The Fandom’s Least Favorite Character - an analysis on Kate

Kate is probably the most hated character in the Robin Hood fandom. Not even probably, she is the one who consistently gets the most hate. So, what has she done? Did she commit several murders? Did she kill off a beloved character? Did she do something so problematic that she deserves to burn in hell? Did she do war crimes? No, her biggest sin is existing among unfair circumstances.

The title of this post is kind of a lie. This analysis is not really about Kate as a character, but about how she is written, how the narrative presents her and how this all affects the fandom’s treatment of her. I started writing this because I am sick of seeing so much unnecessary hate for Kate. This is just me commenting on larger trends I have witnessed and a decade’s worth of frustrations finally being written out. If you do recognize yourself from some of my descriptions, I hope that this post will give you something to think about, but just know that this is not meant for any one person in particular.

I’m not going to try to convince anyone to think of Kate as their favorite character. I’m not even trying to make anyone like her. I’m just trying to see why she is so hated within the fandom. So, let’s start off with how it all began. Grab some snacks, you’re going to need them; this is a long one.

 Introduction: Is it all Merlin’s fault?

To understand the context in which Kate was introduced to the show, let’s first look at where we left off at the end of season 2. I’ll start with the in-universe changes first. The biggest change obviously is that Gisborne murdered Marian. This altered the whole course of the show. Marian was such a central part of not only the show but also the Robin Hood legends, that at that point it was obvious that things were going to change. Will and Djaq left the show as well. Them leaving is not as dramatic of a change for the show’s narrative since they were not as central as Marian, but they did make up one third of the gang. This meant that there was a need for new characters to be introduced in season 3.

In our world, things changed between seasons 2 and 3 as well. There was a larger gap in production than before (with seasons 1 and 2 coming out in consecutive years and there being a gap year between seasons 2 and 3), and some of the people working on the show left or were replaced. Robin Hood’s spot on the BBC schedule was taken over by Merlin for 2008 so I guess we could blame that show for everything that went wrong in season 3. (I’m obviously joking here but conspiracy theories are welcome.)

The most important change in my opinion – and I think this is even more important to how season 3 turned out than anything that happened in-universe in season 2 – is the fact that Dominic Minghella was no longer writing or producing the show. It’s surprising to me that the fandom as a whole doesn’t ever really talk about this, when in many other fandoms creators or showrunners leaving the show are usually a big deal and mark the end of an era. I myself only found out about Minghella’s departure from the show before season 3 this year, but it seems to explain a lot on why season 3 felt so different from seasons 1 and 2.

With all that out of the way, the stage is set, and it is time to look at how exactly Kate came into the show.

 Six boots, two feet

Season 3 starts off with my least favorite episode of the whole show (see my episode ranking for more details). It tries its best to address the events of the season 2 finale, but in a way that will let it quickly get to the season 3 storylines. Unfortunately, the things that happened at the end of the previous season were so important that they would have needed several episodes to cover the full impact of the events.

Kate herself is introduced in episode 2. She is immediately given a reason to hate the villains and join the fight when her brother dies. She doesn’t join the outlaws right away, but when she does, she essentially has to take over three roles at once. I do not think it’s a coincidence that I think episode 4 is Kate’s best episode and that she’s at her best before she actually joins the gang. That is the point in the show when she is allowed to be her own character rather than someone who is trying to fill a void.

Like I said, Kate has three roles to take over; she gets Djaq’s spot in the gang as “the girl one”, Will’s role as “the peasant with personal connections to the people’s suffering” (and interestingly, since Kate’s family is around, her connection could have been even stronger than Will’s) and Marian’s as “the love interest”. Since the season 2 finale got rid of both of the only female characters in the show, it was inevitable that they would eventually be replaced if the show wanted to include any romantic storylines (it was, after all, 2009, so queer representation was out of the question). With three pairs of boots to fill, and only two feet, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that Kate can’t possibly do it all alone. The show does introduce Tuck and Isabella as well to help fill the gaps, but I think Kate gets labeled as “the replacement” far more often than the other two.

 A triangle without a base is just an angle

Kate had all the potential for a good plotline. Her brother died, making her hungry for revenge, yet this part of her is only sprinkled in every now and then instead of being a part of her character arc. Instead, she is made a part of not one, not two, but three love triangles.

I’ll start with the Much/Kate/Allan one. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t actually exist. All sides of this “triangle” are… weird. The writers try to frame it as a legitimate love triangle, when only one person in it seems to have any real feelings for another character. Much is shown to be interested in Kate, but we as the audience are never given a reason for why he likes her or even how he fell for her. I guess we’ll just have to take his “I fall in love very easily” (from 2x4) quite literally. Kate does not seem to have any romantic feelings for Much, and she seems oblivious to his feelings as well.

To be honest, I don’t think Kate ever really saw Allan as an option either. At best I could admit that maybe she had a slight attraction to him, but I never got the impression that it was something she would seriously pursue. I don’t think Allan was seriously interested in Kate either. His flirting with her is quite similar to his joke-y flirting with Marian and Djaq. My friend and I talked at length about this, but Allan doesn’t seem like the type of person to flirt for real. This could be a whole analysis on its own, so I won’t go too deep into it here. But I don’t think Allan considers Kate a legitimate romantic option.

So, this “love triangle” only exists in Much’s head and in the narrative the writers try to force on the audience. The Kate/Allan side of it is practically dropped the minute Kate/Robin becomes a thing.

Then there is the Much/Kate/Robin/Isabella triangle that is not a triangle either. I already covered Much/Kate for the most part, so I won’t go into it. Since the Robin/Isabella relationship is not that central to Kate’s character, I won’t bore you and myself by going through it that deeply. The buildup for that relationship is practically nonexistent, and so is the end of it. The whole Robin/Isabella relationship feels forced, because the writers didn’t know how to properly replace Marian while coming up with something new.

Kate’s crush on Robin seems to develop out of nowhere as well. It looks like a pattern when it comes to romances this season. Robin himself doesn’t appear to have any romantic interest towards Kate until he and Isabella “break up”. After that point, their relationship progresses way too fast. It doesn’t help that they seem to have no chemistry between them, and Robin treats Kate like a child and then five seconds later proceeds to make out with her.

Honestly, if Kate had to have a romance with a character on the show (and with it being 2009 obviously they could not fulfil my dreams of Kate being bi but that’s beside the point), it should have been with Archer. The two of them had more chemistry in the 30 seconds they worked together in 3x12 than Robin and Kate had the entire season. It would have also made me far less uncomfortable, since the characters would have been closer in age. Which brings me to my next point.

 “There is only one thing worse than a rapist – a child”

How old is Kate supposed to be? Seriously, this show can’t seem to make its mind about her. In general, I do not trust anyone’s age on this show unless it’s been stated somewhere. I know some people try to base the characters’ ages on the actors’ real ages, but to that I say, “fuck that”. Archer is the best example of the fact that this show did not even try to cast people who are the right age, or even look the part. (Seriously, he does not look even close to being 20.)

That being said, Kate is written like she is both 15 and 25 at the same time. I don’t know if the writers had a specific age in mind when they were writing her, but there is a huge difference between those ages. I think it’s the most reasonable thing to assume that she’s in her late teens, maybe at most in her very early twenties. She is still living with her family (I know that most women at the time married in their 20s but it’s not like this show is concerned with historical accuracy) and her behavior is a little immature at times. With all that said, I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I find it incredibly uncomfortable that all the men that are presented as possible love interests to her are fully grown men.

It is the most obvious in Robin and Kate’s scenes. Like I said earlier, Robin treats Kate like a child and speaks to her in a condescending way, only to then make out with her in the same scene. I must wonder why the writers didn’t just age up Kate. I think it would have been more interesting to make her someone who is already married, and instead of losing her brother, it would be her husband that dies. Of course, I would prefer it if Kate didn’t have to be a part of any of these love triangles to begin with but aging her up would have made the dynamics far less uncomfortable. (I do have to also point out the fact that Meg is also written like she is a teen girl. The show then tries to pair her off with Gisborne, who is even older than the men Kate is being forced into love triangles with. So… yikes.)

 Let’s take a break, drink some water

Let’s take a moment to recap what we’ve learned here. First of all, Kate entered the show in unfair circumstances and with only two feet to fill three pairs of boots. She was only ever allowed to be a part romance plots, and she didn’t get a proper character arc of her own. In general, the women in this season were not written well (not that seasons 1 and 2 were the height of feminist television either), and they were reduced to being love interests or tools to further the male character’s plotlines. Without Dominic Minghella involved and with a full year between seasons 2 and 3, the show lost some of its charm. Unfortunately, this meant that Kate was not the best written character. But I do not think she deserves all the hate the fandom has given her over the years.

 Interlude: Doctor Death

Before I get too much into how the fandom has reacted to Kate over the years, I feel like I should explain my own history with this show and the fandom surrounding it.

I started watching the show when it was first airing here on TV. It was some time during season 2, and once I had seen my very first episode, I watched all the following ones as well. With the finale, there was a problem. I had seen 2x12 and knew that the final episode of the season would air the next week. I was so excited for it, but then my mother decided that we would all go out and have dinner. I kept looking at the clock all day, hoping I would make it home in time. I got home just to see the credits rolling. I’m still a little bitter about it.

After this, I was desperate to see how the season ended. I’ll remind you that this was before it was common for shows to be put online officially. Streaming wasn’t really a thing yet. I did the only thing I knew what to do; I went to YouTube. The thing is, I did not know that what I had been watching was the second season of the show. So, you can imagine my confusion, when I find the very grainy version of 1x13 on YouTube and start watching it. Eventually I figured out my mistake and watched 2x13. At some point I watched season 1 as well, but I honestly don’t have that many memories of when I first watched this show. My clearest memory is being betrayed by my own mother when she forced me to go out for dinner.

Since I do not remember what year this all happened in, I did some googling and if I’m correct, season 2 aired here for the first time in the summer of 2009, with reruns in the summer of 2010. Because I have no other memories for context, I can’t say whether or not season 3 was even out in the UK at the time. Anyway, I did not watch season 3 for a few years. I also didn’t engage with the fandom until 2012, when I joined Tumblr. (A side note: while trying to find out when season 2 aired, I found the episode titles and descriptions. Apparently 2x4’s Finnish title was Doctor Death. There were some real gems on that list but this one was my favorite.)

Over the years, I had read bits and pieces about season 3 on the internet. I was still upset about the end of season 2, and the things I read did not make me want to watch season 3. Sometime in 2012-2013 I finally gave in and watched season 3. I was mostly disappointed by the season as a whole, and as for Kate specifically, I found her annoying. In the fandom, I went along with the Kate-hate that was popular in the fandom at the time.

I did a full rewatch of the show with my friend in 2016–2017. During that time, I didn’t hate Kate as much as I did before. Maybe it was that I had a fresh perspective, maybe it was that I had matured in those few years. Who knows? I was mostly disappointed by the bad writing. Even back then, I wished that Kate had been given a proper chance.

The next proper rewatch of the whole series I did was this past winter. I watched the show in a non-chronological order with someone who had never seen it before. This time, I was angry at the writers and found myself half-ironically becoming a Kate-stan. I also began to really pay attention to how the fandom has talked about her over the years and was unnerved by the hate has she gotten.

So, here we are. Time to take a look at how the fandom has treated Kate. Most of this will be based on my own experiences and memories, so if someone else has a different point of view to offer (especially from the early days of the fandom while the show was still ongoing), feel free to comment! I just wanted to give you my own history with the fandom to show that I have indeed been around for most of the fandom’s history.

 The hate-train for Kate-town leaves from platform 4

It seems that from the very beginning, Kate was disliked. I remember reading negative comments about her way back in the early 2010s (I would try to look for examples, but I just spent 30 minutes trying to find out when season 2 first aired here and it’s currently 1am so I am not spending any more time googling right now). There are fics that make fun of her and how badly she was written, and most of the jokes and dislike about season 3 seem to always come back to her. This attitude has been present in the fandom in other contexts as well. Over the years, the hate towards Kate has come and gone along with the popularity of the fandom.

Every once in a while, someone has tried to either write Kate better or even see her as a character that was let down by the writers. Mostly this has not led to any significant change in the fandom’s attitudes. I feel like whenever some of the older fans outgrow their Kate-hate by either just maturing and realizing it’s pointless or just not wanting to waste their time making fun of her, new fans come in and start the whole thing all over again.

I am grateful, however, that the general consensus in the fandom seems to be (at least in the year 2021) that the actress is not to blame for Kate’s faults. It still does make me uncomfortable that people go so far as to cross out her face on pictured etc. just to show how much they hate the character. This hate that Kate gets feels very misogynistic at times and is at least partially the result of the show’s misogynistic writing, but the actress deserves no negativity for playing Kate.

 What about Isabella?

One thing that is very interesting to note is that while both Kate and Isabella were newcomers in season 3 and were both replacements for Marian in the sense that they were love interests for Robin, only Kate has received a significant amount of hate over the years. So why does the fandom not hate Isabella?

I think that a big reason for why Isabella is tolerated – not necessarily liked, I haven’t seen too many people genuinely enjoying her character – better than Kate is the way the narrative treats them. Kate is essentially forced down our throats. The show is so desperate for us to like her that they end up making her unlikeable. Isabella, on the other hand, is eventually made into a villain, and thus we’re not meant to sympathize with her in the end anyway. (I could write a whole rant about how Isabella’s treatment in the narrative is bad but let’s not do it here.) Isabella also has the advantage of being Gisborne’s sister, so her backstory ties better into already existing characters. I think it’s reasonable to say that Gisborne being a fan-favorite in certain parts of the fandom doesn’t hurt Isabella’s case either.

Isabella is also only involved with Robin, while the show keeps pairing Kate off (unsuccessfully) with almost half the cast. I think she was written in a way that reminds people of Mary Sues, and considering how fandoms tend to not like characters like that, it’s no surprise that Kate got all the hate she did.

 Murder and being annoying – they’re the same thing, right?

So why exactly does the fandom hate Kate so much? Obviously, the writing is a big reason. Season 3 is not written well, which means that Kate is not written well either. She doesn’t really get a storyline of her own, and instead her main purpose is to be someone else’s love interest. I would also add that Kate doesn’t really get hate for her personality. Most of the hate that she gets in terms of character traits revolves around her being annoying, but that’s not really a personality trait. So I think the issue is not her personality, but her role.

The next reason won’t surprise anyone who has spent as much time in fandoms as I have: Fandoms do not like female characters. Well, I should probably rephrase that. Fandoms tend to hate female characters more easily than male characters. I’m not going to analyze too deeply on why this is, as I’m sure someone has already done research on this with references to actual feminist theory. There is a lot of internalized misogyny in fandoms, and female characters get hate for even the slightest wrongdoing, while male characters who commit far worse crimes often have a strong fanbase that will defend them despite these flaws, especially if said male character is played by a conventionally attractive man.

Kate is also blamed for things such as breaking Much’s heart, even though she was never really aware of Much’s feelings in the first place, so it was definitely not intentional. She’s blamed for every small wrongdoing in a way other characters in the show are not. I’ve seen people criticize Kate for small things that she has not even done on purpose. Some of these people then also go on to ignore the fact that Gisborne has committed several murders, taken part in the oppression of the poor and done many many more atrocious things, and paint him as a more sympathetic character than Kate. I understand if you do not like Kate, but it feels misogynistic that the female characters are held to different standards than the male characters. I can already hear some of the Gisborne-fans saying “but I acknowledge his actions and think what he did was wrong! I just find him to be a misunderstood and/or interesting character”. To those people I will just say: Why are you not applying this same logic for Kate? Why are you making outright hateful comments about her? If you don’t like her, why not just ignore her? If you are a Gisborne-fan and have never made these comments about Kate, this obviously doesn’t apply to you. And even if you aren’t a Gisborne-fan, but you do recognize this way of thinking in yourself in regard to some other character, I encourage you to think about it critically. I just used Gisborne as an example since I know he’s perhaps the most popular male character in the fandom (at least if Ao3’s numbers are anything to go by). I’ve also seen a similar attitude from a lot of Allan-fans, though in their case the hypocrisy is often not as obvious, but I’ll return to Allan in a moment.

