#i know very few of you actually disliked them before this whole submarine thing

[1smolbean]

some of yall are acting a little weird about the titan thing im ngl

[widowsliver]

ok. this will be fun but playlist for your life right now? with explanations on why you like them / how they related to you. (idm whether its 5 or 20 songs, i need recommendations and i need explanations AHAHA)

omg best question ever award. initially I wanted to keep this like ‘album length’ (max 15 songs) but we’ll see how it goes :’) also so sorry this took like forever I kept changing everything LMAO

track 1 — ‘the 1975’

being funny in a foreign language, the 1975

a pretty obvious choice for the opening song. was a toss up if it was either going to include the bfiafl version or the self-titled version — in the end decided to go with the bfiafl version because of the lyric “I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re seventeen”, because I am seventeen. therefore it was more appropriate to include this one whilst I can! like I said, I was undoubtedly going to start with a version of ‘the 1975’ because it’s the perfect representation and reset of the things that I love.

track 2 — ‘you belong with me (taylor’s version)’

fearless (taylor’s version), taylor swift

now the next two songs are basically the representation of my childhood. before I even fully knew who taylor actually was, I was obsessed with watching the music video for this song and I was absolutely in love with it. when I got older and went my own way before finding my way back to her, the amount of nostalgia I got from this song was insane — making me love her even more now. fearless will forever & always (pun!!!) be my favourite taylor album.

track 3 — ‘red (taylor’s version)’

red (taylor’s version), taylor swift

much like you belong with me, the whole red album was the album that I actively remember listening to the most when I was in primary school and actually grasped taylor as a person for the first time. madness to think how full circle I’ve actually come now that I’m going into year 13 (over a decade later).

track 4 — ‘roxanne’

outlandos d’amour, the police

this has been one of my top spotify songs for quite some time, and I first started listening to it because it came from one of my favourite films / musicals of all time — moulin rouge! my uncle also has the picture disc for this album (if my memory serves me right) so it’s also nostalgic to have that family connection to it, I always love what music is capable of doing in terms of relationships. it’s absolutely magical.

track 5 — ‘stuck on a puzzle’

submarine soundtrack, alex turner

I was introduced to this song through the film ‘submarine’ (richard ayoade) as it was one of my set texts for a-level media studies. majority of my class heavily disliked the film, but it instantly shot to one of my favourites of all time — the cinematography along with the soundtrack is some of the most masterful work I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing. the lyrics themselves in the song also just gives me that mellow feeling when listening to it (as alex turner’s voice itself is amazing). I’m also welsh, so watching the film gives me the same feeling as gavin & stacey, constantly picking out locations that I know and also sharing almost the exact same accent as to the ones in the film haha!

track 6 — ‘thick skull’

this is why, paramore

these next few songs I’ve placed in the playlist to sort of represent my long battle with mental health problems (which I’m very happy and proud to admit that currently I’m the happiest I have ever been since I was like 9 lol), and thick skull does that perfect representation (also whilst being sung by hayley williams, what more can a girl ask for). the sinking feeling that I get from listening to this song truly does feel like drowning in the best of ways, mimicking that battle that you have to have with yourself. from the slow start to the layered buildup towards the end, it truly does feel like an explosion.

track 7 — ‘i always wanna die (sometimes)’

a brief inquiry into online relationships, the 1975

I feel like I am constantly talking about this song so I probably won’t elaborate on it that much, but from suffering with a personal loss that’s represented almost to a t through this song is why it’ll always be so important to me. from “your death it won’t happen to you, it happens to your family and your friends” to “if you can’t survive, just try”, anything else I could possibly say is in the lyrics themselves.

track 8 — ‘fine line’

fine line, harry styles

this songs included because it reminds me of one of my bestest friends in the entire world. although this doesn’t have the deepest meaning behind it, when we both went to a harry styles concert together, a group of girls in the row behind us snapped a photo of us hugging each other during fine line and it’s become my favourite photo of all time. I’ll include it at the bottom, so then this song just became our song :)

track 9 — ‘the crow & the butterfly’

sound of madness, shinedown

this song comes from one of my dads favourite albums, and the instruments in this song are just breathtaking. my nan also vehemently hates the idea of me getting tattoos, and when I asked her what I should get for her, other than being like don’t you dare; she said get a butterfly (with the most annoyed look on her face ever hahahah). therefore this song also reminds me of her :)

track 10 — ‘symptom of being human’

planet zero, shinedown

this other shinedown track is also included because one of the best concerts I’ve ever been too was on the planet zero tour. also, listen to this song and pay attention to the lyrics because it’s so emotional and the meaning behind it is insane. it really makes you feel seen and special!

track 11 — ‘i’m so sick’

flyleaf, flyleaf

this is included because it’s just one of my favourite songs of all time, and the vocalist on the track (lacey sturm) is just an absolute powerhouse! no other reason other than that hahaha.

track 12 — ‘aimee’

ozzmosis, ozzy osbourne

pretty obvious, it’s my name (and I love ozzy anyways).

track 13 — ‘funny how love is’

queen II, queen

queen have always and will always be one of my favourite bands of all time (as I’m absolutely in love with roger taylor) and queen II is just my absolute favourite album by them, and one of my tops of all time. this song reminds me of me first starting my vinyl collection and going record hunting for the first time, in which I bought first pressings of their debut self titled album and queen II.

track 14 — ‘all I need to hear’

being funny in a foreign language, the 1975

one of my favourites on the album that means so much to me, so had to include it for that reason. I love singing along to the track over any other 1975 song, and also getting to hear tim healy sing this live at finsbury was just magical.

track 15 — ‘sunshine baby’

in the end it always does, the japanese house

again, one of my favourite artists of all time, and one of my favourite albums of all time. this is my favourite song on the album and it just gives me vibes haha! some of my favourite flowing lyrics of all time as well, “the feeling when the windscreen wipers line up with the song”.

track 16 — ‘sincerity is scary’

a brief inquiry into online relationships, the 1975

had to include this because it comes from my favourite 1975 album, and I wanted to include it because I feel like it perfectly demonstrates meaningful but satirical lyricism.

track 17 — ‘mean (taylor’s version)’

speak now (taylor’s version), taylor swift

again, a pretty simple reason (I’m running out of things to waffle about at this point, only so many times can I say I love a song) but this one goes out to all the negativity that people have tried to feed into my life, because they will never define you :)

track 18 — ‘i am the fire’

into the wildlife, halestorm

halestorm are also another band that my dad introduced me too, and seeing them live for the first time and getting a pick from a concert for the first time will always be a stand out memory to me. also, I love the message behind the song and how uplifting it can be!

track 19 — ‘i bet you look good on the dance floor’

whatever people say I am that’s what I’m not, arctic monkeys

this song reminds me of my other best mate in the whole entire world, who I’ve known for years. she’s always been a bigger arctic monkeys fan that I have and I am so proud of her for accomplishing everything she has today. although she’ll never see this I’m so proud of her! more than she’d ever know.

track 20 — ‘left behind’

plush (released as a single)

from another one of my favourite bands of all time, this is their newest single release. it’s hard, it’s heavy, and I absolutely love jamming out to it. a girl rock band all under 22 — sign me up!

track 21 — ‘girls, girls, girls’

girls girls girls, mötley crüe

recently saw mötley crüe in wembley with my dad, and it was so emotional being able to see his all time favourite band with him. this was one of the first mötley songs that I ever listened to and realised oh shit my dad wasn’t lying!

track 22 — ‘give yourself a try’

a brief inquiry into online relationships, the 1975

favourite 1975 song. means so much to me. the message is just the most important.

track 23 — ‘people’

notes on a conditional form, the 1975

ending on a complete high, reminds of the end of finsbury (the best gig ever) when I absolutely lost my shit and had the most adrenaline ever. really sums up the person who I’ve become!

so turns out this was actually insanely difficult — listen time clocking in at 1hr & 27m. but this genuinely just sums up me as a person, absolutely all over the place, up and down, leaving you thinking ‘wtf is going on’. I hope you enjoy, and if you don’t recognise any of the songs, I would 110% recommend them :) (also could u tell I literally had to cut down so many the 1975 songs and couldn’t just have it all them LMAO)

bonus tracks:

forget (ashley suppa), all dead all dead (queen), epiphany (mammoth wvh), over there (the japanese house), nana (the 1975), I couldn’t be more in love (the 1975), nothing revealed / everything denied (the 1975)

[another-place-to-fall]

Defending the women of LOST/Sexism in LOST

People say they don’t like Kate Austen because she’s “annoying” “can’t choose between Jack and Sawyer” “always wants to join every single mission”. Kate has way bigger things to worry about than sorting out her romantic feelings. Yes, she is developing feelings for both Jack and Sawyer, but she doesn’t have time to figure them out while trying to survive on the island. And the fact that people don’t like her because of the whole “I’m coming with you” thing is a little ridiculous, because they’re hating Kate for wanting to protect her friends and do whatever she can to help. You know who else does that? Jack. But plenty of people love him for those very same reasons. Yeah, a lot of Kate’s character was centered around the love triangle, but that isn’t the character’s fault, it the writers’s.

