#last 10-20 minutes before i had to split the post

[iam93percentstardust]

one of the things that i loved about barbie (2023) that i think a lot of the posts making fun of male-written reviews miss is that, though the movie presents itself as a commentary on the patriarchy and sexism, the message at the core of the film isn't actually limited to being about (cis) women. it's about anyone who is Other.

i went to go see the movie on thursday afternoon before all the big midnight premieres, and the theater was still packed. there wasn't an empty seat in the entire theater. i had a seat at the end of the row, which i had picked out in a faint (futile) hope that no one would sit next to me. thirty seconds before the trailers started, a family of about 10 black people walked in and split up, presumably because they'd only just bought their tickets and there were no longer 10 seats together. the dad and the son, who was maybe a few years younger than me in his early-20s, a good foot and a half taller than me, and who i recognized as one of the football players at the local university, ended up taking the two empty seats next to me with the linebacker in the seat right next to me. and that was pretty much the last time i thought of them until the last twenty minutes of the movie.

see, in the last twenty minutes of the movie, america ferrera makes an impassioned speech about not just the limitations that male-dominated society puts on women but the limitations that women put on themselves in order to survive in said male-dominated society. it's about the contradictions that we're subjected to--you can't be too much, but you can't be too little either. you have to lift each other up but you're also in constant competition with other women for the shredded dregs of respect that men have left over for us. you can't say yes to a man because then you're a whore but you can't say no because then you're a prude. it was passionate and bitter and furious and it had every woman in the theater, myself included, in tears.

and in the silence of the theater following america ferrera's plea for barbie not to make herself less just so that society isn't threatened by her, the linebacker sitting next to me said fervently, "i feel that."

it brought everything to a screeching halt. now i'm a white woman, and though i'm fat and nowhere near as gorgeous as margot robbie, from the very first trailer, it was obvious that this was going to be a movie for me. and if done right, it was going to be a movie for all women (and i would argue that it was). but the thing that it also did right was that though the surface of the message was about women making themselves lesser, the core was that it was for anyone who makes themselves lesser to fit in. yeah, it's for women who are trying to fit into a male-dominated society, but it's also for bipoc who are trying to fit into a white-dominated society. it's for trans people trying to fit into a cis-dominated society. it's for gay people trying to fit into a heterosexual-dominated society. it's for anyone who's been Othered and has to shrink themselves in a desperate attempt to survive.

i love the posts making fun of male-written reviews that are butthurt that this movie isn't for them just as much as the next person. but i think it's important that we don't forget that those are representative of the people in power, the people that could never understand this message. barbie is for me, yeah, but it isn't just for me. it's for my trans friend who is six feet tall and has a beard and wears pink dresses every single day because they make her feel pretty. it's for my labmate who could practically be a barbie herself and irritates me every time she talks about thinphobia but also can't find someone who wants to be with her because she's brilliant and not because she's beautiful.

it's for the black linebacker who sat next to me in the theater and felt heard when a fictional character in a movie told him not to make himself smaller just to fit society's standards.

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | June 3rd-23rd 2024 ~ Podfics

Had to split the fic rec cause Tumblr couldn't handle how long it was 😅

Podfic

[Podfic] i want your midnights by Cass_Caelis/ @cassiopeiacaelis for heartbeatdiaz/ @loserdiaz (New Years Eve, First Kiss | 10-20min | Teen): Buck wasn't expecting his exes to show up at the New Year's party and he certainly wasn't expecting all of them wanting to kiss him at midnight. He only has one person in mind that he actually wants to kiss.

[podfic] trade amber clay roads for the sea foam by Matriaya // fic by @hattalove (Post-S5 | 10-20min | Teen): “It’s the thirty-seventh couch you’ve looked at today,” Eddie finally replies, trying to ignore the headache settling into his temples. “And I'm gonna guess there's something wrong with—what, the headrest?” Buck blinks at him. “It's the feet,” he mumbles, his gaze falling to the floor. “They're weirdly shaped.” in which buck is finally ready to buy a couch, except he doesn't seem to actually want one.

we made these memories for ourselves by half_bakedboy [Podfic] by Rhea314 (Rhea)/ @rhea314 // fic by half_bakedboy / @half-bakedboy (Love Confession, Chris&Buck | 10-20min | General): Buck (accidentally) starts a baby box for Christopher and Eddie finds out.

🔥 [podfic] the sound of love astounds me by All_I_Ask/ @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove for fleetinghearts/ @shitouttabuck (Getting Together | 10-20min | Teen): “All the more reason to sleep,” Eddie presses. Buck looks at him, blinking tiredly. “Okay,” he says, suddenly amenable, rounding the couch and climbing onto it. He drapes himself across it, settling on his back and shoving his head into Eddie’s lap with a contented sigh. Eddie sits frozen, book in one hand and the other hovering over Buck’s chest. or, there’s not a lot eddie wouldn’t do for buck

🔥 [podfic] share this hour of make-believe by All_I_Ask/ @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove for fleetinghearts/ @shitouttabuck (Quarantine, Getting Together | 10-20min | General): or, quarantine finds eddie sharing a bed with a pillow-thief and sleep-talker. he minds less than he thinks.

🔥 [Podfic] you knew the password (so I let you in the door) by RhetoricalQuestions/ @rhetoricalk // fic by lilythesilly / @lilythesilly (Post-S2 | 20-30min | General): “Last year,” he starts again, “We had this really rough call and Bobby—well, Hen and I went to check on him. We didn’t break down the door or anything because Hen had a key to his apartment.” His throat clicks when he swallows. “Said that they had keys to each other’s places in case one of them couldn’t make it home. And I don’t know I—it sounded nice. To have someone looking out for you like that. Just in case.” Eddie seems to come to a decision about something, because he nods once before pulling a key off of his own keyring and handing it to Buck. “Sounds nice to me too.” Or, Buck gives Eddie a key to his loft.

[podfic] but it feels like a fortress when the weather gets bad by TheBoyWhoWalksInTheLight/ @aro-of-artemis (Post-3x15: Eddie Begins | 20-30min | Teen): Turning his face to the side, his eyes landed on the collection of house keys that sat in a bowl on his counter. A key for his apartment, one for Maddie’s, the key to his Jeep and one for Eddie’s front door. Eddie had given it to him one day as though it were the simplest decision in the world. “Y’know. In case you ever need to watch Chris or something. Or in case of emergency.” OR Buck has a nightmare about Eddie dying, but he also has a key to Eddie's house.

🔥 Relationship Advice from Complete Strangers Online by HMSLusitania [Podfic] by Rhea314 (Rhea)/ @rhea314 // fic by @hmslusitania (Getting Together | 20-30min | Teen): When he gets home for the night, Buck turns to the one source of information that’s never let him down: the internet. But where does one go for relationship advice from complete strangers online? Which is how, ten minutes later, he finds himself on Reddit with a shiny new account and username. It takes him a while after that to craft his question for r/Relationships, but he thinks he’s got it pretty accurately conveyed before he hits post.

🔥 [PODFIC] Into the Unknown by TheyReadWhatWeSow (TheyReapWhatWeSow) // fic by benjaminrussell (Canon Divergent, S4 | 30-45min | Teen): Buck is cursed. Cursed to have visions of the future but for no one to believe him. Over the years he’s got used to working around it, until one day, the 118 gets a new firefighter who believes him without question. Okay, Eddie does have some questions, but he believes Buck, and that’s the important thing. But then Buck wakes to a vision of Eddie getting shot. Will he able to prevent his vision from coming true or is he destined to lose the one person who believes him?

🔥 [podfic] I Opened My Eyes and There You Were by All_I_Ask / @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove (Post-S3, Getting Together | 30-45min | Explicit): In which Buck provides the dots and Eddie finally connects them.

🔥 [podfic] i have dreams where i kiss you and it’s pink by All_I_Ask/ @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove for fleetinghearts/ @shitouttabuck (Getting Together, Fluff | 45-60min | Teen): or, jee-yun buckley-han's third birthday party is in dire need of some fairy tale magic and buck's attempt to save the day might just be the thing that finally kills eddie

[podfic] fall right into me by Matriaya // fic by therainbowsedge / @therainbowsedge (PWP | 45-60min | Explicit): They plan the evening on a Tuesday afternoon while on their way back to the station from a call. “Wait.” Buck waves his hand in the air to pause the conversation. “You’ve never smoked weed?” “I’m a firefighter,” Eddie says like that’s an answer to Buck’s question. OR: Buddie gets high.

🔥 The Red Means I Love You by EtoileGarden [Podfic] by Rhea314 (Rhea)/ @rhea314 // fic by @etoilegarden (Post-S4, Angst | 2-2.5h | Mature): How stupid was it that a song that freaked him out so badly was still catchy enough that his brain decided to just play it on random repeat? He held it together for long enough to set the washing machine, to press start, to stumble upstairs to his bed, to lie down. For weeks and weeks after Eddie had been shot, Buck kept dreaming of different endings to the scene. Most of them involving Eddie just dying right there on the tarmac, just out of Buck’s reach. Buck trying to hold him together in the back of the engine even though Eddie was already gone. Buck begging him to stay, to stay, to hold on, please hold on, and Eddie letting go. ~ Eddie's left the 118 and Buck is definitely coping with that.

🔥 [Podfic] listen to you breathing (is where I wanna be) by Itty_Bitty_Blondie/ @itty-bitty-blondie // fic by Yavilee/ @theladyyavilee (Major Character Injury, Angst, Getting Together | 4-4.5h | Teen): The thing is – and Eddie should have known this, has been taught this cruel lesson over and over and over again – the thing is most of the time the worst day of your life will start like just any other day. A million small moments, so familiar and mundane you almost don’t even notice them slipping by - until you would give anything to go back and get just one more. (You can’t.) - Or the one where Buck is presumed dead after a building collapse and Eddie has to live through the reminder that tomorrow isn't promised to anyone

[tamurilofrivendell]

Beauty and the Beast | Chapter 35

Previous Chapters [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34]

Read on AO3 [x]

Pairing: Thranduil/Fem. Reader Summary: A Beauty and the Beast inspired tale with Thranduil the Elvenking and a human reader from a nearby village Taglist: @captainchrisstan​ @rebleforkicks​ @yjrevolution​ @majahu​ @honey-wine @accio-boys​ @achromaticerebus​ @solomonssimp​ @tired-ass-show-girl​  @dreamlessnight​ @daddy-long-legolas​ @sleepyamygdala​ @coopsgirl​  @penguinlovestowrite​ @midsommar-nights​ @whore-of-many-hot-men​ @elvyshiarieko​

note: Don't ever listen to a word I say again because I split the ending into two parts so the final chapter (genuinely this time!) will be posted tomorrow because it's all finished and I just can't wait!! Though I'll be kind of sad for this to end!

Two days later, you had finally stopped crying at every opportunity. You had half wondered if you should flee the kingdom and spare Thranduil the pain of watching you wither and die before his very eyes, but you knew that it had never actually been something you were seriously entertaining. Merely the panicked scrambling of a mind scared to break the already fragile heart of the one it loved so deeply.

Leaving Thranduil now had never been an option, not really. You could not have lived with that and it was true that it would cause him pain just as much as losing you in the future would. You did not wish to hurt him at all but doing it right now felt far more cruel, especially when he had finally blossomed into this wonderful being who had learned to open up and feel love once more.

Besides, you were quite selfish, and you could not be without him.

So you accepted, a little reluctantly, that you loved Thranduil as he was and he loved you as you were - a mere human - and you were going to marry him and live out your days in his realm before one day, far too soon, leaving him to mourn you beneath these very trees.

