#THAT IS ONE BIG CLUSTERFUCK OF PAIN AND SUFFERING MY GUY.

[cynicallyscorned]

me when people ask about cynic's version of sonic 06.

[char-lotteral]

I agree with Kishimoto never trying to use the girls. The hate they get is not fair. I used to defend Sakura back in the days because I hoped kishi would do her justice. When shippuden started I WAS SO HAPPY because I thought this was the start of something great for Sakura and the girls but NOOOOO. Every time, Sasuke showed kishi turned her brainless. If you compare Naruto's actions and Sakura's actions to sasuke, you'd see they're completely different. What's up with that weird fake love confession scene 😭? It makes her look like she was manipulating Naru. JEEZ.

Also he literally had badass Tenten and Temari with cool useful abilities and he didn't use them ?! TF ?! Thank god for modern authors who treat their characters with respect :)

okay2 you know how i am with these longass rants so click readmore and brace yourselves

The way I see it, Sakura's character development in shippuden was always one step forward, two steps back. She gets this really badass scene (like her fight with Sasori and those cool ass medical skills) but is then regressed back into a pining girl in love every time Sauce is on screen or Kishi just throws her in the background YET AGAIN.

I love Sakura's abilities actually. Her brute strength, intelligence, vast knowledge and skill as a medic nin. But what I dislike about her character is how kishi handled her feelings for Sasuke. Naruto and Sakura's obsession with Sasuke was so???? huh??? it was so damn toxic and i never once understood why both Nardo and Sak were so obsessed with him. They were a team for one year???? I mean its great that they care about him alot but Sauce's feelings were kinda valid. His freakin clan died. Id go batshit crazy against my own village too. BUT BESIDES THAT. Both Nart and Sakura's Sasuke obsession was so annoying. 80% of shippuden was literally Keeping up with the Uchihas or Naruto yelling SASUKEH. BUT what irks me so much is the fandom's double standards with both Naruto and Sakura. "Oh Sakura shouldve gotten over her Sasuke obsession" but then turn around and call Naruto's obsession cute and gush about how he's so in love with him!!

Hot take but the only reason why sasunaru is "the most developed ship with the most chemistry" is because theyre both male characters.

I guarantee you if Naruto was a girl and SHE would be the one to have this unhealthy obsession who was chasing around Sasuke, the fandom would shit on Naruto just as much. And if Sasuke were a girl, Sauce would be sidelined like the rest of the female cast and Naruto would have another male character to have a "brotherly bond" with, because thats the only bond Kishimoto is actually good at developing. Yey for male characters having all the screentime and cool assets <333

And about that confession scene, I get her intentions. I really do. I understand that she did that in order to bring him home and that she cares about him but honey, w-why?? Why lie to him about your feelings?? Supposed he DID believe her, then what? then what kishi???? huh??? Some of her fans point the blame on Sai or whatever but I personally dont see why that scene was at all necessary. Maybe to establish Naruto's feelings for her wasnt all that serious? or his maturity? idk man. That scene was such a clusterfuck.

In the end her development in The Last and in Boruto was immaculate. She had one of the best glow ups in the old gen and ironically enough, her character wasn't butchered in Boruto. She got badass scenes she was cheated from in shippuden. I also love how she's finally getting the spotlight she deserves. Unlike the other konoha 12 :,)))

Okay onto the next female character that Kishi completely wasted. My baby. My light. 🙈 AAAHHH HINATAA.

I DONT EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN OKAY2 DEEP BREATHS.

Let me just establish this real quick. Hinata's goal was to get stronger because of Naruto, her goal was never to be with Naruto. She wanted to become someone who is worthy enough to stand beside him, someone whom he can consider as an equal, as a partner. She NEVER once said "marrying Naruto-kun is my all time goal UwU" (if youre one of those weirdos who interpret her character that way, youre immediately invalid, go take a hike)

I personally dont have anything against their crushes but to the point of making their personalities revolve around these guys every time theyre onscreen is so fucking frustrating. And with the way he writes their dialogues is so.damn.cringey. Like that one scene in the war arc with Tsunade and Madara

"I mAy bE a WomAn but I aM nOt WeAAKKKK"

BAAHAHAAHHA WHAT?? Everyone else gets coolass monologues and one liners but thats the best you can come up with Kishi?????? Hilarious.

If im being honest. Hinata's character is actually kinda well written. Not well executed. Dear God no. But with the way he set her story, her personality, her chracterization. She's honestly one of the best written female characters on the show. IMO. By Kishi's standards of writing women ofc. She's hands down one of the most complex characters. Her shy personality wasnt out of the blue, it wasnt a cutesy waifu trait. Her abusive upbringing made her that way. Her trauma turned her that way. So yeah, sue her if she looked up to Naruto as an inspiration when everyone else in her family treated her like dust. Shit on her for having Naruto's love light in her dark when her own damn father wouldnt even look her in the eye and her entire clan shunned her because she was "weak." She doesnt owe her family shit so idgaf what they do with the Hyuga clan. Neji and Hanabi aren't included btw

Im not gonna deny that her role in the show was only as the love interest but tbh for a love interest, Im glad her character wasnt so one dimensional. It just pains me SO MUCHHH how fucking wasted she is. Every time she's with Naruto, they always make her into a damsel in distress. They always feel the need to turn Naruto into the heroic prince. How cute.

LIKE THAT ONE SCENE IN THE LAST WHERE SHE'S THROWN IN THE CAGE?? WHY??? LET NARUTO AND HINA FIGHT THAT FREAKING ALIEN GOD TOGETHER. QUIT WITH THE TOXIC MASCULINITY. WE GET IT. NARUTO'S STRONG. GOOD FOR HIM. NOW LETS SEE HINATA THROW HANDS AND PUT NARUTO IN THE CAGE GODAMMIT

Hnggggg dont get me started with her role in Boruto. She's as relevant as a damn houseplant in the manga. They made her into an invisible trophy wife and "the mc's mother" and we all KNOW what happens to the shounen mc's mother once mc is in need of character development :) Quit putting her in the background. Give us that scene where she won against Hanabi DESPITE being retired for years. Give us that scene where she trains Boruto. GIVE US ANY FIGHT SCENE OF HER WHERE HER POTENTIAL ISNT WASTED WTF?¿

Now if you say that Hinata didnt have development. YOURE INVALID. She came from an abusive household, the shyest girl in her class, her insecurities got in the way of her own confidence, had difficulty of standing up for herself now became a loving mother of two, has the guts to kick her husband out of the house(with whom she couldnt even keep eye contact with when she was a kid) became the strongest hyuga, most supportive wife and mother, and has given her kids the comforting childhood she never had as a kid.

She has one of the most beautiful stories in the show and if you think her personality is only Naruto-kun and big boobs, then im sorry that you cant appreciate such a heartwarming story.

And I agree, killing her would honestly make me feel more at ease than continue to see her suffer because of godawful misogynistic writers. But at least let her die in an epic fight. Please. PLEASEE. She got nerfed so bad, i feel a physical pain every time i think about it

Okay what else. I think Ino got pretty good development. Another wasted potential in shippuden but she's doing good for herself in Boruto. I dont know what Temari is up to. They basically made her into another classic angry mom who beats up her husband for comedy trope. Haha very funny and original! Im not sure with her career, im not that invested in the anime.

Tenten??

oh G O D Tenten. The dirtiest of all. Her jokes about her screentime is so mean and i hate that its true ahsjhs. She was the only female character in OG who's goal wanted to be as strong as Tsunade but what did Kishi do to her?? Sidelined. Forgotten. Irrelevant. Like every damn female on the show :D

Konan shouldnt have died. I blame plot armor. I know in my heart that Konan wouldve kicked Obito's ass if it weren't for Kishi's boomer mindset.

Tsunade had so much hype when she was introduced but died down in the war arc. Madara wiped the floor with the kages. Holy shit. Not only that, but yipee! Naruto is there to save the day AGAIN!!!!

AND UGHHHH If the female characters were given proper treatment then maybe MAYBE all the endgame couples wouldve made fucking sense????¿¿¿

I think that ends my rant. Im not sure how the female characters in Boruto are handled. Except maybe Sarada (she's pretty well executed in the manga imo). But arguably they are sooo much better handled in Boruto than how the old gen girls were. And thats because Kishi isnt anywhere near the new gen female cast. I cant formulate a solid opinion with the other new gen female cast since im not entirely invested in the anime. Not ashamed to admit that I only watch it for the sunshine moments and for Hinata :DD

[a-student-out-of-time]

Twisted Sister Arc Review Part 1

Hi guys I’m the Anon who does the reviews around here…guess you could call me the Review Anon? Wonder what the lore behind me would be…anyway that doesn’t matter! Point is, I have an Arc to review and Jesus is this a big one. So big that A) I’m doing submissions (with permission from the Mod of course) and B) I’m splitting the review into 3 parts. Heavy Arcs are Heavy and a LOT of stuff happens here so let’s get right into it!

So, the parts of the Twisted Sister Arc are first the Massacre, second is the Mindwipe and third is the Prison Break. Last one doesn’t start with M but I’m not doing rhyming here, but that’s enough time wasting let’s get right into it~

Massacre

Easily the darkest part of the Arc but given the Arc is basically Kanade being a Slasher Killer here, what do you expect? While Danganronpa is a franchise about murder, and we had serial killers in it both canon and fanon the nature of the Killing Game means that a full-blooded mass killing akin to many slasher films hasn’t really occurred in the franchise before. This makes Kanade’s bloody rampage here even more disturbing, as while we have had mass killings before, see Mukuro’s rampage through Giboua Middle School in Killer Killer, those are established as backstory drops for the characters, we never actually see one being carried out in action. And going back to that massacre, Mukuro only did it because Junko thought her sister’s killer intent might have slipped and it’s to prove to her she is still a killer, but here Kanade is killing for cold blooded revenge. And she doesn’t just kill a bunch of randoms as she brutally murders Iroha, Peko, Akane, Nekomaru, Sonia and Kokoro very brutally and very effectively. I knew something was up given that the entire school went into lockdown and all the fighters from Class 77-B were geared to fight Kanade to the death, and Kanade is such a pansy of a fighter that Sonia beat the living shit out of here, and Syo was taken down by the QC, and we all know how terrifying Syo is. But once the bodies started to drop, I knew that the first time that Hajime would reset on purpose was coming up and there were so many questions. Who set Kanade up for this? Someone had to be helping her…. but who and why? Juu could have let her out but he couldn’t have supplied Kanade with her tools and intel (more on that later) so it has to be someone else.

Within the darkness of this timeline there is of course your heroes. There are those like Peko who got a lucky shot on Kanade which set a chain line of events leading to Kanade’s death, Mikako who made Kanade’s injuries worse and Kokoro who stabbed Kanade in the eye. But those small victories led to total loses as even if Peko didn’t die, she would be crippled for life and moreover she failed to protect her classmates from Kanade’s wrath, and Mikako lost her mother, just as she started to finally connect with her. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned two names yet, and that’s because they deserve their own paragraphs, I am of course referring to Nikei and Hibiki.

I’m gonna start with the next person who attacks Kanade and that is of course our Journalist boy here. To say this day has been terrible to him would be a massive understatement as one minute he is suffering an energy crash from downing one too many Red Bulls and having lewd thoughts, to running faster than if he happened to be in Mexico (Seriously, if you happen to be a journalist just don’t go to Mexico) to Hope’s Peak and thanks to Ankle Effects, arriving alongside Hajime to a bloodbath. There’s his constant refusal to accept that Iroha is killed, even though we as the audience knew that given Iroha tried to stop Kanade as soon as she arrived at Hope’s Peak and that Kanade was seen by Sonia and co chopping up security guards, the likelihood of her survival was next to none. This carries on from the conversation Nikei had with Yoruko in the previous Arc where he still believes he is dangerous and that he doesn’t see the other Voids as friends or equals, but rather he took the role as leader because he wanted to have power for once in his life, something he alluded to in the Void Theatre during Chapter 5. However, his reaction to Iroha’s unknown safety, and eventually the truth that Kanade really did butcher the poor painter, proves otherwise. While Nikei’s relationship with his fellow Voids canonically won’t get revealed until LINIQ decides to get around to doing the Onmake mode, in which one of the stories in that is going to be about Void pre Mikado- with someone, most likely Nikei, being the POV character, here the fact his first thoughts upon finding out his ‘little sister’ is dead is to disregard the no-killing rule and just beat Kanade to death, proves that he does care about his fellow Voids, but is in several layers of denial. Out of all the Voids, Nikei is easily the most guarded and paranoid of the lot, and while the others have loosened up around Hajime and co, Nikei still has a lot of inner demons he has to deal with before he could truly open up to the rest of the QC. And Kanade chopping his right hand off, doesn’t help matters though I do give Nikei credit that unlike in the OG timeline, where upon his right hand been blown up by his exploding gun, he just broke down crying, here, he tries to carry on the fight regardless, or he would have had the other person I need to talk about didn’t show up. This is pretty important to establish that while most of the Voids now are pretty far removed from their canon selves and are unlikely to regress back in that, Nikei is still closely tied with his bastard canon self and more work needs to be done for him to detach from that.

But moving on from someone who needs to get some work done, let’s move onto someone who has seen the natural conclusion of their character development, Hibiki! Ever since Hajime and Chiaki rescued Hibiki from her twisted sister (*rim shot*) back in July, she has been making a ton of progress, firstly coming to terms with what Kanade did and her true nature, developing friendly healthy relationships with Class 77-B, the QC and of course a romantic relationship with Hajime. It seemed kind of cliché for Hibiki to fall for Hajime but then again a) Danganronpa can be cliché at times and B) As a Danganronpa Protagonist Hajime cannot turn off his swag. Then there is her officially joining the QC, learning how to fight and being a complete and utter badarse and a caring lover when needed as she confronted Hajime back when he died the second time. We all knew it was only a matter of time when Hibiki had to confront her sister and when Kanade broke into the school, we saw fully, how much Hibiki has grown in the past 3 months. The old Hibiki would have curled up in a corner terrified, crying and probably going into the Puppet State. Here though, Hibiki’s FIRST THOUGHTS upon finding out that Kanade is more dangerous now is to done some armour and get some weapons, and face her sister head on with no hesitation. All without going into the Puppet State at least once, which probably means that its more or less gone now. Kanade tried to talk her sister out of fighting her, but Hikibi isn’t buying Kanade’s insurance anymore and a fight breaks out. If this ever gets animated or becomes a visual novel, I would love to see the Hibiki vs Kanade fight animated as its brilliant, its epic and it’s just so satisfying to see Kanade getting the living snot beaten out of her. You could argue that Nikei’s mauling of Kanade was like that but there, Nikei was more or less in grief due to Iroha’s death and the whole thing was as painful to watch as the final fight in Captain America: Civil War, not saying what because spoilers ahoy. Here though is a glorious battle, as Hibiki gets to deliver justice onto her demonic sister and it is SO SO satisfying, given that a reset happens shortly afterwards.

