#(none of that talking to the coach shit. I want them to commit crimes like they did in s1)

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

As much as I believe Vlad to be an iredeemable asshole in cannon, I like the idea of a begrudging mentor Vlad. Like, say in an alternate universe everything starts of the same but he's not got some evil plan to kill Jack and marry Maddie. He's bitter and resents them for turning him into this abomonation, resents them for being happy when he can't, he tries to stay connected, but he just can't stand being near them and fears their reaction to his ghost side. (1/3)

(2/3) He takes advantage of his new powers, he steals and cheats his way to power, living life lavishly, but it doesn't make him happy, none of it fills the emptiness in his heart. He spends most of his life miserable up until one day he invites the Fenton's on a whim, perhaps in some desperate attempt to find happiness again, where he meets Danny. It goes similarly how it went in the show, Vlad discovers he is a halfa like him, see's how his parents treat him... ~ ~ ~ i think part 3 got eaten, bro, but i'm gonna work with what i got.

Vlad sees this kid who's like him who's parents still talk about killing ghosts and destroying them in front of him. not knowing that they're threatening Vlad. that they're threatening their own son. he see's these so called scientist haven't learned anything about ghosts in the years that they've been estranged and that they've managed to make the same mistake twice.

and he see Danny, a moody teenager, going through the traumatic process of dying and gaining hard to control powers on top of being a highschooler and social pariah. he sees this kid in desperate need of guidance and sees his parents who are neglectful and unaware of a fact he learned within a day of knowing Danny. and he says, "if you can't handle the responsibility of having a kid, he's mine now." yoink

except, obviously, he's really, really bad at it. being a mentor, winning Danny over, being a good person. all of it.

initially he just straight up offers to help Danny learn his powers and that works, Danny agrees, because Vlad isn't trying to kill danny's parents or attacking him, or stalking them, so Danny has no reason not to accept the help. Vlad seems okay for all his rich guy eccentricities.

but then the lessons actually start and danny realizes. oh. this guy has no idea how to teach. and oh this guy has the moral compass of a rotary fan. and Danny initially goes with it. in canon danny's can be swayed by petty stuff and money up to a point. he can let a lot of shit go and is even willing to do some soft crime if he thinks it's for the right reasons. and Vlad might beat him up when trying to teach him to fight, but that's part of training, right? and he might be changing a little under Vlad's influence but danny doesn't see that as a bad thing, until Sam and tucker basically call him out and he accidentally hurts one of them. something that Vlad had told him to do.

so danny bails. basically confronts Vlad and tells him he's a shitty mentor and that he's gonna peace out. suck eggs, fruit loop.

but Vlad had thought things were going well. he's gotten attached. he doesn't want to go back to being alone and he and danny are the only two of their species in the world. so typical villain/stalker stuff happens between them for a bit. Vlad tries to win danny over with money, with manipulation, with blackmail. and Danny isn't having it. (he has blackmail on Vlad too). Vlad is growing increasingly desperate and looks and acts a mess. this is a vulnerable Vlad. we're not getting well kept always cocky and put together except when danny embarrasses him Vlad. we're getting a pathetic man trying to cling to the only human(ish) connection he has and slowly falling further into depression and insanity.

and Danny pities him. because Danny had that human connection too. in the early days before he decided he got to see vlad's dorky and cool side. Vlad was generous with his money. vlad only swears in food. he lights up when he watches a packers game and is a total fanboy.

and Danny kinda gets how he became like this. how his isolation and loneliness and fear drove him further and further down the road of corruptness and evil. Danny learns what he would become without his friends and if anything Vlad is better than that. it's almost similar to how he is with val. he understands where she's coming from and sees that she's a good person even if her actions have taken a turn in the wrong direction. he feels the same about Vlad. he thinks maybe he can convince Vlad to be better.

so redemption arc/reverse mentor relationship because danny is gonna be trying to teach Vlad how to stop being a fruit loop and start making some friends his own age. the comedy potential of that is amazing. i have the mental image of Danny convincing vlad to go on a date with Harriet Chin and coaching him from behind her even though he has next to no dating experience either. pure shenanigans.

i also see there being several back and forth instances of kidnapping. Vlad locks Danny in his house because he doesn't want to be alone (Danny eventually escapes and gets mad. Vlad learns never to do that again). Danny kidnaps Vlad to be a chaperone at a school event, mostly to get Vlad to lie for him. another time Vlad kidnaps danny to go to a rich person party because he said he had a kid in a pathetic attempt to make a friend (moral of the episode is lying to make friends doesn't work) so he just has Danny pose as his son that whole episode and they're trying to get along and seem happy, meanwhile snipping at each other in whispers. they think no one is buying that they're related but ironically them arguing at the end of the night is one convinces the person they're family. "me and my daughter would fight all the time, especially at events she didn't want to come to." probably muddies the moral but that's common enough in dp.

just gradually develops into a weird redeemed uncle/mentor dynamic. Vlad really isn't teaching Danny much. he still occasionally has his moments to shine with explaining new powers and showing danny how to commit tax fraud or lie to the police. but he's mostly just this weird guy who's first friend in twenty years is a teenager.

- Hestia

#dpjl #hestiawrites #danny fenton #vlad masters #danny phantom

[wifelinkmtg]

momlink

hi. this one’s gonna be a bit weird.

WAR OF THE SPARK is a set that i have strong opinions about in terms of flavor (it’s shockingly bad) but fortunately, I don’t have to care about that for wifelink. unfortunately, every time i try to write my normal thirst list about this set i keep getting sidetracked by the overwhelming mom energy coming off these characters, and yeah okay there are ways in which that could be sexy, but none of those are the case here. so, considering the day, i figured we should lean into it and ask, how would it be if any of these characters were your mother?

in another break from the usual, i will be situating these characters on a rigorous, scientific trio of axes: PRESENCE, which measures how involved a mom is in your life, ranging from 0, meaning absconded entirely, to 10, meaning a full squadron of helicopters and your life planned out until the funeral; COMPOSURE, which measures how put-together and competent a mom is, ranging from 0, meaning frazzled, stressed, incapable of taking care of herself let alone you, to 10, meaning immaculately-coiffed and a life of almost machine-like perfection; and WARMTH, which measures emotional temperature and intensity, ranging from 0, an ice-cold absence of empathy, to 10, white-hot rage.

you will notice that these scales do not measure any sort of linear goodness -  rather, both extremes are pretty undesirable, and there is no optimal spot in the middle. this is by design: i aim to evaluate these characters qualitatively, not rank them numerically. there is no One Best Way to be a mother, but some ways are certainly worse than others. all set? off we go.

