#making fun of his name is now a microaggression both ways

[kindlespark]

messy oisin doodles bc i can’t stop thinking about howl’s human design for him. (tattoos were inspired by chinese porcelain and irish celtic designs like the triquetra!)

[warping-realities]

Rebranding (Repost)

"How can you be so reckless, Vincent? Be grateful I pulled your ass out of the fire and threw a coat over your sorry self, you idiot. But the fallout... Don’t you get that this could totally wreck your whole career?"

"I know, but that bitch..."

"Don’t you dare use that word again; it's already bad enough to have it on tape flying around all the gossip shows!"

"Sorry, that... woman..."

"Valery, your girlfriend."

"Ex-girlfriend, or do you really think I’d stick around after she cheated on me?"

"Understandable you broke up, but threatening her and calling her all those names in front of a bunch of paparazzi? Half-naked, no less! What were you thinking?"

"That’s what I’m asking; what was I thinking when I decided to date a brainless bimbo with fake blonde hair?"

"Be super careful with what you say; after all, that’s not the image you wanna project, Vincent."

"Ah, I’m sorry." He replied, eyeing his agent's long blonde hair.

"Apology accepted, asshole. But we’ve got bigger fish to fry. So, tell me, what am I supposed to do with you?"

"I didn’t get your question."

"But I was so clear that even a bimbo would get it."

"Look, I already apologized for how I acted..."

"It turns out that in our circle, just saying sorry isn’t enough. We’ve got an image to protect and sell. Like you said, the vibe Valery gives off fits perfectly with betrayals and gossip sites. But you? Not so much, at least not until this week’s fiasco. Honestly, I never understood what she saw in you. Sure, you’re a well-known gamer influencer, but you’re just a nerd. She’s on another level, with more followers than you, and I bet she’ll be a fashion icon in no time."

"If you called me here just to roast me, I’m out." He said, getting up.

"Sit your ass down and shut it." Inexplicably, he found himself compelled to do just that.

"Hmmm, hmmm."

"Much better, right? I should've figured out your type way earlier, the nice guy who makes funny videos, the friend to everyone, protesting for minorities... but who, deep down, is just another sexist and misogynist like so many others. You’re way worse than a dumb jock, you know why, Vincent? Because they don’t hide who they are; women can smell the toxic masculinity from a mile away. But you, our so-called allies... what a joke... allies like you? I don’t need that. You come at us with your soft words and sensitive hearts, and women like us fall for it. We only catch on to all the microaggressions, the hits to our self-esteem when it’s gone too far, when that happens." She said, pointing to the eye prosthesis.

"I had a heart-to-heart with Valery this morning. Turns out, on top of all that, you’re a lousy performer in bed. That’s why she’s been sneaking around with her gym buddies. Poor girl, always picking the wrong guy, but at least the last dude had an enviable body and an even more enviable... tool, maybe the reason for your little meltdown. In your defense, she swore to me you never laid a finger on her. So, my dear, I’ve decided I’m not gonna bail on you, and Valery’s agreed not to press charges. But for everyone to be happy after the mess you made, you both gotta agree to clean up your images. And for that, you’re gonna participate in a reality show! Fun, right?" She finished with a smirk. Vincent's shocked look showed he wasn’t finding this fun at all.

"Now, Valery is perfect for the reality show in question, and as for you... we’ve got a few months until the next season drops, which I really appreciate, 'cause we need to let the dust settle to work on your image and do a total rebranding. Get up and strip down to your underwear; I don’t need to hurt my only eye with the sight of your tiny dick."

Vincent again found himself compelled to comply and robotically followed his manager's orders.

"It really isn’t good material! But let’s change that; how about a few years less studying foreign languages and more time getting swole at the gym, Vincent?"

Suddenly, all knowledge of Spanish and French evaporated from his mind. Followed by a weird feeling in his body, starting in his feet, which ballooned from size 8 to size 11. Then his calves, a joke among his friends, widened and showed more definition, as well as his thighs, which grew to the point of making him move one leg away from the other, with a little help from his dick, which went from size 3 to 7. Then his abs started to show the shadow of a six-pack, with defined pecs to match, and finally, his skinny arms gained the size and definition of someone who actually lifts weights at the gym. As soon as it started, the feeling passed.

"Much better, flex those muscles for me, Vincent." And so he did, screaming in horror in his own head, but utterly speechless on the outside.

"I think we still have room for improvement," said Monica distractedly. And Vincent, summoning all his willpower, finally got a moment of clarity, rushing to the table and trying to grab anything he could use against her. Not succeeding he just used all his remaining willpower to raise a fist in defiance.

"Stop right there! A fist? Seriously, Vincent? I figured with all your big-brain intellect you’d come up with something better." She mocked the frozen man.

"Apparently, that intellect isn’t all that great. So how about we trade twenty IQ points for another twenty pounds of lean muscle, a few extra inches on your height, on that useless dick of yours, and on those big feet; for some reason, some women go crazy for that!"

Vincent was hit by that odd feeling in his body again, this time accompanied by a sensation of being sucked into his own mind, which prevented him from even thinking. His feet reached a gigantic size 14, giving off a pungent odor, his calves grew until they took on the shape of diamonds, and his thighs expanded to the size of tree trunks; his penis - little Vinnie, a name that popped into his head - reached an impressive 9 inches in length, along with the circumference of a beer can. That hint of a six-pack evolved into a defined eight-pack, and his pecs turned into two slabs of meat, completing the sculpt he developed with broad shoulders and huge, vascularized arms.

"Almost there! The body’s perfect, and intellect down to just the right level. But something’s missing. How about we swap your obsession with game culture for an obsession with yourself? A few tattoos, and what were you saying about fake blonde tan and bleached blond hair? Let’s make sure the outside represents the inside well, my dear, and the main thing is that every woman who lays eyes on you knows what kind of man she’s dealing with.

…

The two girls sitting on the sand tried to focus from a distance on who the man was approaching at the edge of the sea.

"Is he mine or yours, Val?"

"I think he’s yours, Brit; from this distance, I can’t be sure, but he doesn’t look like any of mine... except... no way!"

"What, Val?" asked the other anxiously.

"Wait and see, Britt! But I can guarantee you this is gonna blow some minds!" answered Valery, seeing the young man approaching.

"Hello, ladies!" said the man, exuding cockiness.

"Vincent Parker?" Britt asked in disbelief as Valery just smiled.

"No formalities, girls. You can call me Vinnie!"

[patricia-von-arundel]

CONTENT WARNING: transphobia, other prejudices, suicide/murder, violence, family and religious trauma

I am going to tag with "transphobia" for now, but please let me know if there is another tag you need, especially considering how curious the human mind gets. Anon is on if that's your preference.

And for the record, I am not trans.

Irony being that she blocked me yesterday (TDOV) for saying there are reasons to include pronouns in your info besides being trans after this:

Well, lady, I'm long past silence, period, with people who refuse to realize that they are perpetuating the same sorts of dehumanizing behaviors they would likely call horrendous when safely viewed through being decades removed from it. It's theoretically no longer acceptable (wantonly and unapologetically - you have to at least pretend there was some other reason... like being trans/gay) to murder, ostracize, belittle, etc., people for their religion, or skin color, or ethnicity, or political orientation, or or or...

I know it happens everyday. I'm a lot of things, but stupidly naive isn't one of them. Not my point here -

And that point is, that openly making fun of, demeaning, or verbally abusing a particular group of people generally only happens when the person doing it knows they will have at least some community support. This is true in people from the moment they can toddle around with enough balance to hit the kid who has the toy truck they want. The 2-year-old gets upset not because of empathy with the other, but because they got caught and in trouble.

Empathy develops to some extent for most. But not all. 🤷‍♀️ And many adults never seem to escape the desperate need to be part of an in-group, and potentially dehumanize or disenfranchise an out-group to be given that part.

While being "normal" gay/lesbian (aka, "stop complicating things and get in the box we've assigned you!") has slooooowly begun to swing closer to being mainstream acceptable or at least somewhat tolerated (and I would dearly love to take a stick to "love the sinner, hate the sin" bullshit), those who do not fall neatly into such categories are still stuck fleeing the field of open season.

I do have a question, though, for those who mock gender identities, pronouns, etc. -

My grandmother died 13 years ago. She grew up in the rural Southeastern US, born in the 1920s. She supported the Civil Rights movement.

But she would not let POC use the bathroom in her house.

My question is: do you think this acceptable? Do you think it is okay to use a particular time, place, and social norms to justify continuing to support and perpetuate microaggressions that were seen only 60-odd years ago as normal?

If you would find it demeaning and horrifying that there are white people who continue to refuse to let black people pee in their toilet, answer me honestly:

How is it not just as demeaning and horrifying to refuse someone's preference for what you call them, in names, or pronouns, or both?

"But I never actually hurt anyone!"

Yeah - neither did my grandmother.

"Look, it's funny. Sorry. But it is. What the fuck is a Ze/Zir? Sounds like some crazy lesbian sci-fi move. 🤣"

Verbal aggression is still aggression.

And here is what I said that got me blocked:

Human history is full of people who shrug and accept the status quo, people who look the other way, and people using the former behaviors to justify their own. Mocking and demeaning seem "harmless" - until they aren't.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?!" asked Henry II, frustrated that his new Archbishop of Canterbury was being difficult. After all, Thomas had been picked specifically so that he would side with the king and nobilty over the pope and church! And now he wasn't cooperating. At all.

And maybe the quote above isn't quite how it went. The Zapruder manuscript has yet to be found. 🤷‍♀️ But he said something while grumpy and sulking.

And by the end of 1170, Thomas Becket's brains were splattered all over the altar at Canterbury Cathedral.

I'm not saying one obscure author mocking pronouns is going to end up with anyone murdered. Almost certainly, it will not. But such microaggressions can snowball. If more and more people find more and more dehumanizing behavior acceptable... where does it stop?

With heads smashed open before a church altar? With the wanton murder of thousands through Crusade? With civil war and invasion? With slavery and genocide? With forced marriages, chemical castration, jail, banishment?

All have happened.

But whatever your personal stance on pronouns... even just mocking, arguing that the trend of choosing gender and pronouns is "absurd," may leave you one day wondering if anything will be capable of scrubbing away the stains it may leave on your hands.

Ask yourself what your grandchildren might think of your behavior, one day.

And for anyone reading while dealing with your own trauma and self-harm, please reach out, if at all possible, to people who can help you. You deserve to be safe, and respected, and loved.

You deserve to live. And I hope we can keep working together to make that a life you'll love to live. 💖🏳️‍⚧️

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Nope

“Nope” wants to have a message that’s present in every character, but also doesn’t want it to be overtly explicit, causing the themes to get lost within characters motivated by outside influence.

OJ Haywood has just gruesomely lost his father in what authorities claim was debris from a plane in the sky. He has also lost a job opportunity for one of his horses to star in a commercial after the film crew irresponsibly fails to respect its boundaries. Now, OJ must sell his horses to a nearby amusement park owner named Ricky “Jupe” Park, who was also a child actor back in the day. While contemplating with his sister about selling the whole ranch to Jupe, OJ notices that one of their horses is acting weird. When he goes to investigate, he sees what looks to be a UFO.

I know that the opening statement for this review looks like a bunch of word vomit, but trust me, it makes sense. Jordan Peele is a director whom I respect immensely. I’ve mentioned that I used to watch “Mad TV” on YouTube with my brother back when I was in elementary school and watched “Key & Peele” in middle school. Seeing Peele’s transition from comedy to horror was amazing because he just does both so well. “Get Out” and “Us” were great movies first and great message movies second. “Nope” feels like it’s trying to be a message movie, but fails to try and make the movie great. When themes like racial microaggressions and social mobility are exhausted in his other works, he’s left with passively scary themes such as desensitization to spectacle. All the characters in “Nope” operate under this theme, but it’s hard to pick up on because the theme itself is so vague. This leads to characters feeling unrealistic because their choices are dictated by this adherence to the theme rather than logic. OJ and Emerald learn about the existence of a UFO and their initial reaction is to catch it on film to become rich. OJ knows good and well that this UFO violently murdered his father right in front of him. I don’t think he’d be too eager to profit off of this UFO. If anything, he’d probably want to report this to the authorities out of anger. In fact, he’s not even angry at this UFO because the character is so muted. Steven Yeun’s character also adheres to this theme in a weird way. He went through a traumatic incident in his childhood, and that’s putting it mildly. Instead of being scarred by it and needing therapy for the rest of his life, he idolizes and monetizes his tragedy. I know some people will try to justify these characters’ actions and tell me that’s exactly what Jordan Peele is trying to point out. The truly scary part is that there are people like this out there. The problem is, that’s a gross oversimplification of what’s really going on, which in turn leads to my dissatisfaction with how the characters were portrayed. This is most apparent with the TMZ reporter. The dude gets seriously injured and all he cares about is getting it on video. Same with Antlers Hoist with suddenly wanting the perfect shot. Putting the theme aside, I think there were elements that made the movie itself decent. I thought borrowing elements from “Jaws”, but putting it into the sky was a lot of fun. The sky is everywhere so you can’t escape the monster’s grasp. However, on the flip side to that, the sky is more open than the ocean, so you don’t get the fear of the obscured monster as much. I mean, the movie does it with clouds, but the sky can also be crystal clear. The twist with the UFO didn’t really work for me. Part of the fun of alien invasion movies is finding out about the motivations of the aliens. Finding out that the UFO is the monster boils the motivation down to “it’s hungry”. It sucks too since I thought the scene with the kids dressed as aliens was the best scene in the whole movie. Before it’s revealed that it was just a prank, it was a genuine “Oh shit” moment that had me even saying “nope” repeatedly. Also, I know Jordan Peele didn’t have anything to do with the trailers for this movie, but they were misleading at best and downright insensitive at worst. There’s a shot of a weird-looking man walking towards something the crowd is running away from. That shot is not in the movie at all. Then, you have the disfigured lady from the trailer. The trailer leads you to believe that she’s part of the horror of this movie, but it turns out she’s a sweet lady who was horribly maimed. It’s a little insensitive to weaponize that imagery to sell a horror movie, but that’s just what I think. All in all, I think this was a step down from what we’re normally used to from Jordan Peele, but still admirable for being something new. Ultimately, that’s what I want from directors and that’s why I respect Jordan Peele so much.

★★★

Watched on July 23rd, 2022

[dragonheart-swtor]

Sith Inquisitor Storyline: Drunk History Version

Y’all, and by y’all I mean one person (@sith-shenanigans thank you very much), asked for it, and I live to repeat this over and over for others’ amusement, so here it is. Have my summary of the pinball machine that is the Sith Inquisitor storyline, from memory, originally drafted a while back in DMs with a friend who’s never played SWTOR. Spoilers for the Sith Inquisitor storyline, obviously.

Without further ado: Let us begin.

- So your story begins as a recently sort-of-freed slave walking off a ship and onto Hell: The Planet. (The nonhuman Inquisitor immediately experiences 2483947 microaggressions.)

