Thanos Still Demands Your Silence

Hi, friends!

Only a few more days until the world will finally be able to see Avengers: Endgame! It's crazy to think about what a huge deal that is. This is the SuperBowl of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The previous twenty-one movies that have been coming out since 2008 have all been leading up to this three-hour smasher of records that's basically guaranteed to make its audience cry.

Unfortunately, the magnitude of this event means that there are lots of people with walnuts for brains who want to ruin the experience for as many people as possible. It's already getting dangerous to be on social media because of these warthog-faced buffoons who somehow get enjoyment from posting spoilers wherever they can. Some Wi-Fi psychopath out there already leaked a few spoiler-packed minutes of footage online. The internet has become a minefield with the potential for spoilers to be lurking anywhere you go.

I'll never understand how anyone could think it's fun to knowingly cause emotional pain to someone else, especially because posting a spoiler comment online means you don't even see how people react to it unless they respond to you. If you walked into a mall thirty years ago and shouted "Darth Vader is Luke's father!!" for all to hear, you would see the shocked, confused, and/or upset faces of the people around you who hadn't seen the movie yet, and I guess some people (with half a moldy meatball where their heart should be) would find that amusing. When parents "prank" (or mildly traumatize) their kids with those "Sorry, Timmy, I ate all of your Halloween candy!" confessions, they do it so that they can watch and record how the kid reacts. Just posting a spoiler somewhere online and imagining the mental anguish you've caused is like a malicious version of that glitter-and-stink-bomb-package-decoy prank but minus the video recordings that let you see the aftermath of the prank.

When The Force Awakens first came out, I remember seeing a spoiler about a certain character dying in the comment section of a social media post about video games. I don't particularly care about Star Wars so I wasn't personally devastated by that news, but I was still furious that some obtuse cabbage of a human would try to ruin the fun, anticipation, and excitement of complete strangers.

Some people think it's hilarious to post fake spoilers. That doesn't make any more sense to me than posting real ones, nor do I find it funny. There was a person I was once Facebook friends with who, right before the movie came out, claimed that Spider-Man died in Infinity War. I didn't know if he was making it up or if Tom Holland had goofed in another interview, but it didn't matter either way in my mind. It's not humorous to hurt someone's feelings, especially if you do it intentionally. (Saying something like, "Boy, I sure loved the way Dumbledore destroyed the One Ring by slicing it with his lightsaber!" also isn't funny. It's clearly not a real spoiler, but it's not clever, either. Just... don't.)

There's an episode of Friends in which Rachel agrees to read The Shining if Joey reads Little Women. Joey, being a loveable idiot, accidentally spoils some pretty major things about The Shining, and Rachel retaliates by spoiling things about Little Women. When she reveals that Beth dies, Joey is distraught. That's the kind of reaction I probably would've had if I'd been a Star Wars fan seeing that "[character name redacted] dies!" comment.

I fully understand wanting to talk about something exciting you've read, played, or watched. After we saw Infinity War, Jared and I stood in the theater's parking lot talking about the movie with some other people who had also just seen it because there was so much to process. We were lucky to be able to see it as soon as it came out and thus had the responsibility of keeping our mouths shut around anyone who hadn't been to the theater yet. Other people might've had to be at work or a class early the next day. Someone might've been unable to get a babysitter and had the decency to not bring a toddler to the theater on opening night. Plenty of people avoid going to see movies until the crowds die down a bit. Even now that Infinity War has been out for about a year, I'd still be uncomfortable posting something on Facebook about the specifics of any deaths that may or may not have occurred or the location of a certain orange gem. I've had many conversations about Infinity War, but only after confirming that the other person had seen the movie. There's probably some socially acceptable amount of time to wait before start discussing things; I just don't want to risk being the person that tells someone that the Dread Pirate Roberts is actually [redacted] if they've never seen The Princess Bride. I can only imagine how different my experience would've been if I went into the theater to see Infinity War already knowing about certain things that caused audible gasps from the audience. It was so awesome to be genuinely shocked by things instead of knowing they were coming because some mumpsimus decided to spread spoilers online.

