#meaning I can go back to being a full time internet homo

[polyamorouspunk]

Sorry I haven’t been online much I got kidnapped by One Direction and any time they let me use my phone all I do is play Pokémon and post on tumblr instead of trying to get rescued.

[idiot-party]

Any more info about werewolf hunter guy?

Here is what there is so far:

Ulysses Male 6'2" ft (188 cm) 35 years old

Has hunted game for food, resources, and sport ever since he was old enough to learn how to operate a gun. Straight out of high school he enlisted into the US Army and was in there for over a decade. Planned to keep going until retirement, but then he saw God in a near-death multi-catastrophic experience and decided not to re-enlist when that contract ended.

Despite choosing to not go back into the army, he had a hard time readjusting to normal life. Has taken up slaying werewolves for fun to keep the boredom at bay, and also because he doesn't like that there are people who would willingly reject the blessing of being a human homo sapiens sapiens to be some animal. He doesn't find the werewolf thing scary, but he finds it distasteful.

Although I had drawn him aiming with a scope, now I believe that he prefers not to use one. Scopes can reflect light and give away your position and he'd rather not have that going on.

As someone who was never able to use the internet much, he was pretty lonely as a kid because he didn't have any knowledge of whatever trend or challenge or influencer or product was hot at the hour. Socialized best with weirdly sheltered Christian kids who were more likely than others to be as offline as he is.

Worldposting below the cut (it's all setting information, no character info)

The temporal setting he resides in takes place some decades in the future. Death control technology has not been invented yet, but neofeudal hypercorporations have become sovereign and are able to challenge countries for political power. Everything is at home and online, including your vacations. Country borders are under attack by monied interests and may be changing. Unless you are born with money/born with connections/can make connections, you can't really get anywhere in the economy except lower. A job of McDonald's cashier requires a college degree and college degrees cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But there is a way around this: The M.I.C. has taken advantage of the horrendous economy by promoting military enlistment as a way to build a comfortable life. Get in, complete your contracts, come out with your GI benefits and veterans discounts forever, everyone says "Thank you for your service" to you. Military enlistment skyrockets and eventually becomes a normal step in the life of an American, as normal as going to college.

Gods (including the Christian God) exist and they move in mysterious ways, I don't elaborate too much on them because the more I do the lamer they get. Jesus 2 hasn't happened yet.

Werewolves have existed for many hundreds of years. They weren't generally a big problem until an epidemic broke out in the last couple decades, causing chaos due to a sudden outpour of werewolves eating people, eating livestock, destroying property and infrastructure, shitting everywhere, pissing everywhere, fucking everywhere, etc every full moon and new moon. Lycanthropy was caused by a disease that could be spread not only by being bitten by a werewolf, but also by being bitten by an animal that carries the disease.

At first werewolves in wolf form were just shot and killed to mitigate damages, and this was how they were dealt with for the first years of the epidemic. Seen as a tragedy. For a human to completely lose everything it means to be human every month and then have to live with the carnage once they come back. This was the case until the US military came out with a vaccine and a cure. A miracle. Lycanthropy is then curable and preventable.

However, some people choose not to take the vaccine nor the cure, for whatever reason. Usually the reason is that they like being a werewolf or want to become a werewolf, but sometimes it is because they are anti-vax or something else.

There are no laws whatsoever related to killing werewolves while they are in their wolf form. It is neither legal nor illegal. If someone is killed as a werewolf, the common attitude is "Sad. Should have taken the cure". People at large only care about the death if it's someone famous but they still have the attitude of "What a shame. If they had taken the cure this wouldn't have happened".

To keep the werewolf epidemic contained, the US government sometimes issues a bounty on specific known werewolves, demanding them alive (Legal penalties for killing them, because they wanted them alive, not dead). The most promising tactic of theirs involves microchipping captured werewolves to track their movement and whether they have connections to any other werewolves. Once enough data is collected, werewolf gatherings are raided and everyone is forcibly cured.

If the person they captured was a loner werewolf, they are just captured again and cured when some amount of time has passed and no link to any werewolf society has been established.

There is a different sort of bounty. Private bounties posted either by companies or by people, demanding the killing of a specified werewolf or werewolves.

[oneweekoneband]

i didn’t though

When I was twenty and tractable I listened to “Treacherous” and I believed Taylor Swift was telling me something, because “I’ll do anything you say / If you say it with your hands”, is not content meant for straight people, even though legally they, too, are allowed to hear it, and they do generally have hands. When Taylor Swift drank beers with Karlie Kloss at a Knicks game in 2014, I believed she was telling me something even more forcefully, because, really, why be at Knicks game if not just to kill time politely before fucking whoever you’re there with. When reputation was released and it contained “Dress”, a song about buying a certain item of clothing to look good for a person you love specifically not “like a best friend” so that after “all the pining and anticipation” they can remove it from your body and you can drink wine together in the bath, I believed Taylor was screaming a confession at me, and I was more than ready to receive it. When I heard from multiple sources just last year, amidst the aggressive rainbow-deluge of the Lover promo cycle, an ultimately false rumor that said Taylor was going to come out in a Rolling Stone cover story I, somehow, incredibly, brain as smooth as a baby’s ass, believed that too.

I have believed a lot of things. And it’s a nice diversion, to believe like that. But, more recently, I’ve found that the detective in me has turned away from this one. The only facts I’ll ever know about Taylor Swift are those she wishes to share, and speculating about what secrets she may or may not be hiding is a distraction from the real, joyful work of appreciating all these already literally, unequivocally, very gay songs. I’ve found, well, that I just don’t care anymore, which sucks, as I detest the squirmy idea that I might be growing as a person. But the truth is one really can write extremely, objectively homoerotic love songs yet be, for all intents and purposes, terminally straight. And like that poignant tweet about Lin Manuel Miranda tells us, you can seem gay, because of, like, your whole deal, and then it turns out you’re just annoying. You can even have a torrid love affair with your one-time supermodel best friend and in the end just want to marry some guy from The Favourite (Allegedly from The Favourite. I have seen that film three times and could not pick that man out of a lineup if my life depended on it.) and maybe there’s nothing to announce to anybody about it at all. Sexuality is complex and personal, and Taylor’s own sexuality doesn’t much matter to me, outside of how I always think it’s nice to know there’s yet another bisexual white woman out here in the world being even more irritating than me. (I say this strictly in terms of labeling; it ought to go without saying that Taylor’s various psychosexual obsessions with things like Amy from Gone Girl, and The Kennedys, and her house in Rhode Island matter to me immensely.)  It doesn’t matter because it has no bearing on the fact that she keeps dropping queer classics.

Anyway, yeah, most good Taylor Swift songs are gay, just like most good things, generally, and there’s a number of viable picks on folklore, except not “betty”, no matter what the collective banshee’s wail of the Internet tells you. The gayest thing about “betty” is that it’s Taylor putting herself in the mind of a skateboarding teenage boy, which, yes, admittedly, is a big homo vibe, but nowhere in or around this song are any people of the same gender identity smashing bathing suit parts together, or even thinking about doing so, and when there are so many better options available, I feel it is prudent that we have just the barest hint of standards. As queerness itself is malleable, wonderfully, painfully individual, and comes in no one standard format, so too is determining which song on a Taylor Swift album is the most gay a singular, complicated calculus we all must do for ourselves within our own hearts, and, of course, there are no wrong answers, unless it so happens that your answer is not “the 1”.

“the 1” made me lose my grip for a moment. A cool lament, calmly wrenching, right off it was sucking out my bone marrow and I wasn’t able to name why. (Well, except, obviously, that the twin unit of, “You know the greatest films of all time were never made,” and “You know the greatest loves of all time are over now,” is pure, not from concentrate, peak embarrassing & devastating & all the more embarrassing for being so devastating Swiftian lyricism.) Finally, weeks after the release, out walking the streets of Los Angeles midday, masked and fractious, lower back sticky, brain a little mean, buying a soda at the gas station just to talk to someone, it came to me that  “the 1” is a spiritual sequel to Red’s drum-heavy forever banger “Holy Ground”. The Taylor of “Holy Ground” reminisces frantically about a lost love, some near-miss from youth. That drumbeat is a racing heart. The animating nervousness of “Holy Ground”, the way you can almost hear the narrator’s limbs flapping wildly against her body when she says that she’s dancing, has from the beginning marked this song to me as a story of looking back on some sort of formless and magical teenaged queer encounter. “Holy Ground” is looking at a precious memory like it’s a firefly in cupped hands—small and special and easy to lose—being not entirely certain what the memory means, since whatever it was that happened back then, you never really talked it out. “Holy Ground” is about a love that for all its vitality did not work out, but it is appreciative rather than sad. “But sometimes I wonder how you think about it now,” Taylor sings, “and I see your face in every crowd.” 

“But we were something, don’t you think so?” asks “the 1”, imploring an ex to confirm her version of events, to agree that she’s remembering it right. Taylor has not ever struggled in her work with place and the self and matching the two against one another on the wriggling timeline of the human life. I was there I was there I was there. The question here is something else. Not was it real, but was it real to you, and do you remember now what that was like. Do you remember who I was then? What we were? The truth as it pertains to the heart of another is guesswork at best, and a troublesome kind. Memories break and bend, or weren’t even recorded right to begin with, every brain a dirty liar, and for two separate, imperfect creatures to share the responsibility of preserving one history together is a disaster. The hard facts then are grounding. Essential. “I thought I saw you at the bus stop / I didn’t though”.  Everyone has past romances that they still ask questions about, yes—I am not practicing my virulent heterophobia today—but none of my queer friends are without at least one were-we-or-weren’t-we in their past, a clinch with another that was incandescent and unnameable, long over but dangling forever there loose outside the neat boxes of friend or lover. To be a queer person is to exist already beyond and without the organizing structures of heterosexuality, and this can be difficult, dangerous, but in liminality there is freedom, and in years of painstakingly debating whether I wanted to be or bang so many various somebodys I have, along the way, put the pieces of myself in the order they fit best. So then there are loves where you aren’t sure if that’s technically what it was, if it’s what they’d call it, too. Or loves that were undeniably real, only we were too busy back then with trying to turn into ourselves to keep it. And loves from the very start, from walking together on colt legs, exuberant and unprepared, and the memory is a blessing, and the memory is guilt.

 “the 1”, to the ear, is softer and slinkier than “Holy Ground”, but the lyrics are dismantling. “Holy Ground” says, “And darling, it was good / Never looking down”. Full of longing, but cheerful and sure. “the 1” is older, resigned. On “the 1” Taylor mourns a love not only because it has ended, but because she can sense, from the safety of time’s remove, that it was a love which deserved better, could have been better, if things had been only a little different, if they’d felt brave enough to try just a little more. In this version of nostalgia, the golden haze of “Holy Ground” is ribboned by a vaporous shame, a regret. The song relates a story of a love that is farther out of reach and meant more than what the little girl of “Holy Ground” could have dreamt. “In my defense I have none / for digging up the grave another time / but it would’ve been fun / if you would’ve been the one”.

[nullset2]

Death Stranding and The Last Man on the Beach

I had a very personal connection with Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding last year. I liked its aesthetic, the symbolism, and really enjoyed the story and characters (even though they were a bit too deviantart for my tastes at some points). Its bullet points really resonated with me. It's a fantastic and misunderstood game, with obviously undercooked parts, but still more than worth its price of admission. It's a game about estrangement, heartbreak, loneliness, stress, death, sadness, crying (oh so much crying), and humanity coming together in the face of a catastrophe of massive scale.

In DS, people live in individual isolated rooms, cannot touch each other, interact exclusively through the Internet, and have to cover their faces around each other, and the amount of impact of a voidout is communicated through a map full of expanding dots, interesting, right? Turns out DS is also very apropos with the zeitgeist.

I like its depiction of The Beach. In DS, every character has the ability to travel to an interdimensional space called The Beach after Sam Porter disrupts the balance between life and death as the first repatriate, the first baby able to come back from the dead after he gains that power from Bridget Strand's gift as an extinction entity, which eventually led to the creation of the Chiral Network.

Chiral means "hand" etymologically, by the way. I didn't know. It makes an allusion to the current state of things, where we have a very powerful network that provides wifi everywhere, and that has enabled a lot of technology, but where at the same time we're still at a "crossroads", and we still need people to deliver our packages and drive our cars. We're still a ways to go from the Singularity where all of those things will be fully automated I guess. It also makes an allusion as in how the network can be a way to seek "connection", to reach out for the touch of the Other.

And I loved it because of its implications in an era of isolation like ours. I think that people, more and more, are opting out of relationships and interconnection in the age of the Internet, because it's the easy, clean and uncomplicated thing to do. The Internet can provide bastardized facsimiles of everything you could ever want and then some. There's no reason to suffer with the real world if you can just get hooked addictively to the saccharine world Online. For more and more people every day, the Internet is enough.

In Jungian literature, bodies of water represent the unconscious mind and by proxy, chaos. Taming the balance between consciousness and unconsciousness, between order and chaos, and between light and dark truly is one of the fundamental --if not, THE fundamental-- problem of the human condition. The fact that we evoled from beasts, unaware of their own nature, unable to recognize the future and plan ahead and think, to the curreht Homo Sapiens Sapiens is nothing short of marvelous. So, that's why I like depictions of water: it represents the abyss of the unconscious and how problematic it can be for the mind. Truly, if one goes into the water without due precautions, they will drown, much as how states of depression, anxiety and all neuroses are excesses of the unconscious mind seeping into our conscious life.

Being in the beach is being in the fringe between two worlds, which is a fantastic analogy for the modern middle aged man and for the modern, technological man. Living between two realities, with two natures, is the state of many if not all, in an era where reality trascends through the Internet. By being in between, we are nowhere -- neither here nor there. By living in the culture of the Now Now, we live in the never ending present, future nor past evermore. A soothing place, if also eerily lonely --and a place that is starting to give us all feelings of Death, of maybe being the last man standing after all.

It's an allusion to the Millenial generation: stuck between the future and the past, between the digital and analogue world, a cynical, fatigued generation that had to learn to be adults twice but feels at home nowhere in the world who uses social media a FUCKING LOT.

A passage from Seneca's epistles also makes an allusion to the beach, and I quote: "People may say: "But what sort of existence will the wise man have, if he be left friendless when thrown into prison, or when stranded in some foreign nation, or when delayed on a long voyage, or when out upon a lonely shore?" His life will be like that of Jupiter, who, amid the dissolution of the world, when the gods are confounded together and Nature rests for a space from her work, can retire into himself and give himself over to his own thoughts." So the beach is kind of like a purgatory of the self where people can retire into themselves and their own thoughts according to the cultural baggage of the Western world to be reborn and to emerge a better person.

So, is this going to be the gold standard for the Aeon? Every man an island? I think the signs are pointing to it as I said before. I think we are seeing a sharp decline in personal relationships, and it's going to become more exacerbated in the future.

But is all lost? Of course not, there is Hope.

From the collision of extremes, man and woman, sun and moon, order and chaos, comes the Child. The Otter, as literally Jung says, a version of the messianic/heroic archetype, which Sam Porter very obviously takes after. I'm certain that the fact that Sam Porter's spirit animal is the Otter and wears an "Otter Hood" was a very obvious reference to this, complete with how Sam swims like an Otter when in water. It's an allusion to its two-natured self.

The Child is the androgynous Otter, who, like Bridges between nations, lives across two Universes seamlessly, yet "neither here nor there". It's the Irrational Third, between categories, the collision of two Universes, Mother and Father, which brings the panacea through his sacrifice, brought forth by being constantly in pain, in suffering and at risk of extinction. The child is the Bridge to the future, the redemption of your bloodline and the one who brings us all together under his salvation. All heroic myths are versions of this --of very high notoriety, the story of Christ.