Your father had been able to tell that something was wrong, of course, but you were loath to talk about it with anyone else in case you started sobbing again. You assured him it was fine and he accepted it even if he did not fully believe it.

He smiled and laughed more in the days since he awoke and you found great joy in seeing him interacting with the elves, even with Thranduil who he had once feared and wished to rescue you from.

You walked in on the two of them one day, your father laughing heartily over a glass of strong elvish wine and Thranduil lounging in his chair with a glass of his own, an amused chuckle leaving his lips.

“What have I walked in on here, hm?” You asked with a soft laugh of your own as you sat down at the other side of the table, propping your elbow up and resting your chin on your hand as you looked between the two.

Thranduil was the one to speak, your father too busy trying to get his laughter under control. “Well, your father was regaling me with stories from your village.” He raised his chalice to his lips and threw back the rest of the contents, his brow quirked in amusement when he set it back upon the table. “However, I fear that the wine is much too strong for him, considering that he has been laughing over something he is certain he said out loud to me, but in fact only said in his own head, for the past twenty minutes.”

You shook your head as your eyes turned on your father. “For Eru’s sake!” You tried to scold him but it didn’t quite hit the mark and it wasn’t long until he looked as though he might fall asleep at the table any moment.

“Elros!” Thranduil’s voice beckoned to the elf he could sense lingering outside the door. You turned to watch Elros enter and you smiled kindly at him. He seemed much less jittery than last you had seen him as he returned the smile.

Thranduil gestured to your father. “Would you be so kind as to escort our friend here to his room? I fear he shall keel over any second.”

Elros assisted your father in standing, the man putting his arm around the elf’s shoulder and leaning in close as though he were about to tell him a secret, but all that came out ended up being a jumble of nonsense. Elros looked a little concerned as he walked your father from the room and it was all you could do not to laugh at the poor fellow.

You turned back to Thranduil as the door closed and found he had risen from the table and moved towards a little desk at the back of the room. When he returned, he lay out a little box on the table in front of you and opened it up. Curiously, you watched as he unveiled a collection of beautiful looking rings. You tilted your head as you looked up at him, silently asking what they were for.

“I would like you to choose one.” He explained, looking up at you as he gestured a hand towards the rings on the table. “I have chosen yours, it is only fair, after all.”

“You want me to pick a ring for you to wear?”

Thranduil nodded. “Once we wed... I shall wear it, as a symbol of our love.” He paused so briefly you nearly missed it. “For the rest of my life.”

You bit your lip lightly, glancing back down at the rings. They were all so beautiful, you didn’t know where to begin. You wondered what he would prefer but he offered no assistance, wishing it to be entirely your decision. Eventually, you settled on one of silver to match yours, but instead of ruby coloured gems set into flowers, this had emerald coloured stones twisted into leaves. He seemed satisfied as he put all the other rings away, smiling as he studied the one you had chosen.

“What... ring did... did Caleniel choose?” You asked after a long pause, unsure if you should mention the Elvenqueen at all. He had told you all about her the day of her begetting, when you had sought him out after he’d shut himself away in her chambers. Still, you did not sure if it would be too far of you to bring her up out of nowhere.

While he hesitated, he did not seem upset or angry. His gaze dropped to his hand with a tender smile and he held it out to you, slightly wiggling his finger. “This one...”

You reached out for his hand, brushing his skin gently as you studied the ring. “She had a good eye.” You said softly, smiling as you released his hand.

“Well, yes.” He shrugged, pulling his hand back. “She took me as a husband, did she not?” Thranduil joked in return, smirking as he poured himself more wine.

You blinked at him and shook your head, trying to look far less amused than you actually were, though the twitch at the corner of your lips likely gave it away. “You are terrible.”

“Yet you love me.” He teased, watching you over the rim of his glass as he lifted it to his lips once more.

You shot him a scathing look but ended up laughing in spite of yourself. You rolled your eyes at him. “I do love you... ego and all.”

Thranduil feigned a look of indignation as he placed his wine back down and leaned towards you. “Hmm.” He hummed and you shivered slightly as his lips brushed the shell of your ear.

Your eyes drifted shut and you leaned into him, sighing as he kissed a line from your ear down your jaw and to your throat.

A knock at the door caught your attention and you heard Galion’s voice on the other side. “My lady? Myleth is looking for you, she wishes to go over your dress and your hair one more time.”

You groaned softly. “I cannot wait to wed you, Thranduil... but I fear I have become Myleth’s personal doll.”

“One more week, my heart.” Thranduil chuckled against your skin, pressing one last kiss to your throat before he pulled back and rose from the table. “Just one more week.”

“Why can I not look at it?” You asked with a heavy sigh, your head tilted back slightly and your eyes on the intricately carved ceiling above you.

Upon entering the room, Myleth had (as seemed to have become routine) made you close your eyes and turn away from the large mirror. “It’s a surprise.” She huffed, shooting you a look that you wouldn’t even see, but you knew her enough by this point to realise she’d done it anyway.

“It is just a dress.” You muttered childishly.

“Excuse you!” Myleth playfully smacked your hip from her place down at the hem of the dress she had helped you put on blind. “That attitude is exactly why you are not seeing yourself in this dress until the day you are presented as the king’s bride.” She shook her head, baffled. She had full faith in the fact that you would change your mind when you actually saw yourself all beautifully dressed on the day... and she would be gracious enough not to throw it in your face!

You had grown used to her dressing you up by this point and, as someone who had never grown up with many dress options, you didn’t really care what you wore. You didn’t fully care what you got married in, truthfully, for it wasn’t as important as being married, being with Thranduil’s. While you did want to do it, this was in some way merely a stepping stone, and one that you felt had been a long time coming.

You idly thought of Vermund and how angry he would be if he could see you now. A smirk tugged at your lips. He would absolutely hate this. Good.

“Do you have much more to do?” You asked, bored of studying the ceiling. You wanted to check on your father and then go and find Legolas or maybe finish the book you were reading.

“No, just... a little... there!” Myleth stood, smiling. “All done.” She took a moment to study the dress, her gaze softening as she thought how lovely you looked in it. “Alright. Close your eyes!”

When Myleth had finally released you from her evil seamstress clutches, you made your way down the hall in the direction of your father’s room. Just to check in on him before you went to the library to read the rest of the day away. There was still so much to do but today you did not wish to do any of it.

Rounding a corner, you came upon Tauriel, sitting alone on a bench in the quiet hallway. She saw you coming and immediately stood, pasting a smile onto her face, but you had noticed her quickly wipe away a tear. You frowned and quickened your steps.

“What is it?” You asked upon reaching her.

Tauriel shook her head quickly, smiling at you. “No, no. Nothing. Do not worry! Everything is well.”

“It doesn’t look well.” You said, tilting your head at her. “You can tell me.”

Tauriel was quiet a while as she bowed her head, gaze fixed on her feet as she seemed to wrestle with the decision of whether or not to talk to you about whatever was on her mind. When she looked up, it seemed that she had decided to speak on it.

“Do you remember the conversation we had before?” She asked quietly, glancing around a moment as though afraid of being overheard.

You paused a second as you thought back and then nodded. “About Legolas?” You asked, thinking about the day you had left Thranduil in the library, upset about the way he seemed to hold disdain for Tauriel in regards to his son. You recalled the way you had fled the library after he entered it and the way he had come to try and offer an unsure apology later, however your ire had waned by that point. It was the day you found that copy of Beren and Luthien in your room.

Tauriel nodded, her cheeks turning slightly pink. “I am afraid I lied to you.” She shrugged and you knew what she meant. She was saying that she did not simply see Legolas as a friend, but more, and you had already known it. She had not outright denied it but she had not confirmed either.

“Why were you crying?” You asked her then.

“Well, I... I...” Tauriel floundered briefly, not wishing to say anything to upset you or make you feel bad, not when you were so happy and everything had fallen into place. She was happy for you and she was happy for her king, of course she was, she had seen and felt the changes and nothing could be better for him, or you, or this realm... and yet. “It is... it is just the wedding, my lady. All the talk and the...”

You nodded in understanding. You hadn’t thought about it but it was probably difficult to see it, especially if she was fighting feelings. Maybe she was having similar thoughts as you had on that day - maybe seeing Thranduil marry a mere human made her wonder why she would not be deemed good enough for his son. “I see. Tauriel...”

She shrugged quickly and turned from you. “Forgive me. Please, I am alright. I must go, I have things to attend.”

She fled before you could say anything else and you blinked after her for a while, even after she had turned the corner and was out of sight. Then you turned and hurried back the way you had come and made for the stairs that led you back to Thranduil’s chamber.

He looked up in surprise as the door burst open and you came rushing in. He rose from behind his large desk, papers forgotten, and quickly took in your expression, trying to figure out what was wrong just by looking at you.

“Why do you not allow your son the happiness you have allowed yourself?” You asked once the door had closed behind you.

Thranduil blinked, taken off guard. Of all the things that had rushed through his mind, this was not one of them. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Indeed, I heard you, yet I do not understand the question.” He said with a slight bite in his tone, eyeing you as he walked around the desk.

“I see the way he and Tauriel look at each other.” You said.

At this, Thranduil rolled his eyes and turned away, suddenly understanding what it was you were getting at.

“There!” You said, moving closer to him. “Thranduil... if you can marry a lowly human, why cannot your son marry a Silvan elf?”

He whirled back round to look at you with a deep frown. “What are you talking about? Who said that?”

“Tauriel.” You scanned his face. “Do you remember the day in the library? When you thought you had done something to upset me?”

He nodded. This was something neither of you had spoken of since and he had to admit that he was still curious. “Of course.”

“I had asked Tauriel about... about her and Legolas, because I had seen things and I thought they were together. She told me that you would never allow it. That she was but a lowly Silvan elf, not of royal breeding, not suitable for your son.”

“What does that have to do with you fleeing the library?”

You hesitated for a second but figured that there was no use in secrets between the two of you now. “I thought that perhaps, if you thought such of Tauriel, then what must you think of me.”

He tutted a sound of disapproval and took a step closer, taking your face into his hands as he looked back at you. “I said this to Tauriel once, yes.” He sighed and you could see in his eyes that he did regret it. “But I did not mean it.”

“Then why say it?”

Thranduil was quiet for a long while then, his face thoughtful, almost a little sorrowful. “I just wished... to keep them apart.”

“Because you don’t think her good enough?”

“No.” He said firmly. “Because I am not blind either. I have seen their stolen glances for years upon years. I have heard their familiarity and their inside jokes. I have seen them grow close... too close.”

“But why?” You implored, unable to understand anything he was saying. If it was not for the reason that Tauriel (and maybe even Legolas) believed, then... why?!

“To spare them!” He snapped a little, frustrated by your prodding, though he was not angry at you, you could tell that easily enough at least. He did not want to have to admit it, to say any of this out loud, but he knew that he must now that he was faced with you.

You blinked up at him, lifting your hands to cover his own, still on your face.Your thumbs brushed against the back of his hands. “Spare them from what?”

“My suffering!”

He did not need to say any more, for you understood almost immediately. He dropped his gaze from your face to the floor and you shuffled closer, removing your hands from his and wrapping them around his neck, pulling him close. He let himself fall against you, his arms going round you in response.

Thranduil had said what he had to Tauriel all those years ago, he had kept himself in between her and his son like a wedge, because he knew that what they shared was real... and that a loss of that magnitude was catastrophic. Especially with Tauriel and Legolas always in the forest with their weapons, fighting spiders and orcs and the like. Thranduil had striven to keep them apart to spare them the pain that he knew came from it... the pain he had drowned in all these long years.