And sadly, with that, we come to easily the weakest part of not only this part of the arc, but the arc overall, Yasuke’s multiverse theory. It could be written better, and even the Mod agrees that the way it was presented shouldn’t have been the way it worse, that having Umeko throw some ideas at Hajime and him coming to the conclusion that they might have been living in a multiverse be better narrative then Yasuke be like ‘Oh hey I am suddenly an expert on Time Travel now’. It would make Hajime breaking his no kill rule that much more impactful as he doesn’t have the excuses of not only Nikei’s who was currently going through a mental breakdown, and in the current plot where Yasuke more or less planted the seed of doubt in Hajime’s mind. Yasuke still has a role to play in this arc but during the Massacre timeline, I feel like he could have been removed entirely from the plot and not only would it have made no difference, but then most readers wouldn’t be complaining about it as much as Yasuke being a general A-hole wouldn’t tick them off. I’m not saying ‘THIS IS AS BAD AS ONCOMING STORM’ as that Arc was just a giant clusterfuck of a mess, and aside from this one part, the arc is very strong overall, but I will give criticism when due. I’m not mentioning my thoughts on Yasuke as a whole here because he’s more relevant in other parts of the Arc. However, Hajime killing Kanade and himself at the same time is brilliant and seeing Kanade begging for her life as Hajime throws her out of the window is so satisfying given not only all the crap she has been dealing up until that point, but also because in SDAR2, she was 100% fulfilled with the events at that point and given it was HIBIKI who was begging for her life then, let’s just say karma is a bigger bitch then Kanade is.

And that concludes the Massacre part of the Arc as Hajime kills himself and Kanade at the same time and he goes back to just before Nikei started to have indecent thoughts. No time to look at the 3rd page of the national newspapers’ boy, we got a serial killer to stop! And with that I’m stopping here as the Massacre part is finished. But this review is far from over, this is just here because otherwise my, the Mod’s and everyone else’s brains won’t be able to process all of this. Stay tuned for part 2 when we cover Kanade’s capture, a scrum debate among the QC and a bold move by the Mod which I do wish will come up more! Until then, Adios! - Review Anon

//Part 1 of 3

//Finally get to submit these

[crossdressingdeath]

Omg Please talk shit about Jc, please please please?

I am so glad you asked.

(Under a cut because a) long and b) hiding character hate behind a cut is just good manners.)

Let’s start with the easy bit, shall we? So many people insist that JC didn’t really want WWX dead. “He missed him!” they say. “He felt horrible about him dying!” they insist. This is... so easy to call bullshit on that I’m genuinely surprised it’s such a popular position. It only takes one sentence: He tried to kill WWX the second he realized he was back. Or, here’s another one: He spent the time WWX was dead torturing people to death in case they turned out to be WWX. Now, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like grief to me.

If you want more proof that he actually did want WWX dead, let’s go back a bit. First siege of the Burial Mounds. Which JC led. There is a reason the cultivation world firmly believes that JC was the one who killed WWX in the end. Yeah, a lot of the fanbase seems to forget that the first thing JC did after their sister sacrificed herself to save WWX’s life was lead a massive force to kill him. And arranging a force of all four major sects after the slaughter that was the pledge conference couldn’t be done instantly; it’s not like JC stabbed WWX in a moment of uncontrollable grief and fury at his sister’s death. No, he readied a force large enough to defeat WWX’s undead army, led them up to the Burial Mounds, and slaughtered all the innocent people living there. (For fans of just The Untamed reading this, that’s novel canon. Obviously in The Untamed things play out differently, but I’m talking strictly novel here. Untamed JC has his own problems but at least he didn’t raise an army against the brother their sister just died to protect, and yes, that’s the nicest thing I have to say about him.)

I’ve talked about my thoughts on the big ‘Twin Prides of Yunmeng’ promise, so I won’t rehash that here. But it does bring to mind another major issue I have with JC: he is so insanely self-centred throughout the entire story. He never even for a moment considers that he actually is better off than WWX. He fixates on JFM preferring WWX, and never realizes that JFM’s protection only extends so far; WWX still spends most of his life on the wrong end of Zidian, listening to YZY insult both him and his parents while JFM at most offers a single rebuke. Both YZY and JC blame him for every little thing that goes wrong, from simple childhood mischief to JFM ignoring JC to YZY and JFM’s failing marriage. After WWX’s parents died he spent his life either on the streets or as the Jiang family’s pet scapegoat. And yet JC acts like WWX was doted on by everyone and never suffered a single hardship in his life. Like JC, the sect heir, was the one who really suffered. Please note: JC was also abused, and he has a right to be angry about it. I take no issue with that. What I take issue with is his apparent inability to extend a single shred of compassion to the person he claimed to love like a brother. He really does remind me of XY; insisting that no amount of suffering on WWX’s part is enough to equal his own pain because WWX’s suffering is only his, while JC’s suffering hurt JC, so was infinitely worse than anything WWX could ever go through. Obvious example: He complains about having felt bad to the guy who was dead for over a decade.

And JC did take part in abusing WWX. I don’t know how much he meant it and how much was his mother’s influence and/or the aforementioned inability to show compassion, but he also blames WWX for everything that goes wrong. He sulks and complains when anyone shows WWX favour over him, even if that favour is earned. See: he freaks out when anyone mentions the list of young masters because WWX scored above him. He refuses to acknowledge that it’s his own failures that lead to WWX being favoured more often than not. As an example, WWX has more friends because JC is cruel. He lashes out at everyone who tries to befriend him, and then acts like it’s all their fault when they decide he’s not worth the effort. We only see him having friendly interactions with anyone when WWX is present; when WWX isn’t there to smooth things over and act as JC’s target of choice, his interactions with people tend to be coldly civil at best. It’s one of the reasons I have yet to find a single ship for JC that I actually like; either one or both of the parties involved is always OOC because literally no one outside of WWX and JYL and sometimes JL shows any indication of doing more than tolerating JC. No one likes him! He’s cold to the people he doesn’t actively attack (verbally or physically)! He is by all evidence a truly horrible person to spend any length of time with!

Speaking of evidence of him being horrible: he can’t even do his fucking job properly. His own people would rather suffer than go to him to deal with any supernatural problems! This is canon! They will not go to Lotus Pier to request the aid of the sect in charge of protecting them because JC has been caught torturing people! I am not exaggerating here. That is in the text. Here, I’ll even quote it:

“On top of that, Lotus Pier is truly a scary place. How would anyone dare go there again?” 

(...)

“I haven’t been there myself, but I know someone who went because his house was being badly haunted. But it was all bad luck. That Sect Leader Jiang was cracking a glowing whip right on the training field. The victim’s flesh and blood flew as high as his screams! A servant secretly informed him that the sect leader caught the wrong person again, that he hadn’t been in a great mood, and that he definitely shouldn’t be irritated in any way. He was so scared that he dropped off the gifts he brought and fled at once. He never dared visit again.”

- MDZS chapter 92: Longing (Part 3), ExR translation

(A side note: I occasionally see people insisting that JC wasn’t actually torturing demonic cultivators. Here, have proof that those people are wrong. Additional side note: if this is ‘not in a great mood’ I’d hate to see what actual anger looks like.)

And poor JL! Baby boy deserved better than an uncle who verbally lashes out at him at every possible opportunity and refuses to acknowledge that he’s a fucking child. I’ve talked about my thoughts on that before too, and I’ll happily do it again, but... not tonight. It’s late, and I need to wrap this up. Someone remind me later if you want my thoughts on that particular clusterfuck.

So yeah, he’s an asshole who spent 13/16 years torturing people instead of doing his job. We have no evidence that he’s done any good as sect leader without JYL and WWX there to keep him from doing shit like what he’s apparently gotten up to while they’ve been dead. We have no evidence that any living character other than WWX and JL has any positive feelings towards him that aren’t directly tied to WWX (note that NHS, the only character unrelated to him who has any friendly social interactions with him, doesn’t mention him in an informal capacity once in the present day arc). We do have evidence that he ignores everyone else’s suffering in favour of fixating on his own and spent the entire period WWX was dead trying to ensure he remained that way at the expense of his sect. Not exactly the actions of some absolute sweetheart or... whatever the fuck the fanbase seems to always be insisting he is.

I could keep going. I will if I’m asked. But for now it’s a quarter past midnight and I am all ranted out.

[eviegrimhlide]

that ouat x descendants au

I dunno why but for the longest time I’ve had this idea for a ouat x descendants fanfic, that I’ll just randomly get urges to write it

more below b/c my babbling is L O N G

basically auradon takes the place of misthaven / the enchanged forest, the isle of the lost is an even bigger clusterfuck than before, and emma is something of a contemporary to ben & the other descendants. but the thing is shenanigans or smth go down with rumple (who’s still the dark one) and he finds out emma’s the savour with a fuckton of magic, in a land where magic was just outlawed, and goes after her. so snow and charming have to protect her but it all goes wrong, and she accidentally get’s sent away to the land without magic (unknown to her parents) and emma’s plot is similar to her pre-storybrook life.

meanwhile in auradon poor snow & charming are distraught they lost their daughter but sadly life also moves on. they also mostly keep this under wraps due to the pain, and to keep the secret of their daughter having magic, so people only really know that snow and charming had and lost a daughter.

anways descendants 1 and 2 happen (I dunno bout 3 yet b/c I’m still mEH on it but also fuck hades mal is not his daughter bc I said so. also lilith totally exists in this) ok maybe instead of descendants 3 there’s this quasi plague that’s settling over auradon b/c magic is dying for some reason, despite it being outlawed it still existed but now it’s dying and it’s causing this taint, and the fairies say it can only be stopped by the help of the saviour so everyone’s just??? who tf is the saviour (guessing snow & charming didn’t let that revelation slip oop)

many shenanigans later the descendants find out that it’s emma who’s the savior and oop she’s actually snow and charming’s daughter and oop she’s still alive aND OOP she’s in the land without magic. it’s a fun time getting there but they got a tracking spell working leading them to an apartment in this crazy ass city that’s waaay different than any of the ones in auradon. so they get inside and it leads them to the apartment door. what they don’t expect is a grown up 20-almost-30 something to open the door. and they dON’T expect said 20-almost-30 something to have a 10 year old son. wasn’t she supposed to be around their age, just a bit older??

turns out when you’re dealing with unstable magic to protect your magically inclined baby, it can have adverse effects. like accidental time travel. oh dear.

sO it takes a helluva lot of convincing for emma to return to auradon with them, cause honestly?? who has time for believing in magic anymore (WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE AURADON) and it end up being henry who convinces her, with this kickass story book, the only thing he had left of his father (yes baelfire is still totally his father, and yes neal is still the son of rumple, and yes he somehow ended up in the land without magic. i like the idea that rumple got his hands on the book / stole it from the author, bc that’s sorta still a thing. and rumple was using it to help himself along to one up the heroes, and bael, in a fit of rebellion, stole the book when he ran away, but I digress.)

henry and the descendants convince emma to return to auradon, except uh oh, while they were gone magic failed even more and the villains got out. except the magically inclined baddies are also suffering b/c of this so it’s just a mess all around. some have set up bases of operation, some are running around causing chaos, and some are being contained by the kingdom’s armies

long story short and it turns out this plague is emanating from neverland. b/c yes it’s still a scary place ala ouat, and yes peter pan is still a bad guy. neverland is dying b/c of the lack of magic, and damnit the island is gonna take everyone with it. basically peter would steal kids and rush them off to neverland, where they’d eventually be fed to the island to keep up the magic, but as people stopped using magic, and believing in it, it’s power dwindled, thus less magic for peter to feed to the island.

and honestly I forgot where I was going with this but it’s captain swan af, cause I’m just imagining them back in auradon (with hook cause hello it’s neverland, and who knows neverland better than peter pan who’s missing?? hook) and emma’s got this big magic thing she’s trying to psyche herself up for, and killian is just all, “c’mon swan you can do it, I’ve yet to see you fail.” in the sultry voice of his. and emma just LOOKS at him with a smirk and is all “well keep waiting cause today’s not that day.” which tOTALLY leaves everyone confused cause hello?? this is the saviour?? a good guy?? and is she fLIrTInG??? with big baddie captain HOOK??? yes, yes they are, cause no matter the universe, those two are one true love

and maybe one day I’ll write it but lbr, I’ll mostly dream about writing it.

(also evie & doug aren’t a thing b/c I said so. there are so many ship options and they had to go with this.)

[mist-chance]

Informant!Dabi | Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics | Pre-slash | Canon-divergence

Summary:

“So what do you want?” asked Eraser, after Dabi’d given a brief overview of why he’d come in and laid out his offer.  “Someone like you wouldn’t do this out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Hey, don’t make me sound like a bad guy for wantin’ somethin’ in return, Eraser.” Dabi held his arms out disarmingly. “My neck’s gonna be on the line here. Don’t pretend you or some other Hero’ll rush in to ‘rescue’ me if things go south.”

-----------------

There was a crack in the table, a starburst of pale brown on darker brown that looked like a firework, or a spider web, starting from a central point. Like ice put under too much heat, too much pressure, too much of either or both too quick until it had no choice but to shatter—

It was driving Dabi fucking insane. Problem was, he had nothing else to look at in the goddamn room other than the empty chair across from him, on the other side of the table. Interrogation rooms were probably designed that way on purpose, to suck out all common sense and thoughts of “being difficult” from the sorry fucks who got dumped in them. The room didn’t even have a goddamn smell, which was more disturbing than the emptiness of it. Dabi glanced up at the one-way mirror behind the empty chair, skated his gaze over his face — he still wasn’t used to the scars and staples, after all these years — and focused on the crack again.

Fucking Heroes and law enforcement, with their goddamn “protocols” for dealing with “suspicious individuals.” If Dabi stared at the chair instead of the crack, he’d start second guessing himself. He’d rather go slowly insane with the ghosts of his past pre-Dabi, than start thinking that maybe, just maybe, he should try biting the bullet and let himself go Villain.

He looked up when the door next to the mirror opened with a soft click. A plain-looking man, remarkable only because of how fucking bland he looked, like the human-version of a cardboard box, stepped into the room. His scent was just as bland. Beta. Not surprising, since it wasn’t hard to peg Dabi as an alpha. Cops were usually more useless than not, but they weren’t completely stupid when it came to the basics. It was always safer to send in a beta to deal with potentially difficult alpha or omega persons of interest. It was possible he was masking his scent, but Dabi doubted it. Cardboard Man didn’t seem the type.

Cardboard Man had to be a detective though; cops, the “grunts” of law enforcement, all wore the same uniform and wore stale coffee and cheap food like cologne. Detectives had their own uniform — business-casual — unless they were those undercover shitheads who tried too hard to be bad.

Dabi was ready to dismiss Cardboard Man by just his scent, until he locked eyes with him. Cardboard Man had a glint in his plain, black gaze that spoke of a moral compass that never wavered, with a steel spine to match it. Dabi added a point of respect to Cardboard Man for that alone, and another when he didn’t stare or flinch at Dabi’s face.

“Sorry for the wait.” Cardboard Man actually sounded sincere as he apologized. He even dipped his head briefly. After shutting the door, he sat across from Dabi and placed a folder and a blank notepad on the table. It hid half of the crack from view. “I’m Detective Tsukauchi. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to stop by. The receptionist said you had information on— ”

“Not you,” Dabi said, curt. He was too on edge to play up his usual asshole mask. Besides, Cardboard Man’s — Tsukauchi’s — sincerity didn’t raise his hackles, which usually had him acting like a douche. It helped that he was a beta, too. Dabi was tempted, briefly, to settle for Tsukauchi. He idly scratched his wrist, and a flash of pain pulsed where his nails had snagged at the staples there. It reminded him why he needed to stick to his original plan. “Told that lady up front I’d only talk to Eraser.”