- You have to compete with a bunch of other people! Only one of you is not going to die and the overseer has already picked his favorite, seemingly purely because he happens to have red skin. They will both (the overseer and Teacher’s Pet) proceed to be as annoying as possible for the rest of the Korriban story.

- multiple people try to kill you, but you’re the protagonist, so fuck them

- “Teacher’s Pet, you go to the library and translate these texts. Protagonist, you go to this ancient tomb and figure out how to retrieve an artifact from a lock that no one has been able to open in ten thousand years.” “Libraries are boring anyway. Yawn.��

- You finally get to smackdown with Teacher’s Pet, which is satisfying as hell. Unfortunately the overseer gets pissy about it. Fortunately, the Sith you’ve been competing to be the apprentice of decided she liked you early on and has also been playing favorites, so you don’t die immediately.

- your master is great! much more into positive reinforcement than most Sith.

- at some point you semi-accidentally steal someone else's cult on Nar Shaddaa and now they worship you as a nigh-on god. whoops. you just kind of... leave and let them run their own business. you pay them visits later in the storyline.

- you also become part bug so you can go skinny dipping in radioactive waste. it’s fine, we promise.

- your master is trying to steal your body because turns out she's actually really old and kind of dying so she plans on kicking you out of your body, transplanting her own soul in your place, killing her old body, and assuming your identity after "you" "killed" "your master"! that's not great, better not let her do that.

-  you successfully didn't let her do that! wait, now she's sharing a body with one of your companions, an ancient monster who you kind of forced into submission and who serves you rather unwillingly now. there is apparently nothing that can be done about this so sometimes your eight-foot-tall monster not-friend talks in a high, unnervingly smooth feminine voice and tries to convince you she's on your side now that she's forced by this new body to not harm you. this is also not great but what are you gonna do. he is also Not Pleased about this by the way, and really who can blame him.

- some darth on the dark council named Thanaton decides to get pissy with you for reasons I don't remember and now he's trying to kill you. what the fuck.

-  he actually almost does kill you but your old master's other apprentices, who are now your apprentices, save you from the brink of death.

- (the apprentices, by the way, are very sweet and I love them. they’re murdered by thanaton almost immediately.)

-  your solution to "I need more power, fast", for some godforsaken reason, is "I'm going to learn to walk the line between life and death and EAT GHOSTS" and I wish I were exaggerating this

- you go out and eat a bunch of ghosts of old Sith on various planets

- subpoint to this: on one of these planets, you accomplish this by coercing the ghost's descendant, a Jedi padawan named Ashara, to get the ghost to appear so you can eat him. You end up murdering her masters in the process because one way or another they find out about your plan. She is understandably horrified by this turn of events and, feeling she has no chance of returning to the Jedi, reluctantly joins your crew and either (Light Side Quizzy) learns to balance light and dark sides of the Force and becomes ultimately stronger for it, or (Dark Side Quizzy) lives in abject terror of you for the rest of the storyline. I love her dearly as well. fortunately she is not murdered by thanaton.

- congrats! you ate enough ghosts to have enough power to beat thanaton up!

- unfortunately, you have Ate Too Many Ghosts Disease now and need immediate medical attention.

- your mind kind of just Shatters and you may or may not have hallucinations for a while iirc. either way you need help or you're just gonna disintegrate slowly until the ghosts overwhelm you and take over. you go to Voss and participate in some wild Force ritual they've got to take care of that. it's a fun time

- your body is also having a bad time and that also needs fixing; I don't remember where you go for this (Belsavis, I think?) but you end up checking out a machine made by a long-dead alien civilization and the machine turns out to a) be sentient and b) be responsible for CREATING A GOOD PORTION OF THE GALAXY'S NEAR-HUMAN SPECIES, IF NOT ALL OF THEM, AND DISSEMINATING THEM TO THE GALAXY AS PART OF THE RAKATA'S EXPERIMENTS ON CREATING FORCE-SENSITIVE LIFEFORMS IN HOPES OF KEEPING THEIR OWN SPECIES FROM DYING OUT BECAUSE THEY WERE SUPER RACIST AND EVENTUALLY THAT RACISM KICKED THEM IN THE ASS IN THE FORM OF A MASS REVOLUTION THAT WIPED THEM OUT COMPLETELY BUT THE MACHINE IS STILL HERE

- all right I’m calm sorry I derailed for a moment

- I have a lot of thoughts about things

-  anyway the machine bUILDS YOU A NEW FUCKING BODY and you're good to go now

-  (by the way, depending what species you're playing, it's entirely possible you learn at this point that your entire species only exists because of this machine!)

- (anyway.)

- okay, mind fixed, body fixed, ghosts consumed, we're good to go! time to murder a dark councilor!

- "we do that"

- except you don't because you're on corellia and this dipshit challenges you to a kaggath without really ever explaining in detail what a kaggath is or what the rules (if any) are, we just know it seems to be the ancient and very formal Sith way of saying "meet me in the denny's parking lot at 3am if you want an ass-kicking", and then hE RUNS OFF TO DROMUND KAAS WHICH DEPENDING ON WHAT GALAXY MAP YOU BELIEVE IS UP TO FIVE DAYS' TRAVEL AWAY

- YOU'RE CANONICALLY JUST CHASING THIS LITTLE BITCH THROUGH SPACE FOR FIVE DAYS AFTER HE CHALLENGED YOU

-  he then goes to the Dark Council to try to convince them to help him kill you and you literally have to just go to the Dark Council chambers too and kick in the door and go "HEARD YOU WERE TALKIN SHIT" in front of everyone

- (which to be fair is basically Sith philosophy in a nutshell)

-  Ravage and Marr spend this entire council meeting just exchanging tired glances and going "no, fuck you, why can't you kill them, they're your problem. fight for our entertainment now. fuck you"

- (Darth Baras did this exact same shit earlier the same day, by the way, with the Sith Warrior. and by “earlier the same day” I mean “like fifteen minutes prior to this.”)

- you fight Thanaton. to no one's surprise, because you're the protagonist and because he's being a little bitch about it, you kick his ass and slaughter him in front of everyone

- half the Council stands up and you just kind of go "oh shit I'm gonna die"

- but no

- you're being promoted

- congration you done it you're a dark councilor now

- someone complains because wait, they're not even a darth, you can't be a dark councilor if you're not even a darth

- first person responds with "well fuck you then, we'll make them a darth. hey you. your name is Darth Nox (dark side)/Imperius (light side)/Occulus (neutral) now. take a seat"

- "but - what?"

- "take a fuckin seat, babe"

- "o- okay" 

- "you run the entire Ancient Knowledge sector now, by the way, despite the fact that you may or may not be illiterate due to having been raised a slave, because that was what Thanaton ran and we only have the one job opening since the Warrior just killed Baras"

- (the Warrior, freshly coined the Emperor's Wrath officially, waves from their corner where they're cleaning Baras's blood off their boots)

- "I - okay, I guess"

and that’s the Sith Inquisitor storyline. That’s a wrap, folks, roll credits. if this gets enough notes and/or if literally anyone says they’d like to see it I may also post the Imperial Agent and/or do other class stories, I enjoy these way too much

[nightswithkookmin]

I am a hard Taekook shipper but recently Jikook have been melting my heart by being so cute and cudly and loving. I understand and i am sorry for so mhch hate from Taekookers but trust me Taekookers are a bit shaken right now. I cannot disclose my name here but i would like to say if Jikook is real or they decide to come out which i higly doubt then i am 100% in support and also ur page helped me open my eyes and see a diff sude of shipping which is needed alot more. I am Loving Love ryt now.

C'est la vie!

So sorry for the late response love. You've always been on my mind.

I get not every Taekooker is wild and rabid just as not every Joker is sane and fake woke. Lol.

I mean I'm still holding on to my grudge against your people for storming my business pages and leaving shit reviews on my books- and laughing about it? What was that? Damn. Had to change my author name and everything and I've since been publishing under an alias- let me tell you, it's no fun at all.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have called y'all's ship dead- but honestly it dead, it dried up like a drop of sweat on a dessert. What can I say? People just don't want the truth, lol- had these angry thirteen year olds and fake woke Jokers coming for my ass and my business ass on the flamingo app. Chilee. Your people don't want to be civil. Sigh.

Some people just have no sense of personal responsibility and when they get called out for it they slap you with the whole, 'no one asked you to put yourself and your business out there' - this creepy behavior and mental adroitness is not far from rapists blaming girls for wearing short shorts and mini skirts or thieves blaming people for not putting up a fence and shit to protect their property. It's fucked up.

And don't get me started on what they do to Jimin or JK... or even Tae- not to make you feel bad or anything. It's just my people suck, your people suck, we all suck square- don't apologize for it unless you plan on doing something to change it?

As for Taekook, yea I don't think there is anything wrong with shipping them. They have a beautiful bond, they are both visuals and both funny as hell. If you won't ship them I will. Lol.

Just know the reason you are shipping them? If you are shipping them because you genuinely believe they are a couple too then you need to stop shipping them and start supporting them?

And once you start supporting them then I think you'd sooner realize there isn't anything there to support in the first place. Lol.

I support Jikook because I believe with my full chest they are real and are closeted- emphasis on closeted. And for the record, they are the only queer couples in BTS.

Tae lost his queer card when he accidentally outed Jimin on that radio show. 'I think he likes men' yea, straight up het behavior. Lack of homo sensitivity.

Did you see JK's reaction when JM was asked to spill tea on their pervy behaviors behind cams? My butt quivered. Chilee, I thought he was gone out JK too. Damn.

I think the word real and closeted have come loose and cheap on these streets these days. I don't think most of these shippers when they throw it around fully understand the term or realise what it means and what it takes. If they did, they wouldn't randomly be labeling every ship as 'real' within the fandom.

If you believe Taekook is real and that they are equally hiding their sexuality as well as their relationship within the group, then you should understand how severe and traumatizing this fact is and would be for them as gay men?

The thing is, they are not just hiding parts of themselves and their identity for the sake of their careers or military or whatever if they are real, they are lying to millions, millions of people at a time about who they really are by keeping their identity a secret. Secrets are lies honey, however way we want to see it.

If they are real then they are concealing their true identity away from not just their families and friends- if they haven't come out to them, but acquaintances from work, businesses who wouldn't work with them otherwise, brands, sponsors, Heads of states, their fans....

It's one thing for a heterosexual to keep their heterosexual relationship a secret, it's another for a queer person to keep their queerness and or queer relationship a secret.

A lie as heavy as this is bound to take a toll on them, no matter how good they are at hiding it. A secret gets heavy before it gets easy. Not to sell you on anything but do you see any such secret taking a toll on Taekook? Because I see it taking a toll on Jikook.

Do you believe Taekook are closeted? Because I believe Jikook are.

Being closeted means they have to carry the guilt of knowing that each time they pander to heteronormative roles in variety shows or interviews, or imply by omissions that they are straight, or make generalizing statements about their sexuality to avoid addressing their sexuality directly or give it away, that they are lying to people and spewing half truths- seven years in a roll.

Being closeted is not a joke. It's heavy. I think you need to grasp this before you claim it for anyone.

People like to throw the 'closeted' phrase around willy nilly but fail to comprehend its weight and complexity and consequences especially for people that they believe are actually queer.

It's not easy lying to people about who you are. Unless you are a pathological liar and a psychopath, it's like drowning each day you wake up. You die a little each time. Your sexuality is a huge part of your identity and when you deny it for so long by lying and suppressing it, it's like shutting out a peice of yourself and silencing your own voice. The more you push it aside the louder it screams and the harder it fights to come out.

It's a state of constant internal struggle. You wake up everyday contemplating whether to risk the perfect life you've spent years building just so you can turn off the guilt that comes with keeping a secret of this nature.

And each time you get better at omitting or generalizing and evading questions that hint at your truth, the more you hate yourself and the more guilt you feel. This guilt can become a driving force that pushes you to make risky moves and take impulsive actions such as 'borderline outing your relationship'- does that sound like Taekook to you?

If you are not driven by the love you feel for your partner, you are driven by the guilt and neither is a great place to be if you are queer.

You lie everyday, you get caught up in the lies and soon you start believing in the web of lies you've woven around yourself such that you don't even recognize who you are or why you are, anymore. As such, you are constantly searching for yourself, to reconcile the bits you've hidden away and perhaps forgotten, and you keep exploring your identity because you are unsettled- honey, that sounds more like Jikook than Taekook to me but c'est la vie.

Being closeted is not about moments that get cut by editors, or less interactions, or being seperated or seated further apart from eachother. These are just ship street parlance. Being closeted is an attitudinal, internal attribute rather than external manipulations or influences- it's a science. Lol

Coming out may be risky for any of these boys if they are real, but I promise you hiding is much harder for them.

And so When I look at Taekook, and I see how beautiful they are yet I don't in God's honest truth see them 'dealing' with any or all of these struggles Jikook deal with or have dealt with at one point, in my opinion- forget the homophobia, the wanting to come out, the low key microaggressions they deal with even within the group- 'the Jk never stops crying,' 'the real men don't do this and that talk' talk, the toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia traits JK and Jimin used to exhibit in their early days talking about 'real men don't twerk,' 'real men don't wear rings on their pinky'- all the times Jimin have had to defend his masculinity or even femininity, or stand up for Kook's within the group. 'Men, men, men. What is men?'

Jikook are the only two within the group that in my opinion have struggled most with their identity, with embracing aspects of themselves; you hear them complain about 'living a lie' 'tired of hiding, lying' and all these are themes consistent with closet behavior that they've both explored in one way or the other and even as of 2020 they are still dealing with or 'exploring' their identities perhaps as a means to reconcile their true selves? I'm really struggling with this post because I don't wanna get salesy on your ass. Lol.

Don't get me wrong, Tae struggles and deals with issues too- mostly with loneliness, lowkey depression in my opinion, lowkey bullying- sometimes, lol and he often expresses a desire to find someone and be happy and yet 'his supporters' don't recognize that...

You can wait till Jikook come out officially as queer, if they ever chose to, to support them- Or you can choose to support them and love them now because that's what they need in order to officially come out as and when they choose to? Ok I'm being salesy. Lmho. I'll stop. Don't mind me. But think about it.

Ship whatever ship you want but support Jikook. It's all I'm asking. And by support, I mean don't exhibit any anti homosexual attitude towards them- deadass. You and I gone fight, square up toe to toe, if you do. Lol.

People don't need to be afraid of Jikook. They just need to treat them as human beings and not reduce them to a mere ship. They are a ship too yes, but they are more than that if you ask me.

You sound nice. I love you. I'm glad you enjoy my posts. Merry Christmas and cheers to our ships.

Keep supporting Jikook. Jikook is real.

Signed,

GOLDY

[writingwithcolor]

Including diversity where there may be little

Including diversity where there may be little: Black Radium Girls as example

post-scriptvm asked: [ask clipped for length]

I have an interest in the ‘Radium Girls’, groups of women who worked at studios in America from the late 1910s onwards painting radium onto clock faces, and later took their companies to court for the horrible impacts the radium had on their body. 

