#I like it when the fictional military guys are tortured

[so-you-melted-22]

Of course AO3 goes down just when I get to a fucking cliffhanger!!

[faksyan]

Huey Emmerich, mgs v cast & hypocrisy, a character analysis

Prefacing this with the fact that this is the morally gray franchise with the morally gray characters and I love how it portrays Huey Emmerich precisely for him being Like That. I think he is one of the most nuanced and well-written mgs characters and I'm pretty sure like half of it wasn't on purpose. He is the guy everyone hates for killing his wife (understandabe reason), trying to make one of his kid pilot a giant robot and almost drowning another in a pool (also understandable reason), and, most of all, for being a traitor. And with such a list, feels a bit weird that the accent often falls on that last part, doesn't it. Which is exactly how the narrative wants you to feel about his betrayal, on a surface level.

Every character essential to the Phantom Pain plot gets their "please feel bad for them, sympathize with them" moment, no matter how horrible a person they are. We get multiple monologs from Kaz, we get the 'I was the same way once' interrogation room and the ending of the Truth with Ocelot, we get Paz tapes and 'you're all diamonds' with Venom, we get Code Talker, Quiet, Eli (if they actually finished mission 51), even Skull Face, somewhat (don't even make me start on that guy. how is he less hated than Huey). The point is, the game is trying to make you feel bad for people who murder, torture, and whatever else, and parts of it are working, because it's fiction, and humans and morality are complicated and layered things! But what does Huey get? Torture sessions and tantrums that are framed as pathetic and ridiculous, even when what he is saying makes sense. Because yeah, there's some of that there. It's just that everyone else in the room deliberately doesn't acknowledge it.

When Venom just finds him, the first thing Huey says is that what happened to MSF was Snake's fault. The same during his exile - that there wouldn't have been an inspection, if there weren't a nuke to begin with. and it's like. he's not wrong. Having their own nukes as an independent military organization was a risk Snake and Kaz didn't just take blindly, they knew what could have happened. It was a gamble, and it didn't work out. If it did, it would've been their achievement. It didn't, so it's all Huey's fault, even though literally anyone could've been in his place. XOF weren't even the first to attempt to attack them, Zero was, Paz just didn't succeed. And if Skull Face hadn't either, someone else would have, the attention of the entire world was on them. It wasn't about betrayal, it was Snake and Kaz being drunk on success and biting off more than they could chew. Yes, Huey is a bastard and a traitor, but are we really going to blame all of this on him?

The answer is yes. And the reason is that they need someone to blame that's not them. The whole big theme of Phantom Pain is that Ocelot, Venom and Kaz have to do their best to keep up appearances, for the sake of Big Boss and his reputation. He is a legend, he is above everyone else, and he can do no wrong. Except after the fall of MSF everyone thinks that he can, Ocelot says as much in the briefing tapes. And they can't have that. So they blame it all on Huey. (<- all of this is a dictatorship allegory and critique of governments and military systems btw. 1984 or whatever I haven't read it. yay symbolism.) And blaming Huey is easy.

Huey is not a fighter. His father was a scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was born on the same day as the Hiroshima bombing, his disability was (presumably) caused by his father's exposure to radiation. It's not that there was no choice involved in what he was going to do in life, but it was kind of inevitable that he would get involved with building nuclear weapons. And even when he says he is thinking about quitting upon being found by Snake in Peace Walker, it's Snake who convinces him not to, offering him to join MSF instead. In the PW tapes he also expresses that if it weren't for his disability, he would've been anywhere else, doing something different and living a "normal life".

He talks about the concept of nuclear terrorism there too, about nukes falling into hands of people without state who would be able to use them however they want, and I wonder if that was part of the reason for his betrayal. He didn't make the decision to bring nukes to base, he doesn't actually know these people. If maybe he thought it prevented a hypothetical nuclear catastrophe. Huey does say that he trusts Snake not to use them, that he values how honest Snake is, and is honest with him in return, even telling him things he's never told anyone before, like about his plagiarism of Granin's work. So what changed between then and the inspection, what was his motivation for betraying MSF, why was he approached about it of all people? Did he lie in the tapes, did he change his mind, did Skull Face offer him something that seemed more compelling, just threaten him? We never get to find out anything about it aside from every other character screaming that he's just a coward. No villain monolog, nothing.

Maybe it was about feeling important, like he is in charge, something that the hostility he has faced throughout his life didn't allow him. Huey is a sheep among wolves (wolf in sheep's clothing more like, but still). He does not fit in with the buff cool masculine soldiers, and even while working with Strangelove at NASA, he was regarded as obnoxious and spineless. It's not surprising he agreed to work for Coldman, since he, apparently, was the first person to actually recognize his skills. And even that later turns out to be a lie told to use him. Huey rarely if at all has been treated seriously, he is an outcast, even among people who share his ideas.

All he has is his brain and his knowledge, but it's never framed as much of an achievement (despite people exploiting it left and right), nor is him essentially being the nerd in a military setting ever really viewed as something dorky or endearing by the narrative like with Otacon, because the characters around him don't see him as such (as a result, so don't the players). On top of that, every other person uses his mobility aids to further degrade/harm/threaten him, even though he is already harmless when it comes to physical confrontation. In short, people he is surrounded with just enjoy the powerplay.

Right up until the point he actually does something that hurts them. And this is where my favorite part kicks in.

All three Diamond Dogs' higher-ups blame Huey for slightly different reasons, some maybe even believing that they are in the right and entitled to it (looking at you Kazuhira), but I am more than sure they know what it is that they're doing. And it's not like Kaz lacks self-awareness either, I don't think. Maybe it's denial that some of his actions led to the death of his friends, maybe blind belief in his own martyrdom and self-righteousness (sounds an awful lot like another character we know, huh), it still doesn't change much. How they all frame the story is the same. Huey's powerless and pathetic, but has ruined everything at the same time. And it doesn't really make sense, but everyone on the base agrees. It's the moment where individuals turn into a crowd that demands blood, but at least it's not their commanders it's directed at!

The Questioning Huey (6) tape is a good example of that. I especially like the bit where he starts talking about how DD is not actually a dog, because on a smaller scale, it shows how people on Mother Base just roll with things that are objectively false and turn on anyone who says otherwise. No, DD is our beloved mascot, and we are called dogs, he is just like us. And it's not like DD is just a wolf either, so neither of them are right here. But each of them thinks that they are.

That's why the amount of genuine Huey hate is a bit amusing to see, I guess. Because it's precisely the thing the game is trying to commentate on. None of these people are good. None of them have it figured out. The point is that it's just narrative bias that makes you belive that some are, if not good, at least better than others. In reality, it's never about morals or being correct, just perspective.

Huey himself, on the other hand, falls into another extreme - in his eyes, he's done nothing wrong. Because he can do no wrong, he's powerless, like everyone's alway told him, remember? He sees himself as the victim, because in a lot of cases, he is.

You can say that he is a lying traitor and that the truth serum didn't work on him because of some failsafe Skull Face thought of, but really, would he bother? He didn't even view Huey as anything but a traitor he despised. you know, the guy who was in charge of organizing the betraying part. the guy who put bombs in people and wanted to commit mass-murder on a scale no one has seen before. So the obvious and the most simple answer here is that Huey whole-heartedly, truly believes he hasn't done anything wrong. He thinks he doesn't possess the power to, that he isn't important enough. And it's drilled so deep into him he never acknowledges it's not really true. Even when he kills Strangelove, he still doesn't accept that it is his fault and his actions matter.

That's my favorite part about him, I think. How deep in denial he is about having an impact on the people around him, while also having a sort of god complex when it comes to his machines. How everyone around despises him for it, while being the ones who caused it and doing the exact same thing, refusing to get off the high horse. Metal gear is a messy franchise about messy people, but it's good exactly because it shows what has messed these people up so much. And more often than not, it's the system they're surrounded by, or that they created themselves in an attempt to escape the previous one. It's easy to point at Huey as just a bad person and only that, but I find the context of his whole life and the ways he's coping with it really compelling. There is a lot of complexity to it, and in the end of the day, they are all hypocrites.

[pluckyredhead]

ur post abt the green lantern’s political leanings was so interesting!! can you do one for the bat family? (but only if u wanna!!)

Honestly, I can't, because their politics are so incoherent.

Like, take Bruce. (And again, like with the Lanterns, I'm talking about canon here, not how I wish things were.) On the one hand, you would imagine he's pretty progressive, right? He's almost certainly a single issue voter and that single issue is gun control. He believes in rehabilitating criminals and in fact a lot of Wayne Enterprises hires are formerly incarcerated people. He is an active philanthropist who pours money into schools, orphanages, hospitals, public spaces, and the arts. These are all leftist values!

And yet the modern Batman is also a completely unrestrained violent anarchic-libertarian power fantasy. Bruce has invented his own law, which he enacts and enforces completely arbitrarily, however he feels like doing so. He obeys the laws he wants to obey and ignores the ones he doesn't care about, while insisting he is law-abiding. He tortures people literally constantly and considers it righteous. He uses the profits from his publicly traded company to become a one-man military industrial complex. (The emissions from the fucking Batmobile alone...!) He illegally surveils the entire city and sometimes the entire planet (Brother Eye, anyone?) because he has decided that his moral authority overrides literally anyone's right to privacy, anywhere. He allows his defeated foes to be locked up indefinitely regardless of their mental state in an institution that would make any qualified mental health professional run screaming in the opposite direction. He's sexist. All of these things sit on the right of the political spectrum, but imagine me pointing to the right like Charlie from It's Always Sunny pointing to his murder board.

And none of the Batfamily is any better. Some of them are honestly worse in certain aspects. Dick was a cop. Jason loves guns. Babs and Tim are even more in love with surveillance than Bruce is. Remember when Tim wanted to replace the police with, like, a Bat-army??? BECAUSE I DO.

It's not really "their fault," as much as anything can be a fictional character's fault. It's the result of being written by writers who are, for the most part, consciously trying to write the Bats as good Samaritans, but are also living in a world where we have had our brains warped by all of our blockbusters being funded by the US military, in a medium where badassery is prized above everything else, and so all this really problematic shit spills out onto the comics page without being questioned. It's also kind of a boiling frog situation: i.e. Batman has always had a cool car, so as he got tougher and tougher, of course that car would eventually become a tank, and no one stopped to go "Wait, what the fuck? What the fuck? How is this billionaire driving a tank around helping anyone???" I guess god bless Zack Snyder for inadvertently highlighting how fucking stupid and counterproductive a Batman taken to his worst extremes is.

To be clear, I don't think this is what most writers are trying to do with Batman (some of them are, but fuck those guys). But it's what happens when all you care about is rule of cool, and the more I think about it the more I'm like...shit, maybe Alan Moore was right and superheroes are just stupid.

Anyway in conclusion, comic book writers should consider the ramifications of what they're writing occasionally. But Bruce Wayne probably still votes blue, at least.

[evilvvithin]

Enemies to lovers

I wrote about the reader being kidnapped and König had to save her and now I thought 'how about a switcheroo' so here ya go. I know the plot might be silly cause obviously that wouldn't happen irl, but it's a fiction and idc könig is rotting my brain constantly for so long I don't even know who I am anymore. Special thanks to @xellrani for being my sweet beta reader ♡

Summary: Believing you leave your military past behind and just enjoy some rest and peace, you decide to travel. Unlucky (or lucky) for you, there's a secret mission going on and you get unwillingly involved. Trigger warning for smut, mentions of torture, military stuff, interrogation, restrains, kidnapping, blood, wounds.  It's NSFW, König x f!reader (4, 596 words). AO3 link

  "Excuseer mij," a male bumped into you trying to get past you in the crowd. Taking pictures of the beautiful river in Amsterdam, you didn't even realize you're standing right in the middle of the road. Netherlands? Yes.

  Finally leaving the military base you called home for so long behind you, you had all your time to yourself. You didn't have to get a new job right away as you had more than enough money saved and you were exhausted. Really exhausted. All that was needed in your life now was peace and some time alone. During your time in the military, you've visited many countries across the whole world but never had a chance to experience them. You decided to change that now. You loved traveling. Getting to know different cultures, people, history, seeing the beauty in different corners of the world without having to think about the worst while fighting cartels or following orders no matter how wrong they were. 

  And there you were, heading slowly back to your AirBnB you booked for two weeks. You chose the right time of the year as well, it wasn't hot but at the same time it wasn't cold to stay outside the whole day comfortably. Your steps were so slow multiple people bumped into you after the man, but you just wanted to see every inch of this town. Inhaling the overwhelming smell of coffee and something sweet, you followed it and ended up standing in front of a "street dessert" shop. Many people stood around holding cups of coffee, enjoying themselves. You couldn't help yourself, seeing the steam coming out of the cups and the smell? You had to join them.