Tsukauchi kept a level stare on him, trying to call his bluff. When Dabi didn’t budge, Tsukauchi nodded.

“Eraserhead will be here soon. In the meantime, may I ask you a few questions?” Tsuakuchi flipped the folder open. “You have the right to refuse answering any and all questions, of course, but there are a few pieces of information I need to file the correct paperwork.”

Dabi slouched further into his chair and flicked his hand in a careless wave.

“Thank you.” Tsukauchi slid a pen out of the front pocket of his shirt. “What should I call you?”

“I go by Dabi.”

Some questions were easy to answer, like his name and age. Others, like his job or where he lived, he either refused to answer point-blank or gave a smartass comment to distract from it. Tsukauchi took Dabi’s bullshit in stride, not looking the least bit surprised when the more personal questions weren’t answered. Everything about him was steady: his expressions, his voice, his scent. Dabi was getting more suspicious, restless, the longer Tsukauchi stayed level-headed and unruffled.

Before he could decide whether he wanted to test Tsukauchi’s patience or not, Eraserhead slipped into the room, dragging a second chair behind him. Eraser set his chair next to Tsukauchi’s and slouched into it, making the metal feet scrape against the concrete floor. The short screech it made rang wrong in Dabi’s ear. Despite the uncaring slouch and looseness of Eraser’s body language, Dabi could tell the Hero’s dark eyes were alert, watchful. The asshole was testing him. Dabi scented the air discretely, but wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t make out Eraser’s dynamic. Like most Heroes — the ones who weren’t Endeavor — Eraser wore a scent blocker.

It didn’t really matter. Two could play that game.

Dabi leant back in his chair and languidly spread his legs under the table. He let his eyelids slip half-shut, and cocked his head to the side as he met Eraser’s gaze head on. The silence grew thick across the tabletop between them, and almost started to crackle the longer it stretched on.

“Enough,” Tsukauchi said, sounding exasperated as he sliced through the silence. “I called you here for a reason, Eraser, and it wasn’t so you could act like one of your students.”

Eraser's shoulders rose, and he seemed to bristle at Tsukauchi’s dig like an angry cat.

“And you,” Tsuakuchi turned his sharp eyes onto Dabi, “Dabi-san. You don’t seem the type to come to the police if you have other options. So let’s cut the bullshit and get down to it.”

Dabi clicked his tongue in annoyance but nodded, while Eraserhead grunted.

"All right then.” Eraser stayed slouched in his chair, but lost the tense, confrontational set to his shoulders. “You have my attention.”

“Heard you were lookin’ into Stain,” Dabi said, eyes locked onto Eraser’s. “I think I can help you out.”

-----------------

The Hero Killer had made waves with his “bring down the false Heroes” propaganda, even after he got arrested. That was the annoying part of this whole clusterfuck. The underground, where the “dredges of society” — people who couldn’t fit in, in a society where the odds were stacked against them — lived, existed in a fragile balance between fanatics like Stain, and those who were just trying to survive, like Dabi. Stain had tipped the balance towards the psychos pushing for a complete overhaul of society’s current status quo — Hero-based society — no matter the means, or the cost. It was already a pain to survive day-to-day, but Stain had made it worse, with the psychos actively recruiting for dumbasses to use as cannon fodder for their so-called “revolutions.”

It wasn’t that Dabi didn’t get where Stain’s ideals came from. Hell, anyone part of the underground got it: the prejudice, the hypocrisy of their current society, was obvious to people like them. But he didn’t buy into Stain’s cause. Society was fucked up, it needed to be fixed, but killing off the fake Heroes fucking everything up wouldn’t solve anything. Killing them off was too easy on them. It gave fake Heroes the chance to stand for something good, to be martyrs. They didn’t need any more power handed over to them. The fake Heroes needed to suffer, needed to have their names and reps dragged through mud and shit until they were hardly recognizable. That was the revamp society needed.

Dabi seemed to be the only one who realized that, but he had little motivation to go about starting his own revolution. He had a different target in mind. Sure, his target was one person instead of society as a whole, and his goals were probably short-sighted and selfish. Petty, even. But Dabi knew exactly what he was — a selfish asshole. He wasn't afraid to embrace it.

The biggest “fuck you” he knew he could give the shitty old man would be to find a good, strong mate, have a handful of pups with Quirks ten times stronger and better than the flaming asshole’s, and then let them take the Hero Rankings by a storm. It was just his fucking luck that nobody could take a hint and leave him the fuck alone, so he could actually go about finding a mate. Dabi knew his chances weren’t great to begin with, just from his appearance. But having to chase off all the idiots trying to recruit him hurt his chances just as much.

Four different factions headed by Stain-wannabes had already scouted him. He’d brushed them off easily; a sarcastic comment, a sneer, a flash of flame and a spike of pissed-off alpha to his scent sent them scurrying away. 

But then, a few days ago, a professional had scouted him. Giran was a sleazy fuck, but he knew things. Worse, he knew people. He had a rep for connecting no-name street rats like Dabi with groups that either had established reps, or promised to be big. Giran also had a rep for never backing the wrong group. Dabi suspected Giran was working for the up-and-coming League of Villains group, the group Stain had reportedly been a member of.

Bullshit.

Dabi’d never met Stain, but the rumors surrounding the Hero Killer and the bodies he’d left behind spoke volumes. Stain was a single-minded individual who only cared about following his goals. No way in hell would somebody like that buy in to a newbie group that seemed like a hot mess.

The thing was, Dabi’d also heard rumors about the actual mastermind behind the League of Villains. Not that hand-covered, mopheaded freak Shigaraki. Nah, the real boss was an actual threat, some guy who was supposed to be hundreds of years old with just as many Quirks in his arsenal. Dabi didn’t know how much of those rumors were true, but he believed this boogieman had the ability to take and give Quirks at will, and had access to those black monsters that’d swarmed Hosu. And that boogieman had sicced Giran on him.

Dabi hated Heroes. He hated the society that let the old bastard he had to call his sperm donor be the Number Two Hero; the society that had destroyed his family. But if he had to choose between two evils, he’d take his chances with the devil he knew. Forward thinking and long term planning weren’t Dabi’s strong points, but he wasn’t too far gone in his hatred of the flaming asshole to want complete chaos.

So when word came through the grapevine that an Underground Hero was looking for some info on Stain, Dabi paid attention. The cops and Heroes should’ve gathered all they needed on Stain; there wasn’t any need to beat a dead horse. If they weren’t actually looking for information on Stain, that meant they were looking into something else. Something beyond Stain.

Dabi had the sneaking suspicion that "something" was the boogieman behind the League of Villains. Which meant the Heroes needed an in with the League. Dabi was willing to consider being an informant, if the Heroes could give him what he wanted in return.

-----------------

“So what do you want?” asked Eraser, after Dabi’d given a brief overview of why he’d come in and laid out his offer. His face, from what Dabi could see of it in the gap beneath Eraser’s long, messy bangs and above the high set of his scarf, was carved from stone. His dark eyes glittered knowingly, but he still said, “Someone like you wouldn’t do this out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Hey, don’t make me sound like a bad guy for wantin’ somethin’ in return, Eraser.” Dabi held his arms out disarmingly, hands open. “My neck’s gonna be on the line here. Don’t pretend you or some other Hero’ll rush in to ‘rescue’ me if things go south.”

“Answer. The. Question.” The words were dragged out of Eraser’s mouth like teeth.

Even though Dabi had gone through all this bullshit, he still hesitated in saying what he wanted. It felt too vulnerable, too much like a confession. It rankled, made his alpha’s hackles rise, to show the slightest bit of weakness.

“…A mate,” Dabi bit out. “I don’t care about appearances,” he continued, brusquely, before Eraser or Tsukauchi could say anything. “I just want a mate who’s kind, sensible, and has a powerful Quirk.”

Eraser and Tsukauchi stared at Dabi, faces unreadable. But because their faces were unreadable, Dabi could read their silence and their scents. The silence was too stiff, while Tsukauchi’s scent, at least, read “discomfort.”

“Fuck,” Dabi snorted, amused. “You already have someone in mind, don’t you.”

“Well— ”

“No,” Eraser cut off Tsukauchi. “Not going to happen.”

“He’s not a child anymore, Eraser,” Tsukauchi said, exasperated again. “You can’t make decisions like this for him.”

“I’m one of the alphas in his life,” Eraser shot back, keeping his glare steadily on Dabi. “I can make decisions for him if I think they aren’t important enough to bother him with.”

It didn’t take much to figure out what Eraser was being pissy about.

“Actually,” Dabi broke in, “you do have to tell this guy about the decisions you make for him. Otherwise, you’re no different from every other domineering asshole of an alpha in the world. Right?” he said with a sly smile.

Dabi could tell Eraser was ready to lunge across the table and strangle him. He let his smile widen.

“Eraser. We can let them meet, at least.” Tsukauchi seemed to take Eraser’s stony silence as permission, since he turned to Dabi and said, “Yes, we do have someone in mind.”

-----------------

This is my first time writing something with A/B/O dynamics. I also really liked the idea of Touya-as-Dabi choosing to be an informant, instead of going Villain. I had fun writing this, so I might continue it either as a multi-chap fic or a series.

Thanks for reading!

[thesinglesjukebox]

TAYLOR SWIFT - YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN

[3.65]

The one that's on our mind, 365, all the time...

Will Rivitz: The Singles Jukebox -- Corrections, June 21 2019: The author of this blurb has previously stated that the selection of Meghan Trainor as LA Pride headliner would forever be the nadir of Pride-related programming. The author regrets the error. [1]

Joshua Copperman: The discourse for "ME!": "What does this mean for Taylor's next era?" The discourse for this lyrical clusterfuck: "What does this mean at all?" It's a much more interesting production, without stock horns and with some nice "Royals"-y vocal layering, but it's the most incoherent thing she's ever released. Is it about stans? Is it about homophobes? Is it a coming out song? Did Taylor throw the first shade at Stonewall? What is HAPPENING?? I'm sorry, I need to calm down. [3]

Will Adams: Taylor said "Gay Rights!" Kind of! Sort of. Well... it's complicated. Not necessarily because of her status as a cis straight woman, but because the message itself is so damn muddled. Stans and trolls and bigots and music journalists are lumped in the same mass of "haters," and while it's worth noting that this by no means the first anti-haters pop song to exist, the overt political text here results in lots of crossed wires. The song suffers as a result too, throwing half-formed catchphrases at the wall to see what sticks: the chorus is a melodic void (odd considering Taylor's songwriting strength); the "gowns" reference is too subtle to register; the patter results in odd scansion throughout ("like it's PUH-trón"); and "snakes and stones never broke my bones" is no more clever than "don't need opinions from a shellfish or a sheep." Speaking of Katy, also wrapped up in all this is a resolution of a beef that never seemed that important except as something for either party to mine for big single launches. It's all too much, especially for a not-bad track that fizzes just fine on its own. It'd be churlish to ask Taylor to take her own advice; for now all I ask for is coherence. [4]

Jonathan Bradley: Taylor Swift has always had a talent for deploying sharp and piquant phrases, the sorts of lyrics that tell blunt little stories like animated gifs. It's an opportunity for her to go broad and get funny: "Some indie record that's much cooler than mine," for instance, or "I can make the bad guys good for a weekend," or "I don't love the drama, it loves me." "You Need to Calm Down" is like an entire song built from these lines, and it whirls by like a Twitter thread or an Instagram story. Taylor sass is a lot of fun, and many of these ripostes are satisfyingly catty in their insouciance ("I'm just like, 'hey... are you OK?'" might be the best of these). Swift has shrugged off detractors on "Shake It Off" and "Mean," but she is more single-minded this time, and that focus paradoxically dilutes the intent. Swift's greatest strength as a songwriter is her interiority; she's adept at examining and interpreting her own feelings. But a consequence of that is that she is far less certain when she needs to step outside the bounds of her own head. The worst song she has ever released was a charity single called "Ronan," in which Swift sung in the voice of a mother who had lost her child to cancer; so talented at realizing her personal traumas, she proved incapable of reconstructing her sympathy for that bereavement in her own voice. "Calm Down" has some things to say about homophobia, and in this terrain outside her own experience, Swift's words are not so much unpleasant as awkward and a bit superficial, particularly in their uncertain invocation of "shade" as bigotry. (If stan theorists needed evidence that Swift is indeed as straight as she publicly presents, it's here: a queer Taylor would not have written a second verse as disengaged as that one.) But even diluted, Swift singles are still constructed tight. This one continues finding the pastel inversion of Reputation's skeletal synth sound, and echoes "ME!" with a hook of vowel sounds as palilalia -- "oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh..." this time, rather than "me-hee-hee." It's a tic that works -- in moderation. [7]

Alex Clifton: (Puts on music critic hat) It's stronger than "ME!" (which isn't hard but worth noting), I'm glad she takes swipes at homophobia but equating that with personal shots is a little bit weird, it's super catchy but the lyrics are still a little lacking, and I still can't remember all the words even though I have the melody memorized. (Takes off music critic hat, puts on bisexual Swiftie stan hat) EVERYTHING IS RAINBOWS AND MY BRAIN WON'T STOP SINGING THIS AND I WOULD MARRY TAYLOR SWIFT, HAPPY PRIDE!!!!! [5]

Alfred Soto: I'm sure it will sound fine on the radio, especially played beside "Bad Guy" and "Old Town Road." The maximalist intentions behind the Everest-sized synth bass and her rat-tat-tat delivery bespeak a mind that recognizes it's the one needing calm. Except for the "parade" line, I wouldn't have known this alludes to Pride if I hadn't watched the video. I don't feel pandered to as a queer man because, after all, a Pride parade is superficial performativity anyway. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: Give her this: the stacked-up arpeggio in the chorus is an absolutely brilliant hook, particularly the second time when it goes over the top. The rapid-fire prechorus is pretty good too. But the beat is the same freezer-burned "Paper Planes"/"With Ur Love"/"Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" chill, the accents are so far from the right syllables they've filed a misSING perSONS REport, the conflating of trolls with professional critics with the literal Westboro Baptist Church is bad (as is the weird class shit in the video, as if you can't be anti-gay and present like a Pleasantville star), and all this was done much better on "Mean." [5]

Katie Gill: In a way, this song is hellishly brilliant. Taylor Swift has provided her standom with a weapon, something that they can wield against any form of criticism. Want to write an article criticizing the fact that Swift seems to put "homophobia" and "me having internet bullies" on the same level, the fact that the video tactlessly paints rural Americana as the enemy of LGBTQ+ people instead of the Mike Pences of the world, or the fact that the second verse leans way too close to the sort of tactlessness that only aggressively woke allies can pull off? Expect a flock of Twitter replies telling you condescendingly that "you need to calm down" and "you're being too loud," as people ignore the half-assed condemnation of standom during the song's third verse in favor of using Swift's lyrics as a cudgel against any perceived haters. For all that Swift is trying to shed the sneaky snake image, traces of it still linger between the lines. [3]

