#I just really really love the ability to post polls and have always my whole life been obsessed with surveying people

[icewindandboringhorror]

Just curious what the average level of personal investment in these sorts of things is. Like, how much do people usually get into silly stuff like this their friends ask of them? etc. etc. Which I know, only surveying a small sample on a very specific website means I'm not getting an exact average idea lol, but.. curious nonetheless .. Maybe reblog for bigger sample size but also this is not very serious at all/not worth a call to action gbhjbhjb

[icypantherwrites]

Changes Coming to Patreon; Back to AO3 Icy Goes

An abbreviated and slightly different version of a post I made on my Patreon this evening:

Several months ago I made the announcement that I was switching my main platform from AO3 to exclusively post my works on Patreon. I had hoped it would help with some of my mental health issues with the reasoning that Patreon was a platform with a smaller, dedicated audience and would be better than posting into the great unknown and feeling let down by the sheer number of hits but no sightings of the people behind them.

Unfortunately, this decision has not panned out the way I had hoped. To be completely honest, I feel even worse than I ever have before. I truly thought this switch would encourage more engagement from those that were on my Patreon given that everyone now had that exclusive access and knowing that they'd want to be involved and that I'd be okay with knowing only a literal handful of people might be reading. That has not been the case. And to be clear, that's on me for having those hopes and expectations because certainly no one at my Patreon is required to engage with my works; you pay a subscription fee each month, you get content, and more always comes. And I will certainly continue to post those works that Patreon supporters paid for and expect to see under the original outline of my Patreon, but at this time...

At this time I've made the decision to return to posting on AO3 and no longer make that content exclusive to Patreon.

Any of the exclusive one-shots that did post here will remain, but I'll be adding them to my AO3 archive as well and the chaptered fics will only be posting for early release tiers on Patreon going forward, not posting later for all tiers. They will all instead be made available on my AO3 and just like before you are welcome to read them there. To be clear: none of your access to content is changing. You will still be able to read all of my stories, but they will no longer exclusively be on Patreon.

It is really hard for me to post works (and yes, I know they are all finished, it's still hard). It is hard to post in the author's notes and ask for comments and engagement because it is not fun to post and feel like hardly anyone is reading, and harder still when very few do because it just tells me that the majority of people either don't read those requests or they ignore them. Both don't feel good. And doubly so when you consider the majority of my content is about support. Ironic, right? ;p

Just like when I made this original decision, I didn't come to this one lightly. After all, there was a reason I decided to step away from AO3. But trying to bribe y'all with extra content via engagement hasn't worked. I've actually had 7 people in the two months that I made this switch join the page and quit within a couple days (sometimes a couple hours), accessing all content (and no doubt spurred on by the sheer amount behind a paywall) and that's a slap in the face to me and makes me feel even worse. And I certainly don't want to turn my works into a pay-per-view where I open a shop and sell PDF copies of individual works because the money has never, ever, been what the Patreon has been about. The finances help me to justify spending the time writing the works to keep this page active and going, but the whole reason I created a Patreon was to have an engaged, local community where I could be myself a little bit more, be a little more honest than I normally allow myself to be, and to share exclusive works with all those who made that decision to come here and financially support me with the hope that would extend to mental and emotional support via engagement on the site ♥

There are over 100 people on my Patreon and on average not even 10% make an appearance. It feels like I am posting and posting and hardly anyone is reading and the whole point of posting works is to share them because fandom is something that is meant to be shared. It's an experience for us all, whether we're creators or consumers, and we cannot exist without the other. It's a circle of fanfiction.

AO3 wasn't the best for me mentally. But the alternative I decided to pursue has unfortunately been even worse. And yet I still can't help but want to share my creations, want to make those connections, want people to laugh and cry and find comfort and support and experience emotions or feelings they may never had had, to learn and grow, to just enjoy the whump and angst and find a little escape sometimes from reality. Writing has been so important to me, it's what has kept me going through some very low times although it's catch-22 as the posting part of that process can make me feel lower than when I started. But I push through and hope that things get better, always.

Planning out this Patreon has meant so much to me. Writing stories for it, setting up polls, getting to create cover banners, write commissions, and, most importantly, interact with all of you... it has kept me going. And in order for me to not hate this page, to not delete it, to not call it quits, I need to make this switch back to AO3 and the chance for a larger audience. And I truly hope you can understand why I am doing this. I truly hope that even though the vast amount of my works will now be technically "free" that you still remain a member of my Patreon as those "free" works are only possible due to this site. 

And to anyone reading this now on my Tumblr, please read the above. I only continue to post because of the financial support on my Patreon. There is now going to be a burst of content posting on my AO3 and lots more to come, but please don’t ever think that this is “free” because it was not free. 

And this isn’t to tell you to go join my Patreon (although if you’d like to, please feel free) but to remind you that it costs nothing to leave a comment on a story that you read and that doing so means everything to the creator. Please don’t see this change as just an endless buffet of fanfiction to consume. Please see it as what it is: a chance to engage, to be a part of a fandom, and to support a creator whether that’s financially emotionally or both. 

A gentle reminder that Patreon on the whole was never meant to be just a "how much can you get" type of site, but a way to show your support to creators you enjoy with little bonuses as incentives to check out higher pledged tiers and to stick around so the creator keeps wanting to make more content to share. This page will still have all the bonuses it has always had: the FMs, the previews and bonus snippets, the ability to commission, and, in the event they happen, all of the events and contests :) 

I'm sad that this change didn't work out the way I had hoped, but there's no such things as failures; it has been a learning experience. Thank you all for your patience with me as I muddle through this and try to make the best choices for my own mental health ♥ Thank you to all for your financial support of this Patreon that allows me to keep writing and thank you so much to all those who comment and engage and inspire me to keep writing ♥

Much love,

Icy

[whipped-for-kpop-fics]

Together

My first Halloween request! yay! find the request post; here

Thank you for the request @suhdays​, you’re the best, I hope you like it  🥺Request; “ twinning Halloween costumes with yoongi (but it’s like something dorky, like a stapler idk alsjs) and they go to a party where everyone is like “it’s that couple again” and it’s cute and fluffy !! ”

Min Yoongi x reader Genre; Fluff, guess lil humour too because I like the funnies Warnings; Adult language and topics otherwise none Word count; 2.3k

Summary; For the first time in five years, you leave the important task of buying your couple costume to your boyfriend. This is how he turns his mistake into something you’ll always remember

---

It's that time of year again; Halloween and for the first time in your life, you were not ready. You had recently started your own business so your whole life was pretty much full of meetings and interviews and paperwork and spoopy season was at the bottom of your list of priorities. Which is why you left the Halloween prep entirely to Yoongi. Admittedly, you were pretty worried at first and reluctant to allow your boyfriend to take the responsibility of the holiday into his own hands, not because you don't trust him as that's not true at all, you've always trusted Yoongi with everything in you but the fact is; Min Yoongi has always been the type to cheat his way through things that don't have his full attention and Halloween definitely fell under that category. But, the man pulled through and had the house, both interior and exterior decorated a week into October (a week later than you yourself would've had it done but that's beside the point) and had stocked up on sweets for both yourselves and the trick or treaters. So, Yoongi did well in that respect but clearly, one of the most important aspects of celebrating Halloween went straight over his head until the very last moment.

"Yoongi, what...what is this?" You questioned prodding at the plastic packaging in your hands.

"Our costumes." Was his answer from where he stood in your bedroom doorway, shuffling his weight from foot to foot knowing that you were not impressed with him.

"This isn't what we agreed on,"

"Yeah well..." He trailed off not quite knowing what to say to defend his lack of foresight in the costume buying department.

"You forgot and got these on the way home, didn't you?" Just like that, his body slumped and his lips pursed into the pout you knew meant he was going to try and cutely whine his way out of his own problem. And you hated that pout because it was so hard to say no to.

"I meant to order the other ones but kept forgetting and when I remembered I couldn't find them anywhere so I was going to make them but didn't have the time; I have the supplies under the bed so you can't say I wasn't going to! Then next thing I knew Jin caught me on the way out of work to do his yearly speech of him and Joon are going to beat us at the couple costume competition tonight and yeah...it was between those or sexy plug and socket and honestly I would rather just go in normal clothes and give hyung the prize myself than make either of us wear that sorry excuse for a costume." He was off on a rant by that point, eyebrows scrunched together and lips even poutier and so adorable you couldn't resist. Yoongi was too busy in his speech on sexy electrical costumes to even notice that you were closer until your lips were on his ceasing his spiel.

"Why are you so cute, huh?" You cooed upon pulling back far enough to look into his surprised gaze.

"Uh, not the response I expected." Was his response, earning a giggle from you. "So uhm yeah, it's still a couple costume." He murmured a little distractedly as he placed his hand over the two packaged outfits in your hand. "I'll be this one and you that."

"Okay fine, we can still win with this, right?"

"Yeah, Jin-hyung always chooses either some obscure anime characters or a pun that no-one understands, for him and Joonie."

"We got this."

*

When you arrived at the party hand in hand with Yoongi you saw Seokjin and Namjoon across the garden dressed as...something...honestly you couldn't even make a vaguely intelligent guess at what exactly the couple were supposed to me; something with beads and an obnoxious amount of purple feathers. Even though you had expected pretty much exactly that from Seokjin you still felt yourself relax the tiny amount of tension in your shoulders from the thought of not taking home the prize as you and Yoongi had for the past four years since Hoseok started hosting the annual party.

"Are you a stapler and stack of paper?" Jimin questioned as the pair of you approached the drink table where the pink-haired fairy was hanging around to talk to people; Jimin was always seen at the drinks table even if he wasn't drinking purely because he knew people would always be coming and going so he had plenty of chances to make new friends and charm the fishnet stockings off of someone for the night.

"Yes," You confirmed, not really wanting to elaborate and instead focused on pouring drinks out for you and your stack of paper partner.

"Not that you're not cute or anything because you two are the cutest couple and always will be, I voted for you before you even arrived; but like, why? Your costumes are usually really...not this."

"Because she holds me together," Yoongi replied easily as if it had always been the genuine reason for you to be the stapler to his paper that evening, not his incredible ability to forget the one thing you planned literally months ahead of time.

"That was cute, now I want to vote for you." You looked over your shoulder to find Namjoon waiting with the two men behind you, two empty plastic cups in his hands so you held your hands out in a silent offer that he accepted wit a smile. "Don't tell Jin I said that though, he'll do something petty to get back at me and I love him and all but I do not want to not get my dick sucked just because I assisted the enemy."

"Hyung is so dramatic," Jimin giggled. "I love it."

"Mm, try getting vaguely threatening messages from him for the past month in an attempt at getting us to throw the competition." Yoongi snorted.

"Ah, that's why he stopped messaging me, he found out you had to buy them!" You realised with a laugh and capped the bottle in your hand so that you could return Namjoon's then full cups to him then gather your own while Yoongi picked up his with a gentle kiss to your jaw in passing.

"He takes this way too seriously."

"What exactly are you two even supposed to be?" Jimin enquired, tilting his head curiously as he eyed the feathered male from head to toe then back again.

"I have no fucking idea." Namjoon deadpanned before nodding to the three of you and turning to return to his partner's side.

"Poor Joonie," Jimin hummed before giggling which you and Yoongi quickly joined in with. Namjoon dealt with a lot from his boyfriend and his eccentric and shameless ways but they were such a perfect match that you knew Namjoon would never even attempt to change a single thing about Seokjin. They were cute- you could admit that-, even if their Halloween costumes always sucked.

"We should go get our picture taken for the vote table," Yoongi pointed out.

"Most people here already know who you two are," Jimin laughed but you and Yoongi were already heading across the garden to the table beside the temporary stage at the bottom of the garden.

"Just in time!" Jeongguk beamed from where he was perched on his comfortable lawn chair beside the table, camera hanging around his neck ready to take portraits against the spooky backdrop just to the side for whoever wanted the service, for a fee of course. "It's almost time to close the sign up for the competitions," He got to his feet and got into position while you and Yoongi stood ready for your photo to be taken by the cape clad male; vampire again and the only reason Jeongguk had that costume in the first place was that Hoseok said he couldn't work at his party if he didn't dress up. Though the way the seams across his biceps stretched in protest you guessed Jeongguk would have to finally buy a new costume for the following year or quit the gym.

"Many people this year?" You asked once your photos were taken and the best one was being sent to the portable printer on the table to pin on the board showcasing the contestants.

"Not really for the couple one, everyone knows you two win so the only person that really tries to beat you is Jin-hyung. But the individual comp has a lot of entries. Mostly girls hoping to win a date with Hoseokie-hyung." Jeongguk informed with a giggle while pinning your photo on the couples competition board.

"Wait, what?" Yoongi replied. "Hobi is putting himself up as grand prize?"

"Didn't you see the poll he made on Twitter last week? He added a date with him as a joke but it won so he stuck with it. There's also the usual gift hamper prize too so the winner can pick what they'd prefer."

"I hope someone nice wins and Hoseokie gets a kind girlfriend out of it." You commented and they both hummed in agreement.

"Gukkie! Picture please!" Someone you couldn't recall the name of but were certain had been at Jeongguk's birthday party called so you and Yoongi left the photographer to his work and went off to mingle and talk to friends and strangers alike.

*

At midnight Hoseok got up on stage to announce the competition winners. To his own surprise, Taehyung won the individual competition; he hadn't even applied but from the way Jeongguk was hollering from the side you deduced the vampire had pinned his best friend's picture up all the same. It was a good costume; Taehyung was Van Gogh's ghost and had spent the night flitting around with body paints in his hands painting tributes to his favourite artist on the skin of whoever would let him. You yourself had the most famous starry night on your neck and Yoongi was too ticklish to allow the brushes near his sensitive skin.

"Congrats Tae!" Hoseok cooed, pushing back the crown that was slipping down his head yet again so that he could beam at Taehyung as the younger stepped up to collect his prize. "Come get the hamper before you leave tomorrow, yeah?"

"What if I want the date?" He challenged. The crowd "ooh"ed. Hoseok flailed.

"Did not take that into consideration," Yoongi admitted lowly by your side.

"Me either. Has Seok ever been into guys?"

"No, well, not that he's told me,"

"Do you think he could be?"

"I mean, it's Tae, I think everyone's at least a little gay for Tae."

"We know you are." You sniggered and he whined. "What? It's cute."

"Will you ever let me live that down? It was before we even met, babe."

"I can never forget that, babe."

Your teasing bickering distracted from the spectacle on stage long enough for Taehyung to leave with a promise from the host to talk later. Hoseok had even moved onto the couple's competition. That man sure worked fast when he wanted to remove the focus from his flushed features.

"Oh, no surprise here, Y/N and Yoongi!" He called into the microphone causing you both to look forward to the stage with wide eyes having been caught off guard. "Come on you two!" So you both waddled up onto the stage and accepted the winner badges Hoseok pinned to your costumes. "You know what to do about your prize," He joked waving you both off.

"What if we want a date with you too, huh?" You cooed. Hoseok yelled while you skittered off stage after Yoongi who could only smile fondly at your antics.

"Hey! Don't try and steal my date!" Taehyung exclaimed from beside the stage making you laugh before you fell into conversation with him and gained another masterpiece on your skin; this time on the back of your hand.

3 am the next morning you flopped into bed beside Yoongi, both freshly clean of the night's sweat and body paints. "I swear we get home later every year," Yoongi grumbled, already closing his eyes ready to greet sleep with open arms.

"That's because every year he comes up with new games to play and neither of us can so no to that shithead and he knows it." You yawned, head resting on his shoulder and leg laying over his own. He hummed in agreement. "What you said earlier to Jimin about our costumes, was that some of your spur of the moment bullshit or did you think of it when you picked them?"

"Hm? What did I say?"

"That I was the stapler and you paper because I hold you together."

"Oh, yeah, that. It's the truth, you do hold me together, always have. I don't want to even think about the mess I'd be right now if I never met you."

"Huh, maybe next year I should be superglue," You joked tilting your head to grin up at him. He felt your movement so opened his eyes to meet your gaze with a soft smile.

"And I'll be the broken toy that only you have the strength to fix."

"You're not broken."

"Not anymore, you fixed me." You lifted up just enough to press a soft, loving kiss to his lips.

"We did it together; like we do everything else. And we'll keep working like this for a long time, okay?"

"You and me together forever. Cliche but I can live with that."

"Let's get some sleep, I have a feeling we'll have Seok around tomorrow panicking that he agreed to go on a date tonight with Taehyung."

"Ugh, can't I not be here for that?" He groaned rolling over to wrap his limbs around you and bury his face into your neck making you giggle at the cute actions.

"No, we literally just talked about this, Yoonie."

"Mm," He inhaled your clean soft scent deeply before exhaling and leaning back to look at you. "Together?"

"Forever."

[bartramcat]

CSI Reboot and the Nature of TV

I am not going to make any kind of attempt to discuss the Pros and Cons of a CSI Reboot in the analytical and comprehensive way @addictedtostorytelling did here.

Television as an industry has never really been about art; for the most part it's been about facile entertainment. When something really unique comes along, it often seems more happy accident than art.

