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vicious-vixxxen · 3 years

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Could I request older, pro-hero Deku with a chubby male s/o who gets ridiculed because people don't think someone of his size is good enough for the Number One hero

((Ah I may have gotten a little too deep with this one, so apologies nonnie in advance for the angst. Topics like this relate a lot to me personally. So here ya go.))

Izuku Midoriya x Chubby!Male!Reader

“That’s...such /bullshit/,” You huffed, fist clenched into the folds of the magazine, before flicking it across the kitchen with a huff- tears already stinging at the corner of your eyes as it landed split open- your face plastered over the centerfold article. ‘Is #1 Pro Hero Deku’s Husband /TOO/ big?’ The article practically shouted up at you- big, bold red letters smeared over your face, hiding the smile you’d had that night. You’d managed to secure a spot at one of Izuku’s favorite restaurants- mostly by promising the owner you’d be in and out of there within half an hour- he wasn’t the type to fawn too heavily over Pro Hero work, so ‘Deku’ being your husband didn’t hold much weight with him. But you’d been excellent patrons of his since they’d opened, in your second year of high school together. So you managed with what seniority you held. And seeing as how Izuku had only been able to snag thirty minutes between patrols, it was the perfect opportunity to scarf down a quick bite, and chat in- what you thought had been- the privacy of one of the uppermost floors of the establishment. But of course, sleazy as they were, the paparazzi had found a way to catch the both of you eating. A little too fast, a little too messily, just to be able to enjoy the atmosphere together, and have ample room to chat with one another before Izuku had to get back to his patrols. Which was fine, for Pro Hero Deku- six foot seven inches tall, two hundred and ten pounds of pure, lean machine muscle. The epitome of health and wellness, and what it meant to be strong. Able. And then there was you. A little too soft around the sides, cheeks /too/ plump/. Stomach /too/ pudgy. Thighs /too/ thick. God, you looked like a pig, food smeared on your chin, a bowl between you and your husband. ‘I guess we know where his priorities really lie’ the magazine quoted, from some random asshole on the street no doubt. Jesus Christ. “Bunch of fucking assholes.” You were angry. Of course you were angry. Fists held over your eyes to keep the tears at bay. But you were sad too. So, so fucking sad that this shit kept happening. Izuku’s management tried and failed countless times to keep shit like this from spreading. But people loved a good slam piece, as much as they adored seeing Deku’s latest accomplishments splashed across every newspaper, and TV report. Sick fucks. Whatever. Water under the bridge, you told yourself. Throat feeling tight, eyes burning with unshed tears, as you took a few deep breaths, and headed back towards your bedroom. Turning out lights in the house as you went, before stripping and crawling into bed. Thoughts running a mile a minute, as you stared up at the ceiling in silence. The only real noise the quiet sound of a car or two passing the house every now and again. You couldn’t help the way your open palms slid against your chest. Pressing, and kneading at the soft, pillowy flesh of your sides, and stomach. Grimacing at yourself, you recalled how fit you used to be during your high school days. What a dynamic you and Izuku had. Fresh on the scene after high school, no one could compare to the two of you. Kiri and Katsuki came close, but never quite managed the spark you and Izuku had. Professionally speaking. But Izuku just kept climbing higher, and higher- your quirk was good, but limited in its capabilities, which meant a halt in your hero placement a year or two after graduation. But you did what you could. You helped people because you wanted to help people, ratings be damned. But the harder Izuku worked, the more help he needed managing the world that came with climbing to number one. So you patrolled less and less, in favor of working with his design team on costume upgrades. Merchandise. Izuku trusting you and Inko to work directly with his management team, as he knew you all shared a hive mind of sorts when it came to design, and marketing. Pro Hero life for Deku was saving people. Kissing babies, and countless interviews. It was grueling, and tiresome, and he needed a team behind him to take care of everything else. So that’s what you did. Long hours spent at home alone, working through the night on various Deku projects. Meant less patrols, less gym time. You had no need for those things when you were kept busy with Izuku’s team, and you did good work! Fuck, you did great work, and Izuku praised you nonstop. Sure you’d gained a little weight at first, but it looked good on you. At least you thought so. And so did Izuku, if the way he drooled all over the expanse of your thighs the first time you’d gotten a night alone in nearly a month was any indication. But as time progressed, you cared a little less about your appearance each day. You took care of yourself, and you were far from unhealthy. But there was no denying you had filled out substantially. You didn’t care, and Izuku didn’t seem to care either...but the media sure did. Closing your eyes suddenly, you took a deep breath. Holding it in for several seconds, before letting it out shakily. Tears finally falling as you did so, and you rolled over to snuggle into Izuku’s side of the bed- face smushed into the other man’s pillow, to breath in the soft scent of his cologne. His musk. Drifting off to sleep sniffling, dreaming of the glory days the two of you held together. Izuku hadn’t planned on coming home tonight at all, it wasn’t in his schedule to. But when he’d taken five to break for a snack, he’d ran into Kirishima at the agency. Chatting quickly, recalling rather suddenly that it had been several days since he’d seen Y/N. Scratching at the nape of his neck awkwardly, hunched over slightly muttering excuses to himself. He may have been big, and strong, but to his friends, Midoriya still held fast to those traits that made him who he was. Even back at UA. One call to Bakugou from Kirishima later, and the two of them were taking Deku’s shift, sending him hurrying home- a smile as bright as the sun on his face as he charged up, and bolted from the agency as fast as he could. Fingers crossed that you weren’t asleep yet. His dreams were dashed, but not unpleasantly so, when he landed outside however, and found all the lights in the house were off. It was late, and he appreciated you getting your rest. Knowing all too well how often you’d stay awake working on things for him. Izuku’s heart overflowed with love for you when he recalled all you did for him. For the both of you. He couldn’t imagine being as cemented in the top spot, as capable of doing what he did, without you there. You and his mother were his whole world, keeping him afloat at even the hardest of times. He...he was nothing, without you. So knowing you were in bed, getting your rest, made him smile. A smile that was soon replaced with a recoiled snarl as he entered the house- beelining to the kitchen for a glass of water, wherein he found the magazine spread out, as though left for him on the kitchen floor. Another one. Another article attacking you. Shaming you. Making fun of you. The kitchen was alight with green sparks as Izuku picked up the magazine, sneering at it when it came clearly into focus, before promptly stomping over and throwing it into the trash. Chest heaving as he sat with the knowledge that you’d probably been worrying over this again all evening. While he was out. Combing the city for villains, while you were here, dealing with...god. Hero suit boots already at the front door, Deku removed his socks as he made his way back to your bedroom quietly- leaving them in the hall- a nasty habit of his he’d never been able to break. Letting himself into your room, his heart breaking at the site before him. He wasn’t sure how long you’d been crying, but it was long enough to leave the salty, humid scent of tears in the air as he entered. And there you were, huddled up with his pillows, breathing softly- face smeared with tears, their tracks glinting back at Izuku as he rounded the bed, and just stood there. Feeling so powerless. Too big. Normally he’d clean up first, but being sure he couldn’t wait one more second, let alone the twenty minutes it would take to shower, Midoriya acted quickly. Removing his Hero suit silently, left in nothing but a pair of fitted boxer briefs- before sliding into bed next to you. Pulling his pillow gently from your grasp, to settle behind his own head, before gathering you up and into his arms. Shifting you almost entirely onto his front, before you stirred. Izuku’s stopped breathing when your eyes fluttered open, and your nose wrinkled- wanting to smile as you noticed the heat beneath you, the strong scent of Izuku’s skin filling your senses. Glancing up at him, your sleep idled mind offered only one clear thought. ‘He’s home’. Try as you might, however, the pressure from earlier in the evening boiled over again- mixing with the overwhelming sense of love you felt at being able to see him. Feel him. Smell him. Just /be/ with him. Everything was still, and quiet, a pin drop could be heard. Until you hiccupped, once, twice, before choking on a sob as you pressed your face flush against Izuku’s chest, and cried. You cried, and cried, and cried. Trying to recall the last time you’d seen him, your sleep clouded mind coming up blank. All you could see was that stupid fucking picture in the magazine. Izuku held firm to you as you cried, eyes shut tight, tears threatening to spill right alongside yours. Old habits die hard, he thought idly. He didn’t shush you, or try and quiet you down. Offer words of encouragement, nor did he berate the magazines, or spew on about how much hell he was going to put them through for this. He simply held you, stroked your back, and kissed the top of your head over and over, as you covered his chest in tears. Finally settling down after a few minutes, and simply breathing together. Your ears pressed against Deku’s wet chest, listening to your husband's heartbeat. Allowing it to calm you. Arms finding their way under Izuku’s body, holding each other now. Tight, almost too much. But neither of you complained. “I love you,” Izuku finally whispered, though it was so full of sentiment- of meaning, almost harshly so, it caught you off guard. “I love you more than the world will ever know, or understand, and I’d drop off the face of the planet tomorrow, and leave them to fend for themselves, if it meant proving to you how wonderfully, beautifully, exquisitely perfect you are to me.” Fucking…”I wanted to /stop/ crying, you fucking jerk,” You laughed wetly, fresh tears spilling down your cheeks as you lifted a hand to swat at the side of Deku’s head- both of you snickering wetly now, as you began to card your fingers through his hair with the same hand. Snuggling impossibly deeper into the man’s chest, as his words rang in your ears. He meant it too, the voice in your head whispered. Your chest tight as you imagined him giving up all he’d ever worked for, just so you’d understand. You never held any doubt that he loved you. As you were, as you had been- however you’d be tomorrow, or the day after. But you struggled a lot, internally. You always had. It would be a struggle you’d live with till the day you died, you were sure of it. But even so, you reasoned, then and there, that if even then, you knew how deeply, and unequivocally Izuku cared for you- loved you. That thing’s would always be okay. No matter what. “I love you too,” you sighed back finally, clearing your throat, and closing your eyes as you felt yourself quickly drifting again. “So so much, ‘zuku.” Peppering Deku’s chest with kisses till you fell asleep, Izuku was sure if his heart swelled any more, it would burst. Waiting till you had fallen back asleep fully, he rolled the two of you over. Caging you into the mattress beneath him, and falling asleep that way. Guarding you even as the two of you slept. Keeping you safe from everyone, and everything. Midoriya’s only other thought, besides you, before he slipped into unconsciousness, was to call into the agency the next day, because he wasn’t going to going in for a while. ((Really enjoyed writing this one, got me in my feels, and made me feel all warm, imagining Deku holding me at the end of a long day, when I could care less about feeling good about myself. Thanks for the opportunity nonnie, hope you enjoy.))

#mha x male reader #mha x reader #bnha x male reader #bnha x reader #izuku midoriya x male reader #izuku midoriya x reader #deku x male reader #deku x reader

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wearulikeanecklace · 3 years

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coney island and evermore: taylor’s apology to kaylors

it rained today and for the first time i was able to really sit down with evermore and try to work through the heartache and confusion caused by lyrics that had me taking turns between filling my wine glass in the kitchen and crying in front of the bathroom mirror

because i finished all the wine and am too dehydrated to cry anymore, i offer a hesitant but nonetheless hopeful interpretation of the heart-wrenchingly volatile emotional forklift of an album that is evermore

upon the first listen through, i really was convinced that kaylor had broken up. every time a new album gets released, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the meaning behind songs that appear to have satisfying interpretations for both swifties and gaylors. for me, the two songs that really cut deep were coney island and evermore. they all seem to have this soul-shattering rawness with references to the struggle that tay has given kaylors a peek into throughout the years. after listening a few more times (and crying way more than a few times), i no longer think this song is about losing karlie- i think it’s about losing kaylors, the fandom that has stuck by her and vowed to stick around through her journey, as she has slowly but surely gotten closer to coming out and into her authentic self

fellow tired kaylors have definitely been vocal about their disappointments and decisions to stop following or supporting kaylor when times get tough and it seems that we’re back at the dead end we started from. but more than that, specifically i think this was written as a result of the backlash and hurt that came from the long pond sessions and taylor crediting toe with co-writing betty and straightwashing the entire song and narrative- something that was so sacred to the hope not only we felt, but that everyone felt, about betty being the queer anthem that could open a real window in the darkness to let the daylight shine through

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Break my soul in two looking for you But you're right here

perhaps this line is referencing her playing on two different narratives, looking for the community that can see through the PR lies and cover-ups- the fans that see her and support her and karlie together

If I can't relate to you anymore Then who am I related to?

this line cuts deep because she compares losing the fans that see her for who she really is as losing family- it’s such a special relationship to have with lgbtq+ fans, one in which we relate to taylor and her truth that she tells in her lyrics, and take comfort in knowing that she is like us

And if this is the long haul How'd we get here so soon?

again, i think this makes a lot of sense in the context of how many kaylors were vocal about how they really gave up after the william bowery ordeal, when most of the time we hang in there and proclaim to be in it for the ‘long haul,’ when she finally comes out

Did I close my fist around something delicate? Did I shatter you?

this line is the one that made me fully trust that this song is a kaylor apology, because it references the Spade riddle, of love not being able to grow in closed fists, but rather open hands. her connection to us through her queerness of her songs is so sacred (and delicate), and it was incredibly painful for her to take that from us in the long pond sessions, especially when she could’ve remained vague in her explanation

Over and over Lost again with no surprises Disappointments, close your eyes And it gets colder and colder When the sun goes down

i think this captures how long kaylors have waited and continued clowning only to be disappointed or robbed of hope when she stunts with toe or reverts to straightwashing her music and persona

What's a lifetime of achievement If I pushed you to the edge? But you were too polite to leave me And do you miss the rogue Who coaxed you into paradise and left you there? Will you forgive my soul When you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?

were all her achievements worth it when she wasn’t being her authentic self, and when she denied her truth so much to the point of losing the only people that could see it? kaylors constantly say something along the lines of “if she doesn’t come out by the next album, i’m done with her,” but then they’ll continue to stick around and continue to postpone the time that they will officially give up (did i leave you hanging every single day?). we were too polite, too invested, and we had too much love for tay to give up hope

if her coming out album really was going to be called ‘paradise,’ i imagine the ‘rogue’ being 1989 and rep, the first of album that strayed from denial and moved closer to acceptance, made clear by the more and more explicit queerness of lyrics and aesthetics. it kept us around imagining that she was close to coming out, it validated us and let us place our trust in her that one day paradise would finally happen.

but of course it didn’t and even after all this time, she is still stunting. she asks for forgiveness, for if we do give up because we stop trusting that she will finally come out, or for when she does, but it has taken so long that it’s no longer a big deal to us

The fast times, the bright lights, the merry go Sorry for not making you my centerfold

i think this references the 1989 era and the fast pace of it all, the lights that never blind her, and especially this era where the glass-closeting began- where we all became die-hard shippers of kaylor

she apologizes again- i know many people think this is about karlie and a reference to magazine covers- but i genuinely believe this is a reference to her career and PR in general. kaylors were never given the attention that swifties are- she can never publicly declare her love for us or interact with us in the way she wants in order to maintain her public narrative. we just stay in the background, having our own interpretations and trying to pinpoint the truth in her art, but we never get the spotlight. the easter eggs on magazine covers and big-time interviews are always filtered and not the total truth- though she does feed us well with kaylor hints and references behind the scenes.

But when I walked up to the podium I think that I forgot to say your name

this line falls into a similar meaning- when she stands on podiums thanking her fans for support and how happy she is that people can relate to her music- but she is never able to thank us kaylors, who see her for her and relate to her truth in her music

coney island is an apology to kaylors for not being able to acknowledge us or the truest parts of herself just yet

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as for evermore, i think taylor is again using this song to work through and make sense of the pain that her and kaylors felt together after the betty explanation in the long pond sessions.

