#the feud was fun at first but i just want them to be besties again

[somnas-writes]

Okay sorry if this is weird lol but in your "the bodyguards should have been friends" post you mentioned a fix-it fic and I am very intrigued- Is there anything about it you want to talk about?

Yeah!! I have a lot I want to write about (even though I haven’t finished the show, I’m already brain rotted)

The Theerapanyakun boys dynamic is one thing I plan to change/mess around with.

They would be genuinely unstoppable if they teamed up, but their dads (derogatory) are hellbent on keeping them isolated and in survival mode

They are all incredibly emotionally unavailable as well (they got HELLA trauma)

There’s five of them and I think each combination would have really different interactions/bonds

Khun, Kinn, and Kim are pit again Vegas and Macau their entire lives (major vs minor family feud, Korn and Gun being SHIT DADS)

They’re hostile because that’s what they were taught.

My plan/outline has them going through really big emotional break throughs (they get put in Situations and are forced to Confront their issues)

And as a result they band together

I also just want them to have good family relationships cause they deserve it

They bodyguards get to be Friends

I get that they had certain relationships and dynamics because it helped drive the plot

But holy hell imagine how uncomfortable that workplace setting was

Like big and Ken specifically hated Porsche. He hates them too, but it was an incredibly unhelpful thing

They all had their own duos (arm-pol, big-ken, Porsche-Pete), but as a group they could’ve had an great dynamic

Especially since they work for the same guys!! They get how crazy the work they do is, and they all know how these guys behave

They don’t even have to be besties (they aren’t for most of my rewrite) but for the sake of working smoothly they need to at least be casual and comfortable

I’m making Big work through his little crush on Kinn too

he and Porsche get to discuss what it’s like pursuing Kinn. it is something they should talk about, Kinn is a shared aspect of their life and having that grudge of “my crush chose him, not me.” Is just soooo petty and not healthy

Also Ken isn’t the traitor because I like him, he’s funky

Porsche and Chay are Good Siblings

I hate how they kept each other in the dark about huge things in their life

I understand (both as a younger sibling and as an older sibling) wanting to protect your family and not see them hurt. But it’s part of life!! Stuff hurts and it happens

They have a pretty special dynamic, with Porsche basically raising Chay

I wish we could’ve seen them being close siblings more in the series, I love the little montages we got of them together

But I think it’s missing that key part of them being unabashedly Honest and Real

Especially since Porsche choosing to become a bodyguard impacted a lot of Chays life. The one constant and stable figure of his life disappeared overnight and he had no way of contacting him

Porchay was alone during one of the most vital times of his adolescence. Porsche was isolated during a big change in his

In the rewrite, I want them to be more open about what they’re experiencing

They’re also just more ‘sibling like’, they go to annoy each other for fun, they work together against people because they’re a team.

One specific scenario I’ve been thinking about is Chay seeking out his brother to just be with him. (The scenario I’ve been envisioning is Chay walking into Kinn and Porsches room just to stare at him, dance Gangnam Style, turn off the lights and leave. I want Kinn to be absolutely baffled and Porsche to be Just So Done)

They’re siblings!!! It’s so fun to bother your siblings

Korn and Gun DIE

Im the second biggest Korn-Anti (Kim is first)

They’re Bad Parents and Shit People

They tear people apart just for their benefit and I’m Over It

I want these mfs DEAD AND BURIED

Kim deserves to stand at his dads grave, talk shit and walk away

I want their kids to heal!!! They deserve to be happy, even if 3/5 of them are Gigantic Meanies

And some silly little details for fun!!

Porchay is a Kpop stan, I’m a Kpop stan so I’m projecting (he makes Porsche watch music videos with him and they learned a dance together once)

Porsche (pre-mafia) was involved in a variety of activities (street racing, dance battles, catering, modeled once or twice)

Porsche can do street dancing, learned when he was like 11 and it became his go to dance style

Porsche and Chay have matching tasers (Kuromi and My Melody respectively)

They bond over sad music (Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift and Mitski)

Chay likes Sanrio

Chay gets his own ‘stage name’ (its Serpent, he wanted a cool sounding one like Phoenix)

Macau shows up more, no particular reason I just miss him

Jom and Tem show up more towards the beginning (they’re Porsches ride or dies)

Big also speaks English (while Ken is Aussie, he’s got a bit of a English accent)

Kinn really likes snoopy (he has a snoopy blanket from Khun that he hides)

Khun makes the bodyguards (main 6) dress up as the sailor scouts at some point. They all fight over who gets to be Sailor Moon (Ken won and actually ate it up)

A lot more name calling and cursing, I’m talking fun ones!! Porsche calls Ken and big lots of names when they’re rivals. (‘Mean girls’, ‘Dick riders’, at one point ‘Jack and Jill’)

Kim is into lots of alt-rock, pop-punk, and alt-indie American bands

his music as WIK is nothing like any of that. It’s just Jeff saturs discography (in my mind I’m mixing in other solo artists, mainly eric nam and RM) [i have a lot of brain rot regarding music]

Kinn is a LOSER (/pos, affectionate) he deserves it

The bodyguards get drunk together and make a tier list on which Theerapanyakun boy is the most likely to get canceled and why (ignoring mafia activities) [i might make this a post later lmao]

While they’re getting drunk Porsche falls and eats shit, big loses it and cries from laughing (that’s their little break through moment in their friendship)

[arthurlightstar]

15, 17, 25

Ask game here

15. What's their biggest struggle now that everything is over?

FYI - This leads very well into the next question.

I’m going to take a step back and talk a little about how we decided to characterize the nature of The Dark Urge, Bhaalspawn, and how Arthur feels about The Dark Urge. Shout out to my bestie of all time Claire for this, but we ended up drawing a good chunk of inspiration from Lucifier from John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

When the Dark Urge defies Bhaal, and is freed from their urges by Withers, the game says durge has been freed from bhaal’s influence and cured of their urges. What exactly does this mean? There’s some small things in the game I could talk about (like the fact that the dwarf meat still heals durge post Bhaal rejection, and the fact that durge is still saying crazy durge lines walking around town (unsure if this is just muscle memory on durge’s part (my favorite answer), a glitch, or whatever LOL)). But for the sake of what we’re doing we decided what is functionally happening here is Withers has severed Bhaal’s control over durge’s soul, and durge can no longer be controlled by their father.

