#but knowing somebody who has known actual legit rich people

[angstandhappiness]

AUGH also I love this guy's artstyle

here you guys can have it

[theartofbeinganeldar]

The Art of Being an Eldar: Legolas x Reader Prologue

Summary: You're a fantasy-loving, LARPing human from this world, who's the black sheep of society because of your obsession for the unreal and alienation of what's real. When you're in the middle of a LARP battle with some pretty phony boars, you fall out of a tree and bust your head. You wake up, alone, and are suddenly attacked by some very pissed-off, very real wargs. Without any idea of how you got there, you got dropped into Middle-Earth, with only bits and pieces of memories of Tolkien's masterpiece, though your recollection of everything else is perfectly clear. And of all places in Middle-Earth, you got dropped into Mirkwood, with some suspicious, potentially hostile, Woodland Elves...

Chapter No.: Prologue

Key: [Y/N]=Your Name [F/N]= Friend's Name [B/N]= Bro's Name [S/N]= Sis's Name [M/N]= Mom's Name [e/c]= eye color [h/c]= hair color [s/c]= skin color

Notes: So, this is my first fanfiction on tumblr, and I'd thought I'd try it since I have very little time for DeviantArt's chaos. It's much different from my Legolas x Reader on there. I added a small loving family to make the emotions relatable-- even if you don't have siblings, or have more than what I added, it's just fanfiction! Also, I tried to make my pronouns for said reader gender-nuetral so that everybody can enjoy it! The reason your character is so wild is for the sake of not fitting in to this world, yet you're used to it, so that later points in the plot can become more... Well, you'll see. And yes, I made Elves pansexual because I don't think they'd care much about gender or age at that point. LARPing plays a big role in the prologue, because your character is really into it for personal reasons. If this isn't your cup of tea, don't drink it. I hope you like it! Feedback, likes, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Warnings: Fluff, angst, graphic depictions of gore and violence (Cuz of orc battles y'know?), more angst, slow burn, some light depression in the first few chapters, some amnesia about Middle-Earth because the Valar say you're not supposed to have foresight, hard-core language, feels, lots and lots of feels, mentions of NSFW content, maybe some eventual NSFW content, LGTBQ+ characters, Thranduil being a jackass at first because he's fabulous, Legolas being a hot edgy prince that nobody can handle, Kili being an innocent bean, Hobbits being smol innocent beans, except for Bilbo 'cause he's been through some tough shit, Bard being dad of the year, Thorin being one dumbass boi, awesome dragons, awesome Nazgul, awesome scenery, awesome stuff in general, Elrond isn't listened to by anybody, confused Aragorn is confused,  Denethor's a bitch as always, brace yourself for creepy as fuck Cream of Wormtongue Grima Wormtongue, Boromir lives, Gandalf. (yes these are all legit warnings don't judge me.)

Pairings/Ships: Legolas x Reader, Legolas x you, Aragorn x Arwen, Faramir x Eowyn, Thranduil x Elvenqueen, Galadriel x Celery Celeborn, Boromir x OC, Thorin x OC, Fili x OC, etc. general LoTR standard shippings plus some of my own cuz I can't stand my boys being lonely

Word Count: I try to keep my chapters short, under 2000 words.

Rating: Teen (14+) for now

You'd never been considered normal by anyone. You enjoyed LARP instead of reality. Your "job" was just staying at home and captioning videos all day every day you weren't LARPing instead of interacting with society at a normal job. Your home? A tiny studio apartment that only cost $450 a month without bills, and you did without cell phone, car, and electric for the sake of being your weird self. You hadn't been to college yet, despite the fact that everyone told you to go once your gap year was over, and it almost was. What would you even study? Acting was all that got you close to who you were, so, ok, guess that's fine, but nobody else thought of that as a career. Maybe you could write fiction-- you were good at that much.

You weren't always like this. There was a time when you were just a normal kid, living a normal life. But somewhere around ten, you started to change, and by sixteen you'd become who you were today. If the Old You could see the New You, you weren't sure if they'd think you were weird too, or if they'd stare up at you in awe.

Hopefully it was the latter, which made you feel good.

I mean, come on, were you born in the wrong timeframe or what?! That's what you thought, anyway. There's no way that this world was for you. The fact that nearly all people were heartless jackasses that enjoyed destroying the planet, the fact that everybody had to be the same or were considered freaks, prejudice and injustice were key factors of life and the rich got handed everything on a silver platter while the poor had to scavenge... Just, everything of this reality made you hate it. If only you'd been born five hundred years earlier, or, y'know, in Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings...

You'd really liked to have been born in Middle-Earth. You had so many books about it, you knew practically everything there was to know, even the confusing shit about Faramir being in the Fall of Gondolin. You'd practically memorized Elvish, and dwarvish, and you knew the whole six movies by heart, every line. And of course, like most Lord of the Rings fans, you had a massive crush on a certain Elvish princeling who was too pretty for his own good. In fact, Legolas was who inspired you to learn archery; maybe one day you'd be as good as he was.

Despite your wishes, you were stuck in reality, however much you hated it

. Even amongst your LARP groups, you were considered outlandish.

Everybody else had normal lives outside of their games, whereas you pretended this was your life. You didn't have any job aside from the small caption jobs you did when you weren't LARPing, no social life, nothing. The only people you had was your mother, brother, sister, and your only friend, [F/N]. They accepted you and your strange fantasies, even if they thought you'd one day regret acting in a way when you could've been beginning a normal life and being productive.

So excuse you if you decided to invite them to a LARP event and let them borrow some of your costumes. It wasn't the end of the world. But your LARP group apparently didn't get that memo.

"You invited your mom?!" A royal asshole sneered, yet you took satisfaction in the fact that his knight costume looked like it was made of cardboard painted silver, whereas your sci-fi Elf getup was actual leather and cloth. His name was Jacob Brent; you'd never really liked him. He'd always had it out for you because your costumes were so much more fabulous than his. Plus you may or may not have actually known swordplay and archery and dagger throwing and martial arts... Kinda. You were still in the process of learning kickboxing.

You cocked a sky blue-- yes, sky blue-- eyebrow to your equally bright blue hairline, spiked up in a short faux hawk. This was your first sci-fi Elf, and you'd wanted to go all out. A cocky grin split its way across your face. "Yeah, so? It doesn't effect you on any level, Tin Can."

He sniggered with his cronies. "I can't believe you don't have anyone else to come with you." He mimicked rubbing his eyes like he was four. "'Oh Mommy, I need somebody to come with me!'" His whole group burst into laughter.

You surprised them by joining in, actually appluading. "Oh, wow! Wonderful, just wonderful! Hey, should I tell Mindy that I seen you feeling up Roxie behind your fort last week?" He paled, and almost everybody in his group of crappy cosplay got 'o' faces. You put your hands on your hips. "Guess what, asshole, just 'cause I'm close with my family and you're not with yours doesn't make it a crime to hang out with them. It's my life, my decision, and I enjoy spending time with them." You hefted up a disappointingly fake spear, turning to walk away. "Oh, and by the way, your paint's chippin' off."

Reason for Hating Reality Number 6, 965: Immaturity levels are almost incomprehensibly high.

Your mom glared daggers at Jacob's Immaturity Harem. She'd always been a tough gal, always sticking up for you when you got bullied when you were younger, but now that you were an adult, she had to let you kick ass yourself; you were pretty good at it. "I don't like him." She stated casually, and you chuckled.

"'Course you don't. He looks like a cheesy robot costume you'd get from Wal-Mart with a too-big crotch protector that's not impressing anyone but himself, and he has the face of a roasting pig. Too tanned, too grubby, and always with something in his mouth."

She smiled slightly. "Has he always been giving you trouble?"

You swung your gear pack off of your shoulder, letting it yank itself down to earth. "Since the day he tried kissing my ass 'cause he didn't know me." [F/N] must've overheard that last sentence, because he burst into laughter when he approached with your brother, [B/N], and your sister, [S/N]. "You talking about Jacob?"

"Sure as hell."

You'd first met [F/N] a year ago, when you'd joined extra-curricular activites for your last year of high school. He thought your personality was incredibly brave, especially in this modern world, but even still... He was just a friend, not a best friend. You'd never had that luxury outside of your tiny family. You just didn't trust him after the life you'd had.

Unfortunately, it seems they didn't like the getups. "Do I have to wear this?" [B/N] asked dramatically, slumping over. He didn't look right in the pauldrons and leather breastplate.

"It's too heavy!" [S/N] complained.

You sighed theatrically. "My piteous children, deal with thy armor, for it must be worn despite thou complaints."

[B/N] pressed his palms together and bowed down. "Screweth thou, false companion."

You mimicked his bow. "Off to hell with thee."

"Hey! You guys! It's starting!" [F/N] cried, and ran off, his pack of weapons and magic bags trembling dangerously on his back. The rest of you followed more slowly, as you explained to your family how exactly LARPing worked. Battles weren't actually bloody, magic was just colored powder, you get points for a hit, and so on and so forth. [B/N] and [S/N] got it immediately, but your poor mom, who hadn't even ever played Skyrim, had no idea how the point system and leveling up worked. You had to explain it six times over before you'd reached the massive gathering of LARPing cosplayers. [F/N] returned to you as you reached it, carrying a map. "We were in Larsgyushter Prairie last, right?"

"Duh," You shrugged, at the same time [S/N] asked with a grimace, "Luckyestire Prairie?"

[F/N] inclined his head. "Well, I made some arrangements because your family joined us. We made for Glewnburg, where we picked up their characters, and then headed into the Elder Woods."

You took the map. "Sounds fair enough."

[S/N] frowned. "What exactly were you guys doing last time?"

[F/N] blushed; he must've liked her, which made you feel proud and like pummeling him all at once. "A quest to defeat a horde of wildebors in order to get a good amount of gold."

"How much?"

"Four hundred."

Your mom seemed confused. "Is that a lot?"

"For the land of Sisgremor," You retorted, "Not much. But it's enough for us. We hunt for food, and sleep in the woods. It's summertime, so we don't have much need for shelter unless it storms, and we know where to find caves. The coin is for some new bits of armor, and some weapon upgrades and a couple of magic books for [F/N]."

"Oh," Your mom said, and you took the lead, getting into your Elven character with a huge grin on your face.

"Come, my children! We must meet the bors by midday!" You ran off, but you didn't miss the looks over half of the LARP community gave you.

~le time skip~

The one thing you didn't like about LARPing was the enemies. They weren't believable and were crappily dressed, at least in your community. They were crappy actors and their dying acts were unrealistic. Unless they were orcs that had good makeup skills and good cosplay, they weren't worth fighting, but you had an imagination to kick them up a notch.

As always, the wildebors were just some guys in black outfits decorated with needles, and wearing pig masks with an underbite bearing tusks. Your imagination knocked them to eight-feet long beasts with bloodstained tusks, wild red eyes, and porcupine-like needles that shot out of their near-impenetrable hides if provoked.

You'd only fought these beasts once. They had three separate healthbars, each a different strength: eight hundred, four hundred, and one hundred. Your spear-- the only weapon you could afford after your bow snapped (Poor prop craftsmanship.), had a damage rate of ten health per hit, thirty if you could make a three-combo move (The highest combo move allowed.).  [F/N]'s magic bombs, bolts of energy, and other magic stuff only varied from ten to fifty health damage per hit, except for his Fyrering, which was a once-a-day power that was ninety health damage, plus a three minute window of burning which took ten damage every thirty seconds.

The boars were also viscious; one hit from them took around fifty health, and at level nine, you and [F/N]'s health bars were only at two hundred and fifty, plus your armor rating of fifty and his of twenty. Your family, however, were only at level one, with a one hundred strength health bar each and armor ratings varying between ten and fifteen.

In short: that meant a hell of a lot of hits, very little openings, and there were always numbers to consider. There were six of them, and five of you. If you had your bow, this would be easy. You'd climb a tree, avoid their needles, and fire your twenty-five damage arrows relentlessly (With the thirty plus bonus from your actual bow.) while [F/N] pelted them with magic. You could take down two, maybe three that way before retreating, waiting for your strength to regenerate and your undamaged arrows to "respawn" before coming back for more battling (The arrows don't actually exist, for safety reasons. You had to wait for ten minutes before an approximated number of arrows, determined previously by the quest-giver, "reappeared" in your "inventory.").

But you had to think of a new plan. A brand new plan. You had three level one novices, two level nine intermediates, and six angry-as-hell wildebors that were level twenty. This was an impossible quest. You should never have accepted it knowing your family was coming.

You were hiding behind a huge oak, and glanced around it; for a split moment, you saw the crappy actors, but your mind quickly fixed that. Above and to your immediate right, [F/N] hid behind a mound of boulders up on a hill, and you'd positioned your family similarly. You just couldn't see them. [F/N]'s hand waving caught your attention. Frantically, he pointed above you. You whipped your head up, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. You gave him a look like WTF dude, and he rolled his eyes. He picked up a rock as an example and pointed back up into the branches, but still, you didn't see anything. He gestured again, almost forcefully, and this time, you seen it: brightnuts, a specialized kind of walnut bred specifically to explode into a bright white light on impact, with dangerous shrapnel and poisonous fumes that had one hundred and fifty health damage.

Of course, in reality, they were just blue and white beanbags hanging in nets rigged all over the branches, but you pretended they weren't.

But still, perfect.

You'd start calling out orders as soon as you started throwing them. [F/N] knew how to improvise to a plan already, but your family didn't. You propped your spear up on the tree, and started climbing, wincing when the bark scraped your palms; you were wearing what'd used to be white bridal gloves, but you'd tinkered with them to match your costume, sewing sky blue patterns into the gloves.

You personally didn't make a sound, but a couple of leaf-covered branches fell; luckily, wildebors were mostly deaf and blind, so you should make it to the top of the tree without any consequences.