Then there’s Claire Littleton. People always complain about her “my baby!” thing, but... she only actually says that a few times, AND, if your child was taken from you or you thought your child was going to be hurt, wouldn't you be worried out of your mind? Wouldn’t you want to do anything to help them? People also criticize Claire for her entire Season 6 arc. She was alone, on the island, thinking everyone had abandoned her, with only the MIB for company. She was also tortured by the temple Others, who she thought had taken her child. Claire was a single mother who just wanted to keep her son safe, give her a break. 

Sun-Hwa Kwon is a character who actually doesn’t receive that much hate, but there is still the fact that people don’t like her because she left Ji Yeon to go back to the island for Jin. Here’s the thing: Sun had no way of knowing what was would happen on the island. She had no way of knowing that Jin had time traveled to the past, and she had no way of knowing what would happen with the MIB/Locke. She thought that she would be able to go to the island, bring Jin and the others back, and the two of them would reunite with Ji Yeon. And then in the submarine incident, Sun didn't want Jin to stay. She wanted him to live and take care of Ji Yeon. It was Jin who made the decision to die with her, not Sun.

Shannon Rutherford is a very unlikable character. Even I don’t enjoy her character, or Boone, and that is a view shared by many other people in the fandom. Many people call her selfish, spoiled, and just plain rude. And she was all of those things, but that wasn’t her entire character. Remember, they had all just been through a plane crash, landed on an island with no chance of rescue. Also, friendly reminder that she was only 20 years old. She was scared, and her way of coping with that was to try to do something normal. Let’s not forget, in Pilot, Part 2, she volunteered to go on the mission to fix the transceiver. She was constantly feeling useless, and it didn’t help that other characters, especially Boone, were constantly putting her down and mocking her. When she started to see Walt, she genuinely made an attempt to help him, even though she wasn’t sure if he was even there. Her death was untimely, and I wished we had gotten to see her grow more as a person. Also, her death was used for shock value and to further Sayid’s character development.

And now, one of the most hated characters of LOST, Ana Lucia Cortez. Now, while the characters I mentioned above were shit on and criticized, Ana Lucia was absolutely hated by the fandom. People hated her attitude, her toughness, her dislike of most of the people around her, and the fact that she killed Shannon (who, by the way, was just as disliked by many Ana Lucia haters). You know who else has a similar attitude? Who has that same toughness and dislike of people? Who else killed someone? That would be Sawyer, a fan-favorite, white male character who is beloved by the fandom. Now, for the last point, what I am comparing here is Ana Lucia killing Shannon to Sawyer killing the man he thought was Frank Sawyer in Australia, right before flight 815. Ana Lucia killed Shannon because she was trying to protect the people she was leading (including Sawyer!) from who she thought was the Others, and killing Shannon was an accident. Sawyer killed the man completely on purpose and out of revenge. Oh, and it wasn’t even the right person. Yes, I am aware of the man Ana killed long before flight 815 out of revenge, but if we can take her very small amount of character development, in which she refused to kill Henry Gale, a known Other at that point. Whereas Sawyer was still willing to kill a bunch of people in Season 6, the end of his character arc. And yet, Sawyer is still in most people’s top five characters lists (just to be clear, I do not hate Sawyer at all, and this is not anti Sawyer but pro Ana Lucia). You may argue that people love Sawyer because of his character development, which I do agree with. However, Ana Lucia was never given the chance to have Sawyer-like character development because she was killed off in the same season that she was introduced in. She wasn’t even allowed to be in the church in the flash-sideways, and she didn’t get to “move on.” Ana Lucia deserved way better than the death for shock value that she got.

Next up on the list is Juliet Burke. She, like Sun, also isn’t the target of a lot of hate, but there are still things that need defending. The first thing is, of course, her sudden change of mind when it came to detonating the hydrogen bomb in Season 5. Yes, it was selfish of her to endanger everyone on the island just because of the way Sawyer looked at Kate. But if the plan did actually work, which she thought it would, that meant she would lose everything she had gained over the past few years, including Sawyer. Juliet is incredibly kind and feminine while also being badass at the same time, which is amazing because you don’t usually see those two traits coinciding (usually a badass character isn’t very feminine and a “traditionally feminine” character isn’t a good fighter). As for all of her motives in Season 3, Juliet was trapped on the island for three years. All she wanted to do was leave and go home to her sister. Yes, she manipulated Sun, but right after that, she made things right by helping Jack make a plan to stop the Others. Her death was heroic, and I’m glad she was finally able to be happy in the flash-sideways. (I am declining to mention her whole relationship with Goodwin and all the drama with Ben, although I might dive into that in another post). 

Now, the character Rose Nadler has almost nothing that needs to be defended. She is a constant wise voice of reason who isn’t concerned with the drama of the rest of the survivors. Her relationship with her husband Bernard is very sweet, but she doesn’t let that stop her from doing the smart thing (like stopping his SOS sign idea). Not only that, but Rose has one of the best (and most meta) lines on the show: “If you say live together, die alone to me, Jack, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Another character who doesn't need much defending is Charlotte Lewis, but not for the same reason as Rose. Charlotte was done dirty by the writers. Of the science team, she is the least fleshed out and explored. She had a single flashback and a little bit of exposition information from Ben, but that’s pretty much it. Every significant thing she did was for the sake of other characters. She had a fake-out death so Ben would reveal that he had a spy on the boat. She was taken to the Barracks so that members of Jack’s group would have a reason to go there. Her going to the Barracks was also an excuse to get Miles and Kate there. And she only died/was dying for shock value, to up the stakes of the time flashes, to provide more questions to the characters and the audience, and to further Daniel’s character development. In the flash-sideways, all she did was go on a date with Sawyer and further his character development. She didn't get to go to the church and move on. Daniel and Miles, the other members of her team, on the other hands were given compelling backstories and centric episodes.

Penelope Widmore is similar to Charlotte in that there isn’t much to defend because she doesn’t do much that affects the plot. Nearly everything she does is about Desmond, and the writers barely even gave her a personality. I’m sure Penny was an actually interesting person, if they had bothered her to give her any storyline that didn't involve her love interest.

Danielle Rousseau is a character that kind of slides in and out of the story as needed. Now, Danielle isn’t the subject of a lot of criticism just because she isn’t very focused on, but from what I have seen, here’s what I have to say: Danielle was alone on the island for sixteen years. And for sixteen years, she had to live with the knowledge that she was forced to kill the man she loved and her team. Not to mention the fact that her daughter, Alex, was taken away from her when she was just a week old. Can you blame Danielle for being paranoid? Her death was not a fair end to the character, and it was only used to kill off Danielle quickly and provide shock value.

Her daughter, Alex Rousseau, is similar to Charlotte and Penny in that she doesn’t need to be defended because everything she does is to affect other characters. In this case, those characters are Ben and Danielle (especially Ben in the later seasons). Danielle’s entire character is centered around the fact that she lost Alex and has been searching for her, and Ben’s motivations after Season 4 are largely motivated by Alex’s death. She herself doesn’t have much of a character arc, and her death was only to provide shock value and further Ben’s character development.

Another character that falls into the category of not having much to defend because every action is for someone else is Libby Smith. Once the tailies and the main survivors joined together, she was almost immediately shoved in a relationship with Hurley. The only things we knew about her backstory were that her husband died, she was a clinical psychologist, she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley, and she gave Desmond a boat. That’s it. She didn’t have a centric episode, and she only appeared in other people’s flashbacks. Her death was only to provide shock value and further Hurley’s character development, as well to show that Michael betrayed the survivors. 

Notice how many of these women died for shock value and/or to further a man’s character development? Notice how many of these women are disliked for traits that other characters are loved for? Notice how many of them barely exist as their own character without a man? I love LOST, I really do, but their treatment of female characters needed a lot of improvement.

[sportanime-maniac]

Request!!

so can you write a scenario about how kuroo is getting on a flight back home and he ends up sitting next to a girl he doesn’t know(the reader😱) and they start up a conversation and realize they have tons in common and they live in the same city and they just talk the whole plane ride. then when the plane lands they leave the airport together and go out on a date or something??

