#why did you drop out of YALE? you will always be famous

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

#Why Jess Was Always The Best

[anewkindofme]

I understand not everyone views media the same way as me, but sometimes I get annoyed when people refuse to realize that character growth is not the same thing as being a hypocrite.

This is one of my biggest examples and the trigger for this post...

At the end of S4 of Gilmore Girls, Jess goes to Rory and asks her to run away with him. Look where Jess is in that moment. Things didn't work out with his dad, he doesn't have stable work, he's just barely worked things out with Luke, his relationship with his mom is a mess. He realizes how badly he crewed up his life. So, in a manic state, he does something stupid.

BUT! Rory says "no", turns him away, and Jess is forced to grow up. Look at what he does between that episode and when we see him again in S6. He moves to Philly, gets a great job, publishes a book! Things are great! He's so happy. Deep down, he knows that Rory was right to reject him because that wasn't what either of them needed. They needed space to grow. He's thankful that she turned him down.

So, imagine his surprise when he shows up and she DROPPED OUT OF YALE! She pushed him on this grand path and now she's living with her grandparents, hosting tea parties, and dating some guy that, to him, seems to be a prick. (And I want to be fair to Logan here, Rory put both guys in a shitty spot, plus we know Logan was in a bad mood. Still, all Jess sees is a dumbass with a Porche who is potentially grooming Rory to be a housewife) Yeah, he gets annoyed. And yeah, he gives his famous: "Why did you drop out of Yale?!" speech.

Because he ISN'T the same guy that begged Rory to drop out. He knows what a horrible idea it was. Rory was always someone he looked up to and admired in a way. And now, she's seemingly lost it. So, he gets frustrated.

Not because he's a hypocrite, but because he's finally the guy Rory knew he could be. She even says that herself. It's just that, now, she isn't the person that he wanted to change for.

Jess isn't a hypocrite. He just has some awesome growth.

[mersuperwholocked-lowlife]

Family Is Overrated

Word Count: 1,687

Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Reader, Jody Mills (brief), Bucky Sims, Lorraine Fox, Alicia & Max (brief)

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Daughter!Reader

Warnings: angst

A/N: uhm.... it’s here, sorry it’s bad lol haha i suck

A/N 2: this is part two of Ace!

A/N 3: Based off of Season 12, Episode 6, Celebrating The Life of Asa Fox

Masterlist   Ace

“Who’s gonna tell Jody?” you asked, standing around with Lorraine and Bucky.

��I don’t know,” Bucky sighed.

“Well, someone does. She was his closet friend,” you looked at him.

“I can’t do this,” Lorraine’s eyes watered up.

“I know, I’m so sorry for your loss, Lorraine. If you need any help….” you gave her a sorrowful look.

“Will you plan the funeral?” she asked you.

You knew you couldn’t say no. After everything Asa did for you, you needed to do this for him.

“Of course,” you nodded.

“Will you tell Jody?” Bucky turned to you.

You nodded softly.

“Thank you, dear. I know I can count on you,” her eyes watered once more.

“Of course. I’m sorry,” you wrapped your arms around her before leaving with Bucky.

“Why are you making that face, Ace?” he laughed softly.

“Asa’s gone. I knew I should've stayed with you two, it’s all my fault,” you gave him a look.

“Wasn’t your fault Ace. Mistakes were made. It was Jael’s fault,” he sighed.

“After this wake, I’m going to hunt him down. He’s dead,” 

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Bucky crosses his arms.

“Yeah, I can do it,” you shrugged.

“By yourself?” he raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, so?” you gave him a look.

“Look, no offense, Ace, but you're just a kid,” he started.

“I’m not a kid. I’m 21 for crying out loud!” you raised your voice.

“That’s still young. You’re too invested into hunting,” 

“I’m fine. You don’t know what you’re saying. Bye,” you pushed past him, getting into your car and driving off.

---

Asa was a well-known hunter in the community, everyone knew about him as everyone knew about you.

It had been years since you last saw Sam, Dean, and Jason, or talked to them.

You’ve been going around hotel to hotel, hunt to hunt, finding any hunter that needed help. It took your mind off of everything. You didn’t care about people knowing that you were a girl, or how you looked. The only thing that you kept, was who your family was and your name. People told stories about Sam and Dean, while you just stayed quiet. 

You dialed Jody’s number, getting ready to tell her about Asa. You met her many times, she was a nice person, but you didn’t know too much. You know she had two adopted daughters, both a few years younger than you, and you knew she was sheriff of Sioux Falls.

“Hey, kid. What’s up?” she picked up the phone with a cheerful voice. You felt your feelings drop, hearing how happy she sounded, and you were gonna ruin it.

“H-Hey, Jody. What’s going on?” you sniffled, taking a deep breath.

“Just have some friends over. We’re watching a movie. How was the hunt with Asa and Bucky?” she asked.

You paused, taking a deep breath.

“T-The demon…..” you started.

“The demon killed Asa,” you said softly.

You could hear her shallow breathing as your heart broke.

“Uhm, t-the wake’s today, and we’re cremating his body tomorrow. Lorraine wanted to get him out as soon as she can,” you explained.

“O-Oh,” she stuttered.

“I’m so, so sorry for your loss, Jody. I wish I could’ve saved him,” you started.

“No, no, kid. It’s not your fault. I-I’ll, uh, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she sniffled.

“Okay,” you said softly.

“Okay,” she hung up the call.

You groaned to yourself, wiping your face, getting ready to go to Lorraine’s house.

---

“Quiet down!” you yelled for what seemed like the 100th time.

Hunters were loud. Drunk hunters were louder.

You sighed, grabbing a beer.

“You Ace?” you heard a man from behind you ask.

You turned to see him talking to Bucky.

“Nope,” he shook his head.

“I don’t get it, I’ve asked every hunter here, none of them are Ace,” the man sighed.

“Well, you didn’t ask me. Nice to meet you,” you gave a sarcastic smile.

“You?” he asked in disbelief.

“Do you have a problem with that?” you raised an eyebrow.

“Just…. not what I was expecting,” he replied.

“Now, I have a question for you. Did you ask every hunter here, or did you ask every man here?” you pushed off the table, crossing your arms as he went silent.

“Didn't think a woman could be the fiercest hunter here? Do you have a problem with women?” you walked near him, watching him tense up.

You saw Bucky hold in a laugh from the corner of your eye.

“N-No, no ma’am,” he stuttered.

“That’s what I thought,” you scoffed.

“M-May I just say it’s an honor to meet you. I’ve heard the stories about you, all the great things you’ve done,” he started.

Stories?

You knew that hunters knew you, but you didn't know they told stories.

“Oh, uh, thanks…. I think?” you hesitated briefly.

“So, how did you start hunting?” he asked you.

“My mom was a hunter, and when she died I felt like I had to take on her legacy,” you explained.

“What about any other family? Like your dad? Any siblings?” he bombarded you with questions.

“Dead. My dad died when I was a kid, and my brother died some time ago,” you lied.

“Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss,” he gave you a sad look.

“Well, it's been a while, and I’m okay,” you shrugged.

You gave a small smile, finding your way to find Lorraine.

---

“No labels, that’s a red sign,” Dean muttered to himself, picking up a beer bottle.

“Nah, it’s good. Homemade,” Bucky smiled.

“I’m Bucky Sims,” Bucky introduced.

“Dean Winchester,” he replied.

“Whoa, the Dean Winchester? As in like dead four times Dean Winchester?” another hunter, named Randy interrupted.

“Yeah, it, uh didn’t stick,” he gave a small smile.

“I mean, Asa was famous, but you’re here, and Ace is here? This is gonna get interesting,” he exhaled.

“Ace is here? I’ve always wanted to meet him,” Dean started.

“Uh, she,” Bucky corrected.

“Oh, really? Good for her,” Dean said, opening his beer.

---

“Oh, hey Alicia, Max,” you greeted the twins, standing in front of them.

“Hey, Ace, this is Sam,” she introduced you to the man standing in front of them.

He turned to you, as you felt shivers go down your spine. 

Sam

“Oh my god,” you gasped.

“What the!?” he jumped up, looking at you in shock.

“I-It’s nice t-to meet you,” you stuttered, walking back.

Holy shit, oh my god

You panicked, walking to the back room.

“(Y/N),” you heard Dean call your name.

It’s been years since anyone called you by your name.

“Please, go away,” you said, walking into a room, with Sam and Dean entering with you.

“(Y/N), please, just talk to us,” Dean said.

“Shut up. Leave me alone, please,” you begged.

“You’re Ace? You’re freaking Ace?!” Dean raised his voice.

“So what if I am?!” you yelled at them.

“No, Ace was around before you left,” Sam remembered.

“I was Ace then, and I’m Ace now,” you said shakily.

“What the hell?!” Dean yelled.

“Just stop! Both of you!” you yelled.

“(Y/N), just listen,” Sam started.

“No! You have nothing to say to me, Sam. Do you think I-I forgot what the last thing you said to me was?!” you yelled.

“That wasn’t me, I swear. Look, when we were at the hospital, we were all waiting, i-in the waiting room. They weren’t letting us go in. We saw a shifter leaving your room, and then you were gone,” Sam’s eyes watered.

You went quiet.

“Where’s my brother?” you asked softly.

They both gave each other a look.

“Where is he?” you raised your voice.

“He’s gone,” Dean answered.

You felt your heart drop.

“W-What… what do you mean?” you stuttered. You knew, but you couldn’t. He couldn’t be gone.

“He’s dead, (Y/N)!” Dean yelled.

You jumped slightly, as your eyes watered.

Sam elbowed Dean, motioning to him to calm down.

“(Y/N),” Sam started.

“I’m sorry-” he continued.

“Please, j-just don’t. God, everything was okay before you came here,” you sighed.

“Okay? You call that okay? We looked for you, for so long! We thought you died, (Y/N)! You disappeared!” Dean yelled.

“Y-You think I was gonna stay there, with you?” you spat.

“We were gonna fix things,” Dean started.

“There was no fixing things! I told you that I-I hated you! And I still do! Do you think I-I wanted to fix things after everything that I said? I was in pain, Dean, and you made it worse. I bet you still don’t know where I was going that day,” you shook your head.

“Maybe I don’t, okay, but we’re family. We’re supposed to hate each other, and we’re supposed to fix things,” he said softly.

“What makes you think I want to? Look, out there, with all the hunters, I’m Ace. (Y/N) doesn’t exist. You two don’t know me. You can stay for Asa’s wake, but after this, I never, ever want to see you again,” you said shakily.

“That’s not your decision to make,” Dean said, as you started walking out of the room.

“It’s not yours either. You were the worst father. I’d be shocked if you even knew how old I am,” you scoffed, about to leave.

“You’re (Y/N) Winchester, born on April 20th, 1995. You’re 21 years old, your favorite color is blue, your favorite book is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. You wanted to go to Yale, and you’re my daughter. And I love you, so much. And I’m so sorry that I didn’t show it.”

You froze, your hand on the doorknob, as your tears fell to the floor.

“I spent years looking for you because you’re my kid, you’re my family, and you mean the world to me,” Dean walked next to you, putting his hand on yours, slowly taking it off the door.

“You’re smart, you’re fierce, you’re brave, you’re kind, you’re beautiful. And you’re too good for our family,” he turned you to face him.

“Family’s overrated anyways,” you sniffled, closing the door behind you.

(Posted @  on July 16, 2020)

Tagging - @vicmc624​ @beancave​ @yoongi-holland​ @samsgirl93​ @the-and-sign-anon​ @cryingskies​ @skyelikestowrite 

[literatigifs]

anonymous asked: Two questions 1. Why do people always talk about 'Logan putting Rory in her place' as a good thing, it feels condescending to me.

2. What do you think about Tristan and his relation or whatever it was, with Rory cause they have a huge fanbase

1. I assume this is in relation to Logan "teaching Rory about her privilege" in that one season 7 episode where he throws a tantrum over Rory saying mean things about rich people in her article, though I've also seen people say that they prefer Logan because he "called Rory out on her bs" which is .........kind of laughable? I mean aside from the multiple tantrums that have nothing to do with Rory and everything to do with his own hurt feelings, where does he call her out on anything specific, exactly? The argument he has with her over the article is often framed as some 'deserved' moment for Rory but it literally leads to her not realizing anything about her privilege, because it's an argument used as fodder for some conflict between them that just ends with Rory scrapping the article because she hurt his feelings :(.

Anyway, generally I hate it when any fan of any of Rory's boyfriends thinks it's deserving of her to be yelled at by one of them. I've even seen Jess fans say that his "Why did you drop out of Yale" scene is him 'calling her out' but that's not true? He's asking because he's confused and concerned for her and how she's living her life now, not just because she decided to drop out but also because she's not even doing anything she actually wants to do. She even said so herself that her stint at the DAR is something she hopes is temporary, but the biggest indicator was also the fact that she wasn't even living with Lorelai, but with her grandparents. When it comes to Logan though, all the times where his fans consider him "calling her out" is just him yelling at her over his hurt feelings. In 6x08 after Jess leaves, he suddenly jumps to the conclusion that Rory is actually blaming him for the drinking and partying, then basically yells at her as a defense towards himself while literally not caring that just 5 seconds ago, she was panicking over her own life. The same goes for that season 7 scene as well, Logan proclaims he has "no problem admitting he's a trust fund kid", but he does have a problem with Rory writing a criticizing article about people like that. And his only argument against Rory is that her grandparents are rich, but that still doesn't connect with the lifestyle that she leads? Whatever her grandparents name after her is out of her control, and for whatever Logan can argue, Rory actually has lived a lower/middle-class life in comparison to him, so she's more capable of judging rich people than he is. Generally I agree with the fact tht it's condescending, regardless of whichever guy they prefer to 'call out Rory', but specifically when it comes to Logan fans it's outright hypocritical because apparently, Jess has no right to simply ask her a question when she dropped out of Yale, because "Rory can make her own decisions!", but when it comes to Logan, suddenly he's allowed to yell at her and throw tantrums over his hurt feelings of being a poor little rich boy and Rory is somehow always wrong in those moments 🤔.

2. I don't have much of an opinion when it comes to Tristan and Rory, though I can't exactly say that people being fascinated by them while or even after the show ended is misplaced interest, since they did have a sort-of tragectory in season 1. Mostly I just think that there were scenes where it was shown how there's a possibility of them being friends, and Tristan seemed to be into her, but Chad-Michael Murray had to go on to star in Dawson's Creek, so his role was cut short. I haven't done any research so as to know what exactly Amy was planning with him, but when it comes to his popularity in a pairing with Rory, I chalk it up to CMM playing him (he was one of the most famous young adult heartthrobs in the early 00s, from what I gather), the fact that he's a "hot, mischievous rich guy" (something that a lot of Logan fans are into but will act all 'offended' when people point out the obvious similarities between early season 5 Logan and Tristan), and the fact that Tristan and Rory feel like the classic "good girl, bad boy" ship. I'm not really against it as a ship mainly because it's fueled by fan content than anything else, but when it comes to Rory in the later seasons, I always find it weird how people would comment stuff like "I was always into her and Tristan". Mainly it's because Tristan was a character in the early seasons when she was in high school, so I don't really know how he could've possibly fit in during college.

