#I get that people want to make versions that are less sexualized but mom holy FUCK

[princess-of-the-corner]

I know everyone focuses on Momo and Tohru when talking about bad costume design (with good reason), but can we talk about Koji and Rikido?

Like, one of them is a ketchup and mustard coloured shirt and shorts and the other one is a basic ass yellow bodysuit. I don't think it's a hot take to call them the ugliest hero suits in the entire story. I genuinely cannot think of an uglier one than theirs. Even Eraserhead's depressed emo hobo sweater looks cooler.

And both of them have solid themes going for them too.

Koji could get a nature theme for his suit to look like a living mountain that his animals inhabit or a bunch of really neat fur patterns that could be painted on it.

And I've fought too many dessert themed bosses in video games for Rikido's suit to look acceptable.

I kinda hope we gat a CC chapter where they get some fashion advice.

I think the reason they don't get as much shit for the bad costume design is because Momo and Hagakure's are the sexualized type of bad.

But yeah my boys got shafted. I can't even say it's because they're minor characters within the class because there's legit minor characters who have cooler designs.

I do want to swing around to redesigning them though but that'll probably be a while?

[x-manson-annotated]

X-Manson Annotated Chapter 5 - Part One: INFILTRATORS.

Holy shit, the final chapter. This is where I really like a lot of concepts. The Avengers make a proper appearance and everyone's favorite sapphic Carol Danvers has a shitty time. See the reblogged version for the rest of it, since Tumblr has a limit on only 30 images.

If i'm not mistaken, this places the year that Kitty is watching the documentary as 2000 whereas before it said "Present Day" or "Today" . This places Kitty and Dani at probably 23 and 26 respectively.

**Dwight Hammer, like all cops is a goddamn moron.

Paid Schill.

1999 the y ear of the raid? Xavier's psychics forcing people to confess to murders that they didn't commit?

*I'm not sure if Dolores is a reference to someone special or just a filler character.

**I don't know why the spelling of her name with the 'e'. I've looked at multiple versions of the story and that detail remains in all of them.

**ALIENS EXIST IN THE CULT AU.

Motherfucking Carol Danvers!

*I'm not totally sure if that's something Supergirl used to be like.

** Rogue. I'm not sure who the intelligence agency is, since SHIELD seems to be a known quantity in the world.

*** That isn't really a thing she's known for either.

*Carole uses that very insistent phrase "the Kree that fucked me up". In the comics, she gained her abilities from an explosion that mixed her DNA with Mahr-Vel. So, is it possible in this au the Kree intentionally experimented on her?

**Pretty green eyes convince Carole Danvers that Rogue isn't a tech. Gay as hell behavior, champ.

***Further gay behavior. Much less traumatic loss of her powers as opposed to what happened to her in the comics.

*This is referencing her lesbianism within the story. I don't know if this is Benway's potentially homophobic perspective on Carole's sexuality, or if it's meant to be a purely in-universe sense of present homophobia.

Rogue's Mom, Destiny is being a cryptic old biddy. She's present twice the story, but Mystique isn't. Maybe she died a while back after some encounter with the cult, resulting in Rogue being sent in as an agent. But, that's just my headcanon.

*See.

**Rogue gave Carole a type.

**Why didn't she decay? Because of Carole's powers?

***Destiny was able to see that Carole was going to fuck her shit up by kissing Rogue's corpse, but not that Rogue would get murdered? Like, c'mon, that's your daughter.

*I might be right.

**I'm so fucking sick of Vance taking every single incorrect lesson from his life. Of course, she was angry, Vance. She was in near-constant pain, you unbearable prick.

***Probably doesn't help that she was being cryptic about what happened.

*I still love how angry he is with American spy agencies.

*Possibly this universe's version of Freedom Force?

Xavier loaning out cult members for odd jobs?

*Sorry HOXPOX fans, Moira isn't a mutant.

**So that's where they're potentially filling up their ranks?

***My immediate thought was Gambit both because of the title and the New Orleans connection. This might also be Amahl Farouk, who has a history of employing pickpockets, but he was based in Egypt. Though, I don't want to discount him totally because of my biased headcanon.

*Tracking the cult's activity from the ground up. But, how is the cult going to all of these places constantly? How far spread are they outside of Westchester?

** Nice to know that Black Tom exists in this au. Hope he and Cain have a summer cottage together somewhere on the coast where they can grow old together, far away from any of this cult horseshit.

Spain

Morocco

Romania

Hungary

Yugoslavia

Westchester, New York.

So, Sean was likely trying to infiltrate them after making contact in Yugoslavia and then ended up being inducted into the cult, proper.

That is so goddamn scary it's unreal.

*was their a psi on the isles manipulating the local Interpol agents? Can Xavier or Cable stretch their influence that far?

*Rahne Sinclair

*I just now noticed that Terry in this story is eleven. My god. That's an especially horrifying ordeal at that age.

*if Sean was pleading, it's possible that either they didn't have him under psychic control yet (not coring him) or the distance allowed the connection to break. But who else is with Logan that's coercing Sean into action?

*She could tell almost immediately that Rahne was a mutant and not some kind of freakish dog.

The river to confuse Logan's tracking ability?

*Rahne's home in the woods.

*They don't see her transform in the dark, but she can take on a human or at least human adjacent shape. Rahne Sinclair is a saint.

First Voice, Unknown.

Second Voice, Logan.

*My first instinct was that this is Sean, but Moira would have clarified if it were. Maybe it's Cable or Piotr?

**Rahne can take on a human shape, but is functionally feral and cant understand human language.

*Logan's voice again.

**Cars everywhere. Some of them look burned. Sunfire? Is the second voice Sunfire?

*Christ alive, they massacred ten whole police officers and special forces agents.

Logan sticking around to threaten the family by leaving shreadded vehicles around? Why not murder them?

[nerdygaymormon]

Queer Nativity imagery

I have a lovely carved wood nativity set that incorporates traditional Korean culture. I like it a lot.

Nativity sets based on a variety of cultures from around the world are easily found (it can be argued that white Europeans were among the first to put their culture onto the characters of the nativity and their version became the norm for how we think of the Nativity). It is affirming to people of a culture to view the nativity in their own paradigm.

Reverend Kittredge Cherry remembers going to a huge exhibit of Nativity scenes. They had hundreds of statues of Mary, Joseph and baby portrayed as every conceivable racial and ethnic identity.

In 2009, Reverend Cherry, who is lesbian, decided its time her own community see themselves portrayed in the Nativity. She simply put Mary with Mary and Joseph with Joseph. 

Reverend Cherry believes her nativity scenes are true to the spirit of the Christmas story in the Bible: God’s child conceived in an extraordinary way and born into less-than-reputable circumstances. According to the Bible story, the Virgin Mary had Jesus without having sex with a man, much like lesbian mothers who use artificial insemination. Joseph was an adoptive father, and it’s love that makes them a family, true as it is of any family.

She made a video and took some photos and posted them online. Most Christians seemed to disagree, her images were seen as controversial and generated a lot of outrage

While a lot of Christians were seething, many queer people were surprised at the feelings they had in seeing themselves included in the Christmas imagery. Other queer people started creating & sharing their own versions. They may have two dads with the baby, or two moms, or perhaps kept a traditional mom & dad but had gay couple worshiping the baby.

True, these may not be biblically accurate – but neither is having the holy family dressed in Mexican folk costumes, or having the shepherds and wise men at the scene at the same time.

In 2011, for Christmas, instead of a traditional nativity scene, Claremont United Methodist Church had 3 couples holding hands beneath the star of Bethlehem with the words “Christ is born.” A small tree of life was atop a statement pointing out that “Christ was the victim of hate and intolerace while he taught love and compassion.”

They wanted their display to convey that Christ is born anew to every couple, regardless of their sexual orientation. That people of all sorts of sexual orientations are following the star in search of Christ and hoping there will be room at the manger for them.

Unfortunately, one night someone pushed over the two gay couples and left the heterosexual couple standing. The artwork suffered at least $3,000 worth of damage. Police investigated it as a hate crime.

Jon Trouten who lives in Iowa with his husband and their two sons was thinking about the backlash all these gay nativities generate and the message it sends. He created a display of a gay couple holding hands as they walk toward a manger scene far in the distance. Their path is blocked by two bouncers with a sign that says, “Limited seating in the manger. VIPs only.”

The scene illustrates that queer people are stopped from full participation in the church. There was no room at the inn for Mary and Joseph 2,000 years ago, so Jesus was born in a lowly stable. Likewise there is no room in many churches today for queer people who want to get closer to Jesus.  

Trouten says this image is a metaphor of the ongoing struggles for same-sex marriage, ordination of queer clergy and full religious rights for queer people. 

Despite the red rope and bouncers, the gay couple is moving forward. I like that the couple is surrounded by a halo of white light. While the church & its bouncers may stop them, they’re already accepted and loved by Jesus.

We’ve had 10+ years to get used to seeing images of gay couples in nativity scenes. What is new is seeing trans people included in portrayals of the nativity.

Much about the nativity is there to reinforce the idea that God doesn’t favor the wealthy or the powerful. We’re all prized by God. Including queer people doesn’t harm this message but bolsters it. What if we saw all families as holy, each child as divine, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientation or gender? If we can see ourselves in the nativity, then we can understand our own sacred connection to the holy. 

[rayofspades]

How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad. 

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on. 

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem. 

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point. 

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.  

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure. 

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it. 

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right. 

Ok, let’s go. 

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing. 

Part 1: Horror and Mystery 

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner? 

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.  

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together. 

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways. 

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin. 

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.  

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line. 

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.  

But here’s the thing; 

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information. 

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.  

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two. 

 No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario. 

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A. 

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.  

Part 2: Stakes 

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life. 

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.” 

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”  

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense. 

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters. 

Part 3: Themes and Characters 

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.  

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor. 

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.” 

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great. 

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.  

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great. 

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens. 

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.  

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show. 

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions. 

Well, for the most part.  

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.  

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing. 

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted. 

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.  

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.  

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance. 

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection.  On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.  

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.  

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.  

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice. 

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts! 

...Let’s talk about season five! 

Part 4: Season 5 

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk. 

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show. 

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia. 

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.” 

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing. 

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain. 

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard. 

Buuuuuuut... 

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.  

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars. 

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will. 

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close. 

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point. 

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series. 

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced.  I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me. 

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table— 

ALEX NO. 

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending. 

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.  

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that. 

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out... 

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story. 

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again. 

[jess-rewatches-prodigalson]

Speak of the Devil (S2, E2)

Damn. I love this show.

As usual, my time stamped SPOILER FULL thoughts are below.

As always, I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if talk about depression/mania/suicidal ideation is going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading. 

0:14 - Hector’s back!! hahaha :) 

0:40 - So Martin is worried about Malcolm.....he could stop manipulating Malcolm if he’s so worried. That would make Malcolm feel slightly better at least. 

0:50 - What. A. Boss. That ambush was gorgeously executed *chef’s kiss*. haha how many times do you think Jessica has orchestrated this type of ambush on one of her children? 

0:52 - I love this outfit on Malcolm. Seriously - why is it sooo attractive when he’s not wearing a tie?

0:55 -........he’s not seeing Gabrielle....but but he had a lollipop last episode. Am I supposed to believe he buys his own lollipops? Maybe he bought some to throw the team off the scent? UGH. MALCOLM, SWEETHEART, GO BACK TO THERAPY. YOU’RE IN CRISIS. ....wait. I bet you he’s not seeing Gabrielle because she knows when he’s lying. He’s probably scared that he’ll end up telling her about Endicott. And I’m pretty sure that legally Gabrielle can’t keep a crime a secret regardless of doctor-patient confidentiality. 

1:02 - .....Malcolm didn’t know that he wasn’t paying his own therapy bills? WHO DID HE THINK WAS PAYING THEM?!?! Damn. Rich people, am I right?

1:10 - You ever wonder how many therapists Malcolm saw as a kid before they found Gabrielle? Just me? Cool.

1:15 - OMG. “Sexual in nature”?!?! Calm down Jess. He’s a grown ass man and even if it was sexual Malcolm sure as hell wouldn’t want to talk to his mother about his sex life. 

1:19 - Oh so now both of your kids are in a “good place”? Martin, less than a minute ago you were ‘worried’ about Malcolm. Further proof that Martin is a liar and we can’t believe anything he says. Ever. 

1:43 - Tom Payne’s physical acting during this interaction with Jessica is incredible. Ugh. Honestly, can I give him an Emmy myself? Look. Look at his face when he says, “You wouldn’t understand.” This is a teenage boy trying to hide something from his mom and is terrified that she’ll see the lie if he makes eye-contact. <3 

1:45 - You know, Jessica really isn’t a perfect mother (especially to Ainsley) but she does care about her kids. I love her for it. She actually shows more concern for her adult children than most parents with adult children that I’ve been exposed to. 

2:08 - I can’t decide if I love the music that was playing through that scene or if it’s just super cheesy and cringey. I mean “I did a bad bad thing” right as the title page rolls out? Kind of amazing but also super dorky. 

2:13 - So Mr. David hears this whole conversation. Malcolm talking about his guilt, Martin calling Malcolm a hero, and Malcolm saying that the only person he can talk to about his problems is Martin. Sooooo either

 Mr. David is being paid very well to keep quiet on Whitly family drama, 

 Mr. David stopped listening years ago.

 Mr. David is a moron who can’t connect the dots. OR

 Mr. David is going to blow this whistle on this fiasco to Jessica soon. I mean, he called her in the first season when Malcolm started visiting Martin. Mr. David has Jessica’s number...and I have a hunch that Mr. David cares about Malcolm. He’s watched Malcolm grow up into a troubled, bizarre, but very sweet man. 

2:14 - “Why are you calling me?” Malcolm sounds upset that Martin is calling him; so why pick up the phone? I mean, I guess Martin will call him back incessantly but still. 

2:19 - Malcolm’s completely honest version of how he’s doing mentally is heartbreaking. He “doesn’t recognize himself anymore”? Ugh. Baby. My heart is shattering. Someone hug him. OR TAKE HIM TO GABRIELLE.

2:30 - There is a moment when Malcolm says, “narcissistic psychopath” where is genuinely sounds like he’s about to have a complete breakdown. This boy is on the verge. My whump heart loves it and it makes me evil. 

2:56 - aaannnnnnd there’s Malcolm on the verge of tears. This boy. Ugh. <3 

3:00 - “It’s not going away Malcolm. The guilt. Take it from me.” Sooooo Mr. David isn’t a moron right? He’s going to connect the dots. He has to. ISTG Jessica keeps saying “No more lies” in the promos because Mr. David told her what he overheard. 

3:06 - And that is the face of a boy who is dead on the inside. Seriously, he’s spent his whole life trying to convince himself (and others) that he is nothing like his father. But here we are - all his fears confirmed and it’s killed him. 

3:20 - “Is this what you used?” Ainsley is talking about how Malcolm disposed of the body right? Because last episode she thanked Malcolm for covering for her. Sooooo she clearly knows that she killed Endicott even if she doesn’t remember it. I mean, she was covered in blood - Malcolm wasn’t. 

