#b/c the only things I’ve ordered recently were coming via UPS

[waugh-bao]

[axiomsofice]

Group A:

 Owen Power, D, NCAA

This is likely the only pick that we’ll be able to predict with much conviction. It’s a package that is impossible to ignore, a huge frame, good passing skills, and already contributing at a high level. Seeing as the second-to-last defenceman to go 1st (Ekblad, get well) just started to transform into his best self, and with Dahlin posting uneven results early in his journey, there shouldn’t be an expectation for Power to make the jump to Buffalo next season. Especially given he’d be headed back to Michigan, a higher level than junior, this should be an ideal place for him to hone his craft for a year or two before the Sabre slide him into their top 4.

 Group B: 2nd to 10th

 Some consensus should be coming as we approach the draft, but in general it wouldn’t be surprising for these players to be selected anywhere in this range. Central accounting’s lists were quite surprising and I definitely take their opinions to heart, along with many other opinions as well. I’ve divided them by position.

 Defence:

 Brandt Clarke, D, Slovakia (via OHL)

Clarke went overseas to find playing time this season, playing pro in Slovakia. He’s got a lot of agility, or shiftiness, with and without the puck. He’s aggressive in pursuing offence with his passing and skating, and has the quality to make plays and even score goals when he jumps up into the play.

 Luke Hughes, D, USNDTP

The third instalment of the Hughes Brothers (Quinn and Jack), Luke is bigger than his brothers and amongst the youngest of the draft class. He has all the tools we’ve come to expect from the family interns of puck skills and skating prowess, although time will tell maybe not quite to the level of his brothers, but nonetheless standouts amongst this draft class. Given his age, and playing at a lower level than the rest of these top ranked defenders, the baseline of at least one more year before thinking about jumping to the NHL might be 2 for Hughes. With patience and development, Hughes could prove to have the most upside among blueliners in this class.

 Simon Edvinsson, D, SHL

Not quite as tall as Power, but Edvinsson a big person in his own right. He uses this size and his skating to be a really effective defender. His offensive game, especially his passing and decision making, or perhaps better framed as transitions, is still a bit raw. Surviving in the SHL at this age is definitely an accomplishment, and the hope is that next season he can make a bigger difference in that league. It seems all but guaranteed he’ll be able to contribute in the NHL at some point, the question is more about how much.

 CENTRE

 Matt Beniers, C, NCAA

Beniers is definitely the prospect I’ve seen the most of in the class, and especially early in the season I had almost cone to terms with ranking him number 1. Although it is significant to me that Central Scouting had him as their 6th NA skater. He’ll be described as a 2-way centre, maybe a 2nd line type of centre, and I wonder if it’s mostly due to a perceived lack of upside that others might have jumped past him. Regardless, he’s already succeeding in at Michigan and played a big role on the Gold Medal U20 US team. He supports his teammates all over the ice and is a great passing outlet from breakouts to zone entries. He does have some skill and is probably my favourite to go 2nd overall at this point (June).

 Mason McTavish, C, SUI (via OHL)

Another OHL top prospect who had to venture overseas for ice time, McTavish performed really well in a men’s pro league. Perhaps a bit more powerful in skating and style than Beniers, the situation with the OHL, a strong U18 performance, and a high season end Central Scouting Ranking (2nd NA), it’s likely McTavish will be considered a late riser, even though it’s not as if a strong development curve wasn’t expected. Especially as we get closer to the draft we should expects to see his name solidify itself in this 2-10 group, especially given his position.

 WINGS

 William Eklund, W, SHL

Eklund posted really good results in the SHL this year. He is able to contribute offensively in many ways, and at this point his game seems to be more effective than astounding. Having succeeded at such a high level already it’s hard to imagine he won’t be able to make a difference on an NHL roster in a year or two.

 Kent Johnson, W, NCAA

Johnson might be a good foil to Eklund in that his play oozes skill, often able to makes and see plays at an extremely high level. He was able to translate it into both a strong performance at Michigan, and a high spot on Central Scoutings’ List. The fact that they ranked him above Beniers is very interesting to me, and says that scouts think his game will take well as he moves into higher levels. He is very fun to watch and attacks laterally in a way that only the high quality players can.

 Dylan Guenther, W, WHL

19/20 was strong for Guenther, and a short and strange season for the WHL was enough for him to grow his reputation. He averaged both a goal and an assist per game in 24 games this season, basically playing as well as he could have. The CHL leagues were probably most affected among top development leagues, so it’s hard to know how much that affected things. That being said, should he return to the WHL it’ll be a tall task to improve his offensive output. Despite playing at a lower level he is very much in the mix with Eklund and Johnson, and it is quite likely there will be nothing close to a consensus on which order these wingers are selected.

 Goalie

 Jesper Wallstedt, G, SHL

More and more often were seeing really high ranked goaltenders, and as more of them start to pan out, it’s hard to make a case picking against Wallstedt. Posting great numbers in the SHL as a skater is impressive, but in net the accomplishment becomes truly rare among draft eligibles. The position is volatile, and it often takes time to find the metal stability to be an NHL starter. That’s why despite the dominant results in the SHL, it’s probably best to err on the side of patience. That being said, it’s exciting to conceptualize that he might be able to make a difference at the NHL level in 2-3 years vs in his mid to late 20s as is common for netminders.

 Group C

 This group I would call likely 1st rounders, obviously some of this caliber of player can fall into round 2, even in more normal years. Some might even be able to push over some of the group B prospects ranked ahead.

 WINGS

 Matthew Coronato, W, USHL

The Chicago Steel have a great program, and seem to have a more consistent line of talent than most of the others in their league, perhaps similar to the London Knights of the OHL. That being said Coronato scored at a ridiculous pace, even compared to his teammates. In part thanks to the Steel this league is being seen as more and more credible when it comes to drafting prospects. It is still not quite as strong of a league as the SHL or NCAA, but it might be the only thing that keeps him from going in the top 10.

 Nikita Chibrikov, W, KHL

There is debate about who the best Russian forward prospect is between Chibrikov and Svechkov. In Chibrikov’s favour is the ranking from Central Scouting as well as a really strong U18 performance. It seems every year that the best Russian prospects don’t garner much respect from those who aren’t scouting the region specifically, so it shouldn’t be a surprise for all 3 Russians in this range (Chibrikov, Svechkov, and Chayka) to be selected earlier than one might expect.

 Fabian Lysell, W, SHL

He is not quite as good a prospect as Lucas Raymond from the 2020 draft, yet the two are similar in that they are small, offensively capable wingers who didn’t get much ice time in their draft years, and who are much better at pressuring the puck all over the ice than given credit for. It wouldn’t be a surprise for him to fall a bit due to his stature, but Lysell still figures to go I. The first round.

 Isak Rosen, W, SHL

 Simon Robertsson, W, SHL

 Brendan Othmann, W, SUI

Othmann has the size, power, and skating skills that figure to translate well to the pros. He has the shot and puck skills to be dangerous on the rush and gets a lot of chances to do so thanks to his abilities in transition and counter attacks.

 CENTRES

 Aatu Raty, C, SML

At one point a favourite to be the top ranked prospect in this class, Raty stock has cooled recently thanks to some less than promising results in the Finnish pro league. He’s big and strong enough to be effective along the walls in zone offence, and is able to find open ice in shooting positions. Typically, the Finns employ a utilitarian skillset, disposed to strong 2-way play or substance over style. I believe that this often causes the offensive capability of Finnish prospects to be undersold (thinking of Anton Lundell from the 2020 draft). If supported in the right way Raty could be a steal, especially given the scarcity of strong centres in this class.

 Fedor Svechkov, C, KHL

 Cole Sillinger, C, WHL

 Chaz Lucius, C, USNTDP

  DEFENCE

 Corson Cuelmans

 Carson Lambos

 Daniil Chayka

  Group D

 This group is players I have a first round grade on, but are by no means a lock to be selected afterwards. No doubt that some of this group will be selected from the mid second round and later. At this point there is a greater number of prospects, so I’ll merely name a few that I feel strongly about.

 Forwards

 Logan Stankoven

 Zachary L’Heureux

 Chase Stillman

  Defence

 Scott Morrow

 Stanislav Svozil

[is6621]

Amazon Reviews: Can They Be Trusted? By Quinn Sheehan

Sometimes when I’m bored, I’ll scroll through Facebook and see if anything important happens. Recently, I’ve noticed the ads are all asking me to do one thing. Reach out to them via Facebook Messenger and I can get a “free” product off of Amazon. After engaging with these poorly constructed ads, they tell me that I can get a certain free product, maybe a phone case or a pair of headphones. All I have to do is post a review, 5 stars of course, after I get the product in order to get a refund.

I’ve never actually taken their offers, but based on the comments on their Facebook pages, it seems pretty legit. It’s a simple process: you use generic search terms to find the product on a certain Amazon page, increasing their order and appearance in Amazon’s organic search. Next, you buy the product, and once it comes, write a product review giving them all 5 stars. Finally, once your review is posted, they’ll fully refund you outside of Amazon, either with an Amazon gift card or a PayPal payment. The act of reviewing in exchange for a free product brings up questions about ethics without a doubt. But, the real victim in these scenarios are the unknowing users that are actually looking for a quality product and buy one based off reviews that are mostly fake. How else are you supposed to navigate around Amazon’s vast forest of products? If I’m looking to buy a phone charger off Amazon, I’ll probably just buy the first product that appears- the one with the highest reviews. Not even the “Amazon’s Top Customer Reviewers” can be trusted. Amazon just scrubbed over 20,000 reviews from product pages, including a top UK reviewer by the name of Justin Fryer. Fryer had received $20,000 worth of products, including laptops and other expensive goods, in exchange for quality reviews. In the month of August, he was posting a new review every 4 hours. They were all bogus. Amazon is appearing to do the best they can to stop the fraudulent efforts, as seen by the removal of Justin Fryer and 20,000 others’ reviews. Amazon invested over $500 million to stop fraud in 2019. Amazon strives to be a place where reviews are written with integrity and can be trusted when looking for a product to buy. Is it too late?

Let’s go back to the first example I had. I looked up a phone charger and clicked one that caught my eye. It had 4,500 good reviews, with an average rating of 4.4. It’s a top-rated product and I felt pretty confident it was legit just due to the sheer volume of reviews. I used a 3rd party review checker, which sorts through all of the individual reviews and rates both the seller and the product for legitimacy. The website gave the product a B rating, meaning that the average rating of 4.4 stars was really a 4.0 when all fake reviews were removed. The seller got a C rating, and the website claimed that the company was known to have similar looking reviews across all of their products. If the product had only 4 stars, not 4.5, maybe I wouldn’t have clicked on it.

The Amazon marketplace is ruthless- it’s a kill or be killed environment. Perhaps paid, fraudulent reviews are just the cost of doing business now: your only hope if you want to be a successful seller. If Amazon doesn’t cut down on this problem soon, Amazon will lose its reputation as a place to go for reliable gadgets. It will turn into a breeding ground for sellers that can scam the most. Amazon’s reputation is on the line.

Sources: https://www.fakespot.com/analyzer https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/06/amazon-reviews-thousands-are-fake-heres-how-to-spot-them.html https://thehustle.co/amazon-fake-reviews https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/amazons-top-uk-reviewers-appear-to-profit-from-fake-5-star-posts/

[marveldc-imagines-hub]

Human (DBH; Markus x Reader)

A/N: I just finished watching a playthrough of Detroit: Become Human and I’m lowkey obsessed, and Markus definitely doesn’t get the love and support he deserves. So here’s me, doing the thing. :B

Once again, a piece that started out as an imagine and then ended up being so much longer.

