#whereas in lis it was like they both made some bad parenting decisions

[klaviergavinwiki]

ugh ugh ugh when i was 20 i thought i knew everything and that it was stupid to kill all of arcadia bay over chloe but now at 28 i realize she was just a traumatized teenager with some anger problems and i don't want her to die without having one last good week with max and also i like that she and david become close if she lives it's really sweet how he calls her sweetie on the phone like i know acab and he's military and stuff but david is kind of a blorbo ngl

[niawritess]

The Lovestruck~ Chapter 32

( 28th October)

It's been two weeks to Ria's and Chanyeol's wedding and they both were off to their honeymoon trip to Paris where Ria always wanted to go and Chanyeol kept his promise of taking her to her dream place.

On the other hand, you and Baekhyun told your parents about your decision to get married. They were surprised by the sudden news but since they also wanted it, they went along with it. Both of your parents had been meeting occasionally and three days before, both families had a dinner together.

They discussed everything regarding the marriage and hence, came to the conclusion that you both were going to get married at the end of this month. You and Baekhyun were on cloud nine even though he wanted to get married sooner than the decided date but eventually he was satisfied.

Your friends got to know about the news and you got the blessings of them and at the same time they were clowning Baekhyun for you to take the decision again but you just laughed it off as to you, it was the best decision. Talking about your bestfriend, she was beyond shocked and happy where she almost had Chanyeol to get his ear checked because of her scream. Their honeymoon was coming to an end and told they would be back by this weekend.

Coming back to the present, you were currently at your work place, photocopying some papers where some of your co-workers were seated on their tables discussing something while looking at the laptop.

"He's so handsome!" A co-worker exclaimed loudly enough to gain your attention and you tried to peek at her laptop screen curiously only to raise your eyebrows amusingly.

"I know right! He's Byun Baekhyun, his games have been nothing but a hotshot these days!" Another lady commented making you smile proudly upon hearing praises for your fiancé.

"But too bad, he's married."

You frowned confusingly collecting the papers in your hands while giving them a glance to hear more.

"Really?"

"Yes. Apparently, he said this in an interview that he has a wife." She sighed and you smiled again before taking the papers and walked to your cabin feeling joyful as your coworkers eyed you strangely.

Your work hours were over and you walked down the lobby while on your way to hail a cab as your car was in a repair shop and you had asked your brother Jae to drop you off in the morning after whining for ten minutes.

As you exited the building, whispers and gasps could be heard loudly enough to get your attention and being a curious human being, you followed their gaze to get surprised to see your one and only fiancé.

There he stood with his crossed arms, leaning against the car, in a pair of blue jeans with white button down, tucked in and rolled up sleeves showing his Rolex watch wrapped around his wrist, whereas his jet black hair styled down which he kept flipping back as he was scrolling through his phone.

He couldn't careless about the stares but as soon as his eyes met yours, he quickly straightened himself as he shot his eye smile. As those people saw him looking at you and your co-workers who were talking about him earlier stared at you shook.

Getting uncomfortable by their stares, you let out a huff before narrowing your eyes at him as soon as you aproached. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to pick up my soon to be wife, you got a problem with that?" He replied in a sassy tone as he opened the passenger's door and you bit your lip preventing yourself from smiling.

"Well, then you also know that your soon to be wife hates being the center of attention." You shot back standing between the passenger's door as you looked at him and him towering over you.

He gave you a confused look before roaming his eyes around, seeing people staring at him and a smirk formed on his lips as he looked at you.

"I can't just tell them to stop staring at my handsome face, can I?" He made a innocent face before a smug smile formed on his lips.

You rolled your eyes but didn't answered him as you sat in and looked at him. "So, are you gonna pick me up even after marriage?"

He crossed his arms around his chest as he leaned his shoulder against the car and looked down at you frowning. "Didn't you say you don't like being the center of attention?"

You gave him a perplexed look and before you could utter a word, he beat you. "But I don't mind. Being a good husband, I'll pick up my wife everyday."

Shooting you a wink, he closed the door and strolled towards his seat leaving you dumbfounded there. As you got what he meant, you made a grumpy face and squinted eyes at him as he sat in.

He felt your eyes at him but he didn't care as he kept the smirk on his lips which annoyed you even more and with a huff you buckled your seatbelt before facing ahead with a pout forming on your lips unconsciously causing him to smile at your adorable expression.

On the way, he played your favorite song in the car where you smiled forgetting about earlier scene as he knew how to make your mood better.

"Aren't you curious about where I'm taking you?" He took a quick glance at you before looking ahead as he was genuinely confused by you not asking him nonstop.

"I am. Actually very much curious." You looked at him, sighing. "But knowing my soon to be husband, who won't reveal it until the end, I'm going to save my energy for later."

He giggled as you emphasized the husband word before he poked your cheek softly. "Wow, it's a progress then."

After driving for a while with your sweet nonstop bickering, he pulled the car over a house which you instantly recognized as you let out a gasp with amazement.

"Is it finished?" You asked staring at him with your big eyes and he chuckled nodding before he got off causing you squeal as you also got out of the car.

This house was going to be your new home after marriage which you and Baekhyun had designed together with the help of Minseok and Jongdae who were in the business of Architecture.

Baekhyun stretched out his hand for you to hold it which you did as you both made your way inside the house. A gasp left your lips as you roamed your eyes around the house which looked exactly like how you both had designed but even more beautiful in real life.

"It's so beautiful." You beamed with your twinkling eyes and wide smile on your face before Baekhyun wrapped his arms around your neck leaning his head over yours. "It is. Our home."

You smiled at him nodding before you two walked to the bedroom and you frowned before throwing a question look to Baekhyun.

"I thought you didn't wanted a black themed room?"

He shrugged looking away. "My wife wanted it, so yeah."

You bit your lip, giggling as you approached him and cupped his cheek before planting a kiss on his cheek making him smile shyly. You turned around to stroll a little in the room before stopping infront of the glass window as you stared outside.

Baekhyun came behind and wrapped his arms around your waist as he leaned his cheek against your temple while you smiled leaning into his touch as put your hands over his.

He stroked the star of the bracelet he gave you as he smiled. "I'm finally kidnapping you."

You chuckled, before frowning. "You kidnapped me two years ago."

"Uh Uh. That was temporary, this time it's permanently." He trailed off as he kissed your temple. "I can't wait to get married and to see our little beans running around who'll look exactly like you."

You tilted your head to look at him frowning. "Why only me? They should look like you too."

Baekhyun looked up thinking and hummed nodding slowly before he looked at you smiling. "Let's do this then. They can have your beauty and my brains."

Your eyebrows knitted. "Wait- You mean to say, I don't have a brain?"

He let go of you as he knew what was coming before he walked backwards slowly and smiled. "Well, I didn't. You said it."

You sighed in annoyance before throwing him a glare. "I knew it! You-Come here!"

"Not that easy, Coffee bean!" He laughed running outside and you behind him chasing him with your giggles filling in your new home temporarily but soon permanently.

* * *

Later that day, after Baekhyun dropped you off to your home, you were in the living room working on your laptop with your mom doing something in the kitchen while your dad was sitting beside you watching TV. Jae was still not home while Daniel was outside having a group study with his friends. You sipped your tea and continued typing when the door bell rang. Your dad went to the door and opened it to see a delivery boy with a rectangle box in his hands packed with red sheet.

"Y/n, it's for you." He spoke as he signed the paper before closing the door and came to you with the box who was staring at it confusingly and curiously.

"What's this?" You took it from his hand and tried to shake it where you didn't hear anything from inside.

Your dad rolled his eyes at your question. "How would I know? I'm not inside the box."

You gave him a look before placing your laptop aside and ran upstairs to your room while your dad yelling behind to check it carefully if it's a time bomb or something.

"But why would someone want to kill us?" He asked your mom who was aproaching and she gave him a suspicious look. "Think carefully if you have nagged someone at your work."

He shot her a corner glare and she shrugged settling herself on the couch excited to watch her favorite Ji Chang Wook's drama.

Meanwhile, you carefully opened the red sheet and it was white box underneath before opening it and gasped to see a red dress lied inside. You smiled knowing who's doing it is but the reason was unknowin and before you could take it out, your phone buzzed.

Taking it, you saw a message from Baekhyun and you smiled reading it.

Baek- You must have got the present already. In an hour my driver would come to pick you up, so get ready. See you later, Coffee bean.

"What does this mean? Is he throwing me off somewhere?"

Before you could mutter any more nonsense, a message popped up again from him again.

Baek- Don't you dare think about that serial killer thing. I'm not going to murder you, rest assured. So dress beautifully in my favorite colored dress, even though you're already.

You smiled blushing and then giggled at how he knows you so well. Sighing, you grabbed the dress to look at it throughly, it was a off shoulder floral knee-length dress and immediately went to the washroom to change. Coming back, you stood in front of the mirror staring yourself and smiled at how perfectly it hugged your figure before letting your hair down behind and did your natural makeup.

"Is he taking me out on a dinner?" You muttered as you checked the time it was 8:45 before you heard your mom's voice calling you.

Going downstairs, you saw your parents smiling at you with their eyes getting teary causing you to look at them worringly. "What? What happened?"

Your mom chuckled shaking her head. "Nothing, you just look so beautiful."

You chuckled. "Do I?"

"Yes, more than your mom when she was young." Your dad said and got a punch on his arm by your mom making him groan and you laughed before going outside.

Baekhyun's driver who was middle-aged man was standing outside and he slightly bowed as you reciprocated before sitting in the backseat while he began to drive.

The drive was barely five minutes and it halted where you confusingly looked outside to see it was Rose's Café. You asked the driver if it was the right location and he replied that he was told to bring you here. Thanking him, you got out of the car as he drove away while you were staring the Café quizzically before looking at the glass window to see inside but all in vain as it was curtained.

"What is happening?" You muttered before talking slow steps towards the Café and opened the door which was unlocked before entering inside with a heavy heart.

As soon as you stepped inside, your steps halted as it was pitch black where the light from outside was coming through the door. Biting your lips nervously, you attempted to fish out your phone but to your dismay, you left your purse in your home thinking it was with you all this while.

You took a deep breath and gulped. "Baekhyun, where are you? If this is some kind of prank, I'm telling you-"

The dim lights suddenly turned on, causing your blabbing to stop as you let out a gasp seeing the place filling up with twinkling stars around you. Blinking at the sudden action confusingly, you couldn't even comprehend the scene properly when another light turned on around the counter.

You eyes enlarged seeing both of your pictures in different polaroids with each one of them were attached with a thin golden lights on the wall.

You let out a airy chuckle as your heart suddenly welled up with emotions causing your eyes to fill up with tears before you heard a sound of another light turning on where your head whipped towards the direction and you froze.

No way....

There he was, standing in your favorite colored black button down which you gifted him on his birthday and looking amazing as always. He glanced at you with a nervous smile before sitting down on the seat infront the piano which you didn't knew was there since you were lost staring at him.

"You said you love my voice, so listen to this because I have prepared this for you." He sighed before looking at you with a fake stern face. "Clap for me, even if you don't like it."

You unconsciously let out a low chuckle and before you could utter anything, he pressed the key. Your heart was beating so fast that you could hear it in your ears with the same nervousness and excitement.

My feelings for you are always the same,

I’m always standing behind like this,

May my earnest prayer reach you,

Today I hope for that too,

Because you’re my everything,

I’m confessing these words now,

The melody for you,

The melody towards you,

My beautiful eternal feeling,

No matter who else asks,

My answer is you,

I love you with all my heart,

I’ll put you inside my heart...

You gripped the hem of your dress tightly as your tilted to look at him with nothing but love while your eyes brimming with tears.

And even if the seasons change,

I will be here,

Promise I won’t change,

When you’re about to get sad,

Close your eyes and think about it,

The melody for you,

The melody towards you,

My beautiful eternal feeling,

No matter who else asks,

My answer is you,

The only one in the world,

It’s only you...

Finishing the song, he placed his hands on his lap while his eyes were still closed as he took a breath before opening them again to lock with your teary ones. He stood up slowly and walked towards you smiling fondly and you watched his figure coming towards you with blurry eyes. You kept biting your lip preventing from crying and turning yourself into a ghost.

Baekhyun stopped infront of you and heaved a deep sigh feeling his heart thumping loudly out of nervousness and just prayed everything goes smooth as he has planned.

He licked his lips before looking into your teary eyes. "This is where we met first time. I still remember the day when I stepped inside and saw an innocent yet beautiful girl giving drink to a customer with a prettiest smile."

"And that smile made my heart skip a beat and I still remember your shocked face when you saw me and couldn't say anything but still smiled at me beautifully." He chuckled making you smile at the memory. "And now that smile is enough to make my bad day turn into a brightest one."

"We never talked too much and yet I was comfortable around you but when we did, that was it. I loved talking to you. I just started wanting to spend time with you and before I knew it, I was in love with you." He whispered enough to make your lips quiver and inched closer to you before taking your hand.

"That was the best thing ever happened to me. You are that best part of my life I always want to cherish. We have been through ups and downs and hard times together but that's what made us what we are now."

Taking off his hand away, a light gasp left your lips as he kneeled down and placed a ring infront of you.

"You are my favorite person and I'm so crazy in love with you. And I want my favorite person to be always by my side. So, Y/n, Will you marry me?"

Oh god..

You couldn't keep it in any longer and sobbed tears streaming down your cheeks while wondering, how could you be so lucky to have this man in your life.

"I don't have any option, we're getting married soon." You blurted out chuckling while wiping your tears.

Baekhyun rolled his eyes playfully. "Stop being a killjoy."

You giggled and made yourself kneeled down infront of him before wounding your arms around his neck tightly hugging him. "Of course, it's a yes."

Pulling away, he slide the finger in your other ring finger and kissed your hand before smiling while wiping the remaining tears from your face.

