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wawamouse · 3 months

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Oz Rewatch 3: S2E07: Animal Farm

Sister before the episode began: What happened last episode…? Beecher shaved his face, and…?

Storylines

(Mini) Beecher wakes up drunk as a skunk, the fallout of last episode’s ending

Cyril is in Oz, gets assaulted by the Aryans; Ryan finds out gets Cyril thrown in the Hole to keep him away from Schillinger; McManus refuses to let Cyril into Em City unless Ryan snitches on himself

Sippel’s storyline begins

(Mini) Augustus searches for a way out, asking Schillinger about escaping through the mail

After being rejected by Bellinger, Adebisi spirals; Nappa, having just arrived in Oz and wanting to take revenge on Adebisi for the Schibetta, takes advantage of the moment and arranges for a drug test to catch Adebisi; Adebisi agrees to stop doing drugs to avoid being sent to the psych ward by Sister Pete; already unstable, he grows disturbed in new ways after encountering Jara, who reminds him of Nigeria

(Mini) Jaz Hoyt learns the ways of the mail room from Schillinger

Rebadow learns that his grandson has leukemia; at a meeting, Hoyt proposes that the gangs pitch in to send Rebadow’s grandson to Disneyland;

(Mini) Augustus asks Miguel if he could get out through the hospital

Eugene Rivera arrives at Oz as a hack; El Cid tells Miguel that he has to take out Rivera’s eyes; Miguel resolves to do so after advice from his father

(Mini) McManus cuts ties with Diane for good, having her transferred to Unit B

(Mini) Beecher’s alcoholism continues

(Mini) Poet commits murder and returns to Oz

Again, I really liked this episode. I feel like Season 2x06-8 have a nice flow after somewhat of a lull in episodes 4 and 5. The structure of this episode is less distinct, though, with more character segments interweaving and flowing into each other. I feel like this is preferable to the character segments being less related. It makes the world in the show feel more intersecting and busy, even if visually (through background actors, camera work, etc) that’s not always the case.

Sister found McManus’s lack of compassion for Cyril an indication of his inconsistency when it comes to wanting to improve prisoner lives.

(Me: but do you think he Actually gives a shit or does he just do it to make himself feel good? Sister: 😑…I guess he doesn’t actually give a shit)

Sister thinks that McManus, Mukada, and Sister Pete are all “tiring” because they’re constantly flip-flopping on whether or not they want to help people. Sometimes they seem to care too much, but then they turn around and don’t care at all. Sister doesn’t think any of the three have much integrity and also thinks that their pick-and-choose care tactics make it impossible to predict what their characters are going to do in whichever given storyline. She says at least with Glynn, it’s not so bad because you know he’s probably just going to say no.

I feel like I sort of agree when it comes to predicting what the characters will do, but at the same time, after something happens, I don't think it's that hard to work backwards and interpret where they come from. For example, McManus is being an asshole about Cyril because he's got a thing against Ryan and also Cyril for killing Gloria's husband, since he dated Gloria/she's a friend, so it's personal to him. Also, Cyril being mentally disabled probably just does not matter to him (although I can say this more with the hindsight knowledge that McManus has never appeared to be sympathetic to Cyril in the show).

Sister thought it was inconsistent (or rather perhaps: hypocritical) that Mukada wasn’t willing to help Sippel or accept Sippel’s remorse as Sister Pete did (i.e, on the Catholic level or whatever; the idea that if a person truly repents, they deserve absolution). I feel like Mukada being initially unwilling to help Sippel is pretty characteristic of him, though. Firstly, he probably finds Sippel even more disgusting because he was a fellow priest, and therefore Mukada probably thinks that Sippel betrayed their post/vows in some manner, causing harm when he is supposed to be doing God’s work. Also, Mukada is kind of a stubborn person, and does also get led by his own emotions often times (or at least he gives off that impression) so I think it makes sense the way he reacted to Sippel.

Me: (Rick Dalton point.jpg) Chico! Sister: Oh, they're friends again! Front row! Me: 🫥

Sister: Sometimes this show feels like we’re just watching people in the college dorms.

Sister: If I was a guy, I would not put my thing anywhere near that guy. I think he’d bite it off. But not in a crazy Beecher way. He’d do it in a weird sex addict way.

Sister: Exactly how long is she sticking around here? Me: A couple more seasons Sister: A couple more seasons?! All the other guys were dead in 10 minutes! Me: Do you want her to die? Why do you hate women? 🎤 Sister: 😑🤚🏼 Ok but she's not really doing anything, though.

Sister: (gagging noises) Sepsis. Instant sepsis. Me: If you boiled it, the bacteria would probably cook off, though. Sister: I don’t think their stovetops could get hot enough to boil off the bacteria… Did you see what they were eating in there? Oranges and a sandwich and a juice? They can’t boil shit in there. I’m surprised they don’t have more poisonings with all those cold foods. All the guys show up again every episode, but I feel like some of them should be missing and there should be a side bit where they're like "oh, where's Harold?"—"He ate the poison tomato sauce and died". Me: They wouldn’t be doing the blood thing in Oz! Sister: Well, you don’t know that. They got that lady, don’t they? And they like to poison people in this show. They could use—You know, if this show was made elsewhere, they'd have guys jerking off in the sauce. Me: What is happening right now?? (@ozimagines This part reminded me of what you said the other day about Miguel and Chico tho lmao...)

Sister: Well... it’s not like he’s had practice giving good fatherly advice, I guess.

Sister: How did he get such a big bottle inside??

Indeed, the Latinos must have major pull in the mail room, because a whole thing of Ambiguously Jack Daniels seems like quite the feat!

Stray thoughts:

Sister questions the point of Ryan ever confessing to being an accomplice in Preston Nathan's murder; she says that even if Ryan confesses, it probably won't free Cyril because he's already been sentenced; I remind her that the point in the show isn't to help Cyril (unfortunately), it's to punish Ryan

New arrivals: Antonio Nappa, Jaz Hoyt, NoName Vincent, and Kipekemie Jara arrive at Oz

Sister is convinced that Jara is an elaborate hallucination because no one but Adebisi actually interacts with him.

I wonder what movie Hoyt went to prison over

For some reason I had been under the impression that Poet had Life, when actually his new sentence was 26 years

Sister notes that sometimes the show seems to focus on a random detail as if to plant a plot point, but then there’s no pay off; in this episode, Jaz notes that the letter openers are very sharp, and that never comes into play again

Every time there has been a woman's breast on screen, Sister has yelled "boobies!"; every time there is a penis, she has gone something to the effect of "huh 🤨" or "ugh 😒"

Final Thoughts:

Sister: I feel like the show really doesn’t want anyone to succeed. Next the rapist (Sippel) is going to come back!

Sister: If anyone else gets poisoned in this show, I’m just gonna be like woooow. Like, fool me once, shame on you, feel me twice, shame on you. Third time’s the charm or whatever.

Me: Do you think Nappa will be able to take Adebisi out? Sister: Psh! No! I think if 10 guys went in, he would use them all as bowling pins. Me: I mean, in terms of planning, not a physical fight. Sister: Hm, maybe... But he's going to need more than 10 guys. And if they fail, then I feel like [Adebisi]'s going to get stronger and come back for revenge and kill them all.

Me: Any thoughts on Miguel this episode? Sister: I don’t understand why he thinks he has to be in the game. Me: Maybe it’s all he knows. Sister: Yeah, but I feel like when you’re facing a dilemma in life, that’s the perfect time to pivot, you know? Like, he should just hang out with the wheelchair dude. They were getting along earlier. He should just go and hang out and be one of the Others. Right now he's got some toxic friends he just needs to snip snip… Cut out those toxic friendships so you don’t get sepsis. Good friends will carry you through the poison tomato sauce!

#oz rewatch #oz hbo #text

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mcl-alloveragain · 2 years

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Everything I Love about Armin's Alternate life so far

1. It's realistic??? I mean, let's face it. It was so like Armin to behave like that and focus more on a preparing the big suprise and forget about everything else? He just gets hyped so fast and we have already seen that in a spin off, for example? And Candy always was overreacting instead of talking with boys first (e.g. Priya's arrival). And Armin was, in fact, most immature of them all, and I just knew their problem would be in communication.

2. IT WAS SO FUN! The dialogues got me laughing soooooo much i cried because IT WAS JUST GETTING BETTER AND BETTER. AND THE INSIDE JOKE ABOUT BALDNESS? GOT ME WHEEZING WMAJJSNSBS

I feel like humour was one of the best thing so far, i had such a good time playing this episode akalsoxowjajja

3. Just Armin. Like, the first time I played the episode i was so hyped i was too happy to see him and read him to focus. My mind went like "ARMIN ARMIN ARMIN BARK BARK BARK BARK" and i cried too much and laughed all the time and i had to replay it so to process all the data (lololol)

And i have SO MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT MY PRETTY BOY, YOU HAVE NO IDEA

Because the break up from his perspective was just as bad and hurtful, leaving him confused about what have happened and after he worked so hard just so he could suprise her (and he worked even in GARDEN!!?!?! like, OUTSIDE!!!?!!). Yet he behaved way better than Candy, he was quite polite and he really just saw her and instead of getting just as mad as her, he wanted to take his chance to make things better between her, just like Alexy has planned.

I loved when he tried to start a polite conversation (Candy could never. And they both were hurt so it really makes him seem more mature than her WHICH IS JUST AS NEW AS HIS SUDDEN LOVE FOR SHOPPING).

I also felt like he interrupted Rosalya just because he noticed Candy was uncomfortable, because he did it only after looking at her and i honestly loved this moment way too much than i should have.

His teasing seemed more flirty than mean. I think he actually hoped they would start being friendly and forget about the fight, maybe he even planned to ask her out when she'll calm down and stop attacking him? Especially in a mall (I know, i know, the bus scene, but as much as i enjoyed it, i think it was actually more teasing less flirting, at least because of the way he ended it :<). But when Candy goes to get some food and he plays with her hair and whispers to her and proves that he know her by not only remembering her regular order but literally talking about it in so many details, like, he wanted to show her that he cared SO MUCH 🥺🥺🥺🥺 my poor baby 🥺 also the fact that he actually followed her even tho he didn't have to stick with her, he wanted to talk to her, spend time with her, he was desperate to be with her and you cannot change my mind about that.

He offered her his help at the computer store and talked about how great time they had together while gaming in the past and i'm sure he thought it's finally his chance to shine and be a good (boy)friend and wkksjsjdjdjjd he imagine him getting so tired when she starts to yell at him again, no wonder that he lost his patience after all.

And even when he did lost his patience it was actually just him saying how much he cared AND WHEN SHE TOLD HIM THAT NOW HER WHOLE LIFE IS WITHOUT HIM???? I'm so sure i heard the sound of his heart breaking into tiny pieces. When he finally realised that he doesn't, in fact, have a chance to try again with her, she doesn't want to try again. And that's when he finally left, because his hopes were buried.

And when no one really understood why Armin haven't told her about the Disneyland after the breakup or even now when they met again and why he forbade Alexy to talk about it, i might have an idea. I mean, i could be wrong, but i think he just didn't want her to feel guilty about the situation?? Like, in his mind his idea with the suprise was great so he thought that as soon as she will acknowledge it she would be devastated about how she has treated him? I don't say it was his firsty thought, because at first he was probably just angry and confused, but when they met again, now that he's healed, he just didn't want her to feel bad. Idk, it's actually a great wonder to me too, but that's my closest guess. Also, he didn't say it out loud but i think he actually realises HOW MUCH stupid this idea was and what he did wrong because he was so nervous when she confronted him about it? I feel like the emotions and the way she really blamed him for everything while it wasn't entirely his fault and just how mean she was made him not confessing it to her. I mean, he did said it might have been stupid, but he didn't actually apologized or state that it was, not just might have been, u know? If only Candy could behave herself and take a few deep breaths (and maybe realised she wasn't oerfect either) before talking to him, i bet things would have went differently😫

And then the KISS 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

The way he stiffened at first, but then just relaxed and kissed her back like it was the most natural thing to do, like those last three years have never existed, like they weren't just yelling at each other a second ago??? HOW HE WRAPPED HIS HANDS AROUND HER AND PUT HER EVEN CLOSER?!?!!? IF THAT WASN'T HIM SCREAMING HOW MUCH HE MISSED HER, I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE DID?!?!

Also, i love the illustration, how their outfits just match and how they still look angry while kissing, like THE TENSION AGGGRHHH i love images like this, it's officially one of my fav illustration in the whole game (not as nice as Campus Life Nathaniel 16 tho, haha)

And i have so mant thoughts about Armin, but i think i will just shut up for now and let my emotions fall down a bit hahhaa

4. Outfits for AL Armin are the best ones in AL. I love every single one of them, the outfit we buy with real money included. They're totally my style, they're well made, they're just perfect

5. Rosalya and Alexy's redemption after LL. No more comments about it, i'm just glad they're making them, well, them, at least in all of the ALs, cause i refuse to believie they weren't kidnapped and replaced by their fake versions in LL

6. HAVE I MENTIONED THE ILLUSTRATION??? NO???? OH WELL MY BAD, BECAUSE THE ILLUSTRATION 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

(now when i look at this illustration i also notice that Armin looks more upset than angry??? Or am i imagining things?)

#my candy love #mcl #mcl alternate life armin #mcl alternate life #mcl armin #my candy love alternate life #my candy love alternative life armin #alternate life armin #my candy love armin #mcl alt spoilers #mcl armin spoilers #my candy love spoilers #mcl spoilers #armin spoilers

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ssahotchnerr · 6 days

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ooooooh you know things have been a little difficult 🤪 i’ve been job hunting like crazy and there is just . nothing around so i’m in my savings lmao. the guy that i’ve been seeing is being weird and flakey and very hot and cold and i just can’t be fucked with it 😭 i’m not old by any means (25 in 2 and a half weeks) but i am too old to be dealing with men like that especially!!!!! when they’re older than me. like my guy is 33 and fucking around like he’s in his early 20s. cba honestly. i think i just find it more annoying because i wasn’t looking to date or interested in dating and he pursued me and now he’s fucking around? ANNOYING. let me have my peace 👎 other than that my only joy is cooking baking insane media consumption and gaming!!! i did a huge catch up on all your work and you are bloody amazing. you put so much thought into every fic and every ask you answer <3 i love how much you care about both your craft and the love you put into the world. i think we need more of that and you’re a wonderful lovely example of an absolute sweetheart of a person. really proud of you and i hope you hear that a lot 💛💛 how’s things been going with you? tell me EVERYTHING darling - ☄️

aw my love i'm so sorry you've been having a rough time lately omg 😭 i feel you with the job hunting, it's SO DIFFICULT and it's been taking a toll on me too 🫠 and i hope your guy pulls his shit together omg ??? you deserve NOTHING but love and everything amazing and don't let him treat you otherwise 🫵🏻🫵🏻🫵🏻 you hear 🫵🏻 please prioritize yourself and your happiness especially if he's acting wack. i love you sm

and thank you so much you're the kindest i will cry 😭🥹🥰 i feel like my writing does really show who i am as a person, like how you all see me on here, is truly who i am. i just want happiness and love and for everyone to feel their worth 😭💓💞💓💓💞 which is why i try SO HARD for my blog to be a safe place i love u all so much and if the world isn't being kind to you i hope you're able to catch a glimpse of the light that exists here

and nothing much has been going on with me 😭 i've been working and writing, also been in a weird funk which is why i've been on the inactive-ish side 👎🏻 but i recently planned a trip to disneyland!!! i'm going in july and i've never been so i'm super looking forward to that!!

#☄️anon #katie’s inbox

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sureuncertainty · 7 months

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but that (and going thru the comments on the youtube video) got me thinking about how fucking SICK I am of this cynical attitude towards art and stories and media today. the whole idea that things were just better in the good ol' days. one commenter says "this is exactly what's wrong with the disney parks today, bc everything is a cash grab" like yeah? it's a company? and like yeah capitalism is bad, and yes it ruins things a lot of the time, and yes it can feel hopeless but you are SO WRONG if you think that the disney parks as they stand today do not have some of if not THE best examples of incredible detailed immersive storytelling in their lands and attractions

defunctland's video talks about how impressive the original space mountain in disneyland paris based on the jules verne novel was, and how it saved the park from bankruptcy because of its success and specifically talks about how impressive its storytelling was, managing to tell a story while also being a thrill ride. which made me think of guardians of the galaxy cosmic rewind, which is imo one of the best examples of immersive storytelling while also being a thrilling coaster AND having an absolutely banging soundtrack (bc if you say you don't want to ride a rollercoaster to one way or another by blondie you're lying).

like disney is making new things that are ALSO REALLY REALLY COOL, and there's always gonna be new things that replace old things, because things CHANGE that's just life.

this goes for literally all kinds of art, like it makes me think of those stupid tumblr posts that are all cynical and 'capitalism has ruined art" and "everything is soulless" and "every movie is a cash grab" and "don't watch barbie bc it's just an advertisement" etc. etc. etc. like oh my GOD this year has been an amazing year for film and TV and there are SO MANY amazing stories and storytellers and movies and shows and books and video games and theme parks and attractions and theater and musicals that are being made and coming out right now by passionate creatives who CARE SO MUCH and i'm so SICK of this attitude that none of that matters actually bc capitalism

like yes, be critical of capitalism, yes be upset about poor marketing decisions, be angry when your favorite show that means so much to you gets cancelled, mourn the loss of art that you loved, but you can't live in the past or the good ol' days, and if you do you're just gonna miss all of the amazing art that is right in front of you.

good stories have been told since the beginning of time and will be told until the end of time. and like not to be dramatic but capitalism is not the death of art because art will never die.

