#good news we found out which program my wife matched into

[kirby-the-gorb]

#kirby #daily kirby #my art #digital #hal laboratory #nintendo #good news we found out which program my wife matched into #and it's the geographically closest one that my partner didn't outright refuse to move to 👍 #so not only will she be easier to visit and have an easier time visiting us #(I can actually be driven out there instead of having to fly which would be Very Unsafe) #but we may not be living apart for the entire 4 years either #so that's nice :) #(she also likes the program for its own merits) #(these are just the benefits for me lol)

[shanepatricklagrange]

These Violent delights leads to violent ends

Such Violent Delight Often Leads to Violent Ends

By Shane Patrick LaGrange

This is dedicated to those greats, which passed to soon.

            Wrestling, it is the age-old combat between gladiators. Good vs Evil. It is a violent world abet staged, but we the fans love it. 

            The square circle is their domain. Frequently, a myriad of guests appeared on the program. Curley of the Three Stooges, The Muppets to SNL’s Collin Josh. In case things went off script as they often do (That is how the conflict begins). To do this, I imagine celebrity guest must sign a form saying they will not sue. This lets the promoter knows, sure, hit me with a metal chair and put that Stank into it. Yesh, I would love to be face planted into the mat by Alexa Bliss. I would decline (not a fan of immense pain). Heaven help me if Rhea Ripley steps into the ring

            Of course, not all, ninety- eight percent of wrestlers passed away to do organ failure or brain injury, or disease.

            Browsing through various Wikipedia, wrestlers to follow on Instagram, I came across Nancy Benoit. I was saddened to hear about her sudden death. To countless fans, she was Fallen Angel. To others, Jenny Green aka the enigmatic Woman. These names are symbolic, as the harbinger of Kevin Sullivan. Where she went Sullivan was not far behind.

            She was found dead, in her home. Both her and her son, both strangled. The crime was presented over her husband: Chris Beloit but alter waiting for his crimes in jail, decided to commit suicide.

I and my wife are huge wrestling. It started with Mid-South wrestling back in 1986.with Cowboy Bill Watts. This was my Saturday morning. No theatrics. Just guys beating the snot out of each other. Great strategy having them come out, so the channel will not be changed. I watch through TNT Nitro and the Nitro Girls. Yes, I know it is staged except where the belts are concern;  then it was every man for himself or women as it is now. Thanks to the Bella twins for the rise in woman power, and not being the arm candy or ego strokers.

It got me thinking. Wrestling, like all contact sports is violent. Any type of sport event is going to be. Football for example back in the 60s and 70s, when Linebackers were assassins, and bonuses were poured out to players that took someone out like the Quarterback out for a season of two. Even though it is illegal, I can catch one or two being suitable about it.

This is my ode for some of the more violent ways, they died.

Janet Wolfe. Born 1933-1951. Her cause of death: in a match with Ella Walddek, was body slammed so viciously to the mat, it caused a ruptured vein in her stomach. She collapsed to the ring mat, later that night. Her death caused by a brain hemorrhage, and on 4am July thirty-eight., she passed away at the early age of eighteen.

Owen Hart is the most tragic death. Trying the TNT’s argument with Flair and the New World Order, trying a Sting like maneuver where he would drop down holding a baseball bat, the cable snapped, sending falling fifty feet.to the canvas. Below, after attempting a Sting like move, where he would be lowered via a cable. No one was sure what to make of it;  everyone expected him to slowly get up. He died on the spot, and thanks to Jim Ross, the family launched a suit, receiving eighteen million for her and her son.

Christopher Barton Von Erich. Otherwise known as Chris Von Erich of the high flying Von Erich family. Trained by the legendary Fritz Von Eric himself, he died by a self-inflicted gunshot to the head after learning of the unfortunate demise of his brother, Mike Von Erich in 1987. November thirtieth, He was shot in Baltimore. Shot to death by an angry husband (see expose in Hustler Magazine.2008), that Chis was seeing.

JYD-The Junk Yard Dog otherwise known as Sylvester Ritter, he always entered the ring with his signature chains and dog collar, an incredible athlete, JYD passed away from a single car accident, June 1st. Most notably, he became the First Black wrestler, to be make top star of wrestling. Never one to bring in someone new to get rid of a group, JYD went off against rule -breaking Michael Hayes. Finally, the Freebirds splashed hair cream in JYD’s face blinded him. Later, in a steel cage match, still blinded, he and Michael “P S “squared off. Hayes never one to read the contract being more in interested in the money and video’s, it was easy to slip in a “Ringer,” like Thunderbolt Patterson.

Chris Adams. He was best known as the Gentlemen Wrestler. In April 2000, he, and his girlfriend, was found inside a friend’s apartment. Overdose on GHB and alcohol. He (Chris Adams), recovered, but Linda Kaphengst died at the hospital ten hours later. Chris was arrested and indicted. On a manslaughter charges, for the death of Kaphengst. In October 2001, while awaiting trial, he was fatally shot in the chest during a drunkard brawl with Brent “Booray” Parnell. The gun owner claimed self-defense and was acquitted of all charges.

Wrestling star, Joan Marie Laurer or best known as, Chyna  ; On April twentieth, 2016, was found dead in her Redondo Beach, California in April. She was forty-six. Anthony Anzaido, her manager, becoming concern after the superstar was not into her social Media outlet. Went to see in her apartment. The cause of death was eighter drugs or natural causes.

Ms. Elizbeth and Randy “Macho Man” Savage, secretly married to the soft-spoken woman. Randy Savage was a man I considered to be wound tighter than a Swiss watch. He died while suffering a heart attack and ran his car onto a tree. Elizabeth Ann Hulette aka the beautiful Leggy reserved and soft-spoken Ms. Elizabeth. She was also ringside along with Savage while he partnered up with Hulk Hogan to face Andrea the Giant and Ted Debase. Ms. Elizabeth ripped her skirt revealing her panties. Distracting The Giant which gave Hogan and Savage enough time to gain their breath. Her Siren come hither Helen of Troy looks, caused many a feud between George: The Animal” Steele, Honky Tonk man, and Ric Flair.

In conclusion, not all wrestlers perished by those other means, discussed, with several, it was plain natural cause or unknown cause of death.

Tired of the numerous storylines, I took a break from the sport. Especially after TNT’s New World Order and The Powers that be.

Today’s superstars, their life in the squared circle, is just as touchy. Such names as John Moxley, Judgement Day, Ronda Rousey, Liv Morgan, Damage Control and Roman Reign” Acknowledge Me!! “(To name a few). Ladder matches, the I quit, Their in-squared life more brutal. More impulsively, not so much the billions of storylines (exaggerated). It is still that battle over titles. Interference in matches, retaliation backstage, that fans tune into.

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ starting prompt: “Everything changed for me when I met her... My Beloved.”

♡ pairing: yandere! damian wayne (Robin) & fem reader

♡ lyric inspiration: “imagine me and you? I do. I think about day and night, it’s only right, to think about the girl you love and hold her tight. so happy together.” 

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / in this AU everyone in the batfamily is a yandere and probably has a darling so yeah.

Gotham Academy, for the wealthy and elite one might say. you were one of the lucky ones who got accepted through their scholarship programs and busted your ass off to keep your grades up all years. 

you had very few friends considering most Academy students hardly interacted those who they deemed poor. one friend you did have though was the Wayne heir himself. Damian was one of the first to introduce himself to you when you first arrived to Gotham Academy and really remained your friend throughout the years. 

the fresh morning air blew in the wind, making you pull your jacket closer to you as you tried to find warmth in it. the jackets they provided for your uniform were extremely thin and hardly held in any kind of heat. 

“hey! I think the Wayne kid is looking for you!” you heard your friend, Reagan tell you, “he’s waiting for you at the central garden!” you gave him a smile, thanking him for letting you know before running to where Damian usually was in the morning. 

your mornings with Damian, when he would attend school, would start with him bringing you your favorite coffee and switching homework assignments. 

unlike Damian, you were usually better in courses that had to do with humanities, such as history and english courses and you lacked the smarts that Damian had with science and math courses so the two of you would swap homework first thing in the morning. 

“good morning Wayne,” you said, sitting down on the bench. he handed you his coffee, blowing it to make sure it wasn’t too hot, “good morning, beloved. how did you sleep?” he asked, making sure your eye bags weren’t too harsh. 

you shrugged, “I’m okay. just stressed because of midterms and all of that. how did you sleep?” you asked, taking a sip of coffee. “great considering we fell asleep on Facetime together,” he mentioned, “I did the ap calc homework that you can finally copy!” he added on. 

Damian handed you the calc homework as he watched you scribble down the answers. he noticed that you had painted your nails a new color and touched the polish with his finger, “baby blue? that’s new,” he murmured. you nodded happily, “I love this color on me. I even brought color with me in case it chipped throughout the day!” you exclaimed. 

you showed him the bottle and he grabbed it, “put it on me,” you were taken back by the request. you didn’t take Damian was the kind of guy to dabble in wearing polish but nevertheless complied and put the polish on it before grabbing his hand and blowing on it to make it dry quicker, “I didn’t know you wore nail polish!” you mentioned. 

Damian thought for a moment. 

“I don’t but that way people will know we’re matching,” he murmured as the warning bell rang off. 

you and Damian walked slowly to your first period class. the summer going into your Senior year, Damian made it a duty of his to make sure that the two of you shared the same classes. so without you knowing, he had Tim hack into the Gotham Academy school system and pull Damian onto the rosters where you were enrolled in. 

you found the similarities to be funny, however; some of the teachers wondered how the hell they put the two of you in every class together. some didn’t care considering you were able to keep Damian from saying smart shit to someone in class and others were just weirded out by the coincidence. 

“god, I hate this class. you know Matt who sits in front of the class? I have to swear some gross comment about how great my legs look in the uniform by him at least twice every day.” 

Damian’s eye twitched at what you had said, “does it bother you?” he asked, his fist clenched. you nodded annoyingly, “more than anything in the world. I can’t go one day without hearing the comments,” you groaned. 

the two of you got to class but as you walked in, you had saw that Matt wasn’t in class and sighed in relief. Damian had told you he was running off to the bathroom before class started and just to write down whatever he missed while he was gone. 

you sat down, immediately writing what was already on the board but as the class started, Damian still hadn’t shown up. you were beginning to think that maybe the coffee had upset his stomach but about half way through the class, Damian came and plopped down at his desk. 

“where were you? Jackson nearly had a fit because you were late!” you muttered to him. he shrugged, taking out his pen and notebook before leaning over to copy what you had on yours.

it took about another twenty minutes when another teacher ran into the class frantically, “Matthew Harrison was just found in the garden, unconscious and is barely hanging onto his life!” the teacher told your teacher, making all of you gasp in surprise, “call an ambulance!” 

you stared to Damian wide eyed, “my God, that’s insane! we were just there. I wonder who did it,” you told Damian, chewing your lip nervously, “I hope whoever did it doesn’t come for any of us.”

Damian could tell you were scared from the news and he quickly grabbed your hand, “I think you’re safe, beloved. you shouldn’t worry about it,” he assured you. you nodded, going back to writing down the notes, “hey, he finally got what he deserved for harassing you, right?” Damian mentioned. 

you laughed shaking your head, “I guess but I mean, I hope he doesn’t die or anything,” that was the last thing you said before the both of you got to working on the work the teacher assigned for the class while she was gone.

Damian could tell you were shaken by the news but at the end of the day, he did what he had to do. someone was harassing his beloved and he’d be damned if they got away with it. it took every ounce of self restriction to stop himself from actually killing the idiot but the beating he actually gave him did more than enough to satisfy him for the time being.

two broken legs, a broken nose, and making him go blind in one eye was more than enough. the great thing about Gotham Academy was that because of how old the building was, cameras weren’t installed anywhere outside and any cameras that were inside were just in the upgraded part of the school which happened to be the front of the school and the gym. 

the end of the day came as Damian had offered to take you home. you denied the request, telling him you wanted to walk to get some fresh air before you trapped yourself in your room for the rest of the night. 

Damian was hesitant on letting you but at the end of the day, you weren’t his...yet. he knew his feelings for you weren’t exactly normal. far from it, actually. 

when his feelings for you boiled over to damn near obsession, he confided in the one person he trusted the most and that was Dick. he practically confessed how he needed to be near or around you every day or else he would go insane. even if it was just seeing you from afar made his day a 100x better. 

Dick laughed at his brothers confession because he knew it was about time it happened to him. he had gone through the same feelings when he met his now wife and so did Bruce, Tim, Duke, and Jason. 

when Damian was finally confident enough to tell everyone else, they finally let him in on the family secret. these feelings were nothing to be afraid of. he should embrace them and hell, make his feelings get even ‘worse’. it was his job as your protector to feel that way and act on his instincts for you. 

Damian got home, seeing his father and brother watching the news. they were covering what happened at school and a part of him laughed seeing the coverage. 

“did you see what happened?” Dick asked his brother. Damian nodded, kicking off his shoes and laying on the other couch, “of course I did because I was the one who did it,” he said nonchalantly. 

Bruce and Dick stared at him, wide eyed and shocked, “the scum was messing with my beloved. he was making disgusting comments about her and degrading her in a way she and I didn’t like. the piece of shit deserved more than what he got,” he stated, not even bothering to look at them to see their reaction.

“so it’s best we don’t investigate this, I assume?” Bruce asked, “you would assume right,” Damian replied. 

Dick got off the couch and went on one knee to look at his brother, “Damian, you know the implications that comes with how you left him. you know that, right?” he stated. Damian stared at Dick with no fear in his eyes, “everything changed for me when I met her... my beloved. I would kill for her if I had too.” 

Bruce sat in his seat, proudly smirking at what his son said. Dick nodded, walking back to the couch as Damian stood up to go to his bedroom, “it’s only a matter of what before I make her mine so expect her to be around soon enough,” he told them.

+

a few weeks had passed since the incident with your classmate. since then, you had gotten clingier to Damian, not wanting to be at the end of the beating. Daimian had no issue in it, he was practically basking in the touches and side hugs you were giving him. 

you and Damian had decided to head back to his place after school to get some studying done. Friday nights were usually reserved to studying at your place but Damian had offered to make you dinner at his place and study before watching a few movies. 

you had never been over the Wayne manor before and frankly, you were kind of scared to run into his father. THE Bruce Wayne would most likely be in attendance and meeting the most powerful man in Gotham would probably scare anyone. 

Damian unlocked the gate, quickly taking your backpack as you snuggled into his jacket. you were immediately welcomed by his butler, Alfred who offered to put both of you bags in the hallway so no one would step over them. you thanked him profusely, making Damian mutter to you that that’s why he was here. to serve you. 

“so, what would you like to eat, beloved? I can make you anything you desire,” he boasted. you looked at the cookbook that was laid next to you and flipped through the first few pages, “this sounds nice,” you pointed to the plant based steak with veggies.

Damian quickly got to work, making the veggies first as he offered for you taste them every now and again. you would usually relay a kiss on his cheek as he finally got to cooking the steak. you couldn’t help but wonder how he got to be such a great cook, however; as he was finishing plating the food, you saw his father as well as you assumed were his brothers. 

“uh Damian?” you mentioned, pointing to the three men who walked in. Damian sighed knowing that of course his brothers were going to come and annoy him, “who’s your friend?” Dick asked, putting his chin on his hand. 

“this is ( your name ), my beloved,” he told them proudly. you were a bit taken back by the nickname he so easily used on you, “ahh, we’ve heard so much about you,” Tim continued, “she’s so pretty....she’s not like other girls,” Dick mocked. 

your face felt a burning sensation as Bruce told his sons to be quiet, “nice to meet you ( your name ),” Bruce introduced, “welcome to the family,” you barely caught what he said as Damian excused the two of you to go up to his bedroom. 

“your family is...nice,” you tried to say without sounding nervous. Damian rolled his eyes, “they’re bunch of idiots. that’s what they are,” he muttered, not bothering to look back at them. 

once you got to his room, your mouth dropped a bit. you had never seen such a luxurious bedroom before. satin sheets, the coldest pillows, his bedroom could probably house a family if he really wanted too and the fact that this was his bedroom, you were taken back. 

“wow, so this is how the rich and famous live?” you joked, sitting down on his bed. he shook his head, “all this means nothing to me...as long as you’re with me, I’d be the happiest person alive,” you stared at Damian, wondering if what he said was really true. 

the two of you ate, mostly in silence as you tried to take what Damian had said. there had been rumors floating around Gotham Academy that Damian might’ve liked you. you tried to dispel the rumors, claiming that someone like you was no where near Damian’s type but now that you were hearing the words he was telling you, you were more keen on acting on his feelings. 

after finishing dinner, he offered for you to join him on his bed to watch a movie. you had never actually gotten to hang out with Damian outside of school. since you were always so busy doing schoolwork and Damian always had things to take care of, as he put it, you two never relaxed together. 

the aura in the room was cozy as he offered you a very expensive looking blanket to cover you up from the chilly air coming from his window. the movie the two of you picked was some random rom-com, it felt kind of stupid to be watching this kind of movie with Damian but at some point, you stopped paying attention to the movie and looked up to him. 

“did you really mean what you said earlier?” you whispered to him. he gave you a confused look, “of course I did. would I ever lie to you?” he said back, kind of offended that you would even accuse him of lying. 

you sat back up on the bed and turned to fix yourself as you finally gave him a kiss. Damian’s eyes widened, not expecting you to do that to him. regardless, he immediately pulled you on top of him and deepened the kiss by pushing you up against him. 

Damian slid his hands in the back pocket of your skirt, finding it a bit confusing why the uniforms even had pockets on the skirts. he gripped your ass a bit, making you moan in surprise as Damian tried his hardest to contain himself but failing as he slipped his tongue into yours. 

the two of you remained kissing for what felt like hours. you knew your lips were bound get bruised from the amount of tugging Damian was doing but by the time you pulled away, you could see the faintest of blushes appearing on Damian’s brown skin. 

“wow, didn’t know you felt like that for me,” you muttered shyly. Damian chuckled, giving you a quick peck, “I have feelings you wouldn’t even begin to understand but one day....one day you will,” he replied. 

you didn’t pay no mind to his reply as he had brought you down for another kiss. what you didn’t catch was the smirk playing on his face. he knew that once graduation came, there would already be a ring on that left ring finger and soon enough, you’d be baring his heirs. 

the Wayne’s got what they wanted. it didn’t matter what they had to do to get it but what the Wayne’s wanted, they got. 

#dc #dc comics #dc imagines #dc imagine #dc x reader #damian wayne #damian wayne imagine #damian wayne x reader #yandere damian wayne #yandere damian wayne x reader #yandere damian wayne imagine

[ladecena]

DREAM💃💫

Mich Delavega’s ambition is to be a dancer, but her father has refused to support her for no apparent reason. Is she willing to take a chance? Did she carry on with her aspirations despite her father’s disapproval? Was she brave enough to fight for what she truly desired?

