#and tumblr fucked the quality left and right and center…why. why. ���

[fastianini]

Valentino Rossi & Marc Márquez

[ happy (belated) 9 year anniversary to sepang 2015 aka the one weekend everything went wrong, everything changed and that still haunts motogp to this day <3 ]

history of man by maisie peters

[stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland]

Camren AMA’s Timeline///(Long Ass Post)

I decided to make this post because I have not stopped thinking about a Lauren Instagram Live five days before the night of the AMA's last year. For that same reason, I am giving myself the task of doing this kind of Timeline where I will put everything I can about that night.

Before The AMA’s

Lauren’s IG Live:

This Live was very crazy for me, she posted it on October 4, 2018, I'm not sure if she recorded it or too late or too early, (although the Instagram database says it was at six in the morning), but it was A long video of almost an hour in which our moonchild talked a lot about politics and we could see her with Gracie and even when she had a cold. That live has caught my attention not because of its duration or what she talked about in that video, but because it was uploaded to her Instagram account just five days before the AMA's of that same month. We know that artists know about the presentations at various awards ceremonies long before the assists are revealed so I'm sure that when Lauren recorded that Live she "already knew" that she would have to accompany her PR to the ceremony, because let's be honest , she was that that day. Only the companion of her PR. 

A side note:  About this video, If someone of you folks remember another IG live from Lauren before the AMA’s please reblog this post with your answer, thanks.

Lauren’s story before the AMA’s (a day before):

I think this story she did the night before the AMA's says it all. I have nothing but the image but I know she posted it on October 8 because it is the date that I saved it on my computer. Clarification: I don't have Camila's side before the AMA's because I decided to concentrate on Lauren before the ceremony rather than Camila. I think here begins my favorite part. I don't remember everything that happened on October 9 but I do remember that we were all very much looking forward to what would happen at the ceremony and if we were going to have a Camren or Normila and Laurmani encounter but ... we had nothing but a TMZ article about the girls I will post later. The stir that night began, much earlier. It started with this image:

The seats of the artists and the distance that the girls would have throughout the ceremony. Lauren would be next to Ty and Tara to the right of the main stage about three rows or more from the center of the stage and Camila would be next to Roger and Taylor in the center row facing the stage in the front seats. I remember very well that nobody was very sure if Lauren would actually attend the ceremony until we saw the image. She attended and did it with her beard

During The AMA’s

Camila attended the event with her father but paraded alone on the red carpet

(Her top energy I see you, I kill you and wow she did) And here is where I will stop for a moment, because I think that at this point in the post, it is where we can see a before and after in this ceremony. I don't think we would have had what we had that night if it weren't for a video of a kiss that ran like lava rivers in the fandom and that made us all go crazy and of course, much more Camila Cabello

The Tyren kiss. A kiss that should have fucked Camila a lot because that kiss was answered with this post:

"Hairflips the pain away"

I don't think I have much more to say about it but this fucking kiss would have some crazy consequences later.

Lauren for Billboard:

Another realization of how nervous Lauren was before the ceremony. When she talked about the girls after Chelsea asked her about them, it's still very strange to see. Anxiety almost eats her alive but she overcame it. The ceremony began and the fandom had some curious images during the event.

Taylor as the Camren godmother fairy

And the best one or kind of

The potato quality photo before Camila's presentation that showed us that the girls did see each other in the backstage and that caught the entire fandom’s attention, no doubt.

Lauren also posted videos of the ceremony, I will put the screenshots because I can't upload so many videos here without links other than YouTube (Tumblr you have to fix that).

Camila singing Consequences

This is another point in this post where I decided to stop. I remember very well that before the presentation of Camila the fandom went into chaos because we hoped Lauren could stay at the performance but Tara armed her circus with Tyren who supposedly tried to show us that the couple in love left the ceremony "before" of Camila's presentation. 

There’s a reason why Camila was so anxious before her performance too. Not only because she would sing Consequences but because she didn’t if certain green-eyed girl would be able to stayed at her performance.

But ... and the but is gigantic, out of nowhere, or maybe not, a player entered the party of the PR circus who threw down everything Tara tried to make us believe The fan

Translation: She stayed until the end? The fan replied: She stayed until the end. This girl had taken a picture with Lauren and Camila that night

Confirming in the first instance that Lauren did stay to see Camila's presentation and then completely denying that Lauren has stayed

Translation: Hi. Lauren stayed until the end? Did she saw Camila? The Fan: No Oh godd Because of your picture all the people say she did it on Twitter The Fan: I wish Thanks

We all know that fans can’t screw up a narrative so this fan’s changed of mind wasn’t a surprise.

That was drama that was armed that night, another one, and I remember receiving many haters / astros saying that it was a lie, that Lauren did not stay who left with Ty and other fans saying that he did stay because there was one more proof of that:

Alejandro looking at someone intensely during the presentation of Camila and that it was not Sinu or any other person but that looked a lot like our emerald green-eyed girl

That video also caused controversy within the fandom, as was the fact that Lauren had teary eyes in her photo taken by the fan. From that fact they told me many things that night, that Lauren was up to marijuana, that she had a cold, that she was not present and others told me that she was crying before Camila's presentation because Tara did not allow her to stay at the performance but who did it thanks to Taylor Swift

But the confirmation and the most relevant proof that Lauren did stay with Camila's performance was given by Camila herself:

After the AMA's

I think if there is one thing that the fandom and the rest of the world learned is: If you make Camila Cabello angry attentive to the consequences

This has been our most real proof that the girls were together that night. After Tyren's circus and Tara's poor attempt to make us believe that the couple in love went to the club before Camila's presentation went to hell, the fandom had more details about what happened

This image details that Camila had a visit in her hotel room (so Camren) that night and that she stayed until the other day. A fan again taking a picture with both girls in the hotel lobby

Besides we had a lot of fun with the evidence that Tyren was PR all the time

And we had a new feud with TMZ where they explain in an article that the girls were separated to "avoid" confrontations, as if they were at war. Bastards.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/10/10/camila-cabello-fifth-harmony-seating-arrangement-amas-breakup/

I think we won't have something like what we had at the AMA's very soon last year. Or with the same controversy. What we do know is that girls are rebels. With this type of detail we can realize that if they punish them it is because they fight and do not remain silent as bastards like their artists to be, gagged, blind and deaf. They don't love the artists who face them because that means losing money that they can't afford to lose or the power they have over their represented but these girls with or without help were able to kick their asses Maverick and Tara and the entire fandom enjoyed it and celebrated and I hope we can have something similar someday. A thousand apologies for the long will, folks. Thank you for reading

[erideights]

Through history to get to you. (2)

Summary: Reader's an angel casted out of heaven because, well, she's weird. She's in love with Crowley and, of course Crowley is in love with her. Our poor Aziraphale is just fucking tired of seeing how neither of them realize the feelings of the other.

Part one: here

Pairing: Crowley x Angel!Reader (Good Omens)

Word Count: 3219

Warnings: None, I think.

A/N: Okay so I actually have to wipe out some details because tumblr said it was too long to post it. Bitch, wtf? I've seen fics with 8K but yeah, you do you. For the record, I could (and I would love to) write a 3rd part if you guys like this so, let's go!

What for any human being were seconds, for him seemed like hours.

The hours days, and the days weeks.

How could such a vain human feeling as that one destroy his world piece by piece and rebuild it upside down?

His heart was beating so hard inside his chest he truthfully believed it would come out of it at any moment.

But yeah, often, —from time to time—, Crowley also remembered past times, crucial moments in his life.

Crucial moments with her.

How each interaction by her side throughout history had achieved the impossible: to fall in love with her a bit more, a bit deeper, every-single-fucking-day.

41 AD, we find ourselves again in the large and great Rome, its taverns still full and its people enjoying the wealth of their lives, but this time, the perspective of the universe will turn 180 degrees and will present us his point of view.

Just nipped in for a quick temptation, he thought, a simple job, going in and out, enjoying the best concoction he could buy and leaving as he had come; without friends, without insubstantial talks of any kind with drinking companions or beautiful ladies to enjoy a night of pleasure.

He would leave the same way he came there; alone.

Having clear his priorities and how events would develop, he should add that the presence of Aziraphale didn’t surprise him. Not at all. They had the strange tendency to meet once every certain number of years and exchange a couple words, like two old friends who meet in the darkness of the night to become a distant memory when the sun rises.

However, he saw her.

A young woman with long hair, smooth and immaculate skin and so bright, Crowley could confuse her with one of the many stars that he, before falling into darkness and the shelter from Hell, helped to build.

Not only did she stand out for her colorful choice of attire, which he no doubt saw reflected in him, but for her presence; It gave the impression that she could change the world if she wanted with a single smile of hers.

But Crowley didn’t see her smile, not yet.

She nipped her bottom lip nervously, eyes fixed on Aziraphale’s, who after inviting the demon to eat, had excused himself for a second without giving reasons. Without saying why.

She was the why, or so Crowley guessed, taking a long sip of the drink in his hand to hide a small, amused grin behind his pottery; what could it be that would hysterise so much the nerves of that beautiful woman?

He was dying to know it, and long before he had even known her name, he was already thinking of her with more interest than, perhaps, he should.

1538, oh, the beautiful Venice during the heyday of the Renaissance in Italy, what a joyful time for artists, aristocrats, noble European families with their ornate clothes and eccentric homes.

Its intricate canals were full of life, of gondolas with lanterns as companions and lovers enjoying the calm offered by the night while the musician, unknown to his people but key to the romantic atmosphere that reigned there, dedicated his poems and songs to the most beautiful of the ladies, the one who lived in his memory, who stole his heart and prevented his rest when trying to sleep.

Oh, Venice, cruel your final sentence, the destruction that awaited you behind the darkest corner, because a demon without bad intentions but with a job to fulfill walked for your cobbled streets and through your low buildings, the smell of salt flooding his nostrils and filling his lungs until exhale a deep sigh that would be lost in the night air.

He couldn’t help but think that scenario would have been to the liking of his friend, the book-loving angel, because if he wasn’t misinformed, the magnificent city housed the first public library in all Europe. He could already hear Aziraphale eager about all the books he could read during his stay, or see reflected in his eyes the affection that the celestial being professed towards all the knowledge of the universe stored in those leather covers full of sheets of paper.

He’d thought of her, too. Crowley always thought about Y/N when visiting a new city, how he would enjoy walking hand in hand with her when discovering the hidden beauty in its streets or hearing her melodious voice, probably excited to discover a new artist to idolize; she loved art.

The problem was that each and every time he was thinking about her in that way, he felt disgusted with himself. He hated it. He hated that warm feeling that spread from his heart to every one of his nerves when he thought of her, when he met her soft gaze or, when by chance, he felt the brush of her fingers on his skin.

He hated love.

He was a demon, for fuck’s sake! He shouldn’t be able to feel love. He shouldn’t want to feel love. He shouldn’t even think about love.

But there he was, making a fool of himself whenever he could be with her.

He hated it, but at the same time, He needed it. He needed her.

Melody of soft, sweet violins then slid through the air and between the voices of those who walked down the avenue to reach the demon, who with slow but sure steps was heading towards his destination, ready to start the mission assigned to him and be able to move quickly to another place. Or enjoy the experiences Venice could give him, whatever first seemed to crave his exquisite persona.

A huge mansion stood out among all the houses at the end of the road, its eccentric facade screaming loudly that it belonged to Italian nobility that little wanted to leave to the imagination of others; showing off was a luxury that not everyone could enjoy. And so, its tall and ornate doors, wide open so that everyone could look inside, let the light escape from it to illuminate the street, successfully attracting the gazes of children, families, onlookers and other spectators who, by chance, passed by.

Two vast guards, whose clothes gave the impression of imitating the fates of The Death, made sure that no one who didn’t have an invitation could go inside.

Crowley, for example, was one of those people not invited to the party, but bold of anyone to assume something like that could stop him, because with a small, subtle and smug smirk adorning his lips and a snap of his fingers, both guards nodded at once and stepped aside, imitating for him a small corridor to get to the inside.

But that smile? Vanished from the moment he put a single foot in that place, feeling his whole body assaulted by a violent shiver that ran from head to toe and held his breath for more seconds than he would have wished.

He knew by heart that feeling, and from the moment he felt it ruffling his skin, he knew he was fucked up and that, most likely, he wouldn’t accomplish his mission. It couldn’t be that easy, right?

A deep and heavy sigh, followed by a shake of his head, accompanied him to the true interior of the luxurious home, crowded to the unthinkable by hundreds of people of high social status in the Italian community, their faces hidden behind masks of thousands of colors and different forms, their bodies, at the same time, wrapped in clothes, jackets and dresses of an exquisite quality that of course, matched the theme of each of their costumes.

A venetian masquerade wasn’t exactly the best scenario to search and identify someone from among all of its guests, but soon his slitted eyes scanned the huge room with hysteria running his veins and an iron pressure tightening his mischievous heart.

The positive side of all that? His mask —black, with golden and red details; what an unexpected surprise— fitted perfectly to a large part of his face, making unnecessary the use of sunglasses so that his peculiar eyes didn’t draw attention to him and, therefore, helping being able to see perfectly normal in the dim light of the hundreds of candles that illuminated the ballroom.

Couples dancing to the tune of the tender melody were gathered in the center of this one, the rest occupied by groups that chatted lively, young men waiting their turn to dance with the lady of their dreams and some more… unfortunate, who only dreamed from their corner with a glass of champagne between his fingers and his sad expression hidden behind a venetian mask.

Some collide against him, too absorbed in his search to bother to dodge people or find a safer route to move, but would he apologize? Never. Not only because Crowley hadn’t apologized in his entire life, but because he didn’t see it necessary to do so. After all, the reason for his hasty movements was far more important than anything that those idiots could ever imagine.

However, when he saw her, everything stopped.

Even his heart.

She had her back to him, her beautiful silky hair pulled back in a high bun that left a pair of curls falling down her shoulders, one on each side, towards her chest.

She wore an apple-green dress with white and gold details here and there, the tight corset making it inevitable to notice right away her beautiful body and the huge skirt attached to it, giving her the look of a gorgeous european princess.

No, from his perspective he couldn’t get to see her whole face, —he barely reached part of it thanks to a couple movements of her head—, but he knew it was Y/N.

There was no doubt.

She laughed, chatting with those she supposed were acquaintances of the angel and the cause and reason why she was there, that among all the times, among the hundreds of masked dances that Venice was witnessing, she was there, the same day, in the same place as him.

Oh, destiny was some capricious bitch and he ended up being a mere puppet that would dance to its tune.

Clearing his throat by positioning himself just behind her —so close that he would only have to put his hands on her waist and turn her around to finally kiss her— he successfully attracted the attention of those around them, who gave away strange glances at the demon; some confused, others suspicious, others distrustful.

The one Y/N gave him when she turned around and their eyes met for the first time in some years was the only one that really mattered.

Her hypnotic eyes, behind that mask that so gracefully embraced her sweet features from the middle of her forehead to below her eyes, opened wide recognizing the gold ones of Crowley, who without thinking twice, took the left hand of the girl, lifted it to his lips and left a kiss right on its back.

"May I have this dance?" He asked, more like a mockery for those presumptuous around him than as a formal request to the angel in front of him. It was easy to appreciate how his eyebrows were raised upwards in the slightest in a subtle grin and how that small and mischievous smirk that she loved so much was partially hidden only by the back of her hand that he still held against himself, and before she could prevent it, that same expression was drawn in her own features, hopelessly excited to find him in that kind of situation.

‘’I’ll be damned.’’ she answered in an incredulous, playful whisper, the demon the only being that could get to clearly hear her and, therefore, tearing a low and attractive chuckle from his throat as a result. She thought she was gonna melt in that very moment.

Saying that, Crowley rose from his bow and, pulling her hand, he led the girl —who didn’t have time to say goodbye to her company— to the center of the room, avoiding the rest of the guests as much as possible and when they arrived, the demon separated the angel from him, throwing her gently in the opposite direction to attract her to his body just a second later in graceful and elegant move thanks to the grip he had in her hand, making the chest of Y/N softly collide with his own.

In the blink of an eye, Crowley's free hand was at her waist and hers, on his shoulder, an amused expression adorning her face. ''I thought demons didn’t know how to dance.'' She teased, raising an eyebrow, her eyes fixed on his at absolutely every moment.

''I thought angels didn’t dance at all.'' he remarked in a flash, as arrogant as always, rocking the girl to the sound of the music that echoed between the walls of the room.

‘’Touché.’’

Not that much passed in silence between them until Crowley raised his voice again, trying to relieve the tension that was gradually forming inside his chest because, of course, she didn’t feel the same. Or so he thought.

Also, not looking at her lips having her so close to him and without his sunglasses that could conceal such act became more difficult each passing second. ''Are you going to tell me what are you doing here or will I have to take a guess myself?'’

''The question is not what I’m doing here,'' she said firmly, twirling in the demon's arms as the rest of the ladies swiveled in the ones of their partners as if that were a choreography with hundreds of dancers in perfect synchrony, only that in her case, when she resumed her position, her voice became just an audible whisper that went straight to the ear of the ginger, the soft velvet of his ornate jacket caressing the palm of her hand when gently pulling it towards herself to bring him closer to her. ''but what are you up to, Crowley. Nothing good, I assume.''

The hit of her breath against his skin and the seductive tone the woman used made every hair on his body stand up and his breath trapped at the beginning of his throat, unable to fight her words with some intelligent and sarcastic comment for his part.

He could only watch, in silence, as Y/N parted a couple inches to be face to face with him again, a smirk on her lips as she knew, she’d won that round.

‘’Touché.’’

Nowadays. Again. Almost 500 years later.

''Crowley?'' Her voice echoed through the walls of the luxurious flat while the front door —its white glass showing a dim light inside— opened wide, braking just before reaching the back wall. ''I just saw your message, is everything okay?''

Not too many minutes ago she’d received a "strange" message from the demon asking her to go to his apartment as soon as possible, making the angel inevitably frown, worried, and teleport there with a simple snap of her fingers.

The strange thing definitely wasn’t him sending her a message, but everything else. It was 2 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday night, there hadn’t been any serious event that required her attention —or so she thought— and in general, it was Crowley who always, no matter what time, was looking for an excuse to drive his beloved car through the streets of London to the destination he wanted.

That it was she who should move this time was... odd.

