#i truly have no caption really sorry folks -_-

[bfpnola]

hi!!! so recently I’ve gained a big interest in building up my collection of patches to put onto my clothes and stuff in my journey to becoming more queerly punk in my presentation. my biggest goal is to make other more marginalized people in my community feel safe around me. so I’m looking into a lot of patches for BLM, stop asian hate, punch nazis, disability advocacy, etc.

I came across a bunch of patches symbolizing the BPP, and I’d really like to get one, but I do worry that that would be inappropriate in a way as a white person. I am autistic and struggle a lot to understand what is and isn’t appropriate to do/say in attempts at support and allyship, so I figured I’d ask.

my reasoning is that even though I’m not Black, the BPP is my biggest inspiration as a young activist looking to dedicate my life to racial and other forms of Justice. Their work, their platform, their impact, truly transformed my political conscience, but I know that I do not want to make the Black Power movement and the BPP centered around me, but at the same time I want to express how much they mean to me and how much they have influenced my ideas for activism if that makes sense.

it may seem like I am making a big deal over one patch or piece of clothing, this stuff is just so foundational to who I am and what I believe so I tend to be a bit seemingly dramatic about it.

anyways, I’m not here to ask you definitively yes or no if it would be appropriate of me to wear a BPP patch, I don’t want to tokenize your existence or work. But you know so much about the BPP and the history of the Black Power Movement that I really trust anything you have to say on the matter of the line between showing allyship, and centering history that’s not about me, around me. so if you’re up for answering, I’d love your personal perspective on white people using BPP symbolism to show allyship and if there’s any historical examples of why that would be good OR bad.

anyways sorry for the long ask and either way, thank you for everything you do and I hope you have a wonderful day!!

hi lovely! life has been exponentially rough for me lately so in advance, i do not have the emotional capacity to respond to this in the degree in which i'd prefer BUT i feel terrible letting it sit in our inbox forever. here's my most basic perspective for now, in bullet points to help organize my thoughts:

first off, i absolutely adore that you're collecting revolutionary patches! a friend i've made over at Queer Youth Assemble (QYA) has a similar jacket and it's always so colorful, i love it!

thank you for reaching out! i think it shows you have a lot of respect for the Black community and everything that the BPP stood for, which i greatly appreciate.

because i'm aware you hold a deep respect for the BPP, i honestly think it's fine that you have a BPP patch, so long as you understand that history. the BPP were pretty accepting of folks of all races, as shown through their acceptance of non-Black members/partners and serving non-Black communities. a few chapters still exist today around the country (i got to meet a few from the Louisiana chapter, some moved over from California) and they openly teach anyone that's willing to listen! it's just that their focus is on how Black people specifically are affected by systemic oppression and how we can liberate ourselves from such.

[ID: A black and white photo of two children around the age of 9 or so, one white, one Black, eating at the Black Panther Party's free breakfast program. They have white paper plates with crumbs and leftovers on them, cartons of what looks like juice, and plastic utensils. The white child is wearing a Black Panther Party beret with 3 Black Panther Party pins on it as well as a thick coat. The Black child looks down at his plate, his coat zipped up all the way. The caption below the image reads, "Two boys in 1969 at a free breakfast for children program in New York City sponsored by the Black Panther Party. Bev Grant/Getty Images." / End ID]

i think, though, that this is best exemplified through the Rainbow Coalition (now co-opted unfortunately), the alliance Fred Hampton created alongside the Young Patriots Organization and the Young Lords. over time, other radical grassroots orgs began to join like the Brown Berets and the American Indian Movement! the BPP truly respected each of their orgs in their support of their respective communities and it's truly unfortunate that the coalition didn't get to fully take off.

i would refrain from wearing any full regalia though, as this would definitely come off as appropriation. respect and admiration are not the same as a full understanding of the struggle! BPP was about far more than just putting on a specific outfit or throwing up a couple symbols. it was a lifelong commitment, even after you technically left. there was real, heavy trauma associated with one's membership, especially those higher up in leadership. i remember reading elaine brown's autobiography, how she felt herself becoming more violent, having folks beat to a bloody pulp right in front of her eyes. folks frequently had to live in fear that they or their partners would be killed as well. that changes a person, and so do the years spent in jail by so many of the party's members. there was ongoing abuse, misogyny, power struggles and more. it definitely wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.

be aware that my opinion is only my own, so others may not agree!

in summary, go for the patch, just be mindful!

some resources related to what i mentioned:

How three unlikely groups worked together to achieve interracial solidarity (podcast)

This article on Richard Aoki

After the list was finalized, Newton and Seale asked Aoki to join the newly formed Black Panthers. Aoki accepted after Newton explained that being African-American wasn’t a prerequisite to joining the group. He recalled Newton saying:

“The struggle for freedom, justice and equality transcends racial and ethnic barriers. As far as I’m concerned, you black.”

Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton by Bobby Seale (novel)

A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story by Elaine Brown (novel)

Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur (novel)

again, i apologize that i couldn't answer this with the depth i'd like to, but hopefully this helped!

-- reaux (she/they)

#reaux answers #black panther party #black lives matter #bipoc #history #resources

[idledee]

kiss ur dumb wet wife

#original character #i truly have no caption really sorry folks -_- #on the other hand came up w title for this story finally! #ve sầu song ca #(means a duet with cicadas or cicada's duet whatever u prefer) :) #doods #is not mermay loll her skirt's just like that wet ^_^'' #portfolio

[what-big-teeth]

Admire (Male Naga ; Fic Raffle)

And done! @glugenash​ requested a meet-cute between a male reader and a naga of any gender. I decided to go with a male naga and let my imagination take hold to make this wonderful idea even cuter. I hope you all enjoy this fic! Male Reader (POV) x Male Monster If there’s one place you can truly relax while curling up with a good book, it’s the library.

Ever since you moved into town for a better job opportunity, you attempted to combat the new stressors that turned up as a result. Exercise, meditation, doing the bare minimum on the weekends. Nothing could compare to the public library and its innate charm. This is why you’re seated at your favorite table.

Tucked into one of the historical building’s many corners beside a large window, there’s always just enough sunlight to happily bask in and use while reading. These simple reasons—and the woodsy, vanillin scent of the surrounding book collection—are why you’ve decided to revisit an old series. Something about embracing a nostalgic memory at your table alleviates your pent-up stress like nothing else.

Which is why the sensation of being watched feels so foreign.

You’ve attempted to look around as discreetly as possible. But your eyes haven’t encountered anything out of the ordinary. Just the usual, book-lined shelves and wooden lectern holding an old, massive dictionary.

Still, you can’t fully shake the feeling. Your gut has rarely led you astray, which is why you keep glancing around. After a fleeting moment, you think you see a dark shape shrink away behind a nearby shelf. You stand up, intent on finding out who your odd observer is. But an insistent buzzing from your jeans pocket breaks your focus. Knowing that your library hasn’t made the full transition to a ‘loud facility’ yet, you step away from your spot, leaving your book behind to take the call outside.

Unsurprisingly, it’s work. Or rather, your boss. One of your co-workers has taken ill suddenly, and he needs you to fill in for her shift until he recovers. There’ll be extra pay as compensation, which helps to sweeten the deal. But when your boss mentions the project your co-worker has been toiling over for the last few weeks, you silently wince. You honestly would rather not take on the extra work, but the extra money would really help.

Your boss says your name in a questioning manner. Looks like you accidentally zoned out.

“Sure thing,” you say with a forced, cheerful tone. You can already feel the mounting stress that’ll have you on edge. With a final, merry “thanks!” and farewell, the call ends. This new development calls for some extra self-care.

You head back inside the library, making your way over to the built-in cafe. It’s a welcomed new addition, especially since they make some of the best, homebrew tea and pastries you’ve ever had. With your cup of honeyed chamomile and warmed confection in hand, you return to your sunshine laden table.

Your book is in its usual spot, but it’s been closed with a tasseled bookmark keeping track of your place. You didn’t pick up one while greeting Jason at the circulation desk. After mentally marking which page you left off on, you untuck it from between the pages. The design is, well, it’s amazing. Hand drawn swirls of complimentary colors balance each other out while being lined with careful, fine-tipped black lines. And the tassel is uniquely soft to the touch, the threads feeling similar to silk. You’re so drawn to the workmanship of the bookmark that you almost overlook the neatly folded piece of paper on the table.

The Farandale Chronicles is one of my favorite series. If you’d like to read something similar, I’d like to suggest the Crystal of Might series, written by Malkus Morak.  — D

You re-read the note a few times. But no matter how much you attempt to place the neat handwriting, you can’t. There isn’t anything untoward about the suggestion, honestly. And the bookmark is an unexpected, if creative gift. Decision made, you replace the bookmark and head over to the Science Fiction section.

It doesn’t take long to find the suggested book and read the blurb on the jacket’s interior. You can’t deny that it sounds like something right up your alley. Even better, there are three more books in the series.

“Think I will try this out,” you mutter to yourself. “Thanks for the suggestion, D.”

You bundle the new book together with your old favorite, being cautious of your food, and fall in line before the circulation desk. It doesn’t take long for you to reach the front and greet the tawny, curly-haired minotaur behind the counter with a smile.

“How are things going, Jason?” He nods in reply, stalwart as ever as he carefully checks both books for possible damage before checking them out to you.

“Three weeks, as usual,” he murmurs with a deep voice. He gestures to the new book you’ve decided to read. “Should I put the sequel on hold for you?”

“That’d be great!”

After nimbly using the keyboard to complete your request, he hands both books to you with a gentle puff of air.

“Anything else I can help you with?”

Wetting your lips, you tug the handwritten note from between the cover and first page of Morak’s book.

“Would you happen to know whose handwriting this is?”

Jason gently takes the note from you, his warm brown eyes scanning the contents. With a small cough, he hands it back to you.

“Sorry, I don’t. But I’m glad they wrote on a slip of paper instead of damaging the book.”

You can’t help but chuckle. Ever since you met him, Jason’s always been a stickler for the rules when it comes to the library. Quiet yet firm. You pocket the note, being careful to not crease it any further.

“That’s fine,” you say. “It was worth a shot, anyway.”

“Be sure to finish your food while on site,” he says. “The Director is still leery about folks taking off with the cafe’s food.”

“Don’t worry,” you say, smiling. “There’s a bench outside that called to me when I stepped out earlier. Take care.”

As you leave with your new reading materials and food, you can’t stop the thrill of excitement that wells up inside you. Besides being a place of reprieve, you beloved library has provided an interesting mystery as well. And it’s one you intend to solve.

_______________________________________________

Like clockwork, you return the same day next week. Thankfully, your boss was kind enough to give you the weekend off after you took on your duties and that of your sick co-worker. It gives you just enough time to destress at the library. This time, you make a beeline for the cafe, ordering some calming tea and a new, but delectable looking pastry. Jason greets you at the circulation desk and checks out Molak’s second book to you. Once you’ve checked that your usual spot hasn’t been taken, you swiftly lay claim with your purchased items and settle in your seat.

After drinking your tea and eating your pastry, you find yourself feeling better. You open the hardback’s cover, highly interested in seeing what’ll happen to the protagonists next. But two slips of paper flutter out from the book, like before. The material is thicker this time around, similar to reinforced sketchbook paper. Your eyes widen as you realize why.

The subject of the drawing is someone you know too well. It’s you. The sketch depicts a past you sitting where you are now, looking content with a soft smile on your face as you read. Little details jump out as you take in the entirety of the work. The slight dents on the side of the old table you graze your hand over time and time again. The way you hold a book that you find immensely but surprisingly pleasing. The almost starstruck expression lighting up your features as you leave this world for another while reading…

Underneath, in familiar elegant writing, the caption reads ‘Entranced Beauty’. Heat wells up within your cheeks as you read the words over and over again. Your fingertip glides against the lettering as you pick up the other slip of paper from the carpeted floor.

There have been many times I’ve wanted to tell you how wonderful you look when you’re lost in your own world. But I’m afraid that, verbally, words fail me. At least this skill of mine can say more than what I could ever hope. For a while now, I’ve hoped I could be invited to come along with you as another book takes hold of your imagination. But I refuse to think that such lofty hopes can be achieved, considering what I am. I’m merely glad that my suggestion was pleasing to you, and I hope I can continue to provide doors for you to walk through when you need a break from this world.  — D

Your heart pounds loudly inside your chest and head as the heat in your cheeks spread throughout your whole body. All you can think about is discovering who your admirer is and meeting them face to face. After all, someone who can write and such sweet thoughts and draw so beautifully can’t be as bad as they think. With this thought as encouragement, you find Molak’s collection and take the third book of his series from the shelf. You wait in line behind a couple, a gorgon and gargoyle, as Jason helps them with their items. Once they’re taken care of, you step up to the circulation desk and set the book down.

“Find everything you were looking for?” he asks.

You’re tempted to say ‘yes’, but stop short.

“No,” you say. “I...I need your help.”

You show Jason the sketch and note, asking once again if he happens to know anything. After all, the note and sketch had to be put in place before you checked out the second book. And all holds are reserved behind the circulation desk for all patrons.

A strange silence falls between the two of you. It’s broken by Jason coughing into his closed fist as he averts his gaze.

“You do know something, don’t you?” you murmur.Jason glances your way before letting his eyes drop to the computer screen in front of him.

“I get it.” You pause to reign in your voice, surprised at the sudden loudness of it. “I understand you’re trying to protect D, especially because they feel like they can’t face me. But you know me, Jason. I won’t hurt them. I just want to meet them and tell them my appreciation.”

Once more, you bring out the sketch and place it on the circulation desk before you. “Please, help me.”

Jason’s gaze finds the sketch and settles on it. He finally lets out a soft huff of air then rubs the back of his neck with his hand.

“I didn’t realize how deeply D fell for you,” he says. “I thought it was just a crush. Alright. I’ll help you out. Not only do you deserve a happy ending, but so does D. Just...be gentle with him, alright? He’s been through a lot.”

“I will,” you say, letting your words carry your promise. “Thank you, Jason.”

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he mutters. “Gonna have to see how this goes, first. Alright, D always comes like clockwork on Wednesday evenings...”

You take Jason at his word and return to the library at the time and day he suggested. Sure, it involved rearranging your work schedule somewhat, but your now-well co-worker was more than happy to return the favor you showed her. Probably helps that she’s somewhat of a romantic and readily agreed after you explained the situation to her.With careful steps, you make your way towards your usual spot. The last few rays of the setting sun fall onto the table and the naga sitting at it.

The quiet breath you’re taking in stalls at the sight.

With rich, golden brown skin, you can’t help but wonder why D would think himself unattractive. More so thanks to his jet black hair, which is pulled back into a bun, and his matching scales. Even the slight creme of his underbelly, which you can barely make out due to his button-down shirt, is charming. Remembering Jason’s advice, you carefully approach the table as he remains lost in a book held in his clawed hands. It’s the third book in Molak’s fantasy series. You can’t help but smile at the realization.

“Excuse me,” you say.

D startles, tensing at your soft voice. His pupils dilate somewhat in reply as he looks at you. With him looking head on at you, you notice the scaled skin on the sides of his neck. A hood, like that of a cobra. He looks close to bolting right then and there, but you gently press on.

“By chance, are you D?”

D gulps down a few breaths of air.

“N-no, I’m…”

Your body intuitively moves, laying a gentle hand on his upper arm in what you hope is a soothing gesture.

“I want the same thing,” you say. “I want to let you into my world so that we can make one of our own. Together.”

The scaled hood at his neck flares somewhat, but you don’t feel any fear. If anything, you’re entranced. How can such a charming, handsome naga think he’s anything less? After a few tense moments, D finally relaxes then nods.

“I...I am D.”

He meets your gaze, and you almost feel yourself fall into the molten gold of his eyes.

“I didn’t want you to know because not too many people want anything to do with me. My lineage is from a King Cobra clan, which makes me venomous. And that tends to make others uncomfortable. I-I didn’t want you to feel the same, but I couldn’t hide how I felt about you after I first saw you a few months ago. Jason thought...he suggested I could let you know anonymously and I agreed. I thought that would be best. I’m just surprised you’d want to seek me out.”

You can’t help but smile while gently gripping D’s upper arm.

“You left me with an amazing mystery to solve. And as much as you want to know me, I found myself wanting to know the person behind the ‘D’ moniker. I still do, if that’s alright with you.”

D gives you a soft smile in return, which reveals a hint of his sharp fangs. They’re rather cute, just like the rest of him. He stands up and extends a hand towards you.

“Then, let me officially introduce myself. I’m Danilo.”

You take his hand and shake it while giving him your name. When he attempts to pull his hand away, you gently squeeze it. Danilo’s breath catches as you maneuver your fingers so they twine with his.

“B-by chance,” he nearly squeaks out, “do you like Filipino food? I know a place that serves dishes similar to what I grew up with back home.”

“I haven’t had it before,” you say, “but I’m excited to try it out. I hope you don’t mind acting as my culinary tour guide.”

Danilo gives you another soft smile as he huffs out a laugh.

“Not at all.”

You both head towards the circulation desk, where you see Jason positively beaming at the two of you. As Danilo tells you about his work as a graphic designer and animator, you find yourself hanging on his every word. As he hands Jason the third and final book of the trilogy, you smile.

You can’t wait to see what else you both have in common.

#monster boyfriend #monster/human #monster romance #exophilia #naga boyfriend #terato #300 Follower Raffle #I hope you all enjoy!

