#setting up their dynamic in a way that does not put bill anywhere near a caretaker role

[wavebiders]

so far my favorite thing about s10 is that, like s3, it's the first series after the exit of a companion that lasted several years, through a regeneration, and had an incredibly close relationship with the doctor, with the new companion being the the first black woman of that era

except this time around instead of having the doctor mope around all season they were just like "fuck it we're not even gonna let him remember his emotional support white woman go love this funky little lesbian now"

[polandspringz]

So I’m actually VERY proud of this fic, so if you follow me for my other RWBY writing I kind of implore you to read this even if it’s about an OC of mine. It’s about her relationship with Ironwood, as I’ve been riding the high of Volume 7 and 8 and I think it’s helped me create an interesting dynamic by giving Ironwood someone like my OC in his past. This is a part of a series of other works, but you don’t necessarily have to read the other ones before this one! There’s context in the opening notes.

Summary:

The one time Rui said she would never go back to Atlas, and all the times she did.

A preview of the story will be posted down below, but to go read the full work click the link!

A young James Ironwood marched his way through the white, sterile halls of the Ironwood family’s private hospital. Arms folded behind his back and posture straight, he fought the urge to shove his way through the staff crowding the halls, his fingers flexing as he held his hand in one another, tightened in fists. He may be the eldest son of the Ironwoods, and as much as that was a title, he was only a boy. A boy with a very easily damaged reputation.

It would do no good to cause a scene here, no matter how badly he wanted to sprint forward and run. (To her).

He reached the respective door. The skin of his right palm pressed against the flat cold metal and pushed it open, revealing a similarly monochrome room, sapped of life. The hospital did not sing of death, but reeked of sadness, emptiness, the quietness of the halls and doctor’s faces as they stared over charts, it was suffocating. He knew it must be terrible for her too, for he had only just met her and he could tell she was a lively girl, she didn’t deserve to be weighed down, caged in like this, but it was for the best. He could provide the best care for her here, he could fix what he failed to stop that day. He could-

The edge of the door blurred away as it left the corner of his vision, and the interior of the room was revealed. A dresser. A bedside table for meds. A metal bed frame stretched over with starch white linens. Curtains danced above the bed, the air of the open window circulating throughout the room.

It was a cold day in Atlas. Even with the city’s temperature control, she would catch a cold if she-

“-if you keep hanging out the window like that.”

She was leaning against the sill, her head only turning the slightest bit where it was perched upon her palm when she heard his voice. Her glasses were missing, her hair was tied up tight, kept out of the way of the bandages wrapping around her back underneath the hospital robe. She looked disinterested, likely tired, but he could see she at least tried to act happy in his presence. She must have felt some obligation to him.

“I promise I’m not going anywhere. It’s just nice to watch the snow flurries, reminds me of home.”

She turned back to look outside. He took a great step, his whole body leaning forward with the motion before he bounced up on his heels, bridging the gap between them more and more. There was a metal chair folded up against the wall by the dresser. He swiped it and sat down.

“Miss Rui Kazahana, I don’t think we’ve had the chance to get properly acquainted.”

“You can just call me Rui. There’s no need for formalities with me, Mr. Ironwood.”

“Then in the same way, you can be casual with me. Calling me Mister makes me feel greater than I am.”

“Well, aren’t you great? I was under the impression you had to be a pretty big Atlas elite to be able to pay for… well, all of this,” she didn’t move, but her eyes looked towards her back briefly.

“My family may be, but I am merely a boy,” he crossed his legs, and folded his hands over his knee, “You may just call me James.”

“Alright then. James,” she nodded, turning to face him properly. It took her a minute to shift and turn around fully without twisting her injuries, but when she was done he couldn’t help but notice the way she was curled up, one leg tucked beneath her, the other bent and pulled close to her chest. She looked at him with her cream colored eyes, tiny slivers of irises that the reflection of light barely had space to swirl around in as her dilated pupils seemed to eat up all of her eyes. They looked smaller behind her glasses. She seemed to still be afraid of him, hunched over and afraid as she traced her finger against the linens of the bed.

“Are you not from Atlas, Rui?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“You said the snow reminds you of home. You speak as if home is somehow different than the snow that falls in Atlas?”

“Oh, well, I am from Atlas. My grandparents raised me in one of the smaller homes built near the agricultural district. But, I have memories of being younger and living with my parents, somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else? Somewhere with more snow?”

“In the tundra perhaps?” She started to shrug but then let out a hiss of pain, “Again, I was very young. I only remember a lot of white, and the gray sky, and the way the flurries danced down around me. They were coming down heavier than they do under any of the climate control systems.”

“I see. Well, I’m not sure how to segue into this but, how are you feeling? I’m sorry I couldn’t be here right after your surgery. You and I are practically strangers, so the doctors wouldn’t disclose your information to me, not that I would have asked because it is private, but I was hoping-”

The rest of his rambling died on his lips when he heard her laugh. It was a bit raspy, a bit hoarse, but it was genuine and made her whole face scrunch up with joy. She was laughing at him.

“James, James, it’s okay. It’s nothing big for me to tell you how I’m doing, and I don’t mind doing so but… thanks for not prying and respecting my privacy. I know a ton of Atlesian elites would just demand the medical files be handed over.”

His mouth felt dry. He wanted to ask if that was an accusation- did you really think I would do that?- but he had to remind himself that they were strangers still. This was their first real conversation.

“Surgery went well, in a way I guess. They dealt with all the blood feathers, managed to correct it so in time there won’t be any pain from the injury, nothing severe I guess, but…”

“...But?”

She sighed, and looked back at the snow fall, going quiet for a minute. Her expression kept changing, her lips pressed thin one minute then warbling into a frown and then a sad smile the next. James could see how bad the injury was, her wings were still bandaged and folded up against her back, no feathers visible underneath, but it looked bad, but the surgery went well. So if there was a catch-

“Unfortunately,” her voice hitched, “They said the damage to the bones of the wings was too great. Even though they set everything, they’ll likely never fully heal. I…”

She sucked in her tears with another wet gasp.

“I won’t be able to fly with them again.”

James wanted to jump out of his seat and run down the hall, grab the nearest doctor and punch his skull in and then demand they reevaluate, do something else. There had to be a way to fix them, there had to be. They were wrong, he-

He stayed in his seat, folding his hands and squeezing his interlocked fingers in a deathly grip. His face though, he only let his expression crumple slightly, looking away with a mature but saddened expression of regret.

“I’m… sorry. I wish I could do more for you.”

“Oh, you’ve already done so much. I owe you plenty just for this. I might have died if I hadn't been brought here.  And goodness knows my family couldn’t afford this, so, thank you for covering the bills, I was told about that so thank you again.”

“No there… there must be something more I can do for you,” he let his hands fall apart, and he sat on the edge of the chair, ready to jump up, “I’ve already spoken with the headmaster, those students who attacked you, they’ll be expelled but, I’m not so naive. I know there will be others, that there were others who just stood by while it happened. And there might be others in the future.”

“What are you saying? I know all of that too.”

“But it will get better in the future. I promise, the training schools take everyone, but once you get to the academies, they cut out those who aren’t capable, aren’t worthy. People like that won’t survive past the entrance exams, so you can rest easy.”

She let out a confused, nervous laugh at that, “Who’s to say I won’t be cut by those exams too? I have to learn a whole new combat style. I was wholly reliant on my wings until now. I won’t be able to relearn how to fight by the time I graduate.”

He was practically out of his chair now. He felt manic, buzzing with excitement. Yes, the solution was there now, it was right in front of him he just needed to-!

“But you don’t have to pass the exam,” he said, standing up slowly, legs straightening, “My family has connections, we could put in a recommendation. You could get into Atlas Academy with no worry, and the others would be cut out. They have the best technology. They’re the military so they might have more options than my family does to fix your wings. They might-”

“James.”

He stopped talking and his feet froze in place. He had started pacing. She was kneeling on the bed and facing him, a smile on his lips but her eyes downward, not watching him. She was being careful in her movements, anything sudden would send contortions of pain down into the muscles connecting to her crumpled up wings.

“Thank you for everything you said. I really don’t like the idea of asking for more, since again, you have done more than enough but… I think I do have one request, if you’re willing to answer it.”

“Of course! Anything for-”

“Get me out of Atlas.”

“Wha...what?”

Her eyes were cold and empty as they stared at the sheets, “I never want to come back here again.”

To read the rest go to the link at the top of this post!

[mbti-notes]

Greetings, I am a 75 year old grandma. I am writing because my grandson who is in his 20s won't work. I have been involved in mbti for many decades. I'm an ENFJ. My grandson is still living at home well into his 20s. When I tell him to get a job (over many years) he just tells me to cut him off and that he will be fine without a smartphone and sweet foods. He is very bright. Graduated with a 3.7 from University. He tried various interests, but nothing sticks. Do I kick him out? Its not my nature

[con’t: The actions I've taken to help my grandson is to show him various resources like holland code, personality theory, etc. so that he can find some direction of where to commit. Instead he just takes the holland code over and over again, and happily shows me that his interests vary everytime he takes it. Same with personality theory. He goes on your blog all the time to prove that he doesn't fit anywhere. Based off of that statement he sounds like IxFJ. My grandson resembles Ti loop (IFxJ), but he does not resemble any other aspect of being an FJ. He is relatively well decisive when it comes to everything in his life. The only issue is getting a job, getting on a path, but he rejects this. If he at least helped around the house it would be something, but he can be quite selfish and uncaring, yet at other times very caring. It vacillates. Anyway, please help if possible, I am perplexed.]

WRT His Type: 

I can’t draw a conclusion about his type without a full type assessment. Everything you’ve described is quite consistent with INFJ and Ni-Ti loop. It seems that you don’t understand tertiary loop very well. Ti loop is an unconscious repudiation of feeling, responsibility, and eventually, conscience. It amounts to a refusal to be the things that make FJs good and admirable people. Basically, the more severe the case of Ti loop, the more arrogant, narcissistic, and callous the INFJ becomes. 

If the INFJ is only at the stage of trying to suppress the vulnerability of feeling life, there is still a fair chance for them to turn their life around by developing better emotional intelligence to address the emotional immaturity. If the INFJ has reached the point of refusing personal responsibility, they will be preoccupied/obsessed with finding any excuse, and even creating enemies, to blame for the poor state of their life. At this point, they are impervious to facts and don’t respond well to advice. If the INFJ loses all self-awareness and manages to convince themselves that they are “special” and not subject to conventional rules and ethical boundaries, then the time for you to distance from them is nearing, as chronic Se grip will set in and produce reactive, aggressive, or extreme behavior. 

To get out of Ti loop requires genuine humility and reconnection with feeling life. The INFJ must take full responsibility for their decisions, correct the big mistakes that they have made in life, and atone for all the harm that they have caused. He does not seem to be capable of this at the moment. I explain Ti loop not to be an alarmist, but to give you a realistic view of how destructive tertiary loop can be, what rock bottom looks like for INFJs, and the signs to be wary of. If the relationship with him ever reaches a point where his mindset becomes toxic and harmful to you, it is important that you move to protect yourself.

WRT His Problem: 

Getting someone in the right frame of mind to make a change and tackle a big problem is very tricky business because you don’t want to try and fail too many times. If you’re correct about Ti loop, then the more times you try to help and fail, the more likely he is to retreat further into himself (and delusion). To avoid applying the wrong solution, it’s best to do some “intelligence gathering” first so that you understand the problem properly before proceeding.

Neither of you has gotten to the bottom of his “block”, i.e., the actual obstacle that is getting in the way of his advancement. You can’t solve a problem if you can’t identify the cause(s) of it. The cause can be internal, external, or a combination of factors. Getting him into aptitude/personality studies seems like a logical approach to the problem. However, this assumes that the underlying cause of the problem is that he doesn’t really know himself - is it, though? It’s not clear to me, from what you’ve said, that this is the root of the problem. There isn’t enough info for me to draw any conclusion and I don’t wish to speculate wildly about what his problem might be. He seems to have some deeper psychological issues going on. And this lack of knowledge about his motivations is probably the reason that you’re both having difficulty pinpointing his type.

Therefore, the first order of business is to examine the problem in depth to figure out what the true cause of it is. Is the nature of the employment problem practical, psychological, educational, social, etc? Once you have an accurate grasp of the problem, then think on the right solution to it, or get help from someone with the expertise to determine the right solution. Note that if he is already at the point of avoiding responsibility and making excuses to manipulate reality, he himself will be blind to the real problem.

WRT Your Decision: 

The last point I want to make is about you and your feelings. It sounds like he is suffering from some form of arrested development because he still has the mentality of a child. Academic GPA means nothing without emotional maturity and life skills. His behavior indicates that he depends on you but is also spoiled in taking your support for granted. This means that the more you try to support/help him, the more you may be enabling his unhealthy behavior and preventing him from becoming truly independent. 

It is in his best interests to learn how to be a responsible adult because he will not always have someone to lean on in life (especially since Ti loop is very destructive to relationships). This should happen sooner rather than later, because the longer someone stays stuck in a rut, the harder it is to change, as inertia deepens. This is especially true in terms of employment because doors close and opportunities gradually dry up the older one gets. For the sake of his continued personal growth, he has to learn how to face up to his life’s problems and resolve them. But it sounds like he’s not willing to do that without being compelled to. He explicitly said to cut him off, which is basically like telling mama bird that he’s not going to jump off the tree and fly until he gets pushed off. Push him. Yes, he could have some psychological issue going on, but he’s also using your support to avoid facing up to it. If this is true, then you need to step BACK and allow him to step up for himself.

Should you kick him out? I understand that, from your perspective, this path would be the last resort, because it would violate your moral sensibilities and perhaps damage the relationship. But the fact that you’re at the point of considering it means that you’ve been dealing with this situation for far too long without making any progress. Please take some time to address how much this situation stresses YOU. Otherwise, your feelings may eventually boil over and possess you to do something you regret.

The fairest approach to this situation is to treat him like you would treat anyone else. In other words, stop giving him preferential treatment, especially if he doesn’t appreciate it and thus doesn’t deserve it. (Preferential treatment is reserved for people who are putting in their best effort but still falling short due to factors beyond their control.) If he wants to live under someone else’s roof, he has to contribute his fair share, as any adult would be expected to do (rent, bills, food, etc). If he wants to use/share your space, he has to help with cleaning and maintenance so that the workload is fairly distributed, as any adult would be expected to do. If he wants to have a relationship with you, then he has to reciprocate to make the friendship equal, as any adult would be expected to do. If it were anyone else, you would draw lines and boundaries about what kinds of behavior you would tolerate, wouldn’t you? I hope you would. If you're a doormat, it makes your relationship dynamic with him codependent and even more unhealthy. 

**A healthy relationship must have boundaries. Personal boundaries must be respected to justify continued investment in the relationship. If someone doesn’t respect your needs and boundaries, they don’t respect you, and they’re proving themselves unworthy of your continued effort. Until someone proves that they are worthy of your trust and support, it is best to maintain emotional distance from them, for your own safety and psychological well-being.**

It’s time for you to step up for yourself and how you feel. Make your needs and desires matter just as much as his, which means drawing the lines, setting the boundaries, and enforcing the rules that you need for honoring your existence. Yes, it would be nice if everyone just knew how to respect each other, but that’s not the case. If a relationship is hurting you, then it’s necessary to practice proper self-care and correct what is wrong. It’s not about being controlling but about respecting you and what is yours. If he can’t abide by your rules and boundaries, he is an adult and free to set his own rules elsewhere. Don’t forget that if you let him walk all over you, you’re implicitly confirming to him that exploitation is normal and acceptable relationship behavior.

1) Devaluing your needs is a disservice to yourself and puts you in the backseat of this relationship to be hurt and exploited, and 2) devaluing your needs is a disservice to him, because taking advantage of your generosity allows him to continue on with unhealthy behavior. I’ve given a few possibilities above and it’s up to you to take the path that you think is best for both parties.

[squidproquoclarice]

Don't know what you'd think of this, but my read on Dutch is that his first concern is his own safety, and when his safety isn't a concern his talk is genuine. When everything starts going to shit his selfish nature comes to the forefront and he subconsciously ramps up the manipulation tactics. And I don't how Ch 6 Dutch would have behaved if he wasn't Post-Hosea and brain damaged.

