Wyll Ravenguard & Stiles Stilinski's #1 Defender

Pro Tip - Never drop the word wedding while planning if you don’t need to. Most things can be for “an event you’re planning.” This obviously doesn’t include things like the venue, DJ (who needs specific wedding songs), and the wedding dress company if you’re going that route versus just buying a dress.

For my wedding I got “discounted” cupcakes, flowers, decor, bridesmaids dresses, groomsman attire, and invitations. I did this by either searching for things that aren’t marketed for weddings or not telling the companies I was working with it was for a wedding. Because honestly, most of the time they don’t need to know why you’re ordering.

These companies target people planning their weddings and markup everything the second “wedding” is said. And it’s said often because people assume the services change exponentially for weddings. They absolutely do not. 

The best example are the cupcakes I had for my wedding. I used a designer cupcake store in town instead of spending $1000 on a wedding cake. If you place a large order of cupcakes with a cake tree for display - it costs about $150 for 100 (which is what I did). When you order their “wedding” package - the price raised to a $700 base for 100 cupcakes. The only other perk includes a “tasting.” Forget that. Our tasting was buying a few cupcakes in flavors we thought we’d like and picked three. It cost maybe $20. 

What these companies do is scummy and targets people who don’t have information about the event industry.

Derek stops in his tracks and watches as Stiles sings loudly in a very off-key tone, shaking his ass and dancing around in his boxers, and he just bursts out laughing. He couldn't control it. A full-on belly laugh. Stiles screams at the sudden sound and turns around to see Derek almost falling on the ground because he couldn't control laughing, and he is shocked. He is humiliated, too. But the shock of seeing Derek laugh so openly, and the way he looks years younger and so free, kind of takes Stiles' breath away.

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

like it catches him so off guard — Derek was completely joking when he said he’d order Stiles a whole basket of curly fries if they got through the night and defeated the big bad. Stiles smirked, “you promise?” Derek rolled his eyes until Stiles’ locked his pinky with Derek’s out of nowhere. “pinky promise,” Stiles said sternly. Derek’s eyes were wide, eyebrows furrowed in surprise, mouth slack, but he curled his pinky further around Stiles’.

promise kept, Derek took the pack to the nearest diner, buying them all a late night dinner but specifically, Stiles’ basket of curly fries (and a strawberry shake). Stiles smiled with a mouthful of fries and shimmied his shoulders.

and then it just keeps happening.. mostly for small things but then one big thing.

Derek laid out bleeding, choking on his own blood, trying to stay awake. Stiles straddling him, tears stinging in his eyes as he’s begging Derek to get up. “you can’t die,” Stiles yells. Derek coughs out “i’m not gonna die..”

“pinky promise?” Stiles says, voice unsure and tears still streaming.

Derek weakly raised his pinky and Stiles locked his own around it tightly