Ok, so it's slightly different to what you asked, but I'm going to make it so they've actually met briefly before if that's ok. The outcome will still be the same though! :D

Kuroo always loved visiting his family in Australia - it was his yearly holiday, as well as restbite from the family he called the Nekoma Volleyball Team. As much as he loved them all, he could not bring himself to be with them 24/7, 365 days a year. The one thing he didn't particularly like was the airports and flying. Sure, he could speak English, and read it, but it was difficult when so many people spoke the language so fast and with so many different accents. (Trust me, people from the north of England cannot be understood by the people from the south of England because of the accents.) He checked in, put his luggage through, and went through security, sighing. 'The difficult part was over' he thought to himself, buying some water and food for the flight before going to his gate.

Shortly after, he got onto his flight, and sat in his seat. It wasn't a big plane, so there were only four seats per row, rather than six or nine. He sat on the aisle seat, waiting to be asked to move. He waited for a few minutes, before someone stopped next to him. He looked up, and in mild surprise, saw someone of his own nationality. He hoped she spoke Japanese, but didn't hold any expectations.

"Hi, um my seats the one next to the window," she said, in Japanese, and he sighed in relief, before moving and noticing she had quite a big bag.

"Do you want me to put that up here?" he asked, pointing to the overhead locker.

"Oh, yes please, thank you," she replied gratefully, and slipped into her seat. As he put her bag in the overhead locker, he couldn’t help but notice the volleyball keyring on it. As he sat down, and put his seatbelt on, he spoke,

"I'm glad that I'm not next to an Australian. It's difficult to understand them sometimes," he admitted. She grinned, and he noticed just then that she was probably a similar age to him.

"I agree. Although I can understand them, it takes all my concentration," she agreed. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself, my name is ___," she bowed her head.

"Kuroo, Kuroo Tetsuro. That's a pretty name though, ___...-san?" he said, asking about the honorific.

"Thank you. Just call me ___. Honorifics are too formal," she told him. He nodded. He was about to speak again when the air host started explaining the emergency procedures. Next to him, he noticed the female yawn. She glanced over to him, and started mouthing the exact words, and doing the actions of the plane employees in an eccentric, slightly camp manner, to which he grinned. She obviously flew a lot, which he could relate to. After the announcements, the plane started moving at a taxi around the airport to the runway.

"Do you like flying, Kuroo-kun?" she asked, popping a piece of chewing gum in her mouth to help her ears pop when they got in the air, and offering a piece to him. He accepted one, thanking her.

"Well, I don't dislike it, but it can be a bit unnerving," he told her. She chuckled.

"I agree." They were silent for the take off, both watching out the window, saying their silent goodbye to the land of Kangaroo's and Christmas' in summer.

"___?" Kuroo asked.

"Yes?"

"Do you like volleyball? I noticed you had a keyring on your bag," he said, excusing himself from the embarrassment of the extremely random question.

"Like it? I'm a manager for my university," she told him. "I'm a first year, and I was a manager in high school too. I just love to watch it…" she said, remembering the last game her team had played.

"Oh! You're only a year older than me then. I play volleyball at my highschool, and I totally agree that it's an amazing game to watch," he told her. They spoke about their respective high school teams, and how awesome they were.

"Which high school were you at? Kuroo asked, out of curiosity. (Just go with this please.)

"Fukurodani," she told him. He just stared at her as though she was an alien. "What?" she asked him cautiously.

"You're kidding right?" he asked.

"No…why?"

"So, do you know Bokuto, and Akaashi?" he asked. Her eyes lit up.

"Wait, you know those two as well?" she asked. He laughed.

"I go to Nekoma," he told her. She frowned, and thought back to the many training camps, before it clicked.

"You're the time delay attack kid!" she said, before going red and apologising. He laughed.

"Is that the best nickname you can come up with?" he asked. She grinned.

"Oh shush. You probably don't remember me, do you?" she asked. His grin fell a little.

"Not really. I was too busy trying to beat that hyper owl," he said. She chuckled.

"Don't worry about it. This is such a weird coincidence though," she shivered, a little weirded out. Over the course of the flight, they played cards, spoke about random topics, nerded out, and made consistent jokes. It was probably the most enjoyable flight either of them had been on. Kuroo went to the bathroom just before the descent was about to start, but when he came back he had a small frown on his face.

"Why do they have frosted windows in the aeroplane bathroom? Who's going to be looking in at 30,000 feet?" he muttered to himself. ___ heard this and chuckled.

"If this were a submarine, I'd say a diver, but I really don't know," she thought about it. They were both way too perplexed by it.

"Why are we even thinking about this? That's so random," Kuroo shook his head, chuckling.

"Well, random is my middle name," ___said, grinning. He shook his head. Over the past few hours, they'd gotten quite close, and Kuroo noticed that he found her really easy to talk to. She hadn't judged him once, for his puns, accidental nerdiness, or his over obsession with volleyball. In fact, she was pretty much the same. He was glad that she was quite open to teasing and jokes made at her own expense, just as much as he was. She had teased him about his hair, while he teased her about her height, which they both just laughed at. Their mood was going down just as the plane was, and they both realised they didn't really want to say goodbye to each other for good at the airport.

"Hey, ___? What do you say to meeting up sometime?" Kuroo asked as the plane landed. She looked over at him in surprise, her eyes not hiding the fact that she'd thought about the exact same thing, before she grinned, a glint appearing in her eyes.

"Are you asking me on a date, Kuroo Tetsuro?" she returned the question. As she did, he realised that asking her out on a date was exactly what he was doing.

"As a matter of fact, I am," he replied. She didn't fluster or fault, but chuckled.

"Then of course I will meet up with you sometime…for a date," she told him. Most girls he spoke to got flustered, or sometimes even couldn’t talk, because all they knew him as was the captain of the volleyball team. ___ hadn't done any of those things. She was just as dorky and awkward as him, but had the same amount of confidence as he would have expected from someone who used to have to babysit Bokuto. Someone without a small ego, or masses of confidence could never do that.

As they walked through the airport at arrivals and went through passport control, ___ wrote her phone number down and gave it to him.

"Let me know when and where, and I'll be there. I wouldn't be opposed to a conversation now and then too," she told him. He chuckled.

"As you wish," Kuroo said. They both grinned, and said farewell, but they both knew it was only temporary, as they both wanted to see each other again as much as the other did.

___ got into a taxi, and told him directions to her flat. As she turned off aeroplane mode on her phone, she got several texts. Two from her mother, one from her best friend, and one from an unsaved number. She replied to her family and friend first before opening it with a small smile and blush on her face.

If you hadn't guessed, it's your sky high guy. She laughed. Even though it was so cringe how he started the conversation, she couldn't help but love how he broke the ice so easily, and removed awkwardness from any situation.

That's the name going in my phone now, and you're just going to have to deal with it, until you come up with a better one, she replied. A few seconds later, her phone buzzed again, and she opened the message.

Then I guess we'll have to go for that date sooner than later, otherwise I'll be stuck with it.

It was only a few days later, and they had both just about recovered from the flight, when they met up in Tokyo. Neither of them had actually seen the other in their natural environment, since you choose comfy clothes for flying, rather than your favourite ones if you're smart. ___ arrived at the meeting point on time and looked around, to see the male she was looking for standing against a wall. Grinning, she walked over.

"Hey, sky high guy, it's good to see you again," she greeted, and he laughed, his normal hyena laugh, which was infectious and made the female grin too.

"Alright, we're going to have to change that," he told her, as he looked her over. He wasn't really bothered about how a girl looked, since he had basically already fallen in love with her personality. When he had got home, he messaged his brOWL, and told him who he'd met, and Bokuto gave a very accurate description of the female he had met, as well as more.

"She's feisty, and competitive, so if you challenge her, prepare to lose," he said, and coming from Bokuto, who almost always won everything he set his mind to, that was high praise.

"How about we go for some food, and then go to the arcades?" Kuroo asked, and he physically felt her eyes light up at the challenge.

"Sure, where do you want to eat?" she asked; her voice not betraying the fact she really wanted to kick ass in the arcade.

"Wherever," Kuroo replied. She laughed.

"Then I'm just going to be honest and tell you that I'm quite happy going to get takeaway grease food," she admitted. Kuroo realised that he already related too much to this female already, and laughed.

"Then takeaway it is. Let's go," he said, taking her hand, and off they went, on their wonderfully relaxed date. They didn't need to be formal, nor did they need to hold up to any expectation, as they'd already seen each other in an aeroplane. What could be a better way to meet someone, since they're obviously not on the lookout for someone to date, so they're not putting any effort into anything. It was perfect, and anyone who saw the two together agreed.

