#if he wasn't also being profoundly impacted

[not-poignant]

As soon as he gets a moment to himself, I would like to wrap Januz up in a blanket and give him an extra long vacation.

Honestly he needs it!!!

Janusz is definitely being traumatised by this whole experience, and I've got an anon ask to get to in the next few days which asks how Hillview deals with this stuff, and the answer with Janusz is - not well enough!

[collaredsoldat]

Gentle Hand.

summary: Soldat has a panic attack.

warnings: Post!HYDRA Winter Soldier | Post!HTP and abuse | PTSD symptoms & behavior | Panic attacks | Brief medical treatments | Flashbacks of HTP | Past dehumanization | Brief mention of SA

a/n: This was supposed to be posted before the other one I just posted, but I got impatient lol. So it might sound a little out of order, once I have all these parts out I'll put them in order. He's getting through it, you're being patient. Unedited. ;; wc: 3.4k

There were a lot of complicated things with Soldat.

Significant complications with his health, for starters, which caught you off guard given his status as a super soldier. You had initially assumed that his enhanced physiology would grant him a far greater resilience compared to an ordinary human, as had been proven with the likes of Steve Rogers. However, the treatment from HYDRA had somehow managed to infiltrate his system so profoundly and extensively that it had wreaked havoc on his entire physiological makeup, leaving him in a severely compromised state.

The issue of malnourishment was addressed through a carefully planned regimen of intravenous treatments, much to Soldat’s dislike. This approach was complemented by a gradual reintroduction to solid foods, a process that required meticulous attention and patience. The goal was to slowly accustom his system to regular nutrient intake without overwhelming his weakened digestive tract. Not to mention the fact that Soldat often refused food or that his body simply could not handle it, even in small amounts.

Honestly, re-feeding him was a whole other problem you had to tackle.

A similar strategy was employed to combat his severe dehydration and restore proper fluid balance. You also noticed that he experienced significant difficulty in swallowing, a symptom that hinted at potential damage to his esophageal tract or neurological complications affecting his ability to consume liquids normally.

Then, there were the myriad of wounds that covered his body. Stubborn injuries that had been persisting for a duration that far exceeded your initial expectations and caused you considerable worry. You found a small measure of solace in the fact that the majority of these injuries, while numerous, consisted primarily of superficial cuts and bruising.

Treating these wounds was far from easy. His behavior during treatment sessions mirrored a cornered wild animal, skittish and unpredictable, making each attempt at care a delicate and often extremely stressful. You didn’t want to stress him any further than he probably was in a stranger’s home, with a stranger, but you needed to at the very least keep the wounds from bleeding everywhere.

He lashed out at you with his metal arm, swinging wildly without any real force behind it. You could instantly discern that his actions were driven by sheer terror rather than malice. His eyes were wide with panic, darting frantically around the room, and it was evident that he wasn't actively trying to cause you harm. As you approached with the antiseptic and gauze, he bared his teeth in a defensive snarl and let out a feral hiss, his metal arm swinging once more in a desperate attempt to keep you at bay.

He had backed himself into the corner of your bathroom, the face he couldn’t go anywhere was frightening him just as much as you were. "Easy there, Soldat," you murmured, your voice steady and reassuring. "You're not scaring me. These wounds need to be cleaned and treated." Your words were calm and gentle, but they seemed to do little to soothe his frayed nerves.

In another display of agitation, he swung his arm downward, connecting with your tile floor. The impact was forceful enough to shatter the tiles into several jagged pieces, the sound of breaking ceramic echoing through the room. He fixed you with a glare that was clearly meant to be intimidating, but you could see right through it. His expression was a forced mask of hatred, a poor attempt at appearing dangerous. He was trying so hard to maintain this façade of aggression, but his fear was as obviously visible beneath the surface.

"Listen, Soldat," you said, your voice taking on a firmer yet still compassionate tone. "If you really wanted to harm me, we both know you would have done so by now. Your behavior isn't fooling either of us." You gestured to his injuries, your expression softening. "Now, please, let me tend to these wounds. If we don't bandage them soon, you're going to end up bleeding all over the place. That can't be comfortable for you. And I would really appreciate it if you didn't stain my carpet..."

His face held a stubborn, forced scowl, but also an undeniable air of resignation. He relaxed at your approach, albeit marginally, allowing you to come closer. Sharp, audible breaths exited his nostrils in rapid succession, betraying his lingering apprehension. You knew he was tense so you offered reassurance, "You're alright, I promise this won't hurt. We just need to take care of these."

Your words seemed to have enough of a calming effect as you carefully began tending to him, finally able to assess and treat his injuries. As the moments passed and he realized your true intentions were solely to help, not harm, his demeanor shifted. He became increasingly receptive to your ministrations as each cleaning session came, and he allowed you to clean his wounds and change his gauze without resistance.

But there was one thing you couldn't help but notice, and it was perhaps the biggest hurdle of them all. An almost violent aversion to certain actions and decisions.

To the outside eye, they appeared completely random, and they did to you too. At first.

Soldat refrained from doing anything, no matter how mundane, without first seeking your explicit permission. Something as simple as taking a seat or reaching for a glass of water seemed to require your approval.

At first this behavior confused you, but as you observed him more closely, you started to understand a little but more. HYDRA, while you knew very little of his experiences, did a number on his psyche. He was grappling with intense internal struggles, and in an attempt to cope with his sudden freedom, he was projecting his deep-seated need for structure and guidance onto you. By relinquishing control over even the most basic decisions, he seemed to find a semblance of comfort and stability.

This realization left you with mixed emotions.

On one hand, you felt a twinge of discomfort at being thrust into this unexpected role of authority. The weight of his dependence on your decisions was not something you had anticipated or necessarily desired.

Yet, on the other hand, you couldn't deny the visible relief and calm that washed over him when operating within these self-imposed boundaries. Witnessing how this dynamic seemed to provide him with a sense of security and ease, you found yourself reluctantly gave into.

Despite your internal reservations, you knew that this arrangement was serving as a crucial coping mechanism for him during what was clearly a difficult time, even if it had begun from something awful. So, setting aside your own discomfort, you made the conscious decision to lean into this role, at least for now.

Your primary concern was his well-being, and if this is what he needed to feel safe and begin healing, then you were willing to adapt and provide that structure for him.

His comfort level around you was noticeably increasing with each passing day. Gradually, he began to emerge from the bedroom where he had initially isolated himself, seeking out your company in subtle ways.

Your presence seemed to have a calming effect on him, acting as a source of reassurance in his new environment. He made a conscious effort to be in the same room as you, his actions betraying a growing desire for proximity.

He maintained a considerable distance for a while, positioning himself at the far end of whatever space you occupied. He often watched you, or sometimes he’d allow himself to nap, he never spoke. You chose to ignore him most of the time, not wanting to give him too much attention and spook him away.

Time progressed and you noticed a slow but steady shift in his behavior. Like a cautious animal gradually acclimating to a new habitat, he inched closer to you day by day. He continued his gradual migration until he finally felt secure enough to position himself right beside you.

One particularly lazy afternoon, he slowly made his way towards you, his steps heavy with hesitation. Upon reaching the living area, he carefully lowered himself onto the floor adjacent to the couch, his eyes fixed downward on the carpet. Eventually, his gaze lifted, settling on the television screen. He watched the program you had selected, you couldn't help but notice a glimmer of curiosity dancing behind his eyes, his engagement slowly growing with his surroundings.

You had tried many different offers and encouragement, but he refused to make use of any furniture in the house. The comfortable couch remained untouched by him, and the inviting bed you prepared for him went unused night after night. He had ripped the blankets off and curled up on the floor instead.

His reluctance to using the couch and the bed made you start to think. Had he been conditioned to believe that he wasn't allowed to use something as basic as furniture?

You remained silent, not uttering a single word as you observed him sitting there, seemingly without any discomfort. After a moment of hesitation, you decided to break the silence. "You know, you're more than welcome to sit up here with me," you suggested, your voice soft and kind. His head lifted ever so slightly in response to your words, his eyes glancing at you from under the bits of hair that fell over his face.

The soldier's gaze met yours, his eyes filled with a mixture of doubt and confusion. His frown deepened, etching lines across his forehead as if your words were spoken in a foreign tongue he couldn't quite decipher. You gently patted the empty cushion to your left, emphasizing your point. "Really, you can sit up here if you'd like," you reiterated, your tone warm and encouraging, hoping to dispel any lingering uncertainty he might have.

Several minutes pass and he doesn't budge.

You decide to just let him sit there if he wants to, observing his actions without comment. You didn't want to make him do something he didn't want to do anyway. So you turned your attention back to the show playing on the screen, watching she shitty adult cartoon full of jokes and clichés. But you had to admit, it was pretty funny. You felt something beside you, the subtle shift in the couch's cushions as his silver prosthetic makes contact. The furniture dips ever so slightly as the soldier cautiously lowers himself onto it.

His movements are painfully slow and deliberate, as if he's treading on eggshells, anticipating that you might suddenly change your mind or lash out at him at any moment. When he finally settles, his posture is noticeably stiff and unnatural, not to mention his obvious aversion to sitting flat on his ass like a normal person. His wounds and injuries were brutal, and you knew he didn't like to sit often. But right now it seemed like he was forcing himself to do so.

The discomfort radiates from him, filling the air with tension. He sits ramrod straight, muscles visibly taut beneath his clothing, and his eyes are wider than you've ever seen them, pupils dilated and darting around the room. It's as if he's desperately searching for potential threats or escape routes, his entire being on high alert. The sight reminds you of a cornered animal, teetering on the edge of fight-or-flight, barely containing the urge to bolt from the room at the slightest provocation.

"Soldat, it's alright. You're safe here. You can sit here, I said you could," you said in a gentle, reassuring tone, attempting to alleviate his visible anxiety. Your voice was recited soft and steady, hoping to create a calming atmosphere. Soldat still tensed up as you adjusted your position. His reaction was immediate and he recoiled as though anticipating a blow, his body language screaming of deep-seated fear.

His breathing became erratic, each inhale and exhale a struggle. His hands trembled and gripped the cushion with such force that the knuckles on his flesh hand turned white. It was clear he was desperately trying to maintain his composure in what he perceived as a threatening situation. The sight of his internal struggle tugged at your heart, you couldn’t believe something as simple as sitting on the couch could cause him to be this distressed.

