#AND TWO DICKS HAS THAT NOT BEEN ESTABLISHED SINCE 2017??? COME ON

[jalopeura]

TIL there are real life human people who are mad sidon got a fiancee

"they lead us on then threw the straight card in our faces" (- someone on twitter)

my guy...................have u ever heard of bisexuals

[tf2heritageposts]

Elizabeth Eden Harris[2] (born May 31, 1997), known professionally as Cupcakke (often stylized as cupcakKe; pronounced /ˈkʌpkeɪk/ "cupcake"),[3] is an American rapper and singer-songwriter known for her hypersexualized, brazen, and often comical persona and music.[4][5]

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Cupcakke began her career as a rapper in 2012 by releasing material online. She drew attention in 2015 when she released two music videos, "Vagina" and "Deepthroat", on YouTube that went viral; the songs were later included on her debut mixtape, Cum Cake (2016), which was included on Rolling Stone's list of the Best Rap Albums of 2016 at number 23.[6] A second mixtape, S.T.D (Shelters to Deltas), released in 2016, preceded her studio albums: Audacious (2016), Queen Elizabitch (2017), Ephorize (2018), Eden (2018), and Dauntless Manifesto (2024).

Aside from a brief retirement at the end of 2019, Cupcakke has been steadily releasing standalone singles, such as "Squidward Nose" (2019), "Discounts" (2020), "Mosh Pit" (2021), and "H2hoe" (2022).

Elizabeth Eden Harris was born on May 31, 1997,[7] in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised on King Drive, near Parkway Gardens. Harris was raised by a single mother and spent nearly four years in Chicago's homeless shelters starting at age seven.[8] In the lyrics of her song "Ace Hardware", Harris recounts her experiences struggling with depression and being raped by her father, who is a pastor.[9][10] She has referred to her father as a "deadbeat", "con artist", and "child molester."[11] She attended Dulles Elementary School[12] with other established Chicago rappers such as Lil Reese and Chief Keef. She got an early start into music and poetry at the age of ten by her involvement in her local church. It was also there that she got her start in performing, where she would perform for her local pastors by reciting poetry about her Christianity and faith.[13]

When she was 13, she met a fellow churchgoer who encouraged her to turn the poetry into rap music, and she became infatuated with the art form. She cites 50 Cent, Lil' Kim, and Da Brat as early influences to her musical style.[14][13]

Harris released her first music video, "Gold Digger" onto her official YouTube channel in August 2012. She was only 15 at the time of its release—the original video has since been deleted.[5] Over the next few years, she continued to release original music, as well as freestyles using beats from other artists through her YouTube channel, where she has amassed over 919,000 subscribers.[15]

In October 2015, the official music video for her song "Vagina" was released on YouTube via YMCFilmz. According to Cupcakke, she wrote the song because she was inspired by Khia's dirty rap song "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)" from 2002.[16] One month later, Harris released "Deepthroat" on her own channel. Within weeks, the two videos went viral on YouTube, Worldstar, and Facebook. The songs later became singles for Harris' debut mixtape, Cum Cake, which was released in February 2016. Its release was also supported by further singles such as "Juicy Coochie", "Tit for Tat", and "Pedophile". A writer for Pitchfork, which included it on "9 Rap Mixtapes You Might Have Missed This Year", called the mixtape a "well rounded introduction to a skilled writer" and said it used songs "about love, loss, and hardship with its more explicit tracks to create a full profile of the up-and-coming Chicago rapper".[17] "Pedophile" was also specifically noted for its "blunt commentary" on sexual assault.[5]

In June 2016, Harris released her second mixtape, S.T.D (Shelters to Deltas). It was preceded by the single "Best Dick Sucker". Other tracks, such as "Doggy Style" and "Motherlands", were also later released as singles. The mixtape was listed among Rolling Stone's "Best Rap Albums of 2016 So Far".[6]

In October 2016, Harris released her debut studio album, Audacious.[18] The album was preceded by the single "Picking Cotton", which was described by MTV News as "a protest song about racist cops".[13] Other tracks on the album such as "Spider-Man Dick" and "LGBT" were accompanied by music videos.[19][20] In an interview Harris stated that she made the song "LGBT" "...strictly for the gay community to know that they are loved and don't need to feel judged."[21]

In February 2017, Harris released "Cumshot", which served as the lead single to her second studio album. On March 7, English singer-songwriter Charli XCX premiered her song "Lipgloss", which featured Harris. The song was later included on XCX's mixtape, Number 1 Angel, which was released on March 10.[22]

Her second studio album, titled Queen Elizabitch, was released on March 31, 2017.[23] The Fader described it as "the type of nasty rap that made her a viral sensation, alongside all-out pop bangers like '33rd' and the confessional a cappella freestyle 'Reality, Pt. 4'."[24] Stereogum also noted that the album "sees CupcakKe engaging with the current political climate and radio trends in a way that could help her cross over to a more mainstream audience".[25][26]

On April 7, 2017, Queen Elizabitch was removed from online streaming services and digital music stores due to an illegal backing track that Harris had purchased from what she described as a "shady producer". She soon announced on Twitter that Queen Elizabitch would be re-released on April 16.[27] She then released the singles "Exit" and "Cartoons" in November 2017.[28][29]

Her third studio album, Ephorize, was released on January 5, 2018.[30] Exclaim! called it "her most polished work to date" and noted that "she still slides in plenty of deliciously dirty one-liners throughout the new record."[31] HotNewHipHop commented that "Ephorize might be one of the most introspective bodies of work she's dropped off to date."[32] Pitchfork called it Cupcakke's "best album yet, with terrific production and a barrage of raps that reveal Elizabeth Harris to be far more than her hilarious and absurdly raunchy one-liners."[33] She released music videos for the songs "Duck Duck Goose" and "Fullest".[34] The former features her "showing off an extensive collection of dildos as well as a souvenir Statue of Liberty."[35]

On November 9, 2018, Harris released her fourth studio album, Eden. She released music videos for the lead single "Quiz", and for the following singles "Hot Pockets" and "Blackjack".

On January 8, 2019, Harris was reportedly taken to a hospital in Chicago after tweeting that she was going to commit suicide.[36] In a tweet posted the next day, Harris wrote "I've been fighting with depression for the longest. Sorry that I did it public last night but I'm ok. I went to the hospital & I'm finally getting the help that I need to get through, be happy, & deliver great music. Thanks for all the prayers but please don't worry bout me."[37]

On January 11, 2019, the single "Squidward Nose" was released,[38] and on February 21, a music video for the song featuring John Early premiered.[39] On April 17, 2019, Harris released a remix of Lil Nas X's song "Old Town Road", titled "Old Town Hoe", on her YouTube channel,[40] and its music video the following day.[41]

In September 2019, Harris made several posts on social media criticizing several artists such as Camila Cabello (she accused Cabello of racism) and Shawn Mendes, followed by her retirement announcement in an Instagram Live video.[42] She stated, "This live is going to be the last video that y'all [will] see of me. I am completely done with music". She said that she would no longer be releasing music to the public and that she would be removing her music from all streaming platforms.[43] She stated that she was disturbed to see children in videos and young people at her shows singing along to her explicit songs, felt she was corrupting the youth with her raunchy songs.[44][45] Harris also told fans that she has a "very bad gambling addiction" and that she had lost $700,000 at a casino in September 2018.[45][46] Harris' Instagram and Twitter accounts were deactivated after the livestream ended.[45] Her music remained available on streaming platforms.[46]

On November 7, 2019, Harris came out of retirement after a 40-day absence on all social media platforms with a tweet; "Jesus fasted for 40 days & so did I...... Nov 16th".[47] On March 6, 2020, Harris released a new single, "Lawd Jesus".[48] Harris uploaded her first video to YouTube since her previous deletion of all videos on her channel the previous year, with the double video for singles "Grilling Niggas" and "Lawd Jesus", on May 13, 2020.[49]

On June 1, 2020, Cupcakke released the single "Lemon Pepper"[50] with half of the proceeds going towards the Minnesota Bail fund.[51] Another single, "Discounts" was released on June 26.[52] The song received critical acclaim, peaked at number 78 on the UK Singles Downloads Chart and number 80 on the UK Singles Sales Chart, becoming her first single to do so.[53][54] "Discounts" also reached number one on the US iTunes chart, which is her first song to do so. She is also the only female rapper to have a number-one song on the iTunes chart with no label.

On December 16, 2020, Harris received significant media attention after releasing "How to Rob (Remix)", a diss track. It was released on YouTube and sees Harris take aim at Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, and Lil' Kim, among others.[55] The song received positive reviews.

On March 1, 2021, "Deepthroat" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which denotes five hundred thousand units based on sales and track-equivalent on-demand streams.[56] It is her first song to be certified by the RIAA.[57] In June, Rolling Stone magazine reported that Harris will be co-hosting the upcoming OutTV reality show Hot Haus with Tiffany Pollard, which will mark the rapper's TV hosting debut. Harris said of the casting decision, "As soon as I heard what this show stood for, owning your sexuality and talent, I knew I had to be involved."[58]

In 2021, her songs went viral on TikTok, mainly in the form of remixes; she later joined the platform because of it.[59]

On May 31, 2022, Harris released the single "H2Hoe".

On June 23, 2024, Harris announced her album Dauntless Manifesto, which was released on June 28, 2024.

wow

[land-of-brains-and-chocolate]

here’s the entirety of the paywalled businessinsider article interviewing charles beacham about marvel’s racism in staffing and editorial decisions! 

In the early 2010s, Marvel's comics business focused on a diverse slate of new characters, but by 2017 comic sales had fallen, which resulted in the exit of editor-in-chief Axel Alonso.

Three former Marvel editors and one current editor told Business Insider that in the years since, Marvel has recommitted to nostalgia and classic, mostly white characters, often at the expense of some of those diverse characters like Miles Morales, a biracial teenage Spider-Man.

That shift was guided by an editorial department that lacked diversity, particularly in leadership roles. Today, there are no Black staffers on Marvel's editorial team of about 18 people, and only two people of color, Marvel confirmed.

"My voice and what I brought to the table wasn't valued equally," said Charles Beacham, one of two Black editorial staffers to work at Marvel in the past five years.

Have a tip? Email the author at tclark@businessinsider.com or DM him on Twitter @TravClark2.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Miles Morales was the character who pulled Charles Beacham into the world of comics.

Beacham was studying journalism at Brigham Young University, in Utah, when he walked into a comics shop in 2011 and picked up a copy of Morales' first appearance. Beacham, who is Black, said he was amazed to see Morales — a teenage Spider-Man who has a Black father and Puerto Rican mother — in its pages.

"When I was growing up, I always wanted to be the red Power Ranger, and the other kids would say I had to be the black Ranger," Beacham said. "The same thing happened with Spider-Man. They'd say, 'You can't be Spider-Man because Peter Parker's not a Black dude.' Seeing Miles Morales made me wish I had that as a kid."

Morales propelled Beacham into comics and into Marvel itself, where he worked as an assistant editor.

"I didn't have job prospects when I moved to New York in 2013, but the goal was to work for Marvel because of Miles Morales," Beacham said. When he landed a job at the company the next year, he loved it.

But Beacham, now 31, was living in New York City with a child on a $38,000 salary. He said that after three years as an assistant editor, from 2014 to 2017, without a promotion, he was ready to leave. It wasn't about the money as much as the lack of a path forward.

"I thought I'd be at Marvel forever," he said. "If they had promoted me I'd probably still be there and surviving on ramen."

Beacham is one of two Black editorial staffers to have worked at Marvel in the past five years, the company confirmed. The second Black staffer, also an assistant editor, left this year after five years without a promotion or raise, a person familiar with the matter said. The editorial team of about 18 people now has two people of color.

"I want to be back there all the time," Beacham said. "But when it comes down to it, my voice and what I brought to the table wasn't valued equally."

Disney-owned Marvel has grown into a cultural force that extends beyond its comic books and into movies, video games, and other media. The comics are the foundation for it all, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has become the highest-grossing movie franchise of all time.

The stories that Marvel's small editorial team helps shape are central to popular culture in the US and around the world.

"Who works on these stories can help broaden them," said Regine Sawyer, the founder of Women in Comics Collective International, which helps to spotlight the comics work of marginalized people.

That was clear from 2011 to 2017, when Marvel ushered in a new era for its comic books under then editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, who is Mexican American.

New and diverse characters like Morales took center stage instead of Marvel's decades-old classic characters, who were primarily white. These characters inspired new fans like Beacham, and continue to inspire new fans as they make their way to other media.

But by 2017, Marvel's comic sales had fallen. Marvel's president of sales, David Gabriel, publicly blamed it on diversity. Alonso exited the company and was replaced by a white man in the role of top editor. Marvel reversed course.

Now, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed, Marvel is promising to once again introduce more diversity to its ranks and its stories.

Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter sent a letter to employees on June 18 saying the company would "support more Black voices."

And in a memo to staff sent July 6, Marvel's president, Dan Buckley, outlined three areas of focus for Marvel moving forward:

broaden Marvel's creative landscape, which includes identifying "what has traditionally prevented us in the industry from recruiting and fostering more BIPOC talent."

build a foundation of lasting growth by "examining our internal culture and rebuilding our long-term process for talent recruitment, retention, and outreach to communities of color."

create new initiatives and expansion opportunities by "looking to explore new projects that will enable us to reach and represent an even broader audience."

In addition to Beacham, Business Insider spoke with two former Marvel editors and a current editor. Aside from Beacham, the Marvel insiders spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their stance at the company or job prospects. They said they weren't confident in Marvel's latest initiative.

"The guy who made a commitment to diversity and wanted to try new things was fired," a former Marvel staffer said, referring to Alonso.

'Spider-Man with an asterisk'

Alonso led Marvel through a bold era during his time as editor-in-chief starting in 2011, helping to establish a diverse slate of characters.

Jane Foster was the new Thor. Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, a Black character, replaced Steve Rogers as Captain America. Riri Williams, a Black girl, was introduced as an Iron Man-like character named Ironheart. Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American Muslim teenager, was the new Ms. Marvel.

It wasn't a new phenomenon in comic books. Characters are regularly passing on their mantles, at least for a while. Dick Grayson, the first Robin, was DC's Batman for a time in the early 2010s, for instance. Sam Wilson wasn't the first person to take over as Captain America. This era at Marvel Comics, however, was notable for how it emphasized diversity.

But by 2017 — Alonso's final year as editor-in-chief — the company's print sales had plummeted (Marvel in 2014 said that Ms. Marvel's solo title was a top seller digitally, but digital comics sales aren't released to the public).

"What we heard is that people didn't want any more diversity," David Gabriel, the vice president of sales at Marvel Entertainment, said that year in an interview with ICv2, a website that covers the comics business.

"I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales," Gabriel said. "Any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up."

What Gabriel meant by "core Marvel character" were the classic, decades-old characters being sidelined for new, younger, and more diverse characters.

Seven months later, in November 2017, Marvel's Alonso stepped down from his role and was replaced by C.B. Cebulski, a white man who faced controversy when he was hired after admitting to writing comics in the early 2000s under a Japanese pseudonym.

"The comics that [Alonso] made me think I could work in comics," Beacham said. "But when a Latinx guy is scapegoated for diversity and replaced by a white dude, and the sentiment was that Marvel was 'getting away from its roots,' what does that mean?"

In a statement after his 2017 comments, Gabriel emphasized that "our new heroes are not going anywhere."

But in the months between that retailer summit and Alonso's exit, Marvel introduced an initiative for editorial staff that had been discussed internally for some time: Phase out the familiar superhero codenames for some newer, diverse characters and give them their own, two former assistant editors including Beacham said.

Marvel confirmed to Business Insider that it had previously considered stripping Morales of his Spider-Man title and giving him a new name, but has no plans to do so right now. Marvel added that it discusses status quo changes for all of its top characters.

Today, some of the classic characters have been thrust back into the spotlight. Steve Rogers has taken back the mantle of Captain America, and Thor is a man again. Miles Morales shares the Spider-Man title with Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man.

Morales has grown in popularity beyond comic books, having starred in Sony's Oscar-winning animated "Into the Spider-Verse" movie in 2018 and in a coming PlayStation video game called "Spider-Man: Miles Morales."

Beacham said he was glad that Morales continued to be a Spider-Man.

"It would have made him less important," Beacham said of Morales' losing the Spider-Man title. "He becomes Spider-Man with an asterisk. It takes away the power for kids who relate to this character."

'There's not a lack of people who can do the work'

Now, Marvel's comic-book slate is once again largely focused on classic characters, though characters like Morales and Khan remain. And there are some comics starring diverse characters from creators of color, like Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Black Panther." But their stories are in the hands of an editorial department run by an establishment of white male leadership.

"There's not a lack of people who can do the work," said Yumy Odom, the founder of the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention, which helps to showcase the talents of creators of color. "But it's about how receptive the industry is to them. I can think of 20 creators, mostly African Americans, who would be ready to work at Marvel."

Women faced an uphill battle at Marvel as well, the Marvel editors said. A female former assistant editor told Business Insider that she was never promoted or given a raise from her $30,000 salary in her three years at the company. She said she got promoted within a year at her new company, a different comics publisher.

Marvel declined to discuss employee salaries.

The Marvel insiders said a notable exception was Sana Amanat, who is Pakistani American and a former editor. She is now Marvel's head of content and character development, a leadership role outside the editorial department.

'There's a whole cohort of young readers'

Marvel has significantly bounced back from its 2017 sales decline, which might suggest that the refocus on its classic characters reeled longtime readers back.

Of the top 100 best-selling comics of 2020 so far, 69 belonged to Marvel, as of Wednesday, including four of the top five, and the company has accounted for 41% of comic sales this year, according to industry website Comichron. Three years ago, Marvel was lagging behind DC, its biggest competitor.

An example of the start of this resurgence was the first issue of Marvel's "Amazing Spider-Man" relaunch — starring the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker — which ranked fifth in 2018 out of all comics, according to data from Comichron. In contrast, when Marvel launched a series called "Miles Morales Spider-Man" in that year, the debut issue didn't crack the top 200 best-selling comics.

"People of a certain age have a connection with Peter Parker, not Miles Morales," a former Marvel staffer said. "Years from now, that may be different."

The current and former Marvel staffers Business Insider spoke with said they were hopeful that readership could broaden, particularly now that characters such as Morales and Khan are being introduced to audiences in other media like movies and TV. Khan is to appear in a Disney Plus TV series and the upcoming "Avengers" video game, for instance.

There are signs that the comics industry is going through a larger shift in how people read and who is reading, which could also spur change.

Last year, comic sales through the "book channel" — which includes chain and independent book stores and online retailers like Amazon — surpassed comic-book stores for the first time, driven by the increased popularity in children's graphic novels, according to an analysis by ICv2.

Milton Griepp, the chief executive of ICv2, said at the New York Comic Con conference last year that the shift could usher in a new audience for superhero comic books.

"There's a whole cohort of young readers that are being introduced to this medium and may graduate to other forms of content in the comic format over the course of their lifespans," Griepp said.

Beacham said: "Marvel needs to figure out the next stage of its core demographic because it could change rapidly."

[sitp-recs]

hey, do have any bratty/snobish/spoiled draco fic recs? preferably established relationship (drarry obvi) or sum similar? i'm in the mood for smitten!harry lmao, thanks in advance, love :)

Hi lovely! I’ve only read a few, hope they work for you. I highlighted the ones that feature established relationship in some capacity :)

Let Me Have You and I'll Let You Save Me by Frayach (2012, Mature, 6k) - est relationship

Draco keeps coming back, and Harry keeps letting him. Draco can’t stay away, and Harry can’t live without him.

Spoiled Little Brat by @fastbrother and @appleslightning (2024, Teen and Up, 9k)

Harry won’t stoop to Malfoy’s level. Really, he won’t. (He will.)

Reparatio by astolat (2016, Explicit, 17k) - est relationship

Draco snorted. “I’m not reduced to penury. I want something considerably beyond money, and I rather think you’re the only one can give it to me.”

amid this warm and steady sweetness by warmfoothills (2019, Explicit, 21k)

Harry is not living in a period drama, no matter what his friends or his new house or Malfoy’s sudden affinity for horse-riding might suggest, and if one more person uses the word courting, he’s going to start hexing people.

Touch Me Fall by @lqtraintracks (2014, Explicit, 24k)

Malfoy was such a ponce. And he was a complete snob. And he was so fucking fit Harry wanted to jump him where he sat. It would be too easy to forget his objective tonight: to really, really, really get Malfoy out of his system.

Burn the Curtains and the Wine by @nerdherderette (2019, Explicit, 24k) - est relationship

There are two versions of Harry Potter: the wizard who is the Ministry of Magic's most dangerous and successful assassin, and the husband who leads a staid life of domesticity with a reformed Death Eater. And never the twain shall meet.Until, one day, they do.

Slithering by astolat (2016, Explicit, 27k)

Draco found the nest down in the Manor’s cellars, while he was clearing them out.

The Gentlewizard Club by Sophie_French (2014, Explicit, 28k)

Draco wants what Draco wants. And if he has to snuggle up to Harry to get it, well, surely, Draco can handle that. Problem is, not sure Harry can.

Stain of Silence by brummell (2013, Explicit, 28k) - eventual est relationship

After the war, Draco serves out his sentence in Harry Potter's house.

Headway series by orphan_account (2017, Explicit, 31k) - est relationship (Ron/Harry/Hermione, Harry/Draco)

“It’s called courting,” Draco spat suddenly, livid and red in the face. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand a single thing about it, actually Potter, since it’s formal, and there are rules, and neither of those are concepts you’d know anything about even if they took on human form and kicked you right in the fucking dick.”