Many female characters end up getting hate because they get in the way of a popular (often m/m) ship. In this regard, Kate is kind of an outlier since she doesn’t exactly do that, since there isn’t really a ship to get in the way of. Sure, she’s eventually paired off with Robin, but Marian is already dead by the time she shows up, and if people were truly bothered by someone other than Marian trying to get Robin’s attention, they would also hate Isabella with the same intensity. I do think there is one “ship” Kate does come in the middle of, and here’s where we get back to Allan.

Now, the ship Kate does get in the middle of is not in fact canonical. I am of course talking about the popular Allan/OC trope. If you go on Ao3 or Fanfiction.net, you won’t have a hard time finding fics where Allan is paired with an OC. This is understandable, seeing that the show only has four main female characters to begin with, one of whom is already in a love triangle with other people, one of whom canonically ends up with someone else, one of whom is actively hated by the fandom and one of whom just does not interact with Allan.

I want to make it clear that I think it’s fine if people want to come up with their own OCs for the purpose of shipping them with existing characters, it’s just not my thing, especially when those OCs are any level of self-inserts. (I personally don’t feel the need to ship Allan romantically with anyone. I just tend to not like OCs in any fandom.) Since Kate is presented as a potential love-interest for Allan, I think many fans who would rather see Allan with their own character or even themselves view Kate as an obstacle or a threat.

As you may see, this fandom, like many others, unfortunately treats the women in the show differently from the men. Male characters like Gisborne are viewed as redeemable so long as they are attractive, but Kate is irredeemable for… breaking Much’s heart and/or getting in the way of Robin/Marian or Allan/OC? This is something that really bothers me. I don’t mind the fact that people don’t like Kate, it’s the extensive hate she gets that makes me uncomfortable.

 Conclusion: Where do we go from here?

Like I said in the beginning, I am not asking anyone to say Kate is their favorite character or to even like her. I just wanted to provide some things for people to think about regarding how they treat female characters. I think it’s about time the fandom took a proper look at itself and critically thought about how it speaks about female characters. It’s 2021, let’s not hate on female characters just for being a little annoying or getting in the way of shipping.

I haven’t seen the fandom analyze that much why season 3 is the way it is. I would love to see some meta about how Dominic Minghella’s departure and other behind the scenes factors contributed to the story and aesthetics of season 3. I would also love to see some actual analysis on the season 3 characters that isn’t focused on tearing them down. If the fandom never made another post about how terrible Kate is without providing any actual reasons, I would be happy. I can sort of understand this immature hatred coming from 15-year-olds, but I’m disappointed to say that I have seen fully grown adults tearing down Kate in this quite misogynistic way. I know that many people do not intend for their dislike of Kate to come across as misogynistic, but it does not erase the fact that that is how many of those hateful comments appear.

I think Kate had a lot of potential. Season 3 had a lot of potential. It is quite a move to kill Marian in the middle of a Robin Hood story, so they had the chance to take the story to all kinds of places. Unfortunately, the season 3 we ended up with was not of the same quality as the previous seasons. Instead of just hating on the characters or story in general, I think we should focus on really analyzing the season, and even coming up with our own ways of improving it. Many people have already done this (though unfortunately many of these attempts also include thinly veiled hatred towards Kate. It’s your story, why are you not treating her any better than the actual writers of the show?), but there’s always room for more takes.

At this point I will shamelessly advertise my own “Kate should have been the new Nightwatchman” theory and my Nightwatchman-fic. I wrote the latter in a way that would let it be a part of canon if necessary. I think that by refocusing the story and shifting the way we read the text, we can find new aspects of season 3, and perhaps even enjoy it more. That is what happened to me during my latest rewatch, and all it took was watching it in a non-chronological order and talking about it with someone who had never seen the show.  

I’m not trying to gatekeep the fandom and say that only thought-provoking analysis or fix-it fanfiction is allowed. I just feel like people should be more conscious of the message they are sending out when they write hateful comments about Kate, censor her name or even cross out her face from pictures. Is it actually funny? Are you contributing something to the conversation? Is it actual criticism or just hate for the sake of hate? You don’t have to start writing posts in the defense of Kate, but you can just start ignoring her. It’s not that difficult. It’s fine to make jokes, but let’s start thinking about what our jokes say about us.

I once more want to emphasize that this is not a callout post I wrote with any one person in mind. So, if you felt offended when I was talking about Gisborne-fans, Allan/OC-shippers or Kate-haters in general, I can assure you that this post was not about you personally. This is not about any individual person. I’m just commenting on trends in the fandom I have noticed over the years. I don’t think any of you have committed any sins or that you need to be cancelled. I just hope that if you did feel guilty reading this, you’ll realize that maybe this post was something you definitely needed to read. As a woman, I would love it if this fandom worked on getting rid of its internalized misogyny.

I’m not claiming to be right on all of this, in fact I have a lot of bad opinions as well. I hope this post has provided people with things to think about. Feel free to use this as a starting point for your own meta or analysis. I’ll end my rant here, and leave you with this thought:

Kate had a lot of potential to be a good character. She did not let us down. The writers did.

tma au rundown. warning. long with too many bullet points.

basics:

her name is leah lindqvist. no, this is not her birth name, not even a name in any official records, but it’s what she goes by and what the majority of characters will know her as. the only exceptions to this are those who knew her in her human life and those who have stumbled upon her in statements -- more on that later.

appears to be in her late 20s-early 30s, with an old world aristocracy look under her gothic leanings. has a propensity for elegant/historical looks in her day to day life, being rather more put together than the setting’s primary goth. notable for her bloodless complexion and bright green eyes. tall and thin.

has lived in london for the last three years, looking for an in to the institute to further her own research. changes living arrangements at around season 3 to better stalk keep an eye on our main protagonist.

originally scandinavian, specifically danish, though her accent seems strangely lax for someone who claims to have only left her motherland a few years before.

is an avatar, though her exact ‘patron’ is a question she’s been trying to answer for a long, long time. the circumstances of what she deems her ‘becoming’ seemed to involve at least 4 separate entities, only one of which could have won her.

backstory:

was born the youngest of three children in a happy copenhagen home, her father from good stock and her mother a force to be reckoned with in the community. at some point, the house of cards crumbled for the couple, and their children were shuffled off to what relatives would take them. leah, or whoever she was before, went to her father’s brother specifically.

said uncle was a proper gentleman, a pillar of the community, worldly and wealthy. he had a particular fondness for the macabre, and venerated a man known as jonah magnus and his various associates. this man about town had such dreams for his latest acquisition, for this bright and tender child who wanted the whole of the world in her hands.

leah was raised alongside but differently from odin’s four sons, groomed for something beyond her understanding. she was expected to read and recite, to observe others, and to mind her ps and qs more than her cousins ever would. as she grew towards adolescence, odin took to traveling the world with his ward, haunting locations of past or ongoing fear activity. leah was meant to observe, and to be seen.

that was a perilous thing, and got her on the wrong side of various avatars and monsters more often than she cares to remember. she has had confirmed run-ins with the spiral, the stranger, the desolation, and the dark through these ‘misadventures,’ and has had at least one brush with the lukas family in her youth that leaves open the possibility of later lonely interference.

it should be noted, however, that leah’s moments of what her uncle would dub martyrdom -- that is, to be made to witness the influence of fears on the world -- were almost invariably fatal for the subject of observation. while odin perceived her as witnessing the world and following the path of the eye, leah herself was chasing death.

the dawning realization that her life was to be given solely in service to this all-seeing eye led to brief fits of rebellion or anxiety that her uncle worked to curtail. her panic at the situation came to a head at some point in her twenties when, according to all involved, leah attacked odin’s favored son. immediately afterwards, leah was ousted from the family, abandoned to a distant property. the outside world, however, would receive the fiction that she had gone missing and would never be recovered.

left to a rarely-traveled island on the norwegian sea, stripped of the protections her uncle offered under the sheltering eye, those entities who marked her soon came begging their pound of flesh. locking herself into a small cabin on the property, she endured bouts of darkness and mist rolling over the outside world, a constant knocking or clawing at the cabin door, and an apparent loss of self. after some perceived months of this isolation, some hallucination or dream came to her in which she perceived her patron reaching out and taking all of the fear away.

once awakened, she was discovered by a passing ship and returned to the mainland, walking and hitchhiking her way back to the main family estate. she found her uncle badly aged in the months of her absence, striking when he was alone and demanding answers from him : what was her intended purpose? what did the eye have to do with this? what had she become? why did he choose her? at some point, her interrogation became too much for the old man, and he passed before she received the answers she sought. after disposing of his body, odin became another missing person’s case in the family, and leah made her way across europe for the next few years seeking the answers she had not received from the source.

has had a past attempt to breach the institute and lasted a good few days hidden among the archives. was eventually found out, however, and was made to escape. all the way to the mainland, in fact, due to whatever she uncovered about the place rattling her deeply enough to keep away from england for some years.

eventually, with all other avenues of knowledge running dry, leah was forced to return and consider that the answers she sought lie in the institute itself. to that end, she had taken up residence in a london apartment complex and tried to get in several times.

recent events: 

has been an accomplice in several fear-motivated disappearances of young men in the london area. it’s an open secret among those who know her status as avatar that she makes offerings for her ‘partner’ out of human sacrifices.

tried to infiltrate the institute and got far enough to nearly get eaten by worms in season one, saved only by the timely intervention of her partner. none of the actual archival staff are aware of said event until she actively brings it up.

has developed a growing fascination with the latest archivist, including reaching out to him in season 3 once he’s on the run.

eventually offers him her statement in exchange for a chance to delve the archives resources for the explanations she’s been without. becomes an occasional feature from there on until she once again flees into the night after a brush with its master.

spoilers:

has been completely divorced from the concept of time as it flows for others. many of the discrepancies about her story as she tells it can be explained through this: her months abandoned on the island actually took place over a number of years, her time spent combing through the european continent took more than a decade, and she can no longer remember her birth year because it does not align to her perceptions of self. even those she knew in humanity, such as gerry or peter, register as oddities for having aged in accordance with real time rather than her own.

her patron is the end, who had indelibly marked her at some point in her youth and seems to have intervened and claimed her once she was in serious danger. her exact role as an avatar of this fear is muddled by her decades of self-serving pursuit of knowledge rather than living up to whatever she was meant to do.

odin really stumbled into getting an intended avatar of the eye marked by different fears. it was not his intention, but rather a result of caretaker negligence in trying to make a witness of the girl. he never expected that it would have meant something in the grand scheme of things.

despite appearing all of 32 at most, leah was already in her twenties by the 90s. she’s actually in her 50s though her general issues with time mean she has not realized this fact and her status as an avatar has left her pretty ageless.

relationships:

alliance/partnership/friendship with sittimoranimiinterfectorem‘s michael. michael was the first of her kind leah met, and one she looked up to as a potential font of answers. instead, michael has been toying with her for years, as a liar ought to. outsiders can infer a variety of potential takes on the relationship, as outlined here.

alliance/mentorship/unrequited feelings with sittimoranimiinterfectorem’s jon. leah’s initial trepidation in approaching the new archivist soon turned to a soft spot for this man the world was going to eat alive. she realizes he is walking down the same path her uncle forced her down, and has taken on a slightly protective and wise elder role over him. that said, she has also has a fancy for him, attracted to his dark eyes and devotion to his humanity.

former companion/occasional ally of bookburnt‘s gerry. the two crossed paths every once in a blue moon during the years, given odin and mary were associated with one another in their travels and overlapping ideals. leah tried to take on a supportive role for the teen, sometimes sending gifts, while gerry in turn tended to cut loose with someone who got it. in adulthood, the two sometimes ran into one another in the weird world in which they inhabited, though leah had no idea this man was the same boy she had tried to bond with years before.

potential acolyte/student of medisinals‘s blackwell. we’re still plotting it out but the two have each other’s acquaintance as avatars of the end.

relevant statements:

statement of frida hoarr, concerning the disappearance and life of her husband odin. first mention of the hoarr family and leah’s original identity. (2001)

statement of olaf agner, concerning his time working for the hoarr family in north zealand. a less rose colored view of odin’s ‘visionary’ work and his 'creepy’ niece. (1987)

miscellany statements referencing a one eyed man and dark-haired girl/young woman at or around the scene of various incidents involving the fears across europe. sometimes references the girl in question reaching out to those that are marked. (80s-90s)

statement of torsten hoarr, concerning the personal records of his father and the disappearance of his cousin. (2007)

reference to leah’s invasion of the institute archives in an incidental discussion with michael shelley about his having been deceived into allowing a certain young woman into the archives (2009)

miscellany statements establishing odin as a sort of chessmaster invariably working with the eye before, during, and after leah’s part in his life. (60s-2001)

statement of james berger on the subject of his friend ethan hamilton going missing. first clear picture of leah and michael working in tandem. (2014)

statement of leah lindqvist concerning her personal history and... ‘becoming.’ statement recorded direct from subject. (2017)

‘The Absent Father and Spider-Man’s Unfulfilled Potential’: Rebuttal Part 2: Introduction Continued

Master Post

Fettinger continues that in his civilian life Peter’s life was a directionless disaster.

This is again profoundly unfair and untrue.

Peter’s life lacking direction was directly attributable to the life he led as Spider-Man.

And yet Peter managed to leave home, later get a place of his own, graduate collage, got married and was attended grad school on three separate occasions.

He only failed to finish grad school the first time around because he made the smart decision to put things on. He was struggling to juggle the increased workload, his social life and Spider-man activates. He passed the first year through the skin of his teeth and was aware the second year would be worse. At the time he’d gotten into a new relationship with the Black Cat who had been severely injured following a battle, recovering very gradually. Peter was also trying to help pay for her medical expenses. Felicia was also a reforming criminal who’s prior attempt at going straight had failed. In order to keep Felicia on the straight and narrow, in order to help her recover and build a future with her it made a lot of sense for Peter to put his education on hiatus whilst he got his affairs in order.

A quick successions of attacks upon his personal life occurred during his second attempt to complete grad school meaning he naturally dropped out again. These attacks were not his fault. Your best friend trying to kill you, your parents coming back to life, your aunt entering a coma and you having a mental breakdown   all BEFORE your clone shows up and your wife gets pregnant are incredibly legitimate reasons to drop out of collage.

Only his third attempt was arguably illegitimate as he dropped out off-panel during the Mackie/Byrne run.

Even this can be defended in-universe on the grounds that his aunt May had recently been revealed to be alive, thus justifying time off. Soon after he landed his dream job. Why bother finishing school when you have the occupation you wanted. Why try to juggle that job, your family and your studies all at the same time if it is unnecessary?

Moreover Peter’s dropping out was simply one of the many, many, many, many, many out of character moments that pervaded that run and the stories intended to lead into it. Fettinger himself would tell you that so they really shouldn’t count.

Not to mention, the series never actually confirmed for us if Peter did or did not drop out. He was attending grad school and then a time skip later he wasn’t. Realistically given how a Graduate School programme can last years he likely hadn’t finished earning his degree, but again that wasn’t confirmed for us.

At the time Fettinger’s essay was published, Peter had also taken on a job as a school teacher, joined the Avengers, had made (successful) efforts to reconcile with his wife, acclimatise his Aunt May to his superhero identity, was making more time for both ladies in his life and was working to try and help rehabilitation of some of the criminals he had captured.

Hardly ‘directionless’.

This is to say nothing of how quite frankly in the mid-2000s MOST people around Peter’s age (25-30) didn’t exactly have a clear cut ‘direction’ in their lives and this was even more true in the consequent decade.

I think this is a criticism equitable to incredibly old-fashioned thinking from older people wagging their fingers at ‘the younger generations’.

Fettinger continues by saying ‘His scientific prowess should have made him a peer of Reed Richards and Tony Stark, men who became prosperous and/or well-respected for their civilian achievements, but he seems to have squandered his potential. These men are not immune from the ravages of human frailty, with alcohol being Tony’s personal demon, and Reed’s neglect of his wife Sue nearly driving her into the Sub-Mariner’s arms more than once, but both have succeeded in balancing superhero careers, satisfying intellectual pursuits, and maintaining some semblance of an organized personal life.”

This was another ‘what the fuck moment’ for me when re-reading this essay.