‘Assets sit on the floor!’ A heavily armored combat boot collided with its nose, it heard a crack, felt the warmth of thick red ooze running down its face and throat, tasting the metallic flavored substance. The rusty tar. ‘Try to get up here again, and I will chain you up to that fucking stump outside. See if you can withstand below zero all night.’

Its handler really hated when it sat on the furniture. Used a bed. Used a chair. Its handler liked to threaten and hurt it.

He liked it to sit at his feet, like a good asset should. Be silent, be obedient, be subservient and pleasing for handler. Make sure he is satisfied and serviced well. Maybe then it will get to sleep? Maybe it would get a blanket tonight. Maybe it wouldn’t have to serve the team tonight.

Or not.

Concern etched across your features as you observed his distress. "I promise you, everything is okay," you reiterated, your voice laced with sincerity and compassion. However, as you shifted slightly to face him better, it became apparent that this small movement was what he had been unconsciously anticipating. The second you made that tiny little shift in the cushion, he leapt to his feet, his sudden movement causing him to stumble. His knee collided painfully with the coffee table, but he seemed oblivious to the impact.

Backing away from you, his eyes darted wildly around your apartment, resembling those of a cornered animal searching desperately for an escape route. There was panic in his gaze, his chest heaving with each rapid, shallow breath.

Unable to maintain his stance, he sank to his knees, his legs unable to support him any longer. His hands flew to his head, fingers entangling themselves in his long hair, gripping tightly as though trying to anchor himself to reality. His breathing had become so labored and quick that it appeared he was on the verge of hyperventilation, fighting for each breath as though he were drowning on dry land.

He cowered away from you as you approached him with worry, his body surrendering to you.

'Stupid fucking asset! Did they fry out all of your common sense, huh? I said NO sitting on the furniture!' Handler's voice thundered through the room, each word laced with venom and contempt. Its wet nose collided violently with his boot for the second time, the impact reverberating through its skull. A sharp, searing pain pushed into its face, and it wondered if a fragment of its broken nose had been forced inward.

Its handler seized a fistful of the asset's hair in a vicious grip and yanking, forcefully dragging it across the floor. The wooden planks, rough and splintered, scraped against its skin as it was hauled towards the dilapidated door of the safehouse. This ramshackle structure was their temporary refuge for the night, a necessary evil in the unforgiving Siberian wilderness. The biting cold of the subzero temperatures was a constant source of irritation for the American team, who were ill-equipped to handle such extreme conditions.

As its handler stepped outside, the asset felt the icy bite of a frozen chain wrapping around its neck. The metal was chilled to an impossible degree and seared its skin on contact. The unexpected pain elicited a cry of surprise and agony from the asset but it was cut short as the chain constricted, squeezing tightly and cutting off its air supply.

Panic set in as it gasped and clawed desperately at the unyielding metal, its lungs burning for oxygen. Just when unconsciousness threatened to overtake it, the pressure relented, allowing it to gulp in precious air once more. The asset's mind raced, recognizing the depth of its handler's fury in this brutal display.

Its handler secured the other end of the chain to an old tree stump barely visible through the snowbank. The makeshift anchor stood amidst piles of chopped wood, all buried under a thick blanket of freshly fallen snow. The wind howled mercilessly, its icy fingers clawing at both the asset and its handler. 'I'll come back in the morning,' he spat, the words barely audible over the roaring gale.

As its handler retreated indoors, the asset felt the blood on its face begin to crystallize, the crimson stream halting its flow as the subzero temperatures took hold. The relentless wind continued its assault, driving icy particles into every exposed inch of skin. With no other option available, the asset curled into itself, seeking what little warmth it could generate as it resigned itself to enduring the long, brutal hours of frozen misery until dawn.

At least it didn't have to service anyone tonight.

He remained motionless, neither pleading nor protesting.

Its handler hated when it begged most of the time. Sometimes he did like it, but it didn’t want to risk angering you by opening its mouth. No. It should only do that when its handler commands it. Otherwise, it was a whore.

In his mind, he braced for the inevitable feeling of your hand roughly grasping his hair, forcefully dragging him away to face some cruel punishment. How could he have the audacity? Sitting beside you on the couch, as if he dared to consider himself your equal.

Time seemed to stretch endlessly. After several long, dreary seconds that felt like an eternity, he summoned the courage to steal a glance at you. His eyes were partially obscured by strands of unkempt hair, peered out cautiously. His breathing remained ragged and uneven, though he made a conscious effort to quiet it.

Its handler preferred silence, after all.

This thought, ingrained deeply within him, only served to heighten his anxiety.

"Soldat, breathe... it's okay, you're safe here." Your voice broke through the silence, gentle and reassuring, though tinged with a noticeable tremor as you witnessed his breakdown. "It's okay. I'm here. No one else but me. You are safe." You repeated these words, emphasizing them as you carefully lowered yourself to the ground beside him.

The soldier’s hyperventilation persisted despite your gentle efforts to speak to him. You remained undeterred and continued to speak, hoping that somehow your words would penetrate the fog of fear surrounding him.

Or the thick snowbank slowly freezing its skin.

"Whatever you're seeing right now isn't real, it's in the past," you explained, your voice soft but steady. "You're here, in my apartment. It's just us. No one is going to hurt you." You inched closer, gradually closing the distance between you and his huddled, trembling form on the carpet. Your movements were slow as you consciously made the effort to be careful and not to startle him further.

He heard you, the absence of pain confused him, but it also provided some soothing to his pure panic. You were telling the truth.

You weren't going to hurt him.

Soldat's gaze met yours once more, his eyes filled with a profound sadness as he gradually descended from the heights of his attack. His breathing, still irregular and labored, came in erratic bursts, each sudden intake of air punctuated by a noticeable hitch. To your shock, he began to inch towards you, his movements hesitant yet deliberate.

Under his breath, he emitted soft whimpers, struggling valiantly to maintain his silence as he had been engrained to do. His entire form quivered violently, reminiscent of someone caught in the grip of an intense chill, and without warning, he allowed his weight to collapse against you, seeking solace in your presence.

A muffled sound escaped him, barely audible as it was absorbed by the fabric of your shirt. Your arms encircled his trembling frame, careful in case he didn’t want you to do so, but you felt no resistance. As he muffled, your ears pricked and you carefully leaned your head down a bit. Your cheek gently brushed his forehead, your mouth close to his ear. "What is it...you can tell me." You whispered, waiting for him to speak again.

Given the other times he had spoken, you braced yourself for Russian, but those concerns dissipated like morning mist when he finally found his voice and spoke. His words were simple, he murmured out again, the admission barely above a whisper and surprised you when they hit your ears.

"I'm cold."

Dividers by @/strangergraphics

Cover images from Pinterest. I do not claim them as my own.

Taglist: @millercontracting | @teafangirl | @questionableratatouille00 | @buckybarneswife125 | @hazydespair | @leighta | @knoxic | @ghostlyfleur | @beckies000 | @seventeen-x | @freyjhasdesiredreality | @curlycow01

Let me know if you'd like to be added/unadded anytime.

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

some more thoughts on the x-files: perihelion novel by claudia gray, which i zoomed through ravenously! tl;dr -- if you are searching for msr healing after the terrible s11 finale, you should read this and bask in its profoundly healing glow. you're welcome!

spoilers--

so, i had nooooo idea this existed until reddit told me the day before yesterday, and then my hoopla app actually had it, so i could get it INSTANTLY! it was like a dream come true!! the stars aligned for me! i honestly might read it again now.

i really love how this takes all the awfulness of the truly awful s11 finale and says, "okay, let's dive in and grapple with what this emotional reality would really be like. let's frickin' process." scully's pregnant in her 50s! their son is dead and apparently wasn't their son at all, instead the product of medical rape! you can so tell that this is written with the wisdom and insight of a woman writer's perspective, in a way that most of this show struggled profoundly with even in the 2010s (and it was so extra glaring and painful in the 2010s). it really dives into the repeated loss of bodily autonomy that scully experienced throughout the show, and how she grapples with that as she moves into this surreal experience of being pregnant again. it's just such an achingly astute portrayal of scully and how she tries to bury things and be sensible and keep moving forward and how at a certain point that's not tenable anymore. it felt like getting to be with her again in the best way. she also gets a female friend (ilu, dr. karen jones)!!!! which i adore!!!

i can see the hokey side of the whole 'scully now has powers that control electricity!' plot twist, but i have to say, as someone who feels sooooo ragey over everything scully went through, there's something so cathartic on a metaphorical level of scully's repressed feelings literally exploding the world around her. yeah! ⚡

you can tell this is written by someone who's a deep fan of the show and is intimately familiar with it (fanfic writing skills, what what! i distantly remember this author's fic from the days of yore!!) and especially with everything mulder and scully have gone through emotionally, which is so rewarding to read. i think the canon of the show itself kinda forgot some stuff, or didn't find it worth diving into, so it's so great to get that more fandom-oriented perspective that's really aware of the significance of the events of canon and how they would pile up on each other and create such a lasting impact. also, thank u for making mulder and scully kiss some more. long game! <3

both mulder's and scully's voices are absolutely perfect, both in conversation and narration, and their chemistry shines off the page. it really feels like being with them again. i don't have quite as much to say about mulder, since this is first & foremost scully's time to shine to me, but i think it captures his humor and disillusionment and general perspective so well, and the way he grapples with his sense of purpose. and there are just some really delightful mulder zingers in here, which are essential to my well-being.

domestic mulder and scully who are sort of a couple again but sort of keeping their distance is just such a delicious state to get to hang out in, and seeing them start to work through their trauma and get closer is so sublime!!! i just felt so fond of them, and i love how this captures both their fun, affectionate banter and their more serious, painful issues. this story really digs into their full relationship history in such a deep and thoughtful way. it's all there! they finally have sex in a motel shower! nature is healing!!! i can't believe i can buy this at a bookstore and hold it in my hands!!

i also love how this keeps in the style of the show with the extremely earnest philosophical voiceover-style monologuing from mulder and scully. it's truly just an essential part of the show's style and i love that it's here too.

