#black widow brigade is BACK

[mavenbeeee]

CIRIE PARVATI AND NATALIE (and ethan) ARE GOING TO BE ON DIRTY LAUNDRY AHHHH

SURVIVOR DROPOUT CROSSOVER AHHHH

IM LOSING MY MIND THE BLACK WIDOW BRIGADE IS BACK AHHHHH

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #29: Only the Good Die Young

Prompt: thanatopsis (free write) || Master Post || On AO3 (coming in October)

A/N: Sooooo you remember how I was mildly bummed at the end of last year's FFXIV Write because the prompt could not at all fit the idea I had wanted to cap the challenge off with?

This is that idea.

---

The King of Ruin was dead and it should have been a momentous, joyous day.

Instead, as news of Theodoric’s death at the hands of the Resistance spread through Ala Mhigo and its citizens began to raggedly cheer, the clouds had parted above the city, and Garlean airships had begun raining down blue fire. And while the city shook and cheering turned to screams, someone opened the Ghimlyt Gate, and the ranks of the XIVth Legion entered the city.

No matter what the Ala Mhigans did, their city would fall. Five years of the Mad King’s rule had drained Ala Mhigo of her vitality; the Resistance had broken the Corpse Brigade, but they had neither the numbers nor the experience to stand against the Black Wolf. There would be no throwing back the Garlean advance.

But every warrior and mage still capable of fighting could ensure as many people escaped as possible.

And so, Tyr Greywolfe raced through the family manor, doing a final check of each room to ensure no one was left behind.

The last of the servants, including little Synnove’s nanny and the housekeeper, had slipped away a few days ago as the tension preceding the king’s overthrow began to reach its crescendo, fleeing the city should the Resistance fail. But there was always the chance one might have returned to fetch a forgotten belonging, or that someone was trying to seek shelter as ceruleum fell from the sky and destroyed walls and homes and history. Today, at least, every room was empty.

Maybe one day they wouldn’t be.

Tyr flew down the hallways, through the entrance hall, and out of the front doors so fast that his sheathed blades slapped bruises into his thighs even with being safely strapped down. His mother’s gardens were trampled and ruined, but he doubted her ghost would mind; their widower neighbor, Walcher Steelwolfe (cadet branch of a completely unrelated House Wolfe that had long since died out), had brought his chocobo carriage, and he was soothing both frightened birds as Havardr and Father got the women and children into the back. The roar of cannons echoed overhead and the clash of swords came from the east; the Wolf’s Den was one of the neighborhoods closest to the Ghimlyt Gate, and the XIVth was trying to push further in.

“House is clear!” Tyr called out.

His goodsister was carefully moving into the back of the carriage to allow the rest of the family onboard; he saw her clutching a satchel that he knew was full of important documentation, and hoped that Isolde’s foresight wouldn’t be needed in the coming days and sennights. Faramund was lifted up after her, but Father paused briefly to pull his only grandson into a crushing hug. The boy clutched back desperately; he was just old enough to have an inkling that today might be the last time he received such a hug.

Tyr darted across the yard to join his family, heart in his throat. Faramund was now up on the edge of the carriage, but his nephew leaned over and Tyr obligingly pulled him into his own hug.

“Love you, Uncle,” Faramund choked out, voice muffled by his face in Tyr’s leathers and another cannon shot exploding just blocks away.

“Love you, too, Far,” Tyr said, pulling back and ruffling his hair, turning to the others as Faramund followed after his mother.

Eydis was right there, head at his chin, and gods, how quickly she had grown. Nearly eighteen and his spitting image: dark brown skin, deep red hair, hawk’s nose and thin lips. But her eyes were the same green as his mother’s rather than Greywolfe gold and right now, they were filling with tears. Even more than her cousin, Eydis knew.

His daughter, his only child, crashed into him, and Tyr could do nothing except hold her as tight as he could as she sobbed into his neck.

“I love you, Papa,” she said. “Please, please…”

“I love you, Eydis,” he said, hoarse with emotion. “You are the best thing I ever helped put into this world. I will always be proud of you.”

Another sob heaved through her and Tyr pressed a kiss to her temple. After long moments, they drew apart; Eydis’s eyes were red-rimmed and still streaming, but a steely determination had descended upon her.

Tyr wiped the tears off her cheeks and held her face in his hands. And then he helped her up into the carriage.

Little Synnove had already been carefully placed into the carriage bed by her father, but she stared up at him with the same huge green eyes his daughter had. Her favorite plush wolf—sewn for her by his mother—was clutched tightly under her arm, but she reached for him with the other. Tyr gathered her close, gentle as always with her even as he made his hug as fierce as possible. With her nanny gone, Synnove had slept the last few nights with himself and Angharad, tucked safely between them and even joined by Eydis as initial clashes between the Corpse Brigade and the Resistance had echoed through the streets. But his niece had always been one of the bright spots of his life and she had always been frightfully smart; her solemnity now would be unusual on any other five-year old.

“Love you very much, Synnove-cub,” he whispered to her. “Be good for your ma and da and aunt.”

“Love you, Unca Tyr,” she lisped, then drew away to be scooped up into Eydis’s arms.

Angharad was next to him now, and Tyr took a moment to drink in the sight of his wife.

Strong shoulders and straight spine and light steps, trained in Gyr Abanian dance, Angharad was grace personified. Her chestnut hair had a few stray greys hiding at the temples and her dark eyes, normally laughing and bright, regarded him now with resigned grief.

His wife reached for him and Tyr took her hands in his, raising them to his lips to kiss the knuckles of the right, then the left, and then Angharad lunged forward.

Their kiss was messy, and desperate, and tasted faintly of the salt that Angharad had cried earlier but refused to let fall now. Twenty years of passion and love and joys and sorrows and mistakes and triumphs; Tyr tried to put it all into the kiss, arms tight around her waist even as her hands stroked through his hair. When they drew apart at last, they rested their foreheads together and stared into one another’s eyes.

“I will love you long after the stars grow cold,” Tyr said to the love of his life.

“And I will love you even when the memory of stars is gone from creation,” Angharad said thickly, finishing the familiar refrain.

Tyr put his hands on her waist and lifted her up into the carriage bed, as easy as when he had lifted her onto the stage for their first dance at their wedding. Angharad cupped his face in her hands, staring at him with the same solemnity has Synnove had as she memorized him. Then she dropped her hands, and stepped backwards to sit at the back and gather up the girls to her.

Walcher had hopped up into the driver’s seat and just in time—dropships roared overhead, and through the estate gate, Tyr saw a group of Resistance fighters pelt full tilt down the street towards the eastern barricades. Walcher slapped the reins, and the kwehing chocobos dutifully began to draw the carriage across the lawn and through the open gates. Tyr, Havardr, and Father followed after, Havardr just a few steps ahead.

Tyr felt eyes on him, and canted his head to the side. Ivar Greywolfe looked at him, golden eyes worn but determined. He flicked his gaze towards his younger son.

Tyr nodded.

As the carriage cleared the gate, Walcher guiding the chocobos to head west, Havardr began to turn east. That was when Tyr and Father grabbed him by either arm, and hauled him towards the carriage.

“No!” Havardr shouted, loud even over the battle raging down the street and throughout the rest of the city, bucking and struggling against their holds. “No, no, don’t you dare make me leave you behind, don’t you dare—”

Tyr managed to wrestled his brother’s arms behind him even as Father let go to grab either side of Havardr’s head. “Someone has to protect the rest of the family!” he yelled, pitching his voice over the explosion of yet another ceruleum cannon. “That’s your job now, Havardr! You have to keep them safe, for me and for Tyr!”

Havardr sobbed as Father pressed a kiss to his forehead. Tyr let him go, and then he and Father were engulfing his brother into a fierce three-way hug. Havardr clutched at them, hands scrabbling for purchase on their leathers, gasping out, “I love you I love you I’m sorry I love you—”

“Love you, too, brother mine,” Tyr said. And then he and Father picked Havardr up and threw him into the carriage.

“Walcher, GO!” Father roared, turning to bolt down the street to shore up the defensive line at the end of the street. Tyr ran after him, drawing his swords as he did.

One of the mages had brought down one of the buildings to create a barricade, but Garlean reapers had joined the fray and their cannons were making quick, awful work of the stone. Bladedancers clashed with conscripts, swords clanking loudly against shields, knuckledancers wove through the melee to disable enemy combatants, a firedancer was standing atop the rubble to aim her destructive magicks at the backlines of the advancing enemy. Tyr and his father crashed into the Garleans, swords sweeping through their foes and blood flowing. They hadn’t been with the Resistance when they stormed the palace, their job to put down any Corpse Brigade curs should they begin attacking civilians in the city, and thus they were fresh, their stamina still high.

The heavy whirr of machina echoed down the street, and another reaper fired its cannon. The blast partially hit both the downed building and the street, and for a moment, Ala Mhigans and Garleans alike were unbalanced as the force of the blast shook the block. Tyr reached out to stabilize his father, eyes forward, and saw one of the backline officers raise their gunblade—

Tyr Greywolfe never felt the bullet.

[rappaccini]

it's the 10 year anniversary of edge of spiderverse #2, aka the 10-year gwenniversary so please indulge me.

very long retrospective on spider-gwen:

spider-gwen's success was meteoric right from the start. she went from breakout star of the first spiderverse event to the biggest character of the year, to immediately making the jump to animation and feature films in under five years. that's like a unicorn. this shit just does not happen.

and you know why it happened? because spider-gwen is lightning in a bottle. she was created at the right time, introduced in the right place, with the right design and the right characterization.

the context

the concept was brilliant. people had been waiting for some kind of justice for this character for decades, and it struck at exactly the right time in comics fandom.

people had fallen back in love with gwen stacy thanks to emma stone's portrayal in the amazing spider-man movies and actively hoped for a better ending after the character's death. people wanted more gwen, and they wanted better for her.

not to mention the forty years of gwen stacy angst that had been already building. she was a familiar character important to the lore, being given a new, exciting role, after decades of being stuck in fridging limbo. people had been waiting for gwen to come back -- in a way that lasts-- for a very, very long time.

more questions about gender dynamics in comics were being asked, a demand for more prominent female characters in geeky media was taking off (remember the 'give black widow a movie' brigade in the mid 2010s? remember how this was the era without a single female-led superhero movie?), and the concept of fridging was getting more critical attention. a role-swap au where the hero's girlfriend survives instead of him was very topical.

girlboss feminism was at its height. giving the hero's girlfriend the power was an exciting, new idea to people... as was the idea of a teen girl superhero with an ordinary, relatable origin story that doesn't involve being abused by men, avenging the men in their lives, or carrying on a man's legacy. a universe where gwen's just a girl who gets powers was exactly what people wanted.

white feminism was at its height. it's not a coincidence that the female spider that broke through was the white girl and not cindy. speaking of:

the spider-office had already been laying the groundwork for alternate spider-heroes, and for a mainstream female spider-hero.

the spider-verse concept was designed to capitalize on that idea. people wanted to see alternate versions of spider-man, and they wanted to see them interact.

and the spider-verse was clearly intended to launch cindy moon / silk as a character. she was created in its leadup and is the basis of it's plot. she was supposed to be The Default Female Spider for a generation who opens the door to an era of greater representation and rounds out a trio with peter and miles.

... but because cindy's origin was jawdroppingly racist and sexist, it killed all the momentum and excitement for a character who was meant to be a hit. people did not want to look at her for years after that. they're still uncomfortable with her.

which left a gap where a female spider-hero was supposed to occupy in the narrative, that gwen arrived just in time to fill, with an audience that had spent a year being primed to accept a major female spider-hero ready to give her a chance.

(it's not her fault that the writers were gross to cindy. in an ideal world they wouldn't have done that, and gwen would have popped off anyway, but without being stuck as miles and peter's bestie.)

her design was phenomenal. which, for a medium that's visual first, is key to her success. if spider-gwen had debuted with that 'cobwebbed version of her death trenchcoat' look that was originally pitched, no way would spider-gwen have caught on to such a degree.

the costume is visually distinct, so you can instantly pick spider-gwen out of a lineup of dozens of characters.

the design is beautiful, so tons of artists will want to replicate it, and people want to keep looking at her.

it's simple, so it's easy to draw.

and it has enough elements that can be tweaked for individual artistic expression that it won't get boring.

it's female friendly: this is a costume that instantly tells you this character isn't a sex object; she's a person, and a protagonist. she shows no skin, but the cutouts of white at her hips and the neckline (which resemble a swimsuit, gown or leotard) are just suggestive enough to add a hint of sex appeal. the hood stands in for hair, giving the silhouette a feminine look without needing to have a ponytail awkwardly sticking out the back, while also suggesting a brooding personality. and every teenage girl's had that pair of chuck taylors.

and in combination, the shoes, hood and leotard cutouts give it a diy feel, like gwen made it from stuff in her closet. meaning you can throw a closet cosplay together very easily, and you can wear a spider-gwen branded hoodie in public without anyone catching on.

it references the athleisure and grunge revival looks popular in the mid-2010s, so it sets gwen firmly in a specific time period. and to a 2010s audience, she looks so fucking cool.

but it's not so trendy that it'll look dated after a few years. this is a look that won't get old.

and the writing was great. the reason spider-gwen has legs is because of the care put into her narrative.

it gave you the surface-level expectation for spider-gwen: role swap! peter dies, and gwen gets the powers!... and in doing so, it also got peter out of the way for good and kept the focus entirely on gwen. it knew right away that it had to force you to see her as an individual by removing any romantic options with more prominent men.

and it kept protecting her: peter's permadead and has no clones. harry's redemption sticks so he's no threat to her. miles doesn't exist on 65, and as soon as bendis is gone, we're gonna spend multiple arcs with gwen loudly saying she'd hate to end up with miles romantically.

it smartly used the framework of the raimi and webb movies and a tomboyish version of gwen (who's a hybrid of a few different variants who aren't gwen 616) to get the male audience comfortable with gwen... as it smoothly sidestepped the entire fridging storyline by giving her an origin that has nothing to do with being the murdered girlfriend, or being the girlfriend at all.

it built up a fantastic world around gwen with a unique visual look, established in-world politics, a sense of history, and prominent themes that reinforce the meaning of gwen being this world's flagship hero. earth-65 isn't just pretty to look at, it's much bigger and older than spider-gwen, and full of storytelling potential.

it populated that world with a great supporting cast. grounded and funny civilians, exciting allies and interesting rogues who were all creative reinterpretations of 616 characters, which made them visually distinct enough to stand out from their main counterparts, able to offer new stories that aren't just remixes of peter's greatest hits, and created interesting commentaries on those characters to bring in their fans.

it strategically used mcu synergy to draw in fans of certain characters as they appeared in tv and movies: putting aside the obvious tasm piggyback, it's not a coincidence that in a run that coincides exactly with the run of the original and massively popular daredevil netflix show, gwen's archvillain is matt murdock.

the world was balanced: great female and male characters. superhumans and civilians given equal importance. great superhero action, grounded human issues. serious interpersonal conflicts, but with enough heart to feel like gwen still has people who love her in her life. metacommentary for longtime fans, and accessible storytelling for first-time readers.

it even had a tie-in ep recorded by an actual band. (remember when dc did that with black canary around the same time?) you could literally listen to the mary janes singing about the vulture as you were reading gwen's fight scene with him.

it's filled with zeitgeisty mid-2010s issues, from indie rock, the mid-2010s grunge revival and contemporary memes to discussions about incel culture, police brutality, feminism, and the looming specter of the trump presidency (look up earth-65's modok). these themes were written into the story with enough subtlety to avoid dating itself or feeling like a lecture, and it was deconstructing white feminism and girlboss feminism a decade before the public was.

great concept, flawless execution. she's a familiar face with a new role that solves a longstanding issue with her character, and feeds a desire the fandom's had for years. she's simple to understand, with enough depth to make her worth diving into. she's timely and timeless. she's nostalgic and innovative. everything that had to go right, did go right. latour, rodriguez and renzi knew exactly what the fuck they were doing when they created spider-gwen.

and people fucking loved her. she was an instant hit with the spider-man fandom, marvel fandom, and comics fandom in general. she sold like gangbusters. she inspired a flood of art and cosplay. in just ten years, she's gotten more mileage than most characters get in decades. and it's gonna keep going up from here.

but where are we going, in the long run?

the pre-itsv era (2014-2017)

so. spider-gwen was a monster hit from the moment she was created in 2014. she was introduced as "your new favorite" in her first appearance, and it might've been a joke, but it was very right. her issue of edge of spider-verse was a blockbuster by comic standards. she was the breakout star of the spider-verse event, which led to her miniseries in 2015.

then her miniseries sold over 200k copies. which led to her ongoing.

her ongoing was also a massive hit, and though it eventually was cancelled, it had the legs to last almost forty issues in all, which for a female character who's the alternate universe version of a more popular 616 character, who was never in a movie, is extraordinary. and during that run she was brought into three crossover events with 616 characters (clone conspiracy, spider-women, and sitting in a tree) and put on a team book (web-warriors).

she was so immensely popular that in 2015, she made it to animation for the first time with a guest role in an episode of the ultimate spider-man cartoon, just one year after she was created. this is the first time spider-gwen participates in a multiverse story, or a teamup with peter and miles. she's treated like an equal, with no romantic undertones. she also has no powers and crafts her spider-suit with her smarts. and though she has no familiarity with her world's (spider-)peter, she still puts on her mask for his sake to carry on his mission after he dies.

then in 2017, she was back, in a supporting role in the marvel's spider-man cartoon. two years in, she's already got a beefy role. she begins as the 616-esque science-driven popular girl peter's crushing on, but instead of dating him or dying, they stay friends, she gains powers of her own through a spider-island virus incident, and they form a team. this is the first time gwen's symbiote is adapted, and peter, gwen and miles (... and a fourth female hero, anya) exist in the same continuity, with no death-of-peter origin at all. also for some reason she's the jackal's niece here instead of a cop's daughter.

so to put it in perspective, her role in 2018's into the spider-verse wasn't that original or revolutionary. gwen had already participated in a multiverse story as a spider-hero, been reimagined as a teen, and been a teammate of miles and peter. twice.

and itsv didn't break her character out. she already had that momentum. she was never going to just fade away after a few years. not in the comics, not in animation. @/spiderverse stans, she was by no means 'dependent on the spiderverse/miles for success.' by the time she showed up in itsv, spider-gwen had it already. and she got it all on her own, without ever having to kiss miles OR peter to get it.

(and if you want me to get real cunty about it, okay! it took miles seven years to make it into a major theatrical movie. it took gwen four.)

anyway. the pre-itsv era established spider-gwen's existence, basic status as a spider-person, and appearance. the rest varied a lot.

the itsv era (2018-2022):

into the spider-verse expanded her presence. her supporting role was the most accurate to her earth-65 self yet, though it still aged her down, gave her a much more competent girlbossy personality, a different dynamic with miles and peter, and... ballet background, for some reason. so in a sense, she has earth-65 gwen's aesthetic, but earth-616's personality. on a related note, gwen is introduced the way gwen-616 is: as a classmate in the spider-man's new school, who he gets on the wrong foot with, before she warms up to him.

this is also the first time spider-gwen has ever been introduced as a love interest, though that role was ultimately subverted by the reveal that that pretty girl in miles's class is a spider-person; this was the first time that the subtext of the spider-gwen narrative was adapted: being spider-gwen is what makes the audience sit up and go "oh. she's not The Girlfriend. she's her own person." (not that it lasted. but still.)

past that point, gwen wasn't just a fan-favorite among spider-man or comics fans anymore. now the entire world knew that "spider-woman" was a girl named gwen stacy, with this particular costume.

which has led to three prominent ripple effects in her media since then:

gwen's drummer/musician persona is now the personality spider-gwen adaptations are keeping. before this point, usm and msm gwen were both feminine science nerds, and therefore took after gwen-616 more than gwen-65. itsv kicked the spider-gwen characterization pendulum back in the earth-65 direction.

gwen's being relaunched as Peter And Miles's Friend. the peter-miles-gwen trio has been locked in as a cash cow, and practically anywhere gwen shows up, you know she's going to run into them. and she isn't going to be romantically involved with either of them. it's just a friendship trio.

gwen is being marketed directly to little girls. itsv was the first time a mass audience of little girls saw her. most of the merch she now sells is targeted at kids, meaning either little girls are asking for it, or parents think they should buy it for them. it's not a coincidence that suddenly, she's appearing in media targeted at younger viewers right as her costume and aesthetic are getting aggressively pinker, her age is becoming ambiguous, and no one will pull the trigger on her queerness being canonized. she's gone from a pg-13 character to a g-rated character.

gwen's 2018 ghost-spider comic relaunch by seanan mcguire was designed to capitalize on itsv synergy by bringing her into peter and miles's orbit... by taking her away from her home and landing her in theirs, with a shiny new codename meant to make her stand out there. it also gave her a slight redesign to give her ballet flats that compliment sv gwen's pointe shoes, and was intended to age her down to a teen to make a romance with miles possible (though it was never attempted or even hinted at). it got a mixed reception and despite two relaunches, was cancelled.

given how immensely popular gwen is everywhere else, it's not because No One Cares About Spider-Gwen. it's because none of her readership wanted her in that status quo. they don't just want spider-gwen, they want spider-gwen in spider-gwen's world, with spider-gwen's supporting cast.

and the feeling's mutual: gwen's Great Big 616 Move intended to make her available for use in 616 titles... was a miserable flop. she was barely used at all outside of spiderverse events she'd have been in anyway. in other words, none of the writers want her there either. and when gwen's minis resumed, they quietly moved her back to 65, even as she still had multiverse storylines. (which were still received poorly because of the multiverse aspects.)

at the same time, gwen got a prominent role in marvel rising, the 2018 show designed to get 6-10 year old girls interested in female marvel characters, whose design borrowed from gwenpool (totally different character; mixup on the artist's part) and now seems to be the basis of gwen's look going forward: pink hair, athleisure-heavy costume. it was the first time gwen's new ghost-spider codename has been used outside the comics. it's the first time the broad strokes of gwen's comics origin story were adapted: male best friend died, running from the cops, including her dad-- and seeking absolution for his death. (and it was the first time gwen's responsibility for killing peter was omitted, and she was written as innocent and unfairly persecuted.) and it's the first time spider-gwen appears in a continuity with no male spider-person in the story at all. she's officially past the point of needing the guys to invite her in.

she appeared as a co-lead in marvel action, a comic series designed for grade school aged readers, that portrayed gwen as a friend and peer to miles and peter (though peter has more experience as spider-man than either of them). yes, just a friend. no dead-male-friend origin story. gwen isn't hunted by the cops either. but she is a musician, and does have the default spider-bite origin. for the first time, she's associated with the daily bugle. and for the first time, 616 gwen's standard high school backstory was given to spider-gwen, who in this continuity has her own school and peer group, separate from peter and miles.

gwen got a major role in 2021's spidey and his amazing friends, the spider-man show designed to be preschoolers' first introduction to spider-man, where ghost-spider's part of yet another peter-miles-gwen friendship trio.