Honestly, as someone who loves this character this statement made me angry  and even made me question if Fettinger ever  actually LIKED the character himself.

First of all, have  Reed and Tony even succeeded at what Fettinger claims they have?

Tony’s life has often been pretty fucked up. Circa Civil War he and Reed were the pariah’s of the super hero community. Tony’s alcoholism had brought him and his company close to ruin more than once. Reed and Sue had separated in the past more than once and at one point Reed but their son Franklin into a coma. And both men have had their lives made exponentially more difficult by being heroes.

That’s not a ‘semblance’ of an organized personal life. Just because they’ve managed to invent things and be superheroes at the same time isn’t proof to the contrary.

More importantly, even if we accept Fettinger’s claims about Reed and Tony, this is a gigantic false equivalency.

The central reason that Peter has failed to balance his super hero career, intellectual pursuits and an organized personal life is because it is impossible!

Fettinger, despite being this so-called authority on the character is demonstrating a huge misreading of the intent behind Spider-Man’s creation.

He was created specifically to be a more realistic super hero. In that context his superhero life wasn’t allegorical for a real life job or responsibility. Rather the point was to explore how a (relatively) realistic person would believable handle being a hero. This is why Peter initially seeks to use his powers selfishly and needs to learn  to use them altruistically.

In other words, Peter has to deal with all the stuff we deal with in normal life in ADDITION  to being a superhero.

In real life, your job or family might be the most important thing you do. But for Spider-Man they are inherently secondary.

They are just as important to Peter as they are to anyone in the real world but he also has a huge burden even greater than they are to manage.

This is literally the central conflict behind the character. The constant struggle to juggle real life responsibilities against this grander calling.

You might argue he’s the equivalent of a cop, fire fighter or soldier, but that’s not true. There are similarities rendering those roles appropriate allegories. But that allegory breaks down when you consider he is unpaid for his services, has to maintain secrecy whilst performing them and still needs to earn an income. Imagine doing your job but then also being a cop/fire fighter/soldier who has to be potentially available 24/7 as well.

Reed and Iron Man were never treated with this degree  of realism in mind. None of the classic Silver Age Marvel heroes were. Daredevil developed a similar (or arguably greater) degree of realism later under Frank Miller’s pen. And noticeably he too has struggled to find a balance in his life just as Peter has.

Even if we ignore this metatextual argument, the in-universe do not corroborate Fettinger’s point.

I’m no F4 or Iron Man expert so feel free to correct me on anything I get wrong.

But last I checked, circa 2006, Reed and Tony categorically didn’t operate as heroes the way Peter did.

Reed and the other F4 were not crime fighters, and never were. They might deal with crises that arose if they were made aware of them somehow. But they weren’t keeping an eye on organized crime or the drug dealers moving onto the local street corner. They weren’t actively going on regular patrols seeking out petty theft, car jackings, alley way muggings, bank robberies, etc.

IIRC nor was Tony. I think at most he was more concerned with industrial sabotage, the activities of international criminals like the Mandarin, foreign powers like the Soviets or larger scale crises. It wasn’t like he (with or without the Avengers) was responding to every bank robbery in NYC or sticking it to the Maggia or Kingpin.

Spidey though was going out almost every day and night specifically to seek out crime and directly intervene in it. He wanted to avoid anyone else losing their ‘Uncle Ben’ to a burglar because he was passive or complacent.

That didn’t just entail living his life and intervening if he happened to bump into any crime. He was proactive in actually going on the prowl for threats he could help resolve.

Fettinger is also disgustingly unfair because he’s neglected the context surrounding when Reed, Tony and Peter became heroes.

Reed and Tony were ALREADY  financially secure and scientifically accomplished men in their late-20s-late-30s when they became heroes.

They’d already figured out effectively methods of playing the game of life, they already mastered scientific skills and had a foundation of accomplishments and money that could make their superhero lives easier  if anything.

It’s simply easier to maintain  those things as a super hero when you start off that way.

In contrast let’ consider Peter Parker.

He was 15 when he got his powers. He was at most lower-middle class and his family didn’t have much money. Unlike Reed or Tony he had an elderly, health challenged relative to provide care and support for. He was still in school and whilst scientifically gifted didn’t yet have a full education in any scientific field. To get one he’d need to attend college but his household wasn’t able to afford that even before the breadwinner (Ben Parker) died. Therefore Peter didn’t just need to pass high school but earn a scholarship simultaneously. And as for his social life he’d never really had any friends and was thus more poorly practiced at maintaining friendships or romantic relationships than even his fellow school peers. Even if he hadn’t been he didn’t have the same level of experience with such things Reed or Tony would have had due to his age. He wasn’t done growing up yet. Granted Tony wasn’t exactly wise in the ways of serious relationships, but he nevertheless knew how to play the dating game. Reed on the other hand was engaged (or on the cusp of it) when he got his powers.

These were men who had figured out a lot of life, accomplished a lot and grown up long before they began superhero careers.

Peter was starting out with MASSIVE handicaps compared to them.

He needed to simultaneously:

Figure out how to be a grown up

Do that faster than his peers

Care for his sickly aunt

Grieve his uncle

Figure out how to navigate the social scene of people his age, including the ways of romance

Maintain his school grades

Earn a scholarship

Educate himself in various scientific fields

Become the bread winner for his household or else risking them losing their home and May’s access to the medicine that was preserving her life

THEN he needed to be a superhero on top of that!

And what did that even entail anyway?

Figuring out how his powers worked and their limits

Figuring out how to fight

Risking his life against people who regularly wanted to kill him

Dealing with people who went out of their way to target his life, sometimes having that bleed over into his civilian life

Maintaining secrecy as best as he could out of fear of being imprisoned or even killing his aunt due to the shock

Dealing with some people who were actively trying to uncover his identity

For most of his career, never having anyone to mentally relieve his burden by sharing his secret

Figuring out how to seek out crime, track crooks, gather information, the structure of criminal organizations

Fending off deadly and often more powerful opponents

Being hated and feared by most of the general public, authorities and fellow heroes.

Fighting alone most of the time

Created and maintained his own equipment which he did out of his own pocket, despite the hit it took to his finances

Being accused of various false crimes by the press, public or authorities

Helping his boss smear his name because he was the only reliable means of income Peter had

NOBODY could deal with all that. It’s a miracle Peter merely maintained his sanity, never mind successfully kept a roof over his and May’s heads, lowered the crime rate and successfully built a long-term relationship with Mary Jane.

Sure, some of that stuff would get easier over time, but even if other things hadn’t arose to make life harder for him, it’s still an impossible juggling act.

And unlike Tony or Reed Peter rarely had access to much cash, resources or a supportive team to help him. Those things would make all  the difference if Reed and Tony were engaged in that time of superhero work.

Reed could rely upon his family to handle a crisis to help out with his latest experiment if necessary, giving him more time to focus upon other things. Tony could delegate duties in his company to staff members whilst he zipped off to save the world or alternatively could turn to his Avengers colleagues to handle a crisis if he needed to attend to important business. And obviously this support network could greatly help if Reed or Tony had any sickly relatives to look after.

With Peter everything was riding on him. Aunt Anna could help out at times, but she wasn’t a full time caregiver. He had no teammates to help bear the burden of fighting crime. Even his partnership with Felicia entailed going on patrol together, not her going out instead of him.

He had no financial security. He lived from one pay cheque to another because he had no choice. Even when he got older and didn’t need to worry about May as much being Spider-Man critically undermined his ability to maintain a 9-5 job. Hence why Tri-Corp (and later HORIZON labs) gave him flexi-hours and why he needed to take so much time off as a teacher and was basically kept around because Midtown High was just that desperate.

It’s one thing to maintain financial security as a super hero when you begin like that. It’s another story entirely when you are clawing your way up the economic ladder from a lower class position whilst being a hero at the same time.

The same thing applies to his scientific pursuits. Where was he supposed to find the time, money and resources to invent anything that’d win him accolades?

Gee if only there was a story which illustrated how being Spider-Man fundamentally held Peter back from fully living his own life…if only that story had then formed the basis for a major motion picture in 2004…

But yeah, if only Peter had a father figure all this would be a none issue.

From a certain POV that’s true, but only in the sense that Peter would’ve had some of the burden lifted from him. He wouldn’t have had to be as concerned about supporting Aunt May. He wouldn’t have had to have spent as much time figuring out how to play the social game if his Dad had maybe been around to show him (although Aunt May was there for that too so would Ben have made much of a difference?).

But it wouldn’t have meant his life would’ve been fixed and his potential unfulfilled. Because being Spider-Man innately held him back no matter what. He was never going to be able to hold a 9-5. He was never going to be able to give his loved ones all the attention he owed them because duty would inevitably call. And unless his father figure was loaded he’d have never had have access to the resources necessary to invent shit. But that wouldn’t have happened regardless of Richard or Ben Parker dying or not. Peter needed a scholarship even before Ben died, so the Parker household was clearly not well off financially.

Let’s also consider that Reed’s home and hero life are functionally one and the same. His scientific pursuits go hand in hand with the work the F4 usually do. This arguably became the case with Tony as well once he discarded his secret identity in the 2000s. Even before then, he had a much easier solution to maintaining his identity considering it would be believable for a rich man like him to have a super powered body guard and his tech would have enabled him to remotely control the armour at times to maintain appearances.

Peter had neither luxury, with his two lives only overlapping in moments of crisis 9/10.

Not to mention Fettinger’s logic here is hurt when we consider neither Tony nor Reed’s Dad’s were all that great in the first place. It seems both of them succeeded in spite of their father’s not because of them.

Basically, father or no father, if Peter had the same circumstances he’d have been in roughly the same position he is now. He wouldn’t have become Reed or Tony.

So confession time.

I began writing this rebuttal at a time when I had no access to Fettinger’ essay sans the physical book it came in. I began writing down bullet points for his consequent points.

And just as a reminder Fettinger’s ‘thesis’ for this essay is that Peter is a screw up with loads of ‘unfulfilled potential’ because he never had a stable father figure in his life following Ben’s death.

·         Peter flunked out of college and even failed to graduate with his class because he forgot to take a required gym credit.

Peter didn’t flunk Grad school and he made up his collage degree by earning the SINGLE credit he needed over the consequent summer, which is entirely different to truly flunking.

It’s also got jack to do with not having a father or failing to fulfil his potential. Like around that time Aunt May was in the hospital, had nearly died and he was kinda busy saving people’s lives.

·         Two attempts at post graduate education failed.

Actually he tried three times and ‘failed’ is very subjective. See what I said in earlier instalments about the stuff around the early-mid 1990s and the Mackie/Byrne era. Those were the second and third times he tried for a post-grad. The first time he never failed, he simply decided to quit for perfectly practical reasons and return later.

·         He made only a marginal living mostly as a freelance photographer because until recently (remember this was written in 2006) when he became a high school teacher, he couldn’t hold a steady job.

Notice how he acknowledges being a high school teacher and yet claims Peter is ‘directionless’.

And more poignantly NO ONE can be Spider-Man and hold a 9-5.

That’s literally the entire reason Lee/Ditko had Peter become a photographer. Because they were trying to tell the story of a realistic super hero and a realistic superhero couldn’t hold down a 9-5 when he might be on duty at any time; even matt Murdock has a partner  in Foggy Nelson to cover for him if needed. So they engineered a method for him to earn a living whilst still being Spider-Man, by making being Spidey the means to that end.

·         His friendships often failed because he neglected them.

This is not true, his friendships rarely ever failed. When they did it was often not due to his being neglectful. Even on the instances where this could be said to be true again he had a good reason for that. He was SPIDER-MAN!

·         Any success with women, including his marriage to Mary Jane Watson (who left at least once) owes more to his partner’s Job-like patience than any effort on his part (and part of MJ’s devotion to Peter may be tied up in her own relationship abandonment and hero worship issues).

It is true MJ has the patience of a saint. But so do the wives of many police officers, fire fighters, soldiers, politicians, political activists etc. And I do not necessarily disagree that MJ’s patience was a huge factor (maybe the biggest) in keeping that relationship going. But Fettinger’s wording here combined with the wider context of his prior points make it abundantly obvious that he isn’t saying Peter put in effort but MJ’s patience happened to be a bigger factor. He is saying that Peter did not put in enough effort, that he slacked off.

Which is bullshit because again, he was being Spider-Man and more importantly with MJ and many of his OTHER relationships he plainly DID put in effort and consideration. Also it’s disingenuous for Fettinger to refer to MJ leaving Peter because he KNOWS that was OOC nonsense and wrote about it. See his 2001 Year in Review from his Spidey Kicks Butt website or this site.

As for MJ’s ‘abandonment issues’ and ‘hero worshipping’ issues, let’s unpack that.

MJ’s issues weren’t about abandonment. Not unless Fettinger is referring to MJ herself abandoning her sister.

MJ was never abandoned as a child. Yes, in ASM #292 MJ claims her Dad walked out on her mother but re-read her origin from ASM 259 or Parallel Lives. It was the other way around.

So MJ literally hasn’t got any abandonment issues in the first place.

Even if you did  contort it to being about abandoning her sister that’s not a matter of her ‘issues’. That term refers to the idea MJ has unresolved baggage that, if she only addressed, she’d have not been with Peter or stayed with him.

That interpretation though is BS for two key reasons. Firstly, MJ resisted committing to Peter for the longest time which was also at the root of her leaving her sister high and dry. Her staying with Peter when Gwen died and helping him was an example of her GROWING as a person and becoming BETTER, not her doing it as some kind of weird repentance for her abandoning her sister in her time of need.

Secondly, MJ was only able to fully commit to Peter when she’d laid her demons with her sister to rest in ASM #292. There was still unresolved business between them and her own father but when she settled that she was more  comittied to her marriage to Peter not less.

Maybe Fettinger’s intent was that her father’s abuse of her represented a form of abandonment. Or maybe he just phrased himself badly and meant the latter point regardless. Well that too doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Parallel Lives shows us MJ’s issues with her father was a motivator for her to steer clear of Peter not grow closer to him.

And more importantly if MJ’s romance with Peter has anything to do with her father it’s only because Peter is so unlike  her father. In her mind her father’s traits =bad. Peter, in having the opposite traits = good, and therefore attractive.

By any metric MJ’s desire to be with Peter clearly has nothing to do with any ‘issues’ she had. On the contrary her not  being with him was because of her issues. This was incredibly basic and laid out. Fettinger himself touched upon it in this essay.

Now for her hero worship…what hero worship?

Yes MJ respected and was attracted to Peter partially because he was a hero. But that’s not an ‘issue’ because most women  would likely have been attracted to such traits. Doctors or firemen are a common turn on for many women and Spidey’s job is analogous to that.

In truth MJ was turned on more by his sense of responsibility embodied by his heroism as discussed in Web #6 (which Fettinger cited in the previously linked to essay). MJ doesn’t want Peter to be a hero out of concern for his health but also recognizes that if he wasn’t a hero he wouldn’t be the man she fell in love with. Stories like Spider-Man the Final Adventure and the MC2 universe though prove how MJ wouldn’t fall out of love with Peter if he quit being Spider-Man.

She doesn’t have hero worship issues!

·         If we didn’t know Peter was Spider-Man we would probably consider him either “brilliant but lazy?” (see ‘Spider-Man 2’) or simply a loser.

Right except we DO know he is Spider-Man hence so many of the above criticisms are totally out of line, even ignoring many of the blatant inaccuracies to them.

·         He appears to be a chronic underachiever in both identities.

Yeah no. That statement ignores then recent developments in Spidey titles. More importantly it ignores the fact that to ‘fulfil his potential’in either identity he’d have to have access to things (like money and team support) that he simply lacked or else dedicate himself to one life over the other which he cannot do. It isn’t that there is something wrong with HIM it’s that the nature of his SITUATION is rarely conjunctive to success.

·         Why is this? What kept him from putting the disparate parts of his life together and becoming an even greater  hero?

What further greatness does he really need?

Circa 2006 he’d become an Avenger, the premier heroes of the Marvel universe. He had won a Hell of a lot of battles against seriously powerful foes. He’d saved countless people in his time an lowered the crime rate.

I’m just going to give you the gist of Fettinger’s next several points.

He basically argues that Peter has always subconsciously sought out a father figure to replace Uncle Ben.

