen had got up, got dressed, and got his coffee. The car was loaded and you were on the road headed toward Austin, Texas, what was soon to be your new home.

"You're going to like it here sweetheart, I've got a house in the hill country outside of Austin. It's peaceful here, no one to bother us. We got all the time in the world to ourselves. I'm not going back to work, not right now anyways. I might do some local stuff around Austin, just to keep myself busy, but I want to spend as much time with you as possible. I want to get to know my wife."

Lacing your fingers with his, he brought your hand up to his lips, kissing the back of your knuckles as he kept his eyes on the road. The traffic thickened up as you got closer and closer to Austin.

You smiled at him a little, and then looked back out of the passenger side window, watching the scenery go by in a blur as the car moved down the highway.

Jensen was doing everything he knew how to do to make you happy, you could tell that much. He was going above and beyond to make sure you were comfortable and had everything you needed. That was a behavior you didn't really expect, though it wasn't unwelcome.

You were wrapped up in your own thoughts when Jensen pulled you back into reality. 

"Y/n, you sure you're okay? You haven't said a word since we left Dallas."  He looked at you with concern in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a little tired still. I am fine though Jensen, you don't have to worry about me." you tell him , and he grips your hand tighter.

"You've been through a lot over the last week, I just don't want to overwhelm you." he said, looking back to the road, holding your hand tightly in his, making little circles on the back of your hand with his thumb.

The rest of the car ride to Jensen's house was pretty quiet. You watched your surroundings as they went by you, trying to make sure you could find where you needed to go if you had to do it alone. You'd never really driven anywhere outside of Dallas, so when you had to go grocery shopping for you the first time it was probably going to be quite the experience.

"Here we are. Home sweet home." Jensen said, pulling up in the front of  a house that was hidden in a little cove of trees just outside the actual city limits of Austin.

"What do you think?" 

Jensen was watching your every move, trying to decipher the look that was on your face. You'd never seen anything like this little house. You definitely never thought you'd see live in anything like this.

"Jensen I love it." you say, looking around the peaceful grounds. You could totally see yourself sitting out back in the cool of the day, enjoying the quiet peace that seemed to surround this place.

"Good. I'm glad you like it." Jensen said, leaning down giving you a quick peck on the cheek before he got out of the car to go and open your door.

Once you got into the house it was the most gorgeous house you'd ever seen, cute, modern, and sleek, yet very inviting and comfortable. Not at all what you expected.

Jensen walked in with you, watching you closely. 

"Will this be okay? We can change whatever you want, or hell if you're uncomfortable here we can just move." 

He watched you with bated breath. He wanted this to work between the two of you, he wanted you to be comfortable. He wanted you to feel like you had a home.

"Jensen, it's perfect, we don't have to change anything, and we don't have to move." you tell him, laughing a little at his nervousness.

It was the first time he'd ever heard you laugh, and he couldn't help but smile. Sitting the bags down on the floor, he closed the distance between the two of you in two short strides, wrapping his arms around your waist he pulled you to him, and hugged you like his life depended on it.

"Good, I want you to be happy here baby." 

He put his lips softly to yours for a moment. A slow, sweet kiss. Nothing needy, nothing pressing, just the two of you enjoying the feeling of each other lips moving and working together.

Even though you have been through a lot, and if you were being completely honest you were more than a little overwhelmed, you could get used to this.

His arms wrapped around you, holding you close to him, his lips on yours. It was a feeling that was absolutely indescribable. Perfect even.

Jensen's phone started to ring, breaking the sweet moment you were having between the two of you. Jensen groaned and pulled away from you just enough to look at his phone.

"That's Jared, he’s a friend of mine I used to work with on Supernatural. He's a little upset that I didn't tell him about the wedding until the day it was supposed to happen. He's not so into the whole arranged marriage thing. I probably need to call him, and tell him that everything is okay. Let him know we're back in Austin." 

Leaning down he gave your cheek a peck, and grabbed your bags off the floor where he’d laid them.

"Go get settled in, get to know the house. When I get back, we will figure out what we want to do for dinner. I don't want you to have to cook tonight. I want us to just spend time with each other tonight. Okay?" he said, reaching up with his free hand, and brushing a loose strand of hair away from your face with this hand.

That burning desire that you recognized in his eyes from the first night the two of you were together, combined with the soft little gesture makes you blush, and look away from him.

"Okay" was all you could whisper back to him as he walked away from you into another room to call his friend.

Was it normal to feel this way about this man already? God he knew how to make you weak in the knees without even really trying. It was definitely going to take some practice to get to where you could think clearly around him, because he had a way of captivating you, and completely clouding your mind from anything but him.

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[blishwix]

❝ WE ARE ALL WEARING MASKS. THAT IS WHAT MAKES US INTERESTING ❞

huh, who’s LUKE MITCHELL? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually JIMBO “WICK” BLISHWICK VI. he is a 35 year old PUREBLOOD wizard who is CEO OF A WIXEN TECH & MEDIA COMPANY. he is known for being CALCULATING, FRAUDULENT, HEDONISTIC, CONCEITED, and AMORAL but also CHARISMATIC, AMBITIOUS, INNOVATIVE, METICULOUS, and PERSONABLE, so that must be why he always reminds me of the song IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP BY BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY and STYLISHLY RIPPED JEANS AND SUEDE SHOES, PURELY AESTHETIC AND MISLEADING SOCIAL MEDIA FEED, NEATLY TRIMMED BEARD AND SANDALWOOD MUSK, HORN RIMMED GLASSES WITH SMUDGES ON THE LENS, MOLESKIN FULL OF ENDLESS CODE AND FUTURE TECH INNOVATIONS, EXTRAVAGANT PENTHOUSE OVERLOOKING THE CITY, WHISKEY STONES AND EMPTY DECANTERS, and CHARMING PERSONABLE SMILES WITH MALICIOUS INTENT HIDDEN UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE. i hear he is aligned with THE DEATH EATERS, so be sure to keep an eye on him.

GENERAL

FULL NAME: Jimbo Dashiel Bartholomew Blishwick VI NICKNAME(S): Wick, Jim, Dash, Bart (yes he legit will go by any of these) AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: 35, 02/16/1994 OCCUPATION: Tech & Media Mogul GENDER: Cis Man PRONOUNS: He/Him/His HOMETOWN: Dallas, Texas CURRENT RESIDENCE: London, I guess ALMA MATTER: Ilvermorny, Horned Serpent BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

BIOGRAPHY

MEET JIMBO BLISHWICK: THE YOUNG AMERICAN CHANGING THE WIZARDING WORLD ONE STATUS UPDATE AT A TIME. 

I’m not sure exactly what to expect when the invitation comes in. It seems archaic to be communicating over owl. There was even a part of me that thought I should revert to the “email” form which my subject is so fond of. What if the wixen tech mogul’s fondness for typing meant he had poor penmanship? To my delight not only was Mr. Blishwick’s handwriting clear as day, but it came with a gleeful acceptance to be interviewed. So it was on that high note that I made my way to Blishwix HQ in London to meet with the illustrious CEO. What I had expected was some pristine corporate office with dark leather and wood accents, sterile and admittedly cold and disconnected from the world. What I was met with was surprising. Blishwix is anything but old school in its style. Much like the young hip branding that accompanies its many products and services, the corporate HQ of Blishwix is sleek, modern and very accessible. It’s a open space of mostly glass walls, the bull pen dotted with standing desks and stability balls replacing wheeling chairs. Towards the entrance to the main floor there is a food bar, one which changes weekly I’m told. This week it’s a cereal bar, last week it was a sushi bar, the next week it’s expected to be a pho bar. Employees are scattered around it with tablets and laptops, giddily conversing around mouthfuls of rainbow marshmallows and corn flakes. There’s also several corners tucked away with velvet cushions where some team members curl up with headphones and e-readers or handheld video game consoles. Designated comfort zones, the tour guide describes them as. It’s the Blishwix goal to make sure the employees are all comfortable, so whenever they get stressed out or overwhelmed, there’s always a little place they can escape to in order to calm their nerves. In truth, Blishwix looks less like a company and more like an urban hang out for pretty hipsters in crop tops and flannels. Surely the big man on top would have a more professional set up, right? 

Even the display in the bull pen did not prepare me for Jimbo Blishwick’s personal office. It’s one of a few closed off areas to the side of the floor, wide with tall glass walls over looking the bull pen, and predominately empty save for another bean sack, a slim desktop atop a standing desk, and a row of bookcases displaying dozens upon dozens of novels, all of which I can’t place and among the only print media to be found anywhere in Blishwix. “They’re muggle books,” says a voice from behind. When I turn and get a first glance at the figure leaning casually against the glass door to the office, my gut instinct is that this is just another one of those twenty something year olds squeezing stress balls on the work floor. He’s tall, wearing a handmade beanie in a burnt orange color -- One that is, frankly, not a good pair with his golden hair. His neatly trimmed beard and horned rimmed glasses speak of an elegance that doesn’t exactly match the acid wash tattered jeans or the faded t shirt worn under an oversized cream cardigan. The shirt is colorful and bears a phrase that doesn’t come easy to me. Woodstock. Perhaps this is another “muggle thing”. It isn’t until he draws close enough that I recognize the bare footed man. It’s Jimbo Blishwick himself. “Call me Wick,” he easily responds to my surprised expression, knowing full well he wasn’t what I expected. Instead of holding out a hand in a formal handshake and then pulling up a chair for the interview, he engulfs me in a hug and ushers me into the love sack. It’s awkward at first, but eventually I melt into it. It’s just as comfortable as it looks, and their use in the designated comfort zones make more sense to me now. Wick opts to sit crosslegged on the floor, a large coffee in one hand and a bowl of granola balanced on his thighs. He sips the coffee as my eyes wander the space, finding small and interesting little things to ask him about. 

The first thing that draws my attention is a set of crystals sitting on the top of his desk, and when I ask he lets out a howling laugh that echos throughout the office, surely drawing the attention of his hard playing -- and hardly working -- employees beyond the glass walls. “Oh, I had a bit of a headache,” he says with a somewhat amused grin. “My wife said they might help.” The wife in question isn’t some darling stay at home mom you might expect. In Wick’s own words: She’s the reason the “Boss Girl” phrase was invented. Selene Blishwick is as shrewd a business person as her husband is, and perhaps a bit more progressive. As I attempt to shift a bit in the cushion, Wick relays some confidential information about some of their upcoming branding collaborations. Each is more unconventional than the last, and they all have one vital thing in common: Selene Blishwick is the one that found them. I’d go into detail, but Wick swears it would become a marital problem if I spill the big secrets before they’re due to come out. Instead he offers a sly grin and taps a single finger to his lips. “Our little secret, then you can be the cool hip one among your friends who knew all about it before it came out.” An exciting proposition, though I realize that I do need something I can share with the public from this visit, and as Wick’s bowl of dry granola gets emptier I fear I’m running out of time. So I set out to do what I’d planned: a profile on the CEO of Wizarding London’s premiere tech company. 