I’m strolling slowly down the corridor, thinking about what happened the day before. Dad and I got into an argument over what I wanted, and when he found out that I was secretly competing in a dance competition, he was upset and demanded me to stop. It’s strange until he brings up the matter of my cousin’s accident. What a pitiful excuse, yet it’s true. 

Danica was the first person I met. It’s just me and my one and only best pal. She greeted me with a grin and handed me a piece of paper. It’s a Dance Battle Poster for our Students Days

Flashback

I’m looking forward to coming back home. Danica and I attended a competition altogether. This is our sixth win in this competition; we always enter but keep it a secret from Dad because if he finds out, he will be furious. Dancing is really something he despises. I’m not sure why, but it began when I begged with Dad to enroll me in a dance class. He encouraged me to stop, but I’m a stubborn person, and then there was an accident because my cousin was causing difficulty because of the dance, and my father became upset, as if she was cursing the dance for the rest of his life.

As I arrived home, I found my mother watching TV on the couch and my father reading the newspaper when I opened the door. I approach them from behind and give them a kiss on their cheeks.

When I saw the diploma, prize, and tape of my dance practice and competition, my eyes widened.

“Tell me, what is this Mich Delavega!”

My father was constantly yelling. I put my hands over my ears and close them. I’m terrified.

“How long? 3 years? Did you just spend all of my money on dancing?”

While I was crying, my mother sat next to me and embraced me so tightly. Why was Dad acting so strangely? In my head, I said.

End of flashback

That day has stayed with me to this day. I’m in the library at my school. I’m pursuing BSBA since it’s what my father wants me to do. They are businessmen/women, and I am the next in line to become our company’s CEO.

After a few hours, school was over. We were both eager to go home, so I got to work right away. Danica, on the other hand, interrupted me. She invites me to join her in a studio with her.

We don’t need to drive because Jigs Studio is close to our school. We arrived at the studio’s entrance. When I hear music blaring, my heart jumps. It really is as if it’s encouraging me to move, sway, and enjoy the beat. I smile quietly at myself.

I’m really looking forward to the battle. I can’t seem to stop grinning. This is my dream, which my father has thwarted.

The competition was about to start when we found a seat.

“Hello there, everyone! Thank you for attending this battle. I know you’re all excited to see this, so let’s get this fight started between Black mamba and Higher kids!!!!” The host said

 And we’re all clapping, and I can hear some audience members shouting from every nook and cranny of the studio. In a few moments, the two contestants will be here, facing each other. Each contender will showcase their moves on the platform in the first round. In round two, they choose one member to defy their group and battle against the other, and in round three, one of the audience members will perform the song that they have picked.

We’ve been through much too much. Danica and I had a good time during the match. When I returned home, I found my mother seated on our couch, watching television.

“Hello, mom,” I said, smiling.

“What’s the matter with you? Are you all right?” My mum replied casually

“Mom, I’m fine. By the way, I need to get some sleep.”

I went to my room, changed into my pajamas, and fell asleep in my bed.

I awakened the next morning with a playful smirk on my face. Today I’m in such a great mood. I get out of bed and begin my morning routine.

I excitedly entered our kitchen, and while I ate my breakfast, mom noticed me and kissed me on the cheeks.

I finished my meal and went to see my father. I need to tell him something when I’m in the backyard, I smell some burning plastic. I walked to where it came from and my jaw dropped when I saw my things get burnt.

"Daddddddddddd!”

I raced up to him and tried to stop him, but it was too late; my possessions had went up in flames. While observing the fire, I slam myself on the grass. When the fires are all out, I stare angrily at my father.

"You deserve it. This is your punishment." 

"What do you mean Dad?! I’m not sure why you feel that way and you need to burn my stuffs, which were extremely valuable to me!”

I cried as I ran inside our home.

Mom came in my room to console me. When she saw my sad face, she looked so sorrowful.

“You’re aware of how much I cherish you. You are my daughter. You grew up beside me. I fell madly in love with those beautiful eyes the first time I saw you. Even though it was difficult for me to accept those gorgeous eyes, I did so because I believe that if I put my hand on you, you’d be mine. You are going to be my daughter. She cried as she stated it.

"Why are you bringing this up now, Mom?” As I stated earlier

Moms, like dads, have an odd habit of saying gibberish.

“Sweetheart I’m not your biological mother.”

“You can’t play at me like that, mom, I’m not a fool.”

“Please accept my apologies.”

When she apologizes, I take a serious expression on my face. Is this true? Is this a dream? If that’s the case, kindly wake me up. I despise these feeling. I turned to face my mother, who was sobbing in front of me. A lot of people were staring at us as well. To grab her attention, I mimic a cough.

“What is her name? What is the name of my mother?”

“Your mother Mich is your father’s first wife.”

“Is that my father’s explanation? Why is he putting pressure on me to give up my ambition of becoming a dancer?” Mom gave me a nod as I spoke.

Dad walked on me and looked me in the eyes.

“She is, she’s your mother. That is why I do not want you to pursue a career as a dancer. That dream will destroy you, as well as our family. "My father’s eyes welled up with tears as he spoke.

It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. "Is it a lot of pain?” In my head, I asked.

“Your mother abandoned us. She had only just given birth and had already departed. She is unconcerned about us. She is more dedicated to her passion than the rest of us, and I don’t want you to follow in her footsteps. That’s why I’m putting a halt to you.

"Dad embraced me and grabbed my shoulder.”

"Can you put your faith in me, Dad? I will never abandon you, father, as she did.” I said this while gazing him in the eyes. He turned around to avoid looking at me.

I take my father’s hand in mine. While I’m face the ground, he glances at me.

“I apologize for not being a good parent to you. I’m sorry that I’ve gotten selfish since I’m a useless father. I let you show me what you were passionate about.”

“Do your best,” he added as he walked away. 

“I’ll make my dad proud!” I said

Tomorrow morning, I arrived at Danica’s house, we agreed to enter a dance competition. All I know is that I want to impress my family, so Danica and I put in a lot of preparation and effort before the competition, and it is quite difficult for us.

The competition will begin in three weeks. We’re both exhausted, but we’re having a great time.

Danica and I are both excited and worried on the day of the completion. Our names are called by the presenter after several hours, and we confidently walk up to the stage.

I began to sexily dance in a chair. It’s wonderful. Dance made me feel strong, seductive, and fearless! There’s something about dancing in a new and vulnerable way in my heart that makes me happy. To be honest, when I did chair dance, I felt like an acrobatic goddess.

Danica moves sexily in the chair as well, lowering her upper body to the seat and slowly lifting her feet off the floor until her legs are in the air. She pauses for a second to catch her breath before smiling.

We ended the song by posing beautifully in front of a lot of people clapping on us. We smiled and hugged each other.

“We made it!” I whisper

In the end, we succeeded. We’re ecstatic because this is the first time I’ve ever danced in front of many audience, and my father is seeing me perform live.

We’re still here to thank everyone in the crowd and the judges, even though the program is ended.

In back stage, I saw my family.

“Mom! Dad!” I shouted something and dashed over to hug them.

“You did a great job, sweetheart,” my mother replied, beaming.

I fixed my gaze on my father. Before we departed, he gave Danica and me a bunch of flowers and congratulated us.

When we came home, I went straight to my room to rest, and then my father called me. I take a few steps forward and open the door.

“Hello, Dad!” He smiled at me and instructed me to be in my room.

He handed me a medium-sized box and added, “I forgot to give this to you.” I’m happy for you. This should be kept.

“Thank you, Dad!” I said

I was shocked when I found a necklace and key, as well as a camera and two papers. I take the key first and turn to face my father.

“I bought one of the studios near our house,” he continued, “so you and Danica can practice there.”

“I know you wanted to go to a dancing school when you were younger, but I’m not permitting it; nonetheless, I believe it’s not too late to join you, right?!” I hugged him tightly and cried.

“Thank you dad, you made me happy. Thank you so much! I promise you I will work hard to make you proud. ”

“You don’t need to work hard to make me proud because right now I’m so proud of you.”

We smiled and hugged one other passionately.

I run into a lot of challenges in this world as a result of pursuing my dream. Nothing can readily obtain it. Before we can get what we really want, we need to go through the needle hole. We must be strong and confident, but we must also remember to smile. To all of us, Dream is really significant because it leads to success. So keep dreaming and, if you truly want something, take a chance, even if it seems impossible. I am Mich Delavega, A Business Woman and a Professional Dancer.

- peachy k. 🍑 

June 10, 2021

#music art dance pop love passion inspiration sound motivation creative musically #dance dancing show shows inspire inspiration love learn create #health wellness healthy lifetsyle art love create motivate inspire inpiration #inspiration

[betterpathoflyfe]

A Very Much-Needed & Somewhat Detailed Life Update - 3/1/22

Wow.

Here we are.

March 1, 2022.

My last blogpost waaaas…9/1/21?😅

Well…my go-to phrase as always? WE’RE HERE NOW!

So much has happened in my life, man, I don’t even know where to begin! I was debating as to whether or not I wanted to make this a specific topic blogpost or just an update blogpost, but there are so many topics within what’s been going on in my life, I figured we’d just start here.

So…since September 1st of 2021?

I had a very busy semester. On top of my courses, I was part of a research group that focused mainly on my research (since I was graduating early). It was based on the research paper I wrote (check out the blogpost for it here!) in the spring semester of 2021, and we were able to get everything we needed in terms of data collection and stuff. I submitted it for the SEPA (Southeastern Psychological Association) Conference, and it was accepted! While I’m unable to present there, one of my research partners are presenting it, so I’m just super grateful.

While the semester was long, we were able to graduate with a 3.83 GPA, earning the status of magna cum laude! I took my graduation pictures in January, but I’m still planning on walking across the stage in May. All of this to say…

We did it. We kept the focus, we gave our best effort, and God guided me the entire way (plus family, of course).

What are the next steps in my career, you might ask?

Pursuing my Master’s degree in Community-Based Educational and Leadership! Now, during my final semester last December, I received an internship opportunity at my uni’s Office of Student Success (OSS)! Here, I was in charge of research regarding transfer student initiatives. This research ultimately led to a proposal that my supervisor and I proposed for a new first-year-seminar (FYS) section for transfer students. We created a new syllabus, where I was in charge of the proposal summary and the course content schedule. After presenting it to the dean of the department, we received the o-kay to implement it!

Fast forward to this Master’s program now, right? In conjunction with it, I received an offer for a graduate assistantship, where I get to teach this course (online) + get my master’s degree paid for by the university at the same time!

It has been…a blessing. I mean, looking back at my last blogpost, I wasn’t sure how I was going to go about graduate school. I wasn’t completely sure which program I wanted to pursue, and at which level (M.A. or Ph.D.). Add on top of that studying for the GRE test, I was just like “this is a lot, Lord! But I trust You!”

And sure enough, I trusted Him and now I’m doing everything I wanted to do + more. I knew that one of my duties during the assistantship would be to meet with students, but to have the opportunity and gain experience in teaching a course on top of it? I’m just so grateful!

In terms of the master’s work, it’s been pretty good! Right now, I’m taking an educational psychology course, and I’m so glad I started with this as my first graduate-level course since I just graduated with a psych degree! I found the course pretty interesting and definitely makes me think about different dimensions of a certain topic. It’s an online degree, which I also love since it allows me to work an additional job while pursuing it! Since it’s now March 1st, I have approximately 2 weeks and 4 days before the course is over and I start my next one!

I’ve been very content 😊

In other news, my sister got married!!! She is a married U-man, and it’s crazy to even say sometimes. Like wow, not my older sister being a whole wife now? Like umm, then the next thing is children like WAIT! No but on a serious note, she married her perfect match and it’s been great to observe how they’ve been progressing as a married couple! That just reminded me that I need to continue to cover them in prayer (thanks for that reminder, Holy Spirit!)

Then there was Thanksgiving àI spent that with my dad’s side of the family and I drove myself there for the first time! Yes, I have a car!!!! It is a 2005 Toyota Corolla and I love herrrr <3 gets me to where I need to be and I just love the freedom that comes with it, you know?

But yeah, Thanksgiving was a nice time, and then for Christmas, I spent it in New Jersey with my cousins on my mom’s side and it was great!

Alright…so with that information, plus my current master’s program & GA position, we are all caught up (you know, I thought that’d take longer, but that was pretty quick to type out lol)!

There are other events that occurred, but I think I need some more time before I want to speak on them (still sort of fresh and I’m still consulting with God about it, that’s all). Definitely look out for a blogpost about that one of these days!

Nevertheless, speaking of Jesus, He’s had me on such an interesting journey thus far. Not too long ago, I’d say about 4 days ago, I did a slight spring cleaning of my life, and this included MUSIC!

Yup.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been feeling slightly convicted for the music I’ve been listening to, or at least have in my song library. They weren’t anything crazy, but I began to really hear the lyrics I was singing and I’m like…is this who we are? Is this who we represent?

On a serious note, you know what ultimately led me to do it? Two things:

1. My commute from my uni takes me past a middle school and the neighborhood. Sometimes, I’ll be blasting music and I pass kids walking home from school. One day, as I was blasting a certain song, I slowly realized the message I could potentially be putting out there. I mean, I wouldn’t want my daughter or son walking home and hearing certain lyrics that could make them think about things they probably shouldn’t be thinking about. I slowly turned the music down and really reflected on the message I’m trying to put out. If I say I follow Christ, these lyrics are literally those of someone who knows nothing about Him! So, what am I doing?

2. Going along with my relationship with God, it has been increasing and my dependence on Him has increased significantly ever since certain events occurred in my life where I literally had to choose God over my own desire. Over a future I saw for myself. We always say that God’s will for us is perfect and quote Jeremiah 29:11, but to literally surrender ourselves (every part of ourselves) to Him is another thing. While I was content as I’ve done that with my career, I wanted to stay in control in other areas of my life.

I finally had to release it.

I had to put true faith in what God has for me, and it was very hard. Yet with that, I realized that music was subtly connected to it. The lyrics that I was feeding my soul were slowly chipping away at the Godly woman God is trying to make me, and they tempted me to indulge and flirt with certain sins. Even as I cleaned my music out and listened to the songs for the last time, I could literally sense my spirit being unsettled and my mindset changing and conforming to what was being talked about in the song! I eventually stopped listening and began deleting each song.

I even hesitated at one point and was like, maybe I don’t really need to delete this song. I went on TikTok for a quick break, and whyyyyy was the first TikTok video on my FYP (For You Page) about secular music. I was like…alright, God, let me continue then 😅

I was concerned though, you know? Because some of these songs are ones I’ve been listening to for years. To let them go, was me choosing God. And you eventually have to decide – do we want the world or do we want God? If we want God, then we need to get rid of any distraction that can hinder our walk with Him. Period.

With music came other habits that I wanted to implement, and I’ve slowly been doing a cleanup of my life. I want to be all in for Him, no more lukewarmness.

I really need to do a separate blogpost about that.

But life lately? I’ve been…okay. I’ve been doing things for me, asserting new boundaries, and taking myself out from time to time! Like I’m on this new thing where I go on a solo movie date with myself either every Thursday or Sunday afternoon! My first one was to go see the movie Uncharted, based on the video game. I was just hype because Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg were both in it, and I love those actors! The next movie I plan to see is Dog – it’s a military-related movie + Channing Tatum and a dog – who doesn’t love that? Lol no but on a serious note, I’m looking forward to that time with myself <3. I’ve also been working out every morning (I have to do twice though because I missed yesterday’s workout), and I’ve been toning up! I need to eat cleaner though, as this week’s menu hasn’t been the healthiesttttt.

All in all, though, God has me in a slightly uncomfortable, but content place in my life.

So yeah! That wasn’t too long right? Right…😅

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and son on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of; you thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

#blogposts

[idiopath-fic-smile]

more 1950s lesbian amis

continued from this.

in which grantaire makes coffee, and a friend.

“Good morning,” said Chester. “Is that a new dress?”

It was not. Grantaire looked up warily from her sketchpad. She wasn’t good-looking enough for this to be anything but a ploy.

“Do you need something, Chester?” she asked in her sweetest voice, all cotton candy fumes.

“Secretary’s out this morning,” he told her. “That’s why there’s no coffee yet.” And there, it all clicked into place. 

Grantaire schooled her face as blank as she could make it; if she was going to reach his conclusion, he’d have to drag her there.

“Thank you but I picked up a cup on my way here,” she said, nodding at her half-empty styrofoam cup. After last night’s disaster at the Musain, she had been unable to even imagine the L ride to the office without a fortifying blast of caffeine. 

Chester stared meaningfully; Grantaire stared back, meaningless.

“Grantaire,” said Chester, as if talking to one very stupid, “do you think you could brew us a pot?”

Grantaire blinked. “Does this normally fall to the staff cartoonist when the secretary’s away?”

Chester made a suppressed sound of deep irritation. He spread his hands, appealing. “Listen, I could struggle through trying to make coffee for the office and no doubt poison everyone trying, or you could do it, and add that homey little touch I know all the fellas would appreciate.”

Homey. It was not a word you’d apply to Grantaire’s garden-level one-bedroom, which boasted stained wallpaper and a stove straight out of the Coolidge administration. Homely, maybe. Chester was the one with a home, and a wife, and a fat little baby and the money for a comfortable life.

“It’s only fair to divide the work according to natural aptitude, sweetheart,” Chester was saying, and it was the sweetheart that snapped Grantaire like a rubber band, that word deployed like a pat on the head, like penny candy for a crying baby, like a scrap of baloney to a dog, like it could only ever be the bitterest pity or the cruelest joke in concert with Grantaire’s face, with Grantaire’s entire being.

“‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,’” she murmured in an agreeing tone.

“Now you got it,” Chester started, then frowned.

“Karl Marx, Chester,” said Grantaire. “Keep up, or someone might need to place a call to ol’ Joe.”

Chester’s entire countenance soured. “This is why you should leave it to the men to make the jokes,” he said, “and stick to what you can do--”

Grantaire stood. “I’ll make the coffee,” she said.

“There,” said Chester, “did that need to be such a production?”

The “Golden Ratio,” according to a high school Home Economics course which Grantaire had frankly passed by the skin of her teeth, was one to two tablespoons of coffee for every six ounces of hot water. Grantaire remembered this by virtue of having gotten it wrong many, many times. She was no good with math but the machine took thirty-six ounces of water, which meant the ideal amount of grounds was somewhere between six and twelve tablespoons.

“Stars shining bright above you,” Grantaire hummed under her breath, measuring and dumping coffee grounds into the filter. One, two, three, four, five.

Grantaire had gotten it wrong in high school because nobody in her house drank coffee. She hadn’t discovered the jolting benefits herself until her first year of art school, as the deadlines began to pile and the available time to meet them began to wane.

