#jon not knowing how much to communicate so communicating v little

[gammija]

genuinely, it's so funny to me when jon.elias shippers hate j.mart for the specifically stated reason that "martin isnt good for jon". Yes, the guy with realistic flaws and traits that occasionally create conflicts with Jons own flaws and traits is bad for him, so jmart is toxic. Jon deserves someone who treats him right.

In fact, you know who's good for Jon? The person who effectively used him as a puppet, made a plan centered on scarring him for life 13 times and executed it without remorse, then used his body to end the world, an experience so horrifying that Jon would rather literally kill everyone on earth than risk someone else feeling it too. Now that's a guy Jon deserves!

[vampiremeowny]

okay in the heights thoughts that no one asked for let’s go (spoilers ahoy)

THEY STRAIGHT UP KILLED NINA’S MOM FOR SOME REASON?? like sis was just GONE. which means they cut “Enough” which like. okay it’s not really that essential of a song but like they also had to change some plot points and some lyrics like in “Breathe” Nina couldn’t say “what will me parents say” because she only had. one parent. but yeah I think that really took away from the motif of family in the film??

speaking of Nina REALLY wasn’t in love with the way she was portrayed. I feel like the outfits they gave her didn’t reflect her character? I did think it was notable how in the first scene her hair was straight and in like every other scene it was in its natural state showing her return to her roots but like. I feel like her outfits didn’t match her narrative or her personality or her story

also this might be a cold take but I seriously was not in love with Nina’s voice. like Leslie Grace is a singer but it really didn’t show through in the film.

really really in love with Anthony Ramos as Usnavi!!! but that didn’t surprise me at all tbh, I’m v familiar with him and Lin always casts him perfectly

a lot of things in the movie reminded me of like. Edgar Wright type directing? like there were animations on screen for “When You’re Home” and “96,000″ that I thought were really neat! also cuts and scenes that show how the world lines up with the music, like people placing dominos down to the beat... they also like. had title cards with the temperature of the day which seemed very Edgar Wright to me

OKAY THEY DID WHEN YOU’RE HOME SO DIRTY. like it probably my second favorite song but in the movie there was like. too much instrumental background and the singing and the story really didn’t shine through, musical version of when you’re home was way better

OLGA MEREDIZ MA’AM YOUR PIPES. MA’AM!!!!!! 

okay but spoilers this movie tries to fake you out so many times. first they took “paciencia y fe” and had it be the song right before abuela’s death, and they don’t reveal abuela won the ticket so I was like ????? and putting it right before her death (and having her death during the blackout) changed like. the whole meaning of the song and it hit different which was interesting but I think I prefer the stage musical version where she doesn’t die at the end lol

because they killed abuela early they cut hundreds of stories :( we still got the US navy joke tho

they cut a good handful of songs actually? off the top of my head they cut inútil, sunrise (THEY CUT SUNRISE!!!!!!!), hundreds of stories, enough, everything I know, and the piragua reprise

okay but seriously can’t BELIEVE they cut sunrise ngl I was devastated for that one. although the opening notes of sunrise played in other parts of the movie, I think for the most part they wrote out the concept of Benny not being latino, I think this is because the movie tries to focus on Usnavi and Vanessa as the main couple, which I did appreciate

but yeah Benny and Nina’s roles were a little smaller than their roles in the musical? I did appreciate how they actually like. gave Nina a compelling reason to go back to college tho 

Sonny’s character was really well done!!! he was actually one of my favorites, really like that his personality and backstory shined through, and I think they really captured him well, especially when you consider they address current real life issues with his character

the movie: oh yeah Daniela and Carla are married me: I KNEW IT

Dani and Carla,,,,, are cute,,,,, just wives being together at the pool,,, dancing in the apartment,,,, playing bingo,,,, my heart is full

REALLY enjoyed that they made Vanessa like. a full person lmao like she had a REASON to go downtown and she was shown to like. have a personality (the bar is on the floor but still. I appreciated it)

okay but piraguero?? lin isn’t that bad of a singer actually? like he’s no Freddie Mercury but like. chill

my mom, during alabanza, five seconds after Usnavi explained what alabanza means: what’s alabanza????

really surprised by carnaval del barrio!! it was my least favorite song in the musical but the movie version was REALLY WELL DONE, the music and the choreography and the colors and the sense of community,,,, very good. dunno why people are getting on stephanie beatriz for her line delivery tho

in conclusion. very good. very well done transition from stage to screen. tells a story about the latino community that’s not a sob story or trauma p*rn. good job lin and jon. go see in the heights it’s literally so much better of a story and more meaningful of a story than hamilton lmao

[thebluelemontree]

Hiya blue lemon it's me again. Do you have any criticism in the way GRRM wrote Sansa in book1/2? EX:.Sansa and Jeyne are BFF but we amolst never see the girls talking to eachother, and when JP is sex traffikced sansa just forget about her(we could have a scene where sansa try to find what happened to JP or at least grieve for her). Every time sansa appears as a non-POV in AGOT she's been mean and whe we have her POV she's mean for no good reason(SANSA III AGOT). >PART 1<

And the worst is why GRRM wrote sansa goin to Cercei to tell her the "Ned Plans", it's just bad writing, Cercei kill lady so Sansa going to her was OOC GRRM just wrote that to we hate Sansa And in the book it's not explained what "the Ned plans" was(And it was nothing imortant at all, and would make no difference at Ned's fate) so ordinary readers blame Sansa for Ned's death and GRRM does that too in book 2 Cercei put all the blame for Ned death in sansa nd "the Ned Plans" Your thoughts?PART 2

There’s a lot to unpack here. 

I get a sense that in the early books, George was not as comfortable writing female relationships as he was writing male relationships or even male-female ones. I mean, Catelyn has no female friends, no companions like Margaery Tyrell’s cousins, no fostering wards of her own, no correspondences with other ladies except that one letter from Lysa for plot reasons. This is just weird for the lady of two major houses. It is neglectful on George’s part to give most of the important social connections to men. This doesn’t mean he was totally inept at writing female relationships, though, and it does seem like he’s tried to improve upon highlighting the positive in later books.

By comparison, the positive side of the brotherly relationships are presented so strongly that it tends to smooth over the conflicts with many readers. Jon can feel envious and resentful of Robb, but the love and loyalty is always in the foreground. The conflict between Arya, Jeyne, and Sansa does have legitimate character arc and plot purposes, so this isn’t bad writing. It’s unfortunate that GRRM presses down so hard on the constant bickering and occasional nastiness, but he did write some positives (albeit they tended to be revealed in later books) and there are understandable reasons for the dynamics. It was not done in a totally unrealistic way. What’s depicted is a typical and relatable rocky period for that age group, and there was negative adult influence at play. It’s not a permanent feature of the sisterhood. It’s all there if you pay attention and you’re inclined to be charitable toward the mistakes of young girls.       

If a reader is already predisposed to see the bonds between male characters as more pure and more able to overcome the negative aspects, then they probably also view the bonds between female characters as inherently weaker and more fraught with conflict. Fandom misogyny is not GRRM’s fault. That sector of the fandom will always have contempt for girls for being girls, especially preteen girls. They will always hone in on their faults and belittle their virtues. 

I don’t think that is true that we hardly ever see Jeyne and Sansa talking. They are nearly always in each other’s company. There was real friendship between Sansa and Jeyne, because what George does do well with them, is realistically write the way girls cement their bonds. Young girls strengthen their relationship by communicating and confiding in each other. Sharing secrets, crushes, hopes, fears, and pieces of gossip builds trust and intimacy. Jeyne and Sansa do this all the time, even though they can have different opinions and disagree about a lot.  Yes, there is some one-sidedness in that Sansa socially outranks Jeyne and believes that makes her more mature and wiser than her friend. Jeyne is dependent on her closeness to Sansa as a highborn lady and future queen to rise successfully, so she’s not going to push back on Sansa’s dominance. This is also a reason Jeyne sometimes bullies Arya to supplant her as Sansa’s “sister.” When Sansa has something to share, she goes to Jeyne to talk about it. I think it’s hilarious that the girls have a debate over which castle Gregor Clegane’s head will get spiked. Sansa wants Jeyne at her side for these new and exciting events like the tourney. When things get serious and dangerous, they comfort each other. Again, this is not all George’s fault if some readers don’t recognize or value the way girls do friendships.  

It’s stated quite clearly why Sansa tries to not think about Jeyne or her deceased family members very often. It’s fucking traumatic and her survival while among her captors depends on mentally holding herself together. 

If only she had someone to tell her what to do. She missed Septa Mordane, and even more Jeyne Poole, her truest friend. The septa had lost her head with the rest, for the crime of serving House Stark. Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. Once in a while, Sansa even missed her sister. By now Arya was safe back in Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon, even riding through the winter town if she liked. Sansa was allowed to go riding too, but only in the bailey, and it got boring going round in a circle all day. -- Sansa II, ACOK.

Following her father’s beheading, Sansa was in a suicidal depression for days. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t bathe, welcomed drug-induced sleep, and contemplated killing herself. If she thinks too much on those she lost, she falls to pieces. She can’t openly weep and mourn for “traitors” if her life depends on appearing to be loyal to Joffrey. Most of her grief is suppressed inside. This also includes asking too many questions she doesn’t feel psychologically prepared to hear the answer to. She was there when the decision was made to shuttle Jeyne off to Littlefinger; however, she has no idea this is going to result in Jeyne being sent to a brothel and worse. I would also keep in mind that even if she did ask, it’s not like Cersei or Littlefinger would ever tell her the truth. Why would they? Does she really want to hear lies and have to think about what the horrible truth might be when she can’t do anything about it?  When it comes to Arya, Sansa believes her sister escaped on the ship bound for home. She comforts herself with imagining that Arya is safe and free, and that’s enough to keep her going.  

And she prays and sings for Jeyne, wherever she is.

She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. She sang for her mother and her father, for her grandfather Lord Hoster and her uncle Edmure Tully, for her friend Jeyne Poole, for old drunken King Robert, for Septa Mordane and Ser Dontos and Jory Cassel and Maester Luwin... -- Sansa V, ACOK.

It’s only until later in the books that Sansa feels emotionally at peace enough to start remembering the good times with Arya and Jeyne without breaking down into tears. We can also see the conflicts weren’t always a thing, and the love was strong with all three.

Sansa began to make snowballs, shaping and smoothing them until they were round and white and perfect. She remembered a summer's snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They'd each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she'd had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she'd slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn't, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing. -- Sansa VII, ASOS.

It was most unladylike, but Alayne sound found herself laughing. For just a little while, as she ran, she forget who she was, and where, and found herself remembering bright cold days at Winterfell, when she would race through Winterfell with her friend Jeyne Poole, with Arya running after them trying to keep up. -- Alayne I, TWOW.

So it’s not even that the girls only bond through confiding. They run, play, and roughhouse with each other. It’s interesting that AGOT!Sansa tried to be so mature and proper, but now that she’s older, she’s remembering how good and freeing it was just to be a kid. But let’s not act like this part of the story is over. Jeyne is still very much alive and seems likely to run into Arya in Braavos. We can almost be 100% certain that Sansa will find out the truth about what happened to Jeyne and what Littlefinger did to her (and her parents), then watch out. Sansa will turn all that buried pain into a righteous fury at Littlefinger.  

Now as for Sansa being mean for “no reason.” Um... yeah, LOL. Sometimes she’s just a total unwarranted bitch to her sister, and it’s not meant to be a good look. Sometimes she’s superficial, insufferably immature and annoying, judgmental and prejudiced AND THAT’S OKAY. I mean, she sounds no better or worse than your average middle-schooler if they were of the privileged nobility. Guess what? Sometimes preteens are really like that. Sometimes siblings have ugly, knockdown drag out fights where they say horrible things to each other. Most will grow past those phases and still wind up just as loving and close. It’s realistic and believable. Sansa has flaws, but they aren’t deep moral flaws. She does an amazing job at growing, learning, and overcoming those flaws over the course of the books. In TWOW, she’s warm and affectionate with people, easy-going, nonjudgmental, and genuinely more mature than ever. She took the stick out of her ass and became a happier person for it. What’s the problem? What did you want her to be? Perfect? Unfailingly kind and loved by everyone all the time? She’d be a saint, not a multifaceted human being. Even with her occasional ugly side, Sansa is still a strong, smart, compassionate badass. I don’t care if some people don’t like her as she is written or if they vilify her with their misinterpretations or ignore her strengths. What bearing does that have on GRRM’s vision for her character? He never set out to write any character that the whole fandom would either unanimously love or hate.    

This is not bad writing. This NOT bad writing. This is GOOD writing.

*Sigh* Listen... this whole nonsense about Sansa being to blame for Ned’s demise has been going on since ASOIAF was written on clay tablets. You don’t have to listen to every stupid thing the fandom says about anything. It’s just factually wrong. End of story. This misinterpretation and reader inattentiveness is not GRRM’s fault, because he lays out all the details of everything that went down between Arya, Ned, and Sansa’s POV as it was happening. It’s totally understandable why an upset and frustrated Sansa would go to Cersei, the mother figure she implicitly trusts and admires. She didn’t go to Cersei to betray her father’s plans. She went to the queen to intercede in what she thought had to be some big misunderstanding, having no idea what was really going on or at stake. 

