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#we're cutting down the book budget from here out

aniron48 · 1 year

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Love Letters - Day 4

I don't know how it's possible, but we're already almost halfway through! You all have made this so much fun, and it's been an utter delight for me so far. 💜 If you're joining for the first time, you can catch up as follows: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

As a reminder, there will be a post around this time (9pmish EST) every night through 2/14. And for those who are all caught up, welcome to day 4 of Love Letters, a 00q choose your own adventure! Congratulations, fellow nerds, you've unlocked the library. Day 4 starts below the cut.

His next stop should probably be to the library.

“Can I help you find anything?” A librarian with bright pink hair and a beard to match walked up to where Bond lingered in front of the new acquisitions shelf, trying to get his bearings.

Bond opened his mouth to decline, but he only had an hour and a half before he had to be back at MI6 for a meeting with the Budget Office, and not much idea where to start. Besides, he’d made sure nothing he borrowed could be traced to him, anyway. He’d taken out the library card in Mallory’s name.

“I don’t suppose you have any books on love letters?”

“Books about love letters? Or with examples of them?”

“Yes. Both. Either.”

“Well, you’re in luck. I pulled a few things that might be of interest for our Valentine’s Day display. It’s just over here.”

Bond followed the librarian, whose name badge read “Kai,” to a table decorated with construction paper drawings of candy hearts. They picked up a book called Indelible: Queer Love Letters through the Ages. “This just came in last month, and it’s gorgeous. Give it a look and see if it’s what you need.”

Bond took the book to one of the nearby tables and began to page through.

Before he knew it, nearly an hour had gone by. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, exactly. Perhaps that love letters from real people would be somehow less than the fictional letter Austen had written for Captain Wentworth—less profound, and more prosaic. There were mundane bits, to be sure, but somehow even they were suffused with light; enhanced, rather than diminished, by the love that brought them into focus.

“I just miss you,” Vita Sackville-West wrote to Virginia Woolf, “in a quite simple desperate human way…I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal.”

And there was profundity, too, a humanity that banked itself like the embers of a fire against the darkness that threatened to overwhelm it. Near the middle of the book, Bond found the letters of Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon.

“And you have fixed my Life—however short,” he wrote, almost a year to the day before he was killed in action, barely a week before the end of World War I. “You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze.”

“What do you think?” Kai asked, returning to Bond’s table.

Bond cleared his throat. “It’s perfect,” he said. “Could I check this out?”

“Of course. I’ll meet you at the circulation desk.”

Kai took Bond’s library card and scanned it, saying as they did so, “You know, the editors of this anthology are putting together a companion version of contemporary letters. They’re asking people to send in copies of letters they’ve received, to show what love looks like now. If you’re fond of love letters, you should think about sending some in.”

Bond looked down at the circulation desk, rubbing ineffectually at a scuff mark with his finger. He thought of a flooded building in Venice, and all the hopes that had collapsed with it; of the dozens of married women and the handful of married men for whom Bond had been an excuse to pretend, for an hour, or an evening, or a week, that their lives were something more than a string of indistinguishable, empty days. He’d been happy to let them, at the time. He’d been using them for the same thing, after all. But there had been no love letters for him, either, even if he’d never felt the lack until now.

“No,” he said after a moment. “No, I don’t have anything I could send in.”

“Well, you never know,” Kai said, handing over the book. “Valentine’s Day is coming up. You might get lucky.”

“You never know,” Bond said, slipping his library card back in his wallet. “Thanks again.”

As he walked back to MI6, the book safely wrapped in his jacket, he thought, finally, that he might have everything he needed to write Q a proper love letter.

I made up the title of the book Bond looks through, but the love letters (and many more like them!) are real. You can find the letter from Vita Sackville-West here, and the one from Wilfred Owen here.

#Love Letters #Love Letters Day 4 #00q #choose your own adventure #00q choose your own adventure

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ladambell · 6 months

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Feelings are hard.

I've heard it said before that if you continue to like something ironically for long enough — a silly pop song, a movie with bad acting, an ideology, what have you — then it becomes an unironic appreciation of that thing. I think the same might hold true for adulthood: pretend you're a grownup long enough, and you become one. Tick enough boxes in the "responsibilities" column, and the rest — the ennui, the debt, the dread, the back hair — it sneaks up on you.

There was a time in my life that if someone near me was playing a video game, I was there watching them and trying to convince them to let me play, no matter what that game was. Now I'm often either too preoccupied or too burnt out to play games with my own kid. Live service games where you play with or against real humans intimidate me, and mobile games are stuffed full of inspid ads for even more insipid mobile games. Sorry, tangent.

I used to run a podcast. I had a Twitter alt account where I posted silly bits of old cartoons. I even occasionally went out with friends! Madness! Now I get excited by new clothes, appliances, new toiletries. I look forward to working on broadcasts of high school football games — for the money, sure, but also because I get to hang out with people from my last job that I dearly miss.

So all of that... that's how I've been feeling lately. With my thrice-weekly commute, work, cooking, chores, errands, and oh yeah, sleep... it feels like I have little time left for anything else. And with the confluence of those precious moments of free time, a tight family budget, mild social anxiety, and a more-than-mild addiction to social media, it's not hard to see why my interest in hobbies, conversation, and even recreation have gone completely by the wayside.

But now I'm struggling for a sense of identity, because so often it feels like all I am is a tool completing a series of tasks. Filling a space like an extra in a TV show, adding texture to a background without really contributing anything.

What do I even DO anymore? My job definitely serves a purpose in my organization, but it's hard to see anything outside of that. I don't see any product at the end of the day, something I can point to and say "I MADE THAT." When I was in a creative job, even a news editor, I could still point to a piece I cut and say "I MADE THAT" and feel proud of myself. Now, as long as the place isn't burning down and my inbox isn't blowing up, I can't get that feeling anymore. Pointing at a schedule and going "I MADE... sure that... there were... ⁿᵒ ᶜᵒⁿᶠˡⁱᶜᵗˢ" just doesn't hold the same sense of satisfaction for me. And what do I have to show for that, you know? I don't even have anything from my current job I could show to another potential employer and say "I MADE THAT." All I'd have to go on would be whatever praise my current boss has for me, and she barely even knows what I do.

I used this analogy when I gave a presentation to my current team a little while back — this quote from Futurama describes my job perfectly:

So I mean, sure, I get the occasional "attaboy" at work, and it's nice to be appreciated, to have your work acknowledged. But again, words are cheap and no one cares how much money you make. I have nothing of value to show for the time I've spent here so far.

Alicia astounds me. She has her job, AND she does a lot for the kiddo, AND her scout stuff, AND at least two friends she regularly chats with, AND she handles all the bills, AND SHE EVEN READS. Like, books. She's amazing. As useless and milquetoast as I feel sometimes, it's a wonder we're still together. I think the moments I feel surest in myself are the times she boosts me up — when she tells me about how a parent chatted her up at a scout event and asked her how she manages to do everything she does for scouts while also balancing a full-time job, and Alicia praises me: "I have the most wonderful husband, who supports me and helps with our kid, and takes care of so much of the house stuff..." Even now as I type it, I start to tear up. More than being appreciated, it's good to feel necessary. To have a real purpose. To be a pillar for someone else. That's why I keep doing all the adult things — because I know if I don't, I'll be hurting them. Hurting her.

I consider myself a very private person; I don't open up to people without seriously getting to know them first, and I'm fairly antisocial — I really only make friends when I'm stuck with other people in some situation I can't escape. If I were on my own... I'm not sure I could've made it this far. Despite having a degree in mass media, I'm still convinced I wouldn't have gotten the TV job if I hadn't been with her — her old co-worker's husband worked at the TV station, you see. He put in a good word for me. I don't know, I have very few friends and no clue how to network.

I have no idea where I'd be now if it weren't for her.

When he and his brother Justin announced that they were retiring from their jobs at Polygon in 2018, Griffin McElroy said:

It does not matter how happy your work makes you if work is all that there is.

So I guess if I have any sense of identity right now in my life, it's as a supporter, a provider. Life isn't about me, and whether I make things or not doesn't matter all that much. What matters is the family I support, the love I help create. That's more important than a hobby, at least for now. And this feeling of emptiness isn't forever, it's temporary.

I still like video games, although I don't have nearly as much time or money for them as others apparently do.

I still have ongoing games of Scrabble and Words with Friends with a trio of regulars (that I rarely ever talk to).

I still jot down potential Only Connect questions every now and then in the Notes app on my phone.

And I think maybe someday I'd like to find a way to do some more painting. The process never seems all that special at the time, but the results are usually pretty satisfying.

#life #work #family #friends #hobbies #getting old

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caffeinesam · 1 year

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Just trying to save some money

We wanted to buy a condo. Our apartment was getting small, and it was far from either of our jobs. My commute was tedious and the bus ride took him hours. We had accrued a lot of debt over the last three years just, like, letting our expenses get the best of our credit scores. Just dumb twenty-somethings with unlimited desires and no one to stop us. No one taught us either.

We listened to my mother's advice; cut back on your little luxuries and save some money. Dad just nodded. His father told us to at least save some money for the minimal down payment, see what the interest rates were and work on our credit. His mom just nodded.

So we cut back on eating out and stopped buying lattes on our walks downtown. We tried to reduce our grocery bills by getting only what was on sale. We did our best but the interests on our credit cards kept up with what little we saved. Every month we came to the same conclusion.

"Do you have anything left?"

"I'm bled dry, I don't get it!"

"You splurge on anything?"

"Just the oil change. The brakes were due and he said something about the air sensor I didn't understand. Had it changed."

"This piece of shit is getting expensive to run."

"Yeah."

But I still desperately needed it, no bus lines reached the hotel I worked at or the mall where the groceries were the cheapest. The city's planning didn't want to help us.

Our parents weren't worried.

"It's okay, it might take a little while but you'll get to it!" my mom tried to cheer me up "Surely there's something else you can cut back on!"

"I guess so."

I ran a budget app, with input from my bank and credit card statements, trying to find where I was bleeding money. But nothing, just the bare necessities, maybe a book last week, maybe this grocery trip had been a bit extravagant, my share of the rent, our insurance, fuel.

Our insurance.

Did we really need a 150k protection for a one-bedroom? We do not own that much! Did the old beat-up Nissan need full coverage? It was paid for a long time ago. I felt dumb. Every year we were paying more in insurance than the amount we bought it for.

"Babe? I'm gonna call the insurance company tomorrow. I think we're wasting, like a lot, with them."

And so our debt melted a few hundred dollars every month. I felt relieved. So relieved. And excited.