“Night breezes seem to whisper, I love you,” Grantaire hummed. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

If there had been a way to brave the choppy academic waters of work and criticism without chemical assistance, that path had been invisible to Grantaire. She had tried, she had cried, she had turned down “diet pills” that the other girl in her program swore by only because Grantaire figured her own figure couldn’t afford to be more unflatteringly stick-thin.

“Birds singing in the sycamore trees--” Eleven, twelve. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

The scrutiny and the pressure tempered the freedom of those heady days away from her parents. The expectation that Grantaire was only studying art as a way of killing time, until some charitable man came along to marry her, unless the poor dear simply couldn’t find anyone--she had found a survival strategy of her own, a roughly stitched-together patchwork of sarcasm and wine and more sarcasm, and coffee brewed so thick and strong it barely qualified as liquid.

“Dream a little dream of me.” Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Grantaire went ahead and dumped in the rest of the bag.

Grantaire was making shaky progress on her first deadline when Douglas stopped by her desk.

“Listen,” he blustered, “is this some kind of a joke?”

“Hm?”

“Your coffee’s undrinkable, it’s--” he faltered as Grantaire took a long swallow of the tarry substance in her mug. It was gritty and bitter, but by the standards of her art school years, only qualified as “medium dark.”

“Doug,” she said calmly, “if it’s too strong for you, you’re free to add plenty of milk and sugar.” She took another sip, meeting his eyes all the while. 

He spun on the heel of his expensive dress shoe. As he stormed away, she could hear him mutter, at a passive-aggressive volume designed to be just-barely audible, but audible nonetheless, “No wonder she doesn’t have a man yet, can’t even make coffee right.”

“Grantaire?”

She looked up. The secretary was back from wherever she’d been, apparently.

“Hello,” said Grantaire, hoping that if she kept a friendly enough countenance, the secretary might not notice that Grantaire did not remember her name. “Are you feeling better?”

The secretary smiled, polite. She was young but plain, although not as plain as Grantaire. “Thank you, it was my mother, actually. She’s a little under the weather so I stopped home to bring her some soup and heat it up for her.” Grantaire nodded as if that kind of filial duty was a part of her daily life, too. 

“Well, I hope her condition improves soon.” “Thank you, that’s very kind.” An awkward pause began to bloom. Into it, Grantaire blurted, “Sorry if you had the coffee today.” “Oh,” said the secretary, “no, no, I drink tea.” Of course she did, thought Grantaire. She had the look of someone well acquainted with the proper use of a cup and saucer. She lowered her voice slightly. “Douglas informed me all about this morning’s coffee maker adventure.” She lowered her voice a little more. “In some detail.” “Yes, I must have lost count spooning in the grounds,” said Grantaire blandly. “I can’t imagine how it slipped my mind.” “I can,” said the secretary with a crooked smile. Somehow, with both eyes wide open, she gave the impression of winking. “Say, Grantaire. I don’t suppose you could take your lunch break with me? There’s a park across the street, it’s very quiet. Private.” Grantaire nodded. “Good,” said the secretary. That crooked smile again. “My name is Combeferre, by the way.”

“You know, I saw you the other day,” said Combeferre as she neatly removed a packet of celery sticks wrapped in waxed paper from her lunch bag. “Did you.” Grantaire ran through her mental list of places she’d been over the past several days. If she was very, very lucky, maybe Combeferre simply meant that she’d glimpsed Grantaire at the Jewel, picking up some groceries for her tragically empty fridge. Combeferre glanced around the park in a very natural, off-hand way. “At the Musain,” she said. Grantaire’s stomach dropped. She could feel her grip on her turkey sandwich going white-knuckled. “Chester and Murray, such a pair of jokesters,” she said at last. “I suppose I was being hazed last night--” “No, I saw you last Thursday,” said Combeferre quiety. “By yourself.” Grantaire hadn’t been in there for more than forty-five seconds. Had all of Chicago seen? She felt something bubble up inside her. “So,” said Grantaire, trying to match Combeferre’s even, calm voice. “Is this blackmail, then? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until I’ve gotten my first check, I’m a bit light at the moment.” Combeferre blinked. “Oh dear,” she said, “oh no, you misunderstand me completely. I saw you from inside.” “You were there?” said Grantaire, feeling very dumb for not having picked up on any sign of Sapphism earlier. There was nothing obvious in her manner or dress. The comment about stopping home to see her mother might have suggested she was still living with her parents, and thus unmarried, but plenty of girls did that. Of course, not every woman of a woman-loving bent chose to broadcast it to the world like that short-haired Amazon in the bar restroom. Combeferre’s hairdo and clothes were no doubt chosen for hiding, like Grantaire’s. “Do you have plans this weekend?” Combeferre asked, and Grantaire attempted not to look entirely pole-axed. Was this a pass? Grantaire felt no immediate pull, but, wretchedly, she realized she was lonely enough to consider it. She raised her eyebrows. “You see, I belong to, um, a social organization,” Combeferre continued, unaware. “We could use some new members, and it would be so nice to know someone else at work--” “Is it a book group?” said Grantaire. “A tupperware exchange? A cat appreciation society?” Combeferre smiled. “I do like cats,” she said. “No, we’re. Hm. The Chicago branch of a group of like-minded individuals who find ourselves on a slightly divergent path from the majority of mankind. It’s a very relaxed, informal thing. We’re meeting at the apartment of a friend for spaghetti dinner on Saturday. I can give you the details if you’re interested.” “And you’re all women?” Grantaire said. “We are,” said Combeferre. What the hell. It wasn’t as if there was a line of people waiting to make Saturday night plans with her. “Alright,” said Grantaire. “Wonderful.” Combeferre gave her an address, although Grantaire didn’t know the city well enough for it to mean much without a map. Her eyes briefly scanned the park again. “And I should add that you don’t have to use your real name,” she said. “In fact, I think most of us don’t.” “Some tupperware club you’re running, lady,” said Grantaire, and Combeferre half-laughed. “I was going to leave you a note,” said Combeferre, “on your desk, explaining everything in advance, but then my mother was sick and there wasn’t any time.” “If anyone saw what you wrote,” Grantaire started. “In shorthand, of course. None of the men would understand.” “I can’t read shorthand,” said Grantaire. “I took a course on it but that was about the time I realized my future would need to be elsewhere.” “I was going to be a physician,” said Combeferre dreamily. Grantaire turned to face her. “I had the grades, you know. Biology was my best subject, and I enjoy helping people.” “What happened?” Grantaire asked uneasily.

“Oh,” said Combeferre. “I had a marvelous professor. I’d asked him to write me a recommendation, and he pulled me aside and explained that if I’d have to do twice the work for half the respect, which was of course the truth. I considered nursing, but a life of emptying bedpans and dodging the head doctor’s wandering hands didn’t appeal.” “So instead you empty inboxes and dodge Richard’s wandering hands,” said Grantaire. “You’ll fit right in with my friends,” Combeferre said with another smile. “I’m sorry about what my friend said to you last night. She has an excellent heart and is a key part of our set, but she can be somewhat severe.”

“Do you mean the Hippolyta who cornered me in the powder room?” “Undoubtedly,” said Combeferre. Then, “oh, and definitely don’t call her that!” “Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Grantaire.

#eXr DOB

[whatareyousearchingfordean]

Happiness Begins

Part 23

Chapter Summary: It turns out going home to Austin wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Elsewhere, Jensen has an interesting conversation with an old friend. 

Warnings: Language, angst, dealing with mental health issues

Word Count: 3.2K+

Author’s Note: I just want to start here by reiterating that this is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. I mean no harm to Danneel or her beautiful family, and I have a zero-tolerance policy on this blog. I see and legit forms of hate towards any wife and you are blocked. That being said, I hope you enjoy this part xoxo Alex

Catch up with the series masterlist and check out Alexandra’s Library for more works by yours truly. 

Two months later…

When Y/n had stepped onto the tarmac in Austin, she had believed wholeheartedly that this could be a fresh start for her. Or at the very least, she hoped going back to her status quo would help to dull that empty feeling she now held in her chest. And it had worked, at first. Catching up on everything had been just the distraction she was looking for, but as time went on and the workload steadied off, it became harder for her to mask all the emotions.

It was something she had done numerous times before. A coping mechanism that as much as she knew how unhealthy it was, she always found herself reverting back to. This time was no different, and Y/n had found herself working herself into the ground. She was doing everything she could to make sure that work was all that could consume her thoughts, which turned out great in the end for Et Cetera. 

Last week, she had received an email from the conglomerate Coty, one of the world’s largest beauty brands, requesting a meeting with her and her lawyers. Obviously, she had been immediately interested, the butterflies in her stomach on full alert even after the meeting had ceased. 

 “Just… think about our offer. We don’t need an answer right away, we understand that this is a big decision for you. We hope to hear from you soon.” Mr. Baltussen, the CPO for Coty, slid her over a copy of his business card along with the legal documents that spelled out their offer. 

“Of course, thank you.” Y/n nodded her head as the small group of executives let themselves out of the conference room. As the door closed behind them, she snapped her head to her lawyer next to her, who already had her nose in the paperwork. 

“What do you think?”

“I think this all looks pretty legitimate. Y/n this is a more than generous offer.” Her lawyer’s eyes quickly scanned the words before flitting up to meet Y/n’s. 

“So you think I should accept it?”

“Honestly?” Y/n nodded, pleading for an honest answer. “Only you can make that decision, but this says to me that no matter what decision you make, you’ll be just fine.”

“Damn, I was hoping for a more definite answer.” She dropped her head into her folded arms on the table top.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but I’m here for you no matter what.” 

 That conversation had been all that she thought about for the rest of the night and was the first thing on her mind when she had woken the next morning. Having the day off, since it was the weekend, meant she had more time to dwell on it. At first, she had been adamant about declining their offer, but the more she thought about it the more appealing it became. After all, her method of shoving everything down to avoid feeling was no longer working for her. Being in Austin, where he also lived, tended to grate on some of her nerves. She often found herself tense when out in public, which she fully understood how irrational it was, afraid that she would run into him somewhere. Her heart just wasn’t ready for that quite yet. Even with her and Jared talking again, things still hurt. He was family and she would never be able to get away from him, but Coty was offering her the ability to get about just as far away as she could from the mess she had created. 

Y/n had pulled her laundry from the drier as she went about doing her weekend chores. She plopped onto the couch with the basket in front of her and turned on the news for some background noise. The program was just finishing up as she paid no attention to it and its switch to Entertainment Tonight. She was just about finished with folding when the host’s words caught her attention. 

“Coming up next, Supernatural star Jensen Ackles and ex fiance Danneel Harris caught cozying up to each other for lunch in downtown LA.” Y/n snapped her head up to the tv and dropped the panties in her hand back into the basket at her feet. She searched blindly for the remote to turn up the tv as the program returned. 

“The two ex lovers were seen having what seemed like a friendly, and funny, lunch together. Could this be the start of a rekindling romance? Only time will tell as their reps declined for comment.” Images of the two flashed across the screen, paparazzi photos of the two of them, both had wide smiles on their faces as they sat next to each other on a patio table. A pair of sunglasses sat on both of their faces, but even she could see the small crinkles around his eyes from that beautiful smile on his face. 

Her heart sank into her stomach as she sat back on her couch and pulled her knees into her chest. All those emotions she had fought so hard to push down were now bubbling back up to the surface and threatening to explode out of her throat in a sob. Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes as she fought the stinging in her nose. 

Deep down she knew she had no right to feel the way she was. After all, Jensen had ended things with her, and she certainly didn’t leave the door open for him to come running back in. But all she could think about was his promise to her, his promise that he was over the one woman that had the pleasure of wearing his ring on her finger. The images on her television now told her a different story, though, and that brought up every insecurity in her. 

What was it that Danneel had that she didn’t? There were the obvious physical differences that she wouldn’t even dare to delve into in her fragile state. But what else about her made her more desirable? Was she smarter, funnier, better in the bedroom…

Ugh! Y/n ran her hands through her hair, tugging gently at the roots. She was so far beyond over feeling like this. She was supposed to be better at handling herself when she got this way, but more so, she was supposed to be over comparing herself to other women. It had been so long since she had relapsed like this, and she had reached her breaking point. Y/n was not okay anymore, and she needed help. 

****

Y/n rifled through her living room, tossing pillows and cushions from her couch. She had been so sure that she had left her laptop on the coffee table when she went to bed last night. It was nowhere to be found. Not in her bedroom, living room, not even in her kitchen. 

“Damn it.” she growled to herself. There was no more time to look for it, she had to be at Jared and Gen’s soon, so she would just have to push back this search until later. Quickly she put her house back into a semi clean order and ran out the door. Luckily, her brother didn’t live too far from her and she was still on time when she pulled up in their drive. 

Three little bodies had the front door pulled open before she could even open her car door. “Aunt Y/n!” Odette was the first one out the door. Y/n knelt down in front of her niece, sweeping her up into her arms and squeezing her tight. It had been longer than usual since she had seen Jared and his kids, in person at least. Things were still… tense to say the least between them. They were still working on their issues… slowly. 

Y/n picked up the toddler and made her way inside, hugging the boys as she went. Gen was waiting just inside the door, offering her a tight hug as well. 

“We miss you around here, you know that?” Gen smiled as she let down Odette and the kids ran off to continue what they were doing before she had pulled up. 

“I know. We are getting there.” Y/n agreed, it really had been too long. She missed her family more than she had thought. They had been so close since forever, that she never understood what it was like to be at a distance from them. 

“Then come around more often, please?” Gen urged her sister in law to follow her into the kitchen. 

“Gen,” Y/n tried, casting her glance away from the woman who was pleading with her. That was the last thing she needed to hear right now. “I have some news.” 

“Should I grab Jared…” She started towards the stairs that lead to their second floor before Y/n moved to stop her. 

“No please, just listen.” Gen leaned against the island, giving Y/n her full attention. “I had a meeting on Friday with executives from Coty. They uh,” She chuckled, still in disbelief that this was even happening. “They want to buy my majority shares in Et Cetera.” 

“Wow, Y/n that is huge.” Genevieve’s word’s didn’t match the inflection in her voice or the crease that appeared between her brows. She was just as skeptical as Y/n had been when they first presented her the offer. 

“That’s not all. Coty offered me a VP position where I would be in charge of US operations. My lawyer said it’s a more than generous offer since I get a seven figure salary plus benefits and bonus’, not to mention the money from the sale of my shares.” Y/n played with the fruit in the bowl in front of her. 

“There’s more, isn't there?” The woman was too smart for her own good, Y/n thought to herself. Of course Gen picked up on that fact that she was holding something back. 

“I would need to relocate to New York.” Her face scrunched up as she prepared for some sort of outrage or surprise from Gen, but nothing came. Her next words were softer than she deserved.

“Do you want to accept the offer?” 

“I didn’t, at first.” Y/n admitted. That was the easy part, admitting to what had changed her mind on the other hand would be a lot more difficult, because she didn’t even want to admit it to herself. “But I don’t know now. It feels like everyone around me is moving on with their lives while I’m just stuck on some sort of endless corporate hamster wheel. I don’t feel the excitement for what I do anymore. Hell, I don’t feel anything anymore. Moving to New York could be just what I need.”

“And what about us? What about your family here in Texas.” 

“We have facetime. And I’ll always just be a plane ride away. I mean, it's not like I’m going to Yemen or something. We will have the holidays too.” The catch in her voice broke on her last sentence. She didn’t know who she was trying to convince more, herself or Gen. 

“Is this about Jensen?” Gen stood up straighter, her head cocking slightly as she spoke. 

Y/n huffed, what a stupid question. “Of course it is. He’s clearly moved on, our time together just a distant and horrible memory. Why shouldn’t I be afforded that same luxury?” 

“Come on, you don’t really believe that? Y/n, you have worked so hard for everything you have. And it is all yours, right here in Austin, where your family is too. Why throw all that away over some guy?” Gen’s hand found its way to Y/n’s shoulder, her fingers squeezing the flesh there to try and ground her. She hated seeing her making emotional decisions, especially ones that would affect not only her. 

“Jensen wasn’t just some guy, Gen. But I did lose him, and I’m trying my damndest here to move on, but I just haven’t found the ability to do so yet. That’s all I’m looking for.” Y/n cast her gaze down into her lap, where she was now picking at the cuticle on her thumb. 

“And all I’m saying is, don’t make this kind of decision without talking to the people around you. Get all the perspective you can, because I don’t think you are seeing this clearly right now.” 

“I hear you Gen, but I don’t know if I’ll change my mind again.” Gen nodded her understanding, only wishing she could get through to her sister in law somehow. She pulled her into her chest, hugging her again, because she didn’t know what else she could do. 

Neither of them noticed Jared standing on the landing of the stairs, catching every word his sister uttered. His heart sank as he listened to his sister talk. Never before had he heard the defeat in her voice. Y/n was one of the most strong willed people he knew, but she had just… given up. 

Before now, he hadn’t noticed how far she had fallen. But maybe that was because he wasn’t looking. The two of them didn’t talk like they used to, and right now he was feeling incredibly guilty about that. Why hadn’t he seen it before? Was it because all he could focus on was the steam coming out of his own ears when he found out she had been sleeping with his best friend? Or was it because as much as she chastised him for it, he still saw her as his baby sister and not the independent woman she had become. It was not like her at all to give up on something she had been working so hard towards. Y/n was not the type of woman to balk at money, and she certainly wouldn’t be the one to walk away from her family for any amount of it. 

Jared couldn’t see anymore why he had ever been so adamant that the two of them should not be together. Maybe it was because he knew too many of the intimate details of Jensen’s sex life to think about his sister in that way, or maybe it was even because he thought they wouldn’t be a good match. He could see it now though, having known both of them for so long. Jared shook his head at himself for not seeing truly how much those two were made for each other. He had only stood in their way when he should have been playing matchmaker. After all, didn’t he owe it to two of the most important people in his life to help them find their way to each other?

Jared vowed in that moment, he would fix this. He had to fix this. 

 Meanwhile, in Los Angeles...

The waiter set down their plates in front of them with a quick ‘enjoy’ before running off. Danneel bit into the salad placed in front of her, chewing delicalating as she decided on what to say. 

“You know, I have to say I was surprised you called me.” She thought back to his cryptic text that he had sent. ‘I’m in town and need to talk, can we get lunch?’ was all that it said. He had sent her the name of the cafe when she had agreed on meeting him. The two had exhausted the small talk in the time it took for their food to come and she wanted to get straight to the point. 

“I was too, to be honest. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and I think you may be one of the few people who can help me.” Jensen took a drink of his water, not looking in her direction. 

“Me? We haven’t exactly been pen pals all this time.” 

“I know, that means you have an outsider's view point on all of this. And you know me better than almost anyone, I trust your opinion.” Jensen stated. Danneel mouthed a ‘wow’ and sat back in her chair, wiping her face with her napkin. 