This is not OOC for her to go to Cersei after Lady’s death. The hand that killed Lady was her own father’s, a undeniable breach of trust that wounded their relationship. Ned just doesn’t really do a lot to deal with the emotional aftermath either. Ned and Sansa are very similar in turning a blind eye when confronted with unpleasantness from someone they love. Ned is also at that moment disillusioned with Robert’s failure to do the right thing after the Trident incident. He begs Robert in the name of their brotherly love and the love he bore Lyanna, and Robert turns his back on Ned anyway. Yet Ned immediately goes right back to believing in the best of Robert’s nature, despite all evidence to the contrary. Every sign points to this being a one-sided friendship with Robert being lazy, irresponsible, and completely selfish. Like father, like daughter. Sansa has a very hard time accepting that Joffrey and Cersei are not the people she thought they were, even when she’s seen some cracks. And since she can’t understand her father’s actions and the communication has been shot to hell between them, of course she runs to Cersei with her problems. Cersei can flip a switch and pretend to be kind, loving, and understanding. 

This is so typical of a teenage thought process:  “Dad just doesn’t understand and he’s making a big mistake. I don’t understand why he’s doing this. He doesn’t get how important this is to me. This will all work out if a sympathetic adult steps in and fixes it. Everything will turn out great and we’ll all be happy.” While Sansa is pouring her heart out about how it isn’t fair she can’t say goodbye to Joffrey, Cersei pretends to be that sympathetic mother figure that really understands her. How hard would it be then to pump Sansa for information? Like “Oh my sweet little dove. I know how much you love my son. Don’t worry. I’ll help you straighten this out. You said your father wants to send you away? How? When? What’s the name of that ship again?”  

And that line from Cersei’s POV is horseshit. Cersei is a liar and regularly lies in her POV to absolve herself of responsibility and force the blame entirely on others. In this case, Cersei is acting like she didn’t totally manipulate a trusting child to betray her.  We also know this is a lie because Ned was the one that told her himself of his plans to reveal the invest and remove her as queen. Sansa had nothing to do with that. All Sansa did was give Cersei information that allowed Cersei the opportunity to take her hostage before the girls could leave by ship. Cersei’s plans against Ned were already well underway. Sansa never came to her with the intent of knowingly betraying anyone, but she did have selfish reasons for going to the queen to complain in the first place. GRRM said himself that Sansa wasn’t to blame for Ned’s capture or death, but she did play a role in the events that transpired. That’s fair. All that makes her is a kid who made a not entirely innocent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, which she immediately learned from. Does she trust Cersei or Joffrey again? Hell no.  

Relax, anon. It’s fine for her to not be nice all the time. It’s fine for her to have some realistic, garden variety flaws. It’s one of the most universal human mistakes to fall too hard and fast for the wrong person, act the fool over them despite all the red flags, only to realize you only saw what you wanted to see in them. And Sansa learned this lesson at eleven when some adults haven’t learned it at all. Relax. She’s a great, well-written, relatable character who has overcome most of these issues successfully.  

[equalseleventhirds]

ok lemme see if i can articulate my Jon Emotions for this episode, i am awake and fed but not fully caffeinated yet so it is EXTREMELY rambly i’m sorry

last week i said that jon was struggling to define his own boundaries around smiting or not-smiting to martin, obviously bcos he’s bad at communicating, but also bcos jon himself doesn’t know where those boundaries are. imo, this week just showed that even more, because i don’t think jon completely wanted to kill jude perry.

this is not to say she didn’t deserve it, she’s done horrible horrible things and was doing even more horrible things. but jon displayed hesitance and uncertainty about killing her, didn’t want to confirm he was planning to kill her until he had to, and in fact nearly backed out of killing her a couple of times (and, lbr, jon ‘survivor’s guilt’ sims has an INCREDIBLY difficult time feeling that his pain is worth even acknowledging, let alone acting to soothe or avenge it).

so: i’m not what u would call happy about jon not telling martin why they were going towards jude’s domain, or even that it was jude’s domain. that’s not good communication, jon! but also, why would he hide it? martin has been all about the smiting, has been on fucking board with revenge, and jon didn’t know before that martin was especially afraid of fire. so why? because he wasn’t sure he was going to go after her. he was going in that direction sure, and then maybe if they’d accidentally met her the way they accidentally met not-sasha, he could smite her without it feeling deliberate. it wouldn’t be premeditated, it wouldn’t be something he went out of his way for (even tho he did in fact go out of his way).

saying it out loud, speaking the words to martin (and martin has to coax those words out, has to make him say the thing bcos martin doesn’t know what’s going on, both in the ‘why are we here’ way and in that he doesn’t know what jon is, probably subconsciously, thinking wrt not wanting to say it), makes it real and set, in a way that i don’t think jon was really prepared for. he (eventually) says that he planned this and that he wants to smite jude, but his actions and tone and the way he circled around the idea for so long makes me think he wasn’t as sure about it as he wanted to sound.

then he gives the choice to martin. martin, who was on the smiting train absolutely, but was the one to actually balk at entering the fire. once jon knows that martin has a reason to avoid it, he immediately offers the choice to him, and yes absolutely that was because he cares about martin and doesn’t want to cause him pain, but also i think he was taking this chance at bailing on his tentative-not-really-a-plan plan. (also bcos martin is v much his moral compass, and sure he doesn’t always agree with him but in this particular case, jon is very confused and wants martin’s help.) martin ultimately decides this is not a choice he wants to make, which like, i respect, but it leaves jon feeling even more conflicted about it, bcos if even martin isn’t sure if he should be smiting jude, can jon be sure?

and then when they finally do get to jude, she doesn’t get it. she thinks jon is just another avatar, reveling in the apocalypse, coming here as a power play (she’s wrong, but that’s what she thinks). she doesn’t understand that jon is angry, and more than that doesn’t understand why he’s angry; not just over the pain she caused him by burning his hand, but because by marking him she helped jonah turn him into a vessel for the apocalypse. she doesn’t know that jon hates the world being like this, that he tried so desperately to escape his patron, to save the people he cared about, and that she is part of the reason he couldn’t.

(sidenote, unlike oliver, who unwillingly went to talk to jon and accidentally marked him for the end, jude purposefully and maliciously burned him. she didn’t know what she was marking him for, but she also left one of the most obvious marks, something large, visible, painful, and also something that probably had a significant impact on his day to day life, bcos even after it healed having a melted hand makes holding things difficult. in fact, jude’s mark was probably the most constant and obvious reminder he had of what jonah had done to him, besides POSSIBLY the worm marks, depending on how deep they go and what they might have hit. and jane prentiss is dead.) (nikola also is dead; we hear very little about the unknowing having a permanent effect on jon after the coma, but tbh it’s the next highest possibility of injuries that could have caused permanent disability.)

so jon walks through literal fire (bringing martin with him) to get to jude, asks her his question to try to learn more but also to try to make her understand why he’s doing this, but she doesn’t. she understands even less than not-sasha did (and doesn’t that sting); she fears, she suffers, she dies, and jon gets nothing from this, no catharsis, no relief. he's killing her, and she says ‘we’ve won’. nothing changes. it’s a hollow victory, and he can’t even say why.

tldr, i think jon was conflicted about killing jude, i think he couldn’t articulate that conflict to himself let alone to martin, and i think actually killing jude left him feeling disappointed and unhappy and even more conflicted, and i am VERY WORRIED ABOUT HIM.

[avengersapology-vid]

Avengers during quarantine

steve: takes it like a champ, the 40s had absolutely no technology so he’s used to spending long periods of time doing nothing. takes advantage and watches all the movies and shows on his ever growing pop culture list, and upgrading his bike. is required to make infomercials. “remember folks; wash your hands, wear a mask, and social distance.”

tony: helps steve film his infomercials, and gets so pissy when steve doesn’t take his directions that he makes his own. “fine if you won’t do a full fireworks display, i will!” builds yet another array of suits (that aren’t murderous this time), and other completely tricked out gadgets and suits for the team. makes a city out of nats amazon boxes, and lives in it for 3 days before bruce accidentally hulks out and destroys it.

natasha: gets wine drunk and online shops. she’s the sole reason for the amount of amazon and other mail carrier boxes that start to pile up in the garage; you could build a miniature version of half of manhattan with them. buys masks in bulk, but they’re all different kinds. some are plain black, or regular medical grade. others are either weird cartoon mouths or super kawaii glittery sanrio type masks. the type of wine affects the type of mask she orders. bruce ends up hiding her mastercard.

bruce: he knows the severity of the pandemic, and is grateful for the stay at home orders. very big on cleaning constantly and wearing masks. he spends quarantine doing science experiments, and even tries to help find a cure or solution. almost hulks out when the home order is lifted prematurely, and he catches glimpses of the “bar lives matter” protests. spends time relaxing with natasha and tony. despite the obvious stress, its the most relaxed hes been in yrs.

clint: being the family man he is, obviously quarantines at home. he’s happy to have a prolonged break from the team, and more bonding time with his wife and kids. they play video games, make frog shaped bread, and he teaches his kids sign language. by the 4th month of quarantine they’re all almost completely communicating in sign. tony gets mad at him for not inviting him over to make frog bread.

thor: gets stuck at the avengers facility, and it is recommended that he stay on earth so as not to risk spreading to asgard. he sticks to playing fortnite and eating vast amounts of poptarts. he freaks out a little when his stash runs out and is the sole reason why the secret facilitys address gets leaked. makes friends with the grocery delivery person every time, and over tips.

loki: big time germaphobe!!! walks around with a mask and gloves at all times, probably showers several times a day. hoards lysol, wipes, and clorox, and only gives his stash to the others. although peter claims he saw him donating some to a women’s shelter. gets called out on a facebook mom group he was in (trying to keep track of stores with cleaning tings in stock) for hoarding. “sorry you refuse to get up at 5 am to shop jill. i am a god you dull creature, and i will not be bullied by a woman with a jersey duck nail!”

sam: baker affff, he shows up late to a meeting one day with a tray of cinnamon rolls and fury absolutely looses his mind. "HEHE I MADE CINNAMON ROLLS WITH A-" and nick is like "YOU’RE LATE! WE WERE SUPPOSED TO START 2 HOURS AGO! YOU CAN TAKE YOUR CINNAMON ROLLS AND SHOVE THEM RIGHT UP YOUR A-" "I PUT APPLES IN THEM" goes crazy spending most of his time in the kitchen. attempts to make thor poptarts.

bucky: he and steve are literally the kings of quarantine. bucky gets through the pop culture bucket list with steve, and actually tries to bond with his team mates. he falls into a rabbit hole of conspiracy videos (fully believes that paul mcartney died in the 60s, and if her brother didn’t kill her....then jon benet is definitely katy perry) and urban exploration videos and makes a list of places to explore when the stay at home order lifts.

peter: he goes absolutely crazy. he has to resume classes online, he feels stuck in his small room. eventually, may sends him upstate to the avengers facility where he has more freedom to roam around within a safe space. he can be found on facetime with MJ doing homework, or pranking the others with pietro and thor.

wanda: definitely spends time rereading popular series. i’m talking twilight, percy jackson, hunger games, vladimir tod etc. if you read it in middle school, it’s on her shelf. mostly orders through amazon, but as soon as the pandemic dies down a little shes at a book store stocking up. (side-note: shes team edward and definitely wants to be alice for halloween)

pietro: he rarely gets sick, but when he does it’s absolute hell! he panic buys toilet paper, lysol, and bath and body works sanitizers (specifically stress relief, noir, and warm vanilla sugar) he goes with loki to shop and speeds over to the tp and cleaning product aisle to shove things in his basket. he’s the sole reason why they start putting a limit on how much you can purchase. he doesn’t get sick at all, but definitely becomes a hypochondriac by month 2. he forms towers and statutes out of his massive collection of tp and sanitizers, and nick berates him and loki for hoarding.

vision: accesses different stan and fandom databases so he can carry a conversation with wanda about her interests. she's glad to be able to speak with someone other than peter and MJ about these things, cause she lowkey feels like she bothers them. he accidentally downloads a corrupt kpop file and can only speak in black pink and bts songs for a good two weeks till tony helps reboot his system.

nick: if you’re a covidiot, he knows. he has your name, ip, social security, list of allergies etc. and he’s not afraid to tell you he does. starts threatening people on social media under an anonymous account, and becomes very popular on twitter. his “stans” tell him to “dox” people but he doesn’t know what that means. not saying nick fury is anonymous but if the v for vendetta mask fits 👀

coulson: literally lives on tiktok, and becomes THE dad of tiktok. he dances, bakes, does “hey i’m proud of you kiddo” type povs, does tutorials on how to shave, change your oil/tire. he even helps a tiktok creator reclaim their sound from some pervy povs. refuses to tell nick what “dox” means.

[gdwessel]

Rumors About Ospreay + Unrest In The NJPW Locker Room; Government Adds Okinawa to State Of Emergency, Another Extension Possible; Quick Review of DSOTR Collision In Korea; Shota Umino News!; Ren Narita on Dark Elevation; Satoshi Kojima In Impact Next Week

Strap in because this is going to be a long one.

There are rumors and reports coming out now (mostly from one source, the Voices of Wrestling website, from behind a Patreon paywall) that Will Ospreay's injury may not be what it seems, and there is growing discontent to the point of "mutiny" among the non-Japanese wrestlers regarding the state of emergency, the last-minute decision to resume touring when some were already travelling out of Japan, and the constant need for quarantining when coming back into Japan. Unfortunately this is as much as I can say, because this is behind a paywall, so until it gets made for public consumption I’m kinda limited in what I can say.