[elichorph]

word hi ok here’s some info on annie ....  uhmMmgm.... ok

stats:

full name: annaleise grace suh nicknames: annie. call them anything else and you’ll get bit age: twenty one  birthday: october 27, 1999 chart: scorpio sun / gemini moon / taurus rising gender: demi girl pronouns: they / them & she / her sexuality: bisexual & biromantic  height: 5′9 tattoos: they shamelessly have like 7 of their own little doodles tattooed really small on their right bicep and one on their ankle too piercings: three earlobe piercings on each ear, double helix on their right ear, a nose stud

blackmail: 

as a famous artist, their art was spotted by a drug ring who launders money. they willingly sell their art through the ring as a means to transport both drugs and money, taking a cut of the cash and allowing the ring’s connections to boost their fame so they’ll stay quiet about it.

they did an excessive amount of philanthropy work in their second year at the university and posed it as charity work, but actually was doing mandated community service after being charged with theft

annie's family routinely and secretly took money from the kojima family to stay afloat and only stopped once they were caught. they were sued in civil court by the kojima's because of it and lost the case, leaving the suh family near penniless.

backstory:

this is a lot and i am sorry

tw: drugs

annie had a … pretty normal childhood. seriously like, it’s bland. nothing special so i’ll keep this brief. they were born in alabama and lived there for a single year before moving and was raised in a house in hartford, ct to two loving parents. although they weren’t incredibly well off, they always made sure there was a pack of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer and clearance rack flowers on the kitchen table. annie was posted up outside of the house with chalk drawing every little thing their mind could come up with every single day even though their parents desperately wished they were inside playing with the little doctor’s kit that they got them for their ninth birthday. but no ❤️annie was determined to be an artist despite their parent’s early pleads not to be. and annie’s never been one to take signals correctly in their life so their only child ass took this as a sign to start being edgy and self absorbed, focusing so much on themselves that they kind of shut their family out and wasn’t entirely aware of potentially sketchy things their parents did to keep money in the bank account. fr they just became like ... roommates and didn’t talk. the last time they spoke was when annie needed a lawyer last year. 

in high school, annie was a weird mix of tropes. they were the weird mysterious kid in the back of your english class who went on rants about how annoying romeo & juliet and romance are and the one who was president of clubs you’ve never even heard of and the underclassman who was friends with all the scary seniors (and later became the scary senior). in their junior year, they also conveniently went viral for a series of paintings they made in ap art class. it started locally and with being kinda famous on facebook to big gallery installations that had pieces which conveniently fit the aesthetics of mansions and big buyers. seriously, fame came fast for annie and by the end of their senior year they were well known enough to catch the eye of a drug ring who offered to bass boost it all for the small price of taking part in the sales of their art so the dealers can put a couple grams of cocaine in one of their lil pottery pieces and end up with way more money than they started with. 

yale thought annie’s fame and art and obscene amount of followers on instagram was kinda sexy so they were offered a full ride and gladly accepted and sells off all of their paintings and pottery pieces they make in class because why not ❤️ so here they are. with like a million followers on their art instagram and a big ego.

and annie’s a kleptomaniac, honestly. there’s no deep backstory as to why they decided to steal a pair of diamond earrings last year besides the fact that they wanted to. thankfully the judge let them off with community service, but you bet they spun that story to their advantage as soon as they could. if you saw annie posted up on their insta story picking up trash off of the highway with a big smile and “making time to clean up our highways!” across the bottom in pretty cursive, yes you did. 

personality: 

annie’s entire personality is one big paradox and then some.

they keep their life as a ✨famous person ✨ kind of bland so people won’t know a lot about them at the surface level unless they do some research. like they’ve got a main art instagram and stuff but then a personal one that you’ve gotta search for and also just ... doesn’t do interviews or anything like that. 

annie really loves people. like they crave small talk and holding the door open for people and smiling at people when they walk by them on campus. but on a deeper level, it’s a rarity that they’re good with others. seriously, they don’t know what the word communication means. if annie has a close friend or s.o. who things work perfectly well with and things are understood, that’s probably pure coincidence. they just kind of expect to understand people and have others understand them. things probably are fine to a certain point, like making small talk with whoever whenever, but i imagine it can only go so far lmao. like when you try to get close to annie, you’ll probably get sent a 400 word text message about needing space but then the next day they’re asking you to come over for four loko friday. mixed signal realness.

and even tho they love people and being surface level and nice and all, as seen in the tragic dropping of muse i, annie is volatile as hell! sometimes they’ll be mean just to entertain themselves bc they’re bored or they just get the urge or they feel like there’s a reason even if there’s not or something ... idk you never know with them. there are sure as hell days too when they just don’t even try to be nice to others either. annie’s got a temper and they go back and forth.

they lowkey crave strict control over their image but also love it when people think about them and give them attention. like ... yes they are having a breakdown daily about the blackmailer but they also deep down are like aw <3 

there’s part of them that wants cute romance ... the pottery scene in ghost ... painting their significant other ... all of that ... but they’ve got some deep rooted issues that make them think they don’t really need anyone. that maybe nobody will love them. even though they were the one that shut their parents out, their mind Loves to twist that situation to make it seem like they could’ve tried harder to get to know annie or support her or some shit bruh idk annie is so confusing.

ok but all the bad stuff aside .... if you actually like crack their code and get to know the real annie ..... they’re like kinda genuine and cool ig. they give really good advice and are extremely thoughtful and probably will make paintings inspired by you and maybe will gift you a handmade teapot and cook you your favorite dish if you talk about it once. annie is pretty funny too and they really have no fears because they are so self assured. they are SO shameless at times, even though it hurts them a lot more than it helps them. annie spends just about any free moment they get at the art studio. they’re always zooming with either dried clay all over their hands or paint on their jeans because they probably didn’t notice the time. really love memes like these ones. constantly wears big stompy boots. i really hope u get the picture i can’t write anymore

this is a tik tok that explains them well https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJufQVbP/

and here is their pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/mcvingparts/annie/

[fanartsarahtregay]

TikTok Headcanons

Jamie would totally be an active user on TikTok. Not famous, but he definitely would have a lot of followers

The majority of his videos are timelasps of his artworks (like the person who edits Disney characters into modern hairstyles and outfits)

He gets requests to do more with certain colour pallets or graphics, which he loves to do for his viewers

He loves that people like his stuff enough to send in prompts and asks

But he also makes videos of himself and Mason

All those challenges? He’d do them

The towel drop in front of Mason

(Mason doesn’t look up for a few seconds, but when he does, his eyes widen and he’s out of his chair in a second and in front of Jamie by the next. He grabs Jamie’s phone and throws it to the side and the video ends on a black screen as it lands on the bed)

The “I feel like you could’ve been nicer to me today”

(Mason’s face drops and he looks like a kicked puppy as he starts apologizing before he even knows what he did wrong. He sidles up into Jamie’s side and buries his face in Jamie’s chest, asking what he could’ve done better. Jamie hugs him back and tells him that ‘if you could stop being so goddamn hot and distracting when I’m taking a test-’ and Mason punches his shoulder because he wasn’t even there)

The “I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it”

(It features many pictures of the two of them growing up, ending with a video of them kissing)

All of them

His most viewed video starts on his face while he’s walking across campus

“My boyfriend is so smart and clever and amazing and he could definitely go to Harvard or Yale but he’s here at this regular old school and every time I ask him why he doesn’t go to an Ivy League school,”

He sits on a bench in front of Mason and leans back into his chest and Mason hooks his chin over Jamie’s shoulder

“he always says,”

“Because I’d rather be here with you,” Mason says before kissing Jamie’s cheek

Jamie’s face dissolves into the fondest and happiest look as he erupts giggles

His viewers love it and it’s the video that draws in new viewers

Mason doesn’t understand why he loves TikTok so much, but he finds the videos endearing to watch

He doesn’t make his own videos, but he has an account to watch and support Jamie’s

He also has a lot of followers despite not uploading a single video, but because of the viewers of Jamie’s videos follow him

When they’re home in Boise, Jamie is constantly filming his sisters

A screaming Elisabeth refusing to eat her tater tots before it switches to selfie-mode to Jamie’s tired face a second before a tater tot hits his cheek

The girls slumped into a nap on top of each other

The girls clinging to his legs as he tries to walk

One of the more popular videos featuring the twins starts with Jamie ranting about how many times he’s had to listen to Let It Go and how he never wants to hear the song or watch the movie again

But then one of the girls asks if they can watch Frozen and he gives in with no hesitation because how can he say no to them??

Brodie and Kellen also watch all of Jamie’s videos for support, but they don’t catch as many followers as Mason does from Jamie’s fans

They sometimes comment on videos of Jamie and Mason being best friends/boyfriends

Some of those comments are variations of ‘get a room!’ on the couple-ly videos, like the towel drop challenge

They occasionally upload their own videos, but theirs are more sport centred than art and relationships like Jamie’s

You can bet Eden also follows Jamie and comments on almost every video he uploads

Even if it’s just a heart emoji

[gulmoregirls]

Hey! Sorry for the lack of updates — there’s no excuse this time. I just kind of forgot to post, mostly because nothing overly exciting happened (with the hype and high point of s3 ending, the dean thing didn’t motivated me enough to come here express my hate)

But anyway, here i am! I can’t even remember when i stopped here. So, the good old recap it is.

Luke and Lorelai finally happening, little by little in s4, is everything we ever wanted. My mom was really glad, cause we are huge javajunkies here in this house. Kirk is becoming more and more my favorite character ever. He’s so extra it’s everything.

If that’s wasn’t established before, lemme make it clearer — Rory Gilmore is cancelled. She’s SO out of character, it’s annoying. College Rory is by far not what anyone expected based on previous experiences, and that includes me and my mom. Specially with the whole Dean thing. But that’s REALLY something, so I’m gonna elaborate on that.

For good part of the season Dean has been being mentioned as a good guy, rory’s sweet ex who her ex classmates remember. It’s just annoying! This entire arc with Dean makes no sense — I mean, I know Rory was a bit lost and needed someone comfortable she knew and who she knew wouldn’t challenge her enough. Just something old and familiar. BUT THE OLD AND FAMILIAR BOY IS MARRIED. And the famous smart Rory (season 1 rory) would never do such thing. It was terrible. Poor Lindsay!! She deserved so much better than an idiot as her unfaithful husband. It just disgusts me. In my opinion, it was not necessary to ruin Deans character like that. He could be remembered as the sweet first love that did his best, but instead asp made him a total jerk, and that’s the memory that sticks. And if Rory had to be so out of herself — go thru come kind of crises of something — i’d rather she had took off with jess instead. at least he wasn’t married and truly loved her. Not that wish it had happened — would be just as random as sleeping with a married guy. But between getting together with the married ex and running away with the unpredictable one, i guess the less problematic alternative is really obvious.

Before we pass to the 5th season, let’s discuss jess then. I love his evolution. Wish we had seen it more closely in his spin-off. How he agrees to be at Liz’s wedding after everything he went through with her. And the way he reads Luke’s self-help/relationship books and decides to take an action. Even tho it was kind of crazy, it shows inniciative and I’ll give him that. Ignore this if you think that’s just a jess mariano supremacist saying shit.

OKAY SEASON FIVE

Lorelai and Luke ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🤧💝

best part of the season by far.

Somehow, Rory’s relationship with Dean managed to be just as crappy as it was when he was married. Why couldn’t they just move on, right? It was annoying and the last drop that made us hate rory. don’t mind me — i can hate her and love her at the same time. She’s so stupid my crackhead heroin addicted daughter.

Even tho I’m not a team Logan, his appearance helped. He challenged Rory and made her realize that the world is more than that Dean-bubble she was in. During this season i could easily see myself as a sophies.

Then, of course, there’s the proof of how Rory can be DUMB. dropping out of Yale. Season six now.

How she refugees at her grandparent’s at the first sign of trouble and even so finds herself so independent, and the way she cuts off her mom just for wanting what’s best for her. Immature and spoiled.

Besides that, it bugs me that Logan was right there by her side and did NOTHING. Literally, the only thing he did was say that “in less than a month she would be back”. When that month passed by, he did nothing — possibly didn’t even noticed. In fact, I guess he was kind of liking her new life. After all, she did started to have more time for him. That’s probably why i don’t like their relationship (more reasons to come). Rory started to act as if she was him and completely lost track of her true self - even more than before. In her Chilton graduation she says that the person the most wanted to be was Lorelai, but she ended becoming the exact opposite, Emily. The DAR, the maids, dropping out of school, not battling for her stuff, just accepting and BESIDES THIS, acting all superior/wild and stealing a boat. THATS NOT HER. Ok, I get that she was upset because of Mitchum, but it’s not an excuse to that behavior. Plus, the real Rory Gilmore would have used his words as motivation to work even harder and prove him wrong.

In how many languages can you say THANK YOU, JESS ??????

He made her open her eyes - finally - and get her shit back together. He was so important!! And besides, the way he has made his life?? CAN YOU SAY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT????? LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE ON THE BACK!!!!

Lemme tell you, he is doing better than rory — who would have thought, right? The punk hoodlum rebel who dropped out of highschool was doing better than the private school girl straight As girl who got into Yale. And he’s happier too. Guy wrote a fucking book after several problematic life scenarios and is now working with people he likes doing what he has always loved. Ughhhh he has my entire heart.

Paul Anka, BTW!! love him 🤧����

I also love how Lorelai proposed to Luke. They are goals. When she saw how much he cared for Rory, she was sure. In fact, maybe she was already sure, just needed a little push. And then all the signs and the snow!! I almost cried.

Now the Logan thing again. I like him — I swear!! I know it seems like i hate him and maybe i did when i first watched it, but now i see he is not that bad. But their relationship- nah. They’re annoying and rory has her weight on that, but that’s not just it. They’re cute, but there’s something missing. AND HE CHEATED ON HER. His story doesn’t match. It’s bad enough to break up with someone without them knowing. In fact, it’s REALLY bad. Rory was so confused and devastated. He should be more mature than that. Than ok, he says is just something he said Honor to make her stop talking. But then he sleeps with the bridesmaids. If he was honest with Rory and really didn’t mean it when he said they were broken up, then he TRULY cheated on Rory. If he lied about that, then he really decided that they were apart on his own. Their fight wasn’t even that serious, and he didn’t even reach out to her after that. The way she found out both times — through someone else — that is just wrong. Then he crows back buying her with money and stuff he knows she loved and she suddenly forgives him and moves in with the guy. Wrong too, ugh. Paris’ speech about Logan was everything. We deserved healing Paris and Rory growing their friendship together for more than five minutes.

I said she forgave him, right? Well, maybe not after all, because she wants a little revenge and decides to play with someone else’s real feelings. cold!! baby deserves better ); and then he gets into an accident and it’s all forgotten. ok....

just here to say that jess deserved recognition. He was the whole reason Rory came back and he did something great with his life. Still Lorelai sees him as the immature 17 yo he was. We were robbed of a great duo, them both. Their humor is really alike, a shame...

APRIL.

Poor girl, she doesn’t deserves all the hate. It’s not her fault duuuh

Asp could have made up something better for Luke this season. I think the storyline was a little non-sense and Luke, my sweet baby, gained my hate too.

Well, maybe not HATE but yeah i get where he’s coming from but it’s no excuse to lie to Lorelai and ruin their relationship. It was a pitty, really.

Then Lorelai coming to chris! what a breakdown huh? I guess it was expected, but i really hated it.

[ncrissamalfoy]

Determine Your Face Shape In 5 Easy Steps

And with a Don King hair can impact More than simply your physical appearance. As per research from Yale college, adult men that are not pleased using their own hair have a tendency to become self-conscious, a lot more self-critical and not as social than their well-coiffed counter parts. The notion of the poor hair was demonstrated to change self esteem radically.

 Previous to you actually pull out your hair, Bear in mind that there surely is nothing as'ordinary' as it has to do with the items in mind -- only the hair that you chance to own been coped with hair which is particular for you personally. And that which exactly makes it exceptional is dependent upon its own arrangement.

 Evaluating Your Own Hair Variety

Hair changes in depth -- out of 50 microns (a component of measure equivalent to at least one percent of a metre) in people with nice hair over one hundred microns. Thickness also is dependent upon the amount of hairs onto your own mind.

 The Way a hair acts Is Based on the form of The individual bottoms. Asian hair thinning, as an instance, can be around, thus lies straight and flat; wavy hair is a little more oblong, which has a tendency to ensure it is nice together with varying amounts of waviness; and also afrocaribbean hair really is curved and flat, offering it its curly look.

 What is more, hair thinning density -- just how lots of Individual bottoms you can find all on the mind -- has been influenced with its own colour, together with blondes with probably the maximum hair and also red-heads the very least.

 "Half the battle will be studying the way to Do the Job Together with the hair you have ever been awarded," states Wendy Lewis, composer of Hair Affair. "You will understand how your own hair acts, but also getting hired look healthy, manageable and shiny may require just a tiny understanding."

 To this (divide ) finish, this manual is really here to Aid. Whether a mop is curled, curly, frizzy, thick or merely won't lie level, we've got a struggle want to conquer any sort of terrible hair .

 Coping With: Thick Hair

At an Identical manner it's Difficult to sympathise Having a billionaire who cares concerning the cost tag on sustaining his yacht, then it truly is difficult to really feel shame for a guy who whines his own hair really is overly delicate. However, if you should be this person in question, then a thick thatch may be described as a steady supply of aggravation.

