#except for megan who I forced to watch 2/3 of them

[inspectorclarke]

realized some things about my ot3s tonight

[neoheros]

how would haikyuu boys handle getting shipped with a friend on tiktok? feat. kuroo tetsuro

kuroo tetsuro has a crippling tiktok addiction and he’s in denial about it but everyone around him knows because all he does in his free time is get on that app

that’s canon i’m not arguing with anyone about this

he’s the kind of guy to fall asleep from scrolling through his fyp and the moment he wakes up he looks for his phone under his pillow to watch more lmaooo

so anyways

you share classes with him and he’s not really the kind of guy to have crushes especially on people he’s not close with

but then one day he’s on his fyp and he stumbles on one of your videos

and he’s just like ?? woah

he recognizes you obvi, he’s not one to talk to people out of his friend group but he’s not completely ignorant to everyone else

he immediately sees that you have indeed quite the following and have almost majority of your posts going viral

so yea you can say he’d notice you more in class now

at first it was subtle, looking at you more when he’s spacing out or paying close attention to you when you’re reciting

he doesn’t even notice how he includes you more in his thought process until the day kenma pointed it out to him how he’s been a bit more distracted lately

he brushed it off thinking it wasn’t really anything serious

but then boy Oh boy !!!

he started noticing the fact that you’ve got a really nice room in your vids and your fave led lights are the red ones since you almost always use them

he’s also really into the fact that you upload more on comedic videos than dancing ones

but HONEY when you posted your take on the dance trend of savage by megan thee stallion ,,, he was GONEEEE !!!

he sent that video to kenma like five times in a row with the caption “aha brb gonna LIVE for this woman 😗✌️”

kenma be like: simp city population - u

at this point he just accepts it, like flat out he took it within himself to UNDERSTAND how much he’s crushing on you and kenma asks him if he’s gonna do anything about it and he’s like ????

like he gets how awesome he is and stuff cause duh captain of the volleyball team and most probably the most beautiful man on campus but you’re also really good in class and very attractive

not to mention that you’ve never even looked his way before

he was hurt, man !!

only he could feel as rejected as someone who actually did get rejected

nevertheless, he got over that and just woke up one day telling himself that he was gonna shoot his shot anyway !!

so one day in class, right after the lunch bell rang, he took a deep breath and rummaged his insides for every drip of confidence he could muster

he walked to your seat and you were kinda surprised because this boy right here has never once talked to you before

his opening line was “can i sit here?”

you were still really confused but then he said something about wanting to be friends and your heart was just really warm cause !!!! that’s so NICE !!

and he mentioned how he knew you from tiktok since you practically lived on his fyp

you were really embarrassed and he got to see in action how your ears turn really red when you get shy

kuroo, internally: “that’s so FUCKEN CUTE !!!!!”

he had to reassure you that it was indeed really cool that you made bomb ass tiktoks

you were so grateful cause like one minute you were having a terrible day because of your stupid teacher then bam this 6’2 beauty of a man came swooping in telling you you were terrific

you two became friends after that and it made you really happy to have someone as cool as kuroo as your best friend

kuroo likes to sit with you at lunch except when you’re with other people then he gets a bit dejected so he’s just “well damn maybe tomorrow then”

it’s all good though cause he has invited you to numerous of his practices and that’s when you SEE how amazing this man is at volleyball

one day you’re like “hey wanna do a tiktok with me?”

and he’s like “the one where you kiss me?”

you, flushed: DIPSHIT WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT !!!!1!1!1!!

you guys do the one where you dance to supalonely by benee

it went OFF !!! 700k likes and a solid ass 2.7M views because apparently the viewers really like it when kuroo dances next to you in his varsity uniform and has sweat dripping on his forehead

your comments for the next two weeks are just like “bro post another one with kuroo please PLEASE”

kuroo: guess people just like me more :)

you: leave my mentions <3

sometimes you’d get people replying to your videos with “you and kuroo look really good together”

you see them but you most likely ignore it because even if you did know how much you liked kuroo, you didn’t wanna jeopardize the friendship, yk?

anyhow due to popular demand, you include him in your videos again and every time you do they always go viral !!!

it’s very cute especially when you do the ones where you snapchat him song lyrics and he answers even if he does know it’s a trend

“can they please just get together already, we all know they’re pining but they’re too coward to say it !!”

you: ok u know what user9728182829 since u’r so good at this why don’t u be the one to make tiktoks at a volleyball court and dodge all those stray balls 😤

you were so fed up with it that you actually tell kuroo about the entirety of tiktok shipping the two of you together

he was worried that you were upset because people liked you and him dating that he thought maybe you just weren’t into him

BUT THEN !!!

because of the corona virus all the schools shut down and people were forced to stay in their houses for quarantine

it was sad that everything got cancelled and you weren’t allowed to see your friends anymore

but that’s ok cause kuroo insisted to facetime everyday

you: why can’t we just text

kuroo: because what if you forget what i look like 🥺

you: hey i’m not that blessed ❤️

it was like the quarantine never happened since you still saw and talked to him everyday

sometimes he’d show up at your place but refuse to come inside cause social distancing

this mfer threw rocks on your glass window just to get your attention once

kuroo: i got you those edible cookie dough in pints !!

you: omfg 🥺👉👈

then he chucks it at you because he ain’t boutta break the law to get you food 😤

it’s ok though you have really good reflexes and it only hit your elbow the first 2 times !!

you got it all on camera and posted it on tiktok and everyone in the comments were LIVID at the fact that you captioned it with “best friends b like”

“i just know that kuroo is punching the air right now.”

“imagine risking the corona and still being friend zoned.”

“when you realize kuroo is actually the president of simp city.”

other times he’d snap you at 3 in the morning asking if you want anything from starbucks

no one:

your snapchat dms at 3:28 am: you really went to bed you SN A KE !!

and when you wake up the next morning you find out that this guy is still awake and that he’s been chilling in the starbucks parking lot all morning !!!

that’s ok though because other than the fact that his sleep schedule is completely wrecked he still got you your venti strawberry acai refresher

you: thank you sm 🥺 what do i owe you

kuroo: a kiss on the cheek

you: you can have the drink back ❤️

that’s when the new tiktok trend started and people were posting the hottest guys on campus or revealing their crushes since 1st grade

you, feeling brave because school is cancelled: aight bet 😎

you do a tiktok hopping on the trend and you captioned it with “now that we aren’t coming back to school here are the boys from campus that i’d date for real”

you stall for the first 30 second by vibing to the music and when the beat drop !!

you showed a picture of kuroo and you put in the text “kinda missing him too”

you were extremely regretting this but numerous people already saw it and the comments went on and on about how unsurprising this was

press f ma’am

so one afternoon while kuroo was scrolling through his tiktok, he was surprised by the amount of notifications he was getting

cause he doesn’t even post videos ??

he’s only there to watch funny stuff and leave insulting comments on your posts cause he’s a good friend

he checks and they’re all just tags of him in this one video and he was kinda worried cause what if it was a hate post ??

but then he saw that it was yours and he’s less nervous !!!

kuroo, texting you: if you diss me in this one i’m posting the screenshot of you falling asleep on facetime

so he watches it and ??????????????

bro he went 🥺

before he messages you he went straight for the comments and !!!!!

“who knew it was kuroo before watching the whole video?”

“don’t be shy put some more photos of him !!”

“if kuroo duets this i’m gonna make sure to never fall in love unless its like this.”

“y’all he did it boys!! he graduated from the best friend zone!!”

he’s still really surprised by this and he really hopes you’re not kidding cause bro you??? like him????

thanks to that comment he saw, he decides to duet your video by using the same sound and doing the same dance with the same caption “now that we aren’t coming back to school here are the ones from campus that i’d date for real”

and they’re all just pictures of you 🥺

it blows up but before you see it on your fyp he’s already asking to facetime and when you answer you swear he’s just got the biggest smile in the world i’m :(

kuroo: lol remember when you publicly told majority of the internet how much you liked me

you: lol remember when you weren’t talking ❤️

[ravenforce]

Cheating Death V

Warning/s: None.

Summary: Carol vs. Angry!Obnoxious!Reader, the showdown. 

A/N: I don’t know if this is worth your time. Sorry. </3

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6

You groaned when Cass pulled the blanket off of your head, and Megan pulled your blackout curtains apart. 

“Get up,” Cass ordered the same way she would order Stephanie.

“Fuck off, Cain. I’m not in the mood.” Megan chuckled from your window ledge. Cass shoots her a quick glare.

“You know that I would if I could but your sisters demand your presence at breakfast. We have visitors.”

You groaned long and loud before sitting up reluctantly. “What part of I’m not in the mood you didn’t understand?”

Had it been anyone else, they would have backed away and run in fear as bright green swirled behind your eyes, and a green aura starts to sip out of your skin. Thankfully, Cass and Megan wasn’t just anyone else.

“We understand you’re hurting but you can’t stay here forever?” Megan quipped sympathetically.

In an instant, your friends watch the light in your eyes goes back to normal, and your shoulder dropped in defeat. You sighed looking at your hands. You can still see all the blood you have to wash off the night prior. It’s not the first time but it was the worst so far.

“Tell my sister, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Cass just nodded before walking towards your door. Megan, on the other hand, walked towards you first to give you a comforting soft kiss on the top of your head.

“You can get through this, again, Y/N,” she said before following Cass out of your room.

You plopped back down on your bed after Megan closed the door behind her, and stared at the ceiling.

“How much more can you take, Y/N?”

***

You can already hear people talking rather aggressively inside the dining hall. The two guards posted outside moved to open the door for you but you waved them off. You can already feel the impending headache from all the alcohol you and your friends consumed after killing those gang members. You leaned your forehead against the cool, hardwood to centre yourself before facing your sisters and your impending doom. That’s when you heard the last voice you want to hear, like ever, questioning your sisters about the incident at the club last night.

Your blood started to boil. Headache gone, sadness forgotten. You pushed the double door with more force necessary, making everyone stop and turn towards you.

“What’s all the fuss?” you asked innocently. You regarded everyone in the room including the Bucky and Wanda, except for Carol.

You sat between your friends and across your sisters, ignoring the questioning looks on their faces. The room is tense, no one was eating. You knew it was rude but you reached for the toasts and jam anyway. Talia frowned at your behaviour but you ignored her. You’ll suffer their wrath for what you have done, might as well go through it with a full stomach.

“You -” Carol yelled, making you flinch before glaring at her.

“Please lower your voice -” You paused to take a bite on your toast. “I’m nursing a hangover.”

“You -” Carol tried again. You leaned back on your chair, crossing your leather-clad leg over the other, and intentionally chewing loud to annoy the blonde.

“Can you be more articulate, Captain?” You asked obnoxiously, making sure to enunciate her title using Osiris’ voice.

Carol balled her hands against her side. “You’re the one who killed those gang members last night,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Bold accusations but do you have proof?” Your voice thick with sarcasm.

“Stop fucking with me,” she said through gritted teeth. Everyone bristled at the language, including her cavalry.

“Carol -” Wanda whispered nervously. You, on the other hand, placed your toast delicately on your plate before levelling Carol with a stare.

“Sorry but you’re not my type.” Megan and Cass couldn’t help the giggle that crawled out of them, earning a glare from your sisters. “But seriously, if you’re not here to arrest me, get the fuck out.”

This time, it was Talia and Nyssa who almost berated you for your choice on vocabulary but they can see something is off with you. They had to look harder from their distance across the table but they finally saw the green swirling behind your stormy eyes and they knew that you let go of control.

“I’ll get you. I swear I’ll get you,” Carol warned while Wanda and Bucky quietly talk to your sisters.

“For what?” Your carefully constructed facade of nonchalance is fading away, the longer you have to spend in Carol’s presence. Leaving cracks for your pain, envy, and anger to sip through. “For doing your job? Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning up the streets? Yet the Vipers and other factions run rampant in your city, and doing all their illegal shit right under your noses.”

By the time you finish, the green aura around you is almost visible to human eyes making Bucky and Wanda take a step back. Before Carol can come up with a retort, the door to the dining hall opened and came waltzing in the one person you wanted to see in the entire universe.

Natasha stopped in her tracks. “Y/N?” She asked confused.

You stared at the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever had the chance to look at, and for the first time in the past few days, you smiled. “Hi,” was all you can say because, after all the years that you’ve been separated, she’s still the only woman who can take your breath away.

[holographicvampire]

But I’m A Cheerleader

The first lesbian film I ever saw was “But I’m A Cheerleader”. 

Directed by Jamie Babbit. 

*SPOILER ALERT*

I think I was in middle school when I first saw this movie on LOGO. (At the time I was labeling myself a “closet bisexual”.)

The plot of this movie is literally about a cheerleader who is a closet lesbian and everybody’s got a problem with it, sort of trying to convince HER to have a problem with it as well.

She has the typical quirky/concerned parents, dimwit jock boyfriend and overly nice friends. I think what got under my skin though was the fact her own boyfriend and friends showed up to her house invention style with a “de-gay-ify” counselor (WHICH IS LOWKEY IRONIC AF BECAUSE THE COUNSELOR IS PLAYED BY RUPAUL LMFAO). Satire is something else.

Megan, the main character played by Natasha Lyonne, gets taken away to a conversion camp, “True Directions”,  in hopes of “curing her” aka changing her back into a straight female. While she’s there, she meets other teens that identify as “homosexuals” and have been admitted to the program by their homophobic parents as well. Even though this movie is just an indie queer comedy, it’s scary to think that some kids/teens get sent to camps like this in real life. My heart goes out to them. No one should ever be forced to be somebody they’re not. No matter what your sexuality is just know- THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.

The film follows Megan and all the other teens through different trials and tribulations at the camp. They have to do these hilarious gender role exercises, and homophobic chants (”Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve”), and are threatened to be kicked out of the camp if they display any type of homosexual behavior. Everyone seemingly follows the camp rules, except for a particular sarcastic girl named, Graham, played by Clea Duvall,  who loves to talk back. Slowly but surely, Graham begins to help Megan come out of her shell and sheds light on what’s really going on in the camp. They also begin to fall for eachother.

One night all the teens decide to sneak out. The counselors/lovers from a rival camp that’s accepting of the lgbtq community, helps the teens with a ride to a nearby gay club for a night of fun. Graham starts dancing with one of the girls and Megan gets highly jealous and storms off. They get into a mini screaming match which leads to them kissing. They both finally become aware that they have real feelings for eachother. 