I started eating less. Not to lose weight but to make the groceries last longer. I didn't bring lunches to work, only water. I sneaked some bits from the buffet but otherwise just fasted all day.

One day I had an idea. I parked the car out back by the dumpsters and, making sure the line cooks weren't smoking outside, dove in at my break, filling the trunk with bags of food we had thrown away. It was safe, the freezing temperature would keep it from spoiling. It was safe. I would sift through it tonight, see what's still good, what's not.

"Uh... what's that?"

"I figured we could save up a lot more if I took some food from th..."

"Did you steal this from the hotel dumpster!?"

"It's not theft they were throwing it away!"

"That's not what I..." he stopped, sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and scratched his head with both his hands. "I'm not gonna eat trash!"

"Fine! But fill up the car yourself if you waste your cash on groceries!"

Two months of that and I had paid off one of my credit cards entirely while he struggled with either of his. I sometimes slept in unoccupied bedrooms at the hotel to save on gas. It was better that way, we didn't really feel like hanging out anyway. I took double shifts when I could, it kept my mind away from the hunger and my fragile fingernails. They kept breaking. I had to be careful not get caught stealing for the buffet. So annoying.

He called me at work.

"Did you block my number? I tried texting you. Have you been here all this week?"

"Yes" I whispered "I'm trying to save on gas dammit!"

"You blocked my number?! Why?"

"No, no I sold my phone. I spent the week here."

"What?"

"I sold my phone. I don't need it. You can take my messages and I only come here anyway."

"Your parents keep calling" he said after a long silence "maybe give them a call. We're all worried J."

"Will do."

"When are you coming home? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Okay" he paused "I love you"

I hung up. I was pissed. He would have me wasting our money on expensive meals at home instead of paying back his credit cards. He would have me drive 25 miles back and forth, on MY time, with MY gas money, so I would distract him from his boring life? What was I his Netflix account? I briskly walked back to the front desk, and briskly fainted on the soft carpet.

I woke up to my manager helping me up. Her soft arm and the warmth of her large body felt luxurious and wasteful. I got angry. My vision pulsed to my heartbeat. She sat me on a couch in the lobby. She was obviously angry too.

"I let go of your weird shit for the last few months Julie" she said with a soft voice holding her anger on a leach "but if you start fainting on the job I can't let you come in. Get some help. You look like a well-dressed corpse! You have sick days, take them!"

"I don't want to. I need to work."

"You can't come to work like that! You know the cameras see you sleeping in the rooms and dive in the dumpsters!" her voice got tremulous "Look I don't want to push you to the edge if you're afraid to go home..."

"It's too expensive..." I said, she looked at me dumbfounded and confused "Yeah okay. I will get some rest."

"Take a proper meal before driving. Please. We will talk about this later. I'll call you next Tuesday."

"Yeah."

She was about to fire me. I knew it. I sat in the car, catching a glimpse of a gaunt stranger's reflection in the window. It was just me. Faint, my blonde hair dry and thinning, my eyes sunken and sad, my skin flaky and pale. She was about to fire me.

I drove towards home, but parked in front of a large bungalow.

"We could save on insurance by sleeping under their back porch maybe."

I tried the door, it was unlocked. I walked through the house, helped myself to the fridge, went to the garage and sneaked out with a gasoline can.

"We should make the insurance worth paying."

#avocado toast #savings #poverty #house #buying a house #fiction #short stories #quick fiction #1 hour writing #disease #obsession

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stylosalons · 1 year

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How to Choose a Salon: The Ultimate Checklist

When it comes time to book a salon appointment, you may feel a little overwhelmed. How do you know which salon is the best for you? What should you look for when making your choice? Fear not! We're here to help.

Below, we've compiled a checklist of things to keep in mind when choosing a salon. So, before you book your next appointment, be sure to read through this list and ask yourself the following questions.

Do Your Research

Start by doing your research. Don't just walk into the first salon you see; take the time to read reviews and compare different salons. Look for a salon that offers the services you're looking for and has good reviews from past clients. Stylo salon is the best salon in Udaipur.

Also, take into account what's important to you. If you're looking for a salon that's eco-friendly and uses organic products, then be sure to look for that specifically. If you're looking for a luxurious experience, then focus on spas that offer high-end services.

Whatever your priorities are, make sure they're reflected in the salon you choose.

Consider the Environment

When it comes to choosing a salon, one of the most important factors to consider is the environment. Is the salon clean? Is it well-lit? Are the staff and other clients friendly and welcoming? Do you feel comfortable in the space?

If you're not comfortable in a salon, it's going to be difficult to relax and enjoy your treatment. So take some time to visit a few salons in your area and see which one feels the most comfortable. You should also feel free to ask the staff any questions about the salon, such as whether they use sanitizers or how often they clean their equipment.

Look at the Staff

When you're looking for a new salon, one of the most important things to do is take a look at the staff. Are they experienced and qualified? Do they seem to know what they're doing? Are they friendly and welcoming?

If you're not sure whether a salon is right for you, why not book a consultation with one of the stylists? This will give you a chance to chat with them and see if your personalities would mesh. You should also be able to get an idea of their skills and experience. If you're not comfortable with them, it's probably not the right salon for you.

Pricing

You'll definitely want to take pricing into consideration when choosing a salon. Depending on where you live, salon prices can range from very affordable to pretty steep.

Of course, you'll get what you pay for to some extent. But that doesn't mean you should automatically write off a salon that's on the cheaper end. There are plenty of great, affordable salons out there.

Do some research to get an idea of what the going rate is for the type of services you're looking for in your area. That way, you can narrow down your options to a few salons that fit your budget.

Services Offered

When you're looking for a salon, you'll want to make sure that they offer the services that you're looking for. Are you looking for a place to get your hair cut, or are you looking for a full-service salon that offers hair, nails, and skin care?

Some salons specialize in certain types of hair, like curly hair or color-treated hair. Others may offer additional services like waxing or massage. Make sure to ask about the services that are offered so you can choose the salon that's right for you.

Trust Your Gut

You should feel comfortable with the team from the moment you step into the salon. If you don't feel a good vibe, it's probably not the right place for you. The staff should make you feel welcome and be attentive to your needs.

If you're getting your hair done, pay attention to how the stylists interact with each other and with the clients. Are they having fun? Do they seem like they're in a good mood? If they seem unhappy, that's probably not the best place to be.

The same goes for spa treatments. You want to feel like you're in good hands and that the staff is taking care of you. If you don't feel comfortable, it's probably not the right place for you.

Conclusion

All things considered, the best salon for you is the one that meets most, if not all, of your needs. Of course, you might have to compromise on some things, but that’s okay. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable and confident with the salon you choose.

If you’re still not sure which salon to go with, don’t be afraid to ask around for recommendations. Friends, family, and even strangers can be great sources of information. Once you’ve narrowed down your options, you can always visit the salon in person to get a feel for the place and the staff.

Choosing a salon is a big decision, but it doesn’t have to be a stressful one. Just take your time, do your research, and trust your gut, and you’ll find the perfect salon for you in no time.

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softvoicemonty · 2 years

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Waste Deep Chapter 9: "-orn T- Plunge"

Dibbuk felt like she hadn't slept in days. It had only been four hours, but with the Tar-Khal metabolism it might as well have been nineteen. Team 5 was currently hurtling down the yellow line on their way to do a patrol on level 3. Selby was acting as the scout in Harvels absence. This wasn't too out of the ordinary on it's own but there was one other detail they hadn't known about.

Captain Lier was sat next to Dibbuk, fully kitted out and humming absent mindedly. His suit must have been of a much older make than any of their own. Iron bands and rivets reminding her of an ancient diving suit she'd seen in a book once. He wore the same doughboy style helmet that Harvel used instead of the standard issue like the rest of the teams. Unfortunately Dibbuk herself could never find one that fit in the first place

Harvel had found his wedged between the wall of a pipe and a fatburg on level two a year ago. the words "-orn T- Plunge" had been painted on the side. If the dents on the visor of Liers were any indication he'd had his for quite a bit longer. The dark green enamel looked like it had worn away years ago.

"Sir, why the old helmet? What're the dents from?" Selby asked, nodding towards the bowl shaped headgear.

"Mmm? Oh, a couple of the little shits got me on the ground and tried to gnaw my head off, got caught on the visor. S' exactly what they're designed for. They also keep the drippings off your face, and in a pinch you can make soup in it. Three birds one stone Klagbender." Lier responded, rapping his knuckles along the steel.

"Used to make beans in mine." Don added from across the cart. He had a far off nostalgic look in his eyes.

"Don't remind me." Lier jabbed back.

"Why don't we still use them?" Wicksomme asked, taking off and inspecting his own helmet.

"Budget cuts kid! Only thing ours'll stop is a warriors shitter." Don responded, taking a long swig from what looked like a newly purchased flask.

"Not in front of me Donny. Remember?" Leir grumbled, shooting Don a stern look.

"Oi! You can't tell what's in here. Could be milk for all you know." Don barked, pouting a bit as he slid the flask back into his pocket.

"Keep it down Don, we're coming up on the dock." Mary growled, the sound of hard tapping coming from the touch pad in front of her. She seemed even more agitated than normal Dibbuk noted.

They slowed to a stop, the breaks giving a slight whine as they scraped against the calipers. They opened the hatch and exited onto a tiny dock jutting out from an inflow pipe on the far wall. Dibbuk had been to this part of level three about nine months ago. Mary had been pretty pissed off that time as well.

The sewers got older and more dilapidated the further towards the center of the city you went. At this point you were dealing with sytems nearly a hundred and fifty years old. Fifty miles further and you'd be practicing archeology instead of engineering.

Lier pulled out a datapad from a satchel on his shoulder as he approached the entrance to the pipe. The rest of the team hung back a bit, Wicksomme admiring the sheer drop underneath them. Red lights extended downwards along a set of stairs that led off into the darkness below.

"How high up are we?" Wicksomme wondered aloud, peeking over the edge.

"Well, I'd wager the lights are about twenty feet apart. I stopped counting them when I got to thirty, so at least six hundred? Maybe more?" Selby answered, kicking a previously spent shell off the side of the platform. Dibbuk never heard it hit the water. "Probably more." Selby finished.

"No worries Wicky. If you fall off you'll die quick enough. Heheh." Don said, giving Wicksomme a slap on the shoulder as he walked by. The way the young man stiffened up this must not have been much of a comfort.

