#i just love how misrepresented he is in the public

[cash-legacy]

SOGUE MAGAZINE, WINTER 2024

The Blood of the Innocent: Judith Ward's Dirty Little Secret

(For the Occultify a Sim challenge in the Occult Simblr Discord)

Nobody will forget the feeling of seeing their childhood favorite movie star twenty years later. The nostalgia of seeing their face, the weird awareness of your own mortality as you take in the new wrinkles and lines. Did she have those kids when she filmed that movie? Were they really that young? I'm older than he was when he filmed that one show... But one Del Sol face has yet to bear the scars of time - the ever-iconic Judith Ward. In our interview, Ward told me exactly how she's stayed just so young and lovely: consensual Vampirism.

Want more? Read the rest of the article below the cut!

This announcement comes at a complicated time for Simerica, as anti-Occult sentiments have spread across the nation like wildfire, and public opinion has shifted away from their support. Vampires especially, known for their "inborn" violent tendencies towards ordinary Sims, face a great deal of discrimination in many regions. Some Sims view this as a safety measure, a means of keeping natural killers away from their families. Recent legislation has attempted to make this a national issue, as opposed to a region-specific one, as proposed by senators Victor Feng and Anne Thorne, of San Myshuno and Copperdale respectively. Others sympathize with the Occult cause. Feng and Thorne's bill failed to get the required majority, but it was close. Many Sims on both sides of the political spectrum felt that the vote should have swung one way or another, and celebrities across Simerica have taken to speaking their piece. Judith Ward's, however, may be the most personal - and impactful - of them all. We conducted our interview at Ward's Del Sol house:

WHY NOW? "Now is precisely the right time to speak up about these things. Sims across the nation are wondering what to believe, and who to trust. And they know they can trust me. If being open about what I am convinces even a single Sim to join the cause and protect my people, it will have been worth all the backlash I expect to face." YOU CALLED IT CONSENSUAL VAMPIRISM. EXPLAIN THAT? "It's true that untrained or under-educated Vampires can cause massive harm to populations, especially in small towns. But the solution to that problem isn't punishing them, or stripping them of their resources. We've seen what happens when you do that. It's why we've had this moment of tension in the first place. But when provided the resources needed to survive harmlessly, Vampires are no more dangerous than any other Sim." BUT... "CONSENSUAL?" "I keep a few Sims in my employ. Times are tough, and I pay handsomely. It's in cooperation with a private medical practice, they're thoroughly informed beforehand, and it's all quite sterile and ethical, don't you worry." TELL ME ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH VAMPIRISM. "I admit, when I first signed up for it, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was frightening. The transformation can be quite painful, particularly in the first few days. I've had some issues with work, too. I have to film daylight scenes in short bursts, or on soundstages. I've lost more than a few roles because of it. But I've got it easy, all things considered. My heart really goes out to all those who don't have such flexibility in their careers."

It's hard to say for certain where Occult politics will lead. Polling is wildly polarized across and within regions, and extremism on both sides is rampant. More and more prominent social figures are taking stances, and Judith Ward certainly won't be the last. Only time will tell which way the political compass will turn. See you next time, LINCOLN BROADSHEET

CelebCrave: Sogue Journalist Fired After Political Tantrum!

"They wildly misrepresented me," complained former Sogue interviewer Lincoln Broadsheet, in a recent Social Bunny post. "I didn't approve the cover or the title... It's incredibly hurtful to see such a prominent magazine ignore my intentions as a writer like this... And they fired me over it. Writers like me get fired for trying to provide the truth, instead of writing for clicks." Read the full Social Bunny thread here: Lincoln Broadsheet @ LBWrites replying to @[...] They wildly misrepresented me and Judith. It was a huge lapse in judgment from Sogue, and their decision to fire me when I protested was irresponsible. 1/8 Lincoln Broadsheet @ LBWrites I didn't approve the cover or the title. My articles are always unbiased, especially when they're about such decisive subjects. It's incredibly hurtful to see such a prominent magazine ignore my intentions as a writer like this. 2/8 Lincoln Broadsheet @ LBWrites I couldn't sit by without speaking out, and they fired me over it. It hurts to see how many Sims don't care about misinformation and biased reporting. These issues are rampant, and writers like me get fired for trying to provide the truth, instead of writing for clicks. 3/8 [...]

[mydemonsdrivealimo]

pleaseee tell me more about jensen and gender stuff. his nonchalance/detachment about his own gender is so interesting to me. anything really :) but i really like the thing about him only thinking about his gender/himself and defining things when he's prompted to do it.. so if you want to elaborate on that i won't complain!!!!

thank you this is exactly the kind of ask i was looking for omg i loveee ranting for way too long ab jensens character [jensen gender post]

ig the best way to put it is that jensen thinks his gender is the least interesting topic of conversation at any given moment. really anything ab himself, actually

before i get into that tho we gotta go back to undergrad when jensen actually started formulating this image/personality for himself. jensen was in the music scene and started breaking into the industry w his bandmates, but had to quit just as they got an official offer bc he was not creating a sustainable lifestyle or persona

he let himself pretend to be so much more than he felt, and he was constantly putting labels on himself to create this clear image of a "rockstar" (not exactly, but the idea that he was a solidly defined person in a defined role yk). he said that he absolutely was bi, absolutely was the image of a cis queer man who was willing to play w fashion and push against norms, but deep down he hated that. not what he was doing, but the fact that even by breaking out of a stereotype/box, he was just putting himself into another. it all started to play along w the idea that he was a partier and mr popular and a young queer guy who wanted to make a name for himself

i havent talked much ab his little college mental breakdown, but that was essentially what started it. he couldn't handle being that "guy" for the rest of his life. he didn't want to be in a box. he didn't want to be a box

as he started in medicine, he really was able to put his time and energy into the things he was interested in and had a passion for, and he could let go of the idea that he had to be a somebody doing a something for a reason. he could just exist and do the work he was interested in (and yes he has always stood out, but during that time he felt like he didn't, which is something he's always struggled with)(yes it has to do w the undiagnosed autism. anyway.)

and thats kind of when he stopped living by the expectation that he has to be this clear cut, singular line of a person. why should he care ab defining his gender and sexuality when there are so many more compelling and interesting and important things in the world? that is such an irrelevant part of him when compared to the intricacies and complexities of his profession and interests and world events and everything else aside from it. now, he does fully and completely understand that he does have certain advantages and disadvantages because of how he looks and presents, but in regular old conversations ab life and his career, it doesn't seem like the most pressing matter to bring up. those advantages and disadvantages are just frustrating to him more than anything, but thats bc they bring up questions of nationwide and systemic issues, not bc it specifically has to do w him. again, he is the least interesting part of this equation in his mind

by putting a label on himself, the world is expecting to see him in one way or another, when really he thinks the world doesnt need to be in his business at all. jensen hates small talk and the surface level type of information you "should" know ab a person. if he clicks with someone, they'll get through a 2 hour conversation ab hypothetical treatments for an uncurable disease before they learn each others names. it matters more to him what people believe in and are passionate ab than what their name or favorite season is. ofc he respects people and their identity, but that has nothing to do w whether or not he click w them on a deeper level

this is also what i mean when is say he isnt open ab himself unless being prompted. again w the undiagnosed autism, but jensen has always felt that someone else has to set the tone and depth of the conversation before he adds on. he has to gauge what their expectation of the conversation is before he gives his input

with that said, everyone says jensen is super quiet. he observes conversations long before he participates in them, which leads to a lot of people talking at him bc they perceive him to be quiet and a good listener, when usually hes just trying to soak up as much information as possible to say the correct thing

but then theres people like bryce who want to have a back-and-forth conversation, and have the confidence to straight up ask jensen his opinions and feelings on things. he responds best to direct questions bc its a clear "this is what i want from you" rather than trying to figure out what the next depth-match and appropriate comment is

so when it comes to people asking in intro/casual conversation ab his sexuality and gender, he can give them a set answer he's already picked out, basically. he's comfortable saying he goes by he/him and is bi but thats just bc it moves the small talk/uninteresting part of the conversation along faster

but, when he's w people (like bryce) who want and ask for the real, complicated answer? he will absolutely elaborate. but again, it all depends on the nature of the conversation and what he thinks is appropriate for it

if its a convo that doesnt matter, he'll say what he has to even if it isn't 100% accurate just bc he doesnt care enough to elaborate on it when it's unimportant. whereas in convos he cares ab where he can be 100% real and truthful and elaborate fully on his feelings ab things, he will

[essence-inked]

Alright fuck it, maybe my two cents on this will be helpful to someone.

Content warning: this is about the Neil Gaiman thing.

I'm a victim of sexual harassment and assault, and I feel like my experiences would help explain my thoughts. And also, this is mostly stream-of-consciousness, so I guess y'all are getting some personal backstory on this one regardless, because I don't have the emotional bandwidth to polish this.

The first time, when I was harassed, I came forward. The guy who'd harassed me (and from what I learned later, I was damn lucky I happened to have the confidence to keep saying no despite repeated attempts at coercion) had assaulted other people, and this ended with his victims banding together to try to bring him to justice. We had an overwhelming pile of evidence, but the administration of our college kept dragging their feet, ignored their own policies, and eventually, after a grueling fight for justice that lasted long enough for him to assault another person who joined us, he finally got suspended. Conveniently, this was right when he was graduating and it wouldn't matter anyways, but we figured that at least we wouldn't have to deal with him at graduation - that is, until the school let him walk, and he used his chance to give a speech to misrepresent what had happened. I say all this to point out that the people with the power to actually convict someone of assault are often negligent, and as much as I want to say that I'll just wait and see what the investigation turns up, just because nothing comes of this doesn't mean it didn't happen.