Gray November I've been down since July Motion capture Put me in a bad light

these lines reference November, when the long pond sessions were released and the backlash occurred not long after. the sessions are the film that put her in a ‘bad light,’ showing her credit toe with betty and slowly destroy us with the seemingly never-ending nervous hetsplanation of betty being written from a male perspective

I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone Trying to find the one where I went wrong

i think this references the song visual for betty on Spotify, which was her walking along the ‘stone wall’

I rewind thе tape but all it does is pause On thе very moment, all was lost Sending signals To be double-crossed

i think these lyrics probably provide insight into her rewatching that moment of the sessions, another moment where she is freezing her ground and not being able to move forward into a future where she can be open about who she is. some people thought that her explanation of betty was intentionally supposed to sound ridiculous, or that we’d know she was lying- that she was giving us signs that this was not true and that it was just to satisfy the other side of the fanbase, give promotion to toe, or strengthen her chances of winning more Grammys. she thought she was doing what she always does, splitting herself into two, playing both sides- but she did not recognize how much this would hurt us, how much we would lose by losing betty.. and by words coming from her own mouth especially. our loss turned into her loss because so many kaylors gave up after this moment

i won’t go into detail surrounding lyrics that seem pretty evident regarding the pain and hurt that being in the closet and letting down kaylors has caused her, but i do strongly believe that through these lyrics, she is speaking to us <3

#evermore #coney island #gaylor swift #gaylor #taylor swift #betty hits harder #betty #folklore #kaylor

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angrylizardjacket · 4 years

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mouth full of white lies {Machine Gun Kelly} 5

5. you say that you’re no good for me

Summary: So you have actual real feelings for him and they’re kind of starting to get in the way of your job, which is awful because you’re a professional, damn it, you’re better than that. Perhaps it’s time to come clean.

the brainstrust: @sataninsatin @silvertonguedserpent @juliarose21 @kellysimagines @estxxbritt @machine-gun-casie @harringtonstudios @misscharlottelee @narcvissa @hiworlditishumbleme @angelwarner28 @nevilles-insinuations @rumoured-whispers @mgkobsessed @edwardtriggerhandzz @suckerforbarnes @wastelcve @bakerkells @local-troubled-writer @freddiessmallnipples @oopsiedoopsie23 @mayaslifeinabox @mrs-machinegun-norris @hxbbit @lilytalebi

Casie had gone back to her mom’s about a week and a half ago, and now you’re left all alone with his words of ‘like if you wanted to actually date my dad, that’d be cool with me’ with a strangely knowing air that you’re trying not to think about.

But the point is that now you’re sitting back, watching him snort fake cocaine of a very pretty girl’s bare chest, and slowly and bitterly coming to terms with the fact that your feelings for him have gone from just a lowkey crush, to a crush large enough to make you jealous because a girl’s got her tits all over Colson on a set that looks like a strip club, and you hear ‘and we’re rolling’ a few feet away from you, and you’re not quite sure why there’s an uneasy feeling in your stomach. At first you try and tell yourself that you’re a little indignant that they’re basically just using pretty girls as props, but the girls who are all over your brother in the scene don’t give you that same vague nauseous feeling, so you can’t delude yourself that into believing that there’s any particularly feminist reason for your feelings.

You try not to think too much about the girls on set wearing not much at all, covered in oil and glitter with their hair teased up and curled and laden with products. They’re doing their job, and they’re doing it well, listening to the directors, and you’re just trying not to compare yourself to them because you’re in very different roles.

And you tell yourself this.

Over and over.

“How’re you doing, Duck?” In between takes, your brother will often check in on you, and it’s getting harder to force a smile.

“Great!” But you know even as you say it that he won’t believe you; Douglas can see through your lies better than anyone else in the world. He wraps an arm around your shoulders. “Don’t, Doug,” you tell his quietly, face and voice both falling in the safety of his presence, but you don’t move away, “I’m a professional.” You tell him, but your heart’s not in it.

“I know you are, Duckling -”

“I’m really trying.” You mutter, leaning your head against his shoulder, conceding defeat to your own negative thoughts.

“This is new for you, I know,” he assures calmly, his hand still firm and reassuring on your shoulder.

“It’s just a job,” you remind yourself again, “everyone here’s a professional.” Voice so low only Douglas can hear you, he gives you an almost imperceptible squeeze. Before he can get a word in edgewise, the director is calling for the scene to be reset, and he had to go. Across the room, Colson gives you a quizzical look, and you try your best to smile back; it doesn’t seem to work, his frown just deepens.

And you move on with your life. Try to, at least; pick up your clipboard, ask Josy if she needs anything, and try not to act relieved when she asks you to buy her a coffee.

You get dinner on your own that night, which isn’t necessarily an unusual occasion, but you’re lingering in the fancy Italian restaurant a few blocks from his house, looking a little lonely, a little like the poster-girl for every pining girl in a rom-com waiting for her true love, sadly poking at your half-finished dessert. If you get recognized, you’re pretty sure the press is going to have a field day.

The thoughts won’t leave your head; it’s more than the girls on set, it’s more than the thought that he’s done this sort of thing before, it’s more than even his reputation, because you don’t give a shit about his reputation, but you can’t deny that you don’t have feelings for him, and you can’t deny that you didn’t have feelings for him before any of this even happened.

If you hadn’t said anything, you’re pretty sure nothing would have happened between the two of you. Which is okay, it’s fine, but something about it being fake is worse than it never happening.

So you leave your dessert half finished, and start the lonely walk back to the hotel where your brother was staying.

[💜colson💜: where r u 💜colson💜: u ok? 💜colson💜: did something happen today?? 💜colson💜: ducky 🦆🥰: im fine 🦆🥰: you dont need to worry about me]

But you don’t go to the hotel. You have to see him, have to get these thoughts out of your head before they drive you mad.

“Were you waiting for me?” Your voice is small when you finally get to his house, get to his room, and Colson’s laying back on his bed, stretched out and shirtless, looking a little like the centerfold of a magazine in the lamp light. Your heart’s in your throat.

“I do worry about you, you know.”

“What?” Is all you can think to say, and try to avert your gaze.

“You said I don’t need to worry about you; I know that, I do though,” he says, doesn’t look away from the ceiling.

“Why?” Though it’s said with a laugh, there’s no humour in it, but you don’t know if you wanna hear his answer, don’t know if you could handle it, “if I had never said anything, you wouldn’t have made a move,” you rattle off, the words falling from you like you’d rehearsed them, though it’s more accurate to say that the thoughts had been going around in your head for so long that you couldn’t even find any other words. Colson’s head turns to look at you, frowning, “so you wouldn’t have needed to worry about me then, so you shouldn’t have to worry about me now.”

And then there’s silence, and he’s regarding you with an almost angry confusion.

“What?” He finally asks, disbelief colouring his tone.

“Don’t worry about me,” you sighed, moving around the room to the open balcony door, plopping yourself into one of the wicker chairs, closing the door behind yourself.

“What is your problem? I thought we were good,” Colson’s quick to open the door and follow you out, sitting in his usual spot, elbows on his knees, almost glaring with an intensity you hadn’t witnessed before, “if you want out, you can go, don’t stay on my account if you’re unhappy.”

This shocks you enough to keep your mouth closed as you look out to horizon.

“You’ve got your room at the hotel, you don’t have to stay -”

“Just tell me,” you cut him off, “if I’d never suggested this, I would have just been Doug’s little sister during the whole process, and you wouldn’t have done anything, would you?”

“Done anything?”

“Made a move.”

“Because me making a move on the golden girl of YouTube would have worked out great,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes and sitting back, “if you hadn’t said anything, no I wouldn’t have made a move; I don’t actively seek out ways to get shot down by chicks who think they’re better than me.”

“What?” You voice comes out small, confused and a little sad, somehow it’s worse than the answer you were expecting. “I don’t -”

“And don’t go high-roading me on this bullshit; you wouldn’t have made a real move either,” it’s like his own words don’t even quite register as he said, but after a beat, he sighs, the anger, the tension leaving his body in a rush, “I know you don’t think you’re better than me. Now.” He added, and okay, he had a point there; as much as his reputation preceded him, yours did too.

But that’s not what’s caught your focus.

“You would have wanted me to?” Shyly, almost traitorously hopeful, you can’t look at him as you speak. There’s a shift in tone, the tension changing to something new, something a little bit exciting.

“I didn’t want to scare you off -”

“I’m not porcelain, you know,” you say, glancing at him out of the corner of your eyes, and you see him give a half-amused smile.

“Like I said, I know that now,” he conceded, “but you’re Doug’s little sister; he calls you Duck for fuck’s sake, you give off this vibe like you bleed bath bomb water, and me, I give off this vibe like -”

“Like you’ll rope someone into committing a felony,” you tell him with a dry smile, and he laughs, nodding a little.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” he says, with surprising self-awareness, “but yeah, if I knew then,” he pauses for a moment, his gaze moving to the stars; even in this light you can see him turning faintly red, “how cool you were, yeah I would have done something.”

Heart in your throat, you want to ask him if there’s still even a chance, but your mind’s stuck on the if.

“Should I have done something?” You hear yourself ask, quiet, fiddling with your hands, and when he doesn’t answer after a beat, you can feel your heartbeat heavy in your chest. When you turn to him, he’s there, leaning in, and you meet him halfway, kissing him hard in the starlight.

You take that as a yes.

No cameras, nobody around; it’s not an act when you let yourself get pulled from your chair, closer to him, the two of you standing now. At first his hands are gentle, holding your face almost reverentially, like he can’t quite believe he gets to touch you like this without having to put on a show for everyone, and you feel almost dizzy with his lips on yours.

“I can’t believe I waited so fucking long to do that,” he murmurs, and your breath stutters from you, so overwhelmed that he wanted you, that he wants you, really wants you, that it’s all you can do to kiss him again. Rough this time, you card your fingers through his hair, tug, pull him close and kiss him desperately. He can probably taste on your tongue how much you’ve wanted him too.

Wrapped up in each other, it’s better in this one moment than every other kiss you’ve shared put together. His tongue glides along your bottom lip, as if asking for entrance, and you deepen the kiss, all teeth and tongue, a gentle sigh when he bites your lip.

“Is this serious- are you -?” You pull back, breathless, hands still in his hair, and his smile is genuine as he leans back a little, arms still wrapped around you.

“How much more serious can I get?”

“This isn’t a bit, is it?”

“No it’s not a fucking bit,” he snorted, “honestly I can’t believe you’re doing this; the fake shit was your idea!” He’s still holding you close. Opening and closing your mouth for a few moments, looking a little like a fish, lost for words, lost for a response, you settle on;

“Exactly how cheesy can I be and get away with it?”

When he kisses you this time, it’s sweet and gentle, his smiles soft against your lips, and you hum happily against him.

That night, you spend the night watching movies and making out, falling asleep half naked in his enormous, plush bed. When you wake, it’s to the sight of the sun painting his tattoos with light as he scrolls through Twitter on his phone.

[ID: A series of tweets between @duckduckbooth and @machinegunkelly.

@duckduckbooth posted a photo of Colson Baker, laying on his side in bed; the covers are black and there’s a sliver of sunlight that highlights his gentle smile. The wall behind him has a picture on it but it’s out of focus. Colson looks like he’s laughing, and he’s looking at something behind the camera, his hair is a mess. There’s something so gentle and intimate about the photo itself, like he’s just woken up, like he’s sharing a joke with the photographer. You. There’s a hickey that’s cut out at the edge of the photo.

The photo is captioned ‘those ocean eyes’.

@machinegunkelly has retweeted the photo with one of his own; of you, laying on your back in the very same bed, grinning, phone held in both hands above you, but you’re looking at him, expression fond and amused. The window behind you is open, with sunlight spilling through the crack of the curtain, hitting your mouth and chin, highlighting your own smile.

His photo is posted with the caption ‘shed a lot of tears just to smile in the mornin'. End ID.]

Everything has changed, everything has shifted; it used to be too much to touch him casually, to feel his skin burn against yours, but on set over the next few days, it’s a thrilling release, a reminder. He wants me, every time he touches you, he wants me.

Before, it was such a performance, every action so carefully calculated to show that you were in love, never enough to scare him off, but now? You’re ferrying some paperwork for Josy to the offices at the other end of the film lot, and you pick him up a pack of cigarettes on the way back; his whole face lights up and he presses a kiss to your temple, with an easy ‘thanks babe’, and you feel lighter than air, and it shows.

“Everything work out?” Douglas asks you with an almost knowing smile, and you turn your nose to the air, pretending you don’t know what he’s on about, and he’s kind enough to play along, let you have this.

Safe in the security of a genuine relationship, you’re not worried as you once were about the other actresses, not when you know you get to go home with him. Now, seeing him on set, the earlier jealousy you’d felt turns to pride as you watch him work.

“You guys are gross,” Josy says with a smile, watching your display of heart-eyes as drums ferociously behind the band, “it’s adorable.”

“We are not,” you tried, but he twirls his drumstick with a flourish and a smirk and your own grin widens automatically.

“Listen, as long as you’re on time, and you don’t smear his makeup, I don’t give a shit,” Josy shrugs, her tone equally nonchalant as it was blunt. You sigh, but they’re easy enough terms to agree to.

And then you’re travelling, the production going on location to different stadiums and theaters across the country, a few days at time, concerts put on to screaming fans, or more accurately, unpaid, enthusiastic extras. When you’re not with Josy, you entertain yourself well enough; you and Colson usually see the sights of wherever you are, at least when you’re not wrapped up in each other in the confines of your hotel room.

“Hello, I’m [Y/N] Booth,” you smiled at the camera.

“And I’m Machine Gun Kelly, and today we are reading thirst tweets,” he holds up a large, blue mug-shaped object with ‘Thirst Tweets’ written on it, before the title comes up:

Thirst Tweets with MGK & [Y/N]

“I’m gonna start with this one,” you half laugh, holding the little piece of paper up before yourself, already leaning on him just a little, and the tweet comes up on the screen as you read;

“I would let MGK and Duck beat me up and I’d say thank you,” you pause, before looking a little sheepishly at Colson, “that sounds painful - for them I mean.”

“Don’t you get comments like that all the time?”

“I know you do,” you half smile at him, and he laughs, nodding, “step on me Daddy Kells, or something like that?” He flushes, grinning.

“How dare you - that one’s probably in there!” And he fishes out the next piece of paper.

“Machine Gun Kelly looking like 80s Tommy Lee could do anything he wants to me - you haven’t even seen the movie yet!” He exclaims, while you just give a pleased little smile, “what?” He asks with a grin when he turns to you.

“It’s kind of a mood though,” you shrug helplessly, and he rolls his eyes fondly, before pulling out another tweet, giving it a read over and handing it to you to read.

“Duck is stunning, girl lemme lick ya.”

“Sorry dude, that’s my job,” Colson smirks, and you give a small, flustered shriek, though you were still grinning from ear to ear.

#mgk #mgk imagine #mgk x reader #machine gun kelly imagine #machine gun kelly x reader #machine gun kelly #colson baker #colson baker imagine #colson baker x reader #Douglas Booth #the dirt #the dirt cast #the dirt cast imagine #motley crue #the angry lizard writes

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watching-pictures-move · 3 years

Text

Movie Review | Olivia (Lommel, 1983)

This review contains mild spoilers.

Ulli Lommel's The Boogeyman is not a great horror movie but it is one I think of often. It's marred by a clumsy, effects-laden climax, but the bulk of the movie has a strangely artificial tone. The gruesome slasher-esque kills (which earned it a spot on the Video Nasty list) and supernatural elements seem at odds with the picturesque, almost postcard-like veneer of the overall film. It's as if the reality of the film is at war with itself, echoing the tension in the horror plot. A primary driver of its tonal discord is the extremely uncomfortable opening scene, where the partner of the protagonists' (possible sex worker) mother physically abuses them and is then killed by one of the children, who subsequently goes mute from the trauma. The scene is shot in hot, saturated colours (a quality perhaps inspired by the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with whom Lommel collaborated earlier in his career), giving it an especially rancid quality, as if it's corroding through the screen.