To keep from getting caught though, Graham pretends to have a crush on one of the boys at the camp. Megan unfortunately is confronted by her parents at a meeting and they basically tell her that if she doesn’t change (aka doesn’t ungay herself) she won’t be allowed to come home. Again I know this is just a movie, but hearing them say that shit to Megan really made me upset. I don’t understand how parents can just kick their own kids out for not being straight. Like what the fuck??? If anyone out there has ever been kicked out or has been threatened to be, I hope you know you are loved and I’m sorry you’re being treated like that and I hope you find a safe space to stay. <3 

Fast forward: Megan and Graham end up hooking up (FINALLY) and omg, my heart was beating out of control because not only had I never seen 2 girls kissing on tv, but the song that was playing during it set the mood perfectly. The song is, “Glass Vase Cello Case” by Tattle Tale. Here’s a link to the song on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm60pXJJbtA

Megan unfortunately ends up getting kicked out because of a jealous girl in the camp that had a crush on Graham ratting her out. Graham shuts down completely and for a bit Megan is lost, but she soon finds herself on the doorstep of the rival camp that’s queer friendly. They accept her in and she also finds out that Dolph, a boy originally from the conversion camp is living there happily and safe. 

Leading up to the graduation day of “True Directions”, Dolph and Megan hatch a plan to convince Clayton and Graham to stop being afraid to be who they are and leave the conversion camp to live in peace at the acceptance camp. Megan tries to get Grahams attention, but is pushed away. Megan then does a cheer infront of everyone at the ceremony admitting her feelings for Graham and then runs away to the getaway truck. Graham realizes she’s had enough of playing pretend straight and runs to the truck and begins passionately kissing Megan. 

The truck drives away and it’s clear they have a happy ending together not only accepting eachother, but accepting theirselves as well. Most people might think this film is a little on the cheesy side, but to this day, I still think it’s such a cute film. Perfect for anyone that’s a fan of queer cinema, Rupaul, sarcasm, controversial shit, and just finding yourself, accepting yourself, and falling in love. 

[babblingblondegenius]

Someone Save Felicity Megan Smoak-Queen

I’m kinda speechless right now at the utter incompetency of the Arrow writers room but let’s give it a shot.  EPISODE 7X21 SPOILERS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Season 8 is increasingly seeming like a very bad idea since the writers are clearly out of fresh ideas already.  Only two episodes left with their leading lady and the Arrow writers focus on Oliver hallucinating a long-dead Tommy Merlyn.  I’m in the same boat that I was last week with Roy; I like Tommy but now is not the time.  There is a huge problem when the emotional crux of the episode is between Oliver and Tommy rather than Oliver and Felicity because Oliver is spending more time having in-depth conversations with a character who isn’t even on the show than he is with his pregnant wife.  

Especially given the topic of conversation.  After weeks of trying to ‘redeem’ Emiko by giving her the benefit of the doubt because she’s ‘family,’ Oliver has finally decided that she must be stopped, no matter what.  Hallucination Tommy wants to counterpoint, telling Oliver that killing Emiko makes Oliver just like his father and is only ensuring that the cycle of violence will continue.  

Here’s where I am with that:  #1  Oliver Queen is not Robert Queen!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Let me copy and paste from my review last week:   Robert is dead.  Oliver can’t change the past or what Robert did.  Oliver isn’t responsible for his father’s actions.  Oliver didn’t even know Emiko existed and since he found out, all he’s done is try to be a good brother to her.  Oliver proved he had nothing to do with her mother’s death and figured out who did for her.

#2  Oliver Queen is a non-super-powered, not-a-metahuman vigilante with badass archery skills and a big heart.  Sometimes in the field when facing a baddie, it is kill or be killed.  If the choice is between the bad guy or Oliver getting to live, I’m picking Oliver every day of the week and twice on Sunday without a second thought and zero remorse.  #sorrynotsorry

#3.  Oliver has changed and grown from the man who let the hood consume him and his need for vengeance in season 1.  Oliver has accounted for his mistakes, atoned for his sins, admitted his moral failings, tried to make a difference in the light, and served his penance at Slabside.  Oliver is already a hero, whether the city chooses to acknowledge that or not.  He shouldn’t have to die, or sacrifice 20 years with his family, or try to redeem someone who is going to harm an entire city for the 5,468,439 time, to prove himself a true hero.

#4  The flash-forwards have shown us that the cycle of violence continues in spite of Oliver, not because of him.  Star City has fallen into ruin in the absence of Oliver Queen.  The cycle of violence is perpetuated by the bad guys, NOT Oliver.  If Oliver Queen had his way, Star City would be an uncorrupted, safe and peaceful place to live and Oliver would be a stay-at-home dad raising William, Mia, Lucas, 5 rescue puppies, a stray cat, and two hamsters named Frick and Frack while Felicity runs her company and creates innovative and affordable tech to help the masses and make the world a better place in general.

Speaking of the flash-forwards, the writers are also wasting a lot of time with present-day peril because we already know these characters are alive in the future so there is absolutely no suspense or emotional investment.  The only time I freaked out was over Dig and then 5 seconds later, I remembered that he is alive in the future even though we haven’t seen him yet.  5 seconds after that, it turns out Dig wasn’t injured at all and it was just another part of Oliver’s dream.

Same Oliver.  That was me watching this episode.  In part because the flash-forwards continue to be inconsistent, this week with Felicity and William.  Cause plot, William is now mad at Felicity again for abandoning him.  Listen kiddo, you said you wanted a normal life and you chose to go live with your grandparents.  Mia may have been raised by Felicity but she didn’t get a ‘normal’ life.  They lived in isolation as Felicity did the best she could.  This is the woman who took on a psychopath with nothing but a fireplace poker to give you the chance to run. She would have gladly taken a bullet for you.  Can she get a break already?

Also, to the shock of no one, we find out that Alena sold Archer to Galaxy One.  The real shocker would have been if they actually let Felicity have a real friend.  

The best part of the episode was Felicity outsmarting the Keystone Kops SCPD when they tried to arrest her.  We been knew they are useless but it worked in our favor this time.  Felicity and Alena escape to the bunker so they can help the team find Oliver.  Things are going okay until Emiko shows up at the bunker (do they even have any type of security anymore or nah?) and shoots an arrow at Felicity.  Felicity pleads with Emiko not to kill her because she’s pregnant.  Uh, Felicity, I love you with the force of a thousand suns, but why tf would you share that information with the evil bitch who just dropped a whole ass building on your husband?  Do you really think Emiko cares about your child, other than to use it as a means to hurt you or Oliver?  

Whatevs, Emiko left and went back to the demolished building.   She and Oliver must have passed each other on the street because Oliver and the team come back to the bunker and we got an awkward Olicity reunion where they literally seemed to stop short of each other while asking if the other is okay.  Emily at least tries to infuse some emotion into the scene with tentative touches and by touching her belly when Oliver almost asks about the baby.  Both of them almost died and there was no hug, no kiss, and not a lot of emotion.  Not sure if SA used up all his emotional reserves in the scenes with CD or if it was a director’s choice or the writing or a combination of all three but it once again showed that the heart of this show is already gone.  Even with an injured arm, Oliver can and should still hug his wife.  

Injuries have never gotten in the way of hugs before.....

And I miss this Olicity more than words can say.  Oliver and company went back to the building to face off with Emiko but Oliver let her go so they could continue to focus on everything except the dynamics that matter most next week too. For Emily’s final episode, she wasn’t shown in the promo at all.  Obviously I know she will have scenes next week but I don’t see how they will have enough time to do her story line justice and have any type of emotionally satisfying ending.

I hope I’m wrong.  Felicity Megan Smoak Queen changed the course of this show seven years ago and she deserves to go out on a high note.

Thanks to all the amazing gifmakers. :)  Felicity/Dig gif credit to fanforum.com; Oliver / Thea gif credit to fangirlish.com; Felicity confused gif credit to tenor.com.

[bookdragonlibrary]

Second Friday YJ appreciation

1-3 ; 4-6 ; 7-9 ; 10-13 ; 14-16 ; 17 ; 18 ; 19 ; 20 ; 21 ; 22 ; 23 ; 24-26

—————————— Private security 

- Will has the dad belly! Lian is cuter and cuter! <3 (But it’s just me or she seems less Asian than in season 2? Where’s Jade?)

- Lucas Carr! :D (For those who don’t remember him, he appeared in the first YJ comic book and in season 2 when he teachs Gar at Mount Justice.)

-  Why Dr Jace stays at Luthor Grande Hotel, in Metropolis! 

- Bowhunter Security! With orignal Roy/Arsenal, clone Roy Will/Red Arrow and clone Jim Harper/Guardian (So if he’s Guardian again, what about Mal? He’s still a hero? Which one?) I love the dynamic of the Harper family and Roy calls Will bro!! He has finally dealt with his trauma (he seems to) and considers Will like he’s older brother! :3 

- Dick in a security costum! Just like in Titans with the policer costume. He has a new outfit every Friday! 

- “An old soul in an young body” Another clue for the Motherbox theory! So the first Halo is still alive inside or gone for good?

- Zatanna! TT.TT

- American genetically modified beef! xD

- Am I the only one who sees Jeff x Dr Jace miles away?

- “To the SUV!” My new war cry! 

- Now Brick has red skin, it means he activated his metagene. How did he get out of jail by the way?

- I love how they show the Prince’s not understanding. He asks questions instead of jugement and “it’s a machine. I don’t understand.” instead of “You’re dumb” or something.  

- I’m kind of afraid of Wolf sleeping. Don’t tell me he’s getting old and will die soon :( 

- All Halo knows from her post life is violence, torture and hatred. No wonder she doesn’t want to remember... 

- Don’t forget the clipboard! xD Will is more loyal to it than to his hat! 

- OMG! Giovanni aged so much in just 7-8 years! He’s what? Between only 40-50! Side effect of Dr Fate’s control?

-  “Wall” My heart, why? TT.TT So heartbreaking than Dick is too afraid to be part of a team because he lost Jason and Wally and Barbara gets injured.

- “I’m older than Jim.” So Jim was made after Will. interesting!

- Harper’s family business! Need more episodes with those 3!

- I really loves the humour in this episode! xD 

—————————— Away Mission

- Forager! Orion! Wait, what a bastard! :o 

- Gregor tries to protect his little twin brother and has compassion for the Quracis refugies. I love him! 

- Bear! Wait there’s a thing between him and Dreamer?! The notebook with the photos! The nostalgia!

- So the New Gods use metaslaves? O.o 

- Traci, Jaime and Bart! :D And Jaime finally talks! Now Scarab’s turn! “There’s no sound in space. The physics on the show is so messed up!” It’s Jaime or Scarab who speaks? Or Jaime took the comment habit of his bug friend? I definitely see Scarab saying something like that! xD So Traci watches the shw for the story or for Gar? “Hello Megan!” Their ringtone for the missions is the generic of this show! So cute! 

- Cassie and Tim have a conversation without yelling at each other. That’s an healthy relationship. So I hope they won’t break up :( “Awkward...” Sorry Virgil, you seem pretty alone :(  

- Jaime, why do you massage your side? Bart didn’t hit you that hard, did he? And he calls him amigo, sorry Bluepulse shippers... (Well, at least it isn’t hermano, so maybe Bart’s just pinning, whatever that means.) I was expected Scarab to yells “Incompatible!” to the boom tube... “Who watch the show for the physics? Who uses a boom tube for the physics?” I love the dynamic of this trio! And Traci is so adorable! Bart’s haircut changes every frame or what?

- “I hacked the Justice League’s computer!” That’s my boy! xD And G designation is for Grayson right?

- M’gann and Cassie are two mad girlfriends, poor guys (Jaime, Bart and Virgil) they didn’t do anything wrong :/ “Superoblivious!” xD 

- “Excuse me?” xD The Yj comic reference with Lucas Carr! Brion who wants to impress Halo.

- Even in bug form, M’gann is still white! :) It’s me or Blue just growls?

- Guys, stop stressing Brion, you gonna make him fail :( What did I say? —‘ “My trees” So Lucas Carr is a neightboor or something? “Excuse me?!” New color for Halo: Yellow is for attacking. I want to see what the green does!

- I love how M’gann put down her little brother like the older sister she is. So she used to hide behind a green form and her little brother behind a beast? You can see M’gann growth throught the comparison with her brother. “I have been dealing with the red and green oppression.” Wait, so there are red martians too? And is for Darkseid he made the bugs made at the New Gods? So they have less allies against him?

- Every metateens we saw so far doesn’t look human anymore. I don’t know if thee Light are doing that on purpose so we could not recognize them anymore or it’s because the forced evolution is too much for their body :(

- Is Halo healing herself like a reflexe or does Sphere help the processus to begin? Violet? That’s so cute! Wait, another supermartian parallel!

- Bart still has the same energy! (I hope this is not an act this time...) I love the Team dynamic: Virgil helping Cassie and thir hand five, Bart trying to stop the bugs from attacking Jaime, Cassie rescuing Jaime, Jaime helping Traci :3 The weapon has to be similar to Genesis tech to hurt Blue however...

- Baby martians look... cute? I think when he kills the green martian, it was on the mental plane and not a memory since he has that beast form. The nostalgia! Everyone is back in season 1 and with their season 1 version of themselves, except Artemis and... why do you have to bring Wally in every single damn episode?? Conner is M’gann shield! 

- And two more metateens dead TT.TT Wait, failsafe? Poor Forager! He just wants justice and kindness :( I love how Cassie and Jaime jump on his side and M’gann adds two arms to adapt to his appearance. I’m sure M’gann’brother made the green bug mad telepathically, because Mantis already knew Forager brought the Earthlings and Bear on New Genesis when he first stopped the bugs’ attack.

- I need more of the trio Traci/Jaime/Bart to see their friendship, Traci’s story. And more Cassie and Virgil screentime because we barely saw them in season 2 and in this episode :( 

- Why Blue seems so angry all the time? He had like one positive line in this episode. Is he still dealing with his trauma in season 2? Is he angry at himself? I don’t know if it’s anger, frustration or self-hatred :( I just want him to be happy after the nightmare in season 2 :( But I think it would be more human if he still has to deal with himself after being mindcontrolled for months... 

—————————— Rescue Op

- Black Spider and Terra. The goggles have to much screen time to not have an importance after. Who was Jackie? “All the bosses will be proud” So Shadows + Light + Darkseid?

- So Barbara is indeed in a wheelchair :( I love how she still can push Dick down :) And barbdick are a new couple :) We need another ship name, a more YJ like one :)

- The Outsiders trio is so cool! So Forager don’t use pronouns so much. So he’s a he, she or them? Wow, Halo knows a lot about New Genesis. Another clue for the Motherbox theory. M’gann is so done to explain she’s not a earthling: “I’m not from Earth” “I’m from Mars!” “Brion is the alien to Forager” this is so true. Thanks for putting this! I love how Brion is so enthousiastic to meet aliens :) He looks like a kid! So bioship is in a car camouflage. Maybe that’s why Halo hurt herself so bad :( Mars town xD “That’s what we were thinking too. We? Uh Me” (and Oracle xD) So is Tara controled, brainwashed, has her memories rewritten? Or is she willingly working for the Shadows?