Now, before you start typing your insults, hear me out: it's not that I'm abiding for the Christian mythos here or that I want to become a preacher. Rather, it's that I believe that the Messianic myth is the most important artifact of our Modern Society and its very foundation. It comes from the notion of the self, which is a miracle exclusive to the Homo Sapiens Sapiens; the ability to be self-aware, to self sacrifice and think forward. The Messiah is the self inside every one of us, who selflessly and through constant sacrifices moves the World forward. Death Stranding ultimately is an ode to this, to the idea that no matter how horrible the world gets, as long as we all selflessly come together in sacrifice, we will make it in the end. By seeking not division and classification, but Unity and collaboration. Neither man or woman, sun or moon, or ying and yang, but the Syzygy of them both. Neither red or blue, but purple, and royally so

Like the Messiah with its Death and Resurrection, Sam Porter gets stuck in his Beach for an indeterminate amount of time to fullfill his mission in Death Stranding, yet manages to come back once his loving friends pull him out of the beach through a line of connection, reaching out to him and bringing him back to Earth. This is a beautiful allegory too --I urge you to reach out to the friends in your lives, and telling them that you love them. They may appreciate it more than you could EVER IMAGINE. It may be the difference between life and death for a lot of people right now.

And finally, by the way, I still stand behind the comparisons I made about Death Stranding to Chul-Han's material. Have at me bro.

[toast-connoisseur]

ALL of the Ask Me Stuff questions

* 1: Full name: For safety purposes I’ll shorten it: Maria Barbara Gonzalez (yes, that’s the shortened version. I’m Mexican lol)

* 2: Age: 25

* 3: 3 Fears: Being buried alive, anything bad happening to a loved one, SPIDERS

* 4: 3 things I love: My family, my friends, movies

* 5: 4 turn ons: soft touches, kissing, making me food, a confident personality

* 6: 4 turn offs: Overly cocky people, racists, chewing with your mouth open

* 7: My best friend: I’m lucky to have several and I love them all with the individual pieces of my heart they each own

* 8: Sexual orientation: Queer/Gay

* 9: My best first date: I don’t think I’ve ever really gone on one tbh lol

* 10: How tall am I: 5’1 (barely make it to the 1)

* 11: What do I miss: Bars/clubs and Disneyland. Hugging people. Not losing so many people on a daily basis...

* 12: What time was I born: 3:38AM

* 13: Favourite color: Blood red (NOT maroon)

* 14: Do I have a crush: I always crush on random girls

* 15: Favourite quote: “Seduce my mind and you can have my body. Find my soul and I’m yours forever.”

* 16: Favourite place: It was once Disneyland now, I don’t really have a place lol

* 17: Favourite food: All of it. Of course Mexican food takes the top of the list though

* 18: Do I use sarcasm: Noooo, you think?!

* 19: What am I listening to right now: I’m watching Buffy

* 20: First thing I notice in new person: What vibes you’re giving off

* 21: Shoe size: 7 for the most part but sometimes I can fit into size 4 kid shoes

* 22: Eye color: Dark brown

* 23: Hair color: naturally: dark brown, right now: black

* 24: Favourite style of clothing: comfortable but more on the lines of retro/rockabilly

* 25: Ever done a prank call? Yes!

* 27: Meaning behind my URL: I love toast

* 28: Favourite movie: I have so many but one is Saved!

* 29: Favourite song: Lots, but Guilty Pleasure by Cobra Starship

* 30: Favourite band: Avenged Sevenfold

* 31: How I feel right now: Mellow

* 32: Someone I love: my nephew

* 33: My current relationship status: single

* 34: My relationship with my parents: could be better, but it’s there

* 35: Favourite holiday: Halloween

* 36: Tattoos and piercing i have: I have two piercings on each ear, my bellybutton pierced, and 6 tattoos (R foot, R ankle, L thigh, L wrist, L bicep, R bicep)

* 37: Tattoos and piercing i want: I want most of my body covered in tattoos so I have a long way to go. As for piercings, I want at least two more per ear.

* 38: The reason I joined Tumblr: my friends said it would be a good time

* 39: Do I and my last ex hate each other? I wouldn’t say hate, but we’re not friends anymore

* 40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? Yes!

* 41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? No

* 42: When did I last hold hands? It’s been too long :(

* 43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? I work from home now so 0 minutes

* 44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days? Yes

* 45: Where am I right now? In my bed

* 46: If I were drunk and can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? My best friends

* 47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? Reasonable usually. I have very sensitive hearing.

* 48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad? They actually live with me, but it’s temporary.

* 49: Am I excited for anything? My upcoming move

* 50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? Yes, two actually

* 51: How often do I wear a fake smile? -I work Monday-Friday

* 52: When was the last time I hugged someone? -OOF

* 53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? Hot

* 54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not? -Everyone has different trust levels tbh. My best friends hold top tier.

* 55: What is something I disliked about today? I had to work

* 56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Beyoncé!

* 57: What do I think about most? The future I want

* 58: What’s my strangest talent? I honestly don’t think I have one? I guess being able to mimic certain voices/accents sometimes but I wouldn’t say I’m pro

* 59: Do I have any strange phobias? I don’t think they’re strange, I just hate feet

* 60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Behind

* 61: What was the last lie I told? “I’ll work on that”

* 62: Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online? It depends who I’m talking to, but phone tbh

* 63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Both are very real

* 64: Do I believe in magic? Yes

* 65: Do I believe in luck? To an extent

* 66: What’s the weather like right now? Nice and cold

* 67: What was the last book I’ve read? I strictly read fanfiction lately

* 68: Do I like the smell of gasoline? Don’t love it, don’t hate it

* 69: Do I have any nicknames? Barbie, Barbs, whore, homo... you know, cute stuff

* 70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? I split my eyebrow open and had to get stitches

* 71: Do I spend money or save it? Por que no los dos?!

* 72: Can I touch my nose with a tounge? No, but my best friend can and it’s so cool!

* 73: Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me? My sweats are pink

* 74: Favourite animal? I love animals but wolves are pretty top tier

* 75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM? Sleeping

* 76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is? Sexy. Mr. Sexy.

* 77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? -I Wanna Get Better by the Bleachers

* 78: How can you win my heart? Be nice to me and have good conversations to me and occasionally buy me chocolate

* 79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? The entire lyrics to Act Up by City Girls

* 80: What is my favorite word? Motherfucker

* 81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr: I honestly bounce to and from so many. There’s no way I can only pick 5. All the ones I reblog from are so great!

* 82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? STOP GOING TO PARTIES

* 83: Do I have any relatives in jail? Not that I’m aware of

* 84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? I can turn invisible

* 85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? None really tbh

* 86: What is my current desktop picture? I made it into a winter wonderland for the holidays

* 87: Had sex? “It’s been 84 years...”

* 88: Bought condoms? I’m gay

* 89: Gotten pregnant? See above

* 90: Failed a class? I think in middle school maybe?

* 91: Kissed a boy? Yes

* 92: Kissed a girl? Yes

* 93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? Sadly, no

* 94: Had a job? Sadly (but also thankfully since I need money)

* 95: Left the house without my wallet? No

* 96: Bullied someone on the internet? No

* 97: Had sex in public? Yes

* 98: Played on a sports team? Yes

* 99: Smoked weed? Yes

* 100: Did drugs? Yes

* 101: Smoked cigarettes? Yes

* 102: Drank alcohol? Yes

* 103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan? No

* 104: Been overweight? No

* 105: Been underweight? Yes

* 106: Been to a wedding? Yes

* 107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? Yes

* 108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight? Yes

* 109: Been outside my home country? Yes

* 110: Gotten my heart broken? Sorta but I bounced back pretty quick so idk if that counts

* 111: Been to a professional sports game? Long ago

* 112: Broken a bone? No

* 113: Cut myself? I’m very accident prone

* 114: Been to prom? Yes

* 115: Been in airplane? Yes

* 116: Fly by helicopter? No

* 117: What concerts have I been to? So so so many. I miss them.

* 118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex? I’m gaaaaaaaay

* 119: Learned another language? I’ve been bilingual since I was a child

* 120: Wore make up? Yes

* 121: Lost my virginity before I was 18? No

* 122: Had oral sex? Yes

* 123: Dyed my hair? Yes

* 124: Voted in a presidential election? Yes

* 125: Rode in an ambulance? I worked for an ambulance company so just for fun

* 126: Had a surgery? Besides oral?

* 127: Met someone famous? I live in LA, so yes lol

* 128: Stalked someone on a social network? No

* 129: Peed outside? Yes

* 130: Been fishing? No, I’d like to!

* 131: Helped with charity? Yes

* 132: Been rejected by a crush? Fifth grade was a tough year for my love life...

* 133: Broken a mirror? No

* 134: What do I want for birthday? To be able to see all my friends in a safe environment

* 135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names? I’d like as many as I can comfortably afford. I’d have to discuss with the (future) wife about names

* 136: Was I named after anyone? The Virgin Mary (la Virgen Maria) and some Spanish actress named Barbara something...

* 137: Do I like my handwriting? No

* 138: What was my favourite toy as a child? I loved dolls

* 139: Favourite Tv Show? Bewitched

* 140: Where do I want to live when older? California forever unless properly convinced otherwise

* 141: Play any musical instrument? Used to play trumpet and alto sax. Can’t play anymore lol

* 142: One of my scars, how did I get it? See Q70

* 143: Favourite pizza toping? Pepperoni. I love all sorts of toppings but that’s my fav

* 144: Am I afraid of the dark? No

* 145: Am I afraid of heights? Yes

* 146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? Yes

* 147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end? Daily

* 148: What I’m really bad at: Focusing. In my defense, I have ADHD

* 149: What my greatest achievments are: graduating college, getting promoted at work, buying my own car, purchasing a home

* 150: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me: I once got told “good luck on the short bus” by a guy that was upset I make more money than he does

* 151: What I’d do if I won in a lottery: take care of all my bills, invest, and then try to help as many of my loved ones as I could with theirs

* 152: What do I like about myself: my resilience

* 153: My closest Tumblr friend: @itssofragile

* 154: Something I fantasise about: My future

* 155: Any question you’d like? Nah, I think we’re good!

[celticheartedfangirl]

My OUAT Rewatch -- S6E4 -- Strange Case

Link to Rewatch Review and Ranking archive

Okay, there’s A LOT to unpack in this one, but before we do THAT . . . . . it’s time once again for our new favorite game show . . . . 

What the Fuck is Emma Wearing??????

Seriously, after S6 Ends the S6 Emma Snarky Fashion Show post is coming . . . . . if you have any snarks on ANY of her S6 wardrobe, you are welcome to send it to me via messenger or message and I will keep it on file until the big event!  I don’t think there was ever a full on “Drag Emma’s S6 Wardrobe” in-depth post, and I am here to fill that much-needed gap!  Stay tuned!  

By the way, sub-category just for this episode . . . . what the fuck is BELLE wearing?????

I usually love Belle’s wardrobe.  I’m usually either drooling over how stunning she is or seething with envy that I’m not skinny enough to wear the stuff she wears.  And very often I’m doing both.  

But THIS ugly-ass thing?  WTF is it supposed to be?  A dress?  A nightgown?  A dressy nightgown?  A nightie dressgown?  It’s ugly, its so bland it washes out her coloring (and the wig she’s wearing in this one, OMG!!!!  Hideous!), just -- yech all around.  Probably the ugliest thing she’s EVER worn.  Not sure what they were going for costume wise here, but EPIC FAIL.

Okay . . . . . . now that that’s out . . . . . here’s the thing, and it might surprise you . . . . . . I didn’t totally HATE this episode.  Yup, you read that right.  Don’t worry, you’re as surprised as I am, because I expected to come on here ranting and screaming and all like . . . . . 

But nope.  

I mean . . . . I didn’t LOVE the episode.  It’s not one I’ll watch over and over again.  But there are WAY worse episodes in this series than this one.  I don’t do the tally till after I do the review, and I went in expecting this to be in the negatives, possibly even moving the shitfest that was Smash the Mirror out of the bottom spot.  I don’t think it will be in the negatives.  We’ll see when I end this, but . . . . . . it wasn’t THAT BAD.  And I was aggressively and unapologetically hate watching when this originally aired.  Also, David Goodman was one of the writers so of COURSE there’s going to be some shit in here because it’s GOODMAN.  

So . . . . . ready to discuss?  Yes there WILL be Belle dragging but I will politely do this to the Belle dragging so that those who don’t want to read it can skim on by.  

Come on in . . . . . . 

BTW, for those reading this at a later date, or those just flat out not in the know . . . . . Bobby filmed the movie Trainspotting 2 during the summer between S5 and S6, and he had to cut his hair and grow out a porn ‘stache.  Well he didn’t HAVE to, and actually ABC told him NOT to, but he basically said “Fuck ABC” and did it anyway.  So over the summer of 2016 he looked like this:

So yup . . . the past three episodes he was wearing a very bad wig.  And there’s a lot of debate on which Rumple is the hottest, and S6 Rumple wins for many.  S7 is MY preference, but I’ve grown to appreciate the short hair.

Anyhow . . . . this episode was actually WAY better than I remembered.  I mean Belle was a fucking bitch, that hasn’t changed, Hook was being shoehorned into the Rumbelle story, as he’s being shoehorned into EVERY story to see where he can be useful (the answer would be NOWHERE because he’s a fucking useless lamp with no real purpose on this show), and of course the CLASSIC Swan Queen #no homo moment:

Swan Queen: Social Distancing since October 2016!

You know, I didn’t remember this moment being in THIS episode.  I honestly thought it was later.  But then again, S6 is a blur of me bitching, drinking, and being blocked by the fandom because I called a fictional character a bitch, so what do I know?

Anyhow, this moment . . . . . oh the FUN we had with it!

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/151930060407/scarimor-the-internet-is-on-the-ball-this

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/151932134492/swanmills-just-in-case-you-forgot-this

So the Jekyll and Hyde stuff . . . . . was actually not that bad.  But honestly kinda anti-climactic?  Because they set up Hyde to be a S6 Big Bad and he’s DEAD by Episode FOUR???  But then again A&E have always sucked at follow-through, so is anyone surprised?

Also the lovely Karen David is now on board as Jasmine and I cannot WAIT to see how these hacks will fuck HER story up!

Also LMAO, Snow sucks at teaching!

So back to the Rumple/Belle/Rumbelle shit . . . . . . . 

1.  I side with Rumple

2.  Belle was being an unreasonable dumbass and I wanted to smack the ever living fuck out of her the entire episode

2.  What in the actual FUCK is Hook doing there?  And a magic seashell, REALLY????  Don’t they both have PHONES?????  More Stu propping, ugh.  Also he tried to murder Belle FOUR TIMES, please stop with this fuckery!

I had lots of opinion about this episode when it aired, and honestly I only half assed watched it at the time so let’s review my opinion and see if I still agree with them . . . . . . . . 

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/151930433837/for-those-who-didntdont-want-to-watch-a-brief

Okay, I didn’t think Rumple was THAT OOC and the Snow stuff was fun.  Other than that -- agree.  Next . . . . 

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/151908421027/okay-help-me-out

Yup.  

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/151908871377/fucking-hook-propping

Absolutely agree!

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/151894995482/emospritelet-onceandfuturekikiouat-i-100

THIS THIS THIS, ALL OF FUCKING THIS!!!!!

So one good thing that this episode gave us were these BTS gifs that a fan filmed of Bobby goofing around on set:

https://celticheartedfangirl.tumblr.com/post/151900061412/just-ustas-lets-go-rumple-he-is-so

But otherwise . . . . . . S6, a summary so far (that will continue):

BTW, on a side note -- Creation released their promo poster for the 2016-2017 OAUAT Convention season -- and this was it:

In case you ever had ANY doubt who was the “most important” character on the show.  

Points tally:

40 points to start

10 points for Rumbelle centric ISH

5 points for socially distanced but still more chemistry than with a man Swan Queen

I’m doing 2 points Rumple in character and deducting 2 points for him OOC because I didn’t think he was either but he was both.  And that makes no sense but neither does some of this shitty writing

5 points deducted for Hook

10 points deducted for OOC Belle

10 points deducted for Belle and Hook GTFO

10 points deducted for Goodman

10 bonus points for Rumple losing the damn wig

Sorry, gotta dump 25 points for all the Rumbelle bullshit and all the Hook propping bullshit

Total points:  5

Wow, not in negatives!  Color me stunned!

Follow #celtichearted OUAT ranking tag for more to come!

[novelconcepts]

Okay, but all silliness aside: I owe a ridiculous amount to Critical Role. Or, more specifically, to having found CR when I did. I came in around the beginning of the second campaign, and I had no idea what this thing was. I didn’t know a damn thing about D&D. I didn’t watch gamers stream. I think I’d been on Twitch a handful of times to watch Jim Lee draw, and that was...it. 