Fandom: Detroit: Become Human

Like my work? Leave me a tip! --> ko-fi.com/imaginationnation

~~~

Markus looked on with an expression of both wonder and horror at the rows of skinless androids in the abandoned warehouse. Standing next to him, you were restlessly wringing your hands; it was a little difficult to not be nervous standing so close the leader of the android revolution. Until the recent outbreak of deviants and the completely reasonable uprising for androids rights, you had never seen androids showing explicit emotion, so it was still a little jarring to see Markus expressing such strong ones.

“How did you--” Markus wondered aloud, “And on your own? How many are here-- How many camps-- In one night?”

You couldn’t help the small, brief smile that ghosted your lips; it was a truly marvelous thing, seeing these people that were once mindless slaves being anything but said slaves anymore. They were alive and they were fighting.

Markus’s hetero-chromatic eyes shifted and you felt your face heat up as you quickly shifted your gaze to recall the information he was asking for. “Four camps, one night. I probably could have hit more with allies but with everything that was going on, and then people reacting to your march the way they did--media calling you terrorists, the dumb bastards--”

“Humans are scared of change,” Markus intervened; your heart fluttered with disbelief at his gentle tone. “They’re not sure how to react.”

“Well,” you said, meeting his eyes with a scowl, “with our history, we should know by now that genocide isn’t it. So I will not be taking back my dumb bastards comment.”

You were surprised again when Markus’s mismatching eyes sparkled with a brief amusement. “I never said I didn’t disagree with you.”

Pretty eyes, you thought, then scolded yourself for doing so. Not the time. “Anyway, four camps in one night. I couldn’t really talk to any humans because it’s hell trying to figure out which ones actually have a heart, and I wasn’t sure if your people--you and your active group, I mean--would trust me. So I figured, um, hijacking a weapons truck and a soldier’s uniform after I whacked him over the head with a magazine tablet.”

“Also,” you suddenly added, looking Markus in the eye again, “I don’t know if you know this but as you can see, obviously, a lot of these guys aren’t deviant.” You gestured at the abundance of careful rows, much greater in number than the scarcer groups of deviants, huddled haphazardly near the warehouse’s walls with their skins reactivated. “So--and I apologize if this comes off as ignorant--from what I’ve seen the newer... models--again, I apologize if you don’t like that word; just let me know what you’d prefer-- Generations maybe? Sorry. So, it appears that only the newer generations can wake each other up, bring each other to their senses, like you and that detective Connor can. Like the group that Connor led to march. The current generations, aka basically every android up until you, Connor, and the ones straight from the Cyberlife hub, can’t do that. They’re stuck to waking up via their own accord--” You briefly gestured to one of the deviant huddles. “--or by someone like you.” You waved a hand towards the carefully organized rows of still skinless androids, waiting silently on standby for masters’ orders that wouldn’t come. “Unfortunately, most, if not all, of your generation, the one with that capability, are here in Detroit.”

Markus had been listening to you intently, and your heart ached as you watched his expression turn sour, the tired resignation of a soldier who wanted a war’s end that he knew wasn’t coming any time soon. Perhaps against your better judgement, you thought, you placed a steady hand against the man’s arm. His reaction was an appreciative glance rather than that of shaking you off, giving you the assumption that he had been luckier than most androids; he had known a human that was kind.

“Worry about the people around you for now,” you murmured, “Wake the ones here up and show them the good that you’ve done so far. Then, later, when your people are settled and healed, you can make those bigger strides.” You paused, then added with a bit of hesitance edging your voice, “On my routes to camps, I made plans to get to as many camps as I could. I’ve thought up ideas and sketched out maps. I know I’m no incredibly intelligent being or anything but I like to think they’re decently thought out, so if you trust me enough for me to lend you my help--even if you don’t, if you just want the routes and plans for a little extra push, I understand and that’s fine--I just want to do my part on behalf of the less shitty side of my race.”

Markus walked farther into the warehouse without answering, then you watched firsthand as he deactivated the skin of one hand and pressed it to the forearm of an android standing before him. Your eyes widened in wonder as not only the android Markus was holding was awakened, but the other androids around him, the LEDs in their temples flashing red, yellow, and finally landing back on blue; you’d forgotten Markus’s ability to psychically deviate the androids as well, something you’d only seen briefly during a broadcast of one of his marches.

Markus meaningfully looked over his people, and you followed his gaze as the skinless androids, no longer bound by the laws of slaves embedded into their software, reactivated their skins once more. Not only that but there were changes to hair and color, the shuffling out of perfect rows to instead mingle with others and pick out personalized outfits from clothes you’d provided via dumpster diving, donation organizations, and your own clothes that you never wore anymore. Of course, with your last minute mission of liberating camps, one human couldn’t have possibly gathered all the supplies needed to help the masses, but you did what you could. Not to mention, you’d managed to track down and bring them the thing they needed most: Markus.

As if hearing your thoughts, Markus turned away from the full warehouse to look at you instead. He looked at you for a bit, and you couldn’t help feeling like you were being analyzed, and then he spoke again.

“You made an extreme impact on those you’ve saved, [Y/N],” he said, blue and hazel meeting your own [e/c] gaze, “and you’re continuing to offer a great deal of your help to a cause that is not your own. For that, I thank you.”

The nervousness and wonderment of the situation simmered down beneath your skin. The feelings hardened into determination and you felt yourself steady and stand taller. Instead of wide eyes and parted lips, you imagined that you somewhat replicated Markus’s tight jaw and hard gaze.

“Caring for people and helping them,” you replied, “seeing injustices being done to them and doing whatever it takes to help stop it; that’s what it means to be human.”

[fyrapartnersearch]

Partner search!

Hello all! I’m looking for a skilled, experienced 1x1 partner or two for a Discord roleplay. I have a few particular plots, though please feel free to come with your own ideas. Please read to the end as there is a password I won't answer messages without.

•General/Writing Style•

I usually prefer sticking at around 4 paragraphs and up, but quality over quantity for the most part. If you usually write 3 paragraphs or less, it'll be hard for me to stay interested, however. I would prefer you write in 3rd person, past tense. Please have decent grammar and spelling, varied vocabulary and sentence structure, as well as decent syntax. Please provide me something of substance to respond to in your responses. Please also be somewhat experienced.

•Age•

18+ only, but 21+ preferred (I'm 23)

•Timezone•

Mine is EST. I do not mind what timezone you're in.

•Response Frequency•

I'd prefer if you could respond at least once a week. I'm a pretty busy student can't definitely commit to much more than that, so I won't ask that of you. Please try to communicate when you will be gone or significantly less active for several weeks or more. I will try to do the same.I'm a bit less lenient with this when we're still doing introductions, so if we've barely said hello but a few days pass and I hear nothing, I'll assume you're no longer interested or never were in the first place and close our discussion. You are free to assume the same of me.

•Genre•

I'm a sucker for Romantic Slice-of-life with a healthy dose of drama and angst, but I do like to weave other genres in there too such as Supernatural, Mystery, Action, and Adventure. I'm really open to most things if the plot interests me.

•Gender and Romantic Preference•

I strongly prefer playing a female main outside of MxM. Beyond that, I am open to MxF, FxF, and MxM . Currently, I'm mostly in the mood for an MxF or possibly F//. My apologies, but please note I do not play male in MxF unless we have roleplayed other pairings together before and have highly compatible writing styles. I rarely double up.I do not engage in dichotomy personality dynamics(ie- dom/sub, ABO, top/bottom) and like pairings to be close to even as possible in contributions to the relationship. If a scene gets intimate, I'd prefer we fade to black.

•Plots/Creativity•

The plots I’m looking to do atm are listed below. Despite this, you're more than welcome to share plots of your own. I'd prefer it if you are open to brainstorming plot points and bouncing ideas off each other too- let's keep this interesting for both of us so it stays alive.

•OCs•

I would prefer not to roleplay with OCs that are excessively shy, Mary-Sues, or OP. Additionally, please ensure your own OC does not monopolize the plot with their own issues and background. Let's share the spotlight.I tend to play multiple characters and would prefer if you did too.Please do not control my main OC or any named side characters I introduce. It can really mess with my plans with them if you suddenly auto-kill out of nowhere or something... If necessary, I may permit you to control a side character of mine, but please run it by me first. Communication is key.

•Platform•

Discord is strongly preferred. I can potentially be convinced to use kik, tumblr, or line.

•Fandoms•

I am willing to roleplay within the universe of several fandoms, but please note I do not roleplay as canon characters and would prefer not to roleplay with canon characters either. Please recall that I am more than happy to do original plots too if you aren't into any of these.-Corpse Party**-Black Mirror-Death Note-Avatar The Last Airbender*-Downton Abbey-Call The Midwife*-Dragon Quest(IV-IX)***-Miraculous Ladybug****(I'd love to delve into the more subtle, darker elements like the consequences of a broken miraculous and time travel)-Fruits Basket**-Soul Eater*-The Hunger Games-Harry Potter(The number of * indicates craving)

•Original Plots•

(Muse I would like to play is bolded. If neither are bolded, I can do either. All of these are open to brainstorming and tweaking!)

Muse A was born into a society where ‘falling in love’ is not a thing. Sure, it’s written in about fairy tales and even history texts, but most Readers laugh it off as a silly, archaic concept. All couples are formed by reading Cerebral wavelengths, stats that are unique to every individual. Every person has a single match and are paired with that person permanently when they come of age. No trades, no take-backs. Muse B, though born into the regular world, doesn’t believe in love either. Perhaps it was the plight of their parents, or that one nasty breakup. Perhaps it was the sight of all the couples around who’d be lovey-dovey one week, but strangers the next. Whatever it is, they don’t buy it. That suits Muse A just fine- their Cerebral wavelengths not only don’t match, they bang together in a cacophony. Why is it then that these two begin experiencing an undeniable pull to each other?

One night, Muse A is taking their usual jog through the park when they trip right over Muse B tying their shoe. Cliche start is cliche, I know, but stay with me here. After some initial awkwardness, the two hit it off quite well. Flash forward a week or so and the pair are starting school in the same class, Muse A as one of the typical debutants, and Muse B a lucky upstart on a basketball scholarship. Muse B had high hopes for where things’ll go…only to find out Muse A has a boyfriend, who happens to be Muse B’s nemesis on the courts. Whoops. But something’s really off with the couple. As in the boy is downright awful, and it isn’t just the rivalry talking. Yet Muse A refuses to leave him…why is that?

(This is an older one of mine, but I’ve recently kinda been in the mood to start it up again.) Marianoh’s Culinary Institute is the most renowned school for culinary arts in the country. Any who truly wish to be a master chef would be foolish not to attend. Unless they don’t have the means- the tuition is insanely high. Muse A is part of the lucky few of humble beginnings that has been selected to attend via scholarship. They couldn’t be more excited. Muse B, on the other hand, comes from a family of celebrity chefs. Their spot at Marianoh’s was confirmed before birth. Yet, somehow, they don’t share Muse A’s joy. Far from it, actually. What happens when the two are partnered up for the year?

(A brand new one definitely open to suggestions) St. Cornelius’ Academy(or University) is an academic institution reserved only for those of royal or noble background as well as their future servants, attendants, and body guards. Students of the academy hail from kingdoms where individuals are born gifted with control over the 8 elements- light, wind, flame, flora, lightening(tech), water, earth, and darkness. Students are divided based on status into ‘Golds,’ ‘Greys,’ and ‘ The ‘Gold’ category includes all royalty and nobility aside from viscounts and barons of low birth. The ‘Gray’ category includes future ladies and men in waiting, other servants, attendants, and body guards. Students are instructed in all areas in order to best prepare them for their future roles from political science to etiquette to combat. Given the wealth of a portion of the student body, the campus is a vivacious display of luxury, featuring lavish gardens, seemingly endless grounds, state-of-the-art learning facilities, and even an expansive kitchen headed by a world renowned 31 star chef. Currently, I have three potential pairings in mind for this set-up.

-Muse A is a new lady in waiting assigned to a spoilt, catty Duchess of Aquaria(Water Kingdom). Catering to the every whim of the young princess-to-be is exhausting, but her goal of reaching far greater heights than her questionable background merits keeps her going. What faster way to do that than catching the eye of Muse B, the princess’ bethrothed and crown Prince of Aquaria using abilities bequeathed to her by her merpeople ancestry? The lines between acting and reality are prone to blurring, however and actual feelings soon begin to muddle her plans. Muse B isn’t as unaware as he first seems either..

-Muse A is the somewhat naive prince of Angion(Flora), unsure of his future. He’s distant from his fiancée, Muse B a cold, proud Marchioness of the same kingdom, and his closest confident is one of his newest body guards, Muse C. Little does he know, that Muse C has quite the secret- she’s truly a girl whose taken on her brothers identity to serve. What will happen when all comes into the open?

5. Muse A has always been at the top of their class since early elementary and thrived on it. They come from a family of high achievers where failure is neither seen nor accepted. Proud and arrogant over their achievements, their grades make them, them. All that changed when Muse B showed up, smashing the entrance exams with marks unheard of. Of course Muse A wouldn’t take that lying down, thus, the classic rivalry begins. What happens when the two find they have more in common than they thought? Life on Muse B’s side is not all it seems as well.

Contact Instructions: Please message me here on tumblr  (https://lisanimelis.tumblr.com/) with your favorite color and a writing sample. If all goes well there, we'll move to discord. 

[sol1056]

three anons: what the hell was all that in S7

Picking out the three that are most to the point for this answer, but I’ve got another dozen or so that overlap. Not sure I’ll have time/energy to answer the rest individually, so hopefully this meta will be sufficient. 

I mean it could be that they had different execs back then who were better at their jobs and kept Shiro around. No one disliked black paladin Shiro, even the DotU fans were ok with it, and the writing in s1-2 was mostly very good. Changing all that was a bad idea. I would have left on the spot if Shiro died or was benched, like now, I'm only around for closure. Maybe they were different execs with this decision & the EPs leaped at the chance. Well, we know who's also gonna be in trouble if that's the case.

With your theory on how storyboards were reused and characters shuffled around for cost cutting, might this not also partly explain the Adam flashback scene and how it was staged? I mean, they were originally supposed to be roommates and the scene was meant to appear in season 2 but got cut. What if they just reused the storyboard (or even animation, if it was already mostly done) the way it was and then just changed the dialogue? This could explain the lack of intimacy in the staging, too. Ezor and Zethrids interactions were more openly intimate maybe not (just) because they‘re villains who die immediately after, but because the decision to make them an item came before storyboarding was done, so the staging is more suggestive. I mean, if you think Shiro was mostly pasted in in the first half of s7, that might make sense.

If cost was the issue and they already had the black paladin Shiro version written, and got the greenlight to change it to Keith then things don't add up. Because they changed it once more! Which could have been avoided if they stuck to the Shiro one. And it goes without saying it would be better written to follow canon instead of the mess we got, like, I cant imagine this NOT discussed. So if it wouldn't be cost effective to change it again for Keith and it would be badly written, why did it happen?

Behind the cut: the most likely chronology of revisions, the clues in S7 as to its original form, and what this means for S8 and the Black Paladin position. 

This is everything I’ve been able to figure out between interviews, podcasts, tweets, plus researching the industry and a few reality-checks with friends more familiar. As always, any mistakes are my own. 

version 0: "five teenagers"

This would’ve been the first pitch after getting the green light, and probably only a loose synopsis, with just the pilot given a rough storyboard. A post-apocalyptic Earth conquered by the Galra, who are seeking Blue. The execs rejected JDS' mechanism for the discovery of Blue, in favor of simply having Keith ‘sense’ Blue. The execs also rejected the idea that Shiro would die only a few episodes in. This summary seems to be the basis of the "five teenagers" part of the teaser.

version A: "shiro kicks the bucket"

Timelines would've dictated moving onto an outline pretty quickly, detailed down to the episode level, including bits of dialogue, motifs, turning points or emotional beats. In this revision, Shiro dies/leaves at the end of S2 and does not return. This is the “originally we wanted him to kick the bucket” version, which the execs rejected.