“This must be big then.” Danneel eyed the man sitting next to her, waiting for him to start with whatever it was he wanted to tell her. 

“God, where do I start, uh… I met this woman.” He began, his hand fiddling with the fork against his plate. 

“Mmmm.” Danneel hummed, the realization finally hitting her. 

“I… she is probably the best thing to ever happen to me. Actually, she’s a lot like you in some ways, brilliant, witty, and beyond beautiful. I fell for her, and I fell hard.” 

“So what is the problem exactly?” 

“I had to break things off with her. I thought what I was doing was best for her and me, but as time has gone on I’m not so sure. I can’t seem to get rid of this churning in my gut.” His tongue jetted out to wet his lower lip as he poured his heart out. This was not an easy thing for him to admit, the last thing he wanted was to hurt Danneel. 

“This girl wouldn’t happen to be Y/n Padalecki, would she?” A small smirk graced her features as Jensen snapped his gaze up to hers. 

“H...How?” 

“Well you weren’t exactly subtle when you ran after her at your birthday. Not to mention both of you were gone for too long and you returned with that little post coitus smirk you tend to get.” Danneel swirled her finger in a circle to emphasize her point. Jensen chuckled under his breath, his head shaking in disbelief. The noise grew in his chest before bubbling up into a full bellied laugh. Danneel couldn’t help but to join in, his laughter having that effect on people. 

“Would you believe that Jared asked me not to get involved with her?” Danneel nodded, she had known Jared for a while, and that did not surprise her at all. “We saw each other behind his back and when he found out, all hell broke loose. The two of them weren’t talking for two weeks.” 

“Oh, Jay…”

“Am I an idiot?” He asked her, his voice soft, as if afraid of her answer. 

“No, you are not an idiot. You’re in love, but you’re not an idiot.” Danneel held out her hand for him across the table. He took it and she squeezed his palm. “Listen, I know what it’s like to walk away from something because it is the best option for both of you, but I also believe that what’s meant to be, will be.”

“What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying if you truly love her and she loves you, you’ll find your way back to each other.” Danneel reiterated. 

“And what if we are too late?” Jensen tried. 

“Then don’t make yourself late. The least you can do is go to her and tell her how you feel. Then it’s in her hands.” 

“You make it sound so easy, Dee.” 

“Oh it’s not.” Danneel dropped his hand. “It’s downright terrifying. But do you want to live your life wondering what if?” Jensen shook his head. “Then go get her.”

Part 24

Forevers: @spn-impala​​ @22sarah08​​ @turtlepad​​ @callmekda​​ @chaldei​​ @hobby27​​ @cowboysnwinchesters​​ @tranquility-or-chaos​​ @pikabootoyouchu​​ @dawnie1988​​ @grease222​​ @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce​​ @polina-93​​ @clarinette07​​ @moonlight-babeh​​ @suckerforfanfic​​ @witandnargles​​ @sleepylunarwolf​ @stiles-stilinski-24-dylan​ @geeksareunique​ @akshi8278​ @superfanficnatural​ @malfoysqueen14​ @deanwanddamons​ @waywardbeanie​

Et Cetera: @jbbarnesgirl​ @hillface89​ @arses21434​ @thevelvetseries​ @sslater34​ @mrsirishboru​ @smoothdogsgirl​ @spnfamily-j2​ @encounterthepast​ @facadeformyrealblog  @supernatural-bellawinchester​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​​ @rebeccathefangirl​ @squirrelnotsam​ @heartinmyhead1​ @1d-killed-me​ @samsgirl93​ @deans-baby-momma​ @deanmonandnegansbitch​ @woodworthti666​ @supraveng​ @onethirstyunicorn​ @heartsaved​ @know2grow​ @littlewhiterose​ @surprisinglysarah​ @stoneyggirl​ @carryon-doctor-lock​ @thebookisbtr​ @youaremyfiveever​ @kalesrebellion​ @lilulo-12​ @winchester-fantasies​ @vicmc624​ @supernatural3002​ @winchester-writes​ @maralisa124​ @therollingstoners​ @parinarain​

#jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles x you #jensen ackles x plus sized reader #jensen ackles x plus size reader #jensen ackles x sister!padalecki #jensen ackles #jared padalecki x sister!reader #plus size reader #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #supernatural fic #supernatural real person fiction #supernatural rpf #spn rpf #rpf #real person fiction #spn fanfic #spn fic #mine #alex writes #happiness begins

[zashamalkin]

Sport24 spent the whole day with Kasterova and found out how the wife of the three-time Stanley Cup winner lives.

Translation below the cut.

Sunday afternoon. The film crew and I drive up to the Malkins' house at 11:00. Anna's morning begins with a workout. The gym is located on the first floor of the house, where we meet the heroine and her coach Igor Kim, the CrossFit champion. “I always try to start the day with a workout, sometimes more intense, sometimes less. Today I will show you the standard workout that I do on the day of the broadcast. It gives a boost of energy, good mood, "  Anna begins.

First, warm up on a treadmill for ten minutes. Then there are jumps and squats, several types of "planks". “I train almost every day. I make myself indulgences: one or two days. To be honest, in Moscow I train less often and less intensively . "

An obligatory part of the program is work with dumbbells. With them, Anna lunges. This is followed by exercises with TRX loops and on the machine. “We work a lot on posture, gait,  ” explains Kasterov between approaches. While the trainer puts “pancakes” on the barbell, Anna talks about working with “weights” and her diet.

- You can't pump your ass without weights. This is unrealistic. And it's not a fact with weights. All have their weak points. I was once asked on Instagram the question: "Is it possible to pump up the ass in two months?" No you can not.

- Nutrition is also very important. - Of course! You kill so much in the gym, work for the result ... Well, what kind of rolls and gingerbread can we talk about? Already somewhere you have to choose steamed fish, vegetables. For example, now I don't eat sweets at all. In general, I have a sweet tooth: I don't eat fruits, but I like milk chocolate, kinders. But over the past two months I have not eaten sweets at all.

After squats with a barbell of 30 kg, jumping with an elastic band. The workout has been running for forty minutes, so it's time to cool down and stretch. At this time, Evgeny and Nikita Malkin appear at the door, who have come to say goodbye to their mother. Dad is taking his son to hockey practice. “When it comes to hockey, Evgeny is mainly involved. He himself sees and understands what load the child needs, how many times a week he needs to do it,  ”says Anna.

After training, Anna leaves to get ready. And in a few hours we go to the Suistudio store to meet with Match TV stylist Ruslan Shakurov and try on clothes for the television broadcast next week. On the way, we discussed with Kasterova her return to the big screen.

- The news of your return to Russian television excited the public. When did you receive an offer from Match TV and how long did you think about it? - Everything always happens spontaneously with me. As practice shows, if you prepare for some projects for a long time, then something will definitely happen. We knew a lot of guys from Match TV, including managers, chief editors, and sound engineers, and worked together at Russia-2. We basically kept in touch all this time. Before the anniversary of Match TV (November 1, 2020, the channel celebrated its fifth anniversary. -  Ed.) I got a call from one of the channel's top managers and invited me to a festive broadcast with Dima Guberniev. I was just about to fly to Sochi on vacation. I was very inspired by this proposal, immediately changed tickets, returned earlier and came as a guest presenter. The broadcast went easily, even there were such reviews: “We understand that you had a five-year break, but you worked so well, it was obvious that you were comfortable. Professionalism is not lost. How do you think about working while Zhenya is in Russia? " We discussed everything with the management, including Tina (Kandelaki, general producer of Match TV. -  Ed. ). By the way, she just charmed me. An incredibly smart, wise, amazing woman.

- When the season begins in the NHL, will you fly with Zhenya to America? “I don’t want to reveal all our secrets, all our agreements with Tina. We have a specific goal with her for the next year, to which we are moving. Perhaps I will periodically appear on the air. I will stay with Eugene in the USA, then I will return to Moscow for a month. All this does not exclude my possible journalistic activity in America.

- Before the first broadcasts after your return, were you very nervous? - No. Many thanks must be said to Dima Guberniev, who was able to relax me, create a comfortable atmosphere, and it was all “for fun”. The first broadcast was easy, there was no excitement. Another thing is when I was offered to return. Here I am already responsible, I am the one who broadcasts with the guests. Before the first broadcast, I was worried. But everything went well. I know how to cope with nerves, years of work and experience have not gone anywhere.

- Has it become difficult now to combine personal life and work? - In general, I spend a lot of time with my child. Of course, now it turns out less. But you have to think about yourself somehow. All these years I really missed work, broadcasts, these feelings. Fortunately, I have a very understanding family. First of all, my husband, who supported me incredibly strongly. Before each broadcast, he tunes me in, gives me parting words. He's happy for me. Understands that I will not stay in Moscow forever.

- From the outside one gets the impression that your life in recent years has been ideal. Husband with son, Miami, high income and the ability to buy whatever you want. Why did you decide to return to television and what did you miss? - In general, I was not born in some kind of golden cradle. In order to achieve some results in my career, I had to work hard. Actually, it hasn't gone anywhere. Yes, we are definitely lucky. We have a wonderful life filled with comfort. But understand that there are pros and cons everywhere. This does not mean that I wake up when I want and do what I want. Living with a professional athlete is also a certain job. A lot of time and attention is spent on Eugene. He is the head of the family, he is the main earner. We are all adjusting to it.

The desire to work never left me. By the way, many acquaintances said to me: “Nafig do you need this? You already have everything. Live, get high. " But, probably, I am so arranged that I cannot. There was a feeling that I had not completely done something, that I still want ethereal emotions, sensations. It's like a drug.

- You are constantly included in the ratings of the sexiest and most beautiful women in Russia. When you open these articles and news, what emotions do you feel? - It is very nice. Recently, a rating of Maxim magazine was compiled, at first the publication announced a list of girls who were included in it. By the way, they have a very cool editor-in-chief Alexander Malenkov, we have known each other for a long time. He has a cool editor who deals with Instagram. And they wrote that I am one of the few who does not appear in the media, but at the same time do not lose the love of the electorate. For me, this is also a pleasant moment. We come to Moscow for just a couple of months, but nevertheless, people do not forget. The guys from my fan group leave comments under the posts all the time. Naturally, this attention spurs.

As for all these ratings, I will not say that it gives me confidence. I am a very self-critical person, I will find a bunch of flaws and flaws in myself. But, apparently, it means that people cannot be fooled. I like it, it's cool. I really appreciate all this.

***

- When you first moved to America to your Zhenya, how difficult was it to get used to your new life? Here you had a job, loved ones, and there is only him. - It was difficult, especially in the first year. A new country, people, a language that at that time was not at the same level as it is now. Naturally, there was a certain barrier. Zhenya was constantly on the road, plus pregnancy, no one canceled hormones. It was very hard, there was not enough work. I reflected very hard on this at the time.

- In the hockey world, it is often discussed that you spend more time in Miami, and Eugene in Pittsburgh. Doesn't he take offense? - It's all not true. I don't understand where it came from at all. I heard that from someone too. Miami just has more opportunities to take cool photos. And even then, if you look at my instagram, then there are photos from Miami and Pittsburgh approximately equally. But people are strange. If Zhenya leaves for three weeks, then, naturally, my child and I will fly to Miami. We, in fact, bought apartments there for this. Plus Nikita goes to an American school there, learns the language.

- Anastasia Ovechkina told me that if she and Sasha go to the shopping mall to buy groceries, they will recognize him everywhere and ask to be photographed. Do you and Zhenya have the same situation in the USA and Russia? - As far as Pittsburgh and Moscow are concerned, Zhenya is one hundred percent recognizable. Going out somewhere and not taking a picture with someone is unrealistic. He's so reliable. Now, maybe because of the coronavirus, he is somewhere afraid, after all, he is responsible for his family.

At first, his recognition was a problem for me. When we started dating, I understood who he was, but did not imagine the extent of his popularity. Going out somewhere to eat so that no one stares at you is really difficult. I don’t remember that. But now we already know certain places, we can sit in a separate room in the restaurant in order to calmly spend time alone or with a family.

- Is it unrealistic for you to go to Gorky Park with your family in good weather? - Get out this way we'll get out. But it will definitely not work out there quietly.

- Is the situation in America the same? - Yes.

- When you first started dating, was it difficult for you to get used to the fact that the schedule of the second person should be put first and your life should be adjusted to his schedule? - Now it's harder for me to talk about it, because I've already forgotten my feelings, whims. I'm used to being adjusted to me. But everything was smooth. Yes, and I fell in love, I wanted to please him, create a comfortable atmosphere so that everything in our family would be good. Everything was calm, harmonious, without any hysterics. There were, of course, small ones (laughs) .

- And you are still in a foreign country, alone. - Yes. Zhenya supported me. Sometimes, however, it seemed to me that he was not doing it enough. But then it passed, there was a complete mutual understanding.

***

For a pleasant conversation, we quietly reach our destination. In the boutique, stylist Ruslan Shakurov is already waiting for us. He takes a tour of the store, shows him the bows he likes, and we go to the fitting room. For the broadcasts Ruslan picked up three pantsuits: bright yellow, beige and blue with stripes. By a collective decision, we choose the brightest - yellow. In it very soon Anna will appear on the air. At the exit from the store, she even admits: “I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really a little tired of shopping” (laughs) . We go to a nearby coffee shop to discuss some more interesting topics.

- The first question suggests itself. Are you a shopaholic at all? - Well, in general, like any normal girl, yes. I love it. Cheers up. It's always nice to pamper yourself.

- In quarantine, your husband posted a video of how he plays computer games. Do you mind? And does he not involve his son? - Absolutely all children play with gadgets: be it a phone, an iPad. Of course, there are limitations. But I cannot completely forbid. He still pays attention to his peers, to older guys who play. I try to offer alternatives, some interesting games. As for Zhenya, I am also calm. Each person has their own ways to relieve stress: someone needs to go for a drink, someone has a smoke, someone needs to play computer games. I don't see it going off scale. Plus, he communicates with many guys there, who, like him, play. Zhenya is not the only hockey player. If it relieves stress, for God's sake. This is not the worst thing that can be.

- You have repeatedly said that you have a difficult character, both of you and Zhenya are hot-tempered. How is it in your family after unsuccessful games? - I relatively recently caught up to the end what my husband experiences after unsuccessful matches. When around, perhaps, no one noticed his mistakes, but he knows to himself that he played badly. I had such a broadcast when I was left very unhappy with myself, but everyone around liked everything and no one said anything bad. I went out and was not at all, because I realized that I did not spend it as I could, and reflected on this for several more hours. Probably at that moment I compared myself to Zhenya and realized that it was difficult to find some words at that moment.

In general, my husband doesn't have many bad games. Zhenya always shows himself, in almost every game. But if the match was not very successful, I step aside, do not torment me with questions and conversations. We had dinner, he went to play a computer game or read a book. At such moments I try to just not go to him. A person needs to be alone, to come to his senses.

- You somehow teased each other in the comments of Instagram. Is it the same in life? - Constantly! This is our communication style. Of course, in some moments there is tenderness, warmth. But we often joke about each other, everything comes from his side. Moreover, Nikita is becoming more mature, and her husband begins to involve the child in his events. It's funny! In general, in our family you will not get bored.

#evgeni malkin #anna kasterova #off season 2020 #moscow #match tv #sport24

[csykora]

After ‘84, Igor felt the pieces were beginning to fall off the Red Machine. 

He hated being called a robot as much as he hated being called a soldier. He didn’t know what the world wanted the Green Unit to do on the ice or off it, how they had to behave, before someone would believe they had feelings. On the worst days they were too tired and numb to feel anything else.  

When he’d met Bobby Clarke, who he thought looked like a hockey angel with a blond halo and no teeth, Bobby commented about the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Igor didn’t know how to say that he’d definitely never been allowed to go to Afghanistan, and under the uniform he didn’t deserve to be a soldier, for good or bad. The national team was a tool of the Soviet government: at the same time it was a comfort for ordinary people in cold little apartments in mining towns where the players grew up and also a prop in the illusions that kept everything how it was. 

The illusion went skin deep: every time they left Russia, Igor was issued a snappy winter coat and brand-name Western clothes, so no one would think the Soviets looked poor.

[A black and white photo of the Green Unit posing, smiling except for Igor, in matching windbreakers with saddle shoulders and bold stripes. This was a hot look, about 10 years before the Soviet Union Costuming Department thought it was a hot look]

Underneath the coat or the beautiful red sweater, everything was a mess. At one point, at a tournament in Canada, a Canadian player would hit Igor from behind. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the Soviet management hadn’t provided enough hockey pads. Igor was wearing a partial set he’d borrowed from a high school team that played in the host arena earlier that day. (Across Europe and Canada I bet there are grown men, still hockey fans now, who have no idea they once owned game-worn gear from the world’s top scorers. To Igor’s fans those pieces might be worth as much as he ever earned in his CSKA career.) He would play the rest of that tournament with broken ribs.

The only outsider he’d met who seemed to understand, however briefly, was their friend Vanya. Asked what it was like playing against those Russian robots, Wayne said, 

“Robots don’t hurt when they lose.”

By June 1985, Slava was recovering from that knee injury that had sidelined him for half the last season. He and his little brother Tolya, now a CSKA rookie, drove back for the start of training. Their car was hit, and Tolya was killed. Slava thought about leaving that season, but their parents told him to keep going, and just try to live for two people.

In November, the players at Arkhangel heard a rumor: someone had written an article, in a Soviet paper, that criticized the hockey program. Anything that wasn’t awe was criticism. Someone got their hands on a copy, and Igor, Vova, Sergei, and Slava huddled around their usual table that evening, hiding each other as they read it in turns. Igor reread it twice. He’d read Canadian and American papers that dragged the Soviet system, but never something like this, that got it--almost--right. It didn’t have all the details to understand the illusion--how they trained, how Tikhonov acted behind Arkhangel’s walls--but it guessed some.

Glasnost was beginning, a long rustling cracking thaw opening new streams of information and communication like Igor had dreamed. The Canucks drafted him that year, and then Vova. The Devils had dibsed Slava and Lyosha a few years before, and the Flames wanted Sergei. There was a place for them, waiting, if they could ever get to the NHL. But there wouldn’t be any thaw in Arkhangel as long as Tikhonov ruled it.

The ’85 World Championships were held in Prague, and ’86 in Moscow. Igor played both, and nothing else. For two years, no one saw him outside the Soviet Union. 

In December of ‘85, CSKA was supposed to tour North America. Igor was dressed and ready. Then he heard his passport, which he had used a hundred times before, had run into problems. Coach told him not to worry, but to stay behind in Russia and--how convenient--keep training for the championships in Moscow. Igor woke up at three in the morning to watch the games he was supposed to be playing. He learned that Canadian journalists were asking about him: apparently, he had tonsillitis. Igor wasn’t entirely sure where his tonsils were. 