#win rambles #this is not worded well and too long but i had to get these thoughts out

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janetbrown711 · 3 years

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"its fine, really! I'm used to it...” “what you meant you’re used to it??” but yax

After careful and long hours of research, Yakko came to the conclusion that he at least admired Max.

He had only seen Max in person once, but there was just something magnetic about the far-away prince that intrigued and fascinated Yakko. So much so, that for the next month or so, Yakko dove headfirst into studying all he could about Max and his country. He tried to share the fascinating history and details with his younger siblings, but they clearly weren't as into it as he was. That didn't deter him though, he was determined to learn absolutely everything he possibly could- even going into Angelina's old private study for books.

It was weird not having her around to stop any of it. Was this what pure joy and excitement with no downsides was like? If so, Yakko really liked it.

Either way, he was ecstatic when his mother told him she was officially making plans to take him to Disneyland to see Max (and diplomatic stuff, but they both knew that wasn't the main reason). Upon hearing the news, he then hurried and changed his studies entirely into conversations and how to have them.

Upon his and Max's first encounter, Yakko realized he was terrible at conversations, but now Yakko swore he'd be better than good- he'd be a conversation master. He studied examples both fictional and non about advice and how royals interact with each other and conversations one was supposed to hold and he complied his notes into a handy notebook that could fit into his pocket in case he got into a tough spot mid conversation. After all- he'd probably be there for hours and hours- that's a long time to be entertaining.

So he poured himself into his studies for a week or so (time was really alluding his grasp as of late) and before he knew it, it was time for him to go. However, not before a weird reaction from Wakko he wasn't expecting... seriously, if anything, Yakko expected Wakko to be happy for him because that meant he wouldn't have to hear about Disneyland for awhile, but instead he got really accusatory. But his parents assured him that it was nothing and his mother went to comfort him while he prepared for his journey.

"That's a big notebook," Dot said, lurking by his door as he flipped through his notes for what must've been the millionth time this week.

"I have a lot to remember," Yakko said, putting it in his pocket.

"Why do you care so much?" Dot asked. Yakko blinked.

"I just... do? He's the first friend I've had... ever," He said, making her move so he could head out the room.

"But I thought me and Wakko-..." Dot didn't finish her sentence. Yakko stopped.

"Max is just... different. I can't explain it- I'm trying to understand, but he's really just... different. A good different," He tried his best to explain, but he knew it fell short.

"Oh... you must really like him?" Dot asked.

"I guess, yeah," Yakko blushed. "He's just- the coolest person I've ever met, and now that Grandma's gone and I'm free to just- hang out with people, yeah," He scratched the back of his neck, aware of the fact he needed to get going. When Dot didn't respond to that, he pursed his lips.

"Welp- I gotta get going," He gave a quick wave, not waiting for her to return it before getting going- he wanted to spend as much time as possible in Disneyland.

Hurriedly, he rushed down the halls all the way down the grand stairs and out the main doors to the carriage, where his mother was waiting for him.

"Getting something?" Lena teased, as the coachman opened the door for them.

"Just a few notes," Yakko said, following his mother as she entered. She chuckled.

"You don't need to be so nervous, dear. From what I've seen, Max already likes you very much," Lena said soothingly as the carriage started to move.

"I just... I want this to be perfect," Yakko sighed, and leaned against the window of the carriage.

Lena snorted. "You and I have a lot in common," She said, fiddling with the fingers of her gloves.

"The last time I was out of this castle before the incident was- well... the wedding... but before that? I don't think I've ever been out..." The queen looked back as her home grew further and further away. "Outside of parties and suitors I've never really dealt in diplomatic situations. God knows my mother never prepared me for half of the things- I just..." She took a deep breath.

"I want this to go perfectly too... but Scratchnsniff says perfection is an impossible goal and we should aim for something more obtainable," She reminded herself. Yakko glanced at her briefly, before returning to the window.

He wasn't sure what he thought of Scratchnsniff. Dot and his parents all seemed to like him, but he still hadn't opened up to him, even though it had been over a month now. They'd be doing... okay sometimes, but the moment the doctor tried talking about Angelina, Yakko refused to give him the satisfaction. He knew he was there to help but- yeah... That wasn't going to happen any time soon.

"We got a long ride, huh?" Lena chuckled, more nervously this time.

"Yeah..." was all he said. He had a lot on his mind, and he could tell his mother did too. Hopefully, by the time they actually arrived, they'd be able to make sense of everything and enjoy their time in Disneyland- though they'd have to wait and see.

.o0o.

The ride wasn't terrible, but it was rather long and tiresome, so it was easy to say that when they finally arrived they were both relieved.

Both Yakko and Lena were surprised at just how different Disneyland was from Warnerstock just from the windows. Everything was brighter, orderly to the point of confusion (to them anyway), and boy oh boy was it big. The castle itself was the biggest example of this, as it seemed to have countless towers and was impossible to take in all at once. Then again, the royal family was quite large and Disney was known for it's welcoming nature and having guests often, so it didn't really surprise them. It was just a lot to take in at once.

However, they didn't have to take that all in for long, as they were guided inside by a few guards and were taken to the throne room, where the three kings were sitting- a duck on the left, a mouse in the middle, and a very tall dog on the right.

"Angelina? Wow, it really is you! How have ya been?" The Mouse immediately stood upon seeing them enter.

"Mickey! Oh it's been years hasn't it?" Lena chuckled and went and hugged him, which the mouse gladly returned, leaving Yakko and the others very confused.

"Do... you... know him?" Yakko raised an eyebrow.

Lena cleared her throat and stepped back. "Right- yes, I forgot to tell you, Michael here was a suitor of mine back in the day," She explained. "Obviously, it didn't work out, as both of our hearts belonged to another, but it wasn't a completely terrible three days."

"Oh please, I'm Mickey to friends," Mickey said. Lena nodded.

"Right, yes, Mickey," Lena corrected.

"Oh," Yakko nodded slowly.

"You must be Yakko then. It's a pleasure to have you as a guest," Mickey smiled and shook Yakko's hand. The dog king's head perked up.

"It's a pleasure to be here," Yakko replied, hoping his nervousness wasn't showing.

"Prince Yakko?" The dog king stood and walked over. "It's a pleasure to meet you, h'yuk," He laughed as he shook Yakko's hand. "Max has told me about you."

"Oh, you must be Goofy, pleasure to meet you," His nervousness increased tenfold. He couldn't believe he didn't put that together upon seeing him immediately.

"Daaaaaaaaad," Max entered the room, looking at the ground with his face red as a tomato.

"Hiya Max! I was just introducing myself to your friend here," Goofy grinned, still shaking Yakko's hand.

"This is why I don't tell you things," Max muttered to himself. "Can we go?" He asked, grabbing Yakko's arm, freeing him from the handshake.

Mickey nodded. "Of course, we got our own business to deal with, you two have fun," He said, and with that, Max practically dragged Yakko out of the room.

"I am so sorry you had to deal with that," He sighed as the guards closed the door behind them and Max let go of his arm.

"Deal with what?" Yakko tilted his head slightly.

"My Dad- he just- he doesn't know when to stop no matter how many times I talk to him," Max shook his head. "C'mon, I know a good spot to hang out. Watch out for running triplets."

"Running triplets?" Yakko raised an eyebrow.

"Huey, Dewey and Louie like running around without warning- as do Morty and Ferdie and if Daisy's over then so do April, May and June- just keep an ear out for them," Max explained, checking both ways before crossing a hallway.

"Right, right," Yakko nodded, not really understanding how they'd ever be allowed to do that. Then again, not having a tyrannical grandmother around probably let them have a lot more freedom and fun.

The pair went down a few halls, always checking both ways as they went, before they reached a room that Max let him into to reveal that it led to a fairly small room with a few chairs, but outside of that was a large balcony it was clear the dog prince frequented.

"Nice place," Yakko admired the room as Max opened the glass doors for him.

"I come here a lot to clear my head," Max said, closing the door behind him. "And to get away from my family."

Max must've really not liked them, huh...

"Yeah... I could really use a place like this," Yakko admired the craftsmanship of the columns holding up the railing.

"Watch this," Max winked, picking up a stone from a pile of rocks, and throwing it down into the giant pond in the garden bellow, causing a massive splash and ripple.

"Cool," Yakko said.

"It's nothing really," Max blushed again and went to where the rail met the wall and sat on it. "Wanna sit?" He patted the spot next to him.

"Oh- I uh-..." Yakko peered over the edge cautiously. It wasn't too far a fall, but still. It was easy to say it was far enough down to make even the most un-acrophobic person a little nervous.

"Oh, are you afraid of heights? I'm sorry, I-"

"No no no, I can handle it," Yakko swallowed his fear and sat next to him, glad that it was wide enough for him to feel supported. Still, he wrapped his tail around the edge loosely as a precaution.

"So... what do you think?" Max asked. "Of Disneyland, I mean."

"I think it's really... different. Very organized, very..." Yakko thought to himself. "Very homogeneous and large, yeah."

Max snorted. "Homogeneous?"

"It means similar or 'the same'," Yakko cursed himself internally. Max laughed with a little 'hyuk' in there that made Yakko relax, though a familiar fluttering in his stomach returned.

"You're really smart, aren't you?" Max asked.

"Yeah... my grandmother's pride alright," Yakko looked at the garden.

Great, barely five minutes into the conversation and he already broke his number one rule he wrote to himself: Don't bring up Grandma.

"I don't think it's your grandma's fault you're smart. If that was true, then I'd be a lot more wacky like Dad," Max did his best to reassure, which despite all odds did kinda work.

"You keep bringing up how much you don't like your family," Yakko commented. "Why?"

"Why? You've barely even met them- they are just beyond crazy and drive me up the wall with how embarrassing and tiresome they can be," Max crossed his arms.

"I mean- my sibs can be a little crazy at times but I still like them," Yakko said.

"You don't know them," Max sighed, looking out to the garden too. Yakko decided it was probably best he drop the subject for now.

However, after that was a long stretch of silence, and Yakko started to panic as it got longer and longer and he couldn't think of a thing to say. Thankfully though, he remembered the notebook sitting in his pocket and he slowly and carefully took it out and looked for a good conversation starter.

"What is your favorite type of weather?" He asked, quickly slipping it back into his pocket. Max immediately burst into laughter.

"Where'd you think of a question like that?" He asked.

"If you don't like it I can ask a different one," Yakko turned bright red as he flusteredly turned over, pulling out the notebook and flipping through it.

"Do you have a notebook of conversation starters?" Max caught a glimpse.

"Whaaaat? Me??? Pssshhhh," Yakko adamantly denied, but he sighed, knowing he had been caught.

"Yeah... I figured since I majorly screwed up talking like a normal person last time I'd take some notes so the conversation would be far less depressing and not so... trauma centered," He admitted, showing him the notebook.

"Wait- you think you're screwing up?" Max seemed baffled, which confused the Warnerstockian Prince.

"I mean- yeah..? No matter what I do I always end up thinking about the same stupid topic and I dunno... you seem so much more normal than me," Yakko admitted, looking away.

"I feel like I've just been a bumbling dork this whole time," Max admitted too. "You've been really smart and interesting this whole time, with your fancy words and observations about stuff and... yeah," He scratched his neck.

"You think I'm interesting?" Yakko looked at him.

"Yeah man," Max looked at him, though only briefly. "You're... cool."

That made the fluttering increase tenfold.

"You're really cool too," Yakko smiled. Max nodded his head in acknowledgement, looking out to the garden once more.

"You know... I promised I'd give you some sporting pointers when you came by. Perhaps I should 'make good' on that promise," Max said, gesturing to the pile of rocks and other such objects clearly designated for throwing into the pond.

"Okay," Yakko agreed to it, putting the notes back in his pocket, following Max as he went over to the pile.

"The trick is that it's all in the wrist, and if you keep your eyes focused on where you wanna throw it, it does a lot to help it actually go there," Max said, as he picked up a rock and threw it with all his might, and it crashed far into the pond.

"In the wrist, huh?" Yakko nodded and acted like that made sense. He then picked up a rock, and threw it with all his might. However, his might was rather pathetic, and all he managed to do was to crack the tiling around the pond and it shattered into pieces, as Yakko felt the blood drain from his face.

"Max, I-i'm so so so so so so sorry, I-i-" Yakko sputtered out apologies but Max just started laughing and laughing.

"It's okay Yakko. We're royalty, remember? My dad'll just have someone fix it, it's totally cool," He placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "But hey, other than that, that wasn't half bad."

"She'd totally kill me if I did that at home though," Yakko cursed himself.

"She? Who, your mom? Cuz from what I've heard she's a big sap," Max said, confused.

"Not mom, my grandma," Yakko sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

"Your grandma's dead, Yakko. She can't punish you for that. You can break all the tiles you want here, it's cool," Max said, now deeply concerned for his new friend.

"Right- you're absolutely right. I'm sorry," Yakko took a deep breath.

"It's cool... I get that it must be hard moving on from that," Max's hand lingered on Yakko's shoulder a minute before he put it down.

"Yeah..." Yakko sighed as he realized he broke the rule yet again.

"I know you probably don't want to, but if you ever need or want to talk about it, I'm more than happy to listen," Max offered. Yakko smiled a little.

"Thanks... that means a lot more than you probably know," He said. Max smiled too.

"You're a lot cooler than you give yourself credit for, you know?" Max said. "You may not be the best at sports, but you are really good at talking, which is more than I can say."

"You sell yourself short," Yakko disagreed.

"Maybe we both do," Max shrugged, returning to the ledge.

"Yeah... maybe," Yakko said, sitting next to him once more.

As they began to chat more about much lighter and happier topics, a warm spring breeze began to rush by and Yakko began to just... notice things about Max. The way his fluffy and wild hair flowed in the wind, the way his eyes sparkled when he talked about one of his passions, his cute laugh that he always seemed to try and suppress, the way he stuck his hands in his pockets, his smile, the compassion and comradery in his eyes...

Yakko could gaze into those eyes for an eternity.

"It's getting pretty late... isn't it?" Max began to notice the sky beginning to turn a rosey shade of pink as the sun began to set.

"Yeah... I guess that means we have to get going soon, huh?" Yakko tried to play it casually, but he knew he'd miss Max dearly. Max's side glances told him he felt the same.

"Maybe you can write to me? A-and maybe... Maybe I'll convince dad or Uncle Mickey to take me to Warnerstock?" Max scratched the back of his neck, clearly trying to play it cool.

"I'd love that," Yakko smiled, before pondering if using the word "love" was inappropriate. It wasn't like he- well... liked him, or anything... right..?

"Okay," Max smiled back.

They stayed smiling at each other much longer than was normal, though neither really minded.

"Maxy? Yakko?" The voice of Goofy called for them outside the room outside the balcony.

"I need to go," Yakko said. "But... I will write, I promise."

"I believe you," Max nodded. "Though... don't be surprised if my letters are short and my handwriting attrocious- I'm not the best when it comes to any of that stuff," He said, getting down from the rail, offering his hand to "help" Yakko down.

Yakko took it.

"I'm sure it won't be any worse than Wakko's," He said.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Max chuckled as Yakko got off, still holding his hand.

However, they instantly let go when Goofy entered the room.

"There ya are- you're mom's looking for you. It's gettin' late," Goofy said, opening the glass door.

"Right, yes.. thanks, dad," Max pursed his lips and looked away.

"I'll write, I promise," Yakko said.

"Y-yeah, okay," Max nodded and smiled. "I'll... see you soon."

"See you soon," Yakko nodded, before forcing himself to walk away (a task that was a lot harder than he expected it to be). Goofy then guided him back to the throne room, where his mother was talking with Mickey and Donald (Yakko figured that was who he was), but she stopped when he entered.

