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florrickandassociates · 3 years

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TGF Thoughts: 5x09-- And the end was violent...

It’s been a busy week, but I didn’t want to wait until after 5x10 aired to write this. This recap may be a bit rushed (read: I am going to make an effort to just skip over scenes I don’t care about; we’ll see how many of those there actually are). I didn’t love this episode overall, but I thought it was a huge improvement over 5x08’s parking ticket fiasco and wish it had immediately followed 5x07.

Bless these episodes for not being overly long

Oooh, the opening sequence is long and I have nothing to say about it! Thanks for making my life easier, writers!

The point of this opening is to show that there are lots of problems with the official court system—inefficiencies, inconveniences like broken elevators, overcrowding in prisons (though, uh, I don’t think the actual problem there is that there’s not room to incarcerate more people)-- that might make cops open to an alternative like Wackner’s court.

I know the cop thread kind of started with last week’s parking nonsense, but surely there was a way other than the parking nonsense to bridge the gap between 5x07’s prison system and 5x09’s focus on Wackner’s court suddenly being a replacement for criminal court, too.

(Y’all, I have SO MANY questions about how Wackner can POSSIBLY judge criminal cases, but they’re all just variations on... UH, GUYS, ISN’T THIS ILLEGAL? LIKE SUPER DUPER ILLEGAL?)

I see that there is a filming notice when the cops bring a dude into Wackner’s court, and that the notice says that by entering on the premises you consent to being on film. I do not think that this sign being displayed would hold up as evidence of anyone consenting to be sentenced to a private prison on criminal charges.

New question: How did Wackner Rules get on the air so fast? And are they just filming endless episodes in real time? They just film anyone who walks in?

I think there is supposed to be a subplot about Marissa liking fame and attention; it is almost a little too subtle to be meaningful. I see a through line from her sleeping with that editor dude last week to her smiling at the flowers in this scene to her scenes with Carmen later this episode. Unfortunately, I need a lot more for this to work.

I don’t need Marissa to be a hero who constantly does the right thing and calls out Wackner on crossing the line, but I’m really sad that this is what they’re using Marissa for when we were due for Marissa calling Wackner out (in a meaningful, lasting way) like two episodes ago. It’s felt odd to me that she just sticks around and assists Wackner and Del when they’re doing things like putting people in private prisons and comparing the show they’re making to The Apprentice. Any subtle shift in Wackner’s decisions that has signaled to me that he’s gone too far is something that I can say with certainty would signal the same to Marissa. Marissa’s outspoken and passionate, and we have seen enough reaction shots to know she knows things are going bad, fast. Am I really meant to believe that because she likes Wackner and she likes fame, she’s not going to do anything more substantial than look upset from time to time? Not only does that feel out of character, it’s also just boring.

And, it speaks to another problem I’m starting to have with the arc: they needed to get to the point faster. Once Wackner said “David Cord’s private prison,” this stopped being fun. It would’ve stopped being fun for Marissa and it stopped being fun for viewers (seriously though, the change in tone on Reddit between 5x07 and 5x08/5x09 is VERY noticeable). So why did we follow that up with some repetitive filler bullshit about parking spaces and then start getting back to the point in this episode? I’m sure they’re going somewhere big in 5x10, but you can’t follow an explosive reveal with more status quo.

(Also, lol, I think the parking space thing was meant to be a fun silly absurd little way of entering into themes about authority and Wackner trying to legitimize his court, but it was about an issue so relatable and illogical that I think it feels even harder to believe than the, like, whole concept of a secret court in a Copy Coop.)

Time for Marissa to look concerned again! She’s confused about if the case is real or not, and when Wackner says it’s real, she says it’s not for their court and it’s crossing a line. She is absolutely correct. Wackner’s like, let me know if you think I’m crossing a line after I rule, and then he makes a silly flailing gesture that Marissa can use as a signal.

I actually don’t hate that scene; it is a good scene. I am only snarking on it because it feels like familiar territory and it belonged in an earlier episode.

Am I correctly understanding that these cops wanted to be filmed bringing a man against his will to a fake court with a private prison? And that they wanted this to air on television? Okay.

I will say that I believe the motivations of everyone involved except Marissa. Wackner thinks he’s doing good for the world. Del is getting good TV (I mean, I still think that Wackner Rules title sequence is shit and the show Del seems to be making is terrible, but that’s besides the point). Cord has so much money he’s untouchable and this is fun for him. The cops just don’t want to deal with bureaucracy when it comes to someone who they basically caught in the act.

Court! Stuff! Happens!

Wackner sentences the guy to one year in “David Cord’s private prison.” Again, I know they have to say this for exposition/storytelling reasons, but I continue to find it hilarious that David Cord would want his name to be used in this way (because he like, absolutely would not want his name to be used this way).

The cops like Wackner’s verdict so they tell all their friends to also take their cases to Wackner. What could possibly go wrong!

Like, yeah, there are problems with the criminal justice system—and some of them are even the ones these cops are mad about—but this is ABSOLUTELY not the answer!!! You cannot just take people off the streets and place them in private prisons because they were forced to enter a filming zone for a TV show what the actual fuck

Love David Lee still having candy on his desk. Some things never change.

Allegra, who was welcomed by the partners of RL last week, is interviewing for a job with David Lee. I don’t understand. Doesn’t David Lee have to approve new partners at RL?

Please don’t mention real estate on Mars, Allegra. You’ve made me think of Jason and how bad season seven was.

Allegra is feeling a bit different from Elsbeth this episode, though she very much still has some Elsbeth energy. She is very strategic and blunt in a way Elsbeth isn’t, and she seems a little more focused and intense.

“I notice, in a partisan world, the person in the middle controls the agenda,” Allegra says of her alliances with both Liz and Diane. This is interesting. What are Allegra’s goals here? Just to have power? Does she have a vision for RL? Is it just a good paycheck?

(My guess is it’s about power and money for her. I don’t think she is going to be the ally Madeline wants. I don’t think anyone who voluntarily signs up to be a name partner at a firm owned by corporate overlords is a natural ally for Madeline though, tbh.)

(I really hoped this arc would explore that just a tiny bit more. The longer this conflict drags on the more convinced I become that the whole question of if it’s appropriate for Diane to lead a black firm is moot. It’s an interesting and complicated question, but with some distance from the plot, it becomes pretty clear that in this particular situation, RL isn’t a black firm. It’s a subsidiary of a large multinational corporation.)

(The show seems very aware of this and keeps having plot points like Diane using David Lee to keep her job and having Madeline call out all the awful clients they have... but it needs to go somewhere.)

(This also may be why I’m more down on the end of the season—in the middle of the season, nods at the things I’ve been thinking are appreciated references. At the end, they’re more like plotholes or reminders of the questions we should actually be spending time on.)

“Are you shitting me?” David Lee storms into the room as Liz and Diane are working. “David, we are shitting you about so many things, you’re gonna have to be more specific,” Liz responds. God, funny!Liz is maybe my favorite part of season 5?

Liz calls David out on his power, noting that he also reports to STR Laurie. So it seems like Liz and Diane can make decisions on their own, and STR Laurie can overrule them, but not stop them in advance?

This little ad about an ice cream chain is like, 15 seconds too long.

Carmen is back!!!! She’s helping Rivi sign a deal with an ice cream chain so that they’ll turn into a distributor of weed.

Why do we have to watch a SECOND commercial?

The farm wants Rivi to stop dealing other drugs if they’re going to enter into this deal.

Allegra, another character who seemingly has no qualms about representing drug kingpins, quickly impresses Rivi.

I understand why there is an interpreter for Rivi’s wife. I do not understand why the interpreter interprets conversations BETWEEN Rivi and his wife. And then he’s translating the sign language into Spanish? But also Rivi speaks fluent English in half of these scenes? WHAT is happening?

Allegra is also different from Elsbeth in that with clients, you’re NEVER going to underestimate her. You might not follow her at first, but she’ll get to the point clearly and concisely and without telling you how much she likes your lipstick.

But like at 13:44 Rivi signs something to his wife, and when she signs back the interpreter tells him what she’s saying. This is so so so clearly for the audience but I wish it had just been captions because it makes NO SENSE that the interpreter is in on this private conversation between two people who both know sign language!?

Rivi and Isabel now LOVE Allegra. Diane and Liz are like, okay!

Cop stuff happens.

Credits!!! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out indiewire’s piece on the making of the credits—it's fascinating.

Brooke directed 😀

Marissa the celebrity is signing autographs in Wackner’s court when the cops bring in some young men affiliated with Rivi.

NO, GOD NO, NOT THIS DEVIL’S ADVOCATE FUCKERY. The problem I have with the Devil’s Advocate, in addition to it being fucking annoying, is that it is also the exact opposite of what Wackner’s court is all about. Wackner is about facts and really hearing people out, and from what we’ve seen, Devil’s Advocate is about... stereotypes and pop sociology so bad it’s essentially just racism?

“These young men are the victims of a system that arbitrarily declares some drugs illegal, and others, like alcohol, not. They should be released. To hold them is to perpetuate an unfair system,” Devil’s Advocate says. Good lord, a 7th grader could write a more persuasive speech than this bullshit.

WHY IS DAVID CORD PROSECUTING THIS, WHY IS THE TRIAL ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT DRUGS HARM COMMUNITIES, WHY IS THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE SOUNDING LIKE A WHITE BOY IN AN INTRO TO SOCIOLOGY CLASS WITH HIS REFERENCES TO THE WIRE, WHY IS ANY OF THIS HAPPENING OMG MAKE IT STOP HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS BAD

Why is Marissa the court clerk being called upon to be defense, WHY IS THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE JUST SCREAMING “DEFUND THE POLICE” WHAT THE FUCK

I’m sorry, I am going to rant about this more, I truly cannot get over how fucking stupid the Devil’s Advocate is. He just starts screaming “defund the police”??? To what end?! Why does Wackner want this in his court?!

I revise what I said earlier. Devil’s Advocate isn’t just sounding a white boy in an intro to sociology class. He is sounding like a white boy who showed up to an intro to sociology class absolutely hammered.

Marissa, correctly, argues that the arrestees should be taken to Cook County. Then she hears that they work for Rivi and she knows this is bad.

Cord calling Marissa out for her firm representing Rivi: Another thing that would NEVER air on Wackner Rules.

David Lee seems surprised Liz and Diane did not get rid of Allegra. I don’t know why he is surprised, I think they made it very clear they don’t see him as an authority figure.

STR Laurie is now demanding (another) 10% in cuts to pay for Allegra. Liz says they’ll pay for her with the money that used to be for Adrian and Diane notes that Allegra has more stature than Adrian. Interesting.

David Lee then decides to be both sexist and racist for really no reason at all. Pleasant!

Showing Carmen as competent but not yet as strategic as Allegra is a really nice way to underline that Carmen is still a first year even if she is very very good.

Liz, Diane, and Allegra talk about cost cutting. Allegra is like, no, we need to spend more, which makes sense, both for the reasons she outlines and because when you bring on a powerful name partner, your need for lower level support does not DECREASE, it INCREASES.

I know this scene is meant to show Allegra thinking outside the box, but I am a bit surprised that (1) Neither Liz nor Diane push back on the 10% cut and (2) When Allegra suggests hiring back all the associates and then some, Diane seems to think Allegra doesn’t understand they’re talking about cuts? Like, obviously she knows the topic of conversation, Diane.

“We don’t run our own business. We work for a global conglomerate,” Liz notes. Yup. Right point, wrong context lol.

Diane and Liz are just too smart and strategic to have to be told ALL of this by Allegra... especially Diane, who is not only smart but also used to dealing with management.

And worse... Liz and Diane think they made a mistake with Allegra because of this? I mean, I guess if your goal is to permanently work for a big corporation that will slowly chip away at your budget because they can and to never make any waves because that might disrupt the status quo, sure, Allegra isn’t who you want! But do Diane and Liz REALLY want the status quo?