version B: "shiro goes away for awhile"

If I'm interpreting the hints correctly, the "does Shiro die or not" question got tossed back and forth all the way into S1/S2 pre-production. Rather than rearrange everything, the easiest fix would've been to leave most of the story intact and write only a new ending where Shiro returns. The execs reject this rewrite, saying Shiro can’t be gone that long. This is the “we tried to just have him gone for awhile, but the execs said he had to come back sooner” version.

version C: "enter the clone"

Again, easiest fix is to insert Shiro/Kuron, remove Keith, and reverse that just before Shiro's return in version B. This impacts only the middle seasons (S3-S6); the clone compromise satisfies the execs. Kuron's characterization makes a lot more sense if it’s Keith, in visuals (ie Kuron leaning against the wall in Keith fashion), dialogue (fighting with Lance), and action (leaving without consulting the team). It's also why no one mentions Keith's absence. Because in the original version A, Keith was standing right there.

version D: "wtf is going on", aka Season 7

When JDS mentions having a full season written with Shiro as Black Paladin, it didn't make sense how they'd have a script and not use it. With @ptw30's visual detective work, I think I may've figured it out.

Technical notes: first scripts are all written for a season, then voices are recorded, and then the combined script+recording is used to storyboard. Production seasons are 26-episodes, independent of actual broadcast seasons; VA may be recording scenes across two 13-episode seasons completely out of order, since the recording schedule's going to be based on who's available, not chronology of the file numbers. The biggest staff changes are usually in April ('staffing season') when new shows get the greenlight and start sharking around to catch writers, designers, directors, etc.

In March of this year, S5 was released. At least some of the storyboarders were released in time for staffing season; in April, Hedrick moves to a new project. With S7/S8 being unchanged since version B, I suspect Hedrick delivered the scripts for S7 and S8 by winter of last year, at latest. Even that would be tight, since that's expecting animation to deliver 26 episodes in an 8-month timeframe. [edit: probably delivered much earlier, given the studio leaks show images we can recognize from S7/S8, so some amount of these seasons were in production by then.]

In June, S6 dropped, and a week later, Hamilton was announced as the new story editor via the Lets Voltron podcast. With the lead time required in production, there doesn't seem to be any reason to even need a story editor, at this point. All the pre-production work should be done.

In August, S7 dropped. Hedrick's editor credit is only for the first half of the season; Hamilton gets it for the second half. That means the last six episodes were written after Hedrick's departure. (May Chan's S2 script was reused in part, and she gains a belated co-writing script credit for that. Hedrick should've received the same; it's standard.)

Let's recap a few things we know (and a few we can intuit) about S7:

The season was already written with Shiro returning as Black Paladin, possibly also recorded and storyboarded. 

S6 reversed the S4-S5 trend, lending strength to exec arguments that Shiro is necessary in the story.

After S6 dropped, the EPs said the wolf's name was a spoiler. See this post from @pwt30; tl;dr is that perhaps the EPs intended the wolf to be Shiro's spirit. 

Despite Shiro's return, he's absent for the majority of the first half; when he is present, he barely speaks a half-dozen words, and none are plot-relevant. See @ptw30's post for more details. 

There's a glaring incontinuity when Allura says the paladin armor protected the team, yet Shiro is frozen with the other non-paladins despite wearing armor. 

Keith never offers for Shiro to pilot, nor mentions it, nor even seems to consider it an issue.

Not everything dovetails since I don't have the full picture, but here's my theory: S7 was originally outlined with Shiro's spirit in the wolf, rather than Black. I have no idea when/how JDS would've thought up the CA:WS parallels for his sole writing credit, but Shiro's "I died" and Lotor's psychotic breakdown are squeezed into S6E6, which was written by Josh Hamilton, Hedrick's later replacement. The only other Shiro-in-Black point is a few minutes at the end of S6's final episode. Shifting from Shiro-in-wolf to Shiro-in-Black really only affects one episode, with a bit of editing for another.

Anyway, S6 ends version C, and we segue to version B. For the first half of S7, the clone's body may have been in stasis while the team traveled through its various non-adventures. The episode we now know as S7E1 may have been the mid-point, with about six episodes of Shiro being unconcious. After watching the numbers drop from S3 to S6, the execs may've rejected another six episodes of where-is-Shiro and insisted he come back ASAP.

S7 only has two episodes that must be in order; the rest are pretty rearrangeable. All they had to do was insert Shiro into the background and record a few lines. (Several lines are pure voice-over, which also saves cost/time by not needing to animate moving mouth.) But the moved episode is only his memory/awakening, and the logical next episode would be Shiro's reconnection, and the rest of the season would roll from there. Without moving the entire second half of the season to the start, moving only his awakening episode would mean Shiro does nothing for 5-6 episodes and then abruptly reconnects.  

In a recent interview, JDS said at first the execs weren't enthused until JDS talked up the new mecha they'd give Shiro to captain. Honestly, there's no way JDS got to be EP without giving a really good pitch, but there may've been another element to his argument: nostalgia. The EPs seem certain everyone suffers from their same nostalgia dementia, which if you do, then you probably have been waiting for any glimpse of that og!Keith. If Shiro returns at the start of S7, then Keith's time in Black has been limited to a few disastrous episodes in S3, and a single big battle in S6. The beginning of S7 is the only time we'd ever see the Voltron84 formation working as a unified team, and returning Shiro too soon would defeat the whole purpose of showing how the team has grown in his absence.

The solution seems to have been to remove Shiro's reconnection completely, and keep Keith in Black. That would mean re-recording Shiro's lines from the midpoint onward, and editing in Keith over Shiro. The savings would be that only half the seaon would have to be reworked, not all. The loose end of the space wolf --- an artifact of version B --- was left in place.  

What I'm not sure of is whether the following are significant enough changes to warrant removing Hedrick's name and replacing it with Hamilton's. It could be, if supervising the revision process is enough to override the previous credits. I have no idea about that part of the industry, and it's the kind of edge case you're just not going to find a lot of blog posts about, so if you know, tell me. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway, this would've meant Shiro was switched in for Allura, Allura was put back in a lion, and Keith was switched in for Shiro. This would explain why Shiro speaks as the leader of Voltron despite no longer being a paladin, and the uneasy sensations a lot of people got about the characterizations. It was most striking in the last three episodes: Shiro felt like Allura v2, while Keith felt like Shiro v2. And that further, the Altean-Earthian ship just 'lighting up' for Shiro --- and becoming that oversized white mecha --- may've meant as Allura's fourth (fifth?) deus ex machina.

I'd be willing to bet that mid-battle, Allura repeated her stunt from the end of S2, heading out to destroy Sendak's crystal by herself. She wouldn't need Sam to hack her brain, and then we'd also have a call back to when she got knocked down by the crystal-ball thing on Naxzela. If she was the one meant to go toe-to-toe with Sendak, that would explain the bizarre neutrality of Sendak's words --- he says nothing personal to Shiro, at all --- and the even more bizarre silence on Shiro's part. Allura's words wouldn't fit Shiro, so he's silent.

And lastly, it'd mean that the one leaping out of Black to cut down Sendak wouldn't have been Keith. It would've been Shiro.

Where would the story go from here?

If I look at the events of S7, the first half is terribly disjointed, really. If Shiro was supposed to wake at the midpoint, an episode (or two) is missing. One for him to reconnect with Black, and a second that would provide some minor conflict to settle him back into position. Those two episodes were likely replaced with the unexpected and frankly over-told two-parter of the Earth flashbacks.

Two problems with that, one technical, one structural.

First, the flashback two-parter has a lot of moving parts. Brand-new designs, characters, and backdrops. It's far too elaborate to be done in an ultra-compressed timeframe, not without several heart attacks and therapy bills on the part of the animation staff. (Plus, the US-based storyboarding team is already downsized, so fewer hands to do the work.)

Second, it doesn't make a lot of structural sense, especially against the big revelations in S6 of an existing Altean colony. Within the story, there's no reason to halt everything and travel across the universe to take however long to build a new castle, when the Altean colony question is far more pressing. Returning to earth also violates the structure, because it's really just a standard milieu: start on earth, head out to have adventures, and return home at the end.

But here, they're returning home and then possibly leaving again. That's just... a rather peculiar and imbalanced way to do it. It doesn't help that doing so means literally telling Romelle her people are just gonna have to rot, the paladins are certain they need the castle more. Why would you take one of the more compelling storylines you've come up with, only to background it again, and wreck the traditional bookending milieu structure at the same time? Especially if that means coming up with major set-pieces and brand-new designs in the space of several months, after a chunk of your core staff are already onto other things.

I think those two flashback episodes -- and the rewritten finale episodes --- may've been cribbed from S8. In other words, the second half of S7 was the original end of S8. That would mean repurposing already-created storyboards and animation artifacts, so there's a huge time savings there (not counting the need to re-record voices and edit the visuals to match the changed-around parts). 

[note: if there’s anywhere you want to frontload introductions for the spin-off, it’d be in the final season, not the penultimate season. Here it feels like a big honking distraction, rather than an organic segue into the next iteration.]

That change necessitated that utterly bizarro mecha that appeared out of nowhere with the most ridiculously impeccable timing. There needed to be a reason to pull the team back out to space to deal with Haggar and/or the alt-Alteans and/or Lotor or whomever else it turns out to be.

So... where we go from here depends on when S8 gets released, because that’ll tell us how much they did (or did not) edit the episodes. Another clue will be whose name gets listed as head editor for an episode; if we see Hedrick’s name reappear at the top, we’ll know we’re dealing with episodes that are enough unrevised to qualify as being Hedrick-edited, that it’s a version B episode. 

My expectation? They’ll move Shiro’s reconnection to the first part of S8, and add an episode or edit pieces of another, to blend it into what would’ve been the first half of S8 (probably with filler to mask the gap). Then add an episode to segue into the version B finale of S7, where we’d end with the original VLD lineup. With the time needed for animation, that’d be the easiest (if potentially awkward) way to repurpose as much as possible of existing artifacts. 

If we don’t get S8 in the next 1-2 months, though, all bets are off, and there’s a much greater possibility that the entire final season is being redone from scratch. I’d expect Keith to stay in Black, in that case, but I’m always willing to be pleasantly surprised.  

edited to add: see this followup for another detail that supports the reversed-seasons theory

[taeken-my-heart]

Tag Game

⇢ Rules: Answer these 85 questions about yourself and tag 20 people 

⇢ Tagged by the lovely @ditzymax and @avveh

⇢ Last:

Drink: Water

📱Call: My friend Maelah

Text Message: My last message was a group chat with some friends I have here in Korea via Kakaotalk. 

Song you listened to: A song called We’re Alive. My kids (at work) are doing the musical Toys and I’m helping them learn the songs since they’re only (Korean age) 5. 

Time you 😢: I’m honestly not sure. It’s been a while. Probably about something that happened at work or about missing my family. Those are the most likely options, haha. 

⇢ Ever:

Dated someone twice:  Well, depends what we’re talking about. If we’re talking about a date, then two weeks ago, if we’re talking about a relationship...a very, very long time ago. My character in Independent has all of my commitment issues :P

😘 someone and regretted it: No. There is someone I regretted kissing a long time ago, but now I don’t care anymore. It’s part of my history, whatever. 

Been cheated on: No...but again, commitment issues. I’ve never been with someone long enough to be cheated on :S

Lost someone special: Of course. 

Gotten drunk and thrown up: No

⇢ In the last year, have you:

Made new friends: Yes. :)

Fallen out of 💛:  No.

😂 until you 😢: the very first episode of the Korean show Busted. 

Found out someone was talking about you: Definitely. It sucks, but it’s on them, not me. 

Met someone who changed you: No. I’ve been changed by circumstances, but not one specific person. 

Found out who your friends are: Yes

😘 someone on your Facebook friends list: No.

⇢ General:

How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: Probably all of them. I don’t tend to add people I haven’t met in person. 

Do you have any pets: A cat who’s in America with my family. 

Do you want to change your name: I like my name.

What did you do for your last 🎂: Went to get 닭갈비 (Dakgalbi.) with friends and then we had 빙수 (bingsu) for dessert in Gangnam. 

What time did you wake up today: 7:45 but I always snooze for an extra 15 minutes because I live close to work and I don’t care about what I look like when I’m teaching 5 year old’s :P

What were you doing at midnight last night: Going to sleep. I really need to start sleeping early...but that means waking up for work earlier!

What is something you can’t wait for: To see my family again. I have a niece and a nephew I haven’t met yet and it hurts my soul. 

What are you listening to right now: At this very second? The sound of city traffic out my work window and the keys of my keyboard :P

Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Yup.

Something that gets on your nerves: Just one thing? Haha. When my kids (at work) don’t listen. 

Most visited website: Tumblr/Facebook/Instagram. Haha.

Hair color: Brown, though it’s light brown and some people apparently think I’m blonde...which I don’t really get, but whatever. 

Long or short hair: Well, my hair is currently short, but I love long hair. 

What do you like about yourself: I really like my eyes and my lips. My eyes are really big and expressive and my lips are thick but not too thick. I also (usually) like my hair, but in Korea it’s not as great because there’s chlorine in the water and it makes your hair fall out -.-

Want any piercings: I’ve got 4 and frankly I do want more. I don’t think I’ll get more, but I like the way they look. 

Blood type: No idea. My mother once told me either A, B, or AB...so that’s helpful,

Nicknames: Nora is my name on Tumblr and I don’t give out my real name to everyone, but even if I did, the only nicknames that come with it are terrible. So no, no nicknames :)

Relationship status: Single as a pringle and ready (terrified) to mingle. 

Zodiac sign: Taurus

Pronouns: she/her

Favorite 📺 show: I don’t watch TV.

Tattoos: None and no interest. 

Right or left handed: Right.

Ever had surgery: Lasek (and wisdom teeth - if that counts.)

Piercings: I basically already answered this...but yes, I have 4. 

Sports: I’m not talented in the sports department, but I did play almost every sport my high school offered to be more well rounded.

Dream Vacation: Anything around the Greek Isles/Croatia area!

Trainers: Nothing brand name. Just cheapo stuff you can get at Walmart. 

Eating: I’ve been lazy recently because my schedule is jam packed so when I get home I often just order delivery :S DON’T LEARN FROM ME, CHILDREN!

Drinking: Water. Always water. 

I’m about to watch: Nothing. Still at work for another hour and a half. 

Waiting for: Work to end. Then I have Korean classes. 

Want: To eat dinner before going to class :)

Get married for: Love, someone to be my best friend. 

Career: Honestly...I don’t disclose my age...but I’m an adult and I’m telling you, unless you’re one of the lucky one’s who just “knows” early on, it’s a long road to figuring it out. I still don’t know. Most people don’t figure it out for a long time. 

Hugs or kisses: Don’t know, don’t have a lot of dating/kissing experience *shrugs* 

👄 or eyes: Eyes. :)

Shorter or taller: Taller, but I’m not very tall so it’s kind of hard to be shorter than me. 

Older or younger: I'm open to both. I’ve kind of been preferring younger guys recently, but that really depends on mentality, too.

Nice arms or stomach: Arms

Hookup or relationship: Relationship.

Troublemaker or hesitant: Neither. I don’t mind cautious, just as long as it’s not a complete detriment, haha. 

⇢ Have you ever:

😘 a stranger: No.

Drank hard liquor: I don’t drink, but I have tried vodka before. Does that count?

Lost glasses: Yes, but now I’ve had lasek...so no :P

Turned someone down: Definitely. 

Sex on first date: No.

Broken someone’s ️❤️: Yes.

Had your 💔: Yes.

Been arrested: Nope.

😢 when someone died: Yes.

Fallen for a friend: Yes.

⇢ Do you believe in:

Yourself: Most days, but not in certain things.

Miracles: Absolutely, 100%

💛 at first sight: No.

😘 on the first date: No.

Angels: Yes, but not the winged kind. 

⇢ Other:

Best friend’s name: Both of my sisters (in law) names. For privacy reasons we will all them C and K. 

Eye color: On my record it says brown, but I think they might be hazel. 

Favorite Movie: Pride and Prejudice, the BBC version. I also love Letters to Juliet. I’ve watched that movie multiple times in one day. 

Favorite actor:  I don’t really have any at the moment. I’ve always like Jim Carey and Sandra Bullock, though. 

Favorite Food: Korean food in general.

Extrovert or Introvert: Ambivert. 

Favorite flower: So many beautiful ones! Sunflowers, calla lilies, dahlias, and basically all wild flowers. 

Favorite Hello 🐈 characters: Am I supposed to know these? I looked them up. Either Pochacco or Badte-maru

