#whatever happened to beautifully imperfect men

[melaninmaladapting]

oh to be walking through a cobblestone-paved street with a carefully woven basket of raspberries swinging from my arm and run into a tall and endearing giant of a man who the writers made clumsy and careful and altogether beautiful when our eyes meet and our very spirits hold their breath

[youryanderedaddy]

Love Fuel

Summary: You were Jason’s first love before you broke his heart and rejected him. It’s all your fault that he can’t move on.

Tw: female reader, obsessive behavior, incel behavior, nice guy behavior, self - hatred, threats of non-con, implied non - con, implied masturbation, bullying based on appearance (not reader), deregatory language, kidnapping, misogyny, generalizations, stalking

this is a hot mess but its 1 am and i am tired, ik that incels are bad irl (obviously), but this is fiction and I kinda wanted to explore the dynamic and shit. 

Everyone used to call him JJ or The-Big-Jay back in high school. Well, most of the time his classmates weren’t really calling out to him or even talking to him, the names were whispered behind his back, after he had just passed the hallway, or on bad days - right to his face. The jocks, these dumb motherfuckers, would beat him up, mock him for whatever stupid reasons they had chosen to use as an excuse to torment the smaller and weaker. The popular girls would giggle like brainless bimbos as Kyle or Brad or any other football player stole his glasses or continuously punched him in the guts until he threw up all over the floor. Even the nerds, the kids at the bottom of the school hierarchy, messed with Jason from time to time when they wanted to feel the oh - so desired rush of power they so rarely managed to experience. 

Looking back, Jason could see why his classmates hated him so much - he was everything that society deemed as wrong and unattractive. He was thin, pale, “scrawny” as the others called him, on the shorter side, and on top of that the teen was terribly shy and introverted, never having the guts to stand up to his bullies or even tell someone about the abuse. The male spent most of his free time at home, playing hours upon hours of video games, watching anime and reading books he was simply too young to understand or look critically at. As he grew older, the man began to view the world as it trully was - a dark, miserable place that ate up sore losers like him. Men were primitive and foolish, which somehow managed to soften their faults. Women, on the other hand, were  calculative and manipulative, greedy and sinful. His whole life they had done nothing but reject him when he needed love and support the most. Of course, there were many other reason why the brunette detested the weaker sex. In his eyes women were evil two - faced sluts, showing off their bodies yet acting innocent and hurt once someone finally decided to use them for the only thing they were actually good for.

But you Jason hated the most. You reminded him that no matter how much he hated the outside world, he would always hate himself the most. He had to admit you were pretty, painfully so, with a perfect little body to match your looks and a sweet sugary smile that almost deceived him years ago. As much as the man regretted his weakness, he had fallen right into your trap at the time.

You weren’t the most popular girl, but you had your fair share of friends, all nice and loyal like puppies. You weren’t the smartest either, but unlike the other stupid giggling sluts you always tried to do your best. You were beautiful just like them but you were actually kind to the pathetic bullied kid no one else bothered to acknowledge even existed outside of being a punching bag. You always asked him whether he was alright and often took him to the infirmary when he looked paler and sicker than usual. You talked to him as if he was a normal human being and despite the initial doubt, Jason appreciated it. 

It was the last day of your senior year when the teen finally gained the courage to confess. He was shaking the whole time and by the end of his little speech there were small tears in the corner of his eye. You were the first girl the male cared about, the first one to show him kindness, to offer him friendship without asking for something in return. You were the only one who could make him feel deserving of love, worthy of affection. And then you took it all away in a matter of seconds.

“I am sorry, bud.” You had said that day after giving him a  half - hearted hug and an apologetic smile, that started to seem more and more like a mocking grin the longer the teen started at you. “I already have a boyfriend, but I am really flattered. I am sure that you will find a lovely girl once you start college.” You had added quickly, cheerfully, rubbing the salt all over his wounds, honey dripping from your plump red lips. He had wanted to kiss them, bruise them, bite them until your stupid lying mouth was filled with blood. Obviously you didn’t have a boyfriend or he would have known by now, he stalked your social media religiously after all. Even if you had one, he probably treated you like shit. And how could you even suggest him finding another woman? As if he wanted any of the stupid money - grabbing sluts out there. As if some of them could replace you.

The boy was too furious to form a proper response besides “Fuck you, bitch”. His cheeks turned red and he didn’t realise that the bitter words had escaped his lips before he could stop them, then his legs took him far away from that shithole of a school. He didn’t manage to see your reaction before running away but it didn’t matter anymore. You were just like the others. 

***

That day Jason swore to show you just how small and insignificant you had made him feel. He wanted to see you crumble, cry and beg for forgiveness, desperate for his love but never good enough to get it. The man formed a plan to change himself and come back for you once he had erased each and every trace of his past. The brunette came to terms with his terrible social anxiety and decided that he needed to gain social abilities more than anything. That’s why, as much as he dreamt of working from home as a boring programmer with an even more boring, but flexible working schelude, the male chose to study something that involved a lot more human interactions. The next step was to hit the gym for the first time and get a monthly subscription. It wasn’t hard to see that females nowadays liked brain - dead athletes with defined jawline and cheekbones, toned chests and strong muscled bodies, so if he wanted to impress you, he had to look his best. It wasn’t easy at first - it felt like everyone in the fitness salon had their eyes on his weak frame, laughing and pointing their fingers at his imperfections, but things gradually got better as time went on. The trainings became easier to get through and from time to time they even helped the man forget about his loneliness and nihilism. 

Jason soon returned to his old habbit of spending hours looking through your accounts - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, he knew all of your usernames, each post, every picture and text. He couldn’t believe how much of a desperate attention whore you had become over the years. The male remembered you in your long brown skirts, cozy sweatshirts and pure-white shirts, all the gray buttons closed to the very top, blushing, laughing, smiling like the adorable Goody-two-shoes you were. Now you were smirking seductively in every photo, overconfident and vibrant, flaunting your tits for every man to see and wearing tight little dresses that barelly covered your ass combined with heels so high and sharp they could be used as a weapon. You were such a stupid slut it was disgusting, and he couldn’t stop himself from jerking off every single time he saw your pretty little face on the screen. He wanted to cum down your throat so badly it was ridiculous, and even after knowing that you had probably already had hundreds of cocks shoved deep inside your pussy, the brunette still wished to see you split open on his, taking his lenght like a good little cocksleeve. 

***

The moment when he could see you again finally came. How many years had passed since graduation - five, ten, fifthteen? It hardly mattered. Jason was successful, at last. The male had his own business that was doing surprisingly well, there were some guys from the gym he could call friends and the best thing, he looked absolutely unrecognizable. There was nothing left of the tiny scrawny kid with quiet voice that everyone stepped over, he was now replaced by a strong capable man, determined to get what was rightfully his and his alone.

It wasn’t hard to find you since the brunette knew everything about you - where your job was, what time you finished, how long it took you to go home and what path you took. You lived alone and worked as a barista in a small local cafe even now that you had finished your studies in your dream faculty. Turns out the princess wasn’t so great and smart after all, having to resort to working a minimal - wage job day and night just to be able to pay her rent. Jason was absolutely delighted though, he loved your stupid dead - end job and your endless struggles to survive in the materialistic world honestly and fairly without selling yourself like a common whore. On one hand the male was happy that you had clung onto your last bit of innocence and on the other your pitiful lifestyle gave him the chance to snatch you away much easier. And that’s exactly what he did.

 ***

You woke up confused just like he had expected, bombarding him with questions, asking him who he was was, begging him to let you go, to at least explain what’s happening. You were so dumb, but God, you were still so pretty, if not prettier than before. You cried so beautifully when Jason told you you belonged to him now and you cried even more when he slammed his cold rough lips over yours in a deep wet kiss. You whimpered and whined while the male sucked on your lower lip and bit down, good, he wanted it to hurt. The stalker couldn’t wait to be inside you, he couldn’t hold back anymore. 

He climbed on top of you and pinned your wrists to the floor before tying them up with delicate red rope and tightening it. It wasn’t like the man was scared of you slipping away and hurting him, you were too weak and tiny to stand a chance against his years of power - lifting and muscle - training anyways, he just wanted you to be as uncomfortable and squirmish as possible. Your tormentor wished for you to be in worse pain than he had been during his youthful years, and he knew exactly what to do. Next thing you knew Jason had ripped your dress apart, leaving you vulnerable and exposed in just your plain old panties and bra. Cold shivers ran down your spine when the chilly air hit your naked flesh and you finally realized there wasn’t getting away from this. You had to stay there, limbs bound together, unable to move or fight back, the stranger’s hands caressing your neck before moving dangerously close to your clothed breasts. You felt so sick you were going to throw up for sure if your abductor didn’t step back so you decided to use your last resort.