I hope they find a way out from under STR Laurie next year, as much as I hate the firm switching, because it’s just such a boring dead-end when Diane and Liz don’t actually have power or control.

OOOH I like Del asking Liz what SHE wants wrt the whole Diane situation. She says she wants to “stop fighting” and for Diane to “stop using her racist clients to keep her job” and for “the firm to be led in the right way by the right people.” So sounds like she wants to work with Diane, then? That last one is as vague as can be, but I think we can infer at this point that Liz is more concerned with stability and a work environment she likes than idealism.

God, Liz and Alicia would’ve gotten along so well as adults lmao.

Del tells Liz that “women at work always want to be thought of as nice. Women always want consensus. But you know what, baby, sometimes you just gotta say, ‘Fuck you, and you and you and you. Alright? This is my business and it’s my decision.’” I see where he’s coming from (even though this sounds like something my nemesis the Devil’s Advocate would say) but I am not sure I agree that’s Liz’s problem here.

Actually, maybe I do agree with Del. I think Del’s saying to say FU to Diane, but what Liz clearly actually wants to do is say FU to Madeline lol

Liz asks him to change the topic. Where ARE they? Is this a restaurant or an incredibly nice backyard?

Del changes the topic to how his boss wants him to come back to LA, but he wants to get Liz’s thoughts on their future. Liz asks him to start since men are better at saying what they mean (ha, love her giving him shit for that).

He basically tells her he wants to stay and she says he should stay. Aww.

Rivi’s house is... certainly something.

Isabel is concerned because three of their boys have disappeared. She, naturally, suspects they’re at police blacksites.

I’m sorry, did Marissa not elevate the Rivi case in Wackner’s court to the partners’ attention!? Rivi blames the dairy company, even though this does not... make that much sense?

This escalates into the murder of cows?? What... the fuck.

Now Marissa finds Carmen and loops her in! But only now that she knows Rivi’s looking for them and Rivi’s about to, like, kill Christian Borle’s character whose name I’ve forgotten.

Marissa’s position on this is that Wackner will just let the boys go so Rivi shouldn’t know about any of this. Rivi would just kill Wackner. And Carmen is like, Rivi will just kill Christian Borle if we don’t tell. Fair point.

Carmen, being an actual adult (sorry Marissa, I usually love you), is willing to admit when she’s in over her head, so she walks off to go get Liz for help. Yay!

Rivi is not impressed with Wackner’s court or Marissa. He and Isabel want either Carmen or Allegra. Liz says Carmen will do it, I think meaning Marissa will do it but Carmen will be client facing.

I love it when we get to see Liz just be super competent. It’s not a rare occurrence, but it’s just very, very clear in this scene how much better Liz is at handling this situation than Carmen or Marissa would’ve been and I like it when the show makes time to emphasize that even on a show full of hypercompetent people, some people are more skilled than others at handling some situations.

Liz, Diane, and David meet with STRL over Zoom. Allegra somehow pops up on the meeting but also joins as a cat because you know what the cat lawyer on Zoom needed? To be parodied on TGF. Ugh

OH MY GOD I DIDN’T PUT THIS TOGETHER SOONER BUT IT’S A CAT LAWYER YOU GUYS. This will mean NOTHING to any of you because it’s about an inside joke I have with the friend who got me into TGW, but indulge me in a little nostalgia here, ‘kay? So in like 2012, there was a trend on Tumblr where everyone would photoshop cat ears onto their favorite TV characters and my friend and I were like, why would I want to put cat ears on my favorite character, idgi. So then we started photoshopping cat ears on to the most unlikely characters and we landed on David Lee. We referred to David Lee as a cat for a really long time. Like, if we were to talk about David Lee today we would probably still call him Cat! David Lee.

Allegra starts trying to work her magic on STRL. Diane literally runs down the stairs to try to stop Allegra. I am not sure why Diane and Liz are so anti-Allegra during this conversation which is only happening so they can have the funds to keep her on board!

Allegra tries to share a burrito with Diane and Liz and says she stands by her strategy. Liz finally says she’s not sure this will work. Allegra is understanding.

I respect that. Allegra may as well go all out and see if she can make this workable.

(That said, this is pretty much the opposite of her whole staying neutral thing from earlier!)

No one is in the audience at Wackner’s court when Carmen shows up, yet the musician who I like only very slightly more than Devil’s Advocate is still on call. Just STOP.

Overall I’ve liked the Wackner arc and I’m excited to see it wrap up tomorrow, but lemme tell you: it had better wrap up tomorrow. I am NOT open to dealing with this for another season.

The musician takes orders from Cord? The cameras are rolling? Rivi is there? WHAT?

I know that NONE of this makes sense, but some things make exceptionally little sense and I just can’t.

Guys, remember the parking tickets?!

Oh, excuse me, the ice cream company is actually a yogurt company.

Rivi notes that there are three boys missing. Wackner only has two.

I am a little surprised Rivi has managed to be successful with that temper. Idk what skill set you need to be a top drug dealer, but he attacks people like three times an episode and that seems like a really good way to not build trust and to also get yourself killed?

Liz and Del talk about what happened in Wackner’s court. Liz asks how they deal with liability. I guess she isn’t Del’s lawyer, then. Del says they have releases and people want to be on TV. Liz says what I’ve been saying, which is that Rivi doesn’t want to be on TV. Del says there are ways around that and references the show Cops as though that’s enough to make this question go completely away.

Liz references The Apprentice, for those of us who didn’t catch the reference last week and/or for those of us (me!) who wanted to pretend that Wackner wasn’t somehow a commentary on Trump and star power. Ugh.

(I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad point, I just am not sure that I think it is the most interesting point about the Wackner plot.)

“Remember how we all watched and laughed and thought it was funny when they fired people?” Liz says. “We? No, no. Hmm, you... you never watched The Apprentice,” Del responds. She did not. Hahahahahaha I love this exchange. It feels very real.

Liz seems less concerned with Wackner and more concerned with Del’s eagerness to turn Wackner into a larger than life personality with a devoted following, which, yes, thank you, Liz, this is actually a much better and more interesting point!

“That came out of nowhere,” Del says. “No, it didn’t,” Liz responds, correctly.

Del talks about how Liz represents Wackner, along with murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and yet she wants to draw the line at reality show producer who makes people famous? He’s got a point, even if I’d argue that choosing a romantic partner is not the same as running a business.

“Would your firm turn down [the producer of The Apprentice] if he wanted to join the roster?” Del asks. “Good point,” Liz sighs, resigned. She’s not happy he’s right, but she knows he is.

Sigh. I already said some variation of this, but this season seems to have all the right ideas floating around, it’s just choosing the wrong ones to explore deeply and the wrong moments to mention other ones. Things like Liz worrying that someone she’s considering starting a serious relationship with might have some personality traits she doesn’t love can be done through throwaway lines that quickly come back to being about work/plot (that’s what happens in this scene, basically) and I love that. But the existence of STRL and the influence it has over whether or not RL is a black firm at some point can’t be dealt with through references. Wackner becoming increasingly off the rails can’t be turned down to a simmer after reaching boiling point. RL’s unsavory client’s can’t just come up in moments like this; they have to play into a central conflict.

Like, what good is it to constantly remind the audience that RL represents a ton of “bad guys” if you’re not going to go anywhere with that other than making Liz and Diane occasionally be like, “hmm, good point.” when called out on their client list? This could be a really, really good piece of a larger puzzle about the culture at RL, and instead it feels like it’s a card they play whenever they need some moral complexity. Just... go somewhere with it, please. Either stop pretending that RL are the good guys or have them seriously deal with their client list.

Anyway, then Liz and Del talk about his possible LA move. It’s kinda inconclusive; they talk about work just being work.

Outside of court, Carmen doesn’t believe that Wackner only has two of Rivi’s boys.

“I don’t know why you’ve been wasting so much time with this joke court, because it’s not gonna magically turn you into a real lawyer, Marissa,” Carmen lashes out. Oooo. Now this is interesting, can I have an extended version of this scene and also all the other Carmen/Marissa scenes that we should’ve gotten in the episodes Carmen was barely in?

I understand Carmen’s frustration, especially since I imagine she worked pretty damn hard to get into/get through law school. And, as fun and smart as Marissa can be, she does get bored easily, try to skip over the dull moments, and moves on and still always lands on her feet. I can see how that would rub Carmen the wrong way, especially during a stressful moment.

Carmen isn’t exactly a rule follower, but I’d say she is someone who is very conscious of the rules, and, I think someone who values structure more than she lets on (I especially see this in her decision to stay at RL instead of work independently/with Lester).

Marissa calls Jay for help!

Allegra talks to David Lee, with Liz and Diane in the background. Allegra makes her argument to David Lee again and it goes over well. I think the writers think there’s more suspense in this plot than there is; it’s pretty obvious from the start that Allegra is correct and Diane and Liz are only correct if the goal is to avoid all conflict.

What is David Lee’s role at STRL? Is there anything else in that office besides awful HR and RL? He talks like he is more RL than STRL and that doesn’t track with what we saw of STRL last year.

Marissa spots a flyer that leads her and Jay to where the missing boy is: another fake court. This was inevitable—I think one of the very first things I said was that Wackner himself seemed fine and decent, but what happens when someone else decides they, too, want to be a judge because they said so—and I’m glad to see the writers go this direction. I actually think this would’ve been an effective build after 5x07 and would’ve kept turning up the tension, so again, most of my issues with this arc lie in 5x08’s momentum killing bullshit. It’s hard to get back into this plot when they lost me last week.

Shocker: Wackner having a reality show inspired more copy cats who take cues from the show and think Marissa is a celebrity.

Vinetta, the judge of the second court, puts people in “time-out” (read: imprisons them in her basement) and... yeah, I don’t care how kind she is to them, this is not okay! The solution to the prison system is not for people to turn their basements into prisons!

I don’t know that the writers are TRYING to comment on this here, but there is definitely something to be said about communities that the legal system repeatedly fails finding alternative measures of justice.

Vinetta is nice and seems reasonable as a judge, but she also has a basement prison her judgments are influenced by her religious believes so, uh, yeah, not good!!!

Wackner, however, thinks Vinetta’s court is GREAT! He wants to go see it, because “it’s finally happening.” What’s happening? “Justice,” he says. Uhhhhhhh, no. This is just so dangerous, even if everyone involved so far seems to mean well.

I’m very curious to see how this little thought experiment wraps up (again: I say wraps up because I cannot deal with the thought of this being more than a one season arc).

One thing I love about the Wackner arc—my 5x08 issues aside—is its slow burn. The writers did a phenomenal job of getting me to take Wackner seriously at first, then slowly started to take all the things that seemed great and reasonable about Wackner’s court to their extremes (while still making his judgment on any individual topic* sound). It’s a very fun and entertaining thought experiment, and I think that’s why this arc has largely succeeded for me, even though it’s so far removed from reality.

* Exceptions to this include policing, prisons, cancel culture, and, of course, parking spaces.

#the good fight #tgf thoughts

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captainscanadian · 4 years

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Hope | Bucky Barnes x Reader (Part 6)

My Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Summary: Just when Bucky had thought he was hopeless, fate had other plans for the two of you.

Word Count: 2800+

Pairing: Doctor!Bucky Barnes x Patient!Reader

Warnings: A little angst, injury & pure dumbassery.

A/N: This fic was my entry for @wkemeup‘s 4K Writing Challenge. I would like to dedicate this part (and all others) to @dramadreamer14 because she just gets me, okay? I DON’T DO TAGLISTS!

As human beings, we all have an inherent need to experience some kind of physical contact with others. This could be a simple handshake, or the tightest hug that lasts a good minute.

In medical school, we were taught that touch deprivation could often lead to an indescribable loneliness among other mental health concerns - including depression, anxiety, sleeplessness and a lack of attachment securities.

Physical touch helps with the release of happy chemicals in our brain, and we all end up becoming a little less hopeless then we were before.

