#oscar is in his annoying little brother era

[eightyonefour]

*crowd starts singing it's friday then*

lando: nonono don’t.. 🤚 thank you!

oscar: yeah keep going, he loves it! 😈

lando: i hate this song now 🙃

[theteasetwrites]

The Other Brother

❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader ❧ Era: Season 3 (The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning series) ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: mild swearing, Merle being slightly annoying/sexist (are we surprised really) ❧ Word Count: 5.1k

❧ Summary: Merle has just made a home for himself in the prison, and though you aren't happy about it, you're trying to keep cool. When a conversation breaks out between you and Merle, you realize the one thing you have in common—you both love Daryl.

❧ A/N: This is another oneshot from my series, The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning (and yes I do regret naming it that because the title is so long lol). I wanted to capture a scene we didn't see in the series, which is another conversation between the reader and Merle (see Chapter 20 for a refresher on the last conversation they had... it didn't go well). I didn't want to make Merle redeemable in this scene, but I did want to have him have another talk with reader because their dynamic is interesting to me. I also wanted to get some more Daryl backstory (that's always fun) and to see that from Merle's perspective. I do think Merle cares about Daryl deep down, he's just a shitty brother (and person). Also cute Daryl and reader moments, of course.

Morning light poured through the tall, paned windows of the cafeteria. It was still early, but you were up, about to start your watch in the guard tower. With tensions rising between your people and the Governor, it was becoming all the more necessary to keep alert. Even Rick, Michonne, and Carl had embarked on a mission just a few hours ago, in the hopes of bringing back a cache of weapons.

You’d hoped that Andrea’s efforts to make peace last night weren’t in vain. For your part, you would try to help any way you could, but there was no way of reconciling the truth—Merle had captured Glenn and Maggie, and Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and Oscar had killed several of the Governor’s people in order to get them back. There wasn’t going to be any peace made from that. 

But that wasn’t of any consequence for the moment. There were other things to worry about, too.

First there was the matter of checking on little Judith, who had just begun to stir awake in her makeshift crib (just a box with blankets and towels for cushioning, and Beth’s handwriting scrawled “Lil’ Asskicker” on the side). 

You couldn’t help but peer into the box to look at her, and, thinking you were completely alone, you set down your axe and your pack to transition into your baby voice. 

“Well, hello there,” you cooed to the newborn. She was only about a week or so old now, but she’d already been through so much. The baby’s hazel colored eyes opened sleepily, her pink lips opening in curiosity as she studied your face, albeit with not much going on inside that little head. 

You curled your fingers gently but firmly around her sides to lift her into your arms. Her legs wrapped around your side as you bounced her softly. “You’re just a little angel, aren’t you? Yes, you are. Judith. J-U-D-I-T-H. That’s your name. My name is (Y/N).”

You continued to spell out your name, laughing at the final letter when Judith drooled a little, with spit dripping down her chin as she, too, laughed. 

“Oh, great,” you said. “Silly goose. Here, let me wipe your chin.”

You turned to the kitchen sink where a roll of paper towels was propped on the side. After sitting yourself down at the table, holding Judith as you wiped her chin, you felt a pair of cold, beady blue eyes boring into your back. 

Merle was standing in the middle of the stairs leading up the window perch, one leg obnoxiously propped on the railing, and his amputated arm sporting the homemade blade attachment that you found quite unsettling. 

He stepped down slower now, mustering a small smile. As best as you could, you ignored him, not bothering to look his way, though you recognized the feeling of that stare anywhere—it wasn’t unlike Daryl’s in its intensity, though his always felt much more affectionate.

You hadn’t said a word to him since yesterday afternoon, when he’d made a point to say that his brother could never love you. As much as you tried not to let it get to you, you couldn’t forget those words. They seared and stung and oozed. 

Merle had touched on an insecurity deep within you, one that had never truly gone away. You feared he was right—Daryl couldn’t love you. 

There was no rationalization to it, but rational thought didn’t exist in that part of your mind. Daryl loved you. He wouldn’t have come back to the prison the other day if he didn’t. But if he did, maybe he wouldn’t have left in the first place.

You just couldn’t grapple with Merle. He frightened you, even disturbed you. He represented everything that Daryl had left behind, every bad thing he’d experienced in his life before you. If you could put all of Daryl’s trauma and anger and sadness into one person, that person would be Merle.

You only hoped he’d leave you alone, since the last time you talked to him in this room, you nearly splashed boiling water at his face.

“Early bird gets the worm,” he said. How could Daryl’s brother have such a grating, annoying voice, while Daryl had the softest, sweetest, albeit a little gravelly, voice you could imagine? “You tryin’ to catch any worms today, sweetheart?”

Give me strength. 

You shook your head, still looking down at baby Judith as you cleaned her. 

You heard Merle’s steps come closer as he trudged down the stairs, until finally setting himself down at the same table. His face was directly across from you now, so you had no choice but to see him.

You held Judith closer to your chest, as if instinctively keeping her as far away from Merle as possible. After all, he did have a very sharp, long blade jutting out of his arm. 

“Do you need something?” you asked curtly. 

He raised an eyebrow, and perhaps you should’ve known better than to say that, since he looked like he was about to reply with something rather crass.

“You could tell me where my baby brother is,” he said. 

That was a bit of a relief. “He’s in bed,” you said. “Sleeping in.”

Merle knew his brother, and that wasn’t something Daryl had ever cared to do before. Well, maybe he didn’t know his brother as well as he thought.

“Sleeping in?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow as a wry smirk curled onto his face. “You wear him out, girl?” There it is. “Too much hanky panky? Ya know, my brother ain’t no spring chicken. How old are you, anyway?”

He looked you up and down, as if trying to figure it out on his own.

“Twenty-six,” you replied, trying to avoid eye contact as you prepared Judith’s baby formula on the table. 

He let out a whistle, much to your annoyance. “Well, shit.”

You rolled your eyes as you replaced the lid of Judith’s bottle, now filled with liquid formula. “I’m a grown woman,” you assured him. 

“Ain’t no disputin’ that,” he agreed. “Just still a little… shocked, s’all.”

It took every fiber of your being not to engage, but there was always that part of you that just couldn’t let people like Merle walk all over you. It took you a long time to figure out how to stand up for yourself, and though sometimes it was still a struggle, people like Merle reminded you of why you couldn’t be quiet anymore. 

So to change the subject, at the very least, you asked him a question, one that had been on your mind since you learned that Merle was alive. 

“What do you want?” you asked. 

“What d’ya mean, Bambi?”

“I mean… why are you here? Just to mess with Daryl’s head?”

Perhaps you were going too far again. You had already developed mild regrets about telling Merle off yesterday, though it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. After all, he offended you, and you’d held your tongue for long enough. Still, a part of you wanted to get along with Merle as much as you could, though you knew there would never be anything better than vague ambivalence towards each other. 

“Funny,” he scoffed. “I was gonna ask you the same question.”

Asshole. 

“You think I’m messing with Daryl’s head?” 

“That’s what women do,” Merle replied simply. “Complicate things. A real sweet, pretty one like you can make a man weak, turn him into jelly. Evil. No wonder the Garden of Eden fell. That damn woman.” His voice turned into a sharp hiss as he spoke, his facial features tightening as he continued. There was vitriol there, like he was spitting acid at you. “Daryl’s always been… sensitive.” He spoke the word like it burned his tongue as it slipped out. “Shoulda known a woman like you would come along and sweet talk your way into his heart. Ya know, since I got here, I wonder if my brother is even the same guy from last time I saw him.”

You couldn’t count how many times you rolled your eyes during his little rant about women. You’d heard it all before in one way or another, how women are so “complex” and have some kind of nefarious plan to get men to do their bidding. All rooted in misogyny, of course. You always found it rather funny how men could say such things about the wickedness of women, and yet sexualize them in the same breath. 

“He’s the same man,” you said. “He just changed. This world changes people, some for the better.” You propped the baby’s head up a little higher in the crook of your arm to begin feeding her from the bottle. “Daryl stepped up. Sophia, Carol’s little girl, she got lost in the woods, and Daryl led the search. He almost got himself killed trying to find her. And on the road, he hunted for everyone, protected everyone.” Judith caught your attention when she coughed a little, having drunk her formula too fast. You patted her back softly until she stopped. “Daryl loves this baby, too. He calls her Little Ass-Kicker. He’s so good with her.”

Merle’s eyes narrowed at you, investigating you. Some woman he’d once thought to be insignificant and not long for this world was suddenly more knowledgeable of his brother than he was. In fact, he was starting to wonder if you knew more about him than he ever did. 

“Well, shit,” he said. “Looks like little Daryl’s made himself into a regular Prince Charming. Seems like just yesterday he was gettin’ wasted off moonshine and pissin’ himself in the drunk tank. Had to bail his drunk ass out with my drug money. Little shit.”

You blinked in confusion. That didn’t sound like your Daryl, but he always said he got into trouble when he was younger. “When was that?” you asked, curious to hear any stories Daryl hadn’t told you.

Merle smiled at your intrigue. “Kid was about… seventeen.”

You shifted your shoulders as you adjusted Judith in your arms, then stood again to gently put her back in her crib. “If I engage in conversation with you,” you started to say, “do you promise not to be an asshole?”

“Depends what ya mean by ‘asshole.’”

“I mean… don’t say offensive things.”

“Depends what you mean by ‘offensive.’”

You sighed and shook your head as you sat back down. Ignoring his last comment, you asked, “What was Daryl like growing up?”

Merle’s eyes widened at that, and he broke out into a boisterous chuckle. “What was Daryl like?” You nodded. “Oh, man… Well, sweetheart, Daryl was somethin’ else.”

“What does that mean?”

Merle’s laugh subsided, and he could tell by the curiosity on your face that you were serious. You wanted to know about Daryl’s life from Merle’s perspective. After all, he was the only family from the world before Daryl had left, and as much as you hated to admit it, you still occasionally clung to that world. You found yourself wishing you’d met Daryl before all this, though ultimately, you were happy to have met him at all. In any case, the past fascinated you, and your curiosity was always a force to be reckoned with.

In a matter of moments, Merle began to straighten as he cleared his throat, preparing himself to dust off the old memories that had lain dormant in the derelict attic of his mind. 

“See, Daryl’s ten years younger than me. Hell, I remember the day he was born… He was a mistake. My mom, she wanted to, ya know, get rid of him ‘fore he was born, but that kinda thing wasn’t looked upon kindly. Matter of fact, she was hopin’ for a girl. She was so sure it was gonna be a girl. Then Daryl popped out. Imagine how surprised she was. ‘That ain’t no damn girl,’ she said.”

You smiled at the way Merle told the story. Imagining baby Daryl was quite amusing, too. You were sure he was adorable.

“When I held him for the first time, he squirmed and cried… He was so little.” Merle’s eyes trailed to baby Judith in her crib, who was nodding off to the sound of Merle’s voice, much softer than usual. In a way, it reminded you of Daryl’s, and once again you were reminded that they were brothers. “I think it was that same year, this Hall & Oates song came out. I dunno, but Mom named him Daryl, ‘cause she liked it so much.”

Your eyes widened, as did your smile. “Daryl Hall? He’s named after Daryl Hall?”

“Mhm… And my dad liked Merle Haggard.”

You laughed as you stored that information, fully intending to tease Daryl later on. 

“First thing I knew about Daryl was that he was a baby. Mom babied him, made him all soft. Daryl could do no wrong… She loved him. Dad didn’t love no one. Cold son of a bitch. Barely looked ya in the eye ‘less it was to smack ya. Started drinkin’ a lot more when Mom died. Daryl was about… five, I was fifteen, off stealin’ whiskey and cigarettes.”

He paused for a moment, shifting in his seat uncomfortably as his face muscles began to tighten. A palpable shift in his demeanor began to manifest itself, and he averted his eyes from you.

“Daryl was a good kid,” he said. “He got into trouble, but he didn’t know nothin’ else. He was a lot younger when Dad started hurtin’ him. I mean, I was gone. I was always gone. Barely knew. It was easier for me to leave, to avoid it. He hurt me, but I was older. I could jus’ leave… Daryl jus’ dealt with it for a while. A long time…”

You knew what Daryl’s father had done to him, how he slashed the skin on his back with a switch from a birch tree. It was hard not to know about it. Daryl’s back was evidence, etched with thick, raised scar tissue. On the rare occasions Daryl talked about it, he would pass it off as if it were nothing, despite your attempts to comfort him in the wake of these traumatic memories. Sometimes you felt that he was too reluctant to let himself feel the weight of his emotions, but you couldn’t say that to him. He needed to come to terms with his past in his own time, his own way. 

“He beat me too,” he continued, “but Daryl got it worse. I know that now. Kinda funny, I left ‘fore things got real bad, and yet Daryl turned out better than me. How the hell does that happen?”

You shrugged. “Well, Daryl has a good head on his shoulders.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Knows a good thing when he sees it.”

You looked at him curiously, innocently. “Hm?”

“Talkin’ ‘bout you, Bambi.”

“Oh.”

Me? If you didn’t know any better, it seemed as though Merle was… complimenting you. Not in a crass sexual way, or with a sarcastic remark—it was genuine. You could tell. 

“Mhm… You’re good for him.”

You were taken aback, bewildered. Wasn’t this the very same man who accused you of being nothing but a “passing fancy” and “a hole for Daryl to put his dick in” not twenty-four hours ago? Surely you were speaking to a different man. 

“Where is that coming from?” you asked, genuinely confused. “I thought you hated me.”

Merle chewed his bottom lip in thought. Another little habit similar to Daryl’s. It was quite surreal. “I don’t know my brother half as well as you do,” he began, “but I knew him ‘fore all this… ‘Fore the world went to shit. He was lost for a real long time, followed me around not knowin’ what else to do. Yesterday, you said he didn’t think for himself, that he was like a puppet. Maybe you’re right. Maybe… maybe that’s what I did to him.”

You lowered your head, slightly ashamed of your words, though you meant every bit of them. From what Daryl had told you, you had always gleaned that Merle manipulated him, taking advantage of Daryl’s sensitivity and leading him down paths that weren’t good for him. You might not have known Daryl for as long as Merle, but you knew that Daryl was much more emotionally fragile than he seemed at the outset, and that people like Merle could easily take advantage of him. Of course, Daryl wasn’t completely innocent in his actions, but you always felt that he was much more himself these days, without the influence of his brother. You only hoped that Merle being here wouldn’t deter his progress.

“But you,” he continued, “you brought somethin’ outta him.”

You shook your head in denial. “No, it was all of us. This group, we’re family. We all changed each other. But Daryl… he’s always been good. I believe that. When he saved me from that walker in the woods, that day I took you both to our camp, I knew he was good. It wasn’t me, he just needed the opportunity to be good.” He needed to get away from you, was what you really wanted to say, but perhaps that would be a little too harsh for the moment. 

He chuckled under his breath, amused by the thought of his kid brother being so good. “You really love my brother, don’t you, girl?”

Your cheeks became flushed with red, despite your confidence in that answer. You loved him so much it scared you. You loved his heart, his mind, his body, his soul… Beautiful didn’t even begin to describe him. The short time you’d been together in this world felt like centuries, though time moved faster these days—a year was like a decade. That year you spent with him was fraught with fear and blood and death and every other unholy thing you could think of, but all that paled in comparison to the deep, profound love you had for him. It kept you going on particularly dark days, and held your hand when the light seemed so far away that you couldn’t see in front of you. 

His love was the last beautiful relic of a time when love was all too often taken for granted. His love was unending and unwavering, even when death loomed at every corner and threatened to rid the world of every last ounce of happiness. His love was sweet, pure, sincere, almost unfathomable in its depth. 

When your love met with his, it was the closest thing you could get to a dream in this terrible nightmare of a world. So yes, you did love him. Very, very much.

“Yes,” you said clearly, not wanting to be mistaken. “I love Daryl very much.”

He was silent for a while, as if processing the information. He knew you loved him, though, just as much as he knew Daryl loved you. What disturbed him was a newfound kind of protectiveness for his little brother, which he hadn’t felt so much since the little boy was born. 

“Would ya hurt him?” he finally asked, eyes boring deep into yours. “Would ya break his heart?”

The man continued to bewilder you, and for a few moments, you had no idea what to say, though you knew exactly what the answer was.

“No,” you said. “No, never. I’d never hurt him.”

Merle nodded solemnly, though with a vague sense of trust. “He’s been hurt a lot. By my dad, by me… See the way he looks at ya, Bambi. Nothin’s ever made him this happy. Tell ya the truth, I don’t think he’s ever been happy. Not till you. Saw it at the quarry, too. You had him in the palm of your little hand since the moment he saw ya, I knew it. Jus’ didn’t think you’d last long enough for him to realize it.”

You thought for a moment, still trying to fully process Merle’s words. “Well,” you finally said, “Daryl means everything to me. Breaking his heart would break mine.”

“So we got ourselves an understanding then?”

“Understanding?”

“Yeah. You hurt my little brother, you answer to me.” 

Your slight fear of Merle kicked in, sending a brief shiver up your spine. Though you wondered if Merle really cared about Daryl, you couldn’t help but take his warning seriously. 

“I still don’t like you, Merle,” you said abruptly, trying to regain your confidence. “If you’re going to live here, and hang around Daryl, I have a few ground rules, too.”

He leaned back in his chair, folding his hand and his blade hand behind his head. “Lay ‘em on me, sugar tits.”