⇢ Twenty people is too many. So I’ll just tag a few @ditzymax @army-author @fireheart-namjoon @hoseokiehopie.  There’s no pressure. Do if you want to :)

[mcmansionhell]

Looking Around: On Moving; or, The Story of a Little Old House

Author’s Note: This article consisted of two weeks of intense research, involving scouring over fire insurance maps, tables of wages, census records, Sears catalogs, and atlases. Before I begin, I owe some mad thanks to those who helped provide their resources and advice: preservationist Jackson Gilman-Forlini, furniture history guru Susannah Wagner, the nice folks from the Maryland Historical Society, and the research library staff at the Johns Hopkins University.

Anyone who has made copious trips to U-Haul, rendered their fingertips numb after stringing along line after line of packing tape, or spent hours intimately acquainting ones lower back with an ice pack, knows – and loathes – moving.

Moving is stressful. It is a form of migration, itself an immense change. Despite the momentous effect moving has on us, there is little to be found regarding the history of, well, moving. Plenty has been said about techniques of migration, by boat, by horse and buggy, by rail, and by car. 

In novels and movies, from Harry Potter to Doctor Zhivago, there are scenes of train stations, carts with ornamented trunks, and porters donning funny cylindrical hats to haul them. In photographs of Ellis Island complete with their visual narratives of the American Dream, we see thousands of hopeful newcomers cheering gleefully, suitcases in hand. 

As time goes by, the railway porters are replaced with truck drivers; the journey implied by the ocean liner morphs into bucolic images of a smiling suburban family on the island-lawn of their poorly-shuttered idyll. 

Family Moving to their New Home. Washington State, 1935. via Library of Congress. 

Why am I writing about moving? Over the last two weeks or so, I, myself, moved. I moved from a dingy (yet immensely charming) self-constructed room in what used to be a Cork and Seal Factory, to a little 812 square-foot Baltimore rowhouse. 

Each of the times I’ve moved from apartment to apartment (and finally, on this move, to an actual, full-sized house), there have been great difficulties loading and unloading all of my crap – difficulties innate to the houses themselves. These were usually small hardships, involving the clever rotation of a sofa or armchair in order to wrestle it out the door. 

This time, however, I came to a horrifying revelation: None of my existing furniture would be able to A.) fit within the cramped dimensions of the narrow staircase or B.) make it around the corner in the shallow hallway to my room. 

I solved my problem the same way as any reasonable millennial:

Photo by Rainchill. (CC BY-3.0)

Yet, as I loaded up my cart with brown box after brown box, I couldn’t help but wonder: What did people do before Ikea? Why were the stairs so narrow, and more so, what went up them before my trendy flat-packed furniture?

The Little Rowhouse

According to two days of scouring archival newspapers and other primary sources, I could gleam a few interesting things about the little brown rowhouse into which I’m currently schlepping my stuff. 

The Little Brown Rowhouse (center). Via Google Maps.

The rowhouse was built sometime between 1900 and 1902. A Baltimore Sun record from 1898 shows the auction of parcels of land where the house would soon be built: 

EDIT: My colleague, Jackson, has found out that the house was built by a pair of builders named John S. Kidd & William A. Davidson. 

However, the first mention of any of the houses on the row (that is to say, even-numbered houses, as the houses on the opposite side of the street are of a different design), comes later, in 1902, in a divorce notice:

In 1905, the house next door to mine was for lease:

Unfortunately, no searches for C.W. Webb pulled up anything of note. 

I learned some other interesting things during my newspaper dig, (most notably that the folks who once lived a block south from me got busted during Prohibition) - but ultimately, came to a dead end on my original topic: what kind of person moved into my rowhouse first, and how they did it. 

The Process

In order to glean how working people moved back in the early 1900s, I decided to focus on a few key areas of research:

What kind of wages the family would make, what they would spend it on and what kind of local industry they might have participated in.

What kind of stuff was being moved; (AKA what kind of furniture these folks bought and how much it cost)

What the costs were of moving services during this time, and whether they were affordable for the family in question. 

Potential Jobs, Wages, and Expenditures

The best way to look for what kind of industry existed in a certain area at a certain time is through a series of maps by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Co. These maps were used for evaluating fire risk (and therefore how high the premiums should be for fire insurance.)

In the index of a Sanborn Map, there are two parts. First is the list of streets, with a number, corresponding to a plate number. The second is a list of industries along with larger businesses, schools, orphanages, and churches, along with their plate numbers. To find out what kind of industry was near the street you’re looking for, simply look for industries relatively close to the plate number of your street. 

It’s likely that the folks who lived in my house worked in one of two places: as a railworker (at the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad, The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; The United Railroad & Electric Company) or in the stone quarry (Sisson Marble Works, not shown in screenshot). Working class women often worked as well, most likely in the nearby textile mills lining the Jones Falls River.

There are a few smaller industries these folks could have worked in as well, such as the Columbia Motor & Manufacturing Co., The American Can Factory, J. Stack & Sons Lumber, or the Schier & Bros. Dairy. However, it’s most likely that the person who first lived in my house was a stone or rail worker, as the house used to be mere blocks from both the quarry and a massive rail yard:

Image from a 1905 Map. House is in top-right corner, in red. 

Okay, so we know where the head of the household likely worked. How much did they make doing it? 

Were the head of household a worker in the nearby marble quarry, he (women did not work in the quarry in 1900) would have made around $813 a year.

Source: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008319974

Were they a railworker of some sort (the average workweek of railway workers in nearby Pennsylvania was around 62 hours/week in 1901) they would have made somewhere between $420/year as a day laborer and $1350/year as a senior engineer. Source. 

What would these folks spend these wages on? Here are some more statistics (average expenditures) from Pennsylvania (a neighboring state with similar industries.)

Source.

Now that we know what these folks might have made (on average), let’s see what kind of goods they possibly purchased.

Furniture

It’s difficult to know what kind of furniture most working class folks had in their houses. According to my sister (Hi Suz!), who studies furniture history at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, it’s possible that a family working in 1900 bought some pieces of mass-produced furniture, like that sold by Sears Roebuck & Co.

Page from a Sears catalog c. 1900.

The truth is more difficult, because much of the mass-produced, inexpensive furniture of the time was made out of cheap materials such as basswood and has not survived. It’s also possible that the family had some pieces passed down from generation to generation, which wouldn’t be accounted for in primary sources from the time. What is true, is that there is a certain amount of furniture most folks need for their homes.

Fortunately for us, there are photographs in the Library of Congress of tenement and other working class interiors, enabling us to get a better picture of what folks had in their homes:

Kitchen of a Railway Worker. New York, 1911. Library of Congress.

Living area of a NYC Tenement. 1912. Library of Congress.

Small interior bedroom of a tenement. NYC, 1912. Library of Congress. 

Descriptions of working class housing from the book Working Class Life: The “American Standard” in Comparative Perspective, show some common similarities between how working class homes were furnished; the most important being that average expenditure on furniture rose when folks were paid more. Often, according to the book, almost $13 per year was spent simply replacing cheap linens, curtains, and cutlery alone, so there was little room left over for additional pieces. (204)

Typically, there was a shared living and dining room, centered around a table, surrounded by Windsor or ladder backed chairs, perhaps a sofa and chest-of-drawers, a few trinkets and photographs, and perhaps a rug.

Most of the time, upstairs rooms were almost unfurnished, having only an iron bed frame and felt mattress. 

Those who made a little extra had more frills: a rocking chair and china cabinet in the front room, and in the bedrooms, mirrors, and bathroom fixtures like chamberpots and washbasins. (203)

This description perfectly coincides with the Baltimore rowhouse, which has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a basement (likely unfinished until much later). The bathroom, like most bathrooms in dwellings built before 1910, was a more recent addition. Therefore, It’s likely that the folks who first lived in the little rowhouse had furniture and rooms like those described above. 

Which brings us back to...

Moving

As far as the answer to the initial question of “how stuff got up the stairs”, the answer is that, frankly, not that much had to go up the stairs in the first place. 

Most mass-produced iron beds could be dismantled and taken upstairs in parts. Felt mattresses were extraordinarily thin by todays standards, and, because they’re stuffed and pliable, the family would have little trouble navigating the tricky corner at the top of the stairs. As for the more luxurious items, mirrors, basins, and chamberpots, all are also easily portable.

The answer to the second question, which was how would a family move from one home to another is, sadly, we’re still not sure. What is certain is that, if they came from another city, they probably didn’t take much with them, as shipping or transferring things by train was extraordinarily expensive by working class standards: the Pennsylvania railroad charged 75¢ per piece (not counting oversized items) - to move one item alone was about a full day’s work for a common day laborer. 

If the family were moving within the city, it’s highly unlikely they used a moving company, as the prices for such were hefty as well at 25¢/piece, as advertised in 1898 by this local furniture mover:

A local anonymous opinion from 1904 corroborates this price range, bemoaning the techniques the moving company used to transfer items:

What’s more likely is that the family either had some way of bringing what existing furniture they had to the new house (usually by horse & buggy in 1900) or they bought furniture either by local/national catalog, secondhand or from one of the myriad small dealers or manufacturers in the city itself, seen here in the 1905-1906 edition of Polk’s Business Directory:

As it turns out, the folks who first moved into this house did so in a way not that different from me. They probably called up some folks to help haul what they could (if they were moving within the city) and what they couldn’t, they bought. 

Besides, what’s Sears if not the Ikea of the past?

If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon! Also JUST A HEADS UP - I’ve started posting a GOOD HOUSE built since 1980 from the area where I picked this week’s McMansion as bonus content on Patreon!

Not into small donations and sick bonus content? Check out the McMansion Hell Store ! 100% of the proceeds from the McMansion Hell store will go to help victims of the recent hurricanes.

Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs are used in this post under fair use for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2017 McMansion Hell. Please email kate@mcmansionhell.com before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)

[wendylewis-blog]

05.14.2020 /MamasDay+M-Th

Mamas’ Day

My friend Annie sent me a link this morning. I’m embarrassed that I never knew the actual history of Mothers’ Day.  I’ve made the grave mistake for years, it appears as of this morning, dismissing the event as just another Hallmark holiday created to ramp up national consumerism—out of sincerity or duty. Actually, the bigger story has been omitted from American history. The patriarchy (not YOU, men I love) strikes again! There is real feminist significance attached to this day, which deserves not only our attention—but also, our reverence. 

Teaser. “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced American women that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage. Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change modern society.  

Thank you, Heather Cox Richardson. I suggest following her with an easy click at the end of the link and/or follow her on Twitter. She posts daily, is politically savvy and keeps it concise/in-depth/readable. 

After canceling the initial Mothers’ Day plan with H/G/bbE/K because of bad weather, which would have put us inside the house, Kitty ended up in CF anyway to grab items I’d purchased for her at Costco. We spent an hour outside in the chilly grey afternoon by the fire pit after gathering kindling and firewood. She brought me brownies, a herby Italian verde sauce she’d made and a bottle of rye whiskey. H/G/bbE surprised me an hour later with a request via text to come into the yard in five minutes and brought tomato and pepper plants (woot!) for my garden. We all watched Ezra TV in the driveway for an hour. We especially enjoyed the episode featuring him teething on the steering wheel. Creative work, little man! 

After they left, I poured myself a stiff drink and stared out the studio window into early evening. A gentle rain was falling. I let circumstance go, let sadness and angst go. I washed my turgid blackboard down and tried to embrace some peaceful emptiness. I was in bed long before 10pm, sliding willingly into the time warp sleep provides for me lately. It was another bittersweet time with my people—not touching, not sitting at a table together, not able to relax into each other the way we would have a couple months ago. But, they are my family and it is never a diminishing return to be with them. Thank you for driving down to see us even though we had called the gathering off. It was a good Mothers’ Day. I love you all more than I can express!

My dreams that night were flush with all things post-apocalyptic. I was in an office building transformed into a flophouse of endless lonely cubicles, bare mattresses thrown down on synthetic grey carpet, bland tan fabric divider walls too short and porous to provide any privacy, a random empty chair here and there—askew, the bathroom’s flickering florescent light pulsing numbly through its plastic diamond-textured ceiling panel. I felt a disconnected calm inside me—a dead calm as I moved through the building. Everyone I saw in there was a stranger—except for an old bandmate I ended up in bed with— so impossible and surreal. It wasn’t the act, gratefully omitted, but the aftermath scenario instead—exposed, mannequin-esque bodies, no desire, no connection, no tenderness—only his crushing possessiveness after I explained that I had many other lovers even though I knew they didn’t matter either. I turned his noise off undramatically, easily as his panic escalated—the click of a switch—like turning off bad radio. He vanished, seemed to dematerialize on the dark street, leaving only strangers hanging on the corners, propped against buildings, inert yet somehow, guardian—but I felt nothing—nothing at all. Alive but dead inside. 

Mon

I woke up at 4:30AM. Shared dream details with B before he headed off to a fresh pot of coffee and work. I always benefit from his insightful (often hilarious) perspective on my intrepid darknesses, asleep or awake. In a previous issue of Lockdown, I’d queried how the virus and physical distancing might affect our intimacies going forward, the dream standing as the latest metaphor. I laid back down, folding into the quiet of my bed and may have slept awhile longer, still rising before dawn. 

Hours were spent in my garden that morning turning over soil in the crisp air, laying straw tiles separated from the bale in the wheelbarrow after cutting the blue plastic string. I laid them over the mulch that had cooked over the summer of 2019, which I’d lovingly spread a few days prior, prepping the ground for seeds that are en route to me: bush beans, marigolds, arugula, mustard, zinnia and nasturtium seeds from my sister, cilantro and basil from Etsy and those MD tomato and pepper seedlings from H+G. It’s been difficult to find non-GMO seeds around here—the same way it’s still hard to find TP, hand sanitizer, and lately, yeast and flour. I planted cilantro, Mexican tarragon, and basil plants I’d found in Northfield in pots, thyme and mint along garden edge that meets my front stoop. 

The morning felt hushed, orderly—my act of civility engaging with living things that don’t speak but offer company and require only my willingness to share a piece of earth with them. Before the sun reached over the garden, I decided to put in one cherry tomato plant because a tomato cage represented future sustenance. I could imagine the little plant growing tall to fill the cage, yellow flowers appearing before the fruit. It felt romantic and I succumbed. I watered everything, filled the bird feeder and headed off to Redwing to run an errand.

It felt good to drive the winding two-lane roads between overwintered, as yet unturned spring fields, slipping down the bluff lines along the Cannon River, the sun all full of itself. The sky was cerulean blue with tiny cotton ball clusters of clouds. The world beyond my windshield seemed serene and normal—even pastoral—a momentary ruse worth believing against the numbing dripdripdrip of our internment. Returning home, I cleaned the kitchen with a similar communion felt with the garden and highways. FaceTimed with a friend and planned a fire pit hootenanny with him and a few friends soon, walked the dog and sat on the stoop overlooking the yard. We ate soup from B’s mama for dinner (thank you, Helen), brought in the tender herb pots for the night and was ready to sleep before 8:30, a rarity for me. I have to say, it felt like a pretty good day! I count them all, good or not. 

Tues

It dipped just below freezing again last night and I really thought that sweet li’l cherry tomato plant that looked so sturdy yesterday could handle it but, ooof!—it’s droopy, quietly murdered overnight. Another casualty of Corona Times, like a broken promise, a breach of trust. I jerked it out of the ground without any tenderness and tossed it into the yard where it will eventually make love with mower blades and clipped grasses. I was mad at myself, of course. It’s just one tomato plant and I have more perched on the radiator under the south facing window, lined up like fresh recruitments ready for service. Still, each seedling, especially this year, feels like an individual. 

