Hiding in our sight this whole time

I actually thought the engraving by Hollar was based upon some lost portrait...but since most engravings are mirror images(engravers could be lazy ...), i decided to flip it...the outfit fits almost perfectly. the engraving just misess the chest brooch.

But some of you probably already noticed that.

Yet i doubt even most observant of you noticed that this unknown woman might be in another sketch by Holbein. Maybe.

These two have serious resemblence:

This is probably the strongest resemblence among all of Holbeins sketches.

The one on left is pretty worn off in face area and because lighter colours were used, without any lines enhanced in darker colours. This makes us think these arent connected. Until you compare features one by one.

Angle is identical, but tilt of head tiny bit different. Woman on right has gaze tiny bit more downcast...which might have exposed more of her eyelids, and also slightly affect shape of her brows. Try it before mirror.

I enhanced some shapes on woman on left:

To make you realise she also similiar chin and shape of eyes as woman on right. Different colours and headwear play very big role here and might have something to do with eyes on right appearing bigger(maybe i didnt scale it 100% properly), the tilt shouldnt be causing that.

Could aging make her eyes bigger? Idk. I mean i don't know if % eyes take within the face changes. You of course overall get bigger as you age. But i wonder if perhaps just normal swollen eyes...account for difference. Not sure.

Yet the difference in size of eyes, alongside such strong resemblence could point also to very close relatives.

But size aside, can we explain different eye colour?

YES. We had this issue before with Tudor portraits...plenty of times.

With royals. Hazel eyes under differnet light can be brown or grey...significant difference even in real life, let alone portraits.

And they run in Henry's family, and seem to be his type...so among his wives too.

Woman on left wears gable hood in style fashionable between late 1520s to c.1538-1543. In past it was thought to be Catherine of Aragon or Eleanor Brandon.

While the other woman ix believed to be one of possibly marriage candidates from abroad, painted for Henry after Jane Seymour died, possibly sister of Anne of Cleves. Reasons for this assumption is the alleged bigger format(it is actually normal size for Holbein sketches...it is just that woman is sketched on lower part of drawing, instead upper part) and people believing woman is not wearing English clothes.

But actually this is English outfit. Mary Rose was depicted in such hat in 1510s. Coif beneath-worn in england.

Embroidered partlet-worn in england.

Cloak with slightly spread collar...worn in England.

It is true we rarely have portrait of women in cloak from England from Henry's reign. But it is idiotic to assume women in winter would walk around in same clothes as in summer. Fact that woman chose to be portrayed in it and puffiness around shoulder would suggest we likely indeed talk end of Holbeins career and fashion chaos of 1538-1543, because weather got colder-which affected fashion and ladies also experimented a lot during this timeframe.

While i cannot tell who it is, I just wanted to make you aware these two are likely connected.

Let me know what you think.

“...We may quickly describe the Dothraki social organization; while we only see inside one traditional Dothraki khalasar, we are repeatedly told it is typical and may take it as such (AGoT, 83-5, 195, 328). Each group of Dothraki is led by a male war-leader called a khal (whose wife is a khaleesi and whose heir is the khalakka) in a group called a khalasar. The khal‘s personal guard are ‘bloodriders’ and are sworn to the khal and are supposed to kill themselves after he dies (AGoT, 328).

The khalasar also has subordinate commanders called kos and smaller bodyguard units called khas (and at this point, you will forgive me a joke that I began to wonder if the Dothraki rode to battle on their khorses, drank out their khups and fought with khords, kows, and kharrows; it will surprise no one that Martin is not a linguist). The khal is the autocrat of this organization, he has a single, readily identifiable male heir who is his direct descendant (the khalakka) and should that heir be underage or not exist, the khalasar will disband. Strikingly, beyond the khal‘s male heir, family ties play no role at all in the organization of the khalasar or in relations between them.

This is not how horse-borne nomads organized themselves, although it bears a passing resemblance to some elements of pre-Chinggis Mongol organization. We can start by quickly ruling out the Great Plains as an inspiration and move from there. I am not an expert in the organization of any Plains Native American society (so please forgive any errors – but do tell me, so I can make corrections – I am doing my best!), but from what I have been able to read, the key institution is not the ‘chief’ but rather the extended family network (what the Sioux call, I believe, the ‘thiyóšpaye’) which were then composed by smaller households (‘thiwáhe’). The elders of those households elected their leaders; while certain families seem to have been more prominent than others, leadership wasn’t directly heritable. Direct inheritance doesn’t seem to have been as pressing an issue; territorial claims were held by the nation or tribe (the ‘oyáte’) while moveable property was held by the household or extended family network (and personal items might be buried with the deceased).

I am being a bit schematic here to avoid outrunning my limited knowledge, but a system of kinship bonds with elected leaders coordinating the efforts of multiple ethnically or linguistically related kinship groups is a fairly common system for non-state social organization (obviously that label obscures a lot of cultural and regional variation!). This would have been a plausible enough way to organize the Dothraki, with lots of deliberative councils of household leaders and chiefs that are often shrewd political leaders, managing the interests of many households, but presumably that wasn’t badass enough. It would have involved lots of complicated political dialogue and quite a lot less random murder. In any event, it is clear the Dothraki are not organized along these lines; kinship matters functionally not at all in their organization and even when Daenerys is present, we see no deliberation, merely the authority of the khal, enforced by violence.

What about the Mongols and other Eurasian steppe nomads? The Mongols and other steppe nomads were broadly organized into tribes (an ulus or ordu, the latter giving us the word ‘horde’ in reference to nomads) which were organized around a leader (for the Mongols, a khan or ‘chieftain’) and understood to be part of a given ethnic or linguistic grouping which might or might not be united politically at any given time. The position of khan was heritable, but with some significant quirks we’ll get to in a minute.

In theory, these were kinship groups, but in practice the incorporation of defeated clans and sometimes shifting allegiances blurred those lines. Ratchnevsky (op. cit., 12-3) notes a divide within groups between the non-free captives (otogus bo’ol) and the free followers of a khan (nökhör or sometimes spelled nökhöd), but these categories were flexible and not ethnically based – individuals could and did move between them as the fortunes of war and politics shifted; Temujin himself – the soon-to-be Chinggis Khan – was at one point probably one of these bo’ol. The nökhör were freemen who could enter the service of a khan voluntarily and also potentially leave as well, living in the leader’s household. This is a rather more promising model or the Dothraki, but beyond this very basic description, things begin to go awry.

First off – and you will note how this flows out of the subsistence systems we discussed last week – inheritance does matter a great deal to the Mongols. Steppe nomads generally tended to share an inheritance system which – I have never seen it given a technical name – I tend to call Steppe Partible Inheritance (though it shares some forms with Gaelic tanistry and is sometimes termed by that name). In essence (barring any special bequests), each male member of the ruling clan or house has an equally valid claim on the property and position of the deceased. You can see how this would function where the main forms of property are herds of horses and sheep, which are easily evenly divisible to satisfy such claims. Divide a herd of 100 sheep between 5 sons and you get 5 herds of 20 sheep; wait a few years and you have five herds of 100 sheep again. And for most nomads, that would be all of the property to divide.

This partibility was one of the great weaknesses, however, of steppe empires, because it promoted fragmentation, with the conquests of the dynastic founder being split between their sons, brothers and so on, fragmenting down further at each succession (each inherited chunk is often called an appanage, after the Latin usage and often they were granted prior to the khan‘s death as administrative assignments). But overall leadership of the empire cannot be divided; in theory it went to the most capable male family member, though proving this might often mean politics, war or murder (but see below on the kurultai).

Thus Attila’s three sons turned on each other and made themselves easy prey for what was left of the Roman Empire; Chinggis’ heirs did rather better, sticking together as regional rulers in a larger ‘family business’ run by the descendants of Chinggis until 1260 (Chinggis died in 1227), when they began to turn on each other. The Ottomans resolved this problem – seeing their empire as indivisible – through fratricide to avoid civil war. Note also here, how important knowing the exact parentage (or more correctly, patrilineal descent) of any potential descendant of the khan would be – we’ll come back to that.

On the surface, this might sound a bit like how Khal Drogo’s khalasar disintegrates on his death, but there are enough key wrinkles missing here that I think the match fails. The biggest difference is the importance of the larger kin group and biological inheritance. You will note above that the males of the entire royal family generally had claims on the titles and property of the deceased. And actual, patrilineal descent was important here – all of the successor states of the Mongols were ruled by rulers claiming direct descent from Chinggis Khan, down to the disestablishment of the Mughal Empire in 1857. If Khal Drogo has any extended family, they seem to be unimportant and we never meet them; they do not figure into to the collapse of his khalasar (AGoT, 633), whereas in a Mongol ulus, they’d be some of the most important people.

Indeed, Drogo’s khalasar splits up with no regard at all to the ruling family, something that Jorah notes is normal – had there been a living heir, he would have been killed (AGoT, 591). This is obviously not true of the Mongols, because Temujin, the future Chinggis Khan himself (and his brothers), was exactly such young living heir of a powerful khan and was not killed, nor was any serious attempt apparently made to kill him (Ratchnevsky, op. cit. 22) and Ratchnevsky notes that was unusual in this instance that Temujin’s mother was not supported by her brother-in-law (possibly because she refused to be remarried to him).

Moreover, succession to leadership was not automatic as it is portrayed in A Game of Thrones (either automatic in the way that Khal Ogo’s son Fogo could become Khal in the mere moments of battle between his death and his father’s, AGoT, 556 or automatic in how Drogo’s khalasar automatically disintegrates, AGoT, 591). Instead there was a crucial mediating institution, the kurultai (sometimes spelled quriltai), a council of chiefs and khans – present in both Mongol and Turkic cultural spheres – which met to decide who of the valid claimants ought to take overall leadership. Such kurultai could also meet without a succession event – Temujin was declared Chinggis Khan in the kurultai of 1206. There wasn’t typically a formal heir-designate as with the Dothraki, both because of the need for a deliberative kurultai but also because of the partible inheritance. It was rather exceptional when Chinggis designated Ögedei as his chief heir (as a way to avoid war between his other sons; Ögedei was the compromise candidate) in 1219.

We might imagine the kurultai upon the death of the Mongol version of Drogo would have been a complex affair, with political negotiations between Drogo’s brothers and uncles (should he have any) who might well use the existence of an heir as an excuse to consolidate power within the family, along with Drogo’s key lieutenants also seeking power. Of course we do not see those events because Daenerys is asleep for them, but we do hear them described and it is clear that the key factors in a Mongol kurultai – descent, family ties, collective decision-making – do not matter here. As Jorah notes, “the Dothraki only follow the strong” (AGoT 633) and “Drogo’s strength was what they bowed to, and only that” (AGoT, 591). There is no council – instead Drogo’s key lieutenants (all unrelated to him) take their chunk of followers and run off in the night. There is no council, no effort to consolidate the whole, no division of livestock or territory (because, as we’ve discussed, the Dothraki subsistence system considers neither and consequently makes no sense).

Likewise, the structures of Mongol control, either before or after Chinggis (who makes massive changes to Mongol social organization) are not here. Drogo’s horde is not the decimal-system organized army of Chinggis, but it is also not the family-kin organized, deeply status-stratified society that Chinggis creates the decimal system to sweep away. The Mongols did have a tradition of swearing blood-brothership (the Mongolian word is anda), but it only replicated strong reciprocal sibling alliances. It certainly came with no requirement to die if your blood-brother died, something made quite obvious by the fact that Chinggis ends up killing his blood-brother Jamukha after the two ended up at war with each other. And these relationships were not a form of ‘royal guard’ but intimate and rare. Instead, Chinggis intentionally assembled a personal guard, the keshig, out of promising young leaders and the relatives of his subordinates, both as a military instrument but also a system of control. Members of the keshig did not simply die after the death of their leader, but were bound to take care of the surviving family of the deceased ruler.

So apart from the observation that Steppe nomads tended to have singular leaders (but, of course, monarchy is probably the most common form of human organization in the historical period) and that they tend to fragment, almost nothing about actual patterns of Steppe leadership is preserved here. Not the basic structures of the society (the ‘nobles,’ kinship groups and larger tribal and ethnic groups which so dominated Temujin’s early life, for instance, see Ratchnevsky, op. cit. 1-88), nor its systems of inheritance and succession. Instead, most of the actual color of how Mongol society – or Steppe rulership more broadly – worked has been replaced with ‘cult of the badass’ tropes about how the Dothraki “only follow the strong,” only value strength and have essentially no other cultural norms.”

- Bret Devereaux, “That Dothraki Horde, Part III: Horse Fiddles.”

NSFW alphabet Eren Jaeger edition

Author note : would you believe me if I told you I literally dreamt about it ? I’m not kidding I’ve got the whole thing on my mind I couldn’t not write this down. Well I hope you’ll enjoy it. I’ve got inspire by couple headcanon I read but I couldn’t remember which one my apologies. 

I do not own that gif credit to the owner

Warning : NSFW below / gender neutral 

Masterlist 

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

He is not the best when it came to aftercare but he’s not the worst. It’s just he gives everything during your session to please you, to love you properly that he just felt so tired after that. So basically he will just lay down and have you on his chest, his hand on your hair stroking it while falling asleep. But if he was a particularly rough session or if he felt like you need some proper aftercare be sure he’ll do everything for your comfort : clean you by running you a bath if you’re not too sore (otherwise he’ll will clean you while you’re on the bed), massaging some spot he might hurt like your hips or your back, even changing the sheets if you two were particularly dirty. 

On a rare occasion, when both of you have time and if Eren felt particularly needy he might make a bath for both you so he could have you back against his chest his arm around you while he would kiss your neck or your shoulder. It’s something he’ll grown to love so that will become an habit of him. 

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

First of all he is absolutely in love with you meaning he doesn’t care about your physics he loves you for who you are. Buuut he is obsessed by your eyes and lips there something about how powerful they are and how good they fell when they are in him. He craves for any mark of affection and he is sucker for your hand, just the way they feel on his cheek when you kiss him or desperate they are on his when he fucks you the right way. 

But if you want to be dirty, there something about your chest that never stop to amazed him. He just can’t help but stare at them : he is chest man. 

When it came to him, he kinda proud of his abs and basically his whole chest. Like I said he is chest man so if he is amazed by how good your chest look, he is also concerned by the way his chest look : he always smirk when he catches you looking at his abs, his arms lusting for his body. 

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Normally Eren isn’t messy at all, he was taught  to be clean no matter what circumstances (no wonder why Levi likes the way Eren clean). So when it came to sex he tries his best to not make a mess. But it’s kinda difficult you know ? Cause he really loves to cum on your body it’s definetely a huge turn on for him : if he saw your chest covered by his cum damn he’s done for another round with you. He just loves the way he could mark you as his even if he’ll clean you after you won’t be able to erase that picture. 

You’re wondering why he never comes into you ? 

That’s simple because he was afraid to ask you, no matter how long your relationship is established there still things who is he still ashamed to ask. But one day, you two were more intimate than usual : he got you sat on his lap riding his cock, your hands on his shoulder for support while he was holding you by your hips whispering how much he loves how he couldn’t have enough of you. With a quick move he got you on your back, your legs around his waist as he was moving deeply in you. There were nothing rough on his move just pure love and adoration for you. Your breath were erratic has his hit all the good spot, then he started to speed up his pace feeling that both of you were close to your climax. And with a last powerful thrust he filled you, as you were overwhelmed by your own orgasm. He couldn’t describe how good he felt and you couldn’t either. 

Right after this he apologized for culling inside of you which you told him that it was absolutely fine besides you enjoyed it. Now no matter when, everytime you walked by his side he got that smug on his face knowing there something who came from him into you. 

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He loves keeping your underwear after having sex with you, he’ll try to catch it before you could notice. Then he’ll help to dress again taking advantage of the fact you were probably too sore to even noticed you weren’t wearing your underwear anymore. Then, when he’ll be alone with Jean he might let poke out your underwear just enough so Jean would catch him : The smug on Eren’s face is indefinable he just enjoys letting him know that he actually has a significant other and he is more a man than him. Also the sight of Jean became a whole blush mess because he understand why Eren had your underwear in his pocket is priceless. 

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

No matter how old he was when you started your relationship, expect him to be a baby virgin. During his whole life he was only focused on killing titans besides he never expected to meet someone and being in relationship. 

But he’s not that obvious when it came to sex, his father was a doctor so yeah he taught him a things or two about human body : when he was 8 years old he learned how to make baby and it definetly disgust him I mean what the point of putting something who is supposed to be for peeing in something who is supposed to do the same things ? That day he told his mum he will never make baby which makes her laugh so hard. Of course he doesn’t know how powerful hormones can be. Basically he knows the basics where to put his cock and what to do to not hurt you : he is absolutely unaware how important foreplay is, at first he thought kissing you was enough to turn you on (well it is but you know that’s not all about it ???). 

So you’ll have to talk a lot about it with him so he won’t do mistake he might regret. 

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

At first he was absolutely fine with you under him, missionary was definetly his thing. In fact even if he doesn’t have experienced in sex, Eren is pretty dominant in bed. So having you under him, your legs around his waist as you giving yourself to him : that’s so beautiful and yet so powerful. 

With time, he’ll try more position as he is very open about it ( he doesn’t see what he should  be ashamed about being curious sex is just another subject ???), he loves when you ride him the sight of you blessing with pure ecstasy definetly became a kink for him, he is sucker for doggy style cause not only did you trust him enough to let him have his thing but it also felt absolutely good. When he felt especially needy or romantic, he will take you on his lap as you ride him while hugging you. 

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Find something eren isn’t serious about. You got it, like I said, sex is another subject that interest him so he is not afraid to ask something or just try new thing. And like any subject he is into, he is very serious so don’t expect him to crack some joke or anything in addition he will feel offended if you try to mock him or anything : this is something intimate and very important, he is about to show you how much he loves you so be serious. 

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Did you see that poor baby goatee and mustache he got back in Mahr days ? He isn’t very hairy and he shaved a lot cause he loved being smooth he finds it more convenient and clean. When it came to you well, he is not very demanding but he expect you to no bother him with your hair. 

He is not a fan of hairs that could be a turn off if you didn’t take care of it, but he won’t ever force you to shave or anything just asking you to take care of it so it won’t bother him while he takes care of you. 

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…) 

At this times, you could guess what I’m about to answer. He is VERY intimate with you, sex is another way for him to show you how much he loves you and since he is not very good with his words it’s a good way to counterbalance that. Eren is known to be a passionate person : When he has sex with you he does passionately.  

Expect him to cover your body with kiss and deep touch, he’ll whispers into your ear praising you telling you how much he loves you. Slightly just enough for you to feel, he will bite your earlobe and your neck expect some hickeys at the end of your session. He will caress every part of your body kissing each part of your skin at this time you might even come about how good he is when he touch you. He wants you to be pleased like the queen you are to him. Eren is passionate you’re one of his passion and he wants you to know that. 

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

During a long time he never touched himself, not because he didn’t want to but because he didn’t know what to do : unfortunately his dad was gone before he has time to teach him this (Grisha only taught him how to make a baby he wanted to talk about masturbation when Eren would be a teenager). He only learns about it cause one day he saw one of his camarad touching himself on the bedroom, it was short but he saw how to do it. And during the night when was alone on the bathroom he tried. 

It felt good and his released help him going through his stress, so basically he used to do it to destress. He stopped it when you two became intimate cause he didn’t see the point of keep going. 

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

He might have a daddy kink and a pregnancy kink but won’t admit it.  He is a Dom in bed, he counterbalance the lack of control he has on his own life, on the bed with you (which you were absolutely fine with that since he knows how to please you). In addition he always wanted to have a family on his own, the sight of you and especially your belly full of baby of him : +100 ego boost for eren. In addition he might have a voyeurism kink (Go to W ;)) 

That’s something quite « dark » for him so he might never talk about it 

But that’s not all about it, he got a praise kink just told him how good he make you feel and he’ll reward you. He has lack of confidence so it’s good for his pride. He might be into overstimulation too cause the sight of your body shaking from pleasure is a most for him. 

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Your room is definetly his favorite place but considering how busy you two were, most or the time much to his dismay you couldn’t have sex in your place. 

Time to time he enjoys having you in storeroom, back against a wall, trying to shut your moan as he fucks you deeply. One day he tried to sleep with you on a wood during a day-off but he wasn’t satisfied cause he has to be quick so you won’t be caught. 

Basically any place with a wall, a table would be fine with him but a bed it’s definetly a most. 

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Again no matter how old he was when you two got intimate, he became addict to it. He is kinda sensitive and the feeling he got while he was into you was incredible and nothing could compare. But, Eren being the man he is, he could be kinda obvious when it came to something who isn’t titan’s related. So sometimes when you were excited and wanted to got released from him, the boy might not see it. 

So to have him in a mood is pretty simple, there are so much things he loves about you especially your body. If you want to be subtle you could play with the button of your shirt while looking at him, or bitting your lip while looking at him. If he doesn’t get what you need or if he wants to tease you by not giving you what you want. Well you’ll have to confront him, took his arm into yours and make sur to squeeze it against your chest while whispering into his ears how much you crave for him, bit very gently his earlobe then beg for him and one minute later you find yourself against a wall while he kissed you. 

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He is definetly against everything who involves pain, your life was already painful and hard without bringing it into bed (he won’t be against spanking you though) so forget anything like blood play, hard BDSM, anything involving humiliation. 

Threesome is a big no a HUGE NO you are his and only his what would you bring someone ??? Don’t ever ask him, seriously he will think he is not good enough for you. You don’t want to make him sad right ?

Basically everything Involving lack of movement (like tie someone) isn’t really his thing since he used to be tied a lot of time. But if you bring it safely, explain him and took your time he might tie you up against the head of the bed but it’ll take even more time for you to convince him to let you tied him up : most of the time it triggered bad memories so it kills the mood. 

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Give him head and he will be the luckiest man of the world, seriously he was a bit reluctant at first cause he didn’t expect something like that to happen. But when you started to kiss his length his doubt was quickly forgotten. He loves receiving more than giving but that doesn’t mean he won’t give you a special treatment. This is a part of why he loves your lips, around him sucking him like the good lover you are. 

little trick : give him a deep throat while playing with his balls and the whole neighbors will know your name. 