BUT - and this is equally as important - that also doesn't mean it did. To my understanding, "always believe victims" means "don't presume someone is lying just because you think the person they're accusing isn't capable of causing harm." It means believing victims could be telling the truth when they come forward about trusted authority figures, or loved ones, or someone who's otherwise seemed perfectly nice. It means believing that assault CAN happen. This is where my second story comes in. A couple years ago, I was assaulted by a friend. I was too shaken to come forward, and scared enough that I just wanted to move on from the whole thing. A couple months later, though, I decided to tell a mutual friend what had happened, because I was worried if I didn't, she'd have the same thing happen to her. The important bit is that she didn't dismiss me just because this was a friend we were talking about, and she sat and listened and believed that they could be capable of hurting me. The point I’m trying to make here is that it is possible for someone to seem perfectly nice and not be, and doubly so with celebrities whose public persona is the only part of them we see. And when victims come forward, it’s not about necessarily accepting their claim as fact - it’s about understanding that you shouldn’t dismiss them on the grounds that the person they’re accusing would never do that, because you could be wrong.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that you can't just wrap everything up with an easy conclusion. Anyone can lie - Neil Gaiman can lie, the two women who accused him of assault can lie, and hell, all three of them can lie to some degree at the same time. Is it eyebrow-raising that the source of the accusations is anti-BDSM (topically relevant since a lot of this centers around kinky sex, and whether Gaiman actually got consent to be that rough), and also affiliated with TERFs (who aren't exactly fans of Gaiman these days)? Yes. Would it be fucked up to just dismiss the claims because of that? Also yes. Then there's the bit where it's more likely for people to make false accusations against celebrities, but also, celebrities live in the weird ego-boosting microcosm that would make someone more prone to be a shitty person.

The bottom line is that we don't know anything for sure, and that is something we are going to have to live with and factor into how we make our decisions. Personally, I think I'll be able to appreciate collaborative stuff like Good Omens just on the basis that it's also Pratchett's work, and some of Gaiman's books hold a special place in my heart regardless of any personal feelings about him. But also, that may be subject to change, so who knows? Right now, I'm going to take a step back, and probably poke my head back in after a few months once the dust has settled and there's a bit more to go on (but as said, a lack of an official guilty verdict doesn't necessarily mean a definitive lack of assault, and we probably won’t get a clear answer here).

I'm seeing a lot of people either say that Gaiman for sure did commit assault, or for sure did not commit assault, and not back up either statement with any solid evidence, and quite frankly I think that's stupid and irresponsible. Uncertainty happens sometimes, and it sucks, and pretending like you can reach a definitive conclusion will not actually make the situation better. Instead, you just have to do the best you can with the information that you have, and try to make the most reasonable choices you can.

Edit: just to be clear, I'm not trying to express any particular stance on Gaiman himself - the most I've got there is it sounds like when I do delve down the rabbit hole more later on, I'll probably be disappointed in him. What I care about is that I'm seeing people reaffirm their stances with claims that someone quite literally couldn't lie (both in reference to Gaiman and the women who came forward), or citing the podcast's TERF affiliations as proof that nothing happened, or saying that Gaiman just gave off bad vibes, and that's proof he did do it. And like. That sort of rhetoric is what people point to when they want to discredit victims. That sort of rhetoric is how you wind up stumbling into having a bad take at some point and not being able to think critically about it. I'm more concerned about poking my head in here and seeing an absolute dumpster fire of shitty logic in every single stance than I am about whether or not an author whose stuff I've liked turns out to be a horrible person.

Also, re: the commenter who said he admitted coersion, that'd be super useful to know, but every source I've found in my short "okay what the fuck is going on" search says he's going full denial, so I'm gonna need a quote on that one. And to that end, that's exactly why I'm holding off on going down the rabbit hole, because I want to wait til there's a bit more coverage so I can get the story in one fell swoop rather than piecemeal. And also to that end, y'all are more than welcome to toss sources on here for me to check out at a later date, or for anyone else who might want them.

[fruity-pontmercy]

Les Mis adaptations and apolitical appropriation

I think it's no secret on this blog that I love the original Les Mis 1980 concept album in French, and that I also love comparing different versions of the stage musical. I've noticed that Les Mis seems to get progressively more vaguely apolitical as time goes on, not only in the way it's viewed in our culture, but in the actual text as well.

It's natural for specifics to be lost in adaptation. It's easier to get people to care about 'the people vs. the king' in a relatively short musical rather than actually facing the audience with the absolute mess that were 19th century french politics (monarchist orleanists vs monarchist legitimists vs imperialist vs bonapartist democrats vs every flavour of republican imaginable). Still, I feel that as time goes on, as more revivals and adaptations of the stage musical come out, the more watered down its politics become. Like, Les Mis at it's core is just meant to be a fancily written, drawn out political essay, right?

In a way I feel that the 1980 concept album almost tried to modernise it with its symbols of progress. Yes, through Enjolras' infamous disco segment (and other similar allusions to the ideals of social change), but perhaps most interestingly to me, through one short line that threw me off when I first heard it, because it seems so insignificant, but might actually be the most explicitly leftist line of all of Les Mis.

"Son coeur vibrait à gauche et il le proclama" (roughly "His heart beat to the left and he proclaimed it" i.e: he was a leftist) Feuilly says, while speaking of the now dead général Lamarque in Les Amis de L'ABC.

What's that? An actual mention of leftism??? in MY vaguely progressive yet apolitical musical??? More seriously, this mention of leftism, clashing with the rest of the musical due to it's seeming anachronism, is interesting not because it's actually more political than anything else in Les Mis, rather, because it's not scared to explicitly name what it's trying to do.

But we've come a long way from the Concept Album days, it's been 43 years, and Les Misérables is now one of the most famous and beloved musicals in the entire world. It's been revived and reimagined and adapted in a million ways, in different mediums, in different languages and countries, and it's clear that it's changed along with it's audience.

On top of pointing out a cool line in my favourite version of the musical, I wanted to write this post to reflect on the perception of the political message of this work. We as a Les Mis fandom on Tumblr are very political, I don't need to tell you that, however, I feel that because this very left leaning space has sprung out of a work we all love so much, we oftentimes forget to revisit it from a more objective point of view.

Les Misérables has a history of being misrepresented, this has been true since it's publication, since american confederate soldiers became entranced with their censored translation Lee's Miserables. However, with it's musical adaptation, this misinterpretation has been made not only more accessible but also easier. As much as I love musical theatre and I think it is at it's best an incredible art form able to communicate complex themes visulally by the masses for the masses, I think it'd be idealistic to ignore the fact that the people who can afford to go see musicals regularly are, usually, not the common folk. Broadway and the West End are industries which, like most, need money to keep them afloat, and are loved people of all political backgrounds (and unfortunately, often older conservatives) not just communists on tumblr. We've seen the way Les Miz UK's social media team constantly misses the mark regarding different social issues, and the way Cameron Makintosh has used the musical to propagate his transphobia, and most of us can agree that these actions are in complete antithesis with the message of Les Misérables as a novel.

But I must ask, how does Les Mis ,as a West End musical in it's current form, actually drive a leftist message, and how are we as a community helping if every time someone relating to the musical messes up if we just claim they "don't get it"?

I'm thinking in particular of incidents like last october, where Just Stop Oil crashed Les Mis at the West End. Whether you think it's good activism or not is not the question I think, this instance is interesting particularly because it shows that, outside of Les Misérables analysis circles and fandom spaces, it is not recognised as an inherently leftist, political or activist work, and instead of just saying they completely missed the point of the musical, I think it'd be interesting to take a step back and look at what the musical as it stands actually represents in our culture today.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, so I won't try to give one, but I do hope we can reflect on this a bit.

[foreignswaggersession]

Thank you for your IWTV posts and clearing up misconceptions. Tbh I wouldn't be so annoyed if people weren't constantly determined to do as many bad faith readings as possible when it came to Louis and Armand's relationship. Like of course it was a very flawed and very complicated relationship, we know this! But it's so obvious when a fan is making a post about how it was "completely loveless and devoid of sexual intimacy" solely so their own otp could look better. So many examples that others have already pointed out, including that one take about Louis disliking the first TVD performance, so this means that he hates theater in general and prefers Lestat over Armand (excuse me, what?)

Also more than one person trying to say how loumand had more PDA and not just for Daniel in the Dubai interview. But that this meant "every affectionate gesture between them to ever happen including Paris was just for performance" and was not truly genuine compared to what was with Lestat? Um no shit, Louis and Lestat had more of their love scenes behind closed doors. But also consider the context with how things were in NOLA and Louis having to pose as another person (brother, business partner, etc) because of rumors surrounding him and his lover. How due to racial discrimination he couldn't even get into an opera house without playing Lestat's servant. Then skip forward to the 1940s when he believed he can actually be comfortable doing this openly "Paris was a formative sexual liberation", with him having those casual relationships with other men while cruising. To kissing and being affectionate with Armand in public and not give a damn who is watching or if he's being heckled for it. This isn't even trying to reduce Louis' previous relationships either or say they're less important, more that Louis' comfort with how he expressed his own sexuality and romantic gestures developed over time.

As for Dreamstat... guys he's an extension of Louis' inner thoughts (a complex mixture of emotions before Louis was ready to enter a new relationship), but he wasn't present during loumand sex scenes either... and Louis certainly wasn't having sex with Armand just for Dreamstat to watch??

Despite already knowing what's "endgame" some people still can't allow even a single moment of love, attraction and vulnerability between loumand to just exist without twisting it into something else, or making it actually about Lestat or Daniel while propping up their preferred pairing. good lord, I'm tired of this.

🥰thanks anon! i'm not as familiar with tv fandom so maybe i'm not understanding why people are so resistant to acknowledging louis's attraction to armand (even pre-claudia's murder) when they were together in canon. like in both the show and the book (and not in a future book, devil's minion stans). since when are people not allowed to enjoy different relationships at different times? i think it's silly to ignore or misrepresent whole sections of the plot just to feel like your favorite ship is the more romantic(?) or healthier (😂) ship, i guess? but yeah, recognizing any romance or attraction between louis and armand (especially from louis towards armand) makes some people angry, as though it undermines armand's abuse or any future relationship either party will have.

not much to add to what you said - the majority of fans only care about louis to the extent he cares about lestat, so they focus on dreamstat/lestat scenes in s2 and ignore the many scenes without him. then there are fans that can't let go of their s1 headcanons that conflict with new information from s2 (louis tops sometimes. it's just a fact now. please stop being weird about it.) i also hate the refusal to engage with louis's repeated statements about his changing relationship to his sexuality over time. his sexual preferences are not stuck in 1910, and i don't agree with pathologizing louis topping or having sex with men besides lestat (if you're not into it, just say that, but don't act like there's no evidence for louis enjoying a different sex life in the show).

i'm not a solo shipper and i love thinking about louis so it's not hard for me to imagine louis in multiple relationships (and in various positions 🥵), and lucky for me i get to see that on screen! cause that's what the show is about actually! louis! the titular vampire.

