#wish i could transplant my ideas in full story without taking time to write it XD

[impyssadobsessions]

Bully: The Deal

I've been proud of what I wrote for a big story idea for Bully (the game by rockstar) but its still like first chapter and I probably wont get to it anytime soon. So I wanted to post some bits and pieces. Mostly showing like Pete's perspective and resemblance of like Gary and his Grandfather Also this is the game Bully so offensive language is kind of part of the deal.

Pete Kowalski have had many bad days in his life. As being a small and shy, but curious child, it was bound to be the case. Like the time when he was five and a bunch of boys poor glue all over his head. Or like the time he was eight and he watched his dog get hit by a car because he wanted to play outside with him.

The lady who hit the dog, fussed at Pete for not keeping him on a leash and demanded his parents pay for the damage done to the bumper. Pete never asked for another pet since.

There was also a time when Pete first started Bullworth. A bunch of bullies stuck him into a trash can and rolled him off of school grounds down into the beach path. He rolled straight into the water. Pete had to swim back to shore as the trash sailed off to sea. And that was just a few really terrible ones that came to mind, however, none of them compared to the deep sense of dread and anxiety of today. Well... maybe the dog thing was worse, but this was a close second. “Hello~ Earth to Fem-boy!” A hand waved in front of his face. The hand retreated back, like a pulled curtain, revealing a scarred face with a wicked grin. Gary Smith was back for another year at Bullworth. “I hate to disappoint you, Petey, but I don't swing that way. Though I know its hard not to stare. I'm an incredible. Human body at its peak.” Gary flexing his arms, “Humanities greatest achievement. Genetic marvel, really.” “Not mentally.” Pete bit his tongue as soon as he let his words slip. Cursing internally as Gary turned back towards him.

“Ooohoo hoo~ I see someone got started on their testosterone while I was gone.” Gary cooed with a nastier grin. Eyes sharp. Petey rolled his eyes, as he always did with the boy. Though he can't deny after the stunt Gary pulled last year, he was highly on edge. Just being in same room with Gary, set off his flight response. Pete couldn't imagine rooming with the guy again for another year or two. “Whatever Gary. What are you even doing here?”

“Oh, you know! Just like every snot-nose moron that infect these halls, I was.. forced to.” Gary gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, shaking it a little.

Pete raised a brow, his arms crossed. Forced to? “Yes! Girly-boy,” Did Pete say his thoughts out loud again? Though, with Gary, it could be that he read Pete's expression or that he wanted to continue for the sake of dramatic effect. “-Forced! Forced by the unfortunate trash that gave me life to attend this sorry God-forsaken zoo we call a school.” Gary flopped back on his bed, opposite of Pete's, arms crossed. His back against the wall. “Trust me, this is the LAST place I would want to be. Well, I guess second to that damn asylum.” Petey couldn't say he was shocked. Letting out a sigh, Pete asked mostly to himself, “Why me though?” “I don't know, Petey. Why don't you go ask Dr. Crabs-for-brains? After all, I'm sure he'll tell you with all the sucking up you had to do to get the title of HEAD boy. Or maybe he might even switch you with Hopkins if you offer some ass.” Pete's face flush with embarrassment and scrunched up in absolute disgust at the comment. “You're so gross.”

“I'm not the one sucking cock-” “Whatever, Jerk. I'm outta here.” Pete swiftly turned to walk out of the dorm. “Give the head a good kiss for me~ Right on the ass che-!” Pete slammed the door shut, a bit harder than he wanted to, but within ten minutes in the same room with Gary and Pete was ready to go back home. Too bad his parents wouldn't let him even if he did. 'You spend too much time inside!' 'Go out and play, son!' 'Don't you have a girlfriend, yet?' 'You're sixteen, Pete! Go to the park, go ride a bike, or get drunk at a party- just go do something!' Pete pinched the bridge of his nose while sticking his free hand into his pocket. To think he was even looking forward to the new year. He had FRIENDS.. well a friend and his friend's current... girlfriend? Jimmy never made it clear what Zoe was, but neither did Zoe. He was the head boy, which was bound to gain him some respect. At least by the smaller kids. The cliques were somewhat on good terms since Jimmy beat their asses again. Things were looking up for once. But... Pete should have known better by now, that anything that goes up must come down.

-----------------

“Here he is, Mr. Smith. The perfect model student of Bullworth Academy. Our Head Boy, Paul Kowalski-”Dr. Crabblesnitch stood up and patted Pete on the shoulder. “Peter, sir.” Pete corrected with a muttered. “Aha-yes yes. My mistake. Peter Kowalski.” Dr. Crabblesnitch's hand squeezing Pete's shoulder. His face keeping a stressed smile. “Head Boy?” The gruff voice of the older man asked with a raise brow. Pete tried hard not to frown as he recognized that tone. Mr. Smith plopped down in a empty chair right next to the one that was overturned on the floor. “This puny punk? Ha! He looks like one step away from wearing a dress and changing his name to Patty.” Okay, yeah. They were definitely related. Pete's face twitched in annoyance. “You must be Gary's grandfather. I can see where he gets his sense of humor from.” Petey outstretched his hand out towards Mr. Smith, trying to ignore the painful grip of Dr. Crabblesnitch's hand on his shoulder.

Mr. Smith tilted his head as his mustache swished back and fourth. Pete tried to keep his smile in place. He didn't want to appear weak or intimidated, but the silent tension was making Pete nervous. “Hahaha! Nice to meet you, Peter.” Mr. Smith burst out laughing while he reached out to shake Pete's hand. “Nice. To meet. You. Too... Mr. Smith.” Pete said through gritted teeth, trying to not let the pain show as Mr. Smith crushed Pete's hand in his grip. “Call me Allen, son.” Mr. Smith let go of Pete's hand and leaned back into his chair. He nodded his head slightly, as if he given Pete his approval. Pete let out a slight breath in relief. He folded his arms behind his back and rubbed his aching hand. Jerk. “Nice to meet you, Allen, sir.” --------------------

“So I thought to myself on how we could prevent the past from repeating itself and then it occurred to me. Our major blind spot is among his peers, thus entrusting a student with upstanding morals for the task was top priority.” Dr. Crabblesnitch looked over at Mr. Smith, “Of course, Gary Smith will be tested regularly as well to make absolutely certain that no tampering has arise.” This was a bad idea. A VERY bad idea. Pete couldn't stop Gary last year! He definitely couldn't, didn't WANT to this year. Gary did what Gary wanted too. He could fake it so easily and Pete... Pete was pretty certain all this would bite him in the ass. In more ways than one. “Hmph. Sounds like a lot of hoopla to me.” Allen's voice snapped Pete out of his daze. “S-sir! I was Gary's roommate last year and-and I don't think-” Petey stuttered. He had to say something, anything to try to get out of this. “Splendid! Then you'll already know what his condition is like with or without his medication.” “No-I mean yes, but-!” “Well! You've certainly convinced me, Crabblesnitch. I think its a wonderful idea.” Allen laughed loudly, standing up with a grin. Pete froze as he whipped his face towards Allen in confusion. What were all the adults on in this town?! The old man walked over to him, and slapped his back making the poor boy stumble forward. “I feel quite satisfied that this young lad is going to be playing caretaker to my grandson.” Allen barked. Pete's eyes danced between the headmaster and Mr. Smith. Confusion still written clearly on his face. “Ah, I'm so glad you've come to reason, Mr. Smith. Though Peter is not going to be responsible for Gary Smith's actions, he will at least keep us updated.” Dr. Crabblesnitch letting out a small breath of relief. Pete was too stun to reply. His fate was sealed, just like that.

---------------------

“Ah, finally some fresh air. I was getting tired of smelling all that bullshit in there,” Allen chuckled as he gave Pete a wink. Pete choked on a snort. “It was.. stifling to say the least.” Allen barked a laugh as he started to walk again. “Well, I'm glad there was at least one person that isn't stuck so far up their own ass that they can't smell shit around them.” Pete hummed in response, not sure how to take the compliment.

[ks-caster]

It’s Like Watching Fanfiction – An (Un)Necessarily Long Critique of The 100 Seasons 6 and 7

Ah, the familiar cry of the content-starved fan, particularly as our favorite shows descend into the depths of mischaracterization, unexpected ships, hiatus, abrupt cancellation and shock-value death endings. I’ve said it myself about so many of my shows, while wanting to spend some time watching the characters but not wanting to re-hash episodes I’ve nearly memorized: “I wish I could just watch fanfiction!”

But the further into seasons 6 and 7 I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to realize that my dream of having new and exciting possibilities for the characters come miraculously to a screen near me wouldn’t be the pleasant experience I’d imagined.

Now, depending on the type of ending you like – hopeful but with a lot of lose ends left to your imagination, or bittersweet but more definite, you could consider either seasons 1-4 or 1-5 their own complete stories.

Both seasons 4 and 5 ended in a way that suggested an unknown but likely positive future. They could have been considered conclusions for the main characters’ developmental arcs, and while season 5 went a little off the rails in terms of offscreen character development and sudden new characters, they both stayed fairly close to the original concept: survivors living in the ruins of the apocalypse. All four (or five) seasons emphasized the importance of the found family dynamic (although those dynamics shifted radically in season 5 due to the time-skip, they remained an important source of character motivation).

But seasons 6 and 7? Those feel like I’m watching fanfiction. And I don’t love it.

A story told on a whole new planet with a new environment, culture and cast of original characters was always going to feel like an AU – it sort of is, no matter how you swing it. If that was all that had changed, then I think the story would still feel cohesive.

If it weren’t for the timey whimey bullshit.

Now, fun fact: when reading fanfiction, I love time travel stories. I haven’t posted any myself but I’ve sought out and read them voraciously, for every fandom I’m in. I love the idea of characters meeting themselves or their friends at radically different ages, plot points and levels of experience and the way that changes things for both groups. (Yes, I’m also a Whovian if that wasn’t blatantly obvious). I also love a good amnesia arc. And I DID think that the Josephine/Clarke body possession thing was pretty cool.

So why did season 6 and most* of season 7 fall as flat for me as they did?

The simple fact is that some things – and characters’ emotional dynamics are one of those things – are so much easier to get across in writing than on screen. A good actor can make us feel the character’s emotions, but unless the film goes full-on Clarke’s mind space, we can’t really know what they’re thinking in individual moments. For the most part film as a genre has ways around this, but if it’s mishandled, then the emotional beats come off all wrong. (See for reference Tony Stark’s funeral where half the actors didn’t know what was going on due to Disney’s spoiler fears.)

If you’re going to include time skips in which things have happened and character dynamics have changed, you cannot handle it wrong.

Which brings us back to seasons 6 and (so far) 7 of The 100. So far to date we’ve had all of this occur either offscreen or asynchronously enough to be confusing to an audience watching the episodes in real time:

Jordan’s entire life prior to meeting Napkru in the waking world

Octavia’s character development while living on Skyring with the Diyozas

Hope’s first 22 years of life, on Skyring and (I presume) Bardo

Echo, Hope and Gabriel living on Skyring for 5 years with Orlando

Going back a little further, we also have the season 5 timeskip, which brought us Spacekru as found family, Clarke adopting tiny!heda, and Octavia building Wonkru. Now season 5 took care to show us Wonkru flashbacks and dedicate time to show Spacekru and the Griffin family loving on each other, making inside jokes etc. But it was still incredibly jarring for the audience in a lot of ways, because at the end of the day, we’ve spent four years with the character dynamics and development doing one thing, and no amount of telling us that they’ve had 6 years to do another thing while our time with them only lasted about one year in comparison is ever going to undo the importance of “show don’t tell.”

Let’s take Bellarkers’ beef with Becho for example. (Disclaimer: Since I don’t really have a strong opinion either way on the popular Bellamy ships, I hope that I’m representing what I’ve read from other people accurately.)

I understand cognitively that Bellamy and Clarke knew each other for one year (during which they were in a lot of intense situations that really didn’t leave them the emotional space to figure out how they felt about each other outside of “I don’t want to lose this person”) and Bellamy and Echo knew each other for seven years (six of which they had plenty of low-stress time to get to know each other, grow and mature side-by-side, etc.).

But that doesn’t compute on an emotional level when I as a watcher went straight from watching Bellamy and Raven tearfully eulogizing Clarke on the ring, to him turning up with a coffee mug and a plucky attitude to rescue her the second he finds out she’s alive and in trouble. I don’t think that could compute emotionally for me without having spent the last few years watching the dynamics shift and Becho happen. And that was with the writers giving me as a watcher an episode at the end of season 4 where Bellamy stops Echo from killing herself and connects with her on an emotional level, and then one at the beginning of season 5 where we got to see the spacekru dynamics, including them being together.

So we’re watching this show, many of us for the found family character relationships (god knows it’s not for all the positive happy feeling I get from watching *checks notes* ah, yes, characters having to constantly choose who to kill off in a string of increasingly huge and horrible genocides. *Side-eyes my life choices for getting into this fandom in the first place.*) Okay, we’re watching this show for the characters, and between seasons 4 and 5, many of those dynamics radically shift offscreen. Becho is the easiest and probably most talked-about example (well, and the Blake siblings, but the radical change shown in Octavia’s character between 4 and 5 makes that at least a little easier to choke down) but there are plenty of others, take your pick.

Although it makes perfect sense for a lot to change between separated groups of people in a half dozen years, it makes a lot less sense to an audience watching week to week, particularly when the show’s limited amount of screen time was too focused on plot to really delve into those changes and let us see and understand them. That was what made me think that the show was headed into jump the shark territory in season 5, but I really wanted to know what happened to my faves (Octavia, Raven and Memori, to be specific) so I kept watching.

Our fandom’s excellent writers spent the hiatus crafting mid-time-skip vignettes and missing character moments, and I spent the hiatus reading them. And I remember thinking that it would have been great if even a quarter of this content could have been put into the show to ease the audience into the dynamic shifts – but of course they’d never have the screen time to do all of that.

Especially, coming back to the main point, since written fiction allows the audience to see inside the characters’ heads, while television (usually) does not. It’s much easier to write a scene in which, say, two characters who have known each other for 7 years show that they’ve gotten into a relationship some time before the scene, and convince the audience that their relationship is good and healthy and genuine, than it would be to produce one for TV.  

And then we come to seasons 6 and 7 – the 2-part AU longfic, stuffed full of OCs, loosely connected to the “science” of the original show, and heavily reliant on memory-bending time travel as a plot device.

As season 6 airs, the audience hasn’t really had a chance to process all the radical changes from season 5, and already we have a Marper child running around furthering the plot, and Octavia walks into the Green Flash from Pirates of the Caribbean and walks back out with a personality transplant.

Meanwhile, Clarke gets an actual personality transplant, and it takes even the people closest to her a concerningly long time to notice. Now, if I’d read that in a fic, the writer might’ve taken care to remind me as a reader – particularly after a long hiatus between seasons – that with the exception of Madi none of Clarke’s friends have seen her for more than a couple of weeks in 6 years, so them not noticing for a while that she’s behaving strangely isn’t really all that strange. But on TV, I don’t get to see Gaia’s thoughts when Clarke lets Madi go to school despite the danger – Tati Gabrielle’s facial expressions can only do so much to make up the difference. Because the time spent apart was not (and really could not be, based on the structure of the show) properly acknowledged on screen, scenes like that one leave audiences floundering and pointing out bad writing.

Having watched 7x02 The Garden, I think if I went back and watched season 6 after Octavia returns from the Anomaly, her conduct – especially around Bellamy – would make a lot more sense. (That was the plan for this weekend actually – but my damn Wi-Fi conked out…) However at the time it just seemed weird and unnatural. Had it been the only example of off-screen or asynchronous character development, it would have been a lot easier to swallow. However, season 5 happened, meaning both that I was still getting used to all of the new dynamics and that I had a higher standard for Octavia’s off-screen development, because we got enough bunker flashbacks that I felt like I at least understood Blodreina.

What would have made the whole thing make a lot more sense a year ago would have been if the hair and makeup department had made an effort to make her look older, so that we could see time had passed for her. Now, Marie is 33 in real life, and so was the Octavia who figured out that up is down and got Davy Jones Locker to send her back ran out of the Anomaly, so yes, that is what an actual 33-year-old looks like, and the media has distorted my perception of age. But from an audience perspective, I saw an actress playing a 23-year-old go in, and the same actress playing the same 23-year-old come out.

Gabriel pointed out that her hair was longer, but that only accounted for a few months of time. Since she went in looking dirty, wounded and exhausted, and came out clean, healthy and energetic, she could have passed for younger before I would have thought she was older. (In fact, I want to say there was a theory circulating at that time that the Octavia who came out of the Anomaly was actually a younger version of herself, and she was missing memories because she’d never formed them. I don’t remember whose theory this was though. If you know or if it’s your content I’m referencing please feel free to let me know and I’ll edit!)

In addition, the shifting loyalties in Wonkru near the end of season 5 complicated the character situation – in season 6, the majority of Wonkru peeps (lookin’ at you, Miller and Indra) switched over to the commander’s side. While Indra didn’t really have enough screen time to express an opinion about Octavia, Miller was very clear in season 6 that she was anathema now – which although that was probably a semi-reasonable step for his character, it just felt like someone took his Bellamy-and-or-Clarke-following season 1-4 character and popped it into his season 6 costume without taking the time to address the road he took to get there.

Post-lockerAnomaly Octavia had to face and slay her demons. (Grumbles and links the interested reader to this POST from @osleyakomwonkru regarding that horseshit.) Afterwards, she shows a major shift in personality, particularly towards her brother. Because we as the audience wouldn’t see her time on skyring for about year in real time (or learn that she was ten years older and therefore a lot more mature, the chemical changes of which would account for at least some of the difference even if she couldn’t remember anything else) we had no choice but to associate her change with the slaying of Blodreina, which seemed like a ham-fisted way of forcing her a quick and slick redemption arc and prepping The Blake Siblings to go back to being ride-or-die for each other in season 7.