Does durge still have urges? Again, regardless of what the game says, we’re having our own fun, and we decided the answer is…. Sort of! Arthur, after rejecting his father, is no longer subject or in danger of loosing consciousness/having his bodily autonomy revoked by his dad. But he is still ‘biologically’ a bhaalspawn. He is still made of some kind of Same Stuff his father made him from, and still desires violence. Think of Arthur is kind of like a tiger walking around in a human skinsuit. He looks like a person but he’s motivated by some very different base desires.

Arthur and Karis at their core are men who desperately want to be themselves and be free to be themselves and be more and something else than their father made them to be. In falling from his father’s grace, Arthur is given a chance to remake himself and decide who he wants to be.

How he feels about this, after rejecting his father but still desiring violence and bloodshed is….. complicated. He still wants many of the things he wanted, but he doesn’t have to worry about the danger of loosing control of himself if he indulges them. His first reaction is to just go crazy and indulge his urges. He hasn’t been able to without fear of loosing himself and he wants to!!! But he starts to wonder if he just comes back around to behaving exactly in the way his father made him to behave…. Who does that make him? After this realization he swings hard to adopting a nonviolence approach to his life. It doesn’t last forever, and I’m not entirely sure how long it lasts, but he does learn important things about himself through it.

So to actually answer the question — dealing with his “urges” and what they now mean now that his actions are entirely his own is the thing he struggles with the most. It ties directly in with the fundemanetal question of ‘Who am I’, which is something that’ll change and grow and he will continue to ask himself over his whole life.

17. Was it worth it?

Arthur defying Bhaal is never a question. The real question for him is whether or not he was going to become the absolute. We’re still working on the minutia of this decision, but he ends up not doing it because he’s not willing to betray his companions like that. He regrets not becoming the absolute for awhile, and thinks he should have tried harder to convince them that it would be a good plan.

It takes some time, and I’m not entirely sure of the circumstances that bring him to this realization, but he does come around on this eventually. To be able to feel confident in this decision, he has to truly put his feud between himself and dad behind him and accept who he is. Arthur is someone, who even after amnesia and defying his father, has great difficulty in seeing any meaningful difference between him and Bhaal. It’s something that’s going to plague him for a long time, but in the mean time, he has his freedom, and as cheesy and improbable as it sounds, he has Astarion. He’ll get there eventually, and when he does, the answer will be yes.

25. What happened to a bunch of very peculiar weapons such as; the Fabricated Arbalest, the Stillmaker, Bloodthirst, Crimson Mischief, Ketherics Warhammer, all that fun stuff.

Going through these in order of emotional significance, and also throwing on one that isn’t in this list — the deathstalker mantle.

Ketheric’s warhammer — It didn’t really mean anything to Arthur, and probably doesn’t mean much to any of the other companions. In all honesty, unless someone called dibs on it, it was likely sold. I also have trouble imagining it had any particular significance to Karis. There’s some interesting parallels between Ketheric and Karis as two “god shopping” paladins, but I don’t think any of that would lead to the warhammer having emotional significance.

Fabricated Arablest —Arthur thinks it is a beautiful weapon, but feels weird about it for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand why. I’d like to think Karlach got dibs on Gortash’s loot but also have trouble seeing her wanting any of it. Lae’zel likely takes it — after Karlach, she has the highest need for a powerful weapon like that (in Arthur’s play through, she returns to fight against Vlaakith). Arthur thinks Gortash is a disgusting person and it takes a long time for him to understand the totality of what his relationship was with Gortash before his memory loss. He thinks he was close to Gortash because he didn’t have anyone else and Gortash is a manipulative fucko, and he’s not wrong about this, but there was a tiny part of him he loved. I don’t know if he ever figures that out. So he mostly just feels weird about the weapon and wants nothing to do with it.

Stillmaker / Crimson Mischief — The second he gets them he flippantly gives them to Astarion and jokes about them being dowry gifts from his dad. As time goes on they become uncomfortable reminders of Orin, but at the end of the day they’re Astarion’s daggers to him. It’s his way of relinquishing his family history.

Sword of Chaos — This is the sword Karis uses through the end of act 3. The Sword of Chaos was Karis’ favorite weapon as bhaal’s chosen. It is technically Sarevok’s, but (because of reasons I won’t get into here) Karis *hated* Sarevok. In the timeline we established for Karis/Arthur, Karis takes Sarevok’s sword from him when he becomes the fully fledged chosen of Bhaal because he wants to put Sarevok in his place. Arthur takes it again from Sarevok when he kills him at the murder tribunal. It’s one of the only relics of Bhaal that he keeps, because to him it represents his ability and will to subvert his father’s influence.

The Deathstalker mantle — This is by far the most significant of magical items tied up in his history with Bhaal. Ontop of that — it’s an item that is exclusively useful only if he is killing people (yeah yeah everything else is a WEAPON what else are they used for but roll with me here- non lethal damage exists! 😌) We’re still working out the details of what exactly post game looks like, but this ends up being another one of the relics he gives to Astarion, who makes a lot of use out of it. With time, it eventually becomes more of Astarion’s cape than his.

[amigosmercedes]

Rumors Related SWIFTGRON

The ladies and girl before SWIFTGRON happened it seems just like fun girl that maybe an emotional attraction that Taylor has not act on it physically before Dianna. Many lesbian/bi-women have crush with women that they never act on it. I had a crush with a girl in 7th grade, she was in 9th grade, and I never act on it. Because I do not understand my sexuality before I reach early 20′s. This might apply to Taylor Swift. Dianna could be the first person Taylor has been physically acted on it. We have The Very First Night songs, that literally could be their first physically together.

So, I compile the theory from Reddit and L Chat that based on random data. The theory was based on timeline.