- Why I think Forager x bioship will become a... ship? xD Like Will x clipboard xD

- Dick, if you don’t want them to go to the Shadows, why did you show Brion their localisation? --’

- Halo’s enthousiasm is so cute! Forager’s too! 

- Why it feels like Sensei is manipulating Brion with words just to make him mad? I’m sure he’s lying.

- Can we talk about Brion’s extreme reaction to Halo’s death? Parallel to Spitfire maybe? And can we please stop killing Halo? I know she will ressurect but it’s still painful :( 

- Why the ninja fighting style reminds me of Robin? Like an older Damian?

- It’s indeed Sphere who starts the healing processus. “Is Halo a new god?” Another clue for the theory?

- When Ra’s mention “the Detective”, Dick growls. Is he mad at Batman? Or at the comment? Ra’s isn’t with the Light and at the head of the Shadows anymore. So who? Sportmaster? Cheshire or Deathstroke would be good clues! Ra’s should be mad at Jade with how he said “Get out!”

- Talia with Damian? So who is... Jason?? An amnesic Jason. Ok. I’m fine. I just need to... WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT???? (I don’t like the deisgn of Talia which is too close from the animated movies: no bra is definitely not a good idea to fight and she looks too white for an Arabic person :/ Damian is ok I guess?) Do Ra’s want to “return” Jason when he will have his memories back or to use him against the batfamily? Jason should have been trained by Sensei for Dick to not recognize his fighting style.

- Brion really looks like Conner’s mentee with his clothes xD The parallel with the first trio (Robin, KF and Aqualad) Why are you breaking my heart like this? Except they did save Superboy when we don’t have intel of where Tara is :( Dick is still so sensitive when we talk about Wally :( And he looks so much like Batman now: same speech. Same situation, same result: another team is born! Poor Violet :( And the guy with the spiderweb tatoo could work with the Shadows? Or am I confusing with RWBY? xD 

3 episodes = 3 trio. I love it! :D I know we will have more scenes with the Outisders but I also need the other trios: more screetime with the Harperfamily (the bowfamily?) and the Team!  

I guess we will see the Batman Incorporation next week? Since we didn’t see them at all in 6 episodes. And more second season team would be great too, they only have one episode so far :( 

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam Austin episode 4 reaction

part of me is laughing at the number of people in the Facebook comments asking, “Is this on Netflix?”

Episode 4

Clip 1 - Sad couch crew

I felt Tyler and Shay were being friendly to Megan here, not snide, at least on a superficial level. Though I guess you can take their excitement about the concert as passive-aggressiveness.

Tyler mentioning the Illuminati - how very Isak. TBH I really hope Julie is making both Shay and Tyler gay, since they’re dividing up the Isak moments between the two. I’m fine if Tyler doesn’t get the big season-long arc and it goes to Shay instead, I’d love to see her get it. But it’s just going to leave such a bad taste if they’ve made Isak into a wlw with no equivalent to the gay male representation that already existed, when there are many supposedly straight female characters who could be have been made into wlw. Especially the Vilde equivalent, who you could easily give a story about discovering and accepting her sexuality, or the Chris character, who didn’t have her own season and really didn’t have any substantial character issues suggested on the level of Vilde’s home life, and would benefit from a meaty arc. 

I love Shay, she’s definitely one of the highlights of the show, I’m just tired of all the fighting over whether it’s better for S3 to focus on a gay boy or a lesbian and seeing a lot of gross shit in the discussions that’s either minimizing the importance of an f/f storyline because homophobia is worse for men in Texas/lesbians don’t have it that bad/lesbians are already represented on TV because they’re accepted by straight men who find them sexy/someone doesn’t care about lesbians and will only accept Evak 2.0, or minimizing the importance of Evak/another m/m storyline because Skam and the other remakes already have gay ships so don’t get greedy/gay men are already accepted because look at all the m/m on Tumblr and AO3/people only want another Evak because they’re disgusting fetishizers. It’s fucked up how most of these talk relies on the assumption that there can be only one LGBT story on Skam at a time and not pushing back on why it goes without question that S1 and a hypothetical S2 about Grace/Daniel can both be about heterosexual relationships. 

Not to be one of those obnoxious people referencing YA novels in response to real life situations, but it makes me think of Katniss at the climax of Catching Fire when her group of Tributes is fighting the Career Tributes and she fires at the force field instead. Remember who the real enemy is. 

That’s a joke, don’t take that too seriously.

Anyway I’m tired. 

Considering how shitty he’s been acting previously, Tyler not laughing at Marlon’s comments and just deliberately eating a potato chip is a step up for him.

Speaking of the chips, they disappear in between shots and I guess Tyler could be putting the bag on the floor between takes or something but it looks like a regular old continuity error.

Marlon is a mega dick and I dislike him but I kinda can’t believe that I agreed with him about the team’s social standings vs. their practice time. But it was Marlon who said it so it sounded like a dick move.

See, he’s been such a dick that it’s hard to feel sorry for him! But also he’s in the right to feel hurt about the concert.

I don't have much to say except he is the least convincing person to be talking about how he’s not upset and he doesn’t care. He’s so obviously pissed.

There’s just not a shred of chemistry between these two. I don’t get why they’re together, I don’t get what they like about each other, they barely seem to have much fun together. There isn’t much of a rapport.

Pointless personal anecdote #1: When this clip came out, I watched it on my phone at a graduation party, and I'm not kidding, in the few minutes while I was watching some middle-aged parents started talking about wanting to move to Texas when they retire, and they named cities and singled out Austin as a bad choice because “it’s been overtaken by liberals,” lmao. There was no way they could have realized I was watching a show set in Austin. The stars just aligned.

Clip 2 - Kelsey, no

Grace is really concerned about Kelsey sleeping with Daniel so soon, probably because what happened in her own past messed her up.

“Ever since I was a little girl watching the Super Bowl, I knew I was going to lose my virginity to a football player.” .... when I was a little girl watching the Super Bowl I only cared about seeing the commercials with the pretty horses.

“It was like he was going down on me, but in my mouth” … oh my God … someone SAVE this child.

Kelsey, you don’t even know what anyone going down on you in the “correct” place feels like, and this just makes you sound like inexperienced and Not Ready . And I’m glad Meg and Grace are suitably horrified.

Oh, they actually mentioned the issue of insurance, that’s good. But she looked a little uncomfortable with the topic of insurance, so if she has a similar financial situation to Vilde, insurance might be an issue? Or, as was hinted later via texts, she might have a super religious or conservative mom who would not take her to the doctor. She might be able to go to Planned Parenthood for birth control except I’m not sure if minors can get prescriptions for the pill without parental consent because well, Texas.

I checked out of curiosity and it looks like the only type of birth control you can get at PP without parental consent are condoms and lol, Grace already had that covered.

“You know you should use a condom, right?” “What if he doesn’t want to use a condom?” “Then you know you shouldn’t have sex with him.” YES. JESUS. Thank you Grace.

“I talked to Jo this weekend and I prayed about it last night” Oh come on, they’re going to have her mention praying about Zoya’s participation on the team and then not even address the sex-religion topic? Okay. Kelsey doesn’t even have to be abstinent or opposed to premarital sex, not all Christians are, I feel like it just makes sense for someone to be like, “Isn’t having sex before marriage against your religion?” And if Kelsey objected to the question on the grounds that they’re making assumptions about her religion, they could always come back at her with “Well, you assumed Muslims couldn’t dance.”

Kudos to Grace for talking sense about the Zoya situation and being very calm and careful about the Daniel thing.

Clip 3 - Backseat

The editing at the start of the clip made me think the mom might be talking to Megan at first but no, the mom is on her phone. Mom’s communication skills weren’t so great in this clip.

The dialogue is pretty on the nose and super specific to the theeeeeeme, with the mom putting all this implied pressure on Megan, but the passive aggressiveness about Megan’s dad is sadly accurate to how certain married-with-kids dynamics are, with the parents always at each other’s throats and dismissive of each other and not caring about how the kids react to these constant fighting. 

I saw some people wondering why Megan was sitting in the backseat and honestly, that didn’t seem too weird to me. It’s not typical but I’ve ridden in the backseat even when I was the only passenger before (usually because sometimes riding in the front seat makes me sick)  but I could see like, a moody teenager wanting to text her boyfriend and not wanting her mom to glance over at her phone. Although the simplest explanation is that Julie wants to hide the parents’ faces.

I didn’t even notice the giant concert posters at first, I was focused on the homeless man. I am assuming he was there to remind us of the stakes to succeed in this world if you’re much of a “dreamer” as Meg’s mom puts it, where if you don’t get a good job that can be you living on the streets, and to get a good job you need to get a degree from a good school, and to get a degree from a good school you need to perform well in high school, and if you make one mistake you are ruined, RUINED forever. 

Meg trying to ask her mom for relationship advice and instead getting reminded that her parents have a shit relationship, lovely. 

The difference in the tone between the coworker call and the dad call is very telling. Right off the bat, when the dad calls, the mom has a pissed-off attitude. They’re at the stage where they fight just to fight.

Also, note the guilt trip caused by the mom yelling at the dad for not remembering she was going to her friend’s (and like, who cares, I mean this might be part of a larger problem but this sounds like the pettiest shit to argue about) and saying people show they appreciate and support each other by listening and taking interest in their loves, when that’s exactly what Megan didn’t do (skipping Marlon’s show that he was so hyped for) and that’s how she feels she can make it up to him (by buying tickets to the concert he had mentioned).

And the mom says people show they care by listening when she doesn’t even listen to her own daughter and interrupts her when she’s trying to ask a question, and she’s definitely not paying attention to Megan’s life. Like, how is it that they can miss that she’s not on the dance team? Surely the team has some performances or competitions that they’d attend? Fundraisers? I can see them not attending all of Megan’s dance performances, but any of them? 

Megan’s mom is a piece of work, though I’m sure the dad plays his part in the dysfunction too, I don’t want to put it all on the mother.

Clip 4 - Straw

Franz Ferdinand???

Not that this is the point but I’m intrigued by this locker setup. But I am from a place with cold cold winters so the idea of having one of these lockers in January seems terrible.

I was curious if Kendrick Lamar was actually supposed to perform in Austin on Friday, so I checked it out, and lo and behold, it was a real concert. Good job, Skam Austin.

It kinda just makes me sad that THIS is how Meg gets Marlon’s attention again, by buying (probably) expensive concert tickets.

“you two are smashing in that bathroom by the nurse’s office” at least you’re nearby if you need offbeat advice and some condoms? Oh wait, this is Texas. Never mind the last one.

This is my chance to talk about how gross I find the word “smash” in any sexual context. It just sounds uncomfortable and makes me think of potatoes.

Shoutout to Tyler’s Prince shirt, certainly a unique wardrobe choice.

Man, Kelsey is just such an easy target. Especially with the way she talks, like-like-like … blood in the water. Tyler and Shay are not here for Kelsey and Jo right off the bat and once Kelsey opens her mouth, it’s doom.

At least Kelsey had the sense to keep Zoya on the team list even if it was for self-serving reasons.

I applaud these actresses for effort, but every version of the iconic spoon scene has felt forced compared to the original. Josefina, my darling, if you’re going to be seductive with your straw, you might wanna purse your lips instead of letting it roll around in and out of your mouth.

I think it’s great that Jo and Tyler spoke Spanish to each other, and that they didn’t have subtitles, but lol at the brazenness of asking that question right in front of Shay when Shay could possibly speak Spanish herself. Or lmao, anyone who has taken Spanish I could understand what she was saying. (Like what if Shay was his girlfriend? Kinda think Jo isn’t concerned with technicalities.)

Calling him jefe, lmao, wow.

Tyler referring to Kelsey as Drew Barrymore made me laugh. Do kids these days have a firm grasp on Drew Barrymore’s legacy? What has she been in recently other than Santa Clarita Diet?

Maybe instead of references to Romeo + Juliet, we can get allusions to Ever After, The Wedding Singer, or Never Been Kissed. (Maybe not that last one.)

Also, I’m glad Meg spoke up for Kelsey so they weren’t just bashing her new friends.

Clip 5 - Internet quizzes should not be used to make major life decisions

Zoya is just looking through a book while Kelsey is talking.

Some of Kelsey’s rules: 

“Always act classy”

“No cursing, fighting, messy hair or appearance” while wearing the uniform

“Positive vibes ONLY”

But yeah, here’s another example of why the dance team wasn’t the best way to adapt russ because like … of course Kelsey is being rude and ridiculous, and I can’t say I’m on her side against Zoya, but … if the team founder calls a meeting to discuss rules, it’s expected that you will be there to discuss the rules and not blow it off? 

With Vilde’s bus, first of all, russ was several years away and they had time to pull it all together. A dance team is going to require some results in the near future, especially if the team is school-approved and getting them out of P.E. Someone is probably going to be checking up on the girls and making sure they’re not getting P.E. credit for sitting around and doing nothing. Second, pretty sure a bus group is not going to require as much day to day practice, training, and energy as a dance team.

I don’t know, however silly Kelsey’s motivations might be, if you sign up for someone’s dance team … you should expect to dance, dude. That goes for all the girls.

When prompted to give her opinion of Zoya, Jo cleverly deflects with the quiz, as her opinion of Zoya is clearly ❤️❤️❤️

I do love and appreciate Grace trying to persuade Kelsey to rethink the whole sleeping with Daniel thing. Not being too harsh, but being firm and not hesitating to point out all the ways it’s not a good choice.

Also being like “keep in mind he’s not your boyfriend” thank youuuu.

Kelsey sure doesn’t like that part about people judging her for having premarital sex. At least they might bring it up in the aftermath of hooking up with Daniel?

“That definitely didn’t happen.” “It did happen and she can’t eat Sweet Tarts anymore.” Jo continues to be the shining star of this show, I laughed out loud at her delivery of that line. 

Whenever one of the Chrises is like “I was totally wasted” about their first time, I’m just like 😧

Kelsey saying option A on the quiz, for her “boyfriend” and her being closer once they sleep together, is the most depressing thing. Stop this train before it goes off the rails.

Oh God. Kelsey does not need to be anywhere near a penis at this juncture. The way she starts giggling and laughing when Grace suggests to think about what turns her on about Daniel … you are not ready to have sex. You are barely ready to talk about sex. None of the Vildes has seemed so young and not ready to go through with this.

Kelsey did not talk about not wanting to be involved in lesbianism, hmmmMMMM. Foreshadowing? Or maybe Julie just realized that people didn’t like the casual lesbophobia if you don’t have a lesbian character? 

I haven’t been all that complimentary to the actors on this show, but I do want to give Kelsey’s actress some props for reciting that whole monologue, which is just a detailed Teen Vogue photoshoot.

It’s amusing that Kelsey integrated the Kittens uniform into her erotic fantasy but sad that Kelsey still wants to be a Kitten so much. She’s not wearing a uniform for her own group, whatever she might want it to be, she’s wearing a Kitten uniform in her ideal scenario.