(spider-gwen did not appear in 2021's spider-man: no way home. but people were frantically spreading rumors that emma stone, who played gwen in the marc webb movies, was going to appear, and that she'd be another alternate spider-person who'd interact with andrew garfield's peter. people wanted a happy resolution to that relationship where gwen lives... and they wanted to see a cinematic live-action spider-gwen.)

the effect of which is: now an all-ages media ladder has been created. there's a ghost-spider for toddlers, grade schoolers, middle schoolers, and teens and up. know what that means?

when you ask anyone under 20 who gwen stacy is, they'll say "ghost-spider" or "spider-woman." for the first time, an entire generation's default perception of gwen stacy is as a literally-empowered person with agency in the story who is respected by the male characters as their equal, whose presence in the story doesn't depend on them. she isn't The Hero's Girlfriend anymore, she's the hero. and to those kids, it will have always been this way.

when you ask a kid or teenager who spider-woman is, they'll say "gwen stacy." spider-gwen is now the default spider-woman for an entire generation of kids.

... and for the better part of the past decade, marvel's been making an effort to advertise spider-gwen as a peer and equal to peter. meaning, that this is the first generation of kids who are going to grow up seeing spider-man as a franchise that isn't a boy's club, where it's normal and expected for a female superhero to be a active part of the action without any sexualization or forced romantic expectations. and this is the first generation of kids who'll have spider-man stories created with a female perspective and female audience considered. and spider-gwen is the face of that inclusion.

that entire generation of kids are going to grow up with spider-gwen. she'll be a presence in their lives from diapers to drivers licenses, and her characterization in each of those continuities is structured in such a way that, as they reach a new age group and therefore a new spider-gwen story aimed at that group, more details about her backstory and more complexities of her character are revealed. which means to those children, it'll feel like she's growing up with them. that's how you get kids to be lifelong loyal fans of characters.

the itsv-era streamlined gwen's backstory and personality into two basic types: the spider-gwen from her own world, and the spider-gwen from the same dimension as spider-peter and spider-miles.

or in other words, a spider-gwen who's purely platonic with her male friends (and has a queer vibe), and a spider-gwen who's introduced as a love interest (whose sexuality is ambiguous).

this will be important moving forwards.

atsv era: 2023-????

so. 2023: across the spider-verse comes out.

gwen's beefed up from side character to deuteragonist, with her own point-of-view, an introduction to her world and origin story, and an in-depth depiction of her personality. that origin story is still pared down from what it is in the comics, and still won't make gwen culpable in peter's death (also gwen's world seems to be temporally in the-early-2000s-but-with-smartphones, probably to imply she's part of peter parker's age cohort), but it's the second time the 65 backstory has been implemented, and since this is the biggest audience that's seen it and they love it, it's going to stick.

it's also the first time the general audience has been exposed to gwen's narrative being queercoded (though it's vague enough that a lot of people didn't pick up on it at all, and gwen hasn't been trans-coded before.)... and it's the first time being the love interest is the primary reason why spider-gwen is in a story, or the argument's been made that gwen belongs more with said love interest than in her own world. 😐

the movie does not adapt gwen's new codename. likely because it may have been considered too confusing to switch codenames between movies. atsv took five years to make and gwen's depiction in that film is based on canon that was releasing around 2018. so: 1) marvel rising. notice the pink hair and wrongfully-accused-of-killing-peter plotline? 2); the mcguire run's status quo of gwen being unable to go home to her own dimension, and 3) the spider-geddon event, where the gwen/hobie subtext and margo kess come from). spiderverse gwen's characterization is five years behind all her counterparts.

and though gwen's depiction started a shitload of online discourse, that discourse alone is proof that people are very passionate about her (... or rather, her sexuality, who has access to it, and how loyal she has to be to her future boyfriend 🧂). and the general audience, who aren't terminally online, mostly loved her.

gwen, again, did not need this movie to thrive. she was already immensely popular, and already the default female spider-hero and gwen stacy to an entire generation. the work's been done. the momentum was already in motion.

to the point where it was leaked that insomniac made spider-gwen the lead of a multiverse game they stopped developing. not gwen. spider-gwen. the game might have been cancelled, but she damn nearly became the lead of a major release from a triple-a studio (and because of the amount of time it takes to make these games, insomniac was invested in her before atsv came out). the fact that everyone expected the female spider-person to star in ism3 to be gwen just proves how big her impact is. whether you love her or hate her, you still anticipate her presence.

atsv did reinvigorate interest in gwen's origin, her world, her queerness... and in gwiles. which is where things get sticky.

in the comics,

in 2023, gwen got another multiverse-themed miniseries about clone hybrids of her dna and the 616 sinister six (that quietly snuck a few queer gwen variants into the background). it was received poorly.

in 2023, gwen got a one-off what if? dark reimagining from the guy who killed gwen-616 in the first place, who unsurprisingly made a spider-gwen origin all about gwen-616 surviving the bridge fall instead of her boyfriend peter. this gwen has no powers, and wears peter's costume to avenge peter's death. and this comic had a generally mixed-to-positive reception, particularly from people who don't like gwen-65.

in 2023(/2024) gwen got a miniseries that placed her back on her homeworld and got her the closest she's ever been to canonically bisexual. it's also been the best-received spider-gwen comic since the latour run.

in 2024, gwen got a second ongoing from hot writer stephanie phillips to re-relaunch her as a part of peter and miles's world, where she's immediately getting shipped with men and hanging around miles.

in 2024, she's showing up in the spider-society event tie-in.

in 2024, she's appearing in a deadpool event.

in 2024, she's a major character in a tva miniseries.

and she's getting another what-if? comic about being galactus's herald.

gwen's having another banner year, and is being promoted in a way she hasn't since her original run. everywhere there's synergy, she's showing up. specifically in a way that keeps shouting "i'm not on my own world anymore!"

... and people are not liking it. again, the status quo is the problem, not spider-gwen. but the desired status quo doesn't have a consensus anymore. those two versions of gwen have now fractured the fanbase into two very different groups: people who want gwen to be queer and exist primarily in her own space; and people who want her to be miles or peter's girlfriend who exists exclusively in their space.

and no, spiderverse movies, gwen can't 'do both.' because if gwen's going to share a universe with peter and miles, she cannot access most of the aspects of her narrative that people are drawn to. if gwen is going to date peter or miles, she can't explore her sexuality and will always be secondary to them, which is antithetical to the entire point of her character.

and so far, thanks to the spiderverse movies, which are, again, five years behind the rest of her canon, and spider-gwen suddenly becoming Every Little Girl's Superhero, editorial's making the blueprint imitate the copies and dragging comics-gwen backwards in her development to fit in with them. gwen's now stuck spinning her wheels to stay appropriate for those little girls (who homophobes think can't handle a queer role model in their media) and appeal to those spiderverse stans (who see her as Miles's Girlfriend, and want her deaged and in close proximity so they can date). those things are directly tied.

that's the mud we're stuck in.

so. the atsv-era Big Evolution of the spider-gwens is likely going to involve romance. (which will make her even more appealing, because people love shipping a white blonde girl.) after ten years of avoiding making her the love interest to anyone, her sexuality's going to be the next topic of interest. gwen's either going to finally be canonically queer, get shoved in a comphet ship with miles and reduced to The Girlfriend again, or they'll kick that can down the road even longer by using the unhappy medium of shipping her with misc straight men who aren't miles or peter.

so the default shared-universe status quo where gwen's peter and miles's friend with no romantic undertones? ... we might be kissing that goodbye soon.😐

so. where are we going next?

.... well. for the next decade, a lot of places. several projects we know spider-gwen is in are guaranteed to see a release, and are actively under way. several projects that have spider-gwen in them are announced or are so likely that we should assume they'll happen. several projects we know are in the works haven't mentioned spider-gwen's presence, but their context make it very possible that she'll appear, and there's already a demand for it.

gwen's newest run will most likely share the mcguire run's fate: 20-25ish issues total, possibly a cancellation and relaunch in between, possibly a writer switchup. then back to minis. hopefully with an eventual return to earth-65. unhopefully, with even worse writing that keeps her in 616 or bites the gwiles bullet.

btsv: gwen's guaranteed to have a big role, which will, for the very first time, introduce the kids who grew up with spider-gwen to what spider-gwen was created to subvert: the death of gwen stacy storyline. there's a dangerously high chance it'll halfass the narrative to make it about how ~don't worry gwen, miles is special! you can be a different man's girlfriend!~ and introduce the earth-8 ending to the general audience. they might even smash 65 and 1610 together star vs the forces of evil style so miles and gwen can date. uh oh. (silver lining: it'll also likely introduce everyone to the concept of spider-gwen having a symbiote.)

another ongoing will probably spin out of this, if it hasn't survived the full wait till btsv. this run will probably, pro: remember gwen's symbiote, and con: take another stab at gwiles and drag gwen back into multiverse bullshit. mcguire run round 3.

if spider-women happens, she'll be one of the leads and earth-65 will hopefully factor into it somehow. and if gwiles happens, it has to break up here if the story's going to work. (will it? 😬) so there's a chance the sv era will end with gwen as her own person in her own world, surrounded by other women, instead of as Miles's True Love. not a big one, but there's still hope.

and if sw happens, there'll inevitably be a spider-women tie-in comic teaming gwen up with her costars' comics variants. and if anyone's getting a solo ongoing out of this, it would be gwen. so again, if it's canned before this point, it'll be back. hopefully, gwen can escape gwiles there too, if she hasn't already.

if gwen appears in insomniac spider-man 3, it's most likely that she'd be a civilian character and not a spider-person, because cindy's their female spider-hero and they won't want to step on her toes. she might even be cindy's love interest. but we got close to spider-gwen landing a triple-a game. it could happen again.

a live-action movie spider-gwen is coming someday. 1) the mcu already subverted their Falling Girlfriend Moment with mj, mcu peter knows about the possibility of a girlfriend named gwen dying, and they're hard-set on mj and peter's romance, so they won't spend much or any time on petergwen... so what's left for gwen to do, other than get powers? 2) there are rumors that the studios want yet another live-action spiderverse movie. if they make it, it's more likely that spider-gwen will show up than that she won't, because what else do you do in a spiderverse movie after already using up all your live-action peters... other than introduce gwen and miles? and 3) the mcu and sony will make miles movies someday. if gwen doesn't turn up in peter's supporting cast, she'll be in miles's. probably as the love interest 🧂.

and what common story elements will likely appear for spider-gwens in the btsv era? (most likely 2027/2028-????)

girlfriendification. even if btsv doesn't end with gwiles getting together, once the pandora's box of 'gwen's our doomed girlfriend' is opened, there will always be the danger of gwen being the love interest in any story where she appears with peter and miles. especially in live-action movies. they might try petergwen again. they will try gwiles again, in another continuity that isn't the spiderverse movies. it may be an endgame ship somewhere. gwiles will unfortunately not go away, but the framing of the ship is what could change: will gwen be miles's Forever Girl, or will they flirt/date for a bit before moving on?

gwilesification. to get specific, the spiderverse movies have transferred the popular perception of gwen from being a default member of peter's supporting cast to a default member of miles's. she's more likely to be miles's love interest than peter's at this point, and aging her down to miles's age, making her his classmate at his school, and shoving her into proximity with him and cranking up the romance will probably reappear in a few places. i'm especially worried about live-action movies, if she does appear there, doing this.

gwenom. if gwenom appears in btsv, even if she's a cameo or villainous variant of spiderverse gwen, everyone will know about spider-gwen having a symbiote and that design's gonna make a shitload of money because she'll be the miles g of btsv. the comics won't forget she has it again. and future spider-gwen adaptations will probably use it too (god knows sony loves that black suit).

friendships with other spider-women, especially cindy moon. even if sw never comes out and gwen isn't in ism3, when cindy's profile raises thanks to ism3, she'll get a bigger push. which means she'll start hanging out more with gwen. and assuming gwen isn't replaced by cindy in the default spider-trio, it'll expand to a quad, and gwen and cindy's bond will get a focus in many continuities to come.

gwen's going to get to grow up again. the next decade's confirmed content will shift back to pg-13 in tone... right as that core group of kids who grew up with spider-gwen reach their teens and twenties. (... and as cindy moon is due for a boost in popularity just in time for the next generation of little girls.)

more multiverse bullshit. gwen's gonna be bouncing around the spiderverse until after the spiderverse movies are well behind us.

a return to earth-65... i hope. it'll appear in btsv at the minimum. maybe this, combined with the preference for gwen-65a at home could get her back there, even if it's temporary.

she's only going to get more popular once this runthrough of prospective projects is complete in the next decade (and that's not even counting other potential comics, cartoons, movies, games, etc we don't even have a hint will happen yet). even if only some of these are released, it's only going to lead to gwen being even more well-known in the popular imagination.

when the spiderverse movies are done, people aren't going to be sick of her. especially not the young adults who will have a lifelong attachment to her (... people didn't get sick of peter or miles after growing up with them, after all). if anything, they'll start asking for a major spider-gwen solo project.

spider-gwen is always going to exist.

yes, she'll never be the cultural institution that peter parker is... because no one will, including miles. and she's not as popular as miles, but she's on track to get there with time and in some ways is already accelerating faster than him.

in just ten years, she's gotten three ongoings and multiple miniseries plus several variants and crossover appearances in the comics, been in the ensemble of three animated shows and guest starred in a fourth, nearly got her own video game, is the deuteragonist of three-going-on-four universally-lauded animated movies, has effectively replaced her original counterpart as the definitive version of gwen stacy across all media, and people are hungry for even more of her.

this bitch has gas in her tank, she's not gonna get off the road anytime soon, and she's never needed a boyfriend in the driver's seat to get her there. (if anything, this attempt to brand her and miles as a package deal and make him take the wheel is holding them both back and we need to leave his ass at a road stop.)

she's not a passing fad who'll fade when the spiderverse movies are done with her and the multiverse craze dies down. she's already been successfully readapted outside of multiverse stories and built up a sizable lifelong fanbase that'll guarantee this.

spider-gwen might not be marvel's default female spider someday (hopefully, that role will pass to cindy with spider-women and ism3), but she'll always show up in spiderverse stories. if her ongoing's cancelled, she'll get another every few years, transition to a miniseries a year, or get a prominent role in a team book. if she's killed off in the comics, she'll be brought back to life soon. and in future adaptations, if 'gwen stacy' is appearing in a spider-man story, people are going to expect spider-gwen to show up... and she probably will.

the time of powerless peter's-girlfriend gwen stacy being the default gwen stacy has ended. we'll probably see a powerless gwen again, she'll definitely date peter again, she'll definitely be The Girlfriend again, and she'll definitely get fridged again, but never in the same capacity. gwen-616 stans shouldn't be shocked that people like the version of the character who has powers and protagonism better than the one who will never step out of the shadow of her own fridging. (it's the harley quinn thing. both versions are great in their own ways, but one's more popular than the other because people prefer their heroines with agency and a happy ending.)

it's now pointless to ask whether spider-gwen will stick around. that answer was locked in before the spiderverse movies even came out.

ask what is her story going to be beyond the forseeable future?

put aside whether she'll have spider-powers or a symbiote, whether she'll wear sneakers or chucks or ballet flats, if she'll be a scientist or a drummer, if she'll be on the run from the cops for killing/'killing' her best friend or get a nice nontraumatic origin story, if she'll be shipped with peter or miles or em jay or none of the above. those details have never actually defined her and you can mix and match them as much as you like and still get a spider-gwen. you should mix and match them and add new elements because that's part of the fun of adaptation.

think big picture: what's the long-game narrative legacy of this character going to shape out to be, regardless of whether she has her own world or a supporting role in someone else's? when people discuss spider-gwen in twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, what will they agree that her story's about?

to answer that, we have to address the most important questions facing her future:

a) is gwen ever going to come out of the closet?

honestly? i think yes. this isn't a matter of if she's queer. we know she is.

spider-gwen's had ten years of consistent queercoding built up since the dawn of her character, it's an inch from becoming canon in the comics, and that coding's made it into most of her variants, who are all either totally indifferent to romance with men, or have some kind of queer vibe even while being shipped with peter or miles (msm gwen ultimately stays friends with peter and has a ton of loaded interactions with anya; spiderverse gwen is clearly trans-coded). the call's been coming from inside the house for ten years and it's everybody but lord and miller, bendis and a couple executives on a conference call saying "can we do it now or what."

spider-gwen's core fandom wants it badly too. putting aside the girlfriend gwen truthers who don't care about her as anything other than a male character's girlfriend (... and therefore aren't buying, reading or watching her stuff anyway), the comics readers have been waiting for it since the start and the spiderverse stans largely tolerate the trans-coding, and the saner shippers seem open to gwen dating people who aren't miles and walked out of Gwiles The Movie saying "... she's into girls too, right?"

and gwen's target audience of young girls are only going to get older. when they're teens and young adults, they can control their own spending and won't reject a queer female character the way their parents might (... especially if a lot of them are gravitating to her because of the queercoding). a lot of money will be made off of them if it happens.

which is why it'll happen... depending on how Certain Events unfold in the near future (given that marvel's owned by disney, and disney's an american company). the state of queer representation in children's media may be ripped to shreds for the foreseeable future, or might be able to keep progressing. the general public is getting more and more positive about queer people, queer characters, and queer characters in kids' media and blockbusters. if nothing legal suddenly springs up to kneecap that (😬😬😬), the backlash will grow smaller than the potential financial gain. meaning marvel may need a flagship queer spider-person soon. and even if it isn't soon, it'll happen eventually.

and when it does, gwen's by far the most marketable option. it will never be peter or miles, and gwen's number 3. she's a proven moneymaker, but with cindy being positioned to pick up her primary demographic, there's room to appeal to a new group. she's easy to adapt, people are actively rooting for gwen to show up more, and the general audience are going to be more comfortable with a mainstream queer female superhero who's a blonde white girl surrounded by the color pink. gwen is the option that would be given the warmest welcome and bring in the most money with the smallest backlash.

if is the wrong question. here are the right ones:

when will it become explicitly canon for the first time? because if it isn't said out loud (or shown through a kiss with another queer person), it can and will be denied. see: gwilesbros reading smash and somehow thinking gwen and em jay are straight, or much of the general audience not noticing the transcoding in atsv.

where will that happen? because there are a lot of continuities with spider-gwens, and there will be many more to come. the more mainstream the queer gwen, the better, because more people will know about her. comics gwen will never have as big an impact as any cinematic gwen, so if we're stuck in a scenario where she's queer in the comics, but miles's girlfriend in the movies, we're still in deep shit.

what kind of queer will gwen be? remember, disney, marvel and sony are calling the shots, gwen's spent fifty years as A Man's Girlfriend, and the whole world now sees spider-gwen as Miles's Girlfriend. lower your expectations and keep them there. she won't be asexual or a lesbian. she won't be trans, outside of coding in the spiderverse movies. bisexual is the best we can realistically hope for.