The only source of light in the room was a small lamp placed on the huge red marble table that occupied the center of it, which barely came to illuminate enough to know if she was or not alone there.

She didn’t have to raise her voice again, anyway, because the ornate throne next to the table slid back carefully and the demon could be perfectly made out from the rest of the shadows in the room.

‘’I’m sorry.’’ It was the first and only thing Crowley said once he turned around and fixed his gaze —which seemed to shine with its own light— on Y/N, who astonished, raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips in a thin and incredulous expression; it was the first time in her life that she’d listened him ask for forgiveness, no matter what or whom.

''What are you sorry for, hm? What have you done now?'' She asked in her usual playful tone, waiting for the most elaborate and mind blowing response ever from the redhead.

But it never came.

He moved quickly to erase the distance between them and without stopping to reconsider his next step, —although she could swear, she saw a glimpse of doubt and fear in his eyes—, Crowley took her face with both hands to caress her cheeks and kissed her right away, giving her all he got.

No, it wasn’t tender, romantic or typical for the first kiss you give to your first love. It was hungry, animal, passionate, needy and desperate, as if he’d waited his entire life to be able to taste her lips and lose himself in them while his heart hammered his chest and deafened his ears.

In fact, that was exactly what happened.

And he didn’t expect Y/N to kiss him back in that very moment, because an act as impulsive as that should have shocked her to say the least, but she did, and before they could really think about what was happening, the demon had his angel cornered against the wall, her hands lost in his reddish hair and his, squeezing and pressing her hips against his own body with such force he suspected, could leave bruises on her skin.

But she didn’t mind.

His kisses were all she ever dreamed of and more, a slight taste of whiskey and coffee lingering in his mouth while doing everything possible to steal her breath and make her addicted to him; she was intoxicated, she couldn’t think of anything else.

She didn’t have time to be shocked or to ask herself the most obvious question: why now.

And that's why, when he parted just enough to lean his forehead against hers and breathe on her lips, a heavy sigh left her without any oxygen in her lungs, displaying her annoyance at the lack of his wet touch.

''Am I going too fast for you?'' He asked, the same fear she saw in his eyes minutes ago now in his voice; it was, again, the first time in his life that he looked so worried about messing something up.

His slitted, golden, demon eyes scanned her face for any sign that would make him stop, so close that the image faded irretrievably, and when in his place he found the same craving he felt in his veins, he dampened his parted lips, knowing there was no going back.

‘’If anything, you’re being too slow.’’

[eirian-houpe]

Rack ‘Em Up.

So, this is a birthday gift for @emospritelet​. She has been such an inspiration to me since I found her fic on AO3 and she brought me into the fandom here on Tumblr. I wanted to show how much I appreciate her, and her fic, and so I wrote this one shot for her, which is my first foray into Golden Lace... and without her that’s probably something I would never have written... nor AU, nor Woven Beauty... nor... well you get the idea.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Lacey/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold

Characters: Lacey (Once Upon a Time), Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold

Additional Tags: One Shot, Smut, PWP, Happy Birthday Sprite!

Summary: Gold indulges Lacey with a night out at the Rabbit Hole, and she teases him while hustling the other patrons at pool. This is a game that Lacey is playing to win, but the money's not the object. 

Read on AO3

Ignoring the abhorrent quality of even the bottle from beneath the counter, Gold sipped his glass of whiskey, letting his eyes trail slowly up the creamy columns of Lacey’s legs. From the slender ankles, over the well sculpted calves, shaped by many years in impossibly high heels, the muscular thighs - the memory of which clasped around his hips the previous night had his cock twitch in his pants - to the tantalizing hint of the barely there lace that shielded her silken folds from view, but accentuated the tight curves of her rear as she bent over the pool table to line up her shot and her already short skirt rode even higher. He moaned softly, the ache in his loins increasing as he sat watching her play, fleece the unsuspecting patrons of the Rabbit Hole.

It wasn’t the kind of establishment that he would usually patronize, but Lacey wanted to play, and between wanting to give her everything she desired, and the opportunity for him to terrorize some of those who spent their time drinking away his rent money, and those who were otherwise in violation of their tenancy agreements, who was he to deny his wild, wide eyed beauty.

The shot that she had been so carefully lining up fell short, or at least he was sure that was the impression she meant to give. There was a loud, “Oooh,” from the crowd of onlookers, and Lacey let her head fall, but caught his eye under her arm in the moment before she stood up and grounded her cue. Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Shame,” the man she was currently playing tossed her a predatory grin. “Let me show you what a real man can do.”

“Ha,” she answered, “When you’re big enough, you’ll be too old!”

There was another collective, “Oooh,” this one in a slightly different tone than the last, and while he made a show of chalking his cue, and posturing to all of his supporters, Lacey sauntered over to where Gold was sitting.

She plucked the glass from his hand and took a swig of his whiskey, then pulled a face and handed it back, before picking up the shot glass from the table and tossing the contents back, swilling it around her mouth as she did. He didn’t blame her.

Lacey slammed the glass down decisively on the table top, upside down, and then straddled Gold’s lap, sliding her fingers into his hair, and caressing his jawline with her thumbs to tip his head back. In the next moment she pressed her mouth to his, her lips coaxing and pulling until he parted his own to admit her hungry, searching tongue. She tasted of tequila and passion. His set down his glass blindly and wrapped his arms around her. His fingers teasing at the open back of the sequined top she was wearing, sliding lower as she lifted her head from his and grinned.

“Bored yet?” she teased.

“What do you think?” he replied, and pulled her closer, against his growing hardness.

“Hmmm,” she said, and writhed against him until he could feel her heat even though his pants. “I think it’s about time I wrapped this up.”

Behind her, the clack of pool balls rattling together was followed by a half swallowed, “Fuck!” and Gold looked over her shoulder in time to see the cue ball rolling down the chute to nestle against the few, already potted, balls.

“No time like the present,” he suggested, with a light tap to her behind, even more impatient, now, to get her somewhere where they could both act upon their obvious desires.

Lacey chuckled low in her throat as though she knew what he was thinking. The sound went through him, right down to his core. Then she climbed off his lap and went to assess the state of the game.

She replaced the cue ball on the table, and turning her head to find her opponent, said softly, “Shame… why don’t I show you how to play with your big-boy pants on.”

She made easy work of the first shot, sinking the solid number three, leaving herself in a good position to pot the four without too much trouble. The five looked harder, but Gold wasn’t entirely sure that assessment was accurate. He suspected she was playing for effect, to give the other guy some hope that she would screw up. His suspicion was confirmed when she made sinking the six look like a fluke, and then turned with a shrug to her opponent, whose face was starting to color with incredulity and disbelief.

“Just lucky, I guess,” she said, and flounced to Gold’s side of the table, gifting him with another tantalizing glimpse beneath her skirt. Oh, how he wanted to bury himself deep inside the hot, wet jewel he knew lay beneath her delicate lace.

The seven followed the six, rebounding off the far side of the table to fall with ease into the center pocket, which left her lined up perfectly to send the eight ball down into the chute and end the game. Gold came to his feet and sauntered over.

Lacey straightened up, set the cue on the still crowded table, and reached out toward where the stack of twenty dollar bills was resting on the wooden frame. No sooner had her fingers touched the money than a rough hand closed around her wrist.

“I’ll be taking that, bitch!” her opponent spat, snatching the money from beneath her grasp. “You fucking—”

He didn’t get any further than that, and even that was too far. He suddenly flew back against the nearby wall, as if pulled on an elastic cord, upending a table on the way. Onlookers scattered as Gold walked almost lazily toward where he was pinned. He lifted his cane to press the handle against the man’s windpipe, pressing a little more each moment.

“I think you need to show the lady some manners, dearie,” he growled softly, his tone predatory. “Or maybe you like to spend the rest of your days as a ball on the table. Something of lesser value. Perhaps a number two?”

He felt Lacey’s hand on his shoulder as she came to stand beside him, leaning into his side, and he wrapped his free arm around her waist, drawing her closer still.

“Well?” she purred.

“She’s waiting,” Gold almost sang, pressing the cane just a little bit harder.

The man’s reddened face became suddenly pale, and he managed, somehow, to raise his hand and hold out the money in Lacey’s direction.

“Nice game,” he croaked past the obstruction on his windpipe.

“And?” Gold snarled.

“Thank you… Miss Lacey.” The man added.

Lacey took the money from his outstretched hand, and slipped the bills deliberately inside the cup of her bra, affording Gold an alluring glimpse of her perfect curves. Not wanting to waste any more time he released the man from his grasp, and keeping his arm around Lacey’s waist, steered her toward the door, and outside into the cold night air.

Once outside, she linked her arm through his, laughing softly, as she said, “My gallant knight in shining armor.”

Gold kept her steps steady as the two walked down the middle of the street, heading for the pawn shop. It was the closest, and needed to show her just how dishonorable his desires.

“Hardly,” he said with a chuckle that matched his thoughts, “I can assure you my intentions are anything but chivalrous.”

Lacey shivered.

“Mmm, sound promising,” she purred, and turned to face him as they walked, her steps wavering as she walked backwards, at the same time leaning up to take his mouth in hers in a heated, needful and suggestive kiss.

They barely made it through the door of the shop before she began to push the jacket from his shoulders, and he had little choice but to release her and let it fall from his arms or be pinned, and he had far better things to do with his hands that have them confined in the sleeves of his jacket. He reached for her again, but she sidestepped his grasp, instead catching hold of his tie, and turning with the end of it in her hand, pulled over her shoulder. The tie clip flew off somewhere into a dark corner of the shop.  He didn’t care.  He’d find it later… or not. For now his entire focus was on Lacey, and what he wanted to do with her.

As they neared the counter, he reached suddenly forward, wrapping his arms around Lacey’s waist and pulling her back against him. He lowered his head to the crook of her neck, nipping and then soothing the sharpness of his teeth with open mouthed kisses.  She stopped walking and leaned back into him, moaning softly and he turned her in his arms and reached up to cup her face in the palms of his hands, taking her mouth with his in a searing kiss as he plunged his tongue into her mouth; tasting, possessing, tangling his tongue with hers. It wasn’t enough.

He felt her pull his tie loose and cast it aside, her fingers deftly twisting the tiny buttons of his shirt open, until she could slip her hands inside, and he felt the pinch of her fingers on his nipples. He moaned against her lips and wrapping one arm around her waist, and sweeping the counter clear with the other, lifted her to its polished wooden top.

Immediately she wrapped her legs around him, tugging him closer, slipping her hands free of his shirt to grasp his wrists and guide them under the bottom edge of her top. Truly he needed little prompting, sliding his fingers up over the soft skin of her taut belly, to find the lower curve of her breasts in the exact moment that she reach behind herself to unclasp her bra.  She spilled into his hands, and he brushed aside the twenties that tumbled like leaves over his fingers. He pushed her top and her bra upward as he leaned over her, a line of hot kisses ascending her body until they could meet with his fingers, lavish the attention of his tongue on the hardened buds of her nipples, first one and then the other, while his caresses ensured that neither was bereft.

Lacey moaned and writhed beneath him. A sharp cry, that tugged at his balls, left her when at last he closed his mouth around one dark, rosy tip, tugging with lips and teeth, laving with his tongue.

His kisses reversed direction, drawing him ever nearer to the heady scent of her arousal as he abandoned her breasts, his hands sliding beneath her short skirt to slip beneath her lace panties, tugging at the waistband until he could draw them down as she release him from the clasp of her thighs; wanting him as much as he wanted to taste her, to drink down all of her dark desires.

He slipped his hands under her to draw her closer as his attentions climbed back up the twin columns of her legs, his nose nuzzling at her inner thighs, breathing her in, becoming almost drunk on the sweet musk of her.

He breathed out, deep hot breaths against her mound, and she whimpered needfully.

“Please, Gol—”

His name became a cry on her lips as his mouth took her.  His tongue pushed between her folds in long strokes, pushing, thrusting, flicking, teasing now at her entrance, now at her clit, tasting her in pure hedonistic indulgence.

She thrust against him seeking the touch of him when he denied her; to tease, to prolong the climb, letting out another wordless cry when at last his lips closed over the hard bud of her clit, and suckled, hard and soft in turn, driving her wild with the need for release; keening softly as he pushed first one, then a second finger inside of her.

In and out, his fingers filled her then left her empty and wanting, slowly at first, then faster as she began to tremble, tightening with the intensity of her pleasure, nearing her peak.

He release her clit from the pull of his mouth, teasing and caressing instead with the pad of his thumb, and raised his head, wanting to see her face as she dissolved into bliss. He was not waiting long and she came with a loud cry, pulsing and trembling around his fingers, her clit dancing against his thumb. Her face radiated light and passion, her closed eyes, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed.

Her breathing was unsteady, coming in short, sharp gasps as the aftershocks took her, intensified as he pressed his mouth to her again, to bathe his tongue in the liquid nectar of her rapture.

Drawing away, at last, he reached for her hands, pulling her upright, holding her close, kissing her deeply and feeling the moan she gave into the kiss.

She wrapped her arms, and her legs, around him once more, pressing her mouth to the shell of his ear, and whispered, “Back room… bed.” She nipped at his lobe drawing a sharp breath from him, though not one of pain, before telling him, her words a sensual murmur, “I want you inside me. I want to feel you fill me when you come.”

“Lacey…” he growled, his voice a needful rumble in his chest as he picked her up and obeyed her command, carrying her through to the back room, and setting her down gently on the bed.

He went to take a step back, but she caught hold of his belt and pulled him back to her. Working at the buckle with trembling fingers until she could unfasten it, unfasten his pants and push them off his hips to gather at his ankles. Somehow he maintained the presence of mind to toe off his shoes and step out of his pants as she cupped his hot and heavy balls through his shorts, before she pulled away, leading by example as she pulled off her already unfastened clothes.

He disrobed entirely, uncaring where the garments fell, catching Lacey’s hand as she reached for him and joined her on the narrow bed. She pushed him onto his back and straddled him, rubbing herself against him, and covering him in her wet heat. He moaned and reached up to cup her breasts, to pinch her nipples between thumbs and forefingers as she reached between them to bring him into place at her entrance, drawing another moan from him as the sensitive head of his cock nuzzled at her - a willing supplicant to her desires.

She let out a cry as she sank down on him, and he echoed, the sensations almost overwhelming.  She was hot and wet and tight around him, and he filled her perfectly. She caught herself on his arms as she started to pitch forward and he released her breasts to support her, arching his back to meet her descent, thrusting up into her even as she lifted herself and took him again, slow and deep.

Their lazy pace did not last, both soon became lost in the mounting sensations. She gasped as he released her arms and let his hands travel down over her body as her muscles bunched and released in the throes of their lovemaking. She leaned back, grasping his thighs as she rocked against him, taking him deeper yet.

Faster and harder… he was so close but wanted her to fall with him; to drink him down - milk him dry. He slipped his hands up the length of her inner thighs, parted her folds with his thumbs and teased her clit with rhythmic caresses, feeling her tighten around him, feeling the tightness growing inside of him until, unlocked at last he shattered, flying apart and thrusting hard as he pulsed and pulsed inside of her.

They cried out together as she broke with him, her breath more like a sob, to match his breathlessness. His heart pounded in his chest as he emptied every last drop of his seed inside of her, and she possessed it all with every clasp of her heat around him until the two of them were spent, and she dropped onto his chest, nestling her head beneath his chin.

“Hmmm,” she began, when she could at last catch sufficient breath to speak, “I’m gonna have to tease you with pool more often.”  She lifted her head to look at him, and he quirked an eyebrow. “Seems to bring out the best in you… when they protest that I win.”

“Oh, you win, Lacey, sweetheart,” he murmured, drawing her up to catch her mouth in a kiss that was deeply sexual. Then murmured against her mouth, “You always win.”

[scribblescrabblebabble]

RoyEd Week 2k19 Day 3

   Title: Seven(?) Days

Rating: T+

Relationships: Roy Mustang/ Edward Elric

Chapter: Day 3- (Fantasy AU)

Cross- Posted on AO3 and Fanfic.net links- Fanfic.net   AO3

Best quality reading will be through the links, not on Tumblr itself because I’m too lazy to do italics and shit right now. For @royedweek2019 ‘s RoyEd Week!

pasted late bc I have other work to do oops!!

-------------------------------------------

Roy had never seen the Great Hall so beautifully decorated; it was hard to tell where the school hall ended, and wintry palace began- the decorations were so wonderfully chosen! As he spun around with his dance partner, his long-time best friend Riza, the two other Triwizard Champions and their dates twirling similarly, Roy both admired the wonderful mix of glamour and dance and wished he wasn't dancing at the moment.

At least, he wished he was dancing with a different blonde, although Riza was definitely a close second choice. In fact, if he weren't required to take the first dance as a Champion, Roy probably would have shirked it off to go find Ed the moment he realized that his boyfriend's distinctive hair was nowhere to be seen in the crowd.

Over the snickers and awes of the crowd, supposedly assuming that Riza and Roy were something more than childhood friends, the blonde woman must have heard Roy's faint sigh, for she sighed as well and discreetly stomped on his foot as they changed direction, "Can you pretend for five seconds that you actually want to dance with me? I know it means nothing to you, but I tortured myself with wearing this monstrosity just because we're the center of attention."

Despite her disdain towards it, Riza looked quite stunning in her pale blue dressing gown, and Roy had just enough self-preservation to point it out before responding quietly, "It's not dancing with you that upsets me and you know it."

He knew that, even though he was half-assing it at best, they were still by far the best dancers out there, as years of ballroom dancing classes together would not be proven futile by their muggle parents.

Roy remembered the both of them receiving their Hogwarts letters and thinking it a big joke until two owls stampeded them in the park, and they looked at each other with such excitement that their parents knew their lives would never be quite normal again. His muggle mother had been at the school until recently, given a brief let-in to watch her only son compete in the dangerous Triwizard Tournament. Having never seen her son use magic before, it was a very… interesting time for her to watch him wave a stick at a whole-ass dragon and manage to stupefy it to unconsciousness (he chose to ignore his currently sprained and splinted wrist, and the several bandages that scratched against his shoulder and chest).

Back in the present, Riza rolled her eyes, "After this dance, you can go find him, I'm not stopping you. I think Jean's called dibbs on my next dance, anyways.