“Jason, please stop!” You screamed out of the blue, forcing the brunette to freeze instantly at the use of his birth name. You had already called him a pervert and a psycho which didn’t seem to faze him, but the name clearly caught him off guard. This only seemed to prove your theory further - the man really was your former classmate, despite the only similarity between them being the dark distant look in his eyes. “I beg you, don’t hurt me!” You continued, hoping to at least buy yourself more time before the assault took place. 

He gulped loudly and stared at your quivering form. The impossible had happened, you had recognized him and now together with fear, there was also pity in your gaze, the one emotion your captor absolutely despised. You used to be the only one who pitied him, and even now that he was bigger, better and stronger than before, you still had the guts to pity him. It drove him insane but any attempt to hurt or touch you was fruitless now - your soft skin was suddenly burning his fingers like hellfire. 

“You must be thinking that I am a monster.” Jason started out dryly, chuckling bitterly, humorlessly even. He clenched his fists unconsciously and brought them to the floor in a fit of rage, missing your head by mere inches. Your heart was beating like crazy and you only hoped the mandman couldn’t hear it. “A freak.” The man spat out the word like it was a curse and for a split second his eyes softened before turning into two spinning torches. “Right?” You were sure that if looks could kill, his would have you dead by the end of the night so you quickly nodded your head no.

“You are lying to me again, pretty girl.” The brunette replied feisty, "pretty” rolling off his tongue like an insult. Then he broke into hoarse maniac laugher and lowered his head so his face leveled up with yours, so close you could feel his warm breath on your tear - stained cheek. “When I am done with you, you wouldn’t be so pretty anymore, darling.” Your captor growled and attacked your neck, sinking his teeth deep into the flesh. “You will see exaclty how ugly my love is.”

[kellyannecontent]

Dear Jimmy, Your family asked me to speak at your service, and I am so honored and touched. I’m also really scared, and I say that because you of all people will understand this. I’d like to run away and call in four days from now from the beauty parlor. I want to do a good job, because I love you, and because you always did a good job. I think the deal is I’m supposed to speak about the actor/artist’s work part of your life. Others will have spoken beautifully and magnificently about the other beautiful and magnificent parts of you: father, brother, friend. I guess what I was told is I’m also supposed to speak for your castmates whom you loved, for your crew that you loved so much, for the people at HBO, and Journey. I hope I can speak for all of them today and for you. I asked around, and experts told me to start with a joke and a funny anecdote. “Ha ha ha.” But as you yourself so often said, I’m not feelin’ it. I’m too sad and full of despair. I’m writing to you partly because I would like to have had your advice. Because I remember how you did speeches. I saw you do a lot of them at awards shows and stuff, and invariably you would scratch two or three thoughts on a sheet of paper and put it in your pocket, and then not really refer to it. And consequently, a lot of your speeches didn’t make sense. I think that could happen in here, except in your case, it didn’t matter that it didn’t make sense, because the feeling was real. The feeling was real. The feeling was real. I can’t say that enough. I tried to write a traditional eulogy, but it came out like bad TV. So I’m writing you this letter, and now I’m reading that letter in front of you. But it is being done to and for an audience, so I’ll give the funny opening a try. I hope that it’s funny; it is to me and it is to you. And that is, one day toward the end of the show — maybe season 4 or season 5 — we were on the set shooting a scene with Stevie Van Zandt, and I think the set-up was that Tony had received news of the death of someone, and it was inconvenient for him. And it said, “Tony opens the refrigerator door, closes it and he starts to speak.” And the cameras rolled, and you opened the refrigerator door, and you slammed it really hard — you slammed it hard enough that it came open again. And so then you slammed it again, then it came open again. You kept slamming it and slamming it and slamming it and slamming it and went apeshit on that refrigerator. And the funny part for me is I remember Steven Van Zandt — because the cameras are going, we have to play this whole scene with a refrigerator door opening — I remember Steven Van Zandt standing there with his lip out, trying to figure out, “Well, what should I do? First, as Silvio, because he just ruined my refrigerator. And also as Steven the actor, because we’re now going to play a scene with the refrigerator door open; people don’t do that.” And I remember him going over there and trying to tinker with the door and fix it, and it didn’t work. And so we finally had to call cut, and we had to fix the refrigerator door, and it never really worked, because the gaffer tape showed on the refrigerator, and it was a problem all day long. And I remember you saying, “Ah, this role, this role, the places it takes me to, the things I have to do, it’s so dark.” And I remember telling you, “Did I tell you to destroy the refrigerator? Did it say anywhere in the script, ‘Tony destroys a refrigerator’? It says ‘Tony angrily shuts the refrigerator door.’ That’s what it says. You destroyed the fridge.” Another memory of you that comes to mind is from very early on — might have been the pilot, I don’t know. We were shooting in that really hot and humid summer New Jersey heat. And I looked over, and you were sitting in an aluminum beach chair, with your slacks rolled up to your knees, in black socks and black shoes, and a wet handkerchief on your head. And I remember looking over there and going, “Well, that’s really not a cool look.” But I was filled with love, and I knew then that I was in the right place. I said, “Wow, I haven’t seen that done since my father used to do it, and my Italian uncles use to do it, and my Italian grandfather used to do it.” And they were laborers in the same hot sun in New Jersey. They were stone masons, and your father worked with concrete. I don’t know what it is with Italians and cement. And I was so proud of our heritage — it made me so proud of our heritage to see you do that. When I said before that you were my brother, this has a lot to do with that: Italian-American, Italian worker, builder, that Jersey thing — whatever that means — the same social class. I really feel that, though I’m older than you, and always felt, that we are brothers. And it was really based on that day. I was filled with so much love for everything we were doing and about to embark on. I also feel you’re my brother in that we have different tastes, but there are things we both love, which was family, work, people in all their imperfection, food, alcohol, talking, rage, and a desire to bring the whole structure crashing down. We amused each other. The image of my uncles and father reminded me of something that happened between us one time. Because these guys were such men — your father and these men from Italy. And you were going through a crisis of faith about yourself and acting, a lot of things, were very upset. I went to meet you on the banks of the Hudson River, and you told me, you said, “You know what I want to be? I want to be a man. That’s all. I want to be a man.” Now, this is so odd, because you are such a man. You’re a man in many ways many males, including myself, wish they could be a man. The paradox about you as a man is that I always felt personally, that with you, I was seeing a young boy. A boy about Michael’s age right now. ‘Cause you were very boyish. And about the age when humankind, and life on the planet are really opening up and putting on a show, really revealing themselves in all their beautiful and horrible glory. And I saw you as a boy — as a sad boy, amazed and confused and loving and amazed by all that. And that was all in your eyes. And that was why, I think, you were a great actor: because of that boy who was inside. He was a child reacting. Of course you were intelligent, but it was a child reacting, and your reactions were often childish. And by that, I mean they were pre-school, they were pre-manners, they were pre-intellect. They were just simple emotions, straight and pure. And I think your talent is that you can take in the immensity of humankind and the universe, and shine it out to the rest of us like a huge bright light. And I believe that only a pure soul, like a child, can do that really well. And that was you. Now to talk about a third guy between us, there was you and me and this third guy. People always say, “Tony Soprano. Why did we love him so much when he was such a prick?” And my theory was, they saw the little boy. They felt and they loved the little boy, and they sensed his love and hurt. And you brought all of that to it. You were a good boy. Your work with the Wounded Warriors was just one example of this. And I’m going to say something because I know that you’d want me to say it in public: that no one should forget Tony Sirico’s efforts with you in this. He was there with you all the way, and in fact you said to me just recently, “It’s more Tony than me.” And I know you, and I know you would want me to turn the spotlight on him, or you wouldn’t be satisfied. So I’ve done that. So Tony Soprano never changed, people say. He got darker. I don’t know how they can misunderstand that. He tried and he tried and he tried. And you tried and you tried, more than most of us, and harder than most of us, and sometimes you tried too hard. That refrigerator is one example. Sometimes, your efforts were at cost to you and others, but you tried. And I’m thinking about the fact of how nice you were to strangers on the street, fans, photographers. You would be patient, loving and personal, and then finally you would just do too much, and then you would snap. And that’s of course what everybody read about, was the snapping. I was asked to talk about the work part, and so I’ll talk about the show we used to do and how we used to do it. You know, everybody knows that we always ended an episode with a song. That was kind of like me and the writers letting the real geniuses do the heavy lifting: Bruce, and Mick and Keith, and Howling Wolf and a bunch of them. So if this was an episode, it would end with a song. And the song, as far as I’m concerned, would be Joan Osborne’s “(What If God Was) One Of Us?” And the set-up for this — we never did this, and you never even heard this — is that Tony was somehow lost in the Meadowlands. He didn’t have his car, and his wallet, and his car keys. I forget how he got there — there was some kind of a scrape — but he had nothing in his pocket but some change. He didn’t have his guys with him, he didn’t have his gun. And so mob boss Tony Soprano had to be one of the working stiffs, getting in line for the bus. And the way we were going to film it, he was going to get on the bus, and the lyric that would’ve one over that would’ve been — and we don’t have Joan Osborne to sing it: If God had a face what would it look like? And would you want to see if seeing meant you had to believe? And yeah, yeah, God is great. Yeah, yeah, God is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Tony would get on the bus, and he would sit there, and the bus would pull out in this big billow of diesel smoke. And then the key lyric would come on, and it was What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home. And that would’ve been playing over your face, Jimmy. But then — and this is where it gets kind of strange — now I would have to update, because of the events of the last week. And I would let the song play further, and the lyrics would be Just trying to make his way home Like a holy rollin’ stone Back up to Heaven all alone Nobody callin’ on the phone ‘Cept for the Pope, maybe, in Rome. Love, David