Edward Okulicz: The people who said "Heartbeats" by The Knife was the future of music were right in 2003, and based on this, have now been right for 16 years and counting. That enormous synth-bass takes a song that should have been awful on paper (ugh, a thematic sequel to "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things," which itself is why we can't have nice things, like good Taylor Swift songs), with the second verse featuring the worst lyrics Swift has ever written, and makes it frisky and playful. The "uh-oh uh-oh UH-OH!" hook is legitimately her best in years. Obsessing about someone is tedious, obsessing about those people is even more tedious, but for once, Swift sounds like she's legitimately above it, even if I don't think she knows what "shade" is. I wanted to hate this for its posturing, but I can't, because of the "uh-oh" bit. But just between you and me, I liked Katy Perry's last single more. [6]

William John: I'm always happy to hear songs that approximate the "Heartbeats" melody, and the layered vocals here sound lovely, but Dorian Corey didn't keep a mummy in her house for fifteen years for "shade" to be misinterpreted so flagrantly. [3]

Danilo Bortoli: Is it fair to demand political accountability from artists? The question remains thorny these days, but when Taylor Swift blatantly goes after pink money, the answer is yes, loud and clear. The case made for "You Need To Calm Down" has pulled the identity politics card (as usual, The Onion put it better). That is, Swift's song oversimplifies an ancient struggle for recognition, making up a narrative that isn't Taylor's to call her own. But what is more infuriating is the sugarcoating: the fact that pride should come only from within, and the naive and painful suggestion that a homophobe would go silent after a line as awful as "shade never made anybody less gay". That is to say, when it comes to protest, I prefer it the French way. Which is why all of this begs the question: Would you tell Richard Spencer to "calm down"? No, of course you wouldn't. [2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: There are probably 2300 words elsewhere in this post about the politics and rhetoric of Taylor's words here (and I'll get to that), but first I feel obligated to talk about how "You Need To Calm Down" works on a purely musical level. It sounds like ass. It takes the bag of tricks that Swift used on "Ready For It?," the most musically captivating of Reputation's singles, and sands off all of their weird edges. Yes, there's a bass thump to welcome you in, but without the distortion it just sounds like Taylor's doing "Royals"-lite (I mean, Joel Little did produce.) And with the fangs off the verse, the lift to the chorus fails to land. It's all just sound, an undifferentiated, imperial wave of midtempo banger signifier without a real hook. Even Swift's vocals, which have always been her most compelling tool, can't sell the song's vibe -- she's confused not giving a fuck for calm. Of course, it's not entirely clear what "You Need To Calm Down"'s vibe, or point, even is. It's trying to be clever, with its winking references to stale LGBTQ and feminist symbology, but by conflating (or at least juxtaposing) those struggles with the problems that Taylor Swift has as a widely hated famous person, it ends up saying nothing at all. In the end, "You Need To Calm Down" is less a coherent song in itself than a Potemkin village to situate endless thinkpieces in. Make it stop. [3]

Ashley Bardhan: I know the title is "You Need To Calm Down" but there are no human words that can aptly describe how much I hate this song. Think of a young pigeon cooing as it flies through a fish market, weaving over and through the glistening crates of silver-scaled fish and ice. Oh no! There's a problem with a shipment! The owner angrily tosses a fat fish into the air, and its scales glint as it smacks the pigeon mid-air and onto the ground with the full brunt of its weight. The pigeon sees the fish market, its final flight, behind its closed eyes in a hurried blur. It weakly wheezes its final birdsong, and then... nothing. Yaaas, hunty. [0]

Iris Xie: 🤷 This is so tired, I can't even be that mad about it. The only question I have, because this song and MV isn't even worth a QTPOC-centered thinkpiece from me is this: when is the Post Malone + Swae Lee + Taylor Swift collaboration happening? This sounds so much like "Sunflower" and is just as deadening. Even the excitement of one of my besties sending me an ~*urgent*~ text message about Katy Perry and Taylor Swift making up over their imaginary feud, once they realized it hurt both of their fanbases, can't even ignite an ounce of care from me. (Bless your heart, my dear friend.) If she really wanted to pander to the gays, she could've just written a sequel to "Look What You Made Me Do" and become a slicker conduit for the less graceful parts about being in queer scenes, which can be about petty, messy drama, rather than being the subject of rage and apathy about being another harbinger of happy happy HAPPY gaypropriation. Like, whatever, she can have her extremely meaningless self-declared ally medal. I've been calm, just give me actual music. [2]

Isabel Cole: It's like this: A while ago I was catching up with an ex who mentioned he'd recently come back into contact with someone we'd known in high school -- acquaintance of his, frenemy of mine, a few sparkling months of giggling BFF-ship deteriorating across a year I spent defending her while she shit-talked my fashion sense in the girls' room to the local blabbermouth -- and he told me, with an ironic arch of the brow, that when my name had inevitably come up she'd said, "Isabel and I used to be so close; I wonder what happened." Reader, I spent like a week losing my mind, repeating the story and relitigating the history to anyone who would listen while bitterly making fun of her internet presence. Was this because I am petty and emotionally volatile? Yes. But it was also because there is a certain level of willful detachment from reality which I do not have the cognitive capacity to process adequately. Taylor Swift having the gall to tell any human on earth to calm down makes me feel insane the way it makes me feel insane to see someone citing as evidence of their incurable adolescent unpopularity the dorky AIM screenname they picked based on an affectionate joke I made. Taylor Swift saying "take several seats" makes me feel the same combination of spiteful and enraged as reading a line recycled from Livejournal in 2005: please learn like everyone else to disguise the extent to which the human brain is a machine wired to seek validation, the transparency of your desperation is making all of us uncomfortable! God, I wanna snub her in a lunchroom so bad. The song is unappealing in ways that barely merit mentioning -- verses that sound like they were reverse-engineered from a MIDI file of the superior but hardly sublime "Gorgeous," chorus that throws in the plodding piano of roaring bravery -- but even beyond the equivalency it implies between Twitter making fun of her and, like, hate crimes, I find the bridge particularly embarrassing, because of how artlessly it reveals its origin: Taylor Swift literally read a Tumblr post (or, the algorithm we call Taylor Swift processed several hundred Tumblr posts) from 2011 saying "stop pitting female artists against each other [handclap emoji etc.]!!!!!!!!!!!" and thought, Wow! Feminism! As for the possibility that this is another masterful turn from Taylor the troll (or troll!Taylor as there is a distressingly high chance she'd say) and by falling for it I've let her win: (1) Taylor Swift is always already winning, this is exactly what Marx was talking about (2) Let me kick it back to my ex one more time: when I asked what she was like these days, he considered and said: "I thought she'd developed self-awareness, but then I realized it was just self-identification." Yeah. [1]

Scott Mildenhall: You know sometimes, when you read the annotations on genius.com, how their deductions and inferences appear to have been made by algorithm? For instance, the notion that this being released on that loud American guy's birthday "seems to support the theory" that one line is about him? This is what would happen if that algorithm was tasked with writing a satirical song. [5]

Stephen Eisermann: My take? This is more lazy allyship than commercialization of pride. Plus, it's kind of a bop. Sucks, then, that Taylor completely misunderstands what shade is -- but did we really expect any better? [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[aikainkauna]

Fanfic trope meme

Apologies to those of you who see this for a third time, as I’ve crossposted it to both LJ and Pillowfort. Feel free to comment over on there (or my other posts) if you like. And of course, feel free to grab this one and do it yourself, if you like.

***

Grabbed this meme from a couple of people on LJ. It's... well, apparently about fanfic tropes. Some of them more terrifying than others.

I have written:

-Hurt/comfort (Yeah, baby! Most of my fic is this.)

-Body swapping (Sort of? Souls slipping into each other's bodies for a bit? Jaffar feeling what Yassamin feels? Sex swap, I've definitely done.)

-Soulmate identifying marks (tattoo, red thread of fate, etc) (I have! The Throne of Solomon. And maybe The Past Forgotten counts, in its way. I may have written more, but I forget.)

-Snowed-in cabin/isolated together for extended period of time (The Jaffar/Pwinzezz Cavefic!)

-Found families (I guess the Samarkand gang counts for poor old Fadl? Even if Jaffar *is* his brother, so technically it is his family. But he does have his religious congregation and Zainab, and is... well, he always does seem to be seeking something, so he's the kind of guy to go for this trope.)

-Fairy tale/mythology AU (And not just when I am  writing in *actual* fairytale/mythology fandoms. Which I am doing most of the time, what with Thief of Bagdad being a 1001 Nights fanfic anyway. So I'm writing fanfic about a fanfic of some age-old RPF (fantasy AU!) about historical figures from the late 700s/early 800s...)

-Enemies  to friends to lovers (Yes, please! Aplenty. I'm surprised that  enemyslash/FoeYay/Hero(ine)/Villain(ess), whatever you want to call it,  isn't mentioned on this list.)

-Characters swap roles AU (Uh... I've written sexual switching in some isolated chapters? Like when Laura  briefly doms Torsten in The Fall of Angels, to help him get over some traumas?)

-Friends to lovers (With RPS, Veidtbone in particular, and Theta/Koschei. This also seems to happen whenever I write femslash.)

-Magical  connection (telepathy, etc) (Doctor/Master basically ruined me for all  my other ships what with their telepathic ability. So that now, it feels less interesting for me to write love/sex that *doesn't* have telepathy.)

-Fake dating/fake marriage accidentally turns into feelings (see next trope)

-Royals/political marriage turns into feelings (These last two are pretty much the same thing in ToB, as I've had Yassamin marry Jaffar a couple of times--like The Past Forgotten and The King's White Falcon, but without him laying a hand on her for up to a year, until she finally grows a brain and realises how loveworthy he is after all.)

-Seemingly unrequited pining (Emphasis on the "seemingly." Jaffar's unrequited   pining is painful enough in the movie, so there's no point in making him  suffer any more.)

-Accidentally fell in love with the mission target (Well, *kind of,* what with Torsten. Lars-Erik was definitely his mission target in the original film, and at the start of Because The World Belongs to the Devil, he made no bones about having wanted to kill Laura Erika [the teenage girl version of Lars-Erik in this AU, to those of you just joining in] when she was born.)

-They break up (but then they get back together) (With Jaffar/Fadl.  Fadl's stormed off in a huff at least twice in the past. And Doctor/Master is always the same old on-off car crash, isn't it? Although this is not a favourite trope of mine, as the setup would usually necessitate them being an existing couple in the first place,  and I tend to not write canon or "plausibly lovers" ships because   they're already happily together. What do Two and Jamie, Holmes and   Watson etc. need me for? They're already as good as married. Let them have their happiness.)

-Supernatural creature/human romance (Sort of. I've written Time Lords/humans, humans/djinn at least. And surely wizards count as supernatural romance, anyway?)

-Reincarnation/'25  Lives' AU (What's with the 25 lives? Is this some big fandom thing again? One of the darkest, most fucked-up fics I ever wrote was the Master killing the Doctor during sex and fucking him as he regenerated around him. As you do. And there's reincarnation in one of my Jaffar/Pwinzezz fics,  but I won't spoil it for the new readers by telling you which one it is.)

-Selfcest (possibly due to time travel) (I am scratching my head trying to remember when I wrote this and in which fandom, but I have the distinct feeling I've written it. I've certainly whacked off to  that World Of Simm!Masters clusterfuck what with the pink dress so many  times I... I think I broke two clit buzzers during that time. I've certainly drawn it. And drawn some Connies on Connies. And then there's, of course, Sarosh the Sexbot  who's a clone of Jaffar, looks-wise, but he is very distinctly just a robot, not a living character as such--not the sort with which you could  have a real, interpersonal dynamic. My problem with selfcest, in general, is that I like having that character dynamic--and that requires  the characters to be different from one another. If it's two characters  that are too similar--if they fulfill a similar role in the canons--it's hard to create a dynamic between them and to make it   interesting.)

-Polyamory (Swinging away ALL the bloody time with the Roses!Jaffar and Yassamin, and Torsten/Laura. Sometimes I miss the monogamous 'verses.)

-Amnesia (I've got a post-movie "Jaffar comes  back from the dead" WIP I'll probs never finish, because it doesn't seem to get off the ground. If I wrote this trope, I would have the characters gradually regain memory, though; complete mind-wipes are   horrid. I did have Handy lose the majority of his cognitive/motor/Timey skills in No More  and that was the main reason I had to... well, I'm not going to spoil it if someone hasn't read it yet, but it wasn't the cheeriest of fics. The Past Forgotten *sort of* has this, but I don't want to spoil as to how that happens.)

***

I could write:

-Daemons (Why the archaic spelling? I have written djinn, so I almost put this in the 'have written' section. I can't remember if I actually *have* written real demons, because I might have. Surely, Torsten counts...)

-'Everyone is evil'/mirrorverse AU (Well, mostly, if I want to explore "evil"   characters, I write about those types of characters in the first place, without having to turn anyone evil. Devilry is the 'verse for that. Hell, usually it's the other way around; I try to look for the human elements of the baddies, or at least explore their logic--what makes them tick, what makes them the way they are. So, IDK, I could've also   put this in the "unlikely to ever write" section.)

-And they were roommates! (This would be terrible and also hilarious, whatever characters ended up becoming my victims. Even if I'm more interested in those hurt/comfort plots, overall. And I have always found it *impossible* to live under the same roof with other people because I need peace and quiet and solitude too much. So this is almost a bit too much like the sorts of negative RL experiences I don't really want to get more of in fic.  But I *could* write it as a comedy for cheap lols, especially if the stress were resolved by hot bonking, ASAP.)

-'They  all work in an office' AU (Otherwise, I would've put this in the "just  no" category, but... the Barmakids were civil servants. So I *could*   write Jaffar and Fadl drowning in paperwork--"WHY DID WE EVER introduce paper into THIS EMPIRE?!?" and cursing their fates and Jaffar restraining Fadl from braining Harun al-Rashid with a paperweight. Same with Lina doing Zainab's books and trying to hold back The Fist of Death when Fadl carelessly drops a piece of his lunch over her perfectly calligraphied accounting.)

-'Falling for a coworker/teammate is a bad idea' except this is fiction so it works out (Maybe. Just maybe. But it'd also be in a medieval ToB context.)

***  

I will probably never write:

-'Groundhog  Day'/karmic time loop (I just never got the appeal of this. Sounds like the sort of thing experimental writers would like? The sorts who really  like filling in bingo cards and challenge lists?)

-Vampires/werewolves  AU (I'm not that big on either. Super-unpopular opinion coming up: I prefer sex to the sublimation of it that vampires are often all about; bloodsucking in lieu of sex, and/or being seen as way better than sex just always feel to me like a cheap cop-out from writers who are disappointed in sex, or afraid of it. I've never grokked it any more   than that stupid, stupid "chocolate is better than sex" quip from women who don't know what masturbation is--yes, it fucking well is sex, TYVM! I much prefer to make partnered sex better than it is IRL by adding supernatural stuff like telepathy to *that*. Immortality alone is interesting to explore, as are Gothic themes, but all the usual themes that vampires *specifically* usually represent just... either hold little interest for me, or then, I can explore them in other ways.)

-'Pride  and Prejudice' AU (I don't hate Jane Austen, but it's not my fandom. That kind of society stuff and being witty over teacups in bonnets has never really been my thing--if anything, I usually have my characters exist in their own bubble, isolated from society and its restrictive mores and social stresses.)

