#where is that thing from mad men era talking about how things come in and out of vogue every 30-40 years because the generation raised on

[serenabenson]

actually. a thought, re "classic svu" in the context of this brian eno quote about nostalgia from a year with swollen appendices:

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

and i'm wondering if we are actually beginning to see this happening for network procedurals, and svu is just WAY too early to the trend? (how many things of late have been billed as throwbacks to the precursors of this genre, like rian johnson's oeuvre with columbo and "classic" detective stories? though in this case svu is then like 20 years ahead of itself), only with svu having such an insanely (arguably anachronistically) long life, their version of it is actually them beginning to eat their own tail like an ouroboros.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

why do so many people keep calling ed izzy's abuser? I thought it was kind of funny how wrong they were at first because I love being right but at this point I feel like, if you really believe that why do you even like this show? where the main love interest is a violently abusive indigenous man? that sounds boring as shit. what would possess the writers of the show for them to make such an awful decision?

but then I think, if this many people believe it does that mean I'm the one who's wrong? or is it that the creators fumbled that storyline when they should have been clearer about it? or maybe it's just that most people on here have had their reading comprehension scorched away by Sherlock Holmes conspiracy theories and Steven Universe discourse. I can't tell. sometimes I think the internet may have been a mistake.

No they're wrong here's what's going on. People all read this shitty fic called Hell or High Water where Ed was everything the Izzy stans say he was and then instead of realizing that Ed is sad everyone regressed into thinking that the Kraken Era TM was going to be incredibly violent, like serial killing blond men because they look like Stede levels of violence. Even if you didn't read HoHW you saw art or read fic from people who had engaged with this fic and succumbed to it's premise. So there's been this background radiation of misunderstanding what the Kraken is on the fandom for several months. So inevitably when Ed did some mild violence and then attempted suicide by threatening murder until the crew took matters into their own hands, which is not abuse or torture by any stretch, btw, it's a murder-suicide at worst (I say at worst because I consider it fuckery-suicide I don't think Ed was trying to kill people I think he was trying to force them into a situation where they thought it was kill or be killed so that they would choose to kill him, but that is my interpretation and you are free to think it's a botched murder-suicide I have no problem with that), which, murder is something the show has never condemned and if it did it would be horribly inconsistent. So anyway, Ed's whole Kraken Era was categorized in the show by him being sad and doing so many drugs and begging someone please god anyone to kill him and trying to break Ned Low's record out of the evil boredom, but because it had a murder-suicide element to it and Izzy's toes were getting removed and he waved a gun around at everyone once (in a way that felt to me like he was trying and failing to work up the nerve to blow his own brains out but I digress) people who liked HoHW and were mad that people had called it out were like "see hes being violent HoHW author vindicated" as if anything Ed did rose to the level of that fic

And you want to know how I know this read is bullshit? Because when I watch the show with people who don't read fic or interact with the fandom and then I gauge their reactions without showing my hand they all implicitly understand that Ed is reacting to Izzy in a way appropriate to how pirate captains react to threats from subordinates. The spectrum of reactions has been from "hey isn't it weird how Ed was the Kraken because his dad was abusive and now he's the kraken because of Izzy? Maybe there's something there but idk" to "I don't think you can apply the logic of domestic abuse to a pirate captain and first mate but also Izzy had it coming" to "I cannot feel bad for Izzy after last season, I'm sorry." To "lmao Izcel" and I've showed this show to roughly everyone I know. The only thing I can conclude from the fact that people who don't engage with OFMD fic almost unilaterally thinking that Izzy is in the wrong and then coming online to see people thinking the opposite is that Izzy as victim and Ed as abuser is pure fanon, like how Stede is a cinnamon roll who talks like Azeriphael.

But anyway yeah you're completely right about the fact that this would be a bad show if they decided to make Ed into a domestic abuser. I don't want to watch a rom com about a domestic abuser falling in love and I don't want a show that decided to make it's indigenous lead abusive when the stereotype of indigenous men as abusers is still to this day used as an excuse to separate indigenous children from their families and put them with white Christians in order to erase their culture. Good thing OFMD didn't make Ed abusive, so I still like the show.

[hadesoftheladies]

"Not All Men" is a War Propaganda Tactic

i just watched a tragic documentary on the british colonial regime in kenya with my mom and dad, and they were talking to me about the experiences of my grandparents during the era of slavery, resistance and concentration camps and i learned so much about the history of my family, country and tribe and how my mom and dad came from different sides of class history in kenya

that's a story i'll share later on here sometime

but one thing that struck me that i wanted to talk about was how documents indicting the british government of horrific cruelty were buried and sometimes addressed as isolated incidents

the british government, despite the uncovering of the hanslope disclosure files, denied that they sanctioned or approved of any of those things

systemically sanctioned practices, once exposed, were then announced to be isolated events due to the irresponsibility of a particular branch or administration

basically, when the human rights violations came up (and this was addressed in i think 2013), the british government denied direct involvement and acted as if it were just a few men gone rogue

and that propaganda WORKED

there are british people today (and even some kenyans) who don't think the colonial regime was all that oppressive; maybe legally wrong, but not monstrous and sordid and grotesque

and it really is an effective war tactic to blame individuals so that the system itself is ignored. you send concerned, everyday people chasing after villains in narratives you created, throwing your minions to the wolves so they're off your trail, while insisting that the system and the people who uphold the system are at worst benign and, at best benevolent

so it stops the people from organizing against the system

this is also the case with feminism

every time women participate in consciousness-raising, the people and events that would serve as proof of the failure of the system and how those in power are unfit to rule, the conversation quickly dissolves into "not all men" or "do you think women are naturally more moral than men? that's bio-essentialism."

guys . . . this is a tried and true propaganda war tactic. it is effective because not only does it distract anyone willing to do their part to make the world a better place, but it successfully discredits the evidence and voices of victims as "fringe" and no one's fault but the individual's. it's really just a form of gaslighting.

eventually, people end up getting mad at the tumors while not dealing with or seeing cancer. they'll denounce that convicted serial rapist/killer because his crimes are visible, provocative and out there

but the moment a woman opens her mouth to criticize rape as culture in bdsm or porn, it's "not all men" because the only bad men are those men, those bad ones on tv whose mugshots we've seen

we've seen this happen with men defending andrew tate, and then backing down when he's arrested for human trafficking, but no feminist was shocked because we recognized tate's rhetoric and the system it was born in, we saw the natural conclusions, we know where the tumor is coming from

but we're only supposed to talk about the tumor, because that's the most visible and provocative

so the cancer continues to spread quietly and freely

[gothicprep]

even better, re: the cut: the ‘I think my husband is trashing my novel on goodreads’ article is the first of a NEW advice column by the same author of the disastrous ‘lure of divorce’ personal essay from last week.

lol i was debating talking about emily gould when that essay came out, but i figured "nobody cares about your weird interest in gawker media lore" and decided against it. but i'm going to interpret this as permission to just go crazy on main.

context for readers who don't know: emily gould, on valentine's day, published an essay that's ostensively about divorce, but it's actually about a lot of other things. not even *a* divorce, because she decides against getting divorced at the end of the essay. i wouldn't bet on anything that comes after the end of this essay, but that's a separate question.

it's probably important to establish who emily gould is for what i'm about to say to make any sense: she was a media darling in her 20s. she was one of the first people to get Very Famous from blogging, an editor at gawker, and probably the best known writer there during the mid to late 2000s. very american apparel indie hipster sleeze era personality. could probably be described as a "literary sex symbol" insofar as the literary world has those things.

there were two things that she was famous for in this era. one of them was this post she put on gawker about how she had broken up with her boyfriend and it was a massive success. if you comb through old archives, people were talking about this like it was the brangelina split. i want to say this was a dam breaking moment for a particular kind of personal branding/internet personality that involved revealing things about your personal life, which eventually took over more broadly and gave rise to the culture we have now online. the other thing was this very unfortunate appearance she had on larry king live or something after she'd been taken to task for the "gawker stalker" feature on gawker, where people would send in tips about celebrity sightings around the city. someone sent in a tip about jimmy kimmel being drunk and obnoxious in a bar, and because kimmel is the world's biggest baby, he flipped out and went on this whole tirade about how it was a threat to his safety. in reality, he was just mad that someone saw him drunk in public and said something about it. kimmel and a few other guys confronted her about this on larry king. she looked like a deer in headlights and either wasn't prepared/hadn't been prepared for what was coming. like kimmel told her she was going to hell on live television. mess. there was also some really public drama she had with lena dunham but i don't really remember the details.

she never really disappeared between then and now. she's been writing for the cut for a while, which i guess you could say is her aging into a different kind of women's journalism. she's published a few books, but she hasn't really found her footing since her breakout success in her 20s didn't turn her into the established writer she probably hoped she would be. there was a time where it seemed like she was positioned to be this generation's joan didion, but that didn't end up happening.

so that brings us up to this essay, which was preceded by the last little bit of gossip that i need to get out of the way, even though she mentions it in the essay. in her personal newsletter, she made a crowdfunding request for money to "taking an infinite hiatus from hetero marriage and monogamy. they are a trap for women, full stop. sometimes a trap can be cozy. mine was, until it wasn’t." she does mention she's having a manic episode. she's upfront about the fact that something is going on with her.