I’m wrapping this into another Ask of “You believe Dutch never loved Arthur, John, or any of them?”~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~To answer second Ask very directly, I’d say no, that Dutch never loved any of them.  But that’s due to asking “What is love?”  (Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more).  I’m saying that with the perspective that real, genuine love needs empathy, selflessness, concern for the other person first above yourself.  You can be very fond and affectionate and caring, but if you’re a narcissist who will always, always instinctively want to put yourself first, if you’ll sacrifice them for your needs, then yeah, you don’t truly love them.  You can’t.  But none of them knew it, including perhaps Dutch, because they weren’t pushed anywhere near that until 1899.  The only vague hint we have is his implied habit of going through women and treating them as somewhat dispensable.  (I do think he was fond of Annabelle, but if you dig into it, I’m going to guess at its core it’s mostly anger that something of his was taken from him.  He only talks about her in a sense of outrage that Colm killed her, not the grief for her as a person.  Contrast that to Hosea’s very real grief for Bessie.)To the first Nonny, I think you’re right.  I never would say Dutch is all a cynical act.  He does like and care about these people.  He’s taken them in when they’ve been lost souls and given them a family, and yes, there’s certainly an angle of self-interest in preying on their vulnerability–the ones he finds as kids are particularly painful–but it’s clear he also enjoys these people.  He likes them.  He’s not just seeing them as little toy soldiers who he has to fool by playing nice so he can use them.The trouble with Dutch is, as you say, when the good times are good, his better nature is there.  He can be kind, generous, funny, and it’s easier to downplay the darkest part of the reality, that he’s a silver-tongued egomaniac who’s drawn all these people together into an anarchosocialist cult with him as their godhead.  But there’s room for kindness.  There’s room for affection and pride.  There’s room for him to see Hosea as (almost) his equal and treat him and his opinion with great respect.  Though the fact that it’s very definitively the Van Der Linde Gang, not the Van Der Linde/Matthews Gang, makes it clear that Hosea may be a brother, but definitely subordinate.  There were other outlaw gangs with a more equal partnership definitely noted: the James/Younger Gang, for example, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid getting equal billing in the Hole In The Wall Gang.  In this case, Hosea’s the quieter junior partner, and even he eventually observes how he’s fallen under Dutch’s spell.Most violently oriented cults don’t hold together for years on end.  I think there’s a reason for that.  Technically the gang’s been in existence for at least 23 (?) years, since I believe Hosea’s news article details him and Dutch breaking out of prison in Ohio in 1876.  They found Arthur in 1877.  Hosea had Bessie, and it sounds like Susan is also an OG.  But that was that for a while, until they brought John into it in 1885.  That changed things again, but I’d argue that the early days of the gang were very different.  It was a small group: Dutch, Hosea, Bessie as Team Mom, Susan leaving her role as Dutch’s lover and becoming Team Spinster Aunt, Dutch’s current lover in any given year, Arthur growing into manhood and his role as Annoyed Older Brother, and John as Little Brother.  That small core family of two kids, two dads, one mom and one aunt (though Bessie sounds to have died before the gang really exploded in size) and one revolving-door girlfriend, seems to have been a fairly set dynamic until c. 1892 or 1893.  It sounds to have been fairly stable, tight-knit, warm and affectionate.  I suspect Arthur’s anxiety settled down when he saw that he’d always be treated and respected as the eldest son, and he and John were actually pretty close until John fucked up with Abigail.  The closest that anyone came to leaving was Arthur riding off for a few days every couple of months to  go see Eliza and Isaac.  This also sounds like the best days of the gang in terms of charity—that article from the bank robbery from the mid-late 1880s that’s clearly Dutch, Hosea, and Arthur happened, and they promptly went and were handing out money to the local poor people and basically being giddy Robin Hoods.  Arthur remembers when they used to help people.  These were the good days.  So in 1892/1893 you have Dutch, Hosea, Arthur, John, Susan, and Dutch’s Current Girlfriend (though I suspect nobody counts her that much since she’s prone to changing every couple of years).  I think Bessie is dead by this point since Hosea makes it sound like it happened before most of the gang members were there. So we’ll say this gang is effectively five people, with one more loosely attached honorary member.  Suddenly the gang population explodes.  It sounds like everyone else joined in the last six years prior to RDR2, probably many in the last two to three.  From Pearson’s pic of the stagecoach likely in 1895, given Abigail holding baby Jack, they had Dutch, Hosea, Arthur, Abigail, Susan, John, Pearson, and Bill, and we know Javier was part of it, Tilly sounds to have been.  That’s ten right there, maybe more.And I think that swapped the dynamic for Dutch too.  Suddenly they’re acquiring every stray, lost soul, and orphan in their path.  He’s not just the fond patriarch of a tight-knit family, he’s got to be the leader, the prophet, the Messiah of a Goddamned movement.  And I think that exacerbates his narcissism.  He has more people to look after, and more people to hold in his sway.  His personality becomes bigger.  His rhetoric and his plans become more grandiose.  He becomes more of the fire-and-brimstone street preacher.  The gang becomes less charitable, more insular, more we take care of our own first, because they’re becoming far more dangerously visible with the need to take care of ten, fifteen, twenty people, and the more constant stream of risk and crimes that comes with it. The population explosion pretty much doomed the gang, I think, because it pushed Dutch’s narcissism to deadly levels, and forced them to start taking on bigger and riskier crimes on a more regular basis.  By 1896 the clock was probably already ticking down, and the pressure of the next few years ratcheted that up until it finally explodes in the Blackwater Massacre and everything that happens after. So to backtrack: I think the Dutch that Hosea, Bessie, Susan, Arthur, and John knew from c. 1876 to 1893 was a proto-narcissist who would have looked out for ol’ Number 1 when pressed hard, yes, but the situation and dynamic they had was a lot more forgiving and brought out Dutch’s idealism, affection, and the like rather than his worst traits.  When the gang started getting bigger, he had more people to hold there, and more risk to keep it all together, the manipulation and grooming and gaslighting ratcheted up too because things had already subtly transformed and started to turn.  You can see some of it in Chapters 1-4 with things like him insisting Arthur will betray him and telling Hosea he needs FAITH NOT DOUBTERS but yeah, it’s really Chapters 5 and 6 that show it.  Missing Hosea’s restraint and with Arthur as the son being unable to take the role of the brother, and with the likelihood of Traumatic Brain Injury/TBI to boot, there was no other way it could have ended, because those were the final nails in the coffin.  But I don’t think it was all Hosea and TBI. The seeds of everyone’s destruction were there long, long before.  I don’t think Dutch is this cynical mastermind and that everything is a deliberate act, mind.  Both those who say that Dutch changed (Sadie, Charles) and those who say he became who he always was (John, Arthur) are right.  He changed and became his true and worst self, and I’m not sure even he fully realized how much he’d been keeping at bay in a far more forgiving situation that let him be his best self.  

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Okay, no one’s asked, but I am well aware that I owe the world in general, @downtonabbeyandausten in particular, a doctoral thesis on Thomas. Since I can never figure out where to start and suspect I would have to rewatch the series from the beginning, taking notes the entire time, to really do a proper job of it, here’s a quick, pounded out before work overview of my favorite hedgehog-in-livery.

I’m sure there are logic holes, spelling errors, etc. I apologize in advance for that. I’m on a rather tight timeline this morning and at least the start was done before I’d had a single cup of tea.

How I feel about this character:

I've said it before, I'll say it again - there are certain characters who walk on screen or stage and immediately make me go "Oh, I'm going to like you" and that is very, very rarely wrong. In Thomas's case, they were spot on. The boy needs hugs. Lots of hugs. All the hugs. Also, he is the perfect 'Downton' character. Julian Fellows has stated that he doesn't like black and white scenarios where one person is right and the other is wrong. He prefers situations where both sides have a point and who you side with depends on who's PoV you're looking at. That's Thomas. I will not pretend that he can't be a perfect ass and that a lot of what he does is flat up nasty and wrong. However, if you look at it from his PoV, particularly from this time period where psychology has advanced a bit beyond Freud and the early behavioralists, it's pretty much all justified, all logical, and all very, very human. And it's easy to sit back and judge and say 'that was wrong' without looking further into it, but really, given his base temperament, I don't think it's at all fair or realistic to expect him to do any better and that absolutely does not make him a bad person. He's the poster child for childhood neglect, always trying to get attention through negative means, because that's generally the only time people pay attention to him. He's always fighting to find ways to get ahead, because the people who tell him things like "if you want to go forward, work hard" hire majority workers who are less capable rather than rewarding his hard work. He's a perfect example of 'you reap what you sew' not just because he tends to get his comeuppance, but because everyone around him absolutely reinforces the negative behaviors they don't like.

And he needs hugs.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Canonically? No one. The Duke of Crowborough was the first TV character I've ever spent 24 hours wanting to punch in the face and I think people who rally around him as having been used by Thomas weren't paying attention and have entirely the wrong end of the stick (seriously, look at how he treated Mary!). Pamuk was Pamuk. I did like Edward, but that one felt one sided even before I read the cut lines where Edward asked if Sybil was as pretty as she sounded. Jimmy didn't happen and he annoyed me, so I'm kinda glad about that. Sorry Thomas/Jimmy fans, but there it is.  I prefer Andy as the adopted little brother/cousin/whatever the show presented him as.

Peter Pelham, of course, had potential, except that he died before they ever met. Woops. I will count him as a romantic ship I like, though, because I like AUs where this thing happened.

My personal crack relationship, although I don't think it would ever go so far as being physical, is Thomas and Dr. Clarkson. Clarkson is one of the few characters I can see being at least a bit bi and it would explain a few things about his relationship with our cranky hedgehog.  Of course, in order for it to actually happen, even on a purely emotional level, Dr. Clarkson would have to admit "yeah, mostly like women, but there's been an exception or two" and for them both to get over the age difference, so not likely, but I do like the dynamic.

Also, one bit of personal psychology that I could not begin to explain if my life depended on it is my brain's insistence on trying to get him and Lady Mary in bed. Not 'straightening him out' mind. Not even doing that a little. But the idea of them sleeping together makes my muse giggle like a monkey on nitrous oxide and I Do. Not. Know. Why.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

If Thomas is the perfect "Downton" character, then Thomas and Baxter are the perfect "Downton" relationship. They both do things right, they both do things wrong, and either way, they are, from their own perspectives, completely justified in their behavior. Now, this could go terribly (I mean, worse than it did) and would have if Baxter weren't such a wonderful person, but she is a wonderful person, so it actually winds up being very rewarding to watch.

Of course, most people I've seen explore this relationship do it from Baxter's PoV, which is not surprising. It's a bit more accessible than Thomas's and involves more admirable traits. I mean, it takes a pretty good person to be persistently nice and caring to someone who is trying to strong arm you into doing something you're super uncomfortable with and threatening your job. However, she wouldn't have been there if it weren't for him, because they had a deal: he would put his job on the line by lying to his employer to get her the position if she would replace O'Brien in his life and get him the knowledge he needed to feel as powerful as everyone else in the house. Once she got there and got her side of the bargain, she suddenly started trying to back out of her side of things. I don't care who you are, feeling used like that isn't nice, and Thomas is continually - in large and small ways - feeling taken advantage of, so it got a particularly nasty response (And his PoV on the subject is black and white enough on the subject that the fact she was simply trying to find other ways to support him didn't matter, even though it is, of course, one of her admirable points). When he started threatening her job, it wasn't because he wanted to get her sacked, it was because he wanted her to go back to doing what she promised and he didn't know any other way to accomplish that. After all, the main motivators people had used on him were uneven power dynamics, bullying, and threats. That was seriously all he knew how to do. And then, when he finally reached the end of his rope on the subject and made good on those threats, he discovered she'd gone so far as to try and preserve her job by costing him his - nice payback for his getting her hired to begin with.

And while there are people who will automatically respond to that by jumping in, once again, with Baxter's PoV, for me the fact that she's the one - ultimately - who burnt that bridge is super important to her character and one of the things that made her so strong and wonderful and good, because unlike the rest of the cast who would have made excuses for why they were perfectly in the right and he was nasty and deserved it, she, being Baxter, took absolute responsibility for her actions, acknowledged that while he had been upsetting her, she had hurt him, and by gum, no matter how much he objected, she was going to rebuild that bridge or die trying.  She did not insist that Thomas was doing a one man tango where his actions negatively affected those around him and needed to be altered, but the view point and actions of the rest of the world had no real affect on his happiness or behavior. She was not treating him well because she wanted to convince herself that she was a better person and more capable of goodness than he was. She was nice because she was a genuinely nice, caring person who acknowledged that she'd not handled things perfectly and wanted to make things right again.

In the end, this resulted in probably the healthiest, most supportive relationship he'd had in his entire life and damn if that's not satisfying to see.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

There are days it feels like I'm the only Thomas fan in the entire fandom who is 100% AOK with where he ended up. While it's nice to think of him with a better job and a boyfriend, I really don't think that's realistic, I think it undermines the point of the character which was to point out that locking people in closets sucks and we shouldn't do it, and I think people really undervalue the position of butler in that time period as well as Downton in general. You'll note that, after the black market fail, Thomas stopped trying to get out of service completely. That's because there really weren't many better job options. Even by the end of the series when more and more people were moving into other industries, those tended to be younger people just starting out. Thomas had the same problem a lot of people changing carriers later in life (and thinking of him as 'later in life' may seem ridiculous, but he's been in service a minimum 15 years) have. He has been in service long enough that getting a factory job or a job in a store or something similar that paid anywhere near what he was used to was minimal. While he would have developed skills that might help him starting his own business, he lacked the money to start up and didn't really have a way to get it. A medical job higher than 'orderly' is straight out. He does not have the education and in that time you weren't working your way up from the bottom in that field, which is why you had people like Lord Your-Baby's-Under-A-Cabbage-Leaf. And, of course, if he had any of those jobs he would not have paid room and board, which anyone living on their own and paying their own bills will tell you is a pretty big bonus.

Okay, but why Downton? Why couldn't he have gone on to a different, better big house? Because there wasn't one, that's why. The estates were crumbling, so jobs were getting scarce. We saw that in the series. The ones that stayed open wanted people who could fill a number of roles and Thomas didn't have the skill sets. We saw that too. I should hope I don't need to point out that he was flat out turned down for a job because the butler knew he was gay, where as Lord Grantham not only employed him, but kept him out of jail. That is a huge, screaming bonus. People get hung up on all of the ways the Downton crew handled him wrong and overlook the fact that pretty much anyplace else was going to do even worse. By the end of the series, the set up downstairs was about as supportive as he could hope for. Carson was still there, but he was on his way out. Being butler would put him equal with Mrs. Hughes and make them work together, which means she'd be far more able to observe how he works and come up with healthy ways to support him. Baxter and Andy are genuine friends and, well, Baxter in particular is Baxter.. The Bates's will likely be the cause of some friction (and of course, Mrs. Patmore frequently has the tact of a cricket bat to the face), but overall they don't want a fuss, so they won't raise one, especially after Mrs. Hughes makes it clear she doesn't like having to work with the hissing bundle of prickles that results from Mr. Bates's needling.

And of course, Downton has two - soon to be more - people who adore him beyond words and don't care about who he loves so long as they get their piggy back rides.  

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in:

I really would have liked to see more interaction between him and Mrs. Hughes/Sybbie. Mrs. Hughes, I suppose, is to be somewhat expected because they were both busy, but his first connection with the children was Sybbie, it was a pretty strong connection, then in season 6 it was basically preempted by George. I suspect this probably had a lot to do with earning him Mary's sympathies (which was important) and probably a bit to do with the availability of Sybbie's actress, but it still would have been nice to see.

[star-spangled-bastard]

✩ House and X?

 this is a long-ass post

(cut out the family section because they should not be responsible for children)

Disagreements:

Who is more likely to raise their voice?

Xenophon. he’s already loud by nature and quicker to anger.

Who threatens to leave but never actually does?

I’m not sure either of them would. X definitely wouldn’t because he wouldn’t know what to do.

Who actually keeps their word and leaves?

if it happened it would probably have to be X since he’s the only one who technically can leave.Who trashes the house?

X

Do either of them get physical?

The closest I can see it getting is one grabbing the other by the shoulders to get their attention in a moment of frustration but nothing beyond that.

How often do they argue/disagree?

they argue in an insignificant, bickering kind of way all the time. more serious disagreements are rarer.

Who is the first to apologize?

X. because seriously, can you picture House apologizing for anything?

Sex:

Who is on top? Who is on the bottom?

it’s probably a constant struggle because they’re both tops. they’d probably have to work something out that minimizes the top/bottom dynamic

Who has the strangest desires?

they’re probably pretty evenly matched considering they both have a past with robots

Any kinks?

aside from robots X wouldn’t object to having his hands bound with a necktie

Who’s dominant in bed?

there’s no way it wouldn’t be House. X usually is with literally any other person but he also knows when he doesn’t stand a chance and that’s it.

Is head ever in the equation? If so, who is better at performing it?

probably, and X would be better because of having more experienceEver had sex in public?

nope!

Who moans the most?

I’m going to assume House would because he’d be more overwhelmed having a human body again after so long

Who leaves the most marks?

X. especially when he’s been on psycho

Who screams the loudest?

X, again because he’s just loud in general

Who is the more experienced of the two?

probably X just because House had more important priorities before the war

Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’?

that would vary from one situation to the next

Rough or soft?

also varies. probably tends towards rough though

How long do they usually last?

I feel like that would depend a lot on what drugs X was or was not on at the time

Is protection used?

I’m going to assume yes

Does it ever get boring?

this question just gave me the most vivid mental image of them just talking business the whole time so I’m gonna say yes, it would get boring at least in that sense.

Where is the strangest place they’d have sex?

it’s not so much the place that’s weird but if the whole “let me scan your brain” thing counts, that’s definitely it.

Affection:

Who likes to cuddle?

X

Who is the little spoon?

they probably switch but X prefers it

Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places?

X “I have no shame” Weber

Who struggles to keep their hands to themself?  

X. this is just turning into a callout

How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable?

not long enough, as far as X is concerned

Who gives the most kisses?

it’s probably about even

What is their favourite non-sexual activity?

they’re into the whole wine-and-dine thing

Where is their favourite place to cuddle?

in bed. they’re both tall so there isn’t much room anywhere else

Who is more likely to playfully grope the other? 

X

How often do they get time to themselves?

that’s basically all they have, whether that’s a good or bad thing

Sleeping:

Who snores?

probably both

If both do, who snores the loudest?

X

Do they share a bed or sleep separately?

they share, they just aren’t good at it at first

If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart?

they probably start out close together and wake up farther apart

Who talks in their sleep?

I was going to say X, but I could kind of see House doing that too

What do they wear to bed?

probably some regular undershirt and boxers combo

Are either of your muses insomniacs?

X barely sleeps like no one knows how he’s a functional person

Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside?

probably not, or X would be using them

Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side?

they probably first started out laying side by side until over time they got less awkward about it and had more contact

Who wakes up with bed hair?

X. his hair and his beard would get messed up

Who wakes up first?

House for sure

Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other?

X would do that when he had just never slept in the first place because it’s the only way he’d be awake before House

What is their favourite sleeping position?

probably close together but not necessarily holding on to each other. like their hands would be touching but that’s probably it.

Who hogs the sheets?

they’re in a constant battle over who has custody of the sheets

Do they set an alarm each night?

whether there’s an alarm or not, House probably gets up at like 5 am every morning and X wakes up whenever

Can a television be found in their bedroom?

no

Who has nightmares?

X, especially after the events of Dead Money

Who has ridiculous dreams?

probably also X

Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed?

X definitely

Who makes the bed?

X whenever he eventually wakes up

What time is bed time?

probably fairly early, though it’s rarely adhered to

Any routines/rituals before bed?

X always showers in an attempt to get the sand off. they both listen to the radio

Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up?

X. just look at how well he handled being thawed out after 200 years.

Work:

Who is the busiest?

they both do a lot of work, but House has more

Who rakes in the highest income?

House

Are any of your muses unemployed?

nope!

Who takes the most sick days?

I don’t think either of them is capable of taking a day off. X probably hated having to recover from the lightning incident.

Who is more likely to turn up late to work?

X

Who sucks up to their boss?

This whole thing could basically be interpreted as X sucking up to his boss

What are their jobs?

X was a lead engineer for Robco prewar. with House’s political power post-war his job is harder to define because he’s leveraging power instead of building machines.

Who stresses the most?

X. he never learned the emotional repression House has.

Do your muses enjoy or despise their careers/occupations?

I feel like X has to like it. he woke up after society as he knew it collapsed and he could start over clean but he decided he wanted to keep being a corporate drone and he did it.

Are your muses financially stable?

stable and then some

Home:

Who does the washing?

both

Who takes out the trash?

X

Who does the ironing?

probably House. I wouldn’t trust X with an iron.

Who does the cooking?

they both do some. X has to help with some of the substitutions in recipes because he’s more familiar with the wasteland

Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying?