In Our Blood by @secretsalex (2018, Explicit, 37k) - est relationship

Draco is an accomplished pure-blood curse breaker, and Harry is tasked with accompanying him on his latest job—cleaning up the Van Boer mansion, which has been under a devastating fertility curse for seven generations.

Shine, Even in the Darkness by raitala (2014, Explicit, 41k)

Harry hasn’t seen Draco for over fifteen years, but now he’s showing up everywhere and Harry is sort of weirdly attracted to him, but that can’t be right?

Bite Me, Hate Memes by pir8fancier (2007, Explicit, 44k) - eventual est relationship

Draco Malfoy is incensed to realize that someone is trying to usurp his position as the premier Harry Potter hater.

The Trouble with Wanting by waldorph (2021, E, 60k)

Draco Malfoy is cleared of all charges; this is what happens next.

What We Pretend We Can't See by gyzym (2017, Mature, 131k)

Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.

[heli0s-writes]

II. Solipsis

Summary: Rogers isn’t stupid. Quite the opposite, he’s incredibly perceptive and remarkably intelligent.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about him or how you feel about this situation; there’s only two weeks to let it go. Both of you must relinquish every individual sentiment to each other and obey the system or else the neural handshake collapses and you’re crushed inside a Kaiju’s maw.

A/N: Video reference for Greco-Roman Wrestling. Please do yourself a favor and imagine Steve Rogers owning your ass. 7.8k words.

Warnings: Language. Bucky angst. Tension.

Trinity Epoch Masterpost

You wake around 0500 and flip on the light—a jaundiced splash of color that makes your skin gleam sickeningly yellow. You shake your head, rub your eyes, and try not to linger on last night’s dream.

Lashing rain. A metal shriek. Your world bursting with red.

There’s movement outside the hall—appreciated distractions to rouse you from your thoughts. Footsteps, wheels on smooth concrete, muffled alarms, all sorts of noises clanging around together in the distance. Small comforts of familiarity; you remember how these facilities work.

There’s always something to improve in a Shatterdome. Data to analyze, parts to product and repair, training to be done. From the highest to the lowest position, every single bit needs to run tirelessly like a well-oiled machine.

You will need to as well. The war clock demands it.

You have a maximum of two months to be combat-ready, but you’re not pitching your hopes on that timeline; Kaiju have been known to emerge earlier than K-Science predicts. Rogers broke it down last night: evaluations and endurance building the first week. Sparring the next. Week three will intertwine both more intensely. Week four will be when you face him in front of Fury in the Kwoon Room—prove yourself well-suited to be his co-pilot.

And you had argued shouldn’t we do that earlier? If we’re already not compatible, why waste anyone’s time?

What would waste my time is you fighting me when you’re not ready and throwing the match. You agreed to this, so start acting like it.

Out of all the rattling noises you can hear, his phantom voice rings the loudest.

Drift compatibility doesn’t happen for just any Dick and Jane, and you’re betting on that—but let me tell you again, we’re compatible. Got it?

Fine. Fine. Fine. You’ll keep your thoughts to yourself, but they’re bitter thoughts, truths that he isn’t keen on facing. No, compatibility doesn’t happen for any Dick and Jane. It doesn’t happen much at all.

Most co-pilots are related or coupled for a reason. The potential for alignment is higher with these pairs because they’ve already established a personal connection and know how one another work. There’s history, trust, and something more. Something deep and intrinsic. Something that binds you until you die.

You used to joke that you and Natasha got lucky finding each other at Kodiak. Two misplaced orphans finally given a home in the shape of Decima Red’s Conn-Pod. It was metal and cold, but it was home, even if it was too brief.

Three minutes after waking and the dread has already settled in your gut like debris floating to the bottom of a lake— another layer on top of all that old sludge inside your body but there’s no time to ponder it. You have precisely one hour after breakfast to let your food settle before he joins you in the Combat Room. You brush your teeth and dress.

-

“Again.”

His voice cracks through the quiet space. Fury’s closed it down for today, keeping the session private. The staff in his right hand hovers above your shoulder before it retreats. From behind a wet curl of hair, you glare.

It’s 2015 and you’re back in Kodiak Island. Except this time, instead of sparring with Nat, Steve Rogers is there in all his effortless glory. Clean-shaven, jaw set, stoic, not a single hair out of place. Ruthless.

And it’s not like you’ve been slacking these past two years; you’ve been on army bases, worked on construction sites, did a short stint in security. You’re in shape and you remember how to fight.

But he is ruthless.

1300 and you’ve been whacked in the head, chest, thighs, ankles, back, and up and down both arms. You’ve gotten a few on him. Some good, most laughable. Only six more hours to go and you’re not sure if there will be lunch in-between.

At this point, you’re too tired to think about your burdensome conscience. Too tired to feel anything but tired. It must be a purposeful tactic from him because the less capable you are to think, the less you’ll worry, and the less you’ll feel inclined to dive into Victoria Harbor and swim yourself away.

“Is this your idea of a partnership?” You snarl when your side contracts in agony, an ache burrowing beneath your soaked shirt. You grasp the staff firmly, ignoring way the muscles of your wrists beg you to stop.

“This is my idea of an evaluation. Focus.” He says it calmly, like you’re supposed to be grateful. “You’ll be better for it tomorrow. In a month, you won’t even recognize yourself.”

Well, you’re not grateful. 

“I’d rather not recognize you.”

His grip falters, features flashing amusement at your comment.

You momentarily ponder a few things: the pros and cons being insolent again on the second day when he’s liberally kicking your ass; that the last memorable thing you said to Steve Rogers was fuck you three times in a row; and suddenly, the way he looks with the corner of his mouth turned upward, lips slanting.

Moment over. You take the opening and the tip of your staff stops half an inch from his Adam’s apple, letting it bob up and down. Then, you press it gently to his throat. His lips part, jaw sliding forward incrementally with attitude and another emotion you can’t place.

“I’m hungry,” you assert.

He stops breathing and closes his mouth. When he opens it again, he takes a shallow breath and says, “Alright.”

Taking advantage of your surprise, he immediately seizes the same opportunity you took. His staff pushes against the side of your neck, the cool, smooth wood landing on the slope connecting to your shoulder. The slant of his mouth grows an inch wider. You gulp at the crescent shape of his eyes, bright with mirth.

“Hit the showers,” he says, passive again, “You have one hour for lunch.”

-

No such luck. Not even twenty minutes pass before someone else fucks up your day.

Across the table, a man sits down with his tray, smile wide and handsome. He’s been watching you from the corner of his eye for a few minutes now, probably wondering if he should come over. Other residents of the Shatterdome have been equally inquisitive, but none as bold.

“Saw you go into the fight room with the big guy. I’m surprised you’re alive.” His head tilts forward as he inspects you playfully, “I’m Sam Wilson.”

You remember your manners, no matter how exhausted you are, and extend your hand, “Good to meet you, Sam Wilson, but I’m not sure about being alive yet.”

An understanding laugh, “Can’t help noticing you’re new. Steve training you for something?”

You shrug, sidestepping his inquiry, “You a pilot?”

Sam Wilson is polite enough to follow your path. “Yeah. Avis Dominion—the flyest girl in the game—that’s me and Riley.”

You know of Avis Dominion. Maroon and silver, propulsion rockets attached to her ankles. She doesn’t fly, of course, but she’s lithe and graceful, the jets giving her quick bursts of speed. Avis has particle dispersal cannons on her back, firing plasma charged ion rails to wound and cauterize. She’s simply incredible, and Sam beams expectantly.

“Think I’ve heard of her,” you respond, lightened by his humor.

Suddenly, a pair of heavy bootsteps pulls your attention sideways. Not even twenty minutes and Rogers is marching forward, hands clenched in fists by his side, mouth pressed into a worried and thin line. Wilson doesn’t even have the chance to greet him before Rogers stops by your hunched-over form.

“He’s up.”

And the partly chewed bite in your mouth threatens to turn sour.

He’s up means he wants to talk to you. And you couldn’t have avoided it forever, but you fantasized that meeting James Barnes might be put off indefinitely.

He’d been in and out of consciousness since last night, lucid enough to speak and question his state, enough to raise hell when he looked down at his left side, and certainly enough to thrash himself open and bloody and needing to be sedated again.

You run your hand through your hair, grip it tightly for a second out of frustration, and finally rise. You’re an eloquent orator in a pinch, so, you groan.

“Fucking fuck me.”

-

Back at the table, Steve’s attention never leaves the way you uncomfortably walk down the hall. To his left, Sam’s leg bounces impatiently because Bucky’s injury still hasn’t been announced and CNN has called the facility every six hours since they landed post-battle. Everyone has questions and suspicions, and Sam’s last three minutes of snooping wasn’t enough to glean a clear answer.

“Steve, man—what is going on?”

Steve looks gravely back at Sam, watchfully inspecting his expression as he admits, “That was Decima Red’s former pilot.”

A beat passes. Sam blinks once, then twice, and then his eyes fly open.

“Decim—shit— Anchorage 2017? Natasha Romanoff?” Sam clamps his mouth shut, at a loss for words, outraged and impressed all at once.

Decima Red’s story is one of those tales Rangers pass around a campfire—or in their case, a boiler room. Natasha Romanoff was a stiletto dagger— elegant and lethal and blood red. She would show up to events like a goddess, always stunning and magnetic and she never took a bad picture. Sam met her once, at some award show where he had too much champagne and Riley asked him to kindly stop drooling on the pretty lady.

He’s never met her co-pilot until now and he’s not sure if anyone outside The Icebox has. Romanoff would laugh it off when reporters would ask. She’d say her partner’s camera shy and doesn’t like crowds. Then her long lashes would flutter, her sly smile glittering, and men would drop like Kaiju in the ocean.

She was extraordinarily skilled and beautiful.

So when Decima Red washed up as a devastated heap on Anchorage’s shore with only one pilot, no one thought it would be her partner who survived. Romanoff handled the right side, after all. She was the dominant one. The stronger one.

Sam shakes his head, “Steve, what the hell are you up to? Where the hell did you find her? How--”

The slew of queries slowly tapers out as Sam lights up in understanding. But it’s a joyless light and he shakes his head again, dismayed. “You’re recruiting her. She’s replacing Barnes.”

“Yeah,” Steve frowns deeply. The truth always sounds worse from an outsider’s point of view but he didn’t expect much else because it sounds bad in his head, too.

“He’s gonna hate her,” Sam mutters, cracking a joke because if Steve’s had to bring in a new Ranger, it means that Bucky’s more hurt than they’d thought. And the two of them? Closest co-pilots he’s ever had the pleasure to meet.

Their drift was immaculate. Absolutely seamless. As if they were brothers—as if they were twins. And that’s not even – look, Sam Wilson knows some twins. There’s a pair here in Hong Kong and even their connection is nothing like Steve and Bucky’s.

From the moment they step into their drivesuits to the very last blow they land in combat, you’d think they were one single person spliced into two like a damn science fiction novel. The simple sight of Rogers and Barnes walking into the Jaeger bay was uncanny and nearly an act of God. They moved the same. They breathed the same.

Sam knows what happened to Bucky, and what Steve must do in its aftermath, must be killing him.

-

James Barnes is upright in bed, sheets around his waist, right fist over his thigh. He hasn’t said anything or even looked at you yet and in the strained silence, you find yourself absurdly craving the fight room. At least you know what to expect in there.

Outside of his Ranger biography—which is public knowledge—you know nothing about him. Barnes is reserved on T.V. and in interviews. Having grown up with his co-pilot, their biographies are eerily similar, and so he rarely slips out from Rogers’ shadow and is rarely anything more than stoic. He smiles for the camera, sure—real big and pretty—but never quite true.

It unsettles you. Here sits some kind of modern-day Achilles, heel pierced and torn through-- still more powerful than you.

You shift your weight from one foot to the other when his eyes flicker over to your boots before darting to your face, a quiet breath leaves him. His left shoulder jerks and you look away, tense and apprehensive, not wanting to stare.

A few curious seconds pass before his right hand shakily rises to run through his hair. His fingers tremble as he pinches dark strands, jaw ticking, and you realize James Barnes just had that moment—that moment—when he catches himself trying to use his left arm.

And you know there will be many more of those.

“Jesus...” he mutters, breaking reticence with a venomous hiss, “Fuck!”

Your tired body takes the impact of his words like a car crash. The fight has fled your heart at the sight of him and you’re left regurgitating all those jumbled-up-worse words every Jaeger pilot vomits sooner or later:

You owe a debt. You need it paid. He can’t take it personally. This is neither about you nor him.

“Look,” you begin apologetically, “I didn’t— this wasn’t my idea.”

“I know that,” Barnes retorts, scrubbing his face with the heel of his palm, the skin of it scratching against his chin and jaw. He’s grown a bit of stubble, his usual smoothness replaced by a grey-green shadow. He props himself up with his right arm, legs swinging over the edge of the bed.

“Maybe you don’t think you can do this,” he snorts derisively, “But you better.”

His line of sight is fixed on the floor, right arm flexing with the pressure he exerts on the poor mattress and you watch the way his muscles ripple up into the shade of his sleeve. When he turns to you after a deep breath, his face—sharp cheeks and dignified brow; tall, straight nose bridge; strong jaw and his distinctly wide lips—is fatal.

“Personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about who gets into the robot as long as when your fucking feet hit the rig, you’re one-hundred-percent in.”

Barnes’ eyes are piercingly blue. They’re reflective like frosted gunmetal. Cold.  Hard. He bares his teeth.

“If there is even one tiny bit of you that doesn’t believe you can, and in the middle of the drift you chase that rabbit, and you get him killed?” His mouth is a wide and devastating slant. “I will dig your corpse out of the Pacific Ocean--”

The door slams open with a crash. Rogers barrels inside with a cafeteria tray of food in hand. They stare at each other before Barnes shoots him an annoyed look and suddenly the threat from only seconds ago disappears with a blink of his silver-blue irises.

“You ruined my moment, Steve.” He states plainly, grabbing at the tray. He gives you a look— half of an amused quirk, tongue flicking at the point of his canines— and then tucks into the meal, moving the platter with his knee. You’re staggered.

It’s silent other than the sound of his chewing, rhythmic and carefree. He even folds a square bit of napkin inside the neck of his shirt to catch crumbs and you’re helplessly trying to reconcile that this is the same person who just promised you he’d find your dead body 10 thousand miles underwater.

The more time passes between his verbal gutting and his cheerful eating, the more your sympathy rots.

A pop of his blue Jello container opening and you snap.

“You know I just fucking got here, right? You—” your finger jabs accusingly at Rogers, “kicked my ass all day, and you—” your finger turns to Barnes, who stops slurping midway, “—sorry about your arm, that’s not my fucking fault—"

“Hey—” Rogers warns, stepping forward, hand out to derail the impending shouting match.

“No. Fuck you, Rogers.” He stumbles back with the force of your two-handed push on his chest, stunned at how quickly you leapt from the wall, “I agreed to it already, assholes. Maybe it’ll help your cause a little to not keep pissing off the other half of the fucking robot.”

And because you’re both incensed and starved from having lunch interrupted, you yank Barnes’ Jello from his shocked-slax grip and shake it into your mouth. A loud crinkle fills the otherwise silent room when you fiercely throw it into the trash bin and stomp off.

All the atmosphere gets eaten up by your temper. It’s silent like a black hole, nothing but the receding clomps of your irritation in the distance.

Bucky waits for your footsteps to pass before he begins to laugh, bright and astounded, quick puffs of air passing over his lips. He looks at his hand, still out in front of his chest, fingers curled around nothing. He looks at the trash bin by the door, plastic liner crumpled inward with the force of your arm.

He looks at Steve, standing with his hands uselessly by his side, an array of emotions passing over his face. He’d been calm—really, really calm—kept it pushed down and pacified, but it’s just the two of them now, and Steve looks like he could cry when he sees Bucky’s shoulder. He looks like he could level the Shatterdome.

“I’m fine.” Bucky says, rolling his eyes dramatically, humor gone. “Quit your blubbering.” He tilts his head towards the open door, “She’s tough, like you said.”

Decima Red’s pilot, the one who brought her skeleton back to Anchorage through a storm, of course she’d be. When Steve proposed it— explained it to him, practically wheeled out a chalkboard so Bucky could see his whole plan—Bucky was pissed. He’d just lost a fucking arm, after all. And now he was losing his fucking robot. 

But he slept on it, thought about it some, knew Steve was right.

He trusted Steve. Always have, always will. Whoever Steve decided on needed to be more than just tough. Steve needed reliability. Conviction.

They needed to match that Rogers persistence. Stubborn. Smart. Torn open by guilt and walking around with the world on their shoulders as if it’s their burden alone.

Yeah. It’s perfect.

Bucky looks at the blue specks of Jello clinging to his fingertips and sighs, “You’re gonna have to break her.”

Steve nods. He knows.

-

Time blurs as routine gives way to monotony.  

Your sanity is precariously tethered to lunches and dinners between psych evals and full-body exams. In the two weeks you’ve been here, maybe there’s been one rest day. You hoard what comfort you can from the time you limp from the fight room to the second your back hits the mattress to the bedside alarm blaring. 

Ephemeral relief also trickles in by way of conversations with other inhabitants of the facility.

The rest of Hong Kong’s STRIKE team take to your presence well enough. Co-pilots Wilson and Riley; the Maximoff twins, Wanda and Pietro; cousins from Wakanda, Erik and T’Challa; Odinson brothers, Thor and Loki.

They’re supportive and encouraging, but certainly not naïve. They keep their distance, the entire thing like a caged animal they can view, but not interact with wholly. You’re here as James Barnes’ tentative replacement, still just a prospect before anyone can entertain the idea of becoming attached to you.

Not to mention, you’re a deserter. Fucked off from the Ranger life and went off the grid. Most co-pilots died together—which was the honorable thing to do—and the rare few who are unlucky enough to survive at least come back to their Shatterdomes to continue their righteous work. You understand why they’re guarded.

Sam Wilson is the one person most willing to ignore all that, it seems. He hunts you down in the dining hall, finds you on morning runs, is kind and easy-going. He grabs an extra tray when you’re hobbling into lunch and plays basketball with you when you’re well enough to amble around the court.

He keeps you grounded with reminders: Rogers is a hard ass, but look—past that, he’s just a dude, you know? Trying his best to keep it all together—and there’s a lot to keep. Shit… you seen this place. I couldn’t do it.

The whole world wants to suck his dick, Wilson. You too?

Appreciate you, but man’s not my type. But hey, I’m just sayin’—maybe the world’s onto something.

You get a laugh, and you get to complain to at least one sympathetic ear about how Rogers seems adamant on turning you into a blood bag, or how Barnes is gleefully spectating, or how Fury is willfully ignorant. You get at least one person in your corner when Rogers yells at you for mouthing off—for fighting him in a wrong way—again.

You wish you were jogging the perimeter with Sam now, but this morning there’s only persistent torture.

Apparently today is, once again, exclusively about kicking your ass.

The rules are: no kicks, no punches, nothing below the waist. Traditional wrestling only, which means your hands can barely get halfway around him before he takes you to the mat effortlessly.  

All morning you’ve been pinned. Shoulders and waist constantly under his palms, flipped sideways and upside down. His reach is longer. His hold is stronger.

Barnes stands against the wall, shoulder in a sling, observing with amusement. Sometimes he clucks his tongue. Other times he smirks. He walks in and out like he’s at the movies. Fucker.

You cuss when you land on the mat for the hundredth time. The wet smear of your forehead glistens when you roll over, clutching your side. You’d woken up this morning feeling alright, taking to heart some of Sam’s advice, attempting to be understanding a little more each day, but with the way this session’s going, you’re headed for a backslide.

Your legs are shaking. Too hot all over even with your pants rolled up and shirt knotted at your hip. You plant your feet stubbornly, pacing around Rogers. A touch too soon, a weave too late. He slams you on the floor.

“This is—fuck!” you scream, “—a fucking unbalanced fight, Rogers!”

“I know,” he responds from above you, a single bead of sweat collecting on his placid brow. He gets up, yanking you along, and watches you try again. 

Two seconds pass before he’s hooked, biceps locking beneath your chest, spinning you through the air, and coming down hard on top of your back. Another crash into the mat, another muffled scream of pure, helpless rage.

You’ve had it. It’s been hours of his domination and your humiliation. You’re done with wrestling and done with him. Your knees and hips dig into the plastic, fury stoking the fight, fully intending on throwing him off but he shifts immediately. His chest presses into your spine, thigh flexed diagonal over both of yours.

“Don’t.” He says, shallow breaths heavy over the top of your head.

“Get off me, asshole! You’re too fucking big to wrestle with—I’m not Barnes!”

Rogers only grunts and bears down until you’re motionless and gasping beneath him. The air is hot, too hot. Scorching waves roll from your body, between his chest and your back, scalding with heat and embarrassment.

Your cheek drives into the plastic, burning with submission. Early stinging of pre-emptive tears prickles your eyes as frustration comes to a head, seizing your body and mind, and you feel up to your throat in despair. Anger makes you want to thrash but weakness makes you obedient. There’s nothing to be done but clench your fists and bite it back, swallow the tears, chew your lip bloody.

He is too big and too strong and too overpowering.

It was different wrestling with Natasha; you were closer in size and well-matched. It was a good recreation of what Kaiju combat may be if ranged weapons were to fail. She’d be the Kaiju, you the Jaeger. Then you’d switch. It felt like preparation.

This doesn’t. This feels like a setup for failure. This feels like a lesson.

And suddenly, you shut your eyes. God damn him. God damn him. God damn him.