anybody who's at all familiar with gould and her financial challenges must question the wisdom of giving money to this, but she presents it very much in the spirit of "men are pigs. men are trash. divorce that man now." and as we learn later, gets money from lyz lenz, who has a book out that's basically the feminist case for divorce and being a single mom.

so gould is not just neck deep in this divorce literature, but producing it to some extent. maybe a crowdfunding request isn't truly a literary form, but it's written in a persuasive way that fits with other writing in the liberate yourself through divorce canon. but the valentine's day essay, while i don't think it's great, i do think it's interesting how it breaks from form. it's not an anti-man personal essay, and these always are. so it was nice to read something a bit different. well, maybe not different, but retro.

i've never been a fan of gould's work, but it did get me wondering "what itch are people trying to scratch when they read essays like this?" because it's like the reader wants them to be an explicitly moral fable, but they want it to be racy and spicy. like one of those mid century pulp novels with a painting of a woman on the cover looking kind of slatternly with a lot of makeup on. it'd be called something like "wild trash" and the subtitle would be "she couldn't wait for her divorce". it's smut about a woman who's sinning gratuitously and flouting society's expectations. and usually with these books, there'd be some kind of cosmic comeuppance for her where she'd get syphilis and die in a pauper's prison or whatever.

and i think people come to stories like this because they want to read something like that. you're gonna read about a woman who was debauched and all the naughty behavior in graphic, titillating detail. and at the end, you get served up a nice, neat conclusion. her husband divorces her and finds love with a kindergarten teacher from iowa. so it flouts the "rah rah divorce him" essay and the pulpy personal essay that some people want. if you're going to write a 3,000 word apology, at the very least, it is a novel take on it.

but i think what the problem is with an essay like this is that it's very... dated in its style. the expected thing with personal essays in the 2020s, the thesis of them usually boils down to something about what a great person the essayist is. most of them do this. that's why you get privilege disclaimers in them – the point of the essay is how the essayist is sensitive and kind and wonderful. even when there are flaws, they're overcome, or something systemic lead this to happen. a flawed woman is because patriarchy made her thus.

to give a better example of the kind of thing i'm talking about, you'll see an essay in the atlantic or new york times magazine and it follows the same formula. Woman Has Personal Life Grievance. Step Back. Here's Why This Is A Big Issue In Society, Bolstered With Statistics. Here's Why If This Woman Was Black Or Poor Or Gay Or Trans, It Would Be Even Worse. Back To The Personal Anecdote... you know what i mean? it's a very well established formula, but you can't have that with "also i'm a dirtbag". once you're talking about society and societal issues of which you're just a little representative – because those are the stakes. it has to be universal – you can't just be talking about yourself.

and then there's this question of personal writing more generally. you aren't a fictional character, you're yourself. and whether you want it to be or not, every personal essay is going to function like a cover letter. it's presenting you to the world. and i don't like these, but i don't want gould's style of personal essay to come back either. it straight up ruined a lot of women's lives who wanted to get their foot in the door in media, got $75 from xojane to write something lurid about their personal lives... and their career never took off. so now this is just on the internet forever.

this old piece in slate sheds a light on just how exploitative that whole thing was.

"don't make life decisions based on emily gould's writing" is useful advice for more reasons than one.

[romancomicsblog]

5 Non-MCU Characters I'd love to see in Deadpool & Wolverine

Superbowl Sunday saw the return of everyones favorite Merc with a Mouth Deadpool in the trailer for his upcoming new movie Deadpool & Wolverine.

And as usual, Marvel hooked me.

Some fans have seen it as a return to form for the MCU, others as business as usual for Ryan Reynolds, and some just couldn't get over the little bit of Wolverine we got.

Myself, I was mainly focused on one thing. Aaron Stanford.

For those not in the know, this clip from the trailer shows Aaron Stanford returning as minor villain and asshole Pyro from the original X-Men Films. He was a sidekick to Magneto, and has a rivalry with Iceman in those movies.

The return of Pyro from the X-Men films confirms what most fans expected: we will see old heroes and villains from the Fox era, not just Wolverine.

And while a few have been already revealed through casting news or set photos, there are plenty more in store for us, I'm sure.

This got my head gears turning, so I decided I'd look back on the old Fox films to see who I want to return, even for the briefest moment or cameo.

None of these have been confirmed officially, so you are spoiler free from here on out. But I must warn, once I put this ideas in your head, you may be mad if they don't show up.

5. Animated Deadpool Voiced by Donald Glover

*sigh* The project I wish existed.

In 2017, Donald Glover was in development and given the green light on an animated Deadpool show. The show was to premiere on FX in 2018. However, for unknown reasons it was cancelled, and never debuted, leaving fans and Donald Glover displeased.

After the success of films like Spider-Verse, and Glovers involvement with Marvel, having him come in for a scene where he fights with or against Ryan Reynolds Deadpool could be a fun nod to the fans and maybe give the project the boost it needs to somehow come back.

But alas, I'm still hoping Spider-Verse will bring back Spectacular Spider-Man, so what do I know?

4. X-23

If there is a character ripe for a spin-off from the old X-Men universe, it was definitely X-23.

It's surprising to me she hasn't been revealed as a main member of the cast. She's a character I think few people talk about anymore, but was a crucial part of the film. I'd say Logan is up there and one of the best superhero movies.

Dafne Keen and Hugh Jackman made Logan such an impactful moving film. I'd love to see where the character has gone since Logan, and see how them reuniting effects the film.

Not to mention if she fought Deadpool, it would be one hell of a good (and kind of funny ) fight.

3. Apocalypse

Do I like this character? Absolutely not.

Do I want him here just for the Moon Knight jokes? Yes.

I actually think theres a good Apocalypse in Oscar Isaac somewhere. Having Deadpool and Wolverine at one point face the X-Men's Thanos sounds pretty cool, and Isaac is a great comedic and dramatic performer who deserves another shot.

I wouldn't mind a CGI version that looks more comic accurate, like Beast in the Marvels.

But again. I really just want Deadpool to say "So are you Steven or Marc?"

2. The Human Torch

Similarly, I want the Captain America jokes.

But if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that Human Torch was by far the best part of those Fantastic Four movies.

There's just so many things you can do with it!

We can have him in the frosted tips, in a new Fantastic Four uniform. Maybe even have him fight Pyro, stop a fire guy with a fire guy. Or have him come out from behind a train like Captain America in Infinity War, but it's Johnny.

Having Evans play across Reynolds even for a bit would make so many fans happy and get more cheers then No Way Home.

Besides Evans has done a cameo in a Shawn Levy film starring Ryan Reynolds once. He can do it again.

1. Legion

The rumored main villain of this film tends to have a very particular vendetta with Charles Xavier. So why not use his son to acquire power?

Legion is the acclaimed show from Noah Hawley starring Dan Stevens as David Haller, a mutant with schizophrenia and basically unlimited power.

Dan Stevens is incredible in this show, and I think bringing in such a powerful X-Men character would make for some fun interactions and extreme stakes. Not to mention the insane visuals, all while delving deep into the psyche of both are protagonists.

While I doubt all of these characters show up, if one or two do, I'd be extremely happy. We'll just have to wait and see.

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider following, and check out my socials and other sites here! And let me know: Who do you want to see in Deadpool and Wolverine?

[littlewestern]

Guadalcanal looks a little like the 1940s-era superhero Sparky Watts, as created by Boody Rogers. Idk if this was intentional or not but they seem to have a similar "can-do" personality bordering on the absurd in different ways

I'd never heard of this character! But it's the right time period so I was excited to look him up.

...My god, it's uncanny.

There's a few things going on here, and it's a fun opportunity to talk about the design process, which I'm always happy to explore.

So when I first started working on Guadalcanal, I was immediately drawn to the little detail that he had one gun for defense purposes. It's almost silly, right? This big, imposing aircraft carrier who can't really defend himself at all and has to rely on the destroyer escort, but still carries around a tiny ladypistol "just in case". For that reason, my primary visual inspiration is, no joke:

Doctor The Meme himself from Gundam X. The wiki tells me his name is 'Techcs Farzenberg' which is an absolutely top-tier white-people-in-anime name.

Gonna be honest, I'm mad I didn't look up more pics of this guy before. Now This Is Fucking Character Design.

But he's a little old, right? And that hair just won't do. And I like how serious the glasses make him look, but I need a little more charm. A big boat needs to be the kind of character little boats will want to follow and defend. So we have a basic idea (as silly as it is) but we need to fill out the details.

I'm big on drawing design inspiration from old photos. Not only is this a great way to draw period-accurate outfits, but it also helps with designing more realistic faces. I find that when I draw inspiration from photos and real people, my characters feel more realistic, like people you could actually meet somewhere instead of just lines on a page. So I googled up "wwii navy men stock images" and clicked around.

Oh yeah, this is great stuff. His glasses dovetail nicely with our bespectacled non-combatant idea, and this lad's hair is much more indicative of the time period we're trying to portray. From this guy I pulled the hairstyle and reaffirmed that my decision to give Guadalcanal glasses was the right one. This guy just looks so approachable, and I want that for my character as well. If this is your great-grandpa, congrats, he lives in my head rent-free.