I’m alarmed with the message being conveyed by the White House in recent days—normalizing the loss of life, the US population being at least encouraged and possibly forced back into a virulent world with the expectation that we can save the collapsing economy. The grim reaper is leaning casually on his sickle next to my dead tomato plant, the one I exposed to the elements too soon, the one I planted with careless impunity to serve my immediate desire. 

Please listen to this conversation on Pema Chodron’s book When Things Fall Apart. I ordered it after years of intending to and it’s on the way. I will set it on the bookshelf next to my worn copies of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, the Tao te Ching and Dillard’s For the Time Being. Reference books for being alive, human and uncertain. 

JFTR. On Being continues to win me over. Here’s another one if you decide to check it out. She’s really smart and this guest, Ocean Vuong—brilliant. 

Wed 

A beautiful essay penned by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s son Rodrigo. Thanks, C, for sending—and for the seeds which arrived today. I didn’t plant more today because still freezing overnight. 

My college roommate long friend Toni linked me to this article over the weekend. It was SO fkn HELPFUL. It breaks down how the virus gets spread in a very practical way that you can use every day. This article is exactly why my fam and I reeled ourselves back from having lunch inside my house on Mothers’ Day. Everyone agreed.

Colbert has been killing it, as always and this one—so spot on. Also, Seth Meyers’ latest episode—I mean, please! Trump’s Mothers’ Day bit is truly—uhhnbelievable. Waking up to the absurdity of what is happening right now as it rolls and rolls. I also truly live for these socially distanced performances with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots. They make me joy-cry. 

There are good ppl out there doing their best. We are all trying to do our best, even on our hardest days. Beating the zombies back one by one. Don’t believe that the angry gun-toting ppl are coming for us. They are few. We are many. It’s time to activate.

I’ve noticed lately I’m getting a sense for when Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert, for example, might be having a bad day. They aren’t on stage anymore, they don’t have a responsive audience to pump them up, they are people like we are, broadcasting from their homes. They struggle with life under the pandemic just the way we do. I can feel when they are having to get up for another broadcast from home or lapsing in attention, disengaging or losing the thread with someone they are interviewing. It’s an subtle nuance to notice, and it makes me feel as if I am getting a brief peek into their humanity instead of simply watching them put on the show.

I’ve also been making... um, haha... bread—the kind of bread you have to knead and let rise and punch down and knead and let rise again and so on. I finally got some active dry yeast and made two sandwich loaves a week ago. On my second round yesterday, I pushed my 20+ year old Kitchen Aide stand mixer beyond its limit. Smoke drifting from the housing, dough hook seizing up, goodbye trusty appliance. 

While the dough was going through its rising process, I searched DIY fixes which were plentiful and also searched for parts through the Kitchen Aide website, discovering they—are—not—selling—them. Really? Boo on you, Kitchen Aide. You won’t force me to buy a $400 mixer ever again. Double boo on you, assumed capitalism. Until I’m able to find the parts I need via Etsy or wherever (NOT Amazon ever again), I’ll use the mixer my mother-in-law offered me since she doesn’t use it much and remind myself of the days when I used to knead bread by hand—that ancient task. Again—get it together, Lewis! 

I’ll leave you with this brilliant essay from The Paris Review called Fuck the Bread. The Bread is Over. Thank you, Byrdie, for tagging me on this one. I’m still gonna make the bread one way or another because it saves money but I’ll keep the wise words from the authors mother closest to my heart, which translates loosely into stop holding on so tight to what you think you need.

Thurs

So, I’ve been writing today and editing and writing more and editing more. It’s all about thinking and re-thinking everything with nothing on my plate but time staring up at me. There is a strange blessing that has a chance to bloom inside this isolation. 

Go gently, my friends, family and any strangers who may be stopping by. Thanks for being here with me. I really appreciate you, wherever you are today.

Stay safe. Be strong. Fall apart. Know you aren’t alone. Lovelove. 

[aion-rsa]

Rick And Morty Comics Are Worth Your Time Too

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The Rick And Morty comics are a consistently solid fix of the adventures TV show fans know and love...

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Once they managed to get McDonald’s to reproduce the Szechuan sauce first produced in 1998 for the release of Mulan, Rick and Morty established itself as part of the television furniture. As every struggling creative knows, however, success like this doesn’t come overnight. In the beginning (during the Earth year 2006), Justin Roiland created a short called The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti for Channel 101. If you haven’t seen it, then it doesn’t really have much in common with the end product so I wouldn’t worry about it. But when Dan Harmon came calling after his work on Community, Roiland suggested developing something based on the short.

From there, the program went through a series of retools until they ended up with a half-hour comedy about a mad scientist type (Rick Sanchez, genius, a barely-functional alcoholic) and his grandson (Morty, 14, slightly more level-headed, masturbates) going on dimension-hopping adventures. It’s a smart, high concept show that is incredibly clever; it looks at the family dynamic in a refreshing way and doesn’t shy away from the family’s flaws. The series is responsible for a lot of quotes that have entered everyday conversation and you’ll find that you quickly pick up a lot of favorites.

Rick And Morty has become the kind of success that creatives can only hope for when they’re putting a show together. The first season aired in December 2013 and the third is currently airing. But then you already knew that, it’s hard to get away from whatever’s going on in that week’s episode. For better or worse, it’s everywhere. It’s on shirts. There are action figures, video games, and all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. But most pertinently to our feature, there’s a series of comics published by Oni Press.

read more: Rick and Morty Characters We Want To See Again

For a show whose new episodes are so eagerly anticipated, the fact that Oni has been bringing us new adventures since 2015 is oddly little-known. But of course, given how many millions of viewers the show has and that a much smaller percentage of that would have bought the books, there’s going to be a large disparity there. So I thought I would do a public service and tell you why you should be reading the Rick And Morty comics.

Overall, the range is one of the better pieces of tie-in fiction that you will ever read. In terms of how much it gets right, it’s a shining example to the rest of the comic world.

For one thing, the artwork is consistently good and the range of artists allows for differences in the art style. Maybe it’s because the characters were animated to begin with, but most of the time the artwork is pretty spot on (although there was one howler where Jerry’s anguished face looked more like his orgasm face).

read more: What Rick and Morty's 70 Episode Order Means For The Future of The Show

But maybe you haven’t come to this incredibly visual medium for the art style. That’s fine, they’ve got you covered. The writing is top-notch and is full of the same kind of one-liners and superb storylines that you’d find in the show. In each issue, you’ll find a good few laughs to keep you going. For those of you afraid that the strip would just be a rehash of old plotlines and beloved character comebacks, well, there is a tiny bit of that but not much and it’s usually fun. The Ball Fondlers special issue was worth every penny. Tiny Rick did make a return in a recent issue, but it was part of an inventive issue with lots of laughs. But the series is full of new situations and characters such as Peacock Jones, a pimp version of the Doctor who encourages his female companions to dress in sexy outfits.

Where the comic format really shines is the ability to write for the trade, as opposed to the TV show which tends to have a looser overall story. Here the story arcs are tightly plotted and fit into a single trade paperback with room to spare.

The extra room in each book (five at present) is given over to the bonus short stories featured in each issue. These can range from what Beth does when she gets her hands on a portal gun to a day in the boring life of Jerry Smith. This is reflected in my recommendations further down the page, but the bonus shorts that feature in each issue are, in a lot of cases, well worth reading in their own right. 

read more: Revisiting Rick and Morty Episode 1

Frankly, the main thing that makes it a must-have is that it’s a consistently solid fix of the adventures we know and love. Rick and Morty has a nasty habit of disappearing off our screens for far too long, and this series provides a monthly allowance of the good stuff (having said that, they still haven’t done an adaptation of Jan Quadrant Vincent 16. Get it sorted, guys). I’ve blabbered on for far too long. Go to your nearest bookshop and acquire the collections. I can’t imagine anyone coming to the TV series via the comics - though if you did, then I almost envy you - but those who are already fans of the show will find a lot to love in this series.

7 great issues to start with:

Issue #27. The draw here isn’t so much the main story (though it’s also great), but the absolute gem of a bonus which follows it, Look Cthulhu Talking Now, in which Cthulhu is not only real but knows Rick Sanchez and joins him in treating Jerry Smith like an idiot. Cthulhu’s line “That crib was not dope enough for my needs” is worth the price of admission. 

Issue #1. The first issue of the series is fantastic throughout. This is the lead-in to a three-part story in which Morty and Rick get arrested and have to escape from a prison that Rick built. The very first page looks like a transcript from the show, with a typical Rick and Jerry face-off (which Jerry loses, of course). The standout character has to be Professor Tock, a guy with a time gimmick who delights in making watch puns. 

Issue #29. At time of writing, the latest issue. In this one-shot, Morty becomes obsessed with putting a stop to Fascism and Hitlers wherever he finds them. His fanatical devotion to this cause causes him to act almost in a fascistic way, you might say.  

Issue #25. Tiny Rick returns! I loved this one. Rick activates a device which shows in numbers how cool a person is. Rick is, naturally, the highest that a person can be (his score is in the thousands while Morty doesn’t even have a solid number to his name). The art style is also really unusual, thanks to the more stylised art of Kyle Starks (who also wrote the story).

Issue #17. In this fun little story, the duo explore the fun in taking infectious diseases to other planets that aren’t ready for them. But the B-plot, in which Rick gives intelligence to Summer’s phone and other electronics, is more enjoyable. The phone very quickly makes it creepy.

Issue #11: Both plots are great in this issue. In the first, Morty is put into a high-school simulator in an effort to give him his essential life experience in one day. Summer and Jerry end up switching bodies.

Issue #2: In the bonus story, Summer is interviewing for a job in a fast food restaurant and recalls her previous experience of ‘food management’. Glorious stuff.

Editor's note: This article comes from Den of Geek UK and originally ran in September 2017. It's been repromoted in advance of Rick and Morty Season 4.

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Feature

TV

Scott Varnham

Nov 8, 2019

Rick and Morty

Comedy

Animation

from Books https://ift.tt/33s7S2M

[saved-your-sorry-ass]

1-10 for Tom, 10-20 for Mike, 20-30 for Helen/Laura, 30-43 for any OC of your choice and all the creator questions for joo

NOTE: All Answers placed in ‘The Last Ship’ Verse. 

Tom: 

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do? - The maximum amount of time that Tom can sit still with nothing to do is 4-5 minutes. Tom is incapable of sitting still with nothing to do.

How easy is it for your character to laugh?- It depends on what your relationship with him is like; if you’re family or a loved one it’s relatively easy to get him to laugh, if you’re someone he doesn’t know very well it’s harder but still possible. 

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)- Reading and/or thinking. 

How easy is it to earn their trust?- It’s pretty easy to gain Tom’s trust if you’re careful and don’t get sassy right off the bat. (Read: Helen and Rachel are outliers to this fact. Tom found their outright sass incredibly admirable considering the current state of the world.) 

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?- Incredibly easy; easier than gaining said trust. Once it’s lost it’s near impossible to gain back. 

Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?- Tom considers most laws to have a small degree of flexibility. Others he considers to be immovable (I.E; not negotiating with terrorists).

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?- Looking at pictures of Darien and his children is what most often triggers nostalgia for Tom and he often does enjoy the feeling however some days he wishes he could forget and move on.

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?- ‘Stop picking on your sister!’ 

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?- It’s not often that Tom swears. ‘Son-of-a-bitch’ was his first curse. 

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?- Telling Mike he hadn’t had any luck in finding his family. This particular lie haunts him because he did find Mike’s family however he was too late. 

Mike: 

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?- Often times he will pretend to understand simply because he’s too proud to admit that he’s confused. Depending on whom he’s with however he will as for clarification. (Read: Most likely to be comfortable enough to seek clarification from Hiroshi, Takehaya, Jasper and Tom.) 

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?- “Back scratchers were invented for a reason.”

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?- Blue; Hell yes. 

What animal do they fear most?- Monkeys

How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?- Mike tends to be a hot-headed individual which often leads to him speaking without thinking first; however dependent on the situation at hand he will occasionally take some time to think about his answer before verbalizing it. 

What makes their stomach turn?- Several things make Mike’s stomach turn; the idea of eating monkey’s and the fact he truly doubted whether Rachel’s vaccine was actually failing.

Are they easily embarrassed?- No.

What embarrasses them?- The fact he gets off on being dominated. (Looking at you Takehaya.)

What is their favorite number?- 151 (Also Tom’s Serial number)

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?- Mike would probably try to do an in depth explanation, confuse himself and end up getting flustered and walking away.

Why do they get up in the morning? - He gets up in the morning because he believes that he is helping to keep the world a safer place. 

Helen: 

Why do they get up in the morning? - Helen gets up in the morning because she knows that lazing around in bed all day isn’t going to help save the world. 

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)? - Jealousy manifests in Helen in negative actions; she can become incredibly snippy and standoffish when jealous. 

How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)? - Helen most often will become resentful if envy manifests in her however there have been occasions where she has taken what she wants.

Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom? - Being British and having grown up with the stigma that sex is a subject better left under the rug Helen very much struggles with speaking comfortably about sex, no matter whom she is with. 

What are their thoughts on marriage?- While Helen is not completely sold on the idea, she knows that if she were to find the right partner then she would happily put on the white puffy dress and walk down that aisle in style. 

What is their preferred mode of transportation? - Anything that doesn’t have only two wheels; a childhood trauma of a bicycle handlebar impaling her thigh left her with a severe phobia of bicycles or motorbikes. 

What causes them to feel dread? - A lot of things cause Helen to feel dread; most often not knowing how things are progressing during land expeditions. 

Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth? -No, Helen prefers to hear the truth rather than be told a lie however she’s something of a hypocrite as she would rather tell a lie than deliver an unpleasant truth. 

Do they usually live up to their own ideals? - Helen often tries to live up to her own ideals however she knows she often falls short of them. 

Who do they most regret meeting? - Arthurus Morrow.

Nevada: 

Who are they the most glad to have met? - Amy Granderson

Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke? - Not particularly; Nevada tends to go with the flow of the conversation these days rather than steer it in a direction that suits him. He prefers to limit the amount of people who know about his past as a Mafia Kingpin. 

Could they be considered lazy? - No, Nevada does tend to pull his weight and do his share of the work around Baltimore. 

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? - Not hard at all. His philosophy these days is he’s done worse things in the past and failed to feel guilt over his actions, why should he start to grow a conscience now? 

How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive? - Nevada does try to be supportive of the things that excite his associates; especially if they are children. Some things however, such as scientific ‘breakthroughs’, he honestly could not care less about simply because he does not understand the fundamentals of the thing. 

Do they actively seek romance, or do they wait for it to fall into their lap? - Nevada actively seeks romance. He’s a manwhore through and through. 

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)? - Yes; get someone else to remember it for him. 

