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#but really it's cause my friends have campaigns planned for the next 5 years
wen-kexing-apologist · 6 months
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BL/QL Ask game : The Ugly, the Bad and the Worst
Alright, I was tagged in this game by @clara-maybe-ontheroad, so it's time to make some enemies.
Worst soundtrack / weirdest song choice in a BL
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I don’t really pay the most attention to this, I can’t recall anything that sticks out to me as particularly egregious even if it may be a tad odd. Weirdest song choice though is Jojo and Ninew letting First sing in Only Friends. I love the boy but we all have our flaws and his is being horrifically out of tune.
Most cringe-inducing line (cute)
“Then I am gay too,” Bee from Between Us. A show that I did actually enjoy despite many people grumbling. I hold that it’s cause I didn’t wait three years for it, and didn’t know Until We Meet Again existed when I started watching it. But regardless, Bee and Prince had like 5 minutes of screen time, max and they won my motherfucking heart.
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Most cringe-inducing line (actually bad)
Not a specific line, but literally any time that Nuea questions whether or not Hia Lian loves him in Cutie Pie 2 You. Bestie, you already agonized over that for far, far too long in Cutie Pie, by the time you ran out of the marriage proposal at your father in law’s birthday, I was already way past over the bullshit. And now you want to get back on the bullshit when you are planning your wedding? Come on…
Most stupid decision made by a character
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I agree with @bengiyo, Teh giving up his spot in school for Oh. Honestly, you know what, looking even further back the stupidest decision was Oh and Teh’s friends coming up to Teh AT FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING THE DAY HE WAS GOING TO GO COMMIT TO COLLEGE TO TELL HIM OH WAS GIVING UP. Y’all couldn’t have fucking waited like…one day? You know Teh is stupid motherfucker prone to grand gestures.
Worst plot line
“I’m going to kill your mother from third hand cigarette smoke and spend the last hour and a half of a genuinely otherwise beautifully crafted show making the world’s longest anti-smoking campaign” by New Siwaj in My Only 12%. What a way to ruin a show at the very last minute.
The most problematic show you've watched
Fish Upon the Sky, what in the racism, support of stalking, invasion of privacy, manipulation was that show?
A show people love but you find bad
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Enchante. I just hate Theo so goddamn much.
A show people find bad but you will defend
Also gonna agree with @bengiyo here and say Wedding Plan, I have seen so little conversation around that show since it aired and it was super adorable and very very outside of MAME’s typical taboos. Just fluff, lesbianism, and lavender marriages abound. But if you think La Pluie is bad, then I will fight you to an early grave.
A show that is just objectively bad but you enjoyed it
I wouldn’t say it is my favorite, but I didn’t mind Vice Versa, but maybe that’s cause I was paying attention to trying to predict the next episode’s colors and not to the plot?
A bad show that you kept watching because you were intrigued/fascinated
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Mine is the same as @waitmyturtles. It’s currently still airing, so it’s entirely possible I drop it, but, Dangerous Romance, I am so mad at how quickly it is brushing past interesting topics, but I am still watching it because I am curious where they intend to go with it. I don’t think they can salvage it, but I need to know what it is they want to say that made them think handling this show the way they are is better than exploring literally any of the class questions presented in the first couple episodes.
A bad show that you kept watching because you were horny
I don’t really watch shows because I am horny,  I watch shows because- Why R U? FighterTutor, only reason I watched that show, I skipped through most of the rest of it.
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A bad show that you kept watching because of that one character
Why R U? Because Fighter was such a compelling character and I thought Zee did a phenomenal job in the way he handled Fighter’s internalized homophobia. I wish they were giving Zee more complicated roles than Hia Lian because he’s a strong actor and I think his talent is wasted on Cutie Pie.
A bad show that you would still recommend
I don’t really recommend shows that I think are bad to people, so it is a case by case basis. I did not end up liking A Boss and a Babe, but I did recommend @emotionallychargedtowel watch at least some of it so she could get a better idea of Book’s acting ability.
The character that ruined a show the most
Nadia, My Ride. She’s such a self-entitled, incredibly judgemental bitch and I hate her, runner up is Toy for destroying Boss’ bookshelf.
Most awful character that you hated
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Tawan, KinnPorsche. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. I was glad when he died, and I must commend Na for his performance because he did such a good job playing an asshole that I still hate his face when I see it.
Most awful character that you loved
Korn from KinnPorsche, I am obsessed with how casually evil he is, and how he keeps his loyalty through faked compassion rather than abusive fear the way Gun does. He’s consistently winning, even when his lies are revealed. I think he does a superb job of flying under the radar as a visibly awful character. But he’s a terrible person.
A character that wasn't awful but that you just don't like
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Saifah, Why R U? It’s not his fault, but I just hate Jimmy’s face.
A hero that should have been a villain
Palm, Never Let Me Go, I had too many theories about the ways in which Palm could have betrayed Nuengdiao. Hell, I’d have settled for Chanon being a villain, but no, only loyalty :(
A morally bad character you're into
*ahem* *gestures to my username*
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Wen Kexing, Word of Honor who has done nothing wrong in his entire life.
A morally bad character you're not into and you wish people would stop being into
Theo, Enchante, I hate that motherfucker with a burning passion. I know that I said I think Book should be able to play more assholes cause he’s doing a great job with Mew’s revenge era, but Theo was a goddamn fucking major asshole who was not really presented as such.
The show that disappointed you the most
Again, it’s not done yet, so there is still time to maybe climb out of this hole, but I am very disappointed by Dangerous Romance at the moment.
The Worst Show of Them All Because of Your Own Reasons
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Enchante because how the fuck do you think it is okay to write a romance where one of the romantic interests both creates the most fucked up, convoluted lie to mess with your feelings, AND is so goddamn helpless that you GET FIRED FROM YOUR JOB FOR HELPING HIM, and not have either of those things be a wake up call or deal breaker?!
Tagging @ranchthoughts, @respectthepetty, @solitaryandwandering
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tayyemon · 1 year
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4 Tabletop Games on Kickstarter you NEED to check out!
Tabletop games are a guilty pleasure of mine, and it is a darn shame I do not play too many of them as often as I can, but I was scrolling through Kickstarter after one of my friends sent a link, so down the rabbit hole I went! Anyways, here are four of the ones that piqued my interest!
1. Familiars and Foes by Horrible Adorables
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kickstarter
In this magical strategy board game, you play as one of five elemental familiars to your witch/wizard as they have been…KIDNAPPED! Throughout the game you build up your chosen familiar to become a formidable foe against the foes themselves.  
Players: 1-5, with each campaign being anywhere from 20-90 minutes.
Is this Project Funded? Not fully, but very close! This project is an all or nothing one as well, meaning it might get scrapped completely if not fully funded.
Pledge Amount Needed for the game itself: $49.00 USD.
Date the Project Closes Funding: November 3rd, 2022.
Estimated Release: August 2023.
Fun Fact, Horrible Adorables are also Artisan Toy Makers!
2. Heists in Hyperspace by Time Loop Games
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kickstarter
Take control as captain of your very own Treasure Hunting Crew! Take an out of this world, intergalactic journey as you and other rival Treasure Hunters go head-to-head to see who can collect the most Renown. Though do be sure to plan both your moves and resources accordingly!
Players: 2-4 in a campaign that is planned for 60 minutes.
Is this Project Funded? Not quite but it’s a little over halfway there. Just like the previous entry, it is also an All or Nothing.
Pledge Amount Needed for the game itself: $32.00 USD as an early bird bonus!
Date the Project Closes Funding: November 3rd, 2022.
Estimated Release: April 2023.
Fun Fact, this project is AAPI made, as Time Loop Games are based in Singapore.  
3. Starsworn: Compendium Adventure by Michael Low
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kickstarter
In this choose your own adventure, you take the reins on your own story and only you can determine what happens next. This child friendly game also serves as a learning experience on characterization, writing, and reading as well as the art of storytelling. A great introduction to roleplaying for the kids as well.
Players: Are not listed but are you really planning on playing this game by yourself? Come on now…
Is this Project Funded? YES!
Pledge Amount Needed for the game itself: $15.00 USD if you want the downloadable PDF (this will be the only version you’ll be able to access to if you reside outside of the US). $25.00 USD for a physical copy.
Date the Project Closes Funding: November 19th, 2022.
Estimated Release: November 2022 (PDF) December 2022 (Physical).
Fun Fact, this game is co-created by Daniel Hinds, the writer of Stories Podcast. You will also need three (3) six (6) sided dice.
4. Koriko: A Magical Year by Jack Harrison (Mousehole Press)
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kickstarter
In this single player board game, you, a teenage witch, decide how your year away from home goes. Study your magic? Become friendly with the other towns people (confidants)? Hunt for treasure? You decide in this game!
Players: 1
Is this Project Funded? YES overwhelmingly so as well (a very very good thing cause I AM HOOKED IN!!!!).
Pledge Amount Needed for the Game itself: $14.00 USD for a PDF version, and $32.00 USD for a physical copy.
Date the Project Closes Funding: November 7th, 2022.
Estimated Release: September 2023.
Fun Fact, this game was inspired by Kiki’s Delivery Service.  
Well that concludes this list for now! I look very much forward to all of these games! Do you have a project I missed or one you want to shout out in the notes? You are welcome to add it down below!
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thechindividual · 1 year
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Finished my 5e campaign of 79 sessions today!
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After 3 years of playing about twice a month, we wrapped up our 5e campaign today. 
“Ulmark Chronicles” started the PCs on 1st level, following a hook from “Storm King’s Thunder”. I intended to run the full adventure, but due to a combination of less-than-great module design, my player’s amazing plans, and my relentless urge to just build and write my own stuff, we left that plan behind pretty fast. 
What followed was a series of adventures investigating the dangerous plans of fire giants, the return of ghastly undead from beyond an ashen threshold, meeting a forgotten nation shielded by a magical storm, and making deals with devils. 
The campaign and players/characters After 79 sessions, the PCs ended the campaign at 15th level, having succeeded at stopping Iymrith the greatwyrm (gotta keep some stuff from the SKT roots!) from releasing an ancient and destructive evil. This success was made possible through the earlier mentioned infernal bargain. One PC had one final day to spend with the party, before she was called to the Nine Hells. The rest of the party can still be called to service by a mistress of Baator.  All in all, the ending was bittersweet, but from a narrative point of view very satisfying. 
We started the campaign with (excluding me as the DM) 5 players, went up to 6 for a bit, then back to 5, and wrapped up with 4 players and characters. The party composition for the finale was:
a changeling wizard, who had grown fond of the world outside of the Feywild
a human barbarian/fighter, host to an abyssal spirit with links to Yeenoghu
a human druid, tasked to investigate the strange behavior of the giants in her quest to become an archdruid
a tiefling cleric, with blood ties to an archdevil of the Nine Hells
What worked well I liked how I could mine every PC’s background for stuff to use in the campaign. By the end of the campaign, I got to use at least something from everyone’s past and weave it into the main plot. Granted, some PC backgrounds played a larger part than others, but I guess that’s how it is sometimes.
I’m also glad with the cast of NPCs I got to introduce, and how the PCs interacted with them. By the end of the campaign, the PCs had made many friends and foes, and it was fun to see their reactions every time a familiar face returned. 
Last but not least, I’m pleased with how the BBEG of the campaign was presented throughout the story. Iymrith in this campaign became way more than she was in SKT-as-written, and I’m glad the party got to interact with her in various settings. She kicked their ass a few times, but in the end the party was victorious and ended her sinister plans.
What I would do different next time For a next long-term campaign, I would definitely want to structure it in a way that allows for more downtime in between “chapters”. This campaign lasted in-game for 8 months, which is a very short time for PCs to go from overcompetent villagers to dragon-slaying demigods. That is on me for presenting challenges that seem so urgent the players and their PCs don’t feel like they can take a lot of time off. Every day they rest could be a day the BBEG brings the apocalypse closer. Add to that 5e doesn’t really have any good downtime activity systems in my opinion, but that’s a rant on it’s own.  So, my next long-term project would definitely scale things down a bit, and allow for more room to “breathe” in between adventures. 
Also, the first part of this campaign had the PCs level pretty fast. I use milestone leveling, and I feel like I started out way too generous. This didn’t give players enough time to get used to their cool new toys, and added to the “zero to hero in less than a year” problem caused by the fast pace of the story. I’m still a big fan of milestones, but I will definitely tone the leveling speed down in future campaigns.
So, what is next? For now, it’s time to enjoy the fact we succesfully finished a campaign and bask in the proverbial afterglow. Sooner or later, I will definitely want to run something again, but I’m not sure what. I am pretty sure it will be a non-5e game though. That’s mostly because I’ve been playing and running 5e for the past 6 years (wrapped up 3 full campaigns in that time, still running a livestreamed Eberron game and playing in one other campaign), and it’s time to leave the pizza of the TTRPG buffet for what it is and taste something else this restaurant has to offer.  
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! If you have any questions about this campaign, about running (and finishing) a 5e/TTRPG campaign in general, or something else, just let me know!
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skullinacowboyhat · 2 years
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new warlock, who dis? 
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kpop-cakepops · 3 years
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Hello, Meant To Be Anon here! I see your requests are open. A pretty big situation going on with my job that's going to leave a lot of people upset and I just am going to need all of the positive vibes I can get. Could I request something fluffy with Wonwoo? Maybe a Snuggle Donation where he cheers up the reader after a bad day? No rush or anything, whenever you have time to get around to it. Thanks!
Hi Anon. I'm really sorry to hear about your job. Know that everything will be okay! You've got this! Here is your request, hope Wonwoo can cheer you up 😉❤ Enjoy and have a good week!!! (I didn't properly proofread this, so please excuse any mistakes!!)
Genre: Fluff
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1,808
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Snuggle Donation: Move In// JeonWonwooxFem!Reader
"Just go home, I'll have Mingyu run the launch."
Y/N watched as her boss walked out of her office with a disappointed frown on his face. After making 5 consecutive mistakes, she was finally being sent home.
It had all started that morning when her landlord came to her door to inform her that he'd be selling the building that Y/N and many other tenants called home. It had sent her mind in a downward spiral all day. She had only 2 weeks to look for a new home and on top of that she had a big campaign launch to run at work that she did not have the mind for... hence why she was being sent home.
"Are you okay?" asked her colleague and friend Mingyu as he entered her office to pick up the plan for the new launch.