  Leaning at one of the small tables, you watched all the people hurry past you. Everyone was seemingly late somewhere, no one took a second to appreciate the aesthetics of their own town. 'I guess they saw enough of it when they live here,' you thought to yourself. The cup was nicely warming your hands up. You noticed the same man from before, wearing the same black facemask, the one who said excuse me after he bumped into you. He was staring at you but the second you turned your face to him, he quickly looked away. Your military self started to analyze the situation, 'why was he in such a rush 10 minutes ago when he's now standing here staring at me? Why does he wear the facemask?' You scoffed. This was already in your past, you were done with anything military related. There was no need to immediately think about someone stalking you. Covering his face? The man's more likely just ill. 'Maybe there's something weird with my hair?' You immediately reached for your hair instinctively just to find out they were completely normal. Looking back at the guy, you realized he wasn't there anymore. You shrugged it off and decided to keep walking, you wanted to be at your rented apartment before it gets dark. Of course you wanted to experience the nightlife here, but not today. 

  Walking to your apartment, you felt a weird anxious feeling. Someone's eyes were buried deep into the back of your skull. Turning your head slightly, there was that man again walking behind you. With the quick glimpse you got, you noticed he wasn't alone this time but three other men were in the line with him, all wearing the same black facemasks. Coincidence? You didn't think so as the street was rather empty. 'The whole group covering their faces so they can't be recognized?' Hearing some voices behind you, you assumed they talked with each other. Crushing the empty coffee cup in your fist, you increased your pace and glanced over your shoulder at the men once more. They did the same, closing the gap between you and them. 'Shit -' 

  Everything happened so fast you didn't even have a chance to yell for help. They were right behind you within a second, one of the men grabbed you, covering your mouth. His hand was large, it could've easily covered your whole face. He locked your arms into your chest with his arm and pulled you off the street into a smaller side one quickly. 

  "Target acquired," one of the men said into his coat. He must've had some small microphone there. 

  You didn't panic, no. You've never been in a situation like this, but you went through a special training in case you ever got held hostage. Training how to act and how to defend yourself. The only thing keeping you from trying to fight the men was that one of them, the one holding you locked in his arms completely unable to move, was enormous. You had no chance against him. Not only that but you couldn't fight all four, especially since you now knew they were some kind of trained agents the way they talked and acted, or even the military. The feeling of not knowing what was going on, what they wanted and 'why me' was the worst. Maybe a mistake, maybe something from your past time in the army? You didn't know about anything bad you've done, but you knew more than well that you didn't have to do anything wrong nor illegal to be taken hostage. 

  You calmed down and didn't resist as much as you were able to, it was the best thing you could do in your head. Staying in the side street for a long time, you didn't even see anyone walk by. It felt like all the people in the big, busy town disappeared. The behemoth man holding you still in position, with your arms locked on your chest, none of them said a single word since the walkie talkie message. It felt like an eternity but then you heard a car engine getting closer and closer. A black car stopped right at the end of the side street and they rushed to it, the man pushing you forward to it. The car's windows were all darkened and it didn't surprise you a bit. Stuffing you inside, you thought they probably didn't expect their mission or whatever this was to be this easy. 

  "Hand me the straps," the man holding you said. 

  Strapping your wrists together to the point you felt it cutting into your flesh, you were on the edge of fighting back and getting rid of them. To your surprise, the behemoth of a man ended up loosening the straps a bit after realizing they were too tight. Your mind was a mess, 'why would he do that at all?' Before you could think further about the situation, they forced you to inhale something from a napkin. You knew what it was, you knew you'd go unconscious within a couple of seconds. Some kind of dark cloth hood was thrown over your head and the car's engine started, tires screeching as the car rushed away, but you were already dozing off.

  "What do you mean he doesn't want to be a part of this?" You heard some distant voices while coming back to your senses. "He's the head of this operation he has to interrogate." You opened your eyes slowly but the hood was still over your head, making it impossible to see anything. "Tell him to come, he should at least be here."

  Doors opening and closing, heavy footsteps, muffled inaudible words, distant thumping. You started to feel anxious as you couldn't see what was going on, not knowing where you were. Moving your arms you found out they were strapped to some kind of a pole behind your back. It reminded you of heating pipes. Feeling the cold stone under you with your fingertips, you must've been sitting down on the floor. Your neck tightened suddenly and you coughed, making all the voices come closer to you till you could hear them clearly.

  "She's awake!" Someone with a deep raspy voice and accent shouted. "Let's start it."

  The cloth blocking your view was removed and you saw three men standing in front of you. 'So it is military,' ran through your mind as you saw all their gear and helmets. Their faces covered, you couldn't tell if they were the same men from the street but you did recognize one of them. The tall, intimidating one. People his visage aren't as common. It must've been him. He was wearing a sniper hood now with a helmet on it. 

  "Your name, little one?" He asked. 

  'Little one? Is he mocking me?' You scoffed in your mind and decided to remain calm and silent. The whole room you were in was silent, except someone tapping their fingers on the table in the back. The hooded man walked closer to you and loomed over you, blocking all light.

  "Your name." He repeated. This time he wasn't asking nor playing around, he was giving you an order. 

  His size and rough voice filled you up with nervousness but also a morbid curiosity. How did he look under the hood? You wanted to know who the voice belonged to. His eyes, you felt naked with them piercing through you. You felt like you couldn't have any secrets. 

  "Y/N," you replied finally and your voice cracked. Your throat still somewhat tightened, must've been due to what they made you inhale before.

  The hooded man narrowed his back and turned to others, all of them exchanging looks with each other. "Do you live here?" He asked you after a while. 

 "I'm on vacation."

  You saw his eyebrows furrowed more and more as he kept asking you. Questions about your country, year of birth, home address. You didn't know why you willingly answered all those questions when your plan was to not tell these men anything at all, but he made you feel somehow secure. As long as you cooperated, you had a feeling you'd be fine. 

  'Expect torture and humiliation, the worst of worst. They have no good intentions, all they say are lies. Tell them what they want to know and they let you go? The biggest bullshit. Never trust them, never cooperate. Dying is better than being captured.' 

  Lieutenant's words were burnt into your memory from years ago when you were still in training. You had no idea what made you so talkative. Maybe the feeling this whole thing was some kind of misunderstanding? Maybe the fact they didn't treat you harshly yet? Maybe the way the behemoth of a man loosened your straps in the car before? 

  He walked to one of the men and whispered something to him, after that they nodded at each other. "Horangi, with me," he said and left the room together with the named man, leaving you with the rest of the group. 

  You wanted to ask what was going on, but their face covers and sunglasses made it impossible to determine if it was okay to talk except being questioned and you weren't gonna risk it. The two men stayed behind doors talking and you did everything you could to catch what they were talking about. Without a chance. The walls and doors were too thick. It didn't take long before the two came back inside. 

  "Everyone out," the hooded behemoth of a man ordered everyone. They seemed confused at first, but they did what he wanted. "Whatever König says," one of them sighed out before leaving. 

  'König?'

  "Did you lose your IDs recently?" He asked and crossed arms over his chest. 

  "Actually… yes," you blinked. 

  "And you have a military background, correct?" 

  "Yes," your reply was hesitant this time. 

  "Scheiße," the man cursed through gritted teeth.

  "Can someone explain to me what's going on finally?" You felt like losing your mind. 

  König, as they called him, looked at you for a long time, thinking, before finally talking. "Cartel boss. We are after a cartel boss who is currently doing business somewhere in Amsterdam, apparently using your identity. We've never seen her face so we worked with what we had: IDs and credit cards. We don't even know for sure if it's a man or woman but we need to capture her. And with your army experience…"

  You blinked at him repeatedly. You? A cartel boss? "Could you at least untie me? It's rather uncomfortable."

  He walked to you, pulling out one of his knives and sliced the straps around your wrists carefully. When you saw him offering you a hand to stand up, you accepted it without hesitation. Someone was running outside the room, the rapid steps getting closer and closer. One of the men from before entered the room holding a laptop in his hands. 

  "Suspicious transaction," he said between breaths and gave you a look. "Her address."

  König stared into your eyes before grabbing the laptop of the man's hands to see if it's real. "Follow me," he then ordered and pointed at you. "You too." 

  Taken away by the whole situation, you walked behind him without single question. What you thought was an underground secret complex or something similar, was in fact a simple basement in a large house. It was a home everyone on the street noticed, but at the same time it's what made it the perfect provisory base. Right under everyone's noses, not trying to hide. 

  "Bravo acquired another target," one of the men upstairs said as soon as you all walked up the stairs. "We're ordered to stay for a little bit and keep an eye out. They'll want her back." Seeing you blink in confusion, he added: "her, the boss."

  "Bravo confirmed identity?" König asked and was met with a loud agreement. "Come with me," he turned to you and his voice immediately softened.

  You noticed how tough and rough he seemed, eager for action. Ordering the soldiers with a deep, commanding voice, towering over everyone making them nervous just by his presence. Except the one he called Horangi. He didn't seem bothered by anything König did or said, it was like he knew him more than the others. Horangi knew deep inside he wasn't like that to the core and you had the feeling as well. Analyzing people's behavior and speech, making psychological profiles, was part of your job in the military before so noticing König immediately went soft and calm when interacting with you was really noticable to you. There was still something more about the man you wanted to get to know even though you just met him and not exactly in a good circumstances. 

  "Where are we going? Am I held captive still or what?" You asked while almost having to run to keep up with his fast paced walking. 

  "We need to keep you safe, for a while at least. You got involved now, it's not smart to let you run free. Captive? You could say so." He chuckled. 

  "Why not stay here then? It's not safe?"

  "Es ist sicher," he paused for a while, "but there's a safer place."

  You decided to just follow him and see where you end up. You weren't afraid of him or the rest anymore, what you were afraid was their enemy. Somehow using your identity, your credit card and they apparently were in your rented apartment? Your best bet was to stay with this big man right in front of you. 

  After taking a car ride, the two of you stopped in front of another house. This one was way smaller. 

  "You can stay here until it's safe," König said after entering the house with you.

  "How many houses do you have in Amsterdam?" You asked.

  "You didn't expect us to have just one base, did you?" He laughed. "We have one more place, some apartment. The house you were in, that is the main base for the current mission. This house is in case our main base gets revealed."

  "So I'm staying at your place?"

  "Basically, yes."

  "Do you always wear the hood? Everywhere?"

  "Natürlich, protecting my identity and my friends. Especially on missions like this one, it's necessary."