[glitterytorturedpoet]

the saltburn review

saltburn hit pretty close to home. largely because i lived it. at times it was personal and surreal, shocking and true. but in the end it was just another misguided attempt at understanding the misunderstood.

and whom are the misunderstood? the middle class and the one percent? or the soul searching queer? according to emerald fennell, it’s the latter.

for the most part i felt that oliver was created and portrayed accurately, though i was ultimately disappointed by his character arc. while the idea of him m*dering Felix and his family is darkly humorous and seems like an appropriate conclusion, i think it actually misrepresented his character entirely. simultaneously, it absolutely destroyed any sense of romanticism the film spent close to three acts persuading the audience on. instead of the psycho-erotic masterpiece you think just might serve as the male counterpart for killing eve, you get just another fuck you to the LGBTQ community and the one-percent economy. which i might add is grotesquely overdone in media, and the audience knows it by the time they reach the film’s stale ending.

and it is stale. every scene plays like a fever dream of conversations one has already heard before. with the most cliché monologues coming from Farleigh and Venetia. every word seems so painstakingly familiar one can’t help but draw the similarities to F. Scott’s Jay Gatsby. Though where Fitzgerald cuts his dreamy romance and imagination short before any nightmare can begin, Fennell embraces the demons of the night, dragging her Gatsby through the mud and the blood until he’s so unrecognizable she has to provide an alternate origin story to make up for Oliver’s unnatural behavior.

and it is unnatural. so unnatrual that by the credit roll, you’re not quite sure who Oliver is, or what his motives are. on the pretense of reality, it seems pretty rigid for a guy who grew up in a decent neighborhood to go from erotically obsessed with his classmate to a murderous usurper. a conclusion so categorically absurd, it’s impossible to believe- largely because anyone on Oliver’s spectrum would never be able to sustain the public image it takes to uphold Saltburn let alone the ghost of Felix. His nude dance around the estate might as well be his seven seconds of heaven before the vultures descend at Farleigh’s call. And who would Farleigh find? Venetia claims her family believes Oliver to be a spider while she herself is partial to the idea that he’s a moth. [though ultimately she decides he’s a freaky nobody.] i personally concluded he was a werewolf. Normal when the prodigal *son is out, but absolutely possessed at night. Oliver himself professes that he is in fact a vampire. but much to every viewers dismay, we’re not entirely sure why.

3/5 stars: guess it’s just an oliver Quick Horror movie for the rich and famous.

bonus:

which saltburn plague are you?

let me know in the comments

the vampire: dead. cold hearted. bloodsucking. manipulative. stealing the life out of everyone and everything after they invite you in. guaranteed to love you forever or your money back.

the spider: the silent observer, hiding in corners, working in the shadows, whispering half-truths to make your bed of lies. and once you’ve captured your lovely guest, up up and away they go. down your throat for dinner.

the moth: addicted to the light, and the money, and the scene, and the shiny diamond irresistible things. you do nothing but eat holes into everything and everyone until the light is yours alone.

the freaky nobody: you have an erotic obsession with the guy you met in chem class, or the 60 year old lead actress on an emmy award winning tv show. you spend your days, weeks, months admiring from afar and planning how you’ll end up being together. you like to spy on them while they masturbate and after they’re dead you wear their aromas and old underwear.

the werewolf: an absolute darling pet during the day. someone's best friend and best mate. you wait by their side and do everything they ask in complete and utter obedience and loyalty. but as soon as the full moon comes out you can't be trusted. the demon inside comes out, no one is safe, and everything is considered dinner.

would you / did you / never ever

let me know in the comments

1. lend your bike to your secret crush

I WOULD ABSOLUTELY. wouldn’t go so far as pre-sabotaging the bicycle, but if she needed a ride, i’d give her mine.

2. watch your crush sleep with another person

never ever. i don’t think i could. it’s one of those things that i think i never would want to see. I think i would black out. I think I would get jealous in a way that i’ve never been jealous before. and i think it would haunt me in a way that nothing’s ever haunted me before. i can’t see it being healthy.

3. make out with your crushes love interest

there’s a duplicity to this. maybe even a triplicity given the nature of the game. would I? yes. if the circumstances were right. have i? I have - sort of. not really. there was a guy that i knew who had worked with her previously. and they weren’t romantically linked at all. but i remember thinking when we made out, this guy has been near her. they've touched. because of my circumstances, it felt mystical and urgent, but i never allowed it to happen again. mainly because deep down i knew i was using him. and all i would ever do was use him for precisely that reason. and that wasn’t fair. so i never talked to him again. never ever? she’s married. her husband is this guy. i don’t think i could kiss him. i don’t think i would. but if i did i would imagine it being for the sole reason of missing her because she was no longer with us.

4. tell your crush you suffered a traumatic event to get them to befriend you even more

no. not to the extent that Ollie lied. that was pretty big even for me. i’d tell a white lie. I have told a white lie to get my crush to befriend me even more, but to lie about trauma is diabolical. [the lie i told, was about not having a twitter account in my crushes honorum. in truth, i really did. and i didn’t want her to know about it because it was my place to be transparent. and curious, and sexually fluid. it was my place to be absolutely mental. but i never lied about traumas. [that’s gnarly.]

5. spend the night over your super rich friend’s house

never ever. for precisely the reasons detailed in this film, however parody the script may have been, there’s a lot of truth to the scenario. to the reactions. I always did my best to avoid putting myself into those situations. when you’re in social settings like that i think it’s important to realize and establish your role early on. if they’re fire, you’ve got to position yourself as water, or earth, or wind and be realistic about that. if you’re not, you’re just setting yourself up for failure. you just seem delusional. you've got to be strong. be your own character. set your boundaries and don’t apologize for them. if you don't you''ll only ever be a play thing. you want to make an impression? you want to be memorable? my advice is to keep networking. don't limit yourself to one person just because they're so and so and they have connections. keep networking. make your own connections. and make connections that are outside of their circle. that way if things do go south, the most you lose is an understanding, but never your newly earned position. when you limit yourself you become dependent on others for your happiness and growth. you don't just come off as a moth, but a leech. [that's your que pamela!] it's just not attractive.

6. slurp your crushes masturbation bathwater

abso-fucking-lutely - on second thought it might be a bit too soapy for my tasting. but i’d definitely do a finger dip.

7. perform oral sex during someone’s menstrual cycle

like a full session? probably not. some people try and justify it and make it acceptable but the fact is it’s unsanitary, unhealthy, and unclean. there’s even risk of giving your partner a bacterial infection. so no. not exactly. but i know it’s possible for some women to become aroused. i’d be open to fingering long term, but nothing oral. i have nothing to prove in doing that.

8. play psychological mind games with your competition

i did. don’t recommend it at all. it’s enough to make a person go insane. and there are so many other wonderful things you could be doing. like being kind and being genuine. that’s not to say that being that way will inherently make you exempt from offensive behaviors- and by offensive behaviors i am referring to the unmentionable hazing experience wealthy young adults play on middle class young adults. that's the ugly side of ambition. the part that you’re unprepared for because no one really expects it. you're so focused on socially advancing that once you've gotten your foot in the door the only thing you can process is the success of it. the next steps of it. it's a lot. one minute you think you've just secured generational wealth for your family and the next you're standing in an arena with a sword while all the advanced gather for entertainment. it can just be impossible and manipulative, and jealous for no reason. they’ll hurt you just because they can, just because they’re not having a good day. and it can cost you everything. so don't go in it with the expectation you're going to win. the game is rigged. go in with the intention to survive. you never know, you might get lucky.

9. kill your crush after they found out about your deception and decided they no longer wanted to be in a relationship with you

nooooo!!!! never ever! if anything, i’d kill myself before i had the nerve to kill my crush. to ruin those eyes? and that hair? and those legs? and that ass? and those lips?! PLEASE. the last thing i’d want to do is kill someone i’m in love with! it's just unfathomable. i can't even imagine it. life just wouldn't have meaning without my crush. even if she is married. i don't care. i still want her alive and breathing. if anything i want her to live forever.

10. masturbate on your crushes grave.

this one made me laugh. in hindsight no. maybe you know, i’d think about us being together when i go to lay some flowers, but full on, naked and thrashing against the dirt? i can’t say that’s for me. I can’t speak for what happens in the car though- especially if the grave just happens to be by the beach...

[maple-keenes]

couldn't reply without subordinate clauses

>> READ IT ON AO3 HERE

summary: Kakyoin needs help with his English, and who better to help him than someone like Jotaro, who’s been speaking it his whole life? It’s the perfect solution. …but someone really should have warned Kakyoin about how much time he’d have to spend looking at Jotaro’s mouth, ‘cause he’s not sure how much more of this he can take. (or: kakyoin and jotaro learn to use their words.) - notes: disclaimer: i don’t speak japanese, which is why you will notice that none of this fic is actually in japanese. all references to japanese grammar and phonology are correct to the best of my knowledge but i recognize that there may be mistakes. however, i DO know a lot about teaching english as a second language and if my advisor somehow finds this, sorry for misrepresenting the field but in my defense this is anime fanfiction dedicated not only to the jojo crew (@thesmalbox and @drawbucket) as per usual but ALSO to @pechebeche for just sort of coincidentally getting into jojo at the same time as me and always being down to scream about jotakak and/or phonetics with me. all three a’y’all are awesome.  title is from the collection’s “spark of hope”, which does remind me of jotaro but mostly i just like the silly pun.

Kakyoin Noriaki helped kill a homicidal vampire when he was seventeen years old with nothing but a bunch of tentacles, but looking at the table in front of him, covered in various indecipherable sheets of paper, he thinks that might have been easier than this. 

He fucking hates English. 