Which is TRUE.

But he goes on to argue that the reason for Peter’s unfulfilled potential is BECAUSE he’s lacked this father figure in his life. To be fair to him and give him the benefit of the doubt he does say a positive male role model ‘could’ have made the difference and qualifies that there are plenty of people who do fine without positive male role models.

The problem is that he’s set up this whole essay by being cynically over critical, inaccurate and disingenuous about Peter’s ‘failings’.

Meaning he isn’t clearly asserting that Peter’s lack of a father merely might   be the cause for his ‘underachieving’. He is clearly saying Peter is an underachiever and lacking a proper father is the reason why. It’s also disingenuous because Fettinger earlier on in the essay called out Peter as an underachiever by comparing him to womanizing, alcoholic hedonist and weapons manufacturer Tony Stark who you know...had an awful  Dad!

·         Fettinger lists off the difficulties of growing up in general and how supporting Aunt May and being a superhero made that more difficult. And how it’d be especially hard when doing it on your own. Which is true and a father by his side to help him would’ve made Peter’s life much easier.

But to say that the complications he faced wouldn’t exist if he had a father is asinine.

Aunt May still could have died as she did repeatedly.

There is no assurance that Peter would’ve confided the truth into Uncle Ben or any male role model in his life.

And balancing normal life whilst being a hero is innately impossible even if Peter did have an easier time growing up because there wasn’t as much of a burden on him to support May or figure out how to socialize or be a man on his own.

His life would’ve been easier but her wouldn’t have achieved all Fettinger claimed he’s leaving unfulfilled.

Shit, Mayday Parker never balanced things even though she had it objectively easier than Peter ever did. And her Dad was literally Spider-Man!

·         Fettinger writes that without May or MJ Peter would likely have fallen apart.

On this he is on the money.

·         He writes that neither May nor MJ can relate to Peter as a genius, a superhuman being, a pursuer of justice nor simply as a man. Neither could substitute for a father figure.

Which is...kinda true....but also kind of not.

Yes MJ and May cannot directly relate to Peter in any of those ways. But, exempting being a male, neither could any given father figure. Other specific father figures (like the ones Fettinger goes on to discuss in the essay) potentially could though so I suppose he was just setting up the rest of his essay.

That being said Peter’s sense of justice didn’t come from nowhere so May could perhaps relate to this on some level. And MJ has shown that she has a certain sense of justice herself.

·         Fettinger continues by listing off different potential father figures for Peter and examining the hypothetical end results of if they’d fulfilled their roles as father figures.

I’m going to dedicate an instalment to each one of them starting next time.

So with that I’ll leave it there.

Master Post

Fallout OC questionaire

@falloutfandomeventhub Fallout OC Questionnaire Whether your OC is a Lone Wanderer or Sole Survivor, these questions can be asked by others to know more about them! Or simply be used as a guide to further develop your character. Ask away, luv!  00. Which Fallout game are they from? Fallout 4 01. Which faction(s) did they join and which did they destroy? Why? The only Faction to be destroyed was the institute by the minute men. Officially, the botherhood won the commonwealth. Their equipment and training are stronger than either the railroad or the minutemen can handle on a one-by-one. With the institute destroyed, the railroad had lost its greater purpose. Some of the remaining members worked to establish a pipeline to Far harbor and Acadia for those who didn't wish for a mind-wipe. Others chose to join the minutement to make the world a safer place. The brotherhood is the army, the minutemen are the police. 02.What is their S.P.E.C.I.A.L.? S4 P6 E1 C1 I10 A4 L3 Strong enough to bend metal to his will, but no 'heavy hitter' or load hauler. Good eyes and quite perceptive, able to play with explosives without fear and an able rifleman The frost seems to have sapped all of his endurance he developed in the army, finding himself constantly winded. Between his sarcastic nature as a veteran, the dysphoria of a new world, and his half blasted face, his charisma is something to be desired Intelligence is where he shines, capable with computers, engineering and certified to operate with fusion cores. His agility is fair. Able to be sneaky, but by no means a ninja. He is lucky in cards but unlucky in love. Hard pressed to romance any companion, he is still able to get a lucky shot off. 03. Give us a summary of their backstory. Son of a locksmith, he used his gift with tumblers to break into places for the cheap thrills and fell in with a bad crowd. The first time he met Nora was popping a lock for her in the rain and he decided she was someone he was willing to make a better man of himself. He enlisted, became a combat engineer, got half his face blown off. Came home after the tour, got popped in the freezer. 04. What’s their full name and does it have a meaning? Do they have any nicknames and how did they get em? Nathaniel Victor Winters, A.K.A. Vic, Blue and THE SILVER SHROUD! Vic is a shortening, blue comes from the suit he emerged from the vault, and the silver shroud came from his time enacting revenge in goodneighbor and his codename with the railroad. 05. What’s their sexual, romantic, and gender orientation? Do they feel comfortable telling other people? He's bisexual male favoring feminine appearance lovers, he lost his virginity with another man in the gang he ran with as a kid.  In this war-torn world, what you have in your pants and where you stick it really is on the bottom of the totem pole. 06. Do they have any mental illnesses? How do they cope? The horrors of the war and what he has done still tear at him today. He often stays up late nights tinkering and drafting until he is finally too exhausted to think and blacks out. He  07. Do they have any medical conditions? Is medicine/ treatment available for them? His lungs are frost-burnt from the improper freezing technique. He can get enough air to walk and talk, but any sudden exertion like running has him on his knees in ten seconds. he has second and third degree burns on the right side of his face and body.  08. How much do they care about their outer appearance? What’s their “beauty routine”? How often do they shower/ bathe? His physical appearance is a sensitive subject, some days he feels like he looks like half a ghoul with his second and third degree burns down the right side of his face and body. Optimally, he likes to wear his silver shroud get-up with the scarf wrapped around his face and operator goggles. (use surgical mask or striped bandana to represent the scarf pulled up) Not only does he like to bathe, but he has started building water heaters for a hot bath. 09. What do they fear the most? Fire makes him... uncomfortable, his armor always has asbestos when it is an option. He fears loosing curie, the only other person not bothered by his features beyond Hancock, both of whom are his only lovers. Part of him is afraid he will wake up in the tube again, that this was all a dream. 10. They’re biggest flaw? Do they recognize it as a flaw? He overthinks everything, he has an obsession with returning some of the old world tech back to this new place. He sees a hundred things being used or not used that would make things so much easier. 11. What are they most insecure about? He is almost entirely sure he is a synth, placed by deacon into the vault. 12. What Wasteland threat do they fear the most? (ex. Deathclaws, super mutants, raiders) Raiders are just people. So is the institute. But if he had to pick one single crature he will call for an airstrike on everytime is the mirelurk queen. Three story tall crab spitting armor-melting acid? Hard pass. 13. What’s their zodiac sign or which one do you think they relate to the most? What are their placements (if you know them)? (ex. Aries sun, Taurus moon, Aquarius Venus) May 5th 2045 (Taurus/Ox) 14. What’s their Myers–Briggs Type? (ex. ENTP, ISFJ) INTJ- The scientist 15. What Harry Potter house would they be in? (ex. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw) Ravenclaw 16. Which Pokemon Go team would they choose? (ex. Instinct, Valor, Mystic) Team mystic 17. Out of the nine forms of intelligence (rhythmic, spatial, linguistic, mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential) which one(s) are they really good at and which one(s) is(are) their weakest? 1) Mathematical   2) Kinethetic   3) Linguistic   4) Spatial 5) Interpersonal 6) Intrapersonal 7) Naturalistic 8) Existential 9) Rhythmic 18. What natural alignment are they? (ex. Lawful Good, Chaotic Evil) Chaotic good, Doing the right thing, regardless of the law. 19. Do they have any hobbies? What are they? Tinkering, repairing, drafting. 20. Do they have a favorite holiday? How do they celebrate it? Halloween, costumes and parties. 21. What’s their favorite season? Winter, not just because of the namesake, the way the snow absorbs all sound and colors to make a calm quite monotone of the world. 22. Do they have a temper or are they level headed? Level-headed but vengeful. 23. Do they express their emotions freely or hide their true feelings? He holds his feelings until he has time to walk them out and express himself calmly. But if he gets overwhelmed with loss, he is known to find a corner and break down. 24. Are they a leader or a follower? A reluctant leader as he is the only man with a plan half the time. 25. How do they come off to others? What first impression do they usually make? Know-it-all, gallows humor, awful ugly. 26. Do they prefer to travel alone or with company? Who have they traveled with if any? Current companion if any? He has traveled with most of the companions, leaning on their experience and expertise. His constant companion is Curie and dogmeat. He has the sentinel to provide assistance and carry what he needs to keep himself agile. 27. Would you describe them as selfless or selfish? Does it depend on the situation? Most often he is selfless, throwing caps and resources as problems. He always makes sure the farms under his protection have eight turrets and the farmers are well armed and armored with the standard of leather armor and bolt action rifles. 28. What do they find most attractive in others? Name at least one psychological and physical trait. (doesn’t have to be romantic attraction) In curie it is her sweet faux-french voice and elemental green eyes that almost glow in the right light. From his minor hearing loss in the war, he often reads lips which leads to liking the shapes of certain mouths. 29. Do they flirt often? How easily do they fall in love? He is heavily flirtatious, but he cannot fall in love without sleeping with someone first.  As a concupiscent, he has trouble forming longer relationships past fleeting friends without engaging in sexual activities with them. 30. What’s their love life like? Are they interested in anyone or in a relationship? He is in a relationship with Curie and Hancock in a 70/30 split. Hancock knows the need to get down and dirty to do what had to be done. So often after a 'dark' mission, hancock will get loaded and Vic will get drunk to wind down and whatever happens next happens. 31. Do they prefer to solve things diplomatically or using violence? “Si vis Pacem, Para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war.” He always hopes for peaceful resolutions, popping a grape mentat before an important meeting but keeping track against addiction. But that peaceful meeting almost always comes with a loaded ten on his thigh and one person as backup. 32. What is their combat style? What range do they prefer? Do they sneak? He is a fine rifleman, preferring to take his targets one by one from a hidden distance for as long as possible with the sentinel and dogmeat running melee interference. If curie is with him, she cannot escape her programming with her buzz-saw limb so Vic gives her a melee weapon like a ripper or the throatslicer for her to exercise her medical expertise. Handcock is given a shotgun and a chance to go to town. 33. What weapon(s) do they always carry with them? Vic's favored sidearm is the ultimatum but his go-to is the Kiloton radium rifle. Before then It was Crickets spray-n-pray with the railroad deliverer. 34. Their most prized possession? A lucky rabbits foot he keeps as a charm on his pistols lanyard loop, it was a keepsake from the first time he ever went hunting. 35. Their thoughts on power armor? He finds them very convenient, as long as they are not overutalized or relied on to accomplish the task. As part of the combat engineers, he spent most of his time in a base skeletal frame with cobbled bits ten feet behind the real armored infantry solider marching through the front lines. 36. Favorite armor/ outfit? The silver shroud costume, armored up thanks to Kent. Otherwise, a pair of ballistic military fatigues with full heavy combat armor. 37. How’s their aim? Do their hands shake while pointing a gun? When using a rifle, his left hand holds the barrel steady, when using a pistol his right hand shakes from the nerve damage of the burn so he has to settle for center mass. 38. What are their thoughts on having to kill on a daily bases in order to survive? Does it take a toll on them? Or do they shake it off rather easily? The sad truth is that killing is easy, push a button, pull a trigger. The hard ones are the melee kills, feeling the hot blood splash and run as the last moments of fight or flight kick in before the death rattle. 39. Thoughts on death if any? (ex. Fear it, accept it) He is fairly accepting of death, the world is already a better place for his coming and going. 40. Do they move around a lot or prefer to have a place to call home? Adventure has kept him on the move, he is content for now, his place is in the workshop bringing back Boston to the way it could be. He trusts his friends to keep the day-to-day running while he plays with his pet projects. 41. What’s their favorite location? He likes Red Rocket when he needs to get away from sanctuary hills, Deacon jokes it is the silver shroud's secret lair. He likes to stop in on all the settlements to make sure he didn't need to call in the brotherhood for a massive problem. 42. Their opinions on ghouls, feral and not feral? Feral ghouls still remind him of zombies. His preferred practice is to kneecap them so they fall and let the others finish them off. He has heard the feral transition on the holotape to ozwald and can only compare it to rabied dog and will put them down like dogs. He feels that it is similar to dementia at an old folks home, there is no coming back yet, even from the serum. 43. Do they scavenge for their supplies or simply buy them? He is a scavenger as often as possible, Often holding off or doing without until later, Sometimes he will buy a weapon just for a specific part, then pass the rest of the weapon to one of the farmers. 44. Are they the type to get distracted and go off to an unknown nearby location or do they stay on track? It often depends on the severity of the mission at hand. If it is tracking a signal or fetching something then he is free to wander. But if it is a time sensitive mission like an assault or someone is in danger, then he is a one track mind. 45. How do they sleep? Are they picky about where and how or can they sleep basically anywhere? He prefers to be able to pull something over his shoulder, be it blanket or jacket. He can only really be at rest to sleep in a room with closed or no windows and a door he can lock or brace. Often blocking bathrooms with fallen stall doors so he can sleep on the floor. 46. What’s their favorite radio station and song? (post-apocalypse) Johnny guitar by Peggy Lee, it was the nickname of the boy he lost his innocence with. 47. What’s their favorite post-apocalyptic food? Are they a picky eater? Do they know how to cook? He prefers the canned dog food, it is a hearty protein and reminds him of army beef stew MRE's 48. What’s their favorite beverage? Do they drink alcohol? His favorite drink is Nuka Cherry and his favorite hard drink is numa Dark or rum and cola 49. Anything they like to collect? (ex. Unique weapons, Bobbleheads) He often collects weapons and armor mods to add to his modular suits to try and think of an answer to every situation. 50. Are they good at disarming traps or do they constantly miss them? He has seen what happens when a trap gets missed, the lives and limbs lost. He studied EOD wherever he could from anyone willing to teach him, the rest has come from experience.

                                   𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐓

                                      𝘙𝘌𝘗𝘖𝘚𝘛 - 𝘗𝘓𝘌𝘈𝘚𝘌 𝘋𝘖 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘙𝘌𝘉𝘓𝘖𝘎

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

FULL NAME:  Remy Garrett Watson NICKNAME / ALIAS: Rem, Fish Boy, Flounder, Nemo, Water Boy GENDER: Male HEIGHT: 5′11 AGE:  Late 20s-30 ZODIAC: Aquarius LANGUAGES: English, French, ASL, sealife 

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒

HAIR COLOR: Black EYE COLOR: Brown, can turn blue when using powers  SKIN TONE: Olive  BODY TYPE: Athletic, but slim. Muscles are more toned than bulky, no real definition in abs.  ACCENT: Wisconsin accent applied to Jesse Rath’s voice.   VOICE: Softer  but deep DOMINANT HAND: Left POSTURE: He has a very relaxed posture, but will tend to tense up more if he’s speaking and his speech impediment gets bad.  SCARS: Lichtenberg figure on his left pec that spreads to his shoulder and then to the back shoulder blade due to him being impaled in that area with a lightning infused object, shark bite scar on his lower leg from a shark that was a bit TOO playful with him back in the day, a sword slash against his right rib side from one of his Many fights he had to endue. TATTOOS: Fin tattoos on his outer lower arms, a quote from Moana on his back, an Atlantean symbol on his left bicep.  BIRTHMARKS: a dolphin shaped one on the center of his chest MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S): hair that always manages to look perfect no matter how wet/damp it gets, dolphin shaped birthmark,, hands and feet that become webbed when his body is submerged in water, gills that also form at his neck with his entire body is underwater, eyes will become more fishlike as well, also he can protrude a dorsal fin on his back willingly when underwater. 