For anyone who doesn't understand why people make such a big deal about spoilers, think about some form of entertainment you really, really love. Don't you think a sports fan would be mad if you knew the outcome of the game they were watching and said, "Oh, the Manatees win by twelve points and McShnooper gets a pretty bad leg injury when Hanseldoof knocks him over." What about if someone were reading the Harry Potter books for the first time and you told them that [redacted] kills [redacted] in book six? You wouldn't tell your friend who's just started playing Fallout 4 about what happens to the player's baby, would you? Only an absolute turd bucket would reveal the truth to someone trying to enjoy a murder mystery. If you and a friend were watching Pride and Prejudice together and they'd never seen or read it before, it would be super impolite to say, "That Wickham sure is a detestable nincompoop!" when he's first introduced to the plot. There's no good reason to give away information that would make someone's experience with something less enjoyable.

If someone is watching Old Yeller and you know that the ending will make them really sad, you could warn them that it doesn't have a happy ending and allow them to choose whether or not to proceed. That, I think, is acceptable. Some people would want to stop watching so they wouldn't have to have that sadness in their head. (I remember my mom skimming ahead before properly reading The Hunger Games series because she doesn't like sad stories. I found her flipping through the third book and she asked me who Peeta was. My response was to hide books two and three until she actually read the first one.)

Intentionally ruining someone's experience with anything is a real ninnyhammer move. Doing it with something as highly anticipated as Endgame makes you a sordid weasel spleen. If you see a spoiler, don't be an abhorrent plague sore by spreading it around. If you see Endgame before someone else and proceed to tell them about the movie, you are a poisonous, bunch-backed toad.

Another thing to consider here is that the amazing people who worked on Endgame want us to know very little about the movie. There hasn't been much revealed in the clips and trailers they've released and the directors have confirmed that they used some fake footage for the promotional videos. There are so many people who have been involved with working on this movie for the past several years and all of their effort is finally going to be shared with the world. Spoiling Endgame is like telling someone about their upcoming surprise birthday party that a big group of their friends have been putting together since three birthdays ago. Sure, the party will probably still be fun, but the surprise was a huge part of the experience and destroying that element is unbelievably contumelious. Don't do that to the Russo brothers.

#DontSpoilTheEndgame, you turkeys.

In summary, if you share spoilers for something, I hope you get stuck with a shopping cart that has a wonky wheel and your microwaved food heats unevenly. Sharing spoilers for Endgame in particular means that I hope you step in something wet while wearing socks and that a pineapple falls on your head. :)

Love,
Lizzie

The Jazzie Origin Story

Hi, friends!

Facebook has informed me that our engagement pictures were taken four years ago yesterday! Pretty neat, huh?

Here's one of our outtake pictures. There are several where we look strange and/or awkward.

It occurred to me when thinking back to that day that I never wrote about "our story" at any point. I've told people about how we got together and how Jared proposed, but never got around to sharing any of that on Facebook. It's about time I fixed that, don't you think? Here we go! You may want to grab a snack or something; this is going to be a rather lengthy post.

Chapter One: BYU Beginnings
We have perhaps the most unoriginal answer to "Where did you meet?" that you can get from an LDS couple. Yes, we were in the same ward at BYU. Not a very exciting start to this story, but I promise it does get more interesting.

For my second year at BYU, I made plans to room with my childhood best friend. We were choosing an apartment in the building she'd lived in previously and I suggested we choose one that was on the third floor on the right side, just like where the sorcerer's stone was kept at Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter book. Seriously, that's how we ended up in that specific apartment.

My oldest brother's family was visiting Provo for a little while right before the semester started. Since my parents were bringing me there soon anyway, we spent time with them and I stayed with the group until I was able to move in to my apartment. I was in town earlier than the general student population and things were pretty quiet. A few other people in the ward had moved in and decided to have a get-together on our first Monday night since we didn't have FHE groups yet. (Side note: I think most people who read this know about FHE, but I'll give a quick explanation just in case. Family home evening is a sort of tradition where families spend time with each other once a week to do various activities. At BYU, wards of single people will organize faux families so that they can still have weekly fun with people they care about.)

At our little gathering of early returners, there was a certain guy that I befriended. Ready for a plot twist? It wasn't Jared. The guy unfriended me two or three years ago and I'd feel bad including his name here without him knowing, so I'll refer to him as Not Jared or NJ. We realized we had some similar interests and started spending time together. One of his roommates was one of the few people from my previous BYU ward who wasn't on a mission at that point, which was a fun realization!