X

Who is messier? 

also X. but in the “I know where everything is” kind of way

Who leaves the toilet roll empty?

I feel like neither of them would

Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor?

X would if he was really tired and had been out all day but otherwise they’d both be good about not doing that.

Who forgets to flush the toilet?

neither. seriously everything is probably pristine at all times.

Who is the prankster around the house?

X. if you think he wouldn’t put an image of his own face on that monitor once House is a synth you’ve got another thing coming.

Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere?

House would

Who mows the lawn?

if there was one, X.

Who answers the telephone?

House

Who does the vacuuming?

listen these people would have like 10 roombas they made themselves.

Who does the groceries?

X

Who takes the longest to shower?

they probably both take forever but X slightly more because of the dust from outside.

Who spends the most time in the bathroom?

X because he has to maintain his beard

Miscellaneous:

Is money a problem?

it could not be less of a problem

How many cars do they own?

post-war none, but I’m pretty sure X has a motorcycle he repaired

Do they own their home or do they rent?

they probably own several places

Do they live near the coast or deep in the countryside?

countryside technically

Do they live in the city or in the country? 

city

Do they enjoy their surroundings?

generally yes, though X likes to get out into the desert sometimes

What’s their song?

out of the in-game songs, probably Blue Moon

as far as general period-appropriate songs, Where or When

What do they do when they’re away from each other?

work, mostly

Where did they first meet?

I don’t have the specifics pinned down but it was some company function fairly soon after X first started working for Robco.

How did they first meet?

someone who had been working there for years already introduced terrified 20-something year old X to House

Who spends the most money when out shopping?

they’re probably about the same

Who’s more likely to flash their assets?

I would say X, but since most of the Strip is a testament to House’s resources, it’s him

Who finds it amusing when the other trips over?

X

Any mental issues?

X is pretty messed up after Dead Money

Who’s terrified of bugs?

X

Who kills the spiders around the house?

House does because X would be too dramatic

Their favourite place?

it’s a tie between the cocktail lounge and the pool area at the Tops

Who pays the bills?

considering the situation, I’m not sure there are any?

Do they have any fears for their future?

they had quite a few before the battle but things got better after that

Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner?

House

Who uses up all of the hot water? 

X

Who’s the tallest?

I’m accepting the theory that House is 6′4″ and X is 6′5″ so he’s barely taller and never lets House forget

Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other?

X

Who wanders around in their underwear?

X does that a lot

Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio?

X for sure

What do they tease each other about?

almost everything. X likes to pull the whole “no fun allowed” thing on House. House jabs at X about “inappropriate workplace behavior”

Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times?

House. he doesn’t understand why X would wear jorts or a helmet made of an animal skull

Do they have mutual friends?

Victor, Jane, and to a lesser extent some of the Chairmen

Who crushed first? 

X. by about 200 years.

Any alcohol or substance related problems?

X likes mentats, jet, and psycho, though psycho is the main one that’s a problem for him.

Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am?

X

Who swears the most?

definitely X

[aion-rsa]

Ranking The Jeopardy! Guest Hosts So Far

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

When Jeopardy! GOAT contestant Brad Rutter spoke to Den of Geek earlier this year, he shared his opinion that there is only one perfect Jeopardy! host to replace the departed Alex Trebek. 

“Alex,” Rutter said. “But we can’t do it, unfortunately. That’s one of the terrible things about it. I can’t even really imagine what it’s going to be like.”

Alex Trebek was about as irreplaceable as a TV personality can be. As the host and quiz master of Jeopardy! for 37 years, the Canadian entertainer was the perfect combination of studious, professional, and playful. Following Trebek’s death from pancreatic cancer in November 2020, Jeopardy!’s producers realized there was no point in replacing the TV giant with only one host. 

For all of 2021, Jeopardy! has been going with a host-by-committee approach, giving several pop culture figures the opportunity to try their hand at shepherding the game show in two-week increments. This parade of guest hosts is in part a way to honor Trebek’s legacy. It’s also an open audition to provide fresh blood with an opportunity to claim the job of a television mainstay. 

With that in mind, here are our rankings of how each guest host has performed thus far. 

8. Dr. Mehmet Oz

Show Air Dates: March 22, 2021 – April 2, 2021

No.

7. Anderson Cooper

Show Air Dates: April 19, 2021 – April 30, 2021

Anderson Cooper is a good journalist and compelling TV presence. When it comes to Jeopardy!, however, he’s definitely not the right man for the job. Cooper is somewhat fortunate that human trainwreck Dr. Oz hosted first and gobbled up the lion’s share of bad Jeopardy! host press. Otherwise people may have noticed that Cooper did fairly poorly in his two-week stint.

Cooper seemingly didn’t prepare as intensely as Trebek or the other guest hosts as there would frequently be awkward pauses following contestants’ answers while the host checked if they were right. As a result, the number of Jeopardy! rounds not completed under Cooper’s tenure was unusually high. It’s a small issue, but an impactful one.

6. Katie Couric

Show Air Dates: March 8, 2021- March 19, 2021

Couric’s tenure as Jeopardy! host was the victim of bad timing. She had the tough act of following two guest hosts who were extremely steeped in the show’s history in culture in official Greatest of All Time Ken Jennings and executive producer Mike Richards. 

The longtime media personality ultimately did a fair job as host, with her only major flaw being interjecting a bit too frequently during rounds. Unfortunately, she doesn’t stack up well to the pros that preceded her.

5. Aaron Rodgers

Show Air Dates: April 5, 2021 – April 16, 2021

While the presence of a NFL star may seem like a desperate ratings grab from Jeopardy!, Green Bay Packers quarterback and former Celebrity Jeopardy! champ Aaron Rodgers is apparently dead serious about wanting the full-time hosting job, telling The Ringer that he could easily fit the show’s shooting schedule into his NFL obligations. 

Rodgers’ eagerness was evident over the first week and led to him coming across as a bit too excitable. He really settled into the role in his second week though and projected the correct balance of expertise and personability. 

4. Bill Whitaker

Show Air Dates: May 3, 2021 – May 14, 2021

In contrast to Aaron Rodgers, Bill Whitaker apparently has no interest in holding down the full-time Jeopardy! job, telling The Philadelphia Tribune that he enjoys his current gig as a CBS journalist. That’s a shame as Whitaker came off as quite a natural during his two-week stint. 

Soft-spoken and consistent, Whitaker was such a steadying presence in his time as host to the point that the novelty of there even being a guest host began to wear off. Ultimately he might be a little too one-note for a full-time Jeopardy! host but his time on the dais was well spent. 

3. Buzzy Cohen

Show Air Dates: May 17, 2021 – May 28, 2021

On the flip side of Bill Whitaker, Buzzy Cohen may at first seem like too dynamic of a personality to work as a Jeopardy! guest host. His fun nickname, distinctive eyewear, and trendy haircut are at odds with such an ancient and venerated TV institution. 

As host of Jeopardy!’s Tournament of Champions, however, Cohen has been consistently great. Due to his time as a Jeopardy! champion himself, Cohen empathizes with contestants easily and keeps things going at a rapidly appropriate pace for the competitive tournament known as “The Nerd Super Bowl.”

2. Ken Jennings 

Show Air Dates: January 4, 2021 – February 19, 2021

In the Jeopardy! canon Ken Jennings is the only figure that approaches the quiz show sainthood of Alex Trebek himself. Jennings is the most impressive and successful Jeopardy! contestant of all time, winning 74 consecutive games, amassing over $4 million in earnings, and taking home the title of Jeopardy! GOAT in 2020. When he was brought aboard as a consulting producer on Jeopardy! last year, many naturally assumed he was being groomed for the hosting role.

Sure enough, Jennings was announced as the first guest host of 2021 and got the year started on the right track with over a month of excellent hosting. Jennings has said that part of the key to Trebek’s success with Jeopardy! was his intuitive understanding that the star of the show wasn’t any host or contestant, but rather the show itself. Jennings put that understanding to good use, using his wealth of experience to make the game show feel both friendly and satisfyingly competitive. 

Jennings would be a fine choice for Jeopardy! host. Perhaps his only real weakness, however, is…the tweeting, as it always seems to be. Jennings has tweeted jokes that toe the line between bad taste and offensive in the past, something that he apologized for last year. The issue with Jennings on Twitter  though isn’t the risk of future offensive tweets but rather his continued use of Twitter at all along with the rest of us plebs.

Jeopardy! seemingly exists outside of time itself. Save for improved graphics and Trebek’s graying hair, the show has remained largely the same since it premiered. The Platonic ideal of a Jeopardy! host would seem like he or she was spawned from the set itself, returning backstage to sit on their trivia throne and contemplate the mysteries of life between tapings. 

Jennings does a superb job of honoring Jeopardy!’s legacy but he’s almost too accessible and engageable a public figure to have the necessary gravitas of Jeopardy! host. 

But, of course, everything we just said is shallow, dumb, and overly idealizing a syndicated game show. So if Ken wants the job, then great!

1. Mike Richards

Show Air Dates: February 22, 2021- March 5, 2021

Alex Trebek would occasionally be asked in interviews who he’d like to replace him. It was not a question he frequently answered because who would want to speculate about an event that would presumably only occur after their death. He often joked that Betty White should because she was a close friend. But in the few instances he did consider the question seriously, he offered up Los Angeles Kings play-by-play announcer Alex Faust, Turner Classic Movies host Ben Makiewicz, and CNN legal analyst Laura Coates. Ultimately, however, he told journalists at the Television Critics Association press tour that he “would leave it up to the people in charge.”

Well, what if one of those mythical people in charge was the right choice to host all along? Mike Richards is an executive producer for Jeopardy! and its Merv Griffin-created syndicated companion Wheel of Fortune. Richards has a long history of producing other game shows like Weakest Link, The Price is Right, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He’s even hosted a couple of game shows of his own such as Beauty and the Geek and The Pyramid. After Ken Jennings served his month-long stint as host, Richards stepped in for two weeks, seemingly only to buy the show some time before it could set up more guest hosts.

Richard’s two-week tenure as guest host, however, was absolutely superb. Despite the stuffy connotation associated with the job “executive producer”, Richards was the most outwardly bubbly and joyful guest host yet. He still projected an air of authority and trivia mastery, likely due to his comfort and experience with the format. Richards was also an attentive interviewer, and well-researched – his shows were among the smoothest this season thus far. 

Richards lacks important name recognition (in fact, his name is about as generic as they come) and would not win Jeopardy! any more viewers on star power alone. It also must be said that Jeopardy! could stand to diversify the syndicated TV game a bit with this hosting decision by choosing a woman or person of color.

Whether Richards is selected as the full time host remains to be seen. But as executive producer, he’ll be involved in the decision one way or another. And if his talent scouting is anywhere near as good as his hosting ability, then there is nothing to worry about. 

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Still to come: Mayim Bialik (Show Air Dates: May 31, 2021 – June 11, 2021), Savannah Guthrie (Show Air Dates: June 14, 2021 – June 25, 2021), Dr. Sanjay Gupta (Show Air Dates: June 28, 2021 – July 9, 2021), George Stephanopoulos (Show Air Dates: July 12, 2021 – July 16, 2021), Robin Roberts (Show Air Dates: July 19, 2021 – July 23, 2021), LeVar Burton (Show Air Dates: July 26, 2021 – July 30, 2021), David Faber (Show Air Dates: August 2, 2021 – August 6, 2021), Joe Buck (Show Air Dates: August 9, 2021 – August 13, 2021)

The post Ranking The Jeopardy! Guest Hosts So Far appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3v92UG7

[emptymanuscript]

REALity TV

Semi-random thought. Or really two non-random thoughts colliding randomly.

I once ruined a television show, Undercover Boss, for a friend of mine. They were talking about how much they loved it and after us talking they said they couldn’t ever watch it again.

I had not set out to ruin the show, though I was talking about why I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t interested because the show seemed like a pretty basic psychological trick to me. As most reality shows seem to me. 

You take boss X whose speciality at this point in their life is financials and policy decisions. Even if they worked their way up from scratch, at this point that is their comfort zone. They are embedded in it all day every day.

Now you take X and you put them in situation Y which is entirely alien to their everyday experience. No financials. No policy decisions. Just high stress low level gruntwork. Mostly physical. Again, there are plenty of bosses who worked their way up but that isn’t their experience anymore, not for years. And there are also plenty of bosses who have never held anything but managerial positions. Of course it is going to be an intensely miserable and bewildering experience. It is throwing X as far as possible outside of their comfort zone. 

There’s an extra shove to make it uncomfortable. Y is X’s company. X is supposed to be the ultimate expert on Y. Of course, with a large scale company, no one can really be the expert like that. But under high stress, the mind retreats to blaming. So X isn’t going to say the situation is designed to unbalance me. They’re going to say I should know everything about Y so this situation must be unfair and terrible. Which it probably is but X isn’t getting there by logical reasoning. They’re getting there by the phsychological disequilibrium they are undergoing. 

So now there is X, shocked at how horrible it is, sure this is all terribly unfair, upset at themself for what is going on. And participating in this experience is unwitting coworker Z. Z is more experienced, trying to help another worker because they know it is difficult, and they know they are on camera for some stupid reason or other. So Z shows X the ropes and is maybe even a little nicer than they would otherwise be. X, reeling and desperate, is going to like Z. Z is a comarade. Z is help when none seems to be present. Z is the solution to the psychological problem set up by the circumstances. Z has pulled it off, so X can too if X identifies with Z. 

So when it is all over, of course X is going to do something extra for Z. X wants to pull their weight and give back and contribute. Z totally deserves it for being able to cope with all that and being so nice to X. At which point X can greatfully retreat back to their gilded cage of management, humbled and enlightened by their experience, and vowing to make Y a better company with what they learned.

But it really is an X, Y, Z. I’m not talking about Elon Gates or Bill Musk. The situation of the show is designed to get a type of response. So when Elon Gates goes on the show, their specific actions might be unpredictable, but in general it is going to conform to the experience that the show is setting up. It is going to be elitist boss is shocked and awed, sets order to their world, punishing the guilty and rewarding the heroic, and returns to be a better elitist boss. It works because that’s how humans work. You don’t have to force anyone to do it, you just have to set up more or less the right situation.

My friend was more than a little pissed when I told them this. Because once I had said it, they saw it. All the episodes are the different but the same. And if you think about it, you’d feel pretty much the same way, too. So it stopped feeling like an honest reaction and instead became staged fiction. Even though none of the “actors” knew they were being staged and directed, they were. But it was the honest reality of it that had enchanted my friend. Now it wasn’t honest or real. Ruined.

I feel a little badly about that. As I said, I didn’t mean to ruin it. If that’s the kind of story you like, I think you should enjoy it. There’s nothing wrong with it. I just don’t happen to enjoy it.

But there is something else that has been niggling at the back of my mind ever since. And I think I got a piece of it today. My friend thought it was real. REALity TV. And in some sense, it was. They were real people. There wasn’t a script. No one knew how any single episode would turn out, especially not the people in the episode. But I was talking about the other half of the equation that makes Reality TV work. That people do have a general understanding of how people work. There are higher ups, who probably aren’t anywhere on the crew or anywhere near filming, who do understand that if you set up a fuzzy sort of situation A (X goes to Y and meets Z) you’ll get a fuzzy sort of set responses B (X has a strong, usually positive, reaction to Z and vows to make Y better in part by “fixing” Z’s relationship with Y). 

My friend wanted the reassurance that X is just a good person if you show them the right thing. I ruined it because I said it was staged. But the staging also works because that is human psychology. If you create A, B will happen. That’s what people are like. But the A was too much to seem honest. 

The thing is, that’s how most fiction works. That’s why we talk about versimilitude and believability of action. We know there are ways people act and we know there are ways they won’t and we know there are particular events and actions that can alter those trajectories. If you hit it right, even if it is blatantly labeled FICTION it feels real. TRUE. When it isn’t labeled fiction, when you label it REALity TV, or have no explanation or definition at all on a YouTube video, then we react pretty deeply as if it is 100% true, unscripted, etc. We forget that there is a planned A acted out to get a planned B result. 

But what happens if A is maybe a little dangerous? What happens when the content creators get B wrong? My friend thought it was TRUE true. And my friend is pretty damn smart and very well educated. Putting all the responsibility on the audience does not seem fair or safe. And safe is the keyword for the thought that is running around inside my head. 

The post that started this thought, which I decided not to threadjack, was about couples making YouTube videos about tying up the girlfriend while the boyfriend smashes their makeup. Essentially ridiculous. But what about people who think it is true? What about people who think it is TRUE true? Does that then make the videos dangerous to some degree? 

I did watch about as much of one of the video’s as I could stand and what really leapt out at me was the girlfriend clutching the boyfriend’s shirt and telling him that his blindfolding her was giving her anxiety. A bit later on she just flat out says deadpan, I’m not comoftable with this. Looking over on the side bar, this is clearly what the channel is, or at least plenty of it is this. They “prank” each other back and forth. So for the subscribed audience, they are probably aware that it is scripted and that they’re going to be just fine and probably are just fine even during the filming. But for anyone who isn’t paying that kind of attention, for anyone who thinks this is like real like reality tv, where the only false element is the camera, this is showing off a pretty nastily unhealthy relationship dynamic. Which is presented as ok by the end of the video because he makes up for it by giving her a whole new set. Is it scripted? Probably. Does that make it ok?

The honest answer is that I don’t know but I suspect not. Because this is the thought that has been in my head since ruining undercover boss. My friend thought it was real. It doesn’t really matter whether it was real or not. They thought it was. And I think the same issue is at hand with these videos. People will think they are real. It doesn’t really matter if they’re right or wrong, they will act as if it is true. 

The video I looked at, the top one in the post if you followed the link above, when I watched it had 3,974,052 views. 112K likes. 7.2K dislikes. Just playing the odds, you know some of those viewers took it literally. Some of those who disliked it and thought it was literal truth probably felt deeply uncomfortable with the interaction. Much more worisome to me is the people in the 112K who now think their own “prank” is a perfectly acceptable idea. When they don’t know about all the prep and talk behind the scenes. Assuming there was any.

And that’s my real worry about Reality TV, that people will take the reality of it as their own reality. That goes double for YouTube when there’s so little filter and so little to distinguish what is true and what is false. I worry about people believing it and believing that this kind of behavior is normal and natural

And I will shut up now.