I came into Critical Role having seen a handful of gifs on my dash from people whose opinions I trust, and I realized Ashley Johnson was involved. That was my full base of knowledge: Ashley “hey, I know her from Recess/Growing Pains, I like her” Johnson was the whole deal. And that could have been a breaking point early on, because the first thirty episodes of Campaign 1 are a little rough if you don’t know what you’re getting into. The audio is questionable in places, it can be hard to track what’s going on, there’s the whole...obvious cast issue. And if you came in knowing only Ashley, you didn’t even get that lifeline the whole way through. 

But here’s the thing: this was 2017? I had just gotten married, and while I married the love of my life, who I had been engaged to--we originally had a slapdash courthouse wedding the day after the election, because it was the only safety net we could grab hold of. At least it would be a legal marriage, in case something really cataclysmic happened before our actual wedding date. I was obsessively refreshing six different news sites every hour while at work, and falling down the darkest political rabbit holes on Twitter every night. I was have terror dreams of nuclear fallout and panic attacks over climate change...and, on top of all the fear and the anger broiling in me, my dysphoria was getting worse by the day. My anxiety. My depression. I was sinking. Fast.  So I did the only thing I know how to do when things get truly bad inside my head. 

I hid inside stories. 

Namely, I hid inside Critical Role. The new campaign wasn’t quite on its feet yet, so I went back and started with Vox Machina. I went into these 3-5 hour episodes, letting them play in the background at work, letting these people I did not know or even really get yet into my head. And, at first, it was just the fascination of the concept. A long-form narrative built by upwards of 8 people, all sitting around a table, just...improvising. Not an inch of that is the way I tell stories, so it was brilliant and baffling, and curiosity had me straight out the gate. 

And, if it had just been the concept, that still might not have been enough to hold my attention. If it had just been the idea of it, it might not have been loud enough to drown out the voices in my head telling me the whole ship was going down, that there was no hope, that there was no point in even getting up in the morning to face more bullshit. 

But...it was Matt Mercer. Matt, with such an incredible array of characters and maps living inside his head, who could so easily have been That Guy--the English Major Asshole who knew he was smarter than everyone in the room and played it up--and instead chooses to be so kind. So utterly engrossed in the desire to give everyone a seat at the table, to let everybody into the narrative he’s weaving. It takes a certain kind of person to not only write the sort of stories he invents for CR, but to be open enough to lean back and let other people take the wheel every night, and to roll with whatever comes his way. 

And it was Travis Willingham. This huge dude who had to sit at the edge of the table because he was all muscle and thumping energy, who I kept expecting to be tight-lipped and brewing with that toxic masculinity judgment straight dudes are taught to value--and, instead of even a modicum of that, he was so excited. So invested in these characters and this game, in these friends, in playing the wisest dumbass ever to cross a screen. Travis, who hugs his male friends, and doesn’t pull the no-homo card, and stans his wife with such delight, there is no way you can watch even half an episode without falling in love with their love. 

And it was Liam O’Brien, who could have played the arrogant Cool Dude, and instead leaned so hard into having fun with his place at the table. Into deep-cut jokes, and his love for his friends, and such an affinity for Laura that I genuinely believed they were siblings. Liam, who wears his soft heart on his sleeve, and understands that sometimes the best way through tragedy is to weave it into a story, to let that be a kind of therapy among friends. 

And it was Taliesin Jaffe. Tal, who is just gonna be him, and not even fuck you if you don’t like it--he doesn’t even seem to notice. Tal, who is physical with his friends, and who laughs with his whole body, and who has the quickest one-liners in the world one minute and “life needs things to live” the next, and who just is such a joy to watch as he immerses himself at the table. He’s gonna have his hair, and he’s gonna wear mismatched socks, and he’s gonna paint those nails, and love his people, and inspire everyone around him to do the same. 

And it was Sam Riegel, who--I’ll be honest--I didn’t get for a while. He was hilarious, and he was a quick-draw, and I loved his songs, but I didn’t understand how much he cared, how truly in it he was. Sam has said he’d do anything to make these people laugh, and I don’t think everyone realizes just how valuable it is to have someone who understands the need of a good laugh in a bad situation. Sam lights up the table in the strangest, silliest ways--but he also brings some of the most vital human moments to the story. 

And it was Laura Bailey, who was just so...warm, it bleeds straight through the screen and envelopes me every time I watch her play. Vex is cool as shit on the surface, but Laura is so full of affection, so quick-witted, so hugely into this game that she transforms herself utterly when she plays. Laura comes to the table to play with everything she’s got, and she’s so honest when she does it. Impeccable voice work one minute, flirtatious wink the next, and then she’s dying laughing at a dick joke. It’s so open, it’s impossible not to love. 

And it was Marisha Ray. Marisha, who took so much shit, and came out the other side standing taller than ever. Marisha, who commits wholeheartedly in voice, in affectation, in climbing up on her chair or lunging backward out of it. From day one, I was rooting for Marisha--I was inspired by Keyleth getting to grow up onscreen, as I’ve been invested in Beau slowly cracking open and letting herself shine out from the spaces she’s spent so much time shoring up. She loves these characters like true friends, and she loves her people, and she loves her husband, and she loves this craft to such a degree, I want to quit my job and come work for her instead. There’s such a strength and a dignity to her that I find myself needing to be stronger, too. 

And, of course, it was Ashley Johnson--deceptively sweet, intensely funny, so much tougher than she looks, and when she turns up in a game, the affection could fill a stadium. Ashley being in town or on Skype for a game is like coming into a party and finding a friend you hadn’t gotten to hang out with in six months waiting for you. Everything just feels brighter with her in the game.

And it is a game, and it is a story, but the family these people have built--people I’ll likely never meet, people who live on the opposite side of the country--is somehow big enough to let complete strangers bask in its reflected glow. I built a habit of listening to CR at work...and then talking about it to my wife, with all the hyper-fixation glee I can’t help when I fall in love with something...and then I was putting it on at home so she could fall in love, too. I was putting on Talks or Between the Sheets while I ran on the treadmill, or when I needed to focus on a project. I put on episodes I’d already seen when I was sad, or when I was lonely, or when I just needed something to fill the silence and keep the darkness in my head behind a wall. For two years, I’ve gone back to these people again and again. To the silly videos. To the serious conversations. To the Twitter feeds and the fanart people can’t resist making to commemorate these characters who feel so tangible. 

Matt always ends the stream with a claim of love, and with most shows, with most streamers, with most people, that just feels like words. With these guys, with the way they open up and share this lightning in a bottle family and story they have created with the rest of us, it feels honest. It feels like these are long-lost friends who may never be in the same room, but are always there when I am drowning because the world is a nightmare, because work is kicking my ass, because this gushing essay is the most I’ve written in months. They are so good. They are human, and fallible, and invested in telling stories that get dark and ugly one minute, and devolve into hysteria the next, because that’s what life looks like. Even life with gods and magic and talking swords and goldfish deaths. 

Critical Role keeps me throwing my shoulders back, keeps me laughing, keeps me insisting on showing the people in my life how much they mean to me. Critical Role keeps me on the board when the demons in my head have me thinking it’d be easier to throw the game. It’s a show, and it’s silly, but it’s given me such a safe, warm place to curl up in some of the bleakest times of my life, and I love them so much for being willing to share some of that light with the rest of the world. They’ve given me a place on the internet that truly does feel like home. 

[hoe-for-ares]

AU in which Red Rising is just a futuristic roleplay held in a chat full of teenage boys...

l posted once about it, but never went in detail. I was getting bored, so I wanted to make a list of the boyos from the AU - the homies behind the characters they are playing, duh! I imagine them having a roleplay chat and a homie-talking chat, that is mostly a voice-call never-ending conversation that is occurring while they are also roleplaying. Internet homies, also!

Feel free to add more.

Darrow - played by a 16 y/o Scottish boy, a know-it-all-mf, with an extensive knowledge. *Big nerd, fanatic of Ender’s Game and Star Wars. *Where does this dude even fit so much Ancient Greek history? *‘’Wait, why would someone even spend their time reading this crap???’’ - the homies in the chat. *All his friends created big, powerful Gold personas to shame him Red persona, but then Darrow went really deep with it and created a whole storyline about inequality and slavery, all in a long shower session. *No one took him seriously, but Darrow was dead serious - and also no one, maybe aside of Roque and Nero, didn’t really care what the hell he was talking about, but they followed him anyway because it was about badass warriors conquering and torn mfs apart! *He keeps deleting and rewriting his phrases, correlates everything with history and art, making the roleplay to seem wayyyy too serious. *He is anxious as shit if he doesn’t GET THIS LINE RIGHT! 

Sevro - played by a 14 y/o east-european boy, because no one can nail ‘em swearing better than an east european. *Moved to US recently and doesn’t seem to fit in, it makes him to not have many real life friends and not feel welcomed anywhere he goes. *He and Cassius are at the same high school, but since Sevro is a little freshman goblin, Cassius doesn’t fw him and ignores him. *Thus, Sevro acts like he hates him in the group chat and roleplay, but he only really is hella intimidated by him.  *His dad is a super cool dude and joins the gang’s games and conversations as often as he can. *Sevro doesn’t like that his father is much more liked than him within the group. *Listens to rock as a way of living and sunk in heavy metal as a coping mechanism.  *Big and proud furry. Has an IG dedicated to his fursona. *Relationships?? BLEAH. They are for suckers.  *But he has a ‘secret’ thing for muscular, tall and intimidating video game girls. Denies his affinity, though.  *Gang acts like they believe him when he insists he doesn’t care about those kind of girls and no girls in general, but Tactus is not fooled so easily and taunts him a lot by creating Victra.  *Also plays Uncle Narol because he wanted the chance to be the father figure since the gang always sees him as a little boy and treat him as such.  *He recalls every hoggish thing he heard from his father for Uncle Narol’s role, but creates his own expressions for Sevro’s.  Tactus - a 16 y/o french boy, neighbor with Roque.  *His only type of humor is yo mama jokes. *Gang is tired of Tactus’s obsession with their mothers, but Tactus doesn’t lose any chance and always recalls their mama in conversation... it is odd sometimes.  *He might have some mommy-issues.  *Also plays Deanna as a way to parody off Darrow’s real life mother, but he really started to get attached to the character. *He lives with his brother’s, that are always mocking him and embarrassing him every time he is in a voice-call conversation.  *But Tactus ain’t having any of this and screams at them - auch. *’’CLOSE YOUR MICROPHONE, COCK-FACE! YOU ARE FUCKING MY EARDRUMS!’’ - Sevro *He kinda wants to cry when his brothers do this, but he acts all tough. Homies can sense the shaking in his voice, but they act as they don’t hear it so Tactus can think he succeeded into fooling them.  *His brothers always force him to drink as a way of theirs of entertaining.  *Most of the time, he stumbles and vomits, no matter how hard he tried to act as one of them. This is the pure comedy his brothers are talking about! *Once he succeeded into drinking a whole bottle of beer without puking. He is really proud of his achievement.  *Groupchat knows all about it.  Roque - played by a 16 y/o french boy.  *Has a funny accent. *Homies are always laughing at him because of his fuddy-duddy accent.  *Tactus, too, which makes Roque hella sad.  *He doesn’t show his sadness and acts unbothered and way too stoic for being hurt because of their stupid charade.  *He really is deeply infuriated.  *Crushing on Tactus 24/7, but won’t show it - only his character is suspiciously close to his’. *Like...always privately sticking to him.  *No one knows what is going on in his private chat with Tactus. What are they roleplaying about? Hmm...  *He is really worried about Tactus’ mental health and brings him over his house as often as he can.  *Has some blessed asf parents, always lenient and nice. Accepted Tactus as part of their own family since his is way too fucked up.  *Rich as shit.  *Talks as pompous as possible. *Always reading and subtly bragging about what smart things he read, by quoting long and complicated verses out of his ancient poetry, early edition books, wrapped in animal skin.  *Kinda jealous of Darrow’s extensive knowledge.  *He was the one who brought Adrius in the group chat... no one knows how the hell he met such a shady dude.  Cassius - played by a 17 y/o american boy. *Knows Sevro personally, but won’t really give a fuck about him.  *Kinda ignores him irl and in game, too.  *His brothers all have curly hair, but he doesn’t - so of course his character has the perfect, craved-by-God, golden curls! ‘’Fuck you, Mother nature! If you didn’t want to give me the curls, I gave them to me myself!’’ *Doesn’t really know how curly hair works - did his character just went into a dirty ass fight and is full of grim? Bruh, whatever! His hair still shines and bounces like a little angel in Heaven! *He is bisexual irl, too, but tries to hide it. *His character is embracing his bisexuality, but he surely ain’t bisexual! No, nope!  *Hides his affinity for boys by making no-homo jokes and calling dudes gay for showing the slightest closeness to him - dayum, he carves for it, but no one needs to know!  *Thinks Darrow is cute, but as a homie, ya know? *I mean, he is totally going on a no-homo trip with Darrow. *He always listens to him and carves to talk to him the most, ignoring the rest of the squad most of the time.  *Also, always asks Darrow to teach him about ancient stuff he won’t care about irl, but once Darrow talks about them...ugh, they become so interesting! He is such a cool bro, dude, he like...knows how to explain thing to his bro!  *Praises the shit out of Darrow. Always mentions him when he is gone. You know, as a good homie does!  *Tactus ain’t fooled by any of it and makes subtle and snarky commentaries about his behavior.  Fitchner - played by Sevro’s dad. *A cool mf. *Proudly laughing his ass off when he hears how creative his son is with his language. *He knows damn well he is his son’s inspiration - beyond proud of knowing he created a genius.  *Single father.  *Joins the boys chat pretty often.  *Fakes reading something next to Sevro so he can listen what the squad is talking about via voice-chat or to keep up with the events in their roleplay because it makes him to feel good and young.  *He taunts his son irl and in game.  *Sometimes Sevro feels humiliated by his father, so he leaves the chat and/or the roleplay. Fitchner always brings him back and promises him not to mix in their game again.  *Squad doesn’t want him to leave, so they beg him to stay every single time when Fitchner says he about to let them play alone. *He can’t resist and promises them that he will come every time when he has a little spare time. *Sometimes acts like he is really busy and can’t join, when he really only wants Sevro to spend his time with his only friends being unbothered or mad by his father’s presence.  *Squad made him to be Ares because they worship him and call him the leader of the chat.  Adrius - played by a 16 y/o british boy.  *Has the stereotypical unintelligible british accent.  *Roque brought him in the group, out of nowhere, long after the roleplay started.  *No one really knows what’s up with this weird ass dude.  *Is online 24/7, but rarely speaks - he is the dude always peeking at the corners and watching everyone talking.  *When he shows up, his character has complex, long monologues when everyone else, aside of Darrow and Roque, can barely spell.  *He doesn’t fw with anyone’s plans and wreck them completely, by popping out of nowhere and destroying everything.  *But squad kinda enjoys it because he creates a good amount of drama within their rp.  *He types hella fast, like dude would spend his entire time sending messages. *Doesn’t he, like, has any friends?  *He never socialize within the group chat, he only breaths in the voice call.  *Squad created an anti-Adrius chat without him, but keeps him in the roleplay because his weird ass plan-wrecking character is interesting.  *He is so mysterious, with his character and all, that he resembles a chocolate egg with surprises. You never know what to expect.  Nero - played by a 16 y/o american boy. *Brought by Cassius long before Adrius came.  *Squad accepted him, but he doesn’t really fw them. *He is pretty shy and wanted to quit the group chat, since he wasn’t really talking much.  *Also, first time when Cassius suggested him to join roleplaying, he declined.  *A big history fanatic, always researching about war and dictators, corruption and tyrants.  *He will mainsplain every single detail in the lives of the big bad guy’s of the history.  *He will also get all ruffled if you don’t know the exact date in which WW1 started - like, are you even paying attention in the class, Karen??  *Gets excited every time Netflix drops a documentary about WW2.  *Cassius brought him the chat because he wanted to obligate him talk about anything else, but sad, miserable historic facts.  *Also, asked him to join roleplaying so, instead of focusing on the history of amok dictators, he can fight against them in a cool, space-knight way! *Became interested in roleplaying after he heard about Darrow’s plotline, all about inequality and war, thus considering it will give him the chance of shining and playing an old good tyrant. *Cassius hated the shit out of the idea, but Darrow was in ecstasy hearing they will have a big bad guy.  *Didn’t really join in the first part of the roleplay due still being really shy and clumsy at it, only joining when Darrow asked him for the execution part, but once he got used to it...oh, boy!  *He once joked about Adrius being Nero irl in the anti-Adrius group chat. Roque told Adrius about it and he liked the idea so much, he decided to make his character Nero’s son! Roque was kicked out from the anti-Adrius group chat just after that, Mustang - played by Cassius. *Why? Well, Darrow kinda cute... *He is just kidding, duuuh! It’s not about Darrow. It’s about playing a beautiful,tough girl so he can ‘’sharpen’’ his homies!  *He is a senior, so he has experience with girls, duh! He can play a girl just fine and give them tips on how to handle one. *OOPS! Sike! You can’t handle Mustang! Nice one, Cassius.  *Forced Darrow to chase Mustang as a way to entertain himself.  *He felt his soul going uwu when Meaper was going on.  *Expresses his feelings through a cocky girl as a way of coping with his feelings. *Made Mustang Adrius’ sister as a way of flipping off Adrius and his plans, thinking Adrius will lose his shit when someone will disturb his perfectionist plans and monologues just as much as he does to others, but it just fueled Adrius’ weird imagination and fitted into his agenda way too perfectly.  *Now he regrets his decision since he is obligated to spend a little extra time around Adrius.  Victra - played by Tactus *Created her for two sole reason. *Fucking around with Sevro’s not-so-secret passion for dangerously muscular fictional woman that can step on him any time. *Flexing fictional muscles in front of the squad by creating a super-giant-titan-ninja-classy-monster-woman to kick their space-knight asses. Even his own, too, because is funny to see women kicking metallic asses of knights, duuh! *And maybe for fw Darrow a bit, by making Victra all flirt with his shy ass. So, let’s say...three reasons.  *He gathered extensive knowledge from all the girls he knows about what the hell a girl likes - had no idea ‘till then, but now he knows what girls prefers the most: slaughter.  Feel free to add!!!