The problem with TV series is that, by their nature, they automatically violate Aristotelian precepts: they do not have a beginning, a middle and an end. They can't. Their very continuance is not the result of structure but of whim. The longevity of a TV series is directly impacted by its ability to garner the requisite number of viewers to continue to continue.

The truly remarkable thing about CSI is that it did, in spite of itself, manage to tell many stories, but the most comprehensive was Grissom’s story and, by extension, his love story with Sara. The interesting thing about that is that, before the writers lost their minds in Season 13, the Love Story did have a beginning, middle and end. As a tale, it should have been finished when Grissom walked into the clearing in One To Go. We had a resolution. The relationship/marriage between Grissom and Sara should have been a complete non-factor in terms of creating “drama.”

The funny thing is that once Grissom left that it was as if all other character arcs ceased to exist as well, and the show became just another episodic crime drama. It was as if they decided they had already told the tale they had to tell, so the rest of the seasons presented these once vibrant and multi-faceted characters in some kind of suspended animation. They were now who they were, and they weren’t going to change or grow. And then someone got the idiotic idea to divorce Grissom and Sara to create some Sweeps controversy and perhaps higher ratings.

That’s the other thing about TV: Sweeps. I watched a lot of soap operas in my day. (Many years on graveyard in my younger years.) And I would always cringe when Sweeps were coming up. Why? Because if there was ever a time that a character would act out of character to “stir up drama,” it was Sweeps. The problem, however, is that the show then has to clean up the Sweeps mess to get everything back on an even keel.

I know I’ve railed about the divorce before (too often, perhaps?), but the whole divorce thing was so emblematic of what was wrong with the writing of CSI post OTG, which is also what is the worst of episodic TV in general. You can’t take a story that was told slowly and compellingly over years and decide one day to throw it out the window because you have nothing better to write about and especially do it with no thought to any potential repercussions: not only did it piss off a lot of people but it also did incredible damage to the characters, damage, mind you, that was wholly unbelievable and absolutely undeserved.

One of my favorite soap writers had as one of his guiding principles that no matter what you put your characters through, you protect their integrity. If they make mistakes, they should be honest, human mistakes, mistakes they can recover from. The folks who decided to go with the divorce were able to do so, I believe, because they did it with neither forethought nor sense of history. They did not care about how it would make the characters look, because they did not care about the past or the future, only what the story could potentially garner them in the present.

And I think that is how the majority of the 10-15 writing was: only for the episode. Nothing would either touch or change any of the characters, and next week they would be exactly where they were at the beginning of this week’s, and so on and so forth. CSI had become that tale told by an idiot, full of flashing lights and loud music, signifying nothing.

And unless they are able to coax some good writers into writing, I fear that’s the best we will get.

The funny thing is that someone had a poll about why Gil and Sara would come back to Vegas. My only answer would be not for the lab but because one of their friends needed them. So I guess I'm starting out already skeptical....

[echoeternally]

If Another Pair Survives Together...

Balancing the votes between various combinations of remaining options in the Hero’s Second Wind poll will bring them into the next story together. Those potential scenes are found on this page!

Brief descriptions and scene titles will be included below!

Fair warning: There is some content dealing with death below as well.

Second warning: This post is long to depict several developing scenes!

... ... ... ... ...

Alakazam & Politoed

Taking some time to adjust along the mountainside, Alakazam attempts to bond with Politoed by reading a story, but...

...

“Oh, this reminds me of an old legend that I read a while back,” recalled Alakazam. “It was the one about the two dragons.”

“Those two that were always together even though they were like opposites in a few ways?”

“Yes! Ah, I thought I was the only one that still knew about that.” Alakazam chuckled. “It was such a lovely story, there were a few versions, a few different pairs of dragons, but they…” He hesitated as his eyes twitched. “Uh, they were sometimes…”

“…It’s usually stories about them becoming lovers, in spite of the opposite natures, right?” Politoed waited as Alakazam faced him. “…Alakazam?”

“Sorry, it, ah…we just both enjoyed…” A tear slipped from his eye. “It…”

Politoed waited a moment, as another tear cascaded from Alakazam, and then a few more started to come out. He got up as Alakazam turned, and they hugged as he sobbed into Politoed, still patting him.

... ... ...

Shaping Up A Magic Knight

Alakazam offers to tutor Politoed with dabbling into magic, which the curious latter is somewhat hesitant about.

...

“I don’t know if magic is really my thing, Alakazam.” Politoed scratched at his head. “My brother was always the stronger between us, sure, but I still think that I’m capable enough relying on my natural abilities.”

“Well, you’re certainly not learning with that attitude,” muttered Alakazam.

“Don’t we have enough magicians on the team?” Politoed placed his hand on his hip. “There’s Delphox, even if he is blind. Then we’ve got Gardevoir, Lilligant, Froslass, Mewtwo, and you.” He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s much of a need for me to join those ranks.”

“You do realize that you could become incredibly more powerful if you could combine physical efforts with magical ones, correct?”

“Like Lucario?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But he’s not really that invincible.” Politoed gazed down at the tome in his hands. “I just don’t know about this…”

“It is entirely your choice,” relented Alakazam. “Perhaps I’m trying to overcompensate, but I do truly believe that you would be a capable candidate for such combinations.” He lowered his eyes. “It’s certainly a unique avenue to explore.”

“Don’t really need that anymore,” mumbled Politoed.

“Sorry, that’s not how I meant it.” Alakazam sighed. “It’s just that not many knights do get such an opportunity to pull this off. Just…think it over a little more, when you have a chance.”

He strolled away from Politoed, who watched him for a moment, and then returned his attention to the tome.

... ... ...

Machamp & Poliwrath

Completing an early trial battle against rivals, Machamp and Poliwrath celebrate their win for a moment. Neither is good for comforting.

...

“Ha!” Machamp placed his lower hands on his hips and beamed. “Tough battle, but nothing that the two Empire powerhouses can’t handle!”

“You know it!” Poliwrath smacked Machamp’s back. “You and me, tough as they come!”

“Yeah, together for…ever…”

Poliwrath watched as Machamp slouched. “…That something you two—?”

“It was a little phrase we had,” murmured Machamp, hastily rubbing at his eyes. “Since we were kids, we always brought it up, and the way his face lit up whenever we brought it up, I just…he was so happy, and I, uh…sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Poliwrath patted Machamp’s lower arm. “It’s not like I’m any better off. We’re managing, we just need…more time…”

“Maybe a lot more…”

“…Probably, yeah…”

... ... ...

Enchanting Performances

Poliwrath and Machamp join Greninja and Chesnaught in their review of majestic performances between competing artists, including their friends.

...

“These performers are great!” Poliwrath rubbed his hands together. “Tonight’s been fantastic, don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah, I guess so!” Machamp slumped back in his chair. “I feel like I’d appreciate more styles if I studied up more on cultures and less on legends.”

“It’s not just the dancers, though they are amazing!” Poliwrath chuckled. “Lilligant, I was expecting. Him? Definitely not.”

“Tell me about it!” I grinned as I turned to Greninja nudging him at the other table. “Someone definitely enjoyed that one for sure.”

“How about the singers?” Poliwrath drummed on the table. “Primarina, I was expecting him to be as flawless as he was. But that Leavanny? Who knew she had that kind of a voice in her, huh?”

“She did that entirely without her band,” agreed Machamp. “…Did anyone else cry from that song? I feel kind of silly if only I did.”

“No way, I was bawling,” piped up Poliwrath. “That emotion was too overwhelming for me!”

“It makes sense why she…um.” Machamp and Poliwrath watched me as I glanced aside. “Uh, don’t worry about that.”

... ... ...

Poliwrath & Alakazam 

After traveling up the first leg of the mountains journey, Alakazam thanks Poliwrath for his help, and comforts him when it goes sideways.

...

“You know, the lake up here reminded me that I don’t think I got the chance to thank you properly.” Alakazam smiled at Poliwrath. “Your quick thinking got me out from the water so swiftly, and I barely processed what had even happened the whole while.”

“Ah, I was just panicking a bit,” admitted Poliwrath. “Saw someone in the water scrambling a bit, so I just wanted to make sure you didn’t drown or anything!”

“In spite of being around water so long, if I hadn’t been careful, I could have.” Alakazam laughed. “Can you imagine? That would’ve been dreadful.” He sighed and smiled to Poliwrath. “So, thank you again for pulling me out.”

“Nah, no worries.” Poliwrath rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t much trouble, you’re light enough, though heavier than I was expecting.”

“Really?” Alakazam rubbed at his arm. “I think that’s a first.”

“Oh, no, sorry, that was stupid of me.” Poliwrath clutched at his head. “I just meant, you know, you were heavier than who I was…expecting…”

“…Ah.”

“Can’t believe how much of an ass I am,” grumbled Poliwrath. “Alakazam, I’m sorry, that wasn’t called for.”

“Missing your brother is as normal as a sunset, Poliwrath,” insisted Alakazam. “My heart aches over Machamp, so I understand.”

“Yeah, but it’s…I just…” Poliwrath slouched. “…I didn’t think I’d ever miss him the way that I do now, you know? He was just always there, so I never…I never…”

He jumped as Alakazam gently placed his hand over Poliwrath’s arm. He twisted to him, and Alakazam nodded, softly smiling. Tears welled up in Poliwrath’s eyes and he hastily brushed them away.

... ... ...

Teleportation Troubles

In the middle of a trial, Poliwrath struggles to regain his bearings after Alakazam warps them around a bit.

...

“Hang on.”

Alakazam placed his hand behind Poliwrath and they disappeared in a flash. Another one flickered from behind me, and I spun back to them.

“Ugh…” Poliwrath shuddered. “How do you do that all the time?”

“What? It’s a quick warp.” Alakazam folded his arms. “Don’t tell me you get motion sickness. You swim!”

“It’s not the motion, but that felt weird for me…” He looked at Alakazam, and then to me. “Neither of you seriously feel anything with that?”

“Well, I can sink into shadows and travel in this weird space that lets me quietly approach enemies,” I reasoned. “Plus, ninjas do a lot of vanishing acts all of the time…so, no.”

“And it’s literally second nature for me,” reminded Alakazam.

“Ooh, you guys are weird…”

“You’re one to talk, Mister Mouthless.”

“It’s right here!” Poliwrath pointed at his body, but I just blinked at him. I turned to Alakazam, who shrugged his shoulders. “Aw, come on!”

... ... ...

Politoed & Machamp

Surviving an early mountains trial mishap, Machamp thanks Politoed for his rescue, but this stirs memories for the frog.

...

“Can’t believe I almost drowned out there again,” joked Machamp. “Thanks a bundle for rescuing me a second time, Politoed!”

“Ah, you know, we’re natural-born swimmers.” Politoed laughed as Machamp grinned at him.

“You Water Types make it look so easy, but I do know how to swim too,” teased Machamp. “Grew up around water like anyone else in the Empire!”

“Sure, we all learned swimming, luckily for Empoleon.” Politoed tapped at his cheek. “Makes me wonder what he’d do with someone that couldn’t swim.” He sighed. “You know, Poliwrath used to help me out a lot when we first started. I don’t think I’d be as capable in the water without him.”

“No?”

“Maybe at some point, but…” Politoed sank down. “…Maybe I’m not as much of a natural as I claimed.” He looked to Machamp, who reached over to him. “He was such an ass when we were, you know how, back home, but…when we were young, and I was scared at first, because I had a bad experience with water very early on, but he was so patient and he…he…”

“He was with you whenever you needed him,” finished Machamp, and he lightly rubbed Politoed’s head.

“…Yeah…” Politoed heaved. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on without him…”

“It takes time, but we’ll get there,” assured Machamp. “Remember, you’re not alone.”

“Right, of course.” Politoed smiled to Machamp, picking himself back up. “Thank you.”

... ... ...

Making a Mighty Bouncer

As they continue to climb and deal with the mountains, Machamp decides to try a different kind of confidence booster for Politoed.

...

“There’s got to be a way that we can climb up there.”

“If we can’t climb or fly, how about we just have someone bounce?” Machamp glanced to Politoed, who jumped up.

“Me? Bounce that high?” He shook his head. “Are you crazy?”

“Come on, you can make that!” Machamp crouched down and cupped his lower hands together. “Here, I’ll even give you a boost!”

“No way!” Politoed winced. “You throw hard and far!”

“Right, you combine that with your bounce, and that’ll help you soar further up!” Machamp rubbed his head. “Unless you’re too scared, I guess.”

“What was that?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Nah, just thinking that you’re too, ah, timid for it?” Machamp shrugged his shoulders and lifted his upper arms. “But, it’s fine. We can think of--”

“Just shut up and get ready to throw me,” grumbled Politoed, to Machamp’s delight.

... ... ... ... ...

(Remember, these are scenes in development. However, this is what you can look forward to, should the vote tallies of two additional options be close enough together! See if you can get their combined return for the stories!)

(Head back to the poll here!)

(Still not sure or want to read more? Check back here!)

[greekgeek21]

The Codependency Competition Ch. 10

Ok, so I just realized that I'm way over 1M readers if I add all of the websites I have this story on together. And I'm in shock. You guys are so great, and I love the support I always get. It's really reassuring to have people say that they like my story because, to be honest, I was really nervous about posting this story. And now that we're on the last chapter, it's a little surreal to have so much recognition. But enough of the sappy stuff. I can do that after the actual chapter. So be ready for the spillage of my heart. Oh and the pic at the top does not mean anything, just in case anyone is hyperventilating right now.  

Also, I just got a new keyboard for my monitor and I'm not quite used to it yet, so if I make a mistake, please don't point it out. I appreciate it. That's also why this chapter took longer than usual to finish BTW.

Oh and if you still reading these, good for you! Not like you wanted to know or anything, but I'm eating a whole lot of Sour Punches right now. It's extremely unhealthy, but do I care in the slightest? No. Not at all.

Stay safe and happy reading!

– your author

P.S. go to FF and answer my poll there. My name is Ocean.breezzq cuz for some reason they don't allow underscores on FF.

ΩΩΩ

How did he end up in this position? Honestly, Percy could not for the life of him figure out how he got himself into this one.

He is currently standing in front of a full-length mirror, with his mother trying to figure out which tie he should wear. They had narrowed it down to two: a deep blue or a thin black one. He didn't see how it mattered, but apparently it does because his mom had been fussing over it for the past ten minutes. He was about ready to just not wear one. It was already bad enough to have to wear a dress shirt and pants (he had adamantly refused to wear anything but his converse).

But of course he was standing around and taking it because it was what Annabeth wanted, and what Annabeth wants, she usually gets.

"Mom! Just choose already! At this rate, we're gonna miss the dance altogether!" he exclaimed.

Sally sighed, "Oh, Percy. I can guarantee that you're going to be a little bit late. Annabeth still has a lot to do before you kids can leave!

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Clearly, his mom did NOT know Annabeth. She's the farthest thing from a girly-girl, only Clarisse could beat her. There's no way that she's fussing about getting ready as much as his mom is. If anything, she's already done and is just sitting in their room watching Youtube. Yeah, that's what she's doing...

That was NOT what she was doing.

In fact, Sally wasn't far off. Annabeth was on a FaceTime call with Piper, Thalia, and Hazel trying to figure out which lipgloss she should wear. She already had her hair and dress done. Her hair was styled in just a simple French braid, and her dress was nothing special. She was sure it cost a lot, but Sally hadn't let her see the price tag.

As soon as her and Percy had agreed to going to the dance, Sally had dragged to the mall to find a dress. She seemed so excited, so Annabeth had just let her shove dress after dress onto her until they found "the perfect match." Whatever that meant.

Anyway, Annabeth had only called her friends because she wanted to get their opinion on how she looked. However, she had ended up getting into an argument about when the appropriate time for makeup was. In her opinion, it wasn't required for school dances. Piper and Thalia thought differently. Hazel didn't want to voice her opinion because she was still getting used to common modern practices.

And that's how she ended up here, fretting over what lipgloss she should use. Sally had let her borrow her makeup bag because Annabeth's consisted of a single tube of mascara and an unused clear lip gloss.

Piper thought that she should use the pink lip gloss that Sally gave her, but Annabeth didn't want to be too flashy, so she wanted the clear one.

"You NEED to use the pink one, Annabeth!" Piper said.

"You already forced me into putting on mascara and blush, so I don't think you have the right to make me use the pink one," Annabeth stated factually.

"Oh my gods, 'Beth! Can't you just use the pink and get it over with? This conversation is exhausting," Thalia sighed.

Annabeth resisted the urge to stomp her foot like a child and responded with, "No! I can't! It's my body, so my decision!"

Piper was almost literally pulling her own hair out, but she told Annabeth in a deadly calm voice to "Put on the dam pink lip gloss before I charmspeak you into doing it."

Figuring it was an endless cycle, Annabeth just sighed and applied the pink lipgloss. When she finished, she stood back from the mirror, and gave herself a once-over. She would never admit it, but the pink kinda looked good.

"Happy?" she asked Piper.

"Extremely," was the deadpan reply.

"Ok, guys. I've gotta go. Talk to you later," Annabeth said, moving to sign-off.

Before she could, Thalia screeched, "Don't forget to tell me what Percy's reaction is! I want details!"