[fairyling]

code orange // part 4

summary:  mike gets admitted to a hospital. he’s scared and he doesn’t know what to expect, but maybe it isn’t what they show in movies. maybe it’s just some kids that are like him in one way or another. maybe it’s just some kids trying to find some ways to hurt less

a/n: this took way too long and it’s shorter than i’d like. this chapter fleshes out bill and eddie’s relationship a bit. the next couple of chapters are going to focus more on the dynamics between the characters rather than progressing the story. let me know what you think !! you can also read it here

word count: 1632

Stan had been on building restriction fort three days and he had a one to one for a week and a half. He eventually convinced them that he could be safe on his own and, as much as Richie disagreed, they let Stan go without a one to one. Richie wanted to argue with it, but he seemed to think better of it and keep his complaining between him and Mike after lights out. The more Mike listened, the more he wanted to understand the relationship between Stan and Richie. However, whenever he thought about probing, he remembered hearing Ben’s voice. Ben told him that he prefers to mind his own business and every time Mike remembered that, he realized that if Richie wanted to share more than he would.

Last night Richie had fallen asleep in Mike’s bed. Mike didn’t have the heart to kick him out, but about ten minutes later a staff member came through for a roomcheck. She stayed in the doorway for a minute and watched the boys before she walked in the rest of the way. Mike shut his eyes and pretended to sleep while she gently shook Richie awake. Her voice was soft as she guided Richie back to his bed and Richie was compliant, voice still laced with sleep. Richie collapsed back on his bed and Mike didn’t move until Amanda left the room. She had gently reminded Richie of the rules before she tucked his blanket around him and left. Mike rolled over on his side and watched Richie as he drifted off to sleep.

When Mike woke up, he was surprised to see that Richie’s bed was empty. It was rare that Richie was awake before Mike. Changing into a clean pair of clothes, he shuffled out of the room. Mike was rubbing his eyes as he checked to see if the kitchen was open. When he found out that it wasn’t, he poked his head into the dining room. Bill was laying back on the loveseat that was beside the picnic tables. Richie was standing by the bench, staring at the television with a Wii remote in his hand. Stan was sitting on the bench and watching boredly with a remote in his own hand. It took Mike a moment before he noticed Eddie was sitting on the couch with Bill’s head in his lap.

Mike came in and sat on the table, near Stan. He watched the game for a moment while he stole glances at Eddie and Bill. Bill had his eyes closed while Eddie hummed and ran his fingers through his hair. Eddie was watching Bill’s face with such admiration, Mike wondered if he even realized that the others were in the room. Mike turned his attention back to the game on the television just in time to see Richie hit a home run.

“You fucking suck at this, Stanley.”

Stanley hardly looked over at Richie. Instead he glanced at Mike and offered the remote to him. “I don’t want to play with this fucking idiot. This game is stupid and I don’t see how it’s supposed to make me feel better. I don’t know why they have this video game in here instead of putting in another group.”

“Stanley step off your soapbox and give the remote to Mike since you’re such a sore loser.”

“Fuck you, Tozier.”

Richie rolled his eyes and the remote was thrust into Mike’s hands. Mike watched as Stan got up and walked out of the room. His fingers brushed Richie’s wrist on the way out which was seemingly enough to get Richie’s attention. He was looking over his shoulder and he missed the pitch that Mike threw in the game. Richie turned his attention back just in time to watch his character get a strike. A frown settled on Richie’s lips before he leaned in to press a wet kiss to Mike’s cheek.

“I’ve got to go track down my man. He’s such a drama queen.” Richie winked before he darted out of the room.

Mike glanced at the television before he decided to power off the game. He looked over at Eddie and Bill before he set the remote on the table. “Hey, guys, Bethany is coming around for roomchecks.” he warned, softly as he walked out of the room.

Eddie sighed and tapped his fingers against Bill’s cheek before he leaned down to press a kiss to Bill’s forehead. “Bill? You gotta sit up.” he mumbled and Bill sighed before pushing himself up. Bill leaned back against the couch so that him and Eddie were no longer touching. He tilted his head back against the window behind him and let his eyes fall shut once again. “Why are you so tired, Bill?”

“I don’t s-sleep.”

“Tell them. They can give you a sleep aid.”

“I have a s-sleep aid. I keep it in my ch-cheek.”

“What do you do with it after?”

“Usually S-stan wants it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“W-what?”

“What do you mean what?”

“He didn’t do t-that.”

“He got coded two fucking weeks ago.”

“That isn’t my f-fault.”

“Bill! You shouldn’t be giving him your medication!”

“I don’t w-want it.”

“Tell them! Don’t just give it away! What if you’re responsible for someone’s death?”

Bill fell silent, but he shot a glare in Eddie’s direction. The hard glare was easily seen through, though. Bill’s lower lip trembled and Eddie could see his watery eyes. Almost instinctively Eddie reached out for Bill. He paused when he heard Bethany’s voice chirp from the doorway. “Roomchecks! What are you two doing in here?”

“Just talking. When is the next group?”

“Well, Pat had to leave early today. There isn’t a group until after lunch.”

“Does everyone know that?”

“We’re letting people know as they ask.”

“Good luck.”

Bethany shot the boys a smile before she nodded and ducked out of the room. Eddie could hear her knocking on doors and announcing that she was entering as she went down the hallways. Eddie turned his attention back to Bill and rested a hand on the boy’s knee. “What happened with Georgie wasn’t your fault. I know you think it was but it wasn’t. Even if it were, there’s nothing that can change it now. Help other people now. You can save other people. You can help by not giving Stan your meds.”

“I hate s-sleeping, Eds.”

“Tell the doctor.”

“They’ll keep me hear l-longer.”

“Is that so bad?”

Bill let his gaze fall to their linked hands and didn’t say anything. Eddie knew that he was starting to get upset and that it was only harder for him to speak when his emotions got stronger. “I’ll be here, Bill. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Why?”

“I still cry when someone sneezes on me.”

“That’s who you a-are, though! Why do they have to ch-change who you are?”

“Because it makes it hard for me to function, Bill. Same reason they’re working with you. We all love how protective you are, but you have no impulse control and you talk with your fists.”

“There’s nothing w-wrong with me.”

“I didn’t say that, Bill.”

“You think I need to be h-here. I could be out l-looking for him.”

“Bill…” Eddie started. Bill lifted his head to meet Eddie’s gaze, but he crumbled when their eyes met. Eddie didn’t say anything else as he wrapped his arms tightly around Bill’s frame. Bill leaned in to Eddie and slumped against him. Edde leaned back against the arm of the couch and Bill followed him, clinging to Eddie’s small frame. They stayed like that for a while with Eddie whispering into Bill’s ear until Bill calmed down enough for Eddie to feel like everything would be okay.

While he had his head buried in Eddie’s shoulder, Bill wondered why Eddie did all of this for him. Bill had fucked up countless times but Eddie was always right by his side. Even when he didn’t agree with what Bill was doing, he’d set aside his morals to support his friend. Bill frowned when he realized that this was all because Eddie was hopelessly in love with him. Lifting his head, Bill used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his face. Eddie’s mouth twisted in disgust, but he didn’t say anything. “We s-shouldn’t be this close.” Bill said, turning so he could study the treeline just past the window.

“What do you mean?”

“It isn’t healthy, Eds.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re o-obsessed with me.”

“Bill, we’re best friends. That’s it.”

“Then how do you explain the k-kisses.”

“We don’t have to do that.”

Bill bit his lip and closed his eyes for a moment. He knew he didn’t feel the same way about Eddie. He had too much guilt in his heart to try and think about how he felt about another person. Still, he knew that if he pushed Eddie away then he’d truly be alone. Biting his lower lip, Bill’s gaze fell to his hands. He was still for a while and he heard Eddie’s breathing pick up as his anxiety rose. Swallowing a lump in his throat, Bill leaned in and captured Eddie’s lips with his own.

“I don’t w-want to.” he mumbled when he pulled away, holding Eddie’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. Eddie’s eyes were wide and part of Bill felt bad for leading Eddie on like this. It wasn’t fair, but the alternative would crush both of them. Neither boy could handle that in their current state.

“I love you.” Eddie whispered, grabbing the hem of Bill’s shirt and trying to pull him closer. He meant it.

“I love you, t-too.” Bill replied, voice low as he leaned in to kiss Eddie again. He didn’t mean it.

[sevralships]

“Reunion”

(Shoutout to @handleonthescandal for conceptualizing fem!dippin’, an AU where the Pines triplets consist of Fem!Dip, Mabel, and Tyrone. When I recently had the good fortune to spend some time with @dddippinsauce and @equilateral-asshat outside of cyberspace, it was hard to keep the dynamic far from our minds. This fic is dedicated to the two of them ‘cause they’re the bestest chicken nuggets around).

It’s been nearly ten years since the Pines triplets were all together in Gravity Falls for any length of time. They are finally all together, for only a weekend, and Mabel finds herself tempted to pick up right where they left off. Angst, fluff, smut. TW incest. Fem!Dippin Pinecest. NSFW. 11,200 words (ooh what a nice round number!)

Fic below cut, enjoy!

Reunion

Mabel took a break from shoveling bites of syrup-soaked pancake into her mouth to get another look at Dip and Ty. It’d been much too long since they’d all been together like this to let the moment go uncherished, and besides, it was probably wise to give herself a chance to actually chew her food. Next to her, Dipper was happily having a sip of tea, her hands curled gratefully around the warmth of the mug. Mabel had always loved catching Dip in little moments of serenity like this one, serenity being something her high-strung sis too seldom found. Mabel chewed her mouthful of pancakes thoughtfully and looked across the table at Ty. He held a slice of turkey bacon at the ready (having long since agreed to her insistence that they all give up pork as a courtesy to Waddles), his own plate of pancakes mostly emptied. Mabel wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Ty looking at her already, his grateful expression a mirror of her own happiness in sharing such a simple pleasure with her favorite trips.

“Ah!” Dipper gave a small, slightly dramatized sigh of satisfaction as she set down her mug, and Mabel watched Ty’s gaze slide lovingly to their sister. His already sentimental expression gave way to a small goofy smile, “What?” she challenged, her lips curling into a half-smile.

Ty’s smile widened and Mabel’s heart lifted as it always did when Ty smiled that way, “It just feels really great to be home.” He said simply, gesturing to the interior of Greasy’s Diner with the piece of turkey bacon before popping it into his mouth. Glancing around the diner, Mabel couldn’t help but agree. Not a thing had changed in here in the last… was it really going on ten years? The world outside kept changing and demanding different things of them, but Gravity Falls remained eerily and comfortingly the same.

Dip lifted her mug of tea, “Hear, hear!” Mabel lifted her hot cocoa in agreement.

“What the hey does Lazy Susan do to make these pancakes so good?” Mabel asked around another bite, as if the question had not been posed between the three of them thousands of times over the years.

“I’m telling you,” Dip said with a conspiratorial look, “Blood magic. It’s the only force powerful enough to explain this.”

Ty snorted, “You will carry that theory to your grave, won’t you, Dip? I’m telling you,” he said, as he had many times, “She fries them in bacon fat instead of butter.”

“Nooo,” Mabel complained stubbornly, covering her ears with her hands, “It can’t be pork fat, I already gave up bacon, don’t take pancakes from me too!”

“How else would you explain these deliciously crisp edges?” Ty asked, holding up a corner of pancake speared on his fork.

“Blood magic,” Dip replied without missing a beat, “No bacon fat alone could produce such a sinfully tasty pancake.”

Ty snickered, popping the bite of crispy pancake edge into his mouth, “Whether it’s blood magic or bacon fat, I just hope she keeps doing what she’s doing.” He closed his eyes, making a show of reveling in the taste of the pancake, “I don’t want to live in a world without these freaking pancakes.”

“I take it they don’t have pancakes like this outside Gravity Falls?” Dipper said conversationally, already knowing the answer.

“Heck no,” Mabel said, “In Florida most people call them flapjacks and they’re tasty enough but they’re nowhere near ‘sinful’.” There were some things Mabel liked about living in the Sunshine State, not least of all the animals she worked with at a zoo there, but there was no getting used to some of it. She quite liked the word ‘flapjacks’, but they didn’t taste like home.

“The pancakes at the Griddle Houses near me are passable at best,” Ty agreed, the look in his eye implying that he was running through every pancake he’d had since moving to New York, “I don’t think blood magic fits into the franchise policy.”

Dip cupped a hand to her ear, “Do I hear some doubt in your long-held bacon grease theory?”

“Not even a little,” Ty scoffed, “But it’d take more than bacon fat to kick a Griddle House pancake up to Lazy Susan quality.”

Dipper shrugged concedingly and the triplets fell back into a comfortable silence, as they tucked into what remained of their breakfast-for-dinner. Mabel and Ty had both arrived, from Florida and New York respectively, in the mid-afternoon, hungry from traveling and craving the comfort food of their youth. Mabel and Ty each eagerly cleaned their plates, leaving barely a drop of maple syrup behind, but Dipper asked for a take-away box for about half of what she’d ordered. Of course, Dipper could have Greasy’s signature pancakes whenever she wanted, unlike her sibs, having ended up living in Gravity Falls full time.

Not that it came as any surprise that she was the one to wind up here. On the contrary, Mabel thought it would have been stranger to imagine Dipper settling anywhere else. While Mabel and Ty’s respective goals had carried them far and away from the comfort of Gravity Falls and Piedmont, Dipper’s path towards investigating the supernatural had rarely wavered. Mabel had always admired Dipper’s surety and dedication to this one goal, her own wide range of interests and skills leading her down one dead end after another before she had landed on animal care. Ty had struggled similarly with artistic and career attempts, too many of which had been flops. Mabel’s heart gave a twinge, sympathizing with her brother’s rocky path and the deep self-doubt that went with it. Not that Dipper had been dealt an easy hand by any means. It was almost as if being a precocious kid guaranteed you for dissatisfying young adulthood, and Dip was no exception. She did, however, at the very least, have the good fortune of living in Gravity Falls.

The damp autumn evening met them with a refreshing gust as they left the cozy, stuffy warmth of the diner, “Autummmnnn!” Mabel sing-songed, with a little twirl on the leaf-strewn sidewalk, and pulled a deep breath of the clean Oregon air through her nose, letting it out in a satisfied sigh, “Ya don’t find air like that in Florida.”

“Isn’t the air in Florida, like, seventy percent swamp?” Ty asked, wrapping an arm around Mabel’s shoulders.

“Eighty percent, bro.” Mabel said, hugging his waist.

“I dunno,” Dip said, holding out a hand to feel the light, cool drizzle, “Oregon’s swampy air levels are at at least a fifty today, maybe we should have taken the car after all.”

“Oh, hogwash, Dipdot!” Mabel exclaimed, giving the bill of Dipper’s cap a playful flick, “You got your handy-dandy hat, a little spritz like this got nothin’ on you!”

And she was right, for most of the walk. There were very few people out on account of the overcast sky and steady drizzle, and the triplets walked along, hand-in-hand, feeling almost as though they’d gone back in time to one of the summers of their childhood. The leaves were halfway turned, the reds and oranges vivid against the still brilliantly white sky. Everything was dewy and glossed from the mist, giving the world a clean, fresh look. As they walked, they reminisced about adventures with their Grunks, forays into the supernatural wilds of the Falls, and Mabel, delighted by the novelty of the season after a few years in the static heat of the south, pointed out signs of autumn all around them. It was when she pointed out the flock of geese, honking and flying in a symmetrical chevron above, that she noticed the sky had darkened considerably from a luminous overcast white to a threatening soot grey. She said nothing to Dipper or Ty, in hopes that ignoring the portentous sky might convince it to let them reach the Shack before the rain. Surprisingly, this tactic failed and a few minutes later the heavy clouds opened up, pouring cold water down in sheets.

Dipper gave a surprised shriek, the same one she’d made when they were kids and one of her mischeivous triplets would slip an ice cube down the back of her shirt. Ty laughed at the sound, and pulling his sisters along by their hands, broke into a run. Home wasn’t far off by that point and the trips ran the rest of the way, clumsy and laughing, until three sets of feet splashed through the muddy puddles of the parking lot and stamped up the two steps into the welcome shelter of the Shack porch. The rain drummed on the wooden awning that shielded them and the triplets panted with the exertion, exchanging amused looks at each other’s bedraggled appearances, all of them drenched to the bone.

Dipper unlocked the door as quickly as she could, and they stumbled inside. Dipper put leftovers in the fridge, wet shoes squelching, whiler Ty and Mabel eagerly kicked off their own soaked shoes and shucked off socks, “Co-oo-ooold!” Mabel whined, wasting no time in peeling off her purple leggings and sequined beige sweater, and kneeling to rummage through her suitcase in search of dry clothes.

“One of the downsides to the whole season thing,” Ty pointed out and something in his tone caught Mabel’s attention as strange. She glanced at him, finding his cheeks pink and his eyes all but glued to her lace-trimmed lilac chevron-printed undies. She forced her eyes back to the jumbled contents of her suitcase, surprised to uncover a long-neglected jumble of thoughts. After all these years of telling herself that all of that business was in the past, she’d somehow neglected to consider that it might be hard for her trips to forget it once in a while. She blindly grabbed a clean pair of leggings and a shirt from her suitcase and scampered into the bathroom to change. After impatiently slipping into the dry clothes, Mabel stared down her reflection, absently trying to make sense of her mass of unruly wet curls and wishing the flush away from her own cheeks.

That wasn’t what you thought it was, she told herself, staring into her own brown eyes in the mirror, It’s just been a long time since you got into your skivvies like that and you did it without warning. You’re reading too much into it, Mabes. Plenty of people would get weird when confronted with their sister’s nearly naked caboose. Ignoring the fluttering of her own heart should be easy enough, she’d been pushing these thoughts aside for a long time now. No way was she going to squander this short, precious visit with Ty and Dipper getting them all tangled in that nonsense again.

After a few more stern words with herself, Mabel emerged from the bathroom to find Dipper making up the futon that now sat in the living room where Grunkle Stan’s yellow chair used to be. The chair now held a place of honor in the cozy reading nook Dipper had made for herself in the basement, festooned in string lights in a way that surely made Grunkle Stan groan every time he was in town. Despite getting on in years, he and Grunkle Ford were still out sailing the seven seas, determined to squeeze as much fraternity and adventure into their twilight years as humanly possible. Mabel was sorry she wouldn’t get to see them while she was in town, but pleased as punch to know her uncles were making the most of their time together.

She walked over to the futon and grabbed the nearest corner of the fitted sheet, tucking it under the mattress while Dipper did the same to the opposite side. Dipper had changed too, her wet hair wound into its customary braid over her shoulder, her wet jeans and hoodie traded for black yoga pants and a slightly oversized Mystery Shack tee shirt, the old green question mark design from before Mabel had helped to re-brand the Shack during her ill-fated attempt to beef up her graphic design resume. Without prompting, Mabel helped Dip to spread out a sheet and the big knitted blanket she’d painstakingly made for her a few years prior, “Getting caught in the rain is nothing a little cuddling can’t fix.” Dipper said, by way of explanation.