Roy smiled at the girl gratefully, and picked up the dance, noticing they were worryingly close falling out of step with the tempo of the spritely violins. After a few more laps around the dancefloor, the music finally died down to silence, and the audience clapped lightly, more eager to join in than pay mind to the current dancers.

Bidding Riza good luck with Jean, Roy quickly wove his way through the crowd, keeping an eye out for Ed. He found, instead, Al dragging a less-than-willing Winry out to the floor. The younger boy stopped when he saw Roy, and Winry sighed in relief.

"Roy, you and Riza danced so well!" He chirped.

"Thanks, Al. Hey, do you know where your brother is hiding? I haven't seen him around." Roy asked.

Al giggled, "Check around the food. He's probably afraid you'll ask him to dance."

"Well then, he's got a right to be afraid. Have fun out there." He turned from the betrayed look Winry cast him and started for the tables piled high with food. Ed's brother and closest friend (as well as Riza and Maes, of course) were practically the only ones who knew of his and Ed's relationship. Roy had no problem with making them public, but Ed had expressed his concerns enough for the other to hold off from straight-up snogging him in the halls. The blonde, for all his vivaciousness, was terribly shy about showing public affections, and didn't know how his fellow housemates would take his dating a boy- a Gryffindor boy at that!

Ed was nowhere to be found around the food, and Roy furrowed his brow in contemplation. He did see Lust, a fellow Slytherin classmate of Ed's, and decided to test his luck.

"Lust!" He called, and the aforementioned looked at him boredly.

"Mustang, what do you want?"

"Have you seen Elric anywhere?"

"The sweet one or the obnoxious one?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"The one you share a house with." Roy gave in a dead-pan, and Lust's unamused eye-roll did little to help him believe she would actually tell him.

"Well if you need to know, Envy said that he saw Ed on the staircase to the left of the Hall entrance reading.

Roy nodded, "Thanks, I guess." Lust shrugged and walked away.

Roy, thinking ahead, piled two plates with pastries and made his way out of the hall and to the left. He quickly found his boyfriend sitting on the second step, a book rested lightly between his bent knees. He looked up when Roy sat beside him, their legs bumping.

Roy handed over Ed's plate, which he took gratefully, "What're you doing out here? Already abandoned poor Riza to fend with Havoc on the dancefloor?"

The Gryffindor responded as Ed took a large bite of a particularly flaky little pastry the Beauxbatons cooks had prepared, "Riza quit on me. Said I was 'too distracted looking for you' to dance right."

Ed shrugged, "You know I don't like dances, shoulda guessed I wouldn't be in the ballroom."

Roy smiled lopsidedly, "Not even to watch me dance? I looked amazing out there; Al said so!"

Ed snorted, "First of all, watch your ego. Second, Al would tell the worst dancer out there they were great. Dances are just dumb, is all. Shouldn't just having the stupid tournament be enough celebration of inter-school comradery or whatever shit they're promoting?"

"I think it's sweet." Roy commented, not very forcefully. They'd had this same conversation hundreds of times, it seemed, "Either way, if you didn't want to be here so bad, why not just go up to your common room? I'm sure even the dungeons are more comfortable than these stairs."

"The Slytherin common rooms aren't just dungeons, I'll have you know!" Ed retorted, flicking a pastry he was holding slightly at Roy for emphasis, "They're actually very nice, it sucks you don't get to see 'em. I'm here because I didn't get to see you much after the challenge 'cuz of all the press commotion and shit." Ed frowned slightly.

The dragon challenge had been the day before, the three schools deciding that the dance and challenge should follow each other closely to 'lighten the mood' after such a frightening task. True to Ed's words, Roy had been swept away by several Prophet reporters following his close win (after his more serious wounds were treated first, of course). He'd been tired, bloody, and sore all over, so by the time they were done pestering him, Roy had barely the energy to fend off his mother's crushing hugs and frantic words. He had walked her back to the portkey once she was satisfied that he was safe until the next challenge, and from there went straight to his dormitory to sleep, Riza breaking the sea of students for him. The next morning, he had been wholly unamused to find his miserable face headlining the reports of the tournament.

He bit into his food, keeping a smile on his face in spite of Ed's fouled expression, "Well, you can see me all you want right now."

Contrary to Roy's intentions, Ed's face darkened further, "Until the next challenge."

"Ed, What's really the matter?" His proffered hand stung when Ed swatted it away, twisting in such a way to disturb several sore spots.

The Slytherin caught the other's wince, "THIS is the matter, Roy! Look at you, it's like you've been through a goddamn warzone or something! They carted you off the arena; I had to sit through two other dragon-themed ass-whoopings before I even knew you weren't dead. Your mom was in hysterics!"

Roy sighed, "Believe me, I know. I got her earful yesterday."

"At least she got to go down and see you immediately. I've barely seen you since Charms this afternoon, and that was the first time today!"

"So, you've been worried this whole time?"

Ed looked bewildered, "Of course I've been worried this whole time! I fucking lo… li… uh, care about you, you complete asshole!"

Roy, setting his plate aside, took Ed's plate quickly and ensconced the other boy in a tight hug, feeling the tension in the blonde's body coiled up in his shoulders. He relaxed a little in the Gryffindor's hold, huffing out a frustrated breath. When Roy felt a pair of hands gently wrap around his waist, he said, "I'm sorry I made you worry. If it's any consolation, I tried to find you after the challenge and at our meals today. I was too exhausted to really think yesterday, but when I looked today I didn't see you anywhere."

He could feel Ed rolling his eyes in his shoulder, and a second later he heard a muffled, "Had extra credit work in a few classes."

He hummed in response, and they stayed in their embrace for a while. Roy could feel Ed relax the longer he sat against the other, as if the constant assurance that Roy was there made his anxiety lessen. This said, it surprised Roy that Ed was the first to break the hug, standing up at the bottom step with a hand extended.

At the Gryffindor's confused look, Ed blushed, "Well, affection is sort of your thing, so I guess it wouldn't hurt me to dance, at least to make any lovesick Hufflepuff girls aware that you're unavailable." Roy sat, astounded. As far as he knew, Ed kind of hated public affection like this. Ed's blush intensified, probably because he knew vaguely what Roy was thinking, "I- I don't love this, but watching the challenge made me realize that I didn't want to waste my time across the room from you, watching other people try and get in your pants when I could just fucking suck it up and let myself have this, ya know? Shit, I'm embarrassing myself, just take my hand already, yeah?"

Roy grinned broadly, following Ed's orders. He led the way into the dance hall, noticing Ed stiffen when they were at the doors and Roy made no move to release his hand.

"Ed, you don't have to force yourself to do this if you're uncomfortable."

The blonde shook his head, "No, Roy, I want this. I want people to know we're a- a couple. This is a pretty good way to do that, right?"

His smile widened, "It's a great way!"

The brightness of Roy's smile caused Ed to smile as well, and they entered the hall to the vibrant sounds of an ending orchestral piece. They hurried to the floor before the next one started, and Roy had enough time to flash a wink at a confused but excited Al and Winry before the next dance began.

With Roy leading, there wasn't a chance they would mess up, and Ed seemed to trust their steps. Of course, he was flustered at first, glancing around at the other students too much (and sending dirty looks at Winry's smirk) and continually tripped up, but Roy got the other's attention back to him as the dance picked up with a gentle squeeze of the shoulder. Roy could feel eyes on them and heard quite a few girlish voices chirp their names, but he kept them out of his mind. He didn't care a bit about their judgment.

Once Ed was comfortable enough with the movement, he and Roy began chatting amid their dance, mostly about the other dancers.

"You know…" Ed mumbled, his sweet blush never having left his face, "You and Riza did dance very well together."

Roy laughed, "So you did see us! I didn't see you in the crowd!"

Ed mock-glared, "Well it's not because of my height, I know what you're thinking Roy Mustang!" He laughed a bit, "You probably dance better with her than with me."

"Well, I like dancing with you better." Roy murmured, leaning down to speak directly in Ed's ear.

"Oh, shush." Ed huffed, embarrassed. The song slowed to an end, and Ed pulled them off the floor with a small smile, "C' mon, we left our food on the stairs. I'd hate to waste it." His pull wasn't at all in the direction of the stairs, but to a table huddled away from the crowd, absolutely heaped with decorations and food. They could get some good privacy behind that heap…

Roy chuckled, Ed smirked, and they hurried to the table, not seeing the knowing looks of their friends and swelling gossip circles of those newly exposed to, possibly, the most unexpected coupling at Hogwarts.

~End~

[selfconstructedself]

Sometimes I Marvel at my Remarkable Ability to Save Myself

TW biblical counseling mention, conversion therapy brief mention, self harm, eating disorders, suicidality, swearing, abusive relationship, hospitalization mention. This is mostly a therapeutic exercise that people are welcome to read but do not have to. 

Looking back on my progress and how far I’ve come in the past 10 years since I first developed severe mental illness symptoms, I’m really proud of myself and my resilience. (Even though part of that resilience is defined by a dissociative disorder.)

When I was 12 I was placed in “biblical counseling” for self-harm. Needless to say this did not help. I was also dealing with undiagnosed autism, an eating disorder, and my first alter who I clearly remember/who is still active today (Alyria). When I was 14 I realized I’m gay, and realized that I had to get out of biblical counseling before they found out lest it turn into legitimate conversion therapy. I told them what they wanted to hear and they deemed 2+ years of working with me “a success”. By the time I was 15 I was an expert at pretending to be okay even though I was secretly breaking down. I channeled my energy into schoolwork, trying to get high grades so I could get a scholarship to college and get out of there. I worked hard on music so that I could tutor younger students in flute for extra money. I wrote a lot, got better at hiding self harm, and saved my breakdowns for 2 am when I couldn’t sleep, felt suicidal, felt like I was going insane because of the voices in my head and my inability to have a stable identity, etc. 

Right before Christmas when I was 15, I ended up in the emergency room because I passed out from eating disorder symptoms at my Christmas concert in which I had several flute solos. To this day I don’t know why they discharged me the next day- I was very underweight and tachycardic, and it was obvious what was going on. Fearing ending up back in biblical counseling and also fearing for my life in general, I threw myself into the recovery community on Tumblr and set myself on a meal plan I had found online. I did a lot of research on how to safely increase my caloric intake and had the goal of being weight restored and on a weight maintenance meal plan by my 16th birthday 6 months later, and I fucking did it. Somehow. A fighting spirit, determination, friends on Tumblr, my inner self helper (@ you Kari), and some amazing friends at school who held me up when I couldn’t do so myself. I would have mini relapses and my weight would go up and down over the next 3 years, and it would take 3 more years before I would figure out intuitive eating, but I somehow recovered from one of the most deadly mental illnesses without much therapeutic help. 

I graduated from high school in the top 10% of my class, got a scholarship to college, and moved out a few weeks after turning 18. Before moving out I had emailed my college counseling center explaining that I’d basically spent the last 6 years of my life super fucked up and the last 3 years of my life holding myself together and could I please get some professional help now? They responded with yes and they would provide all the support they could and to call to set up an appointment after I moved in. I called after my parents left and set up an appointment for the next week and at that intake appointment I finally felt safe. I finally felt like I didn’t have to do this on my own anymore. 

After a few weeks of working with me, the counseling center assessed me and diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder and after the first semester of college, I decided to seek out DBT. I found a DBT therapist who did group and individual sessions 2 miles from me, called and scheduled a meeting, took a bus to her office, and explained that my parents didn’t believe in therapy so I couldn’t use their insurance nor could I afford to pay out of pocket, but that I really needed it, and we worked out a system where I did some administrative work for her (super ethical grey area I know, but it worked) and I got the rest of the money from babysitting my professor’s kid (another ethical grey area, that also worked). 

I credit DBT with saving my life. Even though all throughout my DBT experience I was completely disconnected from the fact that I was in an abusive relationship and my OSDD was getting worse, or even the fact that I had OSDD at all, my BPD and ED symptoms were improving and I had finally gotten an informal-but-valid autism diagnosis that I was adjusting to. DBT helped me strengthen my inner self helper and decrease my self-destructive behaviors and ultimately helped me realize I was being gaslighted and got me out of the abusive relationship. 

It would take a psychiatric hospitalization for me to finally access a comprehensive psychological evaluation, get diagnosed with OSDD-1B, get on the right medication for bipolar, and begin facing the trauma of my childhood and the abuse of my early adulthood. I still haven’t uncovered whole years of my childhood but I am coming to terms with that being okay. I don’t have to remember to recover. I have continued to advocate for myself - my rights to confidentiality and quality in my psychiatric care, my rights to self-determination as an autistic adult, my qualifications to be admitted into a top university graduate program in a profession that, on paper, I do not look capable of but that I have proven I can do. 

I somehow made it to adulthood and independence with very little support. It’s not easy but I am almost completely financially independent and at any moment have the financial resources to disconnect my parents from my life were I to need to. I’ve got a long way to go in trauma therapy and I haven’t made it yet but I am making it. I’ve got this, we’ve got this, my system is overall working together to construct a sometimes messy but overall beautiful life for us. I have a lot to be proud of, and I need to remember that. 

[miss-musings]

The Good & Bad of NBC: or, Why “The Blacklist” is everything that’s wrong with TV, and “The Good Place” is everything that’s right (SPOILER EDITION)

(Written Oct. 2018… pre-S6 of TBL and mid-S3 of the Good Place.)

NOTE: THERE WILL BE MAJOR SPOILERS OF BOTH SHOWS. DO NOT PROCEED UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THEM BOTH!!!!!!!

In case you haven’t, there is a spoiler-free version of this post here.

(Author’s note: So, if you’re reading this you may or may not have read the other version first. If you have, I’m basically going to be going over the same material with the same structure, with some of the text basically copy/pasted from the first version. But, where I held back on the spoiler-y details before, I’m now going to be going all out. I’ll reiterate: PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS VERSION UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN BOTH SHOWS!!! Thank you.)

For any of you unfamiliar with my content, I’ve been analyzing different aspects of The Blacklist for the past few years, including calling attention to what I believe are flaws in its plotlines and characterizations.

This April, I happened upon The Good Place on Netflix and absolutely gobbled it up. I watched all of S1 in pretty much a single day; S2, in a similarly short time frame. Now, I’ve probably seen every S1 and S2 episode at least four times, and I’m watching the S3 episodes as they air on NBC before The Blacklist returns in January for its sixth season.

Now, it’s definitely not fair to compare The Blacklist and The Good Place. The former is an hour-long (44 minutes/episode) crime drama procedural that has had 22 or 23 episodes per season in five seasons. The latter is a half-hour (22 minutes/episode) ‘genre’ comedy set in the afterlife that has 13 episodes per season in three (ongoing) seasons.

So, TBL has an approximate 4,840 minute run-time, and TGP’s is approximately 858 minutes (including all of S3).

That means that The Blacklist’s overall runtime is almost SIX times the length of The Good Place.

Even so, both of these feature prominent TV actors, including Emmy Award winners James Spader and Ted Danson, respectively; both center on a relationship between a 30-something white woman and an older white man(whether that relationship is romantic, platonic or pseudo-familial is debated by fandoms of both shows); and both of these are NBC shows.

So, while it might not be exactly fair to compare these two shows, I’m going to do so anyway, because I feel like where the Blacklist struggles, The Good Place shines as a quality television program.

Now, don’t think for an instant that The Blacklist is a completely worthless show or that The Good Place doesn’t have its flaws. There are good and bad aspects of both shows, but I’m going to be comparing the two by focusing on three key things that make a TV show compelling:

Plot Progression

Character Interactions

Character Development

1. PLOT PROGRESSION

I think anyone who’s seen the Blacklist will tell you that this show’s plot is convoluted AF. In S1, it seemed like the show was setting Berlin up to be the show’s overarching Big Bad. But, then he gets killed off in S2 while the Cabal takes the forefront. The Cabal kinda hangs out until the end of S3, really, and then gets mostly forgotten until Ressler kills Hitchen in S4. And, Mr. Kaplan becomes Red’s enemy because she was once Liz’s nanny????

This show is so fucking weird.

It continues to frustrate me that all of the show’s major plot developments/revelations come during a mid-season or season finale, or a season or mid-season premiere. The Blacklist’s plot structure continually revolves around the idea of ‘sweeps week,’ when the network tries to boost its ratings by promising major reveals and developments during certain time frames.

Why not space some of these things out more instead of giving us what is essentially filler? We go along for the ride week after week, hoping to get clues or developments to the overarching story, only to be frustrated at the world’s slowest drip ever.

I feel like the first part of S5b really fell into this trap. It reveals to the audience shortly after Keen’s return that Ian Garvey is a dirty cop. And then we wait like 4-6 episodes (I don’t remember exactly how long) until Liz realizes this too. Jeez. Why drag it out so long?!?!

Now, I will say that the decision to kill Garvey in 5x19, rather than the season finale was a good idea. As it breaks the mold of having to wait until the (mid)season finale for the Arc’s Big Bad to finally bite it.

But, while that might’ve been a small victory, it still doesn’t make up for all the times this show has thought it was pulling the rug out when all it was doing was being predictable AF.

Between Liz “dying,” Kaplan helping her, Kirk being her stepdad, Mr. Kaplan being the one coming after Red, Tom dying, Liz trying to trick Red into revealing his secret by playing like she’s in danger and needs him to rescue her, the bones being the Real Reddington, etc...  it continually frustrates me that folks here on Tumblr predict everything that’s going to happen with pinpoint accuracy. It makes the show boring and rote. (Not the folks on Tumblr; more the fact that this show’s plots are so predictable.)

Conversely, the Good Place – per the show’s creator Mike Schur – centers on the idea of subverting expectations. Based on the pilot’s premise, you might assume that the finale will be Eleanor revealing that she doesn’t belong in the neighborhood. But, Schur and his writing team have said multiple times that they focus on trying to make each episode end with a cliffhanger, and doing those big reveals or developments earlier in the season than the audience expects.

As Schur (or maybe some other writer or exec) recently said on the Good Place podcast, 2x09 “Best Self – where the crew leaves the Good Place to head to Bad Place HQ – feels a little like a season finale, despite the fact that there were three more episodes left in S2.

The Blacklist, IMO, also suffers from overdramatic promotions that sometimes make it seem like each episode is going to have some shocking development, when in fact, you could probably skip it and not really miss much (unless it’s a premiere or finale).

I feel like I remember the S2a promos about Liz hiding Tom in the boat, which of course, everyone predicted, really hyped up that reveal so that it was a real let-down whenever we finally got the truth.

