C3E56 reaction

I have to go on CR stats to remind myself! I watched most of it last night, then crashed because I was so tired, and finished up with the fight aftermath today.

There have been a LOT of episodes recently where the cast is just full giggles for a lot. It's not a complaint, it's just fun to see the comparison versus how they are .... less frequently doing episodes full of giggly for C2. Had to phrase that carefully, because they certainly were giggly for a lot of C2 as well, but usually more in chunks of episodes rather than being fairly punchy throughout.

I am ALWAYS excited to see the snow background! Confirmed light snow and 'heavy' snow, but I personally would have loved to have an even heavier version. I suppose it might be too distracting, but I'd love to see lots of blizzardy action behind them, or heavy downpour.

The frost giant bit was fun, but I would have enjoyed even a more 'encountery' encounter. It wasn't a theater of the mind combat because initiative wasn't rolled, and while it was enjoyable, I could have enjoyed it more.

GOAT BOAT! I, like the party, completely underestimated the size of the goats! It turned out well that they were being more sensible about the raft, but the sheer hilarity of the concept was glorious.

Matt was ON POINT with voices today, Donnie Boy's voice, and double catfish voices were HYSTERICAL and AMAZING.

I'm still a bit iffy of the robit romance. I'm enjoying the players having fun, but it'll feel just a bit weird to me if this ends up being long term end game romance. It really does feel like Rushed First Crush, and there's no saying how it will go, so Imma just enjoy the ride. Christian is definitely playing this to the max, and Sam is 'yes and'ing away, leading to fun scenes.

CHANGEBRINGER CHANGEBRINGER CHANGEBRINGER

Look. Sometimes - Sometimes Matt makes decisions. And sometimes those decisions, I can't quite understand how he got to. Mike Hunt is my usual example for that. But having the Changebringer be visible on the horizon an impossible distance away? As soon as he described it, I knew Sam/FCG was going to use it as confirmation of flat Exandria. As SOON as it was out of Matt's mouth.

Aside from that, what an absolutely beautiful scene! From all three campaigns, I highly appreciate how Matt portrays the gods, each one unique and for the most part never 'speaking' but giving the essence of the meaning regardless. (Exceptions being when Vax communes with the Raven Queen in the pool of blood, and when C1 is off on the god-fetch-quest in the last arc.) Using the distance to emphasize how the gods are pulling away, using the coin to convey a clear yes (both the Changebringer and Matt get props for that choice), it was all so visually and emotionally striking.

WHY DID DEANNA KILL THE GOAT! WHAT. WHAT. WAHT.

got an immense number of laughs from me, but doesn't seem to match with how she's been played at the moment. It definitely shows why she clicks so much with Chetney, I'd like to see this very impulsive violence more.

FROG-HE-MOTH. FROGHEMOTH. YES YES YES

We are at Molaesmyr. WE ARE AT MOLAESMYR.

(Do I have to look up the spelling EVERY SINGLE TIME? yes. yes i do)

As soon as the elk showed up I was so excited to see more Protectors. I WAS WRONG AS FUCK. I cannot WAIT to see how this continues!

...is it bad that I like all the new art except for Imogen? Something about the face, chest, and hands just look a bit off to me.

Missing team AOL, I expect we won't see them for maybe another month at least. For me, this is the biggest 'expect the unexpected' from the pre-C3 video. Extended guests were fun, destroying gods plot has been thrilling, but extended splitting the party has been the most unexpected for me.

hello friends it’s going incurably critically insane o’clock ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

THE FULL INTRO IS BACK OH WE LOVEEEEEE TO SEE IT

…Laia Costa is SO early in the cast credits WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN

moiraine and lanfear………. powerful homoeroticism I really enjoyed it. I realise that this is not a very original statement but it’s the only one I have sufficient brainpower for rn

THE IMPLICIT POLY AOL VIBES IM GOING TO EAT MY ENTIRE ARM

THE BRAID???? HOLY FUCK RENNA NEEDS TO SUFFER TIMES ONE BILLION

GODDDDDDDD ISHAMAEL SETTING UP MAT TO KILL RAND IS SENDING ME FULLY AROUND THE TWIST

ohhhhh I knew it was coming but “you have always been my better” still made me literally cry 😭😭😭

ANSBCNSNSNDNFNFNGN THEY REALLY SAID WE ARE GOING TO HEIST THE HORN OF VALERE AND WE ARE GOING TO DO IT ENTIRELY OFFSCREEN. like okay I don’t like it but if we can’t have 10 episodes I do have to respect the sheer audacity of that Narrative Choice. though also: WHOMST was the lady from Cairhien. and of even greater importance: was she played by Laia Costa???????

(I assume it was ~Selene~ but like. we are in Laia Costa tunnel vision modus fuckin operandi)

oh Loial my BELOVED 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

wait whatttttt no turok duel OR darkfriend reveal for Ingtar?????? bro we are speedrunning this city

“they were best friends” listen we know two out of the three were fucking so if we’re describing all three in the same way I will not be held responsible for the conclusions I draw tyvm

SIX OF THEM

SIX OF THEM

HEL FUCKING LO

ITS TIME FOR MORE FORSAKEN BABEYYYYY GOD I CANNOT WAITTTTTTTT TO SEE THE REST OF MY EVIL BLORBOS

(admittedly I’m only far enough through the books to have encountered Graendal a grand total of once thus far and also I don’t actually give much of a fuck about Sammael yet but oooooooh my god when Asmodean and Moghedien show up it WILL be over for me bitches)

wait omfg is Lanfear staging this entire drama as a distraction so she can release all the remaining forsaken while ishy and rand are too busy fighting each other to stop her oh fuck meeeeee I’m gonna go in ZANE

THE PHYSICAL RUSH OF ADRENALINE I FELT SEEING MAT MAKE A BLADED QUARTERSTAFF OUT OF THE DAGGER WHILE THE S1 TWO RIVERS MUSIC PLAYED MY GODDDDDDDD

IM JUST CONSTANTLY SCREAMING NOW FR

MAT IN THE SAME LOCATION AS THE HORN… HRRRRRRRRR

no sign of rand for a hot second 👀

HOLY FUCK EGWENEEEEEEEEE

HE’S GOT SHIT HAIR BUT HE’S ALIVE AJSNCNSNSNDNFNDJDNFNFNDJNDNDN

MAT WITH THE HORN THIS IS NOT A FUCKING DRILL

“…Two Rivers???” SPECTACULAR

NOOOOOOOOOO NONONONONO I KNEW IT WAS COMING BUT THIS IS STILL THE ABSOLUTE WORST

OH GOD OhH FUCK I RECOGNISE THE START OF THAT SCORE IM ABOUT TO GO FUCKING FERAL

MAT LEADING THE CHARGE WITH THE MANETHEREN BATTLE CRY OOOOOOOOOH GOD THATS MY FUCKING BOYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I SPY BIRGITTE!!!!! AHHHHHHH SHEEEEEEEEEE

UNO!! FUCK YES

nynaeve saying that egwene needs elayne not her… oh my god are we getting a full main babies towertop avengers assemble moment im gonna fucking evaporate

ALSO WE HAVENT SEEN MOIRAINE IN A HOT SECOND………. HMMMMMMM!!

I KNEW WHAT WAS GONNA HAPPEN OOOOOOOH I FUCKING KNEW IT AND I AM STILL. LOSING MY MINDDDDDDD

THE CRADLING. THE CRADLING. THERE IS A TRULY EXCEPTIONAL LEVEL OF HOMOEROTICISM HAPPENING HERE ON EVERY LEVEL

EGWENE’S BATTLE MUSIC OH MY GOD MY GIRL YESSSSSS GO NUCLEAR MY LOVE

SCREAMING AT THIS AVENGERS ASSEMBLE COMBINATION FATED SOULMATES FIRST MEETING CROSSOVER EVENT BUT WHERE THE FUCK IS AVIENDHA GET MY GIRL IN HERE!!!!!!!

SHRIEKINGGGGGGGG AT THE (almost) ENTIRE CREW BEING RIGHT BEHIND RAND IN HIS BIG MOMENT

OH GOD OH MY GOD ITS HER SHES FUCKING HERE

AHSBCBFB OKAY I HAD IT BACKWARDS BUT FUCKING SCREAM???????? THATS HERRRRRR THATS MY CREEPY PATHETIC BABYGIRL HOLY SHITTTTTTTTT

“All five of them” uh huh. uh huh. uh huh. any- any of them in particular??? perchance??? huh moggy???

AND CLOSING WITH A NEW VARIANT ON MAT’S THEME OHHHHHHH AND IF I SOBBBBBBB

The Other Bulldog

Many people proclaim The Dynamite Kid as the best wrestler they've seen perform. I'm one of those people. It took years for me to finally learn about his existence through wrestling magazines and websites. Then, I got to see him in action courtesy of DVD collections and Youtube. No memory lane to stroll down considering I was only a year old when he left the WWF. Nostalgia won't allow me to forget the man who was closely linked to Dynamite. It's not just nostalgia. Davey Boy Smith seems to be overlooked these days, and it's sad to me. Another prominent tag-team partner, Owen Hart, was superior as well, but Davey was a great grappler in his own right.

My dad taught me when I was 7 or 8 that wrestling was scripted. Still, these men were so talented at bringing their gimmicks to life. A kid couldn't help but have trouble remembering they were athletes playing a character. The image of The Undertaker or Mankind sitting in a living room with a sleeping baby in their lap just couldn't be projected in my mind. I knew it was possible though. After all, an issue of WWF Magazine I thumbed through featured a similar image except Sycho Sid had a baby in his lap. During the mid to late '90's, Davey Boy Smith stood out to me because he was one of three "normal" wrestlers. The other two were Bret and Owen Hart. They weren't "characters". No flamboyant behavior like Shawn Michaels and Goldust or pulling insane antics like Stone Cold Steve Austin. Davey executed his strongman feats without his face covered by make-up or a mask. If a wrestler looked normal, they at least had to be involved in an outrageous storyline. The only crazy thing Bulldog did was smear Ken Shamrock's face with dog food.

My peers never spoke of Davey Boy Smith. Very few of them liked wrestling before it became a trend around 1998. One friend in my neighborhood had Bulldog's Hasbro action figure stuffed in a crate of toys, but that was it. In addition to lacking a flashy gimmick, Davey Boy was a heel. Kids hate a heel no matter how gifted he is or they at least did in my time. Once during lunch, I stuck my neck out and tried to explain to my friend, T.J., why I liked Shawn Michaels. I told him I liked his wrestling style but not his character. He slowly nodded with a digusted look on his face. Needless to say, I never brought the Bulldog up.

Since I tuned in more for WWF's programming than WCW's, I only caught one of Davey's matches during his 1998 stint. The match seemed so off because the crowd was asleep. I hated it for him. The AOL Trial CDs came to the house, but my dad was the only one who put them to use. In other words, I had no internet and had no idea about Davey's poor health. Once he made his way back to the WWF in late 1999, I was content and it didn't matter whatsoever if he wrestled in jeans. The contentment soon vanished. After The Rock slammed him down on a tray of dog shit, I knew the company wasn't going to do much for Davey's career. Bulldog was still a "normal" wrestler as The Attitude Era was in full swing, but it was pretty fucked up to have him sink that low. I continued to pay him my attention until he disappeared for the last time.