When I ask Wick what was the event that kickstarted his long journey to bringing the wixen world into the 21st Century, he answers in one simple phrase: “A pen pal program.” I was surprised to say the least, but it all became more transparent as I urged him to elaborate. What ensues is a story about the overweight son of a MACUSA politician who was teased and bullied all his life and struggled to maintain platonic connections. “I had no friends,” he says, a sad truth but it comes out with a light and airy laugh. “But I didn’t make it quite easy for people to be my friend.” Despite his laid back and easy going charm, Wick reveals a disabling shyness and insecurity that kept him from engaging with the world. The only one privy to his thoughts and personality was the journal he carried with him wherever he went. “I always thought I sounded better on print than in person. I could be whoever I wanted to be on paper -- Handsome, smart, clever and fun. I just could never bring that outwards, you know?” I think we can all sympathize with the young Blishwick’s plight. It didn’t help that he had quite the shoes to fill. Sixth in his line, the Jimbos that came before the media mogul were all tied to American politics. They’re all charming and ambitious men, but Wick says he just didn’t have it in him to be a lawmaker. “Big Daddy” -- yes, that’s the moniker his father, Jimbo the fifth, goes by -- “He’s just built to be a Senator, I’m just the apple that fell a little too far from that tree.” Secluded and distant, educators began to worry that Wick’s development would be halted by the lack of socialization between him and his peers. So one Ilvermorny professor had suggested Wick be one of a handful of students elected to partake in a cross continental penpal program. “Fabricating friendship,” he called it. What they didn’t know is that the program would lead to a lot more. When I ask him who his first penpal is, if it’s someone he still has direct contact with, he lets another one of those amusing grins slip. “Oh yeah, very much so. I’m actually married to her.” 

A fifth year at Ilvermorny, Wick was matched with a Hogwarts student a handful of years younger than him by the name of Selene Rowle. According to Wick, their correspondence lasted throughout both of their schooling and beyond, until he had taken a chunk out of his trust fund in order to travel to the United Kingdom to meet in person. He says that’s the only time he used his family’s money to get where he is now -- literally using it to transport across the Atlantic. Leaving behind his family’s estate in Texas and the promising job at MACUSA his father had acquired for him, Wick came to London in order to meet his long distance friend for the first time. The only person “who really knew what he was about” he says. I ask if it was for romantic reasons. He thinks about it while he sips his drink. “I guess in hindsight it does seem a little romantic.” Whatever his reasons, Wick came and he never turned back. He said that one of the first times they interacted in person, he and his future bride had lamented on their past communication and the long waits between letters. “We felt like we’d left things off on cliff hangers so often, and you’d have to wait forever just to get some kind of answer to those burning questions the last letter gave you. It was one of the most frustrating things.” The pair wondered what it would have been like if there had been a more instantaneous way to talk with wizards across the globe. After all, Wick had concluded, the muggles did it just fine. During his teen years, the Texan said he had grown very interested in what nonmagical civilization was like. A “No-Maj Studies Class”, as they call the Muggle Studies program in the states, had a unit on the technological advances of the nonmagical community during much of the modern era. The professors tried to teach the students that this was all building towards a very dangerous threat to the magical community: exposure and the fast spreading of information over the internet. Wick saw something different. “As I thought about how I wished I had a better gateway to my penpal during my teen years, I just kept thinking about how muggles had that already figured out. They could instantly send letters to anyone anywhere in the world. No long wait times for traveling owls or anything like that. It was instantaneous.... And why shouldn’t we be like that?” 

It was this very thought that birthed the company the Blishwicks lead now. 

So how do you bring the magical world safely into the 21st Century as dictated by the nonmagical? That was no easy feat. For his part, Wick said he had to learn all about something that didn’t exist in their world, something that didn’t interact well with magic. And how do you study muggle tech without magic interfering? Simple: You “become a muggle”. That’s when I realized there was a book I recognized on his eclectic shelf of reading material. Daisy Hookum’s best seller My Life as a Muggle. It’s the first book on the shelf, in the most pristine condition. A first edition, and it’s even signed by the author herself, though Wick doesn’t remember the meeting. It has a simple message in it: I hope you enjoy the time you spend in the nonmagical world and make memories as fond as my own. “Oh yeah,” he laughs, “I did tell her I was also voluntarily giving up magic in order to help kickstart my company.” He says it with an air of unfamiliarity, like he only vaguely remembers the moment. Still, he presses on with the story. A controversial choice for the son of a self proclaimed “conservative-traditional” pureblood senator, Wick was shortly disowned by the American Blishwicks for his choice to give up his magic for two and a half years to live among the muggles. But it had purpose. “I may have lied my way into an internship with a tech company in Edingbrugh. I was trying to learn as much as I could about this muggle innovation. If I wanted to create something similar for our community, I needed to master their version.” He says it took more than the two years he gave himself to live among them, and he’s still studying it to this day, but after that amount of time he had the ground work he needed to then create his tech and media empire. The biggest obstacle wasn’t even in creating the highly secret magically encrypted network which allows smart phones to be used in the wizarding world. No, for Wick the biggest hurdle to pass over was the longstanding traditional values the community had. “I think there’s an innate fear in not just advancing the community, but in mirroring any sort of progress than the muggles have done. There’s nothing wrong with it, I mean we have adapted enough of their inventions into our own world already so why not take it a step further?” He refers to radio and electric hook ups that appeared in a lot of wixen homes in the past century. 

Blishwix started out small, creating and selling smart phones and desktops primarily with the idea in mind to change the way we communicate. Email was one of those first muggle digital contraptions that made its way into the wixen mainstream and has stayed, but within a short decade the company’s offerings expanded to mirror exactly what the digital world of the muggles looks like now. It’s becoming more and more rare to see wixen without a Loquix* in hand, or a Blishwix desktop at home. The Wixpix social media app, in which users post photos taken from the cameras on their cellular devices and add witty captions which can then be “liked” or “commented” on by users across the globe, continues to grow in popularity. And now the media and tech giant is rolling out a “streaming platform” -- a sort of home theater in the form of an app that catalogues film and television programs created by wixen for wixen. There’s Accio, an application that allows you to ask random questions and receive an answer instantly; Portky** which allows users to request forms of transportation when they desperately need it, including ministry-approved portkeys (or so it claims, we haven’t used it yet here at the Prophet). There’s even applications for those lonely wixen looking to find a love connection. Erised is one such app where user profiles are made with a handful of photos, a small ‘about me’ section, and a few small details that can be provided to prospective dates in order to help connect those with similar interests and hobbies. The married Wick does not have an Erised profile, but his assistant allows me to scroll through her’s and even swipe a few times on other profiles. I accidentally match her to someone she admits she can’t see herself interested in, but we all have a good laugh about it. These are only a few of many “experiences”, as Wick refers to them, offered by the company in order to branch the magical people from across the globe. “What is more beautiful than seeing people from different cultural backgrounds and walks of life coming together and sharing ideas and thoughts so quickly?” I realize as I’m sitting there in that bean cushion, scrolling through a prototype of the next Blishwix tablet that I know so little about the world beyond my little corner of it. I suddenly understand Wick’s enthusiasm about expanded communication. 

It’s all pretty exciting to see coming together, it’s almost impossible to understand what more could be done by Blishwix. So when I ask him what’s next, Wick gets a very eager look in his eyes. “There’s a lot of places we still don’t have our tech in that I think would be all the better for it,” he solemnly reveals, and I’m shocked to hear it. Since visiting Blishwix, I have seen their product seemingly in every corner of Wizarding London I explore daily. Who isn’t using connected to their expansive network at this point? “I would love to do a partnership with the Ministry. As the governing body, I feel like we can offer them so much that could continue to further develop the community and continue progressing us into the future. If we could get our desktops in every Ministry Department, we can further the sort of work that keeps our world moving. Just imagine how we could expand Law Enforcement, Education or Wellfare departments if we can make all the relevant information they need all the more accessible to their employees? Think about how much easier it would be for them to process information on our fast and reliable network.” 

On the topic of Education, Wick reveals his ambitions don’t stop with the Ministry. “I would love to see Blishwix in schools like Hogwarts,” he says, revealing what may be the biggest bombshell yet. “This whole dream started because of a chubby boy who had no friends in school and wanted a faster way to communicate with the one he made far away. I think a lot about that and how my life would have been different had I had this kind of technology available to me. If there are lonely kids like me who could have that, or even kids who are just struggling to get the information they need to be successful in school, and I could give them what they need to advance in life? Then I could say I’ve done what I initially set out to do. Until that day, I would say that Blishwix hasn’t been a success yet. Even teachers could benefit from the use of the internet and all the resources we have out there which we now have access to.” I begin to wonder if the technological genius is actually more of a philanthropist. “I don’t know, you tell me,” he quips when I muse out loud. Our interview comes to a halt by this point, and I’m left with so many more questions. What is Blishwix cooking up for the wizarding world next? What kind of innovations will define the company’s next decade? These, and so many more, questions are left unanswered as I walk out of Blishwix HQ, a takeaway bowl of fruity cereal in one hand and my previous generation Loquix in the other (scrolling through shopping apps in order to find that “love sack” I spent much of the afternoon lounging in).

The same day I begin writing this piece out, Blishwix has announced the Loquix VI, their most advance smartphone yet. They livestream details of their upgraded OS and hardware reveal on the company’s social media, an event I watch while typing this article up on my worn out typewriter. Halfway through and I’m out of ribbon, and I silently curse myself as I order a new set online. All the while the Blishbook Pro is being revealed on the stream, its sleek wireless keyboard and slim expandable monitor shimmering under the stage lights. I join in with the loud gasps from the shareholders crowding the conference room where the event is being held. The irony of this isn’t lost on me, and as I sit here writing out these last few paragraphs with a quill in my cramped hand I begin to realize exactly why I admire Jimbo Blishwick and his forward thinking. At least he’s not sitting here with ink blotches in obscene places, running to his editor’s office just barely before deadline with a mess of typed and handwritten article. I remember in that moment, drenched in the rain while rushing through the offices of the Prophet, the first line in his owl response to my inquiry for the interview: 

You should have just emailed. 

Touché, Blishwick, touché. 

*Portky app idea comes courtesy of Kim ( @strvngemagics​ ) **Loquix phone name comes courtesy of Vic ( @cfdiggorys​ / @moodyparis​ / @aarlingtons​ ) Both gave permission to use / mention these galaxy brained concepts in the intro and credit for their conception goes to them. Thank you guys so much!!

TL;DR: Wick is full of shit. What can I say? Here’s the ‘Murrican lad who claims to be some hip and cool CEO of a wizarding tech and media company. Okay he’s I guess apple meets zuckerberg. Idk I’m not galaxy brained enough for this afheiahfpea hence the very oddly written bio. Wick’s a pureblood from america who supposedly forsake his family’s purist ways and then decided to create a company modeled after muggle tech in order to “bring the wizarding world into the modern era”. In actuality? He’s a fucking bigot who created a network that he could use to spy on people who may be enemies of the cause. At least that’s how it’s being factored into the DEs. His theme song is “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell bc he’s always watching you. Gives off this very laid back and down to earth and charming persona just so he can gain your trust and meanwhile he’s leaking your information to the DE and helping them further their agenda. Some extra tidbits not seen above: 

He’s got some daddy issues which are leaking into his parenting. Aka he is not exactly excited to be a father but you wouldn’t know that from his Wixpix feed which feature so many “cute” dad photos with his baby boy. In order for him to become his best self, his dad had to make his life a living hell and he believes that’s how he’s gonna have to handle Zephyr as well. 

He is smart, yes, but he’s not some brilliant innovator like the world thinks he is. His empire is built on stolen material which he simply “adapted” to the magical world. He’s not original, but he is clever. 

He’s not a fighter, clumsy with a wand, had a severe stutter as a kid which made it very hard for him to cast spells etc, so he avoids battle often and instead offers up his company more for espionage for the DEs. He’s better suited to behind the scenes mayhem, and that’s kind of the way he likes it. 

He’s a coward. He’s hiding behind computer screens and tbh if things get really sticky he’s likely to try and sell out the DE in order to save his skin. Has an escape plan to the states if things get really sticky but the likelihood of him succeeding are slim to none. 