TGP, on the other hand, doesn’t really have episodic promos like The Blacklist does, which might work in its favor. (Although, I will say that I was pissed the NBC Thursday night comedy line-up promos ruined the 3x01 Trevor reveal before the actual episode ended.)

I mean, compare how TBL handled the Boat Door Reveal in S2 versus how TGP handled the Michael-sacrifices-himself-to-save-Eleanor development. If TGP had done it like TBL’s, we would’ve known a week or two in advance that someone was going to sacrifice themselves to save Eleanor. It would’ve been these dramatic promos going like “Who! Will! It! Be?!?!!” with like pictures of all the cast members flashing by. And, of course, everyone would predict it would be Michael and/or Chidi, we would all be right and subsequently disappointed.

Also, while I feel like TBL tends to play things safe – very rarely breaking away from the crime drama procedural vibe – TGP doesn’t mind taking chances, so long as whatever they’re taking a chance on fits within the ‘world’ of the show.

If you haven’t seen my rant about TBL’s S5b, I was so excited after Liz woke from a coma to see how the show might tackle that plotline. Would Liz be traumatized? Would she be reluctant to rejoin the Task Force? What if she decided to give up her life with the FBI altogether and raise Agnes? What if she had PTSD? etc.

And, the show went the very predictable route of not showing much, if any, of Liz’s physical therapy or psychological trauma, and having her get back ‘out in the field’ (proverbially speaking) pretty much right away. She pawned Agnes off to Scottie and then kicked it in the woods for an episode.

Whereas, with The Good Place, we got to see major glimpses of Eleanor’s year after her near-death experience in 2x12. Granted, not much of it, but given the show’s time constraints and break-neck speed (in terms of plot development as opposed to TBL), it was nice that we got to see Eleanor become a better person, backslide, and then make a decision on whether she wanted to try to make progress again or whether she was going to stay in her rut forever.

Clearly, you can seen how one’s plot progression is preferable – as a viewer – to the other. It’s also helpful, I imagine, as a writer, to let the plots unfold organically, as fast or as slow as they need to… instead of having to either rush them or drag them out to reach a certain point in the season’s schedule.

2. CHARACTER INTERACTIONS

As said above, both shows focus on the connections between its male protagonist and female protagonists. While ultimately it’s the female protagonist’s journey, the male protagonist is a guiding force in her journey, helping her along and pushing her to make decisions (whether good or bad).

(Although, I guess you could argue that Chidi is really TGP’s male protagonist, but considering that Ted Danson is more heavily promoted, I’d argue Michael is really TGP’s male protagonist.)

And, for both shows, its two main protagonists are part of a six-person main cast.

For The Good Place, the cast is Eleanor and Chidi, Tahani and Jason (two other residents in Eleanor’s neighborhood), Janet (the neighborhood’s anthropomorphized mainframe/help desk), and Michael.

The Blacklist’s cast, as of the end of S5, is Reddington and Keen, her fellow agents Donald Ressler, Samar Navabi and Aram Mojtabai, and their task force director Harold Cooper.

Now, the Blacklist primarily focuses on the relationship between Reddington and Keen; he doesn’t interact with the other cast members very frequently and Keen’s interactions with them are pretty basic and often work-focused. There aren’t very many crucial interactions between non-Reddington/Keen pairings, especially in more recent seasons of the show. While S1 and S2 tried its best to have Keen interact with Ressler, Ressler interact with Reddington, Cooper interact with Reddington, Keen interact with Navabi, etc., S3-5 have more focused on the Reddington/Keen dynamic at the expense of everyone else.

Granted, I like the Reddington/Keen dynamic (in some respects), but giving it more weight in the runtime unfortunately means that the remainder of the cast has to tackle the more procedural aspects by trying to track down the Bad Guy of the Week while Reddington and Keen get to have more of the character-driven serialized moments and developments.

Compare this, though, with TGP and its interactions outside of the Eleanor/Michael dynamic.

Throughout different points in S1 and S2, we got significant interaction between almost every single possible pairing of characters on this show. (And I mean pairing in a non-romantic sense.)

We see Eleanor fall in love with Chidi, become ‘mates’ with Tahani, become bros with Jason, and try to kill Janet and then later give her relationship advice. Meanwhile, Michael has his falling out with and subsequent heartfelt apology to Chidi; he admits to Janet that she’s his most loyal friend; in S1, he seeks out Tahani’s help; and in S2, he seeks out Jason’s feedback. Tahani and Jason’s romantic connection is explored, as is Jason and Janet’s. Chidi and Tahani have an important bonding moment in S1, and even the dynamic between Chidi and Jason is touched on some.

So, while TBL’s cast feels a little separated and almost cliquish, TGP’s six castmembers feel like a cohesive team where any two or three characters can be trusted to carry a scene and have an emotional connection/interaction. The former comes off as weak writing and show structuring, while the other is far preferable to watch.

3. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

As I’ve said in several other TBL posts, THIS is probably my biggest grievance with the show … even more so than the weird-ass plot structure.

Despite supposedly being major characters, Ressler, Cooper, Samar and Aram get very little in the way of growth or development. I can barely describe them, their personalities, their desires, their moral codes, etc. in maybe a paragraph for each character. And these are people who have been on this show for FIVE FUCKING YEARS!!! How is that possible that they’ve gotten so little development in so much screentime?

Again, remember, TBL’s runtime is SIX TIMES that of TGP. And yet, I feel like any and all of The Good Place’s major characters get way more development simply in the first season than TBL’s peeps do in five.

I could definitely describe Jason, Tahani, Chidi and Janet’s personalities, desires, moral codes, etc. in like a page for each character.

Now, granted, I suppose the show’s structure lends itself better to that. The characters have to do a lot of soul-searching, so to speak, in almost every episode. Whereas, the Blacklist’s cast has to chase down the week’s bad guys, which takes up at least 20-30 minutes per episode.

Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not fair, considering that TBL clearly doesn’t care about its non-Reddington/non-Keen characters. So, let’s focus on both shows’ two leads and their character arcs.

Let’s look at Reddington’s character development versus Michael’s.

Despite having much more screentime and weight within the show, Reddington’s arc PALES in comparison to Michael’s. Granted, Michael started out as a literal demon whose entire purpose was to torture people. But, over time, we saw his genuine curiosity about humans transform into a genuine desire to understand them and want to be one of them. Yes, he only seeks them out after 802 reboots because he feels he has no other options (thanks to Vicky threatening to blackmail him). But, as he learns ethics alongside the humans, he realizes he needs to become a better ‘person’ (read: demon) to better care of them. Because he OWES IT TO THEM.

Reddington’s character development, meanwhile, seemed to come more in the latter half of S4 when he was trying to deal with Mr. Kaplan coming after him and he was trying to confront this spectre of death that seemed to be looming over him.

Yet, even after all that bullshit with Mr. Kaplan, where he called him out for keeping secrets from Elizabeth that she had the right to know, he still held all the cards and kept his secrets to himself and killed anyone who got in the way.

If Red had really grown, the way Michael did in S2, he would’ve confessed to Elizabeth at some point that he wasn’t the real Reddington, that he stole her father’s identity, and he’d been keeping it from her all this time because of “x.”

While Michael has learned and grown as an individual, Reddington has stayed relatively static in terms of personal growth. Not to say we haven’t seen different sides of him, what he would do when he faced difficult scenarios, like Liz’s death or losing his criminal empire… but the Reddington in the S5 finale is too much like Reddington in the pilot episode. Which is absolutely ridiculous, given how much screentime and emphasis he’s gotten over FIVE SEASONS!!!

Michael has learned to admit when he’s been wrong, apologize and become a better friend to his humans, while Red still has yet to do Liz (a woman he loves immensely in some capacity or other) the basic kindness of telling her that he stole her dad’s identity.

Alright. Now let’s look at Elizabeth Keen versus Eleanor Shellstrop.

Both characters have suffered from character regression, where they start at Point A, then develop and grow over time to reach Point B, and then – for whatever reason – regress to Point A again.

Elizabeth Keen started out happy and bubbly in S1a, went to dark and gritty in S1b-3a, then went back to happy and bubbly in S3b to S5a, then back to dark and gritty again in S5b.

Eleanor started off as an Arizona dirtbag, then became a good person to the point where she decided to sacrifice herself by going to the Bad Place... then got rebooted 802 times... then started as an Arizona dirtbag again, progressed to the point where she was the only one of the four humans who passed her test from The Judge ... then was sent back to earth and was saved from death, so she decided to change her life, backslided and now is AGAIN trying to become a better person.

Now, while Eleanor’s character regression fits within the confines of the show, Keen’s makes no sense. She’s confronted and overcome so many challenges over the show’s the five seasons… so, why hasn’t she learned from them? Why is she still relatively the same, especially considering that x-number of seasons ago, she was so completely different?

Why is she back to being all angry and hateful and dark, etc., when it’s like... she has a young daughter who’s lost her father, she lost 10 months with her after being in a coma.... and she just wants to go beat up dirty cops??? I feel like if they wanted us to see an Elizabeth Keen that had learned from her experience, she would’ve given up her life with the FBI, saying that it’s put her in danger, severed ties with Red (or tried to) because he’s also endangered her (via the bones), and spent time with her daughter, whom she claims is more important than anything else in the world.

And, whereas Eleanor was not a very likable protagonist at the outset but she becomes more likable over time, Keen started out as somewhat likable but has become more annoying as her character continually regresses.

All in all, to quote (or at least paraphrase) some other Tumblr user, “I can’t believe The Good Place literally invented character development.”

TL;DR

Again, just to reiterate, I think there’s good and bad in both shows. But, there’s a reason why I’ve seen every episode of the Good Place at least four times and why TGP S1-2 is currently #4 on my list of All-Time Favorite TV Shows.

The Good Place pushes the envelope by subverting expectations and having major developments earlier in the season than expected; it makes sure that almost every character has significant moments with every other character; and it ensures that each of them has a major character arc that works within the confines of the show.

The Blacklist, in comparison, does what too many other shows on TV do: it treads water plot-wise; it focuses too much on some characters at the expense of others; and even the characters it focuses on don’t show any significant or organic growth.

And, that’s why, IMO, The Blacklist represents everything that’s wrong with television now; and The Good Place represents everything that’s right.

[bredsticon-blog]

title: the alternative

part: one (saint or sinner)

desc: you have died. you weren't an extraordinary person when you were alive--you made a few little sins and a few little good deeds, but it's not enough to land you in heaven nor hell. so the reaper gives you two choices: be in limbo forever, or serve equal years in heaven and hell. well, you choose the latter...

tags: angel!nick & demon!zion love triangle (or not? wink), heaven and hell au (yes ik purgatory exists but it has different purposes for this series), ooc (on purpose, i swear), sfw (as in, no smut), gore, violence (i mean, you're in hell...), cussing, murder, mentions of: rape, abuse, addiction (alcohol, LSD, heroin, uhh everything else), mental issues (depression, suicide), and death in general. gender/sex neutral reader (as always) and humor to lighten the mood

word count: 2k

notes: it isn't nearly as scary as the tags make it seem, i promise. i spent a l o n g time on the promo art for this (which imma post LATER) so uhh please read :'( haha yes i WILL finish writing the fma!austin fic and make the part 2 for ¡quake! & ~the wave~ but my ass is still collecting gifs and cleaning up plot holes sksksk and on the 2.76% chance the boys read this: hi follow me im @/bredsticon on ig, i make quality content and be more active on tumblr please we love you

You don't remember dying.

You're dead, and you don't remember dying.

Perhaps, in another life, you once thought that death accompanied a special feeling: life flashing before your eyes, lights out, everything over before your last breath escapes your lungs. But this is... this is slow. So slow. You're still on earth. Floating.. somewhere. Nowhere else. You see the world, all of it. Stars twinkle in the mist. The world around you is gray and dark. You watch your home fall apart. Every crack and shake is in full detail, and, dimly, you watch the sprouting of vines and weeds in its place. The weeds brush heads as they cluster your old house, your old neighborhood, your old country, your old everything.

You're old.

Breathless doesn't begin to describe it. You don't have lungs. You don't have... you don't. You just don't. You are nowhere. You are nothing. You don't exist.

Someone waves inside of you.

What the—

"Hello, Soul One-Hundred Thirty-Three Billion, Seventy-Five Million and Sixty-Five. You're late."

An NYC accent? You're from—

"Now that's a mouthful. I'll just call you Rosebud. See, you were supposed to cross over..." A watch ticks inside your... your form? You? "...millennia ago. Five millennia, in fact."

The voice throws a powder on you. Something blooms inside you, and you fall to the ground.

You gasp—holy shit, you can gasp. You move your head around. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, you have muscles, you have form, you can move. You exist.

The voice has a form, too. He looks like you: human. Flaming blue hair, khaki-colored skin with reddish-pink polka dots and marks. He wears modern clothes: a bright yellow vest and green pants. And glowing. He's like a painting. Human, kinda.

You gape at him. This doesn't exist. This can't exist. You thought you'd be nothing forever. But now you're something and that's something and the world around you is still murky but it's something and oh my God. Oh my fucking God. What happened to you? What happened to your home? Why aren't you dead?

The form smiles at you. "Be careful with mentioning the Master Creator so much. They're listening, y'know. They can tell when you're talking about Them."

He offers you a hand. Shaking, you take it. You wobble so hard you grab his shoulder, and he pats your wrist.

"Relax, Rosebud, we're gonna go up now. Take my hands." Gently, he takes your hand off his shoulder and interlocks your fingers together. You close your eyes as he pulls you close.

Once you open them, you're no longer on Earth.

You're in an office.

Vaguely relaxing piano music plays in the background. The walls gleam "eggshell white" (whatever that means), and copy-and-paste potted plants commiserate in corners, on shelves, and on top of desks. Rows and rows of cubicles line up in front of you, complete with ancient computers, loud clicking, and early morning groans of "I need more coffee, for fu- fun's sake!" A vending machine and a water cooler stand behind you, with banged-up tables interspersed between those.

Someone rises out of a cubicle. His skin is pale, but his hair is dark. "Reaper Honoret Jr.! Is that—oh my goodness, is that the stray? You did it! It took a few millennia, but you did it!"

Honoret Jr. grimaces. "My bad, Dad. The soul blended in so well, it took me a while... my readings showed complete neutrality. It's like there's no one there." The reaper looked back at you. "I only caught a flicker. Right now, I can't—"

His dad chuckles. "Not Dad. It's Reaper Honoret Sr. to you." He winks. "I'm kidding, y'know how they get around here."

He comes forward and wraps his arms around the boy, then unlatches. Without Honoret Jr's support, you fall to the ground, so you watch as he holds his son's shoulders. "Your bad? What do you mean? I'm proud of you. So, so proud. You're the only one who could even—actually, wait."

He turns to face the cubicles. "Reapers of Thanatos & Co., guess who just caught the stray!"

The clicking stops.

Someone coughs. "You're joking, right?"

"Absolutely not. In fact, it's behind me, right now."

Chairs scoot on scratchy carpet as the reapers of Thanatos & Co. nearly jump out of their cubicles to see you. Forty reapers dressed in some manner of business attire speed walk in your direction. One pushes Honoret Jr. out of the way—his dad has to catch him before he falls on his face.

When they see you, they stop. They start staring at the air around you. They sniff like blood hounds.

After a pause, a reaper with large eyebrows turns to another, eyes wide. "I think... I can't... I literally..."

The other nods. "Same here. Reaper Honoret Sr. isn't lying."

The crowd murmurs in agreement.

A reaper with short pink hair raises his hand. When no one calls on him, he puts it down and mutters something about being new. "Wait, if Reaper Honoret Sr. found the stray, shouldn't we tell the Grand Reaper about it first?"

Once more, the crowd murmurs in agreement.

The eyebrow reaper stares at you—no, not at you. Into you. Like you're not even there. "Before that, we need to know who found it. Reaper Honoret Sr., did you find it? We need someone to congratulate."

He grins. "Nope! My son did." He shook his boy's shoulders.

The reaper raises a brow, then gives the blue-haired reaper a look. "Oh. Well, uhm, congratulations."

The crowd weakly claps. Good job... mhm... congratulations, Junior... and then they disperse back into their leather spin chairs.

Honoret Jr. turns to you and makes a face. "Sorry about that. Office drama. Can't escape it, even in this world."

He doesn't look like a reaper to you. No black cloak, no creepy aura, no skeleton fingers. Kind, colorful, couldn't be a reaper. Nope. Impossible. None of this is.

"You're not believing a lot of things, I know. The first few days are the hardest." He gifts you with another smile. "You'll get there, I promise. I'm here to help.

"Name's Edwin, by the way. You've been calling me Honoret Jr. and that just gives me middle school flashbacks. No thanks."

You can't even make a proper facial expression to react to that. You can't formulate words—or even walk without Edwin holding your hand. He's reading your thoughts, at least. You're basically a vegetable.

He shrugs. "Give it a few hours, Rosebud. The vegetable'll wear off. Your body's just adjusting to this plane. No shame."

You can't speak, so you just think of the word: thanks. My name is—

"Oh, I know what your name is. I've been searching for you for five millennia. I'd be a horrible reaper if I didn't know."

He extends a hand. "Speaking of vegetable and horrible reaper, I bet you're hungry. You're also naked. Let's fix that."

-

Reapers need to eat, surprisingly. Edwin leads you through a myriad of hallways with the exact same paintings and potted plants (this is disgustingly easy to get lost in, you think. Edwin agrees) until you reach the break room. It takes you an hour.

No one's in there except you two. Edwin gave you some of his clothes (kept in another room), so you're wearing a red fit with a black vest and a lime green beanie. He tried to offer his matching ski mask, but you managed to mentally shout "No!" before he put it away. You don't mind wearing his stuff, but you wonder what that could imply. Do reapers...? Actually, you don't wanna think about that.

The break room curves up into a sparkling, plastic chandelier. The rest of the room accommodates a fridge plastered in posters, a microwave, and a dirty coffee maker paired with beige countertops. A pile of paper plates and utensils decorates the left countertop, while a sink occupies the right end. Island tables take up the rest of the center, leaving room for vending machines in the back.

Edwin scrunches his nose. "Who's bummy ass forgot to wash the coffee pot? Ew." He examines it, then starts washing the dishes.