"There you are," She smiled as he returned to her side. "Have fun?"

"Yep," He nodded briefly, hoping she didn't expect him to get into detail here and now.

"It's been great catching up, Angelina," Mickey told her.

"I couldn't agree more. And it's been a pleasure meeting you two, Goofy, Donald," She nodded at both of them. "I'm afraid I must get going, but I'd love to meet up again sometime- or possibly take Max off your hands for an afternoon," Lena teased Yakko, causing him to turn red.

"I'm sure he'd love that," Goofy smiled.

"Have a safe trip," Donald said in the scratchiest, most garbled voice Yakko ever heard in his life. It was so incomprehensible he had to actively bury his shock and confusion as to not offend him.

"Thank you," Lena nodded at the three of them. "It's been a pleasure, truly."

"Yeah.. see you," Yakko felt like he had to say goodbye too, but having not just spent the past several hours with them, it felt awkward. Mickey chuckled.

"See you," He said.

With that, Lena and Yakko made their way out of the castle and back into their carriage and began on their way back home.

"So... how was your day?" Lena asked once the carriage began to move.

"It was nice. Max is... cool," Despite his research, cool was still the best word to describe him.

"That's good, he seems like a very nice kid," She nodded in approval. "I wouldn't mind having him over sometime in the future."

"That'd be great," Yakko agreed with enthusiasm that made her laugh.

"Okay, I'll arrange a date," She chuckled.

"What about your day? How was all those meetings?" Yakko asked, not just out of politeness but a genuine curiosity.

"I half expected Mickey not to remember me, so it was a pleasant surprise. And Goofy and Donald are quite the lovely characters too, very strong personalities. I can see why their kingdom works so well," She said with a nod.

"But I know you really don't want to hear about all that. Please, tell me more about Max," Lena said.

Yakko told her all that happened, not glossing over a single detail. She listened with intent, and couldn't help but laugh here and there.

"It sounds like you're rather fond of Max, no?" She said.

"What do you mean?" Yakko blinked. His mother chuckled to herself.

"Oh nothing, I'm sure you'll figure it out on your own in due time," She said.

"Okay..?" Yakko raised an eyebrow, not sure where she was getting at. However, it was clear she wasn't going to be giving any more hints so Yakko dropped it.

Whatever it was, she clearly had perfect faith he'd figure it out sooner or later, so perhaps it was best he focus on other things- like what he was going to write in his letter to Max. There would be so many topics to choose from, and this time he'd have all the time in the world to think of a perfect response. Honestly, he should've started writing letters sooner. It just made so much sense- Yakko could think of the perfect response before sending it away and he could read over Max's responses over and over again. Maybe he could even find a box to store them in. That sounded really nice...

Yakko thought back to his mother's words, and decided it was true.

Yakko was rather fond of his dear friend, Max.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 The End

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ihatebnha · 3 years

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how do you think midoriya, bakugo and todoroki would react to their s/o saying that they don’t want kids or can’t have kids?

ANON, I LOVEEEEEED THINKING ABOJT AND ANSWERING THIS QUESTION.... and I hope this isn’t too much for you (it literally took me like 2 hours to write lmfao)!!!

I feel like all three of these boys would actually have this talk with you very early on, simply because they’d want you to know what it was meant to be with a hero who was busy all the time, so therefore you’d both already know that kids were a no-no… but in the case that you hadn’t discussed it…

Deku would be really understanding!

In all honesty, as much as I’m sure part of him wants to have kids, he probably gave up on that dream long before meeting you… not because he didn’t like the idea, but because he would value his job as a hero way too much to give it up all so he could raise some children.

His lifelong dream was always to be a hero, and since he inherited his powers from the literal, symbol of peace (also his #1 all-time favorite hero), Deku would already understand what that meant in regards to giving up most personal aspirations in order to save others.

Besides, with his father away most of the time and his mother having such an (accidental) effect on his self-esteem, he of all people knows what it’s like to have parents that don’t understand you, so I think he’d never be able to live with himself if he did the same to his children…

(Like for example if he had to miss important developmental stages of his kids’ lives all to fight villains, he’d never forgive himself… Similar to how he’d feel if he wasn’t there to save someone due to his own desire to be with his family.)

So if/when you told him kids were a no-go for you, he wouldn’t break a sweat. Probably hug you, cry, and thank you for telling him, but then he’d just go over everything I already mentioned to you here… and you’d both move on feeling a lot better.

(Plus, I kinda see him as the type to, like All Might, retire as a hero only to become a teacher... so he would get his dose of children eventually!!)

Bakugo I actually see right in the middle of Deku and Todoroki… as while I think he probably wouldn’t mind having “a brat or two,” if you told you that kids weren’t for you, I doubt he would really care all that much.

(He knows he isn’t the one having the actual pregnancy, so.....)

I doubt kids would even be on his mind for the most part, as I just think, because of his dedication to being a hero (especially since he’s always thrown himself into working toward #1), he’s the type who’d be too preoccupied with work to think about it, and/or want to get started on it pretty late, anyway, so as not to waste his prime.

Which is why, if you told him you didn’t want/couldn’t have children, it would really be no problem. Not only does it not even throw off his plans very much, he then also wouldn’t have to worry about giving up his career early or putting anyone extra in danger by being a dad... so it’s kinda a win-win for both of you.

Plus tbh, I see him as the type of husband to really honestly just want what you want, so if that means no kids, NO KIDS. He’s completely fine being Uncle Kacchan or whatever. You’re the fun aunt, anyway.

(Kirishima texted him at like 6am from Disneyland once and Bakugo just laughed lmfao)

As for Todoroki… as much as I love to think about him as the type to want an army of kids (due to his Todoroki genes)… I truly think that realistically, it’s equally likely, IF NOT MORE, that he wouldn’t want any at all.

Because of his traumatic childhood, espcially with what we’re seeing in the most recent chapters, he’d probably think that there are too many risks involved with having children, stemming from both his career as a hero and his familial trauma in how that would affect raising them properly.

Because he’s seen how having kids affected his own family (he was kind of the catalyst, after all)… He, of course, would want to ensure that there was never a day in which his kids ever felt unloved or separated from each other… but because of his line of work, would definitely struggle with feeling like he’d be able to achieve that without neglecting some aspect of his responsibility (similar to Deku, almost as if he had to choose between the two).

So I think if you were to tell him that kids weren’t an option for you, he would kinda just be relieved since it would mean that he wouldn’t have to actually battle with 1. trying to make up his mind about having them at all, and 2. risk being a bad parent all together…

I’m honestly kind of laughing thinking about you sitting him down all nervous trying to tell him that kids are off the table, and how he gets so, so, sooooo worried leading up to it… only for the whole conversation to be like:

You: I… don’t think we should have kids.

Todo: Um… that’s it? That’s all you wanted to say? *scratches head* Cool beans.

Dude is just fucking snoring at that reveal. He probably thought you were gonna tell him you have cancer or want to break up, but instead you just do him a favor. It’s all ends up being very anticlimactic (if not a relief for the both of you).

So yeah! None of them would really mind, I think! They’re all busy enough, plus, you’re their REAL baby, anyway LOL...

I hope this was alright💖💖🙈🙈

#bakugo x reader #todoroki x reader #deku x reader #todoroki thoughts #bakugo thoughts #deku thoughts #I’m sorry if this is hard to read #ask #anon #caitie post #Anonymous

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virtuouscandlelight · 2 years

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{ OOC } rambles a lot on inner child shit and why I’m such an anxious depressed piece of shit about everything but how that also created all my talents simultaneously

trigger warnings.

mostly all of my talents stemmed from intense trauma and loneliness in my childhood go figure LOL. mainly the voice acting, singing, illustrating, and writing. people tend to say shit I have a good combo of talents but you gotta remember these came with the heaviest cost and that price was such a severe loneliness from bullying and abuse that I had to literally write up my own world and create my own friends just to stay sane since fucking elementary and that’s the only reason why I can say I’m very decent at what I do now

because I had all the free time to perfect shit. I didn’t have friends, kids were RUTHLESS and I grew up in a horrid neighborhood with parents who didn’t really care that much as an only child. I got robbed of my comfort items on the daily at school. I’ve gotten transferred before because I was being bullied that badly. I got thrown into suicidal depression because of all this shit at like 7 years old and I’ve been dealing with that dark illness for 15 years. the kids on the block would physically attack me. parents didn’t really care much. never really saw my other family much. became socially scared and awkward and over apologized for everything because I got told a lot it’s my fault for what happened { still never broke the habit } . never got to fully enjoy family trips. would feel insanely jealous of healthy relationships and I used to actually hate the idea of Disneyland because I thought that was for kids with healthy families enjoying the magic lol

so I’d write stories. a lot. I’d draw pictures on printer paper with written stories about my cats and staple them together, making a book. I’d draw and write in class constantly, creating characters and hyper focusing on them because I couldnt find it in me to focus on myself. id study how to create good characters and give them voices and passions and found comfort in constructing a happier, fantasy world in my mind because reality was fucking horrid and only got worse the older I got. fake friends turned to abusive relationships, death threats, parents got more abusive. created more characters, got into role - playing on Facebook, got bullied there too because I was honest to god a cringe child with MS Paint bases in a Pokémon fandom LOL I NEEDED THAT PUSH I got bullied so much that I actually studied drawing and writing more and ended up becoming a straight A top student or whatever in all my literary classes. teachers would use my poems as examples for the class like actually print it out and hand it to everyone for reference and even though that was neat I really didn’t give a shit because it didn’t stop the bullying.

that’s how I felt with my talents. they’re cool but that doesn’t mean people will like me any better. I’ve missed out on SO MANY opportunities to go farther with my talents but I was bullied so badly that it butchered my self confidence and gave me insane stage fright at a young age. I passed up on being Annie for the school play, I passed up solos in choir, I passed up singing the star spangled banner all because I was terrified of how people would laugh at me. I was deathly afraid of judgement because of it wasn’t from the kids, it was from my parents constantly at home. And, without the confidence and love to rely on myself throughout worsening depression, I had no one but my overactive imagination.

shit if I can’t give life to myself then I’d pour life into my own characters.

and that’s how voice acting and writing came hand in hand I’d pour my heart and soul and loneliness into my creations and I’d give them life by giving them a voice and emotions. and then seeing how Disney characters, show characters, cartoon characters, etc etc do the same where they’re given life through voice and drama, all I ever wanted at that point was to do exactly that for a living and make others feel something.

I want to make people feel what my character is feeling. I want people to feel as though they can reach right through the screen and grab them. I want people to smell the scents, to hear the scenes, to hear the raw emotion, to experience the pain and fear, the euphoria, the pleasure, I want people to feel that exact whimsical, child - make believe feeling I felt all those fucking years of being shamed that saved my life — in my writing and creations. My own characters, my stories, my art, Candlelight, are my own products of Neverland — fantasy, magic. Happiness. It’s why Peter Pan was always my favorite Disney movie too. It made my inner child happy — the child that never got to experience magic. But that movie just felt like magic to me.

boy lemme tell you when I write with someone I love LOVE to use all of that to my advantage. and I go overboard with description I know lol I love writing that much. like shit don’t get me started if I’m hooked on a thread { usually I’ll write LONG replies if I’m invested like crack } and that’s when I start laying in bed acting like a film director HERE’S THE SCENERY GOOD PAINT THAT BITCH LIKE THE MONA LISA BRILLIANT OKAY HERE’S THE THEME THERE’S THE TWO CHARACTERS PROFESSING UNDYING LOVE THAT’LL LEAD INTO EITHER MIND CRUSHING DESPAIR OR MENDING BODIES PLEASURE PERFECT OKAY PAINT THE EXPRESSIONS ADD MORE FLARE AND DRAMA SPLENDID AAAAAND ACTION !

it’s also why I cry at nearly every Disney movie actually, even when it’s not sad ! shit I cry at Peter Pan’s OST and when the children are flying. that childish magic feel just makes me so emotional. I so badly want to give my inner child that childhood magic she deserved. If I could fucking hug my kid self for all the shit they put her through, I’d adopt myself and protect her from the world. It’s hard to enjoy childish things when you’re an adult now — judgement will be ten times harder and I struggle still with learning not to care what others think. Characters in costume get me extremely happy in the most childish way and as badly as I want to interact with them in character back because of my passion for theatrics, I shut down and freeze up on contact out of humiliation. I’ve gotten the nastiest and embarrassed looks before from people when I get too excited and ramble or make excited noises. The Renaissance Faire is my only exception because everyone is in costume and in character but I still freeze up lol as excited as I am to visit Disneyland, I’m also petrified to look like a fool in front of my parents with so many comfort characters. God, what would the actors think seeing a fucking 22 year old cry from inner child healing ? Yikes, right ? I went to this Tim Burton themed bar recently and there was an actor dressed as Jack Skellington — he was interacting with me and I wanted so badly to fool around with him back and ask for a hug but instead I felt myself seize and smiled stupid in silence lol

basically tl;dr I’m only good at my talents because fiction brought me far more comfort than nonfiction ever could and i desperately want to give my inner child would she wants to heal but im way too self conscious in the face of public to give in

#dove rambles 🕊#can this be labeled my villain backstory?

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prettyoddfever · 3 years

Photo

these pictures were not willingly shared with fans

These are part of Brendon’s sister’s pictures of their family trip to Disneyland before the Pretty. Odd. era got going. My understanding is that Kyla had them on her site or blog or something... idk exactly where because I never creeped on Bden’s family (the fact that I’ve heard so many of his sibling’s names weirds me out enough). Some fans downloaded everything and there was a zip file with hundreds of pictures being passed around in 2008. I don’t think most of us knew where they came from... I assumed they were part of Shane’s pics but then found out a few months later. (I’m looking back now and realizing that a lot of the other pics “from Shane” were probably stolen as well. The guy absolutely did take lots of pictures that fans could see on public sites, but I highly doubt there was any mysterious secret sharing on the side ha). There had been a ridiculous amount of graphics made out of Kyla’s stuff by the time we learned the actual source, so I saved the file for reference to make sure I wouldn’t accidentally use one of those icons.

Kyla ended up saying that it was fine if the pictures of the adults were shared, but she asked fans to blur the childrens’ faces or stop using them in icons. There were a ton of personal pics in the original file from events like Brendon’s 21st birthday, several family holidays at home, and PATD afterparties. I know that most fans were only interested in the Brendon/Shane aspect of the pics since those two were basically inseparable, but I don’t think Brendon’s family loved seeing icons of everyone in their pajamas on Christmas morning just because Shane was there. It seems really creepy to have Bden’s family in any pictures period... especially his nieces and nephews omg. So I don’t care how kind Kyla was about everything – I’m not comfortable sharing most of her pictures (I did use a few super popular ones from P!ATD events, but only the shots that focused on the band).

I know some of her original pictures are still being posted, so maybe they’re just seen as regular common pics now idk. Someone asked me a while ago if I knew where a picture was from and it was one of Kyla’s. So this is just a note on their original source in case anyone’s wondering! I edited some Disneyland pics above that were more popular in 2008 and were widely spread... I’m hesitant to post even those cropped bits, but hopefully it’s ok to use them as an example of what I’m talking about.

#fall07 #shane

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toloveyouinsideout · 3 years

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All my life, I’ve wanted To be a mom. I had plans on names and how they’d be raised and things I’d do with them.

Now that I am pregnant, a lot of people are telling me what I actually want to do. Pretty annoying that they know my brain more than I do. I am being told what to do and what not to do. A lot of the things they tell me to do are things that I really don’t want to do and are things that I really don’t care for.

This give me terrible doubts and terrible anxiety. 1) I know my husband is a push over and will do everything they say 2) this is not what I wanted so I am not going to be happy. I feel like if I don’t do what they say, they will label me as a bad mom. I’ve seen the way they look at other people and talk about other people and it’s really harsh.

I think it’s okay if people want to raise their kids differently. Every kid is different. Everyone has different values and that’s ok!!!

I just wish these people were less opinionated and more supportive. Pregnancy sucks and I’m sure raising a human is tough! Everyone just wants to do their best and having everyone’s opinions just makes it harder.

I told my husband that at this point it feels like I’m just having this baby for him and the others to raise and I just get to stand by and watch. This isn’t my kid cause I won’t get to do what I want with them and I won’t get to raise them how I’ve always dreamt of or planned to.

I already am trying to cope with the fact this being this child’s mom will be my new identity. I just finally learned how to make my voice heard and let others know that I am important too, and now I will have this child to care for and I have to learn how to be that too. That’s hard already!