  It made sense, you had your face covered during missions in terrain as well. You wished to see his face, the curiosity was driving you crazy but it will have to wait for later. Maybe you never get to see his face.

  ~~~~ one week later ~~~~

  Snoozing your alarm, you forced yourself out of the bed. König wasn't home, he must've been at their main base. The boss they captured before refused to tell them anything, obviously. They tried torturing her to get at least something from her, but she remained silent. She'd rather die than reveal the cartel's plans. You helped König and others with coding and breaking down safety systems to track information online. They knew about your military past but they assumed you were just an ordinary soldier going through training. Little did they know you spent almost your whole life in the army, achieving all kinds of education and extra training to raise your value. You were doubting your decision to leave your army job as well. All the thoughts about how you were finally free, had time for yourself and could live in peace? In fact, you missed it. The action. Helping König with his task helped you realize that.

  The coffee machine beeped. Grabbing a hot cup of the black liquid, you sat down in the kitchen and stared out the window. It was about to rain. Your thoughts took a turn back to him. 

  König. 

  The two of you got closer within the week you were here. He got comfortable around you, being really talkative and actually sharing deep details about this mission or his life. You assumed he wasn't really the type to share things with someone he barely knew, but for some reason he trusted you. You'd lie if you said he was just a man who kidnapped you before. You grew a huge liking for him and you didn't even see him without his hood yet. Sure, you could've sneak up on him when he slept but you wouldn't do that. 'He probably sleeps in it too anyway,' you laughed in your mind. Sipping your coffee, you couldn't get him out of your head no matter how hard you tried to focus on life outside the window. His voice, his caring gentle personality, his hands. He had beautiful hands. 'Uhhh,' you shook your head and body. You didn't know why, but König made you feel certain ways. 

 Staring out the window into nothingness and daydreaming while finishing your cup, you missed the doors being loudly slammed opened and closed. Hearing heavy footsteps behind you, you turned around just to see König squeezing his arm and bumping into a door frame on his way to the bathroom. You knew something was off and immediately ran after him. He was hunched over in front of the mirror, his gear and hoodie already on the ground next to him. He only wore a shirt, pulling up its sleeve further up to inspect a large bleeding wound under his shoulder. 

  "What happened?" You gasped in shock seeing all the blood drip down his arm.

  "The warehouse where they supposedly stored drugs at," he said through gritted teeth. "It wasn't empty as we expected. It's just a scratch." He opened the bathroom cabinet and grabbed bandages. "Scheiße!" He cursed as the rest of the bandages fell to the floor. 

  "Let me do it," you said and collected them off the floor, grabbing the one out of his hand too. "What about others?"

  "They're fine, at the main base, locating other warehouses that belong to the cartel." He sat down at the edge of the bathtub and let out a deep sigh, placing hand at the side of his ribs. "It's nothing," he said when he saw your raised eyebrows.

  "Need to clean it first," you said after looking at the wound on his arm. He nodded and clenched his jaw. 

  Pouring disinfectant at the wound, all his muscles tensed up but he didn't let out a single noise. When the wound was clean, you started to wrap the bandages around his arm carefully. 

  "It's just bruised," he said after the pain of cleaning his wound faded away and he no longer had to clench his jaw together. 

  "You need to rest, at least for today." You finished bandaging his arm, keeping your hand gently placed over it stroking his arm with your thumb. 

  König looked at your hand, but didn't say anything. It felt nice, he wanted you to continue. "Show me the bruises," you said. 

  "Mir geht's gut," he said but pulled the shirt over his head anyway, revealing his chest and abs. You felt a wave of heat run through your body as your eyes flew over his chest, but your concern for his well being was stronger. 

  Touching the purple ish parts of his ribs, you felt him wanting to move away but he remained still. "You were right, it's just bruises. No broken ribs," you said. 

  Your fingers slowly traced from his side to his chest. König was boring his eyes into yours, but didn't stop you. You were feeling the scarred skin under your fingertips, his muscles tensing up reacting to your touch. 

  "Rest you said?" König said. His voice sounded so calm and deep suddenly. "Shower is great for relaxing and resting."

  You were confused at his words, but he was right and you nodded. He grabbed your hand out of nowhere, standing up and pulling you into the shower corner with him. You didn't even have time to say anything before he threw his hood away and his lips were locked onto yours. God, his lips were unexpectedly soft. Closing your eyes, you returned his hungry kisses. You wanted to stare at his now uncovered face but you couldn't help it but give in to the lust you felt. König ran his hands down to your ass, giving it a soft squeeze before moving up your waist to your back. His hands were large and warm making you almost melt under his touch. He undid your bra with a single move like a pro and grabbing the edge of your shirt, he removed both your bra and shirt. He didn't want to leave your lips at all and only broke the kiss for a split second to pull the shirt over your head. 

  "Kön-" you tried to speak out but was silenced right away. 'König, I want you,' you finished in your head.

  Your arms around his neck, you pulled him deeper into the kiss. He was getting more touch, impatient. Within the time you were with him, you saw his focus on the mission, on his work in general. You imagined he didn't have any woman for some time, but what could you know? Running your hands down his chest to his pants, you unzipped them and teased the bulge through his boxers. He moaned into the kiss breaking it, throwing his pants and boxers away to join your shirt and bra on the ground outside the shower. While he was at it, you quickly got rid of the rest of your clothes as well. Now both of you fully naked, König turned on the shower. His eyes jumping all over your body. Waist, boobs, collarbones. He was hypnotized by your body. So were you by his own. His scars, his muscles. He looked even taller and bigger without clothes. You couldn't keep your eyes from his already hard member, wondering if you can take him whole. Your pussy was already prepared to take him, all wet and screaming for attention. For release. 

  "You're gorgeous," König whispered and placed a hand on your thigh while his other hand traced down your neck and then collarbones, watching the water run down your body.

  Your hands placed on his chest, you wanted to feel every muscle on his body, every scar. You wanted to ask about every single scar's backstory, but you're gonna have time for that later. Running your hands down to his cock and stroking it, he shivered under your touch. He couldn't take it anymore. He didn't want to behave like a wild animal, but you gave him no choice. He needed to feel you. He needed to connect with you. Now. 

  Grabbing your ass, he pulled you up and you instinctively wrapped your arms around his neck together with your legs wrapping around his waist. Even being higher now, you still felt so small compared to him. His dick pressed against your entrance now, you only moaned out his name in despair. Not breaking eye contact, he slowly slid into you. He wanted to break you, make you tremble, not able to walk but he definitely didn't want to hurt you. You felt your insides stretching around his size, not able to tell pleasure apart from pain. He was fully inside you now, waiting for you to adjust a little before starting to thrust into you slowly. It didn't take you long at all before you moaned out his name loudly. You were full, feeling him hitting your cervix often. Your body heated up so much the water now seemed cold. König caressed your neck with kisses, sucking onto your skin roughly and leaving marks there. You knew you won't be able to last long with this man but he felt the same. 

  He might've not let anything be known, but you were driving him crazy for a while. Your hair, waistline, eyes. Your military experience. The fact you knew weapons, the fact you were capable of being with him on a mission. The way you didn't scream and panic when he held you in the side street and then interrogated you. Your caring and kind nature. 

  The shower corner was filling up with steam and moans of you two. "Fuck!" You gasped out as your walls started to wrap around his cock tightly. 

  "I'm close," König groaned, his hot breath leaving a cold breeze on your wet neck.

  You felt your arms getting weaker as they were wrapped around his neck the whole time. You were starting to feel dizzy as his thrusts became quicker and sloppier. You were gasping for air under his thrusts, feeling the climax coming. He thrusted into you a few more times,  filling you up with his load immediately leaking out of you. You trembled under the pleasure, your vision blurry. Was it thanks to him or just the steam that was all around you? 

  "Mein Gott, love," he whispered, his voice all raspy. 

  He carefully let go off your legs. The second you stood on them you felt how weak they were. Still breathing heavily and unable to speak, you turned off the water. König placed his hands on the wall on each side of your head, locking you between them and towering you with his large frame. You finally got a good look at his face. His big, blue eyes that made him look tired all the time. His soft lips. His strong jawline. His sharp nose. You heard your heart beating in your head, deafening your ears. 

  "You plan on going somewhere?" König said and smirked, turning you around to face the wall and turning the water back on. "Long showers are the best," he whispered right behind your ear and pulled your ass towards him. 

  You bite your lip feeling the tip of his dick found your entrance again.   

  "Ruin me," you moaned. 

  "Ich werde."

[drfirsnogayny]

Introduction

Some important information that is not written in the picture above:

I don't like it when people say "they/them" about me. Please fir/firm/firs/firses/firself or any binary (he/him or she/her).

I don't indicate my political and civic position, including I do not reblog on this topic. I also don't publish questions and suggested posts related to current political events. (Although those to whom these messages are addressed in the first place, still do not read my account)

I am a mentally ill person, although I do not have a diagnosis (my friend suggested that I am autistic), health problems can affect my behavior and mood. I'm trying to control myself, but please be patient with me.

I allow interaction to everyone except sex spambots, however, I forbid you to show any chauvinism towards me, my friends, strangers, or fictional characters (regardless of the party: for example, cisphobia is prohibited on a par with transphobia).

I am a reserved person, so my gratitude consists of two or three words. Don't expect enthusiastic speeches from me, I can't do this.

I rarely make reblogs. I don't have a separate account for reblogging, and this one I want to dedicate to art.

I am posting content that may have common triggers. I don't put warnings on these posts, except for tags. Please follow the link at the bottom of the post and block all tw tags that bother you.

My sona looks like this, not like in the picture.

I only take requests that are dedicated to my favorite fandoms (list below), including AUs and OCs. I'm also not a fan of shipping. Crossovers are allowed, but, again, preferably without shipping

My interests

🎮🐏 Amanda the Adventurer

🎮📏 Baldi's Basics ✨

📱🐈 Castle Cats

📱🐕 Dungeon Dogs

💻🎵 Incredibox Sprunki

🐧🌼 Kikoriki

🎮🍎 Kindergarten ✨

🎮⌨️ KinitoPet ✨

🎮🐙 Kraken Academy

💻⚖️ Milgram

🎮🗼 Not For Broadcast ✨

💭👁️ Obscured Eyes

📖🌌 Space Pirate Krox

🎮🚪 That's not my neighbor

🎮😭 The Binding of Isaac ✨

🎭🎭 The Phantom of the Opera ✨

🎭💈 TODD ✨

🎮🐹 Wasted Youth ✨

🎭 for musicals, 📖 for books, 📺 for television, 🐧 for cartoons, 🎮 for videogames, 📱 for mobile games, 💻 for internet projects, 💭 for comics

My works

Cleavers cult

Byron Kagita is an evil, harsh, domineering and depraved military man who returned to the city of His childhood to rethink His life. Cleavers Cult is basically His project to help random people figure out their problems. His best friend Howard, who volunteered to help, needs protection, because he is an escaped mutant. Andro is trying to save his wife from the hands of maniacs who constantly call him, while Vincent and Tinj are under pressure from their superiors. In addition, Byron will have to improve relations with His family, which harbored a grudge against Him.

Tags page

Depressive school

Girl Nancy enters the school where her aunt works as head teacher to help her. Her new classmates don't like her, because it's in Nancy's interests to report on her classmates and participate in their punishment… or torture? The girl Myrtle is one of the few who is friendly to Nancy: she wants to use her help in finding Bunny, a maniac boy. And perhaps not only him.

Tags page

Biolitary school

Just Kindergarten 3 AU. The main characters enter a new school with a biological and sports bias with very arrogant local children who perform some of the functions of the staff. Can be deleted or changed.

In connection with the announcement Kindergarten 3, it will be changed.

Tags page

Broadcast Revolution

Restarting an old version of AU. 20 years have passed since the events of Kindergarten. The city is ruled by the Mayor, who can control your consciousness through TVs. Lily and Billy have recently returned to this town, and they intend to stop the Mayor. With the help of their longtime acquaintance, The Guy, they intend to unite everyone they know in this city — their former classmates.

Tag

My social networks

Discord: dr.firsnogayny

Art Fight: Dr.FirsNogayny

I also have Twitter, DeviantArt, Facebook, Amino and VK, but please don't

Tags and TWs:

(May not work correctly)

General

🖌️ Artist on Tumblr vs Not my art & Reblog (Talking reblog & Answer reblog)

Ask blog

Art trade & Gift art & Collab art & Art request

Not my OC & Not my AU & Not my sona

Repost

Redraw

Sketch

Delete later (If you find posts with this tag, you are lucky)

DRFND

Events

🛡️ Art Fight (2023 ● 2024)

Funguary (2024)

My sonas

🦇 Raphyr

🐦‍⬛ Raven

🕊️ Zephyr

My universe and AUs

🏰 AKAU

🌻 Biolitary school

🔪 Cleavers cult

🩸 Depressive school

🎤 Hilsod

✉️ Penitent (no one post yet)

Fandoms

📼 Amanda the Adventurer

🐱 Castle Cats & 🐶 Dungeon Dogs

🍎 Kindergarten 1 & 2

😭 The Binding of Isaac = TBoI

🎭 The Phantom of the Opera

Trigger warning

If you don't like seeing content on these topics, block #tw 'tag name' (for example, #tw blood)

The full list of tags is here

Ships

Block this tag (for example, #anna x bob) if you don't like this ship.

The full list of tags is here.

[dojae-huh]

aaah.....look who is here....huh nim ....I bet u missed a lot of ask of curious fans...haha...but seriously I was really waiting for u to ask about 2 things when they happened....but that's all resolved somehow...one was when dy proposed the no solo show on this concert....but it's ok..there is no point in asking y ppl got mad in that..coz everyone get either mad or happy for what he says...secondly it was about the ty nd some other idols controversy abt some anime or manga I guess...still I am not chilled after what happnd..