Two months later CSKA played in Sweden. Strange, how his tonsils still weren’t better, and his passport was still missing. Two nights before they were set to leave Tikhonov called him into the office, in front of the team, and told him so. But the next evening Tretiak, now a more senior officer, came out to visit the barracks. He hugged Igor and promised him he would do what he could to get the passport by the time they were supposed to leave the next morning. Igor went to bed hoping. At 4:30 AM the coaches woke him just to tell him the passport wasn’t there yet, so the team really would be leaving without him. 

The third time it happened, he was told to go back to the passport office to file everything all over again--maybe he had fucked up his passport. He didn’t bother. Taking away travel had been one thing. But doing it in front of the team, in front of the Green Unit, so that he knew that they knew that he had let them down somehow, broke his heart. 

He was still allowed to play inside the Soviet Union. As long as he was with CSKA, the other Greens treated him the same as always. If they had known how bad things were going to get, Igor thought they would have done more sooner, but he knew that they didn’t understand what was happening. In between games, he spent his days in office buildings, being grilled about suspicious activities like listening to rock music, calling his mom too often, or kissing Canadians. 

“I was at fault all around. That I gladly gave interviews to journalists. That I liked the NHL...that I like rock music. That the living standard there impressed me. All this was raked up into a pile. I was the enemy. Because, you see, if I liked the American way of life, then in general I was an American by heart. All of this they said about me.

By nature, I am clearly a Russian. I do not like everything in America. It cannot be that somewhere is as in a fairytale, and somewhere else is total darkness.

Particularly, it seemed, my [friendliness] offended the preservers of government secrets….I also knew a little English. Therefore I had the possibility to rub elbows with whomever I might come in contact: hockey players, journalists and even immigrants. And, they assumed, to each of them I could give important information--everyone getting an equal share, no doubt, in order to be fair.”

He couldn’t talk to his friends from other countries, or his Russian friends either when they traveled without him. On the street outside between the rink and the party offices, none of his former fans would speak to him, except to ask or tell him their opinion if he really was a traitor.

He was wanted everywhere but home. Obviously, no other country believed that a 25 year-old athlete who had been the best in the world six months before had been brought down by tonsillitis multiple times in a row. There’s only so many tonsils a person can have. Obviously, every other country thought Igor must want to defect, the one thing he did not want and couldn’t convince anyone of. So each host on the international hockey circuit was bouncing on their toes, first Canada, then Sweden and so on, thinking maybe the Soviet Union would slip up and let him come to their tournament, he'd defect, and then they’d get to keep him. Obviously, the Soviets noticed that, and squeezed tighter.

Each time the team left on tour, he was told to spend his time alone training harder and hope. If he was good enough, maybe he’d make the next tournament. His body, always a battle-ground with Coach Tikhonov, became a hostage situation. The more Tikhonov told him to train, the less he ate. Eventually he was eating mostly fruit, and restricting his water intake. 

He stopped pretending to defer to anyone.  He used to be the sober one between his hot-head wingers, and now he egged every fight on. Sometimes he faked an American accent, calling Coach “Tikhonoff” the way American broadcasters had at the '81 Olympics.

One day at the rink he bumped into figure skater Lena Batanova, who “knew nothing about hockey and could not have cared less.” She had been through worse training than he had growing up, only to win two World Championships, and then be slighted from a third. They understood each other without having to say anything.

[Igor washing dishes in their Moscow apartment, turning to glance at Lena pressing up him.]

That summer he stayed up late talking with his friends, and realized he wanted to marry Lena. He asked her the next morning, and she said yes. Behind Igor’s back, Slava, Vova, Sergei, and Lyosha went to Coach Tikhonov’s office, and told him that they would play every other day of the year if they had to, but they would be going to Igor’s wedding. Coach wouldn’t allow the three days for a traditional Russian wedding, but he had to give Igor one.

Waking up the morning after the wedding, Igor checked the mail and found a summons to appear before the Central Committee of the Communist Party. His friends, who I imagine lying hungover on his and Lena’s new couch and floor, rushed for their unused books to help him study up on Communist doctrine, in case he got quizzed. This is presumably when Lena woke up, realized she’d married a whole line of hockey players for their one communal brain cell, and rolled back over. Igor reported the next morning, probably with flashcards Vova had made for him in his pocket.

The Party officials congratulated him on getting married and gave him the wedding gift they were sure no one else would have gotten: his passport. We have to guess the logic here, if there was one. It’s possible the Party thought he wouldn’t risk his wife, or that two years had just been enough to realize the team wasn’t working without him. 

But he was allowed to go to Canada for the Calgary Cup before the end of ‘86, and everyone had questions about his two years of tonsillitis. Igor, for the first time in his life, didn’t talk. But that just left the hockey world to gossip. Two months later it was announced he’d be in Quebec City for another tournament, and right before they arrived a Quebec newspaper printed a version of the night out with Gretzky--with quotes, they claimed, from Wayne. This time the tournament organizers called someone from every team up for a pregame presser. I imagine Igor shrugging at his KGB handlers and sliding away to the stage: nothing could stop him talking now.

Except the Canadian journalists. They wanted to interview Team Canada first. Igor stewed, and then looked up to see an oncoming Wayne. Someone had asked him about the alleged quotes in the article, which Igor had snagged a copy of to read the second they let him loose in Canada. Apparently Wayne hadn’t. 

“‘Believe me, Igor,’” Igor remembers Wayne blurting out. “‘I didn’t say what was printed in the paper. I’ll tell them it didn’t happen! But what is your position now?’”

“‘Do not worry,” Igor promised him. “‘Now, everything is okay.’”

“Oh, awesome,” (I’m assuming again) Wayne said. “So do you want to come over later and hang out in my mom’s basement?!”

“If the KGB pulls a gun, then call me.” --Wayne Gretzky

Weirdly, I’ve never seen this inspirational quote cross-stitched on someone’s wall. 

The next Canada Cup was held in August ‘87 in Hamilton, Ontario, which is like, basically next door to Wayne’s parents’ house. So the afternoon before the first game, Wayne sent his dad Walter to the hotel where the Soviet team was staying. Walter asked in Ukrainian if he could chat with Igor, who had to come down to the hotel lobby to meet him, since visitors were absolutely not allowed to wander up to players’ rooms. Walter invited his son’s friend over for dinner. Igor cut eyes at the KGB agent in the corner, and said he had to go upstairs and ask Coach. Tikhonov said no before Igor started talking.

Igor came back downstairs and apologized to Walter, who thought hard for a minute. He told Igor to ask what if the whole Green Unit went to Wayne’s house for team bonding? Coach Tikhonov considered, and said no, and Igor went back to Walter. 

Walter hitched up his suspenders, and announced to the KGB that he would talk go to Coach Tikhonov now.

He told Tikhonov he would be honored if Coach came to dinner at his house that evening, and if Coach felt like it, he might bring the boys over too. Tikhonov said he’d love to. 

Tikhonov, Igor, Vova, Sergei, Slava, Lyosha, and a KGB operative spent a delightful half hour packed in a car together driving to the Gretzkys' house, where Walter and Phyllis were throwing a cookout. Walter and some of his local buddies had barbecue and corn on the cob on the grill, and Phyllis had quizzed her son about his Moscow trip before throwing up her hands in despair and making a big batch of her mother’s Polish dumplings and sausage.

Nothing makes me happier than the image of Wayne Gretzky, beaming from ear to ear, handing famously fussy little Igor Larionov a piece of barbecued corn on the cob. Igor had to explain that yes, they had corn in Russia, but they ate it on a plate and not like squirrels. Walter offered him a beer, and Igor looked to Coach Tikhonov before saying no. Tikhonov allowed the players to have a soda.

Wayne started asking him how everything had been since the last time they hung out, and didn’t get why his friend wouldn’t talk to him at first. Igor might answer one question, and then act like he didn’t understand. Sergei and Vova really didn’t speak English, and kept elbowing Igor to explain what was going on and why Wayne was smiling at them like that, but Igor was still pretending he only spoke Russian and hesitated to translate for them. Finally Wayne realized Igor was clamming up every time Tikhonov got within earshot.

Wayne went to Walter to change the game plan. Walter would use his Ukrainian to ask Coach Tikhonov about his many amazing accomplishments, while Wayne told the whole party he wanted to show the other boys his medals, which were all down in the basement. Unfortunately the Gretzky family’s basement was very small, and housed Wayne’s many, many medals, so only two people could possibly fit down there at a time: one Gretzky, and one Russian. Tikhonov thought about it, decided he didn’t care about someone else’s medals, and gave the okay.

 Just in case, Wayne deputized his dad’s buddy Charlie, who did not speak Russian or anything like it but was somebody’s dad from suburban Ontario, to chat up the KGB agent.

So Wayne began to escort the Green Unit, one by one, down to his family’s basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he handed them a beer. The two of them chugged their beers together, trying not to take suspiciously long or laugh too loud, and then ran back up to change out for the next boy.

Nothing happened that night. It didn’t change anything, except that Tikhonov never found out. The Greens had been able to get one over on him, because they didn’t have to do it alone.

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#green unit #igor larionov #wayne gretzky #slava fetisov #sergei makarov #vladimir krutov

[devnicolee]

Overworked

Quarantine Writing Challenge

A/N: This is my submission for @chaneajoyyy and @shaekingshitup’s writing challenege. This is my first time participating in one of thesse so very excited! Enjoy! Edited to now include the photo - it has been a long week indeed :) 

Warnings: Some slight angst

Word Count: 2.4K  

Pairing: Black reader x M’Baku

Your head fell forward as you dozed off behind your desk. While this was certainly out of character for you, exhaustion was the unfortunate side effect of working into the early morning hours night after night. You knew you were pushing your body to its limit as you tired to operate on less than 4 hours of sleep each day for the last week. 

Between drafting a new proposal for a partnership initiative for T’Challa, planning tonight’s party and tackling the mountain of tribal work pilling up on your desk, your plate was overwhelmingly full. You were not shocked to find the role of chieftess difficult and demanding, you expected it. But after an entire life spent perfectly organized and on top of everything, you had never felt like this before. There were simply not enough hours in the day to field all the requests for new programs and technology from the lowlanders and requests from tribal members, keep up with your engineering projects, plan your calendar of events, and be a dutiful wife. You weren’t sure which project caused this, which one was officially too much. But you quickly went from expertly juggling all your responsibilities with grace to fumbling and wildly racing between them like a mad woman.

"Y/N… Y/N!!" 

You almost jumped clean out of your own skin as someone’s shouts penetrated your cluttered thoughts. You jumped out of your seat, eyes wide and alert, to find no one other than your husband leaning against the office door frame with an amused smile on his face.

"Oh, my love. I didn’t hear you knock. I am sorry," you laughed, your hand clutching your heart as you tried to calm down from the sudden scare. You closed your eyes for a second, a small bout of dizziness overcoming you from the abrupt movement. 

"I can tell… it’s alright. It is a Saturday, what on Earth are you doing here? I hope you are not stressing yourself out over this party?" he warned as he walked into the office. You stood up to get a glass of water from a table in the office, allowing him to steal your seat behind the desk. You both knew it wouldn’t bother you much, your preferred seat was his lap anyway. Your mind was so clearly preoccupied as M’Baku eyed you suspiciously, so preoccupied that you didn’t even notice the slight tremble in the glass in your hand. But he certainly did. The moment you were in arms length again, he quickly grabbed your curvy hips to pull you into his lap. 

M'Baku was no secret to exhaustion, the long tiring days that came with leadership. He certainly appreciated his chieftess’s willingness to take the majority of work with the lowlanders off his plate, allowing him to focus on tribal matters. And it seemed to be working out masterfully until the last week or two. He realized as he looked at you, properly for the first time in days, that the little things he had noticed recently were now significant things… concerning things. Exhaustion was a prominent fixture on your face, marked with stress and dark bags makeup couldn’t fully hide. "I told you it is a busy time, we do not need a celebration on top of everything else."

"Nonsense. It is your 5th anniversary as chief, M’Baku. We can’t not celebrate your dedication to our people. A celebration you deserve, by the way," you quickly waved his concerns off as you held his face in your hands. Your fingers played with the coarse hair of his beard as you looked at him. "You just hate attention… don’t make this about me."

"This is about you. There is no time for a party right now, you. Between all these random requests from the King, preparing for winter... you do not have time. You know you can say no, right?"

"All of those are part of my duties as chieftess M’Baku." Your body leaned away from him a bit, growing agitated at his sudden interrogation.

"No, don’t try to remind me of your duties like I do not know them. You do me no service when you overload your plate to ease mine. I spoke to your assistant yesterday after you missed dinner for the third night in a row. You have taken on far too much. You cannot personally oversee every project in the lab, every program with the Golden City, and keep up with the everyday tasks of chieftess. You can’t do it all little one and no one is asking you to."

"I am not trying to do everything. I am just trying to be a good chieftess. I don’t want to embarrass you," your voice trailed off at the end as you ran your hands gingerly through the soft fur on his collar. You found a stray, loose string, which you tugged at slightly. You ignored how your vision went in and out, black spots obscuring the small brown strand. "Remind me to re-sew this tomorrow... I don’t want it to tear off."

M’Baku shook his head, frustrated at your deflection. He didn’t understand how you couldn’t see the toll all this was taking on you. His heart ached, as it always did, when you expressed doubt in your abilities as chieftess. He hated the way your eyes avoided his and your gaze fell down to your own lap in embarrassment. His rough hands gripped your grin lightly, lifting your head back to his eye level. His thumb grazed your cheek as he forced you to look at him.

"You could never embarrass me Y/N. You can worry me and you are. Not sleeping or eating... you are distracted, stressed. You just aren’t yourself. You are stretching yourself too thin."

"No, I am not." you responded defiantly. "I know when I am overwhelmed. This is nothing. I wish you would stop worrying. Besides, your party is tonight. It is too late to cancel it."

An intense staring match ensued, neither side willing to back down just yet. M'Baku rolled his eyes before nodding, conceding because even he had to admit this was a losing battle. And you had a point, it was indeed too late to cancel. 

You kissed him on the nose, a silent thank you before he got up to let you finish your day of work before the party. 

****

You sat quietly at your vanity, applying the finishing touch to your makeup as quickly as you could. You cursed yourself for losing track of time earlier, leaving you with only mere minutes to throw on your custom dress and run downstairs to oversee final details. The moment you stood up, you were forced back into your seat as a wave of dizziness settled over you. You leaned your head into your hand, trying to avoid disturbing your hard work, praying that it would pass before M'Baku came out of the bathroom. 

You silently demanded your body pull it together, you just needed to get through a few more hours. A few more hours, you chanted under your breath as you forced yourself back onto your feet. It was only marginally more successful than the first time but you were determined to press forward. Your heart couldn’t take messing up this night for M’Baku. 

"Are you alright, Ikumkani?" M'Baku said suspiciously as he followed behind you into the bathroom to grab his clothes for the party.

"Of course, my king," you answered softly, forcing your voice to maintain its usual timber. But even you knew it was a tall order to get him to ignore the noticeable shake in your words. You slid your white robe off your shoulders, allowing it to fall in a heap at your feet, and stepped into your dress. Pulling the detailed bodice up your frame felt like an Olympic task. Your body was beginning to protest, loudly and defiantly telling you a few more hours would simply not do.  

Your arm held the strapless gown up against your chest as you looked behind you at your husband, "Can you zip me up, my love?" you asked. 

"I would rather tear it off of you. This dress is a vision, as you will be in it." M'Baku showered you with praise as his hands took time to room your body before finding the delicate zipper at the back of the dress. You only partially heard him, offering minimal “hmms” as thanks, too afraid to talk as nausea churned in your stomach. 

"I am done, little one," M'Baku said. You felt his presence move from behind you, his voice seemed so far away as if you were talking through a tunnel. You didn’t move though. You leaned into the wooden case holding your jewelry as if your life depended on it, suspecting that your legs could no longer hold your weight.  

You took a deep breath, deciding to make a break for it, "What di-" you started to say before everything went black. 

****

When you woke up, you were on the floor in M'Baku's arms. You couldn’t comprehend his words, they were flying by rapidly and unable to penetrate the cloud in your brain. But his panic was evident and reached your ears clearly.

"Y/N!" 

You looked around wildly, your brain sluggish and slow as it tried to catch up with the reality around you. Instinctively, you tried to sit up but the grip M’Baku had on your arms kept you flush against his chest.

"It’s ok. You fainted, you just need to relax. It is ok, I got you, my love." 

You nodded softly and allowed your head to lull back at his sweet whispers. Confusion was the paramount feeling at the moment, that and exhaustion. But you had M’Baku, you were in his arms, you were safe and that meant there was little to worry about. You both laid there for a few moments before you felt well enough to squeeze his hand, signaling that you were ready to move. He clearly didn’t trust your judgement so he swooped you up bridal style and carried you into the bathroom. He sat you gently on the edge of the tub. His eyes intently scanned your body, still in your designer gown, his hands rubbing up and down your body, to look for injuries. His face scrunched up in worry, concerned that he had not caught you soon enough. 

"I-I am fine, M'Baku. No pain, just exhausted," you whispered back to him, trying to settle the clear anxiety coursing through him. You could tell by the way his eyes darted across your frame frantically and his rapid movements that you scared him, truly scared him. And now, you felt the burden of that, wanted to do anything within your current physical limitations to make him feel at ease again.

"How long?" M'Baku asked, his hands finally settled on your thighs. His question required no other context or words, you knew he wanted to know how long you had been feeling like this, how long you had been ignoring it and you knew he would not be pleased with the answer. But lying was not an option, it never was with the two of you. 

"The last few days," you answered truthfully, avoiding his eyes. "You were right, I am overwhelmed... I thought I could c-catch up but it was too much and it kept growing and g-growing. I j-just didn't want to admit I failed you." 

M'Baku scoffed, "You can't fail me, you. I will tell you this every day until you believe it. B-but you can't do this ever again. Y/N, I am serious. You can never scare me like that again. The way you looked... I th-... please, you can't just take care of me or the tribe. You have to make yourself a priority too. Promise me." 

You leaned forward, which took great energy on your part, and kissed him on the lips. It was soft, gentle, conveyed more in an apology than your words would. "I promise. I’m sorry." 

That seemed to suffice, he offered you a smile that pushed some of the guilt out of your heart. He stood up and held you for a moment, unzipping your dress so it fell off you. "You are going to take a bath, and then go to bed." He turned on the hot water in their tub, filling it with water and your favorite vanilla bubble bath. 

"B-but the par-" 

The look on his face immediately silenced you. "The party is no longer your concern. We are not going.” 

“It is your party, we have to go,” you insisted, guilt rushing through you at ruining his night. “What if I just go for a litt-”

“Y/N,” he growled, his tone highlighting his frustration at his stubborn wife. “You should be glad I am not calling every healer in this tribe. You will stay here and you will rest. That is final.” 

