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simmerandwrite · 11 months ago

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Sink Into Me - 08 - mob!Steve Rogers x plus size!reader

Pairing: mob boss! Steve Rogers x plus size! reader

Summary: You were simply doing a good deed, pulling the handsome stranger out of the way when a car jumped the curb. Little did you know that the life you saved belonged to Steve Rogers, the Army veteran turned art dealer with connections to the Brooklyn crime syndicate.

Steve Rogers, who won’t stop calling you his guardian angel.

Steve Rogers, whose new goal in life just might be repaying his debt to you.

Steve Rogers, who isn’t shy until it comes to his feelings and will stop at nothing to keep you safe.

Chapters: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09

Wordcount: 8.3k

Warnings: canon level violence (guns, physical fighting), allusions to dog fighting (but no mention of any kind of abuse), some angst

Notes: HI I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THE DELAY. life, ya know? but enjoy this little treat, please. and.. uhm.. sorry.

---

“We need to talk about Steve Rogers.”

You took in a hard breath and scanned the man - he had a permanent smug look to him, something that made you feel unsettled. The tag around his neck with his badge indicated his name was Grant Ward, NYPD detective.

“Give me back my phone,” you said, slowly emptying your lungs in an attempt to stay calm. “Now.”

Ward shook his head, grinning. “Not yet. C’mon, let’s chat.” He slipped your phone inside his jacket pocket and grabbed your elbow, urging you to step further across the sidewalk in front of a closed down shop. “I got your info from Hammond’s file. You were a witness on a little vehicular assault case a while back, right?”

Nothing about this felt proper or to procedure. But you wanted it to end as quickly as possible, so you nodded.

“What I need to know is why Steve Rogers asked you to lie on your witness report and identify the wrong person.”

“Excuse me?” Your voice cracked as you tried to piece together what he was saying. “I didn’t lie about anything. Shouldn’t - shouldn’t Officer Hammond be following up with me - if there was an issue?”

“I’ve reopened the investigation.” Ward leaned against the building, glancing up and down the street casually as he spoke. “Your intentional misidentification put someone innocent in jail. How do you sleep at night?”

“I didn’t lie,” you repeated, swallowing hard. Hercules paced at your feet.

“You’re lying right now. Rogers told you who to point out in that police lineup, didn’t he?”

You wanted to scream in this man’s face but given he was technically a person of the law, you resisted. Instead, you pursed your lips and opted to stay quiet. Shouldn’t you have a lawyer or something to represent you? God, why weren’t you into legal dramas instead of reality tv?

“Here’s what it looks like. Rogers asks you to help him out and in turn, you get a fancy new apartment. Isn’t that right?” Ward took a step forward and pointed past you, towards the rest of the block. “How else can you afford a luxury apartment working your little 9-5 gig? I verified your record of employment and something just doesn’t add up.”

Before you had a chance to reply to his asinine claim, he was reaching for his buzzing phone. “This is Ward.” You tried to listen to the other end of the call, but couldn’t make out the voice.

He looked back at you, eyes roving up and down as he carried on with his phone conversation. “You’re kidding. That was all true? Wow. Okay. Yeah, I’m with her. Sure.” He raised his free hand and suddenly a nearby SUV was pulling up. “Heading there now.”

Your stomach twisted when Ward turned back to you.

“Let’s go.” He tipped his head towards the vehicle, where the driver had gotten out to open the back door. “We’ve gotta move this chat elsewhere.”

Your eyes blew open, head shaking. “Absolutely not. Give me my phone and —“

Ward stepped towards you again, grabbing your hand that was holding onto Hercules' leash. “If you don’t get in that car willingly, you’ll have a dead dog on your hands. Is that what you want?” He flashed you a smile. “Let’s. Fucking. Go.”

“Storm coming tonight..”

Steve looked up from his plate of pasta, watching his mom across the table as she put down her cutlery. Sarah rubbed her hands together, tired with the weight of time and the pressure of weather changes that seemed to grow worse with each passing season.

“I can feel it in these old joints,” Sarah continued, leaning back in her chair before glancing to the window above her kitchen sink.

“Ma,” Steve finally replied, quietly returning his own fork to the side of his plate. “Why don’t you skip the rest of this monologue about the weather and tell me what’s really on your mind?”

Steve tried to have dinner with his mother at least once a week, if time permitted. The last few months had been a bit chaotic for him though, mostly his own doing of course. And Sarah hadn’t pressed when he canceled. But, something about her tone and strange casual conversation wasn’t sitting well with him. In fact, he could read his mother really well and she was upset, maybe even mad at him. If there was one thing Steve hated, it was when his mother was upset with him.

He liked to nip it in the bud as quickly as he could.

Sarah sighed, slowly crossing her arms over her chest as she eyed down her son. “I haven’t had the chance to tell you about who I ran into at the hospital a few weekends ago.”

“You gonna give me a clue?” Steve smirked, taking a long pause to enjoy a sip from his wine glass. “Who?”

When your name left his mother’s lips, Steve felt his chest tighten. He had very quickly and casually explained to her that you and he had called things off, respectfully asking Sarah not to press him for details. Surprisingly, she hadn’t asked any follow up questions, though Steve knew she hadn’t been feeling positive about the news. In fact, he had assumed his mom would have had a much more passionate reaction. And maybe it was still coming.

He took a deep breath. “Oh. And.. how is she?” Would it be possible for this conversation to only last one more sentence? Would he be able to get out of it without his mother making him feel any worse?

When Steve met his mom’s gaze again, he knew that question wasn’t what he should have asked. He was starting to think maybe saying nothing would have been best.

“How is she?” Sarah repeated, letting out a hard laugh. “Steven.”

“Ma, listen, what happened between us is..” He hesitated. Complicated was not the word he wanted to use, but what else could he say? “I had to cut things off. She’s safer this way.”

There. His heart was torn off his sleeve and slapped onto his plate.

“Steve,” Sarah was softer this time, releasing the anger from her shoulders as she reached across the table for his hand. “You’re not being fair. To yourself. How are you supposed to live this way? Don’t you want a family in the future? Or a break from.. everything?”

Steve squeezed her hand but didn’t respond. Sarah waited another moment for him to say something, then stood and carried her plate to the sink.

Without turning back around, she continued. “I told her about Hamilton House.”

Steve sighed, leaning back in his chair again and shaking his head. “Ma..”

“Why didn’t you just talk to her? She would have understood.”

“You barely made it out of that fire alive!” Steve pushed back from the table and met his mother at the sink, placing a hand on her shoulder. “And I can barely live with myself as is, but if something happened to her too, I’d..”

“Honey,” Sarah’s voice was even quieter now as she pivoted to look at him. She reached her hand up to cradle his face. “You need to stop blaming yourself, please.”

How could he ever do that? The scars were still quite obvious on many parts of his mother’s body -

“Steve.” Sarah took in another deep breath. “I’m a grown woman who can take care of herself. And so is she.” There was your name again, coming off of Sarah’s tongue like it just warmed her soul. “She’s good for you.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore.” A painful laugh gurgled up in Steve’s throat. “I made pretty sure she’ll never talk to me again, unfortunately.”

“Steven.” This time the soft edge had left Sarah’s tone. The disappointment was back. “Don’t tell me you pushed that girl away on purpose.”

“I’m a grown man who can take care of himself,” Steve repeated back to her, stepping away from the sink and turning to grab his coat. “I’ve gotta go, Ma. Thanks for dinner.”

Sarah grabbed his wrist, eyes bright with words she wouldn��t say. Instead, she shook her head and sighed quietly. “At least take a container of pasta for Bucky.”

---

The further the vehicle traveled beyond your neighbourhood, the further your stomach sank. You did your best to listen to the conversations happening between Ward and his driver, but nothing seemed clear.

Where were you going? Were you in trouble? You hadn’t lied to the police - you knew better than that. But how could you prove that when clearly they had another story created? Was this about Steve? You weren’t even talking to him. What the hell was going on?

The only thing saving you from a breakdown was Hercules resting his head on your lap. Gently you scratched behind his ears, doing your best to reassure your dog as he did the same for you.

You were going to be okay. There had to be a positive solution to this mess.

Eventually, the vehicle slowed down in an industrial area you weren’t familiar with. In the growing darkness of the night, everything kind of looked the same - rows of large warehouse style buildings, some in much worse shape than the others. As you approached one of the buildings, a garage door opened up to allow you access.

“Let’s go,” Ward barked out as the car stopped, quickly sliding through his door and throwing the one closest to you open. He reached for your nearest wrist. “But first..”

Handcuffs. What you could only assume were police-grade handcuffs joined your wrists together, despite your protests. Ward was choosing every opportunity to remind you he had a gun, so when he told you to head towards the staircase leading out of the parking area, all you could do was comply.

The driver, some other nameless brute listening to Ward’s every word, held on to Hercules’ leash and followed behind. The panic within you stirred.

The building had clearly once been a thriving warehouse or multi-level business hub. Now, it was reduced to whatever criminal activity these men were tied up in. Every second window was boarded up or leaking in cold air through broken shards, with the evidence of previous occupants littering the floors. Old desks, chairs, appliances laid strewn about.

Ward guided you across the second floor, leading towards the far side of the room. You could hear other voices as you approached. He yanked the door open and pressed against your back for you to enter ahead of him.

You stumbled past the threshold, lifting your head up to look around the room. It felt out of place, given the state of the building. This room remained intact from days before, the remnants of an executive office with a large boardroom table sitting opposite the broken windows. A man you didn’t recognize was seated behind an oversized mahogany table, a burning cigar hanging off his lips. Behind him, a disheveled blond wearing an ill-fitting suit jacket stood scrolling through his phone.

That man you did recognize – you were certain he had been one of the men who had broken into your apartment. You could feel the familiar wave of panic come over you again.

Sitting in a pair of chairs in front of the desk were another two men – one dressed in a long overcoat over his suit, with perfectly coiffed hair. The other donned more casual clothes, well worn with a scowl across his face, strong and silent. You thought perhaps you recognized them, too. You might have seen them at Shield or maybe they had worked with Steve?

“This is her?” The man with the cigar asked, rising from his seat. The other two seated men had turned their heads to look in your direction, then stood the same.

Ward laughed, returning his gun to his jacket, and reaching a hand to grip your neck. He urged you closer to the desk.

“Russo – you’re sure?” The same man asked again, shooting a glance at one of the other two men. Ah, nice suit, nice hair - Russo. He had interrupted you and Steve, that day at his office.

“Yep. I know, doesn’t make sense to me either,” Russo replied with a dry laugh, stepping away from the desk and waiting to the side with the other man, Mr. Strong and Silent.

“Walker, you’re on dog duty,” Ward added after. He snapped his fingers and the guy scrolling on his phone was at attention, rolling his eyes as he grabbed Hercules’ leash from the driver.

Hercules whimpered at the back of the room.

You tried to look towards your confused pup, but Ward’s hands landed on your shoulders. He pushed down to encourage you to sit in one of the vacant seats at the desk.

Finally, the man with the cigar looked at you. A tight smirk curled up on his face as he said your name out loud. “Well, nice to finally meet you. I’m Brock. We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

You sat still, hands resting on your lap. You resisted replying with some snappy commentary and instead dug your fingernails into your palms. Maybe you needed to comply, but God, what was the point of all this?

“I’m not really sure what I’m doing here,” you said quietly, letting out a long breath. “I told him-” you jerked your head at Ward, “-everything I said to Officer Hammond was true. Steve didn’t ask me to lie about anything and I’m sorry if someone you know ended up in jail but I had to tell the truth.”

Brock raised an eyebrow, amused. “Well, I don’t give a shit about any of that. We’ve gotta fix this and you’re going to help.”

You pressed your lips into a thin line.

“You’re going to meet with Hammond and tell him you lied about-”

You shook your head. “I didn’t lie.”

Brock abandoned his cigar and slammed his hand on the table. “Don’t interrupt me, darling.” He took a breath and started again. “You’re going to meet with Hammond tomorrow morning and set things straight, alright?”

“And if I don’t?” You swallowed the lump in your throat as you asked your question.

Brock leaned back in his chair, grinning. “You’re really asking that? Damn. Well, if you don’t - you’re never going to see your dog again, for starters.”

Your face fell and you shuffled in the chair again, turning to look back towards Hercules. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“What do you think, Walker? The mutt would be good for the pit, huh? They could use some fresh meat for the next fight.”

You gasped as Hercules pulled at his leash, trying to walk to you. Walker held the leash tight.

“P-please. Don’t. He doesn’t deserve that, he’s just..” Your voice shook as you turned and looked back at Brock. “Okay, fine. I’ll talk to Hammond.” You just had to agree and get out of here. Once you were home, you could call the police station and tell them the truth and and and–

“Hammond is expecting you first thing tomorrow morning at the station.” Ward was looking down at your phone, tapping away at the screen. Great, he was just sending messages on your behalf. You hated that. Clearly you were not getting your phone back. Fuck, how were you going to get out of this?

“Now,” Brock leaned onto his elbows on the desk, returning his cigar to his mouth for a long drag. “Let’s talk about Rogers.”

You gulped.

“I need every little dirty secret you’ve got,” Brock said with a snap of his fingers. “Let’s go. Talk.”

“I don’t..” You faltered, glancing around the room quickly. Russo was watching you carefully while his partner seemed to be preoccupied with his feet, his eyes were drawn down. “I don’t know what you think I might know.. Steve and I.. We.. He broke up with me a while ago.”

A laugh escaped Brock. “I heard that wasn’t the case.”

Russo stepped forward. “Rogers took you home from Shield a few weekends ago, did he not? Drove you right back into your apartment then even walked you to the door?”

You stilled. Why did these men know about that? Were they following you? Or Steve? How did they know where you lived?

“I don’t know anything, I swear. Even when we were..” You closed your eyes. “We didn’t talk about business.”

“You know, I don’t believe you.” Brock let out a frustrated huff and tapped his cigar ash to the floor. “Let’s start easy, alright? Rogers has a ledger, the Bible for all his transactions. Where does he keep it?”

You shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. I don’t remember ever seeing a ledger or–”

“Bullshit.” It was Russo jumping in now. “You were fucking him for months. Christ, give us something.”

If you shifted your head back and forth in a shake anymore, you were going to give yourself whiplash. “I-I don’t, really.” You didn’t like how they were both crowding in on you, guns visible on their hips as their voices escalated. “Steve didn’t tell me things - he.. I didn’t..”

“Where does he keep his safe? What buildings did he take you to?” Brock continued on, reciting any thought or question that seemed to jump into his head. “I need to know which Senator is really in his pocket. And what he promised to Rhodes.”

You repeated yourself again and again and again as they bombarded you. “I don’t know, I don’t know! He would never tell me those things.”

“Think harder then.” Brock stood up in a fury, circling the desk to plant himself in front of you. “I need something fucking useful.”

Squeezing your eyes shut, you tried to think of something, anything to stop this. Everything you retained about Steve wouldn’t be what they wanted - that he was an old soul, a gentleman who kept your best interests at heart. Who loved old musicals and his mother. Who cared deeply about things but had hurt you deeply, too. None of that would have been helpful so what the fuck were you supposed to do?

“I..” You let out a breath. Would it be worth it to lie?

“If you say ‘you don’t know’ one more goddamn time..” Brock leaned forward, closing in the space between you and reaching for your jaw. He held it between his fingers, keeping you in his grasp waiting for an answer.

When you didn’t respond, Brock growled and reached for his cigar, flipping it in his fingers and bringing the burning end closer and closer to your exposed neck. You could feel the heat before it even touched your skin and all you could do was scream in anticipation.

“I don’t– please! Please don’t-” You pressed yourself into the chair, trying to get as far away from him as possible. But, the burning sensation never came.

“Hey–” This was a new voice. The Strong and Silent man lingering near Russo had rushed between you and Brock, shoving him away before the cigar made contact with your skin. “You said you weren’t going to hurt her.”

Brock pushed him back. “This has nothing to do with you, Castle. Back the fuck off.”

Castle didn’t move - acting as a barricade between you and Brock. They stood at a standstill, and eventually Brock let out a long dramatic sigh. “Ward.” He snapped his fingers again and Ward came forward. Once again, a hand landed on your shoulder.

“Take her up to the roof.”

---

“Do we not fucking knock anymore?” Steve called out as Bucky burst into his office, dragging Peter by the collar as he did.

Steve’s patience had run thin following dinner with his mother. She had managed to stir everything else up again, the feelings Steve was desperately trying to eliminate from his heart. Yet, they hadn’t dulled over time like he wanted. They remained steady, as steady as the beat of his heart.

“She’s good for you.”

On top of that, they had managed to clear out most of the out of territory drug dealers creeping into Brooklyn. But it hadn’t really stopped. The drugs still found their way in, and the problems were escalating moreso. Angry clients, aggravated partners, a particularly frustrated future Mayor who needed Steve’s compliance and trusted network underground for insight.

The last thing Steve wanted to deal with now was another issue. But when Steve saw the panicked look in Bucky’s eyes as he grabbed Peter’s shirt, Steve paused.

“Show him.” Bucky urged Peter forward, eyes wide in a panic. “Now.”

Steve stood from his chair slowly, meeting the young man in the middle of his office. “What’s going on? Is this about Beck again?”

“No, sir. No. It’s uh..” Peter’s hand was shaking as he gripped his cellphone, tapping on the screen before he glanced between Bucky and Steve again. “I keep an eye on social media - mostly just to see what’s happening, who’s hanging out where. My friend Ned he..” Peter shook his head. “Whatever. No one knows it’s me who watches their stuff. So. I was clicking through John Walker’s Instagram stories - that guy is an idiot, by the way. Always trying to bait women to find him at clubs or wherever. And..”

Peter tapped through something on his screen then turned it toward Steve. “Mr. Barnes said he recognized the dog in the background of this video..”

Steve snatched the phone and pressed play on the screen recording. John Walker was in the middle of the frame, filming himself with the front camera as he talked about which bar he’d be showing up at later. But none of that mattered to Steve. What did matter was the dog tied up in the background, pulling at his lead as he started to bark.

“Christ. Sorry about the mutt. Dealing with something for work..”

Steve raised his eyes from the screen, eyebrows furrowed. “When was this posted?”

Peter swallowed before he replied. “About 20 minutes ago.”

Bucky turned to Steve. “Is that..?”

All Steve could do was growl, shoving the phone back at Peter. “Send that to me. Right now.” Steve reached for his own phone, heading out the door of his office towards the primary club facilities. Bucky was at his feet, asking what he could do to help.

“Buck, call Kate. I need a timestamp for when Hercules was picked up.”

Bucky nodded and tore off, phone to his ear.

Steve called Clint directly. “Barton, I need your help.”