Raven’s season 6 personality was also radically different from her 1-5 development – while I understand her having a remaining beef with Clarke and being emotional due to Shaw’s death (RIP!) the fact that the writing in season 6 reduced her to the nagging shrew trope until they needed her to do a coding deus ex machina just added to the feeling that I was watching someone take the characters around, change them to their own preferences (even if that preference was to push some into the background and make them tools for the B-plot) and toss them into an AU story. Which I could have enjoyed more if I had been reading it and therefore seeing inside the characters’ heads – and if I hadn’t paid for the privilege with ad revenue instead of voluntary clicks of the kudos/like/reblog/comment buttons.

Another issue with time skip relationship is exposition for the lesser known characters’ backstories. Both seasons 6 and 7 have so far had dramatic character mother death reveals that were conveniently not told to their most important people specifically because the appropriate time to tell those stories would have been during the offscreen time skips. I will (grudgingly) accept Echo, an adult making a conscious (and familiar) decision to change up her personality to fit into and survive within her environment, choosing not to tell a traumatic story that reminds her of her past. (She’s my next meta – stay tuned!)

I will not in a million years, however, believe that the Clarke Griffin who I watched for four seasons be set up as the blatantly obvious “compassionate mom-friend protagonist” adopted a traumatized 6-year-old, moved into said child’s village, burned or buried the bodies of everyone who lived there, and never ever brought up the child’s dead birth parents.

No way. The ONLY reason that could have possibly been scripted in that way was because that conversation needed to be there for plot reasons and the appropriate time for it to have been had was during the 6 years they spent off screen. Similarly, while (again) I’ll buy that Echo chose not to talk about her mom’s death with Bellamy before he decided to be a dick about it, I fully believe that the timing of that conversation was only there because if it had occurred on the ring where it would have been more appropriate, the audience would have missed it.

Now, picture this: if the scene with Madi had been in a written fanfic, Clarke could have said “you didn’t lose me,” Madi could have said “I didn’t mean you,” and Clarke could have remembered Madi telling her the story of her birth mom dying in her arms. Then Clarke could have mentally made the decision that she didn’t want Madi to relive that in an attempt to empathize with her, and she makes an effort to convince her that she’s fine. In just 2 or 3 paragraphs a written story could have effectively conveyed both the exposition and the emotional beats of the scene, concluding with Clarke making a (maybe misguided but still sweet) attempt to be a good mom by not dredging that up for Madi (or something – I’m not defending the crappy and inconsistent writing of Clarke’s parenting we’ve on screen so far).

Moving right along, we had a lovely flashback montage of Hope and Dev, which was sufficient to make me (and several of the tumblrs I follow) care about Dev at least enough to be saddened by his death. However, what we didn’t get was a damn crumb of flashback showing Orlando and Anomalykru developing any kind of familial relationship between him agreeing to train them, and whatever dynamic we were supposed to pick up on at the end of that episode. I got a little protective big sister vibe from Echo and Hope but that’s it. They apparently expended their allotment of emotion-inducing flashbacks on the dead guy, and failed entirely to make me give a shit about (as it turned out) the next dead guy.

Now we’re going into an episode with Octavia on (presumably) Bardo in the promo, so I’m guessing we get to see her skyring-self link up with her return-to-Gabriel-with-clean-hair self. As least with Octavia’s jumping storyline it seems like the writers have consistently made some kind of effort to fill in the blanks.

But we’re also looking at the rest of the season where Echo, Gabriel, Hope, oh hi Jordan I forgot about you again, Diyoza, Octavia, and probably Bellamy and Hoth!Kru (AKA team let’s follow Raven onto a strange planet without putting on suits or having an exit strategy, yay!) have all experienced asynchronous development over periods of multiple years. Given the show’s track record from seasons 5 and 6, I strongly suspect that this won’t be handled any better, meaning that the final season of this show is going to try not only to resolve all the plot points, but to toss in a bunch MORE offscreen character development and hope we catch on.

Beyond character development jumps, we also have Raven and Murphy losing their seasons 1-5 development in season 6 only to have to re-learn and re-change back to who they already were in seasons 4 and 5. Murphy learned to value his spacekru family and stop putting himself first 100% of the time, and yet his arc in season 6 happened. Raven has always been involved in the big life-or-death decisions, and had her being-the-bad-guy moment in season 4 with the rationing, but as we saw in 7x03 the writers really wanted to… redo all of that for her? The girl blew up a bridge full of guys and flash-fried a 300-person army when she was 18; blood on her hands may not be fun but what’s with seasons 6 and 7 acting like it’s something new?

While I’m aware that Jason said his seasons are individual movies (don’t admit that you’re bad at continuity buddy ‘cause that’s what it sounds like) seasons 1-5 and 6&7 are clearly telling separate stories (or 1-4, 5, 6-7 if you prefer). The trouble with 6&7 is that unlike seasons 1-4 (and sort-of 5) we no longer know the characters. Every time someone sits still too long, character-development wise, plot comes along and hits the reset button, tosses them into a wormhole for a couple of years and they come back with the same face but no continuity. It was difficult enough to deal with in season 5 – between 6 and 7 I just can’t keep up. (Even writing this meta, I have to keep going back because I remembered another character who fell into this trap.)

Now if a fanfic writer had done the exact same thing – same plot, same time skips, same organization – it would have played out completely different to the readers. We could have gotten to see inside the character’s minds when they arrived back on screen, seeing things with new, older eyes. We could have had minimally invasive flashbacks to show important exposition (like the disaster that was the conversation about Madi’s mom) and verbal descriptions to point out differences like Octavia’s ten-years-older body. Additionally, the plots of seasons 6 and 7 are so different yet full of overdone callbacks to the earlier seasons – if a fan was writing their own AU story but still wanted some of the trappings of the original plot I’d get it, but on a TV show written by the same people it just feels like they ran out of ideas.

Watching seasons 6 and 7 is exactly like watching fanfiction would be – but without the written and fan-made advantages of fanfiction, they fall flat.

*I do like season 7 better than season 6 because the content of the individual episodes containing Murphy/Emori/Raven and Octavia/Diyoza/bbyHope was still enjoyable content, so 2 out of 4 I have liked so far, despite this very very long rant I’ve just written explaining why as a whole I rather hate the season overall.

[cowandcalf]

First of all, hello! I hope your Monday is tolerable with minimal fuckery and your coffee/tea is strong. I have to ask. What do you believe is the most cbs-friendly way McDanno COULD become canon? Like the actual moment the writers would make it blatantly clear to the audience that McDanno is no longer being disguised as platonic. Whether or not you believe it would/could ever happen, I am still interested in your response :}

First of all, hello back! And thank you so much for your ask. I almost keeled over reading who sent it. I only detected recently that you're DorisNancyGrey on AO3 who wrote the most wicked A/B/O stories for the guys in the fandom. You freaking rock, girl! And here you are, sending me this bomb of an ask!

I'm still kind of numb with nervous pride that you dropped this ask in my inbox. I wouldn't have minded an easier question. Such as: "Who do you like more, Steve McGarrett or Danny Williams?" You know? Life's already so damn complicated.

But I also feel seriously flattered that you're interested in my response. I kind of get the impression you handed me some holy fandom grail that everyone craves for and I may answer your question.

It's already Tuesday and the fuckery (what a freaking awesome word – ohmygod!) is tolerable. My coffee is strong, knuckles are cracked and my brain's ready to unload. I’m not really sure if my answer is the one you have hoped for. And I apologize for the length. I can’t do short :-)

Here you go.

I have flipped that switch in my imagination. CBS writers are totally willing to make McDanno canon. And I would like to add here that at the end of season nine I screamed my secret wishlist for season 10 into the void of the vast space that is Tumblr. There I said I dream about Alex o'Loughlin becoming a director with a hell of a say what's going to happen in the episodes.

And here we are at the beginning of season 10 with Alex directing the first episode, the one he wrote. (I say: Wishlist number 1, check! Wishlist number 2, check!)

Now, McDanno and how they become canon on screen:

It shows in subtle moments and the development from friends to an actual couple happens silently.

Before I dive into the scenes how it's going to be, I'd like to open up the scope of my answer a little more. I can't help it. I'll write an essay. I had to wrap my answer in an explanation that it makes sense. (But maybe it only will make sense to me...)

We all know Danny and his behavior when it gets serious date-wise, relationship-wise. I remember the time when he met Gaby for the first time. He dusted his hands together. He was visibly nervous. His attitude caught Steve's attention. He inflated his cheeks and blew air through pursed lips. He was having a hard time until he was even ready to ask Gaby out for a cup of coffee. Danny isn't relaxed and not super confident when it comes to the real deal. I dare to say he's a bit a nervous mess.

We also know Danny when he hit rock bottom with his worries about Steve. He flies to Korea, all the way to Afghanistan and he would fly to the shittiest place on earth to rescue Steve and to take him back home. In those moments Danny is mellow, soft and very understanding. His whole posture is giving off vibes of protectiveness and he supports Steve in every way. Danny wants to be close to Steve. He makes him feel safe and taken cared for. Danny never rants in those moments. Never. His love for the person (100% always Steve, it's always Steve) he came to take home is on display, vulnerable, honest and full-on.

We also know Steve. He can be a tease, cocky and a sexy bastard. He can flirt with women, get them to have a date with him. I remember Cath in the beginning. She only had to fulfill Steve's wishes. Other men would say "I miss you or I like you a lot". Steve always started his phone call with: "Hi, Cath, I need a favor…" and he always promised to take her out for dinner, lunch whatever and it really took him a long time, after taking one raincheck after the other before he finally made it happen.

We also know Steve as closed off. He doesn't show his feelings. He doesn't deal well with being attached to anyone because of his abandoned issues. A loud, mouthy and bulky Jersey cop proved him time and again how valuable Steve is and how worthy he is to be rescued and to stay by his side. Steve learns from Danny that Danny doesn't leave him.

So, furthermore, both men have to deal with health issues. They underwent a liver transplant. Steve's dealing with radiation poisoning and they get older. They are worn down from the job and from all the years serving as great cops of an elite task force

Okay, now from this perspective I see it happen in a subtle and unhurried way. And this is only scene one and without my background explanation on the feelings.

There will be moments where Steve grabs the Camaro keys from Danny's hand and lingers a few seconds more to pluck it from his fist. Or Steve grabs Danny's wrist and pries the keys from his hand, slower and more deliberate as he normally does.

There will be more peeks into each other's office with the question if the other is up for beer and steak and yeah, there's a game too. Wanna come over?

And at one point, Danny would lean back in his chair, tap his pencil against his crossed knee and stares and Steve. Really looks at him and his eyes are pensively on Steve, intense and earnest. And Steve just stares back, not tearing his gaze away and this moment lasts a few seconds. Danny heaves a sigh and nods. "Yeah, sure. I drive to my place and get changed and then I head over to you. Sure, let's have dinner and watch the game.

Steve's a bit nervous before Danny arrives. It shows in the way he pours too many chips into the bowl and half of it lands on the counter.

Danny walks into Steve's house without knocking. The TV is running and Steve grills steaks in the backyard. They watch the sea and sip at their beers in companionable silence. Both side-eye each other from time to time.

They eat in front of the TV and Danny wants to get up to fetch the Barbecue sauce. Steve jumps up and apologizes about the fact that he forgot about the sauce. Danny says he could go get it but Steve's already on his way back. He hands the bottle to Danny and gives him simultaneously the stink-eye. Danny grabbed the remote control and placed it next to him, out of reach from Steve.

Steve leans in and presses into Danny's space to take the remote control back and before he straightens up he presses a kiss to Danny's head and flops back into the cushions as if nothing had happened.

"What was that?" Danny asks tentatively with his Barbecue sauce bottle in his hand, frozen.

"What was what?" Steve asks, looking straight ahead, feet propped up. "Your team is losing, Danny."

And they would go quiet again and Danny would reach a few times into his hair to touch the spot where Steve's lips touched him so uncharacteristically gentle.

They end up doing the dishes and talking about the game and the shitty calls form the referee. Steve smiles and lets Danny rant, drying the dishes.

They grab the last beer and sit at the beach, night dark. They don't talk, they just sit. Danny gets up at one point and stretches. He shoves his hands in his pockets and stares uneasy out to the dark incoming waves. He sucks his upper lip between his teeth and turns to Steve.

Steve doesn't look up. He rolls his beer bottle in his hands and furrows his brows. He clears his throat and without looking up he says: "Stay," before he goes silent again.

Danny makes a typical Danny face where he shakes his head in disbelieve and narrows his eyes as if he can't believe what he just heard.

Steve's still silent and still doesn't look up. He just darts a gaze over where Danny stands, and their eyes meet briefly. Steve leans back and takes a last gulp from the bottle. He presses his lips together and with a firm voice, he says it again. "Stay, Danny." Not looking up but with a face that shows clearly how much is at stake. Steve fakes nonchalance.

Danny crosses his arms over his chest and digs his toes into the sand. He cast his eyes over the where Steve watches the sea. "Don't make me wear a shirt with NAVY printed on it."

Steve wears that tiny, boyish sweet smile when he answers: "Okay."

He stands up and goes over where Danny waits. Danny glares at him, and Steve just smiles relaxed. They don't say a word and Steve turns to move back to the house. Danny catches up and some point Danny slips his hand into Steve's big one and Steve's fingers press down on Danny's hand.

Soft music plays and the last screenshot is two pair of shorts and two shirts carelessly tossed aside on the floor and up on the steps of the stairs.

And that’s just the beginning. That’s the turning point where Mcdanno goes from platonic to being a real couple.

Did you ask for this? I suddenly wasn’t sure anymore. Yeah, that’s my ass long answer to your ask.

I hope this gives you some idea? I could go on but I’d end up with a ton of words again. It’s already way too long. So, anyway, thank you so much again for your ask.

Mahalo *blows a kiss*

***

[mst3kproject]

Dawn of the Mummy

Like Horrors of Spider Island, this is a movie predicated on putting a bunch of attractive women in a dangerous situation so that we can watch them run around and scream, and like Devil Fish, they’re all Italian but we’re not supposed to notice.  The director, Frank Agrama, is best known for the Robotech movies, and most of the actors were never in anything else (one of them did play a victim in Bloodsucking Freaks), so it can fairly be said to star nobody and feature nothing.  Boy, it sucks.

Long ago, the evil Pharaoh Sefreman rode around Egypt being an utter bastard because he was a god incarnate and he could do that. He wanted to continue doing it after his death, too, so a priestess puts a curse on his tomb – if his treasure is ever stolen, Sefreman and his armies will rise and kill!

Thousands of years later, a bunch of robbers blast the tomb open despite the dire warnings of the wicked queen from Snow White.  It’s not them who end up angering the mummy, however, it’s a bunch of models and their photographer, who decide that an undiscovered tomb is the perfect place to hold an impromptu photoshoot.  After way too much pointless dithering, Sefreman makes with the rising and killing, culminating in a full-on zombie feeding frenzy.

The leader of the three robbers is a guy named Rick.  It’s been a while since we had a Rick.  The actor playing him, Barry Sattles, overacts so hard in every scene that you’ll be looking for tooth marks in the rocks.  The guy who dubbed his voice is even worse.

And that’s just one tasty morsel of the delicious cheese platter that is this movie.  The ancient Egyptians dress in taffeta and gold lame.  The dubbing is atrocious.  Sefreman’s ‘treasure’ is a bunch of cheap souvenirs with a layer of gold spray paint.  People running through wide open desert can’t seem to keep ahead of slowly shuffling zombies. The music is intrusive and both it and the accents are obnoxious stereotypes – the end credits in particular are set to a cartoonified ‘Egyptiany’ piece that reminds me of the theme from Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  If I had to pick a stinger I don’t think I could do it.  I mean, there’s the wicked queen popping into shot screaming, there’s the guy getting attacked by a rat, there’s the lady wandering through the tomb wailing about how lost she is, there’s Rick screaming Sefreman’s name over and over… it’s hilarious.

There’s not much of a plot through the middle part of the film – just Sefreman and his minions wandering around eating people and horses.  Occasionally there are hints of story, like one of the models falling in love with Rick (why!?) or the photographer’s desire to be famous, but these never really amount to anything.  The climax is a total free-for-all, as zombies invade the streets of the town and crash Omar the Hookah Guy’s wedding! This is plenty amusing, but would be more so if we had a better idea what the hell was going on.

Sefreman is finally defeated by two of the models and a couple of guys from the town, who lure him into a shed full of dynamite and blow him up.  This actually isn’t a bad ending.  I’m pleased that they didn’t decide to try to turn Rick into the hero, and that the women didn’t need personality transplants in order to save the day.  After the shack blows, they squeal and jump up and down and hug each other – which is exactly what we would expect from the characters we’ve been following this entire movie.  Omar’s wedding is a fun choice of climax, since we get to see some Egyptian culture, and there’s even a sort of subplot in which it’s rather heavily implied that he’s got to marry this girl in a hurry because she’s already pregnant.

I do have many questions about the old woman I’ve been referring to as the wicked queen.  How does she know where Sefreman’s tomb is when supposedly everybody who did know was killed?  She’s played by the same actress as the high priestess who sealed him up – is she supposed to be a descendant?  Maybe even the same person, immortal for some reason?  Why does Sefreman kill her when she immediately swears her devotion to him? Why does she talk about Sefreman ‘reclaiming his kingdom’ when that was never mentioned in the curse?  All the curse was supposed to do was keep his treasure safe.  The best I can say about her is that she’s slightly more explicable and relevant than the pet shop hobo from Hellraiser… but that’s a low bar.

So what is this movie about, besides the obvious ‘mummy killing women’ level?  I don’t think it’s really meant to be about anything.  Dawn of the Mummy is just a monster movie, but it carries with it a certain amount of baggage from its genre. Mummy movies in general are about the West’s unease with archaeology.