He is very good with his tongue and he got better and better with times, the feel of you against his mouth shaking, moaning, begging for him is a huge turn on for him. If he managed to make you cum hard on his mouth he might cum himself cause it was incredible. If you think he was good with his tongue, he is even better at giving head with his fingers. 

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Usually his pace his deep and kinda fast, he is so lost in the moment and the sound of your moan is everything he needs to purchase his own release. He wants you to feel him just as much as he enjoys feeling your wall around him. 

On a rare occasion, when he is romantic he would be very slow but always deep into you just enjoying the pleasure in addition it gives him all the time he wants to love you and praise you. On the contrary when he feels jealous, he tends to be pretty rough : he will ravage you in bed just to make sure everyone in the world will know who you belong to

No matter which pace he will have, you always felt overwhelmed by pleasure. He is great lover despite his lack of experience he is fastest learner.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He is not into quickie, sex is supposed to be an intimate moment for both of you so you could express your feeling and enjoying each other in a physical aspect. But quickie ? He couldn’t praise you properly what the point ? 

He quickly change his mind when you give him head on storeroom during a training session, after coming from your sweet lips he turn you around back face into him and he would got you around him. After that he started to enjoy this and will initiate it when he’ll have a boner and he couldn’t take it away. But that doesn’t change his opinion : sex in bed Is way better 

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Earlier I said that you two have sex in woods one day that give you an idea right ? Like I said Eren is very open when it came to sex so he is always into trying new thing in bed (as long as it’s not bringing someone else). He loves the chill of the fact he could be surprised while he is having his way on you. 

One day you were cleaning one of the basement’s room, it was hot so you took your shirt over so you were on a tank top and Eren might have a boner seeing you bending over to catch some dust while wearing your tight pant. One moment later you felt his hand on your ass squeeze it gently while his second hand was on your hips. And before you could even realized he got you on the table, him on you looking at you with nothing but pure love and lust. 

that being said he will never try something you are not into it. And he will never put you into situation that you make you uncomfortable. 

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Being a soldier for him to work a lot on his body to be as hardy as possible and he willing to use it on you. That being said your first couple of time weren’t as long as he wanted to due to his lack of experiment. He was literally overwhelmed by pleasure. But with times he learned to not end too quickly and he started to last like twenty minute easily without count foreplay. And he can go for two maybe three rounds if he is not too exhausted. 

He never get enough of you and sometimes you have to tell him stop cause you were far too sensitive too keep going. 

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Not really into toys he doesn’t see the point of uses it since he is more than enough to satisfy you. But you own toys he would oblige and use it on you and maybe will he let you use it on him. 

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

At first he wasn’t much a tease and when he does it that was by accident because he took too much time kissing your body. It wasn’t his intention. But in getting older Eren learned to enjoy teasing you, part of it because he loves hearing you beg for him it makes him feel so important for you. Like he’s the only one who knows how to please you. 

Man bun Eren is teaser and he is not afraid to make you crazy about him just to hear you beg for him.  

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Despite his Dom personality, Eren is a moaning mess : everything felt just too good for him and he couldn’t control himself but moan with you. In addition hearing you moaning his name make him moan. He is loud and he is even louder when you give him head. That’s probably the curses of being passionate you couldn’t control yourself.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He definetly has a voyeurism kink, he never knows about it until one day it was late, everyone was supposed to sleep now. At least that what Eren thought when he came into your room after a week of not being able to touch you. He took this opportunity to cherish you just the way you deserve it. 

But while you were on four and him was behind you giving you his best thrust as he was getting closer to his climax he could swore he saw someone looking by the crack of the door. The thought of someone watching him as he was pleasing you was enough to got him into his own climax but he tried his best to not come. You didn’t know why he does that but you felt it him getting harder on you, one his hand was spanking you just the way you like it while his other hand was on your neck, putting you more in the mattress. His pace was animalistic, you didn’t know where it came from but you sure enjoy it. Eren on the other hand, motivate by the thought of someone watching you, did everything to last as long as possible until he couldn’t take it anymore. 

At the end he never knows if someone did actually watch him but he sure enjoy the thought. 

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

I don’t know if it’s because of his titan DNA but he is sure huge not that monstrous but enough to make you salivate at the thought of him inside of you. He is probably 8,6 inch (length) for 1,5 inch (width). 

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Maybe it’s his hormone maybe it’s just him but he has a huge sex drive and much to his dismay he couldn’t satisfy it as much as he wants to. He just couldn’t get enough of you, it seems like no matter what you did he’ll find it attractive. He is really into you : kicking Jean’s ass ? Boner. Bending over to catch something ? Boner. Pressing your chest against his ? Boner. You have a huge effect on him. 

Most of the time he can control his sex drive and cool himself before he got a boner but sometimes no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t prevent his boner so he’ll take into the closest storeroom for you to take care of his « problem ». 

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Depends on how many rounds you two got, if you got three rounds eren will just lay down on the bed and put you on his chest before falling asleep (not before giving you a quick good night kiss) if he was reasonable he would take time to run you a bath, clean you if you need to or just lay down with you on the bed holding you close and start a talk about anything. You know just to have more time with you. 

𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: save file 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: chigasaki itaru/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 3.0k words

𝐚𝐧: itaru event? itaru fic! me loving fake dating + direct af titles? nothing changed~ sequencing of events might be weird, oops~

■■■■■■■■■■■□□□  NOW LOADING SAVE FILE 2 LOADED

Itaru’s not the least bit surprised at the sight of your wrinkled nose; neither is he shocked at the crease that formed between your brows nor the narrowing of your eyes. It must be a lot to take in, truly, but it had to be done.

“Chigasaki-kun,” you said, immediately trailing off as though you couldn’t convey the rest of your thoughts. That was fine, he thought, he can wait for his SP to fill up for 100 minutes so surely he can wait a couple more minutes for your response.

It’s a bit embarrassing, but maybe he needs to explain a bit more? He doesn’t mind too much, he was putting you on the spot, after all.

“I know it’s sudden,” Itaru said apologetically, “but I need you. You’re the only one who can—“

“Chigasaki-kun,” you repeated, sounding firmer this time around. At this point, Itaru noticed that your eyes never left the cafe table that separated the two of you, or rather what laid right smack in the centre of it. As soon as he slid it towards you, your eyes had gone from wide and surprised to squinting, almost as though it had offended you.

He was so focused on your line of sight that he failed to notice the sudden rush of red that raced across your cheeks. After a moment of silence, you let out a deep breath.

“Why the fuck did you just give me a replica of Byleth’s ring from Fire Emblem?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he dug through his pocket to bring out another ring, the exact same design, “I have another one.”

■■■■■■■■□□□□□□  NOW LOADING SAVE FILE 4 LOADED

“Hey, you made it! Thanks for coming, Chigasaki-sa—“ as he took in the sight of your locked hands, his co-worker let out a comically loud gasp, before trying and failing to cover it up with an awkward cough.

Itaru’s not stupid, at the very least he’s definitely not blind or deaf. Besides the gracious host, he can tell everyone is shocked and staring. They’re not even trying to be discrete about it anymore.

The people from his department had been gossiping for all of last week, creating speculations on his love life. The theories had a lot of exaggeration, a lot of denial.

You squeezed his hand a little tighter, him reciprocating to reassure you.

Envy. Judgement.

Still, as he glanced at your face to check for any sign of discomfort only to find a poised smile, he was once again reminded by your strength and fortitude. He always admired that from you, and it was always so enthralling to see that side of you in action.

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“You’ll come, won’t you?” Itaru let out a quiet hum, yet refusing to answer immediately. Though he’d prefer to sit out of most gatherings, he particularly disliked going to non-essential get-togethers where the only real purpose was for his co-workers to eat and drink less restrained as they would with the higher-ups around.

Normally he would have some excuse conjured up, maybe even pretend to check his phone calendar and reject the invite apologetically. However, he had already skipped out three times, consecutively.

He already breached the three strikes and you’re out rule, and he’s not so sure risking going for four would be the smartest play for his reputation… but it probably wouldn’t hurt to save game and set aside his decision making for later.

“I’ll have to check my schedule. I just need to check with someone first,” he said, thinking back to the director and the rest of spring troupe. Would any of them give him an excuse he has yet to use?

“Ahh, feel free to bring your sister then!” the man paused, a small smirk appearing as his eyebrows waggled. “Unless you wanna bring, you know, a friend.”

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“You just don’t want to suffer alone,” you said, using your fork to prod at the meal he treated you to. Surely a one time gathering wasn’t all there is to it? Chigasaki Itaru, who always kept his life outside work private, suddenly wanting people to know he had a significant other?

Even though he didn’t?

“I’ve been to those— I know they suck,” you continued, your eyes darting away from the silver band to look at him properly, “will this even benefit you?”

“It’ll probably be annoying at first,” he replied, keeping eye contact to let you know how serious he was, “dealing with everyone’s questions, but they’ll eventually just accept it and stop bothering me.”

“What about me?”

“You work somewhere else— they won’t get the chance to bother you,” he pointed out, propping his elbow on the table as he rest his cheek on his knuckles. He continued seeing as you stayed silent, “plus, don’t you have anyone bothering you about your lack of a love life?”

In any other instance, you probably would have made a remark about him being too dedicated to his waifus to date as well, but you could only grimace as you recalled the upcoming family reunion. If your aunts teased you again for not being in a relationship… if your mom kept insisting that you were just hiding a secret boyfriend to delude herself…

“Fine, but in exchange—“

Itaru let out a chuckle, “so the matching rings aren’t enough? I’ll have you know, they’re Class A replicas.”

You snorted, “stop, stop! I’m being serious here!” you said, lightly kicking his feet from beneath the table. When he moved to retaliate, you hastily pushed your feet beneath your chair.

“Oi—“

“Just kidding, just kidding!“ he said, raising his hands up in surrender, “so, how can I help you?”

“… you up for a family reunion lunch on Sunday?”

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“So, like, do we need to prepare any— dude, dude, dude what the…? This part of your island is—” Even without heading over to where you were, he immediately knew which area you were cackling about.

“That’s the nature dump! Obviously not gonna terraform it yet?” Itaru replied, “I need a place to place all the normie flowers?”

He heard you scoff, your animal crossing character running up to his and hitting him with a net.

“Not that dump, dummy! Why are there toilets? The fences— toilets—“ you trailed off, unable to help yourself from bursting back into laughter. He instinctively laughed alongside you, knowing the monstrosity you were talking about.

“What kind of idiot makes a pathway out of toilets?”

“Hey! They create a cool effect when you walk past it!” he said, defending himself as your character hit his on the head again, “kind of like a clam opening up—“

“It’s a toilet! Not a clam!”

“Ya? Well I, Taruchi, am a resident of Urinetown, subtitle: actually an island and not a town,” Itaru said, almost as if he was proud of himself. “Before you come from me, Urinetown is a musical about capitalism. What’s your excuse, Pen Island?”

You gasped, obviously fake but dramatic enough to continue your banter “I’ll have you know, the actual name is Pen Isles? Also, you named our Stardew Valley farm—“ you paused, as though realising something, “wait, wasn’t I going to ask you something?”

“… pfft, GJ.”

■■■■■■■■■□□□□□  NOW LOADING SAVE FILE 4 LOADED

Itaru watched you introduce yourself to the rest of the room, your words polite but brimming with a confidence that was rare to see from his friend turned pretend s/o… or at least, that was what he initially thought.

Maybe this side of you just so happened to be particularly evident tonight, ringing throughout your voice and exhibited by your body language; that didn’t mean it was hidden before this instance.

There was a certain charm to you. Always been, but he never really acknowledged it. It was the little things, like how you were never hesitant about adding to his commentary when you two played Co-Op, or the playfulness you showed from time to time, or your genuineness around him— kind, but not taking bullshit from him or anyone.

If he was reading the room right, he can’t blame them for being even a little bit enthralled with you.

Even if it didn’t exactly sit right with him.

“I didn’t know Chigasaki-kun was dating someone!” a brave soul piped up from the sidelines, probably vocalising what everyone else was holding back from saying. Huh, wasn’t she one of the people who fiercely denied the rumour that he was in a relationship?

He doesn’t miss the way the corners of your lips quirked downwards for a split second, before lifting back upwards as though it never happened.

“Well, Itaru can be a bit private,” you replied, a muffled but silvery giggle escaping escaping your lips, “though I suppose I’m a bit of the same? Might be why we’re compatible.”

The woman who asked flushed slightly, and he was sure it wasn’t from any alcohol consumed. Even still, he found himself mirroring the pink hue.

Itaru?

■■■■■■■■■■■□□□  NOW LOADING SAVE FILE 3 LOADED

“Itaru,” he repeated to you for the third time tonight.

“Shoot, sorry,” you apologised, making your animal crossing character portray your shock at your slip-up again. Lmao, that was cute. “Damn… it’s weird going from Chigasaki-kun to just Itaru.”

It was his turn to hit your character with a net.

“Taruchi isn’t that far from Itaru, and you call me that all the time,” he stated, snorting at the little huff that was somehow still audible on call.

“Calling you your IGN is way different though?” you protested, “I can’t just call you that in public?”

“Shame it might expose me irl,” he sighed in disappointment, “it would have been cute to have my gamer s/o go ‘uwu Taruchi, fighto!’”

“Hahhh? Was it ever cute any time I called you Taruchi?” you asked, incredulousness present in your tone as you proceeded to mock him, “uwu, Taruchi, fighto!… there, was that cute at all?”

Itaru’s hand slid up to cover his face, his growing smile lifting his cheeks upward. You were clearly just joking around, but, well, “who knows? Maybe if you said ‘Taruchi-sama, ganbatte! I’d be able to—“

“Itaru!” you interrupted, immediately making the human equivalent noise of a keyboard smash, your little avatar running around in circles as he imagined what expression your face had right now.

Amidst his unrestrained laughter, he managed to squeeze in his next sentence in parts. “You— you finally said it! Otsu~”

■■■■■■■□□□□□□□  NOW LOADING SAVE FILE 4 LOADED

You had only called him ‘Itaru’ that one time, every other time being ‘Taruchi’ in private or ‘Itaru-kun’ in public. Still, hearing you say his name in person instead of on the phone made it feel like the first time again.

Luckily for him, he didn’t get that much time to dwell on it. Someone had lead you two to sit somewhere, surrounded by more of his polite and friendlier coworkers. Exchanging pleasantries with them was easy enough, as was answering questions about your relationship.

They’ve had multiple test runs after all. There was no way they were messing up any details, there was no room or possibility of either of them even fumbling.

“How long have you two known each other?”

“We’ve been friends since university,” you replied, something that was actually true, “it took years for me to even confess! I’m just glad Itaru accepted,” you gave him a purposeful glance, your bashful expression nearly enough to lead him to believe that you really did have a crush on him all this time.

“So you two have been together since—?”

“After my graduation,” Itaru supplied helpfully, “so it’s been a few years.”

“That’s so sweet! You know,” the woman in front of you lowered her voice, and you leaned in a little closer to listen in, “a lot of us were wondering if Chigasaki was dating anyone after we saw his ring. I thought it was just a fashion statement, but now I know it’s the real deal!”

She eyed the silver band on your ring finger, one that completely matched his.

“The rings are beautiful! The design is completely unique,” another person commented. Itaru felt your ring finger loop around his own, and the two of you turned to look at each other, sharing an amused grin.

If only they knew it was actually really well-done game merch.

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“What’s the point of the rings, though?” you asked, curious of just how far Itaru was taking this plan anyway.

“Do you not like it?” Itaru asked. Undeniably, he would be a bit upset if you ended up not liking the ring. After all, he bought it because—

“It’s lovely,” you said sincerely, carefully picking up the ring, “just surprised you already had rings on hand?”

He chuckled apprehensively, “I was going to save it as a friendship anniversary gift,” he explained, “I still feel a little guilty I didn’t get you anything last year.”

“You don’t have to get me anything anyway,” you said reassuringly, “but I appreciate it.”

He watched you slip the ring on your left ring finger, mouth opening up to apologise as he saw how loose the ring was on you, about to offer to have it resized immediately before you interrupted with quiet laughter.

“It’s a bit awkward right now, but I love it.”

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The get-together was going really well, surprisingly. He still would have preferred to be in the comfort of his room, but your presence just made everything so much easier. Even the questions people threw at the two of you weren’t so bothersome, dodging the more nosy people and sticking with anything general.

It had somehow become a game between the two of you. It was like an act off, almost, of who could give the more impressive or heart fluttering statement. Whether it was for the sake of your audience or to just affect each other remains unsaid.

“What do you like about Itaru?”

You looked away from him, closing your eyes as though you were thinking. To be fair, anything real personality or gaming related was out of bounds. Would you cater your response to his work persona, or—

“Everything!”

He nearly choked on air, trying to ignore the urge to clutch at his heart.

“That’s no fair, give something more specific!”

“I do like everything about Itaru, though?” you said with a cute pout, “but I guess I like his kindness the most. He’s always so thoughtful and considerate. He’s a busy man, but he always finds the time to help me out when I need it.”

Everyone cooed at the two of them, but he found it difficult to concentrate on that when he could only cling onto the words that started to sound more and more real as the night went by.

Out of context, everything you said could be interpreted as you just being friendly, but there was something in the way you pronounced his name and the expression on your face as you talked about him that was… different.

“What about you, Chigasaki?”

Escaping from his thoughts, his mind was filled to the brim with thoughts, but the words refused to spill from his lips.

Was there a way to describe how captivated he was at your little quirks, from the random filler noises you’d make on call or text when words failed you, to the literal quirk of the corner of your lips as you shifted expressions.

Was there a way express his appreciation for sticking by him for years, regardless of his hidden side? Was there a way to express his gratefulness for the laughter rendered and the tears wiped off by you; the smile blooming on his face as he imitated your own subconsciously?

This was the one thing he couldn’t have a manual or guide to study, so he could only hope that he went with the right dialogue choice.

“Everything too, actually.”

■■■■■■■■■■■■■□  AUTOSAVING AUTOSAVE SUCCESSFUL!

The drive back home was quiet. He was exhausted, and he could tell you were too, but as he neared your street his driving got slower and slower, almost unmoving. From the corner of his eye, he saw you fiddle with your ring, twisting it around your fourth finger before pulling it off completely.

“Oh, we’re here,” you said out loud, yet you didn’t make a move to reattach your seatbelt.

“Itaru.”

Oh, wow. If hearing it a while ago trumped hearing it over call, then hearing you murmur his name in private, with just the two of you present, was…

“You look like you have something on your mind,” you continued, “all throughout the whole get-together, actually. Are you okay?”

When everything about this, about you simultaneously felt so new yet so familiar to him, how could he possibly convey his feelings? His admiration, no, his love for you?

He took the ring from your grasp, and before you could question what was up, he had grabbed your hand as well. With a serendipitous conscientiousness, he slid the ring back onto your ring finger, admiring your rosy glow that managed to be visible even with how dark out it was outside.

“The things you said a while ago,” he began, some hesitance still remaining as his thumb glided over your ring, “sounded really convincing.”

You wouldn’t meet his eyes. For a few seconds the both of you kept silent, until you finally broke it off, “maybe I wasn’t lying in the first place.”

He stiffened, pausing his previous ministrations as you continued, “… were you?”

Looking back at the past week, he almost laughed. Other than already being in a relationship, was anything between the two of you ever a lie to begin with?

“I wasn’t, either,” he replied. Taking in a deep breath, your gaze finally locked with his, he took the next step.

“If… if I promise to always be there for you, to hold your hand, help you fight your battles, and shield you from attacks… would you have me?”

want to order again?

Little Book Review: David Copperfield

Author: Charles Dickens.

Publication Date: 1850.

Genre: Classic literature.

Premise: After a happy early childhood, young David Copperfield must deal with an abusive stepfather, a boarding school of dubious quality, his mother’s death, a full-time job at a factory, an impecunious housemate, and homelessness...all before the age of twelve. Later, as a young adult, he experiments with morosexuality, sister-zones his true love, lets his cool aunt decide his future career because he forgot to brainstorm other ideas, learns shorthand, and maybe gets a hand job? He also stands in a lot of rooms while other people have dramatic confrontations, being generally nice and helpful but not contributing much to the conversation.

Thoughts: I am very well-versed in the first 100 pages of many Dickens novels, but this is the first one I’ve actually managed to finish. For roughly the first half of the novel--i.e., when David is a child--it’s an absolute masterpiece that beautifully portrays both the joys and sorrows of childhood: the warmth and safety of David’s early life with his mother and his nursemaid Peggotty; the novelty of his trip to Yarmouth to see Peggotty’s relatives; his suffocating existence in the home of a stepfather who is determined to demonize him; his ambivalent friendship with an older boy at school who is nice to him but obviously has Issues; his grief for his mother (brilliantly contrasted with the day-to-day cheerfulness of the the family who runs the funeral home); the tragicomedy of his preteen efforts to get by in the big city; and his extraordinary efforts to extricate himself from the life his stepfather has condemned him to. I honestly wouldn’t change a thing.

But then...David grows up. There’s plenty to enjoy about the second half of the novel, too, but there’s a significant drop in quality. I blame this on three factors (listed from least to most important):

David spends a lot of time standing in rooms, witnessing dramatic events that only marginally involve him. Around the halfway mark, the novel shifts from being a story about a boy who happens to encounter a lot of colorful characters, to the story of a young man and his numerous wacky friends who share more or less equal time. I’m not bothered by David’s passivity--after his experiences, I would 100% be saying, “Okay, I’m done, just tell me what to do”--and he did warn me that he may not turn out to be the hero of his own life. It’s just that David has lots of friends who constantly air out their shit right in front of him, and they’re not all super-interesting. (I’m looking at you, Dr. Strong and his wife Annie.) 

Charles Dickens is not the best at tying things together. Like...I’m not stupid. I can draw my own parallels between David’s childhood and his adult life. He loses his young, rather helpless mother at a young age; as an adult, he’s married at an early age to a young, helpless woman, who also dies. (As my boyfriend’s mother observed, “He married his mother.”) He abruptly sinks into poverty as a child and must try to make it more or less on his own; as an adult, his relatives lose most of their money, forcing him to economize and help support them. He’s manipulated by Steerforth as a young boy and ignores a bunch of red flags; the same thing happens when he’s an adult, with more serious consequences. It’s really interesting, but it’d be a lot more interesting, and give some more weight to the second half of the novel, if David seemed to notice the parallels even a little bit more. I thought this was a really strong element of the recent adaptation, The Personal History of David Copperfield.