He acts very charitable and humble and kind but he’s conceited as hell and he’s a real shady bitch sometimes. Talks shit on everyone behind their backs

He’s had a few affairs here and there despite being married. Even with that, he is in love with his wife and feels a sort of fealty towards her. She’s a very important part to the company, she’s pretty much the brand of it and so he relies on her a lot to help manufacture their image even just as individuals to help the rouse. 

BODY IMAGE TW/EATING DISORDER TW. Wick has some body image issues due to his past tbh. He got bullied a lot as a kid for being overweight and quiet, his solace was in food and he was a binge eater. As he got a bit older, he made some desperate choices in order to lose weight to gain a slimmer figure. It wasn’t healthy, it landed him in hospital a few times, and eventually he had to meet with nutrition specialists and therapists in order to work out a more healthy mindset on food. He’s still harbors body imagine issues, but he’s learned to be better about it. Still, he maintains a very strict diet and work out regime because he feels his image is one of the most important things about him. He did meet Selene when he was slim and athletic and therefore thinks it’s best he maintain the figure even just out of fear she wouldn’t find him attractive otherwise. 

is any of the stuff he said in this interview true? Idk, idk

Idk, I hate this man and this bio afheuiahfpea I’ll end up rewriting it eventually. 

MISC

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic LANGUAGES: English FAMILY: Jimbo Dashiel Bartholomew Blishwick V (but they call him “Big Daddy”; father), Cricket Blishwick née Berkeley (mother), Beaufort Harland Blishwick (younger brother), Cora-Lou Blishwick (younger sister), Selene Blishwick née Rowle (wife), Zephyr Blishwick (infant son), and by extension all the fucking Rowles I guess PETS: TBD FACE CLAIM: Luke Mitchell ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius MBTI: hm PINTEREST: (coming soon)

WANTED CONNECTIONS

interns - a couple new grunts at the blishwix HQ. they can be any affiliation, but if they are DE affiliated then they’ll know a little bit more about what is going on behind closed doors at the company. could be fun for future plotting purposes. 

co conspirators - other DEs who similarly to wick lead a double life in the public eye. philanthropists, media stars, all sorts of “do gooders” who are banning together in order to break “harmful stigmas and stereotypes and join the wixen community globally”. blishwix mission statement aims to create a platform for wixen of all types across the world to interact free of prejudice and judgement and to bring the magical community into a modern era free of harmful ideologies. of course that’s a fucking lie, so if you play a baddy bad who’s pretending to be goody good then this could be a fun collaboration. 

partnerships - alternatively, let’s see some honest to good people and groups get schemed by these fuckers. this would involve some potential screwing over but no worries, at the end of the day blishwix will tank and then your character can get their sweet revenge on this man and his corrupt business. 

idk hmu with ideas. 

[not-a-christmas-tree]

i watched the dallas theater company les mis and here are my observations part TWO

i recently watched a modern adaptation of les mis from 2014! i took hella notes bc les mis being set in modern day has a LOT MORE than you would think! i just posted my act one notes, so here are the ones from act two. enjoy! :D

ACT TWO

(Building The Barricade)

oh javert,,,you and your red beret-scarf combo

everyone shakes hands the same way?? they all like. half bro hug. young people ig 🤷‍♀️ 

oh on my own is gonna hurt me huh

éponine has her hands up when she goes to take the letter to cosette that’s an interesting take

jvj looks so done lmao “really bruh just give me the letter i’ll give it to cosette it’s FINE”

omg first time i’ve ever seen éponine not take the money after the letter!! that actually makes so much sense bc she doesn’t take marius’ money when he asks her to find cosette’s house either. that,,,yes that’s good

the modern era begs the question... why didn’t marius just ask for cosette’s number?? i’d assume it’s just a thing that jvj doesn’t allow her to have a phone bc The Cops, but. maybe marius and cosette are the straight version of cottagecore lesbians they just write letters for ~The Aesthetic~

(On My Own)

i was right on my own was gonna hurt me

first time i’ve ever seen an éponine disguise where she actually passes as a boy lmao 

FINALLY A VERSION OF OMO WHERE ITS NOT JUST FORLORN SELF-CARESSING THANK YOU

surprisingly i have less notes here that’s fun i thought i’d have more

(Javert at the Barricades)

WOAHHHHH THEY DID NOT SKIMP ON BARRICADE SET PIECES THAT SHIT IS COOOOOL

oh the barricade scenes are already hitting too hard 

cops are in riot gear cops. are in. riot gear.

oh the javert spy thing that also hits funny because obviously

gavroche is armed with a bat i love you son

FULL VERSION OF LITTLE PEOPLE AT THE BARRICADE AYEEEEE

(A Little Fall Of Rain)

wait hold on why is marius not,,,singing to éponine on “why have you come back here?” he’s like. scolding someone,,, huh??

oh enj goes to help marius with ép!! and he calls over who i assume would be joly i STAN

MARIUS CRIES AFTER ÉP DIES KILL MEEEE

(The First Attack)

i like how jvj does the second confrontation here. he looks less angry and more like,,,compassionate and that MAKES SENSE bc yk. he’s telling javert he’s wrong but he’s not doing it out of spite he’s doing it bc this guy NEEDS to know what he does as a cop and realize that being a cop isn’t just enforcing rules, and it never was just that. 

i do love the exasperated “gO” from jvj that’s kinda great ngl

(Drink With Me)

i’m very sad that there won’t be any exr from these boys

v e r y sad here

i do see grantaire looking PRETTY sad though

bold of y’all to assume that the modern day amis would all be straight

okay i can tell that grantaire really is going hard on the Existential Singing like,,,sure he’s just standing there but like. damn bro

SO THERE A R E LADIES ON THE BARRICADE WHY TF ARENT THEY FIGHTING

BETTER SEE SOME CHANGE THERE

i just realized that the cockades are buttons that is the BEST

(Bring Him Home)

jvj actually looks kinda happy in BHH and tbh i kinda like it?? it’s only on the “he’s like the son i might have known” line but i like it

oh those vowels oh boy they TALL

(The Final Battle)

enjolras is for some reason, still angry...why...why bro....

the staging for gavroche’s death is INTERESTING bc he’s reaching up at the sniper on the tower. hm. i dont hate it

OH SOMEONE ON THE BARRICADE IS RECORDING I THINK!!! GOOD ADDITION!!

i can’t imagine how many blood packs they went through 

oh enjolras’s death okay so. he’s in a like. No Man’s Land almost, and the riot cops come in after him. it’s an interesting take because it almost mirrors the scene in the book, except obvs grantaire isn’t here. they also have an added scene after he dies where cops are checking out and using radios that is. that is EERIE.

jvj walks over to enjolras’s body 🥺

HE ALSO FUCKIN S C R E A M S WHEN HE SEES MARIUS ON THE GROUND GODDAMN MAN O U C H

thenardier steals combeferre’s glasses wow thanks for that added pain

thenardier and jvj have a mini fight oh that’s kinda cool hm

(Javert’s Soliliquy)

javert opens his soliloquy with some SPICY SADNESS OH B O Y he sounds broken already!! start strong!!

emotions go broken - anger - confusion? - mAJOR confusion - hopelessness 

javert can FLY! no legit he’s on ropes

(Turning)

turning is. turning is almost a funeral. 

OH THEYRE N U N S !

nuns are visiting the barricade 🥺 

OH DAMN “what’s the use of praying if there’s nobody who hears?” THAT CERTAINLY HAS WEIGHT NOW THAT THEY ARE N U N S

it has just occurred to me that people have been dead on the floor for like. a solid five minutes 

(Empty Chairs At Empty Tables)

“now my friends. are dead. and gone” he pauses like he’s realizing it just then oh OUCHIE

wait is marius,,,at the barricades? is he legit singing to his friends dead bodies? oh shit oh NO

OH N O OH NONONO THIS IS WORSE

THE BARRICADE BOYS RISE UP FROM THE FLOOR OH N O OUCH OUCH

they group up and salute him and wALK OFF NO OWWWW

*cosette and marius kiss* jvj: *COUGH COUGH*

marius and valjean’s lil conversation is interesting in the way valjean seems to ask marius “who am i?” rather than ask himself. he phrases it in a way that makes me think he’s like. quizzing marius lmao 

(The Wedding)

omg i think baby cosette and éponine are flower girls 🥺🥺

“go away thenardier” *madame mouths ‘dammit!’*

thenardier your boat shoes hurt me

madame: “get up! get up!” thenardier: “stop—STOP IT!” 

TWO GUYS ARE DANCING TOGETHER AND WAVE AT THENARDIER ON “this ones a queer, but what can you do”

yeah i think i found my new favorite thenardiers thank you dallas theater company

fantine sits on the bench when cosette comes by, cosette sits on bench next to her, and fantine tries to touch her but can’t 🥺

jvj just gave a hand-over-heart head nod to cosette but fantine gave it back i,,,ouch

ENJOLRAS AND GAVROCHE ARE WITH FANTINE AND ÉPONINE FOR JVJ’S DEATH

the chain gang is in the epilogue i repeat the cHAIN GANG IS IN THE EPILOGUE

the orchestra rests on the last “say do you hear the distant drums” and that was the coolest thing i’ve ever heard

that final harmony is MONEYYYY and i want to cry

OVERALL NOTES:

this javert has the most interesting interpretation because up until his FINAL SCENE he is the stone cold police officer, and he plays it SO WELL. like i have never been truly angry at a javert up until this guy, and whether that was because it was modern and resonates A LOT in 2020 or he just looks like a cop i want to punch, I DON’T KNOW but he plays it SO WELL and i love it so much!!

these thenardiers are the fucking BEST NGL they are the perfect mix of funny and cruel. madame t is also funny as HELL and i wish i had her talent lmao

i said it before but the police costumes in this show are. woosh. kudos to the costumer i took one look at those guys and was like “haha, no!.” vaguely related to that, i think this was the first time i nearly cried at Look Down like. the first song at the show, simply because of the convict getting the SHIT beat out of him on the floor. that hurt me and i hate that it is completely accurate to what happens in prisons today.

lovely ladies was,,,a LOT and tbh, i feel like it didn’t need to be. obviously it does show how horrible it is for sex workers, but that is why the music is there. the music and lyrics is there to tell what you don’t show visually. (though i do love the male prostitute lmao he took no shit)

i also said this before but the fact that there wasn’t bigger of a relationship between enjolras and grantaire kind of annoys me simply because they are revolutionaries in the present day. you can’t tell me that ALL OF THEM WERE STRAIGHT. with how many people i know now that identify under the queer and trans umbrella, and also how queer they are (to me) in the brick, the absence of any exr in a modern interpretation hurts a little.

in conclusion, this show was fucking FANTASTIC and even though i’m six years late, it still resonates hard given the time we live in today. i think i nearly screamed when i saw the cops in riot gear on the barricade because that is LITERALLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. this just reminds me how timeless the story of les mis is because you had to change LITERALLY NOTHING from the story to make it make sense in the modern age, and that is really the lesson you should learn from les mis; these things happen everywhere, and they need to be fixed. 

thank you for listening to my rambling, i am sure i forgot something because there was just so damn much but i hope you enjoyed otherwise! not-a christmas-tree out! :)

[qsdblogging]

Top 10 TV Shows You Need To Watch Right Now

Now, I watch a lot of television. I always have and frankly, I’m much more of a binge watcher than a wait-around-for-a-week-for-the-next-episode kind of watcher. 

And with everything the past few months, there wasn’t all that much to do other than start rewatching some of my favorite shows and some that I’ve never seen or haven’t seen in a while.

So, that’s what I did and here I am giving you some recommendations for shows to add to your own watching lists. 