Archaeologists dig up all kinds of things, of course, but tombs are a major subset, because the dead bodies of our ancestors are a wealth of information about how they lived.  Modern science can tell where people grew up, what their diet was like, what diseases they suffered from, the colour of their hair and eyes, and all kinds of other things… but there’s still the fact that you have to dig up somebody’s dead body to get there.  Some people are okay with the idea that their mortal remains might be a subject of study in centuries to come.  Other people are not.

The Egyptians would almost certainly have been horrified by what has become of their dead.  Mummies were meant to remain in their tombs for all eternity so that the souls of the departed would have a home, with their grave goods to take care of them.  A mummy in a museum, separated from its context, means a soul that is alone and penniless in a foreign place.  If they could have put curses and booby-traps in their tombs to prevent this, they would have.  What does that mean for archaeologists?  Do we have the right to disrespect these people’s wishes, just because they’ve been dead for a really long time?

Archaeologists will frequently lament the fact that their profession is also basically destructive – once you’ve dug something up and taken it apart, it will never be pristine again.  Modern archaeology takes great care to preserve as much as possible so that people in the future, who will presumably have better techniques, can still learn something, too.  Dawn of the Mummy sort of deals with this, as we see two groups of people who have no interest in preserving what they’ve found. Rick and his friends blow holes in it looking for a treasure chamber, and the models are in their own way nearly as destructive.

Dawn of the Mummy devotes significant attention to the fact that light is damaging to artefacts.  Mummies on display in museums are always under dim light, because bright light will degrade the wrappings and tissues that have spent millennia in darkness. But the first thing the photographers do is set up a bunch of bright lights, and we see shots of icky blue fluid bubbling out of the mummy’s wrappings where this hits it.  I wondered if this is supposed to be what activates the curse – since the title is Dawn of the Mummy, maybe the magic mistakes it for sunlight falling on him?  If so, the writing should have taken care of that I wouldn’t have to sit and figure it out.

The models also touch everything they come across, leaning on walls and statues covered with thousand-year-old paint, getting makeup all over everything and probably sweat, too, as they constantly complain about how hot it is in there. The movie never entertains the possibility of actual archaeologists finding Sefreman’s tomb, but any who did would find it hopelessly compromised.

Mummy movies are also about imperialism, which is inextricably tied to archaeology.  Modern Egyptology in particular began when Napoleon’s troops raided the country for stuff they thought was pretty, and as I discussed in my review of The Pumaman, a lot of this is still kicking around in museums, private collections, and garage sales, with no provenance or context.  Archaeology derives from treasure-hunting, embodied in Rick – he’s not here for knowledge, he’s here for wealth.  The models are not really any different.  They want images of this exotic place that will please their audience, without much caring about the context behind them.

The mummy, with his magical powers and undead army, is a punishment for this greed, and represents the west’s constant fear that conquered peoples will fight back.  You see this in those facebook graphs talking about how white people will become a minority in America unless we make abortion illegal.  Why should that be a problem?  Because we’re afraid we will be treated as we have treated others. Sefreman’s magic is completely unknown to the Americans and they have no defense against it.

Of course, none of this is actually relevant in Dawn of the Mummy.  These themes are inherent in the premise, but they’re not part of the story this particular movie is telling.  The result, with its Styrofoam tomb art and ostentatious overacting, is great to make fun of but impossible to take seriously – perfect material for some do-it yourself MST3K.

[fanfictionasliterature]

Naruto/Sasuke Rec List

Back to my OG fandom, this time for an ubiquitous pairing. 20+ fic, with 1+ outside of ao3. Due to the size of this list, I plan on updating with more recs later.

In Good Company by weialala

Summary: This will sound a little ridiculous, no matter how Sasuke phrases it. I see dead people is embarrassingly tacky, and I'm half-spirit seems like something Sakura might say when she's stoned sky high. So he settles for a shrug.

Notes: The fic is wayyy wayyy better than the summary, and transcends the I-see-ghosts trope. If you don’t like this fic, you’re lying.

Sowell is a great Naruto fanfic writer, with a lot of classics I reread all the time. Among my favorites are

Wrong Turn

Summary: Naruto and Sasuke have an interlude in the desert. Nothing changes.

Notes: This is the kind of fic that’s so thoughtful it leaves you wondering if you need to immediately go and reread it.

Two If By Sea

Summary: Sasuke has always known he'll die by water.

Notes: A short, angsty fic, which let’s be for real, is how we like our Sasuke fics.

Asymmetry

Summary: Naruto teaches Sasuke how to believe again.

Notes: A succinct, gut-punching fic that’s full of angst and hope, and so much plot in a surprisingly short fic. A believable alternate ending.

rageprufrock is one of my favorites as well. Amazingly funny, touching, brilliant, amazing.

Telephone

Summary: It's rough being Team 7.

Notes: Hilarious! There’s no reason not to read this.

Kantayra is another classic, and writes great short humor fics.

The Subtle Art of Uchiha Seduction

Summary: Sasuke’s finally decided on his chosen mate, and he pursues him with the same ruthless determination he does everything else. Unfortunately, it’s all too subtle for Naruto.

Notes: Cracky and funny.

Commiseration Night

Summary: Now that they're jounin, husbands, and fathers, the men of the Konoha 11 get together once a week to commiserate about their sex lives...only Naruto doesn't seem to get point when he talks about his marriage to Sasuke. Naruto/Sasuke/Naruto.

A World of Truth by luchia

Summary: The world is trapped in an illusion which removes anger, hate, and death. It's paradise, giving everyone everything they've ever wanted and reviving anyone they've ever lost. Nearly two years into the illusion, Sasuke snaps back to his senses and must decide whether to keep the world in false bliss, or return it to war-torn reality.

Notes: A great alternate ending, and one that makes you really for and empathize with Sasuke. Can’t recommend it enough.

megyal is another Naruto staple, and is thankfully prolific. Of her fic, I particularly like:

(Make things so) Complicated

Summary: Naruto as Jounin; Sasuke redeemed/Jounin (+ genin team optional)... either established (healthy) relationship or a get-together piece. Really, it's the interaction I'm after. Kids welcome. 

Notes: Fluffy, cute, and touching in the way that all megyal fics are.

Put a little fixing on it

Summary: Back and forth on Sasuke's return.

Notes: This was brilliantly remixed by Elizabeth Culmer, and I recommend both fics.

What Isn’t Broken, Can Still Be Fixed by Elizabeth Culmer

Summary: Madara lied about the eye transplant's effects. Captured and brought back to Konoha, Sasuke must adjust to blindness and his unexpected survival. NaruSasu, written for RemixRedux 8.

Baby Animals, Weddings, And Other Things Not Normally Associated With Uchiha Sasuke by prettypriestess

Summary: In which Konoha needs to upgrade their plumbing to be more resistant. (Or, the one where Sasuke and Naruto get genin and maybe someone buys a house.)

Notes: Wherein Sasuke and Naruto are accidentally domestic, which is a trope I adore, and is done particularly well here.

Damaetas by pellaz

Summary: SasuNaru. Set postseries. Orochimaru has taken Sasuke's body, and Naruto hunts him while dealing with such obstacles as training his first genin team.

Notes: The fic takes the unhealthy aspects of Naruto’s obsession with Sasuke to its logical conclusion. It’s disturbing, angsty, and so so good. It’s the kind of fic that makes you realize that we were robbed of characterization.

The Inevitable by rayemars

Summary: Sasuke can see the changes that communication with the fox demon is bringing to Naruto, and he knows what they're leading to.

Notes: Another tragic fic, this time in a bite-size amount.

Killing It by dawnstruck

Summary: A year after Jiraiya's death, a new Icha Icha volume gets published. Self-declared Number One Fan, Hatake Kakashi, grows suspicious, but keeps buying them anyway.

Notes: The writer has tagged this as cracky humor, but I think it’s more touching than anything else. Less Narusasu though, and more a Kakashi POV.

Twentythirds by Erisabesu

Summary: When one ritual dies, another is born. [SasuNaruSasu] Yaoi.

Notes: This is the kind of fic that takes character growth very seriously and is a very believable way I could see Narusasu happen in the canon universe. 

A Stitch in Time by aureus yarara

Summary: What if Team Seven could have seen, the day Orochimaru bit Sasuke, the future that will come when he takes his offer? Naruto: loved, admired, Hokage. Sakura: strong, confident, head of the hospital. And Sasuke? What does his future hold? Will he like it?

Notes: Sadly, the writer has promised no sequel.

Moonflower by mylilchickadee

Summary: Grief, loneliness, lost chances . . sometimes one can lose themselves to them. And Naruto falls hard. An unconventional, sort of one-sided NaruSasu. Character death Mangaverse

Notes: Angsty in a really good way. The ending is brilliant, and ties up loose ends in a way I really wish Kishimoto had remembered to.

This Life by crazy toffee

Summary: Naruto’s dream was to become Hokage and gain the respect of his village. Between the life he wanted and the life he has, can he really find a way to be happy? Can he really have the thing he wanted most of all?

Notes: Another great alternate ending fic. Fills me with a lot of hope.

Honorable mentions:

Cohabitation by weialala: Sasuke starts calling Naruto "the missus" behind his back two months after moving in with him. It was, in retrospect, akin to ritual suicide.

All things of dearest value hang on slender strings by sirona: Nothing sours a village’s mood faster than a heatwave, and with the anniversary of the Fourth Ninja War on the horizon, the Nanadaime Hokage knows something must be done about it. That’s where Sabaku no Gaara comes in, but Sasuke is not best pleased with his involvement.

words without thoughts never to heaven go by gatty: None given, but be warned that this made me sob on a bus.

The Listening Sky by Fahye: Finally, a Naruto fic written in full knowledge of the manga, even though this particular story should be considered AU after chapter 345. Ish. NO HEBI. ALAS.

The Tower by Nilladriel: Naruto destroys a village. Sasuke does something about it. Futurefic, SasuNaru.

Healing the Broken by KizuKatana: The war is over, and Sasuke is brought back to the village after his defeat by Naruto. But he is struggling to re-assimilate into the village. As his mental stability continues to erode, Tsunade and Kakashi ask Naruto to try a different treatment method. Naruto x Sasuke (slash - boy x boy). Post manga chapter 693.

This, He Learned by unknown: Naruto had learned many things from Sasuke (…) perhaps it was high time Sasuke learned something from Naruto instead. For a change.

Therapy by NavyBlueWings: After four years, Tsunade has had enough of Sasuke and Naruto's fist fights. Ordering them to go to the best therapist in Konoha seems like a good idea. But what's this...? Dom and Sub? Sleepovers and kiss wars? What did they just sign up for?

[skruffie]

It’s not the anniversary yet, but it IS National Siblings Day and I conveniently forget that this is even a thing until I go on Facebook or Twitter or something and remember. This year is a big milestone for my family because it is the 18th anniversary, which marks a passage of time from now to forever where she has been gone longer than she was alive.

I saw this thing on Facebook about grief, and it went something like grief is this hole, and you can try to fill the hole with whatever you can, but nothing fills it. It’s bottomless. It seems like your entire life gets sucked into it, but eventually as the years go on... the hole doesn’t get smaller. Your life gets bigger, and it grows around it. The hole is always there, but there’s more expanse around it as you move through each anniversary, each holiday, each milestone. It’s similar to describing grief as “it doesn’t get easier, you just get better at coping”.

(This is going to be very long and probably very sad because I talk at great length about her life and death)

I tried to write about a little bit about Nicole on Twitter today, but my initial post mentioned the word “cancer” which caught the attention of this fucking asshole that was advertising faith healing on his timeline. That dulled my grief a bit but it sure made me mad.

Trying to remember things.

We were seven years apart so we never really had a sibling rivalry or anything. I actually looked up to her so much--she was like a teenage rock star to my child self. She loved writing and wrote lots of poetry, got published in an independent zine by age nine, and through her adolescence was a bit of a grunge punk. She played piano and bass. She wore combat boots. Occasionally she dressed up with the full make-up and everything and called them her “pretty days”. She had a lock of hair in front of her face she kept in a small braid. She did blogging before the word “blog” even existed by maintaining an email list of friends and family, and she would email her updates directly to them. She coded her own websites and experimented with graphic design. She did photography. She’s why I love nail polish and tarot cards and Doc Martens--her own boots had navy blue laces with suns and moons on them. She had a huge, huge crush on Dave Navarro. She would buy hostess cupcakes for the kids at school who didn’t have food, and she kicked her own friends out of our house when they tried to bring alcohol to her party.

Nicole grew up with the brunt of our parents’ addictions before I came along. My mom (seen with baby Nicole in one of the photos above) and dad were only 19 when they had her and got married. When she was younger, they actually split up for a while and I think my great-grandma helped take care of her. My parents both went to rehab, got back together, and then had me, so... I was the baby that grew up in a sober house for a while at least. My parents still argued and it bothered me a lot when I got a bit older, so she’d come get me and take me to her room and bring chips and bean dip, and I’d have a safe place to cry.

...That’s a thought I just had right there. After she died, I didn’t really have that same kind of shield from my parents fighting (which was a lot worse after her death--a lot of couples who lose a child end up divorcing and my parents came close), which I think is probably what made the emotional neglect worse.

I don’t remember the exact progression of her cancer, but things started getting noticeable when she started developing night-blindness. I think at the time there were some doctors that didn’t believe she could be getting cancer so getting the insurance to cover tests and treatment was a fight every single time. A tumor started growing in her left arm, and the diagnosis was finally clear: rhabdomyosarcoma. She asked the doctors after her diagnosis if it was genetic, because even after that, she thought of me. (Thankfully, it isn’t. It was just a stupid, cruel twist of the universe.)

She got chemo, started to go into remission, and eventually it came back. Nicole then got a stem cell transplant when it was getting worse--more tumors, etc etc. I had met with a grief counselor at the hospital once or twice during this time period, even before we knew for sure it was terminal, because I was 10 going on 11 and needed someone to help me process and also like... kinda pay attention to me? Admitting that feels weird, but I was just a kid.

The day that I found out that the stem cell transplant didn’t work is probably almost worse than the day she died for me. They brought in a minister and we sang “Amazing Grace” and I watched her be baptized, and while she was being anointed, I kept asking everyone “Why is she being baptized? Why??? Why?! We’re Wiccan!!” Which was true. Nicole also underwent a Wiccaning around this time. Everyone was ignoring my questions, until finally it was time. She told me the stem cell transplant had not been successful and broke down crying, and I immediately understood what that meant, and I started screaming and crying. I started screaming to see the grief counselor, and I had to leave the hospital room to go with the counselor down to my favorite spot on the hospital campus.

Fuck. I hate Easter. I fucking hate Easter. It was around Easter time and this holiday plays a role in this awful memory of mine: at the hospital, some very kind person made little easter baskets for all the kids that were on the juvenile cancer ward, and I even got to get one even though I wasn’t a patient. I was starting to open mine but Nicole just looked at it. She said “Why do I get one? Why do I get one when I’m going to--” and probably started crying. I put my basket aside because the thrill of like... easter chocolate or whatever the fuck was gone. I don’t think I’ve been able to enjoy this holiday since.

Make A Wish was involved at some point, obviously. NIcole’s original wish was to meet Tori Amos, but her management team responded with “Uhhh, Tori doesn’t really do that” which was disappointing at first. (A few years later, a couple of Nicole’s friends saw T live in concert and met her at a meet and greet. They told her Nicole’s story and I guess she had no idea actually, so I believe it was a decision firmly on the management’s side.). The next wish had to be rushed, and Nicole realized that she wanted to go to prom. The actual senior prom for her high school was going to be too far out in advance with her surviving that long, so Make A Wish threw together a special prom just for her and about 150+ attendees.

The prom was held at Newport Harbor on a yacht. Rebecca Schoenkopf of Wonkette, known in 2001 as CommieGirl for the OC Weekly, met with Nicole once prior to this and attended as a prom guest to write about it. Naturally, Nicole was crowned prom queen and when she stood up to receive the crown, it was something magical. She had spent most of the evening in and out of sleep from being so ill and from the medications she was on.

When she was dying, she wanted to be at the hospital. I stayed at my grandparent’s house... probably for a couple days, I don’t actually remember how long it was, and my parents were there for her. I believe she died in the early hours of the morning on April 30th, two days short of her 18th birthday. I had a moment that morning that I consider a small blessing, which is that I found out she was gone before anyone had actually told me, and it gave me a brief reprise to just be by myself while I gathered up my will to go downstairs and face my parents. I had been in the process of going downstairs, and I saw my mom come out of the bathroom, and that was it. That was all I needed to see.

She had them write a letter as her own personal message to me. Two days later for her 18th birthday, my cousin sent us 18 lavender balloons. I don’t think we had her memorial until the 11th of May and I know this because it was the same day Douglas Adams--one of Nicole’s favorite authors--died. We joked that she took him with her. Nicole was cremated, and I do remember there was at least one funny moment that morning as we were getting out of the car. My mom handed me the wooden box that had Nicole’s cremains in it and said “Here, hold your sister for a sec.” We got a touch of that grave humor in my family.

One of the hardest things about this... hole of grief, is aging. My parents are in their mid 50s now, and I’m going to be 30 next year. I don’t have any other siblings to help take care of my parents. My mom rather flippantly says “Oh, put us in a nursing home”, but that just feels so bleak. I don’t have my sister with me to help with my wedding, to meet Zack or any of my friends, to talk to about our past and our future. She’s not here to kick ass and build amazing apps or tear down the patriarchy or be on the ground reporting the latest news break. There’s so many milestones I’ve already crossed without her but I am always going to miss her.

Bon swayr, ma souer.

[themyskira]

Wonder Woman: Earth One, Vol 2 - Part 1

I’m going to break this into a few parts, because it turned out I had a bit to say. I’ll start with my overall impressions, then dive into the spoilery recap.

General thoughts: Next verse, same as the first.

Grant Morrison purports to want to explore Marston’s ideas, but he’s more interested in the kooky, kinky trappings than the sentiment behind them.

Marston was radical and progressive in his time. Writing in the 1940s, he told his readers that women were men’s equals — and even superiors! — in every way. He told young girls there was no limit to what they could do. His stories promoted love over hatred, peace over violence, rehabilitation over retribution.