---

Kate confirmed you had picked up Hercules just before they closed. She didn’t notice anything concerning, aside from your general demeanor seeming quiet.

Clint reviewed security footage outside your apartment building entrance, back door and lobby. No sign of you. It’s possible you had picked up your dog then gone elsewhere, but Steve wasn’t convinced.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Steve paced his office again and again, waiting desperately for some information. Peter and Thor had stolen off to a few well known bars to see if they could track down Walker or any of his friends.

Clint had gone to your building to troll the neighborhood and seek out any additional video footage that might help.

Steve called Vision to see if he could connect with Wanda to get some information about where you might be, without leading to anything especially suspicious.

Steve needed to know where you were and if you were okay. Truthfully, he wouldn’t be able to settle until he knew you were safe - until he saw you himself.

This was the fucking risk, wasn’t it? Letting you in. People were going to use your relationship against him. It was staring him right in the face all along. Fuck, how could he live with himself if you got hurt?

Steve let out a fit of rage that had been brewing within him. He grabbed the rocks glass off his desk, still half full of melting ice, and sent it flying into the back of his door.

God fucking damnit. He didn’t like any of this. With no news from Vision and Wanda, his mind was going to bad places.

Steve stalked across the broken glass and threw his door open, grabbing his coat as he left. He found Bucky downstairs at the bar, phone in hand as Natasha leaned beside him.

“Please tell me someone has some fucking news to share,” Steve growled out as he approached. He didn’t even have to ask Natasha to pour him a drink, as it quickly appeared on the bar.

“No Walker sightings yet,” Bucky said as he glanced at his phone. As he turned the screen, a new message appeared.

The text didn’t contain any information or words, just a simple location pin. Bucky tapped on it, revealing an address on the outskirts of Brooklyn.

“Who sent that?” Steve asked, eyeing over Bucky’s shoulder as he drained his glass.

“No clue. I don’t know the number.” Bucky replied quietly. “No message either. Just a thumbs up emoji. But the timing is suspect.”

Steve shook his head. What did he have to lose? “Let’s go. Have Sam meet us there.”

---

You should have worn more layers, warmer clothes. Not that you anticipated being abducted on your way home. But you trusted the warm fall morning and now all you had was regret. A thin sweater barely kept you covered and the looming thunder overhead meant the threat of rain was very real.

Ward had dragged you up the barren staircases to the roof, where he had then removed one of your handcuffs only to attach it to some external pipe system that hugged the outside wall of the building. You could sit on the dirty cold roof or stand and try to peer down, but nothing else. You were stuck.

When you tried to plead with Ward for your escape, he only smirked then offered an alternative.

“Tell you what - if you get on your knees for me, I’ll remove the handcuffs altogether.”

As an answer to that proposal, you spit in his face. He really didn’t like that - which left you pushed to the ground and cuffed with no coverage from wind or impending rain. God fucking damnit.

Once Ward disappeared through the door again, you yelled for help. If it made any lick of difference, you had no idea. There was another building very close by, yelling distance at least. But it looked abandoned just the same. On the other side of the roof, it looked like an emergency staircase existed.

Not like you’d be able to escape. You seemed very stuck.

Were they going to leave you out there all night? Was this some scare tactic? What did they want from you - a detailed breakdown of everything you knew about Steve? You couldn’t do that - you wouldn’t. Despite the ricochet of emotions you had been through with Steve, you still felt.. something to him. Be it loyalty or kindness or whatever, you couldn’t throw him under the bus.

Steve was a good person. You saw that in him often. But these men? You weren’t so sure.

What if they left you until you had to meet with Hammond? Ten hours in the cold and rain. You could survive that, maybe. Maybe.

Thunder rumbled above you. Rain started to fall.

Fuck. Maybe not.

In an attempt to make yourself as small as possible, you sat against the side wall and wrapped your free arm around yourself. It didn’t do much to protect you from the rain, but it helped retain what little body heat you still had.

You weren’t sure how long you sat in the rain before you heard the access door burst open. You looked up and braced yourself, but felt almost relieved to see it wasn’t Ward again.

It was Castle.

He hesitated when he saw you, then quickly hurried in your direction.

You closed your eyes in a panic. “I’m sorry - I don’t have anything to share about Steve - I can’t remember if there was—”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. I’m not here about that.” Castle crouched down in front of you. “I can’t let you go but let me help, alright?” He reached into his pocket and took out what looked like a Swiss Army knife. “I’ll get out of these cuffs at least.”

You braced yourself as he gently touched your wrist, using his tool to work through the lock mechanism. “Thank you.. uhm, Mr. Castle?”

He chuckled, barely. “Frank.”

You nodded, grateful as he freed your hand and left the cuffs dangling. “Thank you, Frank.”

“Over there,” Frank turned his head and pointed to the middle of the roof, where a small maintenance structure stood. It had a sloping roof that could provide more coverage. “Go. You’ll be covered at least.”

Frank got to his feet and offered you his hand. Once you were standing, he shrugged off his own heavy coat and handed it to you.

“Frank,” you clutched the coat and met his gaze, eyes blurring from the rain. “Can you just.. make sure my dog is okay? Hercules? He’s a lover, not a fighter. But he’s all I have and- and..”

Frank gave you a curt nod. “Go.” He motioned back to the small shed and you nodded too.

You had no idea why Frank was helping you. But you decided it had to be a good sign, right?

---

Steve had no idea what he was walking into. He had done this before – going in blind to certain situations was the nature of his entire job. It wasn’t always possible to anticipate who he would run into, if the person he trusted would deliver, if weapons were involved. But given his state of mind and the all-consuming worry he had about your wellbeing; he didn’t really care what he was faced with.

He just needed to figure out where you were and ensure you were safe.

The location that had been sent to Bucky was outside of Brooklyn, just barely. Along an industrial neighbourhood, where plenty of abandoned factories and distribution centers lived, the coordinates lead them to a nondescript building.

Steve and Bucky climbed out of the car, strapped with more than enough guns and ammunition to fight their way through whatever and whoever they were about to face. As they approached, Sam jogged into view, too.

“Thor couldn’t find Walker anywhere,” Sam provided as an update once they were waiting outside. “But Peter’s little tech friend managed to track a location for some recent postings to this general area..”

“Sounds like a likely place to look,” Bucky concluded, raising an eyebrow as he glanced at Steve.

Steve took in a deep breath, eyebrows narrowed as he gazed at the doors ahead of him. Raising his hands, he tugged at the collar of his coat and smoothed it out before nodding. He was ready to deal with this.

“If she’s anywhere in here, her safety is priority, you understand?” Steve glanced from Bucky back to Sam, waiting for their own nod of understanding. “If anyone put her in danger, they’re going to pay. But not at her expense.”

Bucky pressed his knuckles into his metal palm, a coy smirk raising on his lips. “Here’s hoping I get to fuck up Walker’s face again.”

Sam took the lead and yanked the dilapidated entry door open, busting open the lock mechanism with little effort. The main level they entered on was mainly being used for vehicle parking and what looked like some storage. A staircase led up to the next level.

Steve carried on - striding to the top of the staircase and heading through the doors. The entire building was in bad shape but this wasn’t their first rodeo.

Someone was hiding out somewhere. And when he found them, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Sam - call everyone to be standby, including Thor and his brother. Get Barton to scope out next door, too. Lots of windows for coverage, the rooftop. Remind him about the Bullseye protocol.” Steve ran a hand through his hair then glanced to his right, motioning to the far door with Bucky. “You’re with me.”

In a few long strides, Steve reached the door and waited. Then, he raised a hand and knocked against it. Bucky stood behind his left shoulder.

Someone on the other side of the door was yelling, then eventually they heard heavy stomping as someone approached. When the door opened, Steve didn’t hesitate - he leaped forward and reached for the collar of whoever it was.

Steve growled. Grant Ward.

“Oh Jesus fucking–” Ward yelped out, trying to pull away from Steve’s grasp as Steve backed him into the room. “Take it fucking easy, Rogers. What the fuck are you–”

“Where is she?” Steve’s voice boomed, holding Ward in his grip as he glanced around the room. It was a fairly sparse leftover office, but sitting at the end of the large boardroom table was Billy Russo, Frank Castle and Brock Rumlow himself. A few other nameless thugs waited behind them, guns at the ready. “Where IS SHE?”

Steve threw Ward to the ground, reaching for his gun as the men at the table stood up and drew their own weapons, too. Bucky followed in behind Steve and kicked Ward down when he tried to get back on his feet.

“Stay down,” Bucky said to Ward.

Rumlow moved from his spot slowly, waving his gun around and placing it down on the table as he walked towards Steve. “Rogers.”

Steve didn’t respond, darting his eyes from Rumlow back to Russo and Castle at the table. Russo looked away, suddenly preoccupied with anything else but Steve. Castle, though, also put his gun away.

“Rumlow.” Steve growled out your name this time. “Where. Is. She?”

Brock smirked. “Who? Oh.. yes. Sure. We just met. As far as I know, you two aren’t together anymore. What’s the concern?”

“If you fucking touched her-” Steve raised his hand again, gun pointing directly at Rumlow as they stood apart. “Tell me where she is.”

“Me and Russo have been talking. I think the three of us could be working together better. If you haven’t been picking off my dealers one by one, the pot could be a lot sweeter.”

“You and your drugs aren’t worthy of Brooklyn.” Steve stepped forward. “Tell me.”

“You know, I didn’t want us to meet like this.” Rumlow brought his hands up, in a faux act of surrender then slowly moved one of them forward to encourage Steve to put his weapon down. “In fact, I went through a lot of trouble to keep your pretty face away from here.”

“Not much trouble, it seems. And it sounds like you have a mole,” Steve shot back, sparing a quick glance back around the room. Russo looked away again but Steve met Castle’s eyes for a beat, then turned back to Rumlow. “Loyalty is rare around these parts.”

“Speaking of loyalty - your girl.” Rumlow stepped back and let out a long breath.

Steve matched him and stepped forward, raising his gun up once more. “If you laid one fucking hand on her–”

“I’ll tell you where she is after we chat, alright? I need a promise from you - to share the territory.”

Steve huffed, lips pursed as he scanned Rumlow’s face. “Tell me where she is.” Steve could hear Bucky shuffling behind him, metal fist clenched, growing just as impatient as Steve was.

“Nah.” Rumlow shrugged, glancing around the room. “If you won’t negotiate, my lips are sealed. I still need her, gotta clear something up with the cops. Then, I don’t know. I guess she’s nice enough on the eyes, bit thicker than what I usually go for but maybe I’ll get her to warm my bed for a–”

Steve wasn’t an idiot. Rumlow was baiting him. And god fucking damnit it worked. Steve surged ahead, letting out another growl of rage as he attacked Rumlow with his fists.

On the other side of the room, Ward slid over to kick against Bucky’s knee - angering Bucky all the same. Sam rushed in to join them at the first sound of chaos. It wasn’t quite contained and really, it didn’t come as a surprise that everyone in the room was more than prepared for a fight. Rumlow’s extra lackeys seemed more than charged enough for the action. Bucky easily took care of Ward on his own, as Sam darted between helping Steve with Rumlow and the others as Russo tried to keep his distance.

“Where is she?” Steve had Rumlow on the ground, pummeling his fists into Rumlow’s jaw. He didn’t get a response, as the sound of gunshots sounded out, ending with shards of glass flying across the floor. In a brief moment of hesitation after, Steve took in the rest of the room.

Russo had slipped out. Castle too.

“Sam!” Steve stood quickly, keeping his foot against Rumlow’s neck.

Sam hurried over and tagged in as Steve rushed through the door to follow where the other two had gone. Running towards the staircase, he looked upwards and could hear the distinct sound of hurrying feet and the slamming of a metal door.

He bounded up the stairs towards the roof.

---

The rain continued to fall, although it had at least slowed down to a cool drizzle. It didn’t mean much since you were already soaking wet, though the coat from Castle had helped. It hadn’t really fit you but the extra layer kept you marginally more comfortable, despite the fatigue and hunger setting in. Was anyone else going to check on you? Would Castle come back to help?

Did.. did Steve know what was going on? Although - how would he even find out? Fuck, you kept going over everything again and again and again. The steps you took today, the conversation you had with Sarah a few weeks ago, Steve’s last words to you at your apartment…

You wish things had gone differently. Maybe in a different life or timeline, it might have all worked out.

Gunshots.

You could hear gunshots from somewhere nearby. Downstairs in the building, maybe. Truthfully, at least up on the roof, you were away from the reality of this situation - that these people had guns and clearly weren’t afraid to use them. Up there, in the rain, you could ignore all of that.

But no, here was the glaring reminder. A few more shots sounded out then it seemed to stop. You tried to keep ignoring it, laying your back flat against the wall of the structure until you heard the door open again. You couldn’t even bring yourself to look until you heard someone barking out your name. This time the voice belonged to Russo.

A set of footsteps tracked further onto the roof, but you held your safe position. Russo finally appeared ahead of you, a scowl etched on his face. “I thought Ward tied you up. Whatever, let’s go.” He grabbed your closest wrist, urging you away from your hiding space. You tried to yank yourself away.

“Please, I don’t want to-”

“Bill - come on, can’t we just drop all this?” Frank came into your eyeline next, looking you over quickly then back towards the door. “Rogers isn’t dumb, he’ll follow us up here anyway.”

Your heart jumped at Steve’s name. He was here, he was going to get you away from this.

Russo’s grip tightened on your wrist, though he turned to look at Frank. “The plan remains the same - we need her to talk to Hammond so Rogers can land some jail time. It’s the only way we can get ahead.”

Frank let out a noncommittal sigh. “Rumlow is a fuckin’ idiot. You don’t think his plan is to screw us over later too?”

“I don’t give a shit about that right now,” Russo growled, looking back towards you. “Let’s go.”

Frank hesitated again, but didn’t argue any further. You pleaded again as they took you to the far side of the roof, where the emergency fire escape stairs were. Russo let you go momentarily as he stalked over, peering down towards the stairs.

“They should hold up, I hope” he said with a shrug, motioning his head for you to go. “Ladies first.”

You shook your head, taking a step back and glancing towards the door instead. “No, I..” You turned on your heel.

A gunshot sounded out behind you, loud and piercing. You screamed, eyes wide as you turned back. Russo was scowling again, holding his gun high as he shot it upwards into the sky. He lowered it slowly, pointing it at you directly instead. If that wasn’t enough of a warning. “Down you go. Now.”

You glanced at Frank, who remained completely stoic as he looked between you and Russo.

Suddenly, the door flew open again. You all turned to look.

A wave of relief flooded through you - it was Steve. He called your name as he walked towards you, never breaking his eye contact with you. In an instant, all your worries and doubts and everything seemed to shatter as he looked at you with such gentleness and grace.

Russo let out a hard laugh, waving his gun for a brief moment before aiming it back at you. “No time for your cute reunion. Let us walk away, Rogers.”

“Sweetheart,” Steve didn’t even bother replying to Russo, though he did stop in his tracks when he realized Russo had a gun pointed at you. But, Steve carried on, repeating your name. “Are you okay?”

You swallowed hard, jaw shaking as you nodded.

Steve softened, for a fraction of a second. You knew he could tell you weren’t being honest. But what were you supposed to do? You were a hostage, soaking wet on a roof, with a gun pointed in your direction - no, you were not okay.

You watched as Steve transformed again, soft eyes replaced by hard lines, a tight jaw. He finally broke your gaze and turned his attention to Russo and Castle. “Let her go and we’ll all walk away from this unscathed.”

A loud laugh escaped Russo. “Right. I don’t think so. We’re walking away from this with the leverage we need.”

You watched as Steve took in a deep breath, then reluctantly put his hands up. “What do you want, Russo? Money, territory, names? What? I’ll give you whatever you want - just put your gun down and let her go.”

“You think I’m an idiot?” Russo shook his head. “No, I’m not playing this game.”

“This isn’t a fucking game,” Steve continued, reaching his hand slowly for his gun. He raised it up then just as quickly tossed it behind himself. “Please, Bill. Just leave her out of this.”

“Billy..” Frank finally spoke up too. “Let’s call it, okay? Sounds like Rogers is willing to talk and–”

“No.” Russo took a step closer to you, gun firm in hand. “No, we’re going to–”

Before you realized what was happening, you weren’t even standing on your own two feet anymore. A flurry of noises rang out around you - screaming, gunshots, shouting. Someone had wrapped their arms around you – you fell towards the ground – you landed on.. Steve. It was Steve.

He had run towards you in the action, caging you in his arms as you both landed on the rooftop together. Safe. Alive. Steve shielded you with his own body from the noise and chaos happening around you. You didn’t know who had been shooting who, if anyone escaped or made it down the fire escape. All you knew is that you were safe, in Steve’s arms.

Steve was whispering out your name, again and again, like some sort of prayer on his lips. His words were wrapped in apologies, in cries for your safety, in hushed words that begged for reassurance. As everything else seemed to quiet down, he gently pushed himself up to peer down at you.

“Sweetheart, I’m so–”

“Steve, it’s okay. I’m okay.. I’m..c-cold.”

He shook his head and quickly shifted again, standing up and helping you back to your feet, too. He shrugged off his own jacket and draped it over you. Slowly, he raised his hand and slid it down the side of your face, wiping away stray droplets of water with his thumb. His palm was warm against your cheek, you could feel his whole heart pulsing as he held you.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m–”

“Steve!” Bucky’s voice broke you both from the spell. Steve reluctantly looked away from you, pivoting slightly as he looked towards Bucky running in their direction. Across the roof, both Frank and Russo were on their knees, hands wrapped behind their backs. A makeshift bandage was wrapped around one of Russo’s biceps.

Wait, had someone shot him? It couldn’t have been Steve, he had put his gun down. Would Frank have..

Bucky leaned in slightly and mumbled into Steve’s ear, then they both looked across the roof towards the adjacent building. Bucky waved in that direction and Steve nodded, then they both turned back to you.

Before Steve could say anything else, you reached for his shirt. “Steve - you..we need to find Hercules. They said.. They..” You closed your eyes tight, head shaking as you tried to form your words. “They were going to take him somewhere to fight. I don’t know if..”

Bucky stood up tall again. He said your name firm, like a promise. “I’ll find him.”

As Bucky left, Steve wrapped his arms around you again - tighter this time. With one hand, he secured your back and the other cradled your head against his chest. He didn’t say anything and you couldn’t find any words either.

---

You were back at Steve’s apartment. You thought you’d never see those big windows overlooking Brooklyn ever again and yet, there you were. Safe.

Safe and warm, following a long shower in Steve’s guest bathroom. Stripping away your damp clothes and stealing away into the stream for longer than probably necessary had been a nice escape. Especially given that Steve had driven you back to his place in silence - though it wasn’t as awkward as before. It just felt like maybe there were things you both needed to say but couldn’t bring yourself to mention yet.