***

JUST NO!

-Coffee  house AU/food service AU (AUGH! Please, no coffeeshop AUs for me; the world is full of them already. Maybe I could write it as some terrible, short parody? Or doodle it? But no more than that.)

-Hogwarts AU (Haven't read HP. Young Adult isn't really my genre. I know, I know; I've just lost all my WLW cred.)

-High  school/university AU (I've done Time Lord Academy-era stuff with Doctor/Master, but I expect this means a sort of American high school/university AU with jocks and cheerleaders and shit. Hell, no. Again, the exact sort of horrid society stuff I would rather have my characters escape from.)

-Adopting/raising a baby (Erm, not unless you count Jaffar/Yassamin adopting a cheetah? They do have kids in some 'verses but there's none of that everyday baby stuff that this question/trope probably implies. I'm squicked by   babies, sorry.)

-Unusually specific occupation AU, like, the Author clearly has the same job (It worries me that this is, by virtue of its inclusion here, apparently seen as normal and acceptable..? When it's crap fanfic, inserting yourself into something that should be about the *established* characters instead. Jesus, I don't want to go in expecting a fanfic, and then find out it’s your diary instead! Unless you're Anaïs Nin. And even if you really *do* want to write about yourself, then just... write original fic? An autobiography? A blog? Write an OC that has your job. Don't do this false advertising where you insist it's fanfic when it's not. That's a dick move towards your readers.)

-Loyalty kink (see next trope)

-Alpha/beta/omega (Too creepy. I can write about piss, shit, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism, but not these last two. Any more than I can glorify the Nazis I've written about; I either take the piss out of them, as with Strasser, or just step outside of their politics and bring them into the land of happy sexings like with von Kolb, with the aim of dragging him out of that madness and leaving it behind.)

-Hot single parent(s) (Please. Rundvik: "You love children." Torsten: "I loooooathe themm.")

-Unrequited pining (Too much of an emotional squick. Has to be requited. I write fanfic to fix things, to avenge wrongs, to set things right. I don't write them to make the characters more miserable than they already are. Unless it's for temporary, character-development purposes, that is.)

[mandabear72]

I managed to catch the portion of the livestream where everyone talked about "Who killed Markiplier" and it left me with some thoughts that I'm just trying to get out or vent now that everything was explained properly:

For starters, I wanna apologize because I had previously criticized the series. With the way it ended, I originally thought it was rushed and not well thought through when in actuality, they'd thought about this for MONTHS, even had the basis of it sprouting a little after they did "A Date with Markiplier". I DEFINITELY underestimated how much planning went into everything and was surprised about the whole process. 

Another thing I found out is that a lot of things I didn't catch went over my head my head because they were influenced by or references to shit I don't watch or read (i.e. Stranger things, American Horror story, War Hammer). That probably made even more confusing to try and understand. Honestly, it's kinda aggravating when everyone else is able to catch up on shit quicker or when you're just not able to pick up on it at all.

The explanations and break down of everything DID answer a lot of questions I had and some things I'm glad weren't what I previously thought they were. Though I am still curious about what happened to Mark's body and if Wilford and Selene were still together (though probably not)......that and as of current age skits, what the fuck's up with Darkiplier 2.0 and Wilford now? Because I'm pretty sure they're still not copacetic with each other.

Does this change my opinion on the ending or the entire series as a whole? Somewhat, but not entirely. I still think the ending could've been better in some ways and I'm calling bullshit on Mark for not knowing how sad it was until the editing process (You helped WRITE the fucking thing, how could you NOT know how tragic and fucked up the end was? You weren't "out to lunch" while writing and discussing it with your gang). HOWEVER, I am looking at everything from a different lens now that things have been explained.

There’s never any one particular thing or person to blame for the clusterfuck. So many factors went into it. Those factors being: The cursed house, Mark, Wilford, and Selene; in the respective order.

While the ones mainly involved (Mark, Selene, Wilford, and Damien) all seem to share the common theme of "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"; be it Mark being heartbroken over Selene leaving him for his friend and setting up an ill-advised plan to get her back, Selene wanting to understand the house better, Damien for wanting to spare your character and wanting to help Selene, and Wilford wanting to stay for Selene and his friend, Damien, the one I think suffers the most out of it all is Damien. Still, it always brings me back to the origins of the characters that count (IMO) and makes me almost wanna rethink my decision to reject the canon.

If I look at Darkiplier 2.0 and break them down, I don't think I'm quite as opposed to them now as I used to be. On one side, Selene's curiosity (Seline, Celine, I STILL dunno how the fuck I should spell her name) leads her to the dark arts to try and understand the cursed house better. She was clearly in over her head with the unknown forces she was messing with and it got the best of her. I’m still not overly fond of her though. As Mark mentioned in the livestream, she’s very manipulative, ambitious to a fault (or rather on the darker side of ambition), and somehow is able to control the entire room upon immediate introduction without having been there before. She also views our character as expendable since we’re a stranger to her and because “the ends justify the means”. Not to mention the thing with Mark and Wilford, but I’ll touch up on that later.

On the other side though, Damien is genuinely good and benevolent. I’d like to think of him as the glue of the gang and perhaps the entire series. He wants to keep his friends together and is seemingly the only shred of humanity amongst the madness of everything else going on. He’s just confused and wants the best for everyone. He didn’t deserve to go through everything and I’d say the only weakness of his is his temper. But even that never truly comes from a place of malice. It just seems like it’s in response to the inconsiderate actions of others and if anything, he’s a victim of the shitty actions of his friends and his sister. He even goes as far to spare your character the pain they would’ve endured with him and Selene by knocking them out of their body later. Despite it being a betrayal (leaving them doomed) on his behalf since they’re forever trapped in the mirror and the cursed house itself, I see how he was trying to be thoughtful.

Wilford on the other hand...... I dunno what to make of him any more. I know what I said about him in this previous post, but even this is being brought into question. While he’s not the direct cause of everything that happened, he’s still very much in the thick of it with in causing a good chunk of bullshit with Selene. While others or maybe the story suggests he’s a good person, I.....really don’t think so and retract what I said about redemption in that post. Mainly because one of the major events happening was that he engaged in an affair with Mark’s wife and ran off with her. Of course, Selene willingly goes with him and she’s just as guilty (because you can’t steal someone away), but also even if one argues that he feels remorseful, I say no because he didn’t learn a god damn thing.Technically, he was back on his bullshit in “The Warfstache affair” because he did the same thing which ALSO entails murder (CLEARLY he has no problems in the dating department so, why can’t this fucker find a single lady that’s DTF and make HER see God instead of someone who’s already spoken for?). Not to mention that he also owed Mark a shit ton of money....for what, I dunno. I can see how he would see murder as a joke though after everything that happened. I just wish he’d realize not everyone stayed in that house or was part of the occult.

Considering the last post I made about WKM, I understand it might make me look like a hypocrite and yes, there’re a good amount of cognitive dissonance I feel towards Wilford considering I liked him as a bad guy before while he was doing some crazy shit identical to what he did here (So then why’s THIS the straw that breaks the camel’s back, Amanda?). But I’m genuinely confused about him. In general, both Darkiplier 2.0 are assholes in their own rights but I think this backstory of theirs changed the way I viewed both of them.......I think before I was just viewing them as characters and taking them at face value, which I was completely fine with. I knew they weren’t good characters as far as the moral compass is concerned, but I think the ending to WKM shattered that and it soured how I viewed them with their additional layers and baggage (And I GENUINELY wonder how different this would’ve been if they didn’t make it an origin like they originally planned). I felt like it wanted me to care about these two characters and honestly, I didn’t like that or my own person realization that Wilford wasn’t all that redeemable/good and Darkiplier 2.0 wasn’t completely evil while one half of them wasn’t good. 

The 2nd problem with that is I didn’t WANT care about the two characters after seeing such a backstory. In general, I don’t care about shitty people that are beyond the point of return and their actions (much like anyone else’s) are still theirs to be held accountable for; no matter how tragic their story is. I mean, if I can separate them, I can manage to care for Damien. But I think Selene should’ve just left well enough alone after everything that happened, I don’t feel sorry for her, and half of me is kinda glad Wilford is suffering with the guilt and hallucinations. He has no one to thank but himself and to some extent, Selene so, he can continue to live with it.

But mainly, characters and their shittiness aside, the ending offers no ounce of hope, no silver lining, no light, nothing. Everyone loses! You too, viewer, Good day!.....and then later on tries to attempt some form of happiness to pass off be it Wilford as a journalist (How the fuck did that happen anyway when he was a colonel? Jim twins found him fuckin’ around outside the house and brought him in?) or.....MAYBE Dark 2.0 trying to find someone to trap with them and use for god knows what as an option in “A Date with Markiplier” and helping other Iplier characters network a show of sorts. I know not everything is always light, but damn, the end’s just one, big, depressive suckfest with no joy and leaves you with a sense that they’ll never truly be happy until Dark 2.0 gets their revenge (and even that’s a stretch because Damien and Selene would potentially fight for possession of the new body once revenge is done) and Wilford......maybe dies, I guess? I dunno. But then again, does he even really deserve to be happy in the first place after everything he did? Either way, it’s not fit for anyone that has a soul.

Despite all of this and the ending, I’m not so sure about wanting to reject this canon...not that it really matters anyway....and the series itself, while being a lot to take in and process (because there were a lot of things that weren’t really easy to catch onto references/influence or no), I can appreciate the other aspect of the story as well as the production of it more. Mark said he was gonna eventually type down everything about this and put it up for us but eh......considering how his schedule runs, I’ll hold my breath on that one. For now though, at least there’s some amount of closure with the explanations finally given.

[audiodiaryofasuperhero]

About that Unannounced Hiatus...

Hi, y'all. Remember us? We took a pretty long unannounced break from… well, just about everything to do with the public side of this show.

While we can’t go back & make this hiatus have never happened, or hell, even go back and handle it better, we can explain how & why it happened. If we can’t fix it, we can be honest about it. Maybe we can even bring about a little awareness in the process.

Note: This post is almost entirely about the past year & a half. We will write a separate post covering what’s going on now & what’s next for ADoS. We don’t want to cram those things onto the end of this long post when those are the things worth getting excited about!

Now, to do this, I need to address you as Laura Henderson, the writer/producer/nearly everything on this show. Because the reasons behind the Unannounced Hiatus of Suffering pretty much all have to do with things that were going on in my life.

Hang with me - this is a long explanation.

Some content warnings before proceeding. This explanation includes anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, mania, hypomania, dislocations, & doctors being shitty people who are bad at their jobs.

I made an announcement right before the hiatus, publicizing what was meant to be a small break in production while my household dealt with a clusterfuck of a moving process. What I didn’t mention was the fact that I was struggling with some worsening anxiety & depression issues as well.

As soon as we’d moved, when I was meant to be finishing episode six, three different things happened. 1) I got caught in one of the worst depression spirals of my life. Like, I hadn’t felt so terrible since middle school. I struggled with awful focus issues, self-harm, & suicidal ideation. 2) I got a promotion to sales lead at work. This sounds fancy, but it functionally means that I became the lowest tier of management at my store. With our staff numbers dropping post-Holidays, my hours ratcheted up to 35 hours a week. Plus school. Plus chronic illness. Plus mental health issues. Which all feeds into - 3) I wasn’t happy with the draft of episode 6. I needed that script to do five different vital things, & at the time, it did maybe two of them. I recorded that draft, but ended up deleting it out of frustration at what it didn’t set up for later plot. With everything else going on, it was easiest just to… put it down.

Spring came & my depression receded, although my focus issues increased. This was just in time for me to dislocate my knee pretty majorly. With EDS (an illness I share with Adira), dislocations are pretty commonplace. But most of them are small, slide back in nearly immediately with little to no intervention, & do very little damage to the tissue surrounding the joints. Others are major, where the joint slides farther out of place than usual & stays out of socket until manipulated back into place, doing a fair bit of damage to the surrounding tissues. This was definitely the latter. I was in pain for weeks, & all my spoons were spent trying to get through my shifts at work.

The knee eventually healed. My first night out dancing after it healed, some asshole stepped on my ankle & dislocated it. Not my foot, mind you - my ankle. (I am still very salty about it.) Wash, rinse, repeat from above.

Then things really started to go to hell.

In late June, I started seeing a psychiatrist for my focus issues. My dad has ADHD, & we’d begun to wonder if I may have inherited. The psychiatrist, understandably, chose to start by treating my depression and anxiety instead. She also indicated that she suspected I may have a bipolar disorder. She prescribed me Zoloft, & told me I should call her immediately if I started experiencing suicidal ideation or mania.

Lucky me, I got both.

By week two, I was drifting into a mixed affective state, where I’d be slightly uncomfortably energetic but also a bit depressed. By week four, I was on a little carnival rollercoaster. I was energetic, anxious, depressed, & had a very small voice in my head suggesting awful but non-fatal things I should do to myself. By week six, I was riding a Six Flags thrills rollercoaster, with celestial highs & infernal lows. I felt like I was going to vibrate out of my skin, I went from aggressive cheer to rage at minor provocations, and the voice in my head was nearly indistinguishable from my regular thoughts, telling me all the different ways I could & should kill my self. I was manic. I would have been suicidal if my friends hadn't been acting as voices of reason. I called my psychiatrist in tears & left a message with her receptionist. She never called me back. I stopped taking the pills.

Needless to say, I found a new psychiatrist, an awesome guy who believes in evidence-based practice. We started experimenting to find a good balance of meds. We started with the assumption that there was a low but substantial probability that I had a bipolar disorder, but that it was more likely that Zoloft was responsible for most of the mania symptoms. As the milder medicines mostly failed to stabilize me, we adjusted the probabilities of bipolar upwards, eventually concluding with a diagnosis of bipolar 2. 

While we were still in the early stages of medication experimentation, & I was mentally stable enough to sort of function & get a bit optimistic, my body decided it was its turn to be a melodramatic little bitch. 

Everything started dislocating. Everything. 

My knees, normally prone to minor dislocations around 4 times a week or so, started going out constantly. And then my hips got in on it. And then my ankles. And my ribs. And my shoulders. I went from using a cane, to using crutches, to using a rolling walker. I usually had more joints out than in.

I tried to work through all of this, but it was a nightmare. At one point, I was sitting in my walker at the cash wrap, twisted around to grab something from behind me, and both my hips popped out with an audible “snap.” I tearfully handed the guest what I’d been grabbing for them, then backed myself away from the register to cry for a moment.

Right at the end of October, I asked for a medical leave of absence from my job, with the intention of seeing my rheumatologist to update her on the situation and see what could be done.

When I went to see her, I had a list of ten things that needed to be accomplished. I managed none of them.

When she arrived in the little room, I started explaining what had been going on with my joints for the past two months. She cut me off.

“I can’t help you with that,” she said impatiently. “I can’t help you.”

She went on to add, “But I see you’ve been losing weight - that’s excellent.” (I’d been in too much pain to eat.) “And I’m glad that you went dancing,” (referring to the ankle dislocation from June that had been giving me so much trouble since). “You should exercise as much as possible.” (Ignoring that I’d been trying to tell her I could barely move.)

At this point, I was very teary. My joint doctor was telling me that she could not help me with my joint condition.

