#it truly made the site hostile to celebrity

[a-new-superhero]

[[Posted this over on Weverse so figured I'd post it here too, even though I have like 3 followers and just use this blog as a scrapbook for my favourite pics...]]

I'm not usually one to post on sites like this. I tend to just lurk in the background and enjoy the content. But there's been so much hostility on here recently that I wanted to put something positive out there.

Basically my whole family got into BTS before me. I didn't get it, couldn't understand the obsession with what is essentially a boyband. So I was resistant to every effort they made to introduce them to me. I don't tend to listen to a lot of pop music anyway so I really believed that they wouldn't be my cup of tea. It stayed that way for years.

And then my mental health took a dip. Or I guess it hit rock bottom. I couldn't leave the house without having a panic attack and I was living with a constant knot of anxiety in my stomach. I was crying every day. I was literally a mess and I couldn't see a way to make it through the day, let alone how I was going to get through the next week, month, year...

And BTS saved me. I mean, don't get me wrong, my parents and my husband played a big part too, but the truth is that they have their own lives and pressures and responsibilities, and they can't be there every time I feel myself slipping back into that anxious space. BTS can.

I started watching Run BTS episodes because I knew they were supposed to be light-hearted and funny, and also they were short in the early days which suited me because I had zero attention span at that point. Plus reading the subtitles meant that my mind couldn't wander and get distracted by worrying or spiralling into an anxiety attack. And it helped - I did laugh, and I quickly worked my way through the back catalogue of episodes, finding myself feeling lighter somehow, like a weight had been lifted. It felt good to smile at their escapades and the stupid things they got up to.

What I didn't expect was to fall in love with the guys themselves, and that love only got stronger the more content I watched. So often all we see of celebrities' lives is the shiny glamour or the scandal, and it's impossible to relate to either of those extremes. But BTS were honest about their struggles in the most mundane way, and that resonated with me. I don't have a huge amount of past trauma piling up that's made me this way. Sometimes life - working, paying the bills, doing what is expected of me - just feels overwhelming for no other reason than the monotony of it, how tired I am of it all, and, though their lives are in no way like mine, I could feel that strain in them in the same way.

They talked about loving themselves not as a goal to be achieved, but as a journey that never truly ends, and because of that I didn't feel like I was being preached to. I felt like I was being encouraged, like they were holding my hand along the way. Just like they do with each other. They seem to lean on each other in a very real way, the same way I was, and still am, leaning on my family, and seeing that made me feel like I could lean on them too. I can't describe it in any other way. When they dote on each other and look after each other and tease each other, argue and make up... There's a sense of safety to it all, a bubble of peace where there's no judgement of each other; only total understanding, which seems to extend to ARMY as well.

And yes, I'll still admit that their music isn't what I would typically listen to. I'm more of a Green Day/Frank Turner kinda girl. But when I finally caved and listened to their albums, looked up the lyrics, I realised that what sound like your typical chart hits on the surface actually have lyrics that matter, that talk about freedom and justice and disadvantage and self-love. And now that playlist I made of the songs that really spoke to me or lifted my mood has become my crutch. If I'm listening to BTS when I'm sitting on a train or walking through a busy store, I don't panic. I can breathe a little more easily.

I love that RM speaks so eloquently and with such wisdom, but is still a curious child at heart. It's taught me the importance of balance, of never losing my sense of wonder no matter how much I mature and grow.

I love that Jin finds his happiness by making other people laugh. I think we can all learn from that, especially when the world feels like such a dark place of late.

I love that Suga has this stoic air about him that conceals someone who loves so wholly and completely. It showed me that you can feel deeply without necessarily wearing your heart on your sleeve all the time.

I love how J-Hope always puts the others first, how he's there fighting at their side when they need him and giggling with them and kissing them goodnight when things are good. He's someone I can strive to be like in a way that feels honest and achievable.

I love Jimin's kindness, even in the face of the hate that he receives so frequently, that he holds his head high in spite of that, and I aim to have even a fraction of that fighting spirit and sass.

I love V's individuality. He's so unafraid to be himself, even if that means taking a completely different path to everyone else. It's teaching me how to be unapologetic of and fully accept my own quirks.

I love Jungkook's fearlessness, how he's so shy and yet still goes his own way, rebelling against what's expected and growing into a man to be respected as the whole world watches. I envy how he throws himself into things and I try, whenever I can, to have the courage to do what makes me happy, even if it means going against what those around me believe is best.

OT7 has brought happiness in some way, shape or form to every single person that calls themselves ARMY. This fandom is such a force for good and I'm proud to call myself a part of it. The ships, the stupid comments, the war with Blinks... None of that really matters and it's sad to see it taking up so much space here and on Twitter. We're here because a band changed our lives.

We should be celebrating that.

[[TL;DR : Drama is the worst thing about fandoms and we should all be goddamn happy just to have something that brings a little light into our lives in this dreary freakin' world, y'know?]]

#bts #bangtan #bangtan sonyeondan #personal #ot7

[welllpthisishappening]

Welllp This is...Books. Lots and Lots of Books

That gif is something of a lie. Some of these books were not great. But! Some of them were very good! And some of them were marketed weird — seriously, what does qualify as YA — and some of them I read in, like, six hours and some of them I raged about for six hours after I finished them.

Or: 2020!Laura reverted to 2004!Laura and read just a lot of books and then her husband got her a Kindle and she read even more books and has thoughts on most of those books that she is now going to share with the internet while also making absurd category names. Note that these are only books I read for the first time this year. So, the list is missing some of the stuff I used as coping devices. ALSO SOME SPOILERS AHEAD, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

FAVORITE BOOKS THAT MADE A SHITTY YEAR SLIGHTLY BETTER AND ALSO LIKELY MADE ME SWOON A BIT

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he's not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin-and his world-forever.

— I kid you not, I had to do a lap around the apartment after reading the second book in this series. Why didn’t I read this before? Why isn’t there more fic? Why I am constantly falling for dark-haired sad dudes in love with their wives??? I cannot rec this series enough. It’s got world building and found families, and that dark-haired sad dude, and magic and lore and banter, and it’s so good and I don’t understand why it was marketed as YA. The literary world is weird, guys.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (and the Heroes of Olympus) by Rick Riordan

Accompany the son of the sea god Poseidon and his other demigod friends as they go on a series of quests that will have them facing monsters, gods, and conniving figures from Greek mythology. Do they have what it takes to save the Olympians from an ancient enemy?

— Straight up, how did you guys cope with Percy and Annabeth when you were kids reading this? I would have been OBSESSED. Quarantine felt like the perfect time to finally read all of these books, and I know it’s sacrilegious to like Heroes of Olympus, but I might have liked parts of that series more? Just because it felt like they were older and I was super into Percabeth being properly in love. Also, now I get why everyone was so upset about the movies. Fair.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . .Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.

— Yet another YA series that I will admit to loving this year. Started off a little slow, but once the world building really got underway —and it gets underway — I was hooked. If I had read this at an age-appropriate time I would have been super in love Captain Carswell Thorne. I was still kind of in love with Captan Carswell Thorne. So it should come as no surprise that Cress was my favorite of the series, but I enjoyed the whole thing, really.

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.As a huntsman of the Church, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when Lou pulls a wicked stunt, the two are forced into an impossible situation—marriage.Lou, unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, must make a choice. And love makes fools of us all.

— YO. Y O. THIS WAS SO GOOD. World building! Magic! Marriage of convenience! Well-written enemies to lovers! As soon as I finished this, I bought the sequel. And then got upset the third book in the series isn’t out yet! That’s a frustrating theme for me this year.

The Roommate by Rosie Danan

The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She's the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara's childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too much to resist. Unfortunately, it's also too good to be true.

After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there's a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn't looked him up on the Internet...

Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton's most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they're lucky, they'll help everyone else get lucky too.

— I LOVED IT. L O V E D. As I told Justin “there was more porn than I was expecting,” in that porn and the adult film industry was a legitimate plot point and not just a part of Josh’s character, but it was incredibly well written and interesting and I cared about the plot. Sometimes I also wanted to shake Clara, but that was kind of the point.

The Marriage Game by Sara Desai

After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn't know he's arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door...

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he's forced to share his space with the owner's beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

— More well-written enemies to lovers! It’s possible! Seriously, the banter was so good. The kissing was even better. Ridiculous and interfering family is one of my favorite things, and this had it in SPADES. It also made me want to eat samosas, which is kind of my base setting, but I really wanted Indian food whenever I was reading this. Also, the end scene was so goddamn cute I cannot believe it actually happened.

Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev

— The one that got away is one of my favorite tropes, and this modern version of Persuasion did it so well. Everyone was annoying, but in an almost understandable way that made me ache and I just wanted them TO KISS. And then they did kiss! And it was so good! Plus, at the risk of being a little self-indulgent, it was kind of Out of the Frying Pan esque and I liked that a lot. If there is a downside: it’s how quickly the relationship starts up again, like zero to 60 in two seconds flat, and that there were a lot of POVs. Which wouldn’t have been an issue if they’d been labeled, or weren’t bouncing around the timeline randomly. Sometimes I’d have to be like—wait, who’s talking about what?

Chef Ashna Raje desperately needs a new strategy. How else can she save her beloved restaurant and prove to her estranged, overachieving mother that she isn't a complete screw up? When she's asked to join the cast of Cooking with the Stars, the latest hit reality show teaming chefs with celebrities, it seems like just the leap of faith she needs to put her restaurant back on the map. She's a chef, what's the worst that could happen?Rico Silva, that's what.Being paired with a celebrity who was her first love, the man who ghosted her at the worst possible time in her life, only proves what Ashna has always believed: leaps of faith are a recipe for disaster.FIFA winning soccer star Rico Silva isn't too happy to be paired up with Ashna either. Losing Ashna years ago almost destroyed him. The only silver lining to this bizarre situation is that he can finally prove to Ashna that he's definitely over her.But when their catastrophic first meeting goes viral, social media becomes obsessed with their chemistry. The competition on the show is fierce...and so is the simmering desire between Ashna and Rico. Every minute they spend together rekindles feelings that pull them toward their disastrous past. Will letting go again be another recipe for heartbreak—or a recipe for persuasion...?

The Good Luck Charm by Helena Hunting

Lilah isn't sure what hurt worse: the day Ethan left her to focus on his hockey career or the day he came back eight years later. He might think they can pick up just where they left off, but she's no longer that same girl and never wants to be again.

Just when Lilah might finally be ready to let Ethan in, though, she finds out their reunion might have nothing to do with love and everything to do with improving his game. But Ethan's already lost her once, and even if it costs him his career, he'll do anything to keep from losing her again.

— HOCKEY ROM COM. HOCKEY. ROM. COM. Apparently this lady is regarded as the queen of “hockey romance,” which I kind of take offense to, but will give a pass on because this was a very cute book and everyone was cute in it and I was only marginally frustrated by those same people being idiots. As is required by rom coms. Hockey, or otherwise.

A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

Fall in love, break the curse. It once seemed so easy to Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall. Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he knew he could be saved if a girl fell for him. But that was before he learned that at the end of each autumn, he would turn into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. That was before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother barely holding their family together while constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, she learned to be tough enough to survive. But when she tries to save someone else on the streets of Washington, DC, she's instead somehow sucked into Rhen's cursed world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom. A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. But as she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what's at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

— Beauty and the Beast AU!!! Fantasy! Magic! Romance! I loved this, even when Rhen was being a whiny idiot. But he was also cursed, so like—fair. This dives into the politics of a cursed kingdom, puts a fun spin on the original fairy tale and also has a sequel. Which I read, and possibly enjoyed more. Only to realize the third book isn’t published yet, and then got annoyed by that.

QUESTIONABLY-GOOD FREE FANTASY BOOKS ON AMAZON

The Silver and Orchids Collection by Shari L Tapscott

What happens when a feisty adventuress, a lord looking to make his own way in the world, and a handsome sea captain set out to find Kalae’s rarest and most valuable flower?

Trouble—and lots of it.

— Snarky flirting! Adventure! Sword fights! Listen, this is not prize-winning fiction, but Lucia is a fun heroine, the rest of her adventure-seeking friends are an absolute delight and you don’t have to think too much while reading it. All four books wrap up their individual storylines, but help set up the next one and while the ending felt a little forced (and way too quick) I didn’t hate it enough to throw the Kindle across the room.

Forest of Firelight by Shari L. Tapscsott

After the sudden death of her brother, Princess Amalia is charged with what feels like an impossible task—she must choose the next king. Youthful thoughts of love are pushed aside as she accepts her fate, setting upon a quest throughout the kingdom to find a man worthy of her father’s throne.

Little does Amalia know, someone has already set his sights on her.

Rhys is a man of secrets, and his mission is simple: befriend the princess of Renove. Coax her to trust him, convince her to follow him.

Betray her when it’s time.

All goes according to plan until Rhys meets the princess. Amalia is a disaster. Never has he met someone so drawn to trouble. Never has he met someone so irritatingly likable.

He’s not allowed to fall for her.

She could never entrust him with a crown.

But, unbeknownst to them, their unlikely partnership might be the key to saving their entire world from a darkness that’s slowly creeping from the wounded earth that separates one kingdom from the next.