I can totally buy that all is not well within NJPW, especially after the COVID-19 bubble has burst. I've already discussed the creative malaise happening in the company right now. That there seems to be backstage dissent shows possible signs of trouble ahead for the promotion, and this golden period that we've been accustomed to is well and truly over. (I mean, it already was once lockdown happened, but they did the best they could, in my honest opinion, including a Pretty Good if not great WK15. Right now, creatively, we are below 2nd-half 2018 levels of poor.) But NJPW has weathered these storms before, although not with a global pandemic looming over everything. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that Ospreay is indeed injured, because a) they haven't exactly been shy about wrestlers being injured and needing to vacate titles before b) if Ospreay is legit injured, he is far more likely to receive treatment as a citizen of the UK from the (somehow still alive if not totally hobbled by Brexit) NHS, as opposed to Japan's healthcare system which is far more like the US model. Some wrestlers are swearing up and down he is injured, from the rumors. Ospreay certainly hasn’t said anything in his own words, beyond RTing NJPW’s announcement of his injury and vacating the title, and posting a pic of himself kissing the belt. RevPro kinda sorta said something but were also pretty vague. But for an injury suffered on 5/4/2021, this pic posted on 5/18 does not look like someone who just had such a severe neck injury they need to fly back to the UK (mind you, it COULD have been taken much earlier than that). Indeed, Ospreay’s still-active Twitter is more focused on Hana Kimura at the moment*. All this said, professional wrestling by it’s very nature has a baked-in amount of bullshit as part of it, so that this injury might be phony is always a distinct possibility.

It is utterly believable there is conflict between wrestlers and management, and communication is piss-poor at best. It is also believable that NJPW and Bushiroad are only taking their cues from a government Hell-bent on holding an Olympics an overwhelming majority of those polled are against, and who are treating the extended state of emergency as a vague suggestion rather than as a, you know, state of emergency. Pretending everything is hunky dory hasn't worked so far, so not sure why NJPW, nor the Japanese government, think eventually it will. (And NOAH is on my shit list right now too.) On that note, the government has now officially added Okinawa to the state of emergency. There is also talk that it will be extended further, as a government subcommittee member is quoted in the article as saying “it is difficult to think” that it will be lifted on 5/31/2021. Among that talk is word that Tokyo particularly will be under a stricter lockdown if this goes on. On a piece of actual GOOD news, it has been announced that the government has approved both the Moderna and AstraZeneca versions of the vaccine, so perhaps the vaccination rates will start to go up at last.

* - The anniversary of Hana Kimura’s tragic death is tomorrow (5/23/2021). I still sometimes struggle with the idea she is gone. Tonight at 10:30pm EDT (which is 5/23/2021 12:30pm in JST), FITE TV will be showing a live Hana Kimura tribute show put on by her mother, Kiyoko Kimura. Have a look in if you can

I was able to watch the Vice Dark Side Of The Ring episode on Collision in Korea, the two-night joint NJPW & WCW show from May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, on 4/28 & 4/29/1995, as it aired Thursday. It will hit YouTube here pretty soon. I am working on a podcast project about this documentary, and the (WCW version of the**) show itself, with the good lads at the Days Of Thunder podcast, so I won't talk too much here, but I will say a few things about it:

I did appreciate the detail here, as well as being able to get an interview with Antonio Inoki for this, especially as he was the principal driver of this show happening. I did also like that they took time to detail Inoki's mentor, and the "father of puroresu," Rikidozan, who himself was a North Korean national by birth. I did not appreciate the mythical pathos they added to the death of Rikidozan, which by all accounts was a random street fight with yakuza over a perceived insult (stepping on Rikidozan's shoe). I also felt they could have done a better job explaining the situation between Japan and North Korea at the time. When the event was first proposed to the NJPW roster, Scott Norton recounts Masahiro Chono telling Norton that "they want us dead," but it took until introducing former CNN foreign correspondent Mike Chinoy nearly halfway through the documentary to (briefly) explain the brutal colonialism that Japan wreaked on North Korea in the first part of the 20th century.

Also, as salacious as DSOTR can get, I am very surprised one of the most famous rumors/stories about this show did not get discussed, the internet wrestling legend that Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto were, erm, Quite Vocal when they were together, which of course did eventually lead to their marriage four months later which continues to this very day. But that was also part of another critique I had, which is, they mainly focused on the WCW part of the events, when this was an NJPW promoted show. The way it was told on DSOTR, the only Japanese wrestlers there were Antonio Inoki, Shinya Hashimoto, Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano. I'd love to hear more from the NJPW side of things, besides how proud Inoki was of this political stunt that did not get him re-elected to the Diet anyway.

Overall, I do recommend watching this when and how you can, because it is absolutely bonkers. I will definitely keep you posted on when the podcast project for this drops. ** - I've tried looking for the NJPW version and have failed so far. NJPWWorld only has two matches from this, Antonio Inoki v. Ric Flair, and Akira Hokuto v. Bull Nakano. The WCW version is not officially released, even on WWE Network, so yeah search the internet to see it.

We finally have an update on Shooter! That is, Shota Umino. Earlier in the week, RevPro's official Twitter had a tweet saying This Summer, showing Umino in not only his white/pink Tanahashi-esque tights, but holding his Death Riders jacket from Jon Moxley, that Shota retweeted, making this his first tweet since September 2019. Two days later, a hype video appeared with footage of Shooter, including performing Death Rider. Now a Sports Illustrated article is claiming that Shooter was supposed to have reunited with Mox on the NJPW Strong episode that had Mox & Chris Dickinson face Yuji Nagata & Ren Narita, but Umino had an unspecified injury preventing that. (They further say that Mox v. Nagata’s IWGP US title match was originally set for Strong but Tony Khan convinced NJPW to hold it on AEW Dynamite.) Umino's last match listed on Cagematch was on 3/14/2020 in ATTACK! Wrestling in Cardiff, Wales, on the winning side of a 6-man tag match with Kyle Fletcher & Kid Lykos II defeating Shigehiro Irie, Chief Deupty Dunne & Los Federales Santos, Jr. It's great to have him back wrestling again, and I hope we get that reunion with Moxley soon enough too.

As an update to an item from an earlier post, it appears that the Ren Narita v. Royce Isaacs match that was teased but then not aired on AEW Dark this past Tuesday will actually be on AEW Dark: Elevation this coming Monday instead. Also part of that will be approximately 35 other matches (I only slightly kid), one of those being Rocky Romero v. JD Drake. This usually drops on YouTube at 7pm EDT / 6pm CDT Mondays.

This past Thursday on Impact, a video package showed that Satoshi Kojima would be appearing on next week's episode. This will be Kojima's first time ever wrestling in Impact under any name, as the last time NJPW and TNA were working together, Kojima was still away in All Japan Pro Wrestling. No word as to what he will be doing or whom he will be wrestling.

Also on Impact, Juice Robinson & David Finlay Jr. successfully defended the Impact World Tag Team titles against Ace Austin & Madman Fulton... before getting blindsided by two members of the Violent By Design unit (in this case, ECW veteran Rhino and former AJPW Triple Crown champion + cancer beater Joe Doering) with whatever Impact's version of a Anytime Anywhere Challenge is, and took the belts from FinJuice. They claimed FinJuice were going back to Japan, but, erm, who knows if that's the case or if it was for a time period when Wrestle Grand Slam was still a thing that was happening.

Also also, it seems Don Callis is no longer in any executive capacity at Impact. This is a little significant as it seems it was Callis who opened the negotiations back up for Impact to work with NJPW. Of course, lately he's spent more time as an on-screen heel manager for Kenny Omega, the Good Brothers and now the Young Bucks on both AEW and Impact programming. We'll see how much longer Kenny Omega's belt collector shtick goes on for with Callis no longer part of creative or management.

And that is actually it for now! Yipes!

[screechingkingdomhottub]

my thoughts on the starkid controversies

{TCB included} yo so i got some opinions that i’m gonna spread...now. So does starkid have some inherently problematic things in their musicals that whether intentionally or not promotes a stereotype? Yeah. Let’s unpack these a little, okay? So let’s start at the beginning with Little White Lie. I think Little White Lie did great, there’s an episode where they defend trans people and the transphobic person is the villain and as a young closeted trans dude watching that...it was totally awesome. Now, AVPM, i dunno mans. I love it, I’ve seen the series many a times and used to watch it to cheer me up at night, I think it critiques JKR’s stereotypes very well and goes full out of “well if dumbledore is gay...let’s make him flaming gay” which is awesome. I saw Devin posted a youtube video talking about how she feels she stole the Cho Chang role away from an Asian actress who is known for playing Lavender Brown called Sango Tajima. I, personally, never got that vibe but I don’t think that’s up to me, I wasn’t there, I’m white, she ended up getting more roles and I encourage y’all to watch Devin’s video on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fubo7wfGcuo  I’m gonna skip a few cause there’s a lot of musicals and I’m tired. I think a lot of people feel uncomfortable about Umbridge’s portrayal and the way the relationship with Dumbledore is done because it can correlate to the trans women are often seen and portrayed and watching it thinking about it like that...makes it a bit cringey. On a similar note, in Spies Are Forever, Susan is a crossdressing character that has transphobic undertones.  Now, I’m not saying starkid are transphobic or racist or should be cancelled or whatever. And I believe a lot of this stuff they have redeemed and tried to progress forward a lot better and that’s awesome. I am a firm believer everyone should just be judged based on their intentions. If someone has good intentions but does a shite job and people point out they’re not fulfilling those good intentions then they can change and grow and it’s great.  So I love Black Friday but I have a gripe. Can we talk about Gary Goldstein for a bit? Now, I find the character kinda funny, Jon is an amazing actor and his portrayal is awesome. But Gary Goldstein is a lawyer...a very greedy lawyer...with the last name Goldstein. So for those of you that are unaware, Goldstein is a Jewish last name...Jewish stereotypes commonly consist of being very greedy lawyers...you see the issue here? I’m not Jewish, being completely honest I’m still confused about what being Jewish actually means however for Black Friday to take such strong political stances and add to it a so easily avoidable tidbit, literally without the name no one would conflate it with being Jewish but damn. And Hatchetfield names matter so much from what I’ve seen, so there’s thought behind this which makes it worse?  So onto Robert Manion, pitchforks ready? The first controversy I saw about him was to do with something called genderbent pictures. For those that don’t know, it’s when people take someone usually a character from something and switch them to the opposite sex. A lot of the trans community have an issue with this because it kinda eradicates nonbinary people a lot. Really focuses on the binary part, y’know? says “oh now they’re the gender they’re not actually” implying only 2...it’s kinda shitty. For me, personally, it’s dysphoria inducing. It highlights features everyone associates with only each gender and I start recognising all the features on the female version that i have on me and it’s not a fun time. I’m a big boi, i can deal. But many trans people replied to him when talking about this and expressed the dysphoria they were feeling, why promoting those was harming the trans community etc. He apologised but he only apologised for calling it gender bent and not digital drag which...is not what people were saying? I appreciate him making an effort on twitter to promote trans voices, idk much about american politics, so can’t say much on what he’s doing there but at least it’s something. What would be the most awesome thing for him to do is explain what the actual things the trans community told him and promote that to discourage those pictures or to encourage them to also include non binary people in some way cause artistic expression and stuff. More recent Robert Manion controversy is the body positivity pictures. I’m 100% for body positivity, always, anyone body shaming anybody (unless they’re a racist, rapist or general bigot) is a bAD BEAN. However, now this part is gonna get a little nsfw, so if you’re a minor please don’t keep reading, i aint trying to get arrested.  i can’t figure out how to do the keep reading thing so consider this it. Minors leave.  So, onlyfans is a website where you pay for porn basically like a total boomer simp but i digress. Some pages are softcore which is like just outlines of things...like people in their underwear. Robert posted pictures of him in his underwear and tagged it porn and onlyfans. Which if a grown man wants to do sex work I won’t stop him. That’s not the case here, the case here is he posted a picture in his underwear, where his ahem bulge is visible and sexualised it with the tags. There are minors that follow this man, that may have been scrolling through instagram in school and saw oh shit a dong. “But Joey Richter took off his pants in mamd!!!” yeah and that had a ton of warnings, you knew what you were gonna watch was for mature starkids only. “WHat about Lupin!!” couldn’t see the bulge. When I was 17, I went to see a play and a girl in it started stripping right down to her underwear, was just like seeing her in a bikini. The tags sexualised it but so did the bulge outline. He censored it on his story which kinda feels like he knew it was inappropriate. Something else that makes me very uncomfortable about this all is the Body Positivity argument. Now I have gender dysphoria, I have scars, I have stretch marks, acne, I’m so SO for body positivity. I rant so often about how fatphobia shouldn’t happen because weight doesn’t equal health. I’m not saying this is what he’s doing but that argument is used by actual groomers. Like y’know the fucks that groom children? i.e. onision (allegedly) where he’d say it’s just for body positivity and get children to send him pics of them in their underwear? You see why this is a dangerous argument here? I don’t think Robert’s intention was to do that but if you indirectly tell a bunch of teenagers posting pictures in their underwear is a good thing...I can’t be the only one making this link and the fact y’all defend this as “just shirtless pictures” is lowkey driving me wild. He apologised for the tags cause it was making fun of sex workers but please please please think of the risk. Please?  Starkid mess up, they’re human, please stop acting like they do nothing wrong and please stop acting like they’re cancelled forever with no redemption okay bye PS please let me know any trigger warnings to add <3

[tabloidtoc]

Star, March 8

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: George Clooney vs. Brad Pitt -- the fight that ended their friendship

Page 1: Scott Disick's mid-life makeover -- some guys buy a convertible but Scott already has a garage full of fancy rides, so what else to do when you're edging close to 40, split from the mom of your three kids and are already dating a 19-year-old model? Well, bleach your hair platinum, of course!

