#these are all the screencaps i took today

[lallyloo]

[x]

#these are all the screencaps i took today #just putting them all together #gmm #link neal #rhett mclaughlin #rhett and link #my screencaps etc #gmm 2304

[sgiandubh]

A tale of two brands

Sophie Mancini's Departures paper on S in NY started a flurry of comments even before the whole content was made available on blogs. That people - mostly in Mordor - jumped in to add their two booing cents on the matter, based on two or three Instagram Story screencaps only, is a testimony to Tumblr's community deep interest in S's slightest PR/sales move and the easiness with which people like *urv managed to push their own agenda, in the process, to her unsuspecting, bicep-loving crowd.

Many of these comments asked just one question, more or less kindly and more or less openly: who are you, Sam Roland Heughan? Some of them, more along my alley, took a different angle: who are you talking to, Sam Roland Heughan?

Let me count the US crowds: the Wall Street yuppie crowd? the old money, WASP Knickerbocker / Colony Club crowd? Tribeca's sophisticated, culture-ish snob crowd? the UN international crowd? the laid-back (-ish) brownstone Brooklyn crowd? the DC politico types? the Boston Brahmin crowd? the Silicon Valley Bitcoin crowd? the Florida Latino crowd? the Bible Belt crowd? the Deep South charmingly old-fashioned crowd? the yee-haw, witty and ambitious Texans? the gourmet, nature-loving Seattle crowd? I am sure I am missing some (it's been a while I haven't traveled to the States and I have to say I miss all 50 of them, plus and perhaps above all my beloved DC :), but you get the idea. And the problem, or rather its first layer.

The second question this very poorly written article prompted is: what are you talking about, Sam Roland Heughan? I mean, what destination are you trying to promote? Scotland, through your Scottish gin, which I truly believe is exceptional? The Big Apple, like a counterpart to Sting, you know - a Scotsman in New York? That's not very clear, since that superficial girl just whirled you to a couple Chinatown speakeasies, rat pitter-patter included (bye-bye, Knickerbocker crowd right there) and that's pretty much it. New Zealand, that you mention at length, Maori tattoo story re-hashed, just because the book comes out next Tuesday? Ha-wa-wee, perhaps in a belated attempt to mitigate Tunagate? California, even, because it takes you back to humble beginnings? Granted, the Frisco one, not LA: that would be a horrible faux-pas, in a NY centered paper, much like me whimsically and idiotically mentioning Istanbul (instead of Constantinople), in a conversation with my Greek friends.

My head spins. And then let's add to that a ladle of recycled talking points, yours and C's altogether, like this gem:

Aspirational. Mmmhm. She said that. You said that. Multiple times, in multiple contexts that probably didn't even call for it. This is *** PR right there. I am not JAMMF. I am not Claire. But we aspire to that. Stop thinking we are these characters. No sane fan ever did: the insistence is unnecessary and has a real backfire potential. Stop thinking, period. But let it be my shipper sin, then, not to believe an iota of it and stubbornly think you people are, by now, way past the aspirational stage.

So, I took a long walk down memory lane today, while driving, trying to understand what the hell your personal brand is. Once upon a time, things were clear: you and C were a single brand. S&C - the fresh-faced, candid, witty and funny and oh, so in love new kids on the block. The spark was real and it was strong (it still is, only dampened and muted by PR-prompted shenanigans) and OL's audience was under its spell. People loved you, both of you, and some of us still do. You showed us as much as you could and for a while, it seemed to be convenient for just about everybody. That created expectations, but at the same time, you could have sold us land concessions on the Moon and we would have bought them, no questions asked.

And then, things happened. We know what: IFH, EFH, Remarkable Week-end. The spell was broken for many, who left in droves. Fans turned into bashing other fans. The S&C brand was progressively compromised and along with it, your Barbour Ambassadorship (for different reasons). Let's stop a bit at this point, in fond remembrance: that was the perfect pitch, for the perfect kind of corporate brand, for the perfect niche, for the perfect guy. A guy who had a credible, authentic story to tell, with a really strong potential to attract people outside of OL's crowd. Image and message perfectly aligned. Best case scenario.

So, with ***'s and your own PR benediction, what once was your solid gold starting point was ridiculed, trampled, shot to shambles, in a (failed) attempt to be sent to complete oblivion. You then had to think of something and try to branch out of both the blessing and curse of it.

MPC suddenly became more important than just any other charity project, of which there were a few (Cahonas Scotland comes to mind, the blood cancer one, as well). Cue in Sam the Athlete, Sam the Healthy Living Evangelist. The project was turned into a lucrative business, with a strong charity side. People bought subscriptions, people changed their eating and lifestyle habits, people lost weight - but really, I shouldn't write 'people', but 'women'. This was a women-oriented endeavor. A problem, again, on the long term.

Ha-wa-wee 1 happened, to more scandal and shrieks (that, I believe, was the reason you lost the Barbour project, another gold opportunity squandered because ten Internet bitches knew better). Then we were told another avatar was born: Sam the Entrepreneur. With a genuine, carefully curated, labor of love first alcohol product that clearly used the discarded S&C brand: The Sassenach and believe what you want, but just buy it. Mommies obliged. Antis obliged. Shippers obliged. All wallets are created equal, as I (often) use to say. And then COVID-19 came, putting a very real, very dangerous logistic strain on it.

Yet, you still had to somehow mitigate delays and losses. The Sassenach went exotic, with that limited edition tequila that probably won't be remembered by many outside OL's fandom, and that is a pity and a shame. The reason it won't be remembered is that you almost did not promote it, spare one or two Tick-Tock and Instagram clips. Does that justify the investment, the trips to Mexico, the very expensive retainers and commissions your tequila friends took for their trouble? I very much doubt it. That was, until being proved completely wrong, a flop. It brought absolutely nothing in terms of personal branding, spare perhaps a new faction in this paranoid cesspool of a fandom: the Gay Crowd, fueled by the image of a Lonely Bandana Cowboy, instead of the intended Sophisticated Traveler and Connoisseur. Yes, people are stupid, like that. Your PR and Sales team, too - and this comes from a place of deep understanding and appreciation.

We are now talking gin and boy, am I glad we do! This is perhaps an opportunity. Finally, a more democratically price-tagged, carefully tailored (again) drawing card product. But who is selling it to me? The California Boat Party Host? In that case, I won't buy it, but never mind me: maybe the fun-loving California Millennials would (we know the Smuggling Mommies would do it, anyways). The Sophisticated Traveler and Connoisseur you tried to show us again in Mancini's abysmal Departures paper and who is invited to important events, in recognition of his efforts?

You can't have the two of them, Sam, whatever those incompetents told you. You're either a 43-years old midlife crisis-stricken and shirtless clown or an Old World Industrious Thespian, with a stature and a status to match. A real Entrepreneur, not a cartoon scuba diver/beach boy Influencer. Eye Candy vs. Brain Power: after all, you are a '3x NYT best selling author', aren't you? Your pick, not mine. Stop the Sri Mataji-style Hugging and Booze tours: it's nonsense and that geriatric crowd is nowhere near what you need to make your dream come true. Do some real soul searching and stop listening to clueless 28-year old journalists, who tell you tacky rings are fun: they aren't. They make you look like an ageing Atlantic City Sinatra wannabe:

Sam Roland Heughan: currently at crossroads, trying to not choose between two opposite personal brands. Tricky position and an even trickier context, with the strike still lingering on and the pressing need to find an after OL strategy.

I promised you a tale of two brands and I think you wonder, by now, what happened to C, the other half of the primary SC brand?

The answer is, I honestly believe, not much. She has no personal brand, so to speak. Until now, she is just an Enthusiastic Dilettante. Book Club - started, unfinished and with that, farewell to any fan engagement. Cinema production rights - bought and then silence. Botanical Gin - first batch released (?) with no promo, no interviews (mentioning it in a podcast does not count), no reviews. Then teasing, then crickets again: a bit late, now, for the end of year celebrations. And I have to say I miss her or the part of her I never witnessed in real time (is such a thing possible?). I miss that starry-eyed, funny and witty girl. That girl was somehow completely swallowed by an Acrid Matron, who thought it was intelligent to yell at an Internet nobody, on Christmas Day, 'I am not married to Sam!' (ok, you aren't, but you're still lying). And I honestly don't know which one is best (or worst, for that matter): try to build something and make mistakes and try again until you hopefully find your way, or say nothing, do nothing and of course, never be controversial.

Now I am really interested to see how is she going to promote her gin. But you know what, I am not holding my breath, for some reason.

#BoozeWars

[hellsite-detective]

evening, good detective!

this case may be a bit tough, although i do have a screencap here for you

my dilemma here is that i've only seen screenshots of this post but i wanna see the humorous spiderman gif

good luck! :]

when i saw this photo get slid across my desk, i lost my mind. i remembered this from the days of my youth. a classic post truly. i had to find it. thinkin' it would be easy to find, i went to the address listed in the photo, only to find it was completely abandoned. no lead there. so, i took to the Search Bar. walkin' in, i noticed that they had some live music playin' today. normally they just have the radio goin'. a nice change of pace for sure. i walked up to the Don and slid him the photo, askin' for specifically the phrase "spiderman dances to the beat." they cracked open their briefcase, reached in, and pulled out the post in all its glory. that's when i noticed, the gif in the post was dancin' on beat to the live music playin'. that "friendly neighborhood" menace has done it again. i went and filed it away...

here you are! i hope everyone enjoys makin' him dance to your favorite songs! have a great day!