Now to put the finishing touches on him. I bulked him up a lot to give that air of importance and authority, and softened his facial features out to make him even more friendly-looking. His face - particularly his nose and mouth - are heavily inspired by an ex-boyfriend of mine (who I won't show here for obvious reasons lol). I think most designers can't help but draw inspiration from the people around them, so we might as well lean into it. I love the way my lived experiences can be reflected in my work. Now we can put it all together!

The one on the left was the first-pass design and the one on the right was a redraw after some tweaks and a bit of practice. You can tell I struggled with the hair and just phoned it in, but that's what first-passes are for. There's a reason I never posted the first design, lol. The second one I prettied him up a bit and broadened all of his features, focusing on his nose and the ratio of negative space around his eyes and mouth. I think this gives him a more mature look without aging him too much, since we still want him to look young enough to excuse his youthful arrogance. I figured out the hair as well, which was helpful!

"But why does he look so much like Sparky, then?" You might ask. This is a fun example of 'convergent evolution' - where two artists come up with the same result based on different approaches! A thing that's important to note about Sparky is that he was originally designed as a send-up or parody of superhero comics of the time. This informs a lot of decisions about his design.

Sparky has superhuman strength, speed, and toughness. Sound familiar?

But of course, you don't want to step on a copyright holder's toes. And you want comic book buyers to know they're buying a Sparky Watts comic and not a Superman one. Being a parody gives the artist a lot of outs here, ways to make Sparky visually distinct while still poking fun at the types of superheroes the audience is more familiar with.

Where Superman sheds his Clark Kent glasses that make him unassuming and approachable, Sparky keeps them on all the time. Superman has tousled black hair and a costume with his symbol on the front, where Sparky has neatly-parted blonde hair and a normal collegiate outfit that distinguishes him only by way of saying that he's completely ordinary. You can see, then, how they arrived at his design. By making him *different from Superman* they made him the same as Guadalcanal. That's okay, they didn't know. ;^)

Thanks for the ask!

[vanderspeiglemd]

I loved Darcy in s1, when she was a fuck up who faced consequences, but she quickly became the literal worst. Creator's fave+white feminism is a hell of a drug. Condensed into three points: creator's pet trope, being a bully, and her abuse of Asta.

1. Creator's Pet. character and actress are literally the show runner's favorite, the manic pixie creation of a middle aged cishet white man. Forced importance, never wrong, perpetually celebrated. S2 brought an era of other characters constantly talking her up even taking away from scenes that are supposed to be about them (Liv and Kate usually the victims of this), she's always the main focus manic pixie even where she doesn't belong and doing stunts (the skiing the backhoe the rock climbing the helicopter the baseball the singing etc etc etc), especially sucking spotlight away from the other women (when you realize who girl's night was actually about💀)

2. Bully. She's physically violent and verbally abusive and it's passed off as quirky feminist mean girl bs from neolibs . She kissed Ben then grossly harassed him for it, she's always violent and mocking with Harry, she lashes out when she doesn't get her way, she always has some gross terf line about how 'man bad' simply for being men (she's 100% performative). If she was just a terrible person and the show acknowledged that she might be interesting but they don't. Creator's pet means she never faces consequences, if she does say sorry other characters take the blame, people baby her if being called out makes her feel bad and absolve her. She gets to be as terrible as she wants with zero responsibility, hell celebrated even while being a pos, a privilege no one else gets. Kate alone should have punched her lights out for a number of things.

3. Asta. Her being Asta's protector was never canon before s2, it was pretty well known she was absolutely not dependable and never had been, and even in how they established it was always for her image as the 'hero' but never Asta's actual benefit. Did she ever do anything while Jimmy was beating Asta for 18 years and everyone knew? No, but she will smack talk him in the street about his truck a year after Asta leaves him, I guess. When Asta was reeling from having killed someone darcy was far too focused on her boyfriend and training but sure shit Asta had to give up her life to be caregiver when darcy ruined that for herself. The Native lead is made into her white friend's sidekick, stories shoved into a few scenes while darcy gets dedicated arcs.

In s2 darcy uses textbook abuse and isolation tactics. Asta no longer has any relationships she's not involved in (she rubbed Asta's nose in her friendship with Jay), she freaks out when Asta has a private life, she's an emotional leech, the big 'emotional' scene in 2x16 was so uncomfortable, hysterical and threatening and putting responsibility for her life and mental well being on Asta's shoulders. She isn't worried for Asta's safety, it was all how darcy has nothing so she should be Asta's soul focus. Same when she yelled at her in the clinic, she was mad because Asta didn't come to her in her darkest moments not that Asta was going through something or might be in danger being with her ex again. For all the bravado, she's just Jimmy 2.0.

[graveyard-party666]

Blood & Wine

What a tragedy, right?

Well, yeah, being a smart woman surrounded by a bunch of absolutely stupid men sucks ass.

This chapter was ready long ago but then recent discussion that i had in my class where three boys (feels wrong calling them men) tried to mensplain to me how PTSD (does not) affects soldiers and how it is not a big deal and "not everyone will become a psychopath" (???) happened.

Not them getting mad at me for bringing up domestic violence against women and how PTSD and taboo of mental disorders amongst men might affect many women... Embarrassing.

Thank you to @cloudofbutterflies92 and @chloekistune for listening to me ramble whole evening about that whole situation. You are the best. ❤

P. S. Yes, I'm still in my Schmalgauzen era.

"And you are the beginning written from the end Or centuries wrapped in the moon Or the star that shines in the eyes Or words written in books"

Being a woman and a civilian at that on a military base is an... experience, to say the least. Being catcalled, ogled as if you're a piece of meat is nothing new to Red in a world where men think they have any right to women's autonomy.

But here, in a male-predominant space, it feels weird. Different. Other soldiers know how Red is linked to the famous Task Force 141 and yet... sometimes it doesn't stop them from dropping by her office, which was generously given to her as her own space by Captain Price, on the base. She is not their psychologist, but that empathy that runs deep within her cannot just ask those soldiers to leave. It won't hurt her to listen to them talk about their issues, will it?

There are not many of them and usually they come to ask for advice about how to deal with stress, etc. Those are respectful.

But then there are the ones who come to get Red's number. The brave ones. After Red politely asks them to back off and goes to mind her own business, those men usually back off. But that doesn't stop them from catcalling her or calling her names because "how dare that lowly civilian whore refuse to go out with me!" Yeah, yeah. Nothing new.

The thing these soldiers forget is that Task Force 141 is... lurking. And especially the Lieutenant. Ghost sees and hears things and is feared for that.

He's usually away, working, training, doing his thing, but sometimes in the breaks, he just seeks out the psychologist in her office to sit in silence. Or maybe to discuss a few work-related things, or not work-related. Ghost prefers it to be work-related, but sometimes he just misses being a simple human being, he misses the peace of just sitting doing nothing.

Once again he is just sitting in the psychologist's office, looking at her sorting the papers.

"What documents are you struggling with now?" Ghost asked nonchalantly, seeing Red's face looking serious.

"Love letter." Red doesn't even want to explain.

"Love letter? Is it a joke, Red?" Ghost looks at the woman, confused by her answer. When the girl's face didn't change, he understood it was a clear answer.

"I knew some soldiers here were infatuated with you, but never thought it would be to this extent," the Lieutenant shrugs, curious about what is said in that letter.

What Red doesn't know (or persuades herself not to notice) is that Ghost keeps an eye on her, on Task Force's precious psychologist. He doesn't let soldiers just catcall her and act all macho as if they didn't just harass a woman. He's protective. All of them are. And sometimes when he is not close, someone else is. Soap, for example. Or Gaz. Or Price.

This job is dangerous even for a simple civilian like Red. In the place where she is among people who fight with evil every day, she feels like she was pushed into a lion's den. Irony.

But if thinking about why more than half of those men are here, it is not so ironic. Most men and women in the military don't just enlist for the sole purpose of protecting their country. Many just want to leave things in the past. Bad things. And many were affected by a tragic past so much that they project or just try to gain back control by any means. Even if that means harassing a young civilian woman.

For them, harassment is a cruel game, where they bet on who will have that piece of meat that some call a woman. What a tragedy, isn't it? To feel unsafe where you should feel safe.

But all Red feels is... fatigue. Being surrounded by idiots is nothing new. Being mansplained is nothing new either. Being made fun of because you're a smart woman is almost an everyday occurrence. So... nothing new. What a tragedy, right?

Sometimes she just pretends to be dumb to get rid of unwanted attention. It's funny hearing some soldiers or even civilians talking about mental disorders as if they know enough to discuss those. Funny hearing those people comparing those struggling with PTSD to those who have psychopathy. Funny and sad. And they talk so confidently, as if they read the ICD-11 just yesterday... or the DSM-5. Sometimes it's better to silently watch them mansplain how psychology works because surely most of them might need rehabilitation in the next few years. Being a soldier is not easy. Oh, the irony....

"Red, you know you can talk to me or any of the team if you get uncomfortable with the attention?" Lieutenant's voice is low, soft, as if he doesn't want to scare her away.