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃

PLACE OF BIRTH: Kenosha, Wisconsin HOMETOWN: Kenosha, WI BIRTH WEIGHT: 7.11 lbs BIRTH HEIGHT: 20″ MANNER OF BIRTH: Remy was born essentially as a test, to see if it was even possible for his alien father to reproduce with his human mother (His alien race has never/has forbidden human/alien births). He was born via C section to his birth mom but then given up for adoption to his aunts.  FIRST WORD(S): Auntie, Tante, Cake  SIBLINGS: Yukiko Yamaguchi (Adopted sister) PARENTS:Fuck them PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT: Remy’s only seen his birth parents on 5 separate times throughout his entire life, it’s to the point where he greets them by their names, and not by Mom or Dad. Remy’s parents are and always will be his Aunts. 

𝐀𝐃𝐔𝐋𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄

OCCUPATION: Marine Biologist that specializes in dolphins and other porpoise species, and Aquarium caretaker.  CURRENT RESIDENCE: Kenosha, WI (Verse Dependent) CLOSE FRIENDS: Zofia Ackermann, Yukiko Yamaguchi, Leon Murah,  RELATIONSHIP STATUS: In a long term (10+ years) relationship with Zofia Ackermann ( @naturemarked​ ) in main verse, but other wise verse dependent,  FINANCIAL STATUS: Stable, slightly above middle class. DRIVER’S LICENSE: Yes - obtained at 16, but doesn’t drive.  CRIMINAL RECORD: None VICES: Biting his nails, chewing on his lip,and being stubborn. 

𝐒𝐄𝐗 / 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Pansexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:Panromantic  PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE: Submissive | Dominant | SWITCH PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE: Submissive | Dominant | SWITCH (Sub with women, dom with men) LIBIDO: He has one, but he’s rarely the initiator.  TURN ONS: physical affection, terms of endearment, strong communication, humor, kindness TURN OFFS: Poor hygiene, lack of respect for boundaries, poor communication LOVE LANGUAGE: Acts of affection, healthy communication.  RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES: Remy’s into monogamous relationships but was never opposed to trying something poly. He’s a giver in the relationship when it comes to terms of endearment and just making the person feel loved and special. He’ll always reciprocate physical affection, but rarely initiates PDA. 

𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG: The Greatest - Sia  HOBBIES TO PASS TIME: Baking, building/collecting Legos, Disney, reading.  MENTAL ILLNESSES: ADHD, Anxiety, speech impediment/stutter.  PHYSICAL ILLNESSES: None LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED: Mostly right-brained but has left brained tendencies, too.  PHOBIAS: Lightning/Thunderstorms is the big one for him, but lightning in particular due to him being water-based and being severely injured by it as a kid. He will actually go as far as being paralyzed with fear if he’s triggered enough. Ironic as it is, he does still subconsciously have a fear of drowning due to being thrown into a lake before his powers developed (and he still hadn’t learned how to swim), and fears of losing the one’s he’s closest to. SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL: It depends on his situation; if he’s involved water in any way, shape or form, his confidence is at its highest, when he’s doing anything with his hobbies, he’s fairly confident, but always telling himself he can do better, his speech impediment will always knock his confidence down though, depending on the situation-more around strangers/people he’s trying to impress rather than loved ones.  VULNERABILITIES:  His speech impediment, Zofia, his family. 

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐘: the beautiful  @saraqxeen 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆: YOU, just tag me in it so I can read it. 

Seeking Literate and Dedicated Partners!

Hello, you can call me Doe! I'm in my 20s, a student, and a proud cat mom. I write multiple paragraphs/novella style (200-500+ words). I love to write detailed descriptions and delve into a character’s head/emotions as well as surroundings. I compare it to writing a novel together. I understand if the scene doesn’t have alot going on and therefore requires less like rapid fire. I adore having long, thoughtful replies where we truly immerse ourselves in the world. I'm hoping to find a partner whose as enthusiastic and passionate about the plot and writing as I am. When I get invested in a story, it’s 100% dedication. Getting a reply is the highlight of my day. I'm a big fan of romance and using face claims. I’m the type to make pinterest boards, spam you with gifs, headcanons, and send you songs that remind me of our characters and/or ship. I'll get excited if we come up with a great plot idea or if our characters are being cute or going to get into trouble. I live for this kind of stuff honestly. Last but not least I only do MxF and don’t double, but I’m more than happy to write side characters of either gender to help move the story along. I'd prefer female authors writing male characters but male writers are fine too. Desperately Searching For - 21+ partners - For you to have an excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Both in character and out of character. (Literate to advanced writers only, please. I'm not looking for newbies). - Plot before smut. While mature themes will be in my plots, and are even encouraged, there needs to be a good chemistry between our characters. I like to have a good mix of plot and tastefully written smut, along with doses of angst and fluff. - For you to write as an older male (Late 30s-40+). I'm a sucker for the gruff and tough men who secretly have a soft heart. I also love those grumpy, hypermasculine men being intimidated by darling, soft yet commanding, and pretty women. - The more description, the better! I'm looking for someone can write as much as me (2 to 4 paragraphs or more) and really bring the story to life. I lose interest if I'm the only one that's invested/enthusiastic or coming up with plot ideas. Quality writing makes my heart happy, as does world building together. - The use of real life face claims and joining me in the wonderful world of ship/character development isn't a requirement but I'd sure be delighted if we were on the same page in this regard. (I won't use anime faces, only art if you're uncomfortable with real life) - Someone who won't leave without warning or explanation after sending the first post. I'm looking for the long term here, and I have been greatly saddened by how many partners have left me high and dry recently. If you've made it this far, thank you! You won't be disappointed in writing with me. I tend to be online daily and I'd like it if you were too. Please let me know if you're going to be inactive, long days/weeks of silence make me nervous. Below are genres and pairings I love. Feel free to combine two or more and I’m sure we can come up with something great! Genres: - anything mafia related - crimes in remote locations - small towns and supernatural happenings - post apocalyptic/dystopia - supernatural/modern fantasy (werewolves, shapeshifters, a/b/o dynamic and everything that comes with it, monster x hunter) - southern/mid western/gothic - murder mystery (small town or big city) - western inspired/weird west (supernatural and fantasy elements) - modern/dark fairy tale retellings - sci-fi/cyberpunk - little coastal towns or little towns in the mountains - emotionally charged/dark and gritty - superpowers/gifted - unresolved sexual tension/slow burn - mythology (modern / hades x persephone) - redemption - action - fake dating - pacific northwest - suburban gothic Pairings: - age gaps (older man x younger woman) - enemies to lovers - cop x criminal - doctor x patient - friends turned lovers/pining - grumpy x sunshine - the broken man x the woman that becomes his light - fbi agents/cop partners - dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman - reunited old lovers and/or friends - boss x employee - neighbors - firefighter/cop x victim - mentor x mentee - spies - hurt/comfort - height differences - pet names - lady and the tramp esque - creature x human (I'm always up for NSFW things while in their beast form.) - ex-con x anyone - detective x witness - detective x suspect - person in witness protection x anyone - bodyguard x assignment - widow/er falling in love again - outlaw x schoolteacher - biker x doctor - biker x civilian - rancher/trapper/mountain man x city girl - interracial relationships Tropes: the papa wolf (craving), badass baritone, cultured badass, jerk with a heart of gold. ladykiller in love, mountain man, mysterious protector, southern gentleman, tall, dark, and handsome, gentleman criminal Plot Ideas: (these are just suggestions and if you have other ideas I'd like to hear them) 1. age gap + height difference + modern supernatural + werewolf x human + dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman A mentor x mentee pairing where the mentee has been a victim of some sorts and that's why they’re taken under the wing of the mentor. I'm picturing a guy capable of towering over most men and also knocking most men out, but with a soft spot (that takes a bit to uncover) for his mentee. He's a retired hitman, but such profession is nothing you can retire from. He's living out in a small town, keeping to himself and being the local town grump. Something happens to her, something horrible that makes her want to do something even though she is normally the sunshine in everyone's life, and through contacts she is given the address to a man who can teach her. (more to the plot available upon request) 2. age gap + spy x spy + modern supernatural + werewolf x coyote shapeshifter He has already been secretly hired by the US government to investigate this mysterious, new criminal organization. It would be at her first mission and already aware she will be working alongside a more experienced, freelancer agent. We could start with them meeting at the airport and we can go from there. 3. Muse A is a infamous criminal and Muse B is a FBI agent. Muse B has been helping Muse A take out their competition. They could kill each other but would die for each other. (Based on The Blacklist) Fandoms: (Will only do oc x oc/characters inspired by canon pairings) Star Wars, X Files, Haven, The Blacklist, Fringe, Zoo, Stranger Things, Heroes, The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, Mercy Thompson Series, True Blood, Stephen King's Universes, Red Dead Redemption, Marvel (Last but not least, I have a list of kinks if anyone's interested) I use email and discord to write. Contact me at [email protected] or Doe#4017. If you add me using the latter, let me know where you came from. Please be detailed when you message me, let me know why you chose to contact me. Seeing "hey do you wanna rp?" is a guaranteed way to turn me off. Look forward to hearing from you!

Agent Siren

Agent!Jimin x Newbie Agent!Reader

4.5 K of whatever this is

World Government!Au, Mild Language, Eventual smut (so long as somebody wants a part two)

After being scouted and recruited as an Agent for the Government, you are thrown into Precinct 73, in Unit 5, regulating drugs and alcohol. You end up catching the warm eyes of a certain Agent in Unit 2 and becoming the next renowned “Siren Bait.”

“Who is that?” 

“That is Agent Siren. Don’t fall for him princess. It’s his job to seduce, then kill.” Agent Vex warned. 

  Agent Siren (Jimin) looked like a god among men, well actually that was a lie. Most of the agents around here looked other worldly. But- Agent Siren…

 Wow.

   He was simply training with a punching bag, mauling the thing till it fell to the floor. He labored his breaths for a few moments and caught sight of you staring at him. He gave a simple smirk, and raked his hand through his hair. His eyes never diverted  from yours. His gaze flashed a fiery color and with that, he turned back to his task. Agent Vex watched the exchange with annoyance. “Come on.” He quickly whisked you away, in hopes of severing the newly formed tie between you and Agent Siren.

But even she knew it would be in vain, Agent Siren… once his interest was piqued, there was nothing that could keep him from seeking it out. And now, his sights were set on you. 

“Now continuing on, this is where your precinct trains. Though, on lax hours you’re allowed to roam anywhere in your precinct’s division.” 

This World, Earth, was now run by a single government. For it to work there had to be a lot of power, a lot of people, a lot of checks and balances. The Military was one of them. Now you work for them, you’re part of Precinct 73. This contains most of Eastern Asia. What used to be China, Russia, Japan, Korea, and many other countries, was now just Precinct 73. Then the precinct was split into divisions. Each and every unit has authority over a certain factor to aid the well being of the people who live in the precinct. Your unit, is over Drugs and Alcohol. Not the worst job. Unit 2 has to deal with “Justice,” the nice term that the government uses. Justice is keeping people from fighting or killing. Not fun.

“Most of your Unit, Unit 5, spends their time in the tavern. Drinking here is allowed, as you can see.” Agent Vex explained as we passed what seemed to be the tavern. “But only in the time that you are not assigned something within the next 12 hours. Other than that, it’s free.”

 “Following along, this is the diner-“ we reached the extremely vintage looking restaurant as we peered through the hallway glass as we passed by. “The diner is open to all of your precinct all day, every day.” You think you’d be spending most of your free time, there. 

Then there was the library, the main cafeteria, the armory, the medic, and a bunch of other useless things, till you finally made it to your room. Which is where Agent Vex left you to your own devices. It was getting late but you had barely eaten all day. The induction took much longer than you anticipated. You decided to go ahead and test out the diner, see if it was what you dreamed of in the past 30 minutes.

   ...

  Almost No one was in the diner that evening, aside from the lady working the front and the duo seated in one of the booths. Taking a seat far from them, you picked up on of the menus. This was a peaceful atmosphere, the music was from the 1960s, a bit more than two centuries ago. Shocking, isn’t it? You enjoyed this music.

 It was comforting, in an odd way. “So you’re the new kid, huh?” A waitress greeted you, pen and paper in hand, all of her hair slicked back in a puffy bun. You smiled, letting out a short laugh. “That obvious?” You asked. “We very rarely have new people show up to the diner, and we saw you walking with Agent Vex a bit ago.” This woman had a kind aura about her. She had an intimidating gaze, one that challenged your own, but her warm smile and composure helped tone down the darkness of her eyes. “Agent Viper.” You greeted, giving a simple nod. “Imani.” She smiled. She wasn’t an agent? Huh. 

“Are you ready to order?” She asked. 

You nodded and told her what you wanted, so she wrote it down, and then walked back behind the double doors to the kitchen.

“Is anyone sitting here?” 

Your head snapped up at yet another unfamiliar voice, but this time… it was some Agent that you hadn’t seen yet.

 “No?” 

You idiot.This dude has PLAYBOY written on his damn forehead. And you just gonna go along with it like that. Alright.

He slipped into the seat across from you, a charming smile on his face. “So, you’re new, right?” 

You nodded silently.

 “Are you getting along well?” He questioned. 

Once again, you nodded. Wow, character development. Right?

 The Agent sighed and grabbed your hand. “I’m Agent Heath. If you ever need anything, I’ll be happy to help. Ok?” His eyes were untrustworthy, but his smile was charming. 

A hand slammed down on the table between you two. Agent Siren, was facing Agent Heath with a glare that could commit genocide. “She’s not a toy to play with, Heath. Why don’t you head to where your subunit belongs? I do believe that Vex wouldn’t be very happy to hear that you’re missing training.” Agent Heath seathed at his words, getting up grumbling and trudging away. 

Agent Siren smirked and turned to you. “Hi, I’m Siren, Unit 2, subunit 1, you are?” He asked, filling Agent Heath’s absence. “Agent Viper, Unit 5, subunit 1.” You replied shortly. 

This was the man Vex warned you about? He didn’t seem too bad? Heath seemed much worse. 

Agent Siren gave you a smile. “Well, I have training to get to, so I’ll see you around, Yea?” You smiled in return, not sparing a word. So he took his leave and exited the dinner, but not without sparing you one last glance before he walked out the door.

 “Looks like you’ve got loverboy’s eyes on you.” Imani said from your side, your order in her hands. You scoffed out a laugh. “Yea, sure.” 

“Oh, no, Agent Siren is totally interested in you. But, he isn’t exactly the relationship type, so be careful. Although, if you do give him the time of day, he will treat you well while he’s around. Agent Heath on the other hand, is just a One Night Stand type. So I’d steer clear if I were you, especially since he’ll hold it over your head.” She explained.

 “How do you know so much?” You questioned her as she finished setting all of your food in front of you. 

“Honey, this diner is full of gossip.” 

 ...

“So you’re the new Siren Bait?”  Agent Firefly (Hoseok) commented, sliding in the seat next to you, in the uncomfortable cafeteria tables. “Siren Bait?” You scoffed. 

“It’s the nickname for anyone Agent Siren chooses to take interest in. He doesn’t take interest in many, so consider yourself lucky.”  Agent Python (Taehyung) sighed sitting down in front of us, his lunch stacked full. “Feeding an army today?” You mused, a smirk on your face. “Thankfully no, but you may be feeding a mermaid tonight.” He grinned a lewd smile on his face. 

You reached across the table and smacked him across the head. “We’re not in the same unit! That could never happen! The higher-ups would get onto us so quick.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Aw, are we talking about Viper’s poor love life?” Agent Beluga (Jin) snickered, sitting down next to Mamba who was joined by Agent Mamba (Yoongi). You huffed, crossing your arms annoyed.

 This was your subunit. The five of you were the top dogs of your unit, being Subunit 1. Meant to take the highest risk, highest reward missions that only you could handle. “Cheer up. We have a mission this afternoon, you get to go on your first mission!” Agent Python smirked.

 You rolled your eyes and just continued eating your meal.

 ...

    “Viper, your six.” You whipped around, just in time to catch the fist flying at you. You quickly dropped the man to the ground, knocking him out with a single punch. “Thank you.” You replied quietly to Agent Mamba, who had given you the warning through the wonderful tech that allowed for you all to communicate with each other.

 The Mission was going fairly well. Firefly and Beluga had already obtained the cargo, using the plane it was loaded in to route it back to your Precinct’s Headquarters. Which now just left Mamba using a sniper from the compound’s watch tower, and Python and you searching for the crew that was about to smuggle that plane into precinct 32, around olden day California and Mexico. 