Warning, though, some of these don’t end the best way and may end up more as a disappointment. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

I. Fringe.

I cannot recommend this show enough to people. It’s got five full seasons (although the last could’ve been a little better, but it’s honestly not that bad of a final season) of high-risk scenarios revolving around almost unexplainable phenomena regarding a tear in the fabric of reality. It deals with experiments that gives superpowers (basically), advanced technology, and a parallel universe. 

Plus, there’s a cow.

What more could you want from a show?

Some familiar faces that are in the main cast or show up at some point include John Noble, who you may recognize from Sleepy Hollow and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lance Reddick, who was in The Wire, White House Down, American Horror Story, and played Charon in the John Wick franchise, Leonard Nimoy, who you should know from the original Star Trek series, and Anna Torv from Mindhunter. 

II. Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector.

Now, if you know crime books, you may know exactly what this is based off of. If not, fear not, I am here to tell. This series (which, like a lot of the others down the list, unfortunately, got cancelled and won’t get to see a second season) was based off of The Bone Collector, a first in a series of novels by Jeffery Deaver. 

If you like crime shows, you should definitely give this a shot. Don’t let the fact that it’s only one season stop you.

Things get pretty wild in just one season as it revolved around a retired forensic criminologist, who had been trying to catch the Bone Collector only to get injured, that gets back into the game three years later when an ambitious young detective is determined to help solve the case when a new body shows up.

You might even recognize a face or two, like Arielle Kebbel (the ambitious young detective) from her role as Lexi in The Vampire Diaries and Olivia Charity in Midnight, Texas, and Russell Hornsby (the retired forensic criminologist) from Grimm, The Hate U Give, Proven Innocent, and The Affair.

III. Manifest.

Luckily, this show is said to be getting a third season and so far, isn’t going to get cancelled. It focuses on passengers from Flight 828, who show up five years after their plane went missing. Some passengers start experiencing what they call ‘callings’ and try to figure out if they were chosen for some sort of duty that the callings led them too, but things get a little confusing when someone who wasn’t on a flight seems to have a year missing of their own life after being deemed missing.

Things get a little weird and dangerous along the way, and not everyone is happy about how things turn out.

It’s pretty interesting and I’m really looking forward to what else they come up with. There’s a few familiar faces that play a part in the show that includes Daryl Edwards, who you may recognize from the first season of Daredevil, Ellen Tamaki who is also in the reboot of Charmed, Athena Karkanis, who’s been in The Expanse and Lost Girl, and Josh Dallas, who one may recall playing Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time, and Fandral in Thor.

It’s a rather good show to get lost in and I definitely recommend giving it a go.

IV. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

If you don’t have an idea as to what this show is, I don’t know what to say. The title kind of gives it away. It’s the only Marvel Show (as of now since none of the shows in production have come out as of yet) to technically be connected to the MCU itself.

That’s found in one of the main characters, Phil Coulson, who you’d recognize from Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and The Avengers. Plus, Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) and Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) both give a cameo in the show. 

The show was rumored to have been set in a different, but similar, timeline to that of the MCU movies, but I don’t know for sure if it’s true or not. 

It follows its own set of issues, including a deeper dive into the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., issues with HYDRA, and so on and so forth. The last season, which I honestly cried during, gives such good twists and callbacks to previous seasons and the MCU movies that you can’t help but enjoy how it’s handled.

As a show, it probably has one of the best final seasons possible and I highly recommend giving the full seven seasons a watch if you haven’t already.

V. Primeval.

Now, if you like dinosaurs, this is a show for you. It’s BBC, so obviously everyone has an accent. It gave a run of five seasons (which is kind of funny because I didn’t realize that until just now writing this as the show is listed as number five on the list) with different episode amounts. 

The show centers around anomalies that seem to open up a window to the very distant past of Earth when dinosaurs still roamed the land. It causes a lot of issues, especially if one person has anything to do with it.

It’s pretty interesting and honestly has got some great characters (my personal favorite is Captain Becker, played by Ben Mansfield) and while it can get pretty serious, it’s also pretty entertaining. It’s one of the three shows on this list to get to end on a good-ish note. (AKA, no cliffhangers!)

Obviously, I highly recommend giving it a shot. It’s kind of the point of this list.

VI. Terra Nova.

Now, like Primeval, this show technically has to do with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs aren’t the main focus, but they do play a part in this one season (because cancellations) story. 

Terra Nova is focused on both the future and the past. In the distant future (2149), the Earth is dying. A group of people, researchers, and military as well as some of their family members, are sent to the past (85 million years) to inhabit Terra Nova, a colony of humans given a second chance to build civilization. 

So, obviously, dinosaurs are going to make an appearance now and then. And unfortunately, the show only got one season and ends on a cliffhanger. Which I hate, because I really enjoy this show and wish it had been able to at least get a second season.

Plus, there are some familiar faces amongst the cast. Jason O’Mara, who plays one of the main cast members, played Jeffrey Mace in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Christine Adams, who plays Lynn Pierce in Black Lightning. Allison Miller, who played Sonya in 13 Reasons Why. And Naomi Scott, who is known for her roles in Lemonade Mouth (one of my all-time favorite DCOMs) and Aladdin. And this was just to name a few of the cast members. 

Shame it got cancelled, truly, but I recommend giving it a shot.

VII. MTV’s Scream.

I think you can figure out the basis of this show. While it doesn’t have anything to do directly with the movie franchise, it is kind of similar and a lot of the characters reflect those from the show. Neve Campbell even said that if the show did well, she would be willing to do a cameo.

It revolves (at least the first two seasons as season three is an entirely different set of cast and premise that I refuse to watch because of that) around Emma Duval and her group of friends as they’re picked off one by one by a serial killer going around town. Things get bloody and suspicions arise amongst the crew when things are revealed as the show continues, but things eventually work out in the end.

And personally, I really enjoyed the show even when the second season ended on a cliffhanger. I have theories about that cliffhanger, however, so watch out for a possible post regarding it. 

I highly recommend giving it a chance if you haven’t seen it. 

VIII. The Society.

Now, the title doesn’t give you much. A group of teenagers, who were sent off on a trip, suddenly are dropped back off in their town to find it completely empty aside from themselves. They have to form their own society to survive and figure things out.

Once you know that, it makes a little more sense.

It seems really similar to the Pied Piper tale, but it doesn’t seem like we’re going to really know for sure. Season 2 had been given a go-ahead, but not too long ago Netflix announced the cancellation of the show.

That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the first season like I do. Plus, if you’re a fan of Supernatural and the character of Claire Novak, Kathryn Newton plays one of the main roles in this show.

It’s a shame the show got cancelled, especially on a cliffhanger, but what can we do?

IX. The Mysteries of Laura.

Laura Diamond, a Homicide Detective, cracks case after case while trying to raise twin boys and locking horns with her less than helpful Police Detective ex-husband. At least, this is according to IMBD and frankly, it’s not really wrong. 

For two seasons, it’s packed with comedy and crime. It’s more of the former, but it still gets pretty serious every now and then, and unfortunately ends on a cliffhanger. 

However, some cast members may be familiar. Like Josh Lucas, who voices Home Depot commercials (and trust me, it made my family laugh when we first heard one after watching the show), Laz Alonso who plays MM in The Boys, and Debby Ryan, from Disney Channel. 

If you like light-hearted crime shows (like Brooklyn-Nine-Nine) you should definitely give this a watch.

X. Warrior Nun.

As far as I know, this show has been renewed for a season two. I’m really hoping for it because it’s honestly kind of interesting. You can kind of tell by the title what it may be, but I’ll dive a little deeper.

After waking up in a morgue, Ava, an orphaned teen, discovered she now possesses superpowers as the chosen Halo Bearer for a secret sect of demon-hunting nuns. (Taken from IMDB). Interesting, right?

With characters like Shotgun Mary, Sister Beatrice, and Sister Lilith, you know the show’s going to be interesting. But the premise is pretty interesting on it’s own too.

There’s even a character called JC, who apparently has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, but I still like referring to him as such because it’d be pretty funny if that’s how it turns out. Also, someone gets beat up with a whole chicken at some point.

It’s only got the one season so far, but it’s pretty funny and action packed. Like everything on this list, I definitely think you should watch it and find out for yourself if you want to add it to your list if you haven’t already.

[averyonelovesjack]

north & south IV ~ zach herron

requested: yep

summary: zach and y/n juggle their relationship immediately after zach’s mother kicks them out. 

warning(s): cursing, as usual

word count: 1244

taglist: so here’s the thing i had a taglist but ya know i haven’t posted in like well over a year so idk how many of the peeps on the taglist are still around on wdw tumblr or if they really want to be tagged in this so i guess if you want to be on a taglist lmk?? 

author’s note: lollll so this is my first story in about a year and a half. hope someone actually reads it lmao. hoping to be posting more frequently?? we’ll see how that goes lol i just like to write and it’s nice that some people like to read what i like lol

also read these first: part I part II part III

i didn’t bother waiting in the car any longer. it’s so frustrating to go through so much with a person and then just have them switch everything on you because of one person. and granted, i know it’s his mom and i know she is way more important than i am, and i get that. but it’s frustrating to spend so much time getting to know someone and getting to like someone and then to find out months later that they don’t trust their own feelings over that of their mother.

i unbuckled and opened the door quickly, grabbing my bag from the floor. zach was frozen still after he had muttered those last three words. it’s dallas at night, so the neighborhood streets that were filled with kids on bikes just a few hours earlier were completely empty. just my thoughts, myself, and zach’s quietly running car were left to be heard. 

maybe this wouldn’t hurt so bad if zach had expressed any signs of unhappiness. if maybe he said something about wanting to take a break or if he had any kind of body language that showed he wasn’t ready to commit or he didn’t like me as much as i thought. but when i think back to every minute we spent together the past few months, i couldn’t think of anything that expressed feelings of wanting to stop. he just was happy. we were happy. 

i probably should be less shocked than i am. we knew going into this whole thing that our mothers would be a problem. that’s why we were a secret in the first place, but part of me, the hopeful part, thought that they would find out and be angry, but they would see us. they would see our happiness. did mrs. herron not see our happiness? or were we really not that happy? 

“y/n.” i hear as i wander down fourth street, a place i’d never been before, trying to find my way home. i ignore him. “y/n, come on. you don’t know where you are. let me take you home.”

“i’m not getting back in the car with you.” i can’t turn around and look at him. i know if i do i’ll break. “you’re better off just leaving. it’s either now or in five minutes when you get home and your mom deletes my number off your phone.”

“can we just talk?” 

“we’ve talked.” i express, still walking. i underestimated zach’s speed, though, because he caught up to me pretty quickly. 

i didn’t expect it to feel so different when he tapped my shoulder, but it did. almost like an electricity went through me that made me incapable of ignoring him. 

“y/n, i love you too.” he says and everything in me stops. i’m angry. i am. but i’m also relieved. and excited. and i feel safe. i don’t know why standing in the middle of fourth street at 7pm on a friday night with my boyfriend who i just fought with felt as safe as it did. but it just did.

i turned to face him and at first, i couldn’t say anything. i stared into his eyes, lost in the words he’d just muttered to me. i finally broke myself out of his gaze and let my eyes wander the street, regaining my anger. “shut up. you’re just saying that to fuck with me even more.”

“how can you say that?”

“how can i say that? how can you say that? you just spent the last ten minutes yelling to me about how we’re stupid seventeen year olds who have no idea what we want. you told me we should listen to our drama obsessed mothers who know nothing about our relationship. and then five minutes later you want to tell me you love me?” i cross my arms over my chest, which gives me enough confidence to stare into his eyes. 