 "With hair that is thick, that the Most Important dilemma is Manageability along with also the absolute amount of their own hair," claims Jaymarie Winkler, a shop director in the brand new Ruffians barber-shop at London office store Liberty.

 The Way to Create Thick Hair

Ordinarily, marginally shorter hairstyles Do the Job Most useful the following. "Believe Caesar fringes, buzz blows, textured plants and brief weathered quiffs," says Winkler.

 In Case the hair Is Particularly thick, then inquire your Barber or woman to choose a number of out the weight with exclusive thinning scissors. "This may aid in case your hair is quite thick, but stay clear of doing this in case your own hair is too rough, since it's going to help it become carbonated and more uncontrollable."

 In Addition, it Is worth Making it possible for the hair to wash naturally if potential since jelqing could boost volume, so which makes it appear much sexier. If blowdrying is very important, stay glued to some trendy feeling.

 Everything Services and Products To Utilize For Thick Hair

Perhaps not volumising mousse, such as you personally. Scrub hair Advantages of styling services and products which offer hold with no incorporating quantity or stickiness, S O Winkler proposes stocking upon clays or even pastes.

 In accordance with Paul Morgan, a Learn barber In Jacks of all London, a fantastic moisturising shampoo can be crucial, as would be an adequate conditioner. "They will prevent hair-drying and be sure that it remains in very good shape, and it is essential as when dry remains dry that the cuticles [the surface of one's hair] will stay receptive plus it's going to look fuller and straw-like."

 Conditioners also Keep thick hair relaxed and also lead at a more glowing and not as voluminous appearance. "Moroccan Oil is good for brittle hair since it moisturises and, even using protracted usage, may adjust the feel and also soften the entire scalp," states Morgan.

 Coping With: Wavy Hair

Approximately 40 percent of men have Slightly curly hairand in the event that you should be one among them, then you are in fine business --David Gandy, Orlando Bloom and also Roger Federer are 3 famous adult males who understand just how to experience waves.

 Like curled hair, the watertight material could seem Bulky and will to answer this current weather with an tide turning into more conspicuous sometimes of higher humidity or if there is drizzle in the atmosphere. Supplemental waves may additionally sprout in regions you had rather they did not and receive knotted and uncontrollable in case your hair is too long enough.

 The Way to Create Wavy Hair

"in the Place of the usual Terrible matter, in most respects, Hair thinning hair really is your sacred grail of hair thinning styles," says Winkler. "just about all fashions operate, however whatever pushed backwards genuinely shows off this tide. When a hair is thick in addition to wavy, even however, your own barber usually takes a number of some of the majority out having a wig or thinning scissors without even risking frizz."

 Notably Fantastic reductions for men together with wavy hair Hair include things like the under-cut (at which both sides and rear a maintain very short with all the hair worn on shirt ), the people school facet area (at which in fact the fringe drops forwards ) or unfastened and tousled (feel Jon Snow or Harry types ). Only recall: that the more your hair, the more conspicuous the tide, therefore in case restrain can be your own target, maintain your own hair underneath about three inches approximately in total.

 To muster more hair thinning hair which will become Bit shaky, Morgan indicates linking this up broadly instantly. "disassembled from the daytime it is going to have natural, very cluttered, wavy appearance -- low care and very easily trendy "

 Everything Services and Products To Utilize On Wavy Hair

"I urge a Sea-salt or even volumising spray To offer a little bit of oomph prior styling either a glistening pomade or perhaps a shaving glue," says Winkler.

 You May increase (and seem following ) your waves With hair goods developed to identify and boost waves and curls while still cutting down the insane scientist appearance by having an anti-frizz serum.

 If you Really Need to wave goodbye, then you then can Always briefly take them of with all the aid of some of ceramic sprays. If the trimming is very brief, then elect to get a version having bigger plates since these supply larger accuracy -- and that's actually the gap involving smouldering appearances and second-degree burns off.

 Coping With: Scrub Hair

"hair is curled due to the follicle It develops from underneath your entire scalp isn't directly," claims star hair dresser and also trichologist man Parsons. An average of, curled hair can be somewhat rough in feel, and also the coarser the hair, the water it's and for that reason the drier it's.

 "Additionally, it absorbs mild instead of reflects It, therefore it will not have to seem like'glistening' as well as hair might," says Parsons. "Another drawback is it could eventually become curled in humid weather, so and that's the reason why it is crucial that you make use of services and products which make a protective guard ."

 The Way to Create Frizzy Hair

A Whole Lot of men find affectionate for curled Hair overpowering, ignoring this into the purpose of humor 1980s scouser ("it really is not the simplest hair variety to take care of," admits Parsons).

 You've got three choices: battle this from maintaining It shot (and that's the way Justin Timberlake tackles his famously curled mop shirt ), get rid of the curls having a enjoyable therapy, or and that really is unquestionably the simplest & most accurate alternative -- you are able to merely take advantage of exactly what character has presented you. Afterall, it is less though there are not a lot of poster-boys to get curled hairthink James Franco,'' Adrian Grenier and also Carlos Valderrama. Ok, so not Valderrama, nevertheless, you receive the concept.

 "To preserve define curly hair, inquire your Barber to get a level, layered minimize create the entire, curled end," advises Morgan. "that you really do not desire an excessive amount of reduction or texturising to occur" A curled haired (quick in the sides and back, extended and curled in addition ) consistently appears excellent, as does a curly haired quiff and hair increased into jaw-length a manhattan project Aiden Turner at Poldark.

 No matter fashion you Opt for, be certain to obtain it shaped or cut after tender. Wild hair is much more comfy once moist, flapping a little once warm, therefore with this manner guarantees that the length and style that you desire.

 Everything Services and Products To Utilize On Your Hair

"Product or Service option Is Critical for curled hair," Claims Morgan, that urges a moisturising shampoo to avoid hair turning out to be watertight and dry with a shaving product such as Moroccan Oil Moulding Cream. "It could be implemented to damp hair and, like it truly is exceptionally moisturising, is ideal for curled hair," he states. "It helps define both the curls give decent grip"

 If you are at a knot, then select up the proper Tool, also. Hair might be retained tangle-free by simply making use of a brush developed particularly for curled and thick hair; those possess elastic teeth which gently moisturizes down and smooth the hair of the cuticles though firming hurt. Additionally, drying hair using a hair drier with a diffuser may help to protect your hair and specify curls without even leaving them watertight.

 "To get a relaxed curled Appearance, simply towel Scrub your hair and employ a normal hair drier nozzle or link to aid moisturize your hair to get an even longer stimulating flake out," states Morgan. "Or even in the event that you'd like them, straighteners can provide you a brand new style for daily "

 Simply Keep in Mind that Utilizing warmth on curls -- combined side alcohol-based sprays and mousses -- may create desert-dry hair drier, and thus do not neglect to undo the ramifications having a moisture-rich, non-volumising shampoo and also intermittent freezer.

 Coping With: Unruly Hair

Like Younger kids, hair could be obedient And nicely behaved or unruly and rebellious. Ever since your thoughts of hair really is exceptional, odds are it's going to possess a unique kinks and quirks. The majority of them you have adopted and heard to dwell together with, however a couple of -- cow-licks and dual shingles, especially -- could be especially debatable.

 Crowns are (mainly abbreviated ) whorls of baldness That form in a core stage in the rear part of the skull only down by the peak of your face -- however a few individuals have just two of them, generating a'double crown'. These are able to be catchy for barbers to bargain with due to the fact they need to bargain with just two centers of expansion to create round.

 Cow-licks, meanwhile, are somewhat little segments of Hair which extend contrary to the typical management of baldness increased over your mind to develop gravity-defying tufts which stand upward and withstand most efforts to tame them together with services and products such as waxes and pomades.

 The Way to Create

"In case you Are in Possession of a conspicuous double crown, then you Need to dedicate to a lengthy, really dimmed or quick design," says Winkler. "more will weigh down the crown, rendering it noticeable, and moving brief and weathered will conceal it" Such a thing among and also you're seeking problem, together with various segments of one's hair growth markedly aside.

 The Simplest way to Handle a stubborn Cowlick will be really to really go to get a brief, spiky or eclectic style which is employed using it instead of it, disguising the hyper-active hair from the procedure.

 Everything Services and Products To Utilize On Unruly Hair

That isn't any magical potion that could help the following. But a couple of styling methods will certainly help for making matters less difficult.

 As an Example, Blowdrying can briefly Transform the management of hair development should cow-licks certainly are a issue, even though raising your hair more may aid by weighing down it.

 Lately, washing your hair Often can be a fantastic hack whilst the all-natural oils may consider exactly the patient Strands down in your origin canal.

[madminniefics]

fia hadn’t seen niall in years. the boy got famous and up and left her in little old mullingar. she didn’t blame him. the first chance she got, fia left town, too. four years later they were both back in town. but can they continue their friendship where they left off or were there too many things left unsaid?

stargazing

a post-1d niall / childhood best friend fia one shot based on this post

Fia Bailey had been waiting for something her entire life.

Something because nobody knew what it was. She didn’t know, her parents didn’t know, her best friend Niall didn’t even know. And he knew everything about Fia.

All she knew was that she would know it when she saw it. She was sure of that.

To make sure the moment didn’t pass her by, she tried everything. Twenty years of following her heart had brought her many memories but none life changing. So, she kept trying new things. No event was too small, no park was too big, no mountain too rocky, no alcohol too alcohol-y, and no goal too impossible. Not for Fia.

Which is why, as she stood there being yelled at by her girlfriend—well, now ex-girlfriend—Willow, Fia wondered why she didn’t just say yes. That’s what she would have done just a few weeks before. She would have moved in with Willow despite all signs pointing to the collapse of their relationship. The nights spent avoiding Willow’s texts, the dates spent in uncomfortable silences, days going by without seeing each other. Fia wondered when they had given up on their relationship.

“Fia…Fia are you even listening to me right now?” Willow said, her voice screeching as it echoed through the empty dorm room they stood in. Fia wondered if her belongings would be okay in the flimsy boxes she’d stolen as they traveled across the ocean back home to Ireland.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry, Willow, what was that?”

Willow’s nostrils flared and Fia knew that she was angry, knew that she should have been paying attention, but as the seconds passed she saw that moment for what it was: an out. It was the universe giving Fia an excuse to leave a relationship that should have ended months before. Not just because it had been a week since they’d graduated from Yale and Fia didn’t want to move in with Willow for the summer. Not just because her parents were in town and they were leaving the next day.

Because she knew if she moved in with Willow for the summer she would find a way to convince Fia to stay come fall. And Fia would stay because she hated to see Willow unhappy. Or, she used to. Now, as she looked at the way Willow’s jaw was clenched and the tears unshed in her eyes, Fia just wanted to go home. She didn’t want to stay in the United States not one moment longer. Fia was ready to go back to her little town. To walk the streets she hadn’t seen in four years. To see her family every day. To eat at all of her favorite restaurants. To lay in the grass and just…be.

“Are you not going to try to make this work?”

“One person can’t carry a relationship that neither want.” She looked at Willow with a sad smile.

Wrong answer.

“What do you mean ‘that neither want’?” Willow started pacing. She always did that when she yelled. “I want this. I thought that was clear when I invited you to move in with me so you wouldn’t be homeless this summer.”

“Homeless?” Fia said under hear breath. Her face was scrunched up—eyebrows furrowed, lips quirked, the whole lot—incredulously. First of all, nobody wanted to stay in New Haven during the summer. Fia had barely wanted to stay during the school year. If it hadn’t been Yale, she wouldn’t have been in Connecticut in the first place. Catch Fia in New York in the middle of the action. “Listen, Willow—”

“No, you listen, Fia. We’re done. If you want to fix things, you know my number. If you don’t, lose it.”

Fia held her breath as Willow slammed the door behind her. She took her phone from her back pocket and scrolled through her contacts until she got to Willow’s name. Did it matter whether she kept it or not? Fia bought her ticket back to Ireland two months before. She wasn’t even going to be in the country. And that phone wasn’t going to work back home.

She deleted Willow’s contact information before leaving her dorm for the last time.

***

Hour three of a seven-hour red eye and Fia had yet to fall asleep.

She sat in the window seat of row thirteen next to a person who wouldn’t stop sniffling. There was an army of tissues littering the surface of their tray table even though it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes since the last trash pickup. Behind her, someone kept putting their shoeless (but, thankfully, sock covered) feet on her arm rest. Every now and then they would reach forward and touch her elbow. If she were a different person she would jam her elbow back to fuck up their toes. But Fia was a nice girl so she was content with just imagining what would happen if she did that as she moved her arm to rest in her lap.

Outside, the clouds hovered below the airplane while the stars shined above. The stars always reminded her of Niall. She wondered what he was doing at that moment. Probably some rockstar shit, as usual. They hadn’t talked in a while. Too long, in Fia’s opinion, for two people who had known each other since they were in diapers. Who grew up three houses down from each other. Who were each other’s first kisses. That made Fia laugh.

They were seven. Fia’s mom, Orla, had offered to take Niall for the day so his parents could get some errands done. Baby Fia and Baby Niall held hands as they skipped happily ahead of Orla. They were arguing about who would swing higher when they got to the park. Fia was winning, as she usually did, based on her confidence alone.

When they got to the park, Baby Fia and Baby Niall ran ahead and immediately began their trial to see who could swing the highest while Orla sat on a bench nearby and watched them with a smile on her face. She loved seeing her only daughter happy. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for little Fia.

Baby Fia pumped her legs and tilted her head back to enjoy the feel of the wind through her curly hair. Baby Niall struggled to get as high as Baby Fia so he stopped swinging altogether. He sat there, proud pout on his face with his arms crossed, as he waited for Baby Fia to notice him. When she did, she smiled and stopped her swing.

“It’s cause my strings are shorter.” She said, a bright smile on her face as she’d taken to showing off the gap where her two front teeth had fallen out the week before.

Baby Niall side eyed her but nodded. She’d always known how to make him feel better.

“I’ll race ya!” He said, popping out of his seat and taking off towards the jungle gym. Baby Fia’s eyes lit up as she hopped from her swing and started chasing him. Her curls kept flopping in her eyes and, of course, she had forgotten her hair tie again. Orla always reminded Baby Fia and Baby Fia always forgot.

Baby Niall stopped short and Baby Fia, too focused on watching the ground move under her feet to be sure she didn’t trip over something, didn’t notice until after she’d tackled him to the ground.

“Oop,” She said, giggling, as Baby Niall groaned beneath her. She pushed off his body to sit next to him. He sat up and glared.

“Did you do that on purpose, Fi?”

She donned her most serious expression and shook her head. Baby Niall squinted his eyes and, after deciding that she was telling the truth, he grinned, showing a chip in his tooth. Baby Fia’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hands.

“What’s wrong?”

Baby Fia gulped. “Your tooth.”

“What happened to it?” He said, sounding panicked.

“It broke.”

He gasped dramatically. It made Baby Fia want to giggle but she knew it wasn’t the time. Her best friend was upset. She wanted to make him feel better but she wasn’t sure how.

“Now nobody’s going to ever like me.” He said with a sigh.

Baby Fia grinned and pushed up to her knees. Is that what he was worried about? That nobody would like him? Well. She liked him. He was her best friend!

That’s when Baby Fia leaned forward and kissed Baby Niall. She figured it would make him feel better. She saw her mom do it to her dad after work all the time and it always made him feel better. When Baby Fia leaned back to sit on her calves, Niall’s face was shocked. His eyes were wide, mouth open, cheeks red. It made Baby Fia laugh.

And, sixteen years later, that moment still made Fia laugh. She stared out the airplane window with a grin on her face. Niall had been mad at her for weeks after that. He told her ‘I’ll still play with you but I’m not happy about it.’ That was the moment Fia knew that they would be friends forever.

***

Later that week Fia was in her old, tiny room, sat on her twin sized bed covered in Batman sheets, in her parents’ small white and blue cottage. Nothing had changed. She wasn’t sure if she was surprised or not. She’d expected something—anything—about Mullingar to have changed during the past four years. It was like she’d left and the town had been put on pause until she got back. Even the neighbors were the same.

There was one thing that wasn’t the same but she’d been counting on that. Niall. She didn’t know why she secretly expected him to be home, much less in Mullingar, but…she’d hoped. Maybe he was visiting family. Or he’d heard that she was in town and wanted to see her just as much as she wanted to see him.