You know Jo is listening to this fantasy and getting inspiration for her next Kelsey makeup experiment.Also, it makes me laugh that they’re having this discussion in a library.

Overheard in Bouldin - TMI Girl in Library: “People get turned on my different things all the time. My cousin’s thing is dirty socks. She keeps a pair of her ex-boyfriend’s in a Ziploc bag under her bed.”

May we one day meet this intriguing cousin of yours, Jo.

But don’t encourage this Daniel nonsense.

It’s too bad we didn’t get the classic doctor visit but lol, a school doctor in Texas might not be able to be so blatant with the sex ed tips, so I get it. And ultimately I would prefer if Julie tried out new scenes instead of trying to recreate old ones.

At first I thought Kelsey maybe didn’t know who Kendrick Lamar was. Which is perfectly plausible, let’s be real.

“When I have ever asked you for anything?” In the short time Meg has known you, Kelsey ... find Jo, join the dance team, get closer to Penetrator Jo, give you her birth control pills.

Clip 6 - Bowling

Kelsey’s outfit is almost exactly what she described in her fantasy! No access to a Kittens dance uniform, but otherwise very close. Follow your dreams, kids. 

“Martin had a dream … Martin had a dream …” look, I like that Skam uses a variety of music and not just white indie rock, but can we like … quit syncing music by black artists talking about black cultural topics to scenes of this white dude being a big deal.

Look at that dipshit taking up two parking spaces. Fuck offffffffffffff

Kelsey looks so happy and Daniel looks like he’s already 75% checked out.

How long is this Kendrick bowling montage going to go on?

Ha, Kelsey easily had the worst bowling score of the four of them.

“Daniel just touched my ass.” The way Kelsey was thrilled about this was kind of cute and alarming.

Kelsey wanting Meg to stay with them as long as she can makes me think she really just doesn’t want to go through with the impending loss of virginity.

“Then how’d you know my name at Talent Night?” I mean ... you do go to school together, and Jo is on the football team with a high social profile. I could name a lot of my high school classmates by name even if I’ve never spoken to them.

Is Julie going to go full Chris/Eva with this version to give the shippers their day in the sun? I love original Eva/Jonas but Meg/Marlon is an unpleasant trainwreck so I can’t say I’m disappointed. I mean I can’t say I love Meg/Penetrator Jo either,, but I’m not sad about this version of Eva/Jonas not being endgame.

Penetrator Jo is still sleazy in at least a few respects (don’t be a cocktease) and we have still have to meet his girlfriend but his memory of her seems legit so maybe he does really like her. Unless, I don’t know, he stalked her IG and remembered some relevant details and embellished this whole story?

Lmao, I can get why people might think the “No Signal” scenario would be a contrivance but that exact thing has happened to me, so I buy it.

I will give Julie this credit, she’s good at setting up Fredag/Friday scenarios where we think one thing will happen, and instead something else occurs that’s completely different from the fan theories. I figured it would be as simple as Meg or Marlon missing the concert, not that we’d spot Marlon (or “Marlon”) with Abby

I don’t think it’s Marlon, though. That seems a lot like Tyler’s walk, and the person doesn’t seem to be wearing Marlon’s ugly shoes. 

General Comments:

It’s kind of depressing to see people in the FB group and in the comments be like, “I haven’t seen the original show but could Grace be a lesbian? 😃” and the replies be like “No, Noorhelm is coming 😃”

Another “fun” aspect of having this show on Facebook: the MAGA edgelord assholes who leave comments on the episodes about “cucks” and “libtards.”

My opinion of Grace rose so much in this episode just by how doggedly she is trying to bring Kelsey back to earth. and telling her she can back out of this choice. 

In the texts, Grace said she would buy condoms for Kelsey - good job - and later, when Kelsey asked the girls what she should wear for losing her virginity, said, “I know what Daniel will be wearing” and said that she put condoms in Kelsey’s purse - excellent job.

I feel like Grace would roll the condom on Daniel’s dick herself if it meant Kelsey had safe sex.

Abby was stressing over finals on IG so I’d bet that was a hint she needed something to help her out, hence meeting up with Marlon/Tyler for Adderall.

I was wondering what kind of music would be on Skam Austin since original Skam had all sorts of high-profile artists, and that would not be cheap, but so far, it seems like Facebook spared no expense with the soundtrack.

Grace and Shay had IG posts reacting to the Santa Fe High School Shooting. IDK how much Skam Austin would address gun violence in the episodes itself in the future, and I can think of ways it could go very badly, but sadly, as one of the biggest concerns of American teenagers today, it would be very relevant, and that’s what Skam’s supposed to be, after all.

[junker-town]

Chennedy Carter is a future legend hiding in plain sight

Everything you need to know about the future WNBA star you’re not talking about.

When you’re watching Chennedy Carter play, it’s tempting to look up. She has, after all, averaged over 20 points a game since her freshman year playing in one of the toughest conferences in the NCAA, with shots from all over the court that tend to scrape the top of your TV.

Regular-season games take on the intensity of tournament matchups thanks to her relentless, risky attacks. NBA threes swish as neatly as mid-range jumpers and under-the-basket buckets. Listed at 5’9, and more like 5’7, she’ll get around anyone, thanks to her superhuman quickness, or just jump over them, temporarily en pointe as she propels herself straight skyward, releasing the ball at the very top of her reach. None of Carter’s decisions make sense until after they happen, at which point you’re left agape.

“Nobody is a better scorer under pressure or when the game is on the line,” says Texas A&M head coach Gary Blair. “That’s her strength: she’s not afraid to miss the last shot. She’s willing to take that last shot, and live with the consequences or the rewards.”

And don’t get her wrong: Carter loves to shoot. Sometimes, when a bucket is just undeniable, she’ll allow herself a little shoulder shimmy to celebrate — like last year in the Sweet 16, when she scored 35 points in a close shootout that wound up going Notre Dame’s way.

The loss still stings, as does the fact the junior was robbed of redemption in this year’s tournament, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. But the feeling of scoring those 35 points is evident in Carter’s suddenly rapturous tone.

“That game, the rim just felt so wide open,” she recalls. “I was so focused and locked in. Just hot — I felt it everywhere, so [the shimmy] was a natural thing.”

But as the Texas A&M guard prepares for the WNBA Draft where she’s more than likely to be chosen in the top five, anyone who knows her — including herself — will tell you her game was built from the ground up.

“I think having an incredible handle is essential in the game today,” she says. Hers was cultivated below the hardwood by her father Broderick, who first taught her to dribble with a tennis ball on the grass in their backyard in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs. That handle has been the stuff of YouTube mixtapes since she was in high school, her best weapon in carving out space that would be invisible to anyone else. “You have to be able to get by a defender and create your own shot,” she explains patiently. “The ability to do that separates players from each other.”

The Handles of Chennedy Carter

Texas A&M Women’s Basketball's Chennedy Carter has the best handles in the game

Posted by SEC Network on Saturday, March 30, 2019

Allen Iverson, unsurprisingly, was her original inspiration (just check out her shooting sleeve). But with her own particular set of talents, her remarkable athleticism and eye for the game, Carter has a chance to set herself apart from both her heroes and her peers, writing a new basketball legend from inside the W.

“I think Chennedy is often left out of conversations because people don’t know what to make of her,” says ESPN analyst LaChina Robinson. “She has a gift — she’s very different, and very special. A lot of it has to do with her ball control. Overall talent-wise, without considering team needs, she would go no lower than No. 2 in the draft.”

It’s the shooting, and the ball handling, and the tiny details that make both of those things look so smooth. “You’re always having to work with girl and women basketball players to get lower, to swivel the hips and make that turn quicker,” adds Kit Martin, head coach at Carter’s alma mater, Mansfield Timberview High School. “That was never the case with Chennedy. Her shoulders get so low, and she’s so quick that it’s just on a different level.”

There’s also the passing: Carter had a 27 percent assist rate this past season, and her feeds tend to be as fun to watch as her buckets (none other than Atlanta Dream coach Nicki Collen noted in a pre-draft press conference that she thought Carter was an “underrated passer”). “The speed off the bounce into a pass is exceptional,” Martin adds.

She pauses, understanding she sounds a little biased — after all, Carter will be watching Friday’s draft at her house. So she lists some of the players she’s coached and coached against: Lisa Leslie, Tamika Catchings, Alana Beard, Dawn Staley. “Nobody wants to hang their hat yet on Chennedy; everybody wants to wait and see. But I have seen a lot of the best talent close up,” Martin concludes, “and I really believe she’s going to blossom against one of the best players that’s ever played.”

Carter never saw herself doing anything else. “I’ve always wanted to be a professional basketball player,” she says. “I’m really ready to fulfill my dream.” Along with those backyard tennis-ball drills with her dad, she spent her youth playing alongside her three brothers — two older, one younger. “I used to just try to play until I could win, over and over and over again,” Carter recalls. Her older brothers were bigger than her, but it didn’t make a difference — she would triumph eventually. ”They still really think they can beat me,” she adds with a laugh.

It’s those endless hours hooping outside with her siblings, Carter says, that partially account for her approach to the game, which fans might describe as swagger and critics might characterize as a bad attitude, or see as a potential challenge to coach. It’s the kind of fiery, occasionally confrontational demeanor that fans relish in the NBA — and that there tends to be a lower tolerance for in the women’s game.

“It’s more of a chip on my shoulder,” Carter says. “It goes back to where I grew up, and how hard it was for me and my three brothers. I was also the only girl, and I kind of had to fend for myself and really build toughness.”

She was a standout early — Blair says he remembers watching her play with top local EYBL program DFW Elite — but that chip, that feeling of being overlooked and underrated, of having to fight twice as hard for every W, persists. I ask her when she first knew she was good, given that she’s been so good for so long.

“I don’t think I was the top tier,” she says, correcting me. “I didn’t see it in middle school �� of course I won a middle school championship, and in that game I scored 46 points. In fact, I was actually kind of underrated coming out of high school: I was ranked No. 2 at point guard and No. 6 overall.” (UConn’s Megan Walker, who also declared early for this year’s WNBA Draft, was ranked No. 1 overall.)

Scoring 46 points in a middle school game and being ranked No. 6 in the country (the highest-ranking player ever to sign with Texas A&M) is unimpressive, you see, when you know you can be better. Never mind that she’d also already won a gold medal with the Team USA U18 team, and led her high school team throughout her years there to a combined 70-4 record.

“It only actually hit me once I played my first game in college,” she insists. “That’s when I kind of realized I had a little potential and talent.”

Carter’s decision to stay in College Station, which is relatively close to home, came in large part because of her trust in Blair not to make her, with her swagger and her shooters-shoot confidence, into something she wasn’t. She’d also loved watching the 2011 title-winning A&M team led by Sydney Colson, another star guard who currently plays for the Chicago Sky. “It was going to take a coach and teammates who were going to allow somebody to be that dominant with the ball as a freshman,” Blair says now.

As it turned out, allowing Carter to be dominant as a freshman paid off: Not only did she average almost 23 points a game and become the unanimous National Freshman of the Year, she won in spectacular fashion, forcing the spotlight her way. Like with her 46-point performance in an Aggie victory over USC in which she also sank the game-winning shot. Or the 37-point game she had vs. DePaul in the second round of the NCAA tournament, willing her team back from a 17-point deficit to win. When the bright lights came on, there was no question which player you wanted to be watching — or which player you wanted on your team.

“You want to talk about somebody who had swag, I can go back to swag at its best,” Blair quips, mentioning his time coaching Kim Mulkey and against Cheryl Miller. “The game of women’s basketball needs players like that to push the needle, and I think that’s what Chennedy does.

“Yes, the women’s game needs [presumed No. 1 pick Sabrina] Ionescu, but it also needs that exciting talent that a Chennedy Carter can bring.”

But Carter has so much more to offer, somehow, than the swagger and the preposterously confident shots and the juke-them-out-of-their-shoes handles. She’s happiest talking about the game, whether it’s how she regularly rewatches the Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals — sometimes all the way through, sometimes just the shots LeBron James or Kyrie Irving took — or her favorite victory while at A&M. “I don’t know, because a lot of our games were really, really lit,” she says, landing on an upset of Oregon State during her sophomore year. “I saw my team hit on all cylinders. Everybody was just ridiculously hot that game, and we pulled a big upset. And we were in Hawaii so it was pretty fun. I got to walk the beach after and just live it up.” The attitude that helps her put on such a great show dissipates, and what’s left is a woman who loves basketball so much she’s spending quarantine dribbling around her house.

Even her Twitter display name — Hollywood — isn’t exactly the Big Baller Brand-style flex it might seem at first glance. (“She’s gone 3-0 against USC … maybe that’s where she gets her handle,” Blair had joked.)

“In high school, I was social — but when it was time to go out, to the football games on Friday nights or to parties, I was like ‘Nah,’” Carter says. “I couldn’t. I always wanted to work out, because I wanted to be successful. I had to keep myself locked in. So because I was staying focused, my friends called me Hollywood and it kind of stuck with me.

“Plus I graduated and went to A&M, and left all my friends. Sort of doing big things. I just had a dream and a goal, and wanted to get to it.”

Carter knows that as much attention as she’s gotten, as much fun as the flash is, there are still plenty of people who don’t see that side of her yet. The serious side, the side that spent hours dribbling in the dirt because that’s how badly she wanted to be great.

“There are some doubters, some detractors,” Martin says. “Now it’s up to her to answer all of them. It’s the case, to me, of whether you want to be the underdog or the front runner. Heck, everybody likes to be the underdog because then you’re fighting for something!”

In other words, bet against Carter and watch what happens next.

[ask-de-writer]

The Knights of Justice (Part 2 of 3) : An MLP Fan Fiction

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

THE KNIGHTS OF JUSTICE

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

Cover Art by The Whisper Sisters, now Wind the Mama Cat

© 2014 by Glen Ten-Eyck

6842 words

Writing begun 08/27/14

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

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Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may reblog the story.  They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.  I will allow those who do commission art works to charge for their images.

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Prologue: This tale takes place about 4000 years in the past of the modern MLP canon. During this time, Celestia and Luna are still fillies, though close to grown physically. The events here recorded are part of the foundation of the modern kingdom of Equestria.  Specifically, this tale begins what are now known as THE DAYS OF FORTRESS CANTERLOT and the founding of the Knights of Justice.

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For more background information on the canon of this tale, please read:

De Writer and the Orb of the Ages

Hearthwarming Eve / Starvation’s Night

From Darkness to Dawn

Fortress Canterlot!

De Writer’s Tale (a narrative poem)

The Coming of Tam O’Canter and Heather Bloom O’Red Hoof to Ponyville

De Writer canon (part 1)

De Writer canon (part 2)

PART 1 is HERE    

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Nodding, Bright Cloud got hold of herself and explained, “It was Baron Salten's assertion that we drove them off!  He did have a bit over fifty at arms.  These he divided into two wings.  He encircled a small copse that he presumed us to be hiding in and closed in.  