David Chase in an open letter eulogizing James Gandolfini 

[mondofunnybooks]

MONDO FUNNYBOOKS; HITLER, BREXIT THE COMIC ,WEIRD INDIAN GAY PORN AND SADDAM HUSSEIN ON AN OSTRICH!

There was a time where comic creators worked to cause up a stink. Keith Giffen shot a comic (We're still after one, please, Dave or anyone else who worked for Blackball.) Kevin Maguire made ALL of Steve Rogers embossed. Spawn shipped 2 issues out of order. Lobo punched God in the face. Kyle Rayner became a Green Lantern. Barry Windsor Smith said some of the early Image Comics were a bit rubbish while promoting his new book 'Storyteller'. Youngblood: Year One would feature fully painted art by Rob Liefeld, akin to just released hit 'Marvels', featuring painted art by Alex Ross. Tom DeFalco famously declared his new ongoing from Marvel, 'Sleepwalker', would be 'Sandman' done right.

Copies of Sleepwalker are usually found in cheap bins across the Western hemisphere so feel free to judge for yourself how successful he was with that.

But for our money, nobody stirred up trouble like Gregarious Grant Morrison. His interview alongside Mark Millar with Comics World to promote their upcoming mini-series 'Skrull Kill Krew' remains one of the funniest moments of 'What a load of old bollocks this is!' vindictiveness since John Buscema told everyone in his art class to swipe since 'this stuff ain't going in the Lourve, pal.' Some of the less informed American hype rags attempted to suggest that SKK was the natural sequel to Zenith since it would see Morrison reunite with his partner in crime: Steve Yeowell.

Which either means they didn't know, or thought it wiser not to mention a strip that ran in Crisis circa 1990 called 'New Adventures Of Hitler'.

We'll come back to Crisis in more depth because it's probably the answer to the question a lot of the UK retailers are asking at the moment: How do we get people reading comics again. Crisis or something like it would be a good attempt, featuring a ton of original strips in a format that didn't suggest it ought to be stocked amongst a bunch of plastic bags full of toys and a magazine. Crisis also featured two of our favourite stories: 'Dare' which finished off from the sadly cancelled Revolver (Again, more another time.) as created by Grant and Rian Hughes and 'Trip To Tulum'. Which oddly was the only way to find the English translation of the collaboration by Milo Manara and Federico Fellini for quite a long time. God knows how they even got that in the first place.

NAH featured in issues 46-49 and surprised a few newsagents opening their delivery at 5am across the UK when confronted with 'Mr Hitler's Holiday', featuring your man from The Third on a bike against a dirty lurid purple cover. NAH concerned itself with Adolf taking a trip to Liverpool from 1912-1913 and learning a few tricks about fascism from the English while reality warps itself silly around the wee lad. Morrisey shows up singing 'Heaven Knows i'm Miserable Now'. A bunch of randoms begin chanting 'Hitler Has Only Got One Ball' on a bus he's on leaving the future Fuhrer mystified and mortified.

'NAH' originally ran in something called 'Cut' magazine but one of the editors, also someone from a band called 'Hue & Cry' having a strop so either 'Cut' itself stopped or at least stopped running the story. In any event, it migrated over to Crisis. It's rather excellent and while we don't know who owns the rights to it, it's one of those things that really ought to be in print.

Speaking of which......

Those more in the know will have to explain it to us, because the common answer is 'Because Grant and Mark aren't friends anymore.' and we're not sure that's how book publishing works, but the question is obviously 'Why isn't Big Dave in print?' If ANY comic were a timely insight into the mindset of the Brexit voting population of the UK, 'Big Dave' prophetically nails it like a time bullet fired from 1993. Essentially a high budget Viz strip beautifully pencilled by Steve Parkhouse, BD is a series of increasing ludricious adventures featuring that wide necked bloke in an England shirt with a bulldog tattooed to his forehead you see every St George's Day with a copy of The Sun in his back packet. It is ludicriously sexist, homophobic, racist and pro-monarchy.

Or at least the character is. Quite a few people seemed to confuse 'the portrayal of an attitude' with 'the glorfication of same attitude'. 2000AD apparently getting a bit narky if you bring this not being in print up. Frankly, if you don't find Dave having a threesome with Princess Di and Sarah Ferguson funny, you're probably reading the wrong column. We'd like to see this back in print. And please, please do not feel compelled to update this strip the same way 'DR & Quinch' was earlier this year. We'll stick that little relaunch in the same bin as the 'Femme Fatales/What if our artists swiped from Loaded and stuck some 2000AD related costumes on the art.' supplement from 1994, aye?

Finally, we go from the unreprintable to the never even published and perhaps not even written!

Unless somebody does something incredible, we will probably go to our graves saying that 'Kill Your Boyfriend' by Morrison & Bond is the best single story in comics ever published. This, before old men start getting heart attacks, does not include long form series, mini-series, single graphic novels, cartoon strips, etc. In terms of a story that starts, continues and ends in one issue with no knowledge of any other comic ever published, KYB is it. It brings up and destroys the notion of the personality as anything other than a series of reactions to various traumas and conditioning far faster than 'The Dice Man' does and with much funnier results. It could be read as the documentation of how a good acid trip will crack the inner monologue of the ego and set your inner self free, if you were of such a mind. It's certainly one of the best things Vertigo ever did.

'KYB' was part of a line called 'Vertigo Voices' published in 1995. The other books were 'Faces' by Pete 'Shade' The Changing Man'* Milligan and Duncan 'Oh, all the good things' Fegredo a book about why is plastic surgery and what does it say about us that we've conditioned ourselves to believe that there is such a thing as an imperfect face. Also 'Tainted' by Delano and Davidson (we've not read it, but the line up is well sound) and another book that we'll come back to in a bit but what's relevant here is that there was meant to be another comic in this line.

That comic would have been 'Bizarre Boys' by Grant Morrison, Pete Milligan and Jamie Hewlett.

The legend is that a suitably refreshed Grant and Pete were out in India and were looking around at various stalls filled with magazines, amidst the chaos the publication 'Bizarre Boys' caught their eye and was so outlandish (we're not Googling it, but nor are we stopping you from doing so.) that they committed right there to sell a comic with the same title to Vertigo. It got as far as being previewed in Spin Nov 1994 along with talk of an Invisibles TV Show (and come on. PLEASE. Netflix has cleared the deck of all the boring Marvel Superhero things so now is the PERFECT time for the adventures of Lord Fanny And The Other Ones.) but somewhere along the line it simply dropped from the publication schedule with no word of why, although as the comic was to be a fictional biography of Milligan and Morrison's alter egos, it's suggested that they were too busy living the life to settle down long enough to document.

We'd have to make the point that an oral account of the Vertigo offices circa 1994-1996 as spoken by Pete and Grant while drawn by Jamie would be a far more interesting thing to bring us back to the shops for new comics than, well, Tank Girl or Green Lantern.