3:23.- OMG. Endicott was killed with the Milton family silver. hahahaha why is that so funny to me?

3:43 - Just how big is that gap in her memory? I’d truly like to know. When did she check out, when did she check in, and are those times different than what she’s letting Malcolm believe?

3:55 - Yeah - I still want to know why she moved in. COVID? Is she afraid she’s going to do something else murdery? Because surely, living in the house where you know you killed someone can’t be pleasant. Or easy. Unless of course Ainsley is more like Martin than we’d like to believe. 

4:09 - hahahahaha I am living for Malcolm’s facial response to Jessica saying, “I am in charge of boxes.”

4:22 - hahahaha Malcolm and Ainsley teasing Jessica about Gil is so precious. I love it. I wish they were always that happy. 

4:40 - Look at Malcolm’s face when he says, “You and a certain Lieutenant”. He’s practically giddy. Whether that’s because he’s thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to tease his mother OR because he’s always wanted Jessica and Gil to be together in that way that many children who grow up in single parent homes hope for a fairytale parental ending. My guess - a mixture of both.

4:45 - Ainsley looks delighted at the idea of Gil/Jessica too. I assume it’s because she loves the gossip and the opportunity to tease Jessica. BUT I also wonder what Ainsley’s relationship with Gil is like? Do they have one? 

4:58 - “Does he let you wear his turtlenecks?” OMG. bahahahaha comedic GOLD. 

5:10 - THIS. The evolution of JT and Malcolm’s friendship is everything. 10/10 would recommend. So sweet. LOOK AT HOW CONCERNED MALCOLM IS. <3 <3 Malcolm’s been calling JT?!?! UGH. This warms my cold dead heart.

5:20 - JT is a bad liar. This dude is not okay. 

5:27 - “When I say I’m fine, I’m always lying.” .....we already knew this but it hurts to hear Malcolm say is so nonchalantly. 

5:32 - JT does the sign of the cross....so he’s definitely religious. 

5:56 - “Holy...” “Watch it Bright.” hahaha how much do you want to bet that Gil took Malcolm to church once (1) time as a kid. It went so poorly that Gil never brought him again. Malcolm was probably questioning the priest and generally just asking a lot of “why” questions. 

6:15 - Gil is so done with the Edrisa+Bright banter. Look at his face - he’s just sooo tired. .....is Gil particularly cranky this episode because Jessica is dodging his phone calls?

6:23 - Malcolm looks pensive as soon as Gil mentions that the Father had been with the church for 30 years. Why? 

6:56 - I’m not going to lie. I’m really getting tired of the crap Dani (and even Gil in this episode - is he mad at Malcolm for avoiding him when he was hospital-bound? Or just cranky because Jessica isn’t calling him back?) are giving Malcolm. He’s asking a question relevant to the case. Sure - it’s not an easy question to ask but last season they wouldn’t have glared at him for asking it. I understand that Dani is upset with Malcolm for lying to her and she probably thinks he knows something about how Endicott died. I get it - Malcolm screwed up. BUT Dani’s reaction is so over the top. I understand where she’s coming from - she has trust issues. That doesn’t give her the right to treat him like garbage for the rest of his life. It’s been literally MONTHS. 

7:11 - “That’s not a no.”....Damn, he looks cute when he says that. 

7:30 - I LOVE that Malcolm knows so much about the Bible and Catholicism even though he’s not a believer. It makes me think he investigated a ton of religions as a kid - looking for relief from his trauma. I respect that he did the research and I respect that he doesn’t (openly at least) think other people are moronic/short-sighted for believing in God(s). 

7:56 - I’ll be honest, my first reaction to Jonah was: “Why does he look and sound like he’s dying?”

8:03 - “Catholic.” haha I love some good religious comedy. BUT AGAIN GIL, THAT GLARE IS SO NOT NECESSARY. That wasn’t a ‘warning - you’re being insensitive’ glare. That was a ‘I’m your father and you’re in sooo much trouble’ glare. I love Gil with my whole heart but everyone is being a dick to Malcolm today (minus JT and Edrisa) and I’m done with it. Malcolm’s fragile mental state can’t handle it. Be nice to my boy. 

8:35 - Is this Gil’s church?!? Why does he know all the church staff by name? He either attends this church or someone gave him an amazing briefing before he got to the church.

9:34 - At least Gil knows something is wrong with Malcolm. 

9:41 - What? That’s it? No. Gil - press on. Don’t accept Malcolm’s “I’m fine”.

10:18 - I wish this scene didn’t end with Gil’s look of disbelief and concern. I wish we got to see Gil tell Malcolm not to go see Martin. I wish we got a more concrete papa!Gil moment. 

10:42 - Something about the fact that Martin is tethered to a pole like a tether-ball is hilarious to me. Also - why are some prisoners not tied up? The inmate talking to Friar Pete has no rope. 

10:52 - Ugh. When exactly did Martin give Malcolm “The Talk”? Like how old was Malcolm? How traumatic was it? Ugh. It’s very upsetting to remember that Martin acted like a good father to Malcolm for a good portion of the first 10 years of Malcolm’s life. It really doesn’t help Malcolm’s PTSD. 

11:00 - That’s right Malcolm. Don’t let Martin ramble. Stand your ground. <3 So proud of Malcolm <3

11:15 - Listen to the way Malcolm says, “Who is that?”. He’s some combination of resigned and scared. I love it. 

11:33 - Friar Pete is so creepy. The way he just walks up to Malcolm until his rope goes taught?! UGH. Poor Malcolm looks so done with this whole situation. He’s rolling his eyes and grimacing at various points throughout this scene. He has some major sass right now and I’m here for it. 

 11:41 - “You two should talk!” ....Is this Martin’s really eff-ed up way of trying to help Malcolm with his guilt about Endicott? I don’t like it.....and Malcolm’s face tells me he doesn’t either. 

12:48 - Is that true? Can churches really not exorcise people without medical permission in the current day?  I thought exorcisms were just banned? IDK - I’m a Christian, my branch of faith doesn’t do exorcisms. 

13:33 - YES! A JT AND MALCOLM SCENE. <3 <3 I’m unreasonably happy about this. 

13:45 - sooooooo is this Norman’s real home and his real mother? The first time I watched it I thought it was some sort of weird catholic-inpatient facility but now I’m not sure. 

15:10 - Ok. I can’t hold back anymore. Malcolm’s shoes. They. Are. Awful. I understand - Tom Payne is a short guy. He probably needs heels to fit in the shot. I’m not mad about the heels. I’m made that they gave him very very ugly heels. Is it just me? These shoes are hideous. 

15:14 - “Hi Norman.” .....Malcolm is so soft here and I’m in love with it. My cold dead heart is melting. Also JT’s freaked-out look in this scene is everything. 

15:25 - There’s something about the way Malcolm says “Good.” that just hits me really hard. It’s beautiful. He sounds and looks a little scared but he’s also really calm and professional and it’s just...*chef’s kiss*. 

16:44 - “He’s clearly mentally-ill.” I love this. I love that Malcolm is defending the person with a severe mental illness because he doesn’t have any proof that Norman committed a crime. It also breaks my heart. Makes me think of how many people dismissed or judged Malcolm poorly throughout his life because Malcolm’s mental illnesses. Even though they weren’t quite as extreme as Norman’s.

16:54 - I love this. JT is telling Malcolm to stay behind the line partially out of fear (because this whole Norman situation is clearly freaking JT out big time) but also partially because he just cares about Malcolm. I love their friendship and it’s evolution. SO. MUCH. 

17:21 - Is there a mirror of something? How the hell did Norman know that Malcolm crossed the salt? Was it the slight creaking in the floorboards?

17:54 - Dude. Is every suspect this season going to accuse Malcolm of being a killer? First Boyd, now Norman. This is not helping Malcolm’s mental state or his ability to hide his guilt from the team. 

18:30 - “Malcolm Bright. Always crossing the line.” lol. I love JT here. He’s half-teasing Malcolm. Makes me think that he subtly trying to tell Malcolm that he isn’t the killer Norman says that he is. 

18:44 - I DO NOT LIKE THIS. LOOK AT HOW SCARED MALCOLM IS WHEN HE WALKS INTO THE ROOM. A ROOM WITH GIL AND DANI IN IT. THIS IS NOT RIGHT. HE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SCARED OF THEM. 

19:00 - “What the hell do you have?”. Wow. Okay. No. I love Gil. I understand that he loves Malcolm like a son and he’s scared for Malcolm and Malcolm’s mental state. But this question is so over the line. Gil knows damn well what Malcolm’s mental diagnoses are. It feels like he’s accusing Malcolm of being crazy. I don’t like it. 

19:17 - “Are you serious?” Ok. Dani really needs to start being nicer to Malcolm. She doesn’t have to trust him but some professional civility would be great. I really don’t like how hard the writers are pushing this tension between Dani and Malcolm. It makes Dani look so immature. An adult would be pissed but get over the anger after literal months. The relationship wouldn’t necessarily be the same but it sure as hell wouldn’t be this hostile.

19:40 - Something about Malcolm being the calmest person in the room is both comforting and upsetting. 

19:55 - “My father gave it to me.”.....that’s so not going to help Gil’s concern about Malcolm.

20:50 - This is cute. We don’t get to see enough of Jessica and Ainsley acting like a semi-normal mother-daughter duo. I love it. 

21:00 - “We are WASPs. It’s. What. We. Do.” OMG. Hahahaha 

21:05 - I love how invested Ainsley is in the Gil/Jessica relationship. It’s so clear that she wants her Mom to be happy and I love it. It also makes me wonder if she ever wanted Gil to be her real dad as a kid.

21:30 - Damn. This episode is creepy.

21:45 - First clue that this is a dream - Malcolm says “we” but he’s alone. 

21:57 - ...are Nuns allowed to paint their nails? #GenuineQuestion

22:14 - Not going to lie. This made me cry. I relate to Malcolm so damn much here. I’ve had a severe anxiety disorder for as long as I can remember (seriously I saw my first therapist - against my will - at the age of 4). I’ve also had chronic depression for almost as long. AND I’m a christian. I can’t tell you how many times other christians have told me to “cast my worries on the Lord” and “be free” of my pain. Or that I don’t really believe in God because I’m still suffering so visibly. The problem is - I don’t know if I want to be free. I’ve had these issues so long that I’m genuinely not sure who I’d be without them. It’s how I define myself. It affects every aspect of my personality. I feel like Malcolm might feel the same way - he doesn’t want to suffer anymore but he’s afraid of finding out who he is without the pain. 

22:17 - Okay. So there’s Gil’s voice. So Gil+ Malcolm = “we”. As though I’m supposed to believe that Gil would split up with Malcolm when they’re looking for a nun, who isn’t even a suspect, at a church. Nah. I don’t buy it. This is clearly a dream. 

22:30 - “You have to tell them what you did.”...and then we see the knife. Does this mean Malcolm is slowly convincing himself that he killed Endicott. Not Ainsley? Either way - I agree with nightmare-Ainsley. The team loves Malcolm but they’re also detectives. They’ll figure out what happened. And when they do - yikes. 

22:46 - I hate this. All season suspects have been calling Malcolm evil. Martin has been calling Malcolm a “hero”. Malcolm’s guilt is eating him alive. Simultaneously, the people who are supposed to trust and care about him (Dani, Gil, the precinct, Jessica) have all shown signs of doubting him. Dani alone has pointed a gun at Malcolm’s head. Now she’s wearing body armour? AND LOOK AT THE OTHER COPS. THEY ALL HAVE THEIR HANDS ON THEIR GUNS AS THOUGH MALCOLM IS A CRIMINAL. A THREAT. DANGEROUS. This is very bad for Malcolm’s mental health......God, the whump-whore in me hopes he has a major panic attack or something this season. 

23:23 - I love this scene. This is the papa!Gil content I’m here for. 

23:51 - JT expressing fear and concern for his unborn child makes my heart grow several sizes. Look at his puppy dog eyes here? Ugh. So precious. This whole JT arc is heartbreaking and beautiful. I love it.

24:15 - Sooooo JT knows about Jessica right? He’s a detective and a husband. He so knows. hahaha this is so cute. 

24:19 - Gil. You. Are. A. Liar......and you’ve been really grumpy this episode but I’m going to forgive you because I love you. 

24:28 - GIL. You’ve waited 20 years. How much longer can you wait for Jessica?!?!

24:35 - Maybe JT didn’t know? At least - not until Gil rambled on about waiting? JT looks like he just connected all the dots and he’s super uncomfortable.

24:43 -...... so she verbally attacks him all episode then drives him home and acts like she did toward Malcolm by mid-season 1? I’m getting whiplash. 

25:18 - This scene is so cute. They actually made the real life version of heart-eyes at each other. And Malcolm pours her a glass of water. Because 1) she’s driving and 2) she’s a recovering addict. He’s so casually respectful and I love it. 

25:28 - “Are you any different?” Ouch. Look at how hurt Malcolm is. :( Although, props to Dani for confronting him about it. Someone needed to and she’s being really calm and caring about it. 

26:10 - Dani’s little speech about being a black woman feels a little forced? Like the writers put it in so she doesn’t feel left out compared to JT? Idk, the whole thing just seemed not quite believable. Probably because when JT was racially profiled Dani - a black woman - pulled out her badge and all the white cops listened to her. It just doesn’t track. They wouldn’t have listened to her if they were racist and bold enough to attack JT in the first place.

26:47 - Anyone else think that all those lit candles are a fire hazard? Just me? Cool cool cool. 

 27:21 - Yo. This is stupid. I understand why this happened - because the plot needed it to happen. BUT WHY DID ALL THREE ARMED COPS LEAVE THREE UNARMED PEOPLE ALONE?!? And when does a team of 4 split into a group of 3 and 1??! It makes no logical sense (except for plot purposes).

28:03 - Creepy. 

28:30 - Oh. HELL no. This is absolute bs. My entire heart is breaking for JT.

29:05 - I really like how chill this Priest is. Like - he respects that Malcolm’s a disbeliever and he’s willing to talk to him without trying to convert him. 

29:55 - Listen to how upset JT sounds here!! :( :( :( My heart. :( 

30:08 - Ok so how did she end up tied in the closet and not murdered? 

30:40 - ....so did Jonah ruin that painting while Sister Agnes was in the closet or is the Sister just a moron who didn’t say anything about the guy ruining the painting?!?

30:50 - Sooooo Jonah is an “expert”. He taught Sister Agnes how to safely handle the lead-based paint. Yet - he didn’t use the protection? We saw him with a gas mask at the beginning of the episode? Did the sister not notice that he wasn’t using the protection? So much of this doesn’t track. Thankfully, I don’t watch this show for the “murder of the week” plot line.

31:30 - Malcolm is a good dude. Even now. He’s trying to help Jonah. <3 Heart of gold. 

32:25 - Martin - shut. up. 

32:45 - Friar Pete is a creepy treasure. I love him. 

33:24 - “Oh you’ve gotta be kidding.” hahaha I feel you Malcolm. I feel you. 

33:34 - Not gonna lie - when I watched this the first time all I could think is “How the eff does Malcolm remember everything Pete just said?” Maybe it’s just me but I would need Pete to go 1-2 words at a time. And slowly. ....maybe Malcolm took Latin in school? 