You scoffed, glowering at him. “First of all, don’t call me that. And you need to stop sexualizing everything. It makes me and Daryl very uncomfortable.”

“Damn, you’re no fun at all.”

“Just be respectful,” you said. “Boundaries.”

Merle shook his head, and you could tell he hardly knew the meaning of that word. “You done usin’ those big college words now? Think I liked you better when you didn’t talk so much.”

Your lip tightened as you pulled a mean glare, rising from your seat to return your axe to its place on the loop of your belt. You then picked up Judith, planning on taking her to Beth before your watch shift started. “Get used to it.”

It was an uneventful shift, with no signs of the Governor or his army on the horizon, giving you time to think about the new situation. Merle wasn’t going anywhere for the time being, and you had to accept that. Everyone did. No one liked him, and you were sure even Daryl didn’t particularly like him, but that was Daryl’s brother, and the only part of his family he had left. You found it hard to understand Daryl’s devotion to him, considering Merle had abandoned him as a child, but you didn’t need to understand—the point was that Daryl wanted him here, and you loved Daryl.

Relationships sometimes require sacrifice, you knew that. Perhaps this was the first sacrifice you’d have to make for Daryl, and though it came with being irritated by Merle’s bigoted presence, you told yourself that from now on, you would pick your battles wisely, only fighting with Merle when you deemed it necessary. Perhaps Daryl himself would soon grow tired of Merle, but until that time, you’d stick it out for him. Only for him.

You hadn’t even seen Daryl yet that day, except for a few times from a distance as you stood in the guard tower. In a running joke, you raised your binoculars to spy on him, watching him help Glenn with the reinforcements to ensure the prison was strong against any threat, namely the Governor. 

When he felt your eyes on him, he raised his hand to his forehead, blocking the sunlight from his sensitive blue eyes. “Get back to work, woman!” he yelled up at you from the ground. 

“You first!” you called back, still watching him through your binoculars. “That barricade isn’t going to make itself, Dixon!”

He scoffed and shook his head, though his slight smirk betrayed his amusement at your teasing. Fully intending on getting you back in some way, he paused to remove his jacket and vest, revealing his bare arms. With narrowed eyes, you adjusted your binoculars to more clearly display his toned muscles, gleaming with sweat in the afternoon sunlight. As he lifted the large wooden pallet, you studied the flexed tendons and bulging muscles all along his tan, impossibly large arms. 

When he finished moving it to block the entrance to D Block, he dusted off his gloved hands and shook the dark caramel bangs from his face, looking back up at you with a subtle, teasing wink, and a slight purse of his lips as he sent you a little kiss. Maybe you were still a little mad with him for going off with Merle, but how could you really be mad at him? 

“Baby,” you quietly giggled to yourself, dangling your legs playfully over the edge of the guard tower. “Mm… You’re such a tease, baby.” 

Your shift ended shortly thereafter, and when Maggie relieved you of your post, you helped Beth take care of the baby, teaching her how to properly get the little one to sleep. After helping Carol with dinner, you retreated to a small patch of wild blue violets, where you sat cross-legged against the wall of the prison, watching the begin to set.

Spring afternoons were pleasant in Georgia. The air was still cool from winter, but not unbearable, not at all. Overgrown violets and weeds surrounded you, and the dead were far off somewhere else, behind that chain-link fence upon which you relied so heavily. The Governor had torn down the furthest fence, but the one closest to the prison still remained, and though the future remained uncertain, you felt yourself let go for a moment, leaning your head back against the brick wall and letting out a deep sigh. 

The silent moment was broken by the snap of a twig, sending your eyes wide open as your gaze whipped towards the sound. Daryl stood peering around the corner, his hand curled around the edge of the brick wall. His lip quirked upwards in a slight smile, which you returned. 

“Hi,” you said quietly. 

“Hi…” He looked towards the setting sun for a moment, then slowly made his way to you, careful not to trample over the delicate purple flowers. “Ain’t ya gonna have dinner?” He slid down the wall to sit beside you, tucking his knees to his chest. 

“Later,” you replied. “You know I like watching the sunset.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And I like watchin’ you watch it.” You laughed under your breath and bumped his shoulder with yours. “S’true. Beautiful…” 

“Me?”

“Mhm. You.”

“Aren’t you a charmer?”

“I try to be.”

“Hm, well, that’s more than I can say for your brother…” You trailed off, palming your forehead when you realized what you’d said. “God, sorry. I, um… I talked to him today.”

He nodded solemnly, though with affirmative confidence. “I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Told me so, while you were in the tower. Told me a lot of things.”

“Great,” you sighed. “What did he tell you?”

“Told me that ya love me,” he said. “But I already knew that.”

You smiled with rosy cheeks, a little embarrassed that Daryl now knew you told Merle you loved him. After all, Daryl was quite private with that kind of thing, and you knew he liked to maintain a certain image, especially with his brother, who would have no qualms with calling him “Darylina” if the occasion called for it. 

“Did he tell you anything else?”

He scoffed as he recalled Merle’s words. “Said I oughtta take real good care of you, ‘cause you’re special.”

“He did not,” you laughed. “You’re so making that up.” 

“I’m not,” he replied. “Well, he also said you got a big mouth.”

“Pfft,” you scoffed. “Asshole.”

“Yeah… but I think he’s startin’ to like you,” he said. “I know you don’t like him, and I don’t expect ya to, but what matters to me is that he likes you.”

You furrowed your brow and smiled in your amused curiosity. “Why does that matter?”

He shrugged, and of course he had a very practical reason for wanting Merle to like you. “‘Cause I need to know he’ll keep ya safe if somethin’ happens to me.”

Your face softened into a quivering pout, yet your eyes smiled at his sweet words. “Oh, baby,” you laughed, scooting closer to grab his hand and place it in your lap. “That’s sweet… But nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”

He tilted his head while reaching out to hold your cheek in the rough palm of his worn hand. You leaned into his touch almost immediately, closing your eyes as you rubbed your cheek against him. His body was always so warm, every single part of it. When he held your cheek, you always felt particularly adored, like that was the greatest kind of physical affection a human being was capable of showing. Of course, you had known much greater, more intimate pleasures with him, but that gentle caress of your cheek was something else entirely. 

“But if somethin’ does happen,” he said, “I told Merle that he better take care of you, make sure nothin’ happens to you. S’all I really need from him, just to know you’d be all right.”

“And what did he say when you told him that?”

Daryl shook his head. “You really wanna know?”

“Mhm.”

“He said he’d be sure to take real good care of you…” Daryl repeated the sentence much in the same way Merle would, so you knew exactly what he meant.

“Oh,” you frowned, shaking your head. “He’s such a pervert. How are you even related to a guy like that?”

Daryl’s other hand came around you, gripping your shoulder and pulling you closer until his lips could connect to the space where your neck and your shoulders meet. When his tongue lapped at your skin, his lips suctioning sloppily in between licks, you let out a boisterous laugh. “Daryl! Mm… You’re a pervert, too…”

Your hand came up to lace through his hair, massaging his scalp as his mouth pampered you, inching up your neck until his outstretched tongue slid along your jawline, tickling you with his stubble. 

He pulled away slowly, then nuzzled his nose against your heated cheek. You felt his breath near your lips, and all you wanted was to feel his mouth on yours, for as long as possible. Forever, ideally. 

“Also told him to cool it. He says shit like that to you, you tell me. I’ll kick his ass,” he said. “I aint tryin’ to make excuses for him, but Merle… he only really knows how to talk to prostitutes.”

“Oh, that makes me feel better,” you laughed. “Are you saying I’m a prostitute, Daryl?”

“Nah,” he replied, shaking his head, and by extension rubbing his nose side-to-side against your cheek, making you giggle. “You’re just a beautiful woman, and Merle ain’t ever seen a woman like you.”

You rolled your eyes and snorted at the assumption that you were anything special, but you knew Daryl thought you were special, and apparently Merle did, too. “Well, he better get used to me,” you said, turning to match your lips up to his. “Because I’m going to be around for a long time.”

~

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[brxkxnhxxrtsclxb]

finally picked up pasión de gavilanes 2 again and… SIGH

it reminds me why i dropped it to begin with ._.

i finished the ACTUAL novela a couple months back and it was so fun. it’s no wonder is a highly regarded classic. BUT THIS ??!!

i’m on what ?? episode 11 ?? 12 ?? around there of season 2 and it’s just eww😭😭

idk if i should give it a little more but i did check the first two episodes after finishing the OG and the vibe was VERY different and NOT IT from the get go. like how tf do we go from a romance storytelling and being character driven… to a murder mystery (which is so stupid cuz the OG had nothing like it) ?? it’s dumb and feels ugly

the new cast is so bland too. like i’m sorry but i really do not gaf about their kids😭 the worst offenders are the freaking reyes twins like goodbye. y’all annoying and ugly. at least be good to look at ?? idk😭😭 (that was mean but at least the three reyes brothers were good to look at in the original >.< they still are but that’s besides the point)

sorry. i just had to get this out my system >.< i don’t think i can continue watching this :// i went back to it cuz i recently found out they’re apparently making a season 3 but i can barely get past season 2 so i might just not even watch it T_T

the little i’ve seen of spoilers is so dumb. oscar wouldn’t have cheated on jimena. he just WOULD NOT. and have a kid without her ?? FUCK THAT. franco would’ve never left sara. why tf y’all got her thinking he left her for someone else and insecure over rosario AGAIN ?? speaking of rosario, why tf is SHE BACK ??!! she moved on from the reyes. she had her villain era when she was trying to keep franco and sara apart in the OG !!!! also the juan david and rosario plot is just so boring and stupid. again, SHE MOVED ON FROM THE REYES (not to mention juan david was literally A BABY WHEN SHE MET HIM BACK IN THE OG) !! don’t get me started on miss gaby (that’s how i call gabriella cuz she would piss me off in the OG lmaoo) NOT believing her granddaughter about her bestie demetrio. DID SHE LEARN NOTHING FROM DON FERNANDITO ??!! also, i don’t like the new don martin. no hate to the actor, it’s not his fault he did his job. he’s just not as funny and doesn’t have the charm jorge cao did T_T

sorry for the rant. this novela went from a cute, lighthearted story about family to… whatever this mess is. sure they talk about family but it doesn’t feel like they mean it. doesn’t even have the comedy bits the original had to help break the tension. of course, the original has some issues and some problematic jokes that wouldn’t have flown by today but i can forgive it as it’s in tune with the times (early 2000s)

also the THEME SONG ??!! i’m sorry but the song originally made sense . it was in tune with the story and now it’s not. this is a murder mystery. sure there’s romance but it literally took the backseat so it doesn’t even make sense anymore. and i don’t like the new version. it sounds bad T_T it just doesn’t fit

this season 2… none of the vibes fit anywhere. doesn’t even feel like the same show. they should’ve just not made season 2 but that’s just my opinion. or at the very least, they should’ve just made it a different version of the characters. kinda like the addams family or marvel / DC comics where we have the same characters, just different versions of them. that would’ve worked better to separate the two but nah. they wanted to continue it thus ruining everyone. it’s ugly ._.

[melis-writes]

In my opinion, Al's portrayal of michael corleone is good, but I can't take him seriously in some parts of the first 2 movies, because al (for me) just stares and speaks, like he's staring like this : 😐, without any emotion, idk if that's supposed to be part of Michael's character or that's al just staring, and that annoys me, I never ever liked michael in the movies and ofc I'm not gonna like him in the book, the only time i like michael is when you're writing him, I hate michael and the things he did, i only find him hot because that's al pacino, because who wouldn't like him?, I find his portrayal of michael is pt 3 is better, because he finally shows emotion (or maybe that's what I think he did), i always liked his late 80s - 90's movies more, because he (again) shows emotion, when he's sad, you see it, when he's angry you see it, when he's happy, he smiles with all his heart, the only 70's movies I liked were panic in needle park, dog day afternoon and and justice for all, didn't like the rest because he's just staring, he deserved the oscar for his acting in scent of a woman, but I'm not sure about his acting in the godfather movies.

What makes me sad, is the al pacino Fandom are stuck in his 70's movies, if you realized

I never hear anyone talk about his recent movies except the irishman, movies like Danny collins, Hangman, Marchant of Venice and two for the money deserve more attention, I do hear people talk about the 80s movies, but it's just scarface, i do hear people talk about his 90's movies but they're just heat and Tgf pt3

I do love Al's 70's movies, but they're a bit overrated now

❤️❤️❤️

The silent, emotional stares and sitting is 100% in Godfather 2 Michael Corleone's personality, sorry to say. 😂😅 The only other time I saw Michael like that in the first film was during Vito's funeral and well, you kinda have to sit there and stare during a funeral but my man was showing zero emotions despite his father having just died. 😶

It's because Michael's become such a hardened man with little to no humanity left in him. His own choices and actions have torn apart his family and essentially left him soulless in return. He took things too far, he seemed to have no intention of making the Corleone family completely legitimate after seven years (and has the audacity to say "just when I thought I was out..." uhhh, no. You liked being in!) and of course, the final nail on the coffin was finding out Fredo was the traitor. You can't really blame Michael in a way because of everything he's been through (survived an assassination and brother was the reason why he and his wife almost died, Kay got an abortion, growing more distant from Tom whom he only trusts, his mother died). 😢

If you didn't like film Michael though, trust me, you'd love book Michael! 😂❤ Book Michael laughs and smiles a lot, even cracks jokes and is a lot more emotional. He definitely doesn't sit there quietly and emotionless--he's extremely different from film Michael which baffled me when I read the book. He's actually a sweetheart if you ask me, and more family oriented. 💕

I don't think being stuck in Al's 70's filmography is a bad thing! Al made so many amazing films back to back in the 70s! It was his era! That was his decade!! ❤❤❤ He also didn't make a film for every single year in the 80s either, so we didn't have any films from him in 1984, 1986, 1987 or 1988! I think because Al is so phenomenally talented at playing action packed characters and gangster films, that a lot of us prefer and love his films in that genre. That's also why I think Heat and Carlito's Way are really loved too. That's not to say Al hasn't made other good films, he has! I for one love, love, love, The Panic in Needle Park, Scarecrow, ...And Justice for All and Bobby Deerfield too. 🥰

❤❤❤

[thenightling]

The Canterville Ghost 2021 version review

The Canterville Ghost (2021) Review:

I just got done watching The Canterville Ghost from 2021 and starring Anthony Head (Anthony Stewart Head to you Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans) as Sir Simon de Canterville.   I have seen many adaptations of Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost.  My favorite version is the 1996 version with Patrick Stewart as Sir Simon de Canterville.  My least favorite version is the the one from the 1940s.   A lot of people love that one but it was mostly war time propaganda.  The original novella was written in the 1880s and certainly had no Nazis in it.  Also the whole idea that Sir Simon de Canterville was walled up by his own father for refusing to take part in a duel that wasn’t even his own - just to beg that same father for forgiveness later.  That really did not sit right for me. 

In the original Cantervlille Ghost novella Sir SImon de Canterville had murdered his wife and was doomed to haunt his manor until a prophecy was fulfilled including a child shedding tears for him and pleading his case to The Angel of Death.  

In the novel he had pretty much resigned himself to his fate and a slightly annoying (but friendly) American family moved into the manor. The teenage daughter of the family, Virginia (known as Ginny) ended up being the child who would aid him lift the curse.  She would also end up in a romance with a neighboring duke.

In this new version with Anthony Head as the ghost, Ginny is now a twenty-two-year-old law student and there are a few nice, clever, plot twists such as the reveal that the Otis family are actually sir Simon’s direct descendants and it also turned out that this version of Sir SImon’s biggest crime was actually turning away his Roma wife, whom he had handfasted with (unofficially married) to maintain his family’s status. He had immediately regretted doing this and sought to set things right with her, with stolen family jewels, but he was caught by her brothers, who thought he had just left her to die in the cold- so they walled him up to starve in his family home. 

This version of The Canterville Ghost borrows a lot of elements that were created for the 1996 version with Patrick Stewart such as giving Sir Simon a familiar (an animal companion).  This version is a talking rat.  The talking animal is a little jarring at first but I guess he’s mostly there for comic relief and to remind you that this is (despite the ghost story) supposed to be a family-friendly mini-series.  

This version was broken into a four part mini-series and... honestly it did not need to be four parts.  There’s one episode that is almost entirely set at a cricket game and the whole episode is pretty much filler.

There are two things I disliked about this mini-series (besides the cricket game that went on too long).  The first being that SIr Simon makes repeated agist jokes about Ginny such as calling her a spinister, and “Past child bearing years.”  These jokes were... shall we say cringy, considering the version of Ginny in the original novella was only slightly younger than this version and she was called a “gentle girl” by Sir Simon in the original novella from 1880.  This version of Ginny is twenty-two-years-old.  It doesn’t make sense that Virginia Otis is the focus for age-based barbs from Sir Simon. They aren’t funny. I get that the writing is trying to poke fun of the agism of the era Sir Simon would have lived in but those jokes didn’t even exist in the 1880s novella, in fact Oscar Wilde, in his writing, had a habit of considering twenty-somethings of men and women to still be children and he repeatedly called twenty-something men in The Picture of Dorian Gray “boy” and Virginia was referred to (in The Canterville Ghost novella) as a child, even though she was in her late teens in the original story.