Post Case: Closed

#i literally sat here for several minutes trying the gif with various ok goodnight songs #and ALL OF THEM WORKED WTF #also everyone go listen to ok goodnight #and casey lee williams in general #spider-man #spiderman #spider man #ask #hellsite detective #post case closed

[alakeeffectgirl]

cruisequarries PART TWO

PART ONE What did we get up to yesterday? 2018? Okay. I will put everything behind a spoiler cut again (there are more pictures/a video today).

Actually, let's rewind just a little, for some Fallout premiere pictures just because.

Paris, July 12th:

London, July 13th:

Seoul, July 16th (according to the designer's website, the hanbok Heather is wearing was designed as a wedding dress, mmhmm)...

I love this picture because they're making those faces at Chris. Here's the bit of Tom making Heather cry in Tokyo:

I highly recommend listening to Tom & Chris commentary track on Fallout, which starts with McQ introducing himself as the writer/director and then Tom introducing himself - as McQ's friend. After the Fallout press tour wraps up, work starts in earnest on Top Gun: Maverick, which Tom and McQ have been discussing - idly, on McQ's part - for years now. "Our relationship is one long conversation about movies," indeed.

While TGM is filming, pre-production is also happening on MI:DR, which McQ has signed on to direct. (These two are usually juggling at least two projects at a time, and really it's probably more like five projects at a time.)

In January of 2019, they're all back in LA so Tom and McQ can pick up some awards.

The McQuarries also go to a premiere and look fantastic (I love McQ's suit):

Tom and McQ go to Ukraine to scout Dead Reckoning locations later in 2019, meet President Zelenskyy, and McQ gets to put his arm around Tom for once instead of their usual other way around.

OH NO I ALMOST FORGOT - at the end of 2019, Tom took the whole McQ clan with him to Las Vegas to see Lady Gaga and ask her to write the TGM song. [cries in 'that's his family']

Production ramps up on DR - and then unfortunately, as we all know, COVID. Most of the cast and crew were in Venice when everything shut down, but Tom hadn't arrived yet.

Production resumes in Rome in October (their production struggles/trying to keep everyone employed/Tom rightfully yelling at people to follow protocols because a lot of jobs depend on them is all well documented), and then moves to Venice. Heather and the dogs are also part of this traveling band.

This isn't six feet apart, dudes...

Production breaks for the holidays, and resumes in Abi Dhabi for the airport/desert sequences, and also one of my favorite pictures of Tom and Heather, just for her expression.

Train sequence filming in Yorkshire in April of 2021, that's Heather in the blue coat:

DR production then breaks for a bit over the summer so Tom can take all his friends to Wimbledon, go to several car things, and make McQ watch football (the soccer version).

DR filming resumes in the fall/winter. Heather goes with to South Africa and they rent out what is basically an adults-only hotel (and save it from having to close!), for part of their stay. I love this picture because Gypsy looks so long-suffering:

OKAY IT'S 2022 NOW, time for the Top Gun: Maverick premiere tour to start - finally! (Do any of these people SLEEP? No. I think it's well-documented that Tom Cruise does not sleep, which is part of what makes him Tom Cruise, but also this means he calls McQ at two in the morning to talk about movies. There's a podcast somewhere where McQ says he thinks Tom might sleep "between the 2:05 email and the 2:40 email", or something along those lines.) (After getting back from South Africa, there was a bunch of test screening stuff for TGM, which is why there are those parking garage pictures. Wouldn't the movie be done, you'd think, since it was supposed to be out in 2020? COVID gave them a reason to tinker with it even more.) The San Diego premiere on the USS MIdway (all the McQs were there, but there aren't any good pictures):

Then Tom went to Mexico, and McQ went home to London for a few days before Tom returned, and they went to the Royal Windsor horse show together.

THEN EVERYONE WENT TO CANNES. Sorry I have just a shitty screencap with a watermark here but alas tumblr only lets you put one video per post. Tom and McQ stopped to get their picture taken en route to the actual photocall and Tom made Heather come back and be in the pictures with them. There is video here.

Cannes, of course, was amazing. I have garbage homemade gifs but they're too big for tumblr (also they're garbage) but all the Cannes red carpet footage is available on YouTube, here and here. (Worth it for Heather, tbh.)

They went straight from Cannes - on Tom's helicopter - back to London for the Royal premiere. Where the McQuarries looked amazing and McQ wore his McQ shoes.

And the after party, because heaven forbid they not all ride in the same car:

And then the McQuarries got a slight break, while Tom went to do more TGM press. But he was back in London by the end of June, and they went on what can only be described as a string of dates. First, they went to the Rolling Stones concert at Hyde Park.

McQ was on Tom's other side, but he's only visible in video (the Daily Mail might be garbage but they do come through with the media).

Then Tom and Heather went to The Eagles show at Hyde Park:

And they all went to see Adele - also at Hyde Park. (The woman in the pink sweater is Tom's CAA agent Maha Dakhil Jackson - I found the picture where you can see Heather over Tom's shoulder.)

Then for Tom's birthday, they went to the F1 British Grand Prix (with some other TGM folks, but they aren't three steps behind Tom like the McQuarries are).

Oh no, we're not done. Tom takes Heather to Wimbledon, where she holds his sunglasses (not visible in this picture).

McQ did not go with, as he was recording a Light the Fuse podcast - which he surprise-dialled in a bunch of DR folks - and his final surprise was Tom. Who was still at Wimbledon with Heather. McQ calls Heather to get Tom, and Heather plays dumb and is like, "oh I don't know where he is, did you try calling him?" and Chris says he already told the podcast guys that they were together. So Tom does his segment from the car he's in with Heather, and his part is only supposed to be like ten minutes but he talks for about forty-five and this includes telling the world they basically all live together. Then they went out to dinner!

And the next day they all went to Wimbledon with Maha and her husband.

I'm stopping here because this is already SO LONG and 2023 is going to be wild just by itself! PART THREE

#cruisequarries

[sevdrag]

spoilers: i am an engineer

hello tumblr, and welcome to the most well informed shitpost you're going to see today: some Fun With Data involving the Harry Du Bois vs Vriska poll that just went around.

We started watching the poll just as the swing in votes started to happen, and as such, we're missing some crucial data I'll be upfront about. The poll started at noon, and we didn't start taking in information until the percentages started to change, at 13:53, so we don't have information on total vote count for the first 2 hours of the poll. And in the rush to nerd out about this, our first few data points of the vote swing - where you see the most change - didn't have total vote count either. There is also a brief period where I had to take my cat to the emergency room, and a longer period where my ass slept because this is just a silly tumble poll. Those present as straight lines in charts like this, but keep in mind, they could have had wild variation for all I know. However, based on the results, I doubt it. Big thanks to @smolalienbee and @pass-the-salt and I think @orderlyhouse for screencapping this data and relentlessly spamming the discord with it so that I could put it in this spreadsheet like the nerd I am. (do YOU have screencaps? DM me!)

Early on in polls like this when total vote count is low, you expect to see big swings -- with 4000 votes total, for example, the amount you need to swing a vote 1% is 80 people. As these go up, however, obviously, the amount of votes needed to swing 1% increases. By the end of this poll, 1541 tumblr users would have had to make UNCOUNTERED votes, that were NOT cancelled out, to move the poll 1%.

According to our data, the swing you see above took place over a two-and-a-half hour period. For the remaining 20 hours of the poll, votes one way or the other weren't significant enough to be seen in the tumblr results.

For those who are interested, our first data point showing the 50/50 split hits at 16:21, when total votes were at 14194. From this point on, voters would have needed at least 248 UNCOUNTERED/NOT CANCELLED OUT votes to change the poll a single 1%. Just numbers to keep in mind! We talk about this at the end :)

Any winning margin smaller than 248 would, therefore, not register to tumblr. Keep in mind that by the end of the poll this number was 1541 votes required to swing a percentage, because the total vote pool grew so heavily.

In the end, as it turns out, after 77,019 votes, the poll was won with a margin of only 618 votes. final percentages were, surprisingly neatly, 50.4% v 49.6%. Won by 0.8%! Now that's a close poll.

(thanks to @mio-nika for grabbing these and @smolalienbee for confirming!)

Because I was additionally curious, and a huge nerd, I wanted to go in and calculate votes per minute to see whether there was anything weird going on. I am going to be polite and put this under a cut to save your dash from my utter nerd joy, but I have caveats to put in here first.