When Ethan and I broke up, I found myself having a hard time sleeping at night. I was constantly tossing and turning through the night, barely getting any sleep and regretting it by the time I made it into morning rounds.

At first I thought it was because the bed was getting cold without Ethan being there. I didn’t miss him; he was a dick and I know I deserved so much better than that cheating bastard. But something just felt so wrong, and I did not know what it was until months later.

What I hadn’t realized though, was that I was just unbelievably touch starved. I was longing to be held in someone’s arms, preferably Ethan’s at the time since the wounds were still fresh. But I was still longing. I needed the attachment security.

Looking back now, I know that I may have had more than one reason for sleeping with Dr. Winston. Some people may assume that I slept with my attending to get in on a surgery, which is partially true though, I won’t deny it. My professional endeavors do take precedence over my personal benefits. But the real reason why I did it was beyond that. I just happened to realize that I was just so fucking touch starved.

Jake knew it too.

The moral of the story though… we all need to be touched, to be held in someone’s arms, to feel loved. I don’t know if what Jake and I have is love. The strings are not really attached. But I think it is safe to say that I no longer feel deprived of touch - all thanks to him.

After all, I guess I’m not as hopeless as I thought I was.

When Rosie Bender had entered her friend’s house that evening, she had half expected to see him to be out and about the house. It came as a surprise to her that Bucky Barnes had even taken a few days off of work in the first place, as she had always assumed that he was a complete workaholic.

But she understood that after what had happened at your ten year reunion last week, he needed to take some time off to come to terms with his own emotions. After all, he hadn’t taken it all that well when she had found him crying in that parking lot after you had driven away with Pietro and Wanda.

Karma, she’d thought it was, because she remembered how she had found you crying the same way in your high school’s parking lot after your final fight in the cafeteria. It served him right for the way he had treated you, but that did not mean she could care less about him. All she could do was offer him some comfort at a time like that, even though she knew that he deserved every bit of it.

Nevertheless, when she entered his home, she had assumed that he would have made use of his time off by taking care of a few chores around the house. He had always been productive with his time.

But instead she was greeted by the house that looked more like a pig sty, while Bucky was passed out on his living room couch with a hardcover copy of Hopeless with Benefits in his hands. The first two books, Hopeless Romantic and Hopelessly in Love, were sitting atop his coffee table, along with several empty bottles of alcohol and take out containers.

“Oh… shit.” She shook her head as she made her way over to wake him up, her eyes filled with pity of all things.

Damn, he was hopeless - no pun intended. Although a part of herself was feeling shitty for not anticipating that Bucky would voluntarily take days off from work and spend his time binge-reading your books, she could not deny that he was a bit more smarter than she had given him credit. Surely, she was aware of what you had told him. He had spit it all out to her after getting a few drinks in his system.

To think that you had told him that your writing had helped you express your emotions and he had taken to the time to read your books because he wanted to feel what you had felt. Hell, that was so fucking romantic.

But she wouldn’t place her bets on you ever coming to realize that. She knew that you had made it clear about what you wanted from him, and she agreed wholeheartedly with your point of view. Perhaps, Bucky was just too late - and he was an idiot.

Rosie was quick to grab her phone and speed dial her girlfriend, noting that he was certainly in need of an intervention. “Hey, babe… I’m at your brother’s.” She frowned at the sight of him. “You need to get over here right now. He’s… he’s hopeless.”

“I can’t believe you flew all the way out here because I drunk dialed you after my high school reunion.” You called out as you poured two cups of coffee before walking out to your porch, handing one of the mugs to your unexpected visitor who had arrived at your doorstep that morning.

“I didn’t come here because you drunk dialed me.” Harry chirped as he turned over to look at you, accepting the mug from you and taking a sip. “I came here because you drunk dialed me and told me that you wanted to sell me the movie rights to your books. Considering that you’ve had me chasing you around for those rights for years, I just wanted to make sure that you were going to hold up to that deal when you were sober.”

You rolled your eyes at his words before shaking your head. “Oh fuck off, Harry.”

“No, really… that’s why I came.”

“Wanda told you, didn’t she?” You sighed as you took a sip of your coffee. “That I cried to her about my ex and his baby.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee. “She mentioned that you said something along the lines of… who gets to have a happy ending.”

“Well, I was drunk.” You admitted, laughing softly. “And I had just given Bucky a piece of my mind. I was bitter about everything.”

“As I said before, rightfully so.” He repeated, leaning against the porch and sighing. “So, if you really were serious about selling me the movie rights, does that mean you’ve finally figured out how it ends? Speaking of happy endings and all...”

You bit down on your bottom lip before shaking your head. “I don’t know how it ends, at least not yet. But I think Hope’s in a good place now. She’s home, and she’s got herself a job at the local hospital. She might be far away from Jake now, but she was doing just fine without him… and she’s surrounded by old friends and certain unwanted memories. She just needs to figure out what she wants.”

“I think she already knows what she wants.” He pointed out with a smirk on his lips. “But she’s just too stubborn to admit it.”

You raised your eyebrow at Harry, shooting him a quick glare.

“Oh come on, you know I’m right.”

“And that’s what I hate about you.” You admitted, because you knew damn well what Hope Anderson wanted.

She might not need it, but she wants it. Just like how you might not need him, but you wanted him too. You wanted him so badly, because you were one hopeless fucking romantic.

As much as you hated to admit it, your writer’s block really was getting the worst of you. Sure, you had figured out what you wanted to write when it came to the plot of the final novel. But getting there was the problem. You just did not know how to get where you wanted to be, figuratively and quite literally speaking.

Having found a hard time writing the scenes between Hope Anderson and her first love, Jason Prescott, which was meant to make up a majority of the novel, you found yourself shutting down your laptop for the umpteenth time that week and retreating to paint the rest of the house.

You had certainly used up the time that you weren’t writing to paint the majority of the interior of the house, and it was safe to say that it looked much more vibrant now that it had been when you had first arrived. But as much as you had transformed the inside of the house, the outside looked just the same. So, you figured that your next mission was to paint the exterior of your childhood home before you get hit by the winter weather.

It was quite ambitious, really. Considering that your experience in house-flipping was quite non-existent, you were quite impressed that you had done something with the place. You had added your personal touches to the house that your mother had owned with pride. Perhaps this really was your way of honouring her.

Nevertheless, you wondered if it was possible to paint the exterior of the house, given that all you had was a few buckets of paint and a ladder that you had borrowed from Nick. Not to mention that there was only one of you. Was this really a one woman’s job?

You were not going to let this discourage you, so you found yourself dressing up in several layers and climbing up the ladder to start your next painting task. What the hell were you doing?

Nick Fury had noticed you drag the ladder out to your driveway after covering up the Porsche, which was why he had found himself watching you in utter disbelief. “Is it just me or have you finally gone bonkers?”

You rolled your eyes at the old man’s words as you continued to apply a coat of primer onto the wall. ��I finished up with the inside of the house, so I thought I’d get a head start on the outside.” You responded with a shrug.

“Y/N, should I remind you that it’s the middle of November?” He scolded, crossing his arms against his chest. “Who paints the house in November?!”

“Why? Is there some cardinal rule not to paint a house in November that I don’t know about?”

You knew that the man had a point, but you were also quite stubborn… and bored. It’s not like you had any company, other than Nick.

You hadn’t been returning Rosie Bender’s calls ever since the reunion. Not that you had anything against her. You knew that she had meant well when she had invited you to the reunion, but you could not risk running into Bucky again because of her, knowing that she was dating Becca Barnes, after all.

Pietro and Wanda had left Shelbyville right after your reunion, as they did not plan on staying for Thanksgiving. You understood why they wouldn’t want to stay in this town for so long, neither would you… but what choice did you have in that matter? You had promised yourself that you would not leave town until you finished that bloody novel, and you were quite stubborn about that.

While Harry had paid you a surprise visit the other day, even he had only stayed with you for a few hours. He wanted to get back to Los Angeles and make the arrangements for you to sign off on those movie rights. He seemed very excited that you had come around, to be honest. Hopeless had been his dream project, as he had already had in mind who he wanted to cast as the leads.

“How about Anastasia Belle as our leading lady. I think she’d make a wonderful Hope Anderson.” He had suggested, causing you to raise your eyebrow at him. “I haven’t worked with her in recent years, but we do have history together.”

Anastasia Belle was now a well-known actress in Hollywood, but it was Harry who had casted her as the younger version of his leading lady in the film that gave him his big break.

“She’s like the real life Anna Scott now, isn’t she?”

“Comparing her to Anna Scott is a bit of a stretch.” He admitted. “But I do plan on casting Julia Roberts as the mother… if that tickles her fancy, of course.”

Once again, you hated this man for knowing you so well.

You had been pulled away from your thoughts when you heard the sound of a car pull up to Nick’s driveway, making the man let out a groan.

“I keep telling this kid that I don’t need him to make house calls, but Carol and Maria have got him by the neck.”

You turned over to look towards Nick’s driveway to see Bucky Barnes get out of his Mercedes, dressed in a pair of black jeans, a blue henley, and a bomber jacket. In his hands he held what looked like a medical bag and in his eyes, a twinkling smile as he leaned against his car and looked towards your driveway.

“Good morning, Nick.” He smiled at your beloved next door neighbour, his eyes curiously darting up towards you before he turned back to look at Nick in pure confusion. Why in the world were you painting your house in November?

It’s been a few weeks since he’d last seen you, and you had made yourself very clear that night. You wanted nothing to do with him, so he might as well respect your wishes despite the fact that he was longing so badly to make conversation with you.

He remembered the way you looked that night, in your jeans and your sweater, Your hair and make up looking simple yet beautiful, just like you. He could not deny that you looked gorgeous, in your denim overalls that were stained with paint, and the plaid shirt you had worn over it, he recognized it. It used to belong to your mother.

You were quick to return your gaze toward the wall and continued with your painting. You could care less about his presence, and it seemed that he was here for work. Who cared if he was standing in the driveway that was adjacent to yours, staring up at you as you did your best to avoid his eyes on you. You could feel his eyes on you.

“Dr. Barnes.” The old man cleared his throat, sensing the tension that lingered in the air as you began to paint rather aggressively in hopes of convincing yourself that you did not bother about Bucky being right there.

Nope, you did not care at all. You were just busy painting the outside of your house, and paying attention to whoever was paying a visit to your next door neighbour was none of your business.

But Nick knew you too damn well to know that you were trying to ignore your childhood best friend’s presence in your shared driveway. After all, he had heard the stories of your fallout and your resulting departure from your mother.

“She seems to be doing quite well on her own.” Nick noted. “Let’s head inside, shall we?”

Bucky gave him a nod as he followed him towards his house, but he had barely made it inside when he heard a loud thud that was followed by your shrill scream.

“Y/N!” He was quick to run towards you, seeing that you were now laying on your driveway as the ladder had toppled over.

“OH FUCKING HELL!” You cried in pain, having landed on your ankle. You had felt it twist. “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!” Your eyes glazed over at the pain, but as you laid there unable to move, you were greeted by the worried doctor who had come to your rescue.

“Y/N, are you okay?” He asked, frowning at the sight of you. “Are you hurt? How are you feeling? Talk to me…”

Perhaps it was his doctor instincts that had made him rush to your aid, but he could not deny that he hated to see you in pain.

“It’s… my ankle.” You winced, your hand clutching tightly onto his and squeezing it in hopes that the pain would go away. “I landed on my ankle and it fucking hurts.”

#kas4kwc #aj writes #hope #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes angst #doctor au #doctor!Bucky

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jtoddstrangersfic-blog · 5 years

Text

Strangers (Jason Todd x Female OC): Chapter 5

Trigger warnings: none, just some filler fluff

1,772 words

Masterlist

Rian

Rian arrived to World Literature earlier the next day, hoping to catch Jason before class started. She needed to explain why she never messaged him, and share the first draft of her article with him. She was excited to have finished it, and couldn’t think of anyone better to share her hard work with. Or anyone at all. Riley would never want to read her work, and she fell out of touch with her almost all of friends and family over the past year.