24:06 - Oh so all the killers this season are also going to accuse Malcolm of being a killer and/or evil. 

34:40 - Damn. I wish the team walked in right as Malcolm was screaming “the power of Christ compels you!!!”.

35:15 - I. Love. This. Gil screaming on the phone is everything. Him going to bat for JT is everything. Malcolm saying “This is bad”?!? *chef’s kiss*. ISTG Malcolm’s been scolded by Gil when Gil is that mad at some point during his teen years. 

35:53 - “I’ll take care of it.” JT. Is. My. Hero. What an absolute king. He’s going to take care of it, even though he’s terrified, because he needs to protect his family. Not just Tally and the baby. But little sister Dani too. <3 My heart is full. 

36:11 - ....okay so not to ruin a totally beautiful and profound scene but every time I’ve watched this scene JT doing that lean into the wall is very weird to me. Because he turns to face the camera. If he just slid down the wall or just leaned his head against the wall - it wouldn’t have felt so strange. It honestly distracts me from the scene. Every. Time. 

36:18 - This is hot garbage. I don’t even want to rewatch this scene because it makes me so upset. 

37:51 - I understand where Jessica is coming from but I also think she’s being a moron. I will say though, I respect the hell out of Gil for walking away when asked. A lot of men wouldn’t but he respects Jessica even if he doesn’t like what he’s hearing. So he left because she asked him to. 

39:00 - If this isn’t a red flag for Jessica about Ainsley’s mental health idk what is. 

39:25 - Poor Malcolm looks like he’s on the verge of tears here. :( I’m genuinely scared that Malcolm is becoming suicidal. He’s reaching the level of depressed and guilt where I think it’s a possibility. I genuinely think he’d rather kill himself to stop his guilt and suffering than to admit it to Gil, Jessica, JT, or Dani. ...for legal reasons he definitely can’t tell Gabrielle. 

40:00 - Sooooo Martin is finally suggesting that it was his idea to dispose of the body. I hope it’s the truth. 

40:05 - Martin is a piece of trash. He really needs to stop playing with Malcolm’s head. It’s literally killing Malcolm. 

40:50 - Oh. SHIT. Malcolm just clapped back hard. I am so so proud of him. ...also concerned about this deep anger in him though.

 41:46 - I swear - if we don’t get a Gil and Martin face-off when Martin breaks out, I will lose my mind. It’s one of the top things I want from this show. A Martin+Gil showdown. 

Ok. So I kind of loved this episode? Even though there were...many plot holes and things that annoyed me about it. Is it just me or has this season felt much darker than last season so far? It makes sense given last season’s finale but it’s still thrown me a bit. 

BUT I CAN NOT WAIT FOR 2x3. That promo. Ugh. <3 <3 We’re going to get traumatized teen!Malcolm content and I’m a sick bastard who is living for it. 

[cutebutstillsingle]

REASONS WHY YOU’RE STILL SINGLE: BECAUSE YOU’RE DATING A NARCISSIST, PART 2 (examples from my “entertained a narcissist” situationship)

                          ...............................................................

Sadly it might have to be one of those horrible experiential learning kinds of situations where you can’t “know” what I’m talking about until you live through it.  But hopefully you catch any narcissistic and inappropriate behavior before it annihilates your spirit completely, and before it starts permanently making you doubt and question your own sound judgement and amazing qualities.  The less you tolerate narcissistic behavior, the better you fare.  

I’m gonna be vulnerable and admit that never in my wildest imagination of knowing myself, would ever think that I, of all people, could get emotionally manipulated by narcissistic behavior.  I like to consider myself a “no bullshit” kind of person.    Either way, I feel like I did take some narc bullets that still have me shook to this day as I learn more and more about myself and do the work of running through that relationship to learn from it.  

Here are 10 real life examples of red flags that I allowed to permanently enter my memory bank, because the chemistry and similarities between me and this dude seemed so unbelievable that I wasn’t thinking clearly.  I’m grateful to God that I still managed to picked up on some of the yellow lights and red flags.  When I dumped him, I literally had to tell myself “do it now, or you’re going to lose your nerve”.  I genuinely believe that was the holy spirit speaking to me.  Because on my own strength I would have stayed in, and what I have gained by parting ways is priceless in getting to know and love myself more.   

CLUE 1= He was still fully in touch wit his ex wife, and would openly  talk about being in touch with her.  At some points he even said he still loved her, despite saying that he loved me within one month of meeting me.  But I was that stupid and I ignored it.  In reality, a man should not be in touch with any past partners whatsoever unless he has kids with them.  And no one should say “I love you” to a complete stranger they just met a month ago, and then turn back around and also say they still love their ex-wife. Also, pay attention: EX wife.  There’s a reason they did not last. And it may have been him.  

CLUE  2= He started disclosing way too much about himself to me, a complete stranger that he had only known for about a month.  I now realize this was on purpose to make me feel like it was a “safe” space to disclose way the eff too much about myself way too soon.  Ladies, pay attention please. Nobody should be revealing classified information about your life to anyone who you have known for less than six months.  You should only be telling your most intense personal information to people who know you the absolute BEST, and who have made it into your inner circle after proving their trustworthiness to know your secrets, keep them, and never use them against you. 

CLUE 3= Whenever I would talk about things that excited and interested me, he would rapidly shut them down, make me feel dumb for being excited by my interests.  I was reading a David Goggins book and he tried so hard to shit on David Goggin’s accomplishments saying anyone could do Navy Seal swimming drills.  He also tried to accuse me of being sexually attracted to David Goggins (David Goggins is of neutral attraction to me, TBH.  One has to imagine David Goggins is not terrible in bed if he approaches sexuality with the same approach he uses for the rest of his life endeavors, lololol.  But that shouldn’t make anyone you date feel that insecure).  If I was excited by learning yoga inversions, he would say he did gymnastics for years as a kid and it’s not that big of a deal. If I said I wanted to learn to bake better cookies, he would say his aunt and mom were the best cookie bakers in the world.  After I baked a kick ass batch of chocolate chip cookies because he said he loved sweets, he wouldn’t even try one.  A narcissist will work hard to make you feel like you can’t ever be worthy or good enough.

CLUE 4= He refused to ever meet any of my friends. And I think this is because he refused to see me in an empowered state where other genuinely kind and awesome people were drawn to me just for being my kind and awesome self.  Weirdly, I had met all his friends and family within a month of knowing him.  

CLUE 5= He would repeatedly say that most people were dumb and sheep-like. Again, with this need to put others down.  

CLUE 6= He actively hated on complete strangers and nearly all of his family members.  Road rage with insults was a common occurrence.  

CLUE 8= He had a history of severe alcohol and substance addiction and abuse. His version of it was “I am in recovery and have been sober for X number of years.  I was arrested in the past for a DUI,  and that was the point that turned it all around and I knew I had to get sober.  I got myself sober with no help”.  

Well the truth was he was NOT completely sober-- he was still a hardcore pothead, and he still drank NA beers on the regular that tasted just like beer because they are beer.   I later ended up background checking him when I was learning how to use background check websites as research for this blog (which I’ll discuss in a future post); and uh... his history was WAY worse than he made it seem.  People with substance addiction issues are often narcissistic. The two often go hand in hand.  

CLUE 7= He once told me that during an argument with his brother and family, his brother said I was ugly. A solid BF would never pass on any indirect insults to his GF. I have a feeling that this was never true, TBH.   Steve Harvey has said in his book “Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man” that if a man truly loves a woman, he will protect her.  And that includes protecting her from anything negative anyone says about her.  If there’s one thing I know about me, I’m in “the pretty girls club”.  Not to sound conceited because looks aren’t everything and we will all end up old, gray, and wrinkled one day.  But I come from a family line of historically gorgeous women; and I have been a competitive and paid professional Tahitian dancer since I was 13.  Google “Tahitian dance Competition” or “Heiva i Tahiti” if you want to see what gorgeous women look like.   But the point is, to this day, that comment began to erode my self-esteem.

CLUE 8= At other times he unleashed passive aggressive insults such as “I can’t deal with your apparent relationship insecurities”-- I called him on this immediately.  And mind you, this line was how he responded when I asked him to join me at a BBQ invite with some of my friends, and I was disappointed when he said no.  

CLUE 9= he was arrogant.  Never did he fail to boast about all his accomplishments, skills, and intelligence.  He also had a lot of grandiose ideas.  

CLUE 10= when I dumped him, he immediately responded by calling me a “train wreck” and a “bitch”.  At no point was there a “wait.. what?  Please don’t do this.  We need to talk, I’m calling you/ I’m coming over, I still want to be with you”.  I’m not kidding in the least when I say his immediate response was “I dodged a major train wreck. Good luck bitch, you gonna need it.  

Well, good luck, narcissists of the world, you gonna need it.  Because narcissists and narcissistic behavior are the real train wrecks we all need to learn to avoid if we want to date successfully.

[justice-for-shayla]

Chicken/Egg

A/N: The prompt was Sex before Love and Mutual Pining and I went all the way off. I guess I had something to get off my chest. 

Word Count: 1941 

Warnings: Sexual content, though not graphic, scary academic situations, angst, complete lack of editing,

Tag List: I’m tagging people who liked the prompt ask and some writers I admire in the hopes that people will read this because I’m very proud of it. @sassystrawberryk, @lieblingliebgott, @r-ahh-mi, @rami-hoe, @elliotmercury

Your acquaintance started with crowds.

He was a face you saw in a coffee shop, the only person who was there as often and as long as you were. You spoke for the first time when he came over to your table, awkward as all hell.

“Is someone sitting here?”  

The empty chair in front of you was a challenge. You both . knew perfectly well that you came in here nearly every day and spent hours working on one assignment or another, and no one had ever joined you. You had seen him watching you, and he had seen you watching him right back. The fact that the lunch rush had the place so packed that there really was no option other than for strangers to share was just the thing that finally made it impossible for the two of you to keep ignoring each other.

“No.” 

He shuffled, worrying the strap of his bag. “Can I sit there?” He gestured at the crowd, at all the full tables, at the first dates and business meetings and tired moms catching up.

You nodded and shifted your stuff on the table, allowing him a bit of space. “Sure.”

It took all of three minutes for him to get annoying. He didn’t have to say anything-- people rarely did with you-- it was apparent without words. He typed way to fucking fast.

The stupid clicking was rattling around in your head, driving all the very salient points you’d been trying to put into your essay out of your head. “Could you not?” You snapped after a minute?

“What?” He looked up at you with an expression like you’d yanked him out of a movie theater in the middle of the show.

“The… clicking. It’s annoying.”

He looked at his hands. “Um, sure.”

To his credit, he did try, and you appreciated that, so even when it kept being annoying you didn’t say anything else.

The next time you came in in the middle of the lunch rush, you saw him tucked in the corner like a shadow, and beelined for his table, rather than make eye-contact with the guy who was clearly trying to pack up the nerve to offer you his spare chair.

“Do you mind?” You asked, already putting your stuff down.

He just nodded.

His typing was less annoying today somehow, and you did your work in silence while he did his, neither of you overly concerned with the other’s presence.

Your friendship started with panic.

Sitting with him had become natural, an easy second-best to sitting alone. Neither of you bothered to ask before sitting anymore.

“Morning, Y/N,” He said, surprising you as you sat down.

“You know my name?” You asked, running through your limited conversations trying to remember when you’d told him that.

“Your coffee,” He said, “I noticed it last time.”

You stared at the cup, the barista’s scrawl marking out a slightly misspelled but legible version of your name. “Right.” You looked at his. “Ed? Huh, doesn’t fit somehow. Shit, sorry that was rude.”

“It’s not my real name,” He said casually, not looking up from his screen. “I’m Elliot.”

“You give a fake name when ordering coffee?” You asked.

He looked up at you, his eyes humorless and level. “It’s funny.”

“Right…” With that, you went back to your work.

Two hours later, you fucked something up. Your dissertation, nearly complete, nearly perfect, worth more to you than gold at this point, was gone.

“How? What the…” You searched through all your folders, sure that it had been moved somehow. Sure that this page, which said “File corrupted” in terrifyingly simple text, was somehow not your precious magnum opus. “How?”

Abruptly, your throat is closing and your eyes are filling with tears. “No… No, this can’t be--”

“Are you okay?” You had completely forgotten Elliot, he was so quiet, and in his dark clothes he slipped easily into the background, which is how you thought he wanted it.

You shook your head. “No, I… I did something dumb. I’m not even sure what-- My dissertation is gone.”

There was a small silence while expressions flitted across his face like he was arguing with himself. “Can I see?”

“I doubt there’s anything you can do, see it says that the file is  corrupted. Christ, i don’t even know what that means.”

Those eyes, which you were just now noticing were the most interesting color you’d ever seen, scanned over your screen. “Give me a minute.”

His fingers flitted over your keyboard, typing in languages you couldn’t make sense of. You vowed that if he managed this, you would never be irritated by his typing again.  He was almost exactly right; a little over a minute later he said, “Is this it?”

“Holy Christing Fuck,” You said, staring at your paper, risen from the dead like a sexy intellectual dracula. Unthinkingly, you stood up and moved around the table to wrap your arms around his neck.

He flinched, and you leapt back. “Christ, I’m so sorry. I have no sense of boundaries, I’m so sorry. Just… holy shit, thank you.”

In that moment, you could have kissed him, could have done a great many things to express your gratitude, not that you would have told him that.

“It’s fine,” He said, looking away from you. “Uh, you’re welcome.”

Somehow, that weirdness broke the ice, and after that you talked--Chatted!--whenever you sat together, and he even started walking you home if it got dark while you were there. He never answered when you asked what he was doing, but seeing as he lied about his name for coffee, this didn’t surprise or offend you. He was quirky; you liked that.

Fucking Elliot started because of the heat.

It got hot in New York in the summer, the ugly, sticky, shit-smelling heat that clogged pores and ruined moods. You had turned in your dissertation and were now researching a book, but your days looked the same as they always had. You woke up, you drank coffee, you researched and wrote.

And Elliot was there. Even when the heat got bad, he walked you home and didn’t take off his hoodie. You had kind of started to think about taking it off for him. Weeks and months sitting across from him at those stupid cafe tables had called certain things to your attention. His long fingers, his eyes which were so strangely colored and so fascinatingly keen, his low, steady voice which you were sure sounded amazing when it was gravelly with sex.

You didn’t say anything, remembering your disastrous attempt at hugging him, but at night you fantasized about those hands, those eyes, and that voice.

One day, it all crashed around you, like something out of a movie neither of you would like. He walked you home on a sweaty saturday, where thick clouds hung over the city like wool blankets, making the air soupy and hard to breathe. You were walking, a block away from your apartment when they finally released their burden in a sudden onslaught.

You were soaked through in an instant but you ran anyway and Elliot ran with you, his limbs flying strangely like he’d only heard of running, and was just now trying it out. If you hadn’t been floundering in a rain-soaked white dress you probably would have stopped to laugh at him.

As it was, you both powered to your building door, and strangely, he didn’t stop at the stoop like normal, he followed you up the stairs, right to your door.

His hair was stuck to his forehead, his hoodie sodden and clinging to him, and he was frozen in place staring at you.