“His right wing attacked his own left, who, understandably, defended themselves.  The battle of Baron Salten against himself was still raging when we came over a small hill and saw it.

“We took them from outside the ring.  They panicked and began a rout, which the Baron joined! Except technically, we did not defeat them.  Baron Salten defeated himself through sheer incompetence and lack of organization.  Perhaps you needed to be there to appreciate it fully.”

The King on his throne and his Queen on hers were grinning ear to ear.  “I think not, Wing Commander.  That did indeed lighten things.  How badly did Baron Salten defeat himself?”

Soberly, Princess Luna replied, “Five of his unicorns at arms and four of his pegassi are dead.  We were delayed in getting here because we stopped and did such surgeries as we could on the survivors.  We saved their lives, healed their wounds and mended their broken bones.  We came on only after we had done all that we could for the fallen.”

“Why would you bother?” demanded the discomfited Salten.  “They were mere ponies at arms. Peasants all.”

It was the old blue unicorn who spoke in answer.  “Luna's Creator/Mother was the Titan of Life Creation herself.  Luna, very rightly, regards only the question of whether the pony before her lives.  If that pony is alive, she works to keep it so.

“You, on the other hoof, have no care for life at all.  You fled the field and abandoned your ponies.  We did not.  Some of those that we healed have requested that we take them to our service.  This, we could not grant for their being the warriors of a friendly nation and we not having Royal Permission to take them.

“What is the source of your power as a Baron?  It has two roots and you have actively worked to make one wither.  The King to whom you owe Fealty is one root of your strength as a Baron.

“The other root, the vital root, is those peasants that you think so little of.  They provide the crops, tend the orchards, spin and weave the fabrics, quarry the stone, cut and shape the timbers, mine, smelt, cast and forge the metals.  They make EVERYTHING that you batten off of.  

“They are not MERE, they are the Solid Foundation upon which the WHOLE of the kingdom rests.  To dismiss them as MERE is to dismiss the kingdom as a whole.  It cannot exist without them.  Nobles are the ones who can be most easily dispensed with, not the peasants.

“Nobles were first created to defend the kingdom and its peasants.  If a noble falls, as happens too often, another will be raised.  The true work of a Noble is not in Court, as important as that can be, it is in organizing the labors of the peasants to get the best for the kingdom as whole.  Any who abandon that work have abandoned the kingdom.”

Camarg, on his throne was listening brow furrowed in concentration, a smile on his lips.

Salten snapped, “That is sedition!  The Kingdom is Here!  We are the Kingdom!”  He swept a hoof dramatically about the room.

Camarg whispered to a page who left and returned shortly after, bearing a scroll.  The whole Court looked on, puzzled as the King's eye swept down the scroll.  Looking up, he nodded to himself.

Speaking to De Writer, he said, “It appears that you have indeed studied our law and ways.”

Turning to Salten he pointed with his scepter and said, “I have just read your Induction to Fealty, Salten.  In this Court, today alone, you have denied your Fealty, not once, but thrice.

“You attempted to have me send armed force against the Delegation of a Friendly Power for your own criminal gain.  You have lied to me about the nature of your defeat, a thing that you well knew.  Further, you have, in open Court, called sedition the very Instrument of Fealty to this Kingdom, which I personally wrote in my second year on the throne.  I have just verified that you signed that instrument as read and understood when you were Elevated.  

“For these crimes, I hereby cast you from the Barony of Salten.  The title and estates are Vacant until a new Baron shall be found.

“Guards!  Take Montre Saur, once Baron Salten, to a prison cell.”

De Writer said softly but in a carrying voice, “We did indeed study your laws.  That Law of yours was so clear and well written that We of Canterlot adopted it with but few changes as our own law, too.  Its origin in your wisdom is recorded as a part of the law as we have it written.  For such wisdom and clarity, we do thank you, Your Majesty.”

Luna gave a piercing look at the pony on the throne.  When she spoke, it carried conviction to all who heard it.  “Your Majesty, since we began Canterlot, we have been carrying out what you wrote.  We sent our armies out after the Sunlord War to do all that could be done to repair the damage and loss of that war.

“We have tried to be open to all who had just grievance.  Where we failed, was in finding the words to make good law of it all.  Your wisdom gave us those words.

“In going through your other law, we have found much that was like to it in both wisdom and clarity.  All that fits our situation we have credited and are using. We came here to meet in person the pony who could write with such grace and wisdom.

“Seeing you now, enforcing that law, has made up my mind.  We do wish a compact with you.  We will discuss that matter privately at a later time.”

A stealthy wisp of pale yellow magic slithered out from among the gathered nobles.  Near invisible, it reached for Luna's tail.  Without even looking, she twitched her tail to one side, so that the tendril had to make a second effort.

As it did, Luna's magic, seeming to have a life of its own, raced up the yellow tendril, swallowing it like a midnight serpent.  Luna did not even bother turning her head to watch.  The rusty brown unicorn who was the source of the tendril was enveloped in star-shot midnight magic.

In only moments the magic lifted from him.  Luna did turn then.  To her foster father.  To the old blue unicorn, she asked, “Did I do it right, Father?”

With an amused grin, the old blue unicorn replied, “Hoof Glue, you mean?  It certainly appears so.”

Turning to King Camarg, De Writer asked, “Would Your Majesty  please have the assembled nobles of your court step over to the left side of the carpet runner to your throne?  I do believe that my Foster Daughter Luna has so done things that the criminal who attempted to steal hairs of her tail for black magical purposes will be revealed if you do.”

Queen Megan quietly said, “Such an attempt was made on me too, My Liege.  That crime could not be traced.  If we have one among our court who is dealing in such acts, it is best if that one be found.”

King Camarg nodded slowly.  The herald called, “Would the assembled Court of Camarg II please cross to the left of the Carpet?”

A lone rusty brown unicorn was left behind.  He was struggling, to no avail.  His hooves were fused tight to the stone pave.  He was stuck there like a cockroach in glue.  

Besides that, he was trying frantically to muster his magic but it would not come.  It would build to barely visible shimmer and fade at once.

Straining at the stone that would not release his hooves, eyes rolling in fear, the unicorn called frantically, “Sire!  What is this, if not Black Magic?  I can not use mine at all!  I am trapped here by an evil sorcery!”

Interested, the King cocked his head at Luna and asked mildly, “What have you done to Baron Cutshort?  It is most amusing, I must admit.”

Luna smiled.  “I learned the magic that we call Hoof Glue from Father.  He used to run a school of reading and writing.  It was a harmless means of discipline for the unruly among the students.  I have blended the stone of the flooring and the lower parts of his hooves.  It is easily undone at your command.

“For the other, my title, Keeper of Dreams and the True Embodiment of All Nightmare, is exact and literal.  He has a day dreaming nightmare fear of his own magic, which causes him to extinguish his magic the instant that it begins to manifest.  This also, I can remove at the moment that your Majesty shall command it.”

The King pursed his lips as he thought.  He called his page close and whispered in his ear.  Moments later three guards came to the King's side.  He whispered to them for a moment.

They left on their errand.

Baron Cutshort guessed what it might be and redoubled his efforts to free himself.

It was not long at all before the guards returned.  They bore a box that was painted black.

King Camarg stared long and hard at the struggling Baron.  That pony had gone from angry struggles to despairing efforts.  His head drooped.  

Turning attention to the guards, the King asked, “Have you looked inside this box?”

Straightforwardly, they answered, “Nay, Sire.  Our order was to bring to you anything that we found suspicious.  This was hidden in his sleeping stall with all arranged so that it would not be easily found.”

“Well done.  Whatever is here, the Baron clearly does not want us to see.”

Luna spoke up in her gentle voice, “A Boon, Your Majesty Camarg?  I would be the one to open this box.  I have a very good idea of the contents.  As the Embodiment of Nightmare, it will not be so hard for me as it might prove to others.”

The Queen had been watching all with sharp eyes.  Megan asked, “May I inquire HOW you know what is in that box?”

Luna nodded briskly, “I would think you remiss if you did not.  I have given the Baron Cutshort a waking nightmare.  It was for the purpose of rendering his magic useless for now.  That nightmare has given me a bridge to his fears. He knows very well what is in the box and its uses.

“With your Royal permission, I will essay to open it here, in court, before you all.  It has deadly traps against being opened.”

The king, sitting his throne, looked his strange visitor level in the eyes and made up his mind. “Open it then, if you deem it safe enough to do so.”

Luna nodded her head and then turned to the old blue unicorn that she had named De Writer. “Father, when this is opened, I will need your speed to preserve the contents.  There is a spell in there to destroy them besides the traps on opening the box.”

One of the nobles in the crowd of courtiers barked a laugh.  “Speed?  An old pony like that?  You would be better getting a garden snail!”

The old blue unicorn vanished. The one that had expressed such levity suddenly flipped flat to the stone pave.  The old unicorn was sitting on his neck and had the laugher's own knife held just under the chin.

Looking down at the fallen unicorn, whose horn was capped by a hard looking sheath of blue magic, the old one said, “Speaking of slow, Turtle, old pony, you certainly fill the bill.”

The knife clattered to the pave as the old one vanished again.  He was standing exactly where he had been.  “Now, dear.  Go about the opening of the box.  I will winkle the contents out when you do.”

Nodding to herself, Luna gathered her magic and enclosed the box in a clear bubble of it.  A thread of midnight shot with stars seeped into the lock.

A needle like blade whipped out of the box, aimed at Luna's eyes.  It was being driven by a pustulent yellow magic.  Striking Luna's delicate seeming, thin, clear, bubble of magic, it stopped as if it had hit a solid object.  Her magic enfolded and shredded the the yellow.

Baron Cutshort's horn briefly glowed and died as he whinnied in agony.

The king nodded grimly.  “If further proof of his guilt were needed, the breaking of that magic causing it to rebound to him gives it.”

The lock clicked as Luna's magic dealt with its workings.  The lid snapped up and flame washed out of the box.  There was a small pile of objects on the carpet in front of old De Writer, who was looking pleased with himself.

He said, “It was easy, Luna, my dear.  I had over a half second to get it all.”

The King, Queen and Court were staring in distaste at the objects.  The gazes of most were drawn to the skull.  It was from a half-grown foal unicorn.  The yellowed scroll along side it drew some attention.  Ritual knives, wands, candles and other things made up most of the balance.  There were neatly labeled envelopes, carefully sealed.  Each bore the name of somepony from the Court.

Luna's head turned toward the envelopes as if her horn was iron drawn by a powerful lodestone.  She gently hoofed through the envelopes and extracted one.

The Baron's eyes filled with despair as he saw which one it was.  Luna, voice filled with the deepest of compassion, asked him, “Please tell me of this one.  I thought that I understood when I saw the others.  Members of the Court.  Power through control of them.  I now see that I was wrong.

“Cindermane.  Tell me of her. Tell us all.”

The Baron's eyes hardened like granite and his struggles stopped.  He showed true spine, suddenly. He glared at one of the Court.  He gave the impression that, had he fangs and been free, he'd have ripped the throat out of Count Eleten.

/////TO BE CONTINUED/////

[princessmelina]

Wow after posting this and glancing at the length of it I realize... I should really go sleep now, and who knows what I’ll think when I reread this tomorrow

It’s been... at least 2 months, maybe almost 3, since I had that bout of eating so much I made myself feel awful and then not eating the next meal because I was still so dang full at least twice a week for a few weeks. After I came back from visiting my parents in Oregon and started up with a personal trainer (mainly to increase my strength but also to see if I could get any use from tips on how to eat more like a normal person), between that and karate I seemed to be doing alright, managing my eating well enough, mostly back to just overeating (not to the point of feeling blergh though) on the weekends when hanging out with friends.

But of course I just had to feel overwhelmed enough this week I broke and overate yesterday and today during lunch, so much I felt ugh the rest of the day and couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) eat dinner. But added fun this time, I’ve slept most of the past 2 days away (I sleep more than a person probably should anyway but wow this has been a lot of naptime even for me). And the universe might just be trying to tell me something since in the past few days, two completely separate people I follow reblogged the exact same post that talks about depression meals not just being eating not enough but eating too much too.

Which, okay, probably should have guessed before but I don’t know what triggered it those few months ago and I thought it was just my usual food struggles where I love the taste of everything too much and always want to eat and dealing with all that is tiring enough. But this week I get it. Tried to cheer myself up with my accomplishment on Thursday where my personal trainer got me farther than I expected on my handstand progress but that still didn’t quite work.

Buying a house is awful and stressful and I’m so grateful for everything my family is doing to help me (my mom especially, and also my dad and uncle) but I also wish they could just be here to do it for me because I am not adult enough for this! I don’t know what I’m doing! I keep trying to tell that to my mom and uncle because they don’t want to like, barge in on my business or whatever and I’m like please! Take over even! But at the same time I’m also hesitant to ask them for help even though I shouldn’t be because I don’t want to bother them and I feel like I should be handling things more myself. But almost every step of the process so far, every time I send my mom and update of what I’ve done she’s like, oh no, you should have talked with us before you did that. Not because I’m messing up super hugely but I’m still kinda messing up minor things that could add up to be bad for me and she just wants to make sure I get the best deal out of this situation.

This is why I hate being nicknamed the “golden child”, no matter how much anyone might be joking when they say it. I barely ever know what I’m doing, I just seem like I do. I’m just good at not outwardly panicking. But I feel like my whole life - and I keep trying to explain this to my parents but I think they still might not quite get it - almost every decision I make, especially major ones, is made because I’m too afraid of the other options. Get good grades in school? Gotta make sure it happens because what if I don’t get into a good enough college otherwise. Go straight to university after high school instead of taking a year off or going to community college or something? Gotta make sure I do that because I don’t want to lose that in-state scholarship from those tests or whatever and going in-state is easier because then I don’t have to work too hard to find housing or transportation or whatever, I just live with my parents. Parents and sister are moving to Oregon halfway through my college years? I’m gonna stay here in AZ because I know everyone here already and I won’t have to try to make new friends and I can even stay with my grandma who needs a roommate. Move in with my friend after I graduate? Might as well and she’s even doing most of the work, her and her mom, finding us an awesome apartment to live in - and I want to hang out with friends more and feel bad inviting them over to my grandma’s where even if we bother her she’d be too nice to say anything. Take a job at the bakery my friend works at? I need the money and no one else is hiring and they love my friend and now me as well thanks to her. And so on and so forth up to buying this house.

