#but mostly it brings damage and loss of work for real artists

[ducklooney]

As for A.I., while it is very beneficial in some things, it also does a lot of harm in other cases. Literally, and it gets too creepy.

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Time for the rest of the first challenge. Event. Whatever. Words hard.

[No. 26 - Chase Down The Leader]

We flashback just a minute or so from where we left off, in order to see just how Izuku pulled off his impressive launch across the field. He stands at the start of the minefield, watching other students pick their way through - and occasionally setting off mines with missteps - while having a veritable mumblefest over the mines and the general issue of trying to pick past them. 

The general gist of the mumbling: The mines are the type that blow up when stepped on, and aren’t that strong, but can throw a student off enough to possibly cause a chain reaction and lose them a lot of time. It’s better to go slow to avoid damage, even for leaping types, and trying to slow others is a guaranteed time loss. Izuku then analyzes the field in front of him, noting the spots people avoid and that most students will be most on guard at the entrance, which means there are plenty of mines left for his plan so long as they stay frosty. 

Izuku puts his armor plate to work digging up mines, muttering about how anti-personnel mines should only be 14 centimeters or so deep (about 6 inches). Jirou, just making her way into the field and using her quirk to… I guess disable mines in front of her? Anyway, she actually notices Izuku is up to something and asks what he’s doing, though I think it’s not one she expects to get answered. In short order, Izuku has a pile of about a dozen mines, and mentally claims he’s taking a page from Kacchan’s book. Meanwhile, Present Mic announces Shouto and Katsuki are still in the lead, and that they’re about to cross the finish line.

Not for long, though, as Izuku names his adhoc maneuver ‘great blasting turbo speed’, throwing himself on top of his armor sheet and onto the pile of mines, launching him over the field and right towards the two leading the pack. Pretty much everyone hesitates or stops to stare for a moment, shook by the sheer brass balls it had to take to literally blow yourself sky high. The two most shook, of course, are Shouto and Katsuki, who only just start moving again when Izuku actually flies ahead of them, forgoing their fight in order to catch back up.

Izuku considers the whole experience intense, and is even more focused now that he’s managed to gain the lead. However, there’s one huge issue - he didn’t think far enough ahead to consider how he was going to land. As if that’s not enough, Katsuki is throwing himself forward with more explosions, screaming at ‘Deku’ to get back there (presumably to fight). Shouto’s not far behind, giving up keeping the others hindered in exchange for the speed he gets from icing over the field ahead of him - he doesn’t have time to worry about those behind him now.

Present Mic announces the temporary ceasefire between the two in order to chase down Izuku, and how when a common enemy appears, people stop fighting - then tacks on that, well, actually they’re still fighting, just not each other. Aizawa wonders what his friend is even trying to say. 

Izuku starts floating away from his armor sheet, the larger surface area causing it to stall and slow faster then he is. He grabs onto one of the wires as he recognizes this, and that if he loses time on his landing, passing the two again will be impossible. As the two just start to rush past him, Izuku swears mentally, telling himself to not let go - while he’s still ahead, this is his only chance. So, if passing them is impossible, then he has to maintain the lead. 

Somehow, he manages to flip in the air, using the momentum to bring the armor plate swinging around and into the ground right between the two, the pressure enough to set off several more mines. The two are forced to stop from the resulting explosion, while Izuku’s newfound momentum throws him readily ahead. 

As he falls into a duck and roll, Present Mic announces how Izuku blows off the competition with no time to lose. He goes on to marvel at Aizawa’s class, wondering what he’s teaching the kids. Aizawa says it’s not his doing, and that they’ve been spurring each other on all on their own. Present Mic rolls on with his commentary, asking who could have predicted such an incredible turn of events? Aizawa asks if he’s being ignored as Present Mic announces the first one back to the stadium:

Midoriya Izuku. The crowds go absolutely wild. Outside the stadium, Death Arms recognizes Izuku as the kid from a year ago. At home, Inko falls off the couch sobbing while repeatedly stumbling over Izuku’s name. In an unknown location, Shigaraki watches on while scratching idly at his neck. 

Izuku looks around the stadium while breathing heavily, eventually looking at one spot in particular. Somehow, he’s found Toshinori in the stands, and the two have a Moment™ from across the stadium. 

These fucking two, man. 

While Izuku is trying to keep himself from crying, the other students start making their way across the finish line as well. 

Toshinori thinks about how Izuku has the spirit of a savior hero to the core, but the sports festival is a competition that tests the exact opposite of that - your willingness to take down the enemy. Heroes nowadays depend on popular opinion so much. So many selfishly seek to beat everyone else. But that’s not Izuku - and that’s why Toshinori chose him, even as he thoughts that lack of selfishness would be his one weakness. He claps in the stands, happy to have been proved wrong and mentally apologizing for doubting him, even as he laments Izuku’s crying habits.

Some business students nearby catch Toshinori’s attention, mostly due to them discussing Izuku’s potential and how they’d market him. They talk about how Izuku’s stock is about to rise, but it’s hard to say what’s still in store for him since he didn’t show his quirk. They then start speculating about how a hero agency would market him if they took it on, with one pointing out how he’s not much to look at, so they’re have to push his skills and his unique, almost artistic sensibilities. When the resources you need aren’t there… Well, we don’t hear how that gets handled, but Toshinori does note how some things never change.

We get a brief narrative insert about the business course, most notably how they have nothing to gain by directly competing in the sports festival. Instead, they hone their skills as salespeople and run business simulations. 

Back with the hero students, we see Katsuki and Shouto both catching their breath. Katsuki is furious at Izuku once again managing to wrangle a win right from under him, while Shouto is just staring after Izuku silently. Present Mic announces more racers reaching the finish line, and that the standings will be gone over later, so the students can catch their breath for now.

Ochako and Tenya make their way over to Izuku. Ochako calls Izuku’s strategy awesome, while Tenya is in despair over losing a race with his quirk, stating that he still has progress to make. Ochako states that she’s jealous of Izuku’s first place; Izuku flushes and hides his face behind his arms, stating that it wasn’t that impressive, and was still too close. Internally, he laments that he just got lucky, that all his chance strategies happened to work. They say it’s awesome, but it was just a lucky break, and that the real test of skill starts now.

Anyways, Midnight announces the end of the race, and we get the results:

Midoriya Izuku

Todoroki Shouto

Bakugou Katsuki

Shiozaki Ibara

Honenuki Juuzou

Iida Tenya

Tokoyami Fumikage

Sero Hanta

Kirishima Eijirou

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu

Ojiro Mashirao

Awase Yosetsu

Asui Tsuyu

Shouji Mezou

Satou Rikidou

Uraraka Ochako

Yaoyorozu Momo

Mineta Minoru

Ashido Mina

Kouda Kouji

Jirou Kyouka

Kaibara Sen

Tsuburaba Kosei

Kaminari Denki

Bondo Kojiro

Yanagi Reiko

Shinsou Hitoshi

Kendo Itsuka

Shishida Jurota

Kuroiro Shihai

Kodai Yui

Rin Hiryu

Shouda Nirengeki

Komori Kinoko

Kamakiri Togaru

Monoma Neito

Tsunotori Pony

Hagakure Touru

Tokage Setsuna

Fukidashi Manga

Hatsume Mei

Aoyama Yuuga

I wasn’t able to find this list in word form anywhere online, so I made it myself. You’re welcome. I also calculated the points each of them had going into the second event, but I’m not gonna worry about that here. I’ll do individual and team points when we actually get to the teams. That way, we’ll know who has which teams’ headbands at the end!

Moving on with the chapter. Midnight announces that the top 42 from the qualifying round will move on, conveniently just including every hero student as well as the two non-hero students who managed to place higher. For those who placed lower, the sports festival will have another way for them to show their stuff!

(Not that we see said show, which I mean, makes sense narratively speaking, but also…)

[I was going to insert the server discussion about my thoughts on the arbitrary cut-off point here, but it’s getting long enough to merit its own post at this point. So look forward to that whenever it goes up!]

Anyways, Midnight continues on, explaining that now the main selection really begins, and that the press corp is going to be jumping out of their seats, so the students should give it all they’ve got. Now, onto the second event, which she already knows - which confirms these are predetermined by UA and they just do the randomizer for the sake of the crowds. Said event is… 

the cavalry battle!

Kaminari is nervous at that, thinking about how he’s going to suck. Mineta is also looking concerned. Tsuyu notes they’re teaming up, but how, exactly? Midnight explains with a neat little graphic:

Basically, participants get in teams of two to four, and get into a horse-and-rider formation. The rules are the same as your regular cavalry battle - snag the opponent’s headbands while guarding your own - but with a twist. Each student has an assigned value based on their placement in the race. 

Sato notes that it sounds like the points in the entrance exam, so it sounds simple. Hagakure comments on how this means the point value of each team is based on its members. Midnight snaps and cracks her whip at the students that she’s about to explain, so they should shut up already. 

Individual point values start at five, at the bottom, so the student in 42nd place is forth five, 41st is worth ten, etc etc. However, the first place participant - that is, Izuku - is instead worth a whole ten million points.

That, my friends, is the face of someone realized they done fucked up.

Basically all the students stare down Izuku as he goes stiff from the internal panicking. Shinsou and Hatsume seem to be shown particular interest in it. Midnight finishes the chapter by noting that the higher-ranked students are the ones to aim for, and that this survival game is a chance for a comeback. It’s anyone’s game!

And with that, we end chapter 26… and volume three. Which means bonus content will be coming soon! See y’all then, and we’ll be back with more sports festival action in the next volume. 

[elexica]

Always Tomorrow

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26433880

A gift from a while back to @alectoperdita​; part of my AU-Gust 2020 Project; and it’s about time I cross posted it to Tumblr. Summary:  Joey is a tattoo artist who specializes in Duel Monsters and scar coverage. Kaiba is a walk-in client. Tags and Trigger Warnings:  Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, AU-gust 2020, ygocollablove, Scars, lot of talking about scars, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, BUT only about the scars, Pre-Slash, but there is SO much yearning, Hurt/Comfort, but honestly mostly comfort, oops all comfort Full fic under the cut:

. . .

“Tell me something. You ever felt this way? The burdens of this life, they've really got a way of dragging you real far down to the ground.”

-          “Master of My Own Mind” by Best Coast

. . .

“We don’t take walk-ins,” Joey said.  His shirt was rolled up to the elbow, revealing intricate tattoo sleeves.  A Red-Eyes Black Dragon screamed around his forearm, moving back and forth as he handled the cash register system.  Kaiba’s eyes lingered on the smooth lines of the wings paired with the sharp forms of the scales.  And that wasn’t the only eye-catching ink that Joey was sporting—Kaiba was entranced by a series of watercolor scapegoats and kanji trailed down his neck and disappeared into the plain black shirt that read “Eat, Sleep, Duel Monsters.”  

Kaiba’s eyes widened. “But this is a tattoo parlor.  And I saw your picture on the website, you’re Joey Wheeler.  I like your work.  Is there anything that would prevent you from completing a tattoo at this time?”

“Company policy,” Joey shrugged, revealing the tip of Flame Swordsman’s flaming sword, poking out from under his collar.  “We can’t just drop everything for everyone who wanders in.  There’s a system.” It must be a very large piece, Kaiba reasoned, given the size of the flame.  He wanted desperately to see more of it.

“Name the price.  I can pay upfront.”

Joey shrugged again. “I’ve got a schedule, man.”

Kaiba removed his credit card, placing the heavy material on the glass countertop.  The glossy black card opened many doors for him.  An assortment of rings for various piercings were posed in black velvet in the case beneath.

“You are clearly not busy.”  

Joey looked offended and went back to logging inventory.

Kaiba was not a man who was skillful in pleading—but he was more than capable at negotiation.  The card clicked threateningly on the counter as Kaiba impatiently tapped it.  

“Fine.  Are you available for a consultation?”

Joey smiled warmly, recognizing his own victory.  “Now we’re talkin’, c’mon back.”

Kaiba followed obediently, gawking over the large sigil of the millennium eye that all but glowed at the nape of his neck.  The longer blond strands of his hair brushed against the icon’s upper eyelid.  

The hallway turned into an actual, honest-to-god office, which was the last thing Kaiba expected. Joey pulled out a sketchbook as he leaned against his black desk.  Joey waved one hand for Kaiba to sit, a swirling monochrome haze behind the image of the cartoon time wizard with his little scepter.

“So, what are you thinking? You’re tall as hell, so there’s plenty of canvas!” Joey laughed, all sunshine and shiny white teeth.  

Kaiba’s cheeks burned as he drummed up the will to answer the question.  “In my research, you have something of a specialty in scar cover-ups.” Kaiba was not a man who would cower in his own shame.  But the thought of baring himself completely, his secrets and those eternal marks of his loss, for this stranger… it stung at his dignity.  He needed to do something today, or he would lose the will.

Joey’s smile dimmed compassionately.  This was not going to be a routine intake appointment.  He prided himself on careful and clever scar coverage, but those appointments usually took on a different tenor.  Few people have scars from positive experiences, and the raw intensity of Joey’s client gave the clear impression that it would hardly be a routine appointment.

“I do,” Joey swallowed, “So, what are we working with?”

It was such a simple question.  Kaiba adjusted the cufflinks on his wrists nervously.  He had promised himself he wouldn’t be ashamed.  There was nothing that he had done wrong.

He wished Mokuba had come with him.  It was his idea in the first place.

Joey was suddenly very close, just inches away.  “Hey, it’s alright.  Take a breath.”

Kaiba did not want to obey his command, but he couldn’t resist a sharp intake of breath.  He released it slowly, as if to prove a point. He wasn’t freaking out.  

“For a lotta people, tattoos that cover scars transform a person’s relationship to their body, and to what happened to ‘em.  It can be part of the healing process,” Joey said, slowly.  The sheer volume of his empathy weighed down his words and made them linger in Kaiba’s mind.

Transform.  Happened. Healing.

Kaiba continued to take long, intentional breaths.  The scars burned at the back of his neck and across his back.

Joey reached out a hand towards Kaiba’s face before thinking better of making contact.  The hand froze there, suspended close to his cheekbone. It was then that Kaiba realized his eyes were leaking tears.  Joey had moved to wipe them away.

This whole event was too humiliating, Kaiba thought.  And he couldn’t do it.  

“This was a bad idea,” Kaiba said, sucking in enough air to straighten his back.  He bore a hole in the wall with his eyes, trying to absorb any collateral moisture.  

“Hey, for a lotta people, it’s a part of reclaiming your body, after something hard,” Joey curled his fingers around the hem of his shirt and revealed a gnarly scar just above his right hip.  It was composed of a lot of smaller cuts, webbed together in a semi-circle. The raised skin had been left exposed, with dashes of black woven in to create the swirl at the center of the “Polymerization” card.  The only colors were those of the orange dragons swimming around the vortex in their own lazy waves.  “It was for me.  My friend Yugi did this one.”

Joey reached out, and slowly took Kaiba’s hand.  

“It doesn’t have to cover the whole thing, if you don’t want it too.  See!”

He drew Kaiba’s hand in, softly bringing Kaiba’s fingertips to his skin.  Kaiba’s arm was entirely tense, and he could have pulled back at any time.  But he couldn’t resist—the curiosity bubbled within him.  The pads of his fingers skimmed over the scar tissue in its randomness, and the disciplined smooth black stripes emanating from the twisted center.  Kaiba was almost shocked at how warm Joey’s skin was.  He wanted desperately to touch more, but when Joey dropped his hand, Kaiba withdrew it.  

“Alright, I showed you mine.  You feelin’ up to showing me yours?”  Joey’s grin was so painfully warm.

Kaiba couldn’t help but nod. He began to unbutton his shirt. Button by button, Kaiba kept his breathing steady by force of will.  The rise and fall of his chest felt especially vulnerable with his buttons undone. He moved to his cufflinks.

“Ah, shirt’s fine, but ya gotta warn me if the pants are comin’ off too!” Joey said with a gentle laugh. Joey’s eyes were undeniably glued to Kaiba’s abs, which made Kaiba’s breathing even more fragile.

Kaiba paused, fingers fumbling with the cufflink on his right hand.  “It… just my shirt.”  Kaiba spent his life speaking in eloquent sentences that drove investors to throw money at any idea that so must as sparked in his mind.  He gave talks at industry conventions that brought the consumer electronics world to its knees.  And he couldn’t force out a full sentence in front of this man.

“It’s okay,” Joey reassured. It didn’t feel practiced or put on. It almost felt like talking to a therapist.

Kaiba tugged off his shirt in one smooth move.  

Finally, it was Joey’s turn to have the wind knocked out of him.  

Kaiba braced for the inevitable questions.  Those long, deep, even lines across his back scorched under the other man’s stare. And the little lines at the nape of his neck seared.  The best lie that Kaiba had brainstormed on his way over was that it was a very bizarre car accident.  Kaiba stressed internally that perhaps Joey thought Kaiba had done this on purpose, though the mechanics would have been infeasible.

But, like a professional, Joey didn’t ask any questions.  He didn’t gasp.  He didn’t even gawk for a significant amount of time.

“Alright!” Joey said, perhaps a touch too upbeat.  “So, what’re we talkin’?”

Kaiba inhaled very slowly and began to replace his light blue Oxford shirt.  “You, clearly, appreciate Duel Monsters.”

“Ha!  Appreciate is a diplomatic way ta put it!  I’m one a’ the greatest duelists that Domino has eva seen!” Joey’s smile was back to beaming at full wattage, like he hadn’t just witnessed Kaiba’s secret torture.

Kaiba was determined not to highlight his position in Kaiba Corp.  The last thing he needed was this man to know everything—or make any educated guesses.  He was already trying to slough off the sensation of being pitied.  Still, he’d have to put this amateur in his place.  “I have been called the Prince of Cards, and was National Champion, but now is hardly the time—”

Joey put down the Duel Disk he had grabbed from a drawer in his desk.  “Yeah, not the time.”

Kaiba failed to suppress a smirk.  It was jarring how quickly this man could bring him back to himself.  “Anyway, I thought I could cover the… damage on the back with the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon.”

Joey nodded.  “That sounds super sick!! But that is going to take a lot of planning.  And you want—”

“Nothing to show through. I was sort of imagining it in the style of a Yakuza boss.  Just very powerful.”

Joey looked up, imagining it in his mind’s eye.  “Alright, I can take down the information and draw up some sketches.  That would be a very expensive piece, and pretty time consuming for both of us.”

“Money is no object,” Kaiba stated, ice cold and prideful.

“Is there anything else you’re thinking of?” Joey asked.

Kaiba’s hand flew to the back of his neck.  “A very small piece of code.  I’ll write it down.”  

The pad was heavier than Kaiba had anticipated, and Kaiba almost trembled as he wrote out the phrase: “pid_t pid = fork();”.

“I have never done a tattoo like that!” Joey remarked. “This won’t fully cover the scar.”

Kaiba nodded sternly. “That’s fine.  It actually should go between the lines.  It’s a very specific piece of code: it’s the basic invocation of a ‘fork,’ which is how a program splits itself and spawns new programs. It’s critical to the function of any Linux system, anywhere.  One process starts when you boot up, and then it’s all forks from there.”

“Uh, ok.  And what does that have to do with you, exactly?” Joey raised an eyebrow, affecting a serious “thinking” face.

“I don’t believe in fate. I make my choices and I live with them. For me, it means that I am always at a new decision point, and I build my life on these decision points.  No one else builds it for me,” Kaiba looked directly into Joey’s attentive caramel eyes.  “And my past does not define me.  I am one fork away from a new program.  The next challenge.  A new life.”  

The explanation spread a smile across Joey’s face. “That would take me maybe, thirty minutes?  I could do it now, if you’d like.  In that spot, it would hurt like a bitch, but something tells me—”

“Pain is no object.”

“Yeah, right, so, if you’re still determined to walk out of here with a tatt, we can do that,” Joey said.