[problemsofabooknerd]

My Favorite Movies/Shows/Webseries with LGBTQIA+ Main Characters

Pride Day 13!

Check out the intro to my Pride project here.

I thought today we would take a break from books - and from personal stories - to talk a bit more about other queer media I enjoy. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to read, but I still want to get the chance to see stories about wonderful LGBTQIA+ humans. So, here we go, a personal recommendations list of movies/tv shows/webseries that I adore that feature LGBTQIA+ main characters. 

Movies

♡ Love, Simon

I mean, this is an obvious one. I adore the book, Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, but I have a little more love for the movie itself. I’m also currently on a high because I just rewatched it on my plane and I will never NOT be emotional. In case you don’t know, Love, Simon is a rom com about a high schooler named Simon who ends up being pen pals with another closeted gay kid at his school. It’s overwhelming, and Jennifer Garner never fails to bring me to sobs. 

♡ The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love

It’s super sad to me that this movie doesn’t get passed around as often on recommendations lists, but I think that is possibly due to the fact that it can be a little harder to find. However! If you are desperately searching for a f/f movie comparable to Love, Simon, this is about as close as I can get you. It’s full of antics (sometimes SUPER over the top), romance (between a super butch white girl and a super femme black girl), and a whole heap of other fabulousness. 

♡ Life Partners

A recently discovered one for me that I think deserves a bit more hype! This is a comedy about two best friends - one lesbian, one straight - as they fall in and out of love, struggle to figure out their careers, and generally navigate adulthood as BFFs. This is one of those movies where I’m honestly super pissed we don’t have more like it - it’s a movie about complex relationships between women that also features a shit ton of lesbian culture. Pride events! Gay bars! How many lesbians can you fit inside a Subaru! It’s all fabulous. 

♡ But I’m a Cheerleader

A true classic. I remember my girlfriend showing me this back when I still insisted I was straight, but lord oh lord did it make an impact. It’s always hard to recommend queer stories set in conversion camps (take one of my favorite books, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, for example), but I think this is one of the few that still manages to be engaging and really fun. Plus, Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall are honestly staples of queer media for me.

♡ Battle of the Sexes

‘Sup, super gay Emma Stone -  you truly make my dreams come true. To be honest, the fact that this is a based-on-a-true-story, gay, sports movie is just so perfectly me in terms of movie taste I will never be over it. Everyone does a remarkable job, but this is especially phenomenal in terms of how deeply gay it is and I love it to bits.

♡ The Runaways

Yet again, my deep and abiding love for movies based on true events appears. This is the movie that made me realize that a) Kristen Stewart is seriously a good actress and b) I’m super in love with her. This one is about The Runaways, the all-girl rock band Cherie Currie and Joan Jett were both a part of. It features scenes of KStew and Dakota Fanning making out so prepare your gay heart, lest ye be overwhelmed.

♡ Brokeback Mountain

Of course we end the list of movies here. I spent so much of my life believing the hype surrounding this movie - that it was just that sad cowboy movie and nothing more. And then I watched it and finally had to recognize just how poorly people had been talking about what an incredible film this is. I mean, yes. Sad cowboys! They are there! But the emotional depth and honest passion that is portrayed in this movie breaks my heart every single time. It’s just utterly beautiful. 

Obviously this list isn’t comprehensive and there are so many more on my to-watch list. For example, I somehow haven’t seen Moonlight yet, and that feels like a travesty. I also really need to get to Pariah and Tangerine. 

TV Shows

♡ Black Mirror - San Junipero

In case you don’t already know, Black Mirror is an science fiction anthology show, and every episode can be watched without the context of any of the other episodes. Which makes “San Junipero” just about perfect. It’s one of the only happy episodes of the whole show, and it gives me the most pure, joyful sapphic 80s vibes. I would kill for a full movie based on this episode. I would watch a million hours of sapphic ladies jamming to 80s music. Give it all to me.

♡ Sense8

I recently talked a bit about Sense8 in my post about what Pride means to me, because I think I always tie this show into my feelings on this month. In premise, it’s about 8 strangers around the world who form a psychic connection with one another. More than that, though, it’s about the things that make us different, and how those differences also emphasize our similarity and the power in solidarity. It’s a beautiful story about found family, and it just barely got its finale episode on Netflix that I’m dying to watch but haven’t yet because I’m honestly not feeling emotionally ready enough to handle it. 

♡ Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Wow, this show. Wowww, this show. This is a pretty standard sitcom, about a group of lovable misfits who all work together. It’s set in a police precinct in Brooklyn, and initially feels like it centers on detective Jake Peralta, but the show quickly figured out that it had stars in every member of the cast. Two of my faves are Captain Raymond Holt and Detective Rosa Diaz, both queer POC that blow me away constantly. Holt is a black, gay detective who spent years fighting prejudice to make it through the ranks and be the stern-yet-lovable Captain of the squad. Rosa is a badass, bike riding, keep-your-nose-out-of-my-business bisexual Latina who owns my whole heart. It’s a show that does queer rep right, and a show that constantly reminds me to be happy even when it seems a little impossible for me to do that.

♡ American Horror Story

It’s bizarre to me how a horror anthology show still has some of the most consistent queer rep of any television show I watch. Now, this show absolutely has its problems still. Because it is a horror show, many queer characters get killed off. And my favorite season, Hotel, features a trans woman character who is played by a cis male actor. So, my warning is always to go in knowing the faults in the show. BUT this is still a show that consistently represents a variety of sexualities played by a variety of characters and actors, and I just appreciate it so deeply for normalizing that kind of rep over and over again. And I think I also want to give Ryan Murphy some credit in growing, considering the incredible work he is doing with Pose, hiring so many trans actors, writers, and directors to accurately shape that show.

There are of course other shows doing a good job with LGBTQIA+ rep, even if they don’t feature characters in leading roles. Shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Schitt’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Magicians are all ones I adore that feature queer peeps who own my whole heart. And there are tons more out there I would love to watch like The Bold Type, Black Lightning, One Day at a Time, Wynonna Earp, and Killing Eve!

Webseries

♡ Carmilla

Lesbian vampire! Spooky school! Soft journalist lesbian! Nonbinary side character! Queer kids everywhere dealing with the end of the world and the absurdly bizarre reality of their university! If you haven’t watched Carmilla yet, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a shame, and you must come and join us all in the better timeline where you’ve seen the show and can also gush with us. 

♡ Her Story

This is a super short webseries, but one I would love to have more of. It is an honest, sweet depiction of the lives of two trans women living in Los Angeles, California. They deal with relationship issues, friendship, gatekeeping, loving women, loving men, and more. It’s an excellently done series, and Jen Richards is a remarkable actress and creative force, and I cannot wait to see what else she plans to do.

♡ Chosen Family

A webseries that is not fictional! Tyler Okaley is a name you probably know by now, if you’re part of the queer internet scene. He has been doing work for years in uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community, raising awareness, raising money, and a whole lot more. Chosen Family started last year, and I loved keeping up with it all through Pride, and this year we get even more episodes. Whether he is talking about queer people through history, queer immigrants, the beginnings of Pride, or even just talking to other queer creators, it is a series that celebrates this community in so many different ways and I love the work it does and how uplifted it makes me feel. 

Alright, that’s where I’m going to wrap up this list for now. I thought about also adding queer music videos to this list but it would double in size if I did that soooo perhaps another day. What are some of your favorite movies/shows/webseries that feature LGBTQIA+ main characters? Send me a message and let me know! 

[thedogsled]

Hi guys. I’m going to cautiously title this ‘About Zimbio, Destiel, my personal struggle with the idea of wlw vs. mlm, and why what we achieved in the vote today says a lot about our magnificent fandom’. 

This is a reminder in advance that I make generalizations but I don’t mean any harm by them. I’m happy to discuss this topic and capitulate on some things, because my experience of shows is extremely limited right now (unless I want to watch them in French). Just like Dean I say ‘we’ a lot but please assume sometimes I mean ‘I’, I by no means make any claim to speak for all of the following groups at any point: bisexuals, mlm shippers, wlw shippers, television executives, social media marketers, the mainstream audience, destiel shippers--etc, etc, you get the drift.) If any of the following upsets you, please let me know, it’s not my intent to cause any harm, only reassure my friends that they did a good job.

I promised I was going to write a post on this, because I’ve seen just a little mumbling and unhappiness that Destiel didn’t make it through in the semis. I get it, it’s only natural that it’s going to lead to some hurt feelings, but I wanted to really put across to you all why I say I was proud of us for our semi-final performance, rather than you just take it for granted.

We are an old fandom. Thirteen years is a long time; it makes Supernatural the longest single run fantasy/sci fi series on American TV (and I mean I think it’s unfair to compare it to non American shows like Doctor Who anyway just on pure numbers, especially since Who has gone through thirteen fourteen? fifteen? are we counting radio drama? actors in the lead role; it’s like a different show every time.) So. It’s had a superb run. Fantasy/sci fi shows are typically considered to be niche, not massive hits (comparatively speaking; SPN isn’t Grey’s Anatomy or NCIS I’ll grant). But what networks are finally waking up to is the power of the fandom of those ‘niche’ shows, dedicated viewing power which can grow a network’s brand, particularly online, and networks are eager to wrangle that.

This modern era of television is fandom’s era of television. Netflix are promoting gamification of television watching (even for kids) as well as choose your own adventure style TV. Binging and rewatching box sets is a whole thing now, not just the domain of the “geek”, and shows which can convince people to stick around and watch something instead of moving on when they run out of material--they’re the ones gaining success, while traditional shows slip further and further as they fail to capture new demographics. We’re making strong social media contracts with the creators and actors of our shows, and making it clear to them - in a way that is increasingly being recognized for the opportunity it represents - that there must be give and take with modern audiences, especially if you seek gratification through social media. (I read a great article I reblogged that called it the ‘Brandom’ effect.)

It’s wonderful, and it’s terrifying, because both fans and creators don’t know what to do with it. They can give fans too much power and the show goes off the rails, or deny it to them entirely, and earn only vitriol. Some shows rub their power right in the face of their fans and increasingly they pay for it. Some showrunners are outright incapable of talking to their fans at all without being respectful (I’m looking at you The 100), and some fans are ghastly, aggressive and outright disrespectful in pursuing what they want (it is a different thing showing joy over your ship as it is to dox actors and send their wives hate mail). Some showrunners, instead, are more embracing of their fans, like the Earpers, and if you want an idea of how actors should be engaging with fans, check out David Haydn Jones’ twitter. That man is a saint. It’s a delicate game of mutual respect, and occasional drama, and intent is the name of the game: do you have good intent, is it honest? People crave honesty on the internet where everything and everyone is fake--and that honestly is a tough thing to achieve when studios are too heavily concentrating on their bottom line.

So, this is a changing landscape, like I said, and people are struggling with new marketing techniques, trying to find their place in the world, running into walls when they realize that in fact they don’t understand their queer audience members. When something works, shows are very quick to jump right into it, almost relieved to have evidence that if they do X thing, their fans won’t all jump ship in horror, but here’s the thing, networks are in a lot of ways far slower to respond than shows. If you want to do something, you have to prove to the person holding the purse strings that it’s a profitable endeavor. Producers are set in their ways, especially old school producers, not realizing how quickly the landscape is changing, and writers are fighting against that all the time, because they’re often a lot more in touch with the creative fandoms they’re trying to inspire. Many have come from fandoms themselves. Queer writers should mean more queer storylines, right? But it means fighting money men to make it happen. Oftentimes that leads to the whole ‘one queer ship is enough’ standpoint, and when it comes down to it, those money men are more likely to put stock in safe investments, in proven investments. Consequently, wlw is flourishing because it draws in audiences without losing them. It’s arguably less risky to make Alex Danvers gay than Castiel. It’s more PC, accepted by wider audiences, groundwork laid by Dark Angel and Buffy in my own recent memory. When good results come from featuring those kinds of ships, they appear increasingly on TV, and it’s AWESOME. There were 16 wlw ships in Zimbio March Madness, and 11 of them got through all the way to 8vs8. There were only 2 mlm ships in 8vs8, and 3 het ships. Internet fandom, passionate and social and dedicated? It speaks, and it says ‘More LGBT rep please’.

We’re in a transitional period. Changes are coming, but when you look at the big mlm ships of the last few years, you can see the uphill climb that’s still ahead of us. I spoke with our Hannigram and Johnlock friends last year about what their experience with this was like. (I haven’t spoken to Sterek folks, but I know there’s disappointment from that front too). Johnlock shippers are largely furious about how explicitly the finale no-homoed their ship when there was absolutely no reason to. Having watched the finale myself, I feel like they really went hard against shippers explicitly. Hannigram suffered too. I haven’t finished S3 even now, but what I recall of the conversation went like this: they’re together, but there was a kiss that didn’t make it to air, and then the show was cancelled. In any case, what I’m saying right here is that this is part of a pattern, a theme I’m struggling with, where mlm fans are dispirited and disappointed and feeling disrespected by the very mainstream shows they’re watching.

(Which isn’t, I’ll quickly note, that I’m saying the same isn’t true of wlw audiences. The last two ships in Zimbio this year are non canon ships, and the fans of both have been hurt by the shows they watch, but they still keep coming back and watching the show. Swanqueen is ending, but the pair have been consistently mirrored - dark and light - with the emotional journey of the show largely being made over the shared custody? I don’t know, they changed it every week while I was watching it of Emma’s son. Supercorp is clearly full of eye sex thanks to the actress’ chemistry (and McGrath is so gorgeous she’d have chemistry with a brick wall) and yet has been outright mocked by the show’s cast. If that sounds familiar to Destiel fans, I almost want to say that Supercorp have it worse; just as with Swanqueen, they’re often told simply to shut up because there's already wlw rep on the show.)