You flashed [F/N] a triumphant smile when you reached the topmost branches, snatching a bag of brightnuts and holding them high above your head. He shot you a double thumbs-up, then made a wheel-like gesture to get you to move on. You stuck your tongue out at him, then readjusted yourself on the branch to get a good aim.

A few seconds of struggling against the knot, and you'd gotten the net open. With barely a minute of hesitation, you drew your arm back, and fired. Your aim was almost perfect. You hit one of the wildebors in the side, and you seen the actor as he started the most over-acted reaction you'd seen yet: a violent jump, then what sounded like a deranged "Guuuugh!" You rolled your eyes. So dramatic.

Either way, [F/N] whooped behind you. "Hit! A hit!"

Before you could give any orders whatsoever, [B/N] charged down the hill with his realistic-looking wooden battleaxe bellowing a war cry. You slumped over. "Aw, shit."

In the blink of an eye, [B/N] was officially dead but still pummeling the poor actors, your mom didn't know what to do, [F/N] didn't realize what was happening from behind his rock, and [S/N] was dodging air like a boss. You waited on the branch until the coach of the actors stood, took off his mask, and blew his whistle.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You with the axe! You died already! Come on everybody, regroup, come on..." Your mom and [S/N] were laughing it off with a couple of the actors, but [B/N] was having a heated argument with the rest of them, and they were starting to shove each other around; he'd always been a sore loser. The coach separated them, and [F/N] called to you from below. "Guess we failed this quest, huh?"

You shrugged. "It's all good. There are other, less dangerous quests."

He perked up. "Yeah, so hurry up and get down here! We've gotta get back to Glewnburg!"

You tossed the beanbag you'd had in your hand back into the net. "Comin'." Unfortunately for you, you were a bit of a show-off. You stood, stretching your arms out for balance, walking quickly and carefully across the bough. A loud snap that echoed through the forest silenced everyone: your sudden movements had weakened the branch down the middle, where a split was slowly cracking open.

"Oh shit." Did I have to choose the top branch?

Everything seemed to be in slow motion as you fell. Your ribs exploded with pain as you slammed into a slightly lower branch full-force. Your ankle snapped. Your arms were whipped and bruised. Your head cracked painfully across the thick, unmoveable base of one branch, and white and yellow dots burst in your vision. Your sight started to fade, as did the pain, until you met the ground with a dull thud.

I should've went to college.

~time skip~

When you woke up, the first thing you realized was, Hey, I woke up! I'm alive! which was immediately followed by, Holy fucking shit what the fucking hell did I break, then a much more painful thought of Why the fuck am I still in the goddamn forest? 

And you were. You were laying on your side, in a couple of very small but still immensely terrifying pools of drying blood, one of which came from the corner of your mouth. Your entire body throbbed painfully. Every breath you took caused sharp, white-hot pains to spiderweb across your entire torso. Your ankle was burning up, and you couldn't move it or your left arm. Your head felt like you'd been hit by a truck. A truck made of solid wood...

Why were you still in the forest? You knew your mother well enough to know that she've panicked. She'd've screamed your name and ran to you and called 911 immediately. [F/N] would've done the same. In fact, there was no reason why they wouldn't have called for a medic. You fell from the equivalent of a three-story building with poles sticking out of it.

By all accounts, you should be near death.

So why were you still in the forest, exactly where you'd fell?

With immense effort, you rolled onto your back, panting heavily and wincing against the pain. Your vision swam, and things were blurry. The trees were different; the tree where you'd fallen from was tall and branchless for most of the way up, and definitely not an oak. To boot, there weren't any nets full of beanbags, and your spear was gone. Behind you was  a cliff with an outcropping of rock that looked similar-- but not the same-- to the one [F/N] had been behind. There were roots and underbrush and bushes and walls of thorny branches surrounding you, and in between the ground was filled of orange and gold fallen leaves; up in the canopy, which hadn't been as thick before, the leaves were all dressed for Fall. You stared at it in confusion. "What the hell?" Shit. Even that hurt.

Where were you? Why weren't you in an ambulance with the sirens blaring? You were pretty positive you'd broken quite a few bones, and from that fall, you couldn't not have internal bleeding. So where were you?

You waited, but no one came. When the sky started to darken and the pain began to worsen, you were forced to move, slowly getting up, inch by inch, until you'd managed to be in a sitting position. It felt like all the blood rushed from your head and torso, making you cold in the evening chill. You hugged your right arm to your chest, really wishing you'd've worn arm cuffs or something; your short, high-collared, sleeveless, sky-blue leather jacket over a thin white crop top and a black corset-style belt really weren't meant for chilly weather.

"Hello?" You called out. Your voice carried on, but you got no return call. Blood trickled down your chin from where your lips had rebusted; you were lucky you hadn't bit your tongue off or shattered teeth. "Hey! Help!" Still, nothing. "Hey!"

After a twenty-minute bout of screaming for help, you gave up. You were confused-- so, so, confused. Where were you and why were you here? Where was your family? Where was [F/N]? Where was the coach, and those shitty actors? Hell, where was the rest of the LARP group? You'd even be relieved if Jacob appeared out of nowhere.

The moon had risen by the time you’d made it to your feet. Your ankle wasn't as bad as it was earlier; you could put some weight on it now, even if it wasn't a lot. You must've only sprained it. You tried calling for help a few more times, but only the crickets replied.

Then, they went silent.

You frowned. In books and movies, that was usually a bad sign. What'd caused them to shut up so abruptly? Not aliens, you hoped, like in Signs.

A low growl from behind you-- behind you, dammit-- made your skin crawl. A chill ran down your spine. You turned, slowly, hoping you wouldn't aggravate the wolf or coywolf or whatever it was; it wasn't either of those.

It stood on top of the small cliff, and it was at least the size of a horse. A boar-like coat, dull brown, covered its entire body, spotted in places. Its head was broad and massive, bearing an underbite of fangs and small beady eyes. Drool fell from its jaws as it snarled at you. You were half tempted to try the "Nice doggie" before you seen the rider.

Damn, it was ugly as hell. Small, malformed, with dark green skin and a crooked nose. Greasy, thin hair hung from its wrinkled scalp. Nasty claws protruded from its wart-covered fingers and dug into the horn of some kind of saddle. It sneered with an evil grin, and a mouthful of sharp teeth.

You didn't know what else to do; you took off running at full speed, ignoring the pains shooting up your leg from your sprained ankle. Branches and weeds whipped your skin, trailing blood. You glanced back once. The monster-- which you knew was an orc-- and the giant dog that you couldn't place the name of watched you for a couple of moments more before the orc gave a sharp order in a language you didn't understand, but it felt familiar. Two more of the giant dogs burst from the bushes on either side of the first, and they did give chase. Shit, were they what'd happened to your family? Some whackjob dressed as an orc riding a pitbull on steroids mauled everybody?!

You pushed yourself to run faster. Your heart pounded in your ears. Adrenaline rushed through your veins. Each step jarred your aching body, but you couldn't stop. The dogs were enjoying the chase, keeping their strides slow enough to still be on your heels, but not close enough to get you yet. A new sound-- a river, maybe-- gave you hope, and you tried to move even faster, your lungs burning from the strain.

It was a river you'd heard, but it was down a steep hill filled of arching roots and thorny bushes. You didn't have time to stop; you barreled forward, tripped, and rolled the rest of the way, hurting your body even further. By the time you reached the pebbly shore (With all of the sharp edges of the rocks jabbing into you unnecessarily.), the dogs were halfway down, the orcs riding them laughing like hyenas.

You couldn't swim, but you'd rather take your chances with the river than with the giant pitbulls. You waded in, and were immediately swept off your feet by the strong current. It dragged you under, and you were bashed into some boulders, getting cut up badly. One slammed into your hip, nearly causing you to suck in. Another rammed into your already-broken ribs, and this time, you did scream, getting a huge gulp of water. A crimson cloud engulfed you as something long and sharp burst through your calf. You were pushed up against another boulder, and you grabbed on, hauling yourself out of the water and hanging on for dear life, hacking and coughing out the water that'd filled your lungs.

The dogs had chased you up the shoreline, and the orcs carried shortbows with arrows of dark wood. A glance down and, sure as fuck, they'd hit you with one in the calf, dammit. You looked ahead of you: rapids, a slow and drawn-out death. Ahead of you, probably a very painful death, but hopefully it'd go faster than drowning while being battered to a lifeless corpse.

I should've gone to college.

You squeezed your eyes shut tight and braced yourself for the next arrow, but you were pretty much forced to open them again when you heard the sound of dogs yelping and orcs wailing. One of the dogs was dead, neck slashed open and pouring blood onto the rocks. It had landed on its rider, who struggled beneath its weight. The other dog had taken off, but its rider had an arrow jutting out of its face.

A troop of warriors, clad in forest-colored tunics of dark browns, greens, and grays had appeared in the second you'd closed your eyes. Every one of them had long, straight hair, braided away from their faces. Most had a quiver of arrows and a longbow, but some, like the one who'd killed the dog, had a curved longsword. Others still had long knives. Compared to the dark orcs, these people seemed to almost be made of light...

Oh shit.

Elves. These were Elves.You could see it clearly now, in the way they carried themselves: regal, majestic, every move perfectly balanced and smooth. Their ears were pointed, but not drastically like the ones from Zelda, and they were taller than most average men. You were in awe.

These were some damn good actors.

No, they couldn't be actors. That clicked, finally. Especially when you were able to see the one that'd killed the dog slice off the struggling orc's head cleanly and deftly before kicking it into the river. Thankfully, it didn't come near you.

Shit. These were real orcs, real giant bloodthirsty dogs, real Elves... This was all real. But how...?

You heard the sound of a bowstring being pulled taut, much closer to you. You couldn't exactly whip around in your current state, but you still moved as fast as you could. Another Elf, standing on the flat rocks halfway across the river, no less than thirty feet away. How the hell did he get there?!

After the initial shock passed, you realized there was an arrow nocked in the bow. You'd already felt one once in the last ten minutes, you didn't need to feel it again, so you stayed still. He watched you with eyes so blue you could see them from where you were. He was illuminated from the side by the moon, giving him an almost ethereal appearance. His hair was somewhere between platinum and very light blonde, and a quiver of orange-feathered arrows hung over two identical sheaths for ivory-handled long knives. His bow was almost as gorgeous as he was: dark wood engraved with golden leaf designs. His tunic was dark green, and you admired his fancy Elven belts and buckles and bracers for a second before your eyes were drawn back to his face, the profile of which was almost... Dished, in a way, like an Arabian horse's. Your eyes locked, and you felt as if you'd seen him somewhere before...

An Elf on the shoreline spoke, breaking the trance. You couldn't understand what exactly he said; you could've swore you knew some Elvish...

The Elf staring you down watched you for a minute longer, then jerked his bow toward you in gesture, shouting an order to one of his comrades. His voice sounded so familiar... It was on the tip of your brain... It was deep and soft and gentle and commanding all at once. You couldn't explain it. Two Elves followed his order, nimbly leaping from tiny rock to tiny rock to get to where he was, then past him, coming to you. Their weapons were sheathed, so you hoped they were going to help you instead of kicking you into the water or something.

Carefully, noticing how banged up you were, they grabbed you underneath of the arms and lifted you onto the flat rocks the blue-eyed Elf stood on, still ready to fire, and stepped back as you coughed up some water in a delayed reaction to nearly drowning.

When you finished, your eyes felt like they wanted to close on their own. You felt too tired, too weak, too pained... Despite that, you sat up, shivering in the chilly evening air. "Th-thank you..." With a start, you realized they might not even understand English.

"Who are you?" The blue-eyed Elf demanded. "Answer me quickly; do not think we cannot throw you back to the river."

Shit. Pressure. Suddenly you forgot your name for a split second. "I-I'm [Y/N]."

"What are you doing in these lands?"

"I was chased," You looked pointedly at the dog and orc.

The Elf watched you for a minute, judging you... He signaled. "Throw them back into the river." Suddenly, you were being dragged.

Aw, fuck. You struggled against the Elf's strong grips. "W-wait! I don't even know where I am! The last thing I knew I was playing a game with my family and I fell out of a tree! All of a sudden I'm being chased by giant dogs and being manhandled by a couple of Elvish pri--!" You were cut off by a bought of coughing that wracked your body so hard that you doubled in on yourself, pulling the Elves down with you. Your eyes widened when blood trickled out of your mouth, leaving crimson droplets on the rocks. Shit.

The blue-eyed Elf ordered something in their tongue, and the two dragging you halted on a dime. He finally decided to lower his bow a little, inspecting you. "Are there more of you?"

You shook your head; you were getting dizzy, and your vision was blacking out. "I-I don't know... I was alone when I woke up."

The Elves conversed in their own language for a few minutes, and the blue-eyed Elf finally came to the conclusion that you weren't much of a threat in your current state. He looked to the Elves on the shoreline, and gestured at one of the ones holding you, who then scooped you up bridal style, but like you were the ugliest bride he'd ever seen. "Und win'doheim!" Shouted the blue-eyed Elf, obviously the one in charge, and lead the progression back to the forest.

I should never have gotten out of bed today...

Despite the crazy situation, you managed to doze off a few times on the Elf that carried you, until a coughing fit or pain would wake you up. A fever spiked up as you crossed a bridge, and you were half out of it as you entered some kind of woody building surrounded by trees and rivers that you couldn't comprehend very well in your feverish state. You were panting and wheezing, and couldn't see straight. It all seemed so surreal, like you were viewing this from somebody else's perspective. This had to be a dream... A very vivid, very painful dream...

The last thing you remembered was Elvish chanting, golden and white lights surrounding you, and the silhouettes of the Elves. Your pain faded, and you fell into a forced sleep.

When you woke up, a breath of relief whooshed out of your lungs. It was a dream! It was all a dream! It was night, and your nighlight had gone out, but your hall light was still on. You turned over to see what time it was, but your nightstand was gone. So was your window, and shelves and desk and computer and all of your things. Your bed was different. Your relief dissipated to terror.

Fuck. It wasn't a dream.