"Yeah, sure, Thals," she said and finally ended the call.

That was exhausting. And she still had a long night ahead of her. Great. Why did she want to do this again?

Back with Percy, his mom had chosen the deep blue tie. She said it brought out his eyes, or something like that. He honestly started tuning out what she was saying after she mentioned hair gel.

They had thirty minutes until the dance started, so he wasn't exactly joyous. In his ADHD brain, he was wondering if there was some way that he could skip the dance without being in trouble. Probably not.

And that's when he saw her.

She looked more than beautiful in her grey and gold dress and silver heels. Percy was pretty sure that his mouth was hanging open, but he physically could not close it. Sure, he'd seen Annabeth a little dressed up before, but never like this. For one thing, she'd never worn heels before.

He was speechless.

"You're drooling, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth stated, walking up to him.

That shocked him out of his reverie, "Huh? Oh! You look amazing, Wise Girl."

Annabeth laughed. It sounded so carefree, but on the inside, she was a nervous wreck. Just as she was about to walk out to meet Percy, butterflies swarmed her stomach. There were so many ways this could go wrong, and she hadn't even thought past seeing Percy yet!

"Thanks, Perce," she said, a little tersely.

Percy picked up on her mood, "Relax, 'Beth. Everything'll be fine. This was your plan, remember?"

"Yeah, you're right. Athena always has a plan. We're going to be fine," thought she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

They both turned to leave, but was abruptly stopped by a yell of protest from Sally, "Just where do you two think you're going? We still have to do pictures!"

Percy groaned, and Annabeth looked like she was trying to suppress one. Sally is great and loving, and kind, but she could be really embarrassing sometimes (especially when it came to Percy).

"Really, Mom?" Percy asked, turning back around to face his mother.

Sally sighed, 'Teenagers', she thought.

"Yes, really. This is one of the few times you get to act like a normal teenager, and I want to capture the moment ," she responded, "Plus, this'll be useful when you get married!"

Both Percy and Annabeth blushed bright red. Leave it to Sally Jackson to make a perfectly casual dance into a conversation about marriage.

Even so, they stood through the seemingly endless amount of photos. Once they were finished, Percy was practically dragging Annabeth away from his mother. The faster they got out of there, the least likely they would be ambushed for pictures again.

In the car, Paul's Prius, they were discussing their plan for the night.

"Ok, so what's the game plan?" Percy asked Annabeth, keeping his eyes on the road. (safety first kids!)

Annabeth sighed at her boyfriend's immaturity, but answered nonetheless, "We act like everything is normal. Well, our usual normal. We show up together, and stay together. Got it?"

"Yeah, I think so," he answered.

"Good, because I made it foolproof for your sake, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth teased, taking one of Percy's hands in hers.

Percy grinned that dopey grin that always made her heart melt, and then her mind clouded over, as per usual. How can he have this effect on me?, Annabeth wondered as she struggled to come back to herself.

Unbeknownst to her, Percy knew exactly what he was doing. It was all part of his charm, as Leo so tactfully put it once. Slowly, Percy was coming to realize what little action he could do to break through that rough shell that surrounded Annabeth. Not many people could claim to have that ability, so he was grateful he was one of the chosen few. Then again, they had been best friends for almost six years. He had some experience to put it lightly.

Anyway, they were almost at school. Time seemed to slow down as they pulled into Goode High's parking lot. Every step towards the gym–which was where the dance was being held–seemed to last an hour. The anticipation was rising in both of the demigods.

Percy and Annabeth both looked over at each other for comfort at the exact same time, as if their thoughts were one and the same. They didn't even have to speak for them to understand what was going through the other's head. They were both nervous beyond belief.

As they approached the double doors with colorful lights pouring out from under it, Percy squeezed Annabeth's hand, glancing at her and asking, "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," she muttered, reaching to open the doors.

Annabeth wasn't sure what she was expecting...maybe a movie moment where the music stops and everyone moves to stare at them? Or for everyone to start bombarding them with questions as soon as they stepped through the door? Whatever its as, she was sure it couldn't have been what happened.

Nobody noticed them.

The dance just continued as if nothing had happened. Maybe one person here or there would do a double-take at seeing Percy Jackson with his arm wrapped securely around Annabeth Chase's waist, but nothing more than that.

It was all very disconcerting. Or maybe the proper word would be anticlimactic? Yeah, that sounded better in Annabeth's head...

Oh! There she goes again, letting her control slip from her ADHD brain! Get a grip, Annabeth!, she practically screamed in her head.

She hadn't even realized that Percy was pulling her by the hand somewhere until they had already got there. He had spotted their friends talking to each other at one of the tables. That brought another question to mind: When did that happen?

"Hey, guys!" Percy greeted, high-fiving one of his friends (Annabeth was pretty sure it was the one named Jack), "What's up?"

All of their friends gave Percy incredulous looks. Percy was just trying to act normal, like Annabeth said, but apparently they hadn't gotten the memo.

"What's up? What's up?! You too are dating, and you're just acting like it's no big deal!" Nora exclaimed.

Oh, that's right. Most of Annabeth's friends hadn't been briefed completely. They must still be stuck in the shock of the reveal. Annabeth wasn't sure why they were making such a big out of it. It wasn't like they had announced they were getting married, or anything. They were just dating. What's so surprising about that?

And Annabeth asked exactly that, in her best accusatory tone.

Nora looked a little shocked before stuttering out a response, "Well-I mean-um...he's him and you're you!"

Not the best answer, Nora, Percy thought before grabbing Annabeth before she decided to gut her friend. He made it look like he had just casually given her a hug, but if you looked closely you could see how Annabeth's nails were digging into his wrists.

"Easy there, 'Beth. She didn't know what she was saying," Percy whispered in his murderous girlfriend's ear.

With one deep breath, Annabeth relaxed her rigid posture, finally letting it go.

"I apologize for keeping something as big as a relationship from you. I hope you can forgive me," she forced out in a robotic voice, clearly rehearsed beforehand.

Percy smirked, but didn't comment on it. He just went over to talk to his friends while Annabeth caught her group up on everything.

The rest of the dance went pretty smoothly. There was SOME dancing, but not much. Annabeth and Percy may have improved on their dancing skills slightly since Westover Hall, but it was still a little awkward. Even after almost 2 years of dating...

Just as they were about to retire for the night, the casual mood changed. Well, more like the entire gym's atmosphere darkened.

Kelsey Evans was blocking Percy and Annabeth's path.

Annabeth outwardly groaned when Kelsey started to advance toward them. Just as things were seeming like they would work out fine, the devil incarnate had to show up.

"Hey, Percy!" Kelsey chirped with her too-high voice.

"Hi, Kelsey. We were just on our way out, so can you move please? Or is there something you wanted to say first?" Percy asked, strangely diplomatic.

"Well, you see. I've been hearing about some CRAZY rumor going around that says that YOU are dating HER," she answered, saying 'her' with an expression of disgust.

Annabeth internally seethed. She was having to dig her nails into her palms just to keep herself at bay. She was so close to snapping, it's a wonder Kelsey was still breathing.

"It isn't a rumor. We are dating, and have been for almost two years. Can you move out of our way now?" Annabeth said, forcing herself to not call Kelsey some nasty words in Greek.

Kelsey faced Annabeth, her flirty look changing into a pitiful glare, "No. You don't deserve him! He belongs to me!"

Even Percy was having a hard time not punching the girl, and he's been taught not to hurt women that can't defend themselves. Well, that last part was added after he had first sparred with Annabeth.

"First of all, back off. Second of all, Percy isn't an object, he's a person. More specifically, he's my person, so you can go away now before I do something I can guarantee I won't regret," Annabeth walked up close to Kelsey, voice deadly calm.

Of course Annabeth was aware of the crowd around them forming, but that wasn't going to stop her. After 'that place' nothing could scare her up here, especially not a weak mortal girl.

Before Kelsey could respond, Annabeth shoved her out of the way and tugged Percy through the door.

Nobody spoke for a long time, but eventually Percy got up the courage to say something, "That was BA."

Annabeth smirked but didn't say anything. She was still coming down from her adrenaline/anger high, and she was afraid that what came out of her mouth would start a fight, even if it was with Percy.

Then Percy couldn't think of anything else to say, so he just shut up. At least, he did until they were changing out of their formal clothes into their pajamas. Annabeth was in their room, and Percy was in the bathroom.

"Are you done?" he asked.

"Yeah, come in," Annabeth responded.

Percy then walked in, threw his clothes somewhere near his overflowing hamper, and plopped down on the bed next to Annabeth. She was sitting up in bed reading some architecture book that he could never understand.

"Hi," he said, turning onto his side and looking up at her.

"Hello, Seaweed Brain," she said, not even glancing up from the words.

Percy sighed, So it's gonna be one of THOSE conversations, huh?

"You know I love you, right?" he asked, smirking his troublemaker smirk.

This tactic usually works the best when he's stuck in these situations.

A small smile played on Annabeth's lips, but she still refused to look up. However, she did respond with, "Yes, and I love you, too."

Percy pouted, stumped. What is so exciting about architecture? The only thing he likes about it is the way Annabeth's eyes light up as she rants about some random building he's never heard of before. That's the only reason he puts up with it. Or it's the only reason he'll admit to, anyway.

Just then, an idea popped into his head. And when ideas pop into Percy's head, everyone within a five-mile radius better clear out cuz' they can be destructive. However, this one was not that bad.

He gave Annabeth a light peck on her cheek, then slowly moved down to her jaw, then her earlobe, and then her neck. He could tell that it was starting to get to her because she hadn't turned the page for a while.

"Percy...," she warned.

He just smiled against her neck. Annabeth rolled her eyes, but relented. She set her book on the bedside table, and turned over to face Percy, giving him a deep, passionate kiss.

She pulled away for a second, "You're such a Seaweed Brain, you know that?"

She only saw a glimpse of his dopey smile before she went back to kissing the love of her life, stress nonexistent in her mind.

ΩΩΩ

Omg omg omg! It's over! I don't even know what to say! I just want to thank all of you guys, my wonderfully supportive readings, especially the ones who've been here since the beginning. You guys are amazing. I don't even know if I would've been able to make this story without the encouragement from you. So thanks.

Now, I think that's all the sappy stuff. I'm looking for a good beta, so if you are or know one who might be interested, please let me know. I'm also going to shamelessly promote my original series. Go check out "Secret Powers" and "Frozen Secrets"! They are the first two books in my three story series.

If you want to know this is Annabeth's dress and shoes from the dance:

Now for the good stuff. Somebody mentioned that they would be interested in a Percabeth proposal, so I'm going to give it to you. Here's a little BONUS SCENE set in their future, but I'm not giving it a specific date, so use your imaginations and decide for yourself. Hope you like it!

ΩΩΩ

Percy and Annabeth were visiting Camp Half-blood, and they were enjoying a nighttime walk along the beach. Annabeth was remembering all of the wonderful memories she had at this beach. Her underwater kiss with Percy, birthdays, all of her dates with Percy. Nothing but happiness came with being at the beach when you love a son of Poseidon.

Percy was in a completely different headspace. His mind was full of nervousness and worry. He was so distracted that he didn't even realize when Annabeth stopped and turned to look out at the water. When he bumped into her, she just gave him a weird look and went back to her previous position.

His hand was distractedly fidgeting with the small, velvet box in his pocket. It felt like it weighed more than the sky, and he should know! What if she says no? What if I mess up? What if the ring doesn't fit? Oh, gods, she's going to say no!

Those were the thoughts swirling around in his brain, making it a whirlpool of stress. He knows that Annabeth loves him, and that he loves her, but she could still say no!

"Seaweed Brain? Earth to Seaweed Brain! Percy?" Annabeth's concerned expression brought him back to reality.

"Huh? Oh, fine. Just-I'm fine!" he said quickly.

She gave him an unimpressed look, but didn't push it. Truthfully, Annabeth had noticed his odd behavior recently, but she still hadn't figured out what was bothering him. But, she knew that he would tell her eventually, so she was REALLY trying not to figure it out beforehand. The last time he'd been this nervous, he was asking her to move in with her!

Ten minutes passed before Percy worked up the courage to do it. His reasoning was that he just had to get it over with. Annabeth's told him she loves him so many times, why would she say no? There was nothing to worry about! Nothing!

"Hey, Wise Girl?" he asked, turning to face her fully.

"Hmm?" she hummed.

He was about to just ask the question, but his stupid Seaweed Brain got there first, "Wanna go for a swim?"

Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows, "Umm...it's 7:30 PM and I'm not wearing a bathing suit. What about this scenario makes you think that we should go swimming?"

Percy decided that he might as well work with what he's got so he went with the first backup plan that came to mind: the best underwater kiss of all time. Ok, not the ACTUAL one, but he could make another air bubble. It's not like he hadn't done it before.

"I'll keep it warm and dry, I promise. Come on! It'll be fun!" he started pulling her towards the water, himself already ankle-deep.

Annabeth started to protest, but he had already gotten her in enough for him to be able to pull her in with his powers. And just as promised, she was still completely dry. She could feel the water on her skin, but it wasn't wet. She had long-since gotten used to the feeling, after so many years of dating Percy, but it still shocked her for the first couple of seconds.

"Fine," she said, and Percy pulled them both all the way under, quickly forming a bubble of air around them.

"I love you," slipped out of his mouth.

It wasn't like it was a big deal, but the way he said it, with so much love, froze Annabeth. What is he planning?, she thought.

An idea began to form in her head, but she pushed it away instantly. Better not to get her hopes up. That way there's no chance of disappointment.

"I love you, too, Seaweed Brain," she said, trying to slip back into her casual tone of voice.

They sat in a silence for about a minute, just watching the scenery around them, before Percy finally ACTUALLY worked up the courage to do it.

"I've been thinking..." he started.

"Uh-oh," Annabeth teased with a smile.

"About us. And our future," Percy said.

Annabeth instantly sobered. He sounded serious, and a serious Percy was a SERIOUS Percy. There was no in-between.

"Yeah?"

Percy took a deep breath, "Yeah. And I know we're a little young, but we've been together for so long, and I just think that it's time. And you've always wanted something permanent, and I want to be that for you. I want us to be that for you. So, Annabeth Chase...will you make me the happiest demigod in the world and marry me?"

It might not seem like much, but to Annabeth, it meant the world. This was exactly what she had been dreaming of for her entire life. She was so full of emotions that she could barely speak, but she was able to get one word out...

"Yes."

ΩΩΩ

Ok, that's it! I'm officially done with this fanfic! I feel like I could've gone on in the bonus scene, but I think that you guys should get to come up with your own version of their happily-ever-after. Anyway, there's a poll on FF and you should go do. It's about my next story.

And you guys know I need to give special recognition to my amazing beta reader! JJ, you took me on when I refused to edit my own work, and you made everything WAY better! You should ALL go check out nightskywithrainbows on Ao3. They write, beta, AND are a student! So kudos to you, JJ! You're the best!

I hope you enjoyed this! Stay safe and happy reading!

- your author

[tervacious]

Oh.  Oh wow.  Okay.  [cracks neck]  [stretches arms and hands]  [loosens fingers]

After the rage has dissipated, after overcoming alcoholism as a coping mechanism, even after a new and beautiful family comes on the scene, a great sadness still persists - and likely always will.

That's the message from men talking about their experiences of abortion, a voice rarely heard among the passionate multitudes in the US abortion debate, though abortion rights supporters argue that this group is an outlier and does not speak for the majority of men involved in an abortion. Currently, the usual male perspectives that feature are legislators pushing to restrict abortion procedures, drawing the ire of pro-choice supporters accusing them of trying to legislate women's bodies. But now would-be fathers denied by abortion are speaking out.

You mispelled “women”.  It should read “would-be fathers denied by WOMEN”.  That’s what they are mad about.  That’s the cause of the rage, alcoholism, and sadness.  A woman said NO to them.  Not an abortion.  Abortion isn’t a free-floating miasma that just randomly takes “fatherhood” away from Teh Menz.  A WOMAN said NO.

An Alabama abortion clinic is being sued by a man after his girlfriend aborted their unborn baby - at the six-week stage - against his will in 2017. The case is the first of its kind because the court recognised the man's unborn baby as the plaintiff and the father as the representative of his baby's estate. "I'm here for the men who actually want to have their baby," the man told a local news agency in February. "I just tried to plead with her and plead with her and just talk to her about it and see what I could do. But in the end, there was nothing I could do to change her mind."

Currently in the US, fathers have no legal rights to hinder the abortion of a pregnancy for which they are responsible. State laws requiring that a father be given a say in, or even notified of, an abortion have been struck down by the US Supreme Court.

"I was in my 30s living the good single life in Dallas," says 65-year-old Karl Locker. When a woman he was seeing told him she was pregnant, he says he felt "like one of those wolves with its leg caught in a trap".

Nevertheless, he decided he had to support her - and the pregnancy. "I tried everything, I offered to marry her, to take the baby myself, or to offer it up for adoption," Mr Locker says, explaining that he felt keeping the child would be the right thing to do. "She said she could never give her child up for adoption - it didn't make cognitive sense."