The following pitch ran as part of The Time Is Now: DC Comics' Editorial Presentation 1994.

'Here's the solicitation copy for Bizarre Boys, which ran as part of The VERTIGO does what it does best in VERTIGO VOICES - a new umbrella title for four distinctive one-shots - where four of VERTIGO's most creatively deranged writers give voice to their most outrageous, gripping and graphic imaginings. Each "VOICE" delivers its own sound, in turn hyperreal, darkly disturbing, irreverent, and biting. FACE is the first "VOICE" to be heard, followed by KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, and closing with BIZARRE BOYS. These are stories with sounds all their own, tearing a jagged rip through reality.

BIZARRE BOYS, VERTIGO VOICES' most irreverent title, is a story within a story within a story. It's about some fictional characters called the Bizarre Boys, and about the writers who write them and about the writers who are writing about the writers... There are two voices telling the tale of BIZARRE BOYS, and they don't agree with each other at all.

BIZARRE BOYS is a comic about a comic and about the process of putting together a comic. It's a sparkling tapestry of post-modernism and a fast- moving breathless chase across time and space.

It all takes place - naturally - on Bizarre Boys Day, when writers Peter Milligan (SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN) and Grant Morrison (THE INVISIBLES) join forces with artist Jamie Hewlett (SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN, Tank Girl) to tell the tale of two writers called Millison and Morrigan, and their fabulous creations, The Bizarre Boys. Echoing James Joyce's Bloomsday, whatever events happen on Bizarre Boys Day also happen in the comic.

As the two writers begin their quest for the fantastic Bizarre Boys, whose sweat contains miraculous healing and hallucinogenic properties, these latter-day Brothers Grimm weave some dissolute modern fairy tales, take the wraps off the creative process itself, and tell a joke or three.'

We're told by inside sources that elements of 'Bizarre Boys' ran in the final book of The Vertigo Voices line: 'The Eaters' as drawn by Dean Ormston and Pete Milligan.

And that's us for now. What do YOU think? Should these projects remain in the dustbin of FunnyBook History? Maybe Kickstarters, er, started to try and release them as independent books (Lord knows if Cyberfrog can be a thing again, then...) Amazon have begun publishing comics directly from creators like Kyle Baker and Rick Veitch, which could sidestep the whole 'Comics are for kids so why is this in Sainsbury's!?' furor all over again. Image has put out some fairly anondyne nonsense lately and could do with something like this in their line-up. Let us know in the comments and as ever we'll see you in The FunnyPages.

(Big Dave ran as part of 2000AD's 'Summer Offensive' in 1993, some of the most fun the Progs have ever been. Big Dave features in the following issues*:)

"Target Baghdad" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000 AD #842–845, 1993) "Monarchy in the UK" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000 AD #846–849, 1993) "Young Dave" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000AD Yearbook 1994, 1993) "Costa del Chaos" (with Anthony Williams, in 2000 AD #869–872, 1994) "Wotta Lotta Balls" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000 AD #904–907, 1994)

*according to Wiki, anyway.

'New Adventures Of Hitler' can be found in Crisis: #46 - 49.

[seengularity]

It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam and Dean Winchester!

Pairing: none

Word Count: 1.8k

Summary: You, Sam and Dean all go pumpkin picking. More cute stuff to come when the three of you bring home the perfect pumpkin!

Warnings: fluff? Idk just cute Halloweeny stuff

A/N: It’s starting to become colder and leaves are beginning to turn orange and fall down, so I felt inspired to write this :)

LEAVING COMMENTS IS NICE. EVEN IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO COMMENT, LEAVE A REBLOG. EVERYTHING IS APPRECIATED, INCLDING FEEDBACK.

Picture below the cut!

“Please, please, please, can we all go pick a pumpkin? Come on. We’ve done nothing but research this stupid case for weeks now! Can we please have a break?”

You hadn’t known until recently that there was a farm down the road from the bunker that had their very own pumpkin patch. They were allowing the public to go in and pumpkin pick only for a week and it was ending on Sunday.

“Dean, today is Saturday and they won’t allow anymore pumpkin picking tomorrow,” you put on your best puppy dog eyes for Dean and he sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Fine, hurry up and get ready and let Sam know.”

You jumped up and down and squealed like a little girl. You ran to Dean and hugged him hard. You hadn’t picked a pumpkin since you were ten and you were so happy to pick a pumpkin with the two men you had grown close with for the past eight years.

You kissed Dean on the cheek and ran down the hallway to your room, passing by Sam’s bedroom on the way.

“Hey Sam! We’re going pumpkin picking!”

You continued running to your room and shut your door. Out of happiness and excitement, you did a little silly dance, shaking your butt and singing a song.

It’s beginning to look a lot like…Halloween!

You sang the words along to the rhythm of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. You pulled on a knitted sweater and placed your hunting boots back on. It was chilly outside and your work boots were the only decent and warm shoes you had. You threw your hair up into a ponytail and powerwalked out of your room and back into the library where Sam and Dean were waiting for you.

“I’m ready. Let’s go hurry! Before they take all the good and big pumpkins!”

You sat in the back and admired the drive to the patch. You felt little again, and the joy in your heart was feeling nostalgic.

Dean parked his car on the street and the three of you got out of the car. You didn’t wait for them to close their doors before you decided to walk into the patch.

“Wait for us!” Dean yelled to you, but you were already so focused on which pumpkin would be best to carve and make pie out of.

You seen a large pumpkin on the ground and smiled as you eyed it. You walked over to it and bent over, stretching your hand out to make sure it was a good pumpkin.

Before touching it, a kid ran over to you and grabbed the pumpkin off the ground, leaving you frozen in place.

You got up quickly, staring down at the kid as he looked up at you and smiled, showing off his missing teeth.

“Hey kid, that’s my pumpkin,” you said, pointing directly to the large squash in his hands. It was clearly too big for him and his arms couldn’t wrap around it.

“No it’s not! I touched it first! It’s mine!” The kid ran away, wobbling as he ran with the large pumpkin.

You slowly began to go after the kid. “Hey! No that’s min–”

A large hand grabbed your arm, stopping you from getting the perfect pumpkin that you picked out. You turned around and Dean was holding you back.

“Dean! Let me go, he has our pumpkin!” You yelled, trying to jerk your arm out of his grasp.

“Y/N, it’s a pumpkin. There’s millions of them left,” Dean said pointing at every single imperfect pumpkin surrounding you.

“No! They aren’t the same. That one was big and perfect enough for carving and pie!”

You felt ridiculous, arguing about a pumpkin. But if you were going to get one, you wanted it to be a perfect one. Now that can’t happen because Missing Teeth Timmy stole it.

“What about this one?” Sam said bringing over an even larger pumpkin than the one you found.

Your frown was uplifted and your eyes widened at the perfect pumpkin right in front of you.

“Sam, this one is perfect! I should bring you pumpkin picking with me more often,” you said, nudging him on his side.

Sam smiled at the praise that you gave him. The three of you walked over to the man who grew the pumpkins, and paid him for it.

You, Sam and Dean walked back to the Impala, Sam holding the pumpkin. His large hands made the pumpkin look tiny, until Sam gave it to you to hold in the backseat. It practically squashed your legs, but you didn’t care.

Back at the bunker, you had several old newspaper pages placed on top of one of the library tables. The large pumpkin sat beautifully on top, looking like a party favor.

You ran to your room and back, retrieving the pumpkin carving tools that you bought a year before, when you thought you were going to buy a pumpkin.

“Alright, which strong man wants to carve a hole on the top?” You asked Sam and Dean. Dean didn’t look very interested, but Sam looked happy to volunteer.

He grabbed one of the knives and carved a circle on the top and placed to large stem to the side.

“Okay, now it’s time for the guts. Help me take them out?” You asked Sam.

He nodded with a smile and stuck his large hand inside the hole. His hand barely fit, but you were happy when his hand came out covered in pumpkin goop but filled with pumpkin seeds. He placed them on top of the newspaper and let you have a turn at taking the seeds out.

You rolled up your sleeves and stuck your hand inside, having to stand on your toes for some extra height. Your nails scraped the pumpkin and you yanked at the pumpkin hair to release the seeds. You placed it next to Sam’s pile, alternating turns.

After five minutes, all of the seeds were taken out and the pumpkin was completely clean on the inside.