"It's fine! I'm a big girl, I can deal with it." Red only shakes her head. She is a big girl indeed in a big world full of big men. She is just a girl.

"Doesn't look like it." Ghost shrugs, leaning back on her office couch. "Those soldiers, those men - they have no honor. They see someone weaker and think it is fine to harass them." The anger is felt in his tone, and Red understands a simple truth: Lieutenant speaks from personal experience.

But she wouldn't dare to ask. Not now. Maybe one day he will trust her enough to share his story. But for now, it is enough for her to sit in silence with him.

Tag list: @cloudofbutterflies92 @chloekistune @justasmolbard @kikiharinezumi

[bisquicklite]

The Mass Effect - Skyrim cross over that no one asked for and I will likely never finish (but I did bother to write out the first chapter of because I am an anxious little whore of a woman :3)

Ghosts, Guns and Dragons

Chapter One

Cryptids of Akuze

2177 CE

From the journal of Reyna Wolfsbane

Translated from Dovahzul

“I do not know what day it is here, so I will leave the date a question. But in Tamriel, I believe it should be mid Second Seed, 4th era. From what they tell me, I was unconscious for several days while the healers here worked to bring me back from the brink of death.

When I awoke I found myself in an unfamiliar and strange place, too bright for the lack of windows. My weapons and armor have been taken, as well as the few potions I had brought with me on my journey. I am left near-naked in a thin robe that is pulled away whenever the healers need to check my wounds.

Men with severe faces questioned me, asking what business I had at a place called Akuze. That I wasn’t a colonist, and carried no identification. What group of mercenaries was I with? Where did the giant worms come from? Did I understand that this was a serious investigation, and that dozens of civilians and marines had lost their lives?

I told them what I knew-- about Miraak, how he fled our battle like a coward, how I chased him through a tear in Apocrypha into… Wherever we landed. There were giant worms, yes, and many dead bodies, some looking melted as if splashed with acid from a disgruntled alchemist. They laughed when I said we had rode through on dragons. That Sahrotaar was dragged underground by one of the worms, dying, but his soul stuck and unmoving.

They asked where the other dragon was, as if it was a joke, and didn’t seem to listen as I told them that Kruziikrel flew off. The dragon, once under Miraak’s control, seeing his cowardice, abandoned him.

They kept pressing me with questions, and I pressed back equally with my own concerns. Miraak was still out there, still possibly a danger - hopefully less so now, as he is down to one arm. It is possible that he has lost the Voice as well, but he has had centuries in the Apocrypha to learn how to be a danger to this new world. These men say that there was no trace of anyone else alive where we came through. No one fitting Miraak’s description. They treat me like I’m mad.

For now there is not much that I can do. I am kept shackled to my bed, and made to talk to another healer, this one claiming the title of a ‘psychologist’, Doctor Reed. She says I have delusions, that I have a sickness in my mind that makes me imagine things. This healer is kind, even if she doesn’t believe me, and has given me a sketchbook to draw in. Something about how art can be therapeutic. I have drawn memories from my time in the Apocrypha, and the faces of my companions so that I do not forget them. I write now in Dovahzul, as I still do not have a firm grasp of common writing or reading.

Doctor Reed looked over the pages that I have sketched, and while she says they are skillfully drawn I can’t help but to notice the disappointment and disturbance in her eyes.

They think I am mad here. But since escaping the Apocrypha and the reach of Hermaeus Mora, I feel I have taken back the sanity that was lost on Solstheim. My mind was clear until they gave me medicines that made me tired and foggy.

Miraak is still out there. I will find him.”

~~~

John Shepard internally sighed, more eager to get back to the red jello the nurse brought him than to continue this particular conversation. But there was an official investigation, because of course there had to be one after the shitshow Akuze turned into, to figure out what happened.

Fifty marines dead, a whole colony missing, and giant man-eating worms on the loose. As the sole survivor of the incident- aside from a crazy woman that appeared out of nowhere that he managed to save- there were questions he needed to answer.

“Right, we just wanted to go over your statement one last time, make sure we didn’t miss anything.” One of the investigators said, sounding casually enough. “Your squad arrived at the colony on Akuze at approximately 15-hundred hours.”

“Yes,” John cut in, a headache from the crack he took to the skull already pulsing again. It was almost time for another dose of medication to keep it in check while he recovered. He could guess the general direction the conversation was going to go, and decided to recount the important  details himself. “We searched the settlement and while we found no one alive, the colony was otherwise untouched. Later at about 18-hundred hours we set up camp a short distance away. At about 19-hundred hours a giant worm erupted from the ground and splashed half a dozen of my men with acid.”

He took a moment to breathe, and set his mind to focus on the facts of what had happened. Now was not the time to be getting emotional. Thankfully John was able to carry on calmly, even being watched closely for the two investigators.

The pair of them looked like they had never seen a day of combat. They were pencils pushers, who had the look of children going through a morbidly curious phase. It was the kind of job John's grandmother would have liked for him to have. A nice, safe, respectable career choice. One that wouldn’t suit his restless nature.

“From there it was, understandably, chaos. Someone managed to send out a distress call to get us out of there. We tried running, getting to higher ground, but my squad was quickly killed off…” John felt himself hesitate then, for just a second. What happened next he didn’t particularly want to recount.

If he didn’t tell it just right, he would surely end up with a discharge for being mentally unfit for service.

“Then, comms went down. We couldn’t radio out, hell, we couldn’t even radio each other. Our omnitools stopped working, everything electronic just went haywire.” Pressing on through the story he gestured upwards with the hand that was still holding the spoon for his gelatine snack, “The sky lit up, there was some kind of rippling explosion. That’s when they showed up.”

Before John could continue the shorter of the two men piped up in his nasally voice, “By ‘they’ you mean Miss Reyna Wolfsbane and her friend that we have yet to find, known only as ‘Miraak’?”

John blinked at learning the woman's name. There hadn't been time for introductions on Akuze. He had been too busy trying to survive, and she had been busy trying to get at the masked man she appeared with.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t  exactly call them friends.” John interrupted again with a slight chuckle. He shook his head as he continued to explain, “They were fighting. I know a playful sparring session when I see it. Those two were out for each other’s blood.”

John remembered how she had screamed, shouting words he didn’t understand and his translator didn’t know what to do with. But with each shout the air rippled with shock that he felt in his bones. Force and anger radiated out of the pair of them.

His first impression, seeing the two descend from the hole in the sky on the backs of dragons had been awestruck. Then a thought of how hard he had hit his head in the initial attack, and that he was possibly hallucinating. The look on the remaining Marines at his side told him it was real.

But now, in an Alliance hospital where he was recovering from a concussion and acid burns, with no evidence to prove what he saw, he had to fit the story to their expectations.

"When we saw them we thought they were LARPers-" John had started to resume his story when he was cut off by the taller investigator.

"Sorry, LARPers?" One of the men squinted his eyes at the unfamiliar word.

"Live Action Role Player." The other answered the question, which received him a certain look from his companion. "What? It's a thing. People dress up like wizards or knights or whatever and, uh, role play."

"... Is it a sex thing?"

"It doesn't have to be." The shorter one cleared his throat and nodded back to John, "Sorry, Lieutenant, you were saying?"

John looked between the two of them to confirm their back-and-forth was complete before speaking again. This time he sounded markedly dispassionate, "Over the course of approximately thirty minutes the remaining members of my squad were killed."

The dragons and their riders had been circling around in the sky. One dove at the other's throat, dragging both crashing to the ground. Their riders dismounted in a messy fashion. The woman, dressed in thick armor that looked like it was made of scales, wasted no time in drawing a sword and running down her quarry.

"We had been trying to push our way back to the rendezvous point for extraction, but Jordan was badly wounded." John maintained an alternating eye contact with both men. Their discomfort reminded him not to mention any mythical creatures in his account. "I didn't let him go until it was clear he was dead."

The dragons and their riders were between John and the rendezvous point. In the glimpses he caught on the dead run he could see their battle- one in a robe with a staff, the armored one wielding a sword. They fought with skill and ferocity that he admired and feared.

There were more shouts in that strange language. One of the dragons swooped low on its approach, and for an instant John feared he would be it's target. Instead, it zoomed past him, crashing into a giant worm as it leaped from the ground. John had been shocked, watching the great winged reptile spitting fire into the air before it was dragged down. The motion was reminiscent of a python biting and coiling around its prey.

He started running again, fueled with a fresh rush of adrenaline and fear. Beneath his feet, even sprinting as he was, he could feel the ground rumble with the worm wrestling with its meal. But there were other worms that hadn’t been fed, and he could swear he could sense them approaching.

He continued talking while recalling the events, omitting what was necessary. "The other one ran off. But I managed to grab Miss Wolfsbane, and got us to the rendezvous."

By the time their battle was wrapping up he had been quickly closing the few yards that were between them. The man in robes was already running away, but the woman, Reyna, had seemed to have exhausted herself. John had skidded to a stop with seconds to spare to pull her arm over his shoulder, practically dragging her to the rendezvous point. The other dragon was nowhere to be seen, but the approaching shuttle was a welcomed sight.

It was only once they had thrown themselves onto the shuttle that John could fully take stock of his wounds, much less notice the knife in the woman’s side.

No, knife was the wrong word. It was a dagger, with a long and ornate handle crafted from shining black metal.

“I had a pretty bad concussion, so I blacked out after that.” John finished simply, mentally shutting the memories of that day last week into a box in the back of his mind.

He could focus his mind on more important matters. Namely, getting these two to leave, and returning to the sweet whipped cream topped jello dessert the nurse was nice enough to bring him thirds of.

"And just to be clear," the taller of the two started to ask, his eyes and fingers busy with a data pad in his hands, "You didn't see any dragons on Akuze, did you?"

The question hung in the air for what felt like forever. John trained his expression carefully, making his face blank. Usually, from what he was told, this look came off as mildly offended to those it was directed. He completed the appearance with a stern tone, "Is that supposed to be a joke, sir?"

The shorter investigator jabbed his elbow into the other's side. "I told you that wouldn't be funny."

"It's a little funny." The other replied with a small smile before waving the matter off with his hand. "Sorry, Miss Wolfsbane wouldn’t let the topic go. She kept talking about dragons and how one was still on the loose and-"

"Collin, it's really not okay to make fun of the mentally ill." The shorter of the two chastised quietly.

"Not my fault you don't have a sense of humor Bondeaux." The other retorted.

While relieved that they didn't press further about mythical flying lizards that he had definitely seen, John also couldn't help a growing concern on the topic of that woman.

"Hey, is she doing okay?" He asked suddenly, which drew the investigators attention back to him. "Miss Wolfsbane, I mean. She was injured pretty badly when we were picked up, and the doctors aren't telling me anything."

"She'll recover. Her injuries were critical, and she lost a lot of blood, but she woke up yesterday." The shorter answered, clearly the more empathetic of the pair. "She hasn't admitted to any involvement in the incident on Akuze, but her mental state is… Questionable."

John nodded at this answer, though still felt a pang of guilt. That woman wasn't crazy. Not the way they thought she was, anyway. He wasn't crazy. But without evidence there was nothing to back up the claims of the additional happenings that day. 

"What's going to happen to her?" John asked before he could stop himself.

"Well, our investigation is pending her undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. I imagine if she has a significant diagnosis then she'll be medicated and put into a long term facility for her and everyone else's safety."

Again John nodded as if accepting the answer. It still didn't feel right, but he chose to bite his tongue instead of speaking up again.

“Do you have any idea who she is?”

“I don’t know." John shrugged with his reply. The words stuck in his throat before he could speak. "As far as I can tell, Miss Wolfsbane is a crazy lady with a sword.”

“Well, now she’s just crazy.” The taller of the two chuckled.

The shorter jumped in to answer the question in John’s expression. “Her weapons had to be confiscated, of course. Safety hazard.”

The investigators left without further questioning him, thankfully. With the more coherent version he was able to tell now that the concussion-fueled brain fog has started to dissipate; they had all they needed from John.

Usually, even on bad days, John had a sweet tooth that wasn't easily satisfied. Looking down at the squares of red topped with a generous pile of whipped cream he was disappointed to find his appetite missing. Setting the dessert aside again he laid back against the pillows, and tried to ignore the itching pain on his right side.