Before you had left the building earlier, Steve hadn’t let you leave his sight. Well, except for about ten minutes where Bucky hovered over you instead.

Steve brought you inside, back downstairs to that same boardroom and office space. But this time, you weren’t faced with bad guys with guns. Well, the bad guys remained but the guns were gone.

All four of them were bound and seated at a chair. Ward’s head was lolled to the side, Brock had a bloody face, Russo and Castle were mostly left without much damage. But you had a feeling that wasn’t going to last.

Steve squeezed your hand, gently turning you away from looking at them.

“Hey,” he said quietly, tipping your chin up with his thumb. “Can you tell me what happened? What they did?”

You swallowed hard, eyes wide for a moment as you considered his question. What was he going to do?

“Don’t overthink it, okay? Just tell me what you think I should know.”

You let out a breath then recounted everything. Ward ambushing you on the sidewalk, Brock threatening you, Russo joining in…

“But Frank he..” You finally spared a glance over your shoulder. Frank sat up straight in his chair, resigned to whatever fate awaited him. “He helped me. Tried to protect me, gave me his coat..”

Steve nodded, looking in Frank’s direction the same way. Steve called for Sam, then gave him another nod and Sam went to untie Frank from his chair.

It was only a few moments later that Bucky showed up with Hercules, who - thank god - looked unharmed, if a little worked up. You couldn’t help but start to cry as you broke away from Steve and rushed to your son.

But, It wasn’t lost on you how quickly Bucky led you away from the room with your dog. Or how the door shut behind you, leaving Steve and Sam in there with the rest of the men, the overlapping sounds and sounds of distress…

When you finally decided you had wasted enough water and regained all the proper feeling in your body, you shut off the water and let out a long sigh. Outside on the counter, folded neatly beside your warm towel, was some clothes you had left at Steve’s ages ago. Soft and clean layers to keep your temperature steady as you got ready for bed.

You supposed it was a choice you made - agreeing to go home with Steve instead of back to your own apartment. But you knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep there - not tonight. And you knew Steve would insist on staying and keeping guard outside your door anyway. So it made more sense this way.

After you changed, you found Hercules waiting for you in the hallway. You could hear Steve in the living room, speaking quite passionately on his end of a phone call.

“Jim, this is the only deal I’m making. Proof of your dirty cop aside, I’m handing you Rumlow alive on a silver platter, even though I should have let him bleed out. So you have to do this for me. I don’t give a fuck about protocol..” There was a heavy pause. “Every instance of her name on any police report - gone. I don’t want her attached to any of it, do you understand? No trace of her. I don’t care - redact it or burn it. Get that done and I’ll deliver Rumlow to you in the morning. Understood?”

You knew you probably shouldn’t be listening, but it was your name he was mentioning.

“As for Russo, I’m dealing with that myself. But keep him on your radar. If you need another arrest to clench your win, you can have him once I’m done.”

You quietly slipped into the guest bedroom once you realized his call had ended. Once Hercules followed you in, you shut the door. Fuck. What happened now? Maybe you and Steve needed to talk about all of this - you definitely needed to talk about it.

You heard footsteps coming down the hallway towards the bedrooms and Steve stopped outside your door. You held your breath, wondering if he would say your name or knock. But - nothing. His phone buzzed again and he disappeared into his bedroom.

With a heavy sigh, you leaned against the door.

---

Mentally, Steve was exhausted.

Physically, his energy peaked in the midst of the action and hadn’t seemed to peter off yet.

You were safe, you were safe, you were safe.

Why couldn’t he calm down? You were one wall away, falling asleep. Safe. He got to you before anything critical happened. Christ, nothing should have happened in the first place.

Following his long frustrating phone call with Rhodes, he wanted to talk to you. He wanted to say everything that was weighing down his heart - but your door was closed and he couldn’t even find it in himself to knock.

You were probably even angrier with him than before - given that this was all his fault. But that was fine with him. He could deal with your anger if that meant you had any feelings towards him left. Anger counted.

He rinsed off in the shower then pulled on a pair of pajama pants before falling into bed, not that he was tired. His brain was wired and maybe an allnighter was in his future.

Steve sent off a few last messages to Bucky and Sam, then discarded his phone on the nightstand. He leaned back against the headboard and–

There was a knock at his bedroom door. You were knocking. He swung his legs off the bed and hurried to open the door, just as you were about to push it open yourself.

“Hi,” you said quietly, meeting his eyes in the low light streaming in from his lamp.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked, scanning you for any signs of distress.

You shrugged, drawing in a deep breath. Then Steve took a step back, waving his arm to invite you in. You released your lungs slowly, nodding and following him inside. Wordlessly, he climbed into the bed and offered the open blanket to you, arms wide. You just nodded again, crawling in and finding a spot - your spot - underneath his arms.

---

CHAPTER 07 - CHAPTER 09

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x plus size reader #steve rogers x plus sized reader #steve rogers x you #mob boss steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers au #story: sink into me #simmerandcry #simmerandwrite

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deoidesign · 10 months ago

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if i may ask, is it difficult at all to re-edit/organize the comic pages from the webtoon format to fit the graphic novel format?

on another note, I'm so happy that your kickstarter was funded!!! I love time and time again, im so excited to see this all happen <3

I'll just turn this ask into something of a guide for the process! Because yes, it is difficult, but there are also many ways I have been preparing from the beginning for this very situation to make things easier for me!

I've worked in both print and scroll in the past, and have done this transition once before for a short story, so I already had familiarity both with my goals for print, and struggles with the transition!

How I prepared from the beginning for this transition:

1: My panels are 2500 pixels wide, so they can span my page (which is 8.3x5.8 inches) at 350 DPI (which is print quality)

2: My layers are organized: Text, FX, Foreground, Characters, Background

3: I draw one very large (twice as big as any panel would be, minimum) background for my major locations, as well as drawing furniture assets in isolation. This not only saves me time when making my actual episodes, but it also offers me INCREDIBLE flexibility when making this transition to print.

These 3 things let me pull the character art to the page by itself, scale it up or down to fit my panel, and then fill in the background behind the character.

So, I read the scroll version, decide how many and which panels I want on the page for the pacing (I also keep page spreads and page turns in mind while I am doing this), and then I pull those panels over from the scroll version to the page.

Then, I make the panel borders/page layout that I want, fit the character art into it, paste in the backgrounds, do any art editing that I need, add FX, and then re-do the text!

Sometimes I do need to draw parts that are missing (shoulders or elbows getting cut off is an extremely common one) and sometimes I need to adjust facial expressions, cut panels, or rearrange panels to make things read more clearly. Since it's my comic already, I know how to do these things while maintaining the original intent, but if I were working with someone else's comic I would need to work closely with them to know what can and can't be cut.

(original panel vs an expanded version)

Another common issue is that VERY tall panels will inevitably lose a lot of information when they’re turned to pages. Identify the purpose of the panel (pacing, showing a lot of detail, etc) and then replicate that with your page layout.

examples (in order) are: scene transition, being overwhelmed, suspense, and establishing shot. All of these were a single panel in the scroll version!

Another issue when converting pages is that panel order is a lot less straightforward than when starting from print format. Conversational back and forth that's fine in scroll often messes up the flow of reading in a page (characters facing out, not looking at eachother from panel to panel, etc) and so some creative solutions are necessary to keeping the reading order.

For the first page I had to delete and rearrange some panels, and in the second the dialogue bubbles guide us to read this page in a circle. (dialogue guides through a lot of my pages lol)

And the last really common issue that pops up is that height differences can be really difficult. Usually in print this is solved with clever angles, but I’ve already drawn everything. So, I’ll either resort to vertical shaped panels, panel pop-outs, or editing a character up or down to fit into the panel.

(examples in order)

So, yes, it is difficult! But I have a lot of experience with both formats, and having prepared for this from the beginning I've been able to make the transition a LOT more smoothly than I otherwise could have.

I hope this helps!

And, thank you about the kickstarter! I'm extremely excited I'll be able to print these, the proofs I've received so far look just absolutely stunning and I'm so so so excited to get to send them to people!!!

Obligatory self promo, if you want to see the kickstarter page and get these four books for yourself, then you can check it out here ^^ It's been funded, so at this point we're just reaching stretch goals and placing orders!

#asks #anon #art tips #comic tips #web comics #comic books #comic advice #also this is just my own experience obviously everyone works differently and I cant promise this will work for you too #but doing things this way I've been able to finish about an episode (15 pages or so) every day #so it's been extremely swift (though also of course a ton of work)#thank you past me for making this so easy!!!#it'd easily take 5x as long without the prep I did!!!

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my-autism-adhd-blog · 4 months ago

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hii i wanted to ask about the long term affects of masking, especially if you’ve been undiagnosed until adulthood.

personally, i’ve recently concluded that i’m autistic (gonna get a diagnosis so i can finally get accommodations at uni and finish my degree woo) and i wanted to make an art piece reflecting that but i wanted to know if anyone else experienced that too.

Hi there,

Here are some source about masking and its consequences:

Here are some of the effects of regular masking:

Stress and anxiety. In a 2019 studyTrusted Source, researchers found that stress and anxiety were higher in people who routinely masked autistic traits, compared to those who used masking less often.

Depression. In 2018, researchersTrusted Source interviewed 111 autistic adults, finding that those who reported masking their autistic traits had symptoms of depression and felt unaccepted by people in their social sphere.

Exhaustion. Masking consumes huge amounts of energy. In a 2016 studyTrusted Source, women who used masking to satisfy neurotypical standards said they felt exhausted by the constant effort.

Delayed identification of autism. Some people are so successful with masking that their autism isn’t identified until they are much older. That delay can lead to mental health issues because people don’t get the support or understanding they need.

Loss of identity. Some people who mask their identity, interests, and traits end up feeling that they no longer know who they really are. Some have said masking feels like self-betrayal; others have said masking makes them feel they’re deceiving other people.

Risk of autistic burnout. When people push themselves to behave in ways that don’t feel authentic, the result can be an overwhelming feeling of overload, sometimes called autistic burnoutTrusted Source. Masking may require an extended period of quiet withdrawal and recovery.

Increased risk of suicidal thoughts. In a recent studyTrusted Source, prolonged masking was linked to “lifetime suicidality.” The study was relatively small (160 students) and involved primarily women (89.6 percent). However, it showed that masking led to feeling like a burden, which in turn led to more suicidal thoughts over the course of a lifetime.

This source says:

However, just because a coping strategy was once useful, it doesn’t mean it always will be. Studies are now beginning to find how detrimental to our mental health masking can be (Bradley et al., 2021; Hull et al., 2019). Autistic people who mask more show more signs of anxiety and depression, and the strategy may even been linked to an increase in suicidal behaviours (Cassidy et al. 2018).

I really hope these help. Thank you for the inbox. I hope you have a wonderful day/night. ♥️

#inbox #inbox reply #inbox is open #inbox is temporarily closed #masking #autism

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vasyandii · 4 months ago

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Hi there again! I have a few questions regarding AM and his anatomy.

Ok so does he have organs? I’ve read in one of your post that he does have wires within his body but in another post where AM first uses his organic body it said “The air in his lungs hurt.”

So he has lungs??? I don’t know I’m just curious.🧐And if so how does he process food? Is it similar to us or not?? I know he doesn’t need to eat, but since Vernon shares her food with him I just couldn’t help but wonder…😀😄

Also, I promise I’m not stalking you or anything I just really love your art and the way you interpret ihnmaims!!! 🩷Your art makes me want to mediative daydream, it makes me so happy it motivates me!😭

Howdy Dislocatedcat! Thank you for the ask, sorry it took so long to answer, since I got it since it has been keeping me up at night trying to make sense of it in a logical way. I would draw out the Anatomy of AM, but it's kind of...gross? Not innards in of themselves, just his.

AM's Anatomy

A machine will cut things out of its system in order to make sure it works the fastest. AM streamlined his body to optimize efficiency and functionality.

By eliminating non-essential organs like the spleen, kidney, and appendix, he reduced the risk of potential medical issues and minimized maintenance requirements. This allows him to focus his energy and resources on tasks that require higher cognitive functions and physical performance. So yes he has organs and wires combined :)

His Heart

Vernon has made comments about him not having a heartbeat, which is simply not true! He does ,in fact, have a heart, it just beats so slow she can't hear it.

It beats slower than a typical human heart because his body requires less frequent circulation due to enhanced metabolic processes and possibly more efficient oxygenation and nutrient delivery systems (the immortality serum). The heart may also be reinforced or partially mechanical to ensure durability and consistent performance.

His Lungs

AM has lungs, yes, but they are likely designed to be far more efficient than human lungs. These lungs facilitate effective oxygen exchange and are regulated by his AI consciousness to meet the optimized metabolic needs of his body.

His Digestive System/Stomach

AM has taste buds and enjoys flavours just like a normal human. The initial stages of eating—chewing and swallowing—are similar to any other person.

While he might retain essential digestive organs like the stomach and intestines, these organs could be enhanced or partially mechanical. This could involve more efficient enzymes, faster digestion, and improved nutrient absorption mechanisms.

AM’s body has an optimized waste management system, efficiently filtering and expelling waste products. This could involve advanced filtration mechanisms that reduce the need for frequent eliminations.

Waste products are minimized through a highly efficient filtration system. Excess and non-usable components are quickly identified and directed for excretion.

I'm not a medical professional nor deal with organs (other than my own, god forbid) on a daily basis, so some of this is probably inaccurate. But if you made it this far, thank you for reading!

#ihnmaims #am ihnmaims #i have no mouth and I must scream #am i have no mouth and i must scream #allied mastercomputer #writings #headcanons

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angstics · 18 days ago

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I’m kinda a new fan had some questions. Are any of the members religious? I saw Gerard say god spoke in his head or something (I hear alot of Christians say this)

Regarding that whole thing does he hallucinate? I don’t mean to be rude I’m just wondering if he’s kinda schizophrenic. I really don’t mean to be rude.

Were they on drugs during the creation of black parade? Did they do drugs during the creative process at all? (Sorry to be weird)

Did Gerard write comics before the band? Was he successful? Did he actually work at CNN? Did he want to join military after 9/11 (I’ve heard him say he wanted to join in a tweet) ? Is there any pic of his art portfolio during college?

Did Mikey go to college?

hi! these arent weird questions. you just want to know what everyone else knows. im gonna answer your questions as best as i can from my own recollection. anyone can add if im wrong or forgot something. disclaimer, of course, there's a lot the public doesnt know so ill just be regurgitating What Is Known, and where you might have gotten these ideas. below the cut ->

"Are any of the members religious?"

the ways grew up catholic. Gerard has talked about his relationship with religion a few times. Most substantially this twitlonger in 2013 (from this tweet). i dont know if we know his Current Status. i feel like he talked about it in this 2019 podcast maybe. he def talks about his and his wife's relationship to "witchcraft" in there. In the second nj 2022 show he referred to bury me in black as a song from back in the "catholic days". whatever that means

frank used to go to catholic school. i think he no longer identifies with catholicism. i dont think we know what ray or mikey practice.

"I saw Gerard say god spoke in his head or something (I hear alot of Christians say this)"

he probably did say that, i just cant remember when. what i do remember is that he often talked about "hearing voices" (2014) and "being touched by god" (2007), particularly relating it to joan of arc.

"Regarding that whole thing does he hallucinate? I don’t mean to be rude I’m just wondering if he’s kinda schizophrenic."

so, he's never talked about any specific mental illnesses. he's only ever talked about symptoms. on purpose! there's this infamous tweet of his, "Labels: my therapist and I don't use them. I am chemically imbalanced, so I take medication to help with that. In fact-" "I don't use labels for anything. Using labels only gives others the leverage needed to categorize you or use you as a political tool." (2016 1, 2)

he talked about depression & mania. he's talked about "hearing voices" around the break up period, 2013-15. some attribute the paramour mansion hauntings to mental illness. it's vague

"Were they on drugs during the creation of black parade? Did they do drugs during the creative process at all?"

frank and gerard talked about doing drugs during the recording of three cheers in 2003 (2011, good discussion "After our grandmother died..." on). gerard went sober second half of 2004 and the band has talked about being sober around him in support. so i dont think they did any drugs while making black parade (which was when they were touring 2005 & in 2006). i think they've even said they smoked a lot of cigs because they couldnt do drugs.

frank has talked about his drug dependence during the black parade tour 2007-08 ish. mikey went sober around the break up. i dont think ray did drugs (in the last source, ray said, "I had no idea any of that stuff [drug use] was going on [in 2003]. I was so naïve.")

drinking & weed & cigs not withstanding

"Did Gerard write comics before the band? Was he successful?"

afaik gerard only worked on three published comics before umbrella academy in 2007.

1993 (age 16): "On Raven's Wings" (writer, 2 issues)

1998 (21): DC's "The Big Book of the Weird Wild West" (pencils & inks, page in 1 issue)

2000 (23): "Foot Soldiers" (writer, back up story in 1 issue)

"Did he actually work at CNN?"

he interred for CN (cartoon network) & pitched a cartoon to them that wasnt accepted.

"Did he want to join military after 9/11 (I’ve heard him say he wanted to join in a tweet)?

just the one time, he talked about considering joining the military at 23, which wouldve been 2000 (2014). he never talked about joining the army after 9/11

"Is there any pic of his art portfolio during college?"

i dont think there's photos of his portfolio anywhere. but there are photos of his college artwork. collected here and here.

"Did Mikey go to college?"

he did for a short bit! dropped out. only gerard & ray have degrees. i dont have any sources for the following info so im just going to give you want i remember. I THINK: mikey went to college to meet people to get in a band, met frank there, dropped out before mcr started, and worked for eyeball records.

#ask #i love asks like this. my MCR Homework #mcr

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chilly-weirdo-in-a-tomb · 4 months ago

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*Vibrating with excitement* would you like to share opinions on tlt characters zodiac signs. Because I have so many

(Naberius is a Virgo sun Taurus rising imo)

I have a lot of opinions. Bear in mind that I am not an astrology expert and I personally consider zodiac signs simply a fun, sometimes humorous thing and not an end-all, be-all thing. I don’t know a thing about rising signs or moon signs or all that. I don’t even know my own full chart! I’m friends with a very big astrology buff and they—in all seriousness—told me I was born the wrong sign 😂. According to them, I act like a Sagittarius.

But as for my TLT zodiac opinions, I’ve included my thoughts in the tags of each poll I’ve posted. So far, my prediction have been 50/50. I’ll go into more detail about my thoughts in this post, though.