You were in a small room. An orange-hued light came through the low doorway, and the dark walls were ridged, as if carved from the earth itself. You felt the remains of your injuries from earlier-- or days ago, you couldn't tell how much time had passed-- as throbbing remains. Your clothes were still ripped and bloodstained, and as you stood up, it felt like you were just coming off of the flu.

Wobbly, you staggered over to the doorway, hoping to find somebody that definitely wasn't an orc or Elf.

You slammed face-first into elaborately crafted iron bars.

Outside of them, fully-armored Elves patrolled on small ledges beside the spiraling rows upon rows of cells like yours. This was a dungeon.

...Well shit.

Tag List: @tesserphantom​ @thedragonghostofmordor​ @taurlel @hauntedsiriel

[rubykgrant]

I can’t show the sketches of it (because I can’t go to where I scan my pictures right now), but I started thinkling about a reverse-role Inuyasha thing, and it is just so funny to me-

Inuyasha is like a normal highschool boy, he’s a loud-mouth and gets bad grades, most people assume he’s in some kinda gang but he’s too much of dork to even function with a group of people (he’s basically Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho hahaha). Koga is this other kid one grade up, he’s somehow a legit punk who has also managed to create a goody-two-shoes facade around the teachers because he gets straight As and is good athlete, and they HATE each other’s GUTS. Koga hates him because he always has some smart-mouth comment to say, and Inuyasha hates him because he’s a show-off.

Sango is totally the PE teacher and coach for various sports teams, and Miroku is that one teacher who thinks he’s a great writer but he just teaches history. Also, I’m gonna fix Miroku a little bit for my own sanity; he definitely hits on all the other teachers and single moms (plus a few who aren’t single, which earns him a black-eye once or twice), but he leaves the students ALONE. In fact, he’s actually super paranoid about the kids, he’s a chaperone for all the field trips, and if kids from another school try to flirt with any of his students, he jumps in with “REMEMBER, DON’T LET ANYBODY PRESSURE YOU INTO ANYTHING”. The intent is nice, but the result is embarrassing. Sango is way more chill and everybody thinks she’s super cool.

Shippo is a younger kid who goes to a different school, but he winds up knowing Inuyasha through online gaming; Shippo keeps kicking his butt. They meet at a gaming convention tournament, where Inuyasha was ready to have a legit fight with the jerk who’s been killing him online for almost a year, but then he just sees this child who’s all “Hey, I’m *username-whatever*!”, and he goes “Oh he’s like... 11? He’s a baby? Man, I can’t punch a baby”. So they accidentally become IRL friends. People ask Inuyasha why he’s friends with a little kid, and the answer is “Well, I was gonna smack him, but I changed my mind. Now he just keeps following me” (which is what a sibling relationship is).

Sesshoumaru is Inuyasha’s half-bro still, and currently, Inuyasha has no idea who he is... but Sesshoumaru does. He’s aware of the fact that his father left his mother for somebody else, had a child with this other woman, and then passed away. He finally tracked down his half-bro, and is thinking about how to approach this teenager. Sesshoumaru is himself an adult, outwardly seeming like a successful businessman who owns an antique shop, but he has some shady side-businesses. There is some complication with his father’s inheritance; if he tries to claim it, Inuyasha would also be notified, and the kid currently has no idea his father left him anything. Sesshoumaru doesn’t want to share what he feels should be all his, and he’s debating if he should maybe try to just pull an intimidation tactic to scare Inuyasha (Sesshoumaru is a pretty unnerving dude, but Inuyasha also has no fear and no braincells, so that might not work).

Kaede is Inuyasha’s foster guardian. She’s known him since he was young as a neighbor, and was there when a fire took his mother’s life. Years passed, and wasn’t getting along with his current foster family, so Kaede took him in. She often argues with the boy, but no matter how mean he acts, she never kicks him out or gives up on him. He doesn’t often admit this, but he truly appreciates it, and knowing he’s got somebody who cares about him makes him try to be better.

Neraku has a similar life to Sesshoumaru, but on a MUCH larger scale; he’s managed to be an incredibly rich and corrupt businessman who is actually the one responsible for a lot of death and pain in the lives of others, but manages to go mostly unnoticed. He’s incredibly cruel and also also plans ahead. Knowing he had various health problems, he literally only had children so he would have more likely matches for potential organ transplants. While he gives these children very “elegant” lifestyles, they have never known any affection from him, and he’s not above pulling them into the life of crime as well. He’s aware of a rare artifact one family has kept for generations, as well as an inheritance another family hasn’t fully claimed, and plans to get his hands on BOTH. The fact that everybody connected to the people he wants to steal from have also been previous victims of his evil at some point is very amusing to him.

On a day when several plans go into action, Inuyasha is given what he thinks is a goodluck charm from Kaede, but it is actually a very special jewel... both Sesshoumaru and Neraku (with his family and accomplices along for the ride) seemed to think along the same lines, and attempt to kid-nap Inuyasha; but he is WAY more trouble than they expected. Sango and Miroku get pulled into the situation to protect their student, Koga (and his buddies) is there because he can’t let Inuyasha have ALL the attention, Shippo was in the wrong place at the wrong time to try and talk to his friend, and everything turns into a huge mess. Eventually Sesshoumaru realizes that Neraku is after him as well, so he decides it will maybe be a little better to change his plan; now telling Inuyasha that he’s here to SAVE the boy, because he’s Inuyasha’s long-lost brother and something-something-emotional-manipulation, he joins the group running from Neraku. Inuyasha leads them back to his home, where they attempt to hide in the old shrine house... and then things go from scary to an absolute NIGHTMARE. A demon literally comes out of the old well, pulling everybody in (this includes the pursuing villains)

Both groups wake up in the past, scary demons ready to eat them for a snack, all ready to take the jewel Inuyasha holds. They meet Kikiyo, who demands to know why this boy in the strange clothes has what is supposed to be her family jewel. She runs to the shrine in her village and sees it is still there... somehow, there are two of them. One is from the future, kept over the generations by Kikyo’s family, until her ancestor Kaede gave it to Inuyasha. It seems odd that she’d trust him with this, but now it sure is his problem. As more demons attack, Inuyasha gets lost, and finds somebody in the forest; a young girl, who is actually a demon herself, sealed to a tree. Unable to protect himself from the demons, Inuyasha frees her (he still winds up as the one with the SIT collar though, Kagome was a little too quick and avoiding the beads)

So, the rest of the series involves the characters from the modern world learning various skills or gaining abilities that let them fight enemies (I think maybe only one of the jewels gets shattered, and the main characters each get one ow two shards that they use). Kikiyo remains in her village to guard the jewel from her time that is still whole, and Inuyasha gets a bit of a crush on her because she’s so much nicer than the mean demoness he has to spend all his time with. Neraku once again allows himself to be consumed by demons to become more powerful (he also transforms his children into half-demons, which they don’t much care for, but they can’t exactly stop him). Koga has fun being a superfast wolfboy. Miroku and Songo are mostly the same, but because they are teachers and most of these kids are their students, they are super over-protective of everybody. Sesshoumaru has to keep pretending he doesn’t totally despise Inuyasha, and WHOOPS, he kinda maybe starts to give a heck about this brat. Eventually, everybody goes home... including the now demon Neraku. Using his new powers, he causing all kinds of problems inthe modern world. Kagome winds up following along, and the rest of the story happens in the current time. Neraku summons ancient demons to the city, or creates all new monsters, and the group tries to stop him. He steals the jewel shards they gathered, then they all get lost again, same old song-and-dance, but with a contemporary setting. Sesshoumaru winds up adopting a young homeless girl because having a bro around kinda got to him, Neraku steals and brainwashes Sango’s little brother, and through it all Inuyasha starts to maybe kinda sorta like Kagome

[clacker--volley]

Headcanons.

- Would fight anyone who undermines or harms dogs tbh. - Is actually a pretty good singer. Too bad he prefers to burst out singing terribly off-key just for shits and giggles. - Sometimes, thinking about Hamon - the word -, can make him feel insanely hungry. - Is a natural at asspulling. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

- Absolutely DESPISES any type of unfair discrimination, especially racism and homophobia.

- Being away from friends, family- or just people in general, for extended periods of time often makes him feel depressed and spiritless. While Joseph doesn’t show it, he’s always felt alone since childhood, due to barely having any friends for much of his life a n d being left to believe that both of his parents were dead. Although Joseph does value having alone time as well, he still prefers spending time with others overall.

- A big chatterbox sometimes, chiefly if it's a topic/about something he loves. 

- Due to being fairly rich, he can be a greedy ass most of the time, although him showing acts of generosity IS very much possible. - Has a HARDCORE love for tricks and pranks. so much that it can even get him into some trouble with the law.#itsjustaprankbro - Should he see somebody upset and needing some comfort, especially if they're crying, he won't falter going full-retard mode- telling jokes or funny stories just to get them to crack a smile. - Can mimic a few animal noises with near-perfect accuracy. Bird-calls are his specialty. - Likes to tease others should he find out that they like pinapple on pizzas, yet; Joseph secretly likes pineapple on pizzas himself. Unironically. - Joseph's often warm, (usually) polite, and silly to most people, and is unashamed with showing affection (eg. head pats, hand on shoulder/back, hugs) to those he likes/cares about- sometimes even treating complete strangers as if he'd known them for years. However, he'll be hot headed as well as rude, get confrontational and violent- at times going as far as holding a grudge towards anyone who insults/hurts/acts like an asshole to him, or others, firsthand. - Can be meticulous with what garments he'll purchase or wear. It's not uncommon to see Joseph being stuck in his wardrobe searching for something 'cool' or 'tasteful' to wear before going out on a daily basis. - Joseph is confident as heck in himself, so getting even slightly red-faced is a rarity. When it does happen, it can take a rather huge hit on his self-esteem afterwards.   - Finds that he feels more 'alive' and lively af around evening time, particularly when close or in enormous cities where there's a lot of activity. - (Un)surprisingly knows a thing or two about applying cosmetics and is surprisingly good at it. - Knows jack shit about managing or saving money responsibly, often buying random stuff out of impulse. What Jojo mostly buys are  firearms, junk food, and comic books, among other stuff that happens to catch his eye. -He collects various things, mostly superhero comic books, figurines, and other collectables that pertain to superheros - (Despite not being very good at it) Joseph can act flirtatious now and again, even without taking note. However when it comes to wanting to legit impress someone he likes, he'll (at first) likely try too hard to come off suave and cool, then wind up acting like the big lovable goofball that he really is. - Absolutely DESPISES any type of unfair discrimination, especially racism and homophobia.

-Whenever Joseph is at an Italian restaurant, he almost always ask if they have squid ink pasta first before anything. And frequently avoids anything with the name 'Caesar' in it -The sight of bubbles always gets him all sentimental

- Unless you want to have a messy, burnt up kitchen NEVER ask Joseph to cook- even asking him to boil water without supervision would be risky - He can speak English, Japanese, and a few words in Italian -Prior to dealing with actual vampires and all that bs Halloween used to be one of Joseph's favorite holidays- nowadays he lowkey doesn't trust nor acknowledge anyone that go trick-or-treating, especially those dressed up as supernatural creatures (eg. vampires, werewolves, witches, etc.). Christmas is his new favorite holiday.

-Despite being a smartass who is rude, intentional or not, he's still a warm, affectionate person- and acts like a big-ol puppy to the ones he trusts/cares for the most.

- Can fall asleep like a rock practically anywhere/on anything, and does so quite often. His dreams are wacky and strange, though Joseph tends to forget them easily.

- Give him a video game and, instead of playing the game normally on his first playthrough, he'll likely (thanks to his Bizarre Luck) find the strangest glitches/exploits- then proceed to break the game even further by using cheats/hacks.

- Joseph has no special physical 'preferences' when it comes to romantic partners/S.O, but he finds himself attracted to the type of people that are fun-loving, kindhearted, care for their loved ones, love pranks and/or are as creative as he is. He's also unpredictable, so he might suddenly fall for others fairly quickly, even if they might not be the perfect match. He's dense af, so if the other person wants to make their move(s) first, they'd have to be pretty forward. Even then, it might take a while for any realizations that he also likes them back to sink in.

- It wouldn't be a shock to see such a hotheaded, impetuous, and confrontational young man like Joseph to often willingly and carefully cater to a S.O's every whim every now and then, so much so that it might overwhelm them or even make Joseph himself come off as superficial at times- neither of which is intended. - Loves to tease/troll others through various means, usually to exact playful/innocent revenge on his friends, or (on a more severe level) toy with enemies in order catch them off guard and learn their weaknesses. Seeing others become utterly confused/100% done with life? The boi lives for it- yet, rather ironically, Joseph himself is easily frustrated should his (often improvised) schemes backfire on himself- which happens most of the time.

-His favorite foods are fried chicken, squid ink pasta, chewing gum, chocolate, caramel, Italian food, Mexican food, apricot, American food, sour/sweet candy, bananas, strawberries, apples, and lime -His favorite drinks are coca cola, coffee, sprite, and water with ice (when he’s in a Fancier Mood he’ll sometimes use ice containing cut-up fruit, like strawberries or lime)

- Is an extremely messy eater who he practically inhales large amounts of food, especially after training or doing physical activities. The only times where he holds himself back is when eating in front of family, friends, or important figures, but even then, Joseph keeping his face completely clean isn't guaranteed

~more will be added as I think of them!

[deepfriedtwinkie]

Why do you think Mike/Paige is so popular? Why do you think Gareth/Laurel isn't so popular? Songs that remind you of Dimitri/Anya? Favorite AU's for Enjoltaire? Rant about Hollstein (or one of your choice if you can't). What's a meme/quote that reminds you of Rogan and/or Java Junkies?

(see, THIS shit is why you’re my favorite human)

Why do you think Mike/Paige is so popular?