I haven’t had this baby yet and I already feel like a terrible mother. I don’t see the point in taking my baby or toddler to Disneyland or Disney world, for example. Why should I take them? It’s expensive and they won’t remember nor will they understand. Is this something that really makes a childhood complete? Because I am the only one out of my family to have gone to Disneyland, but I went as an adult and my ticket was bought for me. I loved my childhood and I never felt like it was a void in my life. Even my experience as an adult…. I didn’t feel like it was worth the price.

My husband’s brother in law plans an annual camping trip to nebraska. They started planning for this coming summer. My baby will be 6 months old. I hate camping and I hate the heat. I am not taking a baby in diapers and drinking milk from bottles to go sit at a dirty lake in the sun. I am not changing diapers in the wilderness. But everyone is telling me, “you HAVE to”. I thinks it’s ok if I don’t want to expose my tiny baby to the harsh elements of nature yet. I thinks ok that out of convenience for me, in case the baby has a blow out or something, I stay home where I know I can easily wash my baby off with clean water and I won’t run out of their food supply.

Just because someone has kids does not make them an expert. Just because this works for them does not mean it will work for me. Just because someone enjoys this does not mean I have to enjoy this.

I don’t want your life or your lifestyle. I enjoy my life and my lifestyle. I think that’s ok!!! You do what you want, I support it! So how about you freaking support me!? How hard is that?!

#ellevee #personal #vent #baby

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formulatrash · 4 years

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Could I get your opinion on Hamilton? Bc I feel like people either love him and are like he is the nicest person in the universe or hate him and think he’s the worst & tbh while he does seem genuinely good he’s also clearly willing to do quite a lot to win (2007) & I really doubt the Nico thing was one sided either way so... opinions.

Hello, anon - I got two of these so gonna answer this one rather than both .Lewis, man. Where the hell do you start with Lewis? Unquestionably one of the most talented drivers we have seen or will ever see on track. Not just for raw speed or ingenuity but with the way he has been able to adapt and learn across a changing era of cars - something a lot of the other drivers aspiring to GOAT status (Alonso, in particular) just haven’t been able to do.

People think of Lewis as having unquestionably the best car. But that’s a recent development (and not always true even then) - the last few years he and Jenson were at McLaren, they were wildly outperforming the cars with a really strong driver pairing. (and the order was a little less rigid then, in all fairness)

I’m nearly the same age as Lewis so I remember him when he was a novelty - when what people said was that there was this guy in the junior categories who was fast - and this was always prefixed - he was black.

People said he was stroppy, had cheating engines (there is no evidence of this, especially when you consider the budget he was working with) and that he had a bad attitude, he was never going to get to Formula One so why put him in your team, a kid like that couldn’t be a champion… in other words the extremely racialised term “uppity.” Like, have absolutely zero illusions on this front, people were not supportive.

Some were, obviously and for every hand up like the McLaren backing, the detractors got louder. So when Lewis took the GP2 title and moved up to F1, he had to come in hot and obnoxious. Especially with Fernando as his teammate. Especially with spygate about to wipe out any shine left on the mangled heap they’d made of the championship trophy that year.

And oh, the disqualification (for anyone not up to speed: the whole McLaren entry was excluded that season for allegedly spying on Ferrari) just validated the detractors: you see, he isn’t that good. He was cheating.

Lewis has a temper. I don’t mean that in the sense he’s an angry guy, at all, just that there is a certain length you can push him and he will eventually snap, like all of us - he’s not a robot. And if you have to prove yourself again and again and again, in tests way beyond what anyone else is being scrutinised on, knowing that it is unfair and having no way to get past them but to once again, obnoxiously, excel then you will occasionally also make the odd sniping comment.

I’ve never heard him say anything stroppier than he once threw a bit of a shit fit because he thought Jenson unfollowed him on Twitter, though - whereas the howling conniptions when he succeeds in whatever the latest arbitrary challenge someone has decided he must pass to be considered successful? Those continue to the day.

Lewis, of course, is now pretty zen. He’s spent a long time working on himself and has been repairing his relationship with his father (who used to be his manager until they somewhat explosively parted ways) and with old rivals. He’s been growing as a person and a driver, he’s been caring less about what people think. The Lewis now is very different to the Lewis even a few years ago - clearly a lot of self-reflection and space has happened, after what was years of charging around and also some - bluntly - horrible psychological shit which the Merc team definitely have to take some responsibility for because it was their success formula to set him and Nico against each other to push each other forwards.

And for all the bitterness between him and Nico, they were never, like, really loathing each other. Just couldn’t work together. I find it really ghoulish how eager the press is to see Carlos and Lando go the same way, asking when will you fall out? all the time like it wasn’t obvious both Lewis and Nico were in pretty horrible states during it. (I saw some of the aftermath via one of them and like, that’s some trauma right there :/)

Has Lewis had his controversies? For sure. Some of them I have been upset by - like when he posted an instagram story telling his nephew he couldn’t wear a dress. Thing about Lewis is that, especially as he’s got older, he doesn’t double-down on things like that, he goes away and reflects - and designed a range of skirts and modelled them for an interview where he was called on it, then went to Disneyland and walked round with his nephew wearing that princess dress he’d mocked him for. [warning: Daily Mail link sorry, only site that had the pics]

Yes, ideally he would not have been a prang in the first place but it is also very good to publicly show growth. Especially in F1.

I loved old, obnoxious fuckboy Lewis. He was the middle finger F1 needed showing - and his resilience to the number of times the press and the talking heads and the social circles of F1 tried to push him back down, only to spring back up with a blindingly-polished trophy… ah, you love to see it.

Lewis means more to me than almost any other driver - and like, I vibe heavily with several - because he is that outlier example who shouldn’t have been counted but who keeps forcing them to score him into the ledgers of history, even now.

Is it good having a vocal advocate for women and for LGBT rights, who isn’t scared to call out motorsports prejudices and racism, so prominently in the sport? Yes. It’s a hard truth that he had to get this level of success in order to gain a platform because no when Lewis speaks people have to listen and report it. Because if his Instagram story can turn into a scandal, it can also be a communications platform. It’s why he holds a lot of sway with Liberty Media.

Now Lewis’ rights to be in the sport are unassailable. So he can start on other fights he couldn’t take at the time - there’s a reason the F1 press still gives Wehrlein (who is one of the sweetest drivers I have ever worked with) the “uppity” treatment and it’s fucking sad. It’s so embarrassing to work in this industry that’s a thousand miles behind even other embarrassing industries on this global fucking shame.

Look, I don’t give a fuck about the whole GOAT thing because sport is a continuous cycle (err, most years) and so ‘all time’ is a dumb thing to put in an accolade. But Lewis is, in my opinion, the best Formula One driver we have ever witnessed the career of. He is devastatingly good, has honed himself to a level where mistakes are such a rarity they’re a headline in and of themselves.

To maintain that, year after year after year? It’s not human. It’s a man who’s pushed himself beyond the pinnacle of the sport because he has proven everything and still someone will be typing out some snide little piece, at the same time I am writing this, that Hamilton will never be the greatest because [arbitrary mathematics about how you can’t count three of his titles so we don’t have to respect him yet. Not yet. It’s not that we don’t respect him because of who he is. It’s just one last test….]

Does Lewis being so good at Formula One driving it’s not really comprehensible below the level of fellow world champion make other drivers bad? No. He’s not walking to the titles. And maybe one day someone will be better than Lewis. Maybe he won’t be on form this year, somehow, for the first time in years of racing - if it ever starts again. Maybe he’ll retire to make tracksuits and rescue dolphins.

I am glad he seems happy now. He looks incredible. Man gets hotter and nicer with every year and you absolutely love to see it. His growth in himself and the sport has been equally impressive and his transformative power, both in terms of pushing forward the sporting side and in terms of using his platforms for good, is awesome.

(Lewis doesn’t have to speak out about stuff; I know people think it’s naff or crass or obnoxious or preachy but he could just not - and he knows people’d bash him for something else)

That said, I wish he’d put some money into sponsoring some grass roots motorsport but that is literally my only beef with him. But yeah, we stan a complicated, evolutionary boy.

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calliecat93 · 4 years

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Callie’s Disney Princess Retrospective: Cinderella

(Snow White Review)

The year was 1950, 13 years after Snow White’s release. Despite that film’s mass success, Walt Disney’s next feature films during the 1940’s such as Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi would all bomb. His only true success at the time was Dumbo, and that film was dampened by a mass strike during production that saw many animators walk out. It didn’t get any better when America entered World War II and the military took over many different animation studios, including Disney. They not only had to produce propaganda shorts but due to the limited funds, they were forced to rely on Package Films and live-action to survive. As the 1950s began to dawn, it was clear to Walt that if he wanted to stay in business, he needed another hit. But not just any hit, he needed the same kind of success that Snow White brought him. But what film could give him that success?

For that, he returned to fairy tales, and he found one. A story that he could relate to as a Missouri-born boy who began with nothing. A tale that could appeal to just about anyone. A true rags to riches story of one down-on-her-luck girl having all of her dreams come true. That film would be Walt Disney’s twelfth animated feature, his second fairy tale-based film, and of course the creation of the second Disney Princess who quickly became one of the most famous. Thus, let us discuss the 1950 film, Cinderella.

Overview

Since a young child, Cinderella has been in servitude by her cruel stepmother Lady Tremaine. She is regularly mistreated and worked to the bone by both Tremaine and her nasty stepsisters Drizella and Anastasia. Despite this, Cinderella keeps a cheerful and hopeful demeanor, caring for her mouse friends and hoping that someday the dream that she has wished for will come true. A day that seems to have arrived when the family gets an invitation to a ball held to find a suitor for The Prince. With all eligible maidens asked to attend, Cinderella believes that her chance has arrived, but Lady Tremaine has other plans.

Just as it looks like all of her hopes have been shattered, Cinderella’s kindness and hard-work are rewarded by her Fairy Godmother giving her what she needs to attend the ball. She has a lovely time but is forced to flee at midnight with only a lone glass slipper to remind her of that night. But the ended up charming the Prince and left the other slipper behind, so now the girl who fits the slipper will be made the prince’s bride. Once more, Tremaine tries to prevent Cinderella from succeeding. But with the help of her animal friends and her own hope, Cinderella’s dreams will at long last come true.

Review

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As a little girl, there were many films that I would watch over and over again, such as The Aristocats or The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. But I think that Cinderella was the one that I would play back the most. I remember every single part of this movie. The music, the story, the characters, just everything. And even after all of these years, my feelings and love for the film haven’t changed. If anything, it’s only grown. I still remember when my family went to Walt Disney World, and aside from Mickey Mouse the only thing that I cared about was meeting Cinderella. I did so on the last day in the Magic Kingdom, and she was so kind and beautiful and was everything I ever dreamed of. It is a moment that I will never forget.

Looking at the film itself, it’s clear that it took a lot from Snow White. A fairy tale-inspired movie, a heroine in servitude who charms all around her, an evil stepmother, a handsome prince, animal companions, you name it. I don’t think that it was accidental either. As I said, Walt /needed/ another Snow White success story. He needed to replicate what made that film work and make it better. Which he did. While the two films are similar, it’s arguable that Cinderella improved on many of those elements. While we only really get told that Snow was a servant and only see it briefly at the start, we see Cinderella’s suffering throughout the film. While Snow could look a little off due to the animators still getting used to animating realistic humans, Cinderella looks realistic, moves more fluidly, and fits the style of the film much better. While The Queen never interacted with Snow until the end and therefore never see how she treats her, we see Lady Tremaine’s cruelty towards her stepdaughter in full force and it’s equally as chilling. It truly feels like Walt looked over Snow White, saw what could be improved on, and did so with Cinderella. It really shows how far the company had come since 1937.

But Walt wasn’t the only important person on the film. In fact, he was less involved than he was with Snow White since he was focusing more on live-action and developing Disneyland. This was the film that established Disney’s most talented and loyal animators, his Nine Old Men. These men not only worked on the first five features and the Package Films, but they would go on to work on every film up to The Fox and the Hound and some even went into Imagineering. These would be the men who not only pulled the company back onto its feet after WW2, but they would teach future Disney animators/directors such as Glen Keane, Jon Musker, Rob Clements, Andreas Deja, Brad Bird, and so many others who would continue their legacy. Cinderella herself was done primarily by Marc Davis, Eric Larson, and Les Clark.

Like Snow White, the story is pretty straight-forward. It seems to be based mainly on the version written by Charles Perrault and some of the Grimm Brothers version. It does some expansion, like showing what Cindy’s daily life is like. Having her dress get ripped apart, her getting locked up, and of course, giving an expanded role to the mice. Otherwise though like with Snow White, it’s one of the more faithful adaptations minus a few things. For example, if we go off the Grimm version, the stepsisters don’t mutilate themselves to fit into the slipper… and I don’t have an issue with that either. It can feel a little dragged out, like IDK how necessary the King and Grand Duke scenes were aside from establishing certain things like the ball and the slipper search, but it’s nothing that brings anything to a halt.

The animation is gorgeous. The Nine Old Men weren’t chosen out of random, after all. This film really shows off their talents. Characters like Jaq and Gus, Lucifer, and the Stepsisters are very lively and entertaining to watch. Ward Kimball, who was the main animator for Lucifer the Cat, used his own cat as a reference after Walt pointed it out to him, and you can tell that he was having fun with it. The more realistic characters like Cinderella and Lady Tremaine look and move very well despite the challenge the animators had keeping that realism up. I’d say that their work paid off though. Lady Tremaine especially has some of the most chilling, frightening expressions of any Disney Villain. Frank Thomas did a masterful job making her cold demeanor reach through the screen and to the audience. The art itself looks beautiful and we can thank artist Mary Blair for it as she did the concept art for the film. The use of colors and shadows were done very well. It’s just the right amount of brightness when necessary, and the right amount of darkness when necessary. It hits the mark perfectly.

Then there’s the sound and the music. On the latest rewatch, I noticed how they use music for characters a lot. Take the sequence where Jaq has to distract Lucifer in the first act for example. When he’s crawling across the wall, getting ready to get at Lucifer and kick him into his own milk bowl. They use strings for his movements as well as for strings, like the other mice shutting up Gus when he laughs. It’s nothing new for Disney, after all, it was doing this in Steamboat Willie that launched the company into fame. But it always adds so much even if you don’t realize it. The score uses a lot of strings and horns, knowing when to sound triumphant and when to be subdued. It’s a very good score.

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Cinderella’s soundtrack was the first to be done by the newly established Walt Disney Records, allowing the company to gain profit for their own music. The vocal tracks have two classics worth mentioning. The first is Bippidi-Boppidi-Boo, the Fairy Godmother’s song. It’s a super fun, whimsical song and even though I still struggle to get the words right, it really fits the Fairy Godmother’s nature and is just so darn catchy! The other is of course the theme of the film, Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes. There are several variations of the song throughout the film, but of course, the first time done by Ilene Woods (I’ll talk about her more when I do Cinderella’s character in-depth) is the one we remember most. It’s beautiful, hopeful, and was one of my favorite songs as a little kid. I used to annoy people with how much I would try to sing it, haha. It really tries to convince you that your dreams CAN come true, and by golly did I believe it when I was a kid… and deep down I still do, I supposed. Point is, it’s a lovely song~

What about the characters though? Well, let us have a looksie.

As with Snow White, there are many animals, though this time it’s mainly mice and birds. The mice are the main ones, as well as the only ones who can talk. There are other animals like the birds, a horse, and of course Bruno the Dog. But the main animals to discuss are Lucifer the Cat and the du of Jaq and Gus. Lucifer is a cat, so as expected he chases the mice. But it’s clearly not just due to instinct. It’s shown throughout the movie that he seems to take sadistic glee in chasing after them, especially Gus which is especially clear in the final act. But he also enjoys tormenting Cinderella, such as messing up the floor when she’s wiping it down during the Sweet Nightingale sequence and trapping Gus with the key in part to keep her locked up. He also enjoyed getting Bruno into trouble at the start of the film, which ends up being his downfall at the end. He seems genuinely cruel which...I mean with a name like Lucifer, is it a surprise that he’s a little devil? He has some great expressions thanks to Ward Kimball and was a fun challenge for our favorite mice.

Speaking of, Jaq and Gus serve as comedic relief and the unofficial heroes of the film when you really think about it. They drive many of the events forward such as making Cinderella’s dress and retrieving the key from Lady Tremaine. Jaq is the unofficial leader of the mice and the most talkative by far. He’s charismatic and crafty, usually unafraid (for the most part) of going up against Lucifer or from helping Cinderella whom he cares greatly for. We don’t know how long he’s known Cinderella, but he’s the one who assures Gus that she’s a nice person. Gus the newbie of the mice and a little dim-witted, but well-meaning. Due to being new, he ends up getting into several incidents like nearly being caught by Lucifer several times. Jaq and Gus make a fun duo and I always enjoyed seeing what the two would get themselves into. Also for added fun, both mice were voiced by Jimmy MacDonald (nowadays they’re played by Rob Paulsen and Corey Burton respectively). Jimmy was not only the main sound effects man for the studio but at the time he was also the voice of Mickey Mouse himself. Guess he’s a natural fit for mice, huh?