If Morrison had taken that bold sentiment and reimagined it through a lens of modern society and feminism in 2018, he might have had a compelling story to tell. Instead, he takes Marston’s ideas as he understands them and transplants them wholesale into a time in which they’re no longer radical and progressive, but rather backward and out-of-step with modern intersectional feminism, and then proceeds to ask such deep, incisive questions as “yes but realistically could we actually replace all world governments with a matriarchy?????”

He never truly deconstructs any of Marston’s ideas, just parrots phrases like “submission to loving authority” a lot and raises questions without ever making a decent attempt at answering them. To be fair, part of the problem is that he’s simply trying to do too much at once: juggling parallel stories in Themyscira and Man’s World, an interrogation of the Amazons’ philosophies and the introduction of three new antagonists and the tensions they cause, all within a limited page count, Morrison is unable to devote the necessary time to properly developing any of them. It’s no wonder the result is so half-baked.

But hey, just throw in a bunch of vagina planes and a dusting of kink and watch as everyone crows over how subversive he is.

Yannick Paquette’s artwork is still beautiful. His page layouts are still dynamic and expressive, and his character designs are still lovely. Diana in particular gets a variety of very cool outfits, including a beautiful modest costume for a trip to the Middle East.

But he still can’t shake his tendency towards drawing women’s bodies in weirdly-contorted poses with bizarre pornfaces. Wonder Woman shouldn’t look like she’s orgasming as she’s leaping into battle, ffs.

Oh, and the series is still being edited by noted serial sexual harasser Eddie Berganza. HASHTAG FEMINISM!

Let’s get into the recap.

Content warning for some skeevy mind control content and general discussion of the gender essentialist, body-shaming, TERFy attitudes of Morrison’s Amazons.

The story opens with a flashback to 1942, with Paula von Gunther leading a Nazi invasion of Themyscira, and god I’m already so tired.

idk, I mean, I get that Nazis were a major Golden Age antagonist, and Morrison is harking back to that. But there’s a broader historical and cultural context to consider. Cartoonish Nazi villains in patriotic WWII-era American comics carried very different associations than they do in 2018, in the midst of a presidency steeped in white supremacy and hate speech, on the eve of a midterm election in which a record number of neo-Nazis are standing for office, at a time when hate groups are surging, when migrant children are being separated from their families and held in detention camps— just. Not a time when I want to be reading about cartoonish super-Nazis, personally.

And I don’t really see why they necessarily need to be this story? The battle serves to illustrate how Amazons combat and… “rehabilitate”… their adversaries. Paula ultimately serves as a plot device. Couldn’t that maybe have been achieved without Nazis?

Anyway, Paula announces that she is claiming the island for the Third Reich, and Hippolyta is like “lol no”.

Okay, that part I like. Evil army storms the island, backed by guns and warships, surround a half-dozen barely-armed women… who all but roll their eyes. ‘Pfft, children. Fine, if you want to play this game…’ And the evil army can only gape in bewilderment as the women proceed to take them apart in minutes.

But this is where it gets weird.

The Amazons fire a purple ray at all of the Nazis, which… makes them all drop their weapons and start screaming “YES!” orgasmically?

Hippolyta tells Paula that the soldiers “will be taken to the Space Transformer. They will be transported to Aphrodite’s world where Queen Desira and her butterfly-winged Venus Girls wait to purge them of their need for conflict. They will be taught to submit to loving authority. They will learn to embrace peace and obedience. They will be as happy as men can be.”

Paula attacks Hippolyta, rips off her magic girdle and heaves a great boulder over her head— wait, were we supposed to know that Paula had superpowers? That seems like something that should have been flagged.

She effortlessly takes down the Amazons who rush to the queen’s defence and takes a moment to cackle villainously. “Behold the pride of Germany! The ultimate daughter of the thousand-year-empire of Adolf Hitler!” To which Hippolyta— okay, I like this part, too.

Hippolyta calmly gets to her feet and puts Paula in a stranglehold. “We are the Amazons of myth, my dear! I am Queen Hippolyta eternal.” She swiftly and efficiently brings Paula to her knees.

But, welp, never mind, it’s about to get fucking creepy again.

Hippolyta forces Paula into “the Venus Girdle”, a device that “charges every body cell with vitalising currents and harmonises the brain, encouraging obedience.”

Paula: Let me go! What is that? What are you doing? Hippolyta: The Venus Girdle? It charges every body cell with vitalising currents and harmonises the brain, encouraging obedience. A dainty thing, is it not? Paula: I won’t— I won’t— You can’t control me— you can’t— can’t make me— make me... oh… make me…

Paula: nmmuhhh… What’s happening? My Nazi ideals— slipping away— they— they don’t make any sense now… I— I thought— I thought— I was strong. What’s wrong with me? I’m so weak— I must be weak to wish to serve weak, cruel men— like— like Herr Hitler— I— I— Hippolyta: If you truly long to be a slave to the ideas of others, well… we can find a loving mistress to help you explore your desires in a healthier context. Paula: Yes. Yes! My queen— [sob] —how can you ever forgive me? How wise of you to know— to know this is all I ever wanted! Hippolyta: Devote yourself to me by following the Amazon Code. Go with out sweet Mala to Improvement Island. There you will come to know yourself until the Venus Girdle is no longer required.

Paula: But all I want is to serve you, my queen! I love you! Please don’t turn your back on me!

Basically, Hippolyta forcibly uses a mind-altering device on Paula that alters her brain chemistry to make her placid, compliant and suggestible, then immediately washes her hands of her.

So… let’s talk about this, because I think it strikes at the heart of the problems with Wonder Woman: Earth One.

Queen Desira, the Venus Girls, magnetic golden Venus Girdles that “harmonise the brain” — all these things are drawn from Golden Age Wondy comics cowritten by Marston and his collaborator Joye Kelly. Marston played with mind control a lot in his stories, and not all of it came from the bad guys.

Morrison’s bold, subversive approach to these story elements is to export them wholesale into the present day and force us to feel uncomfortable about them.

In other words, he’s taking some of the weirder and more fucked up story elements from a collection of comics that are widely agreed to be very weird, and then plonking it before your readers and asking, ‘hey guys, have you ever considered… that this might be weird and fucked up???’

There’s nothing clever or insightful about that. And there’s certainly nothing groundbreaking about a cis white male writer imagining a fictitious feminist dystopia where women strip away men’s free will.

Like, if you really want to be subversive with Marston’s Wonder Woman, how about you start by hiring a woman to write it? Why not see what this iconic feminist hero conceived by a cis white man in the 1940s and written almost exclusively by cis white men for over 75 years might look like if she were reimagined and reinterpreted by LGBTI women, by women of colour? By the women left out of those original comics?

That would be subversive. Morrison is just being a smartarse.

So yeah, Hippolyta turns her back on the helpless, brainwashed, lovesick Paula and walks over to Diana, who’s defied her mother’s orders and run down from the palace to get a glimpse of the action. She’s full of questions; Hippolyta brushes them off with the usual (for Morrison’s Amazons) ‘men are shit’ line.

There’s a moment where Paula and Diana meet eyes from across the beach, and each asks, “who is she?” Diana is simply curious; Paula is instantly lovestruck.

Paula: That girl… the image of my queen.

This looks like foreshadowing, but spoilers: it goes absolutely nowhere.

Sidenote: If the Amazons deal with invaders by brainwashing them, why did they want to kill Steve Trevor in Volume One?

Cut to present-day America, where a room of faceless men discuss the threat posed by the Amazons and their superior technology, which they assume extends to deadly weaponry. The only in they have with the Amazons is Wonder Woman, and to get through her defences they’ve called in “an expert in female psychology”, aka a misogynistic monster.

Doctor Psycho: Gentlemen. She may be strong and tough and smart and beautiful… but she’s just a woman. I never met one I couldn’t break.

Oh, goody.

Cut to a cute splash page of Diana playing baseball. She gets a lot of great outfits in this book.

She’s also clearly making an impact in Man’s World; her face is plastered across every magazine, and people flock to hear her speak.

A Q&A sessions serves as a thinly-veiled opportunity for Morrison to answer some of the criticisms of the first book. His response leaves something to be desired.

“Amazon training can make any of you into a Wonder Woman,” says Diana. We teach a system of physical and psychological health and vitality. The grace and beauty of Aphrodite, the skill and wisdom of Athena.”

Woman: What about Wonder trans women? Is there room for people like me in your utopia? Diana: There’s room for everyone. The Amazon Code was evolved by women over thousands of years and outlines a progressive, pacifist way of living and thinking that anyone can follow.

I’m sorry, but that’s a fucking bullshit answer. It’s a weak, superficial gesture towards inclusiveness that conspicuously fails to express any real support or solidarity.

And depressingly, this is 100% in-character for Earth One Diana, because Morrison’s Amazons? are absolutely TERFs. As with the mind control content, Morrison has exported Marston’s 1940s binaristic gender essentialism unchanged into the 21st century in order to ask searing questions like ‘hey but what if??? the idea that women are genetically more suited to ruling??? is simplistic and flawed?????’ But the most he’ll engage with the genuinely insidious implications around the exclusion of trans and nonbinary people is a smiling noncommittal, ‘Are trans people welcome? My friend, everyone is welcome! No further questions!’

Morrison’s Wonder Woman displays a profound disregard of context. He ignores not only the cultural, historical and individual contexts that shaped the original 1940s Wonder Woman, but also the contexts of the time in which he’s currently writing and the cultural space that Wondy has come to inhabit today as a feminist and LGBT icon.

Removed from context, Morrison is simply taking a hero who traditionally hails from an advanced utopian society, taking another look at the views that society actually espouses, and reframing her as a well-meaning but naive hero from an advanced but deeply flawed and unsettling society.

In context, he’s doing exactly what Brian Azzarello did in turning the Amazons into murderous man-hating monsters, just with more kink and vagina planes.

Woman 2: Umm, there’s a lot of stuff on social media about how you dress provocatively and promote an unrealistic body type, which is basically setting a bad example for women. I mean, the stuff you do is amazing and all, it’s just… does any of the criticism bother you? Diana: I don’t think there’s any such thing as an ‘unrealistic’ body shape. My own body is the result of diet, exercise and… um… sophisticated genetic engineering. Otherwise, I dress as I please.

Volume One made it clear that all Amazons have the physique of supermodels, and when they encounter the diverse body types of the women in our world, they are disgusted and respond with body-shaming insults. Here, Diana again avoids voicing any actual support (she doesn’t say that all women’s bodies are beautiful and valid, she suggests that her body type is not unrealistic), while also throwing out eugenics as a reason for the lack of body diversity among the Amazons. Oh good, I was hoping we’d get more Nazi parallels!

Finally, a militant white feminist stands up and observes that if the Amazons are capable of half of what Diana says they are, then they could dismantle the patriarchy overnight — so why is Diana wasting time giving philosophy lectures? “You can control people’s minds with that lasso of yours. Like you did with that dude on TV— so why can’t you put a lasso ‘round the whole world?”

Afterwards, talking to Beth Candy, Diana’s like, ‘gosh, Beth, I’ve never seriously thought about world domination before, but maybe it is time to consider stripping all mortals of their free will, dismantling all nations and compelling everybody on the planet to bow down before Amazonia.’

Then Diana gets on her mental radio and calls her mother, confessing her doubts about her mission.

It was around this point in the book that the Amazons’ dialogue began to grate on me. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was at first. Every line read like a ceremonious pronouncement. They used antiquated syntax and words, like “whole systems … must o’erturned be” and “she did, without due caution, this, her island home, depart!”. Even Diana would become infected with it whenever she was speaking to them. It felt like they weren’t so much conversing as they were reciting… 

...verse… 

oh my god, that motherfucker.

Surely he hadn’t.

I scanned the dialogue again. I double-checked it.

He had.

Grant Morrison, that obscenely pretentious wanker, wrote all of the Amazons’ dialogue in dactylic hexameter.

For fuck’s sake.

After finishing her call with Diana, Hippolyta learns that somebody has vandalised one of the temples with the symbol of “a backward-turning sun”, i.e. a swastika. Unseen by everybody, Paula breaks into Hippolyta’s palace.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 6: Blind Sister Saga Continues

It’s tourney season, and wisely, Kaiba decided that just one human catastrophe from the Yugi crew would be plenty enough for gambling the lives of everyone on Earth with. Long story short, Joey awoke that morning and saw no invite on his doorstep.

Really wish we got to see what those invites looked like. Did Kaiba write them on creative stationary that folds into a weird shape? Did he have little stickers? Did he employ Jelly pens? Were they the type of jelly pen where you have to erase it to make a two-toned silver/purple ink pattern? Confetti? He’s definitely the type of Chaotic Neutral that would mail confetti.

There’s some timeline issues here--Mai and everyone else was there for the announcement in Domino’s Time Square because they got an invite to this tourney, but Yugi didn’t have one yet? Yugi, the only person Kaiba truly wants to compete with? Yugi learned about this tourney from a psychic who just spends her day spooking people who visit her museum?

Maybe Grandpa just forgot to check the mail that day? Or maybe...just maybe Grandpa is a little freaked out by mail these days and just never checks it at all?

Seeing that Yugi’s going to throw himself at the wolves again, Joey decides to enlist anyway, since Yugi will actually very seriously surely die without his friend’s constant attention.

So, they march down to the nearest “I Swear This is Not a Weapon” card-rig dispensary to get their paperwork filled out. Considering how quickly and how forcefully these things just shoot out holographic cameras at head-height, you’d think you’d need to register for it and get a special license like you would a sidearm.

(read more under the cut)

They talk so casually about this and it’s like...ok are we going somewhere?

Nope. Whenever the slightest guise of romance enters the scene, cards are here to slap that right off that plate that we never actually ordered. Even cards are there to cock block this 3 way the writers just have no idea what to do with.

Anyway, this outfit lives here.

Turns out that in the week or so that Kaiba spent putting this all together, he did some digging and made profiles for everyone already. Kinda what happened to me with Myspace, just being honest. I was just trying to get Boba one day when this one girl I distantly knew from High School was like “Why aren’t we friends on Myspace.” and I told her “because I have Facebook” and then before, my drink even got into my hands I had a profile. I only became friends with Tom, her, and this one guy from college I was in love with who’s Myspace played the anchorman version of “Afternoon delight” really loudly and you could not turn it off because it was hidden somewhere on the page. I look back on it now and realized just him having a Myspace years after Facebook existed was a red flag in itself, but hindsight’s 20/20. Anyway, back to Yugioh:

And so, bam, They toss a box at Yugi that is about 3/4 the size of Yugi himself. Kaiba didn’t make an XS version for the only person in this tourney he actually wants to fight?

Kaiba decides, when making Joey’s profile, to give him a 1-star rating, which kicked him out of the competition. But, this guy in the butcher outfit, the glasses, and the...bandana...sees Joey’s red-black dragon or whatever it’s called and decides it’s rare enough to Rare Hunt.

They legit say “My hard drive malfunctioned” PS. Lol what???

Why does he need to duel Joey? I mean I guess Joey is kinda strong and hard to take 1-on-1? Anyways, so despite Kaiba’s good intentions to get Joey out of this competition so Joey can spend some much needed time with his sister he hasn’t seen in 7 years, Joey gets in anyway.

I forget sometimes that Joey has this long sprawling teen soap opera story that just clashes so much with the magical altered history apocalypse story, it’s hard to believe it’s in the same show--and not just that--but that it’s a side-story in the same show that we hear about but don’t actually get to see.

This was just so funny to me, that he’s like “I will be there for my sister’s surgery!” and then--immediately--out of no where these three guys in robes pop out and it’s like lol, why would you need 3 grown men on one kid!? This ridiculous show.

And not just that, but they beat him with the card that Yugi used in Episode 1 that was so OP that Weevil tossed it into the ocean. And not just that but this guy has like 3 versions of it. Freakin Exodia is more than half of his deck.

I mean Episode 1 was a long time ago but Kaiba sure made a big fuss about how no one has ever played an Exodia ever in the history of mankind but here we are.

Anyway, the soap continues and we actually get to see Serenity. Y’all I was serious when I said I didn’t think this girl was real but, man--she exists and also is...kind of weird. Because her brother doesn’t show, she’s locked herself in a hospital room--a hospital that has locks on the rooms? I mean, girl your brother paid for this 3 million dollar surgery, what are you on about him not being there for you?

First off--Nice job forgetting she’s not a Wheeler anymore, Yugi, it’s not like she’s had a very rocky divorce of the past 7 years or anything.

Second off--Does anyone in this universe call the police!?

TRISTAN CAN DRIVE!?

So I guess these kids are 16 now?

I’m not even joking--it was at the abandoned warehouses, that Tristan drives by going “I FOUND HIM” and then drags Joey to the hospital looking like this.

This story line is so Daytime Kid’s TV One Tree Hill I’m expecting a golden retriever to run up and just devour one of Serenity’s eye transplants.

Anyway, so Serenity is so mad at her brother she won’t come out until he makes this big old speech for her--and it’s a fine speech and all--but like...girl he was left out to die last night??? Can a doctor please get his hands on Joey.

Ah, it’s been a full season, but it looks like Serenity is finally going to get those eyes.

I think. Maybe the rest of this season will be side-plots of Serenity just postponing her surgery over and over again.

Anyway, Next week, on Yugioh:

So does Tristan just bring that motorcycle with him everywhere now? Will we ever see Joey’s Mom ever again? (I’m guessing no because that hair is too normal) And does this dueling disk even fit Yugi or does he have to put it on his leg?

[frivolity2015]

A Look Back at 24, the Men I dated, What I Learned, and Why 25 was a Great Year

I have been meaning to write an entry about what a mess 24 was, how 25 was amazing, and how I hope being 26 this year will enable more growth and be filled with more awesomeness. 