It wasn’t like he’d changed his number, Fia. Texting first is a thing.

Yes but. What would she say? ‘Hi, this is Fia your best friend from Mullingar I hope you haven’t forgotten about me since we talked last year’? ‘What’s up Nialler, how’ve you been mate’? ‘Niall it’s Fia. I’m back in Mullingar and, oh yeah, I miss you’? None of those sounded right.

She sighed and slid her laptop off the desk, making sure not to drop it while also doing the least amount of movement because she didn’t feel like getting up, and opened youtube. She hadn’t watched Niall’s interviews in a while. It was the only way she could see her best friend aside from pictures. She paused. Supposed he had new best friends, now.

Why not just rip her heart open? She was sure that would feel better than the ache in her chest. Letting out a ragged breath, Fia wiped underneath one of her eyes where a traitorous tear had fallen. It was the only one that attempted their escape. She took a drink of her cola and the lump in her throat magically went away.

That’s when she noticed there was a new interview. She hummed and clicked on it, grabbing the bag of sour cream and onion chips on the bed next to her and opening them. The first few minutes were regular interview material. Things even Fia still knew about Niall. At minute five, the interviewer asked him something that made Fia sit up and drop her chips.

‘Now, this is a more serious question but I think it fits with the theme. Have you ever been in love?’

Fia choked on her own spit when the camera panned to Niall blushing and looking down at his lap. He cleared his throat and itched the side of his head above his ear. He was clearly doing everything he could to avoid looking at the interviewer or the camera. And that was answer enough, wasn’t it?

Just when she thought the interviewer was going to ask the next question Niall looked up, straight into the camera, and answered.

‘I have. I’ve been in love my whole life. Since I was seven.’

Fia forgot all about her open bag of chips as she fell sideways on her bed. Her eyes wide, mouth open, cheeks red. It was all she could do not to scream. Nobody else would understand that answer but Fia knew. She knew he loved her and she loved him back. They were best friends. How could she not?

***

Despite knowing that Niall still considered her his best friend, Fia didn’t text him for another five days. Five days in which she helped her mom make stew, can rhubarb, and take Lulu, their French bulldog, to the vet. Five days in which she helped her dad change the oil on the family car, make rhubarb mint pie, and bike along the canal. Five days in which they spent taking family walks, catching up, and binge watching the first season of Great British Bake Off.

Five days in which she agonized over what to say. In the end, she’d gone with,

hey, it’s fi. miss ya! 😊

She didn’t expect a response that day. Honestly? She didn’t expect a response at all. Niall was busy. His second single had just come out and Fia knew that he was doing a lot of promo because she’d watched all his performances. He was killing it, doing rockstar shit, and Fia wouldn’t blame him if he wasn’t even paying attention to his text messages.

Which was why, when Fia’s phone dinged two minutes later, she thought it was from her mom asking her to come back home because she needed help in the garden or something. Fia told her parents she was just going out for ice cream but that had been an hour ago. That was before she passed the park she and Niall used to play in on her way back home. She’d sat on a bench and tilted her head up to watch the clouds pass and there she was twenty minutes later with a crick in her neck.

The text on Fia’s phone was not from her mom. When she saw Niall’s name on the screen she almost dropped the phone trying to unlock it.

Fi ! ❤️ Are ya home yet or what ?

She laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t believe this dope. Texting her back like he was just three houses down the street waiting for her to get back from school so they could go get ice cream. Maybe nothing had changed after all.

got back a week ago. am sat at our park looking at the clouds. been here so long im not sure ill be able to bend my neck right. ill be walking home looking at the sky lol. you must really miss me huh haha

She placed her phone face down next to her on the bench as she tried not to cringe at the message she’d sent. When had things gotten so weird between her and Niall? A year of not speaking would do that to people. She didn’t know what to say to him because, well, keeping up with someone through interviews on youtube wasn’t the same as talking to them. She felt her phone buzz next to her bare thigh. After counting to thirty, she grabbed her phone and looked at his answer.

Yes .

Fia lowered her phone to her lap as she closed her eyes and swallowed hard. It was one thing to hear him vaguely refer to her in an interview and it was something completely different for him to seriously answer a sarcastic question. The sun warmed her skin as she thought about what to say. Was there anything to say? His message said it all. She opened her eyes when her phone buzzed again.

I’ll be in town next week . Text ya details later ! 😘

If anyone asked, Fia’s cause of death was that kiss emoji.

***

It was amazing how fast one week could fly by and how slow the next crawled by. The difference between wanting something and avoiding something unavoidable. Niall was supposed to be in town in two hours. Fia paced her room, closet doors open with hangers scattered on her bed, shirts and dresses and shorts hanging from every piece of furniture because nothing looked good on her. Why was it that, when you had something important to do, suddenly none of your clothes looked nice? Not even your favorite, go-to clothes.

Fia groaned and tilted her head back as she realized that the left shoulder strap of her favorite shorteralls had been slashed with a knife.

“Fucking Willow,” She whispered under her breath, knowing that her ex-girlfriend was known for her decidedly unfunny pranks. That was probably Willow’s way of making sure that Fia wouldn’t forget about her. It just served to piss Fia off. She ripped the clothes off her body and stood in front of her closet in just her plain, bright blue, boy short underwear and matching bralette. She snuck a glance at the clock. She had a little more than an hour to get dressed, put makeup on, and walk to the pub she’d be meeting Niall outside of.

Snatching a flowy, white tank top and a pair of high waisted, black shorts from her dresser she said, “This will have to do.”

Fia’s hair was, in her opinion, perfect. She’d washed it that morning and the curls were on their A game. She’d parted it on the side and attacked it with hair gel and her special moisturizing oil blend so that none of her curls would look frizzy. It worked, for once, because each piece of hair was doing its thing. Looking so good she almost poked herself in the eye with her eyeliner.

Twenty minutes later, after swiping a pale pink lip gloss on her lips and a shimmery gold highlight literally everywhere because Fia loved to look like she’d just descended from the heavens, she was walking down the street with a hop in her step. She was excited! Besides, she’d killed all her nervous energy the night before playing Mario Kart and Call of Duty.

That didn’t stop a bubble of jitters from finding their way into her stomach. It was that feeling you got on an airplane when there was an unexpected bout of turbulence. That feeling where your stomach dips along with the airplane. That was what Fia felt as she turned the corner and saw her best friend—brown haired and bearded and in the flesh—again.

She stood there, biting her lip against the smile that threatened to tear her face in two, watching him for a long moment. Preparing herself so that she wouldn’t look too eager. The moment she saw him the nervous energy popped the bubble it was in and flooded her system. Knowing she was going to see him was more hypothetical. Actually seeing his face? That was another story.

All of that ‘not looking too eager’ stuff went out the window half a block away from the pub. That’s when Fia started running. Yes, running in her open toed sandals. She knew she should have opted for her tried and true black and white Vans. She said a little prayer in her head that she wouldn’t fall as she ran into the street. When she landed on the other side, a few feet away from Niall, safe and sound she grinned.

And ran straight into his open arms.

He caught her and they spun—her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, her face in his hair—three times. When he let her down she grinned up at him before noticing that his hat had fallen on the ground. She brushed the dirt off it and handed it back to him.

“Nice hat, Horan,” She said with a laugh.

He rolled his eyes and placed the grey flat cap on her head. It didn’t work as well with her curls. She could feel it sitting atop her hair. If she moved even a centimeter, it would just slide off. She had the same issue with her graduation cap. She’d had to pin it onto her head or risk holding it there all day.

“Nice hat, Bailey,” He said, a twinkle in his eye, before placing his arm around her shoulders and leading her into the pub to a booth all the way in the back. Just because he was home didn’t mean that people were apt to respect his privacy.

After the fifth person came to the table asking for a picture—they hadn’t even ordered their drinks for God’s sake—Fia took the hat and leaned forward, tucking it onto Niall’s head, in an attempt to hide his face. He laughed and fixed his hat as the waiter walked up to the table and got their drink orders. They each ordered a beer from a local microbrewery and a basket of cheese fries to share.

“Okay Miss Biomedical Engineer,” Niall grinned across the table at Fia. She couldn’t help but smile back. “What’s next?”

Scrunching her nose, she shrugged a single shoulder. Since graduating almost a month before—and the past year honestly—she’d been getting that question. ‘What’s next?’ ‘Have you found a job yet?’ ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to move back in with your parents!’

(She did though, so, suck it. Fia loved her parents. And there was nowhere else she would rather be.)

“Taking a year off, I think. Studying for the mcat. Gonna see if I can be a doctor one day,”

With every word, Niall seemed to sit up straighter, smile bigger, eyes shine brighter. There he was. Her best friend, sans rockstar cape. Just Niall. Looking more excited than Fia felt for her future.

“That’s amazing, Fi. If anyone can do it, it’s you. I know that.”

She grinned. “But what about you?”

“What about me?” He said, focusing on the foam in his glass to hide his blush.

Fia crossed her arms and smirked. “Mr. Rockstar.”

Niall tossed his head back in laughter. Fia giggled and, before she knew it, they were laughing so loudly that half the bar turned their heads to look. She hid her face by looking outside while Niall just crossed his arms and laid his forehead down on them. They were still laughing by the time the waiter returned with their fries and a fresh round of drinks.

“Seriously, what have you been up to?” She asked, like she didn’t already know. But it would be nice to hear his voice.

“Just finished my solo album,” He cleared his throat and looked in his lap like he was embarrassed. Niall? Embarrassed? Please. “Actually, was gonna see if you wanted to take a listen later.”

Oh.

Wow.

Fia nodded with a wide smile. “Of course! If it’s anything like your songs so far, I’m sure it’s amazing.”

That truly set him off. Niall’s face looked redder than the rhubarb from Fia’s mom’s garden. He glanced up at Fia, who was still grinning, and smiled.

“You haven’t changed at all,” He said, voice hoarse from laughing so much.

Fia couldn’t decide if that was a good thing.

***

By the time the pair left the pub, it was dark outside. As usual, the stars were twinkling above as they walked home in silence. Fia turned around and looked at Niall the same way she always did, the same way she had when she was four and ran into him on the playground as she tried to run away from her bully, except…

Except it felt completely different.

It felt different and it made her turn her head back around so fast she just knew she had whiplash. You could do that to yourself, right? She tried to busy her mind with other thoughts but they all led her to one: the way her heart pounded as she looked into Niall’s glittering aquamarine eyes. Eyes that rivaled the bluest ocean in the Caribbean. Eyes that made her feel like she could swim in their depths. Eyes that Fia wanted to spend the day cataloguing. She wanted to know every shade of blue, every fleck of brown or gold that managed to find its way onto his eye, every single imperfection that made him perfect in her eyes.

“What’s up, Fi?”

Realizing that her mouth was open, as if she were about to speak, she cleared her throat and closed it. Suddenly she didn’t remember what she was going to say. She worried that, if she tried to speak, the only thing that would come out would be something about his eyes. Something something most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her life something something.

She shook her head in answer to his question. It was just safer in that moment. You know, she didn’t know how people usually fell in love but she’d hazard a guess it didn’t just pop up out of nowhere like that. She’d just wanted to ask him how long he would be in town when she realized that Niall was probably her soulmate.

No big deal.

He chuckled and pointed across the street. “The park is empty. Let’s go look at the stars, yeah?”

Niall grabbed Fia’s hand as they crossed the street to the park. They laid in their usual spots in the grassy area near the jungle gym. Niall with his free hand behind his head and Fia with hers placed on her stomach. Their other hands were intertwined on the grass between them. He wasn’t making a big deal out of it, so neither was she.

She held hands with her friends all the time. It didn’t mean anything.

But she wanted it to.

That was beside the point.

The only sounds were the occasional car speeding by, the buzzing of insects near the street lights, and their breathing. Fia was sure that if Niall hadn’t chosen that moment to speak she would have fallen asleep.

“Look, there it is,” Niall lifted their joined hands to point at a particularly bright star in the sky. “Fia.”

She gasped. How could she have forgotten? In sixth class, they’d decided to choose stars to name after each other. Niall had chosen the brightest star they could find to name after Fia because she was ‘the closest thing to a star on Earth.’ The memory made Fia smile softly as she searched for Niall’s star.

There. There it was. Three stars away from hers. She remembered she’d chosen that one because he used to live three houses down from hers. Sounded silly now.

“And there’s Niall,” She whispered, pointing at his star with the same hand that was still holding his. And that’s when he registered their hands. When she registered how close they were on the ground. That they could turn their heads and feel each other’s breath on their skin.

She gulped. The last time she’d been this close to Niall? She wanted to say that day in the park when they were seven but that couldn’t be right. She didn’t remember. She just remembered their first kiss and the shocking sudden knowledge that he was going to kiss her this time.

And the last thing that crossed her mind as his lips grazed hers before pressing themselves against her lips in earnest was that this was it.

That life changing moment she’d been searching for.

[samuelfields]

The Wide Implications Of The College Admissions Bribery Scandal

Thanks to the fantastic work by the Department Of Justice and the FBI we have learned the average bribe it takes to buy your kid’s way into an elite private university is between $250,000 – $400,000. Although, some bribe amounts went as high as $6 million.

The 10-month-long investigation, code-named “Operation Varsity Blues,” uncovered large bribes nationwide across various stages of the college admissions process. So far, two SAT and ACT exam administrators, one exam proctor, a college administrator and 33 parents, including actors William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were arrested.

The private universities spanned across the nation, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, USC and Wake Forest. A couple of public schools such as UCLA and the University of Texas were also involved in the scam.

In one alleged incident, the Yale women’s soccer coach received $400,000 to accept one student on her team, even though the applicant did not play soccer.

In another alleged incident, Lori Loughlin, aka “Aunt Becky” on Full House, allegedly paid $500,000 in bribes and fabricated photos depicting her daughters as competitive crew rowers in order to get them accepted into USC.

In another alleged incident, the Stanford University sailing coach agreed to also accept $500,000 in bribes in order for two students to gain admissions.

What’s up with crew by the way? It’s not a money-making sport for the university. Perhaps crew is a sport where a potential admit can be more easily manipulated into looking like a high caliber athlete through photoshop and other means.

Bribe-willing parents take note!

College Bribes And A Rigged System

According to Andrew Lelling, the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, the ringleader of the scam is William Singer, owner of a college counseling service called Key Worldwide Foundation, who accepted bribes totaling $25 million from parents between 2011 and 2018.

Singer’s counseling service is alleged to have been in reality just a money bribing business which enabled wealthy parents to buy their kid’s admission into an elite private university. Singer even set up his own fake charity where parents could “donate” the money and then write the donation off on their taxes.

“The parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” Lelling said. “They include, for example, the CEOs of private and public companies, successful securities and real estate investors, two well-known actresses, a famous fashion designer and the co-chairman of a global law firm.”

Implications Of The College Admissions Bribery Scandal

As the parent to a two-year-old currently “stuck” in extremely competitive San Francisco, I find the details from this investigation extremely fascinating. In fact, 14 of the 33 parents indicted hail from the SF Bay Area.

Over the years, I’ve written many posts regarding the private school system as I try to work out what’s best for our son.

After all, I come from a middle-class family and went to public high school, public college, and public graduate school. A public school education has worked out fine for me, but I want to make sure I’m not missing the benefits of going the private school route.

Here are some past posts to review:

Would You Accept $1,000,000 To Go To Public School Over Private School?

What If You Go To Harvard And End Up A Nobody

Private School Or Public School? Depends On Your Level Of Fear And Guilt

If you read the posts, you might come away thinking I’m waging a jihad against the private school system. In actuality, I’m just trying to get my head around paying such enormous amounts of tuition for an asset that is declining in value.

After all, this is Financial Samurai, a personal finance site that focuses on optimizing our finances and living our best lives possible.

I love the topic of education, and this latest college admissions scandal is worth reflecting on since every parent cares for their child’s future and we all care about competing in a fair society.

Here are some of the key implications from Operation Varsity Blues.

1) Private school reputation takes a hit. Private schools are already under fire due to a number of reasons: 1) outrageous tuition, 2) student body is much wealthier than the overall US demographic, 3) rumors and now facts of buying your way in, 4) affirmative action, and more. The Varsity Blues investigation simply buttresses the point that this stuff goes on at private schools. It’s the same way we know shady recruiting tactics occur in D1 college sports.