It was another cruel act from a shattered heart, you realised.

You stood like that for a long while before you turned your head to kiss his face. “It is like you said the other day, my love... why should pain or loss mean we forsake the happiness that these years before will give us?” 

Thranduil inhaled a shaky little breath as he pulled back and then he managed the tiniest of smiles and a small nod, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead.

The day of your wedding had come at last and you found that you had woken with more nerves and anxieties than you had anticipated. You had thought it would be simple, you would walk through the formalities and then... you would be Thranduil’s wife, you would stand beside him and support him, and most of all you would love him.

For as long as you were able.

But you were shaking as Myleth weaved your hair into a beautiful tangle of braids and curls.

She smiled kindly at you in the mirror as she tied a red ribbon. “Breathe, dearie.”

She was doing her best to suppress her excitement, you could tell, and it almost made you laugh. You had grown to truly love her during your time here, she had made those first few days so much easier for you... and now you were marrying the king you once feared and despised! Who’d have thought?!

Next, she helped you into your dress and, when you turned to look at yourself, you were struck for a long moment. For having next to no input in the entire thing, you found that you loved it, just as Myleth knew that you would - she knew you so well by now, of course she would find something that was utterly perfect. Utterly you.

“Oh...” You breathed out, blinking back a few tears as it hit you that this was actually happening.

The door opened but you barely registered it until you heard a soft gasp and turned, your father standing staring at you. “You are a vision, my girl!” He beamed, moving to embrace you.

Elvish customs were different from those of humans, but Thranduil and you had decided that you would merge the two together, considering you were joining from two separate worlds.

You hadn’t thought you minded but he had insisted upon it and you found that you were glad for it as you neared the hall with your father. He would be ‘giving you away’ as it were, walking you towards Thranduil where you would do some kind of ring exchange and then there would be a feast... though you knew that elves technically did not consider themselves truly wed until after... consummation. It made you blush, to think of it. The night you had agreed to marry him, he had taken you to his bed, but he had merely kissed and touched you... all over, yes, but it was not what you knew tonight would be. You shivered with anticipation but you could only be nervous about one thing at a time so you turned your mind back to the ceremony.

Walking into that hall was the most nerve-wracking moment of your life even if your father’s firm hand grasped your own as you clung to his arm. However, it all got easier when you actually saw Thranduil. He was standing waiting and he looked almost as uneasy as you did, but setting his sights on you seemed to have the same effect as it did you.

Everything else seemed to melt away as you neared him, though your legs were still shaking beneath you with what was practically the entire kingdom watching you. You still held some small concern that they would not like this but you felt no such emotion emanating from the crowd and it eased you further when you even heard cheers from some after Thranduil kissed you in front of everybody.

Even Legolas and Tauriel were in higher spirits than you had ever seen them, as you sat down at the table with Thranduil. You wondered at their merriment until Thranduil leaned down and whispered in your ear that he had had a long, fruitful discussion with them after your talk... and that they had his blessing.

It made your heart soar that he would do that and you felt a surge of emotion, rewarding him with a kiss on the cheek. Every time you thought you could never love him more, he surprised you.

The rest of the evening passed in a whirl of good wine, plenty of food, and lots of singing and dancing as it seemed the elves were so very fond of. You danced with your father and sobbed into his shoulder when he told you how proud he was of you... and how proud your mother would have been.

Then Thranduil had cut in and the music had changed again, to the same slow tune that had been playing that night of your first dance, during Mereth Di a Rhîw Menel.

This time it was not Legolas who changed the song, but Thranduil.

All eyes in the room were fixed upon the pair of you as spun you around the floor, but the two of you hardly noticed, only seeming to have eyes for each other.

[the-writer1988]

I bring questions for the ask game... just a few:

4, 7, 10, 12, 16, 20, 26, 39, 42, 43, 76 (for BTK)

Just a few....

Thank you so much for the ask!

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

I find inspiration from watching new things, or reading theories or posts and it makes my brain go into overdrive. For example, my latest fic idea was partially inspired by the 'Splitting Heirs' fanfic by @phantoms-lair and @providentially-demonic

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

It really depends on the scene. I do tend to veer towards Eugene's POV in my Tangled fanfiction because most of my fics revolve around him. But it does also depend on the scene and whether that POV fits. I tend to think about what I want from the scene before I start writing.

10. Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up

Blinking, Eugene was slow to respond. “Uh… no problem, Your Majesty. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.”

I'm not going to say which WIP this is XD

12. How does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

Feedback is important to me. Though I do write for myself, I have always liked to receive feedback as it helps to keep my motivated, especially for very long projects. In my younger years, I did find it difficult to continue writing fics where I did not get much feedback or support but I am a lot more chill about it nowadays. It will always make me smile when a new comment is left.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

Too many lol!

Erm, ok, so one, is called: The Lost Prince. This fic follows the premise of Gothel kidnapping Eugene and raising him in the Tower instead. It is a twist of Tangled.

20. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

A common theme that does appear in my fic is whump. Hurt of my favourite characters. And the comfort that follows. Poor Eugene gets too much attention from me.

Or from other fandoms: Tony Stark, Sirius Black, Aragorn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi over the years I've been writing fanfiction.

26. Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Hmm, I think my wildest ride one would have to be what I am currently writing: Between the Kisses. Though we have a rough guide to what we want to cover, it has evolved and developed and is coming out very different to what we had originally intended when @tangledbea and I first embarked on this mega project. I am enjoying every minute of it!

39. Share a snippet from a WIP

From The Lost Prince AU

The King had nearly lost his wife in childbirth and had - somehow - used the power within the Dark Kingdom to save her. It was rumoured that the newborn Prince had been born with striking cyan hair and eyes which had faded naturally to brown. 

If the baby Prince had somehow absorbed this power perhaps this was how Gothel could bring it to the Sundrop to amplify its power? 

42. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

Return to Me by ArcticPersephone. And, YES, I recommend it! It is a rewrite of S3 with one big change and I am honestly astounded by this fic. The character development and the plot always leaves me guessing and I would recommend this fic. It has everything for everyone, no matter who your favourite character is!

Return to Me - Chapter 1 - ArcticPersephone - Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon) [Archive of Our Own]

43. Do you take a sadistic joy in whumping your characters, or are you more the "If you hurt them I would kill everyone and then myself" kind of person?

Erm. I would probably say yes in that I do take joy in whumping my characters but I enjoy the comfort that comes after as well.

76. Did you have any ideas that didn’t make the final cut of BTK?

That is a rather difficult question to answer. At present there is potentially future scenes that were conceived of at the start of the project that won't make it in as plans have changed. But I can't think of anything specific that hasn't made it into the current chapters posted so far. :)

[inkribbon796]

Egotober 2022 Day 5: Once the Bringer of Life . . .

Summary: Wade’s house seems cursed because things always seem to happen to his house.

A/N: A reminder that Bob’s superhero name is Gatling, and Wade’s the the Drowned Man (DM for short)

Prompt: Water

Characters: Wade, Bob, Mark, Joan

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

“You know buddy, even if it is a demon, it’s still pretty funny,” Bob smiled as he stood next to his old college friends. Wade was standing in-between him and Mark. All three of them were in their normal outfits and standing in front of Wade’s house.

Wade’s front door was knocked off its hinges and flat on the floor inside the house. There was lots of water damage.

And Wade was at his wit’s end.

Mark looked over at his old college friend. “And you’re certain it’s not just you, ‘cause you do have water powers?”

“No, it’s not me, I had Marvin help with it. I’m not in college anymore and soaking through beds and floorboards, Mr. It Took Me Five Days To Stop Floating.”

“I’m just ruling stuff out,” Mark shrugged. “And hey, if they’re no ghosts we can make a little money by posting it online and pretending.”

Wade just stared at him. “Bob, if I kill Mark do you think he’d haunt my house.”

“You’d never know a moment of rest,” Mark said before turning to the house. “Let’s go boys.”

“Joan’s not here yet, we should wait for them,” Bob said.

Mark rolled his eyes but he turned back to them. “Fine. They’re the expert.”

“Are you sure it’s a ghost?” Bob asked.

“What else could it be?” Wade demanded.

“I mean, my roof was leaking last week, so it could just be a weird Egoton thing,” Mark shrugged.

“It’s ghosts, obviously,” Wade said.

“The day it’s actually ghosts is the day I kiss Wilford full on the mouth,” Bob said.

“That binding?” Mark asked.

“Only if it’s recordable, repeated proof,” Bob said. “If I get that and it’s not some demon, I will let that fucker seranade the hell out of me. He can wine and dine me, and we’ll spend the whole night trying to get away from Dark because everyone knows he’s a jealous piece of shit.”

“I would force a ghost into this house just to see that,” Wade smiled at him.

“Hey, let’s start with one catastrophe at a time. The craziest thing I’ve got in my life right now is I’ve got a couple guys coming to get rid of my fridge next week, but you’re the one with the bad luck.” Bob smiled at Wade as he spoke.

Wade wasn’t so happy with that, but after a couple more minutes, Joan turned up.

All of them were out of costume and they investigated the house where Mark was dicking around and filming stuff on his phone. He was actively trying to sabotage their efforts and almost begging a ghost to show up.

But in the end nothing happened. No ghosts. No demons.

Which only seemed to make Wade even more frustrated and angry.

“Maybe it’s like Dark or Anti, did they find out where I live?” Wade said, trying to find some cause for how many things had gone wrong with his house.

“Maybe,” Mark said, reviewing some of his footage.

“See,” Joan rolled their eyes. “This is why I don’t do shit. You can’t get targeted by demons and supervillains if they don’t know you exist.”

“You up for meeting with him, we can all go and change and regroup?” Mark asked.

Joan looked at him for a bit. “Thanks, but hard pass.I’d rather Dark and the other villains not know what I sound like. It’s bad enough that Dee and Remus know who I am. Appreciate including me.”

“Anytime, anytime,” Mark said. “You do good work.”

“If you think there’s another ghost, call me, Gatling’s not the only one who wants to see a ghost,” Joan told them before they split up to suit up.

Joan went back to the base. Wade, Bob, and Mark showed back up close to Dark’s warehouses.

Wade was fretting the entire way over.

“Dude, if you’re worried so much about your house, go back to it,” Bob told him.

“I’m just going to find more water damage,” Wade said. “I’m trying to keep the place from flooding.

“Well, this shouldn’t be too hard.” Mark shrugged as he began strolling towards the gated entrance. “We just go in and ask.”

Before Mark could take a step inside, a bullet landed centimeters in front of his foot. He jumped back. “Shit, Chase is at work.”

Dark opened up a portal to face them. “Gentlemen, to what do I owe this visit?”

“You or Anti are haunting my house,” Wade said.

“Excuse you?” Dark said in confusion.

“You or Anti or something you sent is causing all of the pipes in my house to go beserk,” Wade accused.

Dark stared at him. “If I knew where you lived, I would have used it. Anti would have killed your family by now.”

The heroes all stared at him.

“Yeah,” Wade sighed. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Are you sure it’s not your hydrokinesis?” Dark asked.

“It’s not! Okay?” Wade said. “Why is that everyone’s first question?”

“Because you’re having plumbing problems while being the only hero on the team with a water-based superpower.”

Wade looked like he was about to walk over and punch Dark in the face as Bob was struggling not to just start cackling in laughter.

The heroes wound up leaving after a minor scuffle, just on principle of them being there and so close to Dark. Chase managed to shoot Bob’s barriers a couple of times before they retreated and headed back to the base. Wade quickly hurried back home to try and figure out what was wrong with his home since demons and ghosts were currently being ruled out.