The age jokes got tired fast.  They felt as ...cringy and repetitive as the “child bearing hips” jokes in Tim Burton’s comedy version of Dark Shadows.  These jokes are jarring and don’t really fit the story or how Sir Simon acts with other characters or even how he usually acts with Virginia. Also much like the 2012 Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows comedy, there’s this annoying bit where it’s indicated that Americans don’t know the word “Ball” can mean party.  Balls (as in parties) do exist here in the US.  Every Halloween there’s a vampire Masquerade ball in New Orleans.

Also pretty much all film versions of Sir Simon de Canterville (except the 1940s version...) are into Shakespeare. He must know The Merchant of Venice and yet he seems baffled by the idea of a woman defense attorney. The jokes about agism and sexism from his mortal life era got tired quick.   

The second thing that bothered me about the mini-series was... the weird Americanisms.  I say this as an American- the portrayal of American culture in this mini-series was weird.  It was like it was written by a British teenager who had a strange, abstract, almost alien planet idea of what Americans are like based on outdated British TV show stereotypes.  Yes, I admit many Americans would fly an American flag at the top of a British manor house but the Elvis impersonator singing The Monkee’s “I’m a believer” was just odd.  Also some of the supposedly American characters had awful, very fake sounding, accents.  Why is it so many British people think America = Texas?   Texas is the only place like Texas.  The rest of the US is not like that, I promise.    

At least they made up for this by making Mr. Otis (Virginia’s father) extremely kind.  A mellow, laid back, almost hippie type of character.  He was extremely out going and kind even though he was a bit socially inept. They had managed to make him very likable.  

The fact that twenty-two-year-old Virginia kept bringing up American laws as if they have any bearing in England with a sixteenth century Ghost also got a little annoying.  She should have known better.  And it just perpetuates the stereotype of American arrogance that we think American law applies everywhere in exactly the same way.  Oh, that reminds me of something else that bothered me too.  Virginia (who isn’t even a full lawyer yet) apparently screwed up a case for an eighteen-year-old girl who was convicted of murdering her abusive stepfather. Virginia is told repeatedly that she is not at fault for this but it’s never rectified.  We’re just casually told that there’s this eighteen-year-old serving life in prison for murdering her abuser and it’s never, ever set right. For a family movie that’s quite dark.  That bothered me.     

They also somehow forgot that the stain on the floor was supposed to be the blood of Sir Simon’s wife...

A petty detail about how Sir Simon’s powers worked bugged me but not so much that it ruined the show.  Sir Simon is slightly corporeal.  That is to say he’s made up of a very fine matter that disperses when he takes a mist-like form so he cannot actually pass through solid matter but rather tiny cracks and holes in this decorporealized form. I have used similar lore when role playing or writing for the character of Count Dracula on IMVU. It works for vampires that take mist form but but I don’t think I really like it for ghosts.  I’ve seen Anne Rice use a similar lore to account for how some of her spirits function but I still don’t care for it.

Other than these two things I thought this was a fairly decent mini-series, probably in my top five favorite adaptations of The Canterville Ghost.  Yes, I have seen that many versions as to have a top five list.  And again, no, the 1940s version is not on that list.  I liked the 1940s version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, just not the 1940s version of The Canterville Ghost.  

In the first episode I had thought they would draw out the parents not believing in ghosts and being skeptical for far, far too long but mercifully this was only in the first episode and they fast accepted that ghosts are most-assuredly real in his story.            

The scene where Ginny had to plead Sir SImon’s case and learn the true history behind him and his Roma wife’s deaths felt weirdly like it had come out of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens.   A bureaucratic afterlife that is comical but darkly cold and cynical and detached where the “angels” and other entities seem to care more about protocol than about justice or love.  I half expected to see Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens turn up.  

This certainly was an interesting take on The Canterville Ghost. There were many times where it felt like Anthony Head was portraying Sir Simon as having a perpetual head-cold. And he certainly had an unusual choice in vocabulary. I still think Patrick Stewart did a better job as the ghost but Anthony Head was decent.  And it had a good, satisfying ending.

[livesincerely]

ooh i’m very much in an “accidental co-parents of the found family group to lovers” mood, got any ideas for that?

oH DO I??? (You get some modern era, high school au head canons, just for fun 😊)

I’m gonna make Jack, Race, and Crutchie foster brothers because I love that set up and I love the three of them together (in my mind this is distantly related to the letterman jacket au, but that’s not important)

Jack’s the one with a car. Well, technically the three of them are supposed to share it but Crutchie’s not big on driving and Racer’s failed his test twice now, so it’s basically Jack’s car. So Jack’s the one that ends up chauffeuring everyone around, and he complains a lot about how he “ain’t a taxi service, Christ, Racer, get your feet off the dash” but he doesn’t really mind

Jack’s the friend that will come and pick you up at 2am because your parents are fighting and you need to get out of the house, or will drive twenty minutes out of his way to come get you because you missed the bus and need a ride to school. Davey’s the one that reminds the rest of their friends to chip in on gas money every now and then because Jack never asks for it because he’s annoying and selfless like that

When it’s just the three of them, Race and Crutchie have vicious ‘who-gets-shotgun’ competitions. When Davey’s with them, Davey usually gets shotgun because A) Jack’s whipped and B) the only thing worse than listening to mom and dad flirt/bicker when they’re sitting next to each other is listening to them flirt/bicker from opposite sides of the car, because god knows the distance won’t stop them

Jack is extremely over-protective. They don’t deal with too much in the way of bullying but there are assholes everywhere—he’s especially protective of Crutchie, Davey, Specs, and Romeo, because they tend to get harassed the most often. Most of the idiots at their school don’t make the mistake of messing with them more than once — Spot and Albert are excellent backup and Racer is a scrappy fucker that’s always ready to throw down.

Except, one time Oscar DeLancey gets mad that he failed his history partner-project because Buttons refused to do all the work for him and corners him with a bunch of his dickhead friends after school. Davey, who’s coming off a stressful week of papers and tutoring and college prep and ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ meetings with the school advisors, takes one look at the scene and loses his goddamn mind. He’s still kicking and screaming insults and hurling threats at them as Jack drags him away — Jack has to get both arms around his waist and bodily carry him out because Davey is 140 pounds of righteous fury — and he’s pretty sure DeLancey pisses himself a little in fear.

Race and Albert refer to this as Davey’s ‘berserker mode’ and none of them ever let him live it down. Davey always blushes a little when he thinks of how totally unhinged he became, but he’s absolutely not sorry. And none of them ever go near Buttons again.

Davey’s the type that keeps up with everyone else’s stuff because otherwise no one’s homework/permission slips/doctors notes/etc. would ever get turned in. (Except Katherine, thank god for Katherine.) He’s got one of those file folders with all the different tabs — each one is labeled for each of his children friends and has copies of all their stuff. He’s also the one that reminds everyone about due dates.

Davey carries basically an entire first-aid kit in his backpack. He’s got motrin, peptol bismol, saline, bandaids, tampons, icy hot, granola bars, Romeo’s spare inhaler, etc.

Not sure when they get to the lovers part of ‘accidental co-parents of our friend group to lovers’. I could see myself using the ‘The One With the Art Project’ bits & bobs as an inciting incident — maybe Jack’s so tired that his inhibitions are lowered and we get another accidental kiss?

Or maybe someone hits on one of them and one of their children friends is like, ‘excuse you, he’s taken.’ And Jack’s like, what? And Davey’s like, what?? And then they just look at each other like, oh shit are we dating??? We’re totally dating aren’t we?

Gonna stop this here because otherwise I’ll continue into infinity.

Side note, these are for a modern au but there’s absolutely a canon-era “accidental co-parents of our friend group / didn’t know they were dating” fic floating unassembled in the back of my mind that opens with:

It’s hard for Davey to know exactly when it started because sometimes it feels like they’ve been like this forever, but he first becomes aware of it because Racetrack and Albert have terrible decision making skills and Davey literally can’t take his eyes off of them for one fucking second.

00000

@61-flaming-sour-cherry-scones

[snippychicke]

Aftermath--Three

Chapter Three is here! The last of the set up chapters, after this is mostly just...fluff. 

No warnings, I think. A surprise waits inside, however. 

First | Previous

 Otto had spent most of his adult life working for the commission. A few time jumps to different eras and decades, but mainly staying somewhere in the 1960s since it seemed the more precarious times. Nuclear war liked to develop at the drop of a pin, and even the most well-meaning change could spell Armageddon thanks to trigger-happy Americans and Russians. 

(Though a few times it was the UK and France. And once China, which the rest of the world hadn't realized had nuclear weapons until it was too late.) 

But no matter where or when he was, he was with his brothers. Oscar might have mingled with the civilian population once in a while, but he, like Axel, either had other responsibilities or would rather relax at their temporary home than deal with the locals. 

He wasn't used to civilians and their quiet, dull lives. Granted, Lorelei often had her radio on to break the silence if she were home, and the grainy black and white TV was usually turned to the news. (She also had a habit of chattering while changing the dressings on his eye every morning and every night. Even if half the time her southern drawl made her words hard to understand, her tone and lit were pleasing to listen to.) 

It was still dull, with nothing but the pain to distract him from his thoughts. Losing Oscar had been hard enough, the wound still fresh on his heart. Even now, he expected his younger brother to try and ambush him just to get a reaction out of him. Or hear him trying and failing to sing to the more upbeat music on the radio, stumbling over the English words. 

Then he lost Axel; his last memory of his older brother being of his hands around his neck and Axel's face twisted in both rage and grief of not controlling his actions. Otto found himself praying to some unknown power that Axel was out there, somewhere, carrying on. 

Otto feared if their position had been reversed, he wouldn't be strong enough. He struggled as it was, but the thought of finding Axel gave him strength. Believing his brother was out there gave him the motivation to keep trying to regain his strength. 

And startling Lorelei was becoming decent amusement as well.

"Why are you doing pushups?! Shit, your eye is bleeding again!" (It often did at inconvenient times, leading to her fretting like a mother hen. She wouldn't rest until he allowed her to fuss to her heart's content. )

"Why are all my kitchen knives impaled in the garage wall?" (Relearning to aim with just one eye was becoming a chore. And he gave in to the need to take a break just as she returned from work. She quickly forgot about the knives as soon as she saw he was bleeding, again,  and about five seconds from passing out.) 

"Jesus Mary and Joesph, I swear Otto, you may not be a serial killer, but you definitely have a screw or two loose!" (He swore she hadn't dusted the cobwebs from her ceiling in decades, but considering how small she was compared to him, he couldn't wholly blame her. To his amusement, she tried to steal the feather duster he had found, jumping pathetically to try and reach it as he held it out of reach. It reminded him of Oscar, and then it wasn't quite as amusing.)  

It wasn't that he was getting soft towards her; it was simply that he had a sense of honor. The reverse of an eye for an eye; she had been kind insane enough to help him. The lengths she went to and fussing over him as if she genuinely cared, made him feel indebted to her. He could tell Raymond didn't trust him, giving him a dark look when he visited every day. 

But he couldn't harm her. He had no reason to (and it certianly wasn't because she tried so hard to show him kindness. Like when she tenderly brushed his hair away from his forehad when she feared a fever. Being so careful during dressing changes, her voice soft and soothing, her touch gentle. She quickly picked up on his body language and did her best to distract him when his thoughts got dark.) 

It was nearly two weeks before he was feeling well enough to think about leaving seriously. Two weeks no sign of Axel. He kept an eye on the news for anything bearing his brother's mark, but there was nothing—no trail for him to follow, making him antsy. 

The longer he stayed, the farther Axel was. (He refused to believe there was any other reason. Axel was out there. Somewhere.) 

It felt a bit wrong to leave when Lorelei was at work with nothing more than a note saying thank you on the kitchen counter and assuring the small room was in perfect condition (or as best as could be, considering the old worn everything.)

It took him a while to find the small cat house, feeling like it was halfway across the suburb of south Dallas (or it could have been that he wasn't quite up to strength just yet.) The ragged curtains were still drawn shut; a few of the cats lounging in the windows  enjoying the sun while others relaxed on the small steps thanks to the little cat door Oscar had crudely cut shortly after they had 'moved in.'

The cats welcomed him with plaintive meows, rubbing and threading through his legs. The fact the place smelled like an unclean catbox was enough to confirm Axel was no longer using it as a base. The large bag of dry cat food was spilled across the kitchen and living room, yet the cats were far more interested in him as he searched the small house for any sign of Axel. 

But every trace of their residence had been cleaned away per protocol, with not even the vaguest of hints where Axel's next destination was.

Except, for some reason, his and Oscar's bags were still stuffed in the hallway closet, packed and ready for a quick retreat, just as they had left it. The ache in Otto's chest strengthened at seeing his little brother's pack buried beneath his, the white and black milkman hat sticking out from where Oscar had quickly stuffed it before that last mission. 

Otto could still remember chastening him to take better care of it if he honestly wanted to keep it, and Oscar had groaned he would fold it correctly when they got back. 

Except his little brother didn't return with them that day. 

Only the cats were witness to him, pulling the hat out and falling to his knees as he clutched it to his chest, biting his tongue to trap the scream of agony from escaping. 

                                                        --+--

Lorelei supposed she shouldn't be too surprised when she returned to an empty house. She had noticed a restless shift in Otto for the last few days. The kind she had seen before in others that had stayed with her to recuperate before they too moved on. 

At least he was kind enough to tidy up after himself (was it embarrassing that he was a better housekeeper than her?) And he had even left a piece of paper saying thank you that she pinned to her fridge. 

She knew Raymond would be relieved when he found out he had left. Even though Otto proved he wasn't about to hurt either of them, her soul brother was about as distrustful as could be when it came to him (granted it was somewhat earned.)

But she was going to miss him and his odd antics. Like how he had sat at the kitchen table, all of her knives laid out before him along with an old whetstone he had found somewhere in her junk drawer, and spend probably at least a few hours just sharpening the dulled blades. (Generally, after he used them for target practice.) His determination to find some odd house chore she had slacked on and finish it without so much as a word. 

 He had been silent, but it wasn't the oppressive silence like her father's had been, where she knew he was boiling about something (like her existence). Sure, once in a while, it would be broody or antagonistic when Raymond visited, or something reminded him of something dark in his frankly mysterious past. But otherwise, it had been amicable. 

Even when she was chatty out of nerves or after a particularly stressful day, he hadn't seemed annoyed. Instead, she sometimes would catch a faint smile as she prattled on. Or even a light huff of laughter when she made a joke, and he shook his head slightly because her jokes were usually terrible puns. 

"Oh, I'm an old biddy," she sighed to her comatose patient the next day, setting up another saline flush along with the IV antibiotics. "Here, I keep telling everyone that I'm fine being by myself, yet here I am getting attached to an absolute stranger. I should just get some cats, huh?"

The man was silent, which she expected. The doctors had just been in to check the healing stump of where his leg had been. Which meant the nurse had dosed him with plenty of pain meds just an hour before. Partially to help negate the pain from the procedure itself, but also so he wouldn't try to grab the nearest person as a hostage. 

That encounter still left many of the other nurses hesitant to enter the room. It had been the day after the John Doe had been brought in the emergency room, found by a couple of hunters just outside of town with a traumatic amputation of his left lower leg.

One minute he had been asleep (or assumed) as the doctors discussed treatment plans, and the next, he had jumped up, grabbed one of the nurses, and had a ballpoint pen pressed against her throat while swearing something in an odd language as everyone scrambled. 

What was with white-haired men and being violent? Granted, she had never seen Otto like she had the John Doe, his pale blue eyes wild with both rage and pain. 

Which was why restraints were now strapped to the remaining three limbs. The straps rattled against the metal sidebars as John Doe stirred, making Lorelei pause. His young face was twisted into a grimace, and she moved to brush his forehead out of instinct.

"Bror?" He mumbled, making her stomach twist in guilt. She didn't think her rambling would wake him.

 "Shh, it's okay, hun. Just get some rest," She smoothed his messy white hair, smiling as he relaxed back into sleep. 

"Lorelei, you know you're crazy, right?" One of her fellow nurses asked as she slipped from the secured room and into the nearby nurses' station, "Going into that room by yourself. You saw what he did to Mary Lou!"

"Well, how would you feel waking up without a leg and a bunch of people hovering over you, talking in a different language," she shot back defensively as she grabbed John Doe's chart.  

"Not homicidal," her coworker responded, working on her own chart notes. "I mean, I'd scream for sure, but I doubt I'd be able to move the way he did. Hell, I doubt I'd ever been that quick." 

                                                      ---+---

Lorelei supposed she shouldn't have been happy to see Otto sitting on the front steps of her home the next evening. She had a crappy day, her feet were killing her, and she was planning on just crashing in her bed. Yet seeing him on the cement step, two large backpacks sitting on the dilapidated porch, made the end of her day a little better. 

He looked up, the bandage still wrapped around half of his face, but she was pleased not to notice any blood staining the gauze. She wasn't so happy to see the melancholy expression on his face.

 She took a seat on the step next to him, feeling warmth radiate him to chase off the chilly December air. She wasn't brave enough to look at him, and instead plucked a piece of dead grass from the lawn. "Don't tell Ray, but you make a decent house guest. Not many men clean up after themselves, let alone fight me about dustin' or sweeping them cobwebs out." 

She peeked a glance after a pause and felt relief to see a faint smile on his face as he focused on the dusk colored sky. "I won't ask what you've been up to, as long as it ain't gonna be bringing any police around here." 

"No," he answered her joking comment gravely. 

"Kay, good."  She tore at the blade of grass some more. "So... Are you looking for a place to stay, or are you just here to say bye for good?"