Arlinn, Voice of the Pack (art by Ryan Pancoast)

Arlinn is decidedly on the “fun mom” end of the spectrum. You will never, ever have to beg her for a puppy - she has already brought home at least a dozen. And while it’s theoretically virtuous, I guess, that she doesn’t play favorites with her children, the fact that you have to share her attention equally with several wolves means Quality Time with Arlinn is pretty hard to come by. No, she’s not going to pay more attention to you just because you’re human - what are you, specist?

Presence: about a 7 or 8...divided by 15. 0.5/10 Composure: astonishingly put-together, for someone with that many animals to take care of. 4/10 Warmth: If she weren’t overflowing with affection, she wouldn’t have so many dang dogs. 8/10

Kaya, Bane of the Dead (art by Magali Villeneuve)

Hey, on the plus side, everyone at school is jealous and a little scared of you - your mom is a ghost assassin-turned-criminal empress. On the minus side, how are you supposed to have any sense of privacy when Mom can literally walk through walls? You are absolutely going to grow up with paranoid hang-ups about masturbation, sorry.

Presence: Mom is so in your head you won’t be able to get off until you’re twenty-eight. 9/10 Composure: technically both the head of a criminal syndicate AND an entire organized religion. Doesn’t get more together than Crime Pope. 10/10 Warmth: neither “ghost assassin” nor “mafia prelate” are super empathy-building resume lines. 2/10

The Wanderer (art by Wesley Burt)

You used to believe Dad when he said it’s not her fault, that she can’t control when she planeswalks, but now you’re pretty sure that’s bullshit and she just can’t stand to be around you for more than an hour at a time. You’ve got a whole cabinet of souvenirs she’s brought back from her sojourns - wind-up toys from Kaladesh, haunted doll from Innistrad, darksteel box from Mirrodin you are not to open under any circumstances - you’ve covered the whole thing with a dustcloth. It makes you sick to look at.

Presence: you’re pretty sure she forgot your name and has been covering by calling you “kid” and “sport” for years. 0/10. Composure: yeah, mother, “uncontrollable planehopping syndrome” somehow always waits for you to get your broody ronin aesthetic on in the mornings. Sure. 8/10 Warmth: at least she pretends to care about you. 1/10

Liliana, Dreadhorde General (art by Ryan Pancoast)

Look, sweetie, sometimes even adults make mistakes - sometimes really, really bad ones. That’s what Mommy did - she made a really bad mistake, and now she has to go away for a little bit, and you’re going to go live with Daddy. Promise - promise me you won’t forget about Mommy, okay? I’ll write to you. I’ll be thinking about you every day. Be brave, okay? Be good.

Presence: she does write, pretty consistently, from either prison or rehab, you’re not sure which, and your dad won’t talk about it. 2/10 Composure: absolutely not in control of her life anymore. 2/10 Warmth: many years later, you learn that this whole time she was actually off committing war crimes due to contractual obligations, which doesn’t help her attempts to rebuild your relationship. 2/10

Vraska, Swarm’s Eminence (art by Anna Steinbauer)

Mother absolutely will not accept you bringing home grades lower than A. Neither will she tolerate second-place finishes in swim meets, piano competitions, or fencing tournaments. She wears Givenchy to her salons, and you are required to be there in order to show off your breeding, good graces, and knowledge of French and Kraul - which is all suspiciously aristocratic for a waste management union boss. Some Azorius senator got too into the madeira one time at one of her soirees, called her nouveau bitch. He’s a lovely statue in the foyer, now.

Presence: incredibly controlling, but through intermediaries: tutors, private coaches, carefully-vetted friends. 9/10 Composure: you will never even come close to living up to her. 10/10 Warmth: who knows, maybe she’s got a secret softer side! Maybe her ever-expanding sculpture garden says otherwise. 1/10

Nahiri, Storm of Stone (art by Aleksi Briclot)

If Mom even thinks you’re not fully on her side in this divorce, she is going to start throwing things. And you are, you absolutely are! Dad is, by all accounts, a lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch, and you don’t want to have anything to do with him, but you are also totally exhausted from listening to Mom’s snarling, jaw-clenched rants about how she’s going to punish him for his betrayal. You’re ashamed that you don’t say anything about her nascent drinking habit, but at least when she’s having a mid-afternoon wine nap she’s not stomping around the house slamming doors and muttering to herself.

Presence: She’s got her own shit going on, and if she didn’t keep making it your shit as well you’d probably be left entirely to your own devices. 4/10 Composure: Any act of personal maintenance she performs is entirely out of spite. 3/10 Warmth: all-consuming, undying rage. 10/10

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer (art by Wesley Burt)

Okay, granted, you’ve been taking way more of an interest in STEM than you otherwise would just so you’ll have something to talk to Mom about, but you have been having a really good time working with her on your science fair projects, and you’ve been learning a lot! You and your other mom have plenty of time to talk about your primary interests (dance and theater) while Mom’s putting yet more overtime into her engineering job, but when she is home, she makes time to talk to you.

Presence: you’re not happy with how little you see her, but you get that she has a demanding job which she loves. 3/10 Composure: she has gotten much, much better about not just taking over your science fair projects. Even though she could make them far more efficient. 8/10 Warmth: you and your other mom agree that it’s so hard to stay upset with her when she’s got so much genuine joy for you both in her smile. 6/10

Ashiok, Dream Render (art by Cynthia Sheppard)

Ashiok is genderless but will accept being called “Mom” because it gives them power over you. They exist in order to feed off your nightmares, and where you might expect to find any spark of humanity or empathy, there is only smoke and void. Ashiok does not and will never care about you, no matter how many chances you give them. On an unrelated note, Happy Mother’s Day to my actual, real-life mom!