He looks back at you. "You can go raid the fridge. Just don't touch the lunch boxes or uh—bento boxes, I think. Those are Reaper Porter's, and he will get very mad if you touch his bento. I did that once, so he threw a fork at me then said I messed with his feng shui."

Edwin mutters something about unseasoned chicken as he continues scrubbing coffee stains.

You stand up. Your walk is wobbly at best, and you feel like a pile of jello—you're weak in the knees, like jello. But you're getting there. Its better than before. At some point in your hour-long journey to the break room, poor Edwin had to carry you. You felt bad, but at least he's strong. Maybe it's a reaper thing.

You stumble to the fridge. Posters and dates and schedules cover the surface, but you brush past them to find what truly matters: the food.

Reaper office food tastes just as bland as human office food. How sad.

You find that your body works just like it used to. You're hungry, you can feel pain, and you're starting to move. It's like you never died. And now you're in a huge office full of slightly-glowy people who call themselves Reapers and also can't sense you, which is a concept you still don't understand. Or maybe you didn't die? Maybe someone stirred some LSD in your drink? And this is all... a major... acid... trip...

You blink, then pinch yourself. Nope. You're 'swell.

Edwin pulls out a chair. "Now that we're done with the basics, Rosebud, we need to get you registered. You're a bit of a weird case, but you're not too too special. Just uncommon."

He pauses. "Well, actually, you might be a little more special than that. Just a tad."

You give him a look. Something builds in your throat.

"What the fuck?"

He giggles. "Those are your first words on this plane? I—"

"No, seriously. What. The. Fuck." You sound like a cheese grater but you don't care. "I literally have no idea what's going on. I died, I think, then I watched mankind die too as the Earth turned into dandelions, then you went inside of me and threw some pixie dust to make me come back again, suddenly I'm in a 90s sitcom office and I'm naked which literally no one told me about until everyone else saw me as bare as the day I was born and—"

Edwin pats your hand. "All right, all right, let it out, let it out. I'll explain everything. It's just really long." He rubs the back of his neck. "And we're kinda on a time crunch here."

"A time crunch. When it took us an hour just to get a snack."

"Yes, a time crunch. We have about two more hours to get you registered before you become tied to this plane. Then you'll have to become a reaper, like me, and you don't wanna become a reaper." He bites deeply into his peanut butter and banana sandwich. "Shit's hard."

"I can't even—"

"Mhm." He says through a mouthful of peanut butter. "I'm rellay sorreh you're goineh frough thif. I geh how you feel. Eferyone dehs."

He swallows. "We all started out alive. No one's been here since the beginning. Except for some of the seraphim, I guess. But the rest of us? We just humans the Master Creator decided to gift. You're not alone in this. I went through the same bullshit as you. I get it."

You bow your head down. Your thoughts are too jumbled to feel actual anger. "Thanks, Edwin."

"You honestly deserve better, but no problem." He stands up and wipes his hands on a napkin. "Imma clean up after myself, so you can get a head start. We do only have two hours." He yanks you out of the chair. Still chewing, you watch as Edwin shoves you out the break room.

"Wait—hold up—wh—I don't know where I'm supposed to—"

He grins. "You will! Your senses will guide you."

"What— more vague shi—" and the door slams.

[attract-mode-collective]

Nothing Sez “Student Game” More Than The Dinosaur Evening News (that’s a good thing, btw)

The above is Mediazoic, which takes place in an alternate reality in which dinosaurs have come back to rule the earth and they've hired you, puny human, to make sure their televised broadcasts are dino family safe.

You moderate comments left on message boards, censor full frontal dino nudity, and so on. It's a student game alright, and one of my top picks from the NYU Game Center Student Showcase2018!

I was also fond of Dreams For Your Computer because CRTs, magnets, and cats...

... Here's what it looks like in action, btw.

Though the one game that I liked the most, and which would actually fare well on the marketplace, would have to be Static...

And honorable mention goes to an updated take on Flight Simulator, which recreates a 6 hour long commercial flight as a passenger...

... The best part was the look on Stephen Totilo's face, who kinda didn't get it.

When was the NYU thing btw? Over two weeks ago, and it’s been even longer since the last update. Sorry about that. You know the deal: a million, billion things going on. As usual.

Hence why it’ll take not just one, but two bursting at the seams posts, to cover the second half of May! So onto part one…  

Please, please, PLEASE let these Game Center CX Blu-rays have an English language option (via miki800.com)...

Not a day goes by in which I don’t wonder how that guy who appears in the instruction manual for Bomberman B-Daman is doing these days (via videogameartarchive & videogameartarchive)...

I really love the “are you for real?” vibe that Samus gives off in the instructions for the original Famicom Disk System release of Metroid (via nintendometro)...

If you’ve ever wondered what a pair of bosses from Mega Man 9 & 10 would look like with 8’s 32-bit sheen, well here ya go (via mendelpalace)...

A print ad for the Famicom adaptation of Akira that wasn't all that hot (via videogameads)...

Though whenever anyone hears the words “Akira video game”, this is basically what immediately comes to mind. Anything else is a disappointment, no matter what (via aaronkraten)...

Welcome to the rabbit hole that is the Memorex VIS (via @ColinWilliamson)...

Is the soundtrack to some ultra-obscure home banking software for the Mega Drive worth a listen? You goddamn right it is (via mendelpalace)...

… The accompanying article is also totally worth a read.

It’s the Battletoads X Blue Swede mashup that you can’t believe hasn’t been done yet (via SiIvaGunner)...

Replace Link with myself & Navi with my iPhone, which I use as an alarm clock, and you have earlier this morning in a nutshell (via nintendometro)...

“So where you going?”

“Down a road. A low poly road…”

“Where you headed towards?”

“Whatever’s at the end of this street. This low poly street...”

“If you look up, what do you see?”

“Low poly buildings, under a low poly sky. Who knows, maybe there’s some low poly birds up there, behind those low poly clouds…” (via pmpkn)

From looking at low poly skies to soaring high above them, but what a difference an arcade board makes huh (via kazucrash)...

This is what Metal Max 2: ReLoaded on the DS looks like, at its normal resolution...

And this is what it looks with the resolution bumped up (via gaucheartist)...

Is this sprite of a BMX biker animated unusually well or am I just out of touch when it comes to 2600 software? Granted, it does come from a game made in 1989 (via segagenesisevangelion)…

According to the law: “NO JUMPING” (via vgadvisor)

“Hi guys.” (via beowulf-ultra)

Such a heartwarming scene (via @PicturesFoIder)...

This is what VR looked like many years ago, which is basically how it still looks today as well (via peazy86)...

It’s Yuji Horii, from way back in the day, presumably before he had created Dragon Quest (via videogamesdensetsu)...

Why yes, I have heard of the Ocelot Arcade System, by virtue of it being Quality Simon Carless content...

... BTW, “Quality content” is in reference to this. Moving on: yes, I've also heard of VecFever. It plays games that you might be familiar with, since it emulates old vector MAME titles...

Meanwhile, am only just learning that Tiger released their handhelds in Japan under the Game Vision label (via segacity)...

The Sega Dreamcast: it's thinking... about you, cuz it cares about you (via posthumanwanderings)...

"Wait… was he always there?" asks the official Sonic the Hedgehog Tumblr (via sonicthehedgehog)...

And the final nail in the coffin for this gag came courtesy of the official Sonic Tumblr as well (via sonicthehedgehog)...

"Good news everyone skyrim has been ported to the Bethesda offices carpet" 

"Who the fuck designed support pillars to obstruct a quarter of the hallway?" 

"Bethesda" (via mysteriouslypeculiar)

Yet another "it's funny cuz it's true" (via highlandvalley)...

So annoyed that I only find out about this Games Glorious shirt on the very last day of kylefewell‘s Japanese extrusion (via miki800.com)...

Not a fan of the game (don’t hate, I just don’t find it very enthralling), yet for whatever reason, I REALLY want this vintage Mappy sweatshirt (via namcomuseum)...

When video game attire looks plausible IRL (via @cvxfreak)...

Much like with regular attire, with cosplay, sometimes it’s all about the accessories (via frankiebalboa)...

Don’t think I’ve ever seen this piece of Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter art before (via segacity)...

For those who dig POC, as well those who dig VF, and also those who dig FV... that last one's Fighting Vipers, BTW (via fightersmegamix)...

It’s a crying shame that Fighting Vipers is such an unknown commodity these days (via kazucrash)...

Virtua Fighter vs Virtua Fighter… Kid (via segacity)...

It’s a crying shame that Fighters Megamix is such an unknown commodity these days (via segacity)...

So hyped for RPG Time, based solely upon the headline image used for this 10 ten list of BitSummit games (via @indiegameweb)...

Please enjoy yet another thing that I originally posted on a Saturday late at night, whatever time it might on your end right this second (via contac)...

Been a while since I’ve seen the handiwork of Joe Bleeps, largely since it’s been a while since I’ve been collecting Game Culture Snapshots; the man has certainly stepped up his game (boy mods) since way back when (via kotaku.com)...

Am also very much impressed by the Game Boy Macro, though once again, am super irritated that GBA games do not rest flush with the DS Lite’s body...

An example of function over form I guess (@gamesyouloved)...

Familiar with Line Wobbler? Ever wished you could play it on the go? Are you into demakes? For the Game Boy Advance? (via @diskmem)

Today’s corrupted GBA boot up sequence is (via corruptionasart)...

Can anyone tell what Famicom game we’re seeing that’s all glitched out? (via mendelpalace)...

My fave part of this NES 2 print ad is how, in order to truly drive the message of “EVOLVE OR BECOME EXTINCT” home, whomever felt it necessary to include a little picture of a dinosaur (via nintendometro)...

Was this an ad for the SNES? I ask because it’s considerably more sophisticated when compared to what you usually encountered in gaming rags at the time (via nintendometro)...

This ad for the GoldStar version of the 3DO, hailing from Korea, makes me so proud to be (half) Korean, you have no idea (via notablegamebox)...

This Space Invaders tribute piece is like the cover art to some 80s heavy metal record (via shmups)...

Meanwhile, the album art for the Metal Black soundtrack feels more Pink Floyd-ish than anything else (via reportal)...

As amazing as it would have been to attend a ZUNTATA concert 20 years ago, I desperately wanted to see them perform various Darius cuts live just the other week (via miki800.com)...

This cover art for a tribute album celebrating 25 years of Mega Man is still quite good, 31 years after the fact (via rnn-draws)...

My recommended reading this time is a comparison of all the various Mega Man sprites that have been, including a few that you may not be familiar with (via retrovania-vgjunk.blogspot.com)...

Apparently there was a Mega Man boss that was part arcade machine, but he only appeared in some mobile game, for f's sake Capcom (via mendelpalace)...

Guess now’s a good time to share another random game canter pic (via gogopri)...

Pathos at the game center, even among Sailor Scouts (via funnysailorm00n)...

A pride & joy of my personal collection is both the original retail Japanese release of Jet Set Radio & the available via Sega Direct only edition: De La Jet Set Radio (via videogameartarchive & videogameartarchive)...

Here's an alternate take on it’s alternate cover star (via @Drooling_Demon)…

Putting together the necessary gear to properly grind the streets of Tokyo-to (via kiroziki-cosplay)...

JSR tales place in a fictionalized, idealized interpretation of Japan, whereas this gif is a very realistic take, yup (via dehtyar)...

Meanwhile and elsewhere, somewhere in the United States of America it would seem (via behexagusthegreat)...

There's still dinner time in the future (via kirokazepixel)...

My contribution to #WorldGothDay (via it8bit)…

From dark & dreary, to warm & fuzzy, yet still black & white (via this old post from a few years back)...

Old photos of a Japanese school kid obsessing over the Famicom are somewhat dime a dozen, but the PC Engine? A very rare treat (via gamingremembrance)...

From black & white photographs of Japanese 80s kids playing consoles, to a full color animated gif of US 80s kids at the arcade (via tvneon)...

Time to wrap things up by touching upon something that kept me awfully busy over the past few: Death By Audio Arcade X Dreamhouse II. Here's a rather mysterious image that appeared on the FB event page, and which was utilized in my promotional push...

... Did it work? You’ll have to find out in my part 2 of my Attract Mode X Tumblr: May 2018 recap! Due tomorrow. Maybe.

[squareallworthy]

Taking UBI seriously part 6: Dolan

This is the sixth in a serious of posts looking for a serious proposal for universal basic income. Previous posts:

A Budget-Neutral Universal Basic Income by Jensen et. al.

Basic Income – Why and How in Difficult Economic Times: Financing a BI in Ireland by Healy et. al.

Andrew Yang’s proposal as part of his presidential campaign

A variety of indicators evaluated for two implementation methods for a Citizen’s Basic Income by Malcom Torry

It’s Time to Think BIG! How to Simplify the Tax Code and Provide Every American with a Basic Income Guarantee by Allan Sheahen

In this post I will be looking at a UBI proposal by Ed Dolan, an economist and Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center. He set out his plan in a series of posts on the EconoMonitor blog (part 1, part 2, part 3) . The meat of the proposal is in part 2.

tl;dr: Not a serious plan. Vague on some of the tax measures, penalties to seniors on Social Security make the plan politically untenable, and worst of all, it’s a massive transfer of wealth AWAY from the poor

Like most UBI proposals, Dolan’s idea is to replace most current welfare spending, although he would leave health care spending (Medicaid and CHIP). Unlike most proposals, though, he replaces this with a benefit that falls far short of enough to live on, which calls into question whether this should be called a basic income at all.

His plan, in brief, is this: eliminate all federal means-tested welfare, except for health care programs. Eliminate some middle class entitlements such as the mortgage interest rate deduction and the personal exemption for income taxes. Divide the money equally among all US citizens (including children). Returees get the choice of the UBI or their current Social Security benefits, but not both. The budget is below, figures in billions of dollars.

Excluding those retirees who would rather keep their current Social Security benefits, Dolan figures on 259 million recipients, for a benefit of  $4452 per person.

Before I go on to what’s wrong with this, let me mention two things that Dolan got right. First, he left health care alone. Many people who propose replacing the current welfare system with UBI sweep up health care along with everything else, ignoring the fact that if you have $50,000 in medical expenses a year, a UBI of less than that is not going to leave you better off. And second, he gives the benefit equally to children and adults. Poverty is concentrated among children, so if you are trying to make a poverty-reduction program, you should prioritize children. A lot of UBI plans give children either a smaller benefit or nothing.

That said, $4452 per year isn’t nothing, but it’s not credible to call this a basic income if “basic” means “provides for basic survival needs.”  Using federal poverty guidelines for 2014 found here, that's 38% of the poverty level for an individual or 75% of the poverty level for a family of four. (Lower 48 only. Guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii are higher.)

And that’s before getting into specific problems with the components of Dolan’s budget, which I will tackle in reverse order.

Most retirees and disabled people on SSI are worse off

Dolan figures that there are about .42 million retirees on Social Security and 21 million people under 65 who receive Supplemental Security Income, most due to disability. His plan is to offer them either $4452 per year or their current benefit, whichever is greater. For most of them, their current benefit is the better deal, so Dolan figures 57 million people will keep what they’re currently getting and be no worse off.

Except that they will be worse off, because of Dolan’s other cuts. They will lose all of whatever welfare they are currently receiving, as well as the provisions in the tax code that Dolan calls middle class entitlements. Every one of those 57 million is going to lose something, because Dolan would eliminate the personal exemption on income taxes. For those 57 million, Dolan’s plan means all loss and no gain.

The AARP is never going to sit still for this, so I think Dolan’s plan is dead in the water on this provision alone.

 Vagueness on cuts to tax expenditures

Dolan wants to cut some federal tax expenditures for a total of $577 billion in new revenue, but he’s not clear on exactly what. He leaves out exclusion of taxes on health insurance plans, and then lists $174 billion in benefits to home owners, retirement savings exemptions at $145 billion, and deductions for charitable giving at $49 billion. The rest, which would come to $202 billion, would be a number of smaller tax measures.

But all tax expenditures, leaving out health-related ones, come to much more than $577 billion, so it’s not clear which ones Dolan is targeting. His link to a list of tax expenditures no longer works, but I believe he’s using these figures. Which of them make up the $202 billion in the miscellaneous category? The big ones would be capital gains ($76 billion), the step-up basis of capital gains at death ($66 billion), the child tax credit ($24 billion), exemption of Social Security income ($26 billion), exclusion of interest on state and local bonds ($29 billion), and deductibility of state and local taxes ($46 billion). Those come to $267 billion, and the smaller provisions would add a lot more. Since Dolan doesn’t say which ones he wants to eliminate, it’s impossible to figure who benefits from his plan and who pays.

Current welfare recipients are much worse off

Go back and look at that budget again. It takes $500 billion that currently goes to the poor and divides it up among everybody, poor, middle class, and rich alike. That means, obviously, that a lot less of that money is going to the poor.

To make up for this, Dolan adds another $653 billion and again, divides it among everybody, and again, that means most of it is not going to the poor.

If you’re trying to help poor people, don’t you think it would be a good idea to make sure they’re getting back at least the $500 billion you cut from welfare?

There are, let’s say, 50 million poor people in the US. Depending upon what you count as poverty, you get a different number, but 50 million is a nice round number and good enough for a sanity check on Dolan’s idea. At $4452 each, their share of the UBI payout is $222.6 billion. 

Poor people are getting back less than half of what they lose to welfare cuts. 

That’s a very rough estimate, but we can check it against data that Dolan had on hand: the report from the Cato Institute that he cited for his welfare numbers. Starting on page 11 of the report, there is a breakdown of the cost and the number of recipients for each program, which lets us calculate average welfare spending per participant. Here are the results for some of the larger programs.

Those are averages, of course, and in particular the number for TANF is not to be taken at face value because only about 25% of that goes to cash benefits. But it should raise some red flags. A thoughtful and responsible person would have done a little googling around.

Median combined SNAP and TANF cash benefits for a family of 3 in 2012 were $869 per month (source, p. 13), which is $10,428 per year. Dolan’s UBI for three people is $13,356, so substituting that for SNAP and TANF, the family is $2928 per year better off. But take away an average EITC of $2037 and school breakfast and lunch programs for two kids at $1203, and the family is now $312 worse off. And that’s before losing WIC, Head Start, Section 8, or any other program they might benefit from.

I have criticized the authors of other plans for not using a tax model to figure out who benefits and who pays, but Dolan couldn’t be bothered to run the simplest check to see if it’s even plausible that his plan works. That’s insultingly shoddy.