SWIFTGRON timeline in general:

2010 - Taylor and Dianna are introduced through mutual friends.

2011 - Taylor and Dianna start their “friendship” in earnest. Some think it happened way earlier than September, especially if Taylor was on the prowl

Early 2012 - Their managers/agents hatched the ridiculous “feud” narrative that went viral, only for them to shut it down with their movie date.

Adding some details about 2012 Autumn Swiftgron, per a mutual:

“September 28 Dianna arrived in Paris with her two gay besties. Taylor was supposed to arrive as well but is delayed. Naya Rivera flys to Paris and spends the weekend with Dianna who is disappointed.

Naya leaves and Taylor  arrives October 1 and they have their week in Paris. They’re only seen out on the Wednesday evening having dinner but no photo was taken.

They spend their time together away in a hotel room when Taylor is not filming the MV for the song of their love story beginning- begin again. (The director chose to deviate from the lyrics and focus on it seeing you as a couple getting back together. The actual song begin again it’s about Taylor emoji story of Love begins again and you with someone.)

Shortly after this time Taylor arrives back in LA and immediately enters the studio on October 17 to record This Love about the time in Paris and the days that followed.

Dianna and Taylor are inseparable at this point.”

Late 2012 - Theyre fine, but making Taylor’s teams nervous, despite Dianna having “boyfriends” during their friendship.

I don’t think it was “cheating”, but Taylor may have felt that way, since it also sounds like they didn’t have proper boundaries when they first started doing whatever.  Not to mention they probably had outside forces not wanting them to be together, who probably fed them misinfo (“…she’ll just hurt you…”, “…you’re just another girl to her…”, “…she was still messing with her ex when you got together…”, etc etc).

Regarding Taylor and Dianna on-off relationship was based on

1.) Taylors Lyrics 

2.) Taylors comments in interviews 

3.) Taylor and Dianna using coded language, and Taylor and Dianna's use of social media to communicate to each other when they're not together.  Allegedly.

The HOW YOU GET THE GIRL & CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS corroborated the rumors of allegedly Dianna proposed Taylor to save their relationship. Although in contrary, it throws their relationship to the cliff of separation.

Rumors are that Taylor’s team broke them up, due to worries about Taylor’s career.  There are other rumors that Dianna proposed to Taylor, and Taylor’s team freaked out, either because:

1.) Taylor initially accepted;

2.) Taylor wanted to but consulted her parents, team and label, they said no;

3.) Taylor’s Rhode Island house shopping and purchase was for her and Dianna, the proposal got back to her team (or something similarly serious), and they ended it.

This would be in April 2013, after the Glee tweet (damn you, Ryan!), and the fake article going viral that outed them before Dianna’s birthday, where Taylor had an extended break despite the Red tour just starting.  

THE TAKE ON ALL RUMOURS

External circumstances, I believe, were to blame for the breakup. Taylor was under constant pressure, and she always, and I mean, chose her career. Dianna's post on her tumbler the day that was rumored they have broken up, with the #lost love " I will always care for you even if we were not together and even were far, far away from each other" The line of the getaway car "We were jet set, Bonnie and Clyde, until I switched sides, its no surprise that I turned you in, coz US traitors never win" (because Taylor chose her career) but she is crying and dying in the getaway car because her heart was broken by her choice) and that on her rep tour poem "why I disappear," she is dreaming of having a time machine and she goes back to the getaway car because she wants to undo things that happened in the getaway car song.

She always chose Scott and trusted him from the beginning because she raised Scott to look up to her as a daughter he never had, but then the master heist happened, and as she crashed, the winds snatched away her fair weather pals.. so who is the guy standing by her with broad shoulder? When she lost her label, who was with her when she was on vacation? and when she was canceled by everyone in 2016?

Regarding 'tis the damn season,' I believe it is from Dianna's point of view (She is still committed at the moment), and Dorothea is Taylor singing to the narrator of tis the damn season.

When people say Dianna cheated because we don't have any proof of it. I just believe it was extremely difficult on both of them. When you're around that age, I believe you also begin your first "adult" relationship, which is unlike any other relationship you've ever had. So having that weight plus the outside pressures is a lot.

[zinzinina]

Sam my love, congrats on 500 followers; I can't wait to see your blog grow even more!! And omg this celebration is so adorable, I love it! Here is my dating card, miss matchmaker 😌

Dolphin

Night out: going to the fair (or a theme park). Day in: listening to music while doing arts and crafts

Humor, understanding, likes to spend quality time

Dance To This by Troye Sivan & Ariana Grande

It's a toss-up between getting eaten by a shark over and over again or having everyone I've ever known tell me I'm a failure 🙃

Lmfao well that was a fun place to end! I don't have a preferred gender and I've got no blood feuds 😌 Thanks bestie, and congrats again! 🎉🎉

Hi Divs! Your date is below the cut:

Cassian can seem a little cold at first. Don’t hold it against him; he just takes a bit of time to warm up. Once he knows you, though, you’ll never find a truer romantic at heart. Cassian lives for thoughtful displays of affection. He’ll quite literally sweep you off your feet at any chance he gets, wanting nothing more than to have you wrapped up in his arms. He thinks and feels everything so much more deeply than you may expect from his standoffish exterior, which makes shared  moments between just the two of you his favourite thing in the galaxy. It means he can unwind for a little bit, forget about the enormous responsibilities he carries and pretend that this is all that matters: you, him, and giddy, breathless kisses and laughter.

For your date, you’re headed to the planet Thune, famous for its beautiful canals (don’t worry, there are no sharks). Cassian’s probably going to want to steal liberate some fresh star-jasmine from one of the stalls in the marketplace as you make your way down to the gondolas. He’ll insist on arranging them in your hair himself, wanting to see the pale petals framing your face across from him. You’ll catch him shutting his eyes and pressing a kiss to your hand as he helps you into the boat, allowing himself to simply be a normal man on a date with a beautiful woman just for a short while. Cassian has a beautiful singing voice; something not many people know about him and even fewer get to experience for themselves. Leaning back as the water carries you through the streets, the sound of his quiet voice is going to be just as much of a gentle rocking as the water itself. It’s okay to drift off if you need; he’s keeping a close watch over everything around you both.