Jason walked in with Rachel and Chelsea, the trio laughing at some joke. Rian felt a pang of jealousy watching Chelsea and Rachel take their usual seats. She wanted to have friends again, to have people to laugh with. She missed being part of a group, and she felt completely isolated from everyone.

Jason was slightly shocked to see her sitting in the seat directly to the left of his, instead of the seat against the wall. She gave him a small smile, and he returned the gesture with one of his lopsided grins. He looked at her questioningly as he took his seat, one eyebrow cocked as she turned to look at him.

“I have it.” Her smile grew wider as she reached into her bag to pull out her finished article. “I was going to text you but…” She bit her lip nervously. “My notebook got kind of destroyed, and I lost your number.” Jason eyed her notebook, but didn’t comment on its pristine condition. “Here’s the first draft of my article, if you still want to read it. It’s fine if you don’t, it’s kind of a strange topic and all…” She trailed off, holding the piece of paper in her hand for him.

She felt beyond stupid. She never should have brought it up. Of course he didn’t want to-

His smile grew as his blue eyes flickered to the paper, taking it carefully in his hand.

“I would love to read your article.”

“Any comments or criticisms are welcome.” She added quickly, internal relief washing over her form. Maybe this wasn’t stupid after all. “It’s just a first draft, so it isn’t perfect. Just don’t be too harsh, okay?”

“I’m sure it’s good.” Jason brushed off her concern, giving her a reassuring smile as Dr. Cortez entered the room. “Can we read it after class?”

“We?” Rian ask, cocking her head to one side. Her heart sank when she realized he probably meant Rachel and Chelsea. She definitely didn’t want either of them to read her work; it look a lot of internal struggling to even print a copy for Jason to read.

“Yeah, you and me. Can we go somewhere so I can read it?” Rian's heart rate sped up without her consent. He wanted to spend time with her. “And then I can give you feedback right away. And maybe give you my number again.” He added that last part cautiously, watching her carefully as class began.

“Sounds like a date.” She smiled, answering before she could formulate a coherent thought, and once she said it she couldn’t take it back.

Class started before Jason could respond to her, and that made her nerves return. Little did she know there was a small smile tugging at the corners of Jason’s mouth, because he finally found the confirmation he was looking for.

Jason

Jason read the article in his hands for the third time, his eyes dancing over the words. It was short, only one and a half pages, but it really packed a punch. Rian was an incredible writer, and the article was nothing short of brilliant. It was persuasive without being outright biased, and it covered a lot of information in such few words. It was very articulate, and Jason would be surprised if the Gotham Chronicle rejected it. Hell, he would probably storm their office as the Red Hood if they rejected it.

“So?” Rian asked from her seat across from Jason. They were tucked away in a far corner of the library, hidden from the prying eyes of other students. “What do you think?”

“This is your first draft?” He asked incredulously. She nodded, and Jason could tell she was nervous with his reaction. Unsure. “This is probably the best piece of writing I’ve ever read about vigilantes in Gotham.”

“There aren’t a lot of articles about vigilantes in Gotham, is that why?” Rian joked, rolling her eyes playfully.

“No, seriously.” Jason nodded with enthusiasm. “This is a really well-written, well-thought out, well-everything piece. I would be very surprised if this isn’t published.”

A small blush crept up her face at Jason’s declaration. He beamed back at her, his eyes skimming the article once again.

“I want to give you something constructive, something to make it stronger because that’s actually helpful, but I can’t find anything. This is really well-rounded.”

“I needed to hear that.” She smiled. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Jason meant it. The more time he spent with Rian, the most complete he felt. Her presence both calmed and excited him, if that was even possible. He desperately wanted to ask her about her relationship, to ask her about the boyfriend that he knew she had, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He felt a spark with her, and he was almost certain she did too. But not certain enough to ask. “You’re a really talented writer. Why don’t you join the paper here on campus? It isn’t the same as the Chronicle, but you could easily be Editor-in-Chief or lead writer or whatever it is. You’re good.”

“I thought about it.” She admitted shyly, looking down at her hands as she leaned into the table. “But I don’t have a lot of free time, and I can’t be out too late, so it just wouldn’t work out.”

“Makes sense.” Jason nodded slowly, eyes still trained on her. He knew she was hiding something because she wouldn’t meet his gaze, but he didn’t want to press her for a better explanation. She was entitled to her privacy.

“This was fun, Jason.” She looked up, smiling at him. “But I need to go. I can’t be- late.” The smile dropped from her face as she gathered her belongings.

“Do you need a ride home?” Jason stood with her, eyes never leaving Rian’s face. He didn't admit he knew where she lived, he was hoping she would tell him so he could finally ask her about her relationship in 11F. “I really don’t mind driving you if you need a ride.”

“I would say yes, but…” She trailed off, eyes looking anywhere but Jason. He knew she usually called an Uber or walked. There was no reason for her to turn down his offer.

“But?” He drawled, hoping she would give him some kind of an explanation.

“I- I have a boyfriend.” Rian finally answered after a long pause, meeting his eyes.

“And?” Jason’s heart skipped a beat, but he worked hard to maintain his composure. “It’s just a ride. It’ll spare you the $15 it takes with an Uber.” He offered again, hoping to change her mind.

“He’s kind of- controlling. I don’t know if he’d let me.” She admitted, absentmindedly playing with the sleeves of her sweater.

“I can drop you off a block away from wherever you live. He won’t find out.” Jason offered again. He decided this would be the last time he pushed her for an answer. If she declined his invitation again, he would accept it and walk her outside to meet her car. He didn’t want to scare her away, and she seemed like the type that might get scared easily.

“Do you know where Gibson’s Coffee is?” She asked quietly, looking at Jason through her long eyelashes. He licked his lips, wanting nothing more than to cradle her face in his hands and tell her how much he loved Gibson’s. It was his favorite coffee shop in Gotham, and probably the world.

“Know it? That’s my favorite coffee shop.” He smiled back, fighting back the urge to reach out to her. “You live near there?”

“A few blocks away. You can drop me off there if you want.”

“Deal.” He nodded triumphantly, following Rian out of the library.

Jason gave her his helmet to wear, promising to deliver her to the coffee shop in one piece. After some slight protesting, Rian agreed to slip the black helmet over her head as she climbed onto the bike behind Jason. He would never admit it out loud, but he really liked seeing her in his helmet. Really really liked it.

He drove more carefully than usual, likely due to the pair of fragile arms wrapped tightly around his waist. He debated taking the long way to Gibson’s, but didn’t want his passenger to be too late getting home.

“So, how was it?” He smirked at Rian as she slid off his ride, hoping she enjoyed the quick trip as much as he did.

“Better than I expected.” She admitted, finger-combing her short hair as she returned his helmet.

“That’s what we like to hear.” Jason beamed confidently. “I suppose you don’t have time for a quick coffee break?” He looked at Rian hopefully, but knew she would likely decline his offer. “Or you could give me an I.O.U.? A raincheck?”

“A raincheck is good.” She nodded, the happy expression dropping from her face. “It’s not that I don’t want to stay, I really do. I just- it’s complicated.”

Jason offered her a small smile as a sign of reassurance that there were no hurt feelings. He watched her give a small wave before walking away in the direction of her apartment building, or rather his apartment building.

She took a few steps before turning around, hurrying toward Jason. He froze as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a heartfelt hug. He returned the gesture, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. She fit perfectly against him, and he hoped she recognized that too.

Letting her go was the hardest thing he had to do all day, and it took everything in him not to follow after her the second time. He wanted to hold her face in his hands and ask her about all her favorite books. Press his lips gently to hers when she finished. He wanted her; craved her.

He ended his day praying to a god he didn’t believe in that Rian felt the same strange pull to him that he did to her.

#strangers #jason todd #jason todd fic #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x oc #jason todd x reader #red hood #red hood x reader #red robin #dick grayson #batman #dc

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jrmcwilliam · 5 years

Text

The Real Reason the Blue Power Ranger Was Killed Off So Abruptly

The real reason Billy Cranston – The Blue Power Ranger – was killed off the 1990’s epic – Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers

David Yost

The longest running Blue Power Ranger of all time The second longest-running Power Ranger of all time The most memorable hero in my entire life - Billy, played by David Yost

“You know the funny thing about morphin’? You don’t appreciate it until you can’t do it anymore!” – Billy Cranston/David Yost

I’ve spent 25 years of my life, off and on, wondering why Billy, the greatest Blue Ranger and Superhero of all time (in my humbled opinion) left the show so abruptly and why the way they “killed” him off was so out of the blue (no pun intended). Until now, I had no idea why. Which is why technology and the internet have become such an incredible way of learning information and connecting with the entire world. The story, as I understand it, and as I read more about what happened, makes me so mad inside that it makes me want to turn back time so that he could have continued on his projected trajectory. I’ll let Billy tell you first, in his own words, what happened, and then we will discuss it further.

“Um, I, I walked off set one day, during the middle of lunch, halfway through the day, I just made a decision, I’d been thinking about it for a good week, and the reason that I walked off is because I was called a “fa**ot” one too many times. So, um, I had just heard that several times while working on the show from creators, producers, writers, directors.” -David Yost (Source – David Yost, IMBD) *-I will be sharing the entire IMBD Interview at the end of this piece.

So, let me get this straight. A creative team for one of the most prestigious stand-alone superhero franchises made one of their most talented and devoted cast members walk off the set because they continuously called him a faggot!? This, to me and a lot of other people, is absolutely flabbergasting. According to David, the creators would pull other members of the cast into a private room to ask about his sexuality. While David hadn’t known it was happening. This is too much. It was 1993. How could it have been so surprising that a cast member was gay to a bunch of artistically inclined producers? Furthermore, why would it have caused them to belittle him about it and isolate him within the team that he worked in? This is what David said,

“And I know that my co-stars were called in a couple of times to different producers’ offices and questioned about my sexuality, which is kind of a humiliating experience to hear that and to find that out.” -David Yost (Source – David Yost, IMBD)

I cannot believe that this happened during the production of a television show that would go on to teach me and the rest of my generation how to be fair to everyone as individuals, work as a team, respect our planet, help others, and ultimately save the world. This show made me who I am today. What I’m starting to realize is that maybe it was the actors all along that taught me these things. I mean, I must give the writers their due credit, but I will not be about to credit them for ultimately pushing out the best part of the show, in my eyes. Billy was my hero. Billy was the one I inspired to be. Is the one I inspire to be. When we watch these shows as children, we interact with the shows as if we were in them ourselves. We become friends with the characters, and we aspire to be them. We truly believe that we can be them. We do carry that into adulthood and throughout our lives. We never forget. Never…forget.

I am a gay man. I never even knew that Billy/David was even gay! (though, I don’t believe Billy was a gay character. I’m starting to think otherwise) It didn’t matter to me. I mean, I was seven when Power Rangers came out, but it was only another year of my life before I knew I was gay. If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have continued watching the show and then devoted my time, instead, to fighting a battle worth fighting right along-side my real hero – David Yost.

This is something else David said,

“It’s not that people can’t talk about me and have their opinion about me, but continuing to work in an environment like that is really difficult, and I myself was struggling with who I was or what I was, and to be …made fun of on some level or to be stereotyped or put into a category in sort of saying ‘you’re not’ – basically, I just felt like I was continually being told that I’m not worthy of where I am because I’m a gay person and I’m not supposed to be an actor and you can’t be a superhero.” -David Yost (Source – David Yost, IMBD)

Let’s let that sink in for a bit. Just replay it in your mind – “I’m not supposed to be an actor and you can’t be a superhero.” This blows my mind. And not in a great way. In a flabbergasted kind-of-way. Can’t be a superhero. Well, if anything, it makes him more of a superhero to me that he would give up his place as a leading Superhero just to be able to tell my generation that it is not okay to allow people to tell you what you can and cannot be just because of who you are, and/or what you are. Because it’s not. It’s not okay. He was, is, and always will be The Superhero in my mind. Billy Cranston, the Blue Power Ranger, will always be my Superhero of choice. Why? Because he was nerdy and smart. He wasn’t a karate genius. He didn’t have the brick-shit-house body that the other Rangers had. He was exactly who he was and still managed to be an integral part of an incredible team of Superheroes that saved the world. Gay or not – he was the sole reason that the team was able to modernize, communicate, and understand their purpose. So, what in the hell did they mean when they told him that he would never be an actor or a Superhero?