Kaiba smiled, just a tiny bit.  “I’d like that.”

 FIN

 . . .

“For me there's always tomorrow, even when I'm drowning in my sorrows. I gotta focus, gotta rewind, gotta stay the master of my own mind.”

-          Best Coast “Master of My Own Mind”

  The whole fic is really inspired by a difficult time in my life, and this really great Best Coast song, “Master of My Own Mind,” which everyone should listen to, because it’s very compelling.

Credit to my irl boy Jack for the coding tattoo idea that I don’t *think* has been done before! Without him, this would be “hello world” lol!

Like the boys with tattoos? You'd love Alecto's work, "A Fool's Puzzle" (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23464288).

Image credit:  Photo by Sebastian Voortman from Pexels Edits by me.  

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

My laptop is currently updating, so while I have that working in the background, I wanted to share a series of six short, mostly-opera-inspired autobiographical narratives/prose poems I wrote last April and May:

I would kill to have some wine right now.

There is a bottle of red wine sitting on the kitchen counter. My father bought it when he went to the store the other day─ don’t ask me what day it was, I don’t remember, the days already blend together as is─ and I have considered pouring even just a little bit into a glass and downing it.

And then proceeding to throw the glass against the wall and shatter it.

I’ve been contemplating doing that a lot lately.

True, I would kill to have some wine, but if I did go ahead and pour even just a little bit into a glass, and down it, and possibly then proceed to throw the glass against the wall and shatter it, I would most likely be killed before I had the chance to kill.

Kill or be killed. We are all trying our very best to do neither these days, but it happens anyway.

I am sixteen years old. As I start writing this, I am nine days away from turning seventeen. For me, alcohol consumption is thus not only not approved by the Parents, but also illegal. But then again, so is voting blue in the 2020 US Presidential election. That is also something neither approved by the Parents nor legal for me. But I digress.

Thirty-one, twenty-nine, thirty-one again, sixteen now, that makes sixty, ninety-one, one hundred and seven days since I watched one of my classmates get drunk at a New Year’s Eve party. She downed a whole bottle of peach wine (I didn’t even know that was a thing) and looked at me with her red eyes and silver-sequined halter top and curly dark brown hair in a high ponytail. You’re more beautiful than Jesus she told me and you’ll go to the moon on a rocketship. I laughed.

I laugh when something’s so unexpected I can’t do anything else. I laughed when I first heard Notre Dame Cathedral had caught fire because it seemed so ludicrous that I couldn’t do anything else. Notre Dame on fire? You can’t be serious, it can’t be serious.

It was serious.

I’m not sure if she was.

A little part of me wishes she were.

When I was in sixth grade, I told the same girl I thought her hair was luscious. Sixth-grade me didn’t know the word had a sexual connotation; the girl did and was offended.

Maybe a little part of me did know, somehow.

***

As I write this next part, I am working on a paper about state-sponsored censorship. I have picked this topic because it is a fascinating topic, it fits the requirements for the paper─ write about a major global problem─, and because I feel censored myself.

Expressing anything that conflicts with the Parents’ thoughts and opinions is strictly forbidden. If you are different, you are ostracized. I am different, so I am ostracized.

I am too proud, too strong to succumb. But it still hurts.

As I write this, I am listening to Act IV of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, an opera about liberation, appropriate for both me and my paper. At this moment, Hedwige is calling on God, ‘the hope of the hopeless’, to save her husband and break the yoke of oppression that binds Switzerland.

It’s very nice, and the sentiment is good and true, and it works for her and Mathilde and Jemmy and the Swiss women, but it does not work for me. I lost my faith a long time ago. Ironically, it is French grand opéra, the genre to which Guillaume Tell belongs, that is partially responsible for my loss of faith.

It was impossible for me to watch Verdi’s Don Carlos for the first time in eighth grade and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots in tenth and not be horrified by the things people do in the name of religion, to kill people senselessly just because they believe slightly differently than them─ even their own daughters (as is the finale of Les Huguenots).

How can a good God allow such things?

Do I realize these works are fictional? Yes. But do I know they are based on history, on real events? Yes.

“These things are meant to happen; they are all in God’s plan.” Well, can God just not find another way to make what’s meant to happen happen? I cannot believe in a God that allows these things to happen. To say that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God who can allow such things exists is a lie.

***

Now that Guillaume Tell is over, I am listening to another grand opéra, Les vepres siciliennes, albeit in its Italian version, I vespri siciliani. Another opera about occupation and liberation, but a liberation that comes at a horrible cost: the entire French ruling class is massacred by the Sicilians at the end of the opera.

If I didn’t care, I would stage my own personal ‘massacre’: I would turn my back, walk out the front door with the possessions I most needed to survive on my own, and never come back.

But I do care. They may not care, but I do.

One of my greatest curses is that I care about what I care about too much. My heart is too deep to not care.

There are some battles that are not worth being fought.

If a massacre is your only recourse to accomplish something, perhaps you should not do that thing. Or, at least try to find another way.

Right now, I am at the beginning of Act III, at Monforte’s aria “In braccio alle dovizie”. In the original French, it’s called “Au sein de la puissance”. At the breast of power.

Monforte is the hated French governor of Sicily, the revolutionaries’ primary target. When he sings this, he has just learned that one of the main revolutionaries, Arrigo, is his long-lost illegitimate son.

By rape.

‘The breast of power’ indeed.

Just like with a massacre, if rape is your only recourse to accomplish something, perhaps you should not do that thing either.

Just a thought.

I’m a woman. What do I know, in the eyes of many out there?

One of my friends said that Verdi gave Monforte his just deserts, but also overly beautiful music. “He couldn’t help it, though, not when his Dad Music Instincts were activated.”

I feel guilty listening to the aria, even though it is truly a beautiful piece and the recording I’m listening to─ a 1989 recording from the Teatro alla Scala, with Giorgio Zancanaro as Monforte─ is absolutely gorgeous.

Can we separate the music from the character, the art from the artist? I do not know. Everyone has something utterly heinous to someone else. Once we stop separating the art from the artist, where do we begin again? And yet, I do not want to support people who do horrible things to others.

Perhaps it is all relative.

Perhaps everything is.

Perhaps nothing is absolute at all.

That frightens me.

***

Today is Rome’s 2,773rd birthday. As a six-year Latin student and future classics and history double-major, this is cause for celebration.

If things were normal and I were at school, my Latin teacher would bring birthday cake for all the Latin students, and we’d eat it and sing “Felix dies natalis, Roma”. Happy Birthday, Rome.

But things are not normal, and I’m at home multitasking between this and a presentation script for that paper, and still listening to I vespri siciliani.

Now I’m at the end of Act IV. Everyone is celebrating the impending marriage of Arrigo to Duchess Elena, one of the Sicilian revolutionary leaders. Sicilian and French, united at last. Everything is set to work out.

But there’s still Giovanni da Procida, the other major revolutionary leader, who is hellbent on revenge. He sees this wedding as the perfect opportunity to strike down the French once and for all.

And thus, the massacre.

Everything can be set to work out, but there is always something that comes up. A massacre, a pandemic, a set of internal troubles that bring a proud empire to its ruin.

Now I’m in Act V, at Elena’s bolero ‘Merce, dilette amiche’. She has no idea about Procida’s plans; she’s just excited to marry Arrigo and bring peace to her beloved Sicily at last. I think I’m going to change operas again after this is over; the act is rather uneven (though I still very much like it) and I would prefer not to listen to everything falling apart today.

I debate listening to Berlioz’s Les Troyens, the closest thing to an opera about the founding of Rome and a masterpiece itself. But there is still too much about collateral damage for my tastes today: one kingdom falls and another loses its benevolent queen, all in the name of a supposedly greater destiny. And that’s just based on the first third of the Aeneid. I wrote an essay about that first third once for English class, using that thesis; my English teacher said it was one of the best essays he’d ever read. But I digress.

After a quick refresher on the synopsis, I decide to change styles and go with a story from the heyday of the Roman Empire: Handel’s Agrippina. Lots of plotting, but everyone gets what they want in the end and it ends happily for all. No collateral damage here. I am weary of that.

Sometimes I feel like collateral damage.

It’s tough to remember that you’re the master of your own story, not just a side character or a scapegoat in so many others’.

Everyone in this opera knows they’re the masters. That’s the problem. But it ultimately works out.

I want nothing more than for it to work out for me. It hasn’t yet.

But I have a feeling it will.

***

I got maybe halfway through the first act of Agrippina yesterday. I love Baroque opera, but I guess only in small doses.

No matter.

Today I’m listening to the beginning of Act II of Verdi’s Don Carlo. This is the fourth time in a row I’ve listened to it.

I read John Green’s Turtles All The Way Down recently. The main character frequently finds herself stuck in ‘thought spirals’, where she keeps thinking more and more about the same thing. I have those too, although I tend to picture my mind more as a bullet train: it always moves hundreds of miles an hour, faster than I can control, from one thought to the next. I constantly find myself retracing the figurative map of my mind to figure out what I was thinking about, what I need to remember but simply cannot. And it’s like my mind keeps returning to the same stations a lot; these are my equivalent to the spirals.

This opera, this moment, is one of my frequent stations.

Make that five times in a row now. This will be the last, I promise myself.

In this scene, a group of monks chant, praying for the rest of the dead Emperor Charles V, whom, I note with a smile, was himself a character in one of Verdi’s earliest operas, Ernani. In that opera, he sings an aria where he confronts his destiny as the next Holy Roman Emperor. My legacy will live throughout the ages, he sings.

Including in two different Verdi operas.

But there I go again on another bullet-train route.

The monks are singing now, their stark minor-major shifts making me feel as if I am there, in the cloister of San Yuste or in any of the great cathedrals of Spain, looking up into the vaults of the ceiling, of heaven itself, seemingly. The only lights come from candles in my mental picture, and I gaze up, my head uncovered, my mind only partially spellbound, more by the visual beauty and the history than by any religious feeling.

I am a heathen.

I have only been inside a Catholic church once, when I was fourteen; it was an impromptu side trip during a school-sponsored tour of colleges in St. Louis. One of the chaperones said the Cathedral Basilica had can’t-miss art, and thus managed to get a large section of the attendees to come with her.

She was right. It was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. And that was all I thought.

Okay, that’s a lie. I did wonder what it would be like to be able to have faith again, to be able to kneel in one of the pews, and pray, and believe, as my ancestors have done before me; after all, if religion were something you inherited in your blood, then I would be half-Catholic.

But I cannot kneel and pray and believe.

In this scene, one of the monks claims that Charles V fell because he was too proud, because he believed that he was greater than God. If a god exists, I do not claim to be greater than them. I am not perfect, not by a long shot.

He did not die because he did not believe in God. He died because everyone dies, even those who are supposedly the greatest of us.

God alone is great, the monk proclaims. I do not, cannot believe that. We are all great to begin with, but some of us are led to believe we are not.

We are the masters. I must remember that.

And I realize that I have let it play a sixth time.

Sometimes I am not the master of my own mind.

***

The sixth time was the last.

Now I am at the end of the act, listening to the showdown between Filippo II, King of Spain, and Rodrigo, Marquis di Posa. Filippo is the guardian of the way things are; Verdi called Rodrigo an anachronism, and indeed, he was the only principal character who never existed.

Rodrigo, he said, was at least two centuries ahead of his time.

I don’t know what exactly Verdi’s feelings were about this, but personally, I do not think this is a bad thing. Progressivism is often progressivism in any age.

At any rate, Rodrigo, who has recently returned from Spanish-held Flanders, has taken his chance─ a rare private meeting with the King, who is confused as to why Rodrigo has never approached him for favors like all the other courtiers─ to confront him about the horrific conditions of Flanders and its people. Give them liberty, he pleads.

No. I have given them the same peace I have given Spain.

A horrible peace!, Rodrigo fires back. The peace of the tomb!

We should not have to suffer until death.

Let history not say of you, “He was a Nero.” A murderer of innocents, a torturer of the defenseless, an occupier, a denier of liberty─ perhaps the greatest torture of all.

I once watched a video in which a director said, “To live in an occupied country is to live only half a life.” I would say that to live in an occupied country, or even any place where you cannot be free, cannot live fully as yourself, is not even that. It is to barely live at all. It is to merely have a beating heart and breath.

To live in spite of this, to simply be as you wish, is the ultimate act of defiance.

[doomedandstoned]

Nicolas Perrault from Rage of Samedi Taps Deep Emotion in New Solo Effort

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By MelLie

NICOLAS "SCRIOS" PERRAULT -- some of you may have heard this name in the course of the German monster sludgers RAGE OF SAMEDI. German multi-instrumentalist, producer, live audio engineer, creative head in general, and bad-ass bassist of the aforementioned band. Often these artists are mostly referred to us in connection with the bands in which they play and we often know too little about their individual personalities and the solo projects they have to offer. Ashes on our heads!

After six years of walking the path of self-discovery and working on his authenticity as a solo artist, Nicolas has now announced the release of his first full-length album 'Shadows Cast At Dawn' (2020) on May 20th. That's why we should jump at this perfect opportunity to get a foretaste of the new album and take a closer look at Nick Perrault as "singer/songwriter" (a term that somehow doesn't entirely fit him).

With the song "Fires Within," Nick not only offers us a gloomy soul plough, but also a glance into his own soul. It is a gritty absolution punch, with abysmal soundscapes that deal with depression and anxiety. Emotional, melancholic, but in no way melodramatic -- a puristic and minimalistic-looking audio-active encounter with the emotionally frozen world and the breakout of those soul-damaging shackles. Like the Last Judgement runs Nick‘s throaty, heavy, powerful voice through the song and manifests itself like a memorial at the edge of the abyss into which the listener seems to look. This musical work is further underpinned by the impressive video-artwork, which was also created by Nick's own artistic hand.

I hope I have made you a little curious about the excursion into a border area of this heavy genre, which generally receives less attention here, and about the artistic work of Nicolas Perrault. Enjoy the ride through the abyss.

'Fires Within' music video

An Interview with Nicolas Perrault

By MelLie (Doomed & Stoned & Sunday's Heavy Tunes)

First of all, a warm "welcome", on behalf of Doomed & Stoned and our audience, Nick. It's only been a few months since you answered my questions as part of the gang of Rage Of Samedi! But this time, you are in the spotlight with your solo project! It‘s nice to have you here again!

It's an absolute honor to get to do this twice in a single year, so thanks for having me!

Nick, of course I have created my own impression of you in the process of preparing for this interview - at the latest now you still have the chance to escape! (laughs) How would you describe yourself? Who is this guy Nicolas Perrault?

I'm a multi-instrumentalist, tattooer, live audio engineer and producer and slightly sociophobic. So pretty much your average vegan straightedge dude who refuses to get a real job.

What made you decide to sell your soul to the "Devil Of Music"? In other words, how and when did you realize that you were burning with heart and soul to dedicate your life to music?

I've always played instruments, starting with the recorder, then organ and piano, bass, drums, guitar, bagpipes, and everything else. Way back when I joined my first band (a grunge/punk three-piece) and first picked up a bass, I realized I had a lot to say and music quickly became my outlet of choice. So about 18 years ago, but I didn't think of it in terms of a career yet, that only happened roughly six years ago, so I dropped out of university and started to work on my solo project.

You have left some very manifold and genre crossing footsteps on the pilgrimage through your personal music history: PTAH (doom), MOONSAIL (depressive pop-blues), and THRENODIA (black-metal) in former times are on my mind, current side projects are WILLE ZUR MACHT (avangarde) and you are the bass-riffer of Germany's blackened sludge doom monster RAGE OF SAMEDI! To what extent were these different musical influences and band experiences important for your progress as solo-artist?

I've spent a decade and a half working in bands, which would usually split up after a while, when the band became more serious and the others decided they'd rather pursue "real" jobs. So after a couple of those, I grew tired of waiting on the right people and just started working on my own. But every now and then I'd want to experiment with different genres, so I'd start a new project. The reason I'm now releasing under my actual name is that I didn't want to be stuck in one genre. I don't regret any of it, as they shaped who I am and the music I play now.

At the mention of your solo project, I could see the glint in your eyes. May 20th is the day! Let's light a sparkler for a minute! After three released EPs and six years of working as a solo artist, 'Shadows Cast At Dawn' will sail into the world as your first full-length album, which you even produced under the name of your own label Yew & Holly, right? What thoughts shoot spontaneously through your head right now?

Yup. I'm just incredibly excited to finally release this thing! It's been nearly six years and about eight different entire recordings, several changes to the track listing, heck- there are two tracks on the album that I only wrote this year! It's been a long, tedious journey and I'm glad for everything that happened along the way, because it made the final version of the album so much better!

Nick, let's turn the spotlight on the background information for your new album now. How would you describe your it to someone who has never heard your music before and which instruments play a major role?

A genre defying journey through post-modern life in a capitalist reality, focussing on depression and anxiety. Almost all of the songs are two sets of drums, a minute string section of violin and cello plus baritone guitar and vocals, that together create soundscapes so vast you might mistake them for an assassin's creed map.

Listening a little deeper into your work, one does not miss your natural fondness for philosophical thinking -- correct me if I am wrong with my assumption. Where do you get your inspirations from? And is there a message you want to convey to the listeners?

Well, I did study philosophy way back when. I tend to use naval imagery to paint a lyrical picture of depression and bipolar disorder, as a means of sharing the way I experience the world. It's likely not the most accessible thing you will ever hear, but it's a sincere expression of myself and that's really all I can offer.

"Fires Within," btw. Also one of my personal favorites of your album - is the amuse-gueule for our listeners What is the meaning behind this song and what moved you, writing the lyrics for this song?

"Fires" is all about setting boundaries and tearing down unhealthy relationships. If you have people in your life that hold you back instead of supporting you, ditch their ass! They're not worth the time and will poison any creative endeavor. Everyone knows at least a handful of these negative feckers and so did I. I spent years trying to help them get through their shit, but whenever I needed them they'd be more interested in getting drunk.

It's an unburdening from dead weight we carry, a cleansing, if you will. The chorus says "look not towards time, it brings only decay and destruction " and I think this is key to ridding yourself from negativity. Focus on your ultimate goal, that transcends trends and mood swings, that lives beyond time, and let it guide you. Don't stray too much from the path, or these negative influences will be right there waiting to cut you down.

"Fires Within"

Call upon the wind To wipe the surface clean He brings the rain and with it Absolution To carry with it the dust And bittersweet memories lost

Look not towards time To save your soul from fires It brings only decay and with it Destruction The fires burn from within Feast on the sand and it's running thin

Turn away from everything you hold dear To keep yourself safe from despair Cause all they bring is but loss All that remains is darkness when they are all gone Darkness that stretches like shadows cast from a new dawn

I would like to make a short swerve to the album cover. It is the wonderful artwork of Maryland based illustrator Luke Martin (Suburban Avenger Studios) who counts some famous musicians among his clients (Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, Red Hot Chili Pepper and others). How does the artwork relate to "Shadows Cast To Dawn"?

I've been a huge fan of Luke's work for years and a while ago he posted this picture to his Instagram. I was looking for something very specific to use as an album cover at the time. I needed it to evoke claustrophobia and a feeling of being safe inside whilst at the same time showing an outside, detached from the rest, just out of reach.

So imagine my jaw dropping as I saw this picture for the first time. It just struck me. So I wrote Luke, if he'd sell it. He had never sold a photograph before (plenty of awesome illustrations, though) so needless to say, I was very happy he did. He basically captured exactly what I had conceptualized -- that it's an actual photograph just makes it even better, as the concept is very much abstract but now has an actual physical representation.

The title "Shadows Cast At Dawn" was something that I had floating around in my head for ever. So when I began to work on the album that became the working title. Since I've worked on it for so long, that title has- in a way- effected everything I wrote, so it seemed to fit perfectly by the end.