Personally, I don't care about mic skills, but this is usually a critic's burial plot for a wrestler. If he wasn't intoxicated and fumbling his words, Davey was to the point and didn't say much during promos. Davey began training at 12-years-old while most boys that age just sit in front of the television and only dream of being in the ring. It's clear what the man's passion was. He never cared about being a showman and focused on his physical abilities. A sound clip of his used for the "WWF War Zone" video game summed him up best. "My bite is worse than my bark!"

Davey's tag-team partners receive all the glory. If his mat skills were so mediocre, The British Bulldogs and his partnership with Owen Hart would not be praised to this today. It takes both wrestlers to make a tag team shine. In my opinion, Davey was unique for a bulky wrestler who performed power moves because he could be so quick on his feet especially during reversals. It wasn't just bodyslam after bodyslam. You wouldn't see other powerhouses like Lex Luger and The Ultimate Warrior doing cartwheels and somersaults. People say Owen Hart shouldn't be remembered solely for his fatal accident, and he's become a legend. Davey Boy Smith shouldn't be remembered for his substance abuse, and all people do these days is make jokes about it. These bastards don't stop and think about something. Who was alongside Owen Hart during his most successful years? Oh, that's right. Davey Boy Smith.

okay on the one hand i definitely played too long today, like i was telling myself to stop for several hours at the end there

but on the other hand i wanted to finish one particular quest and, well, it took a while to do

so, uh, i’ve finished nearly all the main quests i think? so spoilers below

yeah, today i finished up the gerudo quest, as well as saving and rebuilding lurelin, lots of exploration trying to get into the kokiri forest before realizing you have to go down to go up (or at least that’s what i ended up doing and it seemed intentional), saving the deku tree (in what felt like an absolutely dogshit fight), finally went to hateno village and tarrey town (didn’t actually do much there but i visited them), finished all the geoglyphs, got the final memory, tried like five times to pull the master sword cuz i had to go get stamina vessels in between each try, which meant i had to do random shrines for a while, and finally did manage to pull it out

....

so like

zelda’s actually a dragon

like they really fucking did that

no last minute switcheroo of ‘oh mineru is the dragon and zelda’s actually totally fine’, which is what i was expecting - on screen she eats the stone and becomes a dragon

so uh botw/totk zelda wins the ‘most tragic zelda’ competition i think - oot zelda and... i think aol zelda were top competitors, but you just can’t compete with ‘struggle for years with the very concept of using the light force, then finally figure it out only to spend a hundred years doing nothing but holding back the calamity, and then on a fun archaeology trip you accidentally wake up the demon king and get sent ten thousand years into the past where you eventually choose to give up your entire sense of self and wait ten thousand years to give link a fighting chance’

geez, i’m really comparing this in my head to ruby’s half-suicide in rwby this past volume... like, i can’t even articulate much right now except that i’m sad for her

so i guess evil zelda is probably mineru? because like she hasn’t factored into most of the story at all, except for the bit where she mentions her power is to separate her soul from her body - only i guess she might also be in the purah pad? or in that construct that was holding the purah pad? zelda said something to her when she gave the purah pad up so like, who even knows anymore

well, anyway, that’s a whole thing i get to wrestle with, and we’ll see how the story plays out with the final battle

everything else i did today was unequivocally a good time - loved that they brought the gibdos back, but like they’re some kind of weird insect? great choice, totally bizarre in the best way possible, and i had a funny moment in the lightning temple where i was trying to figure out how to get to one of the batteries with rizu, and i kept popping up to the seventh floor cuz i knew i had to get her there somehow but i thought i had to get her there to open the door for the boss room, and then literally just before i got the last battery i realized ‘oh the entire point of the temple is to get rizu into that room’

i was also pretty proud of figuring out that you had to get to the deku tree by going into the depths, that was pretty cool (mildly terrifying cuz of enemies on the way but cool nonetheless)

however, the fight to save the deku tree? that was the first time i looked anything up, because i was getting mauled by the floormasters (or gloommasters or gloomhands or whatever their name is, like hell i’m stopping in the middle of a fight to take a picture of them), and i figured i was missing some essential point to the fight, like there was some easy way to counteract gloom that i just didn’t know about, but no, turns out the way to fight them is to know they’re coming, set yourself up in a bit of the room without gloom, and just shoot like eight bomb arrows into the center of their formation

the phantom ganon fight was also difficult, but that at least felt more reasonable to be as hard as it was, and i eventually made it through by upgrading some of my armor and eating a really good defense up food item - the items he dropped are sweet, too, although i’ll probably never use the sword unless i absolutely have to cuz uh slowly dying does not sound fun

so right now i have a full extra ring of stamina (thanks zelda) and i believe fifteen hearts, though it’s honestly hard to count, which feels like a decent amount to try fighting the final boss with, although i might wanna make another good armor up thing if possible, and also who knows what’s in store once i finally go into hyrule castle

but that’s for tomorrow, because i do need to sleep now and we’ll see when i wake up what i’m feeling like doing

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Books I’ve read so far in 2022!

Friend me on Goodreads here to follow my more up to date reading journey for the year!

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109. Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

TW: Death & grief, drinking & driving resulting in a death, depression Listen, I knew this book would eff me up. I knew that it would give me anxiety and would probably make me cry. I was ready for that, but it still made me so mad that I started crying LOL. Especially after that epilogue. Needless to say, this book was incredible. And surprisingly spicier than I was expecting from Hoover? I remember when she had the tamest of sex scenes and I would just feel frustrated. But she gave us the goods this time (except for the term "panties". I actively giggled--why can't people just say underwear?) Also, Ledger sounded like a babe so...yeah, thanks, Hoover. I genuinely didn't know how this story would play out. This topic was so difficult to process because it really challenges the concept of forgiveness and perception. How can grief affect your perception? At what point can our actions surpass the level of anger that comes with the inability to forgive? While I think the conclusion and resolution were a little too quick, convenient, and tidy, I did appreciate that we got some sort of aftermath of all of the turmoil we experienced alongside the MC and her love interest in this book. Although I had a bit of an anxious moment where I almost DNFed this book, I really loved this. I couldn't put it down once I passed the fifty percent point and I'm glad I picked it up--tears and all.

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110. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I think going into this book expecting the unexpected helped me not be as weirded out as my friends have been. This book was weird and took some wild turns, but I have to admit that the way it was presented felt almost hypnotic. Beneath the gruesome descriptions and the violence, there is a foundation of beautiful writing. I think one of the reasons why this book is so effectively off-putting is because the author has a good grasp of writing. I’ll admit I’m both surprised and not at the rating for this book on Goodreads. Horror always gets the short end of the stick and that affects the rating at times. This was a short and very quick read with quite the punch. I think it’s small packaging made the message of it more effective than if it had been dragged out. A friend and I talked about how this could be such an effectively creepy read for us millennials because we grew up talking to random strangers on online chats like AIM and the group chats that were so readily available on AOL. If you remember those, you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, this book isn’t for the faint of heart. If you are squeamish about gross situations, blood, and descriptions of animal deaths, you should steer clear. Don’t eat while reading this, either.

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111. Riley’s Ghost by John David Anderson--⭐️⭐️⭐️

While I was expecting this to be spookier, I appreciated the exploration of bullying and the complex world of a child's loneliness. I think I related a little too much to the bullying memories in this and it definitely left me thinking after the book was done. I do wish this had a bit more of a focus on the haunting of the school instead of the constant back and forth of memories of the MC being bullied and being left alone at home by overly busy parents. I enjoyed this but if you pick this one up, know that it's not really a story about a haunted school. This is more about a girl trying to find her way in life despite the high level of bullying that she experiences. I really wish I could give her a hug.

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112. One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love this author and while this doesn’t beat out my love for her last book, it was really close! I actually debated this with myself after I finished because that ending had me feelings all kinds of things. Being incredibly close with my own mom, this one hit hard because she always says that I am the love of her life. I feel like I would also feel so completely lost if I were to lose my mom. So much of my life is intertwined with hers—from decisions to opinions, and while I’m not as dependant as the MC, I can only imagine how empty I would feel after the loss. I think this book was a magical way of dealing with grief. Imagine if we all got a second chance to know the loved one we’ve lost (even if it’s for a brief moment)? Imagine seeing them from a wholly new perspective we weren’t afforded before because we stood in a different role while they were alive? I also loved the setting. Italy has always sounded so gorgeous to me and I really, really want to go! What took the one star away was the simple conclusion regarding her marriage. Some things happen that I think are glossed over a bit and while I expected this to happen, I was hoping the author would take a different route or would explore the situation further. I think if you’re okay with shedding a couple of tears, this would make a great summer read!

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113. The Awakening by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay, this book was stupidly addicting once I really got into it. I couldn’t stop reading it and when I did have to stop, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’m a sucker for these bully books and I just want to see these women beat those asshole heirs. I’m immediately picking up the sequel because I need to know things. I will say, however, that these books do need a bit of editing and that’s probably one of the reasons why I’m not giving this five stars. But other than that, holy crap is this stuff addicting.

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114. Billy Summers by Stephen King--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I thoroughly enjoyed this book—even more so than I was expecting. King’s writing has evolved and since this is one of the newest ones I’ve read by him, the difference between this one and his older books is pretty big. Whereas he used a lot of derogatory language to get a rise of discomfort out of the reader in his past books, he barely does so here—he even comments on a woman and feminism (which I loved). What I also appreciated was that he alluded to the pandemic. It’s weirdly refreshing seeing it in fiction, unlike so many contemporary books that have ignored the topic. Billy was a complex character and although he was flawed and firmly a grey area character, I couldn’t help but feel connected to him. I wanted him to succeed and I wanted him to get the other bad guys. Also, I want to note that I appreciated the way King handled Alice and her situation. Massive TW for sexual assault if you’re thinking of picking this one up. Lastly, I never thought I’d do this but…I cried. Stephen King made me cry. Wow. I’d recommend this if you want to read a King novel but are wary of his horror. This is definitely more of a thriller than a horror novel.

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Have you read any of these? Would you recommend them?

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Happy reading!

i’m not a 90s kid but my favorite movie as a kid was 1939 Wizard of Oz which I had on VHS, my first camera saved pictures (144p) to a floppy disk, i had used tape players to listen to music for so long that by the time i got my first portable cd player i carried it around with me everywhere even though the song skipped with every step as i walked. my dad made me mixtapes on ACTUAL tapes, i didn’t watch tv unless it was with my parents for an hour after dinner and even then i only did it bc no one would play with me. i spent every day i could outside until sunset pretending i had my own cooking show and making mud pies. i collected all kinds of bugs and insects to look at under this giant magnifying glass that i could hook up to my gamecube (the coolest shit ever honestly) and see on the old giant crt television screen in the living room. i grew up largely without the internet. didn’t have a personal electronic device until i got a flip phone at age 13. anyway anyway

1) i feel largely disconnected from my actual generation bc we didn’t have the same experiences growing up EXCEPT

2) other kids who grew up in poorer homes that couldn’t afford the most recent technologies and that the world (and every other 90s kid) seems to forget about (we knew what dial up and aol messenger was! i swear!)