Presence: will literally haunt your dreams your entire life. 10/10 Composure: intends to make you feel awful about yourself, succeeds. 10/10 Warmth: hahahahaha 0/10

#wifelink #happy mother's day

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER TAILGATE PARTY PT 2 - 9/30/17: MY FRIEND DAHMER

Derf Backderf’s high school memoir about growing up alongside a neglected boy who would become one of the world’s most notorious murders is a landmark achievement in artistic acts of atonement. The indie comics creator, who I had previously dismissed as a standard sort of ‘90s free paper stalwart, produced something of such astonishing depth and sincerity with this book that I would never again think of him in that same dreary way. Let this piece of writing stand for my own act of atonement in being so wrong about artist--even if it arrives in the dubious guise of an angry rejection of Marc Meyers’ unworthy adaptation, if you can call it that, of My Friend Dahmer. 

It is possibly a delusion symptomatic of my enthusiasm for Derf’s book, that I feel I’ve rarely seen something so richly incorrect as Marc Meyers’ movie. Just like the graphic novel proves about Dahmer himself, the problems begin early, and not at all subtly. The title card is chased quickly by a sort of byline, claiming that the film is “Based on a True Story”. As the rest of the film attests, this is a highly dangerous assertion. First of all, the “My” in the book’s title refers to Derf himself, and the “Friend” is meant to be ironic, according to his confession that he was among the many peers and adults who could have and should have, but did not recognize Jeffrey Dahmer as a young man in dire need of help. The book’s contents present the facts as Derf lived them, in conjunction with bitterly sympathetic suppositions about Dahmer’s personal life, derived from post-prosecution reportage. So, a film based on My Friend Dahmer should be a film about the community that responded so inappropriately, or not at all, to the challenges presented by a traumatized young alcoholic whose downward spiral led to a criminal career the likes of which the world had never seen. Meyers’ adaptation, on the other hand, is scarcely about Derf or his gang of insensitive pranksters, or anyone else in Dahmer’s culpable periphery. It is about Dahmer in a plain and simple made for TV fashion--or it might be, if it weren’t peppered with broad, frankly fake characters and events that help the director shoehorn the skeleton of Derf’s book into an unnecessary Hollywood drama that seems designed to be more digestible to a lowest common denominator audience. Artistic license is all well and good when you’re telling, say, a thinly-veiled account of a true story for your own mythological purposes. However, when you’re talking about a real person, a really famous person, whose crimes occurred within living memory, and whose kin still live alongside those whose lives he destroyed; when you shoot your movie not only in that person’s home town but in his actual childhood home; when none of the names have been changed to protect the innocent...and still you invent straw characters and events just to make a buck on your more shallow version of things, how do you find the nerve to claim that your film is based on a true story? Whose story do you even mean?

The Q&A with Meyers at the end of this Fantastic Fest screening did nothing to ease my mind.

Disney alum Ross Lynch provides one of the film’s only bright lights as Jeffrey, hurtling toward high school graduation while his interior life is deteriorating unstoppably. In a futile bid to escape the brutality of his parents’ imploding marriage, the lonesome teenage Dahmer distracts himself with a little amateur bodybuilding, dissection of roadkill, and furtive spying on a beefy jogger who regularly passes his shady family home in the woods. It seems like the young man has a shot at normality when Derf & co. respond positively to his self-effacing clowning, but this shallow reward is no match for his classmates’ homophobia, the school’s collective failure to respond to his burgeoning alcoholism and substance abuse, and his inability to create any real intimacy within or without his dysfunctional family.

Where Derf’s telling is painfully plausible when he is only speculating on Dahmer’s private existence, Meyers seems unable to trust even the known facts--though he places too much faith in his cast. Dallas Roberts does his damnedest as Jeffrey’s desperate, disconnected father, to not enough effect in his brief, disjointed scenes. (And truly, almost every scene is disjointed and too brief, due to some strange editorial choices) Anne Heche, as his wife Joyce, does little to give the proceedings depth with her typical display of frantic dithering, which evidences no directorial interference whatsoever. (The director’s claim that she is “unpredictable” and “different in every scene” is corroborated nowhere on the screen) No one else stands out in the positive or the negative other than Lynch, who one can only assume is acting under his own power; when asked by an audience member how he cast Dahmer, Meyers simply responded that he focused on kids who resembled Dahmer facially, but who also...drumroll please...can you guess the other most important characteristic?...could be about as tall as Dahmer. Their being “talented” entered the conversation as a sort of footnote, without any further discussion of what sort of presence or attitude the star should carry.

Whatever energy the director could have devoted to coaching his cast seems to have gone instead into padding the raw facts of Derf’s account with insulting inventions designed to beat the main points to death. Maybe that’s just a crutch you need if, like Meyers, you are unable to translate the novel’s devastating evocation of the Dahmer home’s oppressive atmosphere, and you must instead fill in that glaring blank with impressions of your own parents’ comparatively ordinary divorce. Maybe you feel like your depiction of Dahmer lusting after the jogger, and his alienation from women, do not prove out the young murderer’s well-known homosexuality--so you force feed your audience a chipmunk-cheeked little fellow who bafflingly shouts out the details of an upcoming date with Dahmer at the very moment when bullies are about to gay bash him into a pulp. Maybe you feel like Dahmer’s sweaty admiration of the jogger, who he stalks with a baseball bat since this person very nearly became Dahmer’s first rape-murder, isn’t a potent enough detail--so you expand this historical figure into a well-liked small town doctor to whom Dahmer goes for a would-be erotic checkup. You can make Dahmer pointedly ask whether the guy does surgery, and then you can make the medical professional implausibly sneer “I’m not the type of person who wants to cut someone open,” just before he scoffs disgustedly at his patient for (presumably) getting an erection.