What memory do they revisit the most often? - Nevada most often revisits the memory of relaxing in a bar with his big brother Rafael after Raffi first passed the bar exam and began his journey to becoming the ass-kicking lawyer he was before The Red Flu epidemic. 

How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people? - Incredibly easy; Nevada knows that he has no room to judge others for their flaws as he has plenty of his own. 

How sensitive are they to their own flaws?- He is well aware that he has many flaws. Is he going to work on them? Hell no. 

How do they feel about children? - Nevada loves children. Probably(read: Definitely) more than he should.

How badly do they want to reach their end goal? - As far as Nevada’s concerned he’s already reached his end goal. The council that controlled his actions as a Mafia Leader is more than likely eradicated now, leaving him free to do as he pleases. 

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? - Nevada would likely explain his sexuality via listing the sheer number of people (of all ages, genders, orientations, race etc) that he has slept with. 

Creator Questions: Answering for the creation of Helen

A) Why are you excited about this character?- I am excited for this character simply because of the vast amount of potential that she has to be an inspiration to young people in the future. B) What inspired you to create them?- Honestly I can not put my finger on what exactly inspired me to create Helen. C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?- For a very, very long time yes. It’s only been recently that I’ve figured out where she fits in her own story and even now that idea is constantly evolving and being adapted as new ideas and plans pop up. D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?- More or less her appearance has been consistent; I haven’t really had to edit her appearance very much. E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?- Considering Helen is recreated in my image I would like to think that we would get along. F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?- Excitement and frustration both.G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?- I have not really delved into the traits that Helen does/doesn’t possess yet.H) What trait do you admire most?- See G.I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?- Nope. This gal is free to hop into any universe she likes. J) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?- No. 

[vaspider]

okay but if someone doesn't experience homophobia or transphobia then they're not lgbt it's as simple as that.... the lgbt community doesn't exist for the purpose of being "inclusive" it literally is by nature exclusive to people who experience homophobia and/or transphobia

No, I’m sorry, that’s simply not true. I’ve written an awful lot about this, which you can find under my ‘ace exclusion’ tag. But since there’s a lot under there, let’s hit all the highlights. Frankly, it’ll be nice to have an omnibus post I can just pass to people from now on. 

This post is not an argument of your point, it is a reference post, because you are simply wrong.

This post is going to be very, very long, and very, very US-centric. It is important to state right up front that this discussion is extremely Western-centric. I do not have the right personally to speak on gender and sexual orientations from indigenous communities of which I am not a member, but it is absolutely important to acknowledge that the colonization of gender and sexual identity of non-Western peoples is a) wrong as fuck and b) we need to knock it off and c) none of the stuff I’m writing necessarily applies to non-Western peoples/indigenous peoples. 

1) This ‘formed to fight homophobia and transphobia’ definition of LGBT is literally and completely an invention of Tumblr. It started on Tumblr, it really only exists on Tumblr, and it only exists for the sole purpose of excluding minority sexualities and orientations (not limited to but currently focused on asexuality). It’s a very recent invention and this specific definition is less than eighteen months old. Probably less than a year old, but I’ll be honest: I don’t have the time or patience to go through the history on Tumblr and read all the hateful stuff that I’d have to in order to find the first use of that particular little piece of nonsense.

2) If that’s the case, then bisexuals (that big ol’ B in there) wouldn’t necessarily be part of the community, because bisexuals experience biphobia, which, no, is not the same as homophobia, is not homophobia lite, is not because they are ‘perceived to be’ homosexual and therefore homophobia. Your definition also casually and totally sweeps intra-community biphobia under the rug, which, good golly, part of the reason that bisexual people became part of the acronym is because lesbians literally kicked bisexual women out of the term lesbian in the seventies. And of course that’s pretty funny considering that the discourse before the ace discourse was the bihet discourse. All of this has happened before, etc. etc. 

3) The acronym has constantly been in flux since the rise of the modern community, so trying to claim there’s some sort of continuity that goes back to a singular point and it’s always been LGBT and it has never been anything but LGBT is just… wrong.  (see point 5 and all subpoints) It was ‘the gay community’ > ‘the gay and lesbian community’ > ‘GLB community’ > ‘LGBT community’ (as a specific attempt to decenter gay men and also adding a letter because trans people fought hard for inclusion and are still fighting hard for inclusion) > LGBTQ/LGBTQI/LGBT+/LGBTQIA/LGBTQIPA - all of these have been in use for a really long time. That last set? Some of them have been in use for a decade or more. Some of them are much more recent. And the LGBTQ community is not a monolith, though with the rise of the internet we have certainly become much more connected. Organizational and regional variations absolutely exist. 

3a) Here’s a non-Tumblr link from a 53-year-old bisexual writer who discusses her history with the terms the community uses, and who suggests ‘NSP’ for Non-Straight People. Two therapists in 2013 (including the director of Pink Therapy) suggested that GSD ‘or Gender and Sexual Diversities,’ should replace LGBT.

Officials on the group’s Facebook page echoed those sentiments. “The point we’re trying to make is not that our community shouldn’t be called LGBT, it’ that actually our community is SO much BIGGER than simply LGBT,” they noted.

3b) Before the sexual revolution of the 1960s, there wasn’t really any kind of non-derogatory widespread term for the community or even for the people themselves. Uranian was used in the 19th century to refer to gay men (and later lesbians), and the ‘third gender’ – which was used for gay and lesbian people as well as gender-non-conforming and trans people most commonly in the 1950s and 1960s in the US  – was used. The term stopped being used in the 1970s in the US as gender identity and sexual orientation writing and identification started to separate into different things. So, again, our community, and our people, haven’t been called the same thing even over the last 2 centuries, let alone since the start of human history.

4) To stress again, ‘LGBT’ as an acronym began widespread use in 1988. Before that it was gay community, GLB, Lesbian and Gay community, etc. What we have called ourselves and why has always been changing. Always. 

5) Circling back to your main assertion, let’s turn it into questions and ask each of the major LGBTQ orgs via their mission statements and actions: what is the point of the community? And does the point of that community include asexual people? And since when has it done so?

5a) Human Rights Campaign Mission Statement:

The Human Rights Campaign and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation together serve as America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBTQ equality. By inspiring and engaging individuals and communities, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBTQ people and realize a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

The Human Rights Campaign envisions a world where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people are ensured equality and embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

5a1) Isn’t this just a rephrasing of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia’?

Nope. While it’s obvious that this is part of HRC’s mission, it repeatedly does not limit the discrimination that LGBTQ people face to ‘homophobia and transphobia.’ The mission statement very specifically talks about ‘working for LGBTQ equality’ and ‘end[ing] discrimination’ and ‘ensur[ing] equality and embrac[ing LGBTQ people] as full members of society.’ These sorts of things are read and debated and discussed, and this word choice was extremely purposeful. There were no accidents in this phrasing.

5a2) Are asexual people explicitly included? They don’t say it in the mission statement!

Yes. Asexual people are repeatedly and explicitly included.

In the HRC Equality Forward “At The Intersection” document from 2009, on p9, discussing a survey taken in 2008 to discuss the issue of race in what the document calls the LGBT community:

About half of the LGBT people of color in this survey identify as gay orlesbian (51 percent) and another 41 percent identify as bisexual. Theremaining 8 percent use a number of other terms to describe theirsexual orientation, including queer, intersexual, asexual, human and prefernot to use labels.

To be clear and to repeat, they didn’t kick people out of the survey if they identified as asexual. Asexual was included as a legitimate and LGBTQ orientation.

Also here, in a guest blog post written by Romeo Jackson, a self-identified QPOC: 

When I hear the national narrative on coming out, rarely do I hear the experiences of trans people, asexual people, or people of color represented. It seems these experiences are often over looked, and because of this, the coming out process as experienced by LGBT people of color is sometimes misrepresented and/or misunderstood.

Not only is it important for asexual people to be included, but it is important for asexual people’s coming-out stories to be included in our community discussions.

A couple more instances, for example this scholarship listing for UW-L Eagle Pride, and the HRC #AM_Equality Tip Sheet from May 2016 (listing of article educating people on asexuality).

5a3) Conclusion, subsection 5a: Human Rights Campaign’s mission statement does not define the community, their work or our struggle as ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia,’ but as a struggle to achieve equality for LGBTQ people in all communities, and they explicitly, repeatedly, over the course of at least seven years, well before the start of the ‘ace discourse on Tumblr, define ‘LGBTQ people’ and ‘LGBT people’ to include asexual people and asexuality. 

5b) The Trevor Project MIssion Statement:

The mission of The Trevor Project is to end suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning young people. The organization works to fulfill this mission through four strategies:

1. Provide crisis counseling to LGBTQ young people thinking of suicide.

2. Offer resources, supportive counseling and a sense of community to LGBTQ young people to reduce the risk that they become suicidal.

3. Educate young people and adults who interact with young people on LGTBQ-competent suicide prevention, risk detection and response.

4. Advocate for laws and policies that will reduce suicide among LGBTQ young people.

5b1) Another major org, and this one doesn’t even touch on fighting bigotry in any way (except potentially as fighting internalized bigotry in those who are suicidal) until their 4th point, and in that point, they clearly are advocating for laws and policies to protect LGBTQ young people. There’s no statement of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia is what we do, it’s all we do, the end.’ Not even close.

5b2) Are asexual people explicitly included? They don’t say it in the mission statement!

Yes. Here’s their asexuality FAQ, and at the bottom of it they link to AVEN (I realize AVEN is a somewhat controversial organization but I view that as an intra-sub-community issue and not for me to speak on, AVEN is clearly a legitimate resource to The Trevor Project), Asexual Awareness Week, and their own Asexuality 101 PDF. A notable quote under ‘ace issues’ on page 2:

LGBT communities aren’tuniversally supportive ofasexuality.

5b3) Conclusion, subsection 5b: The Trevor Project explicitly includes resources for asexual youth, giving asexuality a header equal to every other subgroup on their Resources page. They acknowledge that LGBT communities are not universally supportive of asexuality, but they address it as an issue, that is, an issue that needs to be addressed, and one for which asexual youth require explicit support. 

5c) GLAAD does not have an explicitly listed Mission Statement on their site. This is their About page:

GLAAD rewrites the script for LGBTQ acceptance. As a dynamic media force, GLAAD tackles tough issues to shape the narrative and provoke dialogue that leads to cultural change. GLAAD protects all that has been accomplished and creates a world where everyone can live the life they love.

5c1) I hope at this point I don’t have to explain that this is not just a rephrasing of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia,’ but an affirmative statement of working for acceptance and protection for the LGBTQ community as a whole. 

5c2) Are asexual people explicitly included?

Yes. February 1, 2015:

…it’s critical to boost acceptance of LGBT people, not just among non-LGBT folks, but also among members of our own community.

And that includes increasing acceptance of and being good allies to the Asexual, Agender, and Aromantic community.

Let us say without equivocation, the ‘A’ in LGBTQIA represents millions of Asexual, Agender, and Aromantic people, who are far too often left out of the conversation about acceptance.

(Note, this is over a year before GLADD added Q for ‘queer/questioning’ to their official acronym. The Q is a whole other kettle of fish, I provide it only for context of inclusion.)

July 24, 2015, re: a project on The Advocate called #21AceStories:

Cruz also previously curated #27Bistories, which similarly addressed misconceptions about bisexuality.

Cruz writes that the “erasure of asexual identities disenfranchises the asexual community from the LGBT community, perhaps more so than any other marginalized community.” It’s necessary to make asexual individuals feel like they have a place and a voice in the LGBT community – for their emotional wellbeing and physical safety.

October 29, 2014, re: Asexual Awareness Week:

GLAAD celebrates Asexual Awareness Week to amplify the voices of those who identify as asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and grey-asexual to be able to live the life they love.

This an explicit callback to the mission statement and an inclusion of asexual people in GLAAD’s ‘about’ and their mission.

February 12, 2016, in “The GLAAD Wrap”:

Every week, The GLAAD Wrap brings you LGBT-related entertainment news highlights, fresh stuff to watch out for, and fun diversions to help you kick off the weekend…. In the most recent issue, popular Archie Comics character Jughead came out as asexual. 

June 16, 2014, on Pride Flags:

To help clear any confusion and to refresh the memories of those who already know, Mashable has compiled a very useful list of iconic LGBT flags and symbols… 

 GLAAD put Mashable in touch with several LGBT leaders to talk about the symbols. Sarah Toce of The Seattle Lesbian and Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents explained the background of many of the LGBT symbols used within the community. GLAAD also worked with Geena Rocero, model and founder of Gender Proud, and BiNet USA’s Faith Cheltenham to provide commentary on the post, as well as GLAAD’s own National Spokesperson, Wilson Cruz…

The asexual pride flag has four stripes colored black, grey, white, and purple from top to bottom.

October 2016, Media Reference Guide, 10th Edition:

AsexualAn adjective used to describe people who donot experience sexual attraction (e.g., asexualperson). A person can also be aromantic,meaning they do not experience romanticattraction. (For more information, visitasexuality.org.) 

HeterosexualAn adjective used to describe peoplewhose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to people of theopposite sex. Also straight.

Please note that the GLAAD reference guide lists Asexual and Heterosexual one right after the other, and lists them as two different orientations and two different experiences. ‘Straight’ is only listed after Heterosexual.

From an article discussing acronyms, queer, and the GLAAD Media Reference Guide with The Advocate, Kate Ellis, GLAAD’s president and CEO: 

“It is still, of course, particularly concerned with media, aiming to assure that both news and entertainment media represent us in a manner that is fair, inclusive, and accurate. It has been publishing the Media Guide for about 20 years, so updates have come about every two years, Ellis notes. Other changes in the 10th edition include expanded definitions of the terms asexual and intersex, based on conversations with those populations, she says.” [Emphasis mine]

Note the inclusion of asexual and intersex with ‘us.’

5c3) Conclusion, subsection 5c: GLAAD does not have as an extensive a documentable history of asexual inclusion as HRC, The National LGBTQ Task Force, or The Trevor Project. They do expressly, repeatedly, explicitly include asexual people - notably, the GLAAD-written sentence “It’s necessary to make asexual individuals feel like they have a place and a voice in the LGBT community – for their emotional wellbeing and physical safety.” as well as explicitly including discussion of an asexual comic book character in their LGBT media roundup and explicitly including the asexual flag in their own write-up of LGBT Pride Flags in preparation for Pride Month. They expressly amended their Media Guide (one of GLAAD’s main projects) to include asexuality and do not define aces as straight but as LGBTQ.

5d) National LGBTQ Task Force Mission Statement:

The National LGBTQ Task Force advances full freedom, justice and equality for LGBTQ people.

We’re building a future where everyone is free to be themselves in every aspect of their lives. Today, despite all the progress we’ve made to end discrimination, millions of LGBTQ people face barriers in every aspect of their lives: in housing, employment, healthcare, retirement, and basic human rights. These barriers must go. That’s why the Task Force is training and mobilizing millions of activists across our nation to deliver a world where you can be you.

…

Everyone in our community is able to be exactly who they are and able to lead the lives they’re entitled to live. We want you to “be you.” We’ve made a lot of progress in the past 40 years and we never take that progress for granted. The Task Force community wants more than equality – we want to create a transformed society.