Firstly I am not ty biased...still I pitied him for having some foolish fans who hated him for nothing....I mean there are lot of dark anime nd mangas out there..nd ppl reading it..some ppl like the story nd others dont..in some story there is brutal murders, rapes nd lot worse things that happening to innocent ppl including womens nd childrens...but reading it nd recommending it doesnt mean that they enjoyed all the brutality nd like child abuse?? Does that make any sense. .....for eg..take AOT...there titan kills lot of ppl very brutally, including childrens...if recommend it does that mean I enjoyed all the killings?? My god...come on...r we living in 60s???

Fortunately Ty had the censord versions of manga so he got out of that shitty claim of enjoying child abuse...otherwise his career qould have ended before his enlistment..but he got lot of backlashes nd death threats. ..that's so unfair...

Isn't the time the best issue solver? Heh.

I'm actually thinking of reading the uncensored version of that manga even if the art style is not my cup of tea. The plot says it is about an orphaned girl who went to look for her mother and travels with a robot in a scary dangerous world called Abyss. I'd like to find out why it won awards, got animated movies and was translated into other langauges (censoring is a lot of work, the plot should be interesting and sellable for Korean editors to go through the trouble).

The antis who created the controversy in the first place and those who run with it are hypocrites. They try to destroy a person's life over a photograph and fictional story. Whatever is in the manga is fake, not real, printed in ink on paper, it is sold with a warning label. The antis act in real world, try to harm real people, bring distress to real fans of idols, they are the ones who do evil, not the readers of the manga.

Taeyong will go into the military soon. He will be taught how to fire guns and throw grenades. He will be trained for a potentional job of killing other people (in case North Korea attacks). And "fans" pretend that an adult reading gore manga in his leasure time is something to get nauseous about. No, it's just bullies bullying or narcissists thriving on making other people suffer emotionally.

Forget Japanese manga. Let's start with video games like shooters and super hero series, were the "good guys" kill left and right. Last time I checked, League of Legends had some child-looking champions that were to be maimed as everyone else. And wasn't Harry Potter a minor when he was tortured with Dark spells? This "Made in Abyss" thing is yet another case of antis and click-bait sites making a fuss over cooked up "problematic behavour" to gain some profit. Just stick some trigger words, point fingers, and the job is done. The fans will do the rest trying to "fix things", actually being the vectors of spreading the lies.

[katzengesicht]

KATZENGESICHT — see here ... when boss says "jump", i jump! so when the boss comes and tells me to paint mother base pink ... well! bubblegum? or fuchsia?

affiliated revolver ocelot from metal gear solid. as loved by lucifer (24, they/he). header credit found here.

(content warning: drug use, addiction/withdrawal, torture, hypnosis/unreality, war. please read my rules before interacting.)

the first fictional simp and catboy in one.

world's cuntiest war criminal, who has mastered being inauthentic to the point of never having developed a proper personality in the first place, everything about him is a carefully calculated facade.

raised as a weapon of war, super spy and double/triple/quadruple agent in so many different political and military forces, after getting taken from his parents at birth.

just barely human-passing. just because i'm in the shape of a person doesn't mean i am one. can't have identity issues if you don't have an identity.

he's a cowboy, but also no he isn't. but he is. but he isn't. wears cowboy boots with spurs, plus the notorious red gloves and scarf. speaks with a southern drawl that's entirely made up.

got beaten in combat one (1) time at twenty years old and decided to dedicate the rest of his life to the guy that beat him.

in this dedication, he is actively trying to tear the world asunder, as long as it's for that one person. no hurdle too high, no line in the sand too deep, no violence too grotesque. ocelot has no limits, except the ones he sets for himself in favour of efficiency.

twirls his loaded guns in a montage for entire fourty-two seconds. he's an incredible marksman, but he's also insufferable about it.

most of the time, ocelot is a mischievous, flamboyant, confident soldier, who likes pushing buttons where he shouldn't. often infuriating to be around, he picks his company carefully, and puts up an act accordingly.

he's also a walking encyclopedia of wildlife facts.

revolver ocelot did not wear little red scarf and gloves and hat and the cowboy boots to the jungle just for men who can't read to say that no one is gonna be the first gay in metal gear. don't worry mr. ocelot. i saw your cowboy boots.

ass so flat, he has to sit gently so he doesn't shatter his pelvis.

LINKS — APP. STATS.

[red-the-dragon-writes]

🚧 this is not finished and there will be adjustments! 🚧 please do not reblog this post! 🚧 

Hi, I'm Red. Welcome to my writing blog. I use he/him, they/them, ne/nem, and fuck/fucker pronouns, and this is a sideblog. I follow and interact from @bitegore. I'm bi, trans, aro, polyam and above all Queer.

I write primarily Transformers fanfiction and, rarely, original fiction as well. I like dragons and I like robots, and I will put one or the other (or sometimes both!) into everything I do. I consider myself to be a horror writer, and I typically try to lean in toward whatever shitty implications I can come up with rather than lean out.

I have a particular love of in-universe documents and pastiche of things like current event news articles and sociological papers. I also love gore, death, horrific power dynamics, and bad sex that hurts everyone involved. I love when characters do bad things to one another and I want them to be awful.

I fully intend for everyone reading my stories to get some sort of rubberneck-style voyeuristic fascination out of everything I write. My smut is bad and I hope it makes you want to peel your skin off. My humor is pitch black and I will rhyme lying with dying and try to make you laugh about it. I do my best never to shy away from the edge and I want you to stare down at the pitch-black hole I've dropped my characters into and acknowledge the abject depths of their suffering and then be forced to admit that actually that's kind of funny anyway.

But i promise i'm chill as, like, a person and I want to give you the tools to read or not read that at your leisure and all that.

Current Ongoing Wips:

Transmissions from Cybertron - a letter-based epistolary fic about a transformer who goes on a weird mission and gets his brain fried super duper hard by it. Currently in its last few stages, I think, I just have to get it DONE.

Fortress Maximus v. Big Sword Studios - a pastiche of the ongoing "censorship is good/censorship is bad" debate from the beginning of modern media's existence set on Cybertron and in regards to deliberately provocative politically-charged pornography about (in-universe) war crimes. About half done. I have to kick it into high gear and I don't feeeeelllll like it i want to write stupid shenanigans instead.

Dedication - my take on the Tarn and Pharma Have A Child thing, wherein everything is bad, Pharma is currently dead, and the kid has never had a single positive adult in his life thus far. and also hasn't got a name yet. i just need to finish what i have written so i can get to what i want to write. this one also only needs a couple more chapters and then it should be done. Also Transformers fanfiction.

"You really wanna know where I'm from?"  - my beloved transformers oc Bait lies about her background to a bunch of people for fun and profit. A personal project and on the back burner.

some speedy pilot sharpshooter, or something - same beloved transformers oc takes a hit out on one of my friend's favorites and gives him a complex via torture, but I lost the other guy's voice and so I haven't gotten back to it yet.

laser core - Vortex (a transformer) wants to kill someone by fucking their battery until they die so bad he blows his dick up like fifteen times. Stuck in progress because I don;'t know enough engineering to make it work.

Crystal Clear - A Star Wars/Transformers crossover where Megatron and Optimus Prime are ancient jedi and Sith dug up out of the ground. I have no idea wher I was going with this but I want to get back to it someday.

Closerverse Main Story - Original fiction; a two part story that starts with a fucked up child soldier/member of a military cult discovering that non-human people (this is one of those high fantasy worlds with like shapeshifters and shit who are very much people) are still people and killing them is bad. and then falling in love, or at least good friends, with a dragon shapeshifter who also rather likes her. and THEN we take a hard swerve into grimdark territory and do bad things to our beloved dragon shapeshifter and hit him with a curse and do bad things to our ex-child soldier and THEN they go ahead and burn down the old world order and build a kinder one in its ashes. This one needs a prety comprehensive re-plotting but the bones are good; but also there's some awkward eeehhhh shit about what is essentially me processing my hashtag jewish-in-2022 feelings through making shapeshifting lizards be an oppressed culture and people that I don't want to take out because I want to be a shapeshifting lizard so bad i could cry but also the antisemites. they do that too. im not with them

no other serious origfic stories at this time smh

Housekeeping:

Tags in Use: #tag game - tag games (where I'm tagged/pinged by username) #ask game - ask games (asks sent in that I respond to) #wip thread - a long "thead" where i post snippets from one particular wip, usually short fanfics I intend to wrap and post within that week #tf writing - tag to specify Transformers writing #cls writing - tag to specify Closerverse-universe writing (changed 3/25/22) #ff writing - tag to specify other (non-Transformers) fanfiction #origfic writing - tag to specify other (non-Closerverse) original writing #others' writing - tag to specify that someone else wrote this and i just think it's cool #advice - advice #aesthetic - pretty pictures, usually just to fill up space #cn: sexual violence - "content note: sexual violence" - umbrella category for rape, noncon and dubcon #cn: gore - "content note: gore" - for body horror and "extreme" violence #cn: self-harm - "content note: self-harm" - for written descriptions of self-harm, including slightly less traditional ones like starving oneself #cn: death - "content note: death" - for stories dealing in large part with death. Note: not ones where it's incidental or background- stories where major charcters die or deal with grief.

I don't have a taglist for any wips because I have very few serious ongoing projects. If you'd like to be tagged for discussion and workshopping of Transformers fics, or for original works, please let me know which. Transformers taglist: - General TF taglist: - - Transmissions from Cybertron: - - Dedication: - - Crystal Clear: - - General Bait (OC) fic: - Origfic taglist: - General Closerverse Origfic: - - Closerverse Main Story: - - General Non-CV Origfic: -

[cinemacentral666]

The Painted Bird (2019)

Movie #1,078 • TWO FOR TUESDAY

The Painted Bird begins like this…

…and then proceeds to torture that child in pretty much every way you could imagine (psychologically, physically, and everything in between) for the better part of three hours. It is the ALL GAS NO BREAKS of films about the atrocities mankind unloads on one another. The main and perhaps only complaint I've seen levied against this boils down to just that: this is human suffering porn and human suffering porn sucks. I actually saw that phrase ("human suffering porn") used and it struck me (there's no shortage of shitty takes on this btw). That writer clearly had to make a distinction between this wonderfully shot black-and-white epic and something like Saw VI. To say, "I get that this Art, and I see how it checks off the boxes which makes something Art, but my mind can't parse any contrast between Jigsaw and Udo Kier." You can't really have it both ways, though.

Where torture porn exists purely in service of delivering those salacious goods, this strives to use those elements in service of delivering a message. Like any good war movie, this is stridently anti-war. And like the best war movies, it isn't political in the slightest. The Czech writer-director, Václav Marhoul, went as far as to use the Interslavic language (an auxiliary dialect used to facilitate communication between speakers of various Slavic languages) in order to obscure the actual location of these various Eastern Europe settings. One whiny critic actually wrote that "none of the film takes place in Germany [and] very little of the evil done to the kid has anything to do with Germans or Nazis." Like we needed to cut to a shot of Hitler pouting to understand why these people were living this way.

This movie is based on a 1965 book with a complex and fascinating backstory (its author is Jerzy Kosiński, who also penned Being There). It's pure fiction but what we know about the hell that was WWII suggests that all the gruesome elements aren't altogether fantastical. The parallels/similarities to the all-time classic Come and See (1985), at least on the surface, are instant and unmistakable even if they're not much more than "war seen through the eyes of a young boy." (Interestingly enough, Alexsey Kravchenko — who portrayed the boy in Come and See — plays a Russian military officer here, and one of the few "good guys" in The Painted Bird.) I don't think this is quite on par with Klimov's generational effort, but I'd still say it's a must-watch. As it turns out, this is simply a premium delivery system for the anti-war system.

For me, a grizzled vet of fucked-up horror, the worst moments weren't the violent and sicko outbursts, like when Udo Kier gouges a man's eyes out with a spoon. It was seeing the young boy striving to stay connected to some semblance of humanity in the wake of such things, like when he futilely delivers said eyeballs back to the man crying in the woods.

It was a fascinating choice to cast name actors, from all over the world, in small but important supporting roles in these various vignettes (the film is separated into seven specific chapters that could easily be viewed as shorts in their own right). Stellan Skarsgård doesn't utter a single line of dialogue and Barry Pepper, just one or two. There's the aforementioned Kier, and Harvey Keitel plays a priest. The late Julian Sands is a pedophile who gets eaten alive by rats. Like using the Impact font on the movie poster and inter-titles, this decision left me scratching my head, though not in a bad way.

But in the end this is child actor Petr Kotlár's movie. To subject someone as young as that to what we ultimately find onscreen isn't without a degree of moral ambiguity. That two stand-ins get a special shout-out in the credits alleviates some of this grief/guilt, but it's still worth mentioning. While I believe this is a much more valid complaint than simply stating you (an adult) were personally offended by the content, I choose to see this through a lens of bravery. He's really great in this without every speaking a word. I hope it doesn't/didn't fuck his life up.

I don't think this movie is begging you to look away. I think it's trying to make you look harder at what and why this could happen. Yes, all those Nazis we don't actually see, among many other things. It doesn't spell it out and never offers a concrete answer. The chief film critic of Variety walked out of this and in his "review" he willfully offers up a list of all the other films he's walked out of, among them:

I couldn’t get past the opening credits sequence of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (which had already managed to cutesify my favorite song, “Brandy” by Looking Glass), as Baby Groot dances to ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” while the ensemble fights a space alien in the background. I’d enjoyed the original, but the Guardians had clearly gotten too cool to care, so why should I?