and how prominent will her queerness be? this is the big one. if gwen comes out as bi, but never has a romance with a woman, it can be slowly scribbled away. and if she's with miles, then her queerness will be downplayed for as long as the relationship lasts. gwiles is a sneaky way to stop her from coming out as long as possible, and then shove her queerness under the rug when she does, while still looking progressive enough to escape criticism.

gwen's gonna come out at some point. but will it be next week, next month, next year, or ten years from now? and is her queerness going to be a quick bone thrown our way in an obscure comic while earth 8 gets the silver screen? are they gonna twist this shit to make the takeaway 'miles is such an ally! look at how tolerant he is of his queer girlfriend!' or are we actually going to get serious representation that centers gwen exploring her identity on her terms, with no straight guy in the picture to tell her what to do with it?

i do not know.

what i do know is, if it's going to happen, she has to get away from miles. and if it's going to stick, the fandom and the writers have to stop shipping them as an endgame couple. which will probably not happen until after the spiderverse movies conclude. if at all.

b) is earth-65 going to survive?

i do not know.

when you talk about the success of spider-gwen, it has to be acknowledged that though gwen-65a is the original spider-gwen, her success is by no means tied to her world. in fact, she's more popular than it, doesn't necessarily need it to exist, and has already appeared outside it in many continuities.

this is both a plus: when the multiverse craze dies down, there's no chance that spider-gwen will go away, and if earth-65 is destroyed, she will certainly survive (and as long as she survives, there's a chance her world will return; look what's happening to the ultimate universe right now).

and it's a pitfall: spider-gwen won't ever disappear, but there is a chance that her world will, along with her supporting cast, unique rogues, and the main beats of her narrative. (... look what happened to the ultimate universe once miles got too popular.)

this isn't because spider-gwen's world is inherently bad or poorly constructed; it's because for the past decade, spider-gwen's story and the context in which she exists haven't been invested in, her physical presence and a few of her personality traits have. almost every time she appears somewhere, it's outside of earth 65, so barely anyone knew about or had an emotional attachment to it until atsv.

but there is hope. atsv introduced 65 to the general audience, and even though it's presented to the viewer as 'a world gwen feels alone in, ~unlike when she's with miles~' it was one of the most loved parts of the film. btsv will probably give us some time on earth-65 and will hopefully end with it intact and gwen at home in it. if sw happens, we may see earth-65 again in an even greater capacity. and if a live-action spider-verse movie includes spider-gwen, she'll probably come from a looser version of 65 (even if it's barely glimpsed). the more the public sees of gwen's world, the more they'll want more of it. that could be promising. especially as momentum for gwen to get a solo project builds: if it happens, where's that solo project going to take place?

plus, if cindy eventually replaces gwen as the new default female spider, this creates an opportunity for gwen to bow out of being peter and miles's token female bestie and go home in the comics. especially if she's too queer to market to little girls. if people want earth-65 more, and want gwen a little bit less, a set-in-65 status quo return could be possible.

for now though, comics gwen will probably be in and out of the multiverse for a very long time. the best we can realistically hope for is that she'll eventually return to 65 to stay, and pop in to 616 for visits and regularly involve herself in spiderverse events.

however... it's just as likely that she'll end up staying and becoming part of a quad with peter, miles and cindy (we've already seen a hint of this in msm, albeit with anya instead of cindy). we're just gonna have to see what happens there.

as for beyond earth-65a... spider-gwen can't be a member of peter and miles's crew if she has her own world, and though there's momentum for a solo project building, there's no proof she'll ever get it. for the forseeable future, if a gwen-65 variant shows up in an adaptation, it'll be in a spiderverse event that will minimally involve her universe.

any other spider-gwen (which will likely be most of them, once she outlives the multiverse trend and since she's already a mainstay in multi-spider stories) will be a very altered version of her character designed for a shared continuity-- which will be necessary because most of the core spider-gwen origin story cannot be adapted into a world where peter parker is alive and a spider-man.

think about that:

if peter's a spider-person sharing the universe with her, who will most likely have become one before gwen, what does that dynamic entail? are they a couple? just friends? is he her mentor?

how does she get her powers, and what are they?

if peter never dies, does spider-gwen's origin involve being a fugitive or avenging someone's death at all? if not, what's her motivation? how does she learn responsibility?

if all her enemies are variants of heroes from peter's world, are we going to adopt those too? if not, who's gwen going to fight?

what's her relationship with her father, and is he even still alive?

if harry and mj are his inner circle instead of hers, who are gwen's friends going to be? will she even have any that are uniquely hers or will she just be part of peter or miles's group?

if mj's in the picture, you know she'll end up with peter. so who's gwen going to fall in love with? (and how do we make sure it isn't miles?)

... can she even have her mary janes band, if mary jane isn't in the band? if not, can gwen still be a drummer? or do we have to give her a different hobby?

the details of spider-gwen's variants are so different because they have to be. because the rabbit hole keeps going. and you have to go down it because...

the challenge facing future adaptations

is: how much of gwen's unique origin story, powerset and peer group can be preserved while integrating her into a story that will probably not be set in earth-65, and have peter and miles in it?

if earth-65 can't be saved in its entirety, or will never be adapted as its own full setting, how many of its features can be salvaged? how do we combine solo gwen's narrative with shared-universe-gwen's status as a member of an ensemble full of characters who inevitably won't take after their earth-65 variants? what can stay, what has to change, and what new things can be added to build on this story in a way that distinguishes gwen, and not the men she's accompanying?

more broadly, how do we get those two factions of spider-gwen fandom to agree on her story?

you can't make a happy mixture out of those two branching narratives, because the core of gwen's narrative is an empowerment/coming out story. 'doing both' and halfassing it to make sure gwen chooses the heteronormative ending, while saying ~but it's feminist, because it was Her Choice!~ would only undo the empowerment and give the story a misogynistic, homophobic undertone. (looking at you, spiderverse movies. don't fucking do it.)

you can weave those stories together, but one will prevail over the other in the end. it's the harley quinn thing again: you can only combine those opposing versions by putting them on one continuity and making her narrative an evolution from one persona into the other.

which means that for most incarnations of spider-gwen, if we zoom all the way out, her legacy will come down to two narratives moving forward:

either a) gwen's going to give up her empowerment for her boyfriend... (see: earth-8, where the spiderverse movies seem to be headed, at least for now)

or b) gwen's going to give up her boyfriend for her empowerment. (see: msm spider-gwen, gwen-617, or what if? dark's spider-gwen.)

there's only going to be room for one of them to succeed. and it needs to be option b. because that's the only good outcome.

it stays true to the essence of gwen's character and arc

it isn't fucking offensive and doesn't betray the central basis of spider-gwen as a character

(since that straight guy she's shipped with will probably be miles or peter, him letting go of her and supporting her avoids turning him into an absolute bastard for keeping her closeted forever for his own benefit, and if he comes out of this looking good, his fans will accept it)

it gives gwen a more dramatic overall evolution, which will be more rewarding for the character and cathartic for the viewer

if people see this evolution, they'll better understand why being The Girlfriend is so bad for her, and why leaving that role behind is necessary and better.

meaning that when she leaves, most people will be happy for her and won't want to drag her back to that state.

(the minority who still do will still get to see gwen shipped with a straight guy for a little while, so they'll have a bone to chew on that'll shut them up in the meantime.)

big picture: spider-gwen arrived at the right time to fill a longstanding need in the fandom, and had the right look and narrative to give her longevity. she's already gained the versatility to adapt and spread to new continuities and built a fanbase that will follow her there, so she'll always have a decent level of popularity, even when the multiverse trend ends or she has no access to her origin world.

in the long run, people will probably know spider-gwen as a character in stories where she has to share the spotlight with miles and peter. since her narrative is particular to earth-65, it cannot be reliably adapted. therefore, future writers need to find the pieces of it that can be preserved and bring them into those new continuities, to ensure that her narrative backbone remains intact.

the starting point must be her empowerment narrative, which is the core of her character. the most viable master narrative for spider-gwen that can be adapted into any continuity to ensure that her story's meaning will be secure is one where gwen stacy begins the story as a straight boy's supportive love interest... before discovering her queerness and her own powers, leaving that straight boyfriend to embrace them, and becoming a hero in her own right.

[professionalnooneatall]

Everyone Keeps Saying Make Something New, but When I make Something Aggressively New, I Get "not like that,"

I was talking with an Imam once and I asked him how a Muslim would go about doing the Hajj if they lived on Mars. With zero hesitation he said "Get on a rocket and go back to Earth, there's only one Mecca." The quote stayed with me and for over a decade I've been developing a television show around that sentence:

It's the far future. Humanity and our allies live throughout the Milky Way and there are Muslims on every planet where there are humans, which is to say all of them. Let me introduce you to the characters.

Master Fleet Adm. Achmed Abdul Qadir

Regal, bird like, rather tall with a well-trimmed mustache, salt and pepper hair, Qadir is a devout Muslim with a calm “been there done that” attitude from being Nearly 100 years old. Shrewd but compassionate, Qadir applies Islamic jurisprudence as often as possible, resulting in a high degree of compassion. Because of this Qadir was among the first wave of volunteers to fight under the banner of the Alliance first on Mars under NATO/METO and later as Alliance Forces Earth, and finally just the Alliance. Qadir is unflappable in nearly every respect. If he ever uses foul language, it’s not a good sign.

Command Sergeant Major Maya Abdel-Fattah

Lean, lethal and shorter than most people. Always wearing hijab in public. Cybernetic right arm starting at the shoulder. Maya is the strong, silent type. A full Alliance Marine, qualified planet and space she wears the Galaxy Globe and Anchor. Maya was widowed and lost her whole family in a space transport accident and so she transferred to the recently codified Alliance Marine Corps from Alliance Forces Earth Quartermaster Corps. Maya served with the Black Sword Brigade, a particularly tough unit specializing in deep strikes and decapitation attacks. She serves as the senior enlisted on the ship and if there's fighting to be done she can get it done from 1,000 meters to 1 centimeter.

Command Sergeant Major (ret) Robert W. Leary

Hearty, tough, Irish and Black American. Very American military, Qadir’s best friend, so much so Qadir’s actual wife, Jamila, referred to Leary as “My husband’s work wife” when they worked together under NATO and METO military operations before the Alliance conflict. Father died in Corpo Wars, mother retired from the 1st New York Brigade after the North American Protectorate was codified. Leary met probably his closest friend Achmed Qadir while on R&R leave in Iraq, specifically when he attended the completion ceremony for Al-Rahman Mosque is Baghdad. Leary is deeply atheist but very respectful and knowledgeable of many religions; he’s both street-smart and socially intelligent. Leary is also the Alliance Cultural Preservation, Restoration, and Development (CPRD) Officer, ensuring cultural needs and practices are cataloged and practiced, respected, and continued for and by Alliance personnel.

Lt. Cmdr. Dikembe Emenike

Eminke is the executive officer of the Grand Falcon. All four limbs are cybernetic, an aerospace engineer, a race car driver, and Chief Engineer in the construction of the Grand Falcon, the ship that takes Muslims back to Earth for Hajj. Emenike is an accomplished pilot and like most veteran pilots of the war has an absurd amount of flight hours. He was onboard a ship that had to use its jump drive system without calculation and it jumped into a planet’s atmosphere, subsequently crashed and plunged into that planet's ocean. Emenike was among the survivors and due to his actions - using the ship's propulsion to beach the craft on the nearest landmass - the casualties were low.

Master Chief (ret) Paulina Stevens “Boston” Abdur Razzaq

Boston is an Iranian American, punk rocker, with lots of tattoos,  lower jaw is cybernetic, it’s a subtle piece, though, and mostly matches her skin tone. She has close-cropped curly hair and a nose ring. Experienced medic and explosives technician, Boston formed her own contracting company - Iron Pineapple - after the war for “post-war and peacetime operations,” which has an extremely broad definition meaning her team didn't want for work. Boston has been divorced twice, from a man and a woman. She doesn’t do anything by half measures and this extends to her personal relationships. She connects intensely with people and intimate partners are no exception so her command style with her team is often very blunt but compassionate.

Maj. (Dr.) Mohammed Al-Aziz Billah

Dr. Billah, or "just Dr. B," as he would introduce himself, is stocky, bearded, intense, and driven but is kind and has an impeccable bedside manner. Billah is often in a doctor’s coat over his Alliance uniform. He is Qadir’s nephew on Jamila’s side. A devout Ahmadiyya Muslim, Billah saw becoming a doctor as a holy mission. He is a certified physician for both people and earth animals, having studied both sciences concurrently at Penn State. Billah served in Iraqi military as a combat doctor and in between tours he worked with members of the Jain Dharma as a veterinarian. His incredibly wide skill set made him ideal for treating non-human beings and many foundations for combat medical procedures were established by him and other members of The First Medical Fleet which would become Alliance Medical Command. His refrain, "Death Is my Only Enemy," became the official motto of First Medical Fleet, "Death Our Only Enemy"

Special Warrant 2 (ret) Shen She Zhan

Shen underwent sixteen very painful surgical procedures to increase her height and skin grafts to make her skin look like that of the Hiraska aliens whose empire threatened the whole galaxy with facial reconstruction including reshaping her jaws and her eyes were fully replaced. Her cover was blown but she was able to escape however he pod was intercepted by Alliance Forces Earth personnel who didn’t believe she was actually human. Qadir’s ship received the signal and he intervened but not soon enough. Qadir, Leary and Billah were there for her recovery so they are on the very short list of people she trusts, those three serve as kind of her “sounding board” for certain topics and issues. Qadir was furious with the task forces’ treatment of Shen and he disbanded the task force and several senior leaders were relieved of duty. After the war she joined Iron Pineapple and Boston became the fourth person in the galaxy she trusts. This history informs much of Shen's responses and actions. Among strangers, she is very controlled but given the presence of one of the four, she will speak her mind clearly.

Major (ret) Maria Shahid Rodriguez-ChavezMajor (ret) Maria Shahid Rodriguez-Chavez

Latino and Arab Christian. A real technical wiz Chavez can fix anything; hardware or software even if she's unfamiliar with it because she has an intuition about technology overall. Chavez is a trans-woman but presents as masculine in the war flashbacks. She is gradually becoming more and more comfortable with herself but will often retreat into her technological expertise and focus on solving tech problems rather than personal development. She often seeks guidance from Boston, Leary, and Billah. She is estranged from her father but is in touch with her mother and kid brother, who live the Leo City, the domed human settlement on Mars. Her plan settle with them somewhere and open a small business, probably an automotive repair shop and salon.

Senior Command Chief Jamila Qadir

Jamila is a highly experienced nurse with time in ERs, plague zones, and combat zones, and her compassion for humans is matched only by the sheer “lack of fucks,” she gives. Her compassion for people is matched by her husband Achmed, but she will not suffer fools gladly, will not make time for bullshit, and definitely won't stand for your nonsense. She has tried to play matchmaker for Leary on several occasions. It didn’t go well each time. She is often the smartest person in the room as she knows how to apply her knowledge of people learned through being a medical professional in any given situation.

Petty Officer 2nd Class (ret) Akira Shima 

Akira was a quantum navigation systems programmer and he is exceptional at that, having served on many task forces and has a mind for science and tactics but he is largely untested due to getting relegated to "IT bullshit" when he was in uniform. He is motivated to prove himself at every opportunity and is often unorthodox in his thoughts and actions but he is effective and when he combines his abilities with Chavez they are unstoppable. He is very intuitive and empathetic. He understands software interacting with organics as he often had to fix cybernetic limbs in the war when no formal technician was present. Shima is “always on,” and will often wake up in the middle of the night having dreamed of a solution to a problem he may have only heard about in passing.

Valerria Vall

Assigned a special advisor to the Grand Falcon, Vall is a member of the Omega, a race of beings who once fought a Terminator-style war between organics and machines. After about seventy years they realized it was pretty stupid and over time they became a “joint race,” the Hiraska saw them as the greatest threat to their empire and released a plague that destroyed all organic life in their home system. They barely survived and are now fully artificial. They founded the Alliance as an anti-colonial and defensive force against the Hiraska to prevent what happened to them from happening to any other beings. As they connect with new extraterrestrial species they send a representative to study and learn from their cultures, altering their whole physical and mental self to mirror that race to create a deep cultural understanding.

Kimi Running Rabbit

Running Rabbit is part of the new generation of humans that grew up off-world and is the youngest member of the crew. She is part of the Alliance Tribal Nations, a recognized part of the Alliance government’s judicial, social and educational systems. Running Rabbit began as an alliance cadet but the war ended and she spent two more years just training with little engagement against real threats. When she saw the Hajj ship needing volunteers she signed on with an individual contract. Like many other personnel who were born off-world, she’s only heard stories about how vicious earthbound humans were to each other but especially horrible to the indigenous peoples and she hates Earth and doesn't want to ever go there. This mission is the first time she has been around a significant population of earth-born humans. Kimi is well educated in languages, histories, and cultures through the Alliance Primary Education system but she has limits as they are "textbook,"

Lt. Cmdr. Jordan Nusholtz 

Nusholtz is the youngest pilot of the main ensemble and uses direct interphase to pilot vessels. While Qadir uses zero augmentation and Enemike uses maximum augmentation to pilot starfighters, Nusholtz is the middle ground between those two schools of thought/action and will come up with unique solutions within that content. In fact, he has skills and experience on par with Qadir and Enemike despite being at least a decade younger.. He initially joined under a task force assembled by the Israeli Defense Force but they withdrew from the Alliance after Mars was secured and Nusholtz joined the alliance as a pilot - and accepted a three-step demotion due to the nature of the alliance rank structure at the time - to bring the war to a conclusion and in solidarity with his adopted brother Anthony who is Palestinian.

Master Sergeant (Ret) Anthony Sydnor 

A former infantryman turned technical repairman, Sydnor is the Rosencrantz to Cmdr. Jordan Nusholtz’s Guildenstern, with a more absurdist sense of humor and a more practical view of the world. Sydnor is a widower but has three sons who are all in the Majiid initiative. He has a rather dim view of being in space, however, like many humans, he seeks the leave Earth behind and settle on one of the Alliance's home planets or even one of the terraformed planets which could include Venus would be preferable. He is Palestinian American and that informs his cynicism. He runs general supply on the Grand Falcon and if something needs to be acquired, he’s the one to acquire it.

Col. Rashad Ibn-Arai Al-Wali

Col. Al-Wali is the “by the book” type of person who doesn’t care much for individuality. He is an alliance sentience code enforcement officer, meaning he ensures the rights, history and dignity statutes for all living beings are, in fact, assured. Rather like a police officer but personal property isn't the goal. This also makes him the de-facto first contact officer. His personal feelings actually run counter to the sentience codes so in a way the codes are his “check,” to do the right things. The codes were NOT written exclusively by humans so in a way, he seeks guidance from them in much the same way Qadir does with Islam. However, Qadir seeks to justify compassion, kindness and justice whilst Al-Wali tries to justify his personal feelings and gets consistently thwarted.

[dwellordream]

“In the late-afternoon sun on May 4, 1912, a brigade of women on horseback cast long shadows on the grass of Washington Square Park in Manhattan as they set off leading 10,000 people on one of the biggest marches for women’s suffrage that the nation had ever seen.

One of the women was Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, who directed her white horse around the east side of the park’s grand arch and up Fifth Avenue. Like the other women, she wore a black three-cornered hat and a sash bearing the words “Votes for Women.” But she was different from her fellow suffragists: She was a Chinese immigrant.

At a time when Chinese migration to the United States was largely banned under the Chinese Exclusion Act, Lee, who was just a teenager at the time, refused to blend into the background. She published articles in a monthly magazine for Chinese students in America and gave speeches in which she articulated a bold, transnational vision for democracy based on Christian values of equality. In one article, in 1914, she wrote that giving women the right to vote was “nothing more than a wider application of our ideas of justice and equality,” and that suffrage was extending “democracy to women.”

Lee is believed to have been born around 1895 in Guangzhou, China. She moved to the United States around 1905 to join her father, the Rev. Lee To, a Christian missionary who had been assigned to a church in Chinatown. She lived with her parents there on Bayard Street. The Lees were among the rare Chinese immigrants who were allowed into the United States at the time under federal legislation that had sharply restricted their entry since 1882, when Congress passed the Exclusion Act, banning Chinese laborers to appease white nativists who had resented an influx of Chinese-immigrant prospectors and railroad workers in the West.

Chinese teachers, diplomats, merchants and missionaries were still allowed to enter the country, but only in small numbers and only with proper certification. Naturalization was banned. Later, in 1924, nearly all Asian immigration was cut off when the United States imposed ethnic quotas to keep the country largely white and Protestant.

The Chinatown of Lee’s childhood was an unusual place for a Chinese girl to grow up in. A dense area of roughly eight city blocks, the neighborhood was largely closed to an outside world that viewed Chinese immigrants as exotic and strange, save for the occasional tourist who ventured in to gawk. Lee’s mother seldom left their home in New York because her feet, bound as a young girl according to tradition, were only a few inches long.

For the residents, the community offered protection from racism. Most of Lee’s neighbors were men who had come to Chinatown seeking work either as bachelors or after leaving their families behind in China; in 1910, historians have said, the gender ratio of Chinese men to Chinese women in America was more than 14 to 1.