It’s very important to pause here and clarify that the National LGBTQ Task Force was founded in 1973 and is the oldest national LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States. It’s also important to note that “In 2014 the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force changed its name to the National LGBTQ Task Force; it was founded in 1973 as the National Gay Task Force and added Lesbian in 1985.” Over and over again, we see the evolution of the acronym, the words we use, and who would be therefore included. Our identity as a community has never been static.

5d1) Isn’t this just a rephrasing of ‘fighting homophobia and transphobia’?

Not in the sense of it being an exclusionary, ‘this and only this’ statement. The history of the Task Force is absolutely focused on fighting homophobia, homophobic violence, transphobia, biphobia, and all forms of anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination. They do not just seek to ‘fight all forms of LGBTQ-phobia,’ either, which is directly stated. They seek a transformed society in which there would be complete equality. 

5d2) Are asexual people explicitly included? They don’t say it in the mission statement!

Yes. 

April 30, 2013: The A Is Here To Stay

Now LGBT groups are having conversations about asexual issues. There have been workshops at the last two Creating Change conferences. The Task Force is joined by the Trevor Project and Campus Pride as the first LGBT organizations to include asexuality in their work.

April 2013: Wonky Wednesday, written by Jack Harrison, Policy Institute Manager

…I was very excited when Sarah Beth volunteered to write an Ace 101 post for the Task Force blog…

…there’s relatively little research by asexuals on asexuals, and what has been done is largely based around asking others their opinions of asexuals to determine the possibility of bias or psychological research attempting to establish possible reasons why people experience themselves as asexual. That means there’s almost no data based on methodologies of asking aces to articulate their own experiences.

I’ve been involved recently in a coalition of activists and academics, primarily from ace communities, trying to remedy this…

…the bulk of respondents [to a 2011 survey about asexuality] (76%) were between the ages of 16 and 25 years old, the implications of which are very interesting to someone like me who is very concerned about employment discrimination. This means that most ace-identified folks may not have entered the work force and thus, as advocates who believe that everyone has the right to be judged on the quality of their work rather than on their sexual or non-sexual identities, we need to be preparing for a rise in instances of discrimination in the coming years.

5d3) Conclusion, subsection 5d: The National LGBTQ Task Force evolved its position on its name in its 44 years of existence. They seek to create a truly equitable world and not only do they explicitly include asexuality in the LGBTQ community which they serve, but their Policy Institute Manager not only recognizes the need for more writing and work by asexuals about asexuals within the community, but considers the entry of a largely younger asexual community into the workforce to be an action item for which the Task Force should be prepared, in order to better handle instances of discrimination against the asexual members of the LGBTQ community.

5e) May 17th, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, A Worldwide Celebration of Gender and Sexual Diversities

Are Asexual people explicitly included?

Yes.

May 17 was first known as the “International Day against Homophobia” and mainstreamed through its acronym “I.DA.HO”In 2009, Transphobia was added explicitly in the title of the name, in the recognition of the very different issues at stake between sexual orientation and gender expression. “IDAHOT” became another popular acronym used alongside the initial one.Since 2015, biphobia is added to the title, to acknowledge the specific issues faced by bisexual people.

At the level of our Committee, we have kept the acronym ‘IDAHOT’, which we’ve been consolidating for years. We acknowledge this is an imperfect solution, but a necessity for communications consistency. We totally support other organisations who adapt the name of the day to their contexts and their priorities. In the UK for examples, the Day is increasingly known as IDAHOBiT*, in Latin America Lesbophobia is almost systematically included and placed first, etc.

To ensure even more inclusion and reflect the diversity of sexual and gender minorities, we have created at global level the baseline “A global celebration of sexual and gender diversities”. This is probably the only “solution” to the issue of inclusion and reflection of other diversities, such as Queer, Asexual, Pansexual and regional identities such as Hijras, Weres, Two-Spirit, etc. [emphasis mine]

The Day is not one central trademarked brand and everyone is free to communicate as they wish. This creates inconsistency but this is the cost to bear for large ownership.

No further comment is needed on this; the evolution of inclusion, and the explicit inclusion of asexual people, is already clearly delineated by the Committee’s own words. 

5f) The National Institutes of Health, in a study begun in 2009, included asexuality in an LGBT Health study. (Sadly this is behind a paywall, so I’m not going to go very far into it, just providing a link.)

5g) Before we go, here are a few links to college pride organizations which explicitly include ace people that I just happened to stumble across when I was looking for other links for this answer. I wasn’t even explicitly looking for them, I just found them. 

Conclusion: 

Our identity as a community has never been static. Since the rise of the modern US LGBTQ community in the 1960s and 1970s, our community has been consistently moving toward greater understanding of the massive complexity of sexuality and gender identity. What started as the Gay Community has gained so many letters and such great understanding of the incredible diversity of human gender and sexual experience that it has become necessary to use umbrella terms for ease of communication.

Unfortunately, sometimes those umbrella terms are taken as prescriptive, rather than inclusive, terms. Given the examples from every single major LGBTQ organization, the National Institutes of Health, and The Advocate (arguably the premiere or one of the premiere LGBTQ publications), asexuality is a part of the larger LGBTQ community, expressly accepted by every single major organization in the United States. 

Like transgender (including and/or alongside non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid and all other non-cis gender identities which may or may not consider themselves to be explicitly transgender or part of the trans community), pansexual, queer, and bisexual before (and in some cases alongside) it, asexuality is not a new identity - it is a relatively newly-understood identity. And just like all of those identities before and alongside it, acceptance both within and without the community has been and continues to be a struggle. 

Like bisexual and pansexual people especially, asexual people face accusations of being ‘outsiders,’ ‘secret straights,’ etc., who either face demands that they perform a certain amount of queerness to the satisfaction of others (with goalposts that constantly change), or are rejected outright. 

Like transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, etc. persons, asexual people face pushback from people who claim their identities aren’t real, don’t belong in the community - ‘what does a lack of sex have to do with being LGBTQ?’ ‘What does gender identity have to do with being gay, it’s a totally different thing, drop the T’ - and all other manner of exclusionary pushback.

Just as bisexuals faced much more pushback a quarter-century ago when I came out and started coming up in the LGBTQ community, but face greatly-diminished pushback now and a greater general acceptance that we are simply part of the community, and just as there was no word, no string of words that existed in the community vocabulary when I was a teenager for my gender identity, but there are now, asexuality, aromanticism, and all of the many other identities along the a-spec continuum, I have a great deal of faith that in the next few years, even Tumblr will move on from this particular division or discourse and move on to the next argument. I have every faith that given the fact that every major organization has explicitly included ace/aro folks, we will move on, and ace/aro folks will be a pretty-damn-completely-accepted ‘default’ part of the community, the same way that bi and trans people are accepted by all but a very small, non-representative portion of the community.

That’s already the truth outside of Tumblr. I simply hope that we can move on from this already, even on Tumblr, because the LGBTQ community in the United States is in for a really bumpy ride over the next 4+ years. 

There are a lot of battles we need to fight. They shouldn’t be against each other, and yes, ace people are part of ‘us.’ That argument is over. . Let’s move on to protecting the LGBTQ community from whatever 45 and his vizier are planning to inflict on us.

I hope you’ll stop wasting your energy and the energy of others on pointless infighting over an argument that’s over. We have a lot of work to do. We’re going to need all our energy. 

[odditycollector]

Anti-Parallel Evolution

[disclaimer: as always with just-so stories, i'm talking 'what i enjoy believing' not 'true with any authority']

This is kinda a continuation of my semi recent homestuck myth post, and kinda a continuation of my not even a little recent blackrom post**.

**[Which I think still holds up, although if I was re-writing it today I'd put either way less or way more effort into bullshitting the low-level mechanisms of reproduction, 'cause that's the least thought-out part & it shows. tldr: I enjoy believing trolls have many more than 2 parents.]

And alas but I've gotta ruin the "true thing” hidden in the homestuck myth post to go on with this one.

It's the last bit, where the early proto-trolls were, as a swarm, a single(ish?) superorganism in the way that a colony of earth ants or termites or bees can be best understood as a single superorganism, but then as the trolls evolved they became more and more individualistic until they are as we meet them.

Things that make more sense this way:

variation between "castes"

eg, why are there sea trolls? why are deep blue trolls apparently hoarding all the superstrength? why are there powers that you'd expect to find in yellows or ceruleans respectively... but not v.v.?

a: because at one time they were specialized "cells" of a superorganism, where the castes had different functions like how ants have soldiers and workers and breeders.

and those divisions were either too useful (for some definition of "useful") or too genetically baked in to be completely erased yet even if they've blurred.

incestuous slurry

eg, if the endgame is sexual reproduction, why not just have two parents and less confusion (even if imo it would be a waste of thinking about aliens)

a: because primitive superorganisms, to the best of my knowledge of science's knowledge, only hold together when they are all genetically similar. (This is why a cell in your liver is willing to cast its lot with a cell in your brain it will never meet.) Otherwise, individuals will *cheat* - find a way to reproduce outside what is best for the entire superorganism, and after that there are *more* genetic cheaters, who cheat more, and then... death by extremely slow existential cancer, is almost what it sounds like I'm describing here?

How genetically similar *are* trolls then?

no idea, but here is the thing: even if genetic similarity is GREAT for cooperation, it is CRAP for being a viable species that is not going to go the way of the genetically identical eating bananas - currently in the process of all getting killed by one disease strain. And if you're an r-selected** species - many many children, low resource investment, low survival to adulthood rates - you can afford to do a lot of genetic experimenting (ie, have a high mutation rate) because the fucked up ones will just die, like most of them do anyway, and hey, you never know.

**[Or close enough for this post.]

So this is what I'm positing.

your dna goes into the slurry, baby trolls come out of the slurry. check. but which baby trolls are made of YOUR dna in particular? Well, who's counting, but probably a lot. like "more than you'd get with 2 parents per troll" a lot.

If you have 20 paired chromosomes and (with some help >;) ), you split them down the middle and make 2 kids with half your dna each, you have an investment in getting those 2 kids as far in life as you can, because that's the whole you.

but split them further - say one chromosome per kid - and now you have *40* kids you're invested in seeing survive in order for there to be a whole copy of you still floating around in the 2nd generation.

But at the same time, you have way *less* of an investment in each one of those 40 than when it was only 2. And again, who's counting? Any number of the baby trolls crawling inside the caverns could have bits of you in their mix.

Instead of caring a *lot* about *some* members of your species, you care a *little* about *all* of them.

Maybe that's enough to get a species to hang out together? That'd be worth the energy it’d cost to do it if it'd be so.

That and... *one* other thing.

Cheaters, remember?

The way insects do it is central control. The non-queen individuals biologically cannot** reproduce on their own terms.

**[or close enough for this post]

oh hey, *who does that sound like*?

The thing I like to believe is trolls don't make eggs on their own, and haven't for millions and millions of years, b/c once upon a time when they still did make eggs they parasitized the proto-mothergrub species the way wasps lay their eggs in caterpillars, and this became proto-trolls parasitizing the proto-mothergrub species by making them make eggs containing proto-troll dna, and this became whatever is going on today.

(If you think that is too neat and unlikely you should look into the terrifying shit Earth insects have managed to get up to.)

So, with all that, could a species introduce significant genetic variation at the individual level and still survive as a superorganism?

Well...

it *didn't*, did it?

[And here's a thought.

[Spiders - singular insects - are r-selected the way trolls seem to be. Lots of eggs, few to reach adulthood, competition intense.

[but are *hive bees* r-selected?

[arguably, they are not. bee colonies don't make as many new bees as possible, they only make as many new bees as they need, and they provide the baby bees honey to eat and nursemaids to take care of them until they become adult bees.

[and isn't it kinda weird that post-pupation trolls seem somehow, like, *injured* by growing up by themselves in a harsh world, even though it “should” be what they are evolved for?

[Maybe they're meant to be less r-selected than we assume.

[That last bit's not What I Like To Believe(tm), but it's a thought.]

Wow that single quick intro paragraph got away from me a little :/

Anyway, parallel evolution is when two species, faced with similar constraints, evolve similar traits to deal with those constraints.

eg, flying squirrels and flying lizards both glide around on flaps of skin, but they have not shared an ancestor for a very very long time - They both developed the flying thing separately.

Humans... okay, we all know about humans, right? We were once more individualistic creatures but then we slowly, piecemeal, learned the trick of inter-group cooperation and used it to take over the world.

So humans were individuals who learned group-ishness, and trolls were a group that learned individuality, and then we all met together somewhere in the middle.

That’s what I think would be cool.

[bonus question: Humans have developed *intER*group cooperation. Trolls were starting from a place of *intRA*group connection and working backwards. Which one of us d'you suppose would be better at making interspecies friends, come alien contact?]

And the interesting part is, in both cases, you get there the same way.

via neoteny!

neoteny is when a species evolves to keep more child-like traits into adulthood. It's what fuels the domestication process - being docile and curious and trusting and friendly is a phase for *babies*. ...And/or any species that 1. naturally goes through that phase and 2. hangs around humans too long.

Including humans.

We are all giant whiny babies who have no one to blame but ourselves. That is science facts.

And genes are complicated and stuff so when you change the behaviour of a species you change the physical traits of the species as well, and a domesticated animal will keep child-like markings/features/etc into adulthood and that's why dogs have floppy ears.

But! Back to homestuck trolls.

It is easy to read what we are given in-comic as "these kids are growing less violent as they get older, and at the very beginning of their humanoid life - the 'trials' - they had to be really quite vicious indeed".

To illustrate my headcanons here’s a snippet from an old thing I wrote:

At about 5 sweeps is where things get interesting.

The trials are long over, and so the slow wave of settlement. There are enough resources to go around; bloodlust is falling out of fashion with the inexorable change of brain hormones. Suddenly, everyone is interested in figuring out the *rules*.

or:

“Yes,” she says. “Sure. Right. Karkat, you’ve survived this long with less challenge than anyone else I’ve known. Here.”

Kanaya pries the book from him and searches through it for a passage. “…proximity to the parasite has been observed to actuate the development of premature empathy in adolescent trolls.”

“Premature empathy,” Karkat repeats. “You mean that being around me makes trolls less aggressive. Just by *existing* at you, I made you *weak*. Oh fuck. I’m so sorry.”

I could argue my case in depth but it's not that unusual a theory and I don't wanna go on another whole essay tangent.

But the kid trolls only know what adults are like from their media, which is explicitly mentioned to make stuff just for kids, who are into violence. Maybe the troll child-friendly channel is the one with all the goriest stuff on it, idk, but I def. do not believe there is no adult-audienced media anywhere in the fleet.

So like

Humans: Neoteny --> more childlike --> more trusting, curious, and friendly

Trolls: Neoteny --> more childlike --> more individualistic and uncooperative

See? *backwards*

(And Her Imperious Condescension sure looks cool to the hs troll kids, but maybe she's just a spoiled brat who never really grew up. Not like THAT's not a theme for Homestuck villains.)

And now... here we are.

And the real reason I brought us all this way is because it opens up an potentially amusing cultural mismatch.

We have certain associations with facial proportions, right? It's neoteny all over again (and also some sexism but).

And maybe trolls have the opposite associations... for the same reasons**!

**[Yes I am assuming trolls have similar childhood traits because otherwise it isn’t funny.]

here are some neoteny linked traits:

low, large eyes small chin, nose large head:body size ratio short stature invokes the general abstract concept of roundness somehow etc.