Is there a special favourite place where you prefer to let your ideas mature? - a kind of soul-flyer place? I know you live in a small, rather idyllic place and not in a vibrant artists' metropolis! Whereby this way of living has advantages as well as disadvantages for an artist, right?

I love forests, oceans and mountains, so I'm pretty much alright with any surroundings, as long as I can escape civilization from time to time. Living out in the countryside allows me to focus, as you pretty much know where to find people, if you're looking for company but at the same time, you know where you are less likely to be found.

Sure, I need to travel a lot more to get anywhere and there aren't as many connections to be made face to face, but digitalization has granted us loners access to that aspect of life from the comfort of our homes, so I'd say it really depends on what you need to stay sane.

With the release of this album, you could now realize one of your dreams. Do we have another sparkler to light? What else do you have in the works? Are there any future plans that float in space? Or do you still carry around another big dream in your head?

I've already started recording for the next album, so fingers crossed that this time it won't take as long. Apart from that, I really want to tour the world, but circumstances aren't exactly ideal for that, at the moment. Apart from the music, I also tattoo and paint and hope to be doing more of that alongside music in the future. So if y'all wanna get some ink, hit me up!

Thanks a lot Nick, for giving us a deeper insight into your solo project and the things that move you! It's been very entertaining having this conversation with you here. We all will keep our eyes upon Nicolas "Scrios" Perrault in anticipation of your success!

Thank you very much, Mel, it's been my pleasure!

Leave Me To The Waves by Nicolas Perrault

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[thechocobros]

Wasn't it Nomura's fault Versus 13 never came out in the first place though?

It’s almost 2019 and people still think that what happened to Versus is all Nomura’s fault? Even after all what happened last week in Square Enix? Listen, son. That is probably one of the funniest metropolitan legends going around on the internet. Let me try to be objective and explain you. 

EVIDENCE UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start from the basis. What kind of person is Nomura? Is he really such an inconclusive person like most of the Tabata-stans like to think? Hard enough. He’s the creator and director of the Kingdom Hearts saga, which counts at least 10 games/movies/phone games, has a super complex yet completed plot, colloborated with freaking Disney and brought millions of dollars to the Square Enix company. He produced and did the character design for another successful title, The World Ends With You. He did the character design for a BUNCH of Final Fantasy characters, he even directed Advent Children movie, cooperated with Sakaguchi and Kitase for years… i mean, that’s what i call a curriculum. So, think with your own brain: can a person like this really be the single responsible for what happened to Versus?

Of course, Nomura isn’t jesus christ, and he has indeed a weird personality, like most of artists have. For ex, he’s an introvert, he’s very sensitive, he has his complex vision of things, he isn’t really able to endure a lot of pressure and he needs time to figure out things. Also, he doesn’t apparently like to be forced to do what other people say. This type of personality caused him a couple of troubles in the past, since Square Enix liked to have such an artist bringing money to the company, but at the same time kinda hated not being able to control him.

In fact, that’s more or less what happened according to a lot of articles and interviews collected in the last years (and if you can read italian, message me and i’ll give you even more sources): 

When Nomura started to work on ff13versus, there were a lot of things going on in Square Enix. Three major games were supposed to form the ambitious Fabula Crystallis saga and Nomura was glad to take the direction of ffxiii versus. He dreamt big about it: since it was not a numbered chapter, he really wanted to make it different, with extremist themes and innovative gameplay. Nomura invested a LOT in the Versus game, especially on the emotional level (if you saw him during the rare interviews of that time,you would know it. Nomura gets extremely vulnerable whenever it comes about his own creations). For this kind of project, he clearly needed a lot of money and staff and Square Enix initially promised it to him. 

Was Nomura a naive idealist in dreaming out loud? He certainly was.

Because Square Enix had other priorities. For example, the engines.Play Station 3 offered great opportunities but the research team to work on the new engine was formed only after the Fabula Crystallis saga’s announcement, which lead to a literal race against time from the very start. Nomura admitted immediately that the engine wasn’t ready to stand at the level of what he wanted to do(which was VERY ambitious)but Square Enix wanted anyway to present the next games even if it was very soon. When the engine, named “Crystal Tools” was kinda ready, a huge group of people started to work on FFXIII. When i say huge, i mean huge. Nomura was left alone with few people in his department and of course he did what he can with the staff he had until 2008.As a matter of fact, in 2008, Nomura had already arranged almost everything in the plot and in the concept design and in the trailer that was showed during the same year the chocobros and Stella made their first appearance, but … the game didn’t have basically anything else. Just the plot and the concept. Too many things had to be done, and nobody was ready to make them. In fact, Square Enix was focusing on FFXIV, which was back then a huge flop to be saved. For years Square Enix struggled with this problem, took staff and money away from Nomura in order to save the online game that couldn’t compete with other games of that time. I said this in simple words, but the operations connected to FFXIV had  disastrous consequences on Versus. Here we’re talking again about engines, programs, obsolete platform etc etc: all these things mean nothing for most of us fans, but they’re extremely important for games development. Square Enix’s dark time began in 2011 and ended in 2013, with millions of dollars damage. Not only Versus was a victim of the attempts of saving FFXIV, also other titles. 

In all this mess, Nomura released again a long Versus trailer, but he said once again that no matter how detailed the trailer looked, the project was far from being started. Nomura even said to “forget about Versus”, because he knew that he had no possibilities to work on it. He was alone with a couple of people, how was he supposed to work on it? No money, no staff. Yeah, what would you have done in his place? 

Nomura wasn’t happy about this messy situation. Because of it, he “broke up” with Yoshida, he basically didn’t make any appearance in 2011 and 2012, he basically had a depressive phase. In spite of this, he managed to focus on another important title like Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (@ KH fans: DDD was written in Nomura’s dark time and this may explain a lot of things lol)

No matter how horrible this impasse was, Nomura still was deeply attached to FFXIII VERSUS. In those years, in a sort of desperation act he considered the possibility of turning the versus game into an action game, or even a musical. Anything, but to renounce to this project. 

Then, Play Station 3 reached his death time, and Play Station 4 raised. To say it in simple words, almost all the work they did on Versus had to be thrown away, because Square Enix decided to move the game on the new console. 

Back then, Hajime Tabata’s team was the only one free after the release of FF Type-0, so Yoichi Wada decided to integrate Nomura’s team with it. Tabata and Nomura were a good team at the beginning, actually. One was pragmatic, the other visionary, they were supposed to be the perfect combination. 

But …  in 2012 Square Enix lost 105 millions of euros, Square Enix’s CEO Yoichi Wada resigned and Yosuke Matsuda took over. Square Enix really needed to change things for good and start anew, so in 2013 they quickly announced Kingdom Hearts III and FFXV to try to hype fans again. 

FFXIII VERSUS - now FFXV - was presented at the E3 in 2013 with another trailer, but again the trailer was deceptive. because it was realized completely in CGI. In fact, the game would have been completely changed in the next years. In spite of this, Nomura finally seemed to have a good time thanks to it and to Kingdom Hearts III announcement. 

But after the E3, Nomura’s presence in the FFXV department started to weaken— 

And then, the new CEO Yosuke Matsuda reorganized entirely the Square Enix departments. So after 7 years, Nomura was moved away from the FFXV’s direction and replaced with Tabata before he could even take a breath. It was just the CEO’s decision. Matsuda thought that two other projects needed Nomura the most, aka KINGDOM HEARTS 3 and FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE.

If we want to be honest, though, we are forced to admit that “we take you away from ffxv because kh3 and ffviiremake need you more” was just an excuse to hide something more painful that happened inside the Square Enix’s building walls. For years, Square Enix refused to explain things in detail, Tabata himself said with a cold expression that it was a decision the “high places” took. 

All we can notice is that after 2013, Nomura clearly started to reject every FFXV’s mention. He acted all along like Versus was his baby and really was offended when Square Enix took it away from him. 

What happened after is history: Tabata completely overturned the game concept, the story needed to be rewritten and some scenes and characters were repurposed or removed. Final Fantasy XV sold well at the beginning (more than 8 milions copies i think?) but mostly because it was advertised for 10 years straight. As a matter of fact, the hype slowly dissapeared update after update, and yes, the DLCs didn’t go well as expected and actually caused a big loss to the Square Enix company, which lead to Tabata’s resignation.

So, long story short.

Whatever was the real reason beyond the change of director in FFXV, point is that Nomura wasn’t fired, he was promoted with even more responsability. So, if his contribute to Square Enix was really so terrible, wouldn’t he be forced to reseign like Yoichi Wada and Hajime Tabata? yeah, that’s something you should think about. 

Most of Final Fantasy XV fans who blame Nomura for Versus’ failure don’t even know half of the things i wrote above. They just contribute to spread this stupid rumor, without having any source. 

You can like FFXV, you can like Tabata etc, but truth is that this game has been run very wastefully for 12 years by the SQUARE ENIX COMPANY AS A WHOLE. 

FFXIII VERSUS, NOMURA, FFXV AND EVEN TABATA… THEY ALL SUFFERED AS A RESULT. 

Reblog to stop ignorance. 

[claudioseraph]

Yall wanna see my very rough rewrite of the tekken story where things remain mainly the same but I try to keep it sensible jk I’m posting it now and you have no choice but to witness Keep in mind a lot of characters are yet to be mentioned or expounded upon and I also started it with the mood of a youtube vid where you’d be listening to someone but it’s slowly turning into more of a wiki page. I’m at tekken 3 so far and I’ve been bouncing back and forth on the actual Tekken wiki page trying to get my info straight. Also trying to create the illusion that Heihachi MIGHT be a good guy like the series seemed to play with every now and again, or he might just want people to think he’s a good guy.

Let’s start at the beginning; with the young Heihachi and Kazumi meeting for the first time as she enrolls in Jinpachi’s dojo. Jinpachi and Heihachi are impressed by her ability to adapt to both her own Hachijo style Karate and Mishima style fighting arts. From here, Kazumi is but a carefully-placed plant, her current objective being to watch over Heihachi because of the risk of him causing destruction to the world. Kazumi does eventually begin to harbor real, genuine feelings for him, though, and as such the two get married. It’s from here that the warning signs really start to show, though Kazumi tries to ignore them despite her original purpose. Heihachi insists his father end his focus on fighting arts to instead focus the Mishima Zaibatsu on producing weapons and engaging in matters of warfare so that their name continues to have strength when what he sees as outdated fighting techniques are no longer relevant. Jinpachi refuses, and as such asserts that Heihachi will never inherit the Mishima Zaibatsu. By now, Kazumi is even more hesitant as she is pregnant with Kazuya and understands that if Heihachi does become a threat as foretold, so too will Kazuya. She does her best to persuade Heihachi to change his mind about the direction of the zaibatsu, doing her best to change his ways while dancing around the whole “my family foretold you would bring death and destruction to the world” angle. Heihachi assures her that he’s only concerned with his family’s name and status, not being a war monger. Kazumi “believes” him. Things calm down for a time, enough for Kazuya to be born and live a normal life until age 5. Heihachi still harbors outward resentment towards Jinpachi, and the two are all but estranged. Heihachi still keeps an eye on the company as Jinpachi’s health begins to decline and it becomes clear he’s nearing his end. Around this time, Kazumi’s devil gene is beginning to activate, seeing as the chance of Heihachi gaining ownership of the zaibatsu and enacting his plans for it is still very prominent. She does her best to fight it off but is overtaken by a fever one night which leads to the events shown in Tekken 7 of her transforming and revealing her true purpose to him before being killed. Kazuya witnesses only her death, and is understandably confused and angry. Heihachi is in no place to console Kazuya and instead responds in kind with anger. After Kazuya isolates himself Heihachi recalls that Kazumi revealed that she was not only sent to kill Heihachi, but would have to kill Kazuya as well, and wonders where that puts Kazuya in all of this. Did he inherit the same abilities? Would he stand against Heihachi in the future? Or would they work together? Rather than immediately casting Kazuya out, Heihachi intends to see what path Kazuya takes. He still lacks the emotional availability/complexity to properly raise Kazuya after the rift in their relationship and things are rocky between them to say the least. Kazuya doesn’t believe any excuse Heihachi gives him for killing his mother, but as he’s only a child there isn’t much he can do to retaliate. Jinpachi dies a year later and is burred under Hon Maru. Heihachi forcibly takes control of the Mishima Zaibatsu. Knowing this was against Jinpachi’s wishes and having been close to his grandfather, this only widens the rift between Kazuya and Heihachi. [Heihachi swiftly begins to use the zaibatsu to investigate a god of fighting rumored to be lying dormant somewhere in the world. This sends Mr. Chang to America where he falls in love with Mrs. Chang and Michelle is born.] Heihachi still intends to raise Kazuya to be a formidable fighter, and adopts Lee into the family specifically for the purpose of giving Kazuya a rival. Thinking it over, Heihachi decides that even if Lee isn’t a fitting rival, he’d raise him to stand against Kazuya alongside him should things go that way. Lee is more receptive to the ins and outs of business, to manipulation for the sake of his own gain, and Heihachi uses that to give him an edge against Kazuya. Understanding Lee and Kazuya’s seperate skill sets, Heihachi sends Lee to America on business while he sends Kazuya out to participate in  tournaments across the world. Lee meets Paul and Law while in America and trains alongside them. After Lee has returned to Japan, Kazuya meets with and fights to a draw against Paul in America. [Mr. Chang dies when, under threat of death, he begins to unearth Ancient Ogre. His death is covered up by the zaibatsu and when Michelle, 18, learns of this she joins the tournament to exact revenge against Heihachi.] In their 20s, Lee and Kazuya begin to conspire against Heihachi to wrest control of the Mishima Zaibatsu. Their union is shaky at best as both plan to head the zaibatsu in spite of the other, but they unify long enough to participate in the Tekken tournament Heihachi organizes with the intention of defeating him. (The tradition of fighting tournaments initially began as a smaller ordeal under Jinpachi, and Heihachi is only currently organizing a fighting tournament to keep the Mishima name in the spotlight). Lee, Paul, and Law meet again (outside of matches) and Lee learns that Paul has faced Kazuya before. Kazuya eliminates Paul from the tournament but in a show of good naturedness the two stay on good terms as rivals as Kazuya appreciates Paul’s strength. Eventually, Lee and Kazuya are pitted against one another. Kazuya emerges victorious and reveals to no one’s surprise that he never intended to share control of the zaibatsu with Lee. He does, however, offer Lee a lesser position. Lee finds that his pride is more damaged from losing to his brother than he’d expected, and he declines Kazuya’s offer. [Nina joins the tournament under orders to assassinate Heihachi but is defeated by Anna, who is then defeated by Paul.] Kazuya continues to the final stage against Heihachi, who is equal parts pleased with his son’s strength and cautious of it. Kazuya is nearly overwhelmed by Heihachi, who is fighting with his all, until the devil gene within him is activated and grants him immense power. Heihachi is overwhelmed both by Kazuya’s strength and by the revelation that he has inherited his mother’s ability. Feeling truly paternal for only a moment, Heihachi attempts to console Kazuya and explain to him the origin of this new power, intending to help and protect him the way he failed to with Kazumi. Kazuya, on the other hand, quickly abates his confusion and realizes that his power means he can no longer be subjected to feeling helpless the way he had as a child and under Heihachi’s strict and oftentimes cruel “parenting”. This power goes to Kazuya’s head, and he quickly dispatches Heihachi, disposing of his body off of a cliff near his childhood home in a mostly symbolic gesture. [Kazuya meets Ganryu in this tournament after the sumo is defeated by Yoshimitsu. He recognizes his strength (despite not seeing him as an equal) and appoints him as his body guard after taking control of the Zaibatsu. Kazuya extends the same offer to Paul but Paul respectfully declines in favor of traveling the world in order to become stronger. Kazuya learns of Heihachi’s search for Ancient Ogre and continues where he’d left off, sending Ganryu to attain an amulet currently in possesion of Michelle Chang that has some connection to the fighting god. Ganryu fails, falls in love with Michelle, and never returns. Ganryu’s abandonment is no great loss to Kazuya.] As Kazuya gains power of the Mishima Zaibatsu, Lee isolates himself in the wilderness to train. It is here that he meets Wang Jinrei, a skilled martial artist who knows of Lee’s connection to the Mishima family. Wang offers to train Lee in exchange for Lee bringing about the end of the Mishima clan as he, like Jinpachi and the Hachijo family, foresees the destruction they will bring to the world. When Lee tells Wang that Heihachi is already dead by Kazuya’s hands, Wang reveals that he can still feel Heihachi’s energy and that he has not yet been killed. Lee agrees to do what he must so long as it means becoming stronger than Kazuya, unaware of how Heihachi’s intentions of creating a division between the two had deeply affected his psyche. As leader of the zaibatsu, Kazuya organizes another tournament two years later to test his ability in battle. His power has gone to his head and he has become even more millitaristic than Heihachi, planning to seize control over all of Japan after he has ascertained the limits of his strength. He has also ordered genetic experiments on living creatures to understand the effects of the Devil Gene. His collective actions draw the ire of wildlife conservationalist Jun Kazama, and she joins the tournament in order to stop Kazuya. Jun is also able to sense the evil habituated within Kazuya, and intends to dispell it from his body to keep he and the world around him safe. Meanwhile, Heihachi has recovered and healed, sharpening his skills before the tournament in order to stop Kazuya, whom he no longer sees as his son but as a demon. Lee joins the tournament only to be defeated by Heihachi, whom he is still surprised to find alive despite Wang Jinrei’s words. Lee is then officially expelled from the Mishima clan. Jun meets with Kazuya outside of matches to arrest him, but instead convinces him to end his experiments on animals. While Kazuya initially intends to cast her aside he is drawn in by her strength and bravery, as well as the strange calm that overcomes him whenever she’s near him. Jun is then able to see that there is some good in Kazuya still, and takes an interest in him as well. Kazuya becomes compelled to act on her wishes and ends the animal experimentation. He never vocalizes it but Jun knows that Kazuya has the intention of changing his ways and as such Jun forfeits the tournament, seeing no need to proceed. [Nina is again sent to assassinate Kazuya and fails due to Anna’s intervention after she became his body guard (alongside Bruce*) for the sole purpose of stopping her sister. Nina is captured and used in Dr. Bosconovitch’s* experiments which would put her into a deep cryosleep. Seeing no fun in living without her rival around for years, Anna volunteers to also take part in the experiments.] Any intention Kazuya had of changing is swiftly brought to an end once Heihachi reveals himself to still be alive. Kazuya is defeated and Heihachi regains control over the Zaibatsu. In an attempt to assure Kazuya’s demise, Heihachi throws his body into an active volcano. Lee distances himself from Mishima matters. Jin is born months later after a tumultuous pregnancy wherin Jun had to ward off the influence of the devil gene. Jun recieves word of Kazuya’s demise but senses that he may still be alive. She believes that Heihachi was only acting for what he believed to be the greater good and harbors no ill will towards him. To protect Jin and reconnect with her spiritual energy she raises him in semi-seclusion, teaching him Kazama-style fighting arts in an attempt to continue protecting his soul from the devil presence. When Jin turns 15 Jun has a premonition of her own demise and as such instructs Jin to seek out Heihachi should anything happen to her, being estranged from her own family after her father’s death and unable to reach out to them. Her premonition comes true as a newly-awakened Ancient Ogre attacks them and presumably kills her. Jin assumes as much when he awakens after the attack, their home burned to the ground and neither Jun nor Ogre anywhere in sight. [Ogre’s appearance awakens Anna and Nina, Nina having lost all her memories of Anna and their rivalry. Anna, as such, attempts to remake their relationship to avoid becoming rivals with her again, realizing that they only really have each other. Nina is unfortunately possesed and controlled by Ogre, making that impossible.] With some difficulty, Jin does find Heihachi who takes him in with minimal questions. Having been mostly isolated Jin is ill prepared for city life and instead spends most of his time training, which Heihachi is unopposed to. Jin knows nothing about Kazuya and Heihachi’s falling out and is subsequently unsuspicious of Heihachi’s possible response to the devil gene dormant within him. Heihachi does consider raising Jin properly, but remembers how Kazuya had easily turned on him once his devil gene was activated. Heihachi properly enrolls Jin into Mishima Polytechnic and Jin is very receptive to his lessons. Heihachi sends Jin on small business trips once Jin is old enough in order to test his business savvy, and on one of these trips Jin meets and fights to a draw against Hwoarang. In the years after the second tournament, Heihachi had been using the zaibatsu to regain the support of the public by way of creating the Tekken Force which was sent worldwide on good will missions to provide aid to impoverished nations. This force was, at the same time, searching for any evidence of Ancient Ogre. It isn’t until 15 years later that one of their expeditions properly unearths Ogre, who wipes out the team. Word reaches Heihachi of Ogre’s appearance just before Jin is sent to him. For the next four years Heihachi trains Jin as a possible weapon to use against Ogre while trying to again ascertain the monster’s whereabouts. He sees the pattern of Ogre’s appearances; only appearing to face strong fighters, and organizes the third Tekken tournament in order to draw Ogre out and obtain his power. [Baek was one of the fighters to have been unfortunately confronted by Ogre, and this pushes Hwoarang to join the third tournament to obtain his revenge and settle the score against Jin.] [Paul receives an invitation to the third tournament and joins to test his mettle against his rival’s son and father. While he never meets with Jin or Heihachi, he does defeat Kuma and Ancient Ogre. He leaves the tournament prematurely to find more challenges, not realizing Ancient Ogre had been revitalized as True Ogre.] Jin and Hwoarang meet at the third tournament and once again fight to a draw. Jin is allowed to continue on through the next stages and Hwoarang is forced to return to Korea for his mandatory military service. Jin meets with Heihachi next, who claims to want to test his strength before Jin continues. In reality, he wishes to fight in order to draw out Ogre. This plan works, as a weakened Ogre appears and is swiftly defeated by an enraged Jin. At his second defeat, Ogre takes Heihachi’s power and becomes True Ogre, whom Jin also defeats with terrifying power. Regaining consciousness just long enough to see this, Heihachi then knows that Jin has inherited the same devil power as Kazuya. As he’s calming himself from the fight, Heihachi takes the chance to shoot Jin, then calls in the Tekken Force soldiers to retrieve his body. However, Jin reawakens as Devil Jin and

[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘If Memory Serves’ Review

Spock: "I am not here to absolve you, Michael Burnham."