2) Public school reputation grows. Notice how the vast majority of admission bribery cases occurred at private universities. Some argue this is because there are many more prestigious private universities than public ones. However, there are still plenty of prestigious public institutions like Berkeley, UVA, UCLA (named in scandal), UCSD, Michigan, Wisconsin, UNC Chapel Hill, Purdue, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, George Tech, US Military Academy, and William & Mary where it appears somehow much harder to buy your way in. The less public schools are implicated, by default the stronger their reputations grow.

3) Affirmative action for the wealthy gets harder to deploy. We learned from the Asian-American lawsuit against Harvard that donor legacy kids have a 10X greater chance of getting into Harvard than a nondonor, nonlegacy kid. The reason why affirmative action for the wealthy is far more egregious than affirmative action based on race is that wealthy people, no matter their race, already receive the best education, the best tutoring, the most stable home environments, and the most amount of access money can buy.

4) All universities take a hit overall in reputation and importance. Although it takes a tremendous amount of capital to bribe your kid’s way into these elite schools, a college education is fast becoming unnecessary. We can now learn everything for free online. It is also much quicker to do research and learn thanks to the internet. Yet, colleges continue to raise their tuition 2X-3X the rate of inflation each year. Meanwhile, it still requires the student 4.-4.5 years on average to get a diploma. Talk about an antiquated system the elite is desperately trying to perpetuate.

Don’t you think there’s something wrong with this chart?

5) The angst for all parents is real, but should decrease. Even if you are a famous, rich, white person like William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman or Lori Loughlin, you are not immune to the anxiety and stress of trying to get your kids the best educational environment possible. The famous, rich, white person is competing against even more famous, rich, white people. This constant comparison will never stop until we make it stop. People of color and the poor should find some solace in the fact that people with all the privilege in the world are still stressing out about their kids’ future. People playing by the rules should feel better that something is being done about this rigged system.

6) Smart, hardworking students get unfairly sullied. Unless the FBI discovers the majority of students at elite universities have parents who buy their way in, it is likely that most students got in through merit. Unfortunately, this college admissions scandal will unfairly paint all elite college students and graduates, especially wealthy ones, with a suspicious eye. It’s the same way affirmative action may discredit an underrepresented minority’s achievements. We must remember that the vast majority of graduates of such schools are highly intelligent, good people.

7) Elite private university graduates will start questioning their accomplishments. Singer’s consulting firm made sure the kids had no idea they didn’t get into their respective universities by cheating. The FBI wiretaps highlighted such discussions. As a result, there will be plenty of students and graduates of these bribe-accepting schools who will wonder whether they got in due to their accomplishments. As self-doubt creeps in, self-esteem may drop, especially for graduates who end up working at a regular job.

Fake charity Singer set up so his clients could write off their bribes

8) Big city living is becoming less attractive. Notice how most of the schools implicated in this latest bribery scandal are located in large coastal cities such as Boston, Washington D.C., the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. Big cities attract the most educated, type-A go-getters because big cities have employers who pay the most amount of money. The desire for money and prestige will eventually make you miserable because everybody is frantically competing to one-up the other.

9) Smaller city living is becoming more attractive. When we look back on our lives, we don’t wish we spent more time in the office trying to make more money and getting some meaningless title. What we wish we had more of was the freedom to spend time with family and friends and doing meaningful work. I foresee the continued growth and attraction of smaller cities as more people “opt out” of the grind. The FIRE movement has arisen partly because people are tired of all the corporate work BS and would rather be free.

10) Private business owner’s increase their purpose. The end goal for getting the best college education possible is to get the best job possible after graduation. Therefore, you’ll always be at the mercy of someone else’s decision if you do not own your own business. If you own your own private business, you can rig the system in your favor by hiring your know-nothing 22-year-old kid as VP of Operations and pay him or her a huge salary if you want. Unless you are a C-level executive at a public company, it is very hard to get your kid a top job or even an internship at your firm.

11) If you are a poor Asian American, you probably face the toughest hurdle. Given there is clear affirmative action for the wealthy through “donations” and straight up bribes, while race-based affirmative action does not include Asian Americans, poor or middle-class Asian Americans will have the greatest difficulty of getting into an elite private university. This is one of the reasons why you see so many mom and pop stores owned by Asians across the country. They know nobody is coming to help them, so they must count on themselves.

12) Poor students will see a tremendous rise in reputation. On the flip side, if you so happen to be an Asian American graduate of an elite university or a poor student from any race, your stock should go up given more people realize what you’ve had to go through to get in.

13) A greater percentage of parents will donate to schools. The irony about this bribery scandal is that parents will simply go through legal bribery means by donating quid-pro-quo directly to their desired schools. The 33 parents caught so far were simply bad at cheating. They should have just contacted the admissions office at XYZ private school and discussed a plan to donate directly to a new building, courtyard, or scholarship. The donations will likely be more anonymous.

14) There will be a rise in stealth wealth. Given the college bribery scandal has reignited hatred for the rich, the rich will flaunt their wealth less. Luxury car sales might go down as BMWs are traded in for Hondas. Rich parents will tell their rich kids to stop showing off their wealth over social media. There may even be a surge in luxury home inventory as the rich decide to move out of expensive neighborhoods. Stealth wealth has always been a good idea. As we surpass our 10th year in a bull market, practicing stealth wealth is more important than ever before.

15) The middle class may become wealthier and happier. As college becomes less important in finding a job, there will be fewer people spending four years and borrowing tens of thousands in student loans. With more time and less financial baggage, more people will be able to aggressively save to buy a house, start a family, and save for retirement. With more financial security and more time, society as a whole becomes much happier.

Let The College Admissions Bribery Scandal Pump You Up

Instead of getting bummed out about how all these image-conscious and misguided wealthy people buy their kid’s way into elite universities, get happy!

Not only do you not have to spend $250,000 – $400,000 on average per kid on bribes, you also don’t have to pay $50,000+ a year in tuition alone for 4-5 years! The bribes plus the full cost of attending a private university for four or five years could run you over $1 million.

Life is already hard enough as it is. We don’t need people who have all the means in the world pull further ahead from the rest of us who abide by the rules or who went to public schools.

I want to thank Andrew Lelling, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts; Joe Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Field Office; and the entire team for unrooting this scandal.

I trust this is just the beginning of much more to come!

Related: How To Stop Worrying About Your Child’s Future Again In This Brutally Competitive World

Readers, what are your thoughts on the college admissions bribery scandal? Why didn’t these parents just donate directly to the school instead? Why isn’t there more backlash against affirmative action for the wealthy? What are some other implications about the bribery scandal I have not mentioned?

The post The Wide Implications Of The College Admissions Bribery Scandal appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from Finance https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-wide-implications-of-the-college-admissions-bribery-scandal/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[ronaldmrashid]

The Wide Implications Of The College Admissions Bribery Scandal

Thanks to the fantastic work by the Department Of Justice and the FBI we have learned the average bribe it takes to buy your kid’s way into an elite private university is between $250,000 – $400,000. Although, some bribe amounts went as high as $6 million.

The 10-month-long investigation, code-named “Operation Varsity Blues,” uncovered large bribes nationwide across various stages of the college admissions process. So far, two SAT and ACT exam administrators, one exam proctor, a college administrator and 33 parents, including actors William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were arrested.

The private universities spanned across the nation, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, USC and Wake Forest. A couple of public schools such as UCLA and the University of Texas were also involved in the scam.

In one alleged incident, the Yale women’s soccer coach received $400,000 to accept one student on her team, even though the applicant did not play soccer.

In another alleged incident, Lori Loughlin, aka “Aunt Becky” on Full House, allegedly paid $500,000 in bribes and fabricated photos depicting her daughters as competitive crew rowers in order to get them accepted into USC.

In another alleged incident, the Stanford University sailing coach agreed to also accept $500,000 in bribes in order for two students to gain admissions.

What’s up with crew by the way? It’s not a money-making sport for the university. Perhaps crew is a sport where a potential admit can be more easily manipulated into looking like a high caliber athlete through photoshop and other means.

Bribe-willing parents take note!

College Bribes And A Rigged System

According to Andrew Lelling, the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, the ringleader of the scam is William Singer, owner of a college counseling service called Key Worldwide Foundation, who accepted bribes totaling $25 million from parents between 2011 and 2018.

Singer’s counseling service is alleged to have been in reality just a money bribing business which enabled wealthy parents to buy their kid’s admission into an elite private university. Singer even set up his own fake charity where parents could “donate” the money and then write the donation off on their taxes.

“The parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” Lelling said. “They include, for example, the CEOs of private and public companies, successful securities and real estate investors, two well-known actresses, a famous fashion designer and the co-chairman of a global law firm.”

Implications Of The College Admissions Bribery Scandal

As the parent to a two-year-old currently “stuck” in extremely competitive San Francisco, I find the details from this investigation extremely fascinating. In fact, 14 of the 33 parents indicted hail from the SF Bay Area.

Over the years, I’ve written many posts regarding the private school system as I try to work out what’s best for our son.

After all, I come from a middle-class family and went to public high school, public college, and public graduate school. A public school education has worked out fine for me, but I want to make sure I’m not missing the benefits of going the private school route.

Here are some past posts to review:

Would You Accept $1,000,000 To Go To Public School Over Private School?

What If You Go To Harvard And End Up A Nobody

Private School Or Public School? Depends On Your Level Of Fear And Guilt

If you read the posts, you might come away thinking I’m waging a jihad against the private school system. In actuality, I’m just trying to get my head around paying such enormous amounts of tuition for an asset that is declining in value.

After all, this is Financial Samurai, a personal finance site that focuses on optimizing our finances and living our best lives possible.

I love the topic of education, and this latest college admissions scandal is worth reflecting on since every parent cares for their child’s future and we all care about competing in a fair society.

Here are 15 implications from Operation Varsity Blues.

1) Private school reputation takes a hit. Private schools are already under fire due to a number of reasons: 1) outrageous tuition, 2) student body is much wealthier than the overall US demographic, 3) rumors and now facts of buying your way in, 4) affirmative action, and more. The Varsity Blues investigation simply buttresses the point that this stuff goes on at private schools. It’s the same way we know shady recruiting tactics occur in D1 college sports.

2) Public school reputation grows. Notice how the vast majority of admission bribery cases occurred at private universities. Some argue this is because there are many more prestigious private universities than public ones. However, there are still plenty of prestigious public institutions like Berkeley, UVA, UCLA (named in scandal), UCSD, Michigan, Wisconsin, UNC Chapel Hill, Purdue, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, George Tech, US Military Academy, and William & Mary where it appears somehow much harder to buy your way in. The less public schools are implicated, by default the stronger their reputations grow.

3) Affirmative action for the wealthy gets harder to deploy. We learned from the Asian-American lawsuit against Harvard that donor legacy kids have a 10X greater chance of getting into Harvard than a nondonor, nonlegacy kid. The reason why affirmative action for the wealthy is far more egregious than affirmative action based on race is that wealthy people, no matter their race, already receive the best education, the best tutoring, the most stable home environments, and the most amount of access money can buy.

4) All universities take a hit overall in reputation and importance. Although it takes a tremendous amount of capital to bribe your kid’s way into these elite schools, a college education is fast becoming unnecessary. We can now learn everything for free online. It is also much quicker to do research and learn thanks to the internet. Yet, colleges continue to raise their tuition 2X-3X the rate of inflation each year. Meanwhile, it still requires the student 4.-4.5 years on average to get a diploma. Talk about an antiquated system the elite is desperately trying to perpetuate.

Don’t you think there’s something wrong with this chart?

5) The angst for all parents is real, but should decrease. Even if you are a famous, rich, white person like William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman or Lori Loughlin, you are not immune to the anxiety and stress of trying to get your kids the best educational environment possible. The famous, rich, white person is competing against even more famous, rich, white people. This constant comparison will never stop until we make it stop. People of color and the poor should find some solace in the fact that people with all the privilege in the world are still stressing out about their kids’ future. People playing by the rules should feel better that something is being done about this rigged system.

6) Smart, hardworking students get unfairly sullied. Unless the FBI discovers the majority of students at elite universities have parents who buy their way in, it is likely that most students got in through merit. Unfortunately, this college admissions scandal will unfairly paint all elite college students and graduates, especially wealthy ones, with a suspicious eye. It’s the same way affirmative action may discredit an underrepresented minority’s achievements. We must remember that the vast majority of graduates of such schools are highly intelligent, good people.

7) Elite private university graduates will start questioning their accomplishments. Singer’s consulting firm made sure the kids had no idea they didn’t get into their respective universities by cheating. The FBI wiretaps highlighted such discussions. As a result, there will be plenty of students and graduates of these bribe-accepting schools who will wonder whether they got in due to their accomplishments. As self-doubt creeps in, self-esteem may drop, especially for graduates who end up working at a regular job.

Fake charity Singer set up so his clients could write off their bribes

8) Big city living is becoming less attractive. Notice how most of the schools implicated in this latest bribery scandal are located in large coastal cities such as Boston, Washington D.C., the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. Big cities attract the most educated, type-A go-getters because big cities have employers who pay the most amount of money. The desire for money and prestige will eventually make you miserable because everybody is frantically competing to one-up the other.

9) Smaller city living is becoming more attractive. When we look back on our lives, we don’t wish we spent more time in the office trying to make more money and getting some meaningless title. What we wish we had more of was the freedom to spend time with family and friends and doing meaningful work. I foresee the continued growth and attraction of smaller cities as more people “opt out” of the grind. The FIRE movement has arisen partly because people are tired of all the corporate work BS and would rather be free.

10) Private business owner’s increase their purpose. The end goal for getting the best college education possible is to get the best job possible after graduation. Therefore, you’ll always be at the mercy of someone else’s decision if you do not own your own business. If you own your own private business, you can rig the system in your favor by hiring your know-nothing 22-year-old kid as VP of Operations and pay him or her a huge salary if you want. Unless you are a C-level executive at a public company, it is very hard to get your kid a top job or even an internship at your firm.

11) If you are a poor Asian American, you probably face the toughest hurdle. Given there is clear affirmative action for the wealthy through “donations” and straight up bribes, while race-based affirmative action does not include Asian Americans, poor or middle-class Asian Americans will have the greatest difficulty of getting into an elite private university. This is one of the reasons why you see so many mom and pop stores owned by Asians across the country. They know nobody is coming to help them, so they must count on themselves.

12) Poor students will see a rise in reputation. On the flip side, if you happen to be a poor Asian American or a poor student from any race who graduated from an elite private university, your stock should go up given more people realize what you’ve had to go through to get in.

13) A greater percentage of parents will donate to schools. The irony about this bribery scandal is that parents will simply go through legal bribery means by donating quid-pro-quo directly to their desired schools. The 33 parents caught so far were simply bad at cheating. They should have just contacted the admissions office at XYZ private school and discussed a plan to donate directly to a new building, courtyard, or scholarship. The donations will likely be more anonymous.

14) There will be a rise in stealth wealth. Given the college bribery scandal has reignited hatred for the rich, the rich will flaunt their wealth less. Luxury car sales might go down as BMWs are traded in for Hondas. Rich parents will tell their rich kids to stop showing off their wealth over social media. There may even be a surge in luxury home inventory as the rich decide to move out of expensive neighborhoods. Stealth wealth has always been a good idea. As we surpass our 10th year in a bull market, practicing stealth wealth is more important than ever before.

15) The middle class may become wealthier and happier. As college becomes less important in finding a job, there will be fewer people spending four years and borrowing tens of thousands in student loans. With more time and less financial baggage, more people will be able to aggressively save to buy a house, start a family, and save for retirement. With more financial security and more time, society as a whole becomes much happier.

Let The College Admissions Bribery Scandal Pump You Up

Instead of getting bummed out about how all these image-conscious and misguided wealthy people buy their kid’s way into elite universities, get happy!

Not only do you not have to spend $250,000 – $400,000 on average per kid on bribes, you also don’t have to pay $50,000+ a year in tuition alone for 4-5 years! The bribes plus the full cost of attending a private university for four or five years could run you over $1 million.

Life is already hard enough as it is. We don’t need people who have all the means in the world pull further ahead from the rest of us who abide by the rules or who went to public schools.

Let us all thank Andrew Lelling, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts; Joe Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Field Office; and the entire team for unrooting this scandal.