Olivia has a version of this scene. Here, the heroine witnesses her prostitute mother being killed by a violent john as a child, the scene this time being shot in moody dark blue lighting. We cut to fifteen years later, and now the protagonist, played by Suzanna Love (star of The Boogeyman and Lommel's wife at the time), is trapped in an unhappy marriage with a controlling, abusive husband. (I watched this the same weekend as Sudden Fury, a Canadian thriller about a man who schemes to kill his wife in the backwoods of Ontario, and it was startling to see two strong candidates for the Cinematic Bad Husband Awards almost back to back.) As she spends her days looking out the window towards London Bridge (where they live), she begins to envy the freedom enjoyed by the nearby prostitutes and tries going out to do likewise during one of her husband's night shifts. However, when she picks up a john, it turns out she'd internalized her childhood trauma more than we'd realized, and murders him at the behest of the voice of her mother who speaks to her. (It's worth noting that the man has mannequins in lingerie in his flat, which adds to the scene's weirdness.) She also falls in love with an American engineer hired to provide estimates for restoring the bridge, but when her husband finds out, things meet an abrupt, violent end. Years later, the engineer is visiting Lake Havasu, where the old London Bridge was relocated, and spies a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Love. Could this be the same person?

The plot has elements that were obviously inspired by Psycho and Vertigo. Compared to Brian De Palma and Dario Argento, two other directors who were channeling Alfred Hitchcock's influence to exhilarating results at around the same time, Lommel's film lacks the same technical sophistication, but that adds to its distinct atmosphere. A lot of films can be described as dreamlike and it can mean an awful lot of different things. Compare the films of David Lynch and Lucio Fulci (the latter of whom I will always bring up given the opportunity), which are very different yet the word applies to both. In Olivia, the film's tone and rhythms make its sense of reality feel strangely tenuous, even if there's nothing in the narrative to suggest what we're seeing isn't actually happening. In describing Jonathan Demme's Married to the Mob, Roger Ebert cites its "sleepy/wide-awake style", which are words that came to mind. The visual style, which features a lot of strong blue lighting, is not as precise as the work of those other directors, putting the film in a state of slight stylistic flux. Production details add to this quality, with the bridge in Lake Havasu and the faking of London locations through well chosen props, as well as crew members cosplaying as Londoners during a crowd scene (which features some not terribly convincing British accents). That the murders (one of which makes similar use of an electric toothbrush as a scene in Boogeyman II) in the version I watched had their audio sourced from a video version instead of the original elements helps them ripple the film's fabric even further.

Speaking of Demme, the film also brings to mind Something Wild, in the sense that the night isn't just a time of day but a different state of mind and perhaps a different place altogether, which emphasizes the somnambulist qualities of the daytime scenes. Are these even in the same reality? Is night real and day just a dream through which the heroine sleepwalks? There's also the relationship between wardrobe, self and storytelling. (As I've spent too much of the last year and a half perusing menswear blogs and then trying to talk myself out of ill-advised purchases, this is an idea that's been on my mind a lot lately.) When Love dresses up as a hooker, she puts on a nice purple floral dress, which on one hand doesn't strike me as a particularly slutty outfit, but is also likely the most sexy item this character, who we understand doesn't get out much and is married to an unkind husband, would reasonably have. Yet with her sunglasses and golden hair, she suggests a Hitchcock blonde and balances the same aura with her kitchen sink daytime existence. (Lommel grew up in postwar Germany and would likely have been sensitive to the economic realities that drive people to that line of work, something he explored in Tenderness of the Wolves. Interviews with Love and assistant director John P. Marsh also suggest that the prostitution elements and opening scene were Lommel's way of processing traumatic events from his childhood. Lommel himself shows up to play a detective, while Love's brother Nicholas, who also appeared in The Boogeyman, plays the client who murders the mother, making this a family affair.)

If like me you own the Vinegar Syndrome blu-ray, you have up to three covers. The slipcover, which features a shrieking woman plunging a knife into her mate (and a grimacing face on the moon over London Bridge) suggest something more blood curdling than the finished product, while the reversible cover brings to mind a Playboy centerfold, accurate to brief sections of the movie (like really brief, before the movie snaps back to horror) in terms of the proceedings but certainly not the tone. The "actual" cover, with the heroine's face hidden by her large sunglasses and the deep blues of surrounding her, better capture the movie's distinct look and feel. And of course, much of the film's power comes from Love's performance, who brings an innate sympathy and low key nerviness to the role. (Love admits to having been uncomfortable with the sexual content in the movie.) Like the movie around her, the different sides of her character seem to be wrestling with each other, the resulting offness and inner tension making her performance, and the film as a whole, extremely compelling.

#film #movie review #olivia #ulli lommel

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bettybattaglia · 4 years

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SSS Zine Sneak Peek Time!

Here's a little sneak peek of my two-page centerfold for the @ssszine Twins beyond compare and contrast but with one diabolic instinct...

I can't stress out enough how honored I feel to participate as a guest artist in this amazing Devil May Cry Zine. Be ready for some outstanding contributions from amazing artists and writers! Be ready for some real panty droppers, folk!

Stay tuned for 18th September when we are...

Open for business!

#devil may cry #dmc #devil may cry zine #dmc zine #ssszine #SSS Zine #vergil #dante #nero #sneak peek #beyond contrast #diabolic instinct #BettybRenders

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seblore · 3 years

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everyday i wake up and you still havent posted your evermore rant </3

there u go boo 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

GDBDNSKDJHHDDNDS GIRL................ ok so i very cleverly avoided ranking folklore because every song REALLY HIT and the whole album was just SO.. SO.. yeah. i can however rank miss evermore. i dont want to compare the two album i do not get the point in that. both give off really different vibes. now what i will say is with folklore, AS AN ALBUM, it is just a master masterpiece. The songs flowed amazingly with each other and really held you close the entire first listen. at least thats what I felt like <3 with evermore however, the individual songs are OMG!!! THERE IS LITERALLY NO SONG I DONT LIKE FROM ANY OF THE TWO ALBUMS. but as an album on the first listen i did feel a bit disconnected from evermore which didnt happen to me with folklore. why i think that might’ve happened is BECAUSE taylor is just so brilliant m8.... the MASSIVE contrasting emotions between the songs was too much for my little brain to handle.

Ok so now that’s out of the way dhsjsk time for rankings :) i have no idea where im going to put each song im just going to make it up as we go <3 ill ALSO give you my fave lyrics from each if I remember it <333 (oh and also you’ll notice marjorie isnt here. im sorry but i never listened to it after the first listen because it hits a little too close to home and i dont want to unpack all of that now im sorry! it is a beautiful song)

14. Closure: she popped off <3 she really said dont treat me like a situation that needs to be handled 💃🤙💯 a beautiful song with beautiful lyrics HOWEVER its the first song i couldnt connect with thus it’s down here BUT I STILL WOULD LISTEN TO IT ON REPEAT THO... the last in my ranking but still fucks 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️ thats taylor swift 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

13. long story short: i have never been in a relationship ever BUT GODDAMN ‘pushed from the precipice, clung to the nearest lips’ hdjsksksjjddjnBbdns jddd ubebs!:!?:?:$3&39383$hzjs WOAH.... and this bitch really summarized the full 2016 drama with long story short it was a bad time. HILARITY. yeah not much to say here tho this is just the ‘at least one mandatory song to shake your tits to on each ts album’ song of evermore <3 and always remember that if the shoe fits walk in it TILL YOUR HIGH HEELS BREAK WOOH ANDIFELLDOWNTHEPEDESTALRIGHTDOWNTHERA—

12: dorothea: making a lark of misery :D RENt free. i had to listen to ‘if youre tired of being known for who you know you know youll always know me’ 113 times to finally understand it tho 😐 some of us are stupid and illiterate have you ever thought about that miss swift???? anyways TINGTINGTINGINGINGING THE STARS IN YOUR EYES SHINED BRIGHTER IN TUPELO <33333 such an innocent feel good song I LOVE!!!!!

11. ivy: the goddamn here and the hush of mirrorball ARE THE REASON IM STILL ALIVE 😽 another lyrical masterclass <3 ‘id live and die for moments that we stole on begged and borrowed time’ IS2G!!!!!!!!!!! anyways what if you cheated on your husband with me and i cheated on my husband with you and my pain fit in the palm of your freezing hands 😳 JK JK 😅 unless...... 🤪😏 hdjsks yeah this song is magnificently cursed and i am in love with it 🧎‍♀️

10. tis the damn season: this song is august but the other side of the coin. august but four months later. AUGUST SLIPPED AWAY LIKE A BOTTLE OF WINE- THE HOLIDAYS LINGER LIKE A BAD PERFUMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... she sounds so pretty goshhh! ‘time flies messy as the mud on your truck tires NOW IM MISSING YOUR SMILE hear me out we could just ride around and the road not taken looks real good now’ is on repeat in my mind. and as always the bridge ::::::::::::::.............:::::::::::::: how does she do this everytime. ‘and wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles im faking’ 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️ after every ts song i listen my expectations about true love grows exponentially and my chances of finding true love falls exponentially simultaneously ADIEU.

9. willow: she really took the invisible string quartet and put it in huh..................... FUCKED IN THE HEADDDDDDDDDDDDDD. what can i say <3 its just such a pretty song <3 hashtag gorgeous hashtag i cant say anything to its face. WRECK MY PLANS!!!!!! WRECK IT BITCH!!! ‘wait for the signal and ill meet you after dark’ LOVE STORY WHIPLASH. also mate i cant even focus on the song she looks SO GOOD in the music video i—

8. happiness: !!!! what can i say.... one of the best songs of the album hands down. lyrical masterpiece AND musically rich. she really logged into tumblr dot com and typed out ‘THERE’LL BE HAPPINESS AFTER YOU’ AND ‘THERE WAS HAPPINESS BECAUSE OF YOU’ ARE IDEAS THAT CAN COEXIST and logged off...... h8 her and her insanity. the one word i have to describe this song is: picturesque. tis a picturesque song <3 oh and dfbhhffcbhDDVHHTRSDVJK when i heard ‘i hope she’ll be a beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you’ i audibly GASPED and then she says ‘no i didnt mean that sorry i cant see facts through all of my fury’................. i fell out of my chair. IT FELT LIKE AS IF SHE HEARD MY GASP AND TOLD ME SPECIFICALLY THAT NO SHE DIDNT MEAN IT LIKE THAT... anyways yeah. ill write an article one day named THE SWIFT DECEPTION OF TAYLOR about how she keeps writing songs with deceptive titles and this will be the opening case 😈🤙 also the fact that this is one of my faves and i put it in number 8 says a lot......

7. evermore: i havent recovered from ‘motion capture. put me in a bad light’. i mean come on the whole goddamn song is a lyrical masterpiece. ‘writing letters addressed to the fire’. IS SHE OK!????????????? i think tf not. beautiful song beautiful arrangement. iver sounded really good too. and lol lol rofl WOOFWOOFbarkbark ‘HEY DECEMBER GUESS IM FEELING UNMOORED’ unmoored definition from google dot com: no longer attached. she doesn’t go back to december anymore. about2 faint oml. long story short: i did not survive. THIS PAIN WOULD BE FOR EVERMORE........ what i felt with this song is that she took the quarantine sadness we all felt at least once this year and made it into a masterpiece of a song. couldve been easily the top song on any album except this. no i will not elaborate <3

6. no body no crime: i cannot believe. she teased us with a musical number. this woman teased us with. a musical number. I THINK SHE IS WRITING A MUSICAL BUT I JUST CANT PROVE IT! when she wins that tony 16 years later call me prophetic xoxo. anyways yeah she literally wrote this to flex her storytelling abilities. send tweet 🐥

5. cowboy like me: YEEEHAWWW I’LL BE HONEST WITH YOU I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FULL SONG SOUNDS LIKE I JUST HAVE THE BRIDGE ON REPEAT!!!! OMFG!!! the skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up. AAAA!! ??? STFU. IM NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE LYRICS MATE THE WAY ITS SUNG!!!!!!! GUT WRENCHING! the best bridge she has ever written musically. i cant stop listening to it. REALLYYY DID BELIEEEVE I WAS THE ONEEE. STORIESSS ABOUT WHEEEN YOU PASSSEDDD THROUGHH TOWN. y e l l. and then she hits me with ‘now you hang from my lips like the gardens of babylon.’ L ???? M !!!!! A $$$$$ O “”””” i had to pause it and sit there for 10 minutes to take in what i had just heard. case closed critical hit sustained yeedhawd.

4. tolerate it: i cried. the only reason it’s not 1 is because it hurt me too much. WHAT THE FUCK YOU MF YOU ASSUME IM FINE BUT WYD IF I BREAK FREE AND LEAVE US IN THE RUINS???? TOOK THIS DAGGER IN ME AND REMOV— m8 this physically hurts me everytime. if its all in my head TELL ME RN. aghhh aRghhhhhhh. pain. and lol she broke down sleep to its bare essentials ‘breathing with your eyes closed’.

3. ??? coney island: i know it’s a bit of a controversial top three but WHO CARES 🕴this is solely here for ‘AND IM SITTING ON A BENCH IN CONEY ISLAND wondering where did my BABYy GO’ im shaking. my bed is shaking. my body is shaking. my pupils are shaking. THE WAY SHE SINGS IT OH MY GOODNESS ME i have to lie down gimme a sec. ‘and if this is the long haul howd we get here so soon 😟’ SCREAM. and when i was hearing it for the first time and she said ‘sorry for not making you my centerfold’ i was like yeah and?? so what?? and then she hits me with ‘over and over’...... so she didnt make him/her/them her centerfold over and over !!!!!!! she is sorry she didnt do it over and over!!!!!! mannn.... the chorus.. i shall not speak. i am held at gunpoint i CANNOT SPEAK. the bridge tho dhdnsksksjsb I CAN SPEAK AND I SHALL SPEAK. BITCH WENT OFFFFFFFF. <3 this is the apology she deserved from her exes which she never got so she wrote it herself. podium. grey skies. birthday cake. ACCIDENT. im laughingggggggggggg <///3 and yeah so overall it is a really yummy song with yummy vocals and yummy arrangement 9/10 would recommend. also!! life lessons kids life lessons. disappointments? SIMPLY CLOSE YOUR EYES AND PRETEND YOU DO NOT SEE IT YAAAAAAAAAS

2. gold rush: ETHEREAL!!!!!! The last time i felt like this™️ whilst listening to a song was with mirrorball <3 the production of this song omg omg omg LOVE 💃 but what propelled it to number two status was the ‘i dont like slow motion double vision in ROSE BLUSH/ i dont like that falling feels like flying till the BONE CRUSH’ imagine how fucked in the head a person needs to be to rhyme rose blush with bone crush. yeah i have nothing more to say really this song is extremely gorgeous and ‘eyes like sinking ships on water so inviting i almost jumped in’ / ‘walk past quick brush’ ?:!:!&:8483 F A V E <33333 and the transition transmission transfusion from ‘... gray old tea cuz itll never be ᵍˡᵉᵃᵃᵃᵃᵐⁱⁿᵍ ᵗʷⁱⁿᵏˡⁱⁿᵍᵍᵍᵍ’ MADAME

1. champagne problems: are we surprised? ARE WE REALLY SURPRISED? when listening to new albums i normally listen to it at one go in order. i stick to that rule. HOWEVER after many years of my solid album listening self made rule tm i finally broke and immediately replayed this mf song after listening to it once. ‘you had a speech, youre speechless/ love slipped beyond your reaches’???? stfu???? VILE. PUNISHABLE. DEROGATORY. and welp the entire bridge ...... .... ........... what can i say. And the parallels to miss all too well??? WHAT WAS THE REASON???? your SISTER splashed out on the bottle- left my scarf there at your SISTER’s house 😐 she’ll patch up your tapestry that i SHRED- maybe this thing was a masterpiece till you TORE it all up 😐 your MOM’s ring in your pocket- your MOTHER’s telling stories bout you on the tee ball team 😐 November flush and your FLANNEL cure- PLAID shirt days and nights when you made me your own 😐 wHAT A SHAME SHE IS FUCKED IN THE HEAD IS2G........... and also why would she not rhyme POCKET with LOCKET?????? why with wallet???????????? slant rhyme why????????????? AND THE NOTE THIS MF SONG ENDS ON..... FUCKED IN THE HEAD

THATS IT. i really sat here and did this for the past 2 hours huh...... hhdjsms anyways LONG STORY SHORT: I HATE ONE INSANE WOMAN AND HER NAME IS TAYLOR ALISON SWIFT. GODSPEEED 🏃‍♀️

#obviously i have not listened to the two delux songs yet so yeah <3 #im sorry about this i have neither proofread this nor do i think this makes any sense </3 #also i just realized i swore alot in this.... its that kind of a year huh ;D #anyways tysm anon for your eagerness for MY rant on evermore <3 truly honored #have a great day ilyy #answered 🗣#evermore era

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rahirah · 5 years

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Okay, I KNOW you've reblogged that "DVD commentary" meme at some point in your life, so: would you like to do DVD commentary on the opening scene of "My Baby Is A Centerfold"? (Or less detailed commentary on the whole "My Baby Is A Centerfold"?)