Kakyoin is, objectively, pretty intelligent, if you ignore the multiple massive lapses in judgment that have led to him a) being half-blind in both eyes, b) being maybe a little bit in love with the guy who by extension is the reason he’s half-blind in both eyes, and c) following said guy to America for college because he just does that now, apparently. Something about Jotaro makes him incredibly, impressively stupid. Stupid enough to follow him across Southeast Asia, and now, stupid enough to try and teach himself a new language because they’re so horribly codependent now that the idea of Jotaro moving to America and Kakyoin not going was ridiculous. Ridiculous enough that Kakyoin was able to ignore the fact that he barely speaks English when making the decision.

And oh, he’s regretting it now. Not enough to not go, of course, but enough that he’s given up on the actual learning bit and is now glaring daggers at the worksheets spread out in front of him, all in an easy-to-read font for his convenience. 

He’s been in the public library for two hours, hiding in a secluded corner because he doesn’t need everyone to hear him talking to himself. He’s still trying to figure out what the fuck a progressive is and why there’s six different kinds of them when someone slides into the seat beside him and asks, “You still doing homework?” 

His only response is a muffled groan from where his head is buried in his hands, which is thankfully met by a small huff of laughter from the boy beside him. “Yeah, kinda figured. Couldn’t find you at your place, so I thought you might be hanging out here.” 

Kakyoin removes his head from his hands and offers Jotaro a pained look. “I’m fucking dying, Jotaro.” 

“You’re being dramatic.” 

“I am not .”

Jotaro ignores that and continues to be unsympathetic to Kakyoin’s clear emotional distress. “Are you doing your English homework?” he asks, picking up one of the papers nearest to him.

Kakyoin gestures vaguely at the mess in front of him. “No, I’m doing my taxes.” 

He makes a half-hearted noise of acknowledgment as he skims over the worksheet in his hand. “You got this wrong,” Jotaro says, pointing at an answer Kakyoin had written down about halfway down the paper. “It should be ‘have taken’.”

“Why ?”

“Because ‘had taken’ means it happened in the past.” Jotaro makes a mark on Kakyoin’s paper with a nearby pen. 

“Isn’t that what ‘have taken’ means?” he asks helplessly. 

“Yes. Well, sort of. It can be used for the past, but--”

“Then what’s the difference?” Kakyoin interrupts, his voice coming out as more of a petulant whine. Oh, if Dio could see him now. The boy so willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, standing brave against insurmountable odds, undone by fucking verb tenses. How the mighty have fallen.

Jotaro stares at him, and he can’t tell if the blank expression is because Kakyoin’s missing something monumentally obvious here or because he also has no fucking clue what the difference is. “...One of them uses ‘have’ and the other uses ‘had’.” 

Great. The second one, then.

Jotaro manages to dodge out of the way of the kick Kakyoin aims at his shin under the table, but he doesn’t manage to escape the smack to his shoulder immediately after. They’re both laughing, though. Thankfully.

(Kakyoin can’t get enough of Jotaro’s laugh. It was so rare when they were traveling, reserved only for the in-betweens in dingy hostels when no one else was listening. Something that a precious few people are allowed to hear. To be one of them is a privilege he will never take for granted.)

“I’m done with that,” Kakyoin declares, pushing that part of his homework away from him. He smiles at Jotaro hopefully. “Practice with me? I need to work on actually speaking out loud.”

"What do you want me to say?” Jotaro asks, and isn’t that a question. 

“Just ask me about my day or something.” He figures this is safe territory, both because of his traitorous heart, which has started to speed up in his chest for what is truly no discernible reason, and his limited English experience. “Don't talk too fast though.”

“Alright.” Jotaro thinks for a moment, then says, "I'm just gonna ask you about yourself. That work?"

Kakyoin nods, and the other boy clears his throat and asks in English, “How old are you?”

“I am…” he trails off, struggling to remember the number. “Ten-eight--no, eighteen years. Old. I am eighteen years old,” he repeats, more confidently the second time. “How old are you?”

Jotaro stifles a laugh behind his hand as Kakyoin speaks, and he frowns. “What?” he asks, switching back to Japanese. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s just. Your accent. It’s cute,” Jotaro says, and oh, he’s going to be thinking about that for months now. He has a way of offhandedly saying things that lodge themselves in Kakyoin’s brain and refuse to leave until he’s properly overanalyzed every part of them, and Jotaro calling his accent cute is--he doesn’t even know where to start with that. “Here, let me ask you something else. Where are you from?”

That one he knows for sure. “I am from Japan,” Kakyoin says in English, “What about you?” 

“I’m from Japan, but my mom’s from America,” he answers. “It’s pronounced ‘am’ and ‘Japan’, by the way.”

Kakyoin narrows his eyes at Jotaro. “That’s what I said.” 

“No, you said it like ‘Japan’. It should be ‘Japan’. ”

“Jotaro, I promise you that you just said the same thing twice.” 

He groans, hand going to tug his hat down over his face. “No, look. Watch me say it.” He repeats the words again, exaggerating the vowels. This should be exceptionally easy for Kakyoin because it’s basically just Jotaro giving him permission to stare at his mouth (a thing that he does all the time anyway) but he just can’t seem to make out the difference Jotaro’s talking about. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s half-blind, maybe it’s his unfamiliarity with the language, but even when Jotaro says it both ways again to try and demonstrate he cannot figure out why what he said was wrong. He says as much to Jotaro, who pinches the bridge of his nose and says, “Just try and do it the way I’m saying it. I am from Japan.” 

“I am from Japan,” he repeats, and Jotaro sighs. “I’m trying, I promise! They just sound the same to me.” 

“No, it’s--” Jotaro cuts himself off, looking frustrated. “Just--ugh. This is going to sound super weird, but it might be easier if you touched me while I said it.” 

Kakyoin has to physically restrain himself from saying yeah, sounds good immediately with no questions asked. He shoves that instinct down as deep as it will go and asks, “What do you mean?” 

“Like. My face.” He touches his own, as if to say, like this, and yep. Yeah. Kakyoin does know what a face is, thank you, Jotaro. “You’re not moving your mouth right on some of the words. It might be easier if you just, like, felt me do it so that you could copy it.” 

That’s not the worst idea. “Like this?” he says, reaching up and bracketing Jotaro’s mouth between his forefinger and thumb, letting the rest of his fingers rest gently against his chin. Jotaro nods. It must look ridiculous from an outside perspective, but it feels so intimate and personal that Kakyoin is pretty sure he’s going to die. What a lame way to go out, he thinks. Fifty days in the desert fending off stand users and vampires and my own damn feelings are what’s gonna kill me. He hopes they lie in his obituary. Heroically sacrificing himself to save the world is much cooler than dying ‘cause he’s too fucking gay to maintain any sort of physical contact with the guy he likes. 

“I’m gonna say something and I want you to try and repeat it moving your mouth the same way I am.” Jotaro’s eyes have not left Kakyoin’s this entire time and he really, really hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels right now. At least he can chalk it up to the slightly awkward situation if he gets called out on it. “That make sense?” 

His mouth is so fucking dry, which is. Great. He’s literally just touching his face. Not even in a romantic way. Just super platonic, educational face touching. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Cool. My name is Jotaro Kujo,” he says in English, “I am eighteen years old, and I am from Japan.” Kakyoin is now not only watching Jotaro’s impeccable jawline, he’s feeling it work under his fingers, and wait, he was supposed to be paying attention to the formation of the words. Fuck. 

“My name is Kakyoin Noriaki, I am eighteen years old, and I am from Japan,” he repeats, trying to shape the words the same way he can feel Jotaro doing. “Right?” 

“Right,” he confirms, and Kakyoin can feel his little half-smile at the same time he sees it appear. “You’re actually Noriaki Kakyoin in English, though. You would put your given name first.” Kakyoin nods. Maybe he should be taking notes, but that would mean not looking at Jotaro for any given amount of time and he doesn’t know how well he can manage that right now. “English says that you ‘are’ eighteen like we do, though,” Jotaro continues, “which is nice. Some languages say you ‘have’ eighteen years.”

Kakyoin furrows his brow, confused. “Why would you say you have eighteen years?”

Jotaro just shrugs. “Apparently that’s how you say it in French. Polnareff told me.” He glances down at Kakyoin’s hand where it’s still touching his face. “You can, uh. You can stop now.”

He yanks his hand back like Jotaro’s burned him. “Sorry! I wasn’t thinking.” 

“Don’t apologize.”

“...sorry?”

Jotaro huffs, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “It’s fine. You did better that time, though. English has some weird vowels so I can’t blame you for not getting them right away.”

“I just don’t understand how you know all of this stuff,” he laments, slumping onto the table in front of him. “It’s really hard.” 

“I learned it when I was a kid,” Jotaro explains. “It makes it a lot easier to pick up on the rules and stuff when you don’t have another language in the way.” 

“But still,” Kakyoin protests, “you just get it. You’re so fucking smart, it’s not fair. Leave something for the rest of us.” He picks up a nearby pencil and waves it around as he gestures at the papers scattered across the table in front of them. “It’s your fault I’m doing all of this anyway.”

His brow creases and he looks genuinely confused, which leaves Kakyoin at a loss because he really thought that was obvious. “How is it my fault?” 

“You’re the one who wants to go to college in America!” 

“...you don’t?”

He hesitates for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of being completely honest here or downplaying the reality of it, which is that if Jotaro had decided he wanted to go to college in fucking Antarctica, Kakyoin would have started shopping for winter clothes immediately. It’s not that he isn’t interested in going to school in the United States--the school he ended up applying to is a really good one, only a 30-minute train ride from where Jotaro is going to study marine biology, and offers classes for what they call English Language Learner students so he won’t be so overwhelmed by the amount of English he has to learn. It’s a dream come true for Kakyoin that he would have never, ever thought to pursue without Jotaro declaring that he was going to America for school, but he’s not going reluctantly. Nor is he just going for Jotaro; it’s a fantastic school and he’s happy that he’s getting this opportunity. 

But the two of them, there’s something tying them together. They were each other’s first best friend, the first person who really saw the other for who they were, all of who they were, from their stands to every broken piece of them that shattered off in the desert. Jotaro and Kakyoin have seen each other through so, so much that no one else will ever be able to understand. He can’t lose that, not to an enemy stand user and certainly not to anything as easy to overcome as distance. 