~~~

It was sometime later, after finally eating the jello with no joy and a nap, that John decided to follow his doctor’s advice on getting some exercise. Nothing too strenuous, was the precise advice, just a walk around the hospital grounds.

The wonders of modern medicine got his bruised ribs healed quickly, and the acid burns along the right shoulder already scaring over. But the concussion would simply take time and rest to heal. He was thankful that none of the injuries were career-ending. However the mental strain of watching his entire squad getting killed did bring the attention of psychiatrists who would occasionally check in on his mental state.

All things considered, he was 'handling it well', they said. There was encouragement to talk about how he was feeling, pills to help him get to sleep without nightmares, and an offer to talk anytime it was needed. It was an offer he had yet to take advantage of, and didn't intend to. With how much he had left out of the official report, he was reluctant to even try.

So, he walked, in the calmer hours where patients were asleep and less staff roamed around. It felt surprisingly nice to get out of bed and move around now that his body was up to it. He thought he looked like an invalid in the sweat pants and plain grey shirt, shuffling in slippers that made his toes sweaty. In a window overlooking a small courtyard he caught a glint of reflection, and winced at how distressed he looked.

John had thought that getting out of bed would change the station of his mind. Instead he found it automatically replaying, on a loop, the events of the past week. The hours on Akuze. Then, how he had likely sentenced a random woman to what would likely be intense psychiatric care.

Right, he thought, outside. Fresh air. Grandma had always recommended fresh air to clear one’s head. With that decided he roamed slowly until he made it outside, where the air was crisp and refreshing. Even if the night was nice, it only soothed his thoughts momentarily.

Suddenly the loop stopped and he was fully jerked back to reality. He had been looking dead ahead, his feet on autopilot carrying him through the facility to the small courtyard. His eyes had recognized the figure before his brain clicked with just who he was looking at, and he stopped dead in his tracks, suddenly tense.

She was sitting on a bench just a few yards away, the woman that rode into the world on the back of a dragon, serenely staring up at the night sky. Her armor had been stripped, replaced with the comfortable, loose clothing that indicated a patient. Any weapons she had been carrying would have been taken as well. With the way she looked now peacefully sitting with her hands in her lap, it would be hard to imagine her as the warrior John had seen before.

His eyes scanned the area on instinct, seeking possible threats. A guard posted at an opposite door nodded to him in acknowledgement. The lights in the area were low, the courtyard sparsely decorated. Grass, some bushes he couldn’t name the species of, a small tree in one corner. There were no dragons. There were no giant worms spitting acid. He forced a deep breath to calm himself, willing his jaw to unclench and his fists to unravel.

There was no danger here. Eventually his body and lower brain functions listened and eased.

He wanted to turn around and go back to bed. Maybe turn on some vids of cute puppies and kittens to distract his mind. Against his own better judgment John found himself continuing forward with a purposeful stride, slowed to a stop, and eased himself into the free space next to the woman on the bench. Next to him the woman, Reyna, didn’t seem aware that he was there.

"Rough night?" He asked, casually enough.

She was slow to react, her gaze easing from the sky to him. There were deep dark circles under the ocean-blue eyes that told him she hadn't been sleeping well, if at all. Despite the clear exhaustion, and slack expression, she was still a striking woman. With a pale complexion marred by scars down her arms and a faded one along her jawline.

"Aye," She replied after a moment, her gaze not quite focusing on him but rather drifting, "It has been a rough... while."

Her voice was quiet, though held a clear accent John couldn't quite pin. It sounded perhaps Swedish, or something similar. She had the features of a classic Scandinavian beauty.

“I see they got a guard keeping an eye on you.” He commented absently, not sparing a glance to the marine assigned to Reyna who kept a respectful distance from where they sat.

"Making sure I don't cause trouble. Or try to run away." She spoke softly, and gave a small nod. Her eyes drifted again, this time going back up to the sky again. Without prompting she went on to say, “The funny thing is, I don’t know where I would even run. This place is not home. I am quite sure it is not a plane of Oblivion, but it is not home.”

John could feel the confusion leak into his face. When a moment passed that he didn’t offer a reply she turned her gaze to him, and as if to explain herself gestured to the sky, “The stars are all wrong here.”

“Right. Yeah.” John nodded as if accepting the answer when he was merely trying to understand what the hell she was talking about. He could understand about the stars if this woman didn’t understand about changing star positions based on the viewers location, but in this age it was a common concept. A headache threatened the back of his head if he thought too hard on the topic.

She spoke about 'Oblivion' as if it were a place, an odd comment from an even odder woman. If she talked like this to the doctors, it was no surprise that she ended up medicated, sedated to a sluggish pace where she would be easy to keep an eye on. In the brief quiet John joined her in looking at the stars, though refused to take all his attention off her.

"You were the one from before...?" She said suddenly, looking back at him. Gaining a degree more animation she spoke, "With the, um," she gestured with both hands, cupping them as if holding a weapon and giving small jerking motions. It was only then that John noticed the restraints shackled around her wrists, which shouldn't have surprised him. 

"With the... rifle?" It took a moment to catch on to what she was trying to say, and he wondered how much sedatives she had been given.

"Rifle." She repeated the word carefully, as if such a word had never passed her lips. Letting her hands go slack into her lap the woman nodded. "Yes." Then a look of recognition crossed her face and she visibly perked, "You were the one who saved me. From the worms."

John found himself fumbling for words for a moment. He had been trying to avoid thinking about Akuze, and had been fairly successful until that second. Sure, he dragged her out of a hotzone. But the side of the story he told effectively threw her under the bus. Even if she wasn’t implicated on what happened, there was no way she was getting away without being labeled unstable.

"Yeah. Yeah that was me." He managed to get out, unsure if the gleam in this woman's eye was her gearing up to praise or chew him out. Did she know that he lied?

"I'm not used to being saved. Usually I'm the one doing the saving." She said this with a small smile, her eyes drifting away from him for a second. When she looked at him again her stare pinned him in place. "Thank you. For the rescue."

"Yeah, its, ah, no problem...?" He trailed off, eyebrows raising in thought about what exactly this woman had done with her life. She wasn’t Alliance, that was damn sure. John got the sense that there was a lengthy story to her that would likely remain unknown.