“Do you care if I, uh,” Sam sounded hesitant to ask his question. He showed you one of the carving knives and you understood what he wanted.

“You want to carve?” You asked him.

He nodded. “Can I?”

You smiled widely at him. “Of course! You take one side and I’ll take the other side of the pumpkin.”

The two of you sat across from each other, messing around and trying to peak at the others creation.

You tried your best at carving out a witch and you thought it came out pretty good.

“Okay I’m done. On the count of three, I’m going to turn the pumpkin around?” Sam said. He counted to three and rotated the pumpkin, exposing his carving to you.

It looked weird and you couldn’t tell what he carved. It looked like a dog with really long ears and several eyes.

“You did a bird on a hot dog?” Sam asked with a smirk and his eyebrows furrowed.

“You did a dog with long ears and several eyes?” You retaliated. You knew he was making fun of your carving.

“It’s actually a spider, for your information,” he said shaking his head.

“Well mine is a witch riding her broom,” you told him.

You both got into a debate about who’s was better, afterwards asking Dean for his opinion. He voted for yours and you rubbed it in Sam’s face.

“I’m better than you,” you sang, pointing your finger in his face.

Sam rolled his eyes and placed the pumpkin to the side. He rolled up the seeds inside of the newspaper and threw it in the trash. Which is exactly where pumpkin seeds belong.

You grabbed the pumpkin and brought it with you into the kitchen. You took out a large and and sharp knife, cutting the inside of the pumpkin and taking it out.

After getting several pieces, you blended them up until it was liquid.

“Whatchyou doin’?” Dean asked as he walked into the kitchen.

“Making pumpkin pie. Want to help?” You offered.

He nodded rapidly and you gave him the flour, eggs, and butter to make the crust. He made it quickly, as if he had made pie before and he continued to roll the flour with the rolling pin.

Once you had the inside of the pie ready, you let him place the crust on top, handing him cutlery scissors to cut the excess crust.

He was doing such a great job, you gave him a thumbs up for his work.

“I’m a natural in the kitchen,” he smiled, placing little lines around the whole pie to hold the crust down.

You readied the oven and opened it for Dean when he was done. He placed it inside the oven and when he faced you, parts of his face were covered in flour.

You snorted accidently, receiving a glare from Dean after he put the pie in the oven.

“What’s so funny?” He asked. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to give you his mad and serious face.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “So much for being a natural in the kitchen. Did you get any flour in the crust, or just all over your face?”

Dean’s angry expression subsided and he ran to the mirror that was placed in the kitchen. He rubbed his hand over his face, trying to clear it of any leftover flour.

“Whatever, the pie is still going to be great, only because I helped,” he said walking out of the kitchen and into the library with Sam.

“I’m sure it is,” you said to yourself.

The oven chimed, letting you know that the pie was ready. Dean was taking the pie out of the oven before you even walked into the kitchen, and he smelled it with a large smile.

“It smells amazing, Y/N,” he said pushing the pie towards you.

You walked up to it and smelled the aroma with closed eyes. It did smell amazing and you didn’t expect anything less.

“Go sit down at the table and I’ll bring it over with plates. Tell Sam the pie is done.”

Dean walked out of the room to let Sam know the pie was done. They looked like a children when they sat at the table, waiting for the pie with watering mouths.

You brought it over to the table and placed it in the middle of the three of you. You handed everyone a plate and allowed Dean to take the first piece since pie was his favorite anyway.

Everyone got a slice and when you bit into your first bite, it was the sweetest and warmest pumpkin pie. Eating pie with Sam and Dean was a new memory that you would add in your list of Halloween and Fall memories.

Dean smiled at you as he took his last and final bite of his slice of pie. He watched you with a smile the whole time you ate your pie.

“Why do you keep staring at me?” You said with a now full stomach of warm pie.

Dean smiled incredibly huge. “Remind me next year to go pumpkin picking again.”

[mousedetective]

Imperfection (2/6)

And here is the first of the finished chapters! I have to say, I enjoyed this commission thoroughly and I am very glad @chitarra10 gave it to me. It was a challenge at first, but then it just flowed.

Imperfection - All Molly wants is a few things in life: her confidence back, the man she wanted all along, and happiness. When she decides to take her chance and it all goes horribly wrong and a man says he can make her dreams come true, she decides to accept his help for the chance at having it all. But she learns the hard way to be careful what you wish for...

Relationship: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper

Characters: Molly Hooper, Original Male Character(s), Sherlock Holmes, Greg Lestrade

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Wishes, Be Careful What You Wish For, Post-Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Inspired by Music, Past Molly Hooper/Tom - Freeform, Self Confidence Issues, Poor Molly, Heartbreak, Jealous molly, Body Horror, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, POV Molly Hooper, Friends to Lovers, Molly Disappears, No One Recognizes Molly, All Hands on Deck, Moral Lessons, Scotland Yard, Worst nightmare, Not What I Wanted At All, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart, sherlock is heartbroken, Sherlock Holmes Loves Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Kissing, Wishes Reversed, all is well, MInor Sherlock Holmes/Janine

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Tears falling down again Tears falling down

You fall to your knees You beg, you plead Can I be somebody else For all the times I hate myself? Your failures devour your heart In every hour, you're drowning In your imperfection Skillet, “Imperfection”

She wasn’t sure if he was at the hospital when she made her decision to ask him on the date, but a quick text had let her know he was in his lab upstairs. She just had to buck up the courage to get from the basement to a few floors up, get through the invitation in a firm, clear voice and get her meaning across, and hope for the best. If it wasn’t what she wanted, she needed to hold herself together at least till she got to the lift. Then she could let it all out, whatever feelings she felt. At this point, she wasn’t sure what they would be, to be honest. She wasn’t sure if there would be tears and sadness, or a sense of relief, or something altogether. It had been a long time for her to bring herself to this moment, and the aftermath would be something new altogether.

She couldn’t use the service lift to get all the way to Sherlock’s lab; she’d have to go to the ground floor and then get into a different elevator. The extra steps would give away her destination, she was sure, but she’d hold herself together. She gave herself one more glance in the mirror, debating another time to whether she needed the lipstick. She remembered his remark of her lips being small without it and ended up applying a light coat, not nearly as dark as before, to plump them up a little. With that, she made her way to the lift.

Her mind ran through a million and one scenarios of what could happen when she entered his labs as the service lift made it’s way upstairs and opened onto the ground floor, as she wound her way out to the main part of the hospital and the regular lifts. She nodded and smiled at those who greeted her, her heart lifting when someone complimented her hair or outfit, the added bit of confidence granting her strength with each step, each kind word firming up her smile just a bit more. By the time she pressed the up button at the lifts, she felt she could handle anything, even disappointment.

At least, until the lift door opened.

She was surprised to see Sherlock there, leaning in intently towards the woman who was the maid of honour at John and Mary’s wedding. Janine, that was her name, wasn’t it? They’d seemed a little bit cozy at the reception but she hadn’t thought much of it; Janine had stayed at the party while Sherlock had walked away, sad and alone. She had almost gone after him that evening. She should have gone after him, but stabbing Tom in the hand with the fork she hadn’t realized she still had in the purse to get him to behave had meant she needed to be on her best behaviour, give her then-fiancee all her attention. Running after Sherlock would have been a gaffe of epic proportions. But she hadn’t seen Janine go after him or show any particular interest in him.

Maybe she’d been as blind to other women's interest in Sherlock as she’d been to the faults in the men she’d chosen for herself, much to her folly.

They were in their own private world, not even noticing the lift door had opened, and Janine was pulling him closer and that was all she needed to see. She choked on a sob to keep it down, not wanting them to see her, not wanting her presence to be acknowledged at all because this was not remotely one of the million and one scenarios she had imagined. She made her way blindly towards the canteen, not wanting to cry and trying everything she could to keep the tears from falling. Oh, how could she have been so stupid? Of course he would fall for someone as pretty and vivacious as Janine. It was like Tom all over again; when presented with the choice between her or a prettier, better choice, there was no contest. She was the runner-up, the one not chosen.

But she hadn’t wanted to see the results so blatantly played out in front of her.

When she got to the canteen she went to make herself a cuppa and despite her efforts, the tears started to fall. Oh, she was so foolish. She had thought one thing when it was quite obviously all in her head. Sherlock didn’t fancy her, and all the things that made her think maybe he had were simply overtures of friendship. She was a friend, simply that, nothing more, and she was an utter fool for having thought there was more to it than that. She should have realized by him slipping back to his old self these last few weeks.

“It’s a shame to see such a lovely lass crying.”

Molly sniffed and looked up at the unexpected voice to her side. There was an old man next to her, with wispy white hair on his head and a neatly trimmed beard that was on the longish side. He was nearly doubled over, leaning on an ornately carved cane so that he was shorter than her. “I’m not lovely,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m rather plain, to be honest.”

“Oh, no, dear,” he said. “Your eyes are a lovely warm brown and your hair shines beautifully in the light. It looks silky and soft. And I bet if you smiled, your face would light up.” The compliments managed to get a small smile on her face, and the man gave her a grin. “It’s a start, lass. It’s a start.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t have much to smile over today,” she said, her smile fading slightly. “I just had my heart...not broken, but I suppose all my fears were proved right. I’m not enough.”

“What do you mean ‘not enough,’ dear?” he asked.

“I’m not pretty enough, vivacious enough, interesting enough,” Molly said. “The man I was supposed to marry, a man I thought I loved, he left me for someone flashier and said the reason was because I loved someone else, so he’d find someone better, and then maybe there was a little truth to it, and when I finally decided to tell the man my fiancee thought I loved, the man I did, he...he had someone better. A woman who is just prettier and more interesting and all the things I’m not.” She started to absently stir her tea. “I just wish I was perfect. I was beautiful and was what everyone wanted.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want, lass?” he asked. “You should be careful what you wish for.”

“Why wouldn’t I want that?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t I want an easy life, where people fawn over me and shower me with compliments and bend over backward to do things to make me happy?” Molly sighed. “If I was pretty, that would be perfect.”

A few seconds later she felt a tap on her arm and she looked over and saw the man had tapped her with a wand of some sort. She gave him a curious look and he nodded. “There. Your wish is granted.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, furrowing her brow more.

“On the morrow, the perfect life will be yours,” he said, pocketing the wand. “Just remember, lass, that perfection is not all it seems.” With that, he turned away, hobbling off towards the doors to the canteen. Her eyes followed him, wondering exactly what he had meant. Surely he hadn’t really granted her wish? There wasn’t an A & E here at Barts and no psychiatric evaluation center, so he wasn’t an escaped mental patient, but maybe he was someone’s eccentric old grandfather who’d come to visit and just...wandered off. That could be a reasonable explanation.

She shook her head and then turned back to her tea. She wouldn’t let it concern her for now. Right now she’d have her tea, regain her composure, figure out some way to avoid Sherlock for the rest of the day and then figure out what comfort foods were best to pick up from the market on the way home before she had a night of crap telly and crap food. It seemed like tonight would be much like every night, unfortunately.

What a shame.

[ifdayton]

Tuesday Thoughts: Women of the Table

We are so excited to start a new series introducing you to the women that grace if:table every month and their stories of beauty and redemption. 

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. —Acts 2:42 

 For our first introduction I’d Like to present you Anna Collier, here’s a little glimpse of her full yet beautifully devoted life here in Dayton. If you attended IF:Pray she led us in worship and helped our hearts prepare for prayer.

Anna is Married to her best friend Kristopher. They currently leave in a 1920s fixer upper where she homeschools her 5 earth side kiddos ranging from ages 1to11. She also is mama to 3 heavenly babies: a stillborn son  named Johnny, and 2 miscarried little ones in Heaven with Jesus.

Singing is one of Anna’s passions, especially when she is worshipping her King! Because of the gift of singing she also directs a christian homeschool theater group, Stage LeFters. She loves the opportunity to invest in her students, to build them up in confidence unto whatever calling the Lord has for them. In her spare time she runs  a small business called Earthside Treasures. She’s a master at hunting, repairing, cleaning and selling vintage housewares and other lovelies.

When you first meet Anna you feel heard, seen, and cared for in her presence and attention as she converses with you. It is no wonder she is  also a certified labor doula. She is a loving companion and helper to women and families as they birth. She has worked as a donation based doula in our area for almost 8 years and also as a volunteer bereavement doula for 6 years.

Now from her own words her first impressions of IF: Table and how IF:Gathering 2019 reminded her that she serves  the extraordinary and gracious God who invites her to find her life in Him.

My first impression of the Dayton If:table was the wide variety of women. I have met women of different ages with different styles and backgrounds, of different ethnicities, from different Dayton area cities, and from varying churches. Although I was new I felt at home, our mutual faith in Christ uniting us and making us sisters and not strangers. I loved the structure of discussion, we are invited to participate and share what the Lord is doing our lives. For me, the most encouraging aspect of if:table is that the women really want to go deeper in their conversation and in prayer together. I am reminded at the table that each one is walking through something and by taking time to pray for one we don’t feel alone but supported.  

If:Gathering this year could not have come at a better time for me. My biggest takeaway was that it doesn't matter how ordinary or how imperfect I am when I serve an extraordinary God who is gracious. This beautiful and reminder is what it is really all about, isn't it? I mean, what does it mean to be a Christian? It means that  when we surrender ourselves and give ourselves away then our life is found IN HIM! I also learned a lot about my relationship with God and my relationship with myself at If:Gathering. It prompted growth in me and I know that God was working through all of the men and women who served to make If:Gathering happen here in Dayton.I have already gone through my planner and marked If:Table for the coming months. I have also set aside the first weekend in March for IF: Dayton 2020 featuring the If:Gathering. Moving forward, I hope to remain a regular face at the tables and help make other newbies feel welcome. I hope to come alongside the leadership of IF:Dayton in serving the women of Dayton, through the gifts the Lord has given me. 

 When we first moved back to Dayton about 3 years ago, the city seemed filled with hope. I felt God's people moving in ways they had not been in the years prior. I know that IF:Dayton is part of that movement and newness.  God's people meeting together in His name, praying, and growing together is powerful!

[encephalonfatigue]

advent, power, and bodies that matter

an opening introduction to a series of Advent contemplations leading through Christmas, into Epiphany.

I have been thinking a lot about bodies this year. Bodies have been all over the headlines, so maybe you have been thinking a lot about bodies also. Maybe you have watched shaky phone footage of unarmed Black bodies being gunned down in the street. Maybe you have heard a lot about how powerful men have sexually assaulted bodies of women in their lives.

The human body is a site of great tension. Firstly, there is something sacred about human bodies. We frequently intuit that bodies are precious, deserving and requiring care, and it pains us so much to see bodies around us so disgracefully violated or brutalized. Secondly, however, there can be something really terrifying about bodies – bodies, which are capable of enacting this type of violent dominance over other bodies. Nuclear weapons are the result of human bodies as much as hospitals and schools are.

If one takes seriously the claims of rigorous science, then we can recognize that bodies were shaped by the time and space within which they evolved. The environment over thousands and millions of years have yielded human beings capable of great love and nurturing, but also human beings capable of great brutality and violence. The notion of ‘falleness’, to my mind, is an honest recognition of this human capacity for violence and cruelty, particularly in circumstances of highly unequal power. 

Beyond the last million years of hominidal evolution, human bodies exist along an even larger timeline of cosmic processes, within an unimaginably enormous universe whose outer limits are accelerating farther and farther away beyond any distance we are likely to be capable of probing in the near future. The magnitude of time and space possibly gives us the impression that maybe there’s nothing much to fuss about when it comes to human bodies. Maybe we’ve just gotten carried away, and maybe our fixation on human bodies is a form of narcissism that simply has yet to be overcome.

But I think this is a failure to recognize that human bodies are a mysterious thread within an even more mysterious tapestry, which is biological life on this Earth. Sure we may speculate that biological life does likely exist elsewhere in this universe. But the fact that we have found it so difficult to encounter in the short time we’ve been exploring space as a species, does reveal that biological life is somewhat rare, in the sense that it composes a very tiny almost negligible proportion of the universe. Does its negligible size signify its negligible importance? Marilynne Robinson beautifully wrote:

“Say that we are a puff of warm breath in a very cold universe. By this kind of reckoning we are either immeasurably insignificant, or we are incalculably precious and interesting. I tend toward the second view. Scarcity is said to create value, after all. Of course, value is a meaningful concept only where there is relationship, someone to do the valuing.”

The “puff of warm breath” is tongue in cheek reference to James 4:14: “Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Yet even with the demise of the human species in sight, or biological life as we know it, it is beautiful to contemplate that the miracle of biological life (including the emergence of human bodies) ever happened at all. In contrast to Ray Brassier’s sort of nihilism that believes that because nothing will endure, nothing is worth our time, John Caputo’s ’nihilism of grace’ sees nihilism as a gift, the very precarity and fragility from which life derives its value. It’s important precisely because it is so finite and rare. This finite nature of life provoked me to contemplate death last Advent.