Next, we’ll go to the royals. Sadly, like with Snow White, the prince is more or less a plot device. I guess they were still having a tough time with realistic male characters. He’s a handsome young man, but sadly that’s all there really is. He doesn’t even get a name, being dubbed as Prince Charming in most material and IDK if that’s really official. They DID plan on giving the Prince more of a role, such a planned sequence with him hunting a deer but it turned out it was play hunting, but this never happened. He doesn’t even go looking for his mystery girl in the end, the Grand Duke does which is pretty disappointing. It’s a shame too since going off the King’s dialogue about how he’s been evading mariage he could have been like the male version of Jasmine. A royal who’s being pushed to get married, even though he wants to find true love on his own time and just have some freedom. They did do a bit more with him in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. They also did more with him in the live-action remake, expanding his and Cinderella’s relationship and giving him an actual name (Kit). But we’re focusing on the original, and it’s sad that he didn’t get more to him.

The King and Grand Duke are also comedic relief and overall pretty good ones. The King is loud, blusterous, and quick to anger. He’s not a bad man, after all the only reason he wants his son to get hitched is because he feels lonely and wants grandchildren. It’s kind of cute when you think about it, even if unfair to his own son. He can be very friendly, but as I said quickly to anger. After all, when the mystery girl got away, he outright attempted to /behead/ the Grand Duke until he told him about the slipper. In comparison, the Grand Duke is more timid, but quite sarcastic as well. Very much the straight man to the King’s blusterous personality. While very much afraid of the king (though not unwilling to backtalk him), up against anyone else he takes no crap from anyone. Just watch him as he tries to endure the Tremaines, it’s amazing how absolutely done he is with all of them, and he wins points for shutting up Lady Tremaine when Cinderella makes her way downstairs. A good man!

The Fairy Godmother is only in the film briefly, but she leaves a major impact. She is the first decent person to Cinderella in a long, /long/ time. She is very grandmotherly in her design, voice, and demeanor. She’s a little forgetful and scatterbrained, as she forgot where her wand was and it takes a good while for her to notice Cindy’s torn up dress. But she is a kindly old woman who was summoned by the hope remaining in Cinderella’s heart. She came at the girl’s darkest hour and gave her the one night that she had always dreamed of. She is voiced by Verna Felton, who was a pretty regular VA for Disney at the time. Though she often did much harsher characters such as The Matriarch in Dumbo and the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. But she perfectly portrays the Godmother’s kindly grandmother persona. Her modern VA was Disney Legend Russi Taylor, who also took over Drizella, who sadly passed away last year. It is unknown who will do the Godmother in the future, but I have no doubt that she will emerge again one day

We now come to the Tremaines. First, the daughters. Drizella and Anastasia are ugly, loud, snooty, and mean to both Cinderella and each other. They argue frequently, outright hitting each other during their… ugh… we’ll call it a music lesson. They’re spoiled in the worst way, never being happy with what they have yet get angry if Cinderella dares wear the things that they outright discarded as trash. It’s clear that their mother raised them to be as horrid as her, though they’re nowhere near as calculating. She pretty much raised them to be her attack dogs against Cinderella as well as to use them to marry off and move up in the world. Their obnoxiousness is their only real character trait, though their character animation via Ollie Johnston is quite fun to watch. Anastasia would gain more depth in the two direct-to-video sequels at the very least, more or less also getting a redemption arc. She was also voiced previously by Lucille Bliss, who played the teacher in Invader Zim, and is now voiced by the legendary Tress Macneille.

Then there is Lady Tremaine. Ho boy, Lady Tremaine. If I had the time, I could do an entire essay on this woman alone. She is one of the most chilling, yet memorable Disney Villains despite being nothing but an old woman. Why? First, her voice. In the film, she is voiced by Eleanor Audley, which remember that name cause it’s gonna come back later in this series. She is able to keep the perfect balance of calm and methodical, yet sharp when necessary. Perfectly in control. Actually, that’s a great way to describe Lady Tremaine, in control. She knows what she wants and is willing to go to any length to get it. She carries herself with confidence and regality, very rarely losing her cool. She’s calculative and methodical and you never quite know what she’s going to do until she does it. But most of all, she is cruel and petty, especially towards Cinderella.

Unlike her obnoxious daughters, Tremaine’s abuse towards Cinderella is calm and subdued, preferring to use emotional abuse and manipulation. She has brow-beaten the poor girl so bad that she becomes obedient as soon as the old woman speaks up. Tremaine is jealous of Cinderella’s beauty and therefore tries to make the girl’s life as difficult as possible. She enjoys mistreating and controlling Cinderella, wearing a cold smirk any time that she ramps up the cruelty. Probably her cruelest act in the film is manipulating her own daughters into ripping Cinderella’s dress right off of her after she managed to get it on for the ball. Despite having agreed to let Cindy go to the ball if she got her work done, she ruined her chances anyway just because she could. She’s not only horrible to her stepdaughter but even to her own daughters with how they ultimately turned out and clearly only interested in marrying them off

What makes Tremaine scary though is because… well, compare her to The Queen/Hag and later villainess Maleficent. In the real world, you’re not likely to encounter an evil queen who uses witchcraft and turn herself into an old hag just to poison you. In the real world, you’re unlikely to encounter an evil fairy witch who can curse you to die and transform into a ferocious dragon. But running into a cruel, petty old woman who will abuse you due to jealousy and for her own enjoyment? Oh yes, that can and does happen. Lady Tremaine is real. She is a perfect depiction of an abusive stepparent. Plus as I said before, Frank Thomas did an excellent job depicting her expressions as utterly chilling. I was afraid of her as a child, and I still am now. Even at the end after her daughters failed to get on the slipper, she breaks it just to keep Cinderella from achieving a life of happiness out of pure spite. On the upside, seeing her plans all fall apart and especially her face when Cinderella reveals the other slipper is deliciously satisfying. One of the greatest all-time Disney moments.

Well, that was a lot more than I thought. But with all of that out of the way, there’s only one more character to discuss. Strap yourself in folks, because I have been waiting /years/ for this.

Cinderella Analysis

As I said above, Cinderella was one of my favorite princesses as a child. She was beautiful, had an amazing singing voice, was kind, and I wanted to have my dreams come true just as she did. She is one of the most famous Disney characters by far. I remember her pretty much being the face of the Disney Princess line when I was a kid. Nowadays I’d argue that Rapunzel is more of the face (or if we wanna count Frozen, Elsa is) but that doesn’t mean that Cindy has faded out of the public eye. After all, it is her castle that stands as the main landmark at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. That alone will ensure that she never fades out of popular consciousness.

In return, however, Cinderella is probably the most criticized princess of the Classic Three. It’s mostly for the same reasons as those two. She was a damsel-in-distress. She was domestic and passive. She got together with a man at first sight. She needed others to save her. It’s all the same thing you hear about pre-The Little Mermaid, but since Cinderella is probably the most well-known, she’s the one who gets it levied against her the most. As I said in Snow White, there is some truth about this portrayal furthering the depiction of women as domestic/passive in film. But it truly baffles me as to why Cinderella is the one who gets this criticism the most. It really, really baffles me. I can somewhat get it with Snow White and I can get it with Aurora, but Cinderella? Ugh… no. Just… no.

First of all, let’s get this part out of the way. Cinderella is an abuse victim. I think that Cinderella is meant to be about 19 years old in the film. While we don’t know how old she was exactly when her father died, we see in the opening narration that she was still a child. A child. Let’s say that she was around nine years old. That would mean that she has been under Lady Tremaine’s thumb for ten years. A full decade. If you are under abuse for that long at any age, but especially ever since a child, then that is going to affect you. So Cinderella being passive? Yeah, that’s likely in part because of the abuse that she went through. She was conditioned to not fight back, or if she did she would pay the consequences. As great as imagining standing up and fighting against your abuser is, it is unfortunately very rarely that simple especially when you are under years of psychological conditioning like Cinderella was.

But it is also unfair to say that Cinderella is blindly obedient and broken either. She isn’t. Cinderella is introduced as kind, cheerful, and playful when she teases her bird friends and gets ready for the day. Cinderella is a kind young woman, facing every day with a smile despite her treatment. The girl lives in an attic, yet she happily sings as she gets her day started. Cinderella’s defining trait is that she is a dreamer. As she herself says in the opening, her dreams are something that no one can control. Not her step-family. Not the clock telling her that it’s time to get on with a new day. In her dreams, she is able to do whatever she wants. It is her escape. The one thing that gets her through the day, hoping that one day the dreams that she wishes in her heart will come true.

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This is what fuels Cinderella ahead. It is what allows her to remain kind. It is what allows her to be sympathetic to others. What shows this most is her treatment of the mice. She treats them as her friends, making them clothing, feeds them, and frees them from traps. This is important for what happens later, but we’ll get to that later. She is also kind to the other animals, such as the horse and to her dog Bruno. In fact, it’s pretty interesting when she scolds Bruno for wanting to chase Lucifer. She tells him that it’s bad, how he’ll lose his warm bed, and quote “you know the orders”. She expects Bruno to obey the same way that she must obey. Doing so otherwise will mean consequences such as losing one’s own bed. The only animal that Cinderella doesn’t get along with is Lucifer, who is also the only character she is willing to speak against. At one point she was even willing to smack him with her broom when he ruined the floor she just finished scrubbing. It makes sense since Lucifer not only goes out of his way to make things more difficult for her, but he can’t order her around or really do anything to her as Lady Tremaine can. So in a way, it’s one thing that she has some power over.

Still, the first act shows what Cinderella’s life is like. It doesn’t seem too bad at first glance. She seems happy and treats her morning more like an annoyance than anything. But once we meet the Tremaines, it becomes clear just how bad it is. Anastasia immediately accuses Cindy of planting a mouse under her cup on purpose and Cinderella gets no chance to defend herself, though she is able to make Lucifer free Gus. She’s then summoned into Lady Tremaine’s room, clearly uneasy. Whenever she tries to explain herself, Lady Tremaine snaps back at her, making her go silent. There is no arguing. Lady Tremaine likely knows that Cinderella did nothing wrong, but doesn’t care. Whatever makes the girl miserable works for her and gives her an excuse to pile on that misery. Thus she piles on the workload, even making Cinderella do things that she already did once over again. Cinderella is unable to do anything but listen to the commands.

Everything changes, however, when the invitation to the ball arrives. Now we go back to one of the criticisms against Cinderella. Many accuse her of only going to the ball to meet the prince and get married. Now I will go more into this later, but there’s a reason why I am bringing it up now. Cinderella never at any point time from this point until the search for the mystery girl starts, even so much as mentions the prince. The ones who want to go to get married are the Tremaines. The whole reason that they go is because of the royal command for every eligible maiden to attend. Lady Tremaine wants to marry off her daughters. The sisters obviously want to get hitched to a good-looking man of power like the prince. Cinderella though? She just wants to go to a fancy ball because she can. By royal command every maiden is to attend no matter their status, so a lowly servant girl like herself is allowed. She even points this out to her step-family in one of the few cases she does stand up to them. Not by getting angry or defensive, she just outright points out the fine print. But no, nothing about getting with a guy ever comes up until much, much later.

Lady Tremaine agrees that Cinderella can go if gets her work done and finds a dress. But she uses the first part of that deal to bombard Cinderella with orders to make her unable to accomplish the second half. Cinderella has the dress picked, one of her mother’s, but she has no time to mend it up. As Jaq points out to the other mice, the Tremaines are going to make her do everything to make her unable to get her dress. But this is where Cinderella’s previous kindness kicks in. It’s clear that the mice really care for her because of how she cares for them. As such, they decide to fix up the dress for her. Jaq and Gus outright risk their lives against Lucifer to get some discarded trimmings.

Sure Cindy ultimately didn’t mend the dress herself, but it shows how her kindness came back to reward her. Just look at how downcast she is when the carriage arrives. She realized far too late that her step-family was never going to give her the chance to go to the ball. She is saddened as she returns to her attic-dwelling, looking out at the castle from the window and trying to convince herself that the ball would have been boring anyway. It fails. She is standing in darkness until the room lights up via candlelight and the mice reveal the mended dress to her. You can just hear the glee and gratitude in her voice as she swings around the dress and is at a loss of words before thanking her friends. Her kindness was rewarded… but sadly, not for long.

We now come to what is by far the darkest scene in the movie. Cinderella comes down to the door, shocking her stepfamily that she actually got a dress. At first, Cinderella is elated that she can actually go… until Lady Tremaine begins to approach. The old woman doesn’t seem to be doing anything wrong, agreeing that Cindy kept her end of the deal and even compliments the dress. But then she points out the beads to Drizella, who previously discarded them. It provokes her and Anastasia into a bitter, angry frenzy. They outright rip the dress apart while Cinderella is still in it. It is disturbing, Cinderella unable to do anything as her dreams are literally ripped away from her bit by bit. By the end, Tremaine calmly calls her daughters away and bids Cinderella a good night, leaving the girl standing in a pile of rags.

This is the final straw for Cinderella. She runs out to the back garden and breaks down. After trying so hard for so long to keep her hopes up, she can’t. All that she wanted was to go to the ball. Not to get married, just to have one night where she could have a good time. That was it. But her stepfamily just couldn’t allow for even that and tore it all away from her. Can you blame her for crying after all that? After dealing with that kind of treatment since she was a little girl? I can’t blame her. Her friends can only watch in sympathy and sadness as she says that there’s no use in dreaming and that she can’t dream anymore. She has hit her breaking point, a far cry from the hopeful young dreamer she was at the start of the film.

But not all is lost. In her despair, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother is summoned. So a big question I’ve seen some ask is how the Fairy Godmother was summoned to begin with? Well, it’s as she herself said, she couldn’t be there if Cinderella didn’t have hope in her heart still. She is essentially a manifestation of Cinderella’s hopes and dreams. If I had to guess with Cinderella reaching her breaking point and ready to give in to despair, the Fairy Godmother manifested because she now truly needed help. It was to restore her hopes and allow her to get to the ball after the chance was so cruelly ripped away from her. I know what some are going to say, once again Cinderella got something handed to her. But this is a case where Cinderella herself more or less summoned the one who would help her. Her kindness caused the mice to help her, now her hope summoned up her Fairy Godmother to help her. It’s not happening just because.

So The Fairy Godmother creates her carriage, makes her new dress, and gives her the glass slippers. But like all dreams, this can’t last forever. She has until midnight, after which the spell will be broken. Which is perfectly fine with Cinderella, she’s just grateful for what her Fairy Godmother has done for her. Seeing her smiling and hopeful again after the previous moment and her just receiving some motherly kindness from someone is just really nice to see. Thus, she is whisked away to the ball, and almost as quickly as she arrives, she catches the eye of The Prince himself. While Drizella and Anastasia are trying to get him to look at them, funny enough.

So let’s get back to the ‘Cindy only wanted a man!’ critique. As I already said, she never mentions a man until near the end. But here at the ball, it’s not even her who goes to The Prince. Heck later when midnight hits, it’s pretty clear that she didn’t even know that the guy she was dancing with was The Prince. No, it is Prince Charming who approaches her. We outright see him look up, notice her as she enters, and is stricken by her beauty. It is him who walks to her and presents himself to her, a major contrast to how all the other girls were going up to him with him clearly bored. So no, Cinderella never wanted to get a man. It all happened purely by chance, and again she didn’t even realize that he was The Prince until after the ball was long over.

Cinderella dances with the prince throughout the night, getting so caught up that she loses track of time until the clock goes off. Once again, the clock is telling her that it’s time to wake up from her dream. She flees, but loses one of her slippers along the way. Midway on the road home, the spell is broken and she is once more in her torn-up dress. She apologizes to her animal friends for losing track of time, but happily recalls the night. But the mice then point something out to her: her glass slipper is still on her foot. Now… why is that? Well what summoned the Fairy Godmother to begin with? Hope. It is my opinion that this is why the slippers didn’t disappear as well. Cindy’s hope kept them manifested, to the point that I don’t believe that her losing one happened by chance. It is the key to her having a chance at a better life. It slippped off her foot due to that, and the other one remained for the same reason. Cindy seems to think it’s the Fary Godmother’s doing as she thanks her, but the truth is it is herself who caused both of those.