3) it is completely possible and okay and normal to raise a child with no or limited access to electronics as they develop, even with the internet being prevalent. i didn’t care that other kids could watch tv all day and had an ipod, i had fun in my own ways and never felt bored. in fact i often felt much more empowered in pretend play and my imagination and my ability to entertain myself with my own thoughts. to this day i meet people like my husband who can’t stand sitting around and always need music or someone to talk to or something to watch bc they don’t have the ability to occupy themselves and i feel bad for them. kids don’t need to play video games every second of their free time growing up i promise you that. give your kids good life skills instead

I find it really funny that Fujibayashi was so upset that Link and Zelda didn't have much of a relationship that when he started directing Zelda games, he pushed for there to be a relationship.

Let's see, the games he worked on:

OoA/OoS - Kiss at the end on the cheek (although Link does leave Hyrule for more adventures)

FS - already knew each other and were at least friends

MC - Childhood friends

PH - Pre-established relationship from the first game so he didn't honestly add much here

Skyward Sword - OBVIOUS romance, you can see it from outer space

BotW - Not as obvious for Link but it's like a baseball to the face with Zelda

AoC - Not director but scenario writer. Actually, so far, it's like he forgot these two were supposed to be close. Maybe the DLC will show differently

It's honestly so funny.

That said, the only games I would stand by Link ever ending up in a relationship with Zelda would be

AoL - Link and Zelda kiss at the end, and the manual implies Link is destined to be the next king

SS - They are clearly practically dating already, although there is an out with check out girl (I believe the game states that Link even likes her attention)

BotW - Not so much from Link but with the blatant love from Zelda I would be shocked if they weren't a thing at the end of it all.

And that's really it. As for the other games:

MC - they are childhood friends and still children. An argument could be made that they grow up to love each other, but as it stands in the game, there isn't anything there.

FS - They know each other but that's really it. There is no text to support a romantic relationship of any kind.

OoT/MM - Link kind just leaves. They seem more like companions in destiny than anything, and all evidence points that in the end, they don't end up together.

LttP - They didn't meet until the start of the game, and then Link leaves Hyrule at the end. No text support, really

LBW/TFH - Again, they didn't know each other. There are hints that Zelda dreamed of a romance with a hero and stares at the murals of heroes' past, but nothing towards the current Link. Plus, Link leaves at the end.

LoZ- If Link didn't get together with AoL Zelda there might be an argument here but as it stands, nah.

TP - They barely even interact, why would anyone think they form a romance? If anything, Link falls for Midna or has feelings for Ilia already.

FSA - Friends, but not much of a romance.

WW - Becomes friends, but are children and don't show any romance

ST - There is no proof that WW Link marries Tetra. In fact, WW Link is strangely absent from New Hyrule's history except for the uniform of the guards and the fact Niko just calls him an old friend. Argument could be made that Link and Zelda end up together in this one but they are children and there is no hints of romance, only friendship.

February 10th, 20 years ago

20 years ago I was 19

20 years ago my best friend in the whole world was you, Kenny. Sorry, Kenneth. Or Ken. (You’re wrong though, it’s Kenny)

20 years ago we both had significant others, we were just really good friends.

20 years ago we spent hours every day and night on the phone, sometimes until the portable phones battery died, like we had done for the last year and a half.

20 years ago you’d leave me silly emails or IMs on AOL, even if we were already on the phone.

20 years ago I let you read my writing and you marveled at the worlds and characters that lived in my head.

20 years ago you encouraged my writing, wrote with me, and begged for more.

20 years ago we shared a love for words and storytelling.

20 years ago you would read me to sleep. Lord of the Rings, Neil Gaiman, and so many more authors with beautiful words that filled my dreams.

20 years ago you talked nonstop about how excited you were for the first Lord of the Rings movie to come out. You spent hours of shameless fanboying.

20 years ago I calmed your nightmares and fears in the middle of the night, no matter the time because you did the same for me.

20 years ago we had been talking for hours. The clock struck 4am. After a few moments of comfortable silence you said so quietly into the phone “I’m so scared to die.” I fought my tears and sang you to sleep.

20 years ago we both knew you had limited time on this earth.

20 years ago we both agreed to make the most we could of it. No matter the ending we knew would catch up with us.

20 years ago we both found ourselves suddenly single… at the same time… right before Valentine’s Day.

20 years ago we kept this thing between us from our friends, wanting to figure it out for ourselves before word got out, or feelings got hurt.

20 years ago we confessed late one night that we really really liked each other. And had for a while.

20 years ago today I was on a couch in a friends garage, snuggling with you. Cherry was on the love seat across from us.

20 years ago today we shared a fluffy blanket. I think it was blue? But hands were in sight at all times.

20 years ago today I was laughing with you so hard we cried at South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. It was my first time seeing it.

20 years ago today I had my first pink Snowball (The candy you perverts) because it was your favorite and they only had them at Valentines day.

20 years ago today we went to Rocky together (Midnight Insanity at the Art) but left early because you weren’t feeling good.

20 years ago today we were alone, everyone else asleep in other rooms.

20 years ago today we shared our first kiss.

20 years ago today we spent the night in each other’s arms, but everything stayed pretty PG.. maybe PG-13.  I was kind of a prude. Sorry dude.

20 years ago tomorrow I was too afraid to call out to work so I left you on that couch so I could rent out video tapes to assholes.

20 years ago tomorrow you pouted and begged me to stay. I think there were tears in your eyes. “But I won’t get to see you for a while. Stay. Please.”

20 years ago tomorrow I should’ve stayed. I should’ve fucking stayed.

20 years ago tomorrow was the last time I saw you alive.

                             The last time I held you in my arms.

                             The last time we snuck a kiss.

28 days later we were supposed to hang out.

28 days later we were finally going to see each other after you had been away with family.

28 days later we were going to make good on all the romantic promises we had made over the last few weeks.

28 days later I was giddy at the thought of being able to kiss you again, and again, and again.

28 days later I spent hours getting ready.

28 days later you called to say you were on your way. “We should be there by 2!”

28 days later I stood by the window until 6pm, wondering where you were, trying to quiet the growing panic in my chest.

28 days later I got a panicked phone call that you were too sick to leave.

28 days later you were coughing up blood everywhere.

28 days later you were sprawled on the floor of our friends bathroom, too weak to move.

28 days later an ambulance was on its way.

28 days later I couldn’t get to you.

28 days later only family was allowed in the ICU. No one else. No exceptions.

              I vaguely remember the next few days as I laid in bed.

              As I clutched the clear blue plastic portable phone that matched your black one, willing it to ring.

              As I waited for any kind of news.

As I begged a God I hadn’t believed in for over a decade to intervene because you couldn’t leave me, not now.

              But there was only silence.

3 days later was my dad’s birthday.

3 days later the silence ended.

3 days later my sister handed me the phone sometime in the late morning.

              “He passed this morning.” And the line went dead.

                             That was it.

That day I lost you.

That day I never got to say goodbye.

That day my world shattered and even with two decades of time, it’s still not pieced back together.

                             It never will be.

There will always be a hole where you were.

Days, or weeks later, I found out you knew how close the end really was.

              You told your friends you could almost sense it, lurking nearby.

                             You didn’t tell me.

                             You let me believe you were just a little under the weather.

                             You didn’t tell anyone your body could no longer tolerate the dialysis.

              You told them that you needed to see me one last time.

              You told all your friends goodbye, made your peace with them.

              You told them I was the last stop.

              You told them you weren’t coming home.

              You knew you’d never make it.

              I am so sorry I didn’t get to you in time.

              I’m so sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye.

              And I am so, so very sorry I never told you I loved you.

                             Because I did.

                                            Because I still do.

an internet/social media survey. 1 - Are you one of those people who shares absolutely everything on social media? What do you think about those who do? I do tend to overshare in surveys and I share quite a bit on Twitter. I’m pretty quiet on my other social media sites, though, in terms of that. It only bugs me when people share something and then someone asks about it and they’re like, “I don’t want to share it on here” or “I don’t want to talk about it.” You just did, though? Why post about it then? Plus, my nosy ass wants to know haha. I see that all the time on Facebook.

2 - Does anyone in "real life" know that you take surveys? Would you be embarrassed if they found your blog? I don’t think so. Back in the Myspace days people knew cause I posted them there, but no one in “real life” follows me on here. I’m surprised I shared those back then cause I don’t want anyone to see them now. Although, I wasn’t as open back then in surveys. I took the more basic ones and didn’t elaborate like I do now.

3 - When you receive a text message, do you reply straight away or wait a little while instead? It depends.

4 - Who was the last person you blocked on social media? Did you have an argument that lead to that happening? I don’t recall. It was probably some spam account on here.

5 - Aside from Tumblr, what websites do you spend the most time on? I spend a lot of time on YouTube. 

6 - What was the first social media account you remember signing up for? Are you still a member of that particular website, if it even still exists? Ooh. I’ve had an online and social media presence for so long... like it was probably something that doesn’t even exist now.  I remember some teen sites I was on that I guess were like the social medias of the day. For example, there was this one website I remember called Kiwibox, where you could interact with other people, post stuff, and it shared like trending topics and whatnot that I was a member of in the early 2000s. It was pre-Myspace. I don’t think it even exists now, but if it did I’m sure my account was deleted long ago for being inactive. 

7 - How many social media accounts do you have now? Do you use them all regularly? If not, which ones do you think you update the most and why? I’m on all the common ones. I use them all, but I’m more active on some than others. Some I check regularly but rarely post. For instance, I’m super active on here and I post on Twitter quite a bit. I check Facebook a few times a day and “like” some stuff, but I very rarely post. I check Instagram and Snapchat, but not daily and I rarely post or even interact on there. I spend the least amount of time on those two.

8 - Are there are any popular apps/social media sites that you've never got into or signed up for? How come? Hmm. Like I said, I have all the main ones I think.

9 - Do you take surveys on any other website apart from Tumblr? Nope. 

10 - Before Tumblr existed, what kind of blogging site did you use (eg. LiveJournal, Xanga etc.). I had a Xanga and LJ account. 

11 - Is there anything you miss about websites like MySpace, or do you prefer social media the way it is now? The Myspace days were interesting that’s for sure. I miss the hype of changing up my page and adding stuff, picking my profile song, rearranging my top 8, changing my display name, follow forever trains, comment 4 comments... haha what a ride.

12 - How old were you when you first got the internet at home? Was it broadband/wireless or did you use dial-up? I remember it wasn’t long after my brother was born, so it was sometime in 1999. I remember when my mom brought home our first computer. Those were the days of dial up/AOL. Gah, I do not miss that. 