“Originally, I only wanted to go because you wanted to go, but it’s a good opportunity anyway,” Kakyoin says honestly. “I wouldn’t have considered it if you hadn’t brought it up first, but I really am looking forward to it now. Even if it’ll be difficult.” 

“You’re going because of me.” Jotaro looks lost, confused. He’s staring at Kakyoin as if he’s just now seeing him--like he’s just put the pieces of him together and something’s finally, finally making sense. “You’re learning English because of me. You--you went to Egypt for me.” 

“Alright, that wasn’t entirely for you, I do actually care about the world enough to want to make sure it doesn’t get taken over,” he huffs. “There was a bit of revenge in there, too. But yeah, I’m going to America because you are. You’re important to me, Jotaro. I’d follow you anywhere.” 

Kakyoin really didn’t think this was as earth-shattering of a revelation as Jotaro seems to have taken it as. He thought it was pretty fucking obvious, all things considered. It must have been. He’s never been subtle about the fact that he likes Jotaro. But Jotaro is still staring at him as if this information is news to him; as if he’s just now realizing that Kakyoin doesn’t just stick around because he’s the only stand user his age around, and oh. Wait. Jotaro totally thought that, didn’t he.

“Jotaro,” Kakyoin says, then stops before he goes any further. He doesn’t know what he wants to say next. If he wants to tell the truth, say you were the first person who ever looked at me and saw me for who I was; if he wants to tell him I think I’ve been in love with you since I woke up in your house and you told me you were going to kill Dio. He settles for something a little less dramatic. “You know you’re my best friend, right?”

“I didn’t.” Jotaro’s voice is quiet, slightly pained. “I thought you just sort of. Tolerated me.”

“Tolerated you?” he repeats, incredulous. “No. I like you, Jotaro. I really fucking like you. You’re the only person who gets me.”

He inclines his head, hiding his face behind the brim of his hat. “I like you too, for what it’s worth. You’re amazing.” 

Kakyoin is grateful that the two of them aren’t making eye contact right now because he feels like everything he isn’t saying is obvious across his face right now; like his eyes and the curve of his nose and the furious blush that paints his cheeks are all screaming I love you because he can’t seem to articulate it. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he says, painfully, brutally honest. “Of course I’d follow you to America. Learn English for you. Anything.”

“That’s probably not healthy,” Jotaro mutters and Kakyoin laughs. “But I get it. I think I’d do the same for you.”

“What a pair we make. Couple of codependent bastards.” He sighs, finally looking back down at the homework in front of him. “Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, I should probably get back to--”

“Noriaki,” Jotaro interrupts, and isn’t that something. He almost never uses Kakyoin’s given name. Nobody does, really, except his parents. He’s always preferred his family name. But, hearing Jotaro say it… he could get used to Noriaki, if it sounds like that every time. “You’re important to me too. I know I’m not the best at showing it, but all the stuff you said, about feeling like I’m the only person who gets you, that’s how I feel about you too. Really.”

He bites his lip, trying to keep himself from blurting out something he can’t take back. His skin is crawling with it, face on fire and hands wringing in his lap as if every part of his body is trying to signal to Jotaro what Kakyoin can’t seem to say out loud. 

But something about Jotaro makes Kakyoin incredibly, impressively stupid, and so after a few moments of awkward silence the warm, buzzing feeling coursing through his veins can’t stay down any longer and he says, voice just barely above a whisper, “I’m really fucking in love with you, Jotaro. And it’s fine if you don’t feel the same way, but I thought, you know, on the topic of feelings and whatnot…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but there’s not much more to say, anyway. What else could he add? He’s fairly certain he’s not going to get the shit kicked out of him for it, not after a conversation on the school rooftop about expectations and did you know in America half of the states have decriminalized homosexuality, said much less casually than he originally intended. “You’re just--I said it already, but you’re the only person who understands me, and I think maybe it started in Singapore when we had to share a hotel room and I realized, like, wow, he’s really attractive. And that wasn’t me being, like, in love with you or anything, but it was the beginning of the end, and now--”

“You’re rambling,” Jotaro cuts him off gently, his hand going to cup the underside of Kakyoin’s chin and tilting his face up towards him; his thumb and forefinger are bracketing his mouth just like Kakyoin had done earlier. This is a thousand times more intimate than that, though, he realizes, as Jotaro runs his thumb along Kakyoin’s jaw. “Stop me if you’re not okay with this,” he says, and before he has a chance to ask what this is, exactly, Jotaro’s mouth is on his. It’s nothing world-ending, just a chaste press of lips, but it reignites that electricity that had been running through his body earlier regardless. Kakyoin thinks he might be melting a little bit. 

It’s over almost as soon as it starts, but Kakyoin still feels breathless and giddy. From that. He’s so fucked. He is so fucked. “So, that means…” he prompts. 

Jotaro laughs, and it’s just as wonderful of a sound as it is every time, made only better for the rarity of it. “It means I’m in love with you too. The hell did you think I meant?” 

“I don’t know!” He buries his still-red face in his hands. “Maybe you were being nice and just trying to give me what I wanted.” 

“Trust me when I say everything I want to do with you is entirely selfish,” Jotaro says, and the stark honesty in his voice startles Kakyoin a bit. “I want everything with you, Noriaki. Every moment of your time.”

“What was that about not being good with words?” he asks weakly. “You can have it. All of it. Everything. Just so long as you give me something in return.” 

He smiles, and. Damn. Kakyoin’s gone. Done for. He’d do anything for this boy. He is Jotaro’s, head to toe, every part of him. He’s been Jotaro’s for so much longer than either of them were fully conscious of, and if he thinks about it, really thinks about it--Jotaro’s probably been his for just as long. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

[lightofraye]

Jensen is fine, i saw it with my own two eyes, he's the sweetest guy.

Reading your blog upsets me, because you claim to care about him, and yet you do this.

I don't understand, you love him, but you don't think he deserves respect and privacy?

if you want to talk about abuse, and create awareness, why don't use Sam and Dean as examples?

They got massive amounts of abuse, of several types, from several people, including from eachother.

Sam and Dean aren't real, talking about their abuse hurts nobody.

Remember Jensen is a real human being, and he deserves to be treated with kindness, respect and dignity, just like everyone else.

what makes you think you're entitled to his private life?

Hello anon.

Your ask was one I also thought over carefully. There's a reason. I'm going to address your ask as carefully as I can.

Jensen is fine, i saw it with my own two eyes, he's the sweetest guy.

You mean physically fine. The vast majority of the abuse he's enduring/had endured is emotional and verbal. You're not going to ever see that, not unless he wants you to. And yes... he's sweet. Most of the time, abuse victims fall over backwards to be people pleasers.

Reading your blog upsets me, because you claim to care about him, and yet you do this.

I don't understand, you love him, but you don't think he deserves respect and privacy?

I'm sorry, anon. This is where it's going to hurt.

He's a public figure. He's a celebrity. Just about all of what I've analyzed, speak over, is available for public consumption. Interviews, con/panels, photos, all of it has been available to the public. That is the only thing I touch. I may make some speculations about other things, but I try to point it out when I do.

What I don't do is stalk his home, invade the privacy of his children. I would never, ever touch the children (aside from expressing concern about their wellbeing in witnessing their parents hate each other, sigh).

I do respect him--which is why I'm speaking out! You think he'd ever admit this? Any of it? As it is, he admitted his own father beat him in a con, for crying out loud! He even indicated that his father insisted he wed Danneel instead of breaking it off right before the wedding.

When people around him around giving him no comfort, no respect, no freedom to relax and be vulnerable... what do you think then?

If I could meet him in person, I'd offer him the sanctuary of my home. I've done it before, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. For anyone.

You should be upset over the abuse he's experienced and endured, instead of someone speaking of it so we can actually ask him if he's freakin' okay!

if you want to talk about abuse, and create awareness, why don't use Sam and Dean as examples?

They got massive amounts of abuse, of several types, from several people, including from each other.

Sam and Dean aren't real, talking about their abuse hurts nobody.

Because in the end, it's fictional. And a bad representation. You think the writers actually researched abuse, the psychology behind it, or even cared about how they may be misrepresenting it? Hell, even Law & Order: SVU gets it painfully wrong. A lot of television gets it wrong--from medical science to law to abuse.

What we need is real life examples. Sadly... Jensen and Danneel are one of them.

Remember Jensen is a real human being, and he deserves to be treated with kindness, respect and dignity, just like everyone else.

You think I'm not doing that? Please, point out one harmful thing I said about him that wasn't/isn't couched in concern and support? Oh right... you mean Danneel.

She isn't entitled to my respect. She's cheated on him, admitted to it in a podcast. She's dunked on him countless times. That isn't someone worthy of any respect.

Jensen is. And I give it to him. Couched with loving criticism for his bad decisions and support for his hopeful full recovery.

what makes you think you're entitled to his private life?

Now that, I've never claimed. But everything I've spoken about is available for public consumption.

The day he announces he's retired, I'd stop. I have more respect for him than a lot of fans, believe me. (Just check out the destiel/cockles fans; bleh.)

I'm sorry this upsets you, anon, but I shan't stop.

I'd recommend, perhaps, blocking the tags I use so you never have to see my posts again.

[yakool-foolio]

(Stranger Things season 4 and Rain Code spoilers ahead, if that matters to anyone)

Okay, this is a very 'me being me with my silly lil interests' moment, but I feel like Yakou and Eddie from Stranger Things and how their deaths affect the larger scale of their respective arcs are a prime example of how to and how not to do a 'heroic sacrifice.' The main comparison in these two characters' deaths is how their acts of defiance helped protect the city they love, despite the city directly opposing them.