I want to make a musical, just for fun. I’ve decided to use a fictionalized version of events, with composite characters based on multiple different women, rather than one of the real-life groups and the actual women from them. It will be mostly set in New Jersey, in the roaring 20s. 

Neither of the two real-life groups I know of had any Black women in them, and I can’t see any Black women in any of the big group photos of the dial factories’ employees. But I know there’s a lot of Black history and culture in that time and place bc of the great migration and stuff, so I feel like if I’m not going to use the real life ladies, I should probably take the opportunity to also make some of them Black, bc making a whole cast of white ladies in the name of potentially wrong ‘historical accuracy’ seems like a bad thing.

My question is, should I? [ask clipped for length]

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were African American radium girls. Speculating People of Color/Women of Color’s involvement is far more realistic than portraying everyone as white. Go for it! 

Perhaps look into what other races were predominantly in the New Jersey area for inspiration, too.

Hidden History

This section features just a few examples of PoC in lesser known historical settings.

The histories of People of Color are highly and actively erased. Women of Color especially get their stories left to footnotes in the textbooks. You hear about certain amazing women again and again, but there’s so many others that don’t get their time of day.

Hidden Figures (book and movie) is a prime example of that erasure and lesser known history. To summarize: It’s “the powerful story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program.”

Here’s another example:

Photo of female firefights on Pearl Harbor, 1941. Identities unknown

It would be nice to know more about these women, and i’ve seen inquiries from people requesting info from anyone who may know. This struggle to find details is a prime example of that erasure in itself.

Enemies in Love: A German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance by Alexis Clark

The book pictured above is the true story of a Black nurse and German Prisoner of War who fall in love during World War II. They face many hardships (disowning from his family, racism, and shunning from towns) but stay together for their whole lives, marry, and have children (One of their sons highly informed the writing of the book!)

This book discusses the discrimination the Black soldiers and nurses faced. They struggled to even be allowed to serve their country, and were treated worse than POWs.

Video: The Unlikely Romance of a Black Nurse & German P.O.W. in WW II 

Research

Research “[RACE] + Firsts” and find many more examples of little unknown bits of history where they’ve been involved. 

First doesn’t mean it came without limitations, discrimination or hardships. But they happened, and many sooner than you’d think.

Explore beyond what you know about whitewashed history and learn the true stories of People of Color.

Making it “realistic”

People will question how “realistic” it is to feature a Black women in this position for the time period, unfortunately. It doesn’t hurt to provide an explanation until we get to a place where diversity isn’t interrogated when it shows up.

Giving her backstory. 

You can briefly explain the journey to the job, such as shortages due to a war. Take a look at those real world firsts for inspiration. 

Especially take a look at the specific region of the story. What firsts were there? Any government power influences? How did PoC break barriers to make the strides they did?

Use the web, but also go beyond. Seek books, historians, artwork. Search those “footnotes” for that one sentence mention. (That’s actually how the writer of Enemies in Love found their story. Just a quick sentence and a search for the story began. It helped that she was a journalist!)

Relationships with Peers: 

“I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.” - Susan B. Anthony

White women weren’t, historically, welcoming to Black women. For example, white sufferists insisted Black women march in the back of the protests for, allegedly, both their rights.  You’ll need to decide how your Black woman is treated in this situation. 

You might face the following from peers, superiors, or others:

Hesitation to work or interact with her

Curiosity and intrigue (The “Other”

Unsure of how to approach or be friends with her  

Microaggressions

Blatant racism 

Your musical doesn’t seem like it is meant to focus too heavily on the hardships. It begs a mention, but just how much is up to you.

Call the Midwife, period racism example

Call the Midwife (BBC) is set in East End London, Late 1950s, early 1960s. The show features a Black midwife named Lucille Anderson. There’s a shortage on nurses so Caribbean nurses were being called in to support the growing population. 

Call the Midwife is from a midwife, Jennifer Worth’s, memoir, so it’s based on history.

Check out this short clip: Nurse Lucille Anderson - Call the Midwife 

Lucille on Call the Midwife (Take notes!)

The show handles racism and microaggressions very well. It’s not overdone.

Lucille is accepted by her peers and is especially close to one of the girls.

There’s an episode where she actively faces blame and discrimination during a case. It’s a major story line of the episode. 

She does face occasional micro-aggressions where she is othered, but it is not every single time she is on screen and not every episode. 

Her peers talk to her about her experiences and in the case where she had an aggressive family member to deal with, they tried to protect her by reassigning her from the family. Lucille asks to handle it her way and they respect her decision.

Lucille can mostly perform her job and have peace, and is treated kindly by patients.

She has a personality, a romantic life, family & friendships.

It’s about 90% allowing her to exist, 10% navigating racism/microaggressions. That’s a comfortable, realist balance for such a story and setting. 

If you want to check out how they handled these issues for yourself, the show is on Netflix as of this post (2020). She’s introduced in Season 7. (I highly recommend watching this show from the beginning. I cry like every episode, and the diversity of several ethnic backgrounds picks up a lot mid season!)

I’ll kick you three scenarios for your Black radium girl:

Peer Acceptance, Initial Hesitation 

awkward friendliness & initial hesitation, perhaps more fear of the unknown vs. hostility

Upon having interactions and talking to her, they become comfortable and accept her. It could take just one simple conversation. Perhaps they’re more used to listening to Black music or have Black staff who work for them, but haven’t had an equal one-on-one experience with WoC without a power dynamic or service involved. Now, with a Black fellow radium girl thrown in a similar situation as them, they could develop kinship.

This might not describe every one of the woman at all. Others might be just fine with her with no awkwardness.

Types of racism experienced: 

some micro-aggressions (likely ignorance from peers)

no major racism experienced

Most Peer Acceptance, Racism From Some Peers

Most peers have no problem with her, even if they have their initial awkwardness. 1-2 more aggressive racists who don’t want her there. 

Sometimes everyone else gets along, but there’s that 1 bully and their minion, and they feed off each other. If the BS isn’t tolerated by the other girls, it could shut them up to make peace or at least behave themselves. It’s likely someone like this would remain hatefully stubborn, but would grimace from the corner if outnumbered.

In the case you create a situation where someone is hostile to the Black girl but learns better: real apologies and efforts should be made if this occurs. It also doesn’t excuse their past behavior. Read our posts on redemption arcs for more info. We’re not fans, personally.

In an intense racial situation, it would be nice if the girls (with sense) protected and defended her instead of standing idly by. They’re strong enough to rise up against the agencies who poisoned them, so they can fight for their fellow radium sisters if one’s being targeted. 

Types of racism experienced: 

several micro-aggressions

maybe 1 major incident 

Peer Acceptance, Racism from Other People

Radium girl acceptance within, but experiences racism from others she interacts with on/off the job. 

The Call the Midwife example fits this one. Lucille’s peers are comfortable with her. It’s some of the ladies she care for and/or their families that may have negative things to say or show hesitance. 

I’ll repeat what I said above: it’d be nice if the girls protected and defended her and didn’t stand by idly. Solidarity is important for establishing kinship and trust when it comes to white - woc friendships. 

Types of racism experienced: 

could vary from some to several micro-aggressions 

maybe 1 major incident

Balancing race issues in the musical 

Give the intersections of your Black girl’s situation proper attention. You can achieve this without overdoing it or making her whole arc about facing racism.

Perhaps the Black radium girl(s) has a song to express major woes, like segregation and poor treatment, or experiencing dismay over even less of a fighting chance in this fight for their rights.

If anyone does know anything but radium girls of color, please share! 

–Mod Colette

[ichayalovesyou]

Broken Bow parts 1 & 2 (Live Reaction):

Ah, so we’re kicking off with smarting up Archer’s prejudice against Vulcans that I know from all my Vulcantology research he grows out of. Neat.

Oh shit Klingon on earth?? Look at those glorious locks! Who are these weird squishy bendy dudes?? Oh that shiz EXPLODED. I’ve got my yeehaw phaser rifle and I kills a Klingon- fuck is THAT how the war started?! Whether or not that’s stupid remains to be seen.

Wowwwww this theme song... is... a lot. Star Trek, bruh, since when??? No. Just... no. Oh hey it’s Archer & Trip a lil’ light fantastic! Ngl Trip’s actually cute. Oh wow they really don’t know Klingons. Oh hey Phlox is here! I get where Archer is coming from about the plug pulling thing, even if Klingon culture is very “HONOR!!” and stuff. Even then, wouldn’t it be detrimental even to a warrior race for them to die when they can be healed?

Vulcans just love acting like everyone else is stupid don’t they? Wow everyone is racist at like, everybody (aliens wise) this definetly has established itself as pre-Federation. Ope! More new characters! Baby ensign dude (Travis!) and British ship’s engineer(?) oh hey it’s Hoshi Sato!! Oh look they’re acknowledging that aliens speak more than one language on their workds finally!! Behold T’Pol! She doesn’t sound like I thought she would? (Idk what that means lol but yeh)

Ohhhh man Trip, Vulcans don’t do haaands my dude, didn’t you get debriefed? But also would it have killed her to explain? Communicate damnit! Give us a speech elderly white boy! Yeehaw warp engines!! Cool speech call back or really it’s Kirk (& Picard and prob Pike soon) Doing the callback to Cochrane!

Oooh shady time travel aliens are back!! Phlox is here! I always got good/fun vibes from him, like, a lil’ creepy but in an entertaining way! Travis is adorable and I love him already, space station boyyyyy. THREE, THREE WHAT?? Travis’s generation are called Boomers?? LOL it makes sense that we’d have a baby boom after planetary colonization became possible but that’s practically a derogatory term now 😂

Time for a dinner chock full of microaggressions! Yup I was right, wowwwwwww everyone is being secret awful (T’Pol not so secret awful) but yeah I can see where all that VHS racism stuff comes from. Lol, oooooo Hoshi & T’Pol having a lil’ cat fight, Archer is such a dad lol. Poor Sato is so fucking stressed it’s okay gf! The ship is just not working and you’re learning Klingon and there’s an invisible alien aboard its FINE!! OH SHIT THAT KLINGON GOT KIDNAPPED!!!!!

Oh so the engineer’s name is Reed okay, oh this is the one with the Suliban. Wow T’Pol is kind of a bitch! She is just belittlement after belittlement, she’s like Spock but WORSE. Like, I’m definitely starting to understand Archer’s resentment toward them is coming from, not that it’s right, but it is understandable. Especially Vulcans have been having this sort of attitude toward humans (and other species) this whole time. Both races clearly have a LOT to learn.

Oh so this Suliban dude is a GMO, I actually freaking love Phlox. Good job Trip tryna bridge the gap between T’Pol and Archer but ooof still too salty. Oh wow! We’re going to Rigel for the first time okay?! Neat! Oof our Klingon boy out here getting interrogated oh shit! It wouldn’t be an earth 2000s scifi without a skanky bar and funky alien strippers. Uh oh Trip is about to make a mistake, oh thank god T’Pol stopped him *big exhale* everything is so new to us! It’s so interesting!

Ew creepy lady why u kiss him??? Oh it’s the “alien woman has to do (explicit/romantic action) to do (thing)” trope 🙄. Oh so there’s time travel shit going on??? Okay!!! What?! Okay! Man the GMO Suliban can do some seriously freaky shit! Okay I love Travis & Reed they’re cool, Reed is suave and Trav is adorable! OOp ARCHER GOT SHOT THE LEG! Close call close call!! Oh ffs T’Pol don’t take command, everything you’ve shown us so far is that you think humans are shit, hey maybe she’ll surprise me.

Ugh this is about to be- aaaaand it’s unnecessarily sexualizong T’Pol 🙄🙄🙄🤮🤮🤮. Trip can you please not call T’Pol out and be racist in the same sentence, I’d rather you just do the former please. OH YAY! T’Pol did surprise me! Good job T’Pol (and Trip... kinda... I guess). “One good turn deserves another” good line, but “doesn’t sound very Vulcan” is proof Archer really doesn’t understand Vulcans! Or at least not what they aspire to. Ohhhh Kay NOW we’re working together! Good! Good!!

I wonder who creepy time lord dude is. Sato THANK YOU why, WHY don’t starships have seat belts?!?! Makes no goddamn sense. Oh I was wrong earlier! Reed’s a pilot and Tucker’s the engineer, okay! I wonder what happened between this episode and Discovery (being the next closest in the timeline) that makes us enemies with the Klingons? Travis out here teaching Tucker how to drive I’m sure this will end well. I’m low key starting to get Bones-Spock energy from T’Pol & Archer. FURST PISTOLS WITH A STUN SETTINH HELL YEAH!

Alright alright, T’Pol is growing on me, awww Archer is soft! “U okay?” I can vibe with that! Hell yeah! I kinda wish I knew Klingon so I knew what this dude wa saying (but I’ve already got my hands full with Vulkansu). Archer why in the fuck are you wandering around?! Do you want to get caught/not found!??! Stay put dummy! Aaaand there’s the BBEG, oh, and he’s Suliban! Oh good thing that laser pistol is set to stun (oh and he dodged). Oooh scary transporter lmao.

Uh oh, was it al for nothing are these dudes gonna kill him anyway? Oh, no! Good so they just cussed Archer out lmfao. Thus the saga begins! Abandon yo grudges and pride Archer my dude, vouch for T’Pol hell yeah! Alright! I hope these two become friends hell yeah hell yeah! Time to boldly go say hi and introduce yourself to all these new aliens! Heck yeah!!

God I’m sure there were plenty of annoying ass Trekkies who were like “iT’s nOt rEaL sTaR tReK” like, how?? Because the costumes look different and they’re exploring a new time period and themes?? 🙄🙄🙄 gimme a BREAK with that shit, honestly. So far it’s been pretty interesting! Every Star Trek is Star Trek!

[w2beastars]

Waezi2′s thoughts on “Beast Complex” chapter 5.

Chapter five makes me think of how modern-day people CAN interact.

Luna the gazelle works as assistant in a TV cooking show that is anything but popular. The producer of the show is getting desperate and decides to try and appeal to a younger audience by getting a new cook named Benny who is young and full of energy and enthusiasm.

... also, he is a gigantic crocodile.

Yeah, Luna is not comfortable about this.

Benny is actually a super nice guy. But to Luna, he is a monster-like creature who could consume her with one bite. And it doesn't help that he jokes around about being a crocodile.

But what REALLY ruins his chances of having a good co-worker relationship with Luna is his honesty about what sort of food he specializes in.

Taken out of context, it sounds kinda like Benny want to eat meat.

What he is ACTUALLY saying is that he want to make food that satisfy the need for flesh that carnivores are born with. Sort of taking the concept of tofu to a new level.

But Luna is a gazelle, so hearing a crocodile talk about “giving carnivores the satisfaction they desire” makes her dislike Benny even more than she already did.

Here is the thing: Luna has plenty of reason to be mad at carnivores as a group as well as fearing them. This is the world of “Beastars”, illegal consumption of meat is a thing.