The first thing to keep in mind is that your data is only as good as your collection method! In our case, it was a very unprofessional method that went: someone took a screencap and posted it in Discord, and I entered it into a spreadsheet with the time entered as whatever time Discord registered it. While this ended up being pretty accurate for a 24-hour poll, it presents the problem that will come up when we start talking about votes per minute: I only could measure in increments of a minute, because getting into seconds here would have been (a) impossible and (b) super overkill. However, that means that there's more noise in the votes-per-minute data because everything is assumed to be in increments of 1 full minute. Good scientists acknowledge the weaknesses of their data sets as they do their analysis! (Source: I worked in research for 15 fucking years lol.)

Here is my ESTIMATE of votes per minute at each of the data points taken above. The green trendline is a rolling average that tells the story of the poll, more or less: Lots of quick voting at the beginning, calming down over the (American) evening, then ramping back up at the end. Much like we'd expect, I think.

(And again, remember that the bit in the middle where Americans AND Europeans were asleep presents as a straight line here but could be ALL over the place. We don't have that data because we were sleep like good feral grownups.)

The noise at the beginning, I suspect, is again because I'm measuring over small and discrete increments of time. However, unless Tumblr wants to help me develop an app dumping real-time poll results into my EXCEL 24/7, there's no reasonable way I can see to get around this. Because of the noise there's a big standard deviation on here that I'm too lazy to really dig into because I did all of this while I was supposed to be working for the government, so imagine your error bars appropriately.

So what does this mean?

Well, let's make a couple assumptions for conversational purposes. Looks like people were voting at about 50 votes per minute during the slow times, and up over 100 votes per minute during the fast times.

At the beginning of the 50/50 period, we would have needed 248 votes one way to see the percentage change. Votes per minute at this point were flying, at about 100 votes/minute. That's only (the equivalent of) 3 minutes of voting time that would have had to go SOLID for either Vriska or Harry to produce a 1% change we could see on the face of the poll. And while we certainly weren't watching it live, the density of our data for the next hour or so was pretty solid, and we didn't see a 1% change. We have screencaps, baby! 248 votes going one way or the other at this particular point is chump change at that speed, so it IS surprising that we didn't see more scatter around 49/51 for an hour or so before things settled in.

In fact, I would stretch to say it's unusual to have seen such an even curve as the percentages changed on their way to 50/50, in a case where a few minutes' worth of solid voters could still have an impact, but as this is the first time I've ever done anything like this on a fucking tumble poll, I am not putting money on that either.

If someone wants to pay me, I am more than happy to become a tumble poll expert!

At the end of the poll, votes were also flying in, on average about 80 votes per minute. At this point, we would have needed over 1500 votes one way or another to see a last-minute shift. That's (the equivalent of) 19 solid straight minutes of every single voter picking the same candidate. So at the end it is NOT surprising to not see any 49/51 fluctuation. This is why once polls settle in, they so rarely change. It's just statistics.

So, Sev. Was this poll botted? I don't fucking know. We all need to go outside. However, if you're going to make drama on it, please do it on this post so that I can see. I'm getting laid off in 2 days and I would love the distraction and entertainment!

And a big thanks to @handwrittenhello for all the work they put in to this, and personally for providing me with an opportunity to spend a day doing one of my favorite things: working with data in Excel!

#tumblr's plmm contest #statistics #the most detailed #shitpost #you'll ever see #I WILL SHITPOST SCHOOL YOUR ASSES

[oswlld]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favorite edit/gifset for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

Tagged by (1)@casualavocados, (2)@pranink, (3)@alexshenry, & (4)@forcebook 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼 YAYY thank you all for tagging me, happy to tackle this for the third yr in a row (here’s 2022 and 2021; it’d be fun to look back and see if i agree with the choices today)

--

January

most popular — the mandalorian: s3 grogu

favorite(s) — vice versa: basic process of a colorist series

February

most popular — my school president: random screencap #1

favorite(s) — my school president: a lover’s discourse

March

most popular — the mandalorian: the mines of mandalore

favorite(s) — my school president: periodic table 1+2

April

most popular — doctor who: langston hughes

favorite(s) — midnight museum: the payphone & vice versa: talay’s top outfits

May

most popular — our skyy 2 bad buddy/atots: a self-portrait in letters

favorite(s) — jump started a book redesign series over here

June

most popular/favorite(s) — taylor swift: speak now tracklist

technically edited this in may and took a break from editing that month

July took a break

August took a break

September took a break

October

most popular/favorite(s) — vice versa: end of an era

it was the first edit back from break and the only edit that month

November

most popular — doctor who: the star beast

favorite(s) — last twilight: episode three braille

December

most popular — doctor who: the giggle

favorite(s) — last twilight: ?/.

--

tagging @morkofday @seatawinan @seatawinans @dribs-and-drabbles (for all your analysis, would love to see what popped off and what your personal favs are!) @i-got-the-feels @jimmysea @moonkhao @athousandbyeol @buffonia @taeminie

#tagged #this is jessi #tag meme #overall very proud of what i made this year <33 #also everyone pls check out the 2023 posts of the four amazing ppl who tagged me!! #goooo gogogo go now. right now #and if you've made it this far hope you have a happy new year! or a great day! have a day lol

[fablesrose]

Ch 16 - The Future Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist 

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: The team takes down a psychic after the team predicts their own future.

Words: 4301

A/n: Can I just say, Eliot looked so good this episode, I couldn't exactly find a place in the chapter to gush about it, but yeah, look up screencaps. I had so much fun writing this one, enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn’t know what I believed when it came to the afterlife. I did know that I thought most, if not all psychics were con artists. And this guy, our current mark, was definitely one of those con artists. Disgustingly exploiting the grief of those who have lost loved ones, leeching all of their money away, making them lose everything along with their deceased family members. 

We were doing recon on his live show. It was at a local studio and cable network, surrounded by warehouses and storage lockers. Nate chose to bring Parker along with him to watch the show. Hardison was in the van with Tara doing the technical recon, and Eliot and I were doing physical background recon. 

“Looks like there’s going to be a network scout from WMN in the audience today, sounds like he’s trying to go prime time,” Hardison told us after looking at Dalton Rand’s schedule.

“TV show means a control room” I commented, looking at Eliot. 

“Let's go see what we can find,” he responded. 

I heard Parker comment that psychics freak her out as Eliot and I wandered the halls of the studio. Rand started the show with a ‘reading’ when we found what looked to be the control room. We glanced at each other. 

“Do you have the bug? Do you wanna do a solo breach? Pull the bathroom card,” I asked him.

He only took a second to think about it, “Yeah I got it, but let's do the pair stumble in.”

I looked at him skeptically, “Really?”

He nodded, “Yeah.” He then put a hand at the small of my back leading me towards the door.

I leaned against it a touch when he flipped the handle just enough for the door to open behind me. When I was supposed to pretend to stumble in, I actually tripped over my own feet causing me to fall. Luckily Eliot caught me, just like he was supposed to, though the grip he had told me he knew exactly what happened. I tried to settle my rapidly beating heart from the drop and let out what I hoped sounded like a flirty and surprised giggle. Eliot helped stand me up again, putting us further in the room in the process. The person who was watching the monitors became upset and told us to get out.

There was a camera just inside the door where the bug should be able to access everything if we could get it placed there. Eliot seemed to read my mind since as I turned to face the other man, he slipped the bug into my hand. I placed my right hand on the man’s shoulder and reached around with my left to place the bug. I profusely apologized to him as Eliot pulled me back out of the room by my waist.

Once the door was closed, his hands stayed there a few moments longer than necessary before they dropped off. I let out a shuttered breath though I couldn’t decide if it was from the release of adrenaline from my almost-fall or because of his touch. 

“Nice catch,” I said once I turned to face him. 

He nodded, “Of course. Nice job getting that bug in there,” he replied.

I raised my hand for a high five which he completed when we heard Nate bring Rand’s attention to himself in the studio. We made our way back over there when Rand did a reading on Parker, seeming to identify that her brother died in an accident and that Parker blamed herself for it. 

Parker dashed off the stage, brushing past us when she bolted out the door. 

We only caught up with her when we got back to Nate’s apartment. She was sitting on the floor of the living room, her back against the couch. It was clear she had been crying. 

“Parker?” Nate asked when he approached her. 

We all sat down in the living room around her, waiting for her to say something. 

“There’s no way he could have known that stuff,” she said quietly. “I’ve never told anyone, no one, ever.”

“Parker, he didn’t know anything,” Nate said. 

“No Nate,” she said clearer, “you said we’d find a trick up his sleeve. You said we’d find a trick. Well, we didn’t find a trick, did we? He knew things. He’s really psychic.”

“He’s not a psychic, Parker,” I said, my hand tentatively on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. 

“He’s just a con man,” Eliot added. 

“He just did a cold read on you, that’s all,” Nate said. 

“He just asked questions and used your answers to guide him,” Tara explained. 

“But I didn’t say anything,” Parker replied, her voice cracking. 

“You didn’t have to,” Nate said. “Can I show you something?” He nodded at Hardison. 

Hardison pulled up the video from the studio that he was able to get by using the bug Eliot and I placed to hack into all of their video feeds and cameras. The screen showed Parker when Rand began his reading.