[preciouspixie]

Because I've been wanting to share this for a while, meet my A Series of Unfortunate Events OC, Marianne! I've had her for a long time, since I reread the books about a year ago and I've touched her up after watching the Netflix series and rediscovering my love for ASOUE~ (*Note: Her information is mostly based off the NETFLIX version, since I believe it to be a reboot and not an adaption.*) (***This contains the more basic facts about her, other posts later will reveal her backstory as well as quirks, likes, and dislikes!***) (This contains many spoilers for both the books and Netflix series!!! Please read them yourself before you even think about reading this or else you'll spoil the fun!!)   (info under cut)

- Name - Marianne L. (Last Name Unknown) - Age - Suspected to be somewhere in her late twenties to early thirties - Gender - Female - Occupation - (Formerly) Gypsy/Fortune Teller (Formerly) A member of Count Olaf's troupe (Currently) Unknown; Suspected to be a gardner - Volunteer? - Since she joined that caravan when she was fifteen. - Fire-fighting or Arsonist? -

(Formerly) Fire-fighting

(Formerly) Arsonist

(Currently) Chef Salad - Residence - (Formerly) A caravan; later a traveling cart (Formerly) Often wherever Count Olaf and his troupe were (Currently) Whereabouts unknown - Family - Mother - Marigold K. (Last Name Unknown) [Former Last Name: Sparrow] - Deceased due to fire Father - Alexander J. (Last Name Unknown) - Deceased due to fire Brother (Younger by a year) - Andrew M. (Last Name Unknown) - Status is Unknown - Olaf's Troupe + Olaf -

Hook-Handed Man/Fernald 

Marianne recognized Fernald the moment he stepped into her traveling cart with Count Olaf. He may have hand hooks instead of hands, and a few more scars, but there was no denying he was the st Fepson of Captain Widdershins himself. She didn't know if he recognized her. She was wary of him, she had no idea how much he had changed since he had went to the other side of the schism. After Olaf forced her to join his troupe, this forced her to spend time with him. Her nerves were eased as he was actually nicer than she had imagined, along with being rather silly. He taught her Fernald's Folly, along with several other card games he had memorized, so they could pass the time between kidnappings and such.

She spent a great deal of time with him over the duration of her time as a troupe member, all the way to the octopus submarine, until they became the last two surving original members of the Count's troupe. It is unknown whether over this time period the two developed feelings for one another, though it's very easy to say that they most likely did. Pale-Faced Women/Angelica and Elizabeth 

Being the only other female in the troupe, Marianne quickly became friends with the two. She adored their makeup and, with certain disguises, often asked them to help her dress. They talked regularly, and she could tell the difference between the two well very soon. She opened up to them first, around the time of The Carnivous Carnival, about her.. concerns about VFD along with Olaf. This was the first time she actually tried to get a member of the troupe to leave and, after Orlando's death in the hospital, she didn't want anyone else meeting the same fate, considering she cared a great deal about all of them. In the Slippery Slope, she grew proud of them when they were kind to Sunny, even if it was just little sentences. She was quick to tell them how happy she was. When they finally left, and while watching them go away into the mysteries of fate, she found that she was crying of happiness. The sisters were out. She wished them the best of luck. The Bald Man/Ivan

He was the one Marianne was the most worried about. He didn't talk much and certainly didn't seem nice. But, after some great perseuding by Fernald and the sisters, she did begin to talk to him. He spoke kindly to her, much to her surprise, and she soon found herself considering him as a great friend. He listened to her as she raved of her past, of her caravan, and of everything she missed and, in turn, she listened as he spoke of things he liked. Oddly enough, he seemed to love flowers of all sorts, he had even wished to be a florist before joining Olaf's troupe. He became almost like her bodyguard. Often times, he would actually pick her up and place her somewhere else in the room, considering she was very light, just so she'd be away from the danger. After the Carnivous Carnival, Marianne almost had a breakdown on the spot. Two friends, new and old, dead so fast? It took Esme threatening to hit her into the lion pit herself for her to finally get up from the ground and start helping. The Person of Indetermined Gender/Orlando 

Orlando was probably the one that Marianne was scared of the least. After speaking with them, she grew to enjoy their spacy personality and blunt, yet truthful, statements. They became such good friends that they could communicate silently if needed, as all good friends can. She often gave them the food she didn't it and helped them decide what clothes to wear. During the Wide Window, whilst she was disguised as a mime, they were the only ones that could fully understand her wild, flailing gestures that screamed, "Josephine's house fell off the freaking cliff!!!" After their death in the Hostile Hospital, she silently cried on the car ride, trying to hide it from Olaf and Esme so they wouldn't yell at her. She secretly hoped that maybe, just possibly, that they were alive. Fiona Widdershins 

Marianne smiled when she saw Fernald's younger sister and immediately stepped forwards and hugged her as a greeting. She considered her as a younger sister almost upon first meeting, just because of all Fernald had told her of his sister. Hugo, Collete, and Kevin

After thinking about it for a while, Marianne just decided not to interact with them. It wasn't that they didn't seem like nice people, it was just that they obviously would give any secrets she had to Olaf if it meant being considered a good henchperson. *(Warning: The next two paragraphs contains mentions of violence and slight abuse, please do not read if such things are sensitive subjects to you!!)* Esme Gigi Genevieve Squalor, the City's Sixth Most Important Financial Advisor

Marianne can say without guilt that she hates Esme with all her heart and soul. Esme clearly felt the same way about her. Every single day when she could, she would insult her for just about anything, from a hair being out of place to her shirts being different shades of red. Marianne was unsure whether this was because of jealously or just because she wanted someone to torture. It got to the point where Esme would force her to wear hideous, 'out' clothing, cut out parts of her hair, and tell her not to bathe just to get some laughs. The Grim Grotto was where it became its very worse, considering darling little Carmelita Spats wanted in on it as well.

Count Olaf

Marianne doesn't hate Olaf. She fears him. From the very beginning, he wouldn't let her out of his sight, wouldn't leave her by herself. When drunk, and when sober, he would constantly threaten to slap her, or even hit her with a wine bottle, if she even slightly heistated to do as he said. It was easy to see such abuse on her, the Baudelaires and the troupe would see her often with a black eye, or see several bruises on her arms, even a cut across her cheek. She became a robot around him, always doing as he asked with an emotionless face, always mumbling 'Yes, sir' as she did so. It was hard to do, but at least after The Austere Academy he stopped. The Baudelaires/Quagmires

Marianne loved the Baudelaires from the moment she saw them. She wanted to hug them and tell them everything was okay, wished to reach out to them and tell them of the secret organization their parents were too late to tell them of. But she couldn't. She knew she couldn't, not with Olaf breathing down her neck. So, instead, she limited herself to small, subtle gestures. Kind smiles and affectionate, motherly touches on the shoulders. Gentle and nice words. Stories of her past, of her caravan when she could. Kisses on the top of their heads when the boss' back was turned. In The Grim Grotto, she broke down in tears as she hugged them all (which was difficult, considering Sunny was in a diver's helmet) and apologized for her many mistakes of not helping them, telling them how proud she was and how proud their parents would be, telling them that she loved them very much and hoped they would be safe. Marianne was aware of the Quagmire Fire and of the Fortune they had. However, she had never seen Isadora and Duncan until they were trapped in Olaf's secret tower room. When it was her turn to watch them, she told them stories, recited all the poems she could remember, and comforted them the best she could. Beyond that, Olaf didn't allow her to speak to them much. She wasn't even aware Quigley was alive until she met him as well (during The Penultimate Peril) thought their time spent together was much shorter. - Disguises - (She can't talk for most disguises because Olaf doesn't want her to say any secrets to anyone.) The Reptile Room - Nurse Mary; Was originally supposed to be Lucafont, but she fell asleep and Orlando had to step in instead, though she was later a 'mute nurse-in-training.' The Wide Window - Annie the Mime; She just wanted to be a mime, that's literally it. Plus she made a bet that she could go the whole job without talking once. The Miserable Mill - May; Fore(wo)man-in-training, has a 'hoarse throat' and can't speak. The Ersatz Elevator - Ann; A cleaning lady who currently does nothing because cleaning ladies are 'out.' One of the few disguises where she's allowed to speak. The Hostile Hospital - Nurse Mary once again; For rather obvious reasons.