Those women are just hysterical bitches, huh Karl?  Not at all trapped by what YOU DID TO HER, no, you’re the trapped one, who just can’t understand the concept that babies don’t materialize by magic, there’s this whole PREGNANCY thing involved.  You know, that thing that abortion ends?  And then you, Asshole of the First Part, Mr. “I’m here for the men who actually want to HAVE THEIR BABY” what baby are MEN having?  Did you mean “force a woman (and in your case a literal girl) to have a baby FOR YOU?”  You did, but you’re too busy channeling the actual root of Patriarchy Itself to say it plainly.

In the end he drove the woman to the clinic and paid for the abortion. Afterwards he says he moved to California as he couldn't bear the knowledge of what he'd done.

"I didn't know how I was going to survive; I wasn't going to jump off a bridge, but I probably would have drank myself to death," says Mr Locker, who believes that reconnecting with his faith and starting a family with another woman saved him. "I've thought about what happened every day for the last 32 years."

Wah.  Thirty-two years of making something all about you.  You’ve already talked too much, and here we have an entire article of your babbling to get through.

Men are usually involved in an abortion in one of four ways, all of which can leave men traumatised when they come to reflect afterwards on their roles, say those running counselling groups for post-abortive men. Sometimes men coerce a woman into having an abortion against her will; others say they will support the woman's decision either way, while steering that decision toward abortion. Some men find out about the abortion for the first time after the fact, or the abortion goes ahead against their wishes.

What polling has occurred indicates that a majority of women say they do not regret having an abortion, but fewer studies have been done on men's reactions. What data there is for men comes from post-abortive support groups, which is dependent on men seeking them out, making it difficult to make any broad statistical observations. But the accounts include commonalities such as feelings of anger, guilt, shame and deep sadness on anniversary dates.

I gather from the actual data that the vast majority of men do not regret women having an abortion, because most men don’t whinge away like the dudes in this article do about the subject.  In fact, the vast majority of men support abortion rights and every woman I’ve known who had an abortion did it entirely on her own with no support from the man in question.  (Ironically, men ARE responsible for 100% of abortions, given they are the ones who didn’t wrap up their shit and then pull the fuck out, but let’s not get into the weeds about who did what to whom, or who bears the actual burden of pregnancy, and how no man on earth can ever come close to grasping the reality of pushing an entire human out between his legs.  We have some serious straight-faced entitled WHINGEING to do.)

"Men are meant to be protectors, so there is a sense of failure - failing to protect the mother and the unborn child, failing to be responsible," says 61-year-old Chuck Raymond, whose 18-year-old girlfriend had an abortion in the late 70s when he was a teenager. "There is incredible guilt and shame about having not done that."

Yeah Chuck, you did fail, spectacularly.  Guess what?  The thing about failure, even when you’re not the one who bears all the physical rammifications, is that there are fucking consequences.  You failed to protect a teenage girlfriend as a teenager yourself, and all you’ve learned is how to bitch about poor widdle you.  I wonder what she learned.

Mr Raymond says he thought a child would have interfered with educational plans and his military training at West Point military academy, where cadets are not allowed to be married or be raising children. "Once I was involved in training, I got caught up in everything and suppressed the event, keeping it out of my consciousness. Years later though, I realised that a tragedy had occurred, and we had made a tragic choice."

He likens the mental and emotional anguish that can follow an abortion to battlefield post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  

So you pressured a girl into having an abortion so your career wouldn’t be effected, but now you have PTSD and pretend it was because of a tragedy that “occurred”.  YOU were the tragedy, my dude.  YOU were the tragedy that happened to her.

The Supreme Court's landmark Roe v Wade decision issued on 22 January, 1973, is the best-known case on abortion, for having legalised the procedure across the United States. But two later cases had more of an impact on men, says Allen Parker, president of The Justice Foundation, a conservative law centre in Texas.

After the 1976 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v Danforth, the father's consent to an abortion was no longer required. In its 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey decision, the court went further, saying fathers are not entitled to be notified about an abortion.

"There's so many contradictions around all this - it's abortion first, and be damned if otherwise," says the Reverend Stephen Imbarrato, a Catholic priest and anti-abortion activist. Before entering the priesthood, Father Imbarrato got his girlfriend pregnant in 1975 and steered her toward having an abortion, finding out decades later she had been carrying twins. "Men regret lost fatherhood, as men are inherently called to be fathers." 

This entire article is like a primary resource for identifying abusive violent violating men who then turn around and instead of realizing what horrifying people they were, they double down and advocate for abusers and violators to have EVEN MORE POWER OVER WOMEN AND GIRLS.  Because, you know, they have feelings and emotions now, or something.  (Also, really fucking weird for an ostensibly celibate Catholic priest to claim all men are inherently called to be fathers, but then I guess he did his due diligence already by knocking up a girl and then forcing her to abort her twins.)

But others argue that the number of men traumatised by abortions are outliers.

Gillian Frank, a historian of sexuality at the University of Virginia, says that the 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey decision found that "in most contexts, where there was a stable and loving relationship, men and women made the decision together". "And when men are absent from the decisions, it is often because there is a risk of violence or coercion in the relationship. These decisions [by the courts] rested on the fact it is not a child, so the situation is not analogous to child custody."

There is disagreement on the ratio of women who have abortions without telling men, or in spite of them, or because of them. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organisation that analyses abortion in the US, half of women getting abortions in 2014 said they did not want to be a single parent or were having problems with their husband or partner.

Fancy that.

"It has been recognised time and again that when people say they are arguing for men's voices to be heard it is actually more about being able to control women and to regulate their decisions," Mr Frank says. "And I don't see it as men have been absent, quite the opposite, men have always been vocal about women's ability to control their reproductive destiny."

Before Roe v Wade, he notes, this took the form of women having to go in front of a panel of usually male doctors to plead their cases for an abortion, and it continues today with "the men controlling pharmaceuticals and the men behind desks making decisions".

Also that whole pesky laws thing, solely constructed by men, but I mean that’s totally ancient history, right?

"Outside our clinics, it's typically men who are leading the protests and clambering onto cars to yell over the fence with bullhorns," says Sarah Wheat who works for Planned Parenthood in Austin, the Texas state capital and a major battleground over Texas legislation on abortion. Planned Parenthood is an organisation that provides sexual health care services, of which about 6% involves abortion, Ms Wheat says.

"It's usually loud and intimidating, designed to shame, stigmatise and intimidate. And when we go to the Capitol it feels very similar with the legislators. From our perspective, it feels men are still overrepresented."

Indeed, much of the pushback against men's involvement in abortion is steeped in the historical context of a patriarchy telling women what to do.

"There is a disconnect," Mr Locker says. "Men have a responsibility - as they should do - hence their wages get docked with child support if a baby is born, but at the same time they get no rights on an abortion going ahead."

“Men being forced to pay money to support a baby is totally a good reason to give men the power to force a woman to have a baby she doesn’t want.”  There, I fixed it for ya, asshole.

"People don't see it, they keep men out of it," says Theo Purington, 34, whose pregnant girlfriend got an abortion in 2006 against his wishes, leaving him "depressed and a mess". The experience led to him becoming involved in pro-life advocacy and counselling post-abortive men enduring similar struggles.

Post-abortive men.  I’d be happy to abort every single one of these men myself.  Then they can find out what “post-abortive” really means.

"If men had to sign off on an abortion, I think you would see a 50% drop, and that's why the [abortion providers] don't want men involved," says Mr Purington.

Yes, the “abortion providers” are totally the reason why.  Big Abortion.  Huge business.  Right up there with Viagra.

"The greatest injustice in this country today is that a man cannot protect his unborn child from abortion [in the same way as] men protecting our children is part of our responsibility."

Shut the fuck up.  You couldn’t even manage to take responsibility for the one job you had in this story, which was not to fucking impregnate your girlfriend against her will.  You had ONE JOB and couldn’t even do that.  I hope you die a horrible death.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, who runs Whole Woman's Health, a company that manages seven clinics that provide abortion in five states in the US, says: "Yes, men are clearly involved at the beginning, in terms of getting the woman pregnant."

But she adds: "When it comes to her body, then there is a line that is drawn. It is the woman's pregnancy, she is carrying it in her body, and you don't get to tell someone what to do with their body and force them to carry to term - once you do that you start going into terrifying areas."

Ms Hagstrom Miller says that the abortion rights movement hasn't helped itself by framing abortion as just a woman's issue. "Abortion benefits women and men and families. Millions of men have benefited from having access to abortion."

She notes that over 60% of abortion patients are parents already - a figure supported by the Guttmacher Institute - and that at her clinic many couples turn up who are wrestling with an unplanned pregnancy and all the complex issues surrounding it. Some factors they consider are what size of family they want to have and how a new child would impact their current situation or family.

Okay, the reason the issue is framed as a woman’s issue is because this is a pitched battle over women’s bodies since no one actually cares about the fetus, including the men.  Yes, men do benefit from abortion.  That’s why the vast majority of men support it, not because they give a shit about women and female autonomy.  Yes, “families” have benefited from abortion, in that women are the usual heads of families so it stands to reason.  The idea that we all need to change tone to make Teh Menz feel better is annoying as fuck when those same Menz are trying to make The Handmaid’s Tale into a fucking documentary.  Especially since the tone you seem to be advocating for is to an economic one, and women and our decisions are dehumanized enough under capitalism.

But, counter those involved in post-abortive counselling, it's what can happen further down the line that is not being acknowledged or spoken about enough due to the politics and posturing.

"Because of the rhetoric out there, people can't address what is there, which is a sense of loss, and affects men and women and whether you went into it pro-choice or not," says Kevin Burke, a social worker and co-founder of Rachel's Vineyard, which runs weekend retreats for post-abortive men and women. "But you are not given permission to speak about any of that, so you can't process it."

Why do men like to pretend so hard they need “permission” to speak about anything?  The bastards can’t shut the fuck up about literally anything, but they need permission to talk about the very thing they themselves set into motion all of a sudden?

Mr Burke adds how he has found through his counselling work with imprisoned men from racial minorities that the fallout from an abortion can be heightened if a man previously experienced difficulties growing up.

"The abortion experience for men, especially with previous father loss, abuse and trauma, can contribute to the other issues that can lead men to express their grief, loss and rage from childhood abuse, and their abortion experiences, in destructive ways," Mr Burke says. "What we have learned is they seem to interact in a kind of toxic synergy."

Women are to blame for men’s trauma, the loss of their fathers, racism, out of control incarceration, crimes men commit, and of course women and girls who are impregnated by these men and don’t want to be have never experienced any of these things themselves.  No “toxic synergy” for women, oh no, that’s a special Man Feel, which they need special permissions to express because they have no institutional power.

Commentators note you don't have to be an anti-abortion advocate to feel sorrow over an abortion, or be haunted about whether you did the right thing. Hence, Mr Burke explains, later on many men and women carry a huge amount of moral and spiritual wounding.

Ms Hagstrom Miller says she would like to see the debate "moving away from a conversation of rights to a conversation about dignity and respect, empathy and compassion" - a point not that far from sentiments held by some of those against abortion.

"I hate it when you have people outside abortion clinics shouting things like 'You are going to hell'," says Mr Locker, who has joined prayer groups outside clinics.

"For one it's not getting the job done [of dissuading the woman], and it shows no compassion, and just condemns the mother, who is feeling just as much like she has a leg caught in that trap too."

The pregnant woman ALSO “feels” she has her leg caught in a trap!  Wow, he’s such a Nice Guy (tm), he cares so much, such equality!  I mean, the actual fact of being pregnant and not wanting to be is, like, whatever, but she has feelings like men do, like HE did!  Now he’s valid and can make the decisions for her because they are equals, see!

In the meantime, we could be hearing more from increasing numbers of post-abortive men, says Ms Bonopartis. She puts this down to a combination of the technological advances in ultrasound revealing more of what is occurring in the womb and the revelations of the passage of time since the Roe v Wade decision.

"It's changing now, men are fed up," Ms Bonopartis says. "Men had bought into how they have no say in this and that if they speak out, they are against women, but now the impact is being felt by more and more of them as the repercussions of 45 years of abortion are being seen."

The last forty-five years of abortion are WAY more important than the last 10,000 years of abortion, because NOW men are FED UP because THEY had NO SAY bitch how about you shut the fuck up too, you embarassing excuse for a female?

tl;dr  Lucky you, I wish I hadn’t read it either.

[madamebaggio]

Notes: I got super late with this because the internet sucks and the holidays suck the life out of me. I had a hard time focusing on a longer chapter, so the others will also be late, but I hope you like.

For those of you who might not remember, there was a poll this month and this is one of the ships that won a fuller post.

Also, remember that for the Crackship Fleet next month there’s still time to choose a prompt for your favorite ship. Some of them are already booked, but we still have maaaaany left. So check december’s post of your favorite ship and see if you’re interested in picking a prompt for them ;)

This follows this.

***

Fury was the most paranoid man Steve had ever met, and he was convinced that every step the Director took as carefully planned.

That was why he was surprised when Fury actually came to meet them at the ship.

Once the woman who introduced herself as Mera - eventually she told him her full name was Y'Mera Xebella Challa, and she was Xebellian princess, but she’d been the Queen of Atlantis’ protégeé - demanded that the weapons found be returned to her people, Steve had to call Fury.

He didn’t know what to think about this whole thing, and too many agents had heard this conversation; so he needed to make it official and call Fury in.

He told as much to the princess and that they’d have to wait. When she didn’t look happy with the suggestion, Steve explained to her that, if she chose not to wait, the only answer would be to fight everyone on that ship.

The thing was… For a moment, it seemed like she’d considered it. She ran her eyes over the ship, and he could almost hear the voice inside her head calculating and evaluating the risks.

“We shall wait.” She declared after a full minute, like she was granting him a favor.

Steve informed her it’d take a few hours at least for Fury to get there, since they were in the middle of the ocean and Fury had stayed back in DC.

She said it was no problem, she’d wait and give diplomacy a chance.

It wasn’t an encouraging choice of words.

She chose a spot on the ship where she could keep her eyes on everyone, but kept minimal contact, even when Steve did try to engage her in conversation.

He wasn’t really good at talking to women in general, and something about this one…

It took five hours for Fury to reach them -which did involved rappelling down from the quinjet followed by Agent Hill -but eventually he got there.

“Captain.” He nodded at Steve, then threw a look her way. “That’s her?”

“Yes, sir. Princess Mera.”

Fury gave him a flat look, before turning to her. “Your Highness.”

She threw him an assessing look. “Director Fury, I assume.”

“Yes. Captain Rogers says you want to claim those weapons.”

“They belong to my people. They were stolen by humans.” She pointed out. “I don’t wish to start something over this, and I don’t blame humans in general, but they belong to my people.” She insisted. “If I have to open a dispute about it…”

“I do not like threats.” Fury warned her.

“And I don’t like thieves.” She told him, unrelenting. “I came here in peace to recover weapons that should not be in human hands. The technology we have in Atlantis is nothing like you’ve ever dreamed about.”

“We’ve had dealings with Asgard.” Fury told her. “We understand of… Different technology.”

“If you know about Asgard, you know these are not things you want anyone getting their hands on.” Mera insisted. “This is something you can’t control. What happens if they get stolen from you?”

“Like they were from you?” Nick threw back dryly.

Mera gave him a flat look. “I waited in respect to your Captain.” She finally said. “I didn’t have to. We are in my territory; I don’t wish to start a battle, but I will. And then, I’ll have to do it again and again, because I know that what you have here, isn’t half of what’s been stolen. Which means there are other ships and other people. If you want, we can race to find those, and make every single minute a battle.” She sighed, like it pained her to say so. “Or we can work together.”

Fury just arched an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. “We have the same end goal: to keep these out of the wrong hands.” She insisted. “This can be a battle, or it can be a partnership.”

Fury levelled her with a serious look, then seemed to have a whole telepathic conversation with Hill before turning to Steve. “What do you say, Captain?”

“I think she deserves a chance to say her piece, Director.” Steve told him honestly.

Fury sighed. “Have you ever been to a jet before?”

“I don’t leave the ocean very often.” She told him honestly.

“Then I guess this’ll be an adventure.” Fury said dryly. “We’re going to DC.”

***

After some debate, Mera agreed to leave some of her guards on the ship with the other agents, and go to the Triskelion. Steve didn’t know she had people with her until they started coming out of the water, but she assured him that they’d follow orders and wait. 

Fury, for his part, had conceded that it might at least be good to exchange information. He didn’t look happy when he realized Mera had people waiting as well, but he didn’t say a word. Hill, who seemed to always know what Fury was thinking, was the one talking to the agents and giving orders, since her boss was having a staring contest with the princess.

Mera hadn’t seemed sure about boarding the quinjet, but let Hill help her out the harness on and went up quietly.

Steve insisted on going along, mostly because he was curious about what she had to say. Atlantis, as far as he’d known his whole life, was just a fairy tale. The world just kept getting bigger and stranger…

Once he climbed aboard the quinjet, he was surprised to find Natasha there. “Agent Romanoff.”

The corner of her lip ticked up. “Captain.” She looked at Mera, who was already sitting. “What do you think?”

Steve sighed. “I miss the simpler days.”

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him. “Have we ever seen those?”