(and scully writing diary entries and then tearing them up into tiny pieces and putting them in the incinerator!!! girl!!!! <3)

even if i'm obviously here for the shippy stuff first & foremost, i enjoyed the plot stuff. i like how this has a misogynistic serial killer plot, and it winds up that the guy doing it is just sort of small and horrible and easily defeated -- that felt so validating after having recently watched just, like, so many episodes about gross men killing women. the new mytharc is also fun enough that i would absolutely enjoy a multi-book series of mulder and scully dealing with it!

absolutely love the suggestions that mulder IS william's dad and that william is not dead. (and skinner's not dead either!) take that, s11 finale!!!!!! your evils are not insurmountable!

i wasn't familiar with the word "perihelion" so when it's revealed what its relevance is, i was sooooo in my feelings. now that's what i call emotional payoff!

oh my gosh they've got a baby girl on the way. 🥹🥹🥹 and now i really want to meet herrrrrrrrr. pls let this become the series it's so clearly setting up. 🙏

p.s. absolutely loved that we got a "SCULLAAAAY!" or two. it had to happen. <3

this book rules!

[altschmerzes]

THE 13 BOOKS I READ IN 2023 IN ORDER FROM BEST TO WORST + THE PROTAGONIST'S SUPERLATIVE. PART 2.

6. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engel. a timeless classic that i love love love. meg is such a fun protagonist and i really enjoyed experiencing this as an adult again. the whole like… helpless devastated rage she feels when she realizes that adults can't just. fix everything? that sequence will always rattle me around like a mason jar fulla beans. she's such a like… man. the way the narrative was like. this isn't fair. it isn't right. it's happening anyway. i'm so sorry, but it's happening anyway. that really got me.

Protagonist: Meg Murry. Most Likely To Have A Profound And Life Altering Impact On Adolescent Weird Girls Who Read Her Book.

7. Whiskeyjack by Victoria Goddard. third book in the series, slightly less fun than the others but only very slightly. i cannot emphasize enough how difficult it was to rank like, 2-8. had some VERY fun stuff with like…. things you learn that then go back and recontextualize everything else. ended on a scene that made me fucking sob which is always a plus in my book. themes of FAMILY and LOYALTY and SACRIFICE. my fucking beloved. yes please. the pov character continues to have a horrible little time. also love that.

Protagonist: (again, series has dual protagonists, so switching back) Peregrine Dart. Most Likely To Be The Unwitting Conduit Of The Deus Ex Machina. Deus Ex Dart.

8. One By One by Ruth Ware. just a really good classic mystery thriller. i love a mystery thriller, and ruth ware seems to always hit for me. managed to pull off a pov switch between two pov characters one of whom had a massive, MASSIVE secret without it seeming completely nonsensical once revealed or relying on the pov character talking in deliberately obtuse or evasive ways that would be really tiresome and insulting if carried through. there was a set of tech bro startup characters that were obnoxious and infuriating in exactly the way that those people are in real life, so points for that for SURE even though i did wanna throttle them.

Protagonist: Erin (Lastname). Most Deserving Of A Tropical Vacation.

9. The Ritual by Adam Nevill. this is the most brutal book i have read in recent memory. possibly at all. this guy gets put all the way through the wringer physically and emotionally and it is visceral in the way it is described. the protagonist was a profoundly unpleasant person a lot of the time but this was deliberate and really engaging, honestly. there were some moments of stark self-reflection from him about the ways in which he did not like who he was and the things he did, and when he recognized how like. unfair and cruel he was being to the others in his head. wasn't as good as the movie, imo, but the changes that they made between the book and film made total sense given the sheer level of interiority in the book. and boy howdy how much interiority. whoof.

Protagonist: Luke. Most Surprising Survival.

10. I Am Not Who You Think I Am by Eric Rickstad. i think the most damning thing that can be said about this book is that i literally can't remember almost anything about it. it was compelling in some ways and there were a few very specific moments that i was really gripped by but most of it was like. a really flat letdown. it was interesting enough as a mystery that i finished it but i don't even really remember why, now.

Protagonist: Wayland Maynard. Most Forgettable Guy.

11. The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. just. ugh. dystopia ya in a bad way. too complicated and not well established. dumbass colour coding system. it could've been so fun, i love traumatized teenagers with powers and an evil government in all sincerity but this just did not do anything good with it. it looked like it COULD have but it DIDN'T. the love interest character was a DICK. there was some weird gender takes that popped out of nowhere. jump-scared by gender. did enjoy watching the movie though because it was fucking insane and gave me a scene where the protagonist and the love interest shared a passionate embrace over what fully appeared to be the dead body of the love interest's theoretical best friend. amazing. no notes.

Protagonist: Ruby Daly. Most Likely To One Day Decide She's Tired Of Being Nice And She Does Want To Go Apeshit Actually.

12. Reputation by Sarah Vaughan. [VIDEODROME PRESCREEN AUDIENCE REVIEW WHERE THEY JSUT WROTE 'SUCKED' AND GOT SO UPSET ABOUT HOW BAD IT WAS THEY MARKED THE WRONG GENDER] this book was BAD. the writing was bad. the characters were bad and not on purpose. the politics of the book were uh. whoof. what if white girlboss feminism was a novel. points for some of the hardest i've laughed tho at Nice Dick Mike the journalist that the protagonist cannot respect after she sleeps with him and Lady Cop With Bangs, the traitor to womanhood.

Protagonist: Emma Webster. Most Likely To Submit An Extremely Long Post To Reddit Dot Com Slash Am I The Asshole That Leaves Out A Lot Of Like, Extremely Critical Information That When Uncovered All Makes Her Look Really Fucking Bad While She Seems To Still Think It Was Entirely Irrelevant And Honestly Unfair To Even Consider. Gd Forbid Women Do Anything.

UNCATEGORIZED: 21st Century Jocks: Sporting Men And Contemporary Heterosexuality by Eric Anderson. there was simply no way to rank this among the others, it was too completely different. they were all very different books but this was just. entirely different. had a wonderful time with it though!! gave me a lot to think about as someone who thinks a lot

thank you for joining me on this journey. i loved reading books again this year and would wholeheartedly recommend anything ranked 1-9 on this list, provided you like the genre/vibe.

[buckybarnesss]

It is so weird being an Allison fan and trying to explain that while yes, I hate that she died she just died so well!

Her death had impact. No one forgot her (unlike Erica and Boyd). Her spector loomed large, to the extent that Scott credits her with stopping the beast of Gevaudan.

It's one of the things I love about the show and her arc: yes, she died, and it was sad but it had impact on the characters and on the narrative.

allison's death was one of the reasons i stopped watching the show after 3b. it was a straw on the camel's back for a lot of people.

when i returned to the show a few years later to watch s4 and s5 (still haven't really done s6 yet (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞) allison's death was one of the few things that carried narrative weight and significance past the seasons she appeared in.

allison still meant something to the characters even after she was gone unlike nearly every other character that had died or left. she had a legacy. she gave them pause. she was the ghost just out of sight.

the promo for season 4 lives in my head rent free because of how well it referenced the loss of a lead character.

lydia's entire character arc in both season 4 and 5 at it's very heart is about the loss of allison and how she failed to prevent it. meredith enacted her plan in season 4 because she heard lydia's death wail for allison. lydia figures out her powers to save malia because malia is going to die and lydia desperately cannot let another person she cares for die. she is desperate to get stiles back after the wild hunt takes him. lydia's love for allison and her friendship with her changed her profoundly from the mean girl we met in season 1.

i think the one unspoken thing that really hangs between scott and stiles in their season 5 divorce is allison's death. was it really about donovan? on the surface yes it was about donovan and theo and the miscommunication but the whole thing had been building a while. the real argument under it was about did scott believe stiles was capable of murder? especially in the way it was being suggested that it was purposeful and in cold blood.

season 5 was the delayed response to the nogitsune possession and how it changed stiles. his temperament, his perspective, fears and drive but it also was about how his loved ones had a changed perspective of him.

scott is forever haunted by allison. his first great love and perhaps something he considers his greatest failure. scott's unreasonable standards to save people achieves new heights after allison's death and it's because he sees himself as having failed to save her so he wants to save everyone to compensate. it's an impossible task with a huge margin of error and high failure rate. it didn't escape my notice that scott wanted to save mason very, very badly from possession from the beast because he couldn't save stiles from the nogitsune, that he bit hayden so liam wouldn't lose her like he lost allison. (it was a bumpy ass ride there though).

hell, one of the realest scenes with kate after her return is that she's grieving allison. as fucked up, as horrible and terrible kate argent is she was devested allison died. allison was the only person kate argent actually loved in her black, black heart.

chris's entire post season 3 arc is all about allison. he's trying to honor her legacy and he's willing to go to great lengths to help the people she loved and laid her life down for.

allison was a flawed person. she made heavy and grave mistakes that led to erica eventually dying. she was reckless and rash. she wasn't perfect. she was trying to reconcile her family's legacy and overcome her own demons but she never got a chance to. she died at 17 trying to save people she cared about but she was loved so deeply by those that knew her.

unlike laura hale who we know nothing about, unlike erica and boyd who are eventually forgotten, isaac is never spoken about again allison gets to have an impact on the narrative. ally a gets to save the day after she's gone and saves scott's life from sebastian valet.

all of this is flawed. it's not perfect because well teen wolf is messy but allison's death and the way she subsequently is still mentioned and that her life and death had lasting consequences is one of the things they did right.

[saintsenara]

Ah, see, that irks me, but unfortunately, it does not surprise me. The idea that Hermione is the more emotionally mature one, more attuned one, Harry's REAL best friend of the two is a view with which that goddamned yankee screenwriter has plagued this fandom for decades now. Whenever I see this take in drarry/snarry/whathaveyouarry-- where Ron is the last person to come around to the absurdity, I'm reminded immediately of how, when Hermione was having the kittens about Harry floo-calling Sirius, it was Ron who put his foot down and said "Harry can decide for himself."

I think this fandom really overlooks, in favour of magnifying his jealousy, just how deeply Ron trusts Harry and thinks the world of him, how impressed he is by Harry as a person, how much he's willing to put his own life in Harry's hands. There's a reason that Ron and Harry are a Dog and Stag just like Sirius and James, which is to say that when Harry makes ostensibly shite decisions, Ron is most likely to hear him out. The locket had him acting completely unlike himself, and the pseudo-possession there is a different conversation.