By nature I love brevity: Star Trek: Discovery plays to its strengths here, delivering a well-paced, measured episode that hits on the nostalgia factor in just the right ways. 'If Memory Serves' is a noticeable improvement over the rest of this season, which was in turn already an improvement over the previous season.

The first and probably most notable quality of this episode is the nostalgic air it has. From the very retro 'Previously on Star Trek' segment at the beginning, bringing us up to speed on the events of 'The Cage,' to the well-placed sound and music cues from the same episode, 'If Memory Serves' displays a clear and respectful knowledge of what's come before. Yet there is the distinct sense that something new is being accomplished, that we're not just uselessly retreading the past. This can be seen in the technical upgrades given to the Talosians, their singing plants, and the planet itself. Not only this, we're going deeper, if not to new places, with Pike and Vina. Anson Mount and Melissa George effectively recapture the old dynamic that Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver brought, but they also lend new aspects to the relationship. Vina, it seems, is happy with the illusory Pike that she's been provided, as 'The Cage' and 'The Menagerie' implied, yet throughout Melissa George's performance there is a tinge of longing for the real thing. Pike can't seem to get Vina out of his head, and his deep-seated desire to return to her is clear in this episode. This new connection to the characters also makes 'The Menagerie' all the more resonant.

We'll get to Burnham and Spock in a moment, but first I want to explore the stuff with Culber and Stamets. I've said for a while now that Culber's character in Season One existed really only in service of Stamets' character. Culber wasn't really all that much of a character in his own right. But here, since his return, the writers and Wilson Cruz have given Culber a depth and an arc that he never had before. I'm just sorry that poor Stamets has to suffer the consequences of this. I can definitely see where they are both coming from here. The loss of Culber was so devastating for Stamets, and his return so filled with joy and hope, that of course he would be overeager and take things too fast or too far. Another viewer pointed out to me that Stamets is very good at helping other people with their emotional and relational problems, but he doesn't seem to have the same clarity when it comes to his own. This is all too human. Likewise, Culber feels like a stranger in his own skin. The need to be himself, combined with the feeling that he's not himself anymore, would of course compel him to make changes and shifts in his life. Despite the temporary rift, I don't think it's over for Stamets and Culber. The good doctor will have to figure out who he is now that he has returned, but once he does so, I expect he will return to his love.

Poor Ash Tyler is becoming more and more a victim of his circumstances as time goes on. First he had to deal with the fact that he had betrayed his entire crew without his knowledge, and he's still reaping the consequences of that. He must also face the fact that another person is lurking inside his psyche, just waiting to come out. This is visible in his defensive fight with Dr. Culber. If Tyler had been more aggressive, if he'd attacked Culber more directly, it's possible that Voq would have come out, and he has no idea what will happen in that case. Let's just say for now that it's a bad idea to proVoq him, and leave it at that. And now he must deal with the mistrust of the entire crew, for something he didn't do. Though I don't expect it to last long, as evil Airiam's reveal appears to be next episode, this will have to really damage the tentative trust he's built with Captain Pike all this season.

It doesn't help matters that his superiors at Section 31 are becoming less trustworthy by the minute. Leland and Georgiou seem to be headed for a substantial standoff, and I'm honestly not sure whose victory would be worse for the crew. Georgiou is upstaging Leland at every turn, even garnering more respect from the Admiralty, and Leland has to be frustrated. I wonder if the boiling point will be reached this season, or if we'll have to wait for the Section 31 series to see the conclusion of this storyline.

This brings us to the main event - Burnham and Spock. Their relationship has been set up as the focal point of the season since 'Brother,' and so far it has not disappointed. The scene where young Burnham hurt young Spock felt very real, and every word hurt because of how we know it must have damaged Spock. Burnham represented Spock's human side, and when she burned him to get him to stay away from her, he rejected his humanity also and dove deep into his Vulcan, logical half. Now that logic has failed to help him make sense of what the Angel showed him, Spock is a broken man searching for something to ground him. I expect that in the end, Burnham will be right; her relationship with Spock will be the thing that ties him to reality. In time, Spock will realize that his relationships in general are his guiding star, with the help of a certain up-and-coming young starship captain and his crew.

I have to give props to T.J. Scott for his direction here. Unlike many of the recent episodes, Scott's fancy camerawork and effects serve a legitimate artistic purpose, like the tilting, twisting camera during the Section 31 sequences to emphasize the uncertain and shifting world of 31, or the lens flares that accompanied Talosian illusions. The episode also spends an appropriate amount of time on the key emotional moments, something that episodes like 'Saints of Imperfection' have failed to do. The pace here is slow and measured, which is a relief after the frantic and rushed feeling of the last few episodes.

Strange New Worlds:

Talos IV first appeared in the unaired pilot of TOS, 'The Cage.' The rendering of the planet in this episode looked very similar to the painting used for it in the original episode.

New Life and New Civilizations:

The Talosians had a huge war on their planet, which drove them underground. When they developed their remarkable mental powers, they became addicted to the pleasures illusion could provide and forgot how to interact with the real world. The illusions they present to anyone who approaches Talos IV help them to relearn, and they are still searching for someone to learn their technology and save their race.

Pensees:

-According to Melissa George, she recorded some of Vina's original lines from 'The Cage,' which were then dubbed in alongside Susan Oliver's voice in the recap at the beginning.

-I'm pretty sure this is Pike's first Captain's log. Come to think of it, I don't think Lorca ever did it either.

-Dang it, more Vulcan Admirals. Look, guys, if Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet, and the only one at the time of TOS, there can't be Vulcan admirals.

-I loved Tilly leaning out of her 'office' on the bridge.

-The sound effects for the singing plants and the Talosians' illusions, as well as some of the music cues, were taken from 'The Cage.'

-Spock has been experiencing time as fluid due to the Red Angel.

-Spock mind-melded with the Angel, revealing to him that whoever is in the suit is human.

-The ships that blew up all those planets in Spock's vision looked an awful lot like the upgraded probe from 'Light and Shadows' last week. Hmmmm...

-Mental hospitals in television shows should really give their patients paper in addition to writing utensils. Just a thought.

-Of course, Spock didn't kill the people he's accused of killing. Did 31 kill them when they got there?

-Were those Reno's drones cleaning up from Culber and Tyler's fight?

-Starbase 11 is two lightyears from Talos IV

-I don't think we've seen two ships get a transporter lock on the same person at the same time before.

-I liked Burnham cocking the eyebrow at Spock's smile.

Quotes:

Georgiou: "Why would I lie?" This was only funny because of who was saying it.

Vina: "In some ways, Captain Pike never left."

Stamets: "I think what you're experiencing is a form of neutralizing shock." Culber: "It's not that simple, Paul!"

Spock: "Is there a valuable question in your arsenal?" Burnham: "Yes. Do you really think the beard is working?"

Pike: "This is real." Vina: "As real as it needs to be."

Culber: "I'm not letting anyone fix what I feel."

Illusion-Burnham: "Say goodbye, Spock." Illusion-Spock: "Goodbye, Spock." Anyone else glad this was an illusion? I saw it in a promo, and it didn't feel right. That's more of a Data line.

Georgiou: "Those Talosians tried this trick with me in the Terran universe once, and I blew them, and their stupid singing plants, off the face of the planet."

Best of the season so far. 5.5 out of 6 stupid singing plants.

CoramDeo is an ugly bag of mostly water, and proud of it.

[shirlleycoyle]

Pornhub’s Content Purge Has Left Fetish Creators Wondering What’s Next

Before the purge that disappeared more than 75 percent of content on the platform, Pornhub hosted a lot of videos and photos that weren’t humans having sex. There were full-length movies, memes, and video game playthroughs that you might see on a non-adult site like Twitch, but there was also a ton of animation, 3D renderings, audio erotica, music videos, fanfic from furries and bronies, and stop-motion animation like LEGO minifigs fucking. 

Pornhub became a dumping ground and safe harbor for a lot of stuff, and a lot of these creators didn't necessarily want to upload a photo of themselves to a huge porn corporation's database in order to get verified. They were just throwing things on the site for fun, to share with others in their respective communities, and the wider world. Compared to a site like Milovana (an adult message board and the birthplace of Cock Hero, videos of which are mostly gone from Pornhub now) or the furry fan art forum e621, Pornhub was a way to reach a more mainstream audience. With last week’s action, a lot of that stuff is now gone.

For victims of abusive imagery and non-consensual porn, as well as anyone who's had to deal filing takedown requests for pirated content uploaded to Pornhub, the removal of unverified content is a positive: between Pornhub's new policy for only allowing content partners and performers in the model program to upload and download, and the retroactive suspension of all this content pending review, the platform seems to be making long-overdue changes that sex workers and victim advocates alike have asked for. But by applying a blanket solution to a complex problem, it's caught small, independent creators from niche communities in its net. 

Several creators told me that Pornhub's damage-control scramble has created issues for verified users, locked many unverified creators out of their own content, and left many more wondering whether there's even a future for indie and fetish works on the site.

“It was a betrayal”

In a month when sex on the internet is being attacked from all sides—from Instagram's new terms of service, to TikTok kicking sex workers off the platform, to payment processors leaving Pornhub—some creators are concerned that losing one of the most popular porn sites in the world as a platform is another blow against fetish and outside-the-mainstream content on the internet as a whole. 

For a lot of creators, Pornhub's melting pot was a source of inspiration for artists, Lifty and Sylox, hosts of the Furry Frequencies podcast, told me in an email. "Many of the videos that were uploaded onto Pornhub from the furry community were sexual videos of furries partaking in sexual acts in fursuit," they said—which could include videos of furries in fullsuit with “strategically-placed holes” performing solo or with one or more partners. "Some furries perform with just their fursuit head, handpaws, and feetpaws to provide better nude content. An unverified, but significant amount of this content catered to specific fetishes of the furry community, such as feet fetishism or watersports." 

"Furries won't abandon PornHub immediately," Lifty and Sylox said, noting that more creators will likely migrate to Onlyfans or communities like Furaffinity to post content. "Changes like this tend to take time before the effects can be measured… PornHub's status as a repository for one-stop furry porn content will eventually diminish significantly." 

It's not just illustrators and furries who have lost Pornhub as a platform in the last week. Audio erotica creator Goddess By Night told me that she lost all of her content—about 40 videos. She's been making audio erotica for five years, and in the last two she'd made a business out of it. She makes Gentle Female Dominant and Dominant Mommy-themed stories, as well as Futanari role play and other kink-related fantasies.

"Most of my work is a niche within the adult entertainment industry, and Pornhub allowed me to reach a broader audience, so it’s a pretty significant loss," she said. "However, my community has been incredibly supportive and intend to follow me to the next platform(s) I choose. I don’t plan on returning to Pornhub because of this. It was a betrayal, especially to the loads of creators they explicitly welcomed after Tumblr’s ban two years ago. I know some creators who lost work that they may never get back because Pornhub didn’t offer a grace period."

Each of the creators I talked to, whether they were verified or unverified, said that they weren't given any warning before Pornhub's content suspension took place. Pornhub used the word "suspension," not "deletion," and told Motherboard at the time of the suspension announcement that this meant content would be "removed pending verification and review." 

Creators whose content was removed saw a message in place of their uploads that explained the video was "flagged for verification" and invited them to apply for the Model Program or Content Partner Program in order to re-enable the videos, or wait for the new verification process to start in 2021.

They were locked out of their own content at that point and were unable to even download it from the platform.

When Tumblr removed all NSFW content from its platform in December 2018—similarly for allegations it hosted child sexual abuse imagery, but also to appease Apple—the social media platform gave creators about two weeks of notice to get their stuff off the site. Pornhub's announcement came at 7 a.m. EST on a Monday and went into effect immediately. By the time most people saw the news, the suspensions were underway, and more than 10 million uploads were gone by 9 a.m.

This is especially bitter news for creators who, in 2018, took Pornhub up on its invitation to move to the platform from Tumblr.

"Amusingly [Pornhub was] very happy to take advantage of the Tumblr refugees back when all that went down, inviting us to upload all our galleries there," adult content illustrator IzzyBSides told me in a Twitter message. "I think most of us on Twitter know we're living on borrowed time, people have backup accounts set up and occasionally plug them to their followers letting them know to follow it in case their main account randomly disappears overnight."

Because the mass suspensions were meant as a broad solution to get unlawful, abusive content on the site under control, allowing users to download their content would miss the point of stopping the spread of any abusive imagery. But the move also meant that a lot of content that wasn’t abusive and fell well within Pornhub's terms of service was removed in the process. People didn't have the chance to choose whether they wanted to pack their bags and go elsewhere. If they want to recover their own content, they'll have to play by Pornhub's verification rules, which have yet to be announced and won't start until sometime early next year.

One animator who asked to remain anonymous told me that they lost about 20 videos, "including story animations, which I loved very much …This was sad for me as the videos were deleted without warning," they said, but added that they luckily had a backup of their videos saved to their hard drives. "However, I didn't have any income from Pornhub, so it's okay, the videos are saved and I'll just move them to another site." 

That illustrator wasn't verified, but even being a verified user didn't save some people from the purge. Pornhub's policy changes were intended to skip over verified accounts, but some users still saw their verified content taken down.

“Sex workers are under attack everywhere”

Another confusing aspect of Pornhub's cleaning spree is the effect it has had on verified creators and performers. Many have reported on Twitter that some of their verified content has been disappeared, seemingly at random, even while other uploads have stayed online. Others in the comments of Pornhub's own verification policy page say that they were verified, but now they aren't. From the outside, there seems to be no consistent reasoning for this. 

Before the policy changes, there were three types of verification, according to Pornhub: Content partners, users in the model program, and verified users. The last category is now gone, and only uploads by models and content partners remain. The users reporting verification issues were likely in that last category—verified based on the old standards Pornhub used, which involved sending Pornhub a selfie with your face and holding up a sheet of paper with your name written on it. Those users are all now unverified. But inconsistencies remain.

Riley Cyriis, a performer who's been verified on Pornhub for more than a year, told me that most of her free videos and around 40 of 120 paid videos were removed, along with 20 videos she had set to private, only viewable by her. 

"My best guess would be certain tags, like 'teen' or 'daddy,' but it's really just a guess," she said. "The majority of flagged videos were my most successful ones ranging from 200k to 700k views, so maybe it's just how they came up? My profile is pretty obviously made by a real person and I listed my age publicly."

She wasn't using Pornhub as a main income source (although many performers do), so she's planning to focus more on other platforms like Onlyfans and Manyvids. 

Pornhub has said that it will restart the verification with new requirements in 2021. But the gap is a long time to wait if you're losing an audience and relied on the site for income. Many performers have already lost significant income due to Mastercard and Visa's decision to drop Pornhub. Performer Mary Moody said in a video about the payment processing news that she was making enough money from Modelhub to cover rent each month.   

And the verification process, which still hasn't been clarified publicly by Pornhub, could bring up new issues for anyone who wants to get their content back. IzzyBSides said that they'd received verification rejections before Pornhub's content purge, because their avatar—a fire sprite—obviously doesn't match their real-life face. The reason Pornhub gave for their rejection the last time, before the content suspensions, was that their avatar didn't match their verification photo. "We need to see your face to confirm," Pornhub's customer service email to them said. According to Pornhub, this method of verification is now outdated.

It's unclear how verification will work in the future, but Pornhub has said that identification of some kind will be part of the process. There are obviously many reasons that not everyone would want to use their real face as their avatar on a porn website.

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get verified with those sorts of requirements," IzzyBSides said, adding that performers who wear masks or keep their faces cropped out of videos would be excluded from verification on these terms. "It would force anyone experimenting out of the closet."

I asked performer Dylan Thomas how a verification system with even more strict requirements for identity could impact trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming content creators and performers. He said Pornhub could avoid excluding these groups by consulting with, and hiring, them to help create the new system. 

"Some of us with intersectional experience in both creative strategy, the digital space and sex work would like nothing more than to serve our community and get everyone back online, generating income and having an enjoyable, safe and sexy time," he said. 

How Pornhub’s new verification policies and process will unfold in practice is yet to be seen, but by including the voices of people who use the site, it could avoid future mistakes—just as it could have avoided this month’s backlash—and listen to the sex workers and content creators who've been asking for things to change for a long time.

"Pornhub was blatant about their disregard to what appeared on the site. But sex workers are under attack everywhere," Cyriis said. "Aside from the payout issues caused by Visa/MC, YouTubers and celebrities are flicking onto our platforms and basically doing whatever they want with no real financial repercussions. The consequences fall squarely on the shoulders of sex workers who built these platforms."

Pornhub’s Content Purge Has Left Fetish Creators Wondering What’s Next syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[sol1056]

the consequences of unexplored implications

One of the hardest things to do in writing (above and beyond all the regular hard things) is recognizing the unexplored implications. Some of these can be more obvious with some simple stats: how many characters are male vs female? how many white characters get speaking parts or are named, vs how many non-white? 

Others take a bit more thought, like realizing the only female characters are unnamed prostitutes, or the only Hispanic characters are janitors. Sometimes it means untangling a well-meaning attempt to subvert a racist trope (ie uncivilized/inferior primitives) that actually ended up unwittingly in a completely different but equally racist trope (ie the noble savage). 

And then there’s a really tricky one to realize, that at least in my experience needs a big-picture view of the entire story. Only then can you see how seemingly independent parts, when overlapped, result in unfortunate implications. 