Lee attended Erasmus Hall Academy in Brooklyn, where she was surrounded by other immigrant children — mostly Jews and Italians who had arrived in a wave of migration that transformed New York. She went on to graduate from Barnard College and earn a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.

Since high school, Lee had been desperate to return to China, where revolutionaries had ended imperial rule and established a republic after overthrowing the Qing dynasty in 1911. She wanted to take back home what she had learned from the American suffragist movement and help liberate Chinese women, who were locked out of educational opportunities, as her mother had been.

“The welfare of China and possibly its very existence as an independent nation depends on rendering tardy justice to its womankind,” Lee said in a speech. “For no nation can ever make real and lasting progress in civilization unless its women are following close to its men, if not actually abreast with them.”

Her plan was thwarted when her father died in 1924. Suddenly she was taking care of her widowed mother and steering her father’s church, despite not being a minister herself. The plan was further scuttled by events in China: The country was soon torn by civil war between Nationalists and Communists. By 1936, Lee’s close friend Hu Shih, a Chinese intellectual, was asking her what had become of her dreams. “Frankly speaking,” he wrote in a letter, “it is strange that you should spend your life on a thing that is merely a Baptist church in China Town.”

But Lee remained hopeful that Protestant Christianity held the keys to a moral democracy. In 1943, during World War II, the Exclusion Act was repealed, and a small quota of roughly 100 immigrants of Chinese descent were allowed to enter the country annually. Naturalization was also permitted. Slowly, the Chinese population in America began to grow again. After the war, membership in Lee’s church dwindled as the popularity of her religion waned in Chinatown. Lee never moved back to China. She spent the rest of her life in New York and died there around 1966.

Just six months after the 1912 suffrage march in New York, another one was organized, this time held after dark so that women who worked during the day could participate. The women carried thousands of lanterns through the streets, lighting up the city. What once seemed radical — a woman appearing in public to demand political rights — became a regular occurrence. It is not clear if Lee ever became a U.S. citizen so that she could exercise what she had marched for as a proud young woman on horseback so long ago: the right to vote.”

- Jia Lynn Yang, “Overlooked No More: Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Suffragist With a Distinction.”

[andrewmoocow]

The Black Pearl Brigade chapter 1: Orientation Day (originally posted on March 14, 2022)

AN: Welcome back everyone to the world of Steven Universe: Alternate Future. When we last left off, Steven was finally at peace with himself and Black Rutile has been punished for her crimes against the universe. But while everything on Earth is all well and good, what about the rest of the galaxy? That's what the first chapter of this new story shall answer. Inspired by the likes of Cowboy Bebop, Black Widow and Star Wars: The Bad Batch, we shall follow up on White Topaz's nod to a few Black Pearls foiling the plans of a Cinnabar in league with Black Rutile, who has already made a cameo appearance in Made Me Realize for the sake of setting this up. I've planned sixteen episodes to release over the next few months broken up into two seasons, so be on the lookout for those. But enough talking, let's get this party started.

Synopsis: Five Black Pearls are molded into an elite mercenary team by Yellow Diamond to hunt down her former general Cinnabar.

Cast:

Deedee Magno-Hall as The Black Pearl Brigade, Shell, Yellow Pearl

Avi Roque as Cinnabar

Noël Wells as Black Rutile

Jinkx Monsoon as Emerald

Awkwafina as Kyanite

Allison Janney as Pyrite

Kimberly Brooks as Dalmatian Jasper

Zehra Fazal as Zoisite

Lena Hall as Bloodstone

Patti LuPone as Yellow Diamond

Kathleen Barr as Púrén

Olivia Olson as Citrine

Christine Pedi as Fire Agate

Erica Luttrell as Orange Sapphire

Hayley Kiyoko as Violet Morganite

--

"COMMAND: GENERATING PEARL SOLDIERS." A reprogrammed Shell monotonously droned with cold indifference as numerous, black-colored Pearls dressed in black and white jumpsuits were churned out by the dozens. "COMMAND: PROGRAMMING PEARL SOLDIERS."

As the Pearls were educated into seeing Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems as the enemy, two other Gems stood above their foot soldiers. The anarchist Black Rutile watched eagerly as her plans slowly came to fruition. A red-skinned Gem was by her side with a neatly-cut military hairstyle, a red suit with orange details, a black rhombus symbolizing her allegiance, and black boots.

"Black Rutile, old friend, you've done it again." Cinnabar smirked. "Pearls were once seen as nothing more than servants that just stand around and look pretty, but now you turned that stereotype on its head in the most ironic way possible."

"Yes, my genius is unmatched, Cinnabar." Black Rutile replied while folding her arms. "I still can't believe Steven didn't catch on that he was being spied on. Guess he was too busy being a bratty little princess to even notice the beacon."

"Or maybe he didn't catch how expertly hidden it was." Cinnabar added. "Once these Pearls are finished, our armies shall be stronger than ever!"

"Which reminds me, how is the reclamation of the old colonies going?" Black Rutile inquired.

"Swimmingly." Cinnabar proclaimed. "As our power over the cosmos grows, so too do our supporters."

"COMMAND: ARMING PEARL SOLDIERS." Shell declared while giving each newly-created Pearl a spear to wield in combat. "COMMAND: ALL HAIL BLACK RUTILE."

"Well, I've seen all I need to see." Black Rutile stated. "I shall leave things in your capable hands for the time being. In the meantime, I shall hand over control of the Black Pearls to you."

"It shall be my pleasure, my Rutile." Cinnabar said gratefully and saluted her white-caped master before five more Gems appeared out of the shadows.

The smallest was a slender, blue Gem with long white hair, a standard Blue Diamond uniform, and her gem on her forehead. The second was a confident, yellow-skinned Gem in a glitzy gold jacket, matching colored heels, a pale-yellow undershirt, her gem on her neck with a band that made it resemble a choker, a gold fang sticking out of her mouth, and a cane in hand. The following two were a Jasper with gray skin and black spots all over her body, her gem in place of a left hand & a poncho, and a green-skinned Gem in a dark green catsuit, a red belt & gloves, her hair combed over to the side with the ends dyed red, and her gem in place of an eye. The final Gem was of a similar color scheme, but she had curly red hair, a green lab coat, orange goggles, red sandals, and her gem on the right side of her chest.

"Well, girls, shall we?" Cinnabar said to the other Gems as they departed from Shell. However, one of the Pearls turned her emotionless face over to Cinnabar as she walked away from the growing army of Pearls.

--

Under Cinnabar's command, the Pearl foot soldiers were trained and conditioned for a single purpose: serve their master Black Rutile and destroy the oppressive regime of the Crystal Gems. They were never commanded just to stand around. Their lives were nothing but constant combat and weapons training.

Often, some would be given to other Gems allied with Black Rutile who were just as disgusted with the regime fueled by what Black Rutile claims to be Steven's messiah complex, which she believed to be an evolution of his mother getting what she wanted by being a brat. And it was this common act that led to five Black Pearls, in particular, realizing they might have a greater purpose.

--

"Oh, you are most generous, Cinnabar, these Pearls are perfect!" Emerald giggled eagerly while Cinnabar lent an army of Black Pearls to the former fleet commander. "With these, Lars and the Off-Colors will finally be no more, and the Sun Incinerator will be mine again at last!"

"Don't let your pride be your fall Emerald." Cinnabar coldly stated. "I've seen how many times you let Lars get one over you, and I don't think I take it happening again to a piloting prodigy like you!" Emerald was taken aback by her ally's sudden change in behavior and grew more unnerved as Cinnabar continued raising her voice. "You have become a complete embarrassment to the Gem military thanks to those Off-Colors, and that is why you have joined us! DON'T YOU REMEMBER?!"

"Yes, ma'am." Emerald nervously answered before turning to her squad of Black Pearls. "Now then, Pearls, move out!"

"Yes, my Emerald." The Black Pearls bowed to their unlucky master and moved out.

However, things were not meant to be for these Pearls. Though Emerald successfully reclaimed her Sun Incinerator from Lars, it came at the cost of many of the Pearls being poofed by the vigilante trio of Hessonite, Squaridot, and Citrine.

The few that remained served as bodyguards for Morganite before Lars would come to hijack a speech the designer was making at Igneous Square. Those few would join Morganite, Holly Blue Agate, Navy, and a slew of other Gem troopers to pursue Lars and Hessonite while the pair escaped Homeworld for Earth, leaving them with one Citrine to fight. The resulting brawl was intense and left many Gems poofed, but in the end, Citrine survived. Her gem showed many cracks, but she took it as proof that the clash wasn't easy. Now all that was left was to bring these followers in.

--

"What is the meaning of this?!" Yellow Diamond yelled as she gazed upon the Gem civilians in a frenzy. The planet seemed split in two in more ways than just literally. One massive crowd supported Black Rutile, while the other was utterly opposed. "Someone, contain this at once!"

"Don't worry, Yellow, I've already got that covered," Citrine stated while walking up to her former Diamond with most of the anarchists behind her. "These three were in league with an ex-intelligence agent of White Diamond named Black Rutile, who's gathered up a whole army of Gems who, let's say, aren't very pleased with what Steven has done to our society. Luckily, I was able to help Lars and Hessonite contain this section of the group. Eight other Gems were able to escape off-world, unfortunately."

"Black Rutile?" Yellow wondered, the name ringing quite a few bells for her. "She always did have a bit of a complex, but I never guessed she'd be planning behind our backs."

"Well, you can ask some of these Pearls here all about their superior." Citrine said, dropping five of the Black Pearls at Yellow's massive feet. "Do with the rest as you will."

"Gladly." Yellow declared before scooping up the Pearls and walking away to interrogate them.

--

Moments later, the Pearls were forced into a small interrogation room. There wasn't much light to be found in the area once the door closed behind them, and they were ordered to sit down. Just then, a holographic screen appeared with Yellow Diamond's face on it, watching the five intensely. "Let's get down to business, shall we?" she stated. "What does Black Rutile want with us? Why were you created?"

"Shell created us under Black Rutile's orders to carry out her plans against Steven Universe." The leading Pearl declared. "When he began Era 3, all Gems were stripped of their status and forced to submit to his twisted, possessive idea of compassion, which also meant demilitarizing our people, reducing the Diamonds to his slaves, and leaving us open for invasion. Black Rutile could not stand for this and, along with other Gems whose lives Steven ruined, enacted a plan to overthrow him and become the supreme ruler of the Gem race."

"Us, his slaves?" Yellow wondered incredulously. "What kind of nonsense has she been telling you?!"

"She is only telling us that she's doing what she thinks is right." Another one of the Pearls added with a raspy voice. "You are no longer fit to stand above all other Gems. Your attachment to Pink Diamond had made you weak and pathetic."

"And it's evident you have been brainwashed." Yellow continued. "If this were any earlier era, I'd have you all shattered or harvested for this kind of behavior, but maybe since you're so loyal to Black Rutile, we could work something out."

"What do you have in mind?" a third Pearl asked the Diamond in a slightly deeper, more masculine voice than what is expected of a Pearl.

"Since there is no way we can detect Black Rutile at the moment, the next best option would be to track down the rest of her subordinates." Yellow replied. "Luckily, we have five sitting here right now."

"You mean us?" the fourth of the Pearls, a nasally-toned one, asked.

"Exactly." Yellow stated confidently. "Henceforth, I shall dub you the Black Pearl Brigade. You five shall be my personal mercenary squad against Black Rutile's forces. Once they have all been eliminated and brought to justice, you shall be free to live your lives as free Gems."

"I still don't get this." The last of the Pearls stoically remarked. "Are you sure there aren't any consequences for us failing our mission?"

"To be frank, I don't think I thought this far." Yellow replied. "So now that we've made introductions and I explained what you're in for, are you with me or not?"

"One second, my Diamond." The leading Pearl stated before she and the other four huddled in a circle. "Do you think she could be right, girls? What if we could be of use to them?"

"I still don't buy it." The fifth Pearl answered. "We have been made to serve Black Rutile and Cinnabar, and yet we're just going to defy them just because we've been told to?"

"But who knows what lives as our own Pearls could be like?" the third Pearl stated. "It could be glorious!"

"And yet this can be done by doing all the dirty jobs?" the second Pearl wondered.

"I believe so. But she did make a promise that she doesn't intend on going back on." The fourth Pearl said.

"Well, I guess it's settled." The leader said, and they turned back to Yellow. "We shall accept your offer."

"Excellent, we shall provide you with the necessary equipment ASAP." Yellow grinned in satisfaction. "And while we're at it, could you find a way to make yourselves easier to tell apart? You don't need to, but I won't mind." With that, the screen turned off, and the Pearls were once again left alone in the interrogation room. A new life was ahead of them, and none of them knew what could be in store.

--

Far away from Homeworld on Revanche 666, Cinnabar had now taken control of the Rutile Rebels' home base in the absence of their leader Black Rutile. As her five subordinates sat at a round, white table, Cinnabar herself entered the meeting room with news. "Men, I have just received word that Black Rutile has successfully made her way to Earth. We should be receiving confirmation that the destruction of the Crystal Gems is successful, hopefully soon." Cinnabar then sat down at the table. "But that leaves the question of what to do now?"

"Well, whatever you want to do, I'll be sticking by you the whole way!" Kyanite eagerly declared. "Hey, I heard there's a civil war going on back home! Wanna see if we can go down and fight there?!"

"Don't get too eager, Ky." Pyrite stated, rubbing two of her fingers together in greedy delight. "Everything can be solved with enough Minerals. How about we pay everyone 500 of them to keep them all quiet?"

"Minerals, schminerals." Dalmatian Jasper menacingly pointed the gem on her hand stump to Pyrite before the stump turned into a hook. "Not everything is a way for you to regain your fortune, Pyrite!"

"Oh, cool your jets, DJ. Besides, you're all moronic boobs." Zoisite coolly insulted her three comrades, much to their annoyance, before turning to the Gem next to her. "Bloodstone, what do you make of it?"

"What do I make of it?! Oh, I'll show you what I make of it!" Bloodstone dramatically slammed her hands on the table before running off and returning with a board connecting various pictures together with lasers. "Recently, I've come up with the theory that the Crystal Gems are more than just an annoying rebellion who has slowly become worse than the oppressors they were fighting against! I believe that they're actually some kind of hive mind that deprives victims of any distinguishing personality traits before absorbing them into their collective, and Black Rutile will soon become one of them!"

The other Gems groaned in irritation as Bloodstone continued, not wanting to hear another one of her inane theories.

--

A few days later, word had gotten out that following Black Rutile's journey to Earth; she had been declared at large after a battle with the Crystal Gems resulting in her defeat. With that, her vast criminal empire was on the verge of crumbling apart, with only a few figureheads struggling to keep it afloat, such as Cinnabar.

In the meantime, the newly christened Black Pearl Brigade had been making a name for themselves by hunting down and arresting all Gems who dared side with Black Rutile across the stars. They had also taken the time to reinvent themselves to be told apart better, mainly by changing their hairstyles and weapons.

--

"Keep moving, girls; Fire Agate's base should be up ahead!" Cap, the leader of the Pearls with a military buzzcut style, commanded the Brigade as they laid siege to a former colony planet that one of Black Rutile's supporters had claimed for herself. "Pony, we need you to clear a path!"

"On it!" Pony, the second in command named for her ponytail, obliged, taking out her twin swords and slashing her way through a squad of Jaspers and Topazes. "Braids, you're up!"

"Glorious!" Braids, the Brigade's braided energetic strongwoman, cried while swinging her battleax at an Amethyst fusion, poofing its two components and buying her enough time to bubble them. "Any more defenses to get through, IQ?"

"Negative, only a few Robonoids stand in our way now." The long-haired IQ scoped out the situation with a portable scanner device while keeping a Nephrite at bay with a scythe. "Tails, we need you now."

"Affirmative." The Brigade's pigtails-wearing sniper Tails coldly accepted, readying her rifle with a bayonet at the end and firing lasers from it, causing the Robonoids to go haywire. "We're ready now."

"Okay, team, less chitchat and more combat!" Cap ordered before the Pearls charged at the base, where Fire Agate awaited them. "Let's move out!"

--

"No, no, no, I can't possibly fail like this!" Fire Agate panicked as she watched the Pearls storm her base. "I have to get more help, and quick!" She rapidly jammed at the buttons of a nearby control panel in desperation, fearing that the Pearls would be getting closer with each press. Finally, Cinnabar appeared on screen, and she wasn't happy. "Oh, Cinnabar, how delightful to see your face!"

"Let me guess. You're being invaded by this Brigade I've heard about lately?" Cinnabar coldly scowled.

"Yes, they're heading towards me as I speak!" Fire Agate frantically cried. "I need you to send backup at once! This is urgent!"

"And yet the criminals and lowlifes you allied with can't lend their assistance?" Cinnabar responded. "Face it, Fire Agate, you have sealed your doom today. This shall be my final message to you, goodby-"

Just then, the Brigade burst through the doors of Fire Agate's compound, frightening the Agate, and she accidentally turned off the console. "Please have mercy on me."

"Sorry, but we're nothing like the Crystal Gems." Cap stoically declared. "Mercy is not in our dictionary." With that, she jabbed her spear straight into Fire Agate's chest, poofing her and forcing her to retreat into her gem.

"Okay, girls, another mission over with." Pony declared while placing Fire Agate's gem in a bubble. "Let's blow this colony and bring her home."

"Affirmative." IQ reiterated nasally while triumphantly rubbing her nose. "Let us return to our vessel and await our next orders."

"Yes, what she said." Braids repeated nervously before the Pearls left the building.

--

The Pearls began leaving the colony planet using the Servant, a moderately-sized customized ship built for the team's missions that served as their headquarters when receiving missions and relaxing in-between them. Sitting down at the captain's chair on the bridge, Cap made another order. "Púrén, connect us to Yellow Diamond."

"Yes, captain." The ship's holographic AI Púrén complied, displaying herself in a form almost exactly like a Pearl before revealing a screen that presented Cap with Yellow Pearl on it. "Oh, it seems someone else is making the call."

"Greetings Brigade, I trust that your mission to Dangan-40 was successful?" Yellow Pearl asked.

"We can confirm Yellow Pearl." Pony stated. "By the way, where's Yellow Diamond at?"

"She and the other Diamonds are off searching for more Black Rutile supporters on Homeworld." Yellow Pearl replied. "Which reminds me, your next assignment is to stop an uprising on Boba-80 by an Orange Sapphire and a Violet Morganite."

"We'll get there as soon as we deliver Fire Agate to Homeworld." IQ proclaimed. "Over and out." When the screen faded, the Pearls decided to converse among themselves for a bit. "I'd say we've been pretty successful since our inception, haven't we?"

"Yes, our missions have been glorious!" Braids bombastically declared.

"Surely." Tails smirked in response.

"But still, we have yet to locate the current head of the Rutile Rebels." Pony replied. "We've searched high and low, yet she always seems one step ahead."

"Do not fret; we shall find her eventually." Púrén proclaimed. "In the meantime, let us return Fire Agate first and then go to Boba-80."

"Agreed." Cap stated. "Púrén, set a course back for Homeworld."

"Command received." Púrén nodded, activating the ship's boosters and flying away from Dangan-40.

--

A few hours later, on the colony planet of Boba-80, an Orange Sapphire and a Violet Morganite were making a speech together to the Gems present. The Morganite had her hair styled in a topknot and wore attire befitting a Japanese lord, while the Sapphire wore white high-heeled boots and had her gem on her shoulder.

"We shall stand here and fight for this lost cause!" Orange Sapphire cried out to the enraged masses. "We've come too far to surrender to Pink's hellspawn yet, and I know it won't be easy! But the line can't be drawn here!"

"They have been holding us back for too long." Violet Sapphire calmly added. "It is time that we give them what they deserve."

"Now then, are you with us?!" Orange Sapphire yelled, causing their audience to roar in agreement. "That's what I need to hear! Stick around for a word from our master Cinnabar. She'll give you the specifics." The pair left the stage, satisfied with how well the speech turned out. "Have to say, that went better than I thought." She said to Violet Morganite. "I was almost expecting something to go wrong."

"Is that so?" a voice echoed throughout the backstage while a small red dot appeared on Violet Morganite's face, pointing at the gem between her eyes.

"Who said that?" Violet Morganite nervously looked around before she felt someone stabbing her through the chest, and she barely had any time to react before poofing. "WHA-?" she cried out before erupting in a cloud of smoke, leaving only her gem behind.

"Violet, no!" Orange Sapphire exclaimed before a massive battleax emerged from the shadows and struck at her neck, poofing her as well.

"Sapphire and Morganite secured. I repeat, Sapphire and Morganite secured." Braids spoke into an earpiece, allowing the Pearls to make themselves known. "How do we break this to their fans?"

"Simple, we don't." Cap stated as she bubbled the two inactive Gems. "They may eventually get wise, but I'm sure they'll fly into a panic soon."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's book it before they find us!" Pony suggested hurriedly. However, she didn't account for someone else watching the Pearls as they departed. A security camera spied on the five closely, and on the other end of the surveillance device, Cinnabar watched the screen intently.