Let's start off with the heroic sacrifice that truly means something by talking about Yakou! Long story short: Yakou loves Kanai Ward, living there for all his life, but once Amaterasu's peacekeepers rose to power, the city turned against him for his detective work. Everyone in the city, including his own former colleagues, deemed his job useless since the peacekeepers could simply handle everything instead of relying on detectives. Yakou even lost his wife because they were motivated to expose Amaterasu's cruelty and leaks, which would ultimately lead to her death. He spent years trying to bring her killer(s) to justice but never could because the peacekeepers did everything in their power to keep him out of it. He's misrepresented across the city as a pest that needs to be eliminated. But most importantly, in terms of how his character is written, he's never shunned by the narrative for his need to stay far away from Amaterasu in fear of what they'll do to him if he sticks his nose in their business as a detective. Him being cowardly was never something that was 'corrected' as a part of his arc.

Yakou continues to care for the city despite everything he's been through. And he shows how he cares by knocking out several birds with one stone by murdering the vile Huesca and dying to the gas in order to reach him. And his sacrifice doesn't go ignored by the public. With the death of Huesca and the reveal of Yomi leaking homunculus info to the outside, changes are made. Yomi is arrested and a new sense of order is brought to the peacekeepers, becoming a much safer place for the NDA detectives and any future detectives in Kanai Ward. Yakou's sacrifice made the city that hated him change all for the better. And with the prototype pill in his possession, he has the ability to make even more change and help save so many lives and not just his own! The characters and the story itself openly acknowledges his selfless deeds and repay him in kind.

Now let's talk about Eddie. He struggles similarly to Yakou in that the town he loves hates him due to something entirely out of his control. He's outcasted by society for leading a group of other outsiders or 'freaks,' and the citizens rally against him when he's believed to be the murderer of a girl he was friendly with. Eddie then goes into hiding to escape the police hunting for him, and teams up with the main group to bring an end to the real cause of the deaths around Hawkins. He clearly wants to prove the citizens wrong about himself and show that he cares about the town by working to help take down Vecna. And in order to do so, he makes himself a distraction and lures the hostile demobats to him, giving the group enough time to defeat Vecna and saving his friend Dustin from the swarm's attacks. In doing so, he's killed by the bats, sacrificing himself for the greater good of his friends and Hawkins as a whole.

But this is where Eddie's sacrifice really starts to fall apart. Only Dustin is there to see Eddie die and console Eddie's uncle about it. Besides Dustin, no one else seems to be impacted by it, not the other outcasts he took under his wing or the citizens who continue to demonize him. His death is an afterthought to everybody but two people, one friend and one family member. He took part in saving the town he loved in hopes it could redeem himself in their eyes to show he wasn't the horrible person everyone else thought he was. But nobody was there to see it, so his sacrifice ultimately meant nothing to the scope of his arc and the future of the town, as Vecna is still out there. The story tries to act like his sacrifice meant more than the characters act like it does. His sacrifice was far from pointless, but the ignorance of the other characters after it was all said and done sure did make it feel like it was. And once again, Stranger Things falls into their own trope of killing off their new fan-favorite character each season, but this time it feels like an even bigger stab in the gut. Eddie's heroism is but a footnote in the epilogue of the season that promised him greatness. I feel like Eddie's sacrifice could've meant a whole lot more if the other characters worked to disprove the citizens' perspective on Eddie, pushing toward giving him the respect he deserved and made his story be heard. It's unsure whether anything like that will happen in season 5, but with how season 4 decided to leave itself on, it's not looking promising. Eddie will continue to be not just be disrespected by the characters, but by the writers as well.

I highly suggest reading the article "This Stranger Things 4 Death Isn't Noble Nor Necessary" because it goes even deeper into why Eddie being viewed as cowardly by the writing is a huge disservice to what his character represents. It's a good read, and it made me think a lot about Yakou's own cowardice and how it's not treated as an inherently bad thing that needed to be 'fixed' by the writers.

[brightlotusmoon]

From 2019 by Andrew Laskowski:

I Crossplayed as a female character at a Con today, and I gotta say, women are amazing. I've seen grown men belittle young girls dressing up as male characters at conventions in the past because they "couldn't understand" or were "misrepresenting the CORE" of that character. I’ve seen guys scoffing at women’s hard work and telling them they should dress as a female character instead. I’ve seen men treat female fans of their same fandom as if they weren’t good enough to dress up like the fictional character they idolized. It's pretty damn sad, honestly. And today, I saw only positivity from the women attending GalaxyCon.

I dressed as the character Ahri from the video game League of Legends; I did this to support my little sister-in-law's desire to dress up as a small group of characters from the game to attend the con. Not being from the area, she didn't know enough women willing to do this so I volunteered to be one of the characters so she could complete the full group.

So, my SIL, her friend, my wife, and I dressed as the group K/DA. I went all in. I shaved my legs and my chest, wore stockings and two bras to create the illusion I had cleavage, my wife and SIL dolled me up in makeup, and I let them attach a glowing fox tail to my ass that draws even more attention. Why? Because I believe when you care about someone, you put your all into the things you do to make them happy.

We get to the Con, and I get a lot of looks. I mean, I'm a grown man dressed as a popstar fox woman from a video game, but more importantly, I didn't shave my beard. And I knew that this wouldn't directly recreate the image of Ahri as the world at large knows her. Here are just a few of the things I heard from the women walking around the Con:

“You’re beautiful!”

“Oh, my God! Your costume looks amazing!”

“Can I please take my picture with you?!”

“You look so good in that!”

“BEST AHRI!” – yelled across the convention floor.

“I Fucking LOVE You!”

Horrible things. How is it they could say something like that to someone just trying to portray a character at a place where so many introverted and socially awkward people finally get the chance to be themselves and let loose? How could these women be so rude?

Oh, wait, they weren't. Every woman who commented on my Crossplay was incredible and as supportive as could be. Not one of them knew the WHY behind my Crossplay that it was to make my SIL feel more comfortable and help her have a good time. All they knew was I was a bearded dude who didn’t represent this popular character in the truest way possible. And they couldn’t have cared less. All they cared about was making me feel good about the costume I was wearing.

Long story short, guys get over yourselves and your misplaced belief that you have to represent a character exactly as portrayed or your doing it wrong, especially when it comes to women Cosplaying or Crossplaying. Because we all know that the majority of you dudes dressing up as superheroes are anything but superhuman. Be better people. Try walking in their shoes(or better yet, in their costumes) and let them enjoy their love of the geek world without your unnecessary, and probably unsolicited, judgment.

As a side note, a guy on the street decided to “holler at me” while I was walking to my car. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nice legs, and my ass looks damn good in some short-shorts, but he hadn’t seen my beard. He decided to say, “Damn girl, you hot,” from behind me The look on his face when I turned around and said, “Thanks, bro,” was priceless and caused his tune to change real quick, but it confirmed something our loved ones have been saying for years: unsolicited men approach women in public ALL THE TIME.

I had never actually witnessed something like this while dressed as a man but dressed as a woman for about five hours I couldn’t avoid harassment. When the women in your lives tell you they get harassed by men in public, you should believe them. When they tell you that just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, you should believe them. When they tell you it often gets frightening, you should believe them.

You should believe women.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0iMszMwpaNNfGzWfCiWRqfyhdiJ9ZfaP6qJpVpNi5whiGrN1qZ3jivhB3wcjkBqG9l&id

[majorbaby]

Isn't Trapper's nickname a euphemism for rape. I think that could have been explored more in depth in the show. And Hawkeye's hookups aren't always the paragon of enthusiastic consent either.

CW for rape mention and sexual harassment

I haven't read the MASH book and I'm not sure how it is represented there but in the movie:

John McIntyre, Trapper John. Only man to find fulfillment in a Boston Maine Railway, in the- in the ladies can! Conductor opened the door, the girl looked out and yelled "Oh, he trapped me! Omigod, he trapped me!"

Unless I'm missing some historical context for the term that's used, "trapped" I don't know that this is rape. With that said, Trapper (and Hawkeye) in the film sexually harass Margaret, no two ways about it, so I can't say it would be OOC for movie Trapper. I'm not sure where the word "rape" came from in this instance but in my opinion, it's ambiguous. I'm totally open to being wrong if there is concrete evidence.

The incident is retconned out of the show, along with much of the cruelty they subject Margaret to - the primary target of public humiliation and shaming in the show Frank Burns (who in the movie is Margaret's only ally and exits the movie halfway through) and with how much character development Margaret gets, to me it seems a deliberate choice to reduce the volume and severity of abuse her movie counterpart endures. You would never catch movie HawkTrap helping Margaret sober up (Hot Lips and Empty Arms) or hide a body (Iron Guts Kelly). In Bombshells Trapper pointedly respects Margaret's "no", that's the crux of the whole episode. He also doesn't seem to enjoy or return her advances when she's blackout drunk in Hot Lips and Empty Arms.

Personally I don't see the value in this stuff being explored in the show. It's sort of addressed in Hepatitis when Margaret asks for "respect" and Hawkeye folds.

I'd actually argue there's more canonical proof from the show of Hawkeye not respecting consent than Trapper. They both kiss Margaret without her consent, Trapper in Rainbow Bridge and For the Good of the Outfit, Hawkeye in Dear Dad and There's Nothing Like a Nurse. I can't think of any more wrt to Trapper but Hawkeye kisses Frank once on the lips without his consent (twice if he caught him in For the Good of the Outfit - it's still sexual harassment even if he didn't), in Ceasefire Hawkeye seems to have promised himself romantically to multiple women, deceiving them so they'll sleep with him.

(I just wanna note that the Ceasefire example seems like a misstep - he's never actually shown misrepresenting himself that way, he's normally pretty up front with his casual hookups, and it never happens again. Seems like a bad subplot rather than something I'd call a recurring flaw)

I know we all love the 'pegging scene' in Carry on Hawkeye but making a big show of dropping your pants so your female coworker can give you a shot is harassment, he does it because he knows it'll make Margaret uncomfortable and he does the same thing again in Hepatitis when she calls him out.

But honestly I can't think of a single example other than Ceasefire where his hookups aren't enthusiastic on both sides. Like part of my problem with the Ceasefire example is that Margie Cutler is one of the women who thinks she'll be marrying Hawkeye after the war she flirts with both Trapper and Hawkeye in Requiem for a Lightweight, pimps out Hawkeye to her friend in Edwina like... girl you knew what this was??? So prior to that episode, she seemed to be pretty enthusiastic.