13 - Are you old enough to remember life without any kind of internet access whatsoever? What kind of things did you do to fill the time? Ha, yeah. It’s crazy to think of the days before the internet, but I did have them. I actually used to play outside *gasp* That’s shocking cause ya’ll know I’m a hermit crab. I used to get so tan back then cause I spent so much time outside. Other things I used to do was play Barbies for hours, play with my cousins, read, color, and watch TV.

14 - Have you ever gotten into an argument with a stranger online before? Lol yeah.

15 - Overall, would you say social media is a good thing or a bad thing, or does it depend on how you choose to use it? It definitely has its pros and cons. There’s a dark side to social media and the internet in general, but a lot of good can be done with it as well. 

16 - How much time do you think you spend online each day? Is this something that varies depending on the weather? I spend a decent amount of time online for sure, but it does vary. The weather has absolutely nothing to do with it. 

17 - If your internet went off right now and you knew it wouldn't come back on for several hours, what would you go and do instead? Well, it’s 3:50AM so I’d watch some TV and attempt to go to bed.

18 - Since getting the internet, what's the longest period of time you've gone without access to it? Did you miss it as much as you thought you might? Probably the times I had surgery. I didn’t have to go completely without because once I was able to I was able to rent laptops that were available for patient use or access a computer while there. That was really nice during the couple times I had to spend a few months in the hospital. Even the shorter stays, like a week or two, I had some access at some point. But yeah, I definitely wasn’t on nearly as much during those times. Not at all the first few days/week. Then when I was back home and had my laptop I still wouldn’t feel up to spending much online. I did miss it, but I spent so much time resting and sleeping during the early stages of recovery so it was fine for awhile. I did start to get stir crazy, though.

19 - What's something you find yourself doing less of because you spend too much time online? Hm. I can’t think of anything I do less for that particular reason. 

20 - What websites do you spend the most time on? Do these fall into any particular category or are they just random? Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

21 - What website from your childhood/teen years do you wish still existed? I miss Xanga a lot. The survey community was poppin back then. I miss the days, not so much the websites themselves, of Myspace, Neopets, playing games on Disney Channel’s and Nickelodeon’s websites, making dolls, and the AOL teen message boards. Good times, good times. Much nostalgia. 

22 - Have you ever met up with anyone in real life that you first met via the internet? Did you get on as well as you thought you would? Nope. I had online friends back in the day that I talked to all the time and actually texted with. I even talked to them on the phone a couple times. :O That was during my Jonas Brothers days and I got close to a few people that I met through a Jonas Brothers’ message board and chatroom. I was pretty involved on there. I can’t believe I used to do that cause I wouldn’t do that now.

23 - What's your thoughts on internet dating and is it something you would ever consider for yourself? I probably wouldn’t do it myself, but hey if that works for people then go for it. *shrug*

24 - Do you tend to shop more online or in person? Is that something that's changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? I do all my shopping online now since the pandemic hit, but even for a few years prior I was doing most of my shopping online. 

25 - Speaking of the pandemic, did you find all the stories on social media quite scary or overwhelming at the beginning? Absolutely. 

26 - If someone on social media annoys or upsets you, are you likely to tell them or just hit the hide/block buttons? Nah, I’ll just keep on scrolling. If it’s that bad then I’d likely mute or just delete. 

27 - Are there topics you won't post on social media about, simply because they always end up in an argument? I don’t post about politics. 

28 - Are you friends with your parents and family members online? Do you limit what you say because you know they can see it? Yes and yes. Like, even though I don’t post anything bad or risqué lol I still hide some stuff from my grandparents just because they wouldn’t get it, ya know? I’ve done that before and my Nana called my dad and asked if I was okay cause I posted some relatable self-deprecating meme or something haha. It’s sweet of course that she cares, but yeah I didn’t want her to get worried and concerned over stuff like that.

29 - Are you using the internet for anything else except this survey right now? I’m watching ASMR videos on YouTube as well.

30 - Do you access the internet more via a phone, tablet or laptop/PC? Which device do you prefer overall? I use my phone a lot for certain things and my laptop for others. Like, I much prefer the Facebook and Twitter apps, and I access Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, the Kindle app, and my email on my phone as well. I use both for YouTube. I only like to access Tumblr on my laptop, though, as well as Pinterest.

(Note: I’m not repeating stories he’s told before and just putting them in parenthesis. I have a lot more videos to go until I’m caught up so that would save me a lot of time. If he gives details I never heard from him before, I will type those.)

“The New Onision Gossip (^_^)” September 26, 2020 - Speaks

- He says he assumes there’s a new rumor because he was spammed on Twitch with comments implying he struck someone he’s married to. He says he addresses every rumor because it interests him and because if he doesn’t people think they are facts. - He doesn’t know where the rumor came from. He finds it the same as the stuff he’s dealt with for some time. People not needing proof, just going off of feelings. The masses bombarded his stream and said it was reality. If you’re in your late 20′s or older, you get fed up with high school drama. - Says Kai was ahead a grade when he was in high school, so he was a senior when they met. He told Kai the other day that if Kai never jumped a grade, he never would have talked to him. He wouldn’t date a high schooler. He was 26 and Kai was 9 years younger than him. - Says he once screwed up and said he spoke to Kai’s dad and his dad told him to come back in 10 years when Kai is 25. He says it doesn’t make sense and it was idiocy on his part. He says there are at least 40 witnesses that know they never spoke until later. The first time he thinks Kai tweeted him was October 2011. He says they started talking around the time Shiloh cheated on him. - (Shiloh cheated story) He says after they broke up, Shiloh made an essay about how great of a boyfriend he was. [I think he’s talking about this?] He says she was trying to woo him back after he left her. He made a song, Her Lies, instead of taking her back. He tells his audience to stream it on Spotify. Says Shiloh would try to threaten suicide when he broke up with her. He admits he did the same over his alimony payments. (Alimony story, divorce story, Skye was lazy and depressed) - Says when he first met Skye she was a social outcast. She reminded him of Wednesday Addams. He first saw her in a gymnasium, they were in the same class. He found her different than everyone else and he thought that was interesting. He walked over to her and she acted like he was a d-bag for trying to talk to her. “Typical girl emo-ness.” He waited it out and she warmed up to him. One day she invited him over to her house over AOL instant messenger. Her sister opened the door and he thought “oh my god! She looks so happy! She looks so full of life!” He says he thought her sister was her. He saw Skye walk into the picture and she was emo as ever. Same mopey, depressed person. He says for some reason he wanted to be the guy that will hang out with her, make her happy, and make her save herself from herself. - They dated for a month and he broke up with her because he realized he’d never make her happy no matter how hard he tried. He went to basic training and while he was there he decided to ask her to marry her to get more military benefits. He says she was his closest friend and he wanted to travel with her. He says it was fun. He’s kind of glad he married her, but he’s not happy about how it ended because of the alimony. (more alimony story, they took his stuff from his house story) - All of his experiences helped him learn a lot about people. He realizes most people are selfish. They live in their heads and they don’t think about other people. He doesn’t play hero anymore to protect himself. - He says he left his ex-wife for a girl because he was excited she was a Canadian pop star. He says it was very shallow and superficial. He says he was in love with her because of how exciting and interesting she was. It was one of the most intense relationships he’s been in. He says there was a supernatural element, she was one of those women that would say they knew each other in a past life. He thinks that was something she said in that goodbye letter she wrote for him after she cheated. She said maybe they’ll be together in the next life. It made him want to puke because she just cheated. - He had to call the cops on her so many times and he convinced himself it was normal. People who stay in relationships like that stay because they are told no one else will want them. He actually says Shiloh’s name and says she told him no one would love him as much as she loved him. He says it’s not quite the same. He says people who hated him loved him more than Shiloh because she got pregnant with another man’s baby. - (Shiloh body slamming the door story) He says when he pushed her with one arm through the door she dramatically fell to the floor and called him abusive. Since she called him abusive, he called the cops to ask them what they think. He says he thinks they saw the hysteria in her and the calm in him. He just broke up with her and wanted space and to sleep in his own room. He asks what you would think if Shiloh was the one holding the door and he was the one trying to body slam his way in. She would be the one pushing him with one arm away from the door so she could lock it. He says you would think of “here’s Johnny” from The Shinning. Insane mental imbalance. When you switch the genders, the guy is always wrong. He says the cops took his side. They took Shiloh aside and he could still hear them. They told her to stay away from him and leave him alone. They told her to give him space and to let him sleep in his room and she did. He says he thinks he let her sleep in the same room after because he felt bad for calling the cops. - He says there is a really weird thing she did to get him to have affection for her. He says he went to Lover’s Package with her because she was complaining that she had physical needs. He said he’s not willing to sleep with her or date her because it’s too toxic, but he’ll buy her something. He says while he was there he saw a mannequin and he thought to himself, “do women really get that skinny?” because he was with 170lb, 5 foot Shiloh for so long. He says it was normal to him that she was the same weight as him, but 11 inches shorter. He says that’s medically obese. He says he appreciated her physical form. She asked if she should lose weight he would tell her it’s not an issue. Says one time she asked him if she was obese and he said she was and she freaked out. He started crying because she said she was going to end her life because of that. He says it was rude to say even though it was science. - She told him she could get as skinny as the mannequin if he wanted her to. He says he didn’t know what to say because it wasn’t an awful idea for him to be with someone that shape. He says he got her a d-i-l-d-o, he thinks it was a vibrator. She tried to use it in the tub. She calls him in and she tells him it’s not the same when she does it on her own and she asks for help. He says they were broken up but, but they were both adults so he tried to help. He doesn’t remember how it went, but they wound up dating again. He thinks it was her strategy. - He has the Remember Love tattoos because she would guilt trip him. [hentai break up story] He didn’t want to get her name because he didn’t think the relationship would last forever. He says he got the tattoos on his wrists to remind him not to watch hentai because he uses his hands to jerk off. - He says one time he was playing Mortal Kombat and she put her mouth on him. She noticed he got more aroused when Sheeva came out. He says he’s not even attracted to Sheeva, but he was so deprived from not being able to watch internet porn. - [Shiloh & his ex-sister-in-law’s adult photos story] - He says he had chemistry with his ex-sister-in-law, but they never had anything. Their age gap was not appropriate in his mind. He was 18 when she was 15. He says it might have been legal, but he didn’t feel it was appropriate. [ex-mother-in-law scammed a website story] - His ex-grandma in law said she would shoot the president. His ex-mother-in-law said she’d supply the gun. His ex-sister-in-law said she’d supply the bullet. He says these were white people talking about a black person. - He says this is heavy content, but he has no reason not to talk about it. He thinks his ex-sil was brainwashed politically by her mom. He says he was hateful toward George Bush because he was in-part responsible for over 1 million innocent Iraqi deaths. He says he killed more people than the current president. - Says one time his ex-mil let his ex-sil and her friend drink. She told them not to drink the whole bottle. They were not old enough to drink, but he didn’t stop them because it would destroy his relationship with everyone in that household. His ex-wife would make sure they were ok and didn’t hurt themselves. They would take turns distracting his ex-wife so the other one would be alone with him and hug him. He says he was not married to his ex-wife yet. He thought the hugs were fine. Says when he was alone in the bathroom with his ex-sil she tried to kiss him. He turned his head because of their age gap. That night they all laid in the front room on the carpet except for his ex-wife. She asked why they were laying on the ground and he told her not to worry about it. He says he was holding hands with his ex-sil. He says this gives you an idea of his moral compass. Hugging and holding hands are ok. Kissing is not not ok. He says when he was at Osan Air Base, the Korean marines were holding hands while skip marching. That’s when he realized he liked the Korean military more because there was love in that group. They cared about each other.  - He fell asleep holding her hand under the blankets. When he woke up, she said “what the F?” He guesses when she was drink she thought she wanted to hold hands with him.  - He says you can jump to judgments about him, but he tells you so deeply who he is, a guy who refused to kiss someone that was intoxicated with a three year age gap. He says holding hands is platonic. If it was sexual, mothers wouldn’t hold hands with their kids. Hugs are fine. - He says there was a gay guy who came over their house. He hugged and held hands with Kai. Platonic people do that all the time. - He’s not sure if he dated his ex yet when that drinking story happened. - He says he and his ex-sil played video games together and hung out a lot, but after that incident, he wrote her an email. He wrote there’s a chemistry between them, but it’s not something he can’t pursue. He wants her to know she’s a special person to him, but it can’t be a thing. She hated him from that point on. He felt like she was an awesome person. - They made videos together later on and she was so funny. She was so cool, talented, edgy. He says she could be praised by the masses. She’s like the female LeafyIsHere in a lot of ways. He offered to pay her to be in his videos long after he divorced her sister. It was exciting working with her. - He says he never beat Shiloh. He called her for domestic issues and they always sided with him. He says it’s rare when the cops take the man’s side. Women cry and men yell, but it was the opposite. Shiloh wrapped her arms around him because she was trying to stop him from calling the cops. The phone fell out of his hand. He did successfully called the cops. They told him to move so he wouldn't be there when she got back from her mental evaluation after she threatened to frame him for murder. - He says in the past there’s a reason why the mass majority always took his side. It’s because he’d make videos like this to tell people how it was. - Says the Twitch chat was saying, “you beat your wife.” He told them, “what wife? I’m married to a dude.” He says it was a weird stream and he wore a mustache and sunglasses while rocking out to Rammstein.