[panharmonium]

Hey, do you ship merthur? I have conflicted feelings about it because Merlin does love Arthur but also their relationship is kinda shitty.

short answer: i do not

longer answer: i might not be the right person to ask about this, because i don’t really “ship” anything?  it’s not how i engage with fandom.  (disclaimer: this is not a value judgment of folks who do engage with fandom that way.  just an explanation of how my own brain works.)

extra long answer: under the cut, because i suppose it was only a matter of time before someone asked me about merlin/arthur, and i might as well put my entire response in one place so that next time, i can just link to it.

questions like this are a little tough for me to answer, because i am completely uninterested in romance as a premise.  if it’s not there, i don’t care.  if it is there, i often wish it weren’t, because it’s almost never developed in a way that lives up to my standards.  i don’t always mind if something contains romantic relationships (provided they’re written well), but i don’t want them to be the point of a story.  i honestly cannot think of anything less interesting to me than a story that has as its main plotline “x character falls in love with y character.”  for me, in my brain, it’s like, “okay...that’s it?  do you have anything else to say?”  there is literally nothing about that that i care about.

this can be a little difficult to navigate in fandom, because one of the oft-heard commendations of “fandom” is ‘gosh, fandom is so wonderful, we can watch the same two characters fall in love again and again and again in a million different scenarios!’  which is true, for the people who care about that sort of thing, but that’s not actually ‘fandom.’  that’s shipping.  and there’s nothing wrong with shipping, but shipping and fandom are not the same thing, and they’ve become so conflated that it can be very difficult to engage in the latter without being absolutely swamped by the former.

many times, for me, fandom can feel synonymous with shipping.  there was a post i reblogged recently whose tags described shipping as often feeling like a prerequisite to engaging with fandom, and that is often what it feels like to me, particularly in fandoms where one ship is so ubiquitous that any and all other material is utterly dwarfed by it in scale.  (for me, my last two major fandoms have been merlin and teen wolf, so - i’m sure you see my dilemma, heh.)

all of that said, in terms of arthur and merlin specifically...

disclaimer: everything i say here is relevant to me only.  these are my own feelings.  i am making this post on my own blog, in my own space, in response to a question about my own thoughts.  i do not want, expect, or need anyone else to share these thoughts.  any commentary i make about fandom trends is not equivalent to condemnations of individual people’s opinions or shipping habits.  i do not mind or take issue with folks who ship these two characters.  i am glad you are having fun.  please do not @ me about something you disagree with.  i promise you it is not necessary.

okay.  with that out of the way.  

part of me is reluctant to expound further on this question, because my personal philosophy is that merlin and arthur as a ship have had more than enough time and space devoted to them in this fandom (way more than their share, frankly) and i generally prefer to focus on merlin and the other people in his life, as a deliberate counter to that.  but, since you asked, and because i have been experiencing the “i’m tired of romance” bug more strongly lately, here is the long-form version.

the number one reason why i don’t ship arthur and merlin is what i already outlined above: i don’t really “ship” anything.  i have never looked at two characters who were not already together/on an obvious potential path to being together and said “i want them to fall in love.”  that has just never happened to me.  (again - it’s not a BAD thing to have this happen, it’s just not something that’s ever happened to me.  i can’t relate to the experience.)

therefore, when i do appreciate a romantic relationship, it’s pretty much always because canon has shown me something romantic (or clearly pre-romantic) that i find to be well-written and compelling.  (it’s rare - as i outlined before, i would usually rather not deal with romance at all - but it happens.)  

arthur and merlin, then, never had that effect on me, because arthur and merlin, as depicted in the canon, are not in love.

[to anybody reading this who just snatched up their keyboard and started furiously typing, i beg you - please go back and re-read my disclaimer.]

they’re not in love.  the truth about these two is that if i had watched this show without having grown up in fandom as a culture (and without knowing exactly what kind of ships fandom immediately sees EVERYWHERE) the idea of anybody shipping these two together would never have even entered my mind.

(and like.  because i DID grow up in fandom, and i DO know exactly what kind of ships fandom sees everywhere, i knew before i even started this show that arthur/merlin was going to be an inescapable thing.  but that would not have been the case, if i had watched the series in a world where i didn’t know what fandom was.)

arthur and merlin, in canon, are not in love.  the show never does anything to give me an inkling that either of them are harboring romantic feelings for each other.  that is never what is happening onscreen.  literally the last thing on merlin’s agenda is romantic attachment, ever, and arthur is never, ever shown to be in love with anyone who isn’t gwen.  the show, onscreen, never tricks me, teases me, or leads me on.  i was never under the impression that merlin and arthur were in love with each other, because they weren’t.

but that DOES NOT MEAN their relationship matters less.  just because they aren’t IN love with each other doesn’t mean they don’t love each other, and one of those things is not bigger or better or more powerful than the other.

i struggle a lot in fandom (all fandom, not just merlin) with the persistent idea that romantic attachment is the peak, the natural endpoint on a scale of “how deep is your love?”  i am constantly running up against posts where the commonly accepted structure is to cite a moment of devotion or caring or some instance of basic connection between two characters, and then add a caption or tag saying ‘because they are JUST FRIENDS, right?’ or ‘^^totally platonic interaction between characters who are not at all in love, sure jan.’  

and honestly?  i hate that.  that is one of my least favorite things about fandom.  it makes me so tired.  

i am completely disconnected from this idea that there are like...things you can do that are too caring to count as friendship.  like - that there is too much devotion you can show, and if you go over the limit, then it’s laughable that you would do those things for “just” a friend.  that’s so unpleasant to me.

(and i do think [when it comes to non-canon queer ships, anyway - straight ships unfortunately have no excuse, sorry y’all] that part of this probably has its roots in pushback at the tendency of people who try to “gal pal” actual queer ships (or literal real life relationships), so this, at least, is something i can understand.  i’m queer myself; i get that.  and that is why i will never like - attach myself to someone’s post and start complaining.  people can vent however they want.)

it doesn’t change my own feelings, though.  i hate seeing every meaningful friendship i’ve ever been invested in talked about like it’s just a romance in disguise.

other things: i am uninterested in romance as a motivator.  

truly, from the bottom of my heart, i don’t care.

we are, at least in my corner of the world, oversaturated with romance, to the point where any piece of media that doesn’t include it in some fashion is shockingly bizarre.  it is EVERYWHERE.  it is in EVERYTHING.  i cannot pick up a book without running into a romantic plotline.  i cannot watch a movie or a tv show without being forced into multiple romances that i don’t care about.  (rare exceptions apply, as always, but i’m speaking generally.)

this oversaturation, for me, means that romance as a storyline no longer holds any meaning for me.  i see it EVERYWHERE.  it is in literally EVERYTHING.  making merlin into a “love story,” for me, makes the show so much less interesting, because there are billions of love stories out there.  love stories are practically the only kind of story our media remembers how to tell!  why would i take a story that is so unique in its exploration of deep friendship (that isn’t even quite friendship, because it’s not real, but merlin wants it to be real, but making it real would also destroy it) and loyalty (that isn’t necessarily deserved, but is still offered, but is damaging to the person offering it) and love (that exists in spite of arthur’s position as the oppressor, but still cannot erase merlin’s oppression, and is patently not a magical fix for the very real problems merlin is facing), and then want to water it down to “and then they fell in love”???

merlin bbc has so much to say about the transformative, redemptive power of love (not just romance), and the bonds we form with each other despite the fact that we don’t always deserve each other, and what we can do to make ourselves better, and how do we make amends for the ways in which we hurt the people we care about, and it is so complicated and there is so much beauty there and i adore it specifically because it is one of the rare pieces of media out there that doesn’t prop up romantic love as the most important and powerful force in the universe.  romantic love is not what moves the story.  merlin’s love for the people around him is based on compassion.  it’s bigger than the familiar and overused ‘i am desperately in love with this one individual person and that’s what drives my actions,” which is a premise all of us know has been done to death.  merlin’s love is not about romantic attachment.  it’s a deep, abiding love for humanity.  it’s based on hope, and faith, and the inherent belief that everybody matters, even in their worst moments.

condensing that kind of story into “and then they fell in love” erases its meaning for me.  it makes it trite.  uninteresting.  i have seen “and then they fell in love” fully sixty thousand times.  “and then they fell in love” has been done so often that it is utterly devoid of power for me.  boring.   i literally do not care.

other people might feel differently, and find a romantic love story compelling.  i don’t.  

i’m guessing the message that prompted this essay is asking me to evaluate how i feel about the “goodness” of the merlin/arthur ship, aka whether it’s worthwhile to ship it or not based on how healthy/unhealthy it is, which i definitely can’t answer, because i don’t think whether it’s “good” or not really matters.  i am definitely too old to be riding the newer wave of, uh...idk, purity culture type stuff that is so oft-debated on here, lately.

but you’re absolutely right, anon - merlin and arthur’s relationship IS kinda shitty!  it 100% is.  it doesn’t mean you can’t ship them, though, if you want; otherwise i wouldn’t be invested in any aspect of their friendship, either.  

the fact that merlin and arthur’s relationship is kinda shitty is an essential element of the show; it’s the microcosmic representation of the macrocosmic problem merlin is trying to solve, and even with that being the case, we can see clearly that this also doesn’t preclude them from having real moments of connection and care and love.  this is the contradiction i have to keep in mind whenever i engage with them in the friendship sense - merlin has been wronged by arthur in so many ways, and yet he still loves him and believes arthur can do better, and yet his dedication to arthur really does destroy his life piece by piece, and you really have to walk a line between those extremes and be thinking: in what ways was this a noble, honorable path for merlin to take and in what ways was this damaging, and was it all worth it in the end?

we probably wouldn’t still be watching this show if we didn’t ultimately think the answer to that last question was yes.  but there are also equally valid ways in which the answer is, truthfully, no, and i think really the only important thing when dealing with merlin and arthur’s relationship (in whatever capacity you prefer) is to keep that dissonance in mind.

so, to more directly address your question, when it comes to my interaction with the source material, i don’t ship merlin and arthur romantically because i don’t see romance when they interact in canon, and i don’t think their relationship could be improved or made more interesting/more meaningful by adding extra-canonical romance into the mix.  that’s really it.

but the other side of things is this: even if i were granted someone else’s ship-goggles to somehow see romance between these two (eg, once, in the distant past i read a harry potter fic that was so well-constructed it sold me on a relationship i didn’t [and still don’t] actually see in canon), i still wouldn’t choose to ship merlin and arthur, and it’s not because they’re a “bad” ship (no such thing, folks - tag your stuff and let people live their lives, thank you), it’s because this fandom has already been swallowed by them and i cannot bring myself to make that imbalance worse.

trying to be in the merlin fandom without shipping merlin and arthur is just...a little bit difficult sometimes.  i think probably even people who do ship merlin/arthur are aware of that.  sometimes it can feel like merlin/arthur is a given in this fandom, not one of many options - as if you’re not in the merlin fandom, but rather the merthur fandom, and you know you really, really do not belong there.

and it’s not even a canonical ship!  it’s not even real.  and yet if you like this show, and you want to engage in the fandom, your experience is, without exception, going to be chock full of merlin/arthur content by default.

essentially, my struggle with the merlin/arthur dynamic in fandom is two-fold:

1) the strikingly imbalanced content distribution

the merlin fandom, in terms of content distribution, is a pretty accurate mirror of merlin’s own existence, to be honest, in that pretty much every aspect of it is eventually taken over by arthur pendragon, and in that there’s a reasonable debate to be had about whether or not that’s a good thing.

(spoiler alert: it’s not.)

even so, it is what it is, and as i said before, me commenting on fandom trends is not meant as a condemnation of individual preferences.  people like what they like!  that’s just how things are.  shipping arthur and merlin isn’t a Bad thing to do, by any means, and the fact that so many people do is just, you know, bad luck for me, lol.  but at the same time, the wildly unbalanced distribution of content does make it more difficult for folks who don’t ship merlin/arthur to engage in fandom with quite the same level of ease, and even though it’s nobody’s fault, it is still perfectly reasonable for people who don’t ship merlin/arthur to be frustrated about that.

fanfic is a pretty good case study for how this plays out.  i saw a post a while back that was titled something like ‘merlin bbc gothic,’ and the first bullet point was “canon ships are rarepairs,” and HOO BOY, that is true.  stats-wise, merlin/arthur makes up ⅔ of the merlin fic on AO3.  ~25,000 fics.  the next most popular tag after merlin/arthur is arthur/gwen, but arthur/gwen have ~2,900 fics in their tag.  and when you remember to exclude any instance of merlin/arthur from the arthur/gwen tag, that number drops by another thousand, to ~1,940.

that’s buckwild.  come on.  merlin/arthur has twenty-three THOUSAND more fics than the next most popular (and CANONICAL, i might add) ship?  and every other ship’s numbers are even lower than that?*

and if you don’t want to read shippy stuff in the first place, like me - the merlin “gen” tag has less than 8000 fics in it, by comparison, and then you STILL have to filter merlin/arthur out of the gen fics, leaving you with about 6300 - which number has to be filtered down further to remove OTHER ships that still make it past the gen filter.

in comparison to 25,000.

like.  i’ve been in fandom long enough that i’m not surprised - mean, i came into merlin directly off a teen wolf phase, and boy, that’s a whole other bowl of noodles right there, with added squick factors that are irrelevant here - but i’m still just...man. 

it still makes my head spin.  and it is still frustrating, every time.

*(there is a lot more to be said about how gwen fits into all of this, and i know it has been discussed more thoroughly in other places, but yes, another reason i am leery of arthur/merlin as a thing is that i’m just...not super comfortable with what that implies for gwen and her position in the story.  even if i personally am slightly more compelled by gwen/lancelot, technically - i still don’t quite feel comfortable taking gwen out of her canonical place.  she belongs at the top.  she deserves to be the love interest and she deserves to be the queen.  and like - people can say that her relationship with arthur isn’t “developed” or “convincing” enough to warrant retaining in fic, and i get it, the show really did fail gwen in S5 - but i still don’t buy that argument.  people literally INVENTED a romantic relationship for themselves and put 25,000 fics worth of effort into building it up; there is no reason why an “underdeveloped” canon romance couldn’t have gotten the same treatment.  except, of course, for the fact that one [Black, female] character was being shoved aside to make way for yet another two white dudes.)

(and i’m not saying that everyone is doing this deliberately or maliciously.  but we all know this is a cross-fandom trend.  there is literally no reason for the gap in content to be THAT wide.  a canon relationship with twenty-three thousand fewer fics than an invented ship?  just...that is a stat that bears thinking about.  it doesn’t mean that merlin/arthur is a “bad” ship, or that you can’t prefer lancelot/gwen, but it IS still important to recognize these patterns where they occur, across fandoms, and to really think about what they mean.)

2) the arthur-goggles

my second struggle with merlin/arthur in fandom is the ubiquitousness of the arthur-goggles, aka: the tendency in fandom, as in canon, to make everything in merlin’s life about arthur, and everything in the show about merthur.

this one specifically really gets to me.  i am very committed to the idea that merlin is a complete individual, whether arthur is there or not.  i write a LOT of meta about merlin being a whole person, specifically pushing back on the idea that merlin was “born” for arthur’s benefit - my motto is basically that “merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon,” and the way his life begins to revolve around arthur pendragon in later seasons is not in fact touching or romantic or beautiful; it’s a tragedy.  merlin does not exist only in the context of his relationship with arthur; he possesses worth outside of his mission to save the prince of camelot, and he was already a complete person before he ever met the prince of camelot, and one of the many issues we have to think about when dealing with arthur and merlin in any capacity is how merlin is told from the get-go that he is supposed to devote his whole life to arthur, but arthur is never given any such reciprocal responsibility.  

merlin and arthur’s relationship, just like the distribution of content in this fandom, is wildly imbalanced.  merlin spends all of his spare time thinking about arthur’s life; he ties himself in knots trying to help arthur develop as a person.  he is constantly working to keep arthur safe and happy.  but arthur, at the end of a long day, doesn’t spend his nights agonizing over how he can improve merlin’s life.  he just goes home and goes to bed.  he never once thinks, ‘my purpose on this earth is to serve and support my friend merlin.’  he is never told his life isn’t his own, that he is supposed to be one half of some two-sided coin.  only merlin is told that his entire existence is earmarked for someone else, that his life’s purpose is to be someone else’s better half.  only merlin is expected to devote his entire being to someone else’s betterment.  only merlin is expected to say demeaning, self-abnegating things like “i was born to serve you.”  

arthur, by contrast, is allowed to have a life of his own.  he is allowed to exist on his own terms.  he is never told that his worth is dependent on how well he can prop someone else up.  and while fic might like to imagine merlin being the most important thing in arthur’s life, in canon that is just not the case.  

merlin exists on his own merits, and the idea that he does everything he does just because “he’s in love with arthur” will never sit right with me, because it’s simply not true.  merlin and arthur’s relationship is important to both of them, yes, and of course it is undergirded by deep love and care, but it is also way more complicated than that.  merlin’s investment in arthur’s life - and his grief at arthur’s death - are NOT solely driven by his love for arthur as an individual; they are inextricably bound up with a sense of obligation and duty and self-worth and, eventually, failure, because he’s been told that protecting arthur is a) the only thing that matters about his own life and b) the only way to free his people and save an entire kingdom.  and i think ignoring this very real complexity in favor of “merlin does what he does and feels what he feels because he’s in love with arthur” cheapens the depth of the story and flattens merlin’s character.

arthur-goggles automatically make everything about merlin/arthur, though.  so the difficulty, for me, with merlin/arthur as a ship, is that it can be hard to make/find things about merlin that people don’t instantly, always try to link back to arthur in some way.  merlin is not allowed to have things that are just his, and he can’t exist in a state where arthur doesn’t somehow factor in - no matter how unrelated to arthur something is, or how non-shippy it’s meant to be - there’s someone out there who’s going to loop it back to merthur in some way.

just like - scattered examples of things I’ve encountered:

all of merlin’s non-arthur love interests on AO3 having massive chunks of their ship tags actually being merthur fics, with the non-arthur ship serving solely as a stepping stone on the way to getting merlin and arthur together

readers, on fics that are specifically designated as focusing on merlin+someone else and in which arthur does not appear, leaving comments asking “so how long until arthur shows up,” “can’t wait to see arthur,” etc

meta about how ‘merlin’s time in camelot was actually really bad for him as a person’ being reblogged and modified by someone else with an addition like “but merlin doesn’t regret a second of it because he wouldn’t have known arthur if he were anywhere else,” and the OP having to reblog their own post and explain that this is literally the exact problem they were trying to critique

in fic, merlin’s friends being utilized only as vessels with whom he can have discussions about his developing relationship with arthur

etc etc

it’s not always huge egregious things, but wearing arthur-goggles means EVERYTHING comes back to merthur in some way, which for me is just...really insulting to other characters, and really limiting in terms of story analysis.  

so, for example - this is a VERY specific example that few will relate to, because i am probably the only person on here who has ever tried to search the tag for merlin’s friend will from ealdor (a niche fave of mine) - but with him, especially, it is very hard to avoid bumping into a lot of people wearing arthur-goggles, because everybody seems to imagine him as merlin’s ex, who is only upset about what’s going on in 1.10 because he’s jealous about arthur appearing alongside merlin, never mind that will and merlin have known each other since birth and have a relationship that LITERALLY predates arthur by two decades.

so with him, as an example - the other day, i saw some post in the tag that was like “will gets teary when arthur makes his inspirational speech in ealdor because he finally understands what merlin sees in arthur and he can’t be mad anymore”

and that is just patently untrue.  it is not even remotely close to a legitimate interpretation of what is happening in that scene.  will hasn’t come around to arthur’s way of thinking yet; he literally still packs his things and leaves after this happens, and he is - i mean, first of all, he’s not crying, lol, and he stalks out of that scene weary, angry, and fed up, because he thinks the village is delusional and all of his neighbors are going to get killed in the morning.  his arc - his dissatisfaction with what is going on, his anger at the ignorance arthur wields as a nobleman with all of that wealth and privilege, his resistance to the big “let’s fight kanen’s men with sticks” plan - that is about him and his history and who he is.  it is not about an (imaginary) merlin/arthur love story.  

but when the arthur-goggles are on, all roads lead to merthur.  even when the other characters in question (*coughWILLIAMcough*) would be beyond mortified to have merthur, of all things, assigned as their motivation.