Past polls:

Gideon is an Aries. Two of my best friends are Arieses and they give off the same energy as Gideon. It’s a kind of ‘fuck you if you’re rude, fuck me if you’re hot’ energy. They don’t give a flying fuck what society thinks of them. They’re also incredibly gay. Do I also happen to fall for Aries a lot? Yeah. Am I in love with Gideon Nav? Also yes.

Harrow is a Scorpio. I’m a Scorpio and so is one of my other best friends. I identify a lot with Harrow (we have the same genre of religious trauma/Catholic guilt, as well as a shit ton of grief and loss in our lives), but honestly, I just go with vibes. Incidentally, I’m related to one of people who helped discover Pluto (the planet that rules Scorpio) which is also the Ninth house. Like, legit these bone lesbians are from Pluto. I’ve seen several posts joking about that why Harrow’s so short. Because she’s from a dwarf planet.

Palamedes is a Virgo. This is based solely on one guy I knew in high school. Dude was a walking encyclopedia and had a pair of Pikachu sunglasses. I feel like Pal would wear Pikachu sunglasses.

Camilla my love. I thought Leo. Again based on one person I knew in high school. But Tumblr at large thinks she’s a Virgo and after some thought, I agree.

The Tridentarii are either Leos or Geminis. I said this in the tags, but Leos for personality, Gemini for the meme. My friend from high school is a Leo and she is one of the most driven and determined people I have ever met (so Ianthe it hurts). But she’s also one of the biggest romantics I’ve ever met. Like romantic as in the art/literature movement. She wrote me a fucking poem hyping me up because she saw that I was going through a tough time (self image issues). She compared me to the goddess Athena and I have never been more honored. Ray of fucking sunshine is the most wonderful sense (CORONA AF).

Babs. He was a fucking asshole, but he deserved better than what he got. Taurus. Yet again, based solely on a dude I knew in high school. Voice of an angel that boy. Bust out into a rendition of “A Whole New World” on an escalator one time and no one complained because it sounded so good. But a low key asshole. Not entirely unexpected as he was a tenor. Yes I am throwing shade at tenors. Most tenors (and many sopranos) in my experience are bitchy as fuck. Naberius Tern has tenor energy. Polls ended with Leo taking the win, with Aquarius a close second.

Other:

Dulcinea. The real Dulcinea. My other love. She’s horny for revenge and I love it. Chronic illness Queen. Like, can we please talk about the representation in this series? We have all manner of queer representation, mental illness rep, and chronic illness/disability rep! I know that *spoilers* it’s actually Cytherea in GtN, but then the real Dulcie shows up to be a bad bitch in HtN and I am in love with yet another TLT character. She’s a Libra and I love her.

OUR LADY OF FUCKING PASSION. Pash. TLT’s John the Baptist (take a look at Alecto Theory 11 for more on that). Capricorn. I don’t think I know any Capricorns irl, but from what I know of them, she’s a classic Capricorn.

So yeah, those are my thoughts.

#I’m sorry to the person who asked this because it sat forgotten in my drafts for months #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #tlt series #tlt brainrot #zodiac #zodiac signs

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remcycl333 · 2 years ago

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Hi, I really enjoyed reading your indepth post today on how to fulfill ourselves. I really admire you and the “states girlies” a lot because you guys really know your stuff!

I have a bit of a scenario that i’ve been “stuck” in and in my own head about, if you have time i would really appreciate some advice.

So i’ve been “manifesting” my sp for a little over 2 years now using law of assumption, but in reality i’ve only TRULY been manifesting him using states for the last 8 months. I have a really good understanding of states thanks to you and twitter pages, edward art and neville. I promise I don’t focus on time (until recently when i was making plans for my future which i always assumed my sp would be here for) and I never intended that manifesting takes a long time. I’ve experienced many quick manifestations and I know sp is no different but im not sure where im going wrong. I always catch myself when im out of the state and redirect myself back and have been doing this daily for the last 8 months. I do feel fulfilled in my mind with him since I no longer have a “longing” for him nor do I expect him to take any action in the 3D because thats not my true world. I dont even feel bad/sad when “opposite” things seem to happen (such as him unfollowing me out of the blue) and I give stuff like that NO meaning because it GENUINELY doesn’t affect me since I know in imagination im happily married. I know you’ll tell me that im not truly fulfilled if the 3D is making me feel some type of way, but Im not sure how else to explain that I don’t know why not even the tiny bit of movement has happened (I dont want movement, I want my whole desire, just trying to say how in my physical senses there has been nothing experienced).

I keep up with your posts weekly and I know you’ll tell me that if im noticing the absence im not in the state, that im dominantly still in lack, etc but I truly felt like I was fulfilled. I never check the 3D, I never even have “opposing” thoughts (since thoughts are an indicator of my state) so I thought for months that everything is fine. Even now I am prioritizing my state because I know that by writing this, I am being in an unfulfilled state, but im not sure what else to do. After a while it gets a little weird noticing it hasn’t reflected even though im fulfilled within. Am I doing anything wrong? I dont have a strong desire for my sp anymore because I worked a lot on myself and no longer need him, but I do wish to be with him still.

Thank you rem.

hi love! so im not in your brain, so i don't know every little thing you think/do throughout the day, so im gonna give u some examples of things i was accidentally doing whenever i was manifesting an sp that was keeping my 3d from reflecting, even tho i was sure i was 100% fulfilled. maybe you'll realize you're doing something similar and be able to stop it?

i'd prepare myself for what i'd say to my sp when he finally reached out, or i'd daydream about yelling at him when he did bc i knew before we got back together we'd have to talk about our past issues. this was contradicting the fact that i was manifesting already being in a relationship with my sp. why would i be identifying with those thoughts when i was already with my sp?

i like to daydream in order to fulfill myself, but sometimes i'd stop paying attention and accidentally slip into a state of longing without even realizing it. like i'd be daydreaming about something bc i desperately wanted to experience it in my reality, not because i was experiencing it in my 4D, if that makes sense. what i like to do to combat that is while im daydreaming i just like to tell myself that im re-living a memory and that im so happy this thing already happened/is happening. it helps me think from my desire instead of thinking of it!

my friends have shared that one of their mistakes while manifesting an sp was still wanting their sp to be missing them/obsessed with them/constantly thinking about how badly they wanted to be with them, daydreaming about scenarios of them being jealous, etc. this was making them identify with separation, when they really wanted to identify as their sp's partner.

similarly, an issue i had was focusing way too much on how my sp was feeling about me, instead of focusing on how i was feeling about them. when i'd daydream or imagine, i'd imagine them loving ME or confessing their feelings to ME, but then i realized that how i feel matters more than how they feel, because this is my reality! so instead i'd focus on how much i loved them and how amazing i felt being loved by them. that's why, as i mentioned in my most recent post, i changed from affirming "my sp loves me" to "i love my sp."

while manifesting my sp, i knew the first step of us getting back together would be him texting me, so every time i picked up my phone and i saw he hadn't texted me yet id feel sooo discouraged. what helped me with this was telling myself things like "ofc my sp didn't text me, he's literally in the same room as me why would he text me lol?" this would help me feel like we were already together!

i was still PISSED at my sp. idk what your story is with your sp, but mine was an ex, and i was mad at him for breaking up with me still. i had to forgive him because i was constantly holding onto that anger and fantasizing about yelling at him over it. this one might not apply to u depending on your relationship with your sp idk!

similarly, i'd find myself getting mad at my sp for not "conforming" to my affs? even tho he didn't even know i wanted him back? so once again i focused on feeling positively towards my sp and imagining how much i loved him. once i started focusing on the version of my sp that was such a good and loving and attentive boyfriend, he started showing up that way in my reality. remember, there is NO ONE TO CHANGE BUT SELF! focus on changing how YOU feel about your sp instead of how he feels about you!

i know you say that you never feel negatively about your sp or your situation, but as i've mentioned in other posts, sometimes the feeling of knowing feels like nothing. so while you're noticing nothing is happening in your 3D, you can still be accepting the fact that nothing is happening without it giving you any negative emotions.

my advice would be to implement the distraction technique. this is what helped me finally manifest my sp. i had a favorite person attachment to my sp (bc of my bpd) so i was thinking of him ALL day long, and sometimes i wouldn't be paying enough attention to know if i was thinking of him from the state of the wish fulfilled, or from the state of lack. so instead, every time i thought of him at all (negatively or positively) i'd say "it is done" (which instantly shifted me into the state of the wish fulfilled) and then force myself to think of something else. so many of my followers have had success with this technique! this technique isn't necessary at all (you're 100% allowed to think of your sp) but i found it rlly helpful for my adhd brain. it can also be really helpful for you if you can't pinpoint what you're doing wrong!

i really hope this post was helpful to you!! <3 let me know if anything helped!

#asks

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waitmyturtles · 1 year ago

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Bad Buddy Rewatch Edition, Part 3a -- BBS and Asian Cultural Touchpoints

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I offer the first half of the third (ha!) of five posts on Bad Buddy. I'll look today at themes that myself and fellow Asian fans of Bad Buddy have caught and related to in this wonderful show.]

Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4

As a lifelong viewer of Asian dramas, and as an Asian-American myself, I know why I'm drawn to Asian dramas. We all have our reasons for belonging to this widespread fandom, whether you're watching queer or het Asian dramas, consuming Asian music, all of it.

What are my reasons? The first and foremost one is relatability. Especially in Asian dramas, I relate to the spoken and unspoken communication of the dramatic characters as they navigate life's highs and lows. I relate to the way Asian dramatic characters engage with their families, their partners, their children, their colleagues, the world and societies around them. I relate to the ways in which societies are drawn and constructed, to the economic and emotional pressures that characters face. As an American -- I don't fully relate to the majority of experiences that white American characters face dramatically, because I'm not a part of the majority. As an Asian? I get almost all of what Asians are going through in dramatic art (save for, say, Korean or Japanese historicals, ha — but I do indeed get Asian patriarchy and sexism).

I'm not queer -- I am a cishet Asian woman -- but what I appreciate about queer Asian media is, very often, the media's tendency to not be shy about the various and intricate ways that discrimination, sexism, trauma (intergenerational, emotional, etc.), and many more social and emotional phenomena interplay in an individual's life.

When I first watched Bad Buddy, I had the strong sense that what I was watching was incredibly relatable to much of my upbringing and life as a young adult, working out issues vis à vis my family and my eventual partner. Bad Buddy, thematically, captured a tremendous amount of the realities of everyday Asian life for young people.

Bad Buddy exists in the GMMTV bubble of No Homophobia (cc @bengiyo and @lurkingshan, as we have spoken about the GMMTV bubble). However, what Bad Buddy didn't shy away from were explorations of many other social/emotional/cultural themes and frameworks of everyday life, from sexism, to youth bias, to boundaries and enmeshment, and many, many more.

I wrote in my first-ever Bad Buddy thesis that the framework of intergenerational trauma was the main theme I identified -- and identified with -- in the show. But, as I was contemplating writing this series of Bad Buddy meta posts, I wanted to know: what did my fellow Asians pick up in this show that they saw, and that they related to? In other words: what makes Bad Buddy particularly special to Asian fans of the show?

So, I did a thing. I gathered together a few BBS Asian stans, like myself, for a lengthy (and still ongoing!) discussion about what we related to in Bad Buddy. I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, @telomeke, @grapejuicegay, @recentadultburnout, @neuroticbookworm, and @lurkingshan (who's not Asian, but has Asian relatives, and gets us!) for being up for creating a spontaneous mini-village together to talk Bad Buddy and its inherent Asianness.

It sounds redundant to identify Bad Buddy, a show made by Thais and set in Thailand, as an "Asian" or "Thai" show. It's definitely not a show that steps back to take a look at itself and say, "oh hey, this is really 'Thai,' what we're doing here." When I asked @recentadultburnout directly about what they might have identified as uniquely Thai about Bad Buddy, RAB thought about it and said -- maybe Pat's ranak ek (Thai xylophone). Other shows of Aof Noppharnach's, including He's Coming To Me, Moonlight Chicken, and even the start of Last Twilight, highlight many facets of Thai life, from the spiritual to the everyday-cultural (even Gay OK Bangkok does this a bit, too). But Bad Buddy doesn't really go there by way of overt symbolism and/or specifically Thai spiritual/cultural practice.

The Asianness of Bad Buddy is far more inherent. It is rooted and coded in the way people interact with each other.

An overt example occurs in episode 10, when Dissaya confronts Ming in the Jindapat home, and announces that she will reveal Ming's secret, dropping the effort she has made her entire life to "save face" -- her reputation AND Ming's reputation.

During my first Bad Buddy rewatch, I was so moved in fury by this scene that I had to blog about it as if I had never seen it before. There's so much encapsulated in this moment: the pressure that Dissaya has put on herself to keep the embarrassing secret that she lost a scholarship; the effort she made to keep Ming's theft of the scholarship a secret, to save his face, and the secrets she kept from Pran to save her face, and to keep up the façade of rivalry between the Jindapats and the Siridechawats. She was letting a whole hell of a lot loose in this moment, because the eternal pressure of saving face in Asian societies is, frankly, never-ending.

"Saving face" is an incredibly important notion in many Asian collectivist cultures. Saving face is about an individual or a family projecting an image of calm, cool collectedness and success, in order to not make waves within a collectivist society for any reason. If you are not working to seem like you are going with the flow of life, if you're not keeping up with the Joneses, the Kardashians, whoever -- you are not saving face. If you are in poverty, and are projecting an image of poverty, instead of pretending to be more wealthy than you are -- you are not saving your face or your family's face. If you allow yourself to get publicly defeated -- you are not saving face. Dissaya gave up a lot of her hard-earned reputation in the moment she confessed the truth in front of Pat and Pat's mother.

My Asian friends and I can click wordlessly into understanding the pressure of saving face; say that I didn't get good grades in school? I wouldn't be saving my parents' face. This kind of pressure to keep up with particular social dynamics within and external to family, within Asian societies, is a neverending drumbeat of pressure.

Besides saving face, there are many other Asian cultural touchpoints that were contained within Bad Buddy that my fellow Asian BBS stans and I noted. They include:

1) intergenerational/inherited trauma, 2) the unique nature of secret-keeping in Asian cultures/societies, 3) enmeshed family boundaries, 4) setting up children to compete against each other for the sake of familial pride, 5) patriarchy, sexism, and the reversal of sexism among next generations, 6) the inset/assumed roles of family members based on patriarchy and elder respect, 7) Assumed community within and external to one's family, usually based on where you live and where you go to school, 8) How one's identity is defined based on patriarchy and individualist vs. collectivist cultures, 9) How various cultures within an Asian nation live peacefully (or not) together (for example, what makes Pat and Pran different by way of Pat's Thai-Chinese heritage vs. Pran's ethnic Thai heritage),

and many, many more.

It'll be impossible, even over two posts, to analyze all of these cultural touchpoints, but a few of them engendered quite a bit of conversation among the BBS mini-village that I want to highlight. In this post, I'll focus on the continuation of my first BBS thesis on intergenerational/inherited trauma, the nature of secret-keeping in Asian societies, and will return briefly to the touchpoint of saving face.

One of the most devastating scenes for me in Bad Buddy is in my favorite episode, episode 10, when Pat (after he's learned, throughout the episode, of the extent of the lies that his and Pran's family have shared with their children) confronts his father about his father's demands to literally control Pat's emotions, the way in which Pat related to other people -- specifically Pran. Pat sums up a lifetime's worth of control in one sentence.

@telomeke noted in our ongoing group conversation that this notion of inherited trauma vis à vis Ming is particularly present in Asian societies, not just by way of familial expectation that we, as Asians, embody it and "take it" throughout our generations, as Pat realized up above -- but that ALL family members present are responsible for playing their roles within the framework of the inherited trauma. @telomeke noted in particular that exactly what Pat was doing to hate Pran, FOR his father? That was what Ming HAD to do for MING'S dad, when Ming schemed to get the scholarship from Dissaya. AND, Pat's mother, in consoling Pat, had to play the role of explainer -- which, as we know now, Pat ran away from to meet his beloved Pran on the rooftop before running away to the eco-village.

Pat running away from that moment? That was a huge symbol of the breaking of the inherited trauma that was given unto him by his parents both.

(@telomeke has actually written about their theory about how the Jindapats and Siridechawats ended up living next door to each other -- which seems SO STRANGE on the surface, consider Ming's and Dissaya's boiling hatred for each other -- and the theory links nicely within the framework of inherited trauma. Tel theorizes that Ming's father or grandfather may have actually gifted the house to Dissaya's family as a means of apologizing for Ming's deceit. In which case: the presence of the Siridechawats is a reminder, on an everyday basis, of Ming's folly to steal from Dissaya, which may explain why Ming in particular went so hard on Pat to triumph daily over Pran.)

We as a group unwound quite a bit on the nature of secret-keeping in Asian cultures. We know Bad Buddy relies on this cultural touchpoint at the end of the series: Pran and Pat have a full-fledged and committed relationship as a transparent secret, under the noses of Pat's and Pran's parents.

Secret-keeping....oh, man. I could not have lived a fully authentic life in America if I didn't keep a million secrets from my family while I was living out my own independent choices. I actually, literally, could not have gotten married, because the rule of my household was that I wouldn't date. I would just... get engaged. So I'd get engaged through, what, magic? Match-making? No: I'd have to find my partner through my own battle of social and familial conventions, literally against my family, to get to where I wanted to be in life, which was (gasp) married.

@neuroticbookworm illuminated more on this particularly from our shared Indian lens. She wrote,

Keeping your relationship secret from parents is sooooo ridiculously common in India (and I'm sure we can extrapolate to other Asian countries like Thailand). And the justification the children give themselves is always rooted in how they have a "duty" towards their parents, and that they will reveal their relationship after they have fulfilled their duties.

God, I LOVED that NBW brought up "duty" in this conversation. Because! Assumed within the coded language from Asian parents to children, and vice versa, is a sense that children MUST follow the dictates of their parents. 100%, full-stop.

The duties that NBW clarified in this particular conversation specified life demarcations such as "[w]hen I graduate, I'll tell my parents about my partner," and "[w]hen I graduate and get a job and can financially support myself in life, I'll tell my parents about my partner."

What's coded in these statements is a fear that the children will have to reveal to their parents that they were disobedient in the rules their parents set, that no dating shall occur until the time at which the parents rule it's okay. And at least within Indian frameworks, that period of it being "okay" is, more often than not, the period in which arranged matches are examined. Because, yes, that's still the rule in the high majority of Indian culture.