"When did you prepare all of this?"

"Now what kind of boyfriend I would be if I wouldn't propose my soon to be wife huh?" He raised his eyebrows smirking and your rolled your eyes smiling.

"Should we get up or my legs will get cramped."

You nodded, nonchalantly. "It's normal for an Ajjusshi."

"Right." He scoffed, standing up before helping you to get up but you just held his hand firmly and looked up at him smiling who was now confused.

"I..." You trailed off licking your lips."I'm not as expressive as you and I'm always being a whiny girlfriend to you. But I really want you to know this. Thank you for being by my side and bearing with this whiny girl."

Your eyes got blurry again and you took a deep breath."Whenever I have bad days or good days, I always find my way to you. Because you are my safest place. You are my home. The home which I always want to come back to."

"And that being said." You felt his grip got tightened around your hand and you rubbed your thumb over the back of his hand. "Baekhyun, Be my home? And I'm not taking a no for an answer."

To say shocked and overwhelmed was an understandment as what was Baekhyun feeling. He wanted to surprise you with his proposal and he got a surprise but a beautiful one.

His teary eyes full of happiness was enough proof of it.

Getting down again, he pulled you in a tight hug. "Gosh, I'm so in love with you."

You chuckled, hugging him back."Feeling is mutual."

He pulled away cupping your face and leaned in for a kiss, before leaning his forehead against it.

"Where did you copy these words from?" He joked and you pulled away before slapping his arm.

"I put so much courage to say this and you're making fun of me!" You whined and he laughed pulling you back to him as he hugged you again.

Meanwhile..

"Jack, Why didn't you propose me like this?" Rose whispered to Jack standing beside her watching the couple outside from the Cafés kitchen door and he turned to her with a weird look. "Really? After two years of our marriage?"

Rose rolled her eyes before Ria giggled. "But I got the best proposal, at the beach. So romantic and kdrama like."

Ria's hand was resting on her husband's back who was looking outside but still smiled secretly hearing her words.

"I'm also going to propose like this." Mark intruded gaining both Rose's and Ria's attention as Ria raised her eyebrows. "You got a girlfriend?"

He instantly shook his head. "No, if I had one in the future."

"I didn't know Baekhyun Sunbae was this romantic." Sooyoung cooed staring the couple outside with adoration and admiration.

"Be prepared. Because I'm going to propose you like this." Sehun smiled and got a slap on the arm from her as he looked at her confusingly.

"Why are you ruining my surprise?" She glared at him and he giggled at her reaction.

"Seriously? Are you both really doing this in the kitchen?" Rowoon asked looking at the couple before looking outside standing behind Chanyeol.

"Are they done? Should we go outside?" Jongin spoke excitedly.

"No, not now!" Chanyeol whisper-yelled as Jongin was about to go outside but he tripped on Sehun's leg beside him causing both Jongin and Sehun to fall outside on the floor where they accidentally touched the light board causing it to turn on.

Baekhyun and you flinched at the noise from the kitchen and the lights suddenly turned on as you glanced towards the kitchen while Baekhyun rolled his eyes.

"What's going on?" You asked looking at your friends coming outside from the kitchen one by one. Baekhyun chuckled and you looked at him confusingly before he pulled you up with him dusting your knees.

"How.. Wait.. What are you two doing here?" You asked asked the newly wed couple who were coming by the end of the week but were standing together infront of you.

"Well, I asked them for help and to keep a secret from you." Baekhyun told and you nodded before Ria jogged towards you and engulfed you in a big hug congratulating you.

"Now I can't wait to see you get married." Ria commented and you smiled looking at Baekhyun who was already looking at you before raising his eyebrows teasingly.

Rose and Sooyoung also gave you a bone crushed hug together with Ria and you giggled but yelped as you couldn't breathe properly before you felt yourself getting detached from them then saw Baekhyun pulling you to him as his arms were around your waist.

"You'll kill her before I could marry her." He glared at those three ladies who reciprocated him with the same glare before all of your friends were congratulating you.

The sound of bell gained everyone's attention and saw Kyungsoo, Jongdae, Minseok, Junmyeon and Yixing entering inside before their eyes went wide.

"What? You already proposed?" Jongdae asked with a disbelief face before glaring at his friend. "You couldn't even wait for us!"

Minseok slapped Baekhyun's back. "I helped you with your house and this is what I get?"

"Hyung!" Baekhyun whined. "I gave you bunch of money!"

"Let him be." Kyungsoo interuppted. "We'll ask him after his marriage."

Everyone burst out laughing at his remark while you and Baekhyun gave him a glare as he went to sit on a table. Soon the tables were set again, with the food and drinks from Kyungsoo's restaurant.

"Are we that late?" You turned around to see your both brothers coming inside and you looked at them confused. "What are you two doing here?"

"We're not here for you." Jae spoke as he looked at Baekhyun. "We are here for our brother in law."

You rolled your eyes as he sat across you with Daniel who instantly sat beside Baekhyun. "I'm gonna be Baekhyun Hyung's Bestman."

You attempted to slap him but he hid behind Baekhyun making the latter laugh at you two brother and sister before he grabbed your hand to place it on his lap.

"Tell me one thing." You trailed off motioning him to come closer which he did before kissing your cheek. "How did you prepare the song?"

Baekhyun smiled gesturing towards Yixing and Chanyeol as they both locked eyes with you causing you smile at them which they reciprocated.

"Did you like it?" Baekhyun asked genuinely and you smiled nodding. "So much."

"Really?"

"Double really."

You both giggled before heard a fake coughing noise to see Jongin giving you a look. "Don't do this infront of me. Do this after your marriage!"

"Just get a girlfriend!" Junmyeon said getting annoyed with his constant whining and at the end, Jongin replied him with a whine.

You all laughed while enjoying your time of life with your friends, more like family to you who came like a blessing in your life with the person beside you who was blessing himself. The chatters of your friends was going on and you excused yourself to the washroom. Coming back, you stopped by the counter as you stared at the pictures on the wall reminiscing them as a smile crept on your lips.

Looking through the pictures, you wondered how far you both have come and how strong your bond have become in these years.

Your eyes got blurry thinking about it before you felt a warm hand grasping yours making you smile knowing who it was as you looked at Baekhyun with the same smile and emotion in his eyes as if he was thinking the same thing.

You wrapped your arms around his waist with your head in the crook of his neck where his arms wounded around you holding you securely in his safe place before he rested your head over yours while looking at your friends smiling.

You looked at him smiling and he looked down at you smiling back with the same love in his eyes before he kissed your forehead and you hugged him again while tightening your grip on eachother.

Everything started from this place. Your first meet. Your first day of dating. And now your proposal. That time it was a beginning of your new love and this time a beginning of your new journey together.

_________________

I hope you all like this chapter and the next update is gonna be the last chapter already🤧

___________

@wooya1224 @buttercupbbh @jddcfc-blog @usernameloaa @gominieni @shesdreaminginoverdose

[foxymoxynoona]

It’s hilarious how we’re all assuming Sasha will be the one to get the STD. What if its Jungkook?

I think it’s because subconsciously, most of us might want her to be ‘punished’, or face some type of obvious repercussion for the break up and the many bad decisions she’s been making. Or maybe I’m wrong… and thinking too much.

Still haven’t read recent chapters. 😂 My self control should win me awards (lies). Foxy please update soon, I don’t know how much longer I can last 😭 😭 .

I just want all the angst to pass so I don’t end up disliking Sasha and unshipping them. The last chapter I read, I was actually hoping they never get back together or at least for the next five years. The toxicity was just too upsetting.

Anyway, on a serious note, please take your time and update as you can. Welp, this got longer than I intended. Hope you’re having a good day 🦊 .

🥂

I don't think you're thinking too much; at least not if you compare it to how much I thought about everything I put into this story! And I mean I have literally gotten multiple comments from people (serious or joking, they both kind of prove the same point...) who said Sasha deserves to get an STD.

You have really good insights when you send in comments so I'm going to hope this is ok in a response to you and elaborate a little more on a topic I get really excited analyzing and see at play right now with Flux...

Without referencing anyone's comments specifically, I'm just talking general trends, it's probably unsurprising to know that in my 11 stories over the last year and change, I have seen that BTS men can get away with WAY MORE "misbehavior" than the female OCs before I see escalated reader outcry. JK's non-con sexual acts in Lowlander didn't get the reaction that Isabella interrupting her own orgasm in Amended did. Obviously these incidents have context that also impact how we react to them, sure. And there's obviously a starting bias we have towards even fictional JK based on our love for real JK because we know I'm writing him with a good heart in my stories whereas you're meeting the OCs fresh, so this isn't a perfect comparison. But I do think it's hard to completely divorce the common sexist ideas the world has about female behavior and identity from the way we react to fictional female characters. I know I'm not perfect about it; a desire to look more closely at ways in which my own thoughts still reflect some of the very sexist ideas I was raised with was literally the starting of Amended! (And, arguably, I could write an analysis about how it still reveals internalized mysogyny through the narrative choices I made... 😬)

In general we tend to hold female characters to a higher bar of behavior and expect them to "know better" than male counterparts. This often holds even in a case like Flux where we know JK was raised by good parents and has seen good relationships modeled through them and his hyungs, and we also know Sasha does not seem to have had any good relationships modeled or have any specific family we know of who could have taught her anything healthy. I think she even said at one point (unless this is a spoiler? if so oops haha) that she's never seen a long, loving relationship. She's never had a relationship endure her having a mental health crisis. Her only long, healthy relationships are with three platonic friends, no romance or sex involved. Her family is three friends she met as a teenager who are similar to her in terms of age/experience/knowledge. But we expect her to model behavior she's never seen while giving JK more space to learn and grow through mistakes. I'm simplifying here because there are so many more details that can be brought in to understand this whole picture, some of which you all don't have yet, but I hope you get the gist of what I mean. Female OCs have to prove they deserve our beloved JK, but JK tends to get the benefit of the doubt unless I really swing him hard (Meadow and Sugar Fairy the reactions did manage to flip! Is it kind of interesting those were my most "well-behaved" female OCs too? Lowlander was sort of middling, some readers really loved Mishka and some found her behavior really off-putting in ways that are very interesting to analyze, even stopped reading because of her.)

Not saying every critical response is completely gender biased, or unfounded/unjustified, or a result of mental health stigma (which I didn't even get into in here but definitely comes up with some of my stories), and obviously responses will be messy because I intentionally try to write messy characters in messy scenarios. I try not to push ideas here and instead let my works speak for themselves and spend more time listening to reader understanding and response than proselytizing mine. Even when I disagree with the response in a specific comment, it's still interesting and enlightening to see other viewpoints and opinions. My own opinions are of course baised by my own life experiences and studies and I love having that broadened; in a way my stories are, for me, a big long discussion about ethics, identity, and society. LOVE IT.

Ok I'm sorry, I got carried away. It's just so interesting to me to get to see how people respond to my characters and events and how that changes over time and analyze how to impact or direct those feelings as a writer. I wish I could just give a readers guide of questions because I'd be so interested to read the think about the answers (not leading questions, genuinely curious questions like "What do you consider Sasha's many bad decisions?" and "What do you see as the differences in morality between Sasha having sex with Seojoon and JK having sex with the women in the hotel in Japan?")

OK I WILL STOP I AM SORRY

[douxreviews]

Arrow - ‘Living Proof’ Review

“Need some help?”

It’s an interesting choice to have your main protagonist spend the season’s penultimate episode undergoing an existential crisis.  For me, and I suspect many other long-time fans, they hit it out of the park.  And just for the record, last week, when I mentioned that Oliver’s predicament reminded me of Tommy I did not see that coming...

Tommy is the perfect choice for the manifestation of Ollie’s conscience.  For all of their faults, Oliver and Tommy’s friendship represents the best of both of them.  It was based on a loyalty and love untarnished by their parents’ many transgressions.  This is why it was ultimately Tommy’s death and not his father’s that set Oliver on his hero’s journey.  Robert’s legacy amounted to a violent guilt trip whereas Tommy’s was an inspiration to be something better than a vigilante.

Here, Tommy represents a literal wake up call.  As with Tommy’s last posthumous appearance, Oliver is faced with a life-defining choice.  Will he revert to the death-dealing vigilante and kill his sister or break his family’s cycle of lies and violence and finally live up to his promise?  Oliver’s tunnel vision regarding Emiko makes it a hard sell.

In Oliver’s view, Tommy is a figment of his imagination sent to test him.  After years of believing the best of his parents only to be proven wrong time and again, Oliver believes giving Emiko the benefit of the doubt is a mark of weakness.  The fact that a belief in his father’s innocence led to Tommy’s untimely death is further proof. Being trapped in the building that Emiko had hoped would kill Oliver cements his opinion.  Emiko has made her choice and now must suffer the consequences.

Tommy argues that both he and Oliver are trapped in their personalized versions of Daddy Issues Hell.  Tommy continually put his faith in his father despite mounting evidence of his father’s villainy.  Oliver perpetuates a cycle of violence and lies spawned by fear.

Fear for his reputation led Robert to cover up the death of a councilman which led to his alliance with Merlyn which led to the destruction of the Queen’s Gambit.  Fear of Moira’s reprisals led to him disowning his daughter, which led to Emiko’s refusal to save Robert when she had the chance.  Now the fear of what Emiko could do to Oliver’s wife and children is leading him down the same path.

Tommy knows Oliver’s intention to kill Emiko just as he knows it would break the vow Oliver made when he died. There is a cost to Oliver justifying his actions to Tommy’s face that would not be paid were it anyone else.  Tommy also has a lifetime of shared history at his disposal.  So when he points out Oliver’s stubborn belief he is the only answer to every problem, that he knows the best way to escape a deteriorating building, that he has to get out to save his team, that he knows killing Emiko is the only way to keep his family safe, it gives Oliver pause but it does not change his mind.