But that is not really Benny’s fault, is it? He is a nice guy, he just make controversial food.

Benny tries to make peace with Luna, arguing that they should get along since the program is a live television show. Luna however claims to be a professional and that she can control her personal feelings and opinions.

... Right.

When they make their first live show together, Benny is still EXTREMELY frank, telling the viewers about how they will make the fruit burger steak they are cooking taste like the “real thing”. 

And then...

God DAMMIT Benny, you MORON!!!

I get what he is saying about making the substitute-meat LIKE something from a gazelle... but the way he says it is just... JESUS!

Luna is unfortunately not that much better... with the exception that she is more or less a bigot(granted, her view is understandable).

The rest of the show is them bickering while at the same time making the dish without loosing concentration. The rating of the show skyrocketed as the viewers watched a carnivore and herbivore arguing about WHO was the real victim as they made a perfect meal.

After they finished fighting and cooking, having about 25% of the country watching them while holding their breath, we get the absolute coup de grâce as Luna has to taste the steak.

As in THE STEAK THAT IS SUPPOSE TO TASTE LIKE REAL MEAT!!!

And she liked it.

Just LOOK at Benny. This lady was badmouthing not only him, but carnivore cooks in general... and she is complimenting his meat-like food.

Beside this being super wholesome how good craftsmanship can triumph... well, this is a new level of vegan food. Luna is a born vegetarian, not an omnivore. And she admitted to liking the taste of food that should match the taste buds of a carnivore!

Benny is essentially a cooking wizard!

This chapter was a ton of fun, but it also shows the problem of feeling like a victim and how it can make you feel justified about being awful. Something that we see too often in today’s world.

It makes me happy that some subcultures, religions and sexualities are not as controversial as they used to be. Sure, there are PLENTY of hate and violence aimed toward them, but it HAS gotten better.

Some would say that the problem is that now some people can act all offended if someone is not political correct enough. I disagree. There is nothing wrong in pointing out microaggression. It’s the small casual acts of discrimination that can be dangerous since they can evolve into something else.

BUT!!!

It IS a problem how those who feel offended CAN react.

My dad used to say that there are three ways to ask someone to take a seat: a) “sit on that chair”, b) “please take a seat”, or c) “GET YOUR ASS ON THAT CHAIR!”

Let’s be fair, the LGBT+ community(just to name an example of a group who has suffered for YEARS) has suffered a LOT because of bigotry. They have every single reason to be suspicious and bitter. But it doesn't solve anything to be dicks to someone who is only doing something that MILDLY could be considered offensive.(I know this is getting long, but bear with me)

Allow me to use a real-life example:

I had a online friend who I thought was cool because she did not take shit from men being assholes to her since she was both an artist who made NSFW stuff AND was lesbian. She made a rule about not letting men go to her NSFW account since she felt uncomfortable with sharing NSFW lesbian content with guys(fair enough). So she got a ton of hate for it and was called a “hypocrite “. We were friends and she told me I was one of the only not-asshole straight guys she knew.

... I should have ended my relationship with her the moment she shamed me for liking “Hazbin Hotel”. She told me I had to be aware that I was guilty of associating as well as giving money to a “homophobe and bastiality supporter”.

Later I got invited to join a Steven Universe discord group where this person and her friends were in. Everything went well... until I casually mentioned that I liked “South Park” that they then told me was discriminating against Jews(?). Being an idiot, I tried to argue that SP was anything but that... and I got a warning.

One of the users who was actually a mod(!) unprovoked made fun of me for “praising antisemitic burning shit” and I was stupid enough to react... and then got kicked out.

Being a minority doesn’t stop you from being a bully. Political correctness CAN be used as a tool to be awful if one wishes to take one’s frustration over an injustice out on ONE person as if they were the source of the problem. Especially if you know that if that person you bully can’t say a thing since that makes them look like shit for talking back to, in this case, a LGBT+ person. I used days feeling awful and guilty, and I had to talk with friends to get over it and realize that I was not the one in the wrong.

LUNA is from a victim group. Herbivores getting eaten by carnivores is an issue, there are even criminal organizations who specializes in kidnapping and killing animals so they can be sold as food. But that is not really Benny’s fault. He just does something controversial, not something bad or evil. But he is SUPER easy to take frustrations out on since he is a crocodile who makes meat-like food. Sure, he could just be a normal cook and not try to push buttons with his new-age food, but sometimes you have to be kinda provoking to do something new and creative.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Doing something for fun: RPGs about broken anuses.

As promised, after the abomination that was the Sam arc, I am now going to write random posts about more positive/fun things. However, I also decided to add a little twist to them and correlate them in some way thematically to Dobson. E.g. by reviewing a game/show that does all the things Dobson hates/obsesses about/or fails at right.

 And my first entry in that regard is related to a videogame that came out a couple of years ago, based on a tv show Dobson claims to hate. South Park: The fractured but whole.

 Seeing how the game is 3+ years old at this time and there have been tons of reviews & walkthroughs showing how good and fun the game is, I do not really want to cover the plot and all the things that make it great in detail. Lets just say you can really feel that Parker and Stone were heavily involved in the writing of the game, as it is filled to the brim with references to the show and the typical satirical humor of it, that in parts manages to cross the line even further for me than the show. Right from the start you get a very dark but smart social joke and commentary out of the way, when as you set up your characters looks and the difficulty of the game, it is the tone of your skin that decides how hard the game gets. Meaning if you play as a black person, you are having a very hard time. It is not too preachy, just an acknowledgment that yes, in American society, blacks can have it harder compared to white people. Especially when living in a town like South Park, where social standing is pretty low and the police force is inherently corrupt and racist, doing something so outrageously to black people, I do not want to spoil it. Let’s just say it ends in a better Lovecraft joke than any of the shit SJWs did in light of censoring Call of Cthulhu board rpgs.

The overall plot is simple: While last time the kids played fantasy and things escalated quickly as they do in South Park, this time they play superheroes, with two fractions having formed: Coon and Friends vs the Freedom Pals and things escalating just as quickly. What starts off as the hunt for a missing cat to earn a 100$ reward Cartman wants to use to start a multi billion dollar movie franchise just like Marvel, turns soon into the player and his friends having to fight a real crime conspiracy thought up by one of South Park’s most nefarious characters, which also involves genetic mutations, time travel and eldritch horrors. Thankfully you, the “New Kid” from the last game, even after losing all your previous powers thanks to no one playing fantasy anymore, gain new superhero powers, make friends with the South Park kids again and even learn new fart techniques by none other than Morgan Freeman, that help you out along the way. All while also slowly revealing more about your backstory hinted on in the previous game and the tragedy of your dad having had intercourse with your mother.

 Being a South Park and RPG fan for years, I wanted to play this game for quite some time, but only managed to do so recently. And even if I spoiled myself massively over time with cutscenes and major battles online, this game is still fun (thanks in part also to the fact I watched the cutscenes years ago and by now forgot a lot of them).  The turn based battle system is way more interesting than last time by also depending on you positioning the characters on the field in a strategy based RPG style, there are lots of classes to choose and powers to combine (I myself going for elementalist, assassin, plantmancer and blaster currently) and you have a ton of allies in the game. The original cast of the four main boys, Jimmy and Butters has expanded significantly in this game with characters such as SUPER CRAIG, Clyde as the blood sucking MOSQUITO, Token as TUPPERWARE and Wendy as the social media huntress CALL GIRL (yes, that is her name) and they all are fun to interact and play with, with each one having their own unique sets of moves and finishers once again. Even outside of the battle, thanks to the writing, there are always great lines from them to get when interacting or taking missions from them. I especially came to love Tweek and Craig, who are not just decent fighters (Tweek in particular is a great elementalist) , but in this game are also now a couple ever since that yaoi episode from South Park. Helping them reconcile after a bad break up over the course of the game just feels surprisingly nice, mostly because unlike other LGBT celebrating media out there (Korra and She Ra  e.g.) none of the characters crosses some sort of moral line where you question why they deserve to be together (Hello, Catra), it is not heavily handed garbage fishing for brownie points and it is obvious through dialogue and actions they care for each other, even if they are at first going through a bad break up as only South Park could ridiculously portray it.

 Overall, the game is also surprisingly “inclusive” and socially relevant without being preachy about it, if you ask me. From the aforementioned skin color thing, to LGBT representation via Tweek and Craig, the police being involved in a plot that especially nowadays is sadly more relevant than ever (mind you, I do not believe that in real life all cops are bad, but in my opinion bad eggs on both sides certainly led to the current situation in the US and that is all I say) to the fact you can over the course of the game decide not just if you are playing as a boy or a girl, but even something in-between, a cis-/transgendered person and decide your race, religion as well as to whom you are sexually attracted to. Granted, I barely see how it has any bearing on the game’s plot, but I appreciate the following things: a) the inclusion of the possibility to decide on those factors itself, making creating your character even more fun (a basic right others demand for certain games nowadays in all the wrong ways) and b) that the game does not make the biggest of deals about it. See, I am under the impression that often times the most progressive and inclusive thing is to just let the story and personality of a character speak for itself, instead of the fact that it also identifies by a specific gender, sexuality, race or other allignment. In fact focusing on those things on a character only is something I consider ”positive stereotyping”, which for me is just racism in the opposite direction. And if you no think I am going off track here and need to be beaten up by someone who genuinely has some grip on pc culture, don’t worry. This game features PC Principal actually doing an ok job teaching you about microaggressions in his typical PC Principal manner, which in itself becomes a relevant move in future battles and is hilarious to watch. Speaking of the new kid, putting things like your chance to gender identify yourself with it in more detail (which you can also adjust again later on in game if you feel like it) aside, for a silent protagonist he/she/it can have a nice level of debt to it, if you look too much into it.

 Not only does it have a funny backstory explaining its fart and social media powers, there are recurring scenes of the kid’s parents being on each others throat and the kid just silently eating dinner for the night that genuinely feel sad and create sympathy in our little FartLord to the point you just want the kid to go out there, have an adventure and hopefully find a way to change its parents for good, cause it is obvious they love the kiddo, but damn do they need to cut off the substance abuse.

 Storywise you get something out of this game that is way more entertaining and hilarious than the last two seasons of the show combined (FUCK the season of 2019) and game content wise you are also rewarded with a lot of shit, just for exploring the town. Be it you finding hidden yaoi fanart that earns you money, your allies helping you solve puzzles that reward you with exp and new costumes to further customize your outfit, making new friends on Coonstagram by taking selfies with all the major and minor characters of the town, helping Big Gay Al finding his missing cats, stumbling upon Memberberries, forging new artifacts to increase your strength, finding summons… all stuff that helps you not just gain exp and become stronger, but also makes you enjoy going through South Park outside of the main story content. In fact I spend a majority of my first twelve hours in this game only wrapping up the prologue missions and first two chapter of the game, while otherwise talking with as many people in town as possible, exploring the stores and houses, doing side missions etc. just for the fun of interacting with the characters and the world they are part of.

 Now, how does all of that relate to Dobson?

Well lets see…

 Game based on something he hates that has however rightfully more success than he ever deserves, with lots of political commentary and satire for years in its humor? Check.

 Game itself having more of that commentary done right then Dobson in his own comics and story attempts? Check

 LGBT representation via Tweek and Craig as well as Big Gay Al that does not feel too stereotypical despite Al himself being extremely stereotypical in design? Check

 Some pretty decent/hilarious female characters in the game once you know them? (again, Call Girl and Classi, who fucks the L out of the A-S-S) Check.

 Being a style of game he hates for no apparent reason, but executed well (RPGs)? Check

 Thematically focused on superheroes, a trend he is obsessed about, but here both appreciating while also poking good fun at common tropes of it and the marketing of the MCU, in doing so just highlighting how much of a mindless consumer Dobson is? Check

 Being a game where you can also play as any gender and race and its not turned into a “groundbreaking” industry changing feature pandering to minorities that in the eyes of corporations are just a market to exploit, not people? Check

 Heck, if Dobson was not a biased idiot, the game would be perfect for him. It even panders to his toilet fetish in videogames.

 Kid you not: a mini game in the game itself features the possibility to go to every toilet in town and shit in it. The process of defecation itself being a rhythm game and you earning exp from it once you took enough dumps. And considering Dobson once spend hours in Skyrim looking for outhouses, that sounds right up Dobson’s back alley.

 Bottom line, this game is fun. If you like South Park, superheroes and RPGs, this game is perfect for you. And seeing how it has been a few years since it came out, I think it should be possible to get a cheap copy of it somewhere. Go on, play it. But always remember: Never fart on another dude’s balls. It is just not the polite thing to do.

[warping-realities]

Rebranding

Monica was pissed off as she stared at Vincent. Although she was still a beautiful woman, her face was irrevocably altered by the presence of an ocular prosthesis. That motionless eye further increased the young man's anxiety. He knew he had screwed up and the reason for her irritation was that her needed solve that mess.

"How can you be so reckless Vincent? Be glad I paid your bail and put a coat over your body. But the repercussions... Don't you realize this could end your entire career?"

"I know, but that bitch..."

"You're not going to say that word again, it's enough to have it on video and circulating all over the gossip shows!"

"Sorry, that... woman..."

"Valery, your girlfriend."

"Ex-girlfriend, or do you think I would stay with her after she cheated on me!"

"Understandable you broke up, but threatening her, calling her all those names, in front of a bunch of paparazzi? Half naked, no less! What were you thinking?"

"Is what I ask, what was I thinking when I decided to date a brainless bimbo with fake blonde hair?"

"Very careful what you say, after all, that's not the image you want to sell Vincent."

"Ah, I'm sorry." He answers while looking at his agent's long blonde hair.

"Apology accepted, my dear. Also because we have bigger fish to catch. Tell me, what do I do with you?"

"I didn't understand your question."

"But I was so clear that even a brainless bimbo would understand."

"Look, I already apologized for the way I acted..."

"It turns out that in our midst just apologizing is not enough. We have an image to protect and sell. As you yourself said, the image that Valery conveys fits perfectly with betrayals and gossip sites. But not you, at least not until this week's attack. Frankly, I never understood what she saw in you. Okay, you're a well-known influencer, but you're nothing more than a nerd. While she's much more, she has more followers than you and I bet she soon will be considered a fashion icon."

"If you called me here just to offend me, I'm leaving." He said getting up.

"Sit down and be quiet." And inexplicably he found himself compelled to do so.

"Hmmm, hmmm"

"Much better, no? I should have realized your type much earlier, the nice guy who makes humorous videos, everyone's friend, protesting in favor of minorities... but who, deep down, is just a sexist and misogynist like so many others. You're much worse than a brainless jock, you know why Vincent? Because they don't hide who they are, women can smell the toxic masculinity they exude from miles away. But you, our allies... what a joke. .. allies like you I don't need. You come with your soft words and your sensitive hearts and women like us fall for you. We only notice all the microaggressions, the attacks on our self-esteem when it's gone too far, when that happens." She said pointing to the eye prosthesis.