On the Sunday night before the semester started, our newly assembled ward had its first ward prayer. (Basically, everyone gets together for a spiritual thought, announcements, and a prayer each Sunday night.) The bishop told everyone to say their name, where they were from, and something about themselves. Jared was one of the first people to have to do that and didn't have a whole lot of time to think about what to say, so his interesting fact was that he's a brony. I was surprised and excited to find someone else who enjoys My Little Pony, so once the prayer was said, I went over to talk to him and show him that I had a Twilight Sparkle keychain on my lanyard. He told me that there was an unofficial BYU Bronies club and that he'd let me know about the activities they were having. Since we're both rather awkward people, I think that was pretty much the extent of our first conversation.

The way that ward organized its FHE groups was by apartment. The ratio of girls and boys was still a bit wonky because of the change in missionary age requirements, so each girl apartment had two guy apartments of "FHE brothers." It just so happened that my apartment and Jared's apartment were in the same FHE group! That meant we were slowly getting to know each other through our weekly activities while I was also going on occasional dates with Not Jared.

In September, at some kind of ward food-related thing, I was sitting with NJ when Jared came over to tell me about an upcoming BYU Bronies excursion to go see the new MLP movie. He looked over at NJ and mentioned that he could come, too, but NJ didn't particularly want to go watch a movie about animated human-ponies forming a band.

I guess going to see Rainbow Rocks with the BYU Bronies was kind of our first date, though not intentionally. We met up with the group on a Saturday morning, drove to Salt Lake City, saw the movie, played laser tag, drove back to Provo, hung out in someone's apartment clubhouse thing (?) for a few hours playing pony-related games, and eventually went back home. I didn't know anybody else in the group and basically stuck with Jared for that whole day. (Also, I got the highest score in the laser tag game. Just thought I'd brag about that.)

One of the things happening at the post-movie activity in Provo was a station where you could get a glittery tattoo of one of the ponies' cutie marks. That's Jared's shoe in the top right of the picture! (If I remember correctly, he got Rarity's cutie mark glittered onto his arm.)

One of the FHE activities we had in mid-October was a night of playing games on my Wii. During a round of Just Dance, someone from one of the guy apartments became player one, which was using my dancer card ID thing (instead of one of the defaults like Happy or Funky or something). That guy commented that he was now Lizzie, and Jared said something like, "Huh, I thought I remembered you being cuter than this." He claims that he doesn't remember saying that and must've been trying to tease the guy, not flirt with me. One of our other FHE brothers looked over at me with a rather confused expression and I pretty much pretended I didn't hear anything because it was so very unexpected and weird.

NJ and I were still dating at this point. We went to BYU's homecoming dance together and had coordinating Halloween costumes. I decided to end the relationship pretty soon after Halloween, though. He's a very nice guy, it just wasn't a perfect match. We had an amicable split, which is fortunate since we'd already signed up to take a math class together during winter semester. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.)

There was a stake conference held in the Mariott Center in early November and I ended up talking to Jared on the walk over there since our FHE group met up to go together. I somehow found myself sitting between Jared and his brother (who was also his roommate) for that meeting. I texted him later that night to bug him about coming to choir practice on behalf of my choir director roommate. We kept talking and he mentioned at one point that he still hadn't seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier. We made plans to watch that together while continuing to message back and forth. The conversation lasted from about midnight until I had to walk to campus the next morning. (Sorry, Mom. My sleeping schedule is considerably better these days.)

---

Chapter Two: Making It Official
The first date we had that was planned as a date was watching Winter Soldier together with hot cocoa and snacks in mid-November. The time between me dating NJ and starting to date Jared is suspiciously short, I know, but that wasn't my plan. I promise I didn't break up with NJ so that I could date Jared instead. Anyway, we decided after our Winter Soldier date that we wanted to go on more dates, and we did! By Thanksgiving, we were officially "a couple" and had a marathon of X-Men movies before he left to spend the holiday with his grandparents in Salt Lake City. I'm told he blushed when Grandma asked if he was dating anybody, though he denies this.

Our relationship became "Facebook official" in December after we went to Temple Square together to see the lights. I remember having a conversation while we rode the FrontRunner back to Provo about how it was probably time to make things known since we'd been dating for about a month.

Despite being anxious about relying on unfamiliar public transportation to take us on a decently long journey, this was a fun night!