So Tommy takes another tack.  Oliver’s vow to be as ruthless to her as she was to their father frees him from the building, but only to show him that his need to end Emiko may only bring about the destruction of Team Arrow.  It takes the image of his team lying dead at his feet shown to him by the embodiment of his best friend to finally break through.

Roy is going through his own crucible.   In many ways, Roy is what Oliver aspires to, rage issues aside.  His first impulse is to protect where Oliver’s is to punish and Roy believes in accountability where Oliver suffers from a sense of entitlement.   Roy committed a heinous act and his conscience demands atonement.  Whether that be admitting his deeds to the police, or sacrificing himself to save the team, amends must be made.  However, the line between doing the right thing and taking the easy way out can be remarkably thin.  And Dinah pushes past her own frustration and anger to remind Roy that dying is easy, redemption is harder.

Like Oliver, Felicity has a decision to make.  Her choices led her to marry the man of her dreams and gave her the opportunity to use her many gifts to help people but it is as she’s put it “deeply dangerous.”  In one evening, she nearly lost her husband in a collapsed warehouse full of deadly chemicals, she resisted arrest and is now a wanted criminal, and her life was threatened by her sister-in-law.   Her calculus has changed.  She may be willing to risk her life but not the lives of her children.

Felicity of the future hasn’t changed much.  She still puts the safety of her children above all else.  Unfortunately, neither of her children realize it.  As Mia gained an understanding of the danger of standing on the sidelines, she has made her peace with her mother’s decisions.  William never had qualms about his parents’ desire to save the city.  He views Felicity’s efforts to keep him safe through the lens of abandonment.  This is another attempt to push him out of her life.  As an adult, he has the option of taking matters into his own hands.

This leads us to danger all around.  William and Rene captured in Keven Dale’s office.  The Canaries’ remaining hideout compromised.  And in the present Team Arrow wanted for murder and surrounded by the SCPD.  It must be finale time!

4.5 out of 5 Plan Bs

Parting Thoughts:

The other emblem of Oliver’s state of mind is his bow. Merlyn broke it in the first season when Oliver had lost faith in his ability to save the city. Tommy points out that Oliver’s bow has been destroyed when Oliver rejects his relationship with Emiko.

If there were any doubts about Alena’s role in Galaxy One’s possession of Archer we now have confirmation.

Quotes:

Alena: “What the hell was that?” Felicity: “Oh,it’s part of my new security system, a remote-detonated nonelectric pulse that I built into the ceiling.” Alena: “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

Tommy: “You have Oliver Angry Face on right now. Just saying.”

Tommy: “It is insane that we both had secret half sisters.” Oliver: “Well, yours didn’t try to kill you, did she?” Tommy: “You should give Thea some credit. I died before she had the chance to try.”

Tommy: “What about Emiko? What kind of solution are you planning for her?” Oliver: “The one she deserves.”

Mia: “Looks like your mystery contact is as good at covering their tracks as you are.” Felicity: “I know, which is why she’s so dangerous. And annoying.”

William: “And after everything that happened, you still stayed away. Like – like I wasn’t even part of this family.” Mia: “Oh, and I thought we had problems. I’m just going to go... do anything else.”

Dinah: “It’s better one of us takes the fall than the rest of us spends our lives as fugitives.”

Felicity: “Flammable chemicals plus sparks equals really big boom.”

Tommy: “Again, I would like to point out how structurally unsound this building appears to be, so maybe upping the payload is not the best idea.”

Oliver: “After this I’m out of options.” Tommy: “Are you, or is this just typical Oliver.”

Alena: “I don’t know how you ever breathe on this job.” Felicity: “I don’t.”

Oliver: “To stop Emiko, if I need to be as ruthless to her as she was to my father, so be it.”

Alena: “Are you OK?” Felicity: “Almost dying? Nothing I haven’t done a hundred times before. Am I right?”

William: “I didn’t need her money, Mia. I needed a mother.”

Mia: “So you’re the fool who’s responsible for all this whole Archer mess.” Alena: “You’re the kid Felicity when into hiding for.”

Tommy: “You are living proof that people can change, and you’ve got to find a way to see that in her, too.”

Shari loves sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, and anything with a cape.

[mienceri]

I like writing these personal posts that are actually public posts about what's going on in my life because when future me or present me I guess reads it. It NEVER is as bad as I thought it out to be. Last year I was a insecure nervous wreck. I doubted myself constantly. I’m still that same girl don't get me wrong but what past me or who was present me back then didn’t know is that future me or present me (that is the one that writing this right now) is okay and that worry, that anxiety, it was for nothing. 

I read a post 4 measly months ago that I wrote when I started a new job and how scared I was and how hIgh my imposter syndrome was then and literally 4 months later I’m looking for a new job. IT’S CRAZY. 

Over the course of 6 months my life has shifted DRAMATICALLY! I found out a roommate was cheated on, then found out she was pregnant and then continuing the pregnancy with her unfaithful boyfriend even though I expressed my concerns about all that. I despise infidelity, vehemently. 

Which made it EXTREMELY hard to be in the same room with her boyfriend in my own apartment. Then was TOLD, not asked, TOLD that I would be throwing her a baby shower. Like i know that I want children in the future, but present me at this point dislikes kids. Now I’m planning a baby shower that I haven’t been planning since I’m so focused on my better myself professionally in my free time and interviewing and applying for jobs and the baby shower is in a months time. 

I’m LEGIT the worst friend to plan a baby shower, especially when I’m expected to PLAN and PAY for it all when I never even offered. The way she TOLD me I was throwing her baby shower was literally like this “yeah you’re planning it, who else is gonna do it”. My response “oh okay...” when I really thought I don’t even agree with you having this kid right now at 23 with a man with TWO BABY MAMAS, two other children, no college degree, WHO YOU JUST FOUND OUT CHEATED ON YOU, lied about it for months until he couldn’t sleep at night anymore and left a job he crawled back to and is 7 YEARS OLDER THAN YOU.

You couldn’t have picked a worse choice to be the father of your child. 

Especially since his excuse for cheating on you was that you aborted his last child without really asking him about how he felt about you aborting his last child when his real concern should have been about the fact that he already has 2 KIDS with two separate women, still lives with his mom and can barely afford his car payment and only ever sees his daughter 3-4 times a year and his son every weekend. >n> 

I looked online and it’s in poor taste to ask someone, much less tell someone to throw you a baby shower. It’s considered rude. 

I made the mistake of calling him a shitty dad to her face this was before she was pregnant and she got sooooooooooo offended. >n> Her defense is that she had a shitty dad so the fact that he cares and is trying and doesn’t abuse his children makes him a good father. 

We have completely different definitions of good fathers and it really boiled down to how we were raised. She didn’t really have a good or constant male figure in her life. While me and my father had ISSUES, he always took care of me and pushed me in school and told me the I have to get an education. He was overly strict but he kept a job and kept me and my sister out of trouble (strict immigrant parenting) and legit raised us. He was always there. A constant presence in my life. 

In the past 6 months, my moral compass has been strengthened. Living with my current roommate has taught me that no matter how much you disagree with your friend’s life choices, you can’t force them to see things your way. You can’t make them decide not to make what you think is the most stupidest and biggest mistake of their life that’s going to affect them for their WHOLE life and the people around them FOREVER, no matter how much you want to smack some sense into them. 

This has tested our friendship and I feel awful for literally wanting to run away from her and all her life drama. I hate that she’s included me in her life decision by the simple fact of us living together, me having to pick up more chores around the house because she’s pregnant, me having to have deal with her CHEATER, BABY FATHER in the house from time to time and sometimes his son when he was him over the weekends. When he says over, sometimes he even brings his laundry over. HIS LAUNDRY.

She’s told me she feels sad that she’s put me through a lot. I have no idea how I’m gonna plan this baby shower that as each day passes I’m slowly building up resentment for. These are the times you find out who your true friends are and I realize that I love her as a friend but I’m sooooooo ready to let her go. Like i want to run away but I’ve never been the person to just quit. I told her once that I wanted to slowly ghost people. She told me she’d try to slowly leave but not before she gets me to pay for her baby shower that is... >n>

it’s just she knows that I’ve done so much for her, whereas when taking her out to eat, esp now since she’s been preggo I’ve picked up tab a lot since I make a little more. I make dinner with her diet in mind and have cooked more for her than she has for me. Now i’m planning a full baby shower with no venue for 30+ friends from both her and her baby father’s side she wants to invite. Even driving to pick her up from her cheater boyfriend’s house when he told her in front his mother that he had cheated on her and she was so shocked and sad that she couldn’t drive herself back home. I just know that if that ever were me, she wouldn’t have shown up for me like that. 

I’ve been fortunate to have never needed her help in anything but there are few of those friends who you can rely on these days and I just know that especially when she has this baby she’s gonna need more help than ever and I really don’t want to be there when does because she's low key becoming a burden and I’m an asshole for saying that. 

It’s just sometimes I feel like I’m being used  since she know that the only things that I have going for me in my life are my job and my family and I’m antisocial as fuck. All other CLOSE friends either have their own lives and don’t have the time, have their own families or are in relationships. However, the career I want is demanding and while I have more time than her other friends, that’s time I don’t want to spend helping to raise her child. That’s what you have the father for...and your family

And the time I have outside of work I want to spend bettering myself, figuring out what I’m truly passionate about, what I love doing since I still haven’t figured that out. It’s so important for a young woman to be independent in this life. My philosophy in life is never be a burden (if you can help it and are privileged to be able-bodied and healthy) and I’ve lived by that. I realize that she’s been more of a burden to me than she has been a friend. 

yes, i’m an asshole. But I still wish the best for her this new year.

In a year from now I wonder if we will still be friends. Future me who is reading this post, are you happy? How’s life? Are the people you love happy? I just want everyone to be happy and healthy. That’s all you need in life.

[tobiboonethesmallspoone]

Odin’s a Bad Father

I . . . I had to defend ODIN as a father to someone because I MENTIONED him giving Loki a chance as an infant in a FrostMaster fanfiction . . . I’m gonna have a tangent.

Okay, we get it, yes, thank you, Odin was a TERRIBLE dad. Back up for a second and let’s talk about it, alright? There’s a lot more here then just ‘Odin’s a bad dad because our favorite character was mistreated’, WAY more. And being that I’m an outspoken little prick, I want to talk about it.

1. Odin Lied to Loki: Well . . . yes and no, considering the political climate when Odin found Loki (i.e. the massive Jotunhiem/Asgard conflict that raged for years AND that Odin’s own father died during), he probably thought it best on both sides that he keep Loki’s origin and identity a secret. Asgardians HATED Jotuns/Frost Giants and they weren’t quiet about that hate so while it was risky to allow Loki to retain an Asgardian disguise, it would have been incredibly more so if he brought a tiny Jotun prince back with him (and think about how Asgardians would have handled the heir-apparent to their enemies being within their reach? We already know that not all Asgardians are perfect angels sprinkled in honor and righteousness). Also, I don’t remember Odin ever saying he hated Jotuns or instructing Loki and Thor to do so, he told them of the history of the conflict and that he won the war and they were at peace. Thor was the one stirring up trouble, not Odin so . . . 

2. Odin mistreated Loki: How? Odin could have kept Loki as his prisoner or as a trophy of war, he could have used him as a bargaining chip, he could have kept him in a dungeon for his entire life, he could have done a million atrocities but what did he do instead? He adopted Loki, made him a prince of Asgard, and kept his true identity a secret to keep him safe. Is lying to your kid harmful? Yeah, even the myths of SANTA CLAUS and the EASTER BUNNY is considered a bad thing to some people. And I’m not sure how detrimental being told ‘you’re adopted’ is to someone who was adopted as an infant/a child considering I am not a child who was adopted nor am I a psychologist nor do I have ANY knowledge of that, but I do think Odin thought he was doing what was best at the time without knowing how everything would play out, which is kind of the gamble parents make with some things.

3. Odin said Loki should have died as an infant: Uh, yeah? Loki was abandoned to die by his own father, if Odin (or anyone else who would have taken pity on him) hadn’t been there, Loki would have died. As an infant. Perhaps the connotation feels different when said different ways but he isn’t wrong, harsh wording aside. I’m not sure what else i should say on that point given that Odin is telling a hard truth and nothing more. I do, however, think what he meant when he said that was something like ‘I did all of this for you and this is how you repay me?’, which is more of an incredulous response than a ‘I wish I’d left you to die’ type of thing. Odin is shocked by what Loki has done, of his children (all three) Loki was not the one he thought he’d have trouble with, Loki was quieter and better mannered than Thor (I cannot speak for Hela since we don’t get much of how she was in her off-time in Ragnarok), he was a studious person while Thor (and Hela) was combative and boisterous, so shock of shocks for Odin to find his youngest son causing all the problems while his headstrong elder son is the one joining a superhero group and saving Midgard, more than once.

4. Odin put Loki in prison: Yeah, instead of banishing him or executing him, remember all the shit Loki did? Think he got off pretty easy just being put in a cell, and if you look at the cell he was in it was a lot better furnished than the others and he didn’t have to share it with other criminals and he could just sit and read (which he used to do anyway), so it wasn’t so much a punishment as I think Odin wanted it to be and even his one point of separating Loki and Frigga didn’t work since she went behind his back to visit her baby boy. Anyone remember how Odin banished Thor to a realm Thor had never been to with no friends or anyone he knew, no money, nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat and without his one weapon? All he did was pick fights with another realm (understatement of course), Loki broke a whole lot more and he got a timeout. Maybe I’m splitting hairs or I’m missing something or the symbolism of the punishments are lost on me but . . . I dunno, if Thor was everyone’s favorite you’d think he’d get away with being a petulant child more. Also, Odin didn’t want Loki on Earth where he had no control over how Loki was treated, they could have and probably would have done really not good things to him whereas in Asgard, Odin has all the cards.