— FORBIDDEN LOVE! It’s good! Real good! I read this whole series (or the three books in it, so far) in a questionably short amount of time. Again, not the deepest story, and Amalia is occasionally frustratingly dumb. While Rhys is also sort of all-knowing in that fantasy hero sort of way? Y’know what I mean? Still, they banter very well, and eventually kiss even better.

LESS GOOD FANTASY BOOKS THAT PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE JUST BEEN AVAILABLE FOR FREE ON AMAZON

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian

Theodosia was six when her country was invaded and her mother, the Fire Queen, was murdered before her eyes. On that day, the Kaiser took Theodosia's family, her land, and her name. Theo was crowned Ash Princess—a title of shame to bear in her new life as a prisoner.

For ten years Theo has been a captive in her own palace. She's endured the relentless abuse and ridicule of the Kaiser and his court. She is powerless, surviving in her new world only by burying the girl she was deep inside.

Then, one night, the Kaiser forces her to do the unthinkable. With blood on her hands and all hope of reclaiming her throne lost, she realizes that surviving is no longer enough. But she does have a weapon: her mind is sharper than any sword. And power isn't always won on the battlefield.

For ten years, the Ash Princess has seen her land pillaged and her people enslaved. That all ends here.

— I wanted to love this series. So much so that I read the whole thing. All three books. And I’m still not sure why. The world building, maybe. Which was very good, and the politics actually kept me interested, but every single character was the absolute worst and I kind of wanted them all to die. That’s not even an exaggeration. Spoiler, they didn’t all die. I was only marginally disappointed.

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

When the ruthless Pirate King learns of a legendary treasure map hidden on an enemy ship, his daughter, Alosa, knows that there's only one pirate for the job—herself. Leaving behind her beloved ship and crew, Alosa deliberately facilitates her own kidnapping to ensure her passage on the enemy ship. After all, who's going to suspect a seventeen-year-old girl locked in a cell?Then she meets the (surprisingly perceptive and unfairly attractive) first mate, Riden, who is charged with finding out all her secrets. Now it's down to a battle of wits and will... Can Alosa find the map and escape before Riden figures out her plan?

— Alosa was kind of the worst? Like, STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER who had to keep reminding you how strong she was because she would kill anyone, and had an all female pirate crew. And the whole time I was just like, ok...cool. Still, I read the sequel too and that was slightly better.

The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller

Alessandra is tired of being overlooked, but she has a plan to gain power:

1) Woo the Shadow King.

2) Marry him.

3) Kill him and take his kingdom for herself.

No one knows the extent of the freshly crowned Shadow King's power. Some say he can command the shadows that swirl around him to do his bidding. Others say they speak to him, whispering the thoughts of his enemies. Regardless, Alessandra knows what she deserves, and she's going to do everything within her power to get it.

But Alessandra's not the only one trying to kill the king. As attempts on his life are made, she finds herself trying to keep him alive long enough for him to make her his queen—all while struggling not to lose her heart. After all, who better for a Shadow King than a cunning, villainous queen?

— I cannot explain this book any way except to tell you it is so weird. Like, sometimes I remember I read this and all I can think is: why did this book happen? It felt like it started in the middle of the story, which is not a knock on the story itself, but mostly on the world building. Which was lacking to say the least. Also the resolution was super rushed and even more weird and I was like—why does he like her??? I still don’t know, honestly.

The Stars We Steal by Alexa Donne

Engagement season is in the air. Eighteen-year-old Princess Leonie "Leo" Kolburg, heir to a faded European spaceship, has only one thing on her mind: which lucky bachelor can save her family from financial ruin?

But when Leo's childhood friend and first love, Elliot, returns as the captain of a successful whiskey ship, everything changes. Elliot was the one who got away, the boy Leo's family deemed to be unsuitable for marriage. Now he's the biggest catch of the season and he seems determined to make Leo's life miserable. But old habits die hard, and as Leo navigates the glittering balls of the Valg Season, she finds herself falling for her first love in a game of love, lies, and past regrets.

— Another book whose lack of world building hurt it. Stuff just happened, and we were expected to understand it and be into it and I was neither. I had no reason to care about anyone in this book, especially Elliot who seemed like an asshole.

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian's heart to the Sea Queen and or remain a human forever.The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it's his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she's more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind's greatest enemy?

— This book did not go the way I thought it was going to. Not a bad thing, but also not the best and the ending was...bleh. The middle, though? That was legit, and the action was good. I am always a fan of sword fights. Still, there was something that left me waiting for the final push towards great and it just never really came.

ROM-COMS WITH ONLY PASSABLY FRUSTRATING PLOTS AND GOOD KISSING

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory

Dating is the last thing on Olivia Monroe's mind when she moves to LA to start her own law firm. But when she meets a gorgeous man at a hotel bar and they spend the entire night flirting, she discovers too late that he is none other than hotshot junior senator Max Powell. Olivia has zero interest in dating a politician, but when a cake arrives at her office with the cutest message, she can't resist—it is chocolate cake, after all.

Olivia is surprised to find that Max is sweet, funny, and noble—not just some privileged white politician, as she assumed him to be. Because of Max's high-profile job, they start seeing each other secretly, which leads to clandestine dates and silly disguises. But when they finally go public, the intense media scrutiny means people are now digging up her rocky past and criticizing her job, even her suitability as a trophy girlfriend. Olivia knows what she has with Max is something special, but is it strong enough to survive the heat of the spotlight?

— It was cute. Max was occasionally an idiot. The kissing was legit. Most of their problems could have very easily been solved, but that’s kind of this genre’s schtick.

The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn't lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina's offered an opportunity that could change her life. There's just one hitch... she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials. Marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he'll be working with his brother's whip-smart, stunning—absolutely off-limits—ex-fiancée. And she loathes him.If they can nail their presentation without killing each other, they'll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina's ready to dish out a little payback of her own.Soon Lina and Max discover animosity may not be the only emotion creating sparks between them. Still, this star-crossed couple can never be more than temporary playmates because Lina isn't interested in falling in love and Max refuses to play runner-up to his brother ever again...

— Once you got past the hooking up with your ex’s brother thing, it was cute. Max was endearing in an earnest sort of way, even when Lina was STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER in a cliche sort of way. More solid kissing. Side note, why are so many rom com dudes named Max? Does it sound hip? Passably cool, but also approachable? Discuss. 

Not that Kind of Guy by Andie J. Christopher

State attorney Bridget Nolan is successful in all aspects of her life—except romance. After breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, she's been slow to reenter the dating scene. To be honest, she has more important things to do like putting bad guys behind bars. But with her brother's wedding right around the corner, she suddenly needs a date and fast. Lucky for Bridget, the legal intern is almost done with his program.

Matt Kido is dumbstruck by Bridget—total love at first sight—but there's one problem. She's totally off-limits while she's his boss. But the moment he no longer reports to her, Matt asks her on a date. An impulsive decision takes them to Las Vegas where, as the saying goes, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Unless you put a ring on it.

— Having written the “wake up in Vegas married” trope before, I know it’s difficult to do right. Consent’s a thing, y’know? And stuff gets dicy with forgotten memories, and all that, but mostly what kept me from truly loving this book was the intern thing. Don’t date your interns guys, it’s weird and off-putting. Literally if he’d just been a junior partner, or a visiting partner or something else I would have been all in.

Meet Cute by Helena Hunting

Kailyn Flowers was always calm, rational, and controlled—until she ended up sprawled all over Daxton Hughes, the former actor she totally crushed on as a teenager. Then she did the unthinkable: She became a mortifying fangirl in five seconds flat, which may or may not have included professing her undying love. And oddly, he didn't run away. In fact, their meet cute led to a friendship she never saw coming. Of course, she never saw his betrayal coming, either...Now Dax needs her help. As guardian to his thirteen-year-old sister, he's in way over his head. And though Kailyn hasn't forgiven Dax, she isn't heartless enough to make him fend for himself, either. Soon their friendly meetings turn into flirty dinner dates, and Kailyn can feel their chemistry is as explosive as ever. But how can she possibly let down her guard again to a guy who has heartbreak written all over him?

— Once again here for the one that got away trope, even if this comes with dead parents and some sad storylines. It still managed to be cute. Everyone was cute in it. Occasionally Daxton was a dick. As rom com male leads are apt to be.

If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane

If faking love is this easy... how do you know when it's real?When her partner of over a decade suddenly ends things, Laurie is left reeling—not only because they work at the same law firm and she has to see him every day. Her once perfect life is in shambles and the thought of dating again in the age of Tinder is nothing short of horrifying. When news of her ex's pregnant girlfriend hits the office grapevine, taking the humiliation lying down is not an option. Then a chance encounter in a broken-down elevator with the office playboy opens up a new possibility.Jamie Carter doesn't believe in love, but he needs a respectable, steady girlfriend to impress their bosses. Laurie wants a hot new man to give the rumor mill something else to talk about. It's the perfect proposition: a fauxmance played out on social media, with strategically staged photographs and a specific end date in mind. With the plan hatched, Laurie and Jamie begin to flaunt their new couple status, to the astonishment—and jealousy—of their friends and colleagues. But there's a fine line between pretending to be in love and actually falling for your charming, handsome fake boyfriend...

— FAKE DATING THAT LEADS TO REAL FEELINGS. The ex-boyfriend was an assssss, the fake boyfriend was charming, everything was good AND THEN WE GOT TO THE END. Which felt more than a little rushed, unexpected and not really in line with the rest of the book?? Give ‘em a slightly better, in-character ending, and I would have been sold.

BOOKS THAT I WAS LIKE...EH, OK

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

— I think this book was too smart for me. The prose was gorgeous, and the whole thing was very pretty and I definitely swooned when Marco said he wished for Celia. And yet. By the end I was like...eh, ok. Maybe it was the timeline? Jumping around, or how little dialogue there was. I wanted to like it all so badly, and I’m just not sure I did.

Acting on Impulse by Mia Sosa

After a very public breakup with a media-hungry politician, fitness trainer Tori Alvarez escapes to Aruba for rest, relaxation, and copious amounts of sex on the beach—the cocktail, that is. She vows to keep her vacation a man-free zone but when a cute guy is seated next to her on the plane, Tori can't resist a little harmless flirting.Hollywood heartthrob Carter Stone underwent a dramatic physical transformation for his latest role and it's clear his stunning seat mate doesn't recognize the man beneath the shaggy beard and extra lean frame. Now Carter needs help rebuilding his buff physique and Tori is perfect for the job. It doesn't hurt that she makes his pulse pound in more ways than one.Sparks are flying, until a pesky paparazzo reveals Carter's identity. Tori is hurt and pissed. She wants nothing to do with another man in the limelight, but she's still got to whip him into shape. Can Carter convince Tori he's worth the threat to her privacy that comes with dating a famous actor, or will Tori chisel him down to nothing before he even gets the chance?

— Dudes have gotta stop lying about who they are. It’s not a great trope. Other than that, the kissing was good. The romance was like...eh. I honestly don’t remember much else.

Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren

During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world's biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.

Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he's the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it's possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason... and whether "once in a lifetime" can come around twice.

— This book was...weird. The early romance was wonderful and delightful, but then shit hit the fan and Sam and Tate are adults and...weird. Like, I cannot come up with another word for it. Also, they didn’t really talk much? As adults? Working on the same movie set? W e i r d.

I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella

Fixie Farr has always lived by her father’s motto: “Family first.” And since her dad passed away, leaving his charming housewares store in the hands of his wife and children, Fixie spends all her time picking up the slack from her siblings instead of striking out on her own. The way Fixie sees it, if she doesn’t take care of her father’s legacy, who will?

It’s simply not in Fixie’s nature to say no to people. So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, she not only agrees—she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank Fixie for her quick thinking, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, an investment manager, scribbles an IOU on a coffee sleeve and attaches his business card. Fixie laughs it off—she’d never actually claim an IOU from a stranger. Would she?

But then Fixie’s childhood crush, Ryan, comes back into her life, and his lack of a profession pushes all of Fixie’s buttons. As always, she wants nothing for herself—but she’d love Seb to give Ryan a job. No sooner has Seb agreed than the tables are turned once more and a new series of IOUs between Seb and Fixie—from small favors to life-changing moments—ensues. Soon Fixie, Ms. Fixit for everyone else, is torn between her family and the life she really wants. Does she have the courage to take a stand? Will she finally grab the life, and love, she really wants?

— Let’s be upfront, I’ve read a lot of Sophie Kinsella in my life, and more often than not I enjoy what she writes. I mostly did here. It was a book. With obvious rom com problems, that could have very easily been solved, but it wasn’t horrible. So, that was good, I guess.

The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory

Maddie and Theo have two things in common:

1. Alexa is their best friend

2. They hate each other

After an "oops, we made a mistake" night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. With Alexa's wedding rapidly approaching, Maddie and Theo both share bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they're comfortable with. Underneath the sharp barbs they toss at each other is a simmering attraction that won't fade. It builds until they find themselves sneaking off together to release some tension when Alexa isn't looking, agreeing they would end it once the wedding is over. When it's suddenly pushed up and they only have a few months left of secret rendezvouses, they find themselves regretting that the end is near. Two people this different can't possibly have a connection other than the purely physical, right?

But as with any engagement with a nemesis, there are unspoken rules that must be abided by. First and foremost, don't fall in love.

— Eh, this book happened. I still have no idea why they couldn’t be together from the get. Obstacles for the sake of plot, I guess. Also political side stories? I don’t know, guys.