[stevecoleridge-posts]

SPANISH LOCKDOWN …DAY14

Saturday night s all right for fighting.. on Facebook of course,

i was just casting my mind back to a Ninurta  Night , as there called their Saturdays Night in Uruk, capital of Sunny Sumeria, and  imagining what a great time they were probably having 5000 years ago , getting pissed on the local beer, because they invented that ,as well as the seven day week. Of course they did nt have Netflix, but they got to go out more..i don’t have Netflix either , yet , but have axs to lots of stuff including Music documentaries , which we are watching in order , chronological order that is..starting with The Birth of Country music .. and Mr Ralph Peers,from new York, who looked a little like Brian Epstein by the way , who set up a temporary recording studio above  furniture shop, there you go agin , NEMs , well no, it was nt , but anyway I digress, and into this temporary Studio  walked The Carter Family..3 of them .. and Jimmie Rogers.. yes.. that Jimmie Rogers , the Singing brakeman..i mean ,Okay , i can hear you mumbling about Sam Phillips, and the Chess brothers etc.. but this was Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia..a place no-one who doesn’t live round there has heard of..its like discovering the Beatles and the Rolling Stones..or rather signing them..   After that we watched a newish doc about the King , E.V. Presley..and it was mad by some guys driving round America in his Rolls royce..great stuff   That led to the Fab Four , Eight days a Week.. which was about their touring years and the whole world has seen it except me… its absolutely.. the F word , second letter A..anyway this time 55 years ago they were filming Help. inSt Margarets..Twickenham..and taking photos for the infamous Butcher cover , in the Vale , Chelsea, where my first nursery school was located..ah well.. don’t want to get too carried away on Beatles Lore..or i ll bore you to death , because i don’t mind admitting i am well versed in that subject…   The Beatles represented the 60s in the same way Elvis represented the 50 s…and someone told a story about how the disgusting Colonel Parker, in inverted commas,used to put a cover over Elvis Cadillac so the girls could nt see him when he drove on to the Movie lot in hollywood… well once the Beatles arrived the Colonel still put the cover on , so Elvis could nt see there were no longer any girls..A sad figure..but  his mantle of  loneliness was later to be worn by Michael jackson and especially Prince..Do these Royal titles always end with a solitary death on the loo or in a Lift

From there we moved too the Seventies… and surely the quintessential Seventies hero is Bowie..well now it so alluringly sunny outside ill have to go and play guitar on the terrace .. and leave David for another time..

No i don’t want to see the News..

DAY 15..Sunday…

The clocks have gone on to sensible time..even in lockdown this is cheerful news.. I was wondering how long it will take for people with imaginary ailments to return to their plastic chairs in Hospital waiting rooms throughout the Western world.. these people presumably will be the ones most frightened of Covid 19..there s nothing imaginary about that..but if you have ME and you re lying on the sofa all day, and you feel depressed , and your bones are aching etc.. well how do feel different from everyone else..and as for food intolerance .. that should be interesting when the statistics come in about consumption in Supermarkets..i know there are allergies and allergies.. but the possibility of imminently drowning in ones own mucus does concentrate the mind wonderfully, and a lot of people will find themselves in the second category once shortages begin of certain previously essential items..suddenly one has to be tolerant of a whole raft of things one had previously considered unacceptable ..two weeks ago i could not have imagined four days without bread.. but its no big deal.. onions likewise..thats what happens when you shop with no list.. bit like going on stage without a playlist.. its a gamble … it can produce unexpected benefits in that you try stuff you had nt tried before.. but you often forget the best songs..

We watched the film about the Kursk, the Submarine which was on the seabed and owing to bureaucracy and politics the Crew were allowed to die..even though t5here was a foreign Ship with equipment nearby that could have saved them.. reminds me of something..are we the mariners or are we the mariners wives?

Does the Chinese government have a cure? are they just waiting for the US economy to completely collapse?..Will we ever know?

Day 16

Each day just goes so fast , i turn around , it s past..

One of my fave tracks from Revolver..anyway playing in E7 , as usual , in fact I’ve been stuck in E 7 since Lockdown started..Catfish , Smokestack lighting ,Good Morning Blues , Take Out Some Insurance..however now the time has come to expand ..and try Freight train..the classic finger picking song..so ,if i observe radio silence for a while you ll know why..

Saw the news…The government had adopted some economic measures which seemed very well thought out , in the sense they were are determined not to let the mistakes of the last crisis , where the poorest people got the rawest deal. I won’t go into details , its all online if you re interested..it was more a sensation than anything  logical , but it made me feel a bit less pessimistic for the first time in a few weeks,i found i was nt thinking about Death quite as much , even in the abstract. that may sound overdramatic , but i think everybody is thinking about it subconsciously a great deal more than they were, say, last Christmas..well actually in our particular situation , where we had been frequenting cancer wards and the like , maybe i should go back to 2018…but  the awarerness of death affects every facet of how you think about everything else..i don’t just mean concentrating the mind wonderfully..anyway its half past two, and tomorrow ill probably delete all this..The gist was that for some reason things don’t feel quite so bleak..

Day 17

Yesterday was a 3 own a scale of  ten as far as ding anything worthwhile was concerned. After watching a film i unreservedly recommend..The vanishing.. about  3 men who disappeared from a Scottish island where they were repairing th elighthouse , i watched Tolkien , the movie about one of my heroes , but not one of Auroras heroes apparently as she fell asleep during the first reel, so to speak, anyway she s not huge Tolkien fan , having been made to sit through the fellowship of the ring seven times..be that as it may , the sofa is not designed for sleeping comfortably so she had a severely cricked neck the next morning and stayed in bed, leaving Tina and i to our own devices..this meant i ate a packet of chocolate biscuits for brunch and did nt eat again till midnight , which goes to show how lucky I am not to be on my own.

  to entertain myself between bouts of fingerpicking i decided to9 look up on google what English people disliked the most.. while i did nt find the answer to this question i did get seriously sidetracked and found out the answers to several more pressing questions about Europe,and i m proud to say the british isles scored very highly

The Dirtriest City..Yay .. London The Ugliest people..The British and the irish  and the Germans ..okay , so we cant beat the Germans but at least we drew The Rudest people..That was easy..The French win every time, when i lived in  Paris  i prided myself on becoming Parisian, and adopting local customs , but one day , in a moment of absent mindedness , and for a subconscious second imagining myself in Spain , i said Good Morning to my next door neighbour, a short fellow with a mop of dark hair and glasses, who i passed on my way to the metro in Boulevard St . Germain… i am not a Physiognomist.. he replied…i made a not e of that , hoping i could use the phrase Je ne suit pas Phisionome, myself on some future occasion..but sadly , said opportunity has not arisen. Most boring City..Brussels .. for the third year running…Hasve nt these people been to Oslo? Most Friendly Country..wait for it… Scotland..most friendly capital .. Dublin Worst Cuisine..Malta , tied with Kosovo Best ..Italy Most Beautiful Women ..Norway ..and Bulgaria..i would have voted for Madrid..but you cant argue with Norway Most ignorant Country in Europe ..italy. Most Rapes..Sweden..well that was no surprise..however i won’t analyse those statistics or Ill be done for Isamolophobia Most ignorant country in the World ..Indonesia Most depressed ..World..China , India, Brazil,..what??..USA.. and Bangladesh Most mental Illness..Estonia,Belarus , Russia Most Obese Europe..Yes We won agin .. Britain

And so on .. there was more , i could nt stop , but i did check the criteria..and obviously ruled out anything from the Daily Mail or the Independent.. which are not really newspapers at , but sheets of opinions conforming to the prejudices of their readers.

When i got tired of this i got the Scythe out of the tree and  cut the grass for half an hour .. feeling like a peasant woman in Quiet Flows The Don..its quite restful when you get in rhythm. Aurora was still ill so i made her some chicken soup.. well , packet chicken soup with some noodles and chicken added.. anyway , she did nt eat it .. so i had it saved for my supper.. I did nt watch TV..i could nt be bothered to work out how turn it on to be honest , thats how lazy i felt, and i just sat by the fire and went through all the fingerpicking songs again.

Spanish lockdown..Day 18

Aurora s feeling a wee bit better, but cant eat anything , so cannot take Iboprufen, or whatever it is in English ..but says she could probably handle bread.. so..that means a trip to the heart of Fukushima, err..well ...on with the masks , gloves etc  and to the shop in El Llano.. small village near here , a lot more isolated than Carboneras..I was feeling fairly confident as i trundled along the track  , that the town hall had tarmacked before some election or other..anyway , rounding a corner there was a woman of un certain age in the road waving me down,.,.

What to do?…You re are not allowed passengers , plus she was not wearing gloves or a mask..

Should i observe the Law, or basic good manners? i d vaguely recognised her.. and had she she been a total stranger i would have passed on by , but , hell , she was Local, so i had to pick her up..

She did nt recognise me.. obviously , as i was wearing a cap , two masks with a scarf on top, and polo neck unrolled over the bottom half of my face , like a character in the Bash Street Kids..an way i had the window down , and was almost sticking my head out as i drove..

@ Chilly out @.. she observed…

i pretended not to understand this hint that i should close the window..