I vividly remember watching this very episode where they killed off Billy Cranston. I gasped. As did my friends. It came out of nowhere. In fact, Billy was to go on for much longer alongside Tommy and Jason. So why would he so suddenly be taken out of the show? But it was the 90’s. We didn’t have immediate access to news about things like this. This moment broke the kid’s hearts and we were supposed to just sit around and accept it. It was so sad that it wasn’t long after Billy’s demise (David’s demise) that I stopped watching the show. Tommy Oliver was also a leading hero in my life, but it wasn’t enough. I was an aspiring Power Ranger because of Billy. And Billy was never to return. I was heartbroken. And I didn’t even get the courtesy of understanding why.

This story is something I am greatly passionate about. I really hope one day to meet David Yost at a Comic Con. I hope one day to be able to shake his hand and tell him how grateful I am that he helped shape the person I became and continue to grow into. I hope, one day, that kids will get to see their heroes in the way that they are supposed to – just like them. I hope one day, that these pathetic judgments dissipate into thin air. I really do. I hope one day that we can all move on from these stereotypes and isolations. I really do hope that one day we can all just be free to be ourselves without having to worry about what someone else is thinking about it. Unless we choose to go onto American Idol, there is no need to have people judge you for being who you are.

David Yost will always be in my heart, soul, and mind because he was the one that taught me to always do your best, give it your all, and allow people to come around and realize that you are worthy of being on the team. He taught me that being who I am is worthy of anything I set my mind to. Whether that be an actor, a human or – A Superhero.

As promised, here is the full interview with David Yost via IMBD: (I have copied and pasted it so that it is 100% quoted from him)

[Being asked on why he left the Power Rangers franchise] That's a good question and it's actually a really serious question for me, so if I cry, I apologize in advance. All that me getting old and going off to some foreign planet or something ... I don't know - I wasn't there for any of that. I don't know anything about it, I've never watched the episodes. Um, I, I walked off set one day, during the middle of lunch, halfway through the day, I just had made a decision, I'd been thinking about it for a good week, and the reason that I walked off is because I was called "f***ot" one too many times. So, um, I had just heard that several times while working on the show from creators, producers, writers, directors. It's not that people can't talk about me and have their opinion about me, but continuing to work in an environment like that is really difficult, and I myself was struggling with who I was or what I was, and to be ... made fun of on some level or to be stereotyped or put into a category in sort of saying 'you're not' - basically, I just felt like I was continually being told that I'm not worthy of where I am because I'm a gay person and I'm not supposed to be an actor and you can't be a superhero. And I know that my costars were called in a couple of times to different producers' offices and questioned about my sexuality, which is kind of a humiliating experience to hear that and to find that out. So there was just a lot of issues; it just felt like a bad marriage. And I could either stay and do the second movie and finish six more months of the show or just - I don't know, I guess I was kind of worried about my life. I was worried that I might take my own life. So in order for me to get a handle on what was going on, I needed to leave when I left. And so that's sort of why I left the show.

Please stop judging people for who they are. Please stop making people feel isolated because they are different from you. Please allow people that could really change your life, be your best friend, and really do some good for the world. Allow it. Because it could be the best thing you ever did.

Remove the negativity and move into the reality of freedom. We all want freedom. We all want to help. We all want to do good. We all want to just be. Just be.

You are beautiful no matter what they say. Live it. Inspire.

Thank you for listening,

Allow this story to help you become a better you.

JR McWilliam

Credits

David Yost – for being honest and sharing your story. I am at least one person who will share this story and continue to fight this battle with you – because some battles are necessary and should be fought. But much like the expectation of the Power Rangers, I will not instigate these fights and I won’t use my powers for my own gain.

IMBD – for the interview. I would never have known this story without it. I have done my absolute best to make sure I didn’t paraphrase.

Google Images – to a multitude of artists and the original photographs from the show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers circa 1993-1996, thank you.

The Artists – thank you for continuing to capture the beauty of the Power Rangers – you are recognized and appreciated.

Note

*-This has not been approved by David Yost or the creators of the Power Rangers. If I was able to communicate this with them my life would be much different. But I hope I have only stated facts, my opinion to the best of my ability, and done David justice by sharing this story. -To the creators, producers, and writers of the Power Rangers – please know that I forgive you, you were clearly misinformed. All I can hope is that you go on with your careers and your lives without ever making that same mistake again.

JR McWilliam

#bluepowerranger #blue power ranger #power rangers #powerrangers #mmpr #mighty morphin power rangers #saban #homophobia #billy #billy cranston #davidyost #david yost #bullying #the real story

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protectjugheadjonesiii · 7 years

Text

The Reader and the Writer (Part 2)

Part one here

Anon requests: can you please do a part two of "The reader and the writer"? i'm shook, lost and now stressed over who she really is

The Reader and the Writer is amazingggg! Are u gonna do a part 2?? I wanna read more!!

could you do a part 2 of the reader and the writer, i'm obsessed!!!

Is there going to be a part 2 for The Reader and the Writer? Can there be a part 2? I loved it by the way :)

PART TWO OF THE READER AND THE WRITER PLEASE OMFG

Omigod, I love your Reader and Writer imagine soooooo much, are you going to write a part two??

OK PLEASE WRITE A PART TWO TO THE READER AND THE WRITER IS WAS SO GOOD!

Wtf?!? The reader and the writer is honestly amazing! I love it 😍 2pt maybe? I wanna know what happens with the reader and Jason

I love love love the reader and the writer, if you aren't too busy could you please update it with a second part soon? I can't bear to be left for days without knowing what Jughead found 😂 thanks x

Will there be a part 2 of "the reader and the writer"? Its really good! I hope you will write more of it!

I love this new jughead imagine ! Are you writing a part 2 ?

OH MY GOD PART 2 ASAP

I really love your writing! I'm very excited about part 2 for the Reader and the writer

part 2 of "The Reader and the Writer" ?? it's greattt 😭

please do a part 2 of the reader and the writer!@@@ I need more!

Can you please do part two or the reader and writer?!?! It is so good!!

The reader and the writer was amazing and i got too attached. Part 2 please if you don't mind.

Pairing: Jughead x Reader

Description: A confrontation ensues between the reader and the writer

Warnings: none

Word count: 887

A/N: I’m glad you guys liked the first part so much! Enjoy part 2!

(Y/N) didn’t return to Pop’s. Every night, Jughead sat in his normal booth typing on his computer, but his eyes constantly flicked up towards the entrance. His friends noticed his shift in attitude.

“Jug,” Archie sat across from him, “you gotta snap out of this.”

“Out of what?” Jughead asked monotonously, rolling his eyes. “I’m fine, Archie.”

“I know you like to sit here and brood all mysteriously,” Veronica interjected, “but this is sad. Just call (Y/N).”

“(Y/N)?” he scoffed. “This isn’t about (Y/N).” When the entire table sent him disbelieving looks, he sighed and looked out the window. “I already called her.”

“How many times?” Kevin asked with a smirk. Jughead sighed again, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

“Every night.” Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Kevin all shared a knowing glance. “I know what you guys are thinking and no, it’s not like that. I’m not some pathetically smitten person, okay?”

“Okay, Jughead,” Betty said, but rolled her eyes. “If you insist.”

To say (Y/N) felt guilty would be an understatement. From the moment she stomped out of that diner, regret gnawed at her inside out. Without the consistency of her nightly stops in Pop’s, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She spent every night after school in her room sulking. Every night, her phone rang, lighting up with Jughead’s name. She was tempted to answer it every night, her finger hovering over the answer button, but then she turned away and ignored his call. (Y/N) missed Pop’s: she missed the delicious foods, the quiet yet comforting atmosphere, and the person who sat across from her in their usual booth.

One day, Jughead sat with an uneaten burger in front of him, laptop closed. Today had been an especially slow day, both in Jughead’s mind and Pop’s. Suddenly, a jingle of the bell signaled that someone new entered the diner. Jughead sat up a bit to see who it was. When he identified the new customer, he perked up immediately. Grabbing a book, he shot up and walked over to the table where she had just sat down.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N),” he said, slamming down the book in front of her, “is an author from the 18th century. She wrote four novels, all of them published under an alias at first. It was not until two hundred years later that the true author was discovered. She has been dead for over two hundred years, and she is most certainly not you.” (Y/N) looked up at him with wide eyes.

“What, I can’t have the same name as someone else?” she fired back, but there was a waver in her voice. Jughead glared as he sat down across from her.

“You see, I would think that, too,” Jughead responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “but I searched for you online, and I couldn’t find anything on you. Not one thing.”

“I like to keep my life private. I don’t publish stuff about me online.”

“Yeah, but there’s something about everyone on the world wide web if you look hard enough,” Jughead explained, his voice accusingly sharp. “Now I have two theories: one, you’re a very experienced hacker, and you’ve gone and wiped all information regarding you off the internet; or two, you’re hiding something, and you’re using a dead unpopular author’s name to keep your real identity a secret. Personally, I’m choosing the latter, considering how well-read you are.” (Y/N) stared at Jughead with sad, wide eyes. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I wasn’t,” she whispered. Jughead clenched his jaw and shook his head.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, standing up. He began to walk away when (Y/N) shot up from her seat.

“I was born in Riverdale,” she called out to him. Jughead stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around.

“What?”

“I was born in Riverdale,” she repeated slower. Jughead neared the table and sat down across from (Y/N).

“So what?”

“So I-,” she started, “I can’t- I can’t just tell you everything.” Jughead rolled his eyes and began to push his chair out when (Y/N) placed her hand on his, her eyes silently begging him to stay. “If you care, you’ll trust me.”

“What makes you think I care?” Jughead demanded, and (Y/N) couldn’t help but notice how he didn’t move his hands out from under hers.

“Because you called?” she offered, causing Jughead to sit up a little straighter. “You called me every night, Jug.”

“I was worried,” he muttered, looking away. (Y/N) smiled, patted his hand, and stood up.

“Keep writing, Jughead. See you around.” Spinning on her heel, (Y/N) grabbed her copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and exited the diner. Jughead’s eyes followed her figure out until the door closed behind her. Then he pulled out his laptop and started to furiously type.

“And so, a little light shined on the dark mystery of Riverdale’s (Y/N) (Y/L/N) like the calm before the storm. The writer becomes the reader, the reader becomes the read. I found myself hooked on her just from a little information, like a drug addict craving his fix. New girls can never hide in a small town like Riverdale, but God, I knew (Y/N), in all her enigmatic splendor, would lurk in the shadows of this town for as long as she possibly could.”

Part 3 here Part 4 here

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miragerules · 5 years

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I suppose it is a both good and bad that Tumblr had so many fandoms and Shippers on its site. People find other people who love a show, character or a couple as much as they do, and then they can talk, share fan art/fanfiction, and support one another. That is the good part of Tumblr.

However the unfortunate bad part of Tumblr is this rabbid fandom sometimes leads to blind hate if thing don't go your way on a show or in a film. I am not going to get in all the ways fandoms can be bad. You can just look around on Facebook, Twitter and here on Tumblr.