But where shows are willing to go there now, diminished risk is the key, especially as resale value of shows reflects multiple, competitive platforms constantly needing to purchase content to fill their airspace. Naked women, women kissing and women having sex - bisexual women who are explicitly still available to men - that sells, but as far as I can tell networks are struggling to sell the same narrative about mlm. Maybe that’s my perspective only, maybe that’s me watching the wrong shows (and not at all because I don’t enjoy looking at women’s bodies, I do, but variety is the spice of life) Look at the outright surprise last year when GOT gave us a beautiful, pus covered, full screen dick. GOT, of course, which is insulated because it is a Number One performer. I present to you, in terms of dicks on screen, American Gods, then. Neil Gaiman is my hero, selling the network on the premise that they could have his great stories if only they were willing to gleefully integrate peen on every episode. Or so I’m told. There’s a lot on my ‘to watch’ list that I haven’t got around to yet. I will tell you, of course, that mlm is out there, Evak were voted out against Supercorp in the quarter finals) but on a big show like Supernatural that risk is exceptional. That’s why when we talk about Destiel ‘going canon’, we make the shockingly ambitious request of them HOLDING HANDS, or mutually saying ‘I love you’, and sometimes feel like expecting anything more, like a kiss, or god forbid a sex scene, is too much to ask. Why? When lesbians and bisexual women are presented on TV, kisses and sex scenes are a matter of course. In Alex’ coming out, in Thirteen’s coming out in House, Angela’s coming out in Bones - huge ensemble shows where main characters, all women, have come out and kissed (and returned to male partners in the case of the later two). (I should point out I am talking about genre “mainstream” shows in general, not for example Queer as Folk, where the primary aim is to explore sexuality, not fight dragons or solve crimes)

Now in addition to this problem, an issue that I’ve seen for years is that from inside the fandom world we are made to feel as though we are somehow obscene or inferior for shipping mlm ships, a projection that comes from the way mainstream folks will react to you if they happen to discover you drawing dudes together. Sometimes we hide our online selves from the real world out of shame that has only built over the years, where it’s considered that supporting mlm ships instead of wlw ships makes you fetishistic, or objectifying of gay men. I’ve seen it in fanfiction spaces and in rp spaces on dw and lj that shipping wlw has been raised to a point of being considered ‘more pure’. If you ‘claim’, they say, to be a queer woman, you should wholly be supporting wlw ships. When I started hearing this dialogue I was THIRTEEN. This was before Willow/Tara. There were just less wlw ships on tv, and there were less female characters whose autonomy didn’t depend on men, or portray them as being fragile, the weakness of their gender or whatever. There were standout female characters in my youth, absolutely, but they were all independent (mostly) straight women: Kathyrn Janeway, Sam Carter, Clarice Starling, Dana Scully. They kicked out against the system, the world they lived in, intelligent and defiant ladies I still idolize. Nowadays, though those wlw ships are available, and populated by so many beautiful, powerful, progressive female characters - and yes miraculously even strong female characters who still embrace their own womanhood. In contrast  mlm ships are not keeping up because, in some way, I think that the ‘impurity’ of shipping mlm has stuck. I struggle to think of even straight non toxic male role models, nevermind male role models who are in engaging, romantic relationships with the same sex. This stagnation of masculinity (apart from the rise of the geek hero which often, as in the case of TBBT, doesn’t break away from inbuilt misogyny) troubles me immensely. (I’m not saying all male characters are awful, incidentally, but it’s not a positive message to outright expose the flaws of toxic masculinity without offering understanding, lessons, and growth. But that’s another essay.)

Trust me, I’m not saying everyone feels that TV is being stacked against mlm, but as a bisexual I really feel fractured by the whole thing. I feel like I’m supposed to loathe myself for shipping mlm, particularly when that mlm ship is ‘two white guys’. The fact that I as a woman enjoy male and female bodies is irrelevant, because one desire is pure, and one desire is fetishism. There is no balance. I’m allowed to be titilated by members of my own gender kissing each other and only that and heterosexuality. As a bisexual who is currently leaning toward wlw myself (sexuality existing on a sliding scale imo), it is the power imbalance in heterosexual couples which puts me off. It’s painfully true to life. I have a particular loathing for Booth and Brennan from Bones, for example, where his toxic masculinity is unilaterally forgiven because it’s true love, while Bones, once independent and stubborn herself, is increasingly nudged further out of character in order to forgive him his trespasses. But when I ship mlm, or write fanfic of my favorite couples, any power I give them is not based on their gender. The same I imagine is true of wlw. (An unfortunate consequence of this is people project it onto real life, where power inequality and abuse can exist regardless of make believe ‘purity’, and consequently people end up believing that something is wrong with them rather than their relationship, similar issues as people face when they imagine marriage is the goal, and everything else is happily ever after, because Disney told them so. In which case I advise you to rewatch Mary Poppins.)

During voting, I was reticent to address why voting for Destiel over the other ships was important to me. It was personal. (Of course anyone could have sent me an ask if they were curious). But why I was voting didn’t matter. It was enough that I was voting for the couple I love, whose relationship my blog is devoted to, and whose love story I hope is resolved. But there is more to it than that. What’s important, I guess, is how I feel about Dean. My reading of him is of a bisexual, still in the closet - perhaps even to himself - in his thirties. He made it out of high school, but that’s it, because he dropped out of higher education for family commitments. He likes rock music and classic cars. He loves pie, and dumb medical TV dramas, and cowboy hats, and riding rodeo bulls and chatting to strangers. He struggles with voicing his true self with people who know him, and might judge him in a way he will never come back from. Dean is basically me. I am all those things. And in this case, he’s in love with a genderfluid (has been both male and female) guardian angel whose love for Dean explicitly and singularly, has been described as a profound bond, and the greatest love story ever told. Castiel’s love for Dean, his willingness to do anything for him, is all I think any of us want from a romantic partner. And yes, we all find different things in our ships, and presumably other people connect with Destiel for reasons that aren’t the same as my own, but that’s okay. My reasons are my reasons.

And yet I am still thrown into that emotional disconnect: that because this couple is an mlm couple I’m wrong to ship it, that I would be better putting my energy into watching shows I don’t necessarily enjoy as much so I can find my representation in more respectable (or potentially less queerbaity) fandoms. That Supernatural isn’t good enough because I’ve been repeatedly told by people inside and outside the fandom that it isn’t good enough. I’ve got to tell you I agree that it struggles with being progressive. While season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy was showing the struggles of a pre-op mtf woman and her wife in an ep that made me actually cry for the dysphoria represented, on the other channel SPN had just got done killing a token ‘woman with an off screen girlfriend’ character. By season 11, we’ve had two gay male couples, both holding hands and leaning into each other to express their relationship. SPN is slow. Nobody in the world would deny that. 

But to be quite honest, also, finding representation doesn’t have to mean ‘a ship’, it can just be a well written bisexual woman with a badge, and you aren’t restrained to just one rep either! In fact, the more the better. I find myself particularly starved for that rep, especially since - having been fetishized for my bisexuality irl before - I see painful reflections of that on television. That’s obviously going to be related to bad writing and TV’s particular way of objectifying women in general, too, but when a woman (say Angela Montenegro from Bones) has a two episodes storyline where she makes out with another insanely attractive actress, the music rising, lit with soft shades, the camera focused in on their mouth--before the plot is forgotten entirely, it is incredibly difficult not to see that as objectification and not bisexual solidarity. I want more mlm on TV because I want more bisexuals of both genders on TV, and because of the harmful insinuation in mainstream thought that a guy who comes out as bi late has somehow been lying to himself and was gay all along, while women who are bi are just exploring their sexuality and somehow more up for it. Those views need to be constantly, constantly challenged, because, honestly, people believe them. (Probably not me or you, but it’s out there).

(As an aside: mainstream is also harsh toward female writers who write mlm stories. There have understandably, as a result, been female writers who chose male pseudonyms to pen their gay romance novels. I first experienced this to a lesser extent back in Gundam Wing fandom, because if you were a ‘male’ author it legitimized you and people would read your stories in preference to those penned by girls. Back then it was a numbers game. The prejudice does remain. Audiences are sometimes outright cold to female authors who pen mlm stories! You need only look at the conversation about boycotting Love, Simon because it was written by a straight woman to appreciate just how deeply we’ve built this disconnect, as though to write something the author must always write from personal experience. If that’s the case, I feel terrible for Thomas Harris and Jeff Lindsay, and JK Rowling (who speaks about choosing her moniker because it was genderless) must certainly have had an exciting childhood, what with all the magic and dragons. 

As a result I think we (or at least I) have internalized some harmful things about who has the right to interpret themselves in stories told about men, or male protagonists. And in lashing back at girls who for years have been doing just that, considering it to be lesser if I find a role model in Dean instead of Angela, we have harmed the integrity of mlm fans themselves, who increasingly struggle under a burden of self imposed guilt. It is reflecting back poorly on mlm performances, even as wlw stories flourish. In this raising the pedestal of wlw purity, the ‘ethical’ alternative, we dismiss what people can learn about themselves from male role models too, something that we instead encourage if it’s a teenage boy finding a role model in Elsa. My closeted bi self loving Dean Winchester harms nobody, but I am still made to feel lesser for doing so, even if sometimes that feeling is ridiculously self imposed. Hell, maybe I’m alone in this feeling and the rest of this is bullshit, but that’s why I said ‘I vs we’ was definitely a part of this commentary.

In any case, this is what I think this means to the Zimbio vote: As wlw rep has been increasing, mlm has been facing a disappointing deficit. Those once big fandom movers ‘Superwholock’, the Hannigrams, the Sterek shippers--have fractured and splintered off. Destiel has come in waves but it’s still somehow here, without its original opponents from back in the day. It’s here, even with setbacks after season 8 and 10 that had fans breaking away from Supernatural entirely. Optimism now reflects optimism felt before, but let’s face it Castiel was killed permanently at one point, and Bob Singer said outright, even just a few years ago, that Destiel and social media stuff just didn’t come up in the writing room (pr is not showrunning, etc). People are hugely entitled to struggle with optimism for non canon mlm ships because history repeats itself. Add into that feelings like I described above, and the struggle is real. It can sometimes feel like you’re fandom’s three legged, one eyed donkey.

Add to that how old Destiel is. Every fandom coming into existence now, every ship built around, comes into contact with Destiel at some point. If you type ‘queerbaiting’ into Wikipedia, our ship is cited. In Google, we come up first. Thanks to antis (and some genuinely bad behavior from bad apple shippers over the years) we’ve earned a reputation, and it moves before us into every ship interaction we have. Because of that, we can appear both intimidating and as something to be avoided, because ‘what if you meet a crazy one’? You’d think seniority would be a good thing, but few people see us as a ship that’s been there and done that, as they do Swanqueen. We aren’t the ship that can perhaps offer advice on things going on in whippersnapper fandoms based on our experiences, as it would be in an ideal world. We’re not a ship to be aligned with, and because of this odd perception of wlw vs. mlm, there was simply never any potential that support for Supercorp wasn’t going to skyrocket. It was a fight against ‘That monolithic mlm ship that just won’t stop’, as it were, because here we still are hanging onto threads hoping our ship will go canon, and based on past evidence, the fall of other mlm ships, and only looking in from the outside, that seems like wishful thinking.

So we were unlikely to gain allies from heartbroken mlm fandoms. We were unlikely to find allies in wlw fandoms. It’s sad, of course, because for all the talk of representation in media, the desire to express a balance and cheerlead for mlm, imo an obvious representation underdog, simply doesn’t ever come up. Our friends and relatives roll our eyes at us if we talk about Destiel because we get that ridiculous light in our eyes when we do. Ultimately, that meant that Destiel was on its own. It had to unify. It had to pour its passion into voting and be a family again. It’s been knocked out in previous years - honestly based on what I’ve heard it’s been a disaster - but THIS YEAR we pulled out all the stops. That was all us. Despite antivoting, Destiel shippers - and only Destiel shippers - fought and fought - thousands of votes after thousands of votes, as we made small leads only to slip three times further. We didn’t stop. We were there and fighting right up until the end. And it may just have been a silly online poll, but I think it really goes to show what we can do when we put our hearts into it. We more than doubled the amount of votes cast in the previous round, over the exact same time scale, even though Supercorp fought back with everything they had, all the vibrancy of being a fresh, shunned ship determined to prove themselves, using social media strategy and unity to bring in votes from wherever they could get them. They fought well. They were wiley and smart, and so passionate; passionate like I thought I’d forgotten how to be.

And we kept fighting. We were in the semis, with twice as many votes more than Swanqueen, and we fought tooth and nail and almost got there, slipping just in the last half hour.

I have to believe that that’s because some people in the Destiel family have hope. I know we’ve drawn in a lot of new and returning shippers recently, I’ve seen you following me and starting out in meta writing yourselves, joining Destiel exchanges for the first time, sharing your first codas. The DCBB and Pinefest have had ENORMOUS turnouts. We are, despite all odds, growing as a ship again. 

I really hope that we can overcome the shame that has somehow been drummed into us for shipping mlm. I hope that we can all, whether we ship wlw, mlm, het or poly or whatever peeps are doing these days, make sure not to raise one as an ideal over the others, because it’s not in the spirit of family, of fandom. It is never ‘us against them’, it’s never a case of moral or ethical superiority, definitely not even in everyday parlance and least of all in a shipping popularity contest.

And maybe despite the risk, we’ll get an ‘I love you’, some hand holding. Hell, maybe even a kiss (Supernatural never even gave us a kiss between Jesse and Cesar, though, so I have my doubts.) But God if that wouldn’t pave the way for better deconstruction of toxic masculinity on genre TV, more presence of bisexual men and gay men on genre TV, and more men kissing and open expression of sexuality on genre TV. 

So here’s my final word. Maybe the bunnies will kiss. Maybe they’ll even do what bunnies do, who knows? And maybe next year we’ll win it.

I hope I didn’t step on any toes with this post. I felt like these words needed to come out of me, though, so here they are. Thank God there’s no more Zimbio until next year, right? Please refer back to my first paragraph for disclaimers. Thanks, though, if you read this far.

[asterismcampanella]

...Continuing on, ancient greece didn't have modern western concepts of gender, or sexual orientation. If you look at anyone older than 30 without heavy influence of the younger internet, their opinion of what it is to be queer is different. Whether it's a bad or a good thing depends on the person, obviously, so there's no use in trying to "well anyone without the new information is simply misinformed." Especially when most of the world, first world countries included, are still fighting for those simple right to live and be gay legally.

The demographic who has a vaguer sense of "gay" and "bi" and the blurred lines of simply being human are not wrong in their ways, and I personally align more with them anyway. I've never had an issue with identifying as gay, but the demand for everyone being valid has made it difficult when most of the "LGBTQA+" individuals I meet are pansexual polyamorous, and within the first few days of knowing them I can usually determine if they're a spicy cishet, going through their whore/gay experimentation phase. Dyed hair, piercings, tattoos, and clowncore aren't going to make you any more gay than your brain chemicals designed you as.

I mention this out of my own prejudices, but also the ones that are still widely accepted, from ancient to modern times. Most adult bisexual men might reconsider the difficulty in society being seen as gay, being intimate with another man, or maintaining the attention span they had for the gender/liking both genders in horny youth. According to the modern LGBT, that's still valid, still bisexual. And it is!

But the disconnect is that there's still that amount of discretion to a bisexual person. It's no secret that the most common bisexuality will naturally lean heterosexual. The reason is simply biology, that your body is going to be inclined to reproduce, or find attraction in something more traditionally chemically promoted in any animal brain. The meaning of life is to reproduce and thrive, especially for mammals...

The percentage of gay men or male-leaning bisexuals, that then go on to pursuit deep, longterm relationships is going to dwindle, their own age group is no longer as queer as they once were. So, they might look to the younger generation that once again wants to experiment, or once again looks for new relations. It's far more common for gay men to be comfortable with casual homosexuality, not full life investments.

That's no less gay, and in this economy, it's not even surprising. It's not great, but yeah, even in ancient times if you were rich and gay (like y'all like to romanticize anyway) you could afford lil gay boy toys. ...what exactly do you think the rich cishets do and did? You think all the rich cishets of modern day haven't sampled the "forbidden fruit" as well?

It's also important to note a lot of the "passive" side of the homosexual relations in ancient Greek society sound like.... exactly the type of "bisexual" men that I do not respect XD they thought that it was demeaning, and outside socially acceptable. I'm mentioning this because the biggest argument is "weh but the greeks hated women" yuppp so did literally everybody else, just as any socially unacceptable homosexuality from either gender. Just because it says it's gay in modern explanations didn't make it ethically gay back then either, because there were always actual gay folks, and there were always perverts who liked to act homosexual, with no actual sexual orientation involving it.

The best example of that I can give is that I am not bisexual, and if I was to try and explain my attraction to women, it would sound very objectifying, because I'm not interested in a relationship with them, but women are naturally pretty. I imagine a lot of the accepted "pederasty" of the time followed similar rules; these men objectified emasculate boys for their sexual release, and not actually with homo-romantic intentions.