My Baby Is A Centerfold DVD Commentary

I wrote this story in 2004, fifteen years ago, so fair warning, I don't recall a lot of the minutiae that went through my head when I was writing it. However, I will do my best!

This was one of the first short stories I wrote set in the same universe as my novel series. I wrote it for the Summer of Spike community over on Livejournal – Summer of Spike was, I believe, the first of the "seasonal" fic communities, and inspired a lot of imitators (including Seasonal Spuffy and Summer of Giles, which are still going to this day) but it only lasted for a couple of rounds. Anyway, someone had recently asked me what happened to the Trio in my 'verse. I already knew that the Trio had started their careers as criminal masterminds while the events of Necessary Evils were going on, and that after NE ends, Warren would try enslaving Katrina in pretty much the same way, Katrina would end up dead, and Warren would try to frame Buffy. Buffy being in a very different frame of mind by this point in my 'verse, while she initially panics at the thought that she accidentally killed someone, Spike and Dawn are able to convince her to investigate first. And of course they discover that Katrina's been dead for several hours, so they call the police and that's when Terminal Line takes place, and Buffy makes first contact with Detective Nguyen, who becomes a recurring NPC and eventually the captain of the Sunnydale PD and is instrumental in Buffy's plan to bring the supernatural out in the open and ANYWAY.

For this story I wanted to do a lighthearted buddy cop sort of thing with Spike and Dawn, and it occurred to me that the Trio would have had to have set up their spy camera system, but since they all got arrested after the Katrina incident, they never had the chance to do anything with the footage. And in my 'verse, some of that footage would have been pretty racy. So what would happen if Buffy and Spike found out about it? The story pretty much wrote itself from there.

I could tell something was wrong the minute I walked in the door. The house had that too-quiet thundercloud feeling about it, and it wasn't just because of the blackout curtains. Buffy was still at the rink, Tara was at her summer job, and Willow was probably asleep (she's not as much of an early riser as Spike is). Normally this means an afternoon of bad TV and junk food with Spike, but the TV wasn't on. Spike always has the TV on.

So this story takes place between Necessary Evils and A Parliament of Monsters, when Spike has moved in with Buffy and Dawn, and Willow and Tara are renting the Summers's basement. It always bugged me that the characters on the show only had to worry about work when the plot required it. When the writers get bored, Buffy can suddenly support a dozen people on a starting school counselor's salary. So while I try not to make a huge deal of it in my 'verse, I do a lot of thinking about how everyone supports themselves. Especially people like Tara, who's sure as hell not getting any money from her family. And with Buffy I wanted to give her a day job that A) she would enjoy, and B) would be flexible with regard to slaying. Which is how she became a skating instructor.

When Spike moved in there was a whole big reshuffling thing, like musical chairs with bedrooms, and Spike ended up getting my old room as an office for Bloody Vengeance Inc., the demon-hunting business he and Anya started. I figured he was probably holed up in there downloading porn or something. Never overlook an opportunity to collect blackmail material is my motto. I dumped my library books on the couch and snuck upstairs with super-Slayer's-sister stealth, which wouldn't do me any good at all if Spike was actually, like, paying attention to his super-keen vampire hearing. Which apparently he wasn't, since I got all the way upstairs without a single physically impossible threat bellowed in my direction.

I had an argument about this with another fic writer once – she felt that Spike threatening Dawn with physical harm was abusive and horrible, and Dawn would be traumatized for life. I pointed out that A) it's canon that Spike does this when he's worried about Dawn's safety, and B) even if you're not a soulless vampire, it's really common for fear in a de facto parental unit to express itself as anger, C) does anyone seriously believe that Spike would ever follow through on any of those over the top threats? Seriously? And D) Dawn canonically blows off said threats and does not appear to actually feel threatened in the slightest. We ended up agreeing to disagree.

Spike was in the office, all right--I could see his hair glowing in the light of the computer monitor. I couldn't see what he was looking at, but whatever it was, it must have been really good, 'cause his eyeballs were practically SuperGlued to the screen. Or maybe really bad, because he looked horrified, not turned on. OK, what horrified William the Bloody? Besides the prospect of squiring Buffy to "Fantasy On Ice?" This I had to see. I rounded Spike's desk and peered over his shoulder. "Hey, mister, you got feelthy pictures?"

If it was Willow? Two clicks of a mouse's tail and whatever was in that window would be closed, password protected, PGP-encrypted, and accessible only through an FTP server in Outer Mongolia. Spike's way better with technology than some vampires I could name, but when he's taken by surprise he still resorts to more primitive methods. He scrambled around in his chair with the panicky flail of a cat falling off a windowsill and slapped a hand across my eyes. "Don't look!" he ordered, about half an octave higher than usual.

This story is full of early 2000s-computer jargon. It's not quite as dated as the show itself, but I give it the ol' college try.

Which meant it was a moral imperative for me to put some of that self-defense training he'd been giving me into practice and kick him in the shins--oh, come on, you'd have done it, too. "Fuck!" Spike yelled. He grabbed for his ankle, overbalanced, and banged his head on the edge of the desk as his chair rolled out from under him. He crashed to the floor, leaving me with a free-and-clear view of the computer.

For someone who's been accused of writing the Everybody Loves Spike Show, I sure have him behave like an idiot a lot.

Now, I want to make it real clear that I'm a sixteen-year-old of the world. I know all about the birds and the bees and the vampires. I've even done a little buzzing myself. And of course I know that my sister and Spike have--well, 'having sex' is way too tame for what they do. Anyway, I know all about The Sex in theory. I also know how sausages are made, in theory. That doesn't mean I'm panting for an up-close at the gooey details of either process. Especially when it involves a grainy RealPlayer file of my very naked sister bouncing up and down on my very naked best-friend-and-platonic-lust-object in Barbie's S&M Playhouse.

I may have written this whole story just to have an excuse to use the term "Barbie's S&M Playhouse."

I may have said something. It may have been 'gleep.' Luckily for my retinas, at that minute Spike lunged up over the edge of the desk and put his fist through the screen. The monitor exploded in a shower of pretty green sparks, and Spike stood there glaring at it all clenchy-jawed and snarly, breathing hard through his teeth. He turned the glare on me. "I swear by all that's unholy, Bit, the next time you sneak up on me like that I'm going to put you in a two-by-three box without benefit of hacksaw!"

Monitors! With! TUBES!!!

I glared right back--no way was he going to make this my fault. "How was I supposed to know you were watching Vampire Pervert Theater 3000?" I snapped. "I thought you were just watching NORMAL porn! Jeez, Spike, if you and Buffy are gonna to videotape your stay in the Satellite of Love, at least--"

I had another discussion with a beta about whether or not Spike would download porn. My argument was "He's a guy."

Spike vamped out and hurled the monitor clean off the desk and into the wall with a roar (and when I say 'roar,' I don't mean 'loud yell,' I mean 'roar') of "WE DIDN'T BLOODY WELL TAPE IT!"

Wow. I never knew monitors were made up of that many pieces. "You mean you taped it without telling her?" I squeaked.

"NO!" Spike flexed his computer-punching hand (bloody knuckles, shards of glass, v. sexy) and shook off the lumpies. "Someone soon-to-be-departed did! I've never seen the sodding thing before in my life!" He looked really bewildered underneath the homicidal fury.

It's really very interesting to go back and compare Early Barbverse Spike to Late Barbverse Spike in terms of what progress he makes (or doesn't make) in controlling his temper over the course of the series. Hopefully I make the progression believable.

"OK, where did you find it?" I asked. I didn't exactly want to say so, but it occurred to me that maybe Buffy had taped it without telling him. Buffy may play it all Sandra Dee on the outside, but on the inside? Pure Gypsy Rose Lee. She had to keep it all bottled up during The Angel Years, and during The Riley Years she had to be really careful not to break him, and now, well--Exhibit A, currently lying in ten zillion pieces on the floor. "Was the file just sitting on your hard drive, or...?"

Spike looked super-guilty all of a sudden. His head ducked down between his shoulders, vampire ninja turtle style. "Mighthaveclickedonalinksomethin'boutSlayers," he mumbled.

"In other words, you were surfing for Slayer porn?" I folded my arms and settled in for some primo foot-tapping. "Don't you get enough of that at home?"

The interesting thing about the Buffyverse is that the supernatural ISN'T really a secret. Tons of people know about it. It's just no one admits to knowing about it. Which makes my Buffy's job a lot easier when she decides to drag it out of the closet. Which is a roundabout way of saying, if you know where to look, of course there would be Slayer fetish websites.

"I was not! I just...happened on it, like, looking for something else!" Spike is the world's second worst liar (Willow is the winner and still champeen) and he could see I wasn't buying it. "And anyway, it's a bloody good thing I did! Christ knows how long that's been out there for any spotty little deviant with their mum's credit card number to--" His eyes went Inuyasha-huge as fresh horror overtook him. "How long has it been out there?"

Barbverse Dawn is a Sesshumaru fangirl for sure.

"I'm more worried about who the cameraman was," I said. Spiders walked up my spine for a second. "I mean, that was your bedroom, right?"

Two seconds later we burst in through the door of Mom's old room, now Buffy and Spike's House of Ill Repute. I dove for the closet and Spike ripped open the door of the big old mahogany wardrobe he'd dragged over from the crypt. (But he didn't go inside, because as everyone knows, it's very foolish to shut yourself inside a wardrobe.) I stared at the crush of cute tops and kicky boots, ooh, I bet Buffy won't miss this one, she hasn't worn it in weeks... "How many shoes does she OWN?" I pulled a box free and the whole Leaning Tower Of Gucci collapsed on me.

My fic is usually a game of Spot the Narnia Reference

"Stop larking about," Spike growled, grabbing my feebly waving hand and yanking me out of the sea of footwear. "By the angle it's got to be around here somewhere..." He did one of those effortless vampire leaps and chinned himself on the top of the wardrobe, peering over the facade of wooden curlicues on the top. "Got the bastard!" He snaked one arm over the rim and jerked something small and black free, and dropped back to the floor with a thump. "What the hell...?"

It was a tiny, palm-sized camera with a little antenna sticking out of the top. Witness the creepiness. "I'm freaking out here," I said, plopping down on the bed. "Someone actually broke into our house and hid that up there!"

Spike snarled and closed his fist, and the camera joined the monitor in Electronics Heaven before I could yell, "Wait, that's evidence!"

"Not any more, it's not."

"It could lead us back to whoever planted it," I said impatiently. "We could have woken Willow up and had her...I don't know, do something technical."

This is why Spike needs Dawn around. She's the criminal mastermind in the family.

"Point." Spike shoved his lower lip out and scowled. "If there's one, there may be more. In fact, there's got to be."

I blinked. "How can you tell?"

He looked guilty and embarrassed again. "Ah, well, you see, the web site said...

For a guy supposedly unable to feel remorse, Spike does guilty and embarrassed very well.

*****

"Oh, as they say, my God." Xander stared at the tiny repeating clip with sick fascination. "'The Hottest Slayer in a Century Meets The Coolest Vampire Ever, and Guess Who Gets Staked! Sizzling Action With Cold, Dead Seed!' And this is just the teaser. You can order a whole DVD, only $49.99. Hours of fun for the whole family."

I am pretty sure that Jonathan got Andrew to write that advertising copy.

"Well, I must say both of you have excellent technique," Anya said with an approving nod. "And Spike has a large and well-formed penis, though personally I prefer circumcised men. But I can certainly understand why you're upset if you're not getting your rightful share of the profits."

"Spike, could you cool it with the growly noises?" Willow asked, her fingers flying over the keyboard. "It's distracting. OK, there's definitely more cameras... six at least. The Magic Box, the skating rink, Spike's crypt...this one's dead... Directory, directory, who's got the root directory...hah! Xander, hand me that Unicode list."

I actually researched what all Willow would have had to do to hack into and take over the camera network. I've forgotten it all now, but for about five minutes there, my skilz were l33t.

"What I still don't get is why someone bothered to break into our house and plant cameras," I said from the opposite end of the dining room table. I was staying as far away from follow-the-bouncing-Buffy as possible. "Especially considering Spike would have ripped their heads off if he'd caught them, and Buffy would have gotten REALLY mean. If you want to make a sex film, why not just go over to one of the frat houses on campus and hire a couple of college students?"

"I hate to say it, Dawnie, but I don't think they were making a porn film." Xander tore himself away from Willow's laptop. "This is surveillance camera footage. Someone's been spying on Buffy, and the porn film is just a happy byproduct."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Willow muttered. She picked up one of the larger camera fragments with a pair of tweezers. "Look, it's all dusty, and the battery pack was dead. This hasn't worked for weeks, maybe months. Do we have any toner cartridges we could break open? I think we could use the toner as fingerprint powder, and if whoever installed these left any prints, and if Spike didn't smudge them all up with his macho camera-crushing..."

This was back when printer cartridges had loose toner in them. I had just come off working for a place where we bough giant bags of loose toner and refilled our own cartridges because it was cheaper, and by God, that stuff got EVERYWHERE.

"Oh, right, blame the victim," Spike groused. "Christ, I need a fag." He stomped over to the kitchen door, and I got up and followed him out to the back porch, which was in shadow at this time of day. He lit a cigarette and stood there puffing furiously, all formal and stiff, and it weirded me out. I mean, Spike doesn't just walk or stand or sit. Spike struts and lounges and sprawls and tucks his thumbs in his belt all "Hi, I'm Spike, and this is my crotch!"

On the other hand, somewhere underneath Spike, Vampire Sex God, is still a guy who grew up when ankles were an erogenous zone. "Spike...are you OK?"

"Didn't want you to see that," he said at last. "Not right. Not proper."

He looked absolutely miserable. Any other time I'd have patted his shoulder, but I figured I'd better roll my eyes instead. I leaned against the side of the house, ultra-cool and sophisticated and untroubled by the certain knowledge of Naked Spike a mere two layers of cloth away. "It's OK. Honest. It's not like I've never seen a naked guy before--"

So in my verse, as in canon, Dawn had a crush on Spike. And she knows perfectly well that Spike's in love with her sister, and doesn't see her that way. And she loves her sister, and wants her to be happy, and she doesn't want to be (as she puts it in another story) "pathetic" about it. So she's tried very hard to squash her crush down and pretend it doesn't exist. But sometimes...