“Right there,” Nate pointed when her face twitched on the screen. “Do you remember when he asked you, ‘this energy that I’m getting, does it have anything to do with you father?’ Remember? Well you furrowed your eyebrow, you might as well have told him, no.”

“And when he keyed in on your brother,” Tara took over, “your eyes widened, just slightly. He knew he was on the right track.”

“He just guessed Parker,” Hardison said gently, “he got a hit when he said that you were both very young and he just went with the odds. An accident of some kind.”

“But he knew about the bicycle,” Parker pointed out tearfully. 

“Not at first,” I said, remembering the exchange. 

“What happened was,” Nate elaborated, “he said wheels, and then he moved on and said skateboard, you told him about the bicycle.”

“No, I didn't say anything,” she insisted. 

“You had a certain tell, Parker,” Nate continued. “Your mouth opened, just a little bit. Just enough to register your surprise. Then, he just guessed.”

The screen was showing everything that Nate was pointing out on the video. 

“He used all of these things during the reading,” Tara said, “How your breathing changed, if your shoulders were raised or slouched, how you were holding your hands, if your lips were pursed.”

“What about other people in the audience? He knew names and relationships,” Parker asked more calmly as if she was starting to get it. 

“Yeah, the hot read,” Nate called it. “What he does is he researches before the show, gets himself armed with as much information as possible to help him with the readings. It’s really not that much different than what we do.”

“But he doesn’t know who’s going to be in the audience ahead of time.”

“Well, no, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know until they’re there. He’s got cameras all over the place hoping to pick up something, hear something that’s going to help him in the readings.”

“He also has a plan, he has an assistant who stands in line and pretends to be part of the audience,” Tara added. 

“That person feeds him the information about the readings in his ear using earbuds just like we do,” Nate continued. 

Hardison pulled up some of the data he pulled from the studio on the screen, “He’s got dozens of hidden cameras and the bug that Eliot and Y/n planted in the control room, I’ve got audio feeds off of twenty hidden microphones taped to the chairs in the audience. I’ve got names, people they want to contact, dates.”

“And that, is what Rand has hidden up his sleeve,” Nate concluded. 

“So what do we do now?” Tara asked. 

“Cut off his arms,” Parker answered. “And his head. Yeah. I wanna kill him. Can we make that happen?”

There was a beat of silence before Eliot answered, “Yeah, I can…I mean, I could…”

“Or we can give him exactly what he wants,” Nate countered. “Make the world think he is the greatest psychic who ever lived, and then in front of the network and his audience, we destroy him.”

I glanced down at Parker to see she was smiling, pleased with the idea. 

“How do we do that?” Eliot asked. 

“We go and steal the future,” Nate answered cryptically. 

Tara posed as a hippie psychic woman who was helping people out of a coffee shop. And the kicker was, she didn’t charge anything, so when Rand heard that some of his clients canceled because of her, he came to check it out. 

“How may the spirits serve you today?” Tara asked when he approached the outdoor table where she sat. 

“Maybe they can explain why you keep poaching my clients,” he responded. 

“I must apologize Mr. Rand, it’s true I’ve had more visitors lately, but I had no idea it was at your expense. I’m Bethany, Bethany Noble.”

“The outfit is a little on the nose, but other than that, I find your shtick amusing.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Working out of a coffee shop? No neon lights, no taro cards or ouija boards. So what’s your story? You got me curious.”

“Two years ago I was diagnosed with a brain tumor,” Tara answered. “The doctors removed it, but ever since… I guess you could say I was twice blessed. With renewed life, and with this gift.”

“You’re serious.”

There was a pause before Tara said, “Feel the scar?”

“Alright then, tell me something only the spirits would know. Tell me about my father, how he died.”

Around the corner of the coffee shop, the rest of us were listening. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you girl,” Hardison replied as he frantically searched up how his father supposedly died. 

“Wait, we didn’t give her that scar did we?” Eliot asked. 

“No, we did not,” Nate answered. 

After a bit of searching, Tara answered Rand, “Well I could channel your father Mr. Rand, but that might be difficult seeing as he’s still alive. Indiana, isn’t it? Do you still have the prayer book he gave you?” There was a pause before she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Just felt something.”

“Nate had me rig the table with a mild electrical current,” Hardison smiled, showing us the remote. 

“You electrocuted him?” Eliot asked. 

“Yes I did, it helps sell the bit,” Nate replied. 

“I approve,” Parker said with a solemn nod of her head. 

“Thanks Parker.”

“No, her agreeing with you is not a good thing,” Eliot insisted. 

I had been biting my lip to keep myself from smiling, but at this the laughter bubbled out of me, “Well I think it’s hilarious. What does my agreement mean, Eliot?”

He looked at me for a moment before shaking his head. Nate then turned to the both of us with a quiet thanks and slight wink. 

Rand wasn’t convinced with Tara’s answer, still insisting that she tell him what the spirits say about him. 

“You want to know your future,” Tara deduced. After a moment of her collecting her thoughts, she started to ‘predict’ his future: “They’re calling you by a different name. Do you know the way Jose?”

“What?” Rand asked. 

“They say Jose doesn’t pay his tickets, and it’ll burn him. Don’t ask the officer for help, he has his own problems, but don’t worry, you’re the life of the party, so celebrate. And bring extra cash because you won’t have enough. A day late, a dollar short, and if you don’t look both ways, you’ll never live to see tomorrow.”

“Okay, I think I’ve heard enough.” Rand stopped the reading, “Lady, I love your act, I really do, and I wish you all the best with it. This is my turf, stay off it.” It sounded like he left the table and entered the coffee shop. 

I pushed myself off of the van where I was leaning, “Well, let’s get this party started.” I walked around the corner to the coffee shop and carefully replaced the paper cup that had Rand’s name on it with one that had Jose instead, fulfilling Tara’s prophecy that he would be called by a different name: Jose. 

Meanwhile, Eliot was hooking up Rand’s car to the tow truck he got his hands on, pulling away once Rand came out of the shop. This fulfilled her saying that Jose doesn’t pay his tickets. Parker swiped his wallet so he wouldn’t have cash for his dinner later. Earlier, Hardison and I replaced a bunch of fortunes in fortune cookies to say ‘you’re the life of the party, so celebrate’ to fulfill that part. Hardison also hacked Rand’s scheduling records and discovered one of his new clients for that day would be a police officer. And finally, much to his delight, Nate nearly drove Rand over, making sure he looked both ways. 

The next day, Rand was waiting for Tara to return to the coffee shop and begged her to work for him. She gave him a decent fight, saying that she needed to share her gift and not con people, but he eventually persuaded her because of her supposed financial needs from the medical expenses and the promise that it would be temporary. 

So far, we had him on the hook. He wanted to do a trial run of Tara talking to him behind the scenes, telling him info from the control room. So, we went to work. Hardison was pulling information in time, Parker was stealing wallets (and returning them) to get names, and Eliot and I were on parking lot duty to see what we could find from their cars. We were running across the parking lot between readings with Hardison furiously clacking on his computer in our ears, trying to pull any and all information we could find. 

It seemed to pay off though. Rand was impressed with the results. He walked Tara out of the building towards her car, thinking out loud about the future of his show with her in it when a van pulled up quickly behind them. 

“Tara, you’ve got company,” Eliot warned, but it wasn’t enough when four guys hopped out, put a black hood over Rand’s head and started to pull him into the van. 

Tara started fighting them off, though it was clear they weren’t there for her. Eliot ran to help yelling at me to stay where I was while he fought the guys off. When he scared them off enough for him to check if Tara was okay, they drove away with Rand in the back. 

“Any theories?” Nate asked once we all got back. 

“Maybe someone didn’t like one of their ‘psychic readings,’” Eliot answered. 

“Maybe someone liked it too much,” Nate countered. 

“What do you mean?” Parker asked. 

“Rand told me it was the best show he ever did,” Tara said. 

“Now, everyone was there to talk to the dead except that woman at the end,” Nate began. “Why was she there?”

“Her husband,” Tara answered, “She thinks he’s cheating on her.”

“How did you know that?” Hardison asked. “All I said was she hired a private investigator.”

“A married woman in her forties? She’s not looking for the maltese falcon.”

“What do we know about this husband?” Nate steered us back. 

Hardison began with facial recognition scanning the guy she came with, “Nickolas Kusen. Age forty four, he did time in Riverview a few years back for armed robbery.”

“One of the thugs that tried to grab her had a prison tattoo,” Eliot commented. 

“So what, Kusen has a secret and he’s gonna kill Rand so he doesn’t reveal it?” Parker asked. “That’d be good.”

“No, if you wanna kill someone, you don’t go out and throw them in a van,” Eliot said. “You don’t get out of your seat.”

“Okay, Kusen needs Rand for his ‘psychic’ abilities. That’s why he’s being so secretive around his wife,” Nate said. 

“So let me get this straight, we did such a good job of convincing people Rand was a psychic that we got him kidnapped?” I concluded from what everyone was saying. I raised my hand, “uh, high fives I guess, good job guys.”

Eliot and Parker were the only ones to give me a high five. 

“Which means we have to find him, rescue him, and then, you know, take him down,” Nate continued. “Let’s go to work.”