Two weeks later Wade burst into the base where Mark and Wade were in the common room, having some coffee and he threw down a folder on the table in front of them. “See? It’s not me. The previous owners were shit at DIY!”

Mark and Bob just began laughing, which didn’t help Wade’s anger. But it helped exonerate him.

It turned out Wade’s powers or ghosts were not to blame for the problems going on in Wade’s house. But human error was indeed to blame after all.

[kicksomebuttmama]

75 Hard (okay, more like medium-well)

So, I'm freshly postpartum (nine months is still fresh, right?), and I've just ordered a bunch of clothes that fit my right-now body because I've given up on the idea of losing weight before I go back to work as a teacher in the fall. I'm breastfeeding six or so times a day, can't imagine putting on anything but a lounge bra at this point, and know for a fact I won't be counting calories anytime soon, if ever again. We're down to one feeding per night, but there's still no such thing as a stretch of sleep longer than six hours (and those are real hard to come by). I dropped my scale off at a thrift store when we moved into a new apartment a few weeks ago, for goodness sake. All of this to say, I went to bed last night fully intending to embrace my body as it is, enjoy my new clothes, go for stroller walks with my little one, and focus on getting unpacked in this new place.

...then I found growwithjo on YouTube this morning and had so much freaking fun doing her Do This Every Morning 20 min (low impact) full-body workout that I am JUICED. Y'all, I'm jumping straight into 75 Hard. Screw all my plans to settle into discomfort and continue to feel meh about my body. I'm starting today. 75 days from now is July 31. That means we're having a... Hot Mama Summah. Here we go!

A couple things about me, I've dealt with disordered eating, obsessive calorie counting, and major shame about food in the past. One incredible thing that came with getting pregnant last year (actually it was 2022, which is insane!) was an almost immediate shift in my mindset about food and my ability to enjoy food without guilt. As soon as I knew I was eating for two, a switch flipped and those 32 years of food shame just went away. Knowing that my body, the body I've lived in and, at some points, truly despised, my whole life, was creating a little human?? Dang, that changed me. I'll dive deeper into that another time, but I'm including it here to explain that I won't be counting calories during this adventure. I'm nine months into breastfeeding and know my body needs extra calories to feed my girl, so I'm going to continue to eat until I'm full and enjoy my sweet treats. I also won't be weighing myself due to the aforementioned thrift store drop off as well as an obsession with numbers and addiction to weighing myself before and after every workout when I'm deep in weight loss mode. I will share that the last time I checked, I hadn't lost any weight since an initial ten pounds the day my baby was born in August 2023, and at that point I was at 235. I'm 5'2.5" and carry my weight in my chest and belly right now. Perhaps I'll have a doctor's appointment in a couple months and be able to give an update using their scale. We'll see!

Let's dive into 75 Hard. If you've been around the internet in the last few years, you might have heard of this mental discipline challenge created by Andy Frisella. For 75 days, you must: drink a gallon of water, do two 45-minute workouts (one must be outside), follow a diet plan of your choosing with no cheat days, don't consume alcohol, read 10 pages of a self help or educational book, and take a daily progress picture. As I've made clear, I have a nine-month-old, so I'm not going to do every element, but I'm not quite doing a "soft" version, in my opinion.

Mama Cat's 75 Medium-Well Plan:

Eat 2 fruits and 2 veggies

Drink a gallon of water

Do a 20-minute workout and at least 45 minutes of walking (can be split into multiple walks based on what baby will tolerate)

No alcohol

Take a daily progress pic

As you can see, I'm skipping the reading and shortening one workout to 20 minutes. I am a big reader, but it isn't something I've gravitated toward for relaxation in motherhood, and I honestly don't want to use up what little time I have during naps to read when I could be completing all my NYT word puzzles (and updating this blog)!I'll make another post later wrapping up Day One with a list of what I ate and how I moved my body. I'll try to update daily but might do a few days' worth of posts at a time if taking time to write it all out gets tough. So far, I've already done my workout video, 45-minute walk, eaten two fruits, and enjoyed an hour of snuggles while baby girl contact napped. I've also nursed three times, and I'll never stop feeling proud and impressed by that, so I'm going to celebrate it daily! I have a lot to say about my breastfeeding journey and look forward to making a post about it eventually.

Wish me luck. Let's hope this motivation high lasts and I don't give it all up tomorrow!

[mitchbeck]

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE WINS SEASON FINALE

By: Shay Costa, Howlings PROVIDENCE, RI—Alex Campbell had a hat trick for the Northeastern Huskies (16-15-3, 9-14-1), but 2,165 loud Friars fans saw #11/10 Providence (18-12-4, 11-9-4) take the 4-3 shootout win Saturday afternoon at the Schneider Arena in Providence, Rhode Island in the club's regular season finale. After both teams came up empty despite solid scoring chances during the 3-on-3 overtime, the game would go to the shootout. PC entered the shootout with tremendous confidence in their goaltender, Philip Svedebäck. “He's lights-out in shootouts, he really is,” reports PC Head Coach Nate Leaman. “He’s very confident in those and it gives us confidence.” That confidence paid dividends with Bennett Schimek after the Friars' second and Huskies' third shooters both tallied. Schimek took a slow, controlled approach toward Huskies’ netminder Cameron Whitehead before ripping a high glove shot that gave the home team a much-needed big win. "We showed a lot of heart and determination,” Leaman said during his post-game comments. “I was really proud of how we played.” Providence took an early third-period lead after the two teams battled to a 2-2 tie through two periods of play. The Friars caught Northeastern on their heels in transition, allowing for a rush opportunity. Tanner Adams connected with Nick Poisson, who beat Whitehead glove-side, as Providence took a 3-2 lead. But Northeastern would not quit and tied the game for the third time at 7:43 after Friar Brady Berard was sent to the box on a holding call. It was the Huskies' only power play chance of the match, and they took full advantage of it. Providence struggled to clear the puck out of their zone before Campbell took it behind the Friars' defense and skyed it into the top of Svedebäck’s net to finish his hat trick. Regulation play ended with the score tied, 3-3. The game's scoring didn't begin until the second period when Providence defenseman Andrew Centrella’s shot found its way through traffic, deflected off Poisson's stick, and took a high-arc trajectory. Whitehead was screened and lost sight of the puck, not seeing it again until it had sailed over his shoulder into the net. Providence led 1-0 at 3:20. The Friar lead lasted less than a minute, as Northeastern's Brett Edwards potted a second-attempt shot past Svedebäck. Unfortunately, Edwards’ linemate bumped the Providence netminder on the initial save, and the goal was called back after being challenged. The Huskies kept on hunting for an opportunity to tie it. Campbell, the team's leading scorer, created one. Campbell got Friars' Craig Needham to tie up his own feet, creating enough space to stuff the puck into Svedebäck’s goal and tie at 8:24. Providence reclaimed their lead when Bennet fed d-man Luke Krys, whose shot split traffic in front of Whitehead’s net, giving the Friars the 2-1 lead at 16:59. Campbell found a juicy rebound for another golden scoring opportunity off a juicy rebound. But Svedebäck’s save against a wrap-around bid from Dylan Hyrckowian bounced right to Campbell, who potted it before Svedebäck could reset. Campbell’s second goal came with just 43 seconds left in the period, tying the game 2-2 through two periods of play. This game followed a long and physical game between Providence College and Boston University on Thursday night. “We were tired tonight. Thursday’s game took a lot out of us,” said Leaman, emphasizing the importance of bench depth on the win against Northeastern. “Tonight, even in overtime, I was giving a lot of shifts to our freshman and our younger guys. The emergence of the has been a big plus for us. They’ve been generating a lot of offense.” Poisson scored two of tonight’s goals, and Adams tallied two assists. The win over Northeastern also edged Providence College over UMass in the Hockey East rankings, as Massachusetts lost its final game against Maine. They were previously tied for fourth, with the Umass Minutemen holding the tiebreaker. Saturday's results secured home ice in the first game of the Hockey East playoffs, which start this following week when the Friars host the Minutemen on Saturday, March 16th. PROVIDENCE COLLEGE HOCKEY HOWLINGS Read the full article

[through-blue-eyes]

3.7.2024

I opened up my Facebook app intentionally, instead of the usual absentminded habit - my best friend since childhood had shared a post and it was for moments like this that I kept my Facebook active. For keeping up with her, and the people I care about. I'm the silent facebooker these days, I may share things but I haven't made a real post there in a while. It doesn't feel like a safe space anymore - anything you say can and will be used against you at a future date.  But I digress...

Confidence Cat was the post - a little Sunday mental health boost ❤️I checked my notifications and my memories popped up this photo. It spurred a tsunami wave of mixed emotions - defensive, tense, hurt, ashamed, guilty uncomfortable, alone and also freedom.

2019- 4, almost 5 now, years ago. I was living in a cheap motel with weekly rates - you can presume from that the type of crowd it drew, but for me, it was all I could afford, to keep a roof over my head. It was a in-between move. Although, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t afraid I would be stuck there, and not make it out. I’d also be lying if I said I felt safe there, even though I wasn’t alone.

I was 7 months into working for this new company that opened up a couple restaurants in my area. I started at their BBQ place in April - with the intention of moving to the new steakhouse once it was ready to open. It opened beginning of July - I was making a 45 minute commute and I was sure that my car was going to crap out on me, so I made the call (with my boyfriend) to check into this motel, which was about 20 -25 blocks from work. The last week of July - my transmission went out, and fixing it was not an option. So I walked to work.

I was on evenings then, well, if you can call it evenings. I was salaried for  55 hours a week - I would leave my hotel room about 45 minutes before my shift started, giving myself plenty of time to walk to work, and rest for a few minutes before working my 10-11 hours as a sous. After the shift, which was grueling kitchen work, came the long, usually cold, walk home. Shower, sleep, repeat. I did this for three months. and that third month, October - I thought it was going to kill me. My legs and feet would swell and be so sore, so painful. I would lie awake for hours with my legs propped up once I got home, trying to get some relief so I could sleep. My days off were split at the time, and I think that's the only way I made it. I would work 2-3 days and then have a day off,  pretty much entirely spent in my bed, resting my legs/feet - and then go back for another 2-3 days.

I kept it a secret for as long as I could – I was ashamed, here I was, a few months from 26 – living in a known drug motel where the cops were called at least once a week - with no car, an unemployed boyfriend, and my 75lb reactive dog who didn’t have the space she needed. I was washing my uniform in the bathtub every night after I showered, and hanging it up above the AC/Heat unit so the air would have it dry by morning. Ontop of the swelling and pain in my legs, the weather was getting colder. Walking to work wasn’t so bad – it was actually perfect weather usually, but the walks home, after dark, and often raining, that’s when I could no longer keep it a secret.

I had a close work relationship with my boss - he was my work husband – and once he figured out my situation and what I was doing, he took it upon himself to talk to his bosses, the owners of the restaurant about my car situation, me walking. They told me to start looking for a used car (face book marketplace) and they would buy it, and then hold out $100 from each of my paychecks until it was paid off. In the meantime, the owners arranged for me to always have a ride home from work – the first night my boss gave me a ride home, once he saw the motel I was at, he didn’t want to leave – he didn’t feel as if I was safe there, even though I had my boyfriend and dog.