And honestly I push back pretty hard against the hookups being seen as unenthusiastic. There's plenty of nurses who happily make out with Trapper and I don't believe they're all unaware that he's married, he talks about it openly in OR - yeah that's infidelity and it's morally wrong but it doesn't mean there aren't two consenting adults.

Similarly I have a hard time believing that the nurses don't see Hawkeye with a different girl on his arm every week, they know what they're getting. One of the things I like a lot about early MASH is the sex is enjoyed by all - I value positive portrayals of female sexual pleasure in the 70s over fidelity to offscreen wives because of the historical context. Hollywood is still terrified of portraying cunnilingus and Hawkeye is constantly shaving for his dates. Could it be because he's very enthusiastically kissing women? I suppose. But knowing this show and Alan Alda in general, I dunno.

MASH did try to explore misogyny, it responded to early criticism and dropped some of flourishes it relied upon. That's good and bad imo. It's nice to not hear so many 'honeys' and 'sweethearts' in the OR, but I miss the casual fucking and sucking when it goes away.

We have Inga which gives us a very OOC Hawkeye imo being put in his place. Hepatitis which muddies about with some comparison of Hawkeye to Margaret's in-laws but is ultimately a sweet moment for Hawk-Margaret (really he comes to respect her over a longer period of time but I'll take it). Who Knew where Hawkeye whines about sleeping with Millie in lieu of acknowledging her interiority as though these are two entirely mutually exclusive things - a swing and miss imo. But then you have season 10's Cementing Relationships where Margaret spends the whole episode being sexually harassed and it's played completely for laughs - just because it isn't Hawkeye doing it anymore doesn't mean it's not wrong.

I do appreciate the attempts at addressing misogyny, even though I think it led to some big missteps, but I don't personally feel I missed out on anything by there not being an in-depth exploration of sex and consent. Sex and romance aren't really given much focus in general, so I don't think it would make sense to explore it very deeply.

[mythserene]

Spaniels Like Thelma

I've been looking at a couple of the absolute worst paragraphs AKOM found from Tune In, and I think this Thelma Pickles one comes in second. It's only five sentences, but it is so bad in so many mouth dropping ways that with the mixed up and misrepresented source materials a lot of other things get squeezed out. And I think Thelma—who is still alive and apparently loves talking—deserves more.

Here is the paragraph and here is Phoebe and Daphne trying to figure out what the hell Mark Lewisohn is referring to at any point in it. And then my interpretation. (Spotify link to the spot at bottom.)

Lewisohn:

John and Thelma had reached the end of the line, though they’d remain friends and keep in touch for several years. In an interview in 1980, John reflected on his teenage behavior: “Hitting females is something I’m always ashamed of and still can’t talk about—I’ll have to be a lot older before I can face that in public, about how I treated women as a youngster.” Except that he was talking about it, and with the sort of candor customary even when it was to his own detriment. In 1967, John mentioned it within a song lyric and spoke about it to his biographer Hunter Davies. “I was in a blind rage for two years,” he said. “I was either drunk or fighting. There was something the matter with me.”

AKOM - Ep 8; 1:07:51

PHOEBE: Also, he uses a quote from Hunter Davies 1967 biography to show that John is bravely volunteering this information, but Cynthia was also interviewed by Hunter Davies so I don't know what basis Lewisohn has to think that John voluntarily brought it up when Cynthia was talking about it to Hunter Davies. I mean, You could certainly make the case that John didn't deny it, but did he volunteer that information? That's not clear to me. DAPHNE: One of these quotes is from 1980 and that's the one I think he's talking about, the sort of 'candor even when it was to his own detriment.’

Definitely think it's both.

Here's what I think he's doing:

(It's one of the funniest things Siri has ever read back to me, probably because it is totally what Mark Lewisohn is saying. When she says, “but in a song, too” 😭 )

Thelma remained friends with John for several years, because he has a strong policy of remaining close with any woman he calls a spaniel. And John reflected on this teenage behavior decades later in 1980, as he was approaching middle age... And he also talked about it over a decade before that in 1967. Not just to a biographer, but in a song, too. That's how big an impact it had on him. Even though it was to his own detriment, he thought it was important to talk about. His whole adult life. In 1967 he said something about those two bad years a very long time ago when he was a teenager, and in 1980 he was still thinking about that awful youngster-y behavior. Still beating himself up all those decades later. That's how big an impression that spaniel, Thelma, made on John Lennon.

TBC

[lazaruspiss]

i would actually love some nightwing recs from you

Aha! You activated my trap card <-(completely forgot how public they are with their nightwing obsession) (ps: i also talked nightwing recs here too <3 i simply love to talk about my baby boy)

My "area of expertise" is mainly Nightwing 1996, so that's where most of my recs come from. There was also Nightwing 1995, which was more of a test run for 96. I think it had 4 issues total? It's not bad, just not noteworthy either. I've been working on a big spreadsheet of info for 96, including trigger warnings, but im only like. 15 issues in. hashtag pain and suffering. Issue #1 already has a woman being threatened, I have it down as "attempted rape" in my list, and that kind of sets the tone for what you need to be able to handle to read everything in that series.

The biggest downside is that it's all pre Damian :( son boy i miss u and i wish u were in better comics. Tim is funny tho. The first arc in 96 is great scene setting, and Tim shows up in #6 to be a lil stinker :3. We establish Dick's goals, motivations, etc, as well as what the state of Blüdhaven is and who our main baddies are.

It's all a bit heartbreaking in retrospect. Dick fails. He wants to be more independent and remove himself from Bruce's shadow, Blockbuster is established as the big bad for him to bring to justice, and he wants to make things at least a little better for the people of Blüdhaven.

He ends up dragged back to Bruce by an invisible leash, he technically beats his main villain but only in the absolute worst way after losing everything (and continues to lose more after, losing things he didn't know he had), and Blüdhaven is destroyed.

Dick loses. It's a bad end. A tragedy even. And yet, because of the nature of comics like DC, his story continues. It continues in crossovers and fan service and whatever else might sell. His most personally meaningful story ended prematurely for fucking War Games. sorry I know I just complained about this but cmon.

There were some good storylines after that! But I'm still bothered by the fact that the Tarantula arc was cut off after like, 2 issues. Road to Nowhere (#94-95) really did go nowhere. But the concept was there and it had the potential to be a decent story about an abusive relationship.

Mobbed Up (#108-111), Renegade (#112-117), and Brothers in Blood (#118-122) are some of my favorite arcs, all post Blockbuster. But after those I kind of lost interest. Annual #2 also came out sometime after all those, and I can't stress enough that it is absolutely not worth reading. It was written an illustrated by men, reduces Babs and Kori to nothing more than romantic partners, and completely misrepresents older stories. They literally retell older Dick/Babs moments, but without anything that could make their relationship at all complex or questionable to the consumer. Dick saw her as a sister, but rather than use that as a sign of closeness and respect they cut out all reference to that entirely because god forbid relationships have any nuance nowadays. Annual #1 was alright. I think it came out in the first or second year of the 96 run, and it's a nice self contained murder mystery one shot that showcases Dick's workaholic habits, his want for a family, and his tendency to try and change himself to makes others happy. He also comes off as very accidentally arospec. There's a moment where he tries to get a woman to stay with him by saying things like "but I could learn to love you" and if that wasn't me everyday throughout my middle to high school years than I don't know what is.

Outside of 96, I wanna point out The Search for Ray Palmer: Red Rain. Which may not be a Nightwing story but is absolutely a Bruce & Dick story (with vampires!) I haven't actually read much of the original Red Rain because. Dick's not really in that one. The Ray Palmer spin off however has Dick hunting down his parents' killer: one vampire king, Bruce Wayne. If you find those posts about Dick initially being a vengeance hungry 8 year old interesting than this is about as close as actual comics get. In the main timeline, yeah, Dick wants revenge, but because he's 8 and really just going through it rather than being genuinely bloodthirsty he's very easily talked out of it. In the Red Rain universe there is no comfort. He's alone, and grief consumes him. Bruce killed his parents for that very purpose, because he wanted Dick to be consumed by grief and hopelessness like him. Getting Dick to be like him and getting Dick to be obsessed with him was kind of his entire goal from the moment he laid eyes on him. Bruce's main presence up until the end where he shows up is shown largely through Dick's hunt, through Dick's obsession. Bruce wanted them to be inseparable and he very much succeeded in the end. By the time Jason and crew cross paths with them it's already too late. Everything is as Bruce wanted it to be. So a yandere vampire brudick au, basically.

There's also Outsiders 2003, which I keep meaning to read but haven't quite gotten to. Dick leads another team, but Donna just died so he's even meaner and cagier than he usually is.

gah. i really wanna finish that nightwing spreadsheet. i'll probably post it once i finish the 1996 section, or at least get it caught up to where it stops before crossing over with war games.

i've made a lot of these but theyre just things that i eventually wanna read, the dick grayson one is really the only one with anything in it rn <-(one track mind. and that track is called blorbo)

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — The Republican nominee for Congress in Texas’ 7th district is a self-proclaimed history buff, but his take on Anne Frank is not one that most historians would endorse.

Johnny Teague, an evangelical pastor and business owner who won the district’s primary in March, in 2020 published “The Lost Diary of Anne Frank,” a novel imagining the famous Jewish Holocaust victim’s final days in the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps as she might have written them in her diary. 

The kicker: In Teague’s telling, Frank seems to embrace Christianity just before she is murdered by the Nazis.

Published by Las Vegas-based publisher Histria Books, the speculative book attempts to faithfully extend the writing style of Frank’s “original” diary entries into her experiences in the camps: it “picks up where her original journey left off,” according to the promotional summary. Teague claims to have interviewed Holocaust survivors and visited the Anne Frank House, multiple concentration camps and the major Holocaust museums in Washington, D.C., and Israel as part of his research.

“I would love to learn more about Jesus and all He faced in His dear life as a Jewish teacher,” Teague’s Anne Frank character muses at one point, saying that her dad had tried to get her a copy of the New Testament. Anne’s father Otto Frank, who in real life did survive the Holocaust, seems to have been spared a tragic fate in Teague’s telling because of his interest in learning about Jesus. 

Later, Anne does learn about Jesus through other means, reciting psalms and expressing sympathy for Jesus’ plight.