Hardison got to work tracking the van and he was able to track the route they took. Tara and I were searching through Kusen’s financials to get any clue as to what was going on or what he wanted. 

“Give me some good news on the financials,” Nate said.

“They are all over the place,” Tara replied, lifting papers. “It’s hard to get a clear picture, must be a cash heavy operation. Probably import, export.”

Eliot and Parker then walked in from checking out some sites connected to Kusen and his business. 

“You know that body shop Kusen pays property taxes on?” Parker asked. 

“Let me guess, not a body shop?” I answered absentmindedly, looking over more paperwork and business addresses. 

“It’s a parking lot,” Eliot said. 

“Guys,” Hardison said, pulling our attention, “I managed to track them as far as Tremont before I lost them, but they’re definitely somewhere on the north end. If I were to guess, I’d say-”

“Somewhere in the north?” I interrupted, flipping through papers trying to find one that stood out to me. I finally pulled a single page, “I think I’ve got an address.”

After some discussion and some more research surrounding the place I found, it was determined that it was a very likely option and worth checking out. Eliot accompanied Tara to the warehouse, staying just outside in case she needed help. The rest of us were in the van, monitoring the situation. 

Once Tara revealed herself both to Kusen and as a psychic, Kusen welcomed her and layed out what he needed from them. Ultimately, his partner from the bank robbery hid the money and died before revealing where it was. Kusen wanted Rand and Tara to show him where it was. 

“Well at least he’s not cheating on his wife,” Parker commented. 

Hardison pulled up some documents, “I found his ex partner, Cesar Broncato. His name was on the lease for the body shop Kusen supposedly owned.”

“Okay,” Nate said, “This guy wants a bag of money, let’s get him a bag of money. Everybody, listen up.”

He then explained the plan. Nate left to buy a storage unit. Hardison found Broncato’s car, or more accurately, one that could pass as it. Parker planted evidence in the car, a fake registration that we wrinkled up and sanded to look old and the storage locker key. Tara gently led Kusen along, to the car and then to the storage locker facility. 

From there, we needed more time to get the storage unit set up, so Tara stalled with a lost connection to the spirit realm and Nate posed as the facilities employee, taking some time to check the records to ‘find the right storage unit.’

Meanwhile, Parker, Hardison, Eliot, and I were moving boxes into the storage unit.

“We need more boxes,” Hardison said. 

I looked around the room with the walls covered and boxes stacked three or four high, “Really? This seems about right.”

“We need a lot of luck,” Parker countered. 

“Yeah, well I think we used all our luck on finding this place,” Eliot said. 

“Hold on,” Hardison said as he put duct tape on the back wall, “It ain’t luck, okay? Finding the perfect place to end a treasure hunt is a testament to my intellectual prowess.”

Eliot looked at him for a second before deliberately dropping a box on Hardison’s foot. 

“Ow!”

Parker and I huffed a laugh. 

“What?” Eliot asked, “It’s baby clothes.”

“It says books, man!” Hardison said. 

“Does it?”

We finished up the storage unit and locked it up behind us, hoping he wouldn’t notice the lack of dust. We gave Nate the all clear and he finally told Kusen which storage unit.

Kusen and his goons tore up some boxes, trying to find the money when he finally pointed his gun at Rand again, “What’s your crystal ball say now?”

“I don’t know,” Rand replied. 

“You better go into a trance or something, whatever it is you do, because I’m fresh out of patience!”

“I’m not psychic,” Rand blurted out. “I can’t. I can’t communicate with the dead. It’s all fake.”

“I think you’re holding out on me,” Kusen said. “I think you know where the money is, you just want it for yourself!”

“No! It’s not- listen to me, my studio is wired up with microphones and cameras and I make it look like I’m a psychic, but I’m not! You know, I cold read people! Yeah, I ask them questions, I look at their reactions, that’s all I do,” he became more frantic as he went on until he finally said, “It’s a scam! Okay? I’ve been running it for years!”

“Have to say guys,” Tara said as she closed the door, locking them in, “I totally saw this one coming.”

I laughed at her turn of phrase. Hardison blew a hole in the wall where he was putting the duct tape and made a makeshift door into Rand’s studio. Rand and Kusen walked through to find a whole audience watching footage of his confession on repeat, courtesy of the cameras and microphones we planted in the storage unit and linked with the studio broadcast systems. 

The audience was mortified, finding the microphones hiding under their seats. The cops came in and arrested the both of them, and we were there waiting outside to watch them be placed in the cop car. 

“He who sells miracles will have the devil knocking at his door,” Hardison said. 

“What is that, a Proverb?” Parker asked. 

“Fortune cookie,” Hardison corrected. 

“What?”

“We read a bunch of them when we replaced the fortunes with ‘you’re the life of the party, so celebrate,’” I explained. 

“They do make a cute pair, don’t they?” Tara said about the crooks. 

“Lets see,” Nate said, “We’ve got assault, kidnapping, and burglary for our friend Kusen, and garden variety fraud for our psychic friend Dalton Rand… Any way we can get them in the same prison?”

“That can be arranged,” Hardison confirmed. 

“Let’s go,” Eliot said, his head resting on his arm leaning out of the driver side window of the van.

We pushed ourselves up from leaning against the van and made our way around to get in. 

Along the way I grabbed his arm teasingly, “Relax, we’ll get home in time for dinner.”

He grunted at me, “I just wanna get home.”

“I know.”

It wasn’t long before we could meet with the clients, see how they were doing. Originally, a man came in worried about his pregnant sister who had lost her husband. She was the one throwing everything she had into Rand’s lap to talk to her husband. This time, they were both at the table. 

“It’s okay, Jodie,” the brother consoled. 

“I’m sorry, I’m just so embarrassed,” she confessed. 

“Don’t be,” Nate reassured next to me, “Dalton Rand is a con artist. He took advantage of hundreds of people, maybe thousands.”

“Now he’s heading to jail,” Tara said, “he can’t do it to anyone else.”

“There was a part of me who knew it wasn’t real,” Jodie said. “But I didn’t care. I just missed Mike so much, I wanted to see him again so bad.”

“You will see him again,” Nate said. I couldn’t help but look at him, wondering what he meant. “Maybe it’ll be a look, or maybe it’ll be a gesture,” he looked towards Jodie’s pregnant belly, making his point, “maybe it’ll be the way he spreads peanut butter on a slice of bread. But when you see it, you’ll know, that’s Mike. Do you wanna know how I know?” Nate placed a hand on my knee, “I know because I see my brother and his wife in my niece so frequently, that sometimes I forget that they’re gone. And you know what? That’s a miracle no one could ever sell you.”

Jodie placed a hand on her stomach, on her baby and said, “Thank you Mr. Ford.”

At their touched expression, I placed my hand on Nate’s, lifting it up enough for me to hold and squeeze. He gave a squeeze back as the woman and her brother stood to leave the pub. 

“Now I see why you do it,” Tara whispered.

We watched as Parker stopped the brother right before he walked out the door and handed him an envelope with money in it equaling the amount Rand took from Jodie. He wrapped Parker into a tight hug. Parker had a very touched expression on her face, even if I could see that she wasn’t expecting the affectionate gesture.

I turned to Nate, “Do you really see mom and dad in me?”

“Almost everyday.”

“You don’t talk about them much.” It wasn’t an accusation, or even a suggestion, just an observation I had made. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to talk about them more. It wasn’t a taboo subject between us. I had asked him about them often when I was younger, and even if he didn’t answer right away, he did always answer eventually. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it lately. I missed them sometimes, but I had come to terms with the fact that Nate and I were family, and that was enough.

Nate squeezed my hand one last time as I was contemplating this before answering with a simple, “I know.”

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! Thank you for reading!

Tags: @instantdinosaurtidalwave @kniselle @technikerin23 @kiwikitty13 @plasticbottleholder

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

[citylighten]

1, 10, 12, 17, 24 <3

what’s the last screenshot you’ve taken for your story? I wanna open up my game, work on the story and 🌟 vibe today ✨ because I don't have any screencaps for my next update yet! This was the last cap I took. I did the sequence out of order because I was experimenting with wicked whims and general posing, since there's not really any phone sex animations.

10. is your story fully planned or are you still working things out? is there a definitive end?

There is no definitive end yet! There's major things I know that will happen such as [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] but honestly, I tweak my script and outline all the time. For example, there two moments that was supposed to happen in my last arc, but because I had so much to focus on, these events were moved into this plotline.

12. do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium?

I usually use it as a storytelling medium, but sometimes I do play the game! Like in my last gameplay file, Rosaria had Pietro's baby, and Pietro did get engaged to her, but they haven't been married yet. I was so surprised when I hopped into that file. I was looking through old gameplay caps the other night and found images of a AU 90s file I had where Linda was a serial killer. She romanced Bjorn and killed his wife. And Eve was dealing with the misery of having a mom as a murderer. It was a good mix of storytelling + gameplay. It'd probably be a good story on its own ngl 😂

17. what about the process do you hate?