"So, these mercenaries happen to be some of my Pearls?" Cinnabar frowned. "How about we play a little game then?"

--

And so ends the first chapter of the Black Pearl Brigade! As I publish this, I'm almost done with my pitches for the first season, so be on the lookout for the following chapters of this walk on a different side of Steven's universe. I think the dialogue seems a little flat, but I hope to get better as the series goes on. Until then, stay tuned and stay frosty!

[kissing-monsters]

11 + 12, and 22 + 23 for the salty ask list, any fandom you wanna talk about.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I guess Griffith (Berserk) comes to mind (probably because you're the person asking ha), but I know he's generally deeply hated in the wider Berserk fandom. I think the why of that is generally just Straight People in some venn diagram crossover with Media Must Be Morally Acceptable people.

Within fandoms that are... gayer? I guess I don't tend to have any super controversial favourites that I can think of. I tend to like fairly main characters and apart from occasionally I do tend to like not nice characters who do horrible things, so that has some awkwardness (usually from the Media Must Be Morally Acceptable brigade, but this time the Gay Side).

Since I've been into Walking Dead recently, I have seen a lot of very painful and dull arguments about Negan being irredeemable (because of course, if you do bad things, you can never ever ever do good and people are morally obliged to hate you for all eternity and you can't REALLY change or grow), so I guess I'll also say Negan to an extent, but he's also incredibly popular at the same time so. Hm.

Oh and from back in the day, there was a tiny little fandom for Hard Core Logo (it's still around I'm sure, just very quiet now), and there was quite a strong divide between people who hated Billy or Joe more, and I definitely am firmly on side I Love Joe Dick, which could get you shouted at because he's more loudly an awful person.

OH and Kylo Ren. TBH fandom is largely right to hate him, but I don't. I love him. He's horrible.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I actually have no idea, I'm sure as soon as I post this I'll think of an answer ha.

22. Popular character you hate?

I hate Steve Rodgers and Black Widow and like 50% of all Marvel movie characters and I'm painfully indifferent to almost all the rest (I like Harley Quinn and like Loki and Thor occasionally).

I don't HATE Castiel, but I DEEPLY hate the portion of fandom that's desperately into Dean/Cas and bayed for it to be canon, and that's kind of annoyed me to an extent that poor Cas is sort of tainted for me.

23. Unpopular character you love?

Griffith again? Hm. I enjoy Quark on DS9 and I think he's pretty polarising, ha.

I super love Trapper John from M*A*S*H, and he's also definitely one some people loath (especially in comparison to BJ, which is hilarious to me because you don't have to choose but like go off).

I also liked Shane from Walking Dead, who is definitely polarising or unpopular.

I think I tend to like a lot of controversial or unpopular ships (good luck y'all when you find out how much I love Johnny/Archie ahem), but as far as individual characters go I'm pretty conventional and tend to be a Main Character kind of enjoyer of media (I think because I'm so uncomfortable watching things when I don't like prominent characters I just don't watch them, so I tend to be pretty much on trend with who I like most).

Mind you, all those answers answered, I am A HUNDRED PERCENT SURE I forgot characters/fandoms I could have talked about, ha.

Also popular (widely in nerd culture + mainstream culture) and popular (fandom) are wildly different, this has made me realise.

[mishinashen]

Home Again by James Collinson, 1856

Home Again was painted in the final year of the Crimean War. The British Public had followed the two-year conflict between Britain and Russia in the popular press; with this painting Collinson satisfied the demand for staged homecomings.A weary soldier wearing the uniform of the Coldstream Guards is returning home to his rural cottage. When it was first exhibited a quotation beside the painting explained that the soldier had been discharged because of an accident leading to blindness. As a consequence, the family now faced a bleak future.

'Home Again' was exhibited in 1857 just one year after the Crimean War had finished and viewers who saw the picture then would immediately have grasped the full meaning of Collinson's work. However, much of the force of Collinson's narrative, relying as it does on details and allusions which were undoubtedly familiar to mid-nineteenth-century eyes, is lost on present day gallery-goers.

In March 1854 Britain had declared war on Russia over what she considered Russia's unprovoked aggression against her ally Turkey and which had its roots in a dispute over who should have the guardianship of Christian shrines in Palestine. In July 1853 Russia had invaded Moldavia and Wallachia, two provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and then in the following November had sunk the Turkish fleet. She thereby made plain that her ambition was to eventually gain control of the Bosphorus and the Dardenelles so that her navy could have unhindered access to the Mediterranean from the Black Sea. Britain saw the Russian navy as a threat to her supremacy in the Mediterranean, but it was the Russian refusal to move out of Moldavia and Wallachia, even in the face of a British and French naval threat in the Black Sea, which led to the formal alliance of Britain and France (with, later, Turkey) followed by the outbreak of hostilities with Russia.

By the time peace was proclaimed in April 1856 the British public had been exposed to some of the realities of a foreign war in a way that had never before happened in the country's history. Two important factors contributed to this state of affairs: the presence of a reporter - William Russell from The Times - in the field meant that there were frequent accounts in the daily press of both the appalling conditions endured by the soldiers in the extremes of the Crimean summer and winter and also just how badly the war was being managed by the Government back home; and then the existence of the weekly paper The Illustrated London News ensured that images of the landscape, the battles and the military commanders were easily accessible to the public for more or less the entire duration of the conflict. The public thirst for news and impressions of the war was also satisfied by a number of exhibitions and panoramas (for example, those at the Gallery of Illustration in Regent Street and Burford's Panorama in Leicester Square in which the displays showing the progress of the allied armies were periodically updated).

The war was dominated by the allies' year long siege of the Russian naval base at Sebastopol which lasted from September 1854 until September 1855 - a period which embraced victories at the Battles of the Alma and of Balaklava. An idea of just how much impact the war made on the home public at the time can perhaps be gauged by the extent to which there are still reminders of it surviving to this day. For example, the Balaklava helmet - a woollen covering for the head and neck worn by soldiers camped out on the plain near the village of that name; William Russell's description, in a dispatch in The Times of 25 October 1854, of the 93rd Regiment in action at Balaklava as a 'thin red streak tipped with a line of steel' is perpetrated in the 'thin red line' commonly used when pinpointing a battle front on a map; the modern profession of nursing was created by Florence Nightingale in her hospital for soldiers at Scutari; the order for valour, the Victoria Cross, was instituted by Queen Victoria in 1856, and until 1942 its bronze cross was made from the metal of guns captured at Sebastopol; and the Battle of Alma is commemorated in the names of streets, terraces and public houses in London and elsewhere in England. The most famous piece of literature inspired by the war is, of course, Alfred Tennyson's 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', published a few weeks after the occasion on which the Brigade had been all but wiped out at Balaklava. Rather less well known is the debt owed by Charles Dickens's extraordinary creation of the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit (published from 1855) to the revelations about the inefficient workings of the War Office brought to light by an official commission of enquiry into the conduct of the war.

Engaging as it did the full attention of a patriotic public the Crimean campaign presented a wealth of opportunities - for artists to exploit - from the production of portraits of the leading politicians and officers involved in the conflict to the rendering of battlefield topography. Some, for example William Simpson (1823-99) and E.A. Goodall (1819-1908), actually received commissions early on to travel to the Crimea so they could send back drawings to London - in Simpson s case for the dealer Colnaghi who published prints after his work and in Goodall's case for The Illustrated London News. In February 1855, in a collaboration between the dealer Agnew and the Government, the photographer Roger Fenton (1819-69) who had trained as a history painter, left for the Crimea in order to provide a record of the war which would - so the authorities hoped - counterbalance Russell's pessimistic account of affairs. Some of his prints formed the basis of engravings in The Illustrated London News but towards the end of 1855, after Fenton had come back, Agnew's started selling them to the public - more than three hundred images being made available in this way. The great revelations provided by Fenton's photographs (though he was only one of a number of war photographers) were, firstly, the vast scale of the destruction wrought by modern military bombardments and, secondly, the fact that the conventional view of battles purveyed by history painters - where perfectly kitted-out armies charged in ordered lines - was false. Nevertheless,. Edward Armitage (1817-96), an established history painter, was to be commissioned by the dealer Gambart to visit the battlefields at Balaklava and Inkerman in order that he might recreate on canvas appropriately heroic views of the British actions there. They were duly put on public display to some acclaim, along with other Crimean views by Simpson, at Gambart's Gallery in Pall Mall in March 1856 (Critic, 15 March 1856, p.156 and Jeremy Maas, Gambart, Prince of the Victorian Art World, 1975, p.79).

Predictably enough, not only because it was the largest of the London picture shows, but also because historically its role was one of promoting a national school of history painting, the Royal Academy exhibitions during the war years provide an accurate barometer of how strongly artists responded to the challenge presented by the war. And so, in 1855, there were seventeen painters and sculptors who dealt with the subject, in 1856, thirteen and then, in 1857, only seven. Collinson's 'Home Again' has to be set within the context of work exhibited here and elsewhere, and also alongside other pictures which had the war as their inspiration.

First to be considered - because they formed the earliest graphic commentary on the war - must be the cartoons which started appearing in the weekly journal Punch from early 1854 onwards. Frequently comparable in their bite to Dickens's satire in Little Dorrit, their subject - just as in 'Home Again' - was often the lot of the simple soldier: John Leech's picture of two raggedly clad privates camped out in a snowswept plain and their conversation - '"Well, Jack! Here's good news from Home. We're to have a Medal". | "That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it on"' - was a pithy comment on the plight of the expeditionary force (Punch, 17 Feb. 1855, p.64). Other Punch drawings by Leech, 'Britannia Taking Care of the Soldiers' Children' (4 March 1854, p.85) and 'For the Soldiers' Children' (6 May 1854, p.184), or by other artists, 'The Soldier's Dream' (5 April 1854, p.130), 'Sebastopol - A Prayer for the Brave' (30 Sept. 1854, p. 127) and 'Britannia Takes the Widows and Orphans of the Brave under her Protection' (21 Oct. 1854, p.161), represent a potent distillation of a national as well as a private sense of grief about the effects of war and underline the fact that more substantial images on the same theme, such as C.W. Cope's 'Consolation' (RA 1855, no.69, oil on canvas, 700 x 590, 17 x 20, Christie's 1 Nov. 1985, lot 72, repr.) and F.G. Stephens's similar but unexhibited 'Mother and Child' of about the same date (Tate Gallery, N04634) are not to be dismissed as mere products of Victorian sentimentality.

For those easel painters who, like Collinson, Cope and Stephens, remained at home, two of the most obvious war subjects available to them were those which touched upon the themes of what might be broadly termed 'news from the front' and 'the returning soldier'. Not surprisingly, given their early hopes that their combined aims of absolute truth to nature and utter sincerity of purpose would imbue their treatment of modern life subjects with the power of 'turning the minds of men to good reflections' (J.E. Millais to Mrs Combe, 28 May 1851, quoted in J.G. Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, 1899, I, p.103), some of the members of the by then dispersed Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, one of whom, of course, was Collinson (another being F.G. Stephens), as well as others from their immediate circle who sympathized with their aims, were quick to test the potential of Crimean subject matter in precisely these two areas.

Among the very earliest and most notable of those pictures in the first category was Ford Madox Brown's 'An English Fireside in the Winter of 1854-5' which was first exhibited in Paris in 1855 and then again at the Liverpool Academy in 1856 (270). This shows an officer's wife, her sleeping child lying across her lap, pausing as she sews, engrossed in thoughts of her husband (whose portrait lies on the table beside her) at Sebastopol (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, oil on panel 310 x 200, 12 x 8; repr. Art Journal, 1909, p.251). It was an idea which Brown had developed in the spring of 1855, just as the final assault on Sebastopol was beginning to gain momentum, out of an earlier, similar, composition (see Mary Bennett, Ford Madox Brown, 1821-1893, exh. cat., Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool 1964, p.18 no.24). What elevates Brown's small picture above any other work inspired by the war is its successful projection of the idea of uncertainty. By contrast, the two pictures by Cope and Stephens already referred to, which might be regarded as sequels to the episode depicted by Brown, are inevitably less satisfactory because they show that moment after the news of a husband's and father's death has arrived: the tension has snapped because grief in all its fullness is displayed.

One artist in the Pre-Raphaelite circle, Arthur Hughes (1832-1915), felt sufficiently strongly about the effects of the war at this time to not only treat the subject but also to contribute his painting to the Patriotic Fund Exhibition in time for its opening in March 1855 - where it was to be sold for the benefit of orphans and widows of soldiers and sailors. The picture, now lost, but described as a small oil sketch, showed a soldier coming back to his wife and child, and apparently resembled Millais's 'The Order of Release' (Tate Galley, N01657) in its composition (Spectator, 31 March 1855 p.344). With the siege of Sebastopol over in the following September and the war officially finished in April 1856, the same subject acquired a new significance because the entire Crimean army was soon on its way back to England. The first painting in the genre (in which Hughes might perhaps be regarded as a pioneer in this instance) to actually catch the eyes of the critics was by yet another artist who sympathized with the Pre-Raphaelites, Joseph Noel Paton (1821-1901), who exhibited 'Home' at the Royal Academy in 1856 (35; untraced). This showed a corporal in the Guards who has just returned to his cottage; he has lost his left arm and, exhausted by his journey, has slumped onto a chair to be embraced by his kneeling wife while his mother weeps upon his shoulder. Described by John Ruskin as a 'most pathetic and precious picture' ('Academy Notes, 1856', E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, eds, The Works of John Ruskin, XIV, 1904, p.150), a print after it appeared in the following November (mezzotint by H.T. Ryall; An Alphabetical List of Engravings Declared at the Office of the Printsellers' Association, London 1847-1891, 1892, p.171, records that it appeared in an edition of 1,775 impressions) and Queen Victoria commissioned a replica (Oliver Millar, The Queen's Pictures, 1977, p.184, pl.219). Within a few weeks of the appearance of Paton's picture, Ford Madox Brown was considering a more pathetic variation on the theme though, in the end, it was never worked up into a finished picture: '... three figures, to be called "How it was", a youth quite a boy home from the Crimea with one arm, narrating to a poor young widow "how it was", a young girl, his sister, hugging him' (Virginia Surtees, ed., The Diary of Ford Madox Brown, New Haven and London, 1981, p.178, entry for 19 July 1856).

One final, initially very different, view of the returning soldier but one which in its changed state acquired the greatest popularity in its day must be mentioned here. John Millais, perhaps owing some debt to the satire of his great friend Leech, set out to deal with the privileges enjoyed by the officer class. He found a good subject in the scandal surrounding those who had excused themselves from further active service in the Crimea on the grounds of having 'urgent private affairs' to attend to back home. The contrasting total lack of similar rights for the humble private was illuminated by Punch in its cartoon 'The New Game of Follow my Leader' in which the infantryman is shown asking his general 'May me and these other chaps have leave to go home on urgent private affairs' (24 Nov. 1855 p.209). Millais showed 'a young officer ... being caressed by his wife and their infant children were themselves the laurels which he ought to be gathering'. However, with the coming of peace and the satire thus misplaced, Millais had to revise the composition: the officer was instead shown weakened by the effects of a wound, reading, with his wife, the news of the cessation of hostilities as printed in The Times, and the composition was entitled 'Peace Concluded' when exhibited at the 1856 Academy (no.200; now Minneapolis Institute of Art; repr. Geoffroy Millais, Sir John Everett Millais, 1979, p.56; see also, W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1905, II, p.105 and Virginia Surtees, op.cit., p.169, entry for 11 April 1856). Extravagantly praised by Ruskin, the work was one of the pictures of the year at the Academy and Millais's name has helped ensure that it is the only image from the war years to have achieved any sort of lasting fame.

At the opposite extreme, in subject matter, in the depth of feeling which seems to underly its conception, and in the critical reception accorded to it, is Collinson's 'Home Again'. Dated 1856 but not exhibited until the Spring of 1857 it must be numbered among the last of those paintings which owed their inspiration directly to the spirit of the times - and which, no doubt, the artist hoped would help sell his picture. But 'Home Again', far from being an isolated response to the war on Collinson's part, actually seems to represent the culmination of his efforts to produce a substantial image incorporating his thoughts about the war. In the spring of 1856 he had exhibited a picture entitled 'A Man Who Has Been with Death' at the National Institution of Fine Arts (349, untraced). It must have been a small work since it was only priced at fifteen guineas and it is quite conceivable that a painting Collinson exhibited at the Liverpool Academy later that year, 'A Crimean Hero' (790, untraced), for sale at twelve guineas was the same work under a different title. Whether or not this was the case, there can be little doubt that in the latter instance at least, the artist's subject must have been a soldier back from the war - the central theme, of course, of T04105. Alongside this, another work by Collinson which has survived should be considered for it too has a direct bearing on 'Home Again'. Once again a small work, in oil on panel, 270 x 215, 10 3/8 x 8 1/2, it is signed and dated 1856 and is prominently inscribed 'Siege of Sebastopol | by an eye witness' (Christopher Forbes and Andrea Rose, The Art and Mind of Victorian England, exh. cat., University of Minnesota Art Gallery 1974, pp.31-2, repr., and also Sotheby's Belgravia, 9 April 1980, lot 18, repr. in col.). It depicts two young boys playing: one, on top of a mangle, attempts to repel the other who, grasping its handle, is about to set the mangle in motion and so topple his opponent off his perch. On the wall behind them is a print, the subject of which - a guardsman bayonetting his enemy - sombrely echoes the boys' horseplay; the print bears the word 'ALMA' and then a sign just above this print notes, in words which both pinpoint the actual domestic circumstances in which the boys live and at the same time act as an incisive commentary on the separate images of conflict which Collinson has shown, 'MANGLING | DONE HERE'. The irony employed here suggests that the picture could well have been the work exhibited by Collinson at the Liverpool Academy, also in 1856, under the title of 'Children at Play' (774, price £36.15.0).

Clearly, the 'Sebastopol' painting is a first idea, and is used virtually unaltered, for the left-hand group in 'Home Again', but this time the boy on top of the mangle holds aloft the Royal Standard, out of reach of his assailant, the print on the wall beyond shows a more clearly defined, though unidentified, battle scene and the 'mangling' notice has gone. Below them, sitting on the floor and leaning against a tub in which two toy warships float, is a third child who, nursing a grazed knee, has also been involved in this childish scrap.

The motif of children acting out more serious adult preoccupations in their play is a device which Victorian painters frequently used to provide a commentary on the abiding weaknesses and irresponsibilities of humanity in general. An obvious parallel with 'Home Again in this respect is found in William Mulready's 'The Convalescent from Waterloo' of 1822, where a wounded soldier is faced by the sight of two boys scrapping (Victoria and Albert Museum; see Marcia Pointon, Mulready, exh. cat., Victoria and Albert Museum 1986, p.128 no.108, pl.XXVII). In T04105 the universal truth expressed, so far as the inevitability and folly of war is concerned, is given further weight by the reminders - in the Royal Standard, the royal crest on the stoneware jug next to the tub and the model of the British Lion on the mantelpiece - that patriotism too, plays a part in the shaping of men's ambitions.

Collinson's audience would have had little difficulty in picking up these points and even if there is still the whiff of the studio about the picture (for example, the lantern and the tartan rug slung over a washing line are props used by the artist in 'The Writing Lesson', RA 1855, no.321; Christie's 24 June 1983, lot 13, repr.) the meticulous attention to detail as well as overall concern for authenticity in those areas where the artist's public would quickly identify any solecism do demand our attention. The returning soldier is tanned and bearded - a characteristic of the Crimean veterans which was commented upon by the press at the time. His red coatee, with its dark blue collar and cuff facings, pewter buttons in pairs and white epaulette with its loose tassels and the dark blue field service cap with its white piping (known as the 'Albert Bonnet' after Prince Albert, its designer) single him out as a private in the Coldstream Guards. In a touch that is intended to add further pathos to the scene Collinson has indicated on the soldier's right sleeve four chevrons for good conduct; and pinned to his left breast is a silver medal on a crimson ribbon which is the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (Army) instituted in 1830 and awarded to soldiers who, in the case of the infantry, had served for twenty-one years (the compiler is indebted to Mrs Daphne Willcox of the National Army Museum for kindly supplying this information).