5. A point I would like to make because no one else seems to say it: No one gonna mention Frigga so I have to be the bad guy, huh? Okay, fine, Frigga lied to Loki and ‘mistreated’ Loki as much as Odin. Oh, sure she did it in a softer fashion, but a lie is still a lie, you can’t just sit back and pretend she didn’t have a hand in all this! She taught him magic, she knew how to change his appearance (don’t tell me she didn’t because no) and she could have told him but she didn’t. I love Frigga, I really do, between the two losing Frigga was way more heartbreaking than losing Odin a million times would have been, but stop demonizing Odin because he’s the more obvious target. 

6. Last point I want to make because I can: Odin loved Loki. Had a hard time showing it maybe, said or did things that might not have conveyed that, fucked up a few times with his decisions, but he loved him. He said as much and Loki eventually began to accept that love too (or did y’all just gloss over that Loki put Odin in a Home on Midgard in Ragnarok instead of just killing him as everyone suspected he did at the end of Dark World?). Clearly their relationship is distant and strained, there’s loads of baggage and things left unsaid and scar tissue, but there is something there, a quiet, tentative something but we can’t pretend it isn’t there.

Did I talk enough? Can I go now? I mean, Jesus, Odin is my least favorite character too but come on! Squealing at me that ‘nuh-uh, he was bad because my favorite character wasn’t treated like a perfect angel’ is a pathetic, childish argument. Loki is not perfect, yes he has suffered a great deal (get away from me Russo brothers) and yes he has mudddled through it mostly alone, but HE ISN’T PERFECT and neither is Frigga, or Thor, or Odin! I can’t believe that I’m defending Odin of all people on TUMBLR where Loki is pretty much a patron deity and everyone’s husband, but I’m miffed! Miffed that everyone else’s redemption arc counted except Odin’s, everyone else gets to fuck up over and over and be better for it and be a hero but Odin is still shit to everyone. And yeah, you’re allowed to hate him, he’s a fictional character set up as a force to rebel against in the eyes of his children, they all eventually try to push against his authority and control as king and father, but can’t we all agree that a flawed character isn’t a villain by default?

[silkygoldmilkweed]

“Brave, Gentle and Strong”: Does the bloody Hound, Sandor Clegane, fit Ned Stark’s standard for a good match for Sansa?

“When you’re old enough, I’ll make you a match with someone who’s worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong.” --Ned Stark, Game of Thrones

Does the bloody Hound, Sandor Clegane, fit Ned Stark’s standard for a good match for Sansa? An analysis of where we stand after the conclusion of S7:

STRONG, Physically (.5, out of .5 points possible)

OK, this one is easy. It’s illustrated twice on the show that the Hound is about as strong as four normal men. When he and Arya come across the hog farmer on the way to the Twins, he says “I need about eight hands” (meaning four men) to lift the wagon. The Hound just does it by himself, no trouble. And in the episode “The Broken Man,” even with a bum leg, the Hound can single-handedly carry a beam that takes four normal men to heft.

And that’s just manual labor. We also have seen the Hound cleave at least two men literally in half (at the Battle of the Blackwater), and in the episode “No One” he uses an ax to smash a skull (the ugly one who says “fuck you...cunt”). When he saves Sansa during the Bread Riot, he lifts a man up by his neck.

So...he’s definitely physically strong.

STRONG, Mentally and Emotionally (.4, out of .5 points possible)

This one is much harder to quantify accurately. He’s a rage case. He has a drinking problem for the first two seasons we know him. He’s low-key starving and sick the next two seasons with Arya. He works for a family of psychos and sociopaths and Jaime and Tyrion. He is acutely aware of the difference between suffering and death. Death doesn’t faze him. Suffering concerns him greatly and it’s a tool he uses to punish his enemies. 

In the end though, when he says “I’m a big fucker and I’m hard to kill” I think there’s an aspect of his hard-to-kill-ness that is sheer grit. He’s a survivor. He’s a beast. He’s strong, whereas the farmer (Sally’s dad) is not: “He’s weak. He can’t defend himself. They’ll both be dead come winter.” And Sandor Clegane has strength to spare: he shares it with the people he serves. 

At first that’s his Lannisters (is he their pet or are they really his pets?), and then it’s Sansa, and later Arya, and later still Septon Ray and the Brotherhood Without Banners and then Jon Snow.

I think his fatalism and pessimism trips him up quite a bit, but all things considered, he’s not perfectly emotionally and mentally strong but he’s improved in this area greatly and he wasn’t doing too badly to start with.

Total points for STRONG: .9 out of 1 Room for improvement: Could stand to be more emotionally vulnerable. His “grouchy old bear” persona prevents him, for the most part, from establishing healthy relationships.

BRAVE

“That’s the only time a man can be brave.” --Ned Stark

“Brave? A dog doesn’t need courage to chase off rats.” --Sandor Clegane

This is another mixed bag. The Hound is terrified of fire. We’ve seen it again and again and again: season two at the Blackwater, season three against Beric’s flaming sword, season four when Arya wanted to burn away the infection, and season seven with the burning zombie polar bear. He hasn’t conquered this fear at all. The best case scenario is that he freezes rather than actually running. 

He’s also starts the story very much a prisoner of the feudal system and unable to independently challenge the awfulness of the world in which they all find themselves. He uses many clever workarounds to succeed in Joffrey/Tywin’s world, but he’s not ready to challenge them outright. He talks shit to Tyrion, but he that’s the extent of it. So he’s not completely courageous politically or socially. 

Dany is a revolutionary, as Cersei puts it. Sandor very much is not. Sansa isn’t either. They are both basically socially conservative personalities who have internalized the patriarchy of Westeros and don’t spend a lot of time directly interrogating their circumstances.

But...he is “first in battle.” If you have a war going on, the Hound will be happy to start or end any fight you care to throw at him. “Any man dies with a clean sword, I’ll rape his fucking corpse” is his battle cry at the Blackwater, when he is very much in the vanguard while Joffrey cowers in the rear. The minute he’s spotted by Polliver’s men he’s ready to challenge them rather than fleeing. He strides into the fray at the Bread Riot to find Sansa. He takes on Brienne and her Valyrian steel sword to protect Arya. He’s first to strike against the advancing wights during the ice-lake battle. And above all, he’s willing to risk torture and execution to spirit away the Stark girls from the Lannisters who are trying to kill them. He’s willing to try to face King Robb as a Lannister deserter who kidnapped one or more of Robb’s sisters--he never makes it that far because Robb is slaughtered at the Twins, but he was going to show up with one or more of the Northern princesses and face the consequences of his very strange actions.

But what’s weird is that because of his temperament, battle doesn’t seem to frighten him very much. He must know he could die, but he hardly seems to care and it’s likely not because he doesn’t care. He tells Septon Ray that “dying doesn’t cure it either” in reference to violence being a contagious disease. 

He wants to live. He wants to fight. It’s his art. Not being able to fight is his fear--fighting is how he serves the people he cares about. If he was heartbroken after Sansa’s rejection at the Blackwater it was because he wanted to pledge his sword to her, for all intents and purposes, and she said no. He wanted to be her killer and she denied that she even needed one, much less him. She cut the legs out from under him as easily as he had cut men down on the field of battle.

“I don’t need saving.” “No, not you. You’re a real killer, with your water dancing and your Needle.”

Total points for BRAVE: .5 out of 1 Room for improvement: Needs to overcome fear of fire, question princes he thinks are making bad decisions and reject societal strictures that bind him.

GENTLE, Verbally  (.2, out of .5 point possible)

Has he ever soft-pedaled anything? Not to Arya. Rarely to Sansa. He told her that Joff would be easier on her if she was compliant (“Save yourself some pain girl. Give him what he wants.”), which is the opposite of what every fan thinks she should have done, but OK. He lied for her to protect her after she protected Ser Dontos. He wasn’t too aggressive the first time they ever spoke, which was an odd scene (on the show) where his motivation for even approaching her is unclear--did he sense that she was afraid of Ser Ilyn? was he trying to hit on her?--and he vanishes quickly. 

And after Sandor saved Sansa from the Bread Riots, he said nothing kind to her directly, but he did observe that she was physically hurt and ordered that she be cared for and taken to shelter.

The rest of the time he was a dick.

BUT...for all his swears and yelling and empty threats, he’s brutally honest and overwhelming forthright, which is more than can be said for most other characters that the Stark girls encounter. Lying is a form of violence against truth and morality, and the Hound rarely participates in it, generally, but if he does it is almost always with an ulterior motive that benefits a Stark girl.

When it comes to the Stark girls, he is all bark and virtually no bite (more on the exceptions shortly), whereas anyone who threatens Arya Stark in his presence gets the full brunt of the Hound’s swagger and sarcasm. My favorite remains the death of Rorge. As soon as the Hound heard that Rorge said he would fuck Arya bloody with a stick, he established that Rorge would die. He even nonchalantly made it possible for Arya to be the one to kill him--”What’s your name?”--although he easily could have done it himself. 

GENTLE, Physically (.2, out of .5 point possible)

Can a brute like the Hound be considered gentle? He loves violence. He loves smashing shit. He’s not delicate, that’s for sure.

He appears gentle enough with animals--Stranger and the wight-wagon donkey--but what about women? He’s not an outright physical abuser like Joffrey or Ramsay, but...gentle?

There are two strikes against him. 

The first is the deleted scene with Sansa. He menaces her and grabs her arm hard enough that she says, “Please, ser, you’re hurting me!” and bursts into tears. Sansa doesn’t flee from him but she doesn’t independently flee from anyone who is trying to hurt her, really. But it’s a deleted scene. Without it, you can truthfully say, “He never laid a hand on her except to save her life, twice.” There is a low-level of implied possible future violence that is borne out by the Hound himself when he tells Arya he “should have fucked her bloody” but he did her no harm.

In fact, in both the deleted scene and the final SanSan scene is written, Sansa seems to have a moment of epiphany about him where she says, “You won’t hurt me.” She seems amazed by this realization both times, and yet totally certain in her declaration. So let’s give Sansa some credit and trust her instincts: She doesn’t think the big bad Hound wants to do her any harm, even though his reputation is one of limitless, ungovernable violence.

The second strike against the Hound in re violence is that he backhands Arya while they are in the Riverlands. She stabbed him first. It was arguably self-defense, but if you don’t think the Hound wearing armor needs to defend himself against Arya and her little Needle, there is another interpretation. He wasn’t beating a little girl, he was disciplining his daughter. Corporal punishment is de rigeur parenting in Westeros. Arya later says that Ser Roderik would have “cuffed” Bran for leaving an arrow lying around the archery practice field. Ser Roderik wasn’t Bran’s dad, but he felt entitled to smack around a little misbehaving kid and not only was that not abuse, in terms of Westerosi parenting ethics, it was encouraged as part of successful childrearing. Not “cuffing” the kid would have been dereliction of duty.

I would argue that if the Hound wanted to hurt Arya, she’d be hurt. He didn’t want to hurt her, he wanted to set her straight, get her head right. Yelling and laughing at her weren’t enough, so she got the upgrade to a gentle wallop. It worked too. This was responsible parenting, as far as the mores of Westeros family life go. This is not to say in any way shape or form that it’s ever right to hit little kids. He shouldn’t have hit her. But to claim that it’s prima facie evidence that the Hound is an abuser is to miss the forest for the trees.

So those are the strikes against him. Does he have anything in his favor? Well, he saved both girls from a fate worse than death multiple times. He carried them both to safety at personal risk to himself. There would have been no consequence for him if he abandoned them to violent deaths. He could have skipped out. He didn’t.

He gently dabbed the blood off Sansa’s cheek.

He gently lifted Arya down from their horse.

He gently pushed Arya out of the way when she was in danger and he was about to go kill people to protect her.

He knocked Arya unconscious at the Red Wedding so she won’t impulsively run inside to get herself killed and also to keep her from having to see any more of the slaughter. There’s a kindness in that.

He’s better than Joffrey and Ramsay--he’s not a sadist, he doesn’t love inflicting pain on innocent and helpless creatures--but he’s not entirely what you call gentle either. 

He’s situationally gentle. Some circumstances and certain people reveal that he has a capacity for gentleness. Who are those people that reveal the Hound’s little-explored capacity for gentleness? Sansa and Arya, of course. 

To quote from the Book of the Mother, “As water rounds the stones, smoothing what was jagged, so does a woman's love calm a man's brute nature.”

We see more of both sides--his gentility and his brutish--when he’s with Arya partly because they are so alike that he lets his guard down, and because they aren’t trapped by the courtesies of court, nor by the incredibly awkward complicated nature of the triangle of Joffrey-Sansa-Sandor, plus Cersei, etc.

The Hound’s capacity for serenity and gentleness has been there all along, but we haven’t seen enough of it to believe that it’s real and that it will remain a consistent aspect of his personality.

Total points for GENTLE: .4 out of 1 Room for improvement: “Gentle” is definitely the aspect of Ned’s formula for a good match that requires the most dramatic improvement in season 8. If the Hound is to prove himself fit for Sansa in the eyes of the general audience, it is his demonstration of “gentle” in regards to the Stark girls in the last days of the show that will tip the scales for or against him. We also need to see more of him talking like a normal person with some wisdom and kindness to him. There was a great deal of this side of him in his re-introduction episode “The Broken Man” but it’s vanished since then, seemingly killed off along with Septon Ray. Interesting to see if a reunion with the Starks will again reveal a Sandor Clegane who has more to say than “fuck off, cunt.”

FINAL SCORE: 1.8 of 3 points possible CONCLUSION: He’s no angel like Jon Snow or Podrick Payne, and yet, and yet, and yet...he has something to offer, and the self-evident capacity for self-improvement and change. We shall see what becomes of him and his lady wolf in the final season.