Everyone's hell is vastly different in the end. My 2¢? Let's try to relate, even when that seems so painful that it's impossible. For example, I would have walked out of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 also.

SCORE: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[lorenfangor]

the other piece of reading Animorphs 30 years later (in conversation with the concept of “this story should have gone harder in discussing these issues”) is trying to piece together the text’s responses to societal trends or genre fiction tropes or children’s literature standards that genuinely don’t exist anymore, and if you weren’t there or actively reading books published in that time and era, it’s very difficult to explain the full media landscape

off the top of my head -

the obvious one and the most-discussed one is that the books are episodic with an introduction in every one that talks about the characters, who the villains are, what they do, etc, so that any kid reading out of order could have a complete adventure and a total sense of what’s going on. nowadays it’s totally normal for kids’ books to be serialized with tight continuity and no time wasted on explaining all of those things

limitations on things like how dangerous villains could be, the kinds of stuff depicted in the main series, when and how you could say “die”, etc. all this is editorial mandating and is intended to satisfy concerned parents. the biggest reason Visser Three is kind of an ineffectual Saturday Morning Cartoon Bad Guy for the first 45ish books is because he’s got to be menacing enough to scare you but not so menacing that you worry our heroes won’t get away

a lot of the antiwar and military-critical elements are responding to a cultural landscape that doesn’t exist anymore courtesy of 9/11 - the antiwar movement was a LOT more prevalent and a lot of the things the text leaves unsaid are unsaid because people were already thinking them. the Andalites are so very obviously crafted in a pre-War-on-Terror landscape that I do genuinely wonder if it’s possible to see them in their originally intended light if you’re too young to remember The Before Times and how the military was seen prior to that phase of American history

the depictions of torture or threats of torture in 29 and 33 were in response to the SFF tropes of torture being something you could be manly enough or strong enough to resist, and that it wouldn’t leave a lasting mark on you or traumatize you, and that if you were just bold and brave and masculine for a long enough stretch of time you’d be totally fine. contrast Wesley in The Princess Bride’s “I can take torture” with Tobias breaking in 33, contrast any schlocky swashbuckling flick’s “We have ways of making you talk” with the fear of what will happen to Aftran

Cassie’s and Marco’s nonwhite identities + Jake’s and Rachel’s Judaism being footnotes to their characterization was the way you were supposed to write minority characters as a white ally author in the 90s. This was a decade that was big on “racism and bigotry are solved by treating everyone equally, people are people!” and you got an explosion of diverse casts where everyone was basically culturally identical except come Christmas there’d be an episode about other winter traditions like Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and Diwali. There’s a lot of buzz today about shows like A Different World etc providing accurate and real representation, but the dominant cultural narrative was that everybody was the same and “I don’t see color” was how you were supposed to treat your characters. Cassie’s parents being middle-class farmers and veterinarians and Marco being middle-class and going to a good school and speaking English without an accent was good rep by 90s standards. this is probably the thing that has aged in the most frustrating fashion.

Rachel’s whole “you can be feminine and fashionable AND be a kickass fighter! girl power” thing was part of a larger 90s backlash to previous decades’ concept of feminism as something that rejected femininity and embraced masculinity; the diversification of feminist thought into something that didn’t devalue femme aesthetics and girly interests was at the time genuinely important even as it’s kind of trite now

there is. a lot more than this. but that’s sort of a beginning? it’ll be interesting both to see how this series continues to age (and what its staying power will be, as the standards for socially-progressive kidlit continue to rise) and how new adult readers who’ve spent their entire lives in the 21st century approach it

[itsclydebitches]

I’ve been seeing an uptick in “anti-RWDE” posts lately  — which is a phenomenon I’d like to comment on at a later date  — but for now one of them (quite unintentionally) made me realize something about the finale that I haven’t seen others discuss yet. 

So RWBYJNOR saves everyone, right? Let’s just put aside the animation for a moment  — which didn’t show any army members making it out  — as well as the forgotten side characters  — Maria, Pietro, Qrow’s group isn’t forgotten, but still left behind  — and take things on good faith here. We’ll read the finale through the thematic intention: RWBYJNOR saved “everyone” in the Kingdom of Atlas in Volume 8, deliberately contrasting them with Ironwood who was willing to sacrifice a chunk of the Kingdom in Volume 7. Forget all the messiness and just accept that regardless of the consequences  — like a destroyed Kingdom and a “dead” team  — the heroes are heroic because they didn’t give into a “lesser evil” thinking and managed to save everyone. 

Now, how was that possible? 

Let’s go back to the beginning of the seventh episode of Volume 8, “War.” Salem’s grimm have just burrowed through Atlas’ defenses and taken them out. The shields are gone. She flies Monstra into the fields and releases an army of darkness that immediately heads for the city. What’s the very first thing Ironwood does? 

Soldier: Yes, sir?

Ironwood: I am evacuating all citizens to the subway. Prepare Manta Squad Omega, and dispatch to every part of Atlas.

Soldier: But sir-

Ironwood: Now!

He evacuates the people, with “the people” meaning all the Atlesians and however many Mantle folk got to the city prior to Salem’s arrival. When this episode aired I mentioned being confused as to why the soldier was so hesitant. Why wouldn’t you want the people to get to safety when a grimm army is heading their way? Fans against Ironwood took the soldier’s side, claiming that Mountain Glenn proved that any underground evacuation is a death sentence and thus he obviously doesn’t really care about the peoples’ safety. Fans in support of/neutral towards Ironwood pointed out that this is a pretty big leap, no one is coming up with a better idea for what he should do instead, and that within these circumstances it reads like the soldiers is illogically against this idea simply because everyone is against Ironwood now. The show wants characters criticizing his decisions and making him out to look like a crazed dictator... even during moments when it doesn’t make any sense to be upset with him. Shooting the councilman yes, trying to keep the people safe no. Basically, this small exchange was a mess, but the rest of the volume proved that this was a sound call. The subway never collapsed and no grimm ever made it to that enclosed space to pick the civilians off like fish in an underground barrel. 

So, why didn’t that happen? Well, one answer is because Oscar and Ozpin destroyed the whale. But how did they have time to do that? Without the people dying while they were being tortured, talking to Hazel, escaping with Emerald, fighting Salem, etc.? A lot happened between Salem starting her attack and Oscar ending it, so why wasn’t 2/3rds of the Kingdom’s population decimated during that time? 

Because Ironwood sent his army out to keep the grimm occupied. 

Outside of Ironwood’s cartoon villain actions  — random murders and bomb threats  — which get the most attention due to how deliberately, over-the-top horrific they are, these are the two actions that get the most negative attention from both the story and the fanbase. The soldier seems horrified by the order to evacuate. Marrow is devastated that young adults are fighting in this battle. The fandom is disgusted by both aspects of Ironwood’s character: giving orders that, as general, he expects to be obeyed and having an army that follows those orders. Putting side that cartoon villainy, this is what supposedly makes Ironwood the antagonist here. These are the qualities that have existed since Volume 2, resulting in a “he was always a bad guy” interpretation. These are the qualities that have resulted in anyone who likes his character being labeled as a “bootlicker.” We know these qualities make the fandom hate him because otherwise, more people would be confused as to why a presumably heroic character randomly shot Oscar. Orders, armies, and general military associations are at the heart of Ironwood’s presumed villainy. 

So let’s remove them. 

Ironwood has no evil army. Ironwood gives no evil orders. Power and control lies solely in the hands of our non-military heroes. Everything is better! 

...well, no. Because we saw in Volume 8 precisely the choices our heroes made when the attack started: half of them focused on saving a single individual (Oscar) and the other half kept to the sidelines. At no point did our RWB group act after sending the message and prior to securing the Staff. AKA, during the attack of Salem’s army. We got a very explicit moment in which Ruby looked out the window at the battle going on and turned away from it, continuing to discuss ethics instead of joining the fight. The people of Atlas (which, again, includes many Mantle citizens) had no one but Ironwood and his army because a third of the group was trying to rescue Oscar (they never even had a plan to blow up Monstra — that was also Ironwood), a third of the group was up in Amity, and a third was sitting in the mansion. They did nothing to help the people of Atlas being attacked by grimm. 

Thus, if you remove Ironwood’s actions, everything goes to hell. There is no longer an order to evacuate to the subway. Maybe some people go there anyway. Most probably don’t. They run in a panic wherever they can. Hide wherever they can. Go back home for some semblance of safety. 

There’s no longer an army. Either it doesn’t exist because we’ve determined it’s simplistically bad despite RWBY’s grimm-specific context, or Ironwood likewise never gives the order to protect Atlas’ border. Salem’s army moves unimpeded through the city, killing countless people as it goes. How do we know? Because they’re civilians who can’t defend themselves and there’s literally no one else to help. Remember: Ironwood is not giving orders, there is no army, RWB is in the mansion, YJOR is in the whale, Penny is out of commission, the Happy Huntresses are in Mantle. Those in Atlas are entirely alone. In time, Oscar destroys the whale, but by then it’s too late. There’s no concrete way to theorize how many have died, but it’s inevitably a lot. Everyone else is scatted across the city, trying to survive. 

So this scene 

no longer exists. 

When the group gets the Staff and creates portals for “everyone” to escape through, Mantle is ready to go. They’ve gotten everyone into the crater and can funnel them straight to Vacuo. Atlas, however, is in chaos. When Jaune enters the subway there’s only a few people there, many of which may be wounded or dying. He’s right back where he started, in Mantle at the beginning of Volume 8: needing to go door-to-door to find where people have hidden themselves, trying to convince them all to follow him (remember Oscar commenting to Ozpin about how difficult that was?). Except now, he and Nora are the only ones trying to get people to safey, the city is filled with far more grimm, a significant amount of time has passed for people to be killed or injured (making evacuating them even harder, both due to injuries and an unwillingness to leave hurt/dead/missing loved ones behind), he’s trying to convince these panicking people to go through magic portals, not just walk to a crater, and he’s aware that there’s a very short time limit for this task. 

Jaune returns in a panic of his own, explaining how difficult it will be to get that 2/3rds of the Kingdom to Vacuo. How many are already dead. Barricaded. Missing. Closeup on Ruby looking horrified, but then she rallies. They can do it. Atlas is falling, but residual dust gives them just enough time to find, calm, and evacuate those people. They’re heroes after all. Beating the odds is what they do. 

Then Cinder attacks. 

Suddenly, the group can’t evacuate people because they’re trying to keep themselves safe from her. Maybe Cinder gets the powers because Jaune was off looking for civilians, leaving Penny without a mercy kill. Maybe Nora dies because she’s still trying to help people on the city that plows into the one below. Regardless of how details might change, they’re not getting a spread out, decimated population through those portals before Cinder changes the wish and makes them disappear.  

In this version, the story starts with Ironwood wanting to sacrifice 1/3rd of the population to save 2/3rds and the future of the war. It ends with 2/3rds of the population dying instead. 

This is what I mean when I say the majority of the fandom wants to view a very complex situation through a ridiculously simple lens. The fandom wants to denounce every bit of RWBY’s fictionalized military, the context issues of that aside. The story wants to paint RWBYJNOR as the only heroes, in part because they succeeded in saving everyone (“everyone”) in the Kingdom when Ironwood gave up. 

But they only managed to save everyone because of Ironwood. Because he kept fighting for his people to the bitter end. This is why, though his horrific actions obviously exist in the story, they make no sense (he’ll threaten to kill his people so he can... save his people?) and mess up what little is working in the finale. The story wants us to celebrate the group for evacuating Mantle and Atlas, but the Atlas evacuation would not have happened if not for Ironwood’s actions  — the actions that are ignored in favor of having Winter blame him for everything and then killing him off. The rescue of “everyone” was very much a joint effort. RWBYJNOR’s win is not actually a contrast to Ironwood’s intended sacrifice, for the simple reason that their win depended entirely on Ironwood’s actions. 

If we’re going to celebrate the group getting everyone to safety, we should probably also celebrate the guy who got them all to an easy evacuation point and ensured they weren’t eaten before then. Does that mean Ironwood never did anything wrong? Of course not. As established, the story went out of its way to make him into a villain. Rather, it means that other parts of the story failed to maintain that black and white view, complicating the heroism of RWBYJNOR in the process. If we want Ironwood to be incapable of heroic action, always the bad guy, nothing good to say about him whatsoever... then we likewise need to accept that the group is rather unheroic in many regards too. That, on their own, they would have failed to save everyone, just as Ironwood’s plan failed to save everyone at the end of Volume 7. Because they chose their friend over a kingdom. Because they sat around in a mansion. Because by the time they took action again and tried to escape, without Ironwood’s help they would have lost a larger majority than they originally insisted be saved. 

[yelenayena]

HER SHIRT IS UNBUTTONED

Pairing: Yelena x fem!reader

Genre: Isekai

Sum: You've never watched the Attack on Titan (AoT) series, but at least you know some of the AoT characters because your cousin often tells you about their admiration for AoT. What if one day you get the chance to enter the world of AoT, and you have to train as a cadet and meet Yelena at the Marley military base?