Most startling of all of Meyers’ inventions is the person of Figg, a deranged bully-cum-drug dealer. Derf’s brief recollection of this person is as a sort of ridiculous but potentially dangerous hulk who was, unfortunately, not ashamed to be seen with Dahmer. In Meyers’ film, he takes up a strange amount of screen time for reasons that only became clear at the Q&A. Within the film, this disturbed individual provides Dahmer with weed, which is all well and good, but he also scares everyone with freaky nazi jokes, cuts himself and drinks his own blood like the TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE hitchhiker, and scares the shit out of Dahmer by inviting him to play russian roulette in the woods. What this is supposed to help narratively is impossible to determine. However, Meyers stressed that Figg is played by Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins’ son Miles, and makes it abundantly clear that he happily went to great lengths to shoehorn the young man into the film. Evidently he was meant to be driving a car in some important scenes, though it was revealed that the New York-based actor does not drive. When this came up, the filmmakers wracked their brains to figure out how to keep him in the picture, only to come up with this peculiar DEER HUNTER riff. Meyers’ invitation for the audience to imagine a room full of producers puzzling over this problem, and then collectively cheering “THE DEER HUNTER!”, was not one that I could accept.

Another, in some ways more bizarre fib is committed in the context of one of the book’s most interesting recollections--the time that Jeffrey Dahmer, showing an amazing amount of pluck, weaseled himself and his friends into the office of Walter Mondale during a class field trip. The flow of this anecdote is interrupted to introduce a fantasy about Dahmer having to share a hotel room with a black varsity football player. I’d like to say here that Meyers insisted that he did absolutely no research outside of reading Derf’s novel--a dubious decision when your movie is about the real life of a real person, and when it so fails what the comic is about. To be fair, or something, Meyers said a number of troubling things about his process: That he “was just trying to make a movie set in the 70s”, that he just wanted it to be about a sort of average kid and not Dahmer the killer-to-be, that he “is not one to put any psychology on [Dahmer]”. That’s a mouthful of insistence on normality and digression and artistic license for someone whose only qualification for casting his star is that he looked just like Jeffrey Dahmer. In any case, one of the things that Meyers does to underline Dahmer’s factual homosexuality is to place him in this room with a young black athlete. In the film, Dahmer immediately begins making out-loud observations about the skin tone of different parts of the young man’s body, and asking questions about whether his entrails might be the same color as Dahmer’s. Now, anyone who knows a little bit about Dahmer knows that he almost exclusively killed athletic men of color--not so much the kinds of babyfaced white boys who are occasionally foisted upon Dahmer by Meyers. So, it’s unclear to me whether this choice is simply a bizarre accident, or an especially glib, distasteful way for Meyers to engage with his actual subject matter. In any case, it’s interruptive, uncomfortable, and difficult to understand. (For more on the grave subject of Dahmer’s impact on the poor black community in which he lived as an adult, please view the surprisingly excellent documentary THE JEFFREY DAHMER FILES)

While most of this sort of artifice seems aimed at forcing the Dahmer story to be more obvious and traditional, some of it is just unforgivable under any excuse. The film contains a sole scene that approaches something moving and truthful, in which a recently-graduated Derf happens upon Dahmer sauntering along the side of the road at night. In truth, this happened to another member of Derf’s coterie, but no matter. Derf hesitantly picks up the young man who he helped to embarrass and manipulate during their high school career, and drives him home. There they have a tense, earnestly sad exchange in the driveway, to the degree that any teenage boys are capable of having a direct conversation...and then it all goes down hill. In the film, Derf nervously joins Dahmer inside the latter’s empty house, only to back out at the last minute--AND RIGHTLY SO, BECAUSE DAHMER IS COMING AFTER HIM WITH A MURDER WEAPON! This choice is beyond despicable, as if there could be any good reason to accuse a dead man with living family of a murder that was never at risk of taking place. But, it’s also stranger than that: In Derf’s novel, it is revealed that while the friend passed a final innocent moment with Dahmer in the driveway, the fresh corpse of Dahmer’s first victim was certainly sitting either in Dahmer’s own car, or in the drainage ditch close by. Why would anyone sacrifice this powerful real life detail in favor of a cheap slasher movie scare that twists an already disturbing horror story in an unnecessary direction? I wish I had thought of this at the Q&A, but I was too busy fantasizing about asking Meyers why none of the living, suffering Dahmer family appeared in his copious list of acknowledgments at the end of the credits.

Last night I had no shortage of complaints to make, such that I could hardly sleep imagining insults to hurl. Now, I think I’ve finally emptied myself of all of the important ones. Meyer’s film is a mess, but please don’t let it prevent you from reading Derf’s moving and truthful novel, in which there is at least a payoff for all of the pain.

#derf backderf #my friend dahmer #marc meyers #ross lynch #adaptation #graphic novel #jeffrey dahmer #true crime #memoir #serial killer #blogtober

[stellatex]

Nine Questions I Need Teresa Giudice to Answer: Updated

Originally published February 15, 2016 I actually gave up Bravo for Lent, but I've already floundered on day one by continuing to watch, think about, and write about this bullshit. Sunk costs and all that.

So, here is my updated scorecard on the nine questions I needed Teresa to answer if she expected the viewing public to continue watching and supporting her.

1. You said in your statement to the judge during sentencing that you “fully take responsibility” for your actions. You said, “It’s time for me to wake up… I will make this right no matter what it takes.” Why, immediately afterward, in your interview on Watch What Happens Live, did you backtrack and try to deflect blame to your husband while insisting things were just put before you to sign?