The Ray #5

The Ray Senior has six armpits.

It's hard to believe there was a time when comic books didn't acknowledge who did the cover. I suppose publishers simply thought comic book nerds were so rabid for the medium that they could instantly recognize the artist without any credit. Or maybe they figured if the reader was truly interested, they'd scour the cover to find the signature. That would answer the question, right?!

Oh yeah. Okay. That fucking helped nobody.

In 1994, good luck figuring out who the fuck this signature was by. Sure, you can read "Nichols" in that fucking doodle but that probably means you'd merely assume Art Nichols did the cover (if you even knew who the fuck that was). But no! This cover was by Joe Quesada and Art Nichols! Fucking Joe Quesada. How delusional do you have to be to think that a J stuck to a giant fucking rendition of Saturn would read "Joe Quesada" to anybody who didn't already fucking know that that was his pretentious signature?! I suppose if my understanding of the musculature of the human body was on Joe's level, I'd want to obfuscate my name too. Some people who have only grown up with the Internet might not entirely understand my issue. When they first encountered an artist they really liked, they probably learned all about that artist immediately. But back in 1994, if your local comic book store owner (and the owner back then was almost always the clerk (okay, maybe not in 1994. But in the 70s and early 80s, definitely)) couldn't answer any questions you had (if you could bring yourself to actually engage them in conversation, of course), you were shit out of luck. Sure, you might send a letter to DC and then hoped they'd answer it in a future issue of the comic book that maybe you were still continuing to read. Or maybe you'd have a more knowledgeable comic book friend. But what you almost certainly didn't have was an easy way to find out answers to mysterious things. Maybe you were lucky enough to have AOL or Prodigy but was your question being answered so important that you would submit yourself to a comic book AOL chatroom? Almost certainly not! You'd just live with a mystery for awhile and hope that maybe, some day, you'd get satisfaction. I'm definitely not saying it was better in the past! If you somehow got that out of what I just read, you're probably a bit too defensive and maybe you should relax a little bit. And speaking of generation gaps, this cover is apparently about a generation gap! It's father vs. sun in a knockdown, drag-out battle that absolutely nobody fucking cared about! Most of us bought this issue thinking, "I hope The Ray finally buys that fridge!"

I know what the Oedipal and Electra Complexes are but what do you call it when you want to both kill and fuck your father?

The Ray is drunk on the energy he absorbed from the Light Entity. Older The Ray seems angry and violent from the energy. I'm sure once the energy dissipates, the two will have said everything they needed to say and they'll hug. And judging from the above panels, maybe they'll suck a little dick too. Older The Ray absorbs The Ray's powers and teleports him all over the world to teach him that the world has problems that can't be solved by punching Doomsday in the throat. And they certainly can't be solved by a reckless teenager using his powers to fly to Hawaii to get laid and murder other super heroes. So Older The Ray decides he needs to take away The Ray's powers forever. I don't know how he has that kind of power and why he didn't do it when The Ray was younger so The Ray could have a regular childhood. He probably decides to do it now because he's simply an asshole. And also maybe because Zero Hour happens next issue. Except it's all some kind of test and The Ray doesn't ever actually lose his powers. This story definitely isn't making Golden Age The Ray any fans. Was he always a gigantic asshole? Maybe Christopher Priest just believes the same thing I do: dads are kind of dicks. Some people think the song "Cat's in the Cradle" is sad but I think it's a triumph of the spirit! Stick it to that fucking asshole old man, kid! Finally, Older The Ray screams at The Ray about how much he sacrificed to give him a decent life while his son, The Ray, just weeps uncontrollably. Because why the fuck should the son care what the parent sacrificed when that decision cost the son so much? And the father didn't fucking care about that at all. It's just "Me me me!" and "Look what I had to go through!" and "You don't know how much I suffered!" But all the son fucking wants is his father. Nothing else fucking matters and why should it? The son is angry and hurt and upset and he doesn't need to hear his father's excuses or rationalizations or explanations as to why he wasn't there. The bottom fucking line is that he wasn't there. He was never there. And now that he is, he thinks his son somehow owes him unconditional love? Fuck that guy. But in the end, they hug because Older The Ray maybe sort of gets it. His son just wants a father, not some guy teaching him how to be a super hero. It might be a happy ending but I'm fucking pissed. I hope Zero Hour erases Golden Age The Ray from existence!

I hope Issue #0 resolves the fridge situation.

The Ray #5 Rating: B-. I know a lot of father/son relationships never have problems. But a lot of them do. And, eventually, many of those fathers and sons work through their problems to become friends of sorts. But fuck that bullshit. I'll take on their bitterness and resentment and hatred and keep it stored safely in my cold fucking heart. I will cherish those feelings of ill will and hurt. I will become an Anger Elemental and I will makes sure that fathers everywhere never again perceive a world in which their child owes them something. They owe you fucking nothing, no matter how good or bad you were to them. Accept what they can give you and stop being a huge fucking prick, Lloyd. I mean anonymous fathers.

25 to 36

I am 36 years old today, and I am TERRIFICALLY happy to be alive.

Like many people who suffered childhood abuse (not from my parents, my parents are amazing), I was absolutely convinced for a very long time that I was going to die young. It wasn't even something I thought about, it was just something I knew. I wasn't going to make it past 25. That was just how things were for me. So I didn't care about a lot of things. I didn't make plans, because I didn't think I would be around to carry them out. Everything I wanted to do, I had to accomplish as quickly as possible, because otherwise it was never going to happen. I literally didn't brush my teeth for years. (I regret that now.)

But here I am, eleven years past the expiration date I used to have in my head. Officially more than a decade older than I thought I would ever be. And I'm still kicking! In fact, I'm having a grand time.

I have a wonderful family, fun and supportive friends, adorable pets, and my own house. (Just a trailer for now.) I have a decent job and money in the bank, and I have spare cash to spend on items for my hobbies, like LARP costume pieces and Robin trade paperbacks. My life is rich and full with games, creative endeavors, physical and psychological exertion, and the opportunity to help others.

I've been in an introspective mood lately, unpacking books I haven't seen for ten years, cross-posting old fanfictions from fanfiction.net to archiveofourown.org. I re-read Candles Against the Sea, which is a story I wrote with a huge theme of emotional repression during a time when I was actually coming to learn that I had been repressing my emotions really REALLY hard for a long time. I honestly don't know if I did that on purpose or not. So much of my writing, especially my most self-indulgent fanfiction, has been a journey of reflection and healing.

I have written many stories about abuse and trauma and the recovery and healing thereof, and each of them was different. Each of them possessed me, each of them demanded to be written.  Some of them were simple—Hinata Shouyou gets a concussion from a bully and is instantly surrounded by his friends and family and teammates, protected and loved and infinitely safe. Some of them were complex—Dean Winchester and his brother and his angel travel to a small town where Dean first began healing from an incident of childhood sexual abuse, a healing that was begun but never finished and now needs to start anew.

I've been introspective about this before, such as during the writing of Come Morning Light. I said then that writing about Kuroko Tetsu dealing with parental abuse drew from my memories, but did not dig into my spirit. So many of his reactions were almost verbatim from my experience, but I did not feel in the least troubled by the sharing. My heart was whole, and it could regenerate. I could tear off pieces and give them away without ever being afraid of losing them.

The greatest and deepest blessing of my life has been the comments I get on these fics. Readers haved shared their own stories, telling me how my fiction touched them, showed them something, maybe even taught them something they hadn't known before. My readers have been able to gain insights into their own situations and have turned corners in their own journeys of healing on the prompting of my words. I've gotten direct messages and private communications from people currently in abusive situations, asking for my advice, and that tears my heart the most, but I'm so, so glad to be trusted with such incredible vulnerability. I hope I gave the right advice.

I don't know if I really had a point in writing this, except to say that I am grateful. I am grateful for my life. I'm grateful to be 36 years old, alive and singing. I am grateful to be blessed with a gift for fiction and to live in a time when I can share the things I write so readily, and other people can find them so easily. I'm grateful for every fandom I've ever been in and all the friends I've met along the way. I am grateful for AO3 and even for FF.N, that pit of voles, as well as LJ and theforce.net and swstory.com and the fanfiction group on AOL so long ago where I first discovered that fanfiction was something that existed and could be shared, and where I posted my first fanfic (Star Wars Rebellion Era, all OCs, not very good).

I'm grateful for every comment and review, from the simple heart emojis to the thousand-word essays on the meaning of identity and the dichotomy of justice and individuality. I'm grateful that I've been able to touch other people and be touched in return. I'm grateful to be alive.