Charles Dickens doesn’t take romance seriously, even though this novel absolutely requires that he do that. Charles Dickens really wants to sell you on the idea that rashly marrying or entering a romantic relationship based on infatuation is a bad idea, but most of his characters who make Tragic Horny Mistakes either (a) did so long enough ago that we only see the consequences (Betsey Trotwood, Annie Strong, maybe Martha and Mrs. Micawber), (b) get treated as a joke (David most of the time, Dora even more of the time), or (c) are so miserable and hyper-aware of their bad decisions that it begins to strain credulity that horniness would have a fighting chance (Little Emily, Steerforth). It’s like an anti-drug PSA where all the users are cartoonishly stupid and/or never actually seem to enjoy doing drugs; it’s unclear what the lesson is for a reasonably sensible person.* Dickens also fails to portray happy couples very convincingly, with the delightful exception of Tommy Traddles and his sweetheart Sophy. At best, they’re...fine. Agnes seems nice, and if she and David aren’t weirded out by their years-long pseudo-sibling relationship, more power to them. At worst, it comes across like something Judge Turpin from Sweeney Todd would masturbate to if he was really desperate (i.e., young Annie Strong’s marriage to an elderly family friend whom she always looked up to as a father). 

Again, there’s plenty to enjoy. Most of the minor characters are truly delightful, and there’s real humor and pathos in even the weaker storylines (whatever, I cried for poor Dora). I also appreciated what I assumed was a sly reference to marital hand jobs. It just could’ve been so much more.

*In contrast, poor Clara Copperfield’s abusive second marriage is all too plausible.

Hot Goodreads Take: “This book was about a bird who didn't yet know how to fly,” says one reviewer. I assumed this was a metaphor (David is the bird!) for way too long. Then I realized that the reviewer had meant to review another book.

Also, lest we forget:

Digimon Adventure 2002 → 2027: Yamato Ishida & Sora Ishida (née Takenouchi)

“Yamato and Sora got married. They began a relationship at Christmas in 02 episode 38. After that, their love blossomed into marriage.” -- Hiromi Seki, Digimon Producer

Headcanons:

Before tri., I had Yamato and Sora being middle school sweethearts all the way up to marriage, with only one minor hiccup (a very brief breakup after high school to ~find themselves). But they only dated each other. Well . . . these are now my headcanons after tri., I suppose:

Yamato and Sora have been in an on-again, off-again relationship since they were 14. This is mostly because one or both of them would get scared when things “got too serious” and so they would break up for a while . . . only to find themselves back together again. This is a pattern that would repeat until they were married.

They lost their virginity to each other straight after high school graduation. This was NOT a decision that they took lightly -- but, seeing as they’ve been dating on-and-off since they were 14 . . . to them, it was time. They discussed it at length and decided after graduation was “right”, before their new lives started in college where they might not be able to see each other often, as they were going to different colleges and they weren’t sure of their workloads, how their timetables clashed, etc. (FYI: “Most” Japanese teens who are NOT having sex are those who do NOT have partners . . . but Yamato and Sora obviously do. And, chances are, if you have a partner, you’re having sex just like every other hormonal teenager around the world. Japan’s “sexless” reputation is from super shy nerds who can’t even get partners, and not those in the relative minority who do date.)

As it turned out, they didn’t get to see each other as often as they’d like once college began, and thus decided to put a break on their relationship to focus on their studies.

Yamato dated about five other girls (one in high school, the rest in college), and had sex with three of them in college. They were all casual relationships (less than three months). Sora was his only serious relationship and he thought about her all the time, so much so that he even said her name once during sex with one of his other girlfriends. Yamato never initiated the breakups with those girls; instead, they would break up with him saying things like he “was too distant”, “broods too much”, “was clearly pining after another girl”.

Sora ended up dating two guys pretty seriously (six months to a year); one in her first year of college and one in her second-going-onto-third year. She even had sex with the last boyfriend, to prove to herself that she could fall in love with someone other than Yamato -- but instantly regretted it. She constantly compared both of them to Yamato and couldn’t commit to them more because she was always thinking about him, so she broke up with them after she admitted to herself she couldn’t love them like she loved Yamato. She still remained friends with both exes, however.

Sora and Yamato got back together for a few months in their second year of college, before getting scared again at the intensity of their feelings (should a relationship really be this serious at their young age?), and breaking up again to date other people more “casually”. But they eventually, finally, found their way back together again in their final year of college. (To me, they are together during Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna.)

They got married at 24 on Christmas Eve, 10 years since they first started dating. This was a spur-of-the-moment decision that surprisingly made sense to them. It was shortly after they both admitted exactly how they felt about each other and what they truly wanted; that they were 100% serious about each other, despite what others may think of their young age, and were in it for the long haul. Their marriage was their “promise” to each other to stay and work through their fears, insecurities, etc. no matter what.

Their “early” marriage also symbolised their commitment to each other while they had to be apart for long periods of time, as Yamato had to train to become a military test pilot, and Sora was busy preparing to launch her own fashion line within 3 years.

Sora became an Ishida because taking the male surname is the overwhelming norm in Japanese society. Sora also struggled with living up to the expectation of a Takenouchi so much (especially in Kizuna where she just wants to be herself, free of expectations) that she didn’t want to put the significance (burden) of the Takenouchi name on her own children. She may also use Takenouchi professionally, but legally she is an Ishida, as are her children with Yamato. It takes the least mental gymnastics to come to this conclusion.

Sora does not take over as iemoto for her mother, but branches out and begins her own journey as a fashion designer with her own identity. Her mum is still so proud of her.

Sora and Yamato both agreed to focus on their careers before thinking of having children so that they were financially secure enough to raise them. But they both strongly wanted children eventually and were very clear about that to each other from the start. They planned to have two children so that the siblings would be playmates.

Yamato was selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to become an astronaut at around age 27. His past experience as a Chosen Child fighting digimon threats gave him the edge over other highly skilled pilots. He begins intensive training for three years to become an astronaut, with the intent to go into space for the first time around age 30, but he passes on his first offered mission because Sora becomes pregnant and he wants to be there to support her (and also to be present at the birth of his first child).

Sora is 31 when she gives birth to their first child, a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. They name her Yuki (”snow”) because of her porcelain skin, which is just like Yamato’s.

Yamato goes on his first space mission to the International Space Station (ISS) when their daughter is around a year old, which takes him away from home for about six months. It was especially hard because he had a daughter now, but they had lots of video calls and before he knew it, he was back home with his favourite girls.

For the next two years, Sora and Yamato raise their daughter together as a pretty normal family unit, taking lots of photos and recording lots of videos of their little girl. During this time, Yamato is still training for future missions and Sora is growing her fashion business.

At age 34/35, Sora becomes pregnant with their second child. Around the middle of this second pregnancy, Yamato goes on his second space mission, this time to the moon for one month. He is back with plenty of time for the birth of their second child, a son with Sora’s colouring, that they name Shou (“soar”).

Sora has been holding down the fort at home with help from her parents and in-laws to look after the kids when Yamato goes away for weeks at a time to train. She runs a pretty successful local fashion business that she hopes one day will go worldwide when she’s able to put more time and resources into it.

Because Natsuko helps out quite a bit with the Ishida kids, she and Yamato actually become closer than they’ve ever been. This makes Sora happy that Yamato has finally reconnected with his mother. He does appreciate her help and, now that he’s a parent himself, he sympathises more with how she must’ve felt having him “reject” her. He even tells her he loves her one day, at Sora’s encouragement.

Hiroaki has a super soft spot for Yuki because he’s only had sons and she is his only granddaughter. The love is mutual and Hiroaki is Yuki’s favourite grandparent! She adores him and he teaches her how to play the harmonica, just like he taught Yamato many years ago.

Toshiko and Haruhiko are both retired and actually live with Sora and the kids when Yamato is away on missions. This also greatly reassures Yamato that Sora doesn’t get overwhelmed and that her parents are there to support her when he can’t physically be there.

As Yamato’s partner, Sora is used to feeling apprehensive every time he would pilot fighter jets in his 20s and now rockets in his 30s. The feeling never really goes away, no matter how many thousands of hours Yamato has clocked as a pilot. But she has always tried to put faith in Yamato and JAXA that everything will be fine. However, shortly after Shou’s birth, there is an accident at JAXA where several astronauts (including friends of Yamato) unfortunately died, and this scares Sora so much that Yamato decides to lay low at work and not take on any missions for about two years, for Sora’s sake.

Eventually, after JAXA has a few more successful missions and no incidents, Yamato feels as though Sora would be ready for him to accept another mission and so brings up the topic one day. But they probably have the biggest argument in their marriage over this. Sora even asks Yamato to quit JAXA, out of fear of losing him -- and she even throws the topic of their kids at him (is he OK with making them fatherless?), which she never thought she’d do, but . . .. It’s huge and explosive but, in the end, the two work it out and emerge stronger than ever. Sora just doesn’t want him to die, and Yamato completely understands that, but he reassures her JAXA knows exactly what went wrong during the accident and that their safety measures have improved dramatically because of it. He also promises her he’d do everything in his power to stay alive for her and the kids.

At around age 37, Yamato goes on his most important space mission as Commander, this time to Mars for two years, after lengthy discussions about it with Sora. Two years is a long time to be apart from each other and to miss out on his kids growing up. But it’s Yamato’s dream, so they decide that, at his age, this is his last chance and he has to take it. Yamato and Sora (as well as their kids) miss each other terribly, but accept that two years will be the longest they’ll ever be away from each other. They did have voice calls while Yamato was on Mars, but it took more than half an hour each way for their voices to reach each other, so contact was definitely not as easy was it was on the moon or the ISS.

Thankfully, Yamato is never gone for more than a few weeks after that. Well, maybe he has one more stint for six months at the International Space Station a few years later -- but that’s it!

Yamato and Sora have a surprise third baby (a son with blond hair and red/brown eyes named Kaito, meaning “ocean” and “fly”) about five years after Shou, born when Sora is around age 40. Yes, Kaito was conceived on Yamato’s return home from Mars. Things got really heated in the bedroom for a while after that return!

Yuki is a very energetic and outgoing tomboy in her childhood. Sora and Yamato are surprised they managed to create such an extrovert. She doesn’t seem that protective of her brothers (unlike Yamato was of Takeru) -- until someone threatens them, then she goes into Big Sister Mode. She’s a social butterfly who makes friends with everyone and, like Sora, outgrows a lot of her tomboyishness when she becomes a teenager.

Shou is a shy boy who often hides behind his mother, sister and cousin (Takeru’s only son). At first he is even shy around Yamato, because Shou is only four years old when Yamato returns from Mars. But he quickly gets used to having a father (he doesn’t even remember this brief period of thinking Yamato was a stranger to him, when he’s older) and becomes super attached to Yamato. Yamato is glad and indulges him, as he was a bit heartbroken Shou treated him as a stranger for his first few weeks home. Shou tells bullies at school that his father is huge and can beat up their dads, so they shouldn’t try anything.

Kaito is a nice balance of his two older siblings, and is very curious about the world and is always asking questions. He’s more of an introvert like his brother, but he isn’t shy at all. Despite the age gap between him and Shou, the two are extremely close brothers -- Shou always included him, even when he was a teenager and Kaito was literally just a kid. As the baby of the family, Kaito also managed to get away with things his older siblings didn’t growing up.

All the Ishida kids are incredibly creative and athletic. Yamato feels like he hit the jackpot and brags about them all the time to Takeru, Taichi, Jou, etc. Sora is always amused, if slightly embarrassed.

All the kids idolise Yamato “the famous astronaut” who went to Mars. But Yamato makes sure they appreciate Sora too -- and they do, because she’s the one that was always there for them when Yamato was away.

Yamato is feels incredibly thankful that Sora supported him and his career; he honestly doubted he would’ve achieved his dreams without her by his side, encouraging him and making personal sacrifices to take care of their children -- which was his other dream, to have a close-knit family. Even though he’s been to space and saw truly amazing things, he still feels as though his greatest accomplishment was having and raising three kids with Sora, his soulmate.

Sora’s fashion kimono line truly blooms after Yamato’s return from Mars, where he is a more permanent fixture at home and he can help take care of the kids more often, while she can put a lot more effort into running her business. Her fashion kimonos eventually hit big worldwide and she now runs a very successful business that turns over millions of dollars. She is definitely the breadwinner and Yamato couldn’t be more proud of her. He especially likes that she allows him to have a small collection of motorcycles (he can’t wait until his kids grow up to appreciate them with him).

Despite several periods of zero physical contact (six months/one month/two years/six months), Yamato and Sora are actually closer than most couples simply because of their personalities and how they both operate on pure emotion. They support each other fully and are each other’s rock. Because they both grew up pretty lonely, they make an effort to always stay connected no matter where they are, and to never feel alone. With three kids and each other (as well as Gabumon and Piyomon), they find it hard not to accomplish this.

They lived happily ever after. And if you don’t think so, you can come and fight me.

(Note: I’ve written about Sorato a tonne over the years. If you want more thoughts on Sorato, you can find quite a bit here.)

Plumber

I have noticed that there is a chronic shortage of newsbians in this fandom and also a shortage of appreciation for Katherine or Sarah in general, so here goes nothing with some newsbians angst that nobody asked for. Modern AU if that wasn’t obvious.

...

Sarah Jacobs considered herself to be a pretty smart person. After all, not just everyone could pull off memorizing all her lines for the school play within the first week, all AP classes, and out-debate her twin brother (who happened to be a genius) on a daily basis.

Which was why it was so significant that she was going 15 mph over the speed limit just after midnight on fucking Halloween night.

Because Sarah was smart, and doing that was dumb, and normally, she would not be one to do dumb things.

All she really knew was that Jack had called Davey, told him to put him on speaker phone, and then said something in a 100% serious voice, which, for Jack Kelly, was rare. Jack nearly always joked around and smiled even if he didn’t actually feel like joking around or smiling, so if he wasn’t, that meant that something was bad. As in, ‘someone is dead or seriously hurt bad.’

“Sarah’s there, right? Good. You both need to get to my house right now. It’s Katherine.”

They’d gotten in their shared car right away and started driving. Davey had texted their mom when they were already halfway out of their neighborhood.

Sarah was trying to focus on the road and think of what she knew.

Kath wasn’t dead. If she was, Jack would have been crying.

Kath wasn’t too badly hurt. If she was, Jack would have told them to meet him at the hospital.

That was all she really knew. And that left a lot of possibilities that Sarah really didn’t need to think about.

Jack’s house was normally 20 minutes away. Thanks to Sarah’s manic driving, the Jacobs twins got there in just under 15.

Race, one of Jack’s three younger adoptive brothers, was waiting on the porch, uncharacteristically serious.

Sarah wanted to ask, but it was like her voice was stuck in her throat.

“Talk to us, Racer,” Davey said immediately, “How bad is it?”

“It’s bad,” Race said grimly, “Have you ever seen Kath cry? Ever?”

“No,” Davey muttered. Sarah could only shake her head.

Katherine Pulitzer was one of the strongest people she knew. It was one of the things that had made Sarah fall in love with her.

“Yeah, I’s known her since 6th grade and I haven’t, either. But she’s cryin’, now. A lot.”

“What happened?” Sarah asked, finally finding her voice, “Is she alright?”

Race sighed, “That depends on your definition of ‘alright,’ but physically, she’s fine.”

Sarah and Davey exhaled in relief. It was probably not the best time to run off on random trains of thought, but it was when they did things like this that made Sarah note how much body language they really shared.

“Her parents kicked her out.”

“What?!” Sarah exclaimed.

“They found out about you and her and kicked her out. She’s—“

Sarah wasn’t listening anymore. She was just moving past Race, opening the door to the Larkin house and running down the hallway where—

Where Katherine was sitting on the couch, crying on Jack’s shoulder as he tried in vain to comfort her.

Jack looked up and saw her, “Saz, thank God! Kath, look, it’s Sarah.”

Sarah fought the urge to vault over the back of the couch, walking around it instead to put her arms around her girlfriend, “Shh, Kitty, it’s...”

Only Sarah was allowed to call Katherine ‘Kitty.’

And she really wished she could say it was okay, but it wasn’t. This was a circumstance that every gay kid had nightmares of.

Damn. Sarah hadn’t thought it would happen to anyone in their friend group.

“Oh, you’re both here, already. Good.”

Sarah tried to pay attention to what Medda was saying while simultaneously comforting her girlfriend.

“I’ve already got Crutchie, Racetrack, and Romeo helping me clean out our guest room,” she said, “And Katherine, kiddo, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want. Sarah, I can see you’re needed here, so Davey, why don’t you make a grocery list? You’re the only boy who lives with a girl.”

Jack moved to stand up, “Should I help—“

Kath grabbed his arm, pulling him down next to her again and he stopped.

While Sarah was her girlfriend, Jack was probably her oldest friend. He was kind of the dad friend of the group, the one who always took care of everyone. Sarah didn’t blame her for wanting to keep him close.

“Okay,” he said quietly, sitting back down, “I’ll stay.”

“What do you... already have?” Davey asked hesitantly, but Kath was still crying too hard to answer.

“She didn’t get to bring more than a couple outfits and a toothbrush,” Medda said.

Though her tone was fairly calm, Sarah could read anger in her as clear as day; the rage of a mother who couldn’t understand disowning your child for something they couldn’t control.

Sarah was angry, too, and she let her arms around Kath tighten a bit.

Davey nodded, “Okay. It’s gonna be okay, Kath. I think I know what you should need.”

He sat down at the table to start on the grocery list as Medda went to go back to cleaning out the guest room.

Sarah had to admit, she didn’t have much experience in comforting crying people. She knew that her good friend, Spot, often came to her with issues, (and she came to him with her own in return) but he wasn’t the crying type.

She hated how Jack and Davey were the ones doing most of the comforting, since she didn’t know how, as the former sat beside her and the latter crouched in front of her, both talking in calming tones as Sarah just hugged her girlfriend and tried to think of something to say.

Kath was calming down, but only marginally. It might be okay to try to distract her at this point.

“Do you want to just let it all out?” she asked quietly, “Or should I put on a movie or something?”

Kath didn’t respond for a second.

“Kitty, I need you to tell me what you want.”

Kath took a shaky breath and managed to half-sob out an answer, “A movie sounds good.”

“Okay,” Jack said, “How ‘bout I put one in, and Saz can stay here with you, okay?”

Katherine nodded, still shaking a little.

Jack got off the couch and started up the DVD player.

“You need to join the 21st Century and get a streaming service or two, Kelly,” Sarah teased, figuring normalcy would probably be good.

“Fuck you, Jacobs. DVD players were our childhood.”

“Yeah. Were. And now they’re becoming obsolete.”

“Should we watch the Greatest Showman or Moana?”

“The fact that you’re changing the subject tells me I won.”

“Sarah,” Davey said reproachfully as he settled on the couch, leaving space for his boyfriend, “Jack. I love you both, but please shut the fuck up and pick a damn movie. They’re terrible, aren’t they, Kath? Why do we even keep them around?”

Kath shrugged, laughing a laugh that was still halfway crying.

“Fine,” Sarah said, “The Greatest Showman. It’s a great musical and I think we all need those kinds of vibes right now.”

“I can get behind that,” Jack said, putting the DVD in.

Katherine wasn’t crying anymore, just cuddling into Sarah’s side, by the end of A Million Dreams.

“Guest room is all cleaned out when you’re ready, Katherine,” Medda said, coming in, “And I’m going to make this clear right now that you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, either until your parents get their heads out of their butts or for forever. I’ve actually been thinking about taking in another kid, given that my boys are all big enough not to need so much attention anymore, and I’m more than happy to make that kid you if you’d be alright with that.”

Kath blinked, startled, “Th... thank you.”

“I’m gonna go to bed, unless you need me, sweetie..?”

“No thanks, Medda. I’m okay.”

“Boys?”

“We’re good, Mama,” Jack said with a tired smile.

“Okay, then. Try to get some sleep tonight.”

“We will, Mama.”

“Our mom said we can stay the night, so I’ll make sure they do,” Davey said.

“Of course you will, Davey. Good night, kids.”

Crutchie and Race came in as Medda left.

“Race and I are gonna run to the store,” Crutchie said, “Davey, got that grocery list?”

“Isn’t it like 1:00 AM?” Kath pointed out.

Race shrugged, “I knows places that should be open. We can probably find most of everythin’ on the list tonight.”

“We probably ain’t gonna sleep tonight, anyway, so might as well be productive about it,” Crutchie agreed.

“Grocery list is on the counter,” Davey called from where he was cuddling with Jack on the opposite end of the couch from Kath and Sarah. Romeo came and cuddled into Jack’s other side, though the youngest Larkin brother looked half-asleep.

“Great,” Crutchie said, glancing at the list as he grabbed the keys to Jack’s car, “Jack, we’re borrowin’ your car.”

Race saluted over his shoulder, putting that godforsaken kazoo he always seemed to have in his mouth as he and his big brother left.

From there, Sarah tried to just focus on cuddling with her girlfriend and watching the movie, but the next time she looked over to check on the boys, all three were asleep.

So much for Davey making sure we all get some sleep.

Katherine followed her gaze, seeing them curled up together, Jack’s head on Davey’s shoulder with Romeo sprawled across their laps.

Sarah saw her smile a bit at how cute they were.

Oh, well. She was relatively stable, now. It was as good a time as any ever would be.

“Do you want to talk?” Sarah asked softly, trying not to wake the boys.

Zac Efron and Zendaya finished up their duet on the tv before Kath responded.

She sighed, “I saw it coming. I knew it would happen if they ever... when they found out.”

“You never told me.”

“I didn’t want to worry you. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

Sarah groaned, still trying to stay quiet, “Not this again.”

Katherine had a tendency not to share her problems with anyone. She had an issue with thinking that just because she was privileged, her feelings didn’t matter.

And yeah, Kath had never had to deal with physical abuse. She was white and wasn’t especially obvious in being a lesbian, and her family was well enough off that she’d never had to worry about money. Growing up, she’d had pretty much anything she wanted.

But she’d been walking on eggshells with her parents for years. Her crushes weren’t the only things she’d had to keep secret. They had never supported her as a writer or in anything.

And it wasn’t like mental illness gave a damn how many advantages you had in life, anyway.