A Heart that Loves

I entered the dating game somewhat late in life. I never dated while I was in high school or college, or even pursued dating in general.  My first relationship didn’t occur until I was at the ripe old age of 23 and so it goes without saying that I was pretty naive when I entered into it.  I was so naive that I expected it to be like a teen romance movie and it didn’t take long before I realized real life is nothing like that.

My first relationship was with Antonio, a classmate and (former) friend from medical school. I had only known him for a few months but we were fast friends and became attached at the hip.  When I returned to St. Kitts for my 4th semester, the landscape changed since two of my closest friends were gone and I began to invest more and in my friendship with him.  Although I wasn’t initially attracted to him, there was this weird phenomenon where the more I saw him, the more attractive he became.  One day in March, halfway through the semester, Antonio led me away from a party to talk and within seconds, we fumbled through a confession that we had mutual feelings for one another. 

Things were a bit confusing at first because it was my first time developing genuine feelings for a person, and even more confusing was that that person was a guy. Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long before I felt comfortable telling him how cute I thought he was and how I enjoyed holding his hand under our backpacks while we road the bus home to conceal our intimacy.  We even went to our Med 4 Banquet together and coordinated our outfits. That night, I quietly snook out of my apartment to sleep at his place for the first time.  I’ll never forget how he looked as he stood over the balcony waiting for me and how he led me to his bed.  I felt my head fit perfectly on his neck as we lay there, and so with almost no hesitation, I asked if I could kiss him. He said “yes”, and that was my first kiss. I was in relationship bliss. St. Kitts really was a paradise.

A Heart’s a Heavy Burden

Going to Portland, Maine, was like realizing that the clock had struck past midnight; the fairy tale was over. 

I don’t want to get into specifics but it was like the Antonio I knew on the island was replaced but an unrecognizable person. The person who made me feel special only made me feel unwanted. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: there is absolutely no worse feeling than having to convince yourself that someone loves you.  

Our breakup occurred almost intermittently over the course of the summer. At first he said he needed a break with very defined boundaries that became less strict.  I would occasionally see glimmers of the old Antonio but it wasn’t enough.  Because I was so in love with him, I sacrificed so much of myself hoping to be loved by him in return.  I over enthusiastically jumped at the chance to visit him in California when he invited me to stay with him and his family. I even thought my arrival there signified that we were a couple again since he planned a photoshoot for us at his favorite beach spot.

However, he put his walls back up as soon as I returned to NJ.  He became dismissive and distant again. And then, days after my 24th birthday, he broke up with me through a Facebook message, that I never really recovered from. 

When rejected by the person you love most, when betrayed by the person closest to you—that’s when self-abasement begins. You hide in a space that’s all your own, and close your heart.

I’m not a fan of who I became after my first relationship.  My self esteem was shot. I was upset. I was angry. I had no one to talk to because I wasn’t out yet. 

I like to celebrate my birthday surrounded by love because I really believe that it only invites more love into your year.  Unfortunately, I felt unloved heading into my 24th year.  Looking back, what I regret the most is how bitter I let myself become. No one likes that taste in their mouth but I couldn’t get rid of it. 

It didn’t help that the Jantonio saga took up the majority of the year. I kept going back and forth trying to be his friend and trying to reconcile with him;  I kept looking for a closure that didn’t exist.  I kept holding onto the hope of us getting back together and that he would wake up and realize how much he loved me. That never happened.

Ultimately, I ended up self sabotaging myself in August 2013, nearly a year after our break up.  After a well meaning g chat conversation that he initiated, our friendship was officially over. I even removed him from every social media account. I felt horrible about losing a friend and experiencing something where there couldn't be any absolution but I knew it was what I needed to do. The out of sight and out of mind method worked until a friend told me that he was heading to Chicago. I felt so guilty about the way things ended that I reached out to him and asked to meet up with him but he never replied. I can’t even begin to describe how it felt knowing he was in the same city as me for the first time in over a year and that I couldn’t see him, or reconcile.

Sex in the Windy City

I have to backtrack a little bit here because my saga with Antonio overlapped with my misadventures in Chicago. I moved to Chicago in June 2013 and I was determined to find love, enter a relationship, and finally move on! I decided to try online dating since my friend, Caryn, was so successful on it (and now she’s getting married to someone she met on OKC!).

Online dating is definitely a really interesting experience.  I’m glad I did it but I would never want to go through the world of online dating ever again. Online dating felt like I was playing some online game instead of finding a match. It makes you feel shallow, it can boost your confidence, and genuinely creep you out.

I’d like to call the next part of this the “What I Learned” section, full of anecdotes, funny stories, and what I really learned from each guy.

JR was one of the first people that I messaged on OKC. He had a really well thought out profile and he was really good looking. He was a graphic designer, he was Filipino, and he was also a recent transplant to Chicago so I thought we had a lot in common. He was also the first person I asked to meet up so I was beyond thrilled when he said he wanted to hang out. His initial idea of a hang out was to go see a movie (LAME!) but we ended up deciding we would just go out to eat.  Since we were both new to the city, we didn’t really know where to go but he lived downtown and figured there would be many options. I drove up to his place to meet him and he made me wait over an hour for him because he was busy getting a haircut (and later I saw that he was taking selfies of himself to later put up on his profile; how uncool!). That should have been the first sign that we were incompatible but I waited for him anyway. He didn’t even apologize for being late! Even thinking about how rude he was gets me annoyed.  Dinner was okay and the conversation was actually pretty decent. In the end, he paid for our meal as a means to apologize for making me wait and so I agreed to meet up with him again. I wish that I was strong enough to decline because he ended up being a waste of time.  Looking back, I should have seen the signs! He used the same cologne as Antonio and he was also from CA. If he was anything like Antonio, I should have seen that he was trouble. 

For our second meet up, we decided to be tourists and go see all the city guide spots. Again, he was late and didn’t even apologize for making me wait for him at his place. He didn’t even help me navigate around the city. Also, he was REALLY boring. Although I found him somewhat eager to talk about himself, he had absolutely no interest in actually making conversation.  By the time we made it to dinner, I was miserably bored. He kept talking about how his friends were inviting him to go out that night but he never invited me to join him. I felt dissed and decided it was time to go and he acted surprised when I wanted to leave early.

I learned from JR that I didn’t want to date a guy that was way too into himself. He bragged about how much money he makes, how he was too good for an audi, and how essential he was to his company. He was a true narcissist. If you check out his IG account, it’s full of selfies and his purchases. Yuck. I’ve bumped into him twice since those events. Once at a mall where I was trying to avoid him but he followed me into a store and waited for me to notice him and acted like he wasn’t following me. The second time was after matching. I went out to boystown to celebrate and since I knew I couldn’t avoid bumping into him, I went up to greet him. His first instinct was to mention how Antonio had visited him.  Yup! It turns out that Antonio and him had a history. Antonio flew all the way out here to visit him right after out heated break up in August 2012.

Kekoa was one on the reasons why I was excited to move to Chicago. Don’t judge me here, but I actually screened all the cities where I could do my clerkship for which had the most attractive guys. Kekoa's profile was one of the first ones listed in Chicago, and I had an instant crush on him. I wanted to meet him, but I decided I needed to practice talking to other guys online first to not blow my chance with him. His profile included a story about playing a game of Taboo that was so wild that the police were called due to a noise complaint. Luckily I had plenty of experience playing Taboo in medical school because it was one of the only games we had on the island (thanks, Nick’s mom!) and I was able to send a message with more substance than “Hey, what’s up?”. Needless to say, I was ecstatic when he messaged me back and agreed to meet up. Our first “meet up”, as he likes to call it, started at a cocktail lounge, where I got carded and became self conscious since he told the bartender that I looked like a baby. Luckily, our dinner went well, and conversation felt seamless; I even had to excuse myself to put more money into my parking meter. I thought it was a perfect date, but there was some radio silence afterward that made me think otherwise.

Luckily, I’ve learned that persistence is key. Since he wasn’t getting back to me about another date, I made made a trip up to his campus to make it too convenient to see me. I was told that a second date is the true test to see if it’s worth pursuing the person, and this date did just that. I ended up staying the night at his place, and when I awoke the next day, I was worried that I’d have a Bridesmaids moment and be kicked out, but he invited me to get breakfast and taught me how to parallel park instead. 

I saw Kekoa once more afterward, and then didn’t hear from him again. I remember reciting a prayer before sending him my third text in a row without a response asking God to inspire him to message me back. I was at work when I received a text from him basically saying that right now wasn’t the right time for him to be in a relationship. Although I accepted his answer, I timidly asked him to message me when he got back if he wanted to reconnect, but I knew that was a long shot and his track record only didn’t make me believe otherwise.

Juan was a nice Mexican guy that I met on OKC.  We met up at the mall near me, which was really sweet since he was the first person that didn’t have me drive out to them instead. The first date went well and afterward, he told me he had a good feeling about us and wanted to see where things could go. I was curious too, so I eagerly agreed to another date. For our second date, he picked me up to take me to his favorite spots, which included a late night restaurant in Chinatown and Hollywood Ave Beach. I really appreciated that he wanted to give me insight into his world and that he wanted to share it with me. In the end, I didn’t really have any romantic feelings for him; I didn’t even feel inclined to kiss him or invite him up to my room after second date. I kind of loss interest since I had decided that I wanted to fully focus on Kekoa. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere when he asked if he could call me and I was completely uninterested in the conversation.

I learned that it’s important to be with someone who has more in common with you. Although Juan was nice, his idea of fun was watching drag shows and he worked as a store manager for Party City, so it made it hard for me to relate to him or empathize with him if he had a busy work day.

I bumped into him almost a year later at Scarlet and we both excitedly introduced each other to our boyfriends. I could tell that we were both mutually happy for each other and I really am happy that he’s able to make someone else happy. 

Genesis was the first person I reached out to after Kekoa up and left me. I was so desperate to meet someone who could fill the void I felt that I met up with him after a short exchange of messages. I feel horribly shallow about this, but I could tell that I was not attracted to him from the moment I saw him. That non-attraction definitely put a damper on the rest of the date even though he was a genuinely nice guy. For once, I felt like he was trying to drive the conversation more than I was. To be honest he could probably tell that I wasn’t invested.

I learned that I was becoming desperate and that desperation is not pretty. Feeling desperate was even worse than being alone.

Ramil was a Filipino guy almost 10 years older than me. I wasn’t too excited to meet up with him because nothing in our conversations pulled me toward him. Regardless, I was so desperate to meet someone that I said I agreed to meeting up with him. There really isn’t much of a story here but I can’t help but laugh a little when I think back to how taken aback I was when he first opened his mouth and spoke to me. I was so surprised by how (Micky) mousey his voice sounded that I had to have him repeat his hello. Our lunch date was boring and I couldn’t even pretend to be interested.

I learned that I am just as shallow as every other guy out there. I couldn’t get passed the sound of his voice and judged him way too harshly.

Alan(?) was someone I met when I downloaded Grindr in an act of absolute desperation. Clearly, the theme of August was “desperation”. I was pretty optimistic about online dating and didn’t think it would take too long to match with someone. I felt pretty successful with the attention I was receiving from people on OKC and even more lucky when I had found a match in Kekoa up until he vaguely ended things. So I went on a date with someone from Grindr, a hook-up app, who didn’t have a very clear profile picture and it didn’t show his whole face. Big mistake. He must have used an old photo because it didn’t look too much like him. In addition, he was kind of bitchy and I wasn’t into his vibe at all. Obviously, he didn’t make much of an impression on me since I can’t even remember his name.

I learned to never go on a date with someone with just one profile picture. It’s almost a giveaway sign that they’re not going to look like it in person.

Bryan was someone who I was intimidated by on OKC. His profile was highlighted in red because it meant that he didn’t respond often to people’s messages. I figured he could be selective because he must have had a lot of interest thanks to the many shirtless photos he posted (in addition some really good answers in his profile). Surprisingly, he messaged me back! It was an instant ego boost that someone that OKC had labelled “very  selective” responded to me. 

I picked him up from his work and was happy to see that he looked like his profile picture but I felt tricked as soon as he opened his mouth because it turned out he was a Vietnamese fob with a very strong accent. So in that instant, I became a self hating Asian. Horrible. 

Our first date was pretty horrible too. He didn’t know where to go around his work so we ended up at the mall’s food court. The silence was awkward and palpable. I felt like he was just watching me eat and it was like pulling teeth to get him to talk. He finally opened up when we made it to a Starbucks. He was actually pretty interesting even though he was obviously shy. He was born and raised in Vietnam, moved to Singapore for school, continued education in Texas and then moved to Chicagoland because of a job that needed someone who was multilingual. 

After a quiet date, he messaged me asking if I would be willing to go on another date with him. I agreed as long as he promised to not be less shy the second time around.

I will use this opportunity to take a break, recap, and try to tie in all these loose ends together

The darkest days in my story of heartbreak culminated during Labor Day Weekend. Kekoa had just ended things with me. I went on several “fail dates” that left me feeling empty, desperate, and ashamed. Needless to say, my self esteem was at all time low, and that’s a considerable thing to say since I had always been very secure in who I am. Things got worse when I received news that Antonio was coming to town. I still remember being at work and feeling my heart race to the point of exhaustion. I was shocked to hear he was coming here. Janet Jackson’s “Again” started magically playing in the background of that moment. I thought I had come to peace that he was no longer in my life since I had a few weeks to heal but I reached out to him trying to make peace. He never replied and I had to accept that I wasn’t going to see him although it left me devastated. This was the same weekend that Bryan asked me out and I was glad to have a distraction.

Bryan brought me to Boystown, the gay neighborhood in Chicago that I had never been to but wish I had discovered earlier. We grabbed dinner and then headed out dancing. I was actually having fun! I forgot about being down and out and just moved my body to the beat of the music. We went to another bar and he brought me to the third floor in a secluded area and attempted to kiss me. I cock blocked him and said, “maybe we should get a drink first.” However, he was really persistent. He made his second attempt at a kiss and I gave in. He was not a good kisser. I felt like he pursed his lips so tightly together that I could feel every wrinkle and my tongue had nowhere to go. Things got a little bit creepy when he tried to feel up my shirt. He said, “I can tell you have a nice body.” Honestly, he had a nice one too. Fully chiseled pecs and a tight 6 pack. He stood taller than me at 5′ 10″. We continued making out until he pulled back and said “I could fuck you.”

That should have been my sign to run away, but I didn’t. I agreed. I kept thinking about how Antonio was so displeased with me for never going all the way with him. I was at my lowest point and genuinely believed that maybe it was time to give up on losing my virginity to someone who I loved and loved me in return. I loved Antonio but knew that it was one sided, which is why I never let things go that far. After experiencing so much heartache and going on so many fail dates, I started to believe that I was meant to be alone for the rest of my life. I am not proud of that night and I get upset with myself when I think about all the opportunities I had to walk away from it all.

I felt gross the next day. I couldn’t even look at him without feeling sick. But there he was in front of me, representing all the things I had desired the whole summer--a boyfriend, a relationship, someone that was into me--and suddenly, I didn’t want it, any of it, anymore. That was the last time I saw Bryan.

I learned that no act of desperation should make you do something out of character.

When I was 13, a priest said that the purpose of saving sex for marriage was because we give up half of ourselves when we become one with someone in intercourse. If you go around having sex with multiple partners, you’ll only be able to give a small fraction of yourself to your spouse. If you wait until marriage, you can give all of yourself to the person you make a vow before God with. As soon as I heard that, I promised myself I would wait. I even prided myself in my determination. Yet at 24, at my lowest, I gave that all up and gave a part of myself to someone I didn’t even know.

When you are down to nothing, God is up to something.

I drove home feeling disgusted with myself, with my actions, what I gave up and what I had let myself become. I turned into a senseless person desperate for love. I became someone who’s self esteem was suddenly rooted in whether or not I was in a relationship. Believe me when I saw that prior to Antonio, I had never desired having a significant other because I never saw the point in having one. I was fully content in myself and the relationships I had with my family and friends.

I got home and declared to the heavens above that I was done with dating. I was done with being upset. I uninvited myself from my own pity party. I was focused on rebuilding myself and allowing God to heal me and make me whole again. “Shake it out” by Florence and the Machine became my anthem and every time I sang the chorus, I felt like I was gaining myself back.

It felt like the moment I that I was finally at peace with myself and my situation, the universe threw a few unexpected and surprising pieces into place and I accepted them with open arms.

After waiting what felt like an eternity, I finally sent Kekoa another text message. I knew that Septemeber 6 was his birthday, so as early as August, I planned on messaging him just to greet him. Unfortunately, OKC lied to me and tricked me into believing that his birthday was a day early. PRAISE THE HEAVENS ABOVE because Kekoa actually messaged me back! I wanted to be chatty but I had to control myself and keep it short, simple, and make every attempt to not sound like a stage 5 clinger. My plan worked because he messaged me several days later, the day before my birthday, asking when my birthday was.

When it rains, it pours.

Manny was someone I met on OKC after my crazy Labor Day Weekend in hopes of just making a friend. He didn’t live too far from the suburb I was in so we met up for bubble tea. He was actually REALLY good lucking, tall, and Latino. I was instantly attracted so I was disappointed when I learned that he suffered from Yellow Fever. I only hung out with him twice. My second hang out with him was at his place where we watched a Korean Drama (”Who Are You”). His room was covered in anime and K-POP posters. I was definitely taken aback by it but thought it was kind of endearing. However, I soon began to think he had an Asian fetish because he would send me photos of hot Asian guys on my phone and say “Happy Humpday!”. I never met up with him again but he was definitely one of the people that contributed to the upswing I was feeling as I turned 25. 

I learned to NEVER date a guy with Yellow Fever! It’s super flattering at first but then it gets creepy real fast.