“fuck, i don’t know.” zach says. “i don’t know what i think or what i want to do or who i should listen to, okay? but i know that i love you, y/n.” 

“i don’t know any of that shit either, zach, but i’m not out here giving up on our relationship.” 

“well i don’t want to either.” zach tells me. “i know i just said we had to and i know i’m the one who got all angry, and i’m sorry about that. but i don’t want to give you up either. there is so much i love about you. i love the way you couldn’t give two shits about what the whole town would think about our relationship. i love how you excited you get when we make plans. i love how you make me feel, y/n. i’m not ready to give that up.”

“okay.” i say, giving in. i stood in my footsteps, not sure what to do next. apparently zach did, though, because he took a few seconds to process before his arms snaked their way around my waist and his head rested on my shoulder. he pulled me closer to him and i wrapped my arms around his back. 

we stood like that for probably five minutes. we didn’t move, just held each other in our arms. there was a comfortable silence between us, with the dallas streetlights shining dimly on us and the sounds of distant traffic filling the air. 

“what do we do next?” i ask, letting zach finally release me and leaving both of us standing. 

“i have absolutely no idea.” zach admits. “but i’m willing to figure it out with you. as long as i’m with you.”

zach looks at me and then walks towards the curb of the street. he takes a seat and then looks back at me, waiting for me to sit beside him. 

as i take a seat next to him, he reaches his hand out palm up and lets me take it in his. the dallas stars shone brightly as the two of us looked up for a few seconds in the peacefulness.

“why should we care anymore?” i say. “who gives a fuck about this dumb debate between north and south district? our parents? your mom knows and it’s only a matter of time before mine does.” 

“we shouldn’t.” zach simply agreed. “fuck what everyone else thinks is right. i don’t care what anyone says, a couple miles doesn’t make a person evil or good.”

“keeping it a secret at this point is so stupid.” i say. “because i know my friends will be a little confused, but probably not surprised at this point. the only person who will actually be mad is my mom, and she’s gonna have to get over that.”

“you want to meet my mom?” zach asks randomly.

“zach, i know she probably will try to forget about me, but i’ve met your mom like ten times.” i tell him.

“no. do you want to meet my mom? i want her to know you, y/n, not the you who lives on south side and goes to private school. you are an incredible person and i want her to know you.” zach says. “because i know how much she cares about her little town feud, but i also know how much she cares about me. and how once she knows you, she’ll value us over a stupid town problem.”

“i would love to, zach.” i smile.

[swiftlymoniquesblog]

A Tribute to Supernatural (LONG post ahead)

Well, today is the day. The day I have struggled with for the past year or so, the inevitable. The day the last episode of Supernatural was going to air on television. I never thought I’d be writing about this, about how much this show has meant to me, but with today being the day another chapter in all our lives comes to a close, I feel like I owe it to the cast and crew and to all of you, to make this post. So here it goes.

I haven’t been in the fandom for too long, about two-and-a-half years now. I’ll never forget my anniversary date: May 20th. That was the day that changed my life forever. I know, sounds pretty cliché but it’s the truth. I remember that day very vividly, too. I had gone on a bus trip with my family, out to stay at a casino about an eight-hour drive with my family. It was rather a fun time and I remember on our way back home; I was searching through Netflix for a new series to start, and Supernatural had popped up. I hesitated trying it again, because I had previously watched the first episode of the first season, and it absolutely freaked me out. I had tried to watch the second episode after that but couldn’t make it halfway through. After much deliberation with my friends on Facebook, who had been fans for quite a long time at that point, had told me to just push through and keep watching because it got better. So, with an eight-hour drive ahead of me, I figured I’d start it again and really give it time. Little did I know, that was the day that I would hold close to my heart forever. And of course, my friends were pleased to have heard I was giving it another chance because they knew I’d love it; they were right.

Fast forward to today, and this show is way more than just a show to me. It’s become a way for me to connect with people, complete strangers in most cases, but it’s become a safe place. Sure, I’ve had my share of negative people or “bullies” if you want to call them that, but none of that would stop me from talking or sharing anything about the show. Then, I got more invested in the cast and who they were outside of the show. I never realized how important they would become to me too, but they really have and they’ve become like a distant family. Granted, I’ve only met a lot of the cast just once, but the connection they give us, whether through the characters of the show, or the small glimpse into their personal lives they give us, just makes you feel like you’re apart of something bigger. And they never let you think that they don’t care. Of course, they don’t really know me, just like I really don’t know them, yet they have a way to make all of us feel like we’re tied together somehow, and it’s beautiful.

Like I’ve previously stated, I have met quite a few members of the cast (see photos above). My first Supernatural convention was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. It had been several years since a convention was set up in Texas but when they announced there was going to be one in the Dallas area, I knew I had to be there. The show had already made that much of a difference to me, under a year. 2019 was the year I graduated from university and I wanted to do something really special to celebrate such a big accomplishment. What did I choose to do? Celebrate with the Supernatural family of course! When I began buying tickets, it was scary yet exciting. I, unfortunately, didn’t get a photo with Jensen because they had sold out already, three months before the event was going to take place (hence the photo with a poster of Jensen). I bought the photo with Jared and was extremely nervous about that photo more than any others. I still really don’t have a solid answer as to why I was so scared to meet him but I usually say because he’s so freaking tall, it’s kind of intimidating, and the fact that I had built such a high pedestal for Sam in my mind, that I was afraid I would disappoint myself seeing Jared, but none of that happened.

Getting to go to a Supernatural convention is extremely difficult. It’s so unbelievably expensive, I still can’t believe I’m trying to go a second time (if COVID would just CHILL) but the experience as a whole, is what does it for me. If you go as I did, I went for the entire weekend because I didn’t want to miss a single minute of all the excitement that was building from Creation Entertainment or the fans who were going to. Actually, it turns out, that a few of the friends I made via social media, were going to be there that weekend too, so we made plans to meet up in person; and we did! The fans are what really makes the convention's special. Because we all have one thing in common and we all can share our experiences and laugh or cry with each other. It’s a community I’ve never been apart of before, but that’s what makes it so special. The fandom has, mostly, been very generous to me. Offering up advice on what to expect when going to the convention and advice on meeting everyone. Most of the advice came about meeting Jared and it turned out everyone was right.

Jared Tristan Padalecki is one GIANT teddy bear! So many people described him that way to me but once you get to see him up close, it’s nothing like you imagine. He is HUGE and it is kind of scary with that floating over your head, but when you walk up to him, he smiles so wide at you and is so happy to see you. For me, I went right in for a hug, wrapping my arms around his waist and his around my back or so. It was brief but I felt so safe just being that close to him for that small amount of time. And then my op, is my friend is supposed to be sad that I’m hugging Jared and not her. We weren’t prepared too much on how we were going to pose, but I remember Jared had reached out for my friend to be closer to him in the photo but she said that she was supposed to be over here for the pose. I remember too, Jared grabbing me and wrapping his arm around me, right under my neck, somewhat close to my boobs (no, he didn’t touch them, even by accident) and I responded by bringing my arms up to hold onto him too, then the photo was taken. I made sure I was smiling and had no idea how Jared looked, but I think he looks absolutely adorable smiling like he was. And when I went to walk away, I looked up at him, looked into those beautiful eyes, and thanked him for the photo and being there that weekend. He smiled at me and rubbed my back just briefly, but I felt heat rise in the place he touched. Other fans too, commented how happy he looked, when I went to pick up my photo on the table that held all the freshly printed photos. I was really happy with how it turned out but I kind of wished we planned it better. This second con, if I get to go, will be a lot better because I’ll have a photo with Jensen and two with Jared, and I’ve already come up with the poses for those three ops.

Ultimately, this show and the community of fans, has really gotten me through a lot. Recently too, life has been pretty difficult for me, but I always just look at my phone to see my wallpaper of me and Jared, and that makes me feel a lot better. I’ve invested so much time and effort into this show, that I can’t imagine a world where it no longer exists. I don’t believe everything we’ve built as a fandom is going away, it’s just going to look a lot different.

I’ve had my own fears for how this day was supposed to come. And it was supposed to originally end much earlier in this year but because it got delayed, the final filming, it brought me a small bit of relief because it meant I got to hold on to Sam and Dean just a little longer. But now that this day is here, I am grateful for all it’s brought me; happiness and a sense of family. I’ve worried too much about how we are all going to carry on without new episodes coming on. Will everyone end up forgetting the show? Will it still be as important to people as it is right now? Will all the merchandise disappear? Will conventions still be going, if they get picked up again? How will people see Jensen and Jared now that they have separate plans? Will they lose fans after the last episode ends? Will we still mean as much to them now as we did at the start of it all? What is the future going to hold for Sam and Dean? So many questions plague my thoughts and have ever since Jensen, Jared and Misha announced season 15 was going to be the last one. But I guess that’s all just a part of the life cycle of a show. And maybe all of these questions will have answers tonight, maybe they won’t. Only time will tell.

All in all, I am so incredibly proud of everyone who was involved in that show. They worked incredibly hard to bring these characters to life every week and they gave us a wonderful fifteen-year run. A lot can happen in fifteen years, and it has, for all of us. No one is the same person they were fifteen years ago; I know I was a child and now I’m all grown up. To try and put into words what this show has meant to me, wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but my level of gratitude to everyone isn’t as easy. I feel like thank you, just isn’t enough. The cast and crew deserve way more than just a thank you and that’s why I’m writing this. But the biggest debt I owe is to Jensen and Jared and everyone who was at the sets from the very beginning. I know it must’ve been difficult, being away from family members as often as you were, but it doesn’t go unnoticed. Thank you to Eric for creating this show and this community. For sharing an insight into the thoughts that roam around your head and bringing them to life. For gifting us with Sam and Dean Winchester, two of the most beloved characters I think anyone has ever seen. I can just see years from now, people talking about the ‘greatest television shows of all time’ and I imagine that Supernatural will be on that list, if not at the top. I hope someone not only talks about the show itself but about the fans and the dedication we have to a storyline so unique as this one. To all the writers, y’all have made me laugh and cry and cheer for the good guys. There have been breathtaking highs and heartbreaking lows throughout the years but what a ride! Never have I been this invested in a tv show before, but as my Supernatural Day 2019 shirt says “possessed and obsessed.”

Finally, to the Supernatural fans, I love you all so much. There isn’t another group of people I would want to have as friends to cope with this ending. I know it’s been hard on all of us, having to accept the end, but we’ve gotten this far, so let’s bring it home. Let us be the ones to carry on the “family business.” We can carry the lessons that the Winchesters taught us and we can be the ones who won’t ever let them be forgotten. It is a privilege to have walked this journey this far and I hope to walk through to the end, together as a family. I want this to hold a special place in your heart years from now, as it will mine. Never forget what this show, this family, the cast and crew have meant to you. It can be easy to forget something that is no longer right in your face but keep the memories close to your heart, forever.

Let’s kick this ending in the ass and come together to support each other in this difficult time. And, as a few people have mentioned, carry on wayward son (and daughters) there will be peace when you are done.

[hockeytrashgoblin]

Road Trip ~ Tyler Seguin

A/N: IDK IF YALL CAN TELL BUT I’M REALLY IN MY FEELINGS RIGHT NOW BEING LONELY BUT WANTING SOMETHING CUTE. It’s whatever though. I’ll just keep writing cute shit and hopefully you guys will still read it lmao enjoy

It was a warm summer evening in Louisiana. Tyler and I had just started our road trip and I was very excited. We were going to be traveling across the country in a van, something I never thought I’d be able to convince Ty to do with me but to my surprise he was actually excited. We had put a mattress in the back and I had decorated with lots of pillows, blankets, and christmas lights. It looked typical but it was cute. We also had a lot of snacks hidden in different compartments around the van. 