The revelation of that disobedience? That's bad-news bears. It indicates... everything: a lack of loyalty to the family; a lack of understanding the meaning of a child's role to listen to the parents as the parents are elders and therefore are the moral authority of the household; a lack of self-control (which is a huge deal -- that relates to saving face on behalf of the family); a lack of understanding the morals and ethics of saving oneself, in love and sex, before marriage, etc. Even if a family seems fully progressive on the outside, as an Asian, I'm conditioned to question that progressiveness -- as parents may hold different standards of acceptance for their children vs. other young people.

@telomeke expanded on disobedience for us -- connecting it back to the very important notion of "saving face."

I think there's something quite related to secret-keeping, but it's also to do with the ability of Asians, but also human beings in general, of being able to live with duality in life... and secret-keeping is part of it. This also ties in to the East and Southeast Asian preoccupation with the concept of "saving face" [as noted above]. A lot of families are able to live with the knowledge of dirty secrets, unsavory truths, as long as it's not brought into the light and confronted. I'm constantly reminded of this whenever I rewatch BBS Ep. 12 because it's clear both Ming and Dissaya KNOW their sons are in a relationship but it's not overtly admitted. In that way they (and more Ming I suppose) get to "save face" and not have to deal with the truth that their sons are being disobedient, consorting with the enemy, and because it's not in the open -- there is no dishonor brought to the family and to the elders.

God, I love the way Tel put this. That disobedience on the part of Pran and Pat would actually bring dishonor to their families -- because their families have put SO MUCH EFFORT into building their public AND private enmity their entire lives! It affected Chai's relationship with the families as an employee of both families. EVERYONE AT PAT'S AND PRAN'S SCHOOLS knew the guys were the "legendary rivals." And, of course, by being in rival faculties at the same university, the boys could continue this public enmity as well -- keeping up with the roles that were literally assigned to them by their parents.

If the boys disobeyed, they would bring dishonor to their families. Think about that -- and connect that with the heaviness that Pran walked away with after the rooftop kiss in episode 5, AND the weight of Pran's breakdown at the end of episode 10, when Pat assured him that they would run away together.

No matter what a Western viewer (and maybe even Asian viewers, wanting to see a dismantling of these paradigms) would want Pat and Pran to have by way of full openness of their relationships with everyone in their lives (because, in individualistic cultures, that self-driven openness is a given), Pran and Pat themselves knew that that couldn't be their reality vis à vis the social worlds they belonged to. So they kept their relationship a secret, in the end.

The secret that Pran and Pat keep about their relationship is strategic. It's certainly also a stress point: an older Pat asks an older Pran, at the end of episode 12, if he'll ever be able to walk through the front door of the Siridechawat house.

But this is the compromise -- within the larger-scale culture of secret-keeping in Asian societies, AND the private frameworks of the enmity that Dissaya and Ming established between themselves and their families years and years prior -- that will work best for Pat and Pran to preserve the sanctity of their relationship, which I talked about in part 2 of this meta series.

Pran and Pat do not have to publicly appear disobedient to the demands and pressures of their families. They do not have to make their families engage with each other. They do not have to make their families confront the mistakes that their parents made earlier in their lives. They can protect their families from their private and public follies. They can help their families keep and save face. And by doing all that? They can prevent their relationship from being threatened.

I feel this very deeply in my heart as an Asian-American. For the sake of my American spouse, I wanted to protect him from a lot of these pressures, and so I insisted on keeping a lot of our relationship secret from my folks. If I demanded full-blown, public acceptance from my parents? If I brought my "boyfriend" to parties, and introduced him as such with aunties and uncles -- especially if it wasn't indicated that we'd be permanent one day? Damn. No. I'd be embarrassing my folks, with the aunties and uncles saying to my folks, "dang, you can't control your daughter, huh? You let her do what she wants." That would mean my parents would lose face over their ability to control the lives of their children, and that's no bueno in our cultural terms. It would be on ME, as THEIR child, to uphold THEIR ability to save face, as much as its their own work.

Dissaya refers DIRECTLY to Pran doing this FOR HER when, in episode 10, she asks him, "did you forget to save my reputation?" It's brutal, daily work. And Pran goes BACK to keeping secrets in the end, because it would have been impossible, ultimately, for Dissaya to save face, AND for Pran to save Dissaya's reputation/face, if Pran were out with his relationship with Pat, thus proving his disobedience. It would be -- JUST -- better to keep the secret for all those involved.

As this post has gotten long, I'm going to continue talking more about these touchpoints in a second post. I'm driven to talk about this because I think much of the Western fandom might miss what us Asians are reading into shows like Bad Buddy through this coded language and engagement. I very much posit that Bad Buddy -- while it is first and foremost a queer show, made by queer Asians, about queer young men -- is so relatable to so many of us because we've faced similar struggles of survival, and we've faced threats to the sanctity of the love we have for other people by way of needed to fit into the roles set before us by previous generations.

So! With that, thank you for reading, and see you tomorrow, when I focus on competition, enmeshed family boundaries, patriarchy and sexism in Bad Buddy, and more if I can fit it in!

(Tagging @dribs-and-drabbles, @solitaryandwandering, and @wen-kexing-apologist by request! If you'd like to be tagged, please let me know!)

[Alright! Stay tuned for more, many more ruminations from the BBS Asian station tomorrow!

Here's the status of the Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist. Tumblr's web editor loves to jack with this list, so mosey on over to this link for the very latest version!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (The BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series is ongoing: preamble here, part 1 here, part 2 here, more reviews to come) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (on pause for La Pluie) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 39) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 40) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 41) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 42) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) 43) Wedding Plan (2023) 44) Only Friends (2023) (tag here)]

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5and3nevermind · 5 months ago

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Hello! A few days ago I was thinking about yoonmin (as I often do hehehe) and I started thinking about jimin and his gender. Now, I'm not sure if he identifies as anything other than male, but it's safe to say that he has struggled with masculinity and toxic expectations when he was younger. There have been some instances in the last few years were there have been some non-bn references, the first ones that come to mind are the fotoshoot with the bigender symbol and taemin's words on suchwita (“jimin also has that gender-neutral charm and also delicate”).

What I wanted to ask you is how do you think gender has impacted yoonmin?

I don't know if you've ever received an anon about this topic but I was curious about your opinion 😅

Personally, I think Jimin struggled a lot in his early years since he felt the pressure to fullfil this assigned strong masculine roll within the group (when they made him lift his shirt and do things like that). From what he's said in interviews, he later learned to accept himself and I can only think about how reassuring it must have been to have someone as accepting and supportive as yoongi by his side. I feel like yoongi is the kind of person who would encourage him to freely explore his gender (his bestie Halsey uses she/they pronouns by the way) and especially through his art (when face came out some ppl interpreted as Jimin talking about his gender and I found it very interesting).

Anyways, I feel like I'm just rambling haha. To sum up we don't know if he's 100% non-bn, he may still identify as a cis man, but still it's safe to say that he has been exploring his gender in the past.

(We'll probably never get a confirmation if he's actually non-bn, unless things in Korea change A LOT.)

Hi anon! Your question about gender in terms of yoonmin is a good one and something I have wondered about too!

First of all, I agree with you regarding Jimin and his relationship with gender. We’ve gotten many clues (and what I would consider more than clues) about this.

In regards to yoonmin as a pair, one thing I’ve noticed are the types of words Yoongi uses to describe Jimin. Yes, he’s called him handsome. But he’s also used gender-neutral or even traditionally feminine adjectives to describe him: “sexy,” “pretty,” “small and cute.” I think he does this because he knows these are the type of words that Jimin enjoys. Typically, when someone gives a compliment, their words are tailored to fit the person they are complimenting.

Another example: when Yoongi quoted the k-drama line to Jimin backstage in Newark, he quoted the male character’s line thus placing Jimin in the female role in that scenario.

(Likewise, Yoongi seems to be perfectly fine with Jimin referring to him as “cute” and “baby,” which to me shows a level of open mindedness that, unfortunately, many men lack.)

They’re both smart people and they’ve been in the entertainment industry long enough to know how fans analyze things. So, even if the female lead in the Like Crazy choreo isn’t Jimin’s reflection (although I believe she is), he at least would have known that some people would interpret that way…and he was fine with that. Similarly, by now Yoongi knows what many fans think of his Cypher 3 verse. Yet years later, he included that verse, unchanged, in his D-Day set list.

I’m rambling now, but my point is they have both demonstrated an accepting/progressive attitude toward these issues and have not attempted to “set the record straight” when it comes to gender (or sexual orientation, for that matter).

Obviously, Yoongi and Jimin are individuals and each of them has their own unique feelings about gender. We can see differences in terms of how they present themselves. But I do see commonalities in terms of their way of thinking, their acceptance of themselves and their acceptance of others. I hope that makes sense!

Here’s Jimin playing with the idea of gender roles and putting himself in the feminine role: shocked that he’s been caught shirtless, while he places the viewer, who is likely to be female given Army’s demographics, in the role of the voyeur (typically thought of as the masculine role). He seems to love doing this, turning the tables and offering unexpected and non-traditional portrayals of gender roles.

Here’s a video of Jimin talking about how he’s changed and grown over the years.

Here’s a video of Jimin showing (again) that he’s comfortable playing with the idea of traditional gender roles.

Here’s Yoongi saying in an interview that everyone is equal.

Here’s a photo of Yoongi wearing his pride Vans.

Here’s a really cute video of Yoongi with a male fan. (He is treating the male fan the same way he’d treat a female fan, giving the high-five and the cute pout. Like he said in the interview, “everyone is equal,” and he treats fans accordingly. I love this video!)

In Yoongi’s case, I understand that these are not examples related to gender specifically. I see these as clues to his world view and his inclusivity, and of course I’m sure he extends that way of thinking to Jimin.

I hope this made sense! Thanks for this ask, anon!

#yoonmin #ask #emotional support

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alexistalkscomics · 22 days ago

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Exceptional X-Men is the Kitty Pryde book that we need and deserve.

After more than 40 years since she first appeared in the classic Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont and John Byrne and decades of her queerness being relegated to subtext that was occasionally problematic or just outright erased by both Marvel’s editorial and writers who never outgrew their boyhood crushes on her (looking at you Whedon),…

…Kitty Pryde is now finally able to be explicitly bi and date a woman.

As a longtime fan of Kitty, I was cautiously excited when Eve Ewing and Carmen Carnero’s Exceptional X-Men was announced this year. The reasoning behind my cautious excitement was because whilst I was glad to see that Kitty would be having a prominent role in From The Ashes after being sidelined for much of Fall of X, I was also concerned that Kitty would once again have her bisexuality erased and some concept art that was shown with the announcement of the series lacked her Magen David which made me worried that her Jewishness would also be downplayed or erased.

Whilst it’s been a recurring piece of subtext and a source of speculation by fans for much of her history, Kitty’s bisexuality was only officially acknowledged and canonised for the first time in 2020’s Marauders #12, written and drawn by Gerry Duggan and Matteo Lolli, when Kitty was shown kissing a female tattoo artist in the aftermath of her resurrection.

Despite much rejoicing from fans that an important aspect of her character that had long been erased seemed to be finally be getting acknowledged, that rejoicing quickly turned to disillusionment and a feeling of betrayal when it became clear that at least for the duration of the Krakoan Era, Kitty’s queerness was never going to amount to anything more than a single kiss with a nameless woman and one line that specified that she seemingly has different tastes in men and women.

So after all of that, I’m sure that you can understand why I wasn’t initially too hopeful in regards to how Exceptional was going to be approaching the next stage in Kitty’s development.

But upon reading the first issue of Exceptional X-Men, I was pleasantly surprised when Kitty could be seen wearing her Magen David and referred to the date that she was intending to meet with she/her pronouns. Perhaps, this was finally going to be the Kitty Pryde book that I’ve been longing to read for years.

Thankfully, my hopes of finally having a Kitty Pryde book where she can finally unapologetically be the bisexual Jewish woman that Claremont intended her to be have been realised:

In issue 2 of Exceptional X-Men, Kitty is shown finally getting to meet her date who we learn is a woman called Nina.

Even though I personally identify as a trans-het woman, Kitty Pryde has long been a role model for me as a representation of a strong and proud queer Jewish woman so finally getting to see my favourite X-Men character be explicitly queer feels so overdue after decades of being treated as the embodiment of a disturbing adolescent cartoon crush by cishet male writers (read Warren Ellis’ Excalibur to see what I’m talking about).

And even though Exceptional has yet to touch on Kitty’s Jewishness in any meaningful way, I have faith that Ewing will treat that part of Kitty with the respect and importance it deserves but rarely receives from other writers.

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eek-a-tron · 3 months ago

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Loki (2004) & Blood Brothers Thoughts

Or: Why Does This Loki Look Like An Old Man?

I know Old Man Loki is meant to look:

Different than usual, because of the (overdue) revisionism going on in this mini-series

Visually-opposite to Thor & other Asgardians via an art-style/surface-othering extreme

Like someone for whom the reader is supposed to have the same off-putting, visceral, Asgardian-esque reaction (at first)

But I’d rather think narratively, Brent! ;\

So, how come Loki doesn’t shift out of his old man shape? (Note: “he” pronouns incoming throughout, since that’s how Loki identifies in this comic.) Does Loki not shapeshift because he’s simply over it, or is this how he thinks he actually looks? I feel like one could interpret it either way, as in: “This is me, bitches, and I also have less teeth thanks to y’all so deal with it/look upon it” (very Skyfall-esque), versus the alternative: “This story’s finally being told from my POV, so how I look outside is a metaphor for how I’m personally feeling inside” (aged and tired, emotionally broken, and giving no fucks except in secret) ...

Deeper pondering beneath the cut!

It’s just … after Loki has this “interaction” with Daia, he looks notably different for awhile. This Loki has finally been to the salon. This Loki has had a protein shake and applied some moisturizer.

So, were either the sexytimes just that good, or … well, does he shapeshift for the sexytimes, but not for anything else? Not even when appearing vengefully before the entirety of Asgard? He only reserves a more stereotypical aesthetic for the intimate sexings? Really?! It's not exactly unheard of, but ... maybe we should unpack that! Orrrrrr perhaps: is this actually how Loki looks, since he just woke up that way, and the entirety of the rest is a self-loathing, this-is-how-I’ve-been-taught-to-see-myself, roiling-emotions-unkempt theater? (Note how, above, the grizzlings return when he plops ye old helmet back on and starts thinking about his lot in life again. Which is it?)

TL;DR: Excuse me sir, is your old man look intentional or a styling issue?! ANSWER THE QUESTION SIR etc

Other thoughts that fit nowhere else:

Loki's drinking so much in here; no wonder his nose is red! Does alcohol age gods after awhile? How's Dionysus holding up?

Perhaps Asgardians feel that a leader should look old and grizzly and Odin-esque ... if Old Man Loki is shapeshifted, maybe he's meant to imitate/mock Odin and a paternalistic all-father idea itself by doing so (valid)

Loki's birth mother has a similar face-shape, and yet she doesn’t look nearly as aged and grizzly — so even if frost giants age faster in this worldbuild, something else seems up (esp since Loki mumbles to himself about how he thinks Farbauti looks awful, yikes, and also how suddenly-aware he is that he's been raised to feel thusly, double yikes)

P.S. This mini-series gave me flashbacks to the once-prevalent Star Wars sequels fic trope: “Kylo becomes Supreme Leader but it sucks because he doesn't actually like or want it;” I’m certainly not complaining, yet now I feel old and grizzly in recalling it :p

Tagging @yells-of-the-not-so-danged here so I don't ponder-hijack your post! What are your three theories?

#thor & loki blood brothers #loki #give this ultimately-tragic character-in-crisis figure the sexy magneto-style makeover he deserves pff pff j/k ... maybe #not all of my thoughts go to styling obviously buuuuuuuuut the lighter ones sometimes do #asgardian stylists are out here rubbing their temples cuz they know they can fix a lot of king loki PR #new ''I can fix them'' fic trope just dropped: ''I can restyle them''#q: did I write all this to argue for yassifying this metaphorically-grizzled character? a: not entirely but hear me out … why not #who deserves it more but a loki with depth #yes yes not all characters need to be hot & it’s often refreshing when they’re not etc etc #but if they’re gonna do that with THIS character mid-revisionism then I’m gonna want to ponder it #comics loki has a lot going on mkay

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 11 months ago

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Breaking down the comics: BEMIS. Part 1

READING THINGS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO!

Alright, I covered "Age of Khonshu" and honestly was so incensed that I had to make a post talking about it.

So let's get this other bread (and burn it).

A lot of new Moon Knight fans have heard the cry when asked what to read and where to get started. And true fans everywhere agree: DON'T READ BEMIS.

And there are long posts and screams and sobbing about why not to read it that come out to "It's so bad!"

But there are the curious out there. They want to know why it's bad. They want to know what happened. And...well...

It spans a few issues. I…I was foolish and thought “I can do this in one go! How long can this take? I don’t want to spend that much time on BEMIS.” ….I forgot that doing one of these usually takes me the better part of a day to cover ONE issue.

I’m going to break this up into Four (fuck you Tumblr) parts and cover both volumes instead of a post per issue. I don’t want Bemis to take up that much space so prepare for a few VERY LONG posts.

Let's ruin my month! (AKA: Watch me slowly descend into blind rage).

Marvel Legacy: Moon Knight. 2017. Issues 188-200.

Part 1: Crazy Runs in the Family. (Issues 188-193) Published: November 08, 2017

Written by: Max Bemis

Art by: Jacen Burrows

Editor: Jeff Youngquist

Let's start with:

WHO IS MAX BEMIS?

Oh my god he's in a band. He's the lead singer for the rock band "Say Anything".

My level of disappointment just doubled.

According to his bio: He was raised in a 'strong Jewish environment'. His grandparents survived the Holocaust. All this has inspired his music.

(I can't even begin to tell you how much actually looking up who he is has made me ten times angrier).

In 2013 he started to write comics. More importantly, he wrote for characters that suffered different mental health issues. ('Polarity' at Boom! Studios about a hero with bipolar disorder).

He then ended up at Marvel.

For his personal life: He has bipolar disorder and self medicates with drugs (Marijuana).

He also self identifies as "A Jew who is also a Christian", which he considers a "New age, metaphysical view" on religion.

Good. Great. Fantastic. Now I know who this man is and I hate him even more.

What's even funnier? Apparently his music fans ALSO hate him because he's "a sanctimonious hypocrite".

Seriously, there's a whole Reddit page on why he's a terrible person. I'm not going to site any sources because I can't fact check a lot of those claims and maybe they are false or maybe they are true. I'm not here to slander a life. I'm here to talk about Moon Knight.

I’ve procrastinated enough. Let’s go….

We open on "Ravencroft Asylum". Good start.

We see a Doctor Emmett talking to a patient in a locked cell that's stylized like a prison interrogation cell.

"You say remembering your youth is like looking through a layer of Jell-O. Were do things become lucid? When did you become yourself?"