@ Do you think it s going to rain ? @

@ I  think probably not @

@All these people with masks @  she observed ,as a car squeezes by us, going in the opposite direction . I began to wonder if she knew there was  such a thing as Covid 19,and  saw the driver  studying us..I was hoping he  would nt recognise me either.. and was weighing up whether what i was doing would meet with his approval. i.e. helping a distressed local, or would be considered a breach of community sprit. On coming into the village we received more enigmatic looks..and i  felt uneasy as i got out in front of the shop and followed her to the door … pausing  to read the safety notices outside.and thus give her a head start . i won’t reproduce them ..wherever you are you ve probably seen the equivalent..anyway ,no sooner did i enter the shop than she was next to me selecting suit and veg..and ignoring safe distancing, which i agree was academic , as we d just been in much too close proximity,..thus forcing me to leave the fruit and go and study the options in frozen fish..while she was having a conversation wi the owner

  @ Do you think it will rain?@   @ Its chilly out @ etc..

As we went about our purchasing i saw more and more foodstuffs i would nt normally consider..and soon had over a weeks supply..which , considering how much we already had at home made me hope this lockdown was going to go on for  a while ..or otherwise id feel a fool .. no , i did nt really think that.. Much as i wanted to prolong my shopping experience there was queue forming outside , so felt obliged to go more quickly that i would have liked..especially as i hoped to delay long enough not to have to take the woman back to her house..vainly as it turned out as she was a quarter of a mile along the track when i was obliged to pick her up again..

We passed the garbage truck.in a lay-by. @ My nephew..@ she explained..I began to feel id made the right decision..as i doubted she d been more than a mile from her house in the past few months… nonetheless i observed full protocol on arriving home..even disinfecting the car having a shower and putting all my clothes in the machine.

[bpdmisadventuresandme-blog]

Prison Pt 2

continued from previous blog.....<3

Soooo now you've all got over the whole prison ‘thing’ lets discuss what 5 weeks inside a prison did for me. 

I Slept that first night . I have no doubt that was pure exhaustion. I heard an alarm going off at around 5am and was aware something was ‘kicking off�� further down the corridor. That morning having not really been told what to do the night before and only having tv shows for guidance , up to this point, I was aware that I should prob be up and dressed by time breakfast was called .....whatever time that may be ?! I literally had no idea. Needless to say I didn't need to worry at 7am a prison guard walked around the wing , unlocking the doors and saying good morning to each prisoner. it was all rather dignified and polite to be fair. I asked him what I had to do and he said don't worry we would get called for breakfast and then we would be on lock down till 11am. I learnt from another prisoner that lockdown was locked in our cells.

It was a good wing to start off on to be honest as that morning a couple of other first timers arrived and some regulars too. It was scary but also a type of community began to form. We all talked and formed bonds that, well, for me defiantly, took. me through my time in jail. All ages, all offences and each wing had one long timer on who helped us all learn the basics, the what to do’s and what not to do’s. There was an element of “who not to talk too going on “ which I took with a pinch of salt.... I wasn't niece enough to know politics/grudges were not rife in prison. 

That first day I cried in my cell. I made lifelong friends, I ate the worst food imaginable and I laughed. Yep I actually laughed .... a group of 6 of us were sat around the eating area and something was said and we all laughed then looked at each other as though no-one was quite sure if that was allowed or right (new timers ) ....even the officer on duty shouted across the room. “This is prison you shouldn't be laughing” it was only when he started laughing that we realised he was laughing with us. 

In the 5 weeks I remained in jail for breaking my bail, so until I had my next court hearing, I moved wings 3 times. Due to being on a mental health ACCT I was in single cells each time. I personally preferred that as I needed to hide at times from the noise and “life in jail” atmosphere. Others much preferred to have cellmates and each to their own. 

When people ask me how was jail I normally answer with “Well it was ok , it wasn't shocking bad”. and this is generally correct. I wasn't attacked or bullied, I wasn't treated like shit by staff. We ate well if we choose too eat full on stooge everyday lol. The other parts that I don't talk so much about..... well that I think until this point ive shared with a handful of people , is the overwhelming loneliness, the lack of suitable medication available (due to concerns regarding trading meds, so some meds were completely banned) just so happened these were two of my main meds so I suffered.My daughters birthday happened whilst I was in jail and this was incredibly hard to deal with as her father refused to let them visit, me being in jail was the ultimate control he could have ever wanted. The first 10 days I had to wait for my calling numbers to be approved and this meant I couldn't call people although my mental health team did arrange that I got my best friends number approved and £2 credit put on my Canteen -  (the jail credit system) as my money hadn't arrived from the outside.  Ninety nine percent of staff were friendly, approachable and non judgemental but like anywhere the other one percent let staffing down. I was on lockdown for 72 hrs twice. first time was because I had a sickness bug so rightly so your put on cell lockdown so its not passed around prison.2nd time I was wrongly put on lockdown and despite telling the guard who did it I shouldn't be as I hadn't been unwell in 2 weeks it was only till my mental health team paid me a unannounced visit that staff realised they had put the wrong person on lockdown. This may not seem like much but when your in jail and the highlight of any day is the unlocked door ....30 plus hrs on wrongly assigned lockdown turned me slightly unstable and it was during this point they also moved me from the “welcome wing” and into a new wing. This wing I can only describe as a submarine in disrepair. I was in a tiny single cell with no shower or closed off toilet. Inmates who were assigned this cell had to use a communal shower which was inhabitable, and yes I went days without a shower. My toilet was behind a small two foot wall and I was clearly in line sight of anyone walking past the door, closed or not, as my eye hole (as I called in) wouldn't close. THIS was most defiantly an old, un updated part of the prison. It was exactly how a innocent me believed prison would be like! My mental health went dramatically downhill and it was in this cell that I first tried to take my life. I made and used a ligature and despite being on 8 min watch, I managed to ligature myself against the desk chair. A member of staff was called by another prisoner who had walked past and seen me through the eye hole. I heard alarms and felt the ligature being cut off . That evening I was on 3 min watch and as such they might as well have just not moved all night. My mental health care coordinator visited and declared me at risk of myself. No change then. I discussed how depressed I had been feeling since the change of cell and that things like my lack of a shower or a working phone meant I could self soothe by calling my best friend or children. This was seemingly took into consideration and the next day I was moved to my final cell. This was more like the welcome wing although twice the size (the wing not my cell). 

Sadly the last couple of weeks got harder for me in many ways, I seemed to have rubbed up a repeat visitor who took offence to my ‘posh voice’ and this became a very touchy issue. I can only describe it in the manner that she took an instant dislike to me and let me know about it. I was lucky that I had made ‘close’ friends from the start and a few of those followed me onto my final wing and during unlocked points I stayed close to them and didn't feel scared, more trepidatious as to why me. Lock up she went through a few days of screaming about killing the posh bitch which not gunner lie made me kinda glad the guards locked the bloody doors!! During this time I also couldn't contact my children as unbeknown to me their dad had told the prison system to ban my children phone numbers from my calling list. This broke me. I can't come close to being able to explain how this made me feel. What was the point ? what did I have to live for now ? I had made sure my chilren had been aware that I was in jail because id done something wrong but they were also of an age where they knew why I had done what I had done. They had been brought up to believe people in jail were there because they were nasty or dangerous and I then had to explain how its not always that simple.... it was hard to maintain those values and morals that id brought my children up with too explaining why I was in the situation I was in. 

That night I waited till I had been checked on and I ligatured myself and placed a carrier bag over my head which I tied tight with the 2nd ligature. I blacked out. I came round to a room full of prison officers and medics and vomited on a medics shoes. I was told by a guard they had called code blue, which means prisoner suspected not to be breathing. 

I was put on constant watch from that point for the next 48 hrs. I could feel myself giving up on everything. I needed to call my best friend at least twice a day and he became my lifeline. I realised that out of everyone in my life he actually cared. He even arranged a visit. he was the only person who did. He was down as my next of kin and presumed he had been informed regarding the incident but it was only upon leaving jail that I realised he hadn't been informed at all. Jail life was just that ... jail life. it wasn't nice. it was scary, it was lonely and it was demoralising. I was in jail for breaking my bail NOT for my actual sentence so I had to worry about what I was going to get in court for my actual sentence. I had to prepare myself that it could have been up to 7 years for the offence I was charged. I had to hear from other offenders who had been sent down for similar and In jail everyone is a professional when it comes to ‘what you might get’ sentence wise !! I started to prepare myself that if I got up to 2 yrs , possibly 3 id cope somehow. If I got more id end my life in jail. 