One way upset fandoms try to destroy a show when a show or ship does not govthe way you want is to blame the writers saying the writing is terrible even though the writing was really good, and has been good if not excellent for 8 seasons. That is apparently what is happening inside the Game of Thrones fandom with fans of certain characters or ships. I am a fan and a shipper. I do ship or have shipped Root/Shaw (Person of Interest), Jason/Elizabeth (General Hospital), Katniss/Peeta (Hunger Games), Geralt/Triss (Witcher games), Bruce/Natasha or Matt Murdock/Natasha (Marvel Films/Marvel Comics) to name a few and I love tones of characters like Tyrion, Jamie, Davros, Arya, and Jon on Game of Thrones.

However I don't let that love of a ship or character ruin my love of a show or film just because said film or series does not go the way I want it to especially if show or film is still good if not excellent like Game of Thrones. One example is Bruce/Nat. Bruce and especially Nats story arcs throughout the Marvel films were not handled that well, but that disappointment does not blind me to how pretty good to great Endgame was and the Marvel films were. As for the Game of Thrones fandom I guess people have not truly read the books or have really watched deeply into each episode of Game of Thrones or cetain Game of Thrones fans would not be complaining nearly as much. Of course I am not happy with everything on Game of Thrones. Many times in season 7 and 8 the writing felt rushed like the writers decided how can they end the show as quickly as possible. HBO could have drawn the series out for a 9th or 10th season to make itva fuller fleshed out experience to reach the point we are, but that complaint does not change the fact the producers, directors, and writers still have consistently done a good job with the series. Do not let you fandom and shipper disappointment blind you to that fact.

Wow I talked for a long time when all I wanted to do was share a link/review by the A.V. Club that does an excellent job of getting into last nights episode of Game of Thrones. Still it felt good venting a little bit.

Any way below is the full review of "The Bells" I copy and pasted from the link above. Hopefully the fans who are blindly bashing last nights episode will have a better understanding of the episode and series in general.

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Westeros faces a disastrous final battle on the penultimate Game of Thrones

By Alex McLevy

Yesterday 9:20pm

Well, this all seems...horrible.

It’s not that Tyrion’s plan worked, exactly. Jaime didn’t make it to Cersei in time, didn’t give the order to ring the bells and surrender the city. But his hopes nevertheless came to fruition; the soldiers of King’s Landing surrendered, throwing down their swords, the bells rang out, and all was won. Or so it seemed. Immediately thereafter, Daenerys Targaryen ignored the sound of supplication and laid waste to the city, burning innocents by the thousands, bringing half the buildings crumbling to the ground, all while Grey Worm led a bloodthirsty slaughter of the populace, far beyond the soldiers forced to abruptly pick their swords back up and defend themselves. It was cruel, capricious, and wholly avoidable. Varys, sad to say, was right.

GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8

A-

"The Bells"

EPISODE

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls,” goes the famous paraphrasing of John Donne’s sermon. “It tolls for thee.” The bitter truth of this aphorism—that the loss of any life is a loss for all—gets a brutal workout in the aptly named “The Bells,” arguably the best representation of George R.R. Martin’s deconstruction of fantasy tropes we’ve seen in several seasons. The bells of King’s Landing, it turns out, don’t toll for the loss of Cersei’s authority. They toll for the loss of everyone in the city, quite literally. This story began as a way to invert the cliched stereotypes of the hero’s journey, to twist the traditional narrative of swords and sorcery in a radical way and rethink how such epics are delivered. This episode brings that philosophy home. There are no good wars; any battle that begins with hearty cheering should end with somber melancholy; it doesn’t matter who the good guys and bad guys are in the face of death; nobody wants to die; the chaos of war makes villains and victims of us all.

The simplest rejoinder to all of Daenerys’ justifications is that this bloodshed could have been avoided. She was given a moment to choose, and she chose blind vengeance, the kind that eliminates any benevolence she hoped to bring to the seven kingdoms by burning it right out of the minds of anyone who saw her astride Drogon, mowing down men, women, and children with abandon. It gives the lie to her name for this fight, “The Last War.” There will be another, of course—maybe it will be led by the child who watched as her mother’s throat was cut in the streets by the so-called liberators of King’s Landing. Violence begets violence, and the only people still remaining will do the very thing that the living were fighting to preserve during the battle against the Night King: They’ll remember, and keep the memory of this bloodbath alive.

The progression from exhilarating hope to tragic denouement was skillfully executed by director Miguel Sapochnik, demonstrating a much better command of large-scale choreography here than we got to see in “The Long Night.” Honestly, the pivot from “fuck yeah!” (Daenerys laying waste to the Iron Fleet, then blasting the front gate of the city open from the inside, demolishing the lion’s share of the Golden Company in the process) to “Oh, dear god, no” (Dany and Grey Worm laying waste to everything after) was as solid a rug pull as could be hoped for. The build-up to Daenerys’ heel-turn this season hasn’t been as effective as it should have been given the way its foundation was laid during the mess in Meereen in previous seasons, and it was a bit simplistic to see her pin her sole hopes for optimism on the idea that Jon Snow still wanted to get it on with her (really? “Fear it is, then” because your nephew doesn’t have sex with you any more?), but Emilia Clarke sells the desperation. The younger Targaryen feels as though she’s lost any intimacy that tethered her to compassion and humanity, and so all that remains is the imperious need to rule that has driven her all these years, now bereft of the warmth that previously tempered her. When she hands Grey Worm Missandei’s old collar and he tosses it into the fire, Dany’s last thread of empathy burns as well, snuffed out even before Jon rejects her and ends her last-ditch plea for affection.

Varys would hate to have been proven right, but probably not as much as Tyrion hates himself right about now. After the Master Of Whisperers starts composing his written testimony about Jon being the rightful heir to the throne, Tyrion turns on his old friend and offers him up to Dany. It’s unsettling to see the presumable queen’s first assumption be that someone has betrayed her, but it’s even more telling that her first guess as to the betrayer’s identity is Jon. Varys even leans on Jon to assume the Iron Throne, which means he very well knew he wasn’t going to be around much longer, if he’s openly advocating others commit treason as well. But Tyrion can’t let Varys die thinking it was anything but their conversation, admitting to the spymaster that he turned him in. The moment when Tyrion firmly grabs his friend’s arm just before Dany utters the cue for Drogon to burn the eunuch alive is affecting, because it conveys both how much Tyrion cares for his friend, and also how much this is costing him. He’s pinning everything on his new queen, in hopes she’ll do exactly the opposite of what she does. (“I hope I deserve this, I truly do,” Varys even offers.) Whoops. The best of intentions, and all that.

Instead, Tyrion’s last genuine connection turns out to be his final conversation with his brother. Peter Dinklage and Nicolaj Coster-Waldeau have always had good chemistry, and Tyrion springing his brother free in what turns out to be a futile hope of preventing bloodshed and saving his sibling’s life is affecting in a way that Dany and Jon’s exchange lacks. “Cersei once called me the stupidest Lannister,” Jaime admits, and his world-weary resignation pairs well with Tyrion’s frantic hope for keeping his older brother alive. Commanding Jaime to try and escape with Cersei through the underground tunnels in order to escape to Pentos and start a new life—while ringing the bells of surrender on their way out, of course—gives the two one final chance to embrace. Tyrion’s tears contain the symbolic weight of his whole life; he wouldn’t be here if not for Jaime, as he admits, and his last hope is to give the man who risked everything to help him survive the same chance. Tyrion knows it’s a death sentence from Daenerys to betray her in this way, but he no longer cares.

And Jamie’s arc takes him from the heart of our heroes’ campaign to the arms of Cersei Lannister, with a brief stop along the way to put an end to Euron Greyjoy. The gleefully sadistic killer pushes Jaime into a fight, telling him that he slept with Cersei, and after a protracted struggle, even sinks his blade into Jaime’s side. But it turns out that a metal hand can be valuable in battle, after all, and Jaime uses it to help sink his own sword into Euron’s stomach. The irony of the manic Greyjoy’s final thoughts—“I’m the man who killed Jaime Lannister”—isn’t just that no one is around to bear witness. It’s that Jaime doesn’t die by his hand, but rather the crumbling bricks of the Red Keep.

Those final minutes with Cersei and Jaime are strong, mostly for how they upend the expected revelry of seeing one of the show’s true villains get her comeuppance. Stripped of all bravado, Cersei breaks, and shows the very scared, vulnerable woman who has kept her emotions at bay. “I don’t want to die,” she whimpers, “Not like this.” It’s all the more moving for coming from a character who built her identity on steely resolve and contempt for such hoary conceits as fear. The staging of their reunion is superb: Cersei standing on the map she created of Westeros, reeling as the citadel comes falling down around her, while the one man who actually still cares for her helps her sink beneath the surface of the city for a few moments of closeness before death. The odds were never good she was going to survive, but in being buried under the rubble of her failed ambition, she achieves a kind of pathetic grace in her downfall.

But enough pathos. On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum: CLEGANEBOWL! It’s the match the show has been teasing almost from the beginning, and overall, it didn’t disappoint. The Mountain versus the Hound played out entertainingly, with the elder Clegane still outmatching his younger brother pound for pound and blow for blow. Being turned into a walking zombie of sorts didn’t just amplify his strength; it essentially obviated the need to parry blows, as even Sandor sinking his sword deep into his undead brother didn’t seem to slow him down in the slightest. There’s a tense, horrifying moment when it looks like we’re going to get a replay of the Viper’s fate, as the Mountain starts to push his thumbs into Sandor’s eyes, and I cringed, awaiting the head crunch. But Sandor shoves his knife through his brother’s head, and when that doesn’t stop him, he sacrifices himself to kill his sibling, knocking them from the tower and plunging into the blazing fire below. R.I.P., Sandor Clegane and your malevolent brother.

Better still, all that time spent with Arya and Sandor Clegane pays off in an unexpected manner, as the Hound warns the youngest Stark off her single-minded devotion to her kill list. Rather than heading up to kill Cersei, he brings Arya up short with a pointed question: “Do you want to be like me?” In that moment, he reminds her of everything she still has that he doesn’t: Family. Friends. A purpose beyond murderous retribution. He brings her back to a moment akin to her disavowal of the House Of Black And White (“A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell, and I’m going home.”), pushing her to realize she still has reason to live. It’s in keeping with her character: Arya has always been the one to learn lessons where others might stubbornly plunge ahead (and she paid a serious price when she didn’t), employing boldness and caution in equal measure. Clegane gives her one last gift: Cersei is going to die regardless. No reason Arya should die with her.

Besides, Arya had one more, vital role to serve this episode. She becomes the audience stand-in to bear witness to the horrors of war. For those of us who haven’t read A Song Of Ice And Fire, this nonetheless feels like the most vivid display of the philosophy Martin has been playing with since the start. Death, in the early seasons, was always harsh and brutal and often unfair. For the first time in a long time, it was again. Everywhere she turns, Arya sees scared families, dying in awful ways. The woman who helps her survive, pulling her to her feet, dies screaming, holding her daughter as Dany burns them alive. A more evocative demonstration of the cost of the North’s fealty couldn’t be imagined.

Jon, watching the chaos unfold, is in shock. A Stark in spirit if not blood, he comes to the aid of a woman before she’s raped by a fellow soldier, but mostly, he’s struck dumb by the needless violence playing out around him, eventually able to do little more than exhort everyone to fall back and flee the city. Arya, conversely, springs into action on a smaller scale, as she always has. She tries to save people, even if it’s just those who helped her. As the show nicely mirrors the beats of Sandor and Arya’s struggles, cutting between them as if one body, the difference comes in Arya’s moment of aid: the woman’s hand reaching out to pull her up. Arya Stark is saved by a random woman who then dies horribly at the hand of the woman to whom her brother has pledged allegiance.

As she rides a horse out of the city, Game Of Thrones only has one episode remaining, but the hopes of the future ride away with Arya as well. Daenerys has become the person it was believed she wouldn’t be, and both Jon and Arya observe the terrible results of that transformation. By the end, Arya, half-blind and coughing up the dust of the city’s remains (and the remains of the bodies all around her), gets a front row seat to the carnage wrought by Daenerys Targaryen. Riding her dragon and leveling fire at friend and foe alike, regardless of intent, the Mother of Dragons comes across for all the world like a vengeful deity, a god of death reigning down fire upon the world. And what does Arya Stark say to the god of death?