At the very least he could scratch the surface a little, for his own curiosity.

Before he could think too hard about what he was doing, and risk inviting a headache, John extended a hand in a friendly introduction, “John Shepard.”

“Reyna,” She answered in the soft voice of the moderately sedated, and rose a hand to grasp his wrist. Then, a moment later as if trying to recall her own name, “Wolfsbane.”

“Well, Reyna, I’m glad to see you’re still alive.” He offered a small smile, sincere in his statement. It was good to know that at least someone else got off of Akuze.

“Aye, the healers did a good job of patching me up.” She nodded, her hands returning to her lap.

John got the impression that she was trying to push through a mental fog to be able to hold a conversation. Her speech was still slow, and her eyes struggled to keep focus under heavy lids that threatened to stay closed with every blink. But she didn’t seem crazy, or dangerous by any means. A little strange, yes, but not crazy.

“And yourself?” Her question surprised John, who had been mulling over how to tactfully ask where she came from or something that would shed some light on her mystery. “The last time I saw you, you were bleeding all over the place.”

John glanced down at his right side, which was bandaged up under his shirt, and then remembered the concussion and broken ribs he had had. The concussion still fogged his brain, but thankfully didn’t leave him incapacitated, and the acid burns would heal. Everything was thankfully numbed with medigel and additional pain killers.

“Oh, yeah, I’m okay.” He answered automatically, without much thought. Then, he decided to follow up with more honesty, “I will be okay. I’ll have a gnarly scar on my side, but at least my skull is thick enough to prevent any serious brain damage.” One of his hands went up to gently rub at the bandage affixed to the side of his head, and he had to remind himself not to pick at it while it was healing.

“Good.” Reyna said simply, with a small smile. Her eyes drifted away from him again, returning to gaze at the stars above.

They sat in a brief, comfortable silence, while John worked up the nerve to ask a question that had been gnawing at his mind. He knew he wasn’t crazy. The worst any psychiatric evaluations turned up was some lingering trauma from his childhood that he had managed to work through.

“Hey, I’ve gotta ask, because I’m not sure what was real and what was a brain-injury fueled hallucination.” He started, drawing Reyna’s attention steadily back to him. She eyed him curiously as he looked away, sure that he would lose his nerve if he had to maintain eye contact. “Back on Akuze with all the shit going down…”

Saying it aloud seemed absurd. But he managed to force the words out with his eyes shut. “You two, were riding around on dragons? Was that real?”

“Sahrotaar, and Kruziikrel.” Reyna replied without hesitation, her voice barely a whisper. She went on, “When I was young, there was a boy in the village that got kicked in the head by a horse. He survived, but he was never the same after. He spoke like a drunk, all slow and slurred. Most nights he screamed at the moons, and he would go on and on about how chickens were secretly agents of the Thalmor sent to spy on us all.”

“Sorry, Thalmor?... Um.” This conversation had stopped making sense, and John couldn’t help squinting his eyes at Reyna who managed to simply sit calmly. He was starting to think the guys who interrogated him earlier that day were right and this woman was crazy, “What?”

“I suppose that’s another thing you don’t have in this world, eh?” There was laughter in her voice as she said this. Reyna’s voice went more serious as she returned her gaze to him, “It was all real. Miraak, me, the dragons, all of it.”

[bwobgames]

Previous First

"I. Uh. Might have developed a small crush on my brother's girlfriend.

Now, I dont really believe in love at first sight. But it was close enough.

She smiled at me once, twice, thrice, and then I realized I wanted to see that smile forever. It's just!! Everything felt better with her by my side, you know? Have you ever felt that?"

An image comes to his mind, but he can't recognize it. It quickly disappears.

"We were best friends. We shared makeup and talked all night and raised kids together, bestie stuff.

I always thought of me and my brother as equals, i mean, we are both dumb rich kids who love pretty girls and sweet popcorn

But I never understood his ambition. He had everything! A beautiful wife, lovely kids, money, time, fame. Some of us dont have even one of those things!

So why did he not care about them?

He just left Mari abandoned in their house everyday, he barely went to do his job as CEO, He just ran around doing whatever! Why couldn't he just see how good he has it? The people he was hurting? The responsibilities of a husband and father??

One day Mari came to me, barely speaking, saying he divorced her.

I uh, didn't take it very well.

In my defense, if you saw someone having everything you've ever wanted and just threw it away, wouldn't you be a little mad?

And I know it's selfish and envy is bad or whatever. But he was hurting people. People I love very much. Even himself, i think.

We fought a lot, i told him he was a stupid spoiled child, and he told me i'd never achieve anything even with our parents' money. Then I, uh, said that I was glad he had little youth left because it meant he was gonna die soon.

Yeah... uh... maybe bringing childhood trauma into the divorce thing wasn't a good plan.

And I only realized it later, when he made some crazy internet thing and he was getting detained by the police.

Mari was not coping well, me neither, honestly. We both realized the person we knew was actually just in our heads and that the real person is some cruel stranger. It was almost like grieving.

We fought over the smallest things. Nadia and Simon decided to move to their friend's house. I went back to mine as well, I couldn't take it.

Just like him, I left her all alone. It must run in the family."

"So, yeah, she's probably super mad at me. And doesn't want to be with me ever again"

Beebo tries really hard not to tell her how wrong she is about that

"Well, let's go look for her then! I'll speak on your behalf, so you two dont have to face each other, but the message goes across. Where do you think she is?"

"Um, she said something about her kids, right? They usually are in the observation tower, so she might be looking for them there?"

"Alright, let's go there"

"I'm back I'm back!"

"The Vivi has been secured"

"You literally just made me turn every single location tracking app i have"

"And now you are secured"

"Um, hello?"

"Oh! This is my friend ..."

"Uh. Um. Oh fuck I still dont remember his name. And I literally asked him out! Seems like I still get all stupid in the presence of handsome men. I'll just wait until someone else says it"

" ... from college!, and his friend, Vivi right?"

"Hey Ollie, where is the lady with the blue hair I left you with?"

"We are going to her! She might be in an observation tower, we think"

"Wait, are we all going?"

"Yes. You need your emotional support me, I need my emotional support him and he needs his emotional support her"

"I can take it"

"Wait! I still dont know what to say to her! How do I say that Im sorry? That I love her?"

"I have suggestions"

"So do I"

"Mine would be funnier though"

"...Im so fucked"

[dnpbeats]

There's so many misinterpretations of what I said here. It seems like a lot of people just had a knee-jerk reaction to certain words and didn't think about the actual meaning. I didn't say that Dan exaggerated his struggles. I said he exaggerated how deep in the closet he was, as in how many people he was out to. Specifically referring to interviews he did post-BIG where he made it sound like he wasn't out to a single person. I think it does make sense that he meant he wasn't out as specifically gay, but that's not what someone who doesn't know his history would assume. I'm gonna be totally honest, even though I know it's probably going to get people mad at me again. Post-BIG, during the solo-Dan/WAD era, it seemed like the narrative was constantly shifting. So much that it was hard to know what's true and what's not. Was Dan completely closeted or did his close friends know he wasn't straight? Did Dan not accept that he was attracted to men at all before 2018, or did he accept it, but struggle with the specific label? Was Dan not with any men pre-coming out or was he living as a gay man in private? The answer seems to change depending on the intended audience.

I definitely don't think that Dan exaggerated his internalized-homophobia, or how much harassment and bullying he received, or lied about anything he said in BIG, but he has obfuscated the truth since then. I think part of that might be because he was trying to rebrand himself and attract a certain audience (specifically, young adult gay men) and another is that he was trying to direct people's attention away from his relationship with Phil. Both personal and professional. I definitely put more stock in what Dan said in BIG than the things he's said in random interviews. Anyway I'm gonna stop causing discourse on your blog. Sorry.

Hi again! No worries, thank you for taking the time to explain yourself :) (and sorry I have let this ask rot in my inbox for the whole day lmao)

I agree with you that often times things that dan says in interviews are confusing and can be misinterpreted. however in my personal opinion, just based on what ive observed, I don't think it's necessarily intentional. I honestly think he just speaks without thinking and puts his foot in his mouth a lot lol. I don't think that he necessarily purposely changes his answers to questions based on the audience, I think he's just a tiny bit pretentious and likes to come up with superfluous ways to say things. often times that gets confusing and gives a lot of different interpretations to what he says

I looked through a handful of interviews he did post coming out and I didn't ever see him say that he wasn't out to anyone at all as a queer man; he talked a lot about struggling with labeling himself as gay, and the fact that it weighed on him that he wasn't out to his audience. he did mention in one article coming out to his family "and friends" but that doesn't necessarily imply that he was in the closet to all his friends (fyi just bc I didn't see him say that doesn't mean an interview like that doesn't exist, I just got tired of looking I went though like 6 articles haha)

I completely agree that to an outsider, they might assume he wasn't out at all and not a soul knew he liked men. but personally, im not sure that it was a necessity for him to clarify that in the interviews, or at all. the point of all the interviews was that he was finally living authentically as himself and that he was able to be comfortable labeling himself as gay—there's no real reason for him to tack on "oh also when I say that I was closeted, I mean that I didn't label myself as gay but this list of 15 people knew I was dating a man," you know? that's not the point he was trying to make

anyway, sorry if you felt ganged up on!! ty again for clarifying :))

[theanticool]

My 10 favorite things from combat sport in 2022

Instead of my favorite fights or knockouts or moments, here are my favorite things about what was going on in combat sports in 2022.