Thus, we come to the next day. The Grand Duke is looking for the mystery girl, and Tremaine is ready to leap at the chance. At first, Cinderella is pretty much ready to resume her regular life now that she’s gotten the one night that she had wanted. But as Tremaine explains the new development to her daughters, Cinderella hears it. This is when she realizes that it was The Prince that she was dancing with. That it was her slipper that was found, which means that she’s the mystery girl. Which means that she’s the one who can fit it and thus she will become The Prince's bride. This is the point that she wanted to get married to a man. In the final fifteen or so minutes. But look as to why she wants to. This will absolutely ensure that she is able to have a better life than she has now, so can we blame her for being happy?

Cinderella is so elated that she outright ignores her stepsisters demands and starts to day-dreamingly go to her room to prepare for the Grand Duke’s arrival. But this turns out to be a mistake. Because of her elation, Lady Tremaine immediately puts the pieces together. Cinderella not only managed to defy her and go to the ball, but she is now in the way of her plans to marry her daughters off. If she is there when the Grand Duke arrives, then that’ll be it. She’ll fit the slipper, be taken to the palace, and will marry The Prince not long after. That is something that Lady Tremaine simply cannot allow. Not to mention that she can’t allow the girl to go unpunished for her defiance. Thus, she locks Cinderella in her room. To both keep her out of the way and to make sure that she can never leave.

So… it looks like that’s it. There is nothing that Cinderella can do at this point. She realizes that she’s once more going to be trapped in a cruel life and begs Tremaine to let her out before just breaking down. She had her chance once more, and once more her stepmother took it away. But once more, Jaq and Gus act to help their friend and manage to get the key. But of course Lucifer interferes, trapping both Gus and the key and Cinderella is now in a position where she can’t make him stop. All of her animal friends try to help, but it proves futile. That is, until Cinderella has a realization. There is someone who can chase off Lucifer. The same someone that she previously scolded because it would be going against orders; Bruno the Dog.

Remember when I pointed out how Cinderella got after Bruno dreaming of chasing Lucifer because he’d lose his home otherwise? Yeah, it comes back around here. She’s now close to getting out of her situation, so why not allow Bruno the same thing? She has her bird friends alert Bruno, and indeed the dog rushes in and causes the evil cat to jump from the window. I think it was supposed to be implied that this killed Lucifer, but we see in the later sequels that he survived. But with him out of the way, the mice slip Cinderella the key and she is able to get out and to the stairs just as the Grand Duke is beginning to walk out. And he’s clearly glad to see her to, outright making his way past Lady Tremaine and reminding her that he’s supposed to give every maiden a chance when she tries to ward him away,

But, of course, Tremaine can’t just accept defeat. She trips the earl and the slipper is shattered. It looks like once again, Cinderella’s hopes have been for naught. But this time, she doesn't cry. She doesn’t even get sad. Why? Simple, because it wasn’t for naught. She pulls out the other slipper, proving beyond doubt that she is the mystery girl. It was her hope that created the slippers. It was her hope that kept them manifested when the spell was broken. Now it is her hope that gave her the key to at long last break free from her stepfamily for good. She gets married to The Prince (we don’t know how long after, so there is a window open for those who want to get after her for marrying a guy she just met) and is whisked away to a better life. The wish that she made at last came true.

Cinderella is defined by hope, kindness, and dreams. It is these things that fuel her to continue on with her life. It is these things that allow her to remain a good person and not be broken by her stepmother’s attempts to humiliate and demean her. Even at her lowest moment, her hope couldn’t be truly broken. Sure in real life you’re not going to be able to magically summon a Fairy Godmother or be married into royalty because of a shoe. But this is NOT real life. This is a fairy tale. It is escapism. It doesn't have to adhere to reality exactly. Plus even then, there is something to be said about not giving up hope and remaining kind in the face of adversity. It is that lesson that I have carried with me since I was a child, to remain kind no matter what. I’ve had my own breakdowns, especially since it’s still 2020 at the time of this writing. But even so, I’ve tried to remain kind. Because Cinderella taught me to do so.

It is why I have never understood the hate against her, and never will. I love the modern princesses and yes, they did need to become more proactive and strong. But this does NOT make the first three bad. Especially not Cinderella. She is an abuse survivor. She is a dreamer. She is a young woman who only wanted to have some happiness in her life. Her kindness and hope was eventually rewarded, and in a way was granted to her by herself. The mice helped her with both her first dress and to escape the attic because she was kind to them. Bruno and the animals liked her because she was kind to them, so they repaid her. The Fairy Godmother manifested because Cinderella wanted to give up, but hope still remained in her heart and gave her the help she desperately needed. The glass slippers remained because of her hope, and became the keys to her achieving a better life. Sure she didn’t have to physically fight for it, but it doesn't change the fact that things happened, that others helped her because she was kind and hopeful. Because of herself.

The last thing to note is her voice actress, Ilene Woods. She was originally hired to do the singing for Cinderella, but after Walt heard her he cast her to also do the speaking lines. She did a beautiful job. She conveys Cinderella’s grace, kindness, and hopeful nature absolutely beautifully and her singing voice is outright angelic. Do you want to know a sad, yet beautiful story? Well at the end of her life, Ilene Woods had sadly been inflicted with Alzheimer. I think we all know how devastating that disease is. She was living in a nursing home, unable to recall anything. Reportedly, the nurses would often play A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes for her. Even though Ilene couldn’t recognize that it was herself singing, it was the one thing that could make her happy all the way up to her passing in 2010. Mind you that story is from Wikipedia /TV Tropes and I haven’t been able to find an actual source saying this, but I’ve never seen anyone contest if this was true. Either way, Ilene was and will always be the Cinderella, a legacy that the current actress Jennifer Hale is keeping alive and well today.

Final Thoughts

Cinderella will always be special to me. She’s not my overall favorite princess, we still have quite a while before we get to her. But she is firmly my second favorite. The film is outright my second favorite of all time (again, we’ll get to number one later). It’s the first movie that I remember seeing in my life. I would watch it for hours over and over again. I had dolls of her. I would dress up as her. The whole reason I wanted to go to Disney World was to meet her, and I did. The film looks beautiful. The music is beautiful. The characters are memorable. The story is an outright classic even before Disney adapted it. To quote Beauty and the Beast, it is a tale as old as time. Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but even after all these years, I love this movie just as much as I did when I was a little girl. Maybe even moreso now. It is a true Disney Masterpiece.

Disney was hoping for a miracle, and he got it. Cinderella was the biggest hit that they had had in a looong time. Audiences and critics loved it. It was the moment that Disney was back in business and able to return to feature film, launching them into the Silver Age of Animation. While his next film, Alice in Wonderland, didn’t go very well, both Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp helped keep the studio afloat. As the decade came to a close, the studio decided that it was time to release another fairy tale-inspired film. Would this one strike gold like the first two? Come back next time to meet the final Classic Princess, Sleeping Beauty.

Image Sources: Disney Wiki, Animation Screencaps Other Sources: Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella Documentary

#cinderella #disney princess #disney princess reviews #callie reviews

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teshknowledgenotes · 3 years

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Charlie Munger: Academic Economics — Strengths and Weaknesses, after Considering Interdisciplinary Need - Notes

My personal history is interesting because it's deficiencies and my peculiarities eventully created advantages. For some odd reason, I had an early and extreme multidisciplinary cast of mind. I couldn't stand reaching for a small idea in my own discipline when there was a big idea right over the fence in somebody else's discipline. So I just grabbed in all directions for the big ideas that would really work. Nobody taught me to do that, I was just born with that yen. I was also born with a huge craving for syntheses. And when it didn't come easily, which was often, I would rag the problem, and then when I failed I would put it aside and I'd come back to it and rag it again. It took me 20 years to figure out how and why the Reverend Moon's conversion methods worked. But the psychology departments haven't figured it out yet, so I'm ahead of them.

But anyway, I have this tendency to want to rag the problems. Because WWII caught me. I drifted into some physics and the Air Corps sent me to Caltech where I did a little more physics as part of being made into a meteorologist. And there, at a very young age, I absorbed what I call the fundamental full attribution ethos of hard science. And that was enormously useful to me. Let me explain that ethos.

Under this ethos, you've got to know all the big ideas in all the disciplines less fundamental than your own. You can never many any explanation, which can be made in a more fundamental way, in any other way than the most fundamental way. And you always take with full attribution to the most fundamental ideas that you are required to use. When you're using physics, you say you're using physics. When you're using biology, you said you're using biology. And so on and so on. I could early on see that ethos would act as a fine organizing system for my thought. And I strongly suspected that it would work really well in the soft sciences as well as the hard sciences, So I just grabbed it and used it all through my life in soft science as well as hard science. That was a very lucky idea for me.

Let me explain how extreme that ethos is in hard Science. There is a constant, one of the fundamental constants in physics, known as Boltzmann's constant. You probably all know it very well. And the interesting thing about Boltzmann's constant in that Boltzmann didn't discover it. So why is Boltzmann's constant now named for Boltzmann? Well, the answer was that Boltzmann derived that constant from basic physics in a more fundamental way than the poor forgotten fellow who found the constant in the first place in some less fundamental way. The ethos of hard science is so strong

What’s Wrong with Economics

The nature of this failure is that it creates what I always all, “man with a hammer syndrome” And that's taken from the folk saying: To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks pretty much like a nail. And that works marvellously to sum up all professions, and all departments of academia, and indeed most practical life. The only antidote for being an absolute klutz due to the presence of a man with a hammer syndrome is to have a full kit of tools. You don't have just a hammer. You've got all the tools. And you've got to have one more trick.

You've got to use those tools checklist-style, because you'll miss a lot if you just hope that the right tool is going to pop up unaided whenever you need it. But if you've got a full list of tools, and go through them in your mind, checklist-style you will find a lot of answer that you won't find any other way. So limiting this big general objection that so disturbed Alfred North Whitehead is very important, and there are mental tricks that help do the job.

A special version of this “man with a hammer syndrome” is terrible, not only in economics but practically everywhere else, including business. It's really terrible in business. You've got a complex system and it spews out a lot of wonderful numbers that enable you to measure some factors. But there are other factors that are terribly important, yet there's no precise numbering you can put to these factors. You know they're important, but you don't have the numbers. Well practically everybody 1) Over-weights the stuff that can be numbered, because it yields to the statistical techniques they're taught in academia, and 2) doesn't mix in the hard-to-measure stuff that may be more important. That is a mistake I've tried all my life to avoid, and I have no regrets for having done that.

My fifth criticism is too little synthesis in economics. Not only with matters outside traditional economics, but also within economics. I have posed at two different business schools the following problem. I say “You have studied supply and demand curves. You have learned that when you raise the price, ordinarily the volume you can sell goes down, and when you reduce the price, the volume you can sell goes up. Is that right? That's what you've learned?” They all nod eyes. And I say “Now you tell me several instances when, if you want the physical volume to go up, the correct answer is to increase the price?” And there's this long and ghastly pause. And finally in each of the two business school in which I've tried this. Maybe one person in fifty could name one instance. They come up with the idea that occasionally a higher price acts as a rough indicator of quality and thereby increases sales volumes.

This happened in the case of my friend Bill Ballhaus. When he was head of Beckman Instruments it produced some complicated product where if it failed it caused enormous damage to the purchaser. It wasn't a pump at the bottom of an oil well, but that's a good mental example. And he realized that the reason this thing was selling so poorly, even though it was better than anybody else's product, was because it was priced lower. It made people think it was a low quality gizmo. So he raised the price by 20% or so and the volume went way up. But only one in fifty can come up with this sole instance in a modern business school, one of the business schools being Stanford, which is hard to get into. And nobody has et come up with the main answer that I like. Supposed you raise the price, and use the extra money to bribe the other guy's purchasing agent? Is that going to work? And are there functional equivalents in economics, microeconomics of raising the price and using the extra sales proceeds to drive sales higher? And of course there are a zillion once you've made that mental jump. It's so simple.

Berkshire had this former savings and loan company, and it had made this loan on a hotel right opposite to the Hollywood Park Racetrack. In due time the neighbourhood changed and it was full of gangs, pimps, and dope dealers. They tore copper pipe out of the wall for dope fixes, and there were people hanging around the hotel with guns, and nobody would come. We foreclosed on it two or three times, and the loan value went down to nothing. We seemed to have an insolvable economic problem, microeconomics problem.

Now we could have gone to McKinsey, or maybe a bunch of professors from Harvard, and we would have gotten a report about 10 inches thick about the ways we could approach this failing hotel in this terrible neighbourhood. But instead, we put a sign on the property that said For sale or rent“ and in came, in response to that sign, a who said “I'll spend $200,000 fixing up your hotel, and buy it at a high price on credit if you can get zoning so I can turn the parking lot into a putting green.”

“You've got to have a parking lot in a hotel” we said.

“What do you have in mind?” he said.

“No my business is flying seniors in from Florida, putting them near the airport, and then letting them go out to Disneyland and various places by bus and coming back. And I don't care how bad the neighbourhood is going to be because my people are self contained behind walls. All they have to do is get on the bus in the morning and come home in the evening, and they don't need a parking lot they need a putting green.” So we made the deal with the guy. The whole thing worked beautifully and the loan got paid off, and it all worked out.

Well I've taken you part way through the synthesis. It gets harder when you want to figure out how much activity should be within private firms, and how much should be within the government, and what are the factors that determine which functions are where, and why do the failures occur, and so on and so on.

It's my opinion that anybody with a high IQ who graduated in economics ought to be able to sit down and write a ten page synthesis of all these ideas that's quite persuasive. And I would bet a lot of money that I could give this test in practically every economics department in the country, and get a perfectly lousy bunch of synthesis. They'd talk about transaction costs. They'd click off a little something that their professors gave them and spit it back. But in terms of really understanding how it all fits together, I would confidently predict that most people couldn't do it very well.

By the way if any of you want to try and do this, go ahead. I think you'll find it hard. In this connection, one of the interesting things that I want to mention is that Max Planck, the great Nobel laureate who found Planck's Constant, tried once to do economics. He gave it up. Now why did Max Planck, one of the smartest people who ever live, give up economics? The answer is he said “It's too hard. The best solution you can get is messy and uncertain” It didn't satisfy Planck's craving for order, and so he gave it up. If Max Planck early on realized he was never going to get perfect order, I will confidently predict all of the rest of you are going to have exactly the same result.

Extreme counterproductive psychological ignorance in economics. Here I want to give you a very simple problem. I specialize in simple problems. You own a small casino in Las Vegas. It has fifty standard slot machines. Identical in appearance, they're identical in function. They have exactly the same payout ratios. The things that cause the payouts are exactly the same. They occur in the same percentages. But there's one machine in this group of slot machines, no matter where you put it among the fifty, in fairly short order, when you go to the machines at the end of the day, there will be 25% more winnings from this one machine than from any other machine. Now surely I'm not going to have a failure here. What is different about the heavy winning machine? Can anybody do it?

Male: More people play it.

Charles Munger: No, no, I want to know why more people play it. What's different about that machine is people have used modern electronics to give a higher ratio of near misses. That machine is going bar, bar, lemon. Bar, bar, grapefruit, way more often than normal machines, and that will cause heavier play. How do you get an answer like that? Easy, obviously there's a psychological cause: That machine is doing something to trigger some basic psychological response.

If you know the psychological factors, if you've got them on a checklist in your head, you just run down the factors, and boom! You get to one that must explain this occurrence. There isn't any other way to do it effectively. These answers are not going to come to people who don't learn these mental tricks. If you want to go through life like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, why be my guest. But if you want to succeed, like a strong man with two legs, you have to pick up these tricks, including doing economics while knowing psychology.

My ninth objection. Not enough attention to virtue and vice effects in economics. It has been plain to me since early life that there are enormous virtue effects in economics, and also enormous vice effects. But economics get very uncomfortable when you talk about virtue and vice. It doesn't lend itself to a lot of columns of numbers. But I would argue that there are big virtue effects in economics, and also enormous vice effects. It doesn't lend itself to a lot of columns of numbers. But I would argue that there are big virtue effects in economics. I would say that the spreading of double-entry bookkeeping by the Monk, Fra Luca de Pacioli was a big virtue effect in economics. It made business more controllable and it made it more honest. Then the cash register. The cash register did more for human morality than the congregational church. It was a really powerful phenomenon to make an economic system work better, just as, in reverse, a system that can be easily defrauded ruins a civilization. A system that's very hard to defraud, like a cash register, helps the economic performance of civilization by reducing vice, but very few people within economics talk about it in those terms.