Having completely missed this little flaw in his plan, Dolan ends part 2 of his series with this statement:

My purpose here has simply been to show that a UBI within striking distance of the poverty level, as commonly understood, would , conceptually, be affordable without aggressively attacking the fortunes of upper income Americans and without raising anyone’s effective marginal tax rates.

Well you fucking failed at that. Ed Dolan, you are a professional economist with a PhD from Yale. I, an anonymous rando on Tumblr, have only taken one class in economics ever and that was at a second-rank state school. And yet I discredited your work with about two minutes of arithmetic. 

That being the case, I feel qualified to say that you are an innumerate nitwit and I wouldn’t trust you to add up a bar tab.

Oh, and if you take away the personal exemption you are obviously raising the effective marginal tax rate for at least some people. Good grief, think about what you’re saying for a moment.

Conclusion: this is a horrible plan that completely screws the poor, and the quality of the economics program at Yale must be pretty awful if this guy is any indication. 

[aijee]

hello! i’m the anon who left the 6-part ask regarding mg a few months ago (i refer to those asks bc i’m back to drop more thoughts about mg and might touch on what i previously said). i wrote this whole thing disregading word count, believing i could drop it all in one go because i managed to log in to my tumblr, but it seems i still have to break it up… lmao i don’t know how many parts this will be or if i could post it all tonight, but i will signify the very end with “6-part anon” :)

Cont’d with response under the cut (I made some executive decisions about where the paragraphs break lol so it’s not all one block of text):

they want to be famous; that part just came along with the package. then i read in your bts post, you see mg as more wrapped up in entertainment, having star power with a bright personality, liking the limelight. reading that, i do agree, but i guess ive never thought of that before. i think wanting to be a star and wanting to be in the spotlight can seem self-centered. i hope im not coming across like im judging everyone who wants to be famous as “bad” because that’s not what i’m trying to do, but i think it’s safe enough to say that wanting to be famous means wanting people’s attention on you. i’m trying to tread carefully but i suppose i am saying that on the surface, wanting to be a big star can seem a little selfish in the sense that you want to boost your image, present your best self at all times, want people’s eyes on you and want them to think good things about you. combining those general thoughts about wanting to be a star, with my thoughts about mg in particular, is interesting to me.

i’ve always seen him as someone so selfless, so lovely, so considerate towards others. throughout idotsc, you’ve written him throughout as someone so amiable, liked by everyone, and also selfless and considerate. and in chp 7, his reaction twds the pictures is... well, I think they’re pretty true to character, and again i think it shows selflessness. then the ‘Love Languages’ text that OP had written— while, of course, OP doesn’t know him and everything is an assumption to a certain degree, I think their writing summarizes in one place what I observed about mg through the content available to the public: he constantly gives to people around him, exhibiting sincerity, words of gratitude and acts of service. at the same time, i definitely agree with what you said about his star quality, so i think that was the first time i really stopped to examine my thoughts about stardom and how some things may not be mutually exclusive.

“stardom” also makes me think about his recent incident, because of course, such incidents are definitely a potential consequence of fame. during that time i’ve also come across several opinions saying that they’re not surprised if a current idol was a past bully… i don’t remember exactly what people said but i think it was somewhere along the lines of, if they were so confident and cocky since predebut, then they might have had the qualities of a bully. something like that. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others.

one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others. one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy.

i hope this all makes sense; i had lots of thoughts and wanted to try to write them. i struggled to understand why one would want to be a star, and went in circles questioning if i thought it was more selfish or selfless, and what one’s true motives might be behind wanting fame. ik u implied u embrace long writing bc you also write in length, but i’m less eloquent than you are so i hope this was fine! thank you again for having a space where people could offload their thoughts :) ~6-part anon~

There’s a lot to unpack here, isn’t there! A buffet of food for thought, for sure. I can’t possibly respond to everything written here because there’s just so many points, so I’ll write a few points. As always, take what I write with a grain of salt.

I don’t think there’s anything bad or inherently wrong with pointing out that, hey, people who are interested in a profession necessarily tied to a public image probably to show off or want attention. These things are perfectly natural to want, even for people who aren’t celebrities, because we’re (1) inherently social creatures and a lot of our survival is contingent on external success, and (2) we are brought up to feel validation from others, especially in an age where our lives are much more on display. But I can see why “selfishness” may be thrown in the mix because we often look down on attention-seekers and “popular” people, many of whom exhibit arrogant/tone-deaf behaviors. On the other hand, it’s understandable that an idol with a big public image necessitates putting their best foot forward all the time to maintain good opinion of them and to earn more money, frankly.

I’ve probably repeated myself too many times, but something I’ve been grappling with recently is this black-and-white mindset/judgment system we often have of others (very much exacerbated by social media, e.g. witch hunts). Bad is bad, good is good. I’ve thought this way for a long time of myself in an upbringing that always punished/looked down on bad behavior (or what was considered behavioral flaws, like speaking out against elders, swearing as a femme person, etc.) rather than acknowledging that “bad” behavior can be exhibited by people who also do and act “good.” In short, while I can only speak from my perspective, I think we’re programmed to subconsciously seek behavioral perfection for a number of reasons: we were raised that way by family; and/or society; we feel judged by the presence of social media and greater access into our lives; accessibility to celebrities and “perfect” public figures makes us judge ourselves by comparison; education systems that poorly address internal learning as well as external learning, etc.

In Mingyu’s case, there’s nothing wrong with seeing and continuing to see him as all those good qualities in my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with grappling with potential past problematic behaviors of your faves, as long as you’re critical and open-minded about the parties involved (which is rarely ever a fanbase at large, but the skewed authority of a fanbase is a different can of worms). Idols are human, which means dealing with the good and bad that comes with interacting humans. Contrary to popular belief (and I write this sarcastically), people CAN change. People should be ALLOWED to change. Characters are static. People are not. And it’s sad to say that this is still an issue in the K-Pop world. 

As hard as it sounds, a person who bullied others in the past could still have good or pure intentions for becoming an idol. They could still feel fulfillment from making others happy; is that a bad thing? I personally don’t think so. Or maybe a person’s intentions for becoming an idol could be mixed good or bad, who the fuck knows? Not us. Honestly, I firmly believe that we fans don’t have the right to make definitive moral judgments of idols in the first place because we don’t know them personally. That, and people are extremely complex and hard to categorize, as much as we want to because it’s easier to do so. People are messy. Real life teaches us that more than the Internet does imo.

In any case, I don’t think selfishness and selflessness are mutually exclusive in the same way a person can be both good and bad. I learned that language, too, is a powerful vehicle that influences how we think. In that vein, with how compartmentalized definitions are in specific words, perhaps we think that their existence/practice is separate, i.e. being “selfish” is never being “selfless” because each word’s definition exists solely in their respective word and not the other (hopefully that makes some sense).

TL;DR: I think wanting attention and validation from others is okay and not inherently a bad thing, and people are fucking messy and rarely good without the bad (and vice versa).

Pretty sure I rambled a ton as well and probably didn’t hit that many points that you offered, anon. You ended up putting me on a thought train as well!

[lubdubsworld]

Tumblr Prompt ( Min yoongi * OC)

arranged marriage angst. okay, so Yoongi comes back by popular demand. let’s watch him struggle to win her back. okay... lights camera, action.

....Read the rest of the stuff here : 

Part 1         Part 2         Part 3       part 4

~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 5/6

“This is one of the first pieces i designed. it’s called ,  Aeturnum. which is the Latin word for eternal. The necklace is made of sterling silver, something that has long been associated with magic . The stone used here is a ‘ Cat’s eye foiled cabochon. It looks like its holds the galaxies in it, doesn’t it? And it also looks so warm and full of love? and i thought, if anything is eternal, it’s the universe we live in. And the love that we fill it with...” 

I finished nervously , nodding at the applause. So far the room, filled with about 50 to 60 of the leading antique jewelry collectors in the country had been silent. they had reacted positively to most of the pieces. And I knew that this last one would be the most important. 

it would also be the most difficult . 

i took a deep breath. 

“People talk about recovery often. there are so many books describing how you can build yourself up. But no one talks about the fall. Because no one wants to relive it. “

I swallowed, taking a small sip of the water on the table. 

“A year ago, I thought i  lost something very.. valuable to me. i spent weeks trying to get it back. i wanted to go back in time and redo everything till i had that... thing again.  But funnily, what i never realized was that it had never been mine to lose.” 

I carefully shifted around, pulling the lever that would make the lots fall in place, revealing the extravagant necklace in lapis blue. The colors flashed bright in the dim lighting and i felt my heart lurch, as i remembered the tears i’d spilled, the broken syllables of his name just stuttering out without my permission as I slaved over that perfect cut. 

“this one is called fulgur which is latin for lightning. it describes the moment you lay your eyes on that special someone. it’s like you’ve been hit by a flash of lightning, something that has changed you forever. No matter how things work out, you’re no longer the person you were before you saw him/her. you’re changed , forever. it’s aquamarine, lapis lazuli and sapphire. ” 

I hesitated before grabbing the second lever. 

“This one is called  mirage. Which we all know is nothing but an illusion. it’s when you see things that don’t exist. You see meaning in meaningless touches and you convince yourself that what you’re seeing and feeling is real. when in fact it isn’t. when in fact, you aren’t really as important as you think you are. this stone is called the margarita stone. There’s a rhinestone pin set in the center with rose cut diamonds all around.  “ 

I took another look around the room before composing myself. why was this so damn difficult. 

“the third one is called error, which is latin for delusion. it’s when you feed your illusion, so much so that it starts becoming a delusion. you start giving parts of yourself to this person, convincing yourself that he loves you , just the way you love him and so you start losing parts of your soul, not knowing that when he leaves he’s going to take those parts of you with him and you’re just.. never going to be complete again. “ 

 just get this over with.

“ And finally... This is called Supernova. This is when all you mistakes come together and explode, destroying all your delusions and leaving behind a black hole of emptiness. You’ve lost everything that mattered to you, because the only thing that ever mattered was him , and now that he’s gone you can’t function. This is just Obsidian Stones. pure black and nothing else. “ 

I caught sight of movement out of the corner of my eye and went completely still when i saw the figure at the side entrance, leaning against the ornate door. 

And there he was, looking so good that my breath hitched and my jaw went slack. i stared at him, the lean frame, the broad shoulders. The perfectly styled ash blonde hair and the iridescent complexion. He was staring right at me. Dark eyes heavy as he watched me. 

 i saw the way some of the women turned around to get a second look. a better look. Because Min Yoongi was the sort of person, who made you look twice. 

With Yoongi , once would never be enough. 

you couldn’t just look once and ignore someone like that. You had to go back and reassure yourself that yes, he’s real. it’s not a dream after all. He’s real and he;s perfect and he’s there....  . 

My Lightning. My illusion. My delusion. My mirage .

Of course he’d be back. the moment i’d heard from a friend that Min yoongi was back in Seoul, i’d known that he would be back. 

with Yoongi once would never be enough. 

Not even when it came to breaking my heart. 

“The entire collection speaks of the crash. Because while healing is beautiful, heartbreak can be too. the crash and burn of emotions that go uncontrolled. Wild fire that burns down whole forests. And something beautiful , can come out of something tragic. Like these pieces. i hope you will recognize it for the sentimental value it carries and cherish it accordingly. “ 

As the exhibit ended and everyone began mingling freely, i slowly started putting the pieces in place. I knew he was making his way towards me and i was proud of myself for not turning tail and running. 

“Y/n.” He said softly and my name... on his tongue was just as sweet as it had always been. i smiled as i turned to look at him. His cologne still hit me like a truck and the sight of him, so close and so... reachable. touchable. it did things to me. i wanted to touch. To reach out, unbutton this shirt and press my palm to his chest, feel the warmth of his skin , the vibrato of his heartbeat and the heat of his muscles, firm beneath my fingers. 

it was like being hit by lightning , all over again. 

But i wasn’t an idiot.

“Did you enjoy the show, Doctor?” i said softly. He hesitated. 

“Y/n....”

“It was inspired by you after all. “ i said , still smiling and he flinched. 

“I should go.” He said stiltedly. 

i nodded. 

“You really should.” i said coolly, before turning back around to fix the jewelry. 

When I turned again, he was gone. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From : unknown.  10:43 PM

 Did you really have to do that, baby?  A bullet would have been kinder, if you were trying to kill me.

To : Unknown  10:45 PM

 yoongi?

From : unknown. 10:50 PM

Yeah.. it’s me... I... Hi. 

 I stared at the words , feeling helplessly lost and miserable. 

He did not have the right to do this to me. He really didn’t. But then... this was Yoongi. And without thinking too much i typed out the first thought that came into my head. 

To : Yoongi  10:55 PM[ unsent]

Why did you leave ?? [draft]

 i didn’t send it of course. A few minutes later my phone pinged again. 

From : Yoongi. 11.00 PM

i know i don’t have the right to say this... but... I’m sorry. i know the words don’t mean anything. i know you hate me and i won’t ask you to forgive me. i don’t deserve your forgiveness but.... I’m just... i’m happy. that you seem happy now. You’re successful and I know that you’re dating Seokjin. I’m happy for you. i really am. 

 I gripped the edge of my pillow biting my lips hard in annoyance. 

To : Yoongi 10:55 PM [ unsent]

Why did you come back?? [draft]