It was a blessing at the time, I felt humbled, and (I didn't realize at the time how much this would set me up for toxicity) I felt like I owed them a debt. Because they bought me this car. Within a month after getting the car, I was promoted to Chef – my boss had a health issue & personal choices that resulted in him taking FMLA, and not coming back. The pay increase allowed me to move out of that motel, into an apartment about 10 minutes from work. At the time I remember feeling so relieved. Grateful. Loyal. Empowered, as if life was finally in my favor. As if I was finally aligned with my purpose. The hard part must be over now. It actually, was the farthest thing from.

 Many things happened while I was employed with that company, I might turn it into a  multi-post series one day - not all of them good. But in the same breath, that job set me up to eventually break free from the toxic and abusive (emotionally, mentally) relationship I had with my (then) boyfriend, of 5 years - spoiler, I was with him for 2 more before finally leaving him. Everything had to crumble, fall, break, be rebuilt and then destroyed again before I finally broke free of those cycles.

I have truly come a long way – in the same breath though I’ve been stuck, because I don’t know what to do next. I don’t really know how to live a free life – I find myself disassociating a lot. Escaping. The life I have now doesn’t always feel safe – because the first 28 years of my life was filled with so much trauma. So many toxic relationships – family & romantic, and my own toxic behavior that I have to unlearn.

One thing I do know though. I know I want to write. I know I want to share my story, my voice. After so many years of being silenced. Imposter syndrome is a real bitch though – so I will continue cultivating this safe place. My small corner of the web where my story, thoughts, opinions will be told, unfiltered, and raw.

[theorist-influencer-untitled]

5.29.23 Monday

12:29 am

Done, showering....I feel bitter....Argh! I have windblow trap... Whew! I feel self-pity ...

12:58 am

My pelvic is aching and my sciatica down to my left leg... I fell asleep for 20 minutes,I had this weird dream that I went to stadium and I'm watching a basketball. I'm looking for a seat coz the stadium is crowded, I just sit on the stairs and suddenly the lights went off.....Then, another weird I saw my old high school friend Brien ( cousin of RC ) we are shocked coz the lights went off... People in the stadium got panicked and started running to go outside the stadium. I think there are Zombies....People are running and bumping each other...

So, I'm also in a hurry to go out... Brien suddenly hugged me ( this is just a dream ) and grabbed my hand and he pulled me quickly to go outside the stadium coz people were scared and shouting that there are zombies...

I accidentally went to the bathroom and saw a vampire in the bathtub ( bathtub in the stadium bathroom) people were running and shouting....Brien pulled me out of the bathroom and held my hand and we quickly ran as fast as we can to go out of the stadium...

I asked Brien, if he brings a car and he said no! I'm riding a motorcycle... Weird for me coz Brien didn't have any kind of motorcycle but a car in real life...

Additional: Part of my dream last night on that 20 minute nap then I woke-up just to type this then I fell-asleep again..

I forgot to post that the face of Jerome ( my high school friend as well ) appeared in my dream coz I fell asleep again... He rode the motorcycle of Brien, while me and Brien looking for his motorcycle but weird on the dessert place... Me and Brien shouted on Jerome that hey! HEY! Help us Jerome! But Jerome didn't stop driving the motorcycle or he didn't notice us...

7:21 am

Hmm... Uncle Jun is still sleeping and I wonder why... I wonder if he will go to Georgia'Z forest today... He was late yesterday and also he went back home a bit late than his usual 5pm....Just trying to figure out if he has a new pattern angels....Sometimes, he is splitting or intentionally changing his behaviour....

Me? Will drink coffee and still waiting for me to poops... I had a weird dream....Still, wanting of leaving this fucking hometown... I lost chance to meet the aliens....Someone or a particular group is damaging me...Still, thinking of money and wanna buy starbucks everyday...

I hate some bad character FilipiNOSE who just used me to be their strength...

8:13 am

I'm so affected by these fucking fake hometown that most of the some FilipiNOSE Monkeya'Z who controlled me for 16 years are just planning to leave me having this "deep smile lines"... Can they pay for it? To remove my "deep smile lines" ....Can they return my 16 years or year 2011 where I was already fully awakened...

I have this windblow trap...

8:31 am

Hmm.... No signs of life again coming from Uncle DD that he is handling the money and my Aunt Teresa always told me that Uncle DD knew it already... But why??? There is no signs of life from him??? Delayed rice providence...

Or probably he wants a bad situation here before he will react on us...

But the real thing the deal wasn't only rice but my original stuff...

8:40 am

Uncle Jun is up already and now taking care of Neko... Hmmm I wonder why a bit late... A new pattern of behaviour???

9:36 am

Want some good aliens but will share my youtube crushes....

Caleb is so cute....

10:12 am

Whew! Uncle Jun went out already going to Georgia'Z forest oh! I hate Georgia'Z group... My blood is boiling... For their secret conspiracy on me and their weird grouping and probably rituals???

I still wanna leave the hometown and thinking of money... So, many fakish here in Cavitish...

11:03 am

If we are still have enough money, will hire a gigolo to save my ignored face here, angels...

2:23 pm

I'm able to poops 5 minutes ago... Whew! Pain on my lower back and pelvic lessen... But I still have sciatica/ priformis...

6:52 pm

Doing my stretching on sciatica/priformis/ pelvic pain...

7:09 pm

Whew!

9:52 pm

Done,eating dinner with baby John and done, brushing his teeth...

Same routine in a lil while will take my shower...

My personal thing, I still have windblow trap... I still wanna see donkey and camel... I hate some FilipiNOSE if they are trapping me... I still have personal frustration... I wanna leave this hometown... I wanna do collagen shots and to remove my "deep smiles lines"...

[dzpenumbra]

5/10/23

I was woken up again. At 9AM again. It's been like 4 consecutive weeks in a row now, I'm afraid it's becoming a ritual for these people. I did the whole go downstairs, get a bowl of cereal and then pass out in the chair thing again. It just really puts a damper on the whole day when I do that. I never feel fully rested, I never get right to sleep... so I end up finally starting my day way later. It's very frustrating.

I finished the ink drawing. Here, I'll post it.

I like it. I've been kinda... letting these improvised pieces inspire the next one, so it becomes... almost like a flip book. Each one taking the last one and iterating on it. This one brought in a lot more of these blobby shapes that have dominated a lot of my abstract work over the past 20+ years.

There was a big gamechanger that came into the day today. A YouTuber that I've been following since... probably 2015? The one who introduced me to RimWorld. The one who really inspired me to get into streaming at a serious level. Whose VoDs I have used to help me sleep for several years because of his thoughtful and comprehensive narration. He released a video today that... I have never seen any work of his at nearly this level. It was over 3.5 hours long. It was a deep-dive video essay on the incorporation of story in survival games, done through the lens of the game The Forest. It was... spectacular. I couldn't walk away, I couldn't even pause it. It pained me to pause it to even go pee, I was sitting squirming in my chair trying to watch and draw for at least 20 minutes before I caved. It's a really good video essay. Well researched, extremely well edited, fair and generous to the developers, yet... he stands his ground on his point and his perspective.

What kinda shook my foundation with it? He took the end of the essay as an opportunity to do a face reveal. And... it was a strange experience. He... looked like he could be a relative of mine. Like... he looked like a version my dad's younger brother... but my age. (I look more like my mom.) It... was a strange experience. To finally have a face to match the voice that has been setting the background when I went to sleep for years, that I've had on in the background while gaming since... at least 2017. Whose Project Zomboid streams I watched on the last night I spent with my terminally ill dog, and watched in bed while grieving her passing when I couldn't sleep. I have his Banished playthrough that I've been listening to fall asleep to this week, last week it was Planet Zoo. I can't even do the math on how many of these streams I have absorbed. Every Stellaris playthrough he's done, every Space Engineers stream I could find, X3, Kerbal Space Program, Rimworld (of course), good lord his playthrough of Subnautica was one of the most compelling playthroughs I've ever watched. Years and years of material to drift off to sleep to. It had been my routine for pretty much the whole pandemic... to play his streams when going to sleep, and somewhere along the way I started putting music on too so that once the stream ended, there was some sound on so it wasn't just silence.

Needless to say, it's very odd to finally get a face to match the voice. Like finally seeing the person who voices a cartoon character for the first time. It's just... my brain didn't really want to process it. But like... the most unsettling and weird part... is how... familiar he looked. And he, of course, is the one I gravitated towards because we have a ton in common. Though, over the past few years, we have split ways on stuff - lifestyle, entertainment preference, etc. It's just... odd. And it's still sitting with me.

What scares me a bit... I'm afraid it might be a sign he's getting ready to step away from YouTube. He might not, I might be reading into it. I mean, it's been his entire life for a decade. I dunno. Maybe he's just... transitioning? It felt like a big moment. He was always very against the premise of doing face reveals, always felt they were tacky. It validated me a lot, because I never really saw the point of taking up what we called in video and graphic design class "screen real estate" with a static box that just has your blank stare at a computer screen. I feel like it doesn't... contribute anything, it always felt really... vain. And he always echoed the same sentiment, and it gave me a lot of validation in an ocean of carbon copy streamers. And yet... here he is. So, idk. I've gotta get back into his livestreams soon. He's just... he's in UK, so... it's hard to get my schedule to overlap well.

I was so enthralled by the video that I skipped a shower. I ordered a pizza. I ate a bunch of it and then started working on the skull. The skull is in pretty rough shape. A lot of the bone is... nature got to it. It's not bad, it's just... porous and discolored in places. I did my best to get the debris out of the cavities, got most of it. I started to sand it, and it actually helps the look a lot. I might leave it on the windowsill to sun bleach it a bit, in addition to the sanding and polishing I'm doing. I have no clue what to do with it. There aren't really a lot of flat spaces. So... I'm probably going to treat the design work like... like face tattoos or something. I honestly don't know. But I think sanding and polishing it first is a good idea, it'll be an easier surface to work on. Then I can choose whether I even want to carve it, or if I want to just go ahead and ink/paint right on it. Now that it's out and sitting in my workspace, it freaks me out a lot less.

I tried polishing some stones too, some of the ones from the National Park. I just... wasn't really feeling it. That used to be go-to work for me in the past, and now? Now it just felt forced. So... I kinda took it easy today. I guess. I mean, if you want to call working on 3 separate projects "taking it easy".

I'm a bit depressed tonight. Probably the sleep deprivation affecting me. And the whole... not having a big super inspiring "super excited to work on it" project. Despite my anxiety about design elements and the permanence, I was always really excited about working on the hoodie. And the desire path project, I loved it. This skull? I'm just not there yet. I'm sure once I get the surface prepped and start sketching it will get much more comfortable and enticing. I guess it's just the sanding and polishing that I'm just... not really into right now, just in general.

I think I'm going to take this opportunity to head to bed a bit earlier than I usually do. Fingers crossed I don't hear another vacuum or whatever at 9AM, because if I go to bed right this second? I'm only getting 6 hours of sleep.

[playbillionaire]

Down in the Cheap Seats

How to get more affordable theatre tickets in New York City. Here’s the same post on my Substack!

I’m not a professional, but I have been lucky enough to be attending theatre in the tri-state area my whole life, so here’s everything I know to help anyone who wants to get into seeing theatre without spending too much.

The trick of seeing great theatre without skipping a meal is to look beyond Broadway. Theatre tends to be more fluid than its marketing- almost all of the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the 21st century have premiered in smaller (more accessible) venues. Staying informed and being willingly to go outside of the usual Broadway houses is the best way to see theatre at affordable prices, and possibly catch new shows before they head to Broadway.

Here’s a couple of link that are good to know:

Playbill Weekly Schedule of Broadway Shows- A current schedule of the showtimes of every show currently running on Broadway. Shows are typically dark on Monday, but since the pandemic, schedules have changed and matinees have been added during the weekends, so it’s good to check which matinees are 2pm and which are 3pm, in case you want to try multiple lottos each day.