Cut to court. I received a community sentence of a tag and curfew and probation and victim surcharge for my crime. I remember driving to court on my sentencing date in the prison van doing all these weird obsessive things which meant good luck to me. so for example , if I looked at the sun rising once I had to do it 4 times then not again, if I caught sight of it again...the pattern repeated itself. If I itched my nose once I had to do it 4 times, when I arrived at court and was in the holding cell I had to have an even amount of cups of coffee and visits to the toilet otherwise it was bad luck.  It was emotionally and physically draining. My solicitor came to see me in the holding cell and with my barrister told me I was facing a higher charge than before, of intent , instead of reckless behaviour. My barrister at this point told me I was looking at 7 years. As it turned out the judge wanted to know more about the offence that had preceded mine and the background reasons for my offence and postponed sentencing. my solicitor asked for bail not believing for one min I would get it but the judge awarded it with a curfew and tagging system. I was allowed to leave the court. This was absolutely not what anyone was expecting and I don't think it hit me until my friend was driving me back to his after court. The thing is you don't just leave jail and that's it.... your head stays in jail for a long time even once home. I thought id sleep like an angel but alas this was not the case. I still have occasional nightmares of doors slamming and being locked up even 6 months down the line from leaving jail. 

Court date passed and as I stated I received probation. 

Then the almost harder part started. Coming to terms with what id gone through. rebuilding bridges, admitting where I had been as I just disappeared and only wrote to a handful of people when inside, I refused to hide it, I shared it along with the mental health issues id always been open and honest about. This blog is only the 2nd time ive voiced everything that happened in jail. once to my best friend , now partner, and on this blog. 

I will take this experience like I did the mental health struggles , and share and use in a productive manner. I will take this knowledge and I will share with others to help and support individuals who may need it. 

Im not proud of my conviction.

But there were reasons that led up to my breakdown and subsequent offence.

The hardest part....undoubtably the earthquake that shattered a perfect relationship with my children which I'm still rebuilding and repairing and will be for a while. 

Am I glad I didn't die in jail. Yes now. Ill use it to educate and support others.

[verygooster]

I rank the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise because I just watched the eighth (EIGHTH!) one.

I recently watched Fate of the Furious, which I liked but also actually took a few issues with -- and look, don’t feed me the nonsense about checking my brain at the door. Yes, this is a fun, action-packed franchise but that we expect at least some competence in our action-driven narratives is the difference between Marvel/John Wick/Fast & Furious-tier action movies, and Transformers/Anything Asylum has ever done.

For a side character, I never liked how this franchise treated Elena (played by Elsa Pataky), the Brazilian cop character who debuted in Fast Five and sort of hung around in Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7. To say she plays a pivotal role in Fate of the Furious feels like a stretch, because said pivotal role is, for all intents and purposes, the “woman in the fridge” role to give Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) some personal stakes since Brian (the late Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) are retired, and his plot thread with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) wrapped up in Furious 7. She was basically a “seat-filler” for Dom until he and Letty could overcome their obstacles and then is Hobbs’ (Dwayne Johnson) sidekick for a brief two minutes before she takes the stage here and everything plays out like it does.

I’m also curious how the franchise handles the whole “Hey the family is cool with the Shaw boys” thing moving forward--and you know Universal has had meetings about a Shaw brothers spin-off film.

Anyway the rest of the movie was as ridiculous as one would expect and it was mostly fun. And with that, I’m going to rank the series from worst to best because why not:

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

2 Fast 2 Furious is absolutely the lowest point of the franchise, but still watchable as a “hangover movie” (thanks, We Hate Movies!). It’s not as interesting as what the rest of the franchise puts forward, but I think its biggest crime in hindsight is that it follows up on the wrong character. Although the dynamic between Paul Walker and Vin Diesel became a big part of the series’ appeal, when The Fast and the Furious came out, it was very much a Vin Diesel vehicle/break-out moment for him, and the way that film ends very much opens up an opportunity to follow up on Dominic Toretto in a second film. Without doing any searching and going off my memory, and through no fault of the film, I believe Diesel felt he could use that first movie to launch his career outside of it, which he sort of did, and thus did not come back for part two. As for the movie itself, it introduces Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson), but the villain is somehow a LAME Miami drug kingpin (Cole Hauser) and so much of the movie retreads part one too much to stand out.

Fast & Furious (2009)

When the Giant Beast crew recorded commentaries for every film up to Furious 7, that meant I would have to revisit the fourth one that laid the foundations of what the series would reinvent itself into. I remember really disliking Fast & Furious when I first saw it, and revisiting it, I feel like it has the same problems I had with 2 Fast 2 Furious: outside of the racing, this is a generic “agent is after drug kingpin” movie, but it does reunite Brian, Dom, Mia, and Letty (who is central to the plot) and that’s about where it succeeds, along with introducing us to Gisele (Gal Gadot), which is a plus. We actually also meet Rico and Tego, played by Puerto Rican superstars Don Omar and Tego Calderon, who are like the comic sidekicks of the franchise, but help Dom and the crew out in Fast Five and Fate of the Furious. It is more watchable than 2 Fast 2 Furious.

The Fate of the Furious (2017)

Brian and Mia are happily settled and not fasting or furious-ing, and it seemed like Dom and Letty were happy just livin’ it up in Cuba until Cipher came knocking at their door. I honestly think Charlize Theron is GREAT as the film’s villain although the writer is all over the place with her and tries too much to make her Bane. The movie outdoes Furious 7′s insane setpieces with the New York and Russia sequences (I think I had to change brains during the whole third act) almost to a fault -- the movies try to outdo themselves each time, which in terms of blockbuster filmmaking is understandable, but there’s a point where you have to know when to rein it in a bit too. In fact, my favorite sequence is the prison break scene, which involves zero cars. While I appreciate the movie treating me with respect and gets the why of “Dom goes rogue” very quickly out of the way, I just can’t get behind how the movie treats Elena, Roman and Tej fighting for Ramsey like cartoon characters, and how it arguably muddles the impact of Han’s death with how they handle the Shaw brothers (though they are in some fun scenes). Great Helen Mirren cameo!

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

Fast & Furious 6 is a perfectly fine, if not really good action movie and builds on the reinvention of Fast Five. The crew is somewhere past being a heist crew but under the level of superheroes they become by Furious 7. Luke Evans as Owen Shaw is fun because you always want to love to hate a sneering English/British/Welsh antagonist and this is about when the series’ villains become really, mysteriously well-financed supervillains. I liked how they were always one step ahead of Dom and the crew. There are some great emotional beats here, especially between Han (Sung Kang) and Gisele. Gina Carano is having fun in it, and this film, before Fate of the Furious, had the most ridiculous, but still enjoyable, climactic setpiece in this franchise.

The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

The third installment in the franchise is director Justin Lin’s first stab at it, and he would helm that ship for three more movies. Tokyo Drift also seems among the most divisive. It might feature the best soundtrack of the franchise, first of all. Secondly, this is still in the era when the street racing wasn’t an anomaly and still played a major role in the plot. I’m actually not sure what makes it so divisive outside of it just not really following up on either Brian or Dom, though I suppose if you squint hard you’ll be surprised this wasn’t direct-to-DVD. On its own, it’s a pretty fun look (and exaggeration?) at Japanese street racing culture with a fun yakuza plot and “gaijin-out-of-water” stuff thrown in. Even the philosophy of the racing is different, less about the finish line and more about the art of drifting. It’s hysterical how much this movie puts drifting on a pedestal as someone who’s watched so much Initial D. Sean (Lucas Black) is an okay character (and we actually see him again in Furious 7 in one awkward scene), but more importantly this is the film that introduced series favorite Han, who is incredibly chill about everything. The dynamic of the two characters isn’t as strong as Brian and Dom, but considering we follow Han to two more sequels in cinema’s most insane timeline ret-con, that’s perfectly fine. Oh, and Sonny Chiba is in it!

Furious 7 (2015)

Furious 7’s rank on the list feels like a bit of a cheat. That isn’t to say it’s an underwhelming movie. Outside of Tokyo Drift and The Fast and the Furious, Furious 7 may be the one I’ve seen the most. The elephant in the room that is Paul Walker’s untimely passing surrounds this movie, and it’s actually exceptional how director James Wan and co. handle it. The second the first few keys of “See You Again” start, I can’t help but feel a lump in my throat and get a bit misty-eyed. Furious 7’s issues really mostly lie in how bloated it is and how much it wants to top itself each and every turn. But the dynamic between the cast is my favorite in the bunch, and the action scenes themselves may be my favorite in the franchise, and then there’s just that ending. This is also the film we meet Ramsey, who joins the crew and comes back for Fate of the Furious.