So maybe what is often cynically mislabelled as anthropocentric narcissism is in fact touching on something important. Beyond just biological life, maybe the temporality of our solar system, in whatever duration it lasts for, is beautiful nonetheless. In all its imperfections as a mere blip in the vastness of time, it still permitted something as tiny but precious as human love to flourish. 

But its not all roses out here. There’s a lot of suffering too. And if human love, in its tiny negligible existence within the vastness of the universe is radically precious and dare I say important, so then human suffering may be thought of as immensely important also. 

For some people of faith, the portion of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun we currently inhabit is recognized as Advent. It is a time of waiting. Waiting in anticipation. An anticipation that dares to commit an act of imagination, and to host a world other than the one that is before us. To believe that another world is possible. This is a time that some people of faith contemplate Incarnation. That is, the embodiment of God’s love, peace and justice, on Earth. Both in the past, and in the future.

Yet ‘incarnation’ can be a sensitive topic. It’s of course not the place of Christianity to set the agenda for seasonal spiritual contemplation, nor to translate its religious grammar into the language of other faiths, as a way of explaining other faiths. There’s always a risk of subsuming another faith’s distinctiveness into the supposedly ‘universal’ meta-narrative of Christianity. I do feel though that what Christianity refers to when it speaks of incarnation is deeply related to themes of other faiths, particularly Judaism. (I have yet to read John Hick’s “The Metaphor of God Incarnate”, though I intend to read it next Advent. But I hope to avoid the approach Hick is known for in interfaith dialogue.) Incarnation more generally is about this rather old idea of God dwelling with us, an ever present theme in the Tanakh. So too, the ‘coming of the Messiah’ is a central theme in traditional Jewish faith.

Elie Wiesel, in his memoir “All Rivers Run to the Sea”, recounted a joke told by Martin Buber (although there seems to be some agreement that it’s an interfaith moratorium formulated by Wiesel himself that he projected back onto Buber):

“My good friends, what is the difference between you and me? Both of us, all of us believe, because we are religious, in the coming of the Messiah. You believe that the Messiah came, went back, and that you are waiting for Him for the second coming. We Jews believe He hasn’t come yet, but He will come. In other words, we are waiting. You for the second coming, we for the first coming. Let’s wait together.” After a pause, he said, “And when He will come, we will ask Him, have you been here before?” Said Buber, “I hope I will be behind Him and I will whisper in His ear, please do not answer.”

I don’t mean to place this fanciful story here to downplay the coercive force other faith groups often feel during the so-called ‘holiday season’. Slapping a new label on the festivities of this time of year (’happy holidays / ‘holy days’), does little to address the fact that Christianity (at least in its shallowest form, as a dominant cultural force of empire) has been allied with coercive power for centuries, and that the global economy in many ways is still largely structured around the Western Christian calendar. Tomoko Masuzawa has even shown how the category of ‘world religion’ has its roots in the fairly racist philological work of Christian supremicists, and continues to shape academia today.

Hauerwas and Willimon, in their seminal book Resident Aliens, write about one of the notable shifts away from this government-mandated Christianized culture:

“Sometime between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh, new world began. We do not mean to be overly dramatic… When and how did we change? Although it may sound trivial, one of us is tempted to date the shift sometime on a Sunday evening in 1963. Then, in Greenville, South Carolina, in defiance of the state’s time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theater opened on Sunday. Seven of us—regular attenders of the Methodist Youth Fellowship at Buncombe Street Church—made a pact to enter the front door of the church, be seen, then quietly slip out the back door and join John Wayne at the Fox… That evening has come to represent a watershed in the history of Christendom, South Carolina style. On that night, Greenville, South Carolina—the last pocket of resistance to secularity in the Western world—served notice that it would no longer be a prop for the church… Before the Fox Theater opened on Sunday, we could convince ourselves that, with an adapted and domesticated gospel, we could fit American values into a loosely Christian framework, and we could thereby be culturally significant. This approach to the world began in 313 (Constantine’s Edict of Milan) and, by our reckoning, ended in 1963.”

Hauerwas has been a prominent opponent of Christianity allying itself with what he perceives to be all illegitimate power. This movie theatre opening on Sunday offered a new opportunity for the Christian faith to divorce itself from the power of civil religion. The practice of Sabbath must be an intentional task, not one mandated by a coercive force from above (i.e. the civil religion of government). December 24-26 as a ‘Public Holiday’ and consumer capitalist festival might better be left as ‘Happy Holidays’, than as a festival bearing the name of poor peasant refugee child from the Middle East who grew up to speak of flowers clothed more beautifully than Solomon and critiqued the power systems of his day. Many Christians are rightly embarrassed that this time of year (full of rampant consumerism) is associated with Jesus. Jesus is the reason for this season of holiday and Boxing Day shopping hours that keep minimum wage employees away from their loved ones and Western consumer habits burdening more of our planet’s ecosystems? I really hope not.

Christmas has been co-opted by the powers that be, both governments and MNCs. One of the things that initially attracted me to Hauerwas was that he was a theologian that engaged seriously with the work of Foucault. Foucault was profoundly life-changing for me, and his theory of power-knowledge dynamics gave me a framework for understanding my religious upbringing. It critiqued not only my faith’s regimes of truth, but also the regimes of truth of ‘scientific rationalism’ and ‘secular modernity’. Hauerwas, in engaging with Foucault, has immense sensitivity to power. He wrote:

“From Foucault's perspective, the Panopticon is no less a disciplining of the body than torture. In some ways torture is less cruel because at least when you are tortured you know who has power over you. In contrast, the Panopticon is a machine in which the one whose body is subject to such an unrelenting gaze becomes the agent of their own subjection. Accordingly, the body so subjected becomes disciplined to be what the gaze of those in power desire without their power ever being made explicit.”

Associating Jesus with what has become the holiday season is a deeply contradictory endeavour.  Colossians 2:15 reads: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, [Jesus] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

This sensitivity to implicit power relations and disguised oppression is growing. There is an exciting level of consciousness emerging around us, and victims are gaining ground on publicly showing how their bodies were so unjustly violated and the disarming of oppressors is a continuing and arduous journey. The shift in political views I experienced in my own life is the result of many hardworking people who took the time to talk openly with me about these important problems of power.

The opening up of countless numbers of sexual-assault cases this year is a sign that there is an important growing awareness of the sacredness of our bodies. The feminist theologian Jane Schaberg, in her book The Illegitimacy of Jesus, made a carefully researched proposal that Mary was possibly raped by a Roman soldier, and Gospel writers like Matthew and Luke were aware of the so-called ‘illegitimacy’ of Jesus as they delicately put their texts together. As Jesus is often associated with Moses as leading a sort of Exodus from slavery, Schaberg’s speculation slightly resembles Freud’s theory that Moses’ father was Egyptian in “Moses and Monotheism”. 

I have not read Schaberg’s book on this topic, but encountered a summary of it in the end-notes of a book by Peter Stevenson and Stephen L. Wright called “Preaching the Incarnation”. I want to be careful treading around an issue of such immense sensitivity, especially for my evangelical friends. Someone apparently lit Schaberg’s car on fire one night over her book, so this is obviously very controversial terrain.

Before even going into Schaberg’s argument, I want to point out that I believe, like many today, that historically Christian notions of ‘virginity’ are problematic in many ways, which I will not get into here. Contemplating the term virgin this week, I was thinking we would mind our language well and use the right words, to say: if Mary was raped, she did not have sex. She was raped. That is not sex, it is rape. Rape is not sex, it is violence.

In any case, it’s fairly well known that the original Hebrew word ‘almah’ in Isaiah just means ‘woman’ and not ‘virgin’, and the Septuagint translation brought in the ambiguous Greek term ‘parthenos’ which more often means ‘virgin’. Wright and Stevenson (in Preaching the Incarnation) point out that the citation of Isaiah 7:14′s “Behold a [parthenos/virgin/woman] shall conceive” should have an original meaning, even according to standards of Conservative theology, before it takes on its prophetic meaning as pointing to Jesus. So if one interprets the verse literally, in its original meaning, then Jesus’ ‘virgin’ birth could not be considered unique. Anyways, R.T. France (in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew) suggests there is no clear semantic distinction between ‘almah’ and ‘parthenos.’ For example, after Dinah is raped in Genesis 34:2-4, she is still referred to as a ‘parthenos’ in the Septuagint.