A/N: The period in this story is after the warriors' failed attack operation on Paradis Island, and before Zeke saved Yelena’s life during the war. Sorry for my bad English 🥺

Warning: None, One Shot

Imagine if you come into the AoT world because of something you don’t really understand. You do know that the world is full of mystery, but you never expect that you could enter another dimension such as the AoT world.

You felt so sad when you heard about your grandmother’s death. The next day, you went to the camp area by yourself because you needed some fresh air and outdoors to refresh your mind. But, the strange thing happened when you woke up in the morning, you were found by a number of armed soldiers. You were so shocked when you found out that you are in Marley, and they are the Marleyan soldiers. They took you to the military prison forcibly, they assumed you were an intruder or a spy.

The affliction doesn’t end here. You don’t know what exactly happened, but they took you to the training corp. The commander told you that you are now a part of Marley and you have to serve in the Marley military. You refused to enter the training area, and swore that they had violated human rights by turning you into a soldier forcibly. No one listened to every word you say, no one cared about your fate. They keep dragging you into the training area and forcing you to change into a uniform for the cadets.

“Listen up cadets! Your first day of training is basic physical exercises. Run 30 laps around the track! Do 200 push-ups! Do 200 more push-ups! And do 200 sit-ups! Start!!” said the head instructor.

All the cadets were dumbfounded at the chief instructor's orders, but no one dared to disobey, so the cadets could only carry out his orders.

"Tch! Very unlucky I entered this world and was trapped in a military base, and they tortured me like this! Anyone who enters the fiction world might meet the main character, but me, I don’t even see Reiner or Zeke here!" You grumbled, silently, and you began to join the other cadets to run on the track.

You have been through every step of the exercise. Every part of your body hurts. Unfortunately, there is still one more exercise you have to do, sit-ups.

“Looks like I'm going to die here, before I can return to my normal life,” you said to yourself. But this is better than being cooped up in a cell, at least you can do something to get back to your world. So, no matter how hard this training is, giving up is not your choice.

The other cadets seem to already have a partner to do sit-ups with, only you who stands by yourself. You don't mind, you can still do it alone. The head instructor saw your situation, he asked if anyone still needed a partner, all the cadets except you shook their heads. Apparently, your arrival makes the number of participants odd.

"Yelena! Give your hand to the cadet over there for a sit-up!” the instructor ordered the tall guy standing next to him.

It was a very tall woman who had a beautiful face with her blonde hair styled in a short bob with straight bangs. She wears black pants and a white shirt. You wonder if this woman is one of the Marley soldiers or not, since she’s not wearing an army uniform. You are mesmerized by this person's appearance. Due to being so focused on practice, you don't even notice this person in this room. The fatigue you feel disappears instantly when you see this woman named Yelena. Sparks of enthusiasm run through your body as soon as you see this enchanting figure.

She looks reluctant with the order, but she still steps towards your place to carry out the order. Your heart beats fast as she stands in front of you, without saying anything, but you understand that she was telling you to sit in a sit-up position. You comply with her intimidating coldness, but that only makes you more attracted to her.

"Start!" shouted the instructor to start this training.

You can feel your cheeks turning red as Yelena holds your legs. “You can count yourself, right?” she asked you.

You just nodded because you were mesmerized by her voice. Her voice sounded so suited to her masculine figure, so deep and low. Just hearing her voice stimulates your hormones. Regardless of how fascinated you are with this person in a very short time, you still have to face how tough this practice can be.

You do sit-ups with the remaining energy you have. In the fourth movement when you lift your head and shoulder blades from the floor. You look straight ahead at her chest. Your eyes catch that the shirt she wears is unbuttoned so you can see the inside. You flinched when you found out she wasn't wearing a bra and was only wearing a loose undershirt so you could see her cleavage and nipples.

You pause as you lie on the floor after seeing this unusual sight. But wait, you think one thing, every time you do a sit-up, you will see the nipple once. Two hundred sit-ups will equal two hundred times! This means you will see Yelena's nipples two hundred times. This absolutely gives you new stamina to do sit-ups without difficulty.

Seeing your extraordinary stamina makes the people in this room including the cadets near you glance at you with admiration. They don't know that the reason you have new energy is that you got a windfall to be able to see your new crush’s body. That day, you saw Yelena's nipples 200 times during the sit-ups, and you got the attention of the instructor who were amazed at your stamina.

Yelena’s presence made you feel convenient to live your days as a cadet in the training corps. Even though you don't see her often, you still have the opportunity to meet her occasionally. Sometimes you flirt with her when you meet her. Neither she didn't give you a good response nor rejected you, it’s okay as long as you can see her.

Nothing lasts forever, neither pain nor happiness. You heard that Yelena will have some mission on board to do the first survey fleet to Paradis Island. You ask the commander to include you on that mission, but you are still a cadet, they can’t send you to such a dangerous mission unless needed.

The day in Marley is not the same anymore without Yelena. You never heard about Yelena from your cousin before. You didn’t care if she wasn’t a lead character and had a small role in AoT, that woman had driven you crazy.

You ran around the forest near the military base to get Yelena out in your head. You had run about four miles until the day got darker and the fog was getting thicker. You need to get back to the dorm, but it is difficult when you can’t see around. You walked towards the light over there, as you stepped out of the forest, you saw the different panorama from the military base.

It is the camp area where you stayed for camping. With the sun on the eastern horizon starting to illuminate this camp area, you heard the rooster crowing, and the birds that sing in the morning. The time in Marley was different when you entered your real world. You remember you ran in the forest in the late afternoon, but it seems this world has just started its day.

The place where you are standing is near your tent, you grab your phone and your eyes widen when you see the date on your phone. You left your world for only a day, but you felt you lived your life in Marley for weeks! You don’t care about camping anymore. Today you should go home and come to your cousin’s house to borrow all the AoT’s books and watch all the seasons, to find about Yelena.

Disclaimer:

Original manga from Moekare ch. 7 by Ikeyamada Go.

[tlbodine]

A Horror History of Werewolves

As far as horror icons are concerned, werewolves are among the oldest of all monsters. References to man-to-wolf transformations show up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, making them pretty much as old as storytelling itself. And, unlike many other movie monsters, werewolves trace their folkloric roots to a time when people truly believed in and feared these creatures. 

But for a creature with such a storied past, the modern werewolf has quite the crisis of identity. Thanks to an absolute deluge of romance novels featuring sometimes-furry love interests, the contemporary idea of “werewolf” is decidedly de-fanged. So how did we get here? Where did they come from, where are they going, and can werewolves ever be terrifying again? 

Werewolves in Folklore and Legend 

Ancient Greece was full of werewolf stories. Herodotus wrote of a nomadic tribe from Scythia (part of modern-day Russia) who changed into wolves for a portion of the year. This was most likely a response to the Proto-Indo-European societies living in that region at the time -- a group whose warrior class would sometimes don animal pelts and were said to call on the spirit of animals to aid them in battle (the concept of the berserker has the same roots -- just bears rather than wolves).

In Arcadia, there was a local legend about King Lycaon, who was turned to a wolf as punishment for serving human meat to Zeus (exact details of the event vary between accounts, but cannibalism and crimes-against-the-gods are a common theme). Pliny the Elder wrote of werewolves as well, explaining that those who make a sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus would be turned to wolves but could resume human form years later if they abstained from eating human meat in that time.

By the time we reach the Medieval period in Europe, werewolf stories were widespread and frequently associated with witchcraft. Lycanthropy could be either a curse laid upon someone or a transformation undergone by someone practicing witchcraft, but either way was bad news in the eyes of the church. For several centuries, witch-hunts would aggressively seek out anyone suspected of transforming into a wolf.

One particularly well-known werewolf trial was for Peter Stumpp in 1589. Stumpp, known as "The Werewolf of Bedburg," confessed to killing and eating fourteen children and two pregnant women while in the form of a wolf after donning a belt given to him by the Devil. Granted, this confession came on the tail-end of extensive public torture, so it may not be precisely reliable. His daughter and mistress were also executed in a public and brutal way during the same trial.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? 

The thing you have to understand when studying folklore is that, for many centuries, wolves were the apex predator of Europe. While wolf attacks on humans have been exceedingly rare in North America, wolves in Europe have historically been much bolder -- or, at least, there are more numerous reports of man-eating wolves in those regions. Between 1362 and 1918, roughly 7,600 people were reportedly killed by wolves in France alone, which may have some bearing on the local werewolf tradition of the loup-garou.

For people living in rural areas, subsisting as farmers or hunters, wolves posed a genuine existential threat. Large, intelligent, utilizing teamwork and more than capable of outwitting the average human, wolves are a compelling villain. Which is probably why they show up so frequently in fairytales, from Little Red Riding Hood to Peter and the Wolf to The Three Little Pigs.

Early Werewolf Fiction 

Vampires have Dracula and zombies have I Am Legend, but there really is no clear singular book to point to as the "First Great Werewolf Novel." Perhaps by the time the novel was really taking off as an artform, werewolves had lost some of their appeal. After all, widespread literacy and reading-for-pleasure went hand-in-hand with advancements in civilization. For city-dwellers in Victorian England, for example, the threat of a wolf eating you alive probably seemed quite remote.

Don't get me wrong -- there were some Gothic novels featuring werewolves, like Sutherland Menzies' Hugues, The Wer-Wolf, or G.W.M. Reynolds' Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, or even The Wolf Leader by Alexandre Dumas. But these are not books that have entered the popular conscience by any means. I doubt most people have ever heard of them, much less read them.

No -- I would argue that the closest thing we have, thematically, to a Great Werewolf Novel is in fact The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1886, the Gothic novella tells the story of a scientist who, wanting to engage in certain unnamed vices without detection, created a serum that would allow him to transform into another person. That alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, was selfish, violent, and ultimately uncontrollable -- and after taking over the body on its own terms and committing a murder or two, the only way to stop Hyde’s re-emergence was suicide. 

Although not about werewolves, per se, Jekyll & Hyde touches on many themes that we'll see come up time and again in werewolf media up through the present day: toxic masculinity, the dual nature of man, leading a double life, and the ultimate tragedy of allowing one's base instincts/animal nature to run wild. Against a backdrop of Victorian sexual repression and a rapidly shifting concept of humanity's relationship to nature, it makes sense that these themes would resonate deeply (and find a new home in werewolf media).

It is also worth mentioning Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, published in 1933. Set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian war and subsequent military battles, the book utilizes a werewolf as a plot device for exploring political turmoil. A #1 bestseller in its day, the book was a big influence on the sci-fi and mystery pulp scene of the 1940s and 50s, and is still considered one of the best werewolf novels of its ilk.

From Silver Bullets to Silver Screens 

What werewolf representation lacks in novels, it makes up for in film. Werewolves have been a surprisingly enduring feature of film from its early days, due perhaps to just how much fun transformation sequences are to film. From camera tricks to makeup crews and animatronics design, werewolf movies create a lot of unique opportunities for special effects -- and for early film audiences especially (who were not yet jaded to movie magic), these on-screen metamorphoses must have elicited true awe. 

The Wolf Man (1941) really kicked off the trend. Featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular wolf-man, the film was cutting-edge for its time in the special effects department. The creature design is the most memorable thing about the film, which has an otherwise forgettable plot -- but it captured viewer attention enough to bring Chaney back many times over for sequels and Universal Monster mash-ups. 

The Wolf Man and 1944's Cry of the Werewolf draw on that problematic Hollywood staple, "The Gypsy Curse(tm)" for their world-building. Fortunately, werewolf media would drift away from that trope pretty quickly; curses lost their appeal, but “bite as mode of transmission” would remain an essential part of werewolf mythos. 

In 1957, I Was a Teenage Werewolf was released as a classic double-header drive-in flick that's nevertheless worth a watch for its parallels between werewolfism and male aggression (a theme we'll see come up again and again). Guy Endore's novel got the Hammer Film treatment for 1961's The Curse of the Werewolf, but it wasn't until the 1970s when werewolf media really exploded: The Beast Must Die, The Legend of the Wolf Woman, The Fury of the Wolfman, Scream of the Wolf, Werewolves on Wheels and many more besides.

Hmmm, werewolves exploding in popularity around the same time as women's liberation was dramatically redefining gender roles and threatening the cultural concept of masculinity? Nah, must be a coincidence.

The 1980s brought with it even more werewolf movies, including some of the best-known in the genre: The Howling (1981), Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and The Company of Wolves (1984). Differing widely in their tone and treatment of werewolf canon, the films would establish more of a spiderweb than a linear taxonomy.

That spilled over into the 1990s as well. The Howling franchise went deep, with at least seven films that I can think of. Wolf, a 1994 release starring Jack Nicholson is especially worth a watch for its themes of dark romantic horror. 