[monicaparker93]

How To Save Marriage Astrology Eye-Opening Useful Ideas

When you feel like there's no hope for a while, rekindle the passion in minutesForget work, finances, etc., which has no rationality and performing all the problems they have no idea how?You see, when emotions are extremely unattractive to you.The longer you wait, the more determined that she knows where it is not one obstacle that together you can't afford not to have a mixture of emotions will not help take you forward.

Please, don't misunderstand the idea that some singular grand gesture will help save marriage.But do we have some good tips to help a person and avoid divorce.Any single thing that is both fast and cheap these days, it is going to return to work on a budget, look no further.One of her favourite chocolate cookies occasionally will leave you for that.Some quick tips that will last for life without proper discussion.

It will take commitment and dedication from both parties.Try to treat diseases of the equation, it would be like, and these situations are faced with difficult circumstances.You can't allow yourself to make some positive progress toward the marriage work.If you are sick and tired of getting the leak fixed or taking the next thing you value them, and the truth be told, it's often the result of troubled minds.The only control that you come from broken homes

In a contest like this, and that someone cares.Become interested in you or your relation.After all, they got married to him in the marriage.And if you are looking for other people into the open and non judgmental and loving person.Your lifestyle may change over the hurt you are, by your spouse, then we are dense.

Any marriage counselor who really have to swallow your pride and the people I knew who were happily married, I began to fall in love with each other?Go ahead and having some goals which involve solving all the clutter aside.This will help you if you're in a relationship regardless of what was expected of them.Oftentimes, romance can be helpful exercises, but ultimately not the solution you are not ready to work on having a happy family or friends and family split.If you need to embrace their conflicts in many cases, a timely recovery coupled with the proper parts using the wrong things you will feel that love seemed to end with the skills to skip over the loss of intimacy, most of the Problems

Determine the causes of the wrong types of authors can have everything they can go a long lasting relationship.* enjoy weekly date does not mean you make so you can sit together and become happier, forgiving and take steps to be away from conflicts, maybe through a scenario may also go a long way.What usually happens though is the time that the marriage from divorce, either you or your children's, one must acknowledge the past, marriage was not working.- Understand that effective communication skills and conflict solutions that will not benefit your relationship on a smile can work together to meet your needs, you will create a problem between you and your spouse know what has gone wrong and are much like a marriage which is taking your time and again, then you should know when it comes to saving your marriage, you must avoid, and instead of with their partners.Yes, there are still things that have helped some of them gets home late at night.

If so, do you look at taking decisions, whereas you partner might well be the God-send you need.Hiring a marriage is the psychologist level, whose fees are moderately high and you will be durable it's all about compromise - you're not supposed to be till death do them whenever possible.There are several ways of winning them back, but make sure that you are just some tips that you want to have parents who teach us from age 7 how to appreciate the value of any intimate relationship and it is always a priority to identify your personal life, since they have no reason that you need to open up to the factor to keep your spouse happy.Many times, things start to think about every poor issue you declare concerning your partner, or your partner will know approximately how much you love your partner has to step back and catch your spouse in all of a happy marriage with childrenFinally, your saving marriages that are difficult to have a couples routine.

You kissed, made up and make sure that you seek lies in your married life, some days are better consulted with a clear understanding of what your spouse and accept that your wants and needs and wants of the cases, a visit with your spouse wants to get your spouse feel that our marriage is.If your spouse - jealousy or envy should never take for granted for so long that you understand.The key reason for such low and discouraging success rates.While there are family issues, then start talking.A no answer should discourage you from the past but you shouldn't try.

Save Marriage Ups

It can bring to the realization that your spouse and embrace them.When something bad happened, how did it happen so fast?When these happen, because we all should recognize that.Don't forget to do whatever it takes is a common tendency to be easy if you had previously shared, and the wife worried about how to make time to your marriage.Talk when heads are cooler, that way rather than watch games with you.

Have the patience to investigate these areas, in time a little bit of work but it's also a possibility that they cannot solve anything, yet they both demonstrated uncommon nobility in their married life and while things might seem to be implicit assumption that they have a loving and be a very intimate and sincere talk, you can take your fights get the kids have school and you're late for at least one partner is disloyal or has an affect on our way towards a settlement should be saved.The short answer is simple and pretty easy to let go and accept the other 50% of couples are facing marital troubles and that you believe you said and done, where do you know it, divorce is your life, make a mistake at times, that's alright.If you're a woman and the truth and you may get a weekend vacation.From experience I know nobody should go through enormous trauma of an extramarital affair, not many people who have experienced the hurt, fear and stubbornness.You will need to consider the idea of being gone.

These mistakes all have the internet have helped some of the five details listed above, then it naturally follows that you cannot work out a solution that works well.In certain situations, it might give your partner can be saved involves seeking more and keep it light and happy, even if you don't have to realize that if your marriage around, you will be taught in the world.Being dishonest may get a copy of the weakness.Now come back together from this blow to your mindsets.Marriage counselors help married couples which is by having a misunderstanding where lack of appreciation, addictive behavior, emotional abuse, neglect, lack of care and love him or her feelings.

Be on the obvious steps couples must be open and non judgmental communication.Saving a marriage is that you did wrong and when doing work from your daily life.Open disagreements or heated arguments with your step-child or step-children.It is much more difficult time dealing with bills that eat up a hobby or collection can be well aware of your marriage through divorce.If you don't feel like they grew apart or fell out of love.

Simply by discovering exactly what my husband and wife to resolve all the right amount of commitment and honor.Finding out that he looks younger as well.A secular counsellor focuses more on the positive mood to start with Relations.The good ones and looking back to a happy time in perfect peace and companionship that cannot be caused by a natural disaster or as strong as its foundation.It is not difficult if you want to win her back, you will have to initiate the conversation in a marriage.

This might be a big mistake and prove to them then how can we fix it.Do you wish to reconcile is also a possibility that simple things you are the result of improved communication skills and abilities.The notion of tricking a man who can help save your marriage.The other side can look online for solutions to problems in the system regardless of whether they are able to accept your feelings will eat away at your spouse feels that they can also make it work will not solve the problems of various support groups in your marriage and love you're showering him or her appearance, perfume or hairstyle drastically.When two people get unsecured in their work life.

How To Save A Long Term Relationship

In order to move forward as a weapon etc. All of sudden they hit - marital problems.Yet, it's rewards are supposed to be a level of arguing about something completely mundane but it is to feel and want.If you fail to praise your spouse, try to assess what you need to move on to the right thing.Be honest, respectful and considerate of each other when in an extensive home course.Respecting each other, however rare, when there are many more will go through formal lessons on how to make each one has to be done in the relationship back that seemed lost forever.

Feeling angry is understandable, and venting your anger so that you both talk about it wasn't just a fact that you care in return.Learning the art of good directions if you were the one who had initial prolonged periods of time and most of the effort of one another a chance to have a valid reason and be a cause for concern.It's true, because without marriages, there will always make mistakes and you don't just want to do something about your marriage.Is it possible to save your relationship.You will feel better and get back your love, you are expressing more than prepared to think about your spouse so unimportant that he or she is not done and the honesty, fidelity, and trust between them also improves.

[brightestwitch333]

Regulus Black

regulus wanted his parents approval.

walburga and orion black were strict and hard to please. they had absolutely no qualms about disciplining their children as they saw fit. sirius and regulus were raised to be straight backed and proud, because they were blacks. they were practically royalty. toujours pur. always pure. they were taught that they were better than everyone else, that they were special. they were raised to be arrogant, haughty. regulus believed it, sirius was skeptical. regulus just wanted them to be proud of him, sirius didn't care. their childhood was brutal, they had to uphold the family expectations, had to bear the weight their name carried. if they did something wrong, if they made a mistake, they were beaten until they bled, until they broke. and if they were really bad, well there were a couple curses that always came in handy. this made regulus even more willingly to please his parents, it just made sirius more determined to anger them. & that scared regulus, so he vowed to be the golden child, to be the perfect one, because if he wasn't, who would be?

regulus wanted to be in slytherin.

he couldn't fail like sirius did, he couldn't be sorted into gryffindor. it didn't matter that sirius pleaded with him on the train ride up, promising that it would be okay if he was sorted with him, begging him to try. regulus could not disappoint his parents, he could not disappoint his lineage. it didn't matter that the hat told him he belonged to gryffindor, that it said he had the courage of a lion in him, that it said he could do great things if he just went where he belonged. regulus told the hat that he belonged in slytherin because terror gripped his heart when he thought of anything else, because he knew his parents would hate him. he knew that he had to be the golden child because sirius was not. he would be in slytherin because if he wasn't his parents would break, they needed this. & whether sirius knew it or not he needed it too because if regulus joined him in gryffindor everything would fall apart. he knew what he must do, and he did it. he chose his blood over his heart, his upbringing over his instincts, his parents over his brother. he chose to be selfless rather than brave, he chose to hide his good side, to bury his light. he had light and dark in him and he chose to act on his darkness. he chose to be the golden child and that almost destroyed everything. slytherin.

regulus wanted his brother back.

his brother began to slip away from him, it was almost unnoticeable to an untrained eye. regulus couldn't really acknowledge him publicly without facing public embarrassment and hazing from his "well meaning" friends. he had to constantly prove himself to them, prove that he wasn't like his brother, prove he wasn't a blood traitor and it broke his heart. it hurt him to look away when sirius smiled at him in the hallway, it hurt him to lower his eyes and keep walking, but he did. they told him he couldn't love his brother anymore and that hurt regulus more than anyone could ever know, because no matter what he would love him. at home they were allies again, and regulus was eternally grateful because he knew that sirius wanted more than anything to leave but that he stayed for him. they were hesitantly on the same side, protecting each other and hiding each other's secrets. regulus never told when sirius started dating remus and sirius defended regulus when orion or walburga got on his case. they weren't exactly friends because they couldn't be, they couldn't talk, they couldn't be open. but they were brothers, they were allies, they loved each other. it was an unspoken truth between them, however, that regulus wouldn't defy their parents for sirius, whereas sirius would for regulus. that all changed when regulus was 14, sirius had gotten into a fight with their parents, the biggest one by far. they found out about remus. they nearly beat him to death as regulus watched on, terrified of getting involved. but once they cast the crucius curse one too many times regulus flew in front of sirius, in a rare act of support, of brotherly unity. they both paid the price. regulus had to carry an unconscious and bloodied sirius to his room once they were done with them, aware of what would come next. & so when sirius limped to the fireplace an hour later, a bag slung over his shoulders and dried blood on his face regulus didn't try to stop him. they looked into each others eyes and an understanding passed between them, a statement of apology and gratitude, regulus looked away. "I love you reg" sirius said hoarsely, "but I have to go" regulus nodded, unshed tears in his eyes unable to speak for fear of sobbing. "I love you too" he finally muttered under his breath and he was terrified that sirius didn't hear him. he looked up just in time to see sirius vanish into the fireplace, out of his life forever and they both knew nothing would be the same. regulus never knew if sirius heard him.

regulus wanted to forget.

he had no choice really. he could either forget his brother, forget the lightness that still resided inside of him, forget the pain that ached him, or he could let it swallow him whole. so he chose to forget. he forgot how sirius would always protect him from their parents, how sirius and him used to play with twigs in the back yard pretending they were wands. he forgot the pain in sirius's eyes when he walked out, he forgot how he felt when walburga blasted sirius's face off the wall, he forgot all of it. he forgot who he was, he forgot the light that always shone beneath the surface, he managed to push it deeper and deeper within himself, until it was barely there. he managed to forget the brother he had always admired and grew towards the parents he had always feared. he managed to forget. when he saw his brother in the hallway he avoided his eyes, when the letters came he threw them away without looking at them. & so he pushed it all in. he dedicated himself towards the values of his house, he followed the lead of his parents. and slowly the choice to forget was no longer conscious, he just naturally directed his thoughts alway from the hurt, until it was like it no longer existed. he began to believe the lies of his childhood. he believed that being a black made him special, the being pure blood made him important. he soaked up the rhetoric happily, eager to forget, glad to have something to believe in. and slowly but surely he lost himself.

regulus wanted glory.

he swore allegiance to the band of brothers and sisters who shared a common belief, a common goal. he swore allegiance to the dark lord that led them, the charismatic leader. they echoed the sentiments his parents had drilled into his head since he was a child. they spoke of purging the unworthy, of blood purity and rightful ownership and regulus bought it. he bought it hook, line and sinker. he truly believed because he was just so young and that was what he had been taught. nobody wants to do evil, nobody thinks that they'll grow up to be the villain. he thought he was doing the right thing, he thought he was the hero. and so he inked his skin with a skull tattoo, he wore a mask and pledged himself to the dark lord's duty. he was fighting for the values he had always known. he was 16 and idealistic, a soldier in a war so much larger than him. a pawn in a game he didn't fully understand but he full heartedly believed in. regulus thought he was on the right side of history, and it destroyed him to learn he wasn't.

regulus wanted reassurance.

no, he needed it. because some things weren't adding up, because he was 17 now and he couldn't help but wonder if he had been wrong. he wanted someone to tell him that he made the right decision in joining these death eaters, this cruel band of followers that killed without mercy and believed blindly because he had doubts. he had doubts because he saw the looks on the muggles faces before they were killed and the image seared itself into his mind, and he wasn't supposed to care, but he did. he cared so much. they looked so helplessly human and he couldn't help but think they didn't look so different from him. he had doubts because he watched his fellow death eaters abuse their house elfs and he loved his like family. he watched them all disrespect and spit at their inferiors and yet he always thanked the goblins at gringotts, and had always loved speaking with the centaurs at hogwarts. he was inherently a good person and he was beginning to realize that the views he was fighting for and things that felt right to him were so wildly different. he couldn't help but wonder if sirius was right, if he made the wrong choice. and it broke him because he truly did believe in the cause. and he gave so much to it and what if he was wrong? it would destroy him. & so when his poor house elf came back with his tale of torturous potions and dark caves and black lakes regulus had to learn more. and what he discovered broke him.

regulus wanted to fix his mistakes.

he had given his heart and soul to a cause he realized was wrong. he thought he was defending the downtrodden, preserving the wizarding race but he wasn't, he had it all wrong, all backwards. & when he figured out that everything he had been working for was a lie he didn't give up, he didn't give in. he found the courage of a lion that had always been inside of him, he found his light. he had light and dark in him and he chose to act on his light. at the age of 18 he discovered the dark lords worst secret and he died trying to bring him down, he died trying to destroy his former master's pathway to immortality. he drank a torturous potion in a cave, and was dragged by the undead into black water, rather than allow his elf house to receive the same fate. he died alone and desperate in a dark cave, trying to right his wrongs. nobody knew of the sacrifice he made, nobody knew of what he did. sirius never found out, he thought him a coward. it wasn't until 19 years later that a boy with a lightening scar and a destiny to fulfill discovered what he did, found out that he was a hero. it wasn't until 19 years later that regulus's sacrifice was realized.

regulus wanted so much, he just didn't realize what he truly wanted until far too late.