This time he did meet her gaze. His dark eye looked haunted, and she could see the telltale marks of crying by the red rims and puffiness of his lids. Her fingers ached to reach out and try to soothe the crease around his good eye, to bring some sort of comfort, so she shifted to sit on her hand instead, hoping he would think her fingertips were cold. "Because like I said, you're a nice house guest. You do your own share of the chores, and you can stay as long as you like. Just no more using my good steak knives as darts, you got me?"

"Yes," he answered solemnly, making her heart jump. "...Do you like cats?" 

His question surprised her for a moment before she smiled. "Yeah, I do. I was just telling my patient that I should get a few."

He nodded his head without elaborating further, though she swore there was a thoughtful expression on his face as he watched the last glimmer of the sun fade away. 

The silence this time was broken by her stomach growling, earning an amused glance from Otto as she blushed. "Right. Well, I'm hungry,' she hurriedly jumped up and offered her hand to him. "Shall we?" 

He accepted her hand, the callouses firm against her skin. It still surprised her how tall he towered over her. "Let's see; I have fish sticks or hot dogs. It's up to you…."

                                                   ---+---

Lorelei woke the next morning to a blank and white angular-face cat kneading her pillow; its purr a deep growl. As soon as the cat realized she was awake, it butted its head against her as a greeting, its purr becoming louder. 

"Where did you come from?" She asked as she sat up, allowing him to crawl into her lap. The cat, of course, didn't answer but continued to knead her lap. She picked up the cat and descended the stairs, following the smell of sausage and the quiet mewl of other cats. A group of them were sitting expectantly at Otto's feet, jumping when he would toss a piece of an egg at them. All of them boney and looking as if he had found them wandering the streets. 

"Dare I ask?" She asked, shifting the cat to protect her modesty as he glanced over at her. She didn't miss the quick once-over before he shrugged and returned towards breakfast.

"You said you liked cats." 

Living with him was going to be fun, Lorelei decided as she allowed the cat down to join its brethren at his feet and instead shuffled towards the fridge. "True. I did say that." She just didn't expect so many. They were all weaving around him, eager for a treat, which made it hard to count, but she swore there were at least a dozen. "So… do they have names?"

"Bebis." 

She waited for him to elaborate and frowned when he didn't. "Are you saying they are babies, or that they are all named Bebis?"

"Both," he answered, shooting her a quick half-smile as he flicked another piece of an egg at them. 

"Oh no, that isn't going to work. I mean, I fully agree they're babies, but they need their own names." She busied herself with setting up the kettle for coffee, trying not to think how easy it was moving around each other, or how much happier she felt compared to the last two days. 

It was the cats; she decided as one jumped up on the counter to pester her. Definitely the cats. She blushed when she noticed Otto watching her out of the corner of her vision as she baby-talked to the small tabby that looked like it hadn't eaten in weeks. 

Just the cats.

Next Chapter 

[aion-rsa]

Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar

https://ift.tt/3jvPBwC

The latest take on Toho’s iconic, building-crushing lizard comes in the form of Godzilla Singular Point, an anime series now available in dubbed form on Netflix. Taking place in the not-too-distant future, this reimagining of the King of Monsters involves a group of human characters becoming aware – through rather bizarre ways – of a coming apocalyptic event. Now the only thing that can save them is a behemoth out to punch monsters and look out for the little guy.

No, not Godzilla. He’s actually the apocalyptic event. No, our hero is none other than Jet Jaguar.

Yes, it’s finally time for Jet Jaguar to get his due.

A concept nearly 50 years old at this point, Jet Jaguar is one of those characters who was initially doomed to fail, but lives on due to nostalgia and the golden notion of, “I realize most people hated that thing from my childhood, but I bet I could make it good!” At best, he was a rad addition to the Godzilla mythos. At worst, he was a dumb idea from a dumb movie. For the most part, he’s remembered as something goofy that gets laughed at, despite having some genuine earnestness.

Jet Jaguar was created from both a fan contest and a corporate game of telephone. Back in 1972, to jump on the bandwagon of tokusatsu giant superhero/robot shows, Toho asked fans to design their own superhero design. The winner was a half-man/half-bird robot with a lengthy neck resembling a stack of rings named Red Alone. The concept was turned into a full-on rubber costume, but they changed the color scheme, which upset the young winner. They later decided to just scrap the whole thing, keep the color scheme, and make their own new design. And so, Jet Jaguar was born.

The superhero made an entire one movie appearance in 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. As the urban legend goes, this was initially intended to be a standalone Jet Jaguar movie that the studio just didn’t have faith in towards the end and they hastily threw in Godzilla and recurring Godzilla villain Gigan. While the claim is dubious and unproven, it certainly is easy to understand where the allegations come from.

Everything about the movie feels rushed. As the last-minute replacement for another Godzilla film that didn’t pan out, filming took several weeks and production was a mere six months. Even the Godzilla costume was whipped up in record time. As for the story, outside of the intro, the preexisting elements (Godzilla and Gigan) aren’t thrown in until about 2/3 into the movie. Up until that point, it feels like a Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon movie with the production team hitting the panic button.

The plot of Godzilla vs. Megalon is that a scientist Goro Ibuki is working on a robot called Jet Jaguar, along with his little brother Rokuro and his best friend Hiroshi. They get wrapped up in a plot involving a group of beings from Atlantis-But-Not-Really, who are annoyed at all the nuclear bomb tests going on in their neck of the woods. They steal Jet Jaguar and use him to guide their insect god Megalon to different cities for the sake of smashing them up and punishing humanity.

Goro and friends get their hands on Jet Jaguar’s controls and use him to lead Godzilla to where Megalon is. Then the Seatopians call some alien friends for a solid and have them send in Gigan. Jet Jaguar is able to break away from all control and becomes fully sentient, as well as revealing the ability to turn into a giant. It becomes a big tag team battle, mostly remembered for Godzilla doing the silliest dropkick you’ve ever seen, followed by a second one for good measure.

The villains escape, Jet Jaguar and Godzilla shake hands, they go their separate ways, and Jet Jaguar reunites with the humans heroes after shrinking back down. He gets his own snazzy theme song to close things out.

In Japan, the movie wasn’t all that successful. As the thirteenth title in the Godzilla series, it brought in the worst returns yet. Between public burnout and the movie’s lack of quality, it just wasn’t grabbing people. That said, it came out at just the right time in the United States. Released in 1976, it came out months before the anticipated King Kong remake. The American movie poster for the movie even bit on the King Kong poster by featuring Godzilla and Megalon duking it out while each standing on a different Twin Tower, even though the movie at no point took place in the States.

A year later, the movie would be cut down into 48 minutes so they could broadcast it on NBC in prime time, across an hour with commercials. The only reason I mention this at all is because it was hosted by John Belushi wearing a Godzilla costume, which is sadly somewhere in the abyss of golden lost media.

Getting back to Jet Jaguar – the topic of this article – I feel the need to bring up Germany’s handling of the movie’s translation. Rather than call him “Jet Jaguar,” they referred to him as “King Kong.” I mean…sure, why not. Even weirder, when the next two movies introduced fellow giant robot MechaGodzilla, Germany once again referred to the robot as “King Kong.” Guys, I know what you’re going for here, but it doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla and Terror of MechaGodzilla followed Godzilla vs. Megalon and closed off the classic Showa Era of Godzilla movies. Not only did Japan need to rest Godzilla as a concept for nearly a decade, but this also meant that whenever Godzilla would come back, it was going to be some kind of reboot or new “only the first movie counts” installment. Jet Jaguar was never high on the list to be brought back, especially since MechaGodzilla completely overshadowed him.

He would at least get a little more exposure in 1991 when Godzilla vs. Megalon was featured in the second season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. While much of the episode is spent making fun of one of the Seatopians for looking like Oscar Wilde, they toss plenty of jokes at Jet Jaguar. Most memorably, they “translate” Jet Jaguar’s ending theme, which notes that his mother never loved him and he looks a lot like Jack Nicholson.

Due to rights issues, Godzilla vs. Megalon is one of the few MST3K episodes that is no longer legally available for viewing. This does make the original MST3K Collection Volume 10 box set (which included Godzilla vs. Megalon as one of the four movies) a collector’s item, as it was later discontinued and rereleased with The Giant Gila Monster taking its spot.

A stranger use of Jet Jaguar comes in the form of Certain Distant Suns’ music video for “Bitter” in 1995. While there’s not much of a narrative outside of the band playing, footage of Godzilla vs. Megalon being shown, and a few shots of guys walking around in Megalon and Jet Jaguar costumes, I really insist you give the video a look due to the ending. It certainly goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting.

In 1997, Jet Jaguar made his next official appearance in another frankly bizarre spectacle. In Japan, a series called Godzilla Island appeared on TV in three-minute increments. While it only lasted a year, there were a whopping 256 episodes, meaning almost 13 hours of footage. If you’ve never heard of Godzilla Island, you might be thinking, “Wow, almost 13 hours of Godzilla stuff? Why isn’t this more well known?”

Well, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that instead of using guys in rubber suits, the kaiju action was done with action figures. Yikes.

Not only did Jet Jaguar show up during these adventures, but they gave him the 90s superhero action figure treatment. Much like how they released as many figures of Batman as possible for different crime-fighting scenarios, Godzilla Island gave us Silver Jet Jaguar, Medical Jet Jaguar, and even Fireman Jet Jaguar. Collect them all!

Read more

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong Writer Talks About Spending 8 Years in the MonsterVerse

By Don Kaye

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong Director and Writer Talk Future of The MonsterVerse

By Don Kaye

In the early 2000s, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee was released for the GameCube and Xbox under the Atari brand. It was a fighting game featuring various characters from Godzilla lore and though Atari wanted to include Jet Jaguar, Toho refused. Still, at least Megalon was included in the game. There would be two sequels in the form of Godzilla: Save the Earth and Godzilla: Unleashed. FINALLY, Jet Jaguar was playable, because if there’s anything you can count on, it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel when you’re working on multiple installments of a nostalgic who’s who project.

He’d also return in 2014’s Godzilla game for PlayStation 3 and 4. The producer of the game didn’t even plan on putting him in there, but he saw that the programmers already were working on him and just shrugged it off. There was a special trick to summoning Jet Jaguar as a boss character. By ending up in three different Godzilla vs. Jet Jaguar scenarios and winning all three times, you would then unlock a special cutscene of the two shaking hands while a confused military woman would wonder about their history.

Around the mid-2010s, IDW Publishing was all about releasing a bunch of comics with the Godzilla license. Their mainline series was Godzilla: Rulers of the Earth, which went on for 25 issues. Early on, Jet Jaguar appeared out of nowhere during a fight between Godzilla and the team of Gigan and Orga. In human size, Jet Jaguar flew into Orga’s mouth, then expanded into giant size, causing the beast to explode. Especially awesome was that it came with the cliffhanger text, “Next: PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!” a reference to Jet Jaguar’s theme song from the movie.

Jet Jaguar showed up regularly in the series, coming off as Godzilla’s designated driver friend and handler. What I mean is that he seemed to be out to protect Godzilla, but that meant having to keep his violent ally on task (ie. pointing out that Gigan was nearby to stop Godzilla from attacking Jet Jaguar) and throwing punches when the situation absolutely called for it.

This continuity played up Jet Jaguar as more enigmatic than anything, as although he was mechanical, the only human character who knew his origins was killed off before it could be explained. Even one of the invading alien villains saw him on a screen and basically went, “Oh crap. It’s THIS guy!” Regardless, he still came off as a total badass, winning fights against Godzilla, Gigan (the chainsaw-hand version), and Destroyah.

Then again, at one point he needed to be saved by the 1998 American Godzilla, which at least proved as a reminder to the robot hero that there are Toho characters far more hated than him.

Toho started using Jet Jaguar again, albeit in sillier ways. In 2019, as an April Fool’s Day prank, they put up a teaser on YouTube for a Jet Jaguar movie. They also had him appear a few times on Godziban, a Godzilla web series for kids that, once again, used dolls and action figures to tell its stories.

Now Jet Jaguar is a major part of Godzilla Singular Point. To get into specifics on the plot would be like explaining advanced calculus, but to keep on-topic, Jet Jaguar is the creation of Goro Otaki as both a way to ward off monstrous threats and as a company mascot. Considering King Kong’s role in King Kong vs. Godzilla was “kidnapped to be a company mascot,” maybe the Germans were onto something with the rename.

Anyway, this version of Jet Jaguar is more mechanical in appearance instead of having to rely on making him look like a human in a costume. Jet Jaguar is there to protect the heroes from the endless supply of monsters, usually taking some extensive damage. Still, the robot gets rebuilt stronger and stronger and becomes advanced enough to become self-aware and speak in…well, the voice of a teenage girl.

I don’t know, I guess I just figured he’d sound like Astro Guy from King of the Monsters.

There’s a big hard-to-explain twist, but the main thing to know is that Jet Jaguar becomes a full-on badass by the end of the series, turns out to be a huge key to the plot, and has a completely kickass showdown with Godzilla. In a way, Jet Jaguar’s journey in Singular Point is a lot like in real life, going from a lame idea that appealed to kids and gradually being understood as a respected part of the Godzilla mythos. Something initially representative of the worst of the franchise, proven to be something genuinely cool in the right hands.

Now it’s time for America to return the favor. Once again, timing is on Jet Jaguar’s side. The Monsterverse was on its way to the graveyard after the box office intake of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but Godzilla vs. Kong came out at just the right time in the tail end of the pandemic to be a big success and keep the series going a little bit longer. There aren’t too many names in the toybox left to pull out, but at this point, Gigan and Jet Jaguar have to be high on the list.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Make it happen, Hollywood!

Godzilla Singular Point is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3h787JV

[somedayonbroadway]

hii! i hope i don’t sound annoying by asking this, but i love your writing so much! i know you did a deaf race angst story a while back, i loved it so much and deaf race is probably my new favourite hc so, if you don’t mind, could you do some more deaf race hcs please? thank you!

Okay, first of all, I get a lot of you guys apologizing for sending asks and I just need to send out a PSA real quick:

Ya’ll are never annoying. I love the questions. Every time I see a new ask I literally can’t help but smile. As long as you aren’t spreading hate, I’m here for all the questions and prompts and everything because I LOVE THEM!

ALSO! I know this took me a long time to answer, so I’m sorry for the wait! (I currently have about 45 asks, so patience is much appreciated!)

Okay, Anon, so yes, deaf!Race is one of my favorite modern HCs. I haven’t written anything with it in a long time and I miss it.

So here we go…

In modern era where Jack and Race are brothers…

Race was born deaf.

Their parents love him so much but are a little upset by this fact, though they learn sign language.

Jack learned sign language too. He’s very excited about it, but he’s more excited to have a baby brother.

Jack and Race are seven years apart in age.

Growing up, they’re happy

Race is homeschooled by his parents. He has no idea that people outside of their house don’t use their hands to communicate.

But when Race is six, his whole family gets into a crash. Mother dies on impact, father dies upon arriving at the hospital and Jack is in critical condition and is kept in the hospital for a month before he’s released to social services.

During this time, Race realizes that people expect him to be able to communicate and talk to them. He tries but no one knows his language.

It takes three days for Race to get an interpreter. Since he’s not seriously hurt, no one sees it as a priority and even though it’s bad to not get an interpreter immediately, Race can’t argue with them. He’s only six. And no one else knows him or is willing to fight for him.

Once Mr. Kloppman gets there, he tears the staff a new one for not getting this kid an interpreter immediately and then sits with Race in Jack’s room, realizing that this little boy was all alone and didn’t even really know that both of his parents were dead.

Growing up in the system is hard. Jack’s right arm broke in the crash. He has to learn to sign with his left for a couple months so that he can talk to Race.

The first few homes are group homes. No one knows Sign. So Jack and Race are often outcast. The other kids don’t want to bother trying to talk with Jack because Jack refuses to talk without signing so Race can understand.

Their foster parents are already overwhelmed so they don’t cater to the boys at all, thinking they’d just figure out how things worked.

The longest they stay in one home in the first year is a month.

When Race has to start going to school, he realizes that sign language isn’t something that most people just know. Jack and him have to go to different schools and no one understands him. So he often sits alone and doesn’t bother trying to make friends. It’s easy because a small kid like him gets ignored often.

Outside of school Jack sticks to Race like glue, knowing that at some point, someone’s going to try and separate them and Jack can’t handle that. He knows that it’ll just make it worse for Race too.

Eventually, a year after the accident, they end up at the home of a William Snyder.

Race knows immediately that he doesn’t like this home. The man hit Jack on the first day.

Snyder doesn’t like it when Race signs. He says it’s not normal.

He’s the reason Race can read lips.

It starts with just a small slap anytime he’d sign but quickly escalated to getting his hands tied down

Jack and him are forced to sleep in different rooms for the first time in their lives.

Snyder goes hard on Jack because he knows that Race won’t hear Jack screaming. And when he beats on Race, he makes sure so gag him somehow.

Jack teaches Race English anyway he can, trying to help his brother escape the beatings and getting his hands tied down. Snyder hates it when he can’t understand.

Snyder has them for the money.

Race isolates even further into himself because Jack isn’t allowed to sign with him.

At this point, Jack is only fourteen. He can’t do much to stop it other than things that aggravate Snyder even more, like fight back.

On an unrelated note, there’s locks on all the cupboards and the fridge so Jack and Race can only have food if Snyder unlocks them.