Thank you for using Sam’s Star Wars Matchmaking Service™️! Please note: Thune authorities advise flower theft is an offence punishable by repeated canal-dunking and therefore is strongly discouraged. May the Spires Keep You! x

[curufins-smile]

I never thought it would come to this

But I’ve reached Peak Irritation so here we go.

Feanor’s treatment in this fandom is frankly unfair and I’m sick of it. No other character gets so consistently called “crazy” and is derided so much. Feanor and most of his sons are often treated worse than Sauron and Melkor and I don’t understand at all. So I’m going to address some of the key misunderstandings i see all the time here. No references, i wrote this at work, if I’m wrong on anything please forgive me and correct me. Also I’m really very angry about some of the things I’ve seen recently so forgive the super confrontational language.

I’d just like to state a disclaimer.

I am not saying Feanor did nothing wrong. I am not minimising his misdeeds. I am addressing character issues that are frequently mishandled or overlooked.

1) Feanor is a bad father.

First, I don’t accept amrod dying at losgar as canon as it isn’t in the actual silm so don’t start about that. Secondly, why on earth would his sons have immediately sworn the oath if he was a bad dad?? I wouldn’t instantly swear a life binding oath for my dad and i love him very much. All quotes in regards to feanor and his sons describe a relationship where he cares for them a great deal and they him, with them travelling Valinor. I just can’t really understand how this hc has propagated because all evidence is to the contrary.

2) Feanor was awful to his stepmother

This is a sticky one as I am not denying that this is a two sided issue. Feanor was certainly not the best stepson/brother. But I feel here that there’s a wilful lack of empathy that goes on. If going with the timeline where feanor is an adult when Finwe remarries this is a different argument. However a lot of the fandom goes with the timeline where Feanor is still a kid (and this is my personal timeline so let’s argue that).

Real life families struggle with divorce and grief. A divorce or bereavement can often create issues for someone struggling with the loss. There is a reason that grief counselling exists and is often heavily recommended if someone is grieving so strongly. Magnify this by the fact that Finwe and Feanor are the only family in Valinor to even have this problem, and there likely being no one who can empathise with their pain, and you have them unable to even get help if they wanted it.

This is also two sided. Indis is the adult in this situation. Please don’t accuse me of hating on her, because i think it’s a very difficult situation for her. But as the adult, she’s capable of more rational thought than Feanor, and she should have assured him that she wasn’t attempting to replace Miriel.

Also, Indis is literally the reason Miriel can never return from death. You can argue that Feanor should be hating Finwe instead, but Finwe has been raising Feanor alone for pretty much his entire life, and Feanor *can’t* hate him. So Indis bears the brunt of it, which isn’t fair on her but nothing about this situation is fair.

3) The thing about the Þ

As someone who has had their name mispronounced their entire life, that shit fucking sucks. Also please i beg you stop calling it a lisp. I’ve got a damn lisp and it took a lot of work to get over so can we not make fun of that shit. I don’t have any nuanced arguments about linguistic shift, I’m just sick of people making fun of my speech impediment and my wish to have my name said fucking right thanks.

4) Feanor was hysterical and irrational in his feud with Fingolfin

No hate to Fingolfin but. He literally was spreading shit. There were two sides to the feud. Fingolfin handled it much better than Feanor, but Melkor was whispering in his ear probably more than he was to Feanor even. I’m not saying that Feanor didn’t overreact, but let’s not pretend Fingolfin was a perfect saint because you’re actually removing a lot of the agency from his character. Fingolfin genuinely was talking shit about Feanor and angling for the throne. It wasn’t just Feanor deciding one day to threaten his innocent brother. Was Losgar too paranoid? Yes. But one promise from Fingolfin that they’re besties now isn’t going to magically remove that feud mistrust.

5) Feanor was wrong to refuse the Valar the silmarils

No. This is bullshit. As someone whose work relies on materials manufactured by someone else this is legitimately a huge peeve for me. This is like DMC laying claim to all my cross stitch because they made the threads. It’s ridiculous.

Was Feanor wrong to refuse them when the trees had been destroyed? I think personally it’s a moot point as they were already stolen by then. But let’s look at the situation Feanor is in here.

He’s at a party he was ORDERED to go to. He’s been banished due to manwe interfering where he frankly shouldn’t have, and then made to go to this event. The valar have a history with the silmarils (I can’t imagine feanor actually being too pleased about Varda hallowing them). If i were put into this situation I’m fairly certain I’d tell them to get fucked too.

6) Feanor was crazy and took his people to war over shiny rocks

I am sick of seeing people calling Feanor crazy and then seeing their blogs full of “your mental illness is valid uwu” stuff. You don’t get to do both. Feanor suffers some kind of mental break due to his grief over his father. His actions before and his actions after Finwe’s death are two totally separate things. Feanor partly wants after Melkor for the silmarils of course but what is often forgotten is that he wants revenge for Finwe. Finwe is possibly the person Feanor loves most in the world, every single line of text about their relationship describes Feanor as loving him more than the trees or “the peerless works of his hand”, so more than the silmarils. Finwe is gone, and Feanor is now having to deal with that loss, and as said above historically grief has not been well handled among the elves. There’s no time for counselling if there even were such facilities so Feanor again has to work through it himself. Which he clearly can’t.

I am not stating Feanor is “broken” or what he did was not wrong.

There is absolutely no shame in needing help to get through mental illness or difficult periods. And mental illness such as depression (which i have so don’t start at me) is no excuse for the first kinslaying etc. I am just attempting to provide a more nuanced view about this since i so frequently see people just assigning it as Feanor “being crazy”. He’s grieving.

I’m going to leave off here because otherwise I could rant for days. The point here is not that I am trying to say Feanor did nothing wrong. I like my characters nuanced and I don’t think that can be done by erasing their misdeeds. But I just want to address a lot of the things I’ve been seeing because it’s really irritating to me that Feanor is being criticised for things exclusively when there were many factors.