“They called me slurs tonight,” Kath said softly, “I think my mom looked up lesbian slurs specifically to use today. That’s why I didn’t pack everything I needed. I couldn’t stay in that house any longer. I just stuffed what I could in my backpack and got in my car and drove.”

“They don’t deserve you,” Sarah said forcefully, “Fuck your parents, Kitty.”

A smile flickered across Katherine’s face, “Thanks, I guess.”

Sarah sighed, “I’m sorry. I’m just... angry. I... I can’t even imagine. I was scared when Davey and I decided to come out, but I can’t imagine what I would have done if our parents hadn’t been supportive.”

“I can,” Kath said, quietly but confidently, “The Jacobs twins would’ve joined forces to verbally obliterate them, then came here, like I did.”

“So, you verbally obliterated your parents?”

Kath’s smile dropped, “No. I... I couldn’t. I’ve never been good at pulling arguments out of thin air. I need to write them down first, and... well, Mom and Dad didn’t give me a chance to.”

“That’s okay. Write an article on unsupportive parents and put it in the school paper.”

“Ah, yes. That’ll solve all my problems.”

Sarah sighed. She knew it couldn’t. No article could make Katherine’s parents stop being pieces of shit. They’d made their choice, and nothing could fix this.

“Should I have come to your house?”

Sarah thought about it, then slowly shook her head, “No. We don’t have a guest room and our couch isn’t big enough. My parents wouldn’t trust you to sleep in the same room as me, so they’d probably have you bunk with Davey. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

At that, Kath laughed quietly, and Sarah wished she could take away the pain hiding behind that smile.

When it faded, she could see that she wanted to say something, but was gathering strength to get her point across.

“I’m going to change my name.”

“Okay... that seems like a decision for tomorrow morning.”

“I’ve thought about it before, Saz. I think I would have done it when I moved out, even if this didn’t happen. My father is a terrible person and my mother is complacent. If I keep their name, I’m always going to be saddled with their legacy.”

“Okay,” Sarah nodded, “Yeah.”

“Do you think it’s crazy?”

“No. I still think you should think critically about it after a night of sleep, but if you don’t want that name, you should get rid of it. What would you change it to?”

Katherine shrugged, “Probably a bit early to change it to Jacobs.”

Sarah froze.

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. That was inappropriate. Saz, I—“

“Katherine, you smooth motherfucker.”

At that, they both had to try to keep their laughter quiet so as not to wake the boys.

“Seriously, though, what’ll you change it to?” Sarah asked, “I mean, I’m sure you could go with Larkin, if you wanted to. Medda seems pretty ready to adopt you.”

Katherine shook her head, “No. I mean, Medda has done a lot for me, even before this—being the mother of four of my best friends and really the only supportive adult in my life—but I don’t see her as my mom.”

“Kelly, then? Jack and Davey have practically adopted everyone else in our friend group who needed parenting.”

Kath laughed, “Katherine Kelly? No. Alliteration looks bad on paper.”

“It literally does not, but okay, I guess.”

“It does to me.”

“You’re a writer, Kitty. You know how good of a literary device alliteration is.”

Katherine shrugged, “I still don’t particularly feel like using it in my name. But... how does Katherine Plumber sound?”

“It sounds fine,” Sarah said, “Why Plumber, though?”

Katherine shrugged, “It’s close enough that I won’t forget to answer to it. Is that a dumb reason to choose a name?”

“You should give it some more thought in the morning,” Sarah admitted, “But no. You came up with it. That makes it yours, and...”

Sarah leaned in a little closer, smiling a bit at how Kath didn’t pull away.

“I love you no matter what your name is, Katherine Plumber.”

“I love you, too, Sarah Jacobs.”

The kiss they shared was quick but soft, and when they were done, Kath cuddled a little more into Sarah’s side so they could finish the movie.

Maybe they fell asleep before it ended. But that was okay.

I want to have them all on Tumblr, so. Here are my reaction posts, in order, for Resolution of the Daleks and season 12, part 1!

Resolution of the Daleks

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Resolution! Spoilers, obviously!

Okay, negative first, just to get it out of the way. Doctor Who, I really appreciate that you consistently have queer minor characters and queer couples. Just super casual and all, as it should be. Now can you please stop killing off half of said couples? Angstrom's wife, Frankie, now this young guy? It's really not cool.

Don't think the voiceover worked. I feel the prologue would have worked better with just visuals.

Again, Yaz didn't have much to do. The Doctor got a ton of action, Ryan and Graham both had significant interactions with Aaron, Yaz was... just kind of there. I'm hoping that when the show comes back in a year, now that Ryan has largely dealt with his issues, Yaz will get more attention?

UNIT was killed by Brexit?! Fuckin' rude!

Okay, on to the positive!

The Dalek was, frankly, fucking scary. Despite knowing that the Doctor would beat it, obviously, it caused huge swathes of damage and racked up a... rather high body count. Like it felt like a proper threat. Also, its ability to stop the TARDIS tracking it and stuff. Lin's terror felt extremely genuine and it was just nice and horrific overall, like - if it wasn't for the Doctor, it would feel like a genuine threat to the entire Earth.

(Also, it shut down the wifi. On New Years Day. What a monster!)

Oh man that Dalek laughter. Creepy as fuck. The Doctor dragging it in via hologram to dare it to laugh in her face? Fucking iconic.

"I've learned to think like a Dalek." Oof.

Doctor vs Dalek. Not just the physical aspect, but the mental part - the Doctor recognising the seriousness of it, but also having that element of cockiness ("Oh, mate") because, frankly, she's dealt with bigger threats. She's right when she points out that the biggest problem will be if regular humans try to engage it!

Elements of Dark!Doctor when she asks the team - almost desperately - if she gave it enough chances, if she was nice enough. Because the Doctor can get fucking scary around Daleks and she knows it. She's nice. She's friendly. But she's also the Doctor, and the Doctor has done some really damn questionable things to stop the Daleks, and she knows that. Fantastically done and I still desperately want some proper Dark!Doctor.

Really liked the parallels between the Doctor using scrap to make her sonic screwdriver, vs the Dalek using scrap to make its armour. The Doctor makes a tool, the Dalek makes items of war. Of course, well, the Doctor is probably more dangerous just with a swiss army sonic than a Dalek blaster...

I love how the whole, "Dads are complicated... so I've heard" bit could refer to either the loom thing or the Doctor having actual parents or the Doctor being a shitty dad themself XD

Graham was so excited to show off the TARDIS! Like he's just going, "How cool is this?!"

There were some legitimately funny moments! Graham's chair, "I suppose... we'll have to have a... conversation?", "Junkyard chic"... UNIT was killed by Brexit like that's so awful but. But in a kind of funny way.

Okay, now the unsure. Ryan, Graham, and Aaron. Ryan and Graham have sorted out their issues - but Aaron is still such a big overshadowing part of it that it's a bit of a shock when he comes back in. As someone with a similarly shit biological father, I was completely empathising with Ryan in the coffee shop conversation. And I do understand why they wanted reconciliation, so they showed Aaron as acknowledging his bullshit and Ryan ultimately choosing to forgive and save him.

But it's just... not that easy. It's not all going to be perfect just because they stopped a Dalek together. Aaron's neglect hurt Ryan really badly, and it just felt... too easy? Like it helped that Aaron was genuinely contrite, and that he had that good stepfather talk with Graham, but just... yeah, not sure how I feel about it, honestly.

The Doctor's first words to him being, "You weren't at Grace's funeral. Ryan waited for you, you let him down" were so, so good. Like the Doctor is just going "fuck you I'm his father now". Like tbh I think she was 100% prepared to yeet him off the TARDIS and be done with it. Like damn don't emotionally hurt one of her crew.

Some wonderfully savage lines, though. The Doctor's, "You're almost making up for your parenting deficit!"; Aaron and Ryan's, "Is that how you talk to your dad?" "I don't know, he's not been around"; Graham's fucking smirk when Ryan pointedly calls him 'Gramps'.

I did see a suggestion that would have made it much better - instead of the Dalek capturing Aaron, it captures Ryan. First, it ups the threat in the mind of the Doctor and Team TARDIS - this isn't some dickhead, this is one of them. And instead, it's Aaron who reaches out to Ryan, Aaron who risks his life, Aaron who has to come through for Ryan, instead of the other way around. Also would have tied in beautifully with, "Family isn't about DNA, or a name. It's about what you do, and you haven't done enough."

Also, 'srs tech skillz'. With a Z. Doctor why.

In conclusion, I am going to fight Nigel Farage for killing UNIT.

-

Spyfall part 1

Current response to Doctor Who: making a near-literal SDKFJHGSDASDKFH sound, grabbing a cushion, nearly throWING THE CUSHION.

More intelligent commentary when my brain comes back online.

-

Okay. Am calm. Am good! We're good.

MAJOR SPOILERS for Doctor Who: Spyfall, part 1!

So yeah I actually literally screamed (kind of... scream-laugh-holy-shit-yes). Like, even before Dhawan finished speaking the, "Or should I say spy... Master?" line because of the way he had said 'spymaster' in full in the line before and there's nothing that grabs my brain like that one word in that one context. It wasn't quite as mindblowing as the Utopia reveal, since, let's face it, it's only been a season since we last saw that magnificant arsehole, but still.

(Actually, since I didn't watch Twelve's run, the last time I saw them was exactly a decade ago in The End of Time, broadcast New Years Day 2010. And I still fucking cry over, "Get out of the way." So. That may have been why I literally screamed lmao)

I mean. It's the Master. I can't not. They're my favourite jerk. This is probably slightly concerning.

Anyway. Comments!

The good

Episode was just flat-out exciting. It reminded me both of the Three and Ten eras, a bit? Fun gadgets, fancy suits, and what ends up being a giant game! Did start wondering when they were talking about spies and codes and stuff. It's basically a puzzle that's been set up for the Doctor to solve. Plus, the way she was pretty much enlisted into it! Thirteen and Dhawan!Master might end up having a more Pertwee-Delgado-esque dynamic, maybe? I would be down for that!

(My introductory episode to the Master was The Mind of Evil. Let's just put it that way XD)

"I'm her best enemy." <3

I mean, in retrospect, isolated house full of high-tech stuff and a wall full of books about the Doctor... oh honey. Long, looong game of playing Spies and Conspiracies just for, apparently, the sheer funsies of it. Oh, honey. They're such a disaster and I love them.

The reveal scene, Jodie's acting. The way she just... freezes and hunches in on herself. She's been hiding her past more than other Doctors have in the past, and suddenly, here is her past!! Right here!! Laughing and joking and right there in front of her! And she's just like, "Ohhh shit, I was not ready to have this conversation again..."

Yasmin and Ryan's dynamic. I do like that they split up the usual combos of Thirteen-Yasmin and Graham-Ryan for once, because I do like seeing the way they play off each other! It makes them feel more cohesive as a group. I liked Ryan trying to comfort Yasmin after her experience.

Post-reveal, I'm now wondering if the weird zappy forest thing is the Master's TARDIS? Something to do with changing and processing DNA into something else? Something based around neurons, with the electric travelling system? Am also wondering what happened to Yasmin while in there, since she seemed to be processed in some way, and I'm wondering if she had part of her DNA rewritten as well - or maybe if she's been replaced entirely, like she's currently piloting an alien version of her own body while her actual self is still in there. They did already do that with Flesh!Amy, though.

Once this arc is over, I think Thirteen is definitely going to have to sit down and tell the Fam who the hell she actually is. Graham is having some serious questions, and the Master was definitely egging that on, pre-reveal.

How much do I love that even in a tux, the Doctor still has the culottes and boots? A lot, that is how much. Also, how much do I love the Doctor in a suit and on a motorbike? A lot, that is how much.

"I've had an upgrade." <3

Thirteen playing Snap. It's okay, Thirteen, you still win my heart <3

"Worst! Uber! Ever!!"

"Kisses!" Yes, we know ;) They've been texting! Someone write me a WhatsApp chat fic with plenty of subtext and double meaning, I require it. Also, memes. You know it's true. The Master isn't a Time Lord, they're a Meme Lord.

"Everything you think you know is a lie." Season hook? :o

The hmm

Main concern is how they're handling the Master's characterisation? Last we saw, they were so ready to jump the Doctor ship. Now it's back to games. Kind of wondering if that means the Master is just at the point of being resigned that they and the Doctor just don't work and so is going back to games because at least it makes them happy, but I'm happy to wait until next week to see how things play out!

Did see a suggestion that this is the Master from one of the alternate universes (or at least that seems to be the general consensus on why there were multiple maps), so not actually necessarily the same version as Missy. Alternatively, this could actually be a pre-Missy version! Maybe between Simm!Master and Missy, since we never actually see that regeneration?

Actually, if this is the one immediately before Missy and this two-parter ends with the Master regenerating and we actually do get Thirteen and Missy together on screen I may cry.

(Like I'm aro-ace and agender but I'm still so gay for both of them. There is no word other for this emotion other than 'I'm gay'.)

I kind of wish someone had double-checked the name of the company because VOR running the world is. Is. "Right now, VOR is more powerful than most nations." Just. *pinches bridge of nose* Like okay you know how we say 'oh yeah just google it' 'yeah I googled it' are they really gonna say 'yeah I just VO

'I'm going to V

I can't say it. I can't.

Apparently the Australia scenes were filmed in South Africa. Kind of assumed it wasn't really Australia as soon as I saw actually greenery in the background h e h.

Highkey wish I could have seen Missy and Thirteen together. Dhawan!Master is very fun so far but. Missy and Thirteen. See comment above about the Master's characterisation!

...ABC are you really going to keep to Thursday night broadcasts even after the UK switches their Sunday nights / our Monday mornings? Well that's a good way to guarantee I'll be watching them online first! I was happy to wait twelve hours or so so I could watch it with Mum, but like hell I'm going to wait three and a half days!

In conclusion, am dead, send help, is it Monday morning yet?

-

Spyfall part 2

Thoughts on Doctor Who: Spyfall, part 2!

GALLIFREY LOOOOORE.

Oh man I'm hyped. We got a teeny teaser to the Timeless Child way back last decade but now we may actually get to see what the fuck is going on. And hell, if nothing else, at least the discovery is being teased to be so devastating it did undo Missy's characterisation. If this incarnation of the Master is after her, at least. Still not necessarily anything to suggest that. The Master will likely be recurring over this season, so we'll find out more, at least!

God, the Master is so fucked up. Like. He's seen something apparently so massively traumatic that he had to destroy his own planet and legitimately does look broken by it? Unless he was acting, but I did not get that impression from the message at the end. And the only way he can think of to get the Doctor's attention is to start his old tricks? Not sure if it's better or worse for him to be pre-Missy tbh.

It's just... such an interesting dynamic. Also I really want to read into the whole... scene where the Master asks the Doctor to kneel and call him 'Master' in front of everyone - then, when she does (defiantly! Stubbornly!), he... kneels to be at the same level as her. Like, "I'm going to play these BDSM-esque power games with you but when it comes down to it, I still consider us equal."

Anyway the Master is def a service top.

This comment from Tumblr user upslapmeal:

"'why would it stop? I mean how else would I get your attention’ what did I say about the Master being like a cat knocking things off shelves"

I mean. Yeah.

"Contact." Old school.

The Companions! They get a capital C because they were rad as hell. I love them all deciding that what they do next is: carry on to save the world. Like they're all heroic af without the Doctor and it's so good.

"Don't make me do a soft-shoe shuffle!"

And questioning at the end, oooh man. There are some Implications there, yeah. They've found out some surface information, yes, but no real hint at the deeper trauma. And given what this coming season is hinting at, I strongly suspect we will indeed be getting that deeper trauma and maybe even Dark!Doctor. Gallifrey does tend to bring it out of them...

The whole on-the-run thing seemed to definitely be a callback to Sound of Drums. Uh, what's that going to do long-term? Send out a worldwide message saying, "Sorry, our bad, they're fine"? I mean, last time that happened... okay, Jack was already with Torchwood and so is used to Not Really Existing, but Martha definitely couldn't go back to fuckin' medical school. She ended up at UNIT and then went independent. They did not return to their normal lives.

Barton: needs a goddamn punch. He killed his mother what the fuck. On the plus side, at least he seems to have thoroughly destroyed his career? Be interesting to see if he reappears later, you don't go from the most powerful person on the planet to massive pariah overnight without Repercussions.

On to our guest characters! I hate to brag but I guessed who Ada was as soon as I heard her first name and saw her outfit. I mean the computers theme was already there, who else would she be? :D And I admittedly didn't know who Noor Inayat Khan was except in passing, but still. Little upset about the erased memories (Donna ;_; ), but I can see why the Doctor did it and like... this way, I'm glad they were able to avoid the implications of, "Ada only developed computing because she had already seen the future." Like people said that with Rosa Parks even though the Doctor said explicitly to only ensure there were enough seats filled and the act itself was all Rosa, so they may have wanted to play it safe.

I... really want to comment on how Ada definitely was crushing on the Doctor (and really, who wouldn't?), but she was a real person so I shall avoid those implications. (But really though!)

Doctor how many times have you been in someone's liver. This is some Magic School Bus Inside The Human Body bullshit and I love it.

Doctor's recording: "First of all, you're not gonna die! Second of all, don't talk back to the screens, obviously I'm a recording and I can't hear ya. Third, don't panic. Especially you, Graham."

Graham, panicking: "I'M NOT PANICKING!"

Doctor's recording: "Yes, you were! And I did just say, don't talk back to the screens!"

Graham: "????!?!!"

I want an entire series of the Master having a really infuriating seventy-seven years on Earth. Please.

Comments on continuity issues regarding that, "It's worse than Jodrell Bank!" "Did I ever apologise for that?" "No." "Good." exchange XD;; Like people are going, "Continuity error!! It was the Pharos Project, not Jodrell Bank!!" and like. Pharos was a project. Jodrell Bank is an observatory. You can do projects at observatories. Also, you can refer to projects by location, too. Am I referring to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Project or Tidbinbilla Station? Both! They refer to the same thing! In the Whoniverse, they likely did the Pharos Project at Jodrell Bank, and just had some lighthearted bantz about that time where the Master killed the Doctor, no biggie.

So, onwards to... an apparently unrelated episode for next week! Also, the Kassavin? Still there. Like. The Master only gave suggestions. They still have all those agents everywhere! They're still ready to act! And yeah, now they have the Master in their hands, so... I wonder if they'll make the Timeless Child a long, ongoing arc, and have the much more immediate threat of the Kassavin as the season finale?

-

Orphan 55

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Orphan 55!

...whew.

First thought: anvilicious, but some anvils need to be dropped, because, uh, have you seen the world lately.

It feels like quite a brittle episode? Even beyond the immediate tension of 'there are large angry creatures trying to kill everyone', there's just this sense of... like, tension. There's the tension between Benni and Vilma, which at first is kind of a sweet tension then becomes a life-threatening and sad tension. There's the tension between Roger Parslow Silas and his dad, with Silas not being taken seriously (although I do think him running out while they're in life-threatening danger is a bit much). The obvious and major tension between Bella and Kane that drives the whole episode, yes.

And there's also the tension amongst Team TARDIS! The episode starts with the Doctor still in Some Kinda Way about last week, and I felt a bit of tension between Yaz and Ryan? She seemed rather unimpressed by Bella, at any rate. I do like how organic the relationship between Ryan and Graham feels, at least. "It ain't the aliens that are gonna kill me, it’s worrying about you!"

Set and costume building, I felt, was kind of... eh? I liked how Tranquility itself looked, but the tunnels looked Very Generic, and some of the looks I felt didn't really work. Silas and his dad's green hair just looked very obviously fake, and I saw a description of Hyph3n-with-a-three looking like a cross between a Jellicle Cat and John Candy in Spaceballs (which... yeah, honestly). And I'm not sure about the Dregs, although I did initially have the thought that whatever the original inhabitants of the planet were, they must have been humanoid was amusingly accurate...

"I just pulled this out of a friend of mine! >:("

"Oh! ...We do not make any judgments on our guests and fully support any way you choose to enjoy yourself here at Tranquility Spa! ^_^;;"

"... ... ...It wasn't recreational! o.O"

God you could feel Hyph3n-with-a-three's embarrassment...

"If I had crayons and half a can of Spam, I could build you from scratch!" Excuse me I am at least Tofurky.

Also a logical issue on the whole journey to find Benni, because frankly, it just wasn't... sensible. Okay, bring a kid. Father of the year right there. Okay, bring an old woman. Granted, she could have insisted because it was her man-friend they were looking for, but surely she would have known she would slow them down? Her 'heroic sacrifice' felt very wasted, because dammit, she could have survived if she had stayed in the Dome where it was at least a bit safer!

"At least three eighths of a plan, right here! ...Two eights. I'll be honest, all I've got is the letter 'P'..."

So the Doctor is almost at the point of passing out from oxygen loss but hang on, let her first indulge her curiosity...

The sheer existence of orphan planets is very depressing. The sheer fact that there's at least fifty-five is very depressing.

There's an interesting comment about how straight after discussion of the reveal, the first shot of the preview is the Statue of Liberty. Very Planet of the Apes! (No apes next time, just Tesla vs Edison!) Also feeling a strong connection to Midnight (stunning resort on dangerous planet with a very personal enemy), and I saw a comment about Thirteen unintentionally The-End-Of-The-World-ing the Fam (and making a connection between 'very angry trees' and the Forests of Cheem). Bit of Ravolox. Bit of... fuck what was it... Curse of Fenric.

Although, we know that the Earth will eventually be consumed by the sun, and it was done in a way that was like... it was its time. This was not its time, was a colossal fuck-up on a planetary scale (and the Doctor continues to be 'eat the rich'), but it's also only one potential future. Which is good, because that got dark. Even more than The End of the World, even more than Utopia, even more than fuckin' Frontios, because this is the near-future. The shots we saw of the destruction were modern day! That was the Dome of the Rock you saw getting bombed!

"Be smarter than what made you." PAGING THE GOVERNMENT...

Going to put it on a solid... maybe 7/10? Some really good elements in there, but also some clunkers, and unfortunately not a patch on the same writer's It Takes You Away, which was one of the strongest of the last season.

-

Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror!

Opinion before episode: man, Tesla's cool. Opinion after episode: man, Tesla is fuckin' cool! :D That was a well-done personality-based historical, absolutely - I think it's my second-favourite personality-based historical only to Rosa (there are other pseudo-historical based ones set in the past that I love, but they're not personality-based; the Human Nature duology is a good example).