(I already hate it).

"I learned who I was in the army, that much is clear." The patient responds.

"I get it. The army. The incident. Aside from the physical, what did you walk away with on the day you hurt them?" The doctor looks at the files.

And the patient is hesitant to speak on it, but he tells her that "In the army, I learned that there is a God."

He talks about how he saw God 'in his fire' and that non-believers, atheists, skeptics, and all that are wrong. How they can't understand how big God is.

(And now I remember when I first read this how uncomfortable this first issue made me.)

"They weren't very nice to me in the Army, but why would they be? I had to show them I was more devoted, more significant than they were."

I'm going to put a pause on this right here after just two pages. There are some Trigger Warnings that need to be discussed real quick.

I grew up in the deep south and I’ve legit heard talk like this in real life. It’s terrifying.

I knew a lot of 'born again' Christians who tried to 'save my soul'.

This comic is going to get VERY uncomfortable for anyone that has had to deal with religious trauma. Just putting it out there. Skip if you can't handle any sort of religious trauma like excessive God Talk, Cultish behavior, Come to Jesus moments, or severe Antisemitism.

On top of the religions issues, this comic is also going to have significant mental health mishandling. We’re talking about abuse from Doctor figures, use of improper terminology, abuse of the mentally ill, and severe discrimination.

OH and misogyny. Let’s not forget the misogyny.

This comic run also gets very…disgusting. I had many moments when reading this that legitimately turned my stomach. There is going to be depictions of self mutilation, gore, suicidal acts, and violence.

I AM GOING TO CENSOR THINGS. I will not blur images, but I will NOT be posting any of the comic pages that depict any of these violent, shock value, images. I’ll give a brief rundown of what’s going on and tell you that there is an image that I am going to skip. I’m telling you guys, these two runs were disgusting and curdled my stomach many times. Especially issue two.

So…Those are your only trigger warnings.

Let’s continue.

So now we see a narration by Dr. Emmett.

It is not going to paint a good light on Dr. Emmett.

She's in her office at night going over files.

"Sometimes, this job is guiltily fun... To be frank, patient 86 is @#%$ FASCINATING. He attributes his pyromania to a leap of faith. Conversely, I might argue that it was the fifth canteen full of force-fed urine that inspired him.

Sometimes I get him so fully that it's like I want to have a beer with the guy.

He wears self-delusion with so much dignity. I wish I had that level of resolve, that I could stop fixating on the...SPECTOR conundrum.

I'm just a failure of a doctor, left without a shell-shocked dissociative bipolar to shove away in a box.

In any other instance, I'd dial this one in. It's just that one nagging thing.

Lunatic joins the army. Said lunatic freaks out and ends up spiritually reborn in a near-death experience.

Sound like anyone you know?"

OH GOOD. GREAT. I just... Deep breath. Deep breath.

We’re going to play that angle. Woman psychiatrist/psychologist falls for her feminine desire to get with her patient. She can’t be expected to uphold her standards as a doctor or her doctor patient relationship. She has to dream for that exciting patient. She plays it off as wanting the award winning famous patient that makes her career into something amazing but because she’s a woman she has to play the dreamy sighing “Oh look how amazing he is!” role. And of course she’s after Marc. She can’t have Marc, so she finds this other patient that has a similar start of PTSD military based trauma and she’s going to fail to help him because she wants him to be like the other guy.

Not to mention she's using outdated terms like "Shell Shocked".

A term coined in WWI when for the first time, the world witnessed large groups of men coming back from war after encountering new aged weapons never dealt with or seen before.

Then she calls him Bipolar and links it to his Dissociative disorder.

I don't have a degree in psychology, but I do have a special interest. From what I've seen in the OG early comics by Moench, Marc Spector is not Bipolar. He does not exhibit episodes of mania followed by deep periods of depression. I'd go further into it, but trust me... He has a LOT of issues, but Bipolar was not one of them to start with.

In fact, after Schizophrenia, Bipolar was one of the most commonly misdiagnosed mental illnesses. A lot of people with DID were misdiagnosed with Bipolar disorder because of the way the symptoms presented in many cases. You didn't have another person in your brain, you were just exhibiting mania and now you're depressed.

ANOTHER THING to take issue with!

This comic is coming DIRECTLY on the heels of Lemire's run. In that run, it was the first time we dealt with Marc's official time in the army and his dissociative states.

We saw Marc wandering through the desert, dissociating and dealing with Khonshu issues.

The off handed tick about "Lunatic joins the army. Said lunatic freaks out and ends up spiritually reborn in a near-death experience."

1. The army did not lead to a Near-Death experience for Marc Spector. He joined the Mercenaries and was killed when his conscious got the better of him and his leader shot him for trying to save someone.

2. A doctor of psychology should NOT be using terms like 'Lunatic'.

3. Marc didn't 'FREAK OUT'. He had several dissociative episodes that ended up with him being discharged.

4. Marc was NOT 'spiritually reborn'. Depending on who is writing and how Khonshu himself is being depicted... An ancient god revived him as his avatar. This is not converting him in any sense of the word. Marc Spector may have issues with his Jewish beliefs and upbringing, but he is still very Jewish. He was NOT 'spiritually reborn'. He was brought back to life to act as Avatar and Marc took this to being Moon Knight, vengeance, paying for the pain he caused, and trying to be a better person. To be a different person. To be anyone except Marc Spector. Jake and Steven took this to just mean that they wanted to help people.

So... Yeah... Now we move on to the title page.

This is going well. We can already tell that Bemis either just didn’t read the Lemire run and got the cliff notes, or he just didn’t care and only took away bits without understanding the actual story it had to tell.

ON THE TITLE PAGE. Ohhhhh man you guys. ON THE TITLE PAGE.

Every title page has a little blurb explaining who the character is and what's been going on in previously connected issues. This way, people can pick it up and just go without having to dig through old comics. It's also a good reminder for people like me, who have shit memories and have forgotten what's going on after having to wait a whole month for the new issue.

I honestly have no idea who writes these blurbs. Sometimes you'll get the same blurb that lass for YEARS. (see Bendis run and how that carried over for runs and runs).

"Marc Spector. Steven Grant. Jake Lockley. Each a distinct personality of one man vying for control. Spector, the original personality, has asserted his dominance and fights to retain that control. But years ago, as a mercenary, Spector died in Egypt under a statue of the Moon God Khonshu. In the shadow of the ancient deity, Marc returned to life. From then on, Marc took on a new aspect in honor of Khonshu, dedicating his second life to fighting crime as....

MOON KNIGHT".

I want to fight someone. I don’t know who. But I want to fight someone. Whoever wrote this… This is what Marvel took away from the Lemire run. His beautiful run that for the first time, really dealt with Moon Knight’s mental health struggles. That said “They have dissociative Identity Disorder. They are a system. They have learned how to work together. They have found peace in who they are.” And whoever wrote this blurb went “Nawh, but Marc is the dominant and original personality and he’s in charge now!”

Editor in Chief: Axel Alonso

Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada.

Ah... These guys. These guys are to blame. We meet again Quesada...

Alright. We now see Dr. Emmett at some party (birthday party? They're all wearing party hats but they're clearly eating dinner and one guy is wearing a kippah and someone else is wearing a top hat and one guy is wearing no hat. I... I don't even know. This is all a disaster at this point.)

The group is laughing about things and Dr. Emmett is day dreaming about Marc Spector.

"Marc, my former patient. And this new one, patient 86. Traumatic experiences in the middle east. The similarity is brazen. Was there something in Marc's experience that patient 86 could..."

Her thoughts are interrupted as one of her colleagues takes a jab at her. "Still stuck on the hooded leotard guy?"

She snaps to defense and they tell her to let it go. That she can do better than 'that loser'.

Back at home, she's angry. Moon Knight is not a loser in a leotard.

And we see her shrine. Yeah... This is healthy.

Oh good. Back at work she's dealing with patient 86. She's attempting to explain how his brain works to him.

Get ready for some grade A psychology here people.

She explains that on one side of his brain is chemistry and the other is "Personality. Socially ingrained behavior. I want you to see the distinction."

He asks her that the fact that he's murdered people should label him as insane.

She disagrees. "I'm not sure the fact that you're a murderer proves anything about your nature."

Hmm.

She goes on to explain that "So many have been clinically impared by their unique brain chemistry. They needed help. We failed them. Imagine hearing audible voices that told you to eat a person. These people needed treatment."

And she points to cases like Sam, Gein, and Fish.

Yeah... Because Gein needed treatment. I'm just gonna... Just gonna.... ARGH.

"You developed bipolar disorder during your early adulthood. Moods fluctuating from mania to depression to utterly convincing delusion. Compounded by the traumatic childhood on the street, in state homes, and juvie that you barely recall. None of these things were your fault. Nor what happened in the desert."

Okay, they're just throwing out things at this point. They're just going to start listing off the sterotypical bad childhood leads to a bad kid and trauma things.

She then goes on to tell him that she understands what he did. That it was not his fault, that he was looking for something to control and fire was his answer. Not to mention God. "None of these symbols are inherently harmful. I've seen the power of symbolism redeem one of my patients who was literally split apart by trauma."

oh no. no no no no...That's not how... ARGH.

"Imagine what it could do for someone who was ready to receive help. Bipolar disorder, when tempered, can produce intense inspiration and creativity. I want to help you."

And she adds "Kurt Cobain" to the list.

I'm just going to... To sit here... quietly raging.

Alright, so now we see Dr. Emmett walking through the Egyptian exhibit at the museum.

"If Egyptian Mythology worked for Spector...It could work for my mysteriously nameness patient."

HOW IS HE NAMELESS?! HE WAS IN THE ARMY. They KNOW where he was stationed, they know what unit he was in, they know the trauma he faced and bullying, and they know the group of people he killed! OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO KNOW WHO HE IS.

"As I stand in front of the statue of Khonshu, Marc's main squeeze, I have a very important realization--Marc Spector may be legally insane... But he was never crazy at all.

Is every priest who hears the voice of their lord crazy? Every shaman? The damn writers of the constitution, invoking god on every page?

Marc manifested the meaning of this icon. His dissociative identity disorder simply brought it more vividly to life.

He needed an emblem of his inner bedlam and his innate need to protect victims. And the god of these qualities--Khonshu--came to him literally."

THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. He didn't get DID out in the desert. He's had it since he was a very young boy! He didn't go to Khonshu to try to make sense of it! His DID didn't 'bring it to light'. It didn't make him hear the voice of god!

So she decides to pick out a god for her patient.

Cause that's healthy.

She considers Osiris, Horus, ....Imhotep...

But of course she stops at Ra.

You know what's really getting to me right now? This so called Ivy league doctor that clearly has no idea what she's doing, has zero ability to draw the line at doctor patient relationship, her obsessive tendencies, and pushing her obsession onto another patient.

Furthermore, when you look at Patient 86, you do see a man that recognizes that he did something wrong. That he needs help and is in a place to try to understand how his own brain is working. We see him clinging to her words and trying to understand where she's going with her treatment.

She explains that Khonshu is Ra's son.

"I explain my understanding of the two gods' dynamic to 86. Some of it comes from established myth, some from Freudian interpretation."

FREUDIAN. THEY ARE GOING FREUDIAN. This is a no Freud zone.

"Amon Ra represented the burning, blazing emblem of masculine virility that is the sun. In many cultures, the sun stands for the sovereignty of masculinity --logic and raw power. But in the New Kingdom of Egyptian lore it was his Adopted son Khonshu who was described as "Greatest God of the Great Gods."

(Nope. There was a brief Khonshu cult where they briefly played at worshiping the Moon instead of the sun. This was later put down and Ra resurged as the leading deity again. And it certainly wasn't the 'New Kingdom' path to look at him as the greatest of the great).

"Khonsu of the moon, a universal symbol for the redemptive power of insubordination--femininity and sensitivity. The Ras of this world resent becoming passe. It makes them angry. And they burn harder to spite their own impotence. Established society can't accept change. Can't accept that the old ways don't work anymore."

Oh good. Misogynistic teachings. Just what he needs.

"Something happened to you when you were young, dropped you into a sea of lost children. I believe what you're hiding from yourself was most likely some form of abuse."

She asks him to try to remember and he does remember abuse from the people in the army but also as a child being abused.

Now we have the utmost breach of doctor patient confidentiality.

"Finally, I reveal the tale of Marc Spector to 86. How a confused mentally unstable boy drew on the figurative power of the Moon to justify his nature.

Marc's transformation into the hero called Moon Knight...A role model for the bewildered.

I pass along all my endless research and documentation of his life since he was under my care, as well as several well-regarded books considering Egyptian mythology."

AHHHHHHHHHH.

"And madly enough, patient 86 gets it. It clicks in him. He sees how Spector, like him, was not just insane, but was truly immersed in a living myth. It was never the moon's fault that it shone so brightly."

Now we see Dr. Emmett having a nightmare.

She sits in a large empty and white office when she's suddenly attacked by mummies.

Moon Knight shows up to save her and rips apart the mummies.

But wait, it's not Moon Knight!

JESUS. I don't know why that reminded me. But this patient is purposefully drawn to resemble the white Christian version of Jesus. So that’s another contention I have with this comic.

I’m also 90% certain that that cat wasn’t white a few pages ago…

Alright, back at the asylum, we see a changed patient. He's more confident. More thoughtful.

She tells him he needs to be present and not dissociating into the void. She wants to continue his 'traditional therapy' as well as his "...studies."

He tells her that he knows who he is now.

She tells him that even if "the allegory of Khonshu brings you resolve, you still need medicine. You still need therapy."

"So, it's just a story now? I suppose Ra never let his wrath rain down on his errant son? That everything you taught me was an illusion?"

Suddenly she's back peddling. Saying she didn't teach him that. It's not what she was trying to get him to understand.

He asks her to leave. He has things to think about.

I mean, honestly what did she think was going to happen?

She has a patient that believes that he has been touched by the divine and has become godly. So she has given him a god that is involved in FIRE, the thing he is associating with god. She's basically given him a path to his own displacement!!

She FINALLY realizes that she can just go to the military hospital to try to figure out who he really is.

At the military medical facility, she talks to another doctor.

"I don't say this a lot about multiple murderers, but... If you're asking what I thought of the man, I'd have to admit he brought nothing but warmth to this place."

And that's the thing. He's a quiet and pleasant man. Introspective and not really possessing his own unique personality. He accepts what is put on him. A sort of trauma processing and self defense.

The doctor then explains that patient 86 signed up for the army under a forged alias. Okay. So that explains why they don't know who he is... But they could call him by that name instead of just 86.

While she's there, another patient runs up, having overhead who they were talking about.

He screams about how he was there and he saw what happened.

"We all know the truth. It was impossible. They had him tied up. Naked. How could he have possibly started that fire? No matches, no lighter. I know what he--"

The orderlies show up and of course pull him away.

At the same time she gets an emergency message from her own asylum telling her to get back there right away.

She gets back to find 's room covered in blood.

Her response?

"How could this be? Was it all for nothing? As a doctor, I believed I could make a difference. But again, I am just at the whim of the raw, elemental power of insanity."

NO. You most certainly are not at the whim of the power of insanity! THIS IS YOUR JOB. Your job is to help people who have mental health issues! Being a doctor in a mental health institution is HARD. You have the lives of people at their most vulnerable in your hands!

So what happened?

Another nurse tells Dr. Emmett: "We found him like this and immediately restrained him. So nobody else besides Nurse Hayworth could be hurt. ALso... There was no other way to retrieve her nose."

Cool. We're going Hannibal Lecter now? For dramatics? For shock value?

I'm not going to show you the comic picture here. I hate it. It hurts to look at. It's disgusting. It's clearly done for shock value.

But we see wrapped up in a restraint jacket with blood all over his face. Behind him he's drawn RANDOM vaguely Egyptian hieroglyphs in blood.

She asks him why he did it.

"When I revealed myself to her... She didn't believe me."

Dr. Emmett is confused. She thought he was a kind and compassionate man who had a terrible upbringing and didn't know who he was.

He tells her that she should know who he is since she taught it to him.

"Khonshu." She answers. Because she's an idiot.

"Khonshu is nothing next to me."

He bursts into flames, igniting the whole room.

"I wanted to speak to you before I go, but...I'll have to take leave of you now, Dr. E. Whatever made me the way I am is irrelevant. You brought me purpose. You showed me that I am--and always have been--A God."

"Dear Lord. Amon Ra."

He tells her that Khonshu is going to bow to him even if he has to crack his spine and so on and so on....

He leaves the hospital, leaving the doctor to die in the flames.

We see flashes of his past where he set fire to his abusers as a kid and again in the army. Fire caused by his own mind.

"He was always meant to become this. And now I know what trauma robbed him of his memories. Sometimes the sun gives birth to a bright brilliant Moon, changing us for the better. But sometimes it consumes us... And we burn, it becomes all we can see."

We cut to a shot of the hospital being on fire and emergency services there.

Look! They found a survivor in the flames! The commentary between the paramedics is disgusting. And the casual way they move to treat the survivor is also just disgusting.

We get to see the survivor and it's Dr. Emmett. Completely burned up but still alive. Again... shock value and I'm not going to show you the image here. But it's bad.

She is laughing and yelling about how she believes.

We see 86 walking away from the hospital down the road, happy, and also naked. I honestly don’t know why this became a thing in comics with naked guys all over the place. It’s obviously used as a way to elicit some sort of reaction from the reader. One of disgust, something to laugh at, or just “Oh no! The man is naked now!” I hate it.

Then we get a few pages from Khonshu. A recap on Marc's story.

It's not told right. But I will forgive it because it's told from Khonshu's point of view, and that asshole probably sees it this way. So... I suppose I'll turn a blind eye to how wrong the story is here.

You would see it as Marc begging, wouldn't you, you stupid pigeon.

"He became...A hero. He used my powers to fight crime. To find redemption. It only cost him his mind. You see, the criminals aren't the only thing Marc Spector fights. He also fights...

"The voices in his head. Marc Suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder."

I've said it before. It stopped being called Multiple Personality Disorder YEARS ago. This is lazy writing with no research. And coming off of Lemire's run, this is just insulting.

Also calling it 'voices in his head' is just outright pitiful.

"But given time, he has managed to make peace with those voices. Including mine. No, together, we are... MOON KNIGHT."

And that's the end of the issue.

We get an afterward from the author.

It angers me beyond words.

"Writing Moon Knight (not "a book like Moon Knight" or "Writing such a huge project for Marvel"...Writing Moon Knight) is a dream come true. I couldn't pick a better place in the Marvel U to inject my passion into, and it is the pinnacle of everything I've worked towards as a writer.