If you want to shout at me about this please don’t, 90% of the fandom thinks the way you do. I wrote this to vent steam.

[placetobenation]

Thumbs up!

That’s how I look at this week. First off, some personal news. Sorry I missed everyone last week. Unfortunately, I had a medical situation where I was diagnosed with a minor stroke. Luckily, my wife got me to the hospital in time for the best of care and we are now moving forward. The good news is that it could’ve been a lot of worse and I’m still here, lucky to be back with you this week, giving me great distraction to what’s been a very stressful 7 days.

As for the WWE, that too is a thumbs up good week. The Payback PPV was highlighted by Roman Reigns winning the Universal Championship over The Fiend and Braun Strowman along with Keith Lee’s clean victory over Randy Orton. Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax winning the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles with a bizarre double-submission by Baszler surely sent the former tag champs into a spiral.

RAW was solid too but NXT and SmackDown for me was off the charts! From top to bottom on both Wednesday and Friday nights, both NXT and SmackDown had me glued to my seat. Of course, the highlights being the incredible finish to the NXT Championship Iron Man Match as well as Bayley’s turn on best friend Sasha Banks. We’ll get into those in our show recaps. But it wasn’t just those moments, it was show flow, attention to details and adding personality and personal items into the storyline. It makes a HUGE difference.

Finally, Friday night was my first venture into the WWE ThunderDome. Originally, my daughter and I were confirmed to be on the video wall last Friday, but real life got in the way. So, one week later, we were active participants among the over 900 fans in the ThunderDome. How was it, you may ask? Well, I thought it was a great experience. It’s not something I would do every week because being part of a live event is exhausting. But, every once in a while, I would absolutely do it. In addition to being able to be part of the crowd for 205 LIVE and SmackDown, we got special backstage access to WWE Superstars Jeff Hardy, Cesaro and Drew Gulak. It had that old school live event feel just for us. So, that’s a good thing and I hope they continue to tweak it moving forward because all-in-all, it was fun to be a fan again at a wrestling event, even if it was from my own house.

Now, on to the week that was in the WWE.

Star of the Week:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, @itsBayleyWWE?!?!?! The #SmackDown #WomensChampion just unleashed a relentless assault on her best friend @SashaBanksWWE!!! pic.twitter.com/PZyZAyXjmu

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Bayley – No question here as Bayley upstages Roman Reigns and Keith Lee. There’s no more wondering where and when the BFF’s will break up. The SmackDown Women’s Champion has had enough with Sasha Banks and her heinous attack on Banks puts her right atop the heel chain in WWE and we love it!

RAW

RESULTS

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Qualifying Match: Keith Lee defeated Dolph Ziggler

Mickie James defeated Lana

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Qualifying Match: Randy Orton defeated Kevin Owens

The Viking Raiders & Cedric Alexander defeated Bobby Lashley, MVP & Shelton Benjamin

The Riott Squad defeated The IIconics – The IIconics have to split up

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Qualifying Match: Seth Rollins defeated Dominik Mysterio

Tornado Tag Team Match: The Street Profits vs. Andrade & Angel Garza went to a no-contest due to RETRIBUTION interference

WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Match: Randy Orton defeated Seth Rollins & Keith Lee

Loved it:

enTITLEd.@RandyOrton will see @DMcIntyreWWE for the #WWETitle at #WWEClash of Champions! #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/DbXLT0HMo2

— WWE (@WWE) September 1, 2020

Randy Orton – Not only did Orton regain his #1 Contender’s status, but he didn’t it following a loss to Keith Lee at Payback, used Aleister Black to do his bidding and pinned Seth Rollins to get his WWE Championship Match. Orton is not only getting himself over but getting Lee up the ladder as well. The Legend Killer continues to be one of the top performers in the WWE right now.

Wow. @WWEAleister was not done with @FightOwensFight yet. #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/RqUmO1Z5cp

— WWE (@WWE) September 1, 2020

Asuka – Give me more! In the ring, on the mic, on commentary, she’s entertaining as hell. Sure, we don’t expect her to lose to Mickie James, Natalya or Lana in the near future, but at least she’ll make it exciting. I wonder if we get her alter-ego clown character as some point too! That would be interesting.

Blow us all away, @35_Dominik! #WWERaw pic.twitter.com/P7BDCwv2U2

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) September 1, 2020

Dominik Mysterio – It’s still early in his WWE career, but he continues to impress. Getting a tag team win with his father over Rollins and Buddy Murphy at Payback for his first win was awesome. Then, just 24 hours later, he holds his own in a #1 Contender’s Match with Rollins. Even with Rey injured with a torn triceps, it looks like we’ll be getting a healthy dose of the Mysterio family with Rey’s wife Angie and Dominik’s sister now on with on-camera roles. Good stuff so far. Hope it continues.

Why?:

YOU'VE GOTTA BE JOKING US!

@PeytonRoyceWWE just threw @BillieKayWWE into #RawUnderground against @jessamynduke AND @MarinaShafir!#WWERaw pic.twitter.com/XjQ5W0AlKz

— WWE (@WWE) September 1, 2020

Teach us how to say goodbye.#WWERaw @BillieKayWWE @PeytonRoyceWWE pic.twitter.com/e198SBAB1m

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) September 1, 2020

The IIconics – Was there a need to split them up? Having Peyton and Billie Kay go their separate ways – maybe against each other after the RAW Underground fiasco – seems a bit forced. Who knows, maybe they will surprise us but a feud between them doesn’t seem that appealing.

No Sasha & Bayley follow-up – They’ve been on almost every show for months yet now, when things are getting intriguing between the besties, we get nothing from them about losing the tag titles to Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax. We needed to hear SOMETHING from them and not let it wait until Friday night. The Women’s Tag Team Championship is on all shows and it deserved a few minutes on Monday night.