I trust this is just the beginning of much more to come!

Related: How To Stop Worrying About Your Child’s Future Again In This Brutally Competitive World

Readers, what are your thoughts on the college admissions bribery scandal? Why didn’t these parents just donate directly to the school instead? Why isn’t there more backlash against affirmative action for the wealthy? What are some other implications about the bribery scandal I have not mentioned?

The post The Wide Implications Of The College Admissions Bribery Scandal appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-wide-implications-of-the-college-admissions-bribery-scandal/

[thelastdiadoch]

How Much Viking Lore Is True?

By Simon Worrall.  PUBLISHED JANUARY 22, 2017

Archaeologists have confirmed key details in Norse oral histories (but not the dragons, elves, and trolls).

In TV series from Vikings to Game of Thrones, the icy wastes of the north provide the backdrop to dramatic, often violent, stories of kings and warriors, dragons and trolls. The source for many of these dramas is the Icelandic sagas. In her new book, Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas, historian Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough explores the world of the sagas, teasing fact from fiction to show that there was much more to the Norse peoples than rape and pillage. (Find out whether the Vikings deserved their terrible reputation.)

Speaking from her home in Durham, England, she explains how the United States should really celebrate Leif the Lucky, not Columbus, why the Soviets hated the idea that Russia had been founded by the Vikings, and how the gruesome Viking torture known as the Blood Eagle may have been more poetic conceit than historical practice. (Did Vikings make the modern world possible?)

You write, “The Vikings have always had a reputation as the bad boys of the medieval world.” Is it time to rethink this prejudice?

The idea of the Vikings being the bad boys in the medieval world goes right back to the medieval world. The first big Viking raid took place around A.D. 793 on the island of Lindisfarne, home of the Lindisfarne Gospels. But it’s important to think about how we know of this raid—from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was written a hundred years later, in the time of King Alfred, who we know as a Viking basher. At about the same time, a strongly devout Anglo-Saxon cleric at the court of King Charlemagne, named Alcuin, writes a letter to the abbot of Lindisfarne, saying “Never before has a terror appeared on our shores like this. Remember the words of the prophets, from the north, evil breaks forth.” So from the start we have the idea of the Viking raiders somehow being God’s punishment for sins committed.

When we say "Vikings," we think of any inhabitant of the medieval Nordic world. But Viking literally means raider; it’s a job title. The people living in the Nordic world during the Viking age did raid and pillage. But there was much more to them than that. They were far travelers. They colonized the North Atlantic, parts of the Scottish Isles, Iceland. They’re in Arctic Scandinavia and on the Russian waterways. They founded a colony in Greenland that lasted 500 years and got all the way to the edge of North America.

Columbus is celebrated as the person who “discovered” America. But the Vinland Saga suggests that Americans should really celebrate Erik the Red day.

[Laughs] Well, maybe Leif the Lucky day, who is Erik the Red’s son. Greenland was settled from around [A.D.] 985, initially by Erik the Red. We know this partly because of the Vinland Sagas, two Icelandic sagas called Saga of Erik the Red, and Saga of the Greenlanders. These same sagas are our main written accounts of how Norse Greenlanders, a generation after Erik the Red, set out from Greenland and reached the edge of North America. First Baffin Island, then Labrador—which they called Markland, “forest land”— and finally Newfoundland.

But until the 1960s, the Vinland Sagas were our only source of information for these voyages. People weren’t even sure if they’d actually happened. Then, in the ’60s excavations on the tip of Newfoundland at L’Ans-Aux-Meadows showed clear evidence that there had been Norse visitors. I wouldn’t say settlers. There are long houses but they seem to be more overwintering sites, where they could mend their ships, then carry on farther south. There were women on these voyages, too. In one saga, a woman is said to have had a child out there, making her the first European woman to give birth on the North American continent.

What’s interesting is that, in the past, even before the archaeological evidence, Americans were very keen on this Viking heritage. Toward the end of the 19th century, there were lots of paintings showing big, romantic Norse coming across in their boats. But you also find lots of forgeries and fakes because if you can’t find a past, then you create it. There were fake rune stones dug up in a Minnesota field, fake weapons, and, of course, the famous Vinland Mapforgery.

You call the sagas “Medieval Iceland’s unparalleled storytelling legacy to the world.” Are they fact—or fiction?

The sagas were written in 13th-century Iceland and continued to be written and copied in manuscripts. In some ways, the medieval period didn’t end in Iceland until the 20th century. Saga comes from the Norse word sayer, which means “to say.” That gives a clue to the origins of these sagas. They weren’t just conjured up out of some scribe’s head in the 13th century and then written down. They had a long oral history going back centuries. These are stories told and retold, passed down through the generations. But that doesn’t make them pure fact. Stories change, they adapt, they’re embellished, facts drop out of them, pieces of information are added. So by the time they are written down, it’s very hard to separate the facts from the fiction.

^ A statue of Leif Erikson stands before the Hallgrimskirkja Church in Reykjavik, Iceland. The Viking is believed to have reached the Americas five centuries before Columbus.PHOTOGRAPH BY JON BOWER ICELAND, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Trolls and dwarves have become familiar to us from Lord of The Rings. Dragons form an important story thread in Game of Thrones. The sagas are full of them, aren’t they?

They do crop up in the sagas but the sagas can also be pretty realistic. Not all sagas are filled with dragons and elves. But the interesting thing is that they were clearly seen as part of the Norse worldview. When they do appear, they’re not seen as necessarily fantastical. You can be having a normal saga episode, where someone’s having a dream or wandering through a mountain, and suddenly a creature will appear. The idea of trolls lurking just outside, at the edge of your peripheral vision, is a common one.

The far north has always had supernatural, even diabolical associations, stretching all the way back to the Bible. We see it in the Anglo-Saxon worldview, all the way up to 19th century and Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen. The farther north you go, the more inhospitable the landscape becomes. There are mountains and deep crevasses, strange rock formations. So it becomes easier to imagine in these inhuman parts of the world, that the only things that could live in them would themselves be inhuman, like trolls.

One of the surprises in your book is that the Vikings also voyaged east— and overland—to what is now Russia. Tell us about these journeys—and why the Soviets downplayed the Viking connection.

The initial impetus to go into Russia from the Norse world came from the people facing east: in particular, the Swedes. They crossed the Baltic then headed down the Russian waterways. If you want to know where the Norse go, follow the money. [Laughs] There are enormous amounts of Islamic silver flowing up and down the waterways during the Middle Ages, and the Norse are following those. They also are bringing things of their own to trade, like furs and skins, which fetched a very high price. And they’re bringing slaves, which is another reason we have all these raids and violence.

The word “Russia” seems to be derived from the term Rus, which, in origin at least, seems to have come from Sweden or some part of the Nordic world. These Norse tribes founded Kiev and created the polity that becomes known as Kievan Rus, the foundation of modern-day Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. But during the Soviet era, it wasn’t a good thing to go around saying that your founding nation was built by Europeans. You wanted it to be built by Slavs, your own people, in opposition to Europe. But if you look at the first archaeological layers of trading towns, such as Staraya Ladoga in the far north, there are clearly Norse elements.

^ Vikings traveled widely, from Russia to North America, but they probably didn't make it to Petersburg, Alaska, where this replica Viking ship celebrates the town's Norwegian heritage.

One of the most gruesome scenes in the TV series Vikings is when the lead character, Ragnar Lothbrok, an actual historical figure, subjects one of his enemies to a torture known as the Blood Eagle. What is it? And did it really exist? Sensitive readers should look away.

[Laughs] The Blood Eagle was a particularly gruesome form of torture and killing, where you sliced down the spine of your victim, take the rib cage and pull it back, then pull out their lungs, which look like a pair of eagle’s wings. Academics argue as to whether this actually ever took place because the original source of evidence is a couple of skaldic verses. A skald is a Norse poet, so skaldic verses are written by Norse poets, usually a court poet.

One of the features of a skaldic poem is that it’s incredibly convoluted, like a cryptic crossword puzzle. If you have a reference to what appears to be the Blood Eagle in a skaldic verse, it’s quite likely this is a poetic conceit. Roberta Frank, at Yale, argues that the Blood Eagle is just the idea of a carrion bird scratching at the back of the dead. If you create lots of corpses, you are a very good warrior. That’s what is being referred to. But when later writers made prose stories around these skaldic verses, they seem to have interpreted it literally. So it’s quite likely that there was no such thing as this horrible form of torture, but it grew in the telling.

I presume you are not a fan of the Vikings TV Series?

[Laughs] I absolutely love it! Brilliant! They do so much research! For instance, when they set sail in episode one of the first season, trying to find the British Isles, they say, “How are we going to navigate, it’s so cloudy?” They then hold up this thing they call the sunstone. The idea is that you are able to see where the light’s coming from and that enables you to navigate. There’s a lot of debate whether something like this stone actually existed. There are written accounts of it. But they haven’t found any examples from other Viking contexts. But the idea that they wouldn’t know that the British Isles existed is absolute bollocks! [Laughs] They’d been trading for years.

You are an academic—but you definitely left your ivory tower to research this book. Talk about some of the highlights of your travels, and how working on this book changed your view of the Vikings.

I’m not much of a fan of the ivory tower. I find libraries boring [Laughs] So going to Greenlandwas part of the reason I wanted to write the book. I was there over two summers. The first summer I did it on the back of an Icelandic pony with a guide, who was this amazing, pioneer-type woman. We trekked from Norse ruin to Norse ruin, staying at Greenlandic farms, which were often in the same place as the Norse ruins. Later, I got on a three-day ferry and chugged up the coast past the Arctic Circle to a place called Ilulissat, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site because it’s full of icebergs. It may even be the fjord where the iceberg that sank the Titanic calved.

In Greenland, I was seeing the archaeological evidence for the view of the world I’d got from the sagas: the farms described in some of the sagas, the fjord where Erik the Red lived. I stayed right next door to his farm! More than anything, it gave me a sense of how extraordinary these people were; how far they went; how dangerous it was; how intrepid and brave they were to go out to the edge.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Simon Worrall curates Book Talk. Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor.com. 

[rachelisnotatwork]

Week 4: hitch-hikers, rain and sad penguins

Monday dawned kind of grey and cloudy in Picton. After a subpar breakfast (I blame too many British tourists; as a nation we do not demand enough when it comes to restaurants), we decided to head out to an area called French Pass which supposedly had a beautiful drive out to it.

On our way out of town we saw a couple trying to catch a lift by the side of the road. We decided to be nice and pick them up (we normally can’t take hitchhikers as the downside of our policy of hiring tiny cars is you have to put at least one suitcase in the back seat) as they met our criteria of not looking like a serial killer and/or being a bedbug carrier and/or looking like they might want to talk about astrology/the mind expanding properties of weed/juggling. As they got closer to the car we noticed that whilst the girl looked in her early 20s, the guy looked about 50. We prepared to be creeped out by a super age-inappropriate relationship. Thankfully as they got in the car they introduced themselves and they were a dad and his daughter! They were heading to Nelson, so we drove them about halfway. The dad was a pilot and his daugher was a pre-med at Yale, so they were pretty interesting as car companions go. They were planning on a multi-day hike, so we felt pretty sorry for them at several points on the next few days as the heavens opened.

The drive didn’t look that long on the map, but thanks to multiple twisting mountain roads and areas where the road became gravel it took FOREVER and most of the drive was forested so you couldn’t see anything really. Last 10 kilometres were beautiful though, but I’m not sure it merited about 3 hours in the car.

The end of the drive, French Pass, was a tiny hamlet that was full of cars. All the official spaces full, all of the verges parked on. But no people. It was very weird. Like a zombie apocalypse only with nil visible blood. We had brought stuff for a picnic but it was REALLY windy out there, so we ate it in the car (so basically a very typical British picnic).

On our way back we stopped at a river that is theoretically great for swimming, but since it was still pretty grey and windy we decided to just have a long walk on the banks and to a waterfall before having a really bad dinner (Picton- short on good dining options).

The next day we woke up to pouring rain and leaden skies. Our next stop was Kaikoura, which should be about a 2 hour drive down the coast...but the November earthquake ruined that. So instead we had to take a 6 hour detour through the interior. The first three hours where Marcel was driving the rain was continuous. Then we swapped, just in time for the weather to be really nice so Marcel got to enjoy all the views whilst I concentrated on the “many hazards” (as the warning signs advertised) of an earthquake-damaged road.

By the time we got there the skies were beautifully clear so we took a long walk along the beach, which was beautifully empty. Just us and some fairly dim endangered seabirds (dotterels) that had a nesting strategy of a vague dent in the sand and would run away pretending to have a broken wing so you’d chase them when you got close.

Quite a few of the places in town were damaged by the earthquake; the motel next to where we were staying was shut due to damage. The only resident was a super friendly tail-less cat, that was so desperate to be stroked that if you held your hand out it would leap up like a dolphin so it’s back would be stroked by your hand.

Kaikoura is famous for whale watching, which is why Marcel originally wanted to go. Having suffered more than I on the ferry crossing though, there was no way he could be persuaded to go anywhere near a boat again. I was fairly ambivalent on it because I’m fairly cursed with wildlife watching (due to be spectacularly unobservant) so was reasonably certain I would see no whales. The other big draw is swimming with wild seals, but I wasn’t really convinced they would want to swim with us and I can go for a swim sans seals for a lot less than the $130 they wanted to charge. So we decided to walk around the peninsula. The weather forecast said it would be great in the morning and terrible in the afternoon so we dragged ourselves out of bed at dawn (read: 9am) and found... it was already raining. Thankfully there was a small break in the weather which we used to have a walk along the cliff tops, where you could see colonies of seals and thousands of gulls. And there was a seal hanging out in the car park, so again- free seals and I didn’t have to don a wetsuit (never really felt comfortable with renting wetsuits after my sister told me a story about them, which I won’t repeat so that you aren’t similarly limited).

We decided to try and find somewhere for coffee in town as Marcel was jones-ing. Luckily whilst I’m bad at spotting wildlife I can find a hipster cafe in seconds. Found one so trendy even google maps didn’t know it existed. We headed in and ordered food and the heavens opened. Pretty much saw children clinging to logs floating past. Thankfully the service was pretty slow so it had settled down to torrential downpour by the time we were ready to leave.

As a result we had a lazy afternoon where I started a weird form of Japanese quilting/embroidery called sashiko and Marcel planned our trip.

The rain kept falling. Eventually at about 8pm it dried up briefly and we snatched a quick walk at a beach down the coast.

The next morning naturally dawned clear and sunny. We drove down to Christchurch and after dropping our stuff in our airbnb headed straight out for a place called Akaroa, which is on a headland nearby. For some reason (I didn’t read the history) it seemed to be super French, which meant great cafe food for a late lunch and lots of French place names as we had a leisurely walk down the harbour. Also apparently the birth place of Frank Worsley who is a bit of an Antarctica legend if you like that sort of thing (I do).

Afterwards we decided take a walk in a nearby nature reserve. It’s privately owned and run by someone who seemed to have despaired on humanity so had written lots of sarcastic notes around the place.

It was incredibly beautiful though, and we walked to two “knobs” (oh the immaturity) with great look outs. As always it was pretty windy, and Marcel had forgotten his jumper so had to wear his raincoat and look like a flasher.

The route back was via a gorgeous (if windswept) scenic road. We managed to use the car as a prop to get the occasional photo of both of us.

The next day we decided to treat ourselves to brunch, so went to a local trendy hipster spot and I had fried banana bread with mascapone, himalayan sea salt and honeycomb. It came garnished with flowers. I was not confident that our moustachioed staff knew what flowers were edible and what weren’t, so I decided to leave them.

Our next stop was the International Antarctic Centre. As Christchurch is the nearest English language reasonable sized outpost to Antarctica, both the NZ and USA programmes head out of there, so they decided to build a huge, expensive and super fun museum there. They had huskies outside you could play with (or correction, which Marcel could play with whilst I hid a safe distance away) and with your ticket you got a free obstacle course ride on a Haggland, which is basically some weird tractor thing that is amphibious and can drive across a crevasse, which they do.