What had been loose, flowing white fabric--perfect for the heat--was now transparent and plastered against your skin, highlighting every detail. He licked his lips, paused for a beat, and then put his hands on your shoulders.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

He did, and after a moment of frantic grasping at hair and clothes and keys and doorknobs, you both fell into your apartment and he pressed you against the wall and held you there.

Both of you had to get out of all those wet clothes, the urgency perhaps more extreme because of how much you wanted him inside you in that moment. Your dress fell next to his hoodie, winding around it like a strange, artistic yin-yang sign on the floor, which you barely had time to notice before he brought his lips back to yours and on your neck and then your chest, your nipples.

You had been right about his voice. It had been good before, but low and rough with need and desperation while he thrust into you, it was something else altogether. You wished you could have kept the sound he let out when he came for another rainy day, one when he wasn’t here and you would have to take care of yourself.

After that, you had sex regularly. The heat and the sweat of the New York summer didn’t subside, and the two of you made your apartment that much hotter, but somehow you didn’t mind. Elliot was surprisingly good in bed, and when he wasn’t, he listened and learned well. It was a perfect situation, he wasn’t too much in your life, and you weren’t too much in his, exactly as you wanted it.

Except that you started to talk after you fucked. He told you about his parents and his sister, and you told him about your classmates and your book. You learned that he wanted to help people, that he was lonely most of the time but that he cared deeply about things he would never speak of.

You started to love him because of him.

Because of all that kindness wrapped in all that damage. He was so perfectly your type, and you connected with him better than you had with anyone else, but not on that level. No, Elliot didn’t love you the way you loved him. You watched him become comfortable in your apartment and imagined him moving in, living with you in your shitty overpriced studio. He hadn’t even invited you over to his place.

But he let you in in other ways. He showed you his favorite movies and he would lay down with his head in your lap, no longer skittish about touching you. You let yourself believe that these things meant something, even though there was no way. Distance was what Elliot did best.

Still, you couldn’t pull away from him, not even to save your sorry excuse for a heart. You kept sleeping with him, sharing coffee with him, yearning for him whenever he looked away from you.

It was pathetic, and you couldn’t even really care. You wanted him, and you wished he wanted you. It was classic, the very definition of romance from those books you’d pretentiously enjoyed as a teenager.

For weeks, you assumed it was one-sided, that Elliot would never see this as more than a casual fuck between friends, but it changed rapidly, shifting in an instant just like everything in your relationship had before.

He was dozing off on your chest, laying over you in the slow, heavy moments after a particularly good orgasm when he muttered, quietly but perfectly distinctly in his beautiful voice, “I love you.”

Though you wanted to cry, or to leap out of bed and punch the air, you simply smiled and pressed a kiss against his head in an easy little affectionate gesture you’d been denying yourself. “I love you too.”

[laallomri]

paria, ruler of god tier headcanons, tell us about leandro/akira

YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND

leandro:

-curly brown hair (undercut because Of Course), freckles, brown eyes, oversize hands but slender fingers, his ears stick out a little and turn red when he’s embarrassed, when he smiles genuinely his eyes crinkle at the corners, whenever akira does romantic stuff for him he giggles instead of laughs properly and it’s one of akira’s favorite things about him

-he has adhd and hyperfixates on things so he has a huuuge amount of knowledge on very specific subjects. he does the thing where you jiggle your leg and he paces a lot and he keeps a fidget spinner in his pocket

-he is self-conscious. if asked why he’ll say it’s about how much he talks but that’s the surface-version of the real issue, which is that he’s worried about his talent/self-worth. his arc is a mix of him learning to love himself even if he’s not good at something and him doing badass stuff to prove that he’s amazing at a lot of things, too. he learns how to be content with being someone’s support and how to trust himself and his abilities so that he can make decisions with confidence when it is his turn to lead

-he’s your friendly neighborhood sharpshooter and says cool but kinda cheesy lines when he makes shots. akira always falls for them

-leandro, shooting the doorbell of the villain’s home from across the yard, at night: buzz buzz motherfucker! I got a delivery for ya

-akira, muttering: he’s so cool holy shit

-leandro, shooting a villain square in the chest while under heavy fire: HOW’S THAT FOR A BOY FROM CUBA

-akira, hyperventilating: do u think it’s a bad idea to make out while people are trying to kill us or

-leandro was born and raised in cuba. spanish is his first language and he speaks english with an accent

-he is the youngest of four (2 older brothers, 1 twin sister) and has 2 nieces and 1 nephew. his best friend is his maternal grandmother. he calls her every day and she was the second person he came out to after his sister

-he started to consciously realize he wasn’t straight at 14 but he wasn’t out as bisexual until he was 18 (he tells his sister at 15 and his abuelita at 17). part of his arc is becoming less nervous with saying it to people in general because he spends time around the rest of the team, who are all lgbt and make him feel safe and normal about his sexuality

-his ears are pierced and he wears earrings that used to belong to his grandfather, who was a hero and leandro’s inspiration for wanting to help people and do things to make the world better

akira:

-long dark hair (usually ties it up), dark eyes, 1 year older but a few inches shorter than leandro, a dimple in his cheek that flashes whenever he smiles (leandro will sometimes poke the dimple when akira smiles and say “oh hello, nice to see you again” and it always makes akira smile even bigger). his neck and cheeks turn red when he blushes, he snorts when he laughs, and he always sits cross-legged in chairs, even at dining tables and desks

-born and raised in america, though his family is japanese. he understands it fluently but can speak it only conversationally

-he has a necklace that used to belong to his dad. there’s a small square pendant in the center that says ‘family’ in japanese. akira keeps it tucked under his shirt so he can wear it without worrying about losing it

-he is autistic and stims by making a fist and running his thumb over his index finger. sensory overload affects him sometimes so he keeps noise-cancelling headphones in his backpack and leandro makes sure that he scouts out a quiet place for him to take a break whenever they’re at a party or in some kind of crowded area

-sometimes his fangs will appear and his eyes will flash purple and he kinda goes into a lowkey rager mode during a fight. he always manages to calm down when the fight is over so he’s never harmed an innocent person but it bothers him that he can’t control it so leandro offers to train with him to help him learn to bring it out or suppress it at will

-akira, softly: but what if I hurt you? I’d hate if I ever harmed you when you’re just trying to help me

-leandro, also softly, smiling with crinkly eyes: you’d never hurt me. I trust you

-akira, internally: the gay you two exhibited in that moment was legendary. like, the gay jumped out

-akira always knew he liked boys but wasn’t really comfortable saying it. then when he was 13 his mentor/older brother figure talked about asking out a male friend and akira realized that it’s totally normal. he came out as gay a couple years later. he was still a bit self-conscious about it for a while but by the time he’s 17/18 he’s fully comfortable with that part of himself

-he has a motorcycle and normally he doesn’t care about looking cool on it but whenever leandro is around that goes completely out the window

-akira: revving the engine is dumb it’s just showing off

-leandro: hi

-akira: VROOM VROOM BITCHES

-he has 2 swords and often dual-wields. it’s another thing that he knows is cool but doesn’t care but then suddenly does when leandro is around

-akira, after chopping up 12 bad guys: anyway let’s go home now

-leandro: great job, man!! that was fuckin awesome!!

-akira, kneeling and crossing the swords in the air like he’s in some kinda historical epic movie: I AM A GOD

-his arc is about family, about figuring out what happened to his dad and mom and about his attachment to his older brother/mentor and about discovering a family in the team. it’s hard for him to let people in and he often gets scares when he realizes how close he is to someone. but he learns to trust them and trust himself not to ruin things

[poorquentyn]

I'm re reading IT right now (slowly, as adult life is getting in the way) and was wondering what other bad storytelling choices you thought king made besides the. Uh. Sewer scene? Its been years since ive read it and nothing else really stood out to me as poor storytelling that i can remember. I'll read it for myself eventually but was curious of your thoughts. Love your blog!

Thanks! Stephen King often veers into caricature with his supporting characters, and It is no exception. The way he describes Eddie’s mom and wife physically goes well beyond the narratively useful purpose of establishing how their weight disorders have intertwined with Eddie’s hypochondria and into “ugh fat people are gross” territory. I don’t think King has conscious malignance in this area, because he finds a proper balance with Ben: the latter describes in realistic detail how he lost weight over time, his mom is upset that he’s eating less but is presented humanely (as someone who associates her son eating a lot with her doing well as a single mother), and King manages to avoid shaming Ben for his weight while also acknowledging that Ben personally feels a lot better about himself after having shed it–or rather, because of the confidence he gained in himself by taking charge of the situation. The idea here is not “Ben needs to lose weight because gross” but rather “Ben needs to be in control of his body.” 

The good doesn’t wipe out the bad, nor vice versa; gotta consider them both in context. Main characters are naturally going to get more nuance than supporting characters, but necessary shorthand can easily turn into harmful caricature. And of course, a storytelling choice that seems solid in isolation can become a problem within the work as a whole. Beverly is sexualized throughout It in a way that’s often very unpleasant to read, associated throughout with violence and misogyny. Sometimes this works, as a way of peeling back the layers of petty ego driving a man’s man like her husband Tom; he explodes at her in their introductory scene because her paying attention to Mike’s call instead of him makes him feel like he’s literally not there. Other times it doesn’t, like when King lingers on the “smell” that Bev and her father “make together” now that she’s reaching puberty. We don’t need that to get the point that Bev’s father has inappropriate feelings for her–we got that from Bev’s mom asking if he ever touches her. When you put both sides of the coin together with the infamous sex scene in the sewers and the amount of time spent on whether Bev will choose Ben or Bill, it starts to look less like King was taking a stand against objectification by showing its omnipresence than that he simply didn’t know what to do with Bev as a character without constantly making reference to sex, rape, assault, and molestation. While she does get some right to response on these matters, I don’t think it’s nearly enough. It pushes back against a mindset that casually treats women like objects, but fails to establish a counter-narrative rooted in the female characters as individuals, fleshed out beyond their relationships to the men around them. It’s less a question of Does Stephen King Hate Women than one of imagination and empathy. 

Of course, some flaws are lessened by context, rather than enhanced by it. Take, for example, our protagonist William Denbrough, a blatant author insert. Bill is a popular horror author (check) whose books are increasingly being adapted for TV and film (check) and who has a rather tense relationship with critics and academics (double check). The latter is spelled out in an extended flashback to Bill’s college days, in which he takes a stand that ought to be very familiar to anyone steeped in modern media discourse:

Here is a poor boy from the state of Maine who goes to the University on a scholarship. All his life he has wanted to be a writer, but when he enrolls in the writing courses he finds himself lost without a compass in a strange and frightening land. There’s one guy who wants to be Updike. There’s another one who wants to be a New England version of Faulkner-only he wants to write novels about the grim lives of the poor in blank verse. There’s a girl who admires Joyce Carol Gates but feels that because Oates was nurtured in a sexist society she is “radioactive in a literary sense.” Oates is unable to be clean, this girl says. She will be cleaner. There’s the short fat grad student who can’t or won’t speak above a mutter. This guy has written a play in which there are nine characters. Each of them says only a single word. Little by little the playgoers realize that when you put the single words together you come out with “War is the tool of the sexist death merchants.” This fellow’s play receives an A from the man who teaches Eh-141 (Creative Writing Honors Seminar). This instructor has published four books of poetry and his master’s thesis, all with the University Press. He smokes pot and wears a peace medallion. The fat mutterer’s play is produced by a guerrilla theater group during the strike to end the war which shuts down the campus in May of 1970. The instructor plays one of the characters.

Bill Denbrough, meanwhile, has written one locked-room mystery tale, three science-fiction stories, and several horror tales which owe a great deal to Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and Richard Matheson-in later years he will say those stories resembled a mid-1800s funeral hack equipped with a supercharger and painted Day-Glo red.

One of the sf tales earns him a B.

“This is better,” the instructor writes on the title page. “In the alien counterstrike we see the vicious circle in which violence begets violence; I particularly liked the “needle-nosed” spacecraft as a symbol of socio-sexual incursion. While this remains a slightly confused undertone throughout, it is interesting.”

All the others do no better than a C.

Finally he stands up in class one day, after the discussion of a sallow young woman’s vignette about a cow’s examination of a discarded engine block in a deserted field (this may or may not be after a nuclear war) has gone on for seventy minutes or so. The sallow girl, who smokes one Winston after another and picks occasionally at the pimples which nestle in the hollows of her temples, insists that the vignette is a socio-political statement in the manner of the early Orwell. Most of the class-and the instructor-agree, but still the discussion drones on.

When Bill stands up, the class looks at him. He is tail, and has a certain presence.

Speaking carefully, not stuttering (he has not stuttered in better than five years), he says: “I don’t understand this at all. I don’t understand any of this. Why does a story have to be socio-anything? Politics… culture… history… aren’t those natural ingredients in any story, if it’s told well? I mean… ” He looks around, sees hostile eyes, and realizes dimly that they see this as some sort of attack. Maybe it even is. They are thinking, he realizes, that maybe there is a sexist death merchant in their midst. “I mean… can’t you guys just let a story be a story?”

No one replies. Silence spins out. He stands there looking from one cool set of eyes to the next. The sallow girl chuffs out smoke and snubs her cigarette in an ashtray she has brought along in her backpack.

Finally the instructor says softly, as if to a child having an inexplicable tantrum, “do you believe William Faulkner was ‘just telling stories’? Do you believe Shakespeare was just interested in making a buck? Come now, Bill. Tell us what you think.”

“I think that’s pretty close to the truth,” Bill says after a long moment in which he honestly considers the question, and in their eyes he reads a kind of damnation.

“I suggest,” the instructor says, toying with his pen and smiling at Bill with half-lidded eyes, “that you have a great deal to learn.”

The applause starts somewhere in the back of the room.

Bill leaves… but returns the next week, determined to stick with it. In the time between he has written a story called “The Dark,” a tale about a small boy who discovers a monster in the cellar of his house. The little boy faces it, battles it, finally kills it. He feels a land of holy exaltation as he goes about the business of writing this story; he even feels that he is not so much telling the story as he is allowing the story to flow through him. At one point he puts his pen down and takes his hot and aching hand out into ten-degree December cold where it nearly smokes from the temperature change. He walks around, green cut-off boots squeaking in the snow like tiny shutter-hinges which need oil, and his head seems to bulge with the story; it is a little scary, the way it needs to get out. He feels that if it cannot escape by way of his racing hand that it will pop his eyes out in its urgency to escape and be concrete. “Going to knock the shit out of it,” he confides to the blowing winter dark, and laughs a little-a shaky laugh. He is aware that he has finally discovered how to do just that-after ten years of trying he has suddenly found the starter button on the vast dead bulldozer taking up so much space inside his head. It has started up. It is revving, revving. It is nothing pretty, this big machine. It was not made for taking pretty girls to proms. It is not a status symbol. It means business. It can knock things down. If he isn’t careful, it will knock him down.

He rushes inside and finishes “The Dark” at white heat, writing until four o'clock in the morning and finally falling asleep over his ring-binder. If someone had suggested to him that he was really writing about his brother, George, he would have been surprised. He has not thought about George in years-or so he honestly believes.

The story comes back from the instructor with an F slashed into the tide page. Two words are scrawled beneath, in capital letters. PULP, screams one. CRAP, screams the other.