RETRIBUTION – Why are they now attacking the tag teams – The Street Profits and Andrade & Angel Garza are this week’s targets after the Mysterios got it last week. Even poor Zelina Vega got beat up too! We need more than a two-minute interruption each week. This club needs some direction, some depth and someone explaining what the hell they are doing there. It’s been over a month now. Also, isn’t it funny how things just go right back to normal after RETRIBUTION attacks? Funny, huh. Finally, how inept is security that they can’t keep 5-10 people out of the building when they run in a pack?

Welcome:

Nobody wants it with these two.#WWERaw #RawUnderground @MarinaShafir @jessamynduke pic.twitter.com/sK3TXTQrJq

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) September 1, 2020

Jessamyn Duke – Duke makes her RAW Underground debut, alongside fellow Four Horse Women Marina Shafir’s second bout. I know it’s building to the eventual stable, but will it only be on RU or on RAW as well. Just having them on RU seems like a waste since it’s never been explained other than a side show.

NXT

RESULTS

Street Fight: Breezango & Isaiah “Swerve” Scott defeated Legado del Fantasma

Candace LeRae defeated Kacy Catanzaro

Timothy Thatcher defeated Bronson Reed

Fatal 4-Way 60-Minute Iron Man NXT Championship Match: Adam Cole and Finn Balor tied at 2 pinfalls a piece over Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano – Balor and Cole face-off next week in sudden death match for NXT Championship

LOVED IT:

WAIT A MINUTE!!! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?! @AdamColePro & @FinnBalor are tied at 2 as time expired!!

#NXTTitle #WWENXT #NXTSuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/xxtdTqjS5x

— WWE (@WWE) September 2, 2020

The entire show – No fluff. Wrestling in-ring was excellent. I’m sure some will quibble with the tie between Cole and Balor for the title, but I don’t mind it at all. The final few minutes led to a frantic final seconds which is all you can ask for. Now, we get Balor vs. Cole next week for all the marbles and how can you be mad at that?! Personal development with Candace LeRae/Tegan Nox using Kacy Catanzaro/Kayden Carter’s relationship was excellent. Setting up Rhea Ripley vs. Mercedes Martinez in a steel cage next week was short and sweet, exactly what it needed to be. The 6-man street fight was awesome including a double dive off a forklift by Fandango and Swerve which lead to the ultimate pin by Scott over Escobar. Wonderful stuff. Plus, Reed vs. Thatcher moved things along for Thatcher’s eventual NXT North American Championship Match while pushing Austin Theory back into the physical mix with Reed worked too. All-in-all, a very entertaining two-hours.

#WWENXT #NXTSuperTuesday @WWEFandango @swerveconfident pic.twitter.com/PgMracBJGT

— WWE (@WWE) September 2, 2020

Wade Barrett – While we do miss Mauro Ranollo at the NXT announce desk after his mutual parting of ways with WWE, Barrett is a welcome edition with insight and knowledge. Plus, he’s got a few good one-liners to boot. 

SMACKDOWN

RESULTS

Heavy Machinery defeated The Miz & John Morrison

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Match: Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler defeated Sasha Banks & Bayley to retain titles

Universal Championship #1 Contender’s Fatal Four-Way Match: Jey Uso defeated Matt Riddle, Sheamus and King Corbin

LOVED IT:

With @HeymanHustle by his side, the NEW #UniversalChampion @WWERomanReigns has spoken on #SmackDown. pic.twitter.com/VgLRcQz4dL

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Roman & Paul – Starting the show with an epic shootlike promo from Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns was perfect! Adding some reality to Heyman being bounced from RAW power to the Reigns storyline, saying it was Roman who brought Paul back in was classic. Dropping the reality line about Corey Graves being Carmella’s last boyfriend was hilarious. It’s stuff like that that brings it home.

"Hey Big Dog, I made the family proud too!" – Jey @WWEUsos #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/FfbFd1CmRD

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) September 5, 2020

Roman & Jey – Adding Jey Uso to the #1 Contender’s Match, thanks to Paul Heyman after Sheamus’ attack on Big E, brings in a family, personal matter to the forefront. It’s the best storyline they could’ve chosen going forward. Do we expect Uso to win, of course not. But having Reigns bad mouth his cousin and then ultimately beat him up at Clash of Champions is pure evil and will add to his badass appeal. Plus, the main event was on point giving me everything I could ask from from Uso, Matt Riddle, Sheamus and King Corbin. Good work all around.

OH MY GOD!! #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/BKAoBUvY9P

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) September 5, 2020

Bayley’s breakup – Want more can we say about this one. We knew it was coming, for months, and yet it was still OMG shocking! The way it played out with Sasha Banks having a knee injury and Bayley seemingly there for her BFF and then beating the holy hell out of her is something we thought Banks could do, but not Bayley. Well played Hugger! Now we can look forward to them beating each other’s brains out for months ahead and that’s good for us!

#SmackDown pic.twitter.com/x664UVUPIB

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Who’s that girl – It was only a few seconds but we are intrigued who that leggy, fur-wearing WWE Superstar is. Effective tease to say the least.

Funny:

Otis & John Morrison – Having Morrison steal the money in the bank briefcase had some intrigue and then having Otis hand him his lunch, literally, in that briefcase was laugh out loud funny. Otis is just lovable and plays it well.

Sami Zayn – The dude is just plain gold on the mic. Love him in the middle of this Intercontinental Title feud with Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles!

OUCH:

Wow. @WWEBigE just felt the power of The #CelticWarrior @WWESheamus. #SmackDown pic.twitter.com/ryEcj7OYVX

— WWE (@WWE) September 5, 2020

Poor Big E – I would love to know how much money a year WWE spends on damaged cars! This time, Big E is the latest victim after a White Noise from Sheamus leaves him hospital-bound and out of the #1 Contender’s Match. There will be a New Day of Vengeance ahead for Sheamus I’m sure whether it be from Big E or the returning Xavier Woods.