It's something I can strongly relate to, and why I was interested in finally studying this. It frustrates me endlessly to be seen as an emasculate, fem, or any sort of... not man, because I'm 23 and I didn't choose to have a baby face and small frame (or no full beard yet?!?) It's more perverted for men with bigger frames (not necessarily older), to deem me as the boy, the bottom, the fetishized one in the relationship. Literally, shit hasn't changed! There are straight identifying men all over grindr, and they're no different than a bisexual man intending to just have his gay phase before he settles for a girl anyway.

Disclaimer: My family Greek. Don't be all "weh weh eurocentrism" because I'm analyzing this specifically lol

[micycle--wheeler]

2

William vs the Homo-Geneous World

Will Byers lives a perfectly normal life. That is, until his life becomes perfectly unnormal, and his life becomes something straight out of a romance novel.

///

Or, Will gets a secret email pen-pal.

read chapter 1 here

read on ao3

FROM: indescisionsbuggingme@gmail.com

TO: evier.maple@gmail.com

DATE: Sep 2 at 11:23 PM

SUBJECT: please respond

Dear Evier,

I’m just like you.

I live a pretty normal life. My parents were the perfect love story, my mom working a low-end job to become pretty successful, and my step-dad is about as awesome as anyone can get. My brother likes photography  and enjoys making weird foods that always seem to taste good (he made kale pancakes that tasted too good to be real. I’m still sure he’s putting sugar in it when he keeps insisting he’s not).

I have the greatest friends anyone could ask for. Two of them, I’ve known pretty much my entire life, one being my sister (how embarrassing is that? A sister as a best friend…). The other I met just a few months ago, but it feels like I’ve known her just as long.

We do everything friends do. We drink way too many caffeinated drinks, stay up together far later than we should, and we spend way too much time on social media.

So yeah. My life is pretty normal.

Except I’ve got one huge-ass secret.

I look around at my room for a second time, at the books stacked up on my shelves. One of the pictures on my nightstand showcase that one time Dad drove us two hours to see a play. My fingers type at the keys once again.

—Horatio

I take a deep breath before clicking the mouse.

Send.

And now I wait.

I step away from the laptop, closing it for the night and going to bed.

That next morning,  everything is normal. Too normal, almost, as if nobody knows I just kinda told someone my secret. Evier is the only one who knows.

If he’s even read the email yet.

It’ll probably be put in the spam folder.

But I take my normal shower, so long it’s freezing by the time I’m out. I check my phone.

Nothing.

I get dressed and hop down stairs, skipping every other step, almost tripping over Chester in the process, who decided to come bounding down the stairs at the exact time I did. Jonathan is in the kitchen, handing me a piece of toast as I headed out the door, not even looking back to see if Jane was following me.

I check my emails as I get into the car, finding nothing of interest.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

I jump as Jane leans over, trying to look at my phone’s screen. “Nothing,” I say as I slide my phone back into my pocket.

“Is it a pretty girl?” she guesses. “Aw, did Willy-Will finally find a girl that actually likes him?”

I tell her to shove it as I pull out of the drive, and she in turn flips me off, not even looking in my direction. I ignore her as I turn down Maple Street.

Maple…

evier.maple

Did my phone buzz? I swear my phone buzzed.

I’m startled out of my thoughts as I almost drive into a trashcan.

I stop in front of Dustin’s house, and I take the chance to check my phone again.

Still nothing.

I drop my phone as Dustin climbs in, wild hair bouncing.

“You won’t believe what I dreamed last night.”

“Oh, again with the dreams, Dustin,” Jane turns her head to look at Dustin sitting in the back of the minivan (Yes, minivan. My parents got it from a friend of theirs who was looking to get rid of it).

“This one is interesting, okay?” Dustin defends as I start heading towards Max’s house, which was just down the street. “I was on a train, right?”

“Is this another one of your infamous dreams?” Max asks as she climbs in next to him.

“Yeah! And I was on a train, but everything was strangely blurry.”

“Hmm… What does Freud say?”

Max looks expectantly at me when she says this, mainly because I was the only one that did Psychology last year, and the main thing we studied was dreams.

“Well, good ‘ol Sigmund said that dreaming of trains was analogous to a dick, so…”

“Maybe you wanted to jerk off!” Jane jokes from the passenger seat. “Will does it all the ti—” I try to smack her in the arm while keeping my eyes on the road.

“I do not!”

“Maybe it means you’re not seeing what’s right in front of you,” Max offers. “Like… like maybe you have an idea or an inkling of something, but you still don’t see the full picture. what'd you think, Will?”

I think of what is in the email I sent the mysterious Evier. “No idea.”

I pull up in front of the school, snagging a good spot, away from the kids that like to smoke cigarettes and kick tires.

We all pile out of the car, making our way to our separate classes.

“Nice hair band, Carri, is it new? Oh, new haircut, James? Lookin’ good! Oh, Will!”

Mr, Newby is standing in the hall, doing his morning ritual of greeting students. Just like he did in my freshmen and sophomore year.

“How are you? Nice jacket, even though you wear it every day. Where’d you get it?”

“It’s from a teenager store, Mr. Newby. You can’t enter if you’re over the age of nineteen.”

“Aw, darn.” Mr. Newby shakes his head jokingly as I make my way through the halls and into first period English.

The rest of the day goes surprisingly smoothly, the only even someone interesting occurrence happening at lunch, when Richie Tozier dropped his tray and got applesauce everywhere.

When he sits down at the table, socks soaked in cinnamon, he starts a loud conversation with his fellow baseball player, Lucas Sinclair.

“Did you hear about the gay kid on hawkinswhispers?” he says loudly, shoveling fries into his mouth.

“I did!” Max sits in between Richie and Lucas, practically draping herself over the latter.

“Does anybody know where Jane is?” I ask, ignoring my redheaded best friend. I love Max, but this is just too much heterosexual PDA for me.

“Probably sucking face with Mike somewhere,” Richie throws out, and I try to keep myself from gagging.

“That is the worst mental image I have ever thought of.”

Mike. Jane’s boyfriend. He’s in my theatre class, but that’s about all I know about him except for the fact that he’s Richie’s cousin.

I look down at my phone, planning on checking my email. I open the app and am met with the no internet connection popup.

Right. There’s not service in the building.

“Again with your phone!” Max sighs. “Will, this is the third time today.”

I roll my eyes and ignore her, getting up and heading toward one of the breezeways, knowing I might be able to get at least a couple of bars.

“Oh, Will. William. Willy-Man.”

I look up and find Mr. Newby walking toward me.

“Please don’t call me that.”

“You know the rules. No phones in the hallway. It can cause a collision. So I’ll be having that.” He points at my phone, still in my fingers, and I reluctantly hand it over. “Walk with me.”

I apparently have no choice as he hooks his arm around my shoulder in a I’m trying to relate to you kind of way.

“I remember being a youthful spirit such as you, except I rode a bike instead of surfed the interwebs and killed monsters from another dimension instead of waited for texts from girls.”

“Yeah,” I chuckle uncomfortably. Mr. Newby can be weird.

“So you can have your phone back after school, okay?” Mr. Newby muses. “And you can go back to class.

He walks away at this, whistling to himself  as I’m left standing in the hallway.

Today has been weird.

///

@reddie-tozibrak

[dragon-simon]

Are we getting a Carry On Movie?

So, in a recent interview Rainbow Rowell revealed she is working on two films (x)

It’s entirely possibly that neither of these are related to any of her books but in this but in this post I’m going to run on the assumption that they’re both adaptations of her own work.

First of all let’s rule out the obvious:

She’s about half way through a new YA novel. It’s extremely unlikely that an adaptation of this is in the works. The only slight possibility is if  it was a sequel to another of her books but even that’s illogical because any production company would wait to see if the first film was successful before even thinking about adapting a not yet finished sequel.

Next obvious thing is Runaways. Runaways already has gotten a tv series recently so I think that can be completely ruled out.

There’s also the case of her two short stories but the fact that they’re short would most likely rule them out. Kindred Spirits is a very time relevant thing and couldn’t reach a full story so that wouldn’t work however I suppose the other may have more of a chance since it could be stretched out a lot more but still, I’m doubtful.

Finally, the graphic novel. Again, that’s not even coming out until next year so again, unlikely.

Ok so on to our actual possibilities.

First of all, we have Eleanor and Park. Now, knowing that dreamworks dropped the film and RR now has the rights back, it does make it a possibility but surely if she was going to option it to other people then wouldn’t she just say?

Now comes the calculations I spent a bit of time on. I’ll explain them first so you know what’s going on.

So the title and year are at the top, but that’s pretty self explanatory. Next we have the number of ratings on good reads. The underlined number is a point score which I’ll come back to. Underneath that is the number of one star ratings, two star ratings etc with the percentage of the total ratings in brackets. Coming back to the point score, this is a figure I worked out by assigning 5 points to 5 star ratings, 4 points to four stars and so on and then multiplied the the points by the percentage of each (this probably doesn’t make much sense but if you want to know you can message me and I’ll explain it better.) This basically shows the popularity of the book based on the percentage of good reviews rather than number.

So let’s start off with Landline. This book was released almost 4 years ago now and is definitely RR’s least successful book. It has the 3rd highest number of ratings but it has the lowest point score. I have a feeling this is due to the fact that it was released shortly after of her very successful books but people were disappointed since it was very different to her previous one. But whatever the reason, I doubt that there would be a film made based off of this book.

Next, Attachments. This book has quite a high rating but the amount of ratings is less than Landline. This wouldn’t be a problem if Attachments didn’t come out three years before Landline but it seems that this particular book hasn’t got as much attention as the others have. Another concern is that I’m not sure this book would work as a film. The whole thing is based around emails which would be a difficult thing to show visually in my opinion.

Next up: Fangirl. This book is very well known compared to the other books, second only to Eleanor and Park. I personally think that Fangirl would be quite a popular mainstream movie since its a nice contemporary which also gives insight into internet life. This is the kind of book that you could make changes and it would be okay too since it’s supposed to be modern but it would of course need to be updated to achieve that. All in all I think Fangirl is a plausible option.

And the one we’ve been waiting for: Carry On. This is the one we all want desperately. And I have to say I think this is very likely. Carry On may have the least ratings but it has the most good ratings which I think is quite an important aspect. It would do well. There’s no doubt about it, provided it’s well adapted. Carry On is at this point and it has only been out for two and half years. It’s clearly doing well. So I really think there’s a good chance here.

Of course you may be thinking ‘Surely 105,000 isn’t enough ratings to go off of! Especially when the other books have more!’ But do you know what book has less ratings than Carry On? Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda. And this is after the films has been released in some places. That means it must have been quite a bit lower before. (Of course I am basing this off of goodreads which isn’t going to give me the most accurate results but that’s all I’ve got)

So in my mind, the two films Rainbow Rowell are most likely to be working on are Fangirl and Carry On. However I do have one concern.

These books are linked. If only one of them was being produced this wouldn’t matter but the problem is how do you get across that Carry On is it’s own story to people? That’s going to be a difficult thing to do. The only way I can think of that would work is if you say it’s one of the Simon Snow books or if you say it’s Cath’s fanfic but I just feel this could take away from the story a bit (though I could definitely learn to live with that).

But on the other hand, the face that they’re connected could make it more likely that those are the films being worked on because their connection would definitely have to be considered.

tl;dr: Carry On and Fangirl are the most likely candidates for the films that Rainbow Rowell is working on

[alittledropofheaven]

On the internet, where people become data and popularity is conveniently quantified, it’s easy to learn what a community values most. Twitter embraces celebrities and #brands. Reddit stans for Barack Obama and elaborate pop-culture GIFs. Quora is an asylum of techies questioning their morality and their stock options; its second-most-upvoted answer is a “soul-satisfying” account of a sales bro helping a homeless man.

On the Bodybuilding.com forums, the two most popular threads of all time are not about deadlifts, intermittent fasting, or maintaining motivation. They’re about women. Specifically, women Bodybuilding.com members would “love to pound.” While one thread features pictures of “petite/slim girls” and the other of “athletic girls,” both are an endless stream of lightly Photoshopped near-nudity and predictably lecherous comments. Both have been viewed almost 3 million times. And both are on the lone section of the Bodybuilding.com forums that’s explicitly unrelated to fitness: the Misc.

“Participate at your own risk, some content NSFW,” reads the description of the Misc. on the forums’ homepage. “U Aware?”

The number of people who are Aware, it turns out, is over 16 million. As of January 2018, these members of Bodybuilding.com have made more than 137 million posts on the forums, including 90 million on the Misc. The forums first became active in 2000, a time before Wikipedia and when “Skype” was neither app nor verb. Myspace—Myspace!—didn’t exist until three years later. The Misc., as the predominant section of an internet community with such immense popularity and longevity, has cemented its place near the top of Google’s search results for any query imaginable. To appropriate Rule 34, if it exists, there’s a Misc. thread for it. Online, at least, the Misc. is inescapable.

A cursory scroll through the Misc. reveals what it has in common with the still-popular internet communities it predates, Reddit and 4chan. There are the memes, comics, copypastas, acronyms, and slang recycled endlessly in a digital echo chamber largely devoid of moderation. There are the forum members—Miscers, they call themselves—who post, and post in, intentionally incendiary threads about whether tongue rings scream “cum dumpster” and how “Crossfit is gay,” then fan the flames for entertainment’s sake by doubling down on their inanity. There are moments ofuproarious, absurd, gut-busting idiocy. There are ideology-clarifying usernames (RICHSTRONG, MinisterOfLust, weightsb4dates, WishIWasJawBrah, MericaThatsWhy) and statement-making profile pictures (deliberately titillating yet invariably off-putting abdominal shots, monochromatic selfies, strategically underlit bicep closeups). There are trolls surely seething and/or laughing maniacally, their keystrokes like machine-gun fire, as they launch poorly punctuated ad-hominem attacks and, at their most destructive, encourage people to commit suicide. There are sexists, racists, xenophobes, and homophobes. There is the sense of being in a parochial, patriarchal madhouse where decorum has gone to die.

What emerges, when you spend enough time on the Misc., is a ghoulish portrait of a place that embodies the white, male id currently at the helm of S.S. America. The Misc. is a stone-faced Uncle Sam with Popeye’s forearms and a cocked pistol in each hand. It’s a screeching bald eagle with a foreign Bad Thing in its talons. It’s everything that defines America’s bro culture, magnified and weaponized. But it’s deeper than that.

“Bro-merican” culture is largely defined by the stratification of power and status, both real and imagined. So, too, is Bodybuilding.com, where a power imbalance is embedded in the structure and design of the site’s forums. Unlike on 4chan, where all posts are anonymous and ephemeral, or on Reddit, where the grand sum of a user’s upvotes has little value, Bodybuilding.com members’ reputation points, or “reps,” mediate and deeply influence community interactions. While reps are similar to Facebook likes—weighted such that getting either “repped” or “negged” by a user with hundreds of thousands of reps will drastically affect your own rep count—they function as the Misc.’s de facto currency. Your rep count is displayed next to your every post. It’s like your bank account balance flashing on your forehead whenever you speak.

Bullying by those with power (high-rep Miscers) and obsequiousness by those without it (low-rep Miscers) is rampant. Getting negged by a high-rep Miscer means potentially becoming a “red,” a user with negative reputation points, displayed beneath your username as a gradated red bar as jarring as a stop sign. If you’re a red, you’re a second-class citizen. Your posts might as well come with a disclosure: “I’m a worthless idiot. Please listen to absolutely nothing I say.”

The opinions and caprices of high-rep “green” Miscers, then, dictate the forum’s personality. Any Miscer brave enough to post contrarian ideas—including, and especially, those that are liberal and feminist—is often negged into oblivion. Bad joke misses the mark? Negged. Sincere comment comes off as sarcastic? Negged. The Misc. is an echo chamber in which “greens” are given a megaphone and a gun.

But in contrast with Reddit and 4chan, the Misc. has been filtered through and molded by bodybuilding subculture, a set of beliefs and customs rooted in the many manifestations of stereotypical masculinity: egotism, aggression, hypersexuality, über-competitiveness, entitlement. Insecurity, intolerance, misogyny. Bodybuilding, after all, is not about functional strength but about vanity and surface appearances, how masculinity is projected to the world. It fosters narcissism by trading in cosmetic superlatives: the highest bicep peaks, the most vascular calves, the most extreme V-shaped back.