Dibbuk softly sidled up to Mary. She was leaning up against a railing, watching Lier as she chewed on her thumbnail. She'd seen Mary angry before, nothing new there, but it had always seemed like a radiating anger. Not the laser focused hatred she was seeing now.

"Mary? Are you alright? Somethings wrong isn't it?" Dibbuk asked, keeping her voice down.

"Everything. Everything is wrong. I don't like this place. Leir won't tell us anything. It's all wrong Dibbuk." Mary answered through gritted teeth. Though Dibbuk couldn't be sure, it smelled like she was sober.

'Fucking Lier. Fucking Don. Fucking old ass pipes. Horseshit, utter horseshit.'

'There it is again. That damn voice.' Dibbuk thought, glancing around. It seemed to reverberate around in the corners of her mind. She didn't know why it was happening. It was obviously not the eyes with a voice, but it definitely sounded like it.

It had happened at the grocers earlier that day as well. She'd been walking away from from the fruit bar aisle with four cases of Buunchal bars and out of nowhere she'd heard it again. 'Shit, she always comes in on Wednesdays. Maybe I can stock them again before Mr. Till gets mad at me.' She'd looked up to see a teenager in a blue apron staring at her from halfway across the store.

There was no mistaking it now. She was hearing peoples thoughts. This wouldn't have been half bad if she had any desire to listen to them. Could she control it or was it random like drawing lots?

'Why'd it have to be me? Was it the eyes with the voice? Ugh, I already don't like this. What if whatever tried to kill Harvel is inside my head now? It might try me next.' Dibbuk thought, gazing out into the darkness extending infinitely away from the dock.

"Valez! Quit daydreaming, we're moving." Lier shouted, pulling her out of her head. He was pointing to the staircase, the rest of the team already following his lead. Dibbuk got in line behind Mary, who was still cursing under her breath.

They passed pipe after pipe, light after light as they descended the ancient iron stairs. Selby's assessment had been about three hundred feet off. By the time Lier stopped them Dibbuk could hear Wicksommes labored breathing over the constant roar of falling midden collecting beneath them. They must have been close to the bottom, the rising spray filling Dibbuks nostrils.

"Klagbender! You're with me on point. We've gotten reports of a burg down the L32a inflow. According to team 3 their last patrol didn't turn anything up, but that was a month ago. We're on a three month rotation down here but a sensor about three miles in picked something up yesterday." Lier announced as they made their way into the mouth of the pipe.

"You're telling us a fatburg got big enough to set off one of the oldest sensors in our network in a month?" Mary scoffed, shooting Don an incredulous look. Don was just staring down the pipe as if he hadn't heard a word.

"No Merel. I'm telling you something got big enough in a month to set off the sensor. As you know these old pipes don't have our fancy spectrometers like the newer additions. I can't tell you what we're going to find. But, we are going to find it." Lier answered, sliding the datapad back into it's satchel.

Before another word could be said, Lier about faced and began sauntering down the pipe. Don immediately followed suit. The team exchanged reserved glances, uncertainty taking hold for a moment. "You heard the Captain! Get a move on!" Don shouted, not bothering to turn around. Without another thought or hesitation Dibbuk and the rest of the team fell into step.

Selby jogged to catch up to Lier, Don trailing a bit behind them. They walked for nearly an hour in complete silence, the sloshing of their boots rhythmically reverberating off the curved walls. Dibbuk watched as Lier and Selbys red tinted flash lights continuously scanned the pipeline ahead.

The two men had barely disappeared around a bend in the pipe when Mary swiftly grabbed the back of Dons suit nearly pulling him off his feet. "Keep quiet. You know more than you're letting on. Fucking spill it." She growled, shoving him up against the pipe wall.

"Guh, what? What are you on about? I dunno nothin' Mena, swear." Don sputtered, coughing and rubbing his throat.

"Don't you fucking 'Mena' me Don. If Lier is going to get us all killed I'd like to know. I have people waiting for me at home. Little people. You damn well know that. Beans. Spill 'em. Now." Mary half whispered, teeth gritted. She had produced a knife, the point held against the pocket containing Dons flask.

"Now, now, hold on now. No need to do anything drastic." Don said, panic spreading across his face. She wasn't going to kill him, but losing his precious thisky was almost as severe a consequence as far as he was concerned.

"Well?" Mary asked, pressing the knife ever so slightly harder.

"Alright, alright! look, Lier knows there's something down here. He didn't tell me what it was, I don't think he even knows. All I know is that this ain't the first time we seen it. But, hey, let me go yeah? We're falling behind. You know he'll notice." Don pleaded, slowly pushing her hand with the knife away from his side.

"You'd best not be lying to me. I don't think you want to know what'll happen if you are." Mary said, standing up and sliding the knife back into the sheath on her thigh.

"Hey, c'mon. Let's get moving." Dibbuk interjected, nodding towards the bend in the tunnel. Mary gave a final lunge towards Don, who, to his credit, didn't move a muscle. As Mary walked away Don stood up and shook himself off.

"Can you believe that kid?" Don asked Wicksomme, attempting to brush off the encounter.

"Honestly? Kinda." Wicksomme replied as he shuffled off towards where Dibbuk and Mary were making their way towards the bend.

Don, having wiped himself the rest of the way off, looked down at his flask pocket. He slid his hand into it and felt around. "Damn. Too close." He muttered, poking his finger out through the fresh hole Marys knife had left.

#satirical #horror #mystery #mystery-thriller #science-fiction #scifi #original fiction #satire #action

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soundsfaebutokay · 3 years

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So I've recc'd this video before, but it deserves its own post because it's one of my favorite things on youtube. It's a Tedx Talk by comics writer, editor, and journalist Jay Edidin, and I really think that it will connect with a lot of people here.

If you live and breathe stories of all kinds, you might like this.

If you care about media representation, you might like this.

If you're neurodivergent, you might like this.

If you're interested in a gender transition story that veers from the norm, you might like this.

If you love the original Leverage and especially Parker, and understand how important it is that a character like her exists, you will definitely like this.

Transcript below the cut:

You Are Here: The Cartography of Stories

by Jay Edidin

I am autistic. And what this means in practice is that there are some things that are easier for me than they are for most people, and a great many things that are somewhat harder, and these affect my life in more or less overt ways. As it goes, I'm pretty lucky. I've been able to build a career around special interests and granular obsession. My main gig at the moment is explaining superhero comics continuity and publishing history for which work I am somehow paid in actual legal currency—which is both a triumph of the frivolous in an era of the frantically pragmatic, and a job that's really singularly suited to my strengths and also to my idiosyncrasies.

I like comics. I like stories in general, because they make sense to me in ways that the rest of the world and my own mind often don't. Self-knowledge is not an intuitive thing for me. What sense of self I have, I've built gradually and laboriously and mostly through long-term pattern recognition. For decades, I didn't even really have a self-image. If you'd asked me to draw myself, I would eventually have given you a pair of glasses and maybe a very messy scribble of hair, and that would've been about it. But what I do know—backwards, forwards, and in pretty much every way that matters—are stories. I know how they work. I understand their language, their complex inner clockwork, and I can use those things to extrapolate a sort of external compass that picks up where my internal one falls short. Stories—their forms, their structure, the sense of order inherent to them—give me the means to navigate what otherwise, at least for me, would be an impassable storm of unparsable data. Or stories are a periscope, angled to access the parts of myself I can't intuitively see. Or stories are a series of mirrors by which I can assemble a composite sketch of an identity I rarely recognize whole...which is how I worked out that I was transgender, in my early thirties, by way of a television show.

This is my story. And it's about narrative cartography, and representation, and why those things matter. It's about autism and it's about gender and it's about how they intersect. And it's about the kinds of people we know how to see, and the kinds of people we don't. It's not the kind of story that gets told a lot, you might hear a lot, because the narrative around gender transition and dysphoria in our culture is really, really prescriptive. It's basically the story of the kid who has known for their whole life that they're this and not that, and that story demands the kind of intuitive self-knowledge that I can't really do, and a kind of relationship to gender that I don't really have—which is part of why it took me so long to figure my own stuff out.

So, to what extent this story, my story has a beginning, it begins early in 2014 when I published an essay titled, "I See Your Value Now: Asperger's and the Art of Allegory." And it explored, among other things, the ways that I use narrative and narrative structures to navigate real life. And it got picked up in a number of fairly prominent places that got linked, and I casually followed the ensuing discussion. And I was surprised to discover that readers were fairly consistently assuming I was a man. Now, that in itself wasn't a new experience for me, even though at the time I was writing under a very unambiguously female byline. It had happened in the letter columns of comics I'd edited. It had happened when a parody Twitter account I'd created went viral. When I was on staff at Wired, I budgeted for fancy scotch by putting a dollar in a box every time a reader responded in a way that made it clear they were assuming I was a man in response to an article where my name was clearly visible, and then I had to stop doing that because it happened so often I couldn't afford to keep it up. But in all of those cases, the context, you know, the reasons were pretty obvious. The fields I'd worked in, the beats I covered, they were places where women had had to fight disproportionally hard for visibility and recognition. We live in a culture that assumes a male default, so given a neutral voice and a character limit, most readers will assume a male author.

But this was different, because this wasn't just a book I'd edited, it wasn't a story I'd reported—it was me, it was my story. And it made me uncomfortable, got under my skin in ways that the other stuff really hadn't. And so I did what I do when that happens, and I tried to sort of reverse-engineer it to look at the conclusions and peel them back to see the narratives behind them and the stories that made them tick. And I started this, I started this by going back to the text of the essay, and you know, examining it every way I could think of: looking at craft, looking at content. And in doing so, I was surprised to realize that while I had written about a number of characters with whom I identified closely, that every single one of those characters I'd written about was male. And that surprised me even more than the responses to the essay had, because I've spent my career writing and talking and thinking about gender and representation in popular media. In 2014, I'd been the feminist gadfly of an editorial department and multiple mastheads. I'd been a founding board member of an organization that existed to advocate for more and better representation of women and girls in comics characters and creators. And most of my favorite characters, the ones I'd actively seek out and follow, were women. Just not, apparently, the characters I saw myself in.