Human RX:

adorable! helpless/vulnerable/needs protection i just met it and i loooove it! does it need hugs cause i have extra hugs just lying around here compelled to hold/pet/cuddle it

Troll RX (suggested):

vicious/violent/dangerous leave it alone or it will bite you probably unpredictable/disloyal selfish likely to end up dead anyway so not really worth caring about instinctual revulsion (judging from karkat + grubs)

and some anti-neotony linked traits:

smaller eyes, higher in head larger nose, jaw taller with smaller head:body ratio etc.

Human RX:

more likely to be dangerous (poss. in protection of itself/bonded others) suffers fools less than gladly, see also: unwanted attention self-sufficient jealous of resources/not good at sharing closed off/suspicious

Troll RX (hypothesized):

more emotionally stable more socially adept/a potential friend or ally competent/proven sex haver competent/proven at self protection safer to let down your guard around it able to usefully cooperate in groups towards shared goal

Okay? Okay.

okay......

So then imagine Karkat's reaction the first time he gets a puppy shoved in his face.

:)

The end.

I'm out of typing now.

[ramenrains]

Abt Powerhouse

[brittanyyoungblog]

Does Listening to Sexy Music Get Us in the Mood for Sex?

Guest post by Katie Adams

“I've been really tryin', baby / Tryin' to hold back this feeling for so long / And if you feel  like I feel, baby / Then, c'mon, oh, c'mon / Let's get it on.”  — Marvin Gaye, “Let’s Get It On” (1973, side one)

Imagine turning on the radio and hearing Marvin Gaye sing those sexy lyrics. If you weren’t already in the mood for sex, would his music help get you there? The popular media sure seems to think so, as evidenced by numerous articles and blogs presenting playlists guaranteed to “get you lucky” or put your partner “in the mood.” For example, Cosmopolitan published an article listing “23 sex songs you need on your bedroom playlist” and Thought Catalogue published a post titled, “17 Super Sexual Songs That Will Make You Drop Your Panties Immediately…With Lyrics!” [1, 2]. 

Music is known to alter mood in general, especially through its mode (major or minor), tempo, and pitch [3], but can it also alter libido? Does listening to Marvin Gaye and other sexy song-makers really make people want to “get it on” and, if so, why? 

Analyses of popular songs dating back to the 1940s shows that as many as 70 to 90% of songs contain sexual themes [4]—that’s a lot of sex songs! And people sometimes incorporate these songs into their intimate lives, with research showing that people, and especially those who desire short-term or causal relationships, often report using love songs for sexual purposes [5]. This kind of music could potentially assist in regulating mood (e.g., making you calm and happy), increasing arousal, or conveying a message (e.g., “I want sex”). This, in turn, could get both partners in a sexual mood and facilitate the initiation of sex. 

It may also be the case that sexually suggestive lyrics might make sex-related thoughts and behaviors in one’s mind more accessible and cause you to continue thinking about sex even after the song is over. You may also become directly physiologically aroused by the sexual messages in the song’s lyrics (or the sound of the performer’s voice). All of this might add up to increased interest in sexual behavior, should a potential opportunity arise. 

In light of this, I wanted to test whether listening to sex-related song lyrics would prompt more interest in casual sex. To do so, I conducted a study on the immediate influence music has on individuals’ internal states, including their thoughts and arousal [6]. I anticipated that after hearing music with sexual lyrics (compared to hearing music without sexual content), participants would be more likely to indicate interest in a short-term sexual relationship if given the opportunity. 

I asked 108 undergraduate students to complete a hypothetical dating profile while being exposed to either a playlist of sexual songs, instrumental covers of those same sexual songs, or generic instrumental songs. Participants answered a variety of multiple-choice questions modeled from various dating websites, which covered topics such as relationships, politics, and faith/religion, as well as a question about the desired length of their next relationship—the key variable of interest. 

I expected that sex-related lyrics (as compared with the two control conditions) would decrease the desired length of their next relationship—in other words, they’d be more open to a casual fling. However, contrary to my expectations, there was no effect of sexual lyrics on desired relationship length compared to the other music conditions. 

In thinking about why the results didn’t turn out the way I expected, one possibility that came to mind is it might be due to the choice of music. All songs were pre-selected by the research team and consisted of pop and R&B songs from the 1990s-2010s (except for “Let’s Get It On” from 1973). Perhaps it is not sexy music per se that is the key—maybe the effect depends on listening to music that is sexy to you, which can be highly individualized. Allowing people to select their own sexy song playlist might therefor have a very different effect. Also, we cannot be certain which aspects of the music are most important. Is it the sexual lyrics themselves, or is it the sound of a sexy voice, or the mental image of a musician you find sexy that matters most?

It is also possible that any potential effect of music might be different for different people—music is more powerful or impactful for some than others. Perhaps for those who are more musically inclined or sensitive to sound, sexy music could have a bigger effect than for those who are not. 

Another possibility is that even though music has been repeatedly found to impact mood [7], it may be that it does not create something out of nothing. One’s own motivations and desires, especially regarding mating and sexual behaviors, may be the driving force behind our actions. Similar to how people chose to listen to music that matches their current mood [8], listening to sexually themed music may only serve to amplify an existing mood or desire—not create a desire that otherwise does not exist. 

A recent study worth mentioning found that non-sexual music can prompt feelings of sexual arousal—but only when that music had been previously paired with sexual cues [9]. Thus, when we psychologically associate a song with sex, listening to it can create a feeling of arousal, even if the song itself is not necessarily about sex. This opens up a whole new way to think about when music is likely to put us in the mood—what feelings or memories come to mind when you hear a given song? If it reminds you of something arousing, you may very well start to feel aroused. But because different people may be reminded of different things by the same song, they might experience very different effects.   

In light of this, you probably can’t just put on some sex-themed music and expect sexual magic to commence. However, if you and your partner have a song or playlist that you both associate with sex or with a positive sexual memory, it might very well help to put it on when you want to set the right mood.  

Thanks to Katie Adams for this guest post! Learn more about her below: 

Katie Adams is a Doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the Social Psychology program, working with Dr. Omri Gillath. Her research focuses on close relationships and the underlying motivations of attraction, sexual behaviors, and short- vs. long-term commitment. She is currently heading research projects on (1) the creation and validation of a measure for pornography consumption motives, and (2) the motivations for, and outcomes of, communicating infidelity to one's partner. She completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Rochester (2014) and her Master’s degree at Villanova University (2016). This is her second guest blog post for Sex and Psychology.

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and Psychology on Facebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

[1] Gilmore, P. (2017, October 20). 23 sex songs you need on your bedroom playlist. Cosmopolitan. Retrieved from http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk

[2] Tarkoff, N. (2015, March 30). 17 super sexual songs that will make you drop your panties immediately…with lyrics! [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://thoughtcatalog.com/nicole-tarkoff/2015/03/17-super-sexual-songs-that-will-make-you-drop-your-panties-immediately-with-lyrics/

[3] Västfjäll, D., Juslin, P. N., & Hartig, T. (2012). Music, subjective wellbeing, and health: The role of everyday emotions. In R. A. R. Raymond, G. Kreutz & L. Mitchell (Eds.), Music, health and wellbeing (pp. 405–423). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[4] Arnett, J. J. (2002). The sounds of sex: Sex in teens’ music and music videos. In J. Brown, K. Walsh-Childers, & J. Steele (Eds.), Sexual teens, sexual media (pp. 253–264). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

[5] Brockert, D., Haj-Mohamadi, P. & Gillath, O. (2016, April). Attachment style, sexual strategies, and love songs. Poster session presented at the 19th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, Lawrence, KS.

[6] Adams, K. N. (2018). Let's get it on: Music lyrics' influence on mating strategy (Order No. 10845271) [Master’s thesis, Villanova University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. 

[7] Saarikallio, S., & Erkkilä, J. (2007). The role of music in adolescents' mood regulation. Psychology of Music, 35,88–109.

[8] Thoma, M. V., Ryf, S., Mohiyeddini, C., Ehlert, U., & Nater, U. M. (2012). Emotion regulation through listening to music in everyday situations. Cognition and Emotion, 26, 550–560.

[9] Wan, C., & Lalumiere, M. L. (2017). Can music cue sexual arousal? The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 26(3), 238–248.

Image Source: 123RF/Pawel Sierakowski

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All About That Bass: The Psychology Of Sexy Song Lyrics

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Does Listening to Sexy Music Get Us in the Mood for Sex?

Guest post by Katie Adams

“I've been really tryin', baby / Tryin' to hold back this feeling for so long / And if you feel  like I feel, baby / Then, c'mon, oh, c'mon / Let's get it on.”  — Marvin Gaye, “Let’s Get It On” (1973, side one)

Imagine turning on the radio and hearing Marvin Gaye sing those sexy lyrics. If you weren’t already in the mood for sex, would his music help get you there? The popular media sure seems to think so, as evidenced by numerous articles and blogs presenting playlists guaranteed to “get you lucky” or put your partner “in the mood.” For example, Cosmopolitan published an article listing “23 sex songs you need on your bedroom playlist” and Thought Catalogue published a post titled, “17 Super Sexual Songs That Will Make You Drop Your Panties Immediately…With Lyrics!” [1, 2]. 

Music is known to alter mood in general, especially through its mode (major or minor), tempo, and pitch [3], but can it also alter libido? Does listening to Marvin Gaye and other sexy song-makers really make people want to “get it on” and, if so, why? 

Analyses of popular songs dating back to the 1940s shows that as many as 70 to 90% of songs contain sexual themes [4]—that’s a lot of sex songs! And people sometimes incorporate these songs into their intimate lives, with research showing that people, and especially those who desire short-term or causal relationships, often report using love songs for sexual purposes [5]. This kind of music could potentially assist in regulating mood (e.g., making you calm and happy), increasing arousal, or conveying a message (e.g., “I want sex”). This, in turn, could get both partners in a sexual mood and facilitate the initiation of sex. 

It may also be the case that sexually suggestive lyrics might make sex-related thoughts and behaviors in one’s mind more accessible and cause you to continue thinking about sex even after the song is over. You may also become directly physiologically aroused by the sexual messages in the song’s lyrics (or the sound of the performer’s voice). All of this might add up to increased interest in sexual behavior, should a potential opportunity arise. 

In light of this, I wanted to test whether listening to sex-related song lyrics would prompt more interest in casual sex. To do so, I conducted a study on the immediate influence music has on individuals’ internal states, including their thoughts and arousal [6]. I anticipated that after hearing music with sexual lyrics (compared to hearing music without sexual content), participants would be more likely to indicate interest in a short-term sexual relationship if given the opportunity. 

I asked 108 undergraduate students to complete a hypothetical dating profile while being exposed to either a playlist of sexual songs, instrumental covers of those same sexual songs, or generic instrumental songs. Participants answered a variety of multiple-choice questions modeled from various dating websites, which covered topics such as relationships, politics, and faith/religion, as well as a question about the desired length of their next relationship—the key variable of interest. 

I expected that sex-related lyrics (as compared with the two control conditions) would decrease the desired length of their next relationship—in other words, they’d be more open to a casual fling. However, contrary to my expectations, there was no effect of sexual lyrics on desired relationship length compared to the other music conditions. 

In thinking about why the results didn’t turn out the way I expected, one possibility that came to mind is it might be due to the choice of music. All songs were pre-selected by the research team and consisted of pop and R&B songs from the 1990s-2010s (except for “Let’s Get It On” from 1973). Perhaps it is not sexy music per se that is the key—maybe the effect depends on listening to music that is sexy to you, which can be highly individualized. Allowing people to select their own sexy song playlist might therefor have a very different effect. Also, we cannot be certain which aspects of the music are most important. Is it the sexual lyrics themselves, or is it the sound of a sexy voice, or the mental image of a musician you find sexy that matters most?

It is also possible that any potential effect of music might be different for different people—music is more powerful or impactful for some than others. Perhaps for those who are more musically inclined or sensitive to sound, sexy music could have a bigger effect than for those who are not. 

Another possibility is that even though music has been repeatedly found to impact mood [7], it may be that it does not create something out of nothing. One’s own motivations and desires, especially regarding mating and sexual behaviors, may be the driving force behind our actions. Similar to how people chose to listen to music that matches their current mood [8], listening to sexually themed music may only serve to amplify an existing mood or desire—not create a desire that otherwise does not exist. 

A recent study worth mentioning found that non-sexual music can prompt feelings of sexual arousal—but only when that music had been previously paired with sexual cues [9]. Thus, when we psychologically associate a song with sex, listening to it can create a feeling of arousal, even if the song itself is not necessarily about sex. This opens up a whole new way to think about when music is likely to put us in the mood—what feelings or memories come to mind when you hear a given song? If it reminds you of something arousing, you may very well start to feel aroused. But because different people may be reminded of different things by the same song, they might experience very different effects.   

In light of this, you probably can’t just put on some sex-themed music and expect sexual magic to commence. However, if you and your partner have a song or playlist that you both associate with sex or with a positive sexual memory, it might very well help to put it on when you want to set the right mood.  

Thanks to Katie Adams for this guest post! Learn more about her below: 

Katie Adams is a Doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the Social Psychology program, working with Dr. Omri Gillath. Her research focuses on close relationships and the underlying motivations of attraction, sexual behaviors, and short- vs. long-term commitment. She is currently heading research projects on (1) the creation and validation of a measure for pornography consumption motives, and (2) the motivations for, and outcomes of, communicating infidelity to one's partner. She completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Rochester (2014) and her Master’s degree at Villanova University (2016). This is her second guest blog post for Sex and Psychology.

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and Psychology on Facebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

[1] Gilmore, P. (2017, October 20). 23 sex songs you need on your bedroom playlist. Cosmopolitan. Retrieved from http://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk

[2] Tarkoff, N. (2015, March 30). 17 super sexual songs that will make you drop your panties immediately…with lyrics! [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://thoughtcatalog.com/nicole-tarkoff/2015/03/17-super-sexual-songs-that-will-make-you-drop-your-panties-immediately-with-lyrics/

[3] Västfjäll, D., Juslin, P. N., & Hartig, T. (2012). Music, subjective wellbeing, and health: The role of everyday emotions. In R. A. R. Raymond, G. Kreutz & L. Mitchell (Eds.), Music, health and wellbeing (pp. 405–423). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[4] Arnett, J. J. (2002). The sounds of sex: Sex in teens’ music and music videos. In J. Brown, K. Walsh-Childers, & J. Steele (Eds.), Sexual teens, sexual media (pp. 253–264). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

[5] Brockert, D., Haj-Mohamadi, P. & Gillath, O. (2016, April). Attachment style, sexual strategies, and love songs. Poster session presented at the 19th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, Lawrence, KS.

[6] Adams, K. N. (2018). Let's get it on: Music lyrics' influence on mating strategy (Order No. 10845271) [Master’s thesis, Villanova University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. 

[7] Saarikallio, S., & Erkkilä, J. (2007). The role of music in adolescents' mood regulation. Psychology of Music, 35,88–109.

[8] Thoma, M. V., Ryf, S., Mohiyeddini, C., Ehlert, U., & Nater, U. M. (2012). Emotion regulation through listening to music in everyday situations. Cognition and Emotion, 26, 550–560.

[9] Wan, C., & Lalumiere, M. L. (2017). Can music cue sexual arousal? The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 26(3), 238–248.

Image Source: 123RF/Pawel Sierakowski

You Might Also Like: 

All About That Bass: The Psychology Of Sexy Song Lyrics

What's The Recipe For A Hit Song? Lyrics About Reproduction

Why Are Guys With Deep Voices So Sexy?

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