Bill takes the fifteen-page sheaf of manuscript over to the wood-stove and opens the door. He is within a bare inch of tossing it in when the absurdity of what he is doing strikes him. He sits down in his rocking chair, looks at a Grateful Dead poster, and starts to laugh. Pulp? Fine! Let it be pulp! The woods were full of it!

“Let them fucking trees fall!” Bill exclaims, and laughs until tears spurt from his eyes and roll down his face.

He retypes the title page, the one with the instructor’s judgment on it, and sends it off to a men’s magazine named White Tie (although from what Bill can see, it really should be titled Naked Girls Who Look Like Drug Users). Yet his battered Writer’s Market says they buy horror stories, and the two issues he has bought down at the local mom-and-pop store have indeed contained four horror stories sandwiched between the naked girls and the ads for dirty movies and potency pills. One of them, by a man named Dennis Etchison, is actually quite good.

He sends “The Dark” off with no real hopes-he has submitted a good many stories to magazines before with nothing to show for it but rejection slips-and is flabbergasted and delighted when the fiction editor of White Tie buys it for two hundred dollars, payment on publication. The assistant editor adds a short note which calls it “the best damned horror story since Ray Bradbury’s "The Jar.” He adds, “Too bad only about seventy people coast to coast will read it,” but Bill Denbrough does not care. Two hundred dollars!

He goes to his advisor with a drop card for Eh-141. His advisor initials it. Bill Denbrough staples the drop card to the assistant fiction editor’s congratulatory note and tacks both to the bulletin board on the creative-writing instructor’s door. In the corner of the bulletin board he sees an anti-war cartoon. And suddenly, as if moving of its own accord, his fingers pluck his pen from his breast pocket and across the cartoon he writes this: If fiction and politics ever really do become interchangeable, I’m going to kill myself, because I won’t know what else to do. You see, politics always change. Stories never do. He pauses, and then, feeling a bit small (but unable to help himself), he adds: I suggest you have a lot to learn.

You can easily imagine this argument–a timeless appeal is being ruined by lefty college kids and their postmodern analyses–being made today by an alt-right YouTuber out to cleanse the game industry of SJWs. Throughout It, King keeps cutting back to an image of a librarian reading “The Billy Goats Gruff” to a group of kids, the latter enthralled (King tells us) by the primal purity of the kind of monster stories upon which both King and Denbrough have built their careers. “Will the monster be bested…or will It feed?” That’s King declaring that Bill’s his professors were wrong to wave aside his short horror stories. See? See?! I made it, and you pretentious eggheads were wrong to ever doubt me! This aspect of It is frankly embarrassing, especially as time marches on and we see how this mindset has taken root in the next generation.

But! While King very clearly believes this stuff, he’s also self-aware enough to include auto-critiques in his writing. Stan’s wife Patty picks up one of Bill’s novels and dismisses it as practically pornographic in its horror imagery. King goes too far in casting Patty’s dislike of Bill’s work as reflecting a lack of imagination on her part, but he then goes on to sympathetically explore how the grounded relatable struggles Patty has faced (anti-Semitism, her father mocking and dismissing Stan, their inability to have children) have led her to consider “horrorbooks” as shallow escapism. The real world, It admits, has horrors beyond anything the Kings and Denbroughs can come up with. “Werewolves, shit. What did a man like that know about werewolves?” 

Later on, when Ben is telling his triumphant story about calling out a high school coach who taunted him for his weight, Bill gently notes that as an author, he has trouble believing any kid really talked like that. That’s King using his self-insert to wryly poke fun at his own oft-overheated dialogue. Self-awareness and self-deprecation are absolutely vital to making a book as thematically and structurally ambitious as this one work. 

And while some of It’s politics make me cringe, other aspects make me perk up and take notice. King wrote It over the course of four years in which HIV and AIDS became a national crisis that was being largely ignored by said nation’s government. There was a growing conventional wisdom that the afflicted deserved their punishment and should be more or less left to rot. This was all part and parcel with the ascension of the religious right in American politics, especially within the Reagan White House. A huge part of the Reagan narrative (as we see in the “Morning in America” ad, also released while King was writing It) was a portrait of lily-white small-town America as a social ideal being beset by all sorts of ills that the left was either letting happen or actively supporting, and The Gays were most certainly among them.

It opens with a scene that seems to dovetail with that narrative: an idealized ‘50s small town in which an adorable innocent white boy from a good Christian family is horribly murdered by (what seems to be) a nightmarish external force that takes advantage of that innocence. Already, you can see a potential Reaganite spin–It as the Other, the “bear in the woods” threatening the ideal of Derry. 

But that’s not what It is about. The second chapter jumps forward a generation, into the mid-1980s in which King was writing, and onto a scene of violence that cannot be wrapped into the meta-narrative of the religious right. Three men attack a gay man on a bridge, their delicate sensibilities offended by his flamboyance. They beat him within an inch of his life and toss him over the side…where he finds It waiting for him with a gleaming sharp-toothed smile. Both the victim’s boyfriend and one of the assailants tell the cops and lawyers involved about the demon clown who finished the victim off, but the powers that be cover it up for the sake of a successful prosecution.

The idea being that they’re dealing with the symptoms, not the disease–the violence, but not the hand-me-down hate driving it. The bereft boyfriend tells the cops that he tried to warn his new-to-town lover that despite its cheery appearance, Derry is a “bad place,” one positively crawling with “AIDS is God’s punishment” homophobia. Moreover, he whispers through his tears, he realized while staring into Its silver eyes as It ate his true love that “It was Derry…It was this town.” 

So while the first chapter seemingly wrapped the era’s conservative politics in a cozy semiotic blanket, it was only baiting the hook so that the second can rip that blanket off like a Band-Aid. As Reagan strolled to re-election with 49 states at his back, as the Democrats’ convictions wavered and they began to drift rightward, as thousands of Americans wasted away while their government and so many of their fellow citizens watched pitilessly, here comes Stevie King to stick his middle finger in the Moral Majority’s face and say: gays aren’t the monsters, you are the monsters, you are the ones eating your children. He built a thousand-page Lovecraftian epic around that idea, and made it a bestseller. How fucking awesome is that?

Again, it’s all always going to be complicated. The good not only coexists with the bad–they’re often inextricable. The author who slipped a rant against leftist academics ruinin’ his storybooks into It is also the guy who now declares his support for BLM and his disgust for Trump, and It is both a deeply flawed work and one of my very favorite novels.

[dancinginodessa]

I’ve been doing this survey on New Year’s Eve for thirteen years, which is HALF MY LIFE, and I need to go sit down now.

1. What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?

Officiated a wedding, crocheted a shawl, got a joint membership to something with somebody (the New York Botanical Gardens, truly the highest level of commitment before marriage), marched for my beliefs, called my elected officials on a regular basis, got a promotion, genuinely did not give one shit if my dad’s family figured out my sexuality, etc.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

My sole New Year’s resolution, as usual, was about how many books I wanted to read. I chose 100. I read 103.

In the new year, I (please hold on to your hats) want to read less, only so I can write more. It’s been a while now since I graduated from the MFA program. I want to go back to the work I was learning to do and keep doing it. That was the point: to keep doing it. 

I always want to learn to be more comfortable with not being in control, which might actually take me the rest of my life, but I might as well start sometime.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No, though I know of lovely people who had equally lovely babies! Just, you know, not babies I know very well.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No. People got sick but recovered, and I am so grateful for that.

5. What countries did you visit?

I did not leave America for the...fourth year running? It’s a bummer.

6. What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?

Money that I am not actively setting on fire, and more room in this apartment.

7. What date from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

August 5: my best friend got married. I remember this on account of how I officiated, and also on account of it was one of the loveliest days of my life.

September 9: I had dinner at the American Girl Café, which I will not stop talking about until I am literally dead.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I got a therapist!!! 

9. What was your biggest failure?

I was a real dick to myself. And I’m still very bad at emailing people back in a timely fashion. As far as society is concerned, the latter is a graver sin.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

A bunch of weird bruises and scabs from being too clumsy to live, plus a pretty nasty cold or two. And I guess mental illness more or less constantly. But I think I am okayer now, and was okayer all this year, than I have been for a long time.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

G and I went halvsies on a Nintendo Switch! I’m real bad at Mario Kart 8 Deluxe! But I guess love is being real bad at something in front of someone and not caring.

Also: plane tickets to Cleveland and Chicago, bus tickets home, yarn for my mother’s Christmas shawl, a new phone because that means my dad has inherited my old phone and we can send each other emoji-filled texts now.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Everyone who put up a good fight. The friends who hugged and fed me. G, for riffing off my bad jokes with his own bad jokes for another whole calendar year. My parents, for everything. The McElroy brothers, for making me laugh every time I needed to.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The government? Evangelical Christianity? Lani Sarem? In no particular order?

14. Where did most of your money go?

Transportation to other cities and mental healthcare. Holy hell am I glad that I now see a therapist who does not cost $$$$$.  

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Karen’s wedding!! Seeing Welcome to Night Vale live!! Making things to keep people I love warm!! The 5 Boro Bike Tour!! Switching to a shampoo that makes my dry hair less dry and therefore more acceptable in polite society!!

16. What song will always remind you of 2017?

“New Rules” by Dua Lipa, no contest.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Happier. Angrier. More willing to put up a fight.

ii. thinner or fatter? The same, I think, because we can’t afford an animator to redraw my sprite and I guess the series is going to be using this model until further notice.

iii. richer or poorer? Poorer. Woof.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Being honest about what I needed. Wearing a scarf instead of pretending I wasn’t cold. Watching Netflix, because now it’s almost 2018 and I still haven’t seen Stranger Things or Bojack Horseman and the entire zeitgeist has left me behind. 

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying (about whether I am secretly the most unbearable person alive/about what my face is doing/about spending too much money/about what I should be doing with my life/about whether or not I am literally about to die, which, so far so good), though that is kind of a tall order. 

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

I went home and spent December 25th at my grandma’s, where I was very cold and also very happy to be with my family. For Julian calendar Christmas, I think I am going to see family in Connecticut, and I haven’t seen them since I was 12, so this could be great AND/OR very awkward. Say a prayer.

21. Did you fall in love in 2017?

Stayed in it. Bought a time-share in it. Built a house in it. 

22. How many one-night stands?

I’ve been having the same one-night stand for two and a half years, am I doing this wrong?

23. What was your favourite TV program?

I watched little to no TV this year, but I did really like the one episode of My Brother, My Brother & Me I saw! If we’re counting Youtube channels, I would like to give an award to Geography Now! for being the glue that bonds my parents and my boyfriend.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Honestly, I don’t think so. 2017 is the year of smoldering resentment. I’m too tired to hate anybody extra.

25. What was the best book you read?

Oh geez. Lincoln in the Bardo was way up there. And Version Control. Also Shrill, and Her Body and Other Parties, and maybe a dozen more, but I’m trying to finish this before midnight (in five hours), so let’s stop there.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

This was not a year in which I listened to much music! That was weird. So I can’t say I really discovered anything; however, I certainly continued to be grateful for Ween.

27. What did you want and get?

A subscription to New York Magazine. Listen, it’s the little things. (Also, a raise.)

28. What was your favourite film of this year?

Thor: Ragnarok is the most profoundly bisexual movie I have ever seen. I would also like to nominate the trailer for A Wrinkle in Time, even though the movie is not out yet. It’s just that the trailer is very important to me.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 26! And my birthday just happened to fall on one of the dates of Welcome to Night Vale’s spring tour, so I went to the Bell House with G. There’s a doofy photo of us on Facebook looking pleased with ourselves on the train, and I treasure it.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I’m getting word that everybody else already submitted “a different president,” so how about...a rug in my living room that isn’t white? Come on, Past Nina. Who did you think you were? That kind of hubris is unbecoming, and we’re all paying the price now.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?

“Thanks, I Love Cardigans.”

32. What kept you sane?

Podcasts, crocheting, calling my mom to vent my spleen, and therapy (if you want the literal answer).

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Oscar Isaac is a beautiful man, and St. Vincent is my queen.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

[tense, angry silence; in the distance, thunder and a horse’s whinny]

35. Who did you miss?

Everyone. All the time. Especially my parents.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Who did I meet this year? It’s been a decade since January. The new tenants at the office are pretty delightful, and my first bonding activity with my roommate E was going with her and G to the Women’s March. (We three are the best apartment you know.)

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:

It’s okay if you aren’t okay.

[thekintsugikids]

ok so i KNOW this is dumb but i need to rant.

so i watched the new riverdale (which is probably more than enough of a reason for any of you to not read this and trust me—i understand). and ho. ly. shit. i have genuinely NEVER been so mad at a tv show in my whole fucking life.

i’ll admit here and now that i still watch riverdale, because i am unwaveringly stubborn and i’m seeing this shit show through to the end. so things that seem, from a surface level, pretty genuine, anger me more than they should because i know the context of this bullshit. which means that, if you’re reading this, you’ll have to hear all of that shit so i can fully explain my anger.

so the episode is like. almost entirely based around the high school’s guidance counselor (who everyone is conveniently going to for therapy, even a character who goes to another school, but i can’t even be mad at riverdale for using a shitty mcguffin like that. it should be expected) where all the kids talk about their fucked up lives. that’s cool, i can accept that. riverdale does some dumb shit, but if they’d just done a psychological deep dive into their characters after all the trauma they’ve been through over the course of two and a half years? sure. I’ll bite. but this is riverdale, a show that somehow seems to be written by teenage interns who have never written a script in their life and 40-somethings who have never met real teens in their lives, so that’s not what we got. no, what we did get was this shitty school counselor listening to the characters unload genuine emotional trauma about their parents, and hear the counselor basically say, “they’re just trying to protect you.”

now allow me to explain why that is absolute fucking bullshit.

Betty’s mom forced herself into her daughter’s counseling session, because Alice ran to the high school guidance counselor to ask how she should deal with her daughter being sexually actively—which already, big fucking yikes. after a couple of minutes of back and forth about how Betty is being denied by her dream college because she’s having sex and irresponsibly disregarding her future in doing so (which again, huge red flag but let’s put that on the back burner for like two seconds). the counselor decides that they should do a joint session to work some shit out. ok. fine. whatever. moving on.