In my opinion, she's doing this because she's being coached, either by her lawyer or a new PR team, or both, probably because they mistakenly believe that painting Teresa as some kind of innocent bedazzled Madonna will allow her to keep the Bravo Sunday gravy train chugging along. It's also possible that Teresa's advisors, friends, and various hangers-on, whoever they may be, are telling her how faaaaabulous she is--that's it's obvious she's the wronged party, and that she's so very strong and inspiring, etc., etc.--because they know who butters their bread, and, if history is any guide, Teresa has a habit of cutting out anyone who questions her lies and self deception (as we've seen both on the show and in the news reports about how she fired her publicist, her lawyers, and her co-writer). It's obvious that there are still a few small-time Jersey famewhores buzzing around Teresa in the mistaken belief that she is a queen bee. Typical celebrity yes-men and con-men. We've seen this over and over with celebrities, and it never turns out well, though a lot of people may make a lot of money in the short-term, and get some of that reflected spotlight that they so obviously crave. Regardless, like I said in my original post, if Teresa thinks she can just skate out of federal prison as a sinewy, chilled-out felon and continue to stonewall and deny and refuse to acknowledge any criminal culpability whatsoever, she has severely misjudged the nature of her dubious fame. But more on that in a moment.

Regardless, all of the interviewers asked her a fairly direct version of the question above; shockingly, Andy Cohen pushed it the hardest, asking point-blank, "What did you do? Can you tell us what you did?" And still she played dumb, owning up to merely "signing some papers." Girlfriend, we can all read the indictment. If you're so innocent, why didn't you take your case to trial? You admitted in the process of accepting a plea deal that you were guilty. Accepting a plea deal necessitates that you not only agree to pleading guilty, but that you are fully cognizant of what you are pleading to and that you understand the consequences. We all know what you did, Teresa.

2. You claim to be “business savvy,” telling your husband on an episode of RHONJ, “Like, you know, that’s what I do now. I’m a businesswoman, so I’m thinking business.” You’ve touted your online businesses, your Fabellini drink line, your Milania hair care line, your success as a “New York Time [sic] best-selling author.” So how is it that you are also simultaneously claiming to be a clueless housewife who knows nothing of her own finances, including the assets from said businesses that you tried to hide during both your fraudulent bankruptcy and your sentencing?

See above. This is bullshit.

3. If you are blaming your husband Joe for your ten-plus-years of financial fraud and the year you spent unjustly incarcerated in a federal prison, why are you still with him?

"Because I know he would never do anything to hurt me. He didn't mean to."

Uh, okay. That is also bullshit. Just transparently, obviously, self evidently, undeniably, total bullshit.

4. What would you say to the creditors, banks, and, most importantly, small business owners of New Jersey whom you and your husband fleeced to the tune of millions of dollars? Do you feel any obligation to repay these debts?

Still waiting on someone, anyone, to ask her this obvious follow-up question.

Furthermore, Teresa: I don't want to hear anything else about how this is all Joe's fault, or your brother Joe Gorga's fault, or your sister-in-law Melissa's fault, or your cousin Kathy's fault, or your accountants' fault, or your bankers' fault, or your attorneys' fault. It's not. It's 100% your fault. You're the one who committed the crimes. You're the one who went on national television flaunting thousands of dollars of cash purchases despite the fact that neither you nor your uneducated, clueless husband could possibly ever earn that much money legitimately. And, most importantly, you're the one who cravenly filed for bankruptcy to the tune of $13+ million dollars when you could no longer prop up your charade of nouveau riche consumerism for America's most satanic cable network. You're the one who stole from banks and fleeced businesses. You're a thief, a liar, and, now, a felon.

5. Explain this.

Everybody asked her about this, but instead of answering, she just blamed Joe, who leased it for her (another obvious lie; how did the bankrupt, apparently unemployed felon, who currently has a lien on his house to the tune of half a million dollars, get a lease?). She even blamed Lexus for putting a big red bow on top--which she claims they did because they knew it would be good publicity for Lexus! Uh, okay. I'm sure Lexus wants their brand to be associated with tacky low-life Jersey felons. Sure. Yep. Nobody asked her, "Why not a cheaper car, though?"

6. Why are you and your husband suing your bankruptcy attorney? Furthermore, do you not realize that, in doing so, you will be giving up your attorney-client privilege and opening yourselves up to a new investigation of your finances during the discovery process?

Nobody has asked her this. I am sure she's just say she can't talk about it. But I wonder if these questions have even occurred to her tiny, pisello brain.

7. What are you going to do when Joe is deported?

She demurs on this one, too, probably because--as Vicki Hyman points out--she doesn't want to jeopardize the incredibly small chance Joe has of not being deported per federal guidelines by admitting that she would move to Italy with him.

8. You talk constantly about your love, love, love for your four beautiful dorters. Why did you put them in this position?

I don't think anyone has really asked her this recently, but she is still selling the story that none of the dorters but Gia know what's going on. Which is obviously ridiculous.

And remember how she previously whined on-camera about how haaaaard all of this financial mess (i.e. her multiple felonies) has been on her four beautiful dorters, who don't even have a college fund!

So, you were busy stealing $13+ million dollars, and earning tens of thousands per episode appearing on Bravo, and earning more selling tabloid stories and writing multiple "New York Time bestseller [sic]" books, and buying all those designer clothes and bags and luxury cars, and creating that hideous redone home, and yet you didn't put any of the money aside for your kids? Honey, that's not on anyone but you. And you've made it abundantly clear from your actions that you do not give a single shit about the well-being of your girls. So shut the fuck up with the martyred mother pity party. America ain't buying it.

9. Why should viewers overlook your felonious criminal past and continue to support you by watching RHONJ or buying your books or products?

??????

This is the question.

I, for one, am not.It was clear from five minutes into Teresa's comeback tour that she hasn't changed one whit.

As a fan of the show from the first notes of the opening credits of the first episode, I was shocked when Teresa was sentenced. I had followed the news all day, waiting... waiting... waiting... for the verdicts to come down. And, much like her famewhore family members who allowed their reaction to be filmed (or recreated...) for RHONJ, I was utterly gobsmacked. This zany, silly, thoroughly unserious woman, whom we had all watched for years, was in fact "going away" to prison--and for a not-insignificant amount of time. In that moment, everything changed. This was really real. And I couldn't help thinking about the shock Teresa herself must've felt. She was clearly still in shock when she and Joe sat down for a WWHL special with Andy less than 24 hours after their sentencing.