The Misc. applies this dog-eat-dog frame of mind to every topic. Everything is a masculinity- or dick-measuring contest. Including, of course, the actual dick-measuring contests, because Miscers are nothing if not cripplingly aware of their own inadequate manhood. Swears and slurs are censored but their creatively misspelled phonetic workarounds are not, which makes for a forum full of “kunts” talking “chit” and menacingly telling each other to “pepper your angus” (prepare your anus). The most recurrent insults all concern perceived masculinity, or lack thereof. “U mad bro?,” a popular retort, juxtaposes one-of-the-guys slang with the notion that showing emotion means demonstrating debilitating weakness. A real bro doesn’t get mad, he only gets testosterone-fueled revenge.

Near the bottom of the masculinity totem pole are “low-T beta manlets”—that is, short, shy, effeminate guys. Lower down are “phaggots,” a word that gets tossed around the Misc. like salt at a Sichuan restaurant. Lest any Miscer think you’re a “phucking phaggot,” all posts about personal care, fashion, home decoration, or how to look like a certain actor/model/bodybuilder are appended with “no homo.” Yet shaky Misc. logic dictates that even if you’re a gay man, there’s still someone you genetically out-alpha and who is, therefore, below you: a woman.

While the entire internet is teeming with horny men whose dark loneliness and insecurity wears the cloak of misogyny, they seem to be especially vocal, and in especially high numbers, on the Misc. Every other thread is a depressing question (“Think she’s faithful to him?”) or a charged statement (“Drunk Sex > Sober Sex”) about women—their bodies, hitting on them, their innate tendency to cheat—and sex—where to find it, how to go “no contact” after having it, why she is fucking him.

The Misc.’s ties to PUA (pickup artist) forums and Reddit’s /r/TheRedPill, a perniciously misogynist, anti-feminist Reddit community dedicated to “discussing sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men,” are as well documented as they are unsurprising. One of PUA’s most frequent suggestions is to acquire “inner game,” or self-confidence through self-improvement. Miscers, being on what is ultimately a bodybuilding forum, have inverted that mantra—they’re going from the outside in. Look good, feel good.

Other elements of the manosphere, from cries of societal misandry to sexual techniques like kino escalation and shit-testing, permeate the Misc. All women are “thirsty sloots” to be conquered, their emotions and physical well-being to be toyed with for internet strangers’ entertainment. When, to the forum’s delight, a Miscer posts about a sexual conquest in lurid detail—a surefire way to rack up the reps—the verbs employed are barbaric: “took down,” “smashed,” “hit.” To have “oneitis,” or an obsessive and unrequited crush on one woman, is to be afflicted with a masculinity-destroying emotional disease, one that can be cured, naturally, by sexually subjugating another woman. Regardless of whether a Miscer is successful or is rejected in the pursuit of sex, the response is the same: “Sloots gonna sloot.”

Despite the Misc.’s obsession with women, it has the latent homoeroticism you’d expect of a website devoted to a male-dominated sport in which bronzed, muscled competitors get smeared with oil and put on thongs before preening onstage in front of other men. This is no more obvious than when discussing a “Chad.” While there is a 5,000-post thread asking what, exactly, defines a Chad, the consensus is that he’s shorthand for a tall, built, strong-jawed, big-dicked, thick-haired, financially successful, athletic, confident, funny, sociable man who, because of these eminently desirable qualities, has his pick of the XX-chromosome litter. You look at a Chad and say, “This guy fucks.” (The prototypical Miscer might be a “Sheldon,” minus any TV-driven connotations of high-level intelligence.) Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski is a stone-cold Chad. Chad Johnson of The Bachelor is a Chad, and not just in name. It’s no accident that “Chad” is one of the most generically white and straight names imaginable, nor that archetypal Chads are nearly always white and straight. The etymological origin of the name Chad is the Welsh word cad, meaning “battle,” a fact that would surely delight Miscers to no end.

The Misc.’s resident Chad is an Australian bodybuilder known by his Bodybuilding.com handle, Zyzz. In early 2010, Zyzz began regularly detailing his “aesthetic” lifestyle on the Misc. As the so-called and self-proclaimed “king of aesthetics,” and with the zingy catchphrases “U mirin’ brah?” and “U jelly?,” Zyzz became the preeminent demigod of the Misc., where he and his “Aesthetics Crew,” acolytes similarly lacking in shirts, body fat, and social grace, were #bodygoals and #squadgoals come to life. Pictures and videosof Zyzz fist-pumping shirtless in public, wrapping his tanned arms low around the waists of nipple-pastied ravers at festivals, adopting a Herculean pose while standing in a shopping cart—these were the icons of the Misc. religion. When Zyzz died of a heart attack in 2011 at the age of twenty-two, his death became the sixth-most-searched death-related topic in Australia that year. His Facebook page, still regularly updated, has over 400,000 likes.

Zyzz’s masculinity showed itself in vain but harmless demonstrations of grandiosity, but other headline-making Miscers have expressed theirs through violence and morally indefensible acts. Gable Tostee first became a Misc. star by posting screenshots of his Tinder and text conversations with women he “rooted,” or had sex with; he entered Misc. lore after creating an ill-advised thread titled “Regarding the balcony tragedy” in the wake of news that one of his Tinder dates had been found dead from a fall from his apartment balcony. (Tostee was later acquitted of murder and manslaughter.) A Miscer known as YaBoyDave secretly filmed himself having sex with women—“whale-smashing,” in Misc. parlance—and posted the videos on the Misc.; he served 10 months in jail and is now a registered sex offender.

Still worse was Luka Magnotta, a wannabe model whose desperately misguided attempts at fame led him to asphyxiate kittens on camera and, later, live stream the brutal murder and dismemberment of a Chinese student while music from American Psycho played in the background; he was arrested at an internet café in Berlin, alternately surfing for pornography and reading news stories about himself, and it was later revealed that he’d posted on the Misc. Most infamously, Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara shooter, was active on the Misc., starting threads like “Why do girls hate me so much?” and “I’m tired of seeing losers with hot chicks.” In the latter thread, he recalled being “disturbed and offended” by seeing a “short, ugly Indian guy driving a Honda Civic” with a “hot blonde girl in his passenger seat.” It’s the bro’s classic sense of entitlement: Why should someone less masculine than me have what I know I deserve?

Miscers reaching toxic masculinity’s most violent nadir are mercifully few and far between. Yet the obvious connection between these people is one shared by the vast majority of the Misc. They’re young, white men whose social and sex lives are marked by absence or humiliating rejection, and their worldviews have likely been shaped by those failures. Rodger, for one, admitted in his autobiographical manifesto to having “never even kissed a girl.” He was an “incel,” or involuntarily celibate. “Not getting any sex,” he wrote, “is what will shape the very foundation of my miserable youth.”

A pervasive negative sense of self, of disappointment about one’s past and simultaneous anxiety and hopelessness for one’s future, is to the Misc. what the iceberg was to the Titanic: visible if you know to look for it, destructive if you don’t, and lurking below the surface all the same

The running joke about Miscers is that they’re all sad, awkward, forever-alone virgins who don’t lift and are on the only non-fitness-oriented section of a bodybuilding website because they can’t get their shit together. It’s revealing that one of the Misc.’s celebrities—there’s a 24,000-word condensed version of his “saga” on a fan-made website dedicated to him—is a weird, often clueless Everyman. He’s neither egregiously out of shape nor conventionally “aesthetic,” and his videos show a distinct lack of social awareness, a trait cultivated, presumably, by a life spent behind a computer screen and under a barbell.

Users of other Bodybuilding.com sections and other internet communities entirely propagate this idea of the Misc. as a cesspool of beta males with hopelessly futile aspirations of being alpha. “They have to be some of the most insecure dudes out there,” a Hypebeast forum user said of Miscers. On another forum, a user wrote that the Misc. is “filled with people [who] make fun of autism, while at the same time they themselves complain about their jobs, women, etc.”

More often, however, the call is coming from inside the house. Miscers reveal their vulnerabilities and problems in earnest with critically self-aware, self-deprecating posts. There are countless threads about “beta” topics like being a virgin (a Google search of site:bodybuilding.com “virgin” yields nearly 70,000 results), undergoing hair loss, not knowing how to normally interact with women, and giving up entirely. The Misc.’sRelationships and Relationships Help sub-forum would be more aptly titled “Sex: Help.” The “Depression Discussion and Support Thread Part III” thread is “stickied” by moderators at the top of the Misc., indicating that it resonates with the community; “Part II,” before it got so long that a new thread had to be created, had 10,000 posts and 1.6 million views. After the two aforementioned pornographic threads of “petite/slim girls” and “athletic girls,” the most-viewed Misc. threads are one about “Beta/cringe” moments of social awkwardness and another that documents the 350-pound weight-loss journey of a Miscer named Wetbreasts. For many Miscers, undoubtedly, browsing those threads is either motivational or like looking in a mirror. Or both.

It might appear counterintuitive that unconfident, sex-deprived, socially awkward young men would congregate—by the millions—on a bodybuilding website. But that paradox is precisely what’s responsible for the Misc.’s enduring allure.

It goes like this: A young guy thinks that improving his body will improve himself, that lifting weights will make him more confident, which will make girls like him more, which will make him happier, which will get him laid. And so on. In search of guidance, he finds Bodybuilding.com, where, after analyzing fat-to-ripped or skinny-to-jacked transformation stories, he ends up on the most popular part of the website: the Misc. But in the Misc. he finds a different kind of self-help: a vibrant, active community of like-minded guys. Guys who’ve felt inadequate and lonely and somehow less than manly, who’ve struggled with women and friends and money and body image, who’ve laughed at internet jokes and self-referential image macros that no one found funny, much less comprehensible, in real life. With a newfound sense of solidarity, this young guy wades deeper into the Misc., a community that gets him, his worldview increasingly shaped by this bodybuilding subculture, his mind warped by the community’s devil-may-care, “LOL, nothing matters” ethos.

It’s this last quality of the Misc. that Miscers themselves most readily use to characterize the forum. They see the stupidity of getting worked up over little green internet squares. They don’t take themselves seriously—it’s a motley crew of dudes on a bodybuilding site, bro—so nor should anyone else. Their attitude, one adopted from the bro culture with which they’re intertwined, is predicated on actions not having consequences. Break shit and someone else will pay for it. Get blind drunk, scream offensive things in public, and your boys will carry you home. Sexually harass or assault a woman, more than one woman, dozens of women, and you’ll still be revered, promoted, elected. You’re just “bro-ing out,” man, be easy, be chill, have a beer, have a protein shake.

“bro that forum is a fucking laugh man, just need a sense of humour,” a Hypebeast forum user wrote, in a thread titled, “The misc section of the bodybuilding forums is full of clowns.” If you’re young, white, and male, with a sense of humor shaped by the internet and a sense of privilege shaped by, well, everything else, the Misc.’s “clowns” can certainly be hilarious. But the further you are from that in-group, the more those clowns start to look like a horde of disturbing, misogynistic Pennywises.

Zyzz was once your standard insecure teenager with bad hair and spaghetti-thin arms. “I remember feeling like a little bitch when I was out with girls, walking next to them and feeling the same size as them,” he said in an interview. Becoming “aesthetic” hid a profound insecurity. His no-fucks-given attitude hid a fierce desire to be wanted.

Miscers see only the mirage. To them, Zyzz was living, walking, flexing proof that an average guy could eventually open the door to the HBB-filled alpha-male kingdom by gaining confidence and an aesthetically pleasing body. But the king is no more. And not every guy in search of personal fulfillment finds the key to that door by picking up a barbell. Not every young, white male who’d otherwise troll Reddit or 4chan becomes, through bodybuilding, the type of bro who doesn’t spend time on internet forums because he’s too busy crushing it, whatever “it” is, in real life. The Misc.—an online fraternity of the average and awkward, a safe space of the resentful and lustful and doubtful—is for the bros still searching.

[warriorgays]

I’m about to share something really personal about why I’m in this fandom and why I write what I do. I’m going to ask that people not reblog it, just on the off chance it spreads too far, because it has to do with my professional life. Under a cut because it got long.

I’m a history grad student. I don’t do academic history; I focus on how history reaches the average person, through museums, archives, historic sites, new media, and the internet. This summer I had an internship with a fairly prestigious institution in my field, which I won’t name, and had the opportunity to research in their collections and to write a post for their blog. I was delighted to find that in their collection were several items related to gay men, in particular, who served in WWII; a collection of letters written to a civilian, which included at least one love letter and another that was pretty clearly about a friend’s struggle with his queerness, as well as a collection of photos of different men, including one where the subject had used the word “gay” to describe himself, albeit in that kind of vague sense the word still had in the mid-20th century.

I wrote a blog post including these documents, and one other, a picture of a military drag show that didn’t single anyone out. The first time I sent the post out for review, the social media team told me I had to cut the first two documents because we couldn’t risk the men’s families identifying them and being insulted that we had stated/implied they were gay. At this point I was ready to give up, because I couldn’t do the post without those documents; however, two queer full-time employees basically took me under their wing and told me they would help get it passed. They gave me the language I needed to argue my case, and had other high-ranking employees weigh in.

My post went through four more rounds of edits. All told, I believe nine or ten people weighed in. I added several clauses clarifying my language to make it less strong, basically saying “but that doesn’t make these guys GAY” in a dozen different places, until the post was more than twice as long as they originally told us to shoot for. I made almost all of the edits that were recommended, except two - I refused to change “gay neighborhood” to “gay-friendly neighborhood,” which was accepted, and I refused to cut a quote from the letter, although I added in a few more no-homos surrounding it. (I’ll also say that all of the documents in my post are currently publicly available via the institution’s website, although they require a little bit of digging to find.)

All of this happened over two weeks; the longest it ever took for me to get a reply was four days. Friday July 28th was my last day at my internship; I had submitted my final final draft (hopefully) the day before and received no response. I emailed the social media team the following Tuesday and was assured things were moving along and I would get an email ASAP with any updates. I emailed again today to see what was going on, and got a response from the director of the department I worked in, telling me that my blog post wouldn’t go up, because the institution is altering their policy about personally identifiable information and making it more strict, so my post has been rejected. The decision has nothing to do with my writing or my research.

I don’t know what this means. I don’t know if it means the photos and the letters will be taken off the public sites, or if researchers will have to sign a release to view them - or if it just means that they’ll keep LGBT content in the collection, but we’re not allowed to talk about it.

The first time I thought the blog post wasn’t going to happen, I messaged a friend on here about how upset I was. I full-on sobbed for almost half an hour, and it caught me off guard. It was never just about the work I had put into the post, although that’s not insignificant. This was going to be my first real public project, and one that meant so much to me. When I realized I was gay at the age of 15, I freaked out. What saved me was finding a list of LGBTQ people throughout history, realizing that I had a history and a community and that I wasn’t alone. I had never learned that any of the people on that list were queer in my classes, although I had studied several of them, and I had never seen anything about LGBTQ people in museums or history books I had access to.

But I was caught off guard by how attached I was to these men, and how responsible I felt for them. One of the men in the collection died in 1964; it’s very possible he was never out to anyone beyond his lovers and his friends. Another died in 1997, but he was old, poor, black (although he apparently was able to pass in public), and lonely, and his few friends couldn’t afford a funeral; he was buried in a potter’s field. The other two were never identified beyond their first names.

And maybe they would have disliked their letters and their photos being paraded around in public, that’s fair. But I felt... I felt good, taking their happiness, their love and friendship for each other, and making that a part of history, knowing that it had to be kept secret at the time. And I feel kind of sick knowing that these documents aren’t being suppressed because they’re damaging - they don’t contain SSNs, they aren’t evidence of a crime, they don’t contain any lurid details - but because their families might be ashamed or affronted at them being perceived as gay. It feels like they’re being shoved in the closet all over again, because being called gay is still that much of an insult. In 2017, a public history institution can’t insinuate that someone is gay without undeniable proof. Which means, to some extent, that 90% of pre-Stonewall LGBTQ is off-limits.

Sometimes, I admit, I feel silly about writing fanfiction. I feel like I’m pouring too much history into something that, in the end, is just a harmless diversion. I feel awkward at putting so much detail into the lives of “real people” instead of finding the stories of real LGBTQ people and writing those instead. Maybe that would be a better use of my time. Maybe, in the end, it would do more good.