36 may well be a seminal year for me. Who knows? If nothing else, I'm sure it's going to be good. Life didn't end at 25 for me. It was just getting started.

🌸Aphrodite April - How I got here💕

I met Aphrodite when I was ten years old in the winter of 1996. I was home sick from school and an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys was on television. Aphrodite was a main character as Hercules’s half-sister and a blonde, buxom Greek goddess of love. I hadn’t heard much of the Greek gods before that time. The Roman gods we learned about in Latin class seemed uppity, standoffish and boring to me. I didn’t feel their spiritual pulse around me, unlike the Ancient Egyptian gods I had met the year before and who were ever-present. Parental monitoring of my AOL prevented much more research outside of my Encyclopedia Britannicas but Aphrodite – the spirit whose pulse I felt immediately quicken after seeing her representation on television – seemed like the best friend I didn’t have. Aphrodite was feminine, funny, intelligent and nurturing - all things it was not always safe for the women in my family to be, growing up in the projects of Boston. Aphrodite was beautiful, unapologetically. As a young girl being raised with a Muslim father, I was told to cover my beauty and to blend in with society. She was unlike any female energy I had ever known (except the ones my mother identified as prostitutes along Blue Hill Avenue).

At ten, I was THE ugly duckling of my neighborhood. I was thick before it was a good thing. We were poor and my clothes were likely boosted by my mother’s friends – not my size and with no style. My mother braided my hair before the natural hair movement and she picked out my first pair of glasses – large (because it was the 90s) rose pink plastic frames with rose-tinted BIFOCAL glasses. I was a mess and was picked on in school daily because of it. No one in my house knew because the people in my house picked on me more than anyone. My mother was the first person to call me fat at eight years old, which only gave her boyfriend and my little sister ammunition to continue the attacks behind her back.

I sought refuge in my grandmother, who lived on the first floor of our triple-decker home. I’d sneak out of my house and go to hers, not saying a word but just being with her – in the kitchen, in her garden, on her porch or in her bed. The velvet painting of a supplicating Jesus Christ that hung above her bed welcomed me into her safe space. Cushioned and draped with white doilies, her deep brown wood nightstand, dresser and armoire loomed over my short frame as I crawled next to hard/soft body her in her sturdy bed for safety.

Nana had passed away three years before I met Aphrodite. Because no one had cleaned out her house, I would continue to go to her apartment to find the same comfort in her lingering spirit. Those sick days were ideal days for that. The day I saw Hercules, I went downstairs and into her bedroom. I went to the same dresser I always did – moving aside bottles of holy oils, marked with saints’ faces; larger bottles of holy water and her coveted rosaries. In my head, I asked her to tell me that worshipping anyone outside of White Jesus was a problem. All she worshipped was White Jesus and I took many religious cues from her, especially after her death. I’d only known Islam and Christianity at that point and I was indifferent to both.

Nana had the most amazing spice rack in her kitchen. My mom didn’t cook so, I didn’t know what they were for. I just knew they were herbs. The various jars looked old and dusty in the undisturbed pantry where I’d wandered. Various shades of greens and browns stared back at me as I stood in front of them waiting for some sign of intuitive instruction. For whatever reason, I grabbed two jars of random powders and went back upstairs to my apartment. On sick days, my home base was my mother’s room where the TV was. My mother’s dresser was different from my grandmother’s. In the place of religious artifacts covering doily drapes, my mother had costume jewelry and perfume bottles covering scarves and fabrics that I never saw her wear. I thought, She won’t miss one and grabbed a scarf with different shades of dark blue, interwoven with silver thread and wrapped it around my shoulders.

On my way outside to the back porch, I grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen, took the two jars of herbs of my grandmother’s and stood at the railing of the porch, overlooking my grandmother’s garden plot. As I unscrewed the tops of the jars, I lowered my head and started talking to Aphrodite. I pulled the scarf over my head and introduced myself (praying none of my neighbors was home to witness what I was doing lest they tell my mother). I told her what I knew about her and that I wanted to be her friend. I told her about the bullying I experienced at home and at school and that I felt ugly all the time. I told her no one liked me and that people talked badly about me. I told her about my anger and my fears and I asked for her protection. I asked her to help me prove them wrong. When I was done, I poured out the water onto the garden. Two hefty dashes of what I now know were nutmeg and cinnamon followed the water into the corner of my nana’s garden. I bowed my head in thanks and went back in the house.

I felt exhilarated! I knew she heard me. For almost twenty-five years, Aphrodite has always heard me. Thick became a good thing. Natural hair is now a movement. I learned to choose beautiful clothes AND eyeglasses for myself, without bifocals. My confidence is so high that if people find the nerve to make fun of me, my laugh makes them wonder if there is something in fact, wrong with them. People come to me for comfort and understanding when their bullying of other people had brought up too much of their own insecurities.

This is how it started. Like the entirety of my spiritual paths, my grandmother introduced me to Aphrodite when I needed her most. Both are always watching and protecting me in all my graceful, grown swan glory 🤗🦢

A Little Too Late

Summary: Years after the death of Ziva, a case comes up where Tony finds that she was keeping a secret from him.

AOL

FF.net

The pop music rings loudly in her car as she speeds around the corner, making a quick stop at the targeted house comes into sight. Spotting her brother's car parked in the driveway to the house, she pulls in behind him, hastily turns off the engine, and jumps out of the car. Running over an hour late she is surprised he hadn't called her.

Walking around the back of the semi, she slips into the back door. "Steve!" She calls. "Sorry I'm late, there was an accident off of Main, many people are late for work because of it. You wouldn't believe the number of emergency vehicles across the northbound, even part of the southbound was blocked!" Ashley continues, walking through the house. "Hello? Steve?" Stepping into the living room, she freezes, her hands shaking as they raise to her mouth. Less than a moment passes before she lets out a high-pitched scream. On the floor before her lays a man, her brother, with a single gunshot through his head.

***

Tony was becoming more and more like him every day. He didn't mean to, it just… Happened. He walks into the squad room with a coffee in his right hand and a folder in his left. Tossing the folder onto the desk across from him, he addresses his newest agent. "Do it again, O'Riley." He didn't see the jaw drop on the young man, instead taking a swig of his drink and turned towards his desk, sitting down to check his emails.

O'Riley looks over to McGee, the file in his hand. "Again?"

"Don't take it too hard, Josh. Everyone has to rewrite their case report at least twice." The senior field agent reassures the young man.

Tony laughs. "Don't lie to the boy, Timmy." He catches his friend's eye, "You never had to rewrite yours." O'Riley visibly deflates before him.

McGee smirks. "But you had to rewrite yours three times, ain't that right, boss?" Tony stiffens and glares at him. Out of the corner of his eye, the newest agent sighs in relief.

On the other side of the bullpen, Agent Johnson smiles, her hand folded in front of her. "Don't worry Josh, I also had to redo mine."

O'Riley opens his mouth to reply but is cut off by the phone on Tony's desk ringing.

"DiNozzo," McGee looks over to his boss, taking in the signs and putting things away. "Yeah, got it." Hanging up, he grabs his coffee and his bag. "Grab your gear."

McGee was the first one to leave his desk, closely followed by Johnson and last, O'Riley running after the team and into the elevator.

***

Tony walks into the living room of the semi, his mind elsewhere as he takes in the pictures of a man with his parents and sister, and even a few with his friends. The pictures reminding him of a certain Israeli woman, and the photos she had on display at her apartment before she packed it all up and left it behind. His heart still hurts from that day she told him she was going back to her birthplace, and still broken from the day he had left her behind there, all those years ago.

A flash from the camera brings Tony back to the present moment, blinking away the blindness. "Sorry Boss," the young agent apologies, lowering the camera. "I thought you saw m- I should have waited."

"Careful O'Riley, you've been an agent for two months now, you should know to keep an eye all around, and not just what's in front of you. Got it?" He nods, shifting on his feet before returning to the crime scene.

Tony looks around the scene, watching McGee dust for prints along the door. "Got anything, Tim?" He says quietly, his voice just above a whisper, crouching down to a level with his Senior Field Agent.

McGee hummed, taking a picture. "Just one." Taking the crime scene kit to dust around the evidence he has found. "Just this bloody print. Looks like there was a child involved, considering the size." He says, finding nothing to go along with the first print. "But other than this, it looks like a clean job, I don't see a single print anywhere near this door besides the bloody one."

"If there was a child involved, it wouldn't be one from this household, the guy has pictures of everyone except a child. Doesn't even look like he's married." He looks over at his longest coworker, both giving each other a confused look. "You positive that this is a child's fingerprint, McGoo?"

Rolling his eyes, the man answers. "I'm positive Tony, this finger is too small to be a woman's print. It has to be a child." McGee pulls out a swab to sample the blood on the doorframe. "And from the lack of prints. I'm determined that this might just be a professional hit." Tony didn't need to say anymore, knowing that the other man would dust for prints all over the house.

Tony looks around the room, particularly the floor. Something was missing. "McGee," The man looks up in question. "Did you already collect the shell?"

He shakes his head, lowering the brush. "There wasn't any, Tony, the guy must have policed his brass."

Tony nods, agreeing with his earlier assessment. "Johnson!" He calls for his final agent, who walks into the room with Palmer right behind her. The Medical Examiner gets straight to work by himself, getting assistance from Josh.

"Yes, boss?"

He steps over to the woman, out of McGee's way. "What did the witness have to say?"

Sandra clears her throat, flipping open her notebook. "Ashley Morgan, sister to our victim, Stephen Morgan, was supposed to have breakfast together, last heard from him when she had left her house at 7:30 this morning, through texting, got stuck in traffic and was over an hour late. At 9:30, she came through the backdoor to find him dead in the living room."

He nods to his agent before calling over to Palmer. "Jimmy, when did this guy die?"

"Uh," The medical examiner hesitates. "Death between two and three hours ago." Between seven and eight this morning.

"It matches up with the witness' statement, she last talked to her brother at 7:30, Palmer, must have been shortly after that." Making quick notes, Tony orders Sandra to help McGee to dust the house. Tony wanders around the small house checking for anything that might be out of place. It didn't take long before he stopped in front of O'Riley. "Josh, what seems odd about this situation?"

The young man looks around the room, taking notice of the furniture. "The house is clean?"

"Well, besides that, O'Riley."

"It doesn't look like there was a struggle."

"I can second that." Palmer jumps in.

Tony nods to the two. "Exactly. In what world would a man who has a gun pointed at him, not struggle to get away?"

"Well, actually boss, there are many-"

"That was a rhetorical question O'Riley, keep up!" He knew the boy was still getting used to how he handled the team, but being part of a co-op group with a different team didn't get him much in learning how Anthony DiNozzo lead his team. He would be lost if Gibbs hadn't retired. "You don't just let a stranger into your house, especially if they are armed, and not struggle. That could only mean one thing…" He leaves the end of his statement open for his probie. After a moment the boy was still silent. He jesters to Josh, hoping to give him a clue.