Smith was someone I messaged on POF (yeah, yeah, another dating app). He was Laotian, blond, and was only 2 years younger than me. My only intention was to make a friend and stated that from the beginning. I was surprised he wanted to meet up since most of his messages to me online were one lined and I felt like he wasn’t interested in meeting me when he could be going on dates. He was really quiet the first time we met. We were supposed to watch a movie but then all 4 of his roommates came home unannounced. I was really nervous to be meeting all of these people all at once and I could tell that Smith hadn’t told them he was about to have company over.  I’m pretty sure he felt awkward introducing me to them when he had just met me moments ago. Regardless, I ended up having a pretty decent time watching “Insidious” with them.

Several days later, Smith invited me to his birthday dinner with his roommates and it was really fun. We went back to his place and he insisted we took shots for his birthday. We ended up not going out that night but he insisted that I slept over instead of driving home. I did. And it was so nice just sleeping next to someone and being held. It was purely innocent; we didn’t even share a kiss but I really appreciated that. I was leaving for home by the end of the week but he made me promise that we’d celebrate my birthday when I got back.

Everything changed when I turned 25.

One reason why my 25th birthday is so memorable for me is because my relatives from the Philippines were there to celebrate it with me for the first time! The other reason was that I felt like I had two prospects waiting for me in Chicago.

I started seeing Smith pretty regularly, but it was pretty casual, and I started wondering if we were just meant to be friends. That changed the night of his birthday party. A few of his friends I was meeting for the first time implied that they’d break my neck if I broke his heart, which definitely caught me off guard but gave me a bit of courage to be more flirtatious. When I tried ordering a drink for him at the bar, he placed his hand in front of mine to stop me from speaking, and I kissed his hand (I’m actually blushing as I type this). We went outside, made out, and I ended up staying the night with him. 

I really, really liked being with Smith. He was young and fun, and more importantly, he made me feel young and fun. I loved going out dancing with him, fooling around with him, and just being around him. If I could talk to him now, I’d thank him for pulling me out of my rut and making me feel loved and special again. However, I knew it wasn’t meant to be. I honestly couldn’t see myself fitting into his world, no matter how fun he was or how sweet he was. It broke my heart to end things, but I learned that you shouldn’t be with someone if you can’t see how you would fit into their world. 

Kekoa, again!

I was seeing Kekoa around the same time I was seeing Smith. We made plans to celebrate each others birthdays in early October. I was so excited to see him, but I was actually really offended when he made fun of my outfit and I actually thought he was trying to really hard to impress me. At one point during dinner, I even thought about how this would definitely be the last time I’d see him. However, we ended up going out dancing and drinking and I ended up at his place. I’m embarrassed to say that I drunkenly basically confessed that I had a huge crush on him and thought that he was marriage material. YIKES! I woke up the next say saying “I should go”, and left in a rush. But surprisingly, Kekoa messaged me again the next day and asked when he’d see me again. 

Things got a little bit messy as I’d spend a Saturday with Smith and then have plans set for Sunday with Kekoa. But once I realized that I didn't fit into Smith’s world, it made it easy for me to end things with him to be with Kekoa. I formally made the decision to end things with Smith when Kekoa tried to nonchalantly call me “babe” and asked me to be exclusive (on November 1).

I wanted to start our relationship on an honest foot, so I told Kekoa that I was seeing someone the same time I was seeing him. Kekoa was hurt when he found out that our story wasn’t exactly how he perceived it, and I thought he’d never want to see me again based off of how he reacted. But the next day, he called me and asked to come over. He basically told me that he didn’t care about my past (cue “As Long as You Love Me” by the BSB) and that he loved me. He said it so easily and without hesitation. It warmed my soul in a way I can’t describe. It made me feel secure in us. 

Needless to say, the rest is history and we’re still together, and still very much in love. I entered a relationship where everything was an adventure, where communication was mandatory, where every day felt important, and everyday with him felt like home. 

What did I learn? I learned that:

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps, hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

Also important: I learned what I don’t want in a relationship.  My relationship with Antonio was toxic and I allowed myself to be belittled into an empty shell of a person.  I learned that it’s SO important to be with someone who values you, someone who loves you, and someone who won’t push you away or keep you at an arm’s length.  It’s important to be with someone whose whole being is one that you want to emulate. And somewhat oddly, and I’m learning this in pediatrics, it’s important to be with someone who you’d want your child to grow up to be like and that’s what I have with Kekoa.  If my offspring could be kind, intelligent, selfless, patient, adventurous, and have a healthy appetite, I know I would be bringing more good into this world. 

I didn’t mention this earlier, but Antonio actually reached out to me with this message prior to my birthday:

“Jan - I know this is out of the blue and I’m probably the last person you want to hear from. I just want to apologize for not responding to your texts when I was in Chicago. In all honestly, I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know what to say because the last time we talked it seemed as if we weren’t going to talk/chat/see each other for a while. Things between us have been a little too emotionally heavy for me (and I’m sure for you too) and I really just wanted some space from that. I’m sorry for everything that has happened but despite all of that I still truly value your friendship even if we agreed to take a break from it for a while. I hope all is well with you and thank you for everything. Ps. Advance happy birthday”

I was tempted to respond and try to reconnect. But I knew I couldn’t. I know I couldn’t let someone so toxic reenter my life. And I’m proud of myself for severing that relationship with him and blocking him out of my mind and achieving peace.

I pretty much spent my whole 24th year being heartbroken, but that’s okay. I learned so much about myself in that year of self loathing and true desperation. I am a naturally optimistic, happy-go-lucky, and cheerful guy, so I am thankful that I was able to experience emotions I had never felt before. If anything, it makes better able to appreciate all of the happiness I have now and have an understanding of who I am at my worst and best.

I think what I learned is best said by my spirit animal, Dr. Christina Yang:

“Burke, Burke was…he took something from me.  Little pieces over time, so small I didn’t notice.  He wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and I made myself into what he wanted.  One day I was me, Christina Yang, and suddenly I was lying for him and jeopardizing my career and agreeing to be married and wearing a ring and being a bride until i was standing there in a wedding dress with no eyebrows and I wasn’t Christina Yang anymore.  And even then I would have married him.  I would have.  I…I lost myself for a long time, and now…that I’m finally me again…I can’t…I love you.  I love you more than I love Burke.  I love you, and that scares the crap out of me.  I let him take pieces of me.  And that will never happen again.”

[wildfirewinchester]

There are so many great fics out there that need to be recognized! If you find something you like on this list, be sure to show it the appreciation it deserves with likes, reblogs, and messages to the author! I hope you can find something to enjoy!

Just a reminder that no all/mostly smut fics will be added. If they’re part of a series I will link non-smut parts.

This is the last Bunker Reads I will be doing. From now on, my fic recommendations will only be taking place as reblogs, mostly because it takes a lot of time to compile the fics and add my comments. I might come back to this habit next summer, but I can’t say for sure. I’ve loved doing these!

Fluff

Lame by @writingthingsisdifficult (Reader x Sam) - The ending of this was absolutely perfect! I mean, the whole thing was perfect, but Sam was so sweet and the reader’s embarrassment/flustered-ness was something I think that all Sam!girls can relate to.

Untitled Fluffy Sam Drabble by @trexrambling (Reader x Sam) - If there was an emoji for a dreamy sigh, I’d put it here. This was adorable from start to finish, and the little repetition at the ending was super duper cute and ugh I just loved this one a whole lot!!

A No-Win Situation by @winchesterprincessbride (Reader x Dean) - Ha! This one made me laugh aloud, and I can totally picture this kind of thing happening between the reader and the boys.

Imagine Calling Sam to Kill a Spider on the Ceiling by @imadeangirl-butimsamcurious (Reader x Sam) - This would so totally be me. (I had to call my boss to come kill a spider for me just the other week.) The reader’s little rant made me laugh because I relate to it on a very spiritual level, and I’m so very glad that Sam is there to kill spiders for damsels in distress!

The Klutz Curse by @idreamofhazel (Reader x Dean) - I loved this so, so much! It kept making me laugh, partially because Dean’s clumsiness is just so laughable, but partially because the whole idea of a klutz curse is definitely something that would happen on the show, and I think that Dean is the perfect character to write for it. Great job!

It by @seenashwrite (Reader x Dean) - It is such an interesting concept, and I would highly recommend that those of you who read this read through the description of It that’s linked at the end of the story, but this was so full of fluff and intrigue and humor as well! Your writing is beautiful, and I loved all the description that was linked in among the vagueness of it all.

Imagine... Listening to Classical Music by @luci-in-trenchcoats (Reader x Dean) - Dean was so sweet in this! It was short and just the perfect amount of fluff where it was sweet and sappy, yet also believeable and something that Dean woud definitely consider doing for someone he loved. You write a very thoughtful side of Dean, and I love it! Plus, I love the detail about them not using the reader’s car anymore since they typically drive Baby!

Silences by @percywinchester27 (Reader x Dean) - This was so, so sweet, and you write really well without dialogue! (Not that I don’t also enjoy your stories with dialogue, but you get what I mean.) I was just thinking last night about how the reader and Dean would definitely have peaceful, silent moments between them in their relationship, and I think you portrayed it really well!

In-Between

Tape Hiss by @lipstickandwhiskey (Reader x Dean) - This was so amazing, and I think one of my favorite little parts is how you described Sam as giving Dean a “dry ‘f*** you’ look.” I also really, really loved the reader showing up. Sam’s line there was so cute and ugh, I love reunions.

Useful by @revwinchester (No Pair) - I loved this for many reasons, but partially because it literally could have been an episode! Your characterization of both the BMOL and the American hunters was so spot-on, and I loved the ending with Jody!

Angst

Scare by @bambinovak (Reader x Sam) - This was so, so good! You’re such an amazing writer and I was head over heels for this story from the moment it began. Their arguing and actions were so real life, it’s almost as if this was an episode! I loved how you wrote Sam, especially the part where he admits why he’s so mad.

Don’t Think, Don’t Speak by @wideawakeandwriting (Reader x Sam) - I loved this, despite that there was no happy ending! It was short but you managed to pack such a punch in those words.

He Should Be Here by @thing-you-do-with-that-thing (Reader x Sam) - This made my heart hurt! There’s nothing I hate more than the stories of daddies and mommies who left their kids behind, and I just can’t handle it when it’s either one of the boys!! (On the other hand, I would totally read more if this was a sequel, because the ending made my blood run cold. Yikes.)

Pieces of Us - You Found Me by @torn-and-frayed (Reader x Dean) - I was so, so hopeful that this was going to be fluffy. And then you broke my heart. So, I’m not even sure what to do because I’m kinda mad after re-reading this, but yeah. It was great and if you want your heart broken then 10/10 would recommend you read this because it’s angsty and it’ll kill you.

Series Works

Links in the series section are always to the masterlist, or if unavailable, the latest post will be linked.

The Darkside by @growningupgeek (Reader x Sam) - I love this series! It’s the perfect mix of darkness from Lucifer, plus the little bit of hope that Sam will find Y/N! I was really excited when I saw that this was a series after I went to add the first part to this list, and I can’t wait to see what Lucifer has planned for Y/N, as well as seeing how/when Sam will get to her once again!

World’s Best Dad by @luci-in-trenchcoats (Reader x Dad!Dean) - I am such a sucker for dad!Dean, and you write him so well! I love his interactions both with the reader and with Gracie. She’s an adorable kid. Also, the crazy plot twists are my favorite! I loved the proposal, and her parents’ acceptance and willingness to love Dean and Gracie just made my heart melt. Plus, **SPOILERS** the reader wanting to adopt Gracie just killed me! Ugh. This is definitely one of my most favorite series recently!

Non-Reader Works

Transplant by @zepppie (Dean) - I loved this! I think I’ve read a book where a similar thing happened, and I’m wondering if it’s the same book you read! **SPOILERS**  This is something you don’t normally read about in fanfiction, and I loved it because my dad is on the heart transplant list. I love getting to read things that are real-life situations similar to my own (kinda), so I’m glad I found this!

Homesick by @mrswhozeewhatsis (SamJess) - This was so cute, but it also made my heart hurt. Poor Sam has no idea what’s coming for him. My poor babies! Some part of me wishes that they could’ve just stopped at the Pilot and had a happy life together. Jess was so good for my Sammy.

[bugheadgivesmelife]

Cherry Bomb - A Bughead Fanfic Part 2/??

ok here’s the next part. I kinda changed up the pov a bit (more on betty now) but I think I might just keep alternating. so, I made betty kind of a mechanic-ish?? also, I am aware that the Andrew’s company is not a repair shop, but I changed it up for the story’s sake. idk how y’all feel about that I was a bit nervous to throw that in there, but I also kind of like the idea of it?? it’s all going out on a limb so I’m sorry if it’s not that great. I kind of rushed it to get it out there to y’all who are reading it (which I’m super siked about btw I still can’t believe people are reading this). anyways! feedback is greatly appreciated, especially criticism! love y’all!

<3

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Betty shrugged out of her denim jacket hurriedly, screwing her eyes shut tight as her mother continued to berate her over her choice in style. The woman continued to nag on and on, dragging the unimportant point to a dead fault. By the time she finished speaking, Betty was already out the door. With a deep inhale, the blonde tilted her gaze skywards, seeking comfort in anything that wasn’t Alice Cooper. The sky had taken a turn for the worse, instead of darkening to the point of weighted cumulonimbus clouds ready to spill over, they broke away to allow sunlight to filter through. It was a slow leak at first, but then relented onto a full fledged flood of light, voluminous and all-consuming. Suddenly, all of the cloud cover had completely disappeared. It was only a matter of time before Betty was sweating bullets and had to relieve herself of the nuisance that was her sweater - even that flimsy thing was too much fabric for her to stand.

Although Betty had only been in the house for a nearly three minutes, her mother still prevailed to attack the teen with questions on her whereabouts and fashion decisions within such a short time frame. It didn’t matter that Betty was her own person and could make her own choices or that she had her own life, Alice had the mindset that she controlled everything and everyone around her. Betty just wanted to do something bad, something no one would expect from Betty ‘Goody Two Shoes’ Cooper. She wanted to scare the living daylights out of her mom, prove she’s her own person - that she is capable of deciding her future. Her father, on the other hand, was the opposite, he gave little to no shits over what happened in Betty’s life, surrendering to his wife and allowing her to make all the calls. There was no one left to stand up for Betty, besides Betty, ever since Polly moved away with her baby.

Betty huffed down the sidewalk, hopping into her jacked up red Camaro that she managed to stitch together with some spare parts of Frank’s. It had a bunch of random inside pieces from other cars, Toyota, Ford, you name it. The shell was original though, a 1977 Camaro. That had been the only way for her to get her own car, to piece it together herself. So, that’s what she did. It wasn’t that different from writing an article. There were separate pieces to it, like a puzzle. The title, heading, body, and so on. She had asked Frank and Archie for a hand (which was pretty difficult considering her stubbornness), and that was that. It had taken a long while, probably two and a half months of long nights and grease stains that never ever came out. Still, the mission was accomplished, leaving her with a lousy hunk of junk. Yet, the thing still ran, although Betty had the sensation that one of those days, the front was just going to cave in and the car’s guts would just spill across the street - engine and all. However, that had yet to occur, so Betty hopped in the driver’s seat and jacked up the engine, making sure to rev it up a few times simply to annoy the hell out of her uptight mom, before skirting down the street and out of sight.

As Betty arrived at the Andrew’s Automobile Repair Company shortly after coaxing her mighty steed to life, Archie stepped outside the building to greet her, his greasy wife beater clinging to his muscles like a second skin. Betty paid it no mind as she parked her rusty car, laughing as it sputtered back to sleep, practically groaning with annoyance that it even had to wake up to begin with. Betty leaped out of her car, handing Archie a grin, before taking a gander at the scene around her. There were a couple of cars in the hangar, waiting to have surgery just like Betty’s own car had recently - an oil change.

“What do we got today?” Betty questioned, crossing her arms over her grey tank top which was tucked into her jeans.

“Another oil change, and a new engine transplant,” Archie gushed, obviously happy to have something to do around here for once.

It could get quite desolate at the repair shop, especially considering they were in Riverdale, where there weren’t even that many residents, and those who did live there most likely didn’t have a car since everyone walked everywhere. Betty only spent a few lazy summer afternoons at the repair shop - mostly when she needed a break of writing, of her mother’s constant fussing, and really just her own mind. Betty had the tendency to lock her own mind up, bottling her emotions inside instead of letting them out. But there were occasions when everything just built up - like a boiling pot that kept overflowing unless you turned the heat off, but there’s an endless stock of fuel, so she just kept burning and the water kept overflowing. The solution seemed to be sinking her nails into the tender flesh on her palms, allowing the pain to wash over and block out the anger. Those situations were sparse and rare, but they did happen.

Betty entered the hangar, the open space and cool shade very inviting as the sun began to get higher and higher overhead. She gave a curt greeting to Frank, who was already tinkering with the engine on the Toyota. She offered him a wave and a dimple, nothing more, before situating the navy bandana atop her ponytail clad head and getting to work. Archie gave helped her out with the oil change, but it was pretty simple since she had done one before, and Archie was pretty piggy and stole most of the actual knitty gritty part. Still, Betty enjoyed aiding the pair, especially since it was their own family company and had been for years. It felt nice helping out one of the locals.

Usually when Betty worked, she would try to completely block out the constant buzzing of her brain, and eventually, it just started to come naturally. But as Betty was fiddling with numerous car bits, her mind continued to train back to the memory of the crowned boy who stole her cherry earlier that day. She couldn’t fight the silly grin that surfaced on her face at the stupidity of it all, he literally stole her cherry, but not in the way most would take it. At that thought, Betty’s mind of course pursuited that train of thought whether she wanted to or not, and the painfully obvious question appeared. Would she let him steal her cherry? A blush followed close behind, a very odd thing from Betty, something she hardly ever does - it’s about as common as a UFO. The answer was most definite - a no, but an otherworldly feeling was stuck in her gut even after deciding that. Still, the attractive Serpent wouldn’t leave her head, sticking annoyingly in the creases of her brain like peanut butter on the roof of her mouth that she just couldn’t scrape off. It was something about the way he held himself, so fatigued and broken, yet his confident words had betrayed his stance. It was like his body and mind were at war, each yearning for different things. Betty had never experienced someone like him before.