Playbill Broadway Rush, Lottery, and Standing Room Only Policies- Alphabetical list of all the discount ticket options for Broadway shows

Playbill Off-Broadway Rush and Inexpensive Ticket Policies- Alphabetical list of all the discount ticket options for off-Broadway shows.

Lotteries

When it comes to theatre, I feel that scheduling flexibility saves money. If you can go any time or day, you can snag cheaper tickets. I recommend entering as many lotteries as possible, as frequently as possible. When I was working at my desk job, I tried to make a habit of entering the lotteries every morning after checking my emails. Here’s all of the links to the digital lotteries- they usually email winners around 2, and give them an hour to purchase the tickets, so keep an eye on your email! (I’m not exactly sure why these shows are split up across these lotteries, rather than in one place, but it’s best to just go through all 3). As much as I love in-person rush, anyone with a full time job and commute is probably going to have a tough time getting to the box office when it opens at 10 or hanging around the theatre district hoping to snag a cheap ticket.

Broadway Direct Lottery

Telecharge Lottery and Rush- This requires signing into a social media account (very annoying), but also let’s you submit a lottery for more than one performance at a time

Lucky Seat- This one offers lotteries in several different cities, so make sure you are submitting for the New York performances

Today Tix- Need the app to get tickets, but some really great lotteries if you submit every day, especially for hot ticket Off-Broadway shows.

Discount Ticket Programs

A lot are mentioned in the Playbill article, but to keep everything together, below are my favorite ones that I’ve personally used. When a recent show I had tickets to was cancelled, I was able to check with these programs to get a last minute cheap ticket, so making/maintaining an account ahead of time is a good idea.

LincTix- Lincoln Center Theatre’s program for discount tickets for people between the ages of 21 and 35. With fees, tickets are $35.50 for any show at the 3 Broadway theatres at Lincoln Center. You can also purchase tickets for anyone else with a LincTix account in the same order. Don’t delete the email with your account number in it, you will need it to sign in every time you purchase tickets. Also, seats purchased with LincTix are always great, these are not partial view seats.

Playwrights Horizons Young Membership Discount Tickets- $20 tickets for any show for anyone under 35. You can also purchase $35 tickets for a guest to accompany you. There is also a $10 alternative for full-time students, at the same link. To sign up, you need to create an account and “purchase” a free membership, which will allow you to purchase the discounted tickets from your account. Remember to renew this every season, as it does expire.

2nd Stage Theater 30 Under 30 Discount Tickets- $30 tickets for any show for anyone under 30. When looking at performance dates, enter “30UNDER30” in the promo code window, and eligible seats will show up on the seating chart.

Manhattan Theatre Club 30 Under 35 Discount Tickets- $30 tickets for any show. Registering online allows anyone under 35 to buy 2 tickets per show. The best part is that you can bring a guest of any age- just make sure whoever purchased the ticket picks up the ticket at the box office.

Roundabout Theatre Company HipTix Program- $30 tickets for any show for anyone between the ages of 18 and 40. This program also allows you to purchase 2 tickets for any show, and your guest can be of any age. You’ll receive a promo code in an email that will let you purchase the tickets, and whoever purchased the tickets must pick them up at the box office.

Theatre For a New Audience New Deal Tickets- $20 tickets for any show for anyone under 30, or any full-time student. Enter the promo code NEWDEAL when purchasing tickets and the discount will be applied. Ticket must be picked up at the box office, so bring proof of ID.

Ultimately, it is possible to see theatre in New York City for less than a nice dinner! Having a flexible schedule, entering lotteries, and looking outside Broadway is the best way to do it (also, be under 30 I guess??). Good luck!

[00towns]

2022: Selected Media in Review

Hadestown 

I caught Hadestown on Broadway in early November on last minute tickets purchased with my coworker for nosebleed seats. We had just finished our last day at a three-day museums conference and were desperately looking for something to fill our last evening that didn’t require massive amounts of critical thought or force us to talk to each other. Sitting on a stone bench in Central Park, we scrolled through a litany of day-of tickets and debated The Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots, and Six before settling on a 7PM showing of Hadestown. 

Despite actively trying otherwise, I don’t have a wide repertoire of musical theater knowledge, so when I picked up the playbill and began scanning the names the only one that rang a bell was Eva Noblezada, whose Yellow Rose (2019) I had caught at a film festival a few years ago. My coworker, already a fan of the musical, explained the premise to me. It was a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in an ambiguously post-industrial Western backdrop with appearances from Hermes, Persephone, the Muses, and Hades – think Makoto Shinkai’s ‘two kids against the world’ motif with a familiar cast of Olympians. She noted in particular Eva as Eurydice’s country, folksy sound contrasting and complementing the high-pitched musical motif of Reeve Carney’s Orpheus. While both roles were played by understudies in the show that we watched (as well as the roles of Hades and Hermes), I particularly loved the sense of intimacy cultivated between Eurydice and Orpheus. The other standout element of Hadestown to me was the lighting design, which at one point swings huge industrial lanterns out into the audience on thick metal cables, creating an almost beating-heart effect through the circular stage design. Entirely unexpected and haunting, I left the show with a newfound appreciation for steampunk, folk, and mythologies that beg the audience to remember a time before we knew all the endings. 

(Virginia and DC friends, Hadestown is playing next year at The National in June.) 

2. Chen – 사라지고 있어 Last Scene - The 3rd Mini Album

In lieu of a Baekhyun solo album this year, I’m deferring to my thi– 

I’m kidding, of course. 

In a listening party video during promotions for this album, Chen reflected on the song Photograph and its high notes, something fans have come to expect from Chen because of his position within EXO. Notably, those notes are missing from this album with the exception of this song, and Chen seems keen to address this head-on. I don’t want to mince his words and I don’t speak Korean, so I’ve included his words (edited for light ribbing from his members and in translation) below: 

“I’ve been debating a lot. I can sing high notes, but then I sang high notes a lot in EXO’s albums too. [...] So I debated a lot, even when I released my first solo album, I sang too high … I became like a singer who sings high [notes]. Although that’s what I’m good at, I wanted to do it for a longer time. I’m getting older anyway, and I want this to be my strength for 10 to 20 years in the future. So I wanted to show it gradually over time.” 

I’m unsure if Chen is discussing his physical ability to sing high notes, which can be strenuous for a vocalist and may deteriorate their ability to sing over time, or on his longevity as an artist who is able to continue surprising his listener by doing something interesting or unexpected, with hitting high notes serving as the locus of his concern. I think there’s an ambiguity in the way that he talks about time that makes room for us to see Chen more deeply as an artist who has never been understood as anything but extremely talented. I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about vocal technique, although it’s definitely not a stretch to say that there are many, many ways to be a talented singer not defined purely by range. Rather than split hairs about Chen’s vocal ability, I instead found his thoughts on exemplifying his talent as a singer to be a wonderful reflection on patience. To me, it seems like Last Scene has addressed the question of his ‘best’ by a purposeful omission, saying that his best is always moveable, always relative, always being negotiated. How might I learn from this ethos of continually finding new ways to be good to myself, to be a good-myself, to show my best sides both privately and publicly? 

<사라지고 있어 Last Scene> is Chen’s third mini album and his first release since returning from his military service. You can listen to the titular song, Last Scene, here, and the entire album here.

3. After Yang (dir. Kogonada) 

I found After Yang to be a quiet yet powerful piece of diaspora film that filled out the maximalism of Everything Everywhere All At Once. I loved the quiet domesticity of the film; at times, the futuristic setting was entirely alien, and at others I saw a vivisection of myself, my family, and my most intimate thoughts laid out on the screen. Of course, domestic life is also a major theme in the huge, extravagant, multiversal project of EEAAO, but the tenuously moving plot of After Yang situated the most wrenching, heartrending evocations in heartbeats of silence, hung as string lights over vignettes of quiet kitchen scenes, peaceful garden memories, and thick dark pigtails. The gentle attention that After Yang begs of its audience was almost refreshing, and reminds me that the most moving parts of my experience as a diasporic subject have been when nothing much happens at all. 

4. Jenny Nicholson – The Church Play Cinematic Universe 

This one is for me. 

Jenny Nicholson occupies the special place in my conscious that doesn’t really mind what it is obsessed with. The Church Play Cinematic Universe is loosely a video essay on a set of yearly Christmas plays put on by a megachurch in Canada that riff off widely known movie references to tell and retell the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. More specifically, it’s a eighty-minute video of Jenny Nicholson scathingly unpacking the annual Christian-ification of beloved media franchises. Personal favorites include ‘The Lion King of Judah’ and ‘The Princess Bride of Christ’. 

Recently, a close friend’s father told us that in his 50s, he believes that the only media that truly sticks with you throughout your life is the things that you consume in your teens. I reference this now in a twofold sense: I can only seem to bring myself to this type of meaningless yet critical thought in reference to cultural locuses that have reached a critical mass of age and nostalgia, particularly if I haven’t experienced them myself (see also in this category: Eddy Burback’s ‘I ate at every Rainforest Cafe in the Country’, Defunctland’s 'Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery’). The other sense is that the passion that video essayists have for inane topics tugs at my gut in a way that I can only understand through the way I feel when a random YouTube video I was fixated on in my teens lights all my cells on fire when it pops up. I would like in some sense to be incensed by anything as much as I was watching greedily everything that I could get my hands on, determined to brute-force my way into becoming a whole person through the Internet, no matter if that person (and their relationship to the Internet) came out like a grow-a-sea-creature capsule that got stuck in the plastic. Having now escaped my pill-shaped prison, I know those most intent obsessions were not a purely individual complex, but nothing elicits quite the same response. I appreciate Jenny Nicholson and her commitment to pedantry for reminding me that in those days and today, I am never alone online. 

To illustrate the ridiculousness of my point, I’ve attached a few links to videos that I would make video essays on if I was a content creator. 

BTS’s Blood Sweat and Tears ‘Ask In A Box’ (I have most of this video committed to memory)

ASMRrequest’s Departure Ep 2: Frontiers 

The Real Bros of Simi Valley: Season 1, episode 1

Thank you, 2022, for a bizarre list of things that have stuck with me into the new year. Onto the next!

[phantomtutor]

I had attached the ufo_sightings_large.csv In this assignment, you will investigate UFO data over the last century to gain some insight. Please use all the techniques we have learned in the class to preprocesss/clean the datasetufo_sightings_large.csv . After the dataset is preprocessed, please split the dataset into training sets and test sets Fit KNN to the training sets. Print the score of KNN on the test sets 1. Import dataset “ufo_sightings_large.csv” in pandas (5 points) 2. Checking column types & Converting Column types (10 points) Take a look at the UFO dataset’s column types using the dtypes attribute. Please convert the column types to the proper types. For example, the date column, which can be transformed into the datetime type. That will make our feature engineering efforts easier later on. 3. Dropping missing data (10 points) Let’s remove some of the rows where certain columns have missing values. 4. Extracting numbers from strings (10 points) The length_of_time column in the UFO dataset is a text field that has the number of minutes within the string. Here, you’ll extract that number from that text field using regular expressions. In [ ]: ​  5. Identifying features for standardization (10 points) In this section, you’ll investigate the variance of columns in the UFO dataset to determine which features should be standardized. You can log normlize the high variance column. 6. Encoding categorical variables (20 points) There are couple of columns in the UFO dataset that need to be encoded before they can be modeled through scikit-learn. You’ll do that transformation here, using both binary and one-hot encoding methods. 7. Text vectorization (10 points) Let’s transform the desc column in the UFO dataset into tf/idf vectors, since there’s likely something we can learn from this field. 8. Selecting the ideal dataset (10 points) Let’s get rid of some of the unnecessary features. 9. Split the X and y using train_test_split, setting stratify = y (5 points) In [9]: X = ufo.drop([“type”],axis = 1) y = ufo[“type”].astype(str) ​ 10. Fit knn to the training sets and print the score of knn on the test sets (5 points) In [1]: from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier knn = KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors=5) # Fit knn to the training sets knn.fit(train_X, train_y) # Print the score of knn on the test sets print(knn.score(test_X, test_y)) ORDER THIS PAPER NOW. 100% CUSTOM PAPER CategoriesComputer Science homework help Leave a Reply Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Email * Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Post navigation Previous PostPrevious Professional JournalNext PostNext American Government

[your-dietician]

It’s your last week to save on passes to TechCrunch Disrupt

New Post has been published on https://medianwire.com/its-your-last-week-to-save-on-passes-to-techcrunch-disrupt/

It’s your last week to save on passes to TechCrunch Disrupt

We’re on the home stretch, startup fans. TechCrunch Disrupt kicks off in less than 10 days and runs from October 18–20. This message goes out to all the last-minute decision-makers. It’s the final week you can save serious cheddar on a Disrupt pass.