I don't mind building, but decorating lots is a pain. Because I want the backgrounds to look 'full' and 'natural.' Usually if a specific story sequence is coming and I'm building/furnishing a lot, I try to do it months and weeks in advance. 😔

24. are there any characters who remind you of yourself?

Sal has the same birthday as me, Eve was raised by her grandparents like I was, I was a receptionist for awhile like Rosie, I love cartoons and art like Ben! So, to a degree, they all have little traits, interests or experiences I had. It makes the writing more real, you know?

[exo-wvrse-bbl]

03/03/24 - suho

It was a long weekend (cutely) What are you doing (cutely) ? Anything fun? (cutely)

Should I send this? I already sent this🤭 You’re acting greedy (cutely) 크크크 Everything in moderation Oh ㅋㅋㅋ The March semester’s started in Korea, awesome Getting to see friends after a long while A little bit awkward ㅋㅋ Omg you move up to middle school then move up to high school, then uni It was fun (cutely) The career exols are feeling jealous Enjoy the present, students High school senior’s fun times You might never experience those intense moments again But I live every year like it’s my senior yearㅎㅎ 크킄🤭 The times when I watched EXO videos and listened to the music during my rest times I ate this today

I was really super happy (cutely) ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Looks like 50 ppl replied ‘🐶(개/freaking) delicious' ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

It’s a selfie The eel restaurants in Namyang-ju are really tasty If I tell you all, I’d have to wait in line next time I go It’s been a long while since Ekjelut ㅎㅅㅎ I wanted to be Ekjelut(Exo’s funniest) back then ㅋㅋ Seems like I’ve matured The greedy desire to be the ‘funniest’ has disappeared Seems seeing my face can bring a smile automatically 🤭 Me too Always know there’s a corner of my heart reserved for exols.. •_ㅁ A spoiler for my next album, if you guess right I’ll send a signed Exo SUHO album Amazing, a correct guess ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ only one (eng) Just one ㅋㅋㅋ I took a screencap ㅋㅋㅋㅋ One more spoiler ✌️✌️ I gave another spoiler but why’s no one getting it right ✌️✌️ I’m curious, then exol becomes EXO ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Do a spoiler quiz Ok so listen y’all, Exo’s title track was Cream Soda Ah how do I give this spoiler No, if you were Exo, and the new album was Cream Soda, how would you give the spoiler to the fans? Now I know, I’ll give spoilers that way ㅋㅋ The feeling of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes Us Let’s become one Emoji spoiler 🪐 🚀 🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀🧑‍🚀 🤷🏻‍♂️ 😤 🥺 😢 😭 😂 😆 🌕 🍽️ 🤱🏻 🙇🏻‍♂️ difficult, so difficult ㅋㅋㅋㅋ You’ll hear it soon 1sec..; Phew Anyway, I really want to see you soon Even when school semester starts and people have to go to work, Exo Junmyeonie will always be with you May the exo be with you (eng) Stop looking at Exo for today, hurry up, go to bed and rest well (cutely) 🚀

source in desc

#exo #exo k #suho #junmyeon #joonmyeon #bubble

[dei2dei]

Li Mei's Kit: A Meta Analysis

I haven't been able to play the beta, but I find Li Mei's very VERY Chinese traits interesting. They leaned hard into them, and I wanted to take a moment to go all meta-geek about her fu lions and her fireworks.

Sometimes called "foo dogs", they're stylized lions and are used as guardian symbols all over China. MK has used them with great abandon throughout; they're pretty stereotypical. Traditionally, guardian lions are paired: one has a paw holding a ball, the other has a paw holding a lion cub. The one with the ball is male, the ball representing the world and the material; the one with the cub is female, representing nurturing/care and the spiritual. The female lion protects those inside, while the male protects the structure itself, and you can keep going down into layers here. Turtles on turtles, or lions on lions, as it were.

What's interesting to me is the guardian-protector angle of them and the choice of that for Li Mei. As an Umgadi, she would have been dedicated to protecting the royal family; the idea of being able to summon a spiritual guardian lion to protect her charges is a great note. When she fails in her service and leaves and becomes Constable of Sun Do, she absolutely does not leave behind her protectiveness, but in fact extends it to the capital at large. She's not just protecting Sindel and Kitana and Mileena now, it's everybody.

(and the best screencap I could find was a fu lion against Kitana, which amuses me on some level). The firecrackers are another spirit protection aspect, and I hadn't known about this moving to China. The folklore is that there was a monster who lived in the mountains that would come down to a village, terrorize it, and then leave. One year an old man shows up and spends a few days protecting the village; eventually he says "I can't do this anymore, I have places to go and things to do, but I'll help you protect yourselves". He teaches the community what to do: namely, Nian hates the color red, as well as loud noises like drums and music and… you guessed it, fireworks. Not only do they make for some pretty sweet particle effects, but they lean into that idea of protection again, a little subtle reinforcement that this is part of who Li Mei is. She's a guardian, and with her bright lights and loud noises, she's going to keep the bad things away. The last "big" element in Li Mei's kit that's new is her Sky Lantern. From a gaming POV it's a great anti-air move, and it actually leans into the historical side of things: they were used in China initially for military purposes, and then took on a non-military angle. Li Mei's kit leans into the military side of things, so these aren't unexpected.

But the sky lanterns do have a significance today that is less about the military, and more about family and reunions. Much like the fu dogs also have nuture/care and family tied into them, so do the lanterns - which means Li Mei has a whole boatload of "I will protect and care for everyone as my family". Especially since she was taken from hers and became a warrior-priestess. Despite - or in spite of - everything that's happened, Li Mei is going to continue to protect her family... which at this point is all of Sun Do. And just maybe all of Outworld, but only time will tell.

#li mei #mortal kombat #mortal kombat meta #mortal kombat 1 #meta analysis

[lallyloo]

[x]

#link neal #gmm #accurate #a baby #committing crimes #these are all the link caps i took today #gmm 2393 #my screencaps etc #rhett and link

[amtrak12]

Possible Ending for Pushing Daisies

Thesis Notes:

Apologies, but this will not include screencaps to demonstrate my theories. I have other things I want to devote my energy to today, but still needed to get these thoughts out.

I will be using the word "artifact" in the Warehouse 13 sense of the word, aka: an object of human construction that has been imbued with unexplainable, and thus treated as magical, abilities. These abilities typically include an inconvenient or even dangerous downside.

Literally no idea what Bryan Fuller, et all ever said about their intentions for the show if it hadn't been canceled or if they ever said anything post-cancellation. I am working entirely off the canon text here.

Introduction:

Obviously, Pushing Daisies ended before it could reveal what its long term goals for the story were. Did they want to solve Ned and Chuck's issues with touch? Did they want to explain where Ned's powers came from? Were they ever going to explicitly admit to what they implied about the people (and animals) Ned kept alive being immortal???

Absolutely no idea and we can never know for sure. However, they did leave clues and untied plot strings, primarily with the history of Dwight Dixon, Charles Charles, and Ned's father (who was never given a name) and the pocket watches Dwight desperately wanted to find.

Now given the slow roll of these plot points and the deliberate mystery surrounding them, I suspect whatever that trio got up to was the long term plot. And for it to be the long term plot of Pushing Daisies, then presumably it would address the premise of the show, aka Ned's powers to wake the dead.

Foundation Theory:

Dwight, Charles, and Ned's father came across some valuable artifact during their time in the UN Peace Corp, stole it, and divided it up into three equal pieces that they hid in the pocket watches. (Alternatively, they hid the artifact somewhere and divided the map to the hidden location up into three equal pieces.) This artifact is responsible for Ned's powers.

Evidence:

The picture of the three men in the Blue Berets shows them on camels in the desert. This doesn't have to mean Egypt, however Egyptian curses are a very common motif, and Pushing Daisies loved taking story cliches and putting an exaggerated fantasy spin on them. The camels and desert was absolutely chosen on purpose which means it's relevant which means it shows where the men were when they at least bought the pocket watches.

So we have pocket watches and some version of an Egyptian curse. We also have Ned's father leaving after Ned's mother and Charles Charles died, which is important, not only for Ned's backstory, but as insight into his father's motivations.

Detailed Theory:

I posit that the three men knew of the dangerous repercussions when they took this artifact. Maybe it came with a written warning, maybe there was a legend about it, etc. Did the men understand the details of this danger? No. Did they even believe the warning? Well, certainly not enough to stop them from stealing it.

I don't believe they stole this artifact for power. I don't think they believed it was magical in any way. There was not one minuscule hint at any of these men having or tying to obtain magical powers, and Dwight was genuinely shocked at Ned bringing Charles back to life. I think the men were after money. Dwight would certainly be after money most after spending twenty years in jail, so his actions support this theory. Sell one piece of the artifact? Make a nice chunk of change. Sell the entire artifact at once? Make a fortune.

Ned's Powers:

Two ways this can go. Option A: Stealing the artifact, triggered the "curse" to go into effect. Like how the replacement victim when Ned keeps a dead person alive longer than a minute is a random proximity thing, the curse was a random proximity thing and landed on Ned. Option B: Breaking the artifact into three pieces, separated its powers from the object and -- again through random proximity -- the powers landed on Ned. I personally like option B, but I'm a WH13 girlie and your mileage may vary.