SO.  now that i’ve gone over both the canon and fandom aspects of my reasoning, the succinct summary in response to your question is just that no, i don’t personally ship merlin/arthur.  because:

a) i don’t see it b) the fandom is already trying to drown me with it and i choose to center other characters out of spite c) i just think merlin deserves better lol

however, as i said in my disclaimer - that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t ship and enjoy it!   merlin/arthur is very much not my cup of tea, but that’s no reason why other folks can’t have fun with it.  i think the best portrayals of it, probably, will be those that keep in mind exactly what you said - that merlin and arthur’s relationship is “kinda shitty” - but this is fandom, so if what folks really want to write is just lots of happy AU’s with no issues, then they should go for it!  the point of fandom is to have fun connecting with people over a shared love of something, so i am happy to let others have fun doing their thing, and i will just be over here doing mine. 🙂

#thanks for the question! #hope this is helpful #fyi to everyone else; this is the most space i will EVER devote to this subject so #wave goodbye as it flies past! #XD #the once and future slowburn #meta #(sort of? fandom analysis? idk)

[nettlestonenell]

Armie Hammer wants a sequel to The Man From U.N.C.L.E.—shouldn’t you?

This post is a long time in coming, Gentle Readers and @jammeke​, but now, though it might be here, before your very eyes, to think it will be well-laid out would be a mistake. It’s set to be just about as messy as Ilya’s misplaced loyalties and murky motivations.

How dare!

I probably first watched this film well over a year ago (courtesy @jammeke​ posting things about it). I used Sling OnDemand (I think on TNT). In the ensuing viewings I also watched it in that way, but as I was sitting down for a fourth(?) viewing, it kept coming to me that I was tired of watching it with commercials I couldn’t skip, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it had been edited for time and I was missing out on scenes. [pointless aside: I was also watching the film in chunks, and never as a whole]

Where is she now? What’s the time stamp? How far along did she get? Are you shagging the hotel hostess yet?

So, I, uh, set out to buy it on DVD—without any luck! In the sense that copies I could find cost more (w/ shipping) than buying it to stream. So, I bought it to stream on Amazon. Do I regret my choice, Gentle Readers? No, no I don’t. I do regret burden of knowledge in learning that TNT was already playing the entirety of the film. That was a hard pill to swallow.

Nope, I’ve looked. That’s absolutely everything. Nothing additional lurking around here...

So here it is, as it is, @jammeke, “My Notes on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”

Look, I don’t know what this film is. I probably can’t fully articulate its appeal. Or maybe I can--certainly after transcribing four page I’ve tried. Number One thing to know about me and fiction/films is that a top draw for me is seeing something out of the ordinary, such as beautiful locations, a historical era, delicious costumes. There are times, frankly, this can trump weak story and undefined character for me. (The best films, of course, combine all three) Certainly, The Man... delivers in the delight of the eyes. Additionally, I must confess that growing up as a person older than @reblogginhood​ but younger than Miss Fisher, so much of what was on TV was essentially reruns of this film’s iconic Look(tm). So, when I see women dressed like Gaby I am just another three-to-seven-year-old overcome with the drop dead glamour of it all.

Darling, tell me how you really feel...

Some questions I have:

·         IS Armie Hammer a hulk of a man? Everyone in this film seems to think so, yet he always tracks to me as trim (rather than hulking)

·         Why translate via captions some Russian speaking, but not all?

·         IS Napoleon’s backstory directly cribbed from USA’s White Collar?

·         DOES Gaby have a German accent?

·         Does Ilya get preternaturally attached to all the people he’s ordered to look after? Also, what is his bonding rate with kittens?

Sorry, wrong iteration. 

 ·         If Lady Villain knows the lens is wrong—if her technical understanding is that in-depth--does she really need Gaby’s dad to make the bomb?

·         How old was Gaby during the war?

·         What happens when Ilya gets a NEW puppy assigned to him? (please let this be addressed in film #2)

Hooray for:

·         That bathroom fight! *all the Burn Notice feels!

·         Gaby is her own lady, and chooses sides as necessary—not always unilateral in her support for either male character. Case in point: she sides with Ilya over the clothes, and Napoleon over the incident of the wallet.

·         That delicious (speaking as Rusty, here) Ocean’s 11-stylized action. It’s pretty, so I’m not bored with it. Sometimes a sandwiched montage gets shown, so I’m REALLY not bored. I’ve got 18 tiny moving boxes of things to look at!

·         Pinkie rings. There, you’ve told me everything I need to know about that character.

·         Solo in a beret. English has not yet found a word for the feeling it evoked in this viewer. Somewhere between ‘precious’ and ‘oh, no’.

See, there? Now you’ve felt it too.

·         Goggles! All the accessories! Dune Buggies! (I mean, that’s what I’m calling Napoleon’s chase-scene ride)

Things I adore:

·         It seems (after some research) that more than a few folks view Gaby as a third wheel, and though she’s not exactly a Princess Leia commandeering her own rescue and exuding competence and a deserved take-charge-attitude at every corner, she IS a foci for both male characters (though romantically it would seem only for one), just as Ilya is a foci for both her and Napoleon [no one seems to worry about Napoleon, though they should--film #2, anyone?]

·         Mechanic Gaby not needing a beauty makeover, or being dragged into one. She gets some nice clothes, but it’s never suggested that she’s not attractive or acceptable before putting them on, and I respect, nay, embrace it.

Oh, my heart. She’s still not as tall as them!

·         Ilya, drab pigeon Ilya, knowing fashion

·         Oh man, don’t even get me started on the power of the statement, “it doesn’t have to match”

·         You knew it was coming on this sublist: the wrestle-fight. I mean, c’mon. Poor little Gaby, locked behind the Iron Curtain, living a life of always being watched. She’s in the swankest hotel (I mean, Napoleon chose it, so we can be sure it’s swank with an E). She’s trying to celebrate her freedom, her liberation. She’s playing verboten music, she’s drinking to excess. Girl wants—and deserves—a party. And Ilya is…not built for that (that he knows of). For some fun, just imagine if she had been given Napoleon to room with instead.

                            o   I will say that this scene, and some of their other interactions have what I would call early (non-sibling) Luke and Leia energy. Ilya seems to have moments of being struck by Gaby in a way Luke is struck by Leia in the early part of the trilogy. When Leia takes charge, and Luke accepts it. When Leia does something incredible, and Luke is left open-mouthed. *no, I don’t see OT Star Wars in everything. Shut up.

·         “He fixed the glitch.”

·         Again, shout-out to the non-action action.

·         “I left my jacket in there.”

·         The whole race to rescue Gaby I am in love with beyond words. [I have noted it as “Crazy Jeep Drive with Warhead!”] Probably b/c it comes across as totally egalitarian. Both men want her rescued. They’re no longer in competition. It’s just as important to Napoleon as it is to Ilya to catch up to her. Also, it is bonkers, like some sort of X-games version of a commercial for the vehicles they’re driving. And screaming Willie Scott does not make an appearance.

         Someone says “winkle” out.

·         Look! Another note about the screen divisions and how I love it, shout-outs to the original Steve McQueen The Thomas Crown Affair (a contemporary of when this movie is meant to be set), and TV’s 24.

Things that get a great, big NOPE:

·         Jerrod Harris: you’ve been in so much streamable content in the last decade I can’t hate you, but frankly, you’re terrible here—unless you’re supposed to be giving a mannered, not-campy-enough-to-be-enjoyable performance here. Your American English puts me in the mind of Alex Hawaii 5-0′Loughlin where it feels you’re concentrating so hard on your accent that you fail to convince anyone that you’re a harried, over-worked and exasperated spy handler. Your performance is at odds with every bit of dialogue you’re given to say.

·         That awful, mishandled title that doesn’t even connect to the film until the final moments (a sequel set-up, for sure)

·         Look, you don’t introduce Hugh Grant casually mid-way through your film in a throwaway appearance. I mean, he’s HUGH GRANT we all know something’s up now.

·         This is not exactly a great big NOPE, b/c I love a flat cap, Tommy Shelby—but I feel like a less tall man with a far rounder face in a flat cap would track more as Russian to me that AH does. To me, he just looks like he’s about to go golfing.

Over par? Unacceptable!

·         Is Victoria a British-accented Italian? A British woman who married—what? Gaby’s uncle isn’t Italian!? An Italian who went to school in Britain? My head hurts. Also, is her hair meant to be unconvincingly bleached?

Other commentary:

·         Napoleon’s adult ne’er-do-well backstory is so far from being emotionally equivalent to Ilya’s childhood trauma [and his enslavement to the USSR] it seems bestial when he calls it out on multiple occasions. Badly done, Solo.

·         Gaby is the film’s key (sorry, Buffy fans). Everyone is connected to her. Yes, she could have been given a bit more on the character front, but I don’t see her as as much of a flaw in the film as some others/reviewers seem to.

·         Look, essentially (and not very nuanced-ly), Ilya is a stalker. I think the film goes a certain distance in establishing that his early behavior toward Gaby is not normal, but concurrently it does not truly call him out on it. He’s essentially viewed as an odd-duck, sure, but not a true threat to her (should she not reciprocate or tolerate his intensity toward her). I think I might be able to cite his behavior when Gaby comes on to him (that he doesn’t jump at a chance with her) that maybe he’s given a little more nuance than a straight-on stalker, and it helps that he and Napoleon never get into a pissing match over Gaby’s person, only over her new clothes. But overall the film has to walk a fine line (and the jury is still out on how successful it is, I’d say) between playing Ilya’s laser-like attention to Gaby for its humor, and calling it out for the unsettling, threatening behavior it is.

·         Honestly, it wasn’t until I engaged the Closed Captioning that I understood Napoleon was calling Ilya the ‘Red Peril’. So, that was nearly three viewings in.

·         I give the screen credits A+, on both ends. Not to mention the end credits are actually INTERESTING with lots to see and learn! (Certainly we learn more about HG in them than we do at any time during the film)

Things I would have liked:

·         More of fish-out-of-the-Iron-Curtain Gaby moments

·         A better dichotomy shown of East vs. West Berlin/Germany. There’s nothing easy either visually or otherwise to distinguish the two.

·         HC being given a more specific American accent (from an actual locality). This, for an American viewer, works better than the flat, unlocated American accent many a British actor will bust out. *Mind you, HC does a generally good job, but he fails utterly on both “Immediate” which he pronounces at least twice as “immeedeejt” [rather than imm-E-deeot] and “Nazi” as “NAHT-zee” [rather than “NOT-zee”]. And let’s not get started on that late in the film use of ‘earnt’, a word that—well, it’s just not in the American English twentieth century lexicon.

·         C’mon. You gotta tease the Hugh Grant more.

·         Solo is a blank before the war. I’ve read thoughts on the film calling out Gaby as the blank character, but they’re wrong. Solo is the blank. He’s the ‘made’ man, his identity seemingly assembled during the war and after. For example, he doesn’t go into the war a thief, nor (it would seem) a particularly educated or urbane individual. Now THAT’s a juicy backstory I’d love to learn about, perhaps in film #2--or #3? What creates a Napoleon Solo? What would he be doing if he weren’t on the government’s leash/incarcerated? Is anyone left caring about him back wherever he calls home? I mean, who doesn’t love a gender-flipped 60s-era Holly Golightly backstory? [And yes, I would love there to be an ex-wife or even a current wife mixed up in his origins as well—Guy Ritchie, call me!]

Notes I have that I’m not sure if they still make sense to me:

·         Only mom calls me Napoleon (do he say it ‘mum’?) Is he a secret Canadian?

·         Solo’s torture, 1st view recall Napoleon’s childhood? *I think this means that after watching the first time I somehow erroneously believed that during the torture Napoleon’s childhood was a topic gone over. This was wrong. HOWEVER, this would have made far more story-sense than the backstory we’re given on an easily disposeable villain.

·         “Even the average Russian agent. You’re special.” ?

·         Uncle is Baddie (*so glad I made this note to myself)

·         Ilya’s dad IS an embarrassment. I’m not sure what genius commentary I had in my mind, here. Perhaps that Ilya himself is embarrassed of him? Not just Ilya’s handler’s? [Also, aside: Napoleon totally slut-shames Ilya’s mom, which is the doublest of double standards from ‘I got myself the biggest and most ornate suite b/c I-wanted-plenty-of-space-for-my-random-seductions’ and I really wish Ilya had thrown that back in his face] *yes, of course I know that Ilya and Napoleon would not likely equate a wife/mother’s sexual exploits with that of Solo’s, but let’s be honest, this film tweaks the nose of (I won’t say reverses, it doesn’t go that far) plenty of tropes and gender expectations, and this certainly seems like a missed opportunity to call Solo on the carpet (which I hope film #2 does far more)

Things I wrote down so long ago I don’t recall what they mean:

·         CC-save

In conclusion:

What does film #2 look like? What title does it get? Will the Peter/Neil White Collar dynamic continue to grow? *note that I have no confidence a second film will ever come to pass...

In the end, all I know is, “It didn't help when American Tom Cruise, who was slated to play U.S. spy Napoleon Solo, dropped out, prompting the casting of Cavill (who had previously read for the Russian role).“ I would not have watched that film.

#tmfu #tmfu 2015 #ilya kuryakin #napoleon solo #gaby teller #henry cavill #armie hammer #alicia vikander #the man from uncle 2015 #the man from u.n.c.l.e. #the man from uncle #i don't know what this film's tags are meant to be to keep it from popping up in the TV series searches Sorry

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Is it wrong that some days I don't want to attend church? Like some days my depression gets bad or I'm just so emotionally/physically exhausted that I just don't have the energy to get out of bed. My parents always get mad at me when I ask them if I can just stay home and they always tell me "Well you have to go cause that's life", it's even worse now because of the quarantine. It's not that I don't want to go to church, it's just that some days I feel like I can't.

This got long so TL;DR: it’s not wrong at all. Depression is rough, and if there are days when it’s all you can do to make it to the next day, that is enough. Okay, onto the long answer.

______

Let me start by saying that in this time of quarantine, please do not go to physical church!! God prioritizes life -- you doing what you can to keep yourself and others safe is the priority. When able to muster up the energy, worship from home instead (the link leads to a masterpost of churches with online services during this time).

Now on to your actual question about whether it’s wrong to not want to attend church / not have the energy for it -- I super feel you. When your mental health is struggling, going to church can feel like a monumental task. 

I actually just posted a video about executive dysfunction (with captions), which is something that folks like us who have depression (as well as autistic folks, people with ADHD, schizophrenia, alzheimer’s, and more) often deal with.

For me, getting through all the steps required to get myself to church often takes way more spoons than I have on a Sunday....Like, I gotta:

be clean, put on suitable clothes, and make sure I’ve eaten enough to not get faint during the service;

have all my homework done if possible, or i’ll just be thinking of that the whole time;

make sure I have everything with me that I’ll need for church;

muster up the mental energy it takes me to drive;

muster up the social energy for interacting with everyone at church;

prepare myself for potential misgendering (cries), which sometimes i know i Just Can’t Handle;

prepare myself for physical contact and loud noises which as an autistic person is really draining;

drive all the way there....

It takes so. many. spoons!! 

So I actually do not make it to church every week. In fact, ever since moving, it’s been more like once every five weeks cuz I still haven’t found a church here I like, and it takes ridiculous energy to put myself through visiting new churches!

___________

Do I sometimes feel really guilty about this? Yeah. I have a tendency to beat myself up over things that are sometimes beyond my control, instead of treating myself with the love I would extend to someone else in my situation. 

But I believe that God understands and has great compassion for those of us who have a mental illness, or a disability, or who otherwise struggle with getting to church. 

As I said above, God prioritizes life -- and sometimes, going to church does not nurture life. 

If the only church environment one has available to them is discriminatory, for instance, so that going there means sitting through a storm of hate and slander against their gender or race or disability or sexuality or class, etc. -- then that church will not nourish life.

If you feel pressured, shamed, or forced into attending church, so that you feel an attack against your free will, that does not nourish life. 

And if you force yourself to church and compromise your health to do so -- that does not nourish life.

For me, just dragging myself to church when I don’t actually feel up to it is dangerous to my health. Let’s say I force myself to get ready and drive to the church building, but don’t actually have the emotional energy for the things like misgendering and physical contact I listed above. I’ve done it before! And what happens is this: I have to leave early and go collapse in my car and cry, and can barely drive home safely. And then my energy reserves are in the negative for at least a day. And often I get lost in a pit of bitterness or self hate and my mind goes to dangerous places.....So. Yeah. It’s dangerous to my own life and the lives of others (since I drive) to try to force myself to church. I do not believe God wants that.

Yes, worship is vital to Christian life! Community is vital! And in an ideal world we’d all be able to worship in community. But we don’t currently live in that ideal world, and it’s okay to admit that, and to acknowledge your own limits, and to respect your own health. 

___________

Now, there are things you might be able to do to help you store up that energy you need for church -- but none of them are magic fixes! And some of them may not work for you! But they’re possibilities; I invite you to brainstorm more:

Find a church you truly love, and that respects you. It sounds like you live with your parents, so this may not be a possibility for you right now, but my hope for you is that if you don’t already have it, one day you’ll find a church home that you get super excited to go be with! And that is full of people who understand your needs and limitations, and works with you to make worship as accessible as possible. 

Get involved. One thing that helps motivate me to actually get up and go is if I participate in the service in some way, like being a reader or communion server -- cuz then I gotta go! so it sorta kicks my brain into gear and gets me out the door. (This is helpful for executive dysfunction, it might not be as helpful with depression.)

Try online church for those times you just can’t get to church. For me, being in quarantine has actually increased my attendance because there are so many fewer steps for going to church! I don’t even have to be dressed or fed or clean, I don’t have to drive, I don’t have to prepare for interactions....I just have to get on my computer at the right time. So for me, online church has been a beautiful blessing. It’s totally okay if you have a different experience with it though.

Do what you can to minimize the energy you have to expend right before and after church. Save up some spoons! Maybe that means getting work done Friday that you otherwise may have put off for Saturday evening, so that you can have some energy left over for Sunday morning. 

_________

Sorry this is so long, but I hope at least some of it speaks to you. Be kind to yourself, anon. You are so deeply loved by the God who knows what you’re going through. <3

#depression #mental illness and health #executive dysfunction #church tag #essays #Anonymous

[calpalirwin]

How To Do An Interview

A/N: So here’s that angry Ash blurb for y’all. Special thanks to that anon for the context!

Content: Lots of swearing. One angry man.

And away, and away we go!

~~~

I slammed my front door, getting a smug satisfaction at how the windows rattled with the force of it.

That felt good, but not good enough. So, finally, in the safety of my home, in total solitude, I screamed. The angry yell echoed around me as I let loose, not stopping until I ran out of breath.

I took in big breaths, gulping down the air, ready to carry on screaming until I lost my voice. That's when I noticed a pair of eyes peering at me from over the couch. I shot my girlfriend an angry smirk before I screamed again. I didn't give a damn what she thought. I was angrier than I'd ever been, and damn it, I wanted to scream about it. So I was.

More of her appeared from where she'd been hiding behind the couch as she sat up on her knees, her own mouth opening to yell with me. 

"Wait, why are we yelling?" she asked, breathless.

"Because I am pissed!" I shouted at her, my voice already sounding hoarse.

She cowered back behind the couch, only letting me see her eyes, which were wide with terror. "Oh..."

"Am I scaring you?" I asked even though I didn't really care about the answer. I was about one scream away from putting my fist through a wall. But, a small part of me was still being rational. I could lose my voice, but I needed my hands. And I truly didn't want to scare her. I knew I looked intimidating, but I tried really hard not to be.

Her hand came up to show her thumb and index finger dangerously close together, followed the lie of "maybe a little."

I let my air out in a huff, running my hands through my hair. "I'm sorry, baby." I apologized, my anger subsiding to exhaustion as I walked over to sit with her. "I'm just..."

"Just nothing," she told me. "You are pissed. Not just. Are."

"Alright, I'm pissed," I admitted.

"What about? Talk to me, Fletch," her soft voice urged.

"It's those damn interviews!" I growled, my fists clenching, as I grew angry again. We'd been on the road for close to 3 months, promoting our new music and tour, doing interview after interview, each one progressively worse than the last.

“What about them?"

"They don't take us seriously! They ask about the girls and the parties! They ask if we've checked out this or that bar and if we woke up with someone in our bed! We're doing a fuckin promo and they don't give a single fuck about the music or the process! No! They only care about pleasing the fuckin tabloids! How are the 4 Aussies adjusting to their celeb status? Any coke habits, boys? Boys! Can you believe that shit?! I'm twenty-fuckin-four! I've been in the public eye since I was seven-fuckin-teen! I'm more than adjusted and I'm a fuckin man! I am a serious musician who is proud of his accomplishments as a musician! I want to talk about that! Not this immature little kid BULLSHIT!"

"Whoa..."

"Yeah," I huffed, feeling only marginally better.

Her eyes lit up in sudden excitement. "I have an idea!" she squealed, getting up to dash around the house.

"What?" I giggled, watching her go from 0 to 100.

"Go get changed," she said, throwing a water bottle at me. "Something kinda nice."

"What are you planning, gorgeous girl?"

"Trust me, Fletch," she answered with a kiss. "But first, scream with me one more time. Or at least pose like you are." she told me, brandishing her phone at me.

"Alright," I giggled. Then, I let loose another scream, her screaming right along as she snapped a series of photos until we were breathless and giggly.

"Now, go get ready."

~ ~ ~

A half hour later, I bounded downstairs, excited to see what she had planned.

I giggled as I saw our transformed living room. She had brought out the back drop from the Cocktail Chats and was peering through a video camera on a tripod, making sure everything was in the shot. "Luke, lift the mic higher, there ya go," she was saying, "Mike, say something."

"Uh, this is weird. Ash, your girl's weird mate," Mike said.

"Uh, this is weird. Ash, your girl's weird, mate," Mike's voice said again from the video. "Perfect!" she cheered, happy with her work. "Alright, places, men. It's showtime!"

"What are you doing?" I asked in her ear. My mates were dressed up, clearly just as lost as I was with whatever she was planning, but going along because you just didn’t say no to this girl. And whatever she planned was going to be big based on her set up and the fact that she herself had changed into a black pencil skirt and white blouse; her glasses perched on her nose giving her a hot librarian vibe.

“Giving you the interview you all deserve," she winked, her heels clicking as she took a seat in the armchair. "Have a seat, Fletch."

I giggled and took a seat with my mates on my couch. This was gonna be good.

"Thank you for tuning into another episode of Galcal Chats. I'm your hostess, Galcal Irwin, and I'm here with the men of 5SOS. Gentlemen, how we feeling today?" she started, once the camera was rolling.

"Little confused," Calum answered.

"Yeah, what the hell, Y/N?" Mike asked.

"Scared? Ash...?" Luke spoke up, shooting me a worried glance.

"Much better now, Galcal,” I giggled, happy to play along with her game.

"Awesome!" she said brightly. "So, you all just got back from promoting your single Easier and your upcoming tour with The Chainsmokers. Tell me, how was that?"

"Tiring," Calum answered. 

"Nice," Luke put in.

"Really cool. We haven't done much since we got back from our Meet You There tour. It was nice to be back on the road,” Mike added, giving her more of an answer.

"Mmm," she nodded. "And the upcoming tour- World War Joy with The Chainsmokers- how's that? I know a lot saw it as a shock. How are you hoping this tour helps showcase how far you've all come- both as a rock group and individually?"

"Yeah," I spoke up. "You know our music took a new direction with our last album. It's something we're still exploring and establishing. So, when The Chainsmokers asked us to collab with them on Who Do You Love, we jumped at the chance to keep challenging ourselves. We're still working on our new album, but we love touring, so when they asked for us to join them on World War Joy, it seemed like the right move for us."

"Right! The new album! You already released the single Easier. Are you planning to release any more singles?"

"We're actually planning to release a new single here soon," Luke confessed.

"Ooo! You heard it here first, folks!" Y/N grinned at the camera.

She continued to interview us for the better part of an hour, finally asking the questions we'd been dying to answer. Not a single mention of girls, or wild nights. Not a single usage of the word "boys". Just pure interest in our art.

“Alright, that's all the time we have for today. 5SOS, it's been a pleasure. Best of luck with your upcoming tour. Let's chat sometime!"

"Thanks for having us, Y/N," Calum said.

"Yeah, this was fun," Luke told her.

"You're so weird," Mike teased her.

"Love you, too." she grinned, getting up to press her face close to the camera. "And that's how you do an interview, FUCKERS!" she laughed, sticking out her tongue and flipping off the camera for good measure.

"Hey, no swearing!" I told her light-heartedly, feeling loads better.

"This guy, am I right?" she told the camera, jerking a thumb at me. "Chat soon, love y’all,'' she signed off, shutting off the camera.

~~~

"Look at how popular we are," she told me later, showing me her phone.

She had posted the picture of us screaming with the caption “Talked with this one and the rest of @5sos​ about their art! Check it out here!” with the link to the video underneath it.

Both her post and the video had blown up-comments ranging from how finally so mine was taking us seriously, love over her sass, and general freaking out-mostly about Luke's bombshell of a new single.

"And that's how you do an interview, FUCKERS!" we yelled happily at each other, before finishing it off with one more scream for good measure.

#how to do an interview #ashton irwin #ashton blurb #5sos #galcal irwin #thanks anon! #seriously if people could just like let celebs live their lives #keep it professional peeps!

[pietrotheavenger]

learn to love

chapter 2 - rules

summary: steve and y/n don’t get along. now, they have to.

pairings: au!steve rogers x fem!reader

warnings: swearing

a/n: i saw blackbear at the showbox sodo and i miss him so much he’s so talented. also there’s so much dialogue in this part and i hate writing dialogue heavy scenes so i hope this isn’t complete shit!

series masterlist

a deal was a deal. y/n agreed to go to the wedding back in his hometown and he had agreed to paying her and scoring a date for her. he also insisted on covering all of her expenses so that she wouldn’t “complain her ass off,” as he had so eloquently put, about the expensive taste that his family had.

“okay, do you have the pen ready?” y/n asked from inside the dressing room. after she had taken a quick shower, the “couple” headed over to a dress shop to find something for the wedding reception. steve said that it was black tie and, frankly, she didn’t have anything nice enough to wear to a black tie event. afterall, they were going to be surrounded by his trust fund family and friends and she wanted to impress them.

“yes,” he sighed. he was settled in a plush chair outside, his ankle propped up on his knee. he twirled the pen around his fingers, waiting for her to speak up again.

“first rule is no pda.”

steve’s face dropped. “oh, fuck no! my folks are gonna know something’s up. i’ve always been hands on, if you know what i mean.” it was true. he loved constantly touching his girlfriends in the past, whether it was a hand on their back, or a kiss to the cheek. it wasn’t always sexual. he just craved physical affection and affirmation.

she groaned in protest before pushing open the curtain. “how does this look?” she was wearing a peach colored mermaid gown, intense sequins sewn all over.

“glittery,” he made a face.

“good glittery or bad glittery?” she stepped out to see herself in the big mirror. “bad glittery,” she answered her own question. “okay, fine. no kissing, then. i don’t want herpes,” she shrugged.

“are you shitting me?”

“i am not, steven,” her tone was stern. she turned to face him, hands on her hips. “kissing will mess with our heads. releases dopamine and shit and i refuse to fall for another asshole.”

“jeez, doll, you really know how to make a guy feel good,” he rolled his eyes. “can i kiss your forehead, or something?” he tapped the pen against his lower lip, deep in thought. “or touch your butt?”

“sure? i guess?” she shut the curtain again.

“so, first rule, is no kissing,” he spoke slowly as he wrote it out.

“rule number 2,” y/n continued, “no posting on social media.”

“i’m fine with that,” he replied, adding it to the list. they’d posted pictures of one another on their social media before. it ranged from pictures of their friend group and aesthetic instagram story brunch posts to unflattering selfies of the other and obnoxious birthday posts. the day after y/n’s last birthday, steve had posted on his instagram a picture of her hunched over a toilet. he captioned it, “post birthday shenanigans.”

“i forgot that you can sometimes be reasonable.”

“rule number 3, y/n don’t be an asshole,” he grumbled.

she instantly poked her head out of the curtain. “if you’re writing that down, make sure you add your name before mine.” she put it back in place and he heard her doing up her zipper.

“you’re so funny,” he deadpanned.

“i know, my boyfriend loves my sense of humor,” she bit back, without missing a beat.

“i bet he loves it more when you do different things with that pretty little mouth of yours.”

“steven grant rogers!” she cursed, throwing the curtain open. “you’re such an absolute misogynistic dickhead!” she hissed, grabbing a magazine and mercilessly hitting him. of course, it didn’t hurt him and his frustratingly beefy and perfect physique.

he brought his arms up to shield his head. “okay, okay! i’m sorry! jesus, fuck!”

“you’re in top three worst people i’ve ever met in my life,” she tossed the magazine back into place. she ran her hand through her hair, fixing it.

“i’m sorry!” he repeated as he shrank back into his chair.

“just shut up. you’re giving me a stress headache,” she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“you look like a goth in that dress.” it was a black, silk, shift dress, with a tulle belt.

“remind me why i agreed to this?”

“because i’m an incredibly attractive and charming man and you would do anything to get me?” he suggested.

“that doesn’t seem right,” she scoffed. she turned back into the dressing room. “i’m assuming this one is a no?”

“correct. anyways, rule number 4. no falling in love. i know how irresistible i am.” he poked his tongue out from his lips as he focused.

“god, steve, i don’t know if i’ll be able to commit to that,” she said, sarcastically.

“i know, baby, you’ll just have to try your best,” he laughed. “any other rules to add?”

“not for now. we can always make amendments,” she said, and then quieter, “god, fuck this zipper.”

“you need help?”

“nope! i got it!” she pushed open the curtain again, smiling at him. “i think this is the dress.”

his breath was knocked out of his chest. she looked stunning. he had picked this maroon gown, not thinking anything much of it. she had asked for his opinion so he picked up the first dress he saw that didn’t make him want to vomit. it had a tulle skirt and bodice, with a slit going up the leg. the combination of the off the shoulder style and sweetheart neckline showcased her clavicles and a dash of her decalotage elegantly. the hem and the neckline was adorned with small maroon petals.

“wow,” he exhaled, as she twirled for him.

“what’re we thinking?”

“you, uh,” his mouth went dry. the dress perfectly showed off her waist and gorgeous legs. “um, you look g-great,” he stuttered.

“are we forgetting rule number 4 so quickly?” she teased.

“oh fuck off. you ruined the moment,” he waved her off. “i’ll give you credit where it’s due and you truly look beautiful.”

“thanks, steve,” she beamed.

“so, we’re settled on the rules?” he stood up, holding out the paper for her.

“i think so,” she mumbled as she read them over.

“do we have an agreement, y/n y/l/n?”

“i believe we do, steven rogers.”

infinity tags:

@ssweet-empowerment ; @httpmcrvel ; @stardustandbucky ; @abuckyrogersworld ; @freightcarcap ; @c-a-v-a-l-r-y ; @coffeebooksandfandom ; @somethingmoreclever ; @2dreamcatcher8 ; @illegalportkey ; @uservalkyrie ; @fuckthatfeeling ; @xxashy999xx ; @buckybarneshairpullingkink ; @tuliptx ; @wwhitewwolff ; @thisismysecrethappyplace ; @appreciating-chase-brody ; @renanyx ; @maladaptive-ninja-returns ; @marvelrose ;

strikethroughs are tags that didn’t work. in the future they may be removed.

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #captain america #chris evans #fanfiction #captain america x reader #chris evans x reader #enemies to lovers #slowburn #the avengers #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

[toomanyfeelings5]

the definitive ranking of pulp! the classics covers and summaries, from worst to best

(Note: Pride and Prejudice was not included in this list, as there were only poster and greeting card options for the work, and not an actual book or summary. Had a book and summary been provided, it would have ranked lowest for unoriginality. It’s literally just 1995 Colin Firth staring moodily at you. The caption is “Lock Up Your Daughters...Darcy’s in Town!” which is just unfortunate, frankly, and honestly laughable.) 

16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 

You take a novel that’s positively overflowing with drama and give it THIS cover? THIS summary? Absolutely uninspired. 

Here’s looking at you Cathy...

Childhood sweethearts turned star-crossed lovers, fuelled by bitter jealousy and dark revenge. She’s pretty and posh, he’s a moody brooding bastard. Heartbreak, alcoholism and plenty of illegitimate kids – it’s a perfect Northern drama.

Where is the feeling? The screaming violins playing as we read? The moors? The time skips? A hint of the positively bonkers plot that only a Bronte could compose?

15. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 

 Oh, the heterosexuality of it all. On an Oscar Wilde novel, no less. 

Hey girl...I’d sell my soul for you!” 

Dorian Gray might be as pretty as a picture, but he's paid a devilishly high price for it. He'll stay drop-dead gorgeous, but there's something nasty festering in the attic...

Pretty as a picture and still lusting after ladies? Please. Pulp! Classics, you can do better. 

14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Again, we must speak the ancient chant: Oh, the heterosexuality of it all. 

When it came to loving...He knew which Daisy to pick! 

Sorry old sport, but Gatsby has a bigger house than you, prettier friends than you and a Rolls Royce to cart them all round in. To a backdrop of popping champagne corks and orchestral jazz, our hero bids to buyout his old adversary, perennial jock, Tom Buchanan and reclaim Daisy, his favourite bit of High Society totty.

Nick Carraway gets not one mention, which is odd given that he’s the narrator, the protagonist, and Gatsby’s most ardent love interest. Also strange is the cover’s insistence that Jordan Baker, known lesbian, would swoon over Gatsby. Doubly strange is how tiny the women are in comparison to Gatsby’s massive frame. What is, again, bamboozling, is how the slogan on the cover seems to imply that Gatsby knows how to pick a woman. He doesn’t know how to choose anyone, let alone love them. All Gatsby truly knows is the desperate pursuit of a fruitless dream. 

13. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 

Romeo looks like he could be Juliet’s father. Juliet looks like an Upper East Side Widow, not at all like the tween girl she really is.

Too wild to live...too young to die!

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou…. Oh wait, he’s hanging around in the garden again. Will young Romeo and his Juliet ever be able to express their raging hormones? Or will their feuding families make this romance blossom into a poisoned flower? Either way, both their houses are totally plagued!

“Wherefore” means “why,” not “where,” though I do have to award points to the summary for placing the blame squarely on the feud and not on these doomed young lovers. Though again, young isn’t the operative word I’d use to describe this version of Romeo and Juliet. 

12. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe 

This is what one would expect upon seeing a pulp cover of a classic novel. Not much originality or flair is present, but at least some sense of the story is conveyed. 

Solitude was driving him nuts!

Cannibals! Captives! Coconuts!

One man’s love of the sea leaves him stranded on a desert island with nothing but a few goats, a bible and a parrot for company.

Will he ever escape? Will his new pal Friday learn to efficiently press a goatskin jerkin? Or will solitude send him totally barmy?

WILL Friday learn to efficiently press a goatskin jerkin? One must read to find out, I suppose...

11. Tess of the D'urbervilles 

Marilyn Monroe?????

She’s...no angel.

The original Wessex girl!

Tess is just a humble milkmaid when the local landowner has his wicked way. Her new beau, the smarmy Angel Clare, is none too pleased when he finds out she’s already been deflowered. What is a girl to do? Bloody revenge of course, and an ending to touch the hardest of hearts.

At least the summary blames the terrible men in Tess’s life rather than Tess herself, unlike the tagline on the cover. And while Marilyn Monroe seductively lounging about with a drink doesn’t recall the faintest essence of Hardy’s novel, one would like to imagine Tess relaxing in whatever clothes she pleased, a straw dangling out of her drink, a smile on her face as she answers to no one and spends her quiet evening in solitude. 

10. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

An innocuous cover; the men’s faces hint at the comedic nature of this novel, and yet...something nags the brain upon looking at this.

To say nothing of the dog...

Incompetence, embarrassment and general disaster - no it’s not PMQs, it’s a trip down the Thames! Three hapless fellows and a world weary dog decide they need a holiday from their exhausting hypochondria. Hilarious mayhem ensues.

To say nothing of the dog indeed: Why does the dog on the cover have a human face?

9. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 

All one can say upon viewing this cover is: Jeff Goldblum, is that you?

Change really BUGGED him! 

Poor old Gregor. One day he's depressed about his dreary travelling salesman gig, the next, he's roaching around the apartment and disgusting his family. All that's left is creeping the walls and eating garbage. How's his sis ever going to find a sugar daddy with her grotty bro in tow?

Gregor isn’t grotty, he’s our six-legged hero in this tragic tale. 

And yet in the end, the question that haunts us all echoes in our minds in an unceasing echo: is that Jeff Goldblum? 

8.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 

Alice as a hippie is eye-catching, but not particularly creative. 

This cupcake was off her head!

What HAS happened to little Alice? Taking 'shrooms, hanging out with hookah smoking ne'er-do-wells and being dragged to court. That's gonna be one hell of a hangover!

As much as I’m intrigued by Alice wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and a peace sign necklace, the summary and the cover consist of one joke and one joke only. 

7. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 

I just like how Dr. Jekyll in this cover looks equally as fucked up as Mr. Hyde. 

No more Mr. Nice Guy... There’s a sinister man about London town with something of the night about him. Mr Hyde is mad, bad and has a penchant for bumping off MPs and other kindly innocents. Will his friend Dr Jekyll be able to stop him? Or is there something more to their relationship than meets the eye…? Only the intrepid Utterson can get to the bottom of this mystery, but what will he find in Dr Jekyll’s lab?

Points to this summary for including Mr. Utterson, and for insinuating that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde may be clandestine lovers. 

6. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 

Ladies, gentlemen, and otherwise, don’t we love it when a greedy rich man gets bludgeoned by a mace into being more generous and kindly towards others?

This cat was a drag....’til a midnight wake-up call...

Christmas?! What a load of Humbug. Mistletoe and Wine just don't do it for Scrooge; he's a workaholic miser with an attitude problem. If he doesn't change his ways, he'll end up with no friends and Tiny Tim won't last the year. Let's hope some spooky night-time visitors can put the jingle back in his bells!

Ring-a-ling-a-ling, Mr. Scrooge. The mace is raised and the bells are ringing.

5.  Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 

The tag-line made me, as the youths say, laugh out loud. 

Whoops! Apocalypse....

The horror! The horror!

Kurtz might be the apple of every brutish imperialist’s eye, but his God complex is getting wildly out of hand in the depths of the jungle. What on earth will Marlow find when he finally gets downriver? Devil worship? Savages? Heads on sticks? Or just another nutty white man with his knickers in a twist?

Surprisingly anti-racist summary made this jump to the higher echelons of this esteemed list, though of course that doesn’t excuse this novel’s abhorrent and embarrassing fake-deep racism. It also must be noted that the tag-line should have been “Whoops! White supremacy!” and the text of the novel should have entirely consisted of Chinua Achebe’s essay on the work. 

4. The Hounds of Baskerville by Arthur Conan Doyle

The cover alone is a winner. A rabid chihuahua out for blood? Inspired. 

Murder...Mystery...Walkies!

A desolate moor, a diabolical dog in need of a muzzle and some inbred locals; Sherlock Holmes is really up against it. With the help of his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson, Holmes pieces together a mystery that has captured the imagination of readers across the decades. All whilst practising a serious coffee and cocaine habit.

The tag-line is fun and catchy, but sadly this summary must be admonished for insisting that Dr. Watson is merely a “trusty sidekick” to Sherlock Holmes. Heterosexuality strikes again, reducing the impact of the striking cover design. 

3. Dubliners by James Joyce 

Finally! Some style, some panache, some flair to accompany these short stories about being sad and horny in Ireland. 

Stuck in the Liffey with you...

Booze, Sex and Hot Floury Potatoes… Those Dubliners are at it again!

Liars, thieves, whores and priests… James Joyce sure knew how to throw a party! This relentlessly downbeat collection explores the very worst aspects of human nature, and doesn’t leave out the juicy bits. It might not be in the best possible taste, but who doesn’t want to get down and dirty in Dublin?

The summary and cover work in tandem to wholeheartedly convince me that Dubliners is an action-packed, slick collection of stories detailing the wild escapades of a motley cast of ragamuffins, and I gotta hand it to the folks over at Pulp! Classics for injecting some bonafide vintage cool into Joyce’s work.

2. Othello by William Shakespeare 

I have so many thoughts on this. Mr. T. as Othello is fascinating, as is the tagline, “Some kind of Bard...aaaaasss.” Is this a commentary on blaxploitation media? One can’t help but recall Mr. T.’s reasoning behind his mohawk, his gold chains, to honor his ancestors and assert his living, unshakable humanity in a racist society. Is this is a genuine effort on the part of Pulp! Classics to imply that a blaxploitation-influenced adaptation of Othello could reveal deeper truths to the play that we have had yet to glimpse? 

Some kind of Bard... aaaasss

He’s a bardass brother with the love of a fine woman. That is until some cloven hoofed honky starts talking crazy about variously hued sheep tupping the hell outta each other! You gotta pity the fool who gets shafted by the green eyed monster. Let’s hope Othello can work out who to trust before it’s too late…

The fast-paced alliterative language of the summary harkens to Shakespeare’s own wit-fueled dialogue and penchant for creative language. The summary also calls Iago a devil, which is apt, and implicitly criticizes his racism, hinting at the play’s greater tragedies to come. The cover and summary also work in tandem to emphasize Othello’s jealousy and destruction: the “green-eyed monster” is mentioned, and the cover itself is a putrid green. An excellent example of what a vintage cover and summary can achieve. 

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly 

You all knew this was coming. 

This kid was born on the wrong side of the lab...

Frankenstein’s monster is on the rampage; terrorising the locals, unleashing murderous hell… and reading novels in his spare time. Can his petrified creator stop this reign of horror before his girlfriend gets the chop?

A James Dean-inspired creature, thereby making them a queer icon? Masterful. The creature being “born on the wrong side of the lab?” A stroke of genius; that they’re called a kid puts the poignancy of the monster’s plight into even greater relief, while simultaneously emphasizing their tragic charm. The clear distinction between Frankenstein and the creature? Reader, I exhaled in a cathartic release of tension. The loving detail that the creature reads novels in their spare time, like any other leather-jacket wearing, motorcycle-riding ruffian with a heart of gold? Beautiful. 

Truly, the obvious queer energy of this cover and summary highlights an overlooked dimension of Shelly’s great work while also paying homage to what draws us to this Modern Prometheus time after time. Do we care about the petrified creator in this summary? Not at all. He’s not on the cover, appearing both rebellious and gentle. We are here for the creature, in their leather jacket, on their motorcycle, novel sticking out of a back pocket on their jeans, ready to whisk us away to a place where even monsters like us can find solace, and be at peace, and commune with each other. We need only take their outstretched hand, and be willing to leave the mundane world for something better, for the chance to no longer be alone. 

#books #art #classic works #i'm going to purchase a copy of that frankenstein cover and no one will stop me

[themissingmarvel]

The Sweetest Treat [Part 1]

((A/N: As a Boston native, I can speak to much of this. But as me, holy crap another celebrity x reader! Most folks wanted Chris Evans and frankly, so do I. He’s a sweety and I hope folks like this series. I’m nervous. Always am with celebrity x reader. Be gentle with me! I hope it’s ok! First fic after surgery so I’m nervous!!

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings: Cursing, lots of cursing

Word Count: 2050 ))

Glancing down at your phone for the fifth time in two minutes, you had felt it buzz this time. The picture that came up, a text from your best friend, showed a picture of you photoshopped surrounded by cats. You rolled your eyes hard and turned off the phone, shoving it back in your pocket.

It had been a week since you broke up with your most recent boyfriend, another dude who just reinforced that the world was made up of assholes. This one had been good. He’d been sweet. But you were a bit prickly, some sarcasm and cynicism in there, but he’d been accepting. Six months later you found out not so much. During an argument he’d admitted how depressing you were, how truly a downer you were. It had hurt and stung. And when someone suggested going back online for dating? Well. Online dating was a cesspool of ‘show me ur tits’ and ‘fuck you anyway’ when you didn’t answer. It felt useless.

And you weren’t exactly dressed to impress today, wearing your old Captain America t-shirt with a couple rips and some paint stains. He’d always been a favorite but this was your comfort shirt, whether it looked that way or not. And hell, you needed comfort.

The joke of course, the one your friend had texted you, was that you were destined to be the crazy cat lady. And wasn’t it perfect that you were in line for ice cream at Bedford Farms, one of the more famous ice cream shops in the greater Boston area. It was mostly dead, Wednesday at 2pm not really a time of day most kids or adults flooded the shop in Concord. But you’d wanted comfort food and had insisted on only the best.

Standing at the counter, ignoring your phone now, you smiled at the teen likely working some money to save for college, “Small Mississippi Mud please, and a pint of it to go as well,” you lifted the stay-cold bag onto the counter, watching as the woman went to work. You’d noticed a man standing behind you but hadn’t thought much of it. Probably another one of the many either out of your league or taken. His head was low with sunglasses on, and he’d looked weirdly familiar.

Whatever.

You ignored the judgey kind of looks as they scooped the ice cream, hearing the man behind you, “Rough day?”

You rolled your eyes, of course he’d ask. You half-turned your head at the again weirdly familiar voice, “Aren’t they all?”

Ah, there was that dark humor, the one the man had left you because of. Sighing at yourself you frowned internally and took the ice cream as it was overloaded, as always, the delicious benefit of Bedford Farms. Turning, you hadn’t realized the man was trying to pass you on your left and you had turned sharply, bumping into the white t-shirt and creating a full-on spill with your cup.

“Jesus christ mother fucker!” You yelled, cursing as the ice cream hit the floor, watching as the man scrambled for napkins. But he didn’t seem mad.

No, this man was weirdly apologetic, “Oh, god, I’m so sorry! That’s on me!” He wiped at your shirt, handing you the napkins as the woman behind the counter appeared to grin, handing water as well, “Let me get that, please, I’m sorry. Least it’s on an old shirt?”

“It’s my favorite!” You snapped, not realizing your tone, though pausing to see he’d spilled the chocolate on his white shirt as well, “Fuck, I’m so sorry, you got it on your white shirt… it’s just, this is my favorite shirt. Not your fault, I’m sorry, too,” you looked at him, probably for the first time, before realizing you had crashed straight into Chris Evans.

It was like a lightbulb. And not a total shocker, either. It shouldn’t have been. He lived in the area and this was a popular spot. The girls behind the counter had seen him before and gotten over their ooing and awwing. Now you were frozen as he smiled, “Favorite shirt? Yeah, Cap’s my favorite too.” He had pushed up his sunglasses by now and was smiling, a soft smile that made you melt more than the ice cream on the floor.

Now you were flustered as fuck, “Oh, oh my god, of course I’d spill ice cream on Chris Evans,” you winced, tossing out the napkins as the last was cleaned up.

He grinned, nodding his head, “Could be worse. Could have been RDJ. He’s a stickler about his clothes,” he winked playfully, “Now let me be a gentleman and buy you a new ice cream. Can’t have you leaving without it. Wouldn’t be very superhero-ish of me not to. Especially not even knowing your name.” His smile froze you, and you nodded, watching in a weird stupor as Chris Evans bought you a new ice cream, this time in a waffle cone.

He bought his own, White River Junction, and insisted you sit with him, “Yours won’t melt. C’mon, you look like you need someone to sit with. No offense, but a response of saying all your days are rough deserves an ear.”

The man was a real-life superhero, you thought to yourself as you got seated at a table near the back, closer to where the train tracks were. You’d already begun to dig into the ice cream when he came over, speaking through a stuffed mouth, “I’m Y/N. And thanks for the ice cream. And the company. You didn’t have to do that,” you were somewhat muffled.

I wonder if she knows how cute she is, Chris thought to himself as he smiled, taking a bite of his own favorite flavor and savoring the little indulgence he was allowed through all his training, “But I wanted to. Plus now your favorite Captain America shirt can have a Captain America story to go with it,” he laughed a little.

You couldn’t help but smile, one of the first real smiles you’d had and felt in some time. This sweet man was sitting with you eating ice cream like it was the most casual thing in the world, “Well, I doubt most people would believe I actually bumped into Chris Evans to have ice cream,” you smirked.

Without hesitation he reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone, making a motion for you to lean across the table, “I’d tell you to make a cute face, but I have a feeling they’re all cute,” he smirked.

You laughed nervously, leaning in with a spoon and holding it up with a smile as he used his spare hand to playfully dig into your ice cream, taking a shot. When he was done, he actually did take a bite, grinning, “Peanut butter is my favorite. And now they’ll believe you.” Eating the spoonful, you followed his lead and took a bite of his, feeling weirdly natural about doing this was someone so… astounding as Chris Evans.

When he turned back, smirking as you went back to your food he nodded, “You follow me on Instagram?”

You shrugged, pausing the eating of your ice cream, “I’m not huge on social media. I see some of my favorite folks from time to time, you included,” you blushed, “but it’s hard to keep up. Didn’t even know you were in the area,” you shrugged, taking another bite.

He laughed, “Well, you may want to check my Instagram. Feel free to tag yourself. Clearly I don’t know yours,” he grinned.

Taking out your phone (and quickly closing the crazy cat lady image) you brought up the social media app, one of many, and found his. It was a cute shot, to be sure, with a caption, “Saving the day with ice cream and a ‘sweet’ Bostonian! Can’t ever miss Bedford Farms on a trip home!”  The caption made you smile, though the fact that he hadn’t called you a ‘fan’ made you smile harder. He was being coy, you knew that, and so you liked it and tagged yourself, commenting, ”Least I don’t stain my white shirts. Just my Cap ones.” You realized he still had the chocolate on his shirt, something he’d likely given up on. Besides, the man could afford a new shirt.

He chuckled, clearly reading your comment, shaking his head, “Well, now your friends will believe you sat and had ice cream with Captain America. Happy?”

God, you have no fucking idea you’d thought to yourself as he smiled, that brown stain on his shirt making you feel a little bad, but not even noticing the giggling girls behind the counter that had never seen Chris like this in his minor indulgences into the ice cream. Normally he was in and out, but you never knew. No, this man, this sweet, kind man, had pulled you from another one of your funks just by being himself.

“Yeah, more than before. Thinking I may not need the ice cream in my bag,” you said, almost flirtatiously, finishing off the one you had eaten.

Were you not so absorbed in the moment you would have realized you’d made Chris blush. He had blushed at the idea that he had made your day better so much so that you didn’t even need to mope and watch Avengers for the fifteenth time. Your own favorite hero, the man who acted in movies you’d loved beyond just Marvel ones, the man who had seemed so kind and genuine, had made your entire day. And just by sitting with you eating ice cream.

But he had places to go, right? They always did. These famous types didn’t have time for you and your miserable life becoming the crazy cat lady. Even if he had just made your day in ways you couldn’t really describe. Chris had stepped in and swept you off your feet, just briefly.

Collecting your things, you smiled, “Thanks so much for this, Chris. It really meant a lot to me. I know you’ve probably got a lot going on.” You stood, slinging your bag over your shoulder and carrying the ice bag that was keeping your delicious treat cold until you could get home, which wasn’t too far.

He looked nervous, quickly getting up as well, “Hey uh, listen. I’m in town for a while, nice break and all that, and if you’re OK with it, I’d really like to take you out, maybe for dinner? Get to know the real Y/N and not just the one having a bad day in an ice cream shop,” he smiled warmly.

It was disarming, hearing him ask, and for a moment you were stuttering, trying to think of what to say and how to respond, GIVE HIM YOUR DAMN NUMBER, Y/N!  your inner voice cried hysterically, stomping as you managed to put on a small smile, “Dinner would be nice. I’ve got the day off, so whenever works. I should give you my number,” you reached out for his phone.

Surprisingly, Chris was just as flustered, stumbling as he withdrew his phone and unlocked it, opening it to the phonebook section and adding your name, taking a ridiculous quick selfie as you saved it and handed it back, “It’s under Y/F/N in there, so just text me when you’re ready and I can give you my address. Just change your shirt before then,” you smiled and winked, shocked at your sudden bravery.

Turning, you moved out the door to your car, leaving a lovestruck Chris Evans behind to absorb what had happened. A true Boston girl had just caught him by surprise and she was the cutest, most gorgeous thing around without even knowing it. How could you? If you could have heard the overwhelming voice in Chris’ head, you might have been shocked.

As it was, you were getting yourself together to head home, suddenly more aware than ever of the texts coming in on your phone and hoping that Chris wouldn’t be far behind.

Guess the ice cream wouldn’t be necessary at all. Now to be ready for Chris.

@skymoonandstardust @lunalove25 @with-the-words-all-wrong @ellen-reincarnated1967 @curtisgrahamcracker @little-red-83 @spookydefendordreamer @pookiefoof12111 [Ask to be added/removed]

#chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans imagine #imagine chris evans #chris evans fic #chris evans fanfic #chris evans fanfiction #you x chris evans #chris evans x you #chris evans x y/n #chris evans fandom #chris evans fluff #marvel #mcu #celebrity x reader #celebrity reader insert #chris evans reader insert #fanfic #fic #fanfiction #chris evans reader #the sweetest treat

[superleeleehipster]

Why do I ship Caryl?

So this wasn’t something I was planning to write, but after seeing this question come up time and time again, I finally decided to entertain it and meditate over it. Because honestly, this question is more relevant now more than ever:

Why do I ship Caryl?

This person’s comment that I saw on another post asked what I think is a genuine question nowadays, and that is “why does Caryl need to be in love? Everyone knows they have a special bond and they would kill for each other. Why does it need to be romantic?” They weren’t hateful, or spiteful, or saying that this other ship makes more sense. They were just curious. 

It’s an even more relevant question now because of Melissa’s recent interview and what she said about Carzekiel and Caryl. She basically stated that Caryl is more important than romance, and they are arguably the person they’re closest with, but it is what it is. And she went on to point out that it’s been proven that she and Ezekiel are happy, and Daryl is happy for her. 

Side note: I’m not bothered by what she said about the two b/c I can understand her point of view. She’s tired of being asked the same damn Caryl question over and over again, it’s been going on since season 2 and only vamped up at the start of season 5. She knows about the shipping wars, she knows fans can get riled up over her’s and Norman’s responses over this question, and she’s tired of answering it b/c there’s nothing left to answer (and I’m sure she’s tired of the hate that happens within the fandom, as well as what’s directed at her and norman). Plus, as an actor, I’m sure it bothers her that some people are disregarding/diminishing the Carzekiel bond b/c she’s put her heart into that role. She can’t control the writing, and her job is to follow the script and play her part, which she has, and I’m sure she is proud of what she’s done this filming season. So I’m sure it hurts her to know that ppl are writing off Carzekiel as more of a one sided relationship b/c that’s her hard work. She wants ppl to support her work, no matter how shitty it is, and I get that. 

So the question remains, why do I ship Caryl?

I decided to really think on this question and give it a meaningful answer instead of what I usually talk about. So pushing aside all the superficial reasons or reasons that are just on the surface, why do I want them to be together? For one thing, it’s only natural for us humans to categorize things into groups. We do it all the time, even if we’re not thinking about it. Like for me, I put all the shirts and pants and sports bras I use for working out in one drawer, while I’ll put my pajama pants and shirts in a separate drawer. Then I’ll put my underwear, normal bras, and socks in another, etc. We also categorize people, so clicks for example, or how I work in this department while these people work in this department. It’s just human nature to categorize things. Personally, I think that is also the driving reason as to why people start to ship characters on shows, or at the very least debate if “these two will get together” because we like to put things into groups. Now I do understand that there are people who don’t ship at all, and that’s fine. In fact, that commenter was probably one of those people who didn’t understand shipping, and that’s okay. They’re just there for the story and entertainment. 

But aside from the natural urge to think “will they/won’t they”, for me I officially began my shipping in season 3 after Carol flirted with Daryl on the bus, though I know many folks began during season 2, and rightfully so. To me, I think part of it was the natural chemistry between Daryl and Carol. It was one of those magical moments you only see once in a blue moon, when not even the writers expected it, but it came to light because of two great actors who caught each other’s wavelength immediately. That kind of chemistry you couldn’t help but want romance to happen because you know it would be explosive, a rarity when it comes to shows nowadays because things have become so predictable. And most actors/tv couples don’t have the amount of chemistry that Melissa and Norman do. The only other characters I can think of who have that chemistry is Jaime and Claire from Outlander, and Mulder and Scully from The X Files... so there's really not that many couples with that kind of electricity between them on tv.

I also wanted Caryl to happen because, to me, it’s the ultimate romantic trope. You have two people who had been abused and beaten for most of their lives, only to find someone who genuinely understands that because it happened to them too. They leaned on each other, whether purposefully or not, and were able to positively influence one another to become better, more confident people. And it was amazing, especially looking at Daryl’s evolution, to see these two people open up and allow themselves to receive comfort, understanding, and love from someone else. Daryl did not like being touched, it was obvious in season 2 when he flinched away from Carol. Now, he on the regular puts an arm around her, and is more than happy to receive her hugs as well as reciprocate them. To me, that’s incredibly beautiful to see two people with similar backgrounds come together like that. And I think it would be the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to everyone who had hurt them to have them fall in love and be happy with each other. 

Why is it not enough for them to have a special bond? Because being in love is the closest you can be to someone. It’s something that I think they both deserve to have, and I think it would be extremely powerful if it were Carol and Daryl because they already have such an amazing bond to begin with. Having them become romantic would almost feel like a completion of their bond. It would be like Vegeta and Goku fusing together to become Vegeto, like the ultimate power (geek moment, sorry). Daryl has likely never been “in love” with someone before given his background, so it would be especially beautiful to see it happen for him, and to me, the only person I think he’d trust enough to open himself up for is Carol.

Having said all that, obviously that’s not where the writing is going in the show, which is very disappointing. I have no issues with Zeke, or Khary for that matter. It’s just disappointing that they had Carol get together with someone she hardly knew when she’s known Daryl since the beginning of the Turn. It’s true that there’s a possibility that Caryl is endgame, and it wouldn’t happen till the very end of the series. And maybe they’re those types of couples who really didn’t know they wanted to be together until it just clicks one day (I know two friends like that, where everyone thought they would be together eventually because they were such good friends. But it wasn’t until it just randomly clicked for them one day that they decided to give it a chance. She described it as them hanging out at her house and a lightbulb kind of went off and she just said ‘huh, I really like this guy’, and he wound up having the same thoughts... they’re still together :D). 

But for the people who are genuinely curious as to why we ship it and why we’re so disappointed... more than anything, it’s because of a few factors: 

1) Our passion for our ship has only grown b/c of the hatred we’ve gotten, and how often we’ve had to defend it. The more often we’ve defended it, the more emotional we become for our ship because we want to protect it. Those emotions we feel any time we have been attacked, or anytime we were disappointed sticks with you, and creates more and more stress for your fandom.

2) We have been trolled hard up until this filming season, and it feels like a slap in the face. Season 5 was amazing for Caryl the most part, but there were problems with the writing for Carol especially after that, and we didn’t have much Caryl screen time since. But the times we did, they were amazing scenes, and they were also the scenes that AMC would give sneak peaks with b/c they know they bring in viewers. That whole situation with Daryl finding Carol in the house was completely useless to the storyline, yet they put the money and the effort to create it. Carol even said that “she couldn’t lose him”, and Daryl made that selfless decision to not tell her about Glenn and Abraham. Then there was last year where amc’s first promotion photo was Caryl, and they published multiple pics of them two after. They had that photoshoot of the longest running cast members and it felt like a freaking prom shoot, with all of them posing together, one of which had the “couples” together. They even published a valentine’s day card with Daryl and Carol on it with a caption that says “true love”. Lennie James had even said that he didn’t think Morgan would have any relationship with Carol, not if Daryl had anything to say about it. Other shows have referenced Caryl before...

Long story short, we did not imagine this. We didn’t see something that wasn’t there. Even now, with AMC using Mcreedus to promote the new season, it just comes to show that they know Caryl brings in viewers. So to have Carzekiel happen is truly painful because they have dangled a piece of meat in front of us for years, only to give it to another ship. And maybe we have it wrong when it comes to Angela Kang. Maybe she didn’t write this and is actually doing us a favor by leaving no room to imagine that anything is going on with Caryl right now b/c she knows that we’ve been trolled a lot. Maybe she’s actually stopping the whole teasing thing, and if that’s the case then I do respect that. I’m not saying that is what’s going on but that’s always a possibility. But it’s really painful for us because we were teased, and we’re still ‘being used’ to this day for promotional reasons yet they’re doing the exact opposite. 

It’s like when you’ve fallen in love with someone but they wound up saying they don’t feel the same, but at the end they go “but don’t worry, we can still be friends”... BITCH WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE FRIENDS WHEN I OBVIOUSLY WANTED SOMETHING MORE WITH YOU??!!

... I promise I’m calm.

I actually have a friend who’s a Bethyl shipper, and obviously we don’t see eye to eye with some things but we never talk about it with each other (it’s like politics and family). So when I found out about Carzekiel, I confided in her about it and she related with me. She said they teased Bethyl a bit in season 4, and they technically did. With the hand holding, Daryl carrying Beth around the house they stayed in, and even saying that he’s hopeful now because of her. As a caryl shipper, of course I would’ve argued that was more of a father/daughter bond, but now I can see it from her perspective, and how she felt when Beth died. I might not agree with her ship at all, but she understands what it is like to be trolled by amc only to have her heart ripped out, and she was a nice enough friend to not call me out and actually sympathized with me. And I’m grateful for that because she’s helped me more than she knows to cope with this mess.

Anyways, to put a huge explanation into a small summary: I began shipping Caryl (and I still do) because to me they are an amazing duo with intense chemistry, and they seem to be in perfect sync with each other. Soulmates is the perfect adjective to use to describe them because they just get each other, and they’re so close, it’s amazing to watch it on screen. They’re two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly with each other. Having them become romantic would just be an amazing experience to watch, to see two abused people come together like that and discover what it’s like to be deeply in love with someone. Maybe I have romanticized it when I shouldn’t have, but to have two people so close like that, it’s only natural for me to want them to be together romantically because I know they’d be very happy together. 

Am I wrong to be so human?

Anyways, I’d like to hear from other caryl shippers as well. What made you decide to start shipping them. No debates, no hatred for other ships, just a gentle discussion of why we chose this fandom, and how much we loved (and still do) our ship.

#caryl

[thecrookedgavel]

The Black Box Readings - Ep 3 Transcript

Here’s the transcript for episode 3 of The Black Box Readings, the podcast where I read to you the backup of queer blogs that have gone down.

See Other Episodes

An: Hey, all! And welcome back to The Black Box Readings, the podcast where I read to you the backup of queer blogs that have gone down! I’m your host, An Capuano. So episode one released and I was very happy with how people responded to it. I got a lot of messages saying how raw the experience was, or how happy they were to have the chance to listen to a queer experience. Usually it was from queer people, but sometimes it wasn’t! 

Though responses were positive for the most part, the podcast did get some negative attention too. Ignoring all the stuff that wasn’t constructive, there were two main criticisms of the show. The first was actually surrounding its premise. People were concerned that it was unethical to put something that was deleted back onto the internet. Even if it wasn’t deleted, isn’t it essentially stealing to use it in a podcast like this? Ok, so I understand the concerns and I guess I wasn’t clear enough to begin with. I received permission from the original author of the material to use it any way I’d like. Probably something I should have said originally, and I’m sorry that I didn’t. As for whether or not I’m just copying someone else’s work, I believe that The Black Box Readings count as a transformative work, and therefore it’s protected under fair use. There’s more than enough “Me” in this podcast that it’s really become something more than just the original “text”. 

The other problem some people had with the podcast was that Emmy didn’t seem like a trans girl at all to them, and they felt like I was grasping at straws in my explanations pointing out trans aspects. Well, I do understand that there isn’t anything that outright says Emmy is trans within her posts in the first two episodes. But what you have to remember is that I actually knew her, and even though it’s sort of a spoiler for this episode, she did come out as trans on her blog. Look, I’m trying to present the posts I chose in chronological order to make a coherent narrative. Even so, it felt too weird to hide Emmy’s identity until this episode, when that’s largely the reason I’m doing this podcast in the first place. 

So with all that aside, I’d like to get into the episode proper! Today’s episode is largely a feel-good one. It’s got a lot of positive energy, and focuses on the budding relationship between Emmy and EmeraldSkies. In case you don’t remember, the two of them met playing Overwatch and became fast friends. At this point, Emmy has been posting about their interactions on her blog, and it’s official now that Emmy has a crush. *laughs* it was really cute to watch her navigate through her feelings, but I didn’t want this episode to be… you know, two hours long, so I’ve come up with a few posts that best illustrate an already-established connection. To start us off, here’s one entitled:

“I Told Her

I know I talk about her a lot, but -”

Oh, *Laugh* I guess it happened again. She used EmeraldSkies real name, and I’m really not comfortable saying it in the podcast for privacy reasons. Let’s see, given that EmeraldSkies is Latina, let’s go with Selena, like our favorite wizard from Waverly Place. *laughs*

“I know I talk about her a lot, but Selena is just so cool! I’m sorry if it’s getting annoying to anyone, but I’m not going to hide how I feel either. This is my Tumblr, after all, I can post what I want. Anyway, today I finally told her I was deaf, and that’s the reason we don’t do voice chat. She understood completely, and told me that voice chat wasn’t something she liked doing in the first place. Ahhh, She’s so cool! I’m lucky to have her in my life! I was so scared that she’d see me as weird or broken or something, that’s the usual reaction I get anyhow. But not with her! I’m so happy right now!

Selena has been continuing to share her poetry with me, it’s really good! I feel so at home reading it. It’s such a personal look into her soul, I’m glad she doesn’t feel too vulnerable letting me read it. It’s especially helpful that it’s a medium I can fully understand. Honestly, I sometimes feel a little lost when watching tv, even with captions on. It’s sort of an incomplete experience, you know?”

I find the sort of “sorry, not sorry” attitude Emmy has here to be a big step up from previous ones. She exudes a bit of confidence here, not caring if people unfollow her because she’s talking about a crush. It’s nice to see Selena bring that out in Emmy. It’s also really heartwarming that Emmy didn’t receive the usual reaction she says she gets when telling people about her disability. Selena seems like a very accepting and kind person, and I think Emmy deserves that in her life. Also, I want to point out that Selena is averse to using voice chat. There’s a reason for that, and you’ll probably be able to guess it by the end of the episode.

Also, Selena is an amateur poet! I feel I should point that out, because it’s immediately relevant in our next post, which is Emmy talking about a poem that Selena wrote especially for her. 

We don’t get the poem itself, just Emmy’s interpretation of it, which does give us a fair bit of insight on to what the poem might have been like.

The post is called: “She wrote a poem for me??

I’m so excited you guys, you have no idea! Selena wrote me a poem! And I’m swept off my feet by it. She says it was nothing, but I don’t think so! She called it “Flowers Down by the Lake” and it’s beautiful! Like, I don’t want to read into it too hard, but I think this means she likes me back?? And not just because it’s a poem that she wrote for me, but because of what’s IN the poem, guys!

It’s about two flowers that are more beautiful not in spite of how they’ve been damaged, but because of it. And how they’re both really different, but they’re even more beautiful because they’re side by side. So. Fucking. Romantic! I love this poem, it gives me so many feels. 

Maybe there’s something to this whole ‘fate’ thing after all”

Before getting into the meat of this post, I’d like to touch on the last line. This is where Emmy first publicly posts about the idea of fate starting to appeal to her, though I imagine that she has been playing around with the idea of it for a while now. I’m not personally sure I believe in fate myself, so *sigh* I’m not entirely sure why this seems so important to me? So, I like to look at the universe as truly random, and because of that, two people finding each other amongst that randomness is the most beautiful thing imaginable. So whether it was just the randomness of the Overwatch matchmaking system, or fate itself that brought these two together, I think that’s something really special. 

Anyways, I’ve never gotten the chance to actually read this poem, but it sounds pretty spectacular. The message that Emmy sees is one that we can all take to heart. All of you are beautiful in your own way, and it’s in part because of what you’ve been through. You’ve been shaped by your hardships in a way that makes you more of a person, and the people around you that are enriching to your lives help you to “bloom”, so to speak. 

Although I am partial to getting all sappy with you folks, we do have an episode to get through, and so we’ll be moving on to our next post. 

And what a post it will be! This is for sure the most important post in this episode, perhaps the most important one so far. I alluded to it in the beginning of the episode, and I’m really excited to finally share it with you all. I can’t hype it up enough, but I am certainly trying *laughs*. It’s called:

“I Have Something To Tell You

I don’t want to waste any time, so I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m a trans girl! If you don’t know what I mean, it’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll try to. 

“Trans” is short for transgender, which means that I don’t identify with my birth sex as my gender. So I was born a boy, but I feel like a girl on the inside. Gender is just different than sex. Period. It’s complicated, I know, since we use similar words to talk about them, but it’s true. 

Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of interactions with kids my age, because I was homeschooled. A lot of interactions were through reading books. I found myself enthralled with stories about girls, but less interested in stories about boys. When I did read stories about boys, I’d latch onto female secondary characters and see the world through them. Some examples of female characters I saw myself as are: Clary from Mortal Instruments, Katniss from Hunger Games, and even Hermione from Harry Potter. 

When it came to video games, I found myself picking female characters when given the choice. I even do it in Overwatch! I’m a Mercy main, after all.

I used to tell myself that it was because the books were just that good, or because the video game characters were cute, but I see now that was only half of the truth. It’s really because I saw myself in those characters, that’s the kind of soul I have, you know? 

There are other, more private reasons surrounding my body I won’t get into here, as well.

I guess I realized what I was feeling because, well, Selena is a trans girl too! I guess I found out when we decided to swap pictures of what we both looked like. She prefaced her’s by saying that she might look a little boyish, and that’s because she’s trans! I was happy that she felt close enough to me that she could share that, since she’s more private about this sort of thing than I’m being. I’ve never met a trans girl before, especially not in real life, so that’s why it took me so long to figure out. Plus my Dad is very “traditional”, so I’ve been conditioned to hide who I am throughout the years. I doubt he’d embrace me as his daughter with open arms, so for now, it’s a secret I’m keeping from him. If he thinks I’m going to go to hell for it, then fuck him. I don’t care what he thinks about me anymore. 

Thank you for reading to the end of this post! I hope I made sense.”

So there we have it, official word from Emmy that she is trans. Not only that, but Selena is trans too! There’s a lot to unpack here, so we should get started. She gives a good explanation of what being transgender means for her, even if it contains a few pieces of old language, like being “born a boy.” It’s generally best not to say that about someone else, fair warning. It’s good that she had that sort of “aha” moment when Selena explained what transgender means. 

For me, my Aha moment was in the form of a rather… outdated term, I think it was “Male identified lesbian.” *laughs* Ohh, well… I guess I had some suspicions about myself, and so I did some googling. And I found this term that sounded so much like me. It had a bunch of bullet points like, attracted to lesbians, identifies with women over men, stuff like that. It was actually kind of problematic, looking back because it was really steeped in men sexualizing lesbians, but it was a stepping stone for me when I was 20ish. I don’t think that website is still there all these years later

Definitely something that I did when I was younger that affirms my trans identity looking back was wearing dresses. Not an Aha moment in the slightest, though. Well not for me, but probably for my friends *laughs* When I was 14, my friends put together a murder mystery party. It was a pre-written story, and there were roles to assign to everyone. And I got assigned the mother of the victim. My friends just thought of me and said, you know what would really suit An? Playing a woman. Heh, And I rocked it, too. It helped that one of my friends brought a dress for me to borrow during the party. Though I wore it so well and was obviously so confident wearing it, that she let me keep it. I’d use that same dress to play a woman again in a play, but maybe that’s a story for another time.

Back on track, Emmy talks about playing video games as female characters being a big indicator looking back, and I really feel that one. I remember specifically choosing Talim and Tira from Soul Calibur all the time and being like, it’s obviously because they’re fast characters, and that’s just my playstyle. But naw, it largely had to do with me seeing myself a certain way. Like, I remember specifically one time I looked at my stats in Left 4 Dead, a game I played all together too much of, and noticed that I picked Zoe to play as like, 80% of the time? Like there’s 4 characters to choose from, all the same stat-wise, and I picked the girl more often than not. It sort of shook me to my core when I realized this, but I didn’t know what it really meant until a few years later.

Also, to preemptively answer any concerns about Emmy realizing she’s trans because of someone else, don’t worry. I don’t think she’s like, copying Selena’s identity to fit in or something like that. The thing is… seeing a trans person as just that - a person - can be a trigger to figuring out who you really are. Like, this was the case for my ex who I was dating at the time I was finally able to call myself a woman. No name change, no pronoun change, or anything like that, but I had admitted it out loud by then. It sort of had a reaction in him to call himself gender fluid, and I think that was really important for him. In this case, it was a stepping stone to realizing that he was a trans man, but that’s still valid, right? It’s ok to change your identity as you learn more about yourself. Labels can change over time. For Emmy, Selena was probably the first instance of positive representation that she ever saw. Anyways, even though my relationship kind of exploded, I talked with him at a later date, and we expressed how important being instantly supportive was to each other. We lost contact since, but I honestly hope he’s doing alright out there.

That’s probably enough about me, sorry. *laughs* This post just sort of pulls it all out of me, you know? 

Either way, we should probably get back to the posts at hand so we can end this episode in a reasonable timeframe. So I messaged Emmy to congratulate her, and I know she probably saw it, because she references something very similar to what I wrote to her in her next post. I don’t remember what exactly what I sent, just that at the time, I recognized what I sent in her wording. Also in the post, there’s another section that reminds me of the frequently asked questions about being disabled. Though this time around… well we’ll talk about it after I read it to you.

“Thank you and Fuck you!

Sorry not sorry about the title, but don’t worry, you know which one you are if you recently sent me a DM. First of all, thank you for all the kind and supportive words you all had to say! Coming out is really hard, but you made it worth it! I feel so loved and valid, it’s been great to have you all in my inbox!

However, there were other people in my inbox that I appreciated a lot less. Lots of transphobic assholes messaging me about needing mental help and how I’m going to hell now. Dicks asking me if I want to chop off my dick now, and of course, fucktards telling me to kill myself. Many of you said you’re unfollowing my blog too. So, all I have to say is fuck you!!! That’s all.”

I feel like we should talk about the second part of the post. I honestly believe she has a right to be angry here, and lashing out is perfectly natural. So I’m not saying she’s not allowed to tell transphobes off. But if you notice the last time she got a lot of upsetting messages in her inbox, she handled it with grace. There was a “fuck you” for sure, but it was implied, rather than… you know, in the title? And I think I know why there’s such a difference in tone here.

When you come out like this, you’re telling your truth for the first time. Everything feels a lot more raw and vulnerable for you. She’s probably used to the dumb questions about being deaf, so she’s developed a way to politely answer the grosser questions. But here, it’s been like, a few days? She’s going to feel like she needs to go on the attack here. 

Coming out as trans for me was really hard too, and I didn’t even do it on an online platform. I’m even hesitant to talk about it now, because of how deeply personal it is. But I think it’s important to give you context to why Emmy would want to say “fuck you” to so many people.

So the first person I ever came out to was a friend of mine from high school. She was… not a great person. She was a complete narcissist, she lied to me constantly and ended up using me for sex. That and she was deeply transphobic. Honestly, I could talk about that whole situation forever, so I won’t get started. What’s important is that when I told her I felt like a girl on the inside, she told me that was weird. And that really hurt my personal growth. It put me back into the closet for a few years. I didn’t tell anyone again for a while. The screwed up thing is that she was queer herself, and she was dating someone who would later come out as a trans guy. She didn’t support him either. I remember her telling me that it was stupid that he changed his name, and being impressionable at the young age of 22, I believed her. Even after I came out to my family, I didn’t change my name for a good while after that.

Oh, speaking of my family, coming out to them went very, very poorly. *sigh* I was having dinner with them, and I had decided earlier that day that today was the day. I finally brought up enough courage to finally say that I was a girl… and they all laughed at me. That was about 5 years ago, and the laughter is still something I never got over. After I clarified I wasn’t joking, they took it really badly. I was told later that I had almost given my dad a heart attack when I clarified that I was not only a woman, but a lesbian too. There was a lot of yelling at the table. They still have some trouble with my name and pronouns these days, but they honestly try really hard, and I really appreciate that about them. But the initial experience? It was extremely traumatizing. 

Coming out is something that you never actually get to stop doing, and I could tell more horror stories, but I think I have given you enough of an idea of why Emmy felt so many raw emotions when writing that post. 

Next up is another special post that continues the trend of being a big turning point in Emmy’s life. It’s in the form of an announcement, and I feel like I should mention that the overall time lapse in this episode is rather large. Obviously she has been posting a lot about Selena and they’ve been spending a lot of time getting to know each other. In the interest of brevity, I’m only touching on the major points. That may make it seem like things were rushed, but please note that they weren’t. She starts things off with:

“I have another announcement to make!

Many of you have been DMing me asking about me and EmeraldSkies, and saying how we should be together. Well I have good news for you! We’re official! We’re in lesbians together, lol. We’ve known each other for months now, although it feels like I’ve had a thing for her forever. Anyway, she asked me if I wanted to try and make it work long distance, and I did! So I said yes! I’ve never been happier! Also, I convinced her that her poetry is totally amazing and she needed to share it with the world. Don’t just take my word for it, check out her new Tumblr!”

And there was probably a link to Selena’s Tumblr if you clicked on the last sentence. Now, I never personally messaged Emmy about this, but I did ship them very hard since the point where Selena wrote her first poem for Emmy. It felt so wholesome to see this announcement, and not just because my ship was confirmed. Emmy said right there that she had never been happier. She was finally feeling fulfilled for the first time in her life, and I think that had a lot to do with coming out, which had a lot to do with Selena in the first place. So seeing them together was such a treat.

Alright! Last post of the episode. Here we have something a little different than what we’re used to. It’s not a post that Emmy has written, but a post that she reblogged. Since she put it on her blog, it counts for our purposes, especially since it’s about her in the first place. It’s a poem about Emmy written by Selena. And it’s titled:

“Free From Tyranny

Although you still feel trapped, you are now free,

It may seem like you are damned by the followers of God,

Stuck under the rule of a not-so-heavenly father, 

But it is all an illusion, completely superficial.

For you see, you have been freed,

Freed from fear, denial, and self-loathing,

These are the metals that form the bars of the true prison,

The prison of the mind, the prison of the self.

You have bent these bars, they are nothing to you now,

So even if you still feel the tyranny from the outside world,

Know that you are finally free from the tyranny of yourself

And you are so beautiful for it. “

It’s quite a lovely little poem, and I do love the themes and the message. It’s just that, *sigh* I don’t know if I can agree with it fully? Yes, for sure, that being free to be your true self to yourself is magical. It’s something that was a huge turning point for my own personal growth. But whether or not that makes you truly free? I can’t say for sure. A terrible environment can really hurt a person’s sense of self. I worry that after a while of it, even folks with the brightness of convictions might willingly go back into their own prisons, so to speak. I do really enjoy how it’s written though, and my view of Selena as a poet isn’t hurt by my worries here.

Anyways, Emmy posts a little reply in her reblog that I find pretty funny,

“I love this poem, but I wonder who it’s about”

As if you don’t know Emmy, stop being silly *Laughs* 

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Black Box Readings! Thanks again for all for your feedback, supportive or constructive, it honestly all really helps! I went really deep with the anecdotes today, I hope it wasn’t too much. Follow me on Twitter at TheCrookedGavel to stay up to date on this and other queer podcasts. Feel free to contact me there as well. This is An Capuano, signing off!

[xavier-jones]

prattprattprattInstagram does this thing where it mutes all the videos it shows and forces you to turn on the volume in order to hear them. (maybe because most people are watching those videos at work when they should be working and don't want to get caught. I know that's when I do it. 😬) So when I made a video recently with subtitles, and requested that people turn up the volume and not just "read the subtitles" it was so people wouldn't scroll past the video on mute, thus watching and digesting the information in the video. HOWEVER, I realize now doing so was incredibly insensitive to the many folks out there who depend on subtitles. More than 38 million Americans live with some sort of hearing disability. So I want to apologize. I have people in my life who are hearing-impaired, and the last thing in the world I would want to do is offend them or anybody who suffers from hearing loss or any other disability. So truly from the bottom of my heart I apologize. Thanks for pointing this out to me. In the future I'll try to be a little less ignorant about it. Now... I know some of you are going to say, "Hey! Chris only apologized because his publicist made him!" Well. That is not the case. As always I control my social media. Nobody else. And I am doing this because I'm actually really sorry. Apologies are powerful. I don't dole them out Willy-Nilly. This is one of those moments where I screwed up and here's me begging your pardon. I hope you accept my apology. And on that note. Why doesn't Instagram have some kind of technology to automatically add subtitles to its videos? Or at least the option. I did a little exploring and it seems lacking in that area. Shouldn't there be an option for closed captioning or something? I've made them lord knows how much money with my videos and pictures. Essentially sharing myself for free. I know they profit. So... GET ON IT INSTAGRAM!!! Put closed captioning on your app. #CCinstaNow

#likes #deaf community #//not mine

[bbottone]

We hear you well this time, Chris! #HollywoodCiak #Repost @prattprattpratt with @repostapp ・・・ Instagram does this thing where it mutes all the videos it shows and forces you to turn on the volume in order to hear them. (maybe because most people are watching those videos at work when they should be working and don't want to get caught. I know that's when I do it. 😬) So when I made a video recently with subtitles, and requested that people turn up the volume and not just "read the subtitles" it was so people wouldn't scroll past the video on mute, thus watching and digesting the information in the video. HOWEVER, I realize now doing so was incredibly insensitive to the many folks out there who depend on subtitles. More than 38 million Americans live with some sort of hearing disability. So I want to apologize. I have people in my life who are hearing-impaired, and the last thing in the world I would want to do is offend them or anybody who suffers from hearing loss or any other disability. So truly from the bottom of my heart I apologize. Thanks for pointing this out to me. In the future I'll try to be a little less ignorant about it. Now... I know some of you are going to say, "Hey! Chris only apologized because his publicist made him!" Well. That is not the case. As always I control my social media. Nobody else. And I am doing this because I'm actually really sorry. Apologies are powerful. I don't dole them out Willy-Nilly. This is one of those moments where I screwed up and here's me begging your pardon. I hope you accept my apology. And on that note. Why doesn't Instagram have some kind of technology to automatically add subtitles to its videos? Or at least the option. I did a little exploring and it seems lacking in that area. Shouldn't there be an option for closed captioning or something? I've made them lord knows how much money with my videos and pictures. Essentially sharing myself for free. I know they profit. So... GET ON IT INSTAGRAM!!! Put closed captioning on your app. #CCinstaNow #ChrisPratt #Instagram #apology #welldone #followme

#hollywoodciak #apology #repost #ccinstanow #followme #chrispratt #instagram #welldone

[a-mess-abroad]

Quick note for those of you new to tumblr, you can view all pictures full size (complete with stupid captions) by clicking on them.

I’m not doing a great job of blogging this time around. I’m really trying to soak it all in. Once I get back to the States, I’ll be uploading everything from my camera and doing a big travel vlog, so stay tuned for that! For now, the best way to stay following my minute-by-minute adventures is on Snapchat: misspdt. 

On day four I arrived in Dublin. I love Dublin, but I only spent one night there before heading straight to Galway in the morning. I checked into Barnacles Hostel Temple Bar (which was so cool) and took a much needed shower. I headed straight to my favourite pub, O’Neills and was sadly a bit disappointed this time round. I wandered over to Grafton St. right around the time everything was closing and that’s when the sleepiness hit me like a ton of bricks. I walked around a bit more, got some delicious gelato at Gino’s, and then finally gave into the lack of sleep and headed back with just over 15,000 steps on my FitBit for the day. I ended up falling asleep to the sounds of drunken tourists at around 8pm and not getting up until 9am the next morning. 

I gathered my things and ran back to Grafton Street to see if I could find a passport cover like the one I got last time I was in Dublin. I luckily have a very good sense of direction and a fairly photographic memory. I found what I believe to be the shop (Article) inside Powerscourt Centre but it didn’t open until I had to be back at my hostel and on my way to the bus stop. Guess I’ll have to come back! ;) I stopped by M&S to grab some food and continue my search for bite-sized Colin the Caterpillars. The two I’ve been to so far only have the big ones and I just don’t think it’s polite to eat a whole Colin in one sitting on public transport. Even after nearly 13 hours of sleep, I still proceeded to sleep almost the entire journey to Galway. I checked into Kinlay Hostel, which I highly recommend. Side note: I’ve had the best luck with hostels so far. Last time I had a few I wasn’t super pleased with, but every one I’ve mentioned so far I would definitely recommend. 

While waiting for my phone and camera to charge, I booked my trip to the Aran Islands and Cliffs of Moher for the following day on Viator. Shout out to my coworker for suggesting it to me…it saved me around €10 on that tour alone! I headed to a very highly rated restaurant called The Pie Maker which was the definition of cosy. The food was absolutely delicious and I ended up meeting a very lovely girl there who gave me the run down on Galway. I love meeting locals who genuinely adore with their hometown. Many people don’t have great things to say about where they grew up (myself included) so I think it’s special to find people who do. SHE ALSO INFORMED ME THAT ED SHEERAN WAS IN TOWN. His little ditty about a girl from Galway has brought lots of attention to this relatively small town. I ended up at a pub she highly recommended called the Salt House. I drank my fair share of whisky and chatted with some locals. I decided to quit while I was ahead so I wouldn’t be hungover for my early start to the Cliffs.