Allowing insight to cool your temper, you stop resisting and go slack. Your fists unclench, head dropping to lay on your sweat-slick forearm. Surrender vibrates through your chest, tremors undulating to the rhythm of his breathing. 

You’ve figured it out. 

Rogers lets off some pressure and you can finally take a good breath. Slowly, he moves. His weight carries to one side of his torso, then his knees and he rocks off you, rising.

His hand splays over your shoulder blade, thumb pushing gently against the back of your neck before he hoists you up by the collarbone. It’s a delicate grasp as opposed to his previous ones. Calloused finger pads avoid the bruising on your shoulder from old hits.

Barnes looks on as his hand curls over your bicep, melting around the shape of your muscles, vice-like but merciful. The heat of your body becomes indistinguishable from his as he props you securely.

“You understand?” He asks gently, “Why it’s an unbalanced fight?”

His brow furrows, earnest blue eyes respectfully apologetic, searching yours for acknowledgement and perhaps forgiveness. You press your lips together tightly.

Of course you do.

He’s breaking you piece by piece until you’re malleable and pliant, willing to surrender your ego and give yourself over to a force much larger than your personal reality. You haven’t vocalized rebellion since the second day, and many days have passed, but it’s obvious how you struggle against the current.

Rogers isn’t stupid. Quite the opposite, he’s incredibly perceptive and remarkably intelligent.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about him or how you feel about this situation; there’s only two weeks to let it go. You can’t hold onto your pride, your resentment, or your reservations about any of it in the con-pod, and you can’t have one single fleeting thought about failure.

Both of you must relinquish every individual sentiment to each other and obey the system or else the neural handshake collapses and you’re crushed inside a Kaiju’s maw.

Barnes was right: you’re either one hundred percent in, or you’ll get him killed. So in today’s simulation, no, you’re not the Jaeger and Rogers isn’t the Kaiju.

He is the drift. It’s equal parts cruel and effective.

Today’s session is a reminder. When you fight the drift, it will take you down hard and fast, there’s no changing that. Only in silence will it support you, and only in silence will it keep you alive.

“Do you understand?” He says again, in a whisper. His lips are parted, turned down solemnly. “You can’t push back. Do you understand?”

Sam Wilson’s petition for Steve Rogers’ character echoes.

He’s just a dude. Trying his best to keep it all together. And there’s a lot to keep.

You manage a nod despite the aching throb of your skull. Shame crawls up your arms, erupting beneath the clutch of his fist. You nod. You’ve learned your lesson. Of course you understand.

-

After that, everything seem to flatten itself out. You heed Sam’s words, bitterness chipping away in the patient flow of Rogers’ direction until it becomes smooth like a time-worn pebble. You no longer fight the slipstream of your situation and rather become more mindful of his labor-- more appreciative.

You can either be a fatalist and fixate on how much you’d rather not be here, or, like he said, you can get on board.

If Barnes is a modern-day Achilles, Rogers might as well be the Hercules. Some radiant demi-god tasked with backbreaking labours in the form of beast-slaying. Unlike Hercules though, he’s all mortal, burdened even worse with mortal toils.

You might as well not be yet another thing that gets him killed in the end. It’d be further hell on your conscience and Barnes would personally scalp you, anyway.

So you iron out your attitude and grow friendly, and on a Thursday morning, he shows up with his hands tucked into his pockets. Barnes is to his side, matching in posture, his new prosthetic arm gleaming black and gold.

“Ready?”

They walk in conjunction. Left foot, right foot, hips following a perfect cadence.

His blonde head turns back at you with an expectant grin, “You excited?”

A snort, “You’ve dangled it in front of me for weeks. What do you want to hear, huh?”

There’s no offense in your words, only a hint of mischief because you’ve discovered the joy taunting him brings. Amusement in the form of riling him up because he’s surprisingly easy to rile, because there’s many ways to do it, and because you’re a damn fast learner.

Steve Rogers might be athletic and quick, but he’s terrible at guarding his legs. It makes his cheeks flush when you repeatedly strike his thighs and even more so when Barnes cackles from the corner. It’s infinitely better than any entertainment you can buy.

He gets you back, though, biding his time until your jogs, then laps you twice to keep you humble. The best kinds of friendships are built off torment, besides. You’re hopeful.

“I’m not convinced you’re excited,” he sings now, stopping abruptly so that you bump into his back with a grunt of surprise.

Barnes smirks, “He gets you every time. It’s sad.” Cheeky bastards, but they pick up the pace again, threading through the hallways.

They’re finally taking you on a proper tour of the Shatterdome. Four weeks and you still need a map to get around. They’ve kept you from wandering, kept others from being your guide, kept you on your fucking toes because they’re absolute little shits.

It’s friendship.

The first stop is the enormous Jaeger hangar. 

Stretching on and back, it’s a mess of moving parts and electricity. Cranes up and down, engineers and workers in constant motion. They walk you across the main bridge of the perimeter, taking leisurely steps to let you catch your dazed breath and absorb the view. 

The anticipation was clever provocation on his part, created in jest, but the sight of it now in front of you feels like a kick to the teeth. Your teasing demeanor drops.

The Mark-3’s are beautiful despite their conditions. Scratched and dented, wind-bleached in places, but all gorgeous and exclusively equipped to best fit their Rangers. Titanium cores, angel wings, plasma casters. Assault mount sting-blades, K-Stunner warheads, sentry treads. The list of features running on and on and on.

Unique traits for unique pilots.

Pain strikes your heart.

Decima’s Crocus-9 reactor core was uranium powered and instead of angel wings or blades, she had extendable plasma batons. You and Natasha amputated six Kaiju with them. A 1700-ton ballerina, she was created to fit your partnership’s style— brutal but dexterous. The fight was always good in Decima—always, always, good.

You’ll never have that with Orion. You’ll never have that with Rogers.

In the distance, voices shout and echo over gears and metal joints. Forklifts whirr and beep, personnel scrambling like dedicated worker ants.

Two years without Decima and Natasha. Over seven hundred days and each one felt too long, stretched, infinite, miserable. Waking up was just another twenty-four hours to bury like how you buried Nat. But now, here you stand—returned to the front of the continued Jaeger Program that’s moved on without her, and the last two years comes to crush you in a tidal wave all at once.

You feel powerless, distraughtly wishing you were back in your Jaeger. You wish you were stronger than you are— wish you could take on the tidal wave.

“Hey,” Barnes calls, urging you forward his perceptive, sharp eyes. “Stay with us.”

You quell the hurt and keep up.

At the end of the ramp, Tony Stark teeters on a crane. His face is covered by a thick iron mask and he’s welding something tiny on Orion Bravo’s left flank. Over the banging machinery and screeching blades of metal on metal, he yells, “Good to finally meet you, kid!”

You don’t get a chance to holler back. 

“Gotta say, Decima was one of my personal favorites,” and you flinch.

Nobody notices. Life moves on. Tony Stark does so even faster. 

“Still damn proud of her after all these years! I know exactly where she is in Oblivion Bay—if this—” he gestures vaguely to the three of you on the walkway, “—doesn’t work out, let me know and I can go get your girl. Sure, her chest’s all ripped out—” he motions to his pecs, and you recoil each time his blowtorch sizzles past, “—and I’d be breaking my back to get those pieces right— but hey, a little boob job isn’t gonna hurt anyone. If you ask me, people could use more of ‘em!”

You’re speechless. You finally meet the Tony Stark—the genius mind behind every single Jaeger. His endless vat of brilliance designed them, breathed them to life, equipped and armed them, made them perfect, and— boob job?

“What?” You whisper, feeling your entire body drain of warmth.

Rogers tucks his chin to his chest in an attempt to hide his smile. Barnes speaks up, dismantling the silence of your shock with strategic and considerate intention. He snorts a clipped sound at Stark and says simply, “He’s on speed. Don’t listen to him.”

Life is moving on all around you in rushes of sound and color. The noises of the Jaeger hangar blare in your ears. The blues of Barnes and Rogers’ eyes flash like lighthouse beams and you feel yourself ebb and flow in the current of time, like a buoy floating toward the shore, and suddenly— strangely— you realize you’re laughing.

They share looks before grinning themselves. You wipe the corners of your eyes with a final smirk and run your hands through your hair.

-

He was right: you hardly recognize yourself. Monotony has come and pass and now you find comfort in the routine. You’re stronger, too, hitting harder and moving faster, matching his tempo and technique. You parry his every punch, slip from his grasp, deflect his force with your skill.

There’s louder talk in the Shatterdome the closer you get to proving day. Your presence no longer feels uncertain.

“Stop dicking around, Steve.”

Barnes is leaning against the wall, watching the way Rogers pads around you like a panther. Two long strides and the heavy staff comes down an inch away from your forehead. He spins it in one hand like a drumstick, kicking his legs leisurely as if you’re no threat at all.

“Point,” Barnes comments. He’s acting as judge today, another perspective on the potential of compatibility. The Kwoon Room’s got your name on it next to a time slot, the official fight scheduled for tomorrow when you’ll be proving yourself in front of a crowd.

Rogers backs up with a chuckle, goes right too carefully, and you land on his thigh in retaliation. The smack sounds like it hurts. A few feet away, the Maximoff twins pause their sparring to look over in amusement.

“Point.”

A huff, he hisses between his teeth at the sting. “This how you wanna play?”

A return whack on your arm rings out before you can respond- much harder than you hit him originally. It burns. Steve fucking Rogers. Oh, you wanna play.

“Point. Hey, careful.”

You slap his bicep with your staff and it leaves a red welt on his skin.

“Watch it. You’re gonna mark each other up.”

He returns it to your lower back and you hit him next in the same spot. His mouth opens indignantly, but Barnes has had enough of childishness, coming up behind him and yanking the back of his head. Quick as a whip, he kicks Rogers’ knees out and picks up the weapon, aiming it at you menacingly.

His arm glimmers like a warning beacon.

“Drop it, sweetheart.” And you grin. 

Sweetheart. Barnes only says it when he’s feeling fully annoyed, which, both you and Rogers are particularly good at making him. If drift compatibility could be determined by how much two people can piss off another one, Orion would be looking at a new pilot right the fuck now.

You put both hands up in the air in mock surrender and he rolls your staff away with his foot. Rogers is on his back, chuckling and rubbing the back of his knees.

“Isn’t it obvious the two of you are suited?” Wanda speaks up from the corner.

Pietro stands by her side, fists wrapped in bandages on his hips. “Three of you, truly.”

“It’s just formality,” Rogers replies to Wanda, “Fury wants what he wants.”

“What Fury wants is for the two of you to get in the robot.”

From the shadows, because he’s a dramatic son of a bitch, the marshal steps forward. You immediately fix your posture, pulling Rogers up by the hand until he stretches himself tall next to you.

“I’ve seen what I needed to see.” The marshal looks you up and down, standing stiffly next to your awaiting co-pilot. “An estimated three weeks before the next breach and time is of the essence, Rangers.” He pulls his wrist from his sleeve and taps on the leather watch rhythmically, not bothering to give any of you another glance as he sweeps himself from the room.

“Hangar. Suit up five minutes ago.”

In his wake, your harried expression says it all: I’m not ready—I don’t think can. Your eyes frantically find them, emotions spiraling out of control, panicked and shaken. There is a logic to formality—you’re still working yourself up for the fight. You were supposed to have more time to prepare for the next part. Twelve hours or not, that’s still time.

But you’re being thrown into the cockpit now.

They compose themselves for your sake, all hints of levity gone. There’s determination and severity in their expressions.

In unison, because they know each other in ways you don’t yet, because they’ve been in each other’s heads, two pairs of controlled blue reply: You can. You must.

-

Rogers stares at your chin in the Drivesuit room, both stripped down to your underwear. His muscles are sweat-slick, dappled rose with exertion as the two of you shove your limbs into new skin until you’re encased in black circuitry. Technicians zip the first layer up, then retreat to other cabinets with haste.

Your hands are balled into fists, mouth set grimly as you fight the urge to scream or crumble. It’s been two years since you’ve been in battle armor. Even worse, it’s been two years since you’ve been in someone else’s head.

The polycarbonate shell gets snapped on. The spinal clamp sinks its hooks in. 

He steps forward, geared up in matching polished white. The technicians nod and leave the two of you to privacy knowing that in just a few moments there will be none left; the entire hangar will be an audience.

“Hey,” he calls, voice low and rigid, “You’ve done this before—you know how it works. It’s just a test run. No rabbits. No modesty reflex. Got it?”

The biggest setback to the neural handshake—besides chasing rabbits—mistakes made by rookies and greener Rangers, are what PPDC psychologists call the “modesty reflex”. It’s the instinctive shielding of personal information during a drift, cluttering your thoughts with barriers to keep someone out, and the exact thing that will shut down any chance of alignment. 

Simply put, it’s about sex.

“You just eye-fucked me in there. I think we’re past modesty.” A useless attempt at a joke to soothe your rattled mind. Sex is the lowest on the totem pole of things you give a fuck about in the drift. There’s nothing Rogers could learn about you that he likely hasn’t ever thought or experienced for himself. You’re both adults. Sex is merely biology.

He takes the helmets off their stands, holding one to you. Your fingers curl underneath and press tightly into the molding to keep themselves from shaking.

“It’s Tasha,” you whisper with a tremble, “I’ll find her in the drift. And—”

The admission makes him swallow, thick and nervous. You mean to say, and you’ll find Barnes.

It’s a trauma that’s been seared into his brain—a cruel truth to air—but it’s true all the same. The worry is that once you see Nat, he’ll see Barnes, and you’re afraid that after all this time avoiding her memory, you won’t be able to let her go again. Your weakness will dislodge his focus, ruin the drift, tear apart the alignment. Tear yourself apart along with it.

You’re afraid.

He’s still holding onto the other side of your helmet. His grip is tighter and firmer, and it keeps you steady enough.

“You can’t chase her,” he urges, “But if you do, I’ll come find you.”

He sounds sure, and you nod for both your sakes.

-

A hundred people stand in wait, hands on their hips in anticipation as Steve enters the cockpit with you by his side. Sparse clapping begins behind the glass. Engineers, flight crew, technicians, Rangers. Bucky is next to the LOCCENT officer, Shuri, at her monitors, watching electrical impulse levels rise and fall.

He’s spent all month with you, mentoring in some ways, giving space in others. He meant it on that god-awful hospital bed—get Steve killed and Bucky’s wrath would move heaven and earth to wreak vengeance. Steven Grant Rogers, his whole life being Bucky’s responsibility, now placed into two hands that are not his.

He looks at his left arm, the Stark-made prosthetic leering up at him like an excruciating reminder. Not his. Not his. He looks to the blue screen, projecting lines of data. Two bodies slowly arranging into one. One similar, one—not his.

He wants to trust you. He’s learning to trust you. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth.

-

The rig locks in place. Feet, shoulders, arms, backs. It’s comforting and jarring, facing the flickering projections of the heads-up display, seeing the skeleton of Orion Bravo so similar yet so alien from Decima’s. You don’t dare look to your right, don’t dare think about Nat’s face over his.

You miss her, god damn it, you miss her. A panicked breath. A low, quiet, whine you hardly register as yourself.

Shuri’s voice comes over the speaker. Her usual cheery tone has been replaced with firmer speech, all business, “Orion, are you ready?”

Rogers mouths calm down and punches the corresponding buttons. He gives you a nod and you return it in good faith. Calm down.

“Initiating Neural Handshake in three—” Shuri activates the system, “—two—” Electricity shoots up your spinal column.

The first rip of immersion is searing hot and freezing cold. You try to remind yourself you’ve done this before, that you know what to expect. It’s been done—yes—and it’s been done well.

Trust the drift. The drift is silence.

Your thoughts subdue as the first tendrils of Steve’s consciousness bleed into yours in the form of red-bricked alleyway and summertime. There’s a sweet breeze rushing over your face before time slows and the seconds stretch into years.

A silver bicycle. His feet on the metal pegs. Barnes, plump-faced and pink-nosed from sunshine, grinning and whooping. Seven and eight. On top off the world.  “—two—“

Past and present cease to exist. You’re in the sun, too. They’re older now. Thirteen, fourteen. Bruised from street fighting, sharing popsicles as both a treat and an icepack.

All at once, it comes. 

Art school, army, academy. Graduation, first drift, first drop. Barnes by his side every step of the way. They laugh, they cry. Flashes too highspeed to be wholly memory, but you feel it flooding and soaking your brain. You feel it like intuition. It burns. It chills. It’s gone. “—two—”

His hands become your hands. His body, your body. He’s swimming in your every thought. A flash of crimson streaks through your line of vision. You impulsively turn to face it. “—one—”

Hey! Let it go. It’s your voice and his voice blended. You listen, flinching at the abrupt sound, knee-jerk reactions firing off, fear beginning to chew at the center of your brain, spreading out slow and thick.

Don’t chase the rabbit. “—one—”

A figure appears at your side, tall and quiet. He’s half torn open, red like Nat, with big, ghostly irises peering down and you hear yourself calling his name:

Bucky?

Don’t! Steve demands, don’t look, please. I can’t— I can’t either. You quiet your pounding heart at his pleading, forcing the image from your mind.

Trust the drift.

Steve continues to sink in like a palm running from the edge of your temple to the back of your skull, tugging your head toward the blue sky of his eyes. It feels like his hand— it feels like your hand. Your body lifts, weightless, secured only by a single hold. He’s everywhere, inside your muscles, your pulse, your heartbeat, like he’s been a part of you your entire life. Like the way Natasha used to feel, he’s vivid and alive, thoroughly woven through.

Okay?

The two of you look each other without looking at each other. A nod of his head— your head— vaguely registered as real movements.

Shuri returns both of you to time’s fixed pace. Her voice lifts the trance.

“—Neural Handshake complete.”

Steve’s right arm moves forward. Yours continues the motion. Orion brandishes its shield in salute.

The drift is silent, but the entire facility has erupted into cheers.

-

“Yes! It’s good!” Shuri exclaims from her seat. A loud exhale followed by victorious punches at the air and she can’t help grinning so big her face begins to ache.

She looks over at Bucky, standing with a smile, both proud and pained, and places a gentle palm on his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says calmly, eyes still shut. “It’s good.”

[davidmann95]

Comics this week (12/16/2020)?

Iron Man #4: Still good! Every issue I remain surprised that this is staying good, and yet it does!

The Immortal Hulk #41: A real good revisitation from a completely different angle of the ‘here’s why regular superheroes can’t fix what’s going on here’ thread from way back in #7, and god between this and Empyre Ewing writes such a perfect Ben Grimm.

King In Black: The Immortal Hulk: Surprised this didn’t end up a direct follow-up on the dangling thread left behind from the Absolute Carnage tie-in, but this was excellent so I’m not complaining.

Solid Blood #17: A new Robert Kirkman comic (joined by Ryan Ottley) announced right before its release like Die! Die! Die! before it, this one has the added gimmick of dropping its seventeenth issue with no preamble. The actual comic...well, the actual comic is basically 1963 for the 90s in the most fun way (it’s even printed on authentically fitting paper stock!), but the seeds of something much stranger are established and I have almost no clue what to expect next, quite literally. It must be nice to have that sort of fuck-you Walking Dead money, and I’m glad Kirkman’s choosing to do something as weird and interesting as this with it.

We Live #3: This one felt somewhat disjointed, but still an excellent experience.

Stillwater #4: I cannot believe I’m getting and enjoying so many horror comics on a regular basis now.

Once & Future #14: I keep saying I’m appreciating and decently enjoying this book while not connecting with it, but maybe it is winning me over.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #4: Get this book.

Decorum #6: I swear to god this series might be the prettiest comic of all time.

Commanders in Crisis #3: I didn’t review this one for AIPT, but this one’s a bit of a bridge between the first two issues tonally, both as grounded and as weird as the book has been thus far. I’m ready for it to return to something more bombastic, but I still have zero doubt this is going to be an all-timer when it wraps. No character interview with Ritesh Babu on AIPT this month, BUT in its place @deathchrist2000 has interviewed Prizefigher for Comic Book Herald on the subject of an in-universe James Bond novel written by Steven Moffat, and it rules.

Second Coming: Only Begotten Son #1: To borrow a line from @deathchrist2000, that sure is the death of Krypton as portrayed by the writer of The Flintstones. That’s the opposite of a complaint for me, but that’s sure what it is.

Superman #28: Kind of a perfect ending to Bendis’s tenure, in that it ends up totally whiffing some great ideas even if you can only mind so much given the quality of the character insight with the narration, but then there’s a Superman Moment so perfect it breaks your heart. Very glad Bendis will keep writing him in his half-announced Justice League with Marquez, and that he said today he’ll keep writing him elsewhere as well (I continue to assume he’s working on a Future State-era Jon as Superman book). Let’s see how well Action can put even more of a bow on it next week even with that art holding it back.

Batman #105: Does the ending here totally make sense? Ehhh. Am I willing to forgive any lapses in logic that get us way more Ghost-Maker? Hell yes. Speaking of which, he and Bruce totally used to be a thing off-panel, right? That’s the vibe I got from the opening in a BIG way.

Catwoman #28: I’ve been saying I’ve been loving it but also been waiting for what it looks like when it gets out from under Brubaker’s shadow, and I think I’m starting to see it, and it’s definitely my jam.

The Batman’s Grave #12: So someone either didn’t see or didn’t care that I explained I had already checked with my store to ensure my purchase of this wouldn’t result in any money going to Warren Ellis, so they messaged me spoilers for the ending of the issue in an attempt to ‘dissuade me’ from any further interest. A. Wherever the motives there are coming from, incredible dick move, for the love of god don’t do this. B. They misunderstood what happened in the ending? Wild. Anyway, it’s fine but also Ellis’s fourth-best Batman comic, strange if not at all undeserved that his now presumed/hopeful final Big Two comic, intended as a huge prestige Batman perennial (still confused why it wasn’t Black Label) and sure to forever be pushed as such if not for outside circumstances, ended up one of his passable third-tier works, destined to be remembered only as “that Batman comic DC had to finish publishing even after it turned out Warren Ellis was a piece of shit”.