But yeah, Tesla just came across as a really, really cool character. Genius and he knew it, yes, and the real Tesla did have some questionable views (sexism, mostly), but otherwise the archetypal Idealistic Genius who wants to change the world for the better. Contrast with Edison, who was... a businessman. With, like, a really punchable face. Still pretty intelligent, but... very, very punchable. I've read about the Tesla-Edison feud before and always sided with Tesla, and let's face it, so did the writer XD

Good mix of character combinations - with a lot of characters, it's easy for someone to get sidelined, but this managed to handle Thirteen and the Fam, and Tesla, Dorothy, and Edison, pretty well. There were some neat combinations, like Ryan and Dorothy bonding over the sense of adventure, and Graham and Edison's confrontation; I also really loved the whole conversation between Thirteen and Tesla on the joy of just... creating. There's actually a very nice overlap between arts and sciences.

Antagonists - not bad? I feel a lot of people were expecting the Racnoss, and there was such a similarity that I would have liked at least a throwaway line about how the Skithra were related or something. Ooh man she definitely brought out Dark!Doctor, though. Teleporting the queen back to the ship, specifically so she can be fried? I mean, she might have survived it. Might. And just that fantastic little change of expression when the queen asks the Doctor if she's ever seen a dead planet before! Whittaker pulled that one off.

There's a very interesting compare and contrast between the Skithra and Edison, I found. Thirteen has her speech about how once the Skithra are gone, they won't be remembered. Caput. Forgotten. They left nothing behind. Compare and contrast to Edison, who was openly accused of using other people's work, but who's able to learn from his mistakes, end on an even(ish) setting with Tesla, and who does get remembered. Which kind of stings, honestly, if you look at Tesla's actual history.

Like. Apparently that, "The man just didn't understand the American sense of humour," line was an actual historical line, according to Tesla's own records. The absolute main reason for the difference in fame and recognition is that Tesla was a genius who didn't know how to market. Edison was a marketer who could invent a bit. So in conclusion Edison is a dick and Tesla needs more respect, the end.

Favourite lines and scenes:

Tesla: "Is - is this your own design?" Thirteen: "I made it! Mainly out of spoons! :D" Tesla: "You're an inventor! :D" Thirteen: "I have my moments." Tesla: "I knew it! So you... so, you can understand how it feels, you know, when you have an idea, and - and to make it real. I don't think there's any greater thrill!" Thirteen: "I couldn't agree more." Tesla: "You... you spoke of aliens. People here laugh at the very idea." Thirteen: "But not you." Tesla: "Well, apparently I'm not like other people. It can be difficult, you know, to feel no one else sees the world the way you do. It's like you're, uh..." Thirteen: "...out of place."

Graham: "Yeah, still. I bet you'd jump at the chance to have him back working for you, wouldn't ya?" Edison: "Yeah?" Graham: "Yeah!" Edison: "How d'you figure that?" Graham: "'Cause I had a supervisor like you at my old depot. And men like you don't pay a bloke that much attention unless you think there's a payout comin'."

Thirteen: "I wouldn't go killing me and Yaz. 'Cause Yaz... can tell you what this is." Yaz: "It's a camera!" Thirteen: "Bingo!" *FLASH!*

Edison: "I couldn't figure it out either." Tesla: "The internal dimensions transcend the external." Thirteen: *GRIN* Edison: ._.

Thirteen: "You do realise, it's killing Edison that they want you and not him? ;D"

Graham: "Don't worry. This ain't our first rodeo!" Ryan: "We've never been to a rodeo." Graham: "...you're not helping, Ryan..."

Thirteen: "And what are you queen of, exactly? A stolen ship and second-hand guns? A queen of shreds and patches. You're not a ruler, you're a parasite." Queen: "And what are you? So clever, stealing onto my ship, taking what I claim as mine. But where has it got you? No weapons. No armour. No escape. Just the desperate hope you might change my mind." Thirteen: "No, we are way past that. I gave you your chance." Queen: "A chance to be like you?" Thirteen: "A chance to evolve. But you were too stupid to take it. When you die, there'll be nothing left behind - just a trail of blood and other people's brilliance. No one will even know you existed."

(Side note: I love that this speech was actually in front of the companions. They're starting to see that things are Not Okay.)

Thirteen: "Don't give up." Yaz: "Whatever anyone says." Tesla: "Well, let them talk. The present is theirs. I work for the future... and the future is mine."

Favourite incorrect lines:

Thirteen and Tesla, firing at the ship: "VIBE CHECK!"

-

Fugitive of the Judoon

I'M GONNA... NEED A HOT MOMENT TO PROCESS THAT...

-

WELL I. UH. OKAY.

lmao I'm serious I don't even know where to begin.

Uh, some very disorganised comments on Doctor Who - Fugitive of the Judoon!

I squealed when I heard Jack's voice then saw him in the flesh. I gasped audibly when 'Ruth' broke the glass. I yelped when we saw the buried TARDIS. I MAY HAVE SCREAMED A LITTLE WHEN 'RUTH' INTRODUCED HERSELF.

(Also can we talk about her outfit. That was on point.)

I'm getting a very... very early vibe? She didn't know what the sonic screwdriver was, and that was introduced with Troughton. Since we saw the Hartnell-Troughton regeneration, she must be pre-Hartnell? Maybe a Doctor whose memories were rewritten to the point that they thought the Hartnell incarnation was the earliest? Not to mention that was a pretty old-school-looking TARDIS!

Alternatively, maybe between Troughton and Pertwee? Either option has some inconsistency - if she's post Troughton, she should have known what the sonic was, although it admittedly did look very different. Plus, her TARDIS is already its police box shape, which was implied to have set in the junkyard. Also, we never actually do see the regeneration between Two and Three, and it could explain why Gallifrey was after her - she escaped after her trial after The War Games!

Definitely early, though.

Alternatively alternatively, Thirteen actually does say 'time is swirling around me'. Maybe an alternate timeline. Something to tie back to the Timeless Child?

"I've lived for thousands of years, so long I've lost count. I've had so many faces. How long have you known me? You don't know me. Not even a little bit."

That wasn't just aimed at the companions. I feel that was aimed at the Doctor themself.

(Related: the response from the fam was flat-out beautiful. Doesn't matter who she was or who she'll be. They know her now, and they love her.)

Just. Wow. Wow.

Really cool note from Twitter - disguised name was Ruth Clayton. Ruth = 'friend, companion'. Clayton = 'of the Earth'. She literally named herself 'friend of the Earth'.

"You're probably a bit confused right now."

I mean. Yeah. Confused and intrigued and what.

"Don't do points! I do points! Points are my thing!"

Jack. Jack. Smooching Graham, hitting on all the companions, getting into Shenanigans! The Lone Cyberman - I wonder if that's a totally different crisis that isn't even related to the current Gallifrey-Timeless Child one? The more important part is Jack's presence - the presence of another time traveller with a... unique relationship with the universe. The actual warning could be a red herring, but Jack showing up anywhere in the first place is a sign that something is happening with time?

Orphan 55 had a timeline that may or may not have been the 'real' one. Being only a potential future kind of doesn't work with what we know of established DW continuity, so I'm liking the 'alternate timeline' theory, maybe?

Ryan: "I liked him. Kind of cheesy."

Yaz: "But good cheesy."

Thirteen, smiling: "That's Jack."

Graham just standing there going, "He kissed me tho? ...Wasn't bad, actually."

"Is she safe?" Jack, honestly, is she ever safe?

"When she needs me... I'll be there." Oh yeah, he's so coming back later this season.

Also, Judoon, chameleon arch, the Master, Jack - getting big season 29 vibes here and that's a big thumbs up for me because that's my favourite season. We just need Martha to make an appearance now!

...hehe honestly, between Jodie's entire existence, and now, in the span of five episodes, introducing Dhawan!Master, Gat, and now Jo Martin as the first black female Doctor, and reintroducing Jack, one of the most overtly and openly queer characters on the series, the 'Doctor Who is too PC!' bunch are going to be so mad XD

"A platoon of Judoon... near the moon." / "Look at you, your platoon of Judoon near the... that lagoon..."

Man. The close-up in the very first shot of the watch. Nice tie-in.

"The Doctor never uses weapons!" "I know! Shut up! >.>"

Where do the Kasaavin come into play? Is this something they've done by integrating themselves throughout time and space? Maybe they're fraying the fabric?

My mind is blown. I can't wait for the rest of this season :D

-

[Part 2 - Praxeus to The Timeless Children]

SHIP QUESTIONS THINGY

Status: Accepting

@streetsofsecrets​ / @themercifulmother​ said: our ships?? 🥺 ( Travis & Delores )

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet?: Delores came stumbling into his cab one night drunk and rambling the whole ride.

What was their first impression of each other?: “Wow, she’s kinda odd and seems kinda weird, but she’s very pretty!” I feel like Delores didn’t have much of a first impression since she was drunk. Once she sobered up and met him again, she probably thought he was a total weirdo and creep!

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together?: Travis talked about her to his coworkers a lot and they all encourage him to shoot his shots and pursue a relationship with her. As for Didi…..at least Esme told her it was a good idea to be with him.

Who felt romantic feelings first?: Travis and he felt them the very first night that they met! She trusted him to drive her home in the state that she was in? It was a sign in his head.

Did either of them try to resist their feelings?: At one point, Travis did try to resist the feelings he had for her because he didn’t think he was good enough for her 😔

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?: That it was absolutely true, especially if you told them in their older years. “The universe worked hard at making sure the two of us ended up back with each other!” Is a line you’ll hear Travis say a million times. Even if you told younger them they’ll believe you as well. They’ve never found someone else who understands them and their feelings so well.

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?: I feel like Delores was the one who started initiating and labeling the romantic aspects of their relationship. Travis always did things that made it seem like they were a couple, but she was always the one who was more verbal and labeled things.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?: Travis took her to a carnival that was in town. At first he was going to take her out to some fancy restaurant and really show out because that’s what people kept telling him to do, but he decided to go with his gut and it went well! They had the time of their lives laughing and riding all the rides, he even won her a humongous stuffed dog at one of those balloon shooting games.

What was their first kiss like?: It was kinda awkward to be honest. He just went in for the kiss while she was next to him on the couch changing his bandages and then there was silence. Then like two minutes later, she kissed him again. Sweet because he was finally able to show her how he felt, but when they reminisce on it they definitely find it awkward compared to their other kisses.

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?: Delores was Travis’ first actual stable girlfriend. He had some experience prior to her; but nothing that was stable and tested like an actual relationship.

What’s their height difference? Age difference?: Neither of them are really considered to be tall and are just shy of average BUT there’s still a significant height difference between them. At least 8in to be exact, so I’d say she barely reaches his chest. Also, funny of you to assume that I’m going to do math. Nice try Xia, but whatever that gap may be I feel like Travis is older by 2-3yrs.

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?: Errrrrm, SKIP!

Who takes the lead in social situations?: It really depends! Delores tends to take the lead or take over in situations that are awkward because Travis usually tenses up and goes stiff in moments like that. While, on the other hand, Travis takes over in tense or aggressive situations. He’s quick to come to her defense and deal with whoever’s Messi big with her.

Who gets jealous easier?: Travis! You can blame Sal for that.

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first?: Delores, I think? If I remember correctly?

What are their primary love languages?: Touch! They’re big on things like cuddling, hugging, holding hands, kissing, and all that lovey dovey stuff.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?: Not very often. I think they way they move alone, Travis usually very close to her and hovering over her like a protective figure, is enough to let people know that they’re a couple. He might do subtle things like hold her hand, pull her in to his side, or give her kisses but that’s as far as they really go in public.

What are their favorite things to do together?: Sleep! Cuddle! Anything that involves them and a bed (😏). Very therapeutic bonding time for the both of them. Some of their best memories come from being in the bed. You know how people say couch potatoes? Well, they’re bed beets.

Who’s better at comforting the other?: Delores is 100% better at comforting Travis and I think that motel thread we did is a perfect example of why. He tries his best, doing what he can to make her even feel slightly better, but she’s just way better at it then him. She always know what to say or do to get him in his prior mood.

Who’s more protective?: Travis 100%. I feel like he definitely cussed out at least one person at the motel they were staying at for messing with Delores and feeling up on her belly all the time.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?: physical!! Touch is Travis’ main love language. He lets his actions express him words for him.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?: Like every song from the 60s that’s about love.

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?: I think they stick to each other’s names, abbreviations, and common pet names like honey, baby, etc.

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?: Travis proposed with a $16 ring he got from a vendor off the street while they were in their motel phase. Of course, he upgraded to a better ring once they were financially stable. I feel like the $16 ring proposal was more sentimental for them because he gave a very heartfelt speech about their relationship and how he felt about her.

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?;

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?: Please, the ever so iconic Melissa and Cecilia! Cecilia is obviously the firecracker out of the two with her explosive personalities but even then they’ve never had a problem that was too serious with the girls. They’re pretty tame in Travis’ opinion.

Do they have any pets?: A dog to complete their white picket fence look and plenty of pats to account for over the years from the girls. Like Melissa’s cat that had to be returned after a day because Travis was allergic and Cecilia’s ferrets that ran loose in the middle of the night all the time and almost got killed by Travis on three (3) separate occasions.

Who’s the stricter parent?: Delores. She knows how to get the girls in line much better than Travis does.

Who kills the bugs in the house?: Travis does. I feel like everyone leaves him hanging and runs to their rooms screaming.

How do they celebrate holidays?: They don’t even invite friends or family over like that to be honest. They prefer to be in their livingroom with each other enjoying the time they’re spending together.

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?: Travis convinces Delores all the time, heh. She likes to get up early and actually be a productive human, but he’s not going for that! At least twice a week he pulls her back into the bed and forces her to lay with him for another hour or two.

Who’s the better cook?: Delores all the way. Travis can cook, but he cooks dad foods like meatloaf, ribs, etc. but cooking stresses him out so he doesn’t do it too often. Only on holidays or when he’s craving something.

Guns or Children: The Only Choice Left, America

[Note: this post was originally a response to this thread.

Trigger warnings: guns, gun deaths, murder, violence, death, child death, school shootings, racism, anti-semitism, mass shootings, Orlando Pulse Shooting,  sports injuries, cursing, swear words, statistics, sourced facts, responsibility, collective responsibility, the necessity of change, moral imperatives]

______________________________________________

There is always a justification for why it’s okay for Americans to own guns.

Tradition. The Cultural Importance of Firearms. Farmers Vs Wild Beasts. The Scary Non-White People Who Are Moving Into The Neighbourhood. The Need For An Unsubtle Penis Metaphor To Show-Off To Your Fellow Men.

And, of course, the worst of them all:

“I Like Them.”

I don’t care.

It has become parodic at this point to try and argue against these points because the people who make them aren’t arguing in good faith anyways: they like guns and they know that you don’t like guns so how can there be any kind of accord when you won’t even meet them on their own turf? You can’t argue with people who don’t like guns because secretly - or not-so-secretly - they just want to take you guns away. We can’t have a real argument about gun control against such an extremist position.

Which is fine because I’m not here to argue. There’s no argument to be made anymore. The time for argument was seventy years ago when America’s culture wasn’t so toxic that the sane, reasonable positions on gun ownership that other countries ended-up with could still be enforced.

That was seventy years ago. That opportunity is gone. There’s no longer any argument to be made.

The Onion makes a habit of running a variation of an article every time a big shooting happens:

The fact that America is irresponsible with guns, cannot be trusted with guns, has lost all ability to live with guns, is fundamentally true, and not in dispute anywhere other than in America itself. America’s mind-boggling gun-death rate is a direct, indivisible result of: [Note: most numbers here are from the last major survey from 2017] 1) The sheer volume of guns. America has about 120 civilian-owned guns for every hundred people in the country. There are more guns than people. If everyone in America had to start killing one-another in a grand old game of nation-wide paintball-with-bullets no one would have to share a gun and there would be spares before the first shot was fired. The next region with an entry on the guns per-people per-region list? The Falkland Islands with 60 guns for every 100 people. The Falkland Islands has a total population of some 3000 people. Its murder rate? Does’t seem to have one. Leaving aside the Falklands War I don’t think anyone’s been murdered there since 1981. Next country down? Yemen. Population: 28 million, with 50-odd guns per 100 people. Yemen a region that hasn’t known peace since... ever. Yemen has existed in some form since 1918 and not once has it ever had what you’d call a lasting and nation-wide peace.

The farthest down the list you have to go to find a country that comes close to America in terms of population size is Pakistan - population 200 million, and only 22 guns for every hundred people. Should they start that nation one -kill-paintball game most people would have to share until they’d wiped-out some eighty percent of the country.

So the three biggest gun-owning regions in the world by guns per person is a tiny British tourist trap where nobody but governments commit crimes, and civil-war ravaged Yemen. And America. Neither of those first places comes close to America in terms of either size or number of guns. America has more guns for civilian use than anywhere else on Earth. This number is not in dispute. America has more than twice the number of guns per citizen than anywhere else on Earth. This number is also not in dispute. America has a death-by-firearm rate far and beyond any other nation of its size, population, wealth, and stability. Of the six countries that make up half the world’s gun deaths, America is one of them - the other five are Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guatemala, all nations with significantly more serious gang-related and stability-related issues than America. This number is also not is dispute.

2) Easy access to guns. 390 million guns don’t get distributed by accident. American gun laws are known for their laxity and their ease of use: in America the courts have decided that 1791′s Second Amendment of the US Constitution, by-and-large, grants Americans the largely unrestricted right to own guns, and indeed have something of a moral obligation to do so as a guarantor against tyranny. American law thus goes out of its way to make the process of purchasing a gun as inconvenient as possible. It is easier to buy a guy in many places in America than it is to purchase alcohol. 3) A culture that worships guns. America has a culture that loves guns. A culture that lauds guns. A culture that worships guns. America has a culture that that stands around and not only says ‘shit guns are cool’ but takes the next step and says ‘and people should be able to own cool things.’ This is somewhat odd given the awesome destructive power of a gun and the average citizen’s need to posses destructive power. Tanks are cool, but nobody is handing those out to civilians. Fighter jets are awesome, but we don’t make those for sale to anything other than repressive governments. “But DukeofRiven swords are cool and we let people buy those,” you say. Well, many countries don’t, first of all, or allow much sword-freedom - in my country it is legal to own a sword, but not to wield it or carry it. Secondly, you know how many people were murdered with a sword in 2017? No, you don’t. Nobody does - no one seems to be keeping track as far as I can tell. It’s so few people that the number is statistically insignificant. I can tell you that in 2017 some 1,591 people were murdered with all “knives and other cutting instruments” compared to a full 10,982 gun homicides. This is a list that notes all defenestration murders (4), and all murders via explosion (0) - it doesn’t take a lot to get on the FBI’s “common murder weapon” radar. Swords don’t qualify. “But DukeofRiven” - I hear you cry (’Your Grace’ will do) - “That’s a lot of knife deaths. Knives are a useful tool that would be silly to ban. Guns are an important tool too - farmers who live in dangerous areas find guns useful for warding off wild animals.” Well that’s true, fictional question asker - farmers do find guns useful. There’s about 3.2 million farmers in American - slightly less than 1% of the population - so let’s do the American thing and give them a heaping, generous portion of 10 guns each. That still leaves... uh... about 360 million guns not owned by farmers. Well what if we take all rural-dwelling Americans, who hunt and shoot and kill as part of their very important rural hunting/shooting/killing culture and make sure they all have at least one gun. 57 million rural non-farmer Americans - about 17% of the population - but damn, we’ve still got 303 million guns lying around. Most American gun owners own at least three guns? Can’t deprive the rural folk of their just due so will give them each an extra two guns. That still leaves us with 181 million guns to hand out to civilian urbanites who cannot possible have a good day-to-day use for them - and that’s counting the extra seven guns we gave to each farmer. If those guns were to secede and form an independent nation they’d bump Ethiopia’s spot to become the 12th largest country by-population in the world. That’s more guns than the population of the world’s 109 smallest countries combined. “Guns are still tools used by hunters” - oh sweet boy howdy do I not give a shit about hunters. 7000 of those 2017 deaths were by handguns, a gun that literally has no other purpose other than to shoot people. Handgun deaths top all other gun deaths in America by a significant margin. A handgun is not a tool. It is a weapon. That’s all it is - and Americans own a lot of weapons. You’re drowning in them. You are overrun by guns. Right-wingers should forget curbing immigration to save white people as the dominant ethnic group - the primary demographic of the United States is gun! Y’all lost already! I don’t care that you think guns are cool, because I also think guns are cool - and I own none. I can be impressed by guns without having to own guns, without making sure my friends own guns, and my family owns guns, and that there are enough guns in my country for every single person to personally shoot another person in the head in a suicidal conga line stretching round the entire country and still have spare guns left over. Culture? Tradition? Heritage? Don’t give a flying fuck. Slavery was part of your tradition too, and no that’s not a disingenuous comparison because both practices created death, pain, misery, and suffering for profit.  Both practices were morally indefensible. You’ve been a responsible gun owner all your life? Don’t give a fuck. How many gun owners need to be un-responsible before the tipping point is crossed and you would agree that there is culturally a gun problem, that no amount of responsibility by one group os making up for the irresponsibility of the other half? Why is this ‘one good man in ‘Sodom’ argument framed this way? 10000+ people died in 2017 because of a culture that glorifies an item with no functional utility to improve society. Let me be clear about this: given the number of gun deaths compared to that of gun owners that 10000 deaths is statistically insignificant it terms of responsible proportionality. Most gun owners are responsible gun owners. There’s only 118 million gun-owning households in the US - only a third of the population actually owns a gun - so if we fudge the number a bit and just say that there are 118 million individual guns owners the numbers work out to about 0.009% of all gun owners being irresponsible. Guess what: that doesn’t matter. You want to know all the stuff America bans that hasn’t ever killed anybody but someday might? Kinder Eggs. Haggis. Imported brie. Think of all the chemicals banned since the 70s because of fears that they might do something. Think of every product recall that happened because one person was simply injured. Think of the products you’ve banned for nothing more than their dangerous ideology like Cuban cigars. You banned Amy Winehouse and Margaret Thatcher’s son from entering America but you won’t ban the sale of guns? Guns aren’t nearly as dangerous as the late Amy Winehouse? Gun culture and tradition glorifies nothing but instruments of slaughter. Arthur Hoppe killed your stupid arguments about tradition stone-dead 49 year ago:

(Hoppe, Arthur. "Legislation Attempts to Ban the Bomb." Sidelines (Murfreesboro), October 27, 1970. Page 4. For the original source see Hoppe, Arthur. "Ban The Bomb Banners." The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco), October 25, 1970. Page 103. For print, see Hoppe, Arthur. Mr. Nixon and My Other Problems. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1971. Page 78. )

The moral bankruptcy of the tradition argument was demonstrated half a century ago, when a lot less Americans were dying by the gun. When whole classrooms of children and concert goers on the Vegas Strip and students at their lectures and devoted church-goers [and hey, synagogue shooting after I first started writing this: all house-of-worship goers] all have to fear the omnipresent threat of death when does your right to admire the gun cease to be a relevant point of consideration? When does living every day with the constant gnawing fear that it could happen to you finally suffocate ‘most of us are responsible’ in its cradle? When do ‘a few bad apples’ become ‘too many bad apples’? If I’m making apple sauce you’re not going to care that 99% of my apples were perfect - because that 1% of rotten apples I tossed in was enough to ruin the batch. When does ‘most of us are not rotten’ stop sounding quite so reassuring? I’ve been listening a lot lately to Still Buffering, a McElroy extended universe podcast where - in its first year - the-then 15 year-old Rileigh Smirl shared her life with her 15-years-plus older siblings. In the episode recorded immediately after the Orlando shooting, where the adults are literally shaking and you can hear it in their voices, the 15 year-old very blandly describes life in a world where the idea of being shot in her school has been so utterly normalized for her that she has a hard time generating the same level of fear about it as the adults do. It is genuinely nauseating. Her sisters are practically crying into their microphones, sick with horror that their little sister goes to school entirely accepting that another member of her school not only might wander in with a gun and shoot-up the place, but would not be culturally abnormal for having done so. The young Ms. Smirl is already used to being evacuated: kids at her school have brought guns, brought bombs, and while nothing fatal has yet happened, she would be unsurprised if it did. resigned to the fact. If the shooter only murdered a handful of people the story wouldn’t still be in the news after a couple days (did you even remember there was a synagogue shooting a week ago?) - and if they’d killed dozens they’d be superseded by another shooting within a few weeks. (As of writing - April 26 2019 - there have been six school shootings in the US since the start of the year Eight. There were two more school shootings between me first writing this down on April 26 and coming back to finish it on May 11/12th. There were 20 mass shootings in total in just those fifteen days. 21 fatalities. Jesus Fucking Christ, America.) You know, I wouldn’t care if guns hadn’t killed a soul in 2017. If the simple spectre of their presence - the easy access, the sheer volume, the cultural identity - created a fraction of that level of fear and fatalism you hear in Rileigh Smirl’s voice  in school children across America I would happily rip every single gun from the living hands of every American gun owner and melt them in a pyre the size of Delaware rather than let such a state of affairs continue. A mere 10000 gun owners were murderers in 2017? A mere 10000 gun owners a year have been murderers for the last 20 years? A mere 2,000,000 gun murderers in two decades? Damn you all. Keep in mind we haven’t touched on anything other than homicides. 10000-plus gun owners made the decision to murder others with their gun in 2017. People often bring up car deaths as a rebuttal to the gun stats - 40000 car deaths in 2017 to 10000 gun deaths should we therefore ban cars, you idiot? What a disingenuous question. That’s 40000 car deaths of all kinds - I’m talking about homicide alone, where the so-called ‘responsible person’ is proven to use their ‘responsibly’-owned item for irresponsible ends. The ‘bad-eggs.’ You know how many bad-egg car owners murdered people in 2017 as an act of willful homicide? No. And neither do I. It’s another stat so low it is presumably lumped-in with an aggregate - the 976 deaths in 2017 known only as “miscellaneous.” This, again, on a chart that notes that 13 people were murdered by poison, 4 people were murdered by being pushed, and zero people were murdered with explosions. The number of cars used to murder people? Presumably less than three. Could be as low as zero. [Note: the number is actually 50. See the Addendum and this follow-up article for expanded stats.] There are a little over 270 million car owners in the US, and from that we can conclude that while 0.009% of gun owners a year can’t stop themselves from murdering people with their guns, less than 0.000001% of car owners can’t stop themselves from being a first-degree car murderer. On the face of it those are pretty tiny numbers - infinitesimal, really. Less than one percent. Insignificant. Why get worked up? 10,000 lives ended by guns fired with a purpose to kill. By civilians, only, mind - I haven’t even touched on gun deaths by police officers, or the even broader question of gun deaths by US soldiers looking to shoot people. We’re still just focussed on civilian gun owners who felt the need to kill other human beings. ~10,000 American gun murders in 2017 alone. Three times the entire population of the Falklands, your closet neighbours in terms of guns-to-population ratio. I’m Canadian - 36 million people, a disturbing 36 guns per 100 people. If I go to Windsor and drive across the bridge I instantly become 10 time more likely to be shot to death - not specifically because I am now in Detroit, not specifically because I’m a Canadian in the United States, but simply because I went from any developed nation that wasn’t America into America. Taking Detroit specifics account, if you drive back and forth across the Ambassador bridge your odds of getting shot jump some 50 times every time you cross an invisible line on the Detroit River. Detroit and Windsor have very different crime rates: 2017 saw 267 murders in Detroit. Windsor saw 3. The Detroit Murder Rate is 45 per 100,000 people - Windsor is 0.89. These cities are less than 2000 feet apart. About 600 metres. 0.6 kilometres. 0.4 of a mile. Statistically speaking most of those crimes in Detroit were firearm deaths. I can stand in Windsor (having had an excellent meal at Smoke & Spice Southern Barbecue), walk some 300 yards, and my life-expectancy from being slain by a passing bullet balloons 50 times. People just die more in America. That’s - to be fair - partially a matter of volume. Contrasted against Canada, say, and you’re looking at nine times the number of people: of course you’ve got more deaths. But the homicide numbers don’t scale that way. Canada had 266 firearm homicides in 2017. If you made the population of Canada nine times larger, so that we had population parity with the US, we would have had about 2394 gun homicides - still only a quarter of the USA’s 10,982. You’d have to make Canada 41 times larger than it is now, creating a billion and a half Canadians, which amounts to a full 20% of the existing world population. You’d need there to be 1.2 billion more Canadians than there are Americans now to have the same number of gun homicides. Homicides alone! Because we’re still - still - not talking about suicides. Or home ‘defence.’ Or police shootings. Or killings by US troops. Just civilians with guns and the capacity to use them on fellow citizens out of a need to murder. If this getting through? Tell me this is getting through. Americans - your family, friends, colleagues, comrades, acquaintances, lovers, crushes, vaguely-recognized strangers are dying at rates from causes that are not present elsewhere in the stable places of the world. You are dying from solved problems. If ~10,000 Americans were dying yearly from the black plague you’d be upset. You’d be doing something. America has a disease, and that disease is a willingness to let friends, family, lovers, even children die rather than change. Six eight school shootings in four five months. “It’s lucky that fatalities were low,” you might say if you were a lunatic. That’s not lucky. Gut-wrenchingly relieving, all things being equal: six eight schools threatened and only one family four families had to lose a child. It didn’t happen to us think the thousands of parents whose children walked out of those six eight shootings alive. A school bus company that had six eight crashes in four five months wouldn’t count itself lucky that only one child four children died. It would be defunct as a company, drowning in litigation, its corporate officers hounded in the streets by mobs of furious parents horrified that this company had proven so incapable of a simple act like protecting their children. But six eight schools across the nation experienced an event with armed gunman and its not even notable. America, you’re broken. You’re just broken. And your problem is the guns. So I don’t care that you’re a responsible gun owner with a gun cabinet who memorized the rifleman’s credo. I absolutely don’t give a damn that you have fond memories of you and your grandfather stalking deer and bonding as family. If I weigh the cost of you sharing that bonding experience with your own grandchild someday against the ~10000 people shot dead in 2017, and the ~100000 people shot dead over the decade your warm fuzzies don’t amount to shit. Teach your grandkid to bake cookies. Go camping. Introduce him to the love of baseball. If you cannot imagine formative bonding without killing something go take a butchery course at the community college and learn how to barbecue a pig - hey, look, valuable life lessons, a trade skill, and I just made you a must-get for cool parties. Yes, I am talking about taking your guns away. All of your guns. All of them. This is a future I want - because you, America, collectively, have proven that you are not socially responsible enough to be a country that owns guns. If you can ban Kinder Eggs for 50 years because you thought it would take that much time to train your children not to swallow a massive plastic capsule that the rest of the world’s children have no problem surviving, I think at the very least a 50-year moratorium on firearms is the bare fucking minimum. There were 23 school shootings in America in 2018. There have been 20 school shootings in Canada in the entire 152 years of our existence. Over 10000 American civilians decide every year to shoot people to death. That doesn’t happen in other stable places. The difference is THE GUNS. IT’S ALL THE GUNS! IT’S ALL THE FUCKING GUNS! You can’t just talk about tightening guns laws. You can’t just talk about making gun owners more responsible - statistically speaking American gun owners are individually responsible! It doesn’t matter, because collectively you’re all irresponsible. Responsible people don’t prioritize their interests and hobbies over bi-monthly school shootings. Responsible people don’t ‘Good German’ themselves when children’s are under threat at least once a month nation-wide.

Real talk for you people out there who own guns, love guns, would never think or murdering anybody, and are genuinely angry that I keep acting like 10000-a-year bad apples reflects badly on your interests as a whole. How high does the number have to be before your association with your hobby would begin to make you feel uncomfortable with sharing an interest? Let me put it another way: enrolment in youth football teams is dropping nation-wide as parents aren’t comfortable putting their children at risk. Football has given America exciting games to watch, stories of victory and defeat, bonding with friends and family, and one of television’s true masterpieces, Friday Night Lights (#neededmoredevin #justiceforwaverly #justiceforsantiago). But all that good warm fuzzy feeling is running up against a problem: kids are getting hurt. In some cases kids are dying. 2017 saw 13 football-related deaths among the under-18 crowd: 4 direct fatalities, 9 indirect fatalities. (Direct fatalities are causes like head injuries and organ trauma. Indirect fatalities are causes like heat stroke.) That’s a death rate of 0.095/100,000 direct and 0.21/100,000 indirect - still lower than the murder rate in Windsor. And yet football enrolment declines. Because it’s more than just those thirteen deaths: it’s the up-front injuries like broken bones and sprains, it’s the long-term brain injuries that might not emerge for years, it’s the trauma of watching friends and teammates get seriously hurt, die, or simply find the sport a source of stress rather than joy. Right now football is experiencing white flight as predatory football pipelines double-down on players-of-colour to feed their football mills, but that too will decline as a generation that grows up not experiencing a close intimacy with football loses interest in the sport. (Another demographic timebomb lurking in America’s wings.) 13 child deaths by football in 2018. 44 students shot-dead the same year. High schools are shutting down their football programs - taking football completely away - because they can’t stomach all that death, injury, and trauma. The seriousness of this has proven that America is not a nation that can handle its football, and does not want to keep its kids playing football in the same numbers as it once did. (Anyone who wants to come in here and say “would you say the same about hockey, Canadian?” Yes. Absolutely. Instantly. Ditch the whole thing. It’s just a sport, a hobby. It is not more important than lives.) So what will it take to get you to admit that if America can’t handle football it can’t handle guns? A half-dozen kids got their hair chewed in the 90s and America decided that responsibility didn’t matter, that nobody should own a Snacktime Kid Cabbage Patch Doll. One kid died from a non-blunt lawn dart in 1987 and you’ve banned them since 1988. 44 kids got shot to death last year and America thought it unnecessarily restrictive of freedom to take away a single gun. Give me numbers. Please. How many kids would have to die in America this year before you felt uncomfortable owning a gun simply by transference of shame or guilt or association? What if every gun owner but you shot a kid at a school next year? Would you still say your responsibility kept your conscience clear? An absurd, hyperbolic question, fair enough. So let’s start counting down from those 117999999 gun-owning households who aren’t you: what’s the magic number when your responsible ownership of your thing-that-just-kills no longer sits comfortably against the annual number of gun-owning, school-child murderer-producing households? Not accidents, not mistakes, not once-in-a-generation horrors by an statistically aberrant psychopath - I’m talking about systemic patterns of yearly school-child homicide via gunshot. Because last year that was about 44 child murders from about 15 households. That’s currently a number that doesn’t shame you. Start counting up. I’m asking, genuinely, because I need to know. Is there a number? 440 kids murdered by 150 household? 4400 from 1500? 44000 from 15000? Or will others actions never affect you? Is what the rest of society does is of no import, no responsibility of yours? If you were the only responsible gun owner in America, ask yourself if you’d still be comfortable owning a gun. And think - real hard - at what the ratio of responsible-to-not-responsible gun murderers and death tolls are right now, and why you’re okay with that. Then ask yourself what other hobby has that kind of real-life school-kid homicide count that needs to be updated on a monthly basis. Not a lot of gunpla hobbyists struggling with the weight of rogue members murdering kids. Knitters can be vicious, but only socially. Mountain climbers and fast car enthusiasts see plenty of tragedy in their hobby - but they’re tragedies of accidents and mistakes. Not a lot of malicious intent going around. Not a lot of cut ropes and slashed brakes. Not to the tune of 10000+ homicides a year. Ask yourself if maybe - just maybe - America has a problem when it comes to guns. Maybe, just maybe, so many of you being responsible isn’t working. Maybe, just maybe, your hobby, your tradition, your culture, your warm family memories, your constitutional guarantees of ownership, are not worth the death of children in their schools, concert goers at their venues, worshipers at their altars, families in their homes year, after year, after year, after year, after year, after year, after year in numbers that simply, truthfully, are not present elsewhere in the world in places similar to America. Maybe, just maybe, being responsible isn’t enough. Maybe, at some point, the number of dead kids will be too many. And if it isn’t, you need to come clean and admit that every child in America could be shot to death tomorrow and you’d still love owning a gun. You can get rid of the guns, America, or you can start wearing shirts that say “kill all the kids you like - I’m proud to be a gun owner.” Because there’s no other choices left to you. The time for incremental change is long over. The time for saner, less drastic measures died decades ago. There is no moderate position left. It’s the guns, or it’s the children. There are no other choices.

________________________ Addendum: there is now a second part to this article, which expands upon some of the points made here with the more comprehensive fatality statistics from the CDC, including numbers I did not have when originally writing this article.

Exactly how Condo Buyers Can Prevent Paying Too Much: Ten Important Tips

Whether you're the first-time buyer or a experienced professional in the real estate video game, purchasing a condominium can be an overwhelming task, fraught with monetary pitfalls as well as potential earnings. It's an emotional procedure filled with difficult choices-and every decision you make has cash riding on it. Finding the right condominium for your family's needs is actually tough enough; knowing how to prevent paying too much for that wonderful living space is another job completely.

As a professional Realtor® that has helped countless buyers discover their dream home as well as save money at the same time, I've created this guide to help you avoid the possible hazards inherent in the condo-buying process. I'll show you steps to make certain you've found the best home, as well as how to make a deal a price to your advantage. These are training you truly can't pay for to learn through trial and error.

Suggestion #1: Determine Your Condominium "Minimums" Ahead of Time.

Understand that you will find two condos out there competing for your attention-one that satisfies your needs and one that satisfies your desires. In a ideal world, you could choose which three-bedroom condo with space for your family to grow, but still have the perfect floor arrange for entertaining and social events. Is that big kitchen more vital to you than a few additional rooms?

When you begin shopping for your own condo, you'll encounter attributes you'll fall in love with for different factors. It's best to list the features that you would like before you start shopping. Break your current list into two categories-"Needs" and "Desires"-and prioritize the things accordingly. Understanding what you really need in your condo instead of what you'd like to have will assist you to keep your priorities straight while you shop around .

Don't let emotion fog up your judgment. Satisfy your requirements first, and if you can satisfy some of your desires along the way, so much the better. What's essential is to understand the difference prior to getting caught-up in the excitement from the hunt.

Tip #2: Acquire a Pre-Approved Mortgage.

If you are not buying with money, getting a loan pre-approved may be the smart way to shop for a high-rise apartment. It tells sellers that you have been a serious prospect, and you understand in advance the maximum mortgage you are able to afford.

I've seen purchasers make the mistake of studying what they qualify for, but not obtaining pre-approval in writing. You've eliminated this far, so make next step-get it on paper.

The good news is that it's easier than ever to be approved for a home loan.

Tip #3: Communicate with Your Realtor.

Through finding the right condo to home inspections and negotiating the best offer, the condo search method can be exhausting for the actual hardiest souls. That's why sensible condo buyers have a Realtor® in their corner. Most retailers you encounter are definitely going to have professionals on the side. Having a pro on the team is the safest method to ensure that you get the best deal feasible.

Once you have a clear, detailed image of the condo you want, make sure that your agent has the same photo. This communication is critical. Or else, you'll both waste time taking a look at homes that hold little attention for you.

Also, make sure your Real estate professional knows your priorities. Your own shared goal is to you should find an excellent condo that fulfills all of your needs; your Real estate agent will then try to satisfy as numerous of your desires as possible.

Idea #4: The Cliché holds true... Location, Location, Location!

The actual desirability and resale associated with your condo-to-be depends on area more than any other single element. Again, don't let emotion enter the way of a wise investment. Absolutely no condo is an island, and also the value of yours is influenced in what surrounds it.

There are several components that combine to create a great location. Your first consideration will be the neighborhood itself. Every community has its own unique character; you have to make sure you'd be comfortable within the one you're thinking of residing in. Take a long walk and also observe carefully. Do individuals take pride in their building? Speak with the neighbors and ask queries that give you a better really feel for the property. But take care not to appear judgmental-you might be speaking with a future neighbor. The Avenir showflat

If the creating is to your satisfaction, search for units on the market in the area. Very large units surrounded by smaller sized ones tend to appreciate not more than a large condo among some other large condos. Conversely, the tiniest unit in the building is usually "pulled up" by the additional units in the building. But it might take longer to sell an inferior unit when the time arrives because many people are unwilling to pay for extra for the neighborhood.

The exterior edge of a neighborhood is generally not good for resale value. You will find noticeable dividing lines among dissimilar neighborhoods. It could be a positive change in architectural styles, house use or something else. Choose a condo in the middle of a area of similar buildings; it is going to hold its value much better. The Avenir showflat

An exception to this rule is really a building on the edge of the neighborhood bounded by drinking water, parkland, a golf course or even other open space. Organic boundaries appeal to buyers, these types of "edge" condos can actually control a better price. Be mindful, but of the planned use for your open space. A general public park is nice; a brand new freeway, strip mall or perhaps industrial center isn't.

Other activities that can negatively affect home values are traffic, noises, smells, etc . Be sure to provide the neighborhood a long, hard appear. The condo you're interested in might be perfect, but if the neighborhood offers problems, your investment will not be worth as much when the period comes to sell.

Tip #5: Enjoy the Present, but Think about the Future.

Buying a condo is actually a big investment. If you can extend a little today financially to order unit that you can grow with-whether it's having a child, managing a home-based business, or turning an extra room into your personal gym-do it. In the long run, it will oftimes be less expensive than moving up to some marginally larger unit once the need does arise.

Hint #6: Pay Attention to Red Flags Whenever Evaluating a Condo.

When analyzing the advantages and drawbacks of a specific property, be sure you know the distinction between acceptable and undesirable problems.

Some issues-peeling color, worn carpeting, ugly wallpaper-are cosmetic and can be easily cured. You can even use these "problems" during negotiations to lower the actual asking price. After all, you'll need to spend cash to bring the condo as much as snuff.

Make careful notice of the issues you identify that can be used to your advantage. Avoid nit-pick, however-if taken to extreme conditions, you could end up alienating owner and creating a hostile environment.

In my experience, spending a few 100 dollars on a professional house inspection is the best investment you will ever make. A professional inspector brings experience in analyzing a great many homes, good assessment standards, and an impartial perspective. And a written statement can be an excellent negotiating device.

Don't let a condo's good attributes blind you to really real problems. If you do, the probabilities are good that you'll end up investing much more money than you actually expected at some point down the line.

The good thing for buyers is that the legislation now requires sellers to create complete disclosure of recognized material defects. Make sure to understand this in writing. And carefully think about how these defects may influence what you're offering.

Tip #7: Some Fixer-Uppers Are "Good-Byes, " Bad Buys.

You may be the sort associated with person who looks at a condo needing significant work as "a challenge" and an opportunity to make money. Lots of people have bought fixer-uppers at below-market rates, invested a little perspiration equity or more than a small money on renovation, after which eventually put it back on the market in a profit.

But if your unit isn't very priced low enough, you will not recoup your investment of your time, trouble and expense. Before you decide to proceed, do a careful analysis of what you'll have to commit. Then, consult with your Realtor to understand what you can reasonably be prepared to earn when you put the device back on the market. And be absolute to consider the unexpected-there's no such thing like a "sure thing. "

Word of advice #8: Put on Your Best Online poker Face.

One of the costliest errors you can make is letting the vendor know how much you love his / her condo. Once you've let it slide, you can just about forget about discussing the price-the other part knows how motivated you might be. In fact , a seller could see this as an opportunity to press a little more money out of a person even when you've made a good provide to start with; no matter how wonderful a house is, keep it to your self.

Keep your own situation in order to yourself as well. Information may be used against you. How much if you're willing to spend, the size of home loan you can afford, your move-in deadline-it all can be used to draw out more money out of your pocket. Make sure to tell your agent everything she or he needs to know to be effective in your behalf-whether you plan to pay funds or the size of the mortgage loan you can afford, etc . Still keep your personal circumstances along with timeline to yourself.

Inversely, knowledge is power. The reason why behind a sale can often be utilized to your competitive advantage throughout negotiations. For example , a owner whose company has moved him to another city is most likely more motivated to sell compared to someone who is still looking for a brand new home.

Other signs of any motivated seller include a vacant product, or a condo that's been available on the market for several months with cutbacks in the asking price.

Tip #9: Don't Be Pressured, but Perform Negotiate.

While you want to shift expeditiously once you're within negotiations, don't let the other aspect pressure you into a fast close. It may be a sign that there are something you should know, but avoid. And the reason could be really worth money.

Sometimes, the seller's Realtor will try to frighten a hesitant buyer using the threat of another severe potential buyer. Don't get into this trap-it will only set you back money. If there is another purchaser, then the seller's agent will attempt to get a bidding war began. In these situations, whoever is victorious also loses because the customer ends up overpaying.

If there is not another buyer, there's a very good chance that "the various other deal" will fall via and the seller's agent can come calling. Be sure to let the different side know that you might be curious if this were to happen, before you decide to walk away.

You may be the type of person who else prefers a hard-and-fast price on everything. "I don't like to be able to haggle, " you state. But negotiation is the key to get a good deal! If your goal is to get the best property possible for the least amount of money, then you definitely better be prepared to play. Your current Realtor can assist you with these sometimes-stressful negotiations.

Tip #10: Prepared - Set - Buy!

Good properties move quick! Once you've made up your mind to get condo and you've arranged your Realtor, be prepared to create decisions quickly. If you find the proper unit today but not necessarily ready to buy until the next day, you may already be too late. It can that simple-if you have dropped in love with a particular condominium, another person in the market probably has too.

If this all sounds like lots of work, it is. But this really is to be expected when you're purchasing anything of such excellent value. And you'll thank oneself and your Realtor when the end result is to your satisfaction.

Make sure you feel free to call me if you want further explanation on these tips, or if you have any kind of real estate questions at all.

The mission is to share the data and insights I've collected from years of experience in the market in order to help you optimize your home investment.

The Avenir by GuocoLand. Hotline 61006768. Get Discount, Direct Developer Price, Brochure, Floor Plan, Price List & More. Former Pacific Mansion at River Valley

1. Let’s start with a tricky one; what is the real reason you are confused right now? 2. Do you ever get “good morning” owls from anyone? 3. If your significant other smoked pot, would you care? 4. Do you find it easy to trust others? 5. What were you doing at 11PM last night? 6. You’re drunk and lost walking down the road; who is with you? 7. What would you do if you found out you had been cheated on? 8. Are you close with your dad? 9. I bet you kissed someone last night, right? 10. What are you listening to? 11. You can only drink ONE liquid for the rest of your life - what is it? 12. Do you like hickeys? 13. What time do you go to bed? 14. Is there someone who continuously lets you down? 15. Do you always answer your owls? 16. Do you hate the person you fell the hardest for? 17. When was the last time you talked to one of your best friends? 18. Is there someone that makes you happy every time you see them? 19. What was your last thought before you went to bed last night? 20. Do you believe what goes around comes around? 21. Were you happier four months ago than you are now? 22. Is there someone you wish you could fix things with? 23. In the past week, have you cried? 24. What colour is the shirt you are wearing? 25. Do people ever call you by your last name? 26. Is anyone ignoring you right now? 27. Do you have a best friend? 28. Would it be hard seeing someone else kiss the last person you kissed? 29. Are you mad at anyone? 30. Have you ever kissed someone older than you? 31. How old will the last person you kissed be on his/her next birthday? 32. How many more days until your birthday? 33. Do you have any summer plans yet? 34. Do you have any good friends of the opposite sex? 35. Are you keeping anything from your best friend(s) now? 36. Do you have a secret that you’ve never told anyone? 37. Have you ever regretted kissing someone? 38. Do you think age matters in relationships? 39. Are you available? 40. How many people have you had real, strong feelings for since high school ended? 41. If you had to get a piercing (not ears), what would you get? 42. Do you believe exes can be friends? 43. Do you regret anything? 44. Honestly, what’s on your mind right now? 45. Did you ever lose a best friend? 46. Was your last kiss a mistake? 47. Why aren’t you pursuing the person you like? 48. Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry? 49. Do you still talk with the person you LAST kissed? 50. What was the last thing you ate? 51. Did you get any compliments today? 52. Where are you going on your next vacation? 53. Do you own anything from other countries? 54. Are most of your friend guys or girls? 55. Where have you lived most of your life? 56. When was the last time you took a long drive? 57. Have you ever played Spin the Bottle? 58. What was the last movie you saw? 59. What’s preventing your current boyfriend/girlfriend from going back to their ex? 60. Is the last person you kissed younger than you? 61. Do you curse around your parents? 62. Are you happy with where you live? 63. Are you a monogamous person or do you believe in open-ended relationships? 64. Have you ever been dumped? 65. What do you most like about making out? 66. Have you ever casually made out with someone who you weren’t seriously involved with? 67. When you kiss someone for the first time, is it usually you who initiates it or the other? 68. What part of a person’s body do you find most attractive? 69. Who was the last person you talked to last night before you went to bed? 70. Had sex with someone you knew less than an hour? 71. Had sex with someone you didn’t know their name? 72. What makes your heart flutter and brings a big cheesy smile to your face? 73. Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already? 74. Has someone who had a crush on you ever confessed to you? 75. Do you tell a lot of people when you have a crush? 76. Do you miss your last sweetie? 77. Last time you slow danced with someone? 78. Have you ever ‘dated’ someone you’ve never met? 79. How can I win your heart? 80. What is your astrological sign? 81. What were you doing last night at 12 AM? 82. Do you cook? 83. Have you ever gotten back in touch with an old flame after a time of more than 3 months of no communication? 84. If you’re single right now, do you wish you were in a relationship? 85. Do you prefer to date various people or do you pretty much fall into monogamous relationships quickly? 86. What physical traits do you look for in a potential interest? 87. Name four things that you wish you had! 88. Are you a player? 89. Have you ever kissed 2 people in one day? 90. Are you a tease? 91. Have you ever been deeply in love with someone? 92. Hugs or Kisses? 93. Are you too shy to ask someone out? 94. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? 95. Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you babe? 96. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was in relationship, would you go for it? 97. Do you flirt a lot? 98. Your last kiss? 99. Have you kissed anyone in the past month? 100. If you could kiss anyone who would it be? 101. Do you know who you’ll kiss next? 102. Does someone like you currently? 103. Do you currently have feelings for anyone? 104. Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings? 105. Ever made out with just a friend? 106. Are you happier single or in a relationship? 107. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? 108. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? 109. The person you would never want to meet? 110. What is your favorite word? 111. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? 112. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? 113. What shirt are you wearing? 114. What do you label yourself as? 115. Bright room or dark room? 116. Favorite age you’ve been so far? 117. Who told you they loved you last? 118. Your worst enemy? 119. What is your current desktop picture? 120. Do you like someone? 121. The last song you listened to? 122. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? 123. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? 124. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? 125. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional) 126. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? 127. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? 128. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? 129. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. 130. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? 131. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? 132. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be? 133. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? 134.What is your favorite expletive? 135. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? 136. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? 137. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! 138. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? 139. What was your last dream about? 140. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]? 141. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? 142. Have you ever built a snowman? 143. What is the color of your socks? 144. What type of music do you like? 145. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? 146. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? 147. What quidditch team do you support? 148. Do you have any scars? 149. What do you want to be when you graduate? 150. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? 151. Are you reliable? 152. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? 153. Do you hold grudges? 154. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? 155. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? 156. Are you a good liar? 157. How long could you go without talking? 158. What has been you worst haircut/style? 159. Have you ever baked your own cake? 160. Can you do any accents other than your own? 161. What do you like on your toast? 162. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? 163. What would be you dream car? 164. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. 165. Do you believe in aliens? 166. Do you often read your horoscope? 167. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? 168. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? 169. What do you think about babies? 170: Your own question that you want me to answer. Just write it.

According to George Katsaros’s WWII draft registration, he was born April 3, 1898 in Trikala in western Thessaly, Greece. He arrived through Ellis Island alone on October 20, 1913, and his declared age at the time was 17, which would have meant he was born in 1896-7. His brother Harry (whose also WWII card as well as a 1930 border crossing document also give Thessaly as his place of birth) had preceded him and settled in the Detroit area. Their parents’ names were Kristos (Gustos) and Zoe.

Much of the information about Katsaros’ life that has circulated for decades, drawn from stories he told in the 1980s and 90s when he was an old man, including that he was born ten years earlier on the island of Amorgos with the surname Theologitis appears to be false. For reasons we haven’t ascertained, Katsaros was by then an untrustworthy narrator of his own life. Two serious studies of his biography and music have been undertaken - one in Greek by Panagiotis Kounadis (which, unfortunately, I have not been able to read because of the language barrier) and another in English by Steve Frangos. The interviews conducted by Frangos in 1985 (available through the site of the State Library and Archives of Florida) and that articles Frangos subsequently wrote based on on those interviews are an invaluable resource on Katsaros’s self-mythology and some of what follows in drawn from them.

Katsaros’s memories of his life were often highly detailed and therefore more or less verifiable. There are some vast craters in his narrative and some apparent fantastic invention. It seems reasonable to suppose that he is telling the truth that he was playing at a cafe called the Zapeion in New York around early 1917 when he had an opportunity to go to San Francisco to play at the Minerva and Acropolis Cafes, both on Folsom Street. The Minerva at the time widely promoted its family-friendly French dinners and 30 cent vegetarian lunches while, around the same time, being under close scrutiny by the police for underworld activity, resulting in the 1919 withdrawal of its liquor license after a fire and a drugging-and-theft incident there made the news in quick succession. Police found the cafe in violation of the wartime prohibition act.

Katsaros named no less than 16 towns in California where he played during the period 1917-18 and another dozen in Oregon, Washington, Utah, Montana, and Nevada in 1918-19. Performing a wide array of traditional Greek (and some Armenian) folk songs for audiences of agricultural workers, port workers, and miners, he spoke in generalities of this period, but the fact that he names specific venues (the Parthenon and the Aphrodite in Salt Lake City, for instance) and some bandmates, including cymbalom players Frank Gazis, who later recorded with violinist Demetrios Poggis, and Spiros Stamos, who later recorded for the Greek Record Company in Chicago, gives credence to his story. He bragged of earning $50 ($750 now) a night, often playing almost continuously from 7PM to 2AM. By 1920, he says, he was back east, playing at the Kentron Restaurant at 1018 Locust Street in Philadelphia. His claim of having been called to sign a 5 year contract with Victor Records in 1919 seems to be fabricated or at least unverifiable, as were his descriptions of a tours to Mumbai, India (via Australia, Burma, Singapore, and other locations) or his assertion of a 1924 trip to Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Africa. "My records, they went all over the world," he said. "From every place in the United States and South America and Europe [...] they pay me and I take a boat and I go. Playing for the big concerrts. I play for the churches, for the rich people." But he hadn't actually made any records yet.

We can be sure of two significant events in the Summer of 1927. On June 6 and 16, he made his first recordings for Victor across the bridge from Philadelphia in Camden, New Jersey, resulting in his first issued disc, a 12” with the zeibekiko “Elleniki Apolausis (Greek Pleasure)” on one side and “A Kakoorga Eli (Cruel Hearted Elli)” on the flip. And then, at 29 years old, he married a 20 year old woman named Ouranea (b. Dec. 25 1907; d. April 28, 1984). Years later, she told a newspaper that she was the niece of Theodoros Pangelos who had become President of Greece in April 1925 in the aftermath of a coup, only to be deposed August 1926 in a counter-coup.

By June 24, 1928, George and Oura were in Michigan, where George’s brother Harry lived, for the birth of their first daughter Arete (Rita). During the onset and and deepening of the Great Depression four more children arrived there near Detroit - Steve (Jan. 13, 1930), Cleopatria (ca. 1933), James (ca. 1934), and Paul (April 23, 1936.) Parallel to the growth of their family, George made approximately annual trips to New Jersey, New York City, and Chicago to record. His memory in 1985 of the number of sides he made during that period is pretty close to the facts: 18 for Columbia and 36 for Victor, he said. In fact, he released 8 on Columbia and 33 for Victor as well as an additional 20 or so for Victor that were rejected and unissued. At present, we have evidence of one concert during that period, a fundraiser for the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform under the auspices of a Greek organization in Detroit on December 1, 1931 along with a Greek soprano and pianist. A photo given by Katsaros to the researcher Pangiotis Kounadis in 1987 apparently depicts him with a friend in the early 1930s in Birmingham, England.

His reputation as a seminal force in the development of rebetika, the music of the Greek underworld, based on certain of his 1920s and 30s discs is only part of the story of what he did. The vast majority of what he recorded were his own compositions and many of them spoke plainly of the nightlife, of an empathic eye for modern women, a wicked confidence as a gambler, a powerful appetite for hashish, rough companions, and the hustling all of it entails. He also recorded songs that were comedic or deeply pathetic, as often in tango rhythms or with similarities to American songsters like Jimmie Rogers or Mexican conjunto as they were to the zeibekiko rhythms and quasi-Turkish tonalities of the rebetika demimonde that grew in Athens at the same time. Playing a spruce-topped Martin parlor guitar made in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, his songs were straight-shooting, deeply honest, and totally syncretic of his experience as a Greek-American. There is nothing Hellenistically “purist” about Katsaros’s records, but they are adamantly pure in their relationship to his own sense of himself. That is what made him so unique and, perhaps, what made him one of the very, very few Greek performers to have been able to continue to record at all during the 1930s in the U.S. The 1929 stock market crash had simply ended the recording careers of most the Greek-American performers on records, including for instance Marika Papagika, (with whom Katsaros said he worked in the 30s on the road and characterized as a "very very lovely singer and a very very good person") or made their performances feel like remnants of the “old world." It was Katsaros’ singular approach to his instrument and his plain-talking songwriting, as in his exhortation of Herbert Hoover at the end of his Depression ballad “With Pockets Empty” or his lament for the sick “Mother, I Have Tuberculosis [Consumption]” that gave his records such legs that they were regularly repressed, year after year into the 1940s.

Katsaros claimed to have recorded another 24 sides for Decca in the 1930s-40s, but we have no evidence of those having been released. We know that he made about 10 sides for the Gary, Indiana independent label Grecophone and then in the 1940s about six sides for the New York Metropolitan label (related to Adjin Asllan’s Balkan label) and four or more for Standard (run by Tetos Demetriades, who had previously been the head of the Foreign division of Victor in the 1930s and had championed Katsaros then).

In 1940 his family of seven was living in Wayne, Michigan in a heavily Polish neighborhood along with a 51 year old boarder, who, like George, was making $1,900 ($35,000 today) a year working six days a week as a switchman for the Grand Trunk Railroad between Six Mile and Nine Mile of Detroit. The census that year also counted them at another house in Tarpon Springs, Florida where a "John Katsaros" is listed as the head of the household was working as a driver. Katsaros spent the Summer of 1943 playing hotels in the Catskills - the Monte Carlo, the Olympia, and the Sunset. Performing was lucrative enough that he and Oura got their picture in the Detroit Free Press that November for having bought a total of $842 in War Bonds (about $12,500 today), and his occupation was mentioned as “nightclub performer.” But on February 7, 1945, they divorced. He was 46; she was 37. A few years earlier the German occupying forces in Athens had killed his mother for having hidden two American servicemen. Her house was burned. George’s sister Sophia survived and later emigrated to the U.S.

By 1950, he was living in Brighton, Massachusetts at 100 Washington Street. On his way home just before 5 in the morning in November, 1952 Katsaros was robbed at gunpoint. The two muggers grabbed $150 in small bills from his inner jacket pocket but, he said, neglected to check his pants, where he had another $2,000 in cash.

Meanwhile, back home, George and Oura’s eldest child was in the papers. Having been drafted in 1949 to the Korean war, he’d been called back for another year of service as an enlisted infantryman in 1950. On February 12, 1951 he was captured and held as a prisoner of war until August 1953. He was 23 years old when he was reunited with his mother and siblings, living at 2961 Hanley St in Hamtramck, Michigan, including his younger brother James who had also served in Korea. Every member of the family is mentioned in the press notices of his joyful return except for his father.

Katsaros worked in the late 50s in Chicago in Boston at the Club Zara at 475 Tremont St. According to researcher Amy E. Smith, the Club Zara might have had mob ties. On May 6, 1960, 25 days of police surveillance a resulted in the dispersal of a crowd of 300 people at midnight and the arrest of seven women (five of them dancers in their 20s) and five men (including the maitre d, the manager, and an Armenian singer) under charges of “participating in or contributing to an immoral show.” Whether Katsaros was present that night or was even still working there at the time, we don't know. He said in 1985 that he’d been one of its cofounders and took credit for hiring the club’s first bellydancer “Morocco.” The trial that resulted from the raid was a media circus, and all but one of those arrested was fined between $200 and $1500. Four of the dancers were given 3 to 6 months in prison. One dancer lost custody of her eight year old daughter. The club lost its liquor license. The District Attorney told the press “This is filth, real filth. It’s about time we get rid of that show.” If they’d been looking for evidence of underaged employees or other illegal activities, the catalyst for the raid was when one dancer’s bra straps snapped.

Whether or not Katsaros was still in Boston when the raid happened, by about 1962 he’d moved to Holiday, Florida near Tarpon Springs, a town founded in the 16th century as a Greek sponge fishing village. Through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, he performed sporadically at Greek community events and restaurants, often with the accordion player John Gianaros whom he’d known since the 40s back in New York. Katsaros was getting old with several lifetimes’ worth of experiences and songs in the head, still covered in a thick pile of of kinky hair that he kept vainly under a net at home.

When a new generation of Greeks got hip to the 1920s-30s material of the old dope-smoking hipsters, they found him there in Florida. At 80-something years old, he wanted to know where the money was. In 1985, he asked Steve Frangos about how to collect royalties on his recordings from 50 years earlier or how to get a new record deal. In 1988, he traveled to Greece to perform and gave interviews. His old music was reissued. In March 1995, he was flown again to Greece to be honored by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs at a widely-broadcast concert and spoke and played for his countrymen (now available on YouTube).

When he died at home in Holiday, having outlived practically everyone who could have remembered him, on June 22, 1997 at the age of 99, newspapers around the world told an incredible story about 109 year old badass, a walking antique, who had been everywhere and done everything. Among them, the researcher Aydin Chaloupka noticed a mention in the Pappas Press that Katsaros had a birth certificate from Amorgos for one Yiorgos Theologitis born in 1888 that he'd had authenticated and showed visitors, letting them make copies of it. The story he told that his last name Katsaros was a stage name referring to his his hair ("katsaros" means "kinky" or "curly" in Greek) might hold true if his brother, a grocer in Detroit, didn't share the same name.

Why would Katsaros lie about his date and place of birth and go the trouble of obtaining someone else's birth certificate? We can only speculate, but it is not out of the question that there was something in his life that he did not want to catch up with him even as he attained some notoriety in the late 1980s. Perhaps is was the family he left behind in Detroit in the mid-40s. Perhaps it was the authorities for something he'd done (or felt he'd done) wrong. Perhaps it was some of the underworld characters he'd crossed paths with in the course of his career. Maybe the birth certificate was an insurance policy so that, if someone knocked on his door, he could say "you've got the wrong guy. I'm not George Katsaros, born 1897 in Thessaly. I'm Yiorgos Theologitis, born 1888 on Amorgos." Plausible deniability.

Something is true. But George Katsaros was probably not the person who would have told you.

1. Let’s start with a tricky one; what is the real reason you are confused right now? 2. Do you ever get “good morning” owls from anyone? 3. If your significant other smoked pot, would you care? 4. Do you find it easy to trust others? 5. What were you doing at 11PM last night? 6. You’re drunk and lost walking down the road; who is with you? 7. What would you do if you found out you had been cheated on? 8. Are you close with your dad? 9. I bet you kissed someone last night, right? 10. What are you listening to? 11. You can only drink ONE liquid for the rest of your life - what is it? 12. Do you like hickeys? 13. What time do you go to bed? 14. Is there someone who continuously lets you down? 15. Do you always answer your owls? 16. Do you hate the person you fell the hardest for? 17. When was the last time you talked to one of your best friends? 18. Is there someone that makes you happy every time you see them? 19. What was your last thought before you went to bed last night? 20. Do you believe what goes around comes around? 21. Were you happier four months ago than you are now? 22. Is there someone you wish you could fix things with? 23. In the past week, have you cried? 24. What colour is the shirt you are wearing? 25. Do people ever call you by your last name? 26. Is anyone ignoring you right now? 27. Do you have a best friend? 28. Would it be hard seeing someone else kiss the last person you kissed? 29. Are you mad at anyone? 30. Have you ever kissed someone older than you? 31. How old will the last person you kissed be on his/her next birthday? 32. How many more days until your birthday? 33. Do you have any summer plans yet? 34. Do you have any good friends of the opposite sex? 35. Are you keeping anything from your best friend(s) now? 36. Do you have a secret that you’ve never told anyone? 37. Have you ever regretted kissing someone? 38. Do you think age matters in relationships? 39. Are you available? 40. How many people have you had real, strong feelings for since high school ended? 41. If you had to get a piercing (not ears), what would you get? 42. Do you believe exes can be friends? 43. Do you regret anything? 44. Honestly, what’s on your mind right now? 45. Did you ever lose a best friend? 46. Was your last kiss a mistake? 47. Why aren’t you pursuing the person you like? 48. Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry? 49. Do you still talk with the person you LAST kissed? 50. What was the last thing you ate? 51. Did you get any compliments today? 52. Where are you going on your next vacation? 53. Do you own anything from other countries? 54. Are most of your friend guys or girls? 55. Where have you lived most of your life? 56. When was the last time you took a long drive? 57. Have you ever played Spin the Bottle? 58. What was the last movie you saw? 59. What’s preventing your current boyfriend/girlfriend from going back to their ex? 60. Is the last person you kissed younger than you? 61. Do you curse around your parents? 62. Are you happy with where you live? 63. Are you a monogamous person or do you believe in open-ended relationships? 64. Have you ever been dumped? 65. What do you most like about making out? 66. Have you ever casually made out with someone who you weren’t seriously involved with? 67. When you kiss someone for the first time, is it usually you who initiates it or the other? 68. What part of a person’s body do you find most attractive? 69. Who was the last person you talked to last night before you went to bed? 70. Had sex with someone you knew less than an hour? 71. Had sex with someone you didn’t know their name? 72. What makes your heart flutter and brings a big cheesy smile to your face? 73. Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already? 74. Has someone who had a crush on you ever confessed to you? 75. Do you tell a lot of people when you have a crush? 76. Do you miss your last sweetie? 77. Last time you slow danced with someone? 78. Have you ever ‘dated’ someone you’ve never met? 79. How can I win your heart? 80. What is your astrological sign? 81. What were you doing last night at 12 AM? 82. Do you cook? 83. Have you ever gotten back in touch with an old flame after a time of more than 3 months of no communication? 84. If you’re single right now, do you wish you were in a relationship? 85. Do you prefer to date various people or do you pretty much fall into monogamous relationships quickly? 86. What physical traits do you look for in a potential interest? 87. Name four things that you wish you had! 88. Are you a player? 89. Have you ever kissed 2 people in one day? 90. Are you a tease? 91. Have you ever been deeply in love with someone? 92. Hugs or Kisses? 93. Are you too shy to ask someone out? 94. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? 95. Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you babe? 96. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was in relationship, would you go for it? 97. Do you flirt a lot? 98. Your last kiss? 99. Have you kissed anyone in the past month? 100. If you could kiss anyone who would it be? 101. Do you know who you’ll kiss next? 102. Does someone like you currently? 103. Do you currently have feelings for anyone? 104. Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings? 105. Ever made out with just a friend? 106. Are you happier single or in a relationship? 107. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? 108. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? 109. The person you would never want to meet? 110. What is your favorite word? 111. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? 112. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? 113. What shirt are you wearing? 114. What do you label yourself as? 115. Bright room or dark room? 116. Favorite age you’ve been so far? 117. Who told you they loved you last? 118. Your worst enemy? 119. What is your current desktop picture? 120. Do you like someone? 121. The last song you listened to? 122. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? 123. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? 124. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? 125. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional) 126. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? 127. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? 128. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? 129. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. 130. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? 131. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? 132. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be? 133. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? 134.What is your favorite expletive? 135. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? 136. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? 137. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! 138. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? 139. What was your last dream about? 140. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]? 141. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? 142. Have you ever built a snowman? 143. What is the color of your socks? 144. What type of music do you like? 145. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? 146. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? 147. What quidditch team do you support? 148. Do you have any scars? 149. What do you want to be when you graduate? 150. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? 151. Are you reliable? 152. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? 153. Do you hold grudges? 154. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? 155. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? 156. Are you a good liar? 157. How long could you go without talking? 158. What has been you worst haircut/style? 159. Have you ever baked your own cake? 160. Can you do any accents other than your own? 161. What do you like on your toast? 162. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? 163. What would be you dream car? 164. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. 165. Do you believe in aliens? 166. Do you often read your horoscope? 167. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? 168. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? 169. What do you think about babies? 170: Your own question that you want me to answer. Just write it.