"I'm great. Just dandy" she grumbled as she grabbed her purse and keys from her desk. "Are you done? I need to get home" Y/N hadn't meant to sound rude, but if she wasn't out of the office in the next 2 minutes, she was sure she'd break down.
Mingyu gave her a soft understanding smile and ruffled her hair before stepping out of her office and walking over to their break room. The tall man slipped his phone out and dialed the only number he knew would be of help for Y/N.
"What?"
"Yes, hello to you too. Did you and Y/N fight?" he asked.
Wonwoo, who had been playing games instantly stopped what he was doing and grabbed his phone taking it off speaker and putting it to his ear. "No, why? Did she say she was mad at me?"
"No. She's just been off today. Seungcheol kicked her off the campaign launch today. She looked about ready to cry." Mingyu shared as he stirred himself a cup of coffee.
"Something must've happened... don't worry about it. I'll give her a call." With that Wonwoo hung up the phone and dialed his best friend's number, however, after one ring he was instantly directed to voicemail. He had known she wouldn't answer his call, Y/N usually liked her space, but his calls always served as a little reminder that he'd be waiting for her and she could go to him as soon as she was ready to talk.
Back at her small apartment, Y/N wasn't ready yet. Her belongings were glaring at her from the places they'd held for years as she sat on her bed. A million and one thoughts were running through her mind. She had nowhere to go, she had finally saved enough to put in a deposit for the business she was planning to start, and now she had 2 weeks to figure what was going to happen with her life. The problem was starting to weigh down on her little by little.
It was after half an hour that the weight of her issues was too much to bear alone. Her hand reached out for her phone and she dialed her best friend's number.
"Hey you"
"Can you come over?" Y/N asked with an arm draped over her eyes, it seemed like that was the only thing holding her tears in.
"I'm outside... I'll be up in a second, yeah?"
"Yeah" she answered forcing herself to stand from her bed and change into comfortable clothes. Comfortable clothes being the ratty old sweatshirt Wonwoo had left behind 2 years prior and a pair of sweatpants she'd used to paint her bathroom when she'd just moved in. By the time she was done changing, she could hear Wonwoo punching the code into her front door. The sound of plastic bags reaching her in her room.
"Y/N?" he called out.
The young woman stepped out of her room with a sigh, her feet stopping right outside the bedroom door. Wonwoo was watching her closely and carefully from his spot and in a matter of seconds opened his arms up for her. Y/n's feet rushed her up to her tall friend and she buried her face into his chest. The weight that had been weighing down on her seemed to lift and the tears she'd been holding back were now being soaked up by her friend's black t-shirt.
"Do I have to kick someone's ass? I don't know where Seungcheol lives, but I can find out." he joked trying to lighten up the mood.
Y/n sniffled lightly. "I'm so tired" she mumbled, her voice muffled by his chest. "How long is this going to go on?"
Wonwoo's arms wrapped around her tightly. "Tired? Last I heard you got to leave work early today" he said jokingly, his words testing the waters to see if she'd tell him what was bothering her so much.
The girl pulled away from Wonwoo enough to see his face and gave him an unamused look. "Can you not? I'm literally about to be homeless"
Wonwoo was rendered silent. He didn't know you'd been going through money problems. "What? Why didn't you tell me? I would have lent you money"
With yet another sigh, Y/N walked over to the bags he'd brought over knowing they'd be full of her favorite snacks. Wonwoo never failed her. "It's not that. My landlord is selling the building and gave us a 2-week ultimatum to move out." She told him. "Not only that but I don't have enough money to put down a deposit for a new apartment on such short notice... I think I'm going to have to pull the deposit on the photography studio... I just-"
Wonwoo felt a slight sense of panic as soon as he saw Y/N starting to get emotional again. If there was one thing to know about Y/N it was that she was smart, creative, and hard-working... but she was also a perfectionist, a very emotional one at that.
"I'll lend you the money, you don't have to worry" he assured her, but he already knew what her answer would be.
"Are you crazy? You know how hard it is to find a decent apartment in the city. Deposits are so expensive one would think you're buying the apartment"
She wasn't wrong, things were ridiculously expensive in the city, but knowing how important her new business was, he didn't want Y/N to have to give it up yet again. "Then move in with me" he blurted.
Y/N dropped the bag of chips in her hands as soon she heard his suggestion. "What?"
Wonwoo was embarrassed. In any other case, two best friends wouldn't be embarrassed to live together, but they weren't any other case. Wonwoo liked his best friend, he like liked her. "M-move in with me. I mean, you need a place to live, places in the city are expensive, Dokyeom is also moving out"
well now he is
"Plus, the last thing I want is for you to have to postpone the opening of your photography studio. You've worked too hard, and as your best friend, I will not allow it."
Y/N felt a large wave of emotions crashing into her. With a slow shake of her head, she picked up the bag of chips she'd dropped. "I don't know Woo... would that really be okay?"
"Of course it'd be okay! You're my best friend. Best friends can live together... I'm not that bad of a roommate" he grinned.
Y/N chuckled and grabbed more snacks before making her way over to her small living room and plopping down on her couch. "You realize how big of a change that will be, right? You'd be living with a girl."
Wonwoo nodded hurriedly, "I'm not a kid, of course I get it"
"Well then... I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea, at least until I find somewhere else to live."
Wonwoo followed her and dropped on the empty spot beside her. His weight shifting over onto her. "Or you could just be my roommate until the end of my lease" he offered.
"God, you're heavy" she groaned as she pushed him off her only to have him lay his head on her lap. "That would be a horrible idea"
Wonwoo smiled up at his friend, his brows wiggling playfully, "what are you saying?! of course it wouldn't. You get to have the handsomest roommate in the world. Why would that be a bad idea?"
With a roll of her eyes, Y/N stuffed Wonwoo's mouth with chips and shook her head, "wow, suddenly I want to stay homeless" she joked, a small smile coming to her face.
"Hey, you smiled though. That's good right?" He thoughtlessly munched on his chips and grabbed Y/N's hand, placing it on his head.
"Only because I have the most handsome best friend and soon-to-be temporary roommate" she replied, her free hand combing through his hair.
Wonwoo smiled, the fact that she was willing to allow him to help her with such a big issue made him feel like maybe a part of her also needed him as much as he did her. "So I'm assuming that's a yes to coming home with me?"
"If you're willing to make a little space for me, then I'll gladly move in with you."
"Okay. We can pack up a bag and you can come with me tonight. I'll ask for the day off tomorrow and I'll come to help you pack up and start the move!" Wonwoo said excitedly causing the girl's tummy to do a little flip at how excited he sounded.
"Calm down, we have two weeks to get everything done. Plus, we still have to run it by your landlord." Y/N told him.
"My landlord will be fine with it. He already thinks you live with me since you always come over." He assured, his eyes glimmered as he stood up.
Y/N laughed and grabbed his hand tugging him back to sit beside her. "Hey, you came to make me feel better you gotta feed me and finish the movie with me"
"Oh! Right! After the movie we can pack though, right?" he asked.
"Of course! We can also call the most handsome best friend and soon-to-be temporary roommate to come and help us pack" the girl said popping a chip into her mouth. Wonwoo looked over at her in confusion. "What? Did you think I was gonna let you kick out Dokyeom? Nice try idiot."
Wonwoo groaned and let his body drop over her lap again, "You won't let a single thing slip by, will you?"
With yet another eye-roll she stuffed his mouth with the chips in her hands. "Hush, we're gonna finish the scary movie we didn't finish last time."
"Goddamn it, Y/N. Not again."
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drakewalkerfantasy · 3 years
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The Secret of Downfall (Tatum x F!MC)
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Summary: The Secret is the only way for them to be together. But how long will they be able to keep it until Madam President will find out the truth? And how easily it will be for them not forget about the rules in public? Couple of drinks in and the darkness… will it be possible for them to keep a secret? Or will they fall ones again in the arms of each other?
Words: 2216
Rating: T
Warning: fighting / cruelty / violence
Authors notes: I really hope you will enjoy this. Please let me know if still want to be tagged and what I can improve. I hope you will like this chapter, it’s quite short and probably mostly not what I expected it to be at first. I hope you still enjoy reading this series.
Sequel for The art of Foreign Affairs
Previous parts of The Secret of Foreign Affairs.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
The next morning, after getting caught in a compromising situation, Claire entered the common room of the suite only to find her mother and her whole team camped out around the kitchen island.
Nervously Claire looked around the room, throwing a quick glance toward Tatum. Her eyes trying to catch his gaze, but he almost seemed to be going out of his way to not meet hers. His fists clenched by his side and he looked as professional as ever, if not for the way his eyes darkened slightly, that it could be easily missed, but not by her.
“Uh, good morning,” she cautiously said looking around the room, feeling the tension only grew when all eyes fell on her. “Mom? I thought you left.”
“Really? I was forced to come back to clear your mess. Apparently, my daughter failed to notify me that she got caught by paparazzi with her pants down,” she snapped, showing a copy of Voyeur magazine into Claire’s hands with a picture of herself and Tatum on the cover. She could feel how her heart skipped a beat, while she took in the picture. Breathing out in relief only after realising that it wasn’t possible to tell who was on the cover with her.
“Ohmygod...,” gasped Claire, feeling how her face went pale. Thankful that no one could possibly know who she was with, blurting that out loud. “At least you can’t tell who it is with me...”
“THIS... THIS what you can tell in your defense???” fumed her mother, her eyes narrowing with spite when she glared toward Tatum. Her gaze calculating, trying to break through his facade, to read him, but still in vain. And her lips pursed by barely suppressed fury.
“It does provide us some cover...,” intervened one of her mother’s political analysts. “But it’s also causing a feeding frenzy online. Everyone is speculating on who your mystery lover is. I would suggest to give a statement identifying the mystery lover. Once we can show this isn’t Claire being... promiscuous with some random stranger...”
“So... Claire? Who is it?” asked her mother, tapping her stiletto heel against the wooden floor impatiently. “You heard her,” she said nodding her head toward the political analyst from her team. “If you want your name to be cleared and all that mistake left behind, you cannot keep that to yourself. The only way we can fight this thing is if you tell us who it is."
Claire’s eyes snapped up to meet Tatum’s gaze across the room. His expression is as impassive as ever, but the spark of fury in his eyes flaming.
“I will NOT name them,” exclaimed Claire fiercely, crossing her hands over her chest, stubbornly meeting her mother’s glare. “I will not drag them into this. The world doesn’t need to know every single detail about me or my love life.”
“Don’t you think that this is a little bit too late to thing about that? And clearly this person is a bad influence on you. You never acted like that before,” snapped her mother.
“Or maybe I just realised that I own it to myself to live a little,” bit Claire back.
“Claire...,” hissed her mother, lowering her voice so only she would hear her. “I will go through your phone if I have to. Is it clear?”
“Seriously? You have so little respect for my privacy?”
“It’s not that, but your future is in jeopardy now. And I’m worried about you.”
“Let’s at least be honest with each other. All that you care about is you and your campaign.”
Claire’s mother opened her mouth to retort, but Winston cut her off.
“Let’s all calm down and see what we can do to spin the story with information we already have,” said Winston, looking around the room before placing his hand on Claire's mother’s elbow and pulling her to the side. His voice lowered to the whisper so only she would hear. His eyes surveying the room so they wouldn’t be overheard by anyone. “Madam President, we don’t have enough evidence that this mystery lover is your daughter’s bodyguard. Last time we had letters, this time we have only words of some guy from Vancross and the fact Claire was lying. We will make sure that our plan is set in motion as soon as possible, but meantime you need to wait while your team will gather more evidence of who this mystery lover is and twist it so he is the one who sold pictures.” Both eyes fell to Tatum, watching him to put a hand to his earpiece before stepping forward.
“Madam President, the limo is ready for you,” said Tatum. His posture stiff, his voice even and his eyes looking into nowhere.
“Good. Tatum, escort me to the airport. I want to talk to you about a few things. Demarco can oversee Claire’s security this afternoon.”
“Yes, ma’am”
Claire’s stomach twisted, when her eyes passingly met Tatum’s, while he followed her mother out the door. Leaving Claire and Winston alone.
———————————————
Hastily, they walked to the limo, Tatum following only a few paces behind Claire’s mother with her security team walking in front of them. His mind racing, and he couldn't help but have a really bad feeling of where this was all going. The same way as all these years ago.
Just before the limo he looked back to the building, catching a quick glance of Claire, behind the blinds. Even from there he could see the worried expression painted on her face before finally tearing his gaze away, and sliding into the car.
“I know you and Claire were at the club together last night, care to explain?” started Claire’s mother, as soon as they sat in limo.
“I’m the head of her security team, ma’am. And it is my responsibility to follow her everywhere and to make sure she is safe,” said Tatum.
“Yes, but Winston checked and at this time you should have been off duty and Demarco should have been with her, and even more so not to let her wander at night to some underground club.”
“She would sneak out anyway. I overheard her speaking with some of her classmates. Ma’am with all due respect,” he spoke through gritted teeth not even looking at her. “But you know there was no way of stopping her, she would sneak out anyway with me or without and she would never take agent Demarco with her.”
“Fine, but people noticed how cosy you seemed to be... getting tequila shots, and then disappearing... together. Am I wrong?”
“No... but she insisted. She cannot understand why I’m like... like that.”
“Like what?”
“We were friends for more than a decade for almost two decades, and then I just disappeared from her life for 5 years only to suddenly reappear now.”
“Lie to her.”
“I tried, but if you think that your daughter is so naive to believe some white lies you don’t know her at all. She can see straight through me. Always could,” said Tatum with cold blooded calm, finally meeting Claire’s mother’s gaze.
“Then make her believe. I have ears and eyes everywhere, so better do as I ask and don’t you dare lie to me. As, if I will find out you or she are lying, and it seems she became surprisingly good at it, the consequences will be for both. You and her. Is it clear?” said Claire’s mother waiting for Tatum to nod, when the limo stopped. “Good. But I still believe you may need a reminder of what will happen if you will disobey me,” spoke she when the doors suddenly slid open revealing the iron walled warehouse of Vancross’ airport. And she nodded in a silence order for Tatum to get out of the limo.
He looked around after stepping outside of the vehicle, noting the fighting ring in the middle of the floor and five bodyguards waiting already next to it. Claire’s mother walked silently behind him.