Stray observations

R.I.P. Qyburn. The most loyal confidante of Cersei Lannister receives the ignoble death of being thrown headfirst into rubble by a grouchy Mountain, annoyed at being told to obey his queen.

It’s a gorgeous shot of Tyron entering the city, the camera registering a static image from behind him as he stands in the blown-out rubble of the city wall, watching the devastation unfold.

Again, Sapochnik’s direction was so much more assured and elegant here. His depiction of the spatial geography of King’s Landing was excellent, ably showing the massive distance between where Jon, Davos, and Grey Worm confronted the surrendering soldiers and the Red Keep far in the distance. Touches like that help to convey the scale and layout of the conflict in a more emotionally satisfying manner.

I quite liked Jaime being denied entrance to the Keep as Arya and Sandor passed through just ahead. Forcing him to go all the way around, essentially missing everything and receiving a mortal blow by coincidence from the unexpected appearance of Euron, helped keep a sense of frustrated expectations to the goings-on—sometimes, things just don’t go your way.

Dany’s words to Tyrion turn out to be far too prophetic: “It doesn’t matter now.”

What do you think the favor was that Tyrion asked for from Davos? My first guess was the orchestration of men sneaking into the city to ring the bells, but I’m far from confident about that.

I’m very pleased to report that I have very little clue what’s going to happen in next week’s series finale. I have some guesses about what could happen, but this episode was a refreshing tonic to the sometimes conservative mode of traditional heroics Benioff and Weiss have been dishing up this season.

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 5 years

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Marketing 101: Everything you need to know

If you’ve found your way to our blog chances are you work in marketing or you want some help with your marketing. But whether you’re an experienced marketer or a rookie we hope you’ll find something useful in this post.

This is our marketing 101 – an introduction to marketing. We’ve got a lot to cover so here’s a quick summary of what you’ll find if you keep reading:

CHAPTER ONE: A brief history of marketing

Okay, let’s not get carried away. We’re not starting with sponsored cave paintings. But we’ll take a look at some of the principles of marketing and how marketing has changed over the past 20 years.

CHAPTER TWO: Building a marketing team

Next we’ll get into the different skills you’ll want access to in order to run effective marketing campaigns. To make this a little more interesting we’ve staffed your marketing department from the cast of the Avengers. We’ll also look at in-house versus outsourcing. And we’ll highlight some of the bear traps to avoid when working with third parties.

CHAPTER THREE: Marketing tactics and strategies

The third and final section will take a whistlestop tour through the most popular marketing tactics and strategies. We’ll cover content creation, SEO, social media marketing and email. And also run through the different challenges and opportunities at each stage of the marketing funnel.

“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.” Mark Twain

CHAPTER ONE: A brief history of marketing

via GIPHY

It’s hard to imagine a marketing campaign today that doesn’t involve one or both of Google and Facebook. Marketing though is as old as the hills. But we’ll save the marketing trends of ancient Rome for another blog post. Here we’ll stick to the more recent history.

First, let’s define what we mean by marketing. The Oxford English Dictionary defines marketing like this:

“The action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.”

HubSpot, the marketing automation platform, has a more in-depth definition, which we prefer:

“Marketing is the process of getting people interested in your company’s product or service. This happens through market research, analysis, and understanding your ideal customer’s interests. Marketing pertains to all aspects of a business, including product development, distribution methods, sales, and advertising.”

And if you didn’t like either of those, here are no fewer than 72 definitions of marketing. Something for everyone in there.

Like David Packard (the “P” in HP) said: “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department”. It’s not a bolt-on or an after-throught. At least, it shouldn’t be. Marketing is something that should be woven into the fabric of an organisation.

Philip Kotler, regarded by many as the father of modern marketing, describes marketing as “the art of creating genuine customer value”. Professor Kotler has published close to 60 books on marketing since the 1970s. Something he’s written and spoken about extensively is the different marketing orientations that have captured the attention of marketers and business leaders over the years. As this is the history chapter let’s dive into that.

Marketing philosophies, concepts and orientations

There are a whole bunch of models and frameworks for analysing different approaches to marketing through the decades. We’re going with a popular one: the five marketing concepts as set out by Graeme Drummond and John Ensor (descriptions are our own):

The Production Concept: This stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap approach emerged during the industrial revolution. The idea is that supply creates its own demand. Companies should focus on scale and efficiency, because what consumers want is easily-available, affordable products. The priority for marketing is raising awareness. There is still plenty of evidence of this approach in practice today.

The Product Concept: This one is in many ways a reaction to the Production Concept. Rather than price and availability the focus here is quality. Companies build their strategy and marketing campaigns around their product’s quality, performance and features.

The Selling Concept: We could sum up this one as: “churn and burn”. The idea is to aggressively chase down every deal and prioritise short-term sales numbers over everything else.

The Marketing Concept: This orientation treats the customers a little less like sheep and instead puts them at the heart of the strategy. The Marketing Concept is about understanding what the customer wants. And then creating a marketing plan that speaks to those needs more effectively than your competition.

The Societal Concept: This final orientation builds on the Marketing Concept. The needs of the customer are still paramount. But it also considers the wider impact of the organisation’s activities on the environment, community and natural resources.

Marketing in the digital age

You don’t have to work in marketing to be aware that the internet has been a huge disruptor in the marketing space. The internet has changed how people work, shop, entertain themselves and interact with one another. No industry has escaped the internet’s winds of change, but few have felt them as keenly as marketing.

Let’s take a look at where marketing dollars have been doing over the past 20 years. Back in 1999, we were all worrying about the Millennium Bug, the Backstreet Boys were number one and “The Matrix” had just come out. Marketing looked very different.

Fewer than 300 million people had access to the internet. As a result, television, print and outdoor advertising gobbled up the lion’s share of marketing budgets.

Fast forward to 2019 and we still have the Backstreet Boys. But the global internet population has exploded to 4.3 billion, according to Internet World Stats. This is what happened to ad spend over that period, courtesy of Zenith Media, an ad agency.

You can see that online ads have now eclipsed other channels. Outdoor was the first to go in 2005, followed a year later by radio. Print, which has lost the most market share to digital, went in 2013. Television spend has been growing, driven by a renaissance in content quality. But even that was overtaken by online spend in 2016. Zenith predicts that 2019 internet ad spend will top USD $274 billion.

But these headline numbers don’t tell the real story. This is really about the two companies we mentioned in our introduction. Two companies the Backstreet Boys wouldn’t even have heard of when they were working on the lyrics to “I Want It That Way”.

Facebook first. Last year, the world’s largest social media network made USD $55 billion from advertising. That’s around a fifth of global online ad spend, but really it’s small potatoes. According to its parent company, Alphabet, our favourite search engine, Google, raked in more than USD $116 billion in 2018 from its ad products.

CHAPTER TWO: Building a marketing team

via GIPHY

Okay, we admit “how [insert product or service] is like [insert pop culture reference]” content is a massive cliche. But they went to a lot of effort with Avengers: Endgame (it cost USD $400 million) and you won’t hear about much else over the next couple of weeks. So, we’re doing it. Marketers, assemble!!

Web Design and UX: Tony Stark/Iron Man

As the man himself said in the first Avengers movie: “I just pay for everything and design everything, make everyone look cooler.” Most web designers don’t have to pick up the tab. But they are essential when it comes to getting your marketing reality to match your vision.

What you’re looking for here is a techie who doesn’t just know how to build what you want but can also bring their own UX knowledge to your marketing campaigns. Tony has a bit of an ego that needs managing, but all the best hires do.

Analytics: David Banner/Hulk

Miss your numbers and he’ll turn green and demolish the office. But that’s a small price to pay in order to have your biggest brain crunching the numbers. Analytics are crucial to successful marketing. From understanding what your data is telling you to making the case for more budget.

You want someone who’s comfortable, not just with Google Analytics, but also whatever social media pages and third party tracking tools you’re using.

Creative: Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow

If you don’t have any actual super powers you have to get creative. Not the most tenuous link you’ll see in this month’s Endgame-inspired marketing blog deluge.

Ms Romonoff will add flair and the imagination you need to set your marketing campaigns apart from the competition. She’ll be able to turn her hand to design and video or find people who can. And she’ll come up with original and compelling ideas for packaging, presenting and promoting your key messages.

Writing: Thor

“Families can be tough. Before my father died, he told me I had a half-sister … that he imprisoned in Hell. Then she returned home, and stabbed me in the eye, so … I had to kill her. It’s life, isn’t it, I guess. I feel your pain.”

The God of Thunder has a way with words and got most of the best lines in “Avengers: Infinity War”, so look no further for your writer.

With such a premium on original content – and lots of it – you’ll always have plenty for your writer or writers to do. From turning out blogs and crafting new landing pages to snappy ad copy and engaging emails with clickable subject lines.

Editor: Clint Barton/Hawkeye

A poor man’s Jason Bourne, maybe. But he has an eye for detail. So, Clint Barton is your first choice for editor. It will be the editor’s job to ensure your campaigns fit the brief and that your brand guidelines are properly observed at all times.

Strategy and Project Management: Steve Rogers/Captain America

Experience is a vital element on any team. And how often do you get the chance to hire someone from America’s greatest generation?

Cap is a shoo-in for the strategy and project management role. You need someone who commands respect at all levels within the organisation. A stickler for doing things properly and ensuring deadlines are met, with military-grade strategic nous. His old school values and work ethic will get your projects delivered on time and on brief.

Outsourcing your marketing

Two problems with hiring the Avengers. First they don’t exist. And second they cost half a billion dollars per campaign.

Let’s assume you staff your marketing team with real humans. How do you decide what and when to outsource to third parties? We wrote a blog article on how content marketing agencies can be more effective than in-house teams. And as a content marketing agency, we obviously have a vested interest and natural bias.

So, rather than feather our own nest or recycle January’s blog article let’s take a look at some of the potential pitfalls of outsourcing parts of your marketing activity. Here are our top five based on our experience of helping clients pick up the pieces after bad agency experiences:

Losing access to Google Analytics, Google Ads or social media pages: Among the most damaging situations we’ve been asked to help out with are when clients have lost access to their data, social media profiles or even their whole site because a relationship with a third party has ended badly. You should outsource to get extra pairs of hands and bigger brains. Never to hand off responsibility for your company’s key assets.

Blackhat tactics to secure short-term results: Marketing is a competitive space and clients often ask for guaranteed results. So you can’t blame some agencies for giving them what they ask for. However, big promises often lead to disappointment or worse. Worse being short-term results delivered by nefarious methods that blow back on the client a few months later.

Technology lock-ins: There are lots of third party tools – free and paid – that can make a material difference to your marketing campaigns. But make sure you’re involved in deciding which tools to use. These choices matter and can have long-term consequences for your business. Maybe they lock you in to ongoing payments or tie you to a particular supplier for a lengthy period.

Outsourcing of knowledge: We quoted David Packard earlier in this post when we were talking about the importance of extending marketing beyond the marketing team. Marketing shouldn’t be siloed inside your organisation and it definitely shouldn’t be siloed outside of it. Agencies should add value both in terms of what they can do for you but also what they can teach you. Knowledge is something you always want to keep in-house.

Brand disconnect: A big challenge for agencies when stacking up against in-house teams is that they don’t get the chance to live and breathe the company culture every day. They are hired help and they work on multiple client accounts. As the client, you need to be aware of this risk from the outset and compensate by really engaging with the briefing and feedback process.

CHAPTER THREE: Marketing tactics and strategies

via GIPHY

In this chapter we’ll look at the marketing funnel and some of the popular tactics you’ll no doubt be familiar with for finding, engaging and nurturing leads.