Religion. I say economic systems work better when there's an extreme reliability ethos. And the traditional way to get a reliability ethos, at least in past generations in America, was through religion. The religions instilled guilt. We have a charming Irish Catholic priest in our neighbourhood and he loves to say, “Those old Jews may have invented guilt, but we perfected it” And this guilt, derived from religion has been a huge driver of a reliability ethos, which has been very helpful to economic outcomes for man.

When I was young, everybody was excited by Godel who came up with proof that you couldn't have a mathematical system without a lot of irritating incompleteness in it. Well, since then my betters tell me that they've come up with more irremovable defects in mathematics and have decided that you're never going to get mathematics without some paradox in it. No matter how hard you work, you're going to have to live with some paradox if you're a mathematician.

Well, if the mathematicians can't get the paradox out of their system when the're creating it themselves, the poor economists are never going to get rid of paradoxes, nor are any of the rest of us. It doesn't matter. Life is interesting with some paradox. When I run into a paradox I think either I'm a total horse's ass to have gotten to this point, or I'm fruitfully near the edge of my discipline. It adds excitement to life to wonder which it is.

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rigmarolling · 4 years

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Five Things Abe Lincoln Did That Prove He Was A BAMF

I love Lincoln. You probably know this if you’ve listened to me talk for more than two seconds. I have a literal entire bookshelf filled with Lincoln stuff. I teared up in Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland. I cried so hard when I watched Lincoln (2012), that I almost started dry-heaving. I was Lincoln (sort of) for Halloween.

Is it a problem? No. It isn’t a problem, Mom. Because Lincoln was a 100% USDA-certified badass.

Don’t believe me? Here are ten things Abe did to prove he was absolutely a BAMF.

1. That time he jumped out a window to prevent a vote.

In 1840, the Illinois legislature was voting on whether or not to fund the state bank. Lincoln was a member of the Whig party, which did not require members to wear wigs, contrary to what the name suggests, but which did support saving the state bank. The opposing party, the Democrats (different political beliefs from modern-day democrats, do NOT come at me, Reddit dudebros) wanted to shut the State bank down.

It all came down to a vote...and it looked like the anti-state bank democrats were going to win. Abraham Lincoln, then a 31-year-old legislator who looked like the pioneer version of a Tim Burton character, was getting nervous.

Above: Jack Skellington, 1840.

“Shit,” he thought, probably, “We Whigs are screwed if we lose this vote. And we don’t even get to wear wigs.”

The bank-hating democrats scheduled a vote to adjourn the session, which would effectively be the nail in the state bank’s coffin. Abe was panicking. He was the de facto leader of the Whigs; he had to do something.

“Prove your mettle, boy,” he probably thought to himself in a folksy, backwoods kinda way. “Show ‘em you ain’t gonna give up.”

So Abe did what any self-respecting legislator would do when stuck between a rock and a hard place:

He jumped out the window of the legislature to stop the vote.

To be fair, Lincoln wasn’t the only one to opt for a morning act of defenestration: a bunch of the other Whigs joined in, too. The rationale was, essentially, this:

Which is peak Internet comedy, but unfortunately, it was 1840 and the Internet didn’t exist yet, so nobody appreciated the gesture and the democrats eventually wound up closing the bank, anyway.

But at least Abe showed the entire state that he appreciated Looney Tunes-esque escape tactics.

2. That time he roasted a guy during a debate with good-old self-deprecating humor.

You ever rely on self-deprecating humor to beat people to the “yes, I KNOW I am offensive” punch?

So did our 16th president, Abraham Nicole Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name.)

When Lincoln was campaigning, his biggest rival was Stephen Douglas, the Democratic contender who was nicknamed “the little giant” because he was short but a heavy hitter in politics, and also because he looks like the kind of guy that just wouldn’t shut up at parties:

Above: “Actually, I’m not racist, BUT--”

In 1858, Lincoln and Douglas held a series of seven famous political debates called, brilliantly, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, coming to you LIVE at Rockefeller Center, with performances by the Rockettes, Anna and Elsa on Ice, AND with special guest, Seal!

These debates were THE go-to political show of the season. If you were super into who would be elected to the Illinois Senate in the mid-19th century, then holy shit, you have got to watch these two men go at each other, man, it’s like watching a tree and an angry little dog slap each other across the stage.

During the debates, Lincoln quickly became famous for his one-liners, and also because no one had ever seen a talking tree in a suit before.

In one of the debates, Douglas accused Lincoln of being two-faced. Without missing a beat, Lincoln, who had been mocked his entire life for his ungainly, scarecrow-like appearance in the same way that I just mocked him a few sentences ago, whoops...

ANYWAY.

Lincoln turned to Douglas and went, “Honestly, if I were two-faced, would I be showing you this one?”

And then the audience did this:

And then Lincoln was like:

Check. Mate.

3. That time he was so strong and such a good wrestler that nobody messed with him.

When I say “wrestler,” what do you think of?

Is it this?

Maybe this?

What about this?

Huh? What’s that you say? “What the hell is...is that Lincoln? What...what the hell is Lincoln doing in a list of wrestlers?

“Um,” I answer, “Being a wrestler.”

Because Abraham Lincoln, 6′ 4″ and all of 150-something pounds, was, in fact, an incredibly talented wrestler.

So talented, in fact, that when it came to wrestling matches, he went undefeated for most of his life.

See, Lincoln grew up in the middle of butt crack-nowhere, out in the sticks of the American frontier. Ain’t no room for sissies out on the frontier. This here’s hard-scrabble country, see, rough-livin’; you gotta spit to live; you gotta live to spit; Neosporin? I think you mean weak-ass bitch cream.

So how did rootin’ tootin’ frontier folk blow off steam? Well, when they weren’t dying of dysentery or tuberculosis or minor infections that could today be cured by steady application of Neosporin, they were wrasslin’. And when it came to the act of picking someone up and throwing them back down, nobody wrestled like 21-year-old Abraham Justine Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name.)

One look at the guy and people were like, “The hell? What’s this ancient Egyptian mummy doing in the ring?”

But the second he got going, everyone shut up. Because this guy was nuts. He was a berserker. He could defeat a guy three times his size in seconds. He could bench the Rock, probably, and not even break a sweat.

He was the nicest guy in town. But nobody--and I mean nobody--messed with Abraham Ashley Lincoln.

(Not his real middle name).

One time, Jack Armstrong, the local heavyweight champion who was the Big Bad in town and undefeated in the wrestling and “I’m a giant asshole who smashes my way through problems” arena, challenged Lincoln to a match.

“Uh oh,” everyone in the little town of New Salem, Illinois thought, “That’s it for ol’ Twig Legs Abe. He might be good, but there’s no way he can defeat Jack Armstrong. Nice knowing you, kid; it’s a shame, because you might have made a solid president.”

But Lincoln, who knew no fear and ate chains forged in the heart of a dwarven cavern for breakfast, was like, “Bring it on, bitch.”

Above: Playin’ with the boys.

Jack and Abe started sparring and Jack threw insult after insult Abe’s way. I don’t know exactly what Jack said, but it was probably the 19th century equivalent of, “You may have 2,300 Facebook friends but nobody cares about the pictures of your homemade Shake ‘N Bake chicken that you post, eggwad.”

Abe didn’t relent.

See, he was getting angry.

Really angry.

So angry, in fact, that in one fell swoop, he suddenly slammed big Jack Armstrong to the ground so hard that Armstrong passed out, cold.

Abe had won. Everyone stared at the panting, growling, 6′4″ pine tree man in reverent awe.

A fun epilogue to this story: after Jack Armstrong recovered from getting his ass handed to him by a guy who looked like an extra in a movie about the Amish, he and Abe remained steadfast buddies for the rest of their lives.

Jack just never ever insulted Abraham Jessica Lincoln again.

(Not his real middle name.)

4. The (many) times he went off into long, rambling stories during Cabinet meetings to illustrate a point.

You know how grandma and grandpa sometimes go off on tangents and you’re like, “okay, okay, get to the point.”

But grandma and grandpa don’t even respond and just keep talking about that one time in 1953 that Anne-Marie told George that no, she hadn’t gone to the corner store, why do you keep asking, George? And then I said to George, I said, George, you need to listen to Anne-Marie because she knows that the corner store is the only one in town that sells fresh-laid eggs and Butterick circle skirt patterns, but did he listen? Did he listen to me? No, he didn’t, so I went to---

You get it.

So did every single member of Lincoln’s cabinet. Because Lincoln was a consummate storyteller, for better or for worse.

(Sometimes for worse, depending on who you asked.)

Above: “One time, at band camp...”

Lincoln would interrupt important meetings about, you know, saving the Union and the soul of the country itself with anecdotes that started something like this:

Lincoln: You know, Sec. Stanton, that reminds me of a fur-trapper I knew back in Illinois--

Stanton: Great, except, Mr. President, everyone is dying--

Lincoln: Now this here fur trapper was the best fur trapper in the entire state. Not the entire country, mind you, on account of we didn’t really have a way of measuring fur-trapping skills nationwide--

Stanton: *neck turning purple* Mr. President--

Lincoln:--but definitely the best fur trapper in Illinois. Now one day, this fur trapper set out to do what he did best: shoot some raccoons, or maybe a bear, or a wolf if he was lucky, or a deer, or some moose, or a beaver, or a mongoose, or maybe a possum--

Stanton: OH MY GOD--

Lincoln:--or a cat, if times were desperate, but not a dog, never a dog, because this here fur trapper loved dogs; had six of ‘em himself, all hound dogs, loyal to a fault, see, because this here fur trapper--

Stanton: JUST STOP--

Lincoln: --this here fur trapper could be short-sighted. See, he set his sights one day on shooting the biggest bear in the mountains--and this bear, why, this here bear was a Goliath of a bear, the biggest bear anyone ever did see, the biggest bear in the state; not the biggest bear in the country, mind you, on account of we didn’t have a way of comparing bear sizes nationwide, but--

You get the gist.

Above: “So I’m sitting there, barbecue sauce on my tiddies--”

Eventually, Lincoln would get to the point of his story; in this example, for...um, example...maybe the moral was, “Don’t get so focused on one goal (shooting that big bear) that you loose sight of other objectives in the war (getting rid of the wolf pack killing all the sheep or whatever).”

I would like to explain to you why telling long, rambling grandpa stories was such a power move:

Abe Lincoln was the president.

So his whole Cabinet had to listen.

And Abe Lincoln knew it.

They had to listen to this backwoods guy go on and on about how that one time the local long boatsman fell into the river actually serves as a metaphor for Gen. McClellan’s inability to take control of the troops; or how the rabid raccoon that lived in the local blacksmith’s shop can serve as a metaphor for acting too hastily when trying to take down the South.

Or, like, whatever.

Above: “All here in favor of me performing the entirety of Les Mis starring me as everyone, raise your hands.”

Apparently, Lincoln was also the kind of storyteller who, if there was a funny punchline at the end, took forever to get to the punch line because he’d start laughing hysterically at his own joke, and while many people thought it was incredibly endearing, others were like, “Boy, I wonder what it would be like if I dumped this entire fucking bottle of ink over the president’s head to get him to shut the fuck up.”

Spoiler alert: Lincoln did not, in fact, shut the fuck up. He was determined to teach folks a lesson through the the power of storytelling and also to help break the tension of a legitimately horrible war with the power of laughter.

Monopolizing the conversation to prove a point with anecdotes about frontier living that no one can escape?

Power. Move.

5. Those times he let his kids run amok in the White House and thought it was hilarious.

Lincoln had a four kids, all boys, who moved into the White House after he was elected president.

And these boys were little terrors.

To be fair, a vast majority of boys are terrors. Kids are terrors. They are small harbingers of chaos and discord with little regard for their fellow humans, which means they fit right in in the White House EYYYY POLITICAL COMMENTARY.

But Lincoln’s kids, apparently, were especially out of control.

Above: “Alright, enough pussy-footin’ around, Pops, fork over the dough and no one gets a kick in the nuts.”

Lincoln adored his boys, partly because he was a good dad and partly because he’d already had one child die tragically, so understandably, he was like, “Life is short and antibiotics haven’t been invented yet so we’re all going to die from getting paper cuts, probably; I’m just gonna let my boys do whatever the hell they want.”

And he kind of...did.

Willie and Tad Lincoln, his two youngest, brought tons of pets into the White House. Dogs, cats, birds...when people objected, Lincoln just sort of shrugged. He, too, was a huge animal lover and didn’t really care if ponies were clomping around the Oval Office. “My White House, my rules, my indoor ponies.”

The two Lincoln boys would dress up in military uniforms and have fake military drills and stage fake (LOUD) battles all over the White House, including when Dad was in a Cabinet meeting.

What did Dad do, you ask?

Laugh his head off.

While his kids would burst into Cabinet meetings, crawl under the table and kick important Senators’ legs and feet, generally causing a grade-A ruckus, Abe would try and fail to stifle his laughter.

Which, you know. Objectively isn’t the best parenting, but for Pete’s sake, they were at war, can’t they have a little fun? Jesus, lighten up, folks, they’re kids.

The Lincoln boys particularly irritated Sec. of War Edwin Stanton, but to be fair, almost everything irritated Sec. of War Edwin Stanton.

Above: “I have never had fun once, ever, in my life.”

Once again, Lincoln’s rationale was, “Life is fragile, one of my children already died, the country is at war, and kids make me laugh, so if they want to punch Sec. Stanton in the balls under the table, who am I to stop them?”

Also, Lincoln was the president, so nobody thought it was appropriate to go, “Um, hey? Mr.--Mr. President? Maybe you could tell your sons to, you know...not crawl under the table and interrupt, um...important...war strategy meetings?”

ALSO, Lincoln once wrestled a man twice his size to the ground without batting an eyelash, so you go tell him to make his kids behave. I dare you.

#abraham lincoln #listory #american history #us history #u.s. history

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jojal-jojalkorean · 4 years

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💖Introducing New Admins!💖

Hello everyone! 안녕하세요! This is Admin Yu here:D We’re back with more vocabs, grammar lessons, Korean culture and history posts, and most importantly NEW admins! They are all talented and awesome! We’ll try to upload posts more frequently so please stay tuned😉

Admin Na

Grade: 1st grade of high school

Dream job: Reporter

My personality: I’m an ESFJ!

What I usually do in the Jojal-jojal team: I have written posts. Some of you may have already noticed but I'm not really ‘new’ to Jojal-jojal. I’ve been working with Admin Sun, Do, and Yu for the past 5 months and have written posts like ‘Learn Korean with Kdramas’, ‘Learn Korean with Songs’, ‘Dalgona Coffee’ etc(I hope you enjoyed them:D). And also I am planning to record all of Jojal-jojal’s activities and manage the attendance/budget of the blog.

Favorite Subject: My favorite subject is English and Korean! Also, I’m totally into biology these days, too.

Things I like: I’m a big fan of IU. I enjoy watching Kdramas starring IU(You should definitely watch ‘Hotel Deluna’ it’s so good). My favorite songs are ‘Twenty three’, ‘That was green’, ‘Red Queen’, and ‘glasses’. I like to go to gastroventures and experience delicious new food. I also love to travel! It makes me refresh my mind and helps me release stress. Visiting new places, experiencing new cultures, and meeting new people is always exciting! Since I am a teenager right now, I have restrictions on travelling, but as soon as I become an adult, I want to visit many places I haven't been to.

My hobbies: I really enjoy reading both Korean and English novels. They make me think about stuff I would never even get interested in, let me feel a lot of emotions, and they also teach me a lot, too. (Sometimes I write them myself although it's terrible😂)

Random facts about me:

It’s almost 12 a.m. right now in Korea, but I’m wide awake, introducing myself to you guys.:D

I used to be able to speak only in English accent when I was little, but now I can speak in both English and American since most of the people here speak in an American accent.

As I said, I really love to travel, and the place where I most want to go is Venecia.

I suck at Dynamics.. wonder how science could be super interesting and hard at the same time.

Stay safe everyone

Admin Hyun

Grade: Highschool 1st grade

Dream job: Nurse or a School-nurse

My personality: INFJ

What I usually do in the Jojal-jojal team: I usually write posts and I’m in charge of the overall financial.

Favorite Subject: I like science and art!

Things I like (My interests): I love fantasy novels and movies. Especially ‘Harry Potter’. I am also interested in earth science and chemistry. I like to learn about stars, planets, and the galaxy. And psychology is one of my favorite areas.

My hobbies: My hobby is listening to music and taking a nap(when I am little bit tired)

Random facts about me:

I love pop musics. My favorite singer is Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift!

My dreams are not really decided yet, so it often changes. But right now I want to be a nurse :)

If one day I can go to the U.S., I really want to visit Disneyland and Universal studios!!