It’s this last one that I’m starting to twig on, in VLD. And it comes from a combination of a particularly pernicious trope in American media, the canonical relationship between Keith and Shiro, and the purpose of repetition in stories.

the bury your gays trope

Basically, this trope shows up when a story establishes a happy queer relationship, and immediately decides one of the two must die. 

Often, especially in older works (to the extent that they are found in older works, of course), gay characters just aren't allowed happy endings. Even if they do end up having some kind of relationship, at least one half of the couple, often the one who was more aggressive in pursuing a relationship, thus "perverting" the other one, has to die at the end. ... Nowadays, when opinions on sexuality have shifted somewhat, this justification will often be attempted via Too Good for This Sinful Earth. Sometimes it's because the Magical Queer has died in a Heroic Sacrifice so that the straights may live. 

(Also, for some reason, it’s a particular favorite to have one-half of a lesbian couple killed by a stray bullet. Google it.)

Honestly, this trope is so pervasive, it’s damn hard watching popular media. You end up constantly braced for the inevitable death (sometimes followed by the surviving partner going totally evil, a la Willow in BtVS). Well, unless the relationship is toxic or controlling, and then the implication is that het relationships are the only healthy ones, but that’s a slightly different trope. 

In short: if you’re queer, happy endings are not for you. And if you do manage to get a happy ending (ie Bill in Dr Who), you had to suffer ten times as much as anyone else to get there. Compared to het relationships in the same story, it’s always the queer couples that suffer the most. One way or another.

canonical and word-of-god Shiro/Keith

Assumption: Keith and Shiro have an emotional bond much deeper than any couple we’ve seen on-screen. The very least one could say is that they have a deep relationship, albeit presumably platonic. (I should also note that I do consider ‘platonic’ love to be an equal to ‘romantic’ love; it’s just a different type of consummation.) 

Apart from that, there’s word-of-god: the EPs’ comments (ie “beloved mentor”), VA interviews, and various directors/artists posting sheith images with romantic vibes. Yes, that’s all non-canonical, but the message is: if you read this platonic as simply pre-romantic, well, the series’ creators are there with you. 

I will note, I don’t consider this as representation. In canon or it doesn’t count! (Looking at you, Rowling.) Still, word-of-god is clearly impacting the fandom’s interpretations of the relationship.  

using repetition in stories

The try/fail cycle and repetition have a core element in common: an event repeats until the character learns what they need to achieve victory/resolution. The difference is that in try/fail, the character should move up each time. In repetition, the character must re-experience a lesson they failed the first time.

To compare: 

try/fail: the antagonist has a black belt! get white belt, challenge antagonist, fail. okay, green belt! challenge antagonist, fail. next belt!

repetition: the antagonist has a black belt! test for white belt, fail. test for white belt again, fail. test for white belt again... 

When the overall plot’s try/fail is too similar, readers will see the protagonist as too stupid to quit (or change tactics). Repetition works best as a recurring motif: event A, parallel event B, character learns and changes, we have development, and this happens in support of, or alongside, the plot’s try/fail cycle.

Example: if Lance were to flirt with ten different girls and they all shot him down, that’s try/fail. His development is via repetition: it’s a repeating pattern with Allura, until he learns to take a different approach.

Here’s the important thing: like try/fail, repetition is a lesson to be learned. Most readers assume repetition means the previous instances were failures. If the character does the exact same thing and this time it goes beautifully, expect some side-eying from your more astute readers. 

But at the same time, if the character had no control over the outcome in previous instances, expect frustration instead. Readers will intuit the story is indulging in a kind of victim-blaming: the character had no power to ‘do it right’ before, yet the repetition implies that failure was their fault.

And that brings us to how these three parts, combined, make me see some seriously unfortunate implications in VLD.

all three together

So we have sort of this gray-area kinetic-platonic, potential-romantic, relationship. And twice now, one-half of that relationship has been, well, not killed, but sort of killed. Gone, vanished. The other half is left behind, grieving. It’s implied Keith fell apart the first time, and then we got to see it on-screen, the second time. 

It doesn’t actually matter whether S3/S4 Shiro is the ‘real’ one. If he’s not, then we have a third loss. If he is -- but compromised as a tool of the empire -- then it’s still a loss, if a psychological one. He’s there, it’s just not... him, anymore.

In other words, three times that a potential-queer relationship has been put through a Kill Your Gays maneuver that ended up being just a ploy. 

Done once, it could’ve been a subversion of the trope. Aha, the writers could say, we didn’t kill anyone, instead, we brought him back! Yes, one-half of the couple (and later, we find out, both halves) suffered during the separation, but since that’s mostly backstory, it’s all good, they’re happy now. Carry on, Jeeves.

Done twice, the writers not only re-triggered a possible KYG interpretation, they also tripped over the issue of repetition. Remember, the repetition is a lesson -- something must be learned, to prevent its recurrence. 

The problem is removing Shiro leaves Keith to experience the aftermath. By default, he takes the protagonist’s role, and according to the literary convention, he has to learn something to prevent a repeat. But in neither instance -- the Kerberos mission, or Shiro’s disappearance from Black -- does the story give any indication that Keith had a direct impact on the outcome. He did nothing to cause either, therefore there’s nothing he could feasibly do to fix either. 

That makes it especially infuriating that the third time around, one could conceivably say: gee, Keith kept looking, until he found this not-Shiro. If not-Shiro does any damage, that can be traced back to Keith. 

On its own, that could be an interesting dilemma. Taken in light of repetition, not so good. The unfortunate implication is he should’ve learned from the previous two times, and his failure to do so is the reason he ended up here.   

what’s the lesson, then?

Is it: stop caring for this person? Is it: loving someone that much means you have to suffer? Is it: you can’t just be happy? Is it: if you want to try for happiness, you have to earn the right to it? 

How is it that Lance can just flirt, make peace, and develop a deep friendship with Allura -- and neither are forced to undergo repeated trauma in the process? Or that Pidge has just one scene of implied loss, and it’s over and resolved in the same episode? Yet meanwhile Keith -- the only one with a same-sex relationship of significant depth -- has to lose, and lose, and lose? 

Maybe the writers figured: well, it’s not really death, it doesn’t count, let’s go ahead and yank that chain a second and third time. The story is blind to how their plot-twists aren’t all that better. It's still the same old bullshit: if you’re queer, you don’t get the happy ending. And if you do, it can’t be the simple meet-like-love of a het relationship. You’ve got to suffer for it.  

But the story they’ve written, and the choices they’ve made, tell me: these implications are not on their radar. Worse, I end up feeling like they don’t care enough to even put it on their radar.

That’s why it really bothers me when the EPs say they’re pushing for queer representation. Because if the writers can’t even see the implications of doing this to a deeply caring platonic relationship between two people of the same gender, like hell if I want to see what they’d do to an actual, onscreen, queer relationship. 

If you are rising up right now to insist ‘this is what the story demanded!’, I strongly recommend you go read this post: this is a jar full of major characters. Yes, that post is talking about black characters vs white, but it goes for any marginalized group, including lgbtqia.

Bottom line: no story demands anything. You’re the goddamn writer; you control the story. If you write shit, you’re a shitty writer. 

Think harder. Dig deeper. Do better. 

[homebrewingverity]

Thank you so much for reading through it and responding! I'll respond to things in order here!

The explanation on what Marks even are might have been good to place earlier in the document. Having to search for where to even begin with evaluating this class makes it a bit difficult. I opted to put Marks near the end because that is similar to how spellcasting works in base 5e, there isn't really any explanation for it within the classes themselves it just asks you to flip to the back of the book. I originally had it near the start, but I felt that it took up a lot of space and made reading through the class after you DID know what marks were rather difficult. Do you still expend a Mark use if you miss with the melee attack you’re trying to mark with?

This is a good catch! I didn't realize I hadn't noted this anywhere. I don't think Marks will count as used unless you successfully land the attack to apply one, especially since most of them require something else to occur as well before they take effect, so it'd feel REAL bad if they were used even on a miss. What’s the difference between Complex and Advanced Marks? The intention there was mostly to notate which ones would generally have more uses overall, and which would have less. Complex marks are also there as an indication that something is very powerful, though it absolutely needs ironing out now that you bring it up. I went ahead and streamlined it to just the two types, as you suggested. The Rage mark is a nice buff, but it’s an incredibly potent debuff against anything that can cast spells Honestly it's MOSTLY intended as a debuff, that's why it's linked to Distraction as a prerequisite. There seems to be a formatting issue under Lucky Clover. Fixed this one, thanks! Artistic Sacrifice seems not worth it except in the most extreme situations. If you can land marks on a creature, you can probably get a Replenishment onto it, and that heals more efficiently than Artistic Sacrifice without removing your other marks. This may be something I need to see in playtesting but it's a really valid concern. To roll this in with the Replenishment feedback, my hope is that Marks needing to be applied in melee, and the action economy loss of applying a mark to a friend and then having someone use their action ONLY to receive healing that's normally valued as a BA may just be enough to balance out replenishment from how insane it is on paper. There's also the risk of marking something and having an uninjured ally hit it first, consuming the Mark without actually getting any healing from it.

Artistic Sacrifice lets you do this at range, and is a larger burst of healing that doesn't require someone else to land a hit on the target in order to receive it.

The out of combat use is concerning, you're right. You've inspired me to make a target header for each Mark, specifying who it can be used on in terms of enemies only or anyone.

Now it's entirely possible it is absolutely busted, which is something I'm going to keep an eye on when one of my players playtests the class in an upcoming game! Shield of Ink also seems really good. Roughly a 50% chance for an enemy to just lose an attack should be at least as much value as healing off that damage. This is a good catch. I'm going to rework this one to act more like the Shield spell. The inability to trigger the marks by yourself… It makes sense? But it also seems like it’d be really frustrating to be so self-insufficient. The intent of the class is to be quite reliant on your allies. For those who don't like that aspect of things, there is the Kiniyi Scarrification subclass which allows quite a bit more independence from your party in terms of combat uses! I will keep an eye on this though, if it turns out to be unfun even for those who go into it with the expectation of needing their allies, then I'll make some changes. What does being afraid of yourself even do? Are you unable to move at all? Seems like the opposite of the reaction I’d have if I were covered in bugs. You ever watch one of those movies or TV shows where a character imagines themselves covered in bugs and they just stand there screaming even though to everyone else it looks normal? Essentially that's what this is trying to invoke. They are frightened of themselves so they can't move and have disadvantage on everything! Agony feels underpowered - it’s weaker than Firebolt, you’ve got to be in melee range or use a limited Signature, and this class isn’t particularly bulky..... But it’s still worse in general and on the offchance none of your allies activate it you’re forced to not use it next turn. This one is a lot better than it seems on paper, which I've learned from testing the original version of this class. Duplicating the damage type of the original hit from your ally also means you can get two hits off of a damage type the creature is vulnerable to (E.g fire on a treant) at the same time. It's not necessarily intended to be pumping out massive damage, because that's not really the Markweavers job in the first place, but it does enough to feel useful from what I've seen so far! Lightning Shock is not only up to 40 damage per day and two near-guaranteed stuns, but it can also last additional turns and doesnt even take up your action. It’s way more reliable than Stunning Strike, and that’s so powerful that WOTC has been been afraid to make monk good ever since. I'm not sure how this is more reliable than stunning strike? You have to land your Weaving attack first, then they have to take damage. Imagine the weaving attack as the initial constitution saving throw on stunning strike and I think they're quite on-par unless there's something I'm missing! It's also only 40 damage per day at level 20. When you get it, it's 10 damage per day, worse than a couple eldritch blasts, which isn't huge in my opinion. Echo is basically Grave Cleric’s Path to the Grave CD, except you can use it as a reaction and 4 times. It also stacks with Path to the Grave, so add a Rogue or a Paladin… Bye bye, boss. I didn't know about that grave cleric CD! Thank you so much for pointing that out. I'm going to reduce the uses by one. But it is also at level 11, vs the grave cleric getting theirs at level 2 which is quite the significant gap. Looking over this, it feels like being in melee range is inordinately dangerous for you. If you want to be at range, you have to get a melee hit off to use Signature and then hope it sticks, which kinda defeats the purpose. You have similar bulk to a Monk or Rogue, but BA dash/disengage only comes online at level 5 and takes multiple precious invocation slots, and you otherwise lack nearly all of their defensive abilities like Evasion or Uncanny Dodge. Your other options are… What, one Mirror Image per day? That’s not cutting it. Some of the subclasses do attempt to rectify this, but the others are kinda out of luck. Keep in mind you don't need to roll to hit someone who is willing to be marked, which

means you can toss an Artist's Signature on your fighter at the start of a fight and stay pretty far back so long as they position well.

I've also given Markweavers a 1d8 hit die, and medium armor + shield proficiency, which means they could be running around in halfplate, with 14 dex and a shield for 21 AC! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Again, thank you so much for the feedback, I appreciate that you took the time to read through the class! If you have any other suggestions for the subclasses after you read them I'd be happy to read those as well <3

Markweaver v2.0

The Markweaver is a class built around the idea of magical tattoos and the abilities that could come with those. It is mainly designed to be at home in my homebrew setting of Verity, but frankly it could work just about anywhere! The class itself is focused on supporting their allies by enhancing their damage, healing them, and controlling enemies while having a ton of unique utility options like grafting animals onto your party, manipulating and sharing memories, or running around with a living tattoo familiar!

The Markweaver is a complete class including 4 subclasses, 20 Empowered Tattoos (Think invocations from warlocks), and 20 (soon to be more) different marks for you to place upon your enemies or friends! Please check it out and leave feedback here or on the gmbinder link.

I'd love to hear your experiences and everything else, good and bad!

GM Binder Link: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MjAjtPbtls9sDfWeTHF

[ywhiterain]

Even more beautiful than a cosmos

For @ cypsiman2, who asked for meta on Ino and Sakura. 

Even more beautiful than a cosmos: Ino and Sakura's Relationship in Naruto.

One of the things that I dislike about the Ted Structure is how it postulates that only the Ted matters. Everything, including the Robin, is only there the prop up the Ted. Sometimes, this is true. Sort of. But not really.

Look, yes. Stories that have a clear central character tend to be populated by characters who inform them and/or the development of the main character in one way or another. However, there is a really key component that's being missed when you look at characters in such a binary way.

The main character also affects the characters around them.

Naruto's main supporting characters are Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi. Later on, characters such as Jiraiya, Sai, Gaara, Shikamaru, and Hinata play important part in the story as additions to Naruto's life and the story as a whole that his team couldn't play. For instance, Gaara and Jiraiya are mirrors of who he could have become - in effect, he makes choices that they don't, and ends up going in a more positive path. But it doesn't stop there.

Gaara in Jiraiya, in part because of their relationships with Naruto, change for the better. Jiraiya spends most of his adulthood running from who he could have because of what he'd lost, but ends up dying a hero. After being terrorized and dehumanized his entire life, the moment someone shows him truth empathy and compassion Gaara starts on a path to creating a world where children aren't terrorized into becoming monsters.

Naruto's ensemble cast is arguably its strongest asset. The very fact I can say that is exactly why the Ted Theory isn't universal. I think good long form stories tend to have main characters the audience connects with - but great long form stories contain large number of characters that connect with the audience. That connection comes from something that minor or supporting character brings to the narrative, not how they prop the main character.

Which bring me to Ino. She has no significant interaction with Naruto. She is a character who was created support Sakura's character and add to the themes of the true meaning of strength. Ino's part of the InoShikaChou legacy - three clans who have ninja magic bloodlines of little use - unless they are combined together. These clans don't generally create legends, but that's because their legacy is teamwork. Unity. Collaboration. Intelligence. Heart. InoShikaChou can win battles against people ten times their strength by combining their unique abilities and strengths.

Ino was born into the world knowing she's be a big power player in her generation. She was the best female ninja in her class. She was popular, pretty, and good at both her ninja bloodline and the female arts in general. When she was little, she befriended a young wannabe ninja from a family of no real importance when it comes to ninja culture.

This is who Ino is at her best: comfortable in her power and willing and able to reach out to those who can't see the potential in themselves. Then, after Ino and Sakura fall for the same boy, their friendship dissolves. They were no longer best friends - they were rivals. Everyone around them thinks that it was because of Sasuke, but no. It wasn't. Not really.

Sakura tells us as much in her internal dialog when fighting in her exam. Sakura has always doubted herself and her abilities. She had a bad habit of stepping aside when things got hard. It wasn't until her teammates were both down in the forest of death that she comes to really see that weakness in herself. There was no way she could beat three Sound Nins on her own, but she had no choice but to try because Naruto and Sasuke's lives were at stake.

But Sakura holding back and letting her insecurities define her limits weren't born from being teammates with the two strongest ninjas to come around in generations. It came from her being in a world that defined strength by bloodlines and death count. Sakura didn't have the same advantages of the other Leaf 12, save Tenten and Lee, but that didn't stop her from wanting to achieve great things.

Ino helped her by validating her. But Sakura feared Ino would hold her back, so she stepped away as Ino's dear friend and made a choice to become her rival. To win Sasuke is how they both packaged it, likely because of gendered expectations of girls (who only really want to please boys, right?).

The loss shook Ino. She became more notably bossier and meaner, or at least the gentleness and care she showed for bullied and sweet Sakura was something that was only reserved for Sakura before she begins to show it more broadly. Watching Sakura fight for her life in the forest of death begins to change their antagonistic relationship - because she realized that Sakura wasn't just fighting for the sake of it. Becoming a strong ninja wasn't her goal - saving the lives of her team was.

Ino grew up in an environment that preached the importance of teamwork. She doesn't fight for herself, she fights for those she loves. That's literally her legacy. But it's one thing to hear that, it's another to know it. She learns this lesson from Sakura and puts it into action right away by getting her teammates to help Sakura against the Sound, and somehow they all come back alive.

Ino and Sakura's internal development was growing understanding of the importance of fighting for the people we love happened mostly in the forest of death (and, yes, was important to the text - Naruto was about gaining strength through helping others and Kishimoto drove that point home by making everything tie back to that theme - and the power of his story came from his understanding that it wasn't something he just added in the big life changing battles, but the smaller and lower stakes moments). Their relationship as friends and rivals cements in their fight in the chuunin exam.

Ino and Sakura fight with all they have. They constantly surprise everyone around them with their skill and determination. Passing the exam stop being a priority - it's all about them one upping each other. They really both give it all they've got and Ino shows some real thoughtful creativity and Sakura's control is highlighted.

It ends in a draw and Ino and Sakura end the fight on good terms. They don't ever say anything about their past friendship or the troubles that came between them. Because in the world of Naruto, when true ninjas fight honestly on a one one to one battle, words are pointless. Everything that needs to be said and done is done on the battlefield. It's extremely silly, but Naruto is an extremely silly series.

For the rest of the series, Ino and Sakura are best friends again. They are also rivals. In fact, their fight is something of a foreshadowing of the one between Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto and Sasuke's relationship is a lot more complicated and it takes them forever to get to a place where they can be best friends and rivals at the same time. But Ino and Sakura working through their issues, fighting for each other, and getting stronger through competition through one another is exactly where Naruto and Sasuke finally end becoming as well.

I don't bring up Naruto and Sasuke's friendship because Ino and Sakura's props it - it doesn't. Ino and Sakura's relationship builds on Naruto and Sasuke's, and the other way around. Kishimoto is a master at building narrative and connecting pieces. With few exceptions, everything scene feels like part of a bigger whole.

While it's true, because of systematic sexism, Ino and Sakura's friendship and individual characters were neglected in comparison to male characters and relationships, that doesn't mean that there wasn't value in their story. Ino and Sakura's relationship, while not as intense as Naruto and Sasuke's, is one that more people can probably relate to. The smaller stakes and more grounded friendship between Ino and Sakura resonates with some people in the way that Naruto and Sasuke's don't.