"I had a heart-to-heart with Valery this morning. And I found out that on top of all that, you're a lousy performer in bed. Hence her little betrayals with her gym mates. Poor girl, always choosing wrong, but at least the last guy had an enviable body and a even more enviable…tool, perhaps the reason for you little tantrum. In your defense she swore to me that you never lifted a hand against her. So my dear I have decided that I am not going to abandon you and Valery has agreed not to press charges. But for everyone to be happy after the mess you made, both of you will have to agree to improve your images. And for that you will participate in a reality show! Fun, isn't it?" She finished with a smirk. Vincent's startled look showed that he was finding this not fun at all.”

"Now, Valery is perfect for the reality show in question, as for you... we have a few months until the launch of the next season, which I really appreciate as we need to let the situation calm down to rework your image and make a total rebranding. Get up and take off your clothes except for your underwear, I don't need to hurt my only eye with that image."

Vincent again found himself compelled to comply and robotically carried out his manager's orders.

"It really isn't good material! But let's change that, how about a few years less studying foreign languages and more time taking care of your body at the gym, Vincent?"

Suddenly all knowledge of Spanish and French evaporated from his mind. Followed by a strange feeling in the body, starting in the feet, which stretched from a number 8 to a number 11. Then the calves, a joke among his friends, widened and showed greater definition, as well as the thighs, which increased to the point of making him move one leg away from the other, with a contribution from his penis, going from a size 5' to 7'. Then the abdomen, starting to present the shadow of a six pack, with defined pectorals to accompany it, and finally the thin arms that gained the size and definition of someone who was used to doing biceps curls in the gym. As soon as it started the feeling passed.

"Much better, flex those muscles for me, Vincent." And so he did, screaming in horror in his own head, but utterly speechless on the outside.

"I think we still have room for improvement" said Monica distractedly. And Vincent exerting all his willpower finally got a free moment, rushing to the table and trying to grab anything he could use against her.

"Stop immediately! A rolled up piece of paper? Really, Vincent? I figured with all your vaunted intellect you'd think of something better." She mocked the paralyzed man.

"Apparently that intellect isn't that great. So how about we trade twenty I.Q points for another twenty pounds of lean body mass, a few extra inches on your height, on that useless dick of yours, and on those feet, for some reason some women go crazy with that!”

Vincent was invaded by that feeling of strangeness in his body, this time accompanied by a sensation of sucking inside his own mind, which prevented him from even thinking. His feet reached a gigantic size 14, emitting a pungent odor, his calves grew until it took on the shape of diamonds, and thighs grew to the size of tree trunks, his penis -little Vinnie, the name spontaneously arising- reached an impressive 9 inches in length, along with the approximate circumference of a beer can. That hint of a six pack evolves into a defined eight pack and the pecs in two slabs of meat, completing the sculpt he developed broad shoulders and huge, vascularized arms.

"Almost there! Body's perfect and intellect down to just the right level. But something's missing. How about we trade your obsession with pop culture for an obsession with yourself? A few tattoos, and what were you saying about fake blonde hair? Let's make sure the outside represents the inside well, my dear, and the main thing is that every woman who lays eyes on you knows the type of man she will be dealing with.

…

The two girls sitting on the sand tried to focus from a distance who was the man who was approaching on the edge of the sea.

"Is he mine or yours, Val?"

"I think it's yours, Brit, from this distance I can't be sure but he doesn't resemble any of mine... except... it's not possible!"

"What, Val?" Asked the other anxiously.

"Wait and see, Britt! But I can guarantee you this is going to blow some heads!" Answered Valery seeing the young man approaching.

"Hello Ladies!" Said the man, exhaling an air of douchness.

"Vincent Parker?" Britt asked in disbelief as Valery just smiled.

"No formalities girls. You can call me Vinnie!"

[bonesandpoemsandflowers]

So here’s a thing that happened, tumblr.

Many moons ago, I was in the Neuro ICU for a while. I was actually in there twice--for a week at first, then out, then in again for about two weeks. In between: “Nothing’s wrong! It’s resolved!” As you might imagine, given the spoiler there about how I went to the Neuro ICU twice: in fact, Something was wrong, and it was not resolved (then).

(it is resolved now, thank you)

This post is not actually ABOUT that, but we must start there, out of order.

This is a post about art and rivers and boys in cars. But we start in the Neuro ICU.

I don’t like talking about this time in my life. I would have been skittish and mysterious ANYWAY--I was raised like that--but I’m extra skittish and vague about my timeline because I don’t want to talk about it, you know? I survived something I had no business surviving. I had to relearn how to walk. That took months and that was the easy part. Because I am a big tiddy goth girl, and because I was very young then, people love to assume that the problem was drugs, and I did it to myself, as if that somehow makes anything less tragic.

I was 23 years old with a brain bleed due to a congenital defect, and even at the time, I had to defend myself: no, I’m not on drugs, I don’t do drugs, I didn’t do coke, I’ve never done coke.

I am also Colombian, which, I suppose, might play into their calculus about the coke, but WHO KNOWS. I was busy gibbering and almost dying at the time, which left little energy for noticing potential microaggressions.

Is it a microaggression, I guess, when you’re dying? Who knows.

I have never even been drunk, tumblr. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t snort. I never have. This is mostly because I’m a paranoid loon with an off again, on again anorexia, ya know, thing, so occasionally I get really hung up on irrational concepts of bodily purity. People think it’s a flex when I try to explain this, that I’m relishing in some kind of moral superiority. I’m not. I admitting to SEVERAL defects (“quirks”) of personality there. The eating disorder. The deep distrust: I will not be vulnerable in the presence of others, I will not dull my senses, I will not allow myself to be weak. A certain perfectionism. A certain tendency towards slow burn self harm. Grand ideas made of nothing that sometimes take hold.

My point is that this big disruptive thing happened.

I survived, which is AWESOME. And yeah, I had to relearn how to walk, and some other things, but you guys know that I do yoga and aerial silks and lyra and ran off to Thailand to train kickboxing for a summer on fighter street and I STILL do not shut the fuck up about it.

So, cool, cool cool cool cool.

And I don’t even want to talk about that part, the medical drama, the body horror, the institutional whatever. My neurosurgeon was fantastic and like a week after my discharge I was high as SHIT on prescribed painkillers my caregivers insisted I take and wrote him a gushing effusive letter about how he was MY HERO because I was ALIVE and anyway that basically makes you BATMAN, DOCTOR LEWIS, I FUCKING LOVE BATMAN.

Again: high as fuck, ok.

 My point is: I hate talking about this.

Because once you’re a survivor in people’s minds, that’s all you are. You are reduced to this one event that had very little to do with you. You are defined by this thing that happened to you.

And this isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s happened TO me! But still. Happened TO me. Not something I did. Not my action. Barely even my reaction.

But again, personality flaws. What does it say about me that I look at social norms about comfort and inwardly I snarl that I want no one’s pity?

Except I’m not actually that mean. I don’t snarl.

I just withdraw.

This is a tactic that has served me well in life a BUNCH of times. Is it always the answer? No. Is it often worth a shot? Listen. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Sometimes you flee an abusive home life because that’s the only option, and you don’t want to die. Hypothetically speaking: sometimes all you can do is run.

But sometimes you flee people with mostly good intentions, maybe.

This is all very high minded but what’s prompting me to write this isn’t exactly the upcoming (many year) anniversary of the event. It’s something way more mundane and dumb.

I have not logged into my facebook account since this happened. I never bothered deleting the account(s), either. I presume they still exist. I have no idea HOW to log back onto them, and, more importantly, no desire.

“So what?”

So, okay, back when I had my first stint in the Neuro ICU? Like, totally out of nowhere, I just disappeared from people’s feeds. (you all know I do this) Somehow part of the story got out and SOMEHOW, I have no idea how, a small group of my friends managed to independently track down the hospital I was at. And this is on next to no info, across state lines, like--I have no idea how the fuck they did it.

I also don’t fucking know who they were.

I was told, at the time. I have a vague idea of who two out of (I think) four were, or might have been. I was kind of busy at the time, with the dying.

And when I say I don’t like talking about this time: I don’t like even THINKING about it. I avoid it.

Fleeing. See?

So I don’t have a memory of the names. I don’t have memories of the memory.

“So what?”

So, I know from groups other than this one, groups less dedicated than this one, that people actually get REALLY fucking mad at you for not accepting their get better soon wishes. And like, I get it! You were very worried and I did nothing to reassure you.

I WAS BUSY.

I was busy dying. Almost dying. Not dying. I was busy sleeping 20 hrs a day. I was busy being unable to walk. I was busy re-learning to walk. I was busy relearning how to write with pen and paper and for months I COULD NOT DO IT, do you have any idea how that feels to someone who is and has always been and has always wanted to be a writer? Fuck it. Fuck you.

The initial disappearance. I am not to blame.

But then doing nothing to reach out to anybody for YEARS and YEARS--

Okay, maybe a dick move on my part.

“So what?”

So I think one of the people who managed to track me down in the hospital was my best friend from high school, a terribly sweet Brazilian boy who mostly called me not by my name, but simply: The Devil.

I dig it. Always did.

And it’s high school, right. Everybody is thirsty as fuck for their friends, one way or another. We never dated--we were both always dating or pursuing other people--but we had the typical high school bestie unresolved romantic tension deal going on.

This is important so remember it for later: the problem was not attraction. The problem was not one sided unresolved sexual tension. I had a particular thing for how he looked while driving, shades on, one arm slung over the wheel in that terribly and typically male lounging driving pose that’s probably a safety hazard.

We spent a lot of time in his car.

I didn’t drive, at the time, because my mother didn’t allow me to learn, and I got kicked out of my house and disowned when I was 17. This dude spent a LOT of time driving me places. Boys in cars is practically a genre of erotic poetry, thanks to Richard Siken. This is because boys look Cool driving cars, wearing sunglasses, pretending they’re not paying attention to you while you know they are.

So he was fun.

More importantly, I guess, the fact that he picked my ass up at like 6 AM over and over and over again for a big chunk of my senior year is one of the few reasons I managed to graduate despite being technically homeless.

He was not a morning person. I am not a morning person. He did it anyway.

Why didn’t we date, I wondered, years later, for a fraction of a second, and then I forgot about it.

“SO WHAT?!”

So I’m grown up and happy and fulfilled and in a lovely long term relationship (remember! we’re buying a house!), so it’s not about “what if?” It’s that I’m happy and grown up and I write books sometimes.

But there it is.

I write books sometimes.

Artists are constantly stealing ideas from everywhere and this is good. Artists also steal from themselves, grubby little hands on secret parts of our hearts.

So I’m writing this book, right. My Great Work. My Break Out Novel. My SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS book. My “this is the thing I’ve worked the hardest on in my whole entire LIFE” book.

And in this book there is a male love interest. He is a political statement. I’m writing him as sexy and heroic as possible. I want this to be the MOST attractive man I’ve ever written.

Latino. Sexy as fuck. Not a criminal. Overly responsible. Action ready, and terribly nurturing.

Hot Single Dad and Reluctant Necromancer is my masterpiece. A passionate statement and stance against the depiction of Latino men in media. A war cry to examine our own subconscious biases. A weapon raised against an unjust system.

I stole parts of him from Frank Castle. I stole parts of him from Geralt. I stole (MANY) parts of him from this one IRL hot dad former Army Ranger guy, Mexican American with a tattoo on his arm of a jack o lantern one of his kids drew. I stole parts of him from this cute Marine in my DMs who gave me story advice about guns and gear. I stole parts of him from indigenous leaders from centuries ago, from the peoples he is descended from. I stole parts of him from every man I’ve met who worked in dog rescue. I stole parts of him from myself, hiding secret parts of my heart in the male character so that no one will know.

Lovely. All good so far.

I got like two whole drafts in before I was thumbing through some printed out pages, idly thinking: how funny that I don’t have any real life, personal to me models for this guy.

All my prior male love interests, you see, are based on someone. In the werewolf trilogy, they’re BOTH based on someone--different someones. The villain, too, is jokingly referred to as the “evil werewolf ex boyfriend” for a reason.

Everybody is someone.

So how funny, I thought, that necromancer hot dad lacks any references from my own--

OH, wait, fuck--

Overly responsible brown dude with sad dog eyes drives the female lead/occult specialist around while good naturedly complaining that she’s weird as shit.

Oh, damn.

And suddenly a bunch of teensy little backstory details made sense.

Cool.

“So what?”

Bonus round of self realization: my own understanding of this time in my life radically shifted, turning, lurching, sickly rotating on a new axis.

Why didn’t we date?

Somewhere between then and now, post ICU but pre novel writing time--

This one time I overheard somebody talking to somebody else and it had nothing to do with me but sight unseen, on the other side of the stacks in a used bookstore, one dude said to another: “you know that if you were lighter, you’d have a chance with her, right?”

How terrible, I thought, and I forgot about it.

Why didn’t we date?

Because my mother told me, when I was very young, that boys from Brazil were all very wild, and I should avoid them. And she told me this so early and so plainly that I never thought to question it. When I was older she took harder stances that I easily ignored because I knew they were wrong--don’t you dare bring a black boy into this house. You’re dating a Jew? I can’t believe you did this to me. What are you going to do next, kiss a girl?

WELL, Ma, as it turns out, I mean, not til college, but yes.

But the smaller, more mild statement was so much more insidious.

I wonder if he knew. I don’t think he did. I wonder if he figured it out later. I have no idea, because we were friends when we were still essentially children, and now we are grown. Not everybody thinks about this kind of thing, and I don’t blame them.

How much damage did I do?

Does it matter?

Does he know?

I know.

I know, now, that my rallying cry against a system’s unfairness is also a cry wrenched wetly from my own subconscious depths. YOUR biases against? Yes. But more accurately: my biases against.

“So what?”

So this kind of epiphany shit leaves you breathless about it and you wanna scream. You wanna SHARE it. You must infect others with this knowledge.

But you can’t out of nowhere foist this apology on someone. That’s selfish. That’s about redeeming yourself in your own eyes AND asking someone else to confront unpleasant emotions on your behalf, even though they’re the wronged party. Selfish. Tell me I’m not a bad person, baby. Tell me I never hurt you, not even a little. Forgive me if I did. Wade through this pile of astral shit for me just to make me feel better. Reassure me. Hurt yourself for me in the here and now.

So I’m not going to do that, obviously.

“So what?”

But there’s that other part of it, right? Not the apology. The surge of emotion. The realization that all those morning drives back then added up to something deep within me, something so foundational to my concept of care and maybe even the start of something like love--the knowledge that this person gently carved some ideals for you, so long ago, so subtly that you never questioned it, never even realized, because it felt so natural, because something about it is so inherently good and right.

Despite everything--despite society, propaganda, colonialism, the prejudice of my upbringing, my own unexamined complicity, ALL of it--

Despite everything, this person taught me something so deeply about love and the shape of it, something so foundational that I built all my art on it and didn’t even see the beams of it until halfway through my most ambitious and soul bearing undertaking.

