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Figured id try this. AH  Chit chat livestream notes / QnA  7-10-20

because i'm weird i like “documenting” videos and (in this case) Live Streams. figured why keep this to myself so here. maybe one day ill just post a google docs link for a viewing copy but idk. So heres what i got for today seeing as the chitchat part will likely be cut off for the “real” video i may as well memorialize it. not perfect and may be kinda nonsensical but its what i could come up with.

Matt has a window…. With a balcony blocking above , pointless window. Red Web (trevors podcast)  “where he gets in over his head on the internet” “think if i just show them the episode of Technical Difficulties where i made garden lights into solar chargers i can get that tax kickback?” , Jacks neighbor with the tesla solar roof , having to train people to know how to install it . Ryan: “what are the odds he cant look outside at any given hour of the day and see atleast one human with a big piece of paper scratching their head” Elon Musk Starlink satellites for internet worldwide, Ryan “not saying that's _clearly_  a supervillain plot but if it was it wouldnt surprise me” , Ubisoft Far Cry teaser… oh its live action movie teaser clip- oh shit that's rendered!!! , teaser pick of a young Vaas with scars…. Ryan “Did he get them in the womb!?!?!?  Wanna know how i got these scars? Born with them don't know…”  “What is your fave type of cake?” Ryan: Chocolate (Lava)… don't put a sprinkle on it OR ILL SLAY YOU Jack: I mean is birthday a type of cake… Funfettis great Jeremy: both are stereotypical , Boston Creme cakes and Rum Cakes. Matt: Yellow cake with fudge frosting. “Pets and significant others are safe , what item do you grab in a house fire” Jack: Animation cel of the Dino DNA scene in Jurrassic Park (think i got it) Ryan: i mean my life looks alot like this corner , if i could burn this shit down to start with a new empty house i might even be happy. (chat Ryan your insurance is listening)  Jeremy: don't have much i really care about , just “well that sucks it burnt up” . Matt: first ever smash trophy i won , only one i still have. Chat answers “Photo albums , Ryans DeadPool Suit” “what games hope to be announced on microsoft stream?” Matt :  Fable 4 (Ryan ”surprised theyd try to bring it back past the press that is peter molyneu” Matt ” well now nothing holding them back , not those trees!”) Jack: not so much games but LockHeart the mini streaming Xbox. (Ryan: all those types of things have failed idk why they think - well they also made mixer and that went tits up so sure why not) Jeremy: microsoft doesnt really blow me away , arent really anything that im like “i HOPE they announce a sequel” Matt: know this isnt the right crowd but Banjo Kazzoie? Just added in smash , Crash Bandicoots got a new game it makes sense nows the time… i mean the time was already before this but fuck it do it anyway. Steffie says we are at almost 10 mil views on Achievement Knievel (9.95 mil)  Ryan “which one was that” (Jack and Jeremy) “that's Im Still In The Air” Ryan “oooohhh… now i know why i blocked it out… thought we titled it like “the greatest stunt ever” or atleast that's what we called it while making it” “rather fight 100 duck sized ChilledChaos (yey my boy chilled!) or 1 ChilledChaos sized duck?” Ryan “feel like the duck cuz atleast it still doesnt have thumbs” - Jeremy “or teeth , what is it gonna do it can bill and flipper you” Matt “i mean a bunch of tiny Chilleds can work together to kill you” Jeremy “right they will figure something out” Ryan “tiny chilled more dangerous he can infiltrate spaces i wouldnt expect to find him” “tv show / movie you could watch again for the first time what would it be?” Jack: Breaking bad and Endgame … but only if its with a crowd who is ALSO seeing it for the first time. Matt : The Office Ryan: Full Metal Alchemist (oh anime time) , everyone talks about Brotherhood but i really liked the original. Matt:  Brotherhoods a bit better but original is still good on its own (paraphrased). Ryan : had that twist at the end of “dafuq did this show just go?” made a movie based off it… skippable though. Jeremy: Futurama , *or erase all my knowledge of Whose Line* “Fave piece of Merch put out?” Jeremy: Geoff tanktop with the tribal skull. Ryan: *puts on classic gray achievement hunter hat* Jack: Extralife Posters if those count , like the Xmen AH one behind Ryan that Jon (Risinger i assume) and Pat (IDFK) made. Matt: Tiki Mugs. Jeremy “do you use those , make pina coladas?” Matt “often! When i get caught in the rain (GDI Matt) “ Chat alot saying FrontBack ,  one said Jacks Varsity Jacket. “Trapped in quarantine with a fictional character , who?” Jack: Macgyver maybe idk (Ryan: How about Dr Manhattan he could just fix it)  yeah like Q from star trek. Matt: GlaDOS but in potato form. Jeremy “theres a lot of anime girls id be ok being stuck with but idk their name” (i love jeremy)  a Matt: you want Lust from Full Metal Alchemist - Jeremy: That sounds great , (Ryan *Nods*) i can picture that i like it or if we keeping the Futurama train then Bender… think wed have A LOT of fun , and he wouldnt get me the virus! Ryan: no he would , hed deliberately try to get you  sick. Jeremy: hed bring people in “what occupation / person where you most surprised to find out was an AH fan?” Jack: Fun story im looking to learn how to Sauder , someone messaged me saying they're a fan if you need help , *hes the guy welding StarShip* Matt: well… anyone smart really… Jack (and Ryan) : the Dr Who Set/Prop designer (Ben) hes done some stuff us (think he snuck in a name plate on a show of Jack and Ryan name or something , saw a tweet about that before) Ryan: not really any that's surprising… there was the time Macauly Culkin wore our shirt (press my awesome button) “our” being RT  Jeremy: Cool meeting Xavier Woods but like we know hes a gaming fan and watches a lot of content like ours… still on Whose Line Johnathon Mangum is a AH fan , even messaging me at one point. Trevor in chat “what if president trump rode up in a Salad Chalice shirt” , Jack: one guy who bought it , like “im hip with the kids” Ryan: can you imagine someone less likely to be seen near a salad? Matt: I mean ryan he thinks he has to drink them so…. Jeremy: also been having a lot of solicitors recently for some reason… really annoying and during a pandemic. Ordered a sign thats basically “fuckoff im not answering the door LEAVE” , have a ring doorbell (some kind of doorbell app where you can talk to people at the door i guess?)  but when im recording cant be like “hang on a second - FUCKOFF” Ryan: i DO feel like you have the kind of job you could do that , if anything youd put them in the video like “hey you're live right now what you need” … Jack managed to crash 7D2D on my local system already that's a good sign (brief technical difficulties music playing as it cut to ryans screen in the game) 

[Fic] All due respect here... (there's no respect due)

Let’s try one last time... I truly apologise if the cut doesn’t work on mobile, I am posting from my laptop.

Enough is enough, they're right. There’s only so much that can be forgiven, before one’s indulgence becomes a red flag. Loneliness is not an excuse, Martino.

“You need to put your foot down” they keep saying. “You need to draw a line and say: this is unacceptable. If you step over the line once you get a warning, but do it twice and we’re done.”

It's just that… you know… He feels so stupid, now? He has been so blind, so naïve and nearly let himself be played like a fiddle. Hurting those who really care about him, and for what? Approval?

The more he thinks about it, the worse it gets. The signals were all there, for fuck’s sake!

Lulling him into a sense of comradery, that he had been missing ever since his friends from high school had all chosen different paths… Yeah, that’s how it had all started. With him, trying so desperately to fill that void. It hadn’t been as difficult as had imagined to bond over incomprehensible lectures, disgusting coffee and eclectic lifestyles. Francesco had been the first to approach him, complimenting his Apparat-inspired T-shirt and asking where he bought it. It hadn’t seen anything quite like it on the Internet, or he would have remembered! Deciding it was best to weed out the homophobes straight away, Martino told him the truth: it was a gift from his boyfriend. Not quite his usual style, but since it made Nico happy to see him wear it…

“Oh man, you’re so whipped.” Francesco had commented, instead, laughing. “But hey, who am I to judge? I’m actually a bit jealous, you know. No one ever made me something that cool. Do you think I could commission him one?”

Marti did, but he had been wrong. Niccolò wasn’t interested in designing clothes for anyone else, and while he was flattered by Fra’s proposal he would have to turn it down. Not exactly a great start, but Martino didn’t think much of it. This wasn’t kindergarten and surely Francesco wouldn’t hold that refusal against Nico.

Marina had literally saved his life, when he crossed the street and didn’t look as he was in the middle of some lovely banter with Niccolò. In return for her heroic deed, he was bound to treat her to lunch. Or a coffee, at least. The way she delivered that ridiculous request, wiggling her head and biting her lips – like a mischievous child, amused by their own audacity – reminded him so much of a certain someone… that he found himself discussing the top 10 TV shows betrayals of the decade (no! they were never going to forgive D&D for what he had done to Daenerys!) over a cappuccino. She might have been side-eyeing him for checking his phone a little too much, but he didn’t really care.

And then came Lorenzo. Well, it was actually Martino who had reached out to him. Who found him sitting on the floor of a dingy bathroom, crying his eyes out. Years ago, he would have stepped out and let someone else comfort a stranger. But then… Then he though ‘what I was the one sitting there? what if it was Nico? I don’t want to think everyone would just walk away and pretend they didn’t see him…’ and sat down next to him. He didn’t ask if he was okay, when he clearly wasn’t. He didn’t ask why he was so distraught. It wasn’t any of his business, and the question alone would have made this guy feel worse. It was a lesson he had learnt the hard way, through his own experience and Nico’s.

“Oi, you got 2 tens or 4 fives? Some spare coins? I’ve only 20€ in my wallet, and that fucking machine never gives you the right change if you put in more than a 10€ note.”   He had asked, when Lori looked up.

“I… I…” He had said, sniffling. Frantically, he had started looking for the money and seemed truly sorry he couldn’t help Martino out.

“Hey, that’s okay. I’ll manage. So, what can I get you? You look like you could use some hot chocolate, though I’m afraid I can only find vaguely chocolatey-flavored water, around here.”

He didn’t think he would get to meet any of them ever again, and then one day he spotted them all sitting at the same table. It wasn’t like Martino had ever believed in fate, but that did seem like a coincidence straight out from a Norwegian teen drama. A French romance. Not that he had ever watched either of them, of course. An occurrence meant to show him that the universe had plans, for the four of them.

In hindsight, he should have told the universe where he could shove its plans…

For a while, however, Martino thought there could hardly be anybody on Earth who got luckier than him in when it came to friendship. They always knew where to find the next best party but didn’t mind spending a night in, binge-watching the latest trashy show that had been uploaded on Netflix. Playing FIFA. Discussing politics, and even ethics and philosophy when they were more than a little drunk.

Everything changed, however, when things started to get a bit more personal. When they started dispensing details about their crushes, their heartbreaks, and Martino foolishly felt comfortable enough to share more of his life with Nico. Painting quite an idyllic picture, as complaints and rants about his inability to tidy up a room and tendency to zone out when they were discussing financial matters would only ever be disclosed to Giovanni. Nevertheless, to say that they weren’t his biggest fans would be an understatement.

  “Let me guess, it’s Nico. Again.”

 “Okay… So, he can leave on read for hours, but starts panicking if you don’t answer straight away?”

 “He put salt in your coffee because you weren’t paying attention? Is he… like, five or something? But well, if you find that endearing… You do you, man.”

 And it only got worse after they met him, and began spinning a whole other narrative in which Martino was either a hero or a martyr, for ‘putting up’ with Nico.

 “Oh, you're such a great guy not giving up on that.”

 “You sure must love him a lot to endure all of his up and downs.”

He reassured them all, told them that he appreciated the concern but that they barely knew Niccolò so he wouldn’t stand for any further slandering of his boyfriend.

So they laid low, and stayed quiet, for a while. It hurt them to see Martino trapped in what clearly was an abusive relationship, but there was nothing more that could be said or done about it. Whenever Nico was mentioned, they changed the subject.

Until tonight. Asking them both to join them at a party, and then corner him and attempted to stage an ‘intervention’.

Couldn’t he see how possessive and controlling Niccolò was, manipulating Marti into thinking his new friends were out to get him?

 “The two of you, against the world? Doesn’t it sound disturbing to you?”

 “Marti, come on, you have to admit that he has controlling tendencies. He shouldn’t need to know where you are at all times, doing what, with whom. He shouldn’t come up and snatch you away, whenever he notices you spend time talking to the same person for more than 2 minutes.”

 “It’s like he can’t stand not being at the center of your attention 100% of the time.”

How… How dare they? Who the fuck do they think they are?

“Get out of my face, you fuckers. If I hear you badmouthing Nico ever again, you’re gonna regret it.”

Thankfully, they don’t try to stop him when he storms out the room. The last thing he wants is to end up in a fight, and having Niccolò find out it was because of him. It had already happened once, with Malik and his friends, and… No revival of that was needed, thanks.

Little do they know about their late conversations, when Martino had indeed noticed was off with Niccolò and tried to find out how he could help. Because Marti couldn’t relate to the magnitude of Niccolò feelings, sure, but he had been there the year before. When everyone in Uni had seemed far more interesting that a boy who still attended high school…

Niccolò has a jealous streak, sure. That had been clear ever since he put in his pasta. But it wasn’t the ugly side of jealousy, stemming from a warped sense of ownership over him. It was more like… Feeling like he didn’t matter, of maybe being interest enough to catch someone’s attention but lacking in keep them entertained. Which in turn made him petty, vindictive, clingy. It was only a matter of time before Martino would agree with those guys, and leave him for good.

Marti tapped Nico's skull, then, and said to his brain "Stop with this bullshit. Stop making my boyfriend suffer, you asshole. You know nothing, zero, zilch, nil, nada. You're worse than Jon Snow.” He bent down to kiss his heart, and went on with "You, on the other hand… You know Nico's the best thing that has ever happened to me and that I'd be a fool not to cherish it. So what if he’s got some flaws? Who cares? Not me. One thing matters and it’s this: no else compares. So yeah, tell him he shouldn't worry: I'm not going anywhere."

"Ever?" He mumbled, not quite ready to believe Martino.

"Kim Jong-un, Nico. Remember?"  Marti reminded him, smiling as he stroked his cheek.

"Right. How could I forget King-Kong-Là…" That made them both laugh, and they decided not to discuss the matter any further. They were far more pleasurable ways to spend their night together…

So yeah, screw them. Screw everyone who overanalyzes every little thing Niccolò does, who is always ready to point the finger at him and say that Martino deserves better.

Of course he does, duh. Better friends, for a start.

*********************** All due respect here... There's no respect due. So fuck you and you, and you and you. You're cool, but fuck you... And I'm out of here. (Swear Jar, Illy)

How about the first chapter Tommy appears?

[Pick any passage from any fanfic I’ve written, and stick that selection in my ask/fan mail/submission box. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet!]

Thanks a lot!! (Also I answered this kind of ask about a passage from chapter 2, if you want to take a look - it’s all spoiler-free!)

Here’s Thomas Sean Ferguson’s grand introduction, then :D Oh god, it’s kind of awkward, because like with Blake there’s a certain amount of early installment weirdness. Also I go on and oooooooon (sorry about that). But let’s go!

_________

Quite lost in his thoughts this time, [Jonathan] barely registered that he was walking past the Museum (where Evy is, right now, negotiating the Cairo Museum “lending” the Diamond of Ahm Shere to the British government - which kickstarts the plot) before somebody knocked into him, hard enough for both of them to crumple, breathless, on the ground. It took Jonathan thirty seconds to get his lungs in working order again and, instinctively, check his pockets for anything missing.

A lot of this commentary risks being “this used to be [thing] before I tweaked it in the rewrites”, and a lot of it is because I’ve gained some insight in the past twelve years. Jonathan’s first thought being checking his pockets (which - and I made it explicit in the second or third paragraph of the story :D - comes from his being a skilled pickpocket himself and knowing how it works), however, was there from the very beginning.

“So sorry I bumped into you, mate, didn’t mean to,” came the voice of the attacker. Jonathan’s eyes widened at the sound of this voice and he squinted up at its owner.

And cue Tom Ferguson :D He wasn’t my first OC, far from it (that dubious honour would probably belong to the buttload of OCs I created for my Marauder era story which died when Order of the Phoenix came out), but he was the first I got to really explore and develop, and he ended up one of my favourites ever. Em, I answered an ask of yours way back in 2015, “introduce us to two of your OCs” :o) The first was him, the second was Marguerite LeBeau.

“Tommy? Is that you? Tommy Ferguson?”

The diamond is the reason the O’Connell-Carnahan gang goes to Egypt, but without Tommy, there’d be no plot. Hamilton would probably still find a way to “retrieve” the diamond from the museum, only without Evy and her family getting personally involved and then having to go back to the UK saying she failed her mission. and then cue the end of the world about a week and a half from there, but shhh - spoilers!

The fellow shook his head, still looking a bit dazed; then his own eyes, round and brown, (so he’s the opposite of Jon in almost every way, physically speaking. Like I said in the aforementioned OC ask, I designed him as a foil for Jon, fundamentally different in some ways but very similar in others. Physically speaking he’s basically Sean Astin (with some James Corden thrown in) with brown eyes, blond hair, and a Liverpool accent.) went even rounder as he stared at Jonathan. “Jon! What the hell are you doing ‘ere?”

For the longest time Tommy used to call Jonathan by his last name here (and Jon’s earlier line used to be “Ferguson? Is that you? Tommy Ferguson?”). I changed it quite recently. I think I wanted to convey the idea that school friends at the time often called each other by their last names; but since he calls Jonathan “Jon” 100% of the time - and is the only one to do so, which I have Feelings about - I went back to correct it.

“Glad to see you too, old chap,” laughed Jonathan, standing up and dusting himself off before offering a hand at the man on the ground, who accepted it gladly.

Heh. Look, one of the staples of Mummy fanfiction was and still is the old school friend of Evy’s who follows either the siblings (TM time) or the whole family (TMR/post-TMR time) to Egypt and falls in love with Ardeth Bay. I’m not throwing stones here; I’ve read a couple I really liked. There’s the odd Jonathan/OFC romance, too. What I set out to do as a baby writer (I was 21 at the time!) and unsuspecting ace was to write something completely devoid of romance (except the odd Evy/Rick snuggle and, of course, all-encompassing love for each other). And then, as I reread the story for rewrites a decade and a half later, I became more and more convinced that Jonathan and Tommy used to be more than friends, and then when Elizabeth came along the three of them got together as a thruple and very happy for a while. (For some reason I couldn’t work this explicitly into FTaH, though - it felt too much like hinting at this huge story I was never going to write and might have made FTaH much too crowded. So it’s up to the reader to decide, really. Personally, I like both options.) So here’s 37 year old me shipping Jon with a female OC and a male OC, and quite enthusiastically, at that. *chuckles* Wonder what my 21 y-o self would think of it…

He hadn’t seen Thomas Ferguson since some time after the end of the war, what felt like ages ago. They’d made quite a pair at Oxford, the two of them – the scrawny, foppish Southerner with the quiet grin and the sticky fingers, and the broad-shouldered, round-faced Scouser with the laughing eyes and the deceptively innocent face. They’d rowed for the Dark Blues for a bit, got properly pickled on Boat Race Nights, and helped each other out of many a tight spot. Oh, for the halcyon days of youth.

One of the reasons I picked up FTaH again is because the second half of 2019 was very, very British for me. I saw (and read) Good Omens for the first time in early June and my feelings exploded; July was very much about discovering the delights of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster (TV show and books). Halfway through that month I remembered my everlasting fondness for the characters of The Mummy and realised the protagonists and Bertie were the same generation, more or less, and I started imagining a crossover. By the time August rolled in I was fully into TM/TMR again, reading fic and my fingers itching to at least correct some iffy parts of FTaH. This last sentence, about Jon’s and Tom’s Oxford days, would never have come out that way if I hadn’t read Wodehouse.

As soon as Tommy was on his feet he was wringing Jonathan’s hand with all the energy he’d been famous for as a boy. “Sorry, Jon, mate, I was a bit stunned –” After all these years, he still retained some of that accent, too! “– En’t everyday you bump into a pal from Oxford in the middle of Cairo! How’d you get here, for starters?”

…Tommy’s accent. *sighs* I’m not a fan of writing accents phonetically in the first place. When I write Newkirk (Hogan’s Heroes) and his Cockney accent, there isn’t much except the odd “me” for “my” or things like “d’you”. I did have to make it obvious Tommy had an accent, though, if only because later Jonathan is surprised when he tones it down to speak with the curator. (This is something his 18 year old self found incredibly difficult, btw.) @thisstableground oversaw the first chapter and gave me very valuable tips, including “en’t” (// “ain’t), which was super helpful in giving Tommy’s accent its own specificity and meant that I didn’t need him to drop “h”s and “g”s all over the place. (which he does do, but hopefully not in a way that takes you away from the story.)

As for why he’s from Liverpool as opposed to, say, Manchester or the East End of London, the answer is very simple. I’d discovered the Beatles a year or two prior and they remain one of my favourite bands in the whole world ♥

“Well, I followed my sister,” Jonathan replied, grinning. In fifteen years or so, he had not realised how much he had actually missed this accent. “She’s giving a hand to the curator of the Museum of Antiquities – she’s something of an authority now, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh aye? That’s fantastic. I en’t forgotten how you’d talk about her, y’know. On and on and on. I’m curious to see what she looks like.”

Somethingthat didn’t change after rewrites is the idea that Jon was verysecretive about his Oxford years. Tom and Evy never met before this,and Evy hadn’t even heard about Tom before.

Jonathan stole a glance at the entrance steps of the Museum, and turned to Tommy with a smirk. “Really? Well, if you really want to, I suppose I could…”

His sister had just appeared on the stairs, accompanied by the curator, an elderly man with greying hair and whiskers. The curator, Dr Fahad Hakim, has a somewhat larger role later on, but this is just a cameo to let you know he exists :o) There’s another mention earlier, too. Tommy followed Jonathan’s gaze and looked at them, goggling at Evy in particular.

“Jon – are my eyes mistaken, or is this gorgeous woman Doctor Evelyn O’Connell? I’ve read about her, she’s famous in my line of work… According to what I’ve read, she was one of the first people to make it out of the City of the Dead alive –”

He doesn’t say what his “line of work” is, but we (and Jonathan) can infer it has something to do with archaeology or Egyptology. And, incidentally, I’m setting up the first alarm bells here because, as Evy points out in the following chapter, at the time her name was “Carnahan”, so how come Tommy didn’t seem to make the connection between Jon’s bookish sister and this English librarian with the same name? The answer is: because he’s nervous (because he’s in Cairo on secret Chamber of Horus business) and as delighted as he is to see Jon again after so many years his brain went “YOU KNOW NOTHING” then backpedalled and went “…OKAY, YOU KNOW SOME THINGS.”

Jonathan’s grin widened as he nodded. “Yes, that’d be her.”

Tommy rambled on as they walked closer to the stairs, “That’s bloody amazing! I thought she’d look, you know, like in the pictures in the paper, the bookish type with glasses – your typical Southern spinster,” he added with a wink. They waited for the curator to bid her goodbye, and Jonathan, greatly enjoying the situation, crept up on his sister to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hey there, old mum – how’s your day been?”

Evy started, then her expression shifted from slightly irked to a smile at her brother’s laugh. She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Jonathan, the things that amuse you…”

SIBS!!! I love writing siblings, and those two in particular. One of the things that I find amusing/endearing is how comfortable they are with each other, physically (and emotionally) speaking. It’s all gentle touch here, light slap there, running hand in hand, lots of things you wouldn’t expect from two Very English siblings from the first half of the 20th century.

“You’re just miffed that I startled you. C’mon, I’d like you to meet someone – an admirer,” he added with a grin to Tommy, who stood there, his eyes wide. “Thomas Ferguson, an old school friend of mine. Tommy – Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell, my famous baby sister.”

There’s a couple of instances where someone introduces Tom as “Thomas”, or Tom introducing himself as such. Most of the time, though, he’s “Tommy” - until chapter 9, where we spend some time in his head for the first time and see he thinks of himself as “Tom”, and when we go back to Jon’s PoV in chapter 11 Jonathan made the mental switch to “Tom”, as well, to separate the boy from his youth from the man he’s become. I actually spell it out in chapter 17: “A lot had happened since that late afternoon in Giza when his friend had pointed a gun at him and stopped being ‘Tommy’. ‘Tommy’ was a warm memory of loud laughter, daring escapes, bright eyes over pints clinking in the comfortable darkness of a well-loved pub. Tom, on the other hand, was a fairly decent man chucked into a complex situation, who had a wife he loved dearly but lied to about his job, who had not wanted to bring harm to an old friend but had done so anyway.”

Evy held out her hand, which Tommy grabbed and shook heartily. “So you’re the old scoundrel’s sister? No wonder he talked about you – though you don’t quite fit the description now…”

“What exactly did you tell your ‘school friends’ about me?” asked Evy, warning in her voice, though the twinkle in her eye did not quite disappear. Nevertheless, Jonathan preferred to ignore her question, earning a hard nudge in the ribs.

He bragged, actually. A lot. Since he thought Tommy and Lizzie would never meet Evy, Jonathan considered himself free to speak quite enthusiastically of his baby sister’s achievements and how bright she was. Of course, he also complained a good deal, because even at 12 Evy had a penchant for being bossy that came out even in letters.

“So, what did you say your ‘line of work’ was?” he asked Tommy.

“Well – don’t laugh. I work at the British Consulate in Cairo, specialising in antique stuff. Oh, I’m sorry, Dr O’Connell,” he stammered with a glance at Evy who had an eyebrow raised, “I mean I’m one of the chief agents in the British Antique Research Department.”

No he’s not! He’s actually a secret agent, kinda :D And not remotely close to a “chief agent”, at that. Tom Ferguson is deeply in love with his wife and nothing will ever change that state of affairs, but he might have a little intellectual crush on Evy, which leads him to… wanting to impress her a little bit.

“I’ve heard of you!” exclaimed Evy. “At least of that Research Department. They’re gradually cutting off public funds – encouraging individual financing – but that won’t do any good for scientific research! Such a stupid decision is only going to –”

“So you lot are the ones she kept fuming about for half a year!” Jonathan snorted. The infamous Ferguson rotten luck struck again.

I still regret I didn’t find more opportunities to showcase how ridiculously unlucky Tommy could get sometimes. Ah well.

Tommy looked dejected. Evy must have seen this, because she bit her lip and said, in softer tones, “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. But as my brother said, I’ve been… rather upset over this. There’s been some pressure on the British Museum lately by private patrons who threatened to pull out their funding on some… sensitive collections. Without the Crown to back us up, we might have to cave in to their ridiculous demands.”

Before the rewrites, Evy’s speech used to be a lot more “private funding is bad” without much nuance or justification. I changed it to something that hopefully makes sense and justifies her previous outburst. 

“I’ll – I’ll tell my superiors about it,” said Tommy, still looking unsure. “See what I can do. I’m sure it won’t be much, but… Well. I’ll have tried.”

“That’s nice,” Evy said cheerfully, taking Jonathan’s arm and starting to walk. See what I mean about physicality? She doesn’t even ask him with a look, just takes his arm and that’s that. And he lets her, because he’d do the same thing. “Look, the two of you – I’ve had something of a rough day, so I’ll go home, if you don’t mind. You can –”

“Brilliant idea!” said Jonathan, flashing a grin at his sister. “I thought of going to the Sultan’s Casbah, but you might find it a tad – let’s say – dingy, my good friend.”

The Sultan’s Casbah, in the novelisation of the film and my personal headcanon, was the bar Jonathan patronised the night before the first time we see Evy and where he stole a valuable-looking puzzle box from an unsuspecting drunk American. 

“Worse than the Turf?” Seeing Evy’s puzzled look, Tommy explained, “Sorry, private joke. I mean the Turf Tavern, that’s where I saw him for the first time. Me family didn’t ‘ave much money, so I used to work there to pay for my studies. Very nice pub, didn’t deserve the reputation.”

The Best Beloved and I took a trip to Oxford in the spring of 2003 (by bus - 20 hours to get there, same to come back home) and while we were so broke we had to settle for a soup and some rice in a lovely Thai restaurant we did go for a drink at the Turf. I remember a dimly-lit room with dark wood, and I think either they changed a lot of it or my memory isn’t that good because it doesn’t really look like that on the Google Maps pics. Still, I liked it, and when I needed an Oxford pub for the story it’s the one I worked in. Incidentally, there was a lot of illegal gambling going on in there in the 19th century, hence Tommy’s mention of the pub’s bad reputation.

“I’m sure you did indeed see a lot of my brother there,” Evy slipped in slyly. Jonathan threw a mock glare at her.

“To think you are almost my only family. What a shame.” Then, as Tommy looked uncertain, he added, “Carry on, Tom.”

“All right. So I was one of the only students who needed a job, and there were some others who thought that it was – how’d they put it? – a ‘disgrace’ to our university.”

“Preposterous,” said Evy sternly. “As if money could take you further than talent.”

Jonathan bit back on the cynical comment that crossed his mind. Sometimes Evy’s naïveté baffled him.

“Right,” said Tommy uncertainly, glancing at Jonathan. “So, one day, a little bunch of lads come in, and Jon here was sometimes hanging with ‘em at the time –”

Because Jonathan likes to gamble with people with deep pockets :P

Evy glared at Jonathan in advance, and he threw his hands in the air. “Don’t look at me like that! I haven’t done anything!” Evy’s gaze softened, and Jonathan finished, “…Yet.”

That earned him a playful slap on the arm, and a laugh from Tommy, who went on, “Anyway, one of the blokes orders somethin’ or other, and starts to poke fun at me. Well, I was used to it, so I let them be. Then they continued, and I finally noticed that skinny lad in the corner who was makin’ fun of them for making fun of me. Didn’t quite understand what the hell was going on – oh, sorry, Dr O’Connell – what was happening.”

While John Hannah is not “skinny” by any stretch, he is rather svelte, and one of my unimpeachable headcanons for Jonathan is that he was skinny as a rake in his youth - until he went through basic training (then WW1) and his shoulders filled out a little. It’s more or less what happened to the Best Beloved, so I feel quite secure in this headcanon’s plausibility. Plus, picturing 18 year old Jonathan as a mix of awkward gangliness and skinny limbs and aristocratic poise is just funny. (and I find the comparison with Tommy - who at that point was soft and a little chubby but already had broad shoulders - rather endearing.)

Evy smiled. “You’ll have to watch your mouth in front of my son, but otherwise it’s fine. And please, call me Evelyn.”

Tommy beamed. “Right, uh, Evelyn. So, uh –”

“What he didn’t know at that point,” interrupted Jonathan, “was that I had my eye on that fellow – what’s his name – Farbow. He owed me quite a bit of money, but wouldn’t repay me. So I was looking for a way to get him back for it.”

“And get the rest of his wallet in the process, of course.”

“Evy, he owed me seventeen pounds. (Which used to be £70 until I did some research and saw that £17 was A Bloody Fortune a the time.) And he was not what I’d call a ‘decent bloke’ – nasty, disdainful piece of work he was, and his little friends with him. Always a dirty word about the Scouser who worked at the Turf Tavern, just because he didn’t belong to his snobby little world. I did the community a favour, really.”

What he doesn’t say is that Edwin Farbow also had a lot to say about “half-Egyptian mongrels” who thought they belonged in those ancient walls. Too bad I couldn’t find a way to work it in this particular fic. If I ever manage to finish at least Tommy’s part of One-Step, Two-Step, Waltz, the first chapter of Pirouette features the whole scene.

“Don’t push it, Jonathan,” warned Evy.

Tommy carried on. “Well, I was glad there was at least one person who didn’t think like Edwin Farbow – nice change. Then Farbow said something – I don’t remember what it was about, I just remember it made me really angry, really. An’ it’s not a pretty sight when I’m really angry at someone.”

It’s always the quiet, genial ones, isn’t it.

Jonathan remembered, but thought it wise to keep his mouth shut.

Both because what Farbow said was pretty damn offensive to Tommy’s character, background, and lineage, and also because Farbow’s rant included “It’s bad enough they let inpeople like Carnahan, who only exists because a glorifiedgrave-robber shagged some darkey and didn’t even have the decencyto pretend otherwise –” and he really doesn’t want to bring this up in front of Evy, who’s had to deal with her own share of this kind of racist bullshit and doesn’t need a reminder.

“An’ – an’ I just lost it, y’know? I dropped his tea over his ‘ead –”

“I say, that one was pretty funny,” Jonathan said, smiling widely at the memory. The strangled yelp that had followed had definitely been one of the best parts.

“So they all leaped for me, obviously – began to punch me, the five or six of them – hey, I still managed to get back at them!” Tommy added quickly, as if defending his honour. Evy hid a smile, and it occurred to Jonathan that that last sentence had something very Rick-like about it. “But I en’t a fool. I know a losing fight when I’m in one.”

“Don’t tell me. Jonathan bravely threw himself into the fight to take on as many attackers as possible.” There was mischievous laughter in Evy’s voice, and her eyes were twinkling. If anyone other than her had quipped that way about him, Jonathan would probably have taken offence, or at least pretended to. But they knew each other enough not to cross the line.

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Well, that wasn’t quite Jon’s style – I don’ know, might’ve changed since then. But yeah, he did. One moment I was squashed under five or six, the next I found out we were two on the floor.”

This was perhaps the biggest suspension of disbelief I’m asking the reader to make - which, in a story where governments have secret agencies to keep an eye on magical ancient artefacts and a diamond has magic powers, is saying something. Jonathan throwing himself into a fight because someone he loves (ie. four people in the whole world that we know of) is in danger? Yep, that checks out, that’s what he does both in TM and TMR. But an (almost) complete stranger? I needed one hell of a justification. Which ended up… 60% Farbow’s money and 40% Farbow being a giant arsehole who had no business making decent bartenders look like that.

Evy began to laugh. “Why, Jonathan? My Jonathan, in a fight, for someone he barely knew?”

At that Jonathan cleared his throat, a mite embarrassed. “I told you, I was looking for Farbow’s wallet. That was the perfect diversion – you should’ve seen that twit looking in every corner for his lost wallet afterwards. It was three months before he gave up.” And it’s lucky you didn’t see me then. I was a bloody mess. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing.” Evy smiled. “You never told me that.”

To be fair, there’s a LOT of things he never told you, old girl ;o)

“Should I have?”

“I don’t know, it’s – it was nice of you to do that, even for the wrong reasons. I’m proud of you.”

Jonathan felt an unexpected lump rise in his throat. Not a very big one, but enough to keep him from talking for a few seconds. It was always like this whenever she said something really nice to him. It caught him off guard each and every time.

Look, it took me years to realise it, but I’m a sucker for validation. Sometimes it bleeds out on characters I write.

After a little while, Evy stopped in front of a door and announced, “Well, we’re home.”

“Nice house,” commented Tommy, taking in the sand-coloured neat front and the curtains at the windows.

“Our ‘old haunt’ since the family moved to Egypt,” Jonathan said, opening the door and stepping aside to let his sister in. “Evy wasn’t even walking then.”

In the first film, Evy, Rick, Jonathan and the remainder of the American party go straight to Fort Brydon, and the next thing we see is Evy emptying her suitcase while Rick tries to fill it. Since both Carnahan siblings actually live in Cairo, I thought they would live in an actual house, and from there I extrapolated that the family had one house in England (the manor we see in TMR) and a smaller pied-à-terre in Cairo.

“I do believe I was,” Evy protested.

Jonathan snorted. “Oh, you weren’t. You crawled.”

si b l i n gssss ♥♥ And like, you can always count on a big sib to remind you that you could be ridiculous as a kid. I should know, I’m the big sister :D

Evy seemed to resist the urge to slap her brother and walked into the living room, her nose in the air. She was greeted by two simultaneous voices:

“Mum!”

“Hey, hon.”

Rick’s first words in this story, and it’s greeting his wife ^^ I didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s. Y’know. There.

Jonathan waited a few seconds, then walked into the room in turn, and grinned at the sight of his nephew looking genuinely eager to see him. He was not fooled, however – as soon as Evy wasn’t looking, Alex mouthed the words “Got one?” and frowned as his uncle shook his head. No, he still had no present for Mum’s birthday.

Evy’s birthday mainly originated as a device to get characters (especially Jonathan) moving. It’s the reason he’s roaming the streets of Cairo just before he bumps into Tommy, and why he and Alex go to the bazaar in chapter 5. It also pops up further on in the story, but I’m not saying anything because spoilers.

“Uncle Jon? Who’s that?”

“Who, him?” Jonathan pointed at Tommy behind him, looking uncomfortable at the family reunion, and Alex rolled his eyes. “Tom Ferguson, he was in class with me at Oxford. I ran into him by chance today.”

Tommy stepped past Jonathan and held out his hand to Alex, nearest to him. “Hi – glad to meet you. Jon’s nephew, eh?”

“Yeah,” said Alex, eyeing him with all the suspicion of a ten-year-old who’d seen what he had seen. Behind him, Rick’s eyes spoke loads about his own distrust. But mistrust towards Jonathan and everything related was par for the course on his part, and, admittedly, reasonable.

Alex has Seen Things. This may sound tongue-in-cheek, but it’s true. After what happened in TMR, he’s 100% entitled to being suspicious of strangers. As for Rick, I took my cue from one of his first lines to Jon in TMR being “What did you do this time?” implying that the weird shit happening right now, with the men in red and the sexy lady waving snakes around isn’t exactly unheard of. Hence the “and, admittedly, reasonable”, which I added in the rewrites.

“Thomas Ferguson, British Antique Research Department,” said Tommy, holding out a hand towards Rick, who shook it slowly, still reluctant.

“Rick O’Connell.”

“So you’re Dr O’Connell’s husband? Pleasure to meet you, sir. I’m impressed, you’ve no idea.”

Rick raised an eyebrow. “Impressed?”

“It seems I’m rather famous in the Research Department,” said Evy, laughing.

“Make that infamous,” quipped Jonathan.

“The Department owes your wife a great deal. She was the one who uncovered a huge amount of our information about some obscure periods of Egyptian history, as well as the major part of serious knowledge we’ve got on Hamunaptra,” Tommy pointed out, and Evy blushed. “She’s a legend – one of the original three who managed to go to Hamunaptra and live to tell the tale! But… I assume you’re another one?”

Oh, Tommy. MATE. You’re saying you know three people made it out of Hamunaptra alive, one of whom a woman with the exact same first and last name as your best friend’s sister who had a passion for ancient history, but you had no idea he was one of them as well? 

Incidentally, the early installment weirdness I mentioned earlier mostly consists in Tommy being a lot more energetic and innocent-looking than he later proves to be (which is a little more grounded and pragmatic than Jon). In fact, he and Jonathan’s first couple of scenes together give the impression that he’s the red and Jon’s the blue in the “Bue oni, red oni” trope, when later chapters show Jon as a little bit more of a disaster while Tom struggles to make better choices and be more sensible. Which in the end would make them shades of purple, really.

“Yeah,” said Rick, looking a bit nonplussed. Jonathan definitely didn’t regret bringing Tommy in. Seeing Rick O’Connell confused was a very rare occurrence, too rare to be missed.

“I never knew – who was the third one?”

Jonathan was now struggling to keep a straight face. Rick blinked, and pointed at his brother-in-law. “That was him.”

“You!?” God, the look on his face was priceless. “You were at Hamunaptra?”

“Yes,” risked Jonathan, laughter rising in his voice. “And believe me, it wasn’t exactly a picnic. Oh, by the way, there were four of us, not three.”

Meaning Ardeth, of course. My take is that Tommy - and by extension the Chamber of Horus - know about as much about the Medjai as Evy knew about the Book of Amun-Ra prior to the events of TM: a non-negligible amount of information, but all of it second-hand and some of it a bit dicey.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Rick roll his eyes and grinned, undaunted. This was proving to be a fun evening.

Make the most of it, people, because it’s all going to go downhill fast…

Thank you ♥♥♥

I haven't read Arya x Gendry in like ... 6 years. I caught up a bit this week. Here are some I really like! 

[30 some fic recs after the jump]

post 8x01 Arya keeps looking for reasons to visit Gendry in the forge. - mmh post episode askbox fic

Somewhere to Begin, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) The Stark sisters share a moment in the wake of some impactful reunions. - lmao my most frequently used GoT tag was "westeROS" (remember Ros???) followed by "Stark famly dynamics." So Stark sisters hashing things out... my kryptonite

Beautiful & Deadly Sharp, vlaurie17 Learning to fight with a sword were some of Arya's best memories. Sansa, however, was hesitant. “What do I do with it?” “Stick ‘em with the pointy end,” Arya smirked. Sansa just rolled her eyes, “Obviously." - also Stark sisters revisiting being Vengeance-made-girls together and practising to knife someone

I'll sing for you, Ravenclawpride06 Set post 8x1. Gendry wants it bad. Arya wants it worse. Was going to more explicit but I left it vague, felt it fit better in the end. All the pining! - I’m soft for the pining

This is my wish, crazychipmink "As he studied the drawing she had given him, he slowly began to let himself believe that she was real and alive and well. He had thought about Arya so many times that the memory of her was worn in his mind. Fragile and faded, like a piece of parchment that had been read too many times. To tell the truth, sometimes, he couldn’t even remember what she looked like, only that she was the only thing he ever wanted, ever wished for.” - season 8 episode companion fic series - ao3 tag: weapons design processes are long and require many iterations - “Davos assumed he was waiting to play his part in the great war to come, but in reality, Gendry was waiting for the next remarkable thing to happen to him. Perhaps if enough remarkable things happened to him, he would finally let himself believe that the most remarkable thing that had ever happened to him had happened.” wow ok

Who are you waiting for? crazychipmink [incomplete] "She had Arya’s face and Arya’s voice and even Arya’s smile. But despite all that, he felt like he had just spoken to a ghost. An unnatural ghost of Arya, pretending to be the girl he was in love with. Gendry had traveled to the end of the world to find her, but now that he finally had, she was gone." - the angst universe evil twin version of the fic above - we will take it bc we love to suffer - and also bc the author promises "fluff" and "eventual romance" ok sounds real but ok

the thing with feathers, yanak324 If anyone is capable of bringing the old Arya back, it’s this man in front of her, which is precisely why she must walk away. - a more (immediately) optimistic read of how Arya's in episode enactments of being No One might have gone

and in the end, jeeno2 [incomplete] Five times Gendry Waters is an idiot and the one time he figures things out. - Gendry being dumb is kind of a thing and I'm not always the biggest fan of how it plays out in fanon but this is sweet!

 The She-Wolves of Winterfell, vixleonard The pack survived. So has the Stark habit of keeping secrets. - 2nd generation Stark girls. Arya's daughter matter-of-factly saying "Stark women don't get married" - a whole ass mood.

Mid-Battle, Mary_West Sandor has something important to say to Gendry - if only Gendry can live long enough to hear it.

season 8 AU My Lady sanctuary_for_all Gendry and Arya find each other again. (AKA the plotline Gendry deserved in 7X07) - fic convention I am 100% here for: Arya scrabbling around Gendry's face looking for the seam. fic convention I am 100000% here for: Arya throwing off her glove in order to do so and then holding her hands against his cheek

Nights are for You (or Five Times Arya Visits Gendry in the Forge and One Time Gendry Visits Arya in the Castle) ASwornStark She hasn’t visited the forge since Jon returned home with the dragon bitch (the Stark sisters’ favored name for her) and him in tow. - reunion fic

season 7 Before We Jump, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) Arya Stark's bastard boys bond on their way to the Wall. - anything for some good rowing references and bastard subjectivity

earlier laughing 'till our ribs get tough (that will never be enough), belasteals "Gendry took one look and laughed so hard that wine came out of his nose, until Harwin gave him a thwack alongside his ear." - A Storm of Swords, Arya IV (or, Gendry's POV on Acorn Hall) - real ones can't get enough of book canon and Acorn Hall.

Butcher, elephant_eyelash Gendry and Arya by the fire, discussing jacket potatoes and thinking murderous things. - perfect meditation on food and hunger and care

Dissimulo, Somnio, jeeno2 She is no one, now. But still the boy with the black hair haunts her dreams. - honestly the showrunners are cowards for not going there. let No One be Vagina Dentata Personified 2kwhenevertheBraavosiseasonsaired

post canon/canon divergent Charcoal, elephant_eyelash All about winter and feeling the cold. - weird how I'm obsessed with self-loathing and wintry alienation and the weight of history and ancestry but also devotion also love. super weird totally unexpected

Five Things Gendry Only Says in the Dark, jeeno2 Where no one else can hear him. - loneliness, shame, self-loathing. the important emotions. oh and spoiler alert some joy.

Like Wenda, Furious_Winter "...she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs." - my favourite canon AUs are Arya and Gendry with the Brotherhood and my absolute favourites of those are when they are apart (who's ever heard of a marauding smith??) but have some of miserable bittersweet understanding and they glower at each other and make each other jealous and everything is unspoken but this is it this singular love they have for each other that doesn't quite work out. I've just realized that most of these recs are highkey angsty oops. anyway, this fic is like the most complete and perfect distillation of everything I want. - also this is so richly detailed and complete in itself. immensely satisfying. - yeah ok Furious_Winter is actually the master of post canon together but not Arya/Gendry love is not always enough fics. I'm just going to recommend all of them: - The Wolf's Head Helm [The Starks are back in Winterfell and Sansa is Queen in the North. One day, Arya receives a gift from an old friend... - Arya is in Sansas's queensguard.]  - A Means To An End (incomplete) [Arya Stark has returned from Essos and has been staying at the Inn at the Crossroads. Things are not nearly as simple as she sees them. - fuck this one hurts so good] - A Bastard At Heart [Arya and Gendry marry other people for the good of the kingdom 'cause they're self sacrificing like that. the last line took me outtt]

the truth is, baby you're all that I need, belasteals “You were jealous,” he laughed, almost shocked. “Arya Stark of Winterfell, jealous of a whore.” - sirens This One Is Not Angsty sirens

A Girl Meets a Boy, Hotpie A girl takes a face; a girl takes a lover. - possibly my favourite Crossroads Inn fic. love the Faceless Man stuff. love the detail of Needle having a smallest spot of rust, from Braavosi Steel Pox and Arya feeling a ways about it. love picking up the Melisandre thread.

So Easy To Love, Val_Creative She misses Gendry's complaining, too enthralled with staring. "You smell like Dennett's underarms," Arya murmurs, leaning in, going for blunt honesty. Gendry opens his mouth, beginning to laugh, turning uproarious and smiling. She's never seen anything more beautiful than this. More kissable than Gendry's mouth. - the summary makes it seem like it's all kissing when there is actually a big chunk of plot - in service of eventual kissing, yes, - but! spoiler alert! they don't even get to it in this fic! not exactly - maybe why I love it a lot??

With Bells in Her Hair, semicolonlife [incomplete] The further south they travel the more Gendry starts to wonder if he truly knows this woman who wears Arya Stark's face. As he begins to doubt himself more and more, Gendry becomes obsessed with the strange bells she wears in her hair. - ruthless slightly wonky Arya is my favourite Arya.

Wayfaring, Rainfallen An accidental series centered on the same basic headcanon of how Gendry found himself in the North and how Arya found her way back to it. - wolf girl Wolf Girl WOLF GIRL

Seen, sanctuary_for_all Being important matters less than who you're important to. - He wasn't sure what that verdict was, however, until she returned the unfinished sword to rest position with a deeply satisfied expression. "I am going to kill so many people with that sword." It was probably a bad sign for his long-term sanity that Gendry felt deeply complimented by that. "Happy to help." my useless heart: pikachu face - see! I like fluffy HEAs too

Hearts, sanctuary_for_all Arya comes home to her family. (Future flash) - look, I just think it's really important that even married and with children, Arya continues murdering people uwu

other AUs/misc I'll Run (Run To You), belasteals “You would rather marry a lowborn knight than a high lord, then?” She grinned, all bared teeth and sharp eyes. “I’d rather marry no one at all, else I'd not play at this mummer’s farce.” “What about the man who outruns you?” “Nobody outruns me.” (Greek mythology fusion: Arya as Atalanta, Gendry as Hippomenes. Arya vows only to marry the man who can outrun her in a footrace) - Atalanta, Mononoke, Arya. same energy.

Season 8, Episode 4 The Last of the Starks

My thoughts and reactions. Spoilers Below. Obviously. 

Knew they were going to start with the body burning and with Jorah’s body. I knew it.

Poor dany ☹ I’m sad

Poor Jorah

What is she whispering fo him? Any guesses?

Sansa and Theon, no please don’t cry

She made him a Stark in the end. I’m now even more sad.

GHOST!!!!

GHOST!!! He looks sad too

Interesting Jon “was given Lyanna” to mourn, just because she was named for his mother? or because loss of innocent life? Or cause no one left?

Feast Scene

Is that the scale dress for Sansa? I think it is.

Daenerys dress looks less red…that I initially though, but I can’t quite tell.

Gendry wants to find Arya…aww

Daenerys calling Gendry? Did not see that coming.

Daenerys making him a Lord…Smart

Just a question…How will the Stormlands feel about this? I mean they don’t even know Gendry or anything.

Smart move though

But not a great sign, already playing the political game, as Sandor said when you can still smell the bodies. 

Love Sansa, Tormund and Jon…that was cute. Tormund is just the best.

Sansa seemed Jealous, but I still want Jon and Sansa to interact more and we’re running out of time

Where did Sansa go?

I’m glad Tormund is alive…he’s just so cute.

Is Varys figuring it out?

Daenerys all alone (ominous and sad)

Funny, how Varys seems to be the only who noticed.

I knew that drinking game was going to lead to awkward situations…why Tyrion?

Poor Tormund, he just wants to have giant unstoppable babies with Brienne

Poor Sandor, Tormund crying to him

I suspected we might get a Sansa and Sandor scene…are we?

First Theon, then Tyrion, now Sandor?

Yup…interesting pattern. Like that’s a super interesting pattern and I’m not entirely sure what it’s building up to. I mean I hope Jonsa, but I meant at this point how?

Poor Gendry and Arya, I don’t see this ending well…I don’t know if I want to watch

Yep saw that coming. I want them to get together. But Gendry think he needs a lordship to be with Arya and Arya, Arya is not the same nor ever will be. And I just want it to work for them, but it also seems very Arya to say no.

Brienne and Jaime going to get it on?

Looks like it….Yup

Daenerys dress is definitely reddish, but I can’t tell how much.

Maybe no political Jon??

Out of all of their scenes, this one actually makes me think Jon might love her. Like out of all their scenes, this one seems to confirm it the most. 

Which like…why wouldn’t you have done this from the start then. Instead of half-assing it. 

I always wondered if Jon’s “political lines” were unintentionally foreshadowing the future.

Jon himself when he’s saying it, doesn’t have any meaning. But we the audience knows it’s important for the future.

“I bend the knee, but…”

“They’ll see you for what you are “

But at the same time...you still have all those scenes where Jon seems “annoyed” or “frustrated” or horrified is not that word, but scared of Daenerys and what she is capable of doing. And he seems so desperate to appease her... I don’t know.

Whether or not he does love her, this scene made me think there’s a strong chance he actually does. Like it really did (so kudos to Kit and Emilia).

She’s your aunt there might need to be some more hesitation…oh there it is

Do not like the repeated implication that somehow Sansa is corrupted/ruined by what Littlefinger and Ramsey have done to her…do not like that one bit.

Dark!Dany

Interesting scene…between these two.

It is interesting to me how paranoid Daenerys receives Sansa…like I’m not saying she’s wrong. Sansa is clearly 100% ready to start fucking things up for Daenerys, but at times, it seems so pinpointed and out of nowhere.

Also, I do love that she’s such a source of tension and contention betweent these two. 

War Council Scene

Who the fuck is the new Prince of Dorne? Like this just shows how little they care about Dorne.

Like I know Sansa’s intentions aren’t 100% genuine here, but you should give your soldiers and dragons a rest. Like logically you should. This won’t end well for you. Like Sansa is making such a fucking valid point.

Also, Sansa, fantastic wingwoman. I bet Gendry could’ve used her.  

And Arya did not like Daenerys talking to Sansa like that…that look. Damn.

Arya and Sansa (love them together)

Love Arya just stopping Jon right there

Love Arya’s…who the fuck cares about having allies, I’m a lone assassin.

Wish we got to see their reaction to the news…that would’ve been nice.

Would be nice to see how these characters interact with one another and handle the news and you know spend time with them. I mean they keep shutting us out of the Stark POV and it’s getting so fucking frustrating.

Like I honestly hope they are building to them working together…and we get to see it, but at this point. I just don’t think D&D are really capable of that.

Here’s Bronn

That was disappointing…seriously what is the fucking point of Bronn in this story. Like I have nothing against the actor or even the character, but what is the point of him for the story. Like why didn’t he die during the Loot Train/Field of Fire 2.0?

Are we ever going to see him again? Is he ever going to become relevant to the plot again? What is the fucking point?

You’ve killed him off last season and filled the time his scenes take with some more relevant scenes and characters. Seriously what is the fucking point of Bronn?

Arya and the Hound…never coming back to Winterfell… wait what

Is Arya going to down to kill Cersei or perhaps another Queen?

Sansa and Tyrion

Why her?

Why is Tyrion following Daenerys?

Or why does Jon love Daenerys?

I wish they explained why specifically Sansa doesn’t trust Daenerys. Don’t get me wrong I think there are plenty of reasons to think Daenerys would not be a good queen and I’m sure those (or some of them) are the basis for Sansa not trusting her…but it would be great if she would say them out loud at this point.

It kind of feels like, if Dany goes dark, that it just worked in Sansa favor and she just turned out to be right. Not that Sansa was actually right and people should’ve listened to her critiques in the first place.

You can’t keep saying that Daenerys will be a good queen (Tyrion) without saying how and the same goes for Sansa with saying she will be a bad queen.

And this is frustrating, because I think the subtext and text shows how and why Daenerys won’t be a good queen. But just one line from Sansa…like anything. It could be about how anyone who wants to sit on the Iron Throne is dangerous.

Like just anything.

And it would be great if we could see the scheming. Or Sansa telling Tyrion about Jon and seeing Tyrion’s reaction.

Like this use to be the biggest news (we should see how the characters fucking react to it)

However, I did like Sansa commenting that Tyrion was afraid of Daenerys and her “worst impulses” as he has liked to put it (previously). I wish they just dug into that a bit more.

Even just Sansa saying that it’s hard for her to believe Daenerys will be a good queen when Tyrion shakes every time he thinks she’s about to lose her temper.

JONATHAN don’t you dare abandon Ghost. How dare you!

Ghost is such a good boy.                                                                                      

Sam and Gilly…I think he knows how it happened (I adore Gilly)

Is Sam going to be political? Scheming and such?

I’m just so nervous we’re going to have a scene where it’s revealed everyone was working together to go behind Dany’s back. Like give us hints. Show us something.

Don’t leave Ghost, Jon. Or at the very least fucking pet him, you monster.

He’s sad. I’m sad. You’re a monster Jonathan.

(Symbolially Jon giving up being a Starl?) 

Aww Missandei and Greyworm…I just want good things for you. I don’t think we’ll get them, but I want them.

Interesting comment from Tyrion… all those years of war because Robert loved someone who didn’t love him back. Foreshadowing of Jon and Dany? (I don’t think so at this point), but interesting framing of it. Especially since you know Aerys burned Rickard and Brandon Stark…and so on.

But in all honestly, they keep forgetting that fucking part.

Is it just me or are one of the Dragons going to get shot down? Like they are showing them flying, everything seems so nice and happy.

And I was right. damn...

That is quite brutal. And I thought Rhaegal was going to be the dragon to survive…guess I was fucking wrong.  

Those scorpions are quite impressive to say the least. And they’re designed to look like tentacles, HA!

NO Missandei

No Missandei

Did she die?

I really have to wonder if Cersei is pregnant? I mean Qyburn could just be saying yes, to literally everyone, because he’s 100% loyal to her.

Oh no, Missandei. My poor baby.

Why does she knock over the lion? Am I missing something?

It’s interesting how Varys was saying he would look her in the eye, but he doesn’t. Not until the end.

Also, Daenerys wants the appearance that she tried to avoid bloodshed, but not actually…

To be fair, Cersei is never going to surrender though. So, she’s not wrong.

But it also kind of reminds me of “Bend the knee or refuse and die” – not much of a choice.

Varys rarely ever tries to reason with Dany, but he always tries to reason with Tyrion to get him to see the truth about Dany. It’s interesting to me how that’s set-up.

There’s that phrase again, “worst impulses.” 

“She too strong for him” – See this is why I want political Jon at this point. For one of their Main Characters they have just been undercutting him at every turn. Like is their going to be a twist or is Jon just pathetic and weak sauce now. I mean come on.

I hope there is going to be a twist with Jon (actually I hoped they let us see his POV), but it just seems that they keep undermining him in the narrative to power up Daenerys and Sansa and I guess even Arya. Like you can let them all shine and be capable and shit.

I do like this dilemma forming for Tyrion. He has to make a choice. He truly has to commit. He just does.

I THINK THAT’S THE SPOILER SCROLL (the one Sophie Turner kept).

It doesn’t seem to be that much of Spoiler, if it’s from Varys. Though I suppose that depends on what it says and it could simply not be from Varys. I had always hoped it was going to be from Jon…but it doesn’t look like that will be the case.

“as the rest of her advisors…” I’m curious to what the beginning and end of that sentence is. And what the Scroll says. Also, I assume we’re going to eventually see the scroll, I mean it has to be a prop that Sophie was able to keep.

Also, I love Sansa’s line of how she wanted to be there to see them execute Cersei and now she won’t get the chance. Just a great and cold line to Jaime. But it also has two meanings.

1. Daenerys is going to burn down KL and Sansa won’t get the chance to see it now.

2. It looks like Cersei is going to win now

Also, the struggle between Sansa and Cersei makes a lot more sense to me, because Cersei and Sansa have history and Cersei tormented Sansa. Why does Daenerys hate Cersei? Because she’s on the Iron Throne? What else?

Cersei didn’t kill Dany’s father. Nor exile her family. Like it makes sense for Cersei to hate Daenerys…because well she’s Cersei and Daenerys wants to take everything Cersei has clawed and bled and killed for.

But the same level of intensity from Daenerys, just seems empty. I don’t know.

But I do love that it is a battle between these three…but Cesei and Daenerys are too focus on one another, to even really consider Sansa. (Though Daenerys has been noticing her) 

But I’m glad we got to see some scheming and plotting happening.

No Brienne, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.

I am curious if Jaime is leaving to kill Cersei or save her (and what he thinks is his unborn child)

She’s going to push Missandei off, isn’t she? I don’t want that.

I have to say, Dany’s dress looks less purposely grey and just like it’s dirty. Which I think is quite telling. Daenerys “savior” mission is becoming less and less about saving people, so the white become dirty.  

Also, Daenerys’ army (I assume that’s not it…I hope), looks just so pathetic and small. And with the Scorpion weapons, how in the hell are they planning to take King’s Landing. I mean without burning it down to the ground, but again that’s a lot harder to do now too.

Qyburn is such an interesting character and a very different kind of creepy.

Tyrion is trying so hard here.

Is he going to trade himself for Missandei…I don’t think Cersei is going to go for that

She’s going to do it, she’s going to push her off…nope

Oh no, last words.

Dracarys

The way she just said it and how it echoed…damn. I honestly thought Drogon was going to well Dracarys everything. But that is very compelling. And just that that echo, I mean just wow.

Greyworm and his face are just killing me.

Oh shit they’re going to behead her.

NO NO NO NO….not Missandei…NO NO NO NO

OMG

Oh no Greyworm, he couldn’t even look. He looks like he’s going to throw up. His one fear came true.

Omg… I do not like this.

I’m going to cry.

Daenerys shaking. That anger. That sadness. The shock. I take it back about Daenerys not having enough reason to hate Cersei with such intensity, they gave her a very good reason (by fridging Missandei in all honesty)

That look. I know I say that a lot. But Daenerys’ angry look is getting better and better and it is fucking dark. You can feel the anger and hatred coming off of her in waves.

And I’m not saying Emilia is ugly, by any means, but it’s not a pretty angry face. Which I love.

She almost stumbles when she first starts to walk away. Like she’s in shock. Which she probably is. She didn’t look away.

Also, it looks like things are going Cersei’s way. She wants Daenerys to be pissed and angry. She clearly wants it. So I have to wonder does she even have a plan? Or is she just planning to go out with a bang and take as many as she can with her.

And that’s the end. 

Promo

It’s very telling and quite interesting to me that we don’t see Daenerys in the promo. I mean we see her at a distance, next to the window (with her hair down…interesting) and on the throne. But that’s it. I mean, that seems to scream to me that we’re going to see some dark fucking shit with her.

I mean they’re building her up in that promo.

 I still think there’s a chance for Jonsa or at least I hope there is one…but it seems less and less likely with every episode. I mean, Sansa does come across as jealous (to me) but I’m not sure if that’s just how I see it or if that’s actually what’s happening.

There’s also the weird “former flame” per episode kind of vibe they have going here. Theon episode 2, Tyrion episode 3, now Sandor episode 4. 

I mean, it’s like they’re cancelling all the pontential romantic partners she could have before she gets to the final one?? I don’t know. It honestly feels like a stretch. But it interesting how poeple jumped on board with Theonsa in episode 2, the Sanrion in episode 3 and maybe Sansan in episode 4....maybe. Their interaction seemed the most final. 

I wish we got to see Sansa and Arya react to the news of who Jon is.

I’m just not as hopeful as I once was for Jonsa ☹

The Last of the Starks

Interesting title…like I hope some people write-up to why they think it’s called this. I can’t think of reason as of right now. 

Other than we saw the last of Starks all together (finally) but for like one scene.

 Maybe that will be the last time we see them all together ever again…that’s fucking sad. But definitely a possibility with the way they’ve been treating the Starks.

Update: I just realized that Arya says that the four of them are The Last of the Starks in the Godswood, before Jon reveals he’s not their sibling. That went over my head.

Wedding: October 14, 2017

Ceremony: Sts. Peter and Paul Church: Beaver,  PA  

Reception: Seven Oaks Country Club

Hair: Sense of Eden, Bridgewater

Makeup: Sense of Eden, Bridgewater

Gown: Chavelle by Sottero & Midgley, One Enchanted Evening, Zelienople

Shoes: Vintage by Angela Nuran, Bridal Beginning, Pittsburgh

Bridesmaids: Cranberry Hayley Paige, Bridal Beginning, Pittsburgh

Jewelry: Sue Demarino-Lilly Rose Crystal Jewelry, Greensburg

Tuxedos: Tuxedo Junction, Pittsburgh

Florist: Posies By Patti, Ellwood City

Horse Drawn Carriage: John Popp

Videographer: John Albert

Drone Operator: Jon Parsons

Bakery: Kretchmars Bakery, Beaver

Entertainment: Wrentie Martin (DJ Wrenny Wren), Youngstown, OH

Uplighting: Jennifer Lucas, Star Design Event Lighting, Cranberry

Colors: Cranberry, Gold & Leopard Print

Honeymoon: Sandals Royal Caribbean, Montego Bay, Jamaica

What do I think of when I think of Rick and Jean?  True Love, Soul Mates, Destined for each other.  They are the type of couple that makes me believe 100% in every clique term related to love. I’m pretty cheesy, I love the Happily Ever After, the fate of finding the one with whom your soul loves,  simply put they are perfect for each other, they know it, I know it and everyone around them knows it.

Both successful in their own right, Jean a physician and Rick, let’s be honest, I don’t know what he does as it is far above my head haha. They compliment each other in every sense of the word, watching them together is one of my greatest joys. They are magnetic in their love and attraction for each other, never veering far from one another.  

The day started at Jeans, soon to be Ricks home, for pre-ceremony coverage. From the moment I saw Jeans dress hanging in her bedroom, I knew before it was even placed on her that it was absolutely perfect for her, gorgeous and with just the right amount of sparkle. After capturing all the important moments of the ladies getting ready, we headed to the church to capture Rick and his groomsmen. IT took all of 5 minutes to realize, that this group was going to be just as fun as the ladies and it was going to be a great day!

In the wedding planning, Jean is the master planner and always kept me in the loop and asked for recommendations, which I appreciate and also feel very honored that she would consult me for recommendations. I have been shooting weddings for 18 years and I know a ton of vendors for just about every aspect of wedding planning that you can think of.  Jean had so many details in her day that it would literally be hard to list them all, but one of my favorites was the horse drawn carriage ride,  John Popp brought Jean and the bridesmaids from the Museum in Beaver to the gazebo for a few photos then proceeded to take them to the ceremony, the carriage wait during the ceremony and took Rick and Jean from the ceremony to the gazebo in Beaver for some follow up photos. It was so sweet and romantic to see those beautiful, majestic horses galloping down Third Street.

I truly don’t know how I could ever choose my favorite moment of the day from the wedding of Jean and Rick, as they are all my favorites. Their entire day was everything I hoped it would be for them, everything they planned it to be and everything that Hallmark movies are made of(my favorite this time of year). Just like a Hallmark movie, you can see Jean and Rick for 5 minutes and get sucked in, their love is contagious, their attraction undeniable and their love for one another clearly shown.

This blog post could be a hundred pages long and still not cover all my favorite moments from the wedding day. But here are a few, the horse drawn carriage rides, Rick and Jeans face as she walked down the aisle, it was as if there was no one else there, it was electric, full of emotion and heartwarming. Their embrace at the outdoor photographs, their first dance, holding each other and connecting on a level that others dream of, the sparklers pictures, these people are professionals! It’s like they had done it a thousand times before.  

 You know, I connect with all my clients in one way or another and maybe if Jean and Ricks wedding was a different weekend, a different time of year or even a different year all together I would have ugly cried at a different moment, but their wedding it happened during Rick’s dance with his sister. I don’t know why it hit me so hard, maybe because my baby brother(he’s 26 and I still call him my baby brother despite the fact that he is now 8-9 inches taller than me, but we are 11 years apart and to me, he will always remain just that) had just moved back from Chicago, a month prior to their wedding and I had missed him terribly while he was gone. But my goodness, watch Rick and his sister dance at his wedding, wiping tears as they did, I knew what a special connection they had and now that Rick was moving to Pittsburgh following the wedding, I knew that she would miss him terribly, just as I had missed my brother. It was sweet and I hope to share in a moment just like that one day with my baby brother, Jesse.

Jean and Rick are extremely thoughtful in their planning and invited those who mean the most to them in the whole world, that being the case, it was a “smaller” wedding in number of guest but larger in love. We discussed prior to the wedding how we wanted to walk around to each table and get a photo with all the guests, as each one was hand selected and thoughtfully meant to be there.  

It is in that thoughtfulness that Jean and her family and friends prepared cookies for the cookie table, this resulted in, hands down, mic drop, the largest Pittsburgh cookie table I have ever seen in my 18 years of shooting weddings, this was not a cookie table, this was a cookie room! They had the main cookie “table” that was 3 tiers high and 24 feet long, with smaller 6 foot tables at the corners of the room with cookies on them, as well as the hallway that leads to the room adorned with plates of cookies. I would love to know the exact number of cookies, I’m going to have to ask Jean, I’m sure that she knows. My uneducated guess would be well over 10,000.

It was truly unbelievable! In fact following the wedding, Jean’s mom brought me a container of cookies for myself, my mom and my kids, they were delicious and so sweet of her to think of us.

Jean had thought of everything in her planning process and there was not an inch of the room that didn’t scream Jean and Rick, it was stunning, but what I left with on their wedding day was that true love does exist, their love for one another is sweet, inspiring and not at all tangible. When you are in the room with them their connection is deep and amazing and the things of fairytales or story books, but the excitement of the wedding planning, the day, the honeymoon…it has not left them, not for even a second. This is their life and I am blessed to have met them, honored to have been chosen to photograph their wedding and humbled to know of their gratitude.

May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand. May God be with you and bless you… May you be poor in misfortune, Rich in blessings, May you know nothing but happiness From this day forward. May the road rise to meet you May the wind be always at your back May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home And may the hand of a friend always be near. May green be the grass you walk on, May blue be the skies above you, May pure be the joys that surround you, May true be the hearts that love you.

Game of Thrones: An Angry Recap

Season 7 Episode 3: The Queen's Justice

(a little late this week, as I moved to another country yesterday, but next week I'll be on time)

Dragonstone:

It turns out when Melisandre resurrected Jon Snow, she also gave him the power of super speed. Remember when entire episodes were dedicated to a person traveling? Ah, good times. OH AND REMEMBER HOW ARYA IS NOT IN THIS EPISODE BECAUSE SHE IS CURRENTLY TRAVELING A DISTANCE ABOUT ONE THIRD OF THE DISTANCE JON AND DAVOS HAVE TRAVELED OVERNIGHT?!?!?!?! This show doesn't even have continuity in one single episode, let alone over the course of several seasons. Gah.

Speaking of continuity! Davos is super mad  a little distraught  kind of pissed  — I don't know. What exactly is Davos? His sons died in the Battle of the Blackwater, and Tyrion not only fought on the other side, he was responsible for the wildfire plot... But YOLO, I guess? Team Dany and the power of love, y'all.

Missandei, who, as we learn, is the Queen's Most Trusted Advisor (on the gender of high Valyrian nouns), smartly dodges Davos's attempt at small talk and keeps her cards close to her chest, not mentioning her slave background. As the team makes their way up to the castle a dragon flies overhead dramatically, and the CGI budget for this episode is blown. This is why we can't have direwolves, people. RIP Shaggy and Summer.

And then it happens, the moment we have all been waiting for: Jon meets Dany for the first time! After an, I must begrudgingly admit, funny introduction scene (go Davos!), the two royals talk. Unfortunatley they don't really hit it off, as Jon refuses to bend the knee and call her queen, even though the last King in the North, Torrhen Stark, totally swore fealty to House Targaryen for, like, ever. Everyone agrees. Seriously??? WHAT WAS ROBB STARK???? BARISTA IN THE NORTH??? JON YOUR BROTHER OR COUSIN OR WHATEVER DID NOT DIE FOR YOU TO STAND THERE AND TELL EVERYONE “Uh, yes, Torrhen was the last King in the North.”

Jon then gloomily recites his House words – Winter is coming – and adds that this time Winter comes with some friends, who are looking forward to killing everyone. Dany does not believe him. And why would she? She has never experienced anything supernatural! Except when she used bloodmagic to save her husband's life. Or when she did not burn. Or when he dragons were born. Or that whole Qarth business. Or the second time she did not burn. But yeah other than that, nothing much supernatural going on in her life.

Davos then breaks into a passionate monologue he copy/pasted from reddit about Jon and why he's awesome, but is stopped before he can talk about the Jon dying and coming back to life bit. Apparently resurrected people are looked down upon in Westeros? I wonder if Jon and Ser Gregor are pen pals, they could probably really support each other during these times.

Dany is not moved though, and breaks into the “My rape and abuse have only made me stronger”  monologue (TM). NO. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. D&D, you fucking straight white men. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND PURE STOP PORTRAYING RAPE AND SEXUALIZED ABUSE AND EXPOLITATION AS THE ULTIMATE AND ONLY WAY FOR WOMEN TO GROW. I CAN'T ENDURE THIS BULLSHIT ANY LONGER. I CAN'T. SEVEN SAVE ME. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

I have to say though, I find it very strange that Dany so openly speaks about her rape, given how she later fell in love with her rapist and he became her Sun and Stars and everything. One would assume that a) Dany doesn't mention it or b) D&D logic dictates that it's not rape, because, um, consent after the fact or something. But oh well, anything that makes us remember GoT has rape! Whoa!

***

Meanwhile, on a dramatic cliff, Melisande and Varys don't like each other. Mel is fearing Jon and Davos wouldn't be too happy to see her because of “terrible mistakes” she made. I assume she was talking about Shireen here? Don't worry, Mel! If Davos has forgiven Tyrion for the Battle of the Blackwater, I'm sure he won't hold the burning of an innocent child against you.

Varys wants Mel to go far away, which she has already announced she would. But Varys doesn't really believe her... Psychological warfare, I guess? “Oh, Mel, Volantis is SO BEAUTIFUL! It's always sunny and the people are happy and it always smells so good! I hope you won't leave this sad, grey, pathetic fortress that reminds you of your sad, sad history with Stannis to go there! It would make me really sad if you left us, by the way, the next plane leaves at five. Also, if you come back you will probably die.”

“That works for me,” responds Melisandre in true badassery, “because I have to die here, anyway. And so do you! Mel out!” And she leaves him speechless. Way to shut up the haters, Mel! You're my new heroine.

***

A few hours/days/weeks (who can tell? Time has lost all meaning) later, Jon is moping about kind of being Dany's prisoner. Tyrion swoops in and once more saves the day by REMINDING Jon that he should ask Dany for the Dragonglass, even though Tyrion himself did not know about the Dragonglass. But that's Tyrion, he knows everything, he's the awesomest person ever, and his quips look super good on a T-Shirt, so the writers favor him above all else. Let the wanking over Tyrion continue.

So Jon asks Dany for the Dragonglass, who tells him to get to work. Wait, did Dany expect Jon to mine all by himself? Possibly while singing a funny song? He is not a Disney character, Dany!

King's Landing:

Euron brings Cersei her gift—Asha, Ellaria, and Ellaria's daughter (Ellorio? Alleria? Airalle? Why bother with names at this point). The people of King's Landing stand all over the city and cheer, which makes me wonder how they knew Euron was coming. Was this a scheduled event? Like, “Next Tuesday: Return of the prisoners. Bring your own rotten fruit. Standing room only. / Next Friday: The Fleabottom Book Club Reads the Seven-Pointed Star.”

While delivering his gift, Euron does not fail to remind us that Cersei is a woman and may therefore be penetrated in all holes because... that's what women are there for? SERIOUSLY??? I CAN'T WITH THIS SHOW. STOP IT WITH THE OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN. NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THAT. UUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.

Cersei has an evil plan all hatched and ready, and kills Ellaria's daughter in the same way Ellaria killed Cersei's daughter. You have to hand it to her, Cersei's got style. At least she did not bake Ellaria's daughter into a pie. Probably because she does not know that trick with the butter!

That scene was my favorite scene in the episode though. Lena Heady and Indira Varma are brilliant actresses; Cersei's sick pleasure in all of this was vivid and scary, and Ellaria's desperate struggle moved me to tears.

I feel myself rooting for Cersei more and more with each episode. She's a really, really bad person, but she's SO GOOD at being bad. She's probably the only person who truly enjoys herself at the moment, and for that she has my respect.

Winterfell:

Sansa is ruling the North like a true badass, and she's good at it! That, or she's mediocre at best, and everyone else is just reall, REALLY stupid. A maester who does not know the longest winter in the last 100 years?????? Seriously?!?!?! And an armorer who does not know how to insulate breastplates??? In what world would an armorer not know how to insulate breastplates, but Sansa Stark knows? WHERE WOULD SHE HAVE LEARNED?!?!?! She never showed the slightest interest in warfare while she was growing up, and then she moved to King's Landing, where I doubt she had long discussions with armorers, and even if, they probably would not have told her about insulation because, you know, King's Landing is not in the North??? And I cannot imagine Ramsay let Sansa learn about breastplates and stuff while he wasn't raping her. GRRRR!!! I get that D&D want to make Sansa badass and smart and give her agency and YAAAASSS QUEEN FINALLY, but come on, they don't find ways to make Sansa look smart without making everyone super dumb?

Apparently not, because Sansa also knows AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE about Cersei as Petyr, A MAN WHO HAS LIVED IN THE CAPITAL FOR 10+ YEARS AND WHO IS ONE OF THE SMARTEST MEN IN THE SHOW (until he miraculously became stupid in season 5 and really, really stupid in season 7).

But there's a glimmer of old Littlefinger still in him, and he treats us to one of his “Always be scheming” monologues. I can only hope HE is scheming as well, but then he would be smarter than D&D together, so that probably can't be.

And then we have Stark Reunion #2, and Bran is back, and he is..... super creepy??? “Hey sister, you were really hot the night you were raped,” he tells Sansa, who suddenly remembers she has to do something. “What do you have to do?” Bran calls after her, and Sansa responds, “Uh, leave.”

Let's hope those two will warm up a bit.

The Citadel:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME. SAM HAS HEALED JORAH COMPLETELY AND IT TOOK HIM LIKE ONE NIGHT???????????????????? AND THEN JORAH IS FREE TO GO?!?!?!?!?! THEY DON'T WANT TO KEEP HIM TO, YOU KNOW, OBSERVE HIM OR WAIT IF THE GREYSCALE WILL COME BACK????????

WHAT EVEN WAS THE POINT OF JORAH HAVING GREYSCALE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?!?!?

AND IT REALLY WAS THAT SIMPLE?!?!?!?!?!? JUST SCRAPE OFF THE SKIN?!?!?!?! IN THOUSANDS OF YEARS, NO ONE FOUND THIS SIMPLE AND INSTANTLY SUCCESSFUL PROCEDURE WORTH REVISITING AND IMPROVING UPON?!?!?!?!?!?!

“Dear patient, you have greyscale. I have good news and bad news! The good news is, there is a cure! The bad news is, it's a bit dangerous, and no one really wants to risk it, so we won't cure you. Off to the stone men with you! Bye!”

Casterly Rock/Highgarden:

To finally get even with his Dad, Tyrion has the Unsullied take Casterly Rock, which TYWIN BUILT???????? So.... who were the CASTERLYS, then??? Tywin's favorite piano teacher growing up???

We also learn that Tyrion BUILT THE SEWERS, which means he had maximum 10 years to design an intricate system, hew it into stone, and shuttle his prostitutes through. That sounds super plausible. Grey Worm and ten good men (TM) use those sewers then to take the rock. Remember when Ramsay needed twenty good men (TM) to burn Stannis' camp? Does that mean Tyrion is twice as smart as Ramsay?

But, oh no, almost no one is there, because Jaime took all the Lannisters (does that include Ed Sheeran) and took Highgarden, which was easy because THE HOUSE OF LORAS TYRELL,THE  WARDENS OF THE SOUTH, AND THE RULERS OF THE REACH, THE HOUSE THAT WON THE BATTLE OF THE BLACKWATER, aren't good fighters. OH GOD. I can feel my brain cells dying in protest.

Jaime and Olenna have one last battle of words before Olenna drinks poison to save herself from this crap. I understand you, Olenna, I understand you. And another really awesome character is gone to make more room for Emilia Clarke and her stilted monologues. Do you have any more of that poison, Olenna?

When was the last time someone called you late at night? I don’t recall.

What beverage do you drink most often? Coffeeeeee.

Do you have a study hall at school? Those who played a sport had to have a study hall period. I didn’t play a sport, so.

Do you have a house key? Yes.

Are you any good at art? I can color pretty well. ha.

What is the last book you bought? I don’t remember. I get my books via the Kindle app. We have Kindle Unlimited, so for a monthly fee we have access to tons of books.

Can you describe the last glass that you drank from? It’s a white mug with blue floral designs.

Do you know where your siblings are? My younger brother is asleep in his room, and I’m assuming my older brother is asleep at his house in his room, too.

Do you ever just lay in bed at night to think? Yepppp.

When was the last time you chewed gum? It’s been awhile.

What is on your favorite t-shirt? I don’t have one.

What time was it when you last ate? I had some lemon Oreos around 11ish last night.

Do you wish you had more money? I mean, yeah. It would really help.

Does your computer still have any of the stickers on it? No.

Does your house have a fireplace? Yes.

Do your grandparents live in a nice house? Yeah.

Are there ever tornadoes where you live? No, thankfully.

What was the last thing to wear you out? It doesn’t take a whole lot, really. Sometimes it doesn’t take anything at all. My upcoming vacation is going to kick my butt.

Do you talk to your best friends parents, or do you avoid them? I talk to my mom everyday, all the time.

Has anyone ever assumed you were dating someone when you weren’t? Yeah. A lot of people assumed that about Joseph and I.

Do you go to all of your school’s sporting events? I went to like two when I was in high school.

Do you have a sketchbook? No.

What classes are you required to take this year? I graduated in ‘15.

How many years will you be in college? I’m doneeee.

Has anyone given you a gift this week? This week is just starting, but I don’t think I’ll be getting any gifts.

Is your mother a prude? No.

Are you stubborn? Very.

If you took a drug test right now, would you pass? All that would show up is my prescription pain med.

Who was the last person to be on a bed with you? My mom.

Has anyone called you perfect before? Something like that. What a joke.

Where is the biggest scar on your body? Down my back.

Who was the last person to play with your hair? My mom french braided my hair the other day if that counts.

Think of the last person who said I love you, do you think they meant it? I know she does.

Who was the last person you kissed on the cheek? *shrug*

Are your parents divorced? No.

Have you had sex today? No.

Would you ever live with any of your best friends? I do live with my mom.

Are you photogenic? Nope.

Have you told anyone that you missed them lately? No.

Let’s say you had a baby with the last person you kissed? Oh my goodness.... no.

Will this Friday be a good one? It’ll just be another day, I’m sure.

Do you know anyone that smokes pot? Yes.

What is your relationship status? Completely and 100% single.

You receive $500 without any reason, what do you spend it on? I’d save it for my vacation.

Where will you be in an hour? Still here in my bed.

Who do you hate? No one.

Is anything bothering you right now? Yes.

How is your mood? I just feel kind of...numb.

Where’s your phone? Next to me.

Why did you last cry? Health stuff.

What’s your middle name? Marie.

Is Arizona Green Tea amazing or what?! I liked it, but I wouldn’t say it was amazing. I haven’t had it in years.

Is your front door locked? Of course.

Next movie you’ll watch? I don’t know.

Who was the last person you cried in front of? My mom.

Have you ever slammed the door when you were mad? Yes.

Do you like hanging out with a big group or a few friends? A few friends. Well, when I had friends and actually socialized.

Have you ever had a screaming fight with someone close to you? Mhm.

Do you ever feel suffocated? Yes.

Are your dreams crazy? I rarely remember my dreams.

Are you content with your life right now? No.

What did you do last Halloween? Just stayed home with the fam, watched scary movies, and got takeout.

Have you ever driven illegally? I’ve never driven at all.

What is the closest book to you? There’s a ton on the book shelf.

Are you reading it or someone else? --

What is the 11th text on your phone? It doesn’t work that way.

Who is it from? ---

What is the most expensive thing you own that plays music? My laptop.

Do you have any siblings? If so, what are their names? I have two brothers, Jon and Richard.

Ever wear colored contacts? I’ve never worn any contacts. I’m afraid to. Plus, I like my glasses.

What color is your hair? Naturally it’s dark brown. I’ve been dying it red for the past 2 years, but I’m a few months overdo.... I’ll be getting it done soon, though. Finally.

What style of clothes do you normally wear? Comfy, lounge clothes like oversized shirts, pajama pants, and leggings since I spend a majority of my time at home. If I do go out then I wear leggings or jeans and a shirt. Pretty casual.

Milkshakes or Sundaes? Milkshakes.

What kind of shoes do you have on? None.

Do you have a doorbell? Yes.

How often do you sit around on your butt? All the time I’m not sleeping.

Current thing that is making you happy? Nothing.

Do you like watermelons more or cherries? Watermelon.

Last time someone took a picture of you? A couple weeks ago at the DMV.

Do you know anyone shorter than you? Little kids.

Would you adopt a child? If I ever decide to have children.

Do you like it when it rains? I love it.

What was the last thing you bought? Food.

Are you going to do another survey now? Most likely.

Closest living thing to you? Just me.

Anything planned for this Sunday? No.

Do you get cold easily? Yes.

Do you use a toaster or toaster oven? We have a toaster.

Do you have a job? Nope.

Are you a big Zac Efron fan? No.

Would you rather drown or burn alive? I’d rather not drown or burn alive.

Ever had sex with more than 1 person in 1 day? No.

Do you own a dictionary? No, but that’s what Google is for.

Do you like to mow the yard? I’ve never done it, nor have I ever wanted to. My dad does that stuff.

Besides your mouth, where is your favorite spot to get kissed? Neck.

Were you happy when you woke up today? I don’t wake up happy.

Who was the last person you ate with? The fam.

Did you drink any coffee today? Yes.

Who is the last person you got really pissed off with? Myself.

If you’re in school, how is it going for you? I’m  d o n e  with school.

Who was the last member of the opposite sex you laid in a bed with? No one.

Have you ever thought about going to Culinary school? No.

What time do you have to be in work? I don’t have a job.

What color is your father’s car? Green.

What type of sushi do you like to eat? None.

Where’s the last place you wore a hoodie to? The store, I think.

Are your nails painted any special color? They’re not painted at all.

Give us your plans for the next three hours? Sleep.

Can you live a day without tv? I mean, yeah. I do always have it on; though, even if just for background noise. That’s usually the case.

How many pets do you have? Zero.

Who was the last person to hold your hand and when? My mom.

Do you like anyone right now? You all know by now.

Do you think you are an argumentative person? No.

Has this weekend been good? It wasn’t anything special.

Have you ever had a best friend who was of the opposite sex? Yes.

Was yesterday better than today? It’s 3:24AM, so it’s a bit too early to say.

Do you prefer broccoli or asparagus? Broccoli. I don’t like asparagus.

What is the most romantic text in your inbox? Nothing at all. A vast majority of my texts are from my parents.

Where do you buy most of your shoes? The last couple pairs were bought online.

Ever drive all night to get to someone? Well, we traveled during the night and half the day to visit my grandpa.

Do you have any complaints about your life? Haha you betcha.

Where was the last place you stayed over? A hotel.

Skim, 1%, 2%, or whole milk? Almond milk.

Would you rather be a priest or a drug dealer? A priest.

Was the last person you kissed physically attractive? Yes.

Do you watch the news? Not as much as I used to since I don’t get up as early as I was for awhile.

Does anything on your body itch right now? No. It probably will now since you said that.

Now what are you listening to? An ASMR video.

Do you have any bug bites? No.

Can you listen to music and read at the same time? Not usually. Depends what I’m reading.

Own a sundress? No.

Do you prefer to say ‘Haha” or “Lol?” I say “haha” more. Or “ha.”

Do you have any flowers in your room? No.

Do you know anyone that owns horses? Nope.

How many stories does your house have? One.

Ygritte was a fierce warrior-woman and Jon fans liked their relationship. Val is 'lovely,lonely and lethal' and Jon fans want her with him. He's not emasculated. It's not what bothers them. Without guardians, bodyguards, dragons and soldiers to rely on, Daenerys wouldn't be able to fend for herself like Arya or Ygritte. It's about what Dany has gotten so far with little effort and how she's portrayed as this special snowflake. It has nothing to do with Jon. It's about her character in general.

HELL TO THE FUCK NO!

No, just no. I’ve heard way too many fans say this and I’velet it slide but today is not that day.

I wrote earlier that just because a character had a shittylife it didn’t entitle them to a prize at the end and I stand by that. Asshitty of a life as she’s had, Dany wasn’t entitled to what she has, she had toEARN it, and earn it she did.

Before we get started I don’t want to hear any bullshitabout plot armor or whatever nonsense. All the POV’s have plot armor, theauthor designed it that way, if we were honest without the plot armor most ofthem would be dead by now. I mean Jon snow died and was brought back to lifeand while I’m happy about that, there is no thinker plot armor than coming backfrom the dead.

First, let’s do a little recap of the shitty life Dany haslead because I think this puts into perspective how impressive heraccomplishments truly are.

Her life begins at Dragonstone where her mother died whilegiving birth to her. When she was a few days old the Castillion of Dragostoneagreed to hand the children over to the Baratheon forces, led by Stannis.Having heard what happened to Dany’s niece and nephew Ser Darry, who stillremained loyal to the Targaryen, broke into the nursery and sailed to Braavosby moonlight with infant Dany and Viserys.  

Dany lived with her brother and Ser Darry in relativecomfort for about four years but that ended when Ser Darry died. The servantsstole whatever money was left and Dany and Viserys found themselves homelesswith little to no money and nowhere to go. They got by on the “kindness” of therich of Essos, who would take them in. It wasn’t really kindness, they werelike exotic pets to these people, they could show them off to their friends. “Lookthe exiled King of Westeros and the Crown Princess” Amusing, I’m sure.

They lived like this for 9 years, living in 9 differentcities. Dany doesn’t really get an education; most of what she learns is fromher brother and from observation. That very same brother however, isphysically, psychologically and sexually abusive towards her.

When we meet her she’s the “guest” of Magister Illyrio whohas convinced her brother to give her as a “gift” to khal Drogo, the mostfeared Dothraki Horse Lord out there, who Illyrio insists will help Viserysrecover his families thrones. So in fact he sells his little 13 year old sisterfor a promise of an army.

During her wedding Dany is gifted three dragon eggs thathave been fossilized by time. I’ve heard people criticized this as a plot giftbut whatever. All you have to do to earn a wedding gift is to throw a party andI hear her wedding was quite a party. No less the five people died.

Continuing, Dany finds herself married to a man who ignoresher and uses her like a robber doll until she’s sore and full of sores fromridding all day. She starts to contemplate suicide but she finds an inner strengthand decides to take charge of her life and she does just that. She embraces herrole as a khaleesi, makes her husband pay attention to her, they “fall in love”,Dothraki respect her, everything is going great. But all good things must cometo an end.

Her brother starts acting crazy and gets himself killed; an assassintries to poison her and her unborn child, while the Dothraki are pillaging avillage she sees all the rape going on and tries to save as many women as shecan by taking them in as her personal slaves. But one of the women she took inwas understandably not happy about what happened and so poisons her husband’swound, which then leaves Dany begging her to save him as he’s the only familyshe has left, but the witch steals her husband’s mind and kills Dany’salmost-born son by causing a miscarriage, her husband is left a vegetable andDany is forced to euthanize him.

End of recap. So all this hardship as I said doesn’t entitleDany to anything, but what comes next does, because she begins to EARN what shegets.

Dany now finds herself a young widow with a small khalasarof sick, old, and young people that were not useful to anyone. Her first orderof business is to free the slaves, she tells them they can either stay with heror they can find their own way in the world. It’s up to them they are free now.Now, I know this isn’t obvious but by doing that she has EARNED the respect ofher little khalasar because she has treated them as human beings, somethingthat they have probably not experienced in a long time. She has given themchoice.

After that she works an ancient magic based on her intuitionand steps into a pyre of fire to hatch her dragons.  Now, it’s not just about stepping into thefire it’s about stepping into the fire with complete faith that she will bealright. Which takes fucking guts. She hatches her dragons which is awesome butlife is not that easy. She’s now 14 years old and in charge of about 100 people(who are dependent on her) and now must guide them through the Red Wastebecause they have nowhere else to go. Fun fact, not too many people survivecrossing the Red Waste. Blah, blah, blah they are crossing the Red Waste, a bunchof people are dying from hunger and thirst , Dany wisely sends her riders indifferent directions to find shelter and one of them does., blah, blah, blah. Ohand by the way, while her beloved maid is dying Dany gives the girl her lastdrop of water. This shows Dany’s people how much she cares about them. This ishow she EARNS their love and loyalty.

Qarth happens, the Undying try to trick her to steal herlife force, she survives with the help of Drogon and destroys the Undying,which EARNS her the Dothrakis respect.

Blah, blah, blah (I’m getting tire of typing) she’s in Astaporwhich is a shithole of hell, kids dipped in honey and thrown into bear pits foramusement, slave’s skined alive for burping in the street, you know the usual.This inhumanity has been going on for quite some time like hundreds andhundreds of years. No one gave a shit; they just want their cheap labor. Andwhile Dany initially went there to purchase a slave army, the sheer inhumanitythat she saw convinced her that she had to do something about it. So, you mightask yourself why Dany felt compelled to do something about this situation.Well, let’s go back to her childhood. She was unwanted, abused, ignored, shenever had anyone to advocate for her, to help her when she needed help, toPROTECT her and so now that she has a little strength (her dragons are stilllittle but they are dragons) she feels it her DUTY to protect others, toprotect those who have no one else to protect them.

She hatches a plan, tells no one about it, tricks the Masterinto selling her the army for a dragon, but it’s just a rouse because “a dragonis not man’s slave.” Now as awesome as this scene was, Dany took an incrediblerisk, because had this failed she and her people would have been begging to bedipped into honey and thrown at bears. But it works and after some payback herfirst order of business is to free the slave army, the Unsullied. She givesthem a choice to fight for her or to go on their marry way but they chose tostay with her because they want to help free other slaves.

Long story short, she goes on to free the slaves of Yunkaiand Meereen. Now she doesn’t have to do that, nobody would have batted an eyeif she didn’t but now she sees that she has the ability to help those who needhelp and so she helps them. Might I add that freeing the slaves of Yunkai iscounterproductive, because they don’t fight and they need to be protected andfed which adds an incredible burden to Dany.

But what she did in Slaver’s Bay, even with the mistakesthat she made, was an amazing act of kindness and compassion towards people shehad no affiliation with, not connection to, people she didn’t know. She did theright thing and that EARNED her their loyalty, it EARNED her their respect, itEARNED her their love. Because she saw them when every single person ignoredthem.

You speak of effort, she put a great deal of effort into freeing Slaver’s Bay, so much effort that she set aside her dream of reclaiming her family’s throne, so much effort that she married a man she despised in order to bring peace to her people, so much effort that she compromised her own principles because she wanted to do the right thing for her people. 

Get the fuck out of here. You know nothing. Dany is not a special snowflake, she made herself into the woman she is with a great deal of effort I might add. 

Hey everyone,Over 6 months ago I posted here with growing 57 trends that you could capitalize on for business opportunities, along with a plug for the app I’d created that found them.Your feedback was awesome and motivated me to keep running with it and growing it. And thanks to that, I managed to sell the site to Brian Dean of Backlinko recently. So I thought I’d share the story here.I have to admit though, I hadn’t monetized yet and I was incredibly lucky with how things worked out. So I’m not recommending this as a reproducible guide for anyone but hopefully you still enjoy the read.How It StartedI began work on Trennd.co back in April while living in Japan, and back then it was originally called TrendList.io.imageI’d started to realize that it’s 100X easier to bootstrap a profitable online business if you ride a big market trend. Jump on the opportunity before the competition gets too fierce.A great example of this is Jon and Justin at Transistor.fm, who spotted a growing B2B market for podcast hosting and bootstrapped a SaaS for it.Another classic example — Pieter Levels tapped into the digital nomad and remote work trend while scratching his own itch with Nomad List and Remote OK.Both market awareness and market timing were critical for these guys. On top of execution skill of course.But also, businesses take years of sales, marketing and general hard work even after you’ve launched. I’d like to know that life force is going into a growing opportunity, not a shrinking one.I needed something that could surface opportunities by automatically monitoring the web for new topics. So that I can then plug them into Google Trends.I needed a shiny new app or tool to play with. 😛But I couldn’t find anything, so I started to build it for myself.The first version was literally just a CLI tool that output trend graphs to the console.I thought I might as well package it as a B2C SaaS product. But woaaaah no, not another sales grind. Especially B2C.Let’s just put it up for free and see if I can even build an audience (basically email list) around it first.As I proclaimed on the about page, “Revenue is obviously at zero right now. It will likely stay there for a while. Probably forever.”Not wanting to miss the opportunity to try a fancy new web stack, I wrapped the tool up into a NextJS web app. This choice was primarily to capitalize on the out-of-box server-side rendering it offers. That way, I could actually get this project to rank properly on Google for all the various trends.I listed Trennd in early May (way before it was finished) on Product Hunt’s Ship service. Admittedly though, I probably should’ve done much more than this and actually talked to potential users/customers before writing any code.But I was very bullish on the concept since I was building Trennd to solve my own problem. 👹imageBut with a total of 153 subscribers from PH Ship 2 months later, it definitely felt like there might be more cost-effective ways to acquire initial users than the $80/month there. But the brand exposure and potential support from those guys on launch is still valuable.By May 20th I felt I had something that I could finally start to show people.But around the same time, I also realized that Trend List was the brand name of Trendlist.org. This is a contemporary graphic design site with Domain Authority of 38 and a huge presence on Google SERPs. I really didn’t want to compete from day 1 just to show up on Google when people search the brand name.imageAnyway, I found 3 other names that I’d be more than happy with: Trendful, Trennd and Trend Geek. I threw Nice Trend Bro into the running at the encouragement of my wife.Then I realized this rebrand could be a fantastic marketing opportunity in itself. So I decided to run a public vote on the new name via twitter poll as a fun and novel way other people could get involved. Plus this way I’d ensure it’s a solid name that works for everyone.With the Twitter poll underway for a week, I wanted to capitalize on this 7-day window and get as many votes as possible.Reddit Pre-launchI quickly got it up on Reddit as an initial “pre-launch”. I’d mainly wanted to get some initial users to help iron out any wrinkles and bugs, and to point out any big holes in terms of functionality.And as a professional “wantrepreneur”, I’m often lurking here on r/entrepreneur and I thought you guys might find Trennd useful.But I came in with my guard up. I knew full well you would chew me up and spit me out in an instant if you sensed I was here solely to promote.So I found 57 of the most interesting trends I had at the time and used them as a shield going into the post. I made sure to provide value first and ask for feedback second. I stuck around the comments section all day replying to everyone who took the time to comment.imageThe response to this Reddit post was huge! It received over 500 upvotes across 3 subreddits. One kind stranger even gave me Reddit Gold.In terms of number, Reddit brought:80 email subscribers50 user signups1k trafficNot a bad start.I also got a huge amount of awesome feedback on how I can improve the app and make it more valuable. Like requests for:Better data granularity for shorter time frames.Enabling Keyword trends too, not just Google Topics.Plus dozens of smaller things (like moving the trend close button to the top right so it’s easier to click on mobile).After this Reddit success, the twitter poll had over 100 votes for the new name. It was a close run between Trendful and Trennd.And, somehow, Pieter Levels came across Trend List, loved the concept and voted for the name Trennd!imageI’m a huge fan of Pieter’s and Nomad List. I was watching his Bali video about his maker journey literally days before starting Trend List! So for him to vote and like the idea was both uncanny and amazing.And in the end, the name Trennd won by a small margin.Following all this initial traction, Trennd was featured on Harry Dry’s killer Marketing Examples blog.imageI made the front page of Indie Hackers too with the top milestone too. Love the IH community so this was a big deal to me!imageAfter the first 5 weeks I was absolutely chuffed with the results. (That’s British slang for very pleased!)I hadn’t set any goals, but 353 email subscribers was way beyond anything I expected.And I was even more pumped that the initial feedback was so overwhelmingly positive.I’ve made some other small products, but they were like trying to get a massive boulder uphill. Every time you stopped pushing for new customers, it would roll back down on you. Old customers would churn and you hadn’t replaced them.But this one felt obviously different. It was the first thing I’d made that people just shared automatically and it kind of took flight by itself.And with an email list in the hundreds, I started a weekly email newsletter called Trennds For The Weekend**.** My primary goal there was to make no-fluff, straight to the point emails, with a carefully curated list of the most interesting and fresh trends each week.imageThe newsletter was the one thing that I made sure happened every week. It was great motivation to get things done to have something to talk to the readers. Plus it was an invaluable way to keep in touch with Trennd’s growing audience and have an open channel for feedback. If I started to go in a wonky direction re: trend quality, web design, email format, bugs, or anything really, somebody would usually let me know via email reply and help to straighten the ship’s course.Next up was a Show Hacker News launch, which I expected to be a giant flop as most things usually drown in the noise.Show HN LaunchSo Friday at 10pm and I’m sat at my desk in Japan ready to post to Hacker News. My wife’s already gone to bed, but I figured this was the best time to post such that people were awake in both US + Europe. Plus I could reply to any comments and keep check on things through to Saturday morning JST if I had to.So I drafted my opening thread comment and hit submit.“Sorry, your account is too new to submit this site.”Oh man. I’d been thinking about this submission all day. And I couldn’t even post. 🤦🏼‍♂️Anyway, I emailed the mods at Hacker News to explain and they very quickly and kindly marked it ready to go through. My account was made in 2017, but turns out “too new” can also mean not having participated much in the community.Flash forward to the following Friday and this time it went through.We’d made sure to phrase the title to resonate with the audience. On Hacker News (and in most places I suppose) simple, clear and humble works best. this is where fellow indie maker Vincent was awesome — he helped me to get this title spot on, along with a bunch of other great advice that made a huge difference.The post immediately moved onto the best of Show HN page, and then quickly onto the main page.imageTraffic increased to 400 concurrent users on Trennd and we briefly peaked at #1.imageIt was at this point that Trennd got the infamous “Hacker News hug” and the site died. The free MongoDB Atlas database plan did not appreciate this flood of connections. So I had a frantic 15min where the website was down while I upgraded to the paid tier.It’s a shame that I lost this quarter-hour of Hacker News prime time. And I’ve since implemented some server-side caching that prevents the database from getting hammered.But since I recovered quickly, we remained near the top of the front page for 12 more hours, which is good enough for me. Let’s not be greedy. 😛I manned the comments section into the early hours of the morning, got some great discussion and a tremendous amount of positivity from the crowd.Twitter BonanzaJust as I started to think everything was all over and we were back to normality. The buzz started to spill over and have a huge domino effect onto Twitter.Dozens and dozens of people tweeted about Trennd.Thankfully I’d updated the twitter preview image beforehand (thank you Michael!). So there was a pretty placeholder image and sweet description when dozens of people shared and tweeted about Trennd.And then, the cherry on top of it all was that Rand Fishkin of Moz tweeted about it! Unbelievable! This made my month. 🍒imageThe number of likes and retweets on the back of this was insane too. I’m a twitter newbie, so to get this kind of exposure blew my mind! 🤯It also led to us getting picked up by the hackernewsletter and kottke.org which drove some good traffic our way too.imageAll of this combined to rocket us above 2000 email subscribers:Subscribers: 2,163 🎉Visitors: 28,353 🕵️‍♀️Pageviews: 124,026 👀It was really cool how ready people were to contribute and add trends of their own too. It confirmed my hypothesis that we could crowdsource the surfacing of new trends to some extent. In a similar way that Product Hunters crowdsource new products.But with this came the issue of quality control. One visitor, for example, added “Donkey Porn” as a new trend, and it may well be trending, but I had to moderate it away. 🤫At this stage, I felt I’d truly validated interest in the project with over 2000 subscribers, marketing to get another X hundred subscribers wasn’t going to change anything.I needed to make the platform more powerful. So I held off a Product Hunt launch thinking I’d keep that powder dry.Monetization (Or Lack Thereof)I also started to think long and hard about how to monetize the site at this time. I needed it to at least pay some of its own bills and maybe even some of mine!In the medium to long term, I knew a premium version of Trennd was the way to go.But I couldn’t figure out what this should look like and wanted to do it right.There’s no point damaging hard-earned goodwill by pushing out a rushed premium product too soon or something that’s the wrong fit.Somebody did ask for a “private Trennd dashboard” where they could favorite trends and even get personal alerts. They even said they’d pay $100-$200 per month for it. Turns out, they found Trennd immensely valuable to discover new programming languages sooner so that they could make Udemy courses around them. (If they were the first to get a course out and get good reviews, it’s like a winner take all market and can be very profitable.)But, to me, all the value seems to be in the trends themselves and spotting hotter trends sooner. Not the ability to put certain ones in a personal dashboard. They’d just use the free version! Plus how many tech course creators are there out there? For better or worse (I think better!), I dismissed it as a dead-end.Instead, I began to look for a community or affiliate sponsor and started to have pricing conversations with people. Even though I was still small fry in terms of traffic and a few thousand email subscribers.I managed to set up a nice sponsorship ‘swap’ with Unreadit (which is awesome, check it out!) and that was a good fit and worked out well for both of us.It drove a bit of traffic, some new subscribers and gave me some stats about how well Trennd sponsorship slots converted for future potential sponsors. But it didn’t bring in any cash money since it was just a swap.imageHaving that deal in place did give me an excuse to scuttle back into my code cave though. 🦀Code CaveThis was with the view to making Trennd more robust and sustainable for the long term.The #1 challenge was, and still is, the noise to signal ratio. Nobody wants to click through page after page trends to find the ones relevant to them. They need to be able to slice and dice the trends in more ways/dimensions that are relevant to them.So I hunkered down in my little white room in our Japanese “mansion” (which in Japan basically means an apartment).imageI added things like absolute search volume data and the ability to sort on it. More consistent categorization standards and automatic classification of trends too.With the data granularity, you can see the 3-month chart data was weekly at first. So pretty crummy with only 12 data points.imageBut then below that with daily data points instead you can really see the difference.imageAnyway, I’ll stop boring you with the various small additions and improvements I made over this time. Back to the story. 😛Traction Despite InactionI’d done zero marketing for over a month. 🤦‍♂️The hype last month around the Hacker News launch and Twittersphere had naturally died down, along with the web traffic.It’s way too easy to put marketing on the back burner and keep building in general. That’s where I’m personally most comfortable.Yet, I know too well marketing should be an ongoing crusade, alongside product improvement.The most successful indie hackers I see around — they have systemized routines that enable them to continually output valuable content.But to my surprise, the mailing list count was still ticking up every day despite all this, and the site had seemed to reach a healthy equilibrium of 100–300 daily visitors.imageThese were both big green flags to me. (I’m not sure if green flags are actually a real thing. Emojipedia doesn’t think so… 🚩)Pieter Levels tweeted about us again out of the blue too! This was several months after the first time and drove several thousands of visitors to the site. imageAcquisitionAll kinds of people had been putting themselves forward asking to get involved. And this was happening on a semi-regular basis!The problem is, co-founders bring a huge amount of risk with them. Differences in vision, work ethic, and so many other things.They’re big unknowns, so I’d decided to stick by myself and the devil I know.That is until I received the following email from:imageI thought I recognized that name. Googling Brian Dean… Oh snap!Yep, it’s Brian Dean of Backlinko.com 😮imageMore googling… Interesting, he’s acquired things before. I don’t think he’s joking around.imageI’d just had my wedding 2 days before and we were off to Okinawa for 4 days, so my call with Brian had to wait. Best to play hard to get anyway. 😜Then 1 call, 1 hour, 21 minutes and 31 seconds later — we had a deal.And we literally shook hands over Skype video! 🤝As for the acquisition number… that’s why you’ve read this far, right?!It’s really difficult to put a price on something that’s not making any money yet. Well, actually it’s not. Most people would just say $0. And traffic was growing but spikey and low in an absolute sense.But at the same time, we were both massively excited by the potential and the concept is partially validated and de-risked given the initial traction obtained.We settled on an amount equivalent to how much I’d earn as a US-based engineer working 6 months, but then multiplied by X for the traction/success factor already achieved. And I also still have a stake in the project going forward.So I can’t retire yet, but it’s a HUGE win!The main thing is - now I don’t have to worry quite so much about paying rent every month and I can start to think more big picture in general.And perhaps even more importantly, it provides validation to myself (and my wife!) so that I can keep working on these “projects” of mine and not get a “real job” just yet.To be honest, I didn’t know if I was just crazy and wasting my time for 6 months.To my Japanese in-laws, I was the slightly strange, unemployed “freeter” at home on my computer all day.imageI have to say, writing during the process made a huge difference. It keeps you sane as a solo-founder and allows you to track your own progress at a high level.Also, being as open as possible and sharing metrics such as subscriber growth, traffic and revenue helped to attract support and keep me accountable when it was only me working on it.And overall, all of this helped to create a story around the product, without which people don’t have reason to care.What’s NextIt’s awesome to have Brian behind the project now. This is fantastic news for Exploding Topics. He’s a massive name in the SEO industry of course, but also a super-smart guy who really knows his stuff and enables us to take the project to the next level!He has a great instinct for direction, based on years of experience and success online. This includes his “head-ache detector” as he calls it, which can foresee potential problems way further in advance than I can.And we’ve also fast-forwarded to having Brian’s huge audience to put new features in front of and see what they think.I no longer need to slowly grow Trennd’s audience via a trend community/discussion platform over months and years, while also trying to wrestle with product-market fit.Instead, we can focus on building a better product. This means the core value of trend discovery and getting people hotter trends faster**.**To this end, we’ve been able to refocus on the backend. Now we monitor way more places on the internet as sources for interesting new topics and keywords across health, business, marketing, fashion and more.We’ve also decided to niche down. This is a vital step and something I’d been sweating and delaying for several months. But with Brian’s help, this is something we’ve been able to move forward on.The problem is there are so many different potential customers: indie makers like me looking for their next project idea, investors looking for a company stock pick, affiliates seeking the next hot product or people just seeking to feed their curiosity.But we’ve settled on professional bloggers**.**These guys are our new focus as they constantly need fresh content ideas across a range of categories to write about. And if they’re one of the first to write about an exploding topic then this makes a huge difference to their results.They also potentially make for good customers. (Even though we don’t have our premium version yet!) It’s still good to choose a nice market where people immediately ‘get’ the product and are willing to pay for it if it provides value.This market has proven itself before too, as Nathan Barry of ConvertKit said about going from $1k — $10k MRR:Niche down as small as possible. Going from a generic email marketing company to “email marketing for professional bloggers” was critical. (source)We’ve renamed it too. I know, I know… I’ve already rebranded from Trend List to Trennd, and now we’re doing it again? But hear me out.This product spreads by word of mouth very well.But try telling your friend to “check out trend, but with two n’s. Oh and it’s .co not .com”. Not good. 😅So we’ve gone with ExplodingTopics.comLovely. Easy to remember and easy to spell. Has a balanced look to it on paper too, but maybe that’s just me.And the word “topics” aligns better with our new target audience.Plus we now have a sweet new design. I feel it’s much more intuitive and way sexier in general. 🤩imageBefore it looked like a project, now it looks like a product.And here's the plug, the inevitable plug:And we’re finally launching on Product Hunt today. Both Brian and I will be active in the discussion all of today (3rd December 2019):That’s it! Glad you made it to the end, hope you enjoyed the story and thanks again to you guys at r/EntrepreneurUntil next time,😘Josh

G-LO: We sure did pack a lot in during our short trip to Chicago. That “Maximize your time!” mantra of yours works every single time we get together. I’m talking three bars, one brewpub, a diner, a coffee shop, several liquor stores, a massive whisky show, a distillery, and a good bit of walking around. For a couple of old guys, we’re pretty spry.

AK: Life is short, Mi Amigo. Semper fi! Go for the gusto! Chi-town is built for that take-no-prisoners attitude. And 30° temperatures keep the body moving. Or you’ll die.

G-LO: Right on, Brother! Death would be bad, but it’s not the worst case scenario. Never being allowed to drink another drop of booze would be a fate worse than death. Give me whisky, or give me DEATH! And speaking of whisky, how about that Koval Distillery behind-the-scenes tour?

AK: Needless to say, we were treated to a great visit. I’ve been to many distilleries where it’s a handshake, a quick walk through, a bit of a taste of some whisky, and “Goodbye! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. This was not that. We got treated like actual humans!

G-LO: Speak for yourself, Pal! I ain’t no human. But I am an “Esteemed Member of The Media”. And yes, our tour guides, Abby and Mitch, were super gracious and very well informed of all the goings on at Koval. I was amused by the fact that they moved the distillery right down the street from where we went for this year’s Whisky Jewbilee Chicago. So if we overdid it the night before and never made it back to the hotel, we could have slept on their doorstep and still been right on time for the 10:30 tour. Granted, we’d have been smelly and not very presentable, but at least we’d have been on time.

Abby and Mitch of Koval

AK: Punctuality is next to godliness, which is right next to gobblygook. Look it up, Mr. Webster. Abby and Mitch were downright perky compared to our post-Jewbilee butts. Last thing I remember from the night before was a bad bar experience on Clark Street in Andersonville. It was a scene out of Bar Rescue without the Jon Taffer rescue team. Maybe they were across the street spying on the goings-on from an unmarked panel truck.  Koval was a welcomed first world experience on a snow flurried morning.

G-LO: I looked it up, and lo and behold, you spelled it wrong. Gobbledygook is how ya spell it, and I LOVE the definition according to the real Mr. Webster: wordy and generally unintelligible jargon. Kinda like most of our posts; chock full of gobbledygook! And so was our last stop in Andersonville the night before. The Old Fashioned that our surly 20-something bartendress made you was loaded with gobbledygood, and it tasted downright awful. That was the diviest dive bar that ever dived. It was the Triple Lindy of dive bars, but without the Rodney Dangerfield smart-alecky charm. Taffer would have thrown in a life preserver (or a grenade) and walked out. Nothing worth rescuing there.

And I wholeheartedly agree! Abby and Mitch were positively delightful. I would have been pleased as punch to spend the afternoon with those Kids whilst sampling the entire Koval line-up. Before we get to the tasting part of our visit, did I hear them correctly when they said that they went from an 11,000 sq ft facility to a 40,000+ sq ft facility? That’s one hell of an expansion for a distillery that’s only 10 years old. Fact check me, Bro!

AK: I’ll have to go to the videotape to fact check that factoid. All I know is that their new facility was pretty darn big. I’ve gotten used to seeing distilleries and breweries start up in little warehouse spaces that were formerly the home of Atlas Wholesale Tool Co., or Stevens Aircraft Parts, or Zyndex, or Quantix, or iZynQuanDataSys. This place didn’t formerly house some rinky dink business that went belly up after eight years. This place had to have been a factory where things were built by people. With hands. Connected to the same people. And now Koval is doing the same. Building whisky. With hands.

G-LO: “Pretty darn big” is a perfect way to describe the new Koval space. I remember staring at the big open space in front of us as we waited for Abby and Mitch, and thinking, “That’s an awfully big waiting room. They must have big plans in the works!”. I’d say they definitely do based upon what we saw in the distillery part of our tour. And speaking of distilling, I think I’m finally understanding what they mean when they talk about making their cuts (i.e. heads vs. hearts. vs tails). Guess it would help if I read a book about the process one of these days. Pity that’s actual work.

I got more fact checking for ya! Did I hear them correctly when they said that they only run a single distillation process, as opposed to a double or triple distillation process? Something about deep “heart cuts”, or something along those lines. Sounds to me like the kids at Koval threw out the rule book and decided to go their own way.

AK:  Correct. Single distillation all done in a uniquely designed still system that they can change on the fly depending upon what’s being made that day.  Every distiller has their own little, or not so little, unique thing about the way they make their juice.  Koval has many little parts that they call their own, not the least of which is that they are 100% organic which is 100% more work from a compliance standpoint. Ever try to source cage-free barley?

G-LO: Cage-free barley? Is that a thing? If it is, I bet that’s some really happy barley. , And by the way, I’m very impressed with your memory. Sounds like you were paying close attention while I was shutterbugging.

AK: Plenty of interesting details from our guides. My people will be glad to know that Koval is Kosher too. That’s a whole different level of details. Interesting to choose organic and Kosher to (a) hang your hat on and (b) believe in. Hope they add a pastrami liqueur in the future.

G-LO: Ohhhh! A pastrami liqueur would be stellar. And if anyone could figure out how to do it, it’d be the mad scientists at Koval. But in the meantime, while they’re doing the voodoo that they do so well, let’s make a couple of these cocktails and order some pastrami on rye sandwiches from Canter’s Deli…

Running a conventional distillery can’t be easy. Adding certified organic and Kosher just adds to that already complex complexity, but it also insures that pretty much anyone will buy your product. Well, anyone over 21 at least.

Checking out the stills and all those lovely barrels filled with all kinds of spirits was good fun, but what really took this tour to the next level was checking out the bottling run. It was like being on set for the filming of a “How It’s Made” video. The Boys and I have spent many a Sunday morning watching “How It’s Made” marathons. You never really think of all the engineering and product development that goes into making the machines that make things. Loved watching how they sterilize, fill, cork, and label those bottles! It served as a nice bookend to our tour.

AK: That was spectacular, but walking into that airplane hangar of a warehouse was awesome. Boxes of bottles as far as the eye could see. And that’s not even where they age the juice! That would be another pin on the map of whiskey heaven. I almost ditched you, Abby, and Mitch to hide behind a few pallets of Rye because, well… just because. But then I realized that (a) you’d miss me, and (b) it must get really cold in there. I like distilleries that do as much as they can under one roof. Obviously, as you get bigger that gets harder to do.

G-LO: I’d miss you? Somebody sure thinks mighty highly of themselves. OK.. FINE! So maybe I’d miss you a little. Bastard.

So true about how much they can get accomplished under one roof. And the really crazy thing is that they’re not completely settled in the new space, so I’m sure if we check in on them in a year, they’ll be doing even more under that big-ass roof of theirs.

While the behind-the-scenes tour was good fun, I thought our post-tour tasting was even more funner(?), more fun(?), funnier(?). And the fact that we got to sample a pretty big chunk of their line-up before noon makes it even more funnerer!

AK: Considering it was snowing all morning and I was freezing, nothing sounded better than a late morning tipple or two. And since I’ve only tried a few out of the Koval line, this was really interesting and more funner(?), more fun(?), funnier(?)! The sampling, not the snowing and freezing.

G-LO: We are simpatico regarding the weather. While I may live in the Northeastern United States, my blood is Sicilian and it doesn’t like the cold very much, so yes, a late morning tipple (or in our case, 5 or 6) was very, very welcome.

I too have sampled some Koval spirits, mostly at several Jewbilee events, but have never spent all that much time with them, so I usually lose all of their finesse when having them alongside many a high octane spirit. And when I say finesse, I mean that they are making some very subtle and highly approachable spirits under that mega-roof of theirs. I believe we tried the standard Bourbon, the Rye, and a cask strength Bourbon, along with the Barrel Aged Gin and the Cranberry Gin. How’s my memory, Chief?

AK: Well, we started with the 100% Birdseed. Errr… I mean 100% Millet, which was pretty interesting. Sweet. Easy and smooth. A bit spicy, and quite the long finish.  I tawt it was pwetty tasty, Sylvester!

Then we had the Rye. Smooth, buttery, not sharp. Right in my wheelhouse, Harry Carey.

Then Gentleman Mitch treated us to a wee bit of a cask strength Bourbon from a private barrel. Good lordy, oh my, was that one special! 55%, or eight clicks above the standard offering. They need to put something like that out in the regular line-up, if you ask me. No one ever asks me.

Then it was the Four Grain which was a panoply of flavors. Wheat, Rye, Oatmeal and Malted Barley. 30-30-20-20, if you’re scoring at home. Apparently, this was a delicious accident from a bunch of leftover grains that they threw together. And voilà! All aged for six months in a #3 char American Oak barrel.

Lastly, we hit the Cranberry Gin at 30% ABV. It’s their standard Gin recipe but with organic cranberries from Wisconsin, then proofed down. Sweet and tart, with a neat little Gin finish. Sure didn’t taste like whatever I was expecting. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I liked this one so much that I bought a bottle at Binny’s for Mrs. Satellite Engineer to experiment with.

G-LO: Geez, Tweety, my memory ain’t so good with regards to the whisky. I think I scored a 50/100 which if my long-term memory serves me well would equate to an F on the high school grading scale. Not good, but at least I got the Gin bit right, though I could swear I tried their Barrel Aged Gin in addition to that delicious Cranberry Gin.

My memory may suck, but Koval’s spirits most definitely do not. While I generally prefer a whisky with some bite, I can also appreciate a subtler and more easy drinking spirit as well. All four of the whiskies we tried were really interesting and very easy drinking, even the cask strength Bourbon which I would have never guessed was 55% ABV. That was delicious as-is and needed no water to enjoy. The Rye was also really tasty and definitely different from other Rye whisky that I’ve had. It was very fruity with much less bitey spice. It was closer to the Catoctin Creek Rye that we tried at Jewbilee Chicago the night before which was also really mellow and easy drinking.

As far as that Cranberry Gin goes, if it wasn’t for the fact that I wanted to avoid the whole checked luggage thing for the flight home, I too would have bought a bottle. Such a fun and versatile spirit! It was lightly sweet, lightly tart with a mild pucker, and had just enough Gin flavor to get the wheels turning with regards to cocktailing with it. I enjoyed it on it’s own and could see it being used in a variety of beverages, i.e. something as simple as a highball with sparkling water and a wedge of lemon, a holiday friendly punch, or maybe even a cranberry martini. I’m guessing Mrs. Satellite Engineer will have mucho mucho fun with this elixir!

AK: Koval really has an interesting lineup. We didn’t even get into all the Rye based liqueurs they have. I’m sure those are packed with flavor. And very prettily bottled. It seems as if they are doing some backroom experimentations with barrels from the local breweries, coffee-mongers, and a cider maker. Love the quest for the wild and wacky!

G-LO: And if anyone knows from wild and wacky, it’s YOU, Mi Amigo! Speaking of their Rye based liqueurs, LimpD and I reviewed their Ginger Liqueur many moons ago. It was really really nice with a great balance of sugary sweetness and tingly ginger. If your curiosity has been piqued, you can read all about it by clicking these words. How’s THAT for a shameless plug?

In case you couldn’t tell, I really enjoyed our time at Koval, and Abby and Mitch’s enthusiasm was downright infectious! Those Kids know their stuff and they were a joy to spend time with. And now that I have a greater appreciation for what they’re doing at Koval, I will definitely keep their spirits on my watch list.

Any final thoughts?

AK:  I agree wholeheartedly! Our hosts treated us with true Midwest hospitality and flavor. And flavor is what really makes Koval stand out to me. Their range really stretches the flavor spectrum and even gets into the weird and wacky which is right up our alley. Tie all that up with their 100% organic bow, and you really have something special.

G-LO: Well said! We most definitely like our packages to be both pretty AND flavorful. Koval’s offerings are most definitely all that. And so much more!

The WCO (aka @AaronMKrouse) + G-LO Get a Private Tour of Chicago's @kovaldistillery. #Whisky #Chicago G-LO: We sure did pack a lot in during our short trip to Chicago. That “Maximize your time!” mantra of yours works…