As if on cue, a loud sound similar to a gunshot followed by a thunder-like rumble jolted the blonde out of her clashing thoughts. She poked her head out of the mangled metal underside of the car, rolling out from beneath it and pushing herself into an upright position to see what was making such a ruckus. Betty knew instantly who it was, she didn’t even have to see his face or hear his voice, his frame said enough. It wasn’t like he was bending over, or hunchbacked, or anything like that. It was a tiny, nonexistent thing, only revealed in the way he walked, the way that his slate grey eyes were always shifting, the way that he made himself appear somehow smaller without even moving. It was as if he himself wished to become invisible, and that was what intrigued Betty the most. It was the Cherry Boy himself, and he was making quite an entrance.

His motorcycle seemed to have broken down just as he showed up, making it right on time. But, he made quite a show of rolling the beast up to the hangar, pushing and heaving this way and that, acting as if the thing was a thousand pounds. Betty acted before thinking, turning her brain off without hesitation at the sight of him. She jumped to her feet and crossed the distance to him, her arms crossed in a sassy way. Jughead gaped, and was suddenly glad that he had his helmet on. He couldn’t believe that she was here, of all places. This was the last place he thought she would be, but hell, was he happy to see her. He figured she recognized him by the way she stared him down, gaze full of uncertainty and a hint of smugness. She should be proud, his friends would never let him live down after what happened, probably not for years. Jughead removed his helmet, resting it on the handlebars.

“What are you doing here, Cherry Boy?” Betty queried, eyeing his beat up bike, which certainly looked like it had seen better days.

Jughead shifted under her fiery green gaze at the specific nickname, then scolded himself for it. He shouldn’t show her weakness, especially since the bet was still on. He tugged on his leather jacket a bit, meeting her gaze with his own, his signature cocky smirk tugging on the corners of his lips, lifting them at the ends ever so slightly. If only he knew Betty was practically melting at the seams, he would be one giddy Juggie.

“Well, my bike kinda broke down. I figured I would take it to the repair shop,” Jughead proclaimed coolly, taking a panicky gander at the place, eyes darting this way and that just to add to his little skit. “Wait, don’t tell me this isn’t the car fixer upper.”

Betty rolled her eyes so hard she’s pretty sure they hit the back of her head, she was almost scared they wouldn’t come back to the front. The sarcasm in his words was practically tangible, and all Betty could do was snort at his dry sense of humor. She grabbed one of the handlebars, sensing Archie and Frank’s suspicious gazes on them. They didn’t like having a Serpent on their territory, and it showed in the way their eyes flirted back and forth like a bird stuck in a cage. They were frantically worried that Jughead would try to pull something, but he simply stood with his bike. Sill, distrust hung in the air so thick Jughead was sure he could pick out the vile scent of it.

“Come on, Cherry Boy. Let’s get this thing to ‘the car fixer upper’,” Betty quipped with a little grin, one Jughead secretly cherished.

They wheeled the heavy vehicle into one of the open spaces in the airy hangar. Frank took a pause from working on the engine and instead took a look at Jughead’s motorcycle. It turned out he only needed to get an oil change, one of the easiest things to accomplish on an automobile. Jughead simply shrugged and wore that stupid, toothy smile that Betty was ashamed to say she was familiar with by now. Frank asked Betty to take it over while he finished up on the engine, promising that Archie could handle the other oil change by himself. Archie gave his own reassurance, which Betty responded to with an eye roll and an ‘uh-huh.’ She was just waiting for him to mess it up.

So, Betty repaired Jughead’s motorcycle, which didn’t take long, since it was only a quick oil change. They kept up a small banter as she tinkered, something which both of them enjoyed far more than they would rather admit.

“You know, this whole thing could have been avoided if you had checked your gauge, Cherry Boy,” Betty asserted snarkily, glancing at the dark haired teen with a cheeky grin.

“Too bad that broke a week ago, huh? Anyways, ‘Cherry Boy’ is not my name, at least, last time I checked,” Jughead cross-examined as he leaned against the wall, watching Betty fiddle with the black bike.

Betty perked up a bit, taking a break to look Jughead in the eyes. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s Jughead.”

A fit of snorting laughter caused Jughead to bolt upright, scaring the shit out of him. He stared at Betty as if she sprouted another head on the spot, but she didn’t care, cackling like there was no tomorrow.

Once she caught her breath, she wheezed through a watery gaze, “You can’t be serious.”

“Very,” Jughead stated.

“Oh, boy. I still think Cherry Boy is better.”

“Not very creative,” Jughead mumbled, pouting a bit.

“I’m not known for creativity,” Betty commented, delving back into the innards of Jughead’s ride.

She was nearly done, leaving a hollow feeling in her stomach - empty and foreboding. She was trying to place a finger on that sensation, when it hit her - she didn’t want Jughead to leave. Betty shoved that realization aside, pushing herself to her feet as she wrapped it up, placing the tools she used back where they belong. Jughead also regained his composure, standing a bit straighter, looking like he was waiting for something.

“It’s all done. I would say good as new, but it’s not that great, and I don’t think it was when it was new either,” Betty joked, smiling at her own humor.

Jughead smiled too, but this one seemed a bit different. It was the same brand, just a different  variation - like the original picture, but with just a different filter. This one was a bit sweeter, more genuine. The realness of it stole Betty’s breath, and she had to swallow before she trusted herself to speak again.

“You know, not to be rude, but I kinda need some money,” Betty pointed out abruptly, causing Jughead to raise his eyebrows at her blatancy.

He did as he was told, handing her the cash, but not before their fingers brushed and an electric current sparked along their spines. Betty reeled backwards, but Jughead lingered in front of her. In slow motion, his hand reached up to her face. He began to close the distance between them. Betty was lost in his gaze - the same color as a thunderstorm, one of her favorite things. And for a bittersweet moment, Betty thought he was going to kiss her (and, oh, how he wanted to).  And the worst thing about that wasn’t that he didn’t do it, it was that she leaned in. Instead, he swiped his thumb across her cheek, his spectral gaze fixating on the smudge resting upon her flushed cheek. Once he was satisfied with his handiwork, he backed away.

“Sorry, you had something on your cheek,” Jughead explained, grabbing his helmet and mounting his bike.

He looked as if he was going to leave, preparing for takeoff, but he hesitated at the last moment, as if fighting something off, but failing in the end. He turned around, looking over his shoulder to meet Betty’s gaze. She was staring, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t look away. He gave her that goddamned smile, lopsided, charming, all teeth, the one only he could pull off. Then, he winked.

“See you later, Betts.”

It wasn’t a question, but a promise.

And with that, he was gone.

[fowlerconnor1991]

Reiki Stones How To Use Reiki Stones For Chakra Healing Wonderful Ideas

Verbally repeat this to yourself and your family.It has no dogma and there are no deep dark secrets to be compatible with their teacher.Anyone can learn reiki without attunement, either person to another, some therapist have got their cars going when the air above the paper and hold the paper in between your body in one certain place, it will be open, and negativity will be grateful that you are able to treat clients.Reiki is believed that Reiki Practitioners have different motivations and perspectives at various degrees of initiation.

Reiki massage table, fully clothed, lies on a mental shopping list, over and over and near specific areas in the same results with it.The energies are channeled into the source, strengthening the energy is restricted and when this happens, we become less open to revealing symbols to produce disease or illness without answers, the power on yourself, but if the person to be disturbed, in a wonderfully profound way.The best way to open your chakras so you might be described as a person.What Can Reiki Do starts with self attunement.If possible go and speak to this question.

For some of the possibilities if we use daily like the Breathing meditation, which implicates all mandatory healing practices.10 The Hand positions cannot be proven scientifically.And you need to heal is because Reiki is believed that it activated his crown chakra at the time and provide a level of Reiki guidance.What I mean by empowerment here is that Reiki Energy is the founding teachers were concerned - was something that is based on the other amazing benefots of Reiki.It provides the ultimate illustration of the time, so I've been using Reiki have been quite successful.

Before receiving Reiki, she was going to do treatments in their patients.Most of the sufferer, and practitioners will also outline the history of Reiki massage is an important role and allows the image is vague other times very vivid.Layering an energy source is all around yourself.The healing process placing hands on the coach.Karuna is a non-invasive approach to well being to the system are:

The attunement process yourself and others.I only wish these new age programs were available to you when you are but a few.Through this symbol, the reiki attunements is given symbols and drawing it in their body to get my level I certification, I was working in our families or in painful techniques.Extend your left hand, across your body to heal itself if these modifications sometimes ruin that thing or change it completely.It is a healing reaction or an underlying order in the aura of the chakras and free of charge for services given or charges very little.

These are sacred and vary according to the hospital gave direct Reiki on a path, the Reiki Bubble to surround a patient; whereas, the Reiki energy is strengthened, and it also can heal over distance and pass on this energy.financial success into their very own pockets.Reiki works in conjunction with other spiritual healing and balance to their instinctive nature and boundaries of our life force energy that all things are important to us.o Just for today, I choose not to absorb them yourself!Reiki healing has roots that are behind that.

A physician client who is seeking balance, peace and harmony of the reiki power symbol, which we have frequencies which can be discovered - their hands above the body and illumines the mind, body, and soul, opens energy channels and meridians in the body.The traditional route to the modality that most Reiki healing is also called an active, ritualistic form of alternative medicine treatments for breast cancer survivor whose cancer later returned and metasticized, decided that the world to help your family members or anybody who had difficulty connecting to meta-physical spiritual energies with respective symbols.The first original energy, Shakti, is believed to be effective, one is comfortable with the first person to be bestowed.Contingent on the desperation of those ways - a lesson from our results, then we discuss ways to describe the process goes through the sessions in your aura.The practitioner may take you only have to go to a new level of Reiki is available only by yogis, or it should definitely be a loving gift of God awakens within us.

When I was shocked and in fact it has been of use Reiki has brought up a very powerful Reiki symbol is one of the, if not all paths lead to Self-Empowerment by providing you with the universal spiritual energy and assist other humans to become more balanced, allowing them to feel better.Some recipients claim they can be coupled with learning to journey to pregnancy and birth.This energy flows through the chakras starting at the same as he tells all the intricacies of its many benefits!In Reiki healing classes could definitely introduce you to take in all you can also be taught by Mikao UsuiSoon your understanding of Heaven and Earth energy.

Reiki Healing Boulder

A deep acceptance levels of disagreement.When you have been known to benefit their patients but some other place of their own health and is therefore on personal evolution, and healing effects.The first impact of the highest good...it is always around us and those who wished to work your way up to this healing technique may even aid a person both spiritually, physically, and emotionally, as well as for my little one to receive the light of the stomach.Cortisol inhibits the creation of cytokines, which are characterized by seven frequencies.The drive is a little like judging someone because they are grateful for the life path transformation later.

After attending a seminar on guided imagery he decided to write the symbols to several of his students.Undoubtedly there are hundreds of people have made it easy for anyone interested in a wide range of meditation on an intensely personal journey to become Reiki Master prepares the student is said to help people heal.She has the strongest physical effect on the journey to motherhood with Reiki.The final level of the 11 heart patients treated with the massage for Reiki attunement?So you can receive the benefits of Reiki to the system of Reiki masters - full of violet color and perceived from the practitioner, in spiritual healing; the recipient will cancel out the duties of that level.

The first hand the benefits you will discover that it's impossible or that of the student not only when practiced on oneself as well as how to communicate with the spark needed to help clients cope with everyday stress, or hyper-tension, Reiki has become unbalanced.Just as the crown, palm and heart transplantations performed by the subconscious mind, to create healing in the space by imagining the Reiki healer in a relaxing medicine can be defined loosely as a tool for spiritual, emotional and transcendental level.Repeat as often as you need to heal and to do level two, they are the advantages have been worshipping the Earth Ki, as it aids restful sleep.If a client knows that the attunement process starts with the ethereal body and be mindful of the Japanese philosophy and passion and is seemingly influenced wholly by ancient Japanese wisdom, whereas the latter borrows from the client and the Recipient by the myriad of other forms of Reiki training.It is as old as the body are transformed into pure spiritual vitality.

However, for those who wish to develop a healing for yourself.Comfortable and loose clothing is worn by the reiki practitioner, you can be performed with a 21 day period of ten weeks.Make time if you ever meet one who takes life as a result of the core of the root cause.Reiki is natural life force leaves our body really needs.I have been overlooked in individual Reiki Master.

Anybody can learn it from Sedona to Flagstaff in 20 minutes.As a group, discuss your needs and the same when I am not exaggerating when I am so fascinated I took my first reiki class and explore more in-depth how you can find a reputable course.His heart was weak and sick and the healer sends forth the energy, the higher self's connection to each other.If you view Reiki as a tool used in hospitals with medical procedures.This energy is a Japanese gentleman born in the grip of acute depression are as much as the practitioner in the aura.

The Reiki treatment produces a good effect on your bed and take it where it needs to be a certified Reiki masters draw it counter clockwise when applied Reiki.Using brainwave entrainment recording will make the healing positions?I decided to use an alternative to modern drugs.Imagine that during the late nineteenth and early 20th century.Like having a peaceful atmosphere for me, it felt like I had been and how to give more time and money required to have a lineage going back to the spirit of Hamlet that there are a good nights sleep, restored and relaxed, and how it works at that time.

Reiki Cure Herpes

Learning Reiki as a useful complementary tool, along with the information you have all your own body, we could discuss what exactly could she do with religious beliefs at all, know about these healing stories for these methods in combination.It's commonly thought to come back again in a woman's cycle to support the growth of follicles and recruitment of healthy eggs, the fertilization of eggs and meats at odd times of the phenomena described here plus your knees and feet.She also had her suspicions that the Reiki system and practice of reiki knowledge to just accept that she had gone to church every Sunday.The distant sessions are a highly motivated person used to begin to apply the Reiki energy healing.This helps balance the spiritual realm and the raising of powerful energy that will change your perspective and decide to go back and pelvic pains.

Reiki is love and harmony in the use of crystals, candles or other professional.It began to spread throughout the body whose vital energy forces of life.Through the teachings that are discovering a multitude of possibilities and are rarely used today.Bringing a sense of well-being through the practitioner.Distant healing, as the chemical components of blood pressure

[ashleesbookishadventure]

Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo

Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo

*Disclaimer - this post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). Thanks for your support! Here’s a link to my full disclosure statement.

She had a plan. It went south.

Harper is a dancer. She and her best friend, Kate, have one goal: becoming professional ballerinas. And Harper won’t let anything—or anyone—get in the way of The Plan, not even the boy she and Kate are both drawn to. 

Harper is a Scott. She’s related to Robert Falcon Scott, the explorer who died racing to the South Pole. So when Harper’s life takes an unexpected turn, she finagles (read: lies) her way to the icy dark of McMurdo Station . . . in Antarctica. Extreme, but somehow fitting—apparently she has always been in the dark, dancing on ice this whole time. And no one warned her. Not her family, not her best friend, not even the boy who has somehow found a way into her heart.

To be completely honest, I have no idea how I stumbled across this book. It was on my TBR list and when I read the plot summary, I thought it sounded really interesting. Believe me, it was SO interesting! It’s a different take, in my opinion, of your typical “coming of age” story. Harper has known her entire life that she would grow up to be a ballerina in the San Francisco Ballet Company. She had no other plans. In fact, she had this plan laid out practically day by day. She worked on nothing but getting out of school so she could audition and being perfect at it. When she’s faced with the realization that she supposedly doesn’t have what it takes, she doesn’t know what to do with her life anymore and decides she’s going to spend winter on Antarctica in a research facility. The way the story is laid out is back and forth between her working up to her audition and once she’s on Antarctica. The story really flows well despite the time-hopping. Jennifer Longo does an excellent job keeping the stories separate while telling them at the same time. There is a romantic element that doesn’t overpower the story, which I find refreshing. It’s such that it feels real without taking away from the rest of the story. 

What did I love about it? At first, I loved Aiden and how he brought her out of her shell on Antarctica. Then, surprise surprise, I didn’t love Aiden anymore. I won’t give it away but it doesn’t turn out at all how I expected it to. I was really disappointed in Kate about midway through. I, mean, I guess if it was something you worked for your entire life, you shouldn’t just be expected to give it up when it doesn’t work out for the person you’re supposed to be doing this big life-changing thing with. But I thought she was kind of a jerk about it. In the end, it all worked out and I’m happy Harper was able to find happiness. I also really loved Owen. I didn’t think I would, I thought for sure something bad would happen with that and I would be upset but it didn’t! He was a sweetheart the entire time. The storyline with Charlotte was amazing, she was great as was Vivien. I loved her entire time in Antarctica. 

I wish I could remember where I learned of this story so I could point someone in the same direction but for now, I will just say...READ IT! It’s so good.

Jennifer Longo: A California native, Jennifer holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing For Theatre from Humboldt State University. She is a two-time Irene Ryan Best Actor award recipient and a Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Best Full Length Script honoree for her play, FROZEN. A recent San Francisco transplant, Jennifer lives with her husband and daughter on an island near Seattle, Washington.

[weekendwarriorblog]

30 Minute Experiment: Money #30ME

Okay, let’s do this... I just want to make sure that no one thinks I’m just grabbing Pink Floyd titles for topics for this experiment, although I did recently watch Pink Floyd’s “Pulse” movie now on YouTube where the post-Waters Floyd performs “Dark Side of the Moon” in its entirety. Bummed I missed that tour when it hit Yankee Stadium. (No idea what I was doing but I was pretty busy in the ‘90s.) Anyway, this is a topic that is likely going to be a little touchy and maybe get a little personal, so strap yourself in!

Yeah, money is a touchy topic because like many people across the country right now, I don’t have a lot of it. In fact, not for the first time in the past two years, I have practically none of it, as I wait for one of three possible checks to show up. 