He chuckled. “I guess not.” He looked at Mera too. “I don’t know what she’s capable of.” He admitted. “I don’t know about her abilities, but if she’s to be believed… There’s an army down there.”

Natasha just hummed noncommittally, as the quinjet lurched forward.

***

Steve spent some time talking to Natasha, and only after noticed that Mera hadn’t moved from her spot, and her hand was resting on her stomach.

He walked closer, than sat next to her. “You’ve never flown before?”

“No.” She admitted. “It is… Different.”

“I imagine so.” He was quiet for a minute. “How is Atlantis?”

“Unique.” She responded immediately. “It’s like never you’ve ever seen before.”

“You don’t know what I’ve seen before.” He pointed out, a grin on his lips.

She looked mistrustful for a minute, as if she wasn’t sure if he was mocking her. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve seen before: nothing is like Atlantis.”

There was love in her eyes and voice when she spoke the name of her home. She was a proud woman, it was easy to see that, but now -looking closely -Steve could see royalty in her as well. He believed she was a princess, because there was something radiating from her that was clearly about that.

“And how does a princess become a soldier?” Steve asked.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Why would one exclude the other?”

“Good point.”

They were silent for a minute. “Do you trust your Director?” She asked.

Steve wondered if he should lie and tell her what she wanted to hear, but he was a terrible liar and she deserved the truth.

“It’s more complicated than that.” He admitted. “I know that Fury is the man that will do whatever it takes to protect people. He believes in the fight he fights everyday, but… Whatever it takes means…”

“Whatever it takes.” She completed unnecessarily.

“Yes.”

She hummed her understanding. “But you still fight for him.”

“I fight for the things I believe in: freedom, justice, dignity. Fury just happens to be a man that I believe fights for the same reasons. We don’t always agree about method, though.”

“So how can I trust him?” She pushed back.

“The same way we can trust you; a leap of faith.”

She arched a brow at him. “Too early for that, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps.” He agreed with a rueful laughter. “But what else can we do? Fight over it?”

She pretendo to consider it, but there was a certain mirth in her eyes that betrayed her. “I’ll trust you then.”

“Me?” Steve asked surprised.

“There is something about you that makes me want to trust you.” She admitted, even though she didn’t look that happy about it. “In the few hours I’ve known you, you’ve kept your word, and that’s all I can ask of someone I’ve just met.”

“I guess.” Steve was grinning by then.

“I don’t want this to become a fight.” She told him, suddenly serious again. “I’m a princess and if something happens to me, there’ll be retribution. But I choose to believe you won’t let them put me into an aquarium.”

“I’ll do my best.” He assured her. “Does that mean we can work together?”

She tipped her chin up. “Let’s see how impressive that Triskelion is first.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Just Mera is fine.”

“I’m Steve.”

[aliteraryprincess]

The Firethorn Crown by Lea Doué

Warning: Contains spoilers

Welcome back to Fairy Tale Friday!  By popular vote, we are looking at another retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”  The timing couldn’t be better because this month marks the one year anniversary of this feature, and the first book I posted on was also a retelling of this tale.  You can read that post here.  Now let’s jump into The Firethorn Crown!

As a Retelling:

As with the majority of this tale’s retellings, The Firethorn Crown focuses on the eldest princess, Lily.  This is common because in the Grimms’ version of the tale--which is the best known--the soldier marries the eldest.  This is also the case with many variations, though in some it is the youngest instead.  Also following the German version, Lily’s love interest, Eben, is a former soldier.  Unlike in the various variations, Eben does not come into the picture after the princesses begin their nightly dancing.  He is their guard and has known them for years, which provides a strong relationship between him and Lily from the beginning of the book.

Also like the German version and the majority of other variations, Doué’s princesses dance in an underground realm.  However, the entrance the realm is in a different location than it is in most of the tales.  Usually the entrance is in the princesses’ bedroom, often beneath the bed of the eldest sister.  We can find this not just in the Grimms’ tale, but also in French, Russian, Romanian, and Danish variants, among others.  The entrance to Doué’s underground realm, called the undergarden, is in a hedge maze in the royal garden.  Most people avoid the maze since it’s dark and creepy, but the princesses enjoy playing in there.  They discover the undergarden while running through the maze trying to avoid Lord Runson, an unwanted suitor of Lily’s.  When they return each night, they have to sneak out of their room and into the garden.  There are a few variants that involve the princesses leaving their rooms to attend the balls, usually by flight.  In a Russian version called “Elena the Wise” the girls turn into doves while in the Hungarian “The Hell-Bent Misses” they fly on brooms.  The way the princesses in this book sneak out is more similar to how the final suitors in most of the tales follow them: they turn invisible.  Generally the suitor uses a magical article of clothing, such as a cloak or a cap, but in some versions he uses a flower from a magical plant.  Doué’s princesses gain the ability to become invisible when holding hands during their first trip to the undergarden.  They use this along with a series of distractions to get by the guards at their door.            

Doué borrows the concept of a curse causing the princesses to dance from the French and Romanian tales.  Most versions of this story are vague even by fairy tale standards, which allows her to create her own backstory behind the curse. Her villain is Tharius, a sorcerer prince cursed to live in the undergarden.  He can only leave if someone willingly marries him, rather in the style of “Beauty and the Beast.”  When Lily and her sisters enter the undergarden, he tricks them and lays a curse of his own to force them back each night so he can court Lily. The girls can’t speak about the curse, providing a reason for them to keep everything a secret, and Lily can’t speak at all outside of the undergarden.  This does not come from any version of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” that I know of, but it does have an origin in fairy tales such as “The Six Swans.”  Lily can only break the curse by declaring her love and having it returned.

While Doué does use a lot from the original stories, she also makes a number of changes.  The most interesting to me is the inclusion of the princesses’ mother.  In every version of the tale, their mother is either dead or not mentioned at all.  Every retelling I’ve encountered other than this has followed suit and killed her off, sometimes incorporating it into the plot, as in Princess of the Midnight Ball and Entwined.  Not only is she alive in The Firethorn Crown, she is also a large presence throughout the story.  In fact, it is her, not the king, who declares that anyone who solves the princesses’ mystery can marry one of them.  This is done in a moment of anger, and she ultimately doesn’t mean it.  However, it is said in front of witnesses, so she cannot redact it.  In the original tale, depending on how you choose to read it, the king can be seen as anything from well-meaning yet overprotective to an overbearing patriarchal figure trying to control his daughters’ autonomy.  Switching the father for the mother is a fascinating choice and is probably the most unique aspect of the book as a retelling.  Perhaps Doué felt a story of tension between mother and daughter would resonate more with a modern, teenage audience.  Whatever her reasoning, I liked the change!       

This leads to another notable change: neither Eben nor anyone else stays in the princesses’ quarters to find out their secret.  This plot point is featured in almost every version of the fairy tale, and I was surprised to see it left out here.  I’m not sure why Doué didn’t use it, but it could be because the timeline is condensed. In the fairy tale, we get the impression that the princesses have been wearing their shoes out night after night for months, if not years.  This provides enough time for each suitor to try and fail for three nights.  The Firethorn Crown takes place over the course of a few days, which obviously isn’t enough time for any of that to happen.  Another reason may be the issue of how creepy it is to let random men sleep in the princesses’ quarters.  It’s kind of hard to swallow from a modern perspective.  Even Eben, who is close with the girls, does not stay in their rooms.  He doesn’t even follow them without their knowledge.  When he goes to the undergarden, they actually bring him along so he can help.  The condensed timeline also causes one last change: the princesses don’t go through nearly as many shoes.  By my count, they only wear out two pairs each.  After the first pairs get ruined, one of the girls places an order for the new ones.  These get worn out quickly as well, but they never get more.  Their mother finds out about the new shoes and becomes furious.  It is at this point that she makes the declaration about marrying one of them to whoever solves the mystery.     

My Thoughts:

This is a solid retelling of the tale and an overall enjoyable read.  I cared about Lily and Eben, and I thought Doué handled the relationship well.  I was rooting for them the whole time.  And I always appreciate when there isn’t insta-love.  Tharius is also an intriguing villain.  He’s manipulative to the point where I wasn’t even sure if he was the villain for a while.  And even once I was sure, I still felt bad for him.  His actions are deplorable, but I understood his reasons.  I love finding a villain with a good, and even sympathetic, motive.

Even though I liked the book, there were several problems that kept my rating from being higher.  The first is a problem that plagues most retellings of this story: the characterization of the princesses suffers due to the number of them.  The only one I felt I knew was Lily; the rest I couldn’t even really tell apart.  I talked about this same issue in my post on Princess of the Midnight Ball and in my (really old) review of Entwined (which you can read here).  I remain convinced that the only way to solve this is to cut out some princesses, as Juliet Marillier does in Wildwood Dancing.  Not all variants of this tale use twelve girls; there are Hungarian, Russian, and Czech versions that feature three and Danish and Portuguese versions that only have one.  

My other big problem is the lack of explanation we get for some characters’ motivations and backstories.  The queen’s motivations in particular confused me.  We are told early on that the king has allowed Lily to take her time choosing a husband.  He is mostly absent during the story, and it seems that as soon as he’s gone the queen starts pushing Lily to make a choice.  She nags her about supposedly leading Lord Runson on and sets up private outings with a visiting prince.  When Lily isn’t speaking due to the curse, the queen gives her a deadline in order to force her into making a choice.  We’re never given a reason for any of this, so she just ends up seeming like a controlling jerk.  I was also left with a lot of questions regarding the relationship between Lily and Lord Runson.  At some point before the start of the story, the two were good friends. However, some kind of betrayal occurred and caused Lily to hate him.  We never get any other information on this backstory, and I really want to know.  Since he is a major part of the story, it felt like it should have been explained more.        

My Rating: 3 stars

Other Reading Recommendations:

The starred titles are ones I have read myself.  The others are ones I want to read and may end up being future Fairy Tale Friday books.  To keep the list from getting too long, I’m limiting it to four that I’ve read and four that I haven’t.

Other Retellings of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”:

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier*

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George*

Entwined by Heather Dixon*

The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley*

The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

The Midnight Dancers by Regina Doman

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine 

More Retellings by Lea Doué:

The Midsummer Captives

The Red Dragon Girl

The Moonflower Dance

Snapdragon

Red Orchid

Mirrors and Pearls

About the Fairy Tale:

Twelve Dancing Princesses Tales from Around the World by Heidi Anne Heiner*

Coming in July:

Thank you to everyone who voted in the July poll!  “Rapunzel” won, and the retelling of it that I picked just came into the library this evening!  The post will hopefully be up by the second week of July.  “Bluebeard” and “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” tied for second place, and I’m not quite sure what to do about that.  I could try to do both, but I’m not sure if I’ll have time.  I have options on the way for both tales.  If I can only do one, does anyone have a preference? Comment to let me know! 

Have a recommendation for me to read or a suggestion to make Fairy Tale Friday better?  Feel free to send me an ask!

[katy-l-wood]

deviantART Eclipse

Oh man am I excited for deviantART’s just announced overhaul, honestly. I love deviantART. Been a member there for nearly 13 years. Volunteered there. Participated in tons of community projects. Organized meet-ups. It was everything to me as a growing artist, and I was really sad when the community died off a handful of years ago. I wanted to stay, but it just wasn't worth the effort. Other websites were doing more for me, community wise, than deviantART was. Between that and dA's lack of updates, I just couldn't justify staying there as I tried to build up my artistic career. But damn did I miss it. Other sites I went to were better than dA was when I left, but none of them have ever close to matching dA in its height. None of them have everything I wanted in one spot, either. I have an online shop here, a blog there, a micro-blog another place, etc. etc. I share my finished art one place, my in-progress art another, my literature still another. It was, and still is, exhausting. I always found myself thinking fondly of dA. Having a single page with all my stuff easily shared there! Having a variety of formats I could upload things in! Having a highly flexible homepage! Having built-in polls! Having built-in commissions! Having actual threaded comments! Having the ability to delete/hide spammy comments on my work (looking at you, tumblr porn bot infestation...)! No pinning a different thread every month in hopes people would find the important information I wanted them to see! No awkwardly trying to adjust themes to have an informative but still tiny sidebar! No seeing things out of order! So many things! I missed it like crazy, especially when I'd become so frustrated with other sites not having what I needed all in one spot. I'd poke my head in there every now and then, see if anything had changed. But for a long time, nothing had. It was still the same old same old dying community. No new updates. Lots of new broken things. Zero community moderation. And then! And then! Wix bought out deviantART! As a long time user of Wix for my personal website, I was very excited by this, though cautiously so. I hoped it would mean dA would finally get some new life breathed into it, that it would finally update to be a modern website and one that could foster a regrowth of the community. However, for a long time, nothing visibly happened. There were rumblings, sure, but nothing changed on the face of things. So I waited. Kept poking my head in. Tentatively started browsing the site again, posted a status update or two and chatted a little with some old friends. Then, finally, it happened! The big update was announced! Eclipse, as they’re calling it, was finally on the way! And holy shit does it look awesome. I've only seen the preview article so far, but even that has me ridiculously excited. The whole thing looks beautiful. deviantART has finally grown up.

And, sure, there’s still a lot of fetish art and that sort of nonsense. But, honestly, what part of the internet doesn’t have that anymore? I’ll take a functioning mature content filter with some stuff slipping through the cracks over a million porn bots removing the entire content of my post to inject links back to their porn sites any day. That’s not to say I’ll be leaving tumblr or anything, still enjoy it here, but damn that porn bot problem has gotten bad. Also, deviantART will apparently have a new private rating system to better control what you see so that’ll be great.

And ya know what? I’m not a teenager anymore. I know no site is going to be perfect for me, and I no longer expect it to. With this revival deviantART looks poised to once again be the best social site for me, even with its flaws. So once this update launches, I will happily be trundling back over there to splash around in my favorite pond.

[mild-lunacy]

YA and the Bane of Adulthood

On the one hand, there's the recent post in reply to Maggie Stiefvater, with the idea that YA as a genre is changing. Here, the idea of 'adult' content and what it means is relatively broad. In the case of The Raven Cycle, it's mostly about the audience and how that audience alters the available content on the genre level in the long term. Some people have critiqued Six of Crows characters for being too adult in their thinking or abilities, but overall most readers don't seem to care about realism in fantasy YA, per se. So if Kaz talks like an adult and is improbably powerful as a major gang leader, it's more or less OK with both teenagers and adult readers. No, the critique of 'adult' readers or content goes three ways: as with the original blog post Stiefvater was responding to, one issue is the different needs and monetary resources teenagers have, and the way the industry focuses on adult interests and needs instead. A very valid point. With some YA books like Six of Crows, the problem becomes (at least potentially) the sexualization of Kaz, at least according to @krugerevengeinej. To be honest, though, online fandom doesn't get too excited unless it's a question of race representation and/or sexuality, though. When most people say certain YA books are 'too adult', they mean they're too sexual.

It's definitely awkward, isn't it? I'm not here to claim Sarah J. Maas' books are 'really' YA, and you could certainly argue they shouldn't be marketed as such, though it's hardly an issue unique to this one author or even initiated by her individually. Still, you wouldn't argue Aelin can be 'too sexualized' by adult readers, even though she's nineteen. She's having plenty of sex, after all. It's easier to talk about Kaz, because he's seventeen and sexually abstinent, so he seems more like a teen at first glance, though I'd question that. Both characters are old for their age and have experienced a lot of violence, taken care of themselves from a very young age and suffered extensive personal loss: stuff that is way out of the average teen's experience. It's pretty arguable that the Throne of Glass series is more adult than Six of Crows in any but the sexual content sense. Of course, that's what most people seem to care about, even if one reply to the @sleepingfancies SJM critique mentions that being interested in smut is normal for older teenagers. The idea is that this is the wrong kind, since smut for teens should be educational, I guess? Even though not much else about either series is really educational, in my opinion. And also it's still not properly classified as YA, which is possible but more than likely moot since it's a marketing strategy and not an inherent reflection of the subject matter involved.

Sex is always treated differently, though. It's somehow more important to be educational about sexual mores than other types of morality or ethics, which both Six of Crows and Throne of Glass consistently fail at. Kaz and Inej on the one hand, Aelin, Manon and Rowan on the other-- let's just say, do not do what they do. But no one's concerned with the authors glorifying armed robbery or assassination here. The most common source of fan concern with the changing YA market is about social justice or representation issues and the smut, like I said. Even if one has to twist the text quite a ways to make it queerbaiting, the logic goes that if we can imagine the subtext and 'symbolism', surely this is proof enough. For example, Manon loved battle, killing men and the taste of blood on her teeth, etc. Surely this means she didn't want to have sex with them, right? I mean, she wouldn't kill women unless they were Crochans... oh, wait. And of course, passionate friendship between men or women is only believable if it's hinting at a future romance. Not that any this excuses the lack of queer representation, by any means. I'm just saying, there's a difference between that and queerbaiting that overly enthusiastic fans may miss. Although I suppose that's just a separate issue and has nothing to do with adulthood or the lack thereof, honestly.