“Such wisdom,” Mabel said, fluffing a couple of the pile of pillows Dipper had scrounged up, “We don’t call you the smart one for nothing.”

“P’shaww,” Dip rolled her eyes, climbing under the covers, “Smart one, my ass. I’m just the most anxious and it keeps me motivated, you know that.”

“Anxiety and brilliance are not mutually exclusive, my dude,” Mabel pointed out, fishing the fleecey polka-dot slipper-socks Dip had given her out from under the futon, “You know--”

“FLOP!” Tyrone announced, as he did in fact flop heavily into the middle of the futon beside Dip. She giggled, and Mabel grinned along. There was simply no resisting Ty’s infectiously sweet and silly antics and she was relieved to see no sign that he might have been distressed by their little moment a moment before. Ty wrestled the blankets out from underneath himself, inviting more giggling from his sisters, before finally getting settled. He rested his head on Dip’s shoulder and she gave his tousled wet hair an affectionate kiss, as Mabel climbed into the futon. She already felt warmer, as if the sight of her two favorite people snuggled up and safe could warm her body as well as her heart. Ty wasted no time in looping his arm around Mabel’s waist and pulling her against his side.

As ever, Ty radiated body heat, and Mabel wrapped her arm around him, her fingers lacing with Dip’s, her body nesting into his side as naturally as if it were designed to fit there. In a way maybe it was, she liked to think they’d all been cuddle buddies since before they were even born. She purred happily against him, squeezing Dipper’s cold fingers, and stating contentedly, “Mmmmm, warmssss…”

“Tyrone Pines, Warms Specialist, at your service.” Ty joked, with a little salute.

“You’re the best at what you do, Mr. Pines.” Dipper assured Ty, her voice not quite sardonic enough to disguise that she absolutely meant it as she nuzzled the top of his head.

“I second that.” Mabel said, burrowing her face into the warmth of Ty’s shoulder. She breathed deep and was comforted to find he smelled exactly the same as he always had. The earthy-sweet smell of his skin was heightened by the lingering dampness from the rain and Mabel risked letting herself sink into the smell. Where her arm was hooked over the comforting squish of Ty’s tummy, her hand rested in Dipper’s, as natural as anything, and Dipper’s thumb stroked her knuckles in the same pattern it had back then.

Back when they were dumb, silly, hapless kids, their hormones raging and their vocabularies not remotely up to the task of describing the tangle of their feelings. She had made a point of putting it out of her mind as much as she could, but Mabel found she still remembered that summer with a startling clarity. It was like a well-loved movie, nearly memorized, that she could watch in her mind as if it were projected on a screen in front of her. It was the summer after their senior year of high school, when the wind through the trees had seemed to whisper ‘freedom’. The seemingly endless drudgery of K-12 schooling had in fact ended, and there was a giddiness to that alone, that the thing that had governed every day of their lives for so long had been defeated. They had all gotten into different colleges, but their minds were not on the more taxing academics in their future, or the looming day when they’d no longer be sleeping under the same roof. No, that summer had been about fun, plain and simple. Fun in all its forms, cryptid-seeking adventures around the town, getting drunk on the Shack roof, concerts, and parties, and long lazy days in bed together. In retrospect, it had been a last hurrah of their childhood together, but none of them had seen it that way then. They’d been seventeen and invincible and looking for fun around every corner.

The first time one of their drinking sessions on the roof had given way to playfully kissing each other, they had all giggled and blushed at how ludicrous and risque it was. They had acted like it was for the thrill, the taboo of it, and Mabel had not voiced the confusion running wild inside her liquor-soaked head. After that day, things shifted, imperceptibly at first. The triplets had never been shy around each other, but Mabel remembered how suddenly they were seeking excuses to touch, excuses to take off their clothes, excuses to act unlike siblings. She could see in cinematic exactness the way the dappled sun through the trees had illuminated Dipper’s eyes as she’d coyly slipped out of her bathing suit while they were swimming in an isolated little cove in Gravity Falls lake. She could feel as if it were happening that very moment the way Tyrone’s lips had felt on her neck and ear at some party where no one knew they had the same last name.

It had been fun, gloriously fun, and delightfully dangerous. Dangerous in a way that turned her stomach to look back on, petrified at the thought of how reckless and stupid they’d been. And more than anything, it had been fleeting. As the end of summer closed in, they’d tried to talk about it a few times without much success. Mabel remembered trying to tell them she was in love with them multiple times, always chickening out, terrified that what sprang from love in her was no more than teenage abandon in them. Ty had poorly explained something to do with hormones at one point, and Dipper had tried to explain her desire to not be as ruled by her anxiety (something that would soon after prove impossible with her rigorous college workload), but when the time came to ship off to their separate colleges, they said goodbye with a million unspoken explanations hanging between them. And for the first time, they spent their birthday in three different states, further apart than ever in the wake of getting closer than three siblings probably ever should have been.

Mabel realized Ty was snoring, and opened her eyes slowly, as if worried that even opening her eyes might disturb him. At some point, Dipper had scooted down in the bed and was tucked under Ty’s opposite arm and her face was directly in front of Mabel’s. The sun had set but there was still a light on in the kitchen so Mabel could dimly see her siblings’ sleeping features. Dipper’s face was uncharacteristically relaxed, the crease that almost always existed between her eyebrows smoothed away by the reprieve of sleep. She was breathing softly, her lips slightly parted, and for a second, Mabel seriously considered kissing her before reprimanding herself for the thought. Neither Ty nor Dipper had ever mentioned the events of that summer since, and Mabel generally took that as answer enough as to whether they had been motivated by the same feelings of love as she had been. Besides, even if they had been, it didn’t matter. It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t like it was something they could pursue, least of all now from three opposite corners of the continent. Ty stirred slightly in his sleep, his grip on both his sisters tightening, pulling them in closer. Mabel’s heart swelled happily, and she let her eyes fall shut again, nuzzling nearer to her triplets and reminding herself as sleep took hold that this was already more than enough cause to be thankful.

The soft music of the rain pattering on the roof and gurgling in the rain gutters, the occasional rumble of thunder, permeated Mabel’s dreams so that waking up was a slow hazy affair. She was perfectly warm, floating in a soft space that sounded like rain and deep breathing, smelled like peaches and cedar and home. She was vaguely aware of the small happy murmur she made as she wiggled deeper into this foggy happy place. The warmth around her responded with a sleepy sigh, and nestled their bodies closer together. It dawned on her that those were arms around her, that against her shoulder was a chin, and against her back was a chest, and against her backside was--

Well, now she was awake. She blinked a couple times, trying to rid the blurriness of sleep from her eyes. A familiar view of half of the Mystery Shack living room greeted her, her arms curled around Tyrone’s forearm, one hand laced loosely with his. It was hard to tell what time it was, the diffused, pale, rainy day light could have been morning or afternoon. Judging by the slow deep breaths that fell warm across her cheek and ear, Ty was still sound asleep. She couldn’t hear any stirring from the other side of the bed and assumed Dipper was still asleep as well. She’d be perfectly happy to keep on sleeping herself. Just in case she’d imagined the startling presence, Mabel gave her hips a small tentative wiggle, greeted immediately by the now unmistakable feeling of Ty’s morning wood pressed right up against her rear end.

She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks, and, for that matter, between her legs. She squeezed her eyes shut, telling herself insistently, it’s involuntary! It’s just morning wood, it doesn’t mean anything! She was pretty sure it was normal for a guy to get an erection in the morning like this, especially if he happened to be pressed against a girl’s butt. Much as she told herself that it had nothing to do with her, the familiar ache between her thighs did not waver. Hating herself for it, she moved her hips slightly again, all of her attention focused on the way he felt. He made a soft appreciative rumble that cut to Mabel’s core, simultaneously wetting her panties and filling her tummy with squirming guilt.

Reluctantly, she severed that forbidden point of contact with him, repositioning herself so that she was lying on her back. She rested her right cheek on the pillow to look at him and was surprised when his eyes met hers. His dark, heavy-lidded gaze was like a magnet, soulful and open. He wet his lips as they stared into each other’s eyes and Mabel had the sense she was looking right inside him. There was longing there that nothing could refute, a desire that ran infinitely deeper than an involuntary physical response. Their still-linked hands rested on Mabel’s belly beneath the blankets and Ty’s thumb slowly stroked the thin fabric of her tank top. Mabel’s breath caught at the innocent touch and she saw the corners of Ty’s mouth twitch towards a smirk.

The quiet intensity of the moment was broken as Dipper stirred. She’d apparently been facing away from Ty but rolled over now to wrap her arms around Ty in a sleepy, enthusiastic bear hug. She made a playful ‘eeeh’ as she squeezed him and nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck. Both he and Mabel burst into wide grins, and Ty turned his head to place a kiss on Dipper’s temple that turned into a loud raspberry. Giggles erupted from Dipper as she tried to wriggle away, her hoarse morning voice protesting, “Noo, in a moment of weakness!”

A tangle of tickling and raspberries ensued before the triplets settled down again, giggles quieting as they sank gratefully back into a horizontal group hug. Dipper didn’t sound much like she meant it when she said, “We should prooobably get up.”

“Or,” Mabel suggested, “We could stay right here forev’s.”

“Hm, an interesting proposal,” Ty said, nodding thoughtfully, “Go on.”

“Well, first of all, we already have the bed all warmed up,” she pointed out, lifting one leg slightly to gesture at the blankets, “It would conserve energy to just keep using these warms than to make new warms.”

Dipper laughed, “Not sure that’s what energy conservation is, but you have my attention.”

“So, what I propose is this.” Mabel went on in a mock-formal tone, “As opposed to going out where it is cold and wet, we stay in here, where it is warm and dry.”

“Furthermore,” Ty jumped in, “In here there are cuddles, and TV, and snacks.”

“Sold,” Dipper said decisively, snuggling her face into Tyrone’s neck, bopping his chest lightly as if with a gavel. Mabel’s heart overflowed to see Dipper this relaxed and silly, a side of her she rarely got to see with their relationship dependent on texts and phone calls. Not that any of the triplets maintained walls between them, but there were just some moments you couldn’t quite have over the phone.

After a couple more minutes of snuggling, Ty gave a dramatic sigh, “Alas, I must leave the comforts of bed.”

“But the warms!” Mabel protested, as Ty disentangled himself from his sisters’ limbs.

“Will have to wait till after I’m done peeing.” He said, giving the bed a last longing look before disappearing around the corner and heading upstairs.

Not willing to risk a moment of cuddle deprivation, Mabel and Dipper closed the gap between them that Ty had filled, enclosing each other in a familiar hug. They’d always been close to the same size, and their arms fit around each other with a pleasant symmetry, their leg placement and head placement complementary. Mabel had always found it strange, on the occasions when she had snuggled with people other than Dipper and Ty, how hard it could sometimes be to maneuver. Where it had always seemed like falling effortlessly into place for the triplets, with others it could range anywhere from tangling awkwardly to feeling like you were trying to squash square pegs into round holes. Dipper nestled her head onto Mabel’s shoulder, “I’m so glad you guys are here.”

“Me, too, sis,” Mabel agreed, kissing the top of Dipper’s head before resting her cheek against her hair, “Like Ty said, it’s really good to be home.”

Dipper nodded against Mabel, squeezing her a little, “Well, it feels a lot more like home with you here,” she paused slightly, choosing her words, “Especially since Soos and Melody have been spending so much time in Portland lately, and tourist season is over again… you’d be surprised how lonely the Shack can get.”

Mabel had to admit she’d never really considered it, but she’d never spent any time here alone. For her, the Shack (and Gravity Falls as a whole) had always been such a safe haven. When she was here, she was with her friends, and her Grunkles, and most importantly her triplets, and that had always made it seem like home. In the summer, the place bustled with tourists, Soos’ kids and their playmates always underfoot. But she tried to imagine what it was like for Dipper, here all year long, through the long harsh winters when the Shack was closed and there were no tourists. Through Soos’ family’s ever more frequent visits back to Melody’s family in Portland. Through the summers when reminders of their shared childhood were around every corner, but her siblings themselves were rarely if ever there, “Aw, Dipdot,” Mabel cooed, suddenly feeling guilty for all the times she’d thought to herself that Dipper had the best circumstances of the three of them, “I didn’t know.”

“Oh, I’m okay,” Dipper insisted, eager to make light of her feelings to keep Mabel from worrying, “I love living in Gravity Falls. I just…” she looked up and met Mabel’s eyes and Mabel was startled to feel her heart speed up at the sad longing look in Dipper’s eyes, “I just want to make the most of having you and Ty here.” Just then they heard Ty’s steps thumping down the stairs and he came back into the room, Mabel’s mind off-balance, trying to make sense of the look she’d just seen in her sister’s eyes. It wasn’t altogether unlike the way Ty had looked at her upon waking.

“D’aww,” Ty said as he grabbed Dipper’s laptop and cord where they were lying on the old dinosaur skull that had long served as an end-table, “You two look so warm and comfy,” he flipped up the corner of the covers and joined them, his tone turning mischievous, “Perfect for warming my feets!” Mabel yelped as Ty’s ice-cold feet touched hers, slipping between her knees to nestle in the warm pocket between her legs and Dipper’s.

Dipper plucked her computer from Ty, leaning partway out of the futon bed to plug it in before opening it and pulling up webflix. They didn’t have to say as much, Ty grabbing the laptop had clearly communicated to both of them what he had in mind. There was fairly little discussion before they settled on something to watch and settled into each other’s arms for the afternoon.

Mabel’s thoughts kept straying from the plot of the movie they had on and carding cautiously through the feelings she hadn’t expected to still hang so heavy in her thoughts. It had been so long and so much had happened in the intervening years, she had been sure it wouldn’t be an issue. Sure, it sometimes cropped up in her mind when she was lying in bed trying to sleep, or when she couldn’t find anything to listen to on the radio in the car, but that didn’t mean she still felt it. But now, here she was, sandwiched between them with her feelings running amok. Being with them again, being in the Shack again, it made sense that it wasn’t too far from her mind, but what she really wanted to know was what was happening in their minds. She’d never really found out back then, and she sighed, accepting that she probably wouldn’t now and would just always wonder if the way they had looked at her had just been a trick of the light.

The afternoon slid by, and they said fairly little apart from on and off running commentary on the movies they were watching. Ty’s stomach started to grumble first, with Dipper joining in close behind. When Mabel’s chimed in, enough was enough and Dipper paused the laptop, “Alright, that’s it, it’s time for food.”

It took a good five minutes to tear themselves from the coziness of the bed and Mabel shivered. The Shack was drafty and her tank top wasn’t really warm enough outside of the blankets. As they walked into the kitchen, Ty must have noticed the way she was hugging herself because he draped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder, “Warms specialist protects.” he murmured in a sweet, joking tone. She leaned her cheek against his, his stubble tickling slightly as his warmth diffused into her.

In the kitchen, a flurry of food prep began. As usual, Mabel opted to whip up a batch of cookies, settling on snickerdoodles at Ty’s insistence. He was already well along in making some sauce and pasta, while at the opposite counter, Dipper was obsessively arranging a cheese plate, slicing various cheeses and filling small bowls with crackers and olives and anything she found in the fridge and cabinets that seemed suitable. Dipper was softly narrating what she was doing in a silly song, a habit she’d picked up from Grunkle Stan in the periods when he and Ford returned to the Shack between adventures. Ty and Mabel exchanged an amused look as Mabel took another tray of cookies from the oven, listening to the ‘song’ Dipper was singing, “Fillin’ up a plate with cheese, fillin’ up a plate with cheese, want some crackers with that cheeeese? No, sir, I just want the cheese.”

“No, sir, I just want the cheese,” Ty chimed in, bopping his head to the repetitive melody, “No, sir, I just want the cheese.”

“Taking cookies off a sheet,” Mabel added, as she scooped the steaming cookies onto a plate with a plastic spatula, “Have a cookie, if you please.”

Ty’s hand was on the plate at light speed, plucking a cookie from the pile, “All the cookies are for me, all the cookies are for me, all the-- ow! Ow! Hot!” Ty sputtered, upon biting the cookie.

“Oh, no, you okay, bro?” Dipper asked, she and Mabel both darting to his side at once to make sure he was alright.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he waved them off affectionately, blowing on the cookie before taking another bite, “Mmmm, good thing I didn’t burn my tongue too much to taste.”

“Instant karma, you cookie-hoarder.” Mabel said, swatting his shoulder lightly with the spatula.

“No clue what you’re talking about.” Ty said, as Mabel put the last tray of cookie dough in the oven, and he grabbed another cookie from the plate. He gave her a cheeky smile, chewing a big mouthful of cookies as she closed the oven door and turned around. She couldn’t help but grin back at him. Just about no one could match her silliness the way that Ty could.

The triplets managed to carry their three bowls of pasta, towering plate of cookies, and over-burdened tray of cheese back to the futon in one trip, cans of Pitt Cola tucked under their arms. They piled back into bed, tucking the blankets up as high as they could get them to stay, and dove happily into their impromptu feast while resuming the dumb movie they’d been watching. Mabel had been too distracted by her own thoughts to take in most of the first half of the movie, but now that she was playing closer attention, she easily slipped into the rhythm of riffing with Dip and Ty.

Sometime after their food was set aside, apart from the occasional grape or olive from the cheese plate munched on, Ty’s hand slipped into Mabel’s beneath the covers, giving a comforting squeeze. She let her head fall against his shoulder and Dip, noticing the cuddles being initiated, laid her head in Mabel’s lap. Mabel’s free hand stroked Dipper’s hair, about two thirds of which had slipped out of her braid since the previous night. Mabel felt the warm fuzzy feelings her trips always brought out in her begin blossoming in her chest and softly said, “I love you guys so much.”

“We love you too, goober.” Ty said, kissing the top of Mabel’s head.

“We love you so so much.” Dip said, reaching up to give the hand that was petting her hair a squeeze.

It was already nearing sunset and Dipper adjusted her head in Mabel’s lap to gaze out the window as the dim rainy day grew dimmer, “Time’s going too fast,” she observed a little solemnly, “Three days sounded like more when we were planning.”

“Hushh,” Ty said sympathetically, reaching over to take Dip’s hand, “I know.”

“I just don’t want you to go yet,” Dip said, “It’s too soon.”

“We still have tonight, Dipdot,” Mabel reminded, trying to sound more optimistic than she felt. In truth, the deadline was weighing on her mind as well, “And aaaall day tomorrow, and tomorrow night.”

“Even a little bit of Monday morning.” Ty added.

Mabel could feel Dipper’s sad smile against her leg and felt a fierce push to kiss her sadness away, “I know, I shouldn’t be wasting our time together worrying about how we don’t have enough time together.”