Anyone who treats a superhero comic as an easy paycheck needs to check themselves and realize why they're our most prevalent modern myths. Thank YOU (and my fam at Marvel) for letting me write this, supporting my previous work, and allowing me to make comics with someone as esteemed and talented as Jacen.

I only ask that if you enjoyed this somewhat bizarre issue, keep reading this book. I want to enjoy it with you. Maybe we can claw away at something horrible together.

It will not, however, be pretty.

-Thanks,

Max Bemis."

We also get an afterword by the artist, Jacen Burrows that notes that they are following in the wake of legends like Smallwood and Lemire as well as Ellis and Shalvey who worked hard to re-awaken Moon Knight after it's cancellation (see Bendis). They note that they are working to tell a new and defining chapter in his character and a thought-provoking, intense, and scary note in Marc Spector's life.

I'm going to go punch a wall now.

NEXT ISSUE! #189!

Here we go… issue two… Let’s get this…moldy… bread.

We open on... NYC Subway. We see a happy dude driving the subway car. As the car rolls into the station, a large man steps into the cab with him.

"Happy to have made it to Friday? The stench of your jubilance is offensive. But you're right to rejoice. Today you learn the truth."

He touches the driver's shoulder and slowly a blue beam over takes him and his eyes turn blood red and start to bleed. ...I'm not posting a picture.

"Tell me what you've learned by knowing me. I'm living in you now."

The driver starts to stammer and talk. "H...H..Humanity is perverse. Genocide is the comeuppance we deserve. There is no creator. Undebatable. Love is a contrivance. Undebatable. The white house is the death star. Twitter is a virus. And when the nukes raze everything we know...Only a fool would claim it wasn't our destiny."

Yeah... The large man calls himself "THE TRUTH" and has the ability to send these visions into the people he touches. It makes the driver hate everything and he starts up the car again, out to spread the truth.

We are back to Khonshu narrating.

"My name is Khonshu. Moon God of Egypt. I'm here to tell you a story about a mad vigilante named Marc Spector. Our tale finds us here, on a standard night for Marc, who, when dressed in all white and donning a cape, refers to himself as Moon Knight.

Marc has spent ten minutes decorating this bar with the blood of these drug dealers and slavers. The cacophony of snapping collarbones and pit-pattering plasma is like whale songs to him.

As the thud of a man being literally punted across the room sounds, Marc Spector is grateful for his life.

For the privilege of serving me. Khonshu, protector of travelers in the night.

You see, Marc Spector is crazy. But in the context of my blessing, he is, well...A 'Super Hero'."

I overlooked it before, considering it comes from Khonshu's narrative and Khonshu WOULD see things differently.... But I can't. I can't even attribute this to Khonshu. This is just tripe bullshit.

We're going to start fast forwarding here because... It just keeps going on like this. The old bird just doesn't shut up. He carries on for three pages and there is a LOT of text there.

We see Moon Knight beating up a bunch of guys to a bloody mess. Then we move down to see a bandaged up Marc heading up to his VERY run down, grungy, apartment building. He waves hello to some old lady behind the glass that runs the place.

He tells her he'll have the rent for her in the morning.

Khonshu again calls Marc having just recovered from a 'personal crisis' and taking his problems more seriously, like his struggle with 'multiple personality disorder'.

Khonshu boasts about how hard it is to live with a demigod in your head and that Marc has learned to 'live with his lunacy and wield it like a weapon'.

We see Marc ironing his Moon Knight outfit while watching TV.

Khonshu AGAIN talks about how Marc has learned to use his three distinct identities and that therapy has let him come a long way. About how Marc came to him begging to have his life saved and now Marc is his 'earthly champion'.

"Or perhaps he was a space cadet whose psychosis was triggered by being shot up and dried out in the baking middle east sun. Your call."

THIS IS WHAT YOU GOT FROM LEMIRE?! THIS?! How...How... HOW.

We now see Marc passed out in bed.

"Marc is ready to become someone else."

Yeah so… We got him ‘becoming’ Steven. Who talks to Khonshu. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Khonshu calls him Narcissistic and decadent.

FIRST OF ALL. Oh. You did NOT just come for Steven Grant. Oh we are going to have words now.

Steven Grant is a beautiful wonderful man who has dreams of charity, peace, and living the perfect life that he was EXPECTED to live as a child under his father’s role. He’s the ideal son he was supposed to be, but he keeps his eyes on what’s right and what’s wrong and has STRONG moral opinions. He takes care of the body because he HAS TO. Marc isn’t going to do it. If it wasn’t for Steven, they’d turn into a walking festering infection with broken bones and starve to death! Steven keeps them alive and HEALTHY. He is the epitome of the one that gives because he believes in living a good life as a good person.

Oh. Now you're gonna come for my boy Jake?! YEAH. YOU BETTER AVOID DISCUSSING HIM FOR NOW. I’LL BITE ANYONE THAT COMES FOR JAKE. (spoilers: I know exactly what he does with Jake later and I am furious).

Alright. Back to Patient 86, or RA as he's going to be called later for a bit.

We see him in a homeless shelter getting soup. He talks to various homeless people, prostitutes and druggies in an effort to locate someone. There are heavy implications in some of these images that he 'did things' to get the information he wanted. I’m not going to post them because of the nature of the way these people are being depicted.

Back with Khonshu and Steven. He's at some business meeting. He's made them a lot of money. Everyone is happy and celebrating. Apparently Steven goes to struggling companies and makes them VERY wealthy.

He's decided to donate his portion of the new wealth towards his "Lunar Lives" charity fund that feeds the displaced youth of New York.

Steven shrugs saying that money is boring and he finds it fun to toss it to places where it doesn't belong.

Sure, we'll go with that version of Steven Grant being a kind and charitable man.

The party is interrupted by news reports that a subway conductor committed suicide by crashing the car. The survivors of the crash are now apparently acting strange, "self mutilating" and acting violent towards the aid workers trying to help the scene.

Steven slips away from the party.

Moon Knight time.

But first, we go back to RA.

He's found the person he's looking for. He's guarded by thugs. After a little encounter, Ra sets fire to one of the thugs and heads up to meet the man.

Back at the subway crash, we see chaos as rescue workers try to put out the fire, help the injured, and deal with the ones that are suddenly acting violently.

And Khonshu is still going. It's an interesting choice. I'll give them that. Having Khonshu narrate instead of hearing at ALL from the Moon Knight system. I suppose it gives them bigger leeway when it comes to the unreliable narrator because Khonshu WOULD see things differently. An excuse to not depict Marc and the others correctly?

....But it still does swing widely and miss far too often.

"Quite familiar with all the things that make men weep and soil themselves, Marc Spector felt at home in these derelict tunnels."

We see Moon Knight walk past the crash and into the train tunnels.

"After too much time confined in a white room, the odor of dead rat fart and fungal growth actually calmed his busy brain. He was in his element-The inspector holmes of king fu madmen."

See, this is where it falls flat. If Steven is dealing with the business aspect, Marc isn't going to care about that room.

And again we get ANOTHER jab at Marc being 'insane' and liking the disgusting things and being more at home in dank and terrible places.

Perhaps Marc is more at home in sewers (there was a sewer man) than Steven or Jake... But it has nothing to do with his mental state. It's because, as Moon Knight, he isn't above things like that. He's not the perfect clean hero that Captain America or Iron man is. He's the man of the people that puts himself down there in the lowest parts because it's where he's needed.

Moon Knight rightly is able to look at the scene of chaos at the crash site and deduct that it's a psionic attack.

"Historically, he had found telepaths to generally be meek characters using their sway over the mind as compensation for physical frailty. Like sexually feeble men with muscle cars."

Unnecessary jab.

Now, as much as I dislike this art style, it's a choice and there is SOME merit to it. Look, here's a nice page.

Here’s a badly cropped version. I like the way they drew Moon Knight in the first two panels with the play of the light and shadows. That big angry dude down there is the Truth guy. And I cropped it there because under him is a bunch of guys he’s shown the truth to who are writhing on the ground, bleeding from the eyes and shouting terrible things.

Moon Knight goes in swinging and lands a few blows, trying to know him out to release the affected people from his psychic attacks.

The guy is pretty big and he takes the hits easily.

He manages to grab Moon Knight by the neck and starts to use his abilities on him.

So what truth does Marc see?

"I'm a mad circus clown... This is all for myself. There is no Moon God. Just another...Sick... Delusion..."

I...honestly can see Marc having that issue. It's an issue he's had before where he thinks this is all his own way to keep being violent and that Khonshu is just a product of his need to justify what he does.

Marc snaps himself out of the psychic attack by punching himself in the face.

And I forgot that Bemis has decided that Marc Spector is a masochist and he loves it.

Literally, it has Moon Knight yelling "Ghhh. I #@$% Love it!"

He attacks the Truth again, slicing him up with his crescent darts and landing blows.

The Truth remains standing.

Moon Knight decides to look inward for help.

"Not having a lot of luck here, Fellas. Khonshu's more of a talker and this guy's power set is the real deal. Grant's useless...Doubt the Truth is looking for stock tips."

(I forgot that Bemis considers Khonshu to be his own version of an Alter without being an alter? That he just lives in their head.)

UGH. Yep. Here we go. This is what he's done to Jake.

"I'm gonna need..." And Moon Knight lets out a scream of rage as Marc steps out and tells Jake to "Do your worst."

Apparently... Bemis has decided that Jake is the wild card, violent, unpredictable, and brutal. Worse than Marc for some reason. That Jake is the powerhouse of hits...

I honestly has no idea why he went this route when MARC of all people has always been the one to be the guy that doesn't go down and always hits back. It just makes no sense.

What even.

Jake comes right at the Truth, spits a tooth in his face, then challenges him.

"You want to step into Jake Lockley's mind, you gigantic freak? I @#$% Dare you.

You met Marc. Marc's disturbed as hell. Now imagine that he took all the worst parts of himself and let them fuse into a living person. Now go ahead and taste MY truth, you leech."

I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THIS.

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. It’s not making people out of things! You don’t go “Well I hate that I burn all the cakes so I’m going to make this person my cake burning person!” ALSO Marc isn’t that bad either! Marc did terrible things, but Marc is also the hardest on himself! Marc could burn a cake and then use it as proof that he’s the worst person in the world! And Jake ISN’T a bad person! Jake is a good kind loving man with friends and a good heart and I’M SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW.

And the whole time, you see ghostly Marc off to the side looking less than pleased at the situation and reminding Jake that "You're not allowed to kill him, Jake."

And the Truth pulls away in pain.

"Dear God. The things...The things you've done."

WHAT?! WHAT DID JAKE DO?! DRINK HOT COFFEE AND BURN HIS TONGUE?! DID HE PLAY BALL WITH ONE OF THE LOCAL KIDS AND MISS THE HOOP!? DID HE DOUBLE PARK HIS CAB!?

Truth is still reeling. "He has no idea...Does he? You blind him to your foul actions! I'll tell him, you fool! I'll tell him about..."

and Jake cuts Truth off by shoving two crescent darts into his eyes. Yeah...they got an eye thing in this run. I'm not a fan.

Jake gives the body back to Marc, who instantly wants to know what Truth was talking about.

He chastises Jake for his actions and tells him that he's going to get a talking to about this later.

And Marc makes a bad pun about "The Truth Hurts" over the unconscious Truth.

Khonshu and Steven shake their heads at him and Marc claims to be the funny man.

whoopy doo.

With the Truth gone, the afflicted people seem to be recovering now.

Back at RA's part of the story, he finally makes it upstairs to to see the guy he's been looking for.

Oh. Oh no. I forgot about this. I totally wiped it from my mind.

We see someone sitting at a chair. Ra tells him that he's been put here to destroy Khonshu.......

"As a manifestation of his father, Ra, I am offended that he continues to breathe and spread his gospel of dissent through a foul Avatar. A HEBREW, no less. I want your help to end Marc Spector."

I'm... I'm going to take a minute here.

I want to make a few things Very...VERY clear.

I don't care who the fuck is writing this, how they were raised, or where they stand with things now.

This is not okay. Not in a comic book, not in real life, and not in any sense of the word.

We have a figure who is CLEARLY styled to look like a Jesus figure that believes he is the Egyptian god Ra. We have him out to destroy Moon Knight because 1. He works with Khonshu and 2. He is a 'Hebrew'.

This is just disgusting.

And to put it in a comic. Where people of all ages read it and think that it's okay.

Maybe you had some teen or young adult that was identifying with the bad guy. It happens. They see a bad guy that came from a bad situation and they root for them or fantasize what it would be like to burn things like they do. And they start spitting hate like this. Violence towards Jewish people. You are giving them permission to hate a people too. To blame them. To look at them as inferior.

Or maybe you have a young naive kid that has never heard talk like this before and suddenly "Hebrew" becomes a slanderous hateful word. Congrats. You've just turned that kid into always associating that word with bad and disgusting things. It's only a step away from becoming antisemitic in their life.

I just... I can't. I can't even begin to tell you how much this is painful to see. To see Marvel allow this as a company. A company founded on Jewish people. To see Moon Knight as a comic, based around a Jewish system that was originally designed to be about dealing with trauma and hate and pain and finding a way to get better and continue to find the light in the dark.

Anyways... Back to the comic...

The man behind the chair is eager to take down Marc Spector, but he knows it takes more than a man. So Ra sets the place on fire to show off his skills.

The man stands up, impressed.

Oh look... It's Bushman.

A very poorly drawn Bushman that BARELY makes it past the caricature of an old racist cartoon black man. And it only gets worse from there. And as much as Bushman is the bad guy and used to (USED TO) be Marc's biggest enemy... This version of him only goes downhill from here. And we've moved on from antisemitism to racism.

fun times for all....

Oh good. This issue is done.

Can you tell I’m regretting this decision yet?

You know what? I’ve got a question for you to think about! We can all get mad at Bemis. We can point at his horrible story and all the terrible things he wrote about (and boy howdy are there more and they get worse as we go on)... But what about the art?

As MacKay said “Art can make or break a comic”. You can have the most beautiful story in the world and then have it drawn like shit. So who decided to make everything gory and bloody and shocking? Who decided to make Bushman into…THAT? Did Bemis say “I want you to make him look like this” and then pull up a 1940s comic? Or did Burrows make this call all on his own? Are there really two people to blame for these comics? Can we be angry at the artist too?

I’m already pretty pissed at the editors that let this happen… But who drew this?

Jacen Burrows started working with Warren Ellis in 2000. Ah... That explains some of the gore.

Also illustrated adaptations of Alan Moore. Yup. That explains the gore. Those two have very specific styles that usually translate into a lot of gore.

Oh yup. He's also worked a lot with Garth Ennis.

So we've got three of the four most graphic big name comic writers there. This explains a lot.

I don't have much on his personal life, or things that would show WHY he drew things this way... Perhaps it was direction or perhaps it was choice. Looking at some of his other works, they don't all look like this. So who knows?

NEXT ISSUE! #190!

I don’t want this bread. Send it back. I want different bread.

You know what? Why even bring Bushman into this?

This is a move designed to pull the old fans back in and to elicite "OH MAN" emotions from people. And it is not done well.

Bushman started as the big bad. He was the one that worked with Marc as a mercinary and the one that killed him. He's shown up a few times over the years, putting fear into Marc as Bushman threatened his friends. Then Marc killed him (and cut off his face).

So why bring him back? He's done. Marc has burried this particular thing of the past. He's a memory of a ruthless and brutal time.

And what they do with him here is just... They mock him. They make that memory into something grose and shameful.

You'll see in a bit.

So the next issue opens on some look backs at Moon Knight through the ages. We've seen this before. Other one shots and annuals have touched on the other Knights of Khonshu.

This time we see it through Ra's eyes.

"And so it has been since the days the gods themselves walked the earth. Ra and Khonshu, vengeful father and errant son. Warring for the very soul of the world, reborn again and again through earthly avatars. And in every instance....Ra is humbled. Shamed."

....Did Bemis even do mythological research? Is he just going based on "Ah yes, the sun and the moon!"

I'm no Egypt mythology expert, but I can tell you this... Khonshu (or Khonsu as it's really supposed to be spelled) is the son of Amun and Mut. Amun and Ra used to be two different gods but eventually merged into Amun-Ra when two big cities rose to power. He was then attributed with being the king of all.

Khonsu is often depicted as a child! He's drawn with a side-ponytail, which is the "sidelock of youth" and depicts youth in ancient art.

At first Khonsu was incredibly violent. He absorbed other gods' powers by eating their organs. Eventually, he was changed to a mellow god of Time, Measurement, and prosperity.

As I mentioned before, there was a brief period when a popular city worshiped Khonsu as the superior god, but it didn't last and Ra was put back in power when that city fell.

So Bemis clearly didn’t do any research into how the story originally goes. I’m not surprised.

He babbles almost incoherently about Karma and balance and how Khonshu always wins because the Sun God failed to find a proper Avatar.

He says Ra is here to break the cycle and bring order back to mankind. Because mankind needs discipline and order.

"I'm not like those who came before me. I'm not like you, victims of Khonshu's pride. I was born with the flame within me."

So apparently this is a big speech to some henchmen. Or just a bunch of guys looking to get revenge on Moon Knight? Unclear.

Ra's speech done, who is now known as the Sun King, Bushman gives his own speech.

He admits that he now lives his life dealing crack and isn't at his best.

"Marc Spector...Scares the crap out of me, simply put, I don't want to die again. I wouldn't come near Moon Knight with a ten-foot pole at this point, but with Sun King's determination and power?"

He tells them that with Sun King's fire, they can take down Moon Knight.

Sure.

Back to Mr. Spector himself... We see him meditating and holding a little talk with Jake.

Still we get Khonshu's narration:

"The inside of Marc Spector's head is a picturesque, violent landscape touched by Egyptian mythology, Judaic folklore and Fragments of his past."

I have so much I want to argue about with this that I don't even know where to start.

So we see an abstract headscape here. Marc has Jake in a boxing ring and is beating the crap out of him.

He's angry at Jake for keeping things from him and he wants answers.

And here we get a childish depiction of their argument that holds no research and insulting implications.

It's supposed to be funny. It has a certain charm to it that a much much younger me might have found agreeable, but older me has learned a lot and it just makes me tired. And upset at the character assassination that has been happening to my good buddy Jake.

I'm also upset at the implication that Jake is just 'a piece of Marc'. The parts Marc didn't want.

So they continue to fight while Khonshu and Steven watch. Steven is upset at their fighting and tries to get them to stop.

Jake takes a bad blow. "Look, Steven is the wealthy benefactor. Khonshu is our connection to the bigger picture. You're the voice of reason. And I deal in the grimy leftovers. You BUILT us this way."

I hate it. Marc didn't BUILD them. He didn't sit down one day and decide to make other people to hold things! It also depicts Khonshu as being an altar.