In general, I have observed that the protestations about unhealthy relationships happen no matter what, even in response to actual erotica and/or NC-17 fanfiction. It's just so neatly justified and 'obviously' relevant with the YA genre. It's extra ironic because Sarah J. Maas goes out of her way to portray an actual abusive relationship with her ACoMAF contrast between Rhys and Tamlin's behavior with Feyre. And of course, even if Rowan is Aelin's mate in the Throne of Glass books, she clearly remains super close to Dorian and Chaol, her earlier love interests. But it's easier to make fun of the educational value of the popular (and common) 'fated mates' trope and suppose it's somehow meant to disparage a girl's early relationships, or wonder if twelve-year olds should know about bodily fluids and dirty talking. In general, I think it all comes down to taking words out of context and purposely imagining an audience that doesn't exist. I mean, it seems like most twelve year-olds aren't even reading The Raven Cycle according to Stiefvater's poll, let alone the Throne of Glass books. But they *could*. They could also go looking beyond the YA shelves, as I myself did, but it's the principle of the thing, I suppose.

As a teen of thirteen and up, I read smutty romance novels, and it didn't harm me beyond exacerbating my existing tendency to idealize romantic love. I can't imagine the only thing that saved me from trauma is the silly euphemisms and lack of explicit reference to bodily fluids in those books, though I agree that individual teens are all different in terms of their readiness. Those who are ready will seek things out. Those who aren't, won't. People wouldn't enjoy a book with a multitude of adult themes and then suddenly get shocked and traumatized by Rhysand being a little too toppy and arrogant about flirting and sex, even though he's actually patient and caring with Feyre in many other ways. Older teenagers lack life experiences, but most are fully capable of reading and understanding such behavioral subtleties. Plus, teen boys in real life are certainly bigger assholes than Rhys and their talk is uglier and/or dirtier, any day of the week. And if these inexperienced or younger teen readers can't make sense of it, they're more likely to be confused or bored than to suddenly change their whole understanding of relationships to reflect this book they're suddenly reading. That takes both a broad trend and some corresponding experience in their real life, as well as a total lack of guidance from the adults in their life. Books aren't so dangerous that any exposure to the 'wrong' ideas is somehow tainting.

The bottom line is that books don't have the power to brainwash young people (or older people, for that matter). They are more likely to simply seem boring to those who aren't ready or interested in the 'adult' content. If there's some reason to keep reading, a book is certainly capable of stretching young minds and eliciting curiosity about all sorts of things, and that includes sexuality. Even if teens often think in black and white terms, good books can stretch their understanding. Reading a bit above one's understanding or experience level is something I'd recommend for that reason. Overall, though, both teens and adults are most likely to stick with what they know. People's fiction interests are essentially self-sorting, marketing strategies aside. That's *how* the genre is changing.

[darlingnisi]

Prince....from the outside world

I was very curious to know perceptions of P outside of the fandom so I polled some people on Facebook. I feel like Prince's image/brand is WAY more beloved and known than his actual music, and that bothers me more than I care to admit most days. Is he a legend to you because you heard he was or because you experienced it through his work, you know? That annoyance was a big reason for the mixcloud/soundcloud thing. Yes the enigma that is Prince is fascinating, and beautiful and sexy and all of those things, but THE MUSIC! THE MUSIC. THE POINT (To me anyway...) Anyway...here’s how I posed the question : Thoughts/question for the day...would love your input. I'm obviously pretty entrenched in the Prince fandom, and most of the people I associate with daily are also. I do recognize though that outside of the purple bubble, (ha and sometimes inside) not a lot is known about who he was, what he did, or how much music he actually made. For those of you who have a passive interest, are a casual fan, or generally know who he is but don't know much about him, what do you know or what have you heard music wise? What's your impression of him? Be honest no hurt feelings if you've heard negative things! I'm trying to see something...

And the responses : I know what you've told me, posted, or sent me to read. Immediately following his passing, I was slightly obsessed with watching Youtube videos of other celebs sharing stories about his great sense of humor. Before that...*thinks* only stuff that made major news outlets. I didn’t realize until recently (last few years) what level he was on musically. I knew he was talented, but what he has goes beyond that, into otherworldly. As far as specific music, I only knew his popular stuff before. *** I didn't become a Prince fan until an ex-gf exposed me to him. Michael Jackson claimed my interest growing up, and that developing brain didn't have enough room for both of them. As an adult and musician I came to realize that not only was he a genius, he wrote for and inspired so many other geniuses. He's like if Stevie Wonder had the astronomical performance abilities of James Brown. *** Honestly I wasn't a fan at all. I thought his musicianship was pretty good. There's a few songs I liked, but overall nah-- I only like a few songs like Kiss. I didn't really like his performance style. It was good to hear how philanthropic he was behind closed doors after the fact. Every time I see him perform or watch an old video I cringe a little bit. People always hate me when I tell them that lol *** I haven't delved into his personal, as I don't normally do that with any artist. For impressions, I remember way back as a child I thinking he was some form of gay. Not that actually fully understood what that was but this was like in the early 90s and the whole symbol as a name thing. I kow enjoyed his music and found the imagery in the videos interesting. Wasn’t until the last decade or so that I heard about him as a person. You can thank Chappelle and Charlie Murphy for that. *** I know very little...my parents weren't big Prince fans so I didn't grow up with his music, just a few hits like Raspberry Beret. What I know I know from Chappelle Show, mega fans, and news reports after he passed. *** My 1st impressions of him was WHOA he's different but as I got older,I can identify with him more than MJ or Barry White ***  I just got watching the episode of New Girl that he was in  It’s so great  *** I grew up in his era. I became a fan post passing. Prior to this, I thought he was talented but stand offish, weird, unrelatable. He did so many strange things in the 90's that I just drifted away from anything P related as he disappeared from mainstream and went underground. I saw him here in ATL at Musicology and he blew me away but then he didn't come back...so, out of sight, out of mind. Since 2016, out of curiosity, I have educated myself on the man and the music and have found I love the music of the 90's and 2000's but never heard it until now. I've come to realize he was much deeper than I thought and I had no idea of his compassion. I'm not a huge fan of the 80's. It's too over played. I also think that I didn't purchase a lot of his music from the 80's because I was constantly having to censor it to be respectful of who was in earshot and might be offended. (kid's, parents, family, strangers) MJ was more mainstream and Prince seemed to be more into the shock value. In the 80's he came across to me as all sex and very little depth. Now that I am more into the fandom, I am amazed at his use of words, double entendre's and just the genius and mystery in lyrical meanings and complicated arrangements. I still have a ton of questions regarding him but I believe I'm understanding more of the man and his music since he's passed. I'm pleasantly surprised. Earlier, I wasn't impressed. That's my truth.

************************************************ So...interesting perspectives, huh? Just something to keep in mind as we think about how to make P accessible to others...and how he fits into the larger scheme of things. People tend to be interested when he’s in an easily accessible place so...maybe something on ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/PBS for the widest visibility? Can we get him on the radio more than whatever is being currently promoted?  Dream : Issa Rae, Donald Glover, and Janelle Moane host a remastered 3 Chains of Gold on FX. They provide commentary during commercial breaks...and there’s an associated hashtag for Twitter..... Can you imagine how big that would be to bridge him to younger people?

[yasbxxgie]

In the wake of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the consequences of the 2016 election are settling in at a whole new level for white women. As a result, many are revisiting the post-election statistic that showed 53 percent of white women voted for the candidate who spewed racial vitriol and actively emboldened violence against people of color, tolerating his vile misogyny in the process.

We know Trump’s election only exposed more brazenly what’s always been true: White women have always sided with white supremacy.

Now we’re reckoning with another devastating truth, and this one pertains to all white women—including that other 47 percent of us. If we had ever collectively worked to create sustained solidarity with women of color, instead of consistently aligning with white men, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Why? Deep, robust multiracial women coalitions would be an unstoppable force.

Another report knocked the wind out of some us. Though swarms of white women rose up publicly enraged, it was only among women of color that a clear and strong majority believed Christine Blasey Ford. A Quinnipiac poll showed that white women only broke 46 percent for Ford (and 43 percent in favor of Kavanaugh, a statistically insignificant difference). On the question of whether Kavanaugh should be confirmed anyway, 45 percent of white women said “yes.” Wow.

Here we sit, with ever more evidence that massive racial failure on the part of white women is at the center of this political crisis. At the root of it all is our collective choice to not learn, prioritize, or consistently live in public antiracist solidarity with communities of color, and especially with women of color.

In short, we’ve never bothered to learn calculus.

(For clarity’s sake, please know I’m purposely not talking about white men — yes, the ultimate perpetrators — here. I am not blaming white women for white male violence. I am also not disparaging the incredible courage of all survivors, including Blasey Ford. I am simply focusing on what white women collectively do and do not do, have and have not done, when it comes to race, racism, and antiracism.)

This is where (one) peril sets in. The longstanding failure to choose calculus that allowed this crisis leaves us wholly unprepared for a political moment where nothing less than brilliant mathematical abilities are required.

For women of color, that cuts deeply.

As we reel, more white women seem to say, “Oh shit! I really do need to learn calculus.” But women of color don’t have the time, energy, or patience to teach us. They certainly can’t trust us. And while women of color have distinctly individual perspectives on and responses to white women in this current moment, it’s safe to say that collectively they’re beyond outraged and all but done with us. Why? Because they’ve been demonstrating the life-or-death urgency of white women learning calculus for decades now.

And yet here we are.

Ongoing apathy toward making the work of antiracism a central priority of our lives as white women has allowed the school building to burn.

My fellow white women, there is nothing not bad about this moment.

Calculus is hard to learn in a regular and relatively calm school situation. Now we need to learn calculus in a school building that’s on fire.

Even for the most willing and earnest student, there’s no way around it: It takes a long time to learn calculus. And, yes, so many of us are deeply hurting, furious, raw, triggered, and afraid. But the building’s still on fire.

Students, sometimes have to actually screw up math problems to actually learn calculus. Screw ups are part of any learning process. But, again, the building’s on fire. And every white woman’s mistake pours more gasoline on a blaze that’s consuming us all very quickly.

The task here is as essential as it is herculean. We need to stop pouring more gasoline on this fire at the same time that we get belatedly serious about the long, slow, mistake-laden work of learning calculus—and we have to do it at lightning speed.

From one white woman to another, here are 10 concrete steps to take right now if we hope to ever do math with women of color—which is not optional if there is any hope of calling into existence the deep, robust, multiracial coalitions all our lives depend on.

No particular order here. Some of these steps fall in the category of “for the love of god, stop pouring gasoline!” Some fall in the category of our long, slow work. None are adequate. All are critical.

1. Stop saying ‘women’ anything.

When the phrase “women must…” or “women are…” is about to come out of your mouth: Stop. Commit to the discipline of being racially specific in your speech. “White women must…,” “white women are…,” or “women of color and white women seem to be…”—at which moment you may notice, “Oh, wait. I really can’t say anything about women of color because I don’t know.”

You may not understand why this discipline is important. Do it anyway. It’s important because there is no non-racialized woman. Committing to this practice will make you more likely to notice gaps in your awareness. You’ll be more likely to notice the racial assumptions embedded in your own claims. This will help you gain clarity about where you need to focus as you do your homework. It will also necessarily rein in your claims about “generic” women, which is one small but critical way to stop pouring gasoline on this fire.

2. Do not participate in any public action called by white women with a reflexive ’yes.’

Stop, seek out, and then listen seriously to what women of color say about it first.

That “women’s blackout” action? Serious douse of gasoline. Yes, a very small number of women of color in my life sent me the invitation, too. (Remember. People of color don’t speak in one voice on anything.) If more white women had slowed down and listened to what women of color had to say publicly about all the problems with that “black out,” well — I don’t need say more about its problems. Go read what feminists of color themselves said about it. They were clear.

3. If you didn’t take a knee during the anthem in support of Black lives for the last two years, don’t share the meme suggesting all women and girls should now take a knee (see item number 2).

Even better, invite other white women sharing this meme into public conversation about why this is a problem. Don’t yell at them. Ask them to talk it through.

But make sure some version of what’s wrong with this does get explained: If we haven’t been taking a knee for Black people already, then kneeling now exposes whose humanity we actually care about. Not to mention white people co-opting a Black people-led movement is a problem, along the lines of what happened to Tarana Burke. Gasoline.

4. Transfer the vast majority of the time you spend reading and engaging in media to reading and engaging with feminists of color.

Literally and almost exclusively read feminists of color (feminist men and other genders of color too) every single day as you try to figure out what the hell is going on in our country right now. Don’t worry, you’ll still get the news. But, you’ll get it through the analysis you’ll need if you want to move beyond basic addition. Do an audit of who is in your feed; choose to follow the many diverse and brilliant people of color who are public thinkers, writers, and activists. Engage their knowledge and wisdom (and their disagreements with each other). When you don’t understand what they’re saying or why they’re saying it—keep reading. Know that it’s going to take a while before the basic vocabulary of calculus makes sense to you. But it will come, if you stick with it.

5. When women of color write about white women, do not privately message them with questions or rebuttal…

…Unless they explicitly tell you they are cool with that.

If they invite public response and you decide to say or ask something, cool. But be ready then to just sit and listen deeply to the response, whatever it is. If the response makes you uncomfortable or isn’t in the tone you were hoping for, don’t proceed to tell them how it made you feel (more gasoline). Sit with those feelings and then keep reading, thinking, and engaging. If you need to talk about those feelings, cool. Find another white person who’s also trying to learn calculus—maybe someone who’s been at it for longer than you have—and talk it through with them. Then keep reading and listening and sitting with your feelings some more.

6. Don’t just sit there with your feelings. Take your actual physical self to an organization led by people of color who are working for justice—and show up in person.

(Assuming that organization welcomes white participation, of course; most do.)

Don’t say you’re too busy. If you volunteer at your kids’ school, do stuff for your church, are part of a book club, spend time on Facebook, whatever else—this is the moment to transfer hours in your given week from white people (even time spent at your own kids’ school; your kids are going to be fine) to people of color.

The obvious reason for this is to put more labor toward the disproportionate heavy-lifting people of color are already doing for justice. The added benefit is that you’ll start to learn calculus in a way that reading alone doesn’t make possible. Show up. Do what is asked of you. Listen carefully. Don’t overspeak. If you’re uncomfortable being one of the few white people in that space, good. Do it anyway. Don’t flake out.

(Join the NAACP—they’re doing voter mobilization all over right now. Put in volunteer hours to people of color groups working to decrease the presence of police in schools. Get active in a sanctuary network for which Latinx activists are calling the shots; white people with citizenship are needed desperately for all kinds of work. Show up. Wherever people of color live, they are organized and acting. Figure out where and go.)

7. Read ‘So You Want to Talk About Race’ by Ijeoma Oluo.

Seriously, do this right now. If you have the means, buy a copy for another white woman in your life; for all the white women you know. Read it alone. Read it together. Talk about it. This book is a crash course in calculus. It’s brilliant, truthful, funny, loving, difficult, nuanced, and more. Read it with your teenager. Ask your teenager what they think about it (start inviting them to learn calculus, too). See if your co-workers will talk about it with you over lunch.

8. Make a concrete commitment to reallocate resources to women of color organizations. Donate to women of color running for elected office.

Now I am talking about money. This part isn’t so much about you and calculus. It’s just the right thing to do. It also may be the best hope we have to save this “democracy.” I don’t mean that in a “women of color are going to save us” kind of way. But, seriously, we don’t get to just run around giving Facebook shoutouts to Black women voters in Alabama for saving us from predators like Roy Moore, and then not go all in for them. We owe women of color something, and this includes being all-in in terms of having their backs as they step up and out into leadership (taking huge risks as they do so). We owe actual time, energy, and resources. Get your white women friends (and the men) to give money too. Do it.

9. Some white women, white queer folks, and a handful of white feminist men have been working for a long time to learn calculus. Find and follow them, too.

They are imperfect and make mistakes. But being white and trying to learn calculus is different from being a person of color and learning calculus. There are unique challenges. Your learning will speed up if you engage some of the white people who have been on this learning journey for a while.

Be careful who you listen to. Vet those white people to be sure their calculus-learning is legitimate and on the right track. See who they’re in dialogue with. Notice what feminists of color say to and about them. (Hint: If mostly only other white people like their work, don’t learn to do math the way they’re doing it.) Find the white folks who are obviously in relationships of accountability with people of color—these people do exist. Get with them.

10. Take an inventory: Where do you shop? Who cuts your hair? Where do you take your kids to the dentist? Where do you eat out?

Find ways to move your personal participation in the economy over to Black, Latinx, and other businesses owned and operated by people of color. This includes medical offices, stores—as many establishments as you can. Urge others in your life to do so, too. This not only actively reallocates resources you are already expending to communities of color and their economies, it also brings you into more frequent contact with people who our deep and wide white-segregated enclaves typically prevent us from being in contact with.

That’s no quick math formula. But it is critical pre-context for calculus-learning.

***

Here we are.

When you’re in a burning building, every step you take must be purposeful. We’re not going to be collectively calculus-fluent anytime soon. We’re also going to have to live with the consequences of our collective behavior. Namely, we’re going to be divided from women of color for a very, very, very long time. And there are no guarantees here. When I said there is nothing not bad about this moment, I meant it.