The marketing funnel takes lots of different forms. Google it and you’ll see plenty of variations but also a common theme. Here is one of our favourites courtesy of Medium.com:

We like this one for its simplicity. You have three types of prospects:

In “Awareness”, it’s people who don’t know your brand or your products. Or don’t know that you can solve their problem.

In “Consideration”, people have engaged with you in some way already, but they’re not ready to buy for whatever reason (not the right time, haven’t been convinced yet).

And in “Action” they’ve reached decision time and it’s between you and the competition.

The challenges and opportunities for marketers change as people move down the funnel. But this sort of broad segmentation can be an extremely useful way to stress test your marketing campaign. Do you have content, a promotional strategy and a conversion goal for each funnel stage?

In our experience, brands often neglect the middle of the funnel, especially when it comes to setting a conversion goal. If website visitors – for example – have just two choices: leave or buy, you’re missing out on a massive lead generation and nurture opportunity.

So, let’s assume you’re sold on the marketing funnel idea and now you need some tactics and cool ideas to tackle each stage. Well, look no further. Here’s an intro, a top tip and a useful link for content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, email marketing and web design.

Content marketing basics

Content marketing is about creating valuable and relevant content that drives useful actions on the part of your target audience. You can use content marketing at every stage of the sales funnel from awareness with SEO-friendly blogs, to capturing mid-funnel leads with gated ebooks, to closing deals with compelling and well-targeted offer emails.

Top tip: Don’t rely on your creative skills to deliver ROI. Content needs to be promoted to get seen by the right people. As Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, said: “Before you create any more ‘great content’ figure out how you’re going to market it first.”

Useful link: How does content marketing work?

SEO basics

In Chapter One we highlighted the huge share of global online ad spend held by Google. The reason for this is that Google owns consumer intent. It knows what we want, when we want it because we tell it (5.2 billion times so far today). This makes ranking for the right search terms hugely valuable to any business. SEO is a longer-term play and less certain than PPC, but the ROI when you get it right is hard to beat.

Top tip: When it comes to ranking pages, the site is often more important than the content. So, it pays to pick your battles when competing for popular keywords. As Moz founder Rand Fishkin put it: “Without any domain authority or page authority it’s almost impossible to rank for competitive terms.”

Useful link: Content marketing and SEO: A Speed Date

Social media marketing basics

If your audience isn’t Googling, there’s a good chance they’re on social media. On average we spend 142 minutes a day checking, scrolling, posting and liking, according to Global Web Index, a consumer profiling company. And we do most of it on the same networks. In fact, four of the six biggest social media sites by users are owned by Facebook (Facebook, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram). The second biggest is owned by Google (YouTube).

That means social media marketing is really about going where your audience is. A generation ago marketers bought ad space in newspapers that their target demographic read every morning over breakfast. Now, newspapers don’t have the eyeballs. It’s a social media app on a smartphone.

Top tip: For brands, social media sites are advertising platforms. But just like television and radio, the ad content needs to fit the medium. So take advantage of the free tools and helpful ideas that social media sites offer to create really compelling ad content for your marketing campaigns.

Useful link: The importance of compelling content in social media success

Email marketing basics

Email is the oldest digital marketing tactic. Even the Backstreet Boys with their dial-up modems back in 1999 got marketing emails. But just like Captain America, old doesn’t mean obsolete. And thanks to marketing automation, email is enjoying something of a renaissance.

When you’re chasing people at the middle and bottom of your marketing funnel, few tactics are more effective than a properly-targeted email campaign. And if you use marketing automation software, you can massively ramp up the scale and level of personalisation that your emails offer.

Top tip: If email is a big part of your marketing strategy, don’t forget to feed the hopper. You always need a plan for capturing more email addresses, whether that’s pop-up subscription forms, interactive quizzes or gated ebooks.

Useful link: Your complete guide to successful drip email campaigns

Web design basics

Okay, so you can’t afford Tony Stark and no guarantee he knows about UX anyway. But web design has become an essential part of your marketing mix. People are increasingly hostile to slow, clunky online experiences. They want their interactions with brands to be smooth and fast on whichever device they use.

What this means is that your otherwise perfect marketing plan can hit a wall if your web design sucks. Maybe your form is difficult to fill in on mobile or the clever animated banner takes forever to load. You need someone with the web design and UX skills to put that right before it kills your conversion rate.

Top tip: Don’t underestimate the importance of mobile. We often hear that mobile doesn’t matter because most of the traffic is on desktops. That doesn’t mean people don’t want to access your site on a mobile, it means they can’t. People have multiple interactions with your brand these days, more and more of those will be on a mobile device, even if the purchase is on a desktop or in a store.

Useful link: 60 UX Tips Whitepaper

from http://bit.ly/2KUEcql

#content marketing

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Riverdale Recap and Review - Season 1 - Chapter 8 - The Outsiders by Andrew Buckley

There quite literally is not one happy marriage happening in Riverdale. Maybe it’s the water, maybe it’s the maple syrup, maybe it’s the disturbing amount of redheads . . . but relationships are not meant to survive in that town. Tensions ran high in this episode with double crosses and back alley deals happening all over the place. Riverdale is a dangerous place to live. But they do have Skeet Ulrich, so there’s that. Let’s get to it . . .

How many times can you reference abortion without actually saying the word ‘abortion’? I counted five times, but I may have missed one. I’m assuming it’s a CW censorship thing, but I was surprised they had to avoid the word as it’s absence made it all the more obvious, but I suppose that was the point. This week, Mr. Cooper became oh so much darker than just some guy who breaks into the Sheriff’s house to steal his murder wall. He’s harboring such a hatred for the Blossoms that he actually wanted his daughter to abort the baby. The guy is certainly carrying enough hate to push him over to the darkside, but his banishment from the Cooper household says a lot more about Alice Cooper (the blonde chick, not the guy who used to bite heads off chickens on stage) than it does about him. Mrs. Cooper has always seemed so controlled in her insanity, however we certainly saw some cracks as she tries to deal with the Blossom family now trying to steal her daughter, while also revealing her own shadowy past, also at the hands of her husband. There goes another Riverdale marriage.

Polly herself is still severely lacking as a character and I think it’s partly due to us not really knowing her. The reason we care so much about who killed Jason, and not about Jason himself is because we never got a chance to know him. All we really know is he had terribly fake-looking red hair and apparently he was a mute. The same almost goes for Polly. We met her at the mental asylum where she was hysterical and she hasn’t really calmed down since. Okay, so the father of her child was murdered, her dad tried to have her abort her baby, the father’s family want to keep the baby, her parents sent her to a mental asylum, and now she’s back, there’s a power struggle over this child who will undoubtedly have fake-looking red hair. Okay, fine. She has every right to be hysterical. Unfortunately, her lack of grounding as a character is making it really hard to sympathize with her. Maybe that’ll change now she’s a member of the Blossom household. By making the choice to join the Blossoms, she’s effectively shunning her own family. And who can blame her?

Speaking of the Blossoms, let’s take a moment to appreciate just how awesome Granny Blossom is. Come on, that crazy old lady is great. Part horror story cliche, part gypsy, part crypt keeper. She keeps getting better and better.

Fred Andrews and his business woes seeped throughout most of the story this episode. With the Blossoms wanting to buy the old movie theatre land, and Mr. Lodge being the secret buyer, and Hermione knowing this but not telling Fred, we can clearly see another relationship is about to go down the toilet. It all makes for interesting TV though, so who cares? Fred confronting Clifford Blossom was a nice scene but it felt a little empty with Fred not really having a good threat to come back with. Too bad he doesn’t have a biker gang working for him . . . oh wait.

It was a touching moment when Archie and his pals came out to work for his dad, even more so when Fred and Archie have their heart to heart in the kitchen later. While I didn’t love this episode as much as past ones, I did love this scene. And it wasn’t just Luke Perry’s sincere delivery, it was the balancing out of Fred and Archie’s relationship. While Archie’s legacy speech was a bit on the flawed side, the messaging was still solid and the Andrews boys still represent a united front that doesn’t appear to exist anywhere else in town. This is of course after Fred tries to solve the problems he’s experiencing himself, and Archie walks into a biker bar. We’ve yet to see Mary Andrews but we know she’s coming (bring it on Molly Ringwald), so we’ll likely see that balanced father/son relationship shaken again very soon.

Skeet freakin Ulrich as Jughead’s dad is fast becoming one of my favourite characters. After we saw all his misgivings in the last episode, it was nice to see him find a bit of redemption here. His volunteering information to Jughead and Betty regarding Jason and then rounding up a crew to help out Fred proves that Mr. Jones isn’t all that bad of a guy. Well, except for him having Jason’s jacket, and that he uses teenagers to sell drugs, oh and he’s the leader of a violent biker gang, and that he has Joaquin (who I’m still saying is Jason’s murderer) cozy up to the delightful Kevin . . . so yeah, never mind, he’s a bad guy.

STORY FLAW ALERT! - Mr. Jones tells Hermione that it was likely Mr. Lodge who had people disrupt the construction site and beat up Moose. He blames it on Hermione getting frisky with Fred and someone ratted her out (Veronica, clearly Veronica) and that the incident was part of a jealous attack? On property he owns? Disrupting the building of his weird hipster community housing? Where he stands to make a lot of money? And didn’t Clifford Blossom all but admit to being the culprit in order to bleed the owner of the land dry? Something isn’t adding up there but maybe it’s all a bunch of red herrings. Or trout. Or whatever fish happens to be native to Riverdale.

This was a setup episode, inserted so we can get from here to there. The Jason story got moved along with Mr. Jones and Joaquin (the murderer) hiding the jacket. Polly moving in with the Addams family effectively destroys the ‘Stepford Family’ archetype that the Coopers had been trying to project. Fred and Mr. Jones getting the band back together means it’s being setup to be broken apart again later. And the looming threat of Mr. Lodge stretched its shadowy tendrils a little bit further.

Next week sees the return of Ethel (finally!), though it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting an answer to the burning question on everyone’s mind: Where is Hotdog?

Until next week . . .

STRAY THOUGHTS OF AWESOMENESS . . .

- Valerie was there, but . . . not really there? True, there wasn’t much room for development of Varchie? Valerchie? Archerie? (we’ll need to work on that) Hopefully we’ll be able to see more of that relationship over the coming weeks.

- Same goes for Bughead. Not the best way to start a relationship, amid a murder investigation and a crazy pregnant sister, though we’d still like to see some development happening here. And more than just ‘yeah, my Dad’s a biker’.

- Sheriff Keller - Absolutely terrible at his job. Fortunately for him, he appears to be the only law enforcement agent in all of Riverdale so he’s got great job security.

- Was anyone else hoping that Moose would lay some smack down on those two guys? I mean, c’mon, he’s Moose!

- Archie and Jughead’s ‘bro moment’ was underwhelmed by the lack of conflict. Archie got a little angry, Jughead got a little sad, and then all was well again.

- I kinda love how much Kevin loves the Lodges. From his awe over Veronica’s party invites to complementing Hermione’s shoes. Yeah he’s a walking gay stereotype, but he’s adorable.

About Andrew:

Andrew Buckley attended the Vancouver Film School’s Writing for Film and Television program. After pitching and developing several screenplay projects for film and television, he worked in marketing and public relations, before becoming a professional copy and content writer. During this time Andrew began writing his first adult novel, DEATH, THE DEVIL AND THE GOLDFISH, followed closely by his second novel, STILTSKIN. He works as an editor for Curiosity Quills Press.

Andrew also co-hosts a geek movie podcast, is working on his next novel, and has a stunning amount of other ideas. He now lives happily in the Okanagan Valley, BC with three kids, one cat, one needy dog, one beautiful wife, and a multitude of characters that live comfortably inside of his mind.

Andrew is represented by Mark Gottlieb at the Trident Media Group.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

#riverdale #tv show #review #the cw #the cw network #archie andrews #archie comics #Andrew Buckley #hair in all the wrong places #month9books #yalit #mglit

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