Page 2: Contents, Leighton Meester and Adam Brody celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary with a couple's surf session

Page 3: Star Shots -- John Legend wore an eye-catching sweater to a photoshoot in West Hollywood, Anya Taylor-Joy stunned in a crimson gown on the set of an untitled David O. Russell-directed period film, Jason Sudeikis grabbed a bite during a break from filming Ted Lasso's second season in London

Page 4: After hosting countless rose ceremonies over nearly two decades of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, Chris Harrison is now in the hot seat himself and facing backlash for defending current Bachelor frontrunner Rachael Kirkconnell who's been accused of racist behavior -- the next day, Chris apologized and said he was stepping aside as host of the dating reality series but the damage was done as Rachel Lindsay who is the first Black lead in the franchise's history revealed she won't renew her Bachelor contract and current Bachelor Matt James supported her -- as for Chris, the fallout continues as Crest are considering pulling down ads featuring him but with critics calling for his ouster Chris wants his job back and no one at ABC wants to see him replaced but those conversations are happening

Page 5: Miley Cyrus has an idea how to help Britney Spears in her legal battle to replace dad Jamie Spears as her conservator -- Miley is hoping she and Britney can record a classic song together like an anthem like Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves or Enough Is Enough and she's hoping to get Britney on board but that may be a challenge with the legal restrictions in place

* Mom-of-eight Kate Gosselin didn't get what she was asking for on her house in Pennsylvania -- it's upsetting that she got less than she paid for it but her hand was forced; it costs a lot to keep up a house like that on 20-plus acres and with years of roughhousing, it needs a lot of work -- with twins Mady and Cara already in college and the sextuplets growing up, Kate hopes to jump-start her career and she's dying to leave Pennsylvania and head to Hollywood

* Paris Hilton's boyfriend of just over a year Carter Reum dropped to one knee on a gorgeous private beach and offered Paris his heart and a sparkler from Cartier and she said yes -- close family was on hand to celebrate the couple who have been friends for 15 years and the party went on well into the evening -- now Paris is already making wedding plans for something simple and elegant with a gorgeous dinner and the couple is ready to start a family sooner rather than later and she's hinted she's already started IVF and if she gets pregnant they'll just push up the wedding

Page 6: Ryan Gosling needed some time off after 2018's moon-landing biopic First Man because he really became Neil Armstrong during the six months of shooting and he was absolutely drained after finishing it and he spent the next two years with wife Eva Mendes being a full-time dad to their two young kids -- now he's back and with three movies lined up, he's looking at a $75 million paycheck this year -- in addition to The Gray Man, he's gearing up for a Wolfman update and another space adventure called Project Hail Mary -- he wants to be a popcorn-movie star and he's going full-blown buff-and-shirtless action hero

* Allen v. Farrow is a new investigation into 1992 allegations about Woody Allen by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow and her mother Mia Farrow that digs up damning new evidence against the director -- one harrowing home video shows the then-7-year-old Dylan saying her dad touched her privates and later a doorman and a building manager and a maid at Allen's NYC residence raise questions about when Woody began his shocking relationship with Mia's teen daughter Soon-Yi -- Mia also expresses fear in the doc, saying she worries that when the documentary comes out he'll be on the attack again and he'll do whatever he has to do to save himself

* Star Spots the Stars -- Julia Roberts, Joe Jonas, Luann de Lesseps, Christina Aguilera, Kaia Gerber, Tarek El Moussa and Heather Rae Young

Page 8: Star Shots -- With balloons and a box of chocolate in hand lifestyle expert Gretta Monahan arrived at The View, Melissa Gorga snacked on a huge box of sweets between Zoom interviews to promote the 11 season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Vanessa Lachey prepared to host a Galentine's Day celebration with macarons and wine

Page 10: Jenna Dewan making a plant-based meal, Selling Sunset's Christine Quinn and her husband Christian Richard sipped juice bar drinks while running errands in Beverly Hills, Hugh Grant stopped to tend to his laces while out for a walk in Chelsea in West London, Carrie Underwood prepped for her daily workout session in pieces from her Calia fitness apparel line

Page 12: After a stop at the Kidding Around children's store Bradley Cooper had his hands full walking with his daughter Lea in NYC, Sofia Vergara chic in a blowout and patterned top in Beverly Hills, Justin Bieber looked comfy in a message tee and pajama bottoms in L.A.

Page 13: Thandie Newton looked tense while Chris Pine hit the ground running as the two filmed the spy thriller All the Old Knives in London, Jon Bernthal braved the frigid water while Gretchen Mol bundled up on the set of American Gigolo in L.A.

Page 14: Think Pink -- Jennifer Lopez hoisted an oversized customized bubble-gum hued Coach satchel in a promo shot in NYC, Cardi B slipped on neon sneakers from her Reebok collaboration to shop on Rodeo Drive in L.A., Hilary Duff showing off a peek of her growing baby bump on the set of Younger in NYC

Page 16: In town to film The Hills: New Beginnings with their castmates Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag played in the snow with their son Gunner in Lake Tahoe

Page 17: Mandy Moore and husband Taylor Goldsmith celebrated their last Valentine's Day before parenthood with a romantic stroll in Pasadena, Michelle Obama on her new children's show Waffles + Mochi

Page 18: Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay in NYC, hiding her locks in a cute newsboy cap Brooke Burke grabbed dinner at Nobu in Malibu, Krysten Ritter brought her son Bruce to meet some farm animals at the Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita

Page 20: Normal or Not? Farrah Abraham suffered a serious wardrobe malfunction while hitting the sand in Malibu -- not normal, Nikki Reed gushing over her therapy chicken -- normal, Property Brothers' Drew Scott booty bumpin' with wife Linda Phan -- not normal, Lucy Hale lovingly held onto her new dog Ethel while fueling up her ride in L.A. -- normal

Page 22: Fashion -- stars in pastel frocks -- Heidi Klum, Sophia Bush, Chrissy Teigen

Page 23: Rihanna, Kirsten Dunst

Page 26: Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker are having sexy slumber parties at Kourtney's $8.5 million Calabasas pad and they are spending so much time together and she loves having him sleep over and he'll stay the whole weekend -- Travis who has lived nearby in the gated community for years is already making himself at home and not only has he moved a bunch of stuff into Kourtney's property but she leaves him to chill out and enjoy his space if she has to run errands -- even if it seems the couple is moving and moving in fast, their respective broods are on board with the new arrangement and Kourtney's kids Mason, Penelope and Reign love having Travis around and meanwhile the door is always open for Travis' kids Alabama and Landon, and Travis and Kourtney do a lot of fun stuff with their kids together -- there's already speculation that the move-in will be permanent because Kourtney knows a good thing when she sees it and Travis checks all the boxes

Page 27: Meeting the in-laws might be a little complicated for newly engaged Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers because the Green Bay Packers QB is famously estranged from his Chico, California-based family -- in 2016 Aaron's younger brother Jordan Rodgers exposed the rift while competing on The Bachelorette and at the time, fans blamed Aaron's then-girlfriend Olivia Munn for turning him Hollywood but the trouble continued after their 2017 split -- now that he's with Shailene, Aaron doesn't want to bring her into that toxic atmosphere but Shailene who once called her own folks super f**ked up is not deterred and she is encouraging Aaron to let bygones be bygones but he's not ready

* Melissa and Joe Gorga's marriage troubles will play out on the new season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey but their issues are even worse behind the scenes and they've been butting heads as Melissa's career continues to skyrocket so she's distracted with work and doesn't have time for Joe and he feels neglected and he isn't one to hold back -- it doesn't help that the Envy boutique owner was rumored to be getting close to another man -- the couple is trying to work out their issues for the sake of their three kids but Melissa may be done

Page 28: Cover Story -- George Clooney and Brad Pitt: The Breaking Point -- fights, jealousy and other women -- the former besties had a major falling out and now mutual friend Sandra Bullock is desperate to reunite them -- George and Brad have barely spoken in eight years and they've definitely gone their separate ways and Brad's ex-wife Angelina Jolie played a big part in the demise of their friendship because Angie felt George took Brad away from her and their kids -- Amal Clooney found Angie unbearable and that was kind of the point of no return for Brad and George -- George is struggling to regain his luster as a director while Brad is out there winning Oscars

Page 32: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: Interview Shockers -- as they prep for baby number two, Harry and Meghan announce a no-holds-barred interview, leaving the palace on edge

Page 34: Celebs in Wheel Trouble -- don't drink (or drug) and drive; these stars got caught making some very bad decisions -- Bruce Springsteen, mug shots of Justin Bieber

Page 35: Reese Witherspoon, Vince Vaughn, Lindsay Lohan, Michael Phelps, Khloe Kardashian, Henry Thomas, Heather Locklear, Jesse Luken, Mel Gibson

Page 36: Beauty -- curl care -- strengthen every type of wave and coil with cool new miracle workers

Page 48: Parting Shot -- Bill Murray teamed up with NFL player Larry Fitzgerald for the AT&T Every Shot Counts Charity Challenge in Pebble Beach -- despite landing in third place, Bill and Larry made a great pair, earning an impressive $209,000 for local charities

[strawberryrosemothman]

Top 5 shows/YouTube channels you'd recommend?

Achievement Hunter/LetsPlay

A cast of about 11 people play video games Very badly. I’m going to break this down into different series because honestly? They produce a Lot of content, and not everything is for everyone. I probably won’t elaborate on series within series so if you wanna know, drop me an ask?

Minecraft:

Their longest running series at over 400 episodes, Minecraft Lets Plays run from soothing (Let’s Builds, Skyfactory One at most times, some of achieveland) to the most stressful thing you’ve ever seen (Ya Dead, Ya Dead and the King series). They’ve done builds, they’ve done mod packs, they’ve done servers, it’s wild.

GTA V:

Split between races, Heists, and Things To Do, their GTA V is their second longest running series with 402 episodes at the time of writing. It’s spawned an entire set of alter egos known as the Fake AH Crew, and has created some fairly iconic moments. I would recommend their Heist videos, especially Michaels Heist and the Criminal Masterminds series, as they’ve some of my favourite.

GMOD:

The Achievement Hunter cast is very very good at lying to each other, so they found a game where they can do that. Split between Prop Hunt, Trouble in Terrorist Town (TTT), Murder, and their own creation “Death Snail”, they have roughly 130 episodes of lying, shooting, and betrayal, it’s great.

Play Pals and Battle Buddies:

Putting these two together because they’re both pairs of people playing video games badly.

Battle buddies features Ryan Haywood and Jeremy Dooley playing FPS games pretty well (such as Wolfenstein, Doom, Far Cry, Portal and more). I think there’s lore but honestly? I have not being paying very much attention

Play Pals is Michael Jones and Gavin Free being Very Very Bad at games. They’re currently playing “Please Don’t Touch Anything”, but they’re also known for Human Fall Flat and Super Bunny Man

Hardcore [Game]:

The hardcore series sees Achievement Hunter take a family friendly game (such as Monopoly and Mini Golf) and introduce High Stakes and wacky costumes. It’s Fun, it’s Manic, and I don’t know how some of them are still alive tbh

Off Topic:

Off Topic is the official Achievement Hunter podcast. Each episode is roughly 2 hours and there’s over 200 episodes. Usually it’s getting drunk and talking shit, but like, it’s funny

Red Web:

Red Web is a new achievement hunter podcast, hosted by the “AH Twins” (Trevor Collins and Alfredo Diaz). It explores online mysteries and cryptic stories spanning the decades. Available wherever you listen to podcasts

This Just Internet:

Fiona Nova attempts to teach the rest of Achievement Hunter about memes and Tik Toks. Includes up to date memes at the time of each episode airing, a revolving cast of three hunters + Fiona, and a recent section about and featuring community made memes

Let’s Roll:

The Achievement Hunter board game show, currently hosted by Larry the Games Wizard. Includes a wide range of board games, including some recurring ones like Coup, One Night Ultimate, and The Red Dragon Inn. Always fun to watch them screw each other over (this time with cards)

AH Animated:

Little 2-3 minute clips from across everything Achievement Hunter does, but this time animated by some Extremely talented people. Always very funny, and usually include good callbacks to earlier points that are fun to spot.

Between the Games:

Ever wonder what happens when you lock 11 overgrown children in a room together? A lot of property damage. Usually it’s messing around with food, throwing things at their rapidly deteriorating ceiling, or causing the most pain to themselves and their coworkers (seriously, these guys are a health hazard)

Umbrella Academy

Seven siblings try to survive in a world of superpowers, time travel, the apocalypse, and other basic threats.

Season two has just come out on Netflix and it’s actually pretty good?? Very bingeable. Trigger warnings for guns, knives, drugs, war, gore, bombs, blood, and cults. Season two also deals with racism and homophobia (although it does this very well, without using really bad slurs (I think, can’t remember that well))

Watcher

Y’all remember the Ghoul Boys, Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara? Well they grabbed Steven Lim and started their own channel, Watcher.

It has some really good series, such as “Weird And/Or Wonderful World”, “Are You Scared?”, and my personal favourite “Puppet History”

Murder Room/On The Spot

I’m lumping these two very different series together because of their ever suffering host, Jon Risinger

Murder Room:

In the near future, the Justice System is dead and instead they lock a jury of four people in a room with the Host and an AI named Jessica. They get 30 minutes and a bunch of clues to work out who did it and hand an immediate death sentence to one of three suspects.