I also think it's fascinating that for all that Ron nearly has a fit every time someone says "Voldemort" around him, he seems to have a very nuanced understanding of Harry and Voldemort's connection, unlike Hermione who accuses Harry of liking it, and Ginny, who only sees her possession at the hands of the diary as deeply traumatic. Ron understands that Harry understands Voldemort and the man he once was, and you can do a lot with that.

yes. just yes to all of this.

ron and harry [and james and sirius] are basically two pair-bonded cats - they run around sharing a braincell [and i do feel for hermione trying to manage ron's willingness to hear one of harry's dumb plans and say "you son-of-a-bitch, i'm in"] but they do also trust each other so profoundly that it feels like an actual crime for it to have been left out of the films.

and part of that trust is that - unlike hermione, who as i've said elsewhere, often gives the impression of being afraid of harry - ron isn't afraid to be honest with harry, even if that honesty is in the tough-love vein. he's actually entirely correct in deathly hallows that harry hasn't thought the horcrux hunt through, that this lack of planning is making them inefficient and putting them in more danger, and that harry's increasing belief that he's the only person the war is happening to is an enormous disrespect to the people who are putting their lives on the line to support him, including ginny.

because something i get in the critical comments of one year in every ten as well is the idea that ron would cut ties with harry if his relationship with ginny broke down. and, besides the fact that divorce is not always acrimonious, this annoys me because i think it fails to appreciate what ron would be particularly upset about: that, in pretending his marriage was fine, harry was being dishonest, and that his dishonesty would end up hurting ginny and hurting him.

i wanted ron to be the person who'd always suspected that harry wasn't being entirely open about his sexuality - and the person who'd actually done some thinking about what impact this might have on the state of the hinny marriage - and i wanted this to lead into ron's view that a strange but clearly raw and real relationship between harry and tom is better, whatever the other costs it has, than fantasy happiness with ginny simply because harry's too afraid to admit who he is and what he wants.

and absolutely - my "ron is a tomarry shipper" conspiracy theory is heavily rooted in the fact that ron is nowhere near as freaked out by their mind connection, nor by harry's interest in indulging it, as hermione is. it is also rooted in ron saying the quiet part out loud in deathly hallows:

You really understand him.

the best man speech writes itself!

[dirhwangdaseul-archived]

saw across the spider verse finally and this is my first post of many to excise this conflict the movies of miles have left in me since the very first one:

the copaganda wasn't subtle the first time neither was it this time but it did surprise me that gwenvs dad implied he quit like telling us that maybe his morals cannot come from abiding a code he doesn't have a say in? and i think they planted the seeds with hobie too, like there's even the scenes that try to justify the cops existing in a spider story as staples of his myth, those things felt more like that, justification for still talking about them in relation to heroism, because honest to god the movie doesn't seem able to come up with examples of cops helping lmfao, did they even notice? like did the writers notice? but honestly with both hobie and that line from gwen's dad i had a glimmer of hope

but that keeps falling short when i have to look at jefferson, like in the comics his stints with the law are more a contract to his desire to be good to the people he loves, like a tool almost, the fact that the movies went a step further to make him loyal to it is profoundly disgusting specially when i look at how rio who was supposed to be the one most heroic to miles, a nurse, was reduced in favor of raising jefferson the cop to stardom, like fuck, that has always felt so superficial and trite for a spider man myth, but it used to be that the conflict was because it put into question the morality from the law as something incomplete and rigid and ultimately useless against the threats the heroes come against, which are representative of the society the heroes and all their ills are meant to embody

heroism is what these cops are meant to represent for the writers and animators like that's the issue, that's why we fuckers of color complain, because today right now, people and cops and professionals and people with power keep pretending that cops can be called heroes, that they can take up the mantle of one of the most precious parts of society which is communicating the morals of a time as if they could be the only ones that could in their hands the understanding of the myth of good and evil in the time they inhabit, but it's all a lie like are people this blind to themselves, they're just human, they're just fucking people like us, they can't hold nothing for shit because they're also people who have been told to use power as their life and truth, a hero is so many fucking things but he who holds all truths, he's not, often the hero shows us the journey to be able to inhabit, create, mold and be those truths, but also that we could inhabit the lies so easily, if the hero falls so do the people so does the nation, and cops want to be entrusted with that story but they don't see it, they don't that they're not asking like people or heroes but like gods like myths, and it's crazy that this world wants to keep pretending that when someone says they are a cop, as if they truly were it, they're but playing mockeries of human beings, because all they do is enforce power they do not understand, and just because this movie managed once again to try to put the cops against the spider scenes people are eating it? when the text it self could only give us good actions of the cops in relations to their kids and families? when the writers comfortably ignored the social impact of the story of spider this time around in favor of the personal conflict which ended up falling short for me and other fuckers of color because of how many fucking times they couldn't stay away from implying cops are just good people and not the bunch of fucking criminals the state has sanctioned as executors of its will specially against black and brown kids in the us like you have got to be disconnected from reality to be able to ignore all that frfrfrfr

it's just not the story of our times you know? that cops are do gooders... they can't literally be, they're meant to embody power, and power is just power too, it all depends on who wields it, which tells you what being a cop really is, and ofc the military and other things that have to defer to command to call themselves functional, they're naught but tools, extensions of the state, when it comes to exercising power in today's society is all about functionality and quality and maintaining a machine, and thus we got eugenics and racism and discrimination so that people can form themselves into tools to enforce systems of oppression to others so that wr can become, we call this all morality and capitalism and whiteness keep pretending there's only one way to be and define ourselves and what we learn, perverts all into becoming money and abuses to protect the power gives participants in our dehumanization, we have to consider the story of this world fr, that there are abuses in place today because of history that they're tied to skin, that they're tied to identity and the disparities represent our inability to compromise into making life fair and humane for all, those who are not deemed are those who are not picture perfect functions of the system, race usually comes tied to a perception of less humanity, of ableism, of being born as less because of it, do people not see it or are they just good st ignoring their own words?

it's insidious that the story keeps pretending that jefferson morales is able to stand for the entire police and on top of that they imply that that's what would happen with jefferson dead like rio didn't die in the comics and it just made miles want to do good like as much as i enjoyed the twist by the end it doesn't sit right with me but at the same time they sort of implied that it's all about the superhero, so like idk part of. me think there's actually a division in the writing room, and by the end what's given me hope for that story to maybe break was hobie and gwen's storylines, albeit gwen's a bit more ambiguous it feels close to what jefferson should represent how miles does things that jefferson finds conflict and how maybe he cant keep supporting power but i just don't know how many people understand that either, cops are a job, they just follow rules, how many times have people working companies or for a living have had to do horrible shit to themselves and others because we were taught to endure it, cops are the most advanced and finalized version of that able to mutilate themselves and kill others in service of power coated in a story made to make them feel good

like fuck is there any way to leave this clearer? miguel has created what is basically rick and morty's fucking citadel abd just as fascistic as that one bitch thinks he can control time and space because of his dark story, miles breaks away from that, so does hobie, so does gwen by the end, right now maybe i want to leave it clearer, for me, that the story is a disaster due to the implication that cops are just like masked vigilantes and that the only difference is the legality of the act, when we know, maybe mostly by those that inhabit a reality marginalized, that cops just maintain divisions that are meant to protect a status quo, the two lines the story followed should have been used to contrast different moralities, those enforced by power and those sought out from a place of kindness and that much i can tell fell flat for me because of that fucking contrast nowhere to be seen, what i hate right now is have to wait to the next movie because in my head i keep replaying hobie looking with pride and miles breaking apart miguel little bitch o'hara, and gwen's dad saying he quit, because it meant hurting his own daughter, and theres a ray of hope there but idk people need a reality check, cops are killers, cops are murderers, cops are your enemy because they make you one, you don't get to choose your role when you're in a situation with them, and the writers need to leave that clearer because otherwise it is truly off putting to have this movie like this right now when atlanta's fucking cop.city is looking to become a model of fascism everywhere on the fucking world like do i sound insane or hyperbolic? i don't think so, we know history i hope, what this movie has done with the cops and heroism and race is truly atrocious but there's hope if they can be knocked into sense and that starts with looking at reality from those whose faces are put onscreen for us to see ourselves like can we really not make better mirrors of ourselves that empty tools of the state in the forms of cops? like can we really not be better than a glorified pencil. pusher crunching people for the state? is that all heroes can be too? how depressing man....

[vancilocs]

Death, gift, kill, wish (and any other you want to answer) i know you be in that silva sauce right now, aaand orion?

the sauce is blood

DEATH: What was your OC's first experience with death? Was it a person they knew, a pet they had, a story they heard? How did they feel about it then, and what do they remember about it now?

Silva's an orphan, he lost not only his own parents (dad was gone before birth, mom died of illness) very young but also knew a lot of others in the same boat. It was kind of everyday for him, to the point where other people crying about death annoyed him as a youngin. He's since started respecting it a lot more, not only through his own near-death experience, but he also goes along to the graveyard as support when Kyoko pays respects to her late husband and their stillborn kid who died very close to one another.

Orion's first touch was his mom dying when he was a kid (like 10 years at max), profoundly impacted him and he NEVER believed that she took her own life like everyone said. He was always convinced his dad did it even if mom did have pretty severe mental health issues. He gets extremely mad about many things if someone tries to prod into it and that's why therapy has never worked on him

GIFT: What was the first important gift your OC remembers receiving? Who was it from, and what was the occasion? Do they still have it?

Still cooking but likely something from a friend or love interest when he was either still in the orphanage or fresh out. Likely has lost it somewhere along the years, and kicks himself over losing it

Probably something from mom for his birthday, a toy or book or something else she knew he'd like, and he held onto until she died and dad threw out all of his stuff

KILL: When was the first time your OC killed someone? How did they feel about it then, and do they still think about it now? If your OC has never killed before, would they? Under what circumstance?

He was an experienced thief and mugger by that point but hadn't killed anyone, but when you're a newborn vampire and hungry as hell things happen. He only later found out the person died and was pretty shaken up about it (but also, blood made him feel really good so he wasn't gonna stop, just pick better targets...)