"Oh!" O'Riley straightens his back. "He knew his attacker!" It will take time, but the boy was growing into a decent investigator. Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, he had a lot of work to do with this Probie.

***

With his third cup of coffee in his hand, Tony walks into the squad room to see his team hard at work. This is what he likes to see, and what he guesses what Gibbs liked to see before he retired all those years ago. But it was coming onto lunchtime, and the team should have enough information on the victim. "What do you got?" He asks before taking a sip.

Around the bullpen, the team quickly gets to their feet, and the plasma screen switches on, McGee grabs the clicker, standing in the lineup beside their boss.

They start.

"Sergeant Stephen Morgan, age 27, lives with a roommate, Carl Romone, currently serving in Afghanistan and won't be back for another five months. Other than Carl, Stephen is single and lives alone."

"His only family is his younger sister, Ashley, who found him this morning after a brief conversation with him only minutes before his death. Both of his parents died in a car crash when he was 18, he stepped up and took care of his sister."

"Stephen lives off of his military salary as all the money they would have inherited went towards their mother's gambling debt."

Tony scans over the evidence in front of him, pondering. "Anything on the bloody print we found?"

O'Riley hit the clicker, pulling up the print with a question mark photo beside it. He hid his smirk. "We are still waiting on the results from Abby."

***

The ding of the bell indicates to him, he was in the basement, armed with a Caf-Pow, he and McGee walk into the Forensic lab. He walks to the beat of the music, his senior agent bobbing his head. "New music, Abs?" He asks the woman in the lab coat.

Abby spins around in her spot, her skirt flaring up as she twirled. "Uh, huh! It's my friends' band, Franken Matter!" She says loudly, probably going deaf after years of concerts.

"Franken-"

"-Matter?" The two men question, glancing over at one another, brows arching.

"Yah-huh!" The woman continues to talk to McGee about the twins.

Tony takes a pace around the room, watching as the machines worked on their assigned duties as the two catch up. The room has changed little in the last twenty-five years, but the upgraded equipment fawns over and treats like her children. Something that the woman never had, and will probably stay that way. Out of all the members of the team, McGee and Palmer were the only ones to really settle down and have a family. Maybe it was his biggest regret, but that ship sailed when the love of his life passed away in a house fire.

He blinks twice, focusing his mind back on the present. "Do you got anything, Abby?"

She twirls around, her gaze landing on him. "There wasn't much evidence to work on, as you guys said, the house was rather tidy for a murder to take place. The only fingerprints I got were from the victim, his sister, and our mystery child, so I'm just waiting on that. The blood is an ‘A' Positive, doesn't match Stephen Morgan or his sister."

"Did Jimmy retrieve the bullet?"

"Yes," Abby faces her computer screen, pulling up the squished bullet fragment. "But we have little to work with, if we had the shell case, I could have gotten more from it."

"But we don't..." He says with a frown.

"But we don't." She repeats. The room goes quiet for a minute before Tony hears the beeping of Abby's computer. He glances over to see ‘100% Match' written across the screen. With a couple of clicks of the keyboard, she comments. "This isn't right."

Realization dawned on him when he looks up at the screen. It couldn't possibly be correct, the person on the screen couldn't possibly exist.

Before him was a picture of a little girl with dark brown curly locks and emerald green eyes. Her name none other than Talia A. David.

A Protestant Talks With a Catholic Priest

COMMENTARY:

I'm writing as I watch this and I have paused at timestamp 4:48. So far, so good. I was raised in the communion of the Army Protestant Chapel and I was confirmed in the Chapel of the Centurion at Ft. Monroe sometime in my junior year of high school, 6 months before I heard Sergeant Pepper's, Ode to Billy Joe for the first time and that John McCain was having Christmas in the Hanoi Hilton, after a tour of the medical services of a city being bombed by guys just like him before he intercepted a SAM in his F-8. That can spoil your wholle day.

I'm not Catholic and an really don't trust their version of Jesus because of all the blatant pedophiles in the cloth. The orthodox understanding of St. Paul, the man, is that he is like Peter, a confirmed celebant long before he was crucified. He had effectively given up sex by the time he gave up fishing for a living, but it was just like Spencer Tracy in "The Old Man and the Sea". As a history major, you do understand that Hemingway wrote that as a fable of St. Peter fulfilling his commission to "Feed My Sheep". It is a very elegant Catholic parable. A lot of spanish sunlight, like the moment of truth in “7 Spanish Angels”.  This is I'm writing as I write this and I have paused at timestamp 4:48. So far, so good. I was raised in the communion of the Army Protestant Chapel and I was confirmed in the Chapel of the Centurion at Ft. Monroe sometime in my junior year of high school, 6 months before I heard Sergeant Pepper's, Ode to Billy Joe for the first time and that John McCain was having Christmas in the Hanoi Hilton, after a tour of the medical services of a city being bombed by guys just like him before he intercepted a SAM in his F-8. That can spoil your wholale day.

I'm not Catholic and an really don't trust their version of Jesus because of all the blatant pedophiles in the cloth. The orthodox understanding of St. Paul, the man, is that he is like Peter, a confirmed celebant long before he was crucified. He had effectively given up sex by the time he gave up fishing for a living, but it was just like Spencer Tracy in "The Old Man and the Sea". As a history major, you do understand that Hemingway wrote that as a fable of St. Peter fulfilling his commission to "Feed My Sheep". It is a very elegant Catholic parable. A lot of spanish sunlight at the moment of truth in “7 Spanish Angels”, only it's just another day in paradise, doing the Lord's I'm writing as I write this and I have paused at timestamp 4:48. So far, so good. I was raised in the communion of the Army Protestant Chapel and I was confirmed in the Chapel of the Centurion at Ft. Monroe sometime in my junior year of high school, 6 months before I heard Sergeant Pepper's, Ode to Billy Joe for the first time and that John McCain was having Christmas in the Hanoi Hilton, after a tour of the medical services of a city being bombed by guys just like him before he intercepted a SAM in his F-8. That can spoil your wholale day.

I'm not Catholic and an really don't trust their version of Jesus because of all the blatant pedophiles in the cloth. The orthodox understanding of St. Paul, the man, is that he is like Peter, a confirmed celebant long before he was crucified. He had effectively given up sex by the time he gave up fishing for a living, but it was just like Spencer Tracy in "The Old Man and the Sea". As a history major, you do understand that Hemingway wrote that as a fable of St. Peter fulfilling his commission to "Feed My Sheep". It is a very elegant Catholic parable. A lot of spanish sunlight at the moment of truth of “7 Spanish Angels”, only, it's just another day in Paradise, going about the Lord's work for Jesus.

That's who Peter is, That's who this priest is selling and it's a true portrait, but both Rome and Canterbury do a bit of bait and switch and hand off most of their intellectual grounding to Paul and Paul is as queer as a $3 bill, but everybody pretends he is just exactly like Peter OR if he's queer, then so is Jesus and it goes on and on. Peter was raised as a Jew in a very circumscribed sexual climate focused intently, and exclusively, on reproduction. Producing children as a divine obsession. The reason they rested on the 7th day was so they could fuck and if you only fucked on the Sabbath, the law of averages was working for you to that end. And women, who have had children and like the process, come to know exactly when they are ripe for baby making. I've had a lot of sex with a lot of women who had acquired that sense of their own bodies and I've had sex with a whole lot more women who didn't but knew that when they needed to fuck they could count on me.

Paul came from a Greek culture where naked wrestling was encouraged and there was (and may still be) a respected tradition of legal male union as a religious pre-Christian ritual, which is exactly what the circumcision of Timothy is all about, but everybody pretends is an expedient measure allowing Timothy to move in and out of Synagogues, legitimately. It's is an expedient measure, but it provided Paul the sexual outlet he required to soothe his “thorn in the flesh”: he was into twinks, like Roy Cohn. Pretty boys. He made a pass at John Mark, mistaking him for Jesus's “Pretty Boy” and John Mark wasn't that kind of guy and neither was Jesus. Neither was Socrates. It was universal, the Greek Love traditions, but it travels well and the Catholic Church would profit from making long term relationships in the Church the norm, like the Salvation Army. Most of their abuse would resolve more or less naturally and painlessly.  

So,, anyway, there is no one in the Catholic Church I identify with except Cornelius. The one thing I identify about Jesus is that He had been through Ranger School, because He was absolutely mission oriented. The phrase “Give us this day our daily bread” translates into Ranger Speak as “MISSION” in a 5 Paragraph warning Order. Just like “Mission” Impossible”, only, just getting the order means you have accepted its premis, its assumptions, its legality and its imperative without qualification. “Instant Obedience:Self-Discipline”. Jesus is community organizer and the Squad Leader in a TO&E USMC Squad. 13 people. 1 leader,-player 12 players. The followers of Jesus showed up for the breaking of the bread, but, as your priest says, the Apostles are players under the authority of Jesus and His authority conveys directly in a chain of command kind of way.

So, I see Jesus as operating at the matrix between the economies of scale of the task environment, the battle space, and the economies of scale of the next higher command and the whole rest of the Army  It is US Army doctrine that the squad is the basic unit of the military organization. Jesus is running an Army squad engaged in social engineering, just like the Green Berets in Vietnam before the commie cocksuckers in Hanoi decided to steal the Republic of Vietnam for Uncle Ho and Joseph Stalin.

So, here's the thing to understand about Cornelius that's pertinent to your experience: Cornelius is a republican soldier serving his nation in a foreign, and actively hostile, territory, Indian Country, and he, Cornelius, is doing his most important work outside the wire just like the Green Berets in Vietnam before the commie cocksuckers fired on Ft. Sumter, in effect. Cornelius is working outside the wire just the the 38th Indiana “Cyclone” Division in Afghanistan right at this moment.  Out in IED land. That's where Cornelius is. Jim Kimsey, the venture capitalist that backed Steve Case and AOL, was a Green Beret in Vietnam back when it was cool to be in Counter-Insurgency in the Army, and he and his team built an orphanage for the same reasons Cornelius helped build the synagogue in Capernaum. The same imperative. Kimsey's orphange is still in operation. If you want to understand why Afghanistan is so important, it's because we are using the lessons learned from Vietnam to help Afghanistan, including the Taliban, bot adopt a superior form of national problem solving and organically spiritual health and economic equity as an expression of the economics of Jesus as explicated by Adam Smith as a moral science which I call process theology.

Before I go back to the video, I wanted to complete my thought about women knowing when their eggs drop is that the Samaritan woman in John 4 is at that moment and she wants to get pregnant, just like Tamar with Judah. The interpretation that she, the Samaritan woman in John 4 is a whore is as much bullshit as anything that comes out of Canterbury. I don't know Rome's version of the passage, but if you want to understand what bullshit the Pro-Life/Salvation Gospel is, ask your wife if it makes a difference whether the women in John 4 is a whore or just a woman with a mission and a window of opportunity.

St. Peter is asexual. St. Paul is a South Beach drag queen without the wardrobe. Both Rome and Canterbury are selling St. Peter, but you are getting St. Paul.