“I don’t think we could ever have enough time together.” Ty said wistfully, and his sisters nodded in agreement, “C’mere, we gotta hug it out.” He held out his arms and Dipper crawled up to snuggle against his free shoulder, while Mabel ducked under his arm. They laid their heads against his chest, and as Mabel placed her hand absently on his thigh to pull herself closer, she could swear she heard his heartbeat speed up. She glanced up at him and this time there was no mistaking the pink tinge to his cheeks. Mabel’s attention was drawn away when she heard Dipper sniffle, a sniffle she’d be able to pick out even in a loud crowded place, the sniffle that belied Dipper losing hold of the reins of something that had been bothering her all day. Ty knew the sound as well as she did and immediately cradled Dipper’s head closer to him, tucking his chin atop her head and cooing soothingly, “Oh, honey, no,” he said, gently, “You’re okay. Just let it out.”

“I’m sorry,” Dipper choked, wiping the tears from her cheeks impatiently, “I’m being so stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” Mabel said, reaching across Ty to rub Dip’s shoulder, “It’s totally understandable. We feel the time passing, too.”

“This is such a dumb way for me to make you spend it though!” Dipper insisted, “We should all be cuddling and having a g-good time! Not managing my dumb emotions…”

“‘Scuse you, Dippinsauce,” Mabel said gesturing vaguely to them, “But we are cuddling!”

“And we are having a good time,” Ty said, giving Dipper a squeeze, “How could we have anything but a good time with our favorite sister?”

“Exactomundo,” Mabel nodded decisively, tucking Dipper’s bangs back from her face, “Tyroni’s got it right. I’m just happy that for once I’m actually here to help make you feel better when you’ve got sads.”

Dipper nodded against Tyrone’s chest, before half climbing into his lap to snuggle closer. Mabel wrapped her arms around them both in a group hug, tucking her face against them as Dipper’s tears gradually slowed. She could feel the wetness of Dip’s tears against her, and adjusted her head slightly so that she could kiss her sister’s reddened cheek. It must have surprised her, because her breath caught slightly which made Mabel smile and kiss her again. She stroked Dipper’s hair away from her face and was surprised to feel Ty press his lips tenderly to her own forehead. She gave him an inquisitive look, noting the blush again upon his cheeks, “What was that for?”

“Being such a good sister,” he said, lightly cupping her cheek for a second. She was about to lean into the touch but he removed his hand, “You take good care of us.”

“D’aww, you big softieee,” Mabel teased, a slightly bashful smile on her lips, “We take good care of each other.”

“Just take the compliment, Mabes,” Dip said, bloodshot eyes peering up at her, “I’m grateful for it, too.”

“You guyssss,” Mabel protested, surprised to feel the tears rising in her own eyes so suddenly, “Why do we live so f-far apa-art?”

At the sound of her voice breaking, Ty tugged her close against his chest, “Oh, man, you guys are gonna make me cry. Get over here.” With surprising efficacy, Ty rearranged them, maneuvering them so that they were lying down again, with Mabel in the middle. Dipper wrapped her arms around Mabel’s waist from behind her, while Ty resumed holding her to his chest, where she let herself cry freely. She wondered in the back of her mind whether this was the right moment, the best chance she’d have to tell them how she felt, but it was no use either way as the tears were coming too heavily for her to have spoken about anything. Let them believe I’m just crying about saying goodbye soon, she thought, It’s still true and it’ll save us all a lot of heartache.

After her tears slowed to a stop, she just lay there nestled between them. She would have been content, were it not for the confession hiding under her tongue. After some time, she gave into the weariness and sleep overtook her.

The hand resting on her hip was warm, so warm it was like it was on fire, burning a hole in her clothes. It must have, she reasoned, because now it seemed that it was on her skin, the fingers curling, indulging the hand’s desire to feel more of her. She was unsurprised to find the hand belonged to Ty, facing her in bed, his tousled hair falling across his brow. That look was in his eyes again, the aching softness she’d seen before. So lost was she in the inviting liquid depths of his brown eyes, she was almost surprised when they closed as his lips met hers. Small explosions went off in her mouth, dancing down through her body, leaving in their wake little magnets that drifted towards him inexorably. Her body met his, not exploding so much as melting. Even as she was kissing him, her hands running up his arms to grip his shoulders, she was also outside of them, watching how naturally they fit together.

Even with this double vantage point, the impossibly gentle lips that found her shoulder still came as a complete surprise. They moved from the round of the joint in, trailing ethereal kisses along the crest and dip of her shoulder sending exquisite tremors to her core. As a hand rose with infinite care to brush aside her hair from her neck, she knew without the faintest shadow of a doubt that it was Dipper behind her. Who else in the universe could handle her so decisively, yet with such care that it could be mistaken for caution? As Dipper’s soft lips found the base of Mabel’s throat, she knew it could not be caution she sensed, but reverence.

She watched their bodies from above while feeling them from within, marveled at the way their bodies were clothed and unclothed at once. She watched her own hand leave Ty’s shoulder to lay lightly but hungrily on the smoothness of Dipper’s thigh. Dipper pressed closer at the touch, her hips flush against Mabel’s behind. It was that touch that awakened Mabel to her own insistence. All this softness and delicacy had lit a fire in her core, and she wasn’t sure how long her own hips had been moving, eager to draw them both nearer and stoke the fire hotter.  Each time her hips moved forward, she could feel Ty’s tantalizing hardness against her, as if through clothed and not clothed at once. That sometime-sense of cloth only tempted her more, eager to really feel him with nothing in between. As her hips pivoted between them, Dipper’s hand traced much too lightly over her hip. She was distantly aware, maybe informed by seeing from the outside, of how her back arched,  how she whimpered into Ty’s unceasing kisses as Dipper teased. The tips of her fingers just ghosted towards the junction of Mabel’s thighs, making the most maddeningly delicate contact with her yearning flesh. Her hips strained more needfully, chasing the whisper of Dipper’s touch along with the heat and hardness that belied Ty’s own need.

Ty’s hand moved from her hip, starting fires all along her side as it glided up her waist, across her ribs, coming to rest in the valley between her breasts. Dipper’s fingers connected with the seat of Mabel’s hunger as Ty’s palm set fire to her heart and she felt blinded by need. Need was all that remained, need to feel them, need to protect them, need to never leave them, need to lead them in this dance until they shuddered with exquisite torment as she did now. The need was too great, much too great.

For a second, Mabel did not comprehend that she had wakened, nor at all that she’d been dreaming in the first place. After all, she could still feel Dipper behind her and Ty before her. She could still feel Ty’s erection straining towards her, her hips dancing hungrily between the two of them. The fire of need still burned in her so hot that she thought she might break. Ty was no longer kissing her, she realized, and it hit her like a slap in the face. When did he stop? She wondered, her mind sluggish, Why did he stop? She opened her eyes, hoping for some elucidation and it hit her like a bucket of ice water poured over her heat.

Ty was asleep, his face only inches from hers on the pillow. His expression was slack, his lips parted slightly as his breath came slow and deep. His eyes were closed, the eyelids flickering slightly along to some dream no doubt purer than her own. The arousal that had burned clean and bright in her gut only an instant before turned suddenly to stinking shame, spitting and bubbling like pitch. Her hips froze, her heart raced unevenly. Tears prickled her eyes and she scrambled out of the tangle of her siblings’ limbs. She couldn’t be around them right now, their guard down, their sleeping faces innocent and calm, their trust so deeply misplaced in her. Mabel managed to make it into the bathroom before the tears overwhelmed her. She shut the door with one hand while covering her mouth with the other. She couldn’t let them hear her, she couldn’t let them know. They had moved on, they had never felt this in the first place. She was the sick one, the one who had felt more than she was meant to, who felt it still as much as she tried not to.

And she was even worse than she’d thought. Humiliation and guilt swelled in her anew at the thought of the way she’d been grinding against them, the way her body had been so eager to use them for her own pleasure while they slept. She sank to the floor, one arm hugging her knees while the other hand still muffled the sound of her sobs. Much as she loved them and they loved her, maybe it had been a mistake to come here in the first place. It was too much. Too much temptation, too much risk that she would lose one of the people she loved most. If one of them had woken, how confused, how betrayed, how used they may have felt. Her heart broke at the very thought of making either of them feel anything but safe.

She cried until her tears were spent and her butt was asleep from sitting on the floor. She pulled herself up shakily and reluctantly met her eyes in the mirror. She looked frightful, her face red and blotchy, her eyes bloodshot, her hair a stormcloud of frizz. Mabel stiffly washed her face with cold water, so cold it made her hands ache, but it felt refreshing to the heat of her inflamed face. She dried her face and blew her nose, and impatiently dragged a brush through her hair until it looked a little more manageable. She brushed her teeth, prolonging her time hiding from her triplets.

When she finally emerged from the bathroom, the sun was coming up and birds were singing. She looked out at the Mystery Shack lawn, carpeted in fallen leaves. The forest blocked the horizon from her view so she couldn’t properly see the sunrise, but she could see the sky pink and mauve above the tops of the trees. The day dawned serene and crisp, the world cleansed and enlivened by yesterday’s rain, but within her a storm raged on. Bracing herself, she turned away from the window to look back at the futon. Dipper and Ty had closed the gap between them that Mabel had left, facing each other with Dipper’s head under Ty’s chin and their hands clasped together loosely between their chests. Her heart ached with love for them and a big part of her wanted to climb back into their loving arms, but she couldn’t. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back, instead walking into the kitchen to busy her hands and hopefully her mind.

Dipper and Ty would wake to the smell of food wafting from the kitchen. It was unlike Mabel to wake up earliest, but she knew they wouldn’t question it if she claimed it had been to make them breakfast. That was the kind of nice thing she did, wasn’t it? She was feeling so out of sorts that she wasn’t even sure. She made eggs and chicken sausages she found in the freezer, she made a fruit salad from the couple fruits she found in the kitchen, meticulously cutting strawberries into roses the way she had learned in her very brief stint as a baker’s apprentice. She was buttering toast when Dipper dragged her feet into the kitchen, “Mornin’, chef of the future,” she said, her voice hoarse from sleeping. She yawned, “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d make myself useful.” Mabel replied, unable to meet Dipper’s eyes as she filled the electric kettle and turned it on. Mabel hadn’t noticed it before, but it was definitely something Dipper had gotten for the Shack.

“Everything okay?” Dip asked, sensing something in Mabel’s tone.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Mabel responded automatically, pretending the toast buttering required all her attention, “Just a, uh, bit of a headache.”

“Aw, well, hopefully food will help,” Dip observed, but Mabel could practically hear the wheels turning in her sister’s head, trying to suss out what was actually wrong, “We didn’t really eat like normal humans yesterday and maybe you just have low blood sugar.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it.” Mabel said, knowing full well that that wasn’t it.

“I…” Dipper started shakily, running a hand through her hair, “Have a bit of a headache myself.” she finished weakly, taking a mug from the cabinet and dropping a teabag in it. Mabel looked at her out of the corner of her eye as Dipper turned the kettle off just shy of a full boil and poured the water into her mug. She hadn’t noticed at first, but Dipper did look a little rough around the edges. She stirred a little bit of sugar into her tea, set in on the kitchen table, and said simply, “I’ll go get Ty up.” and left the room.

Mabel stood in the middle of the kitchen for a second, a slice of toast in one hand and butter knife in the other, unable to move. She heard the groan of Ty stretching in the next room, the muffle of some words passed between her siblings, Dipper’s laugh. I don’t deserve them, the guilt told her. Stiffly, she began setting food on the table, grabbing paper towels and silverware, salt and pepper. She continued bustling around after Dipper and Ty had seated themselves at the table, thinking of more things they might need and frankly, scared to have to look either of them in the eye.

“Hey, Mabes,” Ty said, “Why don’t you hit the pause button and eat something?”

“Okay.” Mabel said, carrying two jars of jam to the table and setting them down by the plate of toast and lowering herself into her chair. She doled food onto her plate automatically, thinking she wouldn’t be able to stomach a bite of it, but was surprised to find just how famished she was when she started eating. Maybe Dipper’s right, she thought against her better judgment, and low blood sugar is most of the problem.

The triplets had spent enough time together over their lives that it was natural for silences to sometimes fall between them. Most of the time those silences were comfortable, sometimes even comforting. It was very seldom that they felt awkward or strained, but the one that fell as they ate their breakfast was tense. Mabel tried to keep her focus on her food, but once the minimum of her hunger was sated the food turned to ash in her mouth and she found herself just moving bits of sausage and egg around her plate with her fork. She glanced around the table at her siblings, found Dipper staring into her tea and Ty smiling wryly to himself.

He laughed suddenly, dropping his fork, getting the attention of both his sisters, “Remember the summer before college?” he asked casually, making Mabel’s breath catch in her throat, “When we’d just laze around and make out all day? I had, like, the most random dream about that last night.”

Dipper put her tea mug back down, and Mabel could swear her sister’s hand was shaking. She realized her own hand was shaking, her fork rattling slightly against her plate. Is he serious? She wondered, how could he be saying this offhand, like it’s normal conversation? She found herself wishing she could be as brave, so it surprised her to hear her own voice, “I had a similar dream.”

“You did?” Ty asked, his eyes searching Mabel’s, giving away his doubt, his hope, and she could have sworn, his desire.

“Y-yeah,” Dipper chimed in shakily, before Mabel could respond, “I… actually, I did too.”

Silence dragged on at the table for a few seconds, but this one felt much different than the last. Ty was the first to break it again, “I… that’s not what I expected you guys to say. Wow, okay.” he ran his hand through his hair, “I was all ready to apologize and for you to be upset but now, I…”

“That summer has been on my mind a lot.” Mabel admitted softly, her heart pounding, “I… didn’t think you guys thought about it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Dipper said, turning to look straight into Mabel’s eyes, her gaze insistent, “I live here! Under the same roof where I… where we…” Mabel laid her hand on Dipper’s where it rested on the table between them.

“Sometimes it feels like that was the last time anything made sense.” Ty admitted, “I-I know it didn’t, but compared to the rest.”

“It was the last time we were all together for more than a week,” Mabel said, her voice growing a little solemn, “I didn’t think that summer was ever going to end.”

They looked around at each other for a minute before silently agreeing, all standing up nearly in unison to clear the table. This was not a conversation to be had without hugs, and they all knew it. Upon returning to the living room, they all hesitated for a moment before climbing into the bed, as if they hadn’t spent the last two days barely leaving it. Mabel forced herself to get into it first, lying a little stiffly on her back. Ty and Dipper followed suit on either side of her, although they were all careful not to let their bodies actually touch.

“I didn’t think that summer was going to end,” Dipper said in a measured tone, and took a deep breath, “And I really didn’t want it to.”

“Me neither.” Ty and Mabel said at exactly the same time.

“I wish I’d known how to talk about it back then,” Ty continued, and Mabel hated the sound of the regret in his voice, “I couldn’t say to you two what I couldn’t even admit to myself.”

“What do you mean?” Mabel asked, her heart was fluttering eagerly at the implication, thinking of the things she herself had been unable to say back then.

Ty sighed heavily, running his hand down his face, and Mabel’s heart lurched at the sight of the tears standing in his eyes, “I… god, I remember saying some just dumb shit about hormones and sexual need,” he scoffed, “As if it was ever about getting my dick wet. But I was an idiot, and that was so much easier than admitting how… that it was…” he took a deep breath and held it for a second, before managing to whisper, “That I love you.”

Mabel didn’t realize how close she’d been to tears herself until she heard her own relieved sob. Each of her triplets tentatively put a hand on her shoulder and she could feel Ty gearing up to apologize and she couldn’t let that happen, “I love you too!” she practically wailed, “I love you both and I did then and I do now!’

Their arms closed in around her and she could feel their tears mingling with her own, could hear the soft hitch of Dipper’s crying as she said, “I love you both too, I love you both too.” They held each other and cried for a few minutes of disbelief before Dipper said with a half-laugh, “We’re so duuuuumb.”

Ty laughed too, but Mabel just smiled, “Seriously, I mean,” Ty impatiently wiped the tears from his face, “We talk about everything, why did we never talk about this.”

“I never ever ever would have thought it’d go like this,” Mabel said, her voice still thick with sobs, “You don’t really ever assume your siblings are in love with you too.”

“Well, turns out we are?” Dipper said, a little incredulous and maybe a little giddy, she lightly turned Mabel’s chin towards her and kissed her. God, was it better than she remembered. Probably better than it had ever been, she’d never kissed her knowing that her love was returned.

“We definitely are,” Ty said into her ear, before kissing her cheek, “By some twisted miracle.”

No sooner had Mabel’s lips parted from Dipper’s than she turned her head so that they met Ty’s, still hovering by her cheek. The same explosive unity that had bloomed in her kiss with Dipper filled her anew. She could hear Dipper’s smile at seeing it. A moment later, she knew exactly how Dipper had as she watched Ty kiss Dipper. She had seen them kiss before, sure, about a decade ago and without the heady knowledge that they were all of them in love. They went on that way for some time, passing the same kiss back and forth between them, eyes bright and tears drying on their cheeks.

Mabel and Dipper were kissing again, the very tips of their tongues exploring just past each other’s lips, when Ty said absently, “Sooo about those dreams we had…” They broke their kiss to look at him, to see what it was he was getting at. He was twisting a lock of Mabel’s hair between his fingers and his eyes glinted playfully when they met hers, “What exactly was I doing in your dream?”

Mabel’s mouth grew dry as she considered the question, drawing to mind again each luscious detail of the dream in question, “Well, uhh,” she cleared her throat, feeling her face growing hotter, “You were kissing me, mostly,” Ty nodded, a smile quirking up one corner of his mouth, “And… and you had your hand on me.”

“On you where exactly?” he teased, as Dipper tucked Mabel’s hair behind her ear and kissed it gently, sending a small thrill through her.

“Um, my hip at first…”

“Here?” Ty asked solicitously, laying his palm flat on the hip nearer to him, making her squirm slightly. He smiled, “Funny, it was like that in my dream, too. I was kissing you and slowly,” he did it as he described it, “Moved my hand from here up to here.” His hand came to rest over her heart, between her breasts just as it had in her dream.

“Wait, really?” Dipper asked, curiously, “You did that to Mabes in my dream, too.”

“Your dream was about me doing stuff to Mabes?” Ty teased, his hand resting warm and heavy on Mabel’s chest. She wondered if he could feel the way her heart was battering against her ribs.