That was a mistake. Spike went yellow-eyed, achieving zero to over-protective in six seconds. "And just who the hell--"

"You and Xander, dope, when we all went skinny dipping after that clambake. Get your mind out of the gutter." Of course vague glimpses of guy-parts decently veiled by darkness and ice-cold seawater and didn't quite, uh, measure up to, well, let's just say I'm going to be comparing my future boyfriends to Spike in more ways than one, but you know, I wasn't going to let this be weird. Spike is a total hottie, and maybe, just maybe there have been a few daydreams. Detailed daydreams. With a sound track and special effects. But there are hotties all over the planet, and not all that many guys you can talk to about important stuff like whether or not you really existed before two years ago, and whether the monks that created you remembered to add a standard-issue soul to the mix, and how incredibly annoying older sisters can be. "On second thought, I'm deeply traumatized. I think I might get over it if you talked Buffy into letting me get my navel pierced."

Spike stared at me, various bits of him twitching. "Dawn--"

I patted his shoulder, because I could. "You're gonna be inhaling filter in a minute. Let's go inside."

When we got back inside, Willow had bit and pieces of camera wired up to the laptop. "Curiouser and curiouser," she said. "The server this camera was supposed to send information to doesn't exist any longer, or at least, it's not turned on. The web site's on a regular commercial server, and the domain name's registered to Horatio Hellpop--pseudonym much? Good news, it looks like the site's only been up for a couple of days--" She broke into a triumphant grin. "We're in!"

"What're you waiting for, then?" Spike doesn't usually use his sire-to-minion voice on Willow, but he was using it now. "Take it down!"

It's not relevant to the tale at hand, so I don't belabor it here, but this Willow is a vampire with a soul. It's a long story.

"Patience, Grasshopper." Willow typed a few more cryptic strings of symbols into the laptop. "Bad news, it's going to take me a few hours to find out who the owner really is. I'll have to hack into Paypal to get his bank account info and track IP addresses and stuff."

I did not research what it would take to hack into Paypal. I have my limits.

Spike began pacing back and forth, tense and borderline vampy, looking like he really, really wanted to kill something. Or someone. "And in that time this berk could run off a hundred more copies and pass 'em out to friends as door prizes."

"Or keep them and sell fifty-seven of them to the list of people I'm downloading now," Willow said. "OK. I've disabled the site and changed the passwords, so no one will be able to order any more." She cracked her knuckles. "Give me six hours and I can clean out Larry Flynt Junior's bank account, ruin his credit history, and send anonymous tips to Donald Rumsfeld that he's a terrorist child pornographer." Willow's a little less scary without her magic, but really? Not by that much. She looked around. "Not that I would ever do anything like that."

I mean really. "Hacker" may be a 90s cliche, but I still wouldn't want one mad at me.

Spike snatched the list of names and credit card numbers off the printer and squinted at it. "Bloody hell. There's addresses all the way from Juneau to Key West." He looked at the list again, and smiled. Need I say it wasn't a very nice smile? "I think it's time to pay a visit to the locals. Could be some of them have an idea who they're ordering from. Harris, you want to take out the rest of those cameras, and--" He turned to Willow. "Will, when Buffy gets home, for God's sake don't let her suss out anything's wrong. If she finds out about this..."

My Spike still needs glasses, but is too vain to wear them. I have a number of canonical justifications for this headcanon.

All of us shuddered in unison. If Buffy found out there would be an explosion of thermonuclear proportions. Spike grabbed his motorcycle jacket and blanket and headed for the front door, and I leaped to my feet and ran after him. "Wait up! I'm going with you!"

He scowled at me. "I think not. You're going to stay here, and distract your sister like a good little minor."

"Uh-uh." I used all of my hey-Dawnie's-tall-now height to advantage. "Look, Spike, all this stuff getting out does to you is make you mad. If Buffy finds out, she's going to be..." I floundered for a minute. " Humiliated, and nobody humiliates my sister except me. I'm gonna go with you, and we're gonna find out who did it and...and... kick their butts with pointy-toed shoes."

Spike glared, but it was the old I-disapprove-on-principle-but-you're-all-right,-Niblet glare, and I knew he'd be caving in ten, nine, eight... "Move yer girly arse, then," he said with an unconvincing growl. "We've got villains to apprehend."

I scooted for the DeSoto before he could change his mind. Maybe he thought that it would be a good idea to have someone soul-having around when he was this mad, just in case. Or maybe, and I really prefer this version, he just wanted a partner in crime because it's more fun that way. Spike flung the blanket over his head and copied my dash for the car, and we flung ourselves into the DeSoto's dark interior just as Spike was beginning to sizzle. "You come along, you mind what I tell you, yeah? I say stay in the car, you stay in the car. I say you run, you run. I say you take that fucking pathetic excuse for music out of the CD player and toss it out the window--"

"--and I ignore you like always," I said cheerfully, turning up the Jennifer Lopez.

"Fine. If anyone dies tonight, it's on your head. Some things are beyond any self-respecting vampire's endurance." Spike slammed into reverse and backed out of the driveway with a screech of tires. I grabbed the door handle. Driving with Spike is always a character-building experience, and today was no exception. "First on the hit parade?"

I scanned the list. "Vernon Blakely, 1583 East Beechwood. What are we gonna say to Mr. Blakely when we get there?"

Spike gazed out through the little clean space in the windshield, obviously pondering which limb he should rip off first, and peeled out like there was a mob with torches after us. "Improvisation is a virtue, Bit."

I had absolutely no idea how they would get the DVDs back. The next several scenes are just me letting the characters take the reins and do whatever the hell they wanted to.

**********

Spike was smoking gently beneath his blanket when the shade-deficient door of 1583 East Beechwood opened to our urgent hammering, and a middle-aged guy with thinning red hair and freckles and a pot belly opened it and blinked at us. He looked like Mr. Weasley gone to seed. "Mr. Blakely?" I said with my brightest, shiniest smile.

The Blakely looked from me to Spike, and the contrast seemed to produce some kind of cognitive dissonance on his part. "Can I... have we met?"

"Only in spirit." Spike leaned heavily against the doorframe, with a smile that was probably supposed to be reassuring, but which made him look like he was sporting fangs even when he wasn't. Spike isn't a big guy--in fact, he's on the smallish side, but he's got, you know, muscles. And this air of being able to rip your liver out. Also did I mention the muscles? "I'm given to understand you made a purchase recently from...ah..." He glanced surreptitiously at the paper in his hand. "...Mad Genius Productions?"

Mr. Blakely looked at me, dubious, and at Spike, nervous. "What of it? If I'd done anything like that, which I didn't."

"We're from the, uh, department of quality control," I chirped. "The DVDs are..."

"Radioactive," Spike put in. "Rot your goolies off just like that. " I gave him an elbow-jab.

"Defective," I said firmly. "Glitches. Pixelization. It's criminal the kind of shoddy merchandise we put out. We're recalling them and giving you a replacement at absolutely no charge!"

Spike held up a jewel case and flashed it under Blakely's nose. "Director's cut. Added scenes. 40% more filth for the price."

Suspicion was gathering in Mr. Blakely's watery blue eyes. "Hey, you're that guy from the video," he said.

Spike heaved a melodramatic sigh. "All right, all right, as you've twisted my arm, I'll autograph it for you."

I honestly did not expect him to say that, but somehow there I was, typing it.

The watery eyes brightened. "Really?"

Five minutes later we were dashing for the car again, with the confused Mr. Blakely waving us goodbye. "So what's he going to do when he discovers he's been suckered for a bootleg copy of J-Lo's latest?" I asked, as we tore away from the curb.

"Long as it's got some bint with her tits hanging out on the cover, I doubt he'll notice the difference." Spike grinned. "There'd just better be some hitting involved in the next one."

**********

"I don't believe there's any such thing as a Department of Quality Control," Mr. Angusson said, looking us up and down. "What the hell kind of scam are you pulling?"

"All we want to do is to replace--" I started.

"Look, missy, I bought that DVD nice and legal, and I don't give a crap if whatever goombah and his girlfriend put on plastic fangs to do it is having second thoughts now. So you and your boyfriend just toddle off and--"

"HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "HE'S SHOWING ME HIS THING! IT'S ALL GROSS AND PURPLE AND--"

I didn't expect Dawn to do that, either. And yet!

Angusson disappeared and reappeared in two seconds flat, chucking the DVD at our heads.

"Better," Spike said as we tore out yet again. "But I'm still feeling a lack in the hitting things area."

Mr. Fishbein retreated a step from the threshold. "I'm not giving you anything, and I'm not letting you in," he quavered. "What do you think I am, stupid? You're a vampire!"

Honestly, it's Sunnydale. SOMEONE has to get it.

Spike rolled his eyes. He's learned from the masters. "Oh, bollocks, you don't really believe--"

"Oh, yeah?" Fishbein challenged. "Step through that door!"

I stepped through the door, grabbed Fishbein's hand and gave him a good hard yank, right across the threshold and into Spike's waiting fist.

"What was that?," Spike caroled, drawing back for another punch. "Come on in and have a cuppa, Spike? Better repeat it, I'm a touch deaf in that ear."

"That was unnecessarily bloody," I said as we hopped into the car and stepped on the gas, one DVD richer.

"He'll live," Spike said dismissively. "Probably. Next?"

**********

I figured I had to give Spike SOME violence, or he'd get mopey.

"Can you see--?" I hissed, trying to get a better view through the front window. It was getting dark, and I was out of practice at sneaking around not-really-abandoned buildings. Spike shushed me and crept around to the door. I peered through the sad straggly thevetia hedge, cupping my hands against the dirty glass. The place was just crawling with innnnnnteresting monsters, all huddled around a crappy old black and white TV. There's some law against demons watching flatscreen color, apparently.

"Oh, my God, are they really...you know....doing it?" The Gorthesch demon bumped a couple of Fyarls further down on the couch and plunged a scaly paw into the bowl of popcorn as they all stared at the flickering screen. "With a Slayer? I mean, I heard about it, but I didn't think even a vampire could sink that low."

"Real vampires don't," the lone vampire in the crowd protested, voice dripping disgust. "Maybe great big Slayer-whipped pussies do, but--"

"Shut up!" came a chorus of squeaky, growly, and croaky voices. Despite the complaints, everyone seemed to like the show. There were tongues hanging out. At least, I hope they were tongues.

"Yeah, it's just gettin' to the good part," a Syvithis demon whispered.

"Oooh! The one with the pommel horse?"

"No, where the Slayer goes down on him in the graveyard and he--"

I actually wrote a PWP detailing all the scenes in The Spuffy Sex Tape. An edited-down version eventually got incorporated into A Parliament of Monsters, when Angelus gets a hold of one of the copies that Spike and Dawn aren't able to track down in this story.

The front door imploded with a crash, splinters flying everywhere, and Spike strode into the room over the wreckage, a gleam in his eye and a really, really big axe slung over one shoulder. He surveyed the assortment of demons with a grin almost as big as the axe and about twice as vicious, ran his tongue over his teeth and and tucked his free thumb in his belt loop, fingers splayed over the merchandise. Just like old times. "Looks like you're right, mate," he said. "We are just getting to the good part."

**********

"OK, I take it back," I said as we headed for home. "THAT was unnecessarily bloody." It was after midnight, and we'd collected twenty-two DVDs, broken and entered fifteen houses and/or lairs, killed or maimed eight demons, broken five human fingers accidentally-on-purpose, and signed two autographs. Spike had definitely achieved his hitting things quota, and it was a safe bet that no one in Sunnydale would be mentioning Spike and Buffy's brief but eventful movie career in public any time soon.

"All right, p'raps the railroad spike was a bit much, but a bloke gets nostalgic." Spike stretched, all luxurious and satisfied, and lit up a fresh cig, trailing smoke out the window. He had a black eye and a split lip and a scrape right across the place where his cheekbone goes all knife-edgy, and the stretching made things creak inside that probably weren't supposed to creak, but he was in a much, much better mood. "He'll grow a new head."

Where did Spike get a railroad spike on short notice? I have no idea. He's just resourceful that way.

"If you say so," I said, a bit dubious. "Doesn't that only happen when you cut the old one off?"

"So it'll take a bit longer." Spike bounced a little in his seat, all hepped up on the old ultra-violence. "Still haven't found the bastard who's selling the things, though. Must be a bleeding criminal mastermind if--" I Wanna Be Sedated beebled from the cell phone in his pocket. (Like I said, a lot better with technology than some vampires I can name. He can even program it, though considering the songs he picks, sometimes we wish he couldn't.) He grabbed the phone one-handed and didn't slow down even a bit as he zipped through freeway traffic. (Well, he is evil.) "Yeh? You must be joking. You must be--fuck. That little--I'll tear his soddin' head off! Yeh, I know. I'll just bruise him a little." He clicked the phone off and stuffed it back in his pocket, spun the wheel and zigged across four lanes of traffic towards the off-ramp, leaving a chorus of screeching brakes behind us. "After I tear his soddin' head off."

"Where are we going?" I yelled.

Spike hunched over the wheel, eyes grim. "Off to see the wizard."

We pulled up in front of one of the cruddy lease-by-the-month apartment buildings over by the UC Sunnydale campus. Maybe it was the same one Dad and I stayed at when he came down from L.A. to take care of Buffy's estate that time she was dead--the second time, I mean, not the first time. Some of the grease spots in the parking lot looked familiar.

It just struck me as I was describing the building that it was almost identical to the one I'd described in Necessary Evils, so I thought I'd better lampshade it.

"Apartment 42B, Will says." Spike sucked in his cheeks and narrowed his eyes, scoping out the disintegrating stucco overhead. "There at the end." He slapped his hands together and bounded towards the stairs like he was scaling Everest. I followed like I was scaling a rickety stepladder. (Hey, lack of supernatural stamina here. I was getting pretty darned tired.) The lights were on in 42B, and we paused outside the door, which was painted in barf-making 80s turquoise. Spike pounded on it with one fist. "Open up! Land shark!"

I heard some rustling and thumping noises inside, and a crash like a bookcase falling over. "Go away!" a strangely familiar voice yelled. "You can't get in here anyway!"

"Yeh? Maybe not, but I can stand out here till you starve to death. Or set the building on fire, or...uh..." Spike paced the catwalk for a second, smoking like a fiend, which I guess is appropriate. I was pretty sure the fire thing was a bluff, since Spike's not usually one for indirect mayhem. He's got the whole hitting things fetish, after all. Then his eyes lit up and he grinned. "Maybe I can't walk through your door, but there's nothing says I can't kick it down and send in my terrible mute minion, Paco." He whirled around and unleashed one of his shitkicker boots at the door. BANG! The whole building shuddered (which sounds impressive, but considering it was probably made out of pressboard and Kleenex, isn't so much). WHAM! A hinge sprung and the doorframe cracked. I buffed my nails and waited--obviously Spike was holding back.

I don't know why more vampires don't do things like this.

"I'm gonna lose my deposit!" the voice inside wailed.

"My heart bleeds. Oh, wait, no it doesn't. Open up, or--"

The door flew open, or tried to (Spike had knocked it kind of cattywompus, and it stuck halfway.) A face peered out, pale and pear-shaped and nervous under slept-in dark hair. Behind it was a barren little studio apartment littered with pizza boxes, comic books, and boxes of DVDs and padded mailers. There was practically no furniture except a mattress and a desk with a pretty sweet computer and home studio setup.

My hand shot out and I grabbed Pasty-face by the ear and pulled, hard. "Jonathan?!" I yipped. Jonathan squirmed and batted at me, but I dug my nails in. "YOU'RE the criminal mastermind?"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" he yelled. "Let me go, don't let him kill me, I didn't mean to, it's not my fault!"

"Oh, for God's sake, quit whining," I snapped, letting go. "Spike hasn't even touched you."

Spike took a drag on his cigarette, peeled himself off the railing and sort of glided over, all slouchy and menacing, with the angle of the floodlights leaving black caverns where his eyes should be. Jonathan squinched in on himself. "You just don't learn, do you?" Spike asked, soft and pee-your-pants scary. "How long've you had those cameras on us?"