But it was also kind of cathartic. It was obvious to everyone that the Giudices were Up To Something--from the first episode with the wads of cash and carefree spending. Having followed the case closely and read the indictments, I was not surprised--not really. Even as someone who had a love/hate relationship with the Bravo character called "Tre," it was an awful thing to witness--but it seemed just. And there was a sliver of hope there... that maybe Teresa would, finally, be forced to her own personal reckoning. Maybe, just maybe, all that time away from her children and the onyx manse and the cameras might give Teresa's limited mind the space it needed to feel a small glimmer of shame. That maybe the dawning light of that shame would lead to some actual introspection. She even used the vanity vehicle of "Teresa Checks In" (which I maintain should've been called "Teresa Goes Away") to brag about how much praying she was doing in there. I think many of us more savvy viewers were really hoping she was experiencing genuine remorse.

But nope.

The truly staggering thing to me about all of this is that even eleven months in federal prison wasn't enough to lead to any moral progress at all for this self-obsessed, brain-dead, glitter-bombed Portrait of Dorian Gray.

She will never change.

She is irredeemable.

Her story is over.

There is nothing new to see here. Watching the continuing cautionary tale that is Teresa Giudice is not only a waste of time and potentially personally morally corrosive, but--even worse--it's boring.

And the cherry top? Her blithe, casual endorsement of the candidacy of Donald Trump. I wasn't expecting that--though I probably should've--and it is so much more perfect than either of them could ever realize.

Both of them think they're famous; but, in reality, they're only infamous.

#RHONJ

[ecotone99]

[NF] 'Sanctuary' with the Oracle

Coming back from disgrace is a story of triumph and glory that society holds in the highest esteem. These tales are only eclipsed by fables of a meteoric rise from the depths of the downtrodden and unknown. Heracles is one of the most celebrated heroes of the Greek Pantheon, his stories involve both of these celebrated victories. Many sports legends of today involve the same two celebrated victories. So in this regard, sports could be seen as the modern day versions of the Tales of Heracles.

In the tales of old and in the tales of new, the deeds must be done to achieve everything desired, but the glory of the deeds are dimmed by the intimidating tasks. Heracles learned about himself while performing his heroic deeds and today’s athletes are no different. The scales of self-enlightenment are open to all, but only a few are strong enough to withstand the grind required to achieve ultimate success.

In the tales of old, Heracles flees to the Oracle of Delphi after committing a crime while under a spell. Unbeknownst to Heracles, the Oracle is against him as well. For the sake of his life and his glory, he must obey the Oracle. But this is just the tale of another supplicant to the daunting scales of American football. A supplicant who stepped onto the scale because the stars filled his eyes when the world was dim.

Going into my seventh grade year, to say I was ready to play football would be an understatement. Considering my motivations, what else could one expect from a twelve year old? Following my little league excursion, the idea of my mother having another demigod son was very appealing. What mother wouldn’t be proud of having three demigods of football under her roof? Plus, I was ready to prove myself to my neighborhood friends and make new friends at my new middle school. Enjoying video games and anime as much as I did, I was already close to the nerd label. Back then, it was not a good thing. I needed to do something to make me cool. Football gave me many birds with one stone.

Everyone remembers their first day at a new school. The surging feeling of butterflies in your stomach. Each heartbeat delivering a fresh fluttering of their acidic wings. I remember pulling up to Macario Garcia Middle School, sleepy but excited. The butterflies were strong, but I had the free lunch so I wasn't worried about throwing up. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. The hunger combined with my trepidation to create a vortex of hollowness in my center. It was all I could to remain whole. Instead, I took in the building I would be entering for the next three years. Resigned to suffer another year of school, but excited by the newness of everything.

It was sixth grade, the school was brand new and, if I'm not mistaken, my class was the first class in the new facility. The Principal and the teachers definitely treated it like was new. The school was two floors of clean tan bricks, big sparkling windows, and glistening linoleum hallways. There were freshly painted animal murals on the walls of the hallways and each of the classrooms had thick plush carpets. Outside, there was a quarter-mile gravel track surrounding a football field. It was perpendicular to a smaller field with a discus ring and baseball field and the two fields framed the parking lot. This was where the buses dropped off the kids outside of the cafeteria, the safe place of all kids fat. My elementary school experience told me I was going to need this place.

This was my first time going to school without my little brother, but I wasn’t too worried. I was sure I wouldn’t need anyone with me in case I cried in the bathroom. This wasn’t the fourth grade. I was in the sixth grade now. Now, I was feeling the opposite. I was feeling eager. The smell of my new clothes filled my nose. My toes felt luxuriated in my new shoes. Even though I wouldn’t play football until the seventh grade, I was sure I was going to make friends and do well. My parents assured me that I would.

Lining up for breakfast, I remember looking around and something odd hit me. There were a lot more girls here than at my elementary school...a lot. I recognized one here and there, but they were few and far in-between. I didn’t even know this many girls existed and for some reason I couldn’t turn away as they walked this way and that. Girls of all shapes and sizes. Shapes and sizes-

Hormones.

Standing there on that first day of school, I watched these heavenly creatures pass me by. I tried to talk, to say anything, but they didn’t even acknowledge my existence. If I somehow managed to get their attention, they looked upon me with either amusement or horror. A reaction that always ended with them giggling as they ran off, turning back to look at me, and then erupting in laughter once more. And it was on the first day of school I realized something.

My ‘chubbiness’ as a child had matured into plain old fat. It took me less than a week to see that I boasted a bra cup size larger than some of the school administrators. The girls at my school wouldn’t look in my direction even if I was speaking to them. To make things worse, a group of ‘friends’ would grab at my man-boobs. But, these guys had the girls swarming like mosquitoes around a light bulb. I figured I was bound to get smacked by one of them if I stayed close enough. So I lingered around them from time to time and they grabbed at my chest from time to time. After all, if a boy’s friends couldn’t grab a titty or two, then who could?