This isn't to dismiss the epic nature of Naruto and Sasuke's relationship - the intensity between them is some of my favorite stuff. Ever. The larger than life symbolism that surrounds them (yin and yang and the sun and the moon, most prominently) juxtaposed to two very damaged children who forged a connected based on the very human need to belonged was great stuff. Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry and friendship is going to be a benchmark for artists to capture in their own work for generations to come.

But individual stories can have room for more than one type of relationship. Ino and Sakura's friendship adds to Naruto as its own entity. It's power is not simply in propping Naruto or Naruto and Sasuke's friendship. Naruto and Sasuke's story is more important to Naruto's story than Ino and Sakura's, but that doesn't mean it's more important to the audience.

[zicoo19-blog]

The Big, Bold, and Brave

Zeyad Elsahn      

Professor Nichole Frocheur             

PHO-101

22 November, 2019

                                      The Big, Bold, and Brave

Tftftftftftftftftftftftftf! The sounds of M2 Brownings firing away at the civilians of the battle grounds in Vietnam. More than 3,000 are wounded, 600 dead. Fear and defeat fill the hearts of those who have lost their family members to this devastating tragedy. Without a soul present to record the losses of this historical time, rises a more than capable and courageous individual determined to expose to the world of these catastrophic events. Clipppp! A grenade is thrown causing a massive explosion with dirt and debris filling the grounds lowering the visibility of both sides of the battlefield. A hero with only the world left to document, arises from the slums of London’s Finsbury Park in 1935. 33 years later, Sir Don McCullin finds himself amidst the battle ground taking photographs of these frightened soldiers from the United States marines to Viet Cong’s political organization. Undoubtedly, it was McCullin’s unrelenting predisposition to capture these disheartening photographs and expose them at will that led to his paramount success even if it journeyed him to his own sacrifice.

McCullin’s Battle of Hue body of work was the most well-recognised body of work brought forth until today. This body of work consists of a slew of disturbing photographs that were taken in the broken city of Hue. These photographs were taken between January and March of 1968. Unfortunately, as grueling as it sounds, this was my absolute favourite work seen thus far from any artist. It was not only the content that he captured that made him different from other photographers, it was the choice that he made of whether or not he should give up and go home or walk onto a field surrounded by dead bodies and decide to stick around for the sake of showcasing to the world of these unruly circumstances. Its at that point where you are not simply just a photographer anymore, but this idol that teaches people of what our world is becoming. “We spent years photographing dying soldiers in Vietnam, and they are not going to have that anymore... you have to bear witness. You cannot just look away”...“Sometimes it felt like I was carrying pieces of human flesh back home with me, not negatives. It’s as if you are carrying the suffering of the people you have photographed”(“Hamilton’s Gallery”). McCullin states how it is difficult to look at these photographs and not feel anything; how their eyes just stare back at you and haunt you until you leave them. In Hamilton’s Gallery, it states: “McCullin took huge risks in order to take his photographs. He was threatened with a knife at a Muslim checkpoint in Beirut for having a Falangist press pass, blinded by CS gas during a riot in Derry, and wounded by fragments of mortar shell in Cambodia.” As part of this relentless expedition of life and death, McCullin was wounded from the aftermath of some mortar shell attack and thankfully recovered after having been almost taken hostage and could have easily been killed. It almost seems as if he does not value his life enough to stay away from the danger, rather, it is this stern drive and stubborn ego of his to continue even after being threatened with death. 

McCullin’s second body of work analyzed was the HIV/AIDS Epidemic. This body of work is comprised of a careful selection of photographs taken by McCullin himself of the harsh and unbelievably troubling conditions for which surrounds the Eastern and Southern hemisphere of South Africa. This work was completed and compiled in the year 2000 where it was then showcased in a national gallery in Scotland. Again, with this idea of his to march out into the world and expose himself to even some of the most deadly aggravating diseases with no cures says something about his mission. He is a hundred percent convinced of his goal; to advocate to the entire world of how unacceptable it is to allow for these human beings to live in such distraught environments and about how something has to be done to relieve these victims of their helplessness and bring them into a world of light and love and care. 

McCullin says: 

I sat in England and I thought - what is the purpose of my life? I’ve been reading a lot about AIDS in Africa… I thought, I don’t want to sit in England looking at the beautiful landscape. I should be doing something. 

McCullin believes that it is not appropriate to reject the health and well-being of others given that we are divided from each other and live in different parts of the world. Why should it stop me from caring about the welfare of others? Are they not human too? How can we sleep at night knowing that other parts of the world are filled with mass suffering and we can just sit here and bare no mind with our refrigerators stocked and wallets full? 

McCullin further explains:

When I got to Africa, I found that it’s not a story just about AIDS. It’s a story about poverty. In a way, poverty is a war. It’s a disgrace; it’s abominable. To find people sleeping in darkened rooms, lying on the floor… finding people who have no medication whatsoever, no food, nothing, living in these intolerable conditions. It’s just unacceptable in terms of humanity.

McCullin’s genius is that like some wars, poverty is a type of war, in the sense that there is a struggle which manifests itself into this internal conflict. Meaning, although someone might not be physically fighting with others about a particular external conflict, this does not suggest however that anything less than a war is not seen as concerning. Suffering internally is if not as damaging, more damaging than struggling for external conflicts such as the annexation of land or gain of resources or money. McCullin puts aside these differences of not having any tangible connection to Africa and travels out of his way to widen the eyes of the world. This supports why he is massively successful; his capacity to raise awareness about serious issues around the world even if it means climbing out of his comfort zone just a little, or in his case, a substantial amount enough to get him killed. 

In both bodies of work, they were quite similar in that they both portray danger and conflicts whether internal or external; either of a war between the United States and South Vietnam against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, or some sort of humanitarian issue across the globe. Another similarity is that in both cases McCullin risks his life in order to reveal to his audience an excruciatingly honest selection of images of how the world is becoming far more destructive than could be imagined. Yet another similarity in both bodies of work were that he used gelatin silver process which was easily accessible for black and white film. A difference in McCullin’s work was that he used different technical choices to better outline the realities of what was happening at the moment. For instance, in one photograph, he might get a bit closer to his subject such as in the Shell shocked marine, Hue, Vietnam, 1968 photograph to better show the terror and fright in some of his subjects’ eyes. In another photograph, he might move further back in his photograph such as the US Marine hurling a grenade seconds before being shot through the left hand, Hue, Vietnam, 1968 (although it might also be because of the grenade part!). Another noticeable difference is that both bodies of work were shot in two different settings for obvious reasons depicting his willingness to travel outside of his bubble and interact with the unnecessary dangers that he could have avoided and chose not to. In terms of his technical style throughout his bodies of work, he strives to take mostly close-up shots and candids of exactly what the most imminently threatening photograph that could have been captured by his camera. He also used mostly either 20 x 24 or 24 x 20 inch film prints to emphasize the horizontal plane or vertical plane of his subjects. 

McCullin states: 

I've seen my own blood and broken a few bones, I've been hit, which isn't an entirely bad thing as at least you have a glimpse of the suffering endured by the people you are photographing. And in a sense, crumbling empires and war have been with me all my life.

McCullin’s strong sense of empathy is key to everything that he strives for. He uses this as a sort of fuel that just keeps him energized and going until he ends up there and takes what he came for. This type of dedication is not an attribute that can be found easily in just any photographer or photojournalist. It is something that is planted into the heart and allows for the roots to slowly dig deep in, much like a seed. 

Notably, in one of McCullin’s books called 

, Sean O’Hagan comments on McCullin’s statements regarding being called a war photographer:

There is a sense when talking to McCullin that he carries a great burden of loss and regret. He has, he says, seen too much in his lifetime and it has left its mark on him. He is recognised as our greatest living war photographer, though he bridles at the term. “Whatever I do, I have this name as a war photographer,” he says, ruefully. “I reject the term. It's reductive. I can't be written off just as a war photographer.”

McCullin discusses in this particular work about his numerous experiences when dealing with war all throughout his childhood. When he was little, him and his family were endangered amongst the attack of the Germany Nazis referred to as the blitz ambush. At such a young age, he was exposed to all of these real-life tragedies and it is quite clear of the impression made upon McCullin. This is what inspired him to feel a sense of commitment to put himself out there and expose the ill conditions of the aftermath of war and suffering. 

John Swain, a British Journalist and writer states: 

As Don found in war it is difficult to photograph people who are dying without violating their dignity, noted John Swain, Sunday Times foreign correspondent. But with a unique sensibility, he brings to his work among people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa a depth of experience and ethical standards built up over years of working as a photographer amidst the most heart-rending and raw situations. Every film that he exposes is from the heart.

This statement made by Swain interestingly explains how even though McCullin was super inclined to capture photographs of the dead casualties of the Vietnam War, it was without saying that it was a difficult task to have done without feeling a sense of guilt for not respecting this sort of bounds of privacy when the soul leaves the body. McCullin goes right ahead and takes these photographs knowing that many of these subjects won’t make it towards the end. And I think that above all else, there is nothing more deep and dark than to expose the natural process of death takes place, especially when it happens right in front of you knowing that there is nothing you can do about it except document it for the rest of the world to see. Therefore, McCullin’s success stems not from his content, but from his sense of responsibility that it is his duty to uncover to the world of what has been covered. 

                                                 Works Cited

“Battle of Huế.” 

, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Nov. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Huế.

“Don McCullin Biography.” 

, www.hamiltonsgallery.com/artists/don-mccullin/biography/.

McCullin, Don. 

. Jonathan Cape, 2010.

“Then and Now: Don McCullin on HIV/AIDS in Africa: Christian Aid.” 

, www.christianaid.org.uk/news/then-and-now-don-mccullin-hivaids-africa.

Wroe, Nicholas. “A Life in Photography: Don McCullin.” 

, Guardian News and Media, 21 May 2010, 

www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/22/don-mccullin-southern-frontiers-interview.

[viss-uh]

== Be the loyal captain

Gender: Female Blood color: #793e77 Land dweller Trolltag: perspicaciousVisionary 

Typing quirk: N/A How's your vocabulary? Are there any phrases you like to use?: My vocabulary is just fine. There's not anything special in the way I talk, I'm a pirate, not a scholar. But I'm capable of intellectual conversation, but half the time it seems I'm dumbing it down for the likes that I interact with outside of my crew. As far as phrases go? I have a sailors mouth; twat, shite, and bugger are words I use frequently. Age: 906 solar sweeps/ 1963 years Wriggling day: 14th bilunar perigree of the 4th dim season Sign: My sign means warrior. I suppose it fits. Physical description: 5'7", 139 lbs. Well built, strong, toned but with still a little softness to her curves. Triangular face with deep-set, piercing upturned almond eyes. Thin lips with a fuller bottom lip than the top. Lustrous, wavy hair that stops just above the shoulders, a little past if it were straight. Powers: Dream manipulation- A user can create, shape, enter and manipulate the dreams of oneself and others, including modifying, suppressing, fabricating, influencing, manifesting, sensing, and observing dreams as well as nightmares, daydreams, etc., possibly including past ones. They can produce and modify dreams, bestow nightmares or lucid dreaming, entrap people in REM, and promote spiritual/emotional healing within dreams. In some cases, user's power extends to the real world, such as wounds inflicted on a sleeping victim, healed damage (mental or physical) affecting the physical form, and otherwise blurring the line between waking and dream. They may be able to pull someone from the waking world into the dream world or brings people/things from the dream world into the waking world. Right handed or left handed: Left handed Strife: A steel double-headed battle ax. The ax heads are identical, with bat-wing shaped edges. The mahogany (hard and strong dark wood) handle is 2 feet long and is bound in tattered lilac silk. It is very heavy, perfectly balanced. What is something you like to keep in an accessible place in your sylladex?: Quill and leather bound journal Lusus: Caracal Do you get along with your lusus? Are they difficult to feed?: She was a wonderful lusus and we got along very well. She tended to hunt for herself though, but I'd still go out with her and help. It was a team effort. I miss her a great deal Hive: From the outside, the hive looks old, but quaint with character. Built with white stones and red pine decorations. Small, octagon windows brighten up the rooms and have been added to the hive in a symmetric way. The hive is equipped with a large country home-style kitchen, a guest bathroom, and master bathroom. It also has a cozy living room, two bedrooms, a modest dining area and a study. The building is shaped like a short U. The second floor is the same size as the first, which has been built exactly on top of the floor below it. The roof is high, triangular, but one side is longer than the other and is covered with brown roof tiles. The hive itself is surrounded by a modest garden, covered mostly in grass, a few flower patches, and a small pond. Three random interests: cartography, oil painting, relic collecting How do you handle stress?: I'm a level-headed woman, and honestly, think my clearest in situations of stress. Simply because I have to in order to find a solution to whatever problem I'm having. What do you know about your ancestor? Do you believe in that story?: I've never bothered to look into it, partly because I'm not that interested and also because I'm a little worried I might not like what I find. Are you a leader or a follower?: Considering I'm a captain, I'd have to say, leader.   Are you more introverted or extroverted?: More often than not I tend to be introverted, preferring solitude to company, unless it's Akofen. Do you tend to argue or avoid conflict?: I don't seek it out but I certainly don't allow any troll to walk over me. Conflict is necessary and unavoidable in my chosen field. Are you a listener or a talker?: A listener. I myself don't have a whole lot of desire to talk to folks I'm not close with, and the people I call true companions are very few. But I've got no issue lending an ear. How long is your attention span?: It's plenty long. I make maps for god's sake. That requires a ridiculous amount of concentration and patience. Do you laugh a lot? What's funny to you?: Ako makes me laugh with his dry humor, but outside of the privacy of my hive or his, I'm not the most visibly joyous of people. I smile, and I'll chuckle lightly but I'm more reserved with my feelings. Are you more athletic, artistic or intellectual?: I'd like to think I'm a little bit of each, but artistic is probably the most of the three. What would you do if someone attacked you for no reason?: I'd defend myself. What else is someone supposed to do in a situation like that? Just die without a fight? I think not, not for this woman. Any fears?: I fear failure. Rejection. Loss. What would happen if your greatest fear manifested itself?: One of them has before. I was thrown off my own ship when I was the captain of my first crew. They turned against me and sent me off with nothing but a rowboat, an oar and a beaten and bruised body out into the middle of the ocean. I was close to death when my now dear departed friend Jarles found me and took me onto his ship. But a fear I hope never comes true is watching my moirail be killed right in front of me. I would lose a part of myself without Ako. I'd be left as a shell. Do you make decisions based on emotions or logic?: A bit of both. If you make all decisions based completely on one or the other then you're going to make many mistakes. What is your earliest memory?: I remember being curled up against my lusus's body, I was 4 sweeps, and we were listening to the rain. I was drifting off. Her fur soft against my small hands, the warmth of her body lulling me to sleep. It's a vivid memory, and one I'm very fond of. What do you consider the most important event in your life so far?: Being found by Jarles and his crew. It was an unfortunate set of circumstances that led me to them but if it weren't for those circumstances I wouldn't have grown in the ways that I have. Who has had the most influence on you?: Kindra, the matesprit I left behind to pursue my fantasy of adventure and power. She always tried to see the good in everyone, I tried to do the same to some degree, but I never could as well as her, at least not then.

What is your greatest regret?: Leaving Kindra and never bothering to go back because I was ashamed. Have you killed somebody? How do you feel about it? Have you killed more than one person? Then whose death impacted you the most?: Yes, multiple, unsurprising to everyone I'm sure. I feel that it is part of piracy and that if those I've killed didn't bother to go toe to toe with me and my lot then I wouldn't have had to end their lives. I'm not going to sit back and watch my crew fight without me alongside. And the fights are almost always to the death. The only death that I've caused that has ever made me feel remorse was a young teal blood. They weren't fighting willingly, or even knowingly, but under the control of their captain, a cerulean. Has someone close to you died? How? If they were killed do you want revenge?: Yes, Jacobi Jarles, the man who saved me from starving out at sea. He was harpooned through the chest by the leader of a group of sick, scar-faced fucks. But revenge has already been taken. It makes no difference though. It won't bring him back. Have you ever almost died? Or been seriously injured?: I think I've already addressed this but yes, I nearly starved to death out at sea, with infected wounds to boot. If you could change one thing from your past what would it be?: I would have never taken that traitorous scum breather onto my ship, into my first crew. He turned them against me, and there were too many for me to fight off, but it didn't stop me from trying. It ended up earning me the pretty scar I have across my face. Have you betrayed someone? Do you regret it?: I betrayed Kindra. I know she wouldn't say so or think the same but I did and I regret it every day. In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does this change if you know them well?: It all depends on how they treat me. I give respect when I get respect. And I wouldn't bother to get to know someone if I didn't intend on treating them with kindness or reverence. But more often than not I keep acquaintances at a distance, yes. What do you look for in a potential matesprit?: A genuine soul. Someone who bothers to show mercy despite the strength and ability to kill easily. Someone with plenty of patience, considering I'm not the easiest woman to get to know. And if they can make me laugh or smile that'd be lovely too. Any current relationships?: Matesprit: Moirail: Akofen Enidae Kismesis: Austispice: What are some past relationships that didn't quite work out?:  I fell in red love with a stubborn man once, he had a good heart, but neither of us were prepared for something like what we were feeling. Not much ever came from it, which is likely for the best. And then Kindra. I feel we would have worked if I hadn't of chosen a life of piracy over her. Hindsight is 20/20.   If you have a moirail do you usually find yourself calming down your partner or is it the other way around?: We both bring each other peace. If ever I'm having a shite day I'll crawl into his coon with him, and he holds me. So I suppose he does more of the emotional caring since that man doesn't let much of anything affect him. Is there anyone you platonically despise?: Yes, but they're dead. How do you feel about where you stand on the spectrum?:  I'm lucky to be in a position of privilege, but I'm not hemo-ist in the slightest. I might as well be color blind. What are your opinions on the hemospectrum as a class system in general?: It's a way for the trolls higher on the spectrum to use and control those at the bottom. It's not something I see changing anytime soon though, but I think anyone that treats each other regardless of the hemospectrum makes a difference, even if only a small one. Do you like to read? If so, what genre?: I…enjoy romance novels… What would you die for?: My crew. What is your most treasured possession? Why?: A small, stout looking stuffed kitty that Kindra made from a burlap sack, I treasure it for obvious reasons-- because it's from her. It’s the only thing I have from that time in my life actually. Favorite food?: Potato, carrot and beef stew What is your greatest strength?: My perseverance Greatest weakness?:  My stubbornness, ironically.