“No, no! It was all three of us!” Dipper corrected, flushing, “I was behind her, s-sort of spooning her, while you two were kissing and you did that thing with your hand and uhh…” Ty raised an eyebrow and Mabel gulped, “And I was reaching around her to… uh…”

“Wait… seriously?” Ty asked, and his voice was intrigued and a little husky, “This… is gonna sound crazy, but I think we all had pretty much the same dream.”

“Your dream was like that too?” Mabel asked, and it was Ty’s turn to flush. He nodded. There was a long moment of consideration, of indecision. This revelation hung mysteriously between them as they each tried to shake some sense out of all dreaming the same thing. As much as they would have loved to claim otherwise, always having been drawn to the supernatural, the triplets had long since debunked any possibility of psychic connection between them. Sure, they were pros at reading each other, but no more than anyone would be after so many years together. What were they supposed to do with this information, that this love and desire was not a curse to bear in silence, but something with which they’d all been living? The question was a complicated one, but the answer seemed simple enough, “This is stupid!” Mabel blurted out, grabbing the front of Ty’s shirt and pulling him down into a kiss. He was too stunned for a second, but quickly remembered how to kiss back. Without prompting, Dipper was scooting closer, her hands running over the both of them as she nuzzled and kissed the side of Mabel’s face, her neck, her ear. Her lips just below Mabel’s ear elicited a soft gasp that disappeared on Ty’s tongue. Dipper moved down her neck towards her shoulder and Mabel couldn’t stand it, breaking her kiss with Ty to capture Dipper’s lips again. Mabel turned onto her side to better kiss Dipper, and realized that her hips had begun swaying not unlike in her dream. Her thighs and Dipper’s rubbed against each other with insistent delicacy as Mabel’s hand found Dipper’s waist. New heat surged through her veins as Ty sidled up behind her, pressing himself flush against her, his erection unmistakable against her ass.

Thought gave way to pure sensation, and Mabel lost herself in the sweetness of not holding back. Though frenzied desire simmered not far below the surface, all three of them were content to take it slow, marveling at the peace and freedom of being together. Showing love without restraint and each challenging themselves to create more pleasure and greater oneness. There was no awkwardness, no standing on ceremony, as garment by garment they shed their clothes, no room for such barriers in as sacred a moment as this. They fell into a natural rhythm, one so innate it was hard to believe they’d never followed it like this before. There was no jealousy, no competing, just joy at sharing and creating such joy.

They spent hours a blissful tangle of bodies. Mabel intermittently had an instant of self-awareness, gratitude so immense that she thought she might burst. Once while her fingers moved eagerly in the wet depths of Dipper’s heat, her mouth glued to Dipper’s breast. Above her head, Dipper and Ty were locked in a searing kiss and Ty’s hips grinded against her back. Once again, in the moment Ty finally entered her, guided by Dipper’s hands as she nibbled at his ear. And again, and again, these unbearably bright moments of need and pleasure and closeness.

She had no idea how long it went on like that, before their frenzy cooled and they fell gratefully back into gentle kisses and soft caresses. Dipper was the first to cry, but Mabel and Ty were not close behind. They were not tears of sadness, quite the opposite, they were tears of relief. There was fear and uncertainty and sorrow not far from any of their minds, but in this moment they were locked together in a thankful prayer. When their tears passed, they slept. Not on purpose and not all at once, each drifting off for a couple minutes or hours before surfacing again. Barely a word passed between them, no word able to say the things they felt compelled to say with kisses, and looks, and fingertips traced lightly over skin.

The sunrise brought with it welcome light, gradually diluting the darkness and making it possible to see each other more clearly than they had throughout the night. But it also brought with it the most unwelcome of responsibilities. Tears welled in Mabel’s eyes again, and she did not need to explain to either of them the reason. Though time had ceased to exist to them, lost in the ecstasy of each other all night, it returned now with all the dread of a death sentence. In just a few hours, they’d have to say goodbye again and go back to the agony of being hundreds of miles apart.

Ty was the first to tear himself from the bed, while his sisters tearfully dozed in each other’s arms. He came back fully dressed and sat at the edge of the bed, looking down at them with eyes full of sadness. Dipper sat up, crawling still naked into Ty’s lap to kiss his forehead and wrap her arms around his shoulders. He cleared his throat shakily and said, “Can we… this time, can we talk about this?”

“Of course.” Dipper said and Mabel nodded, “Not talking about it all this time was a really bad move.”

“I love you both,” Ty said, his voice breaking slightly, “But I don’t know what we’re supposed to do here.”

“Me… me, neither.” Mabel admitted, pulling her fingers through her tangled hair, “I… I want this, but I don’t know how it fits into life.” She crawled over to them, laying her cheek on Ty’s shoulder, “We can’t just rush into this or whatever.”

“Mabel Pines wants a plan,” Dipper joked, “That’s how you know this is serious.” They chuckled lightly, the levity and companionship a pillar of normalcy in the mire, “But she’s right. I think we have some big stuff to figure out and they’re not the kind of decisions we should make lightly.”

Ty nodded and sniffled, reluctantly agreeing, “So we still have to leave.”

“Well, I’m not going to make you,” Dipper said, stroking his hair soothingly, “But I think, yeah.”

“At least for now,” Mabel said, and took a shaky breath, “I dunno what’s gonna happen, but can we please all promise we’re not going to go this long before seeing each other again?”

Ty squeezed them both closer as they all agreed, “No way,” he said, “Home is where you two are and good luck keeping me away for long.”

“Like we’d ever want to.” Dip said, sweetly kissing Ty’s temple. She laughed humorlessly to herself, “What a mess we’ve found ourselves in.”

“And there’s no one I’d rather face it with.” Mabel said decisively, thinking of the many challenges they’d faced together over the years. Every muscle in her body was telling her not to get on a plane and leave them, but she realized that every beat of her heart knew she could never truly leave them, even if they parted. She clung to that knowledge, and held them tight, comforting herself that no goodbye between them could ever keep them apart.

[thebestintoronto]

One day in… Toronto. Discovering Downtown on foot

To be perfectly straightforward, regardless of my long-standing love affair with Canada, Toronto has actually never ever been one of my much-loved cities to go to. This isn't always as a result of any mistake of the city itself, but probably extra to do with when I generally visit. The first time was on my year abroad when I would certainly completed living in Montreal and was almost to find home in January. Let's face it, does any type of city in the North Hemisphere make its best impression when the trees are all bare as well as it's freezing cold? My various other visits to the city ever since have all been for job as well as Toronto has actually had a tendency to be my last stop before getting home. By the time I get to that factor on a job journey I just can not wait for it to be over so I do not think I have actually ever before made much of an effort to learn more about the city properly.

This time around was a little different-- my journey had actually been a little much shorter than typical at around 12 days as opposed to over 2 weeks. I additionally had some time offered before my flight to London at night as well as the weather in Toronto was wonderful. I'm also about to change tasks so I do not understand precisely when I'll next remain in Canada-- sad times. In any case, I was figured out to see a few of the city effectively.

Toronto-- Canada's greatest city

When I've defined Toronto to individuals who have actually never ever checked out in the past, I often tend to equate it to a huge, American city Which I currently understand is quite unjust (sorry Toronto!). As Canada's biggest city, it can undoubtedly be rather frustrating for country bumpkins like myself from the UK. Once I made the initiative to go out and about, I had a blast.

I began (as always) with some on the internet research study to identify vital places I might target that were within walking range of my hotel. Although Toronto has plenty of some truly terrific visitor places that bill entry, such as the CN Tower as well as Casa Loma, taking a trip so consistently for work indicates I just can not pay for (or am not prepared) to invest money on visitor destinations each time I go anywhere. So I got creative, as well as decided to begin with my very own tour of historic Toronto.

Head to the farmers' market in the heart of the city.

I was staying on Richmond Road near Yonge Street (among the main roads in the Downtown area), so it was the perfect base for walking the city. I began by heading a number of blocks south towards the St. Lawrence Market. This is pretty famous in Toronto, however I 'd never ever had opportunity to go to previously. It's an interior market on 2 degrees and has all sorts of stalls, from butchers and also fishmongers via to crafts, culinary and also a tourist shop. Heading to the market, I 'd additionally recognized some vital historic points of interest; the Old Post Office as well as the Gooderham Building, which is Toronto's extremely own flat-iron building. It was impressive to see the extraordinary comparison of 19th Century structures set against a background of glass high-rises.

Spot the historic buildings

I then proceeded my tour by strolling along The Esplanade up to Yonge Road. Doing this provided me an extraordinary view of the CN Tower, which was a very enjoyable shock! When I reached Yonge, it was back to the dynamic main part of Toronto, which meant trying to not get in the way of commuters whilst I attempted to take a photo of an additional historical structure. This was the Birkbeck Building, situated simply off Yonge on Adelaide Street, which is a four-storey Edwardian Baroque-style building from 1908 flanked by even more modern structures.

Now, I realised I 'd devoted to running an errand for my guy and also had to head to the College of Toronto book shop as I 'd assured to grab a hoodie for him (I'm not sure the number of college hoodies one actually needs-- this isn't the very first from my travels). So I headed throughout one block and up Bay Road. Even if you're not intending on trekking all the way to the UofT, this is still a walk worth doing. It took me straight past the Hudson's Bay Business (excellent for purchasing) approximately Old City Hall, which is a magnificent structure. It has an impressive clock tower that chimes every hr as well as holds its very own amongst the high-rises, despite the fact that it was completed back in 1899.

Appreciate some more contemporary views

I would certainly walked around this part of the city in the past, so I recognized that the following crucial picture quit was simply to the left of Old Municipal government-- the Toronto Sign. This modern-day spots lies in Nathan Phillips Square and is 3D and brightened. It looks incredible during the night but this time around I likewise obtained possibility to see it in the day. They were already setting up the Xmas decorations so I wager this will look extraordinary when Toronto has its Christmas lights switch-on! The maple fallen leave at the end of the indication wasn't there when it was initially put up in 2015, however was included at the end of 2016 to note Canada's 150th wedding anniversary this year.

Get a bite to eat

From Nathan Phillips Square, it has to do with a 15 minute walk to Chinatown. I just strolled past the edge, however this is one more fantastic part of Toronto to explore if you have time. Now, I was obtaining quite starving. As I'm not a huge follower of Chinese food, I was influenced by a pupil I saw near UofT consuming pizza, so I headed back Midtown to Terroni. It's very highly ranked for pizza by blogto.com and it was definitely loaded, yet they handled to squeeze me in. Another wonderful lunch area that I didn't have possibility to see this time yet actually such as is Earls on King Street-- the steak and sushi dish is not to be missed out on!

To ensure that was all I had time for as soon as I 'd done a final area of shopping as well as had to head to the airport terminal (early, as the traffic in Toronto is nightmarish). I 'd certainly advise getting out and concerning as well as not simply doing the paid-for traveler points, despite the fact that they are excellent. If you're pressed for time as well as simply intend to obtain a sense of the city, there's nothing better than opting for a roam around Toronto. I have a new-found recognition for the city having put in the time to discover it on foot!

The article “ One day in… Toronto. Discovering Downtown on foot “ was published first on My Midlands Life

Vitamin Therapy Toronto - The IV Lounge

[aion-rsa]

Ranking The Jeopardy! Guest Hosts So Far

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When Jeopardy! GOAT contestant Brad Rutter spoke to Den of Geek earlier this year, he shared his opinion that there is only one perfect Jeopardy! host to replace the departed Alex Trebek. 

“Alex,” Rutter said. “But we can’t do it, unfortunately. That’s one of the terrible things about it. I can’t even really imagine what it’s going to be like.”

Alex Trebek was about as irreplaceable as a TV personality can be. As the host and quiz master of Jeopardy! for 37 years, the Canadian entertainer was the perfect combination of studious, professional, and playful. Following Trebek’s death from pancreatic cancer in November 2020, Jeopardy!’s producers realized there was no point in replacing the TV giant with only one host. 

For all of 2021, Jeopardy! has been going with a host-by-committee approach, giving several pop culture figures the opportunity to try their hand at shepherding the game show in two-week increments. This parade of guest hosts is in part a way to honor Trebek’s legacy. It’s also an open audition to provide fresh blood with an opportunity to claim the job of a television mainstay. 

With that in mind, here are our rankings of how each guest host has performed thus far. 

9. Dr. Mehmet Oz

Show Air Dates: March 22, 2021 – April 2, 2021

No.

8. Anderson Cooper

Show Air Dates: April 19, 2021 – April 30, 2021

Anderson Cooper is a good journalist and compelling TV presence. When it comes to Jeopardy!, however, he’s definitely not the right man for the job. Cooper is somewhat fortunate that human trainwreck Dr. Oz hosted first and gobbled up the lion’s share of bad Jeopardy! host press. Otherwise people may have noticed that Cooper did fairly poorly in his two-week stint.

Cooper seemingly didn’t prepare as intensely as Trebek or the other guest hosts as there would frequently be awkward pauses following contestants’ answers while the host checked if they were right. As a result, the number of Jeopardy! rounds not completed under Cooper’s tenure was unusually high. It’s a small issue, but an impactful one.

7. Katie Couric

Show Air Dates: March 8, 2021- March 19, 2021

Couric’s tenure as Jeopardy! host was the victim of bad timing. She had the tough act of following two guest hosts who were extremely steeped in the show’s history in culture in official Greatest of All Time Ken Jennings and executive producer Mike Richards. 

The longtime media personality ultimately did a fair job as host, with her only major flaw being interjecting a bit too frequently during rounds. Unfortunately, she doesn’t stack up well to the pros that preceded her.

6. Aaron Rodgers

Show Air Dates: April 5, 2021 – April 16, 2021

While the presence of a NFL star may seem like a desperate ratings grab from Jeopardy!, Green Bay Packers quarterback and former Celebrity Jeopardy! champ Aaron Rodgers is apparently dead serious about wanting the full-time hosting job, telling The Ringer that he could easily fit the show’s shooting schedule into his NFL obligations. 

Rodgers’ eagerness was evident over the first week and led to him coming across as a bit too excitable. He really settled into the role in his second week though and projected the correct balance of expertise and personability. 

5. Bill Whitaker

Show Air Dates: May 3, 2021 – May 14, 2021

In contrast to Aaron Rodgers, Bill Whitaker apparently has no interest in holding down the full-time Jeopardy! job, telling The Philadelphia Tribune that he enjoys his current gig as a CBS journalist. That’s a shame as Whitaker came off as quite a natural during his two-week stint. 

Soft-spoken and consistent, Whitaker was such a steadying presence in his time as host to the point that the novelty of there even being a guest host began to wear off. Ultimately he might be a little too one-note for a full-time Jeopardy! host but his time on the dais was well spent. 

4. Mayim Bialik

Show Air Dates: May 31, 2021 – June 11, 2021

Mayim Bialik was a real pleasant surprise in her stint as host. In fact, she’s the best Jeopardy! guest host yet who was not previously affiliated with the show. Bialik leaned more toward the friendly end of the familiar/authoritative Jeopardy! hosting ratio. She kept up that energy throughout but was able to establish a nice balance in her second week.

As a longtime Big Bang Theory cast member, Bialik certainly doesn’t need the Jeopardy! hosting gig to pay the bills. But her experience in front of a live-studio audience and a clear passion for learning could prove useful in the position.

3. Buzzy Cohen

Show Air Dates: May 17, 2021 – May 28, 2021

On the flip side of Bill Whitaker, Buzzy Cohen may at first seem like too dynamic of a personality to work as a Jeopardy! guest host. His fun nickname, distinctive eyewear, and trendy haircut are at odds with such an ancient and venerated TV institution. 

As host of Jeopardy!’s Tournament of Champions, however, Cohen has been consistently great. Due to his time as a Jeopardy! champion himself, Cohen empathizes with contestants easily and keeps things going at a rapidly appropriate pace for the competitive tournament known as “The Nerd Super Bowl.”

2. Ken Jennings 

Show Air Dates: January 4, 2021 – February 19, 2021

In the Jeopardy! canon Ken Jennings is the only figure that approaches the quiz show sainthood of Alex Trebek himself. Jennings is the most impressive and successful Jeopardy! contestant of all time, winning 74 consecutive games, amassing over $4 million in earnings, and taking home the title of Jeopardy! GOAT in 2020. When he was brought aboard as a consulting producer on Jeopardy! last year, many naturally assumed he was being groomed for the hosting role.

Sure enough, Jennings was announced as the first guest host of 2021 and got the year started on the right track with over a month of excellent hosting. Jennings has said that part of the key to Trebek’s success with Jeopardy! was his intuitive understanding that the star of the show wasn’t any host or contestant, but rather the show itself. Jennings put that understanding to good use, using his wealth of experience to make the game show feel both friendly and satisfyingly competitive. 

Jennings would be a fine choice for Jeopardy! host. Perhaps his only real weakness, however, is…the tweeting, as it always seems to be. Jennings has tweeted jokes that toe the line between bad taste and offensive in the past, something that he apologized for last year. The issue with Jennings on Twitter  though isn’t the risk of future offensive tweets but rather his continued use of Twitter at all along with the rest of us plebs.

Jeopardy! seemingly exists outside of time itself. Save for improved graphics and Trebek’s graying hair, the show has remained largely the same since it premiered. The Platonic ideal of a Jeopardy! host would seem like he or she was spawned from the set itself, returning backstage to sit on their trivia throne and contemplate the mysteries of life between tapings. 

Jennings does a superb job of honoring Jeopardy!’s legacy but he’s almost too accessible and engageable a public figure to have the necessary gravitas of Jeopardy! host. 

But, of course, everything we just said is shallow, dumb, and overly idealizing a syndicated game show. So if Ken wants the job, then great!

1. Mike Richards

Show Air Dates: February 22, 2021- March 5, 2021

Alex Trebek would occasionally be asked in interviews who he’d like to replace him. It was not a question he frequently answered because who would want to speculate about an event that would presumably only occur after their death. He often joked that Betty White should because she was a close friend. But in the few instances he did consider the question seriously, he offered up Los Angeles Kings play-by-play announcer Alex Faust, Turner Classic Movies host Ben Makiewicz, and CNN legal analyst Laura Coates. Ultimately, however, he told journalists at the Television Critics Association press tour that he “would leave it up to the people in charge.”

Well, what if one of those mythical people in charge was the right choice to host all along? Mike Richards is an executive producer for Jeopardy! and its Merv Griffin-created syndicated companion Wheel of Fortune. Richards has a long history of producing other game shows like Weakest Link, The Price is Right, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He’s even hosted a couple of game shows of his own such as Beauty and the Geek and The Pyramid. After Ken Jennings served his month-long stint as host, Richards stepped in for two weeks, seemingly only to buy the show some time before it could set up more guest hosts.