His face softened slightly at the small nod you gave, you understood you couldn’t fight him on this one. But he also understood how guilty you felt for crashing on his special day, how badly you wanted tonight to be perfect for him. 

“Fine, I will go and show my face for an hour once you are in bed. It will be amazing and everyone will love it. But you will stay here, all I want for my celebration is for you to finally rest, Y/N." 

You nodded, and slid down into the bath, the warm water felt heavenly against your tired body. M’Baku watched you closely, clearly concerned that you may faint in the tub. You looked, to him, as weary and tired as he imagined you felt. That made him feel secure in his decision to make this call. The duties and pressures of the tribe could wait, you needed to just be you for a while. He only left your once, for a few moments as it was nearing time for him to go downstairs, to get dressed. He came back in his slacks and dress shirt with a cup of your favorite chamomile tea in hand.

He helped you out of the bath slowly. If you weren’t already, his gentleness and care would have usually made you weak in the knees. He left you to finish getting dressed but after putting on your panties, you decided you had little energy for other clothes. You slid your robe on and tied a towel around your wet twists, and slid on your reading glasses. 

You lazily walked out of the bathroom, sipping your perfectly-made tea, to find M’Baku putting on his suit jacket. 

"You look perfect. Happy anniversary, M'Baku." 

He pulled you in close for a deep, passionate kiss before he steered you toward the California-King size bed and helped you in. "Thank you. Get some rest, usana. I will be back in an hour." 

He watched you for a minute or two, as you sunk into the bed and your eyes drifted shut. "I love you," he whispered, but all he heard in return were the soft, gentle snores of the very-exhausted love of his life.

He chuckled lightly, kissing you on the forehead this time and removing your glasses before heading toward the door. As he left, he decided an hour was really going to be 30 minutes. He had a wife to tend to.

****

@muse-of-mbaku @dawva @destinio1 @jellybean531 @afrolatinpami

#black writer #black panther #black panther fanfiction #black panther fics #m'baku x reader #m'baku imagines

[watusichris]

My Brilliant Career in Chicago Pro Wrestling: A True Story

Damn, I could have sworn I’d posted this 2015 Night Flight story, which remains the funniest thing I’ve ever written. Every word is true. ********** In the early 1970s, before Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (today World Wrestling Entertainment) turned professional wrestling into a pay-per-view cash cow, pro grappling was a wide-open game run by maverick regional promoters and catering to lunatic fans. I got to experience this incredible world intimately: For two years, I served as “publicist” for the promoter in one of the biggest wrasslin’ towns in the country, Chicago.

I was fresh out of college back in 1972, and returned to my old room in my mother’s apartment in Evanston bearing a seemingly worthless bachelor’s degree in English and no immediate prospects for gainful employment. Fortunately, my father believed in nepotism.

After a long career as a TV executive that had garnered him two Peabody Awards, my dad was then the general manager of WSNS, a Chicago UHF station that broadcast on Channel 44. It was a low-rent operation that my old man helped legitimize by securing telecasts of White Sox games. (He loathed Sox announcer Harry Caray, who would get hammered out of his skull while working in the booth, and rightly thought major league screwball-turned-color man Jimmy Piersall was out of his mind.)

Though such questionable WSNS programming as a daily late-night weathercast delivered by a buxom negligee-clad blonde stretched out on a heart-shaped bed was a thing of the past, colorful holdovers from the old schedule remained. And thus my dad called me one day to say he could get me some part-time work doing PR for Bob Luce, the local pro wrestling promoter, who mounted the weekly show All Star Championship Wrestling on the station.

Naturally, I was hired on the spot at my first meeting with Luce, who was something of a legend in Chicago sports circles at the time. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Bob Greene captured had him perfectly in a famous column in which every sentence ended with an exclamation point.

Stocky, florid of complexion, and as loud as his off-the-rack sport coats, the outsized Luce was the dictionary definition of the word “character.” You’d sit down with him in a restaurant, and the other diners would duck and cover. Constantly agitated and gesticulating wildly, his stentorian conversation was a manic torrent of hype and madness, punctuated by explosive laughter than sounded like a machine gun going off next to your ear.

Fittingly, before joining the wrestling biz, Luce had edited a tabloid, the National Tattler. Like the National Enquirer of that frontier era, the rag made its bones with totally fictitious “news” stories featuring lots of cleavage and outré bloodletting. At one lunch, to the very evident embarrassment of the neighboring clientele, Luce regaled me with the tale of one inspired Tattler cover story, which I will recount Greene-style. Imagine it at full volume: “I got this idea, see, for a story about a sex orgy! [He pronounced “orgy” with a hard “g,” as in “Porgy” of Porgy and Bess.] But it had to be a different kind of orgy! So I got my wife Sharon to take her clothes off and covered her with peanut butter! And we took some pictures, and the lights were HOT, and the peanut butter melted all over her! They were great pictures! We called it – ha ha HA! – ‘PEANUT BUTTER ORGY!’”

Luce had graduated to promoting pro wrestling events in Chicago and other Midwestern markets, in partnership with the American Wrestling Association’s star attractions, Verne Gagne and Dick the Bruiser, of whom more in a moment. (His sweet, funny, but definitely tough wife knew the business: She had wrestled under the name Sharon Lass.)

As the noisy host of All Star Championship Wrestling, Luce would interview the stars of his upcoming promotions, show footage of recent contests, and pump the next matches. Thrusting a finger at the camera in one of his windups, he would shriek, “BE THERE!!!” Ever the sales impresario, he also served as the show’s principal pitchman, appearing in tandem with some of his hulking charges -- and occasionally with special guest hucksters like former heavyweight champ Leon Spinks -- to spiel for a long line of sketchy local advertisers. They are among the greatest and most hilarious commercials ever made.

As Luce’s publicity rep, commanding a monthly paycheck of $200, I was charged with lightweight duty: writing and mailing press releases promoting the bi-weekly Friday night matches at the Chicago International Amphitheatre, assisting the WSNS camera crew at the gigs (sometimes by protecting their extra film magazines from flying bodies at ringside), and calling in the results of the matches to the local papers. (The last task proved to be the most onerous. I’d ring up the local sports desks late on the nights of the matches and harangue some half-drunk, bored assistant editor whose interest in the “sport” could not have been more infinitesimal. When I finally managed to get the Sun-Times to print the results of one match, I felt as if I’d qualified for a Publicists Guild award.) I also performed certain functions for Luce when he was out of town or too busy to handle them. One weekday afternoon I accompanied Superstar Billy Graham, later a big WWF name and a sort of proto-Hulk Hogan, to Wrigley Field, where he was interviewed by nonplussed announcer Jack Brickhouse between innings of a Chicago Cubs radio broadcast.

Every other week for nearly two years, I’d take the El down to the Amphitheatre, located on Halsted Street on the far South Side, adjacent to the old Chicago Stock Yards. (I held onto the job even after I secured a similarly nepotistic but full-time position – writing about cheap component stereo systems for Zenith Radio Corporation.) The antique, immense Amphitheatre had hosted big political conventions, auto shows, circuses, rodeos, and concerts by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin, but Luce’s dates at the venue, as you will see, attracted a distinctly different class of customer.

The pre-match staging area, where I’d meet Luce and the crew, was the Sirloin Room of the adjacent Stock Yard Inn, not far from the site of the old South Side cattle slaughterhouses. This is where Luce’s employees and pals would also convene before the night’s entertainment began to swill a couple of cocktails and shoot the breeze. It was a cast worthy of a Damon Runyon story.

Luce employed a bodyguard, a towering ex-Chicago cop named Duke, who had reputedly shot six men before being relieved of duty by the PD. He stood about six-four and dressed exactly like John Shaft. He emanated an aura of extreme menace. Once, when I asked him what he would do if someone actually started any serious trouble, Duke wordlessly pulled back the lapel of his full-length leather coat to reveal a shoulder holster bulging with a .44 Magnum.

The promotion’s bagman, charged with collecting the night’s cash receipts, was a diminutive cat everyone called Bill the Barber. I never knew his last name, but he did in fact run a South Side barbershop. He’d invariably show up dressed in a sport coat that looked like a TV test pattern and a skinny-brim fedora, with watery eyes that sometimes flicked nervously above his pencil-thin mustache. He kept a .38 strapped to his belt.

Many nights, a mysterious character referred to only as “Carmie La Papa” would put in an appearance. This elderly Italian gentleman was always treated with great deference and ate on Luce’s tab. I never found out exactly what he did. But he looked a lot like the mobster played by Pasquale Cajano in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, and I thought it wise not to inquire about his line of work.

There were also bona fide wrestling groupies, well-stacked, slightly haggard old-school broads who draped themselves on the bar, sipping pink ladies. One night, Luce leaned over to me in the Sirloin Room and said, in a whisper that could be heard 20 feet away, “After the matches, these girls and the guys go to a motel up in Prospect Heights, and they have orgies.” (Again, pronounced with a hard “g.”) The most popular of these was reportedly Gloria, a tall, pneumatic redhead of uncertain but rapidly advancing age; Luce confided, “She will do anything.”

The matches themselves were something to behold. I’d usually watch them in the company of WSNS’s young, jaded camera crew, from the dilapidated press box high above the ring in the center of the Amphitheatre. The crowd – thousands of poorly dressed, myopic, malodorous, and steeply inebriated men – was a product of what may be called the pre-ironic era of pro wrestling. There was no such thing as a suspension of disbelief among these spectators. Disbelief did not exist. Though the matches were as closely stage-managed as a production of Richard III, these rubes accepted every feigned punch and bogus drop kick as the McCoy.

Pro wrestling is the eternal contest between virtue and evil, and the wrestlers were identified in equal number as good guys and heels. Most of the good guys on the undercard – there were usually half a dozen matches, with one main event – were young “scientific” wrestlers whose Greco-Roman moves were no match for the brazenly illegal play of the dirty heels, who almost invariably won their bouts with tactics that would not pass muster with an elementary school playground monitor, let alone a legitimate referee. About the only one of these “babyfaces” (or, alternatively, “chumps”) who was vouchsafed an occasional victory was Greg Gagne, son of the promotion’s star attraction and part owner.

By the early ‘70s, Verne Gagne had been wrestling professionally for more than two decades; drafted by the Chicago Bears and then rebelling against team owner George Halas’ prohibition of a sideline on the mat, he had chosen the ring over the gridiron. He was 46 years old when I started working for Luce; he was still in decent shape, and, unlike almost all of his opponents, he still had all of his teeth.

I only managed to spend time with him once. For some reason now lost in the dense fog of time, Luce dispatched me to meet Gagne at the elegant Pump Room of the Drake Hotel near Lake Michigan. There, as cabaret star Dorothy Donegan serenaded us on the piano, the 16-time world heavyweight wrestling champion of the world got me brain-dead drunk, and then poured me into a cab home. He was an excellent guy.

Many of the other good guys on Luce’s undercards were reliable patsies for the baddies. Pepper Gomez, one of the domestic game’s few Mexican stars, was a venerable attraction who was allowed the rare triumph; billed as “the Man with the Cast-Iron Stomach,” he once allowed a Volkswagen Bug to be driven over his gut on Luce’s TV show, where he was a frequent guest.

One of my favorites was Yukon Moose Cholak. Then a veteran of 20 years on the mat, Moose owned a bar not far from the Amphitheatre, but he still worked regularly for his close pal Luce in the AWA. Huge, pot-bellied, and benign, he boasted a ripe Sout’ Side accent rivaled only by Dennis Farina’s. He was hardly an exceptional combatant: He moved around the ring with the fleetness of a dazed sloth. He was a regular on Luce’s show, and often appeared with the host in his TV spots.

The only time I appeared as a guest on All Star Championship Wrestling, Moose was the victim of the on-camera carnage that was a requisite feature of the show. At the time, conflict of interest be damned, I was writing a column about wrestling for a short-lived local sports paper called Fans, and was brought in to lend something like legitimacy to the proceedings. Luce offered me a chair on his threadbare set to push a forthcoming match between Cholak, who appeared on camera next to me, and Handsome Jimmy Valiant, a new heel on the rise in the market.

I figured something ugly was going to happen, but I went about extolling the virtues of Moose’s nearly non-existent mat skills in the front of the camera. Suddenly, Valiant crept up from behind the black scrim behind us and whacked Cholak over the head with a metal folding chair. To this day, I believe my expression of outraged surprise was worthy of a local Emmy, but a nomination eluded me.

I was actually very fond of Valiant, whom I interviewed with his “brother” and tag team partner Luscious John Valiant for Fans. Jimmy was a peroxided, strutting egomaniac in the grand Gorgeous George manner, and he had some classic patter: “I’m da wimmen’s pet and da men’s regret! I got da body wimmen love and men fear! And you, you’re as useful as a screen door in a submarine, daddy!” A rock ‘n’ roll fan, he went on to a very successful solo career, appropriately enough in Memphis, the capital of all things Elvis.

After Gagne the elder, the AWA’s biggest attraction was the tag team of Dick the Bruiser and the Crusher. Bruiser had gotten his competitive start as a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers, but had been a top wrestling draw since 1955. Somewhere along the way, he had been converted from heel to hero, and the Chicago fans adored him. Among the merch sold at the Amphitheatre were Dick the Bruiser Fan Club buttons; measuring six inches in diameter, they could either be pinned on one’s chest or, with the aid of a built-in cardboard stand, be displayed as a plaque. I kept mine on my desk at my straight job to freak out my co-workers.

Early in my gig with Luce, I was taken to meet Bruiser in the locker room. He sat on a table smoking a huge cigar. When I was introduced to him, he exclaimed, “Hey, you’re Ed Morris’ kid? You got more hair than your old man!” My father, who was in fact almost completely bald, had been known to associate with winners of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. I was a little surprised that he ran in Bruiser’s circle.

The Crusher’s career in the squared circle dated back to the late ‘40s. I was even more impressed by him than I was by the Bruiser, for he had been the inspiration of the Novas’ wrasslin’-themed single “The Crusher,” a huge 1965 radio hit in Chicago for the Minnesota garage band the Novas (and later eloquently covered by the Cramps). Bruiser and Crusher were a unique combo: They were “good guys,” but they earned their keep by being badder than the “bad guys” they gutter-stomped.

The villains in that era of pro wrestling were often the object of atavistic xenophobia and hatred. Long before the U.S.’s conflicts in the Middle East, the Sheik (né Ed Farhat in Lansing, Michigan), who took the ring wearing a burnoose, was among the most reviled of heels. Some of the older fans were World War II vets, and they lustily booed Baron von Raschke, who climbed through the ropes with a monocle in one eye, draped in a Nazi flag. He was actually a U.S. Army vet born Jim Raschke in Omaha, Nebraska. His fake German accent was utterly feeble.

The AWA’s all-purpose villain, who would go on to bigger things as one of McMahon’s first WWF stars, was “Pretty Boy” Bobby Heenan, dubbed “the Weasel” by the Bruiser. Heenan was featured in his own matches, but he was most reliably entertaining as a manager, of the most duplicitous and cowardly variety, in another villain’s corner. You didn’t need a script to know what was going to happen: Just as it looked like the good guy was going to triumph, Heenan would leap into the ring and smash the apparent victor’s head into a turnbuckle or hit him over the skull with a water bucket.

Heenan featured in the most outrageous story I heard during my brilliant career in wrestling. One night I was sitting with the film crew when Al Lerner, the mustachioed, shaggy-haired, bespectacled WSNS sports reporter, entered the press box with a portable tape machine on his shoulder and a stunned look on his face. “I’ve interviewed people in front of burning buildings,” Al said. “I’ve interviewed people as they were jumping out of airplanes. But I’ve never interviewed anyone while they were getting a blowjob.”

It seems that while Al was in the locker room recording some audio bites from Heenan, a voluptuous girl standing nearby walked over to the wrestler, kneeled down in front of him, pulled down his trunks, and began giving him the kind of pre-match service Mickey Rourke probably dreamed of but never received. As she went about her business, Heenan continued to spout invective to Al as if nothing extraordinary was transpiring. With that moment alone, Bobby Heenan earned his place in the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.

I visited Heenan in the locker room on a somewhat less eventful evening, but that night I learned the secret of many pros’ mat success. As I was talking to him, I noticed that his forehead was crosshatched with tiny scars, some of them new and still livid. I later mentioned this to one of the crew, and was told that these wounds – referred to as “juicing”  -- were actually self-inflicted, so that the wrestlers could easily draw blood during critical moments of violence in their matches.

As Heenan said in a later interview, “If you want the green, you gotta bring the red.” Gore was a staple of pro wrestling, and there was nothing like sitting in an arena filled with 10,000 or 15,000 crazed spectators and hearing a drunken chant go up as a good guy pummeled a heel to the mat: “WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT BLOOD! WE WANT BLOOD!”

My last hurrah in pro wrestling was one of Luce’s rare alfresco promotions, a multi-bout 1974 card at old Comiskey Park, the White Sox’s stadium, which climaxed with a 16-man battle royal. I don’t remember who triumphed in the main event, but I do remember that someone on the crew brought a bat and some softballs along, and we ended the evening shagging fly balls under the lights where Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio once played.

The outlaw era of regional pro wrestling is a dim memory for most. The racket would get wilder after I left it: In an interview with Nashville wrestling figure Jimmy Cornette, Heenan said that a fan at a 1975 Amphitheatre match pulled out a pistol and began firing at him, but the shooter only managed to wound four people in the rows in front of him.

McMahon’s WWF brought the regional promoters’ day to a close, pillaging most of the big names in the game in the process. Today, the WWE has been displaced in popularity by the even gaudier UFC contests. Most of the stars I met – including Bruiser, Crusher, and Cholak – are dead now. Heenan, a throat cancer survivor, has been in poor health for more than a decade. Verne Gagne died this April; in 2009, suffering from dementia, he accidentally killed a 97-year-old fellow resident in a Minnesota assisted living facility. Even the old stomping grounds are gone: The Chicago Amphitheatre was razed in 1999.

Bob Luce passed away in 2007, but his wild-ass legacy may live on via an unlikely champion. There are many analogs between pro wrestling and rock ‘n’ roll, and this April, mat mega-fan Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins announced on Twitter that he had bought Luce’s memorabilia and an archive of 9,000 vintage wrestling photos. Maybe he and former Hüsker Dü front man Bob Mould, a fellow wrasslin’ aficionado who once worked for McMahon as a writer, can make something of it. That would rock. 

[writing-is-sexy]

Chapter One

From the backseat of this oh so familiar white sedan I watch as buildings turn into houses, until we stop in front of a small blue house with cream colored accents. On the front porch there was a bench swing, with a girl who looks to be the same age as me sitting reading a book. Susan, my case worker turns to look at me and says, "I have a feeling this will be your last foster home."