Collinson's hero would have been in the 1st Battalion of the Coldstream Guards, one of the three Guards battalions (the others being the Grenadiers and the Scots Fusiliers) which served in the Crimea. The first draft left London, before hostilities began, on 14 February 1854 and the arrival of the sixth and last draft in the Crimea on 1 March 1856 brought the total number of Coldstreams who served in the war to two thousand and sixty. According to a survey of the occupations held by the men at the time of enlistment, of the total about seventy-five per cent were agricultural labourers and Collinson accurately reflects this by setting his scene in what is obviously a rural cottage. The Battalion finally embarked from the Crimea on board HMS Agamemnon on 4 June 1856, arriving at Spithead twenty-four days later and then travelled by train to their camp at Aldershot. The triumphal entry into London of all the Guards who had seen war service took place on 5 July when they marched from Nine Elms Station over Vauxhall Bridge, along Pall Mall and then via Buckingham Palace to Hyde Park, led by the Grenadiers marching to the tune of 'See the Conquering Hero Comes'. The seven Guards Battalions mustered in Hyde Park where the salute was taken by Prince Albert and where they were mobbed and cheered by the proud and patriotic citizens of London. Overshadowing the thrilling spectacle was the grim fact that three hundred and ninety officers and more than twenty thousand non-commissioned officers had not returned and nearly fifteen thousand men had been invalided during the course of the war. Of the Coldstream Guards, the central figure in 'Home Again', who is apparently blind, would have been one of the one hundred and eleven men discharged from the army on account of their disabilities (information from Col. Ross of Bladensburg, CB, The Coldstream Guards in the Crimea, 1897). None of these men would have been in the victory parade and although the guardsman here, with his long service medal, would have received a pension, his prospects were indeed bleak: he would be excluded from any further useful employment unlike those veterans who suffered the commonest disability inflicted by the war - loss of limbs, through cannon shot. 'Many of these men', pointed out an earlier writer, 'although unfit for military service, are quite capable of duties where steady habits of discipline, trustworthiness and obedience are required ... they are well suited to act as watchmen, gatekeepers, porters or warehouse keepers, and as porters in attendance upon passengers at railways would be highly useful ... We are glad to learn that every opportunity of employing them in the Royal Parks will not be forgotten' (Illustrated London News, 10 March 1859, p.238).

Few critics noticed 'Home Again' when it was exhibited: the Society of British Artists rarely attracted any sustained attention from the press and the subject was by now, anyway, rather too familiar. The Spectator thought it a work 'containing a good deal of matter, clearly if not strongly presented' (28 March 1857, p.343) while the Art Journal described it as 'full of appropriate material very minutely executed' (vol.3, May 1857, p.144). The most extended and adverse comment appeared in the Literary Gazette. It was, the critic wrote,

a picture which has manifestly cost the author much patient and careful thought, and the amount of success accomplished is by no means inconsiderable. The subject is trite to weariness ... nor is the treatment of a character to redeem the picture from the usually homely type. Here are the stock members of the family group which have figured in every similar scene from Wilkie's [Blind] Fiddler downwards; and it is only upon another version of this oft told tale that the ingenuity of the composer has been employed. For the careful, painstaking and modest manner, however, in which the attempt has been carried out, much praise is due to the artist. (4 April 1857, p.330)

'Home Again' was at one time owned by a prominent Liverpool businessman, Samuel Stitt (1816-98) who made his fortune as an iron merchant and shipowner. Very probably Stitt acquired the picture directly from the artist (it was for sale for £150 at the SBA) though the earliest indication of it having been in his collection is found in an advertisement for the sale of the contents of his house in the Liverpool Daily Post for 19 September 1898 (p.4). As a religious and benevolent man and also as a politician of a radical persuasion (he had been an active member of the Anti-Corn Law League) he may well have viewed the Crimean war with particular distaste and so the moral behind Collinson's picture would have appealed to him. In addition, in 1857, Stitt moved into a new house, The Grange, at Claughton which he had built for himself and it would have been quite natural for him to acquire new pictures at that time (see B. Guiness Orchard, Liverpool's Legion of Honour, Liverpool 1893, pp.655-6; the compiler is indebted to Edward Morris for supplying this reference). His collection also included works by other British artists including F.W. Hulme, Patrick Nasmyth and T.L. Rowbotham. In 1885 he presented a bust of W.E. Gladstone by Albert Joy (1842-1924) to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and under the terms of his will an oil painting by John Smart (1838-99), 'The Pass of the Cateran', was also bequeathed to the same gallery (Walker Art Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of the Permanent Collection, Liverpool 1927, pp.105,174).

[alezzdanvers]

I just watched Survivor Micronesia and OMG THAT SEASON!! The power that the black widow brigade had PLEASE cirie and parvati EXCUSE ME back to back blindsides and def the most entertaining season I’ve seen yet. Also did natalie have a crush on Parv cuz that butt squeeze and parvs kisses and HER TRIBAL QUESTION LOL

[ill-skillsgard]

Sweet Demons, Part 3 - Zeitgeist/Axel Cluney

Title: Sweet Demons

Description: It's the weekend of Friday the Thirteenth, the biggest motorcycle rally and festival in the Western Hemisphere but nothing is more enticingly chaotic to her than the mysterious new member of the famous Motor City Sweet Demons.

Warning: 18+ Mentions of drugs/alcohol/violence, eventual smut/various kinks 

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

I spent the day in the backyard with all of our house guests, pretending not to be thinking about Axel as I'm sure he was pretending like he wasn't thinking about me. Every once in a while we would catch each other staring and look away with faces that betrayed all innocence. The sun was hot, spirits were high and so were we. Joints got passed around endlessly and I partook until I could no longer stand the glorious haze floating around my head.The guys were loud and proud, drawing attention to the garage from our neighbors and people still hanging on from the rally. All manner of people young and old walked by to catch a glimpse of all the shiny motorcycles roaring in and out of our infamous driveway.Despite the urges I had to display my inherently bratty side, I knew that I had to keep most of my comments to myself when it came to all of their show-boating. My dad would make sure there was no shortage of snarky comments so I hung in the background and observed.Axel, however, was at the forefront of most of the activity. It was easy to see that he had become the Sweetheart of the Sweet Demons. Max often stood next to him, clapping him on the back or shoulder any time a particularly agreeable statement was made by one of them. They looked too good together, like partners in crime often did. It was unusual for a new recruit to be treated with such reverence. It made me wonder what exactly it was that set Axel apart from the hundreds of other people vying for a position in their motley brigade. Usually, if you were on the bottom rung in the gang, you got treated as such but nobody was making Axel run errands or refill drinks. In fact, if I didn't know any better I would have thought that Axel was Vice President, the way he and Max hung off each other. My dad took a strong liking to Axel as well. He had ridden his bike up into the garage so everyone could look at it which was something that they always did that I never understood. They would all take turns showing off their bikes like it was some kind of class show-and-tell. When Axel rode up on his bike they all swooned over it and for good reason. It looked like there had never been a scratch on the thing before. It was a fully custom Harley that Axel called "the Acid Bath Widow-Maker". She was matte black and acid green all over from bars to brakes. To me, it seemed like a little much but to everyone else, the Widow-Maker was definitely something to behold. With its fat chrome muffler and outrageous iodized green clutch it was no wonder Axel's bike drew attention. If I had ever seen a bike more suited to a man it was right then as they all stood around it, admiring every heavy metal curve and leather detail. My dad's eyes bugged out of his head at the sight of the bike. "Max, how's your recruit got the flashiest chopper in the gang?" "Oh yeah, he's pretty! The bike's not too bad either." Max joked. They all laughed and I just shook my head with a smile on my face. The only person that wasn't feeling the love so much was sitting on a nearly-broken lawn chair in the corner of the garage with an empty beer bottle between his thumb and index. Braun just watched from afar like I was doing only instead of laughing with the rest of the group, he scowled. That was until my dad snapped his fingers in Braun's direction. "Braun, beer run. Get these boys a top-up, will ya?" Big Al shot in his direction. Braun, eager to obey my dad's every command, popped out of his seat. "What does everyone want?" "I'll have another one of these," Max Sweet indicated his domestic beer of choice. "I'll have the same," said Axel. "Just do me a solid and bring out the whiskey. I have a feeling it's going to get finished by the end of the day," Dad said. I grimaced at him but I knew not to berate my dad for drinking too much in front of anyone but I did have to make it a point to talk to him later on. Whenever he drank in excess it always got me worried and he was the kind of guy to keep doing exactly the thing he shouldn't do especially if someone was giving him shit for it. I knew it was a special occasion but it didn't keep me from worrying either way. "Angel? You want something?" Braun asked me. "Not right now, I'm good. Thanks." "Ah, get her a gin!" Dad said. "No, really. I'm okay for now," I insisted. "Bring the lady a gin!" Max yelled. "Make that two!" Janet piped above the noise. "Two gins, two beers, whiskey. Anything else? Fuck, I'll have to build a bar out here too," Dad mused. I didn't notice how long Braun had been in the house for until I had to use the bathroom. When I walked inside I heard cursing coming from the kitchen and saw Braun leaned up against the kitchen counter sucking down a beer with an angry expression on his face. I stopped by the doorway and peered in inquisitively, catching his attention immediately. "What's going on, Braun?" I asked. "Nothin'," he mumbled. "Aren't you supposed to be getting drinks?" That was when he slammed his beer down on the marble island and looked at me with his eyes blazing. "Why the fuck should I have to be the bitch boy, huh? Axel should be the one in here getting everyone's fucking drinks. He's the new recruit. But no, everyone treats him like he's fucking Max Sweet and it's bullshit. I'm Al's apprentice. I'm Big Al's fucking apprentice. He's a rookie!" "He might be new to the club but he's no rookie," I explained. "I'm learning bikes under your father. He chose me to take care of the garage! I should be the one giving drink orders! I've been to more Fridays than he ever will in his fucking life!" "Dude, just calm down-" "No! Fuck you, Angel. You don't give a shit either because you're fucking him! He doesn't even know what it's like to be bottom-rung because everyone thinks he's all that! Anyone can buy a fucking bike like that. He's probably some rich asshole's reject son that just bought a bike one day. I make bikes. I fucking fix choppers all day, every day!" "You think I didn't build my own bike?" Axel's voice made me jump when it seemingly came out of nowhere.Braun's spine straightened like he was pulled up on a string and his glare softened for only a moment until he realized it was too late to play it off like he wasn't just trashing Axel. I could practically feel the heat radiating from both of them and I was stuck in the crossfire. What I thought was going to be an eruptive argument from across the kitchen quickly turned much darker as Axel stepped into the room, briskly approaching Braun. When he was five inches away Axel leaned in and although they were of similar heights, Axel did appear to puff up while Braun deflated. "You got a fucking problem with me?" He asked. "Yeah, I do have a fucking problem. Don't fucking come in here and act like you're the fucking President when you're just a recruit. You don't make demands of me. This is practically my garage." "No, it's not, Braun." I chided. He looked over at me and replied, "it will be! It's definitely not going to be yours!" "Ignore her," Axel stepped to the side, cutting off Braun's view of me. "Your business is with me, not her. Now... Tell me again about how I'm some rich guy's kid? Tell me how I didn't fucking earn my way into the club! Oh, and while you're at it, please explain to me how I didn't painstakingly put together my own fucking bike over the last five years of my life! Just because you're Al's apprentice doesn't mean you're not a little bitch with a little bitch attitude and just because you work at Motor City doesn't make you exempt from getting your ass handed to you by a rookie." "Fuck you, man! You should humble yourself because guys like you get eaten alive on the road. So fucking cocky." "We're the same age and I'm the one riding with the Demons, I taught myself how to build, I made myself into a colleague and not a little cocksucker bottom-rung bitch. I get the pussy you wish you had. I ride with the people you wish you could ride with. Why the fuck would I be humble about that?" "Enough, guys. Jesus fucking Christ. Let's just go back-" Braun shoved Axel away violently but instead of toppling, Axel caught his footing immediately and squared his shoulders, clenched his fists and glared at Braun so vehemently you could feel the air in the room grow thicker. I watched as Braun immediately regretted his decision when Axel grabbed him by the collar of his tank and pulled him in. "Stop!" I yelled. Axel's throat bobbed and it almost looked like he was about to vomit even though his eyes were shooting beams of anger into Braun. With his free hand, Axel pressed the back of his palm to his mouth, stifling what appeared to be a burp. "You better get the fuck out of my face right now or I'm going to disfigure you so bad they'll have to use your dental records to identify your mangled fucking corpse." When Axel tossed Braun away he stormed out of the kitchen immediately to avoid any further conflict, smashing by me with no regard. I scoffed as he left the house and when I turned back to Axel he was still covering his mouth and trying to swallow down whatever it was making its way up his throat. "Fuck," he grumbled. "I gotta go." Then it was Axel's turn to quickly brush by me. He made his way back into the garage through a barrage of greetings and questions as to where the beers were. All that could be heard was the heavy rumble of an engine turning on and a chorus of moaned questions as the Acid Bath Widow-Maker chugged out of the garage and ripped down the street. I went to the front window to catch a glimpse of Axel riding away but by the time I made it there he was already a drone in the distance. The familiar hobble of my dad's limping gait sounded from behind me. "The fuck was that about?" Sighing, I replied, "Braun and Axel almost just tore each other's throats out." "What the fuck's the issue now?" "I don't know. They're both just fucking peacocks." Dad's eyes turned into questioning slits, "this wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a mutual interest in a certain ex-President's daughter, would it?" "No, dad. I think... Braun just doesn't want to be the beer bitch anymore." "Axel rode off because Braun didn't want to grab a few drinks? Angel... You think I'm stupid?" "No, dad. Honestly. I think Braun has some predispositions about how the club's hierarchy works. He thinks because he's your apprentice that he shouldn't have to fetch drinks for the new recruits. He tried to call Axel out and got all mad. Both of them left." "That kid has got a lot of learnin' to do." "Whatever. I'll get the drinks from now on. Or better yet, if someone wants a beer, they can get it themselves! I'm sick of all these hot-heads around me. It's too much." Dad came closer to look out the window as I had been. "I know you hate it here but... I just got you home. Don't look for the first excuse to get out again. The weekend is almost over and all these cocky sons-a-bitches will be out of here soon." "I'm not looking to leave, dad. I just don't want to deal with this all the time." "You won't." I rolled my eyes, "just every Friday the Thirteenth weekend until I die." "Sorry, you're an old biker's kid. Comes with the territory.""Yeah," I sighed. "I know."~*~When night fell and Axel didn't come back, I set out looking for him. There weren't too many places to go in town so my search was narrowed to the bars and restaurants on the main street, the only tattoo shop within a hundred mile radius and the waterfront. I made my way down the road from our street toward the denser part of town. People wearing sandals and eating ice cream from cones passed by the storefronts that were all illuminated in red neon, displaying all of the new Summer must-haves. Name brand surf t-shirts and sunglasses, inflatable beach toys and overpriced kayaks all adorning the windows drew attention from most but not me. I was on a mission to spot the Acid Bath Widow-Maker. Luckily, Axel's bike was one of the most noticeable attractions in the town and I spotted it parked by itself where the street met the border of concrete roadblocks just before the sand. The sun had set and the street lamps came on to illuminate the walkways and that was where I saw it glistening. I got up really close to it to hear if it was ticking and still hot but it wasn't. I saw his clothes draped over the seat and his boots on the ground next to it. It appeared as though Axel had gone to the beach for a little swim. I started walking toward the beach even though it was dark. There were big white square signs posted all along the waterfront warning that there were no lifeguards and swimming after sunset was discouraged. I remembered being young and seeing people getting busted for drinking on the beach and that was really the only thing the cops gave a shit about. You could go swimming after dark but it was a risk one would have totake on their own. Many nights I had gone down to the water with my friends and instead of being amateurs that drank on the sand, we would bring our drinks out with us on the water so that the cops rolling by on quads would be none-the-wiser. That's what I was reminded of as I approached the water and looked out from the pier to where the waves disappeared against the line of the sky. "Hey, you weren't touching my chopper just now, were you?" I whipped around and saw Axel approaching from my left, dripping wet in his boxers with his hair all pasted down on his head, body shimmering from the little beads of water clinging to his skin. Jeeringly I replied, "I wasn't touching your stupid bike." "Kind of looked like it from here. Now, what business do you have stroking a man's hog without his permission?" "Ew, don't say that," I reviled. Axel snickered and didn't quit taking steps towards me until my chin nearly connected with his broad tattooed chest. He looked down at me while raking his fingers through his hair, pushing it all back from his forehead. I matched his gaze and stared up at him with just as much intensity. Braun may have been scared of him but I certainly wasn't. "You wanna go for a ride with me?" Axel asked, walking his two fingers up my hip for only a couple flirtatious steps. I could feel my insides turning to liquid. It had been a long time since I had been on the back of a motorcycle and when Axel asked I felt an eagerness inside that hadn't existed since before I was a teenager. "Sure." "You wore a skirt, too. Good choice." "What do you mean?" I asked. Axel smirked as hot as the Devil and said, "well honey, there's only going to be a thin layer of material between what is essentially a giant vibrator and... That nice little pussy. Unless of course... You didn't wear any panties?" "I wore... An excuse for panties." Axel hummed deep in his throat and eyed me all over. "Fuck, you're going to get me in a lot of trouble." "The only person that's going to give you trouble is me." "Oh, is that a promise?" "I don't make promises to bad boys." "Fair enough," he snickered at me. "Let's go." I watched Axel put his clothes back on starting with the socks he had tucked away in his boots. Once he had on his pants he shoved his feet into the huge green boots that matched the details of his bike. Instead of putting his shirt on he folded it and handed it to me. "Hold this for me." He swung one of his long legs over the bike after kicking the stand up. I stood back when he turned on the engine and gave it a little rev as he looked at me, smirking like he had convinced me to sell my soul because I had agreed to go for a ride with him. He looked smoother than silk on his bike like he was born to sit atop a chrome horse. He looked like a king with his arms draped over the bars all relaxed and totally careless. "Hang onto me real tight, you got it?" He yelled over the rumble of the engine as I prepared myself to mount the back of the leather seat. I wrapped my arms around his bare waist, giggling because I hadn't felt so excited to ride in a long time. He backed us up very slowly and then we quickly lurched forward. My grip on him tightened and he twisted his neck around one more time to make sure I was still going with it. "Don't let go of me!" "I know!" The leather seat warmed up quickly and I wrapped my arms around him even tighter as we took off down the road. It was exhilarating to be on the back of a bike again. Everything zoomed by so quickly that it started to look like nothing. The road unfolded endlessly and soon we were a mile away from the main street heading towards the mostly empty labyrinth of back roads that fenced in the town. We cruised through the farmland and I laid my cheek on Axel's back. His skin was so smooth and supple that I thought about kissing him but quickly thought not. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea about how I was feeling about him. The conversation that we had had about his little intimacy issue was still a prominent thought in my head. But he smelled so good, even after swimming in the lake. I supposed it was enough for me to rub my cheek against him a little bit just to savor the feeling of his softness. He sped up as we sliced through the forested back roads and circled way back around into town again. By that time his hair had fully dried and stayed put in that permanently windswept way. He pulled up a couple of houses down from mine and turned back to me before asking for his shirt back. I handed it to him, leaned back and watched him slip it on over his head. "How did that feel? You like riding with me?" He asked, turning his whole body around so he could face me a little more on the bike. I had let go of his waist but was tempted to touch his hips just a little bit more, so I did. "Yeah, that was fun." "You all nice and revved up?" I nodded my head. "Good. Now... How about you hop off the bike and make your little way into the house, go up the stairs and go wait for me in your bedroom? Does that sound like something you want to do?" "Okay." I peeled myself off of the leather seat and got off with some help from him. He held up his hand and allowed me to use it to get myself up to the sidewalk but before I could start off he pulled me back by my wrist, "Woah, woah... One second. One more thing," he said, eyes dropping to my skirt and then looking around to make sure nobody was watching. Our eyes locked as he slid his hand up and under my skirt and used two fingers to caress the warm crotch of my panties. He shivered when he felt what he wanted to feel and quickly replaced his hand on the throttle before anyone had a chance to catch him touching me. "I can't wait to be balls deep inside you." "Me neither." "Now go on. Get home before me so it doesn't look suspicious," he pointed toward the garage. For the time being, Axel had robbed me of words. I was feeling strong feelings of attraction to him. It was more than just a drunken hookup and fling. I could picture myself riding with him again, I had had so much fun. It was nothing like riding with my dad or even on my own. The way his body felt in my whole grasp as we flew down the road shook me to my core and awakened a long-buried urge inside. He was weird and tasteless but the way his eyes smoldered at me coupled with the fact that he was so damn tall and so fucking handsome was a cocktail of emotions that had me wet between my legs by the time I crept into my house and made my way up the stairs. I figured most of the guys were in the garage or in the clubhouse so I did manage to get into my room without anyone spotting me and forcing alcohol down my throat. For that, I was thankful because I wanted to be of sound mind for when Axel finally found his way to me. I didn't want a drunken, sloppy fuck again. I wanted orchestrated, raw, hungry sex to satisfy the cravings that my partner of choice was eliciting from the depths of my endless carnality. It almost took him too long to find his way to my room but I figured he had probably been held up, especially after having stormed off earlier in the afternoon after his spat with Braun. I wondered what kind of things my dad had said to Braun after learning that he and Axel had had an argument that almost ended with violence. I could just imagine the sour look that must have been pasted to Braun's face all day. For a moment I felt bad for Braun because I knew that he was a plain guy with the same aspirations as half the guys in town who also happened to have a crush on me. I tried not to feel guilty about it because I knew that I shouldn't but I did anyway. That was until Axel turned my doorknob, pushed the door open gently and peeked inside to see me sitting at the edge of my bed waiting for him. He came inside, walking light on his feet, green boots clashing with the carpet so much it looked like they were glowing. He carefully closed the door and looked back at me, seemingly impressed that he managed to come in without making much of a sound at all. "Lock the door," I told him. Axel turned the lock on the knob and smirked at me right after. That little safety feature had earned me lots of time to stash things when my dad used to come knocking. Although I didn't suspect he was going to then since I was much older and he rarely ever made it to his own bed from the clubhouse anyway. No, we were pretty much free to do whatever we wanted so long as we could keep our noises below the music I had put on to drown out what could potentially and hopefully be a good night. "Sorry I took so long. I had a lot of explaining to do. Guess Max wasn't too pleased with me taking off." "What does Max care? You guys had a bit of an argument and you took off, so what?" "Ah, don't worry about it. It's not important. What is important is how are you doing? Did you miss me?" "Terribly," I lamented with an exaggerated tone of sadness. "Don't worry, honey, I'm here now and guess what? I've been daydreaming about that sweet, tight, little pussy all fucking day long. I think I need it." "What makes you think you've earned it?" Jolted by his reaction, Axel dropped down to his knees and inched his way across the carpet closer to me. "I'll do anything to get between those legs, mama." Subconsciously my thighs clenched only because the hot sting of arousal permeated through me like melted butter after watching him crumple for me. I had been with a lot of guys that had their own little sexual shtick but the way Axel looked at me I could see it was not so much an act as it was a fierce display of uninhibited lust. The man was serious about his needs or at least he was very good at playing the part. "Do anything to me. I'm all yours, baby." "Well, well now. What a change of character! You're such a bad boy out there in the streets but in here you're so nice and obedient. Why is that?" "I can't help it. When I see you I want you to destroy me... Probably because I know you can." "But what if I want to be the baby?" Axel tried to hide a smile as he stood halved on his knees but he couldn't stifle it for long. "Fuck... I mean, you can call me Daddy if you want to but I don't know how Big Al would feel about that. If he were to walk by and hear his Angel bouncing on some scumbag's dick... Might take offense?" "Nobody will hear us. Dad sleeps in the clubhouse most nights and I'm grown. If I want to bounce on some scumbag's dick while calling him Daddy, I'll do just that. But... I think I kind of want to teach you some lessons first." "I'm all ears, honey." "First, I want you to take off your clothes." He rose to his feet again, looking enormous from where I sat on the bed. He kicked off his boots, pulled off his shirt and started undoing his belt buckle so he could slip his pants and boxers down his impossibly long legs. He was already half-hard and I had to bite down on my lip at the mere sight of him. He was quite a spectacle of a man. All arms, legs and torso, skin as pale as paper and his tattoos did nothing but make him stand out even more. His oil-stained fingers gave me a nostalgic feeling and seeing him completely naked from the waist down was just as enlivening as the ride we had taken together not but thirty minutes prior. "Can I..." I began but didn't fully have the confidence to utter the question at first. "Can I tie you up?" "Fuck yes you can." "Get on the bed," I told him as I got up to rummage through my top dresser drawer where I kept my underwear and all of my sex-related toys and treats. I pulled out two sets of handcuffs; one very high-quality, hardcore heavy metal and one not so serious- the kind you buy for twenty bucks at a novelty store for your first time. I decided to use the more heavy duty cuffs because I felt like he would appreciate the real metal above the nickel-plated beginner cuffs. He had already climbed onto my bed and laid on his back with his arms tucked behind his head in anticipation. "Oh, mistress. I knew that you were very, very naughty," he mused as I approached, swinging the cuffs like a pendulum on my finger. Licking his lips, he said, "Oh, I just know I'm going to regret this." I climbed over him and only felt slightly embarrassed about how it felt to handcuff a fully grown man to the headboard bars of the bed I had had since I was a teenager. I couldn't help but wonder if he took me seriously or if he was just humoring me but when I snapped one cuff around his wrist and then the other one it was too late for him to back out and the sudden realization of power I had over him was so delicious and bursting with potential. His eyes followed me as I scooted down his body, letting my fingernails trickle down from his hands to his arms and down his chest. He tittered at the sensation and got himself as comfortable as he could with his wrists bound to the metal bars. "I get a safe word, don't I?" He asked. "If you like." "Mercy." "Oh, I like that." "So... What are you going to do to me?" He inquired, curiosity evident in his voice. I smirked a desirous portent and began to move against him slowly. I was still clothed in my panties, skirt, and top so the friction between us was dulled and necessarily so. I wanted to prolong his sexual suffering for as long as I could. It gave me a thirst that I didn't know I had, watching him tied up underneath me. Having somebody so mysterious and feared voluntarily surrender themselves to me was not something I got to experience all of the time. He groaned and closed his eyes while I wiggled my hips back and forth softly, smiling down at the man who was growing harder by the second. "Oh, you like to tease real nice and slow, huh?" "Sh, sweet boy. Close your eyes and get as hard as you possibly can. I want to feel it throbbing." He closed his eyes and sank his head back into the pillow, sighing and letting his arms relax. By the way, his bicep muscles flexed I could see he had been tense but with each gentle caress of my hips he melted further into the mattress, purred harder from the sensation and let his lips fall apart so delicately I was tempted to kiss him. So I did. I leaned over his body and kissed his bottom lip very quickly before he had a chance to react. I expected instant retaliation but instead, his eyes fluttered open and he stared up at me. I lifted my skirt and looked down between us so I could see what it looked like to grind myself against him. The tip of his cock glistened and he let out a whimper as he looked down too. "Fuck," was all he managed to say. He closed his eyes and sank his head back down again, twitching and moaning until his breath was lost. "I love hearing you moan, baby boy." "C-come on. I'm so hard. Sit on my cock, already." "No way. You don't make demands," I gently berated as I got off of him to get a better look at his fully naked body. I ran my hand over his chest and up his neck, tracing the tattoos and admiring his soft skin. The way he watched me was so satisfying like he was expecting me to do something terrible to him at any second. "Fuck, you have a nice big cock on you, don't you, bad boy?" "Mhmm." He nodded his head. "It's been a while since I've seen one so big," I told him and it was the truth. Once he was fully erect, his shaft laid over his stomach, the tip reaching just below his navel. I grasped it delicately, pulling lightly and running my thumb over the bubble of pre-cum that had formed there. When I gave him another squeeze he moved his hips upward, encouraging more of my stimulation but it was beyond gratifying to hear the whimpers he tried to muffle so I held back until he settled down. "You're going to torture me aren't you?" He asked breathlessly. I nodded and gave him a little kiss on his stomach. I couldn't hold back the smile of pure joy as the possibilities of all the ways I could make him my toy ran through my head. "Please be nice to me?" He begged. "You weren't nice to me last night. I think you deserve a bit of punishment." He sighed. "I suppose I deserve it." "Yes," I agreed, trailing more kisses up his ribs to his chest. "Don't worry, I'll make it hurt real good for you." I fully pressed my lips to his and for a sliver of a moment I thought he would return it but he turned his face to the side away from me. "Come on, Angel," he whispered, making no eye contact with me almost as though she was ashamed. "You can say mercy any time you want but we just got started, little boy." "Please... Do anything you want to me but just... Can we bring the focus back down to uh... My situation here?" "There you go making demands again. Who's the one tied up again? Oh, wait. It's you." "Please... Just be careful." I wasn't exactly sure what he meant when he asked me to exercise caution but I didn't want to ruin the mood by prodding him too far so I obliged him and crawled back down to continue with my salacious torture, much to his relief. I knew eventually we would circle back to the topic of why he wouldn't let me near his face but until then, I would enjoy the pleasure and pain I could inflict on him.