He was a grown adult and whatever a professional soldier is that his dad raised him into, not sure if there were situations where he'd kill people before he became a bounty hunter. He had no qualms about it, honestly. He's long forgotten who the first one even was.

WISH: What's the first thing your OC ever wished for or wanted? Do they still want that, or have their desires changed? If so, what changed them? If not, how far would they go to fulfill their wish?

As a kiddo he wanted a family. That turned into anger and cynicism when other kids got adopted around him but he was left behind. Then it turned into a wish for companionship, which he buried for many years, until he mellowed out and found his partners and let himself fulfill that wish.

He had normal wishes for stuff as a kid and got them sometimes, then he just grew up doing his stuff and mostly doing things he wanted and giving up on any bigger dreams (he'd be a bounty hunter until he died, apparently). Then he really just wanted to find Vesper to apologize and maybe have them by his side when he died (and he got those, so maybe being evil and mean for a 100 years pays off)

[spaceorphan18]

Thoughts on the upcoming Price of Glee documentary?

Yes - I think it's sensationalist bullshit.

I did watch the trailer on twitter - because it was trending, and I wanted to be aware of what it was going for.

One of the literal tag lines is -- in 2010 ten kids become famous, by 2020 three are dead.

And I... just found myself incredibly angry. Like, so angry.

The "documentary" is exploiting the deaths of three young people to claim that somehow a) there's a curse and b) that it was the cause of the three deaths. It's all sensationalist -- meaning purposefully edited to create the most shock value. And wants to capitalize on tragedy.

Cory's death was tragic - but he had already struggled with drug issues before he was even on the show, and tying his death to his fame feels like it's stretching truth to fit the narrative the doc is going for.

Naya's death had zero to do with the show - it happened five years after the show was long done. And it was an extremely tragic accident. There's nothing going on here - and, again, to fit it into the theme feels hollow and reductive.

Here's what I'll say about Mark - who is just in a different category all together. I get the feeling that the doc really wanted to talk about how terrible Mark was and how his fame and misgivings drove him to suicide. And - I'm not going to sit here and say he was a good guy -- he wasn't. He did terrible things, and should be held accountable for that. However, I hate the fact that his family has to endure the exploitation of it all. (I have no idea if his family is involved - but if I was a family member, I'd be furious that my family is being used for cheap entertainment.)

I also really, really hate (in general) backhanded narratives that frame bad people committing suicide as a good thing. It's reductive on a level that just makes me incredibly angry.

And overall, yes, three young people dying who are connected to a teen show does seem disproportionally high. But you know what? It's coincidental. It really, really is. There is no freaking curse. Just a lot of tragedy.

I didn't recognize any of the people who were giving interviews - however one of them I believe is Naya's dad (who has been apparently exploiting his daughter's death for a while now) and I've heard that others are people who have vendettas against Glee (though - I can't say who or why because I literally do not know.)

The trailer only focused on the deaths - so I assume this is all they'll be focusing on. And yes - it plays as if it some huge crime drama when... c'mon, it wasn't.

Also - I'm sure it's going to clearly ignore all the wonderful things Glee brought to the world, and how it had a profoundly positive impact on people, especially the LGBT+ community.

(Also - anyone else feel like it's suspicious that the trailer dropped the night Kevin and Jenna held Snixxmas?)

If you want honest insight into Glee - I recommend Kevin and Jenna's podcast. They're open about its ups and downs, but they're also celebratory of the good things as they also critical of the bad. And they are able to frame it as such as real people living a real thing -- and not sensational garbage trying to shock people into believing that Glee (and fame) was so terrible it killed people.

[keire-ke]

Why is Way of Water

Avatar Way of Water was terrible, but in very interesting ways. It's better than the first one in that it's less paint by numbers, less white-saviory, and less boring (also less voice-over, thank god), but also worse in that it's a hot mess of everything under the fucking sun. It should either be one hour shorter or five hours longer, and it's not a good thing.

IDK maybe someone should go and check in on James Cameron, because this movie felt like he wasn't sure if he'd be able to make all seven sequels, so he tried to cram all of them here. As a result I'm not even sure what the movie wanted to be about, because we had, in no particular order, protecting family, rich are evil, difficulty of dealing with change, family: nature or nurture, humans are bad, but also humanity is in a crisis, also some humans can be good, is it better to run from conflict or to face it, the curse of being the middle child, Jesus was a lil' weirdo when you think about it, killing can be good, actually, societal consequences can be unfair, marines just gotta punch something.

None of it was done with any depth or well.

There were things I found absolutely enraging:

You have two parents: the father, who is thy commanding officer, and also the sapient planet that encompasses all

Neytiri was underutilised to the point of pain. I don't recall if she was even allowed to have a relationship with her own children beyond screaming for them occasionally. The movie starts with a voice over by Jake Sully, which eh, if you must. However, most of the events of the movie affect Neytiri much more profoundly than they affect him, so centering on weakens the overall impact. Most of the attempted themes are about family, but throughout Jake treats his family like a precious resource he needs to protect for himself, so it's pretty shallow, giving me serious John Winchester vibes. Every time one of the kids said "sir" to their father I was expecting something to come out of it, like "I'm the chief, so it's appropriate in battle, but now I am no longer that, we need to re-examine our relations". Spoiler: nothing did.

Meanwhile, Neytiri, a member of a species whose community ties are reinforced by their very real deity, is there upending her whole life and severing ties to her community, she's dealing with the inclusion of aliens in her family, as the (prospective) shaman it should have been her role to be the spiritual leader, alas.

Colonel Evil Marine

Are you fucking kidding me, what the fuck. That was some bullshit, start to finish.

The technology to upload memories into avatars kinda... invalidates the whole program from the first movie? If that's possible (and there was no indication this was something only just invented), shouldn't this be done for all potential avatar operators? In case they die from, IDK, extreme mental strain and/or random bar fight.

Why would he want to be cloned as an alien in the first place?

It's not entirely unbelievable he went from a commander guy who was willing to do everything to get his job done, to a single-minded revenge machine (although... yikes), but the fact that somehow he was able to commandeer all the resources for his personal revenge?

The subplot with the son... I mean. What a weird, heavy and meaty plotline to shove onto a background character and a two-bit villain.

Unobtainium 2.0

Yeah... what. What was the point. That ties into nothing, does nothing. I swear it's like James Cameron heard about whaling for the first time during brainstorming phase, and just needed to add it.

The unobtainium from the first movie is mocked as a MacGuffin, but for however clumsily it's explained there, it's a synecdoche for the source of conflict: humanity needs resources, Pandora has resources. Even without the background information that it's apparently for space travel and magnetic properties we can understand the idea.

Here it's a magic anti-aging serum worth millions for a small vial, ergo it's for rich individuals, but that's not the conflict we get introduced to earlier, which is, to wit, "Earth is dying, humanity needs to move".

The space Jesus and the rape jokes

So run this by me again: Sigourney Weaver was not uploaded into her avatar because she died during the transfer, avatars are not transferable, so instead of burying both bodies they... put the avatar... in storage...? Also she got mysteriously impregnated? And the kids joke about their (presumably) friends and mentors... raping the corpse?

The resulting child is able to straight up control the planets biosphere with her mind. Cool.

The kids

I rather liked them, which is impressive! Child characters are hard to pull off. Aside from the smallest one, that one was entirely pointless. Certain aspects were unclear, like at some point we're expected to believe that the middle child feels like he's a disappointment to his family because... why exactly? He gets the others in trouble, sure, but it's not like he actively fails at something, other than following (somewhat arbitrary) rules. He's already a warrior by the tribe's standard (I presume, by the fact he is involved in the attack early on), but he gets grounded like a child? His subplot with the whale suggests he's uncomfortable with societal rules, doesn't understand them and wants to do his own thing, except he very clearly isn't and doesn't, he gets in trouble for disobeying the letter not the spirit of the rules. He doesn't even get a proper "well done son guy", and his "reconciliation" with Jake is teaching him the water tribe skills, which would matter more if a) Jake was at any point having trouble with adjusting to living in the water, b) the skills were what was the problem.

Spider was fascinating. First, who did his manscaping? I demand to know! But jokes aside, if not about Neytiri the movie should have been about him.

The whale

Go whale! I'm team whale.

The way of water

Sure would be nice if we got to see more of the practices of the water tribes, instead of montage skipping to action scenes.

Aesthetics

Very beautiful. My only complaint was the Sigourney Weaver character, her face was too uncanny valley for me.

Music

Present.

Overall

I was really mad when I walked out of the cinema, and I had a hard time enjoying the visuals because there were just too many concepts to be absorbed and then disappointed by. There's so much in here that could have been a great movie! Or three! But like so many current blockbusters it feels like this movie was written by an AI, words slapped on a page, superficially connected and making sense, but the number of fingers does not add up to a hand.

[alexanderrekeda1]

Narratives of Resistance: Stories from Ukrainian Soldiers

In the heart of Eastern Europe, a conflict has been raging that has profoundly impacted millions of lives. The war in Ukraine, which began in 2014 and escalated in 2022, is not just a geopolitical struggle; it's a fight for national identity, sovereignty, and survival. The Ukrainian soldiers who stand on the front lines of this battle represent more than a military force—they are symbols of resilience, defiance, and hope. Their stories of courage and resistance have captured the world's attention, providing a human perspective on a war that often feels distant and abstract. Through their narratives, we gain insight into the profound sacrifices and unwavering spirit of those fighting to defend their homeland.

From Ordinary Lives to Extraordinary Valor

Many Ukrainian soldiers fighting today were not professional soldiers before the war. They were teachers, farmers, students, and business owners—ordinary people living ordinary lives. When the war escalated in 2022 with Russia's full-scale invasion, many civilians found themselves thrust into a new role: defender of the nation.

Serhiy, a 35-year-old accountant from Kyiv, never thought he would be holding a rifle, defending his city from advancing troops. "Before the war, my life was spreadsheets and numbers," he recalls. "Now, I'm part of a team defending our streets and homes. It's surreal, but it feels like what I was meant to do. This is my home, my country. I couldn't just stand by."