“Found them.” Mamba notified. “Northeast corner of the compound, light gray brick building, 20 feet tall. Looks like they’re playing poker.” You spotted the building and rushed towards it with silent footsteps. 

You creeped up to the side, carefully peering in through the crack in the slightly ajar door. “Six men, two armed, three are drunk.” You whispered. “I’m in position.” Python said. “Go.” Mamba commanded. You burst through the doors, aiming your pistol at the necks of each. The guns you had were filled with tranquilizer disks, that would attach to open skin and knock them out, which can be used as a shock collar from there with a remote control. The Six men were all out on the floor within second. You caught three, Python got two, and Mamba caught one with his Sniper Rifle. “No more heat signatures on the radar. Unit 2, subunit 1 will be there shortly to apprehend all civilians involved.” Agent Vex said, her voice coming over the coms for the first time this mission. 

The Mission was a success. “Alright, the lawbooks are coming! Let’s get out of here!” Agent Python said. “We have to wait till they arrive.” You told him, not wanting any assailant to get away. “You just want to stay because Siren is in that subunit, don’t you?” Python teased. “What? Siren is in that subunit?” You asked, genuinely surprised. “Oh don’t act all-“ 

“She’s right, Python, we need to wait.” Mamba said, cutting Python off. Python sighed.

 “Who is right?” An unfamiliar voice cut in the coms. Mamba let out a dry laugh. “Agent Tetra, nice to know you like to listen to coms outside of your unit.” 

“Don’t be so uptight Mamba, Siren just wanted to see if his new bait was still alive after her first mission.” Agent Tetra teased. “She has a name.” The all to familiar voice of Agent Siren growled. “Oh yes, Agent Viper, is it? She can hear us, right?” Tetra was pissing you off more and more by the second with his taunting voice. “Tetra, shut it. You know that this is against the rules. You will not get one of my members in trouble.” Mamba hissed, obviously annoyed.

 “Ah, you’re no fun.” Then the voices ceased.

 “Viper, stay away from Siren. You hear me?” Mamba asked. 

“Loud and clear.” You replied. 

Your words held no weight, though. Even you could tell. 

...

      You held yourself underwater, keeping your breath in your lungs, attempting to maximize your time. The water was calming and comfortable as you ignored the forming of the burn in your lungs. It slowly began to increase, making it hard to stay underwater. You shot up to the surface, breaching the water. You stopped your timer that lay on the edge of the pool. 00:04:56 You groaned. You have yet to break 5 minutes. You still had to be at, at least, 00:06:30 by the end of this week. You had a mission that required you to hold your breath for at most 7 minutes. You were nowhere near it. If you weren’t, they would send Agent Anaconda instead. Agent Anaconda was a man you loathed. His very being pissed you off from day one of your training. 

In your peripheral vision, you could see a pair of feet standing before you. Your eyes began to follow up the legs, to the abdomen, to the face. 

You tensed up when you saw the breathing noise taking smile of Agent Siren. 

“Um…” You felt dumb. It was as if You couldn’t even form a sentence. He squatted down, sort of dropping to your eye level, but at the same time- unintentionally emphasizing something else….

If you get my drift?

….damn. 

You averted your eyes back to his face, avoiding looking anywhere below that.  “Having a hard time?” He asked. “No. I’m ok.” The words left your mouth sounding much more confident in yourself than you were at this moment. He chuckled, giving a bright smile. “Here. I’ll be right back.” He said and turned to walk away, going straight into the boys restroom. You furrowed your brows, but shook it off. You took a breath before dunking yourself back under water. 

Time ticked by, second by second. When you breached the water, following the intense burning in your lungs, you went to turn off the timer, but it was not in the place you left it. Instead, there were a pair of feet. You were now groping a pair of feet. You looked up to meet the person attached to the feet only to find Agent Siren again… topless. “00:04:59.” He told you, your timer in the palm of his hand. Flustered, you kicked away from the edge of the pool. He slowly got down, putting his feet into the water with the back of his knees pressed against the edge of the pool. He smirked down at you, lazily. You took a relaxed breath of air before disappearing underwater. You didn’t want anything to do with that anymore, so you say underwater for as long as you possibly could. 

Soon your lungs were burning, screaming at you to get some air as your vision began to get hazy. But you wanted nothing more than to avoid the man, whose feet you just groped. But your mind betrayed you, and gave a last ditch effort to get some oxygen. You kicked up, breaching the surface and taking in several gulps of air. “00:06:04.” You looked up at him, shocked, you dropped a whole minute?!? You silently celebrated in your head, now you were one leap closer to your end goal. He dropped down to the floor, letting his feet fall into the pool. “Would you like some help?” He asked, gingerly, a kind smile on his face. “No, it’s ok.” You told him. “Are you-“

 “Siren! Get your ass over here!” One of the sergeants from his unit called. He sighed and quickly got to his feet. “I’ll see you around, Yea?” He smiled warmly before trotting off, leaving you no time to answer. 

    ...

  “You know, you sure are creating quite the debacle.” Imani said, setting down your usual on the table in front of you. You sighed. “I’m not even trying.” You mumbled, frustrated. 

Sensing your distraught, Imani took the seat in front of you. “This isn’t school anymore, Viper. Who cares what they say. There are rules here and cameras. You aren’t breaking any rules, they are. They’ll be the ones in trouble if anything happens. The higher ups don’t care about who has been here longer. So don’t worry. Just be careful, they don’t exactly like for Agents to have close romantic relationships outside of your unit. It takes focus off the task at hand. Speaking of which…” She quickly rose out of the seat, her eyes trained behind you. “Enjoy your food.” Then she rushed off. 

You sighed, and looked down at the plates in front of you. This, was something you enjoyed. 

“Viper?” 

You should’ve known. She was looking behind you. You should’ve known. He’s always there. When isn’t he there? 

You looked up to meet the endearing eyes of Agent Siren. 

“Hey, May I?” He asked pointing at the empty booth. 

You dully nodded. 

“So,” you looked him in the eyes, seeing a small flash that seemed to entice you. His eyes widened and he shook his head as if to rid himself of a bad memory. “You good?” You asked him, slightly concerned. Siren quickly replaced his look of self directed anger with a smile but you could still see the fire in his eyes. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” He responded politely. Not what you were expecting. He eyes looked disappointed in himself. What did he do?

 “How are you getting along?” He questioned. “Pretty Well, it hasn’t been too bad.” You said, wincing at your lack luster answer. He just smiled gingerly. 

Suddenly a hand was placed on Siren’s shoulder. Agent Python. “Dude.” They shared a look seemingly having a conversation with their eyes. Siren sighed, obviously losing whatever unspoken argument just occurred. He stood up and walked away, only giving you one last brief glance.

 Python looked at you disappointment in his eyes as if saying ‘Really?’

 “What?” You asked, not understanding what was wrong.

 He just sighed and grabbed your hand. “We have training.” Is all he said before whisking you away. 

      ...

     Grunt after groan escaped your mouth as you landed on the mats as Mamba took his anger out on you. He was pissed that you had been caught talking to Siren for the third time this week. It’s only Tuesday.

 “Get up, Viper.” Mamba snapped.

 You groaned and slowly made your way into your feet. You held your dukes up, but it was futile as Mamba took you down within seconds. He was lithe and nimble. He knew your weak points better than you knew your strengths. 

You sighed laying on the cold mat. 

“Alright, Mamba. I think that’s enough, yea? She put up a good fight.” Firefly said, stepping into the ring. Mamba snuffed his nose with the back of his hand. He threw a towel over his shoulder and walked out the door. You sharply inhaled and rolled over onto your back.

 Staring up at the glass ceiling, you notice how many other agents are watching, as that glass ceiling was their floor. You jump onto your feet slowly trudging over to your water bottle.

 “Not gonna lie, you messed up.” You scoffed at Firefly’s words. “Messed up, how? Siren was the one who talked to me.”

 “Mamba warned you, he’s not happy.” You rolled your eyes, guzzling down the rest of your water bottle. “Well aware.” You clipped. You tossed the empty bottle in the trash walking towards the door only to realize that Siren was standing right outside of the door. He opened it, walking past you and angrily approaching Python. You just continued on your way back to the solidarity of your room, ignoring the looks you received. 

Turning the corner you almost ran into someone but you stopped short and slid out of the way. “Agent Viper! Just the girl I was looking for!” 

Agent Heath. If this day could get any better, that’d be great.

 “So, news is, you and Siren have a whole romance going on.” He said, pulling you forward with an arm around your shoulders. “Has he used his ability to catch you, princess?” 

You let out a growl and yanked on his arm, pulling him over your shoulder, sending him flying. He groaned hitting the ground. “What the hell?!” He snapped. “Stay out of shit you know nothing about and your big ass nose doesn’t belong in.” You hissed, before walking away, quicker than previously. 

...

       “Agent Viper, your attendance is required in room 328.” 

You groaned waking up to the loud voice that rang over the intercoms. You quickly got out of bed, passing by your mirror and trying to help your disheveled appearance. Once it was - somewhat - appropriate, you left your room, headed to room 328, following it on your wrist comp. The wonderful little screen on your wrist that could do just about anything and everything for you. 

You reached the room, walking through the door without a problem. The room was empty aside from the two couches and assorted decorations, such as the plants in the corner.

 You didn’t get much time to survey the room, as the lights flickered off. All that was left was the dim red glow of the emergency lights. Power outage? Here? You back tracked to the door, only to find, it wouldn’t open. You groaned, audibly.

 Arms suddenly wrapped around you, causing you to tense up. “Relax, Viper, it’s just me.”

 “Siren! What the-?! What are you doing?!” You demanded. “Mamba said I could be around you, so long as we aren’t seen together.” His voice was soothing, you almost didn’t care about what he was saying, but then you caught it. You weren’t so far gone in his tricks. “You didn’t think to ask me? If I wanted to be around you?” You questioned, peeling away from his grasp.

 “That’s what I intend to do now.” He grabbed your hand, his thumb rubbing small circles on the back of your palm. Even in the darkness it feels like you could still see the glow of his eyes staring down at you. “What did Heath mean by your ability?” 

The glow rapidly disappeared. 

Siren let out a heavy sigh, the warmth of his hand leaving yours. “You know what I am trained to do, don’t you?” He asked. “Well, everyone has something that correlates with their name, that sets them aside from the rest, so I guess..” you trailed off, unsure if you wanted to continue this conversation. 

“Do you trust me?” He asked. “This is really early on in our relationship to ask-“ 

“Viper!” He cut you off, prompting you to cut to the chase. “No, I don’t.” You replied, curtly. 

He laughed. “Ok, not the answer I was looking for, but do you trust me enough not to hurt you?” He asked further.

 “Yes.” You answered him. 

You could practically feel his smile, but the energy vanished. “Please don’t get mad.” He whispered, barely audible. 

His eyes suddenly glowed brightly, enrapturing your very being. He reached out, his hands grabbing yours. The skin contact made you bubbly, happy in a way you couldn’t even fathom.

 “Hi, Beautiful.” His hand caressed the side of your face. When his hand pulled away, you followed it, carving the feeling. You felt elated, and moreover - you never wanted it to end. 

“Siren~” the word left your mouth whimsically. You were smiling dumbly. You couldn’t see him, but he smiled down at you sadly. He hated seeing you in the state he had gotten so used to seeing everyone in. 

Dumbly in love with him.

 You pushed yourself onto him, wrapping your arms around his neck, you hoisted yourself up tangling your legs around his waist.

 You pressed your forehead to his, staring lovingly into the bright fire-y eyes of his.

 One of his hands trailed across the top of your thigh while the other held beneath you. It felt so so good and so warm. So comforting. You leaned into his neck placing a single kiss on his skin. You leaned back, seeing if he would respond. He didn’t.

 All that occurred was the fading of his bright glowing eyes and the quick loss of overwhelming warmth and giddiness. What scared you the most, wasn’t the fact that he could do that, or the fact that you stayed put where you were - what scared you was that you craved more. You enjoyed it. You jumped off of him, now feeling uncomfortable with the desire that rid you. 

You realized, you felt… 

damp. 

Oh fucking, Hell. 

“Viper?” He questioned. 

You corrected him with your given name, frantically trying to make sense of your rapid change in emotions and the aftermath that it left.

 “Are you ok?” He asked, placing his hands on your shoulders. The lights flickered at that exact moment. Allowing you to see the full extent of his worry before you were both enveloped in darkness once again.

 “Are you mad at me?” He sounded like a little child, afraid of losing their best friend. “No, no. I’m not mad at you.” You dismissed him, quickly stepping away from him trying to rid yourself of the proximity.

 This can’t be happening.. but then again… nobody can see you… No! Bad idea! Idiot! Dumbo! There no chance for you too, You fool!

He called out to you by your name and wrapped his arms around you loosely, pressed up against your back. You shivered, goosebumps raising the hairs on your arms. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked, his voice calm and soothing. “I’m ok.” You dismissed him once again, pulling yourself out of his grasp. You took a seat on the end of couch crossing your legs. 

If Siren took notice, he didn’t mention it. 

He sat near you, seemingly concerned. You angled yourself towards him, thighs still locked together. “Where did you learn to do that?” You asked him, keeping your voice level. “Well, not all agents are scouted, some are made. My parents put me in a prestigious school to make sure that I would become an agent. They knew that if I became an agent, I would be set for life. But, at that school, only the top fourth of the class will become an agent, and on Graduation Day, they give you a gift- an ability moreover. And I got this… gift.” He explained. 

Wow.

 You weren’t sure if this was terrible gift or a great one.

 “Cool.” You mumbled. Cool? Really?!! That’s all you could say? Cool?!

Idiot. 

“How did you get here?” He asked. “Oh, I was scouted.” You said, plainly. But honestly that’s all there was to say. Scouted Agents was the road most traveled. About 95% of the agents were found somewhere within the divisions and the Scouts liked what they saw. So they were offered the job and thrown into a test system. If they pass the test, all memory is wiped of the test.

 For “security’s sake.”

 Nobody believed that. But they didn’t have time to make a deal about it, because then, they get thrown into their precinct. 

“Jimin.” Siren spouted out of nowhere. 

You looked at him confused. “You told me your name earlier, so I figured I should tell you mine. Jimin.” He explained. “Jimin?” You repeated, he nodded. 

You smiled, warmly. No longer so tense and afraid. His hand fell next to your thigh and you could feel the warmth of it.

 But it never proceeded from there. The conversation stayed PG and You both just chatted in about your own interests and simple things. 

That’s good, right? 

RIGHT?!

Agent Siren: Jimin

Agent Firefly: Hoseok

Agent Python: Taehyung

Agent Mamba: Yoongi

Agent Beluga: Seokjin

Agent Viper: You

other agents thus far have no relation to bts, they are just extra characters to further the plot

What Is A MILF? The Surprising Truths & Thoughts Behind Its Meaning

‘MILF’ is code for Mother I’d Like To Fuck. But there’s really much, much more to it. Here’s a unique take on what is a MILF exactly.

If you’re a dude you’ve probably used this term more times than you care to admit. Walking down the street with your boy, you see an unusually attractive older lady and you’re like, ‘Bro, check out that MILF.’ But if you’re wondering, what is a MILF, it’s time to educate yourself.

What is a MILF?

It’s just one of those words we like to say. It rolls off the tongue like sweet honey… Sometimes we say it for humor. Other times the word MILF is just… definitive. The truth. There’s even a male equivalent—‘DILF’, which is code for Dad I’d Like To Fuck.

Primarily, being a MILF/DILF means you’re older but still look remarkably attractive. MILF is sort of similar to the term cougar, which is a woman who is independent, older, and likes her meat younger.

But MILF/DILF are different in that those terms suggest you have parenting responsibilities. Which could also suggest you’re in a committed relationship… [Read: How to make an older woman fall in love with you]

Which is why the term MILF feels kind of taboo

Let’s take it back…

#1 ‘You low-down Mother Fuckers.’