1.The Match (tm) - We got one of the best fights that could have been made in the whole of combat sports - Takeru vs Tenshin Nasukawa. It was bittersweet in someways, as this served as Tenshin’s goodbye from kickboxing as he chases boxing $$$ and a long hiatus for Takeru as he tries to recover from his first high profile loss. Also it was only 3 rounds. But ultimately, we are all better off from having seen the fight. And it was a tremendous fight and a fantastic card that featured the very best of Japanese kickboxing, which is talent-wise as deep as it has been in a long, long time.

2. The Continued Rise of Women’s Boxing - This year saw the success of two high profile cards that were headlined by women - the Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano card which was at MSG and the Claressa Shields vs Savannah Marshall fight which was at 02 Arena in London. And they were successful. Having got to attend the Taylor-Serrano match-up in person, it was amazing to see how many people flew out from Ireland to watch the first ever women’s boxing match to headline at the legendary MSG. Shields and Marshall was also highly successful, grossing millions of views on domestic TV while also selling out there venue. Not to mention Shields-Marshall also featuring a high profile fight between Alycia Baumgardner and Mikaela Mayer which drew media attention for their trash talk. And to top it all off, they were amazing fights. Great displays of technique as well as good old fashion slugging. They were dramatic. They were action packed. And most importantly, they left the people wanting more. Which we seemed geared to get in 2023 as we have a number of huge fights coming up on the horizon.

3. Big year for dramatic comebacks and bag fumbling - Leigh Wood vs Michael Conlan set the standard this year for amazing displays of drama and fumbling the bag, and it was followed by fights like Teixeira-Prochazka, Izzy-Pereira, etc. It’s been a crazy year of dramatic final rounds where either one guy makes a mistake in a dead even fight and ends up losing (Gane going for a leg lock against Ngannou) or a guy who is likely ahead on the scorecards just getting caught in the final round (Conlan-Wood, Usman-Edwards, Teixeira-Prochazka, Izzy-Pereira). And that’s when combat sports are at their best. When one guy just goes all out with his back to the wall and prevails despite the odds.

4. ONE Championship Kickboxing and Muay Thai - Feels cheap to put this in one place but it is true. ONE Championship’s kickboxing and muay thai divisions have made it must watch viewing. Tawanchai vs Petchmorakot, Roman Kryklia, Rodtang, Nong-O, the entire featherweight and light divisions, etc. It has been so much fun. Watching Chingiz Allazov defeat Sittichai was an amazing moment I didn’t see coming. Hiroki Akimoto taking the title off of Capitan in an amazing fight only to turn and lose it to Petchtanong? That’s the good stuff! I’m glad that if ONE is going to lose money, they’re doing it by giving us dream fights and by broadcasting elite Thai fighters to a Western audience. 

5. Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez vs Juan Francisco Estrada 3 - This was my most anticipated fight of the year. Just like their 2nd fight was. And while I’m a Chocolatito guy (and always will be), I can’t be mad at the outcome. While I worry a tad about how “losing” this trilogy will affect his long term legacy, I don’t think in the end it will matter cause both of these men are on that esteemed 100 greatest boxers to ever live list imo. It was an outstanding fight worthy of all the praise you can muster and an amazing moment closing an incredible era of super flyweight (the most entertaining weight class). 

6. The Comedy that has been the UFC Women’s title picture - Listen, I loved Nunes-Pena 2, Namajunas-Esparza 2, and Shevchenko-Santos. For entirely different reasons, they are all some of the funniest fights in recent memory. Nunes deciding that instead of countering, parrying, or slipping the jab that gave her fits in their first match, she was going to go completely southpaw. And it worked so well she knocked Pena down 3x in the first 2 rounds of the fight? Had me hysterical! Or Rose, a known headcase fighter, being so intimidated by the idea of grappling with Carla Esparza that she basically shadowboxed Carla from 4 feet away for 25 minutes only to lose anyway? Comedy gold. Or Valentina, in a closer than expected fight, just headbutting the crap out of Taila Santos and breaking her orbital to swing the momentum of the fight and secure the win? HILARIOUS. Great stuff. No notes. 

7. Alex Pereira proving MMA is still stupid - Alex Pereira does not know how to wrestle. I’m not sure if he knows how to sweep from guard. I’m not sure dude could put in a RNC to save his life in an actual MMA contest. But he is the UFC middleweight champion! And if we’re beating real, given the chance, there is no reason he couldn’t knockout a fighter like Jiri and become a 2 weight champion. There’s an absurdity in having someone who is so obviously green in so many aspects of the sport just come in a destroy arguably the 2nd or 3rd best fighter that division has ever seen. Even if Pereira had beaten Izzy in kickboxing prior. The real best base for MMA is having wins over whoever the champ is in another sport. 

8. Bellator vs RIZIN - this isn’t on the list because it was the most enjoyable. Much like your normal Bellator card, the undercard (RIZIN 40) was actually crazier from an action standpoint. But it’s on this list because of how important it is. For the first time since DREAM was on like HD Net, a Japanese promotion was on US television. And Showtime, no less. Not AXS TV or as a rerun on like MSG 2 like I’ve seen with old M-1 cards. Bellator and RIZIN have been no stranger to sharing talent in the past but with this type of open collaboration, I’m really hoping it blooms and spreads. Bellator needs a hook. RIZIN wants a way into the US market as the Japanese one seems to be stagnant. Hopefully this partnership helps propel both promotions upwards. 

9. Alexander Volkanovski’s performance against Max Holloway in trilogy fight - This was the best I have ever seen an MMA fighter look in a 25 minute fight. It is an all time great performance against a P4P GOAT. Maybe part of it was Max falling off or Volk having 50 minutes of accumulated cage time with Max to pull from, but that doesn’t take away from what we saw. Volk is operating on a completely different level right now than basically anyone in the sport. He is clicking athletically, technically, and strategically. If anyone deserves to move up and challenge for the belt, it’s Volk. Don’t know what his chances are but if anyone can beat Islam right now, it’s him. 

10. Demetrious Johnson’s revenge KO over Adriano Moraes - yes, I think Edwards-Usman is the more deserving KO of the year winner. But this one is special to me. This is like when Roman Gonzalez KOed Kal Yafai in his first real test following his KO loss to Sor Rungvisai and I was just full of joy. DJ showed why he is one of the smartest fighters in the sport, adjusting brilliantly to what Moraes showed in their first fight to deliver one of the most aesthetically beautiful knockouts in MMA history. 

Honorable mention: 

- Dmitry Bivol’s dissection of Canelo Alvarez - a reminder that just because “we” don’t know the other guy, doesn’t mean they’re not good. And Bivol is P4P best in the sport good. 

-  The emergence of Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez - Doubt Bam ever become a PPV star like Eddie and Matchroom want but that kid is special. Like, put the sub super-bantamweight divisions on the map special. Like P4P talent special. And watching emerge as a star in 2022 has been incredible. It not for Bivol, he was the runaway pick for FOTY imo. He’s got a bright, bright future ahead of him.

- Boxing delivered this year imo - I know. You all wanted Crawford-Spence and Usyk-Fury, but I got most of the other fights I wanted and they were fire - Gonzalez-Estrada 3, Charlo-Castano 2, Shields-Marshall, Talyor-Serrano, Inoue-Donaire 2, GGG-Murata, Spence-Ugas, Stevenson-Valdez (Shut up, I enjoyed it), etc. 

[nyc-on-tv]

The Man (and People) Who Tried to Sell the World: Mad Men

In 2018, I started grad school and I started Mad Men. This wasn’t my first time watching, or to be clear, it wasn’t my first time trying to watch it. I tried for five years prior to that. But like many people who don’t venture into older media, I found it hard to get into because it was a period drama (which is funny because most people think of corsets and top hats and old British people talking as period dramas, but its really anything that takes place in another time). Mad Men was in a time I would never live in and felt outdated. But I think that initial mentality was my youthful outlook making me think I could never understand the appeal of the past (despite the fact that I love music from the 80’s and other generations that I was not a part of). It’s just a show about the 60s. But like the show’s deuteragonist Peggy, I had to try something different, and it really helped me. I chose to watch it as a character study for everyone involved. I found myself making mental checklists of how I wanted each character to grow if I was gonna keep watching and with that perspective the show kept getting better.

The show takes place in 60’s Manhattan at what I imagine was the height of advertising (I haven’t investigated the truth in that perspective). Companies were booming, creativity was on the rise, and the future was Coming with a capital C for everyone but Don Draper.