Ned's Father:

I think Ned's father knew about his powers. Maybe not before Ned's mother and Chuck's father died (most likely not before), but certainly after. When it happened, he remembered the warning about the artifact, put that information together, felt guilty, and then shipped Ned off to boarding school to try and forget it ever happened (hence the second family).

But it did happen and his father could never really put that guilt behind him. So, he abandoned his second family to dig into the artifact and figure out the curse, while also keeping a distant eye on Ned.

End Game of the Show:

Taking all of this to be true, then the end game would be for Ned and Chuck to learn about what their fathers stole and learn what Ned's dad has dug up about the artifact and curse. Then comes the decision: Do they collect the pieces and restore the artifact to its rightful place? It seems like an easy decision, but it does bring up the following hiccups. Would returning the artifact take away Ned's powers? Does he want his powers to be gone when he's just started to accept them as a super power? It's one thing to choose not to use them and another to not have them at all. Would he be able to touch Chuck if he didn't have his powers anymore or is that something already set into motion and his second touch would still kill her no matter what? Or, worse yet, would Chuck die the instant they returned the artifact?

Adding to the conflict is Ned's father who has done all this research and still sees Ned's powers as a clear-cut upside. A gift, ultimately, and not a curse at all. He doesn't want to return the artifact and isn't willing to handle over his piece of it in the pocket watch. "Look at all the people you've helped! The victims you got justice for, the families you helped find closure. You were able to bring Chuck back to life! You're going to risk throwing that away?" The words just fuel Ned's doubts and guilt. Because there has been good from it. He has helped people, and what if Chuck did die again?

But it was built on something wrong. So he and Chuck ultimately decide (together, of course, as always) that they don't want to live with that and choose to return the artifact. Again, you have two options here: they could convince Ned's father it's the right thing to do and he hands over his piece of the artifact OR he continues to disagree with them and they have to steal his piece from him and go behind his back to return it. It depends on whether you want to give Ned's father a redemption arc or not. Personally, I do not. :P Leave redemption to shows like Lucifer and The Good Place. I am here for technicolor spite.

Happy Ending:

Returning the artifact takes away Ned's powers, but it does not undo anything he did with those powers. The people who died (the funeral director, Dwight) are still dead. The people who are alive again (Chuck, Digby, Charles), are still alive.

But no longer immortal. The immortality was an extension of Ned's powers. No powers, no immortality. Both Digby and Chuck will now age again.

And both can be touched by Ned without dying. :) Relief! Happy ending! But earned, I feel. Even when I was watching it brand new, I definitely wanted them to be able to touch again because it ached so much, but I also didn't want it to be for random reasons, like the consequences wore off after 'x' amount of time. The journey I listed above is indeed a journey, and thus doesn't feel random to me.

Closing Thoughts:

I like how this integrates the loose threads in the show. I like what it says about the damage and trauma parents can pass on to their children and how it doesn't have to be intentional to leave lasting scars. Depending on how you frame the artifact theft, you can even do commentary on colonization, land back, and reparations.

And no, I don't think Chuck's father will suddenly start decaying the moment they return the artifact. This show uses the cartoon logic of a wagon of hay being enough to avoid injury after falling multiple stories out of a bell tower. So, even though Charles was dead and buried for twenty years and presumably has no internal organs because they would've done an autopsy at the time of his mysterious death, he will continue to live and age like normal, just with a permanent corpse face. :P

#Pushing Daisies #my meta #long post #could I have put some of this behind a cut? yes #Did I use a cut? No and I'll tell you why: #because of how many goddamn times I've had to scroll past the colors of the sky over the years #like I said above: I am here for spite #>:) #but also I like this meta so just scroll past if you don't want to read

[christopherherondale]

Pink Daemon icon! *.* Yesss! Is it new, or I've just noticed it? Is it to honour Barbie or another reason entirely?

I love your theme(s) by the way. I know you got your desktop custom-made by Ethereal Themes, this made me use one of their themes I still very much love! But your mobile header and all the colours are very elegant also!

Aww!! Nóra, this message made me squee!! 💖💖💖💖💖 I've just switched to it earlier today, yes! so new for me 🤭 (it's part of the gorgeous hotd icon pack made by @midnightisquiet so you might have seen it before!) re Barbie 50/50 I switched mostly to match @aegonrhaenys because she has the pink Rhaenyra icon, so she's Barbie and I'm Ken Targaryen version 💖 (Daemon slays in this pink though 🤌🏻)

I'm so glad you like the desktop theme!! Honestly it took me forever to realise @hvitserkk makes themes, much to my shame, and they're all so flawless (and have so many options 🤌🏻 heaven), I'm glad you too discovered them! I love the colour scheme you used, that dark shade of purple is very beautiful and elegant and goes so well with the black 💜🖤

😭 tears of joy re mobile header!! I'm so touched you like it, I literally edited the screencap in that free web version of photoshop (and it took forever to load for me) and honestly amazed it worked with a psd I made like 9 years ago 😭😭 could only do this much, but again I'm very happy you like it!! 💖💖💖💖💖 (yours is super sexy and slays btw 💘 love it)

#💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖 #more hearts for you #yelena-belxva #answered

[remyfire]

Her giggles come unbidden, brought about by an idle thought and hastened with the fizz of the seltzer in her singapore sling. She presses the cards to her face, nearly leaves lipstick stands on her full house before resurfacing. "Sorry, sorry, a funny thought just came to me," she explains through her chuckles. "Before we were going steady, Beej let me guess what his name meant and the very first name I tried, you'll never guess." She doesn't give them a chance to, giggles increasing as she leans over and squeezes Hawkeye's hand. "Benjamin John! How funny is it that in the end, I got a Benjamin and a John after all, hey?"

(this did actually happen in our DMs and it's before I had ever once mentioned Trap's or Hawk's birth names to Christina and I have the screencap to prove it and it's extremely funny. Anyway, this is a self-indulgent, plotless character study with fun, fluffy quad building, so THANK YOU)

The laughter, golden as sunshine, makes BJ smile before Peg says a word. In theory, they keep their hands to themselves when they're playing—there's a 50/50 chance that if any of the four around the table reaches for someone, there'll be claims of attempted cheating or fraternizing with the sole purpose of distraction—but he's tipsy enough that he can't stop himself from reaching to lightly cup her forearm, thumb brushing over her wrist.

He's still getting used to how natural it feels, having Hawk's foot resting on his own beneath the table. Hawk's got one of Peggy's silky robes tucked snug around his lean shoulders, one of Trap's tanks on under it. Beej hasn't made it easy on the man across from him since his late arrival to the house, but with just enough bourbon in his blood, he can even admit that the table doesn't feel right without Trapper's money being tossed into the pot.

He studies Trap's face, tracking the faint quirk of his brow as he considers his cards before finally raising the pot, and BJ files it away.

When he starts catching Peg's words again, he rolls his eyes affectionately. "Oh no," Beej murmurs, almost drowned beneath Hawk's sound of delight. It's an old story, but one he hadn't quite put the significance together about until today, and he chuckles as he studies his hand yet again. When Peg's chips join the pot, BJ chucks in his own.

"You're not serious?" Trap asks with a laugh of his own.

"It's not the first time she was a little psychic." BJ finally claims one of her hands and presses a kiss to the back of it. "Maybe one of the more regrettable times in the end, though—"

Trapper leans slightly over the table. "Y'know, Hunnicutt, if I didn't know better, I'd think I wasn't welcome here."

"Only took two months of living here rent-free before you started picking up on my tone," Beej drawls. "Impressive."

It really is a sign of how things are shifting that Trap just smirks, that for one of the first times in recent memory BJ is the one to break the contact instead of holding it in an adrenalizing game of dominance.

"It makes a weird kind of sense, doesn't it?" Hawk points out. He lazily rests his chin on his palm, the game briefly forgotten—now that they no longer have to play just to survive the long and aching hours of imprisonment, there's room for these languid chats. Erin's tucked in bed. They've got hours to kill yet, a whole weekend ahead of them, and only BJ's due in at the hospital late tomorrow night.

"What does?" BJ asks.

Hawk grins at him, eyes sparkling. "That you found her first." He gestures vaguely to him with his cards, glancing over at the other two. "Beej always takes first pot, the lucky bastard,"

The words warm something in his chest. There are nights like this when BJ can't even remember who 15-year-old him was, that kid with an aching hole in his chest, skittish in his family home, keeping his distance from anybody who wasn't on his athletic teams so he wouldn't lose his chance at college by getting distracted.

There's a lot that can be said about how he and Peggy Hayden collided in that high school drama class. He's not sure either of them will ever be able to truly plumb into the depths of how inextricably they tangled their sense of self around each other at such a young age, nor does he know how long it'll take for them to loosen their orbits until the sight of Peg looping her pinkie with Trap's as she leads him down the hallway to his bedroom no longer fills Beej with that primal desire to reclaim her.

But he's also not sure how that anxious, angry kid would've made it out alive if he hadn't had her light illuminating that long, dark path until he was forced to discover how to make his own without her.