We sort of joked about marriage during Christmas break. I had a layover in Las Vegas while flying home and suggested that we arrange a Skype marriage before my next flight. Jared's mom told him during the break that he wasn't allowed to use Facebook to let her know about his engagement, which sparked a conversation between us about the timing of our hypothetical engagement and wedding. I offered to add him as a contributor on my Pinterest board about wedding things, but we decided it might be a bit early for that. Our word choice did change from "if we get married" to "when we get married" at some point before school resumed.

---

Chapter Three: Pony Proposal
We went shopping for rings in January and, awkwardly enough, bumped into his non-roommate brother while going back to our apartment buildings once we'd bought my ring. I'd just met that brother for the first time a few days prior to that at a birthday party we had for Jared, so that was exciting. (Hi, remember me? I'm marrying your brother. Want to see the ring?) We decided that proposing on Valentine's Day would be silly and impractical since we had a BYU Bronies party to go to that day and Batman movies to watch. The next Monday was a day with no classes, though, so we agreed that it would be a good day to officially get engaged.

When things were set up properly, Jared texted me to look outside the front door of my apartment, where I discovered a Twilight Sparkle plushie with a printed speech bubble instructing me to go upstairs to find a line of even more ponies with speech bubbles.

Each pony had something to say to me as I got closer to the room where Jared was waiting.

After he officially asked me the question we knew was coming and I put on the ring I'd helped choose a month before, we went back to my apartment so that my roommates could finally see the ring. We took some pictures to commemorate the occasion, updated Facebook, and then walked to Carl's Jr. for dinner and milkshakes because we're so very fancy.

Jared looks super young and I look like I have a partial eyebrow. I had not yet discovered that light eyebrow hairs aren't super visible from a distance and/or in certain lighting.

I think Lady Gaga announced her engagement on the same day we did. We actually got married and stayed together, though. Also, throwback to before my hands were always covered in eczema patches. Those were the days...

College shenanigans continued as we planned when and where to get married, what to do with all of my kitchen stuff over the summer, and other such things. I saw a beautiful wedding dress in the window of a store in downtown Provo while I was walking around with a roommate and decided to try on some dresses just for fun. The one I had my eye on didn't work out, but I did find the dress I wanted after only one or two more attempts! We were in and out of the store in probably about an hour. (Don't worry, I was texting pictures to my mom!)

---

Chapter Four: The Summer of Skype
Since the wedding wasn't until August and traveling across the country is a giant pain, we had to spend about a hundred days far away from each other after winter semester ended. Of course, those hundred days were packed with wedding preparations and family visits, so I had plenty of ways to distract myself from how much I missed seeing Jared every day. I'm really glad we live in a time where it was easy to text and even do video chats; if we had to rely on snail mail and phone calls, I would've gone even more crazy than I already did.

One of my many wedding prep tasks was to get Jared's ring resized (to size 9 3/4, I'm not even kidding) and I wanted to have it engraved, too. The inside of his ring says "The Unbreakable Vow" because I couldn't help myself.

---

Chapter Five: Happily Ever After
After what felt like forever, we were reunited and got married in the Washington, D.C. temple! It was the first time all of my parents' kids were in one place since a different wedding back in 2009, which was another thing to be super happy about. (That unusual phenomenon will happen again this summer at a reunion! Yay!)

Our post-wedding adventures included a reception in Virginia, attending Bronycon in Baltimore, and another reception in Washington. Jared's wonderful parents drove the car that he'd bought that summer all the way across the country for us so that we'd only need to get it from Washington to Utah. We survived our first road trip and the discomfort of moving into a third-floor apartment with no air conditioning in mid-August. We also survived sleeping on a twin air mattress for the first week of living in that apartment since we didn't have an actual bed yet. Ah, college...

---

Is anyone surprised that Harry Potter, MLP, and Marvel all played roles in bringing us together? Probably not. Oh, and here's another fun fact: Jared and I are not the only people from that FHE/friend group that married each other. People joke that everything a YSA ward does is intended to get everyone to date and/or marry someone, but sometimes that's what actually happens.

It was a lot of fun to look through old messages and pictures to make sure I was getting the timeline right! Hopefully it was also enjoyable to read this summary of the events leading to our marriage. Have a great day and remember that friendship is magic! :)

Love,
Lizzie