Probably because they look like Apollo and Aphrodite, tbh, b/c we all know that It’s Okay To Ignore Toxic Relationships If Hot—and because of the Fake-Ass Feminist™ idea that abusive women aren’t actually abusive at all, they’re ~EMPOWERED~ and men can never be victims ever. Like nooooooo, Paige was a BADASS for her (tunnelvisioned) commitment to those (ten, not hundreds of) girls, and for calling Mike on his lie about Lina (that her tunnelvision forced him into), and for holding him accountable (by extremely literally ordering a hit on him that was successful because he flatlined). All the times she hit, threatened, or belittled him was just Girl Power!! Like, yeah, what a badass woman, Bitches Get Shit Done, yup, sure. Or mAYBE FLIP THIS AROUND AND IMAGINE PAIGE AS A MAN AND MIKE AS A WOMAN AND THEN GET PROPERLY OUTRAGED BECAUSE OF ALL THE CLEAR AND PRESENT ABUSE, YOU USED NAPKINS—THE POINT IS, Aaron and Serinda are both unfairly pretty humans, and there are lots of “feminists” who actually don’t get the fucking point at all. Hence “Paige is a badass who’s SORRY for murdering him, murder means I love you!! Can they make out for my benefit now??”

Why do you think Gareth/Laurel isn’t so popular?

Political oversaturation. BrainDead had AWFUL timing; I know they were trying to CAPITALIZE on 2016′s hyperpolitical climate, but people were already fucking exhausted by reality. Plus come on, we ALL know how hard it is in REAL life for a liberal and a conservative to ACTUALLY get along. There’s eventually gonna be some shit you can’t agree on and can’t forgive and then the whole illusion of compatibility shatters, ’cause hi, that shit MEANS something for a reason. It’s pretty fundamental in like…everything. So sure, it makes a pretty great fantasy (especially with this I mean holy Jesus fuck), but at the end of the day, you either have to hope that Gareth’s eyes opened to more issues and he switched sides after some time, or expect that you’d eventually want to punch his pretty, pretty face in (and public faith in conservatives is rightfully so low that let’s be real, it probably wasn’t gonna be the former). It’s a lot harder to ship something that relies on headcanoning that half the ship will eventually change in order to make it last. THIS IS WHY I WILL ALWAYS WANT A SPINOFF WHERE THEY BOTH ABANDON POLITICS, TRAVEL THE COUNTRY AND GET A DOG

Songs that remind you of Dimitri/Anya?

OH GOD, first of all, “At The Beginning” and the rest of the soundtrack is just obvious (and I mean the MOVIE soundtrack because I’m sorry, I HATE that they scrapped the kitchen boy thing in the musical, THAT WAS THE ENTIRE SIGNIFICANCE AND FOUNDATION BEHIND THEIR RECONNECTION, THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT WORK EVEN WITH MORE REALISM, AND WHO REMEMBERS A FUCKING GLANCE FROM CHILDHOOD? IT’S SO RANDOM AND CONTRIVED, so for ME the Broadway version is NOT actually the couple I fell in love with and I’m mad at it, HE WAS THE BOY WHO OPENED THE WALL, DAMMIT, HE COULD’VE OPENED THE WALL OF THE IPATIEV HOUSE TOO, BUT ANYWAY, THE POINT IS I MEAN THE MOVIE). “La Vie En Rose” (Edith Piaf) is a Big Vibe one. “Your Mother Should Know” (The Beatles) always makes me think of them post!movie for some reason, especially b/c I used to write a ton of fanfic about them raising kids and whatnot, and I dunno, the past/family vibes….and it’s kinda silly, maybe, but “The Ballad of John and Yoko” (The Beatles) fit them post!movie really well for me b/c I always imagined them traveling all over the world together, and the song’s kinda part fun, part escaping persecution…. Basically anything romantic got my brain back on them for a while there…. Oh, and “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” (The White Stripes), which sounds weird on the surface, but….You fell down of course / And then you got up of course / And started over / Forgot my name of course / Then you started to remember / Pretty tough to think about / The beginning of December….??? COME ON. And I know I’m probably forgetting some.

Favorite AUs for Enjoltaire?

I am a hugantic ginormic sucker for the very popular Modern College Activist Group one. More specifically, where Grantaire first joined Les Amis because he passed by a meeting during his freshman year and heard Enjolras speaking and it set his soul on fucking fire, and he proceeded to sit in the back and sketch and heckle for a year or two until the day came where Enjolras was arrested during a protest and Grantaire tagged the cop’s car with spraypaint so that they’d arrest him too, so Enjolras wouldn’t have to go alone, *loud obvious cough,* and then in their jail cell, before ’Ferre could pay bail, Enjolras asked Grantaire why he did it, and Grantaire confessed and Enjolras kissed him, and they became their friends’ frustratingly adorable OTP. And Enjolras is emancipated from his rich, shitty, homophobic adoptive parents, but has tapes and diaries from his lovely birth mother who died, and SURPRISE, his birth father is Javert, who slowly learns to come around, see the error of his black-and-white ways, and accept, defend, and even love his son, and punches Enj’s shitty adoptive father in the face. And Enj becomes a civil rights attorney, with guidance from Javert, and R becomes a legit commissioned artist, and they eventually adopt a little girl who was born into addiction, name her Emmeline, and Javert is a shockingly good grandpa/babysitter and eVERYONE IS STILL ALIVE. (YOU ofc go here also and didn’t need me to describe all this, but I figured I’d get detailed for all two and a half people playing along at home)

Rant about Hollstein (or one of your choice if you can’t):

OKAY, WE ARE JUST SO LUCKY THAT THEY ARE STILL/EVEN A COUPLE, THOUGH. THERE IS SO MUCH “HOLY SHIT” IN THIS THING. FIRST OF ALL, THE FACT THAT LAURA EVEN WENT “YOU KNOW WHAT, I THINK I LOVE THIS CONFIRMED VAMPIRE” IN THE FIRST PLACE. LET IT NEVER BE SAID THAT LAURA HOLLIS DOES NOT HAVE COJONES. SECOND OF ALL, THE FACT THAT CARMILLA WAS SO JADED AND YET STILL FOUND THE ABILITY TO FORGIVE LAURA FOR GETTING MATTIE, HER SISTER OF LIKE NINE BILLION YEARS, LITERALLY KILLED. I TOTALLY EXPECTED THAT TO NEVER GET FIXED BECAUSE FUCKING HELL. THIRD OF ALL, LAURA LITERALLY DIED, OKAY, LIKE STOPPED LIVING. THAT’S GENERALLY JUST SLIGHTLY HARD TO REBOUND FROM. THE FACT THAT THEY EVER BECAME A THING OR EVEN SURVIVED THAT SERIES AT ALL IS JUST, YEAH, OKAY, YOU NEED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER, BECAUSE IF NONE OF THAT SHIT STOPPED YOU, CLEARLY SOMEBODY FUCKING LIKES YOU OUT THERE.

What’s a meme/quote that reminds you of Rogan or Java Junkies?

I literally can not think of a meme that has reminded me of a ship ever. There aren’t any literary quotes or anything that spring to mind either, but the first quote from the SHOW that I associate with Rogan is “Jerk, ass, arrogant, inconsiderate, mindless, frat boy, lowlife, butt-faced miscreant!” (which isn’t the most romantic but dammit if I don’t grin like a monkey every time), and the one I associate most with Luke and Lorelai is “I just want you to know, this thing we’re doing here? Me? You? I’m in…. I am all in.” 

(HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AN EMOTIONAL RIDE, I FEEL LIKE I JUST RAN A MILE)

[heavyarethecrowns]

Lainey Lui on the Royal Romance.

Lainey Lui answers all your questions about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Are they really a thing? Do they hang out in Toronto? Is this one of the most progressive royal romances ever?

By: Courtney Shea, Chate Laine (November 3, 2016)

Over the weekend the British newspaper The Express delivered the biggest royal drama since Prince George dissed Justin Trudeau, reporting that Prince Harry is dating the American-born, Toronto-dwelling actress Meghan Markle. Best known for her starring role on Suits, which is shot in Toronto, Markle apparently met her Prince Charming when Harry was in the city last May to launch the 2017 Invictus Games, and they’ve been courting under the radar until now.

Needless to say, the latest royal romance has become an overnight fairy tale and a cross-continental sensation. Chatelaine spoke to professional gossip Lainey Lui to get the inside scoop on all things Harry and Meghan (Hagan? Merry?).

The gossip world seems to be going particularly gaga over this rumoured romance. Why?

Well, he’s a royal and he’s tall and handsome, so I think automatically it’s the fantasy of a prince who is looking for his princess. He really is the most eligible bachelor in the world. He’s passed the age when both his dad and brother had found somebody—he’s 32. Not to say that there’s any age that someone should get married but, given his family history and his position, I think people have been waiting for this. Given his age, anybody he dates now has the possibility of being “the one.” It’s the same thing in real life, and when it’s a prince, you just increase that [anticipation] exponentially.

What about her part in the narrative? Harry has previously dated a bunch of British blue bloods.

This is Kate Middleton to the next level. Kate’s parents were pretty rich, but still [the media] made her sound like a commoner. And this is an American actress who resides in Canada and who has no blue-blood roots. Meghan Markle seems to come from a pretty middle-class background. Legit middle class, not Middleton middle class, where her parents run their own company and are millionaires. All of that makes the fairy tale more attractive. And then there’s the fact that the royals are the whitest family in the world and the most elitist family in the world at a time when privilege and classicism are being called out more and more. We’re living in the shadow of Brexit, which exposed a lot of social shortcomings in the UK. Racism is alive and well and thriving in England, and now the royal family’s most beloved and popular member may have fallen in love with a bi-racial American [Markle’s mother is African American]. It’s a very powerful and progressive idea.

For a while now, you’ve been praying to the gossip gods for a romance between Prince Harry and Taylor Swift. So you’re not disappointed?

God no. The social and cultural and political factors that are in play here are so exciting. I think this hookup does more for the greater good, not just the greater gossip good.

Multiple news outlets are saying their romance has been going on for a few months. With the notoriously invasive British gossip rags, are you surprised they were able to keep it a secret?

I’m not totally surprised. Typically the royals keep their sh-t pretty tight and, as I said before, Harry is quite beloved both in public and in his own family. People are loyal to him. On her end, she doesn’t have the profile of, say, a Taylor Swift.

This morning you revealed on Lainey Gossip that Harry was actually in Toronto just a few days ago. How did Canadians miss that?

The story came from Us Weekly. The British press didn’t know that Harry managed to get out of England earlier than anyone realized. He was in Toronto with Meghan this past weekend. He came with only one security person as opposed to the two he usually travels with. He went straight from the airport to her apartment in Toronto. Nobody knew.

So while the story of their romance is breaking internationally, he’s holed up in Toronto?

Right. The British press reported that he was supposed to be coming to Toronto on Sunday, and then cancelled the flight after the story [about the relationship] broke. I found out from my sources that that was a diversion from the palace or from people close to Harry. After the story broke over the weekend, they knew everybody would be looking for him, and they didn’t want him to be found in Toronto, so they let it “slip” that he was still in England.

If you watch Suits, Meghan Markle is a big deal. If you don’t, she’s a “who?” What can you tell us about her?

We’ve talked to her at eTalk a number of times, and she’s very sweet. She’s not one of those people who walks into a room and is like, ‘Look at me; I’m a celebrity.’ She’s not Mariah Carey. She’s really passionate about her two dogs. She seems pretty low key. And she is stunning.

A bunch of publications are reporting that Markle has been divorced, and that she does sex scenes in Suits that would make the Queen’s hat pop off. Could that really get in the way of long-term potential?

If you ask the old school, sure they might have some objections, but there are so many other factors. For instance, Harry is now number five in line to the throne [following the births of Prince George and Princess Charlotte], so he’s lower and lower. I don’t know that there are those same expectations that she has to be a ‘certified virgin’ and all of that. We all know Charles and Camilla had a thing. He ended up marrying someone who fit the role, and of course we all loved Diana, but the love of Charles’s life is Camilla, who is divorced and who may end up being the wife of the King. Things are changing.

You’ve mentioned Harry’s overall popularity a number of times and on your blog you make no secret of your love for him. What is it about him?

Harry is one of those rare figures who checks off all the boxes. He’s enough of a hard core —he’s been to the army — he’s a prince, he’s obviously attractive. He’s great with animals and senior citizens, and then he has this bad boy side — there was the time he got caught with his pants down in Vegas. You know that he’s not boring. I love him because I think he’s fun. He’s a guy who knows how to have a good time. Especially in contrast to his brother and sister-in-law. They’re so boring, they’re so stodgy.

Bookies have been laying odds on when Harry and Meghan will make their first public appearance. Apparently the odds are 5:2 that she’ll attended holiday services with the Queen. Any predictions from you?

I have no real research on this, but I think it will probably be casual. A pre-approved series of photos. No, she’s not going to Christmas with the Queen yet! Kate had to wait five years for that. These things have a certain schedule.

You are a master at coming up with celebrity couple nicknames. Got any ideas for these two?

Ginger Sparkle.

…………………………………….

I know this is old, but Lainey Lui is one of my favorites to turn to for gossip. She is on point a lot of the times and she also brings a sociological aspect to her site. She talks about gender roles, sexism, etc… when she discusses gossip. 