Betty says her mom lying to her whole life impacted her negatively. which yeah, that actually makes sense. in less than two years her mother went undercover with the fbi and joined a cult, without telling her own child that she at least didn’t believe in what the cult preached, gave away all the money she had saved for college to said cult, and was working with her half brother who Betty believed was dead (this is riverdale it’s a lot to unpack and i don’t blame you if you stop here bc ive been watching this show since 2017 and im still confused when i read that). she also had Betty’s sister committed to the sisters of quiet mercy, which is basically a disciplinary school for literally anything and everything under the sun (pregnant teenagers, mentally ill children, and conversion therapy are a few things we’ve seen it used for), and didn’t tell Betty that her sister was there, or that she was pregnant. her parents let her believe that her sister was a drug addict in rehab, because that was better than anyone knowing their daughter was pregnant, and then ofc that Alice reads her diary because she refuses to let her daughter have any semblance of privacy. keep in mind, this whole episode started with Alice opening Betty’s mail, seeing that she didn’t get accepted to Yale, and telling her that she searched her room to see “what could be distracting her from her future” (and then gets mad at her for having birth control). her mother says, “I just wanted to protect you.” okay, fine. whatever, that’s total bullshit, but fine.

but then!!! she has a breakdown about how she wants Betty to be better and she’s scared of her growing up and she just wants her to be safe which. ok. ok. ok. shut up. she’s said this EVERY. SEASON. OF THE SHOW. how many times can she say the exact same thing and never learn from it? but Betty isn’t having that shit, she’s been dealing w this shit for so long and she’s done, right? she’s growing up, and her mom would have to be incredibly naive to think that she could just stop that, especially when they are living w her bf’s family. like yeah, they live together. they share a room. they’re teenagers, they’re gonna have sex. who. fucking. cares. her mom then tells Betty that it’s because she’s her favorite child, which........Yikes. and the scene ends.

the weird thing is like.....we’re meant to sympathize with Alice??? after everything she has done—much of which i didn’t touch on—because.............Betty’s her favorite child?????? that’s???????? SUPPOSED TO JUSTIFY THE THINGS SHE DOES?????????? no no no NO what the fuck is THAT manipulative bullshit?? what the fuck. i can’t even think of anything else to say about that, what the actual fuck.

but the real kicker ooooooooh bitch. it’s the end of the episode, with Jughead. many other things happen between the Betty’s session and Jughead’s, but they don’t necessarily fit into what I’m trying to say so I won’t be talking about it. but holy shit the things she said to Jughead? for context, Jughead’s father is an abusive piece of shit. he has gotten violent with his own son, threatened him, abandoned him for his gang when the rest of their family moved out of state to get away from him (Jughead’s dad), and he is an alcoholic who did things like getting drunk at Jughead’s 15th birthday party, and that’s just the cliff notes version. basically he’s a grade-a abusive asshole, which is a field i am well-versed in.

FP, Jughead’s father, says that his father was an abusive drunk, so obvs the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. one of the the biggest issues with this show, though, is that they refuse to acknowledge that FP himself is abusive. like, even writers of the show have said that he is not abusive, even saying that viewers were ignorant to believe that he is (and as someone with an abusive father, first of all, fuck you). and Jughead is on a mission this entire season to prove that his grandfather was some great writer or whatever and his work was stolen from him.

now, how exactly does any of that relate to the discussion at hand?, you might be asking. well he’s at riverdale high to get his transcripts or whatever bc he’s at a new school and they’re all assholes (no, im not going into further explanation of that because there is way too much to unpack). so he’s w the guidance counselor, they talk about it and she has the fucking gall to say, “but think about how your father must feel about all of this???” which, okay, i see where she might be coming from. FP was abused by his dad. but Jughead is also abused by FP, so why the fuck should he worry about whether or not he’s hurting his father? FP irreparably damaged Jughead—I promise you all that being homeless, being hit and threatened by your father, being abandoned by your entire family? that’s not shit you can repair. you don’t just fix that shit. that stays with you.

the counselor tells Jughead that he should be proud of the man his father worked to become (like he isn’t still horrible to Jughead????? for example, forcing him to go to a school that he does not want to go to because it makes their family look better??? ok), she says FP is just supporting his son. and the real kicker—she says, “and you repay him by going on this quest to prove that the man that caused him immeasurable pain is some kind of wronged hero? how do you think that makes him feel?” (that is the quote verbatim, by the way. that is what she says so Jughead)

like FP has earned something from Jughead. like Jughead is in the wrong for not wanting his name to be seen as a joke. no, this is how you repay him for everything he did for you. FP abused his son. it’s literally that fucking simple. and Jughead didn’t even want to talk to this lady, she forced him into the conversation while he waited for fucking transcripts so he could apply to colleges. and we, the audience, are supposed to be on the counselor’s side. we’re supposed to say “yeah Jughead, look at everything your dad has done for you! he loves you!!”

Jughead even says it himself. “My poor dad. I’m so selfish.” like his dad deserves his respect. like he earned Jughead’s respect. like FP deserves a single goddamn thing from his son.

keep in mind, this is a show that’s biggest demographic is people under 20 and they are basically telling their audience that their parent’s abuse is just because they’re “protective” or because they’re “trying to help them.” guess what, that’s not fucking true. if your parent, or ANYONE, is abusing you, it is because they are fucked up. it is not because they love you, it’s not because they “want what’s best for you.” and how dare anyone, let alone fucking Riverdale, try to tell me that it is. no, as someone with an abusive father, i fucking promise you, this shit is not out of love. abuse is not love. and fuck Riverdale for trying to tell me that it is.

[tumblunni]

I had a weird cool dream!

It was like some kind of mmorpg, and the intro was kinda like that bus from the third harry potter movie? Everyone started on a long several days bus trip from their various back story tutorial areas to the main town, and the quirky cast of bus staff would give you more tutorials on the more optional features and guilds and stuff. I remember I got one free costume dye thing, and I thought that was a great idea! Everyone's newbie clothes would look more distinct and you'd feel more customized! And it'd be a good preview of an ability you wouldn't be able to use again for ages.

Anyway the main bus NPC was a Cool Gay Grandma who I think maybe was married to the tailor shop grandma so that's why you got the free clothes? Probably you could see more of the tailor grandma later and get attached to her as she talks about missing her adventurer wife who drives all over the world in her magic bus, and then maybe there could be a side quest or something to deliver a love letter between them and you'd have to disguise yourself as a poor newbie in need to catch the bus again...

Man I'm going offtopic lol! Anyway I remember that bus grandma had big red goggles like xerosic and she was super tiny and super nice but also A SPEED DEMON. Her bus was like the monster truck of buses, it was like a whole moving apartment block with giant exhausts/chimneys and then it would blaze across the continents so fast you could make any journey in 3 days. And similar to the bus from harry potter it was like invisible and imtangeable to anyone she didn't choose to allow on as a passenger. But like it felt less like an impossible natural magical occurance and more like one really crazy awesome lady who spent her life finding ways to defy physics just to help everyone everywhere with monster truck power~! Also apparently in this universe it was some sort of stereotype that gay grandmas have dogs cos she was like 'well I guess you guessed cos of the dog toys' and that was like.. The only incoherent part of the dream. She just pointed to some insane unknowable dream object that was apparently a dog toy. It looked like a skateboard made out of those rubber hotdogs?? Also I think she probably either had a tiny Cerberus puppy or a giant sized regular dog. Something monstery! I think it was what fueled the engine with its fire breath, but I didn't get to see it during the dream.

And then the race I picked in this game was demon, and I was like some sort of adorable lalafell-ish one? Like, you could actually select character age, not just one race of kid lookin charries. The vast majority of other demon players were all buff or sexualized or emo teens or whatever and I was just like 'hello, tiny shonen protagonist here!' (Cos it was more like a ten year old than like.. Whatever lalafells are. Five? That would be more messed up if it was an actual five year old being attacked by monsters rather than just a magic fairy who looks younger than they really are.)

Oh and there was like a preview of.. I think guildmasters? Some sort of characters that would be bigger important roles during your journey. But when you met em here it was just like 'hey some odd but nice random customers on the bus.' They'd appear at random every day and sometimes chat with you or join in to help your tutorials and stuff. (Apparently bus grandma is so badass she can boss around the government officials of the demon capital and they'll react like frightened school kids! "If you want a free ride, you'll do some work, Sonny Jim!" "Can't I just pay you?" "NO." *points to sign: free since 96*)

So yeah after your few days journey tutorialy you'd get off the bus and realise HOLY SHIT I WAS TALKING TO IMPORTANT GUYS. I don't remember much about what any of em looked like tho or what guilds they led. Like was it a political thing or were they like the job class masters? But I do remember that they were all demons and I think you'd get a whole different cast of them depending on which race you picked and which starting city was at the end of the line. And I just remember one of them was a cool lady with like the cliche samurai ponytail and then really eye-catching thin elaborately patterned horns that looked the colour of molten metal. She was possibly the swordmaster teacher? And she was all seriously and she had like a.. Friend or brother maybe? There was another character who was always hanging out with her and being all huggy and jokey and she had a general attitude of 'if this was anyone else I would have killed them for that'. Like total opposite chilled out Hau-esque personality and somehow bffs with serious lady. I think he had curly afro hair and blue ram horns that looked kinda like seashells? And might have worn a striped scarf. They were like opposites but I think possibly she also had a scarf and it was like some super serious tattered one that's seen a thousand battles and flows behind her like a sentai hero. And he's just like "LOOK WE MATCH!" *the cutest thing he could find* "sigh.. Yes brother..."

And I think possibly it was some funny dynamic like they were the heads of rival job classes and all their students hate each other and then its like 'hey sis mom packed you a lunch' *hugs* *then straight back to battling* But I got the sense that hugs bro wasn't really into the rivalry, he was just comically oblivious that his team all hate the sword team, and they kept tricking him into stuff like 'yeah let's compete against them in the worldwide tournement, that'd be a full friendship activity!' *stands there blankly as everyone tries to kill each other* 'boy my sister sure does love and respect me' *currently in a headlock by her*

Oh and I think you could choose different back stories for your character? Im not entirely sure what mine was but it involved someone recognising me from a royal ball or something? So maybe I was a runaway prince masquerading as a commoner? Or maybe I was a commoner who broke into that ball and almost got caught? Maybe I was even a phantom thief???

And then the weirdest part of the dream is that I DREAMED A GLITCH IN THE GAME?? On the last day of the bus tutorial it suddenly lagged out from too many players disembarking at once. I think it was something like the whole side quest was a solo instance until the last minute, but they kinda planned it badly and the bus couldn't handle the sheer volume of newbies all taking the quest at the same time. So I literally couldn't get through the door from so many people, and then the lag glitches me out and flew me forward several days in game time. (Cos of the sidequest's gimmick of having multiple days pass with different events) it was like a two week long session of redoing the same tutorials, and then cos the tailor shop preview was time limited all my equipment had vanished by the time I finally got out.

I think the developers said the intention was that you could 'get your first sight of multiplayer' and hopefully make friends with other newbies, but they planned it poorly. So in later patches everything on the bus was singleplayer and then they added sort of a lobby area for newbies only chat and stuff before you got into the main game. And limited it to only showing players in randomly selected blocks of fifty, but with a mailbox NPC that could teleport your friends to the same version of the room if you had a name to go on. (But then it had more glitches with people who'd summon 100 friends to a place with a capacity of 50, but it was generally considered 'well that's your own fault')

So weirdly developed! I think I was playing a real game from another dimension!

[imnoexpertblog]

Lonely Netflix Movie Binge

6/21/18

In my boredom with Baby being gone on his business trip and needing something to watch/listen to while I pack up our apartment, I have been watching random Netflix movies that were suggested to me based on my interest and past viewings. I never watch new movies alone. I can re-watch anything I want by myself but I like seeing new stuff with someone else. Over some intense self-reflection the past few years I think this is because I have always had company in some form throughout my life. I was rarely alone. I never had to do anything myself. My mom was very social when I was growing up and she always had friends over. My siblings were also always with me. Then as I got older, I was usually in a relationship. When I was single, I had a roommate I was very close to. I’ve become used to doing things with someone else. Going out to eat, watching new movies, going to events, even just hanging out. It’s not to say I can’t do these things by myself, I have grown to appreciate my alone-time. But. I prefer to have company when doing certain things. I like sharing experiences with people; talking about what we are doing, making memories, having someone else to enjoy time with. But with Baby being away, I forced myself to watch six whole new movies by myself! These are the ones and what I thought about them. (I tried to pick unique and understated ones but that were still specifically recommended to me by Netflix and that went… Not so great).

Adore

“Two lifelong best friends each begin a steamy affair with the other's son, but trouble begins to brew when one of the two young men desires a lover his own age.” I have seen the cover art for this movie for a long time now, maybe a year. I don’t know why I have skipped over it every time until this week; maybe because I never read what it was about. The synopsis intrigued me enough to start watching it though. Seems pretty risky and taboo, doesn’t it? That always makes something enticing. I will say, though, it is odd. It has a soap-opera type of feel to it. Instead of being really cliché, it turned out to feel a little deeper than that. I am not sure how believable the whole plot is, but who watches a movie to see a boring realistic story? I was pleased with the cast and the acting. I think it was scored well, too. There is tension and drama, but it’s a calm flick. I wasn’t sure what to make of this movie until I found out it’s actually a French production. That changed my perspective a bit, considering the difference in culture. The setting made it easy to watch; the beach is absolutely gorgeous. I was genuinely interested to see how in the world this unique situation would turn out. The reviews aren’t very good, but I didn’t hate it, my any means. I thought it was interesting to see how everything played out for them all.

Open House

“A teenager and his mother find themselves besieged by threatening forces when they move into a new house.” This one I was excited for initially when it was new. I like thrillers and I like the main actor, Dylan Minnette from 13 Reasons Why. But man oh man. This movie is so slow. Not until half-way through the film did I actually feel some excitement or anticipate what comes next. The whole beginning half I was just kind of waiting. The “build-up” didn’t build me up at all. I was bored watching this. The real excitement did start until there was 22 minutes left in the movie. A lot of wasted time, if you ask me. The same “scary” weird things happen through the entire first 3/4 of the movie and it was just redundant and anticlimactic. But once it got going, HOLY COW. I will say I was so confused because there didn’t seem to be anything in the movie that would point me in any direction of guessing what was happening once the action was going down. So, that also frustrated me. It was a pretty intense last 20 minutes or so, but that is not to say it was good. Thumbs down for sure.

Below Her Mouth

“Jasmine is a successful fashion editor living with her fiancé. On a night out in the city with her best friend, she meets Dallas, a roofer recently out of a relationship. Surprised by the confidence with which Dallas pursues her, Jasmine turns Dallas down but can't get her out of her head. When Jasmine finally succumbs, the two women embark on a steamy affair that forces them both to re-evaluate their lives.” Okay. I didn’t expect this movie to have so much sex in it. Again, I watched it out of intrigue for the taboo nature of it. And taboo it was, oh my goodness. There was no limit to nudity or openness of sexual scenes. I have no issue with intimate scenes, but I was surprised to see just how much there was involved in the film. It seemed to be overkill at some points. I was fascinated by how these two women acted with and towards each other so early on in knowing each other. I guess I can’t judge. Baby and I felt like we were together forever by the time we were a week into seeing each other. We acted like it, too. Anyway, this movie just seemed like a lot of erotic moments with little substance. I did need to know how this affair would unravel, though. Not sure how I feel about the ending. All of that being said, I wasn’t sure how to rate this.  It is rated pretty poorly overall. A lot of people attacked the main focus being on sex. Which it was. It got in the way of getting to know the characters. There was nothing to invest myself in. The acting was also dull until the erotic scenes. The more I type, the more I realize that I was unimpressed, as was everyone else. I’ve read that this is a crappy version of another movie on Netflix, “Blue is the Warmest Color.” Maybe I will watch that next.