Today we’d driven from Dallas to Baton Rouge which was about a 6 hour drive. We decided to stop there and spend the next day or so exploring. We didn’t have any real plan, we were just going until we had to come back. The Stars’ season was cut short so we had a lot of time to just escape the hockey stuff and just live our lives together out here on the road.

“Ty, do you think we’re going to see a gator?”

“Well if anyone will it’s you, baby. You’ve been looking out the window in every swamp we’ve past.”

“I really like them. I just want to see one where I can still be safe from it.”

“Then why not go to a zoo (Y/N)?”

“I want to see them in the wild.”

“You’re very picky.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry sweet girl.” he said smiling at me and kissing my hand. “Maybe we’ll luck out and you’ll see an alligator.”

“I hope so. Is there anything you want to see on this trip?”

“Just my girl happy.” he said with a cheesy grin.

“Okay you sappy fuck.” I said rolling my eyes at him. 

“I’ve seen so much of this country already. I just want to experience it with you, see how you react to stuff.”

“That’s so sweet baby.” I took his hand in mine and kissed it. We were quiet for a little while just watching the sunset while we drove into the rest stop. 

“Do you want some real food?”

“What do you mean real food?”

“There’s a restaurant in here. It’s a buffet, I know how much you like all you can eat.” he said with a cocky grin on his face.

“Tyler!” I exclaimed laughing and hitting his shoulder.

“What?! Where’s the lie babygirl?” he asked winking at me.

“You’re the woooorst.”

“Look at you blushing. I haven’t had you doing that using just embarrassing words in a long time.”

“That’s because you haven’t been that blunt about it in a long time.”

“Sounds like you’re taming me baby. Don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Ty, you’re Miley Cyrus.”

“Sorry what?”

“Can’t be tamed.” I said giggling as he threw his head back and groaned.

“That was awful.”

“It was funny.”

“If you say so babe.” he rolled his eyes making me laugh again. “Do you want food or no?”

“Not right now love. I’ve been eating a lot of snacks.”

“Okay then let’s just hangout for a bit? I’m not ready for bed yet.”

“I thought you were sleepy from driving?”

“I am but I’m not ready to be done with today.”

“And why is that?” I asked turning in my seat to face him. He grabbed my hand brought it up to his lips giving me small kisses.

“Because I have my beautiful girl all to myself and today has just been incredible. I love you.”

“Baby I love you too but has today really been that incredible? I mean we just drove. And the road trip is just starting, it’s not exciting yet.”

“Do you want to lay on the roof and look at the stars?”

“Always.” I said smiling brightly at him. We got out of our seats and went to the back. He opened the sliding roof and gave me a boost up out of the window before climbing out too. We laid there in the summer heat just looking at the galaxies above us on the clear night. I couldn’t help but look over at him and admire Tyler in the moonlight. He looked beautiful, like always, but it was different somehow. I’d never seen him so calm. While I was lost in thought he caught me starring making me blush while he smiled sweetly kissing my hand again.

“Can I tell you why today’s been incredible?” he asked looking deep into my eyes.

“Of course Tyler.”

“You’ve been here for me nonstop after the season ended. I was so down and out that I didn’t want anyone around. Through all the snarky comments and bitching you still stuck around and helped me. Then when I was really just closing in on myself and isolating myself from everyone including you, you brought me outside to show me this dumb van and pulled me out of it for an incredible adventure. Just like how everything with you has been an incredible adventure.” 

“Tyler..” 

“Everything I do with you is incredible. But the way that you always know just what to do or say to help me and bring me back to real life, back to this moment in time is amazing. I was so out of it. I didn’t care about anything but as soon as I started packing to go on this trip with you all I could think about was how excited I was to be spending so much time with you. You pulled me out of a pit.”

“You just seemed so upset. I couldn’t just leave you like that Ty. I love you, I’m not going to let you shut yourself in a pit or whatever. We’re a team, love.” 

“Sometimes it feels like you’re the head of this team.” he said with a smile. “Maybe even the coach.”

“Tyler come on you do a lot for me too. Don’t act like this is all one sided.”

“I know it’s not one sided, it just has been recently.”

“That’s okay I don’t mind.”

“See that’s why you’re amazing. How don’t you mind? I’ve been so distant and awful and your response was to plan a trip for me to get my mind off things.”

“Sometimes it can’t be a 50/50 partnership. Sometimes things happen and it’s more like 80/20 and that’s okay. Most of the time it’s pretty equal so I don’t care if after something super upsetting happens to you that you need a little more effort. You’re worth the extra effort Tyler.”

“If you don’t stop I’m actually going to cry.” he said laughing but his voice cracked.

“Aw baby don’t cry. I just love you so much.” I rolled so I was half leaning over him. He put his hands on my waist and smiled at me. I could see his eyes filling with water. “Oh my god you are gonna cry.”

“I’m sorry, just no one has ever loved me like you do.” he let a tear slip down his cheek and I gently wiped it away with a soft smile. He held my hand gently to his face. “And I’m positive that no one ever will again.”

“Oh Ty come on.” I said rolling my eyes blushing.

“No. I mean it. I know for 100% certain that no one is ever even going to get the chance.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m so gone for you (Y/N). I want to marry you.”

“You what?” I asked in shock. He laughed at my response.

“I want to marry you.”

“I thought you never wanted to get married? We’ve talked about it.”

“I never thought I’d feel like this about another person. I never understood what people meant when they said that they couldn’t live without someone and wanting to make them theirs forever. I understand now. I didn’t want to be tied down at all until I met you. But when I met you and we started getting closer..everything just shifted.”

“Tyler, you’re going to make me cry.. And this isn’t like some dumb joke right?”

“Never. I wouldn’t joke about this. I want to marry you so bad. I want to pledge my love for you in front of our family, friends, and God. Promise them I’m always going to love and care for you.”

“You sap.” I said laughing wiping away tears.

“Says the one who’s crying.” he grinned at me leaning up to give me a kiss.

“Don’t know what you were expecting. I cry at everything.”

“I know. It’s cute.”

“Pfft liar.” I kissed him again but it didn’t really work since we couldn’t stop smiling.

“So does this mean you want to marry me too?”

“Ty, it’s all I’ve wanted for a while.”

“A while huh?”

“Yeah. That’s the reason I brought it up before. I wanted to know where you stood though so I didn’t scare you away. I’ve always wanted to get married. I want to marry you though. Have for months.”

“I have a confession.”

“Yes?” I asked feeling very suspicious.

“I may or may not have bought an engagement ring already.”

“Tyler!” I exclaimed loudly.

“Shh babe people are sleeping.”

“Tyler!” I whisper yelled at him making him laugh.

“Hey I said may or may not. I could be lying.”

“But you aren’t.”

“No I’m not.” we were quiet for awhile just watching the stars and enjoying small kisses here and there.

“So was this a proposal then?”

“God no, come on (Y/N) give me some credit. I have a whole cute-ass plan for when we get home to propose. This is just a pre-proposal I guess.”

“You’re so funny. I can’t wait to be for real engaged to you instead of ‘pre-engaged.’” I made air quotes making him laugh and kiss me again.

“I can’t wait for you to have my last name. That’ll be my biggest accomplishment to date.”

“I think you’ve done other things that might be above marrying me.”

“Like what the NHL? Babe that’s my whole life but trust me you’re more than that. Getting someone like you to marry me is going to be a huge accomplishment for me. The only way to beat it would be to have a kid with you or something and even then it might be a tie.”

“I’m so glad we decided to do this. I don’t think I would’ve seen such a sappy Tyler if we had stayed home.”

“You wouldn’t have. I don’t even think I would’ve talked at all at home.”

“I love you baby.”

“I love you.” he said giving me another soft kiss before we dissolved back into silence. Once I was tired we went back into the van and got ready for bed. We curled up together sharing ‘I love yous’ and kisses until we fell asleep. Going to bed knowing that Tyler loved me that much really made it the best sleep I’d had in a long time and I dreamed all night of my future with him. It looked bright.

[judgement-free-sideblog]

Dancing lessons

Barry Berkman x reader

Summary: Barry is finally cast in a feature, the problem? He said he could dance and now he can either disappoint Sally or found a way to learn some steps.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, violence, guns, cheating, drinking.

Part 1 ● Part 2 ● Part 3 ● Part 4 ● Part 5 ● Part 6 ● Part 7 ● Part 8 ● Epilogue

Part 6

The rumor of sheets moving and the muffled steps on the carpet didn't wake you up, the clock in your nightstand said 02:00 pm and you have been sleeping for about half an hour after your spontaneous marital responsibilities, and you were still tired for the sleepless night; it was the sudden loneliness in the bed that felt wrong enough to make you incorporate in the bed.

"I thought the main purpose of getting married was that the guy will no longer leave in a hurry barely putting on his clothes" you told him and he gave you an strange look that made you feel uncomfortable with your nudity and search for a robe to cover yourself.

"I'm sorry honey, there is already trouble with the merge of the new company" He said putting on his pants and searching for a clean shirt on the closet "I had to head for the office, but I'll be home by 9, and we can have dinner"

"I can cook if you want" you said approaching him and helping him with his tie "Your favorite maybe?" You gave him a sad smile knowing too well what by 9 meant.

"Oh no, you should rest, we can go out or order something" There it was, like always an empty promise to hide the fact that he would stay until 10 or 11 pm at the office, and avoiding trouble at home by not making you put on any effort.

"Sure, there is new place a couple blocks from here I want to try" You said now following the lie "Is an Italian place L'angolo delle delizie maybe you could make reservations" You followed him out of the room and gave him the suitcase he left on the ground.

"Sounds great" He said putting on his jacket, he smiled the way both of you knew it meant we are not doing that "Italian sounds great, specially since you eat a lot of Chinese last night" He add completely innocently, but it light all the alarms in your head and protectively grab your phone, even when he was not looking at it.

"I was just hungry" You lied and he gave you a kiss on the cheek before walking away, the steps down the stairs became distant and one final door closed downstairs and then silence.

And like a stupid little child you started to cry holding yourself, until your legs won't hold you anymore and you feel into the floor, tired and angry at yourself, still holding the phone, you opened to see a text from Barry, one hour after the one you sent.

Sorry, I was filming. Doctor said you can't drink, but I'll bring the money. Meet you at 5.

The fact that he was still concerned about your well being made you smile, and then you were angry for smiling so you throw the phone against the wall and screamed in pain.

It was wrong, you felt guilty without doing anything, and the reason was now completely clear, you wanted to, you wanted for him to make a move on you, since you were too much of a coward to do it yourself.

But he wouldn't, he had a beautiful girlfriend, you saw her face popping up in random tv shows and commercials now an then, and you knew the mere reason you have met was to make her happy. He loved his Sally, with a devotion that was longer lost from you and Alan.

You stand up and picked the phone, then you look at your wedding picture, Juntos para toda la vida Together for life, a nice thing Alan Spanish grandma said on your wedding day, and now it felt more like a sentence.

You repressed the urge to cry again and instead change your clothes for something you could dance with. At least exhausted and covered in sweat you could silence your conscience.

After three hours of miserably following the rythm and two close calls to hit the floor again you lie on the floor completely tired. But maybe a little more peaceful, then Macy's figure came inside and blocked the light before giving you a hand to stan up.

"The four year olds keep giving you a hard time?" She asked once you were on your feet.