[anais-mitchell]

🌻 srsly i love your blog!! and you❤️ hope you are having a great day!

This is SO sweet thank you!

I’ve watched 6 seasons of Survivor this summer and am currently watching Micronesia (s16) and I am LOVING IT especially watching Parvati, Natalie, Cirie, and Amanda take control of the game and form the Black Widow Brigade... literally so good. I’m so excited for the next season especially seeing Sandra back.

[oxfordcombat]

Risk

Hey read this or I’ll steal your teeth :)

The room was silent, save for the ticking of a single clock. At the moment, both sides were even, though that was soon to change. Both militaries held the same numbers; that was the law. Any win had to be through skill and skill alone. The problem? That was where the similarities ended. Practice-wise one side couldn’t hope to compare; living in times of peace, Wirenia had scrambled to assemble their troops. After a century of isolation, Avraisa had pounced. The Wirene weren’t ready, given only weeks to prepare.

Common citizens shuffled in their spaces, yanked from serenity to ensure the safety of their land. These men weren’t fighters; they were ordinary: bakers, farmers, and scholars. After knowing only peace, none could begin to imagine war. They wore cobbled armor—leather mostly—chainmail when the kingdom could afford it. The only thing that placed them together on one side was the dark carbon black of the dye, binding each volunteer as a member of the Wirenian brigade. Generals rushed about, preparing for the battle, ordering troops, and arranging lines. All had to be perfect, the kingdom on the line.

The Wirenian were nervous; there had been no conflict in centuries, and a superpower had declared war. They struggled to keep the illusion of stoicism, but their troubled eyes revealed the truth. Besides the war conventions, nothing protected them except the shields at their sides. The codes of conduct were all that subdued their anxiety; the codes protected the weak, and stopped the strong from making decisions that the future generations would regret.

The surroundings did nothing to quell the Wirenians pounding hearts. The room was quiet, too quiet. The fall of a knight’s sword could be heard from the realm over. Wirenia wasn’t ready, and the seemingly tranquil setting only made their fear stand out. Countdown not yet started, the clock still ticked. Wirenia wished to stop time, even for a second. But time marches on, time stops for no one.

In contrast, the Avraisians were immaculate, pristine and pure. Each member of the white kingdom’s cream attire dripped with confidence. Troops lined both sides, teetering on the edge of their respective jurisdictions. The air stood still. Lounging in his makeshift camp, the white king oversaw his troops. He knew victory was imminent. It was as if fear avoided his mind just as dirt avoided his stark white clothes. He would win, another notch under his belt, his land doubled.  He would enjoy this. Gazing at the mismatched Wirenians, the white king knew he could take his time. He smiled, he needn’t care about time, he had practice, records, and a weapon at his side. His new queen sat dutifully next to him, posture perfect, ready for a command. The Avrasian king had everything.  

But looking at the black queen, fair skin against stark black dress, the king’s own wife seemed to dull. After the war he could pick and choose from the Wirene kingdom. She might need replacing. But it was no bother to the white king, she might sadly fall in the war, then he could remarry. He would address that later, this would be over soon enough.

While the Avrasians waited patiently, the Wirenians couldn’t afford that luxury. There was no point, watching their well-trained enemies they knew whatever lives they lead would soon change. The codes protected their lives but nothing else. Once they were captured they would lose their land, be separated from their families and rank, and likely lose all freedoms. They were overcome with fear. Standing in neat rows of eight, there was nothing to do, nothing to distract them. Both sides were alone with their thoughts.

As the Wirenian queen glanced at her counterpart, standing calmly and elegantly near her king, she had to force back nausea. Of course, she was anxious; the queen would be foolish to not be but she loved her people, and for her people she would fight.

The infantry felt fear; they were fodder meant to win, to save lives. Help those more valuable than themselves, that was technically why they fought. On paper, they battled for queen and kingdom, but in their hearts they struggled for their loved ones. For their parents. For their children. The foot soldiers were the only ones equal to their opposite colored counterpart, pawns in the game of war. They held one hope, do well enough to survive and not only would your family live in freedom, but it could also mean promotion. A spot on the court, a place of high stature, and higher benefit. The infantry feared for their lives throughout the battle, but while they had the most to lose, they held the most hope.

The clock ticked. The court quieted, breaths held, shields readied, timer started. Time continued it dreary march but now it counted down. A handshake; two men starting a war that would end kingdoms. They returned to the tents, the war began. Pawns fell first, they were always the first. Then the court began to crumble; though it appeared so, the infantry weren’t the only casualties. Meanwhile, Avraisa slowly lost its sparkling appearance of impenetrability; as the war waged on all suffered. Scarlet on Ivory. Scarlet on eggshell lace. Scarlet on Vanta black velvet. Sunday’s best seeped with blood.

Thinking feverishly the Wirene king sat at his table. The only furniture in the room, a small bland table. He couldn’t waste the training time to make his accommodations more comfortable, they had little preparation as is. The king stressed, trying to save those he could. Who was he to pick and choose who was worthy. Who was he to play god, selecting those to sacrifice and those to save. Running his hands through his hair, the king struggled not to drop his façade of calm; he was all that was holding his men together. If he fell, they all did.

Once again the queen was watching. Waiting, plotting, trying to best trap the white. Looking back the king seemed sick; the once healthy man had aged years in the span of hours. The king was forced to stay back, give the black any hope at all. But she could leave, she could help. No longer could she sit back while her people were brutishly captured and her kingdom fell to the hands of monsters. She had made up her mind, she stood, gave a quick dust to her best and armed herself. Dainty as she appeared, she had been trained by the finest since childhood. The queen was the most powerful player in the wretched game, and for good reason. Bidding a silent goodbye to her love, the queen stepped out of the protected tent. The king, too preoccupied to notice, kept planning. He would have sacrificed himself for his kingdom but he could not. And the war marched on.

The Wirenian queen fought valiantly, leveling the playing field as much as one could. She saved many, evening up the odds. The white king punished her for her generosity; sacrificing much of his court to bring her down. She gave all to her people, and in the end her freedom followed. She took the bait, capturing a bishop before being met with the tip of a sword. A knight stood at her side, pressing his longsword into her shoulder blades. The Wirenian queen went to join the captured, turning around to face the white king’s tent. The Avrasian king stood outside his door, eyeing the black queen. Looking her in the eyes, malice filled his pupils as he dragged a fore finger across his neck. Before she could assess what he meant, the knight that had captured her quickly slit her throat. The black queen fell. Her husband felt her death before he saw it. As if a hole had enveloped his heart, he fell to his knees. Tears tumbled to the floor, neither king felt anything.

His clergy spoke for him, conveying the kingdom’s anguish to the white king when no one else could, recklessly throwing himself at the king’s feet.

“The codes,” cried the bishop—for he had loved the queen as his own—“That wasn’t part of the codes! The court is to be captured and returned at the end of the war!” But it was far too late, the beloved queen was dead. Her dark silk saturated with red as she lay slain across the colored tiles. White left her alone on the ivory tiles to be collected after all was said and done, as if she was dust yet to be swept. The bishop wailed at her death—at the injustice of it all—he had raised her and was forced to watch her fall. The white king lounged idly, waiting for the bishop to finish. He watched the bishops anguish with the cool attitude of indifference. No matter, his time was precious and with a snap of his fingers a sword appeared through the bishop. The wailing stopped.

Lying near his queen on the bloodstained floor, the bishop muttered a quick prayer with his dying breath. A prayer for the queen who loved her people, a prayer for the fallen, and lastly a prayer for his king, as to not only win the war but live after he had finished. His eyes stilled, hands falling to the ground; the black bishop was no more.

The white king had forgotten already, what didn’t concern him was not important. Wirenia was inconsequential,  nothing could distract him from his goal. He beckoned for another grape. Now that the codes were out of the way he could get to the real fun.

White’s rampage met no decline, he slaughtered all that came into his pristine grasp. Watching with glee as more soldiers fell; this war was coming to a close. And like always white would emerge on top.

Meanwhile, the black king could no longer afford to command from behind the lines, lest his kingdom fall while he cower. Donning his chainmail and helmet, he squared his shoulders and hoisted his sword. Gruffly pushing the tent flap away, he saw sunlight for the first time in hours. Ignoring the glared he marched steadily towards the center of the field. The Wirenian king: widowed, disrespected, and heartbroken; set out to avenge his kingdom. The white king grew excited, readying quickly, stepping over the black queen. The codes were broken, but there would be no one to remember that, and his people were loyal. No one would be caught dead letting this secret loose. The final move was always his favorite, and for the trouble this kingdom caused, he would enjoy it, immensely.  The king’s emerged to face one another. Both kings held a sea of emotion. Compassion hadn’t crossed the Avrasian king’s face since childhood and now only bloodlust filled his graying eyes. While the white king felt glee, the black king knew only sadness, he had wanted nothing more than a happy kingdom with his wife and people, now he had neither. His sadness made him strong, compressing into his veins into shards of pure steel. The black king would not be conquered nor killed or belittled by one who kept his garments cleaner than his morals. No he would give his all, for all he had lost he would claim victory.

Fortunately, the Wirenian king had risen to power for a reason. He fought for his people, and he fought well. The black king alone was a one-man army, an army hell-bent on destroying he who had taken everything. Eventually the Wirenian could no longer identify one emotion from the other, sadness and rage blurring together. His thoughts became background, until weariness was all he found in his mental sift. Stepping forward Black slayed the last of the Avrasian knights, cutting all mental flow. He quickly squashed any humanity he held for white; they weren’t the king, nor his actions, but they had sat complacent as young men died needlessly.

In his haste to finish his battle, he had made a fatal mistake. The Wirenian king had forgotten his principals. Caught unassuming, Black had been trapped in his vengeance, pinned like his cherished. The Avrasian king grinned, hands no longer pristine but stained with blood. His teeth cruel and shimmering, a kingdom killing smile. A lying smile, a brutish smile, a smile one could hate.

The queen fluttered across the board, adjusting her bodice as she crossed.  Discarding her sword, she pulled a dagger. The kiss of death, it was the way. The way a kingdom dies. The white queen smiled, if that was what one could call the emotion gracing her glossed lips.

“No,” the white king spoke—ending what felt like a year of silence—much to the surprise of the queen and her prey. “I want to do it.”

“But… what about the codes? They strictly forbid this!” both queen and trapped exclaimed.

“Not like anyone’s alive to verify.” Speaking in a cool tone, the Avrasian king gestured to their wake of death surrounding them. His wife was new, but even she wouldn’t be dull enough to throw away this opportunity. To be queen to a nation undefeated, and soon to encompass the entire northern region of Kiatone. Dozens of girls would kill for her placement. Younger, smarter, prettier girls. On second thought, maybe it would be best if she would argue.

“My love, we must have honor, if nothing else, I beg.” The white queen felt fear cross her face, what was her husband doing? She had taken all of her life to get here. Working the hardest in court, manipulating, balancing odds, playing key members off of each other to accomplish her goals. She had destroyed for her position, groomed for queendom; and she would not allow some man on an ego trip to wrench her future away from her. She rose her dagger, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, she was finishing him. Pity she thought, he was good of heart, a strong leader and a fierce warrior. But there was no place for the good of heart in battle. Expecting satisfaction, she felt only the sharp end of her lover’s sword.

“To hell with you,” speaking with contempt, “you were never good enough anyway, I never should have settled. How about this, after winning the war, you sadly passed from your wounds? My, my, how sad; the kingdom will mourn, another queen lost, soon enough you will be forgotten, they all were. And I will come back victorious; you never mattered, there is no end to the line of waiting brides. I always win, no matter what.” His betrayal sparked no emotion in him, it wasn’t his first and it wouldn’t be his last. But the show must go on. He twisted the knife a final time, the white queen falling limp to the ground. “A shame this all could have been prevented, if you had known your place.

The black king felt true remorse, he understood now, it wasn’t the whole kingdom. A single spore had molded the Avraisen lineage, the black king uttered a prayer for his people, awaiting his demise. He was at peace, staring death in the eyes, death’s grin gleamed back. Death upon this day wore a white cloak.

The Avrasian king leapt forward waiting for his flinch or scream, but no such wish was granted. Black stared him down, he would sooner greet the devil as a friend than bow to the whims of a monster. He would not yield today.  

“My people will never bow to the likes of you,” the pinned king spat.

“What people?” The white king’s voice dripped with animosity, raising his blade. Smiling the animal sprung.

And froze.

The Avrasian king collapsed, dead. The lone survivor couldn’t believe what had happened. White had run out of time; Black had done the unthinkable. Won.

Standing, his knees nearly gave out. These last hours had been taxing.

“Good game,” Black shook the dead king’s hand, flabbergasted. The Wirenians were victorious, but because of the Avrasian king’s scorched earth campaign, no one had won. Overrun with loneliness, the sole survivor knelt; and cried. Having no one left, the Wirenian king was truly alone.

The black ruler limped across the checkered board, whispering a prayer for his fallen people. As he passed he gently closed the eyes of his devoted bishop, cleaning his cross and returning it to his hand. He was a good man, killed in cold blood; hopefully to find a happy afterlife. The king continued on losing will. Reaching his wife, he sat beside her, no regards for the wreckage around him. He cradled her head in his arms, crying silently. Against all odds, they had succeeded, Wirenia had won the war. But the black king couldn’t help but think, at what cost?

Not knowing what else to do the king laid down on the blood splattered checkers, still holding his wife.

The king of all and nothing did not stand back up.

Once again the world was still.

    The children commanding their armies got up; shaking hands, they left. Plans to play again tomorrow. No grudges held, no resentment. For that was not how chess was played.

