#considering i watched maelstrom on a lark and was very ????? about it

[curioussubjects]

Not only that but imagine going on to listen to the companion podcast hoping for some kind of insight only to spend the duration listening to rdm add insult to injury with zero self awareness.

Everything about Maelstrom lore is a punch to the face, but my favorite part has to be that the network was like absolutely not you are not killing Starbuck??? She's a favorite??? Are you out of your mind??? And then rdm straight up ~lied about how she was gonna be brought back so it'd be ok, which got the storyline approved.

Unparalleled media experience, I must say. It would not be until the great Supernatural clusterfuck of censorship and gaslighting of 2020 that we would see such audacity again.

I cannot fathom what the experience must have been like back on the night of March 4th 2007 when Maelstrom aired. When up until now the show had killed a few characters but really the only main character had been Billy. The whole hour is like, this is weird but they wouldn't kill Starbuck, right? Right?? Right??!!

[stevenbasic]

I had to get out. I had to get out I had to get out I had to get out. Sunday, early afternoon. I had just spent nearly all my weekend in bed, two nights of no sleep, jerking off to her Instagram. I had wasted my days, and I needed...to stop. I needed fresh air...

Why?!? Why was I like this?? Why was I throwing my life away?? Why was I allowing myself to sink further into this deep obsession for this girl?!? My marriage was in tatters, my practice rudderless, sinking, my mind a maelstrom. Even my body - withering. Was that because of all this, too? Because I was too weak to show some discipline, man up, and get my life and business back on track??

I needed to get out. I needed the open air and a walk. And so somehow I’d mustered the motivation to peel myself off my tainted sheets, put on some ill-fitting clothes, and step out the door of my pathetic new apartment. I walked, half-aimlessly, away from the apartment, away from the office building, away from it all. I had no plans as to where I was going to go but I’d found myself, an hour later, here. A nicely warm October day, and I’d made it into the city, into the park, rudderless down its paths but - at the very least - active. Forcing myself to keep walking, further and further and further from the little hovel I called home.

Home. Where is home? It certainly wasn’t at my house, with Sheryl. Home. What a strange concept, now. If I’m being honest with myself I’d admit I knew where home should be. Home should be in that hair. Home should be in that lap. Home should be in those tits, between those thighs. Nnnnngh I...I couldn’t get her out of my head. Those legs, the hips, the smile. Everything. Everything. That woman could be a home.

What the fuck was happening? Melissa was...someone I hired, at first seemingly just on a lark. Was that my first mistake, bringing someone who looked like that into my office, into my life? Giving her a job, more responsibility than she could handle, just for the opportunity to be close to her, to see her, day in and day out? Yes, that was a mistake, but since then...what had happened? Because of her my staff had changed, my patient numbers were down, my income plummeting. Because of her my wife had kicked me out of the house, my life was in shambles. Because of her my mind was a wreck - I couldn’t stop thinking about her, I was unfocused and weak. And, yes, I realize...it wasn’t her fault, it was mine. I was the one to blame for the state I’d found myself in that day in the park. I’d let her get too close, our relationship too intimate. I had to take responsibility for that. But in the meantime...what the fuck? Melissa had...what? Grown five inches??

I had to sit down.

It all seemed crafted, perfectly, to dominate my every waking thought, I considered anxiously, as I fell onto a park bench, legs aching from exhaustion. It was like the whole situation was being forged to capture me, crush my will, imprison me behind the bars of my own weaknesses. It seemed aggressive and...oh god, here it is again...another alert, she’s posted another one….

If I didn’t know any better I’d say her posts seemed weaponized. For all her sweetness and mirth she seemed weaponized. In fact so much else around me seemed it, too. You’d seen the poster, on the tree,  I told myself, You just choose to ignore it. Just look around, the writing really is on the wall, if you really want to look. It might be subtle but...see that guy, passing by? Or that guy over there? In fact, all of them...look how they walk, slowly. Many with slumped shoulders, limp. It could merely be my brewing paranoia but they looked like something’s been taken from them. Men: they’re certainly not out here, on this warm autumn day, exercising, like the women are. As I really start to watch them, many seem lost. They’re here...passive. They’re watching the ladies running, ogling the girls sunbathing. Some seem half-witted, half-dazed, listless. The ones here with partners seem even more afflicted still, less vibrant than their wives or girlfriends, women who all seemed to carry themselves with natural purpose, confidence, strength.

Have I not noticed this before? This difference between the sexes? Was I just imagining it? No. Look at that young couple over there, spread out on a blanket under the tree. He’s laid down, head in her skirted lap. She’s reading a book to him, idly petting his head. Innocently intimate, a nice moment? Maybe, but...and perhaps I was just imagining it...things were going on under the surface, it’s like I could see it. And look what she’s reading to him…

It gave me a chill, it made me nervous. The women - they all seemed self-assured, self-possessed, self-confident. Positive and strong. And the men? They looked...just like me. Were they all becoming leashed, trapped by their own needs like I was? Life and reality slipping out of their outmatched hands, being gathered by the over-competent women around them? I shuddered, thinking of the news report I’d just heard, the latest poll results, predictions for this imminent election. If we were going out like lambs, they were coming in like lions.

Perhaps, I thought, it would be better that way.

My mind drifted back to Melissa. Perhaps I’d be better off with her. Safer.

Oh, god, no...don’t think that way, I told myself, as I abruptly forced myself off the bench again, legs groaning, and started walking. I needed...I needed to work on my marriage, somehow. My life would just get ten times worse if things fell completely apart between Sheryl and me. And there’s no guarantees Melissa would have me but...just the thought...the idea…even if I lost everything...if we lost everything...if I had...If she had...

<shudder>

As I began my walk again, back on some of the paths I’d strolled earlier, I felt the chill in the air, saw the sun having already grown lower in the sky.

I felt weirdly afraid and strangely...alone. I decided, immediately, that I should be getting back, and turned on my heel. Though my legs seemed to have little strength left in them, the world suddenly seemed ominous to me and I picked up my pace as best I could. I came up behind, and began to pass, a small group of fit women, roughly my age...and height.

“Jeff has been so...passive recently,” I overheard one of them saying, “We’re repainting the downstairs and he actually let me choose all the colors.”

“Paul too…” answered another, a busty brunette, as one of her friends gave me a sideways glance, “he’s been different, it’s been great. He does everything I say.” The other women clucked their approvals, acknowledgments, agreements, “In fact,” she continued, “I think I actually have him convinced to vote for Ivanka.”

“I hear that,” said another, the shortest of the group,, as the others chuckled, “Lots of men are going to be voting for women candidates, is what they’re say-”

“Can we help you??” a frosted blond asked me, sharply, abruptly turning to me, apparently aware of my eavesdropping, how I’d sidled up alongside them.

“N-n-no...sorry..” I winced, deferentially, and meekly turned off the path...

===================================================

Thanks to Pugugly and Topographic Society for their inspirations on this one

Next post up already at my Patreon.