As the year passed, I made other friends, actual friends. Usually we shared an interest in something, Dragonball-Z or video games, but sometimes it was a friendship of being kind to a stranger. Plus, what kind of asshole grabs the titty of a kid who is nice to them? I thought I had the middle school social game stitched up with that two-for-one. Unfortunately for me, life got in the way of my game plan.

Those friendships? Casualties of cliques. Nothing ever degenerated to a state of animosity, but a head nod in the hallway was the best I could hope. And as it turns out, middle school kids are the kinds of assholes to grab the titties of nice kids. I hated it, but I was lucky. I was big enough to scare off most of the daredevils, but there was still my group of ‘friends’ with all the girls. That all stopped one day after gym class.

It was sometime during the spring because I remember it being bright and muggy outside. I don't remember what activity we had during PE, but I do remember being in a sour mood afterwards. This wasn't anything new. I wasn’t athletic at that age. I was either a reluctant pick, sitting duck, diversionary target, or a cheerleader/bench warmer. But something was different about that day. Something about that day refused to allow me to take any shit from anyone.

The boys and the girls were separated, but something kept the coaches from opening the boys locker room so we lingered in the hallway. I was in the middle of the group lost in a daydream when I felt a brush under my armpit and a squeeze on my nipple. I spun on instinct. Standing there was the leader of my popular ‘friends.’ He had a proud smirk on his face while a few others of the group stood behind him snickering. Something about their smiles and his smirk combined with my already sour mood. All the frustration from the months of grabbing, snickering, disrespect, and dismissal came to the front of my mind. I snapped.

I pushed him as hard as I could and I remember him slamming against the wall, but looking unfazed. I was a big boy, but my size was earned with cakes and candy. The leader was taller than me and fit, almost brawny. He always had a wild look in his eye. Like anything could set him off and he wouldn’t stop raging until someone was dead. He intimidated me, but I was too angry to think about that. I was too angry to think at all. The only thing flowing through my mind was the need for retribution.

So I got it.

I launched myself at my opponent like I was Goku during the Frieza Saga in Dragonball-Z, hurt and angry. All my built-up frustration exploded in the form of a headbutt to his chest and a drive into the wall, keeping him pinned there with all my weight. I threw wild punches into my bully’s ribs and I felt him flinch. I heard ‘oof’ and ‘ahh’ but I didn’t know if that was from him or the spectators. I didn’t know much of what was going on around me. All I knew was that after a lifetime of swinging that was likely only few seconds, I heard something about the coach coming. I immediately pulled off my attack. I tried to be cool and turn around all smooth like James Bond, but I was too tired. I managed to turn around well enough, but it was obvious I was trying to be cool about it.

I knew the coach would find out. How wouldn’t he? The school was going to call my mom. She would tell my dad. There would be this whole thing about it. It would end in me getting grounded, or spanked... even sent to a school back in Nigeria if it was bad enough. At that point all I could do was regret my attack and try not to pass out from exhaustion.

I watched the coach get closer and closer. He turned, looked at me, and frowned before he waded through the group of sweaty boys and opened the doors. He went into his office plopped into his seat, and started doing whatever PE coaches do outside of PE. None the wiser about what he missed.

So after that day, there was no more titty grabbing...but no more proximity to heavenly creatures. A dire situation seeing as how my hormones were crying out for a girl from the moment I woke up to when I fell asleep.

Sixth grade wasn’t all bad though. I had my fair-weather friends. I had my routine. But I had nothing I wanted. No problem. Two of my older brothers were demigods. That meant I had the seed of greatness in me. My mom told me so all the time. I just had to bide my time and try to keep my hormone-drowned mind in check. I didn't need to spend every available second generating sex scenes with every eligible woman and girl I passed. Football was the only thing that would make those scenes a reality. So I waited.

Sixth grade came and went. The summer came and went. Seventh grade was starting and football was coming. My time with Toonami and the Sci-Fi Channel was over. No more Dynasty Warriors and Madden. An end to my days of Starbursts and Tostino’s Pizzas for afternoon snacks before my parents got home. The world would soon be blessed with the tales of another modern day demigod.

So I stepped onto the scale.

On the first day of seventh grade, I signed up to play football in the paperwork the school gave us. I tried to let it slip that I was going to be a football player, but no one talked to me so it remained a surprise for later. A few days later, I walked into the Equipment Room where I got all my equipment. I was assigned a locker and given a brief demonstration of how to put everything on. There was only one thing I was nervous about.

I’d heard stories about the mythical locker room where my demigod brothers kept their equipment. They made it sound like a place of fantasy and adventure. They made it sound so fun, but I had one overwhelming problem. A problem that I dreaded and failed to maneuver around. I had to undress...like down to my underwear...man-boobs free to the world. Hundreds of schemes ran through my head. My goal was to somehow keep my shirt on while putting on my pads, but we were required to wear a half shirt. No avoiding my fate with that.

The feel of the cool air on my nipples filled me with dread as my head went over my shirt. I feared the laughter and grabbing of the entire locker room. I may have fought off my bully, but I couldn’t fight off the whole locker room. I had no choice but to resign myself to being the locker room grab toy. My shirt came off...and nothing happened. My back was to the rest of the locker room and the other lockers in my row could still see my man-boobs, but no one said anything. They looked for sure. There were a few wide eyes, but the rest of the kids were too busy getting ready to make any remarks. That made me relax.

When I fitted on my shoulder pads, I remember hitting my chest for some odd reason. It felt weird so I did it again and I realized what I was feeling was solidity. I looked down and though my belly poked out, my chest was flat. I had no boobs. These shoulder pads rescued me from man-boobs. I became very happy. For the first time since I was three, I felt like I was a regular boy. I was finally fitting in somewhere.

The spike of confidence dulled when I realized most of these boys actually finished their little league years. In all honesty, I constantly wondered if I was going to quit on this team too, but I had a good feeling. Having a flat chest was too good a feeling to let go. All I had to do was figure out a way to wear my shoulder pads during school and I would be set, but I had to play to keep them.