This is how you care for another, went the lesson, and I wrote pragmatic actions over words romantic male leads all the way down.

This is what love might look like, and in my own life, ever ambitious, I chose a poet talented with words and actions and good fight choreography, because I think that’s sexy and dichotomies are mostly bullshit, or at least things that happen to other people.

But I didn’t learn what love looked like from my childhood home life, obviously. How could I?

Without you, though, without you and your mirror sunglasses at 6 AM and your exasperated teasing, devil, witch, bruja, without any of those, where would I have learned? How long would it take me, to find someone who would teach me a wholesome lesson?

I’m small and cute and predators love a victim with a lack of context. I give myself and my wit some credit, but what’s pattern recognition worth if you never get any good data points?

Deep lessons.

Again: this kind of epiphany makes you wanna scream. Who to infect, with all this new knowledge?

Maybe no one. Probably no one.

But maybe, just a little, you wonder--

How would that conversation even go?

Hey, so I wrote this book--no, it’s my fifth, not my first, but thanks--so I wrote this book, and there’s this character, right, and he’s--well, hahah, I mean, he’s not exactly--I just--funny story, really--no, god, no, you don’t have to read it--it’s just--he’s just--I mean, no, you, you’re just--forget it, actually, just--

Like, what the fuck is there to say?

“I couldn’t have written this without you.”

And

“Did you check on me? When you thought I was dead?”

and

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice, at the time, that I meant anything to you.”

or is it really

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize until now that you meant something to me.”

What to do with all this emotion? Or more accurately--like rivers carve out gorges, here is the shape of something that once was. This shape will always be here. Even without a single drop of water ever again: we see the river.

What to do with the shape of all this emotion?

I consult the great Richard Siken via a feat of bibliomancy. Advise me, O Oracle. The oracle is War of the Foxes (2015), turned over blindly in my hands, opened randomly to The Worm King’s Lullaby, pg 45, verse 1:

The holes in this story are not lamps, they are not wheels. I walked and walked, grew a beard so I could drag it in the dirt, into a forest that wasn’t there. I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.

This advice is too good. I close the book.

The advice does not tell me what to do, but it’s too good. The verse reaches into my chest and carves out my heart, slices it open. Inside my heart: pomegranate seeds. Tiny jewels, fit for a dragon, snacking on garnets and rubies, and the apple of Eden wasn’t an apple, because it was the desert, wasn’t it? It was a pomegranate. Something with scales, maybe snakes. The serpent, the devil.

What to do with all this love?

I swallow the pomegranate seeds. I buy myself some time. I want to give you more, but not everything. Do you need everything? I don’t know. I don’t have it to give to you, in any case. Does it matter?

Why are you doing this, me?

Because art is messy. Art is cutting yourself open over and over again. You clean up most of the mess, try to bottle the fluids and label them nicely or deliberately misleadingly, fit for someone else’s consumption, but either way, you’re bleeding.

Maybe this urge is bleed with me or maybe it is oh, you already did.

I swallow the seeds. I buy some time.

I’m not done yet. I’m not.

Maybe all this adds up to nothing.

Maybe if I do this right, it adds up to a lot.

Maybe if I do this right it will feel real, maybe what I want is to gift the shape of these rivers to somebody else, all emotionally intimately with strangers. This is a shape that love can be. This is a silhouette you may recognize.

Maybe that’s a tribute, or a tributary.

But it’s not about you, not really, so don’t get too big headed about it. This is about Art and something like Justice. Big things. This is a book about big things, about history and dogs, history and gods, crimes and lies, slaughter and slander.

Right, yeah.

An act of faith, an act of will.

I swallow the pomegranate seeds. I buy myself some time.

It’s not harvest season yet. Not yet, not now, not yet.

If not now, then when?

When it’s ready.

There is no ready. Perfection is an illusion.

Yeah, sure, but page count is REAL.

You’re evading. That’s another word for fleeing. Do you know that?

Yes. I do.

How long will you run?

Just a little bit more. Just a little. I promise.

[popwasabi]

How some stoners named “Harold & Kumar” made Asian Americans proud

Being Asian American can make you feel invisible at times or worst, the butt of every bad joke.

Sure, lots of Americans love Asian things like sushi, kung fu, anime, and tacky calligraphy tattoos that don’t mean what they say they mean but they don’t particularly care about having the people themselves present or even represented.

And typically when we are represented it tends to look like this.

Or this.

Or this.

(I said what I SAID!)

Now Asian Americans are not by any stretch the most marginalized or even the least represented people in the larger American cultural diaspora, but they’re fairly consistently forgotten or grossly stereotyped in our media regardless and this has larger consequences. Representation is important because it makes a people’s presence known to the larger majority.

Our pop culture has unfortunately played a role in erasing, appropriating, and misrepresenting Asian folk. An action movie may feature a white actor with extreme martial arts skills fighting in Hong Kong but might not have a single prominent Asian voice throughout the plot and those that do are typically gross caricatures. The Cyberpunk genre loves Asian aesthetics from its Tokyo inspired neon lighting, futurist cityscape, and ramen carts abound but boy, is the populace typically dominantly white.

(I love this movie but considering how many Asian things and aesthetic choices there are in it would it have killed Denis Villeneuve to have at least ONE background Asian person??)

It’s not shocking then that 2004’s stoner comedy classic “Harold & Kumar” starts with a pair of white dudes beginning their own adventure by leaving one of the titular heroes in the dust to do their dirty work because “Asians love math” or something. Despite not being a stoner, at the time at least, I related hard to this movie and its characters as the film touched on a number of triggers I had growing up.

2004 was a formative year for me as an Asian American. For the first time ever, my history classes were touching on Asian culture with discussions on Japanese feudalism which awakened a deep sense of pride I didn’t know I had at the time. I was watching NHK samurai dramas about Miyamoto Musashi and later the Shinsengumi which led to me begin training in kendo. Anime had suddenly become more mainstream with the premiere of Shonen Jump and pirated subtitled anime littering all of YouTube. But more importantly, and distressingly, I became more aware of my identity because it was increasingly getting called out as I was getting older.

I’ve been labeled a number of different pejoratives growing up through my teens.

“Nerd.”

“Weirdo.”

“Loser”

But none cut deeper than “Chinese boy.”

I’m not Chinese, of course, in fact I’m half white and half Japanese but try telling the various ignorant lunkheads I knew growing up to respect and differentiate between them all. Hell, better yet tell them I’m just as American as they are too.

Being labeled “Chinese” hit a very personal chord with me. To lots of Americans, unfortunately, we’re all “Chinese” and the various qualities that make each of our cultures unique are inconsequential to them. We AAPI’s all individually take a measure of pride in those unique qualities and to have it all sequestered under a blanket “Chinese” label was beyond insulting.

(And I don’t care what you tell me or how much you hate China’s government, this is a THOUSAND percent a dog whistle.)

For Asian Americans, there have been various ways one reacts to these insults. Some of course, who learned confidence at a younger age, would shrug it off or ignore it, some would outright resent it but for me at least it only made me dig my heels in deeper. Yeah, I’m Asian, so fuck you!

That energy is deep “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle” as these two Asian American characters not only navigate a crazy night of searching for an open White Castle to satisfy their stoner cravings but also confront various microaggressions from outside and within the Asian community.

Harold, of course, struggles with his confidence. He can’t stand up for himself when the aforementioned two white bros from the start of the film saddle him with extra work. He laments doing the typical Asian thing of being too passive when confronted by authority. He can’t find the will to ask the girl next door out because again he sees himself as an impotent Asian guy unwilling to make the first move. The whole movie he struggles with his inner feelings because he’s been taught and programmed to a certain extent to be timid because that’s the Asian identity.

Meanwhile, Kumar’s character is about resisting conformity to those same stereotypes but in the worst ways. He co-opts black and hip-hop culture as seen in his messy apartment room. He fights his dad who is forcing him to take his doctor's exam, something he doesn’t want. Generational pressure is common in all cultures but it’s an entirely different animal when it comes to the Asian upbringing. Kumar embodies this resist from beginning to the end of the film and though he does decide to take the test, it’s important that he chooses to do it, not his dad, and certainly not because he’s Indian. He decides that choosing to be a great doctor doesn’t mean he is becoming a stereotype because his identity is not just about being Asian.

(Every Asian kid has heard their parent make an unintentional innuendo.)

Harold and Kumar’s differing approaches create a charming pair for the film to bounce off as Kumar’s brashness often lands them in trouble and Harold’s timid demure keeps them down in its own way and the two finally come together when Kumar learns to understand the difference between conformity and choice and Harold learns conformity doesn’t define him.

Both characters confront all kinds of microaggressions against their identity throughout the film. Cops making fun of their names. The extreme sports bros making every racist joke every Asian kid has every heard growing up at them. All Asian Americans have grown up wanting to deliver the perfect comeback or “fuck you” moment against these types of people and when our heroes triumph and put them all in their place there is undeniable catharsis as it happens for everyone who has seen this movie.

(Seriously, there isn’t a more satisfying good triumphing over evil moment in film for me than the conclusion of this particular plot.)

The movie confronts stereotypes in more ways than one though. Throughout the movie Harold and Kumar are confronted by a situation that makes them think it’ll go one direction but ends up (usually comedically) the opposite. Harold and Kumar try to hook up with two beautiful transfer students who turn out to have horrible bowel issues. Harold is reluctant to go to the Asian American club party because even he believes in his own ethnic stereotypes of them but it turns out it’s a banger of a party with plenty of weed to boot. Harold and Kumar are picked up by a lonesome, disfigured tow truck driver and are shocked to find he’s married to a beautiful woman. And the aforementioned extreme sports bros turn out to love cheesy pop music and romantic songs.

Basically, the whole movie is about giving a big middle finger to all our preconceived notions we have about identity and it's brilliant.

(Nothing wrong with cheesy pop music, of course.)

“Harold & Kumar” is great for other reasons too. John Cho and Kal Penn still play greatly off each other. There’s plenty of great one-liners sprinkled between each scene. The entire journey to find White Castle burgers in the middle of the night is a fairly genius premise for a stoner comedy still. And Neil Patrick Harris playing “himself” is still iconic.

Parts of the movie haven’t aged, well of course. There’s some bad gross-out humor, some lazy gay panic jokes and not to mention some sexist quips that don’t land well in 2020. Also, let’s just not talk about the sequels.

(I still find this scene amusing though.)

That said, “Harold & Kumar’s” first film in this munchie saga is not only a grade-A stoner flick but simply one of the best films ever when it comes to bringing that much needed representation of the time to Asian Americans. Watching Harold & Kumar stick it to their annoying white antagonists while delivering a “fuck you” to every racist joke I ever heard growing up is still cathartic as hell and made me feel proud to be Asian American during a turbulent time for myself growing up.

Though it’s not Masterpiece Theater by any stretch, Harold & Kumar will always hold a special place in my heart and remains forever “high” on my list of favorite movies of all-time.

Happy 4/20, y’all!

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Stuber

There are so few original concepts being made by Hollywood these days that I feel like I have to support them wholeheartedly even if they’re lackluster. Today’s original piece of programming is Stuber, a buddy cop movie starring Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani. Bautista plays Vic, a cop hellbent on catching the drug dealer who killed his partner and a guy who never takes any time off. At the urging of his boss (Mira Sorvino) and his daughter (Natalie Morales), he takes a day off to finally get Lasik surgery but a huge lead in his case comes through right at that moment! Since he can’t see to drive, he calls an Uber - enter Stu (Nanjiani), who is working a terrible retail gig, secretly pining away for his best friend (Betty Gilpin) and just one bad review away from losing his Uber job too. Oil, meet water. HIJINKS. So does this original story lack luster? Well...

Honestly, I really enjoyed it! It’s tightly paced, the chemistry of the leads is fantastic, and it’s pretty damn funny. Come for the classic buddy cop tropes, stay for a thoughtful treatise on masculinity.

Some thoughts:

I tell you what, I’ve been spoiled by the John Wick movies because these action sequences just feel disorienting and jerky in comparison to the flawless ballet of Keanu Reeves annihilating bad guys on motorcycles while riding a horse. 

These gunfights are bloody too - there’s no illusions about the level of violence happening here. 

Listen, I love a buddy cop movie, and that inevitably means you’ve got a tough-as-nails character who is mourning a deep loss, most likely his wife, and is both unhinged and too devoted to the job as a result. So on the one hand, it’s kind of nice that we’re showing Vic mourning someone other than his wife. I suppose it’s also good that Karen Gillan is shown as a smart and capable cop partner, and that she and Dave Bautista have easy, excellent chemistry (I’m sure their time together in the Guardians of the Galaxy films helped quite a lot there). But like. Does Karen Gillan have to die in the first 5 minutes to propel Vic’s story forward? It’s 2019. Do we really have to keep having this same conversation? 

After all the trauma Vic is putting his eyes through, there is no way this Lasik surgery is gonna take. 

Credit where credit is due, Dave Bautista is an incredible physical comedian. He just GOES for it, every pratfall, every blustering into a wall, every labored punch in a fight scene. He attacks it all with gusto and a lumbering grace you wouldn’t expect. I’m telling you, he’s sneaking up quick to become the next Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

Additionally, this movie doesn’t work without Kumail Nanjiani. I’m so happy to see his star power just exploding between this and his new casting in the MCU as part of The Eternals. He’s one of the hardest working, funniest people in showbiz and I love everything he does here. The weariness, dealing with microaggressions from racist Uber passengers, the frantic energy when shit hits the fan. You really need a strong presence to be able to stand toe-to-toe with Dave Bautista, and their odd couple energy is chaotic and so much fun. I really love their dynamic, and it’s a big part of what makes this movie work.

I love this entire strip club sequence featuring a surprisingly feminist male stripper named Felix (Steve Howey) and Stu trying to convince him he doesn’t have to put up with his boss’s abusive behavior. It’s actually a really sweet scene which could have easily bro’d out and gone for a lot of cheap laughs.

The dog (pictured above) is amazing in every way and I LOVE HIM. He is perfect and such a good boy, and no harm comes to him - we even see him get adopted! There is even a whole PACK of other Very Good Boys and Girls shown throughout the film, and all of them live to tell the tale. Well done everyone.

It’s a weird balance the film is trying to strike that I think it *mostly* succeeds at, between showing us a lot of gross toxic masculinity, and also showing, in the form of Stu, another way. Now, Stu gets dragged along on Vic’s rampage, so he does a lot of hypermasculine things like shooting people and causing explosions, but he also has a lot of emotions about it and shows a lot of vulnerability. Ultimately, Vic teaches Stu he has to take responsibility for his own life and choices, and Stu teaches Vic that he has to allow himself to be open or he will lose everything in life that’s important to him. It sounds cliche because it is, but the way the characters grow and change as a result of their time together feels lik eit was genuinely earned, and in a 93-minute movie, that’s a feat in itself. 