Rorschach #3: Standard policy regarding my comments on this series applying: it was good.

Dark Nights: Death Metal #6: This one...kinda blew? Totally perfunctory moving-the-pieces into place issue for the most part, one or two nice moments aside. What a disappointing capstone to a story from 2017 to now I largely loved, hope it at least delivers a few haymakers with the finale.

Tales of the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths: Mixed feelings. The beginning and ending are the sort of slaughter in mass of super-dopes without fanfare and on such a scale that it reminds me of World’s Funnest doing the exact same scenes for comedy, but that middle chunk? By god, Orlando makes me give a shit about the JSA, and that’s no mean feat, plus nice to see him write a few great Superman bits on his way out the door. Speaking of which, I’m mainly parsing this issue as an expression of Orlando’s bitterness over said exit and his time with DC as a comic about a big swaggering puffed-up dumbass living for destruction before whom our heroes our powerless, and a man has to sacrifice himself for a queer kid in servitude to it so that they can have a future and keep building that world. I liked it in balance, but I think I found it more interesting than good.

(Since I’m mentioning two Orlando books in here, worth noting I read this week his and Ricardo López Ortiz’s The Pull on Comixology. I’m not clear if it was released in single issues - I can’t quite wrap my head around TKO’s publishing model - but it’s basically an unholy mash between shonen manga, grungy noir crime comics, and a Crisis, and it rules and you should get it.)

The Green Lantern Season Two #10: What a strange, messy, fascinating capstone to Morrison’s DC work this series has turned out to be, and holy cow how has this been Liam Sharp lately? When did he get on this amazing Frazer Irving shit? And how is Ultrawar gonna happen and be resolved entirely within #12, unless it goes for a more abstract “The Ultrawar was really inside us all along!” conclusion?

[eastonia-blog]

I’m going to do a weird.

I know a whole lot of us are stuck at home due to the COVID19 outbreak and all our respective governments attempting to flatten the curve. So I’m going to break out my VAST library of fanfiction recommendations for you to read! Please bear in mind that my tastes in fics are not necessarily like yours so the following 15 Fandom reccs might be hit or miss. All ships and above T ratings will be tagged with brackets, all crossovers will be mentioned in those same brackets. Also, if I mention it’s part of a series, I’m not just recommending the fic I mentioned, I’m recommending the whole series. I’ve tried to recommend a different author’s fic each time. So! Let’s start with the 3 fandoms I mention in my blog description.

1) ATLA Fate Deferred (Zutara) Aang remains in the iceberg ten years longer. Sozin’s comet comes, the world keeps turning with no Avatar to save it, and by the time he’s finally found by a waterbender and her Fire Nation husband, a lot has changed. [Zutara established relationship full series rewrite; Now on Book II: Earth]  Cheating at Pai Sho (Canon Divergence) “You said you were the Avatar!” “…I lied?” Aang doesn’t get rescued in episode two, and no one’s seen him go glowy yet… so he starts bluffing. Hard. Or: “The Avatar joins Zuko’s quest to find the Avatar.” In which Zuko doesn’t join the Gaang, the Gaang joins Zuko.  The Undying Fire: Blood and Fire (First in the Undying Fire Series, eventual Zutara) Book 1. In which rescuing the Avatar from Pohuai Stronghold doesn’t end so well. It’s a tough life being a banished prince trying to get home, especially when the Avatar just wants to be your friend and keeps making everything confusing. Oh, and did Zuko mention he somehow healed the kid? Yeah, that happened. Stalking Zuko (First in the Stalking Zuko Series, eventual Zutara) Katara has developed a new hobby. At the Western Air Temple she takes to stalking Zuko. Much silliness and shenanigans follow. In chapter 20: Katara and Zuko return home to the others. Katara hates the F word and she comes to a decision regarding Zuko.  Embers (Canon divergence) Dragon’s fire is not so easily extinguished; when Zuko rediscovers a lost firebending technique, shifting flames can shift the world…  2) Percy Jackson and the Olympians The Father (Percabeth in the GFFA, eventual Anidala) It all started with a wish, but because it was Percy Jackson it couldn’t have been a friendly goddess granting him a wish. No, it had to be Nemesis, goddess of revenge and balance. Now Percy and Annabeth are stuck in a strange new galaxy right when an ancient and powerful darkness finally begins to stir.  Glass Figures (MCU Mashup) I lifted my gun, pointing it towards the minefield of shattered fragments, and kicked the small coffee table out of the way.Only to stare down at an awfully familiar face, which split into a somewhat lopsided grin. The intruder raised his hands in a mocking surrender. //“Long time no see, dude.” //I lowered the gun. “What the hell are you doing in South Peru?” //Or in which Clint Barton and Percy Jackson have a long personal history that starts in high school. All Together, Cousins (Canon divergence) When Thalia ran away with her toddler brother, Jason, she slowly gathered her cousins: she and her cousins being Big Three children. As Jason gets older and their motley group expands to six, Thalia resigns herself to the fact that she won’t always be the leader of the pack. As she accepts that, something more is coming, able to challenge even the gods above. A Crown of Golden Leaves (Historical AU) Annabeth, a Lady from the declining polis of Athens, must marry the Heir Apparent of Rome to save the rapidly expanding world from a threat even the gods couldn’t foresee.  Deluge (Percy in the Arrowverse) Barry has to deal with yet another Metahuman that Zoom has pitted against him. But this ‘Metahuman’ is an unwilling pawn in Zoom’s plan and really wants to find a way around killing the Scarlet Speester. But how can he when Zoom is holding something against him? 

3) DC Firework (First in the Sparks in the Dark Series) Orphaned and removed from the only life he’s ever known, Dick feels like there’s no light left for him in the world. His new benefactor, however, still sees something worth saving… Chronological beginning of the Spark in the Dark series.   Iron, Fire, Mirror-Glass After a brutal confrontation with Bane, Bruce comes away with a broken spine and the certainty that his days as Batman are over. An unexpected discovery offers him another chance—but at what price? The story of a man who risks his soul for the sake of his mission, the dangerous creature he names Robin, and the unlikely partnership that will shape the legend of Gotham’s Dark Knight.  Get Back Up There was a mole, one who played a long game. The team was betrayed, crushed. Robin nearly died. What are they going to do now? Only one chirped the answer. Get back up. WARNING: lots of talking, little action, many follow ups  Five Times …Five times Damian thought of Dick Grayson as his father, and the one time Dick thought of Damian as his son. Future-fic. YJ characters will show up later. Batman!Dick and Damian as Robin. With guest appearances from Jason, Tim, Cass, and Steph.  Unveiling the Mystery Series of one-shots about the team learning a little about Robin (Dick Grayson).   With all the fics, I heavily suggest you also read what else these authors have to offer in their archive.

And now here’s the plethora of other fandoms I read fics in under the cut!

4) Harry Potter The Horse (Mature) Looking after a Muggle animal should be easy compared to saving Hogwarts from Voldemort. Harry and Draco might disagree with that. Featuring Luna, Marauders, peppermints and, of course, a tall, black, badtempered horse named Simon. The Potions Master’s Nephew An accident occurs and Professor Snape finds himself trapped in his fifteen-year-old body. Enrolled into Harry Potter’s fifth year, he is forced to hide his true identity. Girls, drama and teenage angst do not bode well with Severus. Keeping Up with the Grangers (Dramione, Mature) Mr. Malfoy, I invite you and your mother to tea next Tuesday, May 25th at 2o’clock to discuss recent events. Dr. Helen Granger //…  …// He glances at the boxy too-uniform numbers flashing on the face of Richard’s radio. It’s nearly noon, and he should be getting ready to leave; but there is still a harsh tension in his shoulders and neck that he wants to work out before Hermione finds him. It is, after all, Tuesday; and while his Tuesdays were designated ‘tea with Helen’ days previously, they are now ‘lunch with Granger’ days, ever since the chance meet-up with the Weasel’s wife and the insufferable swot herself. Faceless (Dramione, Mature) New year. New love. New threat. A powerful enemy is on the rise, and Hermione Granger finds herself intertwined in a relationship with Draco Malfoy – only she doesn’t know it’s him. / / RUNNER-UP: Enchanted Awards Summer 2017 for Best Relationship Development 

5) Devil May Cry And the Rest is Silence (Mature) The destruction of the Saviour wasn’t the end. Too many people had too much invested.  An Uncle’s Thoughts Dante’s thoughts and feelings regarding one particular quarter-demon kid. Vignettes that span from the start of Devil May Cry 4 through Devil May Cry 5, and beyond. Fortuna’s Fool Events after DMC5 with flashbacks to the events we briefly see in DMC4SE only with Vergil telling Dante all about Nero’s mother. Family ties are so complicated, aren’t they? Family of Happenstance Some orphans have happy endings, getting adopted or finding their family. Having a demon slaying half devil for a father tends to throw a tiny monkey wrench in the process. AU Father!Dante, Son!Nero. Rated because hunters don’t exactly have clean mouths.     

6) Power Rangers (Focus on Might Morphin’ and Dino Thunder teams) Of Love and Bunnies Set just after Dino Thunder. When Angel Grove announces another Power Rangers Day, Tommy takes the Dino Rangers to Angel Grove for a reunion with the original team… including Kimberly. TommyKim, JasonTrini, KiraTrent. The Reason (Part 1 of eclyptyk neo‘s Dino Thunder AU) COMPLETED. DT. AU. Years go by as Tommy Oliver becomes accustomed to his job as a teacher. A person from his past returns. The new ranger team grows interested in its outcome. How will these new changes between rangers young and old be? Sequel: Ordinary World Change of Hearts (Wild Force)   PRWF: When Jindrax and Toxica set out to find themselves, they had no idea that their greatest adventure was only beginning. Chronology Conundrum DT/MMPR - After a strange mutation is released in Reefside, the five Dino Thunder Ranges find themselves thrown back into the past, circa 1995 Angel Grove. Somehow, they have to figure out how to make it back to their present without destroying it or themselves. And if they succeed, they must navigate the consequences of their actions in the past, while still protecting Reefside. 7) Merlin (Mergana leaning) The Other Version of Events What if Merlin and Arthur had met when they were children? What if a mysterious illness fell over Ealdor and Merlin was blamed? What if Arthur had actually felt sorry for him? What if destiny was thrown at them in a whole new way? AU, no slash, Bromance, A/G M/M… You get the idea.  Flipping the Coin, Part 2 of Coins (2nd story in the Coins Sage but 1st multichapter) Merlin and Gwaine are sent on an adventure to discover their past and stay one step ahead of Morgana. Fearing for them, Arthur and the other knights set out to find them, but soon discover much more than they bargained for. Alt version Season 5. Sequel to “Two Sides of the Coin” Angst, Adventure, BAMF, Bromance, Redemption, Twists on Arthurian Legends.  The King’s Legacy “I hope you are rolling in your grave brother, I will find your son, and I hope he is like you. I will ruin him and gain a lovely weapon in the process.” Cenred spat on the grave, “I win Balinor.” .Sequel posted.  The Warlock’s Quickening (First in the Albion Cycle) Merlin might have come to Camelot to master his magic, not to end the Purge, but he’s not going to sit idly by while his kin suffer. Oh no. Whether it’s releasing a chained dragon, smuggling sorcerers out of the city, or trying to change Arthur’s mind, he’s fighting back. Now. Series rewrite beginning after 1X02 featuring Proactive!Merlin. AU. 

8) Dragon Ball Under the Radar (Gohan/Videl) Gohan is living life as a secret superhero, but Videl is making it her business to find him out! How will Gohan manage her and Saiyan hormones? Will he fess up? Or will he try to live his life -puts on sunglasses- “Under the Radar”? *applause* Thank you! Thank you! And GOODNIGHT! G/V obviously. Rated T because adult situations and language in later chapters. COMPLETE! Golden God (Mature) To save the lives of millions, Gohan is forced to expose himself as a Super Saiyan, proving that his tricks are indeed very real. And it drives the whole world to insanity. Warning; becomes a little graphic goes as it on. Walking Towards the Sunset Bardock’s curse sends him to a mysterious place where weaklings are abundant and an odd trio claim to be his family. Eventually giving in, he stays with them to discover that Earth is more unlucky than Planet Vegeta. Impatiently waiting for his son’s arrival, Bardock has to survive a new life with his estranged family and a certain girl set on finding the truth. (Saiyaman-Buu Saga) Plus One (Gohan/Videl, Mature) Tired of being pursued by the gold-digging, glory-seeking, Satan obsessed freaks of the world, Videl will resort to the only method open to a celebrity like her to find Mr. Right. 9) Sailor Moon (Mainly SenshiShitennou) The Crystal Age (Rewritten) In an alternate version of Season 1, as a result of Beryl’s curse at the end of the Silver Age, Tuxedo Mask and the reincarnated Shitennou are fighting a losing battle to save the city and find the lost princess. Sailor Moon has disappeared, Sailor V is working on her own, and the other Senshi are still just ordinary girls. Sequel to The Silver Age. MxU, SxS. Please R&R. Hooligans It’s after Galaxia and time for University. The Senshi and Mamoru settle into life in Great Britain and meet some old friends. Inner Senshi x Shitennou and Usagi x Mamoru. Modern Timeline. Strong language, crude humour, hilarity and sexual situations abound, be warned, there will be some heavy angst later on too. Never Gone R A single choice can change the course of Fate: a choice, say, like waking up on time. If that choice were made, Chiba Mamoru would never meet Tsukino Usagi; but, he WOULD meet Unami Seiya and the burden of Terra’s future would fall onto his shoulders. Never Gone AU. The Dinner Hour (Part of The Dinner Series) It can be hard to be patient in the face of eternity. But good things come to those who search and refuse to give up on their dreams. R/J. (Sequels: Dinner And Again, Dinner at Last completed!)

10) Les Miserables (Warning: Enjonine ahead) When Apollo Met Persephone (1st of the 1830s AU) The revolution, or at least the first part of it succeeds. Enjolras confronts political and personal realities. Eponine is suddenly faced with more opportunities than she ever thought. Can they guide each other in a world that needs them as much as they need it? Les Choses Qui Sont Arrivées Après “You must flee Paris at once.” Enjolras and Eponine. The thief and the leader, the marble Apollo and the dark street girl… two wholly different survivors of the Revolution are forced together under a dangerous circumstance. Can they successfully fight their demons as well as each other? Neither of them knows quite what is going on, or what will happen when they figure it out.     Teacher of Man The first time Enjolras and Éponine meet, it is their wedding day. (arranged marriage AU) My Best Friend’s Wedding Éponine Thenardiér always thought that Marius would eventually come back to her, until the wedding invitation came in the mail. Now she is going to do everything that she can to get him back from that blonde tart Cosette. Nothing goes according to plan and even her partner in crime Enjolras is becoming an obstacle. E/E. 11) Naruto Beginnings  Naruto was six years old when he met the man who changed his life. …Now he’s kind of just hoping he survives it.  An Inch of Gold (Part of the Legacy of Fire series) Team 7 is sent on a mission to investigate a disturbance outside of the village, where they encounter an unconscious girl in a crater. The mysterious Sarada insists she’s a shinobi from the Hidden Leaf trying to rescue her teammates. When the team discovers she possesses a Sharingan, things become even more unbelievable. [Part of the Legacy of Fire Series]     Guilt of Innocence Uchiha Sasuke abandoned Konoha in his persute of power to join Orochimaru. However, this was only a cover story. In fact, on Tsunade’s orders, Sasuke is to act as Konoha’s spy within Otogakure. One agreement and his path had changed forever…  Blind (SasuSaku) It was almost time, Orochimaru was going to take his body as a vessel. He hated being used…he refused to be used. With that thought, he took the kunai in his hand and slashed across his eyes.     

12) Legend of Zelda (Zelink) The Conviction to Save The princess is dead. Those are the words being whispered in the streets. A great shudder sweeps across the land of Hyrule as news of its beloved monarch’s passing spreads like wildfire. In the midst of the ensuing chaos, a humble village doctor happens upon the body of a gravely injured young woman on the road. Legend of the Miraculous (Concepts taken from Miraculous Ladybug)   A legend retold through many a tale, but when a darkness resurfaces after so long, Athena and Sheikhan Wolf must return again! Will Link and Zelda be able to combat this threat? and will they figure out each others’ identities? Come inside and take a look! Hit List AU. It all started as a typical day at Ordon High, until a sudden school shooting turns the life of Link Hero upside down. Now, surrounded by enemies, can Link save his friends and escape the school alive? (Edit 10/2015) Counting Stars Link finds himself caught in the middle of an elaborate gang war. Lucky for him, being a B-list superhero makes that predicament a tiny bit easier. / Modern AU ZeLink, inspired by Spider-Man. Under Revision! 13) Hunger Games Vox Libertas Due to things playing out a bit differently in the last few minutes of the Quell, the rescue also goes a bit differently than expected. Now Peeta has the responsibility of representing the Rebellion thrust upon him. No pressure. *AU Mockingjay. Part I of Dandelion in the Storm AU. Mainly Peeta POV.*     Someone To Watch Over Me (Everlark, 1st in the Series) A HG rewrite. What would happen if Peeta was just a little bit bolder, and Katniss a little less emotionally confused? You’d be surprised. Let the Games begin. This is an AU, but I’ve tried to stay as canon as possible. Rated T to be safe.     Enthralled (Everlark, Gadge, Mature) Thrall (þræll), n., a slave or serf in Viking Age Scandinavia. After a successful raid, Gale is rewarded with a slave girl: the Saxon noblewoman Madge. Meanwhile, shieldmaiden Katniss grows closer to captive monk Peeta. Gadge/Everlark historical AU with background Odesta and other pairings.   Katniss, Vampire Slayer (Mature) “Into every generation a slayer is born.” the man droned out slowly, quietly, in a way that made her think he was quoting something. “One girl in all the world. A chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.” //  Haymitch mocked. “One girl in all the world. Ain’t I just lucky it had to be you.” 14) How To Train Your Dragon Becoming Lífþrasir (Hiccstrid) People often wondered what kept Hiccup going during those early years. When that single, most-treasured thing is taken from him, there is little left to keep him on Berk. The day Stoick returns, and the day before the best recruit is finally chosen, Hiccup leaves Berk; little knowing that he would one day return under … strange circumstances. H/A, R/F, rated for violence.     HTTYD Easter Special Sequel to “The Unholy Offspring,” set after the season finale. When Alvin the Treacherous threatens Asgard with a rogue demigod’s help, Hiccup and Berk’s Dragon Riders must prevent an early Ragnorak. It doesn’t help that Alvin has learned to tame dragons, and that the only god that can help Hiccup is a sullen, suspicious boy named Mud. Happy Eos week, Hiccup!     The Blacksmith’s Apprentice (Hiccstrid) AU. Hiccup never took the shot on that fateful night-and the war continued. Three years later, Berk is beset by dragon raids and hostile tribes while the boy who should have saved the island is merely the assistant in the forge. With only Astrid as his friend, fate gives Hiccup one more chance to end the war and become the hero he was meant to be. Hiccstrid. Snap (Hiccstrid, Mature) He was just supposed to fix her back, and she doubted that at first. She definitely didn’t expect to get dragged into the ethics of a girlish crush. Modern AU. 15) Star Wars Double Agent Vader The one where Vader turned double agent for the Rebellion about three years after ROTS, and Leia is now his primary contact with the Rebellion. Or,  a man attempts to escape slavery by turning into one of his culture heroes, teaching his daughter how to do magic, killing people, and flower arranging. A New History During a heated battle, Dooku escaped into the past! Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker follow to stop him, but discover that Dooku went to the past where Obi-Wan is a young padawan to a very much alive Qui-Gon Jinn. Now, the two must go undercover to stop Dooku’s plans from coming to fruition in order to save not only the future, but also young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. Pulse AU for ROTS. As Padme’s life hangs in the balance on Mustafar, a stream of brilliant light causes Anakin to reconsider his choices. Jedi Shmi AU Shmi leaves Tatooine with Anakin and goes to the Jedi Temple.

[sharkbroz]

Previously on “Srash” - Part 1

Time to recap the past years since my last activity.

Might as well split this in two parts because it’s A LOT that happened.

So in 2018 my entire writing turned into a huge fucking mess to put it short. Nothing worked out, stories I established fell apart even before they reached the stage beyond concept and I’ve been trapped in this (maybe the word is correct, don’t know but it feels right) limbo of never getting back to writing at all.

And with Young Justice (we come to that later my dear reader) Season 3 still nowhere in close sight, I decided to watch Voltron after I dumped it in 2017 because it felt too childish and easy and too boring because the good guys always win; not my favorite kind of trope.

But here comes the thing with Voltron, namely that once I watched it again I absolutely LOVED it except the second half of season seven. Even the final seasond despite being hated from everyone made me happy because the story and journey has been such a joy for me, especially with all the characters I met and fell in love with.

Voltron also got me back into writing, after I threw all my concepts for a comic book (DC Universe) related story out of the window and focused on sci-fi. Went well to be honest, although now when looking back at it it wasn’t that good but for me it was amazing to get back into the seat!

A bit later I even got into some sick world building and began to create a sci-fi universe of my own which I really loved as well as all the characters, races, politics, concepts and so on. For some reason though I cancelled that then because I ran into so many problems in some scenes, rewrote some scenes over and over and over plus some awkward dicking simply to gain attraction from readers (you know how it works).