By book’s end, Anne is firm in her belief that “every Jewish man or woman should ask” questions like “Where is the Messiah? … Did He come already, and we didn’t recognize Him?”

Teague, responding to a query from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the story’s initial publication, said his book had been “misrepresented” and that it shows Frank “relating her suffering to the historic persecution by Egypt, Haman, Assyria, Rome and others — all horrific facts of how the precious Jewish people have been attacked for so many centuries.”

Teague said he based Frank’s interpretation of Jesus off of a reference in her original diary to her father wanting her and her sister Margot “to be exposed to the New Testament and the life of Jesus” and, “As she made those entries in her own hand, I could not pretend that the thoughts, lessons, or questions of Jesus never crossed her mind afterward.” He also said he included Jesus because “when the Jewish people were suffering so much torment and suffering, it is impossible to imagine them not contemplating in their turmoil the longing for a Messiah to rescue them.”

While Teague’s version of Frank doesn’t explicitly indicate she wants to convert to Christianity, she makes many comments praising Christians she meets in the concentration camp, noting of one woman, “What I love about her is her faith in God and her faith in Jesus.” Later, Frank says, “I am seeing a stark difference in some of the Christians here, as opposed to the others… It seems Christians are more willing to die than the rest of us.”

Teague says such passages don’t necessarily represent a full conversion to Christianity. “Do I think Anne Frank became a Christian? No one can know what spiritual decisions or conclusions people make in a time of tragedy and persecution,” Teague continued. “This book does not indicate either way.”

He added, “We must stand with the Jewish people and for them.”

Teague also claims in his candidate biography that he “has been affiliated with” the Association for Jewish Studies, the academic membership organization devoted to Jewish studies. Teague’s Anne Frank book appears on a 2021 AJS list of books by its own members, under the author name “Johnny Mark Teague.” AJS did not return requests for comment.

The candidate’s top issues on his website include “Close the Border,” “Eliminate Property Taxes” and his belief that fossil fuels are divinely ordained: “If you believe in a Creator and that everything is here for a purpose, then you have to realize that fossil fuels are not an accident. At the very beginning of time, God knew we would need automation and industry, so in His Wisdom, He gave us the fuels that we would need.”

It’s common for evangelical Christians to engage in proselytizing, including toward Jews, and surveys have indicated that nearly half of American adults believe the country should be “a Christian nation.” But the size and scope of Teague’s efforts to undermine Anne Frank’s Judaism in his book is unusual even in such circles. 

The Houston-area district Teague is running in has a Democratic incumbent. It was redrawn in 2020 but is still heavily favored to elect a Democrat. 

This is the second time Teague has secured the Republican nomination for a Congressional district in Texas. He previously ran in the state’s ninth district in 2020, where he only received 21% of the vote in the general election. The election was held two days after “The Lost Diary of Anne Frank” was published.

[redrobin-detective]

Like the Outed!Au is compared to Marvel very similarly maybe due to the vein of how being a hero is bureaucratized and politized to a degree. So when the comparison came up my mind went to the home cities of the outed heroes fiercely and desperately standing with and defending their heroes. This due to the fact that in marvel our favorite web-head has always been protected, respected, and loved by the citizens New Year City in return b/c he has help the NYC community in many ways both big and small. Like in the comics Spiderman was about to publicly unmask himself cuz he was sick of being slandered and misrepresented in the media only to have the citizens of NYC come in full costumes and masks and unmasked themselves so when Peter does unmask as promised, you cant trust who was the real Spidey. Like I feel each city would try so hard to keep their heroes bc their heroes protected and cared for them when the gov. whos tracking them wouldn't or can't, in and out of mask. Like I feel Clark was one of the first heroes to exile themselves for safety and peace. At first Metropolis was sadden but resigned bc it got caught up in the thrall of the media frenzy of how can we trust these superpowered citizens to help us and who gave them the right to use the powers. The city only realized too late how intertwine Clark Kent was to Metropolis, from his stories exposing the police brutality and city corruption, that's now on the rise bc mild manner reporter is not there to expose the injustice Superman hears but has to overlook at the moment, to lowered charity work bc there's no one to talk you on your break or walk when u feel down about the state of the world to various small business employees feeling down bc that clumsy guy in a suit and slightly skewed glasses won't be coming ever again to lift your spirts with his antics or talks that always made their day. It comes to a point that city misses their mild mannered reporter that one day online all of the stories of how Clark Kent helped or interacted w/ various Metropolians popped up, only for them to realized how integral Clark Kent truly was to Metropolis, not only as Superman, and they mourn for that missing connection. So when you walk through Metropolis long after the big blue left it feels haunted and resigned even as they are at times visited by the man who left. Other cities with heroes see the tragedy of Metropolis and her hero and shutter at the though of being haunted and marked unsafe for heroes bc it lost not only their hero but their fellow community member. So when the feds from out of town come to the heroes' cities they are given a hard time by citizens misdirecting them, given malicious compliance by gov. workers from that city (Gotham in particular does this a lot), ignored, denied services ,yelled at, or even thrown things at. When reporters from out of town try to get their big piece by going after the younger heroes who may not have the pr training of older heroes and team leaders , they are soon mobbed by citizens of all ages surrounding the young hero just trying to get their food for lunch and told to fuck off in more ways than one. The cities circle the wagons for their heroes bc they are remind of how haunted Metropolis began when her hero left and decided they will show the love and loyalty their heroes showed them before it becomes to late.

Like I understand how heroes would leave the public after being outed and into their own society but at the same time i feel the people of their cities would say "So fuckin what? These people help us, to care of us, protected us, looked for the best in us, gave their all to us and we are not going to let them down when it matters the most." bc people are good and to me it fits the fantasy of superhero comics of if people had the power they would help others for good and in this universe the power of the everyday citizen is to help and protect their hero in return. (Sorry if this is too much and over bearing, I just love the scenario of everyday people helping superheroes in the small but impactful ways they can. And this Au has great potential in that.)

This is very cool and a huge chunk I don't know how to address so I will present your thoughts without commentary

[beardedmrbean]

The Washington Post's "internet culture" journalist Taylor Lorenz is under fire for falsely claiming she had reached out to YouTubers in her story about the explosive Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial. 

On Thursday, following the stunning conclusion of Depp's successful defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, Lorenz alleged the real winners were "content creators" who benefited from the courtroom frenzy with larger followings and spikes in revenue. 

"The trial offered a potential glimpse into our future media ecosystem, where content creators serve as the personalities breaking news to an increasing numbers of viewers — and, in turn, define the online narrative around major events. Those creators can also bring in major personal profits in the process," Lorenz told readers. "In this new landscape, every big news event becomes an opportunity to amass followers, money and clout. And the Depp-Heard trial showed how the creator-driven news ecosystem can influence public opinion based on platform incentives."

Her article cites two YouTube personalities, "LegalBytes" host Alyte Mazeika and an anonymous user named ThatUmbrellaGuy. Lorenz alleged that according to Business Insider, Mazeika "earned $5,000 in one week by pivoting the content on her YouTube channel to nonstop trial coverage and analysis." She also claimed that ThatUmbrellaGuy "earned up to $80,000 last month, according to an estimate by social analytics firm Social Blade."

WASHINGTON POST'S TAYLOR LORENZ DOXXES LIBS OF TIKTOK DAYS AFTER DECRYING ONLINE HARASSMENT OF WOMEN

Included in the paragraph was a parenthetical statement reading, "Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy did not respond to requests for comment."

Both Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy refuted the statement, saying Lorenz never reached out to them prior to publication of her story. 

"Um. This says I didn't respond to requests to comment? I know I've gotten a lot of emails over the past two months, but I've just double checked for your name, @TaylorLorenz, and I see no email from you," Mazeika called out the Washington Post columnist. "Also, I didn't suddenly pivot. I started covering this before trial began."

KELLYANNE CONWAY TORCHES TAYLOR LORENZ ON ‘THE VIEW’: THIS ‘PETER PAN’ WAS OBSESSED WITH MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER

Mazeika accused Lorenz of mischaracterizing Business Insider's coverage of her, which she too thought was "unfair." She later provided an update claiming Lorenz reached out to her for comment "after the piece was already published and I had to call it out."

"This is so dumb," Mazeika wrote. 

Lorenz appeared to acknowledge Mazeika's public complaint, tweeting "Thanks for replying!" and that she "would love to incorporate your comments!"

ThatUmbrellaGuy similarly called out the Post's article. 

"The Washington Post LIED and DID NOT contact me before including me in their story on Johnny Depp, despite reporting they did so," the YouTuber tweeted, sharing time stamps of his tweet calling out the article and Lorenz's email to him sent minutes later.

He later continued, "The Washington Post also FLAGRANTLY misrepresented my earnings report and needs to correct it. Social Blade says I made between $4.9k and $79.1k. They ADDED TO the highest estimate, overreporting for dramatic effect."

WAPO'S TAYLOR LORENZ RUNS COVER FOR ‘VICTIM’ NINA JANKOWICZ WHILE REPORTING DHS PUT PAUSE ON DISINFO BOARD

The Washington Post article appeared to have been stealth-edited, removing the claim that Lorenz had reached out to the YouTubers for comment without an editor's note acknowledging the change. 

The Washington Post did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment. Fox News also reached out to Mazeika and ThatUmbrellaGuy for comment.  

Lorenz has long been criticized for her journalism ethics. In 2020, she repeatedly publicized the 15-year-old daughter of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway for the teen's outspoken TikTok posts and allegedly reached out directly to the minor without her parents' permission. 

Conway recently torched Lorenz for obsessing over her daughter, referring to her as "Peter Pan."

In 2021, Lorenz falsely accused business tech entrepeneur Marc Andreessen of "using the r-slur," which she admitted was an error.

In April, she doxxed the identity of popular Twitter personality Libs of TikTok just days after she decried the online harassment of women. 

Lorenz was ridiculed for her report last month alleging Nina Jankowicz, who was set to be the executive director of the Biden administration's so-called "Disinformation Governance Board," was the "victim" of "right-wing attacks" as the Department of Homeland Security was putting a pause on the initiative following weeks of intense backlash.