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

Once upon a time, this series was based on a Vibe article about street racing in New York. Although the first installment boils down to a rehash of Point Break set in East Los Angeles, I’m so damned fascinated by the first movie as a time capsule. It came out the summer of 2001 (I remember the trailers blasting Limp Bizkit’s “My Way” with clips of the truck hijacking) and damn if it isn’t the most 2001 (pre-9/11), late ‘90s holdover movie I’ve ever seen. We have raves, frosted hair tips, Ja Rule, the works! In terms of actual strengths, I find this movie the most tightly packed of the bunch, fairly simple, and low stakes in a way I appreciate though it’s not like they planned on them taking on a Russian nuclear submarine then. It’s pretty perfectly paced. In spite of not being a direct antagonist to Brian (who is at this point infiltrating Dom’s crew), Johnny Tran remains one of my favorite characters in this franchise in the short time we get to know him. The first film also has my favorite collection of vehicles in the franchise and I’m a sucker for how the movie ends: Brian hands Dom the keys to his Toyota Supra to make his getaway, Brian walks slowly, and the synth to Ja Rule’s theme song for the film starts. It’s badass in the most 2001 way.

Fast Five (2011)

Fast Five is often a lot of people’s favorite entry of the franchise and for me it’s not hard to understand why. You couldn’t really gauge the fate of the franchise after Tokyo Drift. I mean, I didn’t even catch that movie in theaters and it wasn’t like I was itching for more Fast & Furious when the fourth movie released. Fast & Furious sort of reboots things reuniting the three core characters and laying the groundwork for the series’ future. Fast Five doesn’t just build off the fourth film, it skyrockets into something on its own and achieves that perfect blockbuster formula where we’re not taking it seriously but the movie completely respects you for that. I feel like a lot of the film’s success is owed to Han’s return, and bringing these characters together (and introduces  with an astoundingly impressive dynamic, and who doesn’t love a heist? A heist in Brazil, no less! (something something “The Brazillian Job”) We get to watch the plans in motion, the tests, and the execution for probably the most popular third act in the franchise since part one.

It also hits the ground running in an incredible sequence involving a bus and a train. Just like the first film, it’s also near perfectly paced and isn’t bloated like its sequels. Joaquim de Almeida is the villain Reyes in this one, and while Reyes doesn’t feel like a major threat to our heroes, it’s fun watching the crew rip his empire down. In fact, the real antagonist to Dom and the crew is probably the second reason the movie succeeds and became what it is now: Luke Hobbs as played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, coming in on a helicopter to rescue your franchise! If not for Furious 7, Fast Five would take the crown for best finale of the series in which you can’t help but smile along with Dom and the crew as they successfully steal Reyes’ safe and play both him AND Hobbs while “Danza Kuduro” plays.

DAMN. I’ve seen EIGHT of these now! Here’s to The Fine and the Furious, or The Fast Nine, or Furious 9, or whatever!

[wanderingthroughwickford]

Agents of Shield Season 4 Episodes 11, 12, 13

I just got all caught up on Agents of Shield last night! I never fail to be completely blown away by this show. Every episode seems better than the last. With a few minor exceptions, it’s never disappointed me. It’s definitely my favorite TV show at the moment, and I can’t wait for the next episode!

Just a smattering of thoughts (with obvious spoilers):

I loved Daisy dragging Nadeer - “Inhumans are our friends, our neighbours ... our brothers.” Slay her

Even before the reveal about his true goals, I couldn’t bring myself to dislike Radcliffe, or AIDA for that matter. He really seems committed to ensuring that no one dies or is hurt because of his plots, and AIDA’s willingness to kill May is only because of her extremely logical programming. Plus, the two of them just make a really entertaining team.

I thought it was a genius twist that May’s ‘escape’ all took place inside her mind - I definitely didn’t see that coming. It was a pretty clever way to contain her, and the best part was how she was so good at getting out that the simulation couldn’t keep up with her!

Putting May back in Bahrain was sort of cruel and kind at the same time? It forced her to relive it, but she was finally able to conquer it. I wonder if, when May wakes up, she won’t realize that it was a simulation, and will think that she really did save the little girl?

I felt so bad for Fitz over Radcliffe’s betrayal - I liked how they brought up Ward to remind us of how Fitz has been betrayed by a friend before. The stuff with his dad was very sad too - I wonder if, as others have been saying, his dad might play a bigger role in all of this? There was something Radcliffe-bot wanted to tell Fitz about his dad, after all.

The scene where Simmons comforted Fitz over his dad and validated his kindness and humanity was A+. I love how she changed his “My trusting nature is why people always betray me” into “Your trusting nature is why I fell in love with you.” I love theemmmmmm~

I love Mace always trying to be the arbiter between Coulson and Talbot. He’s such a good guy.

Why didn’t they just send Yo-Yo in to bug Nadeer’s office instead of having Coulson go in as well? She could have done everything in a literal heartbeat, and then they wouldn’t have gotten caught. 

I liked Yo-Yo’s talk with Mack about cliches - how she refused to be a jealous, overly suspicious person, but she also refused to put up with (what she thought was) him going behind her back. 

I also really liked how he told her about his daughter, Hope. It was a really touching scene, and the fact that he opened up to her about this just shows how close they have become. 

So Radcliffe-bot has a brain! I was wondering whatever happened to that brain AIDA was making at the end of S4 E7. 

Radcliffe-bot’s talk with Mack about souls was actually very interesting and insightful - and made it a bit shocking for me when they just burned it and the AIDA head at the end. I mean, even if this thing wasn’t alive, it /was/ arguably sentient and capable of making a plea for its life.

I was surprised to see the Koenings again (just how many of them are there??? 4 quadruplet brothers, one killed by Ward, and a sister?) and that they’re the ones who Coulson entrusted with the Darkhold - but at the same time, they’re absolutely not the kinds that anyone would suspect. 

I find the Russian guy’s means for hating the Inhumans - they didn’t ‘earn’ their powers - kind of refreshing honestly, because basically everyone else dislikes them for being dangerous to humanity, which is maybe a little too understandable. I like having bad guys who are sympathetic, don’t get me wrong, but I like it when the Big Bads are ones you’re not supposed to sympathize with at all.

I was sure that when Coulson was giving the Darkhold case to the Watchdogs, it was actually going to have a different book (probably Ulysses) in there. I was sort of surprised when it turned out to be the actual thing; I thought SHIELD would have had something up their sleeves.

I liked why they kept the May-bot with them - if they can’t find the real May, that’s the closest thing they have. :( I’m wondering what will ultimately happen to her - I doubt they’ll straight-up kill her, but I also don’t think the show will keep two Mays running around, so I think she’ll probably sacrifice herself, or end up willingly getting plugged into Radcliffe’s virtual reality. (So then at least one ‘May’ can be happy.)

Really interesting and clever how the Russian bad guy thinks Coulson is responsible for all the supernatural events due to him constantly being present at them. I felt like it was almost a funny little Meta-level nod to the fact that Coulson had been recurring in the Marvel movies for so long whenever some superhero stuff went down.

I’m not sure if I believe Nadeer’s really dead or not. My sister doesn’t think that she is, and I agree that it seems Nadeer had a lot more left to do in the series. Plus, we never saw a body. But at the same time, the way the scene was set up - with her mocking Inhumans - seemed like she was slated to die; it felt like one of those scenes where the villain does something cruel and despicable to remind the audience that they shouldn’t feel bad that they’re about to die.

But this means that, if/when Vijay comes back, he’ll find out his sister is dead (and killed by Inhumans to boot). :( If he turns on SHIELD for this, I swear...

The guy who became an exploding Inhuman was such a grade A creep, my god. I’m so glad they got rid of him.

IF MACE DIES I SWEAR TO GOD. I can’t take this. He better just be kidnapped and they go and rescue him in the next episode. But then again, he did inject himself with that deadly serum ... 

Agnes is such a tragic character and I can hardly blame her for going with Radcliffe and having herself plugged in to the virtual reality. It’s satisfying, and a bit heartbreaking, to find out what Radcliffe’s real plans have been this whole time. Even if he is somewhat insane, I can hardly think of him as a real villain; he’s so well-intentioned. The only thing is that I wish there wasn’t such an age gap between the two, or that she was his daughter or daughter-figure instead of his girlfriend. I mean, he has to be at least 20 years older than she is. 

I don’t think Radcliffe will end up dying a villain’s death. If he dies, I think it will be a rather tragic thing - like the submarine is sinking but he refuses to leave and stays with Agnes instead - or maybe even a last-minute heel-face-turn and heroic sacrifice. Maybe. Either that, or he’ll just end up going to jail. As for AIDA, I really hope she doesn’t die. I think it’d be very cool if she ends up becoming a member of the team, but I don’t know how that would play out.

The piece-of-shit Lucy Bauer fan inside me was very happy to hear Coulson and Agnes describing Radcliffe as not being entirely in his right mind due to the Darkhold - because that means that Lucy wasn’t, either. I’ll never claim she wasn’t a villain or that she didn’t make a choice to do terrible things, but it’s nice to have it confirmed that those choices were strongly influenced by the Darkhold.

Overall, I really do think that Season 4 is my favorite season of AoS so far - and that’s definitely saying something!