Now I still didn't realize it was me at this point. Remember: self-knowledge, not very intuitive for me. And while I had spent a lot of time thinking about gender, I'd never really bothered to think much about my own. I knew academically that the way other people read and interpreted my gender affected and had influenced a lifetime of social and professional interactions, and that those in turn had informed the person I'd grown up into during that time. But I really believed, like I just sort of had in the back of my head, that if you peeled away all of that social conditioning, you'd basically end up with what I got when I tried to draw a self-portrait. So: a pair of glasses, messy scribble of hair, and in this case, maybe also some very strong opinions about the X-Men. I mean, I knew something was off. I'd always known something was off, that my relationship to gender was messy and uncomfortable, but gender itself struck me as messy and uncomfortable, and it had never been a large enough part of how I defined myself to really feel like something that merited further study, and I had deadlines, and...so it was always on the back burner. So, I looked, I looked at what I had, at this improbable group of exclusively male characters. And I looked and I figured that if this wasn't me, then it had to be a result of the stories I had access to, to choose from, and the entertainment landscape I was looking at. And the funny thing is, I wasn't wrong, exactly. I just wasn't right either.

See, the characters I'd written about had one other significant trait in common aside from their gender, which is that they were all more or less explicitly, more or less heavily coded as autistic. And I thought, "Ah, yes. This explains it. This is under representation in fiction echoing under representation in life and vice versa." Because the characteristics that I'd honed in on, that I particularly identified with in these guys, were things like emotional unavailability and social awkwardness and granular obsession, and all of those are characteristics that are seen as unsympathetic and therefore unmarketable in female characters. Which is also why readers were assuming that I was a man.

Because, you see, here's the thing. I'm not the only one who uses stories to navigate the world. I'm just a little more deliberate about it. For humans, stories formed the bridge between data and understanding. They're where we look when we need to contextualize something new, or to recognize something we're pretty sure we've seen before. They're how we identify ourselves; they're how we locate ourselves and each other in the larger world. There were no fictional women like me; there weren't representations of women like me in media, and so readers were primed not to recognize women like me in real life either.

Now by this point, I had started writing a follow-up essay, and this one was also about autism and narratives, but specifically focused on how they intersected with gender and representation in media. And in context of this essay, I went about looking to see if I could find even one female character who had that cluster of traits I'd been looking for, and I was asking around in autistic communities. And I got a few more or less useful one-off suggestions, and some really, really splendid arguments about semantics and standards, and um...then I got one answer over and over and over in community after community after community. "Leverage," people told me. "You have to watch Leverage."

So I watched Leverage. Leverage is five seasons of ensemble heist drama. It's about a team of very skilled con artists who take down corrupt and powerful plutocrats and the like, and it's a lot of fun, and it's very clever, and it's clever enough that it doesn't really matter that it's pretty formulaic, and I enjoyed it a lot. But what's most important, what Leverage has is Parker.

Parker is a master thief, and she is the best of the best of the best in ways that all of Leverage's characters are the best of the best. And superficially, she looks like the kind of woman you see on TV. So she's young, and she's slender, and she's blonde, and she's attractive but in a sort of approachable way. And all of that familiarity is brilliant misdirection, because the thing is, there are no other women like Parker on TV. Because Parker—even if it's never explicitly stated in the show—Parker is coded incredibly clearly as autistic. Parker is socially awkward. Her speech tends to have limited inflection; what inflection it does have is repetitive and sounds rehearsed a lot of the time. She's not emotionally literate; she struggles with it, and the social skills she develops over the series, she learns by rote, like they're just another grift. When she's not scaling skyscrapers or cartwheeling through laser grids, she wears her body like an ill-fitting suit. Parker moves like me. And Parker, Parker was a revelation—she was a revolution unto herself. In a media landscape where unempathetic women usually exist to either be punished or "loved whole," Parker got to play the crabby savant. And she wasn't emotionally intuitive but it was never ever played as the product of abuse or trauma even though she had survived both of those—it was just part of her, as much as were her hands or her eyes. And she had a genuine character arc. My god, she had a genuine romantic arc, even. And none of that required her to turn into anything other than what she was. And in Parker I recognized a thousand tics and details of my life and my personality...but. I didn't recognize myself.

Why? What difference was there in Parker, you know, between Parker and the other characters I'd written about? Those characters, they'd spanned ethnicities and backgrounds and different media and appearances and the only other characteristic they all had in common was their gender. So that was where I started to look next, and I thought, "Well, okay, maybe, maybe it's masculinity. Maybe if Parker were less feminine, she'd click with me the way those other characters had." So then I tried to imagine a Parker with short hair, who's explicitly butch, and...nothing. So okay, I extended it in what seems like the only logical direction to extend it. I said, "Well, if it's not masculinity, what if it's actual maleness? What if Parker were a man?" Ah. Yeah.

In the end, everything changed, and nothing changed, which is often the way that it goes for me. Add a landmark, no matter how slight, and the map is irrevocably altered. Add a landmark, and paths that were invisible before open wide. Add a landmark, and you may not have moved, but suddenly you know where you are and where you can go.

I wasn't going to tell this story when I started planning this talk. I was gonna tell a similar story, it was about stories, like this is, about narratives and the ways that they influence our culture and vice versa. And it centered around a group of women at NASA who had basically rewritten the narrative around space exploration, and it was a lot more fun, and I still think it was more interesting. But it's also a story you can probably work out for yourselves. In fact it's a story some of you probably have, if you follow that kind of thing, which you probably do given that you're here. And this is a story, my story is not a story that I like to tell. It's not a fun story to talk about because it's very personal and I am a very private person. And it's not universal. And it's not always relatable, and it's definitely not aspirational. And it's not the kind of story that you tend to encounter unless you're already part of it...which is why I'm telling it now. Because the thing is, I'm not the only person who uses stories to parse the world and navigate it. I'm just a little more deliberate. Because I'm tired of having to rely on composite sketches.

Open your maps. Add a landmark. Reroute accordingly.

#Jay Edidin #LGBTQ #autism #mind and body #gender norms #why humans need stories #Leverage #Parker #Abby posts Leverage #my faves #Youtube #I did my best with the transcript #sorry for any mistakes

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chrisevansluv · 3 years

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Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

#chris evans #cevans #Details Magazine #2012 #interview

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chawarin-panich · 2 years

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i am very curious to hear queer people's opinions on the dangai ban - i hate twitter because the 200 word hot takes don't cut it for me (and I know it's not the poster's fault). Any lamentations about losing queer representation in China seems very superficial. There hasn't been queer rep in China since 2016 ie post Addiction - so what are we really grieving here?

I've been following queer media for over a decade... I was in BL spaces since the second Boy's Love movie came out. Every single country other than China has had a very similar trajectory. low budget, bad acting, bad writing (but lots of heart!) and slowly SLOWLY we are moving up. In Japan, we are getting real queer people in mainstream straight series where they aren't the butt of jokes, we're getting short but very well made gay shows that are ultimately very chaste or pure. There are values to every avenue taken to push queerness through from murder gays to sexless gays to tropes that cater to fujoshis - in fact fujoshi's have had a big hand in creating demand and pushing the genre forward. It's dangerous for a lot of queer people to express their love and support and for a demographic to be able to be vocal about this without compromising themselves - genius. A lot of self-proclaimed fujoshi of the time (like myself) were queer but in denial/hiding.

China was very much on the same trajectory - low budget, horrible stories, bad acting until things got shut the fuck down. And then with no political changes suddenly appears dangai - big bugdet, good shows, huge commercial successes. But what's the aftermath of that? The fact that there is an untying process to begin with makes it very clear to me that dangai is there for commercial purpose and very much NOT queer or enevelope pushing purposes.

As a lover of BL having queerness being a commodity is something I am familiar with and accept but dangais seemed to have taken it to such an extreme level. Like fuck people act like Yibo and Xiao Zhan's gazes meeting would cause the world to end. There's a queerness cleanup process here that leaves us only with the commercial successes. I want all BL actors to flourish and I am happy for them when it serves as a stepping stone for them into bigger and better projects but YiZhan's new projects have always filled me with so much bitterness for the reason I just stated.

Of course Word of Honor is different: from the romance tropes unrelated to the books, this being GJs second BL to Junzhe not untying to everything that happened in promo period - this production felt like it was made for queer people and for queer rep. And well, they got punished for it, heavily. Zhehan took the brunt of it obviously but damn Gong Jun is really going through it too and still clinging on holy fuck. I will always respect Zhehan and Gong Jun for the sheer cultural impact their actions have made.

I don't think dangai was ever meant to help queer people. Because when censorship goes against innovation queer people get punished. Being a pioneer in queer things is generally pain. The dangai ban is very reflective of where things are politically in China and if that's the reality that's the reality and I trust that queer people will find their way as they have done everywhere for centuries against oppression. T/encent making money while the country is actively erasing queerness - lots of new rules imposed onto danmei itself right now too right? - is just not where queer rep is at. And T/encent allegedly being a key player behind bringing dangai down? Like c'mon. Or the fact that the ban doesn't include GL shows and is based on some messed up ideas of gender presentation? Like we're all losing here.

The reason why so much asian queer media is bad is because they have so little to work with - like the Takumi-kun series was by any standards a horrible ass show but it was still ground breaking because they pushed the envelope on what we could expect from two romantic male leads and will therefore be one of my favorite BLs of all time. It will always and forever come before The Untamed - which is by any standards a really good show. Eventual commercialization is expected and a sign that progress is happening and the ideas are becoming mainstream outside queer circles.

But commercialization first? That's not where it's at. Capitalism doesn't give two shits about queer people.

tldr; the dangai ban is just a reflection of the political sentiment on queerness in China - a sentiment that has been known for close to a decade. My reaction to it is neutral, maybe even positive because now the bottom line has been drawn. Lamenting the loss of dangai as a loss of queer representation - which it arguably has never been about that - feels hollow.

#nani's hot takes #on the dangai ban nontheless #i know i dont have that many followers #but im still always nervous about anon hate lol #i am very open to your thoughts though! and open to being told I am wrong!#the point is that I want to know more than what twitter can tell me #which is very little #im not even entirely clear on what the ban entails #i find the ppl cheering on the ban as a fuck you to 10c to be a lot more honest than those lamenting the loss #i get 2ha is your favorite novel #you can just be sad about hyx not coming out without pretending to give a shit abt gay ppl #who even was excited for 2ha as the cornerstone for queer rep #no one...their whole thing in the book is that they're married happily unhappily fake afterlife etc #you think moran and wanning would have been married in hyx #so what loss of queer rep are you lamenting #the more time passes the more i am filled with rage at twitter

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cocomaxley · 4 years

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Heart Flutters & Dopamine Levels

I'm participating in my first ever @wackydrabbles. This week's prompt is "Okay, wow, you just dumped a lot of information on my lap and gave me no time to process it."

Pairing: Zaid x Ines

Book: Open Heart

Summary: Zaid has an important question to ask Ines.