Anyways, Schaberg’s case begins with Celsus, a second-century anti-Christian Greek philosopher whose work survives through excerpts cited in Origen’s refutations against his work “The True Word”. Celsus claimed that some Jews identified Jesus’ father as a Roman solder named Pantera. Schaberg’s proposition is that maybe Celsus was right. But for Schaberg, it’s unlikely that Mary’s encounter with the soldier was an affair (as Celsus puts it), but rather, given the colonial power dynamics, Mary was likelier raped by that Roman soldier. Schaberg explores an allusion Matthew makes to Deuteronomy 22:23-27, a law concerning the rape of a betrothed virgin which would have required Joseph to either distance himself from Mary or stone her. Schaberg, however is not rejecting the account of the Gospel writers, but interprets Isaiah 7:14’s “Behold a virgin shall conceive” to mean that a woman who is currently a virgin, will eventually become pregnant by natural means, and then conceive a son.

For more of Schaberg’s observations (including the four ‘disreputable’ women mentioned in Mary’s genealogy - e.g. Bathsheba, the reference of Jesus as the “Son of Mary” in Mark’s gospel, the parallel language between the Magnificat and Deuteronomy 22, and the silence from Paul and John’s gospel concerning the virgin birth) this Slate article written by the Episcopal priest Chloe Breyer is worth checking out.

While I understand that the majority of historical scholars believe Schaberg’s speculations to lack substantial evidence to bear any significant weight, I do think her work still functions as a wonderfully creative site for Midrashic contemplation.

Celsus claimed that Mary was convicted of adultery. It may very well be possible to imagine a young Jewish woman garnering a reputation as ‘seductress’ after being raped by a Roman soldier, finding herself being victim-blamed like so many of today’s survivors of rape and sexual assault. Can you picture the media pundits of Nazareth saying: Mary was obviously seducing this Roman soldier by wearing her shawl in this particular way, or was irresponsible for walking around a certain part of town at a certain time of day, or she could have resisted if she wanted to, she could have just kept her knees together, or she deserves sympathy but there’s nothing we can do but face the fact that she is ‘less valuable’ a human being now and does not deserve to ruin the reputation of a respectable man like Joseph. Even if one takes the traditional interpretation of the virgin birth at face value, one cannot deny that the talk going around town would not have been as much concern over Mary as a possible victim of rape, but rather over her ‘chastity’.

Jesus was raised by a mother who may have faced a sort of victim-blaming stigma all her life with the suspicious conception of Jesus. There was a meme I saw floating around feminist social media communities that fits so well with this idea that Jesus would have learnt well to be suspicious of victim-blamers, being raised by a mother of disreputable status. The meme said something along the lines of: Jesus didn’t blame women for their objectification by telling them what they should or should not wear, but he told his disciples that if their eye causes them to sin, they should pluck it out.

Jesus must have eventually understood the fear and trembling that his mother Mary felt as she faced potential stoning while carrying a baby she believed to be the Messiah. Kierkegaard called Mary a knight of faith because she could not explain her situation to anyone. It would just come across as absurd in such a patriarchal society. Sound familiar? How many victims of rape and sexual assault have felt like a Kierkegaardian knight of faith, resigned to silence, unable to explain the terrible burden they carry because it is beyond the comprehension of a sexist patriarchal world around them, yet still believing that they could one day do something to help other women never have to face the trauma they were confronted with in their own life. The #MeToo campaign has opened up something very important, though there’s still so much pain and hurt out there and so much more that needs to be done.

Advent to me is a yearning and expectation that all oppression shall cease. In a series of posts this Advent, I wish to continue some theological contemplations on incarnation. What implications do Advent and Christmas have for the way we treat bodies? What does it mean for Jesus to be a victim of state-sanctioned violence, as the Maccabean martyrs were, whom Jews remember during Hanukkah? And how does the expectation of Resurrection by Jewish martyrs tie these two faiths together in such a way by which sites of solidarity can be fostered in faith communities resisting the ways of empire, which so often degrade marginalized bodies? In yearning for a future where all oppression shall cease (i.e. all the sins of the World will be taken away), what ways are Incarnation and Atonement deeply entangled? What do the anthropomorphic sketches of God in the Tanakh have to do with incarnational ideas hanging around first-century Judaism? 

I hope to explore some of these questions in the coming weeks, leading up to Epiphany. Please join me if you have a chance, and call me out on anything you feel is problematic. If anyone has read this far, I owe them a lot more than a fair hearing.

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Knights-Errant, Volume 1

Creator: Jennifer Doyle Publisher: Chromatic Press ISBN: 9781987988239 Released: November 2016 Original run: 2015-2016

Jennifer Doyle’s series Knights-Errant had its beginnings as a webcomic in 2009. It was Doyle’s first attempt at a long-form comic. Somewhat unsatisfied with how the story’s structure was developing, Doyle decided to reboot the series as Knights-Errant: Pavane. The subtitle was eventually dropped and Knights-Errant ultimately became a part of Chromatic Press’ online multimedia magazine Sparkler Monthly in 2015. As a beautifully illustrated, queer-positive historical fantasy with compelling characters and engaging story, Knights-Errant was a perfect addition to the lineup. In 2016, the first volume of Knights-Errant was released in both print and digital formats. The book is in full-color and collects the first three chapters of Knights-Errant serialized online between 2015 and 2016 in addition to content not previously released: a short comic, “Anton & Beppe,” exploring the backstory of those characters, and a short story, “Justice,” written by Doyle’s partner Ursula Wood and featuring the characters Kadeen and Oswald.

The city of Adigo in North Vetal is under siege by the army of its own king. The population is slowly starving, essentially being held hostage by an influential but traitorous margrave whose loyalty to his god comes before his faith in the monarchy. Not all of the margrave’s soldiers share or support their commander’s fervent beliefs, however. At least one guard, Beppe, is working to end the deadly impasse by conspiring with a criminal. Wilfred, after some amount of convincing, has become vital to Beppe’s plans. Jailed for stabbing two men, Wilfred is given a choice: certain death by hanging for the crime or almost certain death by attempting to guide the king’s forces into the city. But only the latter gives Wilfred the chance of surviving long enough to seek retribution and exact revenge. Wilfred’s fundamental goals may only temporarily align with those of the soldiers who are are hoping break the margrave’s self-destructive control over the city and its people, but it is a risk that they are all willing to take.

Doyle has on occasion described Knights-Errant as a “hate/love letter” to Kentaro Miura’s Berserk. While that influence and inspiration can be seen in the comic, Knights-Errant is more than just a response to a single series–it is a brilliant work based completely on its own merits and worth. One of the many things that I particularly love about Knights-Errant, and one of Doyle’s intentions behind its creation, is the inclusion of queer themes and representation. Notably in the first volume, Wilfred’s gender is naturally complex and Beppe’s closest and most intimate relationship is with his fellow guardsman Anton. But these sorts of personal qualities make up only one aspect of the series’ believably imperfect and multi-faceted characters. The layered portrayal of both the antagonists and protagonists–many of whom are dealing with traumatic pasts, grim presents, and potentially tragic futures–is excellent. The evocative artwork, colored with subdued but striking tones, seems to effortlessly carry and support the emotional weight demanded by the story. However, in part due to the comic’s admittedly dark and sardonic sense of humor, Knights-Errant does manage to avoid being overly oppressive.

Knights-Errant is a nuanced tale of politics, religion, intrigue, and revenge. It’s amazing how high the stakes have already risen in the first volume with the main players and the beginnings of the underlying plot having only just been introduced. The fate of a city and the lives both within and outside of its walls are at stake, and the threat of psychological and physical violence that the series’ main characters must personally face is tremendous. The entire situation is extremely volatile and everyone knows it–whatever happens next will not only have a major impact on the people who are directly involved, it may very well change the course of history for the kingdom as a whole. The tension and pacing in the first volume of Knights-Errant is magnificent, the intertwining complexities of the characters’ individual stories unfolding within the context of a much larger narrative developing on an even grander scale. Everything about Knights-Errant is intense in the best way possible, from the sophisticated dynamics of the characters’ relationships, to the intricacies of the plot and fully-realized setting, to the dramatic and expressive artwork. The comic is incredibly easy to recommend.

By: Ash Brown