Maybe I’m rusty and off my game, but I did NOT see that villain twist coming! But in classic “this villain is just here to be villainous” fashion, there is a LOT of monologuing going on that feels a little tired and lazy.

Another thing I appreciate is that this is maybe the only time the “friendzone” has been treated fairly onscreen. 

Did I Cry? A tiny bit. When Vic thanks Stu at the end. THEY’RE GOOD FRIENDS OK, IT WAS SWEET.

If you like action comedies, you could do far worse than this one which keeps a pace fast enough for you to stay engaged, and which features enough solid jokes that it can actually be called a comedy.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[boogiewrites]

Mae Flowers 4

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Mae LeBlanc (OFC)

Word Count:  4900

Summary: A modern, magical Alfie Solomons AU. 

Warnings/Tags: Language.Magic/Supernatural. Soul mates. Racism, microaggressions. Some domestic fluff, getting to know you stage. Talk of past neglect, depression, anxiety.

Click on my screenname then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.)

Mae wakes up for the second morning in a row well rested. She'd gone to bed with a full stomach, having eaten their weight in seafood and grits the night before. She felt more at ease today with the fact that there was a man living with her now. He'd stood up for her, helped her cook and put Ruth and Nance's minds at ease for. She felt a warm feeling when she thought of him. It could be the magic, she thought.

Her inner light was growing stronger, it was being fed with another power like it's own, the darkness stirring up her previously unstable energies, making it build and heal itself from all the years alone and unsure. Alfie gave her a strange sense of fullness, stability of sorts she hadn't expected. Normally having another person in her life would make her feel anxious, second-guessing everything she did at the expense of her own peace of mind to keep the other person comfortable. But that wasn't happening with him.

She throws on her robe, scratching her head and yawning big, the smell of coffee hitting her nose as soon as her slippers start bopping across the old hardwood floor towards the kitchen. Alfie stood leaned against the counter in pajama pants and a soft, sleep rumpled t-shirt. His hair was a mess, one side flat and the other sticking up, his eyes lazy with smacking lips as he scratched his stomach waiting on the coffee pot to deliver.

"Mornin' love." he says with a slow nod, his voice deep and sleepy.

"Mornin'." she grumbles, taking a seat at the table in a sunbeam.  Percy lets out a little 'mrrrrowl' of greeting, bumping his head to hers as she runs her fingers along his spine. "Hey Perce." she mutters, his tail swishing in her face and making her nose twitch. She's slowly waking up, Percy laid out in front of her on his back, trying to be cute and keep her attention.

"Hazlenut or French Vanilla?" Alfie asks, standing with the fridge door open, staring into the dull glow.

"Thought you could read my mind." she smirks, her head slowly turning to him.

"I can but you don't know which ya want." he retorts with a snarky smile.

"Hazlenut." she answers with a nod, watching him bring the two mugs over to the table as he plops down next to her, landing in the chair with a loud scoot of its legs across the floor.

So what's on the 'ol agenda today?" he asks, sitting up straight and cracking his spine.

"Uh... not much. We got ahead yesterday." she nods and closes her eyes, taking a sip of the hot liquid and letting it warm her from the inside out. "Thanks for that by the way." she says, eyes blinking open now, looking more alert.

"Don't mention it. I'm here to help." he nods and watches her over the steam rising from his mug.

"If you need to like, do stuff here today you can." she offers. "Just basic stuff for me today to do at the shop. No orders or anything. All caught up for the week." she states with a lazy smile of thanks. "If you wanna unpack and get used to the place... bond with Percy." she nods over the lazy white cat soaking up a sunbeam.

"I do have stuff I can do today with ya out. Get me things all situated. What do ya say Percy?" he asks the cat with a smirk on his face.

Percy raises his head and looks at him, blinking slowly.  A weak meow escapes him before he lays back down totally uninterested.

"He doesn't care." Alfie chuckles.

"Alright." she nods, taking a bigger sip. "I'm gonna take this." she holds the mug in both hands and stands. "Gonna get a shower and get ready and be on my way. Make whatever you want, Friday's are my day I get a smoothie on the way to work." she says and he feels her excitement about the future purchase.

"Will do. I'll keep it simple. Lots of liftin' 'n that to do today." he groans and stretches, as she waddles back into her bedroom. ---- The calm she'd felt at home felt farther and farther away the further she got from home. The usual heaviness, that quivering ball of nerves that told her something was wrong, that she was wrong started to grow back into its usual place in her stomach. Mae sips her berry smoothie and leans over the front counter, her jeans feeling a little tight today, her toes curling and uncurling in the ballet flats that matched her green t-shirt that she'd had made for her company. Her loose spiral curls dancing around her shoulders, the various shades of almost black brown catching the light that came through the high windows of the crowded and humid building. This would be the only moment of peace that she got for the day, as the downpour of things that made her want to crawl up and disappear seemed to hit all at once, leaving her dazed and confused.

First, Jessica shows up. She struts in the door tits first with her large Starbucks cup in tow, overlined lips sucking away at the straw. She doesn't even look at Mae until she's right in front of the counter.

"What do ya need today Jessica?" Mae asks with a perfectly polite attitude, setting her drink down to the side.

"Where's that big leprechaun you've got in here now?" she asks with a smirk as she looks into the back of the shop.

"Leprechaun?" Mae's nose wrinkles up in question.

"What was his name. The big guy with the accent in here yesterday." she replies obviously, jutting a hip out in her annoyance.

"Oh. Alfie." Mae answers flatly.

"Yeah that big boy." she grins.

"He's not working today." she answers, trying to remain indifferent.

"Oh." she slumps and pushes her lips together into a tight line.

"He's also not a leprechaun." she clarifies. "He's English. Not Irish. And don't call Irish people leprechauns, that's just... some weird kind've racist."

"They're white and ginger, who cares?" she says without a thought and rolls her eyes. "Not like I'm calling you the n-word or something." she retorts like it means anything and Mae takes a deep breath.

"I'm not black, I'm Hispanic." she clarifies with a more forceful voice.

"Well, it's not like I'm calling you a... what's a racist word for a Mexican?"

"I'm Spanish not..."

"Tacos? Burritos? IS that something? Beans! Wait, no... Mexican jumping beans, yeah. Wait... that's not it."

"I know what you're thinking and there's no reason to say it. What do you want?" she answers more curtly.

"To see Alfie. He won't be in today?"

"No." another flat response.

"What's he doing today? Where's he at? What's his deal?" her inquisition begins, waving her cup in the air as she speaks.

Mae sighs and goes back to her smoothie. "He's at home. I don't know what he's doing. That's his business and you should respect his space. He was clearly not interested when you talked to him yesterday."

"He's just playing hard to get. You know guys, they act like assholes and you just have to get them to like you by doing stuff for them and letting them make fun of you sometimes. It's all part of it. Not like you would know. Not like anyone's trying to get with you." she snaps back.

"No, but that's..." Mae lets out a  heavy sigh. "Whatever." she gives up and takes a noisy sip of her drink.

"So he lives with you?" Jessica says with a tilt of her head. "You said at home. If not where does he live, you probably have that on file for his employee records or something, right?" she asks , leaning over the counter.

"He does live with me." she decides to not address the clear violation giving an employees persona information would be as she figures it's pointless.

"Wait... so are you guys like a thing?" she says with a clearly disgusted look on her face.

"No. He's a friend of a friend, he's new in town and needed a place to stay and I had a spare room."

"I have a whole guest house if he wants to stay with me. Got a pool and a hot tub." she grins. "So let him know I've got a real house for him to stay at if he wants."

"Are you saying my house is abstract?" Mae chuckles to herself.

"What?" she says with a twist of her neck.

"Nothin'." Mae rolls her eyes.  "If you don't need anything I've got stuff to do... so..." she says, looking over at the tall blonde under her lashes.

"You were just standing here so SORRY... thought you had free time." she retorts.

"I just opened. I have to let the systems boot up." she explains with a deadpan delivery.

"Is he workin' tomorrow?" she asks, one hand on the counter.

"No, we're closed tomorrow."

"Then Monday then?"

"Maybe." Mae shrugs.

"He's your employee, why don't you know?" she bites back.

"Because he's new here and he might need off to run errands to get everything settled." she says offers up. "Not that it's any of your business." she mutters.

"You just let your employee take off like that? Not knowing if he'll work and he can just drive around town all day?" she asks seriously.

Mae sighs again and takes another drink, not answering as a pain grew between her eyes.

"I wanna work for you then, dang." she laughs, her mood shifting fast. "Oh my God, ARE you hiring? I'd be willing to get my hands dirty for that little... whatever he is."

"He's English." Mae rolls her eyes and lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Little... what do English people do? Drink?" she asks seriously.

"Jessica I'm not hiring and just... please go, I have things to do." Maw says with a clear tone of exasperation.

"Fine. But I'll be back on Monday to see Alfie." she sass's taking a long drink from her straw as she walks backward, keeping an eye on Mae who watches her bump into a shelf as she tries to look cool making her exit.

"Bye Jessica." Mae says shaking her head.

"Tell Alfie I said Hiiiiii." she says before leaving.

"What an idiot." Mae says rubbing her forehead.

With a thoroughly racist and rude conversation to start the day, the day only picks up speed from there. A phone call comes in, an irate customer claiming she'd sabotaged her party. An order that was entered incorrectly by the customer, a miscommunication of what sort of flowers they wanted in their arrangements. Mae didn't know how this woman had written down Black-eyed Susan's instead of sunflowers on her order sheet, or picking a Transvaal daisy over a  shasta daisy, but she was certain this woman was overreacting at how the arrangements ruined her church's barbeque. Mae had pictures of flowers next to the names of them in her big folder that sat on the top of the shop counter specifically for this reason. She gave the book to customers coming in to make orders and it wasn't her fault she filled out the order how it was written and what the woman wrote wasn't right. She couldn't read her mind. But still, she was blamed, getting dog cussed for all she was worth, the woman even bringing the Lord into it and telling her she'd had to refund her in full. Which was in no way happening. After you sign off on the delivery sheet, everything is final. No refunds. There was a chance to say they were wrong before she signed, that's why Mae set it up that way. But the woman wouldn't listen and Mae ends up just saying 'I'm Sorry.' to everything she says, taking the abuse.

The woman gives up eventually after a few people are waiting for her attention for the lunch rush. She works as fast as she can, but the line grows as a little old lady requires her undivided attention, asking about every flower, telling her stories about the flowers her husband used to bring her when he was alive. On a slow day Mae would've indulged her fully but with customers waiting behind her the stress was sky high.

She apologizes and leaves the lady to talk to herself, ringing out people as fast as she can while they give her dirty looks. She had great pride in being a good business owner and people thinking she was bad at her job made her a mess. A child that was with a negligent parent that had been waiting, knocks over a shelf of succulents, her biggest sellers, destroying the handmade pots she'd made for them. In all, the day was a total shit show.

She shuts the shop up and cries as she finally gets around to cleaning up the broken pieces of pottery, nestling her little friends into one big pot for the weekend to deal with on Monday. She apologizes to them and she feels they understand, her tears falling into the new soil as she sniffles and packs them in. She hesitantly throws away the shattered pieces of pottery, thinking off all the time she spent painting and glazing each, how much time and money lost on them. How she'd have to ask for half the price until she could make more holders for the plants. A personal and a professional loss all in one.

She doesn't even skate home as she usually would. She throws her skates in her oversized work bag and walks, her feet feeling as heavy as her heart. Everything about the day had drained her. Her body was tired, her chest hurt from a racing heart all day from embarrassment and anxiety. Her pride took a hit from the disappointed looks from the customers. She takes a heavy breath, hand on the doorknob, hoping that Alfie wasn't about to add to the bad day she'd had.

As soon as she opens the door, the feeling she'd left the house with hits her again. She wipes her tear stained cheeks, setting her bag down by the end of the couch, seeing everything clean and tidy with candles lit and the smell of food coming from the kitchen. The house smelled amazing, it somehow felt amazing, like getting into a hot bath after the end of a long day. The build of depression holds strong as she sees everything he's done for her while she'd been out.

"Hello Mae!" he calls out cheerfully. "Ya need help with anyfing?" he says, moving pots around the stove top. "Give me just a second love and I'll be right in to help ya." he calls out over his shoulder.

She comes around the corner, her face was sunken and clearly upset, taking in the sight before her. A kitchen filled with a home cooked meal for them both. She sees bread in the oven, lasagna sitting on the table as he switches off burners and pushes the rest of a chopped head of lettuce into a large salad bowl. A tin of muffin batter sits on a tea towel at the end of the counter. She gets a swirling feeling in her stomach. It builds quickly and she starts to sob, putting her head in her hands.

He turns, wiping his hands on a towel as his eyes grow large at the sight before him. Her glow was dull, her curls falling into her face as her hands with their yellow chipped polish covered her crying face.

"No, no love now that won't do." he says, moving quickly over towards her. He takes her into his arms without a moments hesitation. "Come here, little Mae." he coos out, holding her to him. As much as he may have wanted, he didn't have much healing magic to pass around, he wasn't really a healer so much as a destroyer of things. "Shhh, there, there, love." he pats his hand on her thick hair, the smell of her shampoo rising up as he leans his face in close. She feels the warmth around her, the soft-spoken kind words from this man who had swept in and taken care of her without expecting anything in return. She felt her chest thump, her stomach building again and more sobs are pushed out as she lets herself wrap her hands into his t-shirt and press her forehead against his chest.  

He wears a deep-set frown, not knowing what was wrong, her thoughts a roller coasting of emotions, totally unstable and making his dizzy when he tried to read them. Her magic and mind were working hard and fast and he knew something must've set off the sensitive little thing she was. "Now lovely, we can talk 'bout what's got ya upset, or we don't have to say nuffin'." he gives a nod, putting his hands to her shoulders to pull her away, taking a handkerchief that was older than her out of his pocket and giving it to her.

She wipes her eyes and blows her nose with a little toot of a sound that makes him smile as she sniffles, nose twitching like a little rabbit. "I just wanna eat and sleep." she answers, staring into his chest, not looking up at him. Her voice was small but she felt smaller. She fought the urge to tell him she didn't deserve all this special treatment, she didn't understand why someone would be doing all these nice things for her. No one else ever had. Her last caregivers, the ones who left her the house had been good people, but they never coddled her. They never cleaned for her, held her while she cried, stood up for her when others would try to bring her down. They'd always left her to her own devices. She'd never had anyone to treat her like something worth going the extra mile for. It was all a bit too much on her weak shoulders after the day she'd had.

"Well lemme finish up dinner and you go get comfy and cozy on the couch and I'll come get ya and we'll take care of that 'eatin' bit, eh?" he suggests, rubbing her upper arms as he spoke to her with a voice that she could feel warming her from the inside out. Her light tried to fight past the years of neglect to make her bloom and be able to draw from that endless well of love she had so she could give it to her herself and not just those around her. But she was still weak, and there was time to grow. So it settles, feeling it's mate so close and humming in wait with a baseline of contentment.