Brotherhood on the Battlefield

As in all wars, camaraderie plays a vital role in the survival of soldiers. On the front lines, Ukrainian soldiers have formed deep bonds that transcend the horror and chaos of combat. These relationships, built on trust and shared experiences, become a source of strength for many soldiers facing unimaginable challenges.

This sense of brotherhood provides emotional and psychological support in the face of relentless hardship. Many soldiers describe how their comrades help them cope with the fear, exhaustion, and loss that have become daily realities on the battlefield. The relationships formed in the heat of war offer a lifeline to soldiers, reminding them of the humanity they are fighting to preserve.

The Heavy Psychological Toll

The war in Ukraine has exacted a heavy psychological toll on its soldiers. The trauma of combat, the loss of friends, and the destruction of homes and communities leave deep emotional scars. For many soldiers, the mental battles they face are as daunting as the physical ones.

Viktor, a 29-year-old soldier from Mariupol, shares the psychological toll that the war has taken on him. "The fighting is intense, but what haunts me is the silence afterward. The memories of those who didn't make it. The destruction. It's hard to escape those thoughts.

Stories of Heroism and Sacrifice

In the midst of destruction, Ukrainian soldiers have emerged with stories of incredible heroism. These acts of bravery, often performed under extreme duress, have inspired not only their comrades but also people around the world.

One such story is that of Dmytro, a young lieutenant who led his unit in a fierce battle to defend a small town in the Donetsk region. Despite being outnumbered and low on supplies, Dmytro's unit held its ground for over 48 hours, allowing civilians to evacuate to safety. "We knew what was at stake," Dmytro recalls. It wasn't just about holding a position—it was about protecting people.

The Fight for Ukraine's Future

For Ukrainian soldiers, this war is not just about the present—it's about securing a future for the generations to come. The fight for Ukraine's sovereignty is deeply intertwined with the fight for its cultural identity, its democracy, and its place in the world. Soldiers understand that their resistance is part of a larger struggle for Ukraine's right to determine its destiny.

Kateryna, a soldier from Odesa, speaks about the war's broader implications. "This is about more than just borders. It's about our future as a free people. We're fighting for the right to exist as Ukrainians, to speak our language, and to live in peace. That's why we won't give up.

A Legacy of Resistance

The narratives of Ukrainian soldiers are stories of extraordinary resilience, sacrifice, and hope. They offer a human perspective on a war that has brought devastation but also revealed the strength of the Ukrainian people. These soldiers, many of whom were once civilians, have become symbols of a nation's determination to resist aggression and defend its right to exist.

As the war continues, the stories of these soldiers will endure as a testament to the power of resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. Their courage, sacrifices, and unyielding spirit will be remembered as part of the legacy of Ukraine's fight for freedom, a fight that has captured the attention and admiration of the world.

[onbearfeet]

So I'm going to tell my Ed Brubaker story. I actually have a couple, but this is the relevant one.

I was a Bucky stan in the comics before the MCU existed. In 2005/6, I emailed the Cap letters page BEGGING them to not kill Bucky off again and promising all kinds of bribes if this particular version of Bucky got to stay in the Marvel universe. The Winter Soldier was my first cosplay, at WonderCon 2014, a couple weeks before CATWS even hit theaters. I have been hardcore about Bucky Barnes for two decades.

A couple years after CATWS, I was once again cosplaying Bucky in black leather at a con when my friend looked over my shoulder and informed me that Ed Brubaker was walking past behind me. I spun around and sprinted after him like a crazy woman, heedless of the fact that I was wearing great galumphing combat boots.

I caught him, and I gushed my whole ridiculous story at him and thanked him for everything, and he was gracious and lovely, and then he asked me if I wouldn't mind answering a question.

At all the cons he does, he said, he sees many more women dressed as Bucky than men. It was clear from his tone that he wasn't upset or annoyed by this--just curious. Why did so many women not only love Bucky, but want to inhabit him? Did I, as one of those women, have any thoughts on that?

I babbled something about Bucky losing his agency and being objectified in the story but then gaining it back and becoming the protagonist, and how lots of women experience the first one and long to experience the second. He listened closely to my (I'm sure) barely coherent word-vomit, thanked me, and walked off with a thoughtful expression.

You guys, Ed Brubaker thinks HARD about storytelling and its impact on its audience. He's profoundly curious and an intense listener. HE KNOWS ABOUT YOUR SLASH FICTION. He knows about fan culture and thinks deeply about it, not so much in a "how can I market to them" way as in an "I want to understand them" way. You can see even more of this in his creator-owned work. The dude has long since lost any control of this particular creation, but I would bet cash money he knew what he was doing all along. He had the option of saying, "That's nice, gotta go," and instead asked an insightful question about cross-gender cosplay dynamics.

Put some respect on this man's name.

And also pay him, because Disney ain't gonna.

It is *so* funny when I see Stucky fans whose only Marvel exposure is the MCU refer to Ed Brubaker as "a Captain America writer" like. Guys. Ed Brubaker isn't just "a Captain America writer". He is the reason the Winter Soldier exists. He loved Bucky Barnes as a character so much and was so upset that he was killed off that he became a comics writer and eventually wrote a storyline with Steve Epting where Bucky Barnes was actually alive and the Winter Soldier, eventually reunited with Steve Rogers, and eventually became the new Captain America. Ed Brubaker aged Bucky Barnes up so that he and Steve would only be three years apart, he's one of the main reasons the Stucky fandom is what it is today. Know your history, guys lmfao, he isn't "a Captain America writer", he's the reason for your existence.

[uwmadarchives]

Sophia Abrams and "Black Artists at the UW-Madison"

On Monday, April 19th at 4:30 pm, please join the UW Archives Student Historians as they reflect on their research projects this year: "Black Artists at the UW-Madison" & “A Closer Look at UW-Madison’s Campus-Wide Diversity Initiatives.” Visit go.wisc.edu/archives for more information. Before the event, our social media assistant, Adrian, caught up with the historians to see how their research is going. Interviews were edited for clarity.

Sophia Abrams

I spent a large part of the first semester brainstorming topic ideas. I was taking an Afro-Am art history course, and I ended up reading articles by Black artists and professors who went to UW. I felt like it was something I could work with. By November, I had decided to research Black Artists at the UW-Madison.

Then the fun part was finding the artists. I looked on Instagram and in student newspapers. I did an alumni request with the university because you can request majors and years broken down by race, ethnicity, or interest. I built a list of 15 to 30 artists who I wanted to interview. So far, I've interviewed 15 people for the project. I did most of the interviews in January. I don't recommend trying to do 10 Oral History interviews in the span of two weeks!

I think it's important to see art as a form of communication, but it also reflects the time you're living in and I saw so many parallels across time. I interviewed someone who graduated in 1972 and current students as well. There are a lot of parallel themes like Black artists or anyone who isn’t white, cis, hetero, kind of feels like their work has to be representative or serve a purpose to uplift their group. I think it's really telling that pretty much the same themes are being said by students nowadays that were said almost 50 years ago. You would hope that students feel a little more comfortable or that there's been progress, but there’s still tension.

I'm primarily focusing on the artists’ time at UW and the art that they made there if they are able to remember enough about it. One artist who I interviewed, Jerry Butler from 1972, was talking about how he wanted to create art that reflected the Black Power movement, which was prominent at the time. So he painted Angela Davis and other leaders, and just him painting those figures was not received well by his peers and professors. He said he had to accommodate their needs and kind of compromise his own artistic desires and mold to the university.

I think that artists now talk about having a lot more agency in terms of what they create. But I think in terms of the theme I talked about before of feeling like, do I need to create a work that is inherently Black? That's still a big theme. I think it's a lot about exploring identity, understanding your place, and understanding your relationship to UW. Art often reflects your own experience, so you're going to pull from how your peers treat you and whatnot.

Also, there aren't many Black art faculty at UW. Now there are two professors who are Black men, and there was one Black woman professor, Gelsey Verna, but she passed away unexpectedly in 2008. And there was Professor Freida High, who coined the term Afrofemcentrism.. She created it and helped establish the canon for Black women artists to be recognized. I'm actually interviewing her soon. It's going to be exciting to hear what it means to be the first one doing that work.

A lot of people have been supportive of the project because within art history, there's just really not much gathered about Black artists in Wisconsin. And that's partially because historically speaking, Black art wasn't considered an art form. It was seen as more utilitarian or whatnot. Honestly, the biggest barrier to the project has been technology. I had an interview last week, and it didn't record. I had one interview where the person's connection was glitchy, so I think there are six separate recordings of the Zoom. But that stuff happens.

If I continue to do this project for another year, that will give me a lot more room to flesh out a thesis. My goal for this year is to create a website and a podcast. Each episode will include the highlights from each artist’s interview. If people want the full interview, they will be archived and easily accessible, but I just want to give people five to seven minutes of the most insightful parts. If I have more time, I would also like to interview more artists to fill in the gaps from 1969 to now. And I would love to have an exhibition with all of their art. But with COVID and whatnot, it's hard.

I'm someone who always likes hearing about why someone's drawn to something or what steps have led them to where they are today. I think it's cool to see how UW served as a launching pad for some people. Just seeing what people have done post-UW as well as how UW was fundamental in terms of who they are, like maybe there was a professor who profoundly impacted their outlook, or maybe there was a residency that they did one summer.

Multiple artists have said, “I'm so glad you're doing this because I always like to tell people my story.” So I'm glad that I can be a positive project for them during the pandemic. Building this community of people through the project has been really cool. And as I'm doing this project, I keep thinking, wow, there's just so much that can be uncovered here. It makes me curious, and it speaks volumes in terms of the need for this project. I'm someone who loves art history and whatnot, so I feel like this topic is so fun and cool to learn about.

If anyone reading this knows a Black artist from UW who hasn't been contacted, feel free to email me (sdabrams@wisc.edu). I hope my project inspires more students, especially students of color, to seek out the arts, be it through their major or just taking a class.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

What do you think about the relationship between Napoleon and Lannes? Were they like best friends or something? I read that when Lannes died Nap was really sad he cried and wasn't in a very good mood even after he returned home

Oh I love their friendship. Love their love. And they were intimately close. Terribly familiar and affectionate with each other (if in a bit of a rough-housey military sort of affectionate). Lannes was Roland to Napoleon’s Charlemagne. Patroclus to Napoleon’s Achilles. 