“You should look into being treated for depression. You seem very upset.”

To say I left her office devastated is a bit of an understatement. I sobbed in my car in the parking lot for twenty minutes.

I called my auxiliary brain, my most rational, anti-suicide friend. 

“Please, come keep me company. Make sure that I don’t do anything stupid,” I pleaded.

He had some errands to run, but I sat in the car with him. On the interstate, I had to fight the urge to open the car door and throw myself into traffic.

But he got me through that awful day. The next month and a half was a long, drawn-out depression swing.

At the beginning of December, my manager called me. 

“Are you coming back?” she asked.

“I - I don’t think I can,” I admitted.

“I’ll consider this your notice, effective immediately,” she said. “Get better, Laura.”

Things slowly got better. My body calmed down. One of my psych meds was able to pull double-duty as a joint pain medication. I could walk again, even if I wasn’t quite comfortable dancing. I became happier, and if I was hypomanic or in a mixed affective state more so than even-keeled, it was better than being manic or depressed.

I withdrew from my college program, and applied to an online program. While the new program was not my beloved data science, combining information technology with mathematics was close enough.

I was accepted too late to start spring classes.

In early February, I managed to find a new rheumatologist, after calling four offices who explicitly said they weren’t comfortable treating me. She didn’t do terribly much for me, but she explained what she was going to watch for. She referred me to an orthopedist.

By this point, I was thoroughly bored of sitting around the house. I re-applied at my old work place, and was welcomed back with great enthusiasm.

Then my psychiatrist cancelled an appointment. It was nearly impossible to get ahold of his office to reschedule over the phone. Every time I went in person to reschedule, there was no one at the desk. I started rationing my medication, and then I ran out. Things, rather predictably, went pear-shaped.

A few weeks ago, summer classes started for me. I finally got back on medication. My work place started a big hiring push, which reduced my hours to my betterment.

After all that shit, I’ve finally begun to feel like a person again. It was rough and it tested me in ways I hadn’t been tested before. It made social media seem like an overwhelming prospect. I couldn’t manage a huge undertaking like my beloved podcast. But now....

Audio Diary of a Superhero never once left my mind, and now I’m ready to get it up and running again, better than ever before. I’m healthier, happier, and very motivated.

I’m not going to talk about what comes next in this post. But it’s coming. Look out.

[mayphoenix]

“Though Death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.”

This morning at 5:30 am EST, my paternal grandfather and the last of my grandparents, died.  He was 93.  Born into poverty in Tennessee to a mean, abusive father and a gentle, quietly-suffering mother,  he enlisted in the United States Army and was stationed in Hawai’i as a mechanic during WWII.  Before serving his country, he had dropped out of high school to find a full-time job. He went back to school at age 82 and got his diploma, proving that you are never too old to accomplish basic life goals. My grandfather was one of the wisest and most well-read men I have ever known.  This guy not only taught me how to fish, hunt mushrooms, and the proper way to taste wine (which he made in his basement, along with beer and hooch), he gave me my love of books.  He could recite full poems from memory, including Kipling’s The Betrothed (which he would do while using one of his ever-present cigars as a dramatic prop) and Poe, one of my favorite authors (and for whom I named this account).  He would read from an old tome of Shakespeare’s works and explain the historical references (the title of this entry is from King Richard II).  And I would sit, enthralled, and absorb every word.

He came from God-fearing people, tent revivalists and holy rollers, but his thirst for knowledge had him reading every book sacred to the different religions of the world.  He said Moses was a brilliant man and would engage me in a discussion about Jesus’ life during those years not covered by the Bible (he also had a large painting of Christ at age 13).  He passed on this fascination with theology to me, saying, “Always ask questions.”  Grandpa was a truth-seeker.  He never bought into anything at face-value.  He wanted to know what made things tick, which is why he loved to work on cars and was on the Internet even in his late 80s.  He had dabbled in genealogy and I was able to pick up where he left off to go back further in our family history because he wanted to know where we came from and what made us this way.  In his personal library, he had the Qu’ran, The Apocrypha (which is now mine, and that old book of Shakespeare will be coming to me soon), but also texts on the Third Reich and Hitler (he wanted to understand why some men become evil) and the secrets of the Freemasons.  I inherited his insatiable curiosity of the world and I credit him as the reason I became a writer.  For that alone, I will always love him and be grateful.   Grandpa was not perfect, though.  He was an alcoholic.  Grandma once told me he had cheated on her and while he had never raised a hand to me, he beat her after she had cheated on him (yeah, they were messed up -- but they remained married 75 years, until her death, so there must have been some love in there).  During his drunken stupor, he had molested my aunt when she was younger.  (It should be noted that she had been the only one of his children to step up and take care of him after Grandma died; she was sleeping beside his bed when he passed this morning.)  I once asked her if he might have done something to me (I was the first-born grandchild) that I could have blocked from my memory and she said flat-out “No,” and "he would never touch you because he respected your intelligence too much.”  (My father had also abused his sister and one younger brother -- he was 16 and they were 8 and 7, respectively -- but he had always been The Golden Child Who Could Do No Wrong; he went on to abuse me, too, but not because he had been a victim.) I realize that it seems almost horrific that I should pay homage to the patriarch of such a fucked-up family.  Like I said, Grandpa was not perfect.  He could be stubborn to a fault, and opinionated, but I never once heard him use the “N” word.   And this was a man who was born and raised in Chattanooga during the height of Segregation.  It should also be noted that he did not glorify the Confederacy or have any trappings (flags, etc) to honor that side; it was with great pride that he told me one of our ancestors had defected from the South because he did not agree with slavery. In Grandpa’s eyes, you were either a good person or a bad person -- race, creed, social position, etc, had no bearing.  He never said a negative word about me being gay, and he never pressured me (like Grandma did) about my life choices.  Sadly, his mind started to go in the last year and someone -- I don’t know who -- convinced him to vote for Trump.  This man was a life-long Democrat, he had voted for Obama (whom he would praise), so I was stunned to learn that he had been influenced to go with someone who had no respect for veterans or the disabled.  

For better or worse, Grandpa was a huge influence on my life.  I learned so much from him.  Today, my cousin said to me “I wish I could have been as smart as Grandpa and you.”  Truthfully, Grandpa and I were on an intellectual level no one else in the family could understand.  I have been fortunate enough to find a small handful of people with whom I can hold similar conversations, who stimulate my brain in the same fashion and make me delight in the discussions we have.  While I have them, I will miss what I had with Grandpa.   Three days ago, I went to see Grandpa one last time.  He was unable to speak, just grunted a little (with great effort).  He had gone from a big man to a frail, pale creature, skin on bone, hooked up to oxygen, feeding tube, and catheter, receiving morphine and in danger of aspirating.  He opened his eyes when I came in and I could not tell if he recognized me, but I told him repeatedly that I loved him as I stroked his bald head.  I thanked him for all he gave me, promised him I would continue to question everything and keep learning.  And then I said I knew his life had not been easy, that he was not always a good person but that he had tried hard to make up for those things and do the best he could.  I told him I knew he was tired and that he deserved to rest, now.  He began to cry.  In all my life, I had never seen him cry, not even when I begged him to let them pull the plug on my great-grandmother (he was the executor and she had slipped into a coma from which they said she would never return; I was the only one willing to say to him “I understand she’s your mom but you need to set her free” -- and shortly after, he did).  I held his hand, read Hamlet (”What a piece of work is man...”), Kipling (”If”), and when I asked if he wanted to hear some Poe, he got excited, so I read “The Raven” (and even tried to do the voices the way he did for me when I was a child).  I played his favorite Andrews Sisters song, “Rum and Coca-Cola” (which made him smile).  I even painted a mental picture for him, describing his favorite fishing spot in vivid but idyllic detail.   And now...he’s gone. I am relieved that he’s no longer in pain.  That his great mind and spirit are no longer prisoner inside a withered body.  I told him I would not say goodbye to him, but instead that I would see him later for another adventure.  I will not go to his funeral because I know it will be a clusterfuck of drama and anger and in-fighting among the rest of the family -- my manipulative, narcissistic-sociopathic father at the center -- and I will not be party to that scene.  Grandpa is not there; it’s just his body which will receive military honors before being laid to rest in the veteran’s cemetery where Grandma is interred.  I will go there another time to pay respects at the grave.  I’m sad to lose him but happy to know he’s off somewhere else, continuing that never-ending search and discovering new things along the way.  I’ll catch up to him, later, and have him fill me in on everything he’s learned.  

Just like old times.   “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life...” 

 - Hamlet, Act III, Scene I; William Shakespeare

[vardasvapors]

for your meme: Elrond on Numenor not letting him on their lawn anymore

lmao u little…anyway:

1. Actually I hc it a bit more….Lindon refusing to come onto Numenor’s lawn anymore? Something about the timeline and - this is not a relationship of equals, or a…Numenor “defying” the elves of ME lmao. Numenor is way, way more powerful than the whole elven population of western ME at the time of the dissolution of their alliance – the gap was huge at the War of the Elves and Sauron and that was before Numenor’s spike in imperialism that now isn’t even centered on “but they GOTTA build infrastructure for their fleet for everyone’s protection!” I feel like a lot of Gil-galad’s elves privately had concerns about the Numenoreans for a long while but desperately needed their support for, like, survival. Before the war, to fight Sauron, and after the war, because Sauron had diminished the elves so badly, until finally the Numenoreans got so unbearable Lindon broke away and threw its lot in with the various peoples of ME instead. OTOH, it could have been more like….the elves groveling to Numenor for aid, until Numenor kicked them to the curb. Or trying to suggest they stop fucking ME up, until Numenor got offended. Anyway lol the period where elves were likely really troubled by the Numenoreans but are also grateful they saved them… “maybe it’s just….growing pains…like us…?” they say, brightly.

2. Either way, I think Elrond would be especially distressed by the Numenoreans plummeting down the tyranny slope on even more levels though, because a) these are his brother’s people! technically, his nephews and nieces (which is a particularly strong point given perfect elven memory!) Too historically/personally (at the same time lmao) entangled with Numenor to be objective about them (or to be perceived objectively by them, tbh). And b) Rivendell especially is likely still allied with and owes both protection and gratitude to the less powerful Eriador humans who took refuge there and joined Elrond’s army in the war after Sauron destroyed their homes (and made a big difference, looking at the evidence). Can’t imagine this subject not coming up when the Numenoreans became almost as bad. Depending on what the political climate was like and what Gil-galad allowed, if Elrond couldn’t/wouldn’t tell the Numenoreans ‘wtf are you even doing,’ I think his response would be like, *quietly withdraws*

3. OTOH I once wrote a meta, which is kinda old and narrow but still legit imo (and wow I still REALLY like my Nazgul idea), with my opinion on what a disaster it would be if Elrond ever did decide it was a good idea for him to try to convince the Numenoreans to not be such assholes and tbh I love drama.

4. kjhfsdkfjd there’s what, like almost 1,500 years between the dissolution of Numenor’s friendship with the ME elves and the Downfall? AND IT JUST GETS WORSE. So like, [internally screaming] [goes internally hoarse from internally screaming] [lol i didn’t know getting to watch over all my brother’s descendants actually meant dying inside but hey it’s whatever] [i wonder what Elros would think if he saw this?] [thank god, thank god, Elros is dead]

5. The thing about the Faithful still secretly keeping contact with Gil-galad though…imagine Elrond drowning Gil-galad in letters from the other side of Eriador - how are they? what’s happening? is anything getting better? what’s the new king like? what happened to [x out of date issue]? are they safe? etc. And probably like, being really private about it because the prevailing (and utterly justified) attitude toward the Numenoreans is likely ‘fuck them may their stupid island sink into the ocean’ and….like, I don’t think he would have assholish apologism about this. Just…….*kicking through the ashes of 2,000+ years of memories* ‘haha you know what you guys are 100% right and also kill me now.’ Tbh I think it’s this, not anti-half-elf prejudice (which isn’t really a thing in Tolkien), that would give him the worst identity crisis and cause other people to give him the most grief. The immortal clone of the Ur-Numenorean, lmao. I love irony!! I love suffering!!

6. People not mentioning Elros around him anymore. People not teasing him about his absurd overextended pseudo-family anymore. Someone sniping superciliously about how Elros must’ve been an ignorant sheltered twit to have unwittingly wrought such a poisoned worthless society, and getting their teeth knocked out. (No of course I haven’t seen that snipe on tumblr, whyever would you think that. >_> >_> >_>)

7. Tbh when it comes to the Numenoreans’ “we want to be immortal” and jealousy of the elves thing, I think he must sympathize, because I mean like……he……wanted…..to become immortal….too? He became immortal, when he was given a chance to choose otherwise? I don’t think he did it because he was afraid of death (not that I think he wasn’t afraid of death at all either, just that I don’t think it was the prime reason - I hc Elros as being fairly afraid of death too tbh) and obviously it wasn’t to go to Aman, but I don’t think those were the Numenoreans’ only issues either….to want to live! To think life is good, to want to keep doing more with it, to want to keep doing more in it, to be attached to the world and one’s culture and one’s people and to not want to leave the places and people one loves, to want to know if one’s children and grandchildren will be happy, to want to see what will happen in the future - The love of Arda was set in your hearts by Ilúvatar, and hedoes not plant to no purpose. Nonetheless, many ages of Men unborn maypass ere that purpose is made known - I can’t see him being dismissive or scornful, or even him having no feelings in general, about this element of the Numenoreans’ clusterfuck, however bad his feelings are about the rest.

[grimecrow]

Happiness Is Hard Work

   The world seems to be attempting to try my patience considerably but I remain in high spirits; no, not denial but high spirits. I am wanting to write this note because it may help someone re-prioritize how they see things and help them be happier than they currently are due to a perspective shift.        I’m not going to describe my last week; I’m going to describe my last 24 hours so you can see how I may have reason to not be happy then I will describe what has made me happy. I will then explain why despite everything I am happy and how it was hard work to get that way.