[survivorraccooncity2]

Episode 10: "I am still letting MJ and Clefford run the game. I don't mind it." ~Ariel

LINKS:

Challenge: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/survivorraccooncity2/687889417999892480?source=share

Results: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/survivorraccooncity2/687972914456412160?source=share

Tribal Council: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/survivorraccooncity2/688070624382517248?source=share

~

CONFESSIONALS:

Ariel

wait, already at round 10? did I miss a confessional? Aghhhh anyway. I now have a time to do a proper confessional so here we go. Last round, I would have wanted Els to go, cause I still stand that having Ava, Adeline and Els still in the game is quite dangerous. Like, if my suspicions are right, the 3 of them is such a powerful alliance. Like, no cap, they would be like the Black Widow Brigade alliance of stings. Aside from that, I like DJ too, and I know I could have work with him down the line. I really feel bad letting him go. It's too bad he ends up on the wrong side. I can't fight to keep him that hard too cause again I am playing just a goat and I don't want them paying attention to me. Anyway, I still have Clefford and I think I got Dominique too, at this point, this is my ideal final 3. I think I have a fair chance against them. But it's too early to talk about that, so how about we talk about the challenge? TOUCHY SUBJECTS. Ooouccch, it bring backs memories. Lol, I am missing my flipper bestie Melissa, extra this round. I swear if this people still thinks I am flipper, I will be changing my profile name to Flipper. That sounds cooler than Ariel anyway. Lol. Anyway, so we now have Julia and Els the remaining outsider. I feel like they are just playing us that they don't get a long but I have a strong vibe that they can actually flip this game with Ava and Adeline, and then they would just need another one maybe with Dominique or MJ and Zukiswa. I'm not sure, but it would not surprise me, cause again, I know they are such a strong players, and strong players pull out amazing gameplays. Honestly, I would be amaze if that happens, like that is such a good gameplay for them. Also I will be mad at Clefford if that happens cause Clefford keeps insisting they will never work together. Right now I am just trusting Clefford with that. I am still letting MJ and Clefford run the game. I don't mind it. Anyway I still need to play dumb. And just be cool. I am actually scared cause I am talking strategy with Dominique right now about voting out MJ or Zukiswa, and I don't trust Dominique a 100%. Lol. Dominique has like hundreds of alliances. Like 90% of my alliance group chat has Dominique in it. Who knows how many alliances she actually have. By the way, I forgot to put some catchy phrases on my confessionals. How am I gonna have an episode title now??? huhuhuhuhu I think that is it for now. I hope I have given you enough tea. Bye. Amping.

Clefford

We're breaking up the “alliance” of Adeline, Ava, and Els. We think that they're working together. We told the majority 7 that we're voting for Julia, but MJ, Zuki, and I decided that we should blindside Els. Ariel and Dom also agreed.

MJ

right now I’m not settled to give a confessional, there’s a lot going on in my head because I don’t have a decided plan yet. I should cool off in the next two hours and know what I’m gonna do. So I’ll probably be back to give a detailed confession from my point of view. There’s definitely a lot happening! And I haven’t been so sensitive and alert in this game as I feel now. 

Adeline

Had a long talk with Julia while deciding on summit coins. who is unfortunately at the bottom at the moment. MJ asked if i sent her the 4 coins, i said Julia and i both decided on it. And she asked me to work with her going forward 

Dom

Things are getting interesting in the game and alliances are going to start being broken day by day. The question remains who do I work with? Who can I trust? As of right now I can only somewhat trust ariel, clefford mj and zukiswa... but that doesn't mean it won't be me.

Ava

https://youtu.be/6HrXMendofI

MJ

Welcome back lol! I don’t know why everywhere and everyone is completely quiet today 😅 the last time I got this feeling of quietness was when I was on the chopping board lol! 😅 there’s no moment that I’m not alert and I’ve definitely thought about what if everyone decides to blindside me today, what will I do? Lmao. I think so far I have a safe landing with most members of the tribe and my name shouldn’t be out at least for this round. Now let’s re-wind!!!!! DJ was voted out 😅😅😅😅😅 that was such a calming moment lol. I told him he’s going so it wasn’t an issue of blindside, we just laughed and gisted over it. Plus, I loved the fact that he was out. He wasn’t 100% true to our budding alliance and I’m happy the game took him out seamlessly without any extra effort to perform lol. That tribal was so straight forward lol. Gosh!! Now to the present!!!! Who will win if gotten to the F3? MJ Who is actually running the game ? MJ who’s the vallian? MJ SUMMARINGLY, who is the biggest threat? MJ 😅 My next move isn’t to keep quiet or to play low. From now till the final tribal, I’ll play the game as though my name is always on the chopping board. My biggest move yet would have been taking Ava out tonight but the co-majority wasn’t just seeing it that way. I could have pushed further but I’ve also learnt to respect their decisions before I appear controlling which is the least vibe I wanna pass. I have a little connection with Ava & Adeline and I only hope after Els is gone tonight (that’s if she goes), they won’t turn to me. That was why I think taking Ava out will be a major blindside leaving Els and Adeline with little choice. Now, I’m good with voting out Els. I’m just here crossing my fingers and hoping that I don’t loose any of my major alliance tonight. (Clefford or Zuki). ❤️ & 💡 

Zukiswa

This round was a mess. I just have renewed commitment to my alliance. I've not even had time to properly analyze the challange and what people say about me and each other.

Julia

After this challenge, I felt somewhat deflated. So the correct answers came from the personal reflections and the ‘what you thought others thought’ were most likely gleaned from conversations people had with each other. First, there were some surprises – like being assumed a hero and a villain. I don’t see myself as either. The ‘hero’ – maybe because I try to help people even to the point of putting them ahead of me. But the ‘villain.’ What!!! Why??? But its also kinda nice to be both to others. True, I don’t keep secrets. Especially my own. I really don’t have them. I enjoy being transparent. But some things I shared as part of game play when it came to others which everyone definitely did! So why did some say I can’t keep a secret? A few of the more interesting results was the response to who is on the bottom of the tribe…. My name was mentioned five times! But I was 1 of 4 people… I was surprised to see Els there…go figure. Yet, people, Zukiswa, in particular, was gaslighting me so hard it was hilarious. It began with how “gorgeous” my skin was in the video, it was “glowing,” to how I’m really “playiiiiing’ the game – neither of which was true. So, I was pretty sure she was using deception and manipulation to control me and know what I was thinking. So I just chatted with her – and I chat too much – I realize that – but do it anyway. Maybe its why people didn’t want to ally with me. Maybe people saw something sinister and shady in that quality. Its either I must be hiding something or I’m an open book and because I’m not ‘playing the game’ I ‘don’t deserve to be here and I’m ‘most likely to flip on my allies.’ Only on my once allies who turn on me. My sister once said that I “write books” in my texts. Once upon a time, she found them annoying. Now, she finds them precious, funny and interesting. I guess I’m an acquired taste – or not. Zukiswa didn’t realize I suspected her of trying to manipulate her, but I knew she was faking, especially when she said, that after winning 2 challenges, people were going to want to work with me; that they were scared of me, but she wasn’t. And no one sidled up to me really in a sincere way. So some people think, that some people think that I don’t deserve to be here. I think that some people worry that I might accidently save myself and then they’ve nothing left but to turn on each other. That would be juicy. Hmmm… ‘most likely to be a bitter juror…’ Wow… I wouldn’t be here today if bitterness was my M.O. Plus, that requires more energy than most people are worth. I should’ve told Zukiswa, my skin is so soft and luminous because I’m least likely to be a bitter juror and I’m not a gaslighting, backstabbing liar! And lastly – who would die first in a zombie apocalypse… how ironic that both Adeline and myself who were most likely to die first, are actually still here and were last nights winner (Adeline) and Summit Leaders. I thought that very interesting too. Perhaps they thought I would stop and have a long conversation with the zombies, or share my contact info and tell them my innermost thoughts…. or give them a helping hand in catching their next dinner and support them in voting someone off, or … oh hey – that sounds like Survivor Raccoon City – the Zombie Apocalypse is Here! Too bad you didn’t ask, ‘Who do you think no longer wants to be here.’ Even I would’ve answered: ‘Julia’…. But, like much else people have said in Touchy Subjects, even thats not entirely true

Els

Unfortunately the time has come for me to vote Julia :(

~

NOTES:

The alliance of MJ, Clifford, and Zukiswa have their sights on Julia next

Clefford is now thinking of voting for Ava or Els because he thinks they are working together and see MJ and him as a threat

Ariel proposes to do Julia in the majority alliance chat

Clefford talks in his alliance with Zukiswa and MJ about how they should “blindside” Els this round. Presumably, he will leave out Adeline and Ava on this plan and only bring in Ariel and Dom. He is now working towards getting his core 5 idea planned out and started.

MJ still tries to push for Julia to go, but is willing to just defer to Clefford

Dom and Ariel are on board to vote out Els

The plan is to blindside Ava and Adeline

~

EDGIC:

~

POWER RANKINGS:

[mildredsoftwaretech]

MCU Counterparts Of 5 Old School Survivor Winners

The winners of the famous television show Survivor are considered to be superheroes from the early days of the TV show. It means they can portray the MCU characters perfectly when placed next to them. The winners of Survivor have been entitled as superheroes because of their unbeatable strengths and the way they outlast, outwit, and outplay their strong competitors. Their ability to complete 39 days of being isolated from the outside world on a remote island and becoming a millionaire is staggering. The Survivor players of ‘Old School’ participated in Seasons 1-20 in reality on the show. These are great players and were part of various games before a number of astonishing and thrilling twists were added. These winners have great potential to make their own Avengers squad. In this article, we have listed some of theOld School’ Survivor winners who have the abilities to portray their MCU counterparts respectively.

Ethan Zohn As The Hulk

Back in the year 2001, Ethan was one of the Survivor players with curly hairs. He was from New York City and defeated Kim Johnson in the show Survivor: Africa. After that, he also defeated cancer and becomes a real survivor in all the senses of the world. He is a gentle and kind person with a sweet kind of nature. His outstanding strategies were responsible for making him a winner. Also, he has a never-give-up spirit that keeps him always running, even on today’s date.

When it comes to one of the most monstrous characters in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hulk is a character that you would remind for the very first time. He is a scientific mastermind who can be transformed into another being with superpowers. Hulk and Ethan Zohn share similar strong and insane behavior on both the outside and inside. Hulk is the perfect counterpart of Ethan Zohn.

Todd Herzog As Ant-Man

In the fifteenth season of the show, Survivor: China, the flight attendant energy of Todd Herzog made him a great confidant. Tom was a nice-natured person and wanted to form good relationships with all the players on the show. He also made the viewers laugh at the time of revealing his real plan and intentions in order to reach the end. He is much like Ant-Man, also known as Scott Lang. Scott is also one of the funniest Avengers with a little bit devious personality, despite the fact that he is one of the smallest Avengers as well. Todd would be the best choice to portray the character of Ant-Man.

Tyson Apostol As Loki

Tyson Apostol was the winner of Survivor: Blood Vs. Water, which was a new school season. He played the eighteenth season originally, which made him an old-school guy at heart. He possessed great strengths like athleticism and high-level confidence. He was also able to impress the viewers with his honest confessions and his witty one-liners. He is much similar to the God of Mischief, Loki, who is another famous character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The energy levels of Loki and Tyson are very much similar and can be considered perfect for each other’s counterparts.

‘Boston’ Rob Mariano & Iron Man

Boston Rob is one of the most popular winners among several other winners of Survival. It is impossible to think of a Survivor winner without recalling the demonstration of Boston Rob on the show. He has been a very loyal person to whom he loved, and at one point in time, he had fewer friends and more enemies in the game. Iron Man is one of the most important members and founders of the team Avengers. He is really a skillful and brilliant scientific person, but sometimes, due to his arrogance, he had to domesticate to work significantly with his team. Tony Stark would be the best counterpart of Boston.

Parvati Shallow As Black Widow

In the sixteenth season of the game show, Survivor: Fan Vs. Favorites Parvati Shallow leads the women group ‘Black Widow Brigade’ to the final tour after breaking the heart of Erik Reichenbach and attacking his blindside. She wins various challenges during the game and has been considered a great player of the games. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Widow, also known as Natasha Romanoff, portrayed by Scarlett Johansson, shares a similar kind of nature to Parvarti. She was a Russian spy and made the opposition believe that they could trust her. Black Widow would be the best counterpart of Parvati Shallow.

Source:-MCU Counterparts Of 5 Old School Survivor Winners

[wazafam]

Survivor is a game of heroes and villains. In fact, this theme was played to its logical conclusion in the season Heroes vs. Villains, which saw the show's most popular heroes and villains (up to that time) competing against each other. Some players like to play the game fairly, generating alliances, making friends, winning competitions, and trying their best to remain friendly.

RELATED: 10 Survivor Runner-Ups Who Deserved The Win

Others play the game a little differently. They backstab, betray, and manipulate - often with a knowing smile on their faces. Of course, villains don't often win, as they don't receive jury votes. But they arguably make for the most memorable contestants. Here's where some of the most notorious villains from Survivor are today.

10 Russell Hantz

Perhaps the most infamous villain in the show's history, Russell Hantz is primarily known for his appearances on Samoa and Heroes vs. Villains - back-to-back seasons in which Hantz made it to the final tribal council. While Hantz is often praised for his strong strategic gameplay and penchant for finding hidden immunity idols, his poor social game always proved his downfall.

Hantz is still quite active in the Survivor community through his YouTube channel The Russell Hantz Show, in which he analyzes each new episode of the show.

9 Brandon Hantz

The Hantz family is infamous within the Survivor community, and that reception continued with Brandon Hantz, Russell's nephew. Brandon played a solid game throughout South Pacific, but he became one of the show's most notorious villains for his temper and unstable behavior throughout Caramoan.

Things eventually escalated to the point where Brandon dumped the tribe's food reserves all over the sand, leading him to be voted out in an impromptu tribal council. Brandon has since appeared on his uncle's show, the most recent appearance occurring in April 2020.

8 Tony Vlachos

Tony Vlachos is what would happen if Russell Hantz was a friendly person. Like Russell, Tony became famous for finding hidden immunity idols, backstabbing his allies, and orchestrating blindsides. Fortunately, his social game proved strong enough that he walked away with an 8-1 victory on Cagayan.

Vlachos was instantly declared one of the show's strongest players...a reputation he solidified after returning for Winners at War. While playing a completely different style of game, he became the show's second two-time winner after Sandra Diaz-Twine.

7 Ben Browning

When it comes to Survivor villains, it doesn't get much more notorious than Ben Browning. Browning competed on Samoa alongside Russell Hantz, but he didn't last nearly as long, being the third person voted out (and fourth eliminated following Mike's medical evacuation.

RELATED: Survivor: 5 Times Boston Rob Was A Fan Favorite (& 5 He Went Too Far)

Ben acted in an extremely caustic and unlikable manner throughout his brief time on the show, proving physically aggressive during challenges and calling Yasmin "ghetto trash". Browning later appeared on a special Survivor episode of The Price Is Right in 2016 but did not compete.

6 Colton Cumbie

Cumbie is another one of Survivor's most notorious villains, appearing in both One World and Blood vs. Water. Cumbie quickly proved himself one of the most unlikable contestants in the show's history due to his God complex and derogatory remarks aimed at other players. He was eventually evacuated owing to acute appendicitis and quit Blood vs. Water in a huff after not getting his way.

Cumbie is living a relatively quiet post-Survivor life and generally stays out of the spotlight. Unfortunately, his fiancé and fellow Blood vs. Water contestant, Caleb Bankston, passed away in a work accident in 2014 at the age of 27.

5 Jeff Varner

Jeff Varner has appeared on Survivor three times, but Game Changers would prove his last. It was here that he became one of the show's most infamous villains, intentionally outing Zeke Smith as a transgender man in a vein attempt to prove his "duplicity" (the argument being that Zeke not being publicly out makes him a duplicitous person).

Jeff Probst was quick to rebuke Varner for the decision, and he was promptly voted off. Varner was reportedly fired from his real estate job as a result of the controversy, but he has since found work with another company.

4 Jerri Manthey

Jerri Manthey has a spot in Survivor history as the show's first "villainess". Serving as the main antagonist of The Australian Outback, Manthey generated tons of hate owing to her sour and sardonic personality.

RELATED: 10 Documentaries Fans Of Survivor Will Love (& Where To Watch Them)

She was later booed off the stage at the All Stars reunion show, further solidifying her place in Survivor lore. Like Colton Cumbie, Manthey has mostly stayed out of the public eye, although she did host a Survivor After Show on thestream.tv.

3 Jonny Fairplay

Jonny Fairplay, real name Jon Dalton, remains one of the most infamous and deceitful villains in Survivor history, known primarily for his time on Pearl Islands (although he later returned for Micronesia). It was here that he concocted the famous "Grandma lie", in which his friend Dan told Fairplay that his grandmother was dead during the loved ones visit.

She wasn't actually deceased, and the other contestants allowed him to win so he could "learn more information" from Dan about her passing. In December 2020, he was caught stealing furniture and a necklace from this same grandmother.

2 Parvati Shallow

Despite being a villain (more of an antihero, really...), Parvati Shallow remains one of the most popular Survivor contestants. She has competed on the show four times, beginning on Cook Islands and proceeding to Micronesia (a season she would win), Heroes vs. Villains (in which she placed on the villains tribe), and Winners at War.

She is perhaps best known for being a part of the Black Widow Brigade. Unfortunately, her performance in Winners at War proved somewhat disappointing, finishing fifteenth and missing the merge.

1 Boston Rob

Perhaps the most famous contestant in Survivor history, Boston Rob has competed in five seasons and appeared as a mentor in Island of the Idols alongside fellow Survivor legend Sandra Diaz-Twine. Boston Rob has long been regarded for his cutthroat approach to the game, and he has earned himself the reputation as Survivor's greatest strategic mastermind.

Unfortunately, it was just this reputation that resulted in his swift elimination from Winners at War, becoming the sixth person voted off.

NEXT: Survivor: The 10 Best Season Finales, Ranked (According To IMDb)

10 Most Notorious Survivor Villains: Where Are They Now? from https://ift.tt/3mFs5wu

[dshalv]

Declan Shalvey teams up with Philip Barrett and Jordie Bellaire for SAVAGE TOWN this September

A small-time gangster gets in big-time trouble in this original graphic novel

Declan Shalvey (INJECTION, All Star Batman) takes the helm as a writer, with artist Philip Barrett (Matter, Where’s Larry?) and Eisner Award-winning colorist Jordie Bellaire (INJECTION, PRETTY DEADLY), for SAVAGE TOWN, an original graphic novel coming this September from Image Comics. Loosely based on real events at the turn of the millennium, SAVAGE TOWN follows Jimmy “Hardy” Savage, the head of a small gang in Limerick City, Ireland. His presence has been tolerated, up until now, by the two large gangs that hold Limerick in their grasp. With these rival gangs, the local cops, his best mate, and his mammy all out to stick a knife in him, will he live long enough to get to the top? More importantly, will he pay me back for that fiver I gave him last week? “SAVAGE TOWN is a gritty crime story with Irish charm,” said Shalvey. “Inspired by the troubled past of Limerick City, this story tells the tale of Jimmy Savage, a small-time crook who manages to fail his way up the criminal ladder. I'm excited for the world to discover Philip Barrett on this book, an artist who is without a doubt one of the best storytellers in Ireland right now. Pick SAVAGE TOWN up in September; it's the best hangover cure Image can offer.” “SAVAGE TOWN manages at once to be dark, funny, and an original and honest take on the mangy underbelly of shiny, happy, Celtic Tiger Ireland—and watch out, these fleas are hungry!” said Barrett. “I'm really thrilled and proud to be part of the team.” SAVAGE TOWN (Diamond code: JUN170700, ISBN: 978-1-5343-0246-4) will arrive in comic book stores Wednesday, September 6th and bookstores Tuesday, September 12th. The final order cutoff deadline for comics retailers is Monday, August 14th. SAVAGE TOWN is available for preorder via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, and Indigo.

Advance praise for SAVAGE TOWN: “SAVAGE TOWN features the kind of writing and art that'll have you devouring the whole thing at one sitting. If you like seeing comics realizing their potential, or if you just like a damn good story, this one's so far up your street it's parked outside your house.” —Garth Ennis (Preacher, ADVENTURES IN THE RIFLE BRIGADE) “SAVAGE TOWN is as authentic as it is passionately constructed. Page one, panel one, you find yourself fully immersed in this very fascinating time and place. A really wonderful book.” —Rick Remender (DEADLY CLASS, SEVEN TO ETERNITY) “One hell of a page-turner. Ireland's answer to STRAY BULLETS, but with a voice all its own. Declan, Phillip, Jordie and Clayton are coming out of the gate with a real winner here.” —Chris Samnee (Black Widow, Daredevil) “With SAVAGE TOWN, Shalvey and Barrett serve up a brilliant beer-soaked, working-class crime tale overflowing with quick-witted humour and an underlying desperation that will have you cheering for the shiftiest of characters.” —Ed Brisson (Iron Fist, THE VIOLENT)