In the end I gave up on that adn never got back to it although this world still occupies some space in my mind and thoughts.

Now we are in early 2019 and oh boy, finally, after one and a half years with several delays, Young Justice Outsiders (Season 3) came out and...

What the exact fuck was that? Saving time and quote myself from my diary after I watched the first three episodes: It's "Okay" and by far not as spectacular as the first episodes from the first or second season. Also the tone is quite too dark for me. All in all not what I expected after four years waiting.

All in all that season has been nothing but a disappointing, disgusting and absolute waste of time level mess of a show that did not reached ONE of my expectations. As a result I fell into another writer’s blockade where Srash (again) got completely untouchable and I tried to compensate with a new OC to distract myself.

Didn’t work out. Not at all.

It’s only thanks to Voltron, especially Honerva, that got me through that year. Wrote a fanfic in that year, in only two weeks which is amazing. The story is called “Zaiforge - A Voltron Story” and for those who are interest, it’s linked there.

Long story short, my entire Galra Lore developing in 2019 is up until now the one that works the best from my lores because Voltron at least for me didn’t fuck up as hard as Young Justice did.

Making it short: Young Justice Outsiders made me depressive in some way and destroyed my entire drive for the hero theme in writing. Hell I even stopped reading comics because of that! And I still got four issues laying around and only ONE of them got read halfway.

And here’s where Part 1 ends. We are now somewhere around Augst/September of 2019 and to give you a little preview on Part 2 coming tomorrow:

I got a job!

[franzbiblio]

Where in the comics are Professor X and Magneto?

So it occurs to me that those not up-to-date with comics might be interested in a "where are they now?" for Professor X and Magneto, especially if you might be interested in jumping into the breach with this new launch of House of X/Power of X making it a bit easier than usual to jump into the insanity that is comics in general and X-Men comics in particular.

The short answer is that there isn't really a status quo established for this particular era of X-Men as of yet and as for Magneto and Charles Xavier's potential place in the coming status quo, I can't even really predict, which is both exciting and terrifying if I'm being honest.

Magneto:

I will start with Magneto who is a little more complicated to explain how he got where he is, but I do at least have a vague notion of the general trajectory we might be seeing from him in the next several months:

Until recently Magneto has spent most of his time running about being an anti-hero type from leading a distinctly shady team of the X-men in Uncanny X-Men (2016) #1-19, until Psylocke (Betsy Braddock) decided that he had been too shady and stabbed him and apparently killed him.

This being comics means that he got better immediately, but decided to not make this fact known and instead served as the secret mentor for the teenage time-displaced original five X-men in the pages of X-Men: Blue (2017) #1-28, that is until during the arc during issues #23-28 (collected in the X-Men trade titled Cry Havok) when Magneto is shown disillusioned with trying to be hero because his teenaged wards had run off into space (let the record show this is not the first time that Magneto has been driven back to villainy because his wards have a predilection for running off to space without so much as leaving a note) during a huge international crisis leaving Magneto to pick up the pieces in the only way he knows: being shady. This is then exacerbated when at the end of the arc Magneto is forced to kill brainwashed mutants he was attempting to save, fleeing to the future (there was a time machine in the basement… let’s not go into it) where he learned that him being an asshole is the only way the future will be saved, he then returns to the present seeking revenge on Emma Frost who was complicit in the whole brainwashing mutants thing. The original five X-Men freshly back from space objected to this whole killing Emma Frost thing and Magneto and the original five make their formal break in X-Men: Blue (2017) #31.

We are then shown Magneto fully returning to villainy with the destruction of a research facility, killing all the scientists inside, but because this is Magneto there are sympathetic "trying to prevent the future destruction of mutantkind" motivations behind this, but still kind of a dick move. He is then shown with a new Brotherhood of Mutants on a new Asteroid M (you know the secret asteroid base he has because he is not a dramatic bitch at all) setting him up clearly as a future threat for the X-Men.

Then Uncanny X-Men relaunched with an event called X-Men Disassembled that spanned Uncanny X-Men (2018) #1-10 where Magneto appeared as the brainwashed, bearded minion of Jean Grey's sort of alternate universe son who is now a reality warping messiah figure, Nate Grey AKA X-Man. While Magneto shakes off the brainwashing in Uncanny X-Men #10, joining the X-Men in attacking said reality warping messiah, he, along with every other mutant present, end up sucked into some kind of pocket dimension/alternate universe (it's a little unclear at the moment what exactly it is) and the results of this is being explored in the crossover event Age of X-Man. Magneto specifically is a principal character in the Marvelous X-Men (2019) #1-5 miniseries, which depicts Magneto as a part of the X-Men team in this alternate universe utopia with no memories of the regular universe. He has a half cape with a fluff and is pretty dapper, so I'm a fan. The last few issues have shown him along with the rest of the cast beginning to have flashbacks of the other universe and begin to doubt the Utopia.

This miniseries will be running until sometime in June where we can only assume that all the mutants currently trapped in the pocket dimension will return to the regular universe with their restored memories. It's impossible to know what the exact fallout of this will be.

It seems unlikely to me that Magneto would go back to being an ally of the X-Men after all the build-up to making him a proper "villain" again. They released a whole series dedicated to X-Men "villains" one-shots called X-Men: Black and there was a Magneto issue and the cover of Uncanny X-Men #13 that came out in March sorted Magneto along with other X-Men villains like Sinister, Apocalypse, and Cassandra Nova.

Most likely Magneto coming out of Age of X-Man will go back to being a “villain”, though whether future writers will necessarily follow-up on the story threads that were left dangling by the end of X-Men: Blue, I can only speculate.

For Charles Xavier:

So, Charles is a little easier to explain insofar as he was dead for a lot of the past decade of comics.

For those unaware during the Avengers v. X-Men crossover event back in 2012, Charles Xavier died at the hands of one of his oldest students and son-guy-figure, Scott Summers, in Scott's defense he was possessed by the phoenix force at the time and felt really, really bad about it after (like not bad enough to stop being part of the rad mutant rebelz, but you know, bad).

From thereon Charles would only appear in a limited capacity as some kind of ghost or psychic shadow or whatever you want to call it. Most prominently Red Skull would grave rob his brain and use it to manipulate the world in Uncanny Avengers (2012) eventually leading to the crossover event AXIS.

He'd also pop up as a spirit in heaven alongside Kurt Wagner in Amazing X-Men (2013) #2 and #5 and Charles's son David Haller would spend the majority of X-Men Legacy (2012) fighting against a malicious psychic entity that looked like Charles Xavier but is actually more of a manifestation of David's hatred... or something (the actual details are kept purposely vague).

It's not until Astonishing X-Men (2017) does the actual Charles Xavier appear and even then it's ambiguous until basically the end of the series whether it is really Charles Xavier back (it... mostly is) but in #7 he rejects being called Professor X, saying it doesn't feel right (I mean he's thirty, has hair and is drawn by Phil Noto, it makes a person feel different) and instead adopted the moniker X. At the end of the arc in Astonishing X-Men (2017) #12, Charles forgoes returning to the X-Men, claiming that Kitty was doing fine without him and then wipes everyone's mind who had been involved in the matter except Psylocke (Betsy Braddock), asking her to keep an eye on him and stop him if he's being too shady (sound familiar?) and then just vaguely refers to his "new dream".

Our next and as of writing last time seeing resurrected Charles is in Astonishing X-Men (2017) Annual #1 written by Matthew Rosenberg. It's a standalone story where the four of five original X-Men (Scott wasn't there because he was busy being dead or effectively dead at the time, I mean he was a student of Charles Xavier, he learned from the best) meet up and have a bitchfest about their fucked up lives. This is interrupted by Charles just strolling in, not explaining how he got back, stealing their wine and sort of apologizing for involving them in traumatizing superhero shenanigans.

He then promptly takes them out for some family bonding through more traumatic superhero shenanigans that ends with a warehouse full of people dead. It's capped off with Charles mind-wiping them, but they then get to have a do-over reunion dinner where they show that they can appreciate what they've accomplished instead of dwelling on missed opportunities, which I interpret as Charles's messed up apology to them, which is kind of sweet while being really messed up. Which I think is kind of what this take on Xavier is going for. He was trapped in the astral plane with the Shadow King for effectively centuries so I guess strange coping mechanisms are to be expected.

So with Cyclops back from the dead in Uncanny X-Men (2019) #11, it seems that some kind of reunion between the two is inevitable and it's more of a question of when, under what circumstances and will Scott get to remember it even happened after? With Legion (David Haller) being a part of how Nate Grey was able to suck everyone into Age of X-Man, I wouldn't be surprised if Xavier plays some key role in getting the X-Men back from the Age of X-Men. I really doubt that Xavier will blame Cyclops for the whole killing him dead with cosmic fire thing, but other than that I can't say.

The Charles Xavier we are getting is definitely a darker take on the character who is more comfortable with taking extreme measures, but how exactly this plays into what his "new dream" is remains to be seen. I definitely don't want Xavier to get too much exposure, he really works best right now as an enigma doing his own thing, with the Astonishing X-Men Annual playing this up to good effect with Charles being used sparingly but completely stealing the scene when he does appear. Since Rosenburg that wrote the Annual and is now writing Uncanny X-Men I'm feeling slightly optimistic, though I can't help but be worried that since things established in Astonishing (like Warren being in control of his Archangel persona) was ignored by later writers.

In a previous X-Men Monday on Adventures in Poor Taste (http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2019/03/04/x-men-monday-featuring-jordan-d-white-2-nightcrawlers-soul-sacrificial-goats-and-weezer/) senior editor in charge of the X-Men line at Marvel, Jordan White mentioned that Professor X will be back and play an important role in the future of the line and included an image of X, but absolutely no more context on what his role might be. So at least he doesn't seem lost in limbo.

In the back of my head I can't help but vaguely hope that since this Xavier is darker and seems to be cleaning up loose ends in secret that might threaten his students that we could see him joining up in some capacity with newly villainous Magneto since we've had Magneto join Xavier's side several times but never seen the reverse. That could at least be novel, but at the same time I can't really see Charles fighting against his old students even if he thought it was in their best interest as we saw in his emotional breakdown during Avengers v. X-Men.

From what we’ve seen of the promo materials from House of X/Powers of X, I kind of doubt that direction, Hickman has been making vague references to X trying to take the X-Men in a new direction, I guess that “new dream” vaguely referred to at the end of Astonishing.

All of this being a long-winded 1.5k way to say: we'll have to wait and see.  

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Four (23.52% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Loads of fun, though tonally dissonant; works best on first viewing. Easily the superior film of the Thor franchise, though that’s not a huge achievement considering its predecessors.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Sigh.

Female characters:

Hela.

Scrapper 142 (I know, she is credited as Valkyrie, but since the name is never used to address her in the film it doesn’t count by the rules of this blog; if she didn’t happen to be referred to by her scrapper number a few times, she wouldn’t count as a named character at all).

Topaz.

Natasha Romanoff.

Male characters:

Thor.

Surtur.

Skurge.

Loki.

Stephen Strange.

Odin.

Volstagg.

Hogun.

The Grandmaster.

Carlo.

Korg.

Bruce Banner.

Heimdall.

OTHER NOTES:

The use of Immigrant Song is my favourite thing about this movie, to be honest. I don’t mean that as an insult, it’s just such a good choice.

The inclusion of Doctor Strange in this film feels like a pointless misstep, a distraction at what is really a vital early point in establishing tone, especially considering this useless scene is what leads us in to...

...the literal death of Odin and introduction of Big Bad Hela, all of which should be emotional and intense and is instead flat and dissonant in the extreme. Watching this for the first time, I was very concerned that the whole film was just gonna end up gimmicky and soulless. While it does pick up, I was also not wrong about that early assessment.

Not that I was attached to Thor’s friends from the previous films, but they sure do just kill them off without fanfare, except for Sif who just doesn’t appear at all (logically, we should assume she dies off-screen, otherwise there’s no reason for her not to be up-front with Thor at the end of the movie). Fandral doesn’t even get a line in before he croaks, that’s how irrelevant these franchise-veteran characters are. Emotional engagement in plot and character is for chumps, anyway.

*whispers* Jeff Goldblum is here.

“Piss off, ghost!”

Hulk reveal is pretty solid, if you manage not to have been spoiled (a tall order, since it was in the promos).

Heimdall is still the MVP of the Thor franchise.

Can’t believe it took this long for any movie to squeeze some real fun and heart out of the Hulk character. This is way better than embarrassingly forcing a love match on him.

The valkyrie-battle memory is soooo good-looking.

This movie is too recent to be using the word ‘gypsy’...

Thor’s story about Loki pretending to be a snake when they were kids is the good shit.

But, Immigrant Song is still the most inspired choice of the film. Not sorry.

So, this is one of those movies which I felt was pretty over-hyped, to be honest. It is great fun, don’t get me wrong, it’s fresh and hilarious and subversive and way the Hell better than the previous Thor films, plus it has a great cast and strong visuals and they used Immigrant Song really effectively...but the tone of the film is an absolute fucking mess, the plotting is a shambles, and there’s nowhere near as much heart and weight underpinning it all as what there should be for a movie involving the near-total destruction of an entire civilisation. The majority of the movie is handed over to a shenanigan-heavy side-plot of no consequence to the central conflict, while the central conflict - LITERAL RAGNAROK - is relegated to a handful of scenes sprinkled across the film, obliterating any chance of it seeming meaningful or even particularly serious. The strongest point of the story is the final act, once Thor and company finally get to Asgard to confront Hela, but the narrative doesn’t earn that strong finish; it just goes to show how much more engaging the rest of the film could have been if they had stayed on track.

This is a big part of why this movie - while a delightful surprise on first viewing - doesn’t age particularly well on repeat; this was my fourth time through, and by the third quarter, as Sakaar draaaagged through its roster of jokes and pratfalls, my attention span was waning fast. Even if the entire garbage-planet sidebar was not distracting from what should have been a very serious main plot, I’m not sure it would remain engaging long-term, since it is rather spare and low on emotional/character investment; it’s not a pitfall of comedy that has to exist (heavily-emotional and/or dark comedies are definitely a real thing), but unfortunately, this is not a movie that is very interested in what has come before it, and it expresses that disinterest by neglecting any element of the established Thor mythology which might have brought this plot a sense of meaning. As such, rather than feeling like ‘the Thor movie that finally got it right’, it’s more like a reboot, with old characters unceremoniously ditched and any sense of purpose or import in old story threads or histories gone right alongside Asgard itself.

I’ve seen people praise this film for its ‘anti-Imperialism, anti-colonialism’ message, but I feel it’s a point weakly made onscreen; any depth to that argument would require a more sincere effort from the script in addressing those scant Asgard scenes, and as such, I feel that this element - though it isn’t completely wishful thinking - is much more in the eye of the beholder than it is a function of the narrative itself. The attempt to engage with any thoughtful discussion on Asgard’s legacy is a swift casualty of the film’s overall superficiality, just the same as the devastation of Asgard and the decimation of its population is blithely underplayed because, hey, Thor vs Hulk is worth way more attention than genocide, right? It’s that tonal dissonance in the two pieces of the plot which keeps me from really relaxing and enjoying the lightness, because that lightness is both excessive and out-of-place; I feel uncomfortable being asked to just shrug and go with it, I want to be emotionally involved and moved by the plight of the Asgardians, and instead I’m stuck watching Thor get a haircut and an eyeful of Hulk dick. Under almost any other circumstances, I would be all about a hard-comedy version of Thor, especially after the generic drudgery of the earlier installments in the franchise, but at the same time as Ragnarok? Not so much.

That said? This film is definitely not without quality. Comedic quality, for sure (anything with Taika Waititi’s name attached is worth a look), and there really are some great casting flourishes (though I maintain disappointment that the Asgard plot is so undersold, because it means Karl Urban and especially Cate Blanchett are under-utilised); for the interests of this blog, it’s that Scrapper 142 aka Valkyrie who forms the highlight (and she’s a worthy highlight without the context of this blog, too). Valkyrie’s drunk, angry sauntering and her snappy disregard for Thor’s righteous pontificating positions her within an archetype normally restricted to male characters only, too loose and unseemly for a female character, who might be found dislikeable and (horror of horrors) too sloppy to be sexy, whereas a man in the same archetype is funny, a ‘lovable asshole’, and the perception of his appearance is not tied up in his behaviour the same way nor is he under the same pressure to prioritise his appeal for the audience in the first place. Angry male drunkards who begrudgingly tag along with the protagonist in the end because they’re surly but not bad, those are a dime a dozen, but a woman in the same position? A rare gem indeed. And Valkyrie is more than just a fresh twist on an old cliche; her personality is grounded, it has a relatable simplicity (disillusionment with a side-order of survivor’s guilt), and there’s a confidence about the way she and the unspoken parts of her life are presented, without need to force a connection with Thor and his personal plight in order to justify Valkyrie’s actions or relevance to the plot. She’s an entirely self-contained character who could just as easily have the story to herself with no further mention of Thor et al., and that’s the hallmark of any well-constructed character: the ability to stand alone.

As a whole, this movie is far from bad - when I call it overrated, I am very much talking about the fact that it’s mostly a string of shenanigans with minimal narrative underpinning, and while that’s not a terrible thing in itself, I do think the hype around this movie implied that it had something more to offer than just laughs and a retro look. For me personally, the lack of emotional engagement and character stakes is close to a fatal flaw, and so while I enjoy this movie on a superficial level, it gives me nothing I need in order to really dig it (for others, obviously, this is not a problem). It always rubs me the wrong way to see something completely disavow previous chapters in the same story - there’s a big difference between developing an idea in a new direction, and simply ditching whatever you didn’t like about what came before - and I would have preferred to see this film make its changes with at least a modicum of respect for the foundations it is building upon (basic as the previous Thor films were, they weren’t catastrophic embarrassments). And yes, ultimately, the burying of the Ragnarok plot under a pile of Planet Garbage (feat. Jeff Goldblum) is just a little unforgivable in my mind, and it’s the first thing I think of whenever this film pops up; I really, really wish that Ragnarok were not part of this plot at all, that the Sakaar part of the story (i.e. the part that The Powers That Be were actually invested in, clearly) formed the bulk of the second film in the Thor franchise instead, since that movie basically sucked and took itself too seriously, and then the Thor film which took itself seriously could have been actually about Ragnarok. Basically, I wish that Marvel had gotten their shit together sooner rather than later with this part of the franchise, because while this worked out fine for them monetarily, narratively it’s just not a step I can get behind.

[buglersboots]

My Experience with Prostate Cancer

I don't post this wanting anyone to feel sorry for me. I am pretty much recovered from this and am back to hiking 8-10 miles, lifting weights (although I'm not back to my pre-surgery poundage), bicycling 12-15 miles on the road, and 6-10 miles on the trails on my mountain bike. It's just something I want to get off my chest, and the anonymity afforded here makes it easier to say. And who knows, it may give encouragement to a person who is dealing with prostate cancer now.

The genesis of my story was late 2006 or early 2007, my yearly physical check up. My doctor said that since I was 45, he needed to run a PSA test to establish my baseline. About a week later, the doctor's office called and said that my PSA was abnormal and that he had scheduled an appointment with a urologist for follow-up. I kept the appointment with the urologist. He did the normal finger test and said that everything felt right. That was when I learned that a normal PSA is below 3 and that my score was above 10, a certain indication that I had prostate cancer. The urologist scheduled a date for what would become the first of several biopsies of my prostate.

I spent the time between that first meeting with the urologist and the biopsy learning about prostate cancer. First, when caught early, prostate cancer is almost always curable. Second, the cure has some unfortunate, life-long, and life-changing side effects. The most alarming are impotence, no more cum at orgasm, and varying degrees of incontinence. For an active person like me, the prospect of wearing diapers for the rest of my life was not something I looked forward to. Even worse, at 45, I still had hopes of having children, and the idea of being a permanent bottom was not appealing.

The day for the biopsy came, and I must admit that it was not as painful as I feared. Then came the waiting. Do I have cancer or not? If I have cancer, is it localized and treatable? Or has it spread, and I only have a limited number of days left? A week later, back at the urologist to get the results of the biopsy. Good news! No cancer in the biopsy! A month of worry and fret for nothing! But the urologist didn't sound as enthusiastic. Even though he removed twelve plugs from an organ the size of a walnut, all that meant was that there was no cancer in the samples. With my PSA as high as it was, it was a certainty that there was cancer in my prostate.

The next ten years included semiannual trips to the urologist for blood tests and finger tests. My PSA stayed consistently in the high 12s and low 13s. I endured two more biopsies, both of which were negative for cancer. As I said, the biopsy was not really painful, but for the next day or two, there is blood in your pee, and it takes four to six weeks before your semen is white again. But biopsies can damage the nerves that cause an erection. I don't know if it was the result of the biopsies or just my getting older, but my erections went from pointing up to the sky to 45° pointing to the ground.

In 2017 my PSA started rising and at my fall examination, it was over 17. My urologist recommended an MRI this time, saying that an MRI looked at the entire prostate rather than just a sample, and that it would find cancer anywhere in the prostate. Insurance balked at this, but my urologist was able to persuade them to cover the procedure. As with the biopsies before, the results of the MRI were negative for cancer. I dodged the bullet yet again.

My PSA continued to rise, and by the fall of 2018, it was over 23, a full ten points above what had been my normal reading. This time, my urologist wanted to do an extensive biopsy of between 24 and 36 cores. This would require that I be sedated and I would have to have someone drive me back home afterward. Finding a person willing to drive an hour to the hospital, wait two hours while I have the procedure done, and then another hour back home is a challenge for a single person with no family nearby and whose friends all have full-time jobs, but I did manage to get someone willing to kill half his day for me.