This is a completely finished series of 10 episodes, available on YouTube with video, or on podcast apps. Each case is completely different, the jury is never repeated, and it can be both really fun and really stressful. Trigger warnings for death, blood, gore, knives, guns, smoking, and drugs

On The Spot:

Join two teams of two players and the ever suffering host, Jon Risinger, as they battle it out in different improv comedy games to find out who can make Jon regret his life choices the most. None of the points matter, but then again nothing really does

It’s got actually funny improv comedy, 15 complete seasons that you can jump around in, and games that can be really creative at times. Trigger warnings for guns and knives in some episodes, I haven’t seen them all so I can’t exactly say what else there is (sorry)

Unraveled

In this Polygon series, Brian David Gilbert (The man with the Energy of a feral raccoon on energy drink) gets way too into video games. It’s like if Mythbusters replaced explosions with video game lore, and still managed to get the same effect

[harrynightingales]

a long and somewhat valvert focused review of the new sondheim les mis production:

overall it was lovely and i had a fantastic time. lots has been said about the fact that this is being treated like a “new” production but i do have to say that the energy from the audience was off the charts. its hard to compare but i was at phantom earlier in the day and it was like night and day in terms of audience reaction. seeing it once again reminded me how much i love this god damn show. anyways! onto the fun stuff

the madeleine era post-runaway cart section was perfect and rife with that classic sexual tension. i wanted to time how long javert held valjean's hand during the whole "you make me think of a man.." bit but it was probably upwards of 10 seconds. and afterwards we got javert helping valjean put on his coat which is one of my favourite little moments

it would appear that valjean dropping his handkerchief after look down is part of the blocking but unlike bradley, this javert (more on him below) just put it in his pocket before singing stars. twas still cute though.

as always, the scenes at the barricade were perf. before the first battle there was this lovely moment of extended eye contact and it felt like so much communication was happening. javert looked not so much angry as frustrated and resigned by valjean’s presence, and valjean gave this look that was like “i know you’re not happy about this but i’m doing it anyways”. it just felt almost domestic, like revisiting an old agreement for the nth time

and of course as per the photos i posted yesterday, the curtain call hug!!! what a perfect way to end the show. these pictures make me so happy its unreal.

other non valvert thoughts:

first, the cast! considering i got 3 understudies i was really hoping one of them could be luke mccall but nope, no such luck. but that being said my expectations were pretty low for jon robyns based on things i’ve read and i ended up being pleasantly surprised by him instead! i was pretty sad that bradley was off but his understudy, richard carson, was really solid. also i just found out this was only his second day, 3rd show ever as javert?? incredible. his javert was pretty lowkey for the most part which i appreciate - i don’t care for a ball-esque javert who half-screams everything. it also made his suicide a lot more impactful because up until getting released at the barricade he had been so composed. my one thing is i don’t know how i feel that, since the concert, this is the 3rd javert with a beard. i don’t think that usually happens and tbh i don’t know if i care for it. that’s just me being nitpicky though, overall i was super happy with him and its always exciting to see understudies do their thing. also if anyone is reading this (unlikely) i might post an audio of either his stars or suicide since there probably aren’t any out there - hopefully there would be some interest in that!

a photo because i still can’t believe this was only his 3rd time covering javert, what a champ!!!

my other understudies were emma warren for cosette and shane o’riardan for marius - both of whom were amazing and i loved!! considering the principal cosette is the girl from the concert show, i liked emma much much more. also she has a pretty strong resemblance to carrie’s fantine so the last scene seeing the two of them on stage together really hit home the mother-daughter relationship that we never got to see. and i didn’t realize until the middle of the second act that this marius is irish?? it was somehow incredibly endearing and made me very happy. his voice was perfect and he was a great marius. also fun fact! after the show i got some food and was walking towards the bus stop back to my hostel and i see a guy and girl walking in front of me and i’m like hey that guy’s hair looks a lot like marius’! and then his voice sounds a lot like marius.... and then we’re waiting at a light and i look and sure enough its both actors for marius and cosette!! we were awkwardly going in the same direction for a long time but when they finally turned i was brave and ran up and said hi. i didn’t want to be weird so i just said that they did great and that i really enjoyed the show, so hopefully that wasn’t too overbearing. now i lowkey regret not asking for a selfie but oh well.

the standing ovations had been going on for a while but i chose to stand up for these two because i was v proud of them :’)) ignore the weirdass filter, no idea what my phone was doing there

also didn’t get a luke mccall valjean but i spent most of the group scenes looking at him - he has such a great stage presence so i hope he has a long career in musical theatre! he sang the very first line of the show and absolutely killed it, plus his courfeyrac was amazing

other parts of the staging: i found it really funny that they obviously got rid of the revolve but then there were multiple scenes with the cast running around in a circle anyways. its like guys... you coulda just... kept it. especially since the turntable enjolras reveal is 100x better then the cart but what can you do. also with gavroche’s death i’m very glad that, in bringing over the part of grantaire holding his body, they did away with the stupid “nooooooo”. that was always so cringey and its much more impactful having grantaire looking out devastated at the audience as the final battle starts.

also from my seat in the dress circle i saw some fun stuff, i could see into the wings so sometimes i’d spot actors just chilling before their entrances. also a lot of the pit was visible and it was adorable, the two french horns were legit dancing up a storm when they weren’t playing during at the end of the day. 

this is way too long and probably no one cares but its fun to write it all out! i wish i’d done it right away because i’ve probably already forgotten things but oh well. if anyone wants to talk les mis (or phantom!) i’m always down

and now i have to hope that i can somehow see the touring production in toronto this summer......

[ldelreyna]

CHAPTER I

After the battle many things have changed in what is now called the Six Kingdoms. A new king, a new jurisdiction, nobles lost titles and new ones came in their place. And, after so many catastrophes, all the concerns of a ruler revolve around one word: taxes.

But it’s incredible how in the North nothing has changed much, although it has been one of the most affected parts of the conflicts. Each farmer was able to maintain - somehow - the life they had before, and the winter having subsided was a big factor too. The grain plantations were more fruitful and there were even donations coming from Essos and surrounding lands as a gift of good politics and friendship in favor of the new Queen.

The North remembers, the North knows, that they only thrive when on their throne sits a Stark. And Sansa was the last and the most perfect ruler they could ask for.

She understands the North, understands the people, has the vision to make the decisions, and the coldness at the right time. For two years her government found itself without many mishaps, some seasons without as many good things as the other, but there was growth. Everyone saw that.

Even in the Six Kingdoms and from Dorne to Essos, the world knew how much the North prospered under the hands of Sansa Stark.

The girl who saw everything and learned everything.

"Open the gates!"

The word spreads out from man to man when they saw the presence of Sansa's little caravan accompanied by the Knight Brienne of Tarth, she was visiting the queen at that time.

"Open the gates!"

"Open the gates!"

They entered through the gates of the Castle Black with their horses protected by blankets from the cold. Sansa was wearing one of her favorite cloaks, it belonged to her father and which Bran had sent her as a gift along with some of Ned's favorite belongings, the others he kept for himself.

Sansa was a woman today, a woman with the beauty given generously by the gods, and there were men, men who did not see or have been with a woman for a long time. She was aware of this, aware of the types of looks she would receive because, unlike the first time she was here, Sansa was a woman now and the crown which adorned her head made her physical attractiveness even greater.

"Your grace." A man, with funny features and dirty skin, shorter than Sansa and very thin where his cloak showed, greeted her. "What do I owe the honor of your visit?"

"I came to speak with your Lord Commander."

Everyone there knew that the beautiful queen with the hair kissed by the fire was the dear sister of the Lord Commander.

"He's in his chambers. Shall I announce you, My Queen?"

"There's no need for that. Would you be so kind and get us accommodations?" Sansa looked at those who were with her. Besides Brienne, there was her Maister and four other soldiers who protected her on the roads whenever she took a trip.  "I understand that we have arrived without warning, but we have come to deal with important matters, and we will stay for three days."

The man nodded, other crows crowding around them like a plague. Sansa was disgusted by the stench that many of them exuded. Good thing Jon was clean, otherwise she couldn’t bear to hug him, and it was something she was eager to do.

She missed him too much.

Sitting in his chair, Jon thoughtfully analyzed the crackling fire in the hearth. His mind dancing from Daenerys's death, Drogon's fury, his punishment, the coronation of Sansa he couldn’t witness and returned to today - looking around - he defined that, being at Castle Black once more, as his own prison.

All he wanted was to be in the North with Sansa. That Arya hadn’t entered that ship, that they might finally be a family. It was all he wanted, from the day he was born to today, his deepest desire within his heart: to have a family to call his own.

Jon could not help the smile that formed at his face when he remembered the last fight he had with Sansa. Before he set out on a ship to the Wall, he was wrapping his cloak around himself, and Sansa urged him to tie two knots and a bow because it was too heavy, and he said one knot was enough. He almost thought it was a mirage or madness of his head when he came to himself and Sansa was standing right in front of him, in a well-sewn gray outfit protecting her from the cold, her hair long, loose and with thick waves dancing around her face and shoulders.

The time was generous with her.

"Sansa!" He exclaimed as a prayer and got up immediately in his urgency to have her in his arms. He regretted that Sansa didn’t like hugs, but there were times when he ignored her wishes. He didn’t know how much she was anxious for it, to feel the heat of Jon surrounding her.

Protective, loving, faithful. That was her Jon.

He cupped her face with both hands, grinning for finally have her there, right in front of him. They hadn’t seen each other for two years, letters were their only communication and they were many. Sansa had a box of white oak in her room full of parchment, all filled with Jon's words.

"It's good to have you here." His words made her smile. It was rare times when they put tensions aside and were themselves. Just Jon and Sansa. And he never understood why Sansa was so fond of arguing and disagreeing with him, but he didn’t complain anyway.

"I bring news."

"Good ones, I hope." He said right after she spoke. Sansa was a little annoyed because she would report her real motive right away and he cut her off.

"The Wall is mine now. It belongs to the North." Jon frowned, processing the combination of those words and the smile that widened on Sansa's face. "You can go home now, to Winterfell. You're free."

  Notes:

Sorry for the mistakes in writing and grammar. English is not my mother language.

 This story is a collaboration between me and littlegirlinvisible. The story is originally mine with some points and ideas given by her.

The gifset was made by her, her creativity, and they follow the story line. We’ll try to make weekly or biweekly posts. Everything will depend on our creativity and time.

Follow the tag # swan song jonsa fanfic to see the posts and the gifsets whenever you want..

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I sincerely hope that everyone is enjoying it.

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CHAPTER INDEX:

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

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[ferritin4]

Titans Together (3K Gen Jon Kent/Damian Wayne)

Here’s a thing I’ve never posted on here: DC comics fic! I’m one of those people that’s been reading comics since I was a kid, but never in a viciously completionist way. Then, as an adult, I went back and read the runs of things that were recommended or appealed to me, like, among many other things (buncha Batman, the Grayson run even though yes it kinda sucked, all of the new Midnighter before it got canceled), Super Sons. Which is hilarious, and the art is fabulous, and the characters are just perfect. Strong rec.

Like many people, I’m totally here for aged-up Jon Kent/Damian Wayne -- it’s like if Clark/Bruce were both more dramatic and less weird and awful about/to each other -- and I, personally, have a headcanon that Damian, though short now, really ought to grow up to be like 6′4″ and massive. Because his dad’s the tallest in the Batfam and very big, and his mom’s both tall and built for a woman. He has to be a low-grade celebrity at college: Bruce Wayne's son and a prodigy in every subject, a super intense giant scary ripped antisocial multimillionaire 21-year-old who's already halfway through his PhD and wears suits to class. 

And then I want Jon Kent to come visit him at Princeton and be a total fucking hayseed like, "Oh, whoa, wow! That building is so cool looking! What kind of style did you say it was, Dami?" in farm boy jeans and a Carhartt jacket and everyone is like whaaaat the fuuuuck

And that is this fic. (Yes. The art history is made up. That is intentional.)

—

Princeton was huge. Wow.

—

Jon didn’t expect it to be small — he had lived in Metropolis forever as a kid and he’d toured a couple colleges in Gotham, even. He knew Princeton wasn’t gonna be like, the size of Garden City Community College or something, but gosh. It was really, really big.

The administrative offices were right at the main entrance, and that was a good thing, because Jon needed a map, and some directions, and maybe a nametag?

“No, honey,” the woman at the desk said. Her desk plaque read Moira Reed and she looked kind of like his mom’s oldest cousin. “You don’t need a name tag, you just need to show me your ID and sign in so we know you’re on campus. Are you a prospective student?” she asked, taking his driver’s license. “Since you’re eighteen, you don’t need a guardian with you, but I would like an emergency contact, just in case.”

“Oh, sure,” Jon said. “And, no, I’m just visiting a friend who goes here. I live in Kansas,” he added, which — was probably super obvious from the whole Kansas state driver’s license thing. Duh. “You can, uh, tell, I guess. Thank you,” he said, taking it back.

She chuckled. “No worries. Do you need directions to their dorm? Or do they live off campus nearby?”

“No, thank you. He lives in grad student housing, I think?” Jon said. “But I do need directions to —” Jon pulled out his notebook “— Waterstone Hall? For ‘Art History 466’?”

Moira had a map, and a Sharpie, and a very, very patient smile, and Jon thanked her like five times before she kicked him out and told him to enjoy his class.