Word Count: 1,024

Thanks to @ao719 for your help and encouragement to participate! 💜🖤

Zaid rested his fork on his empty plate. He looked at the woman sitting across from him, feeling a blush creep on his cheeks. Ines smiled at him sweetly. He patted his pocket feeling the small box. His heart began to race.

One week earlier…

Baz arrived in the apartment he shared with his identical twin. Zaid was pacing back and forth mumbling to himself. He didn't even notice his brother staring at him with a confused expression on his face.

“Bro...are you alright?”

Zaid jumped when he realized he was no longer alone.

“Yeah...no...yeah...no I'm…”

Baz began to worry about his mental state. With budget cuts at the hospital, the staff was working more hours and getting less sleep.

He placed his hands on Zaid’s shoulders. “Dude, take a breath. What's wrong?”

As instructed he took a deep breath to compose himself. He then blurted out, “I love her and I want to have kids and grandkids and I will punch anyone that flirts with her and I love her and iwannamarryher. Should I ask her to marry me and have my babies?”

Baz took a step back staring at his twin thoughtfully. “Okay, wow, you just dumped a lot of information on my lap and gave me no time to process it.”

Zaid slumped down onto the sofa, placing his head in his hands. “Please process and then tell me I'm not crazy.”

“Of course you're not crazy! That's awesome you're ready to take the next step.” He clapped his shoulder. “Everyone thinks you and Ines make a great couple. She's nice and you're grumpy. She's sweet and caring, you're cold and kind of a dick. It's the perfect balance.”

Zaid breathed a sigh of relief. “How do you think I should ask her? You know I don't like to make a big deal out of things, but for her, I would.”

Baz jumped to his feet, excited. “You could take her skydiving, then as you're jumping out of the plane, you yell, ‘MARRY ME!’”

“No.”

He was not deterred at his brother’s negative response. “Ok, ok...what if you do a singing telegram-”

Zaid rolled his eyes. “No. Absolutely not.”

Baz was ready with another suggestion. “What about asking her during dinner?”

He nodded. “Ok, this isn't bad...keep going…”

“Then you could stand on the table and yell out how much you love her-”

“And we're done here.” Zaid walked towards his bedroom grumbling. “At least I wouldn't have to live with him anymore.”

Baz dialed a number on his phone. “Lahela, my brother is going to propose to Ines!”

Bryce replied, “That's awesome! Why are you telling me this?”

“Because he's going to ruin it. We have to help. Hell, I'll do it myself.”

Back at the restaurant…

Soft piano music played in the background. He took a large sip of his drink, trying but failing to keep his shaky hand steady. Zaid reached across the table, taking Ines’s hand in his, the warmth of it calming his nerves.

Finally, he got the courage to speak. “Ines, we've been dating for a while now and I've ever felt this way for anyone before. You have made me so happy. I love you.”

She smiled at her boyfriend. “Zaid, that's so sweet. I love you too, Mr. Grumpy.”

He chuckled at the nickname she had given him. He didn't mind when she called him that. He stood up from his seat and approached her. He was about to get down on his knee when all of a sudden the music stopped abruptly. He heard tapping on the microphone. Then he heard a familiar voice coming through the speakers.

“Excuse me, if I could have your attention please!”

Zaid quickly turned and saw his brother in the center of the room. Bryce stood next to him grinning awkwardly waving his fingers at the patrons in the restaurant.

“My brother is here today.” Baz pointed in Zaid’s direction. “Oh look! There he is. We're twins in case you couldn't tell.”

His smiling face met his brother’s surly one. Zaid moved his hand across his throat trying to stop his brother from continuing. Baz didn't get the hint.

He cleared his throat. “I'd like to dedicate the next song to Zaid and Ines on a special night.”

Baz sat on the piano bench and began to press the keys. Zaid realized that he did not know how to play the piano nor did he know how to sing. However, that did not discourage Baz.

I can show you the world

Shining, shimmering, splendid

Tell me, princess, now when did

You last let your heart decide?

I can open your eyes

Take you wonder by wonder

Over, sideways and under

On a magic carpet ride

He turned to his friend. “Lahela, sing Jasmine’s part…”

Bryce shook his head. “Nope, I'm out, man.”

Zaid covered his face with both hands. “I wish I was an only child.”

Ines couldn't contain her laughter. “What is all this about?”

Zaid took her by the hand and led her out of the restaurant as Baz continued to serenade the people inside. When they were finally outside, he turned to face his girlfriend.

“Ines, you make me a better man. I never thought I'd find love until the first time I heard you laugh. The sound made my heart flutter and dopamine levels go all silly. The more I've gotten to know you, the more I realized I never want to be without you. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He dropped down to one knee. Ines gasped, then covered her mouth.

“Will you keep my heart fluttering and marry me?”

He looked at her with vulnerable eyes, her own filling with happy tears. “Yes, Zaid! Yes!”

She pulled him onto his feet and into a deep kiss. “You make my heart flutter too.”

He placed the ring on her finger then kissed her again. Nothing could ruin this moment. Not even the fact that he could still hear his brother singing inside the restaurant.

********

Sucks to be my friend tag list: @ao719 @emichelle @the-soot-sprite @zaffrenotes @burnsoslow @annekebbphotography @loveellamae @aestheticartwriting @dcbbw @mfackenthal @flyawayboo @princess-geek @poorchoicesplayer @rookie-ramsey

#wacky drabbles #wackydrabbles-prompt #wackydrabbles #zaid x ines #zaid x ines forever #open heart #open heart fanfic #choices open heart #zaid mirani #ines delarosa #oph #oph 2 #oph2 #bryce lahela

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wlwhoa · 3 years

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Idk if y'all care about what happened earlier with harmlessrat aka my sibling but I'll do a quick run down I guess. If I was on desktop I'd put this under a read more but I'm not so sorry about that. Just scroll if you don't care lmao.

Basically we didn't get along growing up bc they would gang up on me with my brother to isolate and belittle me growing up. It really fucked me up, still does. I thought we were cool now bc we're adults and they kinda apologized but apparently not. A month ago I asked them to hang out and maybe go to mcdonald's bc I was depressed. This was around the time my crowdfund post for rent was going around so they called me out on that. They then said I was scamming people for money, was being super manipulative, was tired of me making "horrible choices," and then told me they needed a break from me. Then a day later they sent me a friend request on fb lmao. When jojo siwa came out as gay I texted a gc that had me them and my mom in it to tell them and they said it was fucked up of me to message it bc they wanted a break from me. Even though they just sent me a friend request on facebook. Whatever. I texted them "what the fuck is your problem" (which in hindsight might've been a bit harsh) and they then said I was abusive for saying that. After that I blocked them and decided to cut them from my life. They like to guilt me over little things to make me feel like shit and I got sick of it. One time they were screaming to music in the car so I asked them to quiet down bc it was overstimulating and they said it was fucked up of me to say that bc they had to deal with me talking to them for 10 minutes??? I don't get them. Anyways here's proof of me blocking them way back then since apparently I'm lying about that too (ignore the chris spam I have no idea what's up with that).

So for the past month we haven't talked and it's been great! Then my college charged me for books I already returned and I made the post. Even though I soft blocked them a month ago they somehow found my post?? And said I was scamming people for money and me ignoring them (aka not seeing them in my notifs) was proof of me being guilty. I only know of them replying to me bc my friend messaged me on discord.

It even took me two hours to respond to them I'm just now noticing lmao guess I'm guilty of that too. And then y'all saw my response to them saying that.

Okay so to "debunk" or whatever the fuck some of their claims. In the screenshot of the bank statements they said I had $800 in my account.

While that was true at the time of the screenshot, that's not longer true. Like I said I already budgeted my tax return for the month, meaning I had bills and shit that were processing when I was charged for these books. Here's a.screenshots of those. Anything from paypal or venmo is money I owed people for like groceries and bills and shit. Plus chipotle lmao.

And this is a screenshot of my current bank balance after all that shit. $120 of this is going towards rent on the 28th.

So yes I'm a lil fucked! Esp since I'm not getting a paycheck next week! So that's why I made a crowdfunding post! Bc I'm sick of being poor and I have no where else to turn to! And I don't care if people don't donate! Bc I understand that we're all struggling rn and I don't expect everyone to dish out their pockets for me and only me! I understand there's people who have it worse than me and I'd rather people donate to them! But if people want to donate to me they can! That's literally it!

Anyways if anyone has questions I guess message me??? Or not it's just family drama at this point so I don't care lmao

#honestly wasn't gonna say anything but they're talking shit about me on their tumblr so bokay #i only know that bc my friend wanted screenshots bc they dont have a tumblr #and i had to go to their blog to do that bc their replies disappeared from my post after i blocked them #but after this im done!#bc holy shit i cant handle them anymore!!#they wanna be a therapist lmao i feel so bad for their future patients #ask to tag #long post

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ao719 · 5 years

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Sit Still, Look Pretty

Sit Still, Look Pretty (Part 1)

This is a part of a TRR A/U called Cordonians Gone Wild created with @speedyoperarascalparty, @leelee10898, @cocomaxley, @riseandshinelittleblossom and myself. Thanks for the laughs ladies!

Summary: Liam tries helping Anitah, but instead digs himself a gigantic 🕳

A/N: This is a flashback fic taking place shortly after they were married.

Tag List: @annekebbphotography @carabeth @moneyfordiamonds @give-me-ernest-sinclaire @3pawandme @indiacater @ooo-barff-ooo @ownworldresident @tornbetween2loves @perfectprofessorherokid @stopforamoment @editboutique @wannabemc2 @zaffrenotes @enmchoices @lauradowning29 @lodberg @smalltalk88 @laniquelove-blog @gibbles82 @heatherfilliez @drakesensworld @nikkis1983 @sweetest-marbear @classylady1234 @daniv2278 @rainbowsinthestorm @jared2612 @liamxs-world @notoriouscs @blubutterflyy @captain-kingliamsqueen @whenyourheartskipsabeat @lynne1993 @coldcollectornight08 @be-still-my-aching-heart @kennaxval

Anitah stood in her closet changing for an upcoming council meeting where she would be presenting her first solo proposal since becoming Queen. She had presented projects alongside Liam, but this one she took by the reigns and did completely on her own and she was excited about it.

Her plan was to make an expansion on the library down in the capitol to add more to the children’s section and make it more interactive. She had done the research, set the budget, and made all the plans herself and today would be the moment of truth. Liam had gone over her proposal the night before, commenting on how impressed he was by it, telling her what a great idea he thought it was and how well she had done with it.

She stepped from her closet after getting dressed running into Liam as he wrapped his arms around her. “Hello, my love,” he smiled as he leaned down to kiss her. “Are you ready?” He grinned.