   The basement continues to be a nightmare and it has advanced to even more of a clusterfuck since my last update to a lot of you. We tore up more floor last night and found mold, and rot and that there are now four possible separate entry points for the foul smelling water. Any number of them may be a source and all require different levels of work in different places.     Found a bunch of mold too, and now the whole house smells like a sewer; all of the time. D&D should know they will be OK we had to invest $400 in an air purifier that makes the air on the first floor fine while it is running on turbo.   Man...the stench when we were ripping up boards made my mangled jaw hurt, made everything hurt I almost passed out even with one of those heavy duty masks you can wear when dealing with things like fiberglass, heavy sanding etc. My body spasmed including breathing, it was kind of scary when my vision started to go dark.        When is the landlord going to fix it? Maybe tonight...maybe and that fix will only cover one possible problem. At which point we have to hope that none of the other potential problems are the problem. Some of the potential problems can’t be fixed until May so if they are the actual problem we will have to suffer through things whenever their is precipitation. Suffer through also includes, don’t turning on the heat because it causes the bad air to cycle more and monitor mold with bleaching duty anytime any form of moisture falls from the sky or melts.     Also know that we could take him to the Landlord-Tenant board but that will have the end result of moving and moving is a whole new set of misery. If we are lucky we could find a place on the far side of Ajax as our closest option to be close to the city. For my non-local friends it means moving an hour’s travel via the highway away from where I currently live. I risk losing the medical people I need that don’t suck due to enforced regional service and travel issues. Plus the cost! First, last, moving truck, movers (cause we aren’t in the health to do it ourselves. Not to mention it basically means I will lose the ability to see most of my friends in any sort of meaningful, casual way. So as much as we can saber rattle actually throwing down the gauntlet and moving is more of a last resort.      Above I mentioned my mangled jaw; another aspect of my last 24 hours. I was supposed to have a tooth removed but it splintered and snapped leaving a bunch in the gum. It hurts even still today, the pain when disgusting basement air reached it was insane. My duties regarding this mess are to endure the pain (thankfully has reduced to a mild throbbing at the good times) and make sure the gum doesn’t try to close over sections of the ruined tooth. I have a few extractions to do, one had weird roots but thanks to this new mess I need oral surgery now. So what was once $700 in extractions is now going to balloon out to probably $2500 and I have to endure this lower jaw till February.     Not to mention external socio-political factors dealing with a wide range of levels and topics the biggest for me not being Trump but Canadians obsession over Trump while they ignore the news of their home. You guys think O’Leary is bad? You guys think Leitch is bad? Oh you have no idea of the horrors that wait in the Conservative party leadership race. Sure some say they will use the notwithstanding clause to suppress some sections of the charter; others think it’s easier to just notwithstanding the whole thing. This aren’t fringe lunatics with no support but central pack runners who are in the heat of it.     More news of hydro pricing and how it is going to change (probably for the negative) has come out.     Our pipelines are spilling, our premier is praising Trump and most people don’t seem to care because Trump has once more tweeted something stupid. Before we know it we will be in our own Trump situation and it will be our faults. We are choosing to be distracted and we are choosing to not have discourse but call one side names; unfriending those that don’t agree with us, and using exasperated belligerence to state our opinions. Sounds familiar to another country that had an election recently doesn’t it? Oh and how we shook our heads, gave mirthful laughter and tutted our tongues. Silly them, why don’t they pay attention to what is actually happening around them instead of falling into all these ‘obvious’ pitfalls, traps and distractions?     Hell all the dentistry, pain, basement horrors, mental horrors as the stress of everything spilled into nightmares, delusions and night terrors have prevented me from getting in any time on Final Fantasy XV which helps me as much as my Lorazepam can most days if not more so. Yet...

   ...I have been given reasons to be happy in the last 24 hours as well. So please allow me a minute to brag about all the awesomeness I have encountered within the last 24 hours.     I got the heroclix Superman/Wonder Woman duo figure where they are embracing in that pose that is now an iconic image. There is a pic of it elsewhere in my feed. This thing is exceptionally hard to get and exceptionally valuable still; not only did I get one but at a decent price too! It looks so cool and it’s a good piece so it should get some use when it isn’t being a piece of bling on display.     Overwatch lockboxes went on sale because of Chinese New year! So I splurged a little and ended up getting a ultra rare outfit I love for Mai and enough credits to get the Evermore outfit for Reaper!     New DLC dropped for Final Fantasy XV including the fine suit Noctis is wearing in the image above; the one where he is holding the flowers. PlayStation game play screen caps can’t capture how good this new outfit looks because there is always pixelation that occurs when it converts it from the PS4 to being on social media but trust me when I say it is A++ to the twenty-sixth power.     One of the big things that has occurred is that something hasn’t occurred. my dogs show no signs of agitation or illness being caused by the basement fiasco. They are happy, healthy, and breathing fine!     And...that’s all folks! Let me add on a political level I took great joy in a lot of the conversations happening around the women’s march as it shows that things aren’t as hopeless as they appear to be on the surface. Now allow me to show you how that little good weighs more than all the bad.

   So I am spending thousands of extra dollars that I wasn’t expecting to; my house is showing itself to be more and more of a series of unfortunate events, and I get to deal with a highly complicated, painful tooth issue till unknown surgery occurs.     Yet I’m happy! How does this work?     Part of it comes from my faith; and my belief in that faith but there is also more to it than just that. Eventually, even if it takes till June the house will be fixed, or we will have to move and the issues will be resolved. In a couple of weeks the surgery will happen and those issues will be resolved. Debt will occur but eventually that debt will be paid off and that issue will be resolved too.    That Heroclix figure? That will be here today, tomorrow, next year and assuming something unforeseen doesn’t occur, five years down the line. It will cause people to find it neat looking, to find it cool, it will be played and displayed for as long as it will be.    For as long as I play Overwatch I will have those outfits that I love. They aren’t going to disappear on me, or fade away.    That new Noctis suit will be there for as long as I play Final Fantasy XV on this generation of console, perhaps even longer if it ever gets a computer port or is made backwards compatible. I will be able to, when I want, put on this outfit admire it, coo, and be happy and that will never change.        Most of the time (I know not all) the negative events and issues we face are momentary whether that moment lasts an hour, a day, a week, month, a year or even a decade they will still only be momentary. The things that make us happier though tend to last longer, to outlive the dark, sad, horrible things. Accepting, understanding and remembering this fact is hard work, it is why I say happiness is hard work.    I am not denying the fact that negative things happen, or will happen. I am not showering in a unending flow of naive optimism. I’ve just shifted the focus, how things are seen by me so that I can ensure I am happy and healthy enough to outlast the bad, dark, sad times and events I will encounter.    I hope you will try it out yourself; when things seem dark or rough list out all the bad you have experienced in the last day, week, month or year then be honest and list out all the things big or small that have made you happy.              Compare the date of expiry of those two lists and you will see that a lot of the time (again not all) the happiness will not only outlast the negative but will be a renewable source of happiness over time.

[mistahf]

A Definitive Ranking of 61 Matches I Saw Wrestlemania Weekend

1.     DIY v The Revival v AOP

It says a lot about the quality of a match when even a terrible result doesn’t ruin it. 14,000 strong in The Amway Center chanting “bullshit” at the ending might sour this match for some, but it was still match of the weekend for me. Sure we all know wrestling is “fake,” but that doesn’t stop us from wanting our faves to have it all. DIY and The Revival are two of the most beloved tag teams in the past 5 years. The Authors of Pain are…well it works in about 100 different ways to say they’re “getting there.” The match started as it should have, two rivals with a mutual respect targeting the outsiders, the champions. Both to get them out of the way and to eliminate the biggest threat. Unfortunately, their rivalry, and The Revival’s natural tendency towards sneakiness, cost them the match. Great story, great spots (the suplex to the outside was insane), and, it turns out, a great goodbye for The Revival on NXT.

2.     Ricochet v Keith Lee

Honestly any Keith Lee match could have made this spot. This happened to be the first Keith Lee match I saw (ever), but I think it earns it’s spot as #2 on its own merit as well. Keith Lee dominated early on, as a dude of his size should, pulling out gradually more and more insane agility and aggression as Ricochet proved unpinnable. Ricochet, too, stepped up his game as the match progressed, hitting high spots with a speed rarely seen outside of, well, Ricochet matches. Little guys beating big guys clean are always hard to book, but Ricochet’s win here looked natural and believable.

3.     Donovan Dijak v Keith Lee

After seeing two great matches where Keith Lee took on little guys, it was great to see him take on “Tall Don,” as Dijak had branded himself in the previous match. I’ve always been a huge fan of Dijak’s work for a big man, but he pulled out all the stops here, stepping up his game, presumably in response to the insane buzz surrounding Keith Lee after his first 2 matches of the weekend. If you’ve never seen 2 guys over 260 pounds hit a Canadian Destroyer, it truly is a sight.

4.     Jericho v Kevin Owens

Jericho and Owens had the best story and rivalry going in to Wrestlemania, but few had them pegged for the best match. Their chemistry, which has shone since August, was especially great here, with each wrestler busting out crazy counters to each others’ moves. The Owens fingertip spot pumped up the whole crowd, and the finish seemed worthy of this match and feud.

5.     South Pacific Power Trip v Sami Calahan and Shane Strickland

I came into this weekend having never heard of the South Pacific Power Trip, but these two won over American audiences in a way comparable to the way Keith Lee did this weekend. This match was the kind of wild tag match that doesn’t usually work. Ref not paying attention to tags or legal men, seeming like a tornado match most of the time, but the insane amount of spots these 4 men were able to cram into their match made it worth it. If all clusterfuck tag matches were booked this well I’d stop complaining about who the legal man is and the ref’s slow or disregarded 5 count.

6.     Matt Riddle v Dan Severn

This match sounded ridiculous on paper. An MMA guy still new to pro wrestling versus a 58-year-old MMA guy who had a forgettable pro wrestling career in a pro wrestling match, all taking place after 2 am. Dan Severn, however, doesn’t take any challenge lightly and was up for this challenge. Worked MMA style matches can be extremely entertaining a la New Japan or dull exhibitions that lack the surprise of an actual MMA match, this was the latter, seeming more like an MMA match without any of the bullshit. Severn and Riddle both looked like champions, despite the odd crowd and late hour.

7.     AJ Styles v Shane McMahon

AJ fans had every right to be mad about this match. Perhaps the most over, most talented guy in the company versus the boss’s son, the guy who wrestles spotfests to greater and greater diminishing returns every event. What we got, though, was the best Wrestlemania opener since Wrestlemania 10 (the best PPV opener of all time btw). AJ got to be dominant for the most part, Shane got to bust out his best wrestling since his return, and we all got the result we, honestly, knew we were going to get.

8.     Zack Sabre Jr v Michael Elgin

I caught four Zack Sabre Jr matches last weekend, all great, but this one in particular really spoke to me. Big Mike came out ready to go, Zack, in his typical Extremely Chill style, was ready to meet his challenge. The beauty of ZSJ matches is how much damn sense it all makes, from the way he slowly pushes your leg down to get you on the ground to his subtle hand work when applying a hold. Big Mike answered all of Sabre’s attacks in typical Big Mike fashion, but ultimately the match made Zack’s victory make sense.

9.     Keith Lee v Lio Rush

Alright, this is the last time I talk about Keith Lee, I swear (I only caught 3 of his matches last weekend). Even though I had just seen Keith perform hours before (against a significantly better opponent) and knew exactly what he was capable of, Keith still made my jaw drop each time he hit the air. His second rope moonsault is a thing of beauty. Keith also added in a lot more heel work in this match than in his previous matches, which I loved. The soft-spoken Keith telling the brash Lio Rush to bask in his glory added the final puzzle piece to make Keith Lee a truly can’t-miss wrestler. This match suffered because it went a little shorter than the other two, and because once you’ve seen Keith Lee work Ricochet, can you really see Keith Lee work ANY other high-flyer?

10. Hardyz v Sheamus and Cesaro v The Club v Enzo and Cass

Sometimes the best surprises are the ones you see coming. The Hardyz were in Orlando. The tag title match had been awkwardly shoehorned into a ladder match at the last minute despite Cesaro, Sheamus, Enzo, Cass, Gallows, or Anderson having any history with ladders or high-flying acumen to speak of. Still, when New Day came out in their gear to announce a 4th team, I couldn’t tell if I was being worked, or worked into thinking I was being worked. Despite thinking it had a 60% chance of happening, I cheered the Hardyz return like it was a surprise. Matt and Jeff hit all of their moves perfectly, something I would never have believed 5 years ago, and most teams had a signature spot to shine.

11. HHH v Seth Rollins

WWE’s unique (and scary) blending of fact and fiction regarding Seth Rollins’ knee injury both going into and during this match made HHH’s knee-based offense during most of this match a little hard to watch. And I LOVED it for that. The endless pedigree reversals, Steph’s table spot, and their spectacular entrances (Trips, the King, with a motorcade; Seth, the Kingslayer, carrying a torch for his past wrongs) made sure the crowd was behind this long match, late in the show, 100%.

12. Darby Allin v Ethan Page

This seemed like an odd choice to main event the second evolve show of the evening, but once I saw all that these two had planned, I realized how impossible it would have been for anyone else to follow it. The buildup to this match was intriguing, but extremely awkward, when Priscilla Kelly (swoon) distracted Ethan Page the night prior while a group of clown medics in blood-stained garb carried out a bodybag. Unfortunately, the medics and body bag were quickly disposed of, but once Darby was revealed and attacked Ethan even after taking a beating, I got a glimpse of the heart I’d see the next night. This was a crazy spotfest with one main story. Darby Allin, as he stated the night before, won’t let Ethan Page take over Evolve “as long as [his] heart’s beating.” Allin took some incredible spots early in the match that reminded me of the best of Spike Dudley before eventually coming back (with the help of Austin Theory disposing of The Gatekeepers) with two huge dives of his own to defeat All Ego.

13. Nicole Matthews v Shotzi Blackheart

This match told a perfect story without any words. Nicole Matthews as the grizzled vet. Angry, defensive, and not ready to let anyone else take the attention she deserves, against Shotzi Blackheart, Shimmer’s Rise of the Phoenix (think Shimmer’s NXT) champion. Shotzi showed a lot of heart in her black heart, hanging with Matthews even when clearly outmatched, particularly by Matthews’ insanely stiff strikes. Nicole Matthews threw out the most impressive sounding chops I heard all weekend. And for me, that means a lot.

14. Zack Sabre Jr. v Mike Quackenbush

Zack Sabre Jr. was scheduled to meet Chikara’s extremely impressive big man Max Smashmaster on Saturday afternoon, but as soon as Zack hit the ring with a mic, I figured that wasn’t to be. While I wondered who would take on Zack, he got to the point quickly enough, saying he’d been friends with Chikara boss Mike Quackenbush, but was a little jealous that Drew Gulak got a match with him while he hadn’t yet. Quack and Zack had great chemistry in the ring, seemingly talking about each of their chain wrestling exchanges right after they had them. Despit being mostly retired for the past 3 years, Quack was still able to put on a great show with Zack, largely due to their mutual love for their particular style of wrestling.

15. Drew Galloway v Lio Rush

This match was a perfect clash of styles, the strong veteran Galloway against the brash highflyer Lio Rush. Galloway won a great match with an insane spinning Future Shock (made possible by the huge size difference between these two) followed by a piledriver, a move most in attendance had seen him do earlier in the weekend (see below) with disastrous results.

16. Zack Sabre Jr vs ACH

This was an incredibly unique match, and one that I worried might disappoint a little, particularly because I’d been up since 5:30 and it was nearing 11 pm. However, Zack and ACH put on a decent match and kept me entertained. The only big problem with this match is that I never really believed ACH was going to go over.

17. Jimmy Havoc v Zack Sabre Jr

This match opened up the sold-out Progress show Friday afternoon, and these two did not disappoint the 1200 in attendance after a much maligned delay to the show. Havoc probably worked Zack’s style with him better than anyone, while also throwing in his own, harder hitting style, which busted open the busy Zack Sabre Jr so bad that the wound re-opened 4 hours later in this match with Michael Elgin.

18. Pete Dunne v Mark Haskins

Pete Dunne. Coming into this weekend, I was most excited to see him work for the first time than anyone else, becoming obsessed with his bloodthirsty style in the UK Tournament. Dunne didn’t disappoint here, giving Haskins all the underhanded, wonderful stuff I came to love from The Bruiserweight. Haskins, for his part, hung in incredibly well with Dunne, playing the underdog role perfectly and getting some convincing enough nearfalls that by the end of the match I’d stopped cheering the Bruiswerweight and opted for the plucky face.