Richard’s two-week tenure as guest host, however, was absolutely superb. Despite the stuffy connotation associated with the job “executive producer”, Richards was the most outwardly bubbly and joyful guest host yet. He still projected an air of authority and trivia mastery, likely due to his comfort and experience with the format. Richards was also an attentive interviewer, and well-researched – his shows were among the smoothest this season thus far. 

Richards lacks important name recognition (in fact, his name is about as generic as they come) and would not win Jeopardy! any more viewers on star power alone. It also must be said that Jeopardy! could stand to diversify the syndicated TV game a bit with this hosting decision by choosing a woman or person of color.

Whether Richards is selected as the full time host remains to be seen. But as executive producer, he’ll be involved in the decision one way or another. And if his talent scouting is anywhere near as good as his hosting ability, then there is nothing to worry about. 

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Still to come: Savannah Guthrie (Show Air Dates: June 14, 2021 – June 25, 2021), Dr. Sanjay Gupta (Show Air Dates: June 28, 2021 – July 9, 2021), George Stephanopoulos (Show Air Dates: July 12, 2021 – July 16, 2021), Robin Roberts (Show Air Dates: July 19, 2021 – July 23, 2021), LeVar Burton (Show Air Dates: July 26, 2021 – July 30, 2021), David Faber (Show Air Dates: August 2, 2021 – August 6, 2021), Joe Buck (Show Air Dates: August 9, 2021 – August 13, 2021)

The post Ranking The Jeopardy! Guest Hosts So Far appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[jpweb12]

35 Examples Of Awesome App Designs With Intuitive Interfaces

Having a smartphone or a tablet is something common these days. Therefore, it’s hard to imagine our day-to-day life without apps that make it much easier and simpler. Whether it’s social media, entertainment, dating, sports, time management,  or even the weather, there is something for everyone.

But an app that’s difficult to figure out how it works, unintuitive, or ineffective will not win many hearts. The best apps provide great user experience and have powerful, useful features that are paired with beautiful and intuitive interfaces.

So, instead of just describing a few nice app designs, we’ve decided to take it to the next level and share with you what we consider to be the best of the best. Below you’ll find a list of 35 of awesome mobile apps when it comes to UI design. These apps really stood out because they went above and beyond to be visually appealing and useful.

  Movie/Video

  YouTube

YouTube’s mobile app is sleek and intuitive, bringing the whole content of the video sharing site to your fingertips. For those subscribed to YouTube Red, you’ll have access to all the premium content, as well as special features.

HBO Go / HBO Now

Both HBO Now (HBO’s standalone service for $15/month) and HBO Go (a streaming app available to HBO cable subscribers) have apps that allow you to watch all of HBO’s streaming content directly on your phone.

Spotify

Spotify is the best full-featured streaming service. With this app, you can stream any music from any type of device, make your own playlists, follow artists, and sync tracks for offline listening.

Google Play Music

Google’s official streaming service is a strong competitor to Spotify. Not only does the app provide a vast library of content, but it also allows users to upload up to 50,000 songs for online storage. This means you can download and stream your music on any Android device, at any time.

  Fitness, Athletic, Workouts

  Nike+ Run Club

The Nike+ Run Club App tracks your runs and helps you reach your goals – whether it’s running your first race, or setting a new personal record. You can also measure your progress every mile, get a training program and compete with your friends.

Loox Fitness Planner

With Loox Fitness Planner app you get training goals like losing weight, building muscles or body shaping by choosing your perfect workout plan. There are about 300 training plans that motivate you to stay on track.

Calorie Counter – MyFitnessPal

If you really want to lose weight and get in shape, then you need to start counting those calories. We recommend this app from MyFitnessPal because it is easy, accessible, and completely free.

RunKeeper

Turn your phone into a personal trainer and track your runs via GPS. You can get detailed stats on your workouts, listen to music, get audio cues to spur you on, and share your progress.

Daily Yoga

Yoga is unbelievably powerful. It strengthens your core, increases flexibility and focus, and decreases stress. Plus, it can help you lose weight and stay healthy. This app will guide you through daily yoga routines of varying difficulty and length, and step-by-step, HD videos showing exactly how to do each pose.

  Social Media

  Instagram

Instagram is a simple way of capturing and sharing the world’s moments. This app is ubiquitous in photography now, so you might as well have it on your phone. Owned by Facebook, the social network centered on photos offers great filters and connectivity with others.

Facebook

The biggest social network on the planet right now has a decent official app. Keep up with your friends and family, jump into instant chats, and stay informed with push notifications. It’s also your personal organizer for storing, saving and sharing photos.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the go-to social network for finding and sharing inspiration on creative projects, hobbies, fashion, and more. The app features the same functionality as the website, allowing you to “pin” and “repin” posts from other users to various boards, so you can share and save new ideas.

Twitter

Twitter’s microblogging platform brought about the now-ubiquitous internet facet, hashtags. Connect with your friends, share new favorite content, follow celebrities, and get breaking news as it happens. You can customize your profile with a photo, description, location, and background photo.

  Messaging

  Skype

The Skype you know and love has an all-new design, with new features and new ways to stay connected with the people. Besides text, you can send photos, videos, voice messages, Mojis and more. You can also respond to any message with reactions. Also, you may swipe quickly to capture photos and videos.

Whatsapp

WhatsApp Messenger is a free messaging app available for Android and other smartphones. WhatsApp uses your phone’s Internet connection (4G/3G/2G/EDGE or Wi-Fi, as available) to let you message and call friends and family. Switch from SMS to WhatsApp to send and receive messages, calls, photos, videos, documents, and Voice Messages.

Tinder

Tinder is the ultimate dating app for mobile users, thanks to its location-centric features, and regardless of what its reputation may be, it’s still a great way to meet people. Your next match could be a swipe right away.

Bumble

Similar to Tinder in terms of presentation, Bumble is designed to flip the usual gender dynamics of dating from women to men. The app only allows women to message first, reducing the chances of setting awkward pickup lines or situations. In the same sex matches, either person can message first.

  Blogging

  Tumblr

The app allows you to discover and post about stuff you love, and join communities of people who love the same stuff like you. You can repost other people’s posts to your own blog and can add comments if you like. Also, other people can do the same with your posts.

Blogger

This is the official app for one of the most popular blogging platforms on the Internet. You can compose, edit, and post directly to your blog, and much more. If you have more than one account or blog, you can switch easily between them.

  Cooking

  Zomato

Zomato lets you search for and discover restaurants to eat out at or order in from. You can search by location, cuisine, budget, user reviews and ratings, and use the map feature to guide you there. There’s also a handy shake feature to get a random suggestion if you just can’t decide.

Food Network

Get instant access to your favorite Food Network chefs and personalities, including thousands of their most popular recipes featured on their TV shows and specials. How-to videos and shopping list features will equip you with everything you need to make a great meal.

Yummly

Featured on the Today Show, Yummly matches over 1 million recipes to your cooking lifestyle’s nutrition, diet, food allergies, and favorite cuisines. The app allows you to collect, save and organize your favorite recipes in your digital recipe box and discover customized recipe recommendations.

  Money and Shopping

  Paypal

By downloading the app, you’ll be able to manage your PayPal account at a glance. It is the easiest online method to manage all the ways you send, receive and spend money. The app can also notify you of transactions, offering handy reminders and alerts when you use PayPal as a payment method or have an upcoming bill due.

Mint

Mint is the free money manager and financial tracker app from the makers of TurboTax® that does it all. Mint can keep track of multiple bank accounts or credit cards to help you stay on budget and out of the red.

Amazon Shopping

The Amazon Shopping app lets you shop millions of products and manage your Amazon orders from anywhere. Browse the vast collection of products quickly and easily. Plus, you can enable notifications for daily Amazon Gold Box deals so you never miss out on a discount.

  Travel & Events

  Uber

Uber is a ridesharing app for fast, reliable rides in minutes — day or night. Uber allows you to call upon a private driver in your city who will help you get to where you need to go, and it’s easy to pay by credit or cash in select cities.

Airbnb

By using the Airbnb app, you may find adventures in faraway places or your hometown, and access unique homes, experiences, and places around the world. You can search for accommodation, communicate directly with hosts, book everything your trip needs, or start earning money as a host.

  Going Out

  Foursquare City Guide

Foursquare City Guide will lead you to the perfect spot — anywhere in the world. Get helpful, positive tips from our trusted global community and keep track of where you’ve been and where you want to go, all in one place.

Yelp

Yelp puts great local businesses at your fingertips. Whether you’re looking for a pizzeria near you or the best handyman in town, the app is your guide to finding the perfect places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play. Find reviews, locations, and other important information for any business you’re looking for.

  Documents & Management

  Dropbox

Dropbox’s mobile app keeps your files and your team in sync. You can access any file saved in Dropbox from all of your devices and send large files even to people who don’t have a Dropbox account. And with features like the doc scanner, shared folders, offline access, and more, collaborating with others is simple.

Trello

Trello gives you the perspective over all your projects, at work and at home. The project management app allows you to create boards to organize anything you’re working on, customize workflows for different projects and much more. You may use it solo or invite other people to collaborate. If you work offline, the boards will sync automatically when reconnected.

Teamweek

Perfect for multinational and remote teams, Teamweek app is a simple-to-use project and resource planner that gives a great overview on a shared team calendar. You may spot who’s available and schedule upcoming projects for both the short- and long term.

Toggl

Toggl is the leading timesheet app for tracking worked hours. By using the timer, you may log task times and get reports based on the time usage. All the time logs are synced to the cloud and you can track time also in the web version, desktop app, Chrome extension and with an Android watch – all your data is safely stored under one account.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a safe place for all your files and puts them within reach from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. The app lets you store up to 15GB of files and access them wherever and whenever you need to. Once you save the files there, you can easily invite others to view, edit, or leave comments on any of your files or folders.

Evernote

Evernote is an elegant solution when it comes to taking all sorts of notes and getting work done. The app gives you the tools you need to keep your work effortlessly organized — from taking notes with supporting photos, to writing to-do-list and much more. Tag, sync, and organize for a real productivity boost.

    Read More at 35 Examples Of Awesome App Designs With Intuitive Interfaces

from IT Feed https://webdesignledger.com/35-examples-of-awesome-app-designs-with-intuitive-interfaces/

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35 Examples Of Awesome App Designs With Intuitive Interfaces

Having a smartphone or a tablet is something common these days. Therefore, it’s hard to imagine our day-to-day life without apps that make it much easier and simpler. Whether it’s social media, entertainment, dating, sports, time management,  or even the weather, there is something for everyone. But an app that’s difficult to figure out how it works, unintuitive, or ineffective will not win many hearts. The best apps provide great user experience and have powerful, useful features that are paired with beautiful and intuitive interfaces. So, instead of just describing a few nice app designs, we’ve decided to take it to the next level and share with you what we consider to be the best of the best. Below you’ll find a list of 35 of awesome mobile apps when it comes to UI design. These apps really stood out because they went above and beyond to be visually appealing and useful.   Movie/Video   YouTube YouTube’s mobile app is sleek and intuitive, bringing the whole content of the video sharing site to your fingertips. For those subscribed to YouTube Red, you’ll have access to all the premium content, as well as special features. HBO Go / HBO Now Both HBO Now (HBO’s standalone service for $15/month) and HBO Go (a streaming app available to HBO cable subscribers) have apps that allow you to watch all of HBO’s streaming content directly on your phone. Spotify Spotify is the best full-featured streaming service. With this app, you can stream any music from any type of device, make your own playlists, follow artists, and sync tracks for offline listening. Google Play Music Google’s official streaming service is a strong competitor to Spotify. Not only does the app provide a vast library of content, but it also allows users to upload up to 50,000 songs for online storage. This means you can download and stream your music on any Android device, at any time.   Fitness, Athletic, Workouts   Nike+ Run Club The Nike+ Run Club App tracks your runs and helps you reach your goals – whether it’s running your first race, or setting a new personal record. You can also measure your progress every mile, get a training program and compete with your friends. Loox Fitness Planner With Loox Fitness Planner app you get training goals like losing weight, building muscles or body shaping by choosing your perfect workout plan. There are about 300 training plans that motivate you to stay on track. Calorie Counter – MyFitnessPal If you really want to lose weight and get in shape, then you need to start counting those calories. We recommend this app from MyFitnessPal because it is easy, accessible, and completely free. RunKeeper Turn your phone into a personal trainer and track your runs via GPS. You can get detailed stats on your workouts, listen to music, get audio cues to spur you on, and share your progress. Daily Yoga Yoga is unbelievably powerful. It strengthens your core, increases flexibility and focus, and decreases stress. Plus, it can help you lose weight and stay healthy. This app will guide you through daily yoga routines of varying difficulty and length, and step-by-step, HD videos showing exactly how to do each pose.   Social Media   Instagram Instagram is a simple way of capturing and sharing the world’s moments. This app is ubiquitous in photography now, so you might as well have it on your phone. Owned by Facebook, the social network centered on photos offers great filters and connectivity with others. Facebook The biggest social network on the planet right now has a decent official app. Keep up with your friends and family, jump into instant chats, and stay informed with push notifications. It’s also your personal organizer for storing, saving and sharing photos. Pinterest Pinterest is the go-to social network for finding and sharing inspiration on creative projects, hobbies, fashion, and more. The app features the same functionality as the website, allowing you to “pin” and “repin” posts from other users to various boards, so you can share and save new ideas. Twitter Twitter’s microblogging platform brought about the now-ubiquitous internet facet, hashtags. Connect with your friends, share new favorite content, follow celebrities, and get breaking news as it happens. You can customize your profile with a photo, description, location, and background photo.   Messaging   Skype The Skype you know and love has an all-new design, with new features and new ways to stay connected with the people. Besides text, you can send photos, videos, voice messages, Mojis and more. You can also respond to any message with reactions. Also, you may swipe quickly to capture photos and videos. Whatsapp WhatsApp Messenger is a free messaging app available for Android and other smartphones. WhatsApp uses your phone’s Internet connection (4G/3G/2G/EDGE or Wi-Fi, as available) to let you message and call friends and family. Switch from SMS to WhatsApp to send and receive messages, calls, photos, videos, documents, and Voice Messages. Tinder Tinder is the ultimate dating app for mobile users, thanks to its location-centric features, and regardless of what its reputation may be, it’s still a great way to meet people. Your next match could be a swipe right away. Bumble Similar to Tinder in terms of presentation, Bumble is designed to flip the usual gender dynamics of dating from women to men. The app only allows women to message first, reducing the chances of setting awkward pickup lines or situations. In the same sex matches, either person can message first.   Blogging   Tumblr The app allows you to discover and post about stuff you love, and join communities of people who love the same stuff like you. You can repost other people’s posts to your own blog and can add comments if you like. Also, other people can do the same with your posts. Blogger This is the official app for one of the most popular blogging platforms on the Internet. You can compose, edit, and post directly to your blog, and much more. If you have more than one account or blog, you can switch easily between them.   Cooking   Zomato Zomato lets you search for and discover restaurants to eat out at or order in from. You can search by location, cuisine, budget, user reviews and ratings, and use the map feature to guide you there. There’s also a handy shake feature to get a random suggestion if you just can’t decide. Food Network Get instant access to your favorite Food Network chefs and personalities, including thousands of their most popular recipes featured on their TV shows and specials. How-to videos and shopping list features will equip you with everything you need to make a great meal. Yummly Featured on the Today Show, Yummly matches over 1 million recipes to your cooking lifestyle’s nutrition, diet, food allergies, and favorite cuisines. The app allows you to collect, save and organize your favorite recipes in your digital recipe box and discover customized recipe recommendations.   Money and Shopping   Paypal By downloading the app, you’ll be able to manage your PayPal account at a glance. It is the easiest online method to manage all the ways you send, receive and spend money. The app can also notify you of transactions, offering handy reminders and alerts when you use PayPal as a payment method or have an upcoming bill due. Mint Mint is the free money manager and financial tracker app from the makers of TurboTax® that does it all. Mint can keep track of multiple bank accounts or credit cards to help you stay on budget and out of the red. Amazon Shopping The Amazon Shopping app lets you shop millions of products and manage your Amazon orders from anywhere. Browse the vast collection of products quickly and easily. Plus, you can enable notifications for daily Amazon Gold Box deals so you never miss out on a discount.   Travel & Events   Uber Uber is a ridesharing app for fast, reliable rides in minutes — day or night. Uber allows you to call upon a private driver in your city who will help you get to where you need to go, and it’s easy to pay by credit or cash in select cities. Airbnb By using the Airbnb app, you may find adventures in faraway places or your hometown, and access unique homes, experiences, and places around the world. You can search for accommodation, communicate directly with hosts, book everything your trip needs, or start earning money as a host.   Going Out   Foursquare City Guide Foursquare City Guide will lead you to the perfect spot — anywhere in the world. Get helpful, positive tips from our trusted global community and keep track of where you’ve been and where you want to go, all in one place. Yelp Yelp puts great local businesses at your fingertips. Whether you’re looking for a pizzeria near you or the best handyman in town, the app is your guide to finding the perfect places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play. Find reviews, locations, and other important information for any business you’re looking for.   Documents & Management   Dropbox Dropbox’s mobile app keeps your files and your team in sync. You can access any file saved in Dropbox from all of your devices and send large files even to people who don’t have a Dropbox account. And with features like the doc scanner, shared folders, offline access, and more, collaborating with others is simple. Trello Trello gives you the perspective over all your projects, at work and at home. The project management app allows you to create boards to organize anything you’re working on, customize workflows for different projects and much more. You may use it solo or invite other people to collaborate. If you work offline, the boards will sync automatically when reconnected. Teamweek Perfect for multinational and remote teams, Teamweek app is a simple-to-use project and resource planner that gives a great overview on a shared team calendar. You may spot who’s available and schedule upcoming projects for both the short- and long term. Toggl Toggl is the leading timesheet app for tracking worked hours. By using the timer, you may log task times and get reports based on the time usage. All the time logs are synced to the cloud and you can track time also in the web version, desktop app, Chrome extension and with an Android watch – all your data is safely stored under one account. Google Drive Google Drive is a safe place for all your files and puts them within reach from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. The app lets you store up to 15GB of files and access them wherever and whenever you need to. Once you save the files there, you can easily invite others to view, edit, or leave comments on any of your files or folders. Evernote Evernote is an elegant solution when it comes to taking all sorts of notes and getting work done. The app gives you the tools you need to keep your work effortlessly organized — from taking notes with supporting photos, to writing to-do-list and much more. Tag, sync, and organize for a real productivity boost.     Read More at 35 Examples Of Awesome App Designs With Intuitive Interfaces http://dlvr.it/Ph5ZR2 www.regulardomainname.com