But... it’s so hard. I don’t want to write academic texts for only academics to pass around. I want to do history for the people, because that’s what matters to me, and that means I can’t load myself down with queer theory that people don’t understand, and that I have to couch every word so it’s not Too Much, and already, already, I am tired and angry. Because this is what happened when I had allies, and when even my “opponents” were nice allies who aren’t homophobic, who genuinely think my writing is good but just think we have to be careful. This is what happened even having LGBTQ mentors who have been putting up with this shit for years!

It broke my heart going through these documents. There’s a line in a letter where one man, writing to his friend, talks about how he’s going to get married to a woman because he prayed hard enough that he’s not interested in men anymore - and how he went out with his boyfriend (though he doesn’t use the term) one last time, and how the boyfriend promised to wait for him in case he changed his mind. Another time I was talking to one of the gay employees about how I wished we had the other side of the exchange, especially the one involving the man who died in the 60s, and he said “It’s a shame, but you can bet his family burned the letters as soon as they saw them.” Even with no evidence, there’s one man in the photos who’s just... his sense of humor leapt out at me from the page, and on the back of one he had written “26 and loving it! Gay as hell still”, and I want so badly to know his story, to the point where not knowing, never being able to find him, feels like an unhappy ending itself.

I found out barely an hour ago that the post isn’t happening, so undoubtedly I’ll feel less dramatic in a day or a week or whenever. But at the moment... I’m grateful that I have fanfiction. I’m grateful I have characters I relate to and identify with, and whom I can turn into the people I need them to be, and I’m grateful that I can give them happy endings. I’m even grateful that they’re based on real people (even though I don’t write them as the real people) because that makes them real enough that they can stand in for the people I’m not allowed to talk about.

I’m sure people are going to ask to read my blog post and/or see the documents themselves, because I mentioned they were on a public site. I’m sorry that I don’t have an answer just yet. I very strongly do not want this to result in any attention from the institution and I don’t want my full name to be attached in any way, so I’m still mulling over how best to deal with the situation. I think the most likely result is that I will end up sharing the links to the documents, with certain conditions. I’ll think it over and let you all know by the end of the day tomorrow. If you got this far, thank you.

[the-eng-circle]

#raglisurf #sex_lies_n_tapes #judges_complaints It's 20.12, 5:th of March 2019 and I have to "go offline" (out of money) - but I will come back and describe what todays hockey-judges CAN'T do in other contestants trousers/cages... see you! (A few minutes later..) I had a donation for yet another hour - so I decided to write an hour on what this picimage (Obelix - in Hockey-EM) will show for/in my own sub-si-diary-supported memory-book/-blog for this Thur's (my own) day/trip in/through Hell... IRA (SWE) - "MON-DAY" It started with "a shake on one of the lower decks" (there'as only the big 'n' balded ones go) and an "intrusion" like Hitchcock show as a grimreaping experience in the old film called "Psycho" (steam-shower-pic-image) that became a "struggle" of ropes, wicks and a matter if you make/swear an oath to the dew (all "e-dew-ca-tors" know what I mean) or NOT... (think "Mountain Dew" here, the pubsong by "The clancy Brothers" - like "Whiskey in The Jar"). It was 'explosive' several times - a "nuclear blast in an aquarium-tank" (or "a tomb that had NOT heared enough sound") can name the "incident" - at nights with more "K" than most american presidents ever seen before in their military riddik-oulus night-vision goggles ("...you know what they awoken"...) . I call it an "IRA-bombing" of something else than a simple garbage-bin... it was a whole room (ga-rage-sized) that exploded when that "terrorist" pushed his button a few times - INSIDE my own hand/skin and with the words "Loves nature is no more!" following the repeated clicks with my shoemaker-thumb... one wrathful reaction of many was started that year with intrusions followed after another. The-y didn't succeeded with their breaking of my mind, but a research of my "brain-pattern" and testing of Love's limits were repeatedly coming back to my mind. You can see it as the X-Men's research-facility in Rivendell, a "Bjorn" were trying to make one of his guys a new skeleton... "baptism in a fiery aquarium-tank" and "hell-raising" with a negative facial-plate is another. "Gay-pigs!" Al Pacino cried to them who invaded his bodybuilding with black arts (or red/yellow "ants"). That period was the first hellraiser-attack, I call it "Mon-day" ("Mo" is a fine sand, heathen or "immoral music"/crickets for a Mose) and a "bath of roses", Rosenbath, the name on the swedish parliament was no garden of roses or "a rosegarden" promised from any lovable creature - it was a "piraya-stew" or fish-rince and gum everywere. Anyone that "entered my domain" was a "Jesus-whore", a "sacrifical-moral victim", a "backstabber" that refused to fight myself like a man. Another Volbeat song - "Pool of Booze, Booze, Booza". In Sweden anti-psychiatry and anti-anti-psychiatry (regular psychiatry) was having a IRA-terror-cell and I accuse Bin-Beaff for the repeated attacks at my homeshelter, bed and showerroom - the steam was sometimes hot and the volume noone can have any complaints about, it should've been heard what that homo-devil was diminished into (a nob must have been evesdropping in my surrounding). "He" wanted me to write that the kingdom of Sweden was in a "psychi-o-cratic coupe de'tat" - but I responded (loudly) with that "he" has to declare that himself... "-"She"'s always a woman to me", as Billy Joel would sing it. After I left my "snowy-mountain nord" I had a terrible Tuesday - I arrived in Spain in May and there ETA did wait, just to eat myself up... I had to change tactics... ...more to come... now this internet-store closes... ETA (ESP) - "TU-ES-DAY" Now, it's the day after the above written... here I can describe what happened in Spain (northern, the Basque-region), during the period of nine months 2017-2018 (May-Feb). The most abstract pattern is that I was drying "pieces of sheets" outdoors, in a "revolving parasollic form" as the "tor(-k)-ken" and it's movements can be called when you hang them in a villa's backyard. For nine months I was moving around in San Sebastian.... for nothing... no law, no protection from UN and it's so called "human rights", living on €3.00 in donations per day. And with all that can be read in what I written about these harrasments towards a Finbull's headoffice... with which at three "winters" the so called "Hell on Earth" are awoken. I write this in my third "winter-time" now. "Political abusement" is another "socialistic term" for the intrusions to a man's mind/home/economy. "Throwing rocks" is yet another to a "Sauna-father" who's done this before - you have to "love yourself" as Justin B sings... don't enter the Bear's domain as a "Bi-bear"... that's NOT enough in the "Holy War" (which of course is FOR love - NOT against it/him...it's always a man...it's all about manhood and it's several generation-shifts). The woman can only become a "pro-miss" in these war-battles out in the world - the war isn't FOR(e) her as a woman at all. I'm now in my wo-mb-fight - and that is the worst of "mothers" and "pro-misses"...it's a catfight, a dragon-ring and a lot of demons "attached" to such a board-game. Being the "B-ord" and turning a 5-masteras you becomes, all by yourself in full storm is a lot of things, ropes, strops, sail-cloths, decks, cargo-chests, keelhauls for self-service to your own fathership and holding on to your reality-conception all the time - needs a few "spanish salutes" from the different "canon-decks"... ...it is "fighting natural attacks" - that doesn't belong to yourself even. You're attacked by a ghostship that belongs to another. To resurrect the fathership when it's no where to be found, is a REAL "Hell on Earth-experience". All there is to offer as your self-help when it's a time of a "regressed reality by fantasies" (science-fiction rules the world-culture) is "self- (or forced-) medication". You need to be able to "create"... ...and to be a "turner of tides" you need alot of "lone-time" in your lifehistory, been recreative and re-schooled yourself into do it again - with words... against your own life-wishes or "free will". You're unvoluntarily put into a hell-mode and under a "scientific experiment" - which is the safest way of killing a rival to a leading "ideology/religion". I went atleast 40 000 steps DOWNWARDS in Donostia/San Sebastian, like in a spiral-staircase - for no use... ...EXCEPT for that of forcing the intruder of my helmet deep down (and out) into a "nether region" where "he" belongs. Like on a gyproc-screw, you then turn around the "wall" and take your household/bags and start walking north/upwards again... hopefully to a more language-friendly region (like british isles for my school english to be more understood) where "rule by law" exists. THAT was on the other hand a BIG/HUGE dissapointment later, in London, Great Britain. ...I come back and write some about my third experience, the NMR (Nordic Resistance Movement) and their "doings" here in Italy later - I have to "earn" some more euros to be able to "write something off my back" - it's rare to be able to write nowadays... it's costly (in comparison to wifi and my ex-mobilephones on cafès for example) - I now pay €1.50/hour just to be able to create some of what happends in the "italian ditch-warfare". It's VERY costly when you need both nurishment to your bodyfunctions and the ability to continously write the sub-si-diary-support online. Bye for now! NMR (ITA) - "WED-NES-DAY" Yet another day, "Giovedi" or "Thursday" as the english language call this week-day. It's 7:th of March and today I tell-us a little bit of the time in the third region of this hell-ride ("down-and-up") on what I also call "my day", Thur's-day - I, who have the "judge's hammer" of my own geographical region... and it's not a carpenting-hammer ("he" always want to remind myself of his personal presence). After the "football-experience" in Lille (before I left it) and the soccer-interests in London I declared myself belong more to the icehockey-region opf the world - something I understand is created after the "ability" or desire to "kick the ball" in "no-man's land", where "freedom of speach" is said t exist, but no laws can protect you instead. On the icehockey-arena I'm a headjudge (with the crystal-bowl-visir, sheriff-jacket/-sweater and the armbands for the experience of a true pinocchio-suit/slaugther-room-experiences). As NMR (Nordic Resistance Movement - the racistic resisitance movement upnorth they say) hit myself I will be the goalkeeper, the one that keep his goals - or "the goal-guard-ner" in my own "pocket" so to say - a region where other demand to become domain-owners. I have my small little garden (not a promised "rosegarden" that either - referring to a song from the past) and my two unique "horns" that I never "let down"... ...they're two "flank-men" that never will be forgotten, the posters that now have expanded to 4 x A3-newsposters. The wind on the other hand, have greater wishes to "overthrow the truth" now and then - but that's a homo-lordship with an addiction to the blue ring of wind (an "insider" without a parenthood projects it towards myself). As a "goalie" you "scratch the surface" on what is needed to say - as a true DJ - and the "barfights" are NOT attached to any elephant-nose (listen to the song attached below) - there's a "knife" to behead intrue-doers in a goal-guard-ner's own goalgarden... a knife in size of a mountain in branded clubs like "Mont-Real" or amed that "hoe" as in the "Ko-Ho"-branded one. Here in Italy, nazis has made their presence as the ones that NOT wish myself re-appear up north (in the "collectively unconscienseness") - they say in their "political pamfletts" they wish to "paternalise and send home" foreigners or those who NOT swear allegience to their "king" in parties like Swedish Democrats (SD) - or something like that. It's a constant struggle to "counter-strike" the negativity in swed-ish, "teleporting" (use of a homo-cahannel somewhere), telepathy and telekinesis - the different ways of make/control one as a "Pinocchio-doll"/"Pajas-suit" or being possessed with a homolord's ("king" Herod's) "royal dress", mentioned in the bible's Newer Testament. It's supposed to redicule you outside... ...I, on the other hand, is the one making the humour in my "given" suit - just to put the dolls inside to sleep... or to "night-quarter" them as I mentioned up in London's "Steward's Consession". I love unconditionally my homo-enemies until Death do us part.... that is my mission/purpose, as being a Charon on Styx over to Death's Hades and being "driven" as/into becoming a "chariot of/in fire" in psychiatry. Added 8 of March 2019: I am ONE with my "cage", the-y have put in an videocamera, exchanged the original headjudge (myself) with a newbie who has to go for the judges-booth and look at that old VHS-hitmovie named Sex, Lies and Videotapes... over and over again. This inlay/post was a part of my "complaints" on/to todays "judges" (or to "headjudge" himself) who these modern days aren't that skilled. Like nightly house-interragations by conquistadors from dark ages (tries to collect "wood" are made as branches in size of Harry P's "witch-finger" is called "kvistar" in swedish) - but this door is pretty stubborn as Burger King called it in a humorous way on their "PULL"-sign on their entrance door. Don't pull "Rope" himself though (like in english rope-pulling in a "pig-ditch" as battersea once were), he is from asia and sumo-wrestling in yet another "ring" isn't new to aesir-divinities from upnorth (N-ord) - they herritage from asia. I will say I "landed" in psychiatry back in old dungeon and dragon-times.... avading slavery in the nether regions - slavery is a temptation the "dragon ring" once have made a trio create, in their "wonderous" mechanical patterns. The western astrology's dragon-lure is the scorpio-weakness - let's take the old Bullfighter (the cowboy starsign) from an "unexpected angle" - why not "over his own head" and that poision a scorpio has go towards your head - and are filled with what is knows as black arts - black illnesses included. It's hell geting out of it - I say "good luck to you", these "injections" is now the new threat to the Earths populations - one pattern is to "run it off"... but that is my "unique horn" fighting Capricorn's "aid" to his "black lamb" in psychiatry - and to force that intru-der ("in-truth-dies" in swe) out of my head, where he definitively is UN-invited... those within UN who are believers of "scientism" or "to cut" or "divide" as an UN-conscious (or broken) conscience is, when "-science" is their only/solely conviction/religion. All these above is my "complaints" to above mentioned "headjudge" - who think he's snable-camera is wanted in every cage/chest everywhere. How (except a depletion of psychiatry as the (soft) gingerbread ringformed sugercake remind myself of - one of grandmother's favourites to serve and protect with at the swedish feeka-table from old times, a "Mount Doom-memory" that it's possible to remake) I would fix this I don't know... ...but some "markings" made by Fraud-O and his ring ("crop-circles" for myself as being on my Viking-sleighride at cold war-times) will be his own fault as Professional or "Specialist-" Doctor in state governmental psychological warfares. Even on old Roman grounds... doing some "final acts" according to "a manual" or "usual routines" when a Rudolf is "going down". And he himself NOT being a "clown-believer" - but the "Incredible Houdini" in his own so rest-raining-jacket... under my ice skating rink level. Then in his "mirror-image-world" of his own man/mouse-af-fair in a "sockel", in a house's ground or under the "stairway/stepstool" from another mother (JK Rowling's "adoptive one" maybe). Over and out! 250 Kg Kaerlek/Love - Naken/Nude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHNcK7mglN4 LYRICS ENG I was iceskating beneath The Westbridge in belief that the ice was thick but so wasn't the case so I went down in a hole in the ice when I lay there and cried a dude came I cried to him "-Help me up!" but was not what he did. He undressed himself to nudity and jumped down into my "icy hole" And he said: -Oh, oh, it feels so good to be nude to swing the snable and "wag the dog" ...(more "transference" to come) LYRICS SWE Jag åkte skridskor under västerbron i tron att isen var tjock men det var den inte, så jag plumsa ner i en vak När jag låg där och skrek så kom en man Jag ropa "Hjälp mig opp!" men det gjorde inte han. Han klädde av sig naken och hoppa ner i vaken. Och sa: åh, åh vad det är skönt å va naken Svänga me snabeln och vicka pa baken En sommarkväll hade vårat gäng fest vid stadens simbassäng. Alla var glada, nakna och fulla. En del var faktiskt jättefulla. Men när vi tömde bassängen och fyllde på med isen för att kyla bärsen, ja då kom polisen. Och dom haffa miiig. Dom sa "Dig håller vi kvar, får vi höra ditt försvar?" jag sa: åh, åh vad det är skönt å va naken Svänga me snabeln och vicka på baken Jag åkte till Åland å handla sprit å då åkte jag dit i tullen Dom trodde visst jag var terrorist och letade långt upp i tarmen. Ett finger gick ju bra, men inte hela armen. Å dom hitta lite grann, så dom leta lite mer Så frågar dom varför jag står här och ler? Jag svara: åh, åh vad det är skönt å va naken Svänga me snabeln och vicka på baken åh, åh vad det ar skönt å va naken Svänga me snabeln och vicka på... Åhhh, åhh, åhhhhhh... Åh, åh vad det är skönt å va naken Svänga me snabeln och vicka på baken