Jonathan backed away with a panicky shuffle. "They're not mine! They were Warren's, and they haven't worked since the police confiscated all his computer stuff! Honest! I just happened to have some files I'd saved for, for--"

"Wanking material?" Spike asked, excessively sarcastic.

"Research!" Jonathan reached the wall and sat down very abruptly. "I didn't mean anything by it! All I wanted was to raise some money so Warren and Andrew could get a better lawyer! Someone who knows about demon-related cases, like Goldberg & Osbourne, or Wolfram & Hart. I didn't think you'd ever find out, and I'm really, really, really sorry, please don't kill me, please, please, PLEASE don't kill me--"

Goldberg & Osbourne is a real law firm in Phoenix, AZ, known for being sleazy ambulance-chasers. A joke that only I ever got.

"Didn't mean anything by dragging a lady's reputation in the dirt?" Spike roared (and again, by roared, I mean, well, roared). He grabbed Jonathan by his Robotech jammies and hauled him up nose-to-nose--Jonathan's one of the few guys Spike can look down on. "Well, maybe I won't mean anything when I rip your balls off and stuff them in your eye sockets, how's that?"

"Why?" I asked, grabbing Spike's arm. I realized I'd been wanting to ask that question for a long time. "Why, Jonathan? I mean, I get Warren and whatsisface--they had grudges against Buffy, but you used to be--" Well, not her friend, not really. "She saved your life! You gave her the Class Protector award! She let you off the hook when she turned Warren over to the cops--you were an accessory to murder, Jonathan, and she let you go! I don't get it. Why are you helping them?"

Jonathan yanked his pajama top out of Spike's grip and pulled himself up like he'd taken a dose of Insta-Spine. "Because they're my friends," he said, very simply, meeting Spike's yellowing eyes head-on. "And I know they're not much, but they're all I've got. Whatever else happens, you've got to stand by your friends, right? Or what's the point?" He sighed, squared his shoulders, and looked up at Spike with a little smile. "It's a fair cop. I guess you'd better do whatever it is you're going to do."

I wanted Jonathan to redeem himself a little bit, kinda?

Spike stood there looking at Jonathan, head cocked in the His Master's Voice pose he gets when he's trying really, really hard to figure out the motivations of the souled. And I knew what was going through his head. Spike was looking for a reason not to kill him.

See, Spike doesn't have a soul. He doesn't do good stuff because it's right. He can't. He's not wired that way, as he puts it. But he can do good stuff if there's a reason--like if it helps him somehow, or makes someone he loves happy. Or if it makes him feel, for a minute, like he's a man and not a monster, which is a feeling he really likes. And that's the cool thing about Spike, the thing I really love about him, and I think probably the thing Buffy loves too: not the cheekbones or the attitude or the mad combat skilz or what's under those jeans, but that he does like that feeling, and so Spike looks for those reasons. Looks real hard. Harder, I think sometimes, than some people with souls.

I'm just sayin'.

"Right," he said at last. And he hauled off and punched Jonathan right in the nose.

"YEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOW!" Jonathan fell over, clutching his face, and gore splattered everywhere. "By dose! You broge by dose!"

But still, well, evil.

"Just be glad that's all I've broke," Spike said. He wiped his knuckles on his t-shirt instead of licking the blood off, which was a pretty big compliment, really. Congratulations, Jonathan, you've graduated to Not-Food! "Christ, where's the fun in beating the shit out of a pathetic little wibbling sod like you?" He pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket (that's another moderately cool thing about Spike: he carries pocket handkerchiefs) and tossed it to Jonathan. "Grab the goods, Bit. It's time to call it a night."

Jonathan sat there snorfling blood into the hanky while I ferried the DVDs and Jonathan's hard drive out to Spike--I figured Willow could check it out for contraband and return it, so we weren't stealing it exactly. As we started down the stairs with the last armload, Spike turned back to Jonathan, almost amiable. "Word to the wise. I don't forget what your friends put Buffy through. If you want to do your pals a real favor, maybe you ought to remember that while I'm out here, and they're safe in stir, no one's likely to get eaten accidental-like, eh?"

Now this! At the time that I wrote this, I had NO IDEA that Warren would come back and cause trouble later, and that Spike would, in fact, end up eating him. Indeed, by the time I wrote "The Lesser of Two Evils," I had completely forgotten that I'd written this line, and when I stumbled upon it when re-reading a couple of years later, it was this totally serendipitous piece of foreshadowing. Sometimes writing is so cool!

Jonathan stared at him, and nodded a little. And we left.

**********

It was past two o'clock when we got home. We locked the DVDs in the trunk of the DeSoto, which had been the closet for a lot of other skeletons in its day, and after a short consultation on how to best avoid Ordeal By Buffy, we strolled into the house as if we were coming in from a late patrol and nothing in the universe was wrong.

Willow was still tapping away at her laptop in the dining room. "I'm just tracking down the copies on eBay," she whispered, "and sending out fake cease and desist orders from Mad Genius Productions. Buffy's in bed. She doesn't suspect a thing." She noted our alarmed glances and added, a bit huffily, "Don't worry, Xander took care of the the subterfuge part. Did you get him?"

"Yeh, he's got." Spike rolled his head and rubbed back of his neck. "Battle of the ages. Christ, I'm glad that's done with." He eyed our crumpled list of victims thoughtfully. "Wonder if I could fake a business trip to Juneau."

"Don't press your luck," Willow said drily.

"Someday I'm going to sire someone with a minimum of respect for their elders," Spike growled.

Willow grinned, smug. "And they'll bore you so much you'll stake them inside forty-eight hours. Shoo. Buffy's waiting for you."

So we headed for the stairs, and as I put my foot on the first step, I heard Spike heave a big sigh behind me. "Thanks, Bit. Couldn't have managed without you." When I looked back, he was staring at the toes of his boots, all awkward and embarrassed. "I just hope this hasn't... hasn't..."

"Spike, I'll always think of you as my brother." I waited two beats, and added with a perfectly straight face, "My brother with the enormous schlong."

I got three whole steps before Spike came after me and chased me all the way upstairs.

This story is the second of three I wrote ("The Road to Byzantium" and "A Dark and Stormy Night" are numbers one and three) which has Dawn moving on from her crush and into a more grown-up friendship with Spike as a major theme, and hopefully it works. And they all lived happily ever after, at least until I got another idea!

#btvs #fic discussion #thenewbuzwuzz #spuffy #fan fiction #dvd commentary

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emmydeg · 4 years

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How have Society’s Views on Body Images Changed over the Years?

(Before I get into it, this is an essay I wrote for my college class surrounding the effects of social media. For my project, I decided to talk about something that has affected me in the past. Personally, social media has changed the way I view my own and other’s bodies. I used to compare myself to everyone I saw, but over time, I have learned that media can make everyone’s life look like a dream. I am very happy with my body, and I know that social media helped me a lot along the way of self-acceptance. This essay is very long (8 pages on Google Docs!) but I believe my research to be very interesting, and I hope you do too. TW for mentions of eating disorders.)

Body images have been affecting women around the world since 3,500 years ago. Women tried to perfect their image for the time period they lived, whether it be the image focusing on large, fertile women during Prehistoric times, the curved hips of the later 1900s, or the dangerously skinny body the 21st century now depends on. In modern society, there is nothing that matters more to young adolescent girls than their body image. Citizens see the ideal sizes in ads in public transportation, Barbie dolls, and in social media. The archetypal body has been attempted by many women. Many turn to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia to achieve this ideal schema. Society is beginning to realize that all sizes are beautiful and women shouldn’t feel pressured to fit into these standards. Over the past hundred years, society’s views on women’s bodies have shifted from favoring those who have bigger bone structures to having dangerously low BMIs. These unrealistic expectations have led to many girls struggling to find peace with their body, and have made society fail to see its beauty.

Since Ancient Egypt, women have attempted to obtain the ideal body images of their times. Although their ideal image is drastically different from what humans today strive towards, the notion of struggling to fit in with society stayed the same. Before the 1900s, the concept of body images was easily demonstrated in the artwork from the past, such as in the Prehistoric times, for example. Cichon-Hollander analyzed the Venus of Willendorf, a famous sculpture dug up by Joseph Szombathy. In this artwork, he saw a rather plump-looking woman. The woman had a round stomach, was disproportionate, and had an emphasis on her reproductive organs. Hollander also examined Egyptian artwork that portrayed a new fashion sense and body image that wasn’t seen before in Egypt. These women wore dresses and jewelry to accentuate their petite bodies. Ancient Greece put a large emphasis on a proportionate and symmetrical body. This ideal beauty was based on the mathematical basis of the parts adding up equally to the whole (Cichon-Hollander). In the Late Middle Ages, women were once again bearing large stomachs that almost made it look like every woman at the time was pregnant. Even though they had big stomachs, the rest of their bodies remained slim. The rest of the women had petite legs and a slim, curved figure (Cichon-Hollander). Many of these ideas stray from the expectations of women’s bodies today. While the Prehistoric times preferred larger women, we now see bigger women and make fun of and pity them. In Ancient Egypt, most of the women also had their heads shaved. Today, most women have long, healthy hair, as being bald is seen as too masculine to many people. Ancient Greece’s ideals have greatly influenced what we admire today. We enjoy looking at those with symmetrical faces and bodies, just like the Greeks did. We believe those with asymmetrical bodies look awkward and uncomfortable. The Late Middle Ages emphasized women with large stomachs, and now we have fitness programs and unique diets to receive a flat stomach. Even though all of these beauty standards are unique to their culture and time period, they all still were ideals that women would struggle to meet. The need to fit in outranks many women’s attempts to be satisfied in their own bodies, even over three thousand years ago.

After the 1900s, women focused heavily on slim bodies and having the perfect shape. In the 1910s, women had a figure-eight body with a cinched corset. Ideal women were known as Golden Girls and were tall, regal, and mysterious. When the next time period came along, it called for fewer curves and more legs. The switch from the 1910s’ tall, mysterious girl to the flappers of the Roaring Twenties examined extreme weight loss and the dependence on corsets. Flappers were constantly in motion in their shiny small dresses. During this time, the Miss America pageant was made, and Margaret Gorman was crowned the first Miss America in 1921 (Hart). The Thirties called for the return of the waist and the fashion was tailored to accentuate their new curves. However, it still kept the skinniness in the stomach and legs. The later 1900s’ were when women really began to have negative feelings towards their bodies. Models and superstars’ skinny yet still curvy bodies were emulated by the women in America. The 1950s’ hourglass look called for curvy and rounded figures while keeping a skinny stomach. Most women would take supplements to fill out their curves. Marilyn Monroe was the woman most girls strived to become (Martin). She flaunted her curvy yet petite body to citizens. Throughout the Sixties, women considered thin back in. These girls were doll-faced, slender, and petite. Models like Twiggy showed women their beauty and made them envious. Around this time, girls and women alike began to hate their bodies more than ever before; feeling ugly because they didn’t have the exact body shape of their favorite models. Models in the 1980s’ felt the pressure of the beauty industry to preserve their body image in any way they could. Between 1960 and 1980, there were decreases in model’s weight and hip size, and an increase in their height, waist size, and bust size in Miss America pageants and Playboy centerfolds (Swami). Models from their specific time period felt the effects of society’s pressure to have the best body. In an article that examines the changes in body image through the 1900s’, Maria Hart found that most of the decades held something in common: toned legs and stomachs. The 21st century still values these things in society today. The history of idealized body images continues to repeat itself.

These unrealistic expectations for the perfect body image have been influenced heavily by our society and are extremely harmful to those determined to follow it. Citizens are introduced to striking bodily expectations everywhere you look and can be determined even by children. Young girls are introduced to impractical body images through the use of Barbies and other dolls. Picture the stereotypical Barbie doll; she has long legs, white teeth, a flat stomach, and curves in all the right places. Barbies were one of the first American dolls modeled with the teenage fashion, making the dolls a large visual attraction (Martin). As young children play with these dolls, they begin to see the idealized body image they believe they will have once they grow up. However, many of these kids will be devastated when their stomach isn’t as flat as their friends or their teeth grew back in crooked and now need braces. As these same girls grow to be adolescents, they will begin looking for new things to do, like watching television shows displaying the perfect body, and examining their favorite pop stars and models on the cover of magazines. Teenage girls reading fashion magazines are introduced to mass media’s perception of the body. Those that look up to models are also exposed to slim bodies and symmetrical faces that they may try to achieve. Americans are also able to look at models on their TV sets now, watching them attend large, extravagant parties while wearing a pair of $10,000 shoes. Streaming TV has been associated with dissatisfaction in body image for many Americans (Martin). Teenagers are going through a lot of bodily changes, which makes it hard for most of them to accept their bodies for how they are. Social media is the biggest source of adolescents examining body images. They look at photoshopped photos without realizing it’s not actually how their role models look. Some apps give people the ability to alter how they look by whitening their teeth and taking away blemishes. This gives teen unrealistic views from the people they’re following and will make them have self-doubt. What they don’t realize is that the person may have put on loads of makeup and editing tools to achieve their look (Makwana). Women obsess over getting enough likes or views on their social media platform, stating it makes them feel pretty, liked, and validated. Young girls, in particular, admit to feeling as if they lived through social media and not their real life. The results of being introduced to negative body images can greatly impact a woman’s confidence and optimism.

The perfect body is not achievable for most body types, which leads these expectations to be very harmful to society. There are many statistics that show terrifying results of young girls failing to see the beauty in themselves and their peers. Dove, a company that makes beauty and hair care, made a survey about body image in young girls and women. Their results came in and shocked many people. 42% of girls in first through third grade want to become skinnier, 81% of girls aged 10 are scared of becoming fat, and 2% of women of all ages would describe themselves as beautiful (Martin). It had been known that most girls have a negative view of their own bodies, but many failed to realize how early on girls began to start obsessing about their bodies. In a different survey by the Girl Scouts, 66% of girls were actively trying to lose weight, 33% had distorted views of their bodies, and 59% of girls are not satisfied with their bodies (Martin). Other surveys all state around the general lines that young girls already have an image in their head on what their body should look like, and how it differs from the one they have now. These ideas of how the body should look can lead to women turning to diets, working out, and other, much unhealthier methods to achieve their perfect body. Eating disorders are very common among women trying to achieve their idealized body image, especially models. Over the years, Miss America’s BMI has decreased over the years getting all the way to an astonishing 16.9. Many of the contestants had dangerously low BMIs that put their health at risk. The average body mass index for the average person is between 18.5 and 25.0. For women, the average is between 21.3 and 22.1 (Martin). 2008 Miss America winner Kirsten Haglund had a BMI of 16.29, which is severely low for a woman of her age. Haglund stated she was a recovering anorexic and used it to her advantage. She began using her platform to speak out on the dangers of eating disorders and how to help those who may be struggling. Haglund wasn’t the only person in the modeling industry to realize the dangers of maintaining the small body image; a fashion show in Madrid felt the effects of the harsh realities of keeping a slim body when many young models died from these expectations. In 2006, the fashion week in Spain banned models who looked dangerously skinny to try and preserve their health. The ban came after the model Luisel Ramos died of a heart attack right before stepping on the catwalk. Her body mass index was a startling 14.5. A little while after the death of Ramos, 21-year-old Ana Carolina Reston died with a BMI of 13.4 (Martin). Models in Madrid are now required to be examined by a doctor and will not be allowed to model in fashion week if they have a BMI lower than 18. Those thinking about joining the modeling industry should examine not only how their body feels, but also how their minds feel. Having a thigh gap is not nearly as important as being in good health, but society makes women pick and choose which one they will have. Unfortunately, most pick looking skinny. To try and avoid negative body images from the beginning, parents should try and take more time to examine the content they give their children to make sure they are getting a representation of not only the perfect body image, but of all body types in between. Parents should also look out for their children obsessing over what they eat and urge them to maintain a healthy lifestyle. If there is someone who seems to be struggling with their body image, people should try and help them in any way possible. This doesn’t mean they have to be the one to talk to them; they could turn to a trusted adult, like a parent or teacher. If that isn’t enough, the professional help of a psychologist or doctor may be for the best. By helping those in need, citizens make it known that they can and will all struggle together as a society, just as they will also bring each other up as a society.