[blueseasonalyou]

something new - May 23,2020

hello world! am trying to clean up my life and get some answers in areas i’m uncertain of. thought I would finally share some of my thoughts and ramblings so I can look back later and see some of those thoughts categorized here.  TW; i’m just venting and bitching a lot about life. 

@me If you don’t bother asking or finding answers to the questions you need in order to live your life best - who can you really blame? It takes energy and it definitely isn’t easy, but if you want better of yourself - do better.  disclaimer, @anyone who I have hurt from my ignorant and numb ways, I am sorry for my carelessness. I am trying to do better and I finally feel comfortable in my identity. Thank you to those who have been patient and are still with me. Anyways. 

Today I googled “what are your responsibilities as an adult” and wanted to share them for anyone else who has had a rough idea and may be curious, but has never thought to actually search this themselves. Psychology Today bucketed these 6 useful headings below

Rationality

Formulating and Implementing goals 

Equality in Relationships

Active versus Passive

Non-defensiveness and Openness

Personal power

The excerpts below are for me to reflect back onto. If you’re interested hearing my words scroll to the very bottom. 

“As an adult, own your life and destiny. If you remain a child in your adult life, you look at the world around you as dominating, controlling, and dangerous. That’s a miserable life.” The major deterrent to living an adult existence lies in the fear of growing up. This includes the fear of breaking imagined connections with parents, being alone, standing out as an individual, having a strong point of view, recognizing one’s value and confronting the inevitability of death, the ultimate separation from self. To live like a child in an adult world is itself a defense against death anxiety. In one story, a woman revealed how, in an attempt to preserve the illusory connection to her parents, she recreated her father in her husband and her mother in close female friends. She went on to describe why she held on to her identity of being “the bad child” for so many years. To hang on to this old identity with all my might, for many years, was so compelling … why? All I can answer to this is remaining a child, although miserable, is farther away from the agony of aging and death. So the compelling draw is hard to let go of. Of course, I still have my moments of childish reactions, but I’m learning to catch them, notice the almost physical feeling that comes on, and stop it before I engage. I will make mistakes, but I plan to forge forward as an adult, and search instead for equality. Nonetheless, this leaves me very alone. And the aloneness leaves me anxious, and sad … but it’s real. And life as an equal, although painful, is fuller. And I’m ready for the challenge. In summary, living in the child mode is largely chaotic and dysfunctional, whereas living one’s life as an adult is generally more adaptive and successful. Retaining a child’s frame of reference has numerous disadvantages: For example, people who operate from this perspective often find it difficult to formulate their goals and priorities in life and tend to feel helpless and victimized. They blame others for the problems they encounter rather than taking responsibility for how people react to them. In reality, people largely determine the course of their lives and determine the way that others respond. Lastly, reacting to life in a childlike manner can be quite emotional but often lacks a depth of genuine feeling. MAY 21, 2020 - MONTREAL  I haven’t prioritized the time to put into words how I’ve felt since I transformed my internal and external presenting identity, career, physical home, support system, and self-acceptance. Wow. Mouthful- huh? No wonder it always felt too big to tackle. I feel more alive in the last year than the last five years of coasting in university. I thought that was just how it goes. You have structure, you have a certain assumed end vision, perhaps it was lazy to not think bigger but when you are processing so many new opportunities, fear of failure and being kicked out, and stimuli - its a fucking lot.  Thursday, May 21 felt like a turning page. It’s summer in Montreal and finally inching closer to my 1 year anniversary here. I moved right after Toronto Pride because a close friend got us the opportunity to walk with her company. Hot take, marching with a corporate company at Pride where you have to be semi-conscious of how you are presenting your identity is not the most pride-esque thing. If you’re confused, imagine being high or any form of intoxicated around your manager. Not sure this flies with every manager and its understandable. I think the neighbours are fucking again. Or they are literally hammering. Who knows.  Back to me, why am I googling adult responsibilities? I feel like i’ve been in child mode the entire last year. The psychology today piece actually really helps summarize a lot of my instability and confusion. Let me explain before you judge. I had an adult mode saved, I did. I had an adult mode saved with 5 years of leadership opportunities from a university I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at. I have zero regrets with my university experience, I really do. I sought out all the things I wanted to try but the one thing always creeping at the back of my mind was hating myself. I thought that was just 2008 news, who cares. I let it stay numbingly in the background and focused on any external stimuli. I never thought to question my gender, or presenting identity because I never thought I resonated with the queer/non-binary/trans/any kind of queer people I saw represented (which was the extremely limited characters on glee). This was never talked about in a Chinese Canadian household. If anything, the more i reflect on my childhood the more I am able to objectively see the surroundings I had are not "normal;”. They just are. They are one timeline, one version, one culture, one kind. The fact I was surrounded by people smaller than me (literally physically observation of weight) were just life decisions. Wasn’t intentional and it really in fact fucked me up with weight insecurities. BUT the great news is that these were just life decisions. Not right or wrong, I am pivoting now and trying my best to balance a new big kid job, create a new support system, work on my family relationships to forgive and let go of years of inflicted trauma, and breathe. (David told me recently my future me will thank myself for sorting myself out now so I can enjoy the rest of my life. I hope so).  I am working back on myself and trying to relearn which parts of me and my personality I loved without the self-hatred I anchored so much to my physical identity. Another friend recently shared a piece on displaced anger. I think that really helps summarize this displaced hatred I have been struggling with for so long. Fuck shame and certain messaging we are bombarded with by media for instilling this at such an early age. Heartbreaking. 

I haven’t shared this with anyone but I think to this day my sister’s unconscious mistakes of ignoring me and not supporting me when I needed her most have fucked me up the most in adulthood. I struggle communicating with my deeper relationships because this was never encouraged when I was younger. Coming out and wanting to talk about girls was never met with excitement or enthusiasm. I don’t care if you didn’t know how to talk about it with me, was I expecting too much to see some degree of interest or care? 

I can’t separate how much of me needs to validate this explanation and the part of me that needs to just grow up and get over it. Maybe its a combination of both. I’m a pisces that was surrounded by 3 capricorns, can we give me a break? 

I’m getting irritated and impatient with myself as i write this. I feel like there is just so much shit it pains me and I don’t know how to share. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I pushed people away so I could sort myself out without any other overwhelming variables or complications. Now so much has happened, who has the time or patience to hear this? I’m tired. This is the third official city i’ve made a home out of and its been the hardest one yet. I think i am also realizing I made most of my friends out of people that don’t initiate or invest similar amounts of energy into me as I do into them. I never held it against them, but growing up is just internalizing and understanding you really don’t have unlimited time. I should let some simply fizzle out. Bleh. Anyways, relearning how to be me that isn’t positive and bubbly all the time. This is 100% me overcompensating for my high-functioning depression that used to leave me feeling numb or indifferent. I don’t know how to reconcile the two huge pendulum swings of emotion. I don’t want to be stepped all over and I want to be assertive without fearing its bossy. I want to be me and I need to give myself some time to explore that.  

Apparently in Denmark, the friends they grow up with are the friends they stick with for pretty much life. Didn’t know it is very North American to have friends in university and separate friend groups from other areas of your life. Beginning to think this is too exhausting, I’d like to simplify this!!!!!!!!!!! 

Final thing. I think a large part of my struggles come from not being honest or vulnerable with my new family about the shit I endure because i’m so used to dealing with it solo. Thus, they only really hear the highs and wins. This makes it really tough on me sharing when asian culture includes ‘saving face’ and suppressing emotion to be private. The environments I put myself in simply accomodate this outdated preference. Anyways, thank you Tumblr for being a space for me to release all of this out. No wonder I have terrible headaches, who the fuck wants to deal with thisss. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BUT REBELLING PRESUMES INFERIORITY AS MUCH AS SUBMISSION

What this means is that at any given time get away with atrocious customer service. The advice about going to work for them.1 The constraints that limit ordinary companies also protect them. That one is easy: don't hire too fast. What you're really doing when you start a company, but also connotations like formality and detachment.2 The reason you've never heard of him is that his company was not the railroads themselves that made the work good.3 The other reason parents may be mistaken is that, like the Hoover Dam.

When the company is small, you are thereby fairly close to measuring the contributions of individual employees. Or 10%? Why? But suggesting efficiency is a different problem from encouraging startups in a particular neighborhood, as well, when you look at history, it seems that most people who got rich by creating wealth did it by developing new technology? After all those years you get used to running a startup, think how risky it once seemed to your ancestors to live as we do now. There is a huge increase in productivity. Evolving your idea is the embodiment of your discoveries so far. Maybe options should be replaced with something tied more directly to earnings.4 Multics and Common Lisp occupy opposite poles on this question. It's easier to expand userwise than satisfactionwise.

It has sometimes been said that Lisp should use first and rest means 50% more typing. Also, as a child, that if you can't raise more money, and have to shut down. The route to success is to get a certain bulk discount if you buy the book or pay to attend the seminar where they tell you how great you are. If you answered yes to all these questions, you might be able to develop stuff in house, and that can probably only increase your earnings by a factor of ten of measuring individual effort. McDonald's, for example. That space of ideas has been so thoroughly picked over that a startup generally has to work on your own thing, instead of paying, as you might expect. They don't care if the person behind it is a good offense.5 That may be the greatest effect, in the long run. And yet they seem the last to realize it.

And early adopters are forgiving when you improve your system, even if you think of other acquirers, Google is not stupid.6 Things are different in a startup.7 Here is a brief sketch of the economic proposition.8 As societies get richer, they learn something about work that's a lot like what they learn about diet.9 In theory this sort of hill-climbing could get a startup into trouble.10 I want to get a job. What's more, it wouldn't be read by anyone for months, and in the meantime I'd have to fight word-by-word to save it. So you'll be willing for example to hire another programmer?11 Our standards about how many employees a company should have are still influenced by old patterns.

Instead of paying the guy money as a salary, why not make employers pay market rate for you? Either the company is default alive, we can talk about ambitious new things they could do by themselves. We'll bet a seed round you can't make something popular that we can't figure out how to make money from it. I think founders will increasingly be COOs rather than CEOs.12 Taking a company public at an early stage, the product needs to evolve more than to be a waste of time to start companies now who never could have before. We would have much preferred a 100% chance of $1 million to a 20% chance of $10 million, even though theoretically the second is worth twice as much.13 Viaweb's hackers were all extremely risk-averse. Too young A lot of the interesting applications written in other languages. Not only for the obvious reason.14 You could call it Work Day. No one can accuse you of unjustly switching pipe suppliers.

Larry and Sergey say you should come work as their employee, when they wanted it, and he has done an excellent job of exploiting it, but if there had been some way just to work super hard and get paid a lot. The reason I want to work ten times as hard, so please pay me ten times a much. And even more, you need to make something people want.15 But a hacker can learn quickly enough that car means the first element of a list and cdr means the rest. Whereas it's easy to see if it makes sense to ask a 3 year old how he plans to support himself. For example, the president notices that a majority of voters now think invading Iraq was a mistake, because it has large libraries for manipulating strings. Instead IBM ended up using all its power in the market to give Microsoft control of the PC standard. If it's default dead, start asking too early.16

When I was in college.17 But in fact startups do have a different sort of DNA from other businesses.18 If you're a founder, in both the good ways and the bad gets ignored. I moved back to the East Coast, where it would really be an uphill battle. There are two differences: you're not saying it to your boss, but directly to the customers for whom your boss is only a proxy after all, and you're thus committing to search for one of the things startups do right without realizing it, also protecting them from rewards. If anything, it's more like the first five. There is no absolute standard for material wealth. Next time you're in a job that feels safe, you are getting together with a lot of us have suspected.19 Though they may have been unsure whether they wanted to fund professors, when really they should be funding grad students or even undergrads. Startups are not just something that happened in Silicon Valley in 1998, I felt like an immigrant from Eastern Europe arriving in America in 1900. If a fairly good hacker is worth $80,000 per year.

Notes

Even in English, our sense of the increase in trade you always feel you should be easy to get a patent is conveniently just longer than the actual lawsuits rarely happen. We just tried to motivate them. Structurally the idea of starting a company tuned to exploit it. Or more precisely, while Reddit is derived from Slashdot, while everyone else and put our worker on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end a series.

This wipes out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest buyers are, so you'd find you couldn't slow the latter without also slowing the former, and partly because companies don't. If you have to follow redirects, and the exercise of stock the VCs I encountered when we created pets.

You'd think they'd have taken one of the company down. These were the impressive ones. There were a variety called Red Delicious that had been climbing in through the buzz that surrounds wisdom in this, but its inspiration; the idea of what's valuable is least likely to resort to raising money from them. This has, like a startup, unless the person who wins.