SUBMITTED

[mcrpg-archive]

ROY OLIPHANT

"There’s plenty of words I redefine! On PURPOSE, man. I’m an innovator. I keep things fresh and forward-thinking. You, on the other hand, will outright bite somebody who touches you uncaffeinated."

a f f i l i a t i o n : Team Handsome, Alien Enthusiasts

It's safe to say that Roy Oliphant was raised without parents. Sure, he had parents, but they were far too busy with their own personal lives to really raise a child. Once Roy was old enough to feed and clothe himself, it was fast food, canned food and TV all day, every day. Except for when school called. School, what a joke. It's no surprise Roy wasn't all too fond of school. And school wasn't too fond of Roy either. Teased, tormented, and often left hanging by his drawers from the railing at the top of the stairs, Roy found solace in the library. Not only could people not make fun of him in there (or torture him for that matter), but it opened the door to whole other world he'd never known before: information. Specifically interesting not-very-school-related information. Books, man. Roy read everything he could get his hands on. Fun stuff. Like aliens, werewolves, bigfoot, giant squids, anything funny or supernatural. He became obsessed, connecting and disproving theories in his own head, all the while, his studies suffering dramatically. It probably goes without saying, but Roy never finished school, dropping out at sixteen after getting into a fight with his dad over his grades. The ordeal left him with two black eyes, and, attempting to put his trust into the school system for the first time in his young life, Roy told school administration... who, in turn, laughed in his face. Forgery's a crime, kids. One Roy became all too familiar with when he decided to sign on his parent's behalf to release him from the burden of school. He didn't do too much time over it... but his family sure as Hell kicked him out, leaving the guy homeless. Fast forward to the present, and Roy didn't turn out too bad, getting himself a shitty little job at a convenience store, where he can take home as much of the cafe food that doesn't sell as he can manage. Getting mixed up with Team Handsome was a blessing in disguise... leading him straight into Coach Moblow's sights. And everyone knows Moblow just can't not try to help people out.

NEED TO KNOW

TW: Mature themes, age gap*, child prostitution* see end of headcanons for details. He does NOT run a child prostitution ring.

Aliens, man.

Currently a member of the Alien Enthusiasts Club. It has a paid membership because of all the deep secret intel they collect from the government and share with their members. This is literally the only paid expense he sets aside at all costs each month. Not even rent gets priority over his membership fees.

The only other thing he ‘saves’ up for is the Alien Convention that happens every Summer in La Juve’s West End.

Because of this, he often finds himself scrambling for funds every month to make rent. Some of his more successful 'get rich quick' schemes include: entering Ziggy into the Little Miss Juventud pageant under the guise of a girl, setting up random raffles or fundraisers without actually delivering on the prizes or products, 'watching' stuff for people, etc.

Believes himself to have ~genius~ ideas, most of which are elaborate in thought but not in planning.

He is almost always surprised when his plans don't go as expected, either due to that lack of preparation or just being damn well impossible to begin with.

He currently holds the title of ‘Assistant Coach’ to Team Handsome, but everyone knows he’s really just Coach Moblow’s personal assistant. The guy can’t coach a kitten to nap, he’s definitely not coaching Team Handsome in any way, shape, or form.

Coach Moblow sometimes ( a lot of the time ) makes Roy run laps with the team. Probably because of that beer belly hanging out over his jeans.

Ziggy throws fits whenever Coach tries to make Roy lose weight.

Huge on conspiracy theories. It’s not just about Aliens with him. He’s onto Bigfoot and the Chupacabra, too, just to name a few!

Literal man-child. Happy go lucky, a little snarky, but never really outright angry. Unless you hurt his feelings. He’s real friendly -- almost too friendly. Which only gets him into things he ought not to be getting into.

The only exception to this is his sudden out-of-character bursts of anger that seem to be provoked when people start yelling at his friends -- specifically Team Handsome (or SOMETIMES when somebody tries to tell him how to live his life). He can occasionally get violent during these episodes.

Seriously thinks there’s gold buried somewhere in La Juve because he claims to have found a treasure map once as a kid.

Not real big into drugs because it'd distract him from more important matters. Like Alien Hunting. Only smokes pot to calm him down. But, he’s more of a drinker.

He’s a real loud motherfucker, and mad nosy, too. Which often gets him into trouble. Meddling in things he ought not to be meddling in.

Kind of limited in terms of what he knows about the real world and how it works.

Gets mixed up in every kind of shenanigan.

Talks to everyone... even people he probably shouldn’t talk to. The rest of Team Handsome often have to keep a close eye on him to make sure he doesn’t wander off or get abducted. It FEELS like they’re the ones babysitting him instead of the other way around.

In charge of water, drinks and snacks for the team when they’re at competitions. Which, he sometimes fucks up by forgetting altogether... or providing snacks that Coach doesn’t approve. Like Cheetos and Coke.

He’s that crazy one who will openly talk about aliens on buses and trains.

Roy has vivid memories of being abducted by aliens.

He has newspaper clippings thumbtacked all over the walls of his home.

He honestly believed one had to cut up a bunch of little corks to create corkboard, so he wasn’t about to waste time and energy on that.

It wasn’t until he went out to Target with Ziggy that he realised you could buy corkboard already made.... when Ziggy pointed it out to him.

He ripped it from Ziggy’s hands and tossed it in the cart, bought it and took it home. To this day, it remains in its plastic shrink wrap, sitting propped up against the wall by the door like a forgotten birthday present.

Everyone points it out to him.

Team Handsome seems to congregate in and around his home because he’s super chill. Anyone can bum a couch for as long as they need.

The OLDEST member of Team Handsome. But... he’s not very good at skating.

One of Ziggy and Austyn’s oldest friends in La Juve. At the time, he didn’t have his own place, otherwise he would have taken them in. He worked real hard to get his own place after meeting them, but by then they had places to stay. At least now he has a place of his own they can all party and hang out in.

His home would have and should have been listed and sold for more than double what he could spend on a home at the time, but the little old lady that was selling it took pity on him because he reminded her of her dead grandson. So she sold it to him for far less as long as he promised to take good care of it. It is a rent-to-own situation, in case you’re wondering.

Tends to know a lot about random topics, but not very smart when it comes to anything school might have taught.

Has a habit of using words incorrectly, or using them the way he wants to instead of how they’re supposed to be used, basically disregarding their meaning and giving them a new one.

Also a big fan of making up his own words. Going so far as to write out his own dictionary -- which he plans to sell, marketing it as ‘additions to the English language’.

Is the reason for Ziggy’s own fascination with aliens, and likes to take Ziggy to the Alien Convention. It’s been ‘their thing’ since he met Ziggy when he was just a little guy.

His favorite memory of Ziggy is one where he made him dress up in a ridiculous Alien costume for the convention and it got him the attention of a lot of people because he looked so cute. Like walking a dog through a park. Even more attention than Dr. Alvin Simona’s presentation. Love that shit.

Calls himself the Newspaper Whisperer. Because he feels like he can predict headlines before they happen.

Believes the Men in Black movies had a lot of good pointers in it, and he has since taken to reading the tabloids to find 'juicy stories and leads'. He is convinced he can tell which stories are legit and which ones are pure fiction.

Is actually pretty Close with Cora Taylor and was even her prom date.

He pronounces Fujioka like FOO-GEE-YOLK-UH.

First became involved with Ziggy Holland after seeing him around the truck stop off of the interstate in West End without a parent or guardian. He wanted to help Ziggy get off the streets because Ziggy was/is a child prostitute. Making money working the truck stops whenever he could.

Attempts to house Ziggy in his own apartment as often as he can without getting into issues with his then roommate.

He is the one that enrolled Ziggy into school, in an effort to keep him out of trouble for at least a good portion of the day.

Ziggy is the one that seduces Roy -- particularly when he gets into his angry moods. Ziggy believes Roy’s anger likely stems from sexual frustration. **Casual reminder that his moods are VERY INFREQUENT.** Roy is NOT an angry person overall.

Ziggy has a crush on Roy because Roy is the first person in his life to actually care about him and show him kindness. There is no intricate romance between them. It’s honestly just a little boy crush. They’re close friends and genuinely care about each other.

Roy is the one that places the anonymous call to social services when Ziggy moves in full time with a known sexual predator -- which ultimately leads to Ziggy’s placement with Sal and Tyler.

Like Sal, Roy tries to keep Ziggy within the security of childhood for as long as he can (because Roy himself had such a shitty one), and thus works his ASS off to keep Ziggy believing in things like Santa, etc.

He definitely goes overboard on the Santa thing. Every. Single. Year. And even went so far as to somehow rope Mauri into helping him get reindeer on the roof of Sal’s house.... that Sal had to figure out how to get down.

Needless to say, while Sal is glad someone is helping him with the Santa thing, he is NOT a fan of how extreme Roy’s ideas are. Especially not when he has to clean up after him. Or, you know, make someone else clean up after him.

If you did ever want to make Roy mad, all you’d have to do is tell Ziggy that there’s no such thing as Santa.

Before Roy was taken on as “Assistant Coach” by Moblow, Ziggy actually begged Sal to get Roy a job (after he was fired from his previous one), which ended up being personal assistant/personal shopper/shopping buddy to Tyler... because Tyler was complaining that he had no friends. Because everyone is too scared of Sal to be his friend.

To this day, Tyler will still sometimes drag Roy out with him. Just so he doesn’t have to do things alone. Roy basically holds all of Tyler’s shopping and lets him talk.

Roy secretly admires Tyler... but is also really scared of him.

He’s probably more scared of Tyler than Sal. Just because he thinks Sal is a big softy deep down since Sal wants to keep Ziggy believing in Santa just like him.

Please note: Smut absolutely does NOT have to be written out at all. But it is, at least, implied from time to time. And no one outside of Ziggy, and maybe Austyn and Sully, is aware that there is anything going on between Roy and Ziggy. Further, it is something Ziggy eventually grows out of, too. Though he always remains protective of and close to Roy.

UPDATE: Since PRICKZILLA is claiming Roy is a carbon copy of her character, allow me to outline some ways they aren't similar:

- Completely different back stories for one.

- Roy is NOT into human trafficking. AT ALL.

- Roy DOES NOT work in a morgue or have a radio show.

- Roy DOES NOT have problems sleeping at night.

- Roy DOES NOT touch drugs outside of pot.

- Roy IS NOT and WILL NEVER be an alcoholic. He just drinks a lot of beer and occasionally gets drunk (Like when he parties. Like a NORMAL person).

- Roy WAS NEVER and WILL NEVER be a sex addict.

- Roy IS NOT a dick or shit talker.

- Roy IS a literal cupcake with a heart of Gold that genuinely wants to help people he comes across. Even if they’ve been mean to him in the past.

- Roy IS NOT smart by any means, but he tries. He doesn’t even have a HS diploma or GED. 99% of his get rich schemes FAIL MISERABLY.

- Roy works as an "assistant coach" aka secretary or personal assistant for a very nice man that Roy admires and aspires to be like (Coach Moblow).

- Roy's parents are very much ALIVE and well. And he has a GOOD/NORMAL relationship with them.

- Roy was born and raised in La Juve and has siblings. Specifically THREE older brothers, one who is a COP, another who is in a Motorcycle gang, and an ADOPTED BROTHER who is actually a famous athlete. (Obviously inspired by Four Brothers).

- Roy was created by no less than THREE different people, two of which had no idea of who Bo was.

- Roy's character writeup has been posted since March 23rd, 2017

Faceclaim: Garrett Hedlund - negotiable First Name: is non negotiable. Last Name: is negotiable.

[garudabluffs]

  The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism  Lip service to the crucial function of the 4th Estate is not enough to sustain it. READ MORE  https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/the-mark-zuckerberg-manifesto-is-a-blueprint-for-destroying-journalism/517113/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

Feb 17, 2017 460 comments

“ newsblok.net is a great place to look for news from a variety of sources. “

longform.org

“ America already gives unearned income (from capital) a huge advantage over earned income (from labor). Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income, yet the richest 1 percent of Americans take in 75 percent of all capital gains. Only the wealthiest 0.04 percent of families owe any estate tax upon death. And Social Security taxes aren't levied on income from capital – interest and dividends.Yet Trump and the Republicans are aiming to go even further. They want to eliminate the estate tax, eliminate all taxes on capital gains, and eliminate all taxes on interest and dividends. It will be the biggest tax giveaway to the rich in history.Leaving Social Security and Medicare sitting ducks for benefit cuts.Trump isn’t helping American workers. He’s shafting them, bigly.”

“ One obvious step would be for Facebook, who rakes in advertising dollars, to pay their content providers, also known as journalists.  A system could be devised, for instance, based on the number of shares an article receives (consumers replace the editors, but at least the journalists get paid).  But, of course, Facebook has no incentive to pay for something they can get for free any more than the consumer wants to pay for what they now get for free.  As previously noted, it is yet another failure of the capitalist system.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't need a bunch of amateur pretend journalists being paid on the basis of their 'shares.'  I know it's become unfashionable to defend Journalism-  but it is an art and a skill that involves research, field work, writing, fact-checking and editorial oversight.   All media have bias because all humans have bias.  The best Journalism does its best to 'walk the line,' but will inevitably have failures.   Journalists also develop sources and connections...  that's why the citizens of this country learn as much as they do about what is happening at the local, state and national levels within their governments.  Good Journalism is, ultimately, the only thing standing between any nation and dictatorship.  Yes, it's an adjustment to have to pay for something that used to be 'free,' but there really are sources of legit Journalism that are free-  and for good reason.  Too many people are confusing news aggregators with Journalism. “

“  I disagree with your assertion that a subscription service is the only way of paying for it.  For many years now, advertising has paid for much of the news you're exposed to.  The problem isn't that that revenue stream has disappeared.  The problem is that the revenue isn't flowing through aggregators like Facebook to those who produce the content.”

“CNN is mentioned as getting 3m viewers.BBC News gets 350m, making it bigger than all US news stations combined, but is not mentioned. News journalism is fine.http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacent...“

“If you think that things are getting worse, this is why..."Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.”     --  George Carlin

““For keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all.”Righteo.. Well first up, Facebook does not, in my opinion, provide that now, it has never provided that mission statement and I could not be more doubtful about its ability to provide it in the future.        Facebook doesn't keep us safe. Facebook provides a medium wherein random people from all over the world post hysterical rumours, opinions, outright lies and third hand information that gets eagerly forwarded on by other random people.        Facebook does not inform us. Facebook provides a medium as to which is utilized by random people from all over the world who post rants, comments and panicked fears based on information they have seen, from an unreliable Mainstream Media and an unreliable Alternative Media and from clickbait sites, and other sites online that post more information that feeds whatever agenda they are promoting.    Facebook does not provide civic engagement.      For Pete's sake. If your idea of civic engagement is liking a picture of a baby posted by your friend you never see anymore, or commenting on a political rant posted by someone in your friends list who you would never spend 5 minutes of real time with etc etc - then sure, Facebook is all about 'providing' civic engagement. The reality is, all it does and all it has ever done, is provide a medium for people to flaunt their narcissism, shriek their fears and bit ch and gossip about other people. None of that is civic engagement in my opinion.