Friend Request

“Laura is a popular college student who graciously accepts an online friend request from Marina, a young social outcast. To everyone's shock, Marina takes her own life after Laura decides to unfriend her. Soon, a disturbing and mysterious video appears on Laura's profile and her contacts slowly dwindle. When her friends suddenly begin to die one by one, the frightened young woman must figure out a way to stop the carnage before it's too late.” I remember seeing the trailer for this in theaters back when it came out 2 years ago. I did NOT want to watch this movie. I thought it looked ridiculous, to be honest. I have never been interested in the social . I know I shouldn’t watch anything remotely scary if I have to sleep alone (I have issues with a type of nightmare/sleep disorder but we will get into that another time) but beyond my better judgement, I watched it anyway. I was actually very interested the whole time I was watching. I did think the kills were different. The reviews are horrible. People have ripped this movie apart. Maybe I’m a broken human being (LOL) but I didn’t mind it. I also actually really enjoyed the ending. I wasn’t sure how this could end up, but I like the way they did it. Again, I’m on the fence about rating it. I wouldn’t say it was great, but I wasn’t struggling to watch it either.

Inconceivable

“Angela develops a friendship with a mysterious woman named Katie and offers her a job as a live-in nanny. The natural bond soon turns into a dangerous obsession as Katie becomes overly attached to the family's young daughter. Enduring lies and manipulations, Angela and her husband realize that sweet Katie is actually trying to destroy their family from within.” This started off with a bang. It also revealed the twist within the first half of the movie. I was pretty interested in it the whole time because I liked the story-line. You get enough information at the right pace. It didn’t drag and it didn’t bore me at any time. I was a little apprehensive with how all these movies have been underwhelming this week, but I liked this. I didn’t find it predictable. The reviews, you guessed it, are bad. I actually rarely agree with reviews on movies that aren’t huge. I didn’t this movie to have crappy reviews though, to be honest. I recommend this movie.

Dismissed

“An optimistic, straight-edged teacher finds trouble when a star student is willing to do anything to get an A.” Alright. First of all. Dylan Sprouse acted the hell out of this role. I was thoroughly impressed with him in this film. He was so believable! A great film about psychopathy. I was hooked right away, even with the vague synopsis/summary. There was so much potential for this to be so cheesy but it wasn’t at all. They didn’t hold back in this film; the incidents that occurred. Some reviews said it was predictable but I highly disagree. Reviews also said it was low budget (is also said that they did well with such a low budget) but I didn’t see it that way. I don't want to give too much away because really liked it and I recommend it.

I wish I had better suggestions for you guys, I really only recommend Inconceivable and Dismissed out of these six movies. I guess I’d say watch Adore if you are bored and wanna throw something on for background noise; something to catch every now and then while cleaning maybe. Friend Request might have been something I liked just because I like scary movies, but watching those can be fun. Below Her Mouth, honestly is just super erotic. Take that as you may. And lastly… Please, I beg of you, never waste your time on Open House.

In other news, I have decided to take this day to myself. If you are not my fiancé, I can't promise I will be talking to you today. I have packed a lot (which I wouldn't have gotten done without the help of my sister Vanny, my best friend from work, Ryan, and his best friend named Cal), slept less than I've wanted to, been to the bank too many times, and have seen my mortgage lender too often lately. It is time to shower, sleep, watch better movies for sure, and lay around without having to answer ANYONE. If you feel like you've been stretched too thin or you're stressed, you should consider doing the same. I've been non-stop going at it for about six weeks now and I deserve this. I love you all, but I need today. Comment away, just expect a response tomorrow. Xoxo.

[moonfacecrybaby-blog]

Self reminder (jus feel like ranting)

To never EVER go on vacation with someone who has little Earth in their chart. 😭I have never been so baffled at the lack of planning and inability to make a decision based on common sense, holy fuck. All of my female Scorpio friends are boy crazy as fuck and are willing to ditch their friends at the first sign of possibly hanging out with a guy but my Scorpio friends both have earth moons so they still get all of their ducks in a row before making a move but this bitch (who I met through my Taurus best friend who went too) is a Libra rising and Aquarius moon... let me tell you why that's the most annoying shit tho. The Libra rising makes her beautiful and charming and good at being fake as hell which is the PERFECT mask for a demon Scorpio lmao. She swore up and down during the planning of the trip that she's been wanting to hang out with us forever and misses us and couldn't wait to have a girls day- even going as far as to rent a car! What a friend right? Wrong the fucking Scorpio had been planning this all along because she has some Taurus boy toy down in that direction and she just didn't want to go alone. And then here's the kicker.. she took the car and left me, my 9 month old daughter, and the other female stranded at the beach for hours while she was like a 30 minute drive away at the guy's house, and didn't give one fuck because she's an Aquarius moon with her own agenda. 😒Then we finally met the loser and he looks EXACTLY like the husband of hers that she's currently divorcing... moral of the story is, sun and moon in the 8th people need to start listening to themselves because WE KNOW WHAT THE HELL WE FEEL WHEN WE MEET PEOPLE! I'm just also a Pisces moon so I try to blind myself so I won't see the bad in people. The first time we hung out I was scared as hell but didn't know why and then ever since that day she's brought so much drama to my life without so much as a twitch of sympathy for anyone smhhh. I find it so interesting though also because the Taurus female that went with us is also an Libra rising, Aquarius moon. Sun sign astrology is real bro because they have the same emotional responses internally and greet the world in the same way but they're differences in sun sign flavors it. The Taurus girl uses her Libra rising to nurture everybody honestly, it makes her less reserved as a Taurus and I guess the double Venus makes her hella selfless but almost everything she does is done for the good of the whole group. She pays attention to the needs of everybody around her and she always uses her Aquarius moon to come up with great ideas that benefit everyone, yeah her sun is in the 8th house so she lives on the edge so people judge her but I like that she still cares about the safety of others before her desires. The Scorpio on the other hand 😒😒😒 (lmao I know I sound like I'm hating on Scorpios but it's actually one of my favorite signs 😂) she uses her Libra rising to make people think she's nice and then acts like such trash secretly. Everybody has a fake side but hers is malicious and selfish and that's shit I just can't deal with. I wonder what house her sun is in? Whatever, it just kinda makes me mad because the Taurus girl gets judged for her openness with her fast life and sexuality but is an AMAZING person to friends and strangers but the Scorpio dresses modest, wears glasses, and has adorable little curls so nobody realizes that she's been orchestrating their Dmn demise the entire time! The same kinda thing literally happened last month when we went to hang out with some guy friends and ended up waiting in the car forever so she could fuck one of the guys, which would have been no big deal if we had planned this and it wasn't almost 4 in the morning. I guess I just hate when people have no problem inconveniencing others for their own desires. Also, another thing my female Scorpio friends have in common is that they have ZERO respect for Gemini males lmao (funny because my baby's father is a Gemini and he got his heart broken by a Scorpio earlier this year lmao). They literally hate them yet a lot of Gemini guys have big dicks (in our experience 😂) so they literally just use them for sex and talk behind their backs smh so it's even more annoying that the guy she left us in the car to fuck was a Gemini and she started talking shit as soon as she came back. 🙄😒saying how she'll never take a Gemini seriously and shit.. then why you was so hype about spending time with him??? Bruhhhhh see this rant about to be even longer cause I just have too many thoughts on this now. 😭😂 like also, back to the boy craziness! This bitch acts like she's sooo mature and above everybody but you should see her dumb ass when she's about to see a boy. 🙄🙄🙄 she literally starts vibrating and gets giddy as hell and starts talking soooo fucking much which is the worst icing on the cake to me. Don't keep rubbing your bullshit in my face after pissing me off. Ironically, she was talking about Taureans yesterday because her sister is one and was like "I don't get why you guys never say how you're feeling! Like I can't read your mind so why y'all never express when y'all mad?" And then her behavior yesterday literally answered her question. Taureans like fun but we don't like fucking drama but it seems like Scorpios BREATH drama so while we're trying to keep the trip stable, this bitch is flying around life not making and iota of sense! And what do taureans do when shit stops making sense? We sit our asses back, shut our mouths, and endure until the ground is stable again. That's why when she got back we were quiet the rest of the trip because like.. anymore surprises? We HATE surprises. I guess that's why Taureans get quiet during emotional upheavals? Me and the other Taurus were BOILING but we shut our fucking mouths when she came back around because opening our mouths to talk while in extreme emotion makes oUR VOICES COME OUT UNINTENTIONALLY LOUD AND FULL OF HATE BECAUSE YOU KEEP THROWING SHIT OUR WAY AND WE CAN NO LONGER BREATH THE EXTREME NEGATIVITY THROUGH OUR NOSES! WE DONT TALK WHEN YOU'RE UPSETTING US BECAUSE WE DONT WANNA BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE REALLY THIS TRASH SO WE SHUT UP AND GIVE YOU CHANCE AFTER CHANGE TO CORRECT YOURSELF THEN BLOW THE HELL UP WHEN YOU KEEP RUBBING IT IN! I know it sounds childish to not say what you're feeling but we just expect everyone to have common sense and KNOW as a fucking adult what's rude/stupid/nonsensical, so we sit our asses back and reevaluate our relationship with you. It's something air dominants don't really understand though because my sister is a Gemini sun, Aquarius moon (ugh I'm surrounded by Aquarius moons 🙄) and she didn't believe that I was actually having contractions and took forever to take me to the hospital when I had my daughter because I wasn't showing any emotion when I'd tell her I was in pain and wasn't saying much. My baby's father is a Gemini sun and Mercury and he literally rambled through our daughter's birth and has to talk while she's getting shots because he gets through high levels of any feeling through distracting his mind with random words. Ugh I actually love it because you know when you've made him nervous when his rambling Gemini twin starts coming out even though he's a Scorpio rising who likes to portray himself as all dark and mysterious 😂. Anyways! Taureans just prefer to lay low and endure.. until it gets real, then the rest of your chart comes out. Like when I was having contractions, I quietly endured them the whole time like a Taurus... until it was time for her to come and they got worse so the Pisces moon came out! I like the description of the moon sign being who you are when you need your mother." I literally started reaching for my mom, everyone else in the room faded away, and I kept whining to her and asking "is there any drug that can knock me out so I won't have to live through this pain?? I don't want to live though this. I don't want to experience this." While shaking my head, attempting to wake up from that nightmare 😂 I'm literally an escapist in the highest form! I find it interesting that my moon house also played a big part because I remember during the contractions that I was being a Pisces moon and trying to imagine myself in the place I'd rather be and I closed my eyes and imagine myself in a casket, and then I felt like that wasn't enough and I imagined myself burning I hell and was slightly satisfied lmao the 8th house moon is such a trip. *Sigggh* but leave it to an Aries MC person to be this annoying and off subject during a rant but whatever, I've accepted that I'm nothing but a Taurus sun version of Kanye West. 😂 But I only have "fun" friends I don't have "emotional outlet" friends so I have nobody to talk about my suppressed rage to. 🙃

[torinspeer-blog]