I arrive at the hospital and either insurance denied the extensive biopsy or my urologist had a change of heart, but he only took 14 cores. No need to be sedated, no need for a driver, another week of waiting for the results.

November 14, 2018, the results. My urologist walks into my examination room with papers in hand and says you have cancer. OK, is this one of the slow growing cancers that you do watchful waiting with or is it more serious? You have five cores that came back positive for cancer. Two have Gleason Scores of 3 + 3 = 6, two have Gleason scores of 3 + 4 = 7, and one has a Gleason Score of 4 + 3 = 7. These last three are concerning. In addition to that, one core showed cancer in 50% of the sample. The good news is that none of the cores showed perineural invasion, so we can fix you. At his last comment, I said to him that I know he didn't mean it like this, but I couldn't help but picture in my mind someone taking their dog to the vet to be fixed, especially given the similarities of the outcomes. We both had a good laugh over that.

November 29, 2018, preop consultation. During the two weeks following my diagnosis of cancer, I did a lot of research on treatment for prostate cancer. In addition to the three common treatments: surgery, radiation, hormonal therapy, I also learned about several other promising treatment methods in trials that did not result in impotence and incontinence. We discussed each one of the promising new treatment methods, and for each one, he explained why I was not a good candidate for inclusion in a trial. That left the three traditional treatment methods. He recommended surgery as the best option, because if the cancer comes back in the future, radiation or hormonal therapy are viable and relatively easy to do. In addition to that, I would still have viable sperm to harvest if I ever decided to start a family. Then I asked if he would do the nerve sparing surgery. He explained that even though my cancer was limited to one side of the prostate and had not penetrated the perineural, my high PSA, more than 3 positive cancer cores, a 4 + 3 = 7 Gleason Score, and at least one core with more than 35% cancer made me a poor candidate for nerve sparing surgery. So much for me ever being able to get a hard on by myself again. :(

Monday, January 7, 2019, surgery. Don't ask me anything about that day because I don't remember anything after they attached the IV to put me under. I was told that several people came by after surgery and that I carried on intelligent conversations with them. I'll take their word for it. My first post operation memory is waking up the evening after the surgery with crust on my face from my eyes down to my chin, like I had been crying. Was it from pain or because I just lost the ability to have sex on my own? I'm not sure. I don't remember being in pain, but they pump you full of pain killers after surgery also.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019, discharge. After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, coffee, orange juice, and biscuits, the discharge nurse enters. She provides instructions about how to care for the six incisions in my abdomen, how to care for and clean the Foley catheter, instructions for and limits to my physical activity for the next week, instructions about when to call the doctor or go back to the hospital if certain things happen, and prescriptions for half a dozen meds -- pain pills, antibiotics and such. I am out of the hospital by 10 AM the day after surgery. My driver is kind enough to take me to the pharmacy to pick up the meds. Why is the pharmacy always in the back of the store? It's not like people really want to walk to the back of the store the day after surgery.

Friday, January 11, 2019, return trip. In the four days since the surgery, I followed the discharge instructions as best I could. Don't stay seated for too long, walk at least once every hour for as far as you are able, keep the wounds clean, no lifting, take meds as instructed. But I had not had a bowel movement since the surgery, and it takes less and less food for me to feel full at each meal. After breakfast Friday morning, I try to take my morning meds with a glass of water. That was too much. I barely made it to the bathroom before I began to throw up the contents of my stomach. Uh-oh, the discharge papers say that throwing up is serious and to return to the hospital.

Back at the hospital, a series of x-rays and other tests results in a tube going up my nose, down my throat, and into my stomach to draw out the contents of my stomach. That was an experience I will not wish upon anyone. By that evening, it was determined that I needed to walk as much as I could, so a nurse came in every hour, helped me out of bed and I walked. At first, it was just in the room, and not too bad. By mid-day Saturday, it was "We need you to walk from your room, down the hall and to the nurses station and back." So here I am, showing my hiney to anyone who looks, dragging a rolling stand with my IV bags with one hand, a tube coming out of my nose, and my catheter bag in my other hand. What a frightful sight I was! The night nurse was a really cute, and really nice male nurse who was kind enough to get me a second gown to drape over my shoulders and hide my back side. He also set off my gaydar, I know you are not supposed to be able to tell us from straight people, but sometimes you just have to wonder. For some reason, I decided to lift my gown and look at crotch that evening, and I got the surprise of my life. My balls were the size of grapefruits and my dick had swollen so much that the skin of the shaft covered the head of my circumcised penis. I pressed the call button and a young female orderly came to my room a few minutes later. I did my best to describe my predicament in a way that would not get me labeled as some sexual deviant. She got my nice male nurse. He took one look at it and got the floor nurse because he had never seen anything like it. So now, the female orderly, my male nurse, and the female floor nurse are all in my room, looking at my swollen sexual organs. The floor nurse informs us all that the swelling was normal after surgery and that it takes care of itself in a week or two. That evening I have my first bowel movement since the surgery. It's only liquid, but it's a start.

The next day, Sunday, walking to the nurses station and back wasn't enough, now I had to walk the corridors of each of the four wings of the floor. I was told walking helps the swelling go down. I still had the rolling IV stand, my catheter bag, and the tube out my nose, but thanks to my night nurse, I could at least cover my rear end. By Sunday evening, I was starting to feel much better. I'm not sure if it was all the walking, the suctioning out of the contents of my stomach, or a combination of the two, but either way, my nose hose was no longer being hooked up to the suction pump. The bowels are moving more. In addition to green liquid, I'm pooping stuff that looks like coffee grounds. The nurses have to inspect what comes out each and every time I go to the bathroom. I feel sorry for them.

Monday, January 14, 2019, the nose tube comes out. One week after surgery. I get to drink water and eat ice chips again. Mind you that I have had nothing to eat since Friday morning, and the only times I was allowed to drink was when I took my meds. Since I am now consuming liquids, the IVs are all disconnected. A nurse accompanies me for my first lap around the floor to make sure I am OK. When we return to my room she says now do another lap by yourself. So now I am left to my own to do two laps around the floor every hour. About the time the other patients get lunch, they remove my nose tube, so I am only carrying my catheter bag for my hourly laps. My night nurse tells me that he can't get over how much better I look now compared to Friday night. I have to admit, I was feeling much better, so much better, that my perverted little brain was trying to figure out how I could get him into bed with me.

Tuesday, January 15, 2019, bye-bye catheter. For the first time since Friday morning, I get to eat food. It was only jello and cream of something soup, but hey, food is food. After breakfast I go down to x-ray where they fill my bladder with saline and take x-rays to make sure that the splice in my urethra has healed and is not leaking. If the swelling has gone down, I can't tell. I still have grapefruits hanging between my legs. My urologist comes by and tells me that after they remove the catheter, I will be going home. Excited to go home. Waiting. More waiting. Lunch of more jello and cream of something different soup. Still waiting. Finally two nurses come in to remove my catheter. They draw out the saline that has been keeping it in place in my bladder, and pull. Not a good feeling, but not as painful as I imagined. One of the nurses hands me a container and informs me that before I can be discharged, I have to produce enough pee to get to the mark on its side. If anyone has made it this far in my tale and has never had prostate surgery or never had a catheter for a week, let me educate you on something. When that catheter comes out, you have no bladder control. The kidneys send urine to the bladder and it pretty much comes on out by drips and squirts. So here I am, drinking as much water as I can stand, while at the same time holding that container under my dick, trying to catch every drop that comes out. Between my swollen balls, and surgery shortened still swollen dick, I can't sit down and collect my urine as it comes out, so I have to stand and walk around the room holding the container under my dick. My pee is still stained with a little blood from the surgery and the removal of the catheter, and a few blood clots that have been swept out by all the water I'm drinking. Between the water and the walking, I'm slowly approaching the line that the nurse marked on the container when I bump into the bedside table and drop the container. It hits the floor and spills all the pee I've so carefully collected. I have to start over. I have been so focused on filling the container with my pee, that I failed to notice that it is now supper time. Supper is more jello and cream of who knows what soup. That's when the nurse informs me that help prevent congestion at the front of the hospital, the hospital discharges each floor at a particular time, and that the floor I'm on discharges at 7:30 PM no matter what the doctor says. Finally, around 7:45, an orderly makes it to my room with a wheelchair and I'm on my way home.

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff’s Best of 2017

WARNING: I’d like to thank everybody who was here for me when times were low. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy.

Cartoons; the one thing that I will continuously watch until I go blind. 2017 was an emotional handful and an exhausting trudge, can’t deny that, and I’m counting down the best cartoons/animations I’ve seen and loved this year in no particular order. Only two rules, no sneak previews of future projects (sorry to Unikitty and Hideo Kojima). Here we go....

10. HANAZUKI: FULL OF TREASURES

This was a sleeper hit tbh. The fact all the episodes were free on Youtube blew my mind, but having a well structured story with a lovely cold space color palette, actually relatable characters, and a sinister undertones below its tender, colorful charm to be as a nice headliner to when Friendship is Magic came back in spring. It was an inviting start for the year, and with the guy behind Motorcity and Superjail taking the helm and having two more seasons being produced, Hanazuki is something I find is in good hands come 2018.

9. LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA

Four long years. I waited FOUR long goddamn years...and fuck me was it worth it. A spectacle is what I can call Little Witch Academia. Almost every episode dazzled me with its stage made bravado and confidence that always made me say, “Okay. Let’s make it til’ the next week”. Even when things got serious, LWA knew how to have fun and make the most of its concept. There is a sense of predictability sometimes, but the series would still throw you some good curve balls to never lose your interest. What did lose my interest was Netflix’s sorry excuse of a dub. The movies: fine. But Netflix, try that again, with any other anime, and I will rip your nuts off.

8. Now I might be cheating here since it’s not a cartoon, but shit it might as well have been

CUPHEAD

The effort that went into this is phenomenal, beyond the many other games of the year no doubt. While not everything is animated, I could tell they were cutting corners in some areas, the frame BY frame animated enemies, bosses, and effects made this one of the most visually colorful and alive games to date, next to Mario Odyssey. Not only was this game a frustrating yet joyous romp to start and finish, but the music and art flawlessly channeled the essence of a time where the word “cartoon” was only starting to make good progress. My favorite character would have to be Satan King Dice, whom is an animated homage to great musician and composer Cab Calloway. His stache, his clothing, even his Cheshire grin captured the cool, jazzy vibe Calloway always provided in his performances. He and his fight was the highlight of Cuphead for me and I hope this game, if a sequel isn’t possible, is well remembered for its unexpected excellence in how a video game can look.

7. CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS/L-EGGO BATMAN

Faithful is what I can describe these two. Captain Underpants was just an awesome book to elementary schooler me, but to see a well animated, well written movie about a dude in his underwear was nothing short of a simple yet powerful masterpiece. As for Batman, this is one of the three truest DC and Batman movies around this time, and it has a gay undertone with Batman and the Joker’s relationship (how can you not pull that off, Suicide Squad?). While not a big fan of lego myself, The Lego Movie put my faith WB making another one equally as good, and they did not disappoint. It’s a shame it got snubbed at the Golden Globes, it deserves the award more than the Boss Baby. Plus it had a Superman that didn’t bore me while having a terrible CGI lip job that’s only made worse by his two way dick nose....

Justice League costed 300,000,000 dollars.............

6. DANGER & EGGS

To me, this series felt like one of the few steps forward the world took to make the LGBT+ community feel more welcome and inspired in public outlets; a small step, but progressive none the less. It is a colorful and lively action comedy, a first to be created by a transgender person, where you can see a non-binary character, a pride fest, diverse background characters of orientation and ethnicity, and it feels like they are a part of the world and not footnotes that states that you should respect queer, bi, ace, and so on based on a say so. It’s a show don’t tell type of series and it brightened my summer before I had to remind myself that college exists and is expecting me.

5. TANGLED: THE SERIES

*ring ring* “Hello?” Ye, Disney? How fucking dare you?

My hype for this was undoubtful. I love Tangled the movie, I consider it one of my favorite 2010 disney flics beside Wreck it Ralph and Moana. And when the art style was up for a preview for this (?), I just sat and waited until it finally premiered and damn. I never stopped loving it, but it is until episode 16 where the series starts to hit high note after high note with the direction it’s going for the story. The fact that this all takes place not long after the movie makes the thought where Eugene and Rapunzel finally get married feels all the more earned. It’s working its way to a happily ever after, I adore this show, and this makes me appreciate Frozen a bit more for how far that’s fallen in the world after its one year of fame. Seriously, Gigantic had to get chopped, but Olaf can still live? Give me a break, Disney.

“Sir, I understand your enthusiasm....but this is Domino’s.” Then I will have the 5.99 large with Salchicha and pepperoncini with a liter sprite on delivery.

4. MADE IN ABYSS

This was so beautiful, so awesome, and much better than...

I wasted my life and I cannot say that I will ever reclaim that time proactively again the Anime

Made in Abyss is like Hunter x Hunter except Gon’s more booksmart and Kilua’s a timid robot. The bond between Riko and Reg was a fucking dynamic and heartfelt where Riko’s helps build Reg up and Reg kept Riko and himself safe with his bodily arsenal. That and this series has the best world building where they not only give the low down on almost everything about the titular abyss, but the atmospheric environments and the designs of the inhabiting creatures made this a unique world to want to explore myself. It knew what to show, and knew what to share. When things got serious, I actually tensed up at the thought of shit truly going down; they knew how to soften the terror while maniacally instill fear in us for the safety of the traveling kids. I want to recommend this link to an awesome breakdown of how great Made in Abyss was. However, as it seems that a season two has gone down the abyss as well, and I’m afraid it can’t come back up.

3. LET’S BE HEROES!!

Is it safe to call this the M.U.G.E.N. of cartoons? Just an all up mashup of stuff I love in a Saturday morning? Campy, action, and laid back, this is something I can be sober or grab some kush and I would be enjoy the show just the same. They even have references you might not have ever heard of, but might like the search. OK KO’s a popcorn cartoon, it’s not for everybody, but it established itself well into the modern CN era when Adventure Time finally has to move on. 

2. SAMURAI JACK

Getting this out of the way: episode 6 toiled the final season of Samurai Jack for me. Not gonna go into detail, but if that episode was remade, I would have been more satisfied looking back. However, that does not stop me from saying this is how a revival should be, this is how a reboot should work, THIS is how you can bring nostalgia back. Samurai Jack was great back then, but this season, wrapping up the loose plight of our boy trying to get back to the past and defeat the demon Aku, was satisfactory to many fans. Even those who’ve never heard or remember Jack could just enjoy this as a dynamic mini-series; it gives you context of what happened before without having to recap the original plot of it. For non fans, it’s mostly about an ageless samurai, longing to return to his own time, stuck in the future for over 50 years to the point of losing his honor and his mind. It’s a binge worthy 10 episode season, originally intended to be a movie, and aside from polar opinionated finale, this made Samurai Jack feel great to love again.

1. TRUE AND THE RAINBOW KINGDOM

This is a personal choice from me because 2017 was an honest to god terrible year for me; nothing but turmoil, season to season, and the struggle to cope with that despair in a way I felt actually could help. However, this small series here boosted my spirits because even with it being a show for little kids that I originally wanted to watch as a joke, the competent, enthusiastic spirit it had just moved me in a way that cartoons that I love for eons could only try to do on a whim. It’s not the best made cartoon, it’s not something I sincerely recommend to you all, but it helped me realize that the best thing about life is finding and seeking things that don’t just distract you from the hard and testing times reality puts on you, but gives you a moment of honest bliss and happiness that can influence your outlook on looking forward to better things because things like this, cartoons like this, CAN make you feel better. 

*sniff* Which is why, the actual cartoon of the year....

1. is STEVEN U., BABY!

Just kidding, guys! You will NEVER win, Steven!

TEEN TITANS GO! WINS IT AGAIN, BABYYYY! ONCE AGAIN BABY (i don’t even like it no more...), YOUR NEW FAVORITE SHOW (i don’t even fucking like it no...) RISES TO THE TO-

But Steven Universe in Space, though. That’s when it’ll be great again.

[the-schwayest-batman-around]

Opinions on Robin Beyond

So per some mild interest by some followers and my own interest in talking about it. In the effort of spoilers, I’ll be placing a read more for those interested. In addition, I’ll list the pros and the cons of the choices made so far. Finally, these are my opinions about the choices. If you agree or disagree, that’s completely understandable and I respect those opinions.

So let’s get going!

So while it’s been hinted at several times, Matt McGinnis, Terry’s younger brother, appears to be taking up the mantle of Robin. This is a huge shift in the Beyond dynamic as Terry McGinnis has never had a Robin despite several attempts as far back as the television show to give him one. In fact, the execs at Kids WB wanted Matt to be a larger focus and make him go on his own adventures that Terry wasn’t a part of (going as far as having a little motorcycle or Batmobile hidden behind a dumpster outside his window as an idea).

Pros:

A Brand New Dynamic: We’ve had several Robins and several different with dynamics with each of them. The most common is the father/son bond with Batman and Robin (Bruce and Dick/Jason/Tim/Damian being the most straightforward). There are exceptions, such as Stephanie, Duke and Carrie. However, this one is between two brothers. Once again, one can draw a comparison to Dick/Damian for a Batman and Robin that were brothers, yet Terry and Damian have known each other far longer. This is a unique approach to a Batman and Robin dynamic that (to my knowledge) has not been seen in other Batman media.

Character Development: This may seem surprising to have this big change only 14 issues into a series, but Matt’s evolution as a Robin candidate has actually been going on since the DCYou era of Batman Beyond (2015). Compared to the animated Matt McGinnis, who mostly served as a bratty little kid who would mess with Terry when he got home, this Matt was more active. When we were first introduced to him, he and several others were battling a Brother Eye controlled hellhound before saved by a time displaced alternate version of Tim Drake (it makes sense in context). Since his reintroduction, he has helped defend the city against an invasion of Brother Eye robots, helped rediscover and save the Justice League Beyond, made his way to Metropolis after it was highly dangerous and filled to the brim with Cuvier’s splicer army, was trained briefly by Tim Drake, saved his brother from Spellbinder’s mind control when Tim and Barbara couldn’t, repeatedly ran into Jokerz controlled territory to help his brother and several other things. In this arc alone, we’ve learned he’s been spending hours watching training videos on Damian (but likely the other Robins as well). For several years now, Matt has been grooming himself to become an ally to Terry. Going back to Tim, even he took a while to be groomed into his role as Robin.

Fan Favorite Choice: This may not be a surprise for most people, but fans have been using Matt as the ideal candidate for Terry’s Robin. Doing a quick image search on Google, Deviantart or even tumblr with Robin Beyond or Matt McGinnis Robin yields plenty of results and ideas of what Matt would be like. Fans have wanted Terry to have a Robin for some time and Matt has repeatedly been the main choice. There is a precedence and several fans may be excited to have this finally come true.

Effecting the Family: Matt’s introduction as Robin is going to yield a lot of big story potential. This has been hinted in the solicitations that there’s going to be several people unsure of letting Matt into this life is a wise choice. Whether or not the events of Return of the Joker occurred in this new DC Comics universe is up in the air (Terry and Matt’s parentage has changed according to current writer Dan Jurgens). However whether or not this is the case, how will Barbara, Damian, Dick and Tim, former sidekicks of Bruce, react to Terry finally getting a Robin? Will Bruce justify it? How will Terry react to finding out his flesh and blood brother wants to join in the battle? We saw a lot of push back from Terry when Max began to be a larger part of the Bat-family life. The Bat-Family in Beyond is growing and changing and this could lead to several conflicts and disagreements in the future.

New Audience Surrogate: In the 1940s, Dick Grayson (Age 12) was created to be Batman’s sidekick to attract new readers. In theory, Dick would serve as an audience surrogate to imagine life as fighting as Batman. Young boys who wanted to be Batman but were too young could suddenly put themselves in the pixie shoes of Dick and imagine themselves fighting crime against the Caped Crusader. This was a smash hit and a massive influx of child sidekicks flooded the market and are still around today. Matt may serve as a new audience surrogate. Terry, while originally a good audience surrogate when he started off, has now grown. He is out of school, living an apartment and has been Batman for several years. It may be seen as a way to bring new readers in to have Matt serve as this new window into the world of Batman Beyond. If it worked in 1940, it would suddenly work well in whatever year Batman Beyond takes place.

Cons:

Too Many Rookies: A draw for several people to Batman Beyond was a very unique pitch to the series. Terry, a young novice Batman, was trained by a much older, wiser Bruce Wayne. This was something very unique and Terry fit into an interesting in between. He was older than most of the Robins we had seen but still had the sass and charm of Dick, Jason and Tim. Yet he was what many little kids wanted to be: Batman. It’s been almost 20 years since the beginning of Batman Beyond, and we know several years since Terry has taken up the mantle of Batman. However compared to several of the Robins, it appears he’s still learning and refining himself. More than once, he has needed support from Bruce on the field (look no further than the previous arc where Terry had to be rescued from a smack down by Damian). Adding someone new to the table, someone who still needs to be trained, may make people uncomfortable.

Balancing Failure: Dovetailing off the previous point, a new balance will need to be established and figured out with Matt. As Matt is likely becoming a brand new Robin, he will be judged by his lack of failures or amount of failures. To refresh people, Terry has failed several times and needed help in his time as Batman and has struggled. Some people found it frustrating to see a Batman struggle while others found it sympathetic. The problem with Matt is there hasn’t been many noticeable consequences for his actions. In fact, several times he hasn’t had many failures, instead being rewarded for his actions since the start of his comic appearances. He may end up in a tough situation (captured by the Beast Men, dive into the middle of a battle with Spellbinder, running into Jokerz territory) and end up fine or saved by someone else (saved by Jon Kent Superman, snaps Terry out of his illusion, is unscathed by the end of the story and never captured despite Terry and Dana being discovered and captured).