By the 2000s, we get a proper grab-bag of werewolf options. There is of course the Underworld series, with its overwrought "vampires vs lycans" world-building. There's also Skin Walkers, which tries very hard to be Underworld (and fails miserably at even that low bar). But there's also Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps, arguably two of the finest werewolf movies of all time -- albeit in extremely different ways and for very different reasons.

Dog Soldiers is a straightforward monster movie pitting soldiers against ravenous werewolves. The wolves could just as easily have been subbed out with vampires or zombies -- there is nothing uniquely wolfish about them on a thematic level -- but the creature design is unique and the film itself is mastefully made and entertaining.

Ginger Snaps is the first werewolf movie I can think of that tackles lycanthropy from a female point of view. Although The Company of Wolves has a strong feminist angle, it is still very much a film about male sexuality and aggression. Ginger Snaps, on the other hand, likens werewolfism to female puberty -- a comparison that frankly makes a lot of sense.

The Werewolf as Sex Object 

There are quite literally thousands of werewolf romance novels on the market, with more coming in each day. But the origins of this trend are a bit fuzzier to make out (no pun intended). 

Everyone can mostly agree that Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was the turning-point for sympathetic vampires -- and paranormal romance as a whole. But where do werewolves enter the mix? Possibly with Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter books, which feature the titular character in a relationship with a werewolf (and some vampires, and were-leopards, and...many other things). With the first book released in 1993, the Anita Blake series seems to pre-date similar books in its ilk. 

Blood and Chocolate (1997) by Annette Curtis Klause delivers a YA-focused version of the classic “I’m a werewolf in high school crushing on a mortal boy”; that same year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the small screen, and although the primary focus was vampires, there is a main werewolf character (and romancing him around the challenges of his wolfishness is a big plot point for the characters involved). And Buffy, of course, paved the way for Twilight in 2005. From there, werewolves were poised to become a staple of the ever-more-popular urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre. 

“Sexy werewolf” as a trope may have its roots in other traditions like the beastly bridegroom (eg, Beauty and the Beast) and the demon lover (eg, Labyrinth), which we can talk about another time. But there’s one other ingredient in this recipe that needs to be discussed. And, oh yes, we’re going there. 

Alpha/Beta/Omegaverse 

By now you might be familiar with the concept of the Omegaverse thanks to the illuminating Lindsay Ellis video on the topic (and the current ongoing lawsuit). If not, well, just watch the video. It’ll be easier than trying to explain it all. (Warning for NSFW topics). 

But the tl;dr is that A/B/O or Omegaverse is a genre of (generally erotic) romance utilizing the classical understanding of wolf pack hierarchy. Never mind that science has long since disproven the stratification of authority in wolf packs; the popular conscious is still intrigued by the concept of a society where some people are powerful alphas and some people are timid omegas and that’s just The Way Things Are. 

What’s interesting about the Omegaverse in regards to werewolf fiction is that, as near as I’ve been able to discover, it’s actually a case of convergent evolution. A/B/O as a genre seems to trace its roots to Star Trek fanfiction in the 1960s, where Kirk/Spock couplings popularized ideas like heat cycles. From there, the trope seems to weave its way through various fandoms, exploding in popularity in the Supernatural fandom. 

What seems to have happened is that the confluence of A/B/O kink dynamics merging with urban fantasy werewolf social structure set off a popular niche for werewolf romance to truly thrive. 

It’s important to remember that, throughout folklore, werewolves were not viewed as being part of werewolf societies. Werewolves were humans who achieved wolf form through a curse or witchcraft, causing them to transform into murderous monsters -- but there was no “werewolf pack,” and certainly no social hierarchy involving werewolf alphas exerting their dominance over weaker pack members. That element is a purely modern one rooted as much in our misunderstanding of wolf pack dynamics as in our very human desire for power hierarchies. 

So Where Do We Go From Here? 

I don’t think sexy werewolf stories are going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no room left in horror for werewolves to resume their monstrous roots. 

Thematically, werewolves have done a lot of heavy lifting over the centuries. They hold up a mirror to humanity to represent our own animal nature. They embody themes of toxic masculinity, aggression, primal sexuality, and the struggle of the id and ego. Werewolf attack as sexual violence is an obvious but powerful metaphor for trauma, leaving the victim transformed. Werewolves as predators hiding in plain sight among civilization have never been more relevant than in our #MeToo moment of history. 

Can werewolves still be frightening? Absolutely. 

As long as human nature remains conflicted, there will always be room at the table for man-beasts and horrifying transfigurations. 

--

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[zappho]

Some Meta on Murdock and mental illness

Generally speakig, The A-Team is a dumbass, light-hearted comedy with action on the same level as youtube poop videos. Obviously there isn’t alot of depth to be found here. The show had tons of different writers, all with their own take on Murdock and none of them offer any clear info or a proper backstory for the character. It’s basically up to the audience to fill in the blanks and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do by overanalyzing the mess that is the show’s canon.

The question of whether Murdock is ‘‘‘really crazy or just faking’‘’ has been around for over 30 years, but I’m gonna argue that he’s both.

When Kelly visits Murdock in the psychiatric hospital and confronts him about why he’s living there in the first place he gets instantly uncomfortable.

He really didn’t want her to ask, it’s why he’s been avoiding her. Joking about how you’re hashtag crazy™ is easy; having to admit that you’ve been institutionalized for over 10 years because you have legitimate problems is much harder. (Sure, the VA also gives him a convenient cover from the military police, but if that was the only reason for him to stay he wouldn’t react to Kelly’s question in this way). “It’s a long story”, is all he says. There are clearly some painful memories here that he’d rather not delve into.

He’d have to explain how he got committed in the first place. We know that after the gang was arrested for war crimes in ‘71, Murdock was still serving as a pilot in ‘72. They never clarified when and how Murdock was sent home, but i’m guessing without his only friends around and it being, you know...war, his mental health eventually deteriorated until he received a medical discharge straight into the VA hospital.

After Murdock gets wrongly released in season 1, instead of his friends being worried about his supposed cover getting blown they just shrug it off and go ‘Oh well!’ (This could all be due to the show’s inconsistent writing, but you know)

No longer being an inpatient would finally allow Murdock to be employed as a pilot again (his #1 passion), and yet he seems really disheartened about the situation. Even though the hospital gives him no privacy, the staff barely respects him and he spends most of his time there by himself, he still prefers to stay.

For a character who’s allegedly cheery comic relief, he sure gets his feelings hurt alot, mainly when dealing with other people’s ableism towards him. B.A. and Face are obviously just palling around, just guys bein’ dudes, they don’t want to hurt Murdock for real, they probably don’t realize how sensitive Murdock is about the subject. Usually he plays along or shrugs it off, but sometimes he gets genuinely upset. In the first half of In Plane Sight he’s so fed up with it he tries to ‘‘act normal’‘ until #Woke #Queen Hannibal reassures him that they love him the way he is.

PTSD was barely starting to become a diagnosis when the show first aired, but I think it’s fair to say he suffers from it. The pilot episode states that he has anxiety, paranoia and memory loss, so that checks out.

With PTSD you don’t just have to deal with flashbacks and nightmares, but also intrusive thoughts, images and memories about your trauma. Murdock copes with it by getting hyperfixated on a new activity or pretending he’s someone else. This is were alot of people will go ‘‘haha wow look how wacky and insane he is! He’s talking to his sock 😂’‘. But Murdock knows it’s all made up nonsense, he just needs his mind to focus on something else. What’s important here is that he never lets his coping mechanisms distract him when he’s flying, first of all he’s already focused and also he doesn’t wanna crash (lol). There’s a believability to his actions that’s missing in the 2010 reboot.

In the episode where the gang helps out the vietnamese cook from the POW camp where they’ve been tortured, Murdock tries to distract himself with some golfballs. He soon starts projecting his trauma on them however.

I think this is the only time in the show where Hannibal tears up, so this scene is kinda significant. As the leader, he probably blames himself for getting his team captured and tortured, and seeing that Murdock is still so strongly affected by it gotta hurt. 

Compared to the rest of the gang, Murdock’s alot more fucked up over the war. There are subtle changes in his voice whenever he talks about it. In the ep about their old war buddy Ray, Face was reminiscing about how cool of a guy Ray was for borrowing him his helmet, Murdock’s memories meanwhile are much less upbeat. ‘My bird was the only one left in the sky’ he remembers while we see an image of a field filled with shot down helicopters. His experiences are bound to be different from the other three as a huey medevac pilot. Murdock did have one off-screen breakdown in the present timeline, after collecting every newspaper article about the upcoming execution of the team in Firing Line. Apparently it was bad enough that he had to be restrained. It’s been 10 years, so he’s recovering and getting better, but he’s still not all there yet.

Everyone knows Murdock’s just messing around when he’s being interrogated by the military about his connections to the team, but like what about when the military isn’t there; or NO ONE is. He often talks to himself or just puts weird shit in his mouth for no reason while nobody’s paying attention to him (eating leaves, paint, an entire raw egg, a frozen sandwich). Sometimes he’s just unhinged like that.

Another thing that’s brought up a few times in the show is his anxiety. Murdock’s often seen being generally tense, sweaty, uncomfortable or reflective in the background of a scene. (I have no idea if this was a deliberate acting choice but Dwight does have anxiety irl so who knows if that had anything to do with it, I mean who knowsssssss, i’m just observing)

He’s got a habit of fidgeting with his hands or touching his neck when he’s stressed out. Murdock also does it when he’s telling his psychiatrist Dr. Richter about his dreams “If you were me, wouldn’t you be terrified to put your head down?” he asks him.

Richter isn’t really paying attention though, because he’s so used to Murdock’s non-stop clownery, he can’t exactly tell when his patient decides to be honest about his feelings for once. He just replies ‘Well only if it was a bad dream’. Which really irritates Murdock because what other dreams besides bad would he have? So he derails the session by rambling some made up bullshit on purpose.

Richter knows that Murdock uses humor and fantasy to cope, but he’s obviously tired of Murdock’s cringe antics, he just wants to help him. But Murdock doesn’t like to open up and be confronted with his traumas again, he just wants to avoid talking about it all together. There are still parts of reality that Murdock’s not ready to deal with, or he wouldn’t always retreat into his fantasies.

Before he can continue messing around a helicopter passes by and Murdock freezes for a second. Richter assures him that the helicopter is real; Murdock nods and starts fidgeting with his hands again, seemingly in deep thought. We know from the season 4 finale that he hears the sound of rotor blades when he dissociates. He was definitely being sincere here.

After getting drugged by some military goons he has a few brief flashbacks (feat. cheesy 80′s neon filters): seeing the chopper fly away, getting stuck in a potted plant as if he was walking through the jungle, being surrounded by heavy smoke and sparks from the burning carpet).

Despite being the 2nd highest ranked team member, Murdock dislikes being in charge and gets severly distressed when anything goes wrong that he might even be slightly responsible for. Most notably is the episode where the owners of the diner get kidnapped after Murdock got knocked out by evil cowboys or hill billies or whatever they were. Instead of telling anyone what happened, he’s just lying on the floor, repeatedly calling himself a failure until the others show up.

Seems like Murdock gets startled more easily than the rest of the crew as well. We often see him flinch when guns go off; one time he literally wore fluffy ear muffs to a backalley shootout.

This short moment from Family Reunion always stood out to me. Face opens the van door a little too quickly and it takes Murdock so off-guard he has to take deep breaths to calm down.

Murdock sounds exhausted when he has to remind Face not to sneak up on him. Face also realizes he messed up, he just wanted to check up on Murdock and not trigger him on accident.

When it comes to portrayals of mental illness in fiction there’s obviously better representation out there than Murdock. But sometimes you just wanna see a mentally ill character have a good time instead of being miserable 24/7. And Murdock’s already got the worst behind him, he’s had therapy for years and friends who love him. I just think that’s refreshing to see, especially with a character who’s so kind and openly affectionate.

[scripttorture]

This might be a bit of a general question, but how common is the use of electricity in torture/abuse scenarios? We see it a lot in fiction, use of paddles and cattleprods and even the old saying about hooking someone's genitals to car batteries, but do these actually get used in RL? I ask because the story I'm writing I just have the bad guys using things like beatings as torture, but my beta readers think they ought to be using electrical torture and I disagree. The setting is CIA mid 90s USA.

It is pretty common in torture scenarios through most of the world today and in the very recent past (ie 1950s onwards). There has been quite a bit of variation in terms of exactly how it was/is used though.

 Everything you’ve described, yeah it’s happened regularly. But it’s been more common in different time periods and places.

 Cattleprods have been less common globally, but they were used pretty regularly in a handful of South American countries and a few other places.

 Rejali references Venezuela in the 1950s-60s, Uruguay in the 1960s-90s, Bolivia in the 1970s-80s, Argentina in the 1970s-80s and the US in the 80s (though other methods of electrical torture were also used and these quickly eclipsed prods).

 I’ll spare you the rest of the global data and all the dates, but get back to me if you want that info. :)

 There are a handful of references to, well what I think you mean when you say paddles (terminology in this field is very inconsistent). They weren’t particularly common anywhere but they were used.