When the groups were separated into the men of substance and the skill players, I looked around at my fellow offensive and defensive linemen. Most of them may have played little league football, but none of them almost took down two players. I did and I wanted to tell them that I did, but couldn't. Guess, I’d have to wait until the coaches busted out the bags I’m sure they had.

Well the coaches had the bags alright...just like my first few weeks of middle school football had some very bitter lessons for me. The first lesson came on the very first day of practice. No one is special. If you’re out of position or unprepared in any manner, you’re getting smacked. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ could be out on the field. He would get bulldozed by a player looking to get that holy clout. It was a particularly painful lesson, but I learned.

My second and most heart-wrenching lesson in the divine sport came on the day of the first game. There were no weight limits on public school football teams, so I didn’t have to worry about getting kicked off the team, but I did wonder if I was going to make it. Practice could be fun but there was too much running and I had to suffer through the nightmare of conditioning.

By the time I had these thoughts flowing through my mind, the week of the first game came. I heard a rumor in the locker room that there were going to be cheerleaders. I still hadn’t figured out a way to wear my shoulder pads to school, but if the girls saw my with a flat chest, they would fall in love. That’s usually how it worked in anime. I made it onto the A-Team so that was good and with this game I would finally have my shot to get a girl to like me... then the coach announced the depth chart. Girls only wanted the All-Stars and MVPs...you can’t be either if you don’t start.

Even still, this was my first game ever. When we were walking out of the locker room wearing our pads and game uniforms, I looked at the field. There were two sets of aluminum stadium seats about four or five rows high. People were in them. When we got onto the field, the B-Team was still playing, but my eyes were stuck on the people in the seats. There were other girls from the school there. A few of them were talking to the cheerleaders and that’s when I saw that the rumor was true. My heart was beating normally, but it was thumping. The cheerleaders were all so hot and there were even more girls in the stands. Surely one of them would take notice of me and like me. I mean I was flat chested now, surely my man-boobs were the reason they didn’t know I existed.

The game started...and I sat on the bench. However, it was on that bench that was inducted into the fraternity. The Eternal Fraternity of Football Players. Sitting on that bench, I made the first genuine friends I could ever remember having. Guys that actually liked me and with whom I shared interests with. They didn’t treat my presence as a nuisance and they actually liked what I said from time to time. We were the Pine Crew. I had my first sleepover at one of their houses, but my snoring was otherworldly because I woke up by myself. The Pine Crew was made of the same kind of guys. Either built for football but goofy or strong without an athletic frame. Not everyone on the sidelines was in the Pine Crew. There were second stringers and others who played, but none of us played unless someone was hurt or the game was pretty much done.

As much as I enjoyed their friendship, I hated not starting. My demigod brothers were only on the sidelines to rest from playing all the time, but what could I do. My time would come, but in the meantime, I enjoyed my Pine Crew. Plus, with all of us on the sidelines, we all cheered each other on when one of us managed to get into the game. So when I was called up at the end of one game, my Pine Crew saw my one and only highlight on the defensive line. They were not the only ones.

It was one of the last games of the season. My team was away and the cloudy gray skies matched my dour mood. There in the stands was none other than my father. With two all-stars as his oldest born sons, I could only imagine his disappointment in seeing a son of his sitting on the sidelines. I was ready to show out for my father. I asked my coach if I could play all week, but my coach wanted to win. He made vague promises, but there me and my Pine Crew sat. Then the fourth quarter came.

The rain had not ceased the downpour and the game was over. I heard the a timeout call then I heard something weird in that setting...my name. I turned to my coach and he was waving me onto the field. I jammed my helmet on my head and ran out as fast as I could. We were on defense so I was going to be one of the interior defensive linemen. There were thirty-odd seconds left in the game, enough time to run a few more plays, but that was cool. I was in the game. My dad would see me play and I made sure to give him something to see.

My frustration and embarrassment exorcised itself in the form of an explosive play that surprised even me. I rocketed out of my stance at the snap of the ball and in what felt like a few mere moments, I was in the backfield. Surprised to be there, I was lost for a second, but I remembered I was on defense so I began searching for the ball carrier. That’s when I saw it. Right there in the middle of the muddy field a few yards away, the ball rested, waiting to be picked up. With nothing but open muddy fields in front of me, visions of glory filled my eyes and I began charging. I sloshed through the mud as quickly as I could and I remember feeling buoyant as I took the final step for the ball with no one in my sight. Suddenly, the wrong colored jersey flashed in front of me and one of the opposing players picked up the ball right in front of me. My momentum carried me into a tackle and I was rewarded with a long streak of mud down my side for my efforts. As happy as I was about making the tackle, something else made the whole year of riding the bench worth it.

A familiar sounding cheer erupted from the stands. I turned to see my father on his feet cheering like he cheered at the games of my demigod brothers. Seeing my father, I forgot what cloud nine was because became a cloud. He was on his feet, yelling at the top of his lungs as though I had scored the game winning touchdown. Seeing my father cheer like that, I felt as though I did.

That final play of my seventh grade year juiced up me for the rest of the year. At that point, football was all I cared about. My eighth grade year was the year that the divine game would deliver the promises I had placed upon the scale. The universe seemed to give me a sign of providence when I learned that not only had I made the A-Team once more, I was going to start that year too.

On the A-Team and starting? Every female who laid her eyes on me would drape themselves over me and fight to give me their undergarments. Only problem was that I forgot about the whole man-boobs thing and how much females scorned them so nothing changed for me. I once again personally ensured the school dances didn’t have every student in attendance.

As disappointing as this failed promise was, I didn’t despair. That year, my team went undefeated and that left me invigorated for my upcoming ninth grade year. With this level of victory behind me, I was headed for the domain of my personal demigods. The site of their victories and the place where their legend was formed. I was going to Kempner High School.

The girls would regret not swooping me up when they had the chance now that I would be entering the domain where my demigod brothers once ruled. I was sure there were people who still remembered their names. The legend of my family combined with the victories I was apart of would mean I was prime and football was the key. I would join my brothers in the Pantheon of Legends also known as the Fieldhouse. I would claim my promises in high school.

Then Christmas Eve happened...

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