“I am,” she smiled. “I’m feeling good about it.”

“As you should. I think it’s going to go really well. I’m going to come...for moral support.”

“Liam, you don’t have to do that. I appreciate it, but...I don’t want them to approve my proposal just because you’re sitting in the room.”

“Nonsense. I’ll just be there for support.”

She smiled and nodded her head. “After the meeting, I’m heading down to the beer garden to meet the girls.”

“Ok. Just take Brad.” Liam looked at his watch. “Alright, my Queen,” he leaned in kissing her again. “Time to shine.”

Once inside for the council meeting, Anitah presented her proposal and then began taking questions afterwards from the other members.

“Is the library expansion really the best use of crown resources?” Neville asked.

Anitah smiled. “There are many areas that would benefit from the resources the crown has to offer, that is true. However, I firmly believe that investing-“

“Lord Neville, I believe that is why we are all here today. To discuss the reasons why the crown is choosing to use resources in this manner.” Liam scoffed as he interrupted Anitah. “Next question please.” Anitah glanced over at him and then back to the others.

“What will be cut if this project gets funded?”

“That is an excellent question, Lord Neville, and one I am certain everyone has on their minds. They way I have arranged to fund this project-“

“There will be no cuts to other active projects Lord Neville, that I can assure you,” Liam jumped in confidently, interrupting Anitah yet again. She shot Liam a look and he smiled at her before she turned her head back to the others taking a breath.

“You have it noted here that you expect that expanding the library will boost testing scores in the local schools. How is that possible?” Adelaide asked.

Anitah pulled her notes out. “There is a great deal of research that shows a direct correlation between reading ability and testing scores. The data goes furth-“

“Anitah, love, I don’t think that it’s necessary to bore the council with unimportant details. The important thing to know here, Adelaide, is that the crown...”

“Liam, I believe that this is my project,” Anitah interjected.

Liam cleared his throat giving the council members a knowing smile. “Of course, my Queen. Let's proceed with the next question then.”

“Why is it necessary for children to have an interactive experience at a library? Can they not just read the books?” Neville sneered.

Anitah went to hand the statistics notes she had to Neville. “Once again, I think it's necessary to look to the vast amount of research that has been done on-“

Liam, yet again, jumped in talking over Anitah, “I believe we are all well versed in recent studies on learning styles, Lord Neville. Researchers have found that children-“

“Liam,” Anitah spoke softly trying to hide her irritation, “I am perfectly capable of answering Lord Neville’s question.”

“Anitah, not now, let the people who know what they’re doing handle this.” She slightly widened her eyes staring at him. “As I was saying, researchers have found that children, especially young children, learn best when having an all encompassing experience that involves several different learning styles, kinesthetic, visual, auditory- to reinforce the information being taught and also to reach children in the way they learn best.”

Once the meeting had ended Anitah grabbed her notes and walked out of the conference room headed to their quarters, seething. Liam noticed her walking out and followed behind her. They walked inside and she plopped her papers down on the table.

“Well, I believe that went quite well.” Liam remarked loosening his tie. “I am confident your proposal will go through,” he smiled.

Anitah turned on her heel to face him, hands on hips. “You...you’re joking right?” She shook her head and walked to the bedroom to change.

“What do you mean, love?” He furrowed his brow in confusion as he followed her.

She slipped off her dress, pulled on some jeans and threw on a shirt, glaring at him, exasperated. “Liam...you completely humiliated me in there!”

Liam shook his head, “I did no such thing.” He moved over toward her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I merely provided some needed assistance. I know your new to these council meetings, love. And...you’re welcome.” He smiled as he leaned in to kiss his Queen.

Anitah placed her hand on his chest before he could come any further and moved his arms off of her as she stepped back from him. “You wouldn’t even let me answer a question! You interrupted me every single time! And then you have the audacity to tell me to let the people who know what they’re doing handle this?”

Liam rolled his eyes. “I think you're overreacting, Anitah. I was only helping to get your proposal pushed through. That is what you wanted, isn't it?”

“Yes, I wanted it to go through, Liam, but not at the cost of you making it look as though I’m completely incapable of handling anything on my own! Do you not trust that I would have been able to do it myself?”

“Anitah, my love, we all have our role to play. I happen to be quite experienced and skilled at negotiating with my council. And you are an excellent picture of my gorgeous Queen. That's why we're such a great team.”

Anitah stared him, her arms folded across her chest. “So, let me get this straight...” she clicked her tongue before she paused for a moment looking at him. “You’re saying that you and I,” she motioned between the two of them, “are a good team because you can make deals and I just sit there and look pretty?”

Liam smirked, “Well, we each play to our strengths. And you are very good at looking pretty,” he smiled fondly at her.

Her eyes widened for a moment before she closed them, pinching the bridge of her nose. She looked back up at him. “Are...are you fucking kidding me right now, Liam? So my job, as your Queen, as your wife, is to sit on your arm and look pretty...to sit there and make you look good?”

“Well...Anitah, I don't expect you to be able to hold your own with all of the nobles. That's why I'm here.”

She nodded her head as she let out a breath looking down to the ground for a moment. “Wow...well,” she began as she looked back up at him, “I am so glad that my husband, my King, thinks so little of me.” She walked past him and stopped in the doorway. “I’m not a princess, Liam, I don’t need saving. I’m goddamn Queen, with or without you, and I can take care of myself.” She walked out of the room and out of the quarters.

Anitah had Brad take her down to the beer garden to meet the girls, feeling more than irritated and ready for a drink. She walked in and spotted them at a table waving her over.

“Hey! How did your meeting go for the library?” Stephanie asked.

“Don’t ask,” she tossed back a shot and grabbed another from the tray they had sitting there.

“Ok...what’s wrong?” Alicia eyed her.

“Liam is what’s wrong,” she tossed back the second shot.

“What did he do?” Pam asked.

Anitah explained to them about the meeting and how Liam kept interrupting her at every turn and wouldn’t let her speak to answer a question. She then explained to them the conversation that took place afterwards in their quarters before she left to come meet them and what Liam had said to her. They all sat there wide eyed by the time she had finished.

Genevieve slapped her forehead. “Why? Why are boys so stupid? I bet once he said the first dumb thing, he just couldn't stop all the other stupid shit from flying out of his mouth.”

“And here I thought Cordonia was a progressive nation,” Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Him tellin’ you that your job is to make him look good makes me madder than a wet hen.”

“What a dick! Telling you to sit there and look pretty...fuck that!” Alicia shook her head.

“That cocky, arrogant asshole. Who the fuck does he think he is? Did he think he just married a god damned Barbie doll to drag around. I can't believe the fucking nerve of him,” Pam stated.

“I’m just...he always told me how I ‘could do anything’, and how I’m strong, and now I feel like everything he told me was one giant crock of shit!” She tossed back shot number three. “Everything he answered in that meeting were the same damn answers I had! I don’t know why he felt the need to interrupt me and not just let me handle it. He wasn’t even supposed to be there, but he wanted to come for ‘moral support’. Now I know it’s just because he thought I was going to blow it.” She grabbed shot number four and threw it back.

“Seriously, Anitah, he married you and made you his queen because you are smart, strong and quite capable of running this country alongside him. He seems to think he was ‘helping’ you. I just don't think he realizes that you don't need it. So...we will have to show him.” Genevieve giggled as she stood up and curtsied to Anitah. “Well, my Queen, you're more than just a pretty face to me. You have a pretty hot ass too!”

A few hours and one too many shots later the girls were getting ready to head out. Genevieve was waiting for Rashad who was picking all of them up, except for Anitah and Alicia who were supposed to be going back to the palace with Brad. Anitah, however, had other plans on where she was going and that was anywhere but back to the palace. The girls began to laugh as Brad begged the Queen to come out to the SUV, not wanting Liam to go off on him for something happening to her. The ladies sat and laughed as they watched the standoff between the two of them.

Rashad had walked in seeing the ladies standing there staring at Anitah and Brad and walked up behind Genevieve. “Uh, Gen? What’s going on?”

Genevieve turned to see Rashad and smiled as she turned back watching. “Well...Liam is a stupid ass. He basically told her that her only job is to be the trophy wife...so here we are...with a drunk Anitah and a sober Brad who seems to think she's going to listen to him.”

“Ah, yes, I noticed the icy glares she gave him during the council meeting. I knew he was in trouble...Liam had no idea.”

“I am not going back there Brad!” Anitah said from one side of the table as Brad tried to creep around, but she dodged out of the way. “I can take care of myself! You, good sir, can go now! I will be...perfectly fine!” She said as she went stumbling into the table with a giggle. Doug stood behind the bar drying a glass with a towel as he shook his head.

“Ma’am, please,” Brad pleaded. “His majesty will literally kill me if I don’t bring you home, and bring you home in one piece.”

“Oh, didn’t you get the memo? He only cares if I’m pretty! I am not going with you back there to His Royal Pompousness.” Brad reached for her but she dodged out of the way again as the other ladies began laughing at their game of tag as they circled the table.

“Rashad! Do something! She's going to hurt herself,” Genevieve said through a laugh.

Rashad walked up to Brad and stopped him. “Brad, why don't you let me handle this. You're not going to catch her...”

“But...I need to get her back to the palace! King Liam is waiting for her to return.”

“That's not going to happen tonight. I will call Liam and handle him. If you have to come with us fine. But you need to stop chasing her. She's like a damn cat.”

Pam chuckled, “Meowwww!”

Anitah snapped her head over with a wide grin. “Drake is here!” She looked around for him as the girls all began laughing. Brad gave Rashad a nod and motioned his hand for Rashad to make an attempt to corral the Queen as he stepped away.

Rashad turned and flashed Anitah a brilliant smile. “Hey, Anitah,” he softly spoke, “look, Brad is gone. Why don't we sit so Doug doesn't have a heart attack?” He motioned over to the bartender and she looked over to see him glaring. She shot him a smile and a little wave that caused him to blush and sheepishly grin in return.

Anitah turned back to Rashad and eyed him suspiciously from the other side of the table. “I’m gonna be honest, cinnamon roll,” she snorted before tossing back another shot, “I don’t know if I should trust you considering how close you are with my endearing King. I’m not going back to the palace.”

Just then Rashad’s phone rang and he looked at the screen letting out a breath as he rolled his eyes. “Hey, Liam, it's, uh, it’s not a good time...”

“See! You secret spy!” Anitah shouted as the other girls burst into a fit of giggles.