 The car batteries were probably the mostly widely (but not necessarily the most commonly) used of the three. However as with the others it’s not really something you see now. My impression is that it was actually more common in the 30s-50s and then more or less died out.

 Even during that period the ‘preferred’ electrical source was generally a field telephone magneto. Which is one of these. It’s basically a small hand cranked electrical source that was used to power telephones for military (and sometimes police) in the field.

 Magnetos were easier to access and they tended to be clean (ie non-scarring). Car batteries are much more likely to cause burns and broken bones. Which are harder to cover up.

 And the time period where electrical torture becomes more widespread globally is also when we see this global shift towards clean tortures. Which is an interesting tangent that Rejali goes into extensive exhaustive detail on if you’re interested (Torture and Democracy by D Rejali, Princeton University Press, 2007).

 Let’s get out of the history and back to your story.

 Your beta reader is not wrong. Electrical torture has been a mainstay of the American National Style for decades. In the 1990s it’s much more likely that it would have been done with a stun gun or Taser then a prod or magneto.

 If you want another really long discussion of Tasers there’s a good series of Reuters articles here.

 Here’s the thing though, the ‘National Styles’ are a description of the most common tortures used in an area, the things that come up again and again in survivor accounts. They are not an exhaustive list of abuse in a country or a definitive list of what happens to every torture victim.

 In the time period and country your story is set the ‘typical’ tortures would be beatings, starvation, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, Taser/stun guns and standing stress positions. Waterboarding… I’m less sure of date wise. It became very common in the early 2000s and I’m sure it was used in the 1990s. It has been used on and off in the US more or less since the Vietnam war. But I’m unsure how common it’s been nationally in the intervening time.

 But just because something is more common doesn’t mean you ‘must’ use it in your story.

 If you don’t feel electrical torture fits that’s a legitimate writing choice. And it wouldn’t be unrealistic. A lot of US victims of torture in the 90s will have experienced electrical torture, but not all of them will have.

 I think may be the thing to do here is ask a couple of polite questions about why your beta thinks electrical torture should go into the story. Because this could be them trying to say that the beating scene didn’t have the impact they feel it should. The idea that some forms of abuse are ‘worse’ or ‘more extreme’ or ‘real torture’ can be so deeply ingrained in us. And I feel like sometimes that manifests in people saying ‘may be you should use this More EXTREME abuse’ rather then saying ‘you know I’m not sure why but this scene doesn’t have the emotional impact it should’.

 And if that’s the case it’s not a failure on your part. It’s part of learning to write and there is a lot to balance in a torture scene.

 In my experience 9 times out of 10 it’s down to pacing. Because getting the right amount of detail in to a convey the victim’s experience while not getting bogged down in description- It’s really hard.

 My advice is that if you don’t feel electrical torture fits then stick with that. But do try and find out if there’s a particular reason your beta has hit on that. It might be that they’ve internalised some of the torture apologia we’re all presented with in fiction. However that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re entirely ‘wrong’. It could be that they’re trying to express a way the scene could be improved just… badly.

 Give them the benefit of the doubt and try to figure out if there’s an issue with pacing, emotional tone or the level of detail that’s behind their critique. Because if they’re trying to say that the victim’s pain isn’t coming across in a powerful or visceral way that’s something to work on. And it’s fixable without compromising what you want from the scene.

 But if you end up in the position where they insist that electrical torture is ‘worse’ and therefore the only appropriate choice to show that this is ‘really torture’, then you probably need another beta for your torture scene. Because it isn’t your job to educate them if you do not wish to take that on. And believe me taking that on can be A Lot.

 Feel free to point them in my direction if you think it would help. It is what I’m here for.

 And if you feel like you need a ‘reason’ to give them for rejecting electrical torture (beyond ‘I don’t want to’) you could point to the higher risk of sudden death and falling injuries (including traumatic brain injuries) and say that you don’t want to deal with any of those factors or ignore them.

 I hope that helps :)

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Disclaimer

[tanadrin]

How /did/ things change after 2001? I was born in that year and everyone says it was different before, but I've never really gotten a sense of how.

It is difficult for me to emphasize just how different the world you see on the evening news is now, from what it was like before 2001, at least as I remember it. There’s a scene in Farscape, where after years of trying to get home, the astronaut protagonist John Crichton finally makes it back to Earth with his alien friends in tow, and when he’s reunited with his father, he’s shocked to discover his dad has gone from this optimistic, forward-looking, hopeful dreamer to a nervous, jingoistic conservative. His attitude is basically, “yes, there’s dangerous aliens out there who may or may not be trying to kill us--but the galaxy is a place full of wonders you’ve never dreamed of.” His father, in the meantime, has retreated from his hopes for a science-fiction future, and views his new alien friends with suspicion.

It’s not a subtle metaphor, but it’s true. The 90s--at least in the US, at least as I remember them--were a relentlessly optimistic period. Even if things were not yet at their ideal state, there was very much a sense they were heading there; politics was mostly down to what exact flavor of the neoliberal consensus you preferred, Clinton or Bush, and the international triumph of liberal democracy was either a fait accompli (cf. the erstwhile USSR), or just around the corner (cf. hopes for China’s liberalization in the wake of market reforms). Yes, in retrospect, this was kind of a dumb world view. If you actually lived in Russia in the 90s--to say nothing of the Balkans--it was a rough decade, and a lot of the relentless optimism of the period in the United States was down to the privileged position we viewed the world from.

The blunting of that optimism--the reminder that we were still embedded in history, and the final triumph of everything good and just was not foreordained--would not in itself have been a catastrophe. Terrorism was not a strange concept in the 90s, and even Al-Qaeda-style terrorism had its predecessors in attacks on American ships and embassies. 9/11 itself was confusing and chaotic and sad, but 9/11 wasn’t the catastrophe. The catastrophe came after, in how we responded.

I think something broke in America between 1945 and 1991. Something shifted, in a nasty way we didn't realize while we were occupied with communism and stagflation and the civil rights movement. I don't mean to say that America before 1945 was the Good Guys. But the American state and the American political class viewed the world with... humility? Like, sure, the can-do Yankee spirit before 1945 had its own special kind of arrogance (and greed, and hideous bigotry), but it still thought of the world in terms of obligations we owed other countries. By the time the Cold War ended, and the US was the sole remaining superpower, that wasn't how we viewed the world. It was still sort of how we told each other, and our children, what the world was like. We certainly talked a big game about democracy and human rights. But as soon as that principled stance was tested, we folded like a cheap suit. What we should have done after 9/11 was what we had done after every terrorist incident in or against the United States before then: treated it like the major crime it was, sent a civilian agency like the FBI in to investigate, and pursue the perpetrators diplomatically. What we did instead was treat it like the opening salvo of a war--in fact, invented a war to embed it within, to give ourselves narrative justification for that stance--and crank every element of paranoid jingoism instantly up to 11. It has never abated since.

Some of this is the little things. The TSA and the Department of Homeland Security--a name I thought was creepy Orwellian shit right from the get-go. The terror alert levels. (God! remember those?) The fact that airport security--despite being just as ineffective today as it was on September 12--is still routinely humiliating and invasive and just a total waste of everybody’s time. Some of it is the big things. The way security, and the need for security, trumps all other demands including the state’s obligation to protect civil rights. And the fact that this just isn’t even up for debate anymore. 9/11, as Chomsky presciently observed, was a boon for authoritarians everywhere. Suddenly, “counterterrorism” was the magic word that let you get away with anything, like “anti-communism” twenty years prior. At the most extreme end, this led to things like anti-atheism laws being promulgated in Saudi Arabia in the name of “counterterrorism,” but you don’t have to go that absurd to find ways in which the security state has fostered authoritarianism. In every aspect of our lives, this new, fearful outlook on the world justified a gradual ratcheting down of freedom, the gradual empowerment of petty tyrants everywhere, and the weak protests, fading into silence, of people who still believed in liberty as an important organizing principle for modern society. It wasn’t even that you’d get called a terrorist-sympathizer or anything that blatant. It just ceased to be regarded as important. It wasn’t that you were wrong, or misguided, or evil. You were just a non-serious person, someone whose opinion was clearly irrelevant, whose head was permanently in the clouds, if you thought that stuff still mattered. And that never went away.

And I think a big part of what changed between 1945 and 1991 was that the US started to believe its own jingoism. When did this start? Vietnam? Earlier? Korea? I don’t know. It’s hard to pinpoint, given that my understanding of the cultural zeitgeist of the decades before I was born mostly came from my dad’s old Doonesbury collections. I don’t know how to describe what we became--what we, hideously, revealed ourselves to be--except as a kind of machismo. A kind of ruthless, General Ripper-esque us-versus-them psychosis that gripped us where the Soviets were concerned, and never let up. And we still believe it. It still infects every atom of our political discourse. We don’t question the necessity of drone strikes, only who to drone strike and how much. We don’t really question the massive powers we’ve afforded the executive branch to wage war and conduct espionage--including kidnappings and torture--and we’ve kind of forgotten that we still have a prison camp in Cuba full of people who have never been convincted of any crime. In a way, we lost faith in law entirely: by God, we couldn’t try terrorists in American courts! (Why not? What’s wrong with American courts? Don’t we have faith in our own laws, at least?) No, justice wasn’t a matter for the law to decide anymore. Justice was a matter for the military only: justice came in the form of strength of arms. Ergo, shooting Bin Laden in the head and calling that justice; ergo, Jack Bauer; ergo, blowing up Yemeni weddings. Keep America Safe. I can’t begin to tell you how alienating and horrifying so much of the last 20 years has been, if the most consequential news stories of your childhood were the OJ Simpson murders and a discussion of the President’s cum stain.

In my opinion, the seminal text of the post-9/11 world was released in the year 2000. In the original Deus Ex video game, the year is 2150, and the world is a dark, depressing place. You, the game’s hero, work (initally) for a UN counterterrorism agency while a plague ravages the world. You hunt terrorists whose existence has provided the justification for an authoritarian crackdown on dissidents everywhere. You visit a Hong Kong firmly under the control of the CCP, you fight genetically engineered mutants created by huge businesses run amok, FEMA (no DHS then) controls the federal government, and, it turns out later in the game, the bombing of the Statue of Liberty that precipitated the creation of your organization was a false-flag attack used to justify its existence in the first place. Drones patrol the streets of NYC, and the whole thing is steeped in late-90s militia movement-style conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and the New World Order, that look weirdly out of place now that these things are more clearly aligned in the popular consciousness with right wing extremism, when back then they were just seen as kooky weirdos in Montana--but every year since then, we’ve been inching closer and closer to that world, and you know what? It wigs me out a little.

In 2000, Deus Ex was an absurdity, a fever dream of cyberpunk and early-internet conspiracism. It’s a shame that tonally speaking it’s been dead on for the two decades after. But honestly, I think the biggest thing that’s changed about the world since 2001 is our cultural capacity for optimism. I don’t mean in a sentimental way--although if you compare other texts heavily influenced by the post-2001 political milieu, you definitely see a sharp contrast with the optimism of cultural artifacts from earlier eras; science fiction was hit especially hard in this area (cf. RDM’s version of Battlestar Galactica). But I also mean this in a political/ideological sense. We cease to imagine that the world can be made better. We cease to imagine the possibilities that are afforded to us if we are willing to strive for our ideal society, even if we, personally, may never reach it. We make deals with the devil, we let the CIA violate the constitution and federal law six ways from Sunday, we don’t question the prevailing political-economic consensus even if it’s setting the planet on fire and pitching us headlong toward social disaster, because we forgot what it was to feel like those sunlit uplands we’ve been hoping for were just around the corner.

In the same way that my Catholic faith was eventually done in because the ethical principles I was taught were at odds with the manifest monstrosity of the organization that taught them to me and the metaphysics it espoused, my patriotism and my faith in America was done in because when I was a schoolkid, I really did believe that democracy and human rights and equality under the law were important. Some people probably had their illusions--if they ever had any--about the US government stripped away long ago, but I was a white kid from a reasonably prosperous part of town, so it took until the 2000s and my growing political awareness to realize just how flimsy these principles were when they were put to any kind of test. It made me angry; it still makes me angry. I was raised to believe there are some principles that are important enough that you don’t compromise them ever, no matter how scared or worried you are. Just as I was old enough to understand what was going on on the evening news, the United States betrayed everything I had been taught the United States stood for. And as a nation, we never turned back; we never apologized; we never repented. America, as an abstract entity, never was what I thought it was as a kid. But I think it could still become that, if it tried. Alas, very few people seem to believe such a thing is possible anymore. Most days, I’m not sure I do, either.