19. Spring Break Clusterfuck

Given that I was unfamiliar with a lot of the talent signed for this match, that the rules for this match weren’t made clear beforehand, and that some of the other talent hadn’t wrestled, at least in the public eye, in years, I had no idea what to expect from this match. Fortunately, what I got was an entertaining as hell match with some promising new talent, a great showing by Glacier, and, believe it or not, a great story, which was set up in what I thought was just a funny throwaway video before the event. Jimmy Lloyd took the win, but All Ego Ethan Page was the star of the match.

20. Ginny v Toni Storm

I didn’t know anything about the women of Progress going into this match, but within 3 minutes of the match starting I knew what I needed to know. Toni Storm was strong as hell and wanted to throw Ginny around as much as she could. Ginny, despite being a fashionista, had a terrible attitude and some great kicks. This match played itself out as a great clash between those two styles, and Ginny winning with her feet on the ropes was a fantastic heel move, the quality of which is rarely seen.

21. Bayley v Charlotte v Sasha v Nia

The best part about this match was the opening spot, in which Bayley, Charlotte, and Sasha, who had clearly seen the Revival/AoP/DIY match and knew that the only way to continue on was to eliminate Nia first. I thought that once this was over, 3 of the 4 horsewomen would have a triangle elimination match for the ages. Instead, the three were rushed through two quick, uneventful falls where the finishes seemed to come out of nowhere. The fast paced nature of the match still gave Charlotte and Bayley time to shine, but why book a 4-way if you’re only going to feature two women?

22. Matt Riddle vs Drew Galloway

Evolve 80 started out with a piledriver through a table. The rest of the match was, as it should have been, fast, violent, and honestly pretty one-sided. Galloway looked strong here, and it gave Riddle a bit of an edge I hadn’t seen him have before, but seeing Riddle work 3 more matches (and knowing he worked way more) days and even hours after the table spot took a lot of the shine off of it.

23. Mike and Don v Yehi and Williams

When this match started I thought “how the hell are they going to book themselves out of this one,” since it seemed impossible that Big Mike and Tall Don could lose to Evolve darlings Catch Point. I almost thought we might get a title change, but ultimately Catch Point won the way that tag teams should, by being a tag team and out teamworking their bigger, stronger opponents.

24. Eddie Kingston v Matt Tremont

There was color in this match within 3 minutes, brother, along with a plastic fork and table spots. This match was a pitch perfect study in how hardcore wrestling should work. It was bloody, it was real, and both wrestlers looked very tough.

25. Joey Janela v Marty Jannetty

I was VERY nervous going into this match. What was Marty going to look like? How embarrassing was it going to be to watch? Fortunately Marty didn’t look terrible and the match was the fun kind of overbooked mess that made it incredibly entertaining to watch.

26. Goldberg v Brock Lesnar

These two did what they had to. It wasn’t 90 seconds. It wasn’t 20 minutes. It was 4+ minutes of unlimited signature and special moves. It was the match we deserved 13 years ago. I’m still mad it was for a title.

27. Dulce Garcia v KellyAnne

As far as I know there wasn’t any history between these two women, but they soon made the decision to turn their match into a grudge match, taking the action to the floor and connecting with stiff chops that absolutely lit up Dulce’s chest. I loved the speed and aggression these two worked with. Garcia winning with rolling suplexes was awesome.

28. Tyler Bate v Mark Andrews

Tyler Bate, more than the other two members of British Strong Style, found himself in a less than ideal situation at the Progress show, cheered by American fans who know the whitebread UK Champion babyface Tyler rather than the heel BSS Tyler he portrays in Progress. Fortunately, putting him up against Mark Andrews, one of the best faces in wrestling, helped. This match was great, Tyler’s airplane spin is so incredibly over and fun to see live.

29. Asuka v Ember Moon

This match was disappointing, but it’s clear that it was supposed to be. While I was expecting a coronation for Ember, it’s clear that this match instead was put on to keep both women strong and (hopefully finally) turn Asuka heel. Asuka has, in my opinion, clearly been a heel since her match with Mickie in November, but her astounding charisma and strong booking has kept the fans intrigued. Hopefully NXT can fully commit to a heel Asuka.

30. Undertaker v Roman Reigns

I can’t decide if this match is where it should be, belongs lower due to the match quality, or belongs higher due to it’s implications. Undertaker is one of my top 5 favorite wrestlers of all time, so I can’t be unbiased. Seeing Undertaker retire was bittersweet, I was happy I got to be there, sad I won’t see him again, happy for him to finally be able to rest, sad that he wasn’t able to go out with a better match, etc. Honestly if Roman goes heel I think the whole thing might be worth it, he’ll make Vince so much damn money as a bad guy and hopefully the Dead Man doesn’t become a Stone Cold, Ric Flair, or Shawn Michaels, showing back up so often that it doesn’t mean anything any more.

31. Candice LaRae v Mercedes Martinez

I hadn’t seen much Shimmer recently, but damn The Trifecta are awesome. Nicole Savoy is an incredibly talented wrestler turned incredibly talented manager during her injury. Candice is an incredible babyface in peril, and although going in I didn’t think we had much chance of seeing a title change, there were a few near falls here where I thought it was going to happen. In the end Mercedes got the win as expected, but this match kept me in suspense way more than I expected.

32. Matt Riddle v Fred Yehi

Not following Evolve regularly, I didn’t care much about the Catch Point rivalry story, but damn did these two have a great match. Mania weekend made me a huge Matt Riddle fan, and Fred Yehi is a great worker. This match didn’t need a story to rule.

33. Cherry Bomb v Alex Windsor

Allie is an incredibly likable babyface on Impact Wrestling, so seeing her work heel twice Mania weekend was a damn revelation. Cherry Bomb was wonderful in the opener to the Shimmer show, having the cocky character, in-ring banter, and talent to get a crowd, even one who might have otherwise been prepared to cheer her, to boo her. Alex Windsor looked strong in this match too, but Cherry’s heel antics really stole the show.

34. 6 Way Womens Match

This match really was booked for one reason, to get Naomi the big hometown win. I loved seeing her get it, I loved seeing her use the anaconda vice. While all 6 Smackdown women deserved a Wrestlemania match, there wasn’t quite enough time to properly feature everyone.

35. Aleister Black v Andrade Cien Almas

This match was exactly what we needed from Aleister Black. We got to see a great entrance (and great theme) from him, got introduced to his creepy, gothic charisma, and got to see his great Muay Thai strikes. Andrade Cien Almas is a fantastic heel who I hope never gets lost in the shuffle.

36. Mt. Tessa v Kay Lee Ray and Mia Yim

I loved the story of this match. Tessa Blanchard and Vanessa Kraven got into it halfway through the match after an accidental hit was followed by a hit on purpose to almost give Kay Lee and Mia the belts in the best near-fall of all the WWN shows. Mia and Kay Lee Ray are incredibly likeable babyfaces, while Tessa Blanchard is an absolutely brilliant heel. Did I spend a lot of this match fantasy booking Vanessa Kraven (or someone of a similar stature) running roughshod over 205 Live? Yes I did. If you’re doing that too, you’re welcome.

37. Sanity v Ty Dillinger, Ruby Riot, Kassius Ohno, and Roderick Strong

While I think we all wanted to see Ty Dillinger’s first big win (can you believe we’ve been waiting 2 years for that?), a good debut for Kassius and Ruby, and more good things for Roderick Strong until they actually come up with something for him, I do have to say that Sanity winning here made sense. Teams should always beat non-teams.

38. Bobby Roode v Shinsuke Nakamura

Talking about this match with someone beforehand we said “well, the entrances are going to be great, and Bobby Roode knows how to tell a story.” Both of those things were true. I find Bobby and Shinsuke to have absolutely no chemistry, so it was interesting to see what they could accomplish using WWE booking. The near falls were great, the moments were great, Kenny Omega was absolutely correct in calling this a 3-star match. I’m excited to see Shinsuke move on and Bobby to hopefully find an opponent more suited for him (I think Bobby and Kassius Ohno could have some great matches).

39. Catch Point v Kincaid, Theory, Guevara

Jason Kincaid quickly became one of my favorite wrestlers at the Evolve show. I loved his unique look, weird mountain yogi gimmick, and his ring work to back it up. Unfortunately, teaming him with what seemed like 2 people at random against an established team like Catch Point made for a lot of great high spots, but didn’t make the most sense overall.

40. Sami Calahan v Kyle The Beast

I think Solomon Crowe did a lot to turn me on Sami Calahan, all of his work Mania weekend, though, got me back on the Calahan train. Sami has an incredible energy in the ring and Kyle The Beast was able to match it full force. Sami put over Kyle after the match in an unexpected show of respect.

41. Matt Riddle v Trent Seven

Trent Seven got to be the only purely booed member of British Strong Style at the Progress show by taking on the incredibly characmatic Matt Riddle. These two put on a great showcase of “Big Lads Wrestling.”

42. Los Ice Creams v Solo Darling and Travis Huckabee v Hallowicked and Frightmare v Silver and Fire Ant

This match was fun, even if the result was a little predictable. Los Ice Creams’ humor doesn’t always translate watching online, but either these two were on their game or they’re much funnier live. Solo Darling as a sugar-obsessed maniac trying to eat Los Ice Creams and missing an opportunity for a tag to eat skittles was great too.

43. Leva Bates v Lufisto

Leva Bates came out as Tina Belcher and seemed to wrestle the entire match in character, even as her wig started to fall off halfway through the match. True to character, Leva used a lot of butt-based offense during the match, but was ultimately overpowered by an awesome heel Lufisto.

44. Jason Kincaid vs Lio Rush vs Jaka

I was intrigued by the singles match that was booked, but Lio Rush added a lot to it. The showy Lio Rush and nothing-but-business Jaka fed off Jason Kincaid’s weirdo character well.

45. Shayna Baszler v Santana Garrett

Shayna Baszler rules. I loved seeing an MMA-inspired offense in a women’s match, particularly on an all-womens show. Santana Garrett put up a good fight, but seeing her go down to Shayna (and props again to the charismatic Nicole Savoy as Shayna’s manager) seemed like a foregone conclusion.

46. Samantha Heights vs Veda Scott vs Britt Baker vs Nevaeh

This was a fun four-corners match. Veda Scott, as usual, excelled in in-ring chatter, asking her opponents to take it easy on her given that she very publically chipped a few teeth 2 nights earlier at Joey Janela’s Spring Break. Britt Baker looked like an incredibly strong face in this win, her Shimmer Debut.

47. Braxton Sutter and Allie v Andy Williams and Penelope Ford

Braxton Sutter and Allie were incredible heels in this match, immediately getting over their opponents of non-wrestler Andy Williams and Penelope Ford, who has a lot of cool moves, but needs some development as far as putting them together. This was an incredibly fun tag match, made even more fun by being intergender, rather than mixed tag. After the match the guy sitting next to me agreed: We want to see more Andy Williams in the ring.

48. Timothy Thatcher v Chris Dickinson

These two wrestled a very similar, physical, style that was nice to see in complement to each other. Kind of was booked in a death slot right after Galloway piledrove Matt Riddle through a table.

49. ACH v Timothy Thatcher

Poor Timmy Thatcher, this was his second match booked in an absolute death slot, having to follow Keith Lee vs Donovan Dijak. I’m sure I’d enjoy a Timothy Thatcher match a lot more if it were booked in a good slot.

50. The Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal

I don’t like Battle Royals, I didn’t like even more that crowd favorites Sami Zayn and Luke Harper were eliminated without much incident. While the end result was predictable when we got to the final six or so, seeing Rob Gronkowski get involved (and the crowd reaction to him getting involved) was a lot of fun.

51. Black, Blonde, and Neon v The Gatekeepers

A great squash match. The Gatekeepers rule in matches like this.

52. James Drake v Rockstar Spud

Chanting “He’s got his own face, on his ass” was the highlight of this match. Rockstar Spud is incredibly charismatic, but it didn’t seem to come off too well in this match.

53. Jesicka Havok v Cat Power

This was a really fun, hard hitting match between two tough women and was a great example of the variety a Shimmer show can give you. My big complaint was that Havok was both much bigger than her opponent and a face, but Cat Power worked her over most of the match without using any underhanded tactics.

54. Dean Ambrose v Baron Corbin

I’m not sure if these two had a generic Smackdown match because they were on the preshow or if they were moved to the preshow because they had planned a boring Smackdown match. After what he said about last year’s Mania fiasco, I expected Dean Ambrose to bring something great to this match. He didn’t. The end sequence was good, but it didn’t make up for this match.

55. John Cena and Nikki Bella v The Miz and Maryse

I know, I know. It’s not about the match, it’s about the moment after. Still, as a huge fan of everything Cena and Miz have done in 2016 and 2017, this match was a damn disappointment.

56. Sea Stars and Obariyon v Sea Monsters

What was, for most people, the 8th of 10 shows at the WWN live center, the Chikara show really suffered a lot. Sea Stars and Obariyon opened the show up against the Sea Monsters, with the face team working really hard, but the match suffered from the crowd fatigue.

57. Missile Assault Man v Kobald

Missile Assualt Man is a great wrestler, but honestly he needs to go back under a mask. He radiated charisma as Missile Assault Ant, but needs to work on his facial expressions outside of it.

58. Wani v Space Monkey

This match had some fun moments, but the end of the match and title change really seemed to come out of nowhere. Also if Wani is using some sort of “mysterious foreigner” gimmick, why are all of his moves just American indie moves?

59. Ophidian v Jeremy Leary

Jeremy Leary showed some good heel energy, but I felt like there was an aspect of his gimmick I didn’t really get. The end of this match was very confusing, with Ophidian using his trademark snake hypnosis and it for some reason not working on Jeremy, it was never explained why.

60. All Ego Ethan Page v Austin Theory

Not knowing much about Evolve before the match, I saw this as a squash match immediately following The Gatekeeper’s squash match. This one wasn’t as fun.

61. Bray Wyatt v Randy Orton

The projection stuff was kind of cool, I guess, but with the exception of that every aspect of this match disappointed me, including the lackluster entrances for both men. I probably came into this match expecting too much (given Randy’s past Mania matches and Bray’s recent work I thought this had the potential for match of the night).

 Matches I missed:

Ultramantis Black vs. Juan Francisco de Coronado:

I had to leave Chikara (which started late) early in order to make it to the Amway Center in time for NXT (and to see the taped matches before the show). Honestly only the last taping match was worth it so I should have waited.

Austin Aries vs. Neville

You try getting to wrangling your sister, her husband, and your 2-year-old niece to Wrestlemania on time. Also I went into this assuming there would only be two pre-show matches, so one wouldn’t start before 6 pm.

Most of the Andre the Giant Invitational:

But I watched it on the Network getting in and caught the last half so I’m counting it as seen.

Matches I’m not counting (But am counting toward my Wrestler Seen count):

Pre-NXT Takeover tapings: Honestly these were 3 pretty boring matches, the pre Takeover tapings are never anything to write home about.

Post-NXT Takeover tapings: These are TV Tapings, because of that there’s a lot of squash matches, feud building, etc. Ranking these matches alongside these matches, most of which had a big-event feel, would be unfair.