Also, if Race can’t sign with Jack he likes to put a hand on Jack’s chest or neck to feel him talk to him

Anyways

Jack and Race are with Snyder for almost a full year before someone notices the bruises on Race realizing for the first time that he’s deaf and mute.

After that, Race and Jack are fully separated.

This just about breaks Race. He’s only almost eight and the one constant he’d had in his life was ripped away from him.

He falls into a depression. Even though his foster parents are kind and know sign, he doesn’t talk to them. He usually just lays around in his room on his bed, not wanting to move.

Meanwhile Jack is in a home with Miss Medda and a boy already adopted by the woman named Charlie.

Race grows up thinking he’s broken after his parents die. He believes that no one can really love him because he can’t hear and no one else that he meets is deaf

He stops signing for a long time because he and Jack can’t see each other for a few months. And when they get a meeting time and a promise to be able to see each other once a week, Race just goes to Jack and cries.

Medda tries to take Race in but their social worker sees no reason to move Race, especially when his foster parents know sign and Medda doesn’t.

His foster parents start to get irritated with him when he won’t sign or even try to communicate with them. They’re nice people, but even nice people have their limits.

His foster mother would push him into a wall one night.

Race would run away.

They’d call the cops and Medda who would tell Jack. Jack would immediately go out to find him.

He’d find him sitting alone in a park with a single newspaper for warmth.

Jack wouldn’t try to talk to him. He’d just sit there with him and Race would lean into him, not understanding why the world had chosen him to be so different.

Eventually, he just starts hanging out at Medda’s a lot anyway, because his foster parents realize that after he spends time with Jack, he’s happier and more relaxed.

Medda would teach Race how to play the piano and the guitar.

While Race never could hear what he was playing, feeling the vibrations and reading music would calm his nerves.

By this time Race is about nine. Jack is sixteen. And Jack’s foster brother, Charlie, is eleven.

It takes a long while, but eventually, about three months after Race runs away, Crutchie sits down next to him. Race doesn’t think anything of it at first, but Crutchie eventually turns to him starts signing to him.

It’s the first kid close to Race’s age that even makes an effort to try and communicate with him.

Him and Charlie are fast friends after that.

For two years, Charlie is Race’s only real friend.

When Jack turns eighteen, he adopts Race immediately.

They move down the street from Medda so Race can go to the same school. One that Race hates. The teachers never go slow enough for him to understand, his classmates call him stupid and constantly bully and belittle him. He’s often roughed up by other kids who take his backpack and dump out its belongings and then throw them everywhere while they make sure Race is on the ground.

It isn’t until Race is almost twelve that another boy comes to the school. Albert.

Albert isn’t deaf. One of his brothers is and his father is. So he knows sign language

Much like Race, Albert didn’t know that the rest of the world communicated verbally until he was forced into public school

While he does know English, he’s not very good at it, but he realizes that Race struggles to keep up with the teachers so he does his best to help him understand.

Albert and Race are inseparable from that point on.

And as we all know, Albert and Race love to cause trouble wherever they go.

As they get older they grow closer together and they love to tease bullies.

This eventually leads to a very bad fight between them and Oscar Delancey, a boy they can’t stand, where Race ends up with a broken wrist

Needless to say, it’s a bit too close to being back with Snyder and being tied down.

This happens when Race is fourteen.

He falls back into a short depression, not wanting to go to school which prompts Albert to break in through his window to talk to him.

That makes Race happy because at least he has a friend this time.

A certain football player in high school has a crush on Race.

Yes it’s Spot.

Yes he begs Albert to teach him sign so that he can talk to Race.

And that’s what I’ve got.

Let me know if y’all wanna see more deaf!Race or a deaf!Race scene or whump scene or anything!

Thank you so much, Anon!

[kondo-hijikata]

not reblogging the meme since my answers are gonna be about...

THEM!

General, in a canon setting:

Rate the Ship -   Awful | Ew | No pics pls | I’m not comfortable | Alright | I like it! | Got Pics? | Let’s do it! | Why is this not getting more attention?! | The OTP to rule all other OTPs

How long will they last? - FOREVER. even after nagareyama. they’re chillin in space rn wondering why a bunch of foreigner kids are running blogs about them

How quickly did/will they fall in love? - the attraction was immediate. kat-chan was visiting toshi’s brother-in-law when they met, and toshi was so taken with the tennen rishin ryu (and its master) that he decided to train seriously. they got on really well but it wasn’t until that day they were sitting by the lake when toshi realized he was actually falling in love with kat-chan. and who wouldn’t, honestly? kat-chan told him it was okay to be himself, instead of what the world wanted of him. 20/10 marriage material

How was their first kiss? - soft. almost shy. they both pined quietly and toshi was content with that instead of confessing and potentially ruining everything...until kat-chan was just so radiant by candlelight and the moment was perfect.

Wedding, in a modern au setting:

Who proposed? - kat-chan. despite that they already discussed getting married multiple times, being officially asked came as a surprise to toshi. they picked out wedding rings together but lo and behold, kat-chan went on his own to buy pair set engagement rings. when they were visiting their families in tama, they took a walk one night and went back to their spot by the lake...and that’s when kat-chan officially asked him. whAT A FLUFFY DORK.

Who is the best man/men? - souji for kat-chan and the sait for toshi

Who is the bride’s maid(s)? - tbh, the whole shieikan crew is in the wedding party. they told chizuru to pick her dress but she ended up wearing a suit like the rest of everyone else because #shieikan solidarity. (consequently, i was there and i fell in love with her.)

Who did the most planning? - yall know toshi would be a groomzilla lmao

Who stressed the most? - toshi. kat-chan kept trying to help...even if toshi kept yelling. eventually, he gave in tho. lol like kat-chan would totally try to delegate tasks to their sword sons and take toshi out to attempt alleviating his stress. he’s Good

How fancy was the ceremony? - it was neither over the top or overly simple: a venue large enough to host their guests for the actual ceremony and reception. there’s often an after-party in modern japanese weddings, so they went to an upscale bar type of place for theirs

Who was specifically not invited to the wedding? - kat-chan wrestled with the idea of inviting serizawa out of courtesy...until toshi (softly) hit him on the head with a magazine

Sex, in a canon and/or au setting:

Who is on top? - consider this: toshi is a bottom whether he’s penetrated or penetrating 👀

Who is the one to instigate things? - both do

How healthy is their sex life? - it’s healthy...as in it’s never expected or taken for granted. they fuck as much or as little as they want and neither is left feeling like something is missing

How kinky are they? - i mean...lmao. kinky is such a subjective word. whatever they do is 10000% consensual and with the other’s respect and comfort in mind at all times

How long do they normally last? - however long they want???

Do they make sure each person gets an equal amount of orgasms? - nah. i mean, i get this question is probably asking if one is more selfish than the other and just takes and takes without ever giving. but also consider one getting the other off when he’s had a rough day. 👀 👀 👀 or under-the-desk head at work lmao

How rough are they in bed? - however rough they wanna be at that particular time. again, it’s always about respect and comfort.

How much cuddling/snuggling do they do? - they’re not into PDA but when they’re alone, they like to be in contact with each other...reading together, spooning at night (until it gets too hot or toshi is annoyed by the breathing on his neck lmao), hella kisses when the door is closed

Children, in a canon setting :

How many children will they have naturally? - 0. loophole ftw

How many children will they adopt? - add up the amount of people younger than them who were in the shin//sengumi and there’s your answer

Who is the stricter parent? - oh, that’s hijimama for sure lol

Who stops the kid(s) from doing dangerous stunts? - i mean...they’re here to kill cho//shu trash so... they’re both particularly protective over souji (since they basically raised him). kat-chan also is very fond of heisuke, while toshi is fond of yamazaki and the sait

Who remembers to pack the lunch(es)? - pSHHH the only cooking either might do is making something small for the other. the sword kids will have to rely on the kitchen staff. ...though kat-chan does show up with sweets every now and then ;D

Who is the more loved parent? - depends on who you’re asking... lol Favored Dads™ is a legit thing

Who is more likely to attend the PTA meetings with matsudaira? kat-chan...though if it’s important enough, toshi will accompany him

Who cried the most at graduation serizawa’s funeral? - i heard someone saying how toshi got all teary-eyed LMAOOOOO give him an edo-era oscar

Who is more likely to bail the child(ren) out of trouble with the law? - they ARE the law...with their own laws...which include seppuku...so their kids best not fuck up.

Cooking, in a modern au setting :

Who does the most cooking? - it depends but it’s mostly equal or a joint effort

Who is the most picky in their food choice? - neither. even in a present day au, kat-chan is still hella adamant about appreciating meals and it rubbed off on toshi

Who does the grocery shopping? - they go together

How often do they bake desserts? - nah lmao

Are they more of a meat lover or a salad eater? - depends on the mood. here’s to everyone being able to eat whatever they want. do so in my honor.

Who is more likely to surprise the other(s) with an anniversary dinner? - probably kat-chan lmao

Who is more likely to suggest going out? - either one but i can see them skipping fancy and expensive places for cheap and yummy

Who is more likely to burn the house down accidentally while cooking? - neither lol

Chores, in a modern au setting:

Who cleans the room? - both because this relationship is fair

Who is really against chores? - neither

Who cleans up after the pets? - both

Who is more likely to sweep everything under the rug? - if it’s an emergency, kat-chan...but he’ll go back to clean it up later XD

Who stresses the most when guests are coming over? - toshi. that’s why souji just shows up at random lmao

Who found100 yen between the couch cushions while cleaning? - kat-chan...he slipped it under the elastic of toshi’s briefs and called it a tip, to which he got a half sigh, half smile

Misc, in a modern au setting:

Who takes the longer showers/baths? - they both do so quickly but kat-chan will try to indulge toshi when they wash together

Who takes the dog out for a walk? - they’ll walk together

How often do they decorate the room/house for the holidays? - pSHT nah

What are their goals for the relationship? - kat-chan just wants toshi to be happy and healthy. toshi wants the same...and he’s also hellbent on making kat-chan prime minister one day lmao

Who is most likely to sleep till noon? - neither...unless it’s a mutual decision to not get out of bed

Who plays the most pranks? - kat-chan...but they’re just cute and silly versus souji who actively wants to create chaos in toshi’s life lol

[cynthiajayusa]

OUTshine Film Fest is Back with its 20th Miami Edition

Film lovers, rejoice! In most places in the U.S., you’d be lucky to have even one local LGBT film festival. But here in South Florida, we’ve got two.

A few years ago, the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival merged with the Fort Lauderdale Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and last year the two fests were rechristened as OUTshine. But while the organizations merged, the events themselves did not. OUTshine Film Festival produces two major cinematic events every year: a Miami festival each spring, and one in Fort Lauderdale in the fall.

Perhaps at OUTshine’s Fort Lauderdale edition last October you caught the biopics Tom of Finland or Battle of the Sexes (with Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, and Steve Carell); or the critically acclaimed French paean to the ACT UP years, 120 Beats Per Minute; or one (or both) of the sexy coming-out-and-coming-of-age features Beach Rats and God’s Own Country. Then, no doubt, you focused your attention on the Oscar race from November until the Gay Super Bowl (the Academy Awards broadcast) last month.

Well, now it’s April, and Hollywood is taking its l-o-n-g, annual break from awards-caliber films, so your local cineplex is featuring The Rock battling giant mutant alligators with the help of giant mutant apes (or is it the other way around?), that bomb of a Tomb Raider re-boot (Don’t worry, we still love you, Alicia Vikander!), and Pacific Rim-jobs.

Well, OUTshine’s got your back, cinéastes! Its 20th Miami edition is here this week and next to entertain you, touch you, challenge you, give you a refresher course in LGBT history, and provide the perfect date-night activity for that new crush you want to impress.

The Miami festival boasts dozens of films: features, foreign flix, comedies, tearjerkers, documentaries, and several full slates of shorts — plus panels, an awards brunch, and, of course, parties, parties, parties!

You can bone up on all the important festival details below. Then check out our Hotspots Hot Picks to help you select a film — or two or three. For the full lineup of films, panels and parties, go to outshinefilm.com.

OUTShine Film Festival Miami

Festival dates April 20–29

Regular screening tix Advance ($11 members/$13 guests) and day-of tix ($12 members/$14 guests) are available at outshinefilm.com or 877-766-8156. (Prices shown do not include ticketing fee.)

Special-event tix Tickets for Opening Night, the Centerpiece Film, Closing Night, Ladies Night, Men’s Spotlight and the Award Brunch are also available at outshinefilm.com or 877-766-8156. Prices range from $30 to $70 (plus ticketing fee).

Rush tix 10 minutes before any sold-out show, a very limited number of unclaimed and unused tix may be made available ($15 regular screening/$25 special events; cash only). First come, first served!

Venues All screenings are held at the Regal South Beach (1120 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach) except for the Opening Night Film, which is at the Scottish Rite Temple (471 NW 3rd St, Miami). Panels and parties are held at various locations; for details: outshinefilm.com/events.

OUTshine Miami: Hotspots’ Hot Picks

THE GALA SCREENINGS

My Big Gay Italian Wedding (Puoi Baciare lo Sposo, Italy)

Opening Film Fri Apr 20, 8pm

Antonio and Paolo live happily together in Berlin and are finally getting married. They decide to celebrate in the small village in Italy where Antonio grew up. While his mother immediately supports his intentions, her husband Roberto, the town’s mayor, is not pleased. Paulo, whose conservative mother hasn’t spoken to him since he came out to her, must get her to the wedding as a condition of the marriage. Throw in a couple of wacky roommates and the aisle to the altar is paved with hilarity, hijinks and lots of love!

The Marriage (Martesa, Kosovo)

Centerpiece Film Wed Apr 25, 7pm

In a rare gay-themed film from Kosovo, Anita and Bekim are adding the final touches to their big wedding day which is only two weeks away. Despite expecting news about Anita’s parents, declared missing since the 1999 Kosovar War, and having to deal with Bekim’s controlling family, the couple seems to manage all the preparations. But when Nol, Bekim’s secret gay lover, returns unexpectedly from abroad, the situation becomes complicated, especially since Bekim realizes that a spark still exists.

1985

Closing Film Sat Apr 28, 7:30pm

Shot in luscious black and white, 1985 follows Adrian (Cory Michael Smith, Gotham), a closeted young man returning to his Texas hometown for Christmas during the first wave of the AIDS crisis. Burdened with an unspeakable tragedy in New York, Adrian reconnects with his younger brother and estranged childhood friend as he struggles to divulge his dire circumstances to his religious parents (Virginia Madsen and Michael Chiklis).

TRANS TALES

Transformer

Sun Apr 22, 3pm

From self-proclaimed white-trash kid to decorated U.S. Marine to bodybuilder to world record powerlifter, Matt Kroczaleski now faces his most daunting challenge: becoming a woman. In the summer of 2015, Matt was publicly outed as being transgender. She was abandoned by sponsors and her parents and banned from competition. Now as Janae, she must find her place in society, unable to lose the muscle she once so desperately gained and living between an alpha male and a gentle woman. Will Janae’s transformation bring her the peace she’s looking for?

Beyond the Opposite Sex

Sat Apr 28, 12:45pm Free Community Screening

In this follow-up to Showtime’s 2004 documentaries The Opposite Sex: Jaime’s Story and The Opposite Sex: Rene’s Story, we learn how the lives of Jaime (male-to-female) and Rene (female-to-male) have changed over the past thirteen years.

PLUS Matt Bomer stars as transsexual neighbor Freda in the unlikely L.A. love story Anything. (Sat Apr 21, 5:15pm)

COMING OF AGE AND COMING OUT

My Best Friend (Mi Mejor Amigo, Argentina)

Sat Apr 21, 7pm

Lorenzo lives in rural Patagonia. He’s a quiet teenager, a good student, curious, and more skilled in music and literature than sports. When Lorenzo’s father decides the family will temporarily take in his best friend’s son, Caito, Lorenzo is intrigued by this tough guy from Buenos Aires. As the boys’ friendship evolves toward something deeper, Caito reveals a secret that changes everything.

A Moment in the Reeds (Finland/UK)

Mon Apr 23, 6:45pm

Having moved to Paris for university, Leevi returns to his native Finland for the summer to help his estranged father renovate the family lake house. Tareq, a recent asylum seeker from Syria, has been hired to help. When Leevi’s father must return to town, the two young men establish a connection… and spend a few days discovering one another.

Mario (Swiss)

Sat Apr 21, 9:15pm North American Premiere

Star soccer player Mario has fallen in love for the first time. The object of his affection is Leon, the team’s new striker. When their teammates discover the budding relationship, rumors begin to spread beyond the locker room. Mario fears the professional soccer career he’s dreamed of is in jeopardy. Will he risk it all for the only man he has truly loved?

Postcards from London

Fri Apr 27, 6:45pm

Buff and beautiful teenager Jim (Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats) moves from the London suburbs to Soho where he falls in with a gang of unusual high-class male escorts — The Raconteurs — who specialize in intelligent post-coital conversation. From shy novice to sought-after escort and eventually artist’s muse, Jim would be the toast of the town if it wasn’t for his annoying affliction — Stendhal Syndrome — a rare condition that causes him to hallucinate and faint.