Wandering Focus: In this 2017 run of Batman Beyond, the Bat-family has actually grown quite a bit. While we’re unsure about the canon of Beyond Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, we have gained Mayor Luke Fox, League of Assassins Leader Damian Wayne and the return of fan favorite Nissa aka Batgirl. This is on top of pre-existing Batman Beyond supporting characters Bruce Wayne, Max Gibson, Melanie Walker, and Barbara Gordon. These are 7 characters and not much time has been spent on some of these characters. With the addition of Matt and his subsequent training will take away from focus on the other characters. For an example, we were introduced to a character that was initially pushed in the first two arcs of the DCYou. Nora Boxer, Matt’s caretaker in the apocalypse and a possible nod to Kamandi at Earth’s End character Ben Boxer, vanished very quickly with the return of Terry McGinnis with no mention or nod to the character. The question remains just how much focus other characters will get with Matt now taking a larger role as Robin.

The Loss of Personal Life: Matt slowly entering this role as Robin is a step towards something that has been growing increasingly rare: Terry’s life outside of Batman. While his animated life got the most attention to Terry going through High School, seeing friends, we still saw snippets of it in the other comics. Several of the original comics had Terry going on dates with Dana, camping trips with Howard, Max and Dana, a field trip and more. Adam Beechen’s run had Terry spend time with his Mom and Dana with integration between the two intersecting. Kyle Higgins run showed Terry going through college and nods of trying to deal with a roommate, classes and being a superhero. However with the Dan Jurgens run, there has been barely any focus on a lot of life outside of being Batman. Dana and Matt served as two bastions of a life outside of superheroics. With Terry’s mother absent, no school and the only interactions he seems to have being Dana, Max and the Bat-family, it appears that Terry’s life may be nothing but Batman. This may again, turn people away from the story, as several people enjoyed Terry’s cast, friends and exploring Neo-Gotham outside of just the lens of a superhero.

My Personal Opinions:

I make it no secret that I am a vocal minority being against Matt becoming Robin. I feel with after the events of Return of the Joker, Old Wounds, and if you want to count them as canon, Killing Joke and Death in the Family, Terry would likely not want to have a kid sidekick of his own, let alone a sidekick on the field. We also saw in the comics the last partner he had, Vigilante, did not go well. While I’m not opposed to giving Terry an eventual partner with proper character development, I felt this would be better suited years after college and distance from the events of Batman Beyond 2.0. In addition, he would likely not follow the same formula as Bruce had and pick a sidekick that was not a child, let alone his brother.

However, I will admit I can see a lot of good story potential with Matt as Robin. Matt can make a very unique Robin and really force Terry and the Bat-family to adapt. Matt is hardly a carbon copy to any of the allies trained by Bruce, especially any of the Robins. He could bring a lot to the table and change the story for Terry in a big way, maybe a good way.

Dan Jurgens writing has been a tough egg to crack for me. There’s several ideas and moments that I feel are perfect. Several of the interactions between Terry, Bruce and Matt have felt on point. Plots and some writing have been very questionable though. The man can be a great writer when he really cares for a project (look no further than his Rebirth run on Action Comics or older examples being his Tangent Universe imprint). I want to hope that these stories are going to get really good because I did enjoy the first arc of Rebirth and several ideas of his second arc (and while not written by him, Nissa’s issue was awesome). So let’s keep our fingers crossed for the future of the Batman and soon to be Robin of Tomorrow.

[nattvingen]

Batfam Fic Recs

Specifically, JayDick and DamiTim! (Please mind the tags on AO3, be responsible for your own fandom experience, etc.)!

JAYDICK

this is where you are by empires Mature | No cape AU, Past abusive relationship, Hurt/comfort, Subspace

I'm lonely now, and I don't know how to get it back to good - matchbox 20

written for the geckoholic's prompt for the jaydick winter blahs exchange: you're a nude model at my art course and I'm so gonna fail it because you're so distracting

hold my body, hold my breath by redhoodsrobin (manatsuko) Teen-Explicit | Fake relationship, Undercover, Pining, Getting together, Sex

Nobody ever said it would be easy.

to catch a thief by badraph Teen | Character study, Relationship study

He's forced to realize, now, that his mental picture of Jason has been seriously outdated for a while now.

Exit Wounds by Fudgyokra Mature | Rape discussion, Incest discussion, Hurt/comfort, Sex, Getting together, DickKori

After a traumatic run-in with Slade, Dick returns to Wayne Manor to find peace. Instead, he finds Jason Todd.

Between The Bars by Mikimoo Mature | Undercover, POV outsider, Getting together

A number of suspicious deaths at South Haven Penitentiary are being ignored by the authorities, but have attracted the attention of various other parties.

OR:

That one time Dick and Jason accidentally ended up undercover on the same mission and started a riot.

Take the Heat Out of Me by quipquipquip Explicit | Sex, Injury, Some murder, Getting together

Lost Days!Jason trolls Officer Grayson!Dick in Blüdhaven. Dick counter-trolls with the power of love. (It's super effective.)

Swimming Up High (Flying Down Low) by geckoholic Explicit | Sex, Masturbation, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism

Dick's cheeks flush with... he's not sure. There was no alcohol to cloud either of their memory and he remembers every dirty, debauched thing they did last night. And yet there's something indecent about watching this, now, like he's catching Jason in an intimate moment that he wasn't given permission to see.

ghosts and gods by perissologist Teen | Paranormal stuff, Getting together

If Jason is a ghost, then Dick is a supernatural force all his own, one that tears worlds apart in search of better ones.

---

As a side effect of coming back from the dead, Jason is a bona fide paranormal phenomenon. Dick seems to be a little too caught up in mooning after him to notice. Their siblings aren't amused.

(Or, Jason is a supernatural presence after his resurrection, but the poor fool in love with him thinks the freaky feelings are just the butterflies in his stomach.)

Novelty by Salmon_Pink Mature | Sex, Selfcest, Threesome, Costume kink

Two Dicks, no waiting, and it'd be funny if Jason wasn't so turned on he can't think straight.

Under My Sneered Lips by Salmon_Pink Explicit | Sex, Rimming, Felching, Dirty talk

Jason enjoys being Dick's first for all the filthiest things.

Fathers, Be Good by ariadne83, somehowunbroken Teen | Kid fic, Mostly gen

The last person that Dick expects to hear talking when he picks up his phone is Jason, who has been dead for years. Except he isn’t anymore, apparently, and Dick can hear a baby screaming in the background as Jason asks him for help. What is there for Dick to do but drop everything and run to help his long-lost brother?

The Miscommunication of Severance by orphan_account Teen | Divorce, Kid fic, Angst, Happy ending

Dick and Jason were just trying to make it work for the sake of their son.

a holy fool all colored blue by hadrons_collide Teen | Angst, Hurt/comfort, Getting together

After Batman deals with Scarecrow, Nightwing tracks down the Arkham Knight.

His Girl by Neffectual Teen | MtF!Jason, Coming out, Established relationship

Jason Todd took until she was thirty to become Violet, and she sometimes wonders if she'll ever feel quite right.

I Think I Wanna Marry You by dinolaur Teen | Established relationship, Marriage, Coming out

A night out for drinks and a certain Bruno Mars song land Dick and Jason in an interesting predicament. Guess it’s as good a time as any to come out to the family.

It Doesn't Stick by Skalidra Teen | Immortality, Flirting

Jason's fifteen when he dies for the first time. He's eighteen when he comes back to Gotham for vengeance, and dies again. But for some reason that second death doesn't last any more than the first one did, and Jason comes to the realization that something, somewhere, is keeping him alive.

Calendar Boy by empires Mature | No cape AU, Friendly rivalry, Getting together

prompt: Non tragic no cape AU where Jason's a sexy fireman and Dick's a sexy police officer. Bonus +1: policemen's ball. Bonus +2: firemen's calendar. JayDick?

All the Way (Like a Good Boy) by TimmyJaybird Explicit | Sex, JayRoy, Phonesex, Threesome-ish

Jason is drunk. He's drunk and on Dick's couch and suddenly faced with an age-old crush that never exactly died. Except he's with Roy now- but Dick is fairly sure all can be fixed with a quick phone call.

Melt Me Down by Skalidra Explicit | Sex, Marathon sex, Established relationship

Sometimes, Dick gets in moods. Jason's never been able to figure out exactly what the moods stem from, despite their years together, but he always finds himself caught up in the flow of them anyway. But of all the things that Dick could be doing in these moods, this is definitely a good one.

into you by perissologist Not Rated | Dance AU

“You think it’s really Nightwing?” Kyle asks, gaze searching ahead in the herd. “Here, in Gotham?”

“It’s possible, I guess,” Jason says. “He goes everywhere, doesn’t he?”

“C’mon, what’re we waiting for?” Duke is already pushing forward, eyes glittering in excitement. “Man, how crazy would it be if it is him? Dude’s a legend. I’ve been hoping he’d come to Gotham since that one video of him dancing to Tupac on the Eiffel Tower.”

---

The Outlaws are the best underground hip-hop crew in Gotham--until the anonymous international sensation Nightwing crashes onto the scene.

A Hot Mess by Skalidra Teen | College AU, Roommates, Getting together

Jason's roommate at his college, one Dick Grayson, is both a blessing and a curse. Hot as sin but messy as hell, and completely oblivious to both things. Even when he brings up the mess part of it, it doesn't get much better (although Dick is trying). So, they enact a system. Cleaning, in exchange for 'favors.'

I'm Just A Problem That Doesn't Wanna Be Solved by geckoholic Mature | Sex, Sex pollen, Angst, Pining

The agreement, as it stands, is a couple months old. Back around New Years, they had to deliver Bats to Catwoman's doorstep in a last ditch attempt after the chemical route didn't take. It was awkward for everyone and, from what Jason heard, had served to curtail eye contact in the manor to a minimum for a few days. He and Dick had a conversation about it a couple weeks later, and really, this kinda shit happens to them often enough that certain... contingency plans seemed like a good idea.

knocked me off the ground by Windmire Not Rated | No cape AU, KoriDonna, StephCass, Getting together

"It's Jason Todd you'd be working with. You remember Jason, right?"

"He's probably hoping you remember him."

For his best friend's wedding, Dick's more than willing to double as best man and co-wedding planner, even if it means going back to the city he's been avoiding for years on end. Then he meets the other best man and co-wedding planner and falling so hard and so fast was so not part of the plan.

Baby Let's Forget the Morning by MissNaya Explicit | Sex, Incest play, Dirty talk

Jason wonders what Dick thinks of him: is he a brother, a friend, something else entirely? He gets answers, but not in the way he pictured.

deafening perceptions you have of me by thanatopis Teen | Angst, Mutual pining, Getting together

Dick and Jason keep dancing around each other, never quite giving in or giving too much, and Dick is tired.

came down easy spinning threads to the throne by pissvinegarandacrowbar Mature | Sex, Fluff, Prescribed drugs, Established relationship

Red Hood took a bullet for Nightwing. Dick is grateful, he really is. But now he has to deal with a drugged-up Jason Todd.

Run and I will Chase You by Gravity_Sun Teen | First kiss, Pining

Day 1 - First Kiss

Or

The three times it didn't count, and the one time it did.

Cabin Fever by Skalidra Explicit | Sex, Established relationship, Injury

In one random fight, Dick takes a badly angled shot to the knee that puts him out of commission. As his partner, and the one living with him, it's Jason's job to keep Dick off his feet until he heals. Not an easy job, not with Dick's resistance to ever staying still, but he has to do it. At least there's one way that he knows for sure can bleed out some of Dick's extra energy.

Dad!Jason AU by fishfingersandjellybabies Gen-Mature | Baby Damian, Talon!Dick, Hurt/comfort, Getting together

In which Jason is resurrected and found that Talia had a baby with the Batman. To protect Damian from Bruce and Talia's battles, he gives up on his plan of revenge and instead secretly takes the child to Gotham to raise as his own.

But then Dick finds them both, and all bets are off.

My Downfall is Rooted in Your Desperate Need by victoriousscarf Explicit | Sex, Temporary character death, Rape discussion, Angst, Getting together

Dick isn't Orpheus and he can't play a lyre. But that's okay because the analogy falls apart the longer you look at it.

He's just not going to let Jason stay dead a second time.

Pop Psychology by perissologist Mature | Sex, Angst, Injury, Getting together

Stupid broken boys in love.

we will wear our masks again out after dark by IMightwing Explicit | Sex, Batman!Jason, Injury, Hurt/comfort, Getting together

Dick paused and looked straight at Jason. “I want you to be Batman until I’m healed.”

“No,” Jason said. No way in hell, he wanted to say, but the quicker he got this over with, the better.

Written for the Batfam Reverse Big Bang 2017.

Another Perfect Catastrophe by Mikimoo Explicit | Sex, Undercover, Non-consensual drug use, Non-consensual kissing

Dick goes undercover as himself in order to catch a gang of international thieves. Jason reluctantly tags along as his long suffering bodyguard. During the ensuing mayhem they get to know each other again and build a few bridges.

Indulgence by MissNaya Explicit | Sex, Established relationship, De-ageing, Dirty talk, Rape roleplay, Virginity roleplay, Spanking, Rimming, Costume kink, Bondage

A villain's curse turns Dick into a teenager physically. Before they figure out a solution, he and his boyfriend Jason decide to explore a few taboos.

Trophy Wife by Volavi Teen | Fluff, Established relationship

A casual remark from Roy forces Jason to re-evaluate his understanding of his relationship with Dick and his self-identity. Jason can't possibly be the trophy wife, can he? Dick helpfully sets Jason straight. Well, not exactly.

Miniature Bridges by Gravity_Sun Explicit | Sex, Angst, Pining

Day 3: First Time Realizing They’re In Love

Or

It's just sex, until it isn't.

Dick's Dick by MissNaya Explicit | Sex, Sex toys, Self-discovery, Dirty talk, Exhibitionism

Jason gets Dick a gag gift for Christmas. Neither of them expect him to end up liking it so much.

Through the Wire by pissvinegarandacrowbar Explicit | Sex, Tattoos, Body image, Getting together

…to your door, to your door.

When Jason finally works up the courage to get a tattoo he's wanted for years, he attempts to send a picture of it to Roy, who is out of Gotham on an emergency mission. Turns out, Harper and Grayson are awfully close together in his contact list.

Exeunt'verse by elwon Explicit | Sex, Getting together, Coming out

JayDick character studies. A pre-nu52 AU, set after Damian arrived in Gotham, but wherein Bruce never 'died' and therefore Battle of the Cowl didn't happen.

—————

DAMITIM

For a Change by MissNaya Explicit | Sex, Oral sex, Dom/sub, Dirty talk

Tim notices everything, whether he wants to or not. He knows by the clothes Dick wears whether he’s on-again or off-again with Barbara (tight pants and polo shirts mean on-again). He remembers how many bullets Jason has left even when Jason himself forgets. And he knows that Damian has been jerking off to the thought of him for at least several weeks.

Things Have a Way by cadkitten Explicit | Sex, Masturbation, Scent kink, Frottage

Tim gets mugged in his civilian identity. Damian comes to pick up the pieces.

Hoodwing’d by somehowunbroken Mature | JayDick, Fake relationship, Or is it?, Accidental relationship

Dick and Jason seem to think it’s hilarious to make out where Tim and Damian are going to walk in on them. Naturally, Tim and Damian take revenge.

Taste the Green by Salmon_Pink Explicit | Sex, Costume kink, Blowjob

Damian is wearing the original Robin uniform. Tim doesn’t think he can be blamed if he loses his mind a little.

Show Me the Meaning (Of Being Lonely) by TimmyJaybird Explicit | Sex, One-sided TimJay, One-sided DamiDick, JayDick, Heartbreak, Rebound sex, Accidental relationship

It started with a drunken need for comfort- when Tim and Damian were broken at what felt like their worst. But what was reflex, could have been called an accident, turned into the exact thing they both never knew they truly needed.

Involuntary Ties by TimmyJaybird Explicit | Sex, FtM Tim, PiV sex

Tim invites Damian to crash on his couch for the night, and quickly expects their night to go to nothing but bickering. Good thing that Damian is weak and pretty, and Tim doesn’t mind either.

Backwards by shadeblue Mature | Sex, Hate sex, Or is it?

He doesn’t even like Tim. Tim doesn’t even like him.

My True Love Gave To Me by fishfingersandjellybabies General Audiences | Crush, Superbat, Clark is a bro

In which Damian has a crush and has no idea what to do about it.

A Day of Rest by MarbleAide Explicit | Sex, Dom/sub, Bondage, Sex toys

Tim works too hard, but Damian has his own way to make him stop and get his head cleared up.

Give by cadkitten Explicit | Sex, Breathplay, Dom/sub

“Give.” The crack of Damian’s voice was like a whip, right next to Tim’s ear, and God that did things it shouldn’t have.

you don’t have to say i love you (to say i love you) by akaparalian General Audiences | No cape AU, College AU

It is 7:46 AM on Wednesday, and Damian very carefully sits down in his seat (front row, just to the right of the podium), every fibre of his being aware that Drake is sitting two seats away. This is – surely this is statistically significant. From five seats away to two, all at once – and after the coffee, and –

lit!verse: anachronism by heartslogos Teen | Major character death, Resurrection, Damian pls

Damian’s face softens as he reaches out, fingers brushing the unconscious face, “You were my father’s Robin, and for a time, Richard’s, perhaps… you could be my Robin as well.”

Join Me When You’re Free by Skalidra Explicit | Sex, Established relationship, Bondage, Sexual experimentation

Damian and Tim have been together for years, and sometimes, Damian likes to try new things. Usually Tim can see them coming a mile away, or at least know when Damian’s got something on his mind, but this time he’s caught a little off guard. (Which does not at all mean that he’s not interested.)

Plan Awry by DustToDust Teen | Unrequited love, Or is it?

Damian had a plan. For what only became clear after it’d all gone wrong.

[mentalhorticulture]

How It Began - Now

Well, I figure if I’m going to keep recording my experiences on here, I should probably establish my Origin Story of my bullshit experience with this illness.

After moving back to my hometown to help take care of my mother in September of 2017, I started working a new job and moving into my new place. One morning I woke up and was extremely dizzy. I felt like I was wasted or had a horrible hangover. I shrugged it off for a bit, thinking that maybe it was the stress from all of the commotion, but as I was starting to get settled into my new job while managing the dizziness, I would have episodic periods of feeling extremely lightheaded, nauseous, and like I could not think or stand or see straight. During my first week, I left in the middle of the day and called my mother to come pick me up, since I did not trust myself driving. We called the doctor and I saw a PA in the office who told me I either have Lyme or a viral ear infection. They did a full blood work-up, including 6 tests for Lyme, and nothing came back positive. He told me it was probably a viral ear infection, and that it would just go away on its own. I struggled for almost a month before it fizzled out and I shrugged it off, thinking it must have been an ear infection.

Then around Valentine’s Day, I had to make a long drive to pick up my partner who was attending school at the time, and go visit where we used to live to see friends and go to a concert. The morning I had to leave, I woke up, and the dizziness was back. I was so mad, but I had to keep going. I worked all day, left work, drove all night to pick up my partner and go to the concert. I was weak and dizzy, but eager to see my loved ones. I had a beer at the concert, but could not stay out dancing or drinking like I usually would have done if I were feeling better. The next morning I woke up and the vertigo/dizziness was all consuming. I was so nauseous, and could not lift my head up. I fell multiple times as I was trying to get dressed or go to the bathroom. I eventually ended up in what I can only describe as a “gravity vortex” where I cannot do anything except lie flat on the ground and feel like I am getting sucked into the floor. I can’t move my head, arms, legs, and I can barely speak. After a while we decided that I should not drive back, and my partner had to cancel class the next day to drive me home.

Every day, the dizziness, light&sound sensitivity, confusion, fatigue, floaters, disorientation, EXHAUSTION, etc. etc. etc. continued until I decided to call my doc again. I was getting lost on my way to work. I was mixing up words. I was passing out on the floor whenever I exerted any amount of extra energy. I was fucked up. I saw the same PA as before, and he told me I must have been taking too many supplements (I told him I wasn’t taking any), and that all my blood work was clear, so it must be something in my environment that I am ingesting. He rolled his eyes and said, “If you really want to, you can go see an ENT, but I would just keep a journal of what you’ve been doing/ingesting.” The next day I called back and got a referral to an ENT. 

My ENT was great! Super informative and wonderful. Gave me a bunch of options of what it could be and was my first beacon of hope. Maybe it was just a bunch of lose crystals in my inner ear! Maybe all I would need is an MRI to confirm that and some physical therapy and I’m golden! Maybe it’s a vestibular tumor, but who knows! Alright, let’s get this MRI done, STAT then!

Well, my inner ear was crystal clear, but the nurse called me back and said,

“You don’t have anything in your inner ear, but you do have 6 non-distinct white matter lesions. With someone of your age, this is usually indicative of Multiple Sclerosis. We are referring you to a neurologist, STAT.”

I have family members with MS. They are both quadriplegics, one was bedridden, and the other operates her motor chair with her mouth. I knew what MS looked like. I was on lunch at work, went into the next room, closed the door, and asked the nurse to repeat everything back to me on the report again. I hung up the phone, went outside, drove to Hannaford for some reason, and had a massive breakdown in the parking lot.