The ideal body image of today is nothing like the one we earlier examined of the Prehistoric times, just like how today’s bodies may be nothing like those in a hundred years, or a thousand years. What will stay the same is women’s determination to maintain that body to fit in with their society. Unless someone takes the first stand and becomes confident with not fitting in the conformities our society holds, nothing will ever change. When women begin to embrace their bodies, they will be able to bring about great change. Already today there are women spreading the word on eating disorders and other mental health issues. Imagine what could happen if models weren’t just skinny if ads depicted larger women if people raised each other up instead of watching everyone fall. America has made drastic improvements, but who knows if it will be enough for future daughters and their daughters to love their bodies. If a person feels confident in their body, their body image is the one to envy; the image of someone who loves themselves and the skin they’re in.

Works Cited

Cichon-Hollander, G.W. “The European Ideal Beauty of the Human Body in Art.” Art History Archive, http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/european/European-Ideal-Beauty- of-the-Human-Body-in-Art.html. Accessed 20 May 2019.

Hart, Maria. “See How Much the ‘Perfect’ Female Body Has Changed in 100 Years (It’s Crazy).” Greatist, 15 January 2015, https://greatist.com/grow/100-years-womens-body- image. Accessed 15 May 2019.

Makwana et al. “Magazine Issue 1 2018/Issue 35.” The Inquisitive Mind, http://www.in-mind. org/article/selfie-esteem-the-relationship-between-body-dissatisfaction-and-social-media-in-adolescent?gclid=CjwKCAjw8e7mBRBsEiwAPVxxiO4oDiD9acCaInp4RJHmglfodOjJIIM1HDmz6I0z02FUwu0es-1a_RoCOpQQAvD_B. Accessed 16 May 2019.

Martin, Jeanne B. “The Developmental of Ideal Body Image Perceptions in the United States.” Semantics Scholar, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9baf/87fa41962e3454b6365c 2900f9202fb896ae.pdf. Accessed 17 May 2019.

Swami, Viren. “Women’s Idealised Bodies Have Changed Dramatically Over Time-But Are Standards Becoming More Unattainable?” The Conversation, https://theconversation. com/womens-idealised-bodies-have-changed-dramatically-over-time-but-are-standards-becoming-more-unattainable-64936. Accessed 15 May 2019.

#body image #self love #tw ed mention #essay #social media #archetypal body images

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fatgirlsguidetodating · 5 years

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Blog: why women are under more pressure to lose weight than men.

Think about it- women have always been under more pressure to lose weight than men. And men are less likely to seek help for it. But why should that be the case? After all the health complications that come with being overweight (risks of heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, some cancers, gallbladder disease and gallstones, gout, osteoarthritis, breathing problems like sleep apnoea and asthma) apply to both sexes. Stats from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that 70.8 per cent of men are considered overweight or obese compared to 56.3% of women. (1)

Yet if you google weight loss and have a look at the articles and images that pop up most are about females. Have a look at products for weight loss and almost all feature women or are focussed on women. Jump online social media and see how important looks are to women and what an impact this has on younger women. Look at the most popular actresses and see that most of them are slim. And the fact is that, historically, conversation about weight has been perceived as more of a feminine than masculine thing. But the times they are a changin’ (slowly) and body-image anxiety is becoming equal opportunity.

Professor Dixon, head of clinical research at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, has an opinion on why men are less likely to attend weight loss programs or buy weight loss products or visit dieticians compared to women. The fact that weight loss programs are more focussed on women than on men means men can be reluctant to attend. Women are most likely to say they are attending because of body image, embarrassment over their body or social stigmatisation. Men are more likely to say that they are there because they’ve been diagnosed with heart disease or diabetes or are worried about their fitness rather than say anything about body image or being unhappy with the way they look when they look in the mirror. (2)

Another reason starts from early on where men grow up wanting to not be the wimpy, weedy guy, but rather the big, strong, bulky (but not fat) guy. We assume men aren’t fazed by body image because it’s usually women we see who freak out about their looks and weight but that’s not true. Research has shown that 11% of men in Australia over 15 years have dieted to lose weight in the last year. (3) Furthermore there are increasing numbers of teenage boys and men engaged in muscle building to achieve the male muscular ideal through body-building and/or the use of protein supplements and, worse, steroids. In recent years men have worried less about going bald than getting “man boobs” or “beer bellies” (aka dad bods which I personally prefer over muscly men). In fact a study in The Guardian a couple of years ago said that 38% of men would sacrifice a year of their life to have a better body. (4) [NB: If that was actually a thing you could do I would sacrifice 5 years for a great body.]

Alan White, a professor of men's health at Leeds Metropolitan University, said: "These findings are worrying but not surprising. There's been a big increase in the numbers of British men having cosmetic procedures such as a nose job or removal of breast tissue; that's gone from almost nothing to quite a significant industry over the last 10 years. All this fuels the idea of the body beautiful and encourages a quick fix rather than appropriate diet and physical fitness levels." (4)

Dr. Phillips Diedrichs, from the centre of appearance research at the University of the West of England completed a study of 394 men which was commissioned by the Central YMCA and Succeed Foundation- an eating disorders charity. And she reported some very interesting findings around men, body image and dieting. Such as 80.7% talked about their own or others' appearance in ways that draw attention to weight, lack of hair or slim frame. And 63% thought their arms or chests were not muscular enough. Whilst 29% thought about their appearance at least five times a day. And 18% were on a high-protein diet to increase muscle mass, and 16% on a calorie-controlled diet to slim down. (4)

The major difference in the way women and men see their body-image is that women are more about being thin and toned and men, as I mentioned earlier, have been conditioned from a younger age to want to be muscular and strong. An American study published in the Jan issue of JAMA Pediatrics, revels that nearly 18% of boys (I.e under 18) are very concerned about their weight and physique. (5) Dr Alison Field, an associate professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and the lead of the study says this trend among [younger] boys towards weight obsession is a major cause for worry. She explained that these boys were more likely to be depressed and more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors such as binge drinking and drug use.

Dr. Raymond Lemberg, a clinical psychologist and expert on male eating disorders says in terms of media portrayals we used to really discriminate—and we still do—against women. Dr Raymond Lemberg, a Prescott, Arizona-based clinical psychologist and an expert on male eating disorders says, “If you look at the Miss America pageant winners or the Playboy centerfolds or the runway models over the years, there’s been more and more focus on thinness.” (4)

A disturbing study by the Girl Guides has found that girls as young as seven want to lose weight. The Girls’ Attitudes Survey, completed by 1288 women aged seven to 21, found 87 per cent of girls between 11 and 21 thought women were judged more on their appearance than their ability – and one in five girls between seven and 11 said they had been on a diet. (6)

Nonetheless at the end of the day women are the ones most pressured to lose weight and judged more harshly than overweight men. And the majority of those ideals come from social media, and magazines or advertising. Social media is an important part of the lives of young people around the world. In Australia, approximately 72% of people actively use social media (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014). The most popular social media platforms for young people are Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Youtube (ACMA, 2013, Pew Research, 2015; Sensis, 2016), and these platforms are predominantly or entirely imaged-based. (7) Research undertaken by Jennifer Mills, an associate professor in the Department I’d Psychology at York University Toronto and Jacqueline Hogue, a Ph.D student in the departments clinical program, about the effects of social media on the self-perceived body image of young woman was published in the journal Body Image. The study found that “[the participants] felt worse about their own appearance after looking at social media...of someone that they perceived to be more attractive.” (8) This went for both those with poor self-perception of their body image as well as those with a healthy one.

Magazines and advertising also have a huge impact on how one views their body image. Consider the fact that magazines are almost always photoshopped and almost always use exclusively thin models regardless of the products they are selling. The same images are on buses, billboards, and in shopping centres so there is no real escape. There has been a progression towards thinner and thinner models in ads and magazines: twenty years ago, the average model weighed 8 per cent less than the average woman – but today’s models weigh 23 per cent less. Even models who are considered underweight or dangerously underweight by the medical profession are still heavily photoshopped. Furthermore the advertising I diary is so strongly associated with creating insecurities that when women are shown images of products like shoes, perfume or deodorant in the context of these ads they are more likely to answer questions such as how satisfied are you with your body or how attractive do you consider yourself more negatively than if they had, for instance, seen the same photos in a neutral context. (9)

The Girl Guides study mentioned earlier found that one in five 7-11 year old girls had been on a diet. (6) Susan Jack from Glasgow Women’s Aid pointed out that young women are very critical of each other and oftentimes much harder on each other than boys are. As a result if you feel you don’t look like you should it can negatively effect your confidence leading to an impact elsewhere in your life such as “You might not do as well at work or not stand up for yourself. In an abusive relationship, that lack of self-confidence can be used to keep women down.” (6)

So why is it that women are judged more harshly for being overweight than men? One such reason is that while there is a socio-economic divide between women’s weights there is not such an issue for men. In fact while the more wealthy and educated a woman is the more the social pressure on them increases compared to men who are likely to be accepting of having a few extra kilos on them regardless of whether they are wealthy or not. (2) Another possible reason could be that women care more about their appearance because looks are more consequential for them. I’m not going so far as to suggest this is a reflection of the continuing power imbalances favouring men in our society though. These worried about body image are not because of a general lack of confidence as a 2011 study from the University of Basel based on over 7,000 respondents of both sexes young woman now had as much self esteem as young men but rather this disconnect in how women view their appearance can be attributed, in part, to concerns over body image. The evolutionary process of sexual selection- whereby we are changed so as to attract mates- is also a factor. As is the depiction of women with hour glass figures over the centuries. (10)

Sources:

1.) http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/diet/overweight-men-are-judged-less-harshly-than-women/news-story/f1e67f057968257a428ce3b438d2c3a2

2.) http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-01-26/men-losing-the-battle-of-the-bulge/8213070

3.) https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/body-image-and-diets

4.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/06/body-image-concerns-men-more-than-women

5.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/283897/

6.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/local-lifestyle/young-women-girls-under-more-3209721.amp

7.) https://nedc.com.au/research-and-resources/show/issue-46-social-media-and-body-image

8.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/amp/323725

9.) http://mediasmarts.ca/body-image/body-image-advertising-and-magazines

10.) https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201305/why-women-feel-bad-about-their-appearance%3famp

#fatgirl #fatgirlproblems #overweight #weight #body #bodyimage #socialmedia #advertising #magazines #whywomenareundermorepressuretoloseweightthabmen #losingweight

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years

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Porn’s Harm Is Changing Fast

Skeptics of pornography’s danger point out that porn has been around a long time. After all, the ancient Greeks painted sexual images on their pottery. But comparing paintings on Greek vases to today’s endless stream of live-action, hardcore videos is like comparing apples to…um…kumquats. Technology is changing not only the content of porn, but how, when, and at what age it’s being consumed.

The year was 1953, and Hugh Heffner had just published the first copy of Playboy.

Sex had just started to become a more prominent part of American’s cultural conversation, partly because of Dr. Alfred Kinsey who, five years earlier, had published a controversial but extremely popular book on sexuality. [1] He was heralded as one of the first scientists and writers to talk so openly about sexuality, and his books went flying off the shelves. [2]

Heffner saw a chance to make money from the changing cultural views about sex. But to maximize sales of his new magazine he had to change porn’s image from something your friend’s creepy relative might read to something sophisticated and mainstream. So Heffner put his pornographic photos next to essays and articles written by respected authors. In Playboy, porn started to look like nothing more than harmless pleasure engaged in by respectable and successful individuals.

Flash forward to the 1980s, when VCRs suddenly made it possible for people to watch movies at home. [3] For porn consumers, that meant that instead of having to go to seedy movie theaters on the wrong side of town, they just went to the back room at their local movie rental place. Sure, they still had to go out to find it, but porn was a lot more accessible.

And then the internet changed everything. [4][5]

Once porn hit the Web in the 1990s, suddenly there was nothing but a few keystrokes between anyone with an internet connection and the most graphic material available. [4] The online porn industry exploded. Between 1998 and 2007, the number of pornographic websites grew by 1,800%. [6] By 2004, porn sites were getting three times more visitors than Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Search put together. [7] It was “big business” in a way the world had never seen before. Thirty percent of all internet data was related to porn, [8] and worldwide porn revenues (including internet, sex shops, videos rented in hotel rooms, etc.) grew to exceed the incomes of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix, and Earthlink combined! [9]

As internet porn grew more popular, it also turned darker, more graphic, and more extreme. (See Why Consuming Porn Is An Escalating Behavior.) With so much porn available, pornographers tried to compete for attention by constantly pushing the boundaries. [10] “Thirty years ago ‘hardcore’ pornography usually meant the explicit depiction of sexual intercourse,” writes Dr. Norman Doidge, a neuroscientist and author of The Brain That Changes Itself. “Now hardcore has evolved and is increasingly dominated by the sadomasochistic themes … all involving scripts fusing sex with hatred and humiliation.” [11] In our post-Playboy world, porn now features degradation, abuse, and humiliation of people in a way never before seen in the mass media. [12] “[S]oftcore is now what hardcore was a few decades ago,” Doidge explains. “The comparatively tame softcore pictures of yesteryear … now show up on mainstream media all day long, in the pornification of everything, including television, rock videos, soap operas, advertisements, and so on.” [13]

As the popularity of internet porn grew like wildfire, so did its influence. Network television shows, pay-per-view channel series, and movies began to up the ante with more and more graphic content as they scrambled to keep the attention of audiences accustomed to internet porn. [14] Between 1998 and 2005, the number of sex scenes on American TV shows nearly doubled, [15] and it wasn’t just happening on adult programs. In a study conducted in 2004 and 2005, 70% of the 20 TV shows most often watched by teens included sexual content, and nearly half showed sexual behavior. [16] And for the first time, porn was becoming a routine part of teen life and a major way adolescents learned about sex. [17]

By now, porn’s effects have soaked into every aspect of our lives. [18] Popular video games now feature full nudity. [19] Snowboards marketed to teens are plastered with images of porn performers. [20] Even children’s toys have become more sexualized. [21]

Technology has changed not only the content of the porn, but also how, when, and at what age they consume it. Young men and women are all presented with the issue of today’s porn, and studies show that by the time they turn 14 years old, two out of three boys in the U.S. have viewed porn in the last year, [22] and many are watching it on devices they have with them 24 hours a day.

And for all of these changes to the nature and reach of today’s pornography, we haven’t even mentioned the most disturbing development of all: human trafficking. The modern-day slave trade (and there is one) is fueled by pornography. Over two-thirds of all calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center involve sex trafficking—an estimated 21 million victims worldwide [23], and in one survey, 63% of underage sex trafficking victims said they had been advertised or sold online [24].

This is not a Third World problem. Sex trafficking, and its dissemination through online pornographic sites, extends beyond prostitution and child trafficking rings to the many “revenge porn” sites, to the coercion, drugging, and/or physical abuse of porn performers, wannabe models, and runaways right here in the United States. Human trafficking includes any “commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion.” [25] (See How Porn Fuels Sex Trafficking.)

In fact, exposure to porn has been found, along with poverty, drug abuse, and homelessness, to be one of the most consistent risk factors associated with human trafficking. [26] And after victims are ensnared, porn is often used to desensitize them to the acts in which they will be forced to engage. Quite literally, porn feeds human trafficking and human trafficking feeds porn. [27]

The argument that porn is nothing new—that it’s been around forever and never caused any great harm—seems pretty silly when you think about how different today’s porn is from anything that existed before. Porn is incomparably more accessible, more widespread, and more extreme than anything that existed even a generation ago. Those centerfold magazines that were passed around among youth in previous generations were nothing compared to what youth have access to today, [28] and the consequences of looking today go far beyond young people hoping their parents don’t find out.