F-F-F-F-FASHION

Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco

Thu Apr 26, 6:45pm

Mentored by Karl Lagerfeld, friends with Grace Jones, roommate to model Jerry Hall, fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez was the toast of the NYC and Paris fashion scenes in the 1970s. His colorful work, inspired by street life, people of color, and a particular take on transgressive sexuality, took the then-sedate world of fashion illustration by storm. This revealing documentary by Douglas Crump is a heady cocktail of fashion, glamour, and disco that’s impossible to resist.

McQueen

Sat Apr 28, 3pm

Alexander McQueen’s rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale. An unremarkable working-class boy, he harnessed his demons to become a global fashion brand and one of the most iconic artists of the century. How did this punk rebel conquer the silver-spoon world of Paris haute couture, and why, at the height of acclaim, did he shockingly put an end to it all?  McQueen is an intimate revelation of a radical and mesmerizing genius.

QUEER HISTORY

Cherry Grove Stories

Wed Apr 25, 9pm North American Premiere

In an era when it was illegal for two men to hold hands in public, the pristine beachfront hamlet of Cherry Grove on Fire Island, NY was a safe haven for gays who were often targeted for arrest and prosecution. Michael Fisher’s oral history of the enclave uncovers long-hidden secrets and exposes little known stories that are more relevant than ever today.

To a More Perfect Union: U.S. v. Windsor

Sun Apr 22, 2:30pm

A story of love, marriage and the fight for equality, this inspiring doc chronicles two unlikely heroes — octogenarian widow Edie Windsor and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan — on a quest for justice that would lead all the way to the Supreme Court.

PLUS: Queerama weaves together fantastic archival images and a soundtrack by John Grant and Hercules & Love Affair to lyrically portray a century of persecution, liberation and pride. (Sat Apr 21, 9:45pm)

DRAG

Alaska Is a Drag

Sun Apr 22, 7pm

Tough, but diva fabulous, Leo is an aspiring drag superstar stuck working in a fish cannery in Alaska. He and his twin sister are trapped in the monotony of fist fights and fish guts and spend their days figuring out how to escape to a better place. Out of necessity, Leo learns to fight back, which catches the attention of the local boxing coach. When a new boy moves to town and wants to be his sparring partner, Leo must face the real reason he’s stuck in Alaska.

SHOW BIZ

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

Sun Apr 22, 4:45pm

This cinema-vérité feature, an alternate pre-Stonewall history of Hollywood from director Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor), reveals the deliciously scandalous story of Scotty Bowers, a handsome WWII marine who landed in Hollywood after the war and became confidante, aide de camp and lover to many of Hollywood’s greatest stars. An unsung Hollywood legend, Bowers would cater to the sexual appetites of celebrities, straight and gay, for decades.

Still Waiting in the Wings

Sat Apr 28, 5pm

Follow the trials and triumphs of actors waiting tables in Times Square as their dreams of Broadway stardom meet the harsh reality of slinging hash under fluorescent lights. With cameos from: Nick Adams, Ed Asner, Carole Cook, Lee Meriwether, Patricia Richardson, Chita Rivera, Seth Rudetsky, Sally Struthers, Bruce Vilanch, and Cindy Williams.

PLUS: Every Act of Life tells the story of Terrence McNally, one of the world’s most renowned and risk-taking playwrights. (Sun Apr 29, 5:15pm)

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FLIX

Nobleman (in Hindi)

Wed Apr 25, 9:15pm World Premiere

Struggling with adolescence and sexuality, 15-year-old Shay is terrorized by a gang of bullies in his posh boarding school. Shay and best friend Pia are the studious theater kids. Arjun and Baadal are the jocks and bullies. Events take a sinister turn when Shay walks in on Arjun, Baadal, and their cronies on a debauched night, unleashing a chain of events that leads to tragic consequences. Based on The Merchant of Venice!

Last Days in Havana (Cuba)

Fri Apr 27, 9:15pm

Two mid-forties friends are neighbors: Miguel, a dishwasher who dreams of settling in New York waits for a visa that never seems to arrive, and Diego, a gay man with AIDS who is determined to enjoy every single day of his life from his bed. This odd couple is surrounded by an oddball set of characters from all walks of life.

SAPPHIC STORIES

Daddy Issues

Tue Apr 24, 7pm

Maya, a talented, queer artist, is desperate to attend art school in Italy but lacks the funds to do so. Instead, she spends her days escaping into her drawings and social media, where she pines for the enigmatic Jasmine, an aspiring designer in an emotionally charged, co-dependent relationship with her neurotic sugar daddy. All three become implicitly connected, though none of them realize it, and their respective relationships blossom. Daddy Issues is for the misfits, the dreamers, the lovers, and the loners in all of us.

Disobedience

Fri Apr 27, 7pm

Sebastián Lelio’s (A Fantastic Woman) mesmerizing film follows Ronit (Rachel Weisz), a New York photographer who returns home to mourn her father’s death in the community that shunned her decades earlier for an attraction to a female childhood friend (Rachel McAdams). Once back, their passions reignite as they explore the boundaries of faith and sexuality.

Kiss Me (Embrasse Moi, France)

Sat Apr 21, 7:30pm

Océanerosemarie’s life is full of energy and friends, but mainly of ex-girlfriends: 76, to be exact — but who’s counting! Things change when she meets Cécile. Can Océanerosemarie grow up enough to win the heart of this very special woman?

FAMILY DANCING

Anchor & Hope (Spain)

Sat Apr 28, 5:15pm

Eva and Kat enjoy a carefree existence on their houseboat on a London canal. After the death of their beloved pet, Eva’s dream of becoming a mother is reignited. Kat just wants to get a new cat, but when her best friend Roger visits from Barcelona, they decide in a moment of drunkenness that he can be Eva’s sperm donor. Anchor and Hope is a fresh and funny rom-com with a twist.

Funny Story

Sun Apr 22, 7:15pm

After years of being a neglectful father, a womanizing TV star unknowingly crashes his estranged daughter’s same-sex destination wedding. This delightfully dark comedy takes us on a California coastal road trip full of dreams, love, disillusionment, and tequila-fueled karaoke.

In Between Seasons (South Korea)

Mon Apr 23, 9pm North American Premiere

Though a mother has a close bond with the high-school-age son she is raising alone, she doesn’t realize he is gay, and only finds out after he is critically injured in a car accident. When Mom takes out her confusion and anger on her son’s close friend, the young man deals with the situation more calmly and with greater wisdom than she does. Brought to vivid emotional life by an excellent cast, the film confronts Korean homophobia and depicts a mother-son relationship with searing clarity.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/04/19/outshine-film-fest-is-back-with-its-20th-miami-edition/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/04/outshine-film-fest-is-back-with-its.html

[demitgibbs]

OUTshine Film Fest is Back with its 20th Miami Edition

Film lovers, rejoice! In most places in the U.S., you’d be lucky to have even one local LGBT film festival. But here in South Florida, we’ve got two.

A few years ago, the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival merged with the Fort Lauderdale Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and last year the two fests were rechristened as OUTshine. But while the organizations merged, the events themselves did not. OUTshine Film Festival produces two major cinematic events every year: a Miami festival each spring, and one in Fort Lauderdale in the fall.

Perhaps at OUTshine’s Fort Lauderdale edition last October you caught the biopics Tom of Finland or Battle of the Sexes (with Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, and Steve Carell); or the critically acclaimed French paean to the ACT UP years, 120 Beats Per Minute; or one (or both) of the sexy coming-out-and-coming-of-age features Beach Rats and God’s Own Country. Then, no doubt, you focused your attention on the Oscar race from November until the Gay Super Bowl (the Academy Awards broadcast) last month.

Well, now it’s April, and Hollywood is taking its l-o-n-g, annual break from awards-caliber films, so your local cineplex is featuring The Rock battling giant mutant alligators with the help of giant mutant apes (or is it the other way around?), that bomb of a Tomb Raider re-boot (Don’t worry, we still love you, Alicia Vikander!), and Pacific Rim-jobs.

Well, OUTshine’s got your back, cinéastes! Its 20th Miami edition is here this week and next to entertain you, touch you, challenge you, give you a refresher course in LGBT history, and provide the perfect date-night activity for that new crush you want to impress.

The Miami festival boasts dozens of films: features, foreign flix, comedies, tearjerkers, documentaries, and several full slates of shorts — plus panels, an awards brunch, and, of course, parties, parties, parties!

You can bone up on all the important festival details below. Then check out our Hotspots Hot Picks to help you select a film — or two or three. For the full lineup of films, panels and parties, go to outshinefilm.com.

OUTShine Film Festival Miami

Festival dates April 20–29

Regular screening tix Advance ($11 members/$13 guests) and day-of tix ($12 members/$14 guests) are available at outshinefilm.com or 877-766-8156. (Prices shown do not include ticketing fee.)

Special-event tix Tickets for Opening Night, the Centerpiece Film, Closing Night, Ladies Night, Men’s Spotlight and the Award Brunch are also available at outshinefilm.com or 877-766-8156. Prices range from $30 to $70 (plus ticketing fee).

Rush tix 10 minutes before any sold-out show, a very limited number of unclaimed and unused tix may be made available ($15 regular screening/$25 special events; cash only). First come, first served!

Venues All screenings are held at the Regal South Beach (1120 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach) except for the Opening Night Film, which is at the Scottish Rite Temple (471 NW 3rd St, Miami). Panels and parties are held at various locations; for details: outshinefilm.com/events.

OUTshine Miami: Hotspots’ Hot Picks

THE GALA SCREENINGS

My Big Gay Italian Wedding (Puoi Baciare lo Sposo, Italy)

Opening Film Fri Apr 20, 8pm

Antonio and Paolo live happily together in Berlin and are finally getting married. They decide to celebrate in the small village in Italy where Antonio grew up. While his mother immediately supports his intentions, her husband Roberto, the town’s mayor, is not pleased. Paulo, whose conservative mother hasn’t spoken to him since he came out to her, must get her to the wedding as a condition of the marriage. Throw in a couple of wacky roommates and the aisle to the altar is paved with hilarity, hijinks and lots of love!

The Marriage (Martesa, Kosovo)

Centerpiece Film Wed Apr 25, 7pm

In a rare gay-themed film from Kosovo, Anita and Bekim are adding the final touches to their big wedding day which is only two weeks away. Despite expecting news about Anita’s parents, declared missing since the 1999 Kosovar War, and having to deal with Bekim’s controlling family, the couple seems to manage all the preparations. But when Nol, Bekim’s secret gay lover, returns unexpectedly from abroad, the situation becomes complicated, especially since Bekim realizes that a spark still exists.

1985

Closing Film Sat Apr 28, 7:30pm

Shot in luscious black and white, 1985 follows Adrian (Cory Michael Smith, Gotham), a closeted young man returning to his Texas hometown for Christmas during the first wave of the AIDS crisis. Burdened with an unspeakable tragedy in New York, Adrian reconnects with his younger brother and estranged childhood friend as he struggles to divulge his dire circumstances to his religious parents (Virginia Madsen and Michael Chiklis).

TRANS TALES

Transformer

Sun Apr 22, 3pm

From self-proclaimed white-trash kid to decorated U.S. Marine to bodybuilder to world record powerlifter, Matt Kroczaleski now faces his most daunting challenge: becoming a woman. In the summer of 2015, Matt was publicly outed as being transgender. She was abandoned by sponsors and her parents and banned from competition. Now as Janae, she must find her place in society, unable to lose the muscle she once so desperately gained and living between an alpha male and a gentle woman. Will Janae’s transformation bring her the peace she’s looking for?

Beyond the Opposite Sex

Sat Apr 28, 12:45pm Free Community Screening

In this follow-up to Showtime’s 2004 documentaries The Opposite Sex: Jaime’s Story and The Opposite Sex: Rene’s Story, we learn how the lives of Jaime (male-to-female) and Rene (female-to-male) have changed over the past thirteen years.

PLUS Matt Bomer stars as transsexual neighbor Freda in the unlikely L.A. love story Anything. (Sat Apr 21, 5:15pm)

COMING OF AGE AND COMING OUT

My Best Friend (Mi Mejor Amigo, Argentina)

Sat Apr 21, 7pm

Lorenzo lives in rural Patagonia. He’s a quiet teenager, a good student, curious, and more skilled in music and literature than sports. When Lorenzo’s father decides the family will temporarily take in his best friend’s son, Caito, Lorenzo is intrigued by this tough guy from Buenos Aires. As the boys’ friendship evolves toward something deeper, Caito reveals a secret that changes everything.

A Moment in the Reeds (Finland/UK)

Mon Apr 23, 6:45pm

Having moved to Paris for university, Leevi returns to his native Finland for the summer to help his estranged father renovate the family lake house. Tareq, a recent asylum seeker from Syria, has been hired to help. When Leevi’s father must return to town, the two young men establish a connection… and spend a few days discovering one another.

Mario (Swiss)

Sat Apr 21, 9:15pm North American Premiere

Star soccer player Mario has fallen in love for the first time. The object of his affection is Leon, the team’s new striker. When their teammates discover the budding relationship, rumors begin to spread beyond the locker room. Mario fears the professional soccer career he’s dreamed of is in jeopardy. Will he risk it all for the only man he has truly loved?

Postcards from London

Fri Apr 27, 6:45pm

Buff and beautiful teenager Jim (Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats) moves from the London suburbs to Soho where he falls in with a gang of unusual high-class male escorts — The Raconteurs — who specialize in intelligent post-coital conversation. From shy novice to sought-after escort and eventually artist’s muse, Jim would be the toast of the town if it wasn’t for his annoying affliction — Stendhal Syndrome — a rare condition that causes him to hallucinate and faint.

F-F-F-F-FASHION

Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco

Thu Apr 26, 6:45pm

Mentored by Karl Lagerfeld, friends with Grace Jones, roommate to model Jerry Hall, fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez was the toast of the NYC and Paris fashion scenes in the 1970s. His colorful work, inspired by street life, people of color, and a particular take on transgressive sexuality, took the then-sedate world of fashion illustration by storm. This revealing documentary by Douglas Crump is a heady cocktail of fashion, glamour, and disco that’s impossible to resist.

McQueen

Sat Apr 28, 3pm

Alexander McQueen’s rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale. An unremarkable working-class boy, he harnessed his demons to become a global fashion brand and one of the most iconic artists of the century. How did this punk rebel conquer the silver-spoon world of Paris haute couture, and why, at the height of acclaim, did he shockingly put an end to it all?  McQueen is an intimate revelation of a radical and mesmerizing genius.

QUEER HISTORY

Cherry Grove Stories

Wed Apr 25, 9pm North American Premiere

In an era when it was illegal for two men to hold hands in public, the pristine beachfront hamlet of Cherry Grove on Fire Island, NY was a safe haven for gays who were often targeted for arrest and prosecution. Michael Fisher’s oral history of the enclave uncovers long-hidden secrets and exposes little known stories that are more relevant than ever today.

To a More Perfect Union: U.S. v. Windsor

Sun Apr 22, 2:30pm

A story of love, marriage and the fight for equality, this inspiring doc chronicles two unlikely heroes — octogenarian widow Edie Windsor and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan — on a quest for justice that would lead all the way to the Supreme Court.

PLUS: Queerama weaves together fantastic archival images and a soundtrack by John Grant and Hercules & Love Affair to lyrically portray a century of persecution, liberation and pride. (Sat Apr 21, 9:45pm)

DRAG

Alaska Is a Drag

Sun Apr 22, 7pm

Tough, but diva fabulous, Leo is an aspiring drag superstar stuck working in a fish cannery in Alaska. He and his twin sister are trapped in the monotony of fist fights and fish guts and spend their days figuring out how to escape to a better place. Out of necessity, Leo learns to fight back, which catches the attention of the local boxing coach. When a new boy moves to town and wants to be his sparring partner, Leo must face the real reason he’s stuck in Alaska.

SHOW BIZ

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

Sun Apr 22, 4:45pm

This cinema-vérité feature, an alternate pre-Stonewall history of Hollywood from director Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor), reveals the deliciously scandalous story of Scotty Bowers, a handsome WWII marine who landed in Hollywood after the war and became confidante, aide de camp and lover to many of Hollywood’s greatest stars. An unsung Hollywood legend, Bowers would cater to the sexual appetites of celebrities, straight and gay, for decades.

Still Waiting in the Wings

Sat Apr 28, 5pm

Follow the trials and triumphs of actors waiting tables in Times Square as their dreams of Broadway stardom meet the harsh reality of slinging hash under fluorescent lights. With cameos from: Nick Adams, Ed Asner, Carole Cook, Lee Meriwether, Patricia Richardson, Chita Rivera, Seth Rudetsky, Sally Struthers, Bruce Vilanch, and Cindy Williams.

PLUS: Every Act of Life tells the story of Terrence McNally, one of the world’s most renowned and risk-taking playwrights. (Sun Apr 29, 5:15pm)

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FLIX

Nobleman (in Hindi)

Wed Apr 25, 9:15pm World Premiere

Struggling with adolescence and sexuality, 15-year-old Shay is terrorized by a gang of bullies in his posh boarding school. Shay and best friend Pia are the studious theater kids. Arjun and Baadal are the jocks and bullies. Events take a sinister turn when Shay walks in on Arjun, Baadal, and their cronies on a debauched night, unleashing a chain of events that leads to tragic consequences. Based on The Merchant of Venice!

Last Days in Havana (Cuba)

Fri Apr 27, 9:15pm

Two mid-forties friends are neighbors: Miguel, a dishwasher who dreams of settling in New York waits for a visa that never seems to arrive, and Diego, a gay man with AIDS who is determined to enjoy every single day of his life from his bed. This odd couple is surrounded by an oddball set of characters from all walks of life.