—

“Good lord,” an older woman’s voice said to Moira as Jon left the office. “Wasn’t he just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“They have manners in Kansas!” Moira said, laughing. “Maybe he should teach a class.”

—

Waterstone Hall was a beautiful brick building with small, well-kept classrooms with sky-blue walls and new whiteboards. Jon poked his head into a couple of empty rooms before he found 343B.

The seats were angled like a movie theater, pretty steep, and Jon picked a seat about halfway back, on the aisle in case anybody needed him to move. There were maybe twenty students already there, but he didn’t know how many were supposed to come. Class didn’t start for — five more minutes, according to the super fancy old analog clock on the wall.

Everybody was pretty dressed up, except Jon. Did they dress up for class at Princeton? Maybe; maybe it was like private school except without uniforms. The kid next to him was wearing a sweater vest over a collared white button-down shirt, and the girl directly in front of him was wearing some kind of dark blue fancy-looking shirt and pearls.

Jon shrugged off his jacket and put his notebook on the desk in front of him. His flannel had a collar, but he didn’t think that really counted for anything at Princeton.

Somebody was looking at him.

“Hi,” Jon said to the sweater vest kid, who was staring at him like he could see straight through Jon’s head.

“Who are you?” Sweater Vest said. Not, like, meanly. More like Jon was a raccoon or something that had wandered into the classroom.

Or something. Jon didn’t know if they had a lot of raccoons in New Jersey.

“I’m Jon,” Jon said. “I’m just visiting a friend, and I thought I’d sit in on class. Don’t worry,” he added, smiling, “I won’t try to lead discussion group or anything.”

“This class doesn’t have a discussion group,” Sweater Vest said, still staring. “You’re visiting a friend? Who goes here? And they told you to come to this class?”

The girl in front of them swiveled around. “No,” she said. “They must have meant a different class.”

“Art History 466?” Jon said. Maybe he was in the wrong room and this was some — but what class would be bad to sit in on?

Sweater Vest’s stare got, if possible, even more bug-eyed.

“Your friend is an asshole,” he said. “You gotta get out of here, kid, I’m not joking. Just… go to a coffeeshop for an hour or something, seriously, you have like sixty seconds before —”

“Shh!” the girl in front of them hissed suddenly, and oh hey, class was about to start.

—

The online course catalog had had a little description of the class and then links to a bunch of weekly readings, all posted and numbered and dated, and then, right under the all-caps, fancy bold lettering for ART HISTORY 466, it had said Instructor of Record: Damian Wayne.

—

Most of Jon’s classes at community college were hands-on. He was there mostly to learn how to do upkeep on the farm and maintenance on the equipment. Jon wasn’t a bad student — he always did his homework — but he liked the chance to move around while he learned.

His mom liked to say that Jon could sit still for about forty-five seconds, if he tried really hard.

He folded his hands in his lap and tried, as hard as he could, to hold still.

Damian was wearing a suit, of course — he had started wearing suits every day, like his dad, when he turned sixteen and went to college, and maybe that was why everybody was dressed up, maybe class had a dress code. If anyone would make their college class have a dress code, it would totally be Damian, a PhD student who still showed up to teach art history in a ridiculously fancy suit that made him look just like his dad.

Jon had been glad when Damian got taller than him, and even gladder when Damian had finally filled out. It made him look so much more like Bruce, so much less like Talia, and that, well. Jon didn’t need to be the world’s greatest anything to know how important that was to Damian.

Damian still had her sharp features, her olive skin, her cruel streak, of course, but it sure put Jon’s heart at ease to know Damian didn’t have to look in the mirror each morning and see only her face.

Damian put his bag down on the big desk at the front and started taking out some papers, as Jon bit his lip and tried to modulate his breathing so he sounded like everyone else in class, so he wasn’t forgetting to take a breath for too long, because he could forget, easy, when he was distracted, but Damian would totally notice and Jon didn’t want him to figure it out early, he wanted to him to notice when —

Damian looked up and over the class, just a quick, dismissive glance, and Jon could practically hear the gravel crunching as his eyes ground to a halt on Jon.

Sweater Vest stopped breathing; the girl in front of them sucked in in a huge rush of air. No one had been talking, but now no one was moving, just a roomful of terrified, pounding hearts, and oh my God, Damian, Jon thought fondly, you total freaking lunatic.

Jon smiled. Damian’s eyebrow quirked, very slightly, and he looked away, going back to his papers.

Sweater Vest breathed out, slow and shaky.

Class began.

It was interesting. They were mostly talking about German and French weaving and some wall paintings — murals, duh, right — but from like, 900CE. There was a projector and Damian had put up a couple pictures of the big murals so they could look at them while he talked.

Damian knew his stuff. It wasn’t shocking; he’d written like four books about this that Jon knew of, and anyway, Damian had known more than anyone else about pretty much everything for like, the duration of Jon’s entire life.

“The repeating patterns you see here became more geometrically constrained starting around 955CE,” Damian was saying. “They also became more consistent both intra- and inter-artist. Ms. Braxton,” he said, fixing his eyes on a small, dark-skinned girl in the second row, “why is that?”

“Uh,” she said. “Is it because of the access to, uh, horsehair —”

“No,” he said. “Mr. Kendry?”

Mr. Kendry was a tall, lanky boy with pale skin and paler hair who was sitting five seats over from Jon. He had a fancy leather jacket on in class, which Jon had always thought was rude — weren’t you supposed to take your coat off inside?

“Because of the invention of higher mathematics,” Mr. Kendry said, shooting Ms. Braxton a disdainful look.

“In 955CE?” Damian said musingly. “What a charmingly Eurocentric perspective.”

“What?” Mr. Kendry said, wary.

“Who exactly invented the mathematics you’re discussing?” Damian said.

“I, uh,” Mr. Kendry babbled. “I’m not sure. This is art history, I mean, I didn’t —”

“Congratulations,” Damian said, in a voice like ice. “You’ve managed to put forth a single sentence, misleading at best, and yet you cannot even explain your own thought processes, much less provide any facts to back up your very incorrect theory.”

Jon leaned over to Sweater Vest, who flinched away from him, then took a breath and leaned back in.

“Do people do the reading for this class?” Jon whispered.

“What?” Sweater Vest whispered back. “Yeah, of —”

“Kent,” Damian snapped, “do you have something to add?”

Clothing rustled against seats; papers shifted under fingertips as twenty pairs of eyes slowly turned to stare at Jon.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jon said. “I just thought that you had said that that kind of geometry wasn’t really introduced until like fifty years after this.”

“I had said?” Damian asked, locking onto him. “When did I say that?”

It was a real question. Jon could tell — of course he could tell, like, it had only been eight years. Sometimes Damian asked rhetorical questions so he could go on and on about whatever point he was trying to make and sometimes he asked real questions that he wanted an answer to. He just wasn’t super good at making those two things sound different.

“In the reading?” Jon said. “Um, on page,” he flipped through his notebook, “fourteen? You said that, uh, the use of repeating patterns got better starting in the mid-900s, but that, then, on page twenty-one, you said that people had tried to introduce new kinds of math like, a bunch of times but nobody really paid any attention until King Rasbin IV and he didn’t start being king until 1005. I had to look that up, you didn’t say when he was king from,” Jon said, looking back up to meet Damian’s eyes.

The classroom was silent as a grave. Jon could hear each timid, careful breath from each student, the beat of every heart.

Damian was silent, too, which was way weirder. Come on, Jon thought. Did Damian really think he’d show up to Damian’s class and not even have done the reading? Damian had literally written the textbook.

“So it sounds like the art stuff got better before they really accepted the math stuff,” Jon added, in case he’d been confusing, not to Damian — who definitely knew what he meant to say; he almost always did — but to everyone else, who all still looked like Jon had turned them to stone.

Damian’s gaze shifted slightly, less hard and more impatient, and oh shit, Jon knew that look. Damn it.

“Um,” Jon said, scratching at his hair. That was all he knew about anything, Damian, geez. Call on someone else.

Keep talking, Damian’s expression said. Come on, Kent. You’re almost there.

He knew that look.

“Maybe, did the artists — oh! Were they trying to figure it out?” Jon said. “Like, maybe they were trying to make up this kind of geometry on their own, but King Rasbin, you said he liked this art style, he had a bunch of people painting his palace, so maybe, did he hear about the new math stuff and then go to his artists and say, like, ‘guys, this is like what you’re trying to do? But better, so you should try this instead?’”

The left side of Damian’s mouth twitched up; his brows found a distinctly satisfied tilt. Jon grinned.

“King Rasbin IV,” Damian said mildly. “King Rasbin was a powerless puppet ruler who was killed at fifteen. Otherwise, yes.”

The room, collectively, breathed out.

“Cool,” Jon said. Damian raised both eyebrows. “Not the puppet king thing,” Jon said, rolling his eyes. “The art thing! Cool that it was so popular that the artists convinced everyone to pay attention to the new math stuff.”

“Yes. Although in most academic circles it’s still considered a theory without clear evidence,” Damian told him.

“Oh,” Jon said.

“Don’t worry, I have a paper under review which will address that deficit,”  Damian said, flashing just a hint of teeth. “Unsurprisingly, some people aren’t very good at gathering evidence.”

Jon laughed.

“Don’t laugh at him!” Sweater Vest whispered furiously.

“Mr. Mitchell,” Damian said. Sweater Vest’s head snapped up.

“Yes,” Sweater Vest said weakly.

“In 1132CE, following the death of King Rasbin V, Guillaume Res wrote a treatise on the new bascura technique,” Damian said. “What were its immediate and long-term implications for palace artworks?”

Sweater Vest opened his mouth, then closed it.

Damian turned to his desk and started rifling through the papers. Sweater Vest looked like he was going to throw up.

“Mr. Mitchell, I will give you five seconds to produce something resembling a coherent, informed answer,” Damian pulled a packet of papers out of the pile, “before I discard your midterm paper and give you a zero.”

“Uh,” Sweater Vest said.

“Five,” Damian said. “Four.”

“If you don’t know, just guess something!” Jon whispered.

“Shut up, Kent,” Damian said, agate-hard. “You’re not allowed to help him. Three.”

“Aaauuuhh? I, um,” Sweater Vest said.

“Two,” Damian said. “One.”

“What’s the point of this? He obviously doesn’t know!” Jon said.

“You’re right,” Damian said, “he doesn’t.” He dropped the paper into the trash can by the desk. “Moving on.”

“Geez,” Jon muttered when Damian turned his back to them to advance the slideshow.

“You need to shut up, for real,” Sweater Vest told him, “before Wayne comes up here and stabs you.”

“Pff,” Jon said, just loud enough to carry. “Stab me? He could try.”

Damian’s spine straightened, briefly, but he just pushed a button and a new painting came up on the projector screen.

—

“Dismissed,” Damian said, finally, and the room burst into a rush of noise, closing books and scraping chairs.

“Thanks,” Sweater Vest said to Jon, not at all sarcastically.

“Huh?” Jon said.

“You distracted him for a while,” Sweater Vest said. “Thanks.”

“Uh, okay,” Jon said, and then, “you’re welcome,” because that’s what you said when somebody said thank you.

“Yep,” Sweater Vest said, standing up. “Now flee while you can.”

Jon didn’t, though; he was planning to wait until everyone was gone to go down to the front, but about half the students were still there when Damian snapped his bag shut and said, “Is something amiss? Did one of our fathers send you?”

Nobody else was near him. Nobody else would have heard him. He wasn’t talking to anyone else.

Jon got up and collected his jacket and notebook and walked down to the board as fast as he could without raising suspicion, or at least eyebrows.

“No, of course not,” Jon said, coming up behind Damian. He almost leaned on the desk next to where Damian was standing, but then he’d be like, one foot away from Damian and everyone else was giving them a good ten foot clearance, easy.

Definitely because of Damian, not because of Jon. Jon stopped a few feet away and put his hands in his pockets.

Damian shot him a look.

“If something bad was happening, I would call you,” Jon said. “I was just in the area because my friend Leah from home is moving to an apartment in Trenton to live near her mom, so —”

“Most people just say, ‘I was in the neighborhood,’” Damian said.

“Okay, fine,” Jon said. “I was in the neighborhood.”

Damian turned to face him, frowning. “Then what’s wrong with you, Kent? You’re not normally this standoffish.”

“What?” Jon said. “I’m not — you are, and anyway, all your students are still here! I don’t wanna be like, ‘hey buddy!’ and then you have to explain why you have some random kid who doesn’t even go here showing up and being weird.”

“Did you hit your head on the flight here? I don’t explain my interpersonal interactions to my undergraduates,” Damian said.

“Oh,” Jon said, feeling slightly silly. “Right.”

“Did you truly think I cared about them?” Damian said snidely. “I haven’t gotten that soft in my old age.”

“You’re not that old,” Jon said.

“Old enough,” Damian said, haughty, and Jon said, “I’ve seen you older,” because he was never ever letting Damian live down the time he got turned into a tiny little eighty-year-old man.

Damian narrowed his eyes and gave him a look that could cut glass.

“Anyway,” Jon said, “hey buddy! I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by,” and then, while Damian was still disoriented by being super mad at him, he stepped in for hug.

Somebody dropped a whole armful of books.

“Gah!” Damian said. “This is not what I was encouraging you —”

Jon patted him on the back and let him go. “Are you done? I’m starving.”

“Of course you are,” Damian said. “Fine. Come on, the chefs at the dining hall should be preparing my dinner. They’ll make you an extra serving if we catch them early enough.”

“I can just eat normal cafeteria food, or whatever,” Jon said.