[writingsubmissions]

UFC Fight Night 112 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, like the Auckland card the week before it, UFC's offering from Singapore was a tale of two cards, though this was the complete inverse, as a fun set of prelims gave way to an absolutely awful main card. The only real thing of note in the last four fights was Holly Holm finally knocking out Bethe Correia with a head kick, but how we got there was absolutely awful, as the previous two rounds of inactivity were so bad that the referee even stopped the fight to warn both fighters. And even in a fight where nothing happened, Correia continued her run as a human meme, as she taunted for Holm to do something right before Holm, well, did something, and knocked Correia completely loopy with the finishing blow. Coming off three losses and then a win that wasn't particularly impressive, Holm's management apparently feels she's earned a title shot, and the horrifying thing is women's bantamweight is thin enough she may actually get it. She's still the biggest name in the division, and I only see two other real contenders - Sara McMann is already booked for a fight against Ketlen Vieira this summer, and while Raquel Pennington is free, Holm did beat her for her UFC debut. If Valentina Shevchenko beats Amanda Nunes for the belt next month, I don't think UFC would run with a Shevchenko/Holm rematch from a one-sided Shevchenko win last year, but Nunes/Holm might be way closer than any of us expected. *And then there was the rest of the main card. Marcin Tybura beat Andrei Arlovski, but what should've been a career-making win over a big name just turned out kind of eh for Tybura. Tybura had been transitioning from a grappler to a striker now that he's facing better opposition, and the results have been interesting, but this fight just saw him take Arlovski down and work him over in fairly plodding fashion. In UFC wants to continue to push Tybura up the ladder, fine, and I do kind of like him as a fighter, but this wasn't the type of performance that inspired any sort of confidence in either fighter. Colby Covington's win over Dong Hyun Kim was even worse. Covington finally got his big win over a top-ten opponent, but all he did was grind Kim against the fence and take him down repeatedly. I'm impressed that Covington's one-dimensional game keeps working, but since he's stopped facing overmatched competition, his fights have been god-awful, as damage and finishes have been replaced by Covington just holding people down, not progressing, and really just making the fight feel like it's going nowhere. Covington's doing a good job outside the cage of annoying people as a cocky prick, but part of that is, again, that his fights are so awful, which makes things a double-edged sword. And the main card opened with what I suppose was its best fight, as Rafael dos Anjos beat Tarec Saffiedine rather handily as the former lightweight champ debuted at welterweight. It was an ugly fight, but an impressive enough performance, I suppose - dos Anjos should be able to become a contender, though I'm not sure he'll have either the success or the often-impressive performances he had at 155. *The prelims were mostly fun and action-packed, even if the headlining one was fairly depressing, as Jon Tuck stunned and tapped out Takanori Gomi in a little over a minute; Gomi was once the best lightweight in the world, so it's sad to see a living legend just be so completely done as a fighter. Walt Harris knocked out Cyril Asker in short order at heavyweight, as was expected, and Rolando Dy massively underperformed in his UFC debut against Alex Caceres. I actually liked Dy on film after dreading having to scout a 8-4 Filipino fighter, but this was, well, a 8-4 Filipino performance, as Dy apparently suffered an eye injury early and then just absolutely folded, getting nothing done before the fight got stopped after the second round. Justin Scoggins continues to be the most frustrating talent on the roster - Scoggins is at his best as a distance striker, but also has an excellent grappling game, so against a slick submission artist like Ulka Sasaki, of course Scoggins decided to wrestle. And he did really well for about a round and a half, until Sasaki managed to clamp on the inevitable fight-ending choke, as Scoggins has continued an amazing run of dominating fights only to get himself tapped out. Jingliang Li and newcomer Frank Camacho had the fun brawl that everyone expected, with Li winning the decision. Russell Doane stopped a four-fight skid with an impressive knockout of top Korean prospect Kwan Ho Kwak - Kwak's a ridiculous athlete, but always relies on that athleticism to get him out of trouble; Doane was able to eventually trap him in the corner, and then go to work to get the finish. Japanese prospect Naoki Inoue had an impressive debut against fellow newcomer Carls John de Tomas, relying on his shockingly slick submission game to take a clear decision - I actually like both guys as prospects, though in a division like UFC's flyweights where pretty much every fight is tough, I worry about their ability to stick on the roster as they develop. And Lucie Pudilova opened the show with a victory over Ji Yeon Kim that was fairly surprising - Kim was surprisingly patient and showed an excellent boxing game which figured to be enough to get the win, but in the end, Pudilova got the nod. *So, former UFC fighter Tim Hague died after suffering a knockout in a boxing match, and the whole thing just brings up a bunch of issues with the seedy underbelly of combat sports. Hague's UFC career was fairly brief, and his main claim to fame was being on the receiving end of a seven-second knockout by Todd Duffee, one of the quickest finishes in UFC history. But Hague, throughout his career as a whole, was pretty much known for that - a heavyweight brawler whose fights would end in a knockout in fairly short order, win or lose. But the losses kept racking up, and Hague would apparently do boxing or mixed-rules fights on the side in his native Canada to make some money. And then incompetence on every level pretty much led to Hague's death - frankly, watching the footage, the fight probably should've been stopped a few times, if only because Hague was overmatched and had already been knocked down three times in the first round. And while the booking of Hague as a tomato can wasn't egregious in a general sense, he shouldn't have been licensed in the first place - the medical suspension from Hague's last knockout had only just expired, and apparently even that was sort of iffy, as Edmonton rules state that anyone knocked out three times within a one-year period - as Hague was - shouldn't be licensed. The whole thing's a mess, and has brought the Edmonton commission, which has apparently been known for corruption and incompetence, into the spotlight. In a move reminiscent of UFC, the commission is appointing their own third-party investigator, but of course, they're the one selecting it, so don't expect justice to be served. UFC 216 is supposed to be UFC's debut in Edmonton, and it looks like that's full-speed ahead, as fighters, without a union, don't really have much of a recourse in refusing to fight on this card. And, as people have brought up, maybe having an overmatched MMA fighter die in a boxing match could make some people think again about Mayweather/McGregor, but, well, that fight just has too much money involved. *Well, UFC 208 was officially pointless, as UFC has stripped Germaine de Randamie of the women's featherweight title for her refusal to face Cris Cyborg, the only other woman in the division. Well, actually, UFC actually signed a third woman (or second I suppose, since de Randamie is probably moving back down to bantamweight), as Invicta champ Megan Anderson will make her debut to take on Cyborg for the vacant belt at UFC 214. I am rooting for nobody in this situation, except for Anderson, pretty much - while de Randamie's probably closer in the right than people like to admit in refusing to fight Cyborg because of all her drug issues, it's also unclear where de Randamie thought beating Holly Holm for the belt in this non-existent division was going to lead her. With Cyborg, I've always been baffled by the outpouring of support for her - she's a known drug cheat, and while UFC making her unnecessarily cut weight has been cruel, there's also the strangeness of her intending to cut down to 135, but rather than actually try and lean down, just continue to build muscle. And this only got more suspicious with her more recent drug test failure, which was basically waved off due to some depression issue that Cyborg, apparently, never thought to notify UFC of before filling out all her paperwork. And UFC's just made this whole situation a mess with how they've handled the division, from their bullying of Cyborg and de Randamie to, again, making UFC 208 completely useless, even in the moment. *So, Matt Hughes is still in pretty bad condition after his truck collided with a moving train last Friday, as one would expect. It could've been much worse, as he suffered no broken bones or anything, and is already out of a brief medically-induced coma, but it's unclear if he's currently awake, and there doesn't seem to be any word on if he's suffered any brain damage. I obviously hope for the best in his recovery, but I will say, Hughes is probably the first person who would call someone a dumbass for driving in front of a moving train. ------ BOOKINGS: *A whole lot of nothing for the second straight week, as the only completely new fight is the Cyborg/Anderson title fight mentioned above. Other than that, it's four injury replacements, though at least three of the four fights have actually gotten more interesting in their new forms. UFC seemingly has no idea what the hell they're doing with Sage Northcutt - his original opponent, Claudio Puelles, got injured, so it was assumed UFC would find some lower-level fighter or international TUF alum for Northcutt to gain experience against. But instead, he's facing longtime UFC vet John Makdessi, a skilled striker who's probably Northcutt's toughest opponent to date. Maybe Northcutt's size and athleticism just wins the day over the stockier Makdessi, but it's more likely that the Canadian just knocked Northcutt's head off with some spinning strikes. Northcutt's obviously a golden boy of the promotion, so this may be the biggest red flag yet in terms of UFC not having any idea what to do with prospects. Amanda Ribas got pulled from her UFC debut at next month's TUF finale, so rather than Juliana Lima grinding out a win against another overmatched newcomer, she'll take on top contender Tecia Torres in what suddenly becomes an interesting fight. A European heavyweight fight between Damian Grabowski and Christian Colombo, which had been scheduled a few times before incongruously winding up on the Long Island card, has fallen apart yet again thanks to a Colombo injury; so instead Grabowski will face Mississippi's Chase Sherman, coming off one of the best brawls of the year against Rashad Coulter. Grabowski has shown little in his two UFC fights, but he's still a tough vet and an excellent test for an athletic, but raw prospect like Sherman. And in the one fight to get a downgrade, a fun bantamweight fight between Leslie Smith and Lina Lansberg is off thanks to a Lansberg injury, so Smith will instead face Brazilian newcomer Amanda Lemos on the Glasgow card, which is a weird geographic fit. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 7/7 - TUF 25 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Johnson 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Amanda Nunes ( c ) vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker, Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler 7/16 - UFC Fight Night 113 - Glasgow, Scotland - Gunnar Nelson vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio, Joanne Calderwood vs. Cynthia Calvillo 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Kelvin Gastelum vs. Chris Weidman, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Megan Anderson vs. Cris Cyborg, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Jason Knight vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis, Sam Alvey vs. Rashad Evans 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Henry Cejudo vs. Wilson Reis, Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC Fight Night 112 - June 25, 2017 - Chesapeake Energy Arena - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma A strange show, even beyond the fact it's on a Sunday and starts an hour earlier than usual. I love the main event, but it almost feels like this is the evil flip side of some of the "fun, but lacking in starpower" cards we've had over 2017; there are recognizable names, like Johny Hendricks, B.J. Penn, and even further down, a Clay Guida or a Carla Esparza, but, well, pretty much everyone is either shot as a fighter or just in an uninteresting matchup. There's some stuff here that could be neat, but nothing involving the name fighters - the two light heavyweight bouts could be fun brawls, and the prelim bout between Darrell Horcher and Devin Powell, two of the lowest guys on the UFC pecking order, should be a fun scrap, but overall a lot of this card is just sort of blah veterans. Though, in a past life, two of those blah veterans would be headlining, so good on UFC for at least giving a showcase main event spot to two interesting talents. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 9:00 PM ET): Lightweight: (#6) Michael Chiesa vs. (#11) Kevin Lee Middleweight: Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks Women's Strawweight: (#13) Felice Herrig vs. Justine Kish Light Heavyweight: Joachim Christensen vs. Dominick Reyes Welterweight: Alex Garcia vs. Tim Means Featherweight: B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 2 - 7:00 PM ET): Lightweight: Clay Guida vs. Erik Koch Middleweight: Vitor Miranda vs. Marvin Vettori Women's Strawweight: (#8) Carla Esparza vs. (#10) Maryna Moroz Lightweight: Darrell Horcher vs. Devin Powell PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 5:30 PM ET): Featherweight: Jared Gordon vs. Michel Quinones Lightweight: Johnny Case vs. Tony Martin Light Heavyweight: Jeremy Kimball vs. Josh Stansbury THE RUNDOWN: Michael Chiesa (14-2 overall, 7-2 UFC) vs. Kevin Lee (15-2 overall, 8-2 UFC): I love this fight. UFC is always in the business of looking for new stars, and while neither of these guys is going to be the next Conor McGregor or anything, I love that a fight between two marketable fighters rising up the ranks is getting a main event slot rather than a pat veteran hand, particularly when it's a really fascinating style matchup to boot. It's a shame Michael Chiesa didn't come around a few years earlier, when people were still watching TUF, because his arc on the show was one of the best in terms of getting you to care about a fighter. Chiesa was on the lone live season of the show - TUF even needed freshening up five years and ten seasons ago - and had left behind his ailing father, who died a few weeks after the show started. After flying out for the funeral and coming back, Chiesa then went on the underdog run of all underdog runs; Chiesa was nowhere near the top prospect on the show, as that honor probably went to Myles Jury or Al Iaquinta, but Chiesa just kept winning, often by rear naked choke, culminating in a first-round submission of Iaquinta to win the season. From there, pretty much everyone wrote off Chiesa as a fun story, but more a curio than anything else - his main skill was a knack for finding that rear naked choke, and that can only get you so far, and indeed, Chiesa lost a fairly one-sided fight and tapped out to Jorge Masvidal fairly early in his UFC career. But, somewhat amazingly, Chiesa has gone on to make his game work at a pretty high level - his striking game is purely perfunctory, but he's big for the division, so if he can't tap you out, he's more than willing to control you, and he can probably tap you out - in his last fight, when BJJ ace Beneil Dariush got a bit lazy, there was Chiesa to clamp on the rear naked choke for a shocking second-round submission. Chiesa was supposed to face Tony Ferguson shortly thereafter in what would've been an awesome fight, but instead a back injury has kept Chiesa sidelined for a little over a year, and he returns to face rising talent Kevin Lee. Lee's obviously been a bit of a pet project of UFC - the Detroit native came into the promotion as a raw 21-year old, but they immediately threw him into the deep end against Iaquinta. Lee acquitted himself fine in that loss, and even as UFC shunted him back down the ladder to start developing his game, they normally featured him in fairly prominent spots, like FS1 main card bouts against Michel Prazeres and James Moontasri. And there have been some fits and starts - his shocking knockout loss to Leonardo Santos at the tail end of 2015 being the main bump in the road - but Lee's developed a fairly interesting game; the finishes dried up a bit when he first came into UFC, but Lee's been able to make his submission game work once again to go along with his power wrestling. So it's an interesting fight between two guys most comfortable on the ground, who also might be the two most interesting talents moving up the ladder at lightweight - plus there's even a personal element, thanks to the presser that took place right before UFC 211. You see, Kevin Lee pretty much has a quantity, not quality approach to trash talk, as even moving up the ladder, he'd often go out of his way to throw whatever insult he could think of at everyone in the lightweight division, and during this presser, he obviously started talking to Chiesa. What Lee started saying wasn't even that bad - basically, that he heard Chiesa's mother had bought a ticket to watch her son lose - but it still set Chiesa off, the two charged each other, Lee even clipped Chiesa once, and then both got kicked off the stage. I'm not sure how much of it was staged, but hell, it worked and got people talking, and anything (to an extent) that gets eyeballs on this fight is fine by me. So as far as the fight goes, I'm kind of interested to see how Lee approaches this. While he's most comfortable when he gets his wrestling game going, that's obviously the last place he'd want to be against someone as slick as Chiesa, and while he's been doing more and more striking, it's still sort of a work in progress. It's solid, but Lee just seems to get caught a lot either unawares or overconfident, and frankly, he doesn't take a punch well when he gets hit; there was that Santos knockout, and there have been a few other instances where Lee is just sort of stunned and forced to recompose himself after he gets hit. But on the same end, I'm not sure Chiesa is the guy to take advantage of that - his striking is...functional at best, though while Chiesa can often get hit, he's also been tough enough to just sort of ignore it as he tries to get things to the ground. I'll laugh if this somehow becomes a weird five-round kickboxing match, since Lee will probably connect way more, but Chiesa will have more visible impact when he's actually able to get something through, and that probably is still Lee's best path to victory. And I suppose Lee could manage to control and hold Chiesa down for five rounds, too - Chiesa's crazy rear naked choke luck has to end sometime, right? - but between Chiesa's slickness and Lee's penchant for overconfidence, I just assume at some point Chiesa manages to find an opening, get Lee's back, and finish things from there. So I'll say Chiesa by submission, and I'll say it happens in the third round. Tim Boetsch (20-11 overall, 11-10 UFC) vs. Johny Hendricks (18-6 overall, 13-6 UFC, 2-0 WEC): A strange fight here, but one that makes a bit of sense - Johny Hendricks, a former star wrestler at Oklahoma State, figured to be on this card, and Boetsch is good a choice as any to see if the former welterweight champ can hang against bigger opponents at middleweight. Man, it's been a strange two years or so for Johny Hendricks. In mid-2015, he was pretty much the uncrowned welterweight champion - a lot of people felt he won his 2014 rematch with Robbie Lawler and should've retained his belt, and Hendricks rebounded with one of the better performances of his career, getting into excellent shape and showing off some of his excellent wrestling against Matt Brown. And then the wheels completely fell off. Hendricks was slated to face Tyron Woodley that October, and while there'd always been talk of how much difficulty Hendricks had cutting weight, that all came home to roost, as Hendricks suddenly developed kidney stones while trying to cut weight, and the fight was called off. Which, fine - this was probably a one-time thing, and guys have been able to come back from weird one-off weight cutting problems before. But then 2016 happened. First, Hendricks got knocked off that uncrowned champion pedestal pretty quickly, as Stephen Thompson more or less ate his lunch, dominating a short fight that ended via knockout in about three and a half minutes. And then after that, Hendricks's biggest enemy was the scale. For a fight with Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 200 - which, way to cheekily match two guys with weight problems against each other, UFC - Hendricks came in 0.3 pounds overweight, and looked horrible doing so, having to shave his facial hair and looking frail and shaken on the scale. And the performance wasn't too great either - while it wasn't a blowout by any means, Hendricks continued to look diminished from the peak form he had shown just about a year prior. And then things went off the rails with a flourish in December. During the media day for UFC 207, Hendricks looked visibly out of it while going on about how he was going to make weight, and how hard it is to make weight, and challenging the media to try and make weight - so, of course, when it came time to hit the scale, Hendricks came in two and a half pounds overweight. And while the performance was a slight improvement, as he leaned on his wrestling to take down Neil Magny, he also did little enough with those takedowns that he wound up losing the decision anyway. Despite saying he would retire if he lost the Magny fight, Hendricks decided to move up to middleweight, and while it apparently has been much better on his body, the results were...eh. It was pretty much the same diminished Johny Hendricks, facing a similarly welterweight-sized Hector Lombard, and while Hendricks clearly won the decision, it wasn't the type of runaway performance that made you think he was anywhere near recapturing his former glory. So now Hendricks faces Tim Boetsch, who's had a weird path of his own. Boetsch was quickly in and out of UFC as an undercard light heavyweight the first time around, but in stint number two, the Mainer quickly cut down to middleweight and suddenly had a bunch of success, reeling off a four-fight win streak that included a famous comeback knockout of Yushin Okami and a famously horrible split decision win against Lombard. But as questionable of a win as that Lombard fight was, that result pretty much made Boetsch, as he's kind of been the go-to for a bunch of middling, but prominent, middleweight fights. If Luke Rockhold needs to get back on track, if Dan Henderson needs to find some late-career knockout magic, and most recently, if Jacare Souza needs a fight to keep busy, Boetsch is there to lose to them, and he wins enough of his other fights to remain credible. So as far as the fight, this is weird as hell, because Hendricks is still welterweight-sized, and Boetsch is still giant enough to credibly compete at light heavyweight. And frankly, if your wrestling isn't up to snuff, Boetsch is not a guy you want to mess with; Boetsch's fight about a year ago against Josh Samman showed this, as Samman kept trying to mix in his grappling, only to eventually get turned around and eat enough fists for a ground-and-pound stoppage. Hendricks, given his status as one of the more decorated collegiate wrestlers on the roster, probably has the chops to take Boetsch down, but we didn't really see a ton of that wrestling game against Lombard, and, well, Boetsch may just be too big for Hendricks to get anything done. I suppose Hendricks may still have enough on the feet to win a boring kickboxing match, but again, Boetsch is going to have the longer reach and is just credible enough in terms of power that I'm not exactly sure what Hendricks can get done there either. Maybe I have this completely wrong, and Hendricks can just make up the size difference with his takedowns and