"No, I actually cancel class today, I forgot to tell you" You said and pointed at your head "I suffered a minor accident last night"

"And why are you doing this then?" She pointed at your clothes and then the record player "The last time you did that was because you were stressed out about your grandma having her hysterectomy"

You let go a tired sigh and not quite sure why start telling her the whole story, about how things were bad with Alan, about the feelings you had for Barry about how you weren't sure if you were doing something wrong, and she sit there with you listen patiently, maybe because at some point you have done the same for her or maybe just to be a decent human being.

"Berkman huh?" She said finally and then smiled at you "I mean I get it, he can't dance to save his life but he is kinda cute. Remember that rich guy who always sent you flowers after class even when he saw Alan coming home every day? He was hot, you should have chosen him" She said and both of you laughed, somehow talking about it that naturally and without judgment does made you feel better.

"Yeah, I remember, but I was too busy with Alan being promoted and the business here growing I didn't have time to that kind of stuff" you said and she gave you a serious look.

"I don't think you have time now either, but that was 3 year ago and you were deeply in love with him, so no other men seem important, he was as forgetful and workaholic as he is now, you just didn't care, and now Barry Berkman is just a clumsy student who is being polite as midwesterners are" She said, and you appreciate her being direct, but it felt wrong to face the facts like that "And you act like he has shaken your marriage like an earthquake, but the truth is that he hasn't. You have to ask yourself, do you like him or do you simply don't love your husband anymore?"

"I love Alan" You said almost too quickly "But I know what you mean, and you are right maybe Barry is just and excuse to project the little stability my husband and I have, but what can I do?" You ask her and she pointed at the door.

"Thinking quickly because the devil is calling" She said since he was opening the door with a lost look on his eyes and holding another board game under his arm.

***

Y/N I have something to tell you Barry keep rehearsing how to bring up the sensitive information, and yet he was dying to avoid the conversation with her.

"Hey there!" Macy and give her the perfect excuse to not say anything, at least not at the moment.

It all started with Sally's invitation to eat after he finished filming for the day, he pretended Y/N text didn't exist to avoid thinking about her, but he finally give in and spend the rest of the session smiling like a child, thinking about how much he was waiting for 5:00 to meet her again, he even went to a toy store to bought a The office Clue special edition since she had said she love that show, obviously just as a get well present, he said to himself.

He drove to the restaurant, and inside there were already Sally and her friend Monique from the movie she was filming, and he asume her boyfriend, a handsome man in a suit and he looked vaguely familiar but he couldn't place from where.

"Babe you made it!" Sally said happy and gave him a quick kiss making room in the booth for him to sit. "We were about to order without you." She said and then pointed at her friend, "You remember Monique, and this is her boyfriend Alan, he is a commercial lawyer, and works for a big company" She said and the man extended his hand with a incredibly white smile.

And he could see briefly see a discolored line where a wedding band should be, and he remembered that same smile in a wedding picture he had been seeing with guilt that morning.

"Boyfriend? So you are not married?" He said without thinking and the man laughed nervously

"Barry!" Sally said and gave him a playfully look meaning shut up.

"Oh I'm sorry, but you have been talking so much about Monique and how great she is I assume she was already taken" He lied, but the woman felt delighted.

"Oh is too soon to talk about that, we have been dating for, how much sweety? A year? More or less?" She said and Barry smiled trying to pretend he was not hearing any of that.

"Yeah, like a year" He said politely "We should order, I'm starving"

"Oh yeah, honey, he was telling us how he just came back from Dallas, making a big merge with an oil company" Sally said completely unaware of how Barry's fists were clenched on his lap wanting to blow up the smile from that man's face.

The worst part was that he was charming and polite, and a total gentleman with the woman, making the idea of Y/N alone at home waiting for him the more infuriating, after the meal he and Monique left together so Barry had to drive Sally home.

"They were nice right?" She said once they were on the road "I mean she is amazing but they together are really nice people"

"Well..." He started not sure of what he should said "He is fine for her, I mean he was a bit pretentious"

"I mean yeah, but you know he is a very busy and important guy, anyway how was your day? When are you going to let me go with you to one of your classes?" She asked genuinely interested.

"Oh you don't really want to go, I'm still not ready, but it was a good day at the studio, we are almost done" He said and then unable to still silent he ask "Hey if you knew that someone is cheating someone close to you, would you tell them? Or would you prefer to never know?"

"OMG who is cheating?" She asked opening her eyes widely "Jermaine is cheating on Natalie? I knew they wouldn't last" She said putting both of her hands on her face "She is going to be crushed"

"What? No!! I mean I don't know, last time they were fine, is more like an hypothetical question" He said now concerned that maybe Jermaine was in fact cheating on Natalie.

"I don't know, I mean if this person doesn't tell me may be to protect me" She started, after a long pause "But if they are my friends and they didn't tell me I would feel betrayed for them letting me be a fool for so long while someone is making fun of me, on the other hand what if it's a just one time thing and we are having a happy relationship and this only ruined it? I would blame my friends, but how could we be happy if the guy is cheating?? No definitely I would rather know" She said and then gave him a concerned look at Barry "are you sure you are okay?"

"Yeah, totally fine, hey do you wanna go to the movies? I can skip class today" He said with a tight knot on his throat finding a way to avoid Y/N.

"Oh I will love to , but I have a lot of lines to read and prepare for tomorrow" She said and he simply drove her home to later return at the dance studio. Thinking about how will he deliver such terrible news to her friend and that they might not be friends at all after he did.

"Is that The Office special edition of clue?" She asked excited once he was close, getting him out of his thoughts

"Yeah, it is" Barry responded giving her the box "How is your head?"

"Better, I'm just concerned about the hair, are you ready to loose some money?" She smile at him, and he returned the smile, both ignoring Macy rolling her eyes.

"I wanna play too" She said "The more the merrier right? Let's go I wanna take your money"

Things work out better than he expected since Macy's presence was distracting enough so he forgot what he was supposed to tell her, but after a couple hours and a few beers she left, leaving the two of them in an awkward silence.

"How was your day?" She break the silence first picking up the games while he help her clean te table.

"It was fun, after I left I had to make a few errands" He lied "And I was late to shooting, so Andre scream at me, is weird since he is about 1 foot shorter than me, but the movie is going great"

"Maybe he feels threatened by a handsome actor who can dance, and what was the other thing? Speak fluent Italian?" She laughed and he had to stop his mind to fantasize about how this was the perfect domestic life he wanted with her.

"And French" he smirked "I should've put Russian, you could have taught me that two" He said and the smile she gave him completely trusting remind him that he had something else to say. But then a ring went off in the other room and she run to answer.

"No it's okay, yeah I get it, say hi to Tom and Claudia for me ok? We can celebrate tomorrow" She said on the phone and then she hung up violently.

"Everything okay?" He said approaching cautiously.

"Yeah, Alan is working late, and he is going to spend the night with a partner of his firm, apparently they have some issues that were not completely solved in Dallas" She said looking at the floor.

"So he is already in LA?" Barry asked and his curiosity took her by surprise.

"Yeah, he came back in the morning, but he had to leave in a rush in the afternoon" She said and then look at the clock "You know what? Let's go out, let's get drunk, I haven't left the house since last night and honestly I'm perfectly fine"

And before he could argue with her she was already in her room changing to a pair of jeans and a bright blouse, while he keep thinking about the right way to tell her, but apparently that would have to wait, since at the moment she was concerned in putting the most possible amount of alcohol in her system.

"You shouldn't do this" He tried to convince her one last time without success.

"Come on, there is a bar around the corner, I can come back home walking, you either come with me or I'll go alone, what do you say?" She had an special talent to make him say yes and he could only follow her.

"Fine, but just a couple drinks ok?" He said finally walking behind her.

"You wanna do shots?" She said after she have drink three glasses of wine while he was still on the first one.

"Not really" he said.

"Hey gorgeous, 4 shots of my friend Jose" She call the bartender who gave him a judging look at him before serving them. "Ok, let's do this" She said and he look down at the shot glass "No, no, you have to look at me or it doesn't count" she said taking his face on her hand, and that spontaneous touch and intimate look that she gave him was enough for him to loose his mind and drink the burning and delicious liquid without any hesitation.

Two became four and by the sixth round the bartender simply let the bottle and they were more than happy to finish it. He no longer care about what he knew about his moron rich husband, all he care was that she wanted to dance and now he finally feel like he knew how.

They walk together, back to the studio, not caring to walk straight, and with no respect for personal space since they were holding on each other shamelessly.

Once inside she put his rehearsing piece on the record player and before she finish taking of her shoes he took her by the waist, more personal and closer than ever, they move roughly at first but after a few minutes he was following the music perfectly l, with his eyes never leaving hers.

"Well that's the secret" she said once the song was about to end "We should get you drunk before your big scene" The son ended but he did let go of her nor she set his hand free.

"I think is more about the partner" He said pressing her more to his chest.

"Well sadly they want young and beautiful actresses, even they have terrible technique" she said quietly.

"You are young and beautiful" he lowered his face to be a few inches from her mouth.

"I'm also married Barry" She answered, without any will to walk away and move herself closer to him.

"I don't care"

.

Tag list:

@l0ve-0f-my-life

[the-unconquered-queen]

Choices LI tag game

Thanks for tagging me, @endlessflame and @litgpop!

Watch how I am incapable of giving brief, to-the-point answers below

Across the Void: None because I haven’t even made it past chapter 4 and won’t anytime soon

America’s Most Eligible: Adam, named Leo. Then I got so bored of him I switched to Slater at the first opportunity

Baby Bump: Who the hell knows at this point? I don’t like either LI too much, so it’s just a weird limbo

Bachelorette Party: Ash, whenever he was onscreen

Big Sky Country: Dallas, who was so paywalled I could probably count the times my MC kissed him on one hand, but they did end up together in that future fantasy at the end

Blades of Light & Shadow: I meant to go for Mal, but Tyril’s intriguing so my MC will probably flirt with him before eventually ending up with Mal (I have a bit of an odd headcanon in which my MC will end up with both eventually, at different times)

Bloodbound: Jax

The Crown & The Flame: Most playthroughs with Raydan (loml), until I did the most recent one with Diavolos (loml), so now I consider them AUs that can coexist, but I’m also planning to try Tevan’s route eventually

A Courtesan of Rome: My first playthrough, my MC flirted with every LI (it played up the aspect of her being able to wrap everyone she met around her finger, imo) before eventually ending up with Syphax. My latest playthrough had her drop the dead weight and be with Syphax from the start

Desire & Decorum: Prince Hamid (who now bears my MC’s last name)

The Elementalists: Beckett

Endless Summer: Jake

The Freshman: My first playthrough had my MC ending up with Chris, but after I saw how Zig had the best proposal from screenshots, I planned another playthrough with the purpose of romancing him, and goddamn, he’s a god-tier LI and that’s what I consider my canon playthrough, so Zig’s endgame (also once I played Snowed In with Kaitlyn as MC’s LI out of curiosity, but she was pretty meh)

The Haunting of Braidwood Mannor: Tbh, I only played it once and it was near the beginning of my Choices days, so I don’t remember at all whether it was Víctor or Eleanor

The Heist: Monaco: Honestly, I hear this book is super good, but my motivation to play chapter 2 is low, but I’ve seen Fabien, and I’m coming for him eventually

Hero: Kenji, who was so paywalled that the most he and MC did was flirt (and he’s already flirty by nature), so he is one of the LIs an MC of mine has romanced the least

High School Story: Before I played, I had trouble picking between Michael and Aiden, but I chose Aiden and now I couldn’t imagine picking anyone else over him, even for just one playthrough

High School Story: Class Act: Started out with Rory, but then switched to Ajay in my most recent playthrough and I like him way better, but I’m still salty he never apologized