While I've often toyed with that idea, it's always been clear from day one that Khonshu is NOT another aspect in their head. There IS a good chance that they have someone that has been formed as a fictive or even a persecutor in the form of Khonshu... But that's an argument for another day. For the sake of this review, Khonshu himself has always been an outside force!

ALSO. Marc. Marc Spector. The voice of reason?! How do you get a character SO WRONG that you are writing a whole comic book for? When has Marc Spector EVER been the voice of reason?

Jake puts Marc in a sleeper hold and threatens to "put you to sleep" if Marc doesn't chill out.

"It's not your fault that your mind ended up like this. All we can do is embrace the crazy and let you move on with your life. Which means you need to trust me, Marc. Capiche?"

I have always been a huge fan of the implication that because of their unique mental health issues, DID, and dealings with Khonshu, along with repeated trauma and death, that the Moon Knight system has the ability to surpass expectation and use these things as secret weapons. The number of times people have attacked them mentally and just been destroyed is amazing. I love it.

THIS. This I hate. "Embrace the crazy". This is clearly the message Bemis got from Lemire's run. That they went through all that so that they could be crazier and use it as a wild card. NO. Just no.

Anyways, Marc and Jake make up and relax while Steven hugs Khonshu in the background in celebration.

We now to go the Sun King, who is knocking on a door to a fancy looking house.

And who answers the door? Marlene Alraune.

For those that don't know, Some time after Moench left Moon Knight, Marlene also left them. When Moon Knight picked up again for the Houston run, Marlene came back, but it was a rocky relationship. She left them again, saying she couldn't be with them for her own health.

Sun King poses as a charity drive door to door person and while Marlene is getting her check book, he notices a picture on the wall. He freaks out and calls in Bushman.

Marlene is famliar with Raoul Bushman. He's the man that killed her father, after all. The one that killed Marc and started it all.

Bushman notices the picture and taunts Marlene.

He calls her a damsel-in-distress. This has never been the case. Marlene has NEVER been a damsel-in-distress. As much as I harp on her from the old days, that girl could take care of herself! Half the time she was the one rescuing Moon Knight!

So to see her passive and not knowing how to fight or take care of herself? No.

We head back to Moon Knight, who is fighting a bunch of "disabled gentlemen", most of which are missing arms and legs and the such. It's implied they work for Bushman and Moon Knight is to blame for their missing pieces. hmm.

While fighting, he gets a phone call. In typical "My ex" fashion, the caller ID says "Do NOT pick up, Psychopath! Let it go!"

Hm.

He answers. Khonshu is not pleased by this but Marc can't help but answer. It says that Marc is still obsessed with her.

He's super happy to hear from her.

Marlene tells him that she's missed him and wants him back in her life.

She attempts to warn him, telling him that maybe it's best if he didn't come over, but Sun King is there and puts the squeeze on her.

Marc is far too eager to go meet up.

I'M GOING TO PUT A PAUSE ON THIS FOR A SECOND.

This is something that has bothered me for AGES and this is the run that started it. (Bemis. Always blame Bemis. But there is also another writer that messed it up too. I'll get to that MUCH later.)

Moench originally wrote that Marlene was in love with Steven.

Jake was incredibly indifferent to Marlene. ANy time they interacted, he treated her as a friend, but was more interested in headint to Gena's. Jake was not into the fancy rich life and how she wanted to live.

Marlene hated Marc Spector. Marc was violent, had a dark past, and was involved in her father's death, her brother's death, and various other tragedies.

If Marlene was going to do anything, it would NOT be Marc. OR JAKE. It would be Steven. In the whole Moench run, she always insisted in calling them Steven. She wanted them to just be Steven and give up the other lives.

BACK TO THE COMIC.

We see a flashback of Marc and Marlene on a raft.

"From the first time you saw me? Huh. Even though I was some mercenary who hadn't showered for a week?"

BULL. SHIT. The first time Marlene saw him, he was working with Bushman and had imprisoned them all, then her father had been killed. The first time she spoke to Marc I'm pretty sure she either told him off or he was dying and she was happy because she thought he'd killed her father.

He's telling her the story of when he had to kill his own brother. (he's not telling the story right). Then he talks about his dead girlfriend and other trauma from his past.

What makes me mad is that this is conceivable. We have Marc Spector (Marc, not the other two) talking to Marlene about his past, his trauma. It’s possible that over time she could have decided to get to know Marc. That she realized that Marc is not just a murdering scary man and made peace with the fact that she needs to know him if she wants to be with Steven. It’s possible that she got him to open up and tell her his trauma and what made him what he is now. It’s even possible she started to date him too. I can get behind that! It’s growth for BOTH Marc and Marlene.

And I wish this was how it was done. How it was left. I wish that they had this growth. That Marc and Marlene could become closer. That he and Steven learned to trust one another so much that they learned to be with Marlene and share. But this isn’t how Bemis does it.

We are back in the now and Marc shows up at Marlene's with flowers and a suit.

He tells her she looks great. He really thinks they are getting back together. Denial is a land that Marc Spector is king of.

And Sun King is standing in the dining room waiting for him.

Sun King pretends to be Marlene's boyfriend who has been living with her.

He tells Marc that Marlene told him all about how he was Moon Knight. It's not like this is a big secret. Marc was only mildly into secret identities. He wasn't very good at it.

And Marc isn't taking this well. While Sun King pretends to be a guy that's with Marlene, he then starts to talk about how someone else has been 'getting with Marlene.'

He tells Marc to ask Jake Lockley.

And in the inner world, Marc is a giant monster pissed off and turning on Jake.

Not how that works. But sure. Why not. Also, let’s propagate the notion that DID promotes distrust in the system and that there’s an evil alter that goes around doing things behind their back like this.

AND THIS. This is disgusting.

She claims to have never stopped loving him and was so desperate for him that she got with Jake?! Not the same person! You don't get a hankering for Marc and go for Jake instead!

And then the notion that Jake came to her telling her to keep it a secret?!

And then telling them that Jake was never "warm". That Jake has evil in him and he just didn't stand up to Marc?!

WHY IS JAKE The EVIL ALTER!? He isn't. Jake Lockley is a loving kind and caring man. He goes to Gena's every day and asks her how her kids are doing. He feeds the homeless. He makes friends with the people on the street.

And she tells Marc that she tried to break it off with Jake but it was too late and she couldn't do it alone.

And that's when Bushman shows up.

Yep. There’s the daughter. And the fact that she calls him “Uncle Jake” and not “Dad” despite the obvious implication that Jake has been in her life for a long time…

Maybe they were trying to protect her from the Moon Knight curse but not letting people know she was his daughter… But still…

Her name is Diatrice. She has pink hair.

This is the ONE thing that came out of Bemis that is kinda okay.

It isn't till MacKay gets his hands on her that I actually started to like her. She's a force.

I admit, change scares me. And I've been jaded by the "We have to introduce a child to keep it interesting!" concept that show-runners and authors seem to have. I was also so incensed by Bemis' terrible writing that I took the stance of HATING Diatrice when I first saw her.

But it was bad writing. And give her to a good writer and she can do such wonderful things.

When Jed MacKay got to put her in a story, she was smart, she was fiesty, and she embraced her dad. More so, he embraced her.

Amazing what happens when someone does something not for the shock value.

And now we move to the next issue. Good. Great. I hate the art. I hate how weepy Marlene is here. Old Marlene would have been pissed. She would not have put up with this shit. She was smart. She would have found a way to warm him. To do something. I honestly can’t tell if this is misogynistic or just BAD writing? Maybe both?

Issue #191.

So the cover is the famous picture of the farmers. It's supposed to depict family homesteading life.

In the real picture, it's not well known, but it is the farmer and the daughter, NOT his wife. Just a little art knowledge there for you.

So we are back to Khonshu narrating.

I don't even know what he's narrating. Something about gods and the power structure of gods and his moon battle against the sun. Something about the moon representing mythical and birth and creation and then sun representing the psychopath and the ground and humans.

Not even mythologically correct in...ANY culture as far as I'm aware. At least none of the one's I've read about. Maybe in some. I don't know. But I doubt very much if there is, Bemis knows about it.

He also starts talking about evil and angels and devils. Dude has got his theology mixed up.

Also, Marc should be a bit more upset about seeing Bushman here. They have...HISTORY.

(There she is. There’s the Marlene I know and care about.)

So everything is on fire. Marc grabs Diatrice and gets her out.

He tells Marlene to get out. She just stands there DESPITE THERE BEING A SLIDING GLASS DOOR BEHIND HER.

He tells Diatrice to go find a place to hide, he has to go help Marlene.

She asks him if he's crazy because you're supposed to run away from fire.

He just looks at her before going back inside.

Marlene is still standing there with a sliding glass door directly behind her and fire in front of her. I don't even....

Marc calls out Raoul Bushman while he fights the henchmen.

"You're such a %$#@!!!"

Roul shoots him in the shoulder. Marc doesn't care. He knocks the gun out of his hand and slams his face into the wall.

Sun King sets Marc on fire. Marc strips down to his skivvies and throws his burning pants into Sun King's face.

Yeah. I can see Moon Knight (especially Marc) doing this. It's a good fighting tactic. It's a good depiction of Marc's talent for hard combat with quick thinking. (See? I can see the good too. Still angry, but there is soooooome good.)

See… It isn’t beneath Marc. This guy pretends to know Marc because of the terrible psychologist and being connected to ‘Ra’. But this isn’t beneath Marc. This is classic Marc fighting.

So they now face one another.

"What are YOU supposed to be?"

"I am Ra's chosen sword. Here to strike you down. I'm the Sun King."

"....Of course you are."

"My purpose is to make your death a mockery. In fact, I wouldn't be doing my job if I just struck you down. It's gotta be so tragic that it means something."

He goes on like this for a hot (LOL) minute. Honestly, Marc's heard it all before. This isn't the first time he's fought a guy with delusions of whatever he's got going on.

At this point Diatrice shows up again and is pissed off that her swing set is on fire.

Marc grabs her and makes a run for it.

He asks her what her name is. She tells him Diatrice and that he already knows that.

Marc is just caught up in the weird name.

"Mommy let me change my name to whatever I wanted!"

Which is super just... Considering she could never even bother to get Marc, Jake, or Steven's name right... Way to go Marlene I guess?

Marc feels the same way.

It's at this point that he runs BACK into the burning house holding his child for some reason? There's a note on the wall "We have your queen."

Well, Marlene's been kidnapped. Not the first time.

Probably for the best, honestly, considering she couldn't figure out how to use ANY of the exits that were surrounding her.

Back at Marc Spector's apartment, we find Marc failing real hard at talking to his daughter.

So this means that Marlene told her that JAKE was not her dad and that her dad was a super hero. Meaning she pretty much told her that Marc was her father.

Look. I know a couple of systems that have children. How they choose to discuss their DID with their children is up to them. Some chose not to discuss it at all until the kid is old enough to understand difficult concepts like this. But they also don’t hide it. None of the systems I know hide it from their children. The kids just learn to recognize the different members of the system, and to them, they are all “Mommy” or “Daddy” because that is the role that they inhabit while present.

It falls back to the whole “Hold your system accountable” aspect of being a functioning system. It means that they hold each other responsible and they all understand that they have a child and must function as a parental figure to protect and care for their child.

So the fact the Marlene is telling her that one of them is the dad and not the other… Hiding it from one and that Jake hid it from them. There is a disconnect here that is damaging and insulting.

So we see her argue with Marc about him not being a super hero. He doesn't look or act like Captain America, he can't fly, and he looks tired and smells funny.

He declares it was an 'off day'.

But, it's what I love about Moon Knight in general. He's just a guy. He has zero powers. He's even a bit of an idiot sometimes. He's just a guy out there that takes a lot of beatings and has a lot of trauma that he works out while wearing a mask.

As they talk, we see Jake, Steven, and Khonshu in the background watching.

Honestly, fair. I have seen systems be put in situations where perhaps a member they don't really trust yet is present in a situation that could be dangerous to them in general. Perhaps a little is present when they shouldn't be. Perhaps a high trauma holder is present in a potentially triggering situation. Or perhaps a persecutor that has a history is out around a member of the family that they don't trust them to be around.

You'll have the protectors and gate keepers VERY close by monitoring and ready to step in if need be.

At least this is true in the systems I've spoken to. Feel free to sound off if you have other experiences. I love to hear from systems about their own experiences and how they handle the family situation.

So now that they've argued on if Marc is or is not actually a super hero, she asks about her mom.

He assures her that she isn't going to die because he's going to save her and "seriously hurt those bad guys".

She asks if he likes Katy Perry. He says no. He asks if she likes Dazzler.

So they put on a record of Dazzler and have some bonding time while Jake keeps watch.

We head out to a high security prison to find some guards chatting.

One of the guards is missing an eye and wearing an eye patch.

He heads to a cell and asks the person inside to head to the city and get revenge for him. He wants him to kill Bushman.

Hey look, The Truth guy is back.

Considering the Truth guy ALSO got his eyes stabbed out... I'm not sure how he's walking around like that without any training or aid or anything...

Also, this guy was seriously not that impressive as a bad guy. He's just big and has a 'scary' design to him. I'm not impressed by this attempt to make a recurring bad guy. It's just not an impressive reveal of a returning bad guy.

So the Truth heads out of the jail easy peasy.

Back in Marc's apartment, Diatrice is asleep and Marc is holding a meeting in the head space.

You've got Marc, Jake, Steven, and Khonshu on a platform with Cthulhu in the background. I don't know. Do they think that the head space can just conjure anything based on need or emotion? Maybe it does? Maybe it doesn't? I Don't know.

Apparently this is a recurring thing Khonshu does because Jake tells him "Khonshu... Don't you be giving me that "Cthulhu" Bullshit. Not you." And Steven agrees. "He's kind of right. We can't just use squids to explain all weird things in this world."

You ready for this? I bet you aren’t.

Yeah I… I’m gonna… I am not touching this. I don't have the time or energy to sit down and type up a whole manifesto on what's wrong with this page.

And this is where the now famous line comes from:

Also let’s add some eating disorders to the mix. Why not? Do you have a disorder and feel left out? Don’t worry! I’m sure Bemis will get to that too! Not to mention there is a very underhanded homosexuality jab mixed in with that too! Blink and you’ll miss it, but this is a common way for older shows and media to take a jab at how wrong the GBLTQ world was. Make the villain have some latent homosexual tendencies, usually towards the main hero of the show.

So now we see Busman, Truth, and Sun King hanging out.

Truth is following them now, though apprently he sometimes accidentally uses his powers.

They review a map and discuss where they want to go.

Bushman tells them about a "Backwards tribe that I 'liberated' before we took over."

Yeah cause that's... Hmmm.

They decide to go t that island to start a "new eden".

Sun King tells Marlene the plan in a gloating fashion.

"You've gone so far as to tie up a super hero's girlfriend and you're bragging to her about your evil plan.

You're not profound. You're a linkless wikipedia reference waiting to happen."

Well, at least she gets that jab in.

"Perhaps that's so. But I'm still going to kill your child while her dad looks on. Just to prove the uselessness of his cause."

He tells Marlene he's going to use her to lure Marc to his doom. He also asks Truth to create an army.

Back with Marc, he is telling her about Frenchie.

Look, I've always been a big Jean-Paul Duchamp fan. I love him. It breaks my heart that things went the way they did and he eventually left Marc and they had a huge falling out. But I am happy Frenchie found love and has his own chance to be happy.

Do not bring my poor Frenchie into this world of Bemis.

…I’m sorry, did Marc just describe Frenchie as “A father figure”?! In what universe? Who are these people that think he’s a father figure to him?!

So Marc has called in Frenchie to baby sit Diatrice while he goes off to save Marlene.

I'm just sighing right now. Because it's been established that Frenchie is not talking to Marc anymore. He isn't adventuring anymore.

Frenchie lost both his legs in a mission gone wrong. He fell in love with his PT person and now they run a restaurant together. While Frenchie still misses the adventures, he also is tired of the PTSD and the pain that follows Moon Knight.

This is just shoddy editing by team Marvel.

Also this...

And this is how they ended this issue. Cliffhanger dead zombie Frenchie. Why is he in scrubs?

(It's at this point that I realized that Tumblr would only let me upload 30 images and I was going to have to break this up into more than two long ass posts. I'm so very very sorry.)

Part two will be linked very soon. Until then, I'm going to thank you for sticking around this long and hope you finish this rage filled adventure with me.

I'm going to admit that I am biased in not just hating Bemis, but also hating this art.

There are places for art like this. I've seen it utilized well in comics where the nature of the comics stands very well with this sort of art. Punisher Max for instance. For those that don't know, Punisher Max is a stand alone version of Frank Castle that was created in order to depict the ultra violence that Frank Castle is capable of in his search for justice and his never ending war.

The problem is that Moon Knight has gotten a reputation for being incredibly violent and unpredictable. You can probably thank Houston for that, but I'm sure the problem dates back to the 90s (always blame the 90s).

On the one hand, Marc is a former soldier, mercenary, and has anger issues. On the other hand, people have been using the excuse that "He's insane, of course he's going to be violent and unpredictable."

This has, most unfortunately, attracted writers like Bemis to the comic and then recruited artists that are more adept at drawing shocking gore or acts.

And even worse, this has attracted in a VERY specific fan base that reads comics looking for the gore, action, and hyper violence. They pick up an issue of Moon Knight, that has traditionally been based around dealing with mental health, classism, depression, and political issues.

These sorts of readers are easy to spot. They will list issues like Bemis, Aaron, and Bendis as their favorite issues. They will complain that newer stuff is boring or that they can't read the old stuff because it's too chatty. They want the action. they want to see Marc ripping a man's face off and biting out their throats.

Things like this are what goad on the perpetuation of Mentally I'll people being dangerous and scary and untrustworthy.

I'll touch on it more next time, but when we see things like this, it's so important that we don't put up with it. That we tell the big companies that Marvel, DC, and so on that we won't stand for this. That they are the problem. Don't put up with things like this. Don't put up with Bemis.

...Also I just really hate this art style. Every page feels SO static. Everyone is always just standing around grinning at things. Maybe I was spoiled by Bill Sienkiewicz, Declan Shalvey, Smallwood, and Alessandro Cappuccio. These people made even standing still look beautiful and full of life. They knew that sometimes just having Moon Knight standing in the rain could say more than words ever could.

PART TWO HERE.

Let's finish this bread.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight comics #Analyzing the comics #BEMIS #This is a labor of love/hate you guys #Please it took me so long #It was so painful #I'm doing this for you #We can't just ignore it anymore #We have to understand the bad comics so that they don't happen again #We have to call this bull shit out

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