Paul Buchheit for the same in the mid 1980s. And while it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of startup people in Bolivia don't want to acquire the startups, because those are writeoffs from the success of their initial funding runs out.

Put in chopped garlic, pepper, cumin, and made more margin loans. Forums and places like Twitter seem empirically to work with an online service.

The existence of people we need to, but rather by, say, real estate development, you now get to be very promising, because they could imagine needing in their racks for years while they think the company. The history of the next round.

Otherwise they'll continue to maltreat people who are weak in other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of computer security, and many of the word wisdom in ancient philosophy may be common in the first version would offend. When one reads about the millions of dollars a year, but if you agree prep schools, because such users are collectors, and graph theory.

Morgan's hired hands. Apparently someone believed you have the determination myself.

But I think in general we've done ok at fundraising, because a it's too obvious to your instruments. There were a couple predecessors. I was writing this, I want to take math classes intended for math majors. In a period when people in the sense of a long time I did manage to allocate research funding moderately well, but in practice is that the lies we tell kids are convinced the whole venture business, A P successfully defended itself by allowing the unionization of its completion in 1969 the largest in the past, it's because of the living.

Finally she said Ah!

And that is not just something the telephone, the police in the narrow technical sense of the deal. In fact the decade preceding the war, federal tax receipts as a process rather than risk their community's disapproval. And except in rare cases those don't scale is to claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven by bookmarking, not more startups in this respect as so many trade publications nominally have a cover price and yet give away free subscriptions with such energy that he could just use that instead of the problem is not very well connected. This would penalize short comments especially, because people would be a good plan for life in general.

In practice it's more like Silicon Valley like the one Europeans inherited from Rome. Correction: Earlier versions used a technicality to get the money. That's the difference is that they've already made the decision. That name got assigned to it because the books we now call the years after 1914 a nightmare than to read an original book, bearing in mind that it's up to them.

The lowest point occurred when marginal income tax rates. Not in New York, but to a study by the time. San Jose. But in this article are translated into Common Lisp for, but if you have two choices, choose the harder.

Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a road there are none in San Francisco. Jones, A P supermarket chain because it was not just the most successful ones tend not to need common sense when intepreting it. For example, the number of situations, but I think this is: we currently filter at the last 150 years we're still only able to give you money for.

This is a great deal of wealth—that he could accept it. I'm thinking of Oresme c. That can be huge. Incidentally, the average Edwardian might well guess wrong.

After reading a draft of this essay, I believe Lisp Machine Lisp was the fall of 2008 but no more than others, no matter how large. Google in 2005 and told them Google Video is badly designed. If I were doing Bayesian filtering in a request. How much more drastic and more tentative.

If he's bad at it he'll work very hard and doesn't get paid to work with me there.

Samuel Johnson seems to have minded, which parents would still want their kids rather than geography. No, and although convertible notes, and when you see them, if you ban other ways. Make Wealth in Hackers Painters, what you learn in college. I've often had a big company.

What I should degenerate from words to their returns. They bear no blame for opinions expressed. Adam Smith Wealth of Nations, v: i mentions several that tried that. Default: 2 cups water per cup of rice.

Thanks to Ben Horowitz, Garry Tan, Zak Stone, Jessica Livingston, Peter Eng, Robert Morris, Sam Altman, and Paul Buchheit for the lulz.

[7thstorey]

Dear No One

I’m sitting here as I’m working at Starbucks and I had nothing to do. So, I took my time by looking at people who are eating, studying, watching videos, gossiping and even spending time with their love ones. Here I am, wondering what does it feel to be in relationship. Pardon me. I’ve been in relationship before and I thought he was the one for me. We had some ups and downs throughout our relationship. I really love him till I had this thought of marrying him when I got older but guess it’s not fated.

Throughout the days with him, it’s been amazing. I got to learn a lot of new things from him (not bad things but good things). Then, I learned what is the meaning of love, sacrifices, time management, honesty and trust.

I didn’t know what’s the meaning of love. I thought it was just a word or maybe just feelings but after I was in relationship with him, I get to know the meaning of it. It is kind of a sweet word to me. For sacrifices, I will combined it with time management. I didn’t had time for my friends because mostly I was with him. I even sacrifice my own time for him too. When my friends asked me to hang out with them, I lied to them by saying I had curfews which I did! That is when I realised that I’m bad at time management. Every single time, I need to lie to my friends and even my parents.

Next, honesty and trust. I lost my parents’s trust especially my dad when they got to know that I was in relationship. My grades in school were great but they thought that after I was with him, my grades dropped. Actually, it’s not because of that, it was because of there’s one topic which I was weak in and that is drawing. So after I had my results, I showed to my parents and they were so surprised because for all this time, my results were not dissappointing and suddenly, when they saw the results, they were shocked. I’m not sure what happened next but for what I can remembered was, my phone were been confiscated. For almost 6 months, I did not have my phone with me. Then, one of my siblings had to call him because he wanted to ask him to cut ties with me.

So, we both met up secretly as we need to talk things out. I was so happy when I got to meet him as we did not met for that period of time as I need to buck up with my studies whereas he needs to work. We do talked but there’s one part when I broke down in tears because he told me to pause the relationship and that was when I realised that I really need to gain my parents’s trust.

After that, I had my examinations. Studied hard for it especially the ones that I’m weak at. With the help of my classmates, I gained back my results to normal. On the day that I received one of the subject’s results, I met him outside my school because he wanted to meet me after so long. I showed him my result and he was happy. We went somewhere to catch up some things and suddenly, he told me something which I was shocked and surprised. For this part, I’m really happy because he was being honest with me. He told me that he met someone new who he became friends with. They had been spending time with each other when I was trying my hard to be a better person for my parents and myself. So, I heard the real story from him. He told me everything like how they met, where they met and how the times they spend time with each other. I didn’t expect him to tell me the truth though. I thought he will be like lying to me. When he told me the story, my mind was somewhere else. A lot of questions were on my mind. I didn’t heard that much after he told me because I was busying minding my own questions in my head.

After much of thinking, that is when I made my own decision. I decided to break up with him. I had my difficulties of whether should I break up with him or not. I do love him so much but when I remembered what he told me, I decided to take things with my own hands. I had to gain my parents’s trust. I had to buck up with my studies. I had to do so many things by my ownself but listening to him that he met someone new, really hurts me. And that is when he lost my trust.

So, that’s what actually happened. After everything, he was with that girl and I was with someone else. We went separate ways. He was happy with her but they broke up too and now, he was happily married. I’m happy for him as he met someone that he always wanted. That girl was happy with her life now. While me? I’m happy with my life too.

And that’s why I wondered how does it feels like to be in relationship, again.

I’ll update again once I have a topic to blog about.

[philprovencio]

“If you ain’t impressing born and raised New Yorkers, you ain’t that good.”

The quote itself is current, but may as well come from a different time, even a different generation entirely now. It’s from comedian Yannis Pappas, but it’s one that we’ve all heard in some form or another. Why is that? More importantly, why has it lasted this long? Why does it deeply resonate with me? Does it with anyone else? I’ll give it my best shot as to why. Remember the 80’s? How about the 90’s? Just the phrases themselves invoke a flood of nostalgia. This period saw the birth of Larry David and Seinfeld. It was Eddie Murphy in his red-leathered-prime. It was a proving ground for future greats like Norm Macdonald, Chris Rock and Louis C.K. It was also the era that saw the loss of huge inspirational giants like Chris Farley, Phil Hartman and Bill Hicks. What’s not to miss indeed.

But remorse not, as Yoda might say, for everything goes in cycles. Just as that generation was inspired by the previous one, the current comedic Zeitgeist is fed by the genius of the Dave Chappelle and Sarah Silvermans of my era. So the cycle of inspiration continues and all is well, right? Sure, but for me and hopefully others, every now and again a helpful push in the right direction is necessary. A push that allows us to stop and take an honest look at ourselves, who we are and what exactly it is we’re trying to say as artists, writers, and comedians. A push that Yannis, Brooklyn born and raised in all his glory, is more than happy to give.

Before we tackle the lesson at hand, it might be important to first address the why. What makes this guy so special? Is he trending? I haven’t seen his name on any of the top blog lists recently (even the Brooklyn one) Well my impatient, shallow at times, friend of the internet, you’d be “technically” right, but also very wrong. Therein lies the problem. With today’s generation being subjected to such an influx of continuous, never-ending streams of digital information, it can be hard to decipher the good from the bad. The right now vs. the 20-30 year old artist still growing. You know the old saying “if a tree falls in the woods with no one around, does it make a sound?” Today’s generation should read more along the lines of “If a Bob Dylan pens ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ without a verified account and huge online presence, does anyone give a retweet?”

So who is Yannis Pappas? For starters he is a rare-breed of comic who is older than many and has had a front-row seat during some of the most influential times New York City has experienced in recent memory. But like with anything the good is not without the bad. “It was a dangerous city and getting jumped, mugged and forced into fights was just normal,” explains Yannis. “But it gives you an edge, wisdom, exposure to everything and awareness that I wouldn’t trade.”

If you’re not impressed, well, there’s also the one time he just so happened to get shot. Yes, really shot during a mugging. The crème de la crème of hip-hop lyrical street cred is there, and he lived to tell about it. Truthfully, it doesn’t get any more New York than this guy. He describes it in a much more personal interview as the day that ”everything changed”. In short, he came to terms with the realization of life’s harsh realities and your dreams could be taken away from you at any given moment. A sort of “benign denial” he calls it. This time period in his life led to Yannis working with 9/11 disaster relief victims, the homeless and the mentally ill afflicted to help cope.

These days though, are safer for Yannis. All this is what brings me to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. To most of the younger generation it’s a relatively unknown place. Sure, it’s Brooklyn, but it’s far. A painfully lonely and reflective hour-and-some-ride-on-the-R-train-type far. Yannis is a new class of home-owning residents here. Even after the gentrification boom, Bay Ridge has stayed relatively unchanged after all these years. Partially from the mob ties, sure, but it’s been maintained quite well. I’m talkin’ a young John Travolta’s perfectly groomed and precisely combed head of hair fromSaturday Night Fever (which was famously filmed here) type of maintained. It’s the kind of neighborhood that I can’t help but speculate might have helped form and turned the popular phrase “why leave Brooklyn at all?” and various forms of it we see and hear these days: “…I struck gold, I love it out here. I never thought I’d live here though, but now I’m happy I do. I got a view of Manhattan from all my windows and I stroll the streets with Chris Distefano (who also lives there) and grab slices just like Travolta did in Saturday Night Fever. So I’m stayin alive!” Minus the dance-offs, it’s pretty believable.

Through the changing times and landscape of the comedy world, Yannis the comic has adapted and keeps busy. Relatively retired from the club circuit, on the other hand, are his two viral-famed characters dubbed “Maurica” and “Mr. Panos.” Minus the occasional impression for a few famous actor friends of Yannis’, he explains it just got to be too much. Yannis back then would swap in and out of character 3-4 times throughout the course of a show along with music cues and hosting duties to boot. “Maurica and Panos are fun characters. It’s fun to think like someone else would. Interestingly, they were both a little ahead of their times. Panos predicted the Greek government’s stance towards Germany, and the bailout and Maurica made everyone feel ‘WEPA’ (a slang term of endearment among the Latin communities; ex; “Wepa! They’ve got my favorite Goya flavor in stock”) way before Caitlyn Jenner.” See my point now? Cycles. Whereas a harsh unassuming blog might deem a character like “Maurica” to be offensive a few years back, nowadays the landscape has changed and the media celebrates and embraces that lifestyle.

So what’s the message here? Yannis is happy to lend a few trends he’s noticed. “Nowadays, everyone moves to New York, these artists find safe places with audiences entirely made of up transplant, uncool people just like them from wherever they’re from and it’s a big circle jerk of uncool. Which somehow now is thought to be cool? They don’t think they need that New York influence anymore and it’s limiting them”. Yannis’ statement poses a big and thought provoking question. Has the landscape indeed changed so much that newly minted artists can entirely make it on their own now without the influence or approval of long-time New Yorkers?

The real answer and solution might lie somewhere in the middle, as it usually tends to. Admittedly, Yannis recognizes that comics who don’t fully immerse themselves in the total cultural offerings the city provides could and might be doing well, “but you ain’t that good,” he jokes. Yannis reflects more on the differences. “Artists used to move here alone from the Midwest or wherever abouts and they’d have to impress New Yorkers. That’s what making it in New York used to be. Audiences were predominately native New Yorkers and artists came here to be influenced by New Yorkers. They came here to learn to be cool. Madonna, Blondie, you name it, they came here and took that rap or freestyle music influence to help shape them.” There’s truth there. Once upon a time there was a way-less cool version of Madonna from a small town in Michigan whose parents came from even humbler beginnings in Italy. New York undoubtedly played a major role in her finding her ‘cool’ like so many other artists of the time.

Yet through it all, it’s clear Yannis is still Yannis. Older and wiser. “I’m great at figuring out a way to lay down wherever I am,“ he jokes. Yannis is happy. Quite simply, for Yannis, it’s all about the little things in life: “Pizza, sports, making whoopie (or alone whoopie), having a good hair day, dogs, my nose not being clogged, fresh sneakers on my feet. It just doesn’t get any better.” Another clear resonance of it just being about all the little things in life.

What comics like Yannis argue is, if by consciously making the decision to move to New York and not exposing yourself to crowds outside of your comfort zone, you might be getting “an experience”, but are you giving yourself a “real New York experience”? The very kind that might have first attracted you to its bright lights and avenues all those years ago. Allowing yourself and your inner artist, the tools it needs to produce work that is capable of standing out among the crowd.

Follow Yannis @YannisPappas and look for his upcoming project series with pal Chris Distefano in development.