Now, he knows he can. He could glow all on his own without her, without Erin, without Hawk.

He simply doesn't want to.

BJ gets lost in Peg's eyes as he rests their joined hands against his cheek to the tune of Hawk's chips joining the pot. "Maybe I took first. But we've all got a pretty equal share now, don't we?"

Just as the soft words leave his mouth, he catches that edge of her smirk, and he knows. He knows before she even puts down the full house.

As Hawk howls in irritation and Trap tosses his own hand down, BJ shakes his head with a heavy sigh. "Okay, fine, I take it back. She always wins everything in the end."

"But you love me," Peg teases, and Beej loops back into her orbit just for a taste of her lips before she starts gathering the chips for sorting.

"I do." He tucks her hair behind her ear, pleased as punch. "We all do."

"Son of a bitch," Trap murmurs as he gets to his feet. He grabs his empty glass, then Hawk's, stealing a quick kiss from him as he walks behind his chair. "You want another, Peg?"

"I'm good!" She all but wiggles in her seat as she stacks. "This is fun~"

"You say that every time, you cute, little hustler." Hawk leans across the table, and she meets him in the middle with a quick smooch of her own. He chases her when she tries to pull back, and as she squeals and grins against his mouth, BJ shakes his head and picks up his own empty glass.

He meets Trap by the bar, their arms brushing as Beej reaches for the bottle of bourbon.

"Hey." When Trap speaks, they lock eyes. Trapper leans into the counter, his body nearly cupping BJ's own. "What does it stand for, anyway?"

A month ago, he would've been inclined to tell him to go fuck himself. Maybe even a week ago. But something's different on his tongue tonight—something he blames entirely on the bourbon, nothing else.

So when BJ lets, "Anything you want," slip off his tongue, it's more fluid than the last time he said it. Looser. Sweeter. And as he departs the counter, he feels the faint tug at his shirt.

Instinctively, he twists out of Trap's loose grip, and the other man lets him go. As BJ backs up three slow steps, he lifts his brows in silent question. Trap doesn't fill the silence. Doesn't come after him either.

They watch each other, long and hard, before BJ disappears around the corner with an oddly fluttery heart.

#i had fun with this THANK YOU #satisfies myself with writing late late late late series stuff as bite-sized pieces while i wrestle with this behemoth of a chapter #mcpunnihawk #some things are evergreen #my writing

[savelockwoodandco]

i’ve been trying desperately to create an account on national film academy but can’t access the votes to save my life … any advice/things i missed to register ?

Hi! I had this problem too!!!

It seems like there's different ways of voting. For me all I had to do to register was click on the blue link on

Then (and for this I'm using Jonathan Stroud's screencap)

Scroll til you find the blue link in the pic to go register.

For me once I registered it brought me to what looked almost like a facebook group page! As you can see on the left there's a tab that shows up that says vote now. I half circled it in red!

That took me to a voting page where I could vote for Lockwood and Co! You don't have to vote in every category! You can just vote for Best TV Drama if you want.

Hopefully this fixes it for you! This is how it worked for me!

#save lockwood and co #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #l&co #jonathan stroud #answer post #engagement post

[aceontheline]

Love is in Bloom (Mass x Florida: Pt 2)

C//W: Mass has a bad Panic Attack

Mass and Florida have gone on several more cutesy type dates at this point on in their relationship, and they were public. Everyone in the Statehouse knew they were going out and were proud of them... Well, almost everyone. But they paid no mind to the more "Bible Belt" type areas anyway. However, Mass was now faced with a feeling he was all too familiar with.

One morning, he saw Florida packing up for something and instinctively asked if he could come along to wherever he was going. Florida sighed and let Mass sit down next to him. Florida shook his head slowly.

"Gov says I need to attend some sort of 'Political Convention' with him. So, we'll probably be gone for a couple days" Florida said sadly.

Suddenly, he noticed Mass's demeanor change. He was shaky and less responsive. Florida tapped Mass on his shoulder, asking if he was okay. Mass nodded and excused himself to his room, practically bolting away as fast as he could. Mass slammed his door unintentionally, as he slid down, his back against the door. He felt sick to his stomach. What the fuck is going on... Oh wait.

----------------------------FLASHBACK--------------------------------

Mass was in a relationship with someone before Florida. The man barely seemed to care about him, putting off dates and all other activities in favor of working longer hours to get the bonuses and promotions he wanted. Mass knew he could change the guy if he just tried to mold himself to what he knew his then boyfriend would like. Thing is, Mass tried everything he could think of. His efforts seemed to be all for nothing, as his boyfriend would still ignore him.

Then, one day, Mass's then lover said that he needed to attend a meeting for a few days and that he would return soon. That he needed a bit of a break from Mass's frenetic nature.

"I'm only like this because you don't answer me for days at a time, then just show up at my door with flowers, thinkin' it'll be okay. It's not, Darren. You gotta do more than the bare minimum!" Mass exclaimed angrily, tears streaming down his face.

"Listen, maybe you can sort yourself out while I'm gone. When I get back, I expect better behavior from you. Maybe less like a psycho" Darren also yelled out, slamming the front door behind him.

Mass knew something that Darren didn't. For whatever reason, Darren didn't sign out of the computer they shared. Including Facebook. Mass felt a deep seeded anger and a sinking feeling like something was happening with Darren on this so called "trip". After reading through his messages, Mass was absolutely correct. He took screencaps of all the messages that were relevant and signed out of the Facebook account. He shut down the computer for now, looking at the messages he captured and printed out.

Mass also took screencaps and emailed them to himself, as well as everyone else relevant in their lives, excluding Darren himself. The message basically said:

"Darren isn't the man you think he is. We've been dating for almost 3 years, and I just see THIS today"

Several people already replied to him and said that Mass hadn't been the only victim, claiming some poor girl by the name of Casey was in his place at one point. Mass heard every little detail he needed to hear, packed all of his stuff, wrote Darren an angry letter with the screencap printouts attached. With that, Mass was gone.

-----------------------END OF FLASHBACK---------------------------

Mass was on the floor, practically spiraling out of control. His breaths became rapid and short, his vision blurred and his stomach felt like it was in knots. Damn it, another panic attack. He looked at himself in the mirror to try and help ground himself quickly. Taking a few deep breaths in and out, cycling through the "5 Senses" exercise to help him ground.

Almost nothing was working, so Mass just laid down on his bed. He had only been dating Florida for almost a few weeks now, so why was he so nervous about him cheating? Why was he expecting to see weird messages between him and Gov about secret meeting places or what they'd be doing with each other...

No, this isn't Darren. This is Florida. Darren was a piece of crap who didn't want to take accountability for his stupidity. Florida... Well, at least he was honest. Mass laid his head back against the wall close to his bed and took a few deep breaths. He opened his eyes... Florida! Shit! He saw Mass having a panic attack just now, didn't he?

"Hey hey, Mass..." Florida stepped a bit closer to Mass, within arms length. He held his hand out. Mass took it. "That's it. Stay with me, okay? Breathe in for 5, hold for 6, out for 5. Okay? Can you do that?" Florida asked.

Mass nodded. He breathed in for 5 seconds, held it for 6, and exhaled for 5 seconds. He felt a little lightheaded for a moment, then better again. Mass repeated the cycle of breaths while Florida held his hand and spoke words of affirmation to him. Once Mass was more calmed down, he just looked Florida dead in the eyes.

"Just promise me... This isn't some secret thing between you and Gov, is it?" Mass asked.

"What? Ew, no. Gov ain't my type anyway. Besides, I'm sure he likes someone else anyway. Wouldn't wanna mess around with all that" Florida replied.

That was... A surprisingly wholesome response from Florida. Mass felt reassured for the moment though. But even more, as Florida asked if Mass would like for him to call every day or so. Mass nodded. "That'd be incredible of you, thank you" Mass said.

Florida nodded happily, insisting that he and Mass spend the day together now before he has to go tomorrow morning with Gov. The two did just that: A nice walk in the park, a movie, a light lunch, some cuddling... Typical, cutesy couple stuff. Mass even fell asleep with Florida still in his arms. It was the first time he had gotten any good sleep in a while.

Florida had to leave the next day, but texted Mass once he and Gov arrived at the hotel they were staying at. They were in separate rooms anyway so there was no issue there, as Gov wanted a room to himself. Florida called after the first meeting at this "Convention" was over. They talked for all of an hour before Florida did his nightly routine and went to bed shortly after. Mass looked at the clock... 11:00 pm. Mass cuddled with a pillow, holding it as if it were Florida. He then realized... Mass snuck into Florida's room and took a clean tank top from his closet and rushed back to his own room.

"This'll just be for a few days. Until he's coming back. He won't notice it's gone" Mass reassured himself.

Mass snuck a quick whiff. Citrus, orange blossoms, and clean linens. He enjoyed it, throwing the tank top over the pillow and using it to cuddle with, pretending it was Florida. For now, this would suffice.

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#wttt #wttt fanfic #ANGST #wttt massachusetts #wttt florida #wttt shipping #mass x florida