Fast forward, the neurologist dicks me around and decides my MRI is not urgent enough to be seen right away, because my lesions are benign. I see my neurologist two months later, and he says the same thing to me he had his nurse tell me over the phone. “Could be migraines. Could be MS. Does it look like MS? Not necessarily. Could it be? Yes.” And proceeded to order another MRI of my brain and cervical spine WITH contrast this time to see if there is any new inflammation. However, their office is so backed up, that I can’t get an MRI for another month. So, I just got my second MRI (first with contrast) this past Monday, June 18th... after experiencing a relapse of all of this bullshit since February. It has been nothing short of maddening.

IF this MRI shows any changes from the last one, it is possible that I can be diagnosed with MS without a spinal tap, which would simultaneously be horrible and a relief.

I fucking hate being in this state of limbo.

I fucking hate not knowing if it’s migraines, Lyme, some fucked up autoimmune, etc. etc. or Multiple Sclerosis.

For now, they’re just throwing meds at me and seeing which ones work. I’m on Meclizine and Diazepam for the dizziness, and they started me on Topamax (some sort of GABA inhibitor/anticonvulsant, I believe), but had to immediately take me off of it since it was quite literally making me lose my mind. Now I’m on Nortriptyline as a maintenance med (an SSRI), which has been giving me some relief. I have also started reading The Wahls Protocol, and have been adhering to a nutrient-dense paleo&keto diet, which has also been pretty helpful. Moreso than the meds at this point, actually.

Right now, my dizziness level has subsided to about a 2 or 3 daily, my confusion/focus issues are waining, my fatigue is improving, but NOW my muscles are fucking with me. It’s hard to carry my laptop bag from the car to my office - my shoulder starts to give out. My back is in a constant muscle spasm. My arms and legs get extremely tired and crampy by the end of the day. And, at times, my feet and fingers go numb or burn, like I have just touched a hot stove.

My neuro never made a follow up appointment, but I see my primary on Monday. Perhaps I will have more direction then. Maybe my MRIs will have answers for me. Just maybe.

[patriotsnet]

Are There More Republicans Or Democrats In The Senate

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/are-there-more-republicans-or-democrats-in-the-senate/

Are There More Republicans Or Democrats In The Senate

Biggest Influencers: Democrats Or Republicans

Democrats take House, Republicans keep Senate in historic midterms

To understand who influences politics, you can easily find out who the wealthy support. For example, the Walton family, the owners of the retail giant Walmart, has traditionally donated to Republican candidates. Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmarts founder, hasnt strayed from that too much. That is, until the 2008 election. In 2008 and 2016 the Walton family donated to Hilary Clintons campaign.

She isnt the only person from a wealthy family to change tradition where politics are concerned either. Many of the younger individuals in Americas richest families have begun to sway from their familys political associations as well. Below youll find the affiliation and overall net worth of the top 10 richest families in America.

Weve Had A Split Senate Before And They Mostly Figured It Out

The most recent 50-50 Senate occurred following the 2000 election. Sens. Tom Daschle and Trent Lott , then Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate respectively, formed a powersharing agreement to guide the chamber. Key features of the agreement included:

Majority Leader: Lott was recognized as the de factor majority leader following Inauguration Day, based on the tie-breaking vote of Republican Vice President Dick Cheney.

Committees would have equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats;

If a tie vote prevented a measure or nomination from being reported to the full Senate, the majority or minority leader could move to discharge the committee from further consideration; Debate on the question of discharge was limited, and therefore, a filibuster could not block it.

Debate: Cloture motions, which are used to bring debate on a measure or nomination to a close and prevent filibusters, could not be filed on any amendable item of business during the first 12 hours of debate.

Scheduling and agenda: the leaders were to attempt to balance the interests of the parties in setting the Senates schedule and deciding what matters to bring up for consideration.

An important caveat in the agreement noted that Senate Rules do not prohibit the right of the Democratic Leader, or any other Senator, to move to proceed to any item.

Senate Votes To Kill Debate On Voting Rights Bill

Republican senators voted against debating Democrats election and voting reform legislation, as expected.

Sixty votes are required to open debate on any measure under the Senates filibuster rules and in a 50-50, evenly divided Senate all 50 Republicans voted against advancing and debating the legislation.

We can argue what should be done to protect voting rights and safeguard our democracy, but dont you think we should be able to debate the issue? said Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer.

Its unclear where Democrats can go from here. Progressives have pushed to end the filibuster, which would allow them to vote and narrowly pass voting rights reform without Republican support. But moderate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have rejected the idea.

Geoffrey: The Case For Republicans

Republicans may be slightly behind in the polls, but we should be cautious about reading too much into these surveys as its hard to say the slim Democratic edge is all that meaningful. Polls have routinely disagreed over who is in the lead and nearly every survey has fallen within the margin of error. Whats more, there just havent been that many high quality polls just two of the 16 firms that have surveyed Georgia since November have a FiveThirtyEight pollster rating that is higher than a B. This is unfortunate, but not surprising given many pollsters are gun-shy after polling misses in November. Simply put, a small polling error in the GOPs direction wouldnt be that surprising and furthermore, it would be enough to give Loeffler and Perdue the advantage.

Lastly, while Nathaniel poo-pooed it, the GOP does have a history of doing better in runoffs than the Democrats. Outside of one 1998 runoff for a seat on the states public service commission, Republicans have always gained at least a little ground in the runoff compared to the general election. True, we only have a sample size of eight, but some of the factors that contributed to Republican runoff success in the past could still come into play, like an older electorate. And remember, if the Republicans improve on their November showing or even just hold serve they win.

Main Difference Between Democrats And Republicans In Point Form

Democratic Party was founded in 1828 while the Republican Party in 1854

The Democratic Party has about 15 presidents while the Republican Party has about 19 presidents since independence

Republican Party voters are older generation while Democratic Party voters are the younger generation

The voters of Republicans are conservatives while democrats are liberal

The main color of republicans is red while that of democrats is blue

The party symbol of democrats is a donkey whereas that of republicans is an elephant

The Democrats party was founded on the basis of anti-federalism whereas republican party on the basis of anti-slavery and agent of modernity

The Democrats party has a larger membership subscription whereas republican has a lower membership subscription

Democrats applaud same-sex marriage whereas republicans condemn same-sex marriage

Democrats want the elderly medical program to be allowed while republicans reject suggestions of elderly medical care program

Texas Governor Vetoes Bill Protecting Dogs From Abuse

Sarah Betancourt

The governor of Texas has pulled a surprise move, vetoing a bipartisan bill that would have provided greater protections for dogs against human abuse.

The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, vetoed a bill on Friday that would have made unlawful restraint of a dog a criminal offense, sending animal rights activists and legislators on both sides of the aisle into a fray and spurring the hashtag #AbbottHatesDogs.

State senate bill 474, dubbed the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act, aimed to ban the use of heavy chains to keep dogs tethered. The bill had bipartisan support in the legislature, passing the house 83-32 and the senate 28-3.

In his veto, Abbott said state statutes already existed to protect dogs from animal cruelty, and the penalties proposed in the bill of $500 to $2,000, and jail time of up to 180 days, were excessive. The bill said that dog owners could have dogs outside but could not restrain them with short lines and chains or anything that could cause injury and pain to the dog.

Dog owners would have faced a $500 penalty for a first offense and class C misdemeanor, and the next penalty would have been a class B misdemeanor, for a fine of up to $2,000 and up to three months in jail.

Abbott said Texas was not a place for that kind of micro-managing and over-criminalization.

Read more:

Georgia Election: Democrats On Course For Senate Control

US election 2020

The Democratic Party of US President-elect Joe Biden is on the verge of taking control of the Senate as results come in from two elections in Georgia.

Pastor Raphael Warnock is projected to win one seat. Fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff leads narrowly in the other.

If they both win, Mr Biden will control Congress fully and have a much better chance of pushing through his agenda.

He said it was time to turn the page. The American people demand action and they want unity.

Histories Of The Parties

The Democratic party started in 1828 as anti-federalist sentiments began to form. The Republican party formed a few decades later, in 1854, with the formation of the party to stopping slavery, which they viewed to be unconstitutional.

The difference between a democrat and a republican has changed many, many times throughout history. Democrats used to be considered more conservative, while the republican party fought for more progressive ideas. These ideals have switched over time.

Which Party Is The Party Of The 1 Percent

Democrats Target Vulnerable Republican Seats In Effort To Gain Control Of Congress | NBC News NOW

First, both parties receive substantial support. Much of it comes from registered voters who make $100K+ annually. However, Democrats actually come out ahead when it comes to fundraising for campaigns. In many cases, Democrats have been able to raise twice as much in private political contributions. But what about outside of politicians? Does that mean Democrats are the wealthier party? Which American families are wealthier? Republicans or Democrats?

Honestly, it is probably Republicans. When it comes down to it, the richest families in America tend to donate to Republican candidates. Forbes reported out of the 50 richest families in the United States, 28 donate to Republican candidates. Another seven donate to Democrats. Additionally, 15 of the richest families in the U.S. donate to both parties.

The Prospect Of Ditching The Filibuster

In theory, Senate Democrats could change the cloture ruleand, with it, the need for 60 votes. They could, in other words, kill the filibuster.

There are two ways that Democrats could do that. The first is by holding a vote to change the Senates standing rules. The only problem is that a vote to change the rules requires a two-thirds majority. So, as has happened many times in the past, Senators can simply filibuster the attempt to eliminate the filibuster.

The second way to kill the filibuster is known as the nuclear option. That would mean that Senate Democrats vote to establish a new precedent in the chamber, which can require only a simple majority: the 50 Democrats plus Harris. The nuclear option has been employed twice in the past decadeonce in 2013 by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and then once in 2017 by McConnellto make it easier to confirm executive and judicial nominations.

In recent months, Democrats have been clamoring to eliminate the filibuster. Former President Barack Obama called it a Jim Crow relic and President-elect Biden said hed consider eliminating it, depending on how obstreperous become. But Democrats are hardly in lock step over the issue. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has he will not support such a vote.

Is A Dream A Lie If It Dont Come True

Americas various disproportional representations are the result of winner-takes-all voting and a two-party system where party allegiance and geography have become surprisingly highly correlated. Places where people live close together vote Democratic, places where they live farther apart vote Republican . Under some electoral systems this would not matter very much. Under Americas it has come to matter a lot, in part because of an anti-party constitution.

Americas founders wanted power to be hard to concentrate, and for people who held some powers to be structurally at odds with those who held others. To this end they created a system in which distinct branches and levels of government provided checks and balances on each other. They hoped these arrangements would be sufficient to hobble any factions which sought to co-ordinate their actions across various levels and branches of government. The first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, both warned that a two-party system, in particular, would be anathema to the model of government they were trying to build.

Take the Senate. To make sure the largest states do not dominate the rest, the constitution provides equal representation for all the states, large and small alike. This builds in an over-representation for people in small or sparsely populated places.

Policymaking Has A Liberal Bias

Democratic presidents talk more about policy, propose more specific policy ideas, and pass more significant pieces of legislation. The numbers are stark. Since 1945, Democratic presidents have put forward 39 percent more policy proposals than Republican presidents, and 62 percent more domestic policy proposals.

There is a good reason for this asymmetry, write Grossmann and Hopkins. Democrats and liberals are more likely to focus on policymaking because any change that occurs is much more likely to be liberal than conservative. New policies usually expand the scope of government responsibility, funding, or regulation. There are occasional conservative policy successes as well, but they are less frequent and are usually accompanied by expansion of government responsibility in other areas.

The chart above codes significant policy changes by whether they expand or contract the scope of government regulation, funding, or responsibility. Policy changes turned out to be more than three times as likely to expand the scope of government than to contract it. This is often true even when Republicans are signing the laws.

As such, gridlock is often the best small-government conservatives can hope for. And so theyre more comfortable with it than Democrats.

What Limitations Will Senate Democrats Face In Passing Legislation

Most proposed legislation can be filibustered by members of the minority party, which means 60 members must agree to end debate and move the bill to a final vote.

The use of the Senate filibuster has become increasingly more common since the 1700s and is now a routine way of obstructing legislation. Concerns about increasing partisan gridlock have sparked debate over whether to reform the legislative filibuster, which would give the majority party vast authority to pass bills. During the recent filibuster debate between McConnell and Schumer, President Joe Biden remained silent on the issue. Other lawmakers in the past, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have called to do away with it.

But advocates for keeping the filibuster said it preserves power for the minority party. Removing the filibuster could also backfire on Democrats if they lose control of the Senate again. As of now, Democrats do not have the votes to end the filibuster but could also consider lowering the threshold, for example from 60 members to 55.

Senate filibuster use over time. Graphic by Danny Davis and Kate Grumke/PBS NewsHour.

There are some very narrow rules around it. It has to have budgetary implications. You cant just stick on any random thing. It has to actually be pretty narrowly tailored, Powell said.

Tied Senate: Who Controls A 50

The results of the 2020 election continue to be finalized, but one possible outcome is an evenly divided Senate sometime after January 5, 2021. This raises questions regarding which party will hold the majority and who the majority leader will be, as well as whether we should anticipate a completely deadlocked Senate on every vote, among others. Here are seven things you need to know

Statement from Bipartisan Policy Center President Jason Grumet: BPCs Bipartisan Approach to a Partisan Process

Who Are The Winners And Losers

Maine Democrats had high hopes of unseating Susan Collins, the 67-year-old moderate Republican who had been trailing her Democrat rival in the polls for months.

But Sara Gideon, 48, conceded in a call to Ms Collins on Wednesday afternoon.

So far, Democrats have managed a net gain of one seat in the Senate election.

Democratic former governor John Hickenlooper won a key Colorado seat from the Republican incumbent Cory Gardner.

Mr Hickenlooper, who stood for the Democratic nomination for president, was governor of Colorado for two terms from 2011 until last year. His rival was considered particularly vulnerable because of his allegiance to President Trump.

In Arizona, former astronaut Mark Kelly defeated Republican incumbent and former fighter pilot Martha McSally. Mr Kelly earlier said he was “confident that when the votes are counted, we’re going to be successful in this mission”.

However, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump ally Lindsey Graham have both been re-elected in their seats of Kentucky and South Carolina respectively.

And in Alabama, Republican candidate Tommy Tuberville took a seat from the Democratic incumbent Doug Jones.

United States Senate Elections

2020 United States Senate elections

  The 2020 United States Senate elections were held on November 3, 2020, with the 33 class 2 seats of the Senate contested in regular elections. Of these, 21 were held by Republicans and 12 by Democrats. The winners were elected to six-year terms from January 3, 2021, to January 3, 2027. Two special elections for seats held by Republicans were also held in conjunction with the general elections, with one in Arizona to fill the vacancy created by John McCain‘s death in 2018 and one in Georgia following Johnny Isakson‘s resignation in 2019. In both races, the incumbent Republican lost to a Democrat. These elections ran concurrent with the 2020 United States presidential election in which incumbent Republican president Donald Trump lost to Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

In the 2014 United States Senate elections, the last regularly scheduled elections for Class 2 Senate seats, the Republicans won nine seats from the Democrats and gained a majority, which they continued to hold after the 2016 and 2018 elections. Before the election, Republicans held 53 seats, Democrats held 45 seats, and independents caucusing with the Democrats held two seats, which were not up for reelection. Including the special elections in Arizona and Georgia, Republicans defended 23 seats and the Democrats 12.

Th Congress 2015 And 2016

Panel: After 10 GOP Reps Vote For Impeachment, Are There 17 More In The Senate?

The 114th Congress was notable because Republicans won their largest majorities in the House and Senate in decades after voters used the midterm election in 2014 to express dissatisfaction with a Democratic president, Barack Obama. Democrats lost control of the Senate in the 2014 elections.

Said Obama after the results became clear:

Obviously, Republicans had a good night. And they deserve credit for running good campaigns. Beyond that, Ill leave it to all of you and the professional pundits to pick through yesterdays results.

White House: Democrat

House: Republicans held 246 seats, Democrats held 187 seats; there were two vacancies.

Senate: Republicans held 54 seats, Democrats held 44 seats; there were two independents, both of whom caucused with the Democrats.

Not Much Was Said In This Video And Yet It Explains Why Our Us Senate Is Such A Mess Nothings Funny About This And Yet All There Laughed

The US Senate is a mess.  The Republican Senators are closer to Democrats than they are to their base.  The Republican base was behind President Trump and gave him the largest number of votes in US history for a Republican and a sitting US President.  If not for the millions of ballots suspected of fraud, President Trump would have won in one of the biggest wins in US history.

But the Republican Senators want President Trump out and appear happy he is not there.  The Democrats are thrilled they got away with the suspected fraudulent election steal.  They dont care about election laws and the people of the United States, they care about power.

So when Senator McConnell, who led the assault on President Trump after the election, was stopped by Democrat Schumer, everyone laughed.

TRENDING:They Openly Mock Us Now: Taliban Hangs “Traitor” by the Throat From US Helicopter in Kandahar Left Behind by Joe Biden

The Republicans in the Senate have no idea what is going on.  They have no idea what Americans want.  They have no idea Americans are very angry about the 2020 Election and will not be satisfied until the election is fully forensically audited.  The Democrats just want power and are happy every time they step on the American people and the U. S. Constitution, while the Republicans laugh.

Who Controls The Senate For Now

Republicans have the majority until Inauguration Day.

Georgia counties have until Jan. 15 to officially certify the results of Warnocks and Ossoffs elections, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has until Jan. 22 to make the victories official. . Once Warnock and Ossoff have an official certificate of election, they will be sworn into office.

Until Inauguration Day, Vice President Mike Pence will preside over the chamber. After Jan. 20, Kamala Harris will have the honors.

Write to Abigail Abrams at .

Republican Memo Warns Us Senate At Risk Of Falling Into Democratic Control

Memo summarizes senate races of 10 states and how the outcome of each could determine who controls the Senate

A memo by Senate Republicans campaign arm has admitted that control of the upper chamber is at risk and that Democrats could win the Senate in Novembers elections.

The September 2020 political update from the National Republican Senatorial Committee summarizes the state of the race of 10 states with Senate races around the country and how the outcome of each could factor into whether Republicans or control the chamber in January.

The memo, obtained by the Guardian, has been circulating among political operatives, donors and interested parties. It comes just shy of 50 days before the November 2020 elections.

The next few weeks will define the future of our country for generations to come, the NRSC memo reads.

Memos like these are often shaped like dispassionate updates but in actuality they are often used to convince interested parties that races slipping out of reach are still in play. They are also often used to juice donations to lagging candidates and counter trending narratives.

Democrats need to pick up three or four seats to take control of the Senate. The fact that the NRSC memo categorizes seven Senate races as ones that simply cant be lost or deserve serious attention suggests that its possible, but not certain that Democrats can take control of the Senate.

Effect Of Republican Retirements

Indeed, 2020 was actually a Democratic-leaning year, with Biden winning the national popular vote by 4.5 percentage points. So theres a good chance that states will be at least a bit redder in 2022 than they were in 2020.

That could make these retirements less of a blow to Republicans than they first appear. Whats more, by announcing their retirements so early, Burr, Toomey and Portman are giving the GOP as much time as possible to recruit potential candidates, shape the field of candidates in a strategic way in the invisible primary and raise more money for the open-seat campaign. And in Ohio specifically, Republicans still look like heavy favorites. Even in the Democratic-leaning environment of 2020, Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points, implying that its true partisan lean is probably even more Republican-leaning. Ohio is simply not the quintessential swing state it once was; dating back to the 2014 election cycle, Democrats have won just one out of 14 statewide contests in Ohio and that was a popular incumbent running in a blue-wave election year .

Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight

Us Senate Representation Is Deeply Undemocratic And Cannot Be Changed

Few, if any, other democracies have anything this undemocratic built into their systems.

The U.S. Senate, as you know, is currently divided 50-50 along party lines, thanks to the impressive double win in Georgia, and counting the two technically independent senators as Democrats, since they caucus with the Democrats.

But, according to the calculation of Ian Millhiser, writing for Vox, if you add up the population of states and assign half to each of their two senators, the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.

Millhisers piece is named after that fact: Americas anti-democratic Senate, in one number.

41.5 million. Thats a lot of people, more than 10 percent of the population . You might think that in a democracy, the party that held that much of an advantage might end up with a solid majority in the Senate, rather than have just barely eked out a 50-50 tie in a body that, taken together, represents the whole country.

Republicans have not won the majority of the votes cast in all Senate races in any election cycle for a long time. Nonetheless, Republicans held majority control of the Senate after the elections of 2014, and 2016 and 2018 and still, after the 2020 races, held 50 of the 100 seats.

GOP does better in lower population states

Works to the detriment of Democratic power

Its deeply undemocratic. Nothing can become federal law without passing the Senate.

Smaller states had to be reassured

Democrats Are Under More Pressure From Interest Groups To Pass Policy

Another difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is that Democrats answer to more interest groups than Republicans.

Grossmann and Hopkins assemble studies showing that Democratic delegates at both national and state conventions report more organization memberships than Republican delegates, suggesting that Democratic conventions are the site of more organized interest group activity than Republican conventions. They also note a study showing that more interest groups make endorsements in Democratic primaries than in Republican primaries.

The graphic above is perhaps the most persuasive evidence of the density of the Democratic interest-group ecosystem: it connects interest groups that endorsed more than one of the same candidate or bill in the 2001-2002 Congress and the 2002 midterm election. So, if the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club both endorsed Senator Mary Landrieu for reelection and they also both endorsed No Child Left Behind, they get a line. The more shared endorsements between two groups, the thicker the line connecting them; the more total connections any individual group has to other groups, the larger the circle they get.

there are more organized groups asking Democrats for policy than asking Republicans for policy