+ Facebook does not provide inclusion for all. When there are apparently 1.9 billion users on a planet with well over 7 billion inhabitants, Facebook users suddenly become an endangered species. And while its fine to count memberships - perhaps its smarter to count ACTIVE users, because from dummy accounts to fake accounts to dead accounts etc etc, the number of active users will be significantly lower than that, I would think.

Plus, this so-called inclusion in the context that this nutcase is actually referring to, only means people who follow the specific political and ideological agenda that one Mark Zuckerberg has. He has no intention of being inclusive to anyone outside of his set of opinions, as he has proven, such as with the Merkel conversation. So, inclusion is fine - as long as you agree and fall in line with the cult of Zuckerberg. No thanks, I will pass on that, myself.

The Media also, only has itself to blame. I have almost zero sympathy for journalism when journalism stopped even paying lip service to the notion of journalistic integrity and objectivity. Media, whether Mainstream or Alternative became nothing more than Opinion, quite a long time ago. If I want to read Opinion, there are a trillion places to go for it. I would pay top dollar - and I would be happy to break the 24 hour news cycle and wait for actual news - even if it meant waiting til the newspaper delivered in the morning, if I could trust that the news printed there, was accurate, honest, objective and without bias. And I think the Media would find that a lot of people would do the same. There's a niche to be filled.

The very idea of a President Zuckerberg scares me as badly as the thought of a President Trump to the most fervent Clinton supporter. This nutcase should not ever be anywhere near the POTUS seat, for all our sakes, irrespective of which side of the political coin you sit on.”

“Begin rant The reason journalism is dying and will die eventually is that the news business is fundamentally fragmented, with news organizations duplicating their workforce chasing the same customers, entrenched in a destructive competition against each other.The net result is a multitude of news *boutiques*, way too small to make investigative journalism economically viable, entangled in a 'lowest bidder rush', not holding accountable the political parties they support in the hope to benefit from their favors when their candidate come to power.In fine, international (and probably domestic) news articles are subcontracted to some remote agencies, with freelancers payed a dime, and a kick in the ass, who have little choice other than recycling the same music on a different tone just to pay their bills. On the left, everyone plays the same instrument. And it's boring, out of touch, predictable.It's a shame that liberal journalists got ran over by the Trump train, while every indicator would have told them something was going on, had they paid attention. But no, they were too busy holding hands, singing kumbaya for the candidate their party told them to.There's a lot to say about Breitbart news, but at least, they figured out the right approach: "F****k Zuck, I'm taking the contrarian route"                   .End rant.”

“ At the grassroots level, what Zuckerberg is talking about is already happening. The Marin Post, founded in June of 2015, is the first all citizen journalist news magazine in California. Build by two people and without a dollar of marketing funds, it has reached 29,000 readers in its short existence and has 84 active citizen journalists. However what has been learned is that without moderation (which is editing stories - is needed - after they are published rather than before), any online community quickly tends to devolve into eight graders yelling insults at each other.... this comment engine, DISQUS, is a case in point. In fact, one of the reasons the Marin Post was created was because neither Facebook nor Nextdoor or other forums led by the so-called wisdom of the crowds provided any place for someone wanting to contribute substantive work. And traditional newspapers, which in many ways deserve the fate they are experiencing, refused to print facts that were politically incorrect or inconvenient. Journalism and investigate reporting may be able to be done by citizen journalists, but it needs to be nurtured and encouraged, and I'm not sure unmoderated content can ever achieve that because the truth is not always the loudest voice in the room.”

“When the Internet was first commercialized, every ISP paid for a connection to  "the backbone" which provided connectivity to other ISP's.  However, content providers were eager to improve connectivity more rapidly than consumers, so they invested in new networks to bypass the backbones and deliver data directly to the consumer ISP's, in many cases paying the consumer ISP's to accept this additional data volume.   This gave them an advantage over competing content providers routing traffic over the general purpose backbones.  If we had "network neutrality" regulations in effect at that time, this would not have been allowed.  Content provider ISP's would not have been able to increase the capacity of their connections to the backbone until consumer ISP's were willing to spend the money to increase the capacity of theirs, and the Internet would still be running at dial-up speeds.The network neutrality crowd seem to view "The Internet" as a place, like a library or like AOL.  It is not.  It is a transportation service that should work like any other transportation service.  A shipper pays to have a parcel delivered, and then recovers that cost however they choose.   Nothing should block a shipping company from offering higher quality service for a higher price.  That is how service improves.The Net Neutrality concept says that only the residential consumer should be allowed to pay for the cost of the last mile network.  It is amazing that the content industry has convinced consumers to support this idea. Or, really, I guess it is not amazing at all, since they are generating all the content that shapes consumer opinion.“ << I suspect your post is going to go over the heads of most everyone who reads it, but this is a really good idea.>>

[mikemarko567-blog]

Chances Of Getting A Good Business Online | Powerful Money Magnet

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[ellerevelle]

polyamory

or is it just hookup culture

both exist. i dont think what im involved in is deep enough to be considered a polyamorous relationship, because i dont think this guy likes me enough to consider me a person he’s in a relationship with. I’m in that point where I’m afraid to ask him anything for fear of scaring him away. Which isn’t healthy at all, I realize. 

We went to a BDSM dungeon party friday night. I admitted to him that thats extremely intimidating to me. New places in general, new bars, new friends houses, new places freak me out and make me feel anxiety. So this was definitely, obviously, in that vein as well. But we went in, and my confidence felt normal. I wasnt buzzing with comfort, I didnt feel myself glowing (I miss that feeling) but it wasnt scary. If anything it felt neutral. And I felt okay because he and I were together. Hooking up with him wasnt frightening or anything at all, I felt safe because I felt wanted by him. It was liberating. Then again, there wasnt a ton of competition, he even said the next day that he didnt really think anyone else there was attractive. So I wonder if things wouldve been different had there been sexier women there. 

I have no idea how to feel right now. 

He just messaged me via facebook and didnt ask, he simply said “i'm gonna spend the night with my new friend Ali tonight,”

and continued on, “ does that make you feel any particular way to hear me say?”

And I hesitated in a major way. To be honest, my stomach dropped. Same way my stomach dropped when I was over there Friday night before we left for our event and found an open condom at the foot of his bed. I mean, I know we’re not exclusive, I’ve known that from the start. And have been down with it from the start. I had sex with someone else, too. And definitely dont hesitate flirting or carrying on with people when he’s not around. Which is why I’m not sure how I feel right now. Its a double standard, right? That I’m imposing? I want to be the apple of his eye, of everyone’s fucking eye... I want to be the only one, but yet I want to have the freedom to do what I want and not be judged or managed or shamed... 

But I like legit hate this feeling now. I hate that he’s with somebody else, that he’s excited to spend time with some new other girl. I’m trying to be confident, to know that humans are humans and we all have different things to offer and she’s not me and I’m not her, and that there are things about me that are very special and that him sleeping with her doesnt negate anything about how rad I am. 

But like, if he thinks I’m rad and likes me, why not just... ask me to hang out tonight? It makes my insecurities skyrocket. Like, am I not interesting enough? Not pretty enough, funny enough? Was I not as cool as I thought I was? Am I being TOO clingy now that he and I are getting more comfortable? Am I setting myself up as the hookup BDSM group party friend? Because although I am excited about exploring that without judgement or slut shaming, my HEART NEEEEDS so much more... I’m scared. Multi level scared, like... He asked “does that make you feel any particular way to hear me say?” 

I wanted to type YES YES IT DOES MAKE ME FEEL A PARTICULAR WAY AND I DONT LOVE IT. but like... fuck man, like... does that ruin everything? he wont reconsider hanging out with her if I dont like it. I feel like he’d just still hang with her and reconsider ME. 

I want to be special enough for someone to prioritize. I guess maybe him deciding to ask me IS showing me he respects me? But it kinda feels like a trick question sortof? I mean... he wasnt asking me if it was okay for him to sleep with her. that part of the message was a statement of fact. 

The question was, does it make me FEEL something. that feels like a trick question. Does he want me to feel jealous? I kindof wish he did... Like, if he felt jealous of some other guy I’m sleeping with, I’d feel flattered. And consider trying to be more monogomous to consider his feelings, tbh. 

So what if I’d said, yes that makes me feel jealous? 

And then like... what if thats bad and then my jealousy scares him off or bothers him or makes him worry that theres pressure on him now and all the other things women do to men and men do to women in relationships...!?! I know he’s afraid of expectations, he said so in a voicemail and has never brought it back up... which I find quite telling. Its clear he’s scared. Which is kindof what I considered, warp speed, before I typed my reply to him on facebook fucking messenger. 

Because, you know, conversations of the heart deserve a rich and immersive platform, LIKE FACEBOOK FUCKING MESSENGER -___-

I replied to him with two gifs. 

One was a “eehhhhh I dont knoooooowww about this....” squidgy eyed shrug sortof face. 

Then the next one was a “go for it girl” wink from The New Girl. 

Then I wrote 

“ i think polyamory is great, the experience with you has been my first foray into it and so while i have pangs of hesitation, all in all im confident in myself and fucking love our chemistry and feel a smoothness to it all“

I dont totally feel a smoothness to it all. What I really wanted to say was, “just help me feel special. as long as I feel special to you, like, you show me that I matter to you, I’m down with other women in your life. Just dont make me feel like I’m just a consolation prize or a second thought or like, a back burner sort of person.  Make me feel special, that you know I’m awesome, and I’m okay” 

But I dont know if that would have read well. 

With my ex, that didnt go well. I didnt articulate it in a manner he understood and I guess I came off sounding like a controlling diva princess. Which I still dont totally understand but, hey, we’re all biased to whats in our own heads. Our own words and opinions always make sense to US because theyre OURS, right? So yea. I didnt type all that. 

I tried to come off as cool. Hesitant, but confident. So I hope that he like... sees that and like, sees me being cool and KNOWS that I’m special. Because I imagine not everyone would reply like that? Fuck me man. FUUUCKK, see!? all this big long post... I’m not cool about this. 

Who is she? Is she hotter, funnier, cooler? better in bed? is it a psychology thing, like shes a NEW person so thats intriguing? Younger? Harder to get? I’ll never know unless we talk about it but I’m concerned talking about it I’ll slip up and say the wrong thing and lose this whole situation, then he’ll DEFINITELY sleep with other people and DEFINITELY put me on the back burner and OMG insecurities suck.

I just want somebody to see me as awesome as I feel, and say nice things and want to be around me the way I want to be around them. I want to share and make music and food with someone I love and tell them theyre great and make out and make love and be proud to hold hands at a party and have no one else because we’ve got all we need and aint nobody gon’ step to our awesomeness because we’re royalty. Like having a best friend. Like a beeeeeest friend. 

I asked him if shes coming to his New Years Day party. I’ve been looking forward to going for a few days now, but now I’m realizing I wont necessarily be the apple of his eye. I’m horrible at competing for attention, especially in a blatant way. Plus I think it puffs up men’s egos too much to like, fawn for attention. I know I just have to be myself and if he sees me and notices and comes over to give ME attention then thats great, and if not I’m still just present and being myself and thats as pure as it has to be...

But I have a knot in my stomach now. Im trying really hard to be cool while still dropping hints of like, Hey I want you to treat me like a lady and maybe kiss my cheek and tell me its all gonna be okay, so to speak. 

I dont want to need to be coddled. But I’m not that indifferent of a person. I want to KNOW how people feel about me. 

I guess it could be cool tho, to like... be sexy and sexual and know he’s into me but okay with me expressing myself with other people. That is actually pretty cool, if thats whats happening. 

But then why am I having such a hard time turning it around and being happy for him and confident for him and psyched for him to be with other people? 

I feel like, ideally, I want to be with someone super hot and sexy and JUST into me, but to have the same intentions of like... kicking ass and taking names TOGETHER. Like, having threesomes or group sex and dominating the room, having everyone love us and fawn over us, but KNOW that we’re a TEAM and that without a single down we kick ass TOGETHER and are only in love with each other. That we can be physical and enjoy other people but at the end of the day we’re the ones in charge, our love is untouchable and although other people are fun and part of the mix, that nothing can reach the pinnacle of awesome that is us. 

THAT would be tight. But I dont think he’s in that frame of mind. Nor am I sure that I’d even want that with someone I’m not in love with. And I’m not in love with him. Not yet any way. There’s so much more to learn first. SOOOOOOO much more to learn first. 

Our “relationship”? does feel more mature though. At least for me. I am (contrary to this journal entry) much more brave about saying things out loud to him. I feel like I can confess and be more truthful about my opinions and what I need. Not entirely, but definitely more than with my ex. 

uuuugh I feel sad and weird. Probably gonna clean my room and pirate some version of Spirited Away offline. 

He just sent me a last little thing, because I said “have a good time tonight, be safe plz (implying please use a condom) and I’ll see ya next year.”

To which he replied “I absolutely will. Sending love hunnybunch.”

So he’s sending love... 

Thats at least a smidge of ease off the knot in my stomach. I just wanna feel special :/ I hope she knows about ME. I want some manner of authority here. Although I dont tell other people I flirt or hook up with that I’m sleeping with him... But should I? Are we stepping into actual relationship territory? 

I feel like if I knew where he placed me in this then I’d have more solid footing. But how the fuck do I ask that without sounding like a total dweeb/ or Nazi / or chaperone / or old lady? 

FUUUCK I feel so dumb! 