It’s go time. Buy your pass before October 14 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT), and you’ll save $700.

Disrupt is where the early-startup community — founders, investors, engineers, tech leaders, icons, makers and shakers — come to launch, learn, connect, invest and grow. You simply won’t find a better opportunity incubator.

We’re not the only folks who think so (even if we are a bit biased). Check out what your colleagues had to say about the benefits of going to Disrupt.

“The top three benefits I got out of going to Disrupt were introducing my product to people who would not have seen it otherwise; networking with investors, mentors, advisors and potential customers and, finally, talking to other entrepreneurs and founders and learning what it took to get their companies off the ground.” — Felicia Jackson, inventor and founder of CPR Wrap.

“I loved seeing so many women co-founders, CEOs and engineers at Disrupt. TechCrunch embraces diversity, which you don’t see a lot of in the startup world.” — Jessica McLean, director of marketing and communications, Infinite-Compute.

“I wanted to get the most out of my time at Disrupt. I learned a lot by splitting my time between the Startup Battlefield, the Disrupt stage speakers and the how-to presentations for founders on the TechCrunch+ stage.” — JC Bodson, founder and CEO of Arbitrage Technologies.

Reminder: Don’t miss the Startup Battlefield 200, more than 50 roundtable discussions and game-changing speakers like Serena Williams (Serena Ventures), Marc Lore (Wonder Group), Johanna Faries (Activision Blizzard), RJ Scaringe (Rivian) and so many more.

And don’t miss out on your last chance to save $700. Buy your Disrupt pass before October 14 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT), and join us in San Francisco!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Read full article here

[gayspock]

search for spock post 2 bc i sincerely would not shut up this time

 - this entire breakout scene oh my god im going to lose it

- LIKE ITS SO DELICIOUS. KIRK GOING IN THERE. PUNCHING THE GUARD. COMING OUT, PERFECTLY TIMED, TO SULU KNOCKING THAT DUDE AND JUST BODYING HIM. DONT CALL ME TINY, HE SAYS. IN THAT FUCKING LEATHER JACKET THING.

- i actually , again, must say: kirk notwithstanding, i do really love the outfits. omg.

- NO SHUTUP THIS ENTIRE SEQUENCE. SCOTTY BEING A LITTLE BITCH. AND NO LESS.  NO LESS AT NO LESS- MISS UHURA!

might i say her hair is so gorgeous in this she is in general my god

fuck it up fuck it up fuck it up fuck it up fuck it up fuck it up fuck it up fuck it up

- HOLY SHIT THE DREAM TEAM ARE REALLY DOING THIS. THEYRE REALLY KIDNAPPING OUR GIRL, THE ENTERPRISE. LEGENDS. ABSOLUTE FUCKING LEGENDS.

 - SINCERELY THOUGH IT IS SO FUNNY THEY HAVE TO GET THE ENTERPRISE I GET IT SHE’S PROBABLY THE ONLY GAL THAT CAN GET OUT THERE AND DO WHAT THEY NEED BUT LITERALLY ALSO THE DRAMA OF IT ALL

- no but hang on the entire energy of this im so happy and smiling so big at all of them coming together and theyre such a mess theyre like lowkey ruining all their careers but theyre a little family and theyre going to save SPOCK , theyre going to help MCCOY and i only just watched tmp , like, a few hours ago so im thinkin abt him arriving and not saying anything and everyon bein like okie dokie... BUT NO. THEY ALL LOVE. CARE HIM. CARE EACH OTHER.

- BABY SPOCK?

-  But I was so caught up in the euphoria of found family (in space) antics, that I forgot about the Klingons

- i also keep forgetting that david is straight up kirk’s son. what the honest to god fuck.

- there’s a lot happening int hsi whole thing but it doesnt feel unbalanced at all frankly like i said im having a whale of a time its just taking me so long to watch bc i keep pausing to go apeshit and speaking of

- i jinxed it you will not be dealing with pon farr in this movie. i will not allow it. hard no.

- FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH SEARCH FOR SPOCK. I HATE IT HERE NOW.

- ABSOLUTELY NOT THE TIME AND THE PLACE, BUT: since you now are making it pretty obvious that vulcan hand business is like that and you had kirk and spock with their hands pressed through the glass at each other. uh well you know what you did, star trek. we both know what you did.

- also may i ask. what is the point of a red alert thing if there’s, like, 4 of you here.

 - why, when james t. kirk was put onscreen on the klingon ship, did he whip his ass round like that. sir who’s it for! the klingons arent going to fuck you!

- congrats kirk. you had a son for, like, less than a week.

BASTARD?

- HI DID HE TELL ANYONE. I CANT TELL. EVERYONES JUST UFKCING STARING AT HIM HAVING A LITTLE MELTDOWN.

- OH DEAR GOD THEYRE DOING THE DESTRUCT SEQUENCE THING NO STOP IT THE STRESS I HATE IT

- ARE THEY ACTUALLY GOING TO BLOW IT UP WHY AM I SO SO SAD ABOUT THAT LIKE NOO @ ME IT’S A FAKE SHIP ITS FINE EVEN IF IT WAS RTEAL WHO CARES BUT NOOOOOOOOOOO I LOVE HER I LOVE THE ENTERPRISE YOU CANT KILL MY GIRL NOOOO

BUT I LVOEHER I BUT IM ATTACHED TO THE FAKE LITTLE VEHICLE IT’S HOME . SICK OF IT.

- god. scotty, bones, kirk and sulu all standing at the top of the hill and staring into the sunset as the enterprise burns up... its so fucking sad and beautiful shut up man im going to cry dont LOOK AT ME IM FUCKING EMBARASED IM SICK OF IT I RECOGNSIE BUT IM

- DID KIRK JUST KNEE THE KLINGON IN HIS KLINGDONG

GOING TO SCREAM

- GIVING THIS DUDE THE BOOT TO THE HEAD AND YELLING “I. HAVE. HAD. ENOUGH. OF YOU.” AND THEN KICKING HIM OFF A CLIFF AND INTO BURNING LAVA MISTER KIRK I AM A LITTLE OBSESSED

 - IMAGINE IF THE WORLD WAS BURNING AND COLLAPSING AROUND YOU AND YOU WERE HANGING ONTO THE EMPTY BODY OF YOUR DEAR, DEAREST FRIEND WHO YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD LOST FOREVER

- sincerely though there’s something about it all. the way they burnt down their careers; the way the enterprise burnt; the way genesis burnt... everything is burning... the fire cleansing... what does it all mean... i dont know girls but im a little weepy and its silly again

- “ i dont deserve to live.” “fine. i’ll you later. :/” ME TO ME

- c’cmon boys.... c’mon

- “who is the keeper of the katra?” (voice breaking) “I A-AM.” BONES.

“at what cost? your ship? your son?” “the cost owuld have been my soul” AGAIN. KIRK. MISTER! LIKE- jesus fucking christ my, man.

dont even BEGIN DON TOUCH TME

LOOK AT THS SHIT AND THEN HIM TURNING LOVINGLY TO KIRK, TO JIM....THE WAY HIS EYEBROWS SHOOT UP AND KIRK JSUT SMILES AT HIMA ND THEYR E ALL HAPPY AND THEYRE ALL TOGETHER AND THATS ALL THAT MATTERES NOT THE ENTERPRISE NOT ANYHTING ITS JUST THW98AUF0DPSGJSDGOPSDGJSDGGS THE NEEDS OF THE ONE. OH MY FUCKING GOD.

 SHUT UP GIRLS IM FINISHED EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING

[omegalomania]

i would like to hear more on the patrick vs brendon vocal ability discussion if you would maybe want to rant 👀 👀 (hshsgehdv also I've recently come to know that mr urie is Not that great of a Person so appreciate you for making that post <3)

all right so full disclaimer: the last time i had any notable vocal training was like about 10 years ago. i did get some vocal training but i have undergone hrt since then so most of what i did know is pretty useless since ive never taken the time to actually relearn my range. my understanding of this stuff is old and limited so if anyone whos actually up to date on this shit can weigh in thats always great. im doing this because im a salty mccuntnugget whos had too much honey jack daniels for one night and that apparently is what supercharges me to write emo bandmember cringe compilation posts. somehow.

this got long so im throwing it beneath a cut. click for more if you wanna read about one guy on the internet having Opinions about which of these two dudes sings better

so once again: this is MYYYY OPINION im not your mom you are free to disagree or whatever i literally do not care. but an anon asked so im going to answer. here we go.

FIRST NOTE. comparisons between patrick and brendon have been going on since the dawn of the fucking age but brendon his own damn self decided to act like patrick was copying him vocally so that means i can be as mean as i want cause he started it. we’re doing playground logic here cause this is my blog and i do what i want and also cause hes that much of a cunt.

so i want to start things off with a reminder that patrick stump did not set out to be a singer! he was not picked out of a lineup for his vocal ability. he mostly just wanted to write songs, and it was joe and pete who made a point of saying "no actually you should sing." and it takes patrick a while to actually grow into his range and gain confidence as a singer since his real love is composition. it's not until infinity on high in 2007 that you really hear him growing into his own as a vocalist and it's not until the hiatus/posthiatus that you really hear his vocal confidence.

brendon got to be the singer for panic because bassist brent wilson knew him in high school and he thought his vocal ability was top notch. the rest of the band agreed. it also took brendon a while to grow into his voice. in fact in the early days before panic actually took off (aka before ryan ross badgered pete wentz into signing a band of mostly high schoolers), people on old fob forums legitimately thought that brendon WAS patrick. old articles refer to panic as fall out boy clones for probably that reason.

brendon actually made his vocal debut on a fall out boy record, from under the cork tree (which was released may 5 2005, whereas panic's debut a fever you can't sweat out wouldn't release until september 27 2005). he does a little part in 7 minutes in heaven (atavan halen) on the chorus (he does the second "i keep telling myself, i keep telling myself i'm not the desperate type") and it's genuinely something a lot of people miss, because he sounds a lot like patrick here. later in 2008, this would happen again on 20 dollar nosebleed, which gave brendon a much bigger vocal part (again he splits the chorus with patrick) but in which their vocal inflections are very very similar to the point where a lot of people don’t realize he contributed vocals there.

so there are a lot of similarities, particularly when these two guys were still growing into their voices. it was during fob's hiatus that these started to diverge, and by 2017 they would be wildly different.