I hate living alone but I don’t think I’m strong enough to live with anyone else still (my sister lived with me for a year after she came back to AZ from Oregon because she missed friends/family here and probably other reasons too, and now it’s been a little over a year since she moved a few blocks away to go live in a house with 6 other friends, and I’m still a little devastated that we couldn’t make it work because if I can’t live in a house with my own sister who I lived with all our lives except for the few years she lived in Oregon, who can I live with where we won’t somehow both get on each other’s nerves?), so I really want a dog (have for a long time anyway but now I’m longing even more for that companionship and thinking of our family dog a lot and how great he was). But this house setup isn’t that great for a dog, especially a big one like I want, and the backyard still has debris and stuff from my uncle’s projects... so logically, let’s buy a house!! (Because I can’t rent because almost nowhere will allow you to keep a big dog, and definitely not a pitbull/pit mix like I’d probably get because that’s what our family dog was and that’s what mostly fills the shelter.)

And also there was that whole thing with the drunk/high guy getting in a couple years ago (okay I shouldn’t have opened the door at like 5am when I wasn’t sure of who it was but normally I know better and plus my cousins and sister were sleeping over at the time... it’s a long story you can ask if you wanna know) and then a few weeks before I visited Oregon this year my door getting kicked in (no one got in but this time I was alone and man! does your body get tense when you hear that bang so early in the morning and it’s just you, your phone, and your knife as you wonder if you’re gonna have to battle someone while in your pajammies - again. also another story too long for this but ask if you feel like it). I don’t even live in a bad neighborhood, it’s like half families and half college kids who don’t even throw loud parties or anything. How do I attract these things???

Anyway everyone I tell that I’m buying a house is so excited and/or proud of me. Megan, you’re 25 and buying a house what a great accomplishment, especially at your age! So responsible! So good with her money! And I smile and nod and in the moment maybe even get a little excited myself because yeah, how cool is that, me having my own whole house that is all mine? And I can have my dog now!! But then I think about how I’ll have to deal with anything that goes wrong rather than asking my landlord uncle, and it’s just so dang much money what happens if I lose this job or something? And how the heck do I think I can take care of a dog when I’m barely managing to take care of myself from moment to moment????

So there’s all that in my head pretty much constantly for a couple months, intensifying after my offer got accepted on this house at the beginning of October. Then last week I have a party and invite a bunch of friends, even a couple that I don’t see as often as some of the others and are like, sort of different circles but not exactly? I dunno. But it was a little strange, not necessarily in a bad way, because almost everyone was split into couples except for me and one of my closest friends (and her sister but I think her sister isn’t quite as... longing for a romantic relationship as we are, or if she is we don’t talk about it the same haha). And that friend and I both felt it I think, wishing more than usual to have a romantic partner of our own (although out of the four “couples” it was really only my sister and her boyfriend together, and my other friend that has a boyfriend it’s long-distance but they text a lot (it’s so cute, he better be good to her or I will travel to his country and punch him if need be) but anyway) so that didn’t help my thoughts this week, even though that stuff’s always in the back of my mind anyway it was pestering me more.

But even worse than that, I’ve been wondering if I kinda messed up my sister’s boyfriend’s visit for her, he lives in California and was visiting for the weekend. And I know she wanted to spend more alone time with him but I convinced them them to come to the Voltron party anyway (it was basically an all-day thing) though I didn’t expect them to stay the whole time, and it’s not like I forced them to stay at my house, but still... I feel like I was being kinda selfish ‘cause I really wanted them to hang out with us. But I also stopped them from going to the guest room to watch anime when they first arrived (because they didn’t want to rewatch season 1 yet again and would rejoin us for s2) and I told them we’d skip it but then I still played the last few eps of s1 because another friend hadn’t seem them... ugh I just feel bad and like I often force my likes and preferences for the way I want things to go on other people like that and sure, like I said I’m not physically forcing any of my friends to participate but pretty much all of them are also nicer than me and might not say anything if they are actually getting bored with the shows I have us marathon? I don’t know. And in this case I’m worried about bringing it up with my sister because if I did kinda ruin her time with her boyfriend visiting (he’s also the friend of the rest of us but still, I understand her want for alone time even more then since she normally has to share him with all of us in other things like when we all go to cons together) I’m not sure I wanna know especially since I can’t change it now. But if I didn’t what if bringing it up influences her to think about it that way and I retroactively mess it up???

I don’t normally doubt my actions so much, what’s in the past is done and I just try to learn from it and get better every time, but for some reason I’ve just been questioning things a lot this week and it’s worn me out more than ever. And my brain (ever since I was pretty young actually) always goes back to “well if only you had a special someone, and you were just theirs and they were just yours, they’d be able to support you through things like this and you could talk with them like you talk with your other closest friends and maybe even things wouldn’t get so bad in your brain because you’d have accomplished the one dream you’ve had the longest and wished for the most - being in love with someone who loves you”. But those thoughts sometimes hurt the worst because of all my dreams that’s the one I can’t force - I can’t accomplish it just by working harder, improving myself, or whatever. I just have to keep looking and meeting people and talking with people and I can’t even just do that since I need to have at least a good-friend-level connection with someone before actually feeling comfortable enough to have real romantic feelings for them and/or go out on a date with them (otherwise as happened once, they ask me out and I agree and then proceed to feel sick with anxiety for like 3 days - because why would they ask me out they know so little about me why would they like me enough to want to go on a date I’m going to completely disappoint them if they think I’m this cool social person when I’m just like that at cons and the rest of the year I just like to stay at home and watch things and read and sleep and write and maybe plan outings, but not go out into the world with little notice - before finally telling them I can’t do it, sorry, it’s me not you I swear). Yet at the same time anyone who is even a little bit nice to me, smiles at me, compliments me on anything, my brain goes straight to “omg what would it be like if this cool person liked you, wouldn’t it be amazing, you two would probably be so great together and go on awesome adventures and hey look at all these great scenarios even though you literally talked with them for less than a minute or maybe have never met them in person at all”.

I’m tired, friends. And I want to be there for my sister who was probably feeling more lonely this week after only a few short days with her boyfriend who I think she really loves. And I want to hang out with my cousins who are both so busy with work. And I want to do stuff with my other friends that they’re so excited to do but I’m just stuck in this... blah. I worked so hard my whole life to be that person that people could count on, the one to cheer everyone up, the one that you can always count on to be calm and happy, but I think it kinda backfired because now people expect things like me being responsible and knowing what I’m doing. And only my parents know most of the problems I have, I don’t want to burden my sister since she rarely talks about her issues and she’s had friends who (probably unintentionally, but still) take advantage of that and go on all the time about their own problems without asking her how she’s doing (at least I try to ask her, but she doesn’t often let it all out). Similarly with most of my friends, we don’t talk as much as we used to about our really big problems, maybe only going to some large stresses sometimes. And it’s really only my one friend who I can talk with about the wanting that significant other thing since she’s the only one I know for sure has wished for it as much as I have (even though we’re both totally awesome single people and know we don’t need anyone, we still would like it...) and also I know she’ll vent to me the same amount I vent to her so I don’t have to worry there. And of course... whoever reads my lengthy rambles here on tumblr knows so, there you go. 8P

Anyway I’m sure everyone who’s alive already knows life’s hard, so I guess there’s not much more to say other than I’m gonna keep chugging along, doing my best, hoping and dreaming even when it hurts (and yes, I’ll also continue to be this dramatic in writing and probably even more so in real life). I hope everyone reading this is having a better week than I have been and if not, I hope you also feel free to rant to me! Because it’s nice to feel like I’m there for someone and possibly helping even if it’s not much more than just listening... and for me getting all these thoughts out of my head and solidified somewhere else helps, even if just while I’m writing it out. 8) I hope you all get whatever comfort you might need too. <3

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #182 - The Haunted Mansion

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: No.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: DVD

1) According to IMDb:

Following the massive success of Ghostbusters (1984), Disney green-lit the film in the mid 80s. However they at first would only give permission for the film to be made if either Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis or Rick Moranis would play the lead role.

The film ended up being released the same year as the wildly successful ride-to-film project Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. To say this film had the opposite kind of success would be an understatement.

2) The prologue.

The prologue is actually on of the stronger (if not the strongest) element of the film. It captures the macabre and dark sense that the ride plays with so delightfully well. There’s this slight sense of dread which is elevated by Mark Mancina’s score, but unfortunately the rest of the film does not work with these elements.

3) There are a lot of fun references to the ride which I appreciate (especially since the ride is my favorite in the Disney parks). Master Gracey hanging himself, the 13th hour, even the opening line, “Welcome foolish mortals,” is all straight out of the line. I dig the intention even if the execution ends up being a little lackluster.

4) The random kid on his bike being jumped at the mansion is a much more interesting potential protagonist than what we get. The whole, “kid in danger,” trope popularized in the 80s with ET, It, The Goonies, Stand By Me, etc. (and paid tribute to in “Stranger Things”) would’ve worked beautifully! But instead the kid comes and leaves, only to let the mansion know of Eddie Murphy’s wife’s existence.

5) In theory, a realtor in the Haunted Mansion could be funny/clever/creative. But this film ditches any sense of mystery, darkness, or even strong macabre tone in favor of a style more akin to a Disney Channel Original Movie (as opposed to Curse of the Black Pearl). The whole thing with Eddie Murphy’s Jim Evers feels totally foreign to the rest of the film. It’s generic and without tone, there’s nothing to make it feel like it BELONGS in a Haunted Mansion movie.

6) Michael freaking out at the giant spider in his room is very relatable. For me. I hate spiders. I HATE spiders. Yet, ironically, Spider-Man is my favorite superhero.

7) Some of the elements in the mansion itself have potential. There’s an occasional sense of place and tone, but it just does NOT mix with the Evers’ family or that subplot. It is just a total bust. But Terrence Stamp made up to look a bit like Boris Karloff is nice. The weird workaholic of Jim Evers is not.

8) Master Gracey.

The most interesting thing about Master Gracey is that it is Disney accepting a longtime Haunted Mansion fan theory as canon. There is a tombstone seen in the line for the original ride for a “Master Gracey” (named after imagineer Yale Gracey) leading many fans to claim that the infamous Ghost Host in the ride is this Master Gracey. For years Disney just let the fan theory fester, but with the release of this film they accept the head canon into just normal canon. Merchandise for The Haunted Mansion in both California and Orlando occasionally refers to it as Gracey Manor even. Honestly it’s the only interesting aspect of the character. He’s sort of a flat broken hearted loverboy who over acts in the film. But still! Master Gracey is now canon!

9) There is literally nothing done to establish Ramsley or Gracey as ghosts. They look, act, talk, and behave like humans except for when the script calls for it. It shows a lack of commitment to concept.

10) Look, I knew this film was bad going in. But I didn’t know it would be so…boring. Like, dear god. Nothing happens for the whole first half hour of the film. And I’m just WAITING for something to happen or for the story to make some sort of sense.

11) Even the visual style of this film is painfully lackluster. The cinematography, the lighting, the composition of the shot, nothing is done to support the tone because there ISN’T any tone! It just all is aggressively FLAT.

12) No one other than Terrence Stamp and the actor playing Michael really have shown any ability to act honestly so far. Master Gracey is over the top, Eddie Murphy is wildly unlikable, the actress playing Megan doesn’t emote until she’s screaming in the faces of zombies, Murphy’s wife is painfully stagey and just not believable. It’s just BAD.

13) All the winks/nods to the original ride ARE appreciated by the fan in me, but they’re random. Eddie Murphy literally just wanders through the hall with nothing to do so we can see these cool winks to the ride. And then things which have NOTHING to do with the ride like a zombie mirror.

14) Emma (Dina Waters) and Ezra (Wallace Shawn) are honestly a nice bit of life to the film. They’re MILDLY INTERESTING which makes them scene stealers in the film. There’s a nice dynamic between the pair and they perform it nicely.

15) So no one explains why Madame Leota is even in the mansion. Jennifer Tilly is well cast but she’s not a character, she’s an underdeveloped plot device which exists solely to move the “story” along.

16) The graveyard ride is interesting to me - again - solely because I’m a fan of the original dark ride. It’s FILLED with references to the original attraction which I appreciate. But again, it is fan service for the sake of fan service and supports the plot only in the minimal of ways.

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

17) But whatever plot support the graveyard ride gives is totally lost with the Singing Busts. Again: fun idea, glad to see them as a fan. BUT it’s literally a distraction from the main story. You could’ve left the Singing Busts scene on the cutting room floor and NOTHING would change.

18) The mausoleum scene is actually a somewhat competent piece of action in the film. There are nice scares, nice stakes, nice pacing, and Rick Baker’s makeup is exceptionally strong with the practical zombies, and Michael having to deal with his fear of spiders at the end is pretty nice.

19) I’m with Eddie Murphy on this one.

Jim: “The butler did it? You gotta be kidding me.”

20) Again, I appreciate the efforts of the filmmakers to recreate the ballroom scene. But it’s so lazy and just shoehorned in I just…ugh.

21) The forced marriage between Jim’s wife (I don’t know her name) and Gracey actually has a nice sense of tone to it. I think a primary source of this is the teary eyes the actress has and the HAUNTING organ music that plays. However, from a story point, there are a number of reasons this marriage shouldn’t left the curse:

It’s not exactly consenting

She’s MARRIED

She’s not Elizabeth

And she’s ALIVE

22) So Ramsely damns everyone to hell and all the ghosts in the mansion go haywire, only for the fireplace to come alive and randomly swallow him to hell. Because…plot, I guess?

23) Ghost Elizabeth has the power to literally bring people back from the dead? Couldn’t she do that with every ghost in the mansion?

24) And it’s over in a pretty cheesy way.

Look, the only reason to ever watch Haunted Mansion is if you’re a SUPER fan of the ride and you want to take in all forms of media related to the ride as possible. Otherwise...don’t. It’s not even so bad it’s good. It’s so bad it’s BORING. Very little of it makes since or is interesting, there’s no sense of tone, it’s just incredibly flat/dull. In my opinion, it should just be avoided.

[meralee727]

It’s not easy.

Trying to make the transition from  special education teacher to female comedy writer at the age of forty is not easy.

Many emails and attempted connections get ignored while your resume gets put on file in case anything comes up that feels like a good fit.

Growing up hearing impaired surrounded only by the fully hearing and never quite fitting into either group is also not easy.

Writing and working and wondering if you’re making any progress while you figure out if you have enough money for both gas and food can be quite draining.

Yet when I find myself feeling emotionally tired or ready to give up, I turn to my own inspirations. These women have inspired me. Their stories filled with their own personal traumas serve as a constant reminder to simply keep going.

These are women who are changing the way things are done and who don’t follow the norm. Women who are a little different and in the most wonderful way.

So let’s dive in or as I prefer to say….