How can I feel less dumb?

No one is gonna read this far. 

Goodnight. 

[theconservativebrief]

“The whole thing was actually kind of an accident, like all things are,” Bob Pranga tells me, about his career decorating rich people’s houses for the holidays. He’s otherwise known as Dr. Christmas.

He was working at the Macy’s in New York City’s Herald Square in 1984, just after he graduated from college, decorating a tree on the sales floor, when Mia Farrow walked past and said, “I wish someone would do that in my home.” Pranga said he would do it, and he did — and then themed, expensive Christmas decor exploded in 1986, as American culture steered itself into an apocalypse of gaudiness.

Pranga was decorating as “a survival job” until he met the Hiltons. Then it became a career — a bi-coastal Christmas empire, thanks to his Los Angeles business partner Debi Staron.

There’s “no ceiling” on Christmas, he says, and his clients spend between $5,000 and $200,000 on decorations for the holiday. “Sometimes it can go higher than that, but there’s a point where I ask them, “Really?” It becomes Christmas-by-the-pound at that point. Your Christmas tree becomes one big jewelry stand. You’re literally hanging jewelry on the tree.”

(Pranga can’t give me any examples of people who pay for this kind of thing, but says it’s not celebrities so much as “what we used to call the captains of industry.” Like Steve Jobs, he says, but not Steve Jobs.)

“My business always depends on the economy,” he says. “It’s a luxury item, not a necessity.” But his business is also part of a broader industry that’s growing.

The question of Christmas each year is, simply, how to get it. We’re all allowed to look at the window displays at American Eagle. We can all go to the diner to say “Hi” to a paper Santa. But that’s really just looking — what about having? What about possessing Christmas decorations that transform your home from that place where you keep your other shoes into the set of a Hallmark movie, where love interests are always sending handwritten notes and a roommate in a slouchy sweater proffers a cup of tea? How do you wake up every morning with rosy cheeks and peppermint breath?

The services industry is the biggest and fastest-growing sector of the American economy, and that means all kinds of things

For a not-insignificant number of Americans — not just celebrities, apparently — the answer is quite obvious: Rent some Christmas decorations from someone who will store them for you in a warehouse you never have to see; install them for you, maybe while you’re not even home; and then remove them when you’re tired of looking at them.

The services industry is the biggest and fastest-growing sector of the American economy, and that means all kinds of things, like the option to have a single bottle of pinot noir delivered to your apartment at 11 pm or to hire someone to take your Instagram photos for the evening — and the option to borrow decorations from someone who will set them up in or on your house.

The Texas-based Christmas Decor network, one of the largest professional Christmas decoration companies, was created in 1986, mostly as an additional service tacked onto a landscaping business, and now has 300 franchisees nationwide. Its website boasts that the average member of its network — made up mostly of landscapers looking for off-season work — brings in more than $200,000 per year.

In New York City, renting decorations looks even more appealing because of our collective, severe lack of storage space. I don’t have exact numbers on how widespread decoration rental is here, but I will say that it was very difficult to get in contact with people who build Christmas for a living, as it’s nearly December and it was incredibly rude of me to try to occupy even a small amount of their time with questions.

I will not say which local decorators hung up on me, or which said, “Are we done?” in a way that was maybe worse than being hung up on, because it’s the holidays. In the end, I was able to spend an entire weekend watching Christmas get borrowed and built in New York. I don’t know how it happened — presumably magic.

“I’m getting glitter all over your baby,” Rent-a-Christmas founder Kristen Parness says, handing a baby covered in glitter back to its mother.

New parents Byron and Karen Hagan hired Parness to set up a 6-foot fake tree in the corner of the living room in their apartment in the Riverwalk Point luxury rental complex on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. They know Parness because she got her MFA in theater with Byron at Pace University, and this is the third year she’s shown up in their home in an elf costume with two elf assistants to set up their Christmas tree for them. When Parness is not doing this, she’s a drama and English teacher at the extremely competitive Bronx High School of Science.

Parness runs Rent-a-Christmas with her husband Judah, who has a day job as a sales professional. “We had this idea one year when we were living in Bay Ridge [a neighborhood in Brooklyn], we had just started dating, we had no decorations, and absolutely zero storage space,” she says. “We went to Home Depot and bought $500 of decorations and the house looked amazing, but we were like, ‘What are we gonna do with this? This is so crazy, it would be great if we could rent this stuff.’”

This year, they’ll serve around 40 customers with the help of around 10 part-time elves before they close up shop on December 23. The business is small but legit — through research and trial-and-error, Parness has picked out two interior decorating suppliers who provide the vast majority of her wares, though she still buys stuff at Target or the bodega.

This year, she contracted a firefighter to do the more complicated lights and an electrician so she wouldn’t burn any restaurants down. She has a warehouse space in the Bronx, which is also where she met her live tree vendor, and which serves as the unofficial headquarters of the operation. The elves preassemble garlands and wreaths and complicated decorations there, in heavy coats because the heat doesn’t really work.

“It’s not only rich people,” she tells me, when I ask who the customers are. “It’s so widespread. We have people with one-bedroom apartments or who are really busy or have a baby. And then, yes, there are obviously rich people who go all out.”

Rent-a-Christmas’s services range in price, from $185 for a single wreath with lights (and installation!) to $12,000 for complicated packages in which an entire apartment is coated in garland. They also decorate restaurants, bars, salons, banks, bagel shops, and law firms, starting around $15,000.

Most residential customers spend between $500 and $5,000, and Parness says the most popular purchase is the “Feels Like Home” tree package ($499), which includes the rental of a 6.5-foot artificial tree, lights, tree skirt, tinsel, ornaments, and a star, as well as a team of elves to set it up.

Rent-a-Christmas elves Cara Weissman and Sarah King, with the Hagan family’s tree. Kristen Parness

That’s what the Hagans have ordered. Parness’s assistants for this particular job are her head elf Jingle Bell — also known as Sarah King, an actress who makes the bulk of her living as a Disney princess-for-hire — and new temp worker Cara Weissman, who typically works as a casting director for reality TV shows on TLC and MTV, but needed some extra cash this year.

They’re both wearing full elf costumes, complete with glitter-covered ballet flats, and, in Sarah’s case, a sparkly silver fanny pack full of stage makeup. Most of Parness’s hair is dyed Christmas red. They sing while they work, and it takes about two and a half minutes for the tree to go from box to standing, five minutes for Sarah and Cara to cover it in gold tinsel, and 10 more for the whole team to put about 50 generic red, green, blue, purple, and gold ornaments on it.

The Hagans are watching the Hallmark Channel and drinking red wine, chatting with Parness about her plans for the holidays and about the Josh Groban concert that Karen is going to that night. The tree barely fits in the corner of a tiny living room that looks out directly onto a basketball court — where teenagers are flopping around in five or six sweatshirts apiece — and then the East River.

There is one moment when the lights go on and “The Christmas Waltz” is playing on Sarah’s portable speaker, and the kids outside are moving real slow and clumsy … it’s really good. There’s also a creeping urge to eye-roll, at the baby’s grandparents saying, “That’s your first Christmas tree!” while someone else sets it up, but that’s my cross to bear.

When she’s done with her work, Sarah comes over to where I’m trying to crouch out of the way of both the TV and the process, and tells me she gets a real high off of dressing as an elf. Kids love it, and adults appreciate it too, especially when they’re having a rough year.

Rent-a-Christmas decorations at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club. Kristen Parness

A first-time customer in Manhattan last year called them because her son had just died and she couldn’t bring herself to bring out the decorations. There are cases where people going through divorces find that their ex-partner took both the kids and the ornaments. “You have no idea the joy you’re gonna bring,” she says, “Or how hard somebody’s holidays were going to be.”

I ask her if she’s going to build a career as an elf, maybe transition it into her own business in some way. “Well, I like Christmas,” she says. “Doing it 365 might be too much.” We are in and out of the Hagans’ home in half an hour.

House of Holiday is the largest Christmas store in New York, owner Larry Gurino emphasizes to me over the phone. It’s in Ozone Park — the neighborhood of Queens best known as the stomping grounds of John Gotti. It’s also somewhat well-known as a real setting from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road — next to the Tastykake Wonder Bakery Outlet, which may or may not be closed but still features a giant mural of a Hostess cupcake. When it’s not Christmas season, House of Holiday sells Halloween decorations. And when it’s not Halloween season, it sells discount pianos.

“We’re the largest square footage. We make gorgeous displays. Our store is gorgeous,” Gurino says. “Get in the train, come down, and take pictures for your article.”

So, I do. The store is gorgeous. I don’t think I’ve ever swooned in the face of a commercial enterprise, but that’s the most accurate wording I can think of to describe the first-blush of my experience at House of Holiday.

Elf buckets at House of Holiday. the largest Christmas store in New York. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

There is a section dedicated to Christmas-themed trains and miniature villages, one of which has a working Ferris wheel. There is a whole hall dedicated to fake trees, all of which are outfitted in different styles of lights, from tiny and bright white specks to heavy, old-school multi-color bulbs the size of overripe grapes.

There are tacky things and beautiful things, Budweiser ornaments and buckets of gold poinsettias. There is an entire room dedicated to different styles of 3-foot-tall, super thin elves, which is a horrifying nightmare. There is also a display of dish towels that say things like “Dear Santa, I want a fat wallet and a thin body” and “The tree isn’t the only thing getting lit.” These items are easy to ignore in favor of an arrangement of enormous angels with fluorescent wing tips and gowns more beautiful than any wedding dress I can imagine owning.

I ask Gurino how long it took to find suppliers to fill his store, and he simply emphasizes again that House of Holiday has been open for 25 years.

House of Holiday’s decorators are completely booked for the season, which starts overnight on Halloween, and the team of 25 will have decorated (or designed decorations for) about 200 homes and 200 businesses throughout all five boroughs by Christmas Eve. Typically, residential customers order a 7.5-foot tree, “decorated where you go, ‘Wow’ when you walk in,” as well as garlands for their railings, a couple of wreaths, and a centerpiece. They spend between $1,000 and $5,000.

House of Holiday, in Ozone Park. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

Gurino points out that there’s a hole in my story: “Do-it-yourself is just exploding. Even bigger buildings and business are starting to push back a little bit [against rentals]. They’re coming in and buying all of their own stuff and then having maintenance put it up.”

That way, they get the same decorations at a fraction of the price. I ask him if this bothers him, and he says no, “We encourage do-it-yourself because we have the … largest … Christmas store.” Okay!

These customers have uncovered, in Gurino’s opinion, a con. “Most guys won’t tell you that because they only do decorating. They don’t have a retail space for people to come to. Most will tell you it’s the fad, it’s the hottest thing, but if they give you a quote for 5 grand, you can come to my store and do it for 2. That’s a big difference. If you need a crane, maybe [hiring a decorator and renting] is the way to do it…”

Most people are not renting Christmas, he says. Most people invest in Christmas, accruing it over time. “We don’t rent. It’s just taking the money from people. We don’t think it’s right. Everyone can afford a storage unit. Once you rent products from someone, they always have you over the barrel. You have to rent new stuff every year. Once you buy it, next year you have the same budget, so then you have twice as much, and before you know it you can make a beautiful scene.”

The data would seem to support most of this. The National Retail Federation reports that people are spending more than ever on Christmas — an average of $1,007.24 each — but they are still spending only about $215 of that total tab on non-gift items like food and decorations. (I don’t totally agree that “everyone” can afford a storage unit, but it doesn’t seem worth fighting over at Christmas.)

More than anything, Gurino hates the line about how everyone is too busy. “There’s always time to enjoy the season,” he says. “Make time because it’s important. At the end of it all, this is what we have. We have the seasons and the holidays.”

At the House of Holiday, which is incredibly reasonably priced, I am paralyzed with indecision. Should I try to decorate my home? I agree, the season is important because what else are we going to do, just cry until it’s spring?

Way less than 1 percent of House of Holiday’s selection of ornaments. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

I also have nowhere to store these beautiful things, and I want a tree taller than my body but I don’t think I can fit it in my living room, which has a non-functioning piano taking up 30 percent of the floorspace.

After an hour of walking in circles, alternating between adding things to my Instagram story and staring solemnly at the nativity area, where you can look at, no big deal, the face of God, I decide on one small owl with straw-and-glitter feathers ($5.99), to put next to a fake crow I bought at Target when I was in a bad mood. And a light-up Santa-and-sleigh ($14.99) to put in my front window. For the children!

I ask Larry if he can tell me about the best Christmas decorations he’s ever created. “I don’t have anything special,” he says. “Everything is special.” And then, “Are we done?”

On Staten Island, the best-known best friends in the Christmas decorating business are Vincent Nicastro and Dexter Calimquim, high school buddies who have been stringing lights up on the stoney mansions and saltbox cottages of the largely-suburban, increasingly expensive “forgotten” borough for more than a decade.

Nicastro started the business when he was 16, a sophomore in high school in Park Slope, and got 10 jobs his first year just from passing out flyers. He did them on the weekend or after school; now he works 12 hours days without a day off for the entire season.

An intimidating house on Staten Island, decorated by The Christmas Decorators earlier this month. Kaitlyn Tiffany/Vox

I meet them after dark, for a job at a home nestled between two cemeteries and a country club on the east side of the island, where house prices hover around $2 million. They’re doing a modest installation — just $1,500 for labor, using lights that the homeowners bought from them some years before.

Nicastro drives me around the corner to a project they just finished, to the tune of around $8,500, including light rentals but not including the 6-foot-tall nutcracker on the stoop or the 8-foot inflatable teddy bear by the private basketball court. Those, the homeowner, Jennifer Bock, picked up herself, as she did with the teenager-sized elves in the side yard and the Santa-sized Santa in the driveway.

He has to ask her about a timer that stopped working on the bear, so he rings the bell and she opens the door immediately. A gush of aroma reminiscent of a vanilla Glade plug-in slaps the freezing air around us and I try not to very obviously stare at the chandelier behind her, which is the size of a Toyota Corolla and hanging from a cathedral ceiling with cherubs painted on it. “We love Vinny,” Bock says, “I found him on Ironmine [Drive], I was driving past and I said you have to come help me.”