Inside they have lots of exhibitions (not much new they can teach this polar nerd though), a 4D movie about going to Antarctica, where a bird shits on the camera lens and they spray you with water at the same time (quite who wants this I don’t know), an HD movie with loads of aerial footage of Antarctica (slightly ruined by the fly in the projection room, which kept clambering on the lens, giving the impression that Antarctica was besieged by 20ft shadow beasts) and a tank full of disabled blue penguins they’ve saved from the wild. I’m probably going to hell for laughing at some of their efforts to swim. They also had a “storm room” where you get a coat and some little rubber overshoes and then they stick you in a room full of snow and blast a -18c wind at you. Not the best day to be wearing flipflops and a dress.

Afterwards we headed to the Botanical gardens for a walk. Naturally it started to rain on us as we’d got about as far from our car as we could get. Thankfully earlier that day I’d stolen Marcel’s hoodie with a waterproof hood, so I was fine...

We decided to have a quick look around Christchurch before dinner. We thought, given that it was 6pm on a Friday night, it might be quite lively. It was a ghost town. Not sure if it was the high number of damaged buildings in the area or the fact people here are still on Christmas holidays but it felt abandoned. We did manage to drag out looking about with a bit of statue posing until a respectable dinner time (7pm. Only infants and Americans eat before 7pm).

We went out for Burmese for dinner, which neither of us had ever had before, but was delicious. Had a pickled tea leaf salad, which I think was the first and only time I’ve ever enjoyed tea. The deserts seemed odd though, so we decided to go to a nearby place for frozen yoghurt. New Zealand hasn’t really got the concept of it yet. It was not good.

Saturday we headed down for Dunedin. It was quite a long drive but we’d planned to break it up with a stop off to see the Moeraki boulders, which are weird giant natural cement-y boulders. We stopped and bought a kilo of amazingly delicious cherries and ate an obscene amount of them as we drove. The whole drive it threatened rain. Right before we arrived, it delivered. There seemed to be a break in the rain so we headed down to the beach to see these weird boulders. They were pretty cool, and straight after them the beach was long and empty, so we decided to go for a walk. Again, just as we decided we’d walked far enough and we should turn back, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. Drenching rain of the sort that runs straight off your rain coat and onto your legs. I was not amused. When we reached the car I had to eat a lot of cherries to cheer up.

Speaking of things which do not cheer you up, when we arrived in Dunedin, it was 12c. And that was the high for the day. Thank god before leaving Kate’s place, I had borrowed her ski coat which I rapidly put on. Our airbnb was a holiday cottage right on the cliffs though, so at least there was a beautiful view of the cold, windswept beach. Internet barely worked though. Can only assume below a certain summer temperature, it despairs. I know I do.

On Sunday, the sun rose on...leaden skies. We managed to get a quick walk in at Blackhead beach (everything in the area is called Blackhead, which is not the most appealing of names) before it actually started to rain and then we had a casual afternoon of lazing and internet surfing before heading out for our evening activity.

Now I’ve made my opinion on bird watching clear before but there are some exceptions. In my mind the world can be divided into two sorts of birds- exciting birds (penguins, albatrosses, peacocks) and really fucking boring birds (all of the rest of them). Luckily this peninsula had not one but two types of penguins.

First up was the yellow-eyed penguins, which are very endangered because people ruin everything. Also they are anti-social, don’t like to see other penguins and like to nest in shady places, so that doesn’t really help when you’ve got a deforested coastline and penguins that want to be alone. The conservation group had dug this weird maze of tunnels along which you could walk so the penguins wouldn’t be disturbed and the birds would be at eye height. There was however only one baby bird to be seen (looking ridiculous and pointedly ignoring a nearby goose) and two returning (separate) adults in the distance who march furiously across the sand like they are running late for a business meeting. 

They did compensate though by having lots of sexually frustrated bachelor seals fighting around the place and you got a closer look at some penguins, because they keep the injured ones in a hospital. They had a graph outside the hospital of colony numbers and... think they might be seeing approximately 0 birds in a few years time on these tours.

And so ended the week, in the twilight, getting rained on, staring at doomed penguins. So just the average end to a week in NZ

[gilmoremovies]

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Date Watched: 17th October 2016

Referenced in: 1x10, 1x13, 2x07, 2x17, 2x19, 3x04, 3x05, 3x08, 3x17, 3x21, 4x01, 4x04, 4x08, 4x19, 4x20, 5x04, 5x22, 6x01, 6x03, 6x10, 6x11 and Fall (this is referenced 5 billion times so forgive me if I miss one and let me know if I have!)

Rating:  ★★★★★

SPOILER-ISH

I’m the last of 4 kids so if my older siblings didn’t like a film, I didn’t watch it. This film is an example of that so at the age of 21 I watched Wizard of Oz for the first time. It’s obviously a very popular film so it’s not like I didn’t know the story or the songs but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. The whole witch melting by accident was a bit shit though but other than that Judy you talented thing and her little comrades too #squadgoals. Also Toto is the same dog as Bright Eyes and I loved him even more than I did before.

(Other GG Movies I’ve watched so far)

(Full references under the cut)

1x10, Forgiveness and Stuff (2000) Lorelai says that she needs the Scarecrow to help her when she and Luke are lost in the hospital. LUKE: Ok, we’re supposed to follow the blue line, around the corner and then we should be - LORELAI: Where’s the scarecrow when you need him? LUKE: Ok, we have to ask someone else. LORELAI: No! No! We just have to pick one. LUKE: Ah, well can’t just wander around here aimlessly.    

1x13, Concert Interruptus (2001) Lorelai says, “I’m the good witch of the …” and is cut off. LORELAI: Think fast [throws them a t-shirt each] T-shirts for all the girls because I’m the good witch of the - hey, aren’t you missing a couple of kids?

2x07, Like Mother, Like Daughter (2001) Rory mentions a famous line from the film when asking to sit with the Puffs. FRANCIE: Hey. RORY: There’s a bad draft over there where I usually sit. It’s kind of like a big downward gust. It’s not exactly ‘Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore’, but it’s still pretty darn uncomfortable, especially when you’re just gotten your hair to behave. So can I sit here? FRANCIE: Uhh, yeah.

2x17, Dead Uncles and Vegetables (2002) Kirk mentions his dog named Toto when talking about disliking Louie. KIRK: He kicked my dog when I was a kid. SY: He hit on my wife repeatedly. KIRK: Toto was always different after that. SY: My wife was much affected as well. KIRK: I’d toss her something to fetch and she’d start to run after it and halfway there she’d forget what she was doing. SY: She never enjoyed her soap operas the same after that. KIRK: She’d just lie down and go to sleep. LUKE: This is an exaggeration. BERT: We’re not exaggerating. We threw a big party when he left town! SY: I made love to my life that night like I never have. KIRK: My Toto barked a happy bark, then quietly stopped breathing. She was old.  

2x19, Teach Me Tonight (2002) Lorelai suggests it as a Movie in the Square Night contender.

3x04, One’s Got Class and the Other One Dyes (2002) Lane mentions a song the scarecrow sings from this movie after bleaching her hair.  LANE: It’s weird. RORY: Like straw. LANE: I feel like I should be singing ‘If I Only Had a Brain.’

3x05, Eight O'Clock at the Oasis (2002) Lorelai mentions the name of Dwight’s old house. RORY: ‘First of all, thank you for this very kind favor you’re doing me. I still can’t believe that any one person would be so kind to someone they just met.’ LORELAI: Yeah, apparently Dwight’s last home was Oz, and not as in ‘The Wizard Of.’

3x08, Let the Games Begin (2002) Lorelai and Rory quote the “lions and tigers and bears” chant when walking into Yale. RORY: Wow. LORELAI: Lions and tigers and bears… RORY: Oh my. RICHARD: It’s impressive, isn’t it?

3x17, A Tale of Poes and Fire (2003) Michel mentions the Good Witch when looking for spare rooms to house the guests after the fire. MICHEL: Everything is booked. LORELAI: You checked the Cheshire Cat, the Maiden’s Teacup, the Cookie House, the Sugarbear Inn? MICHEL: Every place that sounds like Glinda the Good Witch threw up, yes – all booked.

3x21, Here Comes the Son (2003) Sasha describes the scene between Dorothy and the gatekeeper at the Emerald City. JESS: I just wanna see Jimmy, okay? SASHA: Hey, did you ever see The Wizard of Oz? JESS: Yes. SASHA: Remember when they go to the Emerald City and they ring the bell and the guy with the beard stuck his head out and they said that they wanted to see the wizard, and he said no, and they said, 'She’s got the ruby slippers’, and he said 'Well, that’s a horse of a different color. Come on in.’ JESS: Yes. SASHA: Well, I’m the guy with the beard and I’m saying the no unless you can come up with the ruby slippers. JESS: I’m his son. SASHA: His son? JESS: Yes, his son. SASHA: Well, that’s a horse of a different color. Come on in.

4x01, Ballrooms and Biscotti (2003) Rory pretends she’s had a dream and quotes Dorothy’s “you were there, and you, and you” line. RORY: [to her clothes] I had a dream about you in Copenhagen. You were there, and you, and you, and you.

4x04, Chicken or Beef? (2003) Rory’s response to Lorelai laying a path of Post-It notes through the house references the film. LORELAI: We’re good as long as we stay on the path. RORY: So I should follow the yellow stick road? LORELAI: We’ll be here all week, try the veal. Stop.

4x08, Die, Jerk (2003) Paris says that the idea of Rory making somebody angry is as absurd as Dorothy pissing off the Tin Man. TANNA: What about you? RORY: Me? JANET: Made anyone mad lately? PARIS: Oh, please, that would be like Dorothy pissing off the Tin Man. It’s impossible.

4x19,  Afterboom (2004) Rory references the lions and tigers and bears oh my! line. RORY: What are you doing here? LORELAI: Inn stuff. I had to pick up hinges and doorknobs and faucets. RORY: Oh, my.

4x20, Luke Can See Her Face (2004) Lorelai makes a reference to watching Toto from The Wizard of Oz. LUKE: No, Roy, I know what I’m talking about. I’m looking for stalks of wheat, not processed wheat, stalks. That’s putting it another way. I need bare-ass stalks. [to customer] Sorry. [to Roy] I know you can’t eat it like that. I just need it for decoration. No, I’m not going poofy on you, damn it! [to another customer] Sorry. [to Roy] I just need to know whether you have it or not. No? Okay, whatever. Thanks. [hangs up] Is there no wheat left in this country? What happened to Kansas? Isn’t Kansas lousy with wheat? LORELAI: I do recall Toto running through fields of it. Coffee to go, please.

5x04, Tippecanoe and Taylor, Too (2004) Lorelai compares Taylor to the Tin Man, calling him heartless. LORELAI: Come on, Taylor. This is ridiculous. TAYLOR: This issue is not open for debate. LORELAI: This is a nice man who is growing some very nice tomatoes, and you just need to oil your knees and go see the wizard and get a heart and drop this!

5x22, A House Is Not a Home (2005) Zach refers to himself and the other band members as various characters from the film when asked if he’ll come on tour. LANE: Zach? ZACH: Well, geez, Dorothy, if Tinman and Lion are going to go, I guess I have to go too. [He pulls himself up like the Scarecrow.]

6x01, New and Improved Lorelai (2005) Paris jokes about the Lollipop Guild while talking about Doyle’s family all being unusually short. PARIS: I’m meeting more of Doyle’s family tonight. I’ve been meeting people for months. (she goes through Rory’s clothes) He’s got like five hundred cousins, and you know what? He’s the tallest one in the family. RORY: Really? PARIS: Yup. Family get-together is like a Lollipop guild convention. I have to stop myself from asking how it’s going at the chocolate factory.

6x03, The UnGraduate (2005) Michel hums the Wicked Witch of the West’s musical theme while talking about Paris. MICHEL: (runs in the kitchen) She’s back! She’s coming back! SOOKIE: No! LORELAI: Why?! MICHEL: I don’t know why. Maybe she left her phone or her spell book. All I know is she’s heading back toward the Inn, and I’m not going out until she leaves.  

MICHEL: Very well. I’ll leave the….wait. Do you feel that? LORELAI: Feel what? MICHEL: An icy chill as if something sinister is approaching. SOOKIE: What? MICHEL: (hums the witch’s theme from “The Wizard Of Oz”) Ta-ta-ra-ta-ra-ra-Taraaaaaa LORELAI: Gee, Michel, is Paris here?

6x10, He’s Slippin’ 'Em Bread… Dig? (2005) Lorelai says she uses the Wash & Brush Up Co. from Wizard of Oz to stay pretty. CHRIS [looking at Lorelai]: I don’t know how you do it, I mean, you always look… LORELAI: Yeah, well, I get the girls from the Wash & Brush Up company from the Wizard of Oz working for me now. CHRIS [chuckles]: Good deal.

6x11, The Perfect Dress (2006) Paris says she hasn’t slept through the night since the first time she saw Wizard of Oz. PARIS: Now, Doyle sleeps very deeply, so don’t worry about the hours. I, as you know, haven’t slept through the night since the first time I saw “The Wizard Of Oz”, thank you Mum, so I tend to do my crafts in the middle of the night, but the walls are very thick. You won’t hear a thing. Oh, now, the hot water in the bathroom…

A Year in the Life: Fall (2016) Several references to this film when Rory says goodbye to The Life and Death Brigade ROBERT: I said he was from New Zealand FINN: Only a man with no heart would say that to me /…/ RORY: Oh Robert don’t cry, your eye will swell up terribly. Here, take your steak. ROBERT: Now I know I have a heart, because it’s breaking. RORY: Goodbye, Colin. I'm going to miss the way that you get drunk and randomly buy things you don't need, like clubs and cars COLIN: And bed and breakfasts? Oh, yeah. RORY: Oh, Colin. RORY: [to finn] You know I think I’ll miss you most of all.  COLIN: Hey, we heard that!  ROBERT: yeh. Thanks a lot!  FINN: Stay photogenic I beg of you.

[amtopmthoughts]

FINN DOESN’T DIE

Finn Hudson

After returning from his short (stay at?) the Army he went backpacking through Georgia before he was ready to go back home (back) to Lima and face everyone. When he went to visit Rachel, the two of them eventually broke up. He went back to Lima and helped coach the Glee Club and eventually realised he wanted to become a (music) teacher. At Mr. Schue’s wedding he and Rachel slept together and got (even) closer after that. They got back together a few months after that and he moved to New York with Blaine and the four of them were/started living together. Enrolled in NYU in September of 2013.

After getting his teaching degree he got a job as a music teacher at a high school in New York and started his own Glee Club there.

Some years later he and Rachel bought a house in the suburbs outside New York.

Changes from the series:

Finn didn’t enrol in the University of Lima, when he realised he wanted to be a teacher, he applied to colleges in New York and started living with Rachel, Kurt and Blaine.

Rachel Berry

Changes from the series:

Rachel didn’t get the part in the Funny Girl play and never went to L.A.

Kurt Hummel

Changes from the series:

Blaine never proposed so they didn’t break up and they didn’t have a double wedding with Brittany and Santana either.

Blaine Anderson

Changes from the series:

Blaine didn’t propose so they never broke up and never dropped out of NYADA. Didn’t get married.

Quinn Fabray

Quinn leaves Lima after being accepted into Yale. She chooses a/to major in English Literature. Her plans after college are to work for a publishing company and maybe writing a book or two. She also sings in a jazz club/pub. Very dark and moody, where her “tremulous alto”, as Rachel once described her voice, fit perfectly.

Changes from the series:

She attended Brittany and Santana’s wedding.

Santana

Santana went to the University of Louisville already with her sights set in New York so it was likely/predictable that she would eventually drop out. So she did, a few months later/in. She wanted to be famous. Adrift for some time, not really sure of what she’d do next, she comes back to Lima, gets back with Brittany and eventually she proposes and the two of them get married. After the wedding, the two move to NY, along with Rachel, Kurt and Blaine and they get their own apartment. Finally, Santana decides to enrol in Parsons to study Fashion Design. Some years later, Santana Lopez is a world renown fashion designer, based in New York.

Brittany S. Pierce

After leaving MIT realising she didn’t like the life of a math genius, she returns to Lima. After getting married to Santana, they both move to NY to their own apartment. After 5 years growing, her famous internet talk show “Fondue for Two” gets more popular by the day and she eventually creates a youtube channel, starts doing podcasts and becomes a social media queen.