Her stiletto heels tapped on the metallic floor, and her next words bounced as a muffled echo from the iron walls of the warehouse, when Tatum stopped. His eyes calmly following Madam President’s movements till she finally sat in a comfortable chair covered by the darkness.
“Fight,” the cold order came from the shadows, while Tatum’s calculated gaze moved from one President’s personal bodyguard to another.
All strong. All coming from the Rutherland’s best fighters club. All ex-soldiers... and all hated him.
He knew that he had no chance for a fair fight. He also knew that willingly or not he still will need to fight them. And he doubted that he had even a slightest chance to remain unscratched, but he still needed to try... for Claire... Always for her.
“Ma’am, wouldn’t it be easier just to kill me?” asked Tatum in a calm voice, throwing only a sideway glance at Claire’s mother, regretting only one thing, that he couldn’t say proper goodbye to Claire, couldn’t kiss her like it would be their last time. Not sure if he ever will have another chance to kiss her again.
“You may get your wish... later. After I will get more proof that you are her mystery lover. For now it’s just a warning to keep your distance from my daughter. No more disappearing together... no more smiles... no more eye contact. You may think you are subtle, but she isn’t. So you will fight them, and you,” she looked at her bodyguards with a cold unmoving gaze. “Make sure that every blow you will send his way will be excruciatingly painful but not visible. He is still a head of my daughter’s security team, and I don’t need unnecessary questions. Not from her, not anyone. I want him to remember this last lesson, and my last warning... but still be alive, at least for now. Now fight,” she barked, nodding to two others bodyguards to get Tatum and throw him onto the ring, taking him by surprise.
He landed on his hands and knees with a thud, groaning from the impact, when the first blow went straight to his guts, but his reaction was faster. He blocked it with a side of his shoulder. The force of the block sending the attacker to the floor before getting back to his feet and looking around.
His eyes darkened with rage, but it was the only thing that gave him away. With his peripheral vision he could see another blow coming his way, blocking it faster than it could reach its destination, but almost missing the swing from behind. The one that he managed to dodge at the last second, only to be met with a sharp blinding pain from someone hitting him straight in the stomach with the heavy military boot.
The pain made him sway, but he stubbornly held his balance gritting his teeth. No way he will let them beat him so easily... the thought is fleeting, but strong enough to almost physically heighten his senses, making him dodge the next strike easily. Overcoming the pain and finally sending his own hand to connect with one of the bodyguards’ jaws. Feeling how the skin on his knuckles split from the impact.
His breath elevated and ragged. And he could see how the rage started to rise in the attackers, when the blows began to pour one after the other from all directions, making them much difficult to dodge or block, and more often to miss. But he was still trying, desperately.
Tired. Angry. Bleeding. He was still bravely fighting. Gritting his teeth, ducking the punch after the punch, before landing a couple of his own. Watching how the five fighters getting tired... exhausted, but still unable to send him to the ground and make him stay there as every time he fell he was stubbornly rising back to his feet. As he was fighting for her... she was the only thing that kept him going... Claire... his Claire. The same thing, that he was so cruelly beaten for loving.
And after a while it started to seem that even five of them would be not able to break him. His eyes meeting Madam President’s gaze, distracting him only for a split second to miss the attacker behind him. He could feel a pair of hands gripping him from behind. Felt how the others started to punch and kick him from all sides taking the opportunity as a sign, while two held him still. And he could feel how with the next blow in his groin followed by another one in his stomach the wind was knocked out of him, and he fell to the cement floor with a gust of pain. His ribs aching, and he could barely breath feeling the sharp pain shooting through him with each gulp for air. His eyes closing, but he still could feel the pain, wishing for the darkness to follow, when he heard the quiet voice whispering right into his ear:
“Now clean that mess, and make sure tomorrow you will be good enough to accompany Claire to her date... with Blaine.” The cruel last words like a sharp blade sliced through him before the merciful darkness finally swallowed him.
Tagging: @choices-bound​​​ @jamespotterthefirst​​​ @mercury84choices​​​ @k2624​​​ @thefrenchiemama​​​ @choicesreal​​​ @starrystarrytrouble​​​ @boneandfur​​​ @walkerswhiskeygirl​​​ @sophxwithers​​​ @ramseysrookiex​​
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flyingupward · 3 years
Text
critical role - vox machina chapter 5 - venturing for vestiges
all sentences taken from episodes 57-69 of the first campaign of critical role. feel free to change pronouns, phrasing etc. to fit your needs!
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure I take great offense.”
“I was just eating an apple! Why am I dying?”
“Excuse us while we reminisce, apparently.”
“This is really your fault as much as it’s mine.”
“You might be blown up if you go in there.”
“There’s a fine line between psycho and practical.”
“Sorry, I thought I was going to watch a fight. I was really prepared for that.”
“Yeah, we’ll see you next time, shitface.”
“Thank you for keeping my home safe.”
“I think I’ve always been in love with the idea of you.”
“Can we get shitfaced one last time?”
“If you need us, blink of an eye and we’ll come back.”
“I’ll try and keep the kids safe and I’ll try and not be the thing that kills them either.”
“I plan on coming back. I’m not dumb.”
“I’m going to curl up in a little ball for a minute and rock.”
“Of course we remember that thing that happened when we were drunk two and a half years ago.”
“I’ll have my revenge, but I love you.”
“Things get prettier as they get older here? That’s not fair!”
“Oh jeez, here comes the internet.”
“We are really shit at making friends.”
“Stop talking to the air. It upsets them.”
“If I could pull the blood of you from my veins and give it back I would. I want no part of you.”
“As foolish and as damned deadly as some of these endeavors may be, you inspire. That’s more than I’ve done in my lifetime.”
“We don’t need heroes right now. We need survivors.”
“Does everything look like hitting on people to you?”
“It’s the gift of smugness. It never goes away.”
“You’re the lady of the house I burned down.”
“That’s a very dark and disturbing thought. I’m very impressed.”
“I wish I could say this isn’t true, but it’s actually true.”
“You’re taking us to the lost and found? Please!”
“Good job. You successfully parlayed with a field.”
“Is there anyone here of reasonable intelligence who wants to stop this from happening? Just checking.”
“Everything here has attacked us.”
“I don’t walk in the middle of dangerous forests for fun!”
“I know it’s appealing to you, but don’t get cursed again.”
“I feel like we were very reasonable considering how unreasonable we usually are.”
“Next time, everything dies.”
“Everyone was bad, including us, and we lived. That's it."
“I just want to say, that was a death threat in front of a thousand people.”
“If there was a time to not be us, this is the moment.”
“I am a backpack right now.”
“I’m trying to activate these and they require pain!”
“Life needs things to live.”
“We don’t get a lot of time to talk alone because everything is so fucked up.”
“I’m certainly in support of anything that gives our father heartburn.”
“A tree is just a door that hasn’t been made yet.”
“Well, we’re just stuck in a tree now.”
“My heart is someone else’s.”
“I have no respect for anyone who says, ‘We’re not so different.’ It’s the worst line ever.”
“Come on, dangerous nerd, do it!”
“Girl power healed me. I feel it.”
“Don’t let any man, or anyone for that matter, make you feel like you need them to be great. Because you don’t.”
“You know, for someone who hates the theater, you've made quite a show of all of this."
“Dear God, let’s get out of here before something else happens.”
“Can someone who can’t successfully lie to me please explain to me what’s going on?”
“Yell loudly if you need me.”
“We’re not fighting battles anymore. We’re fighting wars.”
“Your mind is a grandfather clock, you know that?”
“I’ve had my fill of gods, but I’m not so foolish as to think that we do not need them still.”
“I do not want to die who I am. I would like to live long enough to be someone else."
“I am finished with gods. They will not help me. Maybe you will.”
“I’ve been traveling with you fuckers for years and I still don’t understand magic.”
“This is what a plan is: Everything going wrong.”
“We’re going to have the greatest I told you so if we survive this.”
“There is a God and he hates you.”
“Take your time wisely for the hourglass burns quickly.”
“You flirted with grass better.”
“I feel like I should have learned some sort of lesson here. I’m just not entirely sure what it was.”
“I’m a vampire. Just deal with it.”
“If we are not to seize the opportunity for kinship, we miss the opportunity for survival.”
“He loved you well, princess.”
“Death is unavoidable and it’s all the more reason for life to be lived.”
“It’s not on you. I mean it might be a little on you, but it’s kind of on both of us.”
“I haven’t stolen anything in years!”
“He’s right. We’re not ready. We’re stupid assholes.”
“I love a good panic attack.”
“Sometimes math is not enough.”
“Somehow no new information yet still TMI.”
“You’re not that ugly. She just meant that to hurt your feelings, but you are a piece of shit.”
“You’re arguably one of the greatest minds in existence right now.”
“I think I stumbled into the correct answer. I’m not sure I chose correctly.”
“You know, I thought it was a possibility, but this is the first time I’m sure: Your girlfriend is way cooler than you.”
“You two really follow her? Are you idiots?”
“Rainbows are a motherfucker.”
“Well, that’s one way to die.”
“Everything you do, we will turn into preschool.”
“Take it from us, we’ve been unconscious a lot. You’re fine.”
“This is such a bad experience on every conceivable level.”
“If we get taken out by Single White Female, I’m going to be so pissed.”
“I’m sorry my issues have guns!”
“Has anyone else been to a horse tranquilizer party?”
“Are we really all going to die today?”
“Your inner insecurities can not be the cause of the entire group’s death!”
“We are being killed by a metaphor.”
“You can curse, it’s okay. You killed one of us.”
“The best thing you can do for your friend now is sleep, so do that. Save your tears for later.”
“I should have told you. It’s yours.”
“In many ways, you are my total opposite, but you’re also my best friend.”
“No Hamlet death for you.”
“Everybody could have just slapped my face while I was dead. That would have been much more convenient.”
“You just lied to me. I’m so proud of you.”
“And what did we learn? Don’t get killed again.”
“You’re outvoted. Go to bed.”
“Nobody wants to talk to you right now. We want you to go to sleep.”
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dmsden · 4 years
Text
Five Flaws - How to be a better DM in 5 steps
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Hullo, Gentle Readers. So, it probably doesn't surprise you to know that I'm usually the DM for the games I'm involved with, and that's fine, because I really enjoy it. But when someone I know tells me they're planning on running a game, I get excited and start thinking of characters. And when it's a friend who's never DMed before, I get even more excited, because I love seeing someone's GM-style come to life.
So when my good friend Jay told me he's thinking about becoming a first time DM, I got excited. I can't wait to play in his game. Since I had a Freestyle article available to me, I thought I'd ask Jay what kind of advice he'd like. He asked me if I could come up with a few pitfalls to avoid for someone who's never GMed before, and I thought I'd try to distill things down to a list of five things to avoid. 
Here, then, are Five Flaws to avoid, and the ways you can instead make strengths from being aware of them.
1. Letting One Player Dominate: At your table, some players are naturally going to be more engaged and engaging than others. Some players are more prone to speak up, role-play, take action, etc, while other players are more passive and willing to sit back and go with the flow. Sometimes, however, your game has one player who really wants to grab the spotlight and go with it. That's when this becomes a problem area.
While you don't want to stifle the active players, sometimes the more passive ones need a little coaxing. I will sometimes say to a player, "Let's hold that thought one moment, Hamlet. Polonius, are you still hiding behind the curtain? Is there anything else you want to do?" Some players are just going to tell you what they're doing, while you might have to ask what others are doing. I find it can be very helpful to say, "Well, you're looking in the barrels, and that's going to take some time. While he's doing that, what are the rest of you doing?" Doing this will give your players who don't want to talk over the spotlight grabber a chance to speak up and be heard. You want to try and make sure everyone has a chance to speak, as well as a chance to be heard. Which leads us to the next potential pitfall.
2. Not Listening: There is nothing worse than players with a DM that you don't think is listening to what you're saying. I've had DMs completely misunderstanding what I was describing for my character to do, which has led to some disasters. If they had just listened or even asked a few qualifying questions, things could've been much better for everyone. Instead, there were hurt feelings and, in one memorable case, the premature end of a campaign.
Active listening is a key skill in relationships in general, and being a DM for a group of players is a kind of relationship. Even when they're not talking to you directly, it's good to listen to your players. They will often reveal lots of things during conversations with each other about their hopes and goals for the game. If they're roleplaying with one another, you can get insights into their characters, get a sense of their plans so you can start thinking of how things will play out in your adventure, and so on.
3. Railroad Plots: While it's good to have a sense of where the story will go, you have to leave leeway for player agency. If you don't, then you're dealing with a railroad plot. It can be really difficult to let go of control and let the players drive the story, but, if you don't, then you're really just writing a novel and not playing D&D (or whatever your game of choice is).
Even if you're just giving the illusion of choice, it will still feel better to your players than if you don't. I've described how I intended to put my first major villain in whichever adventure my players chose first. Even though I knew they'd meet the villain wherever they went, it still would've flavored the adventure itself, and it let the players choose what interested them most. 
4. Cookie Cutter NPCs: Not everyone is Matt Mercer, and you don't need to try to be. You don't have to give every NPC a distinctive voice, accent, facial expression, etc to make them memorable. If you give every important NPC some small thing that makes them memorable, your players will remember them. Simple, no? 
For each NPC, come up with just a little something...it could be an accent, or a voice, or a facial expression...but it could be a catchphrase, a simple element of description like having a big underbite, a distinctive piece of clothing, or something else that you mention to the players. 
My favorite example is the gnome who always speaks as if he's quoting his friend, and the friend who only ever grunts in reply. "It's like Winther always says, you can't get eggs from a goat. Don't you always say that, Winther?" "*grunt*"
5. Internal Consistency: Nothing crashes a game harder than not being consistent. Messing up little things won't cause a lot of problems, but major things are going to make the players wonder how invested you really are in this game. If you say it's winter when the PCs enter a dungeon, and then you're describing the hot summer wind, your players are going to ask what's up. Now, it's a fantasy world, so maybe there's a legit reason for the season, but you'd better be ready to explain it!
I find the best way to maintain this is to take lots of notes and refer to them when necessary. It's why I use a wiki for my campaign; I can generally quickly look up NPC names and the like when someone comes up that the PCs haven't referred to in three years. During my sessions, if I improvise any NPCs or locations, I jot some notes about them so I'll remember them and make new wiki entries. At the end of every session, I make some notes about what happened. That way I don't have to try and remember when I start to prep for the next session.
Well, Jay, I hope all of these pitfalls and ways to avoid them are helpful advice. I can't wait to play!
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bobbystompy · 3 years
Text
91 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2020
Below are my favorite quotes from 2020. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.
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1) “You don’t have to be new to make new.” - Rick Rubin
2) “He put the beat on and go to sleep then wake up with a verse.” - The Lox
3) “Every opinion is bad.” - Blink-155
4)
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(via Twitter)
5) “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored.”
6) “Be brave enough to suck at something new.”
7) “Comedy is the only job you can have where you can use everything you know” - Robin Williams via Dave Chappelle
8) “What’s the worst swear word where you live?” - Josiah Hughes
9) “Cookies are a really great way to get everybody to like you for a short period of time” - YSAC
10) “The worst dancer at a wedding is the one who’s not dancing.” - John Mulaney
11) “I never saw the end of the tunnel. I only saw myself running out of one." - Kobe Bryant
12) "A good movie begins as you're walking out of the theater" - Ethan Hawke
13) “When I was young and starting in cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is, 'The most personal is the most creative.’ That quote was from our great Martin Scorsese.” - Bong Joon-ho
14) “Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow” - River Phoenix via Joaquin Phoenix
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15) “Thank you -- I will drink until next morning.” - Bong Joon-ho
16) “Men will bury their emotions for decades and then take it all out on children tubing while they drive the boat.” - @krauter_
17) “They help you with the dumb face stuff, but they don’t tell you how to fix it” - Adam (Nate’s friend), on having older sisters
18) “We all had our connections, but it’s not the details themselves that matter, it’s the feeling behind them. There are a million coming-of-age tales. Lady Bird’s secret sauce is how deeply its creator gave a shit. The older I get, the less I care about anything but the sense of a filmmaker’s personal connection to the material. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, what genre it is, or whether it’s genre at all. I only really care that it feels like something the filmmaker had to tell me, and that it was that filmmaker in particular who had to tell it. It has to answer the ‘why are you telling me this’ question, and not just why are you telling me, but why are you telling me.
Lady Bird is a movie that feels like only Greta Gerwig could’ve made. And it’s only because it’s so specific to her that it can be so meaningful to so many people.” - Vince Mancini
19) "I have cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns. But I do not feel lonely now.” - Bernie Sanders
20) “Ever hear a Beatles song you haven’t heard before?”
21) “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.” - Charles Bukowski
22) “You shouldn’t have to hear a band to know if they’re good or not” - Josiah Hughes
23) “I was raised by OGs.  Some of you were raised by IG.  I understand.” - Ice-T
* * *
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[Here is where I note the line of demarcation that was the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the US, pushed forward by Tom Hanks’ announcement, the NBA and NCAA shutting down, and, then, the nation itself.]
* * *
24) “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” - Vladimir Lenin
25) "Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious." - Peter Wehner
26) "Epidemics have a way of revealing underlying truths about the societies they impact." - Anne Applebaum
27) “A funny thing about quarantining is hearing your partner in full work mode for the first time. Like, I’m married to a ‘let’s circle back’ guy — who knew?” - Laura Norkin
28) 
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(Jojo Rabbit)
29) “The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. - Deadwood: The Movie
30) “All bleeding stops eventually.” - Deadwood: The Movie
31) “Our Father, which art in heaven… / Let him fucking stay there” - Deadwood: The Movie
32) “It’s like a power outage, but we still have power” - Ryen Russillo, on the pandemic
33) “Whenever Sox baseball returns, it’ll be weird to not have Farmer on the call any more. The relationship between a fan and longtime announcer is always built in the little moments. One afternoon, he’s the soundtrack as you clean the garage. On another night, he’s your bookmark for the game as you stand in line for churros or walk down the ramps at Sox Park to try for better seats in the 100 level. A voice like Farmer’s becomes so familiar that you only really notice when it’s no longer there.” - Kevin Kaduk, on the passing of Ed Farmer
34) 
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(via Twitter)
35) “In my songs, I try to look through someone else’s eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message” - John Prine
36) “Observe everything. Admire nothing.” - Generation Kill
37) “Trump, by that definition, has always been a wartime president -- always willing to sacrifice people he doesn’t know to things he only sort of cares about” - David Roth
38) "Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen." - Michael Jordan
39) "Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach." - Hunter S. Thompson
40) “Airlines sending me “we’re in this together” emails. When my suitcase was 52 pounds I was on my own.” - Mike Dentale
41) “Sometimes you can be the worst source of your own story” - Ryen Russillo
42) “Family is not necessarily blood, but instead who you would bleed for.”
43)
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(via Twitter)
44) "This is the deal that Jordan made, knowingly or unknowingly — that he would trade everything he had for everything he wanted. And then, when he won all those things, he found that he had nothing but that.” - David Roth
45) “I’m brand loyal, but the brand doesn’t matter” - Caitie Miller, on why she doesn’t like generic peanut butter
46) “NOBODY shitposts Gene Hackman!!” - Mark Dehlinger
47) “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with—that is when he picks up a boomerang.” - G.K. Chesterton
48) “You can be appalled forever, but shocked only once.” - Jeff Weiss, on early Eminem
49) “Whether I’m pessimistic or optimistic, the fight’s the same” - David Simon
50) “Freedom can never be completely won, but it can be lost.” - Bernard Simon
51) “Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.” -Kareem Abdul Jabbar
52) “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist -- we must be anti-racist.” - Angela Davis
53) “Start as close to the end as possible” - Kurt Vonnegut, on creative writing
54) “You can’t stay woke all the time — that’s insomnia.” - Dr. Cornel West
55) “No, I get it. I’ve dated a lot of Geminis.”
56) “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” - John Krakauer, Into The Wild (via Tyler Keller)
57) "I couldn't show them my For You because it's pretty much just lesbian stuff and depression memes" - Maggie Loesch, on showing TikTok to her coworkers
58) "It's 1 a.m. in Slovakia and I've already had one bottle of wine and I don't know how long this press conference will go, so good luck to me." - Marian Hossa, following his NHL Hall of Fame announcement
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59) “All I want in life is to go on an Anguilla group trip” - Mandy Gilkes
60) “You miss old friends when you don’t see them, but you miss them more when you do.” - Chuck Klosterman
61) “The only way to appreciate the present is to pretend it’s already the past.” - Chuck Klosterman
62) Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth Until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked
(”Everybody's Free [To Wear Sunscreen]”)
Second time that essay’s been quoted on this list.
64) "I mean, it's just human nature to suck up to the people above you, crap on those beneath you, and undercut your equals” - Brian, Family Guy
65) “You never quit a job. You quit a manager.” - Brian Bedford
66) “All the pictures in my house are of people I’m not friends with” - Tracy Cunningham
67) “In order to leave something behind, you have to leave.” - Dr. Herman, Grey’s Anatomy
68) 
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(via Twitter)
69) “You can obsess about death if you don’t have to obsess about dying.” - Brendan Kelly via “White Noise”
70) “If it’s right to do, it’s wrong to wait.” - Andy, doorman 
71)
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72) “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
73) "America is mostly people who’ve never left their state saying we have the best country in the world." - Billy Wayne Davis
74) “A writer is someone who knows at least 80% of their writing sucks.” - Gabe Hudson
75) 
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(via Twitter)
76) “You’re dead twice” - Brendan Kelly
77) “Perfect is the enemy of good” - Voltaire (via Zach Lowe)
78) “I don’t want to be a savior, I want to be a mirror.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
79) “I get bad Twitter FOMO but not real life FOMO. That just goes to show I need to get off the Internet.” - Josh Thomas
80) “Is there anything you love in life that you engage with seriously that you don't also engage with humor?" - Sam Sutherland, on his relationship with Blink-182
81) “My favorite genre of music is my friends' bands" - Josiah Hughes
82) “Let’s fall in love like both our parents aren’t divorced.”
83) “Seabiscuit may be the only earthling that was on both sides of the stamp.” - Brendan Kelly
84) “There’s no shame in coming in second, except in, like, wars.” - Family Guy
85) “I feel like I experience writer’s block 100% of the time, and when I do write, I have impostor syndrome.” - Phoebe Bridgers
86) “We teach based on what we most need to learn.” - psychologist on Grey’s Anatomy
87) “Having too many choices is the leading cause of stress” - Grey’s Anatomy
88) “I think we've all gravely underestimated the extent to which this year has changed all of us, permanently” - Kelli Maria Korducki
89) 
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(via Twitter)
90) “I wonder if people understand why they don’t have polio” - Sandra E. Garcia
91) “Ending songs is terrible, so let’s keep singing” - Dave Hernandez
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gayenerd · 3 years
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This is another article I found during the internet k-hole I went into while looking for information about Adrienne’s ex-fiance, saved in a document, and now can’t find online anymore. I think it was originally featured in the Mankato Free Press, but the author apparently had a blog detailing her 2009 efforts to get in contact with Adrienne and campaign for Green Day to play in Mankato again. There’s some more interesting tidbits about the Mankato punk scene and an interview with Adrienne there. 
Campaign Green Day: Reflection
By Amanda Dyslin
Free Press Features Editor
June 10, 2009 11:29 pm
— It was dark in the middle of the southern Minnesota countryside, somewhere by St. Peter in the summer of 1992.
On a farm with a barn and not much else, there was one light pole casting a shallow glow on three guys standing atop 6-foot wide, 5-foot tall wire spools — a makeshift stage to gain high ground over 200 or so people watching. Next to them was a big, old, beat-up beast of a car pulled up by the owner so 15 or so people could stand on top and gain a better view. One of them had a video camera.
Ben Gruber, then a sophomore at Loyola High School, was there. In fact, he and a buddy had helped haul equipment for the band, and even gave the drummer, Tre Cool, a ride before the show in Mankato. The music was good, he said. A lot more polished than other punk bands he’d seen in Mankato.
He was aware of the five-year-old band, born in Berkeley, Calif., he said. They’d put out a couple of smaller recordings, including their full-length debut “39/Smooth” on Lookout! Records. But they were two years from their breakthrough record, “Dookie,” which would have pretty much everyone at the show that night in awe of what they had experienced — maybe one of the last stripped down, small-scale punk shows Green Day would ever perform.
Mankato punk
The Libido Boyz are often considered the anchor of the Mankato punk scene in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It was a time when the city was rich with garage and basement punk bands, drummer Chad Sabin said before a reunion show in 2007. PSD and Plain Truth were a couple of other bands that got a lot of attention at the time.
Marti’s All Ages Music, located where the Vietnamese restaurant Tonn is now on Front Street, was an open building with a bathroom and a couple of booths where kids could put on shows. A couple of bands went on to the big time after playing there. The Offspring was one of them.
Many claimed having heard of friends who had seen Green Day play at Marti’s. According to a former talent booker, the closest Green Day ever came to playing the venue was when frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and his girlfriend, Adrienne Nesser, walked in and left right after The Offspring’s set in 1994. Marti’s tried to get Green Day to play the venue numerous times, but it was way too small for even the moderate level of fame they’d already gained pre-“Dookie.” Marti’s had the same trouble with the punk band Fugazi.
“It was pretty much no frills,” Gruber said. “There wasn’t much to do there.”
The bulk of the punk scene was made up of high school and college-age punk-rockers who would play anywhere, Sabin said. Like a lot of kids at the time, the Libido Boyz just wanted to play loud, chaotic music, which also is what people seemed to want to hear. Kids would cram into basements for concerts or listen outside garages.
“On any given week or weekend, there would be a show with anywhere from two to 10 bands playing,” Gruber said. “There was a really good crop of musician-age kids who were into (punk) for a while (before) grunge became very popular.”
During the next few years, the Libido Boyz got big. They played in the Cities and toured the state and eventually started playing shows across the country, including New York and San Francisco. Out West is where they met Green Day, who would become the biggest punk band to come through Mankato.
“They were just dirty punks like us,” Sabin said.
Former Libido Boyz bassist Dave Begalka said they played punk shows with Green Day from time to time while on tour. Mike Dirnt, Green Day bassist, actually did Begalka a big favor once when they played a show in Cleveland together.
Some of Begalka’s bass gear went missing, and a couple of months later he saw Dirnt when they both were playing shows in the California Bay Area. Turns out, the bass gear was mixed up with Dirnt’s equipment that night, and he’d been keeping it safe for him the whole time.
“I thought that was just downright a swell thing to do,” Begalka said. “As I recall, I think we couch surfed at Billy Joe’s that night. ... By the way, I still use the lost guitar strap that went around the U.S. with Green Day.”
The Libido Boyz and Green Day crossed paths in another way as well, through Adrienne, who was a student at Minnesota State University and living in Mankato.
The first lady
Adrienne (Nesser) Armstrong, now 39, was born in Minneapolis and started at MSU in the late 1980s, graduating with the class of 1994 with a degree in sociology.
She met Billie Joe on Green Day’s first tour in 1990. Some report it was a show at First Ave in Minneapolis, and she is quoted at greenday.net as saying only about 10 people were there. She asked Billie Joe where she could get a copy of the band’s CD, and the two hit it off.
While on tour, Billie Joe kept in contact with Adrienne by phone. Their first kiss inspired an early Green Day song, “2,000 Light Years Away.” Their relationship caused Billie Joe to arrange two tours around Minnesota so they could see each other, a relationship which lasted about a year and a half.
Although it’s unclear, witnesses who saw Billie Joe and Adrienne around Mankato during that time say the reason Green Day played shows in the area at all was simply because she was here. The shows weren’t a part of any tour, but rather impromptu ways to pass to the time.
The relationship fizzled after they decided the distance was too much of a strain. Adrienne got engaged to Billy Bisson, the frontman of Libido Boyz, the following year. Reports differ from either side, with some saying the relationship dissolved on its own. Bisson has been quoted as saying Billie Joe stole her away.
While in Mankato, Adrienne worked at various places, including the Piercing Pagoda in the River Hills Mall and Pagliai’s Pizza, and is described by those who knew her as a beautiful punk rock girl who everybody had a crush on.
Cheryl Rueda, manager of Pagliai’s, worked with Adrienne and three of the Libido Boyz at the restaurant when Adrienne was dating Bisson. Adrienne also babysat for Cheryl’s kids.
“She was a beautiful girl,” Rueda said. “I think the world of her. She was just a regular person.”
Thursday nights Adrienne babysat for Cheryl’s two kids, Andre and Marisa, who were about 3 and 6 at the time. She would often have a craft project or activity to do to keep them entertained. She even took them out trick-or-treating during a blizzard one year.
“She was their favorite babysitter,” she said.
Carrie Zempel Heise worked with her at a bar called The Jungle, now Dutler’s Bowl.
“I ran into her after the bar had closed down (she was working at Pier 1 Imports), and she told me she was moving out West soon,” Zempel said. “Months later, word got back that she had married Billie Joe, and then the next thing I saw was an interview with him in Rolling Stone magazine talking about his pregnant wife!”
When Adrienne finished school, Billie Joe convinced her to move to California and marry him. Rueda said it happened so fast it seemed she was gone over night. Before she left, she and friends had a big garage sale, said Amy Lennartson of Eagle Lake. She and Lennartson originally had plans to move to San Francisco together and open a business.
“She headed West that May, and I stayed over the summer to finish up my time at MSU,” Lennartson said. “Then, in true rock star fashion, I returned home from a Fourth of July vacation to a wedding invitation from Adrienne — to a wedding that had already happened.”
The wedding took two weeks to plan and happened in five minutes July 2, 1994, in Billie Joe’s backyard, according to the VH1 “Behind the Music” documentary. “We didn’t think about it, we just did it,” Adrienne said.
Protestant, Catholic and Jewish vows were exchanged because neither had a religion. The honeymoon took place 10 minutes from Billie Joe’s house at the Claremont Hotel. The day after the wedding, Adrienne found out she was pregnant.
The couple has two sons, Joseph Marciano, 14, and Jakob Danger, 10.
Adrienne now co-owns Adeline Records in Oakland, Calif., and Adeline Street clothing line. She works with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and co-owns Atomic Garden, an eco-friendly clothing and home goods store.
There is at least one friend in Mankato Adrienne is reported to keep in contact with. But said friend — whose basement Green Day was reported to have played in and who reportedly visited the Armstrongs in California — wasn’t eager to talk about it.
Rueda kept in contact with Adrienne for a while. Adrienne would send the Rueda kids Green Day T-shirts and things. She also sent a family photo to the Ruedas years ago. When Adrienne’s first son was 1 1/2, she came back to Mankato to visit and Rueda saw them. She was the same person she had always been, Rueda said.
A few years ago, Adrienne asked a friend in Mankato to go to the Ruedas’ house and videotape the kids so she could see how much they had grown up. Otherwise, the Ruedas haven’t heard from her since.
Big time
The night Green Day played St. Peter, the original plan was for them to play at someone’s house behind where Casey’s is now on Lee Boulevard in North Mankato.
Two local bands went on first. But the cops came and broke it up because of the noise. Gruber and his buddy offered to drive equipment and Tre Cool to a house on Fifth Street in Mankato, where somebody had offered up their basement. But the band took one look and said it was way too small.
That’s when a girl whose family lived off Hwy. 99 near St. Peter offered her place.
“This whole caravan of cars ended up driving out to her place,” Gruber said.
It was too hot to play in the barn. Gruber suggested the guys make a mini stage out of the wire spools, which they thought was pretty punk rock, even commenting on that stage and show later on a bootleg recording, he said.
Gruber said he later recognized songs such as “Welcome to Paradise” off of “Dookie” that they played that night — the night most people look to as the epitome of nostalgia when it comes to Green Day’s presence in Mankato. People still go to YouTube to check out the nine or so minutes of footage from that concert, despite being out of focus, jittery and too dark to see much.
“Took me back,” Gruber said of watching the footage. “That guy filming, he was probably standing right next to me and my friends.”
A couple of hundred people have similar memories from that night, having accidentally stumbled upon a concert that would become local legend. None of them could possibly have imagined what Green Day would become.
“Dookie,” released in 1994 — which followed 1992’s “Kerplunk,” having sold 50,000 copies — sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. That album, along with those of The Offspring and Rancid, is credited for reviving mainstream interest in punk music, and it won Best Alternative Album at the Grammy Awards.
Future albums, “Insomniac” and “Nimrod,” went double platinum, and “Warning” went gold. None of them reached the level of success of “Dookie.”
But 2004’s punk rock opera “American Idiot” changed everything. Debuting at No. 1 and selling five million copies, critics absolutely drooled over it. “American Idiot” won Best Rock Album at the 2005 Grammys and swept the MTV Video Music Awards.
“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” spent 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and won the Grammy for Record of the Year. During the band’s 150-date tour in support of the album, they drew crowds of 130,000 people over two days in the United Kingdom.
The band’s new album, “21st Century Breakdown,” was released worldwide May 15 and received rave reviews. Last week the band played “The Tonight Show” with Conan O’Brien.
Their world tour kicks off in July, with the Minneapolis show at the Target Center July 11.
Copyright � 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
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bobasheebaby · 4 years
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100 Buffy Prompts
I had a lot of fun compiling this list. I was cracking up more than once and now I want to binge Buffy. If there is a show you want let me know because these seriously help me shut of my brain during this covid hell.
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1 “NAME, your mouth is open, sound is coming from it. This is never good.” – Buffy Summers
2 “I just want to be alone and quite in a room with a chair and a fireplace and a tea cozy. I don’t even know what a tea cozy is, but I want one.” – Buffy Summers
3 "They were supposed to be my light at the end of the tunnel. I guess they were a train.” – Buffy Summers
4 “I don’t know what’s coming next. But I do know it’s gonna be just like this – hard, painful. But in the end, it’s gonna be us. If we all do our parts, believe it, we’ll be the one’s left standing.” – Buffy Summers
5 “I don’t handle rejection well. Funny, considering all the practice I’ve had, huh?” – Xander Harris
6 "Just because you’re better than us doesn’t mean you can be all superior.” – Xander Harris
7 “I’m leaning towards blind panic myself.” – Rupert Giles
8 “Since the picture you just painted means that I will never touch food of any kind again, you’ll just have to pick it up yourself.” – Rupert Giles
9 "With all the rubbish people keep sticking in my head, it's a wonder that there's room for my brain." – Spike
10 "Oh, I don't know. Looking in the mirror every day and seeing nothing there...it's an overrated pleasure.” – Angel
11 "Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping, waiting, and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir. Open it's jaws, and howl. It speaks to us, guides us. Passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have?" – Angel
12 "Anyway, for real now, I'm gonna ask you something, and you gotta promise you'll be honest and not spare my feelings just 'cause I could kill you. You promise?" Faith
13 "You gotta give me something to do. There's no way I'm sleeping. Don't you need anyone dead? Or maimed? I can settle for maimed.” – Faith
14 "You know, I honestly don't think there's a human word fabulous enough for me.”- Glorificus
15 “I’m cookie dough. I’m not done baking. I’m not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I’m gonna turn out to be. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and maybe one day, I turn around and realize I’m ready. I’m cookies. And then, you know, if I want someone to eat m — or enjoy warm, delicious, cookie me, then that’s fine. That’ll be then. When I’m done.” — Buffy Summers
16 “Seize the moment, ’cause tomorrow you might be dead.” — Buffy Summers
17 “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live.” — Buffy Summers
18 “No weapons. No friends. No hope. Take all that away and what’s left?” “Me.” — Angelus & Buffy Summers
19 “Don’t you have an elsewhere to be?” – Cordelia Chase
20 “God! What is your childhood trauma?!” – Cordelia Chase
21 “Gee, can you vague that up for me?” – Buffy Summers
22 “I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away.” – Xander Harris
23 “I don’t know what your problem is, what your issues are. But as of this moment I officially don’t care.” – Xander Harris
24 “You’re really campaigning for bitch of the year, aren’t you?” – Cordelia Chase
25 “I mock you with my monkey pants!” – Oz
26 “Funny how preparing looks an awful lot like sitting on your ass.” – Spike
27 “That’s fairly freaksome.” – Oz
28 “Do you have any tact at all?” – Giles
29 “I’ve known you for two minutes and I can’t stand you.” – Spike
30 “Great. Now I’m gonna be stuck with serious thoughts all day.” – Cordelia Chase
31 “You didn’t happen to take a lot of drugs, did you?” – Willow
32 “I’ve seen honest faces…they usually come attached to liars.” – Willow
33 “Can I be blind, too?” – Xander
34 “Gee, I hope I’m not interrupting anything really depressing.” – Riley
35 “And you just accepted that? I only said that because I thought that’s what you wanted to hear.” – Anya
36 “This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed.” – Spike
37 “We’ve got to face it, we’ve changed. Well, not you—you’re still sadistic and self-centered.” – Giles
38 “Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is ask for help when you need it.” – Giles
39 “Did everybody have their Crazy Flakes today?” – Xander
40 “Do you love me?” “What?” “Do you?” “I love you. I don't know if I trust you.” “Maybe you shouldn't do either.” “Maybe I'm the one who should decide!” — Angel & Buffy
41 “Six a.m.!" NAME cried. "I know that's a number on my clock, but I've never actually been awake to personally witness it!” — Xander
42 “Bored now.” — Vampire Willow
43 “We’ll go be heroes.” — Spike
44 “You have a plan?” “I am the plan.” — Giles & Buffy
45 "Strong is fighting. It's hard and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together." — Buffy
46 "I make it through this and the next thing and the next thing, and maybe one day I turn around and realize I'm ready." — Buffy
47 "You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. NAME, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live, for me." — Buffy
48 "Make your choices. Are you ready to be strong?" — Buffy
49 “Weird love’s better than no love.” — Buffy
50 “The who having wha with huh?” — Buffy
51 “Whatever you choose, you’ve got my support. Just think of me as… as your… You know, I’m searching for supportive things and I’m coming up all bras. So, something slightly more manly, think of me as that.” – Xander
52 "A lot of things that seem strong and good and powerful, they can be painful." Angel
53 "To forgive is an act of compassion, NAME. It's-it's... it's not done because people deserve it. It's done because they need it." — Giles
54 "In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how much we may appear to have changed." — Giles
55 "I don't have time for vendettas. The mission is what matters." — Buffy
56 "I don't want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you." — Buffy
57 "Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?" — Buffy
58 "Recognizing power in another does not diminish your own." — Joss Whedon
59 “Out. For. A. Walk… Bitch.” — Spike
60 “You can’t see the stars, love. That’s the ceiling. Also, it’s day.” — Spike
61 “Is everyone here very stoned?” — Spike
62 “I feel safe with you.” [Chokes] “TAKE THAT BACK!” — Dawn & Spike
63 “I love you.” “Oh, my god.” “Hey, no. Look at me. I... love you. You're all I bloody think about... dream about. You're in my gut... my throat... I'm drowning in you, NAME. I'm drowning in you.” — Spike & Buffy
64 “Just... give me something. A crumb, the barest smidgen. Tell me maybe, someday there's a chance” “NAME ... the only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious.” “Oh, wha-“ [screams, then shouts]  “What the bleeding hell is wrong with you bloody men/women? What the hell does it take? Why do you bitches torture me?” “Which question do you want me to answer first?” — Spike & Buffy
65 “You can't deny it. There's something between us.” “Loathing. Disgust.” — Spike & Buffy
66 “Could do without the laugh track, NAME.” “But it's so funny. I knew... before you did. I knew you loved the NAME. The pixies in my head whispered it to me.” — Spike & Drusilla
67 “Damn right I’m impure! I’m as impure as the driven yellow snow.” — Spike
68 “I love you.” “No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it.” — Spike & Buffy
69 “This with you, it’s wrong. I know it. I’m not a complete idiot.” — Spike
70 “You always hurt the ones you love, pet.” — Spike
71 "When I say ‘I love you,’ it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are." — Buffy
72 "I’m just gonna go home, lie down, and listen to country music. The music of pain." — Buffy
73 "I have feelings for you. I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to be love." — Buffy
74 "Weird love's better than no love." — Buffy
75 “People don’t fall in love with what’s right in front of them. People want the dream — what they can’t have. The more unattainable, the more attractive.” — Buffy
76 "Trust is for old marrieds, NAME. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes." “Until there's nothing left. Love like that doesn't last." — Spike & Buffy
77 "This isn't some fairy tale. When I kiss you...you don't wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after" — Angel
78 "I love you. I try not to, but I can't stop" — Angel
79 "If I may suggest, ‘This time it's personal.’ I mean, there's a reason why it's a classic." —Oz
80 "Well, to the casual observer, it would appear that you're trying to make your friend NAME jealous, or even the score, or something. And...that's on the empty side. See, in my fantasy, when I'm kissing you, you're kissing me. It's okay, I can wait." — Oz
81 "NAME’s our friend...except I don't like him/her.” — Xander
82 "What am I gonna do? I think about sex all the time! Sex ... Help! Four times five is thirty ... five times six is thirty-two ... Naked girls. Naked women ... Naked NAME ... Oh, stop me!" — Xander
83 "Man, NAME! My whole life just flashed before my eyes. I gotta' get me a life!" — Xander
84 “NAME. You're really campaigning for bitch-of-the-year, aren't you?” “As defending champion, you nervous?” — Cordelia & Buffy
85 "Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass." — Cordelia
86 “Oh please. Like shame is something to be proud of.” — Cordelia
87 “I’m going to give you some advice: get over it.” — Cordelia
88 “Oh, and you’re welcome.” — Cordelia
89 “I’m not a sniveling little cry-NAME. I’m the nastiest guy/girl in PLACE history. I take crap from no one.” — Cordelia
90 “I think it. I say it. It’s my way.” — Cordelia
91 "I don't like spiders, okay? Their furry bodies, and their sticky webs, and what do they need all those legs for anyway? I'll tell you - for crawling across your face in the middle of the night." — Willow
92 "I don't want danger. Big 'no’ to danger.” — Willow
93 "Let's get this straight. I don't understand it. I don't wanna' understand it. You have gross emotional problems. And things are not okay between us." — Willow
94 "NAME, I got so lost." "I found you. I will always find you." — Tara & Willow
95 "But you like him/her, and when you think about him/her, you get that good down-low tickle, right?" — Faith
96 "You hurt me, I hurt you. I'm just a little more efficient." — Faith
97 "Just relax ... and take off your pants." — Faith
98 "I am, you know." “What?" “Yours." — Tara & Willow
99 "I don't have time for bondage fun." - Buffy
100 “It's fine, I don't need to be snuggled.” — Willow
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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years
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OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT IDEAS
Object-oriented programming in the 1980s. If it can work to start a startup. Instead of building stuff to throw away, you tend to want every line of code to go toward that final goal of showing you did a lot of startups grow out of them. Already spreading to pros I know you're skeptical they'll ever get hotels, but there's no way anything so short and written in such an informal style could have anything useful to say about such and such topic, when people with degrees in the subject have already written many thick books about it. Those are both good things to be. I don't mean that as some kind of answer for, but not random: I found my doodles changed after I started studying painting. When someone's working on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to give the startups the money, though. What would it even mean to make theorems a commodity? There seem to be an artist, which is even shorter than the Perl form.1 However, a city could select good startups.2
Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a complete system for supporting server-based applications, where you can throw together an unbelievably inefficient version 1 of a program very quickly. Or at least discard any code you wrote while still employed and start over. But a hacker can learn quickly enough that car means the first element of a list and cdr means the rest. If an increasing number of startups founded by people who know the subject from experience, but for doing things other people want. It could be the reason they don't have any.3 An interactive language, with a small core of well understood and highly orthogonal operators, just like the core language, that would be better for programming. The more of a language as a set of axioms, surely it's gross to have additional axioms that add no expressive power, simply for the sake of efficiency.
One of the MROSD trails runs right along the fault. When you're young you're more mobile—not just because you don't have to be downloaded. The fact is, most startups end up doing something different than they planned. The three old guys didn't get it. PL/1: Fortran doesn't have enough data types. What programmers in a hundred years? Just wait till all the 10-room pensiones in Rome discover this site.4 Common Lisp I have often wanted to iterate through the fields of a struct—to push performance data to the programmer instead of waiting for him to come asking for it. It would be too much of a political liability just to give the startups the money, though. And they are a classic example of this approach. For one thing, real problems are rare and valuable skill, and the de facto censorship imposed by publishers is a useful if imperfect filter.
I'm just not sure how big it's going to seem hard. Often, indeed, it is not dense enough. If the hundred year language were available today, would we want to program in today. Of course, the most recent true counterexample is probably 1960. A friend of mine rarely does anything the first time someone asks him. As a young founder by present standards, so you have to spend years working to learn this stuff. The market doesn't give a shit how hard you worked.
You can write programs to solve, but I never have. One advantage of this approach is that it gives you fewer options for the future. Otherwise Robert would have been too late. Look at how much any popular language has changed during its life.5 Java also play a role—but I think it is the most powerful motivator of all—more powerful even than the nominal goal of most startup founders, and I felt it had to be prepared to explain how it's recession-proof is to do what hackers enjoy doing anyway. The real question is, how far up the ladder of abstraction will parallelism go? Anything that can be implicit, should be. New York Times, which I still occasionally buy on weekends. So I think it might be better to follow the model of Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a lot of them weren't initially supposed to be startups. It's because staying close to the main branches of the evolutionary tree pass through the languages that have the smallest, cleanest cores. The way to learn about startups is by watching them in action, preferably by working at one. At the very least it will teach you how to write software with users.
Few if any colleges have classes about startups. All they saw were carefully scripted campaign spots. It might help if they were expressed that way. It's enormously spread out, and feels surprisingly empty much of the reason is that faster hardware has allowed programmers to make different tradeoffs between speed and convenience, depending on the application.6 At the top schools, I'd guess as many as a quarter of the CS majors could make it as startup founders if they wanted is an important qualification—so important that it's almost cheating to append it like that—because once you get over a certain threshold of intelligence, which most CS majors at top schools are past, the deciding factor in whether you succeed as a founder is how much you want to say and ad lib the individual sentences. This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School. Preposterous as this plan sounds, it's probably the most efficient way a city could select good startups. Most will say that any ideas you think of new ideas is practically virgin territory. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Whatever computers are made of, and conversations with friends are the kitchen they're cooked in.7 That was exactly what the world needed in 1975, but if there was any VC who'd get you guys, it would at least make a great pseudocode.
If this is a special case of my more general prediction that most of them grew organically. Writing software as multiple layers is a powerful technique even within applications. The more of your software will be reusable. Using first and rest instead of car and cdr often are, in successive lines. Of course, I'm making a big assumption in even asking what programming languages will be like in a hundred years? It must be terse, simple, and hackable. It becomes: let's try making a web-based app they'd seen, it seemed like there was nothing to it. Both customers and investors will be feeling pinched.8
The main complaint of the more articulate critics was that Arc seemed so flimsy. That's how programmers read code anyway: when indentation says one thing and delimiters say another, we go by the indentation. You need that resistance, just as low notes travel through walls better than high ones. Maybe this would have been a junior professor at that age, and he wouldn't have had time to work on things that maximize your future options. How much would that take? It's important to realize that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand.9 You'll certainly like meeting them. It's not the sort of town you have before you try this. This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School. I'm not a very good sign to me that ideas just pop into my head.
Notes
Dan wrote a prototype in Basic in a series A rounds from top VC funds whether it was 10.
With the good groups, just harder. Which in turn the most successful founders still get rich from a startup could grow big by transforming consulting into a great one.
There are two simplifying assumptions: that the only way to create events and institutions that bring ambitious people together. A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that's not as facile a trick as it was putting local grocery stores out of their portfolio companies. If the next one will be familiar to anyone who had worked for a really long time? One new thing the company they're buying.
If I paint someone's house, the growth in wealth in a bar. I didn't need to warn readers about, just as much the better, but they start to be about 50%. Together these were the impressive ones. Other investors might assume that P spam and P nonspam are both.
All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads. The point where things start with consumer electronics.
If they're on boards of directors they're probably a cause them to keep them from the VCs' point of a press hit, but that we wouldn't have understood why: If you have two choices and one or two, and so on. But if so, or in one where life was tougher, the same reason parents don't tell the whole story. Incidentally, the switch in mid-twenties the people they want.
Trevor Blackwell points out, First Round Capital is closer to a clueless audience like that, except in the median VC loses money. Unless of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what you care about, just those you should seek outside advice, and this trick, and so don't deserve to keep them from leaving to start or join startups. There is not much to seem big that they only even consider great people.
You also have to do it right. In every other respect they're constantly being told that they are bleeding cash really fast. Probably more dangerous to Microsoft than Netscape was.
In theory you could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities. If you have the concept of the reason for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our contact at Sequoia, was no great risk in doing a small proportion of the subject of language power in Succinctness is Power. As I was there was near zero crossover. Some urban renewal experts took a shot at destroying Boston's in the evolution of the next year they worked.
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leanarg · 4 years
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Practice Challenge II
((Hi again! So, these are 3 fics in one post! Including my first two rps with @ladyreggiewright​ (our very first one after ages not doing this so asdfghk) and with @wylan-caldwell​ I had so much fun doing both, so thank you, guys! <3 Thanks for reading too, hope you enjoy them as much as I stuggled writing them ;P  Google Docs link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ARTjqveFJ1njDc2LL0PU4C0ShN2jlO9JC1Imt9MDTh8/edit?usp=sharing ))
A CHANGE OF LUCK
“Alright, y’all ready?” Rita said with a loud voice vibrating with nervousness. “The speeches are over. In the next block, Prince Arin will be picking the names.” That was her fifth lap around the entertainment office floor and she just couldn’t stop repeating what Vandy Post had already announced before each round of commercials. I knew she was trying to act authoritative, but seeing her in this state was always amusing.
It wasn’t unusual that the building was bursting with energy this late at night. The pre-press team always stayed working on putting together the bulldog broadsheets content and adding the last details, then sent the whole thing before the deadline to the press team operating on the last floor, where they were all in charge of the printing process. I would dare to say there was activity in this place 24/7. But this particular night, we were focused on The Report. The streets looked almost empty from up here, everyone was at home in front of their TV waiting for the names of the lucky girls randomly picked by a drawing of names out of different crystal boxes. 35 provinces, 35 boxes, 35 names. 
My attention had been focused on Arin’s stern expression. His life was about to be decided by fate, or as many people want to call it, destiny. I wonder what was he thinking, standing there expressionless, willing to uphold his duty. 
Is he excited? Is he nervous? Is he wishing he could run away from that room and leave all this tradition behind?
My name was inside of one of the boxes, so I should had been even more anxious and edgy than Rita herself, but, after the PET Gala fiasco, where: I hadn’t gotten the clues I was so close to getting, I hadn’t finished the job I was supposed to be doing and my one month salary had been reduced to half; I was certain that whoever was in charge of my luck was not very fond of me. 
“They are back!” Rita shouted as soon as Arin’s face reappeared. Everyone in the room fell silent. I scoffed a laugh when I noticed them unconsciously leaning slightly towards the big tv, but I ended up doing the same after adjusting my glasses. One by one the basic information of the selected were being transcribed from the screen to our devices as Arin picked out their papers. 
<< “From Allens, Idalia Moretti, from Angeles, Emily Rose White,... from Honduragua, Callia Adair…” >>
My fingers were moving fast across my cellphone’s keyboard. These were the girls we would be hearing a lot about  from now on and I needed to know everything about them.
<< “From Labrador, Lea…” >>
I froze. My head felt dizzy trying to take in what I had just heard. For the shortest of seconds, everyone’s eyes were on me. I could hear Rita’s voice instructing them to get back to work and maybe someone else was now in charge of The Globe’s blog but at that moment I couldn’t care less about that.
It’s really happening... I made it to the selection!
Finally, I could stand up. I was feeling so much energy inside me that I wanted to run. Suddenly, the lift made a sound and my dad came quickly out of it and … wait, my mom is here? She was carrying my sleepy little brother, Dean. 
I could read the shock on my parents’ faces.“I’m in!!” I said a little too loud but since Mr. Grant was there no one dared to complain. My dad let out a short laugh before extending his arms for an embrace. “Congratulations, Rosie, I knew it would happen, didn’t I tell you V?” He said to my mom. “Grants always get what they want.” 
Ugh, I wish. But I wasn’t going to argue with him right now, so I just offered him a wink.
As soon as my father let go, my mom surrounded me with her free arm. “So how does it feel to be a lady, huh? We have to celebrate this!”
“Well, do ladies feel hungry this late? Cause I wasn’t feeling it a moment ago.” “Yes, let’s leave these guys to work in peace.” my dad said suddenly remembering where we were. After clearing his throat as if that simple gesture was a switch between the dad and the boss, he talked with Rita to make sure someone had replaced me updating the blog, then he congratulated everyone for their dedication and finally wished them good night. “I just hope you are paying me the full day,” I said to my dad as we all headed outside.
“I mean, are you working right now?” He raised an eyebrow, mockingly.
I sighed “I guess Grants can’t always get what they want after all.”  And I meant it in more than one way. 
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The next week ran fast. My father and I agreed that I had to keep going to the office as usual, but it wasn’t easy to balance my work and my phone ringing every 5 minutes. More than once I had to ride home in the middle of the day because someone was waiting for me at home. 
First, a man with a very peculiar face came to do some kind of interrogation, which was understandable until we got to the most uncomfortable, personal ones. I almost spit my coffee laughing until I realized he had no intention to leave until he got every answer to each one of the questions on his list. 
Like him, I received a tailor and a doctor; but it wasn’t until the press started to ask for interviews when I realized my life had made a turn of 360 degrees. 
The thing I lamented the most about this odd schedule was that I couldn’t travel to the provinces to interview some of the selected as we had planned, but I did take advantage of every opportunity I had to do deep research about them. 
Some of the names or last names could be found on old newspaper editions, there were tragedies, accomplishments, unfortunate events… I smiled to myself, while I made annotations on my journal, fascinated by all the different interesting lives that were about to gather under the same roof. And I guess somehow that included mine.
The farewell party organized by Labrador’s Mayor seemed more like a political campaign than a real party. I might have fallen asleep during his speech if I hadn’t been texting Harris for the 40th time that week.
The last time I knew something about him was the night of the announcement when he sent me a simple “Congratulations, Lady Lea.” Then as the photographer, he had to go with Rea to the half-tour over the country to cover the selected interviews. 
“How dare you not be here when you are needed,... you lucky mooncalf.”
I looked up to see the crowd from my place on the big platform set in the middle of the Amberly park. It hadn’t been a very good idea, because there were grey clouds gathering over us and the sun was partially covered by them already. 
Someone forgot to check the weather section today.
But the trees surrounding us were decorated with purple and green metallic balloons -the colors of our province- and there were several signs with good wishes so I appreciated the effort. 
Everyone was here; The Globe employees that didn’t like me at all, my family on the first row, my college best friend, Liv had made space on her busy schedule  to come to the event, even my grandmother had sent his chauffeur with presents. That was her way to show support and I honestly didn’t have any complaints.  After the Mayor’s speech, the great boss Maxwell Loyd took the microphone to speak, I rolled my eyes, not caring about the people in front of me. He didn’t waste this opportunity to promote himself and flatter me. I mean, if he really had thought all that about me I would have had a promotion and a raise already, instead I just got ridiculous instructions and a handshake. 
When they both finally finished, the rain had started to pour, plus it was almost time for me to leave for the airport. I buttoned my coat before taking my place behind the microphone to start talking, but the eyes of the lady in charge of my schedule forced me to skip until the end of the speech I had prepared the night before. Every time I was going to make it sound deep and sentimental she made a sign for me to hurry.
“I appreciate your support… I will do my best… thank you for coming.”  
Were the only complete sentences I managed to say under such pressure. There was clapping and cheering afterwards, but there was after the previous boring speeches as well, so I didn’t get too excited about that. 
“Have a good time, my Lea.” My mother said after kissing my brow. I could smell her sweet perfume that I was going to miss. “I will, mom. Take care, I’m only leaving cause I know you are going to be in charge.” I side eyed the two men of the house. Then I kissed my little brother and messed his blond hair. “Bye bye little toad.” He just babbled something and waved his little hand. 
“So, Lady Grant. What do you expect from Prince Arin? Do you secretly plan to drink all the coffee from the Angele’s Palace? Rumor has it your father won’t let you marry until you turn 48 years old do you think Your Highness would wait for you that long?” “Wow, Mr. Grant you ask pretty basic questions, I have been asked the same ones all week.” He gave me a big tight hug and I ignored the wool of his coat feeling  itchy on my cheek. “I’m very proud of you Leana, and of course I’m not talking about this selection situation… I’m sorry about-” I stopped him not wanting to have our little disagreements as today’s last memory. And I also hoped I could change his mind by the time I returned home. “We can talk about that when I come back, dad.” He nodded. “I’m starting to feel bad for our dear Prince Arin.” I scoffed a laugh.
“Lady Grant, we are past the established hours already.” I heard a lady behind me. 
I turned to my friend Liv with an apologetic expression but she just smiled and waved. “I will text you… Bye! The rain started to fall harder but I had read the weather section on the paper this morning so I was properly dressed with boots and a coat over my white shirt and black pants. 
I walked towards a guard who was holding an opened umbrella to cover us with it. He opened the door of the car.  Then he offered to take my bag for me, but I had packed some of my old journals in there among my personal things. “Thank you… What’s your name?” “Finn Ray, my lady.” He answered confused. “I will keep this here with me, Finn.” I said in what I hoped was a reassuring tone before entering the car. I guessed he was new at guarding selected, because I noticed him turning to look at the woman in charge of the schedule. She nodded once at him and joined me inside the limousine. 
By the time we got to the airport I had learned that our chauffeur was called Alan Cobb, he had been working for the palace for 3 years on special occasions. He had three kids and his wife was expecting a baby girl. 
The strict lady was Miss Ramirez, she was happily single, obviously tardiness was her biggest pet peeve and she had worked there for 6 years already, but she enjoyed her job and had never thought of doing anything else, although I didn’t quite understand exactly which was her role in the royal offices of Labrador.
She left me at the boarding door after wishing me luck.
The flight to Angeles was long. I shared a plane with 3 others selected, that seemed pretty decent at first sight. 
We had a polite introduction conversation before we took off, but then everyone focused on her own thing; Jen Li, -the Yale law student from Waverly- took advantage of the 8 hours flight to sleep. Alana Hansen looked out from the window almost the whole time lost in her thoughts, and based on the green tone on Regina Wright’s face I guessed she was a risky company for the moment. 
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I remembered I had read about her parents' unfortunate plane accident in an old newspaper, they used to be famous politicians and she was an apple that had fallen close to the tree. Hopefully not too close.
So, considering my options I prefer to write in my journals during the whole trip.
As soon as we arrived we were hurried to a room for makeovers. For me it felt more like a day in the salon, nothing drastic was made, just a few lights on my hair, perfect makeup and a stunning blue dress with matching elegant pump heels shoes. 
They did insisted on giving me contact lenses, since I had forgotten to pack mine, so after a long argument with the stylist, Mariel, I decided to wear the contacts and let him enjoy “his creation”. 
In the end, despite the little changes, when he showed me my reflection in the mirror, I had to recognize I was content with the  upgraded version of me.
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                                       ESSENTIAL RESEARCH
The tour around the palace was quite short considering its size. I was almost sure that it was bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside, but the curiosity to see my new room, made me settle with the basic information,
I took a glance down at the little map on my hand. Eloise Hall room 28, second floor. As I headed to the stairs, the decorations and fancy details surrounding me were impossible to ignore. With every step you could find paintings by famous old artists -my mother admired- hanging on the walls, expensive vases and beautiful furniture. 
Looking around I spotted one of the selected quickly scribbling some notes in a notebook. As I got closer I noticed she was my plane mate, Regina Wright. Her green tone had disappeared or maybe covered with makeup and she looked much more secure now that we were down here on earth soil. 
I laughed a little bit inside walking by her side “Hope whatever you are writing is worth a bump on your head.”  
“I hope so too” She said absentmindedly, not looking up from her notebook. After some seconds she took a short look at me, flipped through her notebook and quickly closed it before I could react and lean discreetly to read what she was working on. 
Okay, now I’m curious.
“Excuse me, hi. Leana is it?” She gave me a polite smile. 
“Yes, feeling better... Regina..? I asked faking ignorance. 
She looked at me as she didn’t know why I was asking her that but then just answered, “Splendid. But please, call me Reggie.”
We continue walking up the stairs towards the second floor, while we shook hands, 
“I'm Leana Grant but you can call me Lea or Lee” I said touching the arc of my glasses I had put back on as soon as I left the makeover room.
She nodded. “Alright, Lea. Journalist, correct?” She made her pen click as if she was going to start writing again. I frowned, puzzled. “You too?” 
She chuckled at the question as if I should already know who she was. And the truth was, I did. 
“No,” she finally said, opening her notebook again, adding something, then she continued. “So, what brings you here?”
I was sure Reggie had many qualities but subtlety wasn’t one of them. 
I pressed my lips together, thinking about my motives, which one of them should I tell her? I’m here as an inside informant for The Globe; or, I’m here to live and learn about this whole selection phenomenon… I didn’t even know which one was the right answer.  “... just figured I couldn't miss this whole thing, you know.” 
Half- truths are always safe.  
“Are you here for politics?” I added before she could even think about my answer. 
She looked pleasantly surprised by my question, clearing her throat. “Yes, that is one of the reasons.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You did your research.” 
I guess it was my turn to feel recognized, but unlike her I didn’t want to be so obvious, so I shrugged. “Your name rang a bell.” 
She looked at me suspiciously, lifting her chin, a slight movement I didn’t quite understand. “Is that so? That's good, I suppose. Best to be prepared.”
“Maybe you are right, I guess you actually did your research. What do you have about me?” I asked directly now, pointing at her notebook casually.
She remained serious. “Oh, just the usual. Occupation, caste, age.  Name, obviously.  There's 35 of us after all. Would be a shame to get anyone mixed up.”
“Well, now most of us are threes and the twos are pretty well known.”
“Yes well, obviously. Was to be expected. It's still an appropriate mix.”
Her statement made me remember her parents somehow, obviously she had their school but I wonder how much she agreed with them. “That’s... a word to describe it, yes.” I answered incredulous, “So where are you staying?” I asked, as I noticed I have already found my room.
We discovered we were room neighbors which I decided was very convenient for me. I liked people who have answers to my questions. 
She was concerned about my acoustic guitar hobby and I assured her I hadn’t brought mine with me. “The music room will do.”  And she assured me her studying was going to be silent. 
The conversation continued but my curiosity was already unbearable, so I opened the door of my room to check it out. I didn’t want to be rude so I invited Reggie inside as we talked.
“What are you working on?” I stepped inside
She followed. “Political Science Major.”
I gave her a glance to let her know that was not the answer I was looking for. 
She blinked with realization. “Oh, I see I misunderstood. Well, actually I was just writing a paper on the pros and cons of capitalism and if our country should focus more on it like we did when we were still called the 'United States'” She air quoted the name.
I looked around my room considering her answer. Suddenly my eyes met with three maids standing in line in the middle of the room. When they saw us they made a courtesy and I nodded at them as a greeting, hoping we can have proper introductions later.
“Hmm the lesser of evils... but the United States not exactly an example to be followed.” I said to Reggie. 
“Exactly.” She said. I noticed her writing a mark in her notebook.  
“A-are you like grading me?” I dared to ask what I had suspected since the beginning, but I didn’t want to believe. It was shocking at first but after the third mark it became amusing.
“Who else do you have in there?” I asked curiously before running next to her to peek at her notebook.  She closed it again. When I looked at her she smiled at me awkwardly “No, of course not. Just remembered something.” Her notebook was behind her back, now out of my reach. She straightened her shoulders before adding, “Well, thank you kindly for your invitation, glad to have met you…”
I stayed there confused, Had I gotten it wrong? Or was I right and she didn’t want me to know? Anyway, I should have said nothing.  “Alright ... glad to meet you too, see you around.” I said worried that she might be uncomfortable now. 
She nodded as she headed to the door. One of the maids hurried to hold the door for her. 
I frowned concerned, I couldn’t just lose a source like her. “Wait for me tomorrow, I think we can walk to the dining room together.”
She turned to give me a frown, seemingly confused by my suggestion. “But I already know where it-” then she smiled. “I will.”
As soon as Reggie left I took out the journal from the pocket of my dress and tossed on the pretty desk by a large window where I peered at the view of the Angeles city.
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                                                                                       FOR THE RECORD.
After introductions my maids brought me dinner up to my room. So while I was eating the best creamy mustard chicken I ever had, we had a little chat. 
Among other things we talked about I expressed my surprise when I didn’t see any Royals when we arrived. Liberty, Camila and confirmed the Schreaves didn’t plan to meet any selected tonight, we would have to wait until morning. Queen Anjeli and Princess Ayesha had to leave the palace to attend important matters and Wylan Caldwell in spite of not being a selected was currently living in the Palace. Back in Labrador, I managed between college, work and extra work to fill my schedule, my mother never liked me being out of the house so late at night or sometimes not being able to have a complete breakfast in the morning, I enjoyed being busy and drive my Vespa from one place to another, but it was hard for me to admit that one of the reasons I liked my life that way was that besides when I was concentrated writing notes on my iTypewriter; I was not good at being alone with my thoughts. That’s why when I was a child my mother bought me a ukulele to play when I was feeling anxious, which gave excellent results. Later when I entered college I took a short guitar course with the same purpose. 
Therefore, later that afternoon, when my maids went back to their chores, leaving me alone I decided to leave my room to check out the music room, as I promised Reggie I would do. 
It took me some minutes to find the right door downstairs but my memory had never failed me and it wasn’t going to start now. 
I opened the third door in the west hall and peeked inside. I felt relieved when I saw the big piano in the last corner and dared to walk inside. Besides the piano, there were several instruments resting on their stands spread around the room, most of them to play classical music, but luckily, an acoustic guitar was among them. I was going to pick it up to test it when I spotted shelves full of old vinyl records. 
I walked towards the vinyl record player, it had a beautiful vintage look, it’s big horn imitated the ancient gramophones used during the Victorian years, but I suspected to be a more recent model. 
I noticed someone had left a classic record on, I wonder which one of the Royals had been listening to it as I moved the tonearm onto the outer edge of the disk, the little diamond tip to touch the groove. 
I guess I still remember how to use one of this. 
I stretched my arm and pulled one of the discs from the upper shelf, the others came down with it and  << "KNEEE-KNEEE!!" >>
The blaring sound of violins vibrated around the room making me wince for the annoying sound filling my ears.
“Damn!” I covered my ears while trying to find a way to turn the bloody record player off before my head exploded. Overwhelmed by the sound I went on my knees and stretched my hand behind the furniture looking desperately for the plug, but before I could find any the music stopped. 
I stood up still touching my ears 
Have I gone deaf? 
“I take you didn’t mean to do that.” I heard someone say behind me. 
Okay, I haven’t 
I turned around to find a guy eyeing me warily, from the corner of my eye I noticed a laptop and a couple of heavy leather books that weren't on the table before. 
“I was considering turning it on but it made the decision for me,” I said without explaining. 
At that moment, a couple of guards came into the room alarmed. They scanned the room quickly before looking at us puzzled. 
Wylan followed my gaze and turned to them, slightly. “Just a mishap. We’re fine.” He acknowledged with a wave of his hand. I let out a sigh of relief as they left the room to return to their posts.
“First time using a record player?” He asked to continue teasing
I gave him a deadpan look. “Ha-ha I take that the last person who played it had some hearing problems.” Before I crouched to pick up the rest of the vinyl records still scattered on the carpeted floor, I noticed a smile tugging at his lips that didn’t last.
In a minute he was bending in front of me to help. “You picked some good ones.”
Suddenly we looked at each other for a second, I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at his for a second trying to figure any sign of sarcasm in them, and he just had the word “awkward” written all over his face. Obviously I was making him feel uncomfortable. 
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so busy trying to read him. 
“I like classics- acoustic to be precise.” I finally said with a shrug. “Do you own any of these?”
“This John Mayer one is mine. I have some other ones too. They’re over there.” He gestured to the rack behind me, then stood up with the vinyls he helped pick up.
I raised my eyebrow and nodded approvingly. “You have some taste, I will give you that.” I looked up at him, waiting for him to offer his hand for me to help me stand, but apparently living in a castle was no guarantee of anything, so I just stood up slowly, brushing my dress. 
“Some were gifts I grew to love.” He acknowledged, holding the vinyls out for me. “I’d recommend keeping the volume down before you turn it on next time.”
I took the discs to put them back in its place on the shelves “Well, you should put a sign somewhere,” I joked, a bit annoyed by his recommendation. 
I adjusted my glasses and stayed standing there, admiring the vinyl records once more. My curious mind wondered about the Prince. “Which ones are Arin’s?”
“I’m not sure. He might not own any.” I caught him glancing at his things he had left on the table before back to me. “Might be a good question to ask him yourself.”
Or you’re just evading the question. But fortunately, one of the things my job had teached me was to have thick skin so I wasn’t going to let him get away so easily. 
“You really don’t know or you don’t want to tell me?” I asked with an amusing tone.
He let out a small sigh, relenting a bit. “He likes The Killers. There’s probably a vinyl or two of those in here if you really need a good conversation starter.”
I faked a grimace “ugh! that piece of information should’ve hurt…” I said mockingly before adding. “I guess some advice for tomorrow’s interview is completely out of the table.” 
“Depends on what advice you’re looking for,” he let out, surprising me. 
I started to walk around the room still looking at him, considering my answer. “I don’t know, you are his friend... knowing a little bit about his personality would help,” I said casually, as if I didn’t already have thousands of questions listed in my head. 
But somehow he knew I did. “I’ll answer one question you have. Just one.”
“So generous …” I said more to myself than to him. My hand went unconsciously inside the pocket on my dress and my fingers touched my journal inside of it, purely out of habit. Of course, I wasn’t going to take it out so I crossed my hands in front of me as I resumed my walking around the room. 
“Okay…” In my mind I was looking for a single question that could indirectly tell me things about Arins personality … and why not about Mr. Uncomfortable himself too. 
“How do you start getting along back in college, like how did you become friends?”
Suddenly he let out a laugh, startling me. I frowned at first, but then I decided it wasn’t so bad, it picked my curiousness further.
I looked at him genuinely amused and he begined, “We were both going for runs and without knowing, I drifted a little too close. I was listening to music and not paying attention. His bodyguard sort of…” He paused to bring his fist to his neck simulating a punch. “And took me down.” I could see he was amused, for real. 
I laughed picturing the scene on my mind, considering all his previous teasing and had to admit it was a little bit entertaining to do so. “Ouch! His bodyguard does look ... fierce.” I commented remembering the man’s complexion I had seen several times on TV.
I wait for him to continue before asking, “what happened next? What did Arin say?”
His smile was more like a ghost on his face now, not physically there but somehow still present. “He apologized. After that we found out we shared a couple classes together and I offered to help him study for exams.”
“That’s an epic story… I bet it left you marked for some days.” I made a grimace, touching my neck, imagining the pain.
“Swallowing hurt, to say the least,” he said, remembering. After a minute, he combed a hand through his hair. “ Did that satisfy your question?”
“Hmm yeah, it was good, for now” I answered scoffing a laugh. The truth was I didn’t expect to enjoy his story that much, but I just couldn’t settle with only one question, but it wasn’t convenient to push more questions on him now. 
Fortunately he didn’t refuse, he just rolled his eyes at me, amused. “Alright, well I have to get back to work. At least try to not deafen the entire palace again.”
“I can’t promise anything.” I let out, finally taking the acoustic guitar from its stand, while he turned to gather his things.
“Reassuring.” He gave me a side glance and started walking out the room, he offered a two fingered salute before disappearing behind the opened door. 
After a second, while looking down at the guitar already in place on my lap, I compelled,  “Wylan... thanks!”
“You're welcome.” 
I heard him say from the hallway just before I started strumming the guitar strings, hoping its sound was enough to help me survive the first night. 
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The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 3: The Birth of Mysterio
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Before we dive into specifics of Amazing Mary Jane, there is a large chunk of context we need to establish about Mysterio’s history. Specifically who he is and some of the crimes he’s committed over the years. I will generally be emphasising stuff that Mary Jane would likely or definitely be aware of; or at least could easily learn about with a little research. This is important to bear in mind when we look at MJ’s attitude to Beck in AMJ.
For starters, let’s consider how and why Beck ventured into a life of crime in the first place.
Life before Mysterio
Quentin Beck before he became a criminal had a college education to some extent and had major technical and chemical skills at his disposal. He became an accomplished special effects artists and stuntman and had regular employment. Long story short, he got bored and after failing to transition into acting (though he obviously had some acting talent) he was inspired to get involved with costume villainy.
Due to retcons in BND, it was established that he went back to work in Hollywood. However, he later got blacklisted when one of his effects injured someone. As originally presented and intended though, he basically turned to villainy out of boredom and frustration.
After being blacklisted Beck undertook his first major campaign against Spider-Man, whom (due to other retcons) he resented for foiling some of his crimes during his first foray into villainy.
Whether you look at him as originally presented or in the wake of all these retcons it’s clear that Beck didn’t get pushed into crime. It was a pure ego trip for him. Even with the retcon in mind realistically his skills and intelligence would garner him legitimate work elsewhere. In fact in the ‘Guardian Devil’ arc of Daredevil it’s established he was instrumental in developing certain technologies and processes that made advances in film making possible.
In short Quentin Beck became a criminal because he LIKED it. He is 100% not a tragic figure like the Lizard. He is not someone who’s environment made it difficult for him to be anything but a criminal, as is often the case for people in poverty stricken parts of the world. He wasn’t even someone like Doc Ock or Norman Osborn whose minds were (arguably) inadvertently affected by some kind of extenuating circumstance. Nor is he someone diagnosed with some kind of anti-social personality disorder like Cletus Kasady or Eddie Brock.
Regardless of whether you feel such mental conditions mitigate those villains, my point is Beck DEFINIETLY cannot be excused for his choice of becoming a criminal.
Virtually every crime he ever committed were the actions of a sane, rationale and intelligent person who happened to also be selfish, egotistical, greedy and often nasty. Maybe not nasty the way Carnage or the Green Goblin are, but nasty nevertheless.
I’m saying he’s not just ‘a villain’ but also an outright bad person.
And he’s been a bad person since basically the start of Spider-Man’s superhero career. That’s anywhere from 10-25 years, depending upon whose math you want to use.
The 1960s: Making an Entrance
Were we to take retcons into account, Mysterio’s first crime was his involvement with the Tinkerer way back in ASM #2, circa 1964! This was literally the fifth ever Spider-Man story to be created.
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However, retcons not  withstanding Mysterio’s first major crime was impersonating and framing Spider-Man, back in ASM #13.
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He then went on to bill himself as a hero and defeated Spider-Man.
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These events were a huge news story at the time and thus it’s not unbelievable that MJ would know about them via osmosis. Granted, there is leeway on that because MJ was not living in NYC at this time but she was making sporadic trips there and had taken a casual interest in Spider-Man’s adventures; this was partially because she knew Peter was Spider-Man.
However, one would imagine that it’d likely come up in conversation with Peter over the years given how this was his first (known) encounter with Mysterio and MJ was present for several consequent ones. It’d also be believable given that it’s just common sense for Peter to inform MJ of any enemies who could possibly impersonate him. Forewarned is forearmed (as arguably Gwen’s death proved) so knowing about Mysterio could help MJ ensure the safety of herself and her loved ones; for example MJ’s Aunt Anna and cousin Kristy.
Furthermore it is important to note that Mysterio’s very first major solo effort was a form of identity theft (there is probably a more accurate descriptor but I don’t know of one). The crime was intentionally designed so that he could build up his own reputation off the back of someone else’s.  Does this perhaps remind you of another time Mysterio might’ve tried to selfishly benefit at the expense of another person’s reputation, not caring if he damaged it along the way? Like for example any female-led comic books released in 2019 for example?
The next time Mysterio duelled Spidey he used highly convincing robot duplicates of the (3 of the original 5) X-Men.
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So, Mysterio is an expert in robotics and can create loyal and dangerous robotic servants. These robots can also trick people into thinking they are a real person, including Mysterio himself. Thus it’s very possible for Beck to convince someone he’s in one place when he’s actually in another, or alternatively get his robots to do something on his behalf when he’s otherwise indisposed.
Mary Jane 100% knows about these robot duplicates because versions of them (plus Iceman and Jean Grey) appear in Amazing Mary Jane #1.
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It would suuuuuuuuure be illogical for MJ to just presume Mysterio would definitely NEVER misuse such robots for any nefarious schemes, or use them to slip under the noses of the press monitoring the movie. Or if he or his crew maybe used them to violate/evade justice somehow…
Also, just for the record, Mysterio was potentially risking damaging the reputation of the X-Men/mutants in general by creating duplicates of them. Yet another example of Mysterio is selfishly cavalier with someone else’s reputation.
Arguably (because I’m not an X-Men expert) this was especially awful because of how the general public already hated and feared mutants, who were of course chiefly allegorical to African Americans back in the 1960s. In this sense Mysterio could be viewed as exploiting societal bigotry or at least caring so little about it he doesn’t realise he’s potentially going to make it far worse. *
Mysterio’s third major encounter with Spidey was in a lot of ways one of his most twisted efforts.
His plan was to learn Spider-Man’s identity by convincing him that he was mentally ill…yeah…
Posing as psychiatrist Doctor Ludwig Rinehart, he convinced Jameson to publish an article claiming Spider-Man was heading for a major mental breakdown. 
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To make this more convincing he used his illusions to make Spider-Man believe he was seeing things that weren’t really there. His efforts bore fruit as Peter genuinely began to doubt his own sanity.
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Beck’s endgame was for Spider-Man to seek out treatment from ‘Rinehart’ and in his vulnerable state divulge his secret identity. It was only through Jameson’s inadvertent intervention that Peter’s secret (and loved ones) remained safe.
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I’m not suggesting Mary Jane necessarily knows about this incident; though it’s possible Peter told her. It’s more relevant because it illustrates what a twisted person  Mysterio is to try and get to Spider-Man in such a way. It also illustrates the distress his illusionary skills can cause to people, both mentally and emotionally. This is a fact that Mary Jane need not have studied psychology to grasp; it’s just common sense. She knows Mysterio’s M.O. is tricking people into believing things that aren’t real and she’d know how believing something uncomfortable or frightening (even if it isn’t real) can be a dangerous and unhealthy thing. Her friend Harry Osborn had mental health problems that caused him to believe things that weren’t true and (for a time anyway) it destroyed him and harmed his family.
If you still think this is a concept MJ wouldn’t have grasped, then Mysterio’s next exploit would’ve likely convinced her.
During the course of Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #1-2 Mysterio intentionally attacked the mind of MJ’s acquaintance J. Jonah Jameson. He did this by tricking Jonah into believing he’d been killed and gone to Hell. Simultaneously he also framed Spidey for Jameson’s alleged murder.
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Events from this story formed part of the screenplay for Mysterio’s biopic. Proof of this can be found in ASM v5 #29 wherein Peter and MJ are rehearsing Mysterio’s script and the dialogue is almost verbatim from the Webspinners story in question.
As such it is very possible that MJ would know about what Beck did to Jameson. One would imagine Peter would at least tell her about that in the course of rehearsing with her.
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We are skipping ahead a bit, but another instance of Mysterio using his illusions to cause terror can be found in ASM #66. In the issue he hijacks TV airwaves and essentially delivers a terrorist message to the city at large. He depicts scenes of New York decimated and threatens to make them a reality unless Spidey confronts him. The incident upsets Aunt May (a woman with an underlying heart condition) and realistically would’ve distressed other people too. This might’ve included MJ’s Aunt Anna who was living with May at the time.
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Given the public nature of this broadcast and the distress it caused Aunt Anna’s roommate, the chances are MJ would be aware of it. Even if she failed to catch it initially she’d have heard about it via sheer osmosis.
Even if you disagree, it’s yet another example of Mysterio selfishly and callously causing distress to people for his own ends. If one buys into Marvel’s sliding timescale these events also pack more of a punch since they would've happened post 9/11.
The 1970s: Scamming Seniors
We’re skipping ahead again all the way into the 1970s.
In ASM #141 Betty Brant and Ned Leeds inform Peter that Mysterio died a year earlier in prison. This horrifies Peter because he fought Mysterio earlier that very night.
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This was public knowledge meaning there is a chance MJ would’ve heard about it in the news. But even if it wasn’t widely reported or if she just missed it, she’d have still likely heard about it. After all she was dating Peter at the time and was also very friendly with Betty (even serving as her Maid of Honour not too long after this). This is important to remember for the next section.
As it turns out he actually battled a new Mysterio, Danny Berkhart. Berkhart believed himself Beck’s friend and inherited some of his equipment after the latter’s death. He decided to take down Spider-Man out of respect for Beck.**
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Much later it was revealed that Beck hadn’t really died, he’d merely used Berkhart to fake his own death. In the guise of Doctor Reinhardt he took over a nursing home. Consequently he swindled vulnerable elderly people out of their life savings, amassing almost $8 million. According to this inflation calculator, in 2019 that’d be about $40,780,313.20.
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My, what a sympathetic individual…
This scheme snowballed into Beck faking Aunt May’s death on behalf of the burglar who killed Uncle Ben.
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To be fair to him, The Burglar was threatening his life. However given Mysterio’s technology and intelligence it’s highly unbelievable that he couldn’t have taken the Burglar down if he wanted to. He does exactly this in ASM #198 once he’s learned the Burglar was after a fortune hidden in Aunt May’s old home, opting to seek out the fortune himself (see above).
It goes without saying how devastating it was for Peter and May’s friends (chiefly Aunt Anna) to believe she’d passed away.
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It beguiles belief that, between MJ’s closeness to Peter, their mutual friends (like Harry and Flash), Aunt May and Aunt Anna, that MJ wouldn’t at some point have learned about May’s ‘death’. By extension she would’ve learned of the circumstances of it being faked and surely have been at least miffed about it! Thus she’d have deduced that Beck had faked his death, as she’d likely have heard about his alleged death in prison.
Even if MJ didn’t hear about any of this during the incident itself, considering that this was all a matter of public record and would’ve been reflected in May’s medical history MJ realistically would have learned about this at some point. This would especially be the case because May’s death was faked a further two times; and that was when MJ married to Peter.
After all, if it was public record that May’s death had been faked before then her consequent ‘death’ (it was actually an imposter) in ASM #400 would require a degree of verification that’d go beyond most patients.*** And it’s highly unlikely that Peter and MJ wouldn’t have been informed about this process. ; or that they themselves didn’t inform the doctors that they should triple check given May’s history. This is literally the reason the actress impersonating her in ASM #400 was specified as being ‘genetically altered’ so her DNA would read as Aunt May’s.
All this means that there is simply NO WAY MJ wouldn’t know Mysterio caused this kind of harm to two of the people she loved most in the world (Peter and May).
The 1980s: Old Tricks
We skip ahead again all the way into the 2010s, albeit an untold tale set circa the 1980s. In Symbiote Spider-Man #1 Mysterio’s attempts to rob a bank inadvertently led to an innocent woman (with kids no less) being shot and killed.
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Now to be fair, this wasn’t intentional and he felt bad about it. But it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t committed a crime in the first place. He also wasn’t exactly turning himself in due to remorse or giving up a life of crime. MJ might not have known about this but it’s the first time (to my recollection) Beck was involved with someone actually dying. So you know, he’s definitely a killer and is unwilling to face the consequences of his crime. Real sympathetic right?
I will admit this is something of a contentious example as this series doesn’t exactly fit into continuity and so could be arguably discounted. Nevertheless it definitely offers food for thought. An insight into how Mysterio likely would  act under these circumstances.
Jumping back to the 1980s proper, in a much later encounter with Spidey Mysterio once again attacked Peter’s mind. This time he tricked him into believing that an innocent person had died on his watch.
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MJ again definitely knew about this because a guilt-ridden Peter talked to her about it before he learned the truth. Later she tried to talk him out of his guilt ridden state.
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I think I will leave it there for now. We’ll continue our look at Mysterio in the next post as we enter the 21st century.
*I’ve got no place for this in future instalments so I’ll just say put it here as an aside.
MJ to my recollection has no experience with the X-Men (sans Wolverine), but she is definitely no anti-mutant bigot. Wouldn’t it be logical for her to be wary or at least conscious about how Beck is playing with the optics of the X-Men/mutants in general in his vanity project?
Not to mention their inclusion I’d imagine would be in reference to ASM Annual #1 where he tried to use them to kill her boyfriend.  She has no qualms about the guy responsible for that recreating that event on film in an effort to glorify him self?
On the other hand we don’t know exactly how they are being used in the movie so I’ll let that slide.
**Berkhart isn’t all that relevant at the moment but he will be in the next instalment, so bear him in mind.
***Alternatively one would imagine in a world where the fantastical is a matter of fact, death would be checked to a greater degree than practiced in real life.
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