From : Yoongi. 12.50 AM

Good night, sweetheart. 

~~~~~~~~

“After spending an year in one of the prestigious universities in the World, Dr. Min Yoongi returned to Korea, last  week, only to have a mammoth fall out with his parents , who hold major shares in the Min Super Specialty Hospital in Seoul. The cause of the disagreement hasn’t been made public but close associates speculate that this has something to do with Dr. Yoongi’s very public divorce earlier this year.

The elder Min made it very clear that he did not approve of the divorce. But their personal feud spilled into their commercial life when Mr. Min announced that he would be withdrawing his support to the Hospital, from March.

As of today, Dr. Yoongi officially has announced that he intends to buy out his parents from the board of Directors to take full ownership of the hospital.

this is both extremely reckless and unwise, because the Mins have a net worth of 200 Billion Won ( approx 20 million USD ) in terms of shares and there is no doubt that this move will pauper Dr. Min Yoongi , especially because his hospital specializes in offering free and top quality healthcare to children...”

“ Y/N!! What are you watching?”

I moved to turn the TV off but it was too late. My sister stepped into the room, caught a glimpse of Yoongi’s face on the screen and her nostrils flared.

i jumped when my sister pulled the plug out of the outlet, causing the TV to fizzle out. She turned around to glare at me, eyes flashing with so much anger and annoyance that i recoiled.

“unnie... i was just...”

“what did i tell you about this?”

I sighed.

“He’s in trouble... i can’t just...”

“Can’t what? Can’t throw him away? Well, here’s news for you. He did the throwing! He threw you out like last night’s dinner and walked out of your life. So, it’s time you stopped watching and thinking and fucking caring about him...”

“I.. i don’t care about him..” I lied softly and she scoffed.

“No. Hell no.You do not have any excuse to watch this crap.  i will not sit here and watch you fall into that fucking rabbit hole again Y/N... he divorced you. He left you without so much as an explanation... he does not deserve that look you have on your face right now, alright. He does not... . it’s over. you do not have anything to do with him anymore. “

it’s not that easy. it’s not easy because this isn’t him. this is something bigger and stronger and more important than any heartbreak i may have experienced.

“I’m not going to do anything stupid, I just... he can’t possibly scrap up 20 million USD.” i said impatiently. “ it’s not for him.. it’s the hospital. You know how important that hospital is unnie.. So many kids and families depend on it and I just... i don’t want Yoongi to lose the Hospital...”  

And I don’t want Yoongi to lose his dreams.... i don’t want hurting. Did both of us have to be unhappy? I was suffering as it was so did he have to suffer too? It didn’t seem fair somehow....

“Are you serious? You want to help him now... after everything he did to you...”

“i want to help the hospital. There’s a difference. A huge difference. And i just.. i have an idea. “

“Y/N... Are you out of your mind? You actually want to see him again, that makes no sense..”

I sank into the seats, feeling defeated. Did i want to see him? No. Not really. At least not in the way my sister thought. I wanted to see him, just to remind myself that he was happy without me. That perhaps, letting me go had been good for him.

I thought that might help me move on.

But it didn’t work that way. i still loved him . Maybe more than he deserved. But then when was love a quantified commodity? If we only ever got the love we deserved, would anyone ever be loved enough?

If you only loved someone because they loved you back, how many people would you find to love anyway?

“I want to help him. I’ll always want to help him.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Maybe move the amethyst and jade on to the left? I think the rhinestone necklace and the bullet cabochon need to be on the second set of exhibits.” i said, scribbling down the instructions on a piece of paper, and watching one of Seokjin’s men carefully move the pieces as instructed.

“This is pretty damn amazing. all the tickets are sold-out. Not bad for a first time exhibition. “ Seokjin winked, giving me a one armed hug , his smile wide and happy.

I grinned and stretched my neck up to kiss his cheek.

“all thanks to you and Chae Rin unnie.... You guys really didn’t have to do this.”

“Come on, it’s the least we can do after you helped us out with Chae Rin’s show last month.”

Chae Rin’s fashion festival had hit a rut when her jewelry designer had taken ill all of a sudden. I’d designed jewelry for her entire line in a short time and in repayment, Seokjin and his sister had sponsored my first exhibition in Seoul. i was still completely overwhelmed by the attention and the flooding reviews and orders. it was surreal.

With Chae Rin endorsing my brand , almost the entirety of Seoul’s elite had become potential customers and long time clients in the space of a few weeks. i’d just shifted to a bigger studio last week, and the orders were still coming. I still worked alone though so most of those piece had a three month waiting period and amazingly the clients really didn’t seem to mind. Apparently, they absolutely adored the thought of wearing something that was handmade and customized , just the way they wanted.

“i think this is going to be a good show. “ i said with a smile, grabbing the clipboard and running my finger through the pieces, feeling a bit like I was dreaming. A dream that i could perhaps reach.

in the wake of that thought came a sharp searing pain right in my gut.

a dream..  

But not the one I’d dreamed so hard and so long, i thought bleakly.

“He’s back.” I said softly. Seokjin frowned.

“what?”

“Yoongi. He’s back in Seoul.” I sighed.

Seokjin looked surprised.

“i think he’s in trouble. I just.... I know i shouldn’t care but Seokjin... is there anyway you could help me meet him?”

Seokjin looked torn.

“Y/N...”

“it’s just.... there’s something i think will help him... help the hospital, I mean. i just want to make sure that he doesn’t have to lose out on the hospital...”

“Please tell me this isn’t about the...”

“We could make it an auction...” i said desperately. i didn’t really want to talk about Yoongi with Seokjin. this thing with Seokjin was still new and budding and i didn’t want to wreck it before it even began.

“Y/N! it’s your first exhibit... You can’t just make it an auction and...”

“of course we can. Look, i have it all planned out. I’ll have a pre-show,  during which i’ll talk about each piece and tell it’s story. anyone who buys it can get a one on one consulting with me and i can tell them exactly how and why the necklaces were made. Women like that. if they realize that the jewel has a special meaning, they’ll pay more for it. . Trust me, it will work. i’ll work hard for it... i can..”

“Y/N ...is it even worth it to...”

“Please..just... please Seokjin. Let me do this.” I felt my breath hitch. “ Yoongi saves lives. He saves helpless children. Nothing can be worth more than that....”

Seokjin sighed, gently wrapping his arms around me in a hug.

“okay, sweetheart. But that bastard better fucking apologize for the shit he pulled. You’re too good for him. You need someone who will cherish you for the amazing woman that you are. ” he said fondly, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. 

I hesitated, hating the way it was Yoongi’s face that flashed through my head , everytime Seokjin kissed me. 

[sheusedtobesassier]

Day 10,311

In the mood to express but having a hard time starting because I’ve got maybe eight directions I’d like to go in with this but um, they don’t really have much to do with each other? So. I don’t like to write without continuity. I don’t enjoy it. I want there to be a flow. But. Tonight I’m happy to say fuck it.

Five lamps on. An empty container that had blackberries in, some Spicy Cajun Crawtators lol, and maybe 10% left of a bottle of water. Make that 2%. Paused Shameless, fourth episode of season 9. Took a eight o’clock shower so my hair is top notch currently. Took the shower without music because I needed, mm let me find the word. it’s not grounding but it’s something along those lines. Ally does it with Alayna to calm her she’s having fits, but I can’t think of it. Something to do with sensation? Anyways. Took a shower in silence because I can’t have anything coming in right now. No external factors. There is basically never not noise right now. There is never a soft place to land. Wait that’s not true. I currently have a new bedroom that so quickly became cluttered and safe. That deserves a big hell yes.

Things to look forward to this summer in no specific order of importance and/or place on the calendar:

1. Genevieve’s wedding festivities.

2. Finishing Shameless.

3. Hamilton comes out on Disney+.

4. Hopefully getting a part time job.

5. Reading the few books I brought with me.

6. Going teal for the summer.

7. Endless opportunities for quality time with the girls.

8. Becoming buddies with Jayden Michael Lee.

9. Receiving my final CAUSEBOX.

10. Hopefully receiving my 2019 refund and PUA money.

11. Filling up the strawberries journal.

12. Drinking a lot of Jeremiah’s beer.

13. Helping Ally and being helped by her.

14. Weightless interactions with strangers.

15. DRINKING A LOT OF STARFUCKINGBUCKS.

16. Consistent walks with Tuck Boy.

17. A lot a lot a lot a lot of time that is mine.

18. Oklahoma!

Addey just popped her little head in to tell me she loves me before going to bed. That girl. Sleeps in just her panties. Dedicated herself to figuring out how to do her own ponytails a couple afternoons ago and was overjoyed every time she pulled it off. “That’s an important thing for a girl to know how to do.” She thrills me.

What’s happening in the Black community right now is gigantic. I don’t know if I’m allowed to be hopeful, but I think I am. I mean, most of my experience this week has been being really unsure of what I’m allowed to do as a white girl but. I’m trying. And accepting that me trying is potentially awkward or worse problematic but not trying isn’t acceptable. So. I will do my best not to knock shit over as I MOSTLY LISTEN. Listening keeps feeling like not doing enough? But. Whatever. I wrote somewhere else and will now write here, I can handle my own discomfort because I am not who this is hard for. I am not the center of this and dear God I hope this is my time to learn how to decenter.

Dear God, How do I learn how to decenter? Amen.

Here are a few takes that keep getting reposted that I am the bullseye for. (Omfg did you see that? Did you see me immediately literally center myself?! The fuck.)

1. Limit your response to what is of real, tangible help to us. Give money, call your reps, protect Black people at protests, elevate our work and voices. Don't make us swim through your tears while we fight.

2. white people be like “idk i don’t wanna be performative” bitch you like musical theater

3. White men are socialized to think everyone cares what they have to say & white women are socialized to think everyone cares how they FEEL.

I mean. Nah I won’t write what I was going to because I think it’s just an attempt to relieve the tension of feeling like I might be perceived as useless here. I want my ally badge. Gold star for making the effort. But it’s not like that right? It’s not like that. I’d write if I had a secondhand story to tell you about something real, something other than my hard but then not actually that hard white experience. Idk. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself? But then at the same time, GOT A SINKING FEELING THAT I’M A LANA DEL REY HERE. Like. Still unsure why what she said qualified her for being burnt at the stake. Like genuinely confused, not defensive. Idk. MORE LISTENING RIGHT? More listening. Listening and listening and recognizing when the conviction is trying to move me. (Lol writing that literally makes me want to go post a flowery Facebook status. Get me the hell out of here.)

LIKE MAYBE I SUCK FOR HOW MUCH I LIKE SHAMELESS. DOES THIS SHOW SUCK? IDK. PROBABLY. WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?

Look decentering is maybe what I need to learn period. Across the board. Maybe that’s what tanked being in love? Like with Omar and maybe way back then with Brandon too? (He got engaged last week. The sky is falling.) I just. I’m a girl in love with her own narrative maybe. Like, willingly taking on the role of manic pixie dream girl and not trying that hard to shirk it. Like I’m putting it in my goddamn Tinder bio. That is? Idk maybe it’s a bigger problem than I realize. Passing as quirky when actually I’m one of the most selfish women in the universe. Like I think that might be really real? And I know the people who love me would try to persuade me otherwise but. Idk. Self obsessed as fuck masquerading as strong independent woman who don’t need no man.

SHE’S GOTTA DECENTER Y’ALL. PRAYERS APPRECIATED. UNSPOKEN JUDGEMENT NOT ONLY ANTICIPATED BUT WELCOME.

The last time I went fully blonde I went into the salon noticeably stuffy and really nervous about a bad interaction. Had a lovely little time chatting with the blue haired wonder lady who was doing the work for me. At first she was like, “Oh you probably just have allergies.” But then once she heard my cough she got wary. Which. Of course she did. How disgusting to be getting paid to be up close and personal with a plagued woman. I wilted and told her she had my full permission to talk shit about me later to the other girls. And I 100% meant it. Ultimately, that’s probably my core objective. Giving permission to anybody who encounters me to come to the conclusion that your girl suhhhhcks. I do. You have my personal guarantee. You might like it about me haha, but I suck.

I’m not doing well and making light of it on Tumblr might help?

A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING WAY WORSE THAN ME, OKAY?!

I want to write about Omar because I always have something to write about Omar but hey maybe if I don’t write more than this short paragraph then that counts for something. To be able to miss him the amount that I miss him AND ALSO leave him the fuck alone. I thought last night that maybe it would be a good thing to thank him for what I learned from him regarding the fucked upness of being white but like. I immediately disregarded that thought because of the heavier thought that he might regret putting so much effort into a well spoken white girl who turned out to be consistently complicit. What a disappointment? Lol oh fuck I said a short paragraph. Get rid of me.

[trebaolsmovingcastle]

Some political bone reading...

What I’m going to do is less proper analysis, and more instinctual assessment of what I’ve seen from last night till now in the different places I absorb media, and what my senses tell me will be one of the many possible outcomes.

Not an accurate prediction, just, mood...perceived possible outcome etc.

Anyway...over the years I’ve picked up a really good selection of blogs on here, skewing to the left but covering a broad enough spectrum that it’s a pretty solid snapshot of what ‘intellectual leftists’ are talking about. Like a big ol’ moodboard. 

I also have Facebook which I scroll through...not actually reading anything, just seeing what my family, extended family, friends family, and various high school acquaintances are looking at or talking about. This is like a snapshot of your average left of center occasionally moderate conservative collection of folks, this is in essence a look at a majority of Americans and their news feed.

Then I have my haphazard newsfeed, I’m not good at narrowing stuff down, so it’s a pretty broad collection of news focused on US government.

When I want to feel the mood of parts of the country, I look at all three and see what I get in terms of crossover.

Tumblr is really good at spreading news very fast about stuff, and especially for rapidly building, spreading, then dismantling or altering political philosophy. Analysis and competing ideas about what an event ‘means’ seems to be what Tumblr is good at in looking at it. It goes overboard a lot, but hey, now you can see the various rabbit holes you need to go down to realize hostess cupcakes are problematic for reasons beyond the villainy of modern food production.

SO WHAT’S THE POINT?! Now that I’ve laid out my methods and sources for scrying the news and opinion, here’s what I see.

The left is scared shitless to talk about a Bernie Bro gunman going Taxi Driver on a congressional baseball team. I found out about Covfefe before the news did. I in fact have learned more about current events and what’s happening in government via tumblr spreading news (even as they tag it with WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS EVENT THAT HAPPENED 16 SECONDS AGO???) than even my regularly checking my actual news feed.

Tumblr is mum about the shooting, at least from where I’m sitting with my 300 odd politically focused blogs I follow. It’s not just a grim vigil of ‘here’s an article about this, no comment’ it’s actual crickets and blogs all looking at one another waiting to see if anyone wants to bring up that a dude who criticized the President as a traitor took direct action against the GOP, and what that might mean for the rest of us...who call the President a traitor.

Facebook, always eager to talk about current events...also mum. though the conservative parts seem excited, oh and there’s some videos floating around of the importance of Confederate monuments...so that’s where the rights mood is still apparently on there.

What’s my news feed? What is basically the spigot of news that will be thrown out into the countryside to see what sticks?

The GOP are martyrs. The Left are terrorists...actual terrorists. SJW isn’t just a politically delusiuonal individual, they’re bomb throwing anarchists. The President is a hero who has shown incredible humility and is healing the wounds of a nation. The Left and the Right have come together to say how incredible he is, and how good he is at not tweeting something insensitive. There’s articles from actual Nazis, treated as reasonable sources, discussing the need to stop the media from promulgating hate. There are articles about the need to support the President now, put all complaints behind us, forget any issues we have and move on. I should point out, these aren’t even lone articles, this is a stream of multiple outlets reporting similar articles saying the same things, so a dearth of ‘the left are terrorist thugs’, attacks on antifa, Republicans saying they’ve never done anything wrong ever in their life, and discussions about how to get the left to stop being so hateful towards Der Trumpenfuhrer.

What I’m not getting is anything insightful that isn’t a kind of dog whistle for ‘heave to the right, stop the liberals.’

The GOP controls this narrative, they’re speaking of persecution, of dissent as treason, of opposition or even the hint of discontent as being dangerous to society. Meanwhile...I’m seeing the left talking about Russia probes, special counsels, and best of all, Bernie socialists and things he’s introducing or saying to promote a more left leaning set of policies.

All of that is now a fiction, it’s like reading fantasy stories while your house burns down around you. Because you have a shooter, who has claimed he’s a Bernie socialist, who just tried to rearrange some congressman's internal districts. Guess who is politically dead? Guess who’s movement is now inextricably tied to the classic scary image of anarchist bomb throwing terrorists who will kill anyone they want to get political action? Guess who’s Russia probe, and obstruction of justice investigations...even if found to be be completely legitimate and providing actionable legal evidence of crimes committed by the President and his cabinet, will no doubt be brushed under the rug and ignored for the sake of ‘order and continuity.’ It’s the left, it’s anyone who is actively left of center, surprise, one single gunman is enough to shut up an entire wing of a political movement...except when the gunman is right wing, then it’s just some poor confused soul.

When some right winger does this the left gets agitated, speaks of violence being promoted by the right, then the right immediately responds with everything and the kitchen sink to argue that it was never and could never be their fault because they’re patriots. What is the left doing right now? Licking Trump’s ass or pretending it never happened, leaving the GOP to basically run their mouths about the horrors of the left and set the tenor for this going forward.

Oh, and better yet, now the democrats are getting their phone calls and threats that they’re next. So if this turns into a literal war between right wing fascist militia gun nuts assassinating Democrats because the gloves are off and the GOP has labeled the left as basically enemies of the state for not kissing ass hard enough...well won’t we be in a pickle?

But who knows. Maybe this total lack of quality analysis of this shooting and a seeming lack of interest in the left of admitting that the terror of living with this government drove a dude to try and actively kill representatives of the government isn’t a big deal. Maybe this wont be Trump’s cabinets Reichstag fire moment to push his bloated ass into a dictator in all but names seat so they can fleece the country harder than before in the guise of ‘unity’ governing.

Cuz come on, lets be real here. This dude did this for actual reasons. When a right wing gun nut blasts a school or a business or whatever...it’s for reasons. It’s because they were told day in and out about encroaching sharia law, or the danger of immigrants, or the gays. When a Bernie voter goes out and takes action with a rifle, you gotta ask...’why?’ and surprise the answer is that maybe just maybe government is so fucked up that the relatively benign left is beginning to radicalize to the point where the only plausible solution to being stepped on by government until death is to kill the government.

So what are we going to get? News articles about how it’s not republican governance that drove this man to take up arms, it’s the narrative that the President is likely actually a traitor and more than likely committed real crimes that the GOP absolutely refuses to acknowledge. Big surprise there, the left are guilty for Republican’s inability to actually uphold their oaths of office and preference for party loyalty over national loyalty. Donald Trump could literally have a billionaire ask to personally buy Virginia from him for use as a coaling station for his banana republic, and it wouldn’t be a ethics violation from the GOP, it would be the democrats fault for making a stink about business Making America Great Again.

Anyway, that’s my current view from where I’m sitting of the national tenor.

[themadcapmathematician]

all i know abt transformers is the shia movie and the fact that darren criss plays one in the cartoons i think? should i get into transformers is what i'm asking

Oh god this is my favorite question. I’m not sure how to answer it but its my fave. Pull up a chair. I hope you’ve got some time on your hands.

The short answer: yes. You should at least give it a try. Transformers is a 30+ year old muti-media franchise that gets rebooted almost every 3 years so it basically has something interesting to offer almost any fan. If you end up not liking it that’s cool but there’s a lot to try before you decide.

The long answer is: yes you should and here’s why and here’s a rough idea of all the options you have to sample. I’m about to go on a long rant anon so you can check it out now or later or whatever but I’m just warning you ahead of time.

The basic Transformers plot (which I’m sure you know but I’m gonna go more in depth in a minute) is that a race of giant robot aliens who can turn into vehicles and other things have been engaged in a civil war that has lasted millions of years. This is the basic plot that all tf franchises spawn from although some explore slightly different subject matters. If that doesn’t appeal to you I mean there /might/ be a few other things you might find worth sticking around for because there’s just so fucking much of it, but you’re welcome to turn back now because that’s the basic things tf has to offer: giant robot aliens, cars and planes, fighting, some drama. Those are what tf is best at, with some variation.

It has a very active and long lived fan base and each section of the fan base is interested in different stuff with some crossover. There are people who literally only care about collecting the toys, people who wont try any other series except g1, people who only like the comics, etc. Etc. You’ll probably find people who like what you do pretty readily. If you like the toys there are toy forums and blogs. If you like the cartoons there are forums and blogs made for that too. If you like the comics, same. There’s a pretty active following of the comics and cartoon series on Tumblr alone; I would try searching the #maccadam tag since most tf activity has been moved there since the bay movies came out. Id also use the tf wiki liberally because it has pm all the information you’ll need to know about the fandom and the canon lore. There’s also plenty of fan fiction on Ao3 and ff.net if you’re into that and pm anyplace that hosts fan art has tf fan art.

Now there are several series, including comics, cartoons, the Michael bay films, the cartoon movie, spin off books, and video games. I’m gonna go over my personal favorites because I like and know them best but there are more than these if you’re interested in digging deeper.

(More under the cut)

G1: there are a lot of forms of what fans refer to as Generation 1 or G1 but if you live in the US its likely they’re talking about the very first cartoon series.