“You could eat garbage off the ground,” Damian said. “I can’t. Let’s go.”

—

NOW THERE IS A SEQUEL! Did you want that? Well, I did.

[bigbruinsenergy]

20 Questions Tag

Rules: answer 20 questions and tags 20 people you want to know better. I was tagged by @2us2kstuukkarask and @saint-patrice (wow ily both thank u,,, i’m all :))) about this haha)

Nickname - I don’t really have one because morgan isn’t very nickname-able :/

Zodiac Sign - pisces, basically

Hogwarts House - ravenclaw, babeyyy (although you’d probably never guess it based on the everything about me)

Height - 5’ 3”

Last thing I googled - The Band CAMINO vinyl (spoiler alert i can’t find one its v sad)

Favorite Music Artists - well at the moment i’m really into The Band CAMINO and Bryce Vine but all time fave would have to be Jon Bellion

Song stuck in my head - Sweet by Bren Joy (ft. Landon Sears)

Followers - 91

Following - 84

Do I get asks - not really unless i do an ask meme or someone like needs to tell me something ?? but i literally love getting them so feel free to pop into my inbox :)))

Amount of sleep - in the summer i try to do 8+ hrs but at school it’s more like 6

Lucky Number - 27

What I am Wearing - just regular old jean shorts and a ringer tee w my school’s name on it

Dream Job - communications director for a cool politician who i think is doing important things and inciting true social change for the better, or working for GLAAD in some capacity bc i fuckn love them

Instruments - i played flute in middle school, am self taught on the uke (but like i have a tumblr so is that surprising?) and i suppose i can pick out a few basic songs on the piano but that should barely count tbh

Languages - just a little conversational french, i took it all through middle school and high school but i’m not sure how much i remember at this point

Favorite Song - that’s impossible but at the moment i’ll go with Almost (Sweet Music) by Hozier bc gotta get andrew in here somewhere (also @ whoever on here said they keep calling him andrew, i literally have not stopped thinking about that post)

Random Fact - i went to clown school once and learned how to ride a unicycle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aesthetic - omg i’m ALL about that aesthetic,,, i’m your basic artsy college gal — studying in coffee shops, wandering around art museums, a kanken backpack, ukulele strummin, watercolors, a folder of poems on my laptop that will never see the light of day, my yellow hydroflask covered w color-coordinated stickers, picnics on the common, going to the docks late at night to see the skyline lit up, etc.

Dream Trip - paris has been my ‘since i was a little girl’ dream, but i’d also love an art-seeing tour of italy (bc you gotta hit up rome, florence, and venice of course)

um 20 is a lot but i’ll tag @debrusks, @kureally, @dirtywaterbears, @jilliandubuque, @kuraleaping, @bonafide-stallion, @patricemarchand, @marchyslove, @bostonbackes and anyone else who reads this and thinks it might be fun :) (p.s. sorry if i tagged you and you’ve already done this oop)

[scrawnydutchman]

Why “Super Best Friends Play” is the Hypest Let’s Play Channel on Youtube

Let’s players are a popular, albeit divisive lot on youtube. On one hand, many go on record saying the Let’s Play format is cheap, lazy and maybe even a bit exploitative, as when it comes down to it it’s basically just some random people playing a game you could play yourself instead. On the other hand, many others love Let’s Players because they think there’s something endearing about seeing other people experience the things you love in their own unique way and it’s a very down to earth way to get to know some of your favorite online personalities. So where do I land on this? Well, I think Let’s Play is like any other format in that there’s a right and wrong way to do it. If you fall into basic tropes you can tend to blend in with other generic personalities in your field. If you do it, you gotta have a charm and an appeal that really stands out and can grow a dedicated fan base if not a particularly large one. That’s where Super Best Friends come in. I’ve been following the shenanigans of Matt, Pat & Woolie (and for a time Liam) ever since I first saw the Machinima episode on Spider-Man games I’ve had years of entertainment that both genuinely intrigues me on some solid game design and makes me laugh to tears. The Best Friends Zaibatsu are some of the earliest pioneers of the “group” format of Let’s Play in the same vain as Game Grumps, Achievement Hunter and Funhaus, where the appeal is not in a single persons interaction with a game but in a groups interaction with both the game and each other. It reignites the feelings of playing alongside a good friend and having some laughs fucking around with a videogame. But even with the charming concept of watching some good friends bond over their love for media, it wouldn’t work if important elements weren’t in play. Super Best Friends Play is the hypest Let’s Play channel on youtube for the following reasons: They have distinct likable personalities, they give genuinely interesting insight on the games they play, they’re downright hilarious, they genuinely put in effort for their presentation and they use their means to hugely benefit other communities.

Likable Personalities

The format of group let’s play is arguably a completely different ballpark than just doing a let’s play by yourself because it conveys a different challenge. The challenge is to be entertaining as part of a group, NOT to be funny on your own. It’s easier said than done because there are many cases in which one member receives way too much attention or another is becoming increasingly toxic. It’s why removing and adding new members to your group can be such a risky move for your fan communities; the chemistry of the group becomes completely different (Dan-era Game Grumps is an entirely different beast from Jon-era Game Grumps). Luckily the Best Friends have wonderful chemistry with each other that never gets old. Matt’s always the endearing leading man with the golden laugh, bottomless bag of Simpsons references and hilariously derailing one liners. Pat always brings his deadpan wit and sarcastic tone (and makes for a great straight man as a result). Woolie is the Zaibatsu’s hype man; knowing how to make any epic moment a million times better with his reactions. Former member Liam was often the quiet sensible one but when he got a laugh MAN was it a big laugh. They’re all such colliding personalities but they come together in such an endearing way that makes the whole experience lovable but not overbearing. These guys are a fundamental part of my sense of humor today. It’s the reason that unlike other let’s play series on Youtube the Zaibatsu let’s plays have great rewatch value. It also helps that they actually complete most of the playthroughs they start (cough *Game Grumps* cough). Whether they’re referencing old media, getting hype over a great game moment, laughing their asses off or are getting in stupid arguments (I recommend the “shitting pants” argument from the L.A. Noire series) watching the Best Friends is always a great time.

Great Insight on Games

So remember that old anti Let’s Play argument about how commentating over recorded game play is so easy anyone can do it? Well, I have a rebuttal. Yes, anyone can do it . . . that doesn’t mean everyone SHOULD do it. Aside from personality being a driving incentive for anyone to sit through a 10 minute video of some random person playing Detroit: Become Human, one would argue you should also present some knowledge of the game you’re playing. Otherwise it doesn’t matter what game you’re playing; there’s nothing distinguishing one let’s play series from another. Every episode of Conan O’Brien’s Clueless Gamer is just Conan’s unfunny improv set to canned audience laughter as he does a show out of necessity and not out of passion. Not knowing about the game can also cause other impeding issues such as the series taking forever to progress or the player becoming unlikable as they disregard fundamental aspects of the game (DarkSydePhil). When it comes to knowing something about the games they play, Super Best Friends not only express intoxicating passion for the medium but also express some applied knowledge on game design which makes for more interesting commentary. It’s very appropriate since the lot have been game testers on a number of titles. Whenever they have something to say about how to activate bugs, tight controls, decent polish on mechanics or even how well the games narrative is woven into the gameplay it teaches me a little more about how the medium works. They’re also clearly very passionate about their favorite franchises, such as Matt’s take on the Final Fight series above (I recommend you check out all of the Best Friends independent channels btw, which I will link to below):

Matt: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiP_FwGyJQ_6P8k5ON5mncQ

Pat: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpmNJI_KhjkpXw1UPmtC3-Q

Woolie: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyOJzQzyDGihKpTO3-zyhYg

Liam: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7zkWVkHBSMGpfHVgaFqr1A

They’re Downright Hilarious

I really don’t have a lot to say here. I know humor is largely subjective and these guys spout so many obscure references you may not even get a lot of them, but . . .goddamn . . I don’t think anybody on the entirety of Youtube has made me laugh as hard or as consistently as these guys. For the best of the best, I recommend their Spider-Man Machinima episode (my introduction to them), the Punch Out Outtakes (which oddly enough is funnier than the actual episode) Their L.A. Noire playthrough, Their Punisher Playthrough and their Gang Beasts Fisticuffs. You can see all you need to know about their chemistry, wit and delivery. Links to all below

Spider-Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gea09ImEtmM

Punch-Out!!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOwQXNxcRRM

L.A. Noire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bPqjD_zg5g

Punisher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wznGw9fJNCc

Gang Beasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhFGjK_ZUEk

They Put In Effort For Their Presentation/They Largely Benefit Other Communities

*this is just one of many outstanding animated intros commissioned by Super Best Friends, courtesy of Volta Bass*

If there’s one thing I can always use as a defense for most Let’s Play internet celebrities, it’s that they use their means to really benefit other communities. Say what you want about Markiplier, but there’s a reason he was awarded celebrity of the year by the Make-a-Wish foundation. Say what you will about Ihascupquake but she played a fundamental role in launching Jaiden Animations very successful career. Needless to say the popularity of Let’s Players has had a hugely positive effect on countless communities and that’s something we could always use more of, especially in an age where a lot of role models are . . . not great.

Super Best Friends is not only a great example of this, but is probably the best example I can think of. Why? Because they do more to benefit both the indie game community and the animation community than any other let’s player despite being one of the smaller channels out there (criminally small I might add). T.E.C 3001, Skullgirls, Shovel Knight and Divekick ALL owe a great deal of their success to the Zaibatsu’s funding and influence and each game has some sort of mention of them attributed. Also, as an animator myself I HIGHLY appreciate the Zaibatsu for their regular employment of animation talent like 2Snacks, Plague of Gripes, CrankyConstruct and Volta Bass. Because of how much they hire such talent every new series has a stunningly gorgeous intro and outro for each episode. These guys are an indication that some Let’s Play Channels larger than them have to STEP UP THEIR GAME when it comes to hiring talent and making strides in the indie community. *P.S, if anyone in the Zaibatsu is reading this, I would be honored if you would have me do an animated intro/outro for a series. Just say the word and I’m there*. 

But their effort doesn’t stop at hiring other talent. They also do great in providing their own entertaining edited content. Just look at this intro they made for Saturday 

Morning Scrublords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljDcHWHKueM&t=286s

One will notice this hilarious intro is a parody of their already amazing intro for Friday Night Fisticuffs. And this isn’t the only variation of the intro they’ve ever done either. That’s what I like about these guys the most; they’re genuinely passionate about being entertaining. They aren’t just let’s players; they do a little but of everything from sketches to animated adventures to podcasts to livestreams. You can tell they have a huge blast doing all of it.

In conclusion, if anyone wants to start a genuinely entertaining Let’s Play Channel, they ought to take some notes from the Best Friends. They’re great because they diversify, they put their money and time into making great content, they have solid insight, clear passion and they’re goddamn hilarious. For these reasons, they will always be the HYPEST LET’S PLAY CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE.

[tozierswheelers]

being the middle byers child [headcanon]

Requested: By some of y’all who seemed to like the ‘being the middle wheeler child’ headcanons!

Pairings: Jonathan Byers x reader (platonic), Will Byers x reader (platonic), faint Steve Harrington x reader (if you squint)

this is so long i’m so sorry :((( season two continues below the cut!!

you were Lonnie and Joyce’s second child, born a year after Jonathan

as horrible as it sounds, you were always Lonnie’s favorite

you were tough and much more driven than Jonathan was, never complaining when you guys went hunting.

when Will was born, you just knew that you would do anything to protect your little brother.

when Lonnie left, you realized just how much of a dick he was

you were the one who helped Joyce get through the divorce.

as you got older, Joyce quickly realized that you were incredibly intelligent

this led to you skipping a few grades in school

although you were a year younger than Jonathan, you were a year above him in school

(this meant that you were in the same grade as Steve)

((spoilers! y’all were best friends))

around Tommy and Carol however, Steve pretended not to know you

so you decided that you just wouldn’t pay him any attention.

next thing you know, Steve is dating Nancy Wheeler and both you and Jonathan are heartbroken

Jonathan has always liked Nancy, so he was upset.

but you and Steve…

you guys were close

and i mean close

you did e v e r y t h i n g together.

he was your best friend who never teased you for being an ‘overachiever’ 

he didn’t care that you were two years younger than him. 

y’all were best friends.

platonic soulmates if you will.

you began spending a lot of time with Will, seeing as how Jonathan was always out working or taking pictures of stuff.

the night that Will disappeared, you were taking a walk in the park

when you got home, you were slightly suspicious but shrugged it off, thinking Will had stayed the night at Mike’s.

you realized you were wrong the next morning

Joyce had never yelled at you before

but this time she did, upset with you for not being at home the night before

you immediately make your way towards the Wheeler residence, seeing Nancy’s shocked face when she opens the door

“(Y/N)? What are you doing he-”

“I need to talk with Mike. Now.”

You’re directed towards the basement, where you see Mike upset, tears in his eyes.

“(Y/N) I just heard about Will.”

“I know you plan on going out to look for him Mike.”

Mike makes an offended face, mouth agape.

“(Y/N)! Why would you ever think such a thing?”

“Cut the crap Wheeler. I know you guys are going to look. Count me in.”

Mike smiles and tells you to keep Will’s walkie close by.

the night they go out to look for Will, you get separated pretty quickly.

one minute, Dustin was next to you

next thing you know, you’re surrounded by nothing but darkness.

you hear the boys calling out for you and Will and run towards their voices

you run into Eleven instead ((oops))

you and Mike convince the others to trust El and take her back to Mike’s house.

the middle schoolers promise to take care of El, so you hesitantly leave.

the next day, you try to go back but Steve intercepts you when you try to leave the school.