“Rashad? What’s going on? Was that Anitah?” Liam asked on the other end of the phone. He had called knowing Rashad was picking Genevieve up and wanted to see if Anitah was still there. He gathered she was upset with him, but wanted to talk to her once she got back from the beer garden.

“Anitah! I am not a spy!” He put the phone back up to his ear. “Liam, listen to me. Yes it was her, she's fine, but I need to get her out of here. So I'll call you later...but I'm going to take her to Domvallier tonight.”

“Why, what’s going on? Just bring her back to the palace. And where is Brad? Is he not there with her? I’ll kill him if he left her there!”

“Dammit, Liam! They were literally playing tag when I got here. Brad sucks at this game by the way. I will call you later, man.”

“What do you mean playing tag?!”

“For fuck's sake! Gen, take this please!” He threw his phone to Genevieve as he and Anitah began circling the table.

“Liam! Do you ever listen or do you just talk over people all the time? Shut up for one second and listen! Rashad is trying to deescalate this game of tag your Queen is playing. Doug is seriously about to lose his shit. So here's what's gonna happen...your wife is coming home with me tonight. You are not invited to our sleepover. She will call you in the morning when she's crabby and hungover. Ok?”

“Ok,” Liam heavily sighed. “But...is she alright?”

“Your wife is currently running around the bar dodging my boyfriend like a fucking running back, Liam. Ope! He finally caught her. Threw her right over his shoulder,” Genevieve laughed. “Thank the lord!”

“Caught her? Jesus Christ,” Liam let out a heavy sigh.

“This is your fault!” Genevieve hung up the phone.

“Put...me...down, Rashad!” Anitah spoke through giggles. “Right now! Treason! Treason!” Anitah began tickling Rashad’s sides to try and get him to drop her.

Rashad started laughing. “Knock it off, Anitah! I don't want to drop you. That'll be treason. Stop...stop!” The other ladies followed behind them laughing as Anitah continued to tickle him on the way to the SUV.

Anitah woke the next morning with a pounding headache squinting the painful sunlight away. She slowly sat up in the bed and looked around furrowing her brows, still blinking the blurry room into view. She looked around finally realizing she was in Domvallier. She got out of bed and walked down stairs to see Genevieve and Rashad in the kitchen.

“How you feeling, sunshine?” Genevieve giggled as she handed Anitah a cup of coffee and she gave her a sheepish grin.

Rashad pointed to the counter. “There's aspirin and water right there for you,” he smiled. “Your legs probably feel like they ran a marathon,” he chuckled. Just then there was a knock on the door and Rashad stepped out to see who it was. A few moments later he walked back into the kitchen with Liam trailing behind him, Genevieve glaring at him. Anitah turned and saw him, rolling her eyes before she turned back around.

“Good morning.” Liam knew Anitah was upset because he interrupted her during the council meeting, but that was all he thought she was upset about. “Love...can we talk?”

Anitah turned to face him. “Are you sure I look pretty enough for you right now, your majesty? Or should I go freshen up first?” She stared at him for a moment as he looked at her confused. She shook her head and walked past him out of the kitchen, Genevieve following out behind her still staring daggers at Liam.

Liam turned to Rashad raising his hands up in question. Rashad took a breath as he looked at him. “Have a seat...I don't think you’re understanding why she's mad at you.”

#trr #trr fanfic #choices trr #the royal romance #trr mc #trr liam #king liam #liam rhys #choices liam x mc #trr liam x mc #liam x anitah #cordonians gone wild #cordoniansgonewild #cgw world #cgw #cordonia

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house-of-nevs · 4 years

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MONDO MARVEL MART!

'Target acquired, and it's the big one!'

- Iron Man, Marvel Vs Capcom 3.

Talk to a comic retailer whose been at the gig for more than a week, and introduce the word 'Diamond ' to the conversation. There'll be some kind of automatic reaction. Possibly a twitch, a flinch, involuntarily going into a diatribe involving missing boxes, inaccurate invoices, lost stock or even dropping so many copies of an issue of 2000AD into a puddle that it creates a national shortage, inadvertently invoking a premium for an issue.

It would be hard for any member of the comics community to have gone through their career without having some kind of altercation with Diamond. Previews serves the entirety of the Western World for new comics from all of the major publishers. It'd be a miracle if something didn't go wrong on a regular basis.

Inversely, you have to do quite a lot wrong to get your account with them cancelled. The distribution of comics is hardly a massive money spinner and each shop, especially for the UK wing is precious income not happily abandoned.

Here's a hot take, though.

We don't blame Diamond for the state of affairs.

They were placed in a position of 'Grow Or Die' that saw them take on exclusive distribution rights for most of the large comics companies in a very short space of time without much thought to whether they'd have the staff, offices, vehicles or other resources to actually handle this monumental task for the foreseeable future. They didn't ask to be put in that place. They were forced into it.

We regard the formation of Image much the same way many journalists look at the assassination of John F. Kennedy; the singularity that changes the future in a number of ways that cannot be understated. The history of comics can simply be divided as Pre-Image and Post-Image. Every other publisher was affected by their existence, whether it was contracts, paper quality, exposure, standards and practice, artistic direction or otherwise. Some thrived briefly. Others, however...

Marvel's tin ear response to realising that their biggest, um, draws were leaving as a collective was dismissive and unfortunate, given the artists involved were the clear reason for their largest pre-order sales in decades. They declared that 'The characters were more important than the creators.' and set about with replacing the Image Seven with artists clearly told to emulate their predecessors as much as possible.

This didn't work.

Sales figures dropped. Marvel assumed that the novelty of Image would disappear quite quickly and all seven would be back, sheepishly, within a short period of time. Instead titles like Spawn and Youngblood sold in huge numbers and the Image Seven became famous in a way that comic creators hadn't been in such a way previously and certainly without a great number of respected works behind them first.

While Image took itself out of Malibu, added a ridiculous amount of titles to their solicitations and even hired a tourbus to promote upcoming crossover 'Deathmate' with Valiant Comics, continously promoted (unwisely, in retrospect ) as having strong investment potential by industry magazines and in house ads for companies like American Entertainment...things got worse for Marvel.

Despite an annual assault featuring polybags AND each book being a first appearance, the Spider-titles beginning to intertwine their stories and absolutely flooding the shelves with new titles in an attempt to tie up retailer budgets away from ordering not just comics from DC and Image but also new publishing initiatives from Dark Horse, Malibu, Continuity, Topps, Chaos and even Harris, it still didn't work.

Marvel had not only had their dominace of the marketplace shaken but had Ronald Perlman's huge financial debts to try to compensate for. They saw the hologram high price books that made up the Spider-Man 30th Anniversary celebration as a model for any character they could.

By 1994, Marvel decided to add another tactic to their attempt to reestablish dominance. Not content with assaulting the customer's budgets with endless spin off books, they also wanted to control how their books were sold to the audience.

In short. They decided they wanted to cut the retailer, with their choice of control of what they could stock, out of the relationship between themselves and the readers out of the equation.

By 1995, they were to manifest this desire by foolishly buying a small distribution company called Heroes World, who would solely provide retailers with Marvel Comics, cutting Diamond and Captial out of the picture. Anyone with a brain could see Heroes World weren't set up to carry that much product and deliver to so many locations.

While Marvel tried to deal with a situation that was beyond them, Diamond and Captial set about signing up publishers on exclusive contracts. Diamond had the larger budget and won that particular war by securing both DC and Image and eventually also absorbing Captial in July of 1996. When Heroes World collapsed in 1997, Marvel would go back, tail between legs, to their now sole distribution competitor Diamond.

Which puts us where we are now. Diamond have that control due to the exclusivity contracts signed in the Mid 90s. Presumably these are permanent and even if they weren't, a new distributor would have a hell of a problem starting up without being able to secure product from the major producers of comics in the West.

There's an argument to be made for a collective starting out by translating huge selling comics that we never see in English speaking countries, but a hypothetical for another time.

Between the desperation of the 1993 polybagged annual shambles and the purchase of Heroes World, however, there was a significant clue to exactly what Marvel were up to.

Retailers receiving Marvel comics with the cover date May 1994 would have been annoyed to find an increased shipping charge. The first reason for that was a inserted preview for the Marvel Masterprints collection. $4.99 would secure a set of 6 by 10 prints featuring Mark Bagley Spidey art (Offer only good in U.S. UK retailers love paying added shipping costs for items and promotions that can't be redeemed in Great Britain . Honest.)

The second?

An eight page combination of comic and catalogue. Marvel Mart! 1 was published at a time when both Disney (long before buying Marvel) and Warner Brothers had their own stores offering up exclusive merchandise at high prices and this was obviously a goal for Marvel at the time.

MM1 takes us through a tour of a Marvel themed shopping centre with various branded stores (We personally loved 'Stan "The Pan" Pizza) as a group of hip young kids extoll their excitement at t-shirts, posters, stand ups, VHS videos, comic collection box sets with advertising and price in their dialogue. The sub-plot features Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson looking for a present for Flash Thompson in this shrine to order codes whilst distracted by a couple of shoplifters straight out of any SNK beat 'em up circa 1993.

They're defeated by a combination of Spidey, a second inflatable Spider-Man and, um, an elevator. The story ends with the kids taunting the shoplifters with the idea that they buy some Marvel phone cards to call their lawyer while Mary Jane suggesting they buy Flash a Marvel gift certificate (ordering code in her dialogue, obviously. )

What's troubling about this is many of the items in MM1 were either not being offered to direct market retailers at the time or were being offered to the public much cheaper than RRP. Again, via an insert that comic shops would have to pay shipping for. Presumably the mail order catalogue would have been the first step in pulling customers away from direct market shops via cheaper or exclusive items and onto these proposed stores where, obviously, the brand of Spider-Man on an item would be a more significant selling point than Todd McFarlane, Mark Bagley or Steve Ditko.

The bitter irony of all this is that all the progressive material published in this time, like Ren & Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead, the Disney adaptions, Prince Valiant, Marvel Music and Barbie are long out of print.

We're inclined to think there's probably a larger audience for a trade paperback of Barbie Fashion than wants to see reprints of Fantastic Force or Hulk 2099 that's being constantly ignored. Maybe that's where the future is, looking for the untapped readers rather than attempting to drain every last penny or cent out of the readers who're already here.

That's it for now. Obviously the images of the two Marvel Marts are shot from a camera phone because bizarrely, despite searching for over a year, we couldn't find any legal scans of these books and you'd be surprised how difficult it was to find copies of the original comics that still contained these. As we get the opportunity to scan the pages online properly, we will. When we were still drawing up topics for Mondo Funnybooks, this was one of the things we wanted to cover the most as it doesn't seem to have been remembered very well so it's a pleasure to get to the other side of this subject.