Mercedes Jones

Right after graduation, Mercedes was off to LA. The video Sam posted on youtube was a hit with over 2 million views and she got so much attention she eventually was offered a recording contract. Although things didn’t work out perfectly as she struggled to stay true to her values in the shady business that is the music industry, she eventually thrived, getting to open up for Beyoncé’s world tour. After the tour was over, she started working on her third album and it was such a sales success she went on a national tour of her own this time.

She also attended a couple classes at UCLA but eventually couldn’t keep up with her studies and recording an album. She eventually dropped out, she was already doing what she wanted and college isn’t for everybody, anyway.

Sam

After getting/arriving to/in New York and realising he didn’t belong there, he came back to Lima. As he said, New York is too fast, too loud. When he came back, Coach Beiste offered him a job as her assistant coach for the football team. After McKinley was turned into an arts school and Mr Schue was named Principal he chose him to teach the New Directions, one of the glee clubs of the new school. After a while he met one of the dance teachers, asked her out and they eventually started dating.

Artie Abrams

After NYU, Artie moves to LA because Hollywood is where movie magic happens. He starts making a few short films, pitching it to production companies and eventually succeeds. A few/some years later he starts making real movies and eventually wins an Oscar.

RACHEL

Broadway Actress NEW YORK

FINN HUDSON

Music Teacher NEW YORK

KURT HUMMEL

Fashion Editor in Chief NEW YORK

BLAINE ANDERSON

NEW YORK

QUINN FABRAY CONNECTICUT/LIMA/NEW YORK

Book publisher (and author)/Lawyer

NOAH PUCKERMAN

Air Force

SANTANA LOPEZ LA/LIMA/NEW YORK

Publicist/PR Agent, Executive

 BRITTANY S. PIERCE LA/LIMA/NEW YORK

Social Media Queen

SAM EVANS LIMA

Glee Club “the New Directions” Director/Coach 

ARTIE ABRAMS LA

Film Director

TINA COHEN-CHANG LA

TV/Movie Actress

MIKE CHANG CHICAGO

Dancer

MERCEDES LA

KIDS

FINN AND RACHEL:

Olivia/Charlotte "Charlie" (a lawyer)

Theo (a singer and piano player)?

Christopher

?, even though she did have a beautiful voice and knew how to place

KURT AND BLAINE:

Henry

Lily

SANTANA AND BRITTANY:

Lola

(Sofia)

QUINN AND PUCK:

(Beth)

Grace?

ARTIE AND TINA:

MERCEDES AND ROCK JESUS:

MIKE AND 

SAM AND ALEX:

Archie

Ben

Lexi

WILL AND EMMA:

Danny

Ava

Charlotte "Charlie"

It was Friday night. She and Kurt were home binge watching Golden Girls and eating popcorn.

Another episode ended. “Well, that’s my cue. I’m going to bed, I’ve got to be up early tomorrow.”, Kurt said.

“Oh, yeah?”, Rachel asked.

“Isabelle is having an important early important and she said she wants me there.”

“Well, that’s a big deal.”

“Yeah, I’m excited. It feels good knowing she believes in me this much.”

“Of course she does, you’re amazing.”

Kurt and Rachel both reached for each others hands. “Well, I’m going to bed. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Rachel was left alone in the living room with her thoughts. Lately she hadn’t been having time for a lot of that, lately. She was pretty busy with her NYADA schedules and then at home she was almost never alone. But whenever she was her thoughts were traced back to him. Finn. Every time she thought about 

Helping with the Glee Club while Mr. Schue was gone really helped me see the light. I want to be a teacher. And hopefully be for other kids what Mr. Schue was for me. A role model. Someone I could look up to.

“All these years people telling me I should be a leader and more often than not that actually worked. In some way, I did lead the Glee Club/New Directions. For some reason, they all trusted me so maybe this is what I should be doing. What Mr. Schue did for us. Teach. He taught us good music and to better people. I want that, I want to be (a part of) that, too.”

“Finn, I think that’s perfect.”

“I think so, too. It feels right.”

“Mr. Schue, can I have a word with you?”

“Of course, what��s up?”

“You know how most of the Glee Club wanted to be artists? Like Rachel and Broadway, Mercedes wanting to be a Pop Diva… Being here and falling in love with music and singing and my almost career in football being a total fail/flop, it kind of made me think that’s what I should be doing/wanted to do. Being on a stage, performing. But (for some reason) it didn’t feel right, going to New York, to the Actors’ Studio, even attending some of Rachel’s classes at NYADA. I didn’t understand why, I had no direction, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I felt so lost I joined the army…”

Mr. Schue chuckled, “Yeah…”

“But I think I do now. I think I’ve figured out what I’m meant to do. (I’m) getting a teaching degree. I want to teach. I want to be a music teacher. Like you.”

“Wow… Finn… That’s-that’s amazing.”, he hugs Finn.

“It’s all because of you, Mr. Schue. You’ve changed my life. You showed me what it was to be a man before anyone else. You gave me someone to look up to.”

“That makes me so happy.”, the two of them hugged. “Oh, I can totally see you teaching at McKinley. I’d be honoured to teach along side you, Finn.”

“That’s the thing. I’m thinking of applying to schools in New York.”

“To be with Rachel…”

“Well, yeah…”

“But are you two back together?”

“No. But we did got together on your wed- almost wedding… And we’re going to get back together. I just know it.”

“You guys have faced a lot of ups and downs and always came through so I don’t see why not.”

“So you think I should do it?”

“I think you should be honest with each other about what you feel and if that’s being together/wanting to be together, why not? You guys are young, take a risk/take a chance.”

“I'm going to New York with Blaine this weekend. He's visiting Kurt (before graduation) and I'm tagging along. And I'll talk to Rachel then. Maybe check out some colleges, the campus."

"Do that."

"Thanks, Mr. Schue.”

“I’m so proud of you, Finn. I’ve watched you grow from a ? boy into a strong, mature and kind human being. You’re going to be great at whatever you do.”

“We both deserve to be happy. We both deserve to do what makes us happy.”

“Being with you is what makes me happy.”

“That’s not enough. You need other things in your life. I can’t be the only one who gets to do what she loves, to be fulfilled career wise.”

“You know that (that) are schools with education programs in New York too, right? If I didn’t know you loved me I’d actually say/think you’re making excuses for us not to be together.”

“Of course not! I just don’t want you to make a mistake, I don’t want you to move here, make this big change in your life for me and then resent me for it for the rest of your life. We almost did that senior year, you applied to PACE and you ended up joining the army and I went/came to New York alone. Without you. And we ended up broken up for months/a year.”

“I’m doing it for you, yes, but it’s for me, too. It’s because I can’t stand being away from you anymore. We’ve waisted too much time./It would never have worked me coming here without a plan, not having a live (for myself), but it’s different now. I was lost then, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I do now. (I want to teach). I could never ask you to give up your dream because it’s not just a dream, it’s your destiny and you can’t fulfil your destiny in Ohio, but I can live mine here. I’m doing it for you, yes, but it’s for me, too. It’s because I can’t stand being away from you anymore. We’ve waisted too much time.”

“...But you hate New York.”

“I don’t hate New York.”

“You told me it was too big and too loud for you.”

“(It is.) So we’ll buy a house just outside of New York. In the suburbs. You'll be an hour drive away from the city and I'll have a garage space and a backyard I can have Sunday barbecues on."

“It’ll take years until we’ll be able to buy our own house.”

“So we’ll wait. We’ll work and we’ll save. Rachel, I want to do this. With you. It’ll be hard for me to adjust, sure, but I will. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I’m not doing this to make you happy, it’s because the only way I can be truly happy is if I’m with you. The girl of my dreams.”

They kiss

“So, we’re actually doing this.”

“We are.”

At diner

“So, guys, we have news to tell you.”

“Finn’s moving to New York!”

“What?! Are you serious?”, Kurt hugs Finn.

“That’s great, guys!”

“I haven’t told anyone yet besides my mom and Burt - and Rachel - but I actually got accepted into NYU. I’m starting next fall.”

“Oh my god! I’m so happy! All of us together. In New York. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

“That’s so great, Finn.”

“So I’m guessing you two are back together.”

“Yeah…”

“I’m so happy for you two. As long as you’re not planning on getting married anytime soon.”

“Kurt…”

“They know I say this with love. I think they have other things to focus on right now, churches will still be open in a few years.”

“Don't worry. We're not rushing (into) anything this time."

“I only have one condition.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t want any of that I won’t let you pay for that. We both know an actress gets paid more than a high school teacher. I want you to know that my money is our money just as your money is our money, too.”

“Because I know it’d be okay for you to buy us house but you would never let me buy us a house. Finn, of all of the arguments we’re going to have over the years, I don’t ever want them to about money. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“My co-star from the play I’m working on now gave me his real estate agent/realtor and I gave her a call and told her we were looking to a buy a house outside the city. She showed the most beautiful houses…”

“But…”

“You know Finn is proud, he would never let me buy us a house. He wants us to buy a house together, so we have to slip it.”

“So try to find a middle term. Not too big, not too small.”

“Babe, I found us the most amazing house.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“It’s a chateau.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s by the lake, beautiful landscape. Tons of space for a barbecue station, swings, a pool?”

“Rach, the house is beautiful.”

“So.. Should we buy it?”

“Let’s go for it.”

“I joined a company and got to perform in so many amazing places - even at Carnegie Mellon - but then I met my wife and I suddenly I felt the need to stop, to settle. It didn’t feel right anymore to be all over the place. So we moved in together and I decided to open my own dance studio. I teach and dance and I’m a choreograph dances for some artists, too.”

[back-and-totheleft]

Peck’s bad boy

He still looks like Peck's bad boy up on charges before Mrs. Jones, the schoolmarm. "Did you put bubble gum in Ruby Sue's hair? Did you dip Polly's pigtails in the inkwell? Did you break that window with your slingshot? Oliver -- what are we going to do with you?"

Except that the charges on which the ever-mischievous Oliver Stone has been brought up reflect not yesterday's bucolic but today's brutal America:

"Did you accuse your leaders of lying to your generation and wasting them in an unwinnable war? Did you accuse them of dishonoring and debasing the men who fought and bled for them? Did you accuse them of killing the president of the United States back in 1963? And are you now accusing them of devastating a land and culture for the most trifling of reasons? What are we going to do with you?"

Well, apparently what we're going to do with you is make you rich and famous and powerful, though to look at Oliver Stone sitting in a New York hotel room isn't to see wealth or fame or power, but only . . . Peck's bad boy.

The hair's a thatch hanging in bangs down his head, messy and un-moussed; the front teeth have that goofy gap between them, similar to Alfred E. Neuman's and Huck Finn's. In jeans and a work shirt, he seems unformed and sleepy, as if he's just awakened from a nap. He has that infernal American boy-man thing going on: can't sit still, always squirming or squinching up his face, arms and legs flapping wildly as though he courses with energies for which no release valve exists. A bellicose laugh, a bully's pugnaciousness, a sense of not suffering fools -- not even quasi-, demi-, pseudo- or neo-fools -- lightly.

But still, and over everything, he's got passion. It burns and flashes; you see it when his eyes flame up as he denounces the MIA controversy as "a bogus right-wing scheme cooked up to keep us hating [the Vietnamese] and to make sure we don't end the sanctions against them." President Clinton, he scoffs, is "terrified of being called a wimpy Democrat." Attorney General Janet Reno, he snorts, has "the Puritan mind-set." The newspapers, he smirks, are going nuts over Gerald Posner's "Case Closed," which is "just the Warren Commission reheated and restirred."

He's a great harrumpher. He snorts, he paws, he bellows; the energy flickers out and so does the gloom, for clearly this is a man with a morose, even petulant, side. He doesn't give interviews so much as hold court -- issuing edicts and generalizations and position papers.

And some say his movies are position papers. The latest, which opens Christmas Day, is "Heaven and Earth," which may be the only movie about the Vietnam War that's louder than the Vietnam War.

"It's the last part of the story I have to tell," says Stone, defiantly.

"Heaven and Earth" is nothing if not ambitious: Derived from two memoirs by Le Ly Hayslip ("When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" and "Child of War, Woman of Peace"), it's the peasant's view of Vietnam. It shows a young rural girl during the French Indo-Chinese War in 1954 and then, a decade later, in the middle of the American presence in her country, which for her involves not merely war but a lengthy interrogation, torture and rape. Then, after the fall of Saigon in 1975, she's off to America, married to an ex-Marine and experiencing still more tribulations, including violent abuse, alcoholism and bigotry.

In all, it's pretty heavy sledding.

"Part of what art does," Stone announces, "is bring up the most evil things and make us confront them."

Yet however much Stone may believe in "art," it's also clear he's operating out of a reservoir of experience unique in film culture. If he's a blowhard, he earned the right to his hard blowing. Alone among his Hollywood peers, he is the man who was there.

After dropping out of Yale, he served the grunt's 12-month tour of Vietnam as an infantryman, earning the Bronze Star. He returned to the United States with an attitude problem that manifested itself in an arrest for marijuana possession. He studied filmmaking at New York University's famous school, under the not-yet-famous Martin Scorsese. He made his early way as a writer, winning an Oscar for the superheated "Midnight Express" in 1978. His first film as director was utterly forgettable -- "The Hand," a psychological thriller. His second attracted attention but not ticket buyers -- "Salvador." But it was "Platoon," his third, a semi-autobiographical account of a grunt's long year in the paddies and glades -- and perhaps the first installment of the exorcism that has marked his professional life -- that made him a commanding world figure.

Even though "Heaven and Earth" is his fifth film dealing with Vietnam either directly or indirectly, Stone denies he is obsessed with it. Besides "Platoon," others that touched on the American experience of Vietnam were "Born on the Fourth of July," "The Doors" and "JFK."

"Everyone says that," he says, almost laughing, "but I would have to say that Vietnam was not the most formative experience that I've had. My birth was."

That's an example of Stone's sense of humor, which is why nobody will confuse him with David Letterman.

Leaving the joke hanging laughlessly in the air, he continues: "Really, one of the worst things I had to get through was my parents' divorce. A lot of my madness, my rage, comes from that period.

"Vietnam certainly helped form my character -- it was the furnace. But it wasn't the beginning or the end. I think of other things I've done or felt -- the teaching, the death of JFK, a period in the Merchant Marine -- that were all important."

Yet clearly there's a sense of exculpation in "Heaven and Earth," which closely examines a culture that Stone saw 20 years ago over the gun-sight of an M-16.

"We were always suspicious of the villagers. We assumed they were NVA. When I went back 20 years later, I saw the whole thing differently -- a whole culture there, a culture that worshiped its ancestors and loved the land which we had stupidly tried to move them off of. We called it 'relocation.' Those were the sort of things you never knew about if you were a soldier."

But he denies he's obsessed.

"No, I'm not. It's just that there are things to be learned from such events, however, and I don't know how you learn them without examining them. You have to examine things. Look, we Americans have a tendency to go into Third World countries -- Vietnam, El Salvador, now Somalia. But if you go into Third World countries, you should know what they are thinking -- otherwise, tragedy. I feel strongly we should not repeat our mistakes."

He claims he doesn't even court controversy.

"I don't seek it out. I do it from passion. It's not about self-promotion. If something needs clarification, I have to speak up. The film should speak for itself, but sometimes you have to take a stand.

"But I'm not a propagandist. I like to think of myself as an artist or a filmmaker."

He also admits, almost ruefully, "I seem to attract lightning. But I've never set out to make a controversial film. I guess it's the subjects I've chosen; they seem to be lightning rods. Obviously" -- joke alert, the Stone sense of humor is about to explode again -- "I'm being tortured for something I did in a previous life."

However, contrary impulses still run through his work. The villain in "Heaven and Earth," for example, is Marine gunnery Sgt. Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones), who marries and brutalizes Le Ly (Hiep Thi Le). Butler is a dark and troubling man, a ] representative of all that's evil in the American presence. For example, Butler is identified as a member of Operation Phoenix, the CIA-sponsored assassination campaign against Viet Cong officials.

Yet, even Stone admits there's something extremely charismatic about the sergeant, just as there was about the evil Sgt. Barnes in "Platoon."

"Yes, there is a fascination. What makes them exciting is that sense of danger. In this case, he turns it on himself. It's as if he's consumed in dark fire."

The same, almost certainly, could be said for his creator.

-Stephen Hunter, “The Obsessions of Oliver,” The Baltimore Sun, Dec 19 1993 [x]