Parting shots:

If you haven’t watch 205 LIVE, give it a chance. This week’s episode had some quality in-ring performances from Daviri & Mansoor and was climaxed by a Legado del Fantasma attack on Ever-Rise and Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch. Whether it be on 205 LIVE or NXT, simply loving the old school feel of Legado del Fantasma, led by Cruiserweight Champion Santos Escobar. They’re getting it done in and out of the ring these days.

Coming up this week:

RAW: Drew McIntyre’s response to Randy Orton

.@FinnBalor and @AdamColePro are on a collision course for the #NXTTitle after a dead heat conclusion to an unforgettable Iron Man Match on #WWENXT. #NXTSuperTuesday Full results

https://t.co/3pjqYFs1Qf pic.twitter.com/5OY1Ifu06t

— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) September 2, 2020

NXT: Super Tuesday II NXT Championship Match: Adam Cole vs. Finn Balor Steel Cage Battle of the Badasses Match: Rhea Ripley vs. Mercedes Martinez

SMACKDOWN: TBD

Thanks for letting us share our thoughts! Shoot me an email at jcrowe567@gmail.com. We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions! You can also check out my blog, The Crowe’s Nest as we delve into more pro wrestling, sports entertainment and the World of Sports. My apologies ahead of time – I AM a Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins fan! If you’re not down with that, I’ve got TWO WORDS for you… NEW ENGLAND

[placetobenation]

Tomorrow is another one of those Divas anniversaries – fourteen years to the day since Trish Stratus and Lita wrestled in the main event of Monday Night Raw in a Women’s Title match.

This is a big one, not only because it was just the second time a women’s match headlined an episode of Raw without any pesky men around, and not only because it was the biggest bout yet between the two biggest stars of the era, but also because it was the culmination of a nine month feud that was far and away the best thing about Raw in 2004.

On a personal note, this is the 20th Deep Dive I’ve written for you kind folks, and in an extraordinary and uncharacteristic show of restraint, I Dove Deep nineteen whole times while barely mentioning the greatest of all time, my sun and stars, moon of my life, Trish Stratus. Now, that’s simply because I’m so excited to talk about ALL of these women and there’s so much to cover, but that streak is well and truly over today because for real dudes, Trish Stratus in 2004 is the greatest gift that He ever sent down from the heavens to grace this wretched wasteland of a planet.

She is God tier.

The entire feud is fantastic, in fact, so let me spin you another yarn. There are about three different soap opera storylines to get through here so the short version of this preamble is that in late 2003 Trish and Lita, bestest best friends, were being pursued by Jericho and Christian respectively, the boys made a bet for $1 (Canadian) that they could hit that, Jericho ended up catching feelings and turning babyface, only for Trish to kick his ass to the curb and turn heel and mack on with Christian on the WrestleMania XX stage.

Thank u, next.

You may wonder how Trish goes from breaking Jericho’s heart to making Lita’s life a living hell. After all, last we saw they were bestest best friends! I’ll tell you how. This was all the fault of a women’s battle royal. In wrestling, some battle royals are throwaway. Others change the course of the next nine months of television. This was the match that launched a thousand skits.

It was a couple weeks after WrestleMania, and this particular battle royal was for No. 1 Contendership. Basically all of the other dorks got tossed during the ad break and we end up with Trish and Lita facing off in a big finishing stretch to determine the winner. Despite Trish and Christian still being in the middle of their feud with Jericho, and despite Jericho’s interference late in this match handing Lita the victory, Trish seems FAR more offended at Lita beating her than at anything Jericho is doing. It’s a subtle shift in Trish’s motivation, where the focus of her vitriol becomes her bestie/archrival, Lita, someone she’s comfortable fighting against, instead of a man that she isn’t really a physical threat to. Heel Trish liked to punch down, and Lita was a much easier target.

She had NO IDEA how much of an easy target Lita would soon become.

For reasons that remain unbeknownst to this day, I believe, one fateful day on Raw, Kane decided to interrupt a Divas tag team match, corner Lita in the ring, and forcibly kiss her. Oh yes my dudes, THIS WHOLE THING THAT HAPPENED.

Kane began stalking Lita on Raw every week, with her then-boyfriend Matt Hardy often getting in the middle. Trish Stratus observed her best friend being relentlessly stalked and molested by a psychopathic monster and decided, “Yep. I am going to ROAST THE SHIT OUT OF THIS BITCH LMAO”

She started out with the gold standard of fuckwithery, “Oh no! Look out! Kane’s behind you! BAHAHAHAHAHA!” And just stepped it up from there.

When Kane defeated Matt Hardy at SummerSlam 2004 for the right to marry Lita (I know, I know…) Trish was kind and thoughtful enough to corral the other heel Divas and throw Lita a bridal shower! (And let me tell you, the way that Trish utters the phrase, “Because you have to marry *KANE*” is just… I saw God.)

Then we ALL saw God when she crashed the wedding itself.

If you can get past the outfit, this run in is also basically the greatest speech anyone has ever made at a wedding. “All you have to do is open your heart! Just like you opened your legs!”

Holy moley.

When Lita was impregnated with Kane’s demon baby as a result of Kane coercing her into sex to protect Matt Hardy (hmmm why does this sound so familiar??) who else was there to greet her backstage with jokes about it “festering” inside her but King Dick Trish. That whole episode in fact (Raw, September 6th) was basically a one woman show. She dragged Lita mercilessly for getting knocked up by Kane, turned around and dragged Nidia for yelling at her in Spanish (“I don’t speak German!”), then dragged Nidia in the ring to one of her best matches like the GOAT she is, and then when Nidia started making her comeback, Trish could super not be fucked dealing with it and just straight up RIPPED NIDIA’S SHIRT CLEAN OPEN to distract her and kicked her head off.

I have no words for that kind of thuggery.

But back to our bullshit, when Lita then lost the aforementioned demon baby after an unfortunate and definitely-not-his-fault incident with Gene Snitsky (I KNOW, I KNOW OKAY!), who was there waiting to savage her some more about losing her pregnancy weight and drop lines like “At Survivor Series you’re gonna lose to me, just like you lost your baby” ?? You guessed it! King Dick Trish, the fucking asshole. What kind of prick trolls someone about having a miscarriage? Jesus.