Home for the Holidays: Nick, but I don’t remember any of it

It Lives in the Woods: I know I talk about wanting to romance Dan and Noah (and even chose to flirt with Lucas), but the truth is that Andy is tied for #1 as my favorite Choices LI, which if you follow me long enough, you’ll know by how often I start randomly posting about him

It Lives Beneath: No contest, it was Tom… but Andy’s tied with someone, and I’ll give you three guesses as to who it is (also irrelevant, but his last diamond scene was one of my favorites I’ve ever paid for)

Lovehacks: None of the LIs here really stood out to me, and I only picked Mark so my MC wouldn’t be single, ‘cause I stan a best friends to lovers trope… I just don’t stan this couple. I’d say I’ll replay it to try Ben, but I didn’t like it enough to replay (unless I’m mining it)

Most Wanted: I don’t really remember it, aside from the twist, but I’m also not motivated to replay it

Mother of the Year: Levi, and the added smugness of having the man Guy despised become “his” daughter’s stepfather was the absolute icing on the cake, but I like the screenshots of romancing Thomas, just not enough to ever ditch this rockstar

Nightbound: Nik

Open Heart: Bryce Lahela, 110%

Passport to Romance: Ahmed, the only thing this book has going for it

Perfect Match: Damien, but in my latest playthrough I tried to have MC flirt with Hayden by giving him a quick kiss, but he must’ve thought that was a declaration of love and I couldn’t back out (accidentally clicked to end chapter) and my MC ended up with both but I pretend that never happened, so just Damien

Platinum: Even from the previews, I’d decided on Raleigh, but I’m pretty sure I pulled out a legit engagement ring the moment I found out he was Puerto Rican

Red Carpet Diaries: Started out with Matt, but switched to Thomas because of how much more supportive he was to MC when the whole thing with Montmartre went down

Ride-or-Die: I started out being one of the few people in the fandom who actually liked Logan, but it was around chapter 8ish (I don’t recall exactly), when he started being distant and Colt started being closer that I made the permanent switch to Colt

The Royal Masquerade: Hunter (named Hyperion) because he’s so fine, but after the last chapter, I might have a playthrough for Kayden (named Orion)

The Royal Romance: Alright, I’mma confess that I started out with Drake (you can see some of my old ss on my blog), but I started disliking him and made the good god-tier switch to Liam and now Drake’s the only romance I don’t like. Also, I like Maxwell, but I couldn’t possibly ditch Liam now… besides, the story revolves around him, so I’m already on the winning team

Rules of Engagement: The bartender for MC and Mira for the party sister

Save the Date: Simon, but the progression of the relationship was so paywalled that by the time my MC got to even kiss him, other ss showed he was already dating MCs

Sunkissed: Samson, but mainly so MC wouldn’t be single

Veil of Secrets: Flynn, and my MC stayed with him in the end

Wishful Thinking: Jaime, because again, best friends to lovers is my shit

If you’ve read this far, props to you, and you are now automatically tagged, so drop yours, too! :)

[fallen029]

The Stars at Night

The Ballpark in Arlington had a couple different names over it’s twenty-six years (my favorite was Ameriquest Field; their logo is the Liberty Bell and there was one that sat in the stands, during that era) and went through many different remodels. The final series against the Yankees will be it’s final baseball series ever as, following the Rangers moving to their new stadium next year, it’ll be remodeled once again, to host an XFL team (and I’m pretty sure I heard something about soccer too). 

Football stadiums always kinda look the same to me, honestly, but almost all ballparks have a certain look to them that sets them apart. I like that big Coke bottle in San Francisco, everyone knows the Green Monster in Boston, the Mariners have an outfield that just goes on forever. The Ranger’s has Greene’s Hill and the Home Run Porch. We used to have a jetstream that would carry balls out of the park before they reconfigured some stuff a few years ago, which, considering the juiced balls these days, doesn’t matter much anyways. 

But one thing I always liked about our ballpark was the the area behind the stands. These days, you can see the Dallas Cowboys shiny stadium sitting over there, but when I was a little kid, Jerry’s world wasn’t around yet and the thing you’d wanna go look at was the Six Flag’s roller coasters. 

They light up at night, in the summer, and around the fifth or sixth inning, when the sun would begin to set, people who are more interested in the ambiance than the actual game, find it a pretty cool thing to stare at. The screams of the coaster’s passengers kind of waft over and there’s these lights that surround the walls of the overlook, that are these huge baseballs and they light up too. 

Those big baseballs, lit up in the night sky, remind me so much of being a kid. I went to probably two or three games each summer with my family then (and many more each year, when I was a teenager, but I was far more focused on the actual game then), and it was always such a big deal. 

I remember once, the sun was setting and I was probably about five or six, standing out on the overlook area, struggling to see over the wall at the roller coasters. My aunt and mother were smoking by the wall, beside one of those big baseball lights I mentioned before, but my aunt noticed my struggles and lifted me up some, so I could see over fully. They were distracted though, my mother and her sister, by talking about whatever, and didn’t noticed my younger sister, who was probably about four, had managed to hoist herself up as well, and was, honestly, about to tumble over the railing that surrounded the overlook, to a near certain death. My aunt happened to glance at us at the right moment, I suppose, as she snatched her back away from the huge wall. 

These days the memory’s kinda hazy, but I do remember us both getting chewed out about it and not allowed to go over with them anymore, to look out at the coasters, when they’d smoke between innings. It’s the kind of morbid funny memory though, that my sister and I still laugh at now the random times it’s brought up, rather than focus on the harsher implications. 

I would think about it though, when I was older and would go to the games. I’ve more than seen the ballpark enough times that I don’t wander around it much, usually just stay in my seat and enjoy the game (I like seeing every at bat, win or lose) and I usually wasn’t in the upperdeck, as a teen, so I didn’t hang around the overlook much, honestly. 

And I have way more vivid memories, these days, of the ballpark. I was there for one of Beltre’s grandslams. I got to sit in a box seat once (and probably will be the only time in my life, honestly) because a friend of a friend of my uncle wasn’t going to use some tickets. I froze my ass off in shorts for an extremely disappointing wildcard game. My uncle, who I’d go to the games with, when I was a teen, used to throw the hugest screaming fits at different players, when they were preforming poorly, and man, I remember the day Profar screwed up so badly he stood up, screamed and yelled while everyone stared at us, before storming out (he actually stormed out of a few different games; we make some boneheaded plays, honestly). I remember getting there so early for an afternoon playoff game, against the Jays, during that fateful series that shalt be mentioned, and burning up horrible in the upper deck. 

The last game my father ever went to in the ballpark was a World Series game, which they won. He was always too sick to go to another game, in the following years, but he always said, if he never got to go again, he was glad for that to be his last one. 

But still, I think the thing that stands out to me the most about the Ballpark in Arlington is those beautiful baseball lanterns that adorn the corners of the ballpark, and light up a soft yellow in the evening. And when I would happen to be in the upperdeck area, and see them during a game, whether it was night or not, I always would think about how my sister and I, struggling to see the coasters in a very distant summer. 

For what it’s worth, I’ll miss Ranger’s Ballpark a lot. And I hate that management decided we had to leave. And I know it’s no one else’s favorite ballpark and it’s in no way super significant to someone who isn’t a fan of this team, but I loved it for what it was, even when it was just home to the worst team in the league (but especially when it was for the second best).

I’m sad to see it go. But hopeful for what the new ballpark will bring us. 

[saoildorcha]

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻

repost,  don’t reblog !

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

FULL NAME.  Yunji Kwon (권윤지) PRONUNCIATION.  YUHN-jee kwahn NICKNAME.  Yun (rarely, with close friends), Julia (alias), Julia Romero (married name, discarded) GENDER.  Female HEIGHT.  5′4 AGE.  59 (embraced at 26 and appears as such) ZODIAC.  Aquarius SPOKEN LANGUAGES.  English, French and Korean

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOR.  Black / Dark Brown EYE COLOR.  Dark brown (red when using Eyes of the Beast) SKIN TONE.  Deathly pale BODY TYPE.  Willowy ACCENT.  South London, somewhat faded due to time in the US VOICE.  I guess her FC’s voice fits (Eunhye Yoon) DOMINANT HAND.  Right POSTURE.  Somewhat stiff and very formal. Tends to keep her head held high. SCARS.  None TATTOOS.  None BIRTHMARKS.  None MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S).  Expression of perpetual boredom, always dressed in such a way that covers almost every inch of exposed skin below her neck.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF BIRTH.  London, United Kingdom HOMETOWN.  Specifically grew up close to Chelsea FIRST WORDS.  “No”, which honestly explains a lot about her SIBLINGS.  Jinho (older brother), Soojin “Susie” (younger sister) PARENTS.  Daewon Kwon, Chunja Kim PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT.  Her father was mostly a distant figure more interested in grooming her elder brother to take over the family business (though Jinho really had no desire to). Her relationship with her mother was fraught with physical and psychological abuse, as a means to both control her daughter and refine her into an ideal wife for an arranged marriage. While Yunji mostly just considers her father scum and a criminal, she outright despises her mother and the torment she went through both during her adolescence and the marriage that robbed her of her life.

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION.  Something of an information trader and freelance spy. Yunji specifically gathers secrets in order to turn around and sell them. She might not be so great at it as some of her Nosferatu friends, but it keeps her connected. CURRENT RESIDENCE.  Outskirts of Westchester, New York, with an additional bunker in Central Park (verse dependent) CLOSE FRIENDS.  None that she will admit to RELATIONSHIP STATUS.  “Widowed” (though she herself is responsible for this) FINANCIAL STATUS.  Technically well-off in terms of resources, but she lives well below her means CRIMINAL RECORD.  It’s not a record if you don’t get caught; still wanted for questioning in the death of Lucas Romero overseas VICES.  B l o o d

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION.  Homosexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION.  Biromantic PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE.       submissive |  dominant |  switch PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE.       submissive |  dominant  | switch LIBIDO.  Low TURN ON’S.  Strong women who can kick her ass Artistic types and emotional types, because she is very much the former herself and finds a kindred spirit, and feels balanced out by the latter because she has some difficulty with expressing emotion. She has a weakness for girls who are taller than her, too (which isn’t hard bc she’s short) TURN OFF’S.  An inability to take things seriously is the main one, honestly. LOVE LANGUAGE.  Tends to show through actions rather than words. She’s very maternal when she wants to be and has a tendency to just try and take care of people in various ways. Physical affection can sometimes be a little more difficult, but she will try to reach for your hand or brush your hair with her fingers.  RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES.  Yunji avoids relationships for the most part and can be difficult to convince to date (largely because uhhhhhhhh she’s kinda dead lol). It can also take her a while to acclimate to such arrangements, which gives a lot of people enough time to decide against the whole thing, so they don’t last long. Being with Yunji requires a lot of patience, basically.

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG.  I honestly am not sure but What Beautiful Things by Dustin Kensrue is a very Yunji song if you like. Squint a little. HOBBIES TO PASS TIME.  Gardening, making tea blends, caring for her ghouled birds, and composing music.  MENTAL ILLNESSES.  Ambiguous, with some signs of PTSD PHYSICAL ILLNESSES.  None LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED.  Right PHOBIAS. Fire, photophobia, the former a result of her current condition, the latter a result of her mortal life due to Solar Urticaria. SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL.  Very self confident, or at least seems to be able to mimic it well enough. VULNERABILITIES.  She keeps these hidden, but primarily her children -- both her actual biological children Dallas and Miles, and the people she’s come to be a surrogate mother to over the years. She cares a great deal for these people and they are in turn her greatest weakness. tagged by:  @truthevade kinda tagging:  E V E R Y B O D Y