They met as young men during the 1796 Italian Campaign and became fast friends. Both were from more modest backgrounds, both were stiff-necked and hard-headed, both had a military background, and so on. Lannes also fits into Napoleon’s category of “people he loved in part because they were there from the beginning”. Lasting sixteen years (and it would have lasted through to the end I think, had Lannes lived) their relationship was deep, intimate and meaningful to both.

Lannes was one of the few who could tutoyer Napoleon (in private and, more importantly, in public), and did so with great enthusiasm. He’s also one of the few who could publicly oppose/butt heads/insult/be overly familiar with Napoleon and not suffer any real consequences. (e.g. Lannes famously called Napoleon a harlot once in public. To which I am sure we can all hear Napoleon going: Fuck you Lannes. Lannes’ “punishments” when he overstepped the mark were either temporary banishment [it never lasted long] or being sent on diplomatic journeys he didn’t want to go on.) 

They were what some would call intimate friends, or romantic friends. 

Lannes’ death cut Napoleon to the core in a way that is only matched, I would argue, by Duroc and Josephine. Napoleon was mournful and grief stricken over others, such as Desaix and Chauvet, but not to the same degree or intensity. 

(Desaix’s death did prompt that heartbroken line from Napoleon of (roughly) “he always wanted to die in battle but did death have to be so eager to grant him his wish”. Chauvet’s gave us that letter to Josephine where Napoleon says that Chauvet is dead, his ghost whistles through Napoleon’s tent.) 

Indeed, in terms of displays of emotion on the battlefield, particularly open weeping and almost inconsolable grief, Lannes is one of the few that garnered such a reaction from Napoleon. (Duroc being another.) Which speaks to their profound relationship and what Lannes meant to Napoleon (and it certainly goes the other way around as well). Napoleon said of Lannes, “Lannes adored me…he was certainly one of the men on whom I could most depend in this world.” 

Later on St. Helena: “he [Lannes] clung to me [Napoleon] … for the rest of his life; he wanted only me, thought only of me … Certainly, he loved his wife and children more than me; nevertheless, he never spoke about it because he expected nothing of it; he was the one who protected them, while in turn, I was his protector.” (A sort of military-esque marriage.)

One of my favourite exchanges, which can be summed up as: Presenting you the married couple of Napoleon & Lannes. 

You damn Gascon! What the hell were you doing… trying to prove you’re so damn brave when we already know that? No… you were out there risking your men and yourself for no bloody reason! You’d do better to follow your orders from now on. When I want you to get yourself killed I’ll let you know!

– Napoleon to Lannes, after the takeing of Malta, 1798. Cited in The Emperor’s Friend: Marshal Jean Lannes

Mostly because you can hear Lannes yelling back: I DO WHAT I WANT YOU STUPID CORSICAN. Also because this is such a “I’m so panicked you almost died I love you and also want to slap you” moment from Napoleon. 

Married Couple #2: 

There were a few diversions, however, particularly the evening meetings of the savants who would later organize the Institut d’Égypte. Bonaparte took these meetings seriously and made his generals and staff attend. He could not always control such a diverse crowd, however. Several officers were unimpressed and obviously bored with scholarly discussions. A participant claimed Lannes and Junot were the worst behaved, joking with each other and making rude remarks while the savants attempted to educate them. Junot would deliberately mispronounce Lannes’s name as one of his better jokes, calling him l’âne, or ass. Lannes told Bonaparte that nobody could hear the scholars over Junot’s snores rumbling from the back of the crowded gathering. Bonaparte excused Junot from further sessions, but he made Lannes stay, fidgety, bored, with no one to listen his sotto voce comments.

— Margaret S. Chrisawn, The Emperor’s Friend: Marshal Jean Lannes.

Junot and Napoleon though, that’s another complicated situation. (It was a mess, a hot, hot mess. Junot was in Love. Napoleon was embarrassed. It got messy and mean.)

A few accounts from Lannes’ death: 

As soon as the Emperor saw him, he ran, hastened to him, covered him with kisses. He called to him in the middle of his sobs, and said to him in a muffled voice: ‘Lannes, my friend, do you recognize me? It’s me, it’s the Emperor. It’s Bonaparte, your friend!’ … Napoleon, kneeling before the dying hero, cried hot tears. This most touching meeting, these most tender embraces moved us profoundly … The Emperor’s pain was so intense that none of the witnesses to this scene could ever deny the profound feeling that it inspired.

– Account from Jean-Jacques-Germain Pelet

“My Cousin, the marshal died this morning of wounds he received on the battlefield. My grief is equal to yours. I lose my armies’ most distinguished general, my companion in arms for the last sixteen years, the one I considered my closest friend. His family and his children will always have a particular right to my protection. It’s to assure you of this that I wanted to write you this letter, because I sense that nothing can relieve the true sorrow that you will feel.”

— Letter from Napoleon to the Duchess of Montebello, 31 May 1809.

Following Lannes’s agonizing death on May 31, 1809, Napoleon retreated to his tent where his valet Louis Constant later found the Emperor “seated, immobile, mute, and staring into space, in front of his hastily prepared meal. Napoleon’s eyes were inundated with tears; they multiplied and fell silently into the soup.”

[…]

Napoleon’s grief for Marshal Lannes took on the very public character of open lamentation. Rather than grieve behind closed doors and conceal his personal vulnerabilities in order to show public strength, Napoleon’s mourning for his beloved friend became a matter of great public spectacle. Like Achilles mourning his beloved Patroclus, Napoleon wept publicly and openly expressed his affection in a way that was widely reported, discussed, and admired by the officers and soldiers in his armies.

[…]

Napoleon’s public grief at the death of Jean Lannes represented a new model for social relations between soldiers in the early nineteenth-century France. weeping over his friend’s broken body, Napoleon demonstrated how the revolution and empire had made it possible not only for an emperor to grieve openly for a fallen marshal, but for a soldier to love his comrade. This uncharacteristic expression of affection between Napoleon and Lannes was echoes in similar relationships between officers and foot soldiers in Napoleon’s armies. Military memories of the first empire bear witness to a wide range of intimate relationships among generals, colonels, and captains as well as sergeants, corporals, and grunts (grognards), the infantry soldiers who made up the majority of the imperial armies. Napoleon’s love for Lannes might thus be said to represent a broad spectrum of masculine affection and intimacy in the ranks of the Grande Armée, or what could be called Napoleonic friendship.

- Napoleonic Friendship: Military Fraternity, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-century France

“The Emperor also spoke of the last moments of Marshal Lannes, the valorous Duke of Montebello, so justly called the Roland of the army, who, visited by the Emperor on his deathbed, seemed to forget his own condition and tend to him whom he loved above everything.” 

-Las Cases, Memorial of Saint Helena. 

Indeed, Napoleon’s friendship and open pain and grief at Lannes’ death is one of those rare moments that allows us to separate the Napoleonic Myth - that enigmatic Emperor who is a repository of collective fears and hopes - and see the man beneath it. And while, as with everything relating to Napoleon, his friendship with Lannes can be either over, or under, stated - I think we can all safely agree that there was love, intimacy, affection and friendship between them and Lannes’ death impacted Napoleon in a way that I’m not sure we can fully appreciate. 

Until the end, whenever Lannes was brought up Napoleon would discuss him briefly then quickly move on to other subjects and it’s clear, based on how he is described in those moments (going silent, blinking a lot, looking away), he’s trying not to cry. 

[theshadowbastard]

My Top 10 Favorite Horror Movies

FYI, this list is not what I consider to be the 10 best horror movies ever made. These are just my 10 personal favorites; the ones I love and enjoy the most. It's an unashamedly selective list, and you're free to hate me forever if you like because of my choices.

10. Poltergeist (1982)

"Ya son of a bitch, you moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn't ya?!"

I first saw Poltergeist when I was about 11 or 12, having rented it from the video store near my grandma's house, and watching it on the upstairs TV all by myself was a visceral, haunting experience that never left me. I found the themes about the nature of the afterlife and the fragile, porous membrane that exists between life and death were profoundly moving, and combined with nightmarish sequences and a soundtrack that's almost operatic in its power, create a film that comes as close to a spiritual horror experience as any I've ever personally seen. It also has probably the greatest poster in the history of the genre.

9. Vampyr (1932)

"She mustn't die!"

Back in my early 20's, I was working a lot but still living with my parents, so I had a lot of disposable income, and as such I'd often buy lavish collectible editions of movies I'd never seen or even heard of, just because I thought the package looked cool. That's what drove me to pick up the Criterion box set of Vampyr, a movie that would have a tremendous impact and influence on the way I thought about horror as a concept. No other movie so completely encapsulates how it feels to dream, and more importantly, to experience strange nightmares. It's so surreal as to border on the psychedelic at times, which only serves to make it all the more terrifying, and it totally blew all my notions about horror movies apart.

8. The Old Dark House (1932)

"Have a potato."

I'd long heard about this movie through various documentaries and articles about the first "golden age" of horror, but it wasn't until I found the DVD (in a Hot Topic store of all places) that I finally sat down to watch it. It instantly became one of my favorite movies, with its black humor, fiercely precise direction, joyous performances, and unforgettable dialogue ("It's only gin, you know. Only gin. I like gin."). It may be short, campy, theatrical, and a little trite, but it's one of the best times you'll ever have watching an old movie.

7. Friday the 13th, part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

"Jason belongs in hell, and I'm gonna see he gets there."

The Friday the 13th movies represent everything that was good and bad about 80s horror cinema. The base concepts behind each entry in the series vary film to film, but in the end it's about a bunch of sexy young people getting picked off one by one by a psych killer. Previous films in the series featured ol' Jason Voorhees committing a string of brutal murders, seemingly being killed at the end, and then coming back under increasingly improbably pretexts. What I love about Jason Lives is that by this point in the franchise, they just went for broke and brought him back from dead with an errant bolt of lightning as a full-on zombie, with no further explanation given. The hockey-masked killer then goes on one of his most entertaining rampages, culminating in a memorable showdown between Jason and Tommy Jarvis, the young man who's been Jason's nemesis for the last 3 movies, and the whole thing is underscored by a series of cheesy Alice Cooper songs. Sure it's stupid, but it's tremendous fun.