In case we don't do this again before the 25th (the next thing ought to be an overview of the completed Doomsday Clock series but that's obviously down to issue 12 shipping.) We'll wish you all a Merry Christmas and a genuine thank you to people who have supported this via shares or our Patreon, which helps pay either for daft comics to research or in some cases, food. May we all end up singing Christmas carols with Batman and The G.C.P.D.

'You'd better TERMINATE that tingle, Buster!'

#marvel #Spider-Man #Diamond #the 90s #comics #Image Comics #Spawn #Youngblood #The X-Men #Wolverine

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lostgrxce · 6 years

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Hello all ❤❤

I hate to do this when so many others are also in need, but I really, really need some help. I'm sorry if this post gets really long, but I want to provide some background for you all.

This is a last resort for me, as far as this situation, but I don't know where else to turn. My dad is sick with a chronic lung disease and it feels like he's getting worse by the day, and with him usually bringing home 60-70% of my family's income with his many hours of overtime, we're struggling not only emotionally, but financially.

Because GoFundMe's fee is 2.9% + 30 cents per donation/withdrawal, I'm putting my Venmo and PayPal here instead, so I apologize if that's not anyone's preferred method of donation and I'll try to add another medium if requested 💕

Info and background below!

Paypal: paypal.me/ryycharles

Venmo: ryvioli

---------

Some background: I'm Ry, I'm 20 years old, and I have a 17 year old little brother, a 6-year-old niece, who my dad acts as a father to since my older brother has done nothing for, and a 2-year-old nephew, who we have every other weekend.

I work full-time, attend 15-18 credit hours of college and 2 clubs on top of that, and have an upcoming radio promotions internship as well.

Through it all, though, through every hard day, through me coming out as bi and nonbinary, through my multiple tattoos and my piercing, through my therapists and medications and every other thing a lot of kids have to worry about their parents finding out about, and through the awful things my family has been through, my dad has been my rock. Always. He has an unconditional love for our family. He's 47 and he works 60-70 hours a week at the same job he's had since he married my mom in his early 20s to be able to support all of us on top of my mom's income, which is only about the same as mine in retail.

A little over a month ago, just after turning 47, after weeks and weeks of every expensive test in the book, he was diagnosed with a chronic and progressive lung disease that's likely due to black mold or asbestos in the facility he worked in before transferring to a new location. It's most common in smokers, but my father has legitimately never smoked a day in his life.

If he refuses a lung transplant, which would only give him 5 or so years from what we've seen, we have no idea how long he has left. It could be one year, it could be 10, but nowhere near as long enough as I need him. As long as he deserves. He's such a good fucking man with so much selflessness and kindness in his heart, and at 20 years old I've had to sit down and let him talk to me about his will and taking care of the family if and when something happens.

We're getting by. We have the necessities, although we've had to cut back on any extra spending on the grocery store and stop eating out or ordering in, and we've had to cut corners by canceling cable and other non-necessities. Something as small as an oil change can trip up our budget for that paycheck, even with both of my parents' income and me covering whatever I can for myself. Neither my younger brother or I have any college funds and what my FAFSA loans don't cover (usually about $500/semester plus books), we have to set up payment plans for because their credit has been shit since we moved for my dad's job way back in the housing market crash and were hit by debt after debt following that. Since their credit is poor and mine is "recently established", we can't get approved for hardly anything even if we co-sign.

We have good insurance through my dad's federal-related workplace, but as we all know, they don't cover everything. We already had tens of thousands of dollars in debt from the many, many ICU and ER visits and several extended in-patient and out-of-state rehabs my older brother racked up even before turning 18. I'm working as hard as I can, but at $10/hour, it's not enough to fix things for my family. I tried doing writing commissions again, but it never took off.

Currently, my dad is on pills and a medicated inhaler that's supposed to help stop the closing up of his lungs due to build-up and/or help him breathe easier. He's been on them for a couple weeks, though (and they aren't cheap), and just the other day I watched as he completely collapsed on the ground while stubbornly trying to mow the lawn and I nearly had to call an ambulance until his inhaler finally helped him catch his breath. He can't work overtime anymore because it's so strenuous, reducing our income by at least 20-25%, and he already has several mandatory garnishments on his paycheck from the previous medical debts.

All of my savings are gone, because after 14 months of hard saving, I spent them just before things got so bad, which I regret despite how much better a weekend away made me feel (as someone who's struggling with clinically treated depression/anxiety/trauma for several years). That's on me and the timing, but I wanted to be honest.

So I'm asking for your kindness and help, just a little something to help ease my dad's weight on his shoulders, something to help us pay his way through his appointments and keep my family on steady ground. Something to give me reason to tell my little brother and my niece and nephew that it's going to be okay. That my dad might be able to see wedding days and graduations and things he may very well miss out on if we were to run into obstacles trying to get the proper treatment.

Thank you for even reading. I love you.

(The photo is of me & my dad in the early 2000s, back when we used to live in Maine. I used it because he's always happiest when he's there and he saves a smaller version of that picture in his wallet.)

#gofundme #youcaring #spnfamily #spn family

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ramon-balaguer · 4 years

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Blessed Beautiful Sunday Saints & Sinners;

BLM is trending again and of course All Black Lives Matter, because just like Whites, Browns, Yellows, Reds, Blues, etc... #AllLivesMatter 🙌🙌🙌❤️😍

But people can and should protest peacefully with Law and Order, Not the Chaos and Crime we are see in the streets. God said in Ephesians 4:26-27 through the Apostle Paul, "Be angry but do Not Sin; do Not let the sun go down on your Anger, and do Not make room for the devil." What he is saying here is that we can get angry, just don't go crazy and Sin by Destroying, Vandalizing, Looting, shooting, bombing, burning, beating, bullying and murdering.

Protests by good people with good intentions like BLM drowned by Violent group Riots like Radical BLM, anarchists like ANTIFA, and Violent Opportunists inciting and instigating are being investigated by DOJ and eventually brought to Justice.

Cutting Law Enforcement budgets is Not an effective approach to a serious Trouble, no more than violent protests and riots. In fact, make matters worse which is why #GoodLeadersMatter

Leadership at every level, but especially from the church to speak Truth Boldly of a Christian worldview and learn how to build Relationships with Law Enforcement and the Community.

Everyone - Christian or non-Christian should be able to agree upon this one thing:

ALL Lives Matters, and ALL are in this Together and have a Civil Humankind Responsibility to our fellow man that ALL deserve to be treated with Love, Kindness, Respect and Honesty that are Not Lawless.

Beyond the Troubles of Death & Destruction and grief stricken wailing, Christians need to hear and answer the pleas of seekers asking:

Where is God in this Crisis (Pestilence, Floods, COVID19, Murders, Violent Riots, Dust Storms, Financial Troubles, Political & Civil Unrest, Abortions, illegal immigration, Divorces, illegitimate Births, Drug Distribution & Dependency, Sicknesses & Suicides, Human Trafficking & Child Labor, etc.)?

Troubles are guaranteed. Whether the Trouble is a large scale crisis such as a natural disaster or a smaller, personal one such as divorce or loss of a loved one, you WILL face trouble in your personal life.

Scripture tells us in John 16:33 that we will have Trouble in this world. But it doesn’t stop there…Jesus encourages us that we can have Peace in those times of Trouble if we are in Him.

Having peace in those times of Trouble, and even more importantly, being able to share that peace and hope with others in times of crisis is just as vital to our Christian walk as having the peace in the first place.

Those who are in Christ demonstrate the Peace and Hope of Jesus when Troubles happen.

Does this describe you?

Using this principle and the steps of Reconciliation and Reconstruction outlined in the Book of Nehemiah, you can develop a step by step guide to walk you through a process of developing Biblical Readiness to be able to share this Hope in times of Troubles as we have in the Ecumenical Church. Folks, Pastors... I cannot do it Alone, No more than Nehemiah could and No more than a movement like BLM can.

Spiritual. Emotional. Mental. Physical. These are the four areas have to be addressed. I believe that a human is Spirit, Soul (Heart & Mind) and Body for complete Healing and Restoration.

As a Christian Leader, with the Peace and Hope of Christ I have to build Relationships with other churches, ministries, religions and across the political, cultural and racial and law enforcement divides? And you must too.

That's what we're Called to Be and Do. If there's any "Socialism" to be had, that is our mandate from God, Not the Government. Jesus told us, Not Caesar or the Roman government, that we should feed the hungry (Food Stamps SNAP & WIC); tend to and heal the sick (Affordable Healthcare); visit the incarcerated (Prison Reform); look after the widows, orphans and homeless (Welfare & Affordable Housing); Teach all (Free Education); and Give (Wealth Transfer and Reparations).

Do you know what your community needs are?

Do you have a Ministry Team that will “Be There” Praying, Caring and Sharing the Love of Christ long after the narratives, heightened rhetoric and loud voices are silenced?

When we single out one group over another, subordinating one over the other it is a contemporary form of Supremacy which has been fostered for centuries. The mentality of the “Survival of the Fittest” - White, Black, Blue or any other color is an attitude of Supremacy which should be Offensive to everyone and Immediately addressed, so as Not to Live Offended. It is a God-given and a US Constitutional Right to be treated Not only Equally, but Respectfully.

As Christians, in Relationship with God and Responsible for Law Enforcement we know, Violations of Basic Rights are Breaches of Security and Trust are willful amoral Troubles which Only Christ can Transform.

So here suggestions to follow as Christians:

Pray

* Christians will seek a righteous path: seeking what is good, acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with Our God. Micah 6:8

* Christian leaders will seek His wisdom to facilitate dialog rather than falling prey to organized division. Proverbs 18:17

Care

* Learn how to lovingly facilitate conversations with your family, congregations and ministry groups. Mathew 22:39

* Give those who are hurting a better understanding of the character of God. Mathew 5:16

* Peace and joy in the midst of chaos which come to those who put their HOPE in Christ alone to transform their own hearts and minds first! Ephesians 2:8-9

* Solutions, without Christ at the center, as good as they may sound, will ultimately fail. John 15:5

* Abundant the fruit of the Spirit of God by sharing kindness, respect and honesty in relationships to turn the tragedies into lives with eternal triumph. Galatians 5:22-23

Remember in God's eyes and in mine, All Colors are Beautiful and #AllLivesMatter

Blessings Saints & Sinners with the Love of Jesus the Christ, Ramon and Amen.

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