The good news is that in response to the unprecedented spread of pornography there are an unprecedented number of resources and people who want to help, whether by spreading facts about pornography or helping those who feel caught in its undertow. Today’s pornography is a new phenomenon, unlike anything humankind has ever seen, but the things that can push porn back are as old as humanity itself: wisdom, vigilance, and a commitment to real love.

Citations

[1] Brown, T. M., & Fee, E. (2003). Alfred C. Kinsey: A Pioneer Of Sex Research. American Journal Of Public Health 93(6), 896-897. Retrieved From Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Go..cles/PMC1447862

[2] Mestel, R. (2004, November 15). The Kinsey Effect. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved From Articles.Latime..lth/He-Kinsey15

[3] Kalman, T.P. (2008). Clinical Encounters With Internet Pornography. Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis And Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(4) 593-618. Doi:10.1521/Jaap.2008.36.4.593; McAline, D. (2001). Interview On American Porn. Frontline, PBS, August.

[4] Layden, M. A. (2010). Pornography And Violence: A New Look At The Research. In J. Stoner & D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 57–68). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Kalman, T.P. (2008). Clinical Encounters With Internet Pornography. Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis And Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(4) 593-618. Doi:10.1521/Jaap.2008.36.4.593;

[5] Paul, P. (2007). Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, And Our Families. New York: Henry Hold & Co., 3; McCarthy, B. W. (2002). The Wife’s Role In Facilitating Recovery From Male Compulsive Sexual Behavior. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity 9, 4: 275–84. Doi:10.1080/10720160216045; Schneider, J. P. (2000). Effects Of Cybersex Addiction On The Family: Results Of A Survey. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 7(1-2), 31–58. Retrieved From Jenniferschneid..sex_family.Html

[6] Websense Research Shows Online Pornography Sites Continue Strong Growth. (2004). PRNewswire.Com, April 4.

[7] Porn More Popular Than Search. (2004). InternetWeek.Com, June 4.

[8] Negash, S., Van Ness Sheppard, N., Lambert, N. M., & Fincham, F. D. (2016). Trading Later Rewards For Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption And Delay Discounting. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(6), 689-700. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2015.1025123; Porn Sites Get More Visitors Each Month Than Netflix, Amazon, & Twitter Combined. (2013, May 4). Huffington Post. Retrieved From Huffingtonpost..._n_3187682.Html

[9] DeKeseredy, W. (2015). Critical Criminological Understandings Of Adult Pornography And Women Abuse: New Progressive Directions In Research And Theory. International Journal For Crime, Justice, And Social Democracy, 4(4) 4-21. Doi:10.5204/Ijcjsd.V4i4.184

[10] Woods, J. (2012). Jamie Is 13 And Hasn’t Even Kissed A Girl. But He’s Now On The Sex Offender Register After Online Porn Warped His Mind. Daily Mail (U.K.), April 25.

[11] Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.

[12] DeKeseredy, W. (2015). Critical Criminological Understandings Of Adult Pornography And Women Abuse: New Progressive Directions In Research And Theory. International Journal For Crime, Justice, And Social Democracy, 4(4) 4-21. Doi:10.5204/Ijcjsd.V4i4.184

[13] Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.

[14] Caro, M. (2004). The New Skin Trade. Chicago Tribune, September 19.

[15] Kunkel, D., Eyal, K., Finnerty, K., Biely, E., And Donnerstein, E. (2005). Sex On TV 4. Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

[16] Peter, J. And Valkenburg, P. M. (2007). Adolescents’ Exposure To A Sexualized Media Environment And Their Notions Of Women As Sex Objects. Sex Roles 56,(5-6), Doi:381–95.10.1007/S11199-006-9176-Y

[17] Peter, J. & Valkenburg, P. M., (2016) Adolescents And Pornography: A Review Of 20 Years Of Research. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(4-5), 509-531. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2016.1143441; Rothman, E. F., Kaczmarsky, C., Burke, N., Jansen, E., & Baughman, A. (2015). “Without Porn…I Wouldn’t Know Half The Things I Know Now”: A Qualitative Study Of Pornography Use Among A Sample Of Urban, Low-Income, Black And Hispanic Youth. Journal Of Sex Research, 52(7), 736-746. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.960908; Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner & D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute; Carroll, J. S., Padilla-Walker, L. M., And Nelson, L. J. (2008). Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance And Use Among Emerging Adults. Journal Of Adolescent Research, 23(1), 6–30. Doi:10.1177/0743558407306348

[18] Bridges, A. J. (2010). Pornography’s Effect On Interpersonal Relationships. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 89-110). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute; Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books, 102; Caro, M. (2004). The New Skin Trade. Chicago Tribune, September 19.

[19] Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute.

[20] Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute.

[21] Bridges, A. J. (2010). Pornography’s Effect On Interpersonal Relationships. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 89-110). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute.

[22] Rothman, E. F., Kaczmarsky, C., Burke, N., Jansen, E., & Baughman, A. (2015). “Without Porn…I Wouldn’t Know Half The Things I Know Now”: A Qualitative Study Of Pornography Use Among A Sample Of Urban, Low-Income, Black And Hispanic Youth. Journal Of Sex Research, 52(7), 736-746. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.960908

[23] University Of New England, “Human Sex Trafficking: An Online Epidemic #Infographic” (2015). Retreived By Visualistan.Com..e-Epidemic.Html

[24] Thorn, “A Report On The Use Of Technology To Recruit, Groom, And Sell Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victim (2015). Retrieved From Wearethorn.Org/..r_Survey_r5.Pdf

[25] Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) Of 2000. Pub. L. No. 106-386, Section 103 (8) (A).

[26] Countryman-Roswurm, Karen (2017). Primed For Perpetration: Porn And The Perpetuation Of Sex Trafficking. Guest Blog For FTND, Retrieved From Fightthenewdrug..ing-Pornography

[27] Dr. Karen Countryman-Roswurm, LMSW, Ph.D. Interview || Truth About Porn [Video File]. (2016, December 28). Retrieved From Vimeo.Com/190317258

[28] Price, J., Patterson, R., Regnerus, M., & Walley, J. (2016). How Much More XXX Is Generation X Consuming? Evidence Of Changing Attitudes And Behaviors Related To Pornography Since 1973. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(1), 12-20. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.1003773

#porn's harm is changing fast

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Playboy The Mansion Game

Playboy: The Mansion blends social simulation with role-playing and empire-building gameplay. As Hugh Hefner, you build the Playboy Mansion and magazine into a cultural icon and a powerful brand. Rub shoulders with attractive women and celebrities as you pursue the ultimate Playboy lifestyle. Playboy: The Mansion is a social strategy game that calls on players to build a virtual empire of wealth, celebrity, and freedom from puritanical repression and intolerance. This is accomplished by developing a fully functioning Playboy mansion, to attract and accommodate influential celebrities and beautiful young models who are willing to.

Playboy: The Mansion is a social strategy game that calls on players to build a virtual empire of wealth, celebrity, and freedom from puritanical repression and intolerance. This is accomplished by developing a fully functioning Playboy mansion, to attract and accommodate influential celebrities and beautiful young models who are willing to strike the right poses. Players who can build a suitably entertaining and well-equipped mansion, while adhering to 'the Playboy philosophy,' are rewarded with 'the Playboy lifestyle,' surrounded by powerful trendsetters, influential pop idols, and sexually liberated young women. In short, the game invites players to take the role of a virtual Hugh Hefner.

As Hef, players will be responsible for keeping the Playboy brand relevant to its ever-evolving audience. One good way to do this is by attracting celebrity friends to the mansion, and making sure they have a good time when they visit. With enough money, players can build new facilities like swimming pools, movie theaters, or tennis courts, which may have special appeal to particular celebrities. It's also a good idea to introduce these V.I.P. guests to Playmates who share their interests. The game's main interface should be familiar to Sims 2 players; characters are directed through their 3D domestic environments with mouse clicks, and clicked objects offer pop-up menus of available interactions.

Coaxing powerful celebrity friends to appear in an issue of Playboy magazine can boost circulation, bringing in more income for future developments. As Hef, players can determine the content of each issue, choosing the articles, essays, cover shots, and centerfolds. They'll also have an opportunity to direct the photo shoots, choosing the location on the mansion grounds, the model, and the wardrobe selection -- all of which feature a 'topless' option. The game includes a structured campaign that follows Hefner's real-life rise to international celebrity through a series of individual scenarios that focus on building the fame, circulation, and clout it took to develop the Playboy brand into what it is today. Players design their own challenges in the 'Empire' mode, where they can set their own goals and victory conditions.

Cyberlore's The Sims-meets-tycoon-game, Playboy: The Mansion, is far better than most of the quick-hit licensed oneoffs that clog store shelves. Playboy: The Mansion isn't really about digitized breasts (although they're certainly in there). Instead, the game combines two different gameplay types into a digital simulation of how Hef runs the Playboy empire. The first half of the game is very reminiscent of The Sims in which you build your Playboy Mansion, putting down floors and walls and buying and placing all sort of hideously expensive furniture and knickknacks ranging from mahogany dining tables to neon bunny art. You then manipulate your little Sim-Hef around his sybaritic Wonderland, talking, schmoozing (and possibly having intimate relations with) his staff members, girlfriends, Playmates, Bunnies, and guests.

Unfortunately, it's this half of the game that feels the most incomplete. The interactions between Hef and the other Mansion residents are remarkably shallow. People's desire meters are pretty easy to keep filled and nobody ever seems to be able to resist Hef's charms. Everyone, whether it's Jose Canseco or a feminist lawyer, seems equally manipulable with a series of repetitive interactions. Nobody ever seems to get angry or hold long-term grudges, or even reject one of the Hefster's business proposals. Forget comparing Playboy: The Mansion with the complex personalities on display in The Sims 2 -- the people in the Mansion don't have the depth of the original Sims.

The ability to build out the Mansion doesn't really stand on its own, either. While the section is technically competent, all of the furniture and props available in the game are derived from the kinds of things you'd find in the real Playboy Mansion. As a result, no matter what you choose to build, it still comes out looking like what can generously be described as 1950's lounge lizard meets an obscene amount of money. A player's own taste never really enters into the equation, so it never manages to feel like 'your' Playboy Mansion.

Fortunately, that's not all there is to the game. The second half is a simplified management simulation in which you -- as Hef -- have to put together the magazine each month and get it on the newsstands. This entails hiring a staff of photographers and journalists, shooting centerfolds, tailoring the magazine to current demographic trends to maximize sales, and garnering content for the magazine. This is the best portion of the game, as you get content by expanding your circle of contacts via interacting with them at parties you throw in the Mansion. If sports are currently the hottest trend, start inviting sports celebs to your parties, introduce them to a few Playmates to get them nice and happy, and then hit 'em up for an essay or an interview.

The game's also constantly throwing challenges at you. Your staff may tell you that two of your girlfriends are mad at each other, causing a lot of tension in the Mansion that's keeping everyone from getting their work done. You'll have to work your staff members to find out why they're fighting, then interact with the two of them to patch up the quarrel. Perhaps a feminist group is protesting the magazine, in which case you may want to throw a formal party and invite the leader of the group to win her over. The ultimate example of this is the game's terrific series of missions in campaign mode. These missions loosely follow the real history of the magazine, from its founding to the modern day, and simulate many of the challenges that Hefner faced on his way to the top. The first time through the campaign, facing down problems and opening up new toys (like the infamous Grotto) is a lot of fun.

It's the interaction between the two parts of the game that mark its best idea. A happy staff produces better content, and a nicer Mansion attracts a better caliber of celebrities, so much of the game revolves around incremental improvement of both the Mansion's physical grounds and your staff member's skills. One of your writers can spend time using the bookshelf to improve their mental skills, which naturally translates to more compelling content. Adding a hot tub to the pool can help your Playmates get more comfortable with the photographers, which results in better photo shoots. At least that's the way it was supposed to work -- the actual implementation is a bit more problematic.

Playboy The Mansion Game Ps2

It doesn't take a lot of play time to realize that the actual interaction between the Sims-style portion of the game and the management section is minimal, at best. After a number of experiments, I simply couldn't find much relationship between how happy or skilled somebody was and the quality of work they produced. Everything seemed to be tied directly to their 'Star Rating' -- or how famous they were. It seems to be impossible to do something like nurture a young writer into a superstar in this game (something that would have made the experience far more compelling). Instead, you'll find yourself jettisoning staff members and just hiring new people with more stars after their name in order to improve the quality of the magazine.

Players also shoot the centerfolds and cover shots themselves, and the game allows you to clothe the Playmates in a variety of outfits. For all that, though, there's no relationship between how good your shoot is and the quality you produce. You can put a shot of a Playmate's elbow on the cover and still have your staff tell you it's the best thing you've ever done. In the end, shooting the centerfolds becomes a repetitive annoyance.

Indeed, despite the fact that different items contribute to the beauty of particular rooms in the Mansion, none of that actually seems to impact your staff or guests. When I first invited superstar DJ Felix da Housecat to the Mansion, I imagined being forced to buy the top-flight DJ booth available in the game in order to make him happy enough to agree to an interview. Nope. Felix seemed just fine with music pumped from a run-of-the-mill stereo. You'll never hear a Playmate complain about where you want to have the shoot or one of your writers bitch about needing a better desk or a comfy couch in the bullpen. All the interactions that could have tied the game together and made it a truly great game just aren't there.

Graphically, the game is good, at least where the inanimate objects are concerned. It's very interesting to check out the kinds of artwork from artists as diverse as Michelangelo and Andy Warhol that can be found in the Mansion. The character models are a different story -- reasonably attractive, but in a bland and generic way. Every character in the game seems to have the same Barbie-and-Ken style plastic face and physique. Once you get over the novelty of shooting your first few topless models, it become boring when you realize that you're taking pictures of the same two or three faces with different colored hair.

How ridiculous this was became apparent when one jiggly, busty model with white hair in short-shorts and a halter was identified as a 'Member of Congress.' Now, while I'm a great admirer of Condoleezza Rice, I suspect that I won't be seeing her as a centerfold any time soon. The sameness of the models also makes the game tougher to play because it becomes ridiculously hard to identify the people you want to talk to by sight.

The level of shallowness even extends to the game's view of sex and sexuality. Given that the 'Playboy Lifestyle' is supposed to be about sexual openness, it's extremely odd that none of the characters in the game ever get fully nude. There are digitized breasts o'plenty, to be sure, but apparently nobody at the Playboy Mansion ever takes their underwear off -- either during a photo shoot or, apparently, during sex. Now look, I understand the need to get an 'M' rating because of retail concerns, but why couldn't they have gone the Sims route and just blurred out the naughty bits? The way it stands, it just looks weird and seems to indicate that Hugh Hefner probably has a severe problem with chafing.

Playboy: The Mansion was a great idea, and there's definitely some fun to be found here. The game's mission structure and random challenges manage to give it a feeling of structure and 'game-ness' that a more open title like The Sims 2 doesn't have. 'Bonus Points' let players buy fascinating extras like reproductions of famous covers, pictures of famous centerfolds, images from Hef's life, and some of Playboy's best interviews with luminaries such as Bill Gates and Michael Jordan that are almost worth the price of admission. In the end, though, what starts off so promising at first glance ends up being a pretty shallow experience. It seems everyone's heart was in the right place -- if only the game could have followed them there.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

This game has been set up to work on modern Windows (10/8/7/Vista/XP 64/32-bit) computers without problems. Please choose Download - Easy Setup (747 MB).

Playboy The Mansion Ps2 Gameshark Codes

Playboy The Mansion Game Cheats Ps2

People who downloaded Playboy: The Mansion have also downloaded: Singles: Flirt Up Your Life!, Singles 2: Triple Trouble, Movies, The, Desperate Housewives: The Game, Lord of the Rings, The: The Battle for Middle Earth II, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Port Royale 2, Prison Tycoon

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Playboy: The Mansion

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