patrick readily admitted a lot that he never really intended to be a singer and it wasn't until infinity on high (2007) that he made a genuine attempt to be a singer in earnest. this reticence would often show live. it wasn't until the hiatus and then posthiatus that patrick, and also the rest of the band, had a consistent live presence imo. fob had a lot of infamously sloppy shows - fun to watch, but sonically kind of all over the place - and patrick wouldn't always be the most consistent vocalist. he'd be strong one night and breathy the next, and it wasn't until the hiatus that he started taking vocal lessons.

but the improvement really really shows now. patrick is a much more consistent and powerful vocalist posthiatus, and he's reportedly incredibly diligent in taking care of his voice. that's why you often see him making these kinds of faces in backstage videos; he's doing vocal trills, which are a specific kind of warmup that helps limber up the voice preshow. they look and sound a little silly, but warmups are important to make sure you dont damage your voice. patrick has specific warmup routines and also goes on vocal rest and doesn't do a lot of talking prior to doing a show.

so brendon does double shots before every show. i’ll be honest here i tried to do more research into what goes into warmup routines before panic shows but i Cannot deal with hearing this man talk about himself more than i already have tonight so if anyone else wants to source whatever he does. please do. i would not be surprised if he treats his voice fucking atrociously but even if he doesn’t...his upper register (which is basically his one party trick in live settings) is starting to sound awful strained on studio vocals as of 2022, which is not a good look.

i also want to emphasize that even if his technical ability took time to really come into its own, patrick has always been an incredibly emotionally versatile vocalist. from under the cork tree is really the first time you get to see this shine, where patrick swings from cocky tongue-in-cheek irony (our lawyer made us change the name of this song so we wouldn't get sued) to aching vulnerability (i've got a dark alley and a bad idea that says you should shut your mouth) to snarling anger and accusation [get busy living or get busy dying (do you part to save the scene and stop going to shows)]. factor in the bonus tracks and you get patrick at his most ruthless (my heart is the worst kind of weapon), his most raw and desolate (star 67), and a rare appearance of some borderline unclean vocals (snitches and talkers get stitches and walkers).

posthiatus this is even more apparent. save rock and roll in 2013 demanded an incredible depth of emotional and technical range, and patrick was noticeably a little gun-shy about actually committing to doing those kinds of riffs live, since he wasn’t sure he was going to have to perform those songs live. by 2018′s mania, i want to emphasize that you can actually HEAR patrick smiling in "sunshine riptide." on mania, you also have songs that demand a diverse range of tone and vocal depth: “stay frosty royal milk tea” is a snarling, punchy opening track that reminds you that patrick was a drummer first, but this is also paired with the eclectic edm-soaked “young and menace,” the crooning doo-wop style ballad “heaven’s gate,” the reggae-flavored “HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T,” and the closing track which, full disclosure, is probably one of my favorite songs of all time, “bishops knife trick.” and patrick pulls them all off! the best display of this was that he was able to do young and menace live in both its original incarnation and in the somber, stripped-down piano version.

also, as a note: fall out boy songs are really fucking hard to sing. the vocal range they demand is absolutely insane even if you’re not some drummer who got strongarmed into being a singer. the fact that patrick can replicate these vocals live and maintain a rich emotional diversity in tone is really, really noteworthy.

panic songs are also pretty hard to sing. they require a lot of vocal acrobatics, which was an ambitious thing for a band composed of mostly high schoolers when they started out. early performances were really rough because not only was brendon struggling, the rest of the band was struggling to perform songs live that ryan ross wrote on his computer lol.

so now is the part where i start drinking heavily so i can talk about brendon vocals. brendon has the technical talent, even if, like patrick, it took him a while to grow into it. but his emotional versatility is, imo, sorely lacking, and that was evident in early days but it would only get more glaring as time went on. a fever you can’t sweat out in 2005 had a lot of really intensely emotional moments and emotionally charged songs, but it took me a few listens to really grok that because brendon sings them all with the same upbeat energy. and you can put that down on him being an inexperienced singer still figuring his way around this whole “being a frontman” gig, but the trend actively continues and in fact gets worse over time. i think 2008′s pretty. odd. gave us some insight into this due to the pronounced vocal role that ryan ross gets on that album. he takes lead vocals on “behind the sea” and gives us some audible backing vocals throughout in a way that suggests to me that, on some level, the band was aware that they needed someone with more emotional range to counter brendon’s straight-on belting.

so it’s...kind of uncomfortable seeing brendon do said full on belting and also a borderline striptease dance to “camisado” live (which, for those not in the know, is a song ryan ross wrote about his life with his abusive alcoholic father). and i’m not gonna pretend i have any say in whether or not ryan was okay with something so ruinously personal being performed in that kind of way when he was no longer in the band, but it SURE does sit kinda weird with me!

cause brendon is a belter, and that’s just kind of his one mode. this really got more apparent after vices and virtues (2011), and too weird to live, too rare to die (2013), because there was a little more emotional range there. but that pretty much dies out after those records and brendon kind of has these two moods for everything released here on out: it’s either “i love weed” or “i love my wife” and there’s not a lot of range between. he doesn’t have much in the way of moderation. my one single experience in attempting to see panic live (in 2019, no less. it wasn’t a good time lol) was just kind of...relentlessly high-energy regardless of the song, because again, that seems to be brendon’s one setting. he frantically climbs the scale and hits really high notes to keep the energy up without ever actually letting it dial down at any point. it’s not about playing to the song; it’s about reminding the audience, constantly, of what a vocal powerhouse he is, at all times. this does nothing whatsoever to counteract how emotionally flat he is as a performer.

remember that point i made about the differences between patrick’s performance of the high-energy original flavor young and menace and its acoustic piano version? well, you get a superficially similar instance in brendon’s renditions of “this is gospel” in both its original incarnation and the piano version, but i want to point out the difference in tone here. or rather, the fact that there kind of isn’t one. contextually, “this is gospel” is a pretty somber song. it was written for and about spencer smith and his struggles with addiction before his eventual departure from the band, but it’s kind of hard for me personally to reconcile that with the way brendon vocalizes it, even in what is supposed to be a slower, more intimate rendition of it.

this got more glaring in 2018 on pray for the wicked, which gave us “dying in la” which...is i guess, brendon’s attempt at some tonal diversity on an album that was basically back to front “CHECK OUT THIS WILD PARTY I’M AT” but it doesn’t really go anywhere, imo. it builds to something, but...doesn’t actually resolve. i’m gauging this all on vocals, not lyrics, because that’s the point of comparison i’m making - lyrics are a whole other kettle of fish. it’s just like, the guy cannot dial back even for a second and as a result there is NO variation in the way he performs, studio or live. after it’s been long enough, it just kind of starts to wear at you.

another very telling difference is how different patrick and brendon’s backing vocals are. backing vocals by definition need to be much more restrained than if you're taking lead. here's patrick backing travie in 2010 - he's very understated here. distinct and audible, giving us some nice vocal harmonies, but he keeps the spotlight very truly and deservedly on travie. this is also true for studio vocals, like on the lupe fiaso track "little weapon" from 2007 in which patrick isn't even one of the vocal features. he's audible if you know what to listen for, but most of his touch comes from the track's production and composition. more recently, here's patrick doing studio backing vocals in 2017 for a cover of "same drugs" with matt nathanson. once again, he's very good at dialing things back because he's not the lead here and he knows it.

let's contrast this with the cover 2010 panic did of "skid row" from little show of horrors, wherein dallon is meant to be the lead. fortunately dallon manages to shine regardless, but it's...a little jarring that brendon is ostensibly meant to be the support here but vocally and stylistically is belting like he's front and center. another telling instance is this performance of “america’s suitehearts” featuring brendon. in fairness, both patrick and brendon sound pretty rough here since this is a hard song to pull off! but brendon is supposed to be pulling support, and he’s riffing like he’s center stage. and it’s not particularly good riffing either lol.

“what a catch donnie” is the most egregious example of this though. i’ve said this before, but brendon REALLY sticks out in a not great way on what’s supposed to be a soulful, honorary vocal feature. the rest of the fueled by ramen guys singing along are doing their guest spots in a very understated, tonally consistent fashion: distinct in their own rights, if you know what to look for, but definitely doing what they can to fit into the tone of the song. brendon comes barreling in singing DANCE DANCE like this is his fucking show, and it sticks out so badly because he’s doing nothing whatsoever to conform to the tone of the piece.

a couple more points of comparison that i personally find really interesting:

“one of THOSE nights” off of the cab’s debut album whisper war (sidebar: GREAT ALBUM. i miss this band so fuckin much man) features both brendon and patrick; brendon is heard doing the post-chorus, and patrick does the final bridge and can be heard on the final chorus. both of them are belting here, but patrick’s got a strong emotion that suits the finish without being too overpowering and also crucially doesn’t just stay...flat.

patrick actually does backing vocals on a couple other tracks on whisper war, like “i’m a wonder,” and in both that track and “one of THOSE nights” you can hear how much technical and emotional dexterity he has. the former has him belting and the latter has him doing a very restrained backing falsetto.

folie a deux era gave us two gentle lullaby pieces for pete’s first kid. the first is “lullabye,” the album’s hidden bonus track. the second is “bronx’s lullaby.” patrick does the first, brendon does the second. the first sounds very gentle and tender, and the second sounds...i mean, i can tell what he’s going for. but it just kind of sounds ominous to me. so basically i can see why most people will talk about the former and ignore the latter lol lol

did you guys know brendon was on broadway. im kidding im kidding he has literally not shut up about being on broadway and seems to have made that his tertiary character trait since kinky boots. anyway here’s brendon sounding like brendon on kinky boots and basically performing the song like any other panic song. here is patrick covering rocky horror and nailing tim curry’s part. i don’t have any live covers of patrick to have a more accurate point of comparison (he’s in his studio here so he had the luxury of picking the best take) but i just think its fucking wild that patrick wasnt the one of them to go on broadway. fucks sake man.

i COULD compare the two of these guys covering queen but that just seems mean because fob was doing a whole entire studio session and brendon was just doing it over zoom and nah im just kidding i really am that petty. anyway here’s fall out boy covering under pressure and patrick dueting with himself and managing to nail both freddie mercury and david bowie’s parts without losing his own distinctive touch. here’s brendon doing his cover of under pressure and thanks i hate it.

lastly, cause i did my fuckin research here. here are some vocal coaches taking notes on live vocals for patrick and brendon respectively. you might note that they have a lot more notes to give to the latter, a lot more cautionary tales about how much brendon pushes his voice. if they do have critique to offer patrick, it’s in regards to clips of his prehiatus performances (or for that one 2013 thnks fr th mmrs performance when he was sick lol).

the bottom line for me is that patrick, stylistically, just has more range and more versatility. he can do virtually any genre - dancehall, rock, pop, rnb, hardcore, ska, funk, and SO MANY FUCKING MORE - and he can still sound distinctly himself. and for me, brendon only ever sounds like he’s singing the same song in the same genre; molding the song to suit his tastes and his range, and not the other way around.

all right thats all ive got steam for. patrick has always been a much more distinct and capable vocalist in my opinion and it kinda sucks that general public opinion seems to favor brendon so heavily cause brendon’s basically only got one emotional setting and couches the fact that he has no vocal dexterity in a lot of high notes and everyone just eats it up. it’s a diverting tactic and it’s worked. but that kinda seems to be brendon’s m.o. these days since he’s trying to shake low opinion of him by drumming up controversy and writing a song about a dude who hasn’t been in the same band as him in 13 years so