– US soldier to his draft board, 1911

#2 ‘You see this cat, Shaft is a bad mother

(Shut your mouth)

But I’m talking about Shaft

(Then we can dig it)’

– Isaac Hayes in his song ‘Shaft’, 1971

Another controversial term: ‘Mother fucker’ was used as early as the late 19th century. But throughout the years, mother fucker was softened into minced oaths such as:

– Motherfugger

– Mother for you

– MOFO

The cool thing about this word is that you can’t say it, and even when you do you’re expected to make it cryptic. Unless you really don’t give a fuck and want to make your feelings clear… *‘Mother fucker, I dare ya! NO, I double dare ya!’*.

The funny thing is most people don’t think about ‘mother fucker’ in terms of actually having sex with a mother. Counter-intuitively, they associate it with awesomeness OR sometimes with offensiveness. [Read: What’s in it for the older woman dating the younger man?]

‘That movie was mother fucking amazing.’

Or

‘Yeah, well, fuck you, you dumb mother fucker.’

THEN the internet hit and these things happened…

– Lots and lots of porn

– Lots of sexualized material on TV/movies/media

– Even more sex on social media, which popularized acronyms for sex like: mofo, ons, dtf, bdsm, bbw…

– Lots of new dating sites/apps that made dating/sex a whole different ballgame

– Everything became a candidate for ‘LOL cool’, e.g. Stiffler’s mum in American Pie

This is why I think the word MILF is sort of an evolution of the phrase mother fucker. However, it’s also a very unique and ultra-modern word. Let’s take a deeper dive into its meaning…

#1 Milf is short-code. People need short codes to speedily distinguish between categories of things in the world. MILF generally makes it clear that the mentioned person is an older woman.

If I’m with a buddy on a crowded street and want to let them know about an older lady with a gorgeous look, I’ll say, ‘MILF dead ahead, 8 out of 10.’ He knows to skip over the faces under 30 and search for the hot 35+ year old. It’s simply a matter of critical timing. [Read: You guide to scoring yourself a MILF]

#2 A MILF is the wet dream. Teenagers going through puberty may be unable to attract or connect with girls their own age. For example, an adolescent who spends too much time watching porn and doesn’t have good social skills…

Due to his inexperience, he might naturally be drawn to a more maternal, nurturing figure—thinking she will mother him up unconditionally and acceptingly.

#3 A MILF is emotionally developed. Maybe you’re bored of club life and people with stringy attention spans. You want more depth. You can find depth in young people, but many higher order character traits take a lifetime to build. And it’s a never-ending journey. So, some people will consider a person to be a MILF if they meet the emotional connection criteria.

#4 A MILF is very cute or hot. There’s a somewhat universal attractiveness level spectrum, whether or not we like to admit it. In other words, people can generally agree on whether someone looks attractive or not and roughly what level of attractive they look, even if they’re not specifically ‘their type.’

This might sound controversial, but if you’re honest with yourself you may agree *ever heard the phrase ‘she’s out of his league’?*.

Things like facial details symmetry and body shape all factor in. And with that said, some people age better than others and stay looking attractive for longer. Which means that they stay looking remarkably attractive for longer. Note that the word GILF *for grandmother* isn’t popular, because there’s less chances a woman will stay looking hot at that stage of her life *although there are many exceptions*. [Read: The 30 traits of hot women that men love]

#5 The MILF is a new kind of woman. Women had massive inequality pre-world wars. Post-world wars, they slowly gained more rights. Today they’re more on an equal footing with men societally than they have been in any other time. In some arenas, such as within education, they outperform guys. It’s no longer a given that a woman’s role in society is to get married and to have children by a particular age.

Customs are unclear—more open-ended. Women have more independence and make their own sexual decisions with less social repercussions. Words like MILF pop into existence in times like this. People aren’t so sure that an older lady is probably someone else’s wife or that she won’t be DTF. [Read: The meaning of DTF and signs she’s feeling it]

#6 The MILF is straight to the point. Being messed around by a 22-year-old Colombian chick who doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going? One of the appeals of MILFs is that they don’t play games with you.

It’s a popular belief that if a MILF doesn’t feel you she won’t take your info or reply to your messages. But if she is into you she really means to follow through and may even initiate things, because she’s confident enough in her own skin and knows what she wants *she probably also works out if you’re the real deal faster*. [Read: The pros and cons of dating a woman in control]

#7 A MILF might not be a mother. I’ve never been walking with a friend and we see a hot older lady and my friend says: ‘That is either a hot MILF or a hot cougar.’ He probably doesn’t care if she’s mothered offspring. What’s important is that she looks like she could mother offspring.

We’re usually attracted to people that look capable of passing on genes to create healthy offspring. When we notice curvaceous hips or a buxom chest, this is us looking out for signs of genetic health. The hips don’t lie.

#8 The 20-year-old MILF? Of course, a woman in her 20s could be a MILF. But you often hear ‘baby mother’ used more in that situation. A MILF is a bit more like a fine wine… something that takes a given amount of time to develop properly.

Though I saw a girl who was 22 and had a toddler. It was the first time I’d dated a mother, and I definitely used MILF more than a few times.

#9 The 30-35 MILF. A popular MILF imagery is the ‘dirty 30s’ MILF who is sexually ravenous or a recently divorced single mum. She’s rediscovering who she is and is going yolo. She may be dating several guys at the same time and looking for completely no strings attached sex. [Read: 17 important guidelines for NSA sex]

#10 The conqueror’s trophy MILF. To get with one, you may need to be direct. You should also know what you want. She’s seen too much in her time to be won over by timidity. To add to this, she’s not a commonly ‘available’ demography. Think about it this way: the market tends to value things based on supply and demand. So, if something is in high demand, but seems to be in relatively short supply, it’s going to increase in value.

There are simply fewer older and hot women still dating compared to younger women. So, this literally makes MILFs a hot product. And hunters of MILFs get a sense of self-validation from knowing they won something difficult to get. It’s competition.

Say you’re 20, and a MILF you come across is 45. Chances are it’s less socially acceptable for her to get with you. There’s more in your way in terms of natural social obstacles. So, if you proceed to get her despite this, it says something about your tenacity and abilities.

#11 A MILF can have dirty affairs. I think being a parent tends to make you mature sooner, both emotionally and spiritually, whatever your age. This is because of the higher amount responsibility you bear. When a MILF does anything she does it properly. That means a sweeping, mature, lusty affair. By comparison, a ‘baby mother’ is more likely to bring drama and angry ex-lovers who carry guns. This is simply because younger people generally have less life experience than older folk.

By the time you’re in your 30s you’ll have more perspective on some of life’s absurdities. So, a MILF is more likely to have emotional control and able to keep a dirty secret. [Read: 15 dirty ways to have the sexiest rough sex ever]

#12 A MILF understands sex and sexuality. Think of a hot 20-year-old girl… It’s not hard to get the feeling that her body as it is just popped into existence one day and she woke up with an uber-slim waste line and a perky bubble butt. She didn’t go to the gym for it. She might even have a diet of cigarettes and Coca-Cola.

The same thing is likely to be the case with that girl’s sense of her own sexuality. She’s not matured fully yet. She doesn’t yet know what she likes and enjoys, or what she really appreciates in a partner.

A MILF’s sexuality is practiced. It’s deep, subtle, knowing. She truly appreciates sexuality to a level that shocks you. A MILF may dress modestly and show her sexuality in subtle ways. Her sexuality may seem to emanate from her sleekly and stylishly. However, when you make a moment of intense eye contact with a MILF, there’s a knowingness there.

Don’t get me wrong, people can be impulsive and naïve whatever their age, but wisdom and skills generally tend to form with time.

[Read: Cougar dating: 10 rules to dating an older woman]

Hunters like to explore. They know that variety is the spice of life. Understanding what is a MILF and the slightly taboo off-limits temptation can only be addressed in a socially acceptable way through code.

The post What Is A MILF? The Surprising Truths & Thoughts Behind Its Meaning is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.

Today we remember the passing of James Coburn who Died: November 18, 2002 in Beverly Hills, California

James Harrison Coburn III was an American actor. He was featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career, ultimately winning an Academy Award in 1999 for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.

Coburn was a capable, rough-hewn leading man, whose toothy grin and lanky physique made him a perfect tough guy in numerous leading and supporting roles in westerns and action films, such as The Magnificent Seven; Hell Is for Heroes; The Great Escape; Charade; Our Man Flint; In Like Flint; Duck, You Sucker!; Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; and Cross of Iron. Coburn provided the voice of Mr. Waternoose in the Pixar film Monsters, Inc. In 2002, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries nomination for producing The Mists of Avalon.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Coburn cultivated an image synonymous with "cool"  and, along with such contemporaries as Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood, became one of the prominent "tough-guy" actors of his day.

Coburn began to drop back down the credit list: he was third billed in writer-director Richard Brooks' film Bite the Bullet (1975) behind Gene Hackman and Candice Bergen. He co-starred with Charles Bronson in Hard Times (1975), the directorial debut of Walter Hill, but it was very much Bronson's film. The movie was popular.

Coburn played the lead in the action film Sky Riders (1976) then played Charlton Heston's antagonist in The Last Hard Men (1976). He was one of the many stars in Midway (1976) then had the star role in Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron (1977) playing a German soldier. This critically acclaimed war epic performed poorly in the United States but was a huge hit in Europe. Peckinpah and Coburn remained close friends until Peckinpah's death in 1984.

Coburn returned to television in 1978 to star in a three-part mini-series version of a Dashiell Hammett detective novel, The Dain Curse, tailoring his character to bear a physical resemblance to the author. During that same year as a spokesman for the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, he was paid $500,000 to promote its new product in television advertisements by saying only two words: "Schlitz. Light." In Japan his masculine appearance was so appealing he became an icon for its leading cigarette brand. He also supported himself in later years by exporting rare automobiles to Japan. He was deeply interested in Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, and collected sacred Buddhist artwork. He narrated a film about the 16th Karmapa called "The Lion's Roar".

Coburn starred in Firepower (1979) with Sophia Loren, replacing Charles Bronson when the latter pulled out. He had a cameo in The Muppet Movie (1979) and had leading roles in Goldengirl (1980) and The Baltimore Bullet (1980). He was Shirley MacLaine's husband in Loving Couples (1980) and had the lead in a Canadian film, Crossover (1980).

Coburn moved almost entirely into supporting roles such as those of the villains in both High Risk (1981) and Looker (1981). He hosted a TV series of the horror-anthology type, Darkroom, in 1981 and 1982.

Coburn also portrayed Dwight Owen Barnes in the PC video game C.E.O., developed by Artdink as a spin-off of its A-Train series.

Because of his severe rheumatoid arthritis, Coburn appeared in very few films during the 1980s, yet he continued working until his death in 2002. This disease had left Coburn's body deformed and in pain. "You start to turn to stone," he told ABC News in an April 1999 interview. "See, my hand is twisted now because tendons have shortened." For 20 years, he tried a host of both conventional and unconventional treatments, but none of them worked. "There was so much pain that...every time I stood up, I would break into a sweat," he recalled. Then, at the age of 68, Coburn tried something called MSM, methylsulfonylmethane, a sulfur compound available at most health food stores. The result, he said, was nothing short of miraculous. "You take this stuff and it starts right away," said Coburn. "Everyone I've given it to has had a positive response." Though the MSM did not cure Coburn's arthritis, it did relieve his pain, allowing him to move more freely and resume his career.

Coburn was in a relationship with British singer-songwriter Lynsey de Paul in the late 1970s. They co-wrote her songs "Losin' the Blues For You" and "Melancholy Melon" that appeared on her 1979 Tigers and Fireflies album.

Coburn returned to film in the 1990s and appeared in supporting roles in Young Guns II, Hudson Hawk, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Maverick, Eraser, The Nutty Professor, Affliction, and Payback. Coburn's performance in Affliction eventually earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In addition, he provided the voice of Henry J. Waternoose III in Monsters, Inc., a joint production of Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios.

Coburn was married twice. His first marriage was to Beverly Kelly, in 1959; they had two children together. The couple divorced in 1979 after twenty years of marriage. He later married actress Paula Murad Coburn, on October 22, 1993 in Versailles, France; they remained married until Coburn's death in 2002.

Coburn died of a heart attack at the age of 74 on November 18, 2002 while listening to music at his Beverly Hills home. Less than two years later, Paula died of cancer on July 30, 2004, at age 48.

Full House: 10 Things That Haven't Aged Well | ScreenRant

Airing from 1987 to 1995, Full House remains one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time, even over 30 years after it premiered. Chronicling the lives of the extended Tanner-Katsopolis-Gladstone family, and the crazy adventures they all get up to while living under one very, very crowded roof, the series is still beloved for its wholesome messaging and cheesy cutesy humor.

RELATED: 10 Quotes From Full House That Are Still Hilarious Today

With the likes of John Stamos, Bob Saget, and the Olsen twins bolstering its cast, the series went on to be a hit in its original run, but has ostensibly become even a bigger hit in the years of reruns and streaming. But as a result of being over 30 years old now, the series is full of storylines that never would have made it to air today. We look at 10 of them.

10 DJ inadvertently getting married at 13

Jesse's Greek background is one of the characteristics the show refers to most frequently for his character's arc. But when it comes to representing Greek culture as a whole, the few times the show does so are steeped in pretty stereotypical, outdated traits.

Take, for example, the season four episode "Greek Week." DJ quickly develops a mutual crush on visiting Greek boy, Sylvio, who asks DJ, all of 13 years old at the time, to go for a walk around the kitchen table with him. In this simplified, stereotypical scenario, DJ and Sylvio wind up married... as if that's how Greek marriages actually happen, and as if that's a healthy storyline to depict for a 13-year-old.

9 Dated gender dynamics

Being a product of the 1980s and 1990s sitcom world, it's unsurprising that Full House doesn't exactly have the best handle on complex gender relationships. But that doesn't make it any less disappointing. Various times throughout the series, the fact that the men in relationships have to be the ones "in charge" through macho stereotypes is frequently discussed.

Additionally, there are two episodes in the series,"Just One of the Guys" and "Girls Will Be Boys," that find both DJ and Michelle trying to act more like boys to be able to fit in. It's disheartening, even if the ultimate messages mean well.

8 Underage drinking storylines

It's no secret that teens face unbelievable amounts of pressure to grow up faster than they're supposed to. It's also no secret that Full House came about in the age of "Very Special Episodes," so it's a given that the series would tackle issues of peer pressure.

RELATED: Full House: 10 Uncle Jesse Quotes That Show Why He Was A Heartthrob

But the way the series does so is incredibly uncomfortable, after all these years. A late in the series episode finds Kimmy getting completely blackout drunk at a party and voicing her desire to drive herself home. And an early episode in the series' run finds DJ, just in middle school at the time, accosted by boys at a party who want her to drink.

7 Walter, also known as Duckface

Going along with the message of the Very Special Episode, Full House takes on the subject of bullying multiple times throughout its eight season run. But one of the instances most poorly thought out and truly mean-spirited comes in the case of poor little Walter, who is dubbed Duckface due to the way he purses his lips after speaking.

It's a truly hurtful episode, and it finds not only Stephanie engaging in bullying behavior, but also Jesse reflecting on being a bully during his own youth. No one comes out of the episode looking good, even if Walter winds up being integrated into Stephanie's friendship group afterwards.

6 Portrayal of women as predatory

Sitcoms inevitably introduce characters who are romantically interested in the main characters, to the main characters' horror, far more frequently than they don't. But Full House had a real, pervasive problem with the characters it introduced to fill these roles.

Almost all of them were older women, who could easily be demeaned as cougars, who expressed aggressive, sexualized interest in the main male characters. Mrs. Carruthers sexually harassed Joey for seasons on end, and Jesse found himself on the end of more than a few wandering eyes and hands, including while filming the IQ Man commercial.

5 The treatment of Kimmy Gibbler

Kimmy Gibbler might not have been the most likable character in the series... or the sharpest tool in the shed. But there's really no excuse for the way the show treated her character. Or for the way that the three grown men routinely bullied and embarrassed her whenever they could.

It's one thing for Stephanie and Kimmy to be odds at each other; little sisters and big sisters' best friends are a perfectly fairly matched duo. But to have three men in their 20s and 30s routinely make fun of a preteen and teenage girl is just mean-spirited, and definitely hasn't aged well.

4 Child endangerment storylines

Sitcoms clearly exist in a heightened reality to the one we live in. But that still doesn't make some of the storylines they take on any less offensive and dangerous. Take, for example, the purely ridiculous episode "Honey, I Broke The House."