6. Sleepy Hollow (1999)

"Unlike his compatriots, who came for money, the Horseman came for his love of carnage."

The story of the Headless Horseman is one that captured my imagination from a very young age, and I clearly remember the excitement I felt when I heard Tim Burton was going to do a new movie version of the old tale. The resultant film bears next to no resemblance to the original Washington Irving narrative, with Burton instead opting to craft a lavish, sumptuous, gothic, bloody blend of horror, action, adventure, and mystery. The movie is overflowing with acting talent (even though Christina Ricci is criminally underutilized), but for me, the real show-stealer is Christopher Walken's outrageous performance as the spectral Horseman. It's one of the quintessential Spooky Season movies for me.

5. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

"How long will I live?" "Until dawn tomorrow."

When it comes to the classics of German silent cinema, much praise is deservedly heaped upon 1922's Nosferatu, and rightfully so, but I personally always preferred Caligari. For one, I think it's much scarier, with a lot more atmosphere and frightening sequences, and secondly I find the visuals a lot more interesting, with the teetering expressionistic sets and bizarre characterizations. And for my money, I think Conrad Veidt's performance as Cesare is a lot more impactful and influential than Max Schreck's Count Orlock. There's something strangely captivating and hypnotic about Caligari, and I think if you want to see the best concentration of the impact German silent cinema had on the horror genre, this is the film to see.

4. House on Haunted Hill (1959)

"If I were gonna haunt anybody, this would certainly be the house I'd do it in."

This is one of those movies you enjoy on one level as a child and then come to appreciate on a whole new level as an adult. As a kid this movie absolutely terrified me, especially the scene of the ghostly hanged woman who appears at the window, but when I grew up and revisited the film, I picked up on all the gallows humor and campy performances, and fell in love with the film all over again. Elisha Cook, one of my favorite character actors from the period, turns in one of his best performances as the house's owner, a man who's so afraid of the house that he drinks more or less constantly throughout the film, and delivers some of the movie's best lines ("We found parts of the bodies all over the house, in places you wouldn't think!"). But of course it's the grandmaster of American horror himself, Vincent Price, who really tears the house down with his delightfully macabre presence. Overall, it's an underrated movie and one of the all-time classic haunted house movies.

3. The Fog (1980)

"11:55. Almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. Just to keep us warm."

Expectations were high after John Carpenter released Halloween, one of the greatest and scariest horror films ever made, but his follow-up The Fog, a subtle and atmospheric ghost story, wasn't really what audiences of the time wanted, and as such it underperformed at the box office and with critics. But the passage of time has been extremely kind to this film, and it's now regarded as one of Carpenter's best, and my personal favorite of his films. The Fog is a film that does what very few modern horror films do--it asks you to slow down, to take a breath, to not be in such a hurry to see what happens next. That's not to say that there's no tension or suspense in the movie, but it's a quiet and serene kind of tension, with levels of simultaneous horror and strange beauty that's almost Lovecraftian. It's a film that asks you to stop and think, to reflect on yourself and the part you play in the bad things that happen in the world. Above all, it's a film about patience, atmosphere, revenge, and the inevitability of whatever is waiting out there, in the fog.

2. Dracula (1931)

"Lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter, as though the dead were there."

I think what keeps bringing me back to Dracula is the strange balletic nature of the movie. The movie is something like an opera with the singing removed, and only the careful, concentrated, focused movements and precise characterizations remaining. Watching it is like playing a Wagner symphony on an old vinyl record--through the cracks and hisses of the worn surface, the familiar and comforting rhythms of the beautiful music still resound. It's almost ritualistic, the way the events unfold, helped along by all the references to religion and sex and blood and death, and resurrection. Bela Lugosi's performance as the Count remains my favorite piece of film acting ever, and while he is utterly unlike the character as described in the novel, he still stands alone as the quintessential Dracula in the popular imagination, and mine.

1. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

"I oughtta drag you out there and feed you to those things!"

Imagine that you're standing on one side of a closed door. Behind you, on the same side of the door as you, is every horror movie of the past fifty years, with all the of the aesthetic qualities, plot devices, tropes and cliches they bring with them. All of the classics of the 1920s-1960s: Caligari. Nosferatu. The Phantom of the Opera. Dracula. Frankenstein. Freaks. Cat People. The Body Snatcher. Curse of Frankenstein. Horror of Dracula. Psycho. House of Usher. The Mask of Satan. Black Sabbath. The Innocents. Carnival of Souls.

Then you crouch down, and glance through the keyhole in the closed door. Through that keyhole, you can see what it is coming. What the horror genre will become over it's next fifty years. Rosemary's Baby. The Wicker Man. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The Exorcist. Halloween. The Shining. The Evil Dead. Candyman. Scream. Jacob's Ladder. The Blair Witch Project. The Ring. Saw. House of 1000 Corpses. Hostel. That's what it's like watching Night of the Living Dead. This is where the horror genre turns the corner; where it transitions from what it had been into what it would be. You can almost literally watch it happen through the course of the film; the way it starts with a lone ghoul in a thunder-racked graveyard and ends with blood, guts, apocalypse, and the most unforgettable ending in the history of the genre. It's not the best horror movie ever made, but I it's the one I love the most, because it encapsulates both the whole genre in one moment, and one moment, one crucial moment, in the whole history of the genre. The monsters of a new generation are coming to get you, Barbara.

[awed-frog]

I find your thoughts about Snape really fascinating! Recently I've dusted off my old books, reread some parts and also some really good fanfics - but when I read HP for the first time, I wasn't really present in forums or followed blogs about it, I consumed the books pretty much in my personal bubble of one. I regret that now, because it took me some time to see how differently people saw the characters or reacted to their stories, beyond the simple "X is my favorite and Y is kinda dumb". 1/3

Snape is still kind of difficult for me to categorize - of course I disliked him in the first books for his behaviour and the way he treated Harry, but even then I never really hated him. I mostly asked myself why he did the things that he did, and I remember when I read his backstory in book 7 it made me profoundly sad - even more so than the deaths of others, for example Lupin, which really suprised myself. I agree with you that it does not excuse his actions, 2/3but the thought of what man Snape was, being stuck in a life with people who hated him and him hating himself for what he did when he was young - his story was one that really stuck with me, even years later. So, what I wanted to say (before this got a bit out of hand) is that I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on Snape, and that I definitely should go follow some HP blogs to freshen up my dash a bit :D 3/3

Hi caeillian - thank you for your lovely message. Those books had such an impact on so many of us, it’s always interesting to hear about the experiences others had with them. 

(The question of whether it’s more rewarding to read alone or follow the same story with others - that’s complicated. I guess we mostly evolved to hear fiction as a group, and I sometimes wonder if this is why some of us are so affected by books we read alone - you know, like it happens with post partum depression, in a way. Anyway - the HP books certainly had a profound impact on me, and if you want to compare your experience to mine, I wrote about it in my 2016 thank you to fanfiction authors - you can read it here.) 

Profoundly sad - yes. I remember that before the whole story came out (we were perhaps between books five and six), someone asked JK Rowling if Snape had ever loved anyone, and her answer was, “No one would want to be loved by Snape” or something similar - the rest of her comment, which I have now forgotten, implied there was something sick in the way he loved people, and the forums went wild with talk of BDSM and weird torture kinks. Instead, well, it turns out she meant it in a very different way: this is a man who never learned how to form any significant relationship, and therefore loves in absolutes - which sounds nice, but is really not. 

(I knew someone like that, and it ended in the worst possible way.)

Lily was Snape’s whole world - we’ve seen how jealous he was of her friends, how he probably didn’t take the time to get to know any of them, how he basically didn’t care about anyone else except her - it must have seemed so extraordinary, after years of bullying and neglect, to find this one amazing person who could see him, who cared about him and what he had to say, he very likely didn’t know how to handle it. It was disturbing and sad to read about Snape’s complete incomprehension of Lily’s relationship with Petunia when they were all kids, because those moments highlighted, very clearly, that Snape did not understand unconditional love (which is what a parent’s love should be). He assumed Petunia and Lily stopped loving each other when they were cross with each other, and despised Petunia so much (this girl who couldn’t see beyond his drunk father and mismatched clothes) that he genuinely couldn’t understand Lily’s love for her. That tells us a lot about his relationship with his parents, and ouch. I seem to remember JK Rowling described kid!Snape as ‘a plant someone had left in the dark’, and that just about broke my heart. Snape’s inability to feel secure enough in himself to give people a chance, his obsession for this one person who’d seen the best of him and his deep lack of self-worth culminated, of course, in that dreadful plea to Dumbledore - to keep Lily safe even if James and Harry should die. Dumbledore was horrified, as were we all, but I always disagreed with his immediate reaction (‘Her husband and child can die, as long as you get what you want?’), which was also Voldemort’s reaction after he had killed Lily - I don’t think Snape was hoping, back then, that if James died Lily would come back to him. He must have accepted something between them had broken beyond repair, and, as far as we know, he never made any attempts to sabotage her relationship with James. Personally, I always felt he simply couldn’t conceive of others as being real people with feelings and needs as complex and deep as his own and Lily’s - again, a childish trait and a heritage of how he grew up - and therefore no one else truly mattered, in any way. Which is dreadful, of course, but way more tragic and layered than simply being a jealous dick or a carefree bully. 

There are a number of neglected or abused boys in JK Rowling’s writing, and it’s not random that their faults shine through so clearly: the whole point of the books is to show how peculiar and extraordinary Harry is, because Harry, unlike Snape, unlike Sirius, unlike Pettigrew and Lupin and Voldemort himself, managed to hold on to his instinctive love for others - his empathy, his trust in Good. To use a whovian quote, “All that pain and misery, and loneliness - and it just made him kind.” Sometimes I think we were meant to walk away from this story having learned precisely this - that kindness is a choice, not a trait of character; and that it’s hard, excruciating, at times, to step back from that edge - to let go of those who abused us or taunted us or simply didn’t see us, and choose trust and forgiveness instead. This was Harry’s journey, and it was a profoundly Christian one. But Snape, of course, as the antihero, was always set up to fail and fall.