But I also know this. Standing still in a burning school building isn’t an option. And I know there are lots of white women and white queer folks (and a few white feminist men) right now who want to take purposeful steps. As much as we don’t quite know what to do, don’t totally get it, are ourselves hurting, fear making mistakes that pour gasoline—there are many of us ready to roll up our sleeves and learn the math. Let’s get purposeful. Together.

If this is you (and I commit to you, it is also me), know you are not alone. I offer this essay in a spirit of love, anger, urgency, and partnership. Let’s pull out our pencil and paper now—and a shitload of erasers. And let’s get to work. [x]

[racingtoaredlight]

THE DEGENERATE’S GUIDE TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL TV WATCH ‘EM UPS 2021: WEEK ONE, TIME FOR THE GOOD STUFF

This is by far the best “opening” slate of games we’ve had in at least a couple of decades. The great thing about having a bunch of cross-country, inter-conference, top 25 matchups in the first week of the season is that we’ll all have a clear expectation of every team involved and will mostly have those ideas flipped over by the end of the month. Answers to questions but wrong, you know?

That’s ok because, really, the whole college football season is that same cycle over and over. And we love it, don’t we folks? We love it more than dying unfulfilled and for no reason with nothing at all to show for it in the larger scheme of the world. College football is a metaphor for life which is just an elaborate metaphor for college football.

Blah, blah eastern times and websites. There have already been approximately one million games played this week with a few FCS over FBS upsets and, upsettingly enough, Kansas was not one of the losers. Whooooooooo! Let’s get it on!

Saturday, September 4

Fordham at Nebraska   12:00pm   BTN

Fordham +46.5 might be the safest bet you can make this week.

ULM at Kentucky 12:00pm SECN

What can you say about Kentucky being favored by 31 over anybody except that it seems incredibly overconfident. They aren’t ranked in the top 10 so I assume they either skip Bama this year or don’t play them until October.

Temple at Rutgers    12:00pm  BTN

In real time the scheduling is fine but these first handful of games feel like a punishment for me crowing about the general quality of this week’s matchups.

Tulane at 2 Oklahoma  12:00pm  ABC

These are the games that come back to win Heisman trophies for Oklahoma QBs later in the year. If the Sooners don’t beat the spread (-31.5) they probably shouldn’t keep their ranking next week.

Holy Cross at UConn  12:00pm  CBSSN

If you can still get UConn -4 anywhere don’t. Holy hell that’s bleak. 4-points at home against Holy Cross. It’s getting real close to time to turn the lights off on the Huskies football program.

Colgate at Boston College  12:00pm  ACCN

If the Toothpastes can just score more than 7 they will have outperformed expectations. If they score more than 7 and hold BC under 60 they will likely have beaten the spread. Chomp ‘Em, Colgate! (I don’t think that’s really their motto but it should be.)

Western Michigan at Michigan  12:00pm  ESPN

I could’ve sworn Michigan played last week and lost but maybe I’m just used to that.

Stanford vs. Kansas State (in Arlington, TX)  12:00pm  FS1

There have been times over the last 25 years where this would be a matchup befitting of a premium neutral site but this is not even close to being one of those years. Definitely not in week one, at least.

19 Penn State at 12 Wisconsin  12:00pm  FOX

Nobody will ever make it make sense that Penn State still has a football program, let alone a football program that puts some of the best athletes into the NFL year after year in a post-Sandusky world.

Army at Georgia State  12:00pm  ESPNU

I can’t be the only one that thinks if the troops put together a football team with the best training and facilities available they’d still get their asses handed to them week after week like they do in illegal wars of aggression.

Fresno State at 11 Oregon  2:00pm   P12N

Kayvon Thibideaux didn’t make the list of “freaks” this year in the Athletic and I can’t tell if I’m just wildly overrating his abilities or if there was some weird oversight due to him announcing that he’ll be playing more standing up on the outside than with a hand in the dirt. Anyway, he’s fun to watch when he’s just pinning his ears back and rushing the QB and Fresno State throws a lot so this could be worth a few minutes of entertainment in this weird in-between time slot. Though, be warned, early kickoff Pac-12 games do tend to suck.

Lafayette at Air Force  2:00pm Stadium

Air Force favored by 42.5. You don’t see that often.

Rice at Arkansas  2:00pm  ESPN+/SECN+

A beautiful reminder of the old SWC. Nothing else. And that’s probably not enough reason to watch this. Arkansas is probably pretty bad but I have trouble believing Rice is going to keep it within 20 of anybody on the road.

17 Indiana at 18 Iowa  3:30pm  BTN

B1G’s plan is to prime the polls early so their teams seem better later on. I’m not falling for it. These are two shit teams that will only look good within the context of the B1G.

14 Miami (FL) vs. 1 Alabama (in Atlanta, GA)  3:30pm   ABC

Miami’s starters are about as old as an average NFL team’s and they’re still gonna get run over by the Bammers. The Canes do actually have a decent stock of pro prospects right now but a lot of these guys were on the field against UNC last year watching as the Tar Heels put up 3,492 rushing yards. So it’s a bunch of middle aged mid-round prospects against a shiny new crop of future stars. Bama should just get an auto-bid for the playoffs at this point until they prove they don’t belong anymore. I’m calling it now: it’s fine, I had a bunch of chores to do around the house anyway.

Marshall at Navy   3:30pm  CBSSN

Ah, the AAC. So dear to my heart. I hated everything Navy did last year but last year was a mulligan anyway. This year might be, too, in the end but for now we can pretend it’ll go off without a hitch.

Miami (Ohio) at 8 Cincinnati  3:30pm  ESPN+

The Bearcats are the darling of mainstream coverage if you’re looking for a playoff Cinderella. Which usually means they’ll lose three games in the regular season and won’t even make it to their conference championship.

West Virginia at Maryland  3:30pm  ESPN

Wait, is this a conference game now? A future conference game? I won’t be paying close attention to realignment. This should be a rivalry of some sort but I can’t quite put myself at ease with WFV in the ACC and Maryland will never belong anywhere but the ACC.

UMass at Pitt   4:00pm  ACCN

Pitt being favored by 35.5 feels like a trap.

Louisiana Tech at Mississippi State   4:00pm  ESPNU

LaTech must be sliding backwards as a program judging by the +23 line. I got nothing else here.

Montana State at Wyoming   4:00pm   ESPN+

I’m intrigued by the screaming amateurism that this game projects. I won’t actually watch it but the way it will look like a 4k remaster of a game from the 60s is appealing on a spiritual level.

Central Michigan at Missouri   4:00pm   SECN

Fuck Missouri.

23 Louisiana at 21 Texas   4:30pm   FOX

The line has moved heavily towards the Ragin Cajuns since it opened. Texas is still a solid favorite but there is something here that I have not been paying attention to so if you want to dig a little you might find some relatively easy money.

Northern Iowa at 7 Iowa State  4:30pm  ESPN+

Iowa State, #7 in the preseason. What a weird fucking time we live in.

San Jose State at 15 USC   5:00pm  P12N

Clay Helton is still the coach at USC. That’s crazy. This program has been sleepwalking through the last decade and they’re still able to pull a #15 ranking because they only have one or two teams on their schedule with a relatively equal talent level.

Gardner-Webb at Georgia Southern   6:00pm  ESPN3

Campbell at Liberty   6:00pm   ESPN3

Liberty’s QB is this year’s unheard of draft prospect that every self-styled draft expert/prognosticator on god’s green twitter is touting as a first round pick. I don’t have an opinion on him because I generally feel gross watching Liberty do anything.

Nicholls at Memphis   7:00pm  ESPN+

Go, Tigers, go. I don’t actually have any expectations calibrated for this year’s Memphis squad. I saw Kenneth Gainwell made a 53-man roster for the Eagles and couldn’t remember him being anything other than a freshman. Time is cruel.

Missouri State at Oklahoma State   7:00pm   ESPN+

If Oklahoma State can’t hit for at least 60 in this game they aren’t real and I hate them.

Monmouth at Middle Tennessee   7:00pm  ESPN3

Ah, Monmouth, Monmouth! These chips are too spicy!

Texas Tech vs. Houston (in Houston, TX)  7:00pm   ESPN

The future of the Big 12 is the SWC, as it always should have been. Well, I mean, aside from the SWC’s tentpole programs. Ah, fuck, it’s so weird and stupid.

Syracuse at Ohio   7:00pm   CBSSN

I still love CBSSN but no thank you.

Southern at Troy   7:00pm  ESPN3

Fading fast.

Oregon State at Purdue   7:00pm   FS1

Fading faster.

Norfolk State at Toledo   7:00pm   ESPN3

I’m evaporating.

Central Arkansas at Arkansas State   7:00pm   ESPN3

Eyes are closing.

Eastern Illinois at South Carolina   7:00pm   ESPN+/SECN+

Snoring softly.

Baylor at Texas State   7:00pm   ESPN+

Snapping to just to talk about how evil Baylor is in general, aside from the horrifically cursed athletics department.

Akron at Auburn   7:00pm   ESPN+/SECN+

Back to sleep.

Abilene Christian at SMU   7:00pm  ESPN+

Snoring loudly.

5 Georgia vs. 3 Clemson (in Charlotte, NC)   7:30pm   ABC

Ah, shit, here we go! It is party time! On paper this is an insanely good “opening” week matchup. But this is also the game that I most had in mind when I wrote about how kind of useless this week’s games are for the season going forward. Clemson is in the DJ Uiagalelei era now and even if he’s better long term than I suspect him of being, he’s still bound to be raw against a Georgia team that might actually have more overall talent than Clemson right now. But if he shows out he’ll be an immediate Heisman darling until he starts throwing lawn darts for a few weeks in a row. It’s fun but meaningless.

NIU at Georgia Tech   7:30pm    ACCN

Trash.

Northwestern State at North Texas   7:30pm   ESPN3

Crap.

UTSA at Illinois   7:30pm   BTN

Garbage.

William & Mary at Virginia   7:30pm   RSN/ESPN3

Funny if William & Mary wins but probably just miserable all around.

Florida Atlantic at 13 Florida   7:30pm   SECN

I don’t often fall into the trap of daydreaming about mascots fighting but an owl fighting an alligator is too good to pass up. There are owls of some sort pretty much everywhere in the world so they have to cross paths in nature with a gator every so often. If you have any videos of an owl winning these fights, please share them.

Southern Miss at South Alabama   8:00pm   ESPN+

Hell, yes. I can’t fully explain why this shitbox gets me a little bit excited but it does.

Kent State at 6 Texas A&M   8:00pm   ESPNU

Always root against Jimbo. Don’t always bet against him but definitely always root against him.

Montana at 20 Washington   8:00pm   P12N

Now this is interesting brand building to me. I don’t think there’s much here for UDub other than an expected win but Montana has been a pretty good team in I-AA over the years. If they can run closer than the +24 they’ve been given it could boost their profile quite a bit.

Duquesne at TCU   8:00pm   ESPN+

I’m not falling for this one.

ETSU at Vanderbilt   8:00pm   ESPN+/SECN+

Vanderbilt is a 21-point favorite and I am telling you, gentle reader, that is a mistake.

16 LSU at UCLA   8:30pm   FOX

UCLA hasn’t been a top talent draw on the West Coast in the last 20 years for whatever reason. This is what I meant by USC sleepwalking. It feels like, to me, going to school in Westwood and playing home games in the Rose Bowl would be a bigger draw than University Village and the Coliseum. But maybe being able to walk to games is important to recruits. Whatever, LSU is going to fuck the Bruins up right there in the Rose Bowl so that’s not gonna help anything.

Bethune-Cookman at UTEP   9:00pm   ESPN3

This is as close to a bodybag game as UTEP can get, at least where they’re the favorites, but I will say this for BCU: their uniforms are usually pretty cool.

New Mexico State at San Diego State   10:30pm   CBSSN

This is that real MWC shit. Lovely to me for reasons I have not been and never will be able to articulate.

Arizona vs. BYU (in Las Vegas, NV)  10:30pm   ESPN

This game is Mormon as hell. If you know any Mormon football fans then they probably have an interest in this game. Bless ‘em, nobody else will have an interest but readers of Moroni sure as hell will.

Nevada at California    10:30pm   FS1

Hmm. Maybe. I doubt I can sink much time into it but I do like the overload of different dark shades of blue threads involved here if nothing else.

Utah State at Washington State   11:00pm   P12N

And here we have a ton of red, depending on alternates and whatnot.

Portland State at Hawaii   11:59pm   Spectrum PPV

A historic showcase for the run & shoot but I don’t know what either offense is supposed to be right now.

Sunday, September 5

9 Notre Dame at Florida State   7:30pm   ABC

Notre Dame is only favored by 7. Did FSU get a huge influx of talent that I totally missed or is the line just something nice in honor of Bobby Bowden? From what I know of these two programs from last year, the Irish should be at least a 3 TD overdog. Was Ian Book really all that great? I thought he was a good QB but I am thoroughly confused by what’s driving the odds on this one.

Monday, September 6

Louisville vs. Mississippi (in Atlanta, GA)   8:00pm   ESPN

Yehaw. What a weird way to close things out. Why aren’t the UGas and the Cocaine Tigers playing in this slot? The racist south is favored by 10 but, off the top of my head, I don’t think they’re actually any better than Louisville. Whatever, there’s close to a zero percent chance I even remember this game is happening.

[i-may-have-a-point]

Review of 14x09 “1-800-799-7233”

My thoughts on the latest episode of Grey’s.  Let me know what you think!

We have been waiting a year and a half to see Jo and Paul come face to face.  This story is why fans showed up to watch the mid-season premiere.  Stories of domestic violence often go unheard.  The victim’s integrity is questioned, the perpetrator’s actions are excused, and the stories are swept under rugs, pushed behind doors, and hushed until anyone who dares speak of them is silenced.  

Because of this, telling the story of a domestic violence victim on one of the most watched primetime dramas in history is a milestone.  This story really began in 12x24 when Jo told Deluca about Paul and the writers chose to say, “Domestic violence is happening.  It’s not okay, and we aren’t going to ignore it.”  Unfortunately, they did somewhat ignore it as this story should have happened in season 13 instead of the Alex/Deluca beating that will never be spoke of again, but I digress.  Regardless of the timeline, they are telling the story, so I will focus on that.  

Because the build up to Jo and Paul seeing each other again has taken thirty-four episodes, this story deserved to be a centric.  The focus should have been solely on Jo, Alex, and Paul.  The acting of Camilla Luddington and Matthew Morrison in this episode was up there with some of the best of Grey’s Anatomy, however, the strange juxtaposition of stories, and even acting, in this episode took away from what should have been their moment to shine.  

The episode starts with Jo, and the audience, trapped in her head.  We’re all picking up pieces of what Paul is saying, but not everything is processing. “Paul…fiancé...help you needed…” This scene reminded me of how they presented Owen’s PTSD when he found out Megan was alive.  He was going through the motions, but inside, he was frozen in trauma.  And PTSD may be what Jo is experiencing as well.  Many domestic violence victims do.

The decision to place the audience in Jo’s muffled thoughts and then transition into Arizona’s bubbly admiration of Paul was a nice choice.  It was just what Jo needed to pull her back to reality and give her time to think.  She knows this man.  She knows he is a monster, but very few other people do.  It also shows the viewers why this situation was/is so difficult for Jo to escape from. In the medical world, he seems to be a hero, and heroes don’t fall easily.

Just from the opening scene, I knew that Camilla and Matthew were going to nail this story and they did. The fear in Jo’s eyes contrasted with Paul’s charm and dominance was chilling.

Meredith and Glasses are slowly melting in the OR as the air conditioner is not working and Bailey finds out the hacker now controls the temperature.  So, she calls Jackson for the 97th time, and we cut to Jackson and Maggie, who have apparently landed at their destination.  Cue eye-rolling turned cringe at seeing them on screen and then Jackson clearly forgetting all bloodborne pathogen training and slapping his slippery glove on that woman’s shoulder.  This is the second time this season they have had a scene with obvious blood contamination.  Did the person in charge of checking for that quit?

Frankie is rushed to the OR because he should not have been given heparin.  Jo begins to explain that she sent a text, and then got held up by her abusive husband, but before she can get the words out, Alex channels season 12’s Angry Alex and snaps at her.  What was up with that?  He has been nothing but in love with her all season, so why the moment of annoyance? Why not give her the chance to tell him Paul is there and let him comfort her?  Amelia can take care of Frankie.  She has no other storyline right now so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Deluca is placed in charge of keeping Sam from telling the patients they are all going to die, and Webber gives Paul operating privileges because we just hand out scalpels here at Grey-Sloan Memorial.

Owen and April are running the ER with paper charts and post-it notes.  I appreciate that they are shown as competent, capable surgeons in a crisis.  Because they’ve done this before.  “Takes you back to Jordan, right?” “Yeah, only hotter.”  In an earlier review this season, I said that April’s journey is about finally dealing with all the decisions she has made in the past and figuring out what makes her happy.  This is another example of that happening.  Nicole Herman has been brought up, Matthew’s flash-mob proposal has been brought up, Jordan is brought up this week, and we all suspect to hear Samuel’s name next week. I like this as a journey for April, but I wish we were seeing more of it on our screen. Either way, I think the end of her journey will always lead to Jackson.