Admin Ju

Grade: first grade of high school

Dream job: accountant

My personality: ESFT-T

What I usually do in the jojal-jojal team: I usually write posts and am in change of technical work. Besides, l am a blog management. I am freshman of this team. So, I'm going to learn hard from predecessors and try to provide more various posts for you!

Favorite subject: My favorite subject is PE (physical education).

Things I like: My interest is movies that contain the history of Korea. They are more interesting for me rather than I learned the history of Korea. Because history movies are more deeper and vivider than history that I learned at school. Sometimes I was empathized the movie, so I cried many times. Maybe, If you are interested in the history of Korea, I recommend you movies like 항거(A resistance), 암살(assassination), 명량(Roaring currents) , 대장 김창수(Man of will), 택시운전사(A taxi driver), and 천문(Forbidden Dream).

My hobbies: My hobby is reading novels. Especially, I like reading romance novels.

Random facts about me:

I didn’t go to the school because of COVID- 19. So, I am getting fat because I stayed at home and ate a lot.

Now, I make up my mind to exercise. But, I have been on a diet for 10 years just by words. :D

My nickname is water tap because I cry when I watch a sad movie and my friend cries.

Admin Kyung

Grade: 1st in high school

Dream job: I don’t have a specific dream job, but I want to become a person who do what I want.

My personality: I am ISFP. I think my MBTI is very suitable for me.

What I usually do in the Jojal-jojal team: My role is to uproad posts on queue. I write some posts. And I answer the questions people ask of us.

Favorite Subject: My favorite subject is music. i like singing and listening to music. My favorite music are SHINee’s Dream Girl and ONF’s New World.

Things I like (My interests): I love The Boyz who is an idol group of Korea. They sing well. My favorite The Boyz’s songs are water and Right here. My favorite member is Sunwoo, and he is very cute.

My hobbies: I like singing music. And I also like to fill coloring book. But I am so lazy that I have never finished coloring books.

Random facts about me:

My height is 168. I think I am tall, but I want to have short height. Because I think the most ideal height is 165.

I want to travel all around the world before I die.

Admin Hee

Grade : 1st grade of Highschool

Dream job : My dream job hasn’t been decided yet. But I’m thinking of going to psychology or something related to overseas. Actually, there are many jobs I’m curious about. A flight attendant, interpreter etc.

Personality : ISFJ!!

What I usually do in the Jojal-jojal team : I’m going to write some posts from now on. Look forward to it!! I’m also going to answer some questions.

Favorite Subject : My favorite subject is English and bioscience. I think studying in New Zealand is the main reason why I started to like English.

Things I like : I like watching movies. I really enjoyed ‘The Avengers’ , ‘Maze runner’. I also like to hang out with my friends. When I’m bored or when I have nothing to do sometimes I call my friends. I really like talking and spending times with people. It happens in foreign countries too! When I travel, I like to talk with foreigners, new people.

My hobbies : My hobby is listening to music. I don’t really care about the genre of the music. I usually enjoy listening K-pop, Pop songs. My favorite singers are BTS, Lauv and The weeknd! I’m still waiting for their new songs~!

Random facts about me :

I really want to visit Switzerland someday!!

I like to eat ( pizza, pasta, ice flakes etc.)

I want to become an international couple

I’m very active. Like dancing, singing, walking around~

Admin Sung

Grade: 1st grade of highschool

Dream job: pharmaceutical-related occupation (for example pharmacist)

My personality: I’m ISFJ. I think it's quite consistent with me.

What I usually do in the Jojal-jojal team: I’m going to manage financial part of Jojal-jojal team with our team member. Also answering to what you guys ask us is one of my roles.

Favorite Subject: My favorite subject is Korean, especially grammar part. I wish I could enjoy writing grammar posts.

Things I like (My interests): These days, I love going school ! After almost half years of house cock life, I really wanted to go school. When I met my friends at school, I was so happy :D Other than this, I like watching movie at the movie theater. It helps me to refresh and keep having positive energy.

My hobbies: In my free time, I enjoy looking around Instagram. Instagram gives me a big fun and huge amount of information and tips. For the rest of the time, I just prefer sleeping to restore energy.

Random facts about me:

I like color ‘purple’. So I enjoy using purple pen and highlighter !

I tend to listen one song over and over again when I am hooked on something. What I listen to these days is ‘Aloha’ sung by Jo Jung-seok.

Admin Seo

Grade: I am a first grader

Dream job: I don’t have a dream job yet

My personality: My M.B.T.I test results are INTP-T

What I usually do in the Jojal-jojal team: What I’m mainly going to do in the JoJal-JoJal team is designing

Favorite Subject: My favorite subject is physics, geo-science, and art

Things I like (My interests): What I like doing is reading fiction books (Eragon, The gods of Olympus, This book is not good for you, the magic Thief, odyssey, and more) or reading webtoons. I also like playing games.

My hobbies: My hobbies are playing badminton talking or messaging with friends watching movies

Random facts about me

I’m the only boy in the JoJal-JoJal team

I like physics but I suck at math

I lived in Israel for 4and a half years

I haven’t read the Harry Potter series

-Edited by Admin Yu

#new admins #Admin Na #Admin Hyun #Admin Ju #Admin Kyung #Admin Hee #Admin Sung #Admin Seo #intro #한국어 #korean #langblr

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 5 years

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Mount Everest Ain’t Got Shit On Us (Fezco x fem!reader, Part 2.)

Description: You were always told that your life will be as you wish it to be if you’ll study enough. That it will pay off if you work hard. And some people were given you like the scary example of what will happen when you don’t obey. But sometimes it feels good to disobey.

A/N: I think we found the right ground for this... Something (it ain't one shot but I don't know if we can call it series either, we'll see). I like to start with something like Rue did - a bit of narrating and then slowly slipping into the "episode". Let me know if something will not add up for you, ok?

Word count: 2.5 K

Warnings: Mentions of anxiety and drug addiction, strong LBGT themes, age gap, Rue's maniac/bipolar episodes. The normal things.

Masterlist and declaration: H E R E

Sometimes the feeling of not belonging somewhere grows over your head so much that you actually feel like you don't belong anywhere, to no one. That you don't even have a place to come back to. It is scary to go through a place alone when all those people look at you because they see for the first time. It feels like they are whispering things about you, that they are laughing at you and you can feel the anxiety inside of you growing.

It hurts. It hurts so much that you just want to crawl onto the toilette cab, sit there and cry to your own knees until it's over.

Those shared looks judging your appearance, your looks, your make-up or your old favorite shoes. Those are the things that slowly kills you from the inside.

The people smoke there even tho they shouldn't, snorting because of some jokes, looking all cool and chilled and for you, it is a walk of shame. Your head is kept down and you continue to the building at a quick pace, hoping that you will not be too exciting for them. And it doesn't matter if it's a new workplace, new school or a new home for seniors for that matter. It's the same over and over again.

A neverending cycle.

To find the office where you had to pick up the paperwork that needed to be done and taking your schedule was probably the hardest thing you have ever done. It felt almost impossible. The crowd and groups of people your age took you from one side of the building to the another and you felt so lost. Like never before.

The door finally appeared after first class already started. When you slowly stepped into that small room, you looked like a mess. It was a small room with one window, it's walls were calmingly green and the pictures and motivational posters with kittens made you grin.

An old lady smiled at you from behind the desk. She appeared to be a kind person. It comforted you a bit, sitting in her office, looking her to her hazel-brown eyes with the last bit of confidence you were able to find somewhere inside of you.

“So you are new here, I see, I see.” - Mrs. Smith told you when she prepared the papers for your parents to sign up and printed you your own class schedule. Her heart-shaped face lit up with a smile when she leaned closer to you. - “Don't worry about being late. No one showed you around and you could find me anyway. It is totally fine if you will be lost in this building for the first couple of days, sweetie. You need to learn a lot.” - Her fingers patted your wrists knitted together tightly. You accidentally exhaled out loud because you held your breath again, smiling at her lazily.

“Hope that the professors won't be mad.” - A giggle came out of your mouth and Mrs. Smith stood up to brew you some tea.

“You can be here for until the end of your first class if you’re so scared. You seem to be feeling uncomfortable, am I right?” - She gave you the cup, sugar to add-in and a cookie. Your head nodded. - “I am a granny of two, I can sense when you don’t feel good."

A couch in the corner was the place you chose to chill at. You sat in a small ball there with your knees crossed over each other, your earbuds plugged into the small jack on the top of your phone and sometimes you sipped a bit of the tea.

The feeling of melancholy took over you as you went through the new post on Instagram made by people who you were used to seeing daily. Once again, you felt like you didn't belong to that place, like on a short trip to Disneyland. But this trip was permanent. And the harder the reality dropped on your shoulders, the worse you felt.

You couldn't say that you hate this whole place. You liked it, it was a normal city, normal neighborhood, nothing too weird. But that little worm of knowing that you're not at home anymore was keeping that feeling alive. For a few moments, your eyes and your mind drifted away into a place far away in your head.

The bell-ringing was a sound you almost welcomed. It brought you back to reality, leaving Mrs. Smith's little office. It made your mind occupied with different things, your nose shoved into the piece of paper with the schedule. Mrs. Smith was kind enough to print you a map of the school and gave you how you should go. That was a thing that made you smile. Kindness. Random kindness from a woman who saw a strange girl for the first time. It was her job most probably but you were thankful for it either way.

Sometimes all of us feel like a hero of a novel or a movie. The days slowly become on a long, neverending surreal piece of art as the faces and colors mash up into one painting. Your mind seems to be too occupied to actually take notice of something. Too occupied to take a hold of itself and you drift away into places far, far away.

You couldn't seem to remember or recall a single word the teachers have said to you. And they seemed to ignore you as well, it was like a symbiosis. Why should they be excited about you? A new face in the crowd was not that interesting to ask for a name. It was just one face between many ones. Why should they care? Your face wasn't anything that has the power to change the whole world. Or your name.

First moments you actually took notice of were when you made it to the cafeteria. Nobody looked at you anymore. You just took your plate and ordered some food like a normal student.

A table in the back of the cafeteria felt ideal for you. You sat there with your lunch and ate, just watching the others and looking though your notebooks and what have you written down. To your surprise, your hand wrote automatically for you and there were truly some pieces of information written down in your typical messy handwriting.

"Hey, loser. Why you're alone?" - A girl's voice asked you in a cocky manner. At first, you thought that it's finally here - your first bully. But when your eyes found her face, she seemed to be strangely kind with a cocky smile and raised eyebrows. Messy brown curls framed her face while her skin had the color of darkened caramel. Your clothing style was really similar - but her Converse shoes were all tied up and not torn.

She had a tall girl next to her. Her make-up was heavy, her hair was a color extravaganza and her clothing style reminded you of anime cosplay and San Diego's comic con. Her skin was almost white, Albin-ish or what. Something made her really pretty. Whether it was her large nose or her eyes, you couldn't tell. But she seemed nice, her presence felt nice as well even tho you saw her for the first time ever. Her lips were giving you a graceful smile, she rolled her eyes at the brunette's questions and then she pinned her eyes on you.

"Fuckin' hell, I'm just kiddin', girl. You're lookin' all like holy shit I'm busted, like in the series about that cheating bastards. Oh man, you should see yourself. But you're sitting at our table." - The brunette said less cockily and more jokingly, slowly sitting down with her food.

"Does that mean I should leave?" - Your voice trembled and you sound panicked. Brunette took a good, long look at you and the other girl sat next to her.

"Of course you can stay! Don't be angry about Rue. She's a pain in the ass when she has her episodes. Right now, we're in the manic phase so she won't shut up. And she has mean comments that don't make sense most of the tomes." - The girl with pretty the make-up offered her hand for a handshake and you accepted it. - "Name's Jules by the way. That's Rue." - Just as Jules said Rue's name, Rue managed to pull of Eminem's old rapping pose from one of his album covers and nodded at you with a weird cocky smile.

"Wazzup', newbie?" - Rue said with a high laugh while Jules looked like she's about to kill her in the next few moments.

"I'm Y/N." - You said quietly and Jules let go of your hand.

"Ya all brand new out 'ere, aren't ya?" - Rue entwined her fingers on the table and you looked you dead in the eye, being serious all of a sudden. Like a detective. -"She thinks she's like Morgan Freeman or what when she has her phases. A detective or what." - Jules laughed.

"But Morgan Freeman is the man, Jules. Just the man. He's all cool and shit." - Rue laughed at her. Those two seemed to be a funny pair of... Friends? A couple? You couldn't tell. They acted like friends, but they looked at each other with tender smiles. You could only guess.

“What did bring you this part of the world? Adventure or lousy parents?” - Jules gave you a slight smirk and playfully raised her eyebrows.

“Dads work brought us here. But I and my siblings are kinda cool about all of that. We can have a new experience.” - You shrugged your eyebrows and took a bite of your sandwich.

“If you're looking for a drug paradise, ya are right where ya wanted to be, whaddayasay?” - Rue wiggled her eyebrows and opened her yogurt, sticking her spoon inside of it, drolling some pills into the vanilla pudding with her long, delicate yet strong fingers. Your eyes instantly popped out and your it almost fell out as you watched the pills.

“What. The. Hell?” - You squealed in a high pitched tone and rose her eyebrows, asking you about what is the matter.

“I have BPAD, what did ya expect, man? This is the better way to take the medication. Ya want me to gulp all of it or what?” - Rue said in a joking tone, she was ironic, but she gave you that addict look.

“Trust me, I searched through her bag. This is really only the medication for her BD. It's cool. No drugs.” - Jules assured you. You nodded slowly with a frown on your face. Could Rue had some history with addiction? Or what was Jules talking about? You watched the way Rue slowly mixed her pudding.

“Just the way I love it.” - Rue hummed happily with her eyes closed. She had a tired look on her face, the bags under her eyes made her gaze look more devilish and her cheeks were too sharp. But she had a beautiful mouth and full lips.

“If you don't mind a pair of weirdos as your friends, we agreed we could make a trio out of our duo. But we are something between girlfriends and friends so I just want to warn before any weird situations happen.” - Jules put her head on Rue's shoulder and smiled happily.

“After ten minutes you know me? Wow, that was a quick one.” - You joked and Rue pointed on you with her spoon.

“Ten minutes is everything you need to know if a person is a dickhead - trust me, I would know if you're a super dickhead. Ya seem to be cool.” - Rue winked. Was the situation that bad in here? Just ten minuted to know if a person is a dickhead? That was something.

So what was in stock for you? An ex-junkie with a BPAD and an all-anime-about girl who looked like a colorful extravaganza. Better than a jock with his nose rose up and an attitude of a dickhead or a chick with anorexia you thought to yourself. As always you were lost in your head for a moment - thinking about Rue's disorder. They told you that Rue is in her manic state, how was she like during her depression moments? Will it be alright?

“Okay. Cool.” - You said in the end. New people and new friends, just as your older sis said. It felt really cool.

“Welcome to the losers club.” - Rue winked at you playfully.

At three p.m. Fran waited on you and your brother in the car. You stuck with Rue and Jules for the rest of your day, Rue's manic ass making you laugh all day. You didn't find her bickering and manic shit annoying at all, you laughed at it a lot actually. Both of you walked you back to your sister's car, do not letting your anxiety get over your head.

“See ya tomorrow, the new one.” - Rue giggled and threw her hand over her girlfriend's shoulder and brought her closer to her small, thin body, hugging her tightly.

“See you tomorrow, guys.” - You smiled and crawled into Fran's car. Your sis was smiling at you proudly, waving to Rue and Jules. You could feel that Fran is excited about that. You lean from the car's window and waved at them excitedly. Rue was dramatic, holding her entwined palms on her chest, sending you some kisses and pretending to cry.

“I told you, shithead. You have friends! Nice!” - Fran patted your upper thigh and grinned in front of you. You two took the same route you took on your way to school.

The gas station came up to your sight quicker than it did before. Nobody was there this time - no smoking boy with a blue design t-shirt and jeans hugging his upper thigs. The spot which came significant to you that morning was empty now, no boy in your sight.

“What you're lookin' at, shithead? Some magical place you're searching for? You did the exact same thing in the morning.” - Fran told you quietly, lighting up her cigarette before mom could see her smoking.

“Nothing. Let it be.” - You smiled at her shily and sat back to your seat.

The feelings of loneliness can be a long time thing. But sometimes, just sometimes and when you are really lucky, someone can show you wour place and make you feel like someone cares about you. You can meet new, special people who take you as you are.

And when you are this lucky, nothing can be better than that. But not to give you false promises - it isn't a thing that does happen every time.

#fezco x reader #fezco #fezco euphoria #fezco hbo #euphoria hbo #rue bennett #jules euphoria #fezco imagine

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