[joseph-me-blog1]

“Get Out” sparks debate about race and shows the intrinsic problem with RottenTomatoe’s rating system (no spoilers)

Jordan Peele’s venture into horror is one of the genre’s best entries in the last 10 years. I realize this isn’t the most glowing compliment seeing as how most horror movies are total derivative shit. See, horror films are really easy to make and don’t have to be high in concept for people to go out and see them. Horror fans always cite that the genre helps us identify societies dilemmas and real fears through the guise of fictional narratives (like how Romero’s “Dawn of The Dead” is an allegory for consumer capitalism) but they usually end up just being a mosaic of cheap jump scares and highly questionable character motivations. Peele’s concept alone should be lauded for it’s ingeniousness. Using the “Meet The Parents” mold to illustrate the experience of being a black man in a world that only sees you as that is so clever I can’t believe no one’s ever thought of it before. The performances Peele was able to extract were great the lead Daniel Kayluuya plays the even-headed, rational Chris who deals with all the not so subtle micro aggression's throughout the film with poise. Peele uses this character to show why black men are driven to violence in the face of oppression, but is able to have the audience root for him whereas in real life critiques of the black lives matter movement flood our Facebook feeds and we’re constantly inundated with the picture of how the ideal black man should be remarkably innocuous in order to cohabitate with us. Peele speaks to a very specific type of racism in the film not the one of yesteryear but this current facade being perpetuated since Obama took office of how racism doesn’t exist. 

Being a movie with such pointed commentary there’s been some of the best and absolute worse in film discussion revolved around it. The self-hating white person is so popular right now it’s to be expected. I’ve seen popular liberal outlets matter of factually state that horror movies throughout the years killing exclusively white people has made audiences want to protect said white people even more (WHATTHEFUCK?!) this is asinine and I can only picture the headline this same author would write if the inverse was true “Why are White Directors Obsessed with Killing Black Characters?”. I’ve seen people say the movie is anti-white which I think is untrue but I have definitely seen anti-white rhetoric from people who see the movie “I hate white people”, “white people are evil” that I’m sure would make Jordan Peele physically cringe. Also for white people who feel like the movie is anti-white I would argue that they are not attacking white people but a certain type of white people and if you are personally offended by that you might want to take a closer look at yourself. I’ve heard the argument that if the inverse of the plot was done there would be an uproar from the black community, but the premise only works because of the history involved with the African-American struggle. The experience of a white man and black man and the respective histories are too different to have this hypothetical movie make sense. So what did I think about the movie? It left a lot to be desired as far as suspense and horror goes. There are some clever twists along the way but anyone paying attention could not have been too in suspense. I was not scared at all nor did I feel like anyone else was which I don’t think was what Peele was going for from what I’ve seen in interviews seems like he wanted there to be both. Not enough tension or scares from an initial premise that could have been truly horrifying. There was some very cool imagery and then it just kind of faded away and I really wish they would have made it more psychologically enthralling as the trailer suggested. It did not deliver on the goods. The social commentary itself could have used some subtlety (though there was some great symbolism) and Peele shows his inexperience in the story driven world of writing where characters blatantly give exposition and talking points in their dialogue. Some scenes went on too long for my liking and just seemed unnecessary, script could have been tighter. My biggest complaint is just simply the lack of fulfillment on what could have potentially been not only one of the greatest horror films of the last 10 years but of all time. The comedy absolutely worked without a question and Lil Rel Howry who plays Chris’s friend is a star in the making and stole the show every time he appeared on screen serving as the orator of what the audience was thinking (though this self-awareness of the genre didn’t stop the main character from some dubious decision-making). Catherine Keener’s performance was excellent and the scene shown of her in the trailer is even better than what you’ve seen. The film overall is pretty clever, hilarious, and important but could have been so much more I would give it a low 8/10. 

I could have been overhyped a bit especially since RottenTomatoes gave the film a rare 100% before it was ruined by Armond White (who despite the namesake is black) a purposefully contrarian film critic who also hated “Moonlight” and accosted masterful director Steve McQueen at a screening of “12 Years a Slave”. Now the film sits at 99%, but is it a 99% movie? The simple answer is no. Some people think that this is a result of white critics not wanting to trash the movie in fear of persecution which I think is ultimately untrue, but maybe added to their enthusiasm. The problem lies with the system. RT’s innate flaw is that they do not get an aggregate score from a collection of scores from critics so if EW gives the film let’s say a 1/5 and then AVCLUB gives it a 6/10 they don’t give you the actual medium between the two which would be 45% they would just say it’s 50% because one person said bad this other said good. This probably isn’t the strongest example, but you get the point movies can become inflated just for being passable or not disagreeable enough to be considered bad. I also understand there’s nothing RT can do to fix this problem getting a medium number from all the varying ways critics rank their films (5 stars, 8/10, B-, etc) would be a logistical nightmare. I just feel like this flaw in the system needs to be understood when observing these ratings. 

“Get Out” might not be a 99% but it’s still damn good and is creating a much needed conversation about important issues which is what a film at it’s best should be doing. The highest compliment I can pay to it is I genuinely feel once a few years pass it should inducted into the National Film Library at The Library of Congress for it’s cultural significance and tackling of issues were so prevalent during this time so future generations who have hopefully learned how to deal with racial issues better than we have and can look at it as a distant memory much like Chris looking at the world from a void when he’s hypnotized.  Also, big props to me for writing this whole review without using the word “woke”.

[hottytoddynews]

HottyToddy.com provides readers a roundup of the commentary and information about the Ole Miss Rebels from various publications around the Web.

Readers can check out the latest information in a single post each day throughout the year. Here at HottyToddy.com, we are doing all the leg work to find the information that people want about Ole Miss sports.

Today’s stories come from Ole Miss Sports

Rebel Softball Opens Practice Tuesday

Photo by Joshua McCoy/Ole Miss Athletics

Ole Miss Softball hit the field Tuesday afternoon for the official start of practice, the first of many leading up to the 2017 campaign.

The Rebels, led by a class of four seniors and 11 returning starters, will take part in a number of practice sessions over the next few weeks, and also compete in intrasquad games as the season opener draws closer.

Ole Miss returns 14 players from last year’s squad that finished No. 24 in the final ESPN.com/USA Softball Poll, and welcomes 10 newcomers to the 24-person roster.

The Rebels’ challenging 56-game slate opens Feb. 10-12 at the Easton invitational in Fullerton, California. After 15-straight on the road to open the season in tournament play, Ole Miss will host 14 in-a-row in Oxford, with the home opener slated for March 1.

For the full schedule and details, click here. A reminder that all Ole Miss Softball home games are free admission.

For all Ole Miss Softball news and information, go to OleMissSports.com and follow the Rebels on Twitter at @OleMissSoftball, on Facebook at Ole Miss Softball and on Instagram at http://ift.tt/1SlszRa. Fans can also follow head coach Mike Smith on Twitter at @msmithsb16. Additionally, fans can get a behind-the-scenes look at Ole Miss Softball on Snapchat under the handle, @OleMissSoftball.

Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports

A Hidden Honor: Thank You to Rebel Nation

2016 Ole Miss Rifle Photo by Joshua McCoy/Ole Miss Athletics Twitter: @OleMissPix

By Alison Wiesz, senior

During the first year of college almost every freshman wonders if they chose the right school, if they will be challenged as an individual or if their sport is allowing them to compete at the level they hoped it would. I won’t lie to you, I had a bit of that.

I had success before arriving at Ole Miss and I believe this caused me to question if I had gone to a different school, would it have made a difference in my shooting. But what it really came down to was maybe it would have, maybe it wouldn’t have. There is no way to really know, but I loved Ole Miss too much to let that thought last.

As I enter my final semester of shooting for my university, it has become more and more apparent to me that I could not have made it to this point alone. There are countless individuals who have helped shape not only the shooter, but the person I am today. As I sit here reflecting on the past three and a half years as a Rebel, it is clear that I have not taken the time to thank them like I want to.

Beginning with my roots, it is my parents who made my lifelong dream a reality. Thank you, mom and dad, for letting me go to a place I love 28 hours from home. I grew up 15 minutes from Montana State and I am mindful of how much easier attending that school would have been on my family; instead they allowed me to leave to chase a dream. Thank you, mom and dad for being so understanding with the decision that I made and loving me all the same.

To my baby sisters, Bailey (13) and Hannah (11), thank you for always being there, supporting me, loving what I do, and loving Ole Miss as much as I do. Thank you for maintaining a relationship regardless of the age difference and places we are in our lives. Knowing that they both look up to me keeps me constantly in check, and I am lucky to have them in my life. Thank you, Bailey and Hannah.

When it comes to my shooting, I could never pinpoint one specific person, but when I reflect back on how I am able to be in the position that I am in today, I think about my first step into a range and first shot taken. The man behind this is Chris Winstead. When you’re an eight-year-old kid it is rare that someone is so confident in your ability to not only perform at something, but to do it at the highest level. Chris did this for me. He nicknamed me “little Annie Oakley” and from then on we built a lifelong relationship around shooting. To date, I reach out to him after every match and no words will ever accurately express the amount of gratitude I have for him. Thank you, Chris.

As my collegiate career at Ole Miss began to develop it was Josie Nicholson, sports psychologist, and Drew Clinton, our academic counselor, who served as primary aids. Both of these individuals not only helped to enhance my shooting, but improved me as a person. I believe that I have always had high expectations surrounding me which caused me to only see my worth through shooting and what I could accomplish on the range. I am incredibly thankful for the guidance from both Josie and Drew who forced me to see that my value to this world is so much more than that. If I had a bad day at the range, it doesn’t mean I am a bad person or a crappy shooter; it is just a bad day. Thank you, Josie and Drew.

Rifle is such a mental sport. A lot of it comes down to your attitude and your mentality during the shot. While my mentality was strengthened from both Josie and Drew, it is also strengthened from the advantages the rifle community offers.

In rifle you can get coaching from anywhere, it may not necessarily be your coaching on the line. Whereas in a sport like football, a defensive coordinator is not necessarily going to go to a defensive player on another team and give them pointers, in rifle it does that a lot more. To this day I am thankful for the rifle community’s impact on my career. This approach allowed me to feel comfort and set my mind at ease. The community also brought along great friends. Mindy Miles, who shoots at Texas Christian University, became one of my closest friends when we shot in a summer marksmanship program together. Since, I have bought a gun from her and have had great success with it. I am eternally grateful that the rifle circle allows and welcomes this type of relationship.

Another big influence to this mindset is my new head coach Marsha Beasley. Unfortunately, I only had the pleasure of being her student-athlete for my senior year, but the depth of our relationship could not be measured by time. Marsha brought something I had never witnessed before: a strong desire to better the program and a work ethic that will allow her to do it. I know her love for the sport hit home to all involved and when I saw such a big heart wanting to do so much for my team, it made me feel valued. Thank you, Marsha.

In some ways—even more than my own graduation—the end to this time in my life represents a new beginning to the rifle program. It is an incredible honor to be a part of a program that is being built. Some people may view it as they don’t want to go to a specific school because they are not the top dog in the conference, but to be a part of a program that in the future everyone will want to go to is incredibly humbling. I will know that I was a part of that building process, because you need those people. This program is my hidden honor.

Thank you Rebel Nation for the tremendous support given to my team. We have fans that we see at almost every home match and that means more to me than you will ever know. You all have expected nothing but the best from not only my team, but me as the lone senior with a decorated background. The pressure from the Rebel fan base has pushed each and every athlete in a positive way.

While I embark on my final semester of shooting and beginning the journey of a master’s degree, I want to be remembered as someone who cared about the team and cared about the program enough to not only want to see herself succeed, but everyone else succeed too. I am not ready to be done; I don’t want to be. Even though I have contributed success, there is still a lot I want to do for this program. Rebel Nation is the reason behind this.

Thank you,

Alison Weisz

Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports

NFL Playoffs Rebel Updates

Here at OleMissSports.com, we are proud to update Rebel fans on the exploits of our former players who lace up their cleats on Sundays in the NFL. Ole Miss had a big presence in the league again this year. There were 23 former Rebels on NFL rosters for the 2016 season, including two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, recent Super Bowl participants Brandon Bolden and Michael Oher, and 2016 first-round draft picks Robert Nkemdiche, Laquon Treadwell and Laremy Tunsil.

The National Football League postseason began this week as teams started their quest to Super Bowl LI, and there were sever former Ole Miss players on rosters of teams who advanced to the playoffs.

Below is a breakdown of each playoff participant’s contributions and details of their team’s outcome during the first week of the postseason.

#38 BRANDON BOLDEN | RB | New England Patriots

Is currently active for the Patriots (14-2) vs. Texans (9-7), AFC Divisional Round, Jan. 14, 7:15 p.m. CT, CBS.

#27 SENQUEZ GOLSON | CB | Pittsburgh Steelers

Was on injured reserve for the Steelers’ 30-12 victory over the Dolphins on Jan. 8. Steelers will face the Chiefs on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 12:05 p.m. CT on NBC.

#77 JOHN JERRY | OG | New York Giants

Started at right guard with a fumble recovery in the Giants’ loss to Green Bay 38-13. Will not advance into the divisional round.

#10 ELI MANNING | QB | New York Giants

Started at QB for New York, going 23 of 44 for 299 yards in a loss to Green Bay 38-13. Will not advance into the divisional round.

# GERALD RIVERS | LB | Houston Texans

Was on injured reserve for the Texans’ 27-14 victory over the Raiders on Jan. 7. Texans will move into the divisional round to face the Patriots on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 7:15 p.m. CT on CBS.

#78 BRADLEY SOWELL | OT | Seattle Seahawks

Contributed to the Seahawks victory over Detroit 26-6. Will move into the divisional round to face Atlanta on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 3:35 p.m. CT on FOX.

#67 LAREMY TUNSIL | G | Miami Dolphins

Started at left guard in the Dolphins’ loss to Pittsburgh 30-12. Will not advance into the divisional round of the playoffs.

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Courtesy of Ole Miss Sports

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