After pulling my things from the trunk, Susan and I walk up to the porch to be met by my new foster family. The husband and wife walk out the front door, greeting us with a smile. They seem nice, but they always do. The husband is tall, at least 6'3". He has dark blonde hair and dark blue eyes to match. He sticks out his hand waiting for me to take it in mine. "I'm Luke, welcome Victoria."

Wow, this is the first family to actually get my name right. I take ahold of his hand and shake it with a slight smile as the wife begins to introduce herself. Her name is Rebecca, she is about a foot shorter than Luke and has pitch black hair. She has blue eyes as well, but hers are lighter they look like spring water. Their daughter, Megan, introduces herself quickly before burying herself back into her book. Megan looks so much like her mother, but has her dad's blonde hair. Luke opens the door to the house and we all follow him inside.

The house is beautiful inside, it has an open floor plan between the living room and kitchen. This is definitely the nicest house I have been in, in a long time. I notice pictures of Megan that go all the way back to her as a baby. This house would give any who walks in it a safe, happy feeling. We walk up the stairs to a hallway with four doors. One for Luke and Rebecca's room, one for Megan's room, a bathroom, and my room. There's a door in both Megan and in my room that connects our rooms to the bathroom. Oncr the door opens I'm in awe of my new room , but I don't want to get too settled in. It never lasts long. My room has a matching bedroom set made out of dark mahogany wood. There is a white and black comforter set on the bed with scripture style wording and the Eifle Tower on it, it was beautiful.

"We're not sure what you like, if it's not your style we can change it Victoria," Rebecca says with a sweet smile.

"No, this is great," I reply honestly.

As I'm looking around the room Luke begins to speak, "We'll let you get comfortable while we go downstairs and finish up with Susan."

Susan gives me a hug before they make their way down the stairs. I put my duffle bag on the bed and begin putting my things in the drawers. When I finish there is a light tap on the door, before Megan pushes it open and makes her way to the bed and hoping on it.

"You know, I've never had a foster sibling before. I didn't even know my parents wanted to foster a kid until about to days ago," Megan informs me, which makes me anything but comfortable. "But I think this will be a good thing, I've always wanted a sister," she adds.

"Well out of all the foster families I've stayed with, your family seems the nicest." I tell Megan, she responds with a smile.

"Tomorrow morning my mom is going to bring us to school a little early so we can pick up your schedule and I will show you around school. Don't worry we don't bite." She laughs before going on, motioning for me to sit down on the bed with her. So I do.

Never has any of my foster siblings wanted to know about me and my story, but Megan did. So I began the story about how I ended up in foster care. My parents and I were your typical family, we were happy. My mom was a school teacher and my dad was a firefighter, they were married for three years before they had me. One night at about two in the morning some people broke into our house. My mom ended up emptying out a dresser drawer in their room and hiding me in it before the intruders ended up shooting my parents. A detective ended up hearing me whine and found me in the drawer. My grandparents were too old to take me in and I didn't have any other family, so they had no other choice but to put me in foster care.

Megan wipes her tears away as Rebecca opens the door to the room and says, "Dinner is done, I'm glad to see you guys are getting to know each other."

Megan and I both get off the bed and follow Rebecca downstairs for dinner. Rebecca informs me that dinner will be done typically around six pm every night and that we eat at the dinner table together. While we eat we all make small talk, trying to get to know each other a little bit more. I try to keep it light, opening up to one person was enough for me tonight. I help clear the table once we are all finished, then I excuse myself back to my room.

Picking out my clothes for the morning is pretty easy considering I only have five shirts, three pairs of pants, a pair of shorts, and a pair of two year old Chucks for shoes. I pick out a Aerosmith ripped tee with a white tank top and my dark blues jeans to go with it. Before climbing into bed I grab my copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, that is almost completely falling apart from how many times I have read it. I pull out a faded picture of my parents holding me in the hospital room. It's crazy how you can miss someone you barely knew, but I miss them so much. Sometimes I wonder how things would be different if there were still around, I wonder if I would even be the person I am today if they were here.

The next I get up early enough to take a shower and do my hair. As I'm finishing up Megan knocks on the door, letting me know it's time to go. Megan is wearing a floral dress with a pair of white wedges to go with, her hair was up in a high ponytail. Arianna Grande would be jealous of how high her ponytail is. Rebecca drives us to school before she heads to work herself, before I get out of the car Rebecca gives me a phone.

"All of are numbers are already programmed into it for you. I know how teenagers can't live without these things." Rebecca laughs. "I hope you have a good day."

I thank her as I slip the phone into my back pocket. This was actually my first phone, my foster families prior never trusted me enough to give me one or didn't care. After we get my schedule from the front office, Megan takes it to see if we have any classes together.

"Yay! We have Alegbra 2 and lunch together." Megan exclaims.

Megan does her best showing me around and showing me my locker before the bell for first period goes sounds. Doing my best to follow Megan's instructions, I end up getting to first period a few minutes late. I hate opening the door after everyone has sat down and class has begun because when I walk in everyone looks at me and I was right.

"Looks like there's a new girl," someone says from the back of the classroom.

I introduce myself as the teacher welcomes me, then I make my way to an empty desk I notice by the window. I take out my brand new notebook and begin taking notes until class is over. Once the bell chimes again, I pack up my things and begin to my next class.

"Hey new girl!" I hear the same voice as earlier call out. I turn around and see a blonde boy who's hair may just be as curly as mine coming my way. He has chocolate brown eyes, which are surprisingly breath taking. "Who's class are you heading to now?" He asks.

As I pull my schedule out of my pocket he grabs it from my hand and reads it.

"Excuse me." I say as I try to grab it back but he's too quick.

"Mr. Harvarty, that's right next door to my class. I'll show you the way so you're not late. I'm Ben." He introduces himself, while leading the way.

"I'm Tori." I reply, grabbing my schedule from his hand before he could pull it away again.

Ben does most of the talking as we walk to class, making sure to inform me about all the best teachers and the teacher I should avoid getting on the bad side of. Before we make it to our next class Ben informs me about the football game this Friday and suggests that I should go. Making no promises, I tell him we will see as we approach our next class.

"Alrighty Victoria, this is you." Ben smiles as he points to the next class.

"Thank you, Benjamin." I say and he laughs before we part ways.

The rest of the day goes fairly quickly, when the bell goes off dismissing us from out last class I meet up with Megan by the flag pole before we go to the car. Luke is picking us up from school, which I now know is the normal routine. He asks us about our day, before he tells us about his. Megan tells her dad about the test she just finished and how she hopes she's going to pass.

When we get back to the house we go our separate ways, I assume Megan is going to do her homework like me. I put my school stuff on the desk that is looking out the window to the backyard. It's the perfect spot to get my homework done, unlike most of my foster homes. Typically if I wanted to get my homework done I would have to sneak off to the closest library. The library is the closest thing I can call home, it has given me the most peace over the years.

"Hey Tori," Megan says as knocks on the door.

"Come in," I instruct her, and she does.

"So I heard you made a new friend." Megan laughs as she raises her eyebrows at me. I give her a confused look, I have a feeling I know who she's talking about. "You knooow, Ben!"

"He just showed me to class." I tell her, boys are the last thing on my mind. Plus, I'm never in the same place long enough to even want to give anything a shot. He sure is cute though.

#wattpad #original story #werewolf #werewolves #wolves #fantasy #supernatural #teen fiction #teen wolf #twilight #the vampire diaries #5 seconds of summer #luke hemmings #calum hood #michael clifford #5sos #one direction #luke hemmings fan fic #machine gun kelly

[beenjen]

Motherhood monotony coming up! I don’t feel down or depressed about it, so maybe ‘monotony’ wasn’t the right word? Anywho. The little buggars grow so fast, I could almost weekly go through their clothes to thin the herd. So yesterday, I did just that with Lils. She’s going into size 2 and summer is winding down. I picked out the tighter stuff, things I’m over, and trimmed it down, exchanging 12-18 month pants and long sleeves with 2T. I have it all boxed up for my work girlfriend and it’s on my to do list to meet her at a gas station to pass it off this week while I’m off.

With Jamis, it was tax free weekend here. If you’re not familiar, Tennessee doesn’t have an income tax, but we have 9.75% state tax on most purchases. So twice a year they run tax free weekend and it’s centered around school but all stores do it or offer huge sales/discounts.

With him being in private school he has to wear embroidered polos and khaki pants/shorts as weather permits. I made him try on his pants and they were SO SHORT on him - I knew he had grown, but sheesh. So I ordered all new uniforms at 60% off, free shipping, no tax and then picked up clearance tees, jeans and shorts for next year - an entire year and a half wardrobe for $150! I feel that that’s as a good deal considering consignment sales are on hold here. Then after my Sunday morning yoga, we dropped Lils at her grandparents, masked up and took him to get some new shoes and a backpack. It was super special - he was SO EXCITED. It’s good too I think to have one on one time independently with them?

So I went through all his clothes and shoes and have another 2 boxes to pass to my cousins and another work gf for their kids. It feels like such an accomplishment? Over here being super mom because my kids pants will fit this fall? Hahaha to though, it is the little things like this that helps cull all the clutter? I even went through their closets and found old toys or baby stuff we don’t need anymore and it is a bit bittersweet to be moving out of this baby phase, it also feels really good to be cutting down on all the crap in the house that adds up and up and up.

I got in a yoga sesh this morning, jumping in the shower and headed to the hardware store to get some paint matched for trim touch up. It’ll be a room by room process. But I’m super excited about how fresh that will feel/look - we’ve lived her 8 years this fall and though we have painted walls, not the trim. It’s chipped and dinged all over the place and I’m looking forward to this small project actually.

We have Jamis’ birthday in 2 weeks and he wants a nerf theme. It’ll be small I’m comparison to past birthdays which is ok. It’ll just be grandparents and my oldest nephew and his wife. Some of my other family is either super quarantining where they won’t go out at all, or others go out more than I’m comfortable with then coming here. It’s actually nice for it to be something low key? We’ll make a fun cake together and grill out hamburgers and hot dogs. I picked him up some new footie pajamas as his are warn through in the feet and also getting too small. Then hubs picked out some ‘tactical gear’ for his nerf obsession and some more guns - he’ll have a good day.

Next week is the week where Lilith and Jamis will start back to their respective programs and I’m gunshy, excited, appalled, hopeful and sick all at the same time over it. As I’ve droned on and on about it, we have little choice, and the programs they are signed up for are very conscientious about the kids safety and have multiple safety measures in place. It’s just hard having to make this choice, it’s done though and I can’t wallow in it. Well I can, but it won’t change anything. This is what we have to do, the places they are going are as safe as possible, and that’s the absolute best option we have.

To make myself feel better, I did a pedicure. Lilith has the best time playing with the color bottles and did a facial for myself. My bestie is eloping, so tonight I’m headed up to help her try on some dresses she’s ordered online, we are going to have wine and gab. I had the strangest dream about it actually, that the dresses were all orange floofy monstrosities, I don’t know where that came from?

Just a bunch of free text here folks. Nothing to see haha xx

#mom of 2 #humor #kid stuff #school shopping #tax free #nashville #east nashville #615 #tennessee #back to school #working mom #mom of two #love #cleaning #painting #yoga #self pampering #pedicure #face mask #down time #eloping #dreams #organizedhome #monotony #blah blah blah #nothing to see here #more of the same #getting ready #planning #my kids

[iamrealbuilder]

Bill Buchalter interview

Bill Buchalter was a level designer for Sunstorm Interactive. He’s worked on 3 official add-on of Build Engine games: Cryptic Passage for Blood, Suckin’ Grits On Route 66 for Redneck Rampage, Caribbean Life for Duke Nukem 3D. Interview, November 2020: Corentin: Can you introduce yourself?

Bill Buchalter: My name is Bill Buchalter. I’m an avid gamer of all kinds – video games, board games, and especially tabletop RPGs. I’m currently a freelance writer for AAW Games (Adventure A Week Games) writing mini adventures for Dungeons & Dragons 5E. I live outside Indianapolis, IN with my wife Jane, our three kids, and our dog Roxi. When I’m not gaming, I also enjoy music, playing guitar, hiking, and camping.

C: With Sunstorm Interactive, you're credited for level design on Cryptic Passage, Caribbean Life and Route 66. How did you start working with Sunstorm and what do you remember from that time?

BB: In the mid 90’s, maybe around 1995 or 96, I was very into playing Duke Nukem 3D. Like most PC gamers at the time, I had played Castle Wolfenstein and Doom, and Duke Nukem just blew me away. Back in those days, when we played online, we would use a 3rd party program called KALI. You dialed up on your modem, logged onto the internet, and then used KALI as a portal to chat with other gamers and find someone to play with. The KALI software would then allow you to network together over the internet and play PVP matches. It was crude, and the lag could be horrible, but we didn’t know any better at the time and we loved it!

I remember I was in a B. Dalton bookstore in the mall one day (another relic of the 90’s that is long gone!) when I found a book called the “Duke Nukem 3D Level Design Handbook”. I was intrigued, and as I flipped through the pages it talked about a program on the Duke Nukem CD called Build, which allowed you to create your own levels. I had no idea Build existed, let alone how to use it. I bought the book and spent the next couple weeks diving into learning how to use Build. I was hooked!

Making my own maps quickly became an obsession. I would share them with my friends on KALI and I quickly earned a reputation for making user maps. I remember there was a map building competition, but I don’t recall who sponsored it. A guy named Robert Travis won the competition. When I saw his maps, I was blown away! His designs were so much more advanced than mine. He was using tricks I had never thought of to get lighting effects and set moods. I had to reach out to him to pick his brain.

Robert responded and we began talking and quickly figured out that we both lived in Indianapolis. He was working for Sunstorm at the time and invited me to come to their office to discuss level design. I met him there one evening, and he showed me some of the stuff he was working on. We ended up playing Duke all night on Sunstorm’s network with some of the other guys in the office. I was in heaven!

Robert introduced me to Anthony Campiti, the lead producer on Sunstorm’s next project – Cryptic Passage, an add-on for a Build engine game called Blood. They invited me to design some levels for the game and I jumped at the chance. Robert assigned me to design an opera house level and immediately I got pictures in my head of the theater scenes from Interview with a Vampire. I went home and worked furiously on designing the level. I was still rough, but with Robert’s help I tweaked things here and there and slowly learned his techniques. In the end I was really pleased with the level I’d designed. Robert and Anthony were happy too and asked me to design a second map specifically for deathmatch.

The next project Sunstorm was working on was Suckin’ Grits on Route 66, an add-on for another Build engine game called Redneck Rampage. Robert again asked if I’d like to be a part of that team and assigned me to build a truck stop level. Using a lot of the things I’d learned on Cryptic Passage, and the campy feel of the Redneck Rampage game, I had a lot of fun designing that level.

The last project I worked on for Sunstorm was Duke Nukem Caribbean Vacation. By this time Duke’s popularity was beginning to wane, and Quake was taking over. Robert was already starting to experiment and learn how to use the Quake engine. I was a new dad at the time (my first daughter had just been born) so unfortunately, I didn’t have the spare time to devote to learning a new engine. I barely had the time to design my level for Duke Caribbean, but I did manage to finish the casino level for that project. I do recall that Robert ended up going through in the end and changing a lot of the aspects of my level to fit the theme they had in mind. I remember being a bit disappointed and not really feeling like the level was “mine” because of so many of the changes. It was the last project I worked on for Sunstorm.

I kept in touch with Robert and Anthony for a while after that. They were branching out, working on other projects, and even trying to develop their own FPS game that I don’t think ever really got off the ground. Sunstorm was having the most success with their Deer Hunter line of games that at the time were selling well in Wal-Mart. Sadly, I eventually just lost touch with those guys.

I’m sure this is WAY more information than you were wanting (I’m a writer… I can’t help but go off the deep end!) but you dusted off some fond, old memories for me, so I apologize for walking so far down memory lane!

C: I see that you're still making maps, different kind of maps! This makes me wonder if maybe you were involved with W!Zone (a pack of maps for Warcraft 2 released by Sunstorm). Can you tell us a bit about that if possible?

BB: I didn’t have any hand in the W!Zone project for Sunstorm, but I loved the Warcraft series. As was common for many video gamers like me, who had roots in fantasy games like D&D, I played a lot of Warcraft and eventually got sucked into the world of MMOs with Ultima Online, Everquest, and World of Warcraft! If only I had back the time I sunk into those games!

These days I’m exclusively writing and designing for Dungeons and Dragons. I started about ten years ago writing for D&D Organized Play in a campaign called Living Forgotten Realms. I co-authored two adventures for that with my good friend, Michael Pearman, and authored a third adventure on my own. As you know from tracking me down via AAW Games, I’ve now authored six adventures for them, five of which are already published and one that is still in the works but should be released soon.

When I do manage to find time for video games, Diablo III is my game of choice these days. I’m looking forward to Season 22 starting here shortly, and like many others, I’m really hoping for something great with Diablo IV. I’ve been a huge fan of the series since the beginning, and even wrote an entire campaign for D&D 5E that translated the story of Diablo III into Dungeons and Dragons for the players in my home game! Thanks again for the opportunity to share some of this history. It was fun putting it all down and reliving those days!

C: There are two signatures in the Truck Stop level for Route 66. Do you remember anything about that ? There also several levels with no known credit : Fun Park, House of ill Repute, Mystery Dino Cave, Bigfoot Convention.

The signature on the truck stop is Route 66 was a joke! I was the only designer on that one. I just signed it "Billy Joe Jim Bob Buchalter" as a joke for bad redneck name. I wasn't the kind of guy that had to sign my maps the EXACT same way every time. :)

Other than the truck stop, I don't recall designing any other maps for Route 66. I pretty sure none of those you listed below were mine, but I don't recall whose they were.

Finally, here are some final comments Bill made after reading through some forum posts:

Wow, I am really quite humbled that you guys looked so deeply into my work! The fact that you could recognize my build style is pretty cool - I didn't even know I had a style! LOL. The truth be told, the reason you probably had so much trouble telling my levels from Robert's is because he was a big influence on me. I learned a lot from him and incorporated a lot of that into the stuff I built.

Its funny how reading through that thread you linked brought back memories... I remember now that my biggest disappointment from Duke Caribbean was that my only level in the game ended up being a secret level - that some people wouldn't even find it or ever play it. I was actually pretty excited about that level. I was the one that suggested a casino because my folks had retired to Vegas, so I'd been in a lot of the casinos there and had some great ideas for the map. I'd forgotten all about the restaurant I worked into it, and the big fish tanks.

There seems to be some debate about Robert. From what I remember, he was a really good guy. Maybe a bit tough to work for, but only because he really strived for our designs to be the best they could be, and he demanded that of both himself and the other designers. As I said before, I learned early on to accept criticism and critique and not take it personally. It was just Robert doing his job. I'll be the first to admit that I designed better levels thanks to the stuff I learned from Robert.