GET TO KNOW ME

1. What’s your first name? Torin 2. What are you listening to right now? 
The ambient noises of my property. OH! SHIT! Uhhh... punk rock Spotify playlist-punk pop's not dead 3. What was the last thing you ate?
Tuna fish sandwich 4. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? 
"Attention: important seniors!" Medicare 5. Do you drink? 
🤤🤤🤤 6. Do you smoke? 
Only to give myself cancer!👍👏👏🙌💯 7. What is the first thing you noticed in someone? 
I think it depends on the individual? I mean I'm an intuition dom and have ADHD so it's not like I notice🤷‍♀️ 8. What is your hair color? 
Very dark brown 9. What is your eye color?
Hazel 10. Do you wear contacts/glasses? 
Reading glasses 11. Dogs or cats? 
dogs no shit you ever seen a kitters run around like a little glob weeaboo? Uhuh I didn't think so hun! 12. What’s your favorite animal? 
ANY ANIMAL THAT CUDDLES ME AND MAKES ME FEEL LESS ALONE!!!!! 13. What’s your favorite television show? 
Parks and rec probably (seen the ending? On the emotional level it's more like parks and rekt am I fucking right guys? YEET!) 14. What’s your favorite movie? 
Farris buellers day off what am I a hipster? 15. What’s your favorite band/singer? 
GREENDAYGREENDAYGREENDAYGREENDAYENFP4W5PIXIEPRIDESON!!!! 16. How old are you? 
19. I'm old enough to know a thing or two. Like, literally. I know one thing and maybe another but no more than that. 17. Do you have a crush on anyone? yes... don't worry. I burry my feelings deep inside my soul just like every other well adjusted adult 18. What’s your sexual orientation? 
I thought I was bi but then a bi guy said hi from behind and that thought ended 19. What’s your favorite color?
blue? Red? Purple? I'm more of a... ummm... shit 20. What was your most embarrassing moment? 
😂😂😂 ok, so there was this one time, I was born, and it got soooooyyyt awkward!!😂😂😳 21. Do you ever wish you were someone else? 
Oh god I have enough extisensial dread as is holy shit take that to someone else 22. What were you like when you were a kid? 
Lazy, stupid, and never gonna accomplish anything with a work ethic like that hahahaHAHAHAHA SOMEBODY TAKE THE PAIN AWAY 23. What would your dream house be like? 
A little house in the prairies where I can sit in the front yard with my wife in a rocking chair and watch my grandchildren play 24. What last made you laugh? 
My last joke, bitch 25. What is your favorite word? 
Romp... hehehe. It makes me think of cute little bunny rabbits hopping along in the woods 26. What is your least favorite word? 
No 27. What turns you on? IF YOU LET ME TALK FOR A WHILE AND GIGGLE AND THINK IM SMART I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER 28. What turns you off? 
ME NOT BEING ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE PEOPLE (holy shit I mean these are jokes but like god do I need therapy? Holy shit). 29. What is your star sign? 
Sometimes, when I'm lost, I like to look for a sign to know whether I'm standing in the light of the word, or its darkness (the joke is that I use the sun as a sign for if it's daytime hartyharhar). 30. What are your favorite books? 
 31. Do you have any siblings? 
two brothers and two sisters 32. Do you like to dance? Depends if you count air guitar and awkward lanky jolting as dancing cuz if yes THEN YA IM THE FUCKING MLG TRICK SHOT KING OF THAT SHIT. 33. What is your definition of cheating? 
Summoning help in dark souls 34. Have you ever cheated on someone? 
Nope 35. Do you regret anything? 
Who the hell doesn't? Regret is a natural and essential piece of the human condition. It's horrible, but it teaches us how to live. 36. Do you have any phobias? Tight spaces high spaces suffocating in spaces (pluralized by virtue of multiverse theory) standing in line waiting to talk getting cut off cutting someone off cutting myself my memes not being fresh enough you know normal people stuff 37. Ever broken any bones? Sadly, no😔 38. Ever come close to death? 
I mean I almost killed myself several time soooo... (guys before you ask I'm ok now don't worry I'm just figuring my shit out😂😂) 39. What is your religion, if any? 
I worship at the holy grail of Cthulhu ahem check your privilege 40. Have you ever been to a psychiatrist/therapist? 
Yes. I had a crush on her. Refer to question #27 41. Are looks important in a relationship? 
They aren't the most important thing but yes I like being sexually attracted to people I'll potentially fuck exclusively for the rest of my life 42. Are you more like your mom or your dad? 
I refuse to identify commonalities 43. What is your favorite season? 
Springs, or fall. I don't pay attention but I live in Arizona so whatever time my balls aren't stuck to my pants🤗 44. Do you have any tattoos? 
No but if I did it would just be "[]" because it's basically "[insert here]" brackets so I could tell people it's for or means or is about anything I want to. 45. Do you have any piercings? 
No. But I have pierced myself IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN😂😂🙌💯 46. How many boyfriends/girlfriends have you had? 
1? One lasted four days does that count? Cuz then it's 2. God... I need to get laid. OR HAVE AN ADORABLE HUNAM TO CUDDLE AND TALK TO AND DO THE DIRTY WITH AS THE CHERRY ON TOP OF HER CHERRY😂😂😂 oh god I kill myself😂 47. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? As MBTI lore would suggest (I'm an enfp btw howdy), my soul belongs to sexy anime babes. 48. Who is your celebrity crush? ... that just made me feel lonely and I don't know why 49. Are you a virgin? 😉 50. Do you get jealous easily? Depends on the situation. I always keep it under wraps though. 51. What is your favorite type of food? 
BUFFALO WINGS!!!! THOSE BETTER EXIST IN THE HEAVEN I DONT BELIEVE IN 52. Do you ever want to get married? 
Hell ya my dude! 53. Who was your first kiss with? 
My first girlfriend. 54. Have you ever been cheated on? 
... 55. What is your idea of the perfect date? 
No idea. Just as long as we connect really well and I have the sense of finding someone who actually makes sense as a person and does that in a way complimentary to who I am. Talk about life I guess. NO HOLY SHIT TALK ABOUT LIFE FUCK YES!!!! 56. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? 
Introverted extrovert😉😉😉 57. Do you believe in aliens or life on other planets? 
I doubt it but I believe in a neighboring universe where Hitler doesn't have a mustache soooo.... 58. What talent do you wish you’d been born with? 
Self esteem 59. What is your saddest memory? 
Hahahaha... no 60. Do you believe in love at first sight? 
no but I do believe in getting your jimmies rustled on first sight😉 61. Do you believe in soul mates? 
I'm a nihilist. I believe in finding someone who fits you well enough that the tear in your soul is mostly ignorable, but not anyone who's made for you 62. Have you ever dyed your hair? 
No 63. Has someone ever spread a nasty rumor about you? 
So one of the definitions for my name in urban dictionary is "Torin: likes to masturbate with the slimy sea creatures of the sea to get that real pussy feel. Synonymous with 'squids'."... apparently that escalated from fiction to fact very quickly. 64. Would you go against your moral code for money? 
It depends. Ends justify the means. For example: I would stomp several puppies to death in an absolutely brutal fashion in order to save the lives of millions of children starving to death in Africa. 65. What are three things most people don’t know about you? 
I've struggled with depression since 8th grade. I'm fairly certain their are missing pieces of my personality, which would explain why there's a different version of me for every person and why I forget who I am after just like 2 days of being alone. I don't cry a lot but it's not for healthy reasons. 66. Who are you jealous of?
Basically everyone 67. Do you sleep with a stuffed toy? 
NO BUT NOW I WANT TO I JUST GOT ALL WARM AND FUZZY FEELING 68. How long was your longest relationship? 
About six months 69. Is the glass half empty or half full? 
It's in the eye of the beholder. It doesn't really matter which one it is though, it only matters what you do with what's left. 70. What is the sexiest thing someone could ever do for/to you? 
😳 I'll wait to tell you until the third date😉 71. Who are your closest friends?
Currently a college friend who's out of state. I tend not to stay particularly close to people for too long tho... ok well shit now I'm sad 72. Are you in a relationship? 
Nope 73. If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, what is your favorite thing about him/her? 
I don't even have a joke wow fuck I'm lonely 74. Are you a bad person? 
STOP MAKING ME THINK ABOUT THIS SHIT IF I DO AND I DECIDE IM NOT I WILL SLIP INTO A SEVERE DEPRESSION that sounded funny in my head holy shit no it was not 75. Are you a lover or a fighter? 
I fight for love💁 76. What did you do on your last birthday? 
Some stuff my mother wouldn't be proud of 77. What is your favorite quote and why? 
“Quitting smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I've done it a thousand times." -Mark Twain. It illustrates some things I'm not in the mindset to process 78. If your best friend died, what would you do? 
NUUUUUUUUUU FUCKIN STAAAAHHHHHPPP I WILL CRY 5EVR 79. If you had to go back in time and change one thing, what would it be? 
Beat my bitch ass (holy shit I need to process stuff stop asking me these questions I thought I had a healthy-ish self esteem but clearly not #sendhalp) 80. If you only had 24 hours to live, what would you do? 
I have ADHD, so probably process everything at once and feel to panicked to do anything. That or the stimulation would be enough that I'd do everything and anything I wanted with no inhibitions. 81. What is the strangest dream you’ve ever had? 
One time I sucked on this hot chicks nipples and not only did it taste nasty but the nipple grew and stabbed my fucking throat OMG I DEEPTHROATED A NIPPLE THAT JUST CLICKED WTF 82. Are you happier single or in a relationship? 
In a relationship, if it's with the right person. 83. Who were you in a past life? 
Mark Twain Bitch! 84. What is your happiest childhood memory? 
I have no idea. None of them exist in a vacuum. They only matter in context of everything else. 85. Have you ever experienced unrequited love? 
The majority of my life since my first boner yes. 86. Have you ever had an imaginary friend? 
Oh I had like fucking 10 but they were all tv show characters except for one and I didn't like him that much. 87. If you were the president, what would you do? 
I would gather as much information as possible about the most important matters and work down from there. 88. What is your ideal career? 
Rn, comedian 89. What is your political affiliation? INDEPENDENT BITCH! 90. Are you conservative or liberal? 
I'm left leaning. I identify more with liberal values but both are important in order to balance eachother out (that's why our political atmosphere is so volatile. Used to be we'd have a democrat then a republican and they'd switch every year, but congress would have the opposite orientation as the president. Now we have a switching one party system every year.) 91. Is the male or female body closest to perfection? 
FUCKING WOMEN ARE YOU KIDDING ME WOMEN ARE HOURGLASSES MEN ARE LIKE UPSIDE DOWN TRIANGLES WITH LEGS AND A LITTLE DONGLE HOW IS THIS A QUESTION??!?!! 92. Do you like kissing in public? 
No. I'm constantly aware of everything going on around me so I need some privacy. 93. If you could change one thing in the world, what would you change? 
humans can choose super powers (I'm keeping this one from the last guy's answers fucking savage dude) 94. Where would you like to live? 
NEW YORK CITY 95. Where would you go on your dream vacation? 
NEW YORK CITY EXCEPT I STAY THERE 96. Describe yourself in one word. 
eclectic 97. Describe yourself in one sentence. 
LISTEN TO GREENDAY "walking contradiction" AND ANY SIMILAR SONG!!

[allroundlostcause]

What will realistically sober a character up faster?

Shortanswer: time.

Longanswer: no, seriously, time. Ultimately, sobriety is determined by your liver breakingdown the alcohol that is in your bloodstream. Your character’s liver, undernormal conditions, can break down about 10 grams of pure alcohol per hour. Alittle more for men and bigger people, a little less for women and smallerpeople.*

Wow you can already tell I am gonna say too much, right? Let’s have a read more break.

(*yes, that is calculated separately, orwould be if you could calculate it with any degree of perfection. Unlessemaciated, women have a naturally higher proportion of body fat and fat likesholding onto alcohol. I like to think of it as chocolate and red wine beingdeeply in love. BUT there are exceptions!! For lots of reasons. It’s for thisreason that you should always be conservative while trying to calculate yourblood alcohol, regardless of body shape and weight.

For example, I have an app which allows meto enter my drinks and guesstimate my blood alcohol concentration or BAC. It’suseful for designated drivers trying to keep their blood alcohol beneath thelimit. These apps are imperfect. Oneway to err on the side of caution is to under-report your weight by a goodmargin. I under-state my body weight by 20 kgs/40 lbs to stay safe.)

(I have investigated and I have foundabsolutely no research that indicates whether trans people on hormone therapyhave a BAC profile more in line with their gender or the sex assigned at birth. Doyourself a favor and always be conservative, no matter what, and remember, mybeloved trans friends, that statistically you are more likely to be the victimsof physical or sexual assault. Make sure you have a sober buddy and take careof yourself.)

Q: Sorry, wtf is 10 grams of pure alcohol?

A: Dude, sorry! Got derailed. 10 grams of pure alcohol is roughly(ROUGHLY omg there is a lot of variation and you should measure your drinks andread the gd labels okay!!! Be safe and healthy and do not operate a vehicleincluding a bicycle or skateboard):

1 shot/nip of spirits such as whiskey (including bourbon), vodka, gin, tequila(basically anything that pours about as thin as water) (this is one ounce or 30mls)

2 shots/nips of liqueur such as Bailey’s Irish Cream (this is two ounces or 60 mls).Now, please be fucking careful here dudes. There are whiskey liqueurs that arealmost as strong as the straight spirits, and some that are lower in alcoholthan wine. There is a reason labelling is mandated.

100-120 mls (3-4 ounces) of wine (depends a lot on the strength –watch Aussie wines, they are often much higher in alcohol)

A half pint/280 mls/9 ounces of full strength beer (about 4.5-5% butagain there is a range, and some beers and ales may be more like 8% alcohol)

Pre-mixedbottled drinks: Holy fucking shit. These range fromless than 1 full standard drink (6-8 grams of alcohol) up to 3+ standard drinks(30+ grams of alcohol).

Q: omfg PBK this is stupid. It’s too complicated. Also I am talking about a character.

A: Imma be real here. If you can’t or won’t keep track, you (or yourcharacter) probably shouldn’t be drinking. You do put yourself at risk of arange of things, including short and long term health problems, increased riskof either committing or becoming a victim** of assault. Your character does too. And since I refuse to put a fictional spin on something this important, I’m choosing ‘you’ pronouns.

(** yeesh, people have different views ofthis term. Me, I’m pretty unapologetic about using ‘victim’ because in my view,that’s what you are, at the time. What you do afterwards gives you a shot at redefiningyour experience. I have been a victim and now I am a super-angry survivor whowill fuck you up, get you charged and then call your mom. But no matter what, itis fucked up. I am 5478% in favor of teaching people not to assault other people.However, as someone who works in evidence-based public policy I won’t stopdiscouraging people from getting intoxicated around people who might turn outto be assholes, without good support.)

So yeah, if you can’t or don’t want to keeptrack, these things could help:

Drink in private around peopleyou trust.

Drink a great big glass of water, slowly, between drinks.

Eat a ton of starchy carbs, before you start drinking.***

Q***: This was a weird thing to say when you’re saying only time soberspeople up. That is food. I mean wtf PBK are you talking out of your ass?

A: Nope. Because there are two kinds of sobriety.

The first is what we’ve been discussing.Literally, blood alcohol concentration.Nothing, not one single thing, not caffeine, cold water, food or a terriblefright will affect your BAC. Your cousin who claims Tabasco sauce and coffeesobers him up? He is wrong. The person who gets upset and suddenly feels soberand able to drive? Unless sufficient time has passed, nOPE. “I’ll nap for anhour” – nope. Nap for one hour for every drink you have had, and then maybe I’llgive you back your keys.

The second is functioning. This depends on a lot more stuff.

Functional sobriety is different. In someplaces, it will even get you out of a ticket, although it shouldn’t. If yourefuse a BAC test (blowing into a little machine) they might ask you to walk ina straight line, count backwards in threes, recite presidents, idk. It’sbullshit.

There are things that impact functionalsobriety and a huge one is experience. People who drink a lot and frequentlycan appear more sober at a higher BAC. They might slur less, walk straighter orbe able to recall more details.

Thingsthat affect functional sobriety:

How much you’ve eaten

How much you usually drink whenyou drink

How much your parents drink(**** boy howdy do we need to discuss this)

 Your emotional state

Like seriously 4783 otherthings

(**** gimme a minute here.

The children of parents who drink heavilyor regularly tend to have a higher tolerance for alcohol. This sounds like agood thing, but it’s not. It means that they tend to drink more rather thanless. It increases their risk of alcohol use problems, and makes them lesslikely to recognize a problem, because high levels of use sounds normal.

I mean, my parents drink every night andalways have, a minimum of, say, 6 standard drinks, which is way above mostcountries’ standards for low-risk drinking. My dad usually drinks until he isfalling asleep sitting up. They both view their alcohol use as low level andnormal. It is not, and it has posed problems for my sister and I.)

The thing about functional sobriety is thatit is kind of an illusion. Your response time is still for shit, your decision-makingis still bad enough so you have a decent shot at appearing to consent (evenenthusiastically) to sexual activity you otherwise might not consent to (I say appearing because you can’t legally consent, but the other person may not even know you’re drunk), yourpersonality is altered (you’re less resistant to suggestion, less inhibited andmore impulsive) even while you sound more sober than your buddy there.

Also, you absorb alcohol more slowly with a full stomach, see eat first.

Q: Okay but my friend had half a bottle of wine and they were smashed.

A: Okay. And that’s very possible, if they drank it too fast, or don’t drink much. But could there be something else going on?

Unless you were watching every second, theymight have had more (honestly, people who are starting to wonder if they have aproblem will lie).

Fucking horrible scenario: they may have had their drinkspiked. Now, if you’re feeling safe because you had a thingie to stick in theirdrink to check for rohypnol or GHB, I need to let you know that the most commonsubstance used to spike a drink is actually alcohol. (Someone adding alcohol to a non-alcoholic drink, or increasing the alcohol in analcoholic drink by ordering or making a double or triple or adding spirits tobeer or wine – not difficult with an inexperienced drinker who may notrecognize the taste so watch for you andyour friends okay) 

Or, alternate fucking horriblescenario: they might not be drunk. Acouple of years ago, one of my baby cousins (18, the drinking age in Australia)had a party. A friend staggered in from outside appearing smashed and they puthim to bed in the recovery position. He wasn’t drunk. He had a head injury,probably from hitting his head on the kerb, and he never woke up.

PS maybe they were, though. Again, if they don’t drink much generally, drank fast, haven’t eaten orthey are emotionally vulnerable they are more likely to get drunk pretty quick.Oops.

Q: I feel like this is getting away from what I asked…

A: Yeah, maybe. But I need to digress anyway, dude. If someone isunconscious, call a fucking ambulance, call for medical help. Unconsciousnessis legit an emergency. The difference between sleep and unconsciousness is thata sleeping person can be woken. Remember that if someone drinks a lot, fast,they might fall asleep and just keep getting drunker as they absorb thealcohol. Keep checking in. Be a friend. If they stop responding, assume thingsare not okay and call an ambulance. Accompany your friend to hospital.

Q: Holy shit you talk a lot

A: Right? Sorry. I swear, if I was talking to your group you’d find meengaging and funny, but that’s not always possible in text. I teach this kindashit for a living.

Q: Do you have a TL;DR version?

A: If you’re not willing to really think through things, drink only one standard drink per hour.Don’t fall into the trap of thinking caffeine, a cold shower or a fright willsober you up. And most importantly, when you are the sober one (and someoneshould be sober, my loves) watch out foryour friends.