“hey Byers, I know this isn’t the best time but do you wanna hang out tonight? my house?”

you snort and walk away, leaving Steve to sigh and kick a locker in frustration. 

eventually, you feel guilty and make your way towards Steve’s home…

…where you immediately regret your decision.

Steve is only paying attention to Nancy and Tommy & Carol are making snide remarks towards you. 

you sit awkwardly next to Barb, exchanging pained glances and desperate smiles. 

you stay outside when Barb gets hurt, only approaching the door when you hear arguing.

you meet Steve’s gaze and when he smiles in an apologetic way, you simply shake your head, turning to follow Barb.

you freeze in shock however, when you notice a large figure behind the sulking redhead

you open your mouth to warn Barb but in the blink of an eye, both the redhead and the mysterious figure are gone. 

you can’t help but feel the uneasy due to what you saw

it isn’t until you’re walking through the woods, halfway home, that you realize what was bothering you so much

the mysterious figure didn’t have a face.

you run the rest of the way home.

the next day, you overhear Nancy asking about Barb

concerned, you both team up and decide to locate the redhead

you patiently wait by Nancy’s side when she calls the Holland household, cringing at her poorly executed excuses.

when you both arrive to the parking lot, you’re thoroughly confused

you sort of agree with Steve: Jon’s stealthy pictures are kind of creepy.

but he’s your brother

the moment when Steve has Jonathan’s camera in his hands is tense.

((you’re holding your breath))

and when he lets it drop, all hell breaks loose.

as Jonathan scrambles to save his camera and Tommy and Carol rip up his pictures, you stomp up to Steve

a regret-filled look crossed his face and he opens his mouth ((to apologize but you don’t know that))

he never speaks because you punch him in the face.

you definitely split his lip and you can’t help but grin as you notice the bruise quickly forming on his cheek. 

everyone. is. shook.

I mean, you two were best friends. two peas in a pod. 

but your family was super important to you.

you hear that Will’s body was found later that day and against your better judgement, you make your way to Steve’s house.

Steve opens the door with a scowl but once he hears the words “Will”, “body” and “dead”, he wraps you up in his arms.

you cry your eyes out and eventually, you both fall asleep.

you leave bright and early the next morning, making your way to the Wheeler residence

where Mike tells you that Will is still alive.

you don’t believe him but once you hear what El did, you’re convinced.

you spend the rest of the time with The Party, ready to get your little brother back. 

you’re the one that breaks up the fight in the junkyard and follows Eleven after scolding the boys.

once convincing El to go back, you rush to find Troy and James at the quarry.

enraged, you’re the one that scares the boys off while El saves Mike.

eventually, you escape the government agents and meet up with Hopper, Nancy, and your mom and brother.

Joyce is relieved that you’re alright but upset that you’re wrapped up in everything. 

you force Joyce and Hopper to let you go with them to the lab. 

((they’re pretty intimidated by your tone that they agree))

you and Hopper are the ones to perform CPR on Will.

as soon as he wakes up, you wrap him in your arms and lead the way out of the Upside Down.

when he wakes up in the hospital, you’re the first to greet him, wrapping him up in a hug and kissing his forehead.

“you loser. never scare us like that again.”

Will smiles weakly.

“I didn’t mean to.”

almost a year later and you’re super concerned.

Will had ((luckily)) confided in you about the visions he’s been having about the Upside Down. 

that + college apps = lots of stress.

you start spending lots of time at the arcade to wind down, meeting Maxine Mayfield 

you quickly grow close to the little red-haired girl ((does anyone get this reference?))

Max, in return, looks up to you, admiring your intelligence and humor.

when you hear that she beat Dustin’s high score in Dig Dug, you know that things are going to get interesting.

the boys soon come up to you when school starts, knowing that you spend a lot of time at the arcade.

they beg you to find out who “MADMAX” is, feeling offended when they find out that you know who it is and you haven’t told them.

eventually, your life starts to feel normal

the only thing bothering you is Billy Hargrove, who keeps bothering you to go on a date with him. 

((you refuse each time))

(((Max has told you all about the things he’s done)))

on Halloween, you volunteer to stay with The Party, telling Jonathan to go enjoy Tina’s party.

when Max joins you, she immediately hugs you.

“(Y/N)!!”

“Max!”

The Party looks at you in shock and betrayal.

“you already knew her?!”

“yes Dustin. calm down.”

you and Mike find Will after his episode and manage to calm him down

eventually, you also get caught up in the Dart fiasco. 

when Will has his vision out on the field, you and Joyce freak out, trying to get him to snap out of it.

you’re pretty freaked out at will’s new actions.

you know that the shadow monster has inhabited a part of him. 

when you try to take a nap, you hear Dustin calling for help on the walkie-talkie, which you never gave back to Will.

you respond to Dustin’s cries, and he tells you to meet at the Wheeler’s residence.

before you can tell him that Mike is there with you, he disconnects.

sighing tiredly, you make your way to Mike’s house, leaving a quick note for Joyce and Bob.

you’re surprised to see Steve with Dustin when you get there.

you haven’t talked to Steve in a long time.

the last time was when you punched him in the face.

((lies, it was when you went to his house crying over Will))

you all stand there awkwardly before you break the silence.

“wait. Steve, you know about the Upside Down?”

“yeah, I helped Nancy and your brother fight against it.”

Dustin rolls his eyes before dragging you to his house…

…where you find Dart gone. 

you and Steve can’t help but exchange exasperated glances at Dustin’s actions.

“why did you keep that thing?!”

“I thought it was a pollywog!”

you decide to set up a trap in the junkyard.

when Max arrives, you scold Dustin and Lucas for dragging her into the situation.

when the demodogs arrive, you follow after Steve, holding nothin but a metal pole.

Steve is low-key worried for your safety.

((that worry quickly disappears when you save his life 10 two times))

the kids are all in awe because damn you can fight.

“that’s how I fend off your brother,” you wink at Max, causing her to cackle.

you all eventually regroup at the lab and quickly move to your home.

you lead Will’s interrogation, knowing that he’ll try harder to communicate with you.

you eventually get the message and you all rush inside when the phone rings. 

when Eleven steps through the door, all badass, you’re the second person to hug her, after Mike.

you stay with Steve and the kids as everyone else goes to do their thing. 

when Billy arrives, you’re the one who gets him off of Lucas.

you punch him first, and when Billy goes to swing back, Steve stops him. 

“didn’t anyone teach you not to hit girls?”

you’re super proud when Max finally stands up to Billy. 

you let Max drive while you tend to Steve’s wounds and when he starts freaking out, you manage to calm him down. 

after torching the tunnels, you push Mike out of the way

you get caught by the vines instead of him.

you don’t cry out for help, but Mike does.

by the time Steve arrives, you’re already hacking at the vines with a pocketknife that Jonathan had once given you “for protection”

Steve and the kids are impressed once again. 

you make sure all the kids get out of the tunnel first.

when you hear the demodogs approaching, you and Steve embrace each other tightly.

you each apologize for being horrible friends to one another.

when you emerge from the tunnel, you hug him once more.

“I really am sorry Steve. you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“nothing like a near death experience to bring us back together, huh (Y/N). just kidding. you’re my bestest friend too.”

you snort at his words but hug him tighter anyways. 

a month later and everything finally is back to normal.

you and Will are inseparable, along with Jonathan.

you mourn Bob with your mom for a while.

you actually really like him, he cared about both your mom and her children.

you and Joyce both drop off Will and Jonathan at the Snow Ball.

while Joyce goes out to smoke, you stay in the car, listening to music before you see Steve arrive.

you casually jump into his car while he’s giving Dustin advice.

“remember act like you don’t care.”

“that’s shit advice Steve. just be yourself Dusty.”

you kiss Dustin’s cheek before he enters the school.

you turn to Steve, a mischievous smirk on your face.

“hey Steve. wanna go to the dance with me?”

Steve rolls his eyes and sighs before smiling widely.

“let’s do this Byers.”

you and Steve sit on the bleachers together and watch Nancy dance with Dustin.

eventually, The Party, Nancy, and Jonathan all sit at a table and watch you and Steve as you laugh and joke around.

Dustin is the first to speak.

“okay, I know that they’re best friends and all that shit but you can’t look at them and tell me that they’re not gonna end up together at some point. I mean, look at them! they’re practically soulmates!”

the rest of The Party and Nancy nod in agreement.

except Will

him and Jonathan punch Dustin in unison.

“hey! what was that for? you guys know i’m right. Byers and Harrington will end up together.”

Will and Jonathan begrudgingly nod in agreement after a few minutes. 

up in the bleachers, you gently nudge Steve before tilting your head towards your friends.

following your gaze, Steve snorts and wraps his arm around you pulling you into a hug and laughing.

you lean into his embrace.

for the first time in over a year, you’re relaxed.

you’re not thinking about the Upside Down, or college.

as far as you know, your brother is completely safe, El is alive, the Gate is closed, and you’ve fixed your friendship with Steve.

yeah, life couldn’t be better.

Tags: @delicrieux, @broken-pieces, @toekeery, @stanleyurisalive, @tapetayloe, @thekidsofneibolt

[seekfirstme]

The following reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager © 2021. Don's website is located at Dailyscripture.net

Meditation: What can we expect from God, especially when we recognize that he doesn't owe us anything and that we don't deserve his grace and favor? Jesus used the illustration of a late-night traveler to teach his listeners an important lesson about how God treats us in contrast to the kind of treatment we might expect from our neighbors.

The rule of hospitality in biblical times required the cooperation of the entire community in entertaining an unexpected or late-night guest. Whether the guest was hungry or not, a meal would be served. In a small village it would be easy to know who had baked bread that day. Bread was essential for a meal because it served as a utensil for dipping and eating from the common dishes. Asking for bread from one's neighbor was both a common occurrence and an expected favor. To refuse to give bread would bring shame and dishonor because it was a sign of in-hospitality - showing a lack of friendship and generosity.

God awakens us from sleep that we may ask and receive

If a neighbor can be imposed upon and coerced into giving bread in the middle of the night, how much more hospitable is God, who, no matter what the circumstances, is generous and ready to give us what we need. Augustine of Hippo reminds us that "God, who does not sleep and who awakens us from sleep that we may ask, gives much more graciously."

Ask, seek, knock - and it will be given

When you are in need who do you turn to for help? Jesus tells us that God is always ready to answer those who seek him and call upon him with expectant trust in his mercy and kindness. Jesus states very clearly and simply what we must do: Ask, seek, knock. God our heavenly Father waits upon us. Like a table waiter or friend who comes in the middle of the night, he is always ready to hear our plea and to give us what we need. Do you ask the Father with expectant faith and confident trust in his goodness? Do you seek his guidance and help in your time of need? Do you knock with persistence at his door of mercy and favor? If we treat our heavenly Father with indifference or neglect to ask with confident trust, we may miss the opportunity we have been given to receive his grace and favor and merciful help.

God gives more than we can ask or expect

In conclusion Jesus makes a startling claim: How much more will the heavenly Father give! The Lord is ever ready to give us not only what we need, but more than we can expect. He gives freely of his Holy Spirit that we may share in his abundant life and joy. Do you approach your heavenly Father with confident trust in his mercy and kindness?

"Heavenly Father, you are merciful, gracious and kind. May I never doubt your mercy and love nor hesitate to seek you with confident trust in order to obtain the gifts, graces, and daily provision I need to live as your beloved child and constant friend."

The following reflection is from One Bread, One Body courtesy of Presentation Ministries © 2021.

THY WILL BE DONE?

“So I say to you: ‘Ask and you shall receive.’ ” —Luke 11:9

A good test to determine if we are praying according to God’s will or our own will is this: How do we respond when we don’t receive that for which we asked? If we become angry or upset, it may mean that we are praying for our own will to be done rather than God’s.  For example, compare Jonah’s angry reactions with the docile response of Jesus (see Jon 4:1, 8-10; Mt 26:42).

The passage immediately preceding today’s Gospel reading is the Our Father (Lk 11:2-4). As Jesus teaches in the Our Father, we pray for God’s will to be done (Mt 6:10; Lk 11:2). In the verses immediately following the Our Father, He then tells us to ask persistently (Lk 11:8). Jesus says: “Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened” (Lk 11:9).

Little children do not hesitate to be persistent. It takes time for a little child to mature. A loving parent understands that the child is maturing, and that their requests start out being self-centered. The parent teaches the child how to ask by saying: “Now say Please...”, “Now say Thank You...”. Likewise, our heavenly Father teaches us over time how to pray and ask in faith, with persistence, and according to His will.  Therefore, pray without ceasing (Lk 18:1) and persist in your prayer (Lk 11:8).

Prayer:  Father, may I never grow weary of believing that You love everything about me. I trust that You are a loving, providing Father.

Promise:  “For you who fear My name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.” —Mal 3:20

Praise:  Pope St. Pius V established the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary in thanksgiving for Mary’s answer to the many rosaries prayed for the victory of the Christian fleet over the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571.

Reference:  (This teaching was submitted by a member of our editorial team.) (For a related teaching on Seek First the Kingdom, order, view or download our leaflet on our website.)

Rescript:  "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for the publication One Bread, One Body covering the time period from October 1, 2021 through November 30, 2021. Reverend Steve J. Angi, Vicar General, Chancellor, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio April 14, 2021"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements