#interests are only best when you geek over it with like 2-5 people max who ALSO like it in almost the same exact ways you do

[phvnthom]

#i used to want to meet people who liked the same shit i did...... but fandom is literally the worst thing ever created #it's so limited and sanitized and what's popular most times doesn't align with my tastes or it's just plain bad #HCs this— aggravating fanart here 😮‍💨 #interests are only best when you geek over it with like 2-5 people max who ALSO like it in almost the same exact ways you do #not too much more than you not too little or else it just gets so fucking tedious and annoying— like shut the fuck up damn #either way fandom is a can of worms and it's mostly rancid #yes this is about miles yes this is about how spider-verse has spilled over into everything and i hate it #i wish that movie was never created and it went away forever

[cmescapade]

my long overview/review of ‘Star Wars: Journey to Batuu’ after forcing myself to play it almost nonstop

so i said i was going to amend what i said in response to this ask after playing to min/max shit so here is a tldr version of my opinion after playing:

I consider this pack to be a 2/10; It's enough to kill time as a temporary distraction, but not for long. There’s absolutely no replay value after going through all those missions as each outcome is ultimately the same by faction. There also doesn’t seem to be any negative outcomes for each prompt in the little “choose your adventure” pop ups--And if there is, it is extremely low since I have never gotten a negative outcome. 

The aspirations are fair, and are the only things I found in this pack that’s anyway redeemable since I believe the rewards can be used well in conjunction with general solo/super-sim gameplay.

kinda sat on this for a while bc i wasn’t sure if i should post something so lengthy but then i remembered this is my blog n i can post my left toe if i wanted to

even tho i would never post a pic of my left toe anyway

.......at least for free. With the right price, however....

anyway more details under the cut if you’re interested bc i like to ramble :))

I decided to split this into 5 sections to organize my thoughts a little better. I’ll be separating my thoughts on each faction, the ships as a rabbit hole, the faction missions, the star wars aspirations, and then the breakdown of my 2/10 rating. 

1. Factions

When you travel to Batuu, the game gives you a starting “mission” or quest to get you acclimated to the areas, and each area has a specific Faction associated with it.

And yes, you cannot live anywhere, nor are there any lots, as was already stated.

Every area has a similar makeup which has:

Control Panels

Supply Crates

1 non-rabbit hole area

1 interactable ship

The Black Spire Outpost is the biggest area and has:

Two places to grab food, three if you count the Cantina

Aside from the Cantina, the other areas are rabbit holes

The two eateries are:

Docking Bay 7

this one has the most food options

you’ll never go hungry in batuu because the cheapest items on the menu are Outpost Popcorn Mix and Water at 0 credits lmao

the other two foods not shown in the screenshot above are Yobshrimp Noodle Salad and Braised Shaak Roast

Ronto Roasters

This food place has two of the same options Docking Bay 7 has as well as two additional food items

Oga’s Cantina

The only area that you see the inside of

yea the bar serves batuu-only drinks too

also where you find the guy who would give you Scoundrel missions, Hondo Ohnaka.

You can essentially max your Scoundrel reputation without it hindering whichever side you wanna take, and you can keep it when you essentially max out your rep on either the Resistance or the First Order.

There aren’t any real pros to being a Scoundrel aside from some socialization interactions. It doesn’t do anything for initial Batuu gameplay aside from unlocking Scoundrel outfits in CAS and some upgrades for your droids, but this goes for all of your options (Resistance, First Order, & Scoundrel).

The Dwelling

This is a rabbit hole where your sim goes to sleep, pee, or shower… If not the closest bench. 

It’s located opposite to the Cantina. 

If you’re ever lost, there’s a spire you can sit/nap on right in front of it–or you can just wait till your sim wants to pee. 

they’ll automatically run there 

that’s… how i found it, tbh

Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities

Another rabbithole

This place sells items you can use to complete missions, like Dataspikes and a couple of Lightsaber parts

Majority of the inventory are decorative stuff to bring back with you

Savi’s Workshop

Right behind the antique shop is the lightsaber place where you can find more hilts, kyber crystals, and display cases for your lightsabers.

You can also click on the shop to start a lightsaber challenge.

Outside this area, you have the First Order District which has more supply crates and control panels than the other two neighborhoods, and a lot more activity–Makes sense since this is basically the hub for the First Order in general. 

There’s only the Droid Depot in this area, and the only real shop that has use for credits. Food wise, there’s a food stall, and if your sim is stinky or tired, they’d basically disappear for a few minutes to recharge and come back. 

Droid Depot

Each faction has specific Droid personality traits

Aside from “voices,” these personalities don’t do much

I guess the First Order one is a lot more zap-happy though

The Resistance Camp is even smaller. Like the other areas, it’s littered with supply crates, but only has one control panel and no shops. However, there’s a rabbit hole toward the back in the Caves.

This doesn’t lead you to anywhere interesting, and it’s just another ‘choose your own adventure’ kind of thing. 

2. Ships

In the Black Spire Outpost, you’ll find the iconic Millennium Falcon. You can do kessel runs and explore in the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca if you have a high Scoundrel reputation. 

However, although I said you get to ride with Chewbacca, you don’t ever see him come out 

He just kinda……………..stays there

and the prompts tell u he’s there

n ur gonna have to go with it and use the power of your imagination to believe he really do be there

In the First Order District, there’s the TIE Echelon, which functions the same way as the Millennium Falcon… But, you can’t do anything outside of exploring or using it for missions. This is how the X-Wing Starfighter in the Resistance Camp functions as well. 

It’s all pretty copy and paste, but w/e, that’s how EA does it  

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Missions

There may be several different missions per faction, but to no one’s surprise, they’re all literally the same one but worded differently.

Regular missions only have one plus (+) and one negative (-) icon

Regular Scoundrel missions only have one plus icon and no negatives since they don’t impact other factions

Each faction has a regular mission that pertains to:

Obtaining information

Exploring with the faction’s designated ship

Stealing from Supply Crates

Hacking a Control Panel

Yes………………….They’re very repetitive

You don’t have to do all of them though

You can spam the same one over and over as long as it fits the time slot

For example, the Resistance’s ship exploration mission is limited to only the day time and seems to disappear when it gets late in game

also there’s an error with the TIE Echelon where it’s missing a whole ass prompt

……As you can see, the options make no sense because the prompt is the same one that came before it 🥴

anyway…

Story Missions are the only missions that seem to differentiate from each faction.

All missions that pertain to the “story” are indicated with prerequisites of higher ranks within the faction

All of them give a double boost toward your faction

If it’s a Resistance story quest, it’ll always increase hostility from First Order members

Vice versa for the First Order faction

The Scoundrels are neutral, and do not impact any faction 

It’s only the Resistance and First Order factions that have very similar plot lines

but I’m guessing it’s only like that since they’re supposed to follow the vague cause/effect the two of them have?

4. Aspirations

The initial Aspiration you get when you pick the Star Wars umbrella in CAS (or in game) is “Hope VS Order.” After completing this one aspiration, you unlock the 3 that pertain to each faction.

Paragon of Hope

Resistance aspiration

Reward trait gives a boost to Charisma skill building

This is probably nice for those careers that need Charisma to be high, like the Political and Business branches

Enforcer of Order

First Order aspiration

Lowers chances of “Death from Anger”

Since I like killing my sims, I think this aspiration is pointless lmao

Galactic Privateer

Scoundrel aspiration

“Sleight of Hand” reward trait

Unlocks pickpocketing outside of Criminal branch usage

Best one here tbh

Works outside of Batuu, you’ll steal simoleons instead of credits

Also you can cheat whenever u play Sabaac and no one will notice

5. Reevaluation of Initial Opinions

I’ll be going through my initial list from my Response to the Ask I got before. I originally stated that it seemed promising and it was a 3.5~4/10.

Aesthetics/Visual: my opinion is unchanged, it still made me sad i can’t have a little shanty house out there or rent a garbo lot, 0.5/5

The longer I played, the more I didn’t find any new animations

The lightsaber sparring slowly began to look like a mash between GF and RoM duels after a while

I still hate that the areas were beautiful (+0.5) but the interactive places forced cutaway

why do you wanna ruin my screenshots like this, man

CAS/BB still is hard to integrate–Unless your sim is a geek with figurines, the ship models might be nice to add to their collections

Otherwise……

….

I don’t have a follow up for that, sry

Gameplay: uhhh at least i found something i could use outside of Batuu, 1.5/5

I think that playing 3984729847 repetitive missions for a long period time really orientated me to the whole map

…but the fact that i had trouble the first time around still makes it not-user friendly

the issue I had with the resistance members not having an icon? It’s a thing, I guess

The resistance quests take you on a weird trip to “prove” yourself so i guess the icons are supposed to show that they’re “not” resistance members or something idk

they’re supposed to be the sneaky underdogs who wanna do good or w/e

I guess that’s immersive…….. +0.5

sry im first order trash

they also have “Ignite the Spark” and “Ask about Missions” both leading to the same mission screen……………….

convenience?? i guess??

missions are still confusing, made worse when the game itself glitches up a storm

there was one mission where i had to go to the cantina to find someone

and they wouldn’t spawn within the time frame………….

i had to go in and out for like 3 days until they actually spawned

i only knew this bc i arrested half the people in the cantina while i was bored

so anyone without a red bar was probably them lmfaoo

also, as i stated above……. there’s some mission errors in the prompts 

Currency is still worthless.

Everything can be done by purely stealing from supply crates

Credits are only worth to blow it off on sabaac! 

The only real need for credits is to have 1,000 so u can buy a droid

Then slam the rest of those credits on the table to bet bajillions on a game of sabaac!

Aspirations………. Useful +1

Despite them being sorta niche, they’re pretty decent

Can abuse the rewards for optimal gameplay for a super sim

Honestly i just love the pickpocketing reward off the Scoundrel aspiration, just because it works outside of Batuu (and that he didn’t have to be in the Criminal career for it either)

In total, my personal rating for this pack is 2/10.

It was nice, but I don’t really see this pack being replayable, considering that i did everything there was to do on Batuu in a single trip. Sure I could’ve taken my time, but since everything would end up the same anyway, it felt like it was set up to be a one-time gig. 

At least with JA you’re moderately forced to return so you can collect treasures that are RNG–In JtB, you can snatch up all that you need on Batuu from grinding everything like a nutcase. There’s also chances of failure in JA, but on Batuu that percentage is almost little to none. The most you’ll ever get is a dazed moodlet that barely lasts, a negative relationship, and being escorted to a loading screen.  

I feel like this pack could be a little better if there were more risks involved, but there are barely any that I encountered. It’s just another weird, rehashed cash grab by EA.

#star wars: journey to batuu #star wars #journey to batuu #SW: JtB #sims expansion review #i could just say its a disappointment #but tbh the whole game is a disappointment #if you're gonna ask why i still play ts4 if i find it disappointing #i'll have to answer that w: #the games i play are a reflection of me #and I'M a disappointment #😎

[aion-rsa]

Zack Snyder’s Justice League – What is the Anti-Life Equation?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains Zack Snyder’s Justice League spoilers.

DARKSEID IS…finally in the DC movie universe with the long-awaited release of The Snyder Cut of Justice League. And with Darkseid comes a whole host of plots, tools, and general bad dudes to help him destroy the universe. The most core to his being? The Anti-Life Equation.

In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Steppenwolf is still very much the main baddie of the film, exiled to Earth for failing to deliver enough worlds to his master, Darkseid. But Steppenwolf discovers a way to redeem himself when he learns that Earth contains a secret that Darkseid has been searching for for millennia: the Anti-Life Equation is somehow carved into the surface of our world.

Needless to say, this catches Darkseid’s attention (and helps set up a Justice League 2 that will never arrive). But the movie doesn’t really explain what the Anti-Life Equation is, or why Darkseid is so intent on locking it up for himself.

That’s why we’re here to help…

What is the Anti-Life Equation?

One hears “Anti-Life Equation” and the first instinct is to imagine some highly technical bit of calculus that forces you to sit in an endless college lecture room where you’re just not going to get it and why do you even need to sit there wasting your time when your major is polisci which sure it’s a pyramid scheme but it’s still what you’re interested in, and to be completely honest, it’s kind of like that. Anti-Life is a mathematical formula that obliterates free will, allowing the mathematician calculating the result to completely dominate the beings hearing it. 

Written longhand, the Anti-Life Equation is loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding x guilt x shame x failure x judgment n=y where y=hope and n=folly, love=lies, life=death, self=dark side, but that is a fairly recent development. The Anti-Life Equation was first introduced at the dawn of Jack Kirby’s big Fourth World Saga in Forever People #5. Beautiful Dreamer describes the equation as giving the wielder “absolute control over you,” which, she says, makes you not really alive. 

Why Does Darkseid Want the Anti-Life Equation?

Anti-Life has been owned by just about everyone in the Fourth World at some point or another. It was first found and contained within Billion Dollar Bates, an obscenely rich pig of a man who held secret, dark rituals in his basement. Sonny Sumo, one of the Forever People, also had knowledge of the Equation early in The Forever People. 

Orion, Darkseid’s son raised by Highfather as part of the New Genesis/Apokalips truce, later got his hands on it after defeating Darkseid (who himself came to possess it by creating hundreds of clones of Bates). When Orion tried to use it to give people happiness and peace, he was horrified at how it hollowed them out, and vowed to never use it again. It later passed to Mister Miracle, and portions of it were found all over humanity. 

It was eventually embedded in a spam email that Mokkari and Simyan sent to the entire world, giving Darkseid control of Earth in the outstanding Final Crisis. His hold on Earth was only broken by an extremely pissed off Superman; a recently liberated Wonder Woman and her Lasso of Truth binding Darkseid and forcing him to free everyone; and Barry Allen and Wally West outracing a radion bullet, Darkseid’s own Omega Beams, and the Black Racer to divert all 3 through time into the dark god of Apokalips. 

DC ZOMBIES

Anti-Life has been fairly prominent both in DC’s comics omniverse and in TV and movie form. 

The Anti-Life Equation was kind of the inciting incident behind DC’s hit zombie book, DCeased. Darkseid and Desaad, discovering the equation was contained in Cyborg’s programming, captured the hero and began experimenting on him. Unfortunately, they corrupted it in his body, causing it to be released into Earth’s media streams, making anyone who looks at a screen (assuming they’re not using their x-ray vision at the time) a bloodthirsty zombie.

It was also Darkseid’s prime macguffin in the DC Animated Universe, leading to arguably the best moment in the best episode of the entire run, when Lex Luthor traded it to Darkseid to get him off Earth at the end of Justice League Unlimited. 

Of course, we may never get to see how Zack Snyder intended the Anti-Life Equation to play out in a DCEU film. It’s clear that Darkseid would have been the villain of Snyder’s Justice League 2 had that come to pass, but that seems as unlikely a prospect today as it did just a few years ago. Ava DuVernay is currently directing and co-writing a New Gods movie, which will reinvent Darkseid and the rest of the New Gods for the screen, so presumably the Anti-Life Equation will be at the center of that, too. Time will tell.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is now streaming on HBO Max.

The post Zack Snyder’s Justice League – What is the Anti-Life Equation? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3cFbJiU

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

I like how we've got 5 heavily-implied LGBT classmates (Nath, who's basically canon, Juleka, Max, Chloé, and Alix {pretty much all different reps too!) and two more with a reasonable possibility(Rose and Sabrina). That's half the entire class! (And you won't even pry demi Alya out of my cold dead hands). And please don't let these be queerbating.

Omg yes I’ve been watching this show with prying eyes and let me tell you:

Marinette: blushes very prominently when a hot celebrity idol, Clara Nightingale, is talking to her -- blushing is pretty much always portrayed as romantic in this show so it seems Marinette is indeed into girls, and that’s not even mentioning all her ship tease with Alya, Chloe...

Alya: as Rena she straight-up (bi-up?? gay-up???) asked for Ladybug’s number when Chat tried to flirt with her. Also all that ship tease with Marinette? wlw.

Nath: like literally dating a boy. it’s literally actual canon, he’s into dudes. also he liked Marinette and Ladybug before so BI/PAN REP

Marc: his full name is just a pun on “rainbow”, he wears a rainbow shirt, he’s based on a bisexual genderfluid person, he has eyelashes and lipstick (which the boys don’t usually have), he has a canon crush on Nath and is apparently a couple with him in Frozer, he’s canonically neither straight nor cis and I love it so so so so so much

Juleka: has never shown interest in a boy, makes heart eyes at Rose all the time, is dating her by Frozer (or at least Adrien considers it that way), she’s gay. there’s just no way to deny that she likes girls at this point. have you seen her and Rose at like any point in season 2 at all?? Rose was sitting in her lap in Frightningale!! they’re a couple!!

Rose: she kissed Juleka on the lips on Zombizou!!! I know we didn’t technically see it but their faces were close together, their arms were wrapped around each other, Juleka was covering her mouth afterwards and didn’t have a zombie kiss mark anywhere else, the fact that they didn’t show it onscreen... Julerose IS canon and it’s been proved again and again, whether Rose is bi/pan or whether she’s a lesbian and her interest in Prince Ali was platonic, I love it either way

Luka: the bi flag behind him in the concert scene, we spotted that one zag, very sneaky, I like it

Adrien: as Chat Noir in Weredad/Papa Garou he was all like “I’d totally marry myself if I could” which, if we ignore the fact that that’s literally selfcest, he... maybe likes guys then? eh whatever screw it he’s bi/pan I mean he had that meet-cute with Luka

Nino: this boy geeks out FULL ON when Chat Noir’s around, in Horrificator he was even more excited to see him than to see Ladybug, methinks he has a crush and I 100% support it

Chloe: it’s no coincidence that so much of the fandom considers her a closet lesbian or bi -- her “crush” on Adrien is so overly performative and clingy whereas the times where she values his friendship are shown to actually be heartfelt and true, she flirts with Ladybug constantly, she is Into Girls okay, and plus you can make the BEST pun: lesbeean

Sabrina: may I remind everyone that in Antibug when they were cosplaying, Sabrina was literally the Chat Noir to Chloe being Ladybug ahem ahem... also in Evillustrator the way she treats Marinette does indeed seem like she has a crush on her, especially the “breakup” part too, which is honestly quite sad, please zag give this girl some friends I’m begging you

Max: those heart eyes at Kim in Dark Cupid!! the fact that he’s the ONLY boy in the class who hasn’t shown interest in a girl!! the only one to be upset when Kim got dragged underwater in Syren!! telling Kim about Markov before anyone else!! all that ship tease, on Julerose-levels!! Kimax may not be Officially canon but gay Max is canon in my heart and soul

Kim: listen... he took Max to the zoo and showed off at him for like literally no actual sensible reason, and I know Kim’s just Like That, but still... also in Gamer he was the first one to be upset at Max losing (after showing off for like 5 minutes about how amazing and awesome Max is) and in the original animatic he actually cried real tears when Max lost, and that’s on top of all the other Kimax ship tease so hmm... bi Kim?? since he’s liked Chloe and Ondine?? and if he does date Max too then POLY KIM COME ON ZAG YOU CAN DO IT, KIM HAS TWO HANDS

Kagami: pushing Marinette’s boy love interests out of the way to help her up and then whispering in her ear is a very gay power move. and she stared at Ladybug so in awe after being rescued by her, not to mention she uses a sword... a SWORD... it’s almost like lesbians using swords is a meme or something

Alix: while her being all “ew romance” in Gigantitan on its own might not count though it totally does, this is a VERY shippy show which freely gives minor characters love interests and ship tease all over the place and yet specifically not Alix?? also she wears green and black?? and is the only classmate to have definitely not kissed anyone in Zombizou?? doesn’t even have ship tease with her classmate pair?? even her webisode didn’t mention anyone aside from her family, unlike the others?? someone stop me writing an essay about how aroace she is because otherwise I’ll do it I swear, I got plenty more

Lila: again, her crush on Adrien can be read as comp het due to how over-the-top it is in combination with her personality as a trickster so it might not be all that genuine anyway aside from wanting to be popular and wanting people to like her, and also... that scene in the bathroom with Marinette was uhh kinda gay, not gonna lie

Wayhem: okay maybe not the best example because his crush on Adrien resulted in a lot of trouble and he was kinda a weirdo stalker for a while and yeah. BUT he was getting ice cream with a boy in Glaciator, remember?? GAYhem

Nora: we haven’t seen much of her, yeah, but her whole aesthetic... it just gives me that lesbian vibe y’know

In conclusion: Miraculous Ladybug said gay rights!!!

#i know i didn't put mylene and ivan in here but idk i feel like they're the token straights #miraculous ladybug #random stuff #wilhelmares #aish answers stuff

[agentzakura]

LoveFanFest 2019

Ok, so a lot of people asked me what happened at #LFF2019 since I was clearly upset last week. Things have settled down a bit so I figured I’d spend time today making my thread. 

TLDR; ClexaCon is a dream compared to LoveFanFest. LFF needs better communication and customer service. Lack of transparency and asking for money left and right… The queer fandom deserves better than that. Listen to Laura Hollis.

https://lovehollistein.tumblr.com/post/151126971734/you-deserve-better

So first of all, the good stuff. I did like my trip to Barcelona. I got to see a really beautiful city and hang out with friends I’d never met IRL or haven’t seen in a long time. It was a wonderful experience from that aspect. When I first joined the fandom I asked Gabi what the best part of cons was and her answer was meeting other fans. She was absolutely right. While I’m grateful I get to geek out on my faves and have my briefest moments with them, I loved talking to other people in line and getting to know them in person after interacting with them online. 

The actual con was frustrating and disappointing. Before anyone tries to invalidate my experience, please keep it to yourself or DM me. There are far too many people jumping to defend LFF without any context. Things like, “It’s hard to make a con"… "Cons aren’t free”…”It’s just European culture.” Or even “It wasn’t that bad.” Comments like that don’t help at all. I’ve been to big cons before and I’ve volunteered at them. If I had the time, I would start my own convention and almost did. Believe me. I don’t take writing things like this lightly. Also, the heat wave didn’t help anything but to blame behavior on that alone is nonsensical. 

LoveFanFest as a whole was just not organized very well. We received the schedule a few days prior. It was filled with mistakes. They sold a lot of the extras at a discount months earlier and if I had known that things would have conflicted I wouldn’t have bought the things I did. Especially since their attitude is sorry no refunds or exchanges no matter what. 

Day 0 

Registration was a mess and the lines made no sense. 1 line to get your main badge, 1 line for Earpers, 1 line for Creampuffs, the last line for other guests. I immediately regretted the handful of Earper extras I bought. I spent 2 hours in line longer than my other friends because of it. 

The ticketing didn’t make sense. It was confusing figuring out which one was Sat/Sun. They looked nice printed but got collected and thrown away. They’re easily lost and it was a pain to try to get them all with the multiple lines. Why can’t you use Eventbrite digital tickets as they were intended? I heard after the fact that tickets weren’t even checked properly. One person couldn’t switch their ticket, but went up on the other day anyway and they didn’t pay attention to the day on it. Some people were able to 

I also missed the beach clean up my friend organized, so that day was so disappointing. 

Day 1 

Breakfast with the guests was one of the few highlights. I like how it was split into smaller groups. 3 guests max with 10 attendees I think. At ClexaCon is was really hard to hear whatever was saying because all the breakfasts/lunches were at the same time and I felt like I was shouting across the table. In fact, at ClexaCon Natasha had to walk up to people individually to talk to them because she couldn’t hear them. 

I bought more extras for Hollstein. I knew I had more autographs for the things I brought and got more photo ops and selfies. Early in the morning I brought it to the staff’s attention that the Hollstein panel and my Mel and Isabella photo ops overlapped. I’m a Creampuff more than anything, so that was a really big deal for me. I asked if I could swap the tickets instead for the Sunday. Sunday their photo ops occurred when I had nothing else scheduled. In all fairness, the person at the extras register passing out the tickets was really nice. They were really patient with me and assured me everything was fine. I told them about what I wanted to do and they said they couldn’t change the tickets because they were “limited” and may be sold out for the next day. Another staff member assured me that there would be 15 min that doesn’t overlap with the Hollstein panel so I can take my pictures before it. I was just told to tell the volunteer at the ops that I needed to make a panel and skip to the front of the line. The original staff member told me to come back and talk to them if what I was told didn’t work out. I was grateful and hoped I didn’t have to come back… Of course, it wasn’t that simple. 

There was no volunteer at the front of the line. The volunteers I did find had no idea what was going on. The Hollstein panel was about to start so I had to run back upstairs and talk to them again. I was passed onto another staff member. She seemed to be one of the head people. She called over a Spanish speaking volunteer to escort me down and get me to the head of the line and I got them done. I still missed half of the first Hollstein panel because of it though. I ran in behind one of my friends in press who also had the same conflict. Of course, no recording is allowed so who knows when I’ll get to see that footage. 

I don’t understand why photo ops tickets are per person. Maybe I was spoiled at ClexaCon with 4 people max to a photo. I bought an Earper trio to do a BayHaught photo with a friend. This was my first con where I’d meet Mel. We found out that we had to pay for another ticket just for her to join in mine. Which is insane. It literally takes the same amount time to have one more person join. Trios are not cheap. Around €130 for one person for less than 5 seconds to pose?! My friend was nice enough to pay to be in the photo anyway.

  Autographs were ok up to a certain point. I stood in line for Natasha and Elise because I wanted to make sure I got to see them.  I wasn’t looking forward to getting the Earp autographs. Dom's line was crazy and went outside the door and I assume around the lobby. Plus, the trio photos hadn’t printed yet, so I was essentially waiting for that. The reason I bought Dom, Kat, and Mel’s autographs that day is because I had the photo ops. For some reasons, LFF only has one person in charge of the printing and it took forever to get them on the tables. The trio took the longest. When I was done with Natasha's and Elise’s line, I went to Mel’s and waited. Again, most of my friends are Creampuffs so it was basically just me in line waiting. I wanted to see if someone else could get the autograph for me, but that didn’t go well either. I got to the front of Mel’s line with nothing to sign. The trio photos weren’t out yet. I couldn’t swap my autographs for the next day. The one rule LFF was very adamant about regardless of your situation. The poor volunteer had to call one of the staff members over to see what could be done. It was the same woman from last time who had a volunteer take me to the photo ops. I think she said her name was Maria or Michelle or some name that started with an M. I told her the only thing I wanted to get signed was the trio photo and it wasn’t printed yet. She told me that LFF never guaranteed that the photos would be done by the end of the day. Essentially, she was telling me I was SOL. I asked if I could switch my autographs to the next day so I had my photo to be signed. She flat out told me no. That’s when I started to get upset and asked her what I needed to do then. LFF doesn’t give headshots for them to sign. You have to pay extra for those. She told me I needed to get something else signed. The fact that I didn’t have anything else didn’t matter. It was frustrating because at that point I really didn’t care and would be damned if I had to pay any more money because they were inflexible with their tickets. 

That’s when things got really bad. As I was trying to explain why I didn’t want to pay more money for a headshot I didn’t even want just to use these tickets, the staff member told me I needed to stop yelling and being rude or they wouldn’t help me.  There was no yelling. There was me trying to explain my frustration with what they were doing and asking them to come to some sort of compromise. I’ve worked in customer service. I’ve had people cuss me out or try to attack me. What I was doing was not threatening. I get it. You have policies. You can’t bend the rules for everyone. But what really got t o me was she then she proceeded to accuse me of not asking the right questions and projected the blame on me. I can still see her in my face, repeatedly saying, “Well, did you ask? Did you ask?” She didn’t believe me. It was frustrating. It’s not like I’m trying to score free things. I just wanted to get what I paid for.

My friends saved the day by finding the trio photo and M person let me go to the front of the line for all my trouble, but it wasn’t a redeeming experience. Instead of being happy to meet Mel for the first time, Kat, and Dom, I was on edge and could hardly speak. Most of the disagreement happened to the side of Mel’s auto table. Mel was so nice and hilarious. Kat was so nice and understood why I brought my daughter to the M&G at CCUK. Dom and her handlers were really sweet and made sure that people in line had water and a little something to eat. I can say I shared a bowl of chips with Dom now. 😄 But I felt like absolute garbage by the end of it. 

I had two more autographs with Mel for Sunday, but I honestly didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

Day 2

The second day was pretty low key until I thought I left the Mel autograph tickets at the Airbnb. I honestly had no interest to line up in the line that never ends for a second day so I was giving them away. I went to the Airbnb and had a mini breakdown because 1) I couldn’t find the tickets (I found them in my wallet a little later. 2) In trying to hurry, I also left my agenda at home and looked at the schedule. I saw that I had missed the single photo ops for Natasha and Elise. Time to panic again.

I had a Trio Carmilla photo op and a Hollstein duo photo op, so we thought that they would be ok with me doing my singles at the same time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy… I took my trio photo and the staff and the handlers weren’t sure how to handle the situation. At first I was told that I would need to fall back in line and do it after the duo. I was completely fine with this because I had to get a prop I had left down the hall with my friends. Then I was told that I needed to do the solos right that second because the photographer was “on time” and didn’t feel like they wouldn’t have time to do the solos. Not even for the minute or so it would take me to get my prop and get back to them. I was calm about it as they talked amongst themselves, but honestly couldn’t believe that it was happening again. It took longer for them to argue about what to do than it probably would have taken me to get the prop.

I stood there just watching the interaction in disbelief when Natasha came over to me and asked what was going on and I lost it. Not like anger, but just crying out of frustration from the situation. Tears flowing freely as my emotions overwhelmed me.This was supposed to be my solo trip and fun half way across the world and I’m being told yet again, they might not honor the tickets I bought. Natasha assured me it would work out. We ended up doing the photo ops after the Hollstein duo… But two other fans had single photo ops they did after… So I did understand why they made a big fuss out of me doing it. I was done at the point where I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t enjoy the last Hollstein panel and closing ceremony was hard to sit through. My only moments of reprieve happened when I found some Creampuffs and hung out in their hotel room for a bit before the closing.

Autographs after the second day were not too bad. I still gave away my autographs to EarpItForward. I had to buy a photo of Mel for them to get signed. I didn’t like my photo ops with Isabella, so I ended up buying her headshot too. I had picked one I saw originally that I really liked, but then I saw someone get another Isabella head shot, which was even better. I asked if I could switch it because I didn’t know that the other con photo was available. Thankfully I did get it, but not without an offhanded comment from M person about how I should have asked before then I would have known. Like why say things like that?

I’m just glad that Natasha and Elise were really sweet and took time with us. Elise is pretty masterful with the selfies. Natasha also made sure we were happy with it before we left too. I had a couple of friends say they were rushed during the last moments, but thankfully I was at least saved from that. I even forgot to do my selfie with Natasha and they let me go back up and take it.

My nightmare continues as I wait to see if I get the rest of the digital print downloads I purchased. There’s some obscure issue where if you don’t click some check box correctly you only download one picture and then you have to contact them to get the rest. I swear the pop up I had asked if it was ok to download multiples and I clicked accept... I still only got one photo. I’m incredibly frustrated because they tweeted that but didn’t include it in any emails with the photos. How is someone who doesn’t have Twitter suppose to know? They also posted all the M&G photos, but haven’t bothered to message me back. 

Honestly, I don’t get how #Clexacapocalypse became a thing. My experience with them far exceeded the miserable experience I had at LoveFanFest. I’d honestly go to Barcelona again to hangout with friends, but things seriously need to change before I even think about that convention again. I wish the people who also had an issue would speak up as well. Nothing will change if no one says anything. Just my 2 cents.

#lovefanfest #LoveScamFest #lff2019 #queer conventions #my experience #what not to do #queer fans deserve better #barcelona

[pof203]

I’ve been thinking of writing this fanfiction for sometime. It’s a crossover with Miraculous: The Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir and Miles from Tomorrowland. But now it’s Mission Force One. However, I’m still going to write this. It will just be a little different, especially not that Miraculous is in Season 2. Well, here it is: Leo Callisto is...

Jet Black Retrograde

WARNING: May contain spoilers about Season 2. Then again, they’re not exactly spoilers anymore now that they have been confirmed.

It started with an invitation.

Dear L. Callisto,

A science exhibition will be held at College Francoise Dupont in Paris, France on Earth. We know it may take time out of your busy schedule, but some of our students who desire to join the Tomorrowland Transit Authority would love to be visited by you who works for the TTA. You do not have to answer right away, but please consider the idea. We hope to here from you soon.

Sincerely,

D. Damocles

Principal of College Francoise Dupont

This was the answer.

Mr. Damocles,

Actually, I think I can make time to go to your school. I’m sure the TTA would love to know that some of your students want to join us. I’ll be looking forward to showing everyone what the TTA has to offer.

Leo Callisto

At College Francoise Dupont, everyone was a buzz about a special visitor for the science exhibition later that day. Marinette Dupain-Cheng and her best friend, Alya Cesaire, were walking down the hall and noticed everyone talking.

“Everyone is so excited about this,” said Marinette.

“I know,” said Alya. “A lot of people in the school who are interested in joining the TTA can’t wait for Leo Callisto to come. Nino’s excited for him to come too. And you want to know who else is going to be there?”

“Please don’t say it. I know he’s going to be there.”

“... Adrien.”

She said it. No sooner Alya said the name of her crush, Marinette started spazzing out.

“You had to say it! Now I’m worried. What if Adrien gets so into joining the TTA, he’ll want to move into space and go on great adventures while I’m stuck on Earth like some lowly spinster.”

“Girl, relax. Adrien is still to young to join them. Plenty of time to make him like you. And the exhibition might be the perfect chance. And the best part is: Chloe isn’t going to be here when it happens because her relatives are coming for a visit.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Alya goes on ahead to class. Carefully, Tikki the kwami, sticks her head out of the bag.

“Life in space?” asked Tikki. “The world really has changed.”

“The TTA wants to connect the universe. I really don’t mind if Adrien wants to do his part to help. Just as long as he doesn’t forget about us.”

“I guess that also means you.”

Marinette blushes at that, but smiles a bit.

Time went by and before anyone knew it, classes were over for the day and the exhibition was about to begin. A lot of people gathered at the courtyard for the exhibition. Marinette and Alya arrived. They recognized some of their classmates present. On the left side, Max Kante and his best friend, Le Chien Kim. Max was clearly excited for the exhibition to begin. Not to far from the two girls, they saw Nathan Kurtzberg. They made their way to him.

“Hi, Nathan,” said Marinette. “I didn’t know you were interested in this stuff.”

Nathan turned to see the girls and blushed at the sight of Marinette, who he secretly has a crush on.

"H- Hi, Marinette,” said Nathan. “It was my mom’s idea. She thought I was getting lazy in science, so she convinced me to come here.”

“I see,” said Marinette.

“But it’s not so bad. This stuff is actually quite interesting. I hear that art actually has a part in the TTA.”

"And speaking of interesting,” said Alya who was pointing to the front of the stage.

At the front was Nino Lahiffe who was recording the event on his phone. And with him... was Adrien Agreste. Marinette almost fainted at the sight of him.

“He is here,” whispered Marinette.

Nathan couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. He liked Marinette and yet she liked Adrien. But he knew that there was nothing he could really do. All he can do is just live with it.

Later, Mr. Damocles came on stage.

“Attention, everyone,” he said. “As you know, I invited someone from the Tomorrowland Transit Authority to speak at this exhibition. From what I have learned, he is an engineer, inventor, and a pilot.”

“Not to mention a great blastboarder and plenty good lookin’.”

Everyone suddenly looked up to see a man coming down on a surfboard with rockets on it. He was followed by what looked like a spaceship. They both landed on the stage. The man got off the board as a woman came out of the ship.

“Mr. Callisto, so glad you can make it,” said Mr. Damocles.

“Please, call me Leo. And this is my wife,” he said.

“Captain Phoebe Callisto, a pleasure to meet you, Principal Damocles.”

“Hello, College Francoise Dupont. Sorry if I mispronounced it. My French isn’t that good. Have you ever wanted to go out into space? To meet new lifeforms who could one day become your best friend? At the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, or TTA, you can do just that. But being part of the TTA is about more than just traveling to other worlds. Like the ancient Builders, the TTA follow three simple things: Reach. Build. Connect. I like to think the build part could mean the things I do. I build things for the TTA. Like the IOTA. Look.”

Suddenly, a little flying robot came out of the spaceship. Everyone was fascinated, especially Max.

“There’s also the Scout Rover.”

Leo brings up a hologram of a hi-tech rover.

“And my all time favorite, the Blastboard.”

Leo gets back on his board and take flight around the courtyard. Everyone couldn’t help but be excited by the display. Adrien and Nino were cheering, so were Marinette, Alya, and Kim. Even Nathan couldn’t help but feel impressed by what he saw.

“I like to call this baby Moon Shredder. She’s special because she has modifications only I could work.”

Then, he makes a great landing on the stage.“So, now how many of you want to join the TTA?”

Then, a lot of hands shot up.

“How exquisite,” said Mr. Damocles. “I guess you have your answer, Leo.”

“That’s great. Now, I’ve got a special treat for you. I brought some blastboards over and to see how well you learned from my demonstration, you will give your blastboard your own modifications, giving it that special personal touch of yourself. Who interested?”

More hands shot up.

“Then I suggest you all line up to get your blastboard,” instructed Phoebe.

Everyone made a line to the stage. Marinette, Alya, and Nathan joined the ques. Max and Kim were right behind them. In front of them were Adrien and Nino. Marinette blushed knowing that her crush was right in front of her.

“Oh. Hi, Marinette,” said Adrien. “I see you and the others are interested too.”

“Y- Yes,” said Marinette with a stutter.

“That blastboard demonstration was sick,” said Nino. “I wonder if I could try something like that.”

“Looks like we're about to find out,” said Alya. “We're up next.”

When the friends got to their turn, they saw that Leo and Phoebe were talking.

“I just wish Miles, Loretta, and MERC could see this,” said Leo.

“I’m sure they wish they could be here,” said Phoebe. “But being in Mission Force One isn’t something that happens everyday. We have to remember they’re not our babies anymore. They’re grown now.”

“Talking about your kids?” asked Kim.

The couple noticed us.

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” said Phoebe. “They’re part of a group that takes up their time, so they couldn’t be with us. But if they were here, I’m sure they would proud to know that their father is inspiring you and your fellow students to join the TTA.”

“I’m sure they will,” said Marinette.

“You know,” said Leo. “You look like kids who would definitely be interested in this stuff. Can we know your names if your blastboards get our attention?”

“Sure,” said Adrien. “I’m Adrien. Adrien Agreste.”

“Agreste?” asked Phoebe. “As in Gabriel Agreste.”

“So even the TTA know about my father,” said Adrien.

“Well, Admirals Watson and Crick told me that Gabriel Agreste would be basing he next line on space.”

“I think he would, but I don’t think he himself would actually go up there. He’s needed more in Paris. Anyway, these are my friends from class. The one in the cap is my best friend, Nino Lahiffe.”

“What’s up?” said Nino.

“Space if you’re interested,” said Leo with a laugh.

“The girl with the glasses is Alya Cesaire.”

"Nice to meet you,” said Alya. “You should check my website, the Ladyblog.”

“The one about Paris’s famous heroes?" asked Phoebe. “I’ve heard about it. I’ll be sure to check it if I have the time.”

“The cute girl next to her is her best friend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Cute!? thought Marinette with a blush.

“The artsy one is Nathan Kurtzberg.”

"I kind of... Liked what you did with the blastboard,” Nathan said, shyly.

“You don’t have to be shy about it,” said Leo.

“I also like the artwork on it. It looks a bit Hawaiian.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it. That’s just one of the things that makes it special. What can you do to make your blastboard special?”

“I don’t know. But I guess I can find out. I mean, science is basically like art. I’m sure I can do something.”

“The other glasses kid is Max Kante.”

“I see,” said Leo. “Maybe you can make a better blastboard. You look like you could do it.”

“Thank you,” said Max. “But it’s your robot that intrigues me. However, my friend, Le Chien Kim, is interested.”

“I’m not that good with machines,” said Kim. “But Max is a wiz. I just tell him what kind of blastboard that would be like me and he would do it.”

“He’s right.”

“I see,” said Leo. “But don’t forget, a blastboard is more like you if you do it.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Kim. “But for now, Max is a better science geek than me.”

“Thanks,” said Max, a little offended.

The group were given their blastboard, well, Marinette, Adrien, Nino, Nathan, and Max. Alya said she would record Marinette, Adrien, Nino, and Nathan while Kim instructs Max about his blastboard.

About 2 hours later (5 if you count the trials and errors that occurred), the blastboards were done with their new mods.

Marinette’s blastboard was pink on the bottom and black on tome with the same floral pattern on her shirt.

Adrien’s blastboard was white on top and black and orange on the bottom with three lines going down the middle. The lines were purple, green, and yellow.

Nino’s blastboard was blue with a red stripe down the middle with his eye symbol on it.

Nathan’s blastboard was was grey on top and purple on the bottom with an orange circle on it with his black symbol in it.

And the blastboard Max made for Kim was red with a white stripe around it and his star insignia.

“Alright, everyone,” announced Leo. “Let’s see how well you did.”

Most of everyone had unique designs, but I’ll leave them out because I want this story to be as short as possible. Finally, it was on to Marinette.

“Okay, Marinette, let’s see what your blastboard can do besides fly.”

“Yes,” said Marinette. “Since you wanted our blastboards to be like us, we did just that. My blastboard can quickly scan your height and size so it can quickly design a space suit or another kind of attire.”

Marinette got on her blastboard which took off. Then, a green light went up Marinette and in a flash, she was wearing a pink space suit.

“It’s perfect for in case you find yourself stranded in space.”

“That function’s based on Marinette’s passion to become a fashion designer,” said Alya.

“That’s terrific,” said Phoebe.

Leo was impressed, but a blastboard that can do something like make you an instant space suit in case you get lost in space... He never thought of that.

“Moving on,” said Leo. “Adrien, what mods does your blastboard have?”

“Well,” said Adrien. “My blastboard can produce spikes that can be use to incapacitate anyone who might be doing wrong. Especially those in Nemesystems.”

Fred Haprele set up a dummy for Adrien to practice his blastboard on. When it took flight, it shot spikes that trapped it.

“That’s impressive,” said Phoebe. “Really impressive.”

“Nice,” said Leo. But in truth, this worried him. He never thought of something like this.

“I’m next,” said Nino. “My blastboard can admit a sound blast that can shatter glass and give people a big headache. I know sound can’t be heard in space, but it can also sent out radio signals to call for help.”

“That’s really useful,” said Phoebe.

“Yes it is,” said Leo. He had no idea what was going on. Why was he getting so hung up over these designs?

"Here’s my blastboard, sir,” said Nathan. “It can shoot up to 3 yards of paint. It can hold up to 20 gallons of paint. There are four tanks that hold 5 gallons each. And each holds a primary color.”

Nathan’s blastboard shoots red, then yellow, then blue, then white paint.

“It can even mix colors.”

The blastboard then shot green, orange, and purple. It also shot pink, brown, lavender, and other colors.

“That’s not all it can do. Look.”

Nathan taps the black symbol and the artwork on the board changed. Now it looked like the same pattern as Evillustrator. It was black at the bottom which slowly becomes orange as you go down it. It was white at the top with a red upside down triangle at the very top and the black symbol was replaced with Evillustrator’s symbol.

“It can change its image to match any occasion.”

“That’s really good,” said Phoebe. “It could be good for camouflage. I know that Blodger would love that.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Leo. “He would.” He still didn’t why he was feeling for this. Could this be...

“We’re the last to go,” said Kim. “The blastboard me and Max have been working on is strong. It can hold up to ten times its weight and can go through anything.”

“Observe,” said Max.

The blastboard flew through a brick wall easily into a classroom. Mr. Damocles wasn’t too happy about that, but he knew it was for science.

“It can even fire trick arrows that can move up to 17,600 mph so it can go swiftly though space,” continued Max.

The blastboard then shoots an arrow that turned into a net that caught someone. He made a thumbs up to let them know he’s alright.

“I’ve gotta say,” said Phoebe. “That was blastastic!”

“...” Leo was silent and thinking. Could this be... jealousy?

“Leo?” asked Phoebe. “What do you think?”

“... Did I tell you my blastboard can survive something even stronger than the Zuma Whirlpool?”

Everyone was silent with surprise, even Phoebe.

“When did you modify it again?”

“... Just last week. Look.”

Leo gets on Moon Shredder and tries to do a fancy trick. He has the Star Jetter set up a situation similar to the Zuma Whirlpool. At first, everything seemed to go well, until... he fell. Everyone was shocked by the sight. Even Phoebe couldn’t believe her eyes. It wasn’t like her husband to have a wipe out like that.

“Leo, are you alright!?”

Leo nodded. He was speechless. Apart from his wife and son, he was the best blastboarder in galaxy. How could this have happened.

“I... Need... I need a minute alone.”

Leo took his blastboard and went into an empty classroom.

What no one knew was that another member of Marinette’s class was there. The most cunning and most sly student in the school besides Chloe Bourgeois, Lila Rossi. Thinking it might be a good idea to stir up some trouble, Lila followed Leo into the classroom where he was pondering why something like that happened.

“Why is this happening?” Leo asked himself. “This feeling just doesn’t seem right. Why am I so upset? Was it because I saw those kids’ blastboards? Why?”

“That’s easy,” said Lila, surprising Leo. “You... are jealous. You’re jealous because someone made a better blastboard before you could. Guess it just means you’re getting to old for this job.”

“That’s not true. My older brother is in the Space Guards and my father is currently semi-retired and they’re doing great.”

“Well, I guess I was mistaken. I guess you’re really... not good enough for anything.”

“Huh!?”

“Think about it. Your father and brother have the most exciting jobs while you don’t. And it’s not just them. You’re the father in your family, yet it’s your wife who’s the captain. Even your own kids are starting to out shine you. And now you’re being upstaged by a bunch of teenagers. And after seeing that, I think the real reason why you feel so jealous... is because you’re actually quite useless.”

The words hit Leo hard, like a knife through the heart. This girl can’t be telling the truth. She has to be lying. He needed to think. So he took his blastboard and left the classroom. Phoebe spotted him.

“Leo, is something wrong?”

“It’s... It’s nothing. I just need a moment alone.”

Leo quickly left the school and to the streets. No one noticed Lila trying to sneak away until Marinette spotted her.

“Lila!” shouted Marinette.

“What are you getting so mad about?” asked Lila. “All I did was tell him the truth.”

“As if anything that comes out of your mouth truth,” said Alya.

Lila left with a smirk on her face.

“I take it you know that girl,” said Phoebe.

“Lila Rossi has a way of getting under people’s skin,” explained Nino. “She makes Chloe Bourgeois look like an absolute angel.”

“If she’s involved, we better find your husband before a certain villain does,” said Adrien.

“Yeah, I’ve heard,” said Phoebe.

Phoebe tried to make her way out, but a loud beeping sound came out of the Star Jetter along with a woman's voice.

“In coming call from the Zenith. It’s Miles, Loretta, and MERC.”

“Right,” said Phoebe. “Thank you, Stella. I’ll be right there.” She didn’t know what to do. If she leaves Leo to talk to there kids, he’ll be akumatized.

“You go talk to your kids,” said Marinette. “We’ll find Leo.”

“Thank you,” said Phoebe as she left for the Star Jetter.

“Nathan, Kim, Max, do you think you can watch things here while me, Adrien, Alya, and Nino go find Leo?”

“Alright, Marinette,” said Nathan.

The four friends ran out the school and each one made an excuse to separate. When they were sure no one was around... Their kwami friends appeared.

“Tikki, spots on!” shouted Marinette.

“Plagg, claws out!” shouted Adrien.

“Trixx, let’s dash!” shouted Alya.

“Wayzz, out of the shell!” shouted Nino.

Marinette becomes Ladybug, Adrien becomes Cat Noir, Alya becomes Rena Rouge, and Nino becomes Carapace. They went on their way to find Leo.

What they dont’ know... That they will be too late.

On a bench near Notre Dame and in front of the Seine, Leo was still thinking about what Lila said.

The real reason why you feel so jealous is because you’re actually quite useless.

It can’t be true, thought Leo. I’m not useless. I can do all the things Joe can. I can do all the things Phoebe can. I can even do all the things my kids can. I just know. I’m not useless.

Leo got back up on his blastboard and tried to do another trick that involved making three loop da loops. It did go well, but nearly lost his balance. Then, he tried to do the trick Miles made, the Captain Curl. But when he did, he fell off again. Several people who were watching pointed and laughed at him. Leo snatched up his blastboard and reseated himself back on the bench, tears streaming down his face.

“It’s not true!” he shouted. “I’M NOT USELESS! ... I’m not useless... I’m not...”

Leo put his hands down and cried.

At Hawk Moth’s lair, its master heard Leo’s cries.

“A brilliant mind who is now convinced that he is past his prime. That his worth is nothing. But no one really knows what is past prime.”

He takes a butterfly, covers it, and turns it into an akuma.

“Fly away, my little akuma, and evilize him!”

The akuma took off over Paris until it finally found Leo. It landed on his blastboard and possessed it. A mean and angry look came on Leo’s face as Hawk Moth spoke to him.

“Jet Black Retrograde, I am Hawk Moth. You now have the power to make others inferior to you and show them that you are the greatest genius ever. In return, bring me Ladybug and Cat Noir’s Miraculouses. Do this and who knows, you might become the new Commander of the Tomorrowland Transit Authority.”

“Hot Jupiter, I like the sound of that,” said Leo darkly. “Have no fear, Hawk Moth, I’ll get them for you. Now to show those fools not to mess with me!”

The darkness covers Leo and he transforms. Now he was wearing a black version of Jet Retrograde’s costume, except, his hair was still exposed and he was wearing a cape. His blastboard was also different. The red patterns on it were now purple and the the tiki head was replaced with a butterfly.

Suddenly, a hi-tech car stopped by. JBR got on his board and with a tap of foot on the board, a laser bazooka appeared out of it. He fired it at the car and the car turned into a primitive covered wagon. The passengers ran for their lives.

"Now I’ll show them,” said JBR.

Not to far, Rena Rouge saw what happened.

"Damn,” she said under her breath. “We’re too late. But at least I have an idea where the akuma is.”

Then, the other heroes came along.

“Guess we were too late,” said Ladybug.

“But you know what they say, my lady,” said Cat Noir. “It’s not really a party until all the guests are here.”

“And we’re all here now,” said Carapace.

“But there’s a bright side,” said Rena Rouge. “I saw where the akuma is. It’s in his board.”

“Then that’s what we’re after,” said Ladybug. “But we better hurry.”

JBR then flew his blastboard to the school, not knowing that the heroes were following him.

Back at the school, everyone was still admiring the blastboards Marinette and the others made. Kim was further tasting his when JBR flew in.

“Anyone like a taste of this?” shouted JBR.

He fired his bazooka at Kim. Thankfully, he missed and Kim and the blastboard fell on the crowd that managed to catch him. Max tried to run for it.

“Not so fast, smart guy!”

JBR fired his bazooka again at Max and Max turned into the negative stereotype of a stupid caveman who began chewing on a door.

“MAX, NO!” shouted Kim.

Phoebe ran out of the Star Jetter to see what happened.

“Leo?” she said. “What happened to you?”

“Call me Jet Black Retrograde. And I have upgraded.”

“No, they were too late. Leo, you have to stop, you’re not yourself right now!”

"Why should I?” mocked JBR. “Maybe this is my real self.” 

JBR fires his weapon at the Star Jetter and turned it into a pile of rubbish.

“Leo Callisto, as your wife and captain, I order you to land at once!”

“You are my wife, but I think it’s high time you relieve control of the crew to me.”

“Leo, no!”

“And stop calling me that! I’m Jet Black Retrograde now.”

JBR fires his weapon at Phoebe. Thankfully, Ladybug and the other heroes arrived and Ladybug managed to get Phoebe out of the way with her yo-yo.

“Sorry, Jet Black, but I’m pretty sure the universe isn’t ready for a cave captain,” said Ladybug.

“What about Captain Caveman?” asked Carapace.

“Never mind him,” said Rena Rouge. “We need to deal with this guy. And maybe get some good footage for the Ladyblog,” she whispered.

“Stay out of my way, heroes,” said JBR. “I will show everyone I’m a better inventor.”

"But this isn’t the way,” said Ladybug. “Just because there are some people who can make a better blastboard than you doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. If anything, this should have inspired you to make your own blastboard a little more better.”

“Don’t listen to her, Jet Black Retrograde,” said Hawk Moth’s voice in JBR’s head. “You can invent anything to stop anyone who get’s in your way. But if you want to keep that ability, bring the Miraculouses!”

“I don’t need to listen to a child like you, Ladybug!” shouted JBR. “I will show you I’m better and take your Miraculous to prove it!”

JBR tried to fire his weapon at Ladybug, but something got in the way. It was in arrow. Kim had managed to get back on his board and fired one of the arrows.

“Muscle bound moron,” said JBR. “Stay out of my way!”

“Not likely,” said Kim. “Carapace, think you can cover me?”

“Are you sure, dude?” asked Carapace. “What if he hits you?”

“You can just block him with your shield, right?”

“Okay, you asked for it. Rena Rouge, will you do the honors?” 

“Will do,” said Rena Rouge.

She takes our her flute and begins playing. When she does, an illusion light shines that blind JBR.

“Alright, let’s go!” shouted Kim.

Carapace took the blastboard he made as Nino. No sooner that he touched it, the art design changed. Now it was green with the same design as his costume.

“Huh!?” asked Carapace. But he knew now was not the time, he had to help Kim.

He got on board as the light faded and JBR regained his sight. He tried firing his weapon at Kim, but Carapace kept blocking it with his shield as Kim fired electric shock arrows at JBR to stun him, but JBR keeps dodging it.

“While this is going on,” said Cat Noir. “How about we get a Lucky Charm, my lady?”

“Guess I better get to it,” said Ladybug. “Lucky Charm!”

Ladybug’s yo-yo then summons a red bumper sticker with black dots on it.

“A bumper sticker?”

“I don’t see how decorating the blastboard is going to help us,” said Cat Noir. “In the meantime, I’m gonna help the others.”

“Me too,” said Rena Rouge. “Carapace can’t block that beam alone.”

Cat Noir grabbed Adrien’s blastboard which became black with Cat Noir’s green paw symbol.

“How did it do that?” asked Cat Noir.

“I can explain that,” said Nathan, coming out of his hiding spot. “Don’t tell my friends, but I sort of put a decoration changing mod on their blastboards just like mine. I know I shouldn't have, but I wanted to surprise them.”

“I see,” said Cat Noir. “That’s... very thoughtful of you.”

Nathan did a quick thumbs up before his got hit by a stray blast from JBR and turned into a caveman that began doing cave paintings on the walls. Cat Noir, then took flight to join the fight.

“I need to know what to do with this,” said Ladybug.

She looked at the bumper sticker first. It flashed. She then looked at JBR. His visor flashed.

“I need to get this on his visor. That should blind him. But how am I going to get close enough to do it?”

“I think I have your answer,” said Phoebe. “You see, I said one last thing on my call on the Star Jetter before it was lost. In fact, they should be here right about... now.”

Suddenly, something flew in fast that got the heroes’ and JBR’s attention. It was a boy dressed like some kind of superhero riding what can only be described as a robo ostrich with a funny costume on.

“Th- That’s...” began JBR.

“Call high! Call low! Call Jet Retrograde, Space Hero!” shouted the boy. “Hot Jupiter! Some dastardly villain has turned one of the TTA’s best inventors into an evil version of me! I can’t just let this go by. I must help my fellow heroes save him!”

Ladybug looks at the boy who calls himself Jet Retrograde. He flashes as he gets off the ostrich and on his own blastboard.

“I think I got an idea,” said Ladybug.

She looks at the blastboard she made as Marinette. It flashes. She takes the blastboard and it turns red with her symbol on it. She gets on and blasts off.

“Back off, boy, this is none of your business,” said JBR.

JBR tried to fire his weapon at Jet Retrograde, but he dodged it with the Captain’s Curl.

“Cat, I know how we can get the akuma! Think you can use your staff to pin him down?”

“I’ll do you one better,” said Cat Noir.

He tapped his foot on the board which fired spikes that pinned JBR to the wall by his cape.

“How did you know it could do that?” asked Ladybug.

“I saw Adrian Agreste do it, so I thought I should too,” he quickly responded.

“Now will you behave yourself?” asked Jet Retrograde.

“Not for you, impostor!” shouted JBR as he detaches from his cape and freeing himself.

“Here goes!” shouted Ladybug.

She then did a flip over JBR and stuck the sticker on his visor, blinding him.

“Hot Jupiter, I can’t see!” he shouted.

He began firing his laser in every direction but kept hitting everyone and everything else instead of our heroes.

“Kim, now!” shouted Carapace.

Kim fired a trick arrow that formed a net under JBR as Carapace fired a super sonic wave that knocked JBR off his board and on the net. Moon Shredder was now flying out of control.

“Now’s my chance,” said Cat Noir. “Cataclysm!”

Cat Noir got a hold of the blastboard which came to pieces and the akuma came out.

“No more evildoing for you, little akuma,” said Ladybug as she opens her yo-yo and swings it around. “Time to de-evilize!”

Ladybug catches the akuma in her yo-yo and releases it as a white butterfly.

“Bye bye, little butterfly. MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!”

She threw the back of the sticker in the air as it turned into a magical swarm of ladybugs that flew around and undid everything that happened since the attack. Everything that was made primitive was returned to normal as well as the people. JBR changed back into Leo who was confused about what happened.

“Hot Jupiter, how did I get back to the school?” asked Leo.

“Pound it!” said Ladybug and Cat Noir as they fist bumped.

Back in Hawk Moth’s lair...

“Curses, I almost had them. But don’t get to cocky. No matter where you are in the universe I will have your Miraculous!”

Later, the heroes changed back to their civilian selves and returned to the school.

“I can’t believe this happened,” said Leo. “It’s my own fault. I got so jealous over how great your blastboard mods were. They even more greater than the ones Moon Shredder have. When that Lila girl said those things, she was kind of right. Maybe I am useless.”

Jet Retrograde removed his helmet to reveal himself as Leo and Phoebe’s son, Miles and the robo ostrich is named MERC.

“Dad, I know that there will always be someone better than you at what you do. But instead of being upset about it, shouldn’t you use it as a motivation to try and be even more better instead of trying to make others miserable. It doesn’t mean you’re useless.”

“...”

“Don’t give up just like that, Leo,” said Phoebe. “You’re still the best engineer any captain can ask for.”

“... Alright,” responded Leo. “I won’t just sit aside and feels sorry for myself. This old inventor still has a lot more energy to spare.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Miles. MERC chirped in agreement.

“Just have faith,” Marinette whispered.

She looks over to Adrien. Maybe she shouldn’t give up just yet. Adrien looks at Marinette. She quickly blushes. Tikki watches from Marinette’s bag and giggles a bit.

The End

I apologize for how crappy this story sounds. When I began writing it, I was in a bit of a hurry. And I wanted to keep this story as short as possible. Maybe I’ll write a better version someday. I just hope you like this story. Thank you.

#akumatized #miles from tomorrowland

[emilysn2019-blog]

The IT Experience Chapter Two: the Derry Canal Days Festival is a free haunted house that will run August 15 to September 8, 2019, with free tickets that can be booked here. In this post, we preview this new interactive experience with a review & photos of IT Experience: Neibolt House, which we toured prior to the last IT movie two years ago.

As with IT Experience: Neibolt House, IT Experience Chapter Two – The Derry Canal Days Festival will be open daily from 2 pm until 11pm at Hollywood Blvd & Vine St. and will offer free advance ticketing with a standby queue for guests who don’t score tickets. Expect long lines for standby (as you can read below via our experience last time); we’d highly recommend trying to book reservations.

Per the IT Experience Chapter Two – The Derry Canal Days Festival official site, “your cherished memories of the old carnival days will be turned inside out during this 40-minute spine tingling experience. There will be over 10 immersive and terrifying interactive spaces, giving visitors a glimpse into the upcoming film.”

If this description is accurate, the duration of the IT Experience Chapter Two – The Derry Canal Days Festival is significantly longer than its predecessor, which lasted around 12-15 minutes, depending upon how quickly you walked through the IT house.

Aside from this description and the dates, not much else is know about the IT Experience Chapter Two – The Derry Canal Days Festival. We do have the promo poster below, and following that is our review of the original IT Experience from two years ago:

Normally, we wouldn’t cover something with such a short run, but we waited in line roughly two hours for this, so dammit, it’s getting a blog post. Note that after the jump, this IT Experience: Neibolt House Hollywood review is not spoiler-free, as there will be photos. If you want the short answer of whether you should do this, it’s yes.

The IT Experience: Neibolt House Hollywood is somewhat akin to a Halloween Horror Nights maze/house. The key distinction here is that the story isn’t a non-stop ‘flow’ of guests walking through a set path. Instead, small groups of seven guests (dubbed the “Losers Club”) are actively guided by Georgie, with prolonged stops in each room.

The reason for this approach is due to the more active nature of the storytelling here. Georgie interacts with effects that come to life in each room. Almost none of these effects are immediate or on an interval timer; they require Georgie to trigger, and then the show unfolds while guests are in a particular room, actively engaging with a particular scene.

This is really cool, and I definitely prefer this approach to the steady stream of guests that go through a Halloween Horror Nights maze. You get a chance to let things percolate, suspense builds, and the experience becomes more than just being about cheap scares and startling moments.

Not only does this make for a more suspenseful and satisfying experience as tension builds, but you also see more of the details in each room. It also takes more time to snake through the IT Experience, with an average tour duration likely to be around 12 minutes. (The hosts indicated it was 15 minutes, but our tour wasn’t quite that long.)

I would say that this makes it the ‘next generation’ of haunted houses, and that Universal should take note. However, there’s one glaring problem with this approach: capacity is abysmal. Seven guests enter the The IT Experience: Neibolt House every 5 minutes. That amounts to an hourly capacity of less than 100 guests per hour.

As mentioned, we were in line for roughly 2 hours. We had heard that the wait had been around 1-2 hours on weeknights, so we figured it we arrived at 12:30 p.m. on a Monday, we would wait under an hour. This belief was reinforced when we saw a short line in front of us. Unfortunately, due to capacity, that short line was still a two-hour wait.

When we exited the IT Experience: Neibolt House, the line was quite a bit longer than when we got into it. I’m guessing it was about three hours at that point. I cannot imagine what it will be on weekends or evenings, but then again, this is tourist season in Los Angeles, so maybe it’ll actually be shorter after Labor Day.

Circling back to the substance of the IT Experience: Neibolt House, there were a lot of cool details. I would say that, overall, the level of detail was about on par with an average (maybe even slightly below-average) Halloween Horror Nights house. In this regard, it probably hurts the IT Experience: Neibolt House a bit that you’re lingering in these rooms far longer than you’re in each HHN maze.

Where the IT Experience unquestionably trumps Universal’s mazes is in terms of special effects. There are animatronics, reasonably well-executed projections, and a lot happens on cue. Oh, and there are the aforementioned “holographic horrors.” (Something the world truly needs more of.)

Spoiler Alert: Hologram Tupac does not make an appearance, which is of course the biggest letdown of the entire thing. Now I don’t even care about this movie. What’s there in the IT Experience is pretty good, especially for something that only runs a month.

Where it falls short of Halloween Horror Nights is in terms of scares. There are only a handful of startling moments, and none were particularly effective on our tour.

This is a pretty big weakness of the IT Experience. In fact, some of the suspense that it builds ultimately just fizzles out. Those instances aside, the suspenseful execution here is pretty top-notch.

There are some great moments during the experience, and there is also a ton of excellent details and visual effects. As a geek for themed design, perhaps I put too much weight on this element of the IT Experience: Neibolt House. I also have to admit that I find the attempts at startling people as they walk through a haunted house somewhat lame and predictable, so this wasn’t a huge deal for me. To each their own, though.

From my perspective, a potentially bigger problem is that some of these details are going to be lost on literally everyone, since the movie is not out yet. There were things like magazines, toys, and other small touches that I assume feature in the plot of the film–or at least in the background.

I’m sort of used to this by now. Most of the films at Halloween Horror Nights I’ve never seen, so I’m usually oblivious to some of what’s going on and I need it explained to me by friends. I will say that I normally appreciate the houses for films I’ve actually seen (American Werewolf is my all-time favorite house), usually because I “get” some of these things, or the in-jokes that are scattered throughout the sets.

All things considered, I really enjoyed the IT Experience: Neibolt House and would highly recommend it if you’re a local, even with the long wait. In addition to the standby line, there are also tickets available–they’re “currently” sold out, but you can join the waitlist (we probably wouldn’t bank on that). If you’re visiting Southern California, I’m not sure the experience is “worth” several hours of valuable vacation time, but your mileage may vary on that. Be sure to pack sunscreen and a hat (the queue is all outdoors with very little shade), and your camera (photos are allowed!) for the IT Experience: Neibolt House. I’m hopeful that the IT Experience: Neibolt House Hollywood will have its run extended (at least through Halloween!), because this is too well-done to be only a month-long offering that ~1,000 people per day will have a chance to experience.

If you’re planning a trip, check out our Ultimate Guide to Los Angeles or our California category of posts. For even more things to do, The Best Things to Do in Los Angeles: 1001 Ideas is an exceptional resource, which is written by other locals. If you enjoyed this post, help spread the word by sharing it via social media. Thanks for reading!

Your Thoughts

Have you done the IT Experience: Neibolt House Hollywood? If so, what did you think of it? Too scary? Not scary enough? Worth the wait? Any additional tips to add that we didn’t cover? Any questions about the IT Experience? 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101 Things to Do in Southern California

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[lawyerfail]

Our story: How my mum’s former employer tried to bill grieving widow £5500 for 105 mins work.

I want to share an experience and lesson, so that others can learn, not to go thru the same and maybe save thousands of pounds too.

Our Story

My Dad passed away in Jan 2017.

What you won’t know is that since then, we have been in arguing against the legal system and my mum’s former employer, a solicitor in Scotland who tried to bill a grieving family £5500 for 105 minutes work.

For many people my age, sadly, the number of weddings you attend goes down and is replaced by attending funerals.

I share our experience, in the hope that it you can be informed and save thousands of pounds, from going to lawyers and others who prey on the vulnerable, use and write the law to be on their side, have some frankly disgusting behaviours and unethical practices when people are at their most vulnerable.  

My Dad had a simple estate, three bank accounts, a credit card, a pension and some shares. We knew the balances and looked for legal advice to close it down. In a time of despair, where would you go? As there is only a handful of solicitors in Irvine, and the fact that my mum used to work there it was a simple decision to go there.

Not that we were functioning much logically at the time, but we presented the death certificate and asked to transfer everything to my mum, nothing more needed. No feuding, no ex-wives, no brother, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins staking any claim, no complicated affairs, nothing. As simple as it gets. When my mum worked there, there were an extremely frugal company to say the least. I remember going into the office after school. Very much the typical dinosaur type lawyers, technology wise and frugal beyond belief that resisted change and spending on anything at all.

So, without applying my normal diligent thought process, we signed the terms and conditions to close the estate. People have been dying forever and the legal system has been dealing with it for centuries. Expecting solicitors to charge 2-3 times what you would expect, I naively thought we might get a bill for £500-£1000. So, five months later we did get a bill.

Not for £500 but for £5500.

Let that sink in a little. One, maybe two or max three hours work I estimated, so even for the craziest charge by the 12-minute slot of laziest lawyers. Not £1500, Five thousand five hundred. £5500.

As you can imagine, that came as quite a shock. A big shock.

So naturally, like someone querying a large phone bill, I asked for an itemised break-down.

This was a challenge. A much great challenge than you would think because solicitors don’t want you looking deeply into what they have been doing and spending time on. Despite four months and four requests, I did receive a list of sorts which was not itemised, no running totals and not one that made a lot of sense.

I have a first-class university degree and over twenty years’ experience in business & finance industry. I am a computer & maths geek with accountancy experience and I still couldn’t understand it. It took me 3 weeks to attempt to decipher the charges, match them to who did what when, at what charge and what items related to the costs levied. Even then I could not completely decipher it. Best summation I could do, was that the solicitors had done 105 minutes work and sent 57 pages of letters, for a total of £5500. Various bills and sums to companies I had never heard of, nor details what the amounts were for or why.

Law firms are in a position of trust. A law firm with an audit file and a legal mandate to charge whatever they please because you have signed terms and conditions whilst in bereavement. Law firms operate this way whilst your guard is down, when you are extremely vulnerable and whilst my perception was that my mother’s former employer would may be even do us a favour and look after her after her husband of 50 years has just passed, follow the regulations and acting as per law society regulations. In short, act in your best interest and be someone you can trust.

I know from having some other friends going through similar process of losing parents and that no-one was paying attention to their solicitor, everyone accepting what their lawyer said and months later subsequently charged, this greatly disturbed me. So, when you are at your lowest eb, having lost a parent, not thinking straight, any solicitor can act in your “best interest” and charge you whatever they please. Who else have they taken advantage of in this way?

I followed the Scottish Legal Complaints Commissions guidelines and complained to the firm’s client relations partner. This got us nowhere. The offered to take £1000 of the bill initially, then £1500 but were not interested in sending a fully itemised bill, nor willing to discuss all the points I had raised about overcharging.

For months we had a lot of pressure via phone calls and solicitor letters demanding payment in full but we resisted them anything until the matter was resolved.

We had a lot of family discussions about giving in & just settling it. Who can argue with a law firm? Who has the energy for that? They are geared up and rightly so, to be above reproach and in a position of trust. My Dad has instilled in me a tremendous sense of stubbornness and resilience, my Dad was never one to back down when he believed in something, especially injustice from big companies and authorities. So, I was determined not to back down.

Next step after getting nowhere with the client relations partner, I decided to take this to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. This was frustrating and more difficult than you can imagine. It took me two months of phone calls and letters and proving my case for Scottish Legal Complaints commission to accept my case as valid. First time I tried they said it wasn’t a valid complaint. One of those scenarios where you no one was about to accept responsibility, it was no-one’s fault and the whole thing was about to fall apart. To the SLCC it was the Law Society’s fault, then the Law Society saying they didn’t deal with complaints so it almost fell into a black hole.

Eventually, I did manage to get SLCC to accept 9 complaints out of my original list of 11 complaints accepted for further investigation against the firm. Part of this process, to resolve it quickly that is in less than a further fifteen months, you can have a mediation session to resolve the issues before a formal complaint it registered. I accepted this. I met with two lawyers from the firm and one trained mediator.

What was said in mediation is confidential and I cannot repeat exactly what was said, but I can share and want to share publicly the facts of our experience.

 How Solicitors will con money unethically

Communication & Trust

According to many solicitor’s terms and conditions, they publish and share hourly rates of solicitors, para-legals, secretarial / admin rates. They are obliged to publish rates in terms of business. They are obliged to act in best interests of the client. What ours did, is use £195ph solicitor for everything. Solicitors, also do not charge for anything less than 12 minutes. Like it or not, which I do not, but all solicitors charge a unit of work for the most trivial matter. That I cannot change. What I dispute strongly is that if you are handing in a bank statement or a trivial administration matter, that anyone could validate if documents acceptable and you should be charged at minimum admin fees, not £195ph fully trained solicitor.

There were many examples where solicitors have been operating the same way for years, without questioning the purpose or common sense of doing it that way. Three examples we were grossly overcharged for : share price validation, audit fees and letters.

Valuations

My Dad worked for BP fr over 25 years and had shares. We knew the amount of shares held, and in less than a minute on Google anyone can work out the value. Despite that, under the pretence of acting under a clients best interest, ours wrote a letter (1 unit of work & a letter £39+£40.25=£79.25) to Smith & Williamson to request a valuation. Smith & Williamson charged a valuation fee of £60 and then our solicitor, added also 1 unit of £195 ph again read the reply to that letter. £180 to tell you what you already knew. Not something I asked them to do beforehand either but comes under the arguement of they’ve always done it this way and it’s in the loosely described, wide ranging terms and conditions.

Auditor fees

Typical business practice is for another company to audit your work. So, for us, that 105 minutes of work for £5500 also included £400 of auditor fees. For an external law firm, validated that everything in the file represented good value for money, was all in the client interest and an accurate bill. This stinks to me. I would prefer to see a customer panel or external to the legal system truly assess solicitors fees charged. Or every firm to be more transparent itemised billing, in simple English not the obsfucated, obscure and confusing shambles it is now. The auditing firm knew next to nothing about the case. Despite it having more holes than the Titanic.

Letters & Lack of common sense

One of the credit cards my Dad owned was an M&S credit card, which had the princely sum of £66 balance outstanding. Our solicitor spent 1 unit crafting a letter to request the balance, 1 letter sent initially, 1 follow up letter as the first one was not answered in 5 days, then another unit reading the reply and another letter to us to tell us they had received the balance amount from M&S. Again, the absence of logic, common sense and acting in the best interest of the client sorely lacking but our solicitor did expect to charge over £200 for this admin sorry “legal service”.

RBS 4 letters and 1 unit just to confirm we have an account with them, which we knew already and could prove for free. Again, low amount balances and charges that are completely unnecessary and can be done yourself, done for a fraction of the cost. There is never a warning in advance, do you want us to process this, do you want us to write letters and charge you £195ph for something you can do yourself in 2 minutes? No warning to say that you can do things yourself upfront, without incurring completely unnecessary costs, that require zero legal skill and are purely administration or secretarial tasks at best. This theme is repeated for our entire case, there was nothing complex about closing an estate, nothing complex that required top legal advice for more than an hour at best, then for a secretary to carry out the instructions from the solicitor.

Cost Estimates & Explanations before work is done

We were never given any ball park costs, no estimate, no range of expected costs in advance. Solicitors are reluctant to estimating costs upfront. Solicitors hate this, and want to use the terms and conditions, hourly rate maximum billing with no-one watching how long, or how much anything costs. As I have experienced, challenging this is very difficult and even when taken to Legal Complaints Commission, to get a full investigation, solicitors do not like this at all. In every other walk of life, being transparent, held to account is standard practice. When dealing with someone’s estate, trust is paramount in solicitor, it is everything and it should be unquestionable trust.

If you have to have your solicitor do something for you, give them enough work to do in bulk. If you give them five * one-minute tasks spread over five days that will cost 5 units. If you give them all 5 at once and stipulate you expect this will be one unit of work, this will make it easier when reconciling both statements on effort, cost and billable units.

0.5-1% of estate value goes to Solicitor for doing nothing

Valuation of the estate was another bizarre exercise. After being charged over £200 for share valuation which went to a professional firm, the valuation of my parents house was done by me. I have zero residential property skills, zero interest or knowledge in property valuation other than googling house prices in Irvine. I gave an estimated value and this was accepted without question. So the most valuable part of the estate is valued by me? The total value of the estate is essential part of closing down an estate. One of the most unscrupulous pieces of business is that solicitors will also claim 0.5%-1% of the estate for themselves. This is for the sole purpose of them providing escrow, security and trust to distribute the estate. Watch out for this. In estates that are passionately disputed by warring family members I can see why it is needed, for a flat fee, not for a percentage of the estate. This is a disgusting and underhand tactic, which can be thousands of pounds for doing next to nothing.

Now I do not doubt that complex estates that have families in dispute do require legal professsionals, all the same having worked in consulting, having this experience and several other painful experiences with the legal profession, there is a huge amount of money to be made prolonging the problem. Consultants and lawyers take great delight in charging by the unit, making the complex more complex and time consuming.

What’s wrong with the billable hour

You would expect that law firms believe in putting the client first, doing things the right way and having a deeply rooted ethical values which drives all behaviour. The billable unit and billable hour is at great odds with this.

The main problem with the billable hour performance metric is that it specifically rewards and underpins behaviours that can be both to the detriment of the firm and, more importantly, its clients.

Customers do not like the billable hour. It is far to open to abuse. There is little correlation between quality of service and cost as the client still gets charged the same amount whether the solicitor wins or loses. There is more money to be made doing a poor job than a great one.

Rather than engendering a positive relationship with clients, billable hours create an huge debate between parties with both sides analysing, evaluating and auditing the fees. When solicitors only present the audit file after the invoice and have a lack of transparency and hidden charging mechanisms around pricing means that clients never really know how much and for what they will be charged at the end of a project.

Clients know that billable hours are inflationary because they will be charged for a block of unit time whether or not they use the whole block. This inevitably leads to a negative perception.

What’s more, the fear of being charged a significant amount for simply contacting your lawyer means there is little incentive for regular communication. The clients can be reluctant to call the lawyer and equally they can become cynical or suspicious every time the lawyer contacts them.

Within the firm, billable hours drive inefficiency. To generate more revenue for the firm, somewhat counter-intuitively, individuals seem to be rewarded for prolonging litigation, ‘churning the bill’ and creating unnecessary work.

  Law Society Admits it needs reform and is out of touch

BBC News on Law Society

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-42860598

The professional body for Scotland's solicitors has called for wide-ranging reforms to the way legal services are regulated.

The Law Society of Scotland claims the current regulatory framework is "in drastic need of modernisation" and is "no longer fit for purpose".

It has put forward 11 recommendations for change to an independent review of legal services regulation.

They include overhauling the legal complaints system.

The organisation argues the current system is "complex and confusing”

  Scottish Legal Complaints Commission

I wholeheartedly agree it is complex and confusing. We settled our complaint early. From my Dad’s passing it took fifteen months to get to SLCC, thru mediation and our complaints accepted.

It would have taken another eight to fourteen more months for the complaints to be investigated.

We accepted a settlement at 50% of original cost, still was almost £3000 to be paid more for the fact to get rid of the energy taken up arguing against the legal system. I vehemently agree we would have won our case against the firm and maybe even entitled to compensation. But we didn’t have the energy for that.

They admitted every complaint, they admitted they could do better and it was eye opening experience for them. They are dinosaurs and not operating in the real world, they are not alone but operating in a bygone era of charging whatever they like, regulated by legal firms doing the exact same billable hour practice which maximises their revenue at the disgust of the customer.  

My mum wanted an end to the fighting. 

This was my email to SLCC explaining our decision

Following a lot of family discussion after the mediation session, we have decided to end the complaint process at this stage. This decision has not been taken lightly, but mainly due to my mother's health, the emotional strain, stress has gone on long enough and the thought of another 8-14 months of time to conclude the complaint, is far too much to bear.

 Make no mistake, or be under no illusion, this absolves the firm of nothing. They accepted and admitted being culpable for 9 complaints registered, and I have no doubt whatsoever if it were not for such a protracted process to resolve things, they would be found guilty of all matters raised against them.

 Having witnessed face to face how out of touch law firms are with reality, how damaging bereavement is, having to deal with solicitors’ incompetence, how open to abuse solicitors have in billing to people that are grieving, then also go thru another 15 months of intimidation from this process, completely disgusts me. People are completely broken during this process, have no energy to face life, never mind be proving that a law firm and its processes are completely wrong and out of touch, is something that needs to change. As a professional I charge for my expertise, so will not be telling the firm how to improve their business practices but I will be informing the public how they can avoid untrustworthy, out of touch companies who try to extort and pressure widowers and families out of large sums of money, hiding behind a process which even the law society says is broken.

  Time for Change

It is time to change this behaviour, process and practice. 

Solicitors overcharging and exploiting bereaved clients, still grieving and without the energy to fight the legal system absolutely disgusts me.

I want my experience to be shared, as I know several other people and friends of friends recently going thru the same experience, with no idea how much their bill will be and what they are being charged for.

If I can help anyone, let me know. I hope this will be of use to people and save you thousands of pounds.

I hope the SLCC change the process for legal complaints.

Please share this blog with friends that are going thru a terrible time in the hope you can save thousands of pounds going into the wrong hands.

#irvine #ayrshire #bereavement #scotland #scottish law

[letstalkabout-media]

The Asian American Dude Bro: Beyond the Asian Geek

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Good Place and Othering

(Originally Written May 7, 2018)

Preface:

A scene of an episode of the show Two Broke Girls plays out as followed: A laugh track blares as one of the waitress Max (played by Kat Dennings)  remarks "You can't tell an Asian he made a mistake. He'll go in back and throw himself on a sword." [1] to her coworker Caroline, played by Beth Behrs. This joke is made to refer to their boss Han Lee (portrayed by Matthew Moy) mainly attempting to find humor in his overachieving status as an Asian (ambiguous). His character’s ‘quirky’ personality can be summed up as a ‘short money-hunger man-child’ with a hammed-up accent for laughs. The show’s brand of humor loves to focus its aggression into jokes about the otherness of anyone that isn’t a conventionally attractive well-off white millennial.

Two Broke Girls is one of many pieces of media that fall into the myriad of playing race for jokes, actively typecasting, and interchanging treating people’s culture as convenient for stories. Asians have had roles in cinema and tv, but more often than not they are put in insignificant or very stereotypical roles The issues of discriminatory casting makes many actors questioning if the missteps of attempted diversity in media are better than just playing generic roles.

The Philosophy:

The issue at hand is Otherness which Jean-Francois Staszak refers to as “a process by which a dominant in-group(“US,” the Self) constructs one of many dominated out-groups (“Them,” Other) by stigmatizing a difference--real or imagined -- presented as a negation of identity and thus a motive for potential discrimination.”[2]  The concept of otherness itself is credited to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel during the late 1700’s with the concept of self-consciousness being made the binary of the Self and the Other[3]. The concept refers to the understanding of what a person identifies as themselves, or things/people that they can identify and connect with, and other things that they identify that they are not and do not share the same sense of community with.  It is commonly thought of as the binary of ‘Us vs Them’ or ‘You vs Me.’

This idea extended to the concept of intersubjectivity, which refers to the psychological interaction between people. The concept was popularized in 1929 when Edmund Husserl published the Cartesian Meditations[4], which focused heavily on the subject, and expands the concept of Other and combine it with his concepts involving the transcendental.  

Beyond the psychology of Otherness, it has application within the socio-cultural with active and passive discrimination. The idea of the binary is extended to which one group is privileged over the other, through having the privileged group being considered the ideal, it makes anyone outside of that group to be considered falling short, or insufficient.[5] This concept can be more clearly noted in Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex in which the concept of Other is combined with another of Hegel’s concepts the Lord and Bondsman[6], which is used to explore the traditional Man-Woman relationship and emphasize the unequal power balance.

Modern society has definitely made strides in reducing the direct prevalence, and it has become more subtle in its appearance for the most part. Attempts of obligatory diversity often turn to tokenism in one way or another for gender, race, or sexuality. Along with the idea of tokenism the ideas and associations with cultures and minority groups build and reinforce roles created by those in power, which have negative effects on those they refer to. The History of Otherness, Asia, and Orientalism

The fascination with Asia for the Western world stems heavily from the exoticization of the cultures and the people. Particularly this trend was historically notable during the mid-1800’s and described as such by art critic Philippe Burty in 1872 when the Japanese art and sculpture became popular in the west. This not only led to a burst in the collection of Japanese along with western artists that would create “eastern-inspired” as many collectors did not properly distinguish between works of different cultures such as Chinese work from Japanese.[7] This ambiguity towards the different Asian cultures has carried over in Western culture and to a point is still present in current society.

Another concept that relates to Otherness is the practice of Orientalism and its focus on the East/West dichotomy. The concept of Orientalism was popularized in Edward Said’s book by the same name from 1978. Orientalism as a concept refers to the “the acceptance in the West of “the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny and so on.”[8] While the term generally refers more to the middle east rather than the far east, the focus on the binary of the area to the West still carries over.

Concepts of Otherness and Asian Americans

The othering of Asian American/immigrants throughout media tends to follow a few conventions. Auditorily, there’s accents and the structural confusion of ‘Broken English.’ Often people were treated as less intelligent or disrespectful by native English speakers, who treated their familiarity with the English language as the end all be all of their abilities. From this many of those with accents were treated in a more juvenile manner or as if they had a disability. This issue creates not only issues through the reaction of others, but also internally for the speaker. Varieties of social studies including Speaking With a Nonnative Accent: Perceptions of Bias, Communication Difficulties, and Belonging in the United States from the Journal of Language and Social Psychology reflect these difficulties. Issues communicating and self-consciousness speaking, building an overall feeling of not belonging those studied who had non-native accents.[9]        Personality is the main other convention which tends to be the most common in the contemporary. Specifically through variation of model minority trope, which in general refers to “the cultural expectation placed on Asian Americans as a group that each individual will be smart, wealthy, hard-working, docile, and spiritually enlightened”[10]  This, in particular, can be attributed to one of the factors that helped build up many of the ‘traditional’ Asian/Asian-American stereotypes such as the nerd, the non-threat, and the monk, that each have their further subsets with popular hits like ‘the awkward almost mute friend,’ ‘the kung-fu fighter,’ and ‘the lovable IT guy’.

Many Asian/Asian-American actors consistently face the issues of the typecast as delivery men, monks, martial artists, I.T. people, or flat out nerds. Alternatively, many have faced being passed over for Asian roles being whitewashed like in the roles of Doctor Strange (title character), Iron Fist (title character), or done in ‘Yellow-Face’ makeup like I. Y. Yunioshi played by Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. These problems are far from recent occurring since the start of cinema with the issue of white actors using ‘Yellow-Face,’ and they still weigh heavily on contemporary actors because they are being othered, whether it be actively or passively by the industry.

A Look at the Change:

Since the 2010’s more media is trying to step away from the typical aforementioned stereotypes and forging a new path for Asian actors, the dudebro. This functions to push past the association of the social, athletic, or charismatic ideal man from the overused average white guy, and shifts to reverse a lot of the harmful model minority mentality created for characters. Eric Francisco addresses this new trend in his article focusing on changing Asian stereotypes “Together, these dudes are the antithesis to the majority of Asians in pop culture, who are often portrayed as socially inept, dorky, and sexually repressed as they are sexually repellant.”[11]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend:        

       The show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend centers on a woman following a former flame after leaving her job, and the shenanigans that take place as she tries to woo him and his friends. A part of the fun of the show is that the main love interest, the muscular, kind of dumb, heartthrob role, is named Josh Chan and played by Vincent Rodriguez III, a Filipino American actor. While the role was not specifically written for an Asian person in mind, the character was changed upon casting Vincent.  The showrunner Rachel Bloom spoke about how Vincent’s heritage was incorporated into his role,“I grew up with a lot of Asian bros. That’s a type of person that I grew up with that I’ve never seen anywhere in the media.”[12] The decision to include a representation of a role that is rare for an Asian actor, and aligns more realistically with the lives of Asian Americans has made an impact on Asian American audiences and actors.

Beyond the casting of an Asian male as the main romantic lead, the show also worked to actively include aspects of Filipino culture within the episodes and the plot in a respectful manner. The concept of the heavy importance of family gatherings, group photos, and going to mass,[13] along with including the traditional Filipino dish Dinuguan being a plot point of the show’s Thanksgiving episode[14] a number of times.  These functioned as significant moments for both the audience and for the actors on the show as Filipino culture is not actively focused on in much of mainstream culture, and as mentioned earlier, many Asian cultures are still treated interchangeably.

Another aspect of the show is a running gag of one of the characters’ nicknames and how it plays with otherness. One of Josh’s best friends shares his name, and in order to distinguish between the two their group of friends gives the other Josh the nickname “White Josh”  in the words of the show “because he looks like Josh except for he's white.”[15] This joke takes the concept of a minority/token sidekick character trope and not only inverts it but overemphasizes the white character in the role of the ‘other’ and puts the Asian character as the ‘normal.’

The Good Place:

The Good Place centers on a woman who has died and her time in the afterlife along with her newfound friends. One of the supporting character, Jason Mendoza, a Filipino American failed DJ portrayed by actor Manny Jacinto, is mistaken for a silent Taiwanese Monk named Jianyu.[16] Most of the humor of his character comes from his childlike behavior and intelligence, which is balanced by his well-meaning heart of gold.  Jacinto in an interview about his role has stated, “you don’t really see a lot of dumb Asian guys on mainstream television. He’s usually intelligent or the model minority. I’m not saying playing Jason is pioneering, but it’s so great for me to do because it’s not a stereotype.”[17] Like Josh Chan he is played as a handsome, albeit dumb and at times childish, creating love triangles in his own oblivious way.

Detouring from the cultural influence in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Good Place works on the other side of the spectrum, focusing on having the characters not be ‘defined by their culture’[18] and focus on having a target audience identify with a character beyond appearance, reducing otherness internally. Jacinto specifically addresses this, ““When you step away from [introducing a culture] and you have a person of color just being a regular person, you start changing people’s mindset in the idea that, ‘Oh, I can see myself in this person even though we’re a different color,’”[19] This element of inclusion is also very important beyond cultural recognition, by being able to create a variety of characters that audiences can identify with, the amount of conscious or unconscious otherness being experienced can be reduced.

Conclusion:

While the issue of otherness is still prominent throughout the entertainment industry, it’s important to acknowledge the departure from the reliance on stereotypes and tropes to build characters instead of caricatures. The concept of having characters read as intelligent doesn’t read as traditionally positive, but with the history of the model minority trope hanging over media, the bumbling and beautiful idiot becomes a breath of fresh air.

Works Cited:

“And the Break Up Scene.”Two Broke Girls, Season 1 Episode 2, CBS , 26 September 2011, Youtube,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQULP-P5q8

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books 1989

Berenson, Frances. "Hegel on Others and the Self." Philosophy 57, no. 219 (1982): 77-90.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4619540

Brons, Lajos. “Othering, an Analysis,” Transcience 6, No.  1 (2015) 69-90.

https://www2.hu-berlin.de/transcience/Vol6_No1_2015_69_90.pdf

“Jason Mendoza,” The Good Place, season 1, episode 4, NBC, Sept 29, 2016. Netflix

“Josh’s Girlfriend’s Really Cool.” Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, season 1, episode 2, CW, date. Netflix.

Jung, E. Alex. “The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto on Jason’s Voice, Asian Stereotypes, and Ted Danson’s

Grossest Prank,” Vulture, January 4, 2018, Accessed May 5, 2018. http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/the-good-place-season-2-manny-jacinto-interview.html

Francisco, Eric. “The Most Lovable Idiot on Television Is More Important Than You Know”

Inverse. Feb. 1 2018,  Accessed April 16, 2018.

https://www.inverse.com/article/40663-good-place-jason-mendoza-asian-bro-stereotype

Gluszek,Agata and John F. Dovidio. “Speaking With a Nonnative Accent: Perceptions of Bias,

Communication Difficulties, and Belonging in the United States,” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29, no 2, June (2010) 224–234.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X09359590

Guillermo, Emil. “Diversity, Authenticity, and Dinuguan: How 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' Is Changing TV,”

NBC News  Jan. 22. 2016, Accessed April 18, 2018.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/diversity-authenticity-dinuguan-how-crazy-ex-girlfriend-changing-tv-n501486

Sora Hwang, “The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto on Playing a Non-Stereotypical Asian Role,” Mochi

Magazine, Spring 2017, Accessed April 18, 2018

http://www.mochimag.com/article/the-good-places-manny-jacinto-on-playing-a-non-stereotypical

-asian-role/

MOHANTY, J. N. "The Cartesian Meditations." In Edmund Husserl's Freiburg Years:

1916-1938, 367-84. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2011.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npzng.20.

Said, Edward W. "ORIENTALISM." The Georgia Review 31, no. 1 (1977): 162-206.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41397448.

Staszak, Jean-Francois, “Other/otherness,” in International encyclopedia of human geography,

(Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2008): 1-4 http://www.unige.ch/ses/geo/collaborateurs/publicationsJFS/OtherOtherness.pdf.  

Weisberg, Gabriel P. et al., Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French Art 1854-1910 (London: Robert G.

Sawyers Publications, 1975), 3.

Wong, P., Lai, C.F., Nagasawa, R., & Tieming, L. Asian Americans as a model minority: self-perceptions and perceptions by other racial groups. Sociological Perspectives (41/1) (1998) http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/pub/eres/SOC217_PIMENTEL/asians3.pdf

[1]“And the Break Up Scene.”Two Broke Girls, Season 1 Episode 2, CBS , 26 September 2011, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQULP-P5q8

[2]Jean-Francois Staszak,  “Other/otherness,” in International encyclopedia of human geography, (Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2008): 1-4 http://www.unige.ch/ses/geo/collaborateurs/publicationsJFS/OtherOtherness.pdf.  

[3] Berenson, Frances. "Hegel on Others and the Self." Philosophy 57, no. 219 (1982): 77-90.http://www.jstor.org/stable/4619540

[4] MOHANTY, J. N. "The Cartesian Meditations." In Edmund Husserl's Freiburg Years: 1916-1938, 367-84. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npzng.20.

[5] Lajos Brons. “Othering, an Analysis,” Transcience 6, No.  1 (2015) 69-90. https://www2.hu-berlin.de/transcience/Vol6_No1_2015_69_90.pdf

[6] Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books 1989

[7]Gabriel P. Weisberg et al., Japonisme: Japanese Influence on French Art 1854-1910 (London: Robert G. Sawyers Publications, 1975), 3.

[8]Said, Edward W. "ORIENTALISM." The Georgia Review 31, no. 1 (1977): 162-206. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41397448.

[9] Gluszek,Agata and John F. Dovidio. “Speaking With a Nonnative Accent: Perceptions of Bias, Communication Difficulties, and Belonging in the United States,” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29, no 2, June (2010) 224–234.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X09359590

[10]Wong, P., Lai, C.F., Nagasawa, R., & Tieming, L. Asian Americans as a model minority: self-perceptions and perceptions by other racial groups. Sociological Perspectives (41/1) (1998) http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/pub/eres/SOC217_PIMENTEL/asians3.pdf

[11] Eric Francisco, “The Most Lovable Idiot on Television Is More Important Than You Know” Inverse. Feb. 1 2018,  Accessed April 16, 2018.

https://www.inverse.com/article/40663-good-place-jason-mendoza-asian-bro-stereotype

[12]Ibid.

[13]Emil Guillermo, “Diversity, Authenticity, and Dinuguan: How 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' Is Changing TV,” NBC News  Jan. 22. 2016, Accessed April 18, 2018.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/diversity-authenticity-dinuguan-how-crazy-ex-girlfriend-changing-tv-n501486

[14] Ibid.

[15] “Josh’s Girlfriend’s Really Cool.” Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, season 1, episode 2, CW, date. Netflix

[16] “Jason Mendoza,” The Good Place, season 1, episode 4, NBC, Sept 29, 2016. Netflix

[17] E. Alex Jung,, “The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto on Jason’s Voice, Asian Stereotypes, and Ted Danson’s Grossest Prank,” Vulture, January 4, 2018, Accessed May 5, 2018. http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/the-good-place-season-2-manny-jacinto-interview.html

[18]  Sora Hwang, “The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto on Playing a Non-Stereotypical Asian Role,” Mochi Magazine, Spring 2017, Accessed April 18, 2018

http://www.mochimag.com/article/the-good-places-manny-jacinto-on-playing-a-non-stereotypical-asian-role/

[19] Ibid.

#crazy ex girlfriend #the good place

[amorremanet]

Sebastian

“ten facts about my characters” meme


1. The background on his phone is currently El Greco’s 1585 Pieta. He wanted to have a picture of one of his dogs, but then he felt like he was being mean to the other five, so he set it to the late Chewie but that just made him feel terrible because she just passed away in March, so he and Pete tried to get all six of the dogs on Seb’s couch at once but they wouldn’t cooperate, so Seb gave up and picked a painting that he likes.


(and while Seb and Pete were trying to corral six dogs onto the couch for a family portrait, Margot just kinda sat aside in one of the chairs, reading and casually telling her boys, “This isn’t going to work” and then she got to go, “I told you so” when it didn’t)



2. Seb loves nicknames, both giving and receiving, but probably his favorite nickname is the one that Pete gave him back in high school, 
“Princess.”

He earned that nickname because he was babbling about how princesses are actually pretty cool, and they can get shit done, and Pete was torn between enjoying this and being frustrated because he had to finish writing an essay for class, so he went, “Okay, if you stop talking about it right now, you can be MY princess. Would that make you happy?”

Long story short, yes. It made Seb very happy.

That said, Pete is the only one who’s allowed to call him, “Princess.” Partly, this is because Pete gets possessive of the nickname because he likes having special nickname privileges and Seb likes making his best friend happy.

On the other hand, it’s partly because Seb is used to most folks who aren’t Pete using, “Princess” to refer to him in a more dismissive, if not outright derogatory, way. There are some people whom he’d mostly be okay with using the term, if not for how much Pete likes having exclusive nickname privileges, but most people are not on that list.

But most people will be told, “I’m Pete’s Princess, not yours,” or if they try it in front of Pete, they might get told, “Hey, he’s my Princess, not yours.”

Just…… it’s not your nickname, please don’t use it.



3. In “your OC’s as text post meme” land, one of the ones that I gave him was, “in alcohol’s defense I’ve done some pretty dumb shit while completely sober too” — which is true.

Like, for example, his lower-back tattoo of Oscar Wilde’s line from De Profundis, “Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling” — which he got in the area of the lower back that is usually called something misogynistic that rhymes with, “damp scamp,” and then he was completely shocked when Todd, Margot, and Pete thought it was about sucking dick.

And Margot and Todd at least tried to explain it, while Pete just could not and fell over laughing because this was the funniest thing to happen all week, and Seb was just like, “Oscar Wilde was talking about prayer! And redemption! It’s from his prison letter to Bosie! I can see where you’re coming from but it’s not about sucking dick, oh my god, why is everyone being like this!”

—and right as Pete finally started calming down, Todd started to go, “Well… I mean, were you drinking? Just tell people you were drunk.”

Seb: “………I was completely sober. *blushes scarlet as Pete falls over laughing again**”

Seb doesn’t regret this tattoo, exactly (because if he did, he could and probably would just get it removed). But he does feel exceptionally silly for not even thinking that it was, in Pete’s words, “Like putting ‘nympho’ on the ass of your jeans, but in tattoo form” (though he still maintains that jfc, that’s not what the quote was about, why is everyone like this)



4. Seb can drive a motorcycle, and owns one, but since his cousin Jeremy died, he hasn’t really been able to ride it without getting upset and, sometimes, having panic attacks that he refuses to admit are panic attacks, because those are for people who have, “real problems” (i.e., literally everyone but him).

Anyway, he doesn’t know it yet (because they haven’t met each other yet), but Sara Grace is very interested in learning how to ride a motorcycle, and while Seb isn’t going to full-on teach her himself, he’ll be glad to give her a couple pointers, and once she has her license, he’ll gladly give her Bettie.

He absolutely named his bike after Bettie Page, because he’s a loser nerd.

5. Seb can be incredibly frustrating to deal with about some things, because he’s so open to hearing other people’s perspectives on things, and hearing most kinds of new information, and revising his opinions about most things…… but then there are other things that he just will not listen about until reality kicks him in the ass, and even that isn’t always a guarantee.

A lot of this has to do with his until-recently undiagnosed and thus untreated or improperly treated depression. Other parts of it have to do with the PTSD that he “totally doesn’t have” (i.e., he totally does have PTSD, but he thinks that he can’t possibly have PTSD because that would be an actual problem, and he doesn’t have any actual problems, because reasons).

The biggest underlying theme in the things that he’s stubborn about is that they go back to things like devaluing himself, invalidating himself and his feelings and his problems, hurting himself and/or justifying it, denying the possibility that he deserves nice things or that nice things are happening to him (e.g., “There’s no way that Stephen is flirting with me, he’s just being nice, he’s a nice person” — Seb, to Pete, after Stephen had just tried to make a joke about sleeping with Seb*), denying that anything is wrong with him or his life or anything, etc.

But, seriously? This is a guy who can, without missing a beat, jump right from complaining about how his big brother Max low-grade hates Margot and Todd, even though Max doesn’t really know them and rejects most information that contradicts his preconceived ideas of who they are and what they mean to Seb…… to insisting that Max probably hates him based more on his own anxiety and self-loathing than on any actual facts evidence of what Max feels about him

Seb is also a guy who can tell you in earnest that he’s a complete idiot, while reading Proust in the original French (and possibly complaining that none of the English translators really get it right), or can tell you that he’s an idiot and follow it up with a completely off-the-cuff lesson on Latin grammar and vocabulary, and just

Trusting Seb’s opinions about himself is a bad idea, because his opinions about himself usually have only a very select relation to reality and some things will end up being magnified while others are ignored, and he’s just not always a reliable narrator



6. Seb is a Hufflepuff, even though he doesn’t appreciate what that means because the HP series isn’t really his thing and he only got Pottermore-Sorted as part of helping Todd apologize to his teenage niece, Bianca. If Seb did understand what this means, he’d probably identify with the stereotype of, “Hufflepuff, ‘taking the lot’ means that they’re the reject House, lol” because that’s how he feels, even if it’s

 not actually accurate.

The Hufflepuff stereotype that he more accurately fits is the, “you have ten fingers? I have ten fingers! Let’s be friends!” one

Granted, it’s a lot harder for him to be like that than it used to be when he was younger, but Seb is still someone who:

decided that he wanted to be Margot’s friend because of how she seemed interesting and cool during the few minutes they spent paired up in a, “get to know the people on your hall” exercise in their freshman year of undergrad

called his Mom after meeting Todd for the first time (and trying to ask him out on a date-date, but botching it a bit and instead getting platonic coffee), because he was just so happy to have made a new friend, even if he’d totally failed to convey any potential romantic interest

and started his first conversation with the guy who would become his sponsor by noticing the CD case for Judy at Carnegie Hall in Nick’s bag and proceeding to kinda geek out at Nick about it, then ask for a bunch of Nick’s opinions

and after having a nice chat with Nick at the after-meeting coffee talk, Seb went home, where Margot was waiting with his dogs, and went, “So, I met someone at group who I really like and I really want him to like me, he’s this nice older guy, he has a cat and a husband and apparently quite a few stories that I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of, he owns an art gallery, his name is Nick, I really like him, omg”

7. Seb is a devout Catholic. It’s pretty easy for people to forget this fact (even his sponsor Nick, and sometimes even his parents), but that’s mostly because:

1. being devout doesn’t mean that he acts like what most people he deals with consider a, “good Catholic boy” (to be fair, he used to act more like that, but he really hasn’t since he was about sixteen, because that was when he had to leave his Catholic school in a pretty Not Good series of events, went to his Dad’s old prep school instead, and in short, went through Some Shit);

and 2. he hasn’t ever seen a contradiction between being gay and non-celibate and totally fine with his sexuality, and being Catholic. If you ask Seb, though, the biggest problems he’s ever had here have had jack squat to do with God or Jesus or his faith, and everything to do with other human beings being homophobic dicks who only liked him as long as they believed hat he was straight.

The latter problem has been slightly relieved by him switching churches, which was pretty much entirely Margot’s doing.

Like, Seb was more or less resigned to sucking it up and going to Mass with a priest who was openly homophobic, and fellow parishioners who had a tendency to be pitying but kinda sorta sympathetic when he showed up looking like shit because he was probably up all night and was likely hungover or still kinda drunk, and might gently mention a second-cousin who had a lot of success with this AA group or that therapist one moment, then say some homophobic bullshit the next because they had no idea they were talking to a gay man

So, Margot found a different parish — one that technically isn’t sanctioned by the Vatican but was started by two gay men who left seminary to be together, and is socially and politically liberal-to-progressive and very pro LGBTQ — and she only didn’t bodily drag Seb to it because he’s 6’3”, she’s 4’11”, and he’s physically stronger than she is besides.

Instead, she went, “I am your friend, I’m concerned about you, and the only way to make me be less concerned, right now? Is to stop acting like the only way to fulfill your spiritual needs is essentially emotional self-harm. You don’t need to debase yourself by fake smiling and catering to those people, they don’t deserve it”


As far as most people are concerned, Margot intervened and started dragging Seb to a different and technically non-Vatican-sanctioned church out of enlightened self interest. Going to his previous church was fucking him up, which was screwing with her ability to work and their, “business ventures,” and that’s it, because Margot has trouble admitting to most people that she has a heart or ever does nice things for other people.

Anyway, another positive here is that Seb is now on legitimately good terms with the people at church, rather than, “good terms as long as they don’t know he’s gay, or fake good terms where he spends most of their conversations internally screaming,” from the other parishioners to the staff and priests.

The youngest of the priests, Fr. Teddy, is one of the few people out of the huge number of contacts in Seb’s phone who’s saved as a favorite.

They have a standing friendly coffee-date every Sunday after Mass, and although Seb doesn’t entirely know if he’s “allowed” to call Teddy a friend or not (because he has a lot of trouble with that in general), they know each other pretty well, Teddy didn’t exactly save Seb’s life once but did get him to help when he couldn’t exactly do it himself, Teddy was there at Seb’s intervention, and Seb is on a first-name basis with Joel, Teddy’s nice Jewish boyfriend while Teddy is on a first-name basis with Margot and Pete, knows Todd kinda but more knows of him, and will be eager to meet Stephen, once he and Seb get serious.

Teddy isn’t exactly skeptical of this superhero thing that Seb sort of stumbled into, but he’s watched someone else he cares about go into it with good intentions only to end up selling out and doing nothing for anyone but himself anymore, so Teddy’s a bit wary

The person in question was Teddy’s cousin Elliott. He’s a member of the All-Stars team out of Manhattan, and…… well. There are a lot of reasons why Teddy doesn’t talk about their connection, and only one of them is that he cares about protecting Elliott’s secret identity, since he’s only famous as his costumed alter-ego.



8. Seb’s only been going to AA and NA meetings for a year-and-a-half, when the story starts, and he already has more than a few examples of Times When He Showed Up For Group While Wearing Something Unfortunate Or Just Barely Avoided This, including but not limited to:

The time he wasn’t paying attention and put on a t-shirt with the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey label on it, simple because it happened to be clean, and when Pete went, “Uh, Princess? Really?” and offered to run back to Seb’s place so he could change, Seb’s solution was to take the shirt off in the middle of their favorite coffee shop, turn it inside out, and put it back on

The time he wasn’t paying attention and threw on a shirt that Todd had left at his place, which was somewhat oversized on Seb, but was also one of the sexual innuendo shirts that Todd, “only wears ironically” (i.e., he totally thinks they’re funny, because Todd has the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old looking up cuss words in the dictionary and just learned what 69 means, but Todd is also a pretentious hipster fuck who can’t just admit that he thinks his stupid sexual innuendo t-shirts are funny, so he has to misuse the term, “irony” to justify wearing them)

Anyway, Seb went to his Friday night NA wearing this little number (a purple shirt with a cartoon bubble tea and a caption that says, “suck my balls”), and actually, he probably would’ve been okay just wearing that, but Pete took it as a sign that Seb and Todd were having sex again (which they weren’t, at least not right within ten days of that incident), and got exasperated and Dramatic™ about sex that his bestie hadn’t even been having


The time when he wasn’t paying attention and grabbed one of Pete’s shirts (which was: 1. just at Seb’s place, because Pete’s over often enough to justify having some spare clothes around, and Seb hadn’t sorted out the laundry yet; and 2. already small on Pete because he wanted it to be tighter-fitting), and Seb sort of just assumed that he’d screwed something up and shrunk the shirt, and maybe this would’ve gotten cleared up if Pete had been able to meet him for coffee before group

—but Pete couldn’t meet for coffee, so Seb showed up in a hot pink Female Trouble t-shirt that was almost a crop-top on him, and didn’t put everything together until Pete got there and went, “Oh, I wondered where I left that.”


And hey, on the second anniversary of his cousin Jeremy’s death, Seb is going to end up going to NA in a pair of scrub pants that belonged to one of Pete’s exes and got left in Pete’s car for over a year, a crop top that belongs to Pete (though, as far as shirt designs go, a black shirt that says, “too cute to be straight” isn’t really that bad), and a pair of sandals that Seb thought he lost but actually they were also in Pete’s car all this time

This is going to happen because Seb still won’t have that much control over his shifts because no one will have worked out what triggers them, exactly, or what La Bête’s deal is.

So, when he and Pete visit Jeremy’s grave, Seb’s emotional upset triggers a shift that he can’t stop, and Pete handles it really well, especially considering that it’s the first time he’s actually seeing Seb turn into a nine-foot-tall wolf-person

……But then, when Pete gets Seb to shift back, Seb is kind of naked. Kind of very naked. And they don’t have enough time to get him home before group, so they make do with whatever clothes Pete can find in his trunk while Seb curls up in the backseat so he can’t get arrested for indecent exposure while stone cold sober



9. 
If you pay attention, what Seb’s wearing on his arms can be a good way to guess how he’s probably doing, emotionally. See, Seb’s arms are kind of a mess:

His tattoos looked fine: on his right, the black outline of a rosary; on his left, the family’s heraldic wolf with its thyrsus staff. His scars, however, were another story. Most were thin and uniform, horizontal and so pale that they almost disappeared against his skin. Just below the wolf was a small circle, left behind by an ex-boyfriend’s lit cigarette. But each arm also had one vertical scar, longer and angrier than the rest. Gnarled like the bark of their Grandfather’s favorite ironwood tree, they cut over the smaller marks and bubbled underneath his ink in a bloodless, silvery shade of pink. Five years after giving them to himself, Seb couldn’t look at them without his insides going cold.

He’d really like to get to the point where he feels more or less secure enough to just wear short sleeves without letting other people’s reactions get to him too much…… but that’s probably a long way off for Seb, not least because he hasn’t actually been working on it that hard so much as wishing for it.

As it stands, Seb has a few usual standbys — long sleeves regardless of the weather; arm warmers (i.e., the long finger-less gloves with different kinds of rivets and lacing or other decor, all of which he got when he was a teenager and having a mall goth Hot Topic phase); different combinations of cuffs and bracelets (many of which are also left over from his Hot Topic phase); and, “nothing, but this should not be seen as a sign of him doing well, just yet”

Arm warmers are usually Seb’s default during the spring, summer, and early autumn, because they can draw attention but they’re also less of a pain than wearing long sleeves during a Baltimore summer. This makes them the hardest one to really get an accurate read on, because he wears them for so many different moods, but they all average out to, “He’s probably not doing great, but then, he’s almost never doing great; he’s about as okay as he ever manages”

Long sleeves tend to mean that Seb is feeling vulnerable and not-that-great, because they might attract attention sure, but it’s usually not as much as he gets while being nearly thirty and wearing his teenage Hot Topic mall goth arm warmers

Unfortunately for Seb, some of the people who love him still associate long sleeves with, “Sebastian is trying to hide something,” especially when he wears them in the middle of summer — which is how we get moments like Max catching his little brother by the wrist and anxiously tugging Seb’s sleeves back to check his arms

Which is just…… Max doesn’t mean for that to be hurtful or anything, but he’s worried about his brother (and not without reason, either) and he’s scared and he really doesn’t get that doing things like this isn’t helpful for myriad reasons, and in his experience, Seb most often wears long sleeves in summer when he’s been hurting himself and/or getting high

Bracelets and the like usually means that consciously, Seb isn’t sure if he wants to talk about something or not, but he probably does want to talk about it and will do so, if someone nudges him or gives him some indication that they’re willing to listen (because he kinda needs to be nudged and invited and otherwise reminded that he’s allowed and encouraged to talk about what he’s feeling with people, it doesn’t make him a burden)

And, at present, unless Seb is at home (either alone or with Pete, Margot, and/or Todd), short sleeves with bare forearms usually mean that Seb is really not in a good state of mind, because he’s probably feeling too tired or sick or hopeless to put on his arm warmers or care how people might react to his scars

10. Once someone gets saved as a favorite in Seb’s phone, they will almost definitely get a special ringtone. About the only exception to this is his sister-in-law, Linda, and that’s mostly because Seb is still scared of her, despite having known her since he was ~16, and thus, he doesn’t know her very well, and he feels like all his ideas just come down to, “I’m scared of you and that feels really mean.” But some of the other ringtones he’s given people are:

Pete: Natasha Richardson’s version of “Mein Herr” from Cabaret (because it’s Pete’s favorite version of his favorite song from his favorite musical)

Margot: “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” from The Great Mouse Detective

Todd: “Friday, I’m In Love” by The Cure (because one of the first things Seb and Todd bonded over was The Cure)

Nick: Judy Garland’s Carnegie Hall performance of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”

Marceline, his Mom: Bernadette Peters’ version of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”

Max: “I Don’t Want To Know” by Fleetwood Mac

Unbeknownst to Seb, his ringtone in Max’s phone is Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” which is another of the Stevie Nicks-penned numbers on their Rumours album, and yes, Max and Seb are aware that she wrote the songs about her romantic relationship with Lindsey Buckingham

But both of them suck at actually associating their songs of choice with romance at all, because they first and foremost associate Fleetwood Mac with Marceline

Adelaide: “Be Prepared” from The Lion King (he originally gave her, “This Corrosion” by The Sisters of Mercy, but Addie took exception to that)

Ambrose: “Magic Dance” by David Bowie, from Labyrinth — specifically, the, “you remind me of the babe!” “what babe?” “the babe with the power!” part, because Seb is a dweeb and has happy memories associating his middle brother with Labyrinth

He’s also a dweeb who still calls his middle brother, “Ambrosius,” which he started doing when they were kids and he was having a hardcore Labyrinth Thing

But Ambrose just calls him, “Sir Didymus” back, so it kinda balances out

Abe, his Dad: “The Flying Purple People Eater” (it’s probably better not to ask why this is one of their father-son things, because neither of them can explain it in any kind of succinct fashion that makes sense to anyone but them)

Abe also has a custom ringtone for Seb. He literally only learned how to get custom ringtones (read: asked Adelaide to please do it for him) so he could set Seb’s ringtone as, “Carry On, Wayward Son”

Seb is aware of this, but he really doesn’t know how he feels about it

Fr. Teddy: “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen

Stephen: currently has Aqua’s “Barbie Girl,” because he’s mentioned that it’s one of his favorite songs before, but after their eventual relationship upgrade, Seb’s going to change it to Whitney Houston’s, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me,” which is higher up Stephen’s favorite song list and Seb feels like it’s more fitting for a boyfriend

……except that Pete knows the passcode into Seb’s phone and will amuse himself by periodically changing Stephen’s ringtone to The Divynyls’ “I Touch Myself” or George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex,” then moving Seb’s phone and pretending his is dead or charging so Seb has to ask Stephen to call it

This won’t always work out exactly how Pete wants, but he still tried, okay

Bonus fact (brought to you entirely by his headcanon casting and the, “I thought it was funny, so sue me” foundation): He doesn’t like sand. Or the beach. Especially not the beach. Like, sand is gross and it gets everywhere, and who the Hell decided to make, “sex on the beach” a romantic trope and what the fuck was wrong with them because it is actually terrible, there is sand in places where there ought not be sand, what is wrong with people — but the beach is even worse than the sand.