grind out a decision, but I'm actually going to pick Boetsch to neutralize Hendricks enough to score the upset decision. Either way, though, I don't think this fight will be all that good. Just super weird. Felice Herrig (12-6 overall, 3-1 UFC, 0-1 Invicta, 3-0 Bellator) vs. Justine Kish (6-0 overall, 2-0 UFC): So...is Felice Herrig suddenly going to be kind of a thing now? Herrig's been somewhat unfairly maligned over her career, though somewhat understandably so - she's perfectly fine, but relied on her looks coming up through the ranks to, frankly, get more attention than she deserves, plus her motor-mouthed personality can sometimes be a bit exhausting. So when Paige VanZant pretty much dominated her in a 2015 fight, it was a pretty big deal for VanZant, and probably still the best win of her career, even though everyone sort of minimized it given both the personalities involved. But to her credit, Herrig took about a year off to get her mind right after the VanZant loss and came back in some of the best form of her career; first she blew through Kailin Curran, as most expected, but when UFC matched her up in a co-main against Alexa Grasso, in an obvious bid to give Grasso a showcase win, Herrig had an absolutely excellent performance, relying on her striking background to pretty much blow open the holes in Grasso's game. It kind of reminded me of Holly Holm running into Valentina Shevchenko, as Herrig just exposed Grasso as a fairly rote striker and hit a rhythm as things went on, countering everything with ease by the end of the third round. There was some thought that Herrig would get a big name opponent after this, but instead she gets a pretty fun fight against Russian-American Justine Kish. Kish was Herrig's castmate on TUF 20, UFC's tournament for an inaugural strawweight champion, but she didn't wind up making her debut for another year thanks to an ACL tear suffered on the show. Kish came in as a kickboxer, and in her wins over Nina Ansaroff and Ashley Yoder, she's been pretty much just that - solid, but not particularly awe-inspiring or anything. Though, that said, fighting a powerful grappler like Yoder did give Kish the opportunity to show off some ground chops and give notice that she can hold her own there if need be. This is a more even matchup than it appears at first blush - Herrig's wins have been in more prominent spots, but both fighters have done well since 2016 - but I do like Herrig a bit more everywhere and choose her to get the decision, even though I wouldn't be surprised if Kish gave Herrig more trouble than Grasso did and turned this into a nip-tuck, split decision type of affair. Joachim Christensen (14-5 overall, 1-2 UFC) vs. Dominick Reyes (6-0 overall): Joachim Christensen got into the UFC just a shade before his 38th birthday, but the Dane has been making up for lost time, as this'll be his fourth bout in a shade under nine months, and it comes on about a six-week turnaround from his last one. Christensen is a perfectly fine lower-level light heavyweight - he's technically solid everywhere, but not particularly athletic or physically imposing, so he can only really beat the lower-tier athletes of the division, and the matchmaking hasn't really done him a ton of favors. Christensen got a win in January over Bojan Mihajlovic, which is about as low as you can go on the UFC ladder, but UFC threw him to Gadzhimurad Antigulov, who ran through him, and now seemingly wants to use Christensen to showcase a top prospect - he was first slated to face highly regarded Russian Azamat Murzakanov here, but Murzakanov was forced out of the bout and Christensen instead faces another top prospect in Dominick Reyes. A native Californian who was on the NFL's radar after a career at Stony Brook, Reyes instead picked up MMA and has been off to the races, as all but one of his wins have come via first-round knockout. And his last win was a memorable one - Jordan Powell ate one of Reyes's shots, and nodded his head "no" to signal that it didn't hurt, so Reyes just decided to flatten him with a head kick and nod "yes" over his fallen opponent. You'd have liked for Reyes to get a bit more experience, since at this point it's an open question if he can handle adversity, but you also can't blame UFC for picking up one of the most promising prospects available to develop on their watch. Christensen's never been knocked out, so I could see a scenario where Reyes just doesn't get the early finish and it turns out he's basically a one-round fighter, but fights like the Antigulov one have shown that Christensen can just get run over if he's at a notable athletic disadvantage. So my pick is Reyes via first-round knockout, even if it's not quite a gimme. Alex Garcia (14-3 overall, 4-2 UFC) vs. Tim Means (26-8-1 [1] overall, 8-5 [1] UFC): An interesting fight here that hopefully promises some violence, though it's kind of impossible not to have any while Tim Means is around. Means has long been a favorite of mine - he was a bit of a prospect all the way back in 2005, but had his MMA career stopped for about four years after serving a prison sentence for assault, as Means had pretty much become a meth addict at that point. But Means turned his life around, channeled that aggression pretty wonderfully into MMA, and eventually made his way to the UFC. His first run was a bit short-lived, as Means was, and looking back this is fairly insane, cutting all the way down to lightweight and just absolutely draining himself in the process. But after getting cut, Means moved up to his more natural welterweight, got a few wins, and was back in the promotion in fairly short order, and eventually put together a four-fight win streak that affirmed him as one of UFC's most violent welterweights, particularly thanks to his absolutely brutal elbows. 2016 looked to be a bit of a breakthrough year for Means, but instead it turned out to be one of missed opportunity. First, Means was slated to welcome Donald Cerrone to welterweight in a FS1 main event, but instead Means was pulled thanks to a flagged drug test - though, eventually, USADA basically found Means without fault after the supply chain of the supplement in question turned out to be really sketchy. But that still burned about half a year of Means's career, and then another opportunity got pulled out from under him, as an interesting fight against Sean Strickland instead, thanks to injury, turned into Means beating newcomer Sabah Homasi in a fairly no-win situation. And then Means's last fight of the year, against Alex Oliveira, ended in short order thanks to an illegal knee, because nobody knows the rules for when fighters are grounded anymore. And this year hasn't been great either, as a rematch with Oliveira saw the Brazilian shockingly pretty much rag-doll Means en route to a submission. So Means looks to finally get some momentum back against Alex Garcia, who maybe, finally, might be turning the corner. Garcia came into UFC with a bunch of hype back in 2013 as a physical specimen who could be the next, say, Hector Lombard. But after a 43-second knockout of Ben Wall to kick off his UFC tenure, Garcia just suddenly settled into the groove of a middling fighter whose performances were fairly flat. And a lot of people began to wonder if Tristar Gym was the best fit for the Dominican, as coach Firas Zahabi prefers to mold guys into cerebral, all-terrain fighters, which seemed to just be muddling things for someone who could be an aggressive tank like Garcia. Garcia's fight last December against Mike Pyle seemed to be his last chance to impress people, so, of course, he did, remaining aggressive the whole fight before absolutely starching Pyle for a first-round knockout. Admittedly, a lot of this may have been Pyle's age finally catching up with him, since it looks like turning 41 is when Pyle finally got old, but any signals of Garcia living up to his promise are worth getting hyped about. That said, this is a bad matchup for him - Garcia's a fireplug, while Means is gigantic and knows how to use his reach, and if it comes to it, should be able to meet Garcia head on when it comes to aggressiveness. I suppose I could see Garcia just relying on his takedown game and seeing if he can get Means to the ground, but I think this fight is likely just Means piecing Garcia up on the feet before eventually putting him away. So my call is Means by second-round knockout. B.J. Penn (16-11-2 overall, 12-10-2 UFC) vs. Dennis Siver (22-11 [1] overall, 11-8 [1] UFC): Finally? A fight fifteen months in the making, that we weren't sure if we wanted to see in the first place, and is now only just depressing. So, the B.J. Penn comeback. It looked like it was a crisis averted when B.J. Penn seemed to be at peace with his retirement in 2014 - he had given it his all, he had gotten into good shape and cut down to featherweight, and he had gotten smashed by Frankie Edgar, and the last guy anyone would've expected to retire peacefully seemed to be doing just that. And then 2016 rolled around. Penn announced he was back, and wanted to fight Nik Lentz for some reason, but instead he was matched against Siver, who was aging rapidly himself, at UFC 196 that March. Which, fine. But then a sexual assault allegation from the previous summer became public, which got that fight pushed back to UFC 199 in June. And then both guys got hurt. And then UFC just seemed to lose all patience with Penn, booking him against Ricardo Lamas in a sure beating - but, of course, Penn got hurt again. So the Penn comeback finally actually happened this past January, as he faced Yair Rodriguez, and boy, did it...happen. Penn looked fine technically, a departure from the weird Edgar fight where he decided to fight as upright as possible, but physically he basically looked like a withered old man, getting rocked by every blow Rodriguez threw before getting finished essentially with the first strike of the second round. Nobody wants to see Penn again, but, welp, here he is, and I suppose Siver is as good of an opponent as any. Siver's rapidly hitting the point of diminishing returns - he's been a solid fireplug of a kickboxer for years, most notably spoiling George Sotiropoulos's run towards a lightweight title shot in 2011, but it was still weird when he was named the guy Conor McGregor had to beat to get a title shot. (Well, outside of the fact that it was an obvious setup win.) So McGregor ate Siver's lunch, and Siver turned around and looked flat in a loss to Tatsuya Kawajiri in his native Germany. That's been the last we've heard of Siver - thanks to injuries, he's coming back from a two-year layoff here, and at age 38, the same as Penn, it's hard to know how he's going to look. Still, I can't imagine him looking worse physically than Penn - like, I literally cannot picture it - even though I suppose it's possible, so I suppose I have to take Siver by decision. What are we doing here? Clay Guida (32-17 overall, 12-11 UFC, 1-0 WEC, 1-1 Strikeforce) vs. Erik Koch (15-4 overall, 4-3 UFC, 3-1 WEC): Well, this is a weird one, but sure, why the hell not? I have no idea what to think of Clay Guida anymore - about a decade ago he was possibly the biggest cult favorite on the roster, thanks to his absolutely relentless style and ability to bounce back from punishment, but as the game started to evolve, his frantic wrestling game started looking more and more like a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing, and Guida lost a ton of fans with his oddly defensive-oriented performance in a horrible main event against Gray Maynard. After that fight, Guida cut down to featherweight, and had seemingly pretty much settled in as a veteran gatekeeper - his wrestling still game some opponents fits, but Chad Mendes became the first man to crack Guida's legendary chin, and he got tapped out by Dennis Bermudez and Thiago Tavares. But then Guida moved to Team Alpha Male and had a surprisingly positive performance against Brian Ortega - admittedly, it was a weird fight where submission artist Ortega never chose to take things to the ground, but Guida looked pretty good being his usual manic self and keeping Ortega on his toes; at least until the last minute of the fight, where Ortega sensed he was losing, and was just able to chase Guida down and knock him out. So a year later, Guida is back and returning to lightweight, and he faces Erik Koch, who's in a super-weird place at the moment. The story of Koch's career has pretty much been injuries - he was actually slated to face Jose Aldo for the featherweight title a few times in 2012, but wound up getting hurt and missing the entire year, only to come back and lose to Ricardo Lamas and Dustin Poirier once other contenders had emerged. From there, Koch became one of the first guys I can think of to move up a weight class rather than down, and early returns at lightweight were fine - Koch blew through Rafaello Oliveira, but got knocked out by Daron Cruickshank in a fight that was just getting started. And from there, injuries took their toll again, as it was another two-plus years before Koch came back and ran through Shane Campbell. After dropping out of two more bookings - one in September, and one in January, Koch returns after only a thirteen-month layoff, which, progress I suppose. I really have no idea what to make of Guida fights anymore, unless he's at a clear advantage or disadvantage when it comes to being able to implement his wrestling - his stuff is more effective, if the Ortega fight is any indication, but Guida just kind of never stops moving, to the point where it's often hard to tell if he's having any success unless he's just controlling a guy from the top. And Koch, at his best, is an aggressive kickboxer, but it's also hard to tell what he has at this point with only eight minutes of fight time over the last three years. I'll go a bit outside the box and say Koch is able to pressure Guida and just run through him for a first-round knockout, but Guida could easily control things with his wrestling, or just evade Koch the entire fight and make this weird, or hell, any number of things could happen. Vitor Miranda (12-5 overall, 3-2 UFC) vs. Marvin Vettori (11-3 overall, 1-1 UFC): I like this as a pretty interesting middleweight fight, though since I do like both guys, it does make me a bit sad that the loser is going to wind up squarely on the cut line. Vitor Miranda was a fun, under-the-radar story for the bit - he came off as just the nicest guy on TUF Brazil 3, and despite being in his late thirties after a long kickboxing career, he had some surprising early success, scoring knockout wins over Jake Collier, Clint Hester, and Marcelo Guimaraes. But a one-sided loss to Chris Camozzi about a year ago put that to an end, and now Miranda gets a tough test in Italy's Marvin Vettori. Fifteen years younger than Miranda, Vettori's probably the best of this recent wave of Italian talent, although they're still mostly just raw athletes from a burgeoning fight scene. And Miranda's pretty much all horsepower with a driving grappling game at this point, which served him well in his UFC debut against Alberto Uda, but not so much against Antonio Carlos Junior, a bigger guy who also happens to be one of the best BJJ guys on the roster, although Vettori acquitted himself well. Miranda's fights, honestly, all play out the same - he looks to keep a distance to get his kickboxing game going, but inevitably his opponents succeed in pressuring him against the cage and taking him down. Against guys like Collier, Hester, and Guimaraes, Miranda knows enough and has enough strength to get out of trouble and turn things around, often being able to finish the fight close after, but against Camozzi and Carlos Junior (who Miranda debuted against himself), their athleticism and strength was enough to keep Miranda down. So this fight is probably going to look like one of those, and I lean towards the second thanks to Vettori being a physical specimen, though if he's raw enough that Miranda knows enough tricks to turn things around and keep the fight on the feet, I wouldn't be shocked. But still, my call is Vettori to wrestle enough to take a decision, though hopefully we get some fun back and forth swings in the action. Carla Esparza (11-4 overall, 2-2 UFC, 3-0 Invicta, 0-2 Bellator) vs. Maryna Moroz (8-1 overall, 3-1 UFC): A fairly interesting crossroads fight here, as former strawweight champ Carla Esparza is suddenly struggling to stay relevant. Esparza looked to reign over the division when it debuted, as she was the Invicta champ and odds-on favorite going into the inaugural championship tournament, then ran through Angela Hill, Tecia Torres, Jessica Penne, and Rose Namajunas without much trouble. But, well, Joanna Jedrzejczyk got really good, really quick, and in Esparza's first defense, Jedrzejczyk just shut down her wrestling game and beat the piss out of her on the feet. And since then, Esparza has struggled to find a foothold - after taking a year off due to shoulder surgery and getting a fairly uninteresting win over Juliana Lima, UFC basically just took their time booking her, viewing her as a boring fighter who wasn't much of a concern. And when Esparza finally did get a fight against Randa Markos this past February, Markos turned out to be surprisingly game, using a weird, hunched-over striking stance to keep Esparza's wrestling game at bay - most people think Esparza still won the fight, but Markos got the nod, which left Esparza only more rudderless. So Esparza looks to get back on track against Ukraine's Maryna Moroz, who's an interesting talent. Moroz came absolutely out of nowhere - she made her debut as an armbar hunter against weak competition, and Joanne Calderwood was expected to absolutely run through her. But Calderwood went through a messy breakup the night before with her boyfriend/coach the night before, which pretty much left Calderwood in the mental state where Moroz was able to rush her and get a shocking submission win. From there, it's been hard to kind of read how good Moroz is - she followed up the Calderwood win with a loss to Valerie Letourneau, and while she has looked better and relied on her boxing (which is actually her background, despite her early MMA career suggesting otherwise) against Cristina Stanciu and Danielle Taylor, though those two aren't exactly a murderer's row. Moroz is going to pose some problems - she's skilled, athletic, and long, but at the end of the day, Esparza's wrestling is such a plus skill, and I don't think Moroz can keep this on the feet. I expect Moroz to survive, and probably have some moments of her own both on the feet and working for submissions, but my call is Esparza via decision, in what's hopefully one of the more exciting ones of her career. Darrell Horcher (12-2 overall, 0-1 UFC, 2-1 Bellator) vs. Devin Powell (8-2 overall, 0-1 UFC): I'm surprised this isn't opening the card, since it's a bout between two guys who haven't really been able to show much at the UFC level, but it should be a fun way to kick off the televised portion of things, nonetheless. If the name Darrell Horcher rings any bells, it's because his UFC debut was notable, if not particularly successful, as he stepped in on a week's notice in April of last year to replace Tony Ferguson against Khabib Nurmagomedov. Horcher had earned his UFC shot, but, obviously, this was way too much for Horcher to handle, as Nurmagomedov pretty much just took him down and beat his brains in in the Russian's comeback fight from knee injuries. Shortly after that, Horcher was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident, so that's why he hasn't been heard from since, but he returns fourteen months later to take on Maine's Devin Powell. Powell's a signee from Dana White's reality show, and like pretty much all that show's alumni, disappointed in his UFC debut; it's easy to see what White liked about Powell, since he's a long, aggressive fighter with the ability to absorb a ton of damage and stage a comeback, but in his debut against Drakkar Klose, well, pretty much all he did was absorb damage from a more powerful athlete. Horcher's a fairly technical, well-rounded striker, so I like him to pick apart Powell here, though he's not so overwhelming that Powell can't win this by just turning things into a firefight, plus with Horcher coming back from such a brutal accident, it's hard to know exactly how he's going to look. But still, my pick is Horcher by decision in what should be a fun fight. Jared Gordon (12-1 overall) vs. Michel Quinones (8-1 overall, 0-1 Bellator): Well, second time's the charm for this fight, hopefully, as this was initially supposed to take place at UFC 211 before Jared Gordon came down with food poisoning - and third time's the charm for Michel Quinones's debut, as a slated debut on the Halifax card fell apart due to injuries. Anyway, Jared Gordon's another Dana White find, and appears to be one of the better ones based off the little film that's available, even if White has already proven he has no idea how to market him. Gordon has a crazy story involving multiple brushes with death thanks to drug addiction, but when White signed him, all he could do was focus on Gordon's lack of personality. Good work. Anyway, based off that film, Gordon's a powerful wrestler-grappler who could do some damage moving up the ranks, and he takes on Florida native Michel Quinones. Quinones is fine enough, and primarily a kickboxer who likes to peck at range at his opponents, but he can be scared off by power, and I figure that's what's going to happen here. Again, most of what's out there on Gordon is mostly highlights, so it's hard to know how good he looks over a full fight, but I'll take him via decision. Johnny Case (22-5 overall, 4-1 UFC) vs. Tony Martin (11-3 overall, 3-3 UFC): One of the more interesting fights on the card, though I understand why UFC has it this far low, since this could just wind up being a smothering Tony Martin win. It really feels like Martin's had more success than his 3-3 record, but a lot of that may be his losses all coming to pretty good guys in Rashid Magomedov, Beneil Dariush, and Leonardo Santos. But the Minnesota native uses a more dynamic version of the old Gleison Tibau gameplan, with some submissions mixed in - Martin cuts a ton of weight and just uses his size to grind out his opponents for two rounds, often giving up the third round (if it goes that far) due to exhaustion. So Martin's fights have been fairly binary - he's either faced easily overwhelmed lower-tier opponents, or faced guys who have either takedown defense or enough submission ability to keep Martin honest, who have taken him apart fairly easily. And I'm not sure which category Johnny Case falls into. Case had a nice under-the-radar run going - he racked up a ton of pre-UFC fights in his native Iowa, came in as a young, well-rounded veteran, and just racked up four straight wins on undercards while nobody was really paying attention. Case's biggest fight to date, against Australian prospect Jake Matthews in March of last year, was a fairly nip-tuck affair, which most people had Case winning the balance of - but Case was apparently down on the cards, and it all became moot when Matthews clamped on a fight-ending choke in the last minute of the bout. After a long injury layoff, Case returns here, and I'm not really sure what he can offer Martin - he might be the better fighter, but Case is more a well-rounded guy who's best on the feet, and I'm not sure he has either the athleticism or the submission chops to keep Martin from just laying on him. I'd like to be wrong - not that I don't like Martin, I just don't think it would be exciting - but I think Martin just takes a wrestling-heavy decision. Jeremy Kimball (14-6 overall, 0-1 UFC, 1-1 Bellator) vs. Josh Stansbury (8-3 overall, 1-1 UFC): It's a fight! Josh Stansbury is...perfectly fine. He came into UFC through TUF as pretty much a fully-formed, well-rounded vet, and he's the type of guy who can eke out a long UFC career on the margins by being a well-rounded test for newly-signed and lower-tier guys. Basically, you must be at least as good as Josh Stansbury to stick in the UFC. And to that end, Stansbury faces Jeremy Kimball, who lost his UFC debut and probably needs a win to stick in the company. Kimball, an undersized brawler out of Colorado, made his debut as a late-notice replacement in Denver this past January, and offered little to Marcos Rogerio de Lima. This is kind of like the Horcher/Powell fight above - Stansbury is the better technical fighter and has more to work with, but he's not so great that Kimball can't have some success just trying to turn this into a wild firefight. But I'll take Stansbury to earn a decision.