Don Draper, as an aside, was the real man of myth and legend in the show, we saw him coming to grips with his identity, making himself his biggest advertising challenge to sell himself the world. And what I mean by that is every move this man makes is calculated so he can achieve what he deems the life a white man like him should want. But, later on, in the back of his mind we can see he struggles with a multi-layered imposter syndrome that no one can really help him with (which as a new grad student, imposter syndrome was a wildly familiar feeling). Because of his status and problems (often caused by himself), every decision he makes changes the course of the show, granted he is the protagonist but truly getting to see how his actions affect everyone else makes watching everyone else a bit more interesting. In my mind, it actually makes watching the show for Peggy Olson the better watch than for Don Draper. Peggy starts as his first assistant in the show and becomes an astronaut of

advertising due, in part, to how Don molds her and guides her, but later as a character independent of him.

The show really takes advantage of its 1960’s setting to show off 60’s fashion, food, and New York culture. Unfortunately, the show also emphasizes civil rights issues of the time and (rampant, as my girlfriend likes to say) misogyny are also highlighted in 1960’s U.S. culture. I say unfortunately because these aren’t moments in our history, we like to revisit because of how much wrongdoing occurred to women and/or people of color. But really, I think, revisiting such moments emphasizes why changes in society are important even if it takes long to get there. This show takes place during the assassinations and rallies of important historical figures and it’s interesting to see how the characters react to (or ignore) such events. It’s also important to imagine how we would react if certain figures we looked up to came and went in our lifetimes.

Overall, this show is a character study I enjoy revisiting... because I see it as an era where people truly started questioning changing things for the better and how advertising can be a reflection of it.

(Speaking of changes, this post was proofread and partially editted by my partner. Her grammar and diction help to articulate my initial thoughts behind this post.)

[rhodochrosite-love]

Tempted to write one of those classic avengers x readers but the y/n is a sassy boy with fox powers.

He and loki get along amazingly, its like weird divorced men who have sex semi-regularly but still hate (love) each other

He and Cap have a rocky relationship— Cap doesnt know how to take the gay stuff seriously but wants to, while Bucky comes in to steal the show like he used to. That becomes a problem that gets solved with a threesome

He and Tony have a fun master-apprentice thing going on but Tony discovers that He has a big interest in plushy making? Which ok sure, thats like tinkering right? No Tony, but give it a shot. The two get along like a weird older man younger man do, with a gen gap thats kinda weird but He loves to poke and prod at Tonys bullshit

Cant forget our fav girl! Nat totally teaches Him some moves and they discover that He has this awesome sense and flexibility that totally gets used in spy missions and in the bedroom (NOT WITH NAT— shes like a weird big sister. Reader is 1000000% gay and loves men)

Speaking of men, Thor is just eye candy for Him. Loves looking, and what if He gets a touch? Maybe… a taste? Ohhh, greedy god.

Banner gets a fine helping of sass too. In fact, they both love to shit talk. Banner and Him love to vent over movies, and happily lets the cuddles happen. Bruce can get insecure, but thankfully those fox powers come in handy and— poof! Big fluffy tail to pet and pawbeans to squish! Ease those fears.

Debating on what these powers mean. Can He turn into a big fox? Can he shift forms? Am I a furry? Yes. Yes I am. Where did these powers come from? Space? Secret alien parent? Weird drug? Possession? Who knows. We love it, you love it!

Obviously things change as the movies do. Lots of mourning in the snap era— does He get snapped or does He live? First comment about that decides it. Civil War? He sides with Tony. Lets him meet Peter AND he fundamentally understands that their power should have some regulation in terms of city wide destruction… thoooo he usually sticks to Hells Kitchen. He feels a bit more like an Honorary Avenger (tm).

Wrapping that up, I’ve been thinking about this guy for a long time. Let me know if my mad ramblings are something cool, cringe, or something else!

[incrediblemelk]

At MIFF this year I saw Hello Dankness, the new film by Soda Jerk, which won several festival awards. Using Soda Jerk's signature pop-piracy sampling style, it draws heavily on American film and TV depictions of 'the suburbs' to stitch together an account of the US's post-truth journey into the heart of dankness, from the 2016 presidential elections onwards.

As their artist statement says, "We tried to scream, but all that came out was a meme."

It was literally the first time I had thought about the "dicks out for Harambe" meme since 2016.

Hello Dankness quite extensively samples This Is the End (2013), which left me with a hankering (a dankering?) to watch the film. When I saw it pop up on Stan last night, I thought, "Now's the time."

I missed the film when it was new, because there was a preview screening clash where two screenings were scheduled on the same night, and I chose the Pacific Rim screening instead (a film with which I became obsessed).

It's such a fascinating time capsule of the Apatovian heyday of gross-out 'manchild' and 'stoner' comedy. At the time it was mostly hailed as a self-indulgent minor entry in a subgenre already running on fumes.

But when I rewatched it last night, I was struck by how fresh and culturally relevant it still feels. Has public discourse just got danker over the past decade?

There's a whole act in the middle when the narrative momentum sags as the central group of frenemies barricade themselves in James Franco's house. But now to me it reads like the Covid-era lockdown malaise, when an initial fun buzz ("let's do all the drugs!" "let's make Pineapple Express 2!") gives way to boredom, bickering and a sense of mounting threat from outside.

It's also pre-#MeToo and yet it's prominently about unpleasant, self-obsessed men trying to reassure each other that they're 'good'.

There's a scene where the group get so worked up about their need to reassure Emma Watson that they don't pose a sexual threat to her that she ends up being convinced they're absolutely going to rape her, and ends up leaving, along with all their food and drink.

(Watson notoriously refused to participate in a later scene where Danny McBride has become the cannibal king of ruined Los Angeles, with Channing Tatum as his gimp.)

It was striking to watch an apocalyptic moral punishment come for people like James Franco and Jonah Hill.

Meanwhile, Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel, who end up in heaven dancing with the Backstreet Boys, have basically turned out to be IRL mensches.

Even Craig Robinson, who's had some drug troubles, seems to be living a pretty wholesome life.

In a Daily Beast podcast appearance from May 2023, Baruchel said, "Jonah and I don't get along super well – or at least didn't back then." When the host observed that this comes across strongly onscreen, Baruchel replied, "Yeah, no shit it fucking does!"

Baruchel also recalled:

It was this weird thing of mining personal shit. But not for catharsis … mining it just for comedy. So mining it in the most monetized, capitalist way of, "we’re going to dig up real personal shit," but nobody’s going to go home feeling better about it. We’re just going to turn it into a fucking product.

We never talked about any of the real shit. Like, it never came up for real. Because we’re both 1982 kids, which means we were raised in a great misogynistic tradition of not talking about shit. Especially two boys … we'll air grievances. When we're mad at each other and say that, but it’s very rare to be vulnerable.

I don't know why I'm so frequently drawn to stories of male friendships, but at their best, the Apatovian cycle does create a mainstream space for male vulnerability – even though they frequently can't help undercutting the intimacy with 'no-homo' mockery or self-mockery, or diverting it into jokes about dicks and bodily functions.

As Baruchel said in 2020, "Crass, male gazey shit is definitely in the DNA of the thing, but so was heartbreak and wearing your heart on your sleeve and not being blessed with with every fucking advantage. They’re deeply human things, and were really imperfect and super honest and devoid of vanity."

[cowgirl-frog]

Blackness and Theater: A Rant

Soo I know no one will see this and it's kinda random but I saw a post saying new tumblrs need to actually post things so imma ramble.

I haaate black "representation" in theater. Before anybody comes for my neck, I am black. But as a musical lover specifically, i am sick of slave stories and racism and one black character per production so you can meet your quota(*cough* dear evan hansen *cough*). All the groundbreaking representation people talk about is usually just black comedic side characters who talk about oppression every two seconds and are loud and angry and they fight and they only listen to rap music. There isn't anything wrong with characters like that, but it's so annoying to have that be the only representation of your race. People scream about how broadway is soooo diverse, but when you are any minority that isn't white (or white passing, or white adjacent), you and your culture will become the same monolithic, stereotypical representation that you could get anywhere else. It's just really frustrating. And honestly, I can't even really be mad at theater specifically, because it's EVERYWHERE. When you watch a horror movie, the black character always dies first. When you watch a drama or a comedy, there's always a sassy uppity black friend to give the white female lead advice, OR its a black show in which there is a wrongful imprisonment/police brutality incident/overtly racist white characters/absent father/gangs/drugs/robbery etc. I'm just so tired of it. Why can't black characters have fantastical stories free of racism in two parent households? Why can't black women have emotions? Why can't black men have hobbies? In Funny Girl, the issue isn't that Fanny Brice is Jewish, that's just a thing that she is. It might inform how she sees the world or how she interacts with it, but that's not the plot. In black stories, them being black IS the plot. The existence of blackness is enough of an issue to warrant a whole story being told, and I hate it. I wish black people could engage with escapism like everyone else. It's come to the point where I sometimes avoid watching shows with large black casts because I KNOW that it will become a tragedy by virtue of their blackness. When you look up articles about black theater, you get results like:

ALL of the works cited in BOTH of these articles are focused on slavery and or racism. And there's nowhere I can look to make that picture any better, because according to producers and writers, that's all my culture is and all it ever will be.

Tl:dr In both theater and and society at large, being black is boiled down to racism and tragedy, and a wrote a very long post to my other wise unproductive blog to ramble about how my culture's representation is awful. (Aka I'm trying to be an opinion journalist in an attempt to graduate from my wish I was white era)