She comes out to show him where she’d like some extra wreaths, then stands outside and chats without a jacket on. “He does amazing work,” she tells me. “And I love Dexter. He really knows his stuff.”

This assessment seems, from all the available evidence, accurate. Her house looks like the set of a Tom Ford ad. It looks like where Diane Keaton would live in a movie about how she’d made millions writing a hit book series and simultaneously raised elegant and educated children, and was now learning to enjoy the holidays without her handsome and kind husband who died. (Jennifer Bock’s husband has not died; I met him and his name is Tom.) It looks like, if you lived there, all you would do is stand in the driveway and talk to strangers about Christmas.

The Christmas Decorators’ handiwork, last year on Staten Island. The Christmas Decorators/Facebook

The Christmas Decorators do about 175 houses in five weeks. There are two vans and one truck, crews made up of roofers who are eager to take the off-season work and, as an added bonus, won’t fall off a roof. Calimquim says the only training they need is some easy electrical tips, because customers really only get mad when you blow their fuse box. A house like Bock’s will take all day, nine hours at least.

“I do enjoy it,” Nicastro says. “A lot of landscapers, companies come and go. We always see 20 percent growth every year.” Then he explains that, for the Bocks’ home, they had to glue each bulb onto the roof with a silicone gun, individually, and revises his tepid enthusiasm. “It’s 40 days of torture,” he says. But on the other hand, “I do okay.”

Calimquim and Nicastro also co-own a Halloween store in East Brunswick, New Jersey, which is open from August through February. There was a second store in Princeton for a while, but Amazon ate too many of the sales. The team decided to take part of their business online, selling on the platform as Costume Wholesalers.

Vincent Nicastro and a large wreath. The Christmas Decorators/Facebook

“I’m shipping blood to Alaska, gallons of fake blood,” Calimquim says. “A dragon to Puerto Rico.” The costume business is year-round, not confined to Halloween. They’re selling Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin costumes to schools for plays, Jesus and Moses costumes to churches.

In February — the coldest month of the year, Calimquim reminds me — they’ll work from 7 am to 5 pm taking decorations off of about 10 houses per day. He prefers working in the Halloween store primarily because he gets to be inside.

There are perks to being outside, though. He likes hanging out with the crew; he likes fresh air. He doesn’t like having to take the van to a Dunkin’ Donuts to go to the bathroom. He likes the holiday business because he gets time off to travel, and is going to the Philippines as soon as this is all over. He also hates Christmas, he says, the way McDonald’s employees hate french fries.

“Sometimes I’m like, ‘Is this what we’re doing for the rest of our lives?’” he says. It’s more a sincere hypothetical than anything resembling a complaint.

Bob Pranga, a.k.a. Dr. Christmas, makes a good living. He’s noticed an increase in demand for decorating services because people are “back on the ‘No one has time for anything’ thing.” They’re also increasingly forgetting to plan ahead, which is why he’s been called to give up his own Christmas Eve to decorate somebody else’s house.

“I did it,” he says, “For an additional cost. You have to be willing to sacrifice your holidays for this career if you really want to make it.”

Even in the most glamorous corner of this market, where the customers are Stevie Nicks and Beyoncé, there is a little twinge of a reminder: This is the six-week period during which our feelings about whose time is more important and what dismal dollar amount everyone else’s time can be bought for are spoken a little more loudly and crassly than they are the rest of the year.

“You have to be willing to sacrifice your holidays for this career if you really want to make it”

I know there is a lot of suspicious cultural and emotional goop around Christmas that makes what I’m about to say sound insensitive or delusional: I totally love Christmas, and both need and crave the “magic” of the most wonderful time of the year.

I know that Christmas, as popular culture has come to define it, is a nightmare of commercialism, a creepy propaganda tool of the Evangelical right, and a truly unfortunate time to work in any service industry — hardly a heartwarming combination of things.

At the same time, I think winter is a harrowing experience that humans are still ill-evolved to cope with, and that we deserve an elaborate charade to ease us into that and into the blinding horror of yet another year. We have chosen something with an irresistible aesthetic and wonderful set of smells, and we could have done much worse. The people who build Christmas are at least pretty into it. They do okay.

“My philosophy is always, you know, just remember to sparkle,” Pranga says, laughing. “Glitter gets you everywhere.”

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Original Source -> Why buy Christmas when you can rent it?

via The Conservative Brief

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

[Exclusive Interview] SUMMER OF ’84 Directors Talk Serial Killers and Sundance

I feel a certain pride when talking about directors from Quebec; Xavier Dolan and Denis Villeneuve are a few names that come to mind, but recently my attention has shifted to RKSS (RoadKill SuperStar). The trio, consisting of Anouk Whissel, François Simard and Yoann-Karl Whissel, started off making low-budget horror shorts with their friends, but later gained international recognition for their 2015 feature-length debut Turbo Kid.

Last week, RKSS premiered their second feature Summer of ‘84 at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Produced by Gunpowder & Sky, Summer of ‘84 is a dark thriller set in an American suburb. Although it’s not fantastical like Turbo Kid, the movie still carries the signature style of RKSS that I’ve come to love. I got a chance to speak to two thirds of RKSS before their final screening at Sundance. Being a huge fan of Turbo Kid, I tried to set aside all my nerd excitement and keep my cool over the phone.

Chris Aitkens for Nightmare on Film Street: What’s it like returning to the Sundance Film Festival now that you’re more established as directors? Do you feel like rockstars?

Anouk Whissel: Not really, but we feel less like impostors, because we felt like we were out of place the first time, that we wouldn’t belong here.

François Simard: The first time we were a bit more shy. My English wasn’t that great. But we did it! This year, we felt more pressure, mainly because we’re returning with a very different movie than Turbo Kid. We were very nervous with the expectations from people who had loved Turbo Kid. This movie is very grounded, it’s the most serious movie we done so far, so we didn’t know how people would react to it.

NOFS: You had the world premiere on January 22nd, what are some of the things you’ve been hearing back from audience members and critics?

FS: The premiere has been insane, it really surpassed my expectations. So we’re very happy. The fans seem to love it. And we knew that some would love it, some would hate it, but nobody is indifferent. We’re happy about that. We were surprised by some of the critics who were really mean, but we don’t do this for them, we do this for the fans, because we’re fans too.

AW: And we got some nice critics as well, but the crowd is really showing us a lot of love, and they’re staying for the Q&As and we got some super cool questions and they’re hanging out with us after, they really love it, so we’re really thankful.

FS: It was the same with Turbo Kid, you can’t please everyone. It’s part of the game. But so far, we’re so grateful to be here and it’s been a blast. Every screening has been sold out and I think the one tonight (the last screening) is sold out too.

NOFS: From what I read, you got the script before this whole 80s nostalgia craze hit its peak with Stranger Things. How did you come across the script and how long ago was this?

AW: We came across the script in the summer of 2015, it was before we knew Stranger Things was happening. When they released the first poster, we were really bummed out. We thought “Oh no, they did it first!”

FS: And we were working on the project for one year at the time. But we saw that there was an audience for that kind of nostalgia and we got the greenlight soon after, very easily.

AW: Yeah, the popularity of Stranger Things really helped with launching our project. I was refusing to watch it for some time because I was so afraid that they would be too much alike. When I actually watched it, I was surprised because it’s really different. I was happy, I could relax and enjoy it.

FS: The only thing we changed was the reference to Dungeons & Dragons. But the kids are older, they drink, they swear, they only talk about sex, like we did in the 80s. It’s an indie thriller, there’s no supernatural stuff. It’s grounded in reality, which for us, makes it more scary. The tone is very different, so it’s its own entity. We’ve gotten good feedback from fans of Stranger Things, they wanted to see something different and they were grateful for that.

NOFS: I’m curious; did you grow up in the suburbs?

AW: Yeah, we did, actually. That’s why we felt so compelled by the script, because we recognized our friends and we recognized our games. We really felt attached to them because these kids are us.

FS: The only difference was that we were talking French, but it’s pretty much the same suburb, the same life. I would add that the reason this story is set in the 80s, it’s not because it’s trendy, we’re not trying to capitalize on the success of IT or Stranger Things, it’s because in the 80s in the suburbs, feelings of safety started to fade away. There were more abductions.

AW: Yeah, they were talking more about it in the news, so people started being paranoid and locking their doors. In the mid-80s, that shift started to happen. That theme is at the core of the story, that’s why it’s set in the 80s.

NOFS: Being in the suburbs, did your imagination ever run wild because there’s nothing better to do there?

FS: Yeah, we had no internet, no Facebook or social media. We had to hang out outside.

AW: I think everyone has had that weird neighbor who nobody really knows, who usually doesn’t like kids.

FS: Yeah, your dog would bring you a bone and you would think “Oh my god! There’s a body buried somewhere.” And when we read the ending (we won’t spoil it), that’s why we jumped into the project. And we didn’t plan for our second feature to be set in the 80s. It’s really because it’s so hard to have a movie financed so you need to be working on different projects. Turbo Kid 2 is one of them. But we didn’t want to do a sequel right after the first, because then we would have to do the third and the fourth, and we didn’t want to be only known as the Turbo Kid guys. We’re happy to have something different and to explore. That being said, Turbo Kid is our baby and we can’t wait to work on the sequel.

NOFS: Going back to Summer of ‘84, I noticed a lot of 80s references like the punk bands and the kids talking about Gremlins. Did you have to do research to make sure it was as historically accurate as possible or were the references all from memory?

AW: I think at first, it was from memory, but we double-checked everything to make sure there weren’t any references to bands or anything that came after the summer of ‘84.

FS: Even for the cars, we had to check if the cars were made before ‘84. So everything is legit.

NOFS: I really liked the mood of the movie, it’s very haunting and uncertain, you never know what’s going to happen. I feel the mood comes across very well thanks to the soundtrack provided by Le Matos (who also did the soundtrack for Turbo Kid). What’s your relationship with Le Matos?

AW: JP Bernier is one of the members of Le Matos, and he’s one of our best friends and our director of photography as well. We started working with him in 2007, I think. It was a while back, and at that time, he didn’t have his band. He created that band with Jean-Nicholas Leupi later on, and from that moment, they started to score our short films as well. We have a very strong relationship with him. It’s natural for us to bring them on board, and because JP is involved in the early process as a DP, I think the music is so connected to the image.

FS: He’s actually the fourth member of the band (RKSS). We’re so happy to have him. When we were younger, in the early 2000s, we started making shorts and we didn’t know anything about the technical side. We met JP because of Despised Icon (the death metal band from Montreal) and he made music videos for them and I was a huge fan. He saw our shorts and he said the only thing we need is a good DP. Since then, he’s been with us and he’s a good friend and we’ll try to bring him on board for every project.

Photo by David Sidaway of the Montreal Gazette. Notice the NAILS and Full of Hell tuques

NOFS: I noticed the Full of Hell patch on François’ hat and I think I saw Anouk wearing a NAILS hat in another picture. Would you ever consider making a movie with a grind or extreme metal soundtrack?

FS: I would love to, but I don’t know if there’s money for that because extreme music is not for everybody.

AW: If we could find a project that fits, it would be crazy, for sure.

FS: We did a short called Le Bagman back in 2004, and all my favorite bands were in that movie. It’s very DIY, though.

NOFS: When it comes to the three of you acting as directors, have you figured out a system where each person has a separate job, where nobody is stepping on each other’s toes? How do you organize working with three directors?

AW: When we write, we write together and we argue a lot and we fight, but nobody sees it. That’s the only time we fight, behind closed doors. When we’re with our team, we don’t want chaos. We’re very strict with our preparation, we have our storyboards and we show up overprepared. So when we’re on set, we can split. Yoann-Karl is with this actors.

FS: He’s the one with the loudest mouth, so it’s a shame he’s not here.

AW: François edited all our short films. He sticks to the storyboard and he’s with JP the DP, just to make sure we’re not missing any shots for the edit. I’m the head of departments and the overseeing eye to make sure everything is following our vision and that we’re on the right track.

FS: On set, if somebody has a question and they don’t know who to ask, or if there’s a problem, we can take care of it, that’s why we split. Rich Sommer (who plays Officer Wayne Mackey) did test us, just to see if we have the same vision and the same answers. He asked the same question to each of us, without us knowing, but we gave him the same answer.

NOFS: As directors from Quebec, do you ever feel there’s a language barrier when you’re talking to the cast?

AW: Not really. I think it’s been going very well. I don’t think we’ve ever had problems getting people to understand us, even if we don’t have the best words every time, it’s never been a problem.

FS: But like I said, at first I was the one struggling with my English. We spent three weeks in New Zealand for the post-production of Turbo Kid and that really helped. Now I can express myself. But we always have storyboards, so at least we can explain what we want very easily to the whole crew, it’s the best way to go.

NOFS: I know you don’t want to be known as the Turbo Kid guys, but are there any details you can tell me about the next Turbo Kid movie?

FS: It’s at the writing stage right now. We want to work on it more to be sure that it’s the best script ever. I think we owe this to the fans, some have tons of tattoos and fan art and cosplay, so we need to take our time.

AW: What we can say is that it’s going to be a sequel, so we’re going to follow The Kid as he travels through the Wasteland after what happened with Apple.

FS: He wants to know what’s on the other side of the Wasteland and that’s where the story takes place. Like I said, we’ll do it once the script is good and when we have a decent budget to be able to take our time with it. Last time, every day we had to cut and we had to sacrifice. It’s a good thing to learn, but we had to cut on the gore, on the action, on the set pieces and the stunts, and we preserved the love story. I know for the sequel, it needs to be bigger, so we’ll need a much bigger budget.

Summer of ’84 had its world premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Keep your eyes peeled for future film festival announcements.

Poster for Summer of ‘84

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