Let’s do this. Hey

1. Mary Tyler Moore

They say never meet your heroes but standing in front of this woman at her book signing for her autobiography, After All, I could not speak. My father had to speak for me. He told her that I considered her on the same level of Lucille Ball. Mary Tyler Moore said that being compared to Lucy was great company to be in. There are just certain people you get a vibe from. A genuinely kind vibe. You can’t really fake that. I’m forever grateful for my Mary Tyler Moore encounter because she debunked the “never meet your heroes” theory. Before she passed away in 2017, she had endured so much tragedy. Her son and only child had died of an accidental gun shot wound to the head, she had struggled with alcohol as well as health issues due to Type 1 diabetes. Yet despite every obstacle, every tragedy, she broke down barriers. She is remembered for her iconic roles in two television shows: The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  By playing Mary Richards, she was paving new ground by playing single career woman which was considered unheard in the seventies yet Mary Tyler Moore played women that broke the stereotypical images of women at the time. Laura Petrie and Mary Richards were not women who stood in the background. They were strong, intelligent and equal to the men in their lives. In addition to her ground breaking roles, she also founded her own production company with her then husband, Grant Tinker. MTM Enterprises was responsible for not just The Mary Tyler Moore Show but also Rhoda, Lou Grant, Phyllis, The Bob Newhart Show, The Texas Wheelers, WKRP in Cincinnati, The White Shadow, Friends and Lovers, St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues. Mary Tyler Moore most certainly belongs in the same category as Lucille Ball. Together, they changed entertainment. They changed television. 

2. Lucille Ball

The original icon. When trying to get I Love Lucy on the air, executives were reluctant to have her then husband, Desi Arnaz, play  her husband because audiences would not believe they would be married. Lucy and Desi took their act on the road to convince executives and it worked. Lucy also was the first woman to ever run a major television studio, Desilu Productions and after she and Desi divorced, she bought out his shares and became the head of the studio. They were also the first to employ the idea of filming a comedy show in front of a live studio audience and using multiple cameras.  She passed away in 1989 and left a legacy. She didn’t take no for answer and did things on her own.  Lucille Ball was an continues to be an inspiration and I’m only assuming but if Mary Tyler Moore considered Lucy an inspiration, I’m going to assume that women on this list might feel the same.

3. Kaitlin Olson

Kaitlin is a Groundlings alum who has been on Punk’d, Curb Your Enthusiasm and has appeared in Coyote Ugly. Her most iconic role however is the one she’s been playing on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia for thirteen seasons. She is Sweet Dee. She made Sweet Dee by simply asking for what she wanted. She landed the role of Dee Reynolds after auditioning with a monologue that ultimately ended up being for Dennis. Rob McElhenney, the creator of the show and her eventual husband, called her to tell her they were going to work on Dee but they just weren’t sure how to write for women. She told them to just write the character and she’d make it funny. First season Dee was a completely different character then she is now and that’s all because of Kaitlin. With the exception of a few moments in that first season, she is the voice of reason. Season thirteen Dee? Oh, well she’s a complete mess. As shown through Dee and of course through her own show, The Mick where she played the title character, Mickey, you will never see Kaitlin as the voice of reason. You will never see her as the stereotypical pretty girl in a sitcom. She simply wants to be funny even if it involves ramming her head into a car door.

4. Andrea Savage

A Valley Girl Native who grew up in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles like me so therefore I will always be a fan even if she went to my rival high school. I first knew of her from Episodes where she played a television executive who ends up in relationship with Carol. She also is known for playing President Laura Montez on VEEP. Currently, she has her own show on the network that I’m pretty sure I used to watch Forensic Files on. I’m Sorry is on TruTv and is in its second season. I am absolutely addicted to this show, so much so that it has now ruined CBS sitcoms for me. Yes, Andrea Savage’s Andrea Warren is raunchy and talks about sex and buttholes but what’s most refreshing is how marriage is portrayed and how relationships are portrayed. While the show is only in the second season, I think I can confidently say that there will never be an episode where Mike forgets their wedding anniversary or as I saw in a recent episode of a CBS sitcom, there will never be an episode where Mike will be scared that Andrea will find beer or food that he keeps at work. Though there has been an episode involving Mike and a tank top but that needed to be discussed. It was a very special episode. Andrea Savage shows a real relationship. It shows the give and take, the friendship and the partnership between two people. Much like her Groundlings cohort, Kaitlin Olson,  and before them, Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore,  she is paving a new way to show a marriage in a sitcom….a far more real way.

5. Jennifer Aniston

Her tabloid life was done without her consent and that’s a tragedy. She’s been portrayed as a perpetual victim. She’s been divorced twice. She has no children. Yet judging by the photos and articles about her fiftieth birthday, is that accurate? Is the victim role that’s been unwillingly thrust upon her by the media true?   She’s one sixth of the cast of one of the most popular sitcoms in television history. Friends, of course. It’s still so popular that when Netflix wanted to remove it, all hell broke loose. Also, her movie career has been pretty amazing too. The Break Up, Horrible Bosses, Leprechaun and Marley and Me which I think should be used a litmus test to determine whether or not you’re a sociopath….if you don’t end up curled in a ball weeping by the end of that movie, get help. My favorite Jennifer Aniston movies are not the romantic comedies but instead the smaller movies she’s done: Friends with Money, Good Girl, Cake. Movies where she’s really shown her talents as an actor. She’s continuing to work, not letting the narrative that the media has written for her control her. Not letting the thoughts of others destroy you is an important lesson, one that I keep relearning. She just does her job, doesn’t let the forced narrative destroy her and also she apparently has really cool birthday parties.

6. Erin Ryan

She actually began her career in finance as a registered associate at Merrill Lynch. She was a writer for Jezebel and is currently a writer for The Daily Beast, the host of the Hysteria Podcast as well as a writer in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Her episode  entitled, The Gang Solves the Bathroom Problem was incredibly clever and probably one of my favorite episodes of the thirteenth season. There was a message, just the right amount of heart for Sunny and of course, a grown man who identifies as transgender when he poops. Her Hysteria podcast which she hosts with Kiran Deol, Grace Parra, Michaela Watkins, Dana Schwartz and Alyssa Mastromonaco gives a humorous view to some very serious topics. This is the only political podcast that I listen to because of how it’s presented. I admit to not following politics until the current administration but through listening to Hysteria, I feel like I’m catching up in my political knowledge. Erin is someone who did switch careers and it worked. Her talents as a writer are evident in the Daily Beast as well as on Sunny. It gives hope that you can change careers and be successful in it.

7. Megan Ganz

She began her career interning at Mad Magazine in New York and later became an associate editor at The Onion. She later became a writer on Community and Modern Family. She is responsible for probably one of my top five episodes of Modern Family called, Connection Lost. Actually, it might be my favorite as it’s been four years since that episode aired and I remember it from start to finish. It seemed like such a risk, an entire episode basically taking place on a computer but it was truly a remarkable episode. She is now a writer and executive producer on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and her episodes have become the most memorable to me. In The Gang Tends Bar, there’s a surprisingly sweet moment, many sweet moments, in a show that’s not known for being sweet. It remains a perfect episode especially that moment between Dennis and Mac. The other episode of hers that I love is Times Up for the Gang which is about the Me Too/Times Up movement. I can’t help but wonder how cathartic that episode was for her. I’m not going to mention the person’s name because I don’t want to keep tying his name to hers. When Googling Megan’s name, his name comes up in every result and not her work so I’d rather not add to that but while writing on Community, she was exposed to a pretty toxic work environment that to paraphrase her words made her doubt her own talents. I’m inspired by her strength and the ability to keep going.  Toxic work environments are all I’ve known in my adult life and to see a story of someone persevering and rising above so much toxicity makes me happy. That Time’s Up episode almost felt like maybe it meant more than just an episode or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

8. Elizabeth Laime

I stumbled upon her Totally Laime podcast through a Charlie Day interview. In this interview, she had mentioned her sister and her sister’s comments about Elizabeth’s writing career and the words rang so true. Elizabeth is a year younger than I am and I’ve heard those same pieces of negativity, “too old” “not good enough” “the ship has sailed”. Yet in 2010, she started the Totally Laime podcast with her husband, Andy, and in 2011 won the Earwolf Challenge which was a reality podcasting competition where the winner was awarded a distribution contract with Earwolf. The show ended in 2015 only to start again in 2018 but this time independent of Earwolf. In 2018, she wrote on the second season of I’m Sorry and is also a writer on the upcoming NBC show, The Village. Her Wikipedia page is a story of someone who keeps moving forward. She’s dealt with personal tragedy through losing both of her parents at a very young age. Despite this, as well as some professional set backs, she’s proving that you’re never too old to go after what you know you should be doing. She’s proving that  you can survive the most unimaginable and not let it completely destroy you.

9. Yvette Nicole Brown

Following Yvette on Twitter is sometimes the highlight of my day. Sure, there are days when I wonder why she responds to all those saying these horrible things to her but the fact that she does is incredible. She stands her ground and I love watching it.  I became a fan of hers when she was on Community and truly admired her when she left Community to take care of her dad. She later appeared on The Odd Couple and became my favorite character on that show and is now on Mom playing the role of Nora. Nora is Christy’s AA sponsor and I will always love reading her tweets. Twitter can be a scary place at times, overwhelming and yet, Yvette has got it down to an art.

10. Carla Jimenez

She was the Ethel to Kaitlin Olson’s Lucy on The Mick. Or maybe it was the other way around. What I loved about Alba was that she was as crazy as Mickey, probably more insane.  What I especially love and this seems to be the theme with every woman on this list, she too is debunking stereotypes. On The Mick, you had two actresses on two very opposite sides of the weight spectrum and I want to tread lightly as not to hurt anyone but what I loved was that no jokes were ever made regarding the physical appearance of either actress. The fact that Alba was just as disturbed as Mickey was what made that show so fun. They didn’t rely on easy jokes or tropes. There’s also a quote she had given in an interview that I feel should maybe be tattooed somewhere. She told Refinery29 that she challenges all women to never take a job or do anything that makes you feel demeaned just because you need the money.  It’s brilliant advice and advice I have not followed as much as I should judging by my own work history. I have talked myself into many jobs I was not qualified for because I just needed it. I’ve dealt with so many toxic work environments just so I keep the lights on.

So to Mary, Lucy, Kaitlin, Andrea, Erin, Megan, Elizabeth, Yvette and Carla, I simply say……

Thank you.

Thank you for the laughs and life lessons.

Thank you for the inspiration and breaking down barriers.

Thank you for doing what you do.

And hey maybe it’ll finally happen tomorrow or next week but from the sidelines, it will happen.

Why won’t it?

  Take Notice: 10 Inspiring Women I’m Taking Life Lessons From It’s not easy. Trying to make the transition from  special education teacher to female comedy writer at the age of forty is not easy.

[buttercup-little]

Days had not been satisfying for a few weeks, I was at the end of my rope. All my friends had already been granted their first wish, but I never really had anything I wanted that badly, but today had been taxing.

Mom was in the kitchen admiring her final wish of new implements for cooking, she got new cups, plates, pans, stove, and all utensils.

I could hear her from my room, ogling her treasures. It was sickening. It was almost as if every time someone got a wish granted, they became mindless and unapproachable for hours. My family was no exception to this.

Every wish they got granted left me alone and angry.

How could they possibly enjoy hours of listless admiring?

I wanted to make a wish. But I knew the concept, "the details of a wish are often fuzzy". I'd rather not make a wish and have it backfire on me. Enough of my life backfires anyway.

My father entered my room in a huff, mumbling something about wasted wishes, and "we Dont need new dishes", and irresponsibility. I watched him with a careful eye, as he finished his mini rant.

"Everything alright?" I enquired, halfhearted. The look on his face after the words left my lips, told me I should have kept my mouth shut this time.

"Alright?! Alright?" He spoke, his voice growing louder with each syllable, "nothing is alright Megan! Your genius mother wasted her last wish on some stupid dishes, 'I need to indulge myself with my wishes' she says, but she is being selfish! We could have used that wish for something a million times more useful that some god damn plates!"

I listened to his response with my head down, hoping he would just drop it, or at least yell at someone other than me (the person not even remotely responsible for my mothers actions, not even she could have guessed that her wish would have true).

He continued to yell at me for several minutes, before wearing his self out, and sighing deeply.

"Dont waste your wishes, Gana, its all you get in this unfair world. "

The use of my childhood nickname made me tense up, I hated the sound of it. In Spanish it translated to "win", but hearing it made me think of anything but winning. It was the name kids called me at school for striking out in gym, or calling the wrong answer in class. When my mom first heard it she though it was cuter than her nickname of meg, and she continued calling me it for years, until I worked up the courage to ask her to use a more "dignified name".

my dad watched me for who knows how long before sighing again and leaving my room.

Alone in my room again, I replayed the last few hours of the day in my mind. The insurance company had called to tell me they will only cover 15% of my car repairs, after I was hit in a parking lot. My bill? Over $1000. My parents had been fighting since I came home from work.

Topping that onto the shit hole that had been the rest of my week, I began to feel my lungs tense. I kept holding on trying not to cry, but the more I held it in the more my brain forced me to recall another jumbled detail of my week, from my boss telling me I have one strike until termination, to finding out my best friend was moving across the globe, and to being denied by 3 colleges in 2 days, I was reeling.

I unlocked my phone, and opened my favorite game, in an attempt to distract myself, but the loading screen quickly flashed to a message reading "the servers are currently down, come back in a few hours to see the new improvements". I switched apps, then watched in horror as my phone screen flashed, turned an array of green and purple, then full black.

I set my phone down and pulled my blanket further up my shoulders. Why now? Why today?

I set my head on my knees, and closed my eyes.

Every breathing exercise I'd ever run across, flashed in my head and I attempted them all, to no avail. I squeezed my eyes shut harder. I clenched my hands around my wrists. I loosened them up. I shifted my legs, but every move I made was more uncomfortable than the last.

My body felt like it was full of ants, and it was so hard holding it in for any longer.

I leaned my head back, took a deep breath, and shouted at the top of my lungs my first and final wish-

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

When I opened my eyes, I felt different somehow. Lighter.

I spun towards the ceiling and ascended, passing clouds on my way up, passing through airplanes, and up into space.

I admired the stars from my new view on top of the world for a few moments.

I then closed my eyes and cried a single tear before my soul dissipated into the void of the milky way

Everyone is their life gets three wishes. However, they are granted at random times, so it’s hard to control what you wish for. Some people have won the lottery, while others just changed the temperature. You’ve just had your first wish granted. Tell what happens next.

[entamewitchlulu]

Homura’s Top 15 Zexal Characters

Once again, under the cut due to length!!!  Time to talk about Zexal babies <3

15. Kaito Tenjo

I have always felt like the odd one out of Zexal fans with him being so low on my list, but that’s definitely not to say that I dislike him!  In fact, I’ve actually been becoming a lot more interested in him since his back story started to basically take over my Zexal rewrite haha.  Kaito is a little like Kaiba for me in that I feel like he’s a very interestingly complex character.  He has a lot of factors in his life that make him what he is, and that gives him layers to dig through and explore to really figure out the core of what he is.  I love that he’s one of the first rivals to legitimately terrify the protagonist with his power, but he has his own brand of awkward softness to him too even with people other than Haruto once he’s free of the duty of being a Numbers Hunter.  He’s a single-minded and really fucking determined and although he’s not super high on my list, I do have to appreciate him.