Someone on the message board made a very astute comment, basically to the effect that "Bill had to have other work out there. Sunstorm wouldn't hire an unproven guy off the street." But truth be told, that's exactly what they did! I hadn't done a single thing before working there. But I think a few things played in my favor. First, I lived in Indy, just 15 minutes from their office, so it was easy for me to go in and work directly with Robert. Second, while I didn't have anything officially published, I did have a disk full of the maps I'd designed on my own, and Robert thought I showed promise. I would design at home a lot, then go into the office a couple times a week and sit with Robert while he critiqued my work and offered advice on how to improve it.

I'll be honest - I'm blown away at the number of people STILL playing these old maps we made so many years ago. I watched a couple YouTube videos of a guy playing and reviewing Duke Caribbean and Blood Cryptic Passage. His high praise of both Full House and the Opera House really made my day. It's nice to know that people enjoyed my work.

_____________________________

Thanks a lot to Bill Buchalter for taking the time to answer these questions! Thanks also for sharing... “Big City” !

A Duke Nukem 3D map he created back in the day before joining with Sunstorm Interactive which was never released before! Screenshot:

Map download:

https://msdn.duke4.net/bigcity.zip

______

External link: Duke4 forum blog megathread: https://forums.duke4.net/topic/11471-blog-interviews-of-build-engine-video-games-developers/page__pid__353013#entry353013 The forum posts Bill read, mentionned above, can be found here: https://forums.duke4.net/topic/9418-duke-caribbean-multiplayer-levels/

#build #build-engine #blood #duke nukem #redneck-rampage #duke #nukem #duke nukem 3D #video games #route 66 #caribbean life #cryptic passage

[ninja-go-to-therapy]

Orange

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you: the soulmate AU to end all soulmate AUs. Hell yes.

Dedicated to @friendly-neighborhood-ninjager and @razzle-zazzle

Trigger Warnings: None (that’s a new one)

2395 words

“Bye, dad, I love you!” Cole said, walking backward and waving at his dad as he did.

“I love you too. Stay safe and tell your friends I said hi.”

“Will do,” Cole grinned, fully turning around and beginning the short walk to the train station. He usually took the train to visit his dad, seeing as he didn’t really have many other modes of transportation. Well, none he could park easily, especially for the few days he usually stayed when seeing his dad.

It wasn’t a long walk to the train station, and he made it there just in time to get on before it departed.

He sat down, turning on a playlist for the ride. After a moment’s thought, he texted the group chat, asking if anyone wanted him to pick up coffee.

Immediately his friends replied, giving him their orders. He screenshotted them just in case the chat blew up and the orders got lost.

Soon enough the train pulled into the station, and Cole got off, making a beeline for the closest coffee shop. If he hurried, he could just beat the rush.

After he placed his very long order (he felt a little bad for the poor girl behind the counter), he sat down in one of the chairs. The place wasn’t too busy yet, but it still had quite a few people in it.

There were a few small groups of friends, or maybe business partners, a few old ladies off in the corner, and… a few couples.

Cole sighed. A few soulmates, more likely.

The thing about him was that he hadn’t found his soulmate yet. And sure, plenty of people hadn’t found theirs by his age either, but it just kind of really sucked that he hadn’t yet. He wished he could at least have a way of finding whoever he was destined to be with that was a little clearer.

There were loads of ways of finding soulmates. Some people were connected by a red string of fate. Some people had timers. There were things like having their name tattooed on your wrist, or even the first words they would say to you. 

Some, like Jay and Nya, could feel each other’s pain. And others, like Zane and Pixal, had black marks on them that signified where their soulmate would first touch them that would burst into trillions of colors when they did. It was beautiful, really.

But then there was Cole. Cole, who just had to have one of the most useless identifiers there was. Whoop de do, Cole couldn’t see orange. And neither could his soulmate.

Honestly, Cole didn’t try to think about it all that much. It could be worse, he reasoned. And besides, not everybody even ended up with their own soulmate. Jay and Nya had been dating far before they’d ever even realized they were soulmates. Some people never even found their soulmate. Usually, people like him, which sucked.

Besides, he kind of liked not being able to see a color. Kind of. He sort of liked the mystery of it. He supposed that was why he considered orange to be his favorite color. It was just so… mystifying.

He could only hope that one day he’d find his perfect match.

“Cold brew for Cole!” the barista called out.

Cole stood up, barely making it two steps before he tripped over his own bag. And of course, like the graceful ninja he was, he fell. Directly into a person. And spilled their coffee all over them.

“Oh my master, I am so sorry,” Cole said, cringing when he saw that the guy had been wearing a white shirt.

The guy sighed. “It’s alright, it was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“No, no, it was all me. Crap, I’m so sorry, let me buy you another one, to make up for it.”

The guy thought for a moment. “I’ve still got plenty of time on my break. Sure, why not?”

And as the pair turned towards the counter, Cole couldn’t help but notice how attractive this guy was (even while he was dabbing at his shirt with napkins). Besides the coffee all over him (and Cole would feel bad for that whether he was buying him another one or not), he seemed very well put together. His sleeves were rolled up (which always served to make guys hotter, okay), and his face. Was just. So attractive. Okay, Cole supposed what he was trying to get across here was: guy hot.

Damn.

Once the second order had been placed, they sat down in chairs opposite each other.

“You know, I don’t usually talk to people who throw coffee on me,” the guy said, and though he was obviously joking, Cole still felt bad.

“Right, sorry again about that. Again.”

“It’s no big deal,” the guy shrugged, “Trust me, I’ve got plenty of shirts that look exactly like this. I think this coffee may have even spiced this up a little.”

Cole laughed. “Oh yeah, very fashionable. They’ll be wearing it like that in all the fashion magazines by next year.”

“Please, next month at the latest.”

They both laughed.

“So,” the stranger said, still dabbing at the stain with napkins (at this point Cole really should have just bought him a new shirt). “Are you from around here?”

“Sort of. I’m from the city, at least.”

“Nice, me too. I—” 

The guy cut off when a girl from one of the groups of friends stood up with a squeal.

“Guys, my timer’s down to ten seconds! It could be whoever walks in the door next! Oh man, I’m so nervous!”

The girl’s friends pushed her towards the door encouragingly. The door opened, and in walked a guy that was staring at his own wrist. He looked up, they met eyes, and the way they looked at each other. Oh man, the way they looked at each other. Finally finding their other half. It was a beautiful thing that Cole wished so badly he could experience for himself.

“Damn, they look like high schoolers,” the stranger hummed. “You don’t see too many timers who get to zero as a teenager.”

The guy was right, actually. Lots of people with timers that counted down to the first time they would meet their soulmate had to wait for forever. But at least they knew when it would happen. That it would happen.

“What’s your identifier?” Cole found himself asking, cursing himself for doing so. It would kind of suck to meet a guy with the most beautiful eyes and then hear him talk about his wife, or something. Although, he didn’t look old enough to be married, and actually, Cole didn’t see a ring.

“I can’t see orange,” the guy shrugged.

Cole’s jaw dropped.

Okay, yes, there were billions of people alive, and surely many, many people would have the same identifier as he did. But to meet someone that had the same identifier as him and who Cole felt such an instant attraction to? It had to mean something.

“Oh,” Cole said, trying to play off his utter shock. “Me too. Or, me neither. I can’t see orange. As well.” wow, great going, he didn’t sound flustered at all.

The guy looked just as surprised as he felt.

“No way,” the guy laughed, like Cole would joke about something like this. “Damn, small world.”

“Have you found yours yet?” Cole asked, almost feeling bad for wishing he’d say no.

“Nah, not yet. I haven’t met any guys I was attracted to that were the same. Until maybe now,” he said, looking at Cole the same way that Kai looked at girls all the time. 

Kai was one of those guys who’d accepted that he’d never find his soulmate and was an absolute flirt as a result of it.

Wait. Did this guy just admit to being attracted to Cole? Wait, even better, did he just admit to being into guys? Holy shit, holy shit! What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to handle this? This could be his moment! This could be his soulmate!

“Thanks,” Cole said, laughing nervously. “You’re — I —” okay. The first step was to take a deep breath and stop acting like a bad actor on TV. This was just a person. Just like him. “Thanks.”

“Iced coffee for Cole!” the barista called.

“Oh, that’s yours, I’ll get it,” Cole said, standing and being sure not to trip into any handsome strangers this time. Handsome strangers who could quite possibly be his soulmate. Who thought he was attractive. Who was really easy to talk to and who, within minutes of meeting him, made Cole feel almost like that part of him that had been reaching out and longing for so long was almost…. Filled. Was this what it felt like when you met your soulmate?

He grabbed the coffee and returned to his seat.

“Here,” Cole said, handing it to him with a smile.

The guy took it from him, his hand lingering on Cole’s for a moment. He was about ready to scream. In a good way, of course.

“Oh, I have to get back to work,” the guy sighed, checking his watch.

Cole tried to mask his disappointment. “Oh, yeah, I should probably get going too. It was nice to meet you.”

“Hold on,” the guy said, walking over to the table with straws and other various stuff on it. He grabbed a napkin and pulled a pen from his pocket, scribbling something down on it.

“Give me a call sometime,” he said, handing the napkin to Cole, which, upon further inspection, had a phone number on it. 

“Sure thing,” Cole replied, staring after him until he’d left the building.

He couldn’t believe that had just happened. He couldn’t believe that had just happened!

“Cinnamon latte for Cole?”

Oh, that was the last of the drinks he’d ordered. He really needed to get back to the monastery.

But more importantly. He’d just gotten the number of his maybe-probably-soulmate. Holy shit.

---

“I have coffee!” Cole announced, carefully pushing the door open with his leg, since he was carrying two drink holders.

The others rushed him immediately.

“Hey, at least let me set them down before you go crazy,” Cole laughed, setting the holders on the countertop before his friends started sorting out whose was whose. 

“Hey, what took you so long, anyway?” Kai asked between sips of his drink. “You got there way before it usually gets busy.”

“Oh! Uh…” Cole didn’t want to lie to his friends. There wasn’t even a reason to lie. He could just say, like it was no big deal, that he’d met someone. And that the person he met was quite probably his soulmate. Easy!

Except… well… he didn’t really want them to know before he was sure. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his friends, he did! He trusted them with his life. But he didn’t want them to make a big deal out of what could be nothing. 

He just wanted a little bit of time to figure it out. He’d tell them as soon as he did.

“There was just a big group that got there before me, and there weren’t that many people on staff,” Cole said. And really, that wasn’t really a lie. There had been a few groups that had gotten there before him, and there hadn’t been that many people on staff. 

He felt a little bad, but he would tell them by like, tomorrow, tops.

---

“Cole,” Kai said as the group walked down the street, for once not on a mission. “Why do you keep checking your phone? I mean, I of all people would know what it’s like to want to keep in contact with my adoring fans, but you keep checking every like, half a second.”

Cole startled, nearly dropping his phone in the process. He shoved it into his pocket.

“I don’t keep checking it every half a second,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“You kind of do,” Jay said, unhelpfully.

Okay, so it had kind of been a lot longer than he’d intended to keep this from his friends. It’s not like it’d been a whole month or anything, but he just hasn’t found the right way to tell them.

Okay. Okay okay. Maybe he should just say it.

“Okay, the thing is…” he trailed off, trying to figure out what exactly he was supposed to ‘just say’. 

“Whoa, you just got serious. What’s up?” Nya asked as the group came to a halt at a stoplight.

“I sort of… met my soulmate?”

His friends practically erupted with cries of “that’s amazing!” and “holy crap!”

“Wait, wait wait. Can we meet them?” Jay asked once they’d all calmed down.

“Oh… um…”

It wasn’t that Cole didn’t want them to meet. It’s just, they’d only been on three dates, and it felt a little… soon. 

“What, are you embarrassed of us or something?” Kai asked, throwing an arm around Cole. “Come on, we’ll be on our very best behavior!” He said, in a tone that indicated that they absolutely would not be on their best behavior.

“I’m not embarrassed of you guys!” Cole said, “I just don’t want to scare him off—”

“So it’s a guy,” Jay said at the same time as Kai said “So you are embarrassed by us!”

They stared at each other. “Oh, that too.”

His phone dinged. Cole pulled it out, glancing at the message.

And then he looked up. And then he locked eyes with his soulmate, who was standing just across the street.

Oh boy.

He didn’t have much of a choice here, did he?

The light turned red. His friends began to cross the street. He wasn’t upset or anything, he just couldn’t believe the chances of running into each other. While all of his friends were around.

“Hey,” Cole said when they finally got to the other side of the street.

“Hey,” his boyfriend grinned, glancing at the other ninja. “Who are your friends?”

“Who’s this?” Lloyd asked.

“”I’m getting to that,” Cole said, trying to ready himself for whatever was about to happen. “Okay, uh, guys, this is my…” he’d never actually said it out loud to anyone but him. “boyfriend. Koshiro.”

#soulmate au #ninjago #kat writes #ninjago fanfiction #gay #jaya #pixane #soulmates #coffee shop #sort of #I have never flirted or been flirted with before #spare me #I tried #twist ending #meet cute #I guess #idk I don't know much about romance #soulmate gone wrong au #koshiro #the damage tree #colshiro

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss on his marriage and new role in ‘American Buffalo’

When Darren Criss settles into our Alexa interview at a chic cafe in West LA, he’s friendly and direct.

“I am an outspoken person in real life, but in the media, I find I’m very reserved,” he observes. “I’m asked questions about myself that I haven’t really had to think about. That is a really strange occupational hazard. It would be like if you asked your dental hygienist, ‘Do you think your career choice stems from your interest in cleanliness as a kid?'”

Reading between the lines: The actor-producer-songwriter du jour resists the sound bite.

Criss, 33, may be the consummate showman, but in person — apart from a hint of chipped black nail polish and a pair of gold-rimmed aviators that nod to his love of costume — he seems more cerebral theater nerd (a flag he flies proudly) than flamboyant hunk.

Before long, Criss is expounding on big themes in a delightfully thespy manner. Conversations branch off, reverse direction, then run off on entirely new paths.

“I like keeping myself in balance by taking constant left and right turns,” he explains of his career. “The party trick? You think I’m doing all this stuff spontaneously, but it’s not without a significant attention to detail and planning. I don’t freak out if it doesn’t go as planned, but whatever it is, I will optimize it. Drop me off anywhere, and I will make [it] as awesome as possible.”

For a significant and impassioned fan base, Criss is the guy who sang, danced and heartthrobbed his way through a starring role on “Glee.” He’d go on to become an unsettlingly cheerful killer in 2018’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” a nuanced performance that won him an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

In 2020, things are getting even more extra.

The day of our interview, he was flying to NYC to begin rehearsals for David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” now set to begin previews April 14 at Circle in the Square Theatre (a delay after Broadway shuttered over the coronavirus pandemic). He will play Bobby — one of a trio of hustlers trying to make it rich — alongside Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell.

“I try to do a show in New York every two to three years,” says Criss (who’s previously starred in “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”). “It will be great to be in New York doing one of the great American plays with a great American playwright.”

He’s also experimenting with new formats, namely executive-producing, writing songs for and starring in the new satiric series “Royalties,” which will debut on the short-form video streaming platform Quibi this spring.

In May, he’ll channel the golden age of cinema in “Hollywood,” the hotly anticipated Ryan Murphy-helmed Netflix series, which Criss also executive-produced. (Not to mention his work for Elsie Fest, a musical-theater festival he co-founded five years ago.)

If your head is spinning, that’s all part of the plan.

“I love giving strangers an excuse to connect,” he says. “I just enjoy quirky things and quirky people. And that comes from the idea of challenging people’s expectations. At the end of the day, that’s my biggest driving force — that you can do something weird and have it be cool.”

Born in San Francisco, Criss knew early on that he wanted to follow an original path. He taught himself piano, studied violin and, at the age of 10, made his professional theater debut.

“Had my parents wanted me to be an actor, I wouldn’t have done it,” he reflects. “But I realized I had a knack for it. I’m literally a parrot: I like mimicry, music, accents.”

His hobby, he insists, is practicing his Japanese. A dream vacation, he says, would be a sojourn at Middlebury College’s language immersion program. “It’s where they send the CIA to learn Farsi. I would love it!”

While a student at the University of Michigan, Criss gained fame with his contribution to the YouTube cult hit “A Very Potter Musical”, which led to the co-founding of the musical-comedy sensation StarKid.

“At the time, studio execs didn’t understand the power of social media. In my early 20s, I was this Internet force with my friends, but going to play piano at [a bar] twice a week. I was living a double life, with Billboard-charting albums, and yet, how could you explain this to a casting director? They were like, ‘You make Internet videos?’ It was absurd to them. Nobody [at the time] knew how to monetize that.”

During his mainstream breakout as the chiseled Blaine Anderson — who famously covered “Teenage Dream” on “Glee” — Criss earned what he describes as a “master’s in putting music and the camera together,” an experience that has served him well in both “Hollywood” and his genre-defying Quibi show, where he’ll play a songwriter aside big-name musician guest stars.

While Criss has played several high-profile gay characters in his career, he says he’ll no longer accept such parts, telling Bustle in late 2018: “I want to make sure I won’t be another straight boy taking a gay man’s role.”

In February 2019 he married his girlfriend — writer-producer-musician Mia Swier — in New Orleans. The experience can only be described as an immersive extravaganza.

Their first “dance” was a rendition of “The Ballroom Blitz” by British rock brand Sweet, with Criss on guitar and Mia on bass. They were later serenaded by friends Lea Michele and John Stamos.

There were umpteen costume changes (during the evening’s silent disco, a Vera Wang gown and Armani suit were traded for matching sequin T-shirts). Although Vogue covered the festivities, Criss says much remains under wraps.

“I want to show people all the things that really go on [in my life], but I’m also quiet about it,” he reflects. “The wedding is a good example. I remember thinking,’I wish everybody in the world could see this, it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever pulled off.’ When I put myself into something, I give it everything I’ve got. That was a big representation of who I am and who my wife is and what we do.

It’s non-conventional, out-of-the-box thinking and that also led Criss and his wife to open the Hollywood piano bar Tramp Stamp Granny’s, in 2018. Mia (whose family founded The Mercury Lounge and Bowery Ballroom in NYC) takes the lead on the project, although Criss says he still occasionally tickles the ivories there, a throwback to his leaner years working piano bars.

If you ask nicely, he may even sing. Crew Credits: Fashion Editor: Serena French; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Fashion Assistants: Nicole Zane and Haley Wells; Grooming: Jessica Ortiz at Forward Artists using Shiseido; Tailoring: Amber Doyle

Photographed at Dear Irving, 55 Irving Place

#darren criss #new york post #american buffalo bway #tramp stamp granny's #mia swier #darren's wedding #hollywood #royalties #starkid #acs versace #press #new york post photoshoot #march 2020