RELATED: Fuller House: 5 Best Friendships (& 5 Worst)

In this episode, Stephanie somehow gets behind the wheel of Joey's car and backs her way through the Tanner family home's kitchen window. Stephanie could have been truly hurt in this process, and even if the moral of the episode winds up being that she's far more important and valuable than anything that could be fixed with money, it's still a dangerous situation to depict on television.

3 Offensive depictions of mental illness

Full House seemingly delights in making fun of quirky or stereotypically nerdy characters. But in the case of Danny Tanner, the jokes made at his expense travel into entirely harmful territory, particularly when it comes to his obsession with cleanliness and order.

Danny is clearly exhibiting signs of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) throughout the series, but his behavior is always used as a punchline, some of which are far more mean-spirited than others. Whether it involves him being called a neat freak or, in one cruel episode, "a psycho with a dust mop," Danny is never given the care or concern he deserves in this regard.

2 Stavros Katsopolis

Seasons after the previously discussed "Greek Week" fiasco, Full House's stereotyping of Greeks continues to show its age. After the tragic death of the beloved Papouli, the series introduces Jesse's cousin, Stavros, who seemingly embodies every possible stereotype imaginable.

Stavros is slimy, greasy, conniving, scheming, flirtatious, lazy, and thieving. John Stamos takes on the role in a dual performance, and from Stavros's hooked nose to his lecherous laugh, it's hard to imagine how this character even got off the drawing board.

1 DJ's one episode eating disorder

Full House, as a sitcom aimed at children and families alike, had to take on plenty of important issues as the result of being conversation material for families. But the hazards of the "Very Special Episode" format include the fact that the storylines tackled in one isolated episode are never issues that could receive so little focus in real life.

Take, for example, DJ's brief eating disorder. She stops eating, sustaining herself only on ice cubes, and nearly passes out while working out in the gym. But by the end of the episode, all is well and good again, and she's comfortable with herself. Eating disorders are far more serious than this episode depicts them to be, and the reductionist treatment is honestly quite offensive.

NEXT: Full House: 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Episodes

source https://screenrant.com/full-house-things-aged-badly-tv-show/

He’s a ‘tech addict’ who works in the tech industry

BELLEVUE, Wash. — The young men sit in chairs in a circle in a small meeting room in suburban Seattle and introduce themselves before they speak. It is much like any other 12-step meeting — but with a twist.

“Hi, my name is,” each begins. Then something like, “and I’m an internet and tech addict.”

The eight who’ve gathered here are beset by a level of tech obsession that’s different than it is for those of us who like to say we’re addicted to our phones or an app or some new show on a streaming video service. For them, tech gets in the way of daily functioning and self-care. We’re talking flunk-your-classes, can’t-find-a-job, live-in-a-dark-hole kinds of problems, with depression, anxiety and sometimes suicidal thoughts part of the mix.

There’s Christian, a 20-year-old college student from Wyoming who has a traumatic brain injury. His mom urged him to seek help because he was “medicating” his depression with video games and marijuana.

Seth, a 28-year-old from Minnesota, used video games and any number of things to try to numb his shame after a car he was driving crashed, seriously injuring his brother.

Wes, 21, an Eagle Scout and college student from Michigan, played video games 80 hours a week, only stopping to eat every two to three days. He lost 25 pounds and failed his classes.

Across town there is another young man who attended this meeting, before his work schedule changed — and his work places him squarely at risk of temptation.

He does cloud maintenance for a suburban Seattle tech company. For a self-described tech addict, this is like working in the lion’s den, labouring for the very industry that peddles the games, videos and other online content that long has been his vice.

“I’m like an alcoholic working at a bar,” the 27-year-old laments.

——

“The drugs of old are now repackaged. We have a new foe,” Cosette Rae says of the barrage of tech. A former developer in the tech world, she heads a Seattle area rehab centre called reSTART Life, one of the few residential programs in the nation specializing in tech addiction.

Use of that word — addiction — when it comes to devices, online content and the like, is still debated in the mental health world. But many practitioners agree that tech use is increasingly intertwined with the problems of those seeking help.

An American Academy of Pediatrics review of worldwide research found that excessive use of video games alone is a serious problem for as many as 9 per cent of young people. This summer, the World Health Organization also added “gaming disorder” to its list of afflictions. A similar diagnosis is being considered in the United States.

It can be a taboo subject in an industry that frequently faces criticism for using “persuasive design,” intentionally harnessing psychological concepts to make tech all the more enticing. That’s why the 27-year-old who works at the tech company spoke on condition that his identity not be revealed. He fears that speaking out could hurt his fledgling career.

“I stay in the tech industry because I truly believe that technology can help other people,” the young man says. He wants to do good.

But as his co-workers huddle nearby, talking excitedly about their latest video game exploits, he puts on his headphones, hoping to block the frequent topic of conversation in this tech-centric part of the world.

Even the computer screen in front of him could lead him astray. But he digs in, typing determinedly on his keyboard to refocus on the task at hand.

——

The demons are not easy to wrestle for this young man, who was born in 1991, the very year the World Wide Web went public.

As a toddler, he sat on his dad’s lap as they played simple video games on a Mac Classic II computer. Together in their Seattle area home, they browsed the internet on what was then a ground-breaking new service called Prodigy. The sound of the bouncy, then high-pitched tones of the dial-up connection are etched in his memory.

By early elementary school, he got his first Super Nintendo system and fell in love with “Yoshi’s Story,” a game where the main character searched for “lucky fruit.”

As he grew, so did one of the world’s major tech hubs. Led by Microsoft, it rose from the nondescript suburban landscape and farm fields here, just a short drive from the home he still shares with his mom, who split from her husband when their only child was 11.

The boy dreamt of being part of this tech boom and, in eighth grade, wrote a note to himself. “I want to be a computer engineer,” it read.

Very bright and with a head full of facts and figures, he usually did well in school. He also took an interest in music and acting but recalls how playing games increasingly became a way to escape life — the pain he felt, for instance, when his parents divorced or when his first serious girlfriend broke his heart at age 14. That relationship still ranks as his longest.

“Hey, do you wanna go out?” friends would ask.

“No, man, I got plans. I can’t do it this weekend. Sorry,” was his typical response, if he answered at all.

“And then I’d just go play video games,” he says of his adolescent “dark days,” exacerbated by attention deficit disorder, depression and major social anxiety.

Even now, if he thinks he’s said something stupid to someone, his words are replaced with a verbal tick – “Tsst, tsst” — as he replays the conversation in his head.

“There’s always a catalyst and then it usually bubbles up these feelings of avoidance,” he says. “I go online instead of dealing with my feelings.”

He’d been seeing a therapist since his parents’ divorce. But attending college out of state allowed more freedom and less structure, so he spent even more time online. His grades plummeted, forcing him to change majors, from engineering to business.

Eventually, he graduated in 2016 and moved home. Each day, he’d go to a nearby restaurant or the library to use the Wi-Fi, claiming he was looking for a job but having no luck.

Instead, he was spending hours on Reddit, an online forum where people share news and comments, or viewing YouTube videos. Sometimes, he watched online porn.

Even now, his mom doesn’t know that he lied. “I still need to apologize for that,” he says, quietly.

——

The apologies will come later, in Step 9 of his 12-step program, which he found with the help of a therapist who specializes in tech addiction. He began attending meetings of the local group called Internet & Tech Addiction Anonymous in the fall of 2016 and landed his current job a couple months later.

For a while now, he’s been stuck on Step 4 — the personal inventory — a challenge to take a deep look at himself and the source of his problems. “It can be overwhelming,” he says.

The young men at the recent 12-step meeting understand the struggle.

“I had to be convinced that this was a ‘thing,”‘ says Walker, a 19-year-old from Washington whose parents insisted he get help after video gaming trashed his first semester of college. He and others from the meeting agreed to speak only if identified by first name, as required by the 12-step tenets.

That’s where facilities like reSTART come in. They share a group home after spending several weeks in therapy and “detoxing” at a secluded ranch. One recent early morning at the ranch outside Carnation, Washington, an 18-year-old from California named Robel was up early to feed horses, goats and a couple of farm cats — a much different routine than staying up late to play video games. He and other young men in the house also cook meals for one another and take on other chores.

Eventually, they write “life balance plans,” committing to eating well and regular sleep and exercise. They find jobs and new ways to socialize, and many eventually return to college once they show they can maintain “sobriety” in the real world. They make “bottom line” promises to give up video games or any other problem content, as well as drugs and alcohol, if those are issues. They’re also given monitored smartphones with limited function — calls, texts and emails and access to maps.

“It’s more like an eating disorder because they have to learn to use tech,” just as anorexics need to eat, says Hilarie Cash, chief clinical officer and another co-founder at reSTART, which opened nearly a decade ago. They’ve since added an adolescent program and will soon offer outpatient services because of growing demand.

The young tech worker, who grew up just down the road, didn’t have the funds to go to such a program — it’s not covered by insurance, because tech addiction is not yet an official diagnosis.

But he, too, has apps on his phone that send reports about what he’s viewing to his 12-step sponsor, a fellow tech addict named Charlie, a 30-year-old reSTART graduate.

At home, the young man also persuaded his mom to get rid of Wi-Fi to lessen the temptation. Mom struggles with her own addiction — over-eating — so she’s tried to be as supportive as she can.

It hasn’t been easy for her son, who still relapses every month or two with an extended online binge. He’s managed to keep his job. But sometimes, he wishes he could be more like his co-workers, who spend a lot of their leisure time playing video games and seem to function just fine.

“Deep down, I think there’s a longing to be one of those people,” Charlie says.

That’s true, the young man concedes. He still has those days when he’s tired, upset or extremely bored — and he tests the limits.

He tells himself he’s not as bad as other addicts. Charlie knows something’s up when his calls or texts aren’t returned for several days, or even weeks.

“Then,” the young man says, “I discover very quickly that I am actually an addict, and I do need to do this.”

Having Charlie to lean on helps. “He’s a role model,” he says.

“He has a place of his own. He has a dog. He has friends.”

That’s what he wants for himself.

——

Online:

Internet & Tech Addiction Anonymous: http://www.netaddictionanon.com

reSTART Life: https://netaddictionrecovery.com

Children and Screens: http://www.childrenandscreens.com

——

Martha Irvine, an AP national writer and visual journalists, can be reached at mirvine//twitter.com/irvineap

He’s a ‘tech addict’ who works in the tech industry published first on https://worldwideinvestforum.tumblr.com/

Seeking Literate and Dedicated Partners!

Hello, you can call me Doe! I'm in my 20s, a student, and a proud cat mom. I write multiple paragraphs/novella style (200-500+ words). I love to write detailed descriptions and delve into a character’s head/emotions as well as surroundings. I compare it to writing a novel together. I understand if the scene doesn’t have alot going on and therefore requires less like rapid fire. I adore having long, thoughtful replies where we truly immerse ourselves in the world. I'm hoping to find a partner whose as enthusiastic and passionate about the plot and writing as I am. When I get invested in a story, it’s 100% dedication. Getting a reply is the highlight of my day. I'm a big fan of romance and using face claims. I’m the type to make pinterest boards, spam you with gifs, headcanons, and send you songs that remind me of our characters and/or ship. I'll get excited if we come up with a great plot idea or if our characters are being cute or going to get into trouble. I live for this kind of stuff honestly. Last but not least I only do MxF and don’t double, but I’m more than happy to write side characters of either gender to help move the story along. I'd prefer female authors writing male characters but male writers are fine too. Desperately Searching For - 21+ partners - For you to have an excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Both in character and out of character. (Literate to advanced writers only, please. I'm not looking for newbies). - Plot before smut. While mature themes will be in my plots, and are even encouraged, there needs to be a good chemistry between our characters. I like to have a good mix of plot and tastefully written smut, along with doses of angst and fluff. - For you to write as an older male (Late 30s-40+). I'm a sucker for the gruff and tough men who secretly have a soft heart. I also love those grumpy, hypermasculine men being intimidated by darling, soft yet commanding, and pretty women. - The more description, the better! I'm looking for someone can write as much as me (2 to 4 paragraphs or more) and really bring the story to life. I lose interest if I'm the only one that's invested/enthusiastic or coming up with plot ideas. Quality writing makes my heart happy, as does world building together. - The use of real life face claims and joining me in the wonderful world of ship/character development isn't a requirement but I'd sure be delighted if we were on the same page in this regard. (I won't use anime faces, only art if you're uncomfortable with real life) - Someone who won't leave without warning or explanation after sending the first post. I'm looking for the long term here, and I have been greatly saddened by how many partners have left me high and dry recently. If you've made it this far, thank you! You won't be disappointed in writing with me. I tend to be online daily and I'd like it if you were too. Please let me know if you're going to be inactive, long days/weeks of silence make me nervous. Below are genres and pairings I love. Feel free to combine two or more and I’m sure we can come up with something great! Genres: - anything mafia related - crimes in remote locations - small towns and supernatural happenings - post apocalyptic/dystopia - supernatural/modern fantasy (werewolves, shapeshifters, a/b/o dynamic and everything that comes with it, monster x hunter) - southern/mid western/gothic - murder mystery (small town or big city) - western inspired/weird west (supernatural and fantasy elements) - modern/dark fairy tale retellings - sci-fi/cyberpunk - little coastal towns or little towns in the mountains - emotionally charged/dark and gritty - superpowers/gifted - unresolved sexual tension/slow burn - mythology (modern / hades x persephone) - redemption - action - fake dating - pacific northwest - suburban gothic Pairings: - age gaps (older man x younger woman) - enemies to lovers - cop x criminal - doctor x patient - friends turned lovers/pining - grumpy x sunshine - the broken man x the woman that becomes his light - fbi agents/cop partners - dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman - reunited old lovers and/or friends - boss x employee - neighbors - firefighter/cop x victim - mentor x mentee - spies - hurt/comfort - height differences - pet names - lady and the tramp esque - creature x human (I'm always up for NSFW things while in their beast form.) - ex-con x anyone - detective x witness - detective x suspect - person in witness protection x anyone - bodyguard x assignment - widow/er falling in love again - outlaw x schoolteacher - biker x doctor - biker x civilian - rancher/trapper/mountain man x city girl - interracial relationships Tropes: the papa wolf (craving), badass baritone, cultured badass, jerk with a heart of gold. ladykiller in love, mountain man, mysterious protector, southern gentleman, tall, dark, and handsome, gentleman criminal Plot Ideas: (these are just suggestions and if you have other ideas I'd like to hear them) 1. age gap + height difference + modern supernatural + werewolf x human + dark hearted man melting for the innocent woman A mentor x mentee pairing where the mentee has been a victim of some sorts and that's why they’re taken under the wing of the mentor. I'm picturing a guy capable of towering over most men and also knocking most men out, but with a soft spot (that takes a bit to uncover) for his mentee. He's a retired hitman, but such profession is nothing you can retire from. He's living out in a small town, keeping to himself and being the local town grump. Something happens to her, something horrible that makes her want to do something even though she is normally the sunshine in everyone's life, and through contacts she is given the address to a man who can teach her. (more to the plot available upon request) 2. age gap + spy x spy + modern supernatural + werewolf x coyote shapeshifter He has already been secretly hired by the US government to investigate this mysterious, new criminal organization. It would be at her first mission and already aware she will be working alongside a more experienced, freelancer agent. We could start with them meeting at the airport and we can go from there. 3. Muse A is a infamous criminal and Muse B is a FBI agent. Muse B has been helping Muse A take out their competition. They could kill each other but would die for each other. (Based on The Blacklist) Fandoms: (Will only do oc x oc/characters inspired by canon pairings) Star Wars, X Files, Haven, The Blacklist, Fringe, Zoo, Stranger Things, Heroes, The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, Mercy Thompson Series, True Blood, Stephen King's Universes, Red Dead Redemption, Marvel (Last but not least, I have a list of kinks if anyone's interested) I use email and discord to write. Contact me at [email protected] or Doe#4017. If you add me using the latter, let me know where you came from. Please be detailed when you message me, let me know why you chose to contact me. Seeing "hey do you wanna rp?" is a guaranteed way to turn me off. Look forward to hearing from you!