14. Ena

Okay but for real Ena is here because I’m gay, and also, the second they appeared I was like !!!!!! i smell fics 

Anyway, I know they have like no fucking character at all, but I love them anyway.  Their design is fascinating and I’m still 80% positive they were supposed to be related to Mirai somehow.  I love what we do get out of them, like, they’re one of the only people actively standing up to Eliphas and going behind his back to help Yuma and Astral out of the entire Astral people, and that’s kind of badass tbh

13. Mizael

God, look at him.  Just...just look at him.  It should be illegal to be this fucking pretty.  Beyond his a m a z i n g character design though, Mizael is just a really fascinating character.  He’s the only one of the Barian who doesn’t seem to really hold any hatred or grudge; he has no actual animosity towards the others except to just think he’s superior to humans.  He’s just really out to test his skills and prove himself as a dragon tamer rather than having any real devotion to the Barian cause, and I think that’s fascinating.

12. Mirai Tsukumo

Shoutout to the first real onscreen Yu-Gi-Oh mom; I know she, too, doesn’t really have any character or screen time, but I love that she was set up to be an adventurer just like Kazuma, and we get to see that she was involved with a lot of his adventures and stuff.  She’s just...interesting to me, I guess.

11. Number 96 / Dark Mist

I just think ze’s a really fascinating antagonist.  I loved zir introduction scene so much, like, that’s still one of my favorite Zexal episodes.  Ze’s a legitimately frightening, looming sort of villain that’s in it for the shits and giggles, which is one of my guilty indulgences.  Ze just wants to watch the world burn and honestly I can respect that in a villain.

10. Vector

God, this asshole.  I love him but I hate him but I love him???  He’s an absolute shitstain but I can’t help but be entertained by him.  He’s one of the most conniving villains in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, and I wish that I hadn’t been spoiled about his identity before it happened because I feel like I would have really been shocked by the turn around.  And yet, all the tells are there, even from the beginning; they try to divert your attention by fooling you with the Barian police officer shit, but in the end, after a second rewatch it’s easy to see where he’s going with his plans, and you just have to sit there and be impressed with the writing of his character and his set up.  He’s a shitlord who laughs at suffering but he’s incredibly interesting for the way he does it and his willingness to play the long-game; not to mention he is fucking hilarious and every scene he’s in is legitimately amazing.

9. Alit

Look at him, he’s fucking precious??  Not only do I heavily appreciate his basically canon bisexuality, but his character is so endearing.  He’s an antagonist, but you can’t help but love him for how straightforward he is.  He’s a fun-loving, punchy guy who just really wants to cross fists with someone and really throw his all into a good fight, and he’s honestly just so pure despite being technically a villain for a good chunk of the story.

8. Rio Kamishiro / Merag

Idk I’m just a sucker for the ladies I guess.  Rio has just a great personality imo; I love how sassy and uptight she can be and how she just excels at everything.  She knows how cool she is and she acts like she does; she won’t put herself down for anybody, and hse’s also a great and supportive friend to the people she does let in close.  I like how even though she’s presented with an ice theme, she’s never once characterize as the “ice queen” trope, she’s a legitimately caring person and she doesn’t try to hide that.

7. Astral

GOD look at zir?????????? Astral is the most precious alien bby ever, like holy fuck I love zir.  Astral is so cute.  I love how ze slowly learns more about the world, turning from someone incredibly analytical and afraid of failure to someone who’s not afraid to take risks.  I love how ze’s influenced by Yuma and Astral’s entire character arc is so precious.  And anyway just look at zir cute face???

6. Ryoga Kamishiro / Nasch

first i mean just...look at his smile??????? how Pure???  Ryoga is just...he’s a good boy, okay?  I love his story and his character development so much.  He starts out as such an asshole, but just one encounter with Yuma reawakens the part of him that’s legitimately a good person who cares about people and wants to take care of them.  Ryoga is just a very natural leader imo, something that carried over from his time as Nasch.  He’s good at leading but god he doesn’t want to, and I think that’s why he tries to be such a loner, because part of him is afraid of people relying on him again.  He’s a much softer heart than he pretends to be, and he doesn’t want to hurt people.  I still remember his tears when he remembered he was a Barian and he realized that was going to put him at odds with Yuma and Kaito and everyone, but he couldn’t abandon the others either.  He’s the kind of person who really understands responsibility, but while he’ll take it on, he also fears it?  And that’s just...honestly real relatable for me.  He’s a good kid, and I think it’s really fascinating in that he’s an antagonist in the end, but he’s not a villain.  He and Yuma are both fundamentally good people who are forced to fight due to poor circumstances, and a lot of real life is gray like that, so it was really cool to see it shown in the series.  Sometimes, no one is the bad guy, but fights still happen.  Ryoga is a great example of this.

5. Kotori Mizuki

What a precious child....honestly, I love Kotori so much; she’s cheerful, supportive, and she never lets herself lose hope.  She works hard and she’s more than willing to jump up to the plate if she has to, but she’s also content standing back and letting other people handle things, which I honestly relate to a lot.  She’s a bright light for a lot of her friends and I think that’s inspiring.

4. Durbe

LOOK AT MY NERD HE IS SOFT AND PRECIOUS!!!!  Durbe is just so good.  He’s another one of those antagonists who’s not a villain, he’s just on the other side for reasons that no one can really control.  I love how devoted he is to Nasch and Merag, how he’s so willing to follow them and protect them that he’s called the White Shield of Barian.  I’m also a sucker for megane characters tbh.

3. Akari Tsukumo

God I love her.  She’s who i project onto in this series tbh, as an older sister myself.  My lil bro might not be anything like Yuma, and we might get along a little better than Akari and Yuma do, but Akari just resonates with me in a deep way because at the heart of it all, she really cares about Yuma and wants to do right by him.  We don’t get to see much about her, but she has a lot of hidden threads that I find really interesting to look into; like if you think about it, she’s the sole provider for the Tsukumo household now with the parents gone.  I don’t think grandma works.  What kind of stress must that put on her, especially with her parents having disappeared right when she was getting out of high school?  Thinking about that puts a lot of her actions in perspective to me, and I find her honestly relatable in that regard.  What if it was me that was suddenly the sole provider for my little brother?  It strikes me a lot, especially when I watch scenes with Akari, and I think she’s a great character that I feel comfortable projecting onto.

2. Michael Arclight

Look at my husband, he is pure and good.  I love Michael a lot because honestly?? I relate to him immensely.  He’s a really good person who gets excited about the things that interest him, and will talk your ear off about them if you let him.  He gives everything for the sake of his family, and I honestly couldn’t blame him for going to the lengths he did, because I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same for my own family.  And even after all of that, he realized what he had done wrong and was willing to do what it took to atone for that mistake.  He knew what he had done was wrong and never stopped trying to make up for it--I cried a little when he showed up to protect Yuma and said he would be his sword and shield, it was so pure???

1. Yuma Tsukumo

God blessed me when he let this child exist.  Yuma is everything that I want to be; he’s enthusiastic, confident in himself, never gives up, and always gets back up in the end.  He just feels real to me in a way that some characters don’t.  He feels like an actual child, like his actual age.  He acts like a lot of thirteen year olds I actually know, and he reminds me a lot of some of my cousins, so I was almost immediately drawn to him when I finally started watching Zexal; I wanted to protect him and take care of him.

I love him for his emotions, for being able to cry in front of others and really feel things.  I love him for his outgoing nature and his unwillingness to give up on anything or anyone.  I love him for his forgiveness, which is so much wider and broader than anything I can do myself, and I wish sometimes that I could have as much kindness and innocence in my heart as him.  He’s a shining light and I wear his necklace on the days that I need extra confidence for things.  I’m so glad that I let go of my initial dislike of his character design because he’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

[sobdasha]

so we rented Promare and

wow that movie is a

fucking trip

it is not a movie it is an experience

(it was not at all like that the second time around and I’m not sure if that is better or worse...???)

a Highly Experimental Style of having idek how much conflict you can shove in one movie, which we kept pausing to guess plot twists about 5 seconds before they happened, which is why it took us like 4 hours to watch the movie, anyway here’s a recounting of our watch:

- less than 10 minutes in: “uhhh I know I should give it time to get good but this does get better, right??” “IDK literally no one on twitter said why they liked it, they just said they loved it go watch it and drew fanart of a person we haven’t seen yet, maybe it’ll get good when we find that protagonist?? Maybe they set this fire and we’ll meet them soon?”

- prediction: “surprise, mystery protag is Big Boss”

- 1) nailed it

- “Not exactly a criticism but this is very 90s cartoon”

- prediction: “Galo’s going to have to break Lio out of jail”

- 2) Bad guy terrorists are actually victims of discrimination/genocide

- prediction: “Lio planned to get captured on purpose??”

- Teenage Mutant Pizza Turtles scene. Also I couldn’t remember anyone’s names because I hadn’t turned on subtitles to go with the English track yet so we have Old Time Cop Show Guy, Gonzo from Spirit Tracks, Ice-cold Megane guy, Feral Scientist Entrapta, Misty, okay I did learn Galo’s name. Also what’s that guy from Teen Titans, Cyborg?? We have Evil Cyborg and All Might as well.

- prediction: “Galo’s all like ‘I love my dad Gov!’ so Gov is def. gonna be evil, he’s secretly corrupt and actually supporting Burnish discrimination”

- prediction: “Pizza guy is Burnish”

- nailed it

- prediction: “Aina’s sister is very sad looking she’s secretly a Burnish, this is also why Aina is so pro-Burnish-rights”

- Discrimination/racism/immigration/marginalization commentary, “Maybe twitter liked the movie so much because it tackles current topics??”

- missed opportunity: “Wait wtf is under the ice? ....hm I guess that’s just how the art style is. It’s probably nothing after all.”

- Het ship kiss time

- Kiss of life, “Lio is too OP”

- “Oh okay my bad I guess it was funerary rites instead????”

- prediction: “now that his ideals are challenged Galo will have a big anguished ethical dilemma re: dad Gov and Lio’s accusations”

- 3) okay or he’ll not be conflicted at all and just confront dad Gov immediately I guess

- why does the volcano look like a demon, is that relevant

- 4) Volcanopocalypse now

- 5) Space travel, complete with Space Whales

- 6) Gov isn’t even pretending not to be evil

- prediction: “Wait is Gov actually Burnish??”

- prediction: Okay no Lio will rescue Galo instead then

- “We’re literally already sacrificing everyone on earth except 10,000 people I hand-selected as being worthy, are you seriously balking at the fact that we’re going to torture some Burnish sacrifices to do so.”

- 7) “We knew you got captured on purpose so we let you escape on purpose dumbass, we outplayed you”

- prediction: “Okay so they just shoot an Absolute Zero Bullet into the volcano to freeze the magma and end the apocalypse!!! ........................... actually that’s probably super bad for the Earth’s core and will cause another natural disaster apocalypse but that’s a battle for another day...??”

- prediction: “um okay Heris/Elis will break Galo out??”

- prediction: Aina won’t get on the ship, forcing Heris/Elis to sabotage the launch

- 8) Epic dragon final confrontation, complete with YGO psychotic faces. “....WAIT WE’RE LITERALLY ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THE MOVIE WHAT. THE FUCK????”

- prediction: Galo will have to chill Lio out

- “What...is in Gov’s fist... NEVERMIND Galo SMASH”

- punching out your feelings YYH style

- prediction: They’re gonna evaporate that whole lake

- 9) “WHAT THE FUCK THERE WAS A SECRET COMPLEX IN THE ICE THE WHOLE TIME???? YOU CAN’T INTRODUCE THIS MANY MAJOR PLOTS TWISTS IN ONE MOVIE THIS IS NOT HOW DRAMATIC STRUCTURE WORKS”

- Welp Aina’s definitely missed the launch now

- 10) that one gif from the History Channel, because “It was aliens all along.”

11) DEUS X MACHINA, THEY REALLY JUST FUCKIN WENT THERE “I literally can’t tell if this movie is self-aware or not but either way this is the best scene in the entire movie”

- “You’re not chosen ones this is literally just a convenient deus ex machina shoved in here to help resolve the plot DEUS OUT”

- “Is he dead?” callback

- “Why...are you questioning if Gov killed Deus...he literally gave a speech about making hard decisions, is murdering the majority of the population of Earth, also the Burnish, etc, how is the death of this one man the moral tipping point.”

- prediction: “GENOCIDE. CULTIVATION. BEAM. Okay Gov is LYING about the other planet, he just needs it as an excuse so he can build the warp drive in the space ship, so he can kill the Burnish, so the whole world will be covered in lava, which turns to rock, which he will turn to farmland once he brings the ship back down and becomes CAPITALIST DICTATOR OF THE WORLD.”

- Blue Eyes White Dragon, x4

- 12) Heris sabotages the ship

- Did....did Gov just fire an Absolute Zero Bullet into the volcano as literally an afterthought that has zero effect on the plot????

- 13) Gov is Burnish

- prediction: “I just realized, we haven’t seen Aina in ages. Jump, Heris! Your sis will catch you on her hovercraft!”

- nailed it

- “Now he’s performing CPR....callback to the kiss of life...?”

- 14) “Callback to the kiss of life!! ..................this is.....a very long kiss.....”

- “no pyro!!!”

- “Wait did he....I swore Lio had his shirt on while they were making out...??”

- “Get in loser we’re going firefighting!”

- “So the cloud forms a heart before they start Drifting in their giant robot...”

- 15) “I don’t understand...did we apocalypse the earth? Did we avert it? Is the earth destroyed? is the earth fine? was the earth entirely renewed? what was the plot resolution here??????”

- “WHAT IS THE RESOLUTION WITH GOV????? WHAT????”

- “We thought this movie was addressing deep issues and then promptly waterskiing over them, but it turns out it was aliens all along and now they’re gone so uh what the hell kind of allegory is that.”

In summation, we have no idea if it was good or not. The first time around the sound was mixed extremely poorly with loud battle scenes, excessive shouting, and not being able to understand anyone (forcing me to turn on subtitles while watching in English), which weirdly wasn’t so bad the second time around.

Promare might have been good and deep if it had like 10 fewer plot twists and allowed the remaining 5 time to breath and reflect on their implications. Character stuff would have been interesting to see explored. TBH this probably would have been an amazing anime series and we might not have minded the aliens plot twist then.

On the other hand, it’s fun, watching it twice in a row was actually fun, and whatever reviewer the roomie found who said it was “not campy” was lying out their ass, we nearly died of all the gay innuendoes to be had. And the art is pretty cool.