Seriously, when he and Julian were dating each other for the first time, they very nearly didn’t make it past the hurdle of, “Julian loves the beach and wants to drag Seb to the beach (and make Seb pretty please pay for it because his parents are “old as BALLS” money rich white people and Julian’s are middle-class white people from Minnesota), and ugh why do you want to stay home for spring break, who cares if Pete is in a play, he’ll forgive you for not going to opening night, I wanna go to the beach and you’re just trying to get out of going to the beach because you’re being difficult, you’re being obstinate, and you’re being difficult, and if we go to Pete’s play and don’t leave ‘til after his opening night, can we please please pleeeeease go to the beach”

Except that, rather than dealing with the fact that Julian was pushing him around (despite also being the one more open to compromise, for once), Seb just went, “No, my only objection is that I irrationally dislike the beach”


His aversion to going to the beach has only gotten worse since then, and only partially because he and Julian went to the beach for that spring break and Julian went, “Please, please, can we, please, please, please” about sex on the beach until Seb agreed to try it.

(They did not succeed in this effort, because Julian was confronted with the reality of having sex on the beach and went, “This is significantly less romantic and fun than I’ve been led to believe. ……Take me back to the hotel, I have sand in places where I don’t want for there to be sand :(” — but they still tried)


The other big part has to do with how much of a mess Seb’s arms are, and how many scars he has elsewhere, and how he wouldn’t even mind the fact that he burns super-easily (which he used to mind quite a bit), but he doesn’t want to deal with the questions that he can attract based on his scars, or with the way that people are super-unsubtle about trying not to look at his scars but still looking at them and giving him sad, pitying looks, or with wearing long sleeves and/or “leftover from when he had a Hot Topic mall goth phase” arm warmers at the beach and attracting attention because he’s doing that



—and in closing, this meme was hard because I felt torn between, “oh yeah, I have a lot of things to say about the little shit who started this whole series,” “oh, but do I talk about him too much already,” “oh, but what parts have I shared enough that I don’t need to anymore,” “oh, but which ones do I need to share for context,” “oh, but how much linking to things I’ve shared before can I get away with and not look conceited,” and the impulse to just go, “okay, you guys, look, I know he’s a mess, but he’s MY mess”

He’s kind of a disaster but he’s trying his best, okay

*: And here is the conversation in question, as evidence of how totally not subtle Stephen was being:

“Nothing, [Todd] didn’t… His and Pete’s friendship is founded on hating the same things and picking on each other.” Seb shook his head. “Pete doesn’t know what he’s talking about, though, okay?” he said. “I wasn’t with Todd last night. Or anybody. Except my dogs. I only had a, ‘baking ’til I felt tired, then spacing out to Catching All-Stars reruns until I finally nodded off’-style long night.”

“I know how that goes. Where it’s like…” Stephen smirked, and snickered. “Like, you’re trying to knock yourself out…” He failed to stifle a chuckle. “I mean, like…” He snorted, and ducked his head as he giggled. “Like, the kind of night when you need intellectual Novocaine instead of lullabies?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Seb laughed into his hand. “Being with somebody probably would’ve been better for me. Or worked sooner. I lost track of how long it took to get to sleep.”

“Yeah, well, if you wanted to have somebody, then I bet I could…” He was definitely leaning in, now. He bit his lip, glancing around like he felt guilty about something. “If you wanted, I could get you in bed by, I don’t know, eleven-thirty? Or like, whenever you want?”

“What, is that, like… an invitation?”

A glimmer sparked up behind Stephen’s eyes. His smile twinkled. Seb was the one leaning in, now, and Stephen’s mouth was right there, and—

“Well, I guess I’m inviting myself to get my own goddamn beverage, since you two are busy flirting.” Pete glowered and, elbowing between them, he said, “Stephen, you’re adorable, but if you’re gonna distract my Princess, then can you please just kiss him already.”

So, yeah. Like…… yes, Stephen botched the delivery because he isn’t that great at actually telling jokes, but he’s not being subtle about flirting with Seb right now and it’s completely fair for Pete to be exasperated as fuck with his Princess when Seb tries to go, “I bet Stephen’s just being nice, because he’s a nice person, not like he’s actually interested in me”


#memes for ts #ten facts meme #sebastian moncrieff: mutant disaster #ocs tag #that story with the mutants that i should find a working title for fml #oc questions #pete x seb #margot & seb #julian x seb #seb x stephen #sara grace & seb #max & seb #pete arden: dramatic disaster #margot gabriel: chainsmoking disaster #seb & teddy #mine: writing #ask box tag #addiction ref// alcoholism ref// drugs ref// abuse ref// #depression ref// mental health issues ref// self harm ref// #seriously all of these are pretty oblique? like? #they aren't strictly limited to saying that these things happened and seb has dealt with them #but they also aren't terribly detailed or specific fwiw #longish post// #Anonymous

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Rating The Super Bowl Commercials

Posted by Alexander Wolfe, Feb 3, 2008 10:06 PM

As always, the real contest at the Super Bowl was among the commercials. (Admittedly, the game, in which the Giant upset the Patriots 17 – 14, was exciting, too.) On Fox, there were some 50 ads, which went for upwards of $2.7 million for each 30-second spot. Based on the preponderance of beer ads, it must be an American truism that you can never be too rich or have too much Bud Light.

  There were also a surprising large complement of tech- and Web-site ads, which gives me my excuse for blogging this Super Bowl ad report-card. Dell (Dell), Go Daddy, Garmin (NSDQ: GRMN), Careerbuilder.com, and T-Mobile were all represented, albeit in mostly tepid fashion.

  In crowded marketplaces, as in life, sometimes the best way to get one’s message across is to speak softly.

  That was the case with the best commercial; admittedly not a huge honor amid such a weak field. Nevertheless, my winner is “Doritos Sing Along,” which stepped back from the smart-ass ad agency meme to feature a new singer, one Kina Grannis, doing her song, “Message From Your Heart.” There’s an interesting back-story here: The ad came out of Doritos’ “Crash The Super Bowl Challenge,” which Grannis won, along with a contract from Interscope Records.

  In a less high-minded vein, I’m forced to admit that the most memorable ad was “Booooood Light.” This commercial for Bud seemingly attempted to flip stereotypes about non-English-speaking Americans on their ear, but only ended up reinforcing them in the most boorish manner. (Which is why this also was probably the worst among the Super Bowl ads.)

  Here, then, are my ratings, in the order in which the commercial appeared during the Fox broadcast (tech ads noted via red titles):

  1) Bud Light Dinner Date Fire-Breathing Guy. Unusually well-manner guy — presumably he hasn’t started tanking up yet — having dinner a deux at his date’s apartment. Demonstrating his biggest skill before the meal is served, he lights the candles the way most people blow them out. But then her cat enters the room and, being allergic, his sneezes ignite the rest of the room. Smokin? A little. B

  2) Audi Godfather. Stealing a scene from the Coppola classic, a guy wakes up screaming, but to a car grill, not a horse’s head, in his bed. Interesting, if contextually misplaced, reference. Points for reinforcing the automobile’s brand; I’m mean, who even knew Audi was still a factor in the U.S. market? B

  3) Diet Pepsi Max Announcer Guys. SuperBowl announcers Troy Aikman and Joe Buck appear on screen, so you almost think the game didn’t cut to commercial. But no, they’re “announcing” the intro to a commercial. A boring commercial, which doesn’t tip its hand until way too late to get me excited about Diet Pepsi Max. Pass me the Diet Coke. C

  4) Animated Salesgenie Guy. I’ve always wondered about Salesgenie.com. Do you get 100 free sales leads, or do you get 100 free leads that work? The guys from Glengarry Glen Ross want to know. D

  5) Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. House ad for Fox series about a superbabe with a steel plate in her head. (I’m not rating the house ads or the public-service announcements.)

  6) Bud Light Cheese Wheel. Guys acting stupid over football and beer in the kitchen, while the pretty girls are left alone in the living room. What’s wrong with this picture? The commercial’s mildly effective, though, at tying the watery beer brand to youthful male camaraderie. B-

  7) UnderArmour Nation. Another ad which was hard to place, I’m thinking, this has gotta be a Nike ad. Not the strongest brand when your ad’s look-and-feel suffers from such apparent me-too-ism, even more so when this company apparently occupies a unique niche as a purveyor of form-fitting athletic wear. C

  8) Bud Light Screeching Animals. A bunch of rodents and an owl wailing as a car speeding down a winding country lane comes dangerously close but manages to avoid turning them into road kill. Not driven by a Bud Light drinker, I hope. What was this one about? Couldn’t tell until the end, when the Bridgestone tire logo appeared. B-

  9) Doritos Sing Along. The one straight commercial which didn’t need schtick to make its point. The ad wasn’t about the chip, but rather has a new singer, one Kina Grannis, doing her song, “Message From Your Heart.” Very nice. A+

  10) Prudential Retirement. Not memorable, though one might wish that these ads would be the ones that’d stick with you, rather than the booze commercials. We’d all be happier in our old age. C-

  11) Derek Jeter for Gatorade. Who doesn’t like Derek Jeter? Plus, there’s no steroid taint. This one wasn’t flashy, but it’s effective. B

  12) Go Daddy. This one hints at the Web domain registrar’s infamous Super Bowl ad of several years back, where a busty babe was poised to drop her top before a committee of superannuated Senators. (Hope they had a CPR kit handy.) This time, race car driver Danica Patrick, seen on a video screen — how meta is that? — threatens to peel down the zipper on her top. Why? Still, you gotta hand it to these guys: How many domain-name sellers are known to the general public? Undoubtedly just this one. B+

  13) Buy Dell. A funky, MTV-generation commercial which picks up Dell’s new Red product theme. It moves, and is short and to the point. B+

  14) FedX Carrier Pigeons On Steroids. Birds gone wild attack the city, prompting white-male middle manager to suggest that his younger minion pick FedEx (NYSE: FDX) for his future shipping needs. Huh? C+

  15) Cars.com Doofus Death Match. A twenty-something buyer comes to the used car lot armed with data on his planned purchase, salesman doesn’t give him a hard time, so he says: “Good, otherwise I’d have you fight Klondor over there in a death match inside the wheel of fire.” Who says creativity is dead? For all that, I knew that this one was for cars.com right from the get-go. For this reason, it gets a B+

  16) Tide Job Interview. As this one unspolled, I was thinking it had to be CareerBuilder.com, because I’d read they’d purchased a commercial. For CareerBuilder, this would’ve been cute, since it had a guy inappropriately talking past his interrogator during a job interview. However, since it was for a stain removal pen by Procter & Gamble’s flagship detergent brand, not so much. C-

  17) Budweiser: Hank The Horse. Oh, I get it, he’s a Clydesdale, and he’s pulling a freight train, to the theme from Rocky, the better to prove he’s worthy of joining the beer-toting horse team. You know, if they spent one-fiftieth of the money they pour into beer commercials on medical research, they could cure cancer in a week. B

  18) Iron Man, the Movie. Robert Downey Jr. is out of rehab and CGI-buff as the latest Marvel super hero to hit the silver screen. Coming this summer.

  19) Toyota (NYSE: TM) Corolla. The high point of this very muted car ad is that the voice over was by the Peterman guy from Seinfeld. C

  20) George Clooney, Leatherheads. Another movie ad.

  21) Garmin GPS. Some kind of French vibe going on, with a Euro car driving through some non-American looking city, an actor dressed up like Napolean, and French rock ‘n roll in the background. Sorry, I only know Ca Plan Pour Moi. B-

  22) CareerBuilder: Follow Your Heart. A throbbing, disembodied heart leaps off a keyboard and makes its way into the bosses office. Ah, this is the CareerBuilder.com ad. That sound I hear is Monster.com not being worried. C-

  23) Thriller/Life Water. I really should know who that model bopping with a bunch of lizards to strains of Michael Jackson’s Thriller is. Naomi Campbell, right? (Nah.) A fun little commercial, in spite of itself. Loses half a grade since I still don’t know what Life Water is. A-

  24) Yukon Hybrid from GMC. “Never Say Never.” To what, high gas prices? This commercial was so muted, it made me wonder what kind of internal constituency hybrid technologies have inside GM (NYSE: GM). Certainly, this is not one of Bob Lutz’s “gotta have” cars. D

  25) Boooood Light. A continuation of Bud’s series where non-native speakers from India and China are initiated into doofus bad-beer lingo. This time, though, the ESL geek gets the pretty girl. This commercial is so idiotic and aberrant that it’s … memorable. So it gets a high rating, but please don’t tell anyone I said that. A

  26) Planter’s Cashews. Unattractive 30-something woman bops down the street to strains of Frankie Valley’s 1967 hit, “You’re Just Too Good To Be True.” Grabs a handful of Planters nuts, still looks the same, but suddenly all the guys are chasing her. See, it’s not just about looks! Kinda heartwarming, actually. A-

  27) Charles Barkley for T-Mobile. The cellular service provider is doing the hard sell for its “Friends and Family” plan, with the former basketball star calling his son, or maybe Dwayne Wade, or maybe both. I couldn’t really tell. Yawn. Hey, I’m still waiting for Sir Charles to run for the senate. C-

  28) Justin Timberlake for Pepsi. The once and current pop star is hurled into the air, through traffic, and all about the city, literally, but survives. Dating Britney couldn’t have been this rough. B+

  29) Doritos Chair Guy. Guy in chair eats Doritos, gets beaten up by guy in giant mouse suit. Forgettable. C

HALFTIME

  30) Cars.com. Now our data-laden auto buyer is threatening to have the recalcitrant dealer’s head shrunk. Hey, it wasn’t funny the first time, but I get the “cars.com” tag, which is presumably why they paid the $2.7 million. A-

  31) Salesgenie Panda. Now they’ve got an animated panda named Ling Ling, doing a Charlie Chan voice, pimping for the sales-lead site. In most workplaces, including mine, that wouldn’t be allowed. D-

  32) Shaquille O’Neal Vitamin Water. The basketball star wins a horse race and gets a cold, nonalcoholic beverage as his reward. Most memorable moment: Little kid in stands inserting finger up nose. Decent (the ad, not the pick), but not Super Bowl-worthy. C

  33) Bud Light Cave Men. In ad terms, this one is an oldie but oldie. D

  34) Carmen Electra/Ice Breakers Gum. The breath-freshener preferred by “D” listers? D

  35) Alice Cooper/Richard Simmons Bridgestone. In the second chapter of this tire saga, our winding-road driver has passed the animals and finds a couple of celebs in his path. There’s a couple of hundred bucks in it if you get them both, buddy. (I originally thought Alice was Ozzy Osborne, until a commenter below corrected me. Makes more sense; Ozzy doesn’t need the work.) B-

  36) CareerBuilder’s Wishing. The job site tries to move the needle in its battle with Monster with this “Wishing Won’t Get You A Better Job” ad. Doesn’t. C-

  37) E-Trade Baby. Toddler in high chair buys stock on line, upchucks. Like you or I, after we’ve checked our 401(k) balances the past few weeks. B-

  38) Bud Light “Flying.” The watery brew now gives you the ability to fly, the ad posits. If you’ve been chugging every time a Bud ad has come on during the game, well, yeah. C

  39) Music Girls For Sunsilk. Marilyn Monroe, Shikira, and Madonna for some kind of hair product (I couldn’t figure out whether it was shampoo, or what, from the site.) Bet only two of them have used it. B

  40)Stewie Griffin for Coke. The Family Guy character, as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon, vies with Pluto {correction: Underdog) for a Coca-Cola, but Charlie Brown snaps it up at the last minute. Where’s Lucy when you need her? B

  41) James Carville and Bill Frist for Coke. Whaaaaaaaat on Earth is this? One of the most off-putting commercials I’ve ever seen. What demographic is this one aimed at? Dead people? Pass me a Pepsi. Please. F

  42) Toyota Sequoia. “The dishes will have to wait” is the theme of this one, as our SUV owner goes out for a spin. About as flashy as your average Toyota. B

  43) E-Trade Baby 2. This kid’s diaper must be leaking by now. B

  44) Taco Bell. Just what you want when it’s a nail-biter of a fourth quarter and the Giants are up 10 to 7 over the Patriots. C

  45) Gatorade: Man’s Best Friend. A very big dog slurps up Gatorade from his water dish. And this is supposed to turn me on to their drink how? C

  46) Will Ferrell for Bud. The egregiously unfunny comedian pitches the watery brew in surprisingly humorous fashion. Best is Ferrell’s close: “Bud Light. Suck One.” A

  47) Hyundai Genesis. Straight car commercial; gets the message across. B

  48) Victoria’s Secret. The game’s almost over, promises the tag line, as a beautiful babe tosses a football askance. Maybe Tom Brady’s after-party. I give it a wishful-thinking B-

  49) Fat Guy for Amp. The Red Bull competitor gets the almost Full Monty, as a hip-hop-dancing tow truck driver chugs the energy drink to get “amp’ed” enough to jump-start a stalled car. This all makes sense in the world of $2.7-million Super Bowl ads. B+

Here’s the Kina Grannis video: