At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.
“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully. in the background, a tv is reading out what the Phoenix extremeist group has done recently. bodies, stacking.
tim nods, pushing his salad around. “it’s kind of annoying.” he’s gone vegan ever since he could talk to animals. his cheeks are sallow. “yesterday i absorbed static and i can’t stop shocking myself.”
“you don’t know what from,” shay is detangling her hair at the table, even though it’s not polite. about a second ago, her hair was perfect, which implies she’s been somewhere in the inbetween. “try millions of multiverses that your powers conflict with.”
“did we die in the last one?” you grin and she grins and tim grins but nobody answers the question.
now she has a cut over her left eye and her hair is shorter. she looks tired and tim looks tired and you look down at your 18-year-old hands, which are nothing.
they ship out tomorrow. they go out to the frontlines or wherever it is that superheroes go to fight supervillains; the cream of the crop. the starlight banner kids.
“you both are trying too hard,” you tell them, “couldn’t you have been, like, really good at surfing?”
“god,” shay groans, “what i’d give to only be in the olympics.”
xxx
in the night, tim is asleep. on the way home, he absorbed telekinesis, and hates it too.
shay looks at you. “i’m scared,” she says.
you must not have died recently, because she looks the same she did at dinner, cut healing slowly over her eye the way it’s supposed to, not the hyper-quickness of a timejump. just shay, living in the moment when the moment is something everyone lives in. her eyes are wide and dark the way brown eyes can be, that swelling fullness that feels so familiar and warm, that piercing darkness that feels like a stone at the back of your tongue.
“you should be,” you say.
her nose wrinkles, she opens her mouth, but you plow on.
“they’re going to take one look at you and be like, ‘gross, shay? no thanks. you’re too pretty. it’s bringing down like, morale, and things’. then they’ll kick you out and i’ll live with you in a box and we’ll sell stolen cans of ravioli.”
she’s grinning. “like chef boyardee or like store brand?”
“store brand but we print out chef boyardee labels and tape them over the can so we can mark up the price.”
“where do we get the tape?”
“we, uh,” you look into those endless dark eyes, so much like the night, so much like a good hot chocolate, so much like every sleepover you’ve had with the two of your best friends, and you say, “it’s actually just your hair. i tie your hair around the cans to keep the label on.”
she throws a pillow at you.
you both spend a night planning what you’ll do in the morning when shay is kicked out of Squadron 8, Division 1; top rankers that are all young. you’ll both run away to the beach and tim will be your intel and you’ll burn down the whole thing. you’re both going to open a bakery where you will do the baking and she’ll use her time abilities to just, like, speed things up so you don’t have to wake up at dawn. you’re both going to become wedding planners that only do really extreme weddings.
she falls asleep on your shoulder. you do not sleep at all.
in the morning, they are gone.
xxx
squadron 434678, Division 23467 is basically “civilian status.” you still have to know what to expect and all that stuff. you’re glad that you’re taking extra classes at college; you’re kind of bored re-learning the stuff you were already taught in high school. there are a lot of people who need help, and you’re good at that, so you help them.
tim and shay check in from time to time, but they’re busy saving the world, so you don’t fault them for it. in the meantime, you put your head down and work, and when your work is done, you help the people who can’t finish their work. and it kind of feels good. kind of.
xxx
at twenty, squadron 340067, division 2346 feels like a good fit. tim and you go out for ice cream in a new place that rebuilt after the Phoenix group burned it down. you’ve chosen nurse-practitioner as your civilian job, because it seems to fit, but you’re not released for full status as civilian until you’re thirty, so it’s been a lot of office work.
tim’s been on the fritz a lot lately, overloading. you’re worried they’ll try to force him out on the field. he’s so young to be like this.
“i feel,” he says, “like it all comes down to this puzzle. like i’m never my own. i steal from other people’s boxes.”
you wrap your hand around his. “sometimes,” you say, “we love a river because it is a reflection.”
he’s quiet a long time after that. a spurt of flame licks from under his eyes.
“i wish,” he says, “i could believe that.”
xxx
twenty three has you in squad 4637, division 18. really you’ve just gotten here because you’re good at making connections. you know someone who knows someone who knows you as a good kid. you helped a woman onto a bus and she told her neighbor who told his friend. you’re mostly in the filing department, but you like watching the real superheroes come in, get to know some of them. at this level, people have good powers but not dangerous ones. you learn how to help an 18 year old who is a loaded weapon by shifting him into a non-violent front. you get those with pstd home where they belong. you put your head down and work, which is what you’re good at.
long nights and long days and no vacations is fine until everyone is out of the office for candlenights eve. you’re the only one who didn’t mind staying, just in case someone showed up needing something.
the door blows open. when you look up, he’s bleeding. you jump to your feet.
“oh,” you say, because you recognize the burning bird insignia on his chest, “I think you have the wrong office.”
“i just need,” he spits onto the ground, sways, collapses.
well, okay. so, that’s, not, like. great. “uh,” you say, and you miss shay desperately, “okay.”
you find the source of the bleeding, stabilize him for when the shock sets in, get him set up on a desk, sew him shut. two hours later, you’ve gotten him a candlenights present and stabilized his vitals. you’ve also filed him into a separate folder (it’s good to be organized) and found him a home, far from the warfront.
when he wakes up, you give him hot chocolate (god, how you miss shay), and he doesn’t smile. he doesn’t smile at the gift you’ve gotten him (a better bulletproof vest, one without the Phoenix on it), or the stitches. that’s okay. you tell him to take the right medications, hand them over to him, suggest a doctor’s input. and then you hand over his folder with a new identity in it and a new house and civilian status. you take a deep breath.
he opens it and bursts into tears. he doesn’t say anything. he just leaves and you have to clean up the blood, which isn’t very nice of him. but it’s candlenights. so whatever. hopefully he’ll learn to like his gift.
xxx
squadron 3046, division 2356 is incredibly high for a person like you to fit. but still, you fit, because you’re good at organization and at hard work, and at knowing how to hold on when other people don’t see a handhold.
shay is home. you’re still close, the two of you, even though she feels like she exists on another planet. the more security you’re privy to, the more she can tell you.
you brush her hair as she speaks about the endless man who never dies, and how they had to split him up and hide him throughout the planet. she cries when she talks about how much pain he must be in.
“can you imagine?” she whispers, “i mean, i know he’s phoenix, but can you imagine?”
“one time i had to work retail on black friday,” you say.
she sniffles.
“one time my boss put his butt directly on my hand by accident and i couldn’t say anything so i spent a whole meeting with my hand directly up his ass,” you say.
her eyes are so brown, and filling, and there are scars on her you’ve never noticed that might be new or very, very, very old; and neither of you know exactly how much time she’s actually been alive for.
“i mean,” you say, “yeah that might hurt but one time i said goodbye to someone but they were walking in the same direction. i mean can you imagine.”
she laughs, finally, even though it’s weakly, and says, “one time even though i can manipulate time i slept in and forgot to go to work even though i was leading a presentation and i had to look them in the face later to tell them that.”
“you’re a compete animal,” you tell her, and look into those eyes, so sad and full of timelines you’ll never witness, “you should be kicked out completely.”
she wipes her face. “find me in a box,” she croaks, “selling discount ravioli.”
xxx
you don’t know how it happens. but you guess the word gets around. you don’t think you like being known to them as someone they can go to, but it’s not like they’ve got a lot of options. many of them just want to be out of it, so you get them out, you guess.
you explain to them multiple times you haven’t done a residency yet and you really only know what an emt would, but they still swing by. every time they show up at your office, you feel your heart in your chest: this is it, this is how you die, this is how it ends.
“so, like, this group” you say, trying to work the system’s loopholes to find her a way out of it, “from ashes come all things, or whatever?”
she shrugs. you can tell by looking at her that she’s dangerous. “it’s corny,” she says. another shrug. “i didn’t mean to wind up a criminal.”
you don’t tell her that you sort of don’t know how one accidentally becomes a criminal, since you kind-of-sort-of help criminals out, accidentally.
“i don’t believe any of that stuff,” she tells you, “none of that whole… burn it down to start it over.” she swallows. “stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it’s still happening, even though you wish it wasn’t.”
you think about shay, and how she’s covered in scars, and her crying late at night because of things nobody else ever saw.
“yeah,” you say, and print out a form, “i get that.”
and you find a dangerous woman a normal home.
xxx
“you’re squadron 905?”
“division 34754,” you tell him. watch him look down at your ID and certification and read your superpower on the card and then look back up to you and then back down to the card and then back up at you, and so on. he licks his chapped lips and stands in the cold.
this happens a lot. but you smile. the gatekeeper is frowning, but then hanson walks by. “oh shit,” he says, “it’s you! come right on in!” he gives you a hug through your rolled-down window.
the gatekeeper is in a stiff salute now. gulping in terror. hanson is one of the strongest people in this sector, and he just hugged you.
the gate opens. hanson swaggers through. you shrug to the gatekeeper. “i helped him out one time.”
inside they’re debriefing. someone has shifted sides, someone powerful, someone wild. it’s not something you’re allowed to know about, but you know it’s bad. so you put your head down, and you work, because that’s what you’re good at, after all. you find out the gatekeeper’s name and send him a thank-you card and also handmade chapstick and some good earmuffs.
shay messages you that night. i have to go somewhere, she says, i can’t explain it, but there’s a mission and i might be gone a long time.
you stare at the screen for a long time. your fingers type out three words. you erase them. you instead write where could possibly better than stealing chef boyardee with me?
she doesn’t read it. you close the tab.
and you put your head down. and work.
xxx
it’s in a chili’s. like, you don’t even like chili’s? chili’s sucks, but the boss ordered it so you’re here to pick it up, wondering if he gave you enough money to cover. things have been bad recently. thousands dying. whoever switched sides is too powerful to stop. they destroy anyone and anything, no matter the cost.
the phoenix fire smells like pistachios, you realize. you feel at once part of yourself and very far. it happens so quickly, but you feel it slowly. you wonder if shay is involved, but know she is not.
the doors burst in. there’s screaming. those in the area try their powers to defend themselves, but everyone is civilian division. the smell of pistachios is cloying.
then they see you. and you see them. and you put your hands on your hips.
“excuse me, tris,” you say, “what are you doing?”
there’s tears in her eyes. “i need the money,” she croaks.
“From a chili’s?” you want to know, “who in their right mind robs a chili’s? what are you going to do, steal their mozzarella sticks?”
“it’s connected to a bank on the east wall,” she explains, “but i thought it was stupid too.”
you shake your head. you pull out your personal checkbook. you ask her how much she needs, and you see her crying. you promise her the rest when you get your paycheck.
someone bursts into the room. shouts things. demands they start killing.
but you’re standing in the way, and none of them will kill you or hurt you, because they all know you, and you helped them at some point or another, or helped their friend, or helped their children.
tris takes the money, everyone leaves. by the time the heroes show up, you’ve gotten everyone out of the building.
the next time you see tris, she’s marrying a beautiful woman, and living happily, having sent her cancer running. you’re a bridesmaid at the wedding.
xxx
“you just,” the director wants to know now, “sent them running?”
hanson stands between her and you, although you don’t need the protection.
“no,” you say again, for the millionth time, “i just gave her the money she needed and told her to stop it.”
“the phoenix group,” the director of squadron 300 has a vein showing, “does not just stop it.”
you don’t mention the social issues which confound to make criminal activity a necessity for some people, or how certain stereotypes forced people into negative roles to begin with, or how an uneven balance of power punished those with any neurodivergence. instead you say, “yeah, they do.”
“i’m telling you,” hanson says, “we brought her out a few times. it happens every time. they won’t hurt her. we need her on our team.”
your spine is stiff. “i don’t do well as a weapon,” you say, voice low, knowing these two people could obliterate you if they wished. but you won’t use people’s trust against them, not for anything. besides, it’s not like trust is your superpower. you’re just a normal person.
hanson snorts. “no,” he says, “but i like that when you show up, the fighting just… stops. that’s pretty nice, kid.”
“do you know… what we are dealing with…. since agent 25… shifted….?” the director’s voice is thin.
“yeah,” hanson says, “that’s why i think she’d be useful, you know? add some peace to things.”
the director sits down. sighs. waves her hand. “whatever,” she croaks, “do what you want. reassign her.”
hanson leads you out. over your shoulder, you see her put her head in her hands. later, you get her a homemade spa kit, and make sure to help her out by making her a real dinner from time to time, something she’s too busy for, mostly.
at night, you write shay messages you don’t send. telling her things you cannot manage.
one morning you wake up to a terrible message: shay is gone. never to be seen again.
xxx
you’re eating ice cream when you find him.
behind you, the city is burning. hundreds dead, if not thousands.
he’s staring at the river. maybe half-crying. it’s hard to tell, his body is shifting, seemingly caught between all things and being nothing.
“ooh buddy,” you say, passing him a cone-in-a-cup, the way he likes it, “talk about a night on the town.”
the bench is burning beside him, so you put your jacket down and snuff it out. it’s hard sitting next to him. he emits so much.
“hey tim?” you say.
“yeah?” his voice is a million voices, a million powers, a terrible curse.
“can i help?” you ask.
he eats a spoonful of ice cream.
“yeah,” he says eventually. “i think i give up.”
xxx
later, when they praise you for defeating him, you won’t smile. they try to put you in the media; an all-time hero. you decline every interview and press conference. you attend his funeral with a veil over your head.
the box goes into the ground. you can’t stop crying.
you’re the only one left at the site. it’s dark now, the subtle night.
you feel her at your side and something in your heart stops hurting. a healing you didn’t know you needed. her hands find yours.
“they wanted me to kill him,” she says, “they thought i’d be the only one who could.” her hands are warm. you aren’t breathing.
“beat you to it,” you say.
“i see that,” she tells you.
you both stand there. crickets nestle the silence.
“you know,” she says eventually, “i have no idea which side is the good one.”
“i think that’s the point of a good metaphor about power and control,” you say, “it reflects the human spirit. no tool or talent is good or bad.”
“just useful,” she whispers. after a long time, she wonders, “so what does that make us?”
xxx
it’s a long trek up into the mountains. shay seems better every day. more solid. less like she’s on another plane.
“heard you’re a top ten,” she tells me, her breath coming out in a fog. you’ve reclassed her to civilian. it took calling in a few favors, but you’ve got a lot.
“yeah,” you say, “invulnerable.”
“oh, is that your superpower?” she laughs. she knows it’s not.
“that’s what they’re calling it,” you tell her, out of breath the way she is not, “it’s how they explain a person like me at the top.”
“if that means ‘nobody wants to kill me’, i think i’m the opposite.” but she’s laughing, in a light way, a way that’s been missing from her.
the cabin is around the corner. the lights are already on.
“somebody’s home,” i grin.
tim, just tim, tim who isn’t forced into war and a million reflections, opens the door. “come on in.”
xxx
squadron one, division three. a picture of shay in a wedding dress is on my desk. she looks radiant, even though she’s marrying little old me.
what do i do? just what i’m best at. what’s not a superpower. what anyone is capable of: just plain old helping.
Aliens have invaded and are taking over. Their technology, intelligence, and power is unstoppable. They just didnt plan on one thing: The old gods returning.
When they first arrived, we were overjoyed. Proof that we weren’t alone
in the universe, that there were other races to share and exchange technologies
with! Their arrival brought about world peace – with other life forms out
there, we needed to present a united front. World hunger and poverty was solved
within a decade, a demonstration to our new friends that we were worthy of the
responsibility of exploring the galaxy.
They disagreed.
They accessed our histories, they saw everything, and they recoiled in
horror. They could not fathom the world we had created, and the solutions we
had brought about not because it was the right thing to do, but to impress
them.
They were not impressed. They told us, regret tinging the translators,
that we could not be trusted as keepers of this world. The damage we had done
was coming close to being irreparable, and for our own good they’d need to take
over.
I have to say, I agreed – humans are terrible. But the funny thing
about humanity is, even if something is right, if it means giving up our
control, it is wrong.
We fought back.
At first we fought back democratically. This race that had descended
from the stars was peaceful, never seeming to favour violence. We didn’t think
they’d start killing indiscriminately. We didn’t think they’d take inspiration
from our own history books.
As with so many other things, we were wrong.
An extreme group of humans succeeded in ambushing and killing several
of their high-ranking Xenos. Human lives were lost in the process, but the
extremists saw that as a necessary sacrifice, a means to an end. The Xenos had
been shown that we wouldn’t tolerate their kind here, that they should leave
and let us get on with things how we always have.
Within days, war had been declared, and we learned why we should have
tried harder. Had they decided to simply fight the moment they touched down, to
systematically advance and wipe out every human life they came across, we
wouldn’t have stood a chance. Their weapons, armour, tactics, the sheer
firepower and the size of their armies were beyond comprehension. Out of rage
and grief, they marched over us, and began the slow process of wiping us out.
Bullets couldn’t pierce their armour and shields, rockets fell to the ground
lifeless, and even nuclear devices were somehow disabled mid-flight.
Still we fought back. Humans never have figured out how to give up when
all hope is lost.
There was no formal resistance of rebellion, we simply gathered,
fought, and survived where we could. When something new happened, it took
weeks, months, to reach every last survivor.
And then, something unbelievable happened.
Stories started filtering through to the pockets of us in hiding, strange
stories – a freak electrical storm in Greece that appeared from a clear blue
sky and wiped out a thousand of them in less than 15 minutes; Xenos impaled on
braches of rare trees, some kind of grisly warning that we chalked up to particularly
violent survivors in that area; whole armies frozen to death because the
temperature around them had dropped too quickly for their environmental suits
to keep up with. Freak weather patterns that worked in our favour, violent
survivors, terrain they couldn’t navigate. That’s what we told ourselves when
the stories filtered through.
But then they got weirder. There were stories of Xenos being swallowed
by the ground itself. A pack of wolves, larger than anything ever before seen
appeared from a crack in a mountain range to storm through an encampment and
kill every last Xenos. There was a massive surge in the number of corvids
around the world, and they always seemed to congregate where the Xenos were
thickest… days before something killed everything. Then they’d vanish, and more
corvids would appear somewhere else. Harbingers, just like the old tales.
One day a massive seafaring vessel chasing a fishing trawler was pulled
under the water – no reefs or icebergs in the area, and the sea mines had long
been disarmed and deactivated. I spoke to a man who had been in the sloop
running from the Xenos ship, and he swore blind the Kraken had got it, the
tentacles alone bigger than the tiny boat he’d been huddled on. He shuddered
and drank too much, and I put it down to hallucinations caused by a bad batch
of moonshine. There was no such thing as monsters.
Then we heard about warriors. We heard about chariots, of all things,
chasing down whole platoons of Xenos in Egypt, chariots so bright it felt like
staring into the sun; a huge hound with three heads was spotted in Greece, a
man in shadows and a woman of light removing the leash as Xenos advanced on
them; a woman showed up in Iceland standing head and shoulders above the
tallest man there, with an army of her own. They didn’t seem to fall in battle,
and pushed the Xenos back, fighting with sword and shield and spear, a fury
that our alien invaders couldn’t match.
Humanoid creatures with eyes of fire supposedly began granting wishes
over in Syria, as long as your wish was for them to kill your enemies. There
were sightings in Ireland of pure white horses, horses that once ridden wouldn’t
let you off, that dragged people into bogs and rivers. Tales came out of brazil of monstrously large snakes, sometimes
with the faces of women, dragging aliens into the gloom of the rivers and
rainforests.
But there’s no such thing as monsters.
I finally believed when I saw three women facing down the largest army
of Xenos I’d ever come across – at least twelve thousand by my counting. I’d
been running from a scouting party, and when I stumbled out of the treeline onto
a road I realised they’d chased me right into the path of the oncoming horde.
The moment you face your death is a strange one. Everything felt calm
except the thundering of my pulse in my ears, and the crows that seemed to come
from nowhere to blot out the sun.
Then three women strolled into the road in front of me, placing
themselves between me and the advancing army. A young woman, barely out of
girlhood; someone who could have easily been my mother; and a woman so old she
was almost bent double. It was the oldest who strode towards the mass of Xenos
without any fear, leading the other two towards their deaths, and the din of
the crows got louder.
The youngest one glanced my way and smiled playfully, and something
from my grandmother’s tales made me flatten myself to the ground, hands clamped
firmly over my ears.
The scream started low, in the back of the old woman’s throat,
travelling through the ground and making every bone in my body shudder with the
vibration. Realisation began to dawn on me as Maiden and Mother joined in with
their Crone, and the scream climbed to a crescendo that could have shattered glass.
Even with my hands tight over my ears it pierced me to my core, a screaming
agony that made me want to curl in on myself and die.
I survived because it wasn’t meant for me.
The Xenos, however, felt the full force of the rage these women contained.
An entire planet’s worth of grieving poured out of them in this shriek, rooting
their enemies to the ground with the difference in tone and pitch between these
three women telling their stories.
The mother stood tall and resolute, screaming her grief at these
invaders, a mother mourning all of her children.
The crone’s low snarl was that of war. Weary of the fighting but always
ready to defend what’s hers, she growled her challenge, and the Xenos couldn’t
stand against it.
The maiden was hope, the only act of defiance in a world on the edge of
ruin. When everything was dust, when the last stragglers of humanity were
contemplating giving up, she was the hope that kept them fighting.
Part of me wondered how many shirts they’d washed, how many rivers they’d
wept together, before standing up and saying “no more.”
The scream stopped abruptly, leaving me feeling like the breath had all
been sucked out of me, a void in the air around me that rushed back in and
filled my lungs with a long, shuddering gasp.
I opened my eyes to carnage. The Xenos had died where they’d stood,
their organs haemorrhaging, what passed for blood pouring from every orifice,
their eyes turning to liquid in their skulls. Bodies were everywhere, and the
crows circling overhead had fallen silent, uninterested in the feast this must
have surely been for them.
The Morrigan was one woman now, ageless and terrifying.
“Get up, child.” She commanded, and I had no choice but to obey,
trembling legs pushing me to my feet. She reached out a hand, and gently wiped a
trail of blood away from my ear. “Did you really think we’d abandoned you?” She
murmured, and the crows descended, carrying her to the next battle.
Monsters are real, and some of them look like people. But the Gods are
also real, and they still believe in us.
So I’m still fighting, and my battle cry is full of hope.
The thing about Star Wars is that, inevitably, I just get sad that the Prequels are so bad.
There are good movies hiding in there. But there’s just so much crap surrounding them.
There just a few fundamentally poor writing choices that caused a massive cascade of really really bad writing and story structure and its SO SAD. -sigh-
In fact, I’m going to say that there are 4 fundamental problems that cause every other major issue.
Fundamental problem 1: Lucas refuses to use flashbacks and/or significant time skips within a single movie. Which is closely related to Fundamental problem 2: He decided he needed to have baby Anakin’s backstory explicitly shown.
Baby Anakin’s backstory is not enough to fill an entire movie, and since we can’t have flashbacks, we can’t just start with already-a-Padawan Anakin. Thus, Episode 1 is full of useless fluff filler. We are stuck watching Qui Gon, instead of the far more interesting Obi Won for nearly all of the movie. Padme’s presence is confusing, because her being around at that point in Anakin’s life doesn’t really make sense.
Fundamental problem 3: Lucas basically forgot to include character arcs for anyone other than Anakin.
This is the most egregious with Obi (who SHOULD have spent the trilogy dealing with his need for revenge against Maul AND desire to protect Anakin from Maul. Instead, Maul is killed off way too soon and Obi gets put on ~mystery detective duty~ for the whole 2nd movie.) It’s also apparent with Padme (who, tragically has NO arc, and dies for absurd reasons. I’m sorry, you have faster than light travel but no ultrasounds? Give the woman an arc. Totally rework her character. She and Anakin meet as young teens, she isn’t a princess, and she has real motivations. She is a rising senator with her own ambitions. Hell, let her survive childbirth. She doesnt NEED TO DIE for the movie to still work. She sees what Anakin is becoming and she leaves- she takes their children and leaves him.) Hell, even Palpatine SHOULD have an arc, and we SHOULD get to see it. Him rising to surpass his own master. The whole trilogy is supposed to be about the Fall of the Republic and the rise of The emperor and Vader. We should PROBABLY GET TO SEE ALL OF THAT. Buuuut we don’t.
Fundamental problem 4: Useless characters
I don’t need a whole movie with Qui Gon. I definitely don’t need C3P0 to be Anakin’s personal droid (I mean, he could be Padme’s? But why would Anakin build his enslaved mother a DIPLOMACY ROBOT.) Obviously, Jar Jar.
Ok, so given these flaws, how to we fix the series? Now, this won’t be a scene by scene screenplay, but just a general idea for how to address some of these bigger problems into a trilogy that is more thematically and narratively sound. Our big goals are:
-Give the major characters an arc
– Make sure each movie builds off the last
– Avoid anything too obviously absurd.
Side notes: Use original trilogy characters sparingly. Add more female characters in wherever possible.
SO, the Phantom Menace. This is arguably the worst movie of the bunch, so it needs the most significant reworks. We need to establish the major character relationships, set up the basic conflicts for the whole trilogy, and in general, make people likable. Here’s the basic plan-
Act 1 is all about baby Anakin. So we open on Obi and Qui Gon. First change- Obi is not a padawan here. This is important. He’s already had his trials, already a Jedi Knight in his own right. Qui Gon WAS his master, but now they are on more equal footing. They are off doing….some Jedi business. Not government business, because the Jedi being a government agency is silly. Just Jedi stuff. I dunno, maybe hunting Maul or the Sith or looking for a fancy McGuffin. Doesn’t matter.
They end up on Tatooine (Or like, another shit planet. Anakin being from Tatooine is kinda silly. Why would you hide Luke from his Dad in his Dad’s hometown?) for whatever reason. They need parts or supplies or whatever.
They see baby Ani using force powers. This catches their attention. They talk to him- find out he’s a slave kid. We can basically go ahead and use a lot of the Phantom Menace Tatooine stuff here. (Except C3P0. That’s absurd. Why would you build your enslaved mother a diplomacy robot, Anakin? No. If we MUST have C3P0, he can belong to Padme or something.) Hell, we can even keep the Pod Racing. It’s fine.
The important thing is that while Anakin doesn’t want to leave his mother- he does want to be free, not a slave at whatever cost, and he wants to change the galaxy.
Important to note: Do not have Anakin fly a freakin star ship or whatever. No Padme here. We’re just focusing on getting Anakin to being a Padawan.
The point is that at the end of ACT 1, Anakin is now Qui Gon’s apprentice. QUI GON’S APPRENTICE.
Ok, now skip to Act 2. Major time jump. Anakin is now like, 14.
He’s doing pretty well as Qui Gon’s apprentice. Obi and he have a good kind of Big Brother/Little brother rapport going on. We see them doing some minor Jedi stuff. Helping people. Doing their thing. We need to see that both Anakin and Obi really care about Qui Gon AND each other. Get some cool jedi fights in here.
So now is a good time to introduce Padme. Same age as Anakin. Maybe they don’t get along right away, maybe they do. Doesn’t matter. We start to get a sense that they have a connection. Also, Padme is EITHER a Princess OR she will be a senator. Both are fine, let’s just pick one. Doesn’t matter.
Ok, so now we need to get major plot points rolling. We see Palpatine for the first time (Ah, introduce Palpatine and Padme in the same act, you see. The two people who represent the conflict in Anakin’s future.)
This act is all about really setting up relationships.
Act 3: Ok, here is where we need to put all the pieces in place for the rest off the movies.
The big thing here is we need to see Palpatine already gain some power through dubious methods.
Darth Maul kills Qui Gon- and gets away. This is vital. Big lightsaber fight. Anakin is there. Tries to help, fucks it up. Maybe Qui Gon dies because he’s trying to save Anakin.
The point is- Obi takes Anakin in as his own apprentice now.
Obi now has a fierce need for revenge against Maul/Protect Anakin from him (This will be his major arc in the second film.)
Anakin ALSO has a stake in killing Maul (To prove himself, to get revenge, maybe even to protect Obi)
Ok, so that’s the first movie in a nutshell. We still end in the same place more or less, but with a lot less Jar Jar and over a longer span of time.
The Attack of the Clones needs to do a few things- show the cracks in the Republic and show the cracks in the characters.
Here are the basics:
Anakin and Padme have their romance and are married at the end of Act 2. Hopefully with better dialogue this time. Like, make this fun. Spread it out throughout Padme’s arc.
Padme has a big character arc about her rising to power at the same time Palpatine is gathering more and more power. We can see a contrast between the two of them.
Palpatine coming into contact with Anakin.
This in general would be a good time to look at Palpatine a lot. See his relationship with Plagueis (How is it similar to Anakin and Obi? How is it different?) Even see him kill his master at this point.
Obi’s quest for revenge against Maul and how it threatens to corrupt him.
We can tweek a lot of the actual Clone stuff, pulling from Clone Wars if we want. But instead of Obi running around like a robed Sherlock, let Padme do a lot of the investigating so Obi can focus on Maul.
The big thing here at the end is a big fight with Maul. Obi wants, needs revenge. Justifies it as needing to protect Anakin. But, last minute, he knows he can’t- killing for Revenge would corrupt his soul. He hesitates, he pauses. And BAM- Anakin comes in from behind and kills Maul with no hesitation and no warning.
This is the first real time we see a deeper darkness in Anakin, a willingness to kill without regret. He does it for ~the right reasons~ but it worries Obi.
Plus, now Palpatine, free of his own master but lacking an apprentice, REALLY needs to replace Maul, and Anakin is the perfect candidate.
Revenge of the Sith has a very simple job: Make all this shit fall apart completely. Destroy the Jedi, destroy AnakinxPadme, destroy Anakin as a person.
I kind of like the idea of starting this movie with Anakin passing his trials. Changing up his dynamic with Obi some- no longer master and Padawan, but just friends. How is this dynamic similar and different from how it was back when Qui Gon was around? How is it similar and different from Qui Gon and Obi’s old relationship? Just some happiness before we blow it all up, ya know?
However, Obi hasn’t been able to stop thinking about how Anakin killed Maul with no remorse. He confronts Anakin. Everything comes out- how Obi is worried about Anakin’s ease with killing, Anakin’s secret marriage to Padme, Padme being pregnant, how he doesn’t like that Anakin has been hanging around Palpatine. Anakin thinks Obi is jealous, paranoid, and he doesn’t get a say because Obi isn’t his master anymore.
This fractures Obi and Anakin’s friendship badly.
Anakin is growing increasing isolated now. He’s really getting drawn in by Palpatine. Palpatine can tell him all kinds of stuff- about how the Jedi will never accept him and Padme, about how the Jedi are a fading old order, how if he REALLY wants to change the galaxy, he needs all kinds of power. All this. Anakin is changing.
Then, we need to destroy the Jedi. Order 66 is absurd, for the record. And if the Jedi are just like, an independent religious group, and NOT a paramilitary government agency, it’s a lot easier to deal with them. There aren’t as many of them.
All Palpatine needs to do really is send in enough clone soldiers and wipe them out. Have big action piece or whatever. Maybe even have the Jedi WIN, so the whole planet gets nuked from space and explode.
Now, only the Jedi who are off world at the time- like Yoda, Obi, and Anakin, (Ashoka?) are left.
Palpatine needs to take total control of the senate. Maybe he uses the explosion of Jedi planet as a justification of this- blames it on rebels or terrorists or traitors. Padme really doesn’t like this.
Obi suspects Palpatine. Maybe he and Padme even talk about it, AND how Anakin is changing. It scares them both.
Now SHE confronts Anakin. Anakin is in a bad way- he’s lost a lot this movie already, ya know. Palpatine is basically the only person who he feels is supporting him. This is a bad fight. Padme leaves. Like, dumps his ass, because I am NOT killing Padme off.
Ok, so we’re in the final run now. I vote we keep the big Obi vs Anakin fight on the lava. Because it’s really fucking good.
I have mixed feelings about seeing the actual Darth Vader suit. The point is, we see Anakin at his lowest point, once again, kneeling before a master.
Padme goes into hiding because she doesn’t want Anakin to find her. She knows that keeping the twins together will make them too easy for Anakin to find with the force, so she makes the heart breaking choice to flee with Leia and entrust Luke to loyal friends on Tatooine until she can come back for him.
End movie.
The one thing that I’d change, if we keep Obi vs Anakin final showdown…
Instead of having Padme just leaving Anakin…
The rumor that Padme was originally supposed to be the one who takes him down? Should’ve happened.
Like, visualize it. Obi and Anakin fight, Anakin gets the upper hand, Obi is disarmed and on the ground…and last moment, Padme sees Anakin about to kill him and fires her blaster at him. She still can’t bring herself to kill the man she loved so she fires at his hand instead of his head, takes his arm (and lightsaber) clear off. He’s stunned by the unexpected blast and falls, becoming burned by the lava. Padme, of course, is devastated, seeing Anakin in so much pain. She’s the one who gives the last speech about how Anakin could’ve saved the galaxy, “It wasn’t supposed to be this way…why have you done this…” etc.
But she still can’t bring herself to finish him off, so instead she helps the injured Obi-Wan back to the ship, leaving Anakin to die in the lava.
You could also have something where Anakin learns through force prophecy or whatever that he’s going to lose the one he loves most forever and ASSUME she’s going to die because his mother died after a similar prophecy, when in actuality the prophecy becomes self fulfilling—Padme can’t love the person he becomes in his efforts to prevent her from dying, so he loses her forever because he loses himself to the Dark Side.
That’s just what I’d add from my own “personal rewrite” of the Prequels. I too hate that you can see the potential for SO MUCH MORE in the Prequels that’s just never realized.
tumblr meme culture is really just a form of neo dadaism
I’d like to clarify:
dada was a largely european art movement that took place after wwi. this time and place is not a coincidence. let me explain.
dada art made no sense. the artists who made dada lived in a world in which nothing made sense – in which conventional logic led to the senselessness of a world war. so, making art that made no sense, making – well, you can’t really call it art, so making ANTI-art that rejected the conventions that brought about that atrocity in the first place – it made total sense. (if that makes any sense.)
so the artists did weird things. new things! putting things that were already made together and calling it sculpture, cutting up bits of pictures and putting them together and calling that something to frame – this site has some nice examples.
but from my perspective – there’s serious intellectual continuity between the absurdity of attaching a bunch of tacks to the bottom of an iron, rendering it useless, and say…. bath bomb posts. Put a fucking macbook in a bath. it’s useless now. Nobody fucking cares anymore. you want something funny? you want a punchline? gun. that’s your punchline. Take it. I am laughing
in a way it could be a method of venting some of the frustration and hopelessness and dissatisfaction that tumblr’s userbase (largely, disenfranchised millennials) feels in the modern day. I can’t really speak for anyone else, but… at least from a US perspective, there’s plenty to be disillusioned about. growing up in a constant state of questionably justified war, income inequality, an economic recession caused by the actions of a handful of wealthy fucks who didn’t even get properly punished, growing awareness of police brutality, being called lazy and self-absorbed by the generations that gave us these problems in the first place… I can’t help but think that these factors (and more) could produce a similar mindset to the one that precipitated the first dada movement.
so of COURSE we make nonsense jokes. it’s a coping mechanism for a world which doesn’t make any sense.
related: this isn’t by tumblr but I have to plug UCLA’s atrocity of a virtual gallery once more. it really needs to be experienced, but… it’s definitely also millennial neo dada. from the presentation (like an unplayable video game) to the content (THE DOGS HAVE ARRIVED), it is exactly what I am talking about. it is a fucking shitpost. and it’s high art, too! I love this
tl;dr: my generation is fed up with this bullshit, and the best way that we can express that is by shitposting. alternatively, dada was an early precursor to modern shitposting and we should all thank duchamp for signing a fucking urinal
a dear friend has given a perfect update to some of my phrasing, courtesy of their word replace extension:
you see this? this is exactly what I’m fucking talking about. the thing that I’m talking about is:
I’d also say that while Dadaism was obsessed with the technological aspects of Modernity, of newspapers, of industrial mechanics and factory made clocks, neo-dadaism (of which shitposting but also the increasingly broad reach of the New Aesthetic and net aesthetics) is obsessed with the technological aspects of our time, or at the beginning of our time.
As just a comparison, the Clock in Absurdist and Dadaist art is both a symbol of the uplifting beginning of industrial relations (as one of the first complicated machines made by manufacturers, as the symbol of mankind’s ability to triumph and analyze nature and better ourselves) and as the deified symbol of horrific modernity (of demarcated time, labor hours, the oppression of the working class via managerial time), Neo-Dadaism/Absurdism has a similar relationship with early computers, which both symbolizes the utopian attitudes which we entered the digital age with, and the horrifying period we live in now, where the Digital is ever present and semi-deified.
My favorite dada satire is probably from Georges Grosz who takes the kind of robotic modernist tube people of folks like Leger:
and turns them into these mindlessly patriotic broken automatons chanting rote phrases:
And it’s so so funny to me that there’s all kinds of Gen X artists out there creating art about the millennials on their damn cellumar phones who think they’re the inheritors of this aesthetic but really it’s people who use the Madden gif generator to shitpost because they’re taking the technology meant for a coherent purpose for a particular narrative and they’re breaking it and turning it back on itself.
Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”.
There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.
or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out
best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere
During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well
Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.
Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.
So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).
This is wild from start to finish
I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)
In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger
My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.
i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show.
my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.
in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.
so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-
everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.
the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night:
Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise – apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional
Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience.
Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength.
So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face.
I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage.
From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.
This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash
My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.
My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.
This may be my all time favorite post.
I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.
Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them
In my Freshman year of high-school we put on a performance of Les Mis. In said play there’s the scene where Javert and Valjean confront each-other by the bedside of the now dead Fantine. well, Javert Had his prop weapon (I can’t remember if it was a sword or truncheon,) but Valjean didn’t have his. So we the Crew decided during our builds that we’d rig up a chair to break so our Valjean could use one of the broken legs as a club kind of thing. For all of our shows it went off without a hitch, but for the last one we decided to have some fun.
Originally we really just weakened one of the legs so it would break off after our Valjean hurled the chair on the floor, but for the final chair we too saws and cut into everything. All the legs, the back poles, everything. We cut it just enough so that our Valjean would be able to sit in the chair and not break it, but when he tossed it on the ground? Chaos.
And that’s what happened.
All we told him before the show was “When your toss the chair on the ground, give it your all.” And so when the scene came all of the crew gathered behind the legs and assorted hidden places of the stage to watch. When our Valjean hurled the chair to the ground it shattered. Wood and splinters went in practically every direction and I’m sure that I even saw our Fantine flinch as she feigned death. There was no chair leg left for him to use.
So we all got to witness as our Valjean fended off Javert with naught but a splinter.
Fun times.
THERE ARE BETTER STORIES EVERY TIME I LOVE THIS POST SO MUCH
Back in high school our drama department was putting on a comedy, whose name escapes me now, but the intro starts off telling how the hero was born. The two actors playing his parents came out from either side of the stage and joined in the middle and waved at the audience while the narrator spoke the story. At one point he states ’ they had a bouncing baby boy…’ and a toy baby was literally thrown on stage with a ’ AWAAA’ baby sound effect, then was caught by the father and given to the mother.
Now the first show went off without a hitch.
The second show, my friend was the stage hand that threw the baby on stage.
My friend was also the star quarterback for our football team.
Second show comes on, actors meet in the stage and wave, narrator says his line… And from right stage with the sound effect on cue this baby doll was fucking HURLED into the air about 10 fucking feet and dropped like a sack of wet rags down to the actors and the father actually CAUGHT it first try.
I have never in my life seen the 8D face on an actual person until that day.
IT GOT BETTER
god this post is long but I have one more to add:
I just finished a music theatre prep program where our choir teacher was a head music director for a number of shows that ran in the toronto theatre district and one of the first shows he was involved with was the lion king
so the actors are in maybe their third week of previews, its a sunday afternoon show. They had a wooden puppet for the baby Simba that the actor could put their thumbs into the back of to move its little paws. they affectionately called the pupped “Stiffy”
on this specific day my choir teacher is doing his typical job when he hears a commotion backstage. He heads up to mainstage where the actors are coming off after finishing circle of life, the gorgeous, moving opening song that finishes with baby simba held high in the air while all the animals are cheering. the actors are fucking hysterical.
He asked what happened and one of the actors said that right at the climax of the opening, as baby simba is being held over the cliff, “They dropped Stiffy”
When I was Mrs Potts in beauty and the beast our Lumiere went to make his entrance before be our guest and when he ran on stage his shoes lost traction and he fell squarely on his back losing both his candle head and wig…. With out skipping a beat he turned to the audience and said “it looks like I am becoming human again a little earlier tonight” queue audience dying with laughter and all of us staying completely in character.
I almost didn’t add this, but @mandsleanan encouraged me.
I must have been in second or third grade at a private Catholic school when we were doing our annual Christmas/Nativity play. One of my classmates must not have been getting the stimulation out of this experience that he required, because in the middle of the three kings arriving at the manger, he stands up, stretches, and blurts out, “Well, that’s enough of that.” and walks towards offstage.
Which would have been funny enough on its own, but was magnified by the fact that he was playing the back half of a donkey.
like you get those ‘i hate to cook! 101: easy meals for the kitchen novice!’ and it still wants you to make a three-cheese spinach casserole
mine would be like
did you know you can put chocolate chips on a spoonful of peanut butter and obtain the perfect snack
did you know if you crack some eggs into your pasta sauce and stir there’s more protein in it so you can go longer without having to make another goddamn meal
did you know you can mix a cup of cooked rice to any condensed soup instead of water and now you have dinner and breakfast
also put cheese on it
put cheese on fucking everything
and finally here’s a list of things you can microwave in a short enough time that you won’t walk out of the kitchen, go back to bed, fall asleep for four hours, and totally forget you attempted a lunch
frozen pizza is expensive but! biscuits in a can + last dregs of jar of tomato sauce + some shredded mozzarella cheese = EIGHT MINIPIZZAS
dump all your chinese delivery into a hot pan and crack two eggs into it, stir, now it is soft and good
if you add a kraft single to mac and cheese from the box it’s magically more delicious (and if you also add hot sauce then it’s spicy)
nachos: chips + shredded cheese + salsa + rummage in fridge in case there’s other things? and then under the broiler for a minute or two. if it’s hot it counts as a meal! works good on stale chips.
an incomplete list of vegetables that won’t instantly rot on you: anything frozen, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes (they get wrinkly but u can still eat them), carrots, onions…i throw away a lot of veggies that have gone soft 😦
i love parchment paper. $4 for a roll but lay it down on ur baking sheet and know you’ll never have to scrub cheese or cookie crumbs off it again. perfect for cooking with low spoons. nothing sticks to it!
THIS IS SO IMPORTANT
also: mug cakes
also also: if you cook rice you might as well dump some canned tomatos and canned beans in it. TADA NUTRITIONALLY COMPLETE MEALS
in the list of foods that last: apples. apples can last an entire fucking winter.
also also also: cottage cheese + bell peppers + crackers = what I ate for dinner for like a year
1. You cook the rice in a pot. No spices, no nothing, just water oil and rice.
2. Just before it’s ready, when there’s about a pinkie fingernail’s worth of water on the top, add in a tablespoon of peanut butter.
3. Stir. Cook the rest of the way.
4. It’s a meal! It has carbs and protein, it’s filling, it tastes good and it looks and feels like a legitimate dish, which is great for lifting the spirits a bit.
5. If you feel fancy, add a teaspoon of honey or a handful of crushed peanuts.
Alt., mix the rice with lentils. Cereal (rice, wheat) + legume (lentils, beans) = complete protein. Most people’s bodies will accept that in lieu of animal products.
Since no-one explained how to cook rice: (1) put bit of oil in pot,
heat up on medium flame, (2) add 1-1.5 cup rice, mix up and add a bit of
salt (you may need to reduce flame), (3) while you’re doing that, boil
water in an electric pot, (4) add 2 cup water for each 1 cup rice;
reduce flame a few seconds before you do that and mind the steam won’t hit you, (5) cover and set a 20min timer.
Pasta: (1) boil water, lots of water (covered pot goes fast; you can also use an electric pot for a shortcut and bring to a full boil on the stove – experiment), (2) up to 100 gr pasta per 1L water will work, but the more water per pasta the better, (3) reduce flame to medium (light bubbling), add pasta, set time to 10min, (4) check and add time as necessary – you may not need to.
Egg or bean noodled cook faster than pasta – like, half the time.
Easiest pasta sauce: 20-50gr of butter, melt; 1-2tbs lemon juice,
homogenize; dump in pasta (and possibly peas, boiled from frozen). Taken
5min or under and will liven up pasta that’s been sitting in the
fridge.
Easiest cream sauce: 1 standard (250ml) cream carton, 1
tsp shredded cheese (keeps well in freezer) or more, 1 tbs cottage
cheese, spices to taste. Heat in a small pot on a small-to-medium flame
while stirring constantly (if it’s too hot to stick a finger in, it’s
too hot). Takes maybe 5-10min. Will keep in fridge up to 1 week.
Rice freezes well. Pasta doesn’t. Plain pasta (and most noodles) will last for up to a month in the fridge, though, and just dump it in the pan with some ketchup/tomato paste(+oil + water) and you’re good.
…nobody said that dry onion lasts? Dry onion lasts. Fried onion freezes well and keeps forever. So does diced garlic. If you
like ‘em but worried about them going bad/don’t always have the time or
spoons to deal with ‘em, there you go.
Fresh bread freezes well. Keep emergency bread
in your freezer, sliced. It’ll thaw in the fridge/on the counter
overnight, or you can stick a slice as-is in the toaster (just turn it
up 1 notch relative to your usual preference).
Potatoes in their peel are the single most nutritious food. (You can, actually, survive on mashed potatoes.) A boiled potato will stay good in the fridge for a couple days. Boil partway (should still somewhat resist a fork), turn over/toaster oven on 150C (350F) or higher while you do the rest, slice potato(s), spread like deck of cards, brush oil over (with the sort of silicone brush one uses for eggs – costs next to nothing and you’ll be glad you got it), bit of salt, stick into oven and come back 20-40min later. Will re-heat well.
All of the following are good in eggs, just (1) dump them in the pan before the eggs, (2) the more you fluff up the eggs the betters: cubed semi-boiled potatoes, sliced/cubed tomatoes, tinned garbanzo beans (<-legume), tinned/frozen corn. Tinned and frozen stuff lasts forever. A pre-boiled potato and a couple eggs will save your ass on a cold, miserable morning.
3 shortbread cookies + 2 glasses of milk = 500kcal balanced dinner. Or breakfast.
1 cup cooked pasta + couple fluffed up eggs + shredded cheese (from
frozen) to taste, in a stove-top pan or in the oven for ~20min = full
meal.
Black lentils, cooked, will last nicely in the fridge – and
unlike other legumes, they don’t need a pre-soak and only take 20min to
cook. ½ bowl + 3 tbs oil + 2 tsp lemon juice + ¼ onion = dinner so
nutritious you won’t believe it.
Cottage cheese and honey. No really. You only need a couple tsp honey for 250gr cottage tub.
1tbs peanut butter (flat as you can make it) + 3 tbs soy + 2 tbs maple/honey + 1 tsp vinegar = marinade for ~500gr of whatever. Takes ~5min to mix, 20min-2hr to soak, 5-10min to fry (non-stick pan and you don’t need oil). This + pot of rice (<-make while chicken/meat soaks) = lunch for a week. (Or dinner, if dinner’s your main meal.)
A tin of mayonnaise will last for months in the fridge. Hardboiled eggs last a nice while, too. 3 hardboiled eggs, chopped + 1tbs mayo + 1/3 onion chopped = 5min of work and egg salad for a few highly nutritious meals.
Ever make yourself hot chocolate? Make it with milk instead of water, for fuck’s sake. A large cup of hot chocolate is a legit small meal.
Buy broccoli and green beans frozen. For a couple dollars you can get a big enough bag of either to get at least 8-10 servings out of it and it keep for at least 6 months if you keep the bag closed. Buy a jar of chopped garlic in olive oil as well. That’ll keep in your fridge for months and adding a little bit to a handful of broccoli or green beans and sauteing(lightly browning them in a pan or pot on the stove) them together until everything is warm is a cheap, easy way to have a flavorful snack or meal.
Also, ramen, drop an egg and a handful of some kind of frozen veggie(the previously mentioned ones or even some mixed carrots and peas) it adds a lot of nutritional value to your ramen, makes it so much more filling, and makes it have way better flavor than plain ramen.
Buy a jar of Better than Bouillon. Amazon has them for as cheep as $2.99 a jar and one jar has enough in it to make a couple gallons of broth. Just one teaspoon of this stuff added to 1 cup of water will give you a deliciously broth for soup. Pick your flavor and drop whatever veggies or noodles you’ve got leftover in the fridge and you’ve got dinner. It’s also great to add to the water you’re cooking your rice in to give it some flavor as well.
Don’t buy boxed Kraft mac and cheese. It may seem like an easy approach but there is a cheaper approach. A 3 lb bag of macaroni noodles is only a couple dollars and you can get a 1 lb bag of the powdered cheese just like in Kraft for $10 on Amazon. I bought a bag of cheese powder that size and it lasted me more than a year and I made mac and cheese once a week. You can also mix it with milk and broccoli and you’ve got a great dinner of broccoli cheese soup.
My biggest tip for saving money on food is to make things that will freeze well. Say you make a pot of spaghetti. You could get 5 or 6 servings out of a full pot easily, if not more, but you’ll get tired of spaghetti before it’s gone. Stick servings in plastic baggies(which are fine to rinse and reuse!) and freeze them! Then you’ll be able to take out just the amount to eat for a meal and have some back up meals for when you’re loaded down with work, homework, etc and have no time to make a meal.
ALL OF THIS
fried rice: cook a ton of rice, get some frozen veggies, whatever you like. Fry the veggies in olive oil for a couple minutes, add the rice. whisk two eggs and about a tablespoon of soy sauce. Add in. Cook until no longer wet.
Tada – comfort food, you can freeze it, it tastes good, complete meal.
Also rice and pasta sauce is surprisingly good.
Sweet potato –> rinse –> stab all over with a fork –> cook in microwave for 8-10 minutes, turning once –> BAM baked sweet potato, top with cream cheese, yogurt, or any kind of cheese you damn well want go crazy and get that protein
Rice + sunny side up egg –> drop egg on top of warm rice, roughly chop at it with your fork until the yolk starts to run and it’s all in pieces –> mix thoroughly –> that’s arroz a la cubana baby and it’s filling and delicious, add hot sauce for flavour points
Frozen fruit –> eat frozen blueberries plain –> it’s a little harsh on sensitive teeth, but they warm up fast –> frozen fruit is just as good for you as fresh and it’s an incredibly refreshing snack/dessert
Get steel cut oat/plain quick oats/oatmeal of whatever kind you want –> cook a LOT of it to a reasonably thick texture –> serve out one portion and keep the rest in the fridge –> it will stay good a fairly long time and all it needs is a quick nuke session and some cinnamon, maybe apples
Frozen peas are the best –> they go with a surprising amount of things –> italian dishes, asian dishes, aforementioned arroz a la cubana –> they cheap as hell –> they are legumes that are more vegetable-y than your average beans so go get those greens
In terms of flavouring –> miso paste –> it can be expensive but a little goes a loooooong way and it will never go bad as long as you keep it in the fridge since it’s already fermented –> use it in marinades, soups, salad dressings
Make pieces of meals and piece them together as needed –> e.g. marinate some tofu, fry/bake it up and have it ready in the fridge –> maybe the next day you make some stir-fried kale or chard or whatever green is cheap as heck that week –> next day you have to run somewhere but you need lunch –> grab some of that tofu, grab some kale, a granola bar, water –> it’ll do
Baby carrots –> I don’t really buy the big carrots anymore because I’m lazy as heck about peeling –> if I want diced carrots in something I just chop these up –> and they’re also always ready for snacking –> alternatively you can get a big bunch of carrots and make them all snack-size all in one go and then do what I do e.g. cutting them up smaller for dishes when you need it –> this may be cheaper but I’m not actually sure
Compare prices per 100g or kg –> grocery stores should have this price listed in itty-bitty writing on every label below the advertised price –> generally, no surprise here, larger bulk items will cost less per 100g or Kg than the smaller ones and on the whole it saves you money if you plan to use it again in the future
Finally, never underestimate the goodness of an old-fashioned grilled cheese
Writing about songs from Midnight Memories during the hiatus is a little like writing about the Roman Empire during the Dark Ages—it feels like the distant past, like an era that’s, maybe, no longer relevant. Pop music is usually ephemeral, like candy– it’s consumed and enjoyed in the moment, and quickly forgotten. When we look back on the candy of the past—Necco ™ wafers, for instance—we wonder how people could have liked it at all. Cultural tastes change and old candy eventually becomes stale or cloying. 90% of pop falls into this category. Some songs from MM fall into this category too.
The reason why I love 1D, and why I think 1D will be considered a relevant band in the history of rock & roll, is that there are a large number of songs which will not simply be forgotten—songs written with care to musical and lyrical structure, which do not merely follow the a commercial trend but aim for originality and beauty, the same intent as any art. Sometimes it is because there’s an interesting external narrative associated with the songs, but long after the narrative has been forgotten (does anyone know why Elvis sang “Love Me Tender”? Why George Gershwin modeled “Summertime” after slave spirituals?), the bones of the song remain, and that’s how songs are evaluated in posterity—by their actual DNA.
“Something Great” is track 12 on the 1D album Midnight Memories, released November 25, 2013. It was written by Harry Styles, Gary Lightbody, and Jacknife Lee, and produced by Lee. Lightbody was the frontman for the alt-rock band Snow Patrol. According to his Wiki bio, Lightbody is largely a self-taught musician, born in Northern Ireland, with a penchant for writing simple, straightforward love songs. He is also a fan of the poet Seamus Heaney and has written a song about him! Lee is an Irish producer who has worked with Snow Patrol, U2, Robbie Williams, The Cars, Weezer, etc.
“Strong” was written by Louis Tomlinson, John Ryan, Jamie Scott and Julian Bunetta (the veteran 1D writing crew), and produced by Bunetta and Ryan. Along with “Diana” and “Midnight Memories,” “Strong” was released on November 18, 2013, one week before the album release. It was track 7.
We have to remember that Styles and Tomlinson were young (18/19 and 20) and relatively inexperienced when they collaborated in their writing efforts, and short of asking the writers, there’s no way of knowing how much they actually contributed. The signatures of the songs (especially “Strong,” with so many writers) are therefore a mishmash of ideas. In general, MM tried to aim for a more mature sound than 1D’s previous albums, and many of the songs were written with the express thought of touring larger venues, aiming for the big, loudly amped and miked, stadium rock experiences of the 1970’s and 80’s. A song like “Best Song Ever” even quotes from the opening of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” (guitarist Pete Townshend acknowledged as much, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pete-townshend-responds-to-furious-one-direction-fans-20130816 ). It has been pointed out that in MM, unlike previous two 1D albums, the songs tend less directly to address a female teenage audience. The boys’ personas shifted from empty, generic teen heartthrobs to more mature singer-songwriters and performers. The lyrics often describe the experience of a touring band (here, from “Midnight Memories”):
Straight off the plane to a new hotel
Just touched down, you could never tell
A big house party with a crowded kitchen
People talk shh but we don’t listen
Tell me that I’m wrong but I do what I please
Way too many people in the Addison Lee
Now I’m at the age when I know what I need, oh, whoa
I’ve heard the tape that Bunetta released re: the MM writing process (http://super-liam.tumblr.com/post/99448256631/julian-bunetta-just-uploaded-this-of-the-boys) and Louis has said that it was the one song that made the boys feel they began to feel like actual contributors to songwriting. But I’m not convinced—I think the lyrics are a façade of how 1D wants to appear—as “rock & rollers.” I’m not really interested in whether this was the boys or management—the lyrics just don’t sound very personal to me. They are how a fan might imagine rock stars live—planes, house parties, chauffeurs etc. it’s fun and it’s a bop, but there’s no personality there. MM could have been written by robots.
“Strong” and “Something Great”, in contrast, are, for me, very interesting songs on the album, a bit odd, out of sync with other songs, not really written to be toured. According to this database ( http://www.setlist.fm/stats/songs/one-direction-3bd294d0.html?song=18), “Strong” was sung on tour 100 times, compared to “One Thing” (294), “Live While We’re Young” (202), and “Best Song Ever” (190). In contrast, “Something Great” was never sung on tour. Not once.
Why? There is actually no other song on MM which was never sung on tour. Surely it wasn’t the worst song on the album? (Please correct me if I’m wrong)
A few things about the structure of “Something Great” leap out. First, the song starts with the bridge, one that has no words. Since the bridge usually appears near the end of a pop song, and is usually an elaboration of the chorus (and lends complexity to the chorus), a wordless bridge seems to cut off any explication, to dissolves the chorus into pure feeling—in this case, an agonized yearning. It is an unusual way for a song to start.
The bridge is an extended riff around the bass IV-7 chord, leading to V. The harmonic structure is very common for pop music, usually resolving, eventually, to the key of the song, the tonic I chord (D major). Even though the bridge sounds like it ought to resolve to D major, it never does. The entire song has only a few resolutions to the tonic, only when Harry sings, in the chorus, “So I don’t have to keep imagining, oh.” The song resolves to a home key only when the singer is imagining being reunited with his love—the arrangement of the lyrics this way shows the harmonic resolution coinciding with a lack of poetic resolution (the lovers never unite), which makes for an interesting, subtle contrast.
Whenever I notice something like this, I always ask, “But is it intentional?” Maybe the Styles kid did something great by accident (see what I did there…). But then the song gives us other clues that yes, the lack of resolution, the yearning without yielding, is in fact intentional.
Rhythmically, the verse shows a Lightbody signature, i. e. the words sung on the syncopated, or off, beat. All of the words in the iambic hexameter couplets happen on the off beat:
One day you’ll come into my world and say it all
You say we’ll be together even when you’re lost
One day you’ll say these words
I thought you’ll never say
You say we’re better off together in our bed
The end words are half rhymes or slant rhymes: they sound similar but are not exact rhymes.
Returning to the bridge for a bit, I’ll just point out that the bridge starts on the beat, but is syncopated internally. The syncopation in both the verse and the bridge has the effect of dragging the words (the notes drag into the next beat, into the next bar, an effect called “elision”)—of speech that is reluctant, hesitant, improvised, conversational. It enhances the feelings of spontaneity and honesty. The syncopation exists to make the singing sound more realistic, more like regular conversational speech, more confessional, if you will.
Contrasted to the verse, the words in the chorus all occur on the beat.
I want you here with me
Like how I pictured it
So I don’t have to keep imagining
Come on, jump out at me
Come on, bring everything
Is it too much to ask for something great?
There are internal rhymes here: “imagining” slant rhymes with “everything,” a creative image of the world that exists only in the lover’s mind, a complete, imaginary universe. It’s also interesting that these rhymed words are feminine rhymes—the rhymes happen on the unaccented syllables, a softer and more resigned statement than the previous lines: I want you here with me/ come on, jump out at me.
Theres also something oddly specific about the lyrics of Something Great:
The script was written and I could not change a thing
I want to rip it all to shreds and start again
It’s unusual because—who refers to a love affair as a script? Why rip up the script? Who writes the script? Who is controlling the script besides the two lovers? It is a very unusual trope for a love song. It’s almost as if the singer is protesting against a narrative forced on him by a third party.
During the writing of MM, Harry had gone through the whole Haylor affair from October 2012 to January 2013. It was an incredibly painful time for him and Louis (start at 3:00 on this video, from the SiriusXM concert 12/7/2012, in the middle of the Haylor hellstorm, and if you can watch this with a dry eye, you’re not human: http://youtu.be/9ondUTfaHV8). The Larry fandom belief is that “Something Great” was a declaration of love written from Harry to Louis. Nothing can ever be confirmed, but the structure of the song is terribly revealing. As noted in the fan Wiki page for “Something Great,” Louis does not sing at all until the very last chorus, and in solo (contrasted to the preceding chorus where Zayn soars in harmony). Because Louis has such a distinctive voice, the effect is unmistakably intentional—even the casual fan can pick out him out from the others. And what does he sing?
You’re all I want
So much it’s hurting
You’re all I want
So much it’s hurting
And it ends—on a V chord (the V chord is called the “dominant” chord in music theory, in this case, A major), unresolved. The love is never resolved, the pain never goes away. The song never circles back to the tonic key of D major. It fades away and the feelings are hanging on a ledge.
Okay, I’m back. Had to take a break from the jagged, ugly crying. Styles is an asshole, TBH. He has attacked me so very personally.
Just a final addendum to notes on Something Great.
Louis’s final verse, in fact, has the same harmonic progression as the opening verse.
I. IV. VI. V
One day you’ll come into my world and say it all
I. IV. VI. V
You say we’ll be together even when you’re lost
I. IV
You’re all I want
VI. V
So much it’s hurting
And again, this is a common chord progression in pop music. It’s just very unusual to end on any key other than the tonic key.
However, I find it interesting that the same songwriter, Harry Styles, perseverates on this progression, when he chose to write another love song on a later album, Made in the A.M.
I. IV. VI. V
If I could fly, I’d be coming right back home to you
I. IV. VI. V
I think I might give up everything, just ask me to
IV. VI. V
Hope that you don’t run from me
In my stupid, romance-addled mind, I think, maybe… maybe Harry is continuing the song where Louis’s verse ended. Maybe there is a resolution. Maybe there is Something Great at the end of the MITAM rainbow. Could it be? Nah, couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that obvious. Just a coincidence. Right?
So, these are the harmonic progressions for the choruses:
IV
Come on, jump out at me
VI
Come on, bring everything
V. I
Is it too much to ask for something great?
IV. VI. V. I
I’m missing half of me when we’re apart
IV. VI IV. I
Now you know me, for your eyes only
Except that, in “If I Could Fly,” the tonic does come back at the end, the harmonic progression does resolve. The song ends at the home, or tonic, key, of G major: For your eyes only.
“Something Great” always left me feeling very sad, bereft, but it is, maybe, a partial story. Sometimes love stories take 2 or 3 years, several albums, to tell. Sometimes the stories are complicated, and Harry asks you to listen with all your senses, all your musical intellect.
Harry and Louis do tell us a lot about themselves in social media, even when they are cleverly disguising these clues. But they tell us a lot in their music as well—the songs are a diary of their musical and emotional growth.
“Something Great” doesn’t have the harmonic complexity or maturity of “If I Could Fly,” and the production is less beautiful, less slick as well. But hearing it, for me, is like seeing a photo of 19-year-old Harry, so beautifully perfect in his exterior, with a more beautiful and emotionally pure interior, who will never be quite like that again.
[Discussion of “Strong” will be in another post, part 2]
Thank you for reading.
I’m sorry I’m so bad at technology that the abbreviations for the chords don’t sync up with the lyrics. I’ve written it all on mobile, and I’m just not good formatting on mobile. 😣
I’m in kinda a weird mood so are you ready for mild angst?? Because that’s what you’re gonna receive. Lessgo.
OKAY SO Cory, Topanga, Shawn, and Eric all moved to New York City in May of 2000. That we know is canon (because I legitimately remember this show airing it’s finale episode in May okay I just can’t recall the exact date lol)
So they were there for around…10 months before Topanga got pregnant, that’s math and therefore also canon.
Here’s the thing though: New York City is really fucking expensive. They were moving there for Topanga’s unpaid internship. Her, Cory, and Shawn all still had to finish their last two years of college, and than Topy had law school. Eric was graduated but he had no idea of what he wanted to do with his life. None of them had jobs set up and waiting for them in the city, they all moved on a complete impulse.
Basically we can assume they were all poor as SHIT, okay.
So, Topanga was planning on making Shawn come with them behind Cory’s back, as we know. So let’s assume she managed to find a two bedroom apartment that they maybe could afford if they budget really hard. But even then, she wouldn’t have been expecting Eric to come with them.
So they get to this already pricy apartment but now they gotta call the landlord to get Eric’s name on the lease, which pushes the rent up even more. And they can’t fit two beds in either room- hell, they can’t even FIND a third mattress they can afford, but Shawn managed to find a beat up pull-out-bed-couch for next to nothing so Eric settle’s for sleeping on that in the living room.
Topanga is super busy with school and her internship, and she takes up a job in a mall or something. Cory’s overwhelmed with classes because he’s still trying to decide what he wants his major to be, and he still has his telemarketing job, which he is getting better at. Shawn’s grades are not doing as well as they were in Penbrook, which is stressing him out, so he throws himself into writing dumb little articles that sometimes the newspaper runs if he sends them in enough. He also manages to find some work in a auto garage, because his Uncle Mike put in a good word for him. Eric manages to get a bus-boy job at some restaurant.
I need you to be able to envision how shitty this apartment is, okay: Two tiny ass bedrooms, barely any closet space, one bathroom with pipes that Cory and Shawn have to tag-team to fix ALL THE TIME, wallpaper peeling off in some places, it’s New York so let’s be real, it probably had an infestation of something or another. No working A.C. unit, just two ceiling fans that shake violently to the point where Topanga would rather have a heat stroke. It’s always vaguely dark for some reason, they can hear the upstairs neighbors fighting all the time, the carpeting is ripping up in a few places but they can’t do anything to fix it yet, really, because they’re all always so busy and broke. They can’t afford a tv yet, either, so they’re all saving up collectively so they can get one at a Black Friday sale. All four of their jobs together is just enough to make the rent, and most of the time they just eat whatever leftovers Eric brings home from work.
But they’re 4 friends in their early 20′s who are trying to make something of their lives, and sure it’s a shitty place but they just tell themselves this is a ‘brand new adventure’ and they have fun when they’ve got downtime.
They survive the summer months and head into Fall and Winter- they WERE able to get that tv, which they’re all thankful for because Shawn and Topanga really need to keep up with current events for both their classes and writing/internship work, and Eric misses mindless tv shows to keep him entertained (Cory did too, but he got more into reading over the months. So he’s less life-or-death about he tv lol)
They head back to Philly for all the Holidays, and try to sell it as if they’re having the time of their lives, because they all know that if they complain Alan will launch into a responsibility lecture and none of them have the energy to deal with that
So they slowly but surely start getting more and more on their feet, you know? They’re still broke and everything, but it’s nothing they can’t deal with.
But then it’s March, and Topanga finds out she’s pregnant.
She doesn’t tell anyone right away, and she’s freaking the fuck out. Even though she has very strong personal morals/personal belief system, she’s very seriously considering every option that involves her not having or raising this baby, because she just doesn’t think she can deal with this, for crying out loud she’s basically still a teenager, you cannot raise a baby properly if the law says you cant even drink yet! And everyone’s always so busy and she isn’t even sure they’re gonna be able to make the electricity this month!
But after like three days of her freaking-out-internal-monologue, Shawn accidentally knocks over the trashcan in the bathroom and discovers the pregnancy test. He waits until Cory and Eric both leave for work and then more or less forces Topanga to talk to him
Which isn’t exactly a normal Shawn move that Topanga would have expected, but she figures he probably knew where her thought process was going and he probably knew what that would do to Cory and he was also probably thinking about his birth mother he never managed to track down
So they spend hours talking this out and eventually Topanga decides she wouldn’t be able to deal with it if she didn’t keep this baby. Shawn supporting her 100% and she tells Cory when he gets home for dinner
Cory is PANICKED but also EXCITED AS FUCK but still super panicked, not even about money, just about the fact that they grew up in the suburbs of Philly, and that’s infinitively safer than New York City, and he’s just thinking of everything that could potentially hurt this baby
Like he really fucking wants to be a dad and not less than 40 minutes after hearing the news, he’s calling around for more jobs and looking up wanted ads in the paper. But you know how neurotic Cory can be. He’s in a constant state of worrying about ridiculous impossible things, and at the same time he feels like if he can’t prevent/protect everything, he’s less of a man. That’s Cory on an every day basis. Tell him he’s going to be a father? He’s become a walking mess.
He’s still excited though, and Topanga goes out of his way to calm all of his irrational worries and stay sane. She never tells him she seriously considered not keeping the baby and she swears Shawn to secrecy.
So life goes on, only now it’s a little more hectic. Cory finally decided on an Education major, and now in addition with the telemarketing he has a job tutoring kids at a community center, and another one working at a bakery owned by some nice Ukrainian lady who’s always very interested in hearing about his life and family. Topanga keeps her job at the mall, and also finds work in a bookstore. She still has her internship and is still fully focused on law school, she’s not planning on becoming some “I had high dreams until I got pregnant too young” stereotype. Eric quits the bus boy job and gets another job as a security man, which he doesn’t exactly want to do but it pays a little better and allows him to work only night-shifts, which means he can babysit for Cory and Topanga during the day while they’ve got school/their respective jobs, and that way they don’t have to worry about paying for daycare. Eric is PUMPED to be an uncle holy shit. Shawn doesn’t make many changes, because unbeknownst to everyone else, he’s thinking about moving out so there can actually be room for this baby.
Because, like…there is no room for this baby. And they’re all refusing to acknowledge that fact.
They can’t afford to buy much beside the absolute essentials, so they aren’t exactly swimming in toys or anything. But Cory and Topanga have shoved a crib into their room, only that takes up so much space that now they can’t close the door properly and have to squeeze past it to get in and out. A pile of boxes and baby supplies is just slowly growing in the living room- you know, play pens, diaper-changing station, clothes they manage to find at a Good Will. Bottles, breast pumps, a stroller, it’s all just in a ever-growing pile in the living room because there is NO WHERE to put it all.
But they all keep insisting everything is fine, everything will work out, they’re the Matthews for crying out loud! Cory still finds something new to panic about every day, but they always calm him down. Of course he’ll always be able to take care of his family! What’s the worse that could happen?
…It’s at this time I’m forced to point out that they would have been living in New York City, and Topanga would have been about 6 months pregnant, when 9/11 happened.
Yeah.
So that, obviously, wouldn’t have been good at all. Especially when they already had so much to worry and stress out about, and now they just…literally don’t know what’s happening in the world anymore. That would have been completely terrifying for them. Now Topanga’s completely on board with all of Cory’s paranoid ways, and Eric doesn’t think he can understand humanity anymore, and Shawn doesn’t know how to feel about all this.
Amy and Alan and Jedidiah and Rhiannon, who were already concerned about them being pregnant so young and living so far away in the first place, are now constantly trying to convince them to move back to PA.
But, paranoid as Topy now is, the law firm specifically wanted her in New York. They were not willing to let her transfer to a PA office.
And even though Topanga had to wear a face mask to avoid all the smoke harming the baby once they were allowed back in the city, their apartment wasn’t really effected at all, they lived just far away enough to avoid damage.
So, they stayed, because Topanga worked her damn ass off for this job and she wasn’t about to quit. But she was still constantly on guard, you know? No one knew if anything else was gonna happen. The country’s entering a damn war. Stress levels are incredibly high and that’s not good for the baby at all. But she gives into the worrying, stops trying to tell Cory he’s being over dramatic. She’s worried too. So are Eric and Shawn.
The baby was positioned in the womb in a way that the sonogram couldn’t show them what the sex was. So they agreed on “Riley” since it was a cute, unisex name, and they bought a little brown stuffed teddy bear, because they couldn’t afford any other toys and this one had a smile on it’s face and Riley was going to need smiles and it was the only thing they could find that wasn’t either pink or blue
They’re reading parenting books in their spare time, Eric’s working almost non-stop until the baby comes to try and help save up a little more money. Shawn keeps focusing on the state of the world and how much he wants this baby to have a great life. That’s what the all want.
So then on December 6th, Topanga’s contractions get bad enough that she’s admitted to the hospital, but Riley’s apparently stubborn because our poor darling is in labor for two whole days.
Eric and Shawn sleep in the waiting room, Cory never leaves Topanga’s hospital bedside. Their families all show up but end up going to get motel rooms once it’s late and Josh starts fussing.
Shawn doesn’t sleep at all the entire time, because he’s stressed and overthinking and Eric’s snoring right in his ear. But he lucks out, because when Cory runs out into the waiting room at 4:30 in the morning on December 8th, yelling “IT’S A GIRL!”, that means Shawn’s the first one other than the parents who gets to hold her.
He tooooootally didn’t cry.
And after about an hour of not-crying over his adorable new Goddaughter, he leaves, saying he’s gotta get to work. He hugs Cory and Topanga tight, kisses Riley’s forehead, wakes up Eric in the waiting room with an affectionate shoulder-punch, and heads out.
They don’t hear from him at all after that, their entire hospital stay. Everyone’s concerned, but there haven’t been any admissions to the hospital that fit his description, so they’re left to assume he’s fine but busy. Maybe he’s just picking up extra hours at work? Maybe he lost his cell phone? No one puts that much thought into it, really. Topanga and Riley are kept in the hospital for two days after the birth, and everyone they know pops in and out, fawning over them, so they’re all a little distracted.
They finally get released, go home, and Shawn’s gone.
He had moved all his stuff out of his room, and shoved the crib and all their baby supplies in there.
He left his mattress where the pile used to be, with a note attached telling them to sell it for extra money.
The room, instead of being bare, now had a couple of pink flowers painted over the peeling wallpaper to liven it up a little, and he’d stuck a few of those foamy-green glow in the dark stars on the ceiling.
He left a note saying he’d taken his name off the lease, which would cheapen the rent a little bit, and he had called Jack to find out what country he and Rachel were in, and bought a ticket to head over there. He said he’d keep in touch.
They don’t hear from him for at least six months.
But they push through it all, because what else can they do? They can’t exactly just hop on a plane and drag Shawn back home, yelling at him for being dramatic. He was a big boy, they were all broke, and they had a little newborn baby girl to worry about.
So they quickly fall into a habit, because Riley is luckily a pretty easy baby.
Topanga has fun bonding with her and sharing these early moments with Cory while they’re allowed on Maternity/Paternity leave, but it doesn’t last long for either of them because bills have to be paid and internships have to be kept.
So Topanga wakes up at 5 every morning, to prepare bottles and everything for the rest of the day. The baby can usually hear her walking around after that’s done and starts getting fussy, so Topanga just calms her down in the rocking chair until Cory starts waking up around 6. He takes over, changing her/feeding her/what have you while Topanga gets dressed and heads out. Eric wakes up a little after 6:30 and takes over so Cory can get dressed and head out. Eric’s now in Full Nanny Mode for basically the rest of the day. He keeps her fed/changed/clean/alive, takes her on walks if the weather’s permitting, pulls funny faces to get her to laugh, everything basically. Cory get’s home around 5:30, he starts making dinner while Eric takes a quick nap, Topanga gets home at 6:30, they all eat together. Eric heads out for his job, the hours usually end up being around 7:30pm-3:00am. Cory and Topanga spend some time with each other and Riley, and after they put her to bed for the night they usually just finish up any work/homework they have left to do. Riley usually wakes up crying around 12:30 and 2. Which, obviously, they hate waking up for, but learn to tag team it out. Eric gets home and passes out on the couch bed and tries to be extra-quiet so he doesn’t wake anyone up. And the cycle repeats!
And this obviously isn’t the best schedule. Topanga is so swamped she barely has any time to talk, Cory is not exactly the best cook in the world, and somehow Eric is the one getting the least amount of sleep when this isn’t even his kid. But no one complains and they just keep going on with life.
Topanga’s hyper focused on everything, and Cory hates mindless repeating cycles. And they’re still so broke, because apparently they underestimated just how expensive babies can be.
So Cory stops buying contact lenses and teaches himself first aid and how to sew on his downtime, and starts picking up more hours at the bakery. Mrs. Svorski offers to babysit if he and Topanga ever need a night alone, and even let’s Cory bring Riley in to work with him if Eric gets sick or something.
Topanga decides if they cut sugar out of their diet, the grocery bill will drop dramatically and maybe that’d even help her loose the baby weight without wasting time on actual exercise. She hesitantly asks her boss if they could maybe start paying her at the law firm, as she’s been doing considerably more than the other interns. It’s the only time she’s been ‘hesitant’ in her entire life, but they agree so now they’ve got a little more income.
Things go on, Riley keeps growing. She goes from smiling huge, toothless smiles, to babbling and laughing, to crawling, to walking, to talking. She seems to be outgrowing her clothes every other day, so they’re always at the Goodwill trying to find more for her, and of course the 20 year old’s with a baby are getting dirty looks, which drives Topanga up a wall. Sometimes she can’t bring herself to deal with it, and ends up begging Amy and Alan for any hand-me-downs from Morgan.
Eric becomes way too familiar with catchy jingles on little kid shows, he considers it a form of torture. But if he turns it off, she starts crying, so then he has to grab her teddy bear and come up with some song and dance number for him to perform to keep her happy, so even then he still can’t escape the catchy jingles. Ugh.
But he loves hearing her little laugh too much so he’s not actually going to complain.
When she first started walking, Cory took 2 full weeks to baby-proof literally every surface of the apartment. He was not taking any fucking chances omfg.
Ever since the priest dropped her in the middle of her Baptism, Cory has had the sneaking suspicion that his daughter is going to be very accident-prone. He wanted to combat that every chance he got lmao.
Cory gets very used to doing his homework while carrying her around. He’ll usually be lightly bouncing her in one arm, and reading out loud from his textbook in his other, as he walks aimlessly around the apartment. Riley seems to absolutely love it and after a while, he finds he can’t really concentrate on his work as well if he’s not doing it.
Riley’s first word was “Beary!”, yelled in a bit of a panic when she dropped him while Cory was carrying her to the bakery one day since Eric caught the flu. Cory totally cried, like, a lot, so her second word of “Dada” came very quickly because the poor little thing couldn’t understand why he was crying awwww
A couple days after that she started up with “Unca Eeer-ick”, and then got the hang of yelling out names of characters on the Disney Junior shows, or just random things she saw like ‘burd!’ or “twee!” and stuff like that.
It took her a couple months to say ‘Mama’ and Topanga was reeeeeeaally upset about it omg
Cory kept trying to convince her it was just that Riley was having trouble with ‘m’s or something, but they both knew it was because Topanga was always so busy, and maybe Riley’s baby mind didn’t really comprehend who she was? But they also knew they couldn’t really DO much about that, because Topanga needed the job. So she just suffered on until Riley yelled “Mama!”, finally, on her first birthday, when Topy had surprised her with a little cupcake that had a #1 on it.
The holidays were interesting. They took her down to Philly for her first Halloween, and Amy and Alan found an adorable little kitten costume for her, so they put a costume clad Riley in a wagon and let ‘big boy’ Josh wheel her around the neighborhood with him when they all took him trick-or-treating. It was super cute okay.
Thanksgiving, they had fun. Morgan found Riley a cute little dress and took her on a walk through the neighborhood, mostly because she just wanted all her friends to think she was cool since she was a Godmother, but Riley had fun.
Christmas was pretty…yikes, because Cory and Topanga really couldn’t afford to get her anything, and they know she’s not gonna remember her first Christmas, but it was really upsetting for them, you know? The family came through, so at least she still got stuff, but try telling that to Cory ‘I’m-A-Failure-As-A-Man’ Matthews, okay? No one could get her stuffed animals because Cory, Topanga and Eric weren’t sure if they had a bed bug infestation going on but they were suspicious, so everyone mostly got her Dr. Seuss books and some dress-up jewelry and building blocks, stuff like that. Josh had insisted on giving her his own present, so Amy took him to the dollar store and he got a little tiny basketball for her.
So anyway, Riley keeps growing. She’s understanding more and more, she can talk more, she’s learning how to read and write.
She’s SO expensive.
And obviously Cory and Topanga expected this, but they were really off in their estimates. She keeps getting bigger, she needs new clothes. She needs new shoes. She eats solid food now. She should, really, be starting pre-school, but they just can’t find a place. All the ones near them are grosser than the apartment, and the ones that aren’t are too pricy. They decide to just keep her out of school until 1st grade, but now they and Eric also have to figure out how to teach her all the skills she’d be learning in pre-school and kindergarten.
She needs more doctors visits because she keeps getting ear infections. She needs vaccines. They have to figure out how to potty train her. They have to figure out how to explain to her why she can’t have whatever doll or toy she saw a kid playing with on the playground without flat out telling her that they have money problems. They don’t want her to know that, they don’t want her to know anything bad that’s going on. They’re still incredibly paranoid and wary and wanting to protect her from everything, from terrorists to kidnappers to poverty to the common cold. She’s got such a bright smile, and they think that if they can keep it there, everything will work out.
And then, of course, their asshole landlord ups their rent!
It’s getting…like, a LOT harder for them to keep it together. They’re swimming in bills they can’t pay. Cory’s just upset because he can’t figure out a way to fix this and keep his family happy. Topanga is always pissed off because she never envisioned her life going this way, and she doesn’t resent Riley, per say, because she’s the sweetest little girl and she loves her to death. But she still can’t help wondering what her life would be like if she never got pregnant in the first place.
So Topanga throws herself into work even more and starts becoming distant and snaps at Riley easier. Riley will ask her for help with a word or something, but if Topanga’s busy she’ll get mad and Cory’s left to remind her that the kid is only 3. Riley enters into the question-asking phase, and wants to be her mommy’s shadow, but Topanga’s so stressed it’s driving her up a wall. Riley wants to know why people shoot them mean looks when they’re out in public or trying to get clothes? Riley wants to know why she can’t have an American Girl Doll like the girls on the playground? ‘Because, Riley, you need to hush up while I’m trying to work!’. And Topanga really doesn’t mean anything by that, really, but have you ever met a little kid? They internalize shit like that for a living.
They don’t realize she’s internalizing it for a while, though. But Cory and Topanga start fighting a lot more often.
Eric doesn’t know about it because they usually bottle everything up until after Riley’s in bed, but he’s pretty suspicious. Cory looked like he was going to explode one night at dinner when out of the blue, Topanga blinked in surprise and said “Why is Riley wearing glasses?” and Cory had to explain that they had bought them for her 4 months ago.
That’s what they always fight about. Topanga is always upset about money, and while Cory is too, he’s more focused on the fact Topanga seems to blame their money troubles on Riley. They think Riley’s asleep and can’t hear them, but the walls are pretty thin in this apartment and more often than not Riley’s under her bed or in her closet with Beary the Bear-Bear, praying they’ll stop soon.
Neither of them really yell for the most part, but it’s loud enough that Riley can hear them and they can’t hear her crying. The only time actual yelling happened was after Topanga had to rush Riley to the emergency room because she had an allergic reaction to eating some pineapple when Topy had given her a little fruit cup with lunch. Topanga was confused and freaking out, but Cory got to the hospital FUMING because ‘Topanga, the doctor told us barely two weeks ago she’s allergic to pineapple! You were standing next to me when he told us!’
So after all of this, Riley just hates yelling or fighting or angry talking of any kind. It freaks her out.
After the huge hospital bill they had to pay on top of everything else, Amy and Alan offered to watch Riley for a little bit while they tried to get everything together. It’d be cheaper without a little kid there for a bit, they’ll be able to stop drowning and find their footing. The tell Riley she’s only going there for a few days, but it ends up being a month and a half. That sticks with her.
Cory drives her down alone, and in the car he offhandedly asks her “Are you going to miss any friends?” you know, like he’s just trying to make conversation.
But Riley’s like “I’m bringing Beary the Bear-Bear with me?” and Cory’s just like “Don’t you have friends from the playground? Eric takes you there almost every day.”
But then Riley’s like “The girls done usually wanna talk ta me because they have diffrent toys and my clothes are always messy. Uncle Earick talked ta some of their mommy’s and I heard them say they see-d me when you and mommy take me shopping fer clothes, and they ‘didn’t like eet?’ Or someding. And the boys are just gross.”
So now Cory is like f u c k because although he fully supports her view on boys, it never really occurred to him that like people would be acting like that to a little girl???? Judge him and Topanga all you want but don’t tell your kids they can’t talk to an innocent child? His daughter’s only friend is a stuffed bear. He’s freaking out. None of this is Riley’s fault at all, and he’s starting to realize she’s probably internalizing some of this.
So they stop off at Rite Aid or something to get some snacks because Riley was hungry. So Cory’s checking out the candy aisle because he hasn’t had sugar in soooo looong, and Riley wandered off but he’s still got her in his eye sight. She just seems to be looking around.
He eventually grabs something to snack on, and heads over to get her, when he realizes she’s in the toy aisle and he’s like…shit.
But to his luck, she wasn’t eyeballing Barbies or anything. There’s this stuffed, fluffy, purple cat and she’s staring at it with these huge eyes and she very clearly wants it. But she’s not saying she wants it. When she notices he’s there she just asks him if they’re leaving now. And he realizes she’s not saying anything because she’s figured out they’re broke and if she asks for something, her parents will probably get upset, and she just wants to be a good girl. Cory can feel his heart cracking omfg.
So he tells her they’re leaving and she skips ahead to the cash register and he grabs the stupid cat and pays for it while she’s not looking. It was only like 3 bucks anyway. His kid deserved more than just one little stuffed bear for a friend.
So they finish the trip to his parents house and right before they go in, Cory hands her the little cat and she starts squealing because she can’t believe he actually bought it for her. Which is definitely a little heartbreaking to him, that’d she’d get so excited over one stuffed animal. But then again, it was really officially only the second stuffed animal she owned. She asked him why she was getting a present if it wasn’t her birthday or Christmas yet, and he tells her it’s because he knows she’s been sad but he only wants her to focus on the happy things in life. Because she’s a kid, that’s what they’re supposed to do!
She’s with her grandparents and Uncle Josh a lot longer than she thought she would be, and she’s trying to not be upset about that because she is having fun with them. Amy and Alan were highkey emotional because Morgan was in her first semester of college, and decided to take this opportunity to spoil Riley rotten. Cory and Topanga called 5 times a day, every day, Eric drove down at least once a week to see her. Josh wasn’t mean to her like the playground kids even though he was older than her, so that was fun. But he had school during the day, so she still was all alone with Beary and the cat for the most part.
It was the first Halloween she went trick-or-treating. Amy and Alan dressed her and Josh up in matching costumes, superman and supergirl.
Her parents drove down on weekends. She always cried when they left.
She had fun seeing everyone on Thanksgiving
Finally, Cory and Topanga came to get her and bring her home on her 4th birthday. They stayed late and had a little family party for her. Feeny gave her a big book about the planets, which she adored, and Eric got her a little princess tiara, and Amy baked a huge cake for her. Shawn mailed a couple age-appropriate children’s books he found, Josh drew her a picture. She liked all of that, but the best present she got was going home with her parents.
They still fight, sure, but Riley just feels better being closer to them. She’s all but convinced herself the extended stay with her grandparents is her fault, and that’s part of the reason why she was so confused and surprised Cory gave her a present before that started
She’s got this cat basically glued to her, just like Beary, by the way.
Topanga was a little annoyed that Cory unnecessarily spent money on it, but she got over that quick enough when she saw how attached Riley was.
Because, you know, Topanga does love the kid. She just doesn’t have good coping methods. But Riley’s so sweet and well meaning and goofy, who couldn’t love that smile? Every time Topanga snaps at Riley, she ends up being madder at herself.
Like, the end goal for both of them is “Give Riley an amazing life and keep her smiling and happy”. The difference is, Topanga freaks out about how to do that in the future, while Cory is more focused on day-by-day.
For Christmas that year, they manage to get enough money together to buy her a Wendy Darling costume, since Peter Pan had recently become her favorite movie.
She’s obsessed with this costume, she wants to wear it all the time. She runs around in it, talking in a little bad-British accent, asking if anyone has seen Peter, pretending her bear and cat are Lost Boys and she has to be their ‘mother’ to protect them from Hook, stuff like that. It’s super cute okay.
So anyway, now it’s Spring Time and Eric’s taking her to the playground daily again. And it’s a Wendy-Week, which means she’s fully in character and refuses to stop, and at the playground all she wants to do is lay on her stomach across the swing so when Eric pushes her she can pretend she’s flying.
Only they get there one day and she just sits on the swing normally so he’s like???? What’s wrong???? And she says something like, maybe the other kids don’t wanna play with her because she’s a bad girl or something
And Eric is like???? “Riley that’s ridiculous you’re literally the sweetest little girl I’ve ever met what are you talking about?”
And Riley likes talking to Eric about ~problems~ more than Topanga for the sole reason that Topanga always says “Don’t be ridiculous/silly” while Eric just says “That’s ridiculous/silly”. But she’s not opening up and he is so concerned omg.
Instead she asks him if she’s going to be going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house again and he’s like??? I don’t know? Why?
“Because Mommy and Daddy always fight on the last Friday of every month and that’s this week and last month it was really bad and the last time I heard them yell that much they didn’t wanna see me afterwards so they made me stay with Grandma and Grandpa.”
And Eric is like F U C K
HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THEY WERE ACTUALLY FIGHTING LOUD ENOUGH THAT RILEY COULD HEAR THEM
He knew Cory and Topanga had no idea she could hear them. And the fact that she figured out when it would happen because of the rent??? F u c k. Not to mention he didn’t realize the no-friends thing was bugging her that much, because she’s only four so he just thought she was fine with the stuffed animals. Not to mention she clearly has developed some ‘everything-is-my-fault’ complex and thought she was a bad girl. No amount of funny or weird Uncle Eric jokes could fix this one. What the fuck was he supposed to do here omg????
So he asks her what she usually does when her parents are fighting, and she tells them she either crawls under the bed or in her closet because small spaces make her feel better. She takes Beary and her purple cat and recently she started drawing stuff with some loose paper she found and the crayons she had gotten for Christmas. Eric’s heart is highkey breaking here omg.
And he just doesn’t know how to really explain the whole situation to her? So he just takes her home and distracts her by letting her do his hair and makeup so they could have an “authentic” princess tea party. Cory caught some pictures before Eric noticed he’d come in the door.
So anyway, Eric calls out sick for work that night, and after Riley’s asleep-like, he waits until he can hear her snoring- he tells Cory and Topanga everything she said and they’re like f u c k
They wanna fix it, but they’re like, she’s only 4, right???? She’ll forget about this.
So they spend the next few days spoiling her as much as they can afford to, and telling her she’s a good girl every chance they get. Cory and Topanga make a conscious effort to make sure she’s actually asleep if they’re going to have an argument.
It works, for the most part, but not as much as they think it has. She still has already retained all this, you know? So it’s harder for her to shake it. But she sees her parents are making an effort, so she makes even more of an effort to be a Good Girl than she already had been.
Okay, so now she’s like 5.
Still tightly bubble wrapped, but she knows things are happening, you know? She can tell by the looks on her parents faces whether or not they argued the night before. Sometimes they wake her up without realizing it. Sometimes she’ll come into the room and they’ll immediately stop whispering to each other, and when she asks them what they were talking about they tell her it’s nothing to worry about.
She still definitely feels like a burden, though. She sees people walking around in fancy clothes, and driving nice cars, and eating huge dinners in restaurants , and playing with a lot of toys, and she’s at the point where whether or not someone directly says it to her, she knows it’s her fault that her parents don’t have all that. She knows all the mean looks people give them when they go out together is her fault. She knows her parents fight about money a lot is her fault. She knows her daddy looks sad whenever he’s on the phone with Uncle Shawn, and considering how cold he is to her, that’s probably her fault too. She’s a bad girl, she knows it. And it bugs her, so she tries to find ways she can be good.
One night she asks her dad why Eric always seems so tired, ‘doesn’t he know sleeping is good! Or does he have nightmares or something?’ and Cory had to explain to her that because of his job schedule, he only really gets about 3 hours a night before he wakes up around breakfast time to take care of Riley.
And this poor girl omfg she’s just…Great. ANOTHER thing that’s my fault!!!
So she decides she wants to help right. So the next morning when Cory comes in to tell her it’s breakfast time, she starts swearing up and down that she feels sick and doesn’t want breakfast and just wants to stay in bed.
And no little kid can lie and it’s RILEY so Cory’s like “Sweetheart not telling the truth is wrong” which is like UGH everything she does feels wrong
So she breaks and tells Cory that she wants to sleep in so Eric can sleep in because he’s always so tired and that doesn’t seem fair because he does everything for her can’t you let her do this one thing for him????
And Cory knows he really shouldn’t let this happen bc kids need breakfast and he doesn’t want to mess up Eric’s sleep schedule but Riley’s pulling massive puppy eyes so he gives in, and leaves a note explaining the situation to Eric on the coffee table
But Riley’s not able to fall back asleep and she can’t think of anything she can do to keep herself entertained that won’t wake up Eric but she’s DETERMINED so this fucking angel just lies in bed doing absolutely nothing and making no noise for SIX DAMN HOURS until Eric comes in around noon like “PRINCESS OH MY GOD YOU DIDNT HAVE TO LET ME SLEEP IM FINE” omfg
And Riley’s going on a tangent bc obviously yes she did have to let him sleep because he does everything and he’s always tired and she just wanted to help him and be good and Eric’s so fucking touched he’s tearing up omfg
So he gives her lunch and helps her get dressed and then decides to take her out for ice cream just for being a sweetheart which has her all excited
He even braided her hair for her, which he kinda hated doing but Riley loved braids and he was the only one in the house that could get her curls to stay in place.
So they go get ice cream, goof around, he takes her to the park, they have a good day.
Until Eric gets a little distracted
Some new nanny that’s new to America and is working for some rich family that just moved to the city is shooting him massive flirt eyes. And Eric’s been…well, very focused on helping to raise Riley and his job these past five years, he hasn’t really had a moment to himself in a while.
So it’s been a long time since he’s had some massive flirt eyes thrown at him, and he kinda missed that so he starts chatting her up. The talk for a few minutes and he makes the suggestion of getting the kids together for a playdate, which is genius, because Riley gets a human friend and he gets a hot nanny. She’s apparently into this because she points out her kid, a tiny little blonde boy over by the slide (why the hell is he wearing a turtleneck in May?), and he looks around to see where Riley ran off to…Just in time to see some creep grabbing her by the hair and trying to pull her over the fence, where his fucking black truck is waiting with someone in the drivers seat
FUCK
He screams and she screams which gets the attention of some patrolling cops nearby, who run over. Eric starts running over, and the creep drops Riley but she hits her head on the ground hard before he can get there. One of the cops starts chasing the car, shouting into his walkie-talkie or whatever, and the other one is calling a fucking ambulance because Riley’s unconscious and her heads bleeding where the guy yanked to hard f u c k
So now they’re in the hospital waiting for Cory and Topanga to get there, and the doctor has already assured Eric that Riley’s perfectly fine but he is freaking the fuck out okay omfg you can’t really blame him
Cory and Topanga get there and are all crying and Riley’s still out cold but they get a call saying the police caught the guys thank God
So at some point Riley wakes up, but she doesn’t open her eyes right away because her head hurts, so the rest of the room doesn’t notice she’s awake and continue their crying-conversation sesh
And the gist of what they’re saying is basically “We wanted to protect her so much and something like this goes and happens! Can’t we do anything right for this kid? We just want her to be safe and happy! Life wouldn’t be the same without that huge smile of hers! Her smile alone could change the world, what would we ever do if it was gone? Just thinking about the fact those men almost got her makes me sick. I don’t know what I’d do if Riley wasn’t happy and smiling, I don’t think I’d be able to deal with it!”
Now, that’s all very good and understandable things for them to be saying.
But Riley’s not getting that, she’s five! She thinks she’s a bad girl that causes problems in her family’s lives, and now they’re crying about how much they just want her to smile.
So basically, she’s hearing “They only ever want me when I’m happy and smiling.”
Which is NOT the case, but the thought is already in her head. She can’t get it out.
So she let’s them know she’s awake and decides to spend the rest of her life being the perfect little girl who smiles all the time and is always happy and is never a burden.
And…here’s the thing that helps twist her bad logic even further. Things start getting better for them.
Cory and Topanga are both done with school now. Cory’s finally about to become a full time teacher, he’s got a job lined up and waiting for him when school starts in the fall thanks to Riley’s Uncle Jonathan. Until then, he’s still catching shifts at Svorski’s Bakery because he can’t seem to bring himself to leave, so that’s some extra cash. Topanga has FINALLY graduated to Full Blown Lawyer Queen, and that helps a lot.
They don’t have to budget down to the final penny anymore. The day Topanga gets her first pay-check, she goes out and splurges on Riley.
Just comes home with the prettiest dresses and clothes she could find, a bunch of stuffed animals, new books, a necklace with her name on it, shoes that don’t have holes in them, a bunny shaped night light, a cd player, and a bunch of candy. Riley had never been so surprised in her life, and Topanga really wishes she had thought to get a camera to capture her face when she gave it all to her.
They tell her about a month after the almost-kidnapping that they’re moving.
Mostly because they want her in a safer neighborhood. Partly because the new neighborhood had better schools and she was starting first grade in a few months. Partly because this way they’d be closer to Cory’s job and he wouldn’t have to waste money on a long cab ride.
She didn’t really know how to feel about moving itself. Like, it felt weird, but at the same time it’s not like she had any friends or emotional attachment to the apartment itself, you know? She’s only upset when she finds out Eric’s not coming with them
They tell her that with her being in school all day, they won’t need him to watch her when Cory and Topanga are at work. And the new apartment is right over Mrs. Svorski’s bakery, and they can afford the rent without Eric, and if they ever need a babysitter Mrs. Svorski is right downstairs always willing to help.
Riley is NOT FOR THIS PLAN
But she needs to stay happy to keep them happy, so she doesn’t say anything but she hugs Eric extra tight on moving day and orders him to call her every chance he gets. Eric totally cries after he leaves lol
The new apartment has three bedrooms, so she doesn’t see why they had to make a big deal about Eric not coming when he could’ve fit. Obviously it’s not going to occur to her that her parents are planning on having another kid
So, they get all moved and settled in. Riley’s blown away by how big it seems, and she almost screams when she sees the window in her room. It’s so huge and it lights the whole room up, unlike the other apartment that was dark all the time. She asks (begs) her mom if she can start a garden on the fire escape, and Topanga thinks that’s a great idea and buys some pre-planted flowers for her.
So, happy little family. Cory and Topanga don’t fight anymore, they can afford nice things, and everything’s calm, and apart from worrying about starting school soon, Riley should be the happiest little girl in the world.
And…she is for the most part. She knows she’s lucky. But everything went from so bad to so good so fast, and she’s still on edge about the guys in the car, and neither of her parents, like, want to acknowledge that. Like…they act like fighting never happened, and other than Cory putting the baby monitor back in her room, they act like the kidnapping thing never happened. They never…reference the old apartment or anything, and Riley just finds the whole thing weird and confusing.
But if she brings anything about it, they just change the subject. Immediately ask her if she’s excited for school or nervous to make friends.
Which she is, so the distraction tactics usually tend to work on her
She wonders if anyone will ever want to be her friend, other than Beary and the purple cat. She talks to them a lot.
She tells Beary all her problems, how she feels about the move and how she doesn’t know why her parents don’t want talk about everything that happened in their old home. She talks to Beary about being scared but excited about school, and how she’s worried no human will ever wanna be her friend. Beary’s a great listener.
She doesn’t talk much to her purple cat, but she likes to keep it near her. She hugs it when she’s feeling down- it makes her feel like anything can be possible. Her parents can stop fighting about money, she can make a friend, cats can be purple. It calms her down.
She tells her parents about being worried about not making friends exactly once. They tell her of course she’ll make a friends, she just has to let the universe do it’s job.
She doesn’t know what that really means.
Then a little girl climbs through her window.
And sure, she was freaked out at first, because look what happened the last time she talked to a stranger? But the girl promised she was nice, and just wanted to come in because she heard singing, so Riley thought it was probably okay.
Maya Penelope Hart is her name, and she tells Riley she ran away because she didn’t want to hear her parents arguing.
Riley would have never thought to run away, that was even scarier than fighting, but she hates yelling so much she thinks she can understand Maya’s thought process. And Maya seems really cool, so Riley wants to become best friends with her, and that’s exactly what they do.
Riley is so happy that her parents treat Maya like Riley’s sister rather than Riley’s best friend, because she know it means a lot to Maya. But sometimes, it seems like they act as though she has the worst life possible, but from what Maya has shared, it sounds a little similar to her life, but if Riley ever tries to say anything about that, her parents tell her to be quiet.
“You’re so lucky Riley, and you need to be a good friend to Maya.” “Sweetie, Maya’s problems are very complex, you wouldn’t exactly understand it.” “Maya just needs you to be the best friend you can be, okay?”
And Riley just doesn’t get why it’s different, doesn’t get why just because they have a nice life now means she can never talk about their old home, doesn’t get why they act like Maya’s life is a tragedy and Riley’s wasn’t. But her parents need her always happy and smiling, and so does Maya now, so she doesn’t say a word to anyone but Beary the Bear-Bear and does everything she can to be happy and bubbly and make others happy.
She doesn’t get why Maya doesn’t believe in hope, though. Has she never had a purple cat?
Maybe Riley can be a purple cat.
School starts, and people seem to sorta like her there. She likes it when people like her, she likes it when she can make others smile.
She throws a Halloween party and meets a Dracula in a turtleneck and glasses. He saves her life and that’s how she found her second human friend
(Well…she’s pretty sure he’s human, anyway.)
The years go on, Riley, Maya and Farkle get as close as can be. Riley has gotten a lot better at acting happy non-stop, embraced the fact that she has to keep smiling. She likes smiling, and making others feel good, so it’s luckily not that much work. She still tells Beary the Bear Bear all her secrets. If she ever feels like she’s slipping up, getting sad or maybe loosing hope in herself, she draws a purple cat to make her feel better.
It feels almost symbolic, sorta, when Auggie bit Beary’s face off. Everything about her life had done a 180 so fast, and her parents were trying to act like it hadn’t. Maya was the only one that had problems, and then they had a second child, one they planned and had in financial stability, who would never be sad or feel like he had to be happy in the first place, and here he is biting the face off literally the only reminder of what her life used to be. That is symbolism, right? Maybe she should ask Farkle and pass it off as something she read in a book.
Her parents want to throw Beary out now that he doesn’t have a face, but Riley just can’t bring herself to do it. He was the only one she didn’t have to be happy 24/7 for. He listened to her problems. He made her feel safe. He made her feel like she hadn’t been imagining the first few years of her life. She couldn’t get rid of him.
Meanwhile, Maya is still kicking up a fit every time something goes mildly wrong in her life. Farkle’s parents fight often, and do it so violently things are getting thrown at each other. They’re both pretty miserable, and they both agree Riley is the brightest spot in their life. They want to keep her that way.
That’s how they decide to form the Riley Committee. It wasn’t entirely selfish motivations, right? Why wouldn’t Riley always want to be happy?
She can almost always tell when they’re specifically hiding things from her, but for the most part she drops it and lets it happen. She loves her friends, she wants them happy. If people are happy because she’s happy, then so be it. She sees the looks in their eyes, in her family’s eyes, whenever she’s upset about something. It’s a lot of pressure, but she can handle it. What’s wrong with always being happy?
…Some days, she really doesn’t want to be happy. But it’s not about her. So she smiles and looks for the imaginary bird.
even if you get along great with your family you will get along even better with them after moving out
generic is almost always just as good as name brand. But there are some things you never buy generic, including: peanut butter, ketchup, liquid NyQuil, Chips-Ahoy chewy chocolate chip cookies
just imagine the person on the other end of the phone hates talking on the phone as much as you do. Even a receptionist. I worked as one and I hate talking on the phone
at least once in your life you will go to Wal-mart to buy something under $20 like an ironing board or something and your debit card will get rejected. No one will judge. Everyone at some point in their lives has had $2.98 in their bank account.
thrift stores
everyone else is too busy panicking about everyone else noticing every tiny thing that could possibly be wrong about them to notice any tiny thing that could possibly be wrong about you
you will screw up. a lot. you live and you learn. and when you start to think too hard about that embarrassing thing that happened and how you wish you could change it, just tell yourself that what’s done is done. There’s no changing it, so just forget it and move on. It’s the only way to stay sane.
do the dishes before the sink grows its own ecosystem
you can’t put Dawn dishsoap in the dishwasher.
if you are the only one in the aisle at the grocery store, and you need to get from one end to the other without even looking at anything in that aisle, then you should totally cart-surf down the aisle. Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. Hold on to the little things. They make all the difference.
never try to make cake from scratch at 3am. You end up with a topographical map of Middle Earth.
15% tip.
the best way to get money for food is to tell your grandparents about how you basically live on microwaved mac and cheese. Their horror may result in twenty bucks and orders to go out and get yourself “a real dinner”.
sometimes life sucks, and knowing that it might get better doesn’t always make it suck any less, but you’ll never get to the non-sucky days without enduring the suckiness.
no seriously, NEVER put Dawn in your dishwasher
Do not buy generic brand spaghetti sauce either.
Always check the type of light bulb that goes in lamps. A 60w is not interchangeable with a 40w.
Dollar store batteries work just as well as store brand.
Reward yourself from time to time when you do things that you needed to get done. It’s a good way to remind yourself to do them. Going out to pay a bill? Get Starbucks or something you don’t get often. Rewards don’t have to be huge, they can be small things like that.
Rice, pasta, flour, sugar, cheese, eggs, milk, a pack of chicken, a pack of frozen veggies and a well stocked spice cabinet go a long way food-wise. Splurge and get the biggest container of rice you can. You don’t have to go back and buy it again anytime soon and it makes a TON of meals in the meantime.
Rice can be cooked on the stove. You don’t need a fancy rice cooker. Two parts water to every one part rice (two cups water for one cup of rice for example). Get your water boiling, add rice, put a plate or lid on it, put it on low for 20 minutes. It should be done.
Keep a calendar on your pc of bill due dates. If your bills are set up at inconvenient times, like all of the services started on the first or something, then call up the company and find out if you can get your billing date switched to something more manageable. A lot of places do try to work with you.
There is no shame in calling a company and asking for an extension on a bill. Let them know what you can pay, pay that amount, and they arrange when the rest of the payment is required. This can stop you from having services shut off man. It shows responsibility on your part.
Take time to eat, even when you don’t feel like eating. Your body needs energy to live.
Wash or rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It prevents gross caked on junk.
“The Works” is an excellent cheap toilet cleaner.
MAGIC. FUCKING. ERASERS. THEY WORK ON EVERYTHING JUST DON’T SCRUB HARD. I took the ring out of our bathtub with one. Also generic ones work just as well.
Keep some bleach around but if you use it for cleaning? Dillute it. There’s rarely ever a case where you need to pout straight bleach on anything. A cap full or two in a bucket of water works just fine.
DO NOT MIX CLEANERS. Chemical reactions are can be very dangerous. Here’s a good list. (Note that vinegar and baking soda can actually be a good combo for removing smells from things but it’s not very good at actually -cleaning-.)
If you drink? Don’t take meds at the same time it’s just not good.
Make sure you check the dosages on your pill bottles. No one wants to accidentally overdose on cough syrup or ibuprofen.
If you have a uterus make sure you have a heating pad and ibuprofen on hand for the pain. Hot baths also generally help and Ginger Tea is excellent for any nausea.
Buy a first aid kit. It’s worth it in the long run.
You can often do your taxes online at places like TurboTax.
Petroleum jelly (aka Vaseline) is good for chapped lips and you can get a decent sized tube or tub of it (generic brand version) for cheaper/same price as Chapstick.
KEEP TRIPLE ANTIBIOTIC OINTMENT IN YOUR HOUSE FOR CUTS AND SCRAPES AND SORES.
~~Medications~~
Over the counter medications (stuff you can buy right off the shelf no prescription needed) have a name brand and a generic name. ALWAYS buy generic if it’s available it is literally the same thing and way cheaper usually.
Some names to remember when you’re looking for meds!
Acetaminophen = Tylenol
Used to treat pain and reduce fever. Do not take with Ibuprofen.
Ibuprofen = Advil, Midol, Motrin
Used for pain and fever, is an anti-inflammtory. Is good for period cramps because it is an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug).
Naproxen = Aleve, Naprosyn
Treats fever, pain, arthritis pain, gout, period cramps, tendinitis, headache, backache, and toothache. Is also an NSAID.
Acetaminophen + Asprin + Caffeine = Excedrin
Usually marketed as “Migraine Relief” as a generic.
Asprin = Bayer
Use for pain, fever, arthritis, and inflammation. Makes you bleed easily so should not be used for periods. Might reduce risk of heart attacks.
Triple Antibiotic Ointment = Neosporin
Used on cuts, sores, and scrapes to reduce risk of infection and promote healing.
Also a general mutli-vitamin isn’t a bad idea and if you don’t get a lot of fruits or milk/sunshine in your diet you might want to get vitamins C and D specifically for daily use.
if you do accidentally lapse and put dawn in your dishwasher, run it empty and put hair conditioner where the detergent goes. that’ll clean it out (tip given to me by dorm custodian when roommate did the thing).
if you live off ramen, add stuff to it! add veggies you like, don’t use the whole flavor packet to cut down on sodium and msg or don’t use it at all and add your own spices.
if you’re making something with potatoes in it (beans, stew) potatoes are done when you can easily stab a fork through them.
you can microwave a hotdog as long as you put it in a microwave safe container of water. microwaves work by making water molecules vibrate. also, when reheating rice leftovers, add a small amount of water, like maybe a spoonfull, so it doesn’t get hard and crunchy.
the rice cooking advice above is for long grain rice. if you’re making short or medium grain rice, a 1:1 ratio (one cup water for one cup rice) is better, so the rice doesn’t come out too mushy.
buy a few cans of chicken. wholesale club stores like sam’s, costco, or bj’s tend to carry multipacks for a good price. they’re incredibly useful for when you forget to defrost meat.
buy meat on sale and put it in the freezer. buy vegetables on sale, and put them in the freezer. frozen veggies are often as flavorful and good as fresh ones, keep longer, and often come in microwaveable bags or with microwave directions.
soak ink stains in milk to help get them out or at least lighten them.
soak blood stains in water as soon as possible, with a bit of detergent or stain remover. scrub at them. use cold water, heat binds proteins to fabric. tbh, there’s no real need to change the washer from cold-cold setting unless the thing you’re washing says to wash in warm water.
acetone, found in most nail polish removers, dissolves super glue.
YOU’RE ALL DOING GOD’S WORK BLESS YOU
Takes pictures, have prints made and put them in photo albums. Be IN the pictures, have someone take pictures of you and your friends. Get over not looking perfect in thw picture. Someday that friend might be gone and those pictures might be all you’ll have, you will want to be in them. I made that mistake with my best friend, i always felt weird asking for a picture together… he died of cancer January of 2014 and now i have no pictures of us together. Its my only regret in life.
This is really helpful, thank you all!
I’m the newest of new adults but I’m gonna throw these little tips in there. IF YOU HAVE AN OLD CAR:
-coolant or water if your car overheats (coolant is preferable cause it won’t hurt the engine in the long run but hey i know money is tight)
-flashlight in case you break down at night and need to check under the hood and your phone is dead
-SPARE TIRE.
-jumper cables.you will at some point leave your lights on. you just will.
AAA or any other road side service is never a bad investment i swear. (try to mooch it off your parents as long as you can though)
Know how to change a tire. You’re going to need to do it at some point in time and you can’t always rely on someone else to do it for you.
Don’t be afraid to go to your local food bank. They are there for a reason.
Don’t be ashamed to ask for help period. Life is hard, everyone needs help occasionally.
You can put a LOWER wattage bulb in a lamp that says it’s for a higher one, but don’t put a HIGHER wattage bulb in. Also, watts refer to the amount of electricity used. LUMENS refers to the amount of light put out, and can vary quite a bit between brands, even though the wattage is the same. Look for the one with the highest lumens unless you actually want a slightly dimmer bulb in a certain location.
Those dollar store batteries? Fine if they’re alkaline. “Heavy-duty” batteries, however, won’t last nearly as long.
You can microwave a hot dog and bun simply by wrapping them in a toweling for a minute, less if you don’t want them scalding hot.
Reblogging to save lives.
Two adulting (kitchen-related) tips from me!
1. Buy a roll of parchment paper from the cooking shit aisle. A big roll will last you for-fucking-ever. Pretty much any time you’re using a baking pan you can line it with that stuff and save yourself A: food sticking to the pan and B: it’s a quick rinse and it’s clean.
2. Bread can get fucking expensive, so make your own. A bigass bag of flour and a bag of active dry yeast (store it in the friiiiidge!!!) works out a FUCK of a lot cheaper than buying bread at the store, and you can do so much more with it. Bread, pizza, rolls, cinnibuns, homemade pizza pockets. It seems intimidating but it’s stupid easy.
Seriously. It’s stupid simple to make, and most of the “3 hours” to make it is sitting around surfing the internet or doing whatever the fuck you want while the dough rises. If you have an afternoon free once a week to sit and play video games or surf the net, you have the time to make your own bread on the cheap. Here’s my simple-as-fuck recipe:
2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (You can buy a bag of this stuff CHEAP in bulk stores, the little packets are hella stupid priced) 1 cup warm water (think a hot bath) 1 ½ teaspoons sugar 2 tablespoons oil (any kind works for the most part) 2 ¼ cups flour 1 teaspoon salt
1. Stir the yeast, water, sugar, and oil up in a bowl. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. It will foam up VERY high, this is the yeast getting happy! If it doesn’t get all foamy, the water may have been too hot or not hot enough. Remember, Yeast is alive! Treat it like a nice girlfriend!
2. Mix your flour, salt, and the yeast concoction up in a bowl.
3. Knead that shit for about 5 minutes. It will start sticky as heck, but will come together into a nice dough. If it’s still super sticky, toss in a bit more flour. Here’s how to knead it:
4. Put your dough in a covered, lightly oiled bowl and leave it someplace warmish for an hour. At that point it will have roughly doubled in size, give it a gentle punch to release the gasses that have built up inside. Cover it again and let it sit for a bit longer.
Boom. You have bread dough. Here are some baking times and uses for ya:
Optional egg-wash: Just crack an egg into a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and mix the bejeebus out of it with a fork. Brush (or if you’re like me, goop it on with said fork) that shit thinly on bread before baking for a nice crust.
Pizza: Stretch it on a pan, stab the fucker all over with a fork, add toppings, bake 425*F 15-20 minutes.
Bread Sticks: Make snake-shapes, let rest on pan 10-ish minutes, bake 400*F 10-20 minutes.
Dinner rolls: Make ball-sized (yes those balls) balls. Place on greased pan, let rest 10-20 minutes to rise. Egg-wash and bake 375*F 25 minutes.
Bread: Lightly score (cut) the top, let sit for 20-ish minutes on/in whatever you’re using to bake it, egg-wash, bake at 375*F for 20-ish minutes. It’s done when it sounds hollow if you knock on the bottom.
You bet your ass you can deep-fry this shit for cheapie yeast doughnuts. Roll that shit in sugar or dip it in whatever, it’s fucking tasty.
Bagels: YES. YOU. CAN. Form bagel-shapes out of the dough and boil them in salty water for about 2 minutes. Egg-wash them and bake them at 400*F for 10 minutes.
Cinnamon Rolls: Roll that shit out into a rectangle. Brush it with a mix of butter, cinnamon, sugar, and a pinch of salt (no exact amounts here, do it to your taste). Roll it up into a log, and cut it into discs. Let them sit 20 minutes in a pan and then bake at 375*F 15-17 minutes.
You can add whatever you want to the dough for some variety, just if it’s dried spices remember you really only need 1-ish tablespoons. I personally like making bread with about 1 tablespoon of dill in the dough. Roll it out flat, sprinkle it with cheddar, roll it into a log, squeeze the ends shut, and bake it like a regular loaf of bread. Cheesy dill bread OMNOMNOM.
*ahem* That got a bit long. But yeah. Bread’s expensive, yo. Save your wallet.
(Also it’s ridiculous amounts of therapeutic to bake, for me anyway)
Being able to bake your own bread is pretty awesome, if you got the time for it.
failed2be-chill 