SAPPHIC STORIES

Daddy Issues

Tue Apr 24, 7pm

Maya, a talented, queer artist, is desperate to attend art school in Italy but lacks the funds to do so. Instead, she spends her days escaping into her drawings and social media, where she pines for the enigmatic Jasmine, an aspiring designer in an emotionally charged, co-dependent relationship with her neurotic sugar daddy. All three become implicitly connected, though none of them realize it, and their respective relationships blossom. Daddy Issues is for the misfits, the dreamers, the lovers, and the loners in all of us.

Disobedience

Fri Apr 27, 7pm

Sebastián Lelio’s (A Fantastic Woman) mesmerizing film follows Ronit (Rachel Weisz), a New York photographer who returns home to mourn her father’s death in the community that shunned her decades earlier for an attraction to a female childhood friend (Rachel McAdams). Once back, their passions reignite as they explore the boundaries of faith and sexuality.

Kiss Me (Embrasse Moi, France)

Sat Apr 21, 7:30pm

Océanerosemarie’s life is full of energy and friends, but mainly of ex-girlfriends: 76, to be exact — but who’s counting! Things change when she meets Cécile. Can Océanerosemarie grow up enough to win the heart of this very special woman?

FAMILY DANCING

Anchor & Hope (Spain)

Sat Apr 28, 5:15pm

Eva and Kat enjoy a carefree existence on their houseboat on a London canal. After the death of their beloved pet, Eva’s dream of becoming a mother is reignited. Kat just wants to get a new cat, but when her best friend Roger visits from Barcelona, they decide in a moment of drunkenness that he can be Eva’s sperm donor. Anchor and Hope is a fresh and funny rom-com with a twist.

Funny Story

Sun Apr 22, 7:15pm

After years of being a neglectful father, a womanizing TV star unknowingly crashes his estranged daughter’s same-sex destination wedding. This delightfully dark comedy takes us on a California coastal road trip full of dreams, love, disillusionment, and tequila-fueled karaoke.

In Between Seasons (South Korea)

Mon Apr 23, 9pm North American Premiere

Though a mother has a close bond with the high-school-age son she is raising alone, she doesn’t realize he is gay, and only finds out after he is critically injured in a car accident. When Mom takes out her confusion and anger on her son’s close friend, the young man deals with the situation more calmly and with greater wisdom than she does. Brought to vivid emotional life by an excellent cast, the film confronts Korean homophobia and depicts a mother-son relationship with searing clarity.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/04/19/outshine-film-fest-is-back-with-its-20th-miami-edition/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/173095320255

[hotspotsmagazine]

OUTshine Film Fest is Back with its 20th Miami Edition

Film lovers, rejoice! In most places in the U.S., you’d be lucky to have even one local LGBT film festival. But here in South Florida, we’ve got two.

A few years ago, the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival merged with the Fort Lauderdale Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and last year the two fests were rechristened as OUTshine. But while the organizations merged, the events themselves did not. OUTshine Film Festival produces two major cinematic events every year: a Miami festival each spring, and one in Fort Lauderdale in the fall.

Perhaps at OUTshine’s Fort Lauderdale edition last October you caught the biopics Tom of Finland or Battle of the Sexes (with Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, and Steve Carell); or the critically acclaimed French paean to the ACT UP years, 120 Beats Per Minute; or one (or both) of the sexy coming-out-and-coming-of-age features Beach Rats and God’s Own Country. Then, no doubt, you focused your attention on the Oscar race from November until the Gay Super Bowl (the Academy Awards broadcast) last month.

Well, now it’s April, and Hollywood is taking its l-o-n-g, annual break from awards-caliber films, so your local cineplex is featuring The Rock battling giant mutant alligators with the help of giant mutant apes (or is it the other way around?), that bomb of a Tomb Raider re-boot (Don’t worry, we still love you, Alicia Vikander!), and Pacific Rim-jobs.

Well, OUTshine’s got your back, cinéastes! Its 20th Miami edition is here this week and next to entertain you, touch you, challenge you, give you a refresher course in LGBT history, and provide the perfect date-night activity for that new crush you want to impress.

The Miami festival boasts dozens of films: features, foreign flix, comedies, tearjerkers, documentaries, and several full slates of shorts — plus panels, an awards brunch, and, of course, parties, parties, parties!

You can bone up on all the important festival details below. Then check out our Hotspots Hot Picks to help you select a film — or two or three. For the full lineup of films, panels and parties, go to outshinefilm.com.

OUTShine Film Festival Miami

Festival dates April 20–29

Regular screening tix Advance ($11 members/$13 guests) and day-of tix ($12 members/$14 guests) are available at outshinefilm.com or 877-766-8156. (Prices shown do not include ticketing fee.)

Special-event tix Tickets for Opening Night, the Centerpiece Film, Closing Night, Ladies Night, Men’s Spotlight and the Award Brunch are also available at outshinefilm.com or 877-766-8156. Prices range from $30 to $70 (plus ticketing fee).

Rush tix 10 minutes before any sold-out show, a very limited number of unclaimed and unused tix may be made available ($15 regular screening/$25 special events; cash only). First come, first served!

Venues All screenings are held at the Regal South Beach (1120 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach) except for the Opening Night Film, which is at the Scottish Rite Temple (471 NW 3rd St, Miami). Panels and parties are held at various locations; for details: outshinefilm.com/events.

OUTshine Miami: Hotspots’ Hot Picks

THE GALA SCREENINGS

My Big Gay Italian Wedding (Puoi Baciare lo Sposo, Italy)

Opening Film Fri Apr 20, 8pm

Antonio and Paolo live happily together in Berlin and are finally getting married. They decide to celebrate in the small village in Italy where Antonio grew up. While his mother immediately supports his intentions, her husband Roberto, the town’s mayor, is not pleased. Paulo, whose conservative mother hasn’t spoken to him since he came out to her, must get her to the wedding as a condition of the marriage. Throw in a couple of wacky roommates and the aisle to the altar is paved with hilarity, hijinks and lots of love!

The Marriage (Martesa, Kosovo)

Centerpiece Film Wed Apr 25, 7pm

In a rare gay-themed film from Kosovo, Anita and Bekim are adding the final touches to their big wedding day which is only two weeks away. Despite expecting news about Anita’s parents, declared missing since the 1999 Kosovar War, and having to deal with Bekim’s controlling family, the couple seems to manage all the preparations. But when Nol, Bekim’s secret gay lover, returns unexpectedly from abroad, the situation becomes complicated, especially since Bekim realizes that a spark still exists.

1985

Closing Film Sat Apr 28, 7:30pm

Shot in luscious black and white, 1985 follows Adrian (Cory Michael Smith, Gotham), a closeted young man returning to his Texas hometown for Christmas during the first wave of the AIDS crisis. Burdened with an unspeakable tragedy in New York, Adrian reconnects with his younger brother and estranged childhood friend as he struggles to divulge his dire circumstances to his religious parents (Virginia Madsen and Michael Chiklis).

TRANS TALES

Transformer

Sun Apr 22, 3pm

From self-proclaimed white-trash kid to decorated U.S. Marine to bodybuilder to world record powerlifter, Matt Kroczaleski now faces his most daunting challenge: becoming a woman. In the summer of 2015, Matt was publicly outed as being transgender. She was abandoned by sponsors and her parents and banned from competition. Now as Janae, she must find her place in society, unable to lose the muscle she once so desperately gained and living between an alpha male and a gentle woman. Will Janae’s transformation bring her the peace she’s looking for?

Beyond the Opposite Sex

Sat Apr 28, 12:45pm Free Community Screening

In this follow-up to Showtime’s 2004 documentaries The Opposite Sex: Jaime’s Story and The Opposite Sex: Rene’s Story, we learn how the lives of Jaime (male-to-female) and Rene (female-to-male) have changed over the past thirteen years.

PLUS Matt Bomer stars as transsexual neighbor Freda in the unlikely L.A. love story Anything. (Sat Apr 21, 5:15pm)

COMING OF AGE AND COMING OUT

My Best Friend (Mi Mejor Amigo, Argentina)

Sat Apr 21, 7pm

Lorenzo lives in rural Patagonia. He’s a quiet teenager, a good student, curious, and more skilled in music and literature than sports. When Lorenzo’s father decides the family will temporarily take in his best friend’s son, Caito, Lorenzo is intrigued by this tough guy from Buenos Aires. As the boys’ friendship evolves toward something deeper, Caito reveals a secret that changes everything.

A Moment in the Reeds (Finland/UK)

Mon Apr 23, 6:45pm

Having moved to Paris for university, Leevi returns to his native Finland for the summer to help his estranged father renovate the family lake house. Tareq, a recent asylum seeker from Syria, has been hired to help. When Leevi’s father must return to town, the two young men establish a connection… and spend a few days discovering one another.

Mario (Swiss)

Sat Apr 21, 9:15pm North American Premiere

Star soccer player Mario has fallen in love for the first time. The object of his affection is Leon, the team’s new striker. When their teammates discover the budding relationship, rumors begin to spread beyond the locker room. Mario fears the professional soccer career he’s dreamed of is in jeopardy. Will he risk it all for the only man he has truly loved?

Postcards from London

Fri Apr 27, 6:45pm

Buff and beautiful teenager Jim (Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats) moves from the London suburbs to Soho where he falls in with a gang of unusual high-class male escorts — The Raconteurs — who specialize in intelligent post-coital conversation. From shy novice to sought-after escort and eventually artist’s muse, Jim would be the toast of the town if it wasn’t for his annoying affliction — Stendhal Syndrome — a rare condition that causes him to hallucinate and faint.

F-F-F-F-FASHION

Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco

Thu Apr 26, 6:45pm

Mentored by Karl Lagerfeld, friends with Grace Jones, roommate to model Jerry Hall, fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez was the toast of the NYC and Paris fashion scenes in the 1970s. His colorful work, inspired by street life, people of color, and a particular take on transgressive sexuality, took the then-sedate world of fashion illustration by storm. This revealing documentary by Douglas Crump is a heady cocktail of fashion, glamour, and disco that’s impossible to resist.

McQueen

Sat Apr 28, 3pm

Alexander McQueen’s rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale. An unremarkable working-class boy, he harnessed his demons to become a global fashion brand and one of the most iconic artists of the century. How did this punk rebel conquer the silver-spoon world of Paris haute couture, and why, at the height of acclaim, did he shockingly put an end to it all?  McQueen is an intimate revelation of a radical and mesmerizing genius.

QUEER HISTORY

Cherry Grove Stories

Wed Apr 25, 9pm North American Premiere

In an era when it was illegal for two men to hold hands in public, the pristine beachfront hamlet of Cherry Grove on Fire Island, NY was a safe haven for gays who were often targeted for arrest and prosecution. Michael Fisher’s oral history of the enclave uncovers long-hidden secrets and exposes little known stories that are more relevant than ever today.

To a More Perfect Union: U.S. v. Windsor

Sun Apr 22, 2:30pm

A story of love, marriage and the fight for equality, this inspiring doc chronicles two unlikely heroes — octogenarian widow Edie Windsor and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan — on a quest for justice that would lead all the way to the Supreme Court.

PLUS: Queerama weaves together fantastic archival images and a soundtrack by John Grant and Hercules & Love Affair to lyrically portray a century of persecution, liberation and pride. (Sat Apr 21, 9:45pm)

DRAG

Alaska Is a Drag

Sun Apr 22, 7pm

Tough, but diva fabulous, Leo is an aspiring drag superstar stuck working in a fish cannery in Alaska. He and his twin sister are trapped in the monotony of fist fights and fish guts and spend their days figuring out how to escape to a better place. Out of necessity, Leo learns to fight back, which catches the attention of the local boxing coach. When a new boy moves to town and wants to be his sparring partner, Leo must face the real reason he’s stuck in Alaska.

SHOW BIZ

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

Sun Apr 22, 4:45pm

This cinema-vérité feature, an alternate pre-Stonewall history of Hollywood from director Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor), reveals the deliciously scandalous story of Scotty Bowers, a handsome WWII marine who landed in Hollywood after the war and became confidante, aide de camp and lover to many of Hollywood’s greatest stars. An unsung Hollywood legend, Bowers would cater to the sexual appetites of celebrities, straight and gay, for decades.

Still Waiting in the Wings

Sat Apr 28, 5pm

Follow the trials and triumphs of actors waiting tables in Times Square as their dreams of Broadway stardom meet the harsh reality of slinging hash under fluorescent lights. With cameos from: Nick Adams, Ed Asner, Carole Cook, Lee Meriwether, Patricia Richardson, Chita Rivera, Seth Rudetsky, Sally Struthers, Bruce Vilanch, and Cindy Williams.

PLUS: Every Act of Life tells the story of Terrence McNally, one of the world’s most renowned and risk-taking playwrights. (Sun Apr 29, 5:15pm)

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FLIX

Nobleman (in Hindi)

Wed Apr 25, 9:15pm World Premiere

Struggling with adolescence and sexuality, 15-year-old Shay is terrorized by a gang of bullies in his posh boarding school. Shay and best friend Pia are the studious theater kids. Arjun and Baadal are the jocks and bullies. Events take a sinister turn when Shay walks in on Arjun, Baadal, and their cronies on a debauched night, unleashing a chain of events that leads to tragic consequences. Based on The Merchant of Venice!

Last Days in Havana (Cuba)

Fri Apr 27, 9:15pm

Two mid-forties friends are neighbors: Miguel, a dishwasher who dreams of settling in New York waits for a visa that never seems to arrive, and Diego, a gay man with AIDS who is determined to enjoy every single day of his life from his bed. This odd couple is surrounded by an oddball set of characters from all walks of life.

SAPPHIC STORIES

Daddy Issues

Tue Apr 24, 7pm

Maya, a talented, queer artist, is desperate to attend art school in Italy but lacks the funds to do so. Instead, she spends her days escaping into her drawings and social media, where she pines for the enigmatic Jasmine, an aspiring designer in an emotionally charged, co-dependent relationship with her neurotic sugar daddy. All three become implicitly connected, though none of them realize it, and their respective relationships blossom. Daddy Issues is for the misfits, the dreamers, the lovers, and the loners in all of us.

Disobedience

Fri Apr 27, 7pm

Sebastián Lelio’s (A Fantastic Woman) mesmerizing film follows Ronit (Rachel Weisz), a New York photographer who returns home to mourn her father’s death in the community that shunned her decades earlier for an attraction to a female childhood friend (Rachel McAdams). Once back, their passions reignite as they explore the boundaries of faith and sexuality.

Kiss Me (Embrasse Moi, France)

Sat Apr 21, 7:30pm

Océanerosemarie’s life is full of energy and friends, but mainly of ex-girlfriends: 76, to be exact — but who’s counting! Things change when she meets Cécile. Can Océanerosemarie grow up enough to win the heart of this very special woman?

FAMILY DANCING

Anchor & Hope (Spain)

Sat Apr 28, 5:15pm

Eva and Kat enjoy a carefree existence on their houseboat on a London canal. After the death of their beloved pet, Eva’s dream of becoming a mother is reignited. Kat just wants to get a new cat, but when her best friend Roger visits from Barcelona, they decide in a moment of drunkenness that he can be Eva’s sperm donor. Anchor and Hope is a fresh and funny rom-com with a twist.

Funny Story

Sun Apr 22, 7:15pm

After years of being a neglectful father, a womanizing TV star unknowingly crashes his estranged daughter’s same-sex destination wedding. This delightfully dark comedy takes us on a California coastal road trip full of dreams, love, disillusionment, and tequila-fueled karaoke.

In Between Seasons (South Korea)

Mon Apr 23, 9pm North American Premiere

Though a mother has a close bond with the high-school-age son she is raising alone, she doesn’t realize he is gay, and only finds out after he is critically injured in a car accident. When Mom takes out her confusion and anger on her son’s close friend, the young man deals with the situation more calmly and with greater wisdom than she does. Brought to vivid emotional life by an excellent cast, the film confronts Korean homophobia and depicts a mother-son relationship with searing clarity.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/04/19/outshine-film-fest-is-back-with-its-20th-miami-edition/

[lindyhunt]

Why Do Men Resist #MeToo?

The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was whether this year’s Oscars failed the #MeToo movement and today, we’re discussing why men tend to get defensive when the #MeToo filter is applied to certain news stories.

This is what happened. Last week, it was reported that some female crew members on Netflix’s Stranger Things had felt verbally abused on the set by the show’s creators, The Duffer Brothers. As with many of these stories tangentially connected to the #MeToo reckoning, this one came and went quickly. Still, it annoyed Features Editor Greg Hudson, which in turn made him annoy Associate Editor Pahull Bains, since she would have to address his questions in one of these She Said/He Said things. (If you’re curious about how that Duffer Discussion went, feel free to send us a note, and we can email you a draft of that enlightening but longwinded conversation.)

It was clear that Hudson, the straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied male (though he is diabetic!) seemed disproportionately invested in whether the creators of Stranger Things were being treated fairly. But why? Why do so many men, including those who consider themselves allies, immediately feel defensive when these stories break? That defensiveness often disguises itself as a reasonable desire for nuance, which isn’t the Internet’s specialty. Fortunately, they tend to get past that knee-jerk reaction quickly. But why do they feel it at all?

Answering, or at least examining that question took a lot more words than they were expecting. But it seemed like an important conversation to be had.