Top 15 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2002

13 to 14 years old. Most of the year was pretty good. Summer was great. But in September I arrived in 2nd (local equivalent of 10th grade), so I was 14 in a class of mostly 15/16 years old students, and I looked so out of place that inevitably, bad shit started to happen very quickly.

Thankfully, it was a damn good year for hits. They say music never sounds better than when you are a teenager, as if that was a bad thing - but maybe they’re right? So yeah, nostalgia is in full force there. This year was so good for music, in fact, that this is a top 15 instead of 10. It was already super difficult to keep only 10 songs before I even looked at the French year-end list, and then I just gave up.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

This list originally had SIX horribly painful cuts so I decided to do some damage control and make it a top 15. There’s still a whole bunch of honorable mentions, though.

Heaven remix (DJ Sammy) - [Insert here rant about Johannes liking overproduced dance garbage full of colors and lights]

Move b█tch (Ludacris) - Just a ton of fun to sing along that chorus.

Whenever Wherever (Shakira) - I claim overplay, but that is still legendary.

How You Remind Me (Nickelback) - Nobody’s gonna disagree if I say they’re a terrible band, but you gotta admit, their first hit was pretty great.

The Middle (Jimmy Eat World) - In a year full of fantastic earworms, some had to stay out of the list.

Can’t Fight the Moonlight (LeAnn Rimes) - Just re-read the previous statement.

Get the Party Started (Pink) - More on that later.

Inch’Allah (MC Solaar) - Not his best song by a mile (obviously; I mean, the guy who wrote a song about making Satan explode into antimatter can’t really top that because nobody can) but still very nice.

Cleanin’ Out My Closet (Eminem) - Yeah, the rethread of The Real Slim Shady is on the list and not this. What can I say, I told you I had bad taste.

Just Like a Pill (Pink) - The last cut from the list. I just really, really liked Pink, can you tell?

This is when I started to listen to the radio A LOT in my room, because my access to the family computer was restricted and radio was basically the only media I still had 100% access to and full control of. Which might explain why I suddenly liked a ton of pop music. Or maybe that year was simply really good. I guess it’s a mix of both.

Also, I still didn’t have a key to the appartment, but I was a lot less supervised when I was outside, and I would sometimes sneak out to go the library or to the disc store.

So... here’s some of the first singles I ever bought, for the record, and also because I think it’s fun to see all of them together.

They’re all on this list, just to clarify.

15 - I’m Gonna Getcha Good (Shania Twain)

US: Not on the list / FR: #67

Well, that was quick. So yeah, I loved this song. The accent meant I couldn’t understand half of the lyrics, but it was still a ton of fun and a delight every time it was on the radio.

14 - Wherever You Will Go (The Calling)

US: #5 / FR: #53

I didn’t love this song that much at the time and only put it on one tape, but it really grew on my over the years. Yeah, it’s your standard 2000s pop-rock song, objectively, but I don’t know. It didn’t have to go that hard with its metaphors. I mean the guy is ready to follow that person into hell and turn back time if necessary. I really don’t know. It shouldn’t work so well but it does for me. Maybe it’s because I’m very literal-minded.

13 - Le Chemin (Kyo ft. Sita)

US: Not on the list / FR: #55

Basically: A Ma Place by Axel Bauer & Zazie from the previous honorable mentions of 2001, except with half the amount of Hetero Drama(tm) and a pop-rock flavour to make it more palatable.

The first hit of a band it would very quickly be super cool to hate in my country (and I do mean very quickly, like a year or so) because everyone (including me, mind you) thought their lyrics were a bit too cringy even for pop-rock songs.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t buy the album and listened the shit out of it for like two years, though. The saddest part is that my favorite single from it by far, Je Cours (”I Run”), isn’t elligible for any list. Dammit.

12 - Murder On The Dancefloor (Sophie Ellis-Bextor)

US: Not on the list / FR: #26

This was a huge hit in Europe and somehow I thought it had reached the US, but apparently it didn’t. That’s a shame.

Also, overplay didn’t manage to kill it for me and that’s impressive.

11 - Complicated (Avril Lavigne)

US: #11 / FR: #83

Loved it, bought the single, loved it even more, and then one of my uncles sent me the album for christmas, and all was nice and good in the world.

For the record, I thought Sk8er Boi was one of the worst songs on the album (my favorite was My World), and I still dislike this particular song to this day, so this is why it’s nowhere to be found here.

10 - Don’t Let Me Get Me (Pink)

US: #36 / FR: Not on the list

You already know that because of the honorable mentions, but yeah, I loved Pink. This was the second album I decided I had to save money for months to acquire instead of just a single and which my parents would probably find acceptable. And this song is the best and it kicks some serious ass, on top of being full of self-loathing and extremely relatable at the time ("everyday I fight a war against the mirror, can't take the person staring back at me"? "I wanna be somebody else"?? Big, big dysphoria mood right there).

No regrets, baby.

9 - Hands Clean (Alanis Morissette)

US: #95 / FR: Not on the list

In just about every list I’ve made so far, there’s one song which makes me think “if I had better taste, this would be much higher”. This is one of these songs. Still love it, still put it on a tape and burned it on a cd. I found the cd in question again yesterday while making this list and it contains, in that exact order: Visage, Evanescence, Kyo, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Talk Talk, Scatman John, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Shania Twain, INXS, Freur, Alizée, Linkin Park and this exact song by Alanis Morissette. It’s a great little time-capsule of my debatable tastes.

8 - Die Another Day (Madonna)

US: Not on the list / FR: #86

This has the same kind of weird, disjointed beat as Music, but it sounds much more aggressive and sinister. This dropped right when I started to have real problems at school, so it’s a bit difficult for me to listen to it nowadays without having unpleasant flashbacks at the same time, which is why it’s so low on the list even though I listened to it on a loop back in the day. It might be a subpar James Bond theme, and might have dumb lyrics (god the Sigmund Freud line sdfghjhgfdfg), but on its own? It’s great.

Also I loved the music video. My mother, obviously, hated it, which only made me like it more, because, I mean, obviously it did. That’s how it works when you’re 14.

Speaking of which.

7 - Without Me (Eminem)

US: #21 / FR: #11

By that point, it was becoming pretty clear that I would never be able to buy the music I wanted if my parents disapproved of it, so I had to be sneaky and buy every, uh “debatable” single with a second more acceptable single to hide the first one. The one I bought alongside this one was a cover of Désenchantée, sung by Kate Ryan.

Success.

It is, in fact, less good than The Real Slim Shady, and I could only understand about one third of the lyrics, but still. I listened to it a loooooot. Because I actually had that single and not the other one which it was basically referencing to the point of self-parody. And just like the other one, I obviously don’t endorse all the lyrics, and the beat is great.

6 - All the Things She Said (Tatu)

US: Not on the list / FR: #12

Just like Die Another Day this one is a bit difficult to listen to nowadays for me but it’s a monster of a hit nonetheless. Have to say, though: I listened to Not Gonna Get Us even more, which means THAT one is even more linked to bad memories, to the point of basically being unlistenable because it triggers a literal fight-or-flight response with me. Not kidding in the slightest. Still love it though.

5 - J’ai Demandé à la Lune (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #4

This is one of my least favorite hit songs from Indochine. It’s still #5 on a list where I had to keep 15 entries instead of 10. This is because almost no other song I really really like from them will ever be elligible for these lists and if I can’t put a single Indochine song somewhere, especially from the Paradize album, I will have to punch a wall, dammit.

So here. Have the one in which the guy asks the moon if his significant other still loves him and where the moon answers “dude it’s not my problem”.

I love them and Paradize is an absolute monster of an album which rightfully made them relevant again, from new wave sensations of the 80s to favorite mainstream band for every young French punk/goth kid ever in the 2000s. This is not a diss, by the way, considering I was very clearly in that core demographic. Especially if you look at the top three I made for that year (and for the next one but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).

4 - A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton)

US: #6 / FR: #51

Yeah yeah, you knew this was coming when you saw that pic of the first singles I bought, and you can start laughing now. I know it’s basically a meme now (and a good one, mind you), but sometimes, songs are remembered for more than one reason, and you have to admit that one is still great on its own. I listened to it SO. MUCH. Especially before everything started to go wrong for me that year, so basically this is the sound of “how things should have been”, and it’s so pleasant and nice to listen to it even today. It’s no longer on my mp3 player, but, no joke, I think it stayed on it from the day I bought my first mp3 player to something like 2017. Is it an indicator of quality or yet another indicator of my debatable taste? Probably both.

In any other year, there would be a clear #1 either towering above the other songs or just slightly ahead of the rest. 2002 was so good I can’t, for the life of me, decide which of these next three songs is the best one, even subjectively, in a “hey I like this one a little bit more” kind of way.

So I’m ranking the top 3 according to the lengths I went to to listen to each of these songs at the time.

Let’s go.

3 - C’est Une Belle Journée (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #46

This is what I’d call the Last Great Mylène Farmer Song. Oh she was still making music, pretty great music, in fact, after that. She’s still making decent stuff nowadays, from time to time. But in my opinion, it’s all downhill from there.

Still. This kickstarted my obsession with her at the time, because someone (I still have no idea who that was) was foolish enough to buy me the cd for Christmas. This is also why it’s #3 and not higher; I didn’t have to work at all to listen to it.

So... This is a song about killing yourself, disguised as a bouncy energetic pop tune. And it works horribly well. It’s very vaguely sinister but if you don’t listen to it very closely, it’s nearly impossible to notice what it’s actually about (translation here), and it charted super high and for a super long time without any controversy in its wake.

As I said: all downhill from there, because... how do you even top this?

2 - Lose Yourself (Eminem)

US: #63 / FR: Not on the list

You probably guessed this was coming. I’m not sure what the consensus for the “best Eminem hit song” is nowadays, but that one has to be pretty high on the list. And it’s also kind of a meme because of the spaghetti line, I know, but still, quality, man. The most important thing about it in the context of this list is that it was juuuuust slow enough to allow me to understand most of the important parts with my still-limited English, and I loved the little story it told. I remember trying to put it on a tape for days and waiting for it to pop up on the radio and instantly pressing Record after the first note.

And of course I wanted to see 8 Mile and I couldn’t, but a few months later, the local book/dvd/music store, which had screens broadcasting scenes from new stuff they were selling, had a screen with a few battle rap scenes from 8 Mile on it, and once I noticed I stood in front of the screen for a long time in silent admiration. What can I say, I was an angry little thing, and seeing angry people fighting each other in ways where no-one gets hurt was very satisfying and cathartic.

1 - In the End (Linkin Park)

US: #7 / FR: Not on the list

The music video had hilariously bad cgi even at the time, just to clarify. But yeah, that sound right there had the perfect balance of color, energy, sadness and anger to be the hit of the year for me back then. And I could understand nearly all the lyrics! I. Loved it. The local library had Hybrid Theory and I listened to it so. MUCH (my favorite song on it was actually One Step Closer (singing CAUSE I’M ONE-STEP-CLOSER-TO-THE-EDGE, ANDI’MABOUTTOBREAK felt great) and I thought Crawling was a bit embarrassing). Thank god that library didn’t have fines if you returned your stuff after the due date because I had to wait until I was able to make a copy of it first. The “parents-proof” “”cryptic”” label I wrote on said copy wasn’t particularly cryptic, though, and I’m gonna share it with you right now because that’s kind of funny.

So what do you do when you’re 14, pretty sure you understood the whole song, are finally able to listen to the whole album, burn it on a cd, and listen to it way too often? You write down the lyrics, painstakingly, with a fountain pen, in a small notebook where you try to write down the lyrics of every single song you love & can understand entirely. That’s what you do. Of course.

When I stopped doing that in 2007, there were two notebooks like that. I lost one of them, apparently, but the one I was able to find already had 63 songs in it. I finally had my own internet access later that year and I could find all the lyrics I wanted whenever I wanted, and I stopped doing that once and for all.

But it helped me get a lot better with English, so in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

So yeah, In the End?

Loved it and loved that band. I still do.

Next up: wow, “all edge no point”, uh?

get to know: chippington ‘chip’ skylark the third. 

chip skylark finds himself the third of his name. his grandmother lifts the small child into her arms, cooing that she loves her little chippy to the moon and back. she’s the first in the family to call him chip, and the name sticks better than junior or chippington does. he knows his grandfather and father wish he’d just ride out chippington like they did, but honestly it gets too confusing and chip has always felt way more like him. only his grandma and mom can call him chippy though, and he blushes every time. 

he comes from a line of musically inclined men. his grandfather, the first chippington skylark, found himself the frontman of a joropo band back in his home of venezuela. chippington skylark and the noah’s arkestra found themselves playing any bar or party that would allow them, and soon they rose to popularity in caracas, and even went on to play shows in the second home of joropa (colombia) and other countries and cities in the region. chippington the second would expand on his father’s budding fame, finding himself popular on the latin charts for adopting the sounds of salsa as that became popular. chip falls in love with the music of his grandfather, finds comfort in the strum of the guitar and the folk tales he weaves with his lyrics. chip is even more amazed by his father, the master performer. he’s inspired by the way a band of horns and percussion can fill the room with such lively music, as his father sings songs of love and lust all while looking charming as ever in the process. it’s decided before chip can even properly learn how to form his own sentences that he would be a man of the music as well. 

chip doesn’t mind that his life was laid out for him already, not really. he loves music, finds himself beating the timbale and shaking a pandeiro anytime he accompanies his dad to work. chip’s only real concern is what path would he follow? his grandfather and father had already accomplished so much, who could he possibly be if not stuck in their shadow? in his younger years, he had no real answer for this question. just knows that he loves the stage. 

chip primarily stayed with his mother in new jersey. she thought it best to keep him from the hectic lifestyle his father lead, urging that he should be allowed a normal life and childhood. chip, however, had other plans. he was only eight years old when he first hit the stage. it was a local talent show and he’d begged and pleaded with his mother to let him sing; she finally gave in and he performed ahora te puedes marchar. along with singing the upbeat luis miguel song, chip had also done his best to choreograph a little dance to go along with his performance. the audience loved him, eating up his floppy hair and bright smile almost as much as they were awed by his talent. 

chip’s life became nonstop performing since that moment. entering any talent showcase he could find, hoping to continue to impress crowds and make everyone dance and fall in love with him and the music he sang. his father couldn’t be more pleased with how well every audience received his son’s gifts. if you dig on the internet enough you can find a few videos of a little chip joining his father onstage to sing and dance his father’s famed music with him. don’t play it in front of him though, he’ll look away and blush the second you start going ‘awwwww’. 

chip begins to incorporate more american pop songs in his showcase entries. it makes sense, it’s the music everyone around him listens to and as much as audiences love watching him dance bachata and salsa they seem to connect with his performances better when it’s in a language they can understand. he has no negative feelings about it, even to this day. he has no negative feelings about most things, his words and thoughts drowning in positivity and optimism because he prefers to look at the brighter side of all things. 

he’s thirteen when he gets discovered by a label executive. the initial meeting for the board of executives of his future label was the most nerve wracking experience of chip’s life at that point. chip knows he can wow an audience, it’s the one thing he knows for sure he’s good at. but something about this initial meeting deciding his fate makes his stomach turn. he’s sure he’s going to be sick before it, afraid that he’s going to puke the entire time he rides up to the top floor in the elevator. chip gets through it though, showing off every skill in his arsenal: he’s singing, he’s dancing, he’s playing guitar, he’s interacting with faces in the room, he’s switching between languages easily, and he’s working that smile. 

it goes without saying that the label is impressed and chip gets signed almost immediately. everything else from then on moves pretty quickly for him. he focuses almost all his energy on recording an album as quickly as he can. songs are presented to him daily, and he’s given a team focused with constructing an image for him. he never strays from what’s put before him, even if he’d want to sing a different song than the one he learned the day before, or if he’s not sure he wants to do this particular piece of choreography. chip is honestly just so happy for the opportunity he hardly bats an eye. 

his rise to fame is just as fast and hard to wrap his head around. he would never call himself an overnight sensation, too many years of long hard work went into it, but that’s what the news anchors call him. his first single debuts on the bubbling under of the hot 100, but after significant radio push and some televised appearances it skyrockets to the top ten of the billboard charts. seemingly out of nowhere he’s music’s newest obsession and he couldn’t be more excited. he goes from singing at neighbor’s birthday parties to mall tours and sold out venues. his parents pull him out of school and set him up with a tutor, and well, the rest of his childhood dies right along with that decision. 

he’s a pop phenomenon and he, at first, couldn’t be happier. his first album goes multi platinum and he performs at almost every award show you could think of. hell, there’s even people walking around wearing the same stupid red hat and hoodie combo his team made his signature look. but the being followed by paparazzi and chased by fans starts to become a little too much to handle a little too soon. he won’t complain though, he’s doing what he loves. 

chip still loves performing and singing, but his label has complete control of every aspect of his image and sound. and while that was cool when he was a teen, he’s desperate for some more control and creative (and financial) freedom. 

he’s not mad at the teeny bopper image he’s cultivated. where most people would try to distance themselves from the type of music he made early in his career he never openly rips on it, even in his adulthood. while it’s not the music he’d want to make now, he knows that music is important to his fans. just because something isn’t his favorite doesn’t mean he’s going to ruin it for someone else, he’d never disappoint someone like that. 

chronic people pleaser!!!! he literally can not function or cope with the knowledge that something he did could be upsetting someone else. even if the task you give him comes at great personal sacrifice to him, he’ll do it with a smile. He just wants everyone to be happy, even if right now, he’s not the happiest. 

Now that he’s a grown man he’s struggling with what’s his next move musically. He’s already done something no one else with the skylark name has been able to do: break american radio, and his grandfather and father couldn’t be more proud of his success. but he finds himself yearning for the freedom and maturity their music possesses. he’s certain he still wants to make pop music at this point, he’s just struggling with how to make it more adult and what new things he can experiment with. 

Re-released his first and second album with some of the more popular songs stripped down and sung in spanish. it’s his labels idea of compromising on the fact that he wanted to make music that represented all parts of who he is as a person. also has like one or two latin pop songs that crushed the charts worldwide, the success of those songs made his label discuss the validity of him doing a full latin album like he’d been requesting for years. that album never came. 

practically scandal-less. He’s dated his fair share of pop stars and models, but those break ups always end amicably and none of his former partners have ever had anything negative to say about him. the media wanted so badly to run a “bad boy” thing with him but they just can’t, he’s such a good boy. 

when he was fourteen he did a campaign for those stupid singing tooth brushes. my shiny teeth and me follows him everywhere now, and you know what, he’s not even mad about it, he sometimes jokes that song is more popular than a lot of his actual serious music.  go king! teach the youth proper dental hygiene!

his concerts are always so much fun. Again, so inspired by his dad as a performer so he always goes all out. He gives 110% every time no matter what. Is he tired? Of course. Does he need a nap? Definitely. Has he gone on stage ten minutes after puking his guts out because of a flu? Yeah….it was still a good show though, you couldn’t even really tell he was sick! 

struggling HARD with anxiety. large crowds of people around him start to freak him out, and even though most would think he should be used to it, he’s been mobbed by too many groups of fans to ever be used to it. he’s no stranger to hiding out in the back of an empty store for a second to get away. he’s always embarrassed when his management has to kick everyone else out the store and lock the doors for his sake, but if it helps...it helps. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS. 

help him w his anxiety? so mayhaps a friend, a confidante? also an actual therapist yep. 

chip’s big struggle is how to move forward without disappointing his fans so maybe a fan that he becomes friendly with that can yanno remind him that most of them will love him no matter what. or at least serve as a reminder of why he does this. 

if y’all got characters that wanna roast the shiny teeth guy i won’t be opposed. he’s also so nice he probably wouldn’t be too bothered so that’s frustrating and fun 

fellow musicians always

friends who either have no clue who he is or don’t care would be real nice

anything at all. also always down for angst as always.