Speaking of Jackson, how did April know he was on the Medavac chopper?  We certainly didn’t see him tell her in 14x08, so are we supposed to believe he texted her from the chopper?  Things like this are incredibly frustrating.  We have this supposed love triangle happening, yet Jackson and April are purposefully kept out of scenes together.  Then, we get these little moments dangled in front of us just to keep us wondering.  One side of this triangle, Jackson and Maggie, is shoved down our throats in every episode, yet they cannot manage to gather a fan following.  Their ship name was quickly turned into a joke, and every comment section on every form of social media is full of comments praying for their scenes to end.  Jackson and April have little to no screen time.  We see them share looks across rooms, we get told that April knows where Jackson is when even the Chief has no idea, but they have not had a significant scene in seven episodes.  And yet, every poll, every comment section, and every review reflects that this side of the triangle, Jackson and April, is the only side the fans want to see together in the end.  

Jackson and Maggie operating on their patient is unrealistic.  They would have signed him over to doctors at the new hospital and showered immediately.  Any hospital that would have allowed them to scrub in (assuming they did?) and operate covered in blood, when they had other options, is one that should be shut down. I get that the show tried to use this scene to have them banter about being covered in blood, but bantering requires chemistry and the ability to play off of the other actor, neither of which they have, so the scene just came across as unsanitary and gross – in more ways than one.  

Speaking of banter, I like Sam and Deluca, but where are they going with them?  I wish they had started as colleagues who didn’t know each other and built to a relationship.  There is no build up here because as Sam says, Deluca penetrates her every five minutes.  And I have lost interest in their backstory because of it.  

Alex finally finds out that Paul’s in the hospital and starts an intern treasure hunt to make sure Jo is okay.  I love that line.  

Paul steps in for Glasses to create a classic awkward O.R. moment which brings Meredith into the story. I appreciate that the show tried to show women sticking up for each other and being strong, but I can’t help but sigh at Meredith saving the day Every. Single. Time.  Can you imagine if Edwards were still here?  She would have stepped right up to Paul’s smirking face and told him to burn in hell.  She set a rapist on fire.  That girl was fierce.

Jo’s reaction to finding out Alex sent the intern to find her was perfect.  She needed that reminder that someone loves her and cares about her. Sweet scene.

The show has to be getting paid for promoting Tinder so much at this point, right?  Carina catches Arizona swiping away, and I realize I forgot about both of them.  It seems like they are flirting, but I don’t care enough to really pay attention. Arizona is capable of more than flirting, and it’s been too long since we’ve seen it.  

Meanwhile, intern Parker electrocutes the blood bank door, and as someone on Reddit said, I see more sparks in that scene than I ever have in a Gaggie scene.  

One of my favorite scenes of the episode is when Jo runs to Meredith and Alex insisting that what Paul said about her isn’t true.  She is so desperate for them to believe her.  The only thing that could have made it better is if she would have fallen into Alex’s arms and not Meredith’s.  

April realizes their system is not failproof.  They lost a post-it and forgot a patient which leads to them opening the man’s chest in the hallway.  I have always liked Team Trauma.  Owen is a kind, older brother figure to April, and this moment was no different. We also got to see April show how talented she is under pressure.  I saw a couple people wondering if this was a chemistry test, but I hope with everything I have that it wasn’t.  It is possible for a man and woman to have a platonic relationship, although this show has a hard time showing that, and the LAST thing I want to see is Owen eating April’s face when he kisses her.  He has been divorced three times (Beth, Cristina, and Amelia assuming they actually signed papers off screen), and he needs to be single for a while.  

Jo telling Alex and Mer that the intern followed her into the stall was a great line, but again, I thought that the scene should have just been Jo and Alex discussing what to do next.  Instead, it felt like Mer took over the situation and made the decisions.  You can argue that Mer thought Alex would get violent, and she was trying to avoid that, but I think it that were going to happen it would have when Alex first saw him.  There was no one around to stop him, and he controlled himself.  Let him be Jo’s rock.

Then we get the low-budget porn locker room scene.  Scenes like this greatly take away from the seriousness of domestic violence and the powerful work that Camilla did.  The transition from feeling heartbroken for Jo to secondhand embarrassment for Jackson and Maggie threw the whole episode off.  If it weren’t for these awkward scenes, the episode could have been one of Grey’s best.  

I’m not one who has to wipe the drool from my chin when Jesse Williams takes his shirt off, so seeing him standing in a towel definitely didn’t save this scene for me. I would much rather see him share scenes with someone he has chemistry with and where he can show a range of emotions. I think this scene was supposed to show sexual tension, but it could not have been farther from that.  Whose idea was it to start the scene with Maggie saying, “Did you know that cell phones have ten times more bacteria than a public toilet seat?”  Why would she be thinking of that random bit of trivia while sitting in a towel in an unfamiliar locker room?  This is not cute or endearing.  Jackson replies, “Cool story,” and I completely understand why.  That’s what I say when I want people to stop telling me information I care nothing about.  And what hospital locks up their scrubs?  I guess the same one who lets doctors operate while covered in blood.  In their second scene, I have no idea what they said because I was trying to decide if they looked so uncomfortable because they have no chemistry or if they were trying to lean far enough back so they didn’t have that stomach roll that we all have when we slouch. Probably both.  Side note:  Scrub delivery guy is a hero.

Jo and Paul sign the divorce papers.  I love that Mer swiped the divorce papers away before Paul could take them, and that Jo got the chance to tell him what a monster he is.  It could have been over at this point, but Jo is too good of a person. She wants to help Jenny because no one helped her.  Her plan was smart.  Arizona telling Paul she needed some “man power” was just the thing someone like Paul wants to hear, and it gave Jo some time alone with Jenny.  Unfortunately, Jenny is either crazy or ignorant and not only didn’t take Jo’s advice, but she also told Paul everything Jo said and gave him her phone number. (You can change your number, Jo.)  Matthew Morrison was peak creepy in this scene, and there were moments when I thought he was going to hit both Jo and Meredith, but (predictably) Mer saved the day when she pretended to call for security.

Dr. Parker gets the hospital back online, and we, along with Bailey find out he is transgender.  Once we all googled the actor’s name, we found out he actually is transgender.  Kudos to Grey’s for casting an actual transgender actor to play a transgender character.  But, um, who was the hacker?

Amelia, Deluca, and Sam team up to enter this new surgical contest, which could be good, I hesitate to say.  

April (of course) sees Jackson and Maggie are back, and then Webber tricks her into offering to run the surgical contest instead of him.  Sigh.  I was really hoping to see April compete in the contest, but I should have known that wouldn’t happen.  My only hope is that her running what is actually Jackson’s contest and controlling his money will lead somewhere.  It’s probably better that April control his money anyway seeing as he’s obviously not thinking clearly.  No one in their right mind would ask their step-sister out.  Yet he did.  Maggie may have said no and left with another guy, but this story is far from over.  Hopefully, 14x10 should give us some of the answers we are waiting for since Jackson and April finally have scenes together again. If this is truly a triangle, like they keep insisting it is, it should be presented that way next week.  It won’t be hard.  Japril’s chemistry is undeniable.  One look at each other and social media will be on fire with renewed hope for their endgame. And I do still think they are endgame.  We just have a long road before we get there.

[junker-town]

Loyola-Chicago’s Cameron Krutwig on Final Four run, Sister Jean, and return to NCAA tournament

A Q&A with the Loyola-Chicago star as the program tries to get back to the Final Four.

Loyola-Chicago’s stunning run to the Final Four in 2018 charmed the country with everything a great Cinderella should have in the NCAA tournament. The Ramblers brought a 98-year-old nun named Sister Jean into our lives, won multiple games on buzzer-beaters, and tied the record for the lowest-seeded team to ever reach the national semifinals with a No. 11 next to their name.

The starting center on that team was hefty freshman big man Cameron Krutwig. Three years later, Krutwig has emerged as perhaps the country’s biggest mid-major star as Loyola-Chicago has again steamrolled its way into the NCAA tournament.

There’s an argument that this year’s team could be even better than the fabled 2018 squad.

The Ramblers will enter the tournament at 24-4 overall and as the No. 9 team in the entire country according to KenPom’s efficiency rankings. Their offense is better than it was in 2018 — jumping from No. 63 to No. 52 in America. The defense? Right now, the Ramblers have the most efficient defense in college basketball, allowing only 86.2 points per 100 possessions.

Krutwig has been in the middle of it all season on his way to being named Missouri Valley Player of the Year. The 6’9 big man is averaging 15 points, 6.7 rebounds, and three assists per game on 60 percent true shooting, but his impact goes far beyond those basic numbers.

Krutwig is the third most valuable player in college basketball this year according to KenPom, only behind presumptive Naismith winner Luka Garza and Gonzaga’s Drew Timme while ahead of Jared Butler, Ayo Dosunmu, and future NBA stars like Cade Cunningham and Evan Mobley. Krutwig is No. 8 in the country in all-in-one stats BPM and PER (30.8) and No. 7 in win shares, per Basketball Reference. It’s shocking to see Krutwig grade out so well defensively as a top-10 player in both defensive rating and defensive win shares.

Krutwig has a decidedly old school game. He hasn’t attempted a three-point all year, and gets 43 percent of his possessions on post-ups, per Synergy Sports. He ranks in the 86th percent of spot-up scoring efficiency, and also grades out as excellent in roll man opportunities (94th percentile) and on offensive putbucks (84th percentile). His passing ability has led some to joke that he’s the Nikola Jokic of the Missouri Valley.

We talked to Krutwig about his experience playing in the Final Four as a freshman, how this team stacks up to the 2018 squad, his love of the Chicago Bears, and the latest with Sister Jean.

You committed to Loyola-Chicago going into your senior year at suburban Jacobs High School. At the time, the program hadn’t had made the NCAA tournament since 1985. You probably could have gotten offers from bigger schools if you dragged out your recruitment. What attracted you to Loyola and why did you pick them?

I don’t know if I was really looking at it like the program hadn’t made the tournament since ‘85. I honestly wasn’t basing it off that. I really didn’t know much about Loyola until I took some visits there my sophomore and junior year. I really fell in love with the coaches, fell in love with the campus. I wanted to be close to home so that was definitely a factor. I wanted my family to be able to come to games.

Like you said, so many kids, by no fault of their own, they don’t commit for a while and during their senior year they start to play well and the big schools come calling. Because the big schools couldn’t get their first, second, third, and fourth guys, so they’re on to their fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth guys. They’re still good players, but they aren’t the school’s first options. I had a pretty good feel of where my level was. If I would have waited — I had a really good senior year — I could have played somewhere a little more high-major. But I wanted to go somewhere where I’d be the priority, where I can come in right away and play. I thought I made a pretty good choice.

What was the experience like playing in the Final Four as a freshman? You guys had a lot of great seniors on that team, but it must have been a whirlwind experience.

You don’t really go into the year saying we’re going to do that. Throughout the whole year, summer into fall, as we got into that process we knew we were going to have a good team. I don’t know what we were picked in the league that year preseason, it might have been third or fourth, but we came out and played really well together. As the season went on, we started to build really good chemistry and a great feel for playing with each other. We went into Florida, they were ranked No. 5 in the polls at the time, and we beat them. That was kind of the first time we felt real success. Every win prior to that we beat who we should have beat.

What people don’t realize about that team, after that Florida game we went to Boise State and got throttled by 30 points. We lost to UW-Milwaukee that year. We lost to Indiana State at home. We had some lackluster losses for sure, it wasn’t all pretty all year. If we don’t win the MVC tournament that year we wouldn’t have made the NCAA tournament. A lot of things need to go right. You definitely need some luck. Everyone needs luck in March.

I think we did a really good job of focusing in on what we needed to focus on. We enjoyed the crap out of the experience. I certainly enjoyed it. There are times when you can be goofy and funny and times when you really have to lock in during walkthroughs and film sessions. That team had a really good balance of when to have fun and when to be serious.

I think that’s something this year’s team has as well. Everyone loves each other, everyone is pulling for each other, but we know when to lock in and when to have fun. It makes it an enjoyable experience because you don’t want to keep it too loose all the time because then you can’t get what you want to get done. You also don’t want to be stone-face serious the whole time because you only get four years of college basketball and some people play all four years and don’t even make the tournament once. You definitely have to enjoy it.

Did you feel pressure to get back to the next two years? You hit the pinnacle as a freshman. After accomplishing something so great as a freshman, it must have been wild to return to normal Missouri Valley play.

The next year Clay (Custer) and Marques (Townes) were redshirt seniors so they got to come back for my sophomore year. But there was a lot of pressure on us that season. Everyone was saying you guys got to go back, got to go back. Obviously you can’t make the Final Four every year. As a mid-major, you can’t even make the tournament every year. There was just a lot of pressure on us, and we tried to handle it as best as we could.

Guys were tense. We really didn’t want to let anyone down. We had such good guys, such strong character. People were coming up to us after our Final Four run my freshman year saying ‘this is the best month of my life. I’ve re-connected with so many old friends.’ People bringing a tear to your eye with that stuff. You never want to let anyone down. Not to say we were really thinking about it that much, but it’s always in the back of your mind. People want to see us get back and re-live a run like that again. It was just a lot of pressure.

My junior year, Clay and Marcus graduated and started playing overseas. Then it was really my team and (fellow senior and MVC Defensive Player of the Year) Lucas’ (Williamson) team. My junior year we finished second in the league. We were really just trying to build a successful, sustainable program here. A lot of rough patches, some bad losses, and good wins. The whole thing that sparked us into this year was we got bounced in the first round of the MVC tournament. It was not the way we wanted to go out. We were the No. 2 seed, we were playing pretty well, and then we lost in overtime. A week or so later, the whole country shut down with Covid. It was a tough one to go out on there going into quarantine with that feeling in your stomach.

We had a lot of Zoom meetings, all we were talking about was that game, how we need to come with reinvigorated focus next year, and that’s really pushed us to the success we’re having this year. It’s really all the same guys, we lost one senior and gained two freshmen. It’s been propelling us to the success we’re having this year. We’re never going to forget what happened last season. We took a lot from Virginia. When we had that Final Four run in 2018, they were the No. 1 seed in the South where we were, and they got bounced in the first round to UMBC. They told their story a bunch of times, and then came back the next year and won the national championship. We took a lot from them just to always stay with it.

Everyone is asking it, so let’s get it from you. How does your current team stack up to the Final Four team if they played against each other? What happens at the center matchup?

I think I’m a way better player than I was back then. I’ve gotten more athletic even if it’s only a little bit (laughs). I think I’m a much better player. I was always a vocal guy, even as a freshman people will say I was one of if not the loudest guy on the floor at all times. I really prided myself on that. I’m just a better player this year.

There’s a lot of similarities with the teams. Senior leaders, for one. This year we have seven seniors. Guys who have played in big-time Valley games. Lucas and I have played in any game imaginable. Just having that confidence and leadership is so big. One strength in this year’s team is our dept. We have a lot of guys who are able to come in and contribute off the bench on any given night, and I think that’s helped us in these back-to-backs and in the Valley tournament. We were able to play eight or nine guys deep and trust everyone coming in to make the right decisions.

If both teams played each other ... I don’t know if you can say a winner one way or another. I think there’s some similarities on defense as well. This team is better at defense than that team. Jus the numbers and the efficiency numbers on offense. There’s a lot of similarities for sure.

I have heard you play the harmonica. How did you pick it up? Have you played for Sister Jean?

I just picked it up in high school as a joke at the start. I don’t know if I’m getting serious about it now, but I’m practicing a little more now. In quarantine you have to pick up new habits and stuff just to stay busy.

Sister Jean has not been around in the flesh for this whole pandemic. I think she’s staying somewhere downtown. She’ll call us instead, sends us emails after every game and before practices sometimes. I actually haven’t seen Sister Jean in quite some time, but she’s always with us virtually. She still does the pre-game prayer just over the phone. It’s cool that we’ve been able to keep that tradition alive even though she can’t come to the games.

I know you’re a big Chicago Bears fan. I also need to know what you want to happen at QB this offseason. Please don’t tell me you’re a Mitch Trubisky guy.

I’m a big Jameis Winston guy honestly. I’m going to stay on that train. I think we can get him for cheap. I don’t know what the Saints plan to do with him, but I know he’s a free agent this year. I think he’s a pretty good thrower. He can throw the ball deep. That’s the one thing the Bears are missing right now is the deep ball. We didn’t throw the ball deep this year, teams aren’t respecting us ever trying to stretch the field. I think if Jameis comes in and throws a couple deep balls that could be good. If he throws a couple picks, that’s alright because the defense is used to turnovers (ed. note: LOL).

Obviously Russell Wilson is a good option too. I just don’t want to give the kitchen sink for the guy. Same with Deshaun Watson. Is it worth giving up all those picks and giving up some pretty good players on our defense to be good at quarterback? Yeah ... probably. But I’d rather see some of those guys stay and pick up a Jameis type, or even keep Nick Foles as crazy as that sounds. We need offense line, too.