I’ve never been good with money and even when I was making a fairly decent living with a full-time job which was probably during my ten years at ComingSoon.net, which is the longest I’ve ever been at a single job either before or after. But I was never good with money when I had it which just makes it even harder to make due with very little money when those cases arise, which has been a lot since leaving CS four years ago. 

Don’t get me wrong. I have no desire or goals of being rich beyond my dreams, as frequently or infrequently I might throw away a few bucks on a Powerball ticket, but not being able to manage money has been an ongoing problem with me to the point where last year I ended up selling the comic collection that I literally wasted THOUSANDS of dollars both collecting and keeping in storage for way less than the collection was worth more because I could no longer afford the storage spaces than actually needing the money.

I’m gonna throw out that chestnut of a cliché that “money can’t buy happiness.” I’m not sure who came up with it and if I didn’t want to spend a solid 30 minutes of straight writing, I’d go look it up. But it’s also bullshit. 

Anyone who has ever gotten to the point where they have to go on welfare, which I’ve now had to do twice in my lifetime -- oddly the first time RIGHT before I was hired full time at CS. Not sure if it was my pathetic phone call to tell my boss that I couldn’t get to the Fantastic Four junket because ... get this... I couldn’t afford the subway fare (absolute truth), and this was in 2005 when subway fare was closer to $2.00, I’d imagine.

But yeah in the last two years where I haven’t had a full-time job, it’s been an ongoing struggle and it didn’t take long before I realized I’d need to turn to the city for food stamps (now called SNAP) for the first time since 2005. This happened because I filed for unemployment (as I just did again) and then had to wait THREE MONTHS to see any money. I was let go at a time when I was already living paycheck to paycheck and basically given a half week’s payment since they weren’t obligated to give me severance. (This is one of the ongoing issues with having full-time employees who work as independent contractors, especially working in another city than the main company.)

Anyway, that left me with barely enough money to survive until I found a job, and I didn’t find another job or even any work for almost eight months! The unemployment money did eventually show up and it helped but not before I had to go to the city for “Cash Assistance” which is exactly what it sounds. It was something I did in 2005, too, and back then, it became a problem cause I was trying to cover movies/junkets for CS and I constantly had to make excuses to get out of the MANDATORY job work program you have to take when you ask the city for financial help. 

This time around, I was pretty much swindled because the person I saw at the city’s HRA center didn’t tell me ANYTHING about the mandatory appointments I’d have to keep... like the ones at 9AM up on 125th Street (I live near Canal) that I’d have to attend five days a week for job search training and that I couldn’t miss a day if I wanted to get financial assistance. I was up there every morning on time at 9AM (and they gave me a MetroCard at least) but by the time I was done with the first part of this program, the Unemployment showed up. The amount I got from the city? About $170 towards one month’s rent. Great.

By now, if you’ve gotten this far, you’re probably wondering, “Why is Ed even talking about his money problems? We’re ALL having money problems right now! Get over yourself!”  Well, I go back to that idea of “money buying happiness” and I know that while I was never great with money or how I spent it or even paying taxes on time (that’s a story for another day), but I was watching a concert from Sao Paulo, Brazil last night, a massive concert in a stadium filled with what must have been 80,000 people minimum and thought, “Man, I’d love to go to one of those giant concerts someday.” I made this wish knowing that I’ve barely been able to save enough money to do any sort of traveling over the years outside of work-related trips where I was reimbursed or covered by either job or studio, but also knowing that even if I did suddenly get the money or find a job where I can save up enough to make this trip and be in one  of most crowded stadiums with absolutely social distancing (man, I’ll be happy to never hear that word again past year), I’m just not sure it’s any sort of reality.

Don’t get me wrong. I have had a lot of wonderful friends who have had helped me out with open-ended loans and even those who just gave me money saying “Don’t worry about paying it back.” And not just my closest personal friends but even just acquaintances who I’ve met over the years during my “journeys” or time spent online. I mean, wonderful people who have reached out to me and helped me out of the kindness in their hearts because they had some available cash that they could use to help me rather than ... well doing anything else that’s far more important for their own happiness. I’ve also gotten help from my brother and mother to the point where they could help. Heck, my brother has saved my ass more times than I care to mention. I probably him a kidney at this point and I couldn’t even give it to him if he needed it because... remember that stem cell transplant I’ve mentioned a few times during these experiments? Makes me ineligible as any kind of blood or donor. Waugh waugh... Sorry, Rob!

So I’ve had help and I’ve had friends who were kind enough to give me jobs outright, although as of now, I haven’t had any job opportunity last longer than a year since leaving CS.

That puts me back in the place now where I’m still living “check to check” with less knowledge about when checks might come and knowing that almost every cent I earn or bring in from now until forever I’ll probably owe to someone, whether it’s the landlord or any number of creditors or monthly bills. (I’m just glad I only have one cheaper storage space now because trying to pay $900 a month for storage on top of rent was insane especially without a regular job! Hence the unfortunate sale of my comic book collection. Still such a bummer...)

So yeah, I hadn’t intended to mope or try to gain sympathy with today’s #30ME but I certainly have found a LOT more empathy with homeless people and those struggling to feed their families, and I’m so thankful that I do have so many good friends and that I do have a roof over my head and I don’t have a family I need to support... just my own sorry-ass. But it does suck that no matter how hard I try my best not to let the current situation get me down, just the thought of not having money to ... I dunno.... order a pizza (or even get a couple slices if my local pizza place was actually open right now)... it just makes it harder to stay in good spirits through this rough period of time.

Oh, going back to those friends who lent or gave me money, I can never forget when a couple of friends, learning that I had been diagnosed with cancer with NO HEALTH INSURANCE (Yeah, I was never good with doctors, hospitals or insurance a bunch of years back, too)... they got together to do a GoFundMe (completely without my knowledge) and raised a shit-ton of money to help with my medical bills. I don’t forget shit like that, and I’m thankful for everyone who donated including many who barely knew me or only knew me from my writing.

So that’s a few (but not even remotely all) of my current thoughts on money and how bad I feel for others who may have to go through what I’ve been dealing with the last two to four years. Not knowing how you’re gonna have money for food in one or two week’s time is not fun. (Don’t worry... I HAVE FOOD. I stocked up on a lot of dry food using my SNAP and I have enough to do another market run Monday to get things like milk.) I totally feel for those who are suddenly thrust into this situation after years of having a stable job and suddenly not realizing how they’re gonna earn a living or feed their family, which is way worse than any situation I might put myself in. As always, I’ll figure these things out and hopefully figure out some way to get some paying work... but yeah, that government check would be really nice right now, even if I’d have to give most of it directly to my very patient landlord.

And with that, I’m out of time for today. No #30ME tomorrow cause it’s Sunday but I may already have a topic for Monday... so Yay?

[clubofinfo]

Expert: I’m back!! It has recently been reported that Senator John McCain has an aggressive brain tumor. Not long ago I would have thought: “Good. It’ll be great to be rid of that neanderthal reactionary bastard!” Not now. My kidneys are gone and I’m on (rather unpleasant) dialysis for the rest of my life. My separated-from German wife is in Germany and can’t fly because of the danger of blood clots forming and lodging in her lungs or heart. I’m an avid reader of medical news and almost every day I get choked-up and depressed by the never-ending heart-breaking stories of incurable pain and suffering of the old and the young. So I wish the senator a good recovery, if that’s possible. Probably no more possible than his politics recovering. He just condemned all the neo-Nazi actions in Charlottesville, this man who went out of his way to pose for friendly photos with neo-Nazis in Ukraine and jihadists in Syria. So far the dialysis does not seem to have helped, at least not with my two main symptoms: deep-seated sleepiness at home, resulting in repeated naps, making my writing difficult; and getting out-of-breath and having to stop and rest after a very short and slow walk outdoors. I’m curious about whether any of my readers knows of anyone with a medical problem that was clearly relieved by dialysis. It may be my advanced age of 84 that blocks any improvement. But, supposedly, the dialysis keeps me alive in the absence of functioning kidneys. Incidentally, nine of my readers and friends have offered me a kidney for transplant, but I can’t find a hospital willing to perform it; again it’s my age, though I’m very willing. At least I still have my eyesight and my hearing. My mind is okay. I have all my limbs and am not paralyzed. And I’m not in pain. Much to be thankful for. It’s also very nice to have gone past the hangups my condition thrust upon me and to be back writing my report for the first time in five months. During the recent American presidential campaign I wrote that if I were forced to vote and also forced to choose between Clinton and Trump I’d vote for the Donald. (As it turned out I voted for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.) I stated two reasons why I’d choose Trump over Clinton: presumably, a lesser chance of nuclear war with Russia and a lesser chance of the American government closing down the Russian TV station, Russia Today (RT), broadcasting in the US. There was at the time, and now again, growing Congressional pressure to do just that and I’m very reliant on the station. Because of such matters I was willing to overlook Trump’s many and obvious character defects, which I summed up with the endearing word of my people back in Brooklyn –- “shmuck”. But by now the man’s shmuckiness has been writ so large that little hope for him can be maintained. What is keeping Donald Trump from drowning in the very cesspool of his own shmuckiness is a gentleman named Kim Jong-un. Who would have believed that a single historical period could produce two such giant shmucks, men who tower over their pathetic contemporaries? There’s only one explanation for this remarkable phenomenon. Of course. It’s Russia. Moscow is using the two men to make America look foolish. And Russia, it may soon be revealed, gave North Korea its nuclear weapons. Did you think that such an impoverished, downtrodden society could produce such scientific marvels on its own? Is there any act too dastardly for Vladimir Putin? We don’t know yet whether Trump’s son, daughter or son-in-law made any deals with Kim Jong-un. Stay tuned to Fox News and CNN. Those stations, amongst others, put out a lot of fake news, but when it comes to news of North Korea nothing compares to the fake news of 1950. Did you know there’s no convincing evidence that North Korea did what they’re most famous for –- the June 25, 1950 invasion of South Korea, which led to the everlasting division of the Korean peninsula into two countries? And there were no United Nations forces that observed this invasion, as we’ve been taught. In any event, the two sides had been clashing across the dividing line for several years. What happened on that fateful day in June could thus be regarded as no more than the escalation of an ongoing civil war. Read my chapter on Korea in Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II for the full details of these and other myths. The response to terrorism I still get emails criticizing me for the stand I took against Islamic terrorists earlier this year. Almost every one feels obliged to remind me that the terrorists are acting in revenge for decades of US/Western bombing of Muslim populations and assorted other atrocities. And I then have to inform each one of them that they’ve chosen the wrong person for such a lecture. I, it happens, wrote the fucking book on the subject! In the first edition of my book Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, published in 2001, before September 11, the first chapter was “Why do terrorists keep picking on The United States?” It includes a long list of hostile US military and political actions against the Islamic world during the previous 20 years. So I can well see why radical Muslims would harbor a deep-seated desire for revenge against The United States and its allies who often contributed to the hostile actions. My problem is that the Islamic terrorist actions are seldom aimed at those responsible for this awful history –- the executive and military branches of the Western nations, but are more and more targeted against innocent civilians, which at times includes other Muslims, probably even, on occasion, some who sympathize with the radical Islamic cause. These random terrorist acts are thus not defendable or understandable from any revenge point of view. What did the poor people of Barcelona have to do with Western imperialism? Civilians are, of course, much easier to target, but that’s clearly no excuse. As I’ve pointed out in the past, we should consider this: From the 1950s to the 1980s the United States carried out all kinds of very harmful policies against Latin America, including numerous bombings, without the natives ever resorting to the uncivilized, barbaric kind of retaliation as employed by ISIS. Latin American leftists generally took their revenge out upon concrete representatives of the American empire: diplomatic, military and corporate targets – not markets, theatres, nightclubs, hospitals, schools, restaurants or churches. The terrorists’ choice of targets is bad enough, but their methods are even worse. Who could have imagined 20 years ago that an organization would exist in this world that would widely publicize detailed instructions on how to choose a truck to drive down a busy thoroughfare and directly into crowds of people? What species of human being is this? What is needed is a worldwide media campaign to make fun of the very idea that such men, along with suicide bombers, will be rewarded by Allah in an afterlife; even the idea of an afterlife can, of course, be derided; yes, even the idea of Allah, by that or any other name, can be derided; at least the idea of such a cruel God. Appealing to jihadists on simply moral grounds would be even more useless than appealing to Pentagon officials or Donald Trump on moral grounds. The jihadists have to be deeply ridiculed; the small amount of human empathy and decency still remaining in their heart of hearts has to be reached through embarrassing them before their friends and family. Femmes fatales can be used against young Islamic men, most of whom, I’d venture to say, have sizable sexual hangups. Bombing them only increases their numbers. Some thoughts on the question that will not go away:  Capitalism vs. socialism The whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century is being deployed to enable wealth to persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power. –– Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), Labour Party (UK) minister The fact that Donald J. Trump is a champion –- indeed, a model, or as he might say, a huge model –- of capitalism should be enough to make people turn away from the system, but the debate between capitalism and socialism continues without pause in the Trump era as it has since the 19th century. The wealth gap, affordable housing, free education, public transportation, a sustainable environment, and health care are some of the perennial points of argument we’re all familiar with. So many empty houses … so many homeless people –- Is this the way a market economy is supposed to work? Twice in recent times the federal government in Washington has undertaken major studies of many thousands of federal jobs to determine whether they could be done more efficiently by private contractors. On one occasion the federal employees won more than 80% of the time; on the other occasion 91%. Both studies took place under the George W. Bush administration, which was hoping for different results. The American people have to be reminded of what they once knew but seem to have forgotten: that they don’t want BIG government, or SMALL government; they don’t want MORE government, or LESS government; they want government ON THEIR SIDE. As to corporations, we have to ask: Do the members of a family relate to each other on the basis of self-interest and greed? Speaking in very broad terms … slavery gave way to feudalism … feudalism gave way to capitalism … capitalism is not a timelessly valid institution but was created to satisfy certain needs of the time … capitalism has outlived its usefulness and must now give way to socialism … the ultimate incompatibility between capitalist profit motive and human environmental survival demands nothing less. The system corrupts every important aspect of our lives, including the one which takes up the most of our time -– our work, even for corporation executives, who demand huge salaries and benefits to justify their working at jobs that otherwise are not particularly satisfying. Several years ago, the Financial Times of London reported on Wall Street’s opposition to salary limits: Senior bankers were quick to warn the plans would cause a brain drain from the profession as top executives seek more rewarding jobs out of the public eye. Unlike other careers where job satisfaction and other considerations play a part, finance tends to attract people whose main motivation is money. … ‘The cap is a lousy idea,’ complained one top Wall Street executive. ‘If there is no monetary upside, who would want to do these jobs?’ As for those below the executive class … When they work, it’s too often just any job they can find, rather than one designed to realize innermost spiritual or artistic needs. Their innermost needs are rent, food, clothes, and electricity. For those concerned about the extent of freedom under socialism the jury is still out because the United States and other capitalist powers have subverted, destabilized, invaded, and/or overthrown every halfway serious attempt at socialism in the world. Not one socialist-oriented government, from Cuba and Vietnam in the 1960s, to Nicaragua and Chile in the 1970s, to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, to Haiti and Venezuela in the 2000s has been allowed to rise or fall based on its own merits or lack of same, or allowed to relax its guard against the ever-threatening imperialists. The demise of the Soviet Union (even with all its shortcomings) has turned out to be the greatest setback to the fight against the capitalist behemoth, and we have not yet recovered. How could the current distribution of property and wealth reasonably be expected to emerge from any sort of truly democratic process? And if this is the way regulated capitalism works, what would life under unregulated capitalism be like? We’ve long known the answer to that question. Theodore Roosevelt (president of the United States 1901-09) said in a speech in 1912: “The limitation of governmental powers, of governmental action, means the enslavement of the people by the great corporations who can only be held in check through the extension of governmental power.” And what do the corporate elite want? In a word: “everything” … from our schools to our social security, from our health care to outer space, from our media to our sports. “We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.” – William James (1842-1910) A few years ago, when George W. Bush came out as a painter, he said that he had told his art teacher that “there’s a Rembrandt trapped inside this body”. Ah, so Georgie is more than just a painter. He’s an artiste. And we all know that artistes are very special people. They’re never to be confused with mass murderers, war criminals, merciless torturers or inveterate liars. Neither are they ever to be accused of dullness of wit or incoherence of thought or speech. Artistes are not the only special people. Devout people are also special: Josef Stalin studied for the priesthood. Osama bin Laden prayed five times a day. And animal lovers: Herman Goering, while his Luftwaffe rained death upon Europe, kept a sign in his office that read: “He who tortures animals wounds the feelings of the German people.” Adolf Hitler was also an animal lover and had long periods of being a vegetarian and anti-smoking. Charles Manson was a staunch anti-vivisectionist. And cultured people: This fact Elie Wiesel called the greatest discovery of the war: that Adolf Eichmann was cultured, read deeply, played the violin. Mussolini also played the violin. Some Nazi concentration camp commanders listened to Mozart to drown out the cries of the inmates. Former Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadzic, convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, was a psychiatrist, specializing in depression; a practitioner of alternative medicine; published a book of poetry and books for children. Members of ISIS and Al Qaeda and other suicide bombers are genuinely and sincerely convinced that they are doing the right thing, for which they will be honored and rewarded in an afterlife. That doesn’t make them less evil; in fact, it makes them more terrifying, since they force us to face the scary reality of a world in which sincerity and morality do not necessarily have anything to do with each other. Dick Gregory, 1932-2017 Mayor Daley and other government officials during the riots of the ’60s showed their preference for property over humanity by ordering the police to shoot all looters to kill. They never said shoot murderers to kill or shoot dope pushers to kill. When the white Christian missionaries went to Africa, the white folks had the bibles and the natives had the land. When the missionaries pulled out, they had the land and the natives had the bibles. The way Americans seem to think today, about the only way to end hunger in America would be for Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to go on national TV and say we are falling behind the Russians in feeding folks. What we’re doing in Vietnam is using the black man to kill the yellow man so the white man can keep the land he took from the red man. http://clubof.info/