Speaking of Survivor Series, let me catch you up on other, more normal events. At Bad Blood 2004, after an original Victoria vs. Gail Kim defense was changed to a four way with Trish and Lita, Trish, of course, stole the winning pin from under Lita’s nose and won the belt. From there it’s a tale of two women; Trish ruling atop of the Women’s Division as champ, and Lita toiling away in the Utter Bullshit Division. For months they only really ever met in these backstage skits and promos where Trish would body her over and over when she knew Lita couldn’t retaliate. And that was all they needed to make it the hottest feud on Raw.

Finally, in November Lita moved from the Utter Bullshit Division back into the Women’s Division and immediately set her sights firmly on Women’s Champion King Dick Trish Stratus. The match is made for Survivor Series. Jericho hosts a Highlight Reel featuring the both of them in the lead up, and he brings a referee out with him because he’s TERRIFIED of having them in the same room together.

With good reason. They’ve barely laid a hand on each other since that title match back in June. There is five full months of angst packed into this powder keg.

And it well and truly goes off at the PPV.

Trish comes out first and is STILL making puffy cheeked chubby faces as Lita makes her entrance, determined to make absolutely sure of her own death I guess. Lita walks down to the ring and punches Trish right in her fucking face. And punches her again. And again.

Then they go outside and all hell breaks loose. Lita grabs a chair and absolutely WALLOPS Trish for the DQ. Trish BLEEDS. Women NEVER bleed on WWE TV, but Trish got that juice brother. Lita kept going crazy and blasted Trish from behind right into the stairs in one of the greatest camera shots of all time. Trish freaks out spectacularly at the sight of her own blood. And somehow, considering this was an immediate DQ finish for a PPV title match they spent half the year building, this was some great business.

From this point forward Lita is fascinating to watch. You might think she’d go on some crazy tear of babyface revenge going after Trish’s title, but she’s actually the complete opposite. She’s not frantic or wild or in a hurry. She’s… calm. Almost serene. It’s as if she knows at this point that she HAS Trish. She’s got her. She’s finally free to fight her, she already beat the shit out of her at Survivor Series, now Trish is wearing a face mask on her broken nose that Lita can gleefully target, and she knows her day is coming. Lita is completely free to punch Trish in the face all she wants for all of the shit she’s been talking all year. Lita is free. Finally. And so she doesn’t chase Trish. She takes her time. She enjoys it. After all of the crazy shit she’s gone through in 2004, it’s actually a relief to just enjoy beating up a familiar foe in a wrestling match.

I bang on a lot about Trish here, and it’s always the heels that get to have more fun, but don’t sleep on Lita. She was also great during this entire angle (while having to do some truly horrid bullshit) and this part of it in particular was some fantastic work.

So the return match for title is finally made (by the ever-present Chris Jericho in his role as guest GM, in a nice touch) for the December 6th Raw. This show happens to be in Charlotte, not very far at all from Lita’s hometown at the time of Sanford, NC. The Women’s Title gets that main event slot baby. They spent the whole night recapping the feud to build up to it. Jim Ross dropped a great line about how to these women, this title means as much as the World’s Heavyweight Title does to the guys. The scene is set.

But not before one last backstage skit. We couldn’t really have it any other way. Trish had taken to calling Lita “The Walking Kiss of Death” and jokingly asked who’s career Lita was going to kill tonight, to which Lita obviously replied, “Yours” and gave her a big smackeroo. Now, Lita was just being smart here because as we know from this and Mickie James in the near future, kissing Trish before a match increases your chances of having a motherfucking BANGER with her by at least 1000%.

That’s just science.

What is a lot harder to explain with science is how Lita actually survived the match.

Y’all remember THAT bump. Lita hit a tope and landed so hard on her face her body scorpioned ov-argh. Nope. It’s fourteen years later and we know she was fine but man is it still hard to watch. She only came back from the broken neck a year earlier! Lita is officially a cyborg.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it, but it’s a shame that the scorpion bump is sometimes the only thing people remember about this match. What’s important to remember about this match is that IT FUCKING RULED.

The tension was palpable from the bell, and the crowd was ready. Trish took off her face mask and used it as a weapon BECAUSE HER FACE WAS FINE AFTER ALL in a move so dastardly it caused Jim Ross to wig the fuck out on commentary. Lita’s bad bump ended up serving the match, lending a lot of weight to Trish working over Lita’s head and neck during the heat. Lita came back with a powerbomb and the rare and elusive women’s superplex. There were a bunch of great, close nearfalls, and at this point the crowd was going insane chanting for Lita. When she finally went up and hit the redemptive, life affirming Moonsault for the win, people went APESHIT. J.R. literally screamed himself hoarse raving about Lita coming back from all that punishment and winning the belt.

A trillion and three quarter stars.

Revolution or no Revolution, this is still one of the very best women’s matches in company history. And the perfect capper, at that point, to a rivalry that had started all the way back in 2000, and boiled over so spectacularly in 2004. I just love these women.

You can actually watch the full match on WWE’s Youtube here.

That was a lot, and yet like, I feel like I didn’t even scratch the surface with Trish, or even get into half of the stuff with Kane and Lita and all of that nonsense. I’m going to suppress the masochistic urge to dive into it that further, and come back next week to talk about another one of my favourite girls, the unfairly-maligned Divas of the world.

Check it out: No. 1 Contender’s Battle Royal (Raw, April 5th 2004) Trish Stratus vs. Lita (Raw, April 12th 2004) Trish Stratus vs. Lita (Raw, May 17th 2004) Victoria vs. Gail Kim vs. Trish vs. Lita – Women’s Title (Bad Blood 2004) Trish Stratus vs. Lita – Women’s Title (Survivor Series 2004) Trish vs. Lita vs. Molly – Women’s Title (Raw, November 22nd 2004) Trish & Molly vs. Victoria & Lita (Raw, November 29th 2004) Trish Stratus vs. Lita – Women’s Title (Raw, December 6th 2004)