4:48: lift off.

Hover at 8:17  St. Paul is the dominant Apostle of American Evangelicals: Peter is your favorite from the perspective of Paul.

Evangelicals lean heavily upon Paul because of his emotional appeal relative to the “Just the Facts” testimony of Peter.  Here's an example where God doesn't not consider our expectations as a critical factor in His design, Paul, in particular, appeals to women. According to the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Peter was actively hostile to everything Mary represented. Part of this is a problem Peter had with the whole idea of eating with gentiles and there is little question in my mind he at least agreed with the prayer of pharisees of the age “Thank you, Lord, that I was not born a slave, a dog/gentile or a woman”. I mean, Peter was fighting an up-hill battle all the way in regards to the implications of Mark 7:19 and Acts 10, while Paul   was a pig in shit with the whole abrogation of all things kosher. And that whole drag queen aspect of his personality evident in his writing attracted women in ways very similar to the way Jesus did. I mean, Peter sent a woman to argue Romans in front of Theophilus and the covert Christian cell in the Praetorian Guard that represented the Church of Rome and why the Catholic Church remained in Rome. The Christian Church is a legacy of the Italian Cohort both Pilate and Cornelius were employed by: they got their paychecks via The Praetorian Guard, just like Julius Caesar. Except for the whole arising from the dead thing, the whole l'Affaire Crist was handled in a routine manner and His file happen to land on a desk in Rome and there it stayed until Constantine disbanded the Praetorian Guard after the Milvian Bridge, no hard feelings, we're just moving you to Iowa to be closer to real people sort of thing.

8:17 Resume:

9:52 pause: Everywhere the legions are, Christianity appears. The whole story of the experience of the Roman soldiers in Matthew 27:66 and Luke 23:26 – 47 goes throughout all the legions by that mysterious grapevine of the soldier's Rumor Control that relayed the murder of the negro soldiers at Ft. Pillow to the negro soldiers in the Army of the Potomac before Petersburg before the publication of Stars-and-Stripes, which wasn't created until the first world war.

Christianity is a creature of the Roman legions and a legacy of the Profession of Arms. The soldiers of Rome were in service to Rome but they offered their oaths to Yaweh, Queen of Battle and performed their Duty to Rome on that basis. That's a central tenet of Paul's legal argument in Romans.

Jesus placed a bet with The Satan that He could create a church without a bureaucracy. And He realized at the Transfiguration that He couldn't, which is why He was so brutal with Peter “Get thee behind me”. The Temptation is a continuation of the wagering between God and The Satan begun in the Book of Job and The Satan went long on the assumption that, to complete the process begun with Moses to create a universal consciousness of The One, Jesus was going to have to perform demonstrations of logistical competence, organizational efficacy and some death defying stunt and Jesus went short. Feeding the 5000 and the 4000 established His logistical competence, His scourging of the Temple merely emphasized the practical necessity of organizational efficacy in order to sustain His logistical competence but He believed He could finesse the death-defying stunt, personally, by avoiding fatal confrontation in the manner of wily Odysseus. And then, the Holy Spirit tossed Lazarus into the mix and, after four days, there is your death defying stunt. It is useful to remember that the Book of Job is a cosmic farce, with God, the Father, as the butt of the joke. The Satan tricks God, the Father, twice to beat up on Job for no other purpose than to exploit God, the Father,'s pride, And it works. And the Temptation of Jesus is a similar farce, a game of cosmic Three Card Monte, where Jesus believes He can always find the Queen of Spades until He discovers it was the Queen of Hearts, all along.

Jesus is absolutely correct that the Church He envisions is organic in nature, but even a jellyfish has structure and man has a spine to support the cathedral of the Spirit and it isn't even a paradox: the spine serves the spirit, The law was made for man, not man for the law. And the law propels mankind in a manner similar to how the spine propels the man and that's exactly what Jesus had in mind, but He didn't know it until The Satan made it apparent.

9:52 resumes.

14:52 full stop. The Canon Law, as ratified in 1918/1983, is what the Roman Empire lost when Constantine disbanded the Praetorian Guards, essentially, the Inspector General function that Baron von Stuebin brought to Valley Forge. A great strength of the Roman legions, as personified by the centurions, was uniform doctrine, training and the operational arts and that was maintained by the Praetorian Guard in pretty much the same function as the Pentagon, today (actually, all elements of the Executive of the constitutional government, i.e. The Republic).

In terms of Canon Law, I am a Protestant and the Presbyterian structures of Canterbury inform my own notion of the Body of Christ. It's why I say the Pro-Life doctrine is such heretical bullshit. It's a made-up doctrine established entirely for political fund raising.

From the description here, Canon Law became, in 1918, what John Knox presented with the Book of Discipline in 1560. Federalist 10 is basically a recapitulation of the Book of Discipline, which reflected the structures as processes of the Praetorian Guard, which was a practical application of the concepts presented in Plato's Republic, As Bruce Gore observes, the Romans were good students of philosophy but never professors of philosophy. And that's worked out pretty well.

14:52 restart:

15:25 “How does one go to heaven?”

One fucking dies, shit for brains.

There is no mystery, Going to heaven is why Jesus went to Hell, for Christ's sake! Review John 3:16, if you don't understand. As a paratrooper, you have a far better chance of going to heaven, in the final analysis, than your parachute opening and that's something like a 98% certainty. You are worried about the wrong fucking thing.

This is the problem with the Salvation Gospel of Campus Crusade for Christ (which is where I first encountered, and rejected, Salvation Gospel).  I went to Vietnam on the basis of Liberation Gospel: that's what Jim Kimsey was doing as a Green Beret in Vietnam. Everybody at that time believed in the Liberation Gospel of the Marshall Plan. Salvation Gospel is an exercise in monetized navel gazing.

15:25 Begin again.

I'm listening to Kellyanne Conway on FOX News Sunday. She is as anchored in existential reality as the Pro-Life doctrine reflects anything Jesus represents except His repulsion of the den of thieves in Jerusalem.

22:11 this gets back to the Book of Job, In my experience, it is impossible to actually know The One, as I do and Job did, and, subsequently, not know The One and to know, know, know Him is to Love Love Love Him, The mind will not allow not knowing while remaining whole and healthy. That's the thing about having a relationship with The One that Job has that God in the Book of Job doesn't understand: you cannot run away from God. And to actively hate The One is, as your priest says, virtually impossible beyond the conceit of Satan in Paradise Lost.

The issue of a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, as a proxy for The One, is awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your consciousness in some manner. Most people begin with dreams. Making two parachute jumps is a good way to calibrate your Pucker Factor to distinguish between the Fear of the Lord and garden variety fear of fire, heights, the dark and death and dismemberment by tooth and claw. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, while pure animal fear is not. You can get over pure animal fear, which brings us back to the Book of Job.

22:11 restart

22:46  Resurrection validates the God Hypothesis. It's the thing the Richard Carriers of the world cannot conveniently dismiss as myth: the entire Roman army understood the nature of crucifixion and the anomaly of resurrection was big medicine for people who had already been baptized by fire and baptized by blood and had a working, professional relationship with Yaweh, Queen of Battle.  

In the final analysis, The One remains a mystery. The great gift of Jesus is that He represents the existential evidence that the mystery is the universe, itself, saying “Hi!”

22:46 restart  

23:48   - 25:00 The reign of God in the Kingdom of Heaven here, on earth, brings us right back to Liberation Gospel. Because our salvation is a given, our obligation arising from John 3:16 is to go forth unto the world and bring on Earth as it is in Heaven which brings us right back to Ranger Jesus and the 5 Paragraph Field Order.

25:00 It's not about you going to heaven. Rome and Canterbury agree, at least as far as N.T. Wright is concerned. This is not the Campus Crusade for Campus position, which is like proposing to compete in the Tour de France on a bike with training wheels. I mean, the 4 spiritual laws are great, but then what?  For the Charismatic, it's sexualized navel gazing rebranded as the Spirit of God moving on the waters.

25:35  Great video. As a Protestant, the idea that there was anything that needed to be pushed back against is just someone looking for a fight. I'm not going to become a Catholic for the same reasons I'm not going to become Jewish or Muslim: the essence is available to me from where I am,

Anyway, good show.

How's Harv these days? Does he watch sprint cup at all or just piston cup? Some Harv Headcannons pls? :)

Thanks so much for asking about Harv! HAVE I EVER MENTIONED ON THIS BLOG. HOW MUCH I LOVE HARV.

BECAUSE BOY DO I LOVE HARV!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bold of you to assume Harv watches even the Piston Cup. XDDD Though you wouldn’t be the first. A lot of Harv’s family and friends assume he surely must. But Harv doesn’t watch any kind of racing; he’s never seen one of Lightning’s races, and he’s never even tried.

This doesn’t mean Harv’s out of the loop. Before he’d met signed Lightning he’d seen sizzle reels; but more than that he’d checked out the data, both quantitative and qualitative. He knew Lightning’s stats. But he’d also known all the press (which at the time was a much more impressive feat--Lightning wasn’t plashed across the front page. It was in weird trade magazines and mailing lists and rickety pre-2006 online forums and AOL chat rooms). He’d heard the word of mouth, because Harv’s got contacts everywhere. 

He’s also fast-forwarded and sped-read the captioning off a lot of RSN programming over the years, because what Harv needs to know in order to do his job well isn’t racing. It’s the infrastructure around it. When Harv watches that stuff, he’s not there to learn about ride height or aero or who Claude Scruggs is supposed to be; he’s looking at it to become fluent in the rhetoric. To understand what the fans and the industry and the sponsors all think about these things and the way they think about these things. 

That’s what Harv watches. Harv’s never laid tires in even the parking lot of a racetrack and never seen Lightning turn a lap. He couldn’t tell you who the Cup’s champions are, except that it’s been Lighting a good several times of late. But Harv can tell you exactly how the culture around the racetrack functions, how its hype is built, how its business-end all happens. He can tell you what it takes to spin gold from information.

That’s what Harv loves. That kind of study/manipulation/negotiation/reading is Harv’s job, but it’s also his passion. Rhetoric is is sporting event. In addition to his interest in what he sees in Lightning, what Harv’s chasing is this glorious sociological puzzle. That’s what drives him.

Harv, out of everyone in the world, absolutely knows what makes the racing world tick--even though he doesn’t know anything about racing.

(He and Doc had never really got along, for an annually increasing number of reasons, most of which are probably very obvious. But it always annoyed Doc that Harv could have such an effective understanding of marketing to the racing community without having any personal stake, interest, or love for it himself. For Doc, if you don’t love racing, you’ve got no business in it and it won’t work for you. If love and care aren’t part of the equation, and you’re not caring about the folk in the sport, don’t bother, right? But then there’s Harv, this anomaly technically proving him wrong. 

The only thing keeping Doc from disliking Harv more aggressively was the fact that Lightning had most definitely come around to Doc’s camp on this. And Doc figured that’s what really mattered. What Harv--the parasite--did or believed really wasn’t any of this business.)