She takes one of the fuzzy throws on the couch and wraps it around her, grabbing one of her decorative pillows and wrapping her arms around it to try to get comfy for a moment. She falls asleep while the bread is baking, her body giving over to a much-needed recharge after the stress that the day put her through.

Alfie pulls the muffins out and lets them cool, wiping his hands and giving a nod to the first big meal he'd cooked in decades. Being alone there wasn't much of a reason to cook big and when the last group of people he ran with being musicians in the 90's, he'd never had a reason to cook for a group of people. But now he had plenty of reasons to dust off the old domestic skills that his mother and sisters had helped him learn. The baking was more familiar, as per his old cover for his criminal days, but the meals were what took the most focus. With Mae's plethora of fresh herbs to use, and come harvest time a garden full of fresh produce, he was sure cooking would be something he used to help both of them learn some new skills.

He ponders what he should cover with her the next day as he watches her sleep on the arm on the couch. A headful of curls on top of a fuzzy blanket, her lips smushed out against the pillow she clutched in her arms.

"Mae." he says gently, leaning in close, a hand to her arm to rub her awake. She grunts and puffs out air between her pink and pouted lips but doesn't wake. The softness of her makes him smile, he enjoys it a moment without having to worry about making her uncomfortable. The long dark lashes spread out over freckled cheeks, her full brows set in a scowl. All curled up under the blanket she looked so small, and he supposes compared to him she is. Standing just a bit over five feet tall he supposes, her shorter frame gives her a stocky and soft appearance. With round hips that only slightly narrowed into thick thighs, he sees her small feet sticking out from the covers. Yellow nail polish to match that on her fingers on her toes. It wasn't only her body, her hair or her sweet face with it's round, button nose that was soft but her heart was as well. He could feel her power humming quietly, even it was still timid. His darkness wants it to burst, to flow out of her as it can do within him. It wants to soak up that innocence, that sweet softness that she's made of. His closes his eyes, his darkness rumbling, soaking up her delicate heat into its cold center, Alfie feels his limbs tingle, a prickling warmness that only she could give to him.

He exhales slowly, a hand soft to her hair, pushing it back. "Mae." he says, moving to give her nose a gentle tap.

"Mmph." she grunts, nose twitching as he eyes flutter open and meet his before she sits up to straighten her back, rubbing her eyes.

"Dinner's ready, love." he says, standing back up straight.

"'Kay." she mumbles, sitting in a daze as she wakes.

He beams at her, a smile she doesn't see. "Come on to the table when ya ready." he suggests, moving to go set their places.

She plops into a chair, the sleep slowly leaving her body as she watches him move around the kitchen, a towel over his shoulder as he cuts and plates her food.

"Now 'is I learned from an Italian, yeah? Found a wonderful little market when I when shoppin' today 'n got fresh cheese." he says proudly. "I went 'n did some of your shoppin' as well while I's out. Got more cleanin' supplies since I used most of 'em today. Got the bathroom and the kitchen. Dusted and vacuumed." he nods casually while trying to recall everything he did, wanting to let her know what he'd been up to, letting her know he was useful to her. "Already watered and fed all the babies." he chuckles. "Although I think a few in the greenhouse could use a personal touch. Wasn't about to try it meself. I'd just mess up all your hard work. So I figured we could start wif those tomorrow hmmm? Start simple with somefin ya like."  He moves his eyes to hers and finds a puzzling look on her face. Her eyes give true meaning to the term puppy dog eyes. Her mouth is slack, partially open and her big hazel eyes are glimmering at him. Not tears yet, but the look in her eyes says lots of things. He feels that loneliness that resides in her throbbing stronger. He decides to switch the conversation. "I made the bread, eh? That flour you use is top notch, love." he tries giving her compliments but it doesn't seem to help. "Used some cherry tomatoes out of the greenhouse for the salad, hope ya don't mind. The muffins are ready as well, made 'em with blueberries I found at the grocery. Hope ya like those." he continues plating her food. He doesn't look at her face, not wanting to seem nosey as she was clearly going through something. But he sees big fat tears fall onto the table top and he can't stop himself. As soon as he makes eye contact, he sees her face much like a baby's, a trembling bottom lip, wet rosy cheeks rounded before her face contorted and she hid it in her hands. "Oh come now, little one." he says dropping the utensils and kneeling next to her. "What is it love?" he rubs her back gently in a circle, his palm tingled as he felt the chaos inside her. Mending her was going to be a very messy job.

"Why are you so nice to me?" she chokes out between sobs.

His chest aches, his face falling out of it's friendly and polite expression he'd held in place for her sake. "Oh Mae," he whispers, pulling her to his chest. "There, there." he shushes her. "Why would I not be nice to you? You've been nothing but nice to me." he explains. "You're my mate. Your well bein' is me own, I would only be hurtin' myself to not try to take care of you." He invades her privacy, shutting his eyes and trying to see what was causing all the trouble.

He feels the day she'd had. He sees a lifetime of abandonment and neglect. All the bullies growing up, all the hardships she was given to overcome from a young age. An absent father, a childhood spent in the system and an adult life of loneliness and rejection. Putting herself out there time and time again to be met by men who didn't care or understand. He didn't see the loneliness, he felt it. He felt her bed only ever being empty and cold, he feels her heart struggling to maintain it's one-sided giving when no one would replenish it. Her power touches him as he's washed in all this hurt she knows. The light shines within her. With his eyes shut he can see it, glowing like the sun on an overcast day, trying to break through the barrier of gloom that spread across it. He can feel it's tired, that it's just as lost as her. But he most importantly feels that it knows he's there, whether Mae knows or understands it herself. Her power knew better things were ahead for them and Alfie felt more certain he would protect and help this beautiful soul as long as he could.

"I just... No one's ever... I'm not used to it. It feels..."

"Like you don't deserve it." he finishes her thought, hearing it ring true in his own head for so long.

"Yeah," she says with a whimper, looking back up at him. "How did you?" she trails off, wiping her nose.

"Because I know it too." he nods, using his handkerchief to wipe at her face. "But it's not true. Don't listen to that voice. It's a liar." he says sternly. "You deserve the world, Mae. You are bright and full of love and good and the world needs that so very desperately. You deserve every bit of kindness that comes your way. Don't you dare think differently."

Her doe eyes blink up at him, never having heard something like that said to her before in all her almost thirty years. "I..." she begins, not knowing where to finish her thought.

"You just sit and think about that, yeah?" he gives her a nod. "Let's eat on the couch." he suggests. "We'll stop this cryin'. We'll go get cozy and we'll eat until we can't breathe and that'll make ya feel better. Watch somethin' ya like?"

She nods and swallows noisily.

"Good girl." he gives her back a pat before pulling away. "Now go get ya blankets and I'll grab the plates." he says with a self-assured tone.

She lowers her head, eyes on the ground as she gets them each a blanket. He gets everything else in order and they flip through Netflix together, large plates of food sitting on pillows in their laps.

"What do ya like, eh? Nature documentaries I bet." he suggests and she gives a small but enthusiastic nod as she sticks her fork into her lasagna.

They sit together, side by side, eating the towering plates of homemade food. Alfie talks over the narrators, sharing things he knew, but mostly making up his own narration in an attempt to make her smile. "Now 'is one ain't lookin' for a mate, he's lookin' for trouble. He thinks 'is one's been talkin' shit, yeah. By the looks of 'em I'd say he's right. Look at those little shifty beady eyes, ya can't get that look past me." he wags his finger at the TV and looks down to see her smiling after a tiny huff of a laugh escapes her. "There she is." he says proudly, giving her a nudge with his elbow. She looks up at him bashfully for a shared glance, before turning her face back to the tv with a tiny smile that told him she'd be just fine.

@jaegeeeeer @negansdirtygirl22 @brianaisasongbird @hardygal69 @emerald-bijou @captstefanbrandt @coolgh0st @tinastarkandco @stylishmileage  

[thesffcorner]

What If It’s Us

What If It’s Us is a YA collaborative romance written by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli. It follows two boys: Arthur, a high school junior who is in New York for a summer internship at his mother’s law firm; and Ben, a New Yorker who is spending his summer in remedial chemistry classes. The two meet at the Post Office, as Ben is sending a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things, but they separate before they even get each other’s name. So could it be serendipity? This book, was not for me. I need to stress that it’s not because it’s a bad book; it’s a perfectly serviceable YA romance, and it even has some genuine moments. But man, I’m too old for this kind of story. If you are a teen, or like reading YA that’s geared pretty young you might enjoy this; if you are like me, you will just mostly be bored and disappointed. To start off, it was a struggle to get into this. Just based on the writing here, it’s unlikely that I will ever pick up another Silvera or Albertalli book. I found both of their writing styles grating, especially Albertalli, whose character Arthur was so insufferable for the first third of the book, I almost gave up. What got me through the end, was some of the humor and the sheer curiosity to see how it would end. Let’s start with the writing. I vastly preferred Silvera’s chapters over Albertalli; he is much more cynical and down to Earth, Ben was a character I related to a lot more, and his sense of humor was much closer to mine. The parts of this book I liked the best were the scenes between Dylan and Ben (who I thought had way more chemistry than Arthur and Ben, imho), and their banter was hilarious. Silvera has a good grip on writing dialogue that’s sharp, fast and funny, with characters making a joke and riffing on it until it becomes absurd, and that’s exactly the type of humor I enjoy. However, his sections weren’t flawless; in fact, I think as the book went on, I found I cared more for Arthur’s part of the story, while Ben’s meandered, and a lot of the things that made Ben and his story interesting were pushed in the background, for the sake of the romance. Albertalli’s chapters started out really poorly; the first chapter from Arthur was incredibly grating, and I couldn’t stand his naive, overly-enthusiastic, sheltered energy. He was incredibly pushy and obsessive, and the extra mile he went to, to not only talk to Ben, but also find him bordered on stalker territory. He does improve as the book goes on, and I appreciated the few moments he matures and shows some teeth. But I had the same issues with Arthur’s chapters as I did with Simon from Simon and the Homo-sapiens Agenda; the overly happy tone, the really corny jokes, the obsession with musicals, celebrities, and especially New York. What I will give this book credit for is that Silvera and Albertali have nicely contrasting writing styles that worked really well together. When Arthur and Ben do find each-other, their dialogue is appropriately funny and awkward, and I could tell that the people writing their relationship were friends. I also had no issue distinguishing between Albert or Ben, even though both PoV’s were first person. Where a lot of the issues started for me, was the plot. As someone who lived in NYC, I can totally believe that Arthur and Ben would be able to find eachother again after separating without knowing each other’s names. What I had a hard time believing was the speed at which their relationship progressed, and some of the relationship they had with the side characters. This book, has some of the wildest coincidences and contrived moments I’ve read, and it really, really didn’t work with the main theme of the story. The essential question of this book is: what do you do, if you find your soulmate at the worst time? Do you try and make it work? Should you even try if you know it won’t last? Can you truly know it won’t last? It’s absolutely the worst time for Albert and Ben to date; they are both seniors, Ben lives in NYC and Albert in Georgia. Ben isn’t good at school, and his college prospects are both limited and he himself isn’t particularly interested in college. Albert is applying to Yale. Is it even worth to pursue a relationship, if they know they have at most 2 months? The book tries to take a ‘realistic’ approach to these questions, not just with the ending (which we’ll get to), but everything else to. The first date Arthur and Ben have is awkward. They fight. They misunderstand each other. There is a bit where one of the characters gets tickets to a really popular Broadway show, but due to his perpetual lateness, they miss the chance to see the show. But at the same time, this is a book where bitter exes magically become friends again, where a parent flies her kids’ best friends all the way from Georgia to New York for a single day, and two boys fall in love in the course of 2 weeks. Look, you can either have a genuinely ‘realistic’ look at relationships between young people, be they romantic or platonic, or you can make it cheesy; it can’t really be both. The entire plot with Ben is about how his friend group ended up hooking up with each other and now they no longer speak to one another. You can’t expect me to believe that they will just magically become friends again after that. The same thing goes for Arthur; yes the situations are presented as uncomfortable and awkward, but it still felt overly contrived. Everything that the boys are worried about ends up not being true: Arthur is afraid his best friend isn’t okay with his sexuality, and his parents are divorcing? Nope, false alarm. Ben might have to repeat junior year, and his friend has a heart condition that sends him to the hospital? Don’t worry about it. I’m not saying I want this book to be misery, and it’s not that bad things don’t happen; heck, some of the best scenes are the more serious ones, like Ben and Arthur’s fight about the show tickets, Arthur’s fight with his friends, Ben calling Arthur out on a microaggression, and the homophobic man on the train. But because the book can’t quite decide between Silvera’s unhappy-ending, cynical storytelling, and Albertalli’s upbeat, motivational/uplifting comedies, it ends up reading incredibly uneven. But what really made this book not fun for me was the romance, and by extension the characters. Let’s start with Ben, because I liked him a bit better. Ben has a lot of emotional hang ups; he’s just exited his first serious relationship, he’s failing school, he has bouts of moodiness, he’s insecure about his finances… he has a lot going on. But he’s trying to cope with all of that, and his friendship with Dylan was the best part of the book. But like I pointed out, he not a consistent character. None of his insecurities are really resolved or properly discussed; he relies heavily on Arthur for emotional support and self-esteem, but he also doesn’t trust Arthur. He hides really dumb things from him that just pile up, and he really does do a lot of things that signal that he really doesn’t care as much about Arthur. A lot of his hang ups, like his lateness, his insecurities, his reluctance to share seem to disappear and appear only as the plot needs them. I was never sold on Ben loving Arthur, and his reluctance to even try long distance was telling. At first, I couldn’t stand Arthur; he was grating, annoying, a stereotypical wide-eyed boy, obsessed with musical theater, with overbearing parents, incredibly sheltered, in awe of New York to a ridiculous extent. I will full on admit that I am in the minority here; most people prefer Arthur over Ben, I just don’t like these types of characters. He does improve significantly, but he never gets over that extra quality that drives this whole plot forward. He does everything to an extreme; his search for Ben is extreme, his jealousy over Ben’s ex, his neurosis about dating, the reasons he gets angry with Ben and even rushing headlong into a sexual situation he’s not ready for. Throughout the book, he’s constantly the character who’s pushing things too fast, too far, and because of that his relationship with Ben felt really uneven. It’s hard for me to believe that he feels ‘forever’ about Ben, when they’ve known each other for at most, two months. The last thing I want to talk about, is the ending. It’s left open, and I can’t say I liked it. There are open endings that make sense and feel appropriate; here, it’s not that the ending doesn’t make sense, it’s just… not satisfying. It feels like the authors didn’t know how they wanted to end the book, so they just… didn’t. It doesn’t answer the question the book is asking, it just goes “well, what IF” and that’s just not a good ending if you’ve already been reading this book just so you could see the answer. Overall, I didn’t really enjoy this book. There are better queer romances out there, and if you are very young, or a die-hard Silver/Albertalli fan, you might like it. Everyone else, skip this, and read Red, White, Royal Blue instead.

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