WEIRD POST-ENDING FEELINGS WERE INDUCED

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

— Listen, I enjoyed this a lot. For the most part. It was funny, and introspective in a way that didn’t make me want to gag too much, and I wanted to defend January’s love of love with everything in me. But, then it—ended. And it was like...all tied up with this nice little ribbon and happily ever after, and I was like...oh, ok. Part of me that it was glad it ended like that, mostly because of who I am as a person, but the rest of me was also confused that after everything January and Augustus had been through and how messy their lives were it could just get all wrapped up in this HEA.

HITTING JUST A BIT TOO CLOSE TO HOME

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

Marcus Caster-Rupp has a secret. The world may know him as Aeneas, star of the biggest show on television, but fanfiction readers call him something else: Book!AeneasWouldNever. Marcus gets out his frustrations with the show through anonymous stories about the internet's favorite couple, Aeneas and Lavinia. But if anyone discovered his online persona, he'd be finished in Hollywood.April Whittier has secrets of her own. A hardcore Lavinia fan, she's long hidden her fanfic and cosplay hobbies from her "real life"—but not anymore. When she dares to post her latest costume creation on Twitter, her plus-size take goes viral. And when Marcus asks her out to spite her internet critics, truth officially becomes stranger than fanfiction. On their date, Marcus quickly realizes he wants more from April than a one-time publicity stunt. But when he discovers she's Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, his closest fandom friend, he has one more huge secret to keep from her.With love and Marcus's career on the line, can the two of them stop hiding once and for all, or will a match made in fandom end up prematurely cancelled?

— Here for plus-size heroines who get the guy and don’t have their (entire) storyline defined by their looks. Less here for the weird fandom culture, the ensuing second-hand embarrassment that came from that and the thankfulness that both Colin O’Donoghue and Bob Morley appear to be happily married so it seems very unlikely they’re writing fic about their characters under pseudonyms. Stop using Ao3 in actual published stories 2k4ever.

RAGE-INDUCING BOOKS OF ABSOLUTE FURY

The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez

Kristen Peterson doesn't do drama, will fight to the death for her friends, and has no room in her life for guys who just don't get her. She's also keeping a big secret: facing a medically necessary procedure that will make it impossible for her to have children.Planning her best friend's wedding is bittersweet for Kristen — especially when she meets the best man, Josh Copeland. He's funny, sexy, never offended by her mile-wide streak of sarcasm, and always one chicken enchilada ahead of her hangry. Even her dog, Stuntman Mike, adores him. The only catch: Josh wants a big family someday. Kristen knows he'd be better off with someone else, but as their attraction grows, it's harder and harder to keep him at arm's length.The Friend Zone will have you laughing one moment and grabbing for tissues the next as it tackles the realities of infertility and loss with wit, heart, and a lot of sass.

— LISTEN THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE, BUT I FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THEM BECAUSE THIS BOOK IS A SECRET GUT PUNCH AND PEOPLE SHOULD BE AWARE. Not only is infertility, like, the defining theme of this book, but the BEST FRIEND DIES. Just—dies. It’s horrible. Absolutely God awful depressing. And for a second he looks like he won’t, and it’ll be fine, but then it is not and he’s just D E A D. I know, I know that sets up the sequel, but this was so goddamn heavy in an unsuspecting way that I have absolutely no intention of reading the next one.

Well Met by Jen DeLuca

Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?

The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they're portraying?

This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can't seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

— FUCK THIS BOOK. And fuck Simon, specifically. Oh, you have a sad story? Cool, you’re still a dick. He was a dick. Listen, I know enemies to lovers is a hard trope to write, but it’s even harder to accept when those enemies just announce I LIKED YOU THE WHOLE TIME and then everyone starts ripping off their clothes. No, it’s dumb. I hate it. Apparently there’s a sequel to this book. Maybe that’s better.

Kiss My Cupcake by Helena Hunting

Blaire Calloway has planned every Instagram-worthy moment of her cupcake and cocktails shop launch down to the tiniest detail. What she didn't plan on? Ronan Knight and his old-school sports bar next door opening on the very same day. He may be super swoony, but Blaire hasn't spent years obsessing over buttercream and bourbon to have him ruin her chance at success.From axe throwing (his place) to frosting contests (hers), Blaire and Ronan are constantly trying to one-up each other in a battle to win new customers. But with every clash, there's also an undeniable chemistry. When an even bigger threat to their business comes to town, they're forced to call a temporary time-out on their own war and work together. And the more time Blaire spends getting to know the real Ronan, the more she wonders if it's possible to have her cupcake and eat it too.

— Listen, I wanted to like this one. There were plenty other Helena Hunting books on this list, so like—I don’t hate her. I just hate poorly executed enemies to lovers plot lines. Give me at least one moment where they are interested in each other aside from just being attracted to each other. Also: Stop Having Dudes Be Dicks Because Of Their Sad Backstory 2k4ever.

Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

You always remember your first love... don't you?If there's anything worse than being fired from the worst restaurant in town, it's coming home early to find your boyfriend in bed with someone else. Reeling from the humiliation of a double dumping in one day, Georgina takes the next job that comes her way—bartender in a newly opened pub. There's only one problem: it's run by the guy she fell in love with years ago. And—make that two problems—he doesn't remember her. At all. But she has fabulous friends and her signature hot pink fur coat... what more could a girl really need?Lucas McCarthy has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but he's also turned into an actual grown-up, with a thriving business and a dog along the way. Crossing paths with him again throws Georgina's rocky present into sharp relief—and brings a secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows what happened twelve years ago, and why she's allowed the memories to chase her ever since. But maybe it's not too late for the truth... or a second chance with the one that got away?

— HE WAS JUST PRETENDING NOT TO REMEMBER HER THE WHOLE TIME???? WHAT?? WHY??? D U M B. Dumb boys are dumb.

Not the Girl You Marry by Andie J. Christopher

Jack Nolan is a gentleman, a journalist, and unlucky in love. His viral success has pigeon-holed him as the how-to guy for a buzzy, internet media company instead of covering hard-hitting politics. Fed up with his fluffy articles and the app-based dating scene as well, he strikes a deal with his boss to write a final piece de resistance: How to Lose a Girl. Easier said than done when the girl he meets is Hannah Mayfield, and he's not sure he wants her to dump him.

Hannah is an extremely successful event planner who's focused on climbing the career ladder. Her firm is one of the most prestigious in the city, and she's determined to secure her next promotion. But Hannah has a bit of an image problem. She needs to show her boss that she has range, including planning dreaded, romantic weddings. Enter Jack. He's the perfect man to date for a couple weeks to prove to her boss that she's not scared of feelings.

Before Jack and Hannah know it, their fake relationship starts to feel all too real—and neither of them can stand to lose each other.

— This is actually the prequel to Not That Kind of Guy and I honestly can’t believe I read that after hating this book so much. They were awful to each other! Their whole relationship was based on lies! Mean lies! Horrible lies! Don’t lie to your significant other!

#book recs #fiction recs #rom com recs #fantasy recs #or: i read solely fantasy and rom com books in 2020 #this does not include any david eddings or meg cabot rereads #which also happened #and i endorse them wholeheartedly too #if you have read any of these books PLEASE share your thoughts with me #i am desperate for them #or your own recs of what you read this year #laura reads books #welllp these are books

[princessheatherblossom]

The Savior of Rip Jaw

Rated E for everyone probably, the game wasn't tho

Falion was taken aback, to say the least, when he found the Dragonborn at his doorstep and was even more put off when gazing into her countenance. He didn’t ordinarily like guests period, the other residence of Morthal had taken to spreading one too many nasty rumors about him and his work that it inevitably became a part of every conversation he had with people.

This alone would be fine with him, less socializing he needed to endure but it didn’t bode well for his relationship with dear Agni, his adoptive daughter. He may have saved the poor child from a life of orphan hood but she was still so young and impressionable, a bad reputation in combination with her ‘nightmares’ could put distance between them which was the last thing the mage wanted but all he could really do was hope she was wiser than that.

But no, this was not why he felt an unease with a visit from the Dragonborn herself, they had already met and on amicable terms at that, he remembered when he had first seen her. It left an awe inspiring impression to say the least, as not only was it the first time he had seen the Dragonborn but the first time he had seen a dragon. He heard whispers of the supposed Dragonborn being in their midst but he had also heard rumors of dragons returning to Skyrim and dismissed it just as easily.

It wasn’t until a thundering roar had ripped through the skies did he realize his error.

From the heavens came a winged titan, a maw filled with razor sharp teeth and sweltering flames. The town’s guards were up in arms, flinging arrows in the beast’s direction only to miss as the monster soared quick but effortlessly out of the way and let loose a stream of hellish fire. Falion was left nearly dumb struck as he bade Agni to retreat into the house, this was something he had considered impossible, that was when he saw her.

Rip Jaw, the argonian Dragonborn, Thane of Whiterun, Falkreath and many more, charged into the fray. But though she was heavily armored in steel plating she bore no weapons but destruction magic in the palm of her hands. While the fire breathing behemoth dallied with laying waste to the few brave guardsmen that remained Rip Jaw charged a frost spell in her grip and sent stinging spikes of ice careening straight at it and was rewarded with a sharp cry of pain as the freezing barbs ripped through its thick hide.

The enraged creature twisted its neck to meet its new offender, it had barely locked eyes on the stalwart hero before she let out another volley of freezing blades to cut through even more of its draconic flesh. She certainly had the beast's attention, the hellion addressed its challenger with a harrowing breath of blaze, Rip Jaw made quick to dodge the heated torrent but couldn’t move quite quick enough to avoid her arm and shoulder receiving a scalding burn.

The hero fell to one knee, Falion surged forward, she needed help!

But before the conjuring master could even think of a shred of healing he had learned the raw argonian put her own hands to her wounds that were soon shrouded in the golden glow of a restoration charm. In no time she rose, fit as she ever was and stared down her winged adversary, the dragon reeled ready to unleash another vile inferno when a small bombardment of arrows hit it’s back. The remaining guardsmen, and even some mercenaries from the nearby inn, banded together and readied for another attack, not every mark hitting but enough that the intrusive villain was feeling a good amount of damage.

With the fiery demon’s attention split the Dragonborn took a blue bottle from her pocket, chugged down its contents and threw the glass container to the floor with a satisfying smash. Her hands now a glow with that familiar frost she then sent out barrage after barrage of ice spikes at her enemy while marching forward, at the same time the makeshift battalion didn’t let up their attack.

Under fire from two sides the creature let out an earth shaking wail but whether it was of anger, pain, fear or even a combination of the three was unclear. Whatever the case, soon the mammoth lizard spread its wings and began to take off for a hasty retreat but this didn’t set well with the icicle baring adventurer who ran in pursuit. The flying adversary was reaching the edge of the town’s border when the dragonborn, with what remained of her magica, charged one last razor sharp frost spike and launched it into the air. The projectile pierced the offending beast in its belly and brought it crashing down with one last piercing roar.

The argonian adventurer didn’t slow her pace as she approached the dragon’s crash site, a few guards following in her wake. They looked to find the attackers barely twitching corpse and soon a new roar thundered through the town, a roar of celebration from the guards and soon the residence of the small villa in victory and safety assured.

Falion looked on as guards and mercenaries embraced, the innkeeper announcing free first round to the town heroes that sent the battle worn crowd surging in. The merriment born of relief carried through the town but the court wizard gazed back to that battle site to witness a truly fascinating spectacle. Rip Jaw still stood over the fallen dragon’s form, a strange mist swept against her seeming to emanate from the remains. The scales peeled off, the flesh disappeared leaving only bone as streams of energy left the draconic ruins to enter the warrior who delivered the killing blow.

Falion looked on in curious wonder as the foreign woman just blinked at the development, an expression that conveyed familiarity with the occurrence. The mage knew what this had to be, the dragons very essence, its soul, she had absorbed. The dragonborn was here in Morthal, Falion continued to watch her from a distance as she left to enter the Jarl’s hall. He was tempted to follow and ask a million questions but remembered his parental responsibilities and swiftly took off to his own abode cursing himself for not immediately checking on his only child.

Falion would have a small chance later on, some days after the attack, to formally meet the Dragonborn. She approached him on his way out for a walk, a small part of him vaguely entertained asking her all the questions he had surmounted but on the forefront of his mind had been a recent conversation with Agni that left a pit in his stomach.

Could she really believe he’d consume deer hearts just because a villager told her so?

“You are new to Morthal. We have not spoken before. This is interesting…”

“Yes, are you Falion? The Jarl’s wizard?” She said as she advanced to him.

“If you stand before me to accuse me of sacrificing children or eating the hearts of the dead, you may save your breath. I have done no such thing, nor do I intend to. I simply wish to live my life in peace.”

The argonian looked nonplussed at his sudden accusatory statements, “Why would anyone accuse you of that?”

The redguard mage felt the pit in his stomach get deeper, so she hadn’t heard? Falion answered, venom slowly leaving his voice, “The people of Morthal would much rather weave their own horrid tales about my life than simply ask me for the truth. If they choose to fear me in their ignorance, that is their choice. But it will not change what is true.”

“So then...what do you do? If I may ask…” She asked, seeming to make efforts to sound inviting. The comforting tone only serving to make the wizard feel even more guilty for his initial hostility, “I...keep to myself. I offer spells and scrolls to those who need them, and wisdom in Conjuration magic for those who wish to learn. Beyond that I seek only to be left alone to pursue my research…”

“Conjuration! Now could you teach me something about that?”

Falion was both pleasantly surprised by this sudden turn in conversation and relieved, as it turns out this hero classed in many fields of magic and intended to add Conjuration to her arsenal. He most certainly didn’t mind having the bragging rights that he had tutored such a renowned student but was somewhat displeased to hear she was also receiving education from the college in Winterhold. He wouldn’t hold it against her, with no other public magical learning resources available where else would she have ended up?

Fortunately for Agni her new father was an accomplished mage in his own rite so she wouldn’t be subjected to their whims.

With all these experiences in mind a visit from Rip Jaw should be a welcoming event but there was something different about the warrior today and he had seen it before…

It was mid morning, Agni was just about done with a new lesson when a knock sounded at the door and Falion answered to find the dragon born but undoubtedly in a disheveled shape. She carried her horned helmet in one arm, with her opposite hand tugging at the neck brim of her armor. She looked physically uncomfortable in the morning light, and her eyes had a far off look as she addressed him,”Falion...good morning.”

“Ah, the dragonborn, if you are here to purchase I have many spells available. Do come in…” Falion stood aside as Rip Jaw entered with a thankful expression, “Agni, how about a break? You did well this morning.”

“Already?!” The young girl exclaimed, Falion gave her a reassuring smile and slipped a few gold coins in her palm. “Why don’t you go get a sweet roll with your friends? You’ve worked hard.”

Agni, no longer interested in exposing her father’s ruse to get her to safety, took off outside with a quick goodbye and thank you. With that taken care of the redguard mage returned his attention to the dark visitor that had taken a seat at his table. Sitting nearby, but at safe distance, Falion addressed her, “So, what can I do for you today, young hero?”

“Well, I was hoping perhaps you could share some knowledge...I’ve heard you’re an expert in vampirism?” Her tone seemed to carry a warm but now pleading rhythm to it, for a moment Falion felt a tinge of sorrow for what this poor woman had become.

“I know many things. I have studied things beyond the reach of most humans, traveled the Oblivion planes, seen things one should not see...” He started cryptically, sizing up his guest “I have met Daedra and Dwemer and everything in between and I know enough to see a vampire where others would see a woman...”

Rip Jaw’s eyes widened at his admission, Falion sat but his mind was prepped with a dozen spells to fling upon her should he need to but the argonian woman’s gaze shifted downward, her shoulders drooping.

“Indeed you can...but I think others might though they don’t know it. I didn’t know it, not for sure until the very sunlight made my blood boil...I should have known…”

Falion listened to her with some genuine concern while still keeping himself distance, “How did it happen?”

“Heh, would you find it funny to know that I’m not even sure myself?” She looked to him with a humorless grin “Vampires are becoming a more and more common enemy of mine but now- I’m one of them too?”

Her gaze shifted again, her expression a mixture of frustration and shame,”I haven’t...I haven’t given in, I haven’t drunken anyone’s blood, not one drop!” She found his eyes and there was still a look of determination within them. “I need a cure, Falion! And I know you must have it!”

Falion honestly felt flattered, he knew for a fact the adventurer had traveled to the near and far reaches and of all the magical masters she had met she had gone to him for a cure to her condition. Whether she felt him the most qualified or trustworthy (though hopefully the former...or perhaps both), she had come to the right man.

“It is possible. I know of a ritual but have never performed it. It requires a filled black soul gem. You will need to kill someone.” He stated matter-of-factly.

To this Rip Jaw nodded, “Not an uncommon occurrence in my line of work, it can be done.”

Falion continued, “When you have a gem and have filled it return to me and I will perform the ritual. I will bring life to your dead body, vampire.”

The argonian stood and walked to the lone mage who quickly rose as well prepared for the worst but was taken aback when she took his hand in her own. “I trust that you will, Falion. And when you do, I’ll forever be in your debt.”

Though he undoubtedly was looking into the eyes of an undead, the man could see her, the vibrant, strong and courageous woman that had toppled dragons and had received a disastrous ailment, no doubt in service to another, was still there and was fighting to remain. Before he could respond she released his hand and headed for the door, thanking him as she did so, he briefly wondered when she would be back from her task but he wouldn’t have to wait long.

Not long after night had fallen did he hear another knock at his door and found Rip Jaw, worn, breathless but grasping a filled black soul gem in her hands. She wordlessly presented the jewel to him, he examined it and nodded,”Very well. Meet me at the summoning circle in the marsh at dawn. We shall banish the creature you have become.”

The woman seemed put down a moment but nonetheless thanked him for his effort, no doubt she was hoping for the cure to be more immediate.

Before the hunger could set in.

Falion waved to her as she went off, “Don’t worry, it won’t be long now…”

When it was near dawn Falion quickly checked over Agni, ensuring she was sleeping peacefully before he headed out. He stepped through the marsh making note of a few dead mud crabs along the way, pondering if the dragonborn had struck them down on her own way there. As he approached the summoning circle he saw her, sitting on the outer rim, weapons cast aside and head in her hands.

Had she waited there all night?

Proceeding with caution he spoke, “Good, you’re here.”

Her eyes met his and she sprang up with an expression of relief, “Yes! Please, let’s get started.”

“As you desire.”

Rip Jaw went to the center of the circle and Falion began, “I call upon Oblivion realms. The home of those who are not our ancestors. Answer my plea!”

He spread his arms with palms turned upward, as the dragon born watched in anticipation,”As in death there is new life, in Oblivion there is a beginning for that which has ended. I call forth that power! Accept the soul that we offer!”

Rip Jaw began to sway, slowly being brought to her knees, Falion felt a sense of concern but carried forward, doing what he was certain was the only thing that would save her.

“As the sun ends in the night, end the darkness of this soul, return life to the creature you see before you!”

With the last of his words dropping off his tongue, Falion gazed down to the fallen figure that was Rip Jaw. The morning light peeking out behind the mountains outlined her body and the wizard soon threw caution to the wind and knelt at her side,”Dragonborn…? The ritual is complete!”

Soon enough Rip Jaw blinked and looked up to him,”D-did it work? Did it…?”

She blinked again then slightly rose as more of the morning sun hit her skin, she looked to her hands in awe, “The sun- it- it doesn’t hurt anymore! And I don’t feel it! The hunger!”

She looked to him in adamant glee and he couldn’t help in returning the smile. “Well, I guess I’ve-“

His words were soon muffled as she swiftly embraced him in her newly livened arms, and pressed a thankful kiss on his cheek. Falion was floored, too much so to respond when she began speaking, “I can never repay you for this. If you ever have need of anything, don’t hesitate to let me know, just name it!”

She rose to her feet bringing the mage up with her, “It’s a new day! I have many quests ahead of me but everyone of them now I’ll head into with more caution and knowledge then before! I shan’t make this mistake again, trust me on that!”

Rip Jaw gave the speechless wizard one last embrace and nod before gathering her weapons to head off. Falion quickly tried to gather his thoughts and before the argonian maiden turned to leave he sputtered, “I-if you ever do- find yourself in this...situation again, just come back to me. I can do this a million more times if needed...”

To that the dragonborn smiled, “Thank you, Falion. I think I’ve found someone I can call a friend in you…”

She finally turned and left heading toward town, Falion could hear the beginnings of the locals prepping for another day like nothing of merit had occurred on its outskirts. He shook himself and plodded on back to his own abode so he could ensure Agni would never know he had gone.

...Anything he needed, she had said?...

Right as he was about to enter his home he heard clopping hoof beats and turned to see the dragonborn on her dark steed, its whinny being heard throughout all of Morthal. The residence that were up and about looked on to her with admiration and wonder, she was quite a sight in her shining armor and newly revived spirits.

...Need of anything...did he need an argonian wife?

#skyrim #fanfiction #fantasy #fanfic #oc #mage #vampire #elder scrolls #falion #argonian

[beerandpresentdanger]

Something in the Water

These fragments are all culled from a larger piece of work about beer, family, place and memory that is still fermenting somewhere in my head. I was inspired to finally put out a flight of snippets in response to Boak & Bailey’s #BeeryLongReads2020 challenge

* * *

Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man.

A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

* * *

The first sip of a pint of ale made in Burton upon Trent can be off-putting to a newcomer. There’s something intangibly difficult about it, a shrugging note of unpleasantness that many find unsettling - a mineral toned, brackish kind of scent, that most immediately brings to mind sulphur; that distinct, diffuse, almost rotten egg character that you find in the water of towns that marketed themselves as spas, and once sold their healing properties to gullible Victorians with chronic nerve conditions.

Connoisseurs have a name for it, likening it to the fleeting sensory overload of an old-fashioned match being struck in a dark, draughty room. 

They call it “The Burton Snatch”.

* * *

My father’s family have always lived in Burton and its surrounding villages, nestled among the hills and valleys between Staffordshire and Derbyshire. My great-grandfather was a farmer and a money-lender, who kept a cast iron safe in the living room with a lace doily and a bowl of fruit on top. He would open it up on Sunday evenings to take stock, counting out the large paper notes on his scrubbed wooden table while the rest of the family looked on.

My grandfather, Jimmy, was a promising football player who did a stint with Burton Albion, before going into business in the town, setting up Farrington’s Furnishers in two large units on the Horninglow Road. It was the kind of traditional, rambling shop that doesn’t exist much anymore - a haphazardly laid-out assembly of sofas, beds, dressers and wardrobes, tables, chairs, footstools and chests of drawers. At the back, there was a room full of rolls of carpet, piled high to the ceiling. My father and his brothers were playing there when the news came over the radio that JFK had been shot.

* * *

Brewing has happened in Burton for centuries, but the process really began millennia ago, when the substrata of the Trent valley settled with deep deposits of sand and gravel, a unique and serendipitous combination of minerals that built the foundations for everything that was to follow. An unusually high concentration of sulphates from the gypsum, coupled with healthy reserves of calcium and magnesium and low levels of sodium and bicarbonates, meant that when springs eventually burbled forth from the land around the river, the water had its own particular and unique character, a distinct presentation that the French might call “terroir”.

Beer-making started in earnest when an abbey named Byrtune was raised on the banks of the Trent, and the brothers did as all good monastic orders did, growing their own crops, raising their own livestock, and brewing their own beer. Over the centuries, the reputation for the region’s fine ale grew and spread, until the secret could no longer be kept.

When the canals came to Burton they made it into a city of industry and empire. Tentacle-like, capitalism stretched and unfurled its penetrating waterways across, through and over Albion’s gentle hills, bypassing the wild weirs of the Trent’s natural descent, domesticating the landscape and bringing uniformity, neatness, and standardisation to what was a tangle of disparate places and processes. By the middle of the 18th century, the Trent Navigation had been connected to the Humber, to the mighty Mersey, and down through Birmingham to the Grand Union, and suddenly, Burton was now a central hub functioning as part of a single network that ran throughout the country and onward, through its bustling ports, to Europe, Russia, and all points beyond. 

* * *

Once their children grew up, my grandparents also left for the continent. Nearly every summer holiday of my childhood was spent visiting them in Portugal. Their home, known only as “The Villa”, was an idyllic place, where my brothers and I learnt to swim, where the smell of barbecue smoke lingered over every evening, where the coarse Mediterranean grass hurt our feet when we tried to play football on it. When I was young, I only really knew my grandparents in this sunlit, bright blue light - tanned, shortsleeved, wearing hats. Their accents may have been rounded and roughened in the heart of England, but their very essence to me was more exotic, more glamorous, more European.

Some of my first memories of drinking come from those summer holidays. Sips of pungent sea-dark wine, acidic and overwhelming; a sample of gin and tonic, bitter and medicinal with a gasping clarity; and of course, beer - not ale, nothing my grandfather would touch - but lager, cold and crisp and gassy, a fleeting glimpse of adulthood.

* * *

Beer, like everything else in a free market of money and ideas, has been subject to fashion and changing tastes, and it was a fashion for pale ales that truly put Burton on the map. With the proliferation of the waterways, hops from Kent and barley from East Anglia could make their way to Burton where, combined with the local water, they were turned into a revelatory, and wildly popular beverage.

Breweries proliferated throughout the town. At its peak, more than 30 rival businesses competed for space, ingredients, and workers to keep the kettles boiling and grain mashing. Burton became the brewing capital of the world, home to emblematic firms like Bass, which by 1877 was the world’s largest brewery. Its famed pale ale was so acclaimed and copied that the distinctive red triangle that adorned its labels became the UK’s first registered trademark, a mark of its singular quality.

* * *

Even when my grandparents lived abroad, Burton still pulled my family to it. Christmas called us back year after year, or Boxing Day at least, catching up with uncles and aunts and first and second cousins, some removed, to sit in sitting rooms in front of three-bar fires, eating ham cobs, drinking flat Schweppes lemonade, watching World’s Strongest Man on the television. The arresting vision of a large man pulling a tractor down a runway or throwing a washing machine over a wall would be accompanied by the sound of adult chatter, long-delayed catch-ups on weddings, births, and especially deaths - distant relatives and long-lost school mates, old girlfriends with cancer scares, run-ins with the police.

One uncle, who worked in a brewery like a true Burtonian, kept terrapins. I would gingerly feed them sunflower seeds, holding my hand above the dark waterline of the cramped tank, waiting for the vicious snap to emerge from the depths. “Pedigree doesn’t travel well,” he once told me, referring to a renowned local bitter. Some things cannot leave Burton behind.

* * *

Burton’s skyline doesn’t have church towers, it has fermentation vessels. Over the decades, as companies have merged, collapsed, consolidated or been taken over with some hostility, the name on the side of the largest set has changed, so that what drivers on the bypass see reflects whatever corporate overlord assumes feudal control in that particular age.

In the middle years of the twentieth century, brewing, like many industries, saw the white hot intensity of competition eliminate all but the largest of breweries. Experts will tell you that the beer suffered along with it, accompanied by punitive taxation from the government and a nannying attitude to pubs and drinking, the hangover of Victorian prudishness being enacted by the grandchildren of those who first envisaged it. Tastes changed under the weight of global pressures, and ultimately, Burton lurched along with them, becoming, through a complex web of corporate exchanges, the brewing site of Canadian brand Carling Black Label. 

In the ensuing decades, Carling would become the UK’s best-selling beer, a “domestic” rival to the traditional European lager brands that dominated in Germany, France and Denmark. The attritional battles left their marks on Burton though, as closures and collisions shuttered various facilities and churned through generations of workers, leaving tracts of vacant space even in the centre of town. Coming off the train now, you overlook the whole of Burton, and get the sensation of standing in the middle of a vast and scattered industrial facility, where smokestacks and grain towers overpeer gritted-teeth terraced houses, pockmarked shopping streets and vacant lots.

The make-up of the town shifted too. In the middle of the Midlands (Burton is linguistically and administratively part of the East Midlands, but geographically in the West Midlands) the town received its fair share of immigration. A town my grandparents knew as almost entirely white and Christian is now almost 10% Pakistani Muslim - a thriving community of teetotallers, in a town famous for its beer.

* * *

My grandparents celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2014, flying back from Portugal to hold a party at the National Brewery Centre in the middle of Burton. It was a lovely evening, with a large cake and lots of happy stories, relatives and friends I’d never seen before and would never see again. After an early finish, my cousins and I went to a pub, drinking pints of milk-smooth ale, before ending up in a small, loud, nightclub playing cheesy pop hits. The next morning, hungover, I walked with my parents to Stapenhill Cemetery to stare at the headstones of ancestors I had never met.

* * *

There is a popular documentary series on the BBC which sees celebrity costermonger Gregg Wallace visit various sterile facilities around the UK to witness firsthand how automation and mechanisation has changed food production. Each episode has him walking through eerily empty factories, vast and cavernous spaces where robotic production lines operate 24 hours a day, speaking to the remaining human operators who exist now as mere caretakers, there to tend and nurse the machines like temple virgins, dressed in hairnets instead of togas. It is an uncanny sight. Every installment inevitably begins with drone shots, hovering silently above the landscape, showing the immense scale of these conurbations, raised in places where land is invariably cheap and generations of people have been bred into cycles of tireless shift work. But the workers are not needed any more. Efficiency has eradicated the need for fleshy points of failure.

Now, Gregg can skip through the barren hallways, silent save for the harmonic hum of perpetual machinery, flashing his blinding white overalls and quoting mind-boggling statistics about the weight of crisps the average British child eats in a year. Various natural products are ushered in off the backs of lorries and railway carriages, fed along whirring conveyor belts and pumped through pneumatic tubes, before being baked, frozen, cut, dried, soaked, dessicated, rehydrated and reformulated into whatever bland final product can now be ejected out into the world, via shipping containers and along motorways, all to sit on a supermarket shelf before making an appearance in your cupboard, a moment on your table, and a lifetime rotting away in some far-off landfill.

It was inevitable that Burton’s MolsonCoors brewery, the home of Carling, would get its chance in the spotlight. The programme highlighted the noble history of brewing, from its pre-modern farmhouse days, when fermentation was practically a shamanic ritual, to its domestication and commodification, where each step in the process was refined and perfected, to where we are now, when every aspect has been exactingly costed and painstakingly budgeted to ensure maximum productivity, and maximum profit, with minimal ingredients, energy, or intervention. There has been a backlash to this macro-attitude, of course - “craft beer”, an ill-defined, equally co-optable movement that alludes to provenance, quality, care, and a confused sense of heritage, has become a big business in its own right, backed by venture capital and crowdfunding campaigns - but industrial brewing is still the fixture in the firmament, the thing that keeps the lights on.

When one of the few remaining humans showed Gregg the tiny, almost homeopathic quantity of hops that would add a semblance of bitterness and aromatic flavour to a lake-sized vat of Carling, it felt almost like a knowing wink - look at what we can get away with - one made safe in the knowledge that their beer will still pour in nearly every pub and take up the most shelf space in corner shops and petrol stations across the country. Of course they’ll get away with it. They’ve always got away with it. They will sell us beer with barely a sense memory of taste in it, and we will literally lap it up.

* * *

My grandfather died in hospital, in Portugal, after an indeterminate period of undramatic but gradually worsening health. His four children took turns flying out to spend time with him and their mother in the hospital, sitting by his bed, holding his hand, finishing the crosswords he was no longer able to complete.

He was cremated there, but a memorial service to remember his life was held in Burton on a crisp, February day a few weeks later. Alighting at the railway station, I watched steam from the breweries crowd the startlingly cold air, while waiting for my parents to arrive and drive us the ten minutes to Rolleston Cricket Club where the small gathering would take place. On the way, we drove up Horninglow Road, past what was once Farrington’s Furnishers, now Zielona Żabkal, a Polish supermarket. We got there early and spent some time setting up, arranging the folding tables and stackable chairs, hanging up photos, and laying out some mementos of my grandfather’s happy life - a table tennis bat, some puzzle books, a golf club, his familiar white hat.

I was tasked with approving the beer for the day. There were two casks of Bass on the bar - one which had been there a few days, the other tapped that morning. “I’m a lager man,” the bartender told me, so I tried both to see which was in form. The first had the faintest tang of vinegar that suggested oxidation, a beer that was at the end of its life, drowning in the air around it. The second was lively, enthusiastic, a little overly keen and overripe, but would settle down through the afternoon as the long goose-necked pump poured pint after pint for the guests who shuffled in, in suits and raincoats, shiny shoes and walking sticks, to pay their respects. Everyone told stories. I read a letter on behalf of my cousin, working on the other side of the world. We drank many, many pints of Bass in good nick, then when we were finished, we went to a pub, and drank many more.

When I had to catch my train back to London, I staggered back through the freezing night, to find that the town was mashing in - somewhere in the vast floodlit breweries, a switch had been thrown and malted barley was being soaked in that famous hot water, and the streets were being filled with the scent of porridge and healthy, earthy grains; a warming, nostalgic tide that overflowed down the road and spilled through the centuries; riding, falling, on the biting cold air.

#beer #writing #beer writing #food writing #ale #hops #barley #burton on trent #burton #family #memoir #beerylongreads2020 #craft beer #bass #cask ale #real ale

[nothingunrealistic]

👀 okay I'm starting to get into billions (bc of will). Can you recommend some essential episodes or something to get an understanding for what's happening? (And also I really like Asia Kate Dillon so like important episodes with them too)

the tricky thing about billions is that those of us who are into it aren’t, for the most part, actually watching the episodes in full or trying to understand all the plotlines. so if you want to know what’s happening with Everyone on the show (which is a dizzying number of characters), i can’t really pare it down to what’s important because i refuse to care about like half of them. but if, as it seems, you’re primarily here for winston and taylor (will’s and asia’s characters respectively), then good news - that’s almost all we care about too

the essential episodes for understanding winston are easy enough because he’s only shown up in five so far (3x03, 3x09, 3x11, 4x03, 4x08, and 4x11) for a couple minutes each, and all footage of him has been lovingly collated and posted on here. his first several appearances, and the context for them, are collected here; his moments from the most recent episode, which we were yelling about all day on sunday, are here. (he’ll be in this coming sunday’s episode too, which is also the season finale, so expect even more yelling about that.)

narrowing down the Essential Taylor is a little trickier because they’ve been in nearly every episode of seasons 2 3 and 4, of which i have watched exactly one episode. if billions had a decent fan wiki or anything similar, i would direct you to that, but they don’t, because they suck. the main way i keep up with the episodes/figure out what happened in previous seasons is via fan-run sites (which are superior to the recaps on Professional Media Websites usually), as follows:

fanfunwithdamianlewis has multiple recaps of every episode (including some from people who actually understand and can explain the financial stuff going on), as well as lists of all the locations shown, transcripts of cast interviews, and other fun stuff, all thoroughly tagged with actor and character names

gingesbecray has a recap of every episode as well (including gifs), always very detailed and entertainingly opinionated in ways we generally agree with

the billions companion collects and explains all the references that characters make (which is half the dialogue), sorted by episode, character, and keyword, as well as listing a wide array of other helpful sites

from these sites, the decent number of clips floating around youtube, and a collection of all taylor’s dialogue in seasons 2 & 3, we’ve pieced together the basic arc taylor’s had in the show so far. here’s my best approach at a season-by-season highlights reel (with links to relevant clips in bold) under the cut  because it’s ridiculously long

season 2: taylor arrives at axe capital as an intern. axe recognizes their talent and convinces them to stay, and they gain experience, status, and respect at axe cap over the course of the season, becoming the chief investment officer by season’s end.

2x01: taylor is an intern working for mafee (an executing trader at axe cap), and mafee wants them to stay once their internship is over.

2x02: taylor meets axe and impresses him with their insight. though taylor knows they don’t fit in at axe cap and plans to leave for grad school, axe later convinces them to stay, with a salary of a million dollars for a year.

2x03: taylor gets invited to play at a charity poker tournament (a real thing!), to the chagrin of others at axe cap. taylor has reservations but ultimately agrees to play; they win the tournament by outthinking their opponent, but are reminded of how out of place they are in hedge fund culture.

2x07: taylor is involved in figuring out what to do about a struggling small town that axe cap is heavily invested in.

2x08: taylor notices that mafee has been struggling at his job ever since he introduced them to axe, and asks wendy (who’s married to chuck [one of the main Legal Side characters], the performance coach at axe cap, and one of axe’s closest friends) if they should do anything about it. (ultimately taylor decides to assuage the guilt by giving mafee a signed wrestling poster. that’s the world of finance for you!)

2x09: axe’s birthday party, which everyone is expected to attend, is in conflict with taylor’s personal life, so they talk to him about what they should do and why they’re conflicted.

2x10: taylor is questioned by connerty (another of the characters on the legal side of things, who we don’t care about otherwise) about what happens at axe cap.

2x11: taylor is warned by connerty that this line of work might endanger their soul. they’re also given the responsibility of assessing all the analysts at axe cap and firing one - and told that it can’t be based solely on the numbers - and decide not to fire rudy, who is the worst performing analyst but is dedicated to succeeding.

2x12: axe is arrested/indicted/somehow penalized for insider trading and other hedge fund shenanigans, and he puts taylor in charge of axe cap’s investments.

season 3: taylor keeps axe capital running and thriving in axe’s absence, but once he returns, he overrules their decisions and undercuts their trust, leading them to start their own hedge fund (taylor mason capital, or tmc) by season’s end.

3x01: taylor calls a meeting at axe cap and tasks everyone with preparing for an Idea Dinner where they’ll impress other hedge funds with a new and exciting plan for making money. ultimately taylor comes up with a plan that involves reverse engineering microchips, and it goes over well.

3x02: taylor struggles with making the right choices of investments after a tsunami hits brazil, confronts axe when he shows up at the office despite being banned from trading, and talks with him later about how the day has gone and how to move forward.

3x03: taylor interviews quantitative analysts (”quants”) for axe cap, much to the chagrin of analysts who are worried about losing their jobs and traders who don’t trust computers. ultimately none are hired because wags (the COO of axe cap and the epitome of everything absolutely wild about billions), who conducted the interview with taylor, doesn’t trust quants either and sabotaged the process. (this is also where winston first appears! hi winston!)

3x04: taylor expects a space mission led by weird off brand elon musk to fail and invests accordingly. they’re rooting for him anyway and are horrified when he dies in an explosion after launch. they also deal with attempts to get them to invest in a charitable organization brought to axe’s attention by oscar langstraat, a venture philanthropist, and wind up with significant distaste for oscar.

3x05: taylor encounters oscar again in silicon valley where they’re hearing pitches, and though they’re hostile to him at first, a conversation about star wars makes taylor regret that they made other plans for dinner, and playing an obscure board game is enough for them to sleep with him. (like i said: enemies to lovers speedrun!)

3x06: taylor is “rattled” (their word) by something related to axe’s legal troubles in this episode. oscar flies in from silicon valley unannounced to keep taylor company while they’re working on their quant project because he’s That invested. no clips of any of this online though

3x07: axe and wendy are planning to convince mafee to take the blame for some shady investing they did at the end of last season, and taylor inadvertently enables them to do it by giving them information about how mafee thinks and what he believes in.

3x08: axe returns to axe cap free to trade again, and immediately undoes all of taylor’s work (including the quant project), though he also invites them to join the team that will raise money for axe cap. taylor wants a fund of their own to manage (still affiliated with axe cap but separate), but axe won’t give them as much money for it as he’s promising.

3x09: axe needs money and tries to take some from grigor andolov, a russian oil oligarch, which taylor thinks is a terrible idea. they also restart the quant project again, in secret, which means winston’s back! winston & taylor’s meeting in a room with a chalkboard and taylor’s introduction of the quants to the quant headquarters are both from this episode.

3x10: taylor and oscar are celebrating a deal that oscar’s about to make, but when taylor mentions it to axe in asking for his help with getting a dinner reservation, axe, who’s searching for more sources of money, makes the deal before oscar can, which crushes taylor and ends their relationship. 

3x11: taylor discovers that winston has driven off the other quants, but asks him to work on The Algorithm instead of firing him. it’s also comp time - axe won’t give taylor as much of a bonus as they want and also removes them from the capital raise team; this decision is later reversed when taylor talks to wendy and wendy talks to axe. winston completes The Algorithm, and taylor emerges from the quant basement into the offices of taylor mason capital to talk to grigor.

3x12: taylor meets with grigor and convinces him to invest in tmc, arrives (late) to the capital raise event and impresses the investors there, swipes a good portion of that capital for tmc, and leaves axe cap for good, having successfully convinced mafee (and failing to convince ben kim) to join them. axe and taylor argue about taylor’s betrayal and what comes next. taylor also tries and fails to bring wendy to tmc.

season 4: taylor strives to keep tmc successful while fending off axe’s repeated attacks and dealing with their own interpersonal relationships interfering with business. how will it end? we don’t yet know [UPDATE: it ends with taylor making deals with both axe and chuck, but truly being on no one’s side except their own.]

4x01: taylor, mafee, and sara (taylor’s COO) struggle to hire employees due to axe paying off tmc’s headhunter (though they don’t initially know that’s the case). taylor disguises themself as a cis woman to get money from a sovereign wealth fund that axe cap is also seeking money from. (the full episode is available on youtube.)

4x02: taylor can’t get funding because axe has persuaded all the banks to cut them off. grigor brings in a pair of shady brothers to invest in tmc; taylor would really rather not depend on the brothers’ money, so they trick the banker the brothers are using into cutting off their credit lines and ask grigor to use his influence to get independent funding for tmc.

4x03: axe cap has managed to get a hold of tmc’s trading patterns, and they start front running tmc (making trades based on what they expect tmc to do) to throw taylor off. (this is where winston comes in again! and declares himself cassandra!) taylor’s dad, douglas, shows up and spends nearly all of his screentime either persistently misgendering taylor or helping them create a mathematical equation, which includes a mistake added by taylor as a message to axe (who of course is watching) for a meeting. when they meet, taylor asks axe for a truce, and he declines.

4x04: grigor brings down axe cap’s whole computer system, allowing tmc to profit off a natural gas crisis that axe cap was hoping to benefit from. taylor also agrees to support douglas’s aerospace project, a “lattice grid fin,” now that he’s actually respecting them as a person. but the climax of this episode is chuck talking about his and wendy’s sex life in front of the press, and taylor calls wendy afterward to offer sympathy. (and chuck, who subsequently wins his election, gets grigor deported and his money frozen.)

4x05: taylor is #Stressed about the loss of grigor’s money, which endangers tmc overall and douglas’s project especially. sara brings in lauren, an investor relations expert, to help out; lauren gets taylor a meeting with the new york firefighters’ fund, who used to invest only with axe but are looking elsewhere, and taylor gains their support.

4x06: taylor is working with douglas and a couple other companies on getting his lattice fin project off the ground, while trying to avoid axe cap’s spying (not that successfully), and douglas is mad that he isn’t being treated like the smartest person in the room. taylor and wendy also meet up repeatedly, in a seemingly friendly way, but wendy mines their conversations and her patient files on taylor to figure out how to force taylor to destroy douglas’s project. 

4x07: rebecca, axe’s girlfriend (though tmc doesn’t know that) and a business mogul herself, offers to buy douglas’s project (as a way for axe to access and destroy it), which taylor turns down. taylor has also enlisted wendy’s help to furnish a new apartment for their parents. then taylor gets the news that douglas’s project has been found to be a threat to national security (thanks to axe) - and though they initially choose to hold onto his project despite the ensuing loss of funds, wendy comes over to commiserate and inadvertently gives away that she’s been playing taylor this whole time. taylor sells the project to the government to save tmc, at the cost of their relationship with douglas.

4x08: taylor wants financial revenge for being manipulated, and first taunts, then argues with axe on live television. at mafee and dollar bill’s charity boxing match, taylor first is confronted by wendy about reporting her for malpractice (which sara did without taylor’s knowledge), then reveals that they tricked axe into getting fracking legalized so they could profit from buying water rights where fracking happens.

4x09: taylor is going to great lengths to destroy rebecca’s new position as ceo of a department store (saler’s), including buying out three of the largest shareholders and planning to meet up with a fourth who already hates axe. the plan doesn’t work in the end, but taylor finds out that axe will make huge sacrifices for rebecca - and starts a relationship with lauren, who helped them get a meeting with the fourth shareholder’s son.

4x10: taylor is preparing for wendy’s malpractice hearing, buying an appliance manufacturer closely tied to saler’s in order to have power over rebecca, and doing a terrible job of hiding their relationship with lauren. wendy comes to see them at tmc, and taylor claims they won’t go to the hearing, for wendy’s benefit.

4x11: taylor indeed doesn’t go to the hearing, and wendy fesses up to her wrongdoing. it’s comp time at tmc (winston’s most recent appearance! we’ve only just recently stopped shouting about it!), and everyone defers their bonus except lauren, who says she’d be too heartbroken to stick around if she and taylor broke up. rebecca, who’s tired of taylor making her life difficult, offers taylor a business deal related to saler’s, and taylor, who’s tired of being at war, accepts.

4x12: here is imdb’s summary of this episode: “Axe makes a big decision. Connerty gets closer to the truth. Tensions rise, and dynamics shift.” real specific. [UPDATE: taylor apologizes to their employees and promises to focus on running tmc The Right Way. and then axe sinks tmc by effectively killing saler’s, and sends a former axe cap employee who tried to get a job at tmc to try and bait taylor into engaging in insider trading; he hopes that chuck will then arrest them and blackmail them to work for axe again. taylor doesn’t take the bait, but chuck arrests them anyway, and makes a deal with them to work together to take axe down. secretly taylor plans to set up chuck and axe to destroy each other, and then get out of the way. the episode ends with taylor and their tmc team walking into axe cap and being “welcomed home.”]

#inbox #cockbiteproductions #billions #taylor mason #winston billions #if you have more questions feel free to ask! i unexpectedly love talking about this lmao

[fyeahzef]

Zac was a star that's basically "aimed for girls" and people can't help but hate everything that is aimed to girls, remeber: Twilight, Justin Bieber... so at this point, by trying to "prove himself" as an actor he have to deal with a lot of passive agressive hate... if he keeps doing good movies and getting better scripts and... if legitimate people start to consider him in good roles, in two or three years people will forgot it ever happened, just like they did with Robert Pattinson

(cont.) And still, there’s something that annoys me a lot, when some critics points out the problem about Zac playing a serial killer role, not any actor, but Zac, they put this situation where all his fans are retarded pre-teen girls who are unable to think for themselves… seriously, it needs to stop!

Good point. Though the unfavourable voice against this “aimed for girls” stuff could be coming from different aspects of racial or cultural issues, or probably media overexposure, that’s another conversation, but it’s definitely unfair to the celebrities themselves, and that’s why so many of them want to shake it off and move on from the hostile public opinion environment. I don’t think critics are being fair judging the performance based on actors themselves, how they were regarded by average crowds or how they’d done so far in their careers shouldn’t precede them. What happened to Zac because of this is unreasonable, he’s only a person whose profession is acting and he’s trying to do his job right. It’s sad that there’s a lot of people who still label him as “heartthrob”(gosh I hate this word which seems to always precede him)  and they wouldn’t care if he gave his all or if he’s truly amazing in this film. 

It’s such a pity because during 2011 to 2013, you can see that Zac was really trying to get on the right path towards being a serious actor and spreading his target audiences and fans, he’s working with promising directors in exciting projects, his films were officially selected in competition for Cannes and Venice film festival, and media back then really started to make good and serious headlines about him and his films, not gossip sites or tabloids or just normal webzine, acclaimed media like THR and Variety and such. If those films worked out, I’m sure he’s gonna get more chances to do more good films and things would definitely get better. Too bad they were all bombed and I think it probably made Zac think again about his choice of keeping on with arthouse indies, and the rest is history.

#thank you for sharing your opinion #this is so well said #asks #anonymous

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Visitors to the Blue Jewel

The vessel drifted into Earth’s orbit in silence. Its fluid surface moved less like something manufacture and more like something organic. Against the radiant sun, its silhouette stood out as squid-like. Every other minute, a mess of tentacles splayed out behind it and discharged a blue trail of energy before clustering together once more and propelling itself forward with an almost serene and hypnotic calm about it.

The vessel’s sheer size dwarved a satellite that it flew by, like a giant whale crossing paths with a tiny trout. Light refracted from its rubbery surface in a weird sheen.

The unmanned satellite continued to float by, uncaring of this alien visitation occurring. Was it creature—or ship? Knowing such was impossible for people that inhabited the planet Earth in the middle of the twenty-first century.

Had there been enough eyes to witness the arrival, it surely would have been a spectacle. Watching this titan descend through the atmosphere, clouds shifting like walls around it with a mesmerizing slowness, only parting after long minutes passed and the monolithic, living spaceship emerged on a blue horizon.

This tentacled thing—the size of a small town—continued to drift towards Earth’s surface. The earth quaked gently, at first. The tremors grew in intensity as it neared the ground. A rumbling—like thunder—filled the air.

Somewhere, a deformed lizard sat on a rock sunbathing. It twitched and reared its head and watched the arriving alien ship from afar. When the quaking grew so strong that anybody would have sought refuge from the damage that might ensue, the mutated iguana scurried off the stone and escaped what would become a huge radius around the landing site.

Even with the menacing sensations of the vessel’s descent, it maintained a sense of majesty. Defying gravity and air, it seemed like space itself seemed to bend around it, and despite its colossal mass, it continued to glide down with an almost painful, deliberate slowness. Like a giant taking care not to step on a tiny world beneath its feet. It drifted down, towards a rocky desert amidst skeletal husks of burned out buildings.

It began to turn upside down during the descent. The winds blowing around it dispersed accordingly, causing clouds of dust to swirl and dance in magnificent spiraling patterns, celebrating Earth’s new guests.

The ship’s tentacles splayed outwards and pierced through sand and rock alike, burrowing deep into the ground. The tremors grew into earthquakes. The vessel’s descent slowed to a complete halt, the tentacles acting like flexible struts that lowered it almost completely to the ground.

Whatever deformed monstrosities still prowled this area as their chosen hunting grounds, the ship’s arrival had driven them to mass migration, fleeing the landing site several minutes before the alien vessel even touched down.

The ship emitted a burst of air, like a gigantic creature exhaling. More swirling clouds of sand arose, spiraling away and getting carried off by the winds this vessel’s arrival had caused to stir. At the same time, the earth itself ceased to quake.

A deep, baritone groan came from the living ship, so loud that it could stop the hearts of tiny creatures for miles around it. It echoed for miles, like a gigantic horn. Interstellar travel was quite the ordeal, after all.

The ship’s mouth opened, unfurling like a mesh of tongues symmetrically untangling. Their surfaces glistened in the harsh bright desert sunlight, more so than the rest of this living spaceship. The tongues—or ramps—drove into the ground in harmonious unison, much like the tentacles that suspended the ship.

From the darkness within the hole that had opened up, plumes of thick fog came out in rhythmic pulses. Amidst those emissions, a figure emerged from the bowels of the ship. Not even remotely human, the creature standing at the top of the now ramp-like tongues surveyed the wasteland and building ruins around its exit. It waited there.

Like a herald, as if expecting a greeting. But nothing else happened.

The figure defied definition, moving along on a hundred pointy insectoid legs. Its fluid motions gave it the appearance of gliding down the tongue-ramp as it descended farther onto Earth and finally touched this planet’s soil for the very first time.

A historic moment, witnessed by almost no living creatures whatsoever. The winds howled over this wasteland that once used to be a bustling city.

Derelict, decaying skyscrapers towered all around the alien ship’s landing site. The alien creature skittered past a burnt-out car wreck, revealing the insectoid thing to be equal in size to the destroyed SUV. Its mandibles clicked open and shut while it explored this apocalyptic world.

When it heard a rustling that came from wilted vine leaves, it recoiled and paused in its stride. Climbing out of a hidden pit, a man in ragged tatters crawled towards the alien. He wore a broken assault rifle on a strap, dangling from his shoulders, and in his hands he carried a fire axe patched up with a lot of duct tape around both handle and axe head.

Rage and hunger filled the eyes of this man, something the visitor could not yet read. The man stared at the alien and his brow furrowed and his dirty forehead creased a thousandfold, contorting his face into a primitive expression of confusion. The alien had little knowledge of human expressions so far.

It did however perceive a threat when the feral man roared and ran at it with his axe raised in the air, ready to hack into the strange visitor with his crude weapon. Violence was a universal language that the visitor understood.

The two dozen holes in its center—its eyes—glowed with an eerie warm orange light. Only for a brief second. When the glow faded, the attacking man went from being in a solid organic state straight into having been evaporated into a cloud of blue smoke. A gust of wind dispersed that final reminder of his existence.

The alien arrival continued to wander the desolate wasteland’s city grounds. Its head jerked around as it swept its gaze back and forth, now wary of encountering another such violent barbarian, and in a state of confusion—struggling to understand the state of this blue jewel it had sought to visit so long ago. Something must have drastically changed in a short period of time, for it had observed a thriving civilization of bipedal humanoids on its way through this star system.

Minutes passed, with only wind blowing through the alleys of crumbling buildings overgrown with dying vegetation. The quiet was so oppressive that the alien’s clicking mandibles echoed throughout the ruins.

Something truly monstrous must have befallen this planet to cause such devastation, but the source of the planet’s sudden demise remained elusive and mysterious.

Finally, the visitor paused again upon spotting another human. This bipedal just stood on a mound of rubble, watching the alien visitor. Its intent was indiscernible. This human, too, was garbed in tattered rags, though a set of goggles and a veiled hood concealed the figure’s facial features.

A silent observer in this wasteland.

The visitor hesitated to continue and began clicking and chirping in its native form of communication. Its hope was that the civilizations of earth had developed technology sophisticated enough to translate, but judging by the current state of this wasteland, the likelihood of such engineering having survived was close to zero. The lack of a response to the alien’s attempt at communicating said enough.

The human showed no apparent signs of aggression or action, continuing to stand there and silently observe the visitor. At the very least, the alien would not have to waste any more mental energy on evaporating this primate.

The human rose a hand and waved it. The alien immediately recoiled and clicked with its mandibles, fearing this to be the initiation of some hostile action. But nothing else happened for several seconds. The human lowered that hand again and began walking towards the alien.

Unlike the first encounter, this human did not leave an impression of hostility. The human limped, which the alien identified as the result of some poorly healed injury.

These earthlings truly were primitive.

Once the human had arrived within a distance of several steps away from the visitor, she stopped again and pulled back her hood and raised her goggles, revealing a dirt-caked face framed by greasy strands of hair.

“Hello,” she said. Her word sounded more like a question.

The alien happened to understand this word. It clicked its mandibles and chirped and watched closely to see if the human was evolved enough to instinctively parse anything it was saying. However, the visitor decided not to advance or retreat—for fear of triggering any adverse or hostile response and the necessity of disintegrating another native.

The human also stood still and tilted her head. The alien wondered if that was a nonverbal cue.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” the human said after an awkward silence between the two.

The alien’s gene therapy and prior research had increased its interpreting capabilities to a point where it already started picking up a sense from unknown words. It refrained from raising its appendages, in case anything might be misinterpreted as gestures with meaning. It returned another response in its language, remaining incomprehensible to the human, but intending to trigger the earthling to speak more so it had more input to work with.

“Uh, welcome to Earth, I guess? Or what is left of it.”

It helped. The alien made an effort of responding intermittently, taking initiative whenever the human paused and provoking as many words to flow as possible. The alien began to wonder if other species had visited the blue jewel before, seeing how this bipedal creature appeared unafraid of its presence. After several sentences exchanged and the human woman asking questions that went unanswered, the visitor had finally processed enough sentences to understand her next words.

“What took you so long?”

A strange secretion emerged from the native’s eyes—its significance yet unknown to the alien. A tear rolled down the cheek of the human.

The visitor tried to respond in the native’s language for the first time, straining to produce sounds that sounded comprehensible enough to pass as mimicry of this human’s tongue.

It asked back, “What do you mean?”

The human wiped away the tear and it smudged the thin layer of filth caked onto her skin, leaving a muddy streak. The human smiled with sadness, the smile disappearing soon after.

“You are late,” she said. Her shoulders heaved once, twice, suppressing sobs. Another human concept the alien was only now learning of. Hearing it had been late but without specifying was something that puzzled the visitor, for it did not know for what it was supposed to be late.

The alien mimicked the human’s speech once more, its words distorted by the range of sounds that it could create within the limits of its biological make-up. “What happened to—Earth?”

The tears streamed down the human’s face and she buried her eyes behind the hollow of her elbow for just a brief moment. She gasped for air and then collected herself. The alien interpreted this as another convention of her species, that they communicated not only by speech but also by secreting fluids.

“Stargazers saw the arrival of your vessel many years ago,” she began. Her voice trembled, rasped slightly. She cleared her throat and continued. “At first, it brought wonder and amazement. Some people—I being one of them—we rejoiced at seeing a future in which we finally knew for certain that there was other intelligent life out there. But things went wrong, and I became a storyteller, and my audience disappeared.”

She stopped talking and swallowed, looking to the deep blue sky overhead.

“Please tell me more, storyteller,” the visitor said faster than before, a mixture of its growing comprehension, thirsting for more vocabulary to parse, and a growing curiosity to hear this native’s tale.

“Yes, well. There were others. Those who feared your arrival. And those who expected you to—bring death upon us. But mostly, the fear took over. Leaders who saw advantage in harnessing that fear drove people to extremes. Different leaders led them into conflict with each other. Things—unraveled from there.”

The alien’s eyes glowed in a warm orange light for only a second, a moment of pleasure—for it identified a recognition in her eyes. A knowledge that she was beginning to understand how not to use too many complex words or too difficult syntax, as the visitor still learned her tongue while she spoke. But it learned quickly.

She continued, “Scientists said that it would take time for your vessel arrive—years. Military, acting on people’s fears, wanted to use that time to prepare. To put together armies and weapons to pit against the threat they saw in your arrival.”

A mutated iguana scampered by, distracting the visitor. It clicked and chirped in apprehension, and the storyteller paused until the small creature had disappeared, allowing the alien visitor to calm down and continue listening.

“But we humans are impatient—we are bad at waiting. Poor at being one with our thoughts and no facts to go on. Cults and fanatics banked on the fear, and before long, everybody turned against one another. Those weapons we built—we started using them against each other.”

She stared at the ground. The alien did not understand the shame she expressed that way. So it spoke to learn.

“You of this Earth do not think as one mind, yet you say we. You speak as if your people are all one. Why?”

The storyteller shook her head. She looked back up at the visitor and her mouth opened to say something. She closed it again before any words escaped her lips.

“We all act as individuals, as single entities. We have brought forth great thinkers, spiritual leaders, strong athletes and brave warriors. And we take pride in their accomplishments, making them our own. But there are many of us, who think and act alone. We act out of fear, or ignorance, or pride, or any one thing that might make us act selfishly. And those of us with conscience? We carry the shame for those too arrogant for self-reflection. For if we failed to change their minds and hearts, their failures to do the right thing become ours.”

The visitor understood little of what she said, though it got a sense of the meaning. Its evolved thinking absorbed plenty of foreign words, but it struggled to grasp some of the concepts this storyteller spoke of, so alien they were to the nature of its own species.

She smiled at it, another expression new to the visitor.

“I’m sorry, those were a lot of—I’m—rambling. I’m sure it’s difficult to understand me as it is. The way you speak English—it’s incredible. Did you receive the messages we sent out into space?”

“Yes. We did,” it replied. It had studied the cryptic information sent out into space by these Earthlings.

The alien’s pincers opened and closed while observing. The storyteller looked it up and down. It interpreted her sweeping gaze as fascination. This human was not as primitive as the last one. They appeared to have a range of diversity.

“Finally, you’re here. I hoped—wanted to believe—that you’re peaceful visitors. I never would have dreamt that I would be the first to speak with one—I am the first, yes?”

The alien’s mandibles clicked and it shivered. The woman’s eyes secreted more fluid—tears of joy—another concept the visitor would find difficult to learn.

“Yes. First we speak with.”

It turned and looked around. None of the primitive sentient creatures were nearby, no other humans approached.

“I have so many questions,” the storyteller said, weeping softly. “I hope to become a storyteller of your lore, as well.”

The visitor did not parse all words properly. “Are you alone?”

She nodded and responded in the affirmative.

“There’s nobody for miles around. Just some crazy cannibal who attacks everybody and only leaves me alone because I killed his friend. I’d barely call him a person, though. And judging by his roar, I think you met him.” She gazed to the blue horizon between the ruined structures, cupping a hand over her eyes to shield them from the burning sunlight. “There aren’t many of us left anymore. The Final World War doomed our civilization. Other nations may be in a better state, but when the planes stopping flying overhead, and the months passed with news from other countries being as grim as they were, and, well. Yes. I am alone. A storyteller without an audience.”

Her thoughts trailed off and she redirected her gaze to the alien. Once more she smiled with an inherent sadness in her eyes that it could not fathom. Nor did it care about such things.

The visitor now regretted having vaporized the barbaric attacker earlier. Incapacitating and collecting him would have been more prudent. The dominant native species was turning out to be much more of a scarce resource than the hive had expected to harvest from this planet.

The alien hive had sent this individual out as their emissary. The emissary now judged the use of this “storyteller” to be marginal. These primates did not offer a lot of biological material for harvest. Normally, a hive ship’s arrival prompted a warm welcome—showering the sophisticated alien race with gifts and affectionate attention, offering up an entire planet ripe for the picking.

“Come,” the visitor said. “I will show you my people.”

The storyteller wiped the tears away and nodded.

“Yes. I cannot wait. There is so much for us to learn about each other.”

The emissary turned around, its hundred legs skittering and clattering on the ground as it led the way back to the hive ship it had emerged from.

The hive on this vessel might starve before they could expand into a colony on this forsaken planet. They had wasted far too many resources to get here, only to find that this idiot species had wiped itself out and turned the vibrant jewel of a planet into scarred plains of scorched wastelands. The hive’s living ship was likely to wither and die for lack of nourishment.

As they walked, the storyteller asked, “What do you call yourself?”

“I do not understand,” the emissary replied.

“What is your name?”

The emissary moved on without pause and considered the question.

“We have no names, we are one.”

“Then—what do you call yourselves? Your people as a whole?”

The emissary took more time to consider a response. It realized that the sense of identity and individuality among these Earthlings not only doomed themselves, but had also doomed the hive in humanity’s self-destructive stupidity.

“We need no name, for we are one. One people.”

“Where are you from?”

The storyteller continued to pose questions and only receive closed answers, for the emissary had little to say about these things. The human wanted to know names and places for everything, but the hive only knew unity and progress.

Eventually, they reached the vessel, where it still hovered, suspended by its tentacle-like appendages driven into the ground like slick, shiny pillars. The ground still trembled, something the human woman could sense once she stood still. The whole craft was no machine. Any attentive intelligent being could see a subtle rhythmic pulse, dilations and contractions of the vessel’s entire mass.

The storyteller’s mouth went agape at the sight of the ship up close.

The emissary clicked its mandibles and chirped, calling out the harvesters. A cluster of much smaller insectoid creatures swarmed out of the darkness that was the ship’s opening, skittering and scurrying towards the emissary and the storyteller. The visitor clicked and chirped and directed the swarm to bring her on board for the feeding. The speed of the hivelings increased and they tumbled and stumbled over each other, like a tide of living beings closing in on the human. Not slowing down one bit, eager to fulfill their role and carry out their duties, displaying a damning certainty that sent shivers down the human’s spine.

Only now did the woman scream and turn to run. But limping away would not be fast enough and it was too late, anyway.

She was the first. The harvesting of this devastated Earth had begun.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #alien #visitor #blue jewel #planet earth #insectoid #living ship #space #insect #wasteland #post-apocalyptic #arrival #hive #harvest #destruction

[kaylaclark]

6 Key Concepts !

“Micro-aggressions: everyday verbal or behavioral indignities and slights that communicate hostile, derogatory, and negative messages about someone’s race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.”(Cultural Anthropology, Third Edition). People of different backgrounds share their experiences of micro-aggressions on a person and everyday level. In the case of Zendaya and Giuliana Rancic, the idea of micro-aggressions that people face everyday, particularly Black people with their hair, Zendaya experienced on a celebrity level. Giuliana Rancic made micro-aggressive, borderline racist comments, regarding Zendaya’s hair for a red carpet look. She stated that Zendaya looks like she "smells like patchouli oil. Or, weed."(Refinery29.com). There are several issues with the statement made by Rancic. Given that Black people have constantly been ridiculed for their hair, as well as having actual legislation created to ensure they aren’t discriminated against (https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/hair-discrimination-legal-guidance.page). Not only discrimination against her hair, but making the statement that she looks like she smells like weed which countless Black people sit in jail for is extremely problematic. This situation truly encompasses  how a seemingly small statement, truly has weight and negativity behind it. It is particularly problematic because it’s on a national level. 

“Intersectionality: An analytic framework for assessing how factors such as race, gender, and class interact to shape individual life chances and societal patterns of stratification.” (Cultural Anthropology, Third Edition). Too often, while racism (impacting the Black community) or sexism is discussed, Black women tend to be left out. The idea of intersectionality is understanding that there isn’t a monolith experience people have. Black women don’t face just racism for being Black, or just sexism for being women. When people aren’t recognizing the possibility of Black women facing both issues, no progress is made, thus making it nonproductive. Intersectionality is extremely important, given that it waters down certain issues people face.

“Hypodescent: Sometimes called the “one drop of blood rule”; the assignment of children of racially “mixed” unions to the subordinate group.” This has been an ongoing discussion amongst social media. There are individuals, one prime example is Danileigh, who is a rapper singer, that claims she is Black. She has said the N-word, referred to her self as a “yellow bone” which slang for a lighter complected woman amongst the Black community, but many individuals pose an argument. People believe that the one drop rule or “hypodescent” needs to stop being utilized. She claims that her father is darker than her and that she is a Black woman. This conversation has persisted for many years.

“Nativism: The favoring of certain long-term inhabitants, namely whites, over new immigrants.“(Cultural Anthropology, Third Edition). This argument is always interesting, given that Black people, and people of color who have fought for rights and equal treatment are constantly told to go back to their countries. People try to excuse their racism for simply loving their country, and the citizens in their county, when this simply untrue. The atrocities that have repeatedly happened to people of color are unspeakable, but they still want to fight fair treatment is true patriotism.

“Phenotype: Refers to the way genes are expressed in an organism’s physical form (both visible and invisible) as a result of the interaction of its genotype with environmental factors, such as nutrition, disease, and stress.”(Cultural Anthropology, Third Edition). People often believe that race is based on biology, when this isn’t true. Race does make us look different, but it is not based upon something in our blood or DNA composition. This is why slavery, eugenics, and many other horrific ideologies and events that happened are deemed illogical and racist. 

“Racism- Individuals’ thoughts and actions and institutional patterns and policies that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups.”(Cultural Anthropology, Third Edition) Too often racism is watered down to mean words or actions, when in reality its systems of oppression. Saying someone does not season their food well, in comparison to red lining and denying people jobs are not the same in any aspect. The prison system, and the imprisonment of Black men and boys is a prime example of racism. One of the most notable cases of this, is the exonerated 5, which consisted of four young boys accused of committing a heinous crime they did not commit. 

[davids69811]

New Orleans Boudoir Photographer 70002 - Erika Parker Boudoir

Your Bedroom Photographer - Exactly How to Make an Excellent Choice

When a lady determines to have actually boudoir pictures taken of herself for a celebration such as a wedding event, an anniversary, or for no factor at all, she might assume that she has actually made the hardest choice of the process. Once any stress and anxiety or apprehensiveness at the suggestion of beauty photography has been dealt with and also she prepares to check out the elegance as well as appeal of the type, it might extremely well seem that the worst is over. Yet, currently a new challenge develops: actually dealing with the procedure. For a newbie to boudoir photography, it may be tough to understand who to head to, who to trust fund, and what to do. Here are some practical hints in locating a boudoir digital photographer you can rely on.  New Orleans Boudoir Photographer 70002

Top quality

If you're going to do something like bedroom digital photography, you're mosting likely to wish to ensure it's done right. The most effective method to do this is to search. The web site of the workshop in question is a good place to start. There you'll be able to view sample pictures in their galleries and see what kind of work you'll actually be obtaining and also get an idea of just how your end product will look. While assessing the example photos, focus on the lighting, the setting, and also the electronic retouching. Not all workshops offer electronic enhancement. You'll additionally have the ability to see the credentials of the photographer you'll be collaborating with. You'll desire a seasoned workshop and also a skilled professional photographer. With the rise of bedroom photography, some wedding event photographers have begun to take up beauty fires on the side. This might be cost effective, yet it could not be the level of top quality or experience that you're seeking Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

Image and also Variety

An additional aspect of the workshop that is worthy of some attention is the kind of photography that they create. If you have a certain picture in mind that you wish to communicate, you require to make certain that the workshop supplies that alternative, as not all workshops operate similarly. You also need to make sure that they really permit the sort of images that you seek. Some boudoir workshops enable complete nudity, also allowing using suggestive props. Various other workshops don't enable any nakedness whatsoever, and there is an entire range between the two extremes. Locating the appropriate suitable for you and also the specific photographs that you want is type in the boudoir experience New Orleans.

Input

Not all studios use consumer input, and this might be an issue. If you don't expensive on your own the artsy type and also wish to leave the photographic job to the experts, after that this might not be a large deal to you. However, these are your pictures for your loved one, and they are of you as well as you alone. If having a hand in the final choice, the touch-ups, and the process in its entirety are necessary to you, you require to consider this when picking a Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

These simple pointers will go a long way when selecting a studio as well as seeing to it that it's the right workshop for you. Boudoir photography is all about an unique final product, and also it's important to ensure that the outcomes you get are the ones that you want.

Boudoir Professional photographer

Preparation a wedding event is a long procedure and also can often be an extremely stressful minute for a bride-to-be. Successfully tasking details wedding event matters can get a handful of workload from your shoulders, as well as would certainly offer you time to focus on a certain subject that you would certainly want to be appointed to you. One of the most concerns that must not be left unnoticed is getting a group of specialist digital photographers that would record the event. Recording your every feeling as a pair along with your relatives, close friends, associates and also visitors is one of the most vital points in your wedding. Obtaining a boudoir photographer or professional photographers will certainly ensure you that everything concerning your bride will be caught, from the new bride's make up to the new bride's walk down the aisle as well to the after celebration or reception happenings Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

Fantastic wedding event photographs are treasured by the couple throughout their lives. This can be a wonderful remembrance of their most unique event that they will surely prize. Accomplishing this sensible goal can be done easily once you hire an exceptional bedroom photographer that has the eye for perfection, imagination, originality and elegance. Skilled professional photographers can make an average scenario appear like paradise. Aside from their high-end cameras and the most recent devices, they use photo boosting software application that can boost the picture's comparison, illumination, hue and texture. Unnecessary objects can likewise be cropped out of the photo to more spotlight the subject New Orleans.

It is likewise recommended to talk to your photographer or photographers concerning your ideas and recommendations. It is important to impart your thoughts and let the professional photographer understand your preferences and also hostilities. Allow your bedroom professional photographer know your full wedding details and also event schedule also, for him or her to recognize where he or she need to go to every specific time and area. Further pertinent details should likewise be supplied to your digital photographer such as directions and your contact number, in addition to the wedding celebration planner's Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

Pre-nuptial image sessions must additionally be prepared. Plan this beforehand and also educate your entourage as well as family members relating to the certain day and also place. You can also do this before the proper wedding, to conserve up time as well as cash New Orleans.

Things to Seek When Selecting a Bedroom Professional Photographer

To begin with, I don't feel like it is unreasonable to satisfy your photographer face to face prior to the shoot with this type of intimate digital photography. They are used to this kind of request as well as it truly does make the shoot go smoother. Nevertheless, you require to see to it that you fit with this individual and that you get in touch with them sufficient to not look or really feel nervous. Ask to see their printed work, which can vary a good deal from what you see online. Pay attention to complexion. Do they look natural? To people look also tan, light, blue or red?

Ask a great deal of questions. Let the professional photographer understand what the least preferred thing is about on your own and have them tell you what they can do to concentrate on the things that are you preferred. They should be able to tell you concerning complementary posturing, lighting to minimize problem areas, and so on. Discuss the level of Photoshop that will certainly be utilized. Do you wish to look perfect? Do you wish to still see your laugh lines? There are lots of possibilities, and your concept of the perfect quantity of retouch may not be the same as the digital photographers Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

You are delegating a professional photographer with your safety and security in addition to with your pictures. Several professional females would like to know that their images will not be shown anywhere which nobody else will see them. See to it that this is covered in a contract. The digital photographer might desire you to authorize for permission to publish in a password safeguarded gallery online, however see to it that this is the only method they can be seen online. Make sure the agreement specifies that the images may not be made use of in any kind of online or print marketing product Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

Bedroom Photography Illumination

Boudoir digital photography can be impressive when you have the ideal present, the correct outfit and also the most effective workshop illumination. Having stated that, you might have the most effective photographic devices in the world and also you would still not wind up with a high quality photograph if lights is not considered. Boudoir photography, like any type of various other genre of photography requires wonderfully intended lighting New Orleans.

Boudoir professional photographers have realized that their camera is just one of things you require to have excellent picture. It's truly straightforward and I do want to highlight this clearly: Where you do not have good, well intended light, you will certainly not have an excellent photograph.

Undoubtedly you have come across some women buddies revealing of their boudoir photos as well as they simply appear rinsed and also disappointing? The presents are fantastic and also the outfits may be spectacular but unfortunately the image lacks the wow element ... This is since the bedroom photographer have ruled out appropriate lights New Orleans.

A well lit picture goes a lengthy method. Even in today's electronic wonderland with the good old Photoshop, it is really hard to transform a bad boudoir photograph right into an incredible shot. When we do upload manufacturing this truth is extremely evident ... A well lit picture is taken and very little demands to be done to it to give it the wow aspect Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

The key to getting that ideal image is to take it properly with the proper illumination. Always consider your boudoir versions eyes and face initially. Yes we understand it's about making your customer really feel beautiful and also display her well dressed body, however do not neglect to depict her lovely eyes and also obtain them properly lit also New Orleans.

Below are some resources of illumination that might be utilized in boudoir digital photography that will certainly make your images pop with charm:

1. The Digital photographer's "Golden Hr"

Shortly after sunrise or a hr approximately before sundown

This is due to the fact that the orange color that is naturally produced currently would offer a magnificent shade to your photo. The majority of electronic cameras can recording this type of light amazingly as well as it will certainly make a rather big distinction to any boudoir picture shoot. That fantastic cozy feeling you obtain when you take a look at a great photograph is normally due to this element that was included in it by the Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

2. Integrate Sunlight if possible.

Regardless of how we attempt - it is not feasible to find an alternative to all-natural sunlight.

It stays the very best source of light if made use of appropriately.

Play around with various angles in natural sunshine, use your flash as a fill in light along with all-natural sunshine. It is ideal employed in a setup where you have big home windows as well as obviously since its a bedroom picture shoot, your subject might not be comfortable being outside during your picture shoot New Orleans.

Maximize the shadows developed by sunshine, use reflectors to soften the harsh light in the subjects deal with if desired or utilize it as is to develop a sexier much more mysterious type of feel and look.

Wedding Bedroom Digital Photography - First Timers

B-pics are the latest gift for bridegrooms, hot pattern amongst brides-to-be, memento for caring pairs and also home entertainment for solitary girls who just want to strut their stuff in front of the electronic camera.

What are b-pics?

B-pics are expert bedroom pictures. Motivated by the 1920's, via the 1960's, young bride-to-bes are hoping to appear like prestige women of the past. Bettie Web Page, Marilyn Monroe, Bridget Bardot, are just a few of the extra popular symbols of the times.Professional boudoir professional photographers are in high demand as the pattern for B-pics rises around the world. B-pics are meant to catch the charm of the female body, female perspective and attractive energy that is within all ladies. They are planned to sexy, charming and also sex-related in nature. Some B-pics may be sophisticated while others can be a lot more revealing and also mischievous Boudoir Photographer New Orleans.

What's the huge bargain regarding B-pics?

The best thing about boudoir photos as a present to your partner, enthusiast or husband is that a lady has the chance to have expert hair and also make-up, professional lighting, specialist digital photography as well as editing and enhancing. It's a possibility to resemble an incredibly model and provide the boudoir photographs to your better half. Lots of women are even taking these B-pics on their own. With socials media like MySpace as well as Facebook, girls can publish their sexy boudoir photos on-line for all of their old buddies to covet New Orleans.

What to anticipate at a bedroom image shoot?

Lots of boudoir photographers function out of little studios, home studios or will travel to your place. Depending upon the boudoir photographer you pick,

Cost-the price for occupation b-pics can range from $300-$900 for a session. Hair and Makeup-The session typically includes hair and comprise, 3-4 attire modifications, expertly edited images and also a cd or prints of the leading 20 images from your boudoir photo shoot. don't be reluctant. Outfits-Once you get here to the picture shoot, you will need to have your attire with you. A lot of boudoir photographers do not provide attire, simply due to the fact that it would be also hard to keep a stock of numerous sizes and also designs available. The photographer will certainly wish to see the attire as well as begin planning the shoot. How Long it Takes-The shoot can take anywhere from 2 hrs to 5 hrs relying on how many appearances you paid for in your boudoir or bridal bedroom package.after your first hair as well as comprise look is full you will require to get involved in your sexy little clothing. Many women go partially nude, some go nude. It might appear that much of these girls are expert designs, since their b-pics look so professional. This is when you have a great bedroom photographer. The appropriate illumination, the appropriate angles and also great editing and enhancing can make you appear like a very version Boudoir Photographer New Orleans. Poses-If you have the right digital photographer, you will certainly be led as well as advised regarding posturing for your boudoir photos. There are pinup presents, bedroom positions, exterior presents, setting, standing as well as cupcake positions. It is always best to browse photo galleries online before your bedroom image shoot to see the sort of positions that you really feel are attractive. You should also practice postures in your very own time before your image session starts. this assists you to come to be comfortable and confident with your various looks New Orleans.

Where to find a boudoir photographer?

Many boudoir professional photographers are taking place trip to take images in different states. One renowned bedroom photographer by the name of Beth Cocuzzi has scenic tours in San Francisco as well as Las Vega Consistently. While her home workshop is located in Huntington Coastline, ca., lots of women can not pay for the flight. Numerous wedding web sites like task wedding, the recognize as well as wedding bee have forums where ladies review their personal image fires as well as share their experiences.

Just how to schedule a boudoir shoot?

Always be sure to reserve your day with a boudoir digital photographer at the very least 1 month ahead of time. Specifically during wedding celebration period, it is advised to schedule your boudoir shoot 60-90 days in advance. You should always expect to give a non-refundable deposit to schedule your day.

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Erika Parker Boudoir

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