Summary: the autobots and the decepticons stripped their planet of resources and went looking for a new planet to continue surviving on. They both crashlanded on earth where they lay dormant for millions of years until conveniently awakened somewhere during the 1980s, where they continue their war all over again

Why you should try it: listen its cheesy as hell and full of nonsense plotlines and animation errors but not only is it good fun but at least watching an episode or two might give you a decent grasp on what spawned this enormous franchise in the first place.

G1 movie: this movie was a game changer. Its technically right in the middle of the g1 cartoon but it works as a standalone film too. while it has many trappings of the cartoon its better animated and has a more consistent and dramatic story.

Summary: Optimus Prime and Megatron fight, OP dies (yes he fucking DIES for the very first time. thousands of 10 year olds bawl their eyes out), Megatron gets mortally wounded, and the Matrix of Leadership (aka an autobot holy item/macguffin [this is the proto-cube btw]) has to choose a new leader.

Why you should try it: decent animation, classics lines, tons of 80s rock music, and it establishes a lot of tf conventions that would be carried over to all series that come after it.

Beast Wars: haha the 90s couldn’t be left out of the transformers fun, now could it? This was one of the first all-cg cartoon series in history and while its not much to look at nowadays, it was a big step in the 90s.

Summary: the series doesn’t center on Optimus Prime and Megatron but their decendants. The war is long over but some factions are starting to clash once again. Several members of these factions do the whole “crash land on earth while fighting” thing except they wake up during times before humans and instead of taking vehicle modes, they take animal forms, thus the name.

Why you should give it a try: it establishes the idea of Sparks for the first time, it has historical significance in the cgi realm, and it has a decent storyline with interesting characters. If you can muscle through the 90s-computer-animation look it might be the show for you!

Transformers: Animated: I dont think its a secret that this is one of my favorite tf series of all times. It was the first cartoon series I ever watched of tf and it also features my favorite toy line.

Summary: Optimus Prime is much less a war hero and more of a ..janitor really. He flunked out of the academy and spends his time repairing space bridges. One time during repairs though, they stumble across the Cube and just their luck, Megatron and some nearby cons are looking for it. They portal away to earth where they, you guessed it, crashland, until they’re awoken sometime in the future and go on adventures in futuristic Detroit.

Why you should give it a try: I like tfa’s art style and story and characterisation best tbh; Optimus is younger and more unsure of himself but also more earnest, with more visible baggage. The rest of his team feel like a ragtag band of misfits (which I have a weakness for no lie lmfao) who are still trying to find their place in this conflict and the future ahead of them. Sari is also one of the more beloved human companions and the show’s take on classics characters feels fresh and interesting, and the interpretation of the autobots and decepticons themselves is surprisingly nuanced.

Transformers: Prime: remember that 90s animation? Kiss that shit good bye my friend. This cgi is some beautiful shit. More than a few fans wish tfp is the art direction the movies had taken, storyline aside.

Summary: the autobots are already on earth, staking it out and fighting a more subdued sort of conflict with the cons. One day they get some human kids involved and stumble across some conspiracy shit and it all spirals out of control from there.

Why you should give it a try: great animation and atmosphere, gorgeous character designs, a solid interpretation go the characters, and it offers a more serious take on the story over all.

Rescue Bots: I’ve noticed this show doesn’t make the list a lot which is a shame? It has a much younger audience than any of then other series but its still quality and one of my fave tf series.

Summary: the ship of four non-combatants who were left in stasis before the war detect a transmission telling autobots to go to earth, so it…goes to earth. There they wake up on some island and are told they’ve gotta start building a repatoire with the native species…but they can’t reveal that they’re sentient aliens yet.

Why you should give it a try: ok ok, most of the series are made for 7-12 year olds with the teen and adult fans sort of in mind, this show…is a show made for pre-K kids, no joke. Its a lot less…murder-y, and this is especially saying something because it came out at the same time TFP did and in fact is supposed to take place in the same universe!

BUT, but it has a consistently well-written story and characterization, it addresses stuff I never thought it would, and its a nice break from the ridiculously high stakes of the other series. Honestly Rescue Bots is great and I wish more people talked about it because its a series totally worth watching, certainly as much as any of the others.

More Than Meets the Eye comics: there are a lot of comic series but so far this is my favorite one lol

Summary: the war is over, Optimus is done with everyone’s shit and splits the matrix in half, giving one to rodimus and they other to bumblebee. And what does roddy do with his newfound matrix half? Decide he’s going on a quest of course! And who better to go with than literally every unqualified misfit the autobot and neutral factions have to offer?

Why you should give it a try: ridiculous shenanigans, horror, drama, intrigue, strong characterisation, and a killer aesthetic. Damn it may not always give me what I want but its got a lot of exactly what I’m always looking for.

There are some video games (Fall of Cybertron, War For Cybertron, Transformers: Devastation), other comic series (Robots in Disguise, G1/UK comics), and the Robots in Disguise cartoon, however I don’t have a decent enough grasp on them to describe them super well I just know they’re pretty good and have had people recommend them to me. You’re welcome to try those as well of course.

Also if you’re into toy collecting or want to get into it there’s a lot of materials you can read and such but my personal advice is pretty simple:

1) go to walmart, target, a store that sells collectibles, a convention, or a garage sale

2) buy a cheap toy that you like. Don’t spend over like $20

3) decide if that was a fun experience or not and if you like having this toy or not

If you liked it enough to keep buying, then congrats, toy collecting might be right for you! Do your research, Don’t blow too much money too quickly, take it easy, have fun.

But yeah sorry this is really long but I do hope you consider giving transformers a try since I know I love it a lot and it really has a lot to offer. I hope this wasn’t like…a crazy response. That a crazy person might give. And that I didn’t scare you away or anything XS

the key is to try some stuff and have fun and if its not your thing that’s cool too! Have a chill night anon

[zamstrom]

Drug Dependency, a 911 call, and Pulmonary Embolism, oh my!

So its currently 1:40, and I have been wanting to type this out for a wee minute. Tumblr continues to be my place where I do my personal diary-like entries where I can place my personal thoughts as well as things that have happened that are big events. And let me tell you, things have been big as of late. Its been personally charged with all sorts of different emotions as life has been going on. I’ve been through a lot since the end of May, and to say I am still alive now is an understatement. I’m truly blessed, truly lucky, just..here. So, lets start with the fact that I totally admitted to my mom that I wanted to kill myself and that I was scared to go back home because of all the sharp untensils around the houe. Yeah, I was not in a stable bit of mind at all. I just had my heart ripped out of my chest the day before due to finally telling the girl I like how I feel- and she didnt feel the same. God damn. That was a stab to every pore into me. My mother didnt know what to do so we went through the pain tasking of getting into norwood. But honestly, getting my heart broken was not what triggered me to be suicidal. It was a calamity of factors all rushed together which caused it to be.

Norwood is the psych-ward of Wood County, pretty much.

After umteen hours of having to sit around in an emergency room, I was finally allowed to head over to the psych-ward. In the ER though, they were doing all sorts of fancy tests left and right. I had no idea what in the living hell was going on to be honest with you. It was like as if that day was all an entire blur.  Right before I went in, I had like three double cheeseburgers from Burgerking because I was damn well starving.

Once I got to the Psych-ward we had to go through the usuaul spcheel of papers and insurance talk. I'd glance at my mother whom was very worried about me. I could see the tears swelling up in her eyes, wondering what her boy was going to do, how to live, the racing thoughts in her eyes. I know she was going to be okay. I needed "help", big time.

Well, that help turned into a disaster. Trust me when you read more into the story why I say that. Thankfully I am here typing this out and alive for people to know what happened.

So I got admitted. Had to wear a bracelet. number 12964. Took drugs within the facility. Couldnt wear my jewelry, nor my piercings.  Ate their horrible food but also along the way meant some amazing people that I never expected. We'd play board games like apple to apples, which is like a safe version of a inappropriate group card game.  Constantly was bored to the point I poored all my thoughts into writing in a notebook. Spoke with the main psychiatrist and he was a hardass and could barely understand me as a person. Shoved a cocktail of drugs in my direction and my mother noticed right away how said pills were making me into a zombie. Boy, how true that is. Thats when the slurred speech was starting to happen and it all fell into place from there. I even told the main psychiatrist that I was having side effects but all he did was switch the times I take it. Completly idiotic. As people have told me, I was taking far too much instead of being weaned into it.

However, I do give credit where its due. The therapy side of things when I was in there was worth while, and gave me a bit of an eye opener to what I need to work on in life and then some. So kudos to the wonderful ladies in there, (especially the hella attractive blonde I'd always eye on and make her try to blush).

Well, I made it out of there alive and well. I remember the first day coming back and crying tears of joy but also concern because of the gabapentin. I also remember I believe that I got pizza hut for lunch because I didnt have pizza for like 9 days straight. You know how that can get to a man, not to be able to have pizza?! Its maddening! I went to the nut farm only to go more crazy..for pizza! I also remember my sister giving me a pink shirt when I was in there and now look, I have two hot pink shirts in my collection- hell I'm wearing it right now! Who would of thought!.  It was good to lay in bed with my own pillow- as if the world shut off and bliss took over.

Everything went back to normal somewhat. I started to go back to work regularly- only for Chris to immediatly go on his national guard dutie which was going to be for 2 weeks straight. At first, I thought it would be nothing. I've worked a month straight in the past with no problems but the other problem was tatiana going on her California trip, so there was mistakes and stuff being done and could not be fixed right away because she is the higher-up that speaks with Jesse. Tara took over her shift while she was gone for vacation, I took over  Chris and Eileen and Sheree did their thang.

Well, this is when the withdrawl and side effects began. The first week was okay! I was following suit on the pills, but they were causing issues because I was taking them as if I was a daytime person and I'm not- I'm a night time person due to my life-style and job. So what am I suppose to do! I didnt notice really anything going on except this naggingness going on with my mouth. I thought it was just my back out of wack causing the weirdness but I was wrong. I was able to throw like normal, in fact I was doing nearly a trickcircle a day. Just had a fresh new haircut happen..life was normal until...

All of a sudden, the effects started to effect me. I started to have muscle rigidity/stiffness. My mouth was constantly being dry and muscus would collect. My breathing was shallow. I could barely walk to the point I was shuffling my feet. I was profusely sweating to the point my shirts were getting drenched with sweat. I was panicky and constantly worrieing about stuff. Insomnia was striking me to the core. My decision making was flawed. My vision was getting blurry. My speech was slurrying because my left side of my face was going numb. My left arm was getting weak. The panic tremors. I'd break down to random tears over basic things that I couldnt too.

The one thing that bothered me was the pity look I'd get from guests when they saw that I was struggling hard. I'll never forget the looks I'd get from my coworkers too.

So that is what I was dealing with the past five weeks. It wasn't pretty. It wasnt fun. It was FUCKING HELL. In that time frame June 17th I did go to the emergency room because we were trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn't see my shrink until July 18th because he decided to take a mini vacation out of the blue. Neither michelle the nurse of Dr Shein nor the main dude I met at the ER could help, merely to state that I needed to wean off the gabapetin completely. There was no hope in sight at all. The Doc outright told us they do not handle with medications that involved psychiatric care. On June 19th, My mother couldn't take it anymore and went through the hospital at the information desk to file a complaint against behavior health due to their malcontent on not giving us any answers at all. To file through the customer resolution center., to which they were fairly nice on the phone when she spoke with them. Magically, all of a sudden a opening happen with Doctor Shein and I got to see him. My mother had spoke most of the time because at that point my mouth was too numb for me to be understood. He planned to go after this aggressively, where I was cut off the bentzprine and Ambilify that day. and reduced down to just 1 pill for the gabapetin. Thank god I spoke with him because I had no idea what was going on. He was convinced I had Akathisia due to the depenedency on the pills which is true.

Akathisia is when your body has a feeling of wanting to be in constant motion. This would make sense considering I could barely be able to relax and sleep, barely be able to sit still and be in a zen like quality. It was like there was an innner restlessness.

And then the last day, 17 days straight of working, on June 27th during the night I had to check in a guest after audit around 1am. Not too big of an issue except for the fact I could barely think and my only thoughts were to stay awake and keep moving. I could barly do the pillowcases let alone stand but I was striving. I checked her in and even she knew something was wrong with me. I kept repeatedly telling her I will go as fast as I can and she understood. She was really nice to me. So, a couple hours go by, and two men in a silver van show up around 2:30 asking for this specific lady. I call down the room to ask her if I could send them down and she said it as okay.

At around 3 a 911 call showed up on the console phone. So as my job I have to immediatly see what is going on and to see what I can do to help. I was already panicking because I wasn't getting my work done fast enough. There was things to be done but due to my muscles crunching up I could barely move. Well, I trenched on to the room- all the while sweating more and more, and not being able to breathe the best. By the time I got down there, they had the door open and all three were yelling at eachother accusing eachother of stuff. Well, she said she called the cops against these two so I started to walk back towards the frontdesk. Well, she started yelling at them to leave, so they agreed and started following me- well as I was walking up there I saw the cops coming in and they were looking for me so I had to run back. I have ashma so that started to kick in even more.

Once I got to the frontdesk I was sweating bullets, the cops were speaking with the lady and two men to figure out what was all going on. Pam popped in to see what the hell is going on only to see me sitting in the corner trying to regain my air which I wasn't. After awhile the cops switched to their attention to me asking if I'm okay, asking if I looked like I needed to go to the emergency room, asking if I needed an ambulence. All the while, Pam is trying to get a hold of my mother whom was out in the kitchen feeding the cat but eventually did get her after I agreed to going to the Emergency room. They had the paramedics come in and do various tests to which they all agreed to ask me to go, so they propped me on the board as I am asking "Can you guys even lift me?" to which then all of a sudden I heard a hydralic sound. So that answered that. They popped me in the ambulence all the while Pam is trying to get in touch with Tara to come in due to all that is happening. She eventually did.

From 4 something in the morning until god knowns how long I was in the emergency room. Just like before it felt like forever in an umcomfortable bed. I got poked and prodded like a human pin cushion and had my blood pressure taken a few million times. They did various tests, I had a CT Scan, X-rays in various parts of my body, even was asked to do a piss test in a container which I couldnt not do. I can never do piss tests it seems, especially while sitting down. Eventually did though when they moved me but still. My blood pressure during my time there was through the roof because I was so anxiety filled.  Anyways, we spoke with the main doctor that was on board about the muscle stiffness and everything and he outright told us Gabapetin would not be doing these kinds of side effects that he would know of. But he did suspect Amblify might, he was looking into everything he could and was a bit dumbfounded. We even suggested to do lymes disease test due to that notion.

Well, they still wanted me for tests and told me that I had to stay overnight. I was so damn tired, with the run of insomnia and the constant sweating being overly abundant. I remember at one point I made the comment "If I wanted to kill myself, this would be the moment instead of what I said to you.". Only made my mother more in agnony but it was the truth in all damn honestly. After all I have been through, I really did want to die. I was taken off my bupropion meds, and then being tapered off the Gabapetin. I tried to eat the shitty food my mother ordered for me from the cafeteria, but

That night, they told me of some of the things going on. I was barely able to comprehend though and admittly didnt remember when I spoke with the main doctor. But, I was told I had blood clots in my legs, the serious kind. And then something even more scarey- pulmonary embolism. Bloodclots in the lungs. This was some serious shit that I was in. I was put on warfarin immediatly, a blood thinner pill. I had heard of this pill because my grandma is currently on it. They spoke of the risk factors of blood clots and a plethora of other things. All I could do this sit there and take it in that my life has changed in a way I could not put into mere words.

I couldnt sleep a blink as of how umcomfortable I was. I just wanted to get up to walk, but at the same time trapped into a bed. I just laid there blinking my eyes trying to rest but sleep would not come to me. Nearly every two hours they would come in to do some form of tests whether blood pressure or stealing my blood. It was hell just sitting there being a pin cushion and bruising more and more. I think I may of got sleep but could not remember.

I did eventually get out. I had a little together with the physical theraphy side and they tested out my strengths to see if I needed it. At the time I firmly believe I needed it but they said no. I passed the various tests they gave like walking. At that point my mother was going to give me my dads old walker due to my walking. All I could do was shuffle my feet and walk short distances. They gave me various physical theraphy papers for me to do, which at the time I was serious about- I'd dot them all. and I was finally out. Took me a little while to finally get out of the emergency room, hell it took forever to even get my clothes on but I did eventually. I was also told I had two weeks off medical leave from work- which I was super worried because no one else could do the auditing. But whats a guy to do if they say you can work? I finally got to go home, what a relief! But that was only half the battle.

When I got home, it felt like relief but really that was a disguise. Because now I knew I had to do the physical therapy, I had to put the work in somehow. The next two weeks were brutal because here is me- not had that length amount of time off with the condition I was in. I couldnt yoyo, could barely sit, sweating all the time and the other issues at hand- it was hell. I was truly fearing that I could never be able to play yoyo ever again, that was a nightmare to me. My body was absorbing energy from me, because my stomach shrunk so small I could barely eat like I used to. I eat a lot, I'm a big boy and to go from eating like 4000 calories down to just 500 a day, that REALLY makes a dent in your system.. Over the course of five weeks I had lost over 50 LBS and that is truly not a joke.

My mother was my rock through it all as well as my drill sargent. She'd make me go out and do the walkin I desperately needed to wake my muscles. She helped me with my arm exercises and drilled it in to me about the water. I thank my all for her because I constantly was asking for hugs, annoying her because I couldnt sit still in my room and always panicking which she would come in to make me calm down my breathing.

Everyday I was chipping away at the meds to get out of my system, to flush out.  I even went out to see my family at Dexterville campsite for the 4th of July for a little bit and due to my walking and stature, I could only be out there a little bit. The weather was not agreeing with me and sweating so much was a hassle. We even stopped at the dexter drive in to get ice-cream, and due to my mouth being numb it was hard to eat the icecream which was getting all over my face. Certain parts of my body would get better before other spots. Everyday was the same literally- Zelda Breath The Wild was my muse- my only thing I could really do but even then games were difficult because my fingers would not work functionally.

Went to see a check up with my regular doctor- and we discussed about the fact due to my family history with bloodclots how I will probably be on Warfarin for the rest of my life. Talked about my detoxing and also had a few other questions. There was confusion about my work release that we needed to get settled so the following monday June 10th, we made a trip back to Doctor Hameime to get it settled.

When it came time to finally go back to work- most of the detoxication happened. My body was freeing itself from the clutches of the drugs. All of those things I mentioned that happened to me was finally coming off of me except for the weakness in my left arm which as of this moment of typing this, is back to normal. Since last Wednesday, I've been throwing yoyo like mad which has brought back the muscle memory. Tatiana was certainly happy to see me, as the girls were running ragged due to it just being Tara, Sheree, and Eileen. They did it, and I am so proud of them. I still feel bad for having this all happen, I wish my body would of continued and we would of never had issues, but things dont always work that way.

I've just had my first work week and on Sunday I finally got to see Tara. We were discussing all that happened with my life and such and even she noticed. She outright told me "Dan, I could tell something was wrong and I really wanted to tell you to just go back home because you are in no shape to work but I didn't". Its true, due to not being able to speak properly, my eyes being in a glaze, and not walking or moving properly- I should of got released but I'm too stubborn for that plus due to no back up relief..whats a guy to do?

Tuesday I had back to back appointments. I got to see my therapist plus I got to see my psychiatrist all rolled into one. For the therapy side one of the first things Mr Bauss said was "You're glowing today, you are a completely different person since I saw you", which is true. I was feeling pretty damn good to be honest with you, I was calm and collected and could articulate and speak my thoughts properly this time versus two weeks ago when I could barely even sit down. We spoke for an hour of the homework I recieved from him, and he would add in little things that opened up my eyes that made me feel good about myself. Seeing Dr Shein the psychiatrist was also good, because he had seen all the improvement I had versus the last I spoke with him. I had to speak with him about about what happened at work with the 911 call, and eventually that call was for me and had to go to the emergency room, being diagnosed with bloodclots in the legs and lungs and going through detox. It was tough to speak of but I was feeling damned good that it was coming out smoothly, even with the attractive student he had there. In the end, he was right. and with that said...

Sometimes, miracles really do  work in mysterious ways.

End. Until next time.