Thursday probably deserves a blog post in and of itself, but I already included the pictures so you’re just going to have to endure this long post. First off, the tour company I went with was called the Spirit of Ireland Executive Travel. I highly recommend them because it’s smaller than the Galway/Aran Tour Company (that’s the one you’ll see everywhere) and the tour guide Phil was truly spectacular. We visited the smallest of the Aran Islands: Inisheer. I honestly had never even thought about going to the islands but booked it on a whim and WOW, I’m so glad I did! It was an absolutely gorgeous day. I rode around with a man and his horse (and dog)! Most people from my tour group seemed to opt for the self-guided option either by foot or bicycle hire, which I don’t understand. I always suggest mingling with the locals! Speaking of locals, I met a little boy who thought I was a famous YouTuber! I told him I would subscribe to his channel and to never give up on his dream. Wow! What a cute little fellow. I still can’t believe how clear the water is on the west coast of Ireland. We even saw a dolphin(!!!) as we waited and boarded the ferry back. I definitely was not expecting that! The Cliffs of Moher were spectacular, both by sea and up on land. I even sat on the very edge of the cliff (sorry mom), which was equal parts exciting and terrifying. When I was younger and hiking/camping a lot with my parents, my dad was always the one pissing mom off by standing too close to the edge. Somebody had to take his place! Before this trip, I’ve always planned my travel almost exclusively to/around big cities and I’ve quickly realised how mistaken I’ve been. Mother Nature is one badass bitch and I’m trying to appreciate her more. Huge shout out to everyone who insisted I visit the Cliffs while in Ireland. That tour was more than worth the €40 I paid for it.

We arrived back in Galway nearly 10 hours later, so naturally I needed some time to recover. I had planned to spend most of my night in a pub, but I just didn’t have it in me. Once I headed out to dinner and realised it was raining, I was ready to get back into bed. I had fish & chips at the famous McDonagh’s but truth be told, I wasn’t very impressed. I thought it was fine, but nothing worth being famous for. I grabbed gelato once again at Gino’s (sorry Dojo, but they’re my new #1). After I came back to my hostel, I started chatting with two American girls who are spending the semester in Dublin and were just visiting Galway for the weekend. I try not to associate with Americans when I travel (sorry folks) but they were lovely. I solidified plans with the friends I’m staying with while in England and then called it a night.

I’ve just checked out of my hostel (and just happened to meet a girl from Cincinnati in the process)! Unfortunately many things are closed on Good Friday in Ireland, which I didn’t think about when I booked a late flight to London. I’m going to head out in a few to see what I can find open and then I’ve got a date with HRH this evening. Stay tuned as I return ‘home’ to London, baby! (Yet another Friends reference)

#travel #europe #backpacking #solo travel #ireland #galway

[adriennescomingbacktolife]

(VIII)

Seven hundred eighty-five dollars. Win or lose, that was the amount Adrienne Levi was guaranteed after every appearance with Carnage Wrestling.    And then the bonus during her four-match winning streak was four hundred eighteen dollars per.    Maybe two hundred dollars worth of sold merchandise each show, but then she had to subtract how much it cost even to get made--    Adrienne buried her face into the crook of her elbow. Her Clearwater apartment had become a little sparse as a result of a recent liquidation. Maybe that was done in haste. Someone would have paid something for that ridiculous belt even just to melt it down.    Spread across her kitchen counter, she stared at the pile of papers her mom usually helped with.    This was pathetic, she knew.    If she added this up all right, her pay and her expenses put her in the red: the plane trips, the Ubers, accommodations, bills, and a lease that was expiring very soon. Nathaniel Grant’s fun money had long dried up, and Levi had no one to blame except herself on that. She was a pretender. She was living it up in luxury hotels, wasting money on fancy dinners with her friends, and just really dumb purchases. Like the billboard ad near the Carnage Arena that had that doodle of Insidious with the caption Empire of Dorks.    Not to mention the exposed clandestine meeting between Christopher St. James and Stan Summers, where they discussed their intentions and measured her value as expendable.    With all of this mounting, it was becoming more apparent what she had to do. It was the logical choice. The realistic choice. The only choice.    Scrolling through her business cellphone’s contact list, she hovered over Carnage Wrestling Front Office. Hesitating and delaying the inevitable, Adrienne looked through all of the new friends she had made. All of the people who believed in her. This past summer had been one of the happiest ones of her life. Adrienne considered calling Silvio Leon, but he seemed to have his hands full with a new arrival: Axton Gunn. Oh, she was a huge fan. So huge that she almost cried when he followed her on Twitter. She had all three of his albums, including a signed copy of SKULLFRACTURES that she had sniped an eBay auction for. And yet, things seem complicated and pretty much none of her business. She didn’t want to pile on.    And Matt Knox was so buried in his hatred for Zane King that he was sort of scary these days. His propensity towards committing acts of violence wouldn’t solve this issue. Christopher St. James being in a body cast didn’t diminish his ownership of Carnage Wrestling. Not only that, but he’d also already done too much for her.    Mitch Heart seemed distant. Rumor had it that he was dealing with his own plethora of difficulties.    That left Kohaku Fujihara. They had conversed sparingly. Last month, he’d been dealing with these peculiar family issues, but he’d come out of it okay. Behind this charming exterior, he seemed to have this abundance of wisdom that was beyond his years.    She pressed Call.    “Hello?”    Adrienne almost considered hanging up. Her finger hovered over End Call.    “Moshi-moshi? Ade, that you? I see your name, so it’s either you or some creep who swiped her phone.”    Instead, she touched the Speaker icon, finally piping up. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry. Is this a bad time?”    “No, not at all, I’m literally doing nothing but flipping through Netflix and wondering why nothing in thousands of options looks good. What’s up?”    Her eyes welled up at the thought of confessing to Kohaku. He didn’t seem his chipper self, but she had to tell someone. Trying her best to keep her tone neutral, she still wavered. “I have to leave Carnage.”    Silence on the other end.    “I have to leave because I can’t afford it anymore. And I don’t think the new person in charge likes me very much. I saw something with him and some other guy that scared me. I’m on some sort of list.”    Her words became disjointed and seemingly a million miles per hour as she choked back the tears.    “I tried. I really tried, but I guess it’s over. All of the offers I ever get are gross. And Carnage is the only place that gave me a chance but now that guy isn’t owner anymore. And all of my money is gone. And I wanted to move, but I can’t. I can’t just keep mooching off others. That’s all I’ve been doing. But my mom said I could probably be a receptionist at the clinic she works at. Just have to pass a drug test. I just have to move on from this--”    “Ade.”    The voice on the other end is gentle, understanding, and steady.    “First off, I want you to breathe, okay? Just take a few deep breaths.”    Kohaku paused, giving her time to do so before continuing.    “Alright. This is the part where a lot of people would freak out and start begging you not to go. I’m not going to do that. I’m not because, while of course, I want you to stay, this is something you have to decide for yourself.”    She reached for a tissue, wiping away the sobbing mess she had become.    “I don’t know what to do. These people depend on me or look up to me, but I’m not the person they think I am. You guys have been so nice to me, but maybe I’m the problem. I finally have a match that is actually for something and I don’t even have the means to make it.” Standing up, she hefted the cellphone in her hand. She spoke a little calmer now. “I promised my partner to meet her. If I lie to her, she’ll hate me forever and--”    “Okay. Tell you what. I know you don’t want to depend too much on charity, but is it alright if I spot you a plane ticket out here? I think we oughta be talking about this face to face. You can crash at my apartment. The place is practically a giant fancy cave. Is that okay?”    There she was, depending on another handout. But Silvio had said much the same thing. Knox, too. And here was another friend saying that she had to stand up for herself. There was a long pause from her as she stared at her wallet on the counter. The Queen of Swords card peeked out from the bifold.    “You still there?”    “Yeah.”    Adrienne considered his offer. It was the only way she’d make the next Chaos. She had already told her mom that she’d drop by the clinic later. Angie wasn’t a dream killer here. She promised her daughter that she could try again in a few years. Maybe find a closer company to work in.    That was the responsible thing to do.    Surveying her apartment, everything that was hers could fit in her backpack.    “Tonight?”    “Yeah, I can do that, should be able to find something. I’ve got you.”    “Okay.”    At 5:28 PM, Adrienne boarded a Southwest flight to Baltimore.    She’d never see Clearwater again.        Standing in front of a ginormous glass panel window, Adrienne admired the view of the Inner Harbor. She’d been all over this place the last few months but seeing it on such a grand scale put it into perspective. Everywhere Adrienne had been meant so much. Whether it was the spectacular victory at the MECU Pavilion or how Silvio Leon gave her that little glimmer of hope with a simple card, she would never forget. With her hands in her jeans pockets, she rocked gently back and forth on the heels of her bare feet.    “This is my first big chance.” Pausing, she considered the arrogance that could be attached to such a statement. Her back was to the camera, so her determined yet still soft voice was the only indicator of her tone. She continued much the same. “Not to say the others weren’t.”    Turning around, Adrienne leveled her gaze at the camera. Her normal cheery disposition was replaced by one that seemed to be more morose. The Starfox t-shirt she had on was a size too big, but she preferred it that way.    “A lot of folks here, they get their foot in the door and they’ve already staked claim to what they perceive is theirs. Almost like they’re entitled to it. Just because of who they are or what they’ve managed to achieve in the past.”    She crossed her arms over her chest, her expression lilting to contemplation.    “I could declare that I want to be the greatest champion this company has ever seen. I could say my name would ring through this vaunted hall of fame once I decide to hang up the boots.” Shaking her head, she followed up with a slight smile. “That just isn’t me. I don’t know what I’m going to accomplish here. Maybe all of the potential I have is just that. So I approach these opportunities a little differently. I see what is on the horizon. I see the allure of the gold.”    For a moment, Adrienne’s dark brown eyes seemed dazzled at the possibilities. Or perhaps it was just imagined.    “But right now, there is only the chance. One cobbled together with fragile partnerships with all intentions towards implosion if it meant that something more substantial was on the line. Seems common with this sport. My opponents are both well versed in being champions. They are consummate athletes. Perennial contenders. Always striving towards their next achievement.” She conceded to this with a slight shrug before continuing. “This is a competition, right?”    Her thoughts moved onto Steve Matthews. Carnage’s Ace. The Technical Master. He had come into this company with the same fire and fury every long time veteran managed to conjure until they learned a little humility or just evaporated when they realized that not many cared about that championship they won twelve years ago.    However, something irked Adrienne just a little, and so her voice became a little less friendly.    “Steve, maybe I should be happy that you finally saw the error of your ways. I had mentioned prior to our previous encounter that I found you lacking of any real convictions. I found you to be opportunistic. You stood by as your partner threatened to choke me with the caveat that I may like it. You quibbled and cringed at his tactics and put up a good argument after the victory slipped from your grasp, but it seemed to be a minor agitation. It was only until Alex Winter put you in a precarious situation that you truly realized what type of person he is. Alex is a little boy, angry at the world for his inadequacies, and he will always point the finger at those who are in his way. His toxic masculinity created this illusion of persecution, where he couldn’t just apologize and move on. His fragile ego blamed others for his athletic shortcomings. And at WAR, he concluded that through your suffering, he could embrace that he possessed no redeemable qualities and get ahead in this world,” She paused and then quipped. “Behold, the age-old tale of man.”    Her hands gestured vaguely into the air as if she were showing off a new wondrous invention. She wasn’t sure. She googled public speaking, and it said that hand gestures were cool to do. Or something like that.    “And so here you are. Good guy Steve. Flashing your pearly whites, bringing cookies for everyone. That was real sweet, so I want to believe you. I want to believe that maybe your personal struggles have made you turn a new leaf. However, it seemed rather easy for JC to get on your bad side because he didn’t, well, talk about you enough. He didn’t appeal to your mastery of this sport because he was too tied up in his own to care. He got into your head and nearly took it off with that huge boot of his.”    She held up two fingers.    “That should have been your second lesson in humility. I don’t have the track record of JC. And I’m sure not willing to do the things Alex did to secure a victory. However, judging by your partner’s words lately, maybe he would be if it meant … just one more shot.”    Pacing back and forth in front of the grand window, Adrienne now pondered about Eli Goode. An opponent she had just become familiar with, she knew that he hungered to recapture championship glory.    “Hey, Eli.” She said as she waved at him just like last time. “Other than some somber musings, you haven’t been on the radar much. Seems like you don’t have much going for you lately. You didn’t help Kyra by becoming Ultraviolent Champion. I didn’t become a small sacrifice for your latest ascension to champion’s row. And worst of all, your idol Jack Michaels stole your thunder by taking your World’s title shot and your chance to punish Ken Davison.”    She found Jack Michaels to be self-righteous and arrogant. The age-old tale of man and all. Eli was a terrific mimic.    “Punish him by becoming the world’s champion and then devaluing the title because he doesn’t care about silly things like that anymore. You’d never do that, would you, Eli?”    Adrienne let that question settle in just for a moment.    “And now you have to suffer the embarrassment of possibly competing for championships below your reproach. Maybe your attitude has changed, but if you look over your career at Carnage Wrestling, you have always been consistent. So what’s going on through your mind? May I venture a guess?”    Slightly exaggerating, she tapped a finger on her chin.    “All you gotta do is beat us. Then Steve. Then you’re champion again. After all of that, only three title defenses, and you can take that Highroad to a better championship. One that only you deserve.”    Putting a hand up towards the camera, she invited Eli to stop.    “I’ll be honest, getting the duke over you last show was really cool. We all question our abilities sometimes. I do it constantly. I probably annoy my friends and enemies alike. But for you, its like a vicious cycle. You can’t seemingly understand that everyone here is just as deserved of these opportunities as you are. But you’re still a world-class wrestler, so I know that you’re gonna make it hard for me to do it again. That goes the same for Steve. But I’m not alone.”    The Dragon Lady. Adrienne didn’t even know her real name, and she looked like she could have split Matt in two when he had even inquired about it. But well, she had her secrets, too.    “My partner is none other than The Dragon Lady. Have you two seen her in the ring? She’s tough as nails. She’s determined as ever because through some dubious circumstances, she has yet to taste victory. I’ve talked to her recently, and she’s ready as ever to make her mark. And how about me?”    She stared down at her feet. Adrienne wasn’t one to talk about herself. It wasn’t being humble or anything like, she just wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t any of the things that made a professional wrestler great.    “I don’t know. I should be happy. I’m starting to be recognized by my peers. I even had a feature in that newsletter thing. That was cool.”    Sighing, she wanted to level with the folks watching. She wanted to let them know not to place her so high.    “This was the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. Coming to a new city, for a profession I’ve never actually done, and most terrifyingly meeting new people I wasn’t sure would like me. And I know right now there is someone out there just like me. I’m guessing that you’ve been through the same conflicts. That you’ve hidden the same bruises I’ve had to. And maybe you’re at the cusp of making that very same decision. I … can’t tell you what to do. I’m no role model. I’m just me. But I can tell you that you do have a voice just like me. For so long, like even now, I’ve been afraid to use it.”    Adrienne stepped towards the camera.    “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. And you shouldn’t be either. Whatever is paralyzing you, it can’t hold you forever. I’ve been struggling my whole life just to get to his very moment. To have nothing. And it's the greatest feeling I’ve ever had in my life.”    And she left that one person, whoever they may be, one last question.    “What would it take for you to get there?”        Angie Straussler bundled up her daughter’s apartment steps with groceries in hand. There were more plastic bags in the trunk of the Oldsmobile. Setting one of the bundles of bags down at her feet, she knocked at the apartment door. After a minute, there was no answer. She knocked again. Ever since she was a little girl, Adrienne would almost run to the door to greet whoever was there. No such luck. Maybe she was out on a walk. It was a lovely warm evening after all, and she knew Adrienne was having a hard time leaving this place up in Baltimore behind.    Digging into her purse, she retrieved the spare key to Ade’s apartment. Letting herself in, she was immediately impressed. Every trace of that bastard was long gone.    However, something was strange. There was this air of finality about this she couldn’t put her finger on. She set aside the bags on the kitchen counter next to the stack of bills. Now it was time to figure this whole ordeal out.    Adrienne’s personal cellphone was on the coffee table. Sitting down on the dusty old couch that her one and only child saved from the curb nearly a decade ago, she picked up the phone with a yellow sticky note attached to it—1988, presumably her PIN. Ade had two now. One for work that she could probably just set aside … and this one. The personal one. The one that Angie paid for under her plan.    Entering the code, the screen immediately went to the recorder. Pressing play, Angie heard her daughter’s voice. Hi, mom. I’m gone, as you probably figured out by now. You know where I’m going.    There was a long pause in the recording. Angie could hear shuffling in the background, presumably her daughter hastily packing. You asked me to move on. But, I can’t if I’m still here. You know, I had this plan. I was going to do it the right way. I’d ask my friends to make a trip down here so you could finally meet them. Silvio, Ko, Matt, and maybe Mitch. Probably not him. Anyway, we would have all driven off into the sunset living happily ever after. That day would have never come. My whole life, I’ve been let around by the wishes of others, and whether the intentions were right or not, the choice was never mine. There is nothing here for me. I don’t want to check-in people for their appointments. I don’t want to follow in your footsteps. I know you were doing what you thought was best for me. We’ve always been a team ever since the divorce. You’ve always been there for me even when I probably haven’t been the best daughter. But I can tell you that this is the first choice I’m making with a clear head. I’m afraid, sure. I could fail, but it will be my failure to own. I want to be with my friends. I want to pursue the career that everyone, including you, thought I would never succeed in. I want to be me. There’s just stuff I’m not sure about, things I’ve always wondered about that I need to know about myself. So goodbye. Please just let me go. I love you, mom.    The recording stopped.    Angie listened to it a few more times. Her mind ran through a gambit of emotions and plans and conclusions.    Finally, she set the phone aside. Sighing, Angie resigned to the fact that her daughter would need to sink or swim.    “Love you, too, Adrienne.”