GH: This is what I need your help with: there is no rational reason for me to feel offended by this story, and yet I immediately looked for flaws in how it was told in order to dismiss it. Why is the reputation of the Duffers even remotely important to me? Whether their behaviour was directed at their women employees because they were women (or, more specifically, because they weren’t men), or because Mr. Duffer Brother was frustrated with the grip, who just happened to be female, is immaterial. Why waste any time trying to justify asshole behaviour at all?

Is gender so strong a characteristic that I support and defend the Duffer Brothers simply because we (presumably) have the same genitals? That would be really dumb.

And yet, this movement has clearly demonstrated that gender is a strong enough bond for women. Maybe that’s because gender is the shared cause of oppression for women, whereas men aren’t held back because of their gender, so it feels like it should be incidental. And besides, it’s not like the Duffers, or any one else, are being attacked because of their gender. They are being called out for their dumb, mean behaviour (which normally goes unpunished because of their gender).

How do you make sense of male defensiveness? And here, for the sake of answering this better, let’s assume that we’re talking about your average, one-of-the-good-ones kind of dudes.

PB: For starters, yes, female solidarity does stem from us knowing that our gender lies at the root of every type of discrimination we face, whereas for men, discrimination can take on many different faces—race, class, sexuality etc. (Women have to contend with all of that too, but gender is the first, and biggest, hurdle in our way.) Despite not being a source of common oppression though, gender has always been the thing men band behind, and plenty of societal constructs, whether real or metaphysical—I’m talking gentlemen’s clubs, old boys’ clubs, the “bro code”—are all built on the prerequisite of being male. And I think men are feeling threatened by the possible erosion of all of that, because they view that stuff as innocuous.

I was in Austin last weekend for South by Southwest and attended a live taping of Pod Save America, in which Jon Lovett said something really insightful about this supposed war on men that men feel like they’re suddenly in the middle of. (His comments were in response to a Tucker Carlson segment on Fox News in which he announced that men in America are in crisis, which is why he’s devoting the entire month of March to shining a light on their struggle. Sigh.) Anyway, what Lovett basically said was that what men are experiencing right now isn’t so much a crisis of men, but a crisis of masculinity, and that’s a really important distinction. It’s not that men, as a whole, are under attack. But what is being “attacked,” which is to say, being challenged or questioned, is the construct of masculinity, which for far too long, has gone hand in hand with being an asshole. You know the kind I mean, the insensitive, bravado-spewing, superiority-claiming, dominating, sometimes abusive or violent “hot-blooded male” men. And that is what women are coming forward and saying they’re no longer willing to allow or ignore or live with. So it’s the socially accepted concept of “masculinity” as a whole that has something to fear in the #MeToo era, not men in general.

But still, it’s freaking men out. And for men like you, who consider themselves allies, there seems to be this instinctive need—going back to the Duffer Brothers thing—to be like ‘as someone who sees both sides of the equation, and empathises with both, I feel the need to tell you that this isn’t a #MeToo thing, or a gender thing, because they’re just assholes.’ I understand the need to try to find flaws in it, or ways to disqualify it from the larger #MeToo conversation by trying to separate the gender issue from the general behaviour issue, but the point is: you can’t. One feeds into the other.

Gh: That’s a good point. But it still doesn’t entirely explain why I feel the need to make that distinction in the first place. I don’t dismiss the allegations out of hand, but it’s as though I have to test the allegations against my own sense of justice and logic before I can fully qualify them as, indeed, gender-based. I like the explanation that I’m just trying to see both sides, but that might be letting myself off too easy.

You mentioned that we feel threatened. I think it’s right, but I think the wording isn’t. The thing about male privilege is that, for the most part, we don’t feel it. It’s like wearing a thick coat in the winter. You’re warm, but you still feel cold when the wind blows. And it’s not like knowing other people are colder makes much difference. When we talk about how men feel threatened, it implies that men know what they have and they see it being taken away. I don’t think we are that self aware.

Since we’re quoting podcasts, Mike Pesca of Slate’s The Gist, made a good point about privilege a few months back. We think of it as an advantage that some people (straight white folk, mostly; straight white men, particularly) have that others don’t. Pesca made the point that privilege isn’t something extra that certain groups have. Privilege represents how things should be. For everyone.

Cops don’t typically stop me for no reason. That’s not a bonus I get for being white. That’s how cops should treat everyone. When I apply for a job, I know that my name won’t make whoever is hiring ignore my resume. And that’s how hiring is supposed to work. Basically, it’s the absence of unjust roadblocks. Some men reject the idea of privilege because they don’t feel like they’ve received special treatment. And really, they haven’t received special treatment. They just haven’t received special mistreatment. (Okay, some do receive special treatment, but I’d argue that that’s a class thing.)

PB: I would strongly disagree here. I think the reason men are having such a strong reaction to everything that’s going on right now is precisely because they know just how good they’ve had it for so long. They’ve always been the loudest, strongest, most dominant voices in any room and for the first time they’re being told to listen, to introspect, to recalibrate. Of course there’s going to be an internal struggle against the potential dissolution of the evolutionarily indoctrinated conviction of male superiority.

GH: That’s a handy narrative. It’s easier to dismiss anything a man might say if we decide that we’re all consciously trying to keep what we have like social justice misers. I can imagine Wall Street bros and alpha males being more sinister than ignorant, but not, like, my friends and family. I’m not at all saying privilege doesn’t exist, I’m saying that it’s like a mental illness. It colours your life in all sorts of ways, without you knowing. I have depression. For a long time I wouldn’t really admit that I had it though, since it never prevented me from getting out of bed. I just assumed that the way I saw the world was accurate–was in fact the way everyone should see the world, if they were honest with themselves. I didn’t even realize how broken my thinking was because the thing that I rely on to recognize stuff, was broken, too. Men don’t realize when men are the only ones talking, or when they’re interrupting or being dominating. They are acting the way they’ve been socialized to act. Moreover, they don’t understand the little ways women are knocked about and objectified, because they only know their own experiences.

So if we can for a moment assume that some men at least don’t recognize how good they have it–that their unexamined life is their life–then a lot of the talk around changing society, or about how tired we all should be of hearing from old white men, can feel unfair. Actually, even men who do realize their privilege might feel that the way this movement offhandedly dismisses them is a bit unfair. They didn’t ask to be born a white male. They aren’t intentionally taking opportunities away from other people, they’re just living their lives, semi-ignorant of how much harder things could be. And yet, white men get disparaged, and considered villains. Maybe we feel defensive, both because we didn’t do anything to have our privilege, and thus didn’t intentionally do anything to be considered bad, but also because we aren’t really welcome to talk about it. It doesn’t feel fair. #boohoo #maletears

PB: You and I both know that not all men are considered villains right? [Greg nods, electronically.] Just checking. But there does seem to be this fear among men of the #MeToo movement spinning out of control and I think that that male fear of injustice is deeply intertwined with their belief that women are too emotional or too sensitive or too vindictive to be counted on to be fair.

GH: That’s interesting! I definitely think that’s a huge part of it! Wow. I know for me personally, it’s not that I think women are vindictive or emotional. For me, my fear is more directed at the media. I think writers and commenters are so prone to outrage and so allergic to nuance, and so guided by clicks, that fairness will be lost.

With every man that is brought down, we check whether the downfall was just or not, because we’re afraid that that injustice will spread to us. I don’t mean that we’ll be accused of sexual harassment, or verbal abuse. But that, because those men are bad–and their gender plays a part in that– we will also be dismissed as inherently bad.

PB: Okay, I just had a thought. Historically, men have never felt the need for allies. But right now, because there is so much confusion regarding what’s acceptable, what’s okay, what’s bad, what’s going to get you in trouble, guys are feeling the need to reach out to each other and stick up for each other in ways they never had to before. Maybe that’s where all this newfound defensiveness on each other’s behalf is coming from.

GH: Also a good point. Certainly a part of it comes from feeling like our voices are a little unwelcome, and so the defensiveness is almost an internalized form of discussing and questioning everything that’s happening. Just to make make myself clear, when I say that White Men are are constantly disparaged, I’m not talking about when men are accused in public of misconduct. Nor do I mean that society has suddenly turned men into pariahs. Our privilege is still strong. I mean in the culture (and by that I mean, the culture of the coastal media elite urban professional blah blah blah, not like Fox News culture) has no reservation against saying things like, “we don’t need another white man to…” As I said, I’m not comparing it with the racism, sexism, transphobia or any other discrimination that has kept groups silent for too long. It is not the same. At all.

Men don’t do themselves any favours when they dismiss the experiences of others and engage in what-about-ism. We still don’t have those invisible roadblocks. But take the Tucker Carlson project you mentioned. The truth is–and I always feel dirty acknowledging this, because it feels like I’m supporting fedora-wearing, neck-bearded trolls–men as a group are facing some unique challenges that should be addressed. We commit suicide far more often than women. We die on the job way more. We use far more drugs and drink more alcohol. We die sooner, and we get sent to prison more, too.

Instead of realizing that these problems have the same root cause as women’s problems (hello patriarchy), puffy, permanently aggrieved babies like Tucker Carlson want to engage in some asinine Oppression Olympics that just makes men look pathetic and clueless. You don’t cure prostate cancer by proving ovarian cancer isn’t really as big of a deal as people claim. Just work to fucking cure cancer.

PB: Totally. There shouldn’t be a battle. Just to be clear though: there’s no element of comeuppance at play in the struggle for gender and racial equality. No one wants white men to atone, retroactively, for being the dominant actor in most situations for as long as we can remember.

GH: Agreed. But there are a lot of comments like, “Oh great, another show about white people.” Or, “Of course they got another white man to host the…” So, what I’m saying is, while that attitude is justified and the resulting diversity is good for everyone, on an individual level, it’s not unreasonable to see how a man would feel like his thoughts or work or whatever isn’t wanted.

PB: Ah I see what you’re saying! Like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel making all those jokes about awards show hosting gigs still going to straight white males even in the #MeToo era. Which sort of sets the stage for fears like “Will I, in the future, be joked and guilted right out of opportunities and discussions because I’m a straight white dude, and SWDs had it way too good for way too long and now I have to pay for it?” which leads to thoughts of “Will I, one day, be shut out of things merely because of my race or my gender?” Well congratulations dudes, you now know what it’s like to be a woman or a racial/ethnic minority or anyone from the LGBTQ community! (Let’s be real though: it’s never actually gonna happen to you guys.)

GH: Truthfully, I feel very ambivalent about this, because I agree that men have little to complain about. And it’s not like my feelings are actually hurt. But we’re at this place where men feel dismissed and they can’t talk about it without sounding like Jordan Peterson acolytes. We don’t need to make every issue about us. But if we’re unpacking why even male allies get defensive, we should acknowledge that humility doesn’t come naturally for anyone. Imagine as an immigrant someone telling you your views on Canada aren’t welcome, because it’s not YOUR country. Or actually, it would be more like if a British person who lived in India all their life (see, I’m totally pandering to you) wasn’t allowed to express their political thoughts because their motherland was a colonial horror show.

PB: That’s an interesting analogy. I’d never actually thought about it from that perspective. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, to be honest, in the grand scheme of things, but I do see how that could be frustrating for young men who, like you said, might feel disinvited before they even get to the party. Hopefully, as they get older and more mature they’ll see the bigger picture, and their place in it.

GH: And with that, we’ve fixed everything. I’m not even going to be offended that you implied I was immature. You know why? Because I’m like the maturest dude in the office. (I have very little competition.)

[coalhill-rp]

Welcome (again) to COAL HILL, LIZ! Is that Captain America? Oh no, that’s just JACK HARKNESS running PE, carry on ladies and gents. Please make sure to read the newbie checklist and send in your account within 24 hours.

OOC INFO

Name: Liz Age: 24 Timezone: EST Activity level: 7-10 Previous RP experience: here as the Doctor and various others. Anything else?: connections will go here;

JAMES SMITH: Jack doesn’t fully know James. Not because he hasn’t tried (believe him, he has) but because James is a mystery all on his own. The science teacher is a bit… eccentric, but that’s what makes Jack like him so much. (Well, that and his good looks). There’s plenty of good-looking people in the school, but Jack definitely finds James to be among the best looking. 

THE DOCTOR: Jack finds the Doctor to be a little… strange. It’s not that he doesn’t like him, he does, but the old man seems to be keeping more secrets than he’s letting on. Plus, there’s something about him that reminds him of James and John… He’s not sure what it is exactly, but judging how the Caretaker of the school is well protected by nearly everyone, Jack’s decided to get in on the old man’s good side. 

CLARA OSWALD: Jack likes Clara a lot. He finds her brilliant and witty, as well as beautiful. She’s sharp as a tack and seems to be one of the Doctor’s many devotees. In fact, the Captain’s come to realise that Clara cares for the Doctor a whole lot, which at first seemed odd to him; but after seeing how the Doctor reacts and seems to be around her, he could see why. He’s resolved to get to know her better and hopes that one day she and he can become good friends. 

IC INFO

Desired character: ‘Captain’ Jack Harkness Character’s birthday: July 25th Second teachable: First teachable is History (usually American); he’s taken up as coach for physical education though for his secondary. Also, he leads the club for Future Leaders. Sexual and romantic orientation: pansexual; panromantic. Ships you’d pass: Chemistry Ships you’d flunk: No-Chemistry Character bio/history:  Captain Jack Harkness grew up in mid-west America when times were a lot nicer for folks who had that 'American dream’ fever. His parents, transplants from the U.K., moved there after having problems back home in Scotland - to which they never really talked about - raised Jack and his younger brother Gray to believe that the best and only life they could have would only be in their small town.

Well, once Jack was old enough, he said goodbye to his family and hit the road where he travelled all over the continental U.S. and Canada. (He even had a fun three month 'vacation’ in Mexico). It wasn’t until when he made it to the East Coast and New York City, that Jack decided to get serious about life and began an extensive education in the one subject he’s always loved; HISTORY. After spending quite a few years with his nose to the grind and working hard, Jack finally earned his Masters degree and decided to broaden his travelling.

After being tracked down by his mother, Jack told her he was fine and set off for the rest of the world. Spending the next five years of his life travelling the globe, Jack learned much more than he could have ever hoped and finally found himself a permanent spot in one of the least likely places he’d ever thought he’d find himself; LONDON, ENGLAND. It was fine though, he was almost immediately offered a teaching job at the primary school Coal Hill, and when he took the position of History teacher, Jack couldn’t have been more excited.

That was until his parents got wind of where he was and began to call him nearly all the time, send him letters (mostly from his mother), but most of all, when the flat he was going to rent was bought 'anonymously’ and gifted to him. …He suspected that was his father’s doing. He wanted to argue with them and tell them that he could make it on his own and to look and see how far along he’s gotten without them…

…Except, when he looked back at his life, he realised that they’ve probably influenced and guided him all along. So he gave in and let them help him, being grateful that they weren’t coming back to the U.K. and that they were staying on the other side of the Atlantic ocean.

- Jack has a unique fashion sense. He tends to go for a more dated, but well fit look that matches to that of the military style of the 1940s. His most prized posession is a Greatcoat from the era that he wears whenever he goes out. However, if he’s deciding to look more casual, his style never really drifts from the cool colours spectrum; mostly consisting of blues and greys.

- Jack is well-versed in American History and tends to primarily focus on that, but he also enjoys World history and will not hesitate to jump at the chance to teach it as well. He doesn’t like to step on the other teachers in the History department’s toes, so if someone else specialises in something, he wont teach it.

- Jack has always struggled with his over-bearing Mother and militaristic Father, despite emulating some of the latters behaviours. He loves them dearly, but he also wants them to respect his wishes to just let him live his own life.

- Jack is a collector of books and anytime he sees one he doesn’t have, he’ll find a way to acquire it so he can add it to his personal collection. One of the rooms in his flat is solely dedicated to this collection, and his favourite book is a leather-bound 'the picture of dorian gray’ by Oscar Wilde.

- Jack and his younger brother Gray don’t get along as much as he’d like, but he blames this on their upbringing. He wasn’t the kindest older brother and he’s pretty sure Gray blames him for the time he’d locked him into the freezer chest. But he blames Gray for getting him in trouble and consequently grounded by their father.

- Jack is a very neat and organised person and his office and flat reflects that. Students have noted him absently cleaning up piles of papers and folders. He’s also the Doctor’s simutaneously favourite and also most annoying teacher, because of this.

- Jack’s last name of 'Harkness’ was one he’d given himself after trying to disassociate with his parents. However, he kept the title of 'Captain’ as a nickname he’d earned from his father at a young age. As much as he and his fatehr bickered, he still admired the man… though he’d never admit it.

Character traits:  + natural born leader, charismatic, charming  - stubborn, emotionally repressed, quick to conclusions.

IC RESPONSE

What are your character’s last three texts sent? And to whom? To Clara: Can’t make it to club after school today, can you cover? Thanks a bunch and I owe you a million. To John: Found out there’s a new laser tag place that’s opened up; you game? To James: The old man is being weird again. Told me I need to make a mess so he can clean it… I thought me cleaning up after myself was a favour to him…?

What would be your character’s last three social media posts? Selfies at various flattering angles of him on Instagram. Tired statuses on Facebook, marked with him arguing with people he didn’t really want to add in the first place. Twitter updates about the Doctor and his crazy schemes.

What are the